Saddest Wordless Wednesday of my life.

I miss her so much. 

I don't know how I will cope.  

She was my best friend & constant companion.  

She was there for me through times when everyone else walked away from me. 

She stayed by my side all the time as I worked.

She greeted me every time I came home, or in the morning when I woke up.

I don't have many human friends in real life, this feels like I lost my best friend.

I can't believe how much this hurts. 

 I will always hold you in my heart. 

You were the best cat I ever could've asked for, and you're the reason I like cats 

(used to be a dog only gal, then I got Sess and she melted my heart...

and helped me get rid of my allergy to cats!)

I love you my Sessie girl.

F*^#&%$ Positivity!

It's not been easy, but I'm doing it.... I'm sunny.  I'm GD optimistic and cheerful.  Dammit.

Here comes another slightly garbled post though - I'm so sorry! I'll take the decline in comments as a sign that y'all would prefer my normal writing style to return.  I'll send that memo up to my (foggy) brain asap.

Sess has still not (independently) eaten, though I have forced about 4 syringes of wet food and water, and at least 12 zillion of water alone into her... she growls with the food, so I don't do too much.  The maple syrup worked a bit though, I think I noticed the most change in her after starting that regiment. D and I went to the movies today to see Alice in Wonderland (slightly disappointing, not worth a review post) and when we got back she came to drink outta the tub! I tweeted it here.

This makes me (disproportionately?) happy

I am still not sleeping well, though I have taken to falling FAST asleep at around 4 or 5am in the last few nights, meaning that I'm getting a good 3- 4 hours of real sleep, which is an improvement from NONE.   The bad Baycrest dreams are getting shorter.  Appreciated.  Gone would be better.   But I'm