Unbearable Lightness of Being with pictures.

Hot Damn, it worked.
Here is a picture of the buy one/donate one laptop that I was on about yesterday - and that I will be waiting impatiently for to get here so that I can play with it.

Yeah, yeah, it is meant for the kids but I am young at heart.

Shut up.

Maybe I will let them play with it.

Anyway go to http://laptop.org/ and spend some of that money that is just lying around on it.
Go now.

*******************

At this time of year, daylight* is in short supply where I live.

This is what it looked like at 4:30pm yesterday, on our way home from our park outing.

Before supper and the sun was already setting.

Usually I don't mind, I think it is kind of pretty and I am, apparently a unique speciman, and I like the winter and it being cold and the less sunshine the less chance I will be sunburned.

Right now, however, I am basking in the glow of the litebook.

Which cost a whole bunch more than you probably think it did.
And is something that I have scoffed at more than once as being proof that there is one born every minute.

But then,
but then....
the therapist that my oldest daughter saw for the first time today said the word Dysthemia
to me and suddenly spending $200+ on it seemed like not such a bad thing to try.

I made the appointment because nothing I was trying at home seemed to make a dent in this depression that my lovely girl has been in and you want to, you know, make sure you aren't missing anything or making it worse...because this is your kid after all.
One of pieces of your heart that walks around outside your body.
You know?

So this, because her bedroom is in the dim recesses of the basement and when she really feels she must be cloistered down there and...
because it made me feel like I was doing SOMETHING to try and help.

There was a moment when I did get to use one of my favourite lines of all time from the movie Arsenic and Old Lace.
Therapist, earnestly: does depression run in your family?
Me, laughing in a slightly peculiar way: Runs? It practically gallops!!!!!! (Heh! I kill me.)
Therapist, looks at me blankly.
**********************************
There should be a new descriptive term for owning something that costs a great deal of money.
Wait! I think I have one!
GARAGE-ONAIRRE!

So, it isn't catchy - it is damn accurate.
By the time it is done, that glorified shed for cars and yard junk is going to have cost us....
hmmmm......
yes, yes, it will be almost $30,000.00.
And no, I don't want to talk about it.

Even if this morning I had a very positive meeting with a social worker from the supports for permanency program our province runs for adoptive parents so that uh, well it is kind of self explanatory...
still though we will be given financial assistance, no not to build the garage, but to make sure that we are never in a position of real monetary hardship because we adopted kids with expensive needs. In the last two months alone, play therapy for my youngest two has come to over $600.00 bucks.

Yes, I feel a teeny bit weird about being funded by the government to look after my kids but not conflicted enough to not jump at the opportunity.

So there.

pounds

This morning at 6 am, when I wasn't sleeping, I had a great post all written out in my head.
I am sure of it.
I can't find it now, but I am still sure of it - instead I will present a series of not necessarily related thoughts:

-today I ordered one of these (argh I found a cool picture but have not yet been able to make blogger show it! So click on the link below and go look at it!) for our house and donated one to a child in the developing world. Check it out at www.laptopgiving.org . Such a great thing to do, it's cheap and a good cause and it looks like it will be a blast for my kids to use too.

-just found out that my youngest son has been having "conversations" online with friends he knew before he lived with me - this is on a site called runescape - now I don't have a problem with him keeping in touch with them but he only just let it slip out that he has been doing it and I feel really uncomfortable that he has kept it quiet. I want all my kids to tell me if they are chatting online and with whom - it is about making sure that we are clear about internet safety! Argh. Now I have to think it out and see if I am being unreasonable or not.

-standing on the teeny tiny scale that I bought at Goodwill, squinting down at the dial, I discovered that I lost no pounds this past week, despite being on weight watchers.
What is up with that? I'm guessing that although I am very strict about tracking my foods and my intake, I also exercise a lot (tues/mon or fri /sat - usually an hour on the elliptical and thurs- is a kilometre swim) so I have been building noticeable muscle in my arms and legs and of course that weighs more than fat - right? Right?
I feel weird about doing weight watchers btw, it has been good for helping me be conscious, dare I even say intentional about what I am eating in the last two weeks but it does freak me out to be in a program that puts so much emphasis on being skinny as being the most important thing.
I don't want to be skinny. And it would be kind of a moot point anyway, given my broad shoulders, tall stature and of course my large chest. A good, stolid peasant frame is what I have and I'd be gaunt instead. NOt a good look for anyone.
One thing I can say though, is that I don't feel deprived in watching what I eat - just a little boring maybe ....

must herd 3 of my kids to park, our oldest daughter is staying at home - solitude is her muse or is that the computer?

Remembrance Day

Today is Remembrance Day in my country.

At church I asked that we observe 2 minutes of silence at 11am to remember and think about the sacrifices that so many have made for our country and for us.

The people doing the service today, we are a lay led congregation, hadn't planned for it and I think were a little taken aback when I brought it up.

Even in the midst of preparing for a service on peace, centred on the songs of Pete Seeger, they seemed to have forgotten about those who this day is meant to recall.

Or perhaps the waters are so muddied now, that they felt that Remembrance is all about glorifying war.

It could be just an oversight, because getting ready to do a service is all about a million details and even the most obvious things can slip right past without notice.

It is quite easy to forget that this is not an ordinary day.
(The stores are filled with Christmas decorations, I guess it would be hard to try and sell Remembrance knick knacks, the profit margin would likely be much smaller.)

Maybe in some ways that is alright too.
That we live a life of such comfort and safety and freedom that we can let it pass by without much notice.
Isn't that why wars were fought?

All the congregation stood in silence for two minutes.
Tears came to my eyes as I thought of my grandfather, who suffered from shell shock in WW2 and of my husband's grandfather who lay, wounded, on the beach in Galipoli with water soaking his wedding picture and a letter from home in his pocket.

I nearly lost it when on of the little ones said Daddy? Daddy?
and he answered that he was right there, because so many never could be.

Worse than columbus

My husband and I are struggling through on the marriage thing.
Not in a bad way, but it is emotionally and thus physically exhausting.

So a small story about what a goof I am, as a distraction.

On Thursday I packed up 3/4s of my brood (2 boys and youngest girl) and headed out into the open prairie that surrounds our city.
The sixteen year old was the designated navigator and he had very detailed directions on how to get to our friends acreage, clutched in his hand.
I wasn't that concerned anyway, because although it is a bit tricky to find, I did have my trusty cell phone.

Which showed us that we had no service as soon as we got within six km of her house. And we ended up driving around for nearly 30 minutes before we through sheer accident happened upon her home.

Okay, maybe the fates intervened too, because what with me and my darling oldest son being dyslexic, neither of us realized that we had made a crucial turn as a left instead of as a right.

Our arrival meant rejoicing all around and we had a lovely visit.

And then, a few hours later with the shadows of early evening lengthening on the land, we prepared to go.

This time, not only did my friend draw a map and go over explicitly, every twist and turn in it and make us repeat it back, she also had her husband do the same - with both me and my son.

So, you may ask, how is it that we ended up driving for a full half hour in the wrong direction?
Even after I called my husband during one of the few moments that my cel phone had service to ask for help?
Even after he managed to tell me that I was east of the city which was my hoped for destination?

I don't know.
Some things are not meant to be within the ken of humankind and that includes how I could then announce to the car at large that we were east of the city which meant to get to the city we needed to keep driving east.

Yup, I'm a dork.

And my son comes by his navigational deficits honestly.

So boiled down:
-it was pitch black
-we were travelling far off the beaten trail
-and had we not decided to aim for a cluster of lights that slowly became a town - we would probably be stuck out in a ditch somewhere, even now.

Now and then...

I cried this morning with a mixture of relief and rage over the news from Navigating.
Relief that their daughter Danielle is NOT being removed from their home right now and rage at the lies her social worker and therapist were caught in.

Years ago, back when I had two little kids and had a dayhome and volunteered at our local women's shelter - I had someone phone in a false report to social services about the dangerous state of my house....
fortunately the investigating worker called my supervisor at the dayhome agency first and that wonderful woman, M, managed to convince her that there was nothing wrong and to back it up, M would and did do a surprise visit early the next morning - with her own supervisor, the head of the agency, in tow.

It was embarrassing, I answered the door in my pjs because I had no dayhome kids that day and we were have a seriously do nothing day - and it was horrifying, MY GAWD WHO COULD POSSIBLY WANT TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS? - and it was terrifying.

Mouth drying, heart hammering, blood pounding in my ears, terrifying.

What if, based on this call, an overzealous social worker had come straight to my messy house, found me not even properly clothed and my children with the food stuck to their faces and possibly wet diapers and had taken them away?
Even just for a day?

Taken my children away to who knows where and who knows what?

For the first year we had my two youngest, I lived that fear almost daily. They were in a limbo of not mine but mine, I wasn't even their foster parent or guardian, I was known as and told to fill out legal documents as being their pre-adoptive parent.

I lived in fear of actually having to visit an emergency room with them, all that year. Because that would have meant a phone call to social services and a worker to ask about how they were hurt and why and what if the answers just didn't seem good enough?

My youngest daughter actually gave herself a black eye by running into our front door.

No! Really she did!
Honest!

And if asked what had happened to her face, with the awful purpling bruise up into her eyebrow, she would stare blankly and say nothing till I prompted her with a "you ran into the door honey, remember?".

Think about how good that sounds.


It doesn't here and it didn't to me, so I can just imagine how badly it could crash it burn in front of a suspicious worker.

It was an awful time and yet, unlike for foster eema, foster abba, and "danielle" most of it was only in my head.

Letting out a shuddering breath.

BTW, I did figure out very quickly who had made the phone call.
Let us just say that the women's shelter was the rather dysfunctional private empire of the executive director and my husband, recently elected to the board of directors, had instigated (as part of the duties that the position legally required of him) the first annual review of the exec. director that had happened in 7 years.
Yes, I am saying that she placed the phone call.
And that is just one of the spiky tips of that ugly iceberg.

Yay to the Navigating family!
I know it's not over yet and I will keep pulling for you.

Dollars

I keep checking over here.
Hoping against hope and reality that there has been a last minute reprieve for this family.

Other wise I have been snappish and grumpy at my children this morning and I am not sure why exactly, although there are plenty of little things going on.

My oldest daughter is scheduled to meet with a therapist this upcoming Tuesday morning, I just don't know if as sad and withdrawn as she can be is "normal" or rather, is it safe.

-argh, I really am unlivable, snarling away at my kids for really stupid stuff just now-not stupid stuff they are doing-it is me being that way-

Anyway,
dogs are booked in for their overdue shots appointment next week, the repair guy is scheduled to come out on Monday and see why our Bosch dishwasher takes 2-3 hourse to wash a load....

it is going to be an expensive month.

Which is great (not really), because we just paid the bill for having the concrete poured for our itty bitty back drive way and the garage pad and it came to nearly TWICE what we had originally be quoted for it.

Where I live, we are in the middle of a huge economic BOOM so building materials have achieved the status of rare jewels.

12,0000 bucks for a double garage worth of the grey stuff.

Keep an eye out for engagement rings set with polished chunks of cement is all I am saying.

Money money money

I keep checking over here.
Hoping against hope and reality that there has been a last minute reprieve for this family.

Other wise I have been snappish and grumpy at my children this morning and I am not sure why exactly, although there are plenty of little things going on.

My oldest daughter is scheduled to meet with a therapist this upcoming Tuesday morning, I just don't know if as sad and withdrawn as she can be is "normal" or rather safe.

-argh, I really am unliveable, snarling away at my kids for really stupid stuff just now-not stupid stuff they are doing-it is me being that way-

anyway,
dogs are booked in for their overdue shots appointment next week, the repair guy is scheduled to come out on Monday and see why our Bosch dishwasher takes 2-3 hourse to wash a load....

it is going to be an expensive month.

Which is great (not really), because we just paid the bill for having the concrete poured for our itty bitty back drive way and the garage pad and it came to nearly TWICE what we had originally be quoted for it.

Where I live, we are in the middle of a huge economic BOOM so building materials have achieved the status of rare jewels.

12,0000 bucks for a double garage worth of the grey stuff.

Keep an eye out for engagement rings set with polished chunks of cement is all I am saying.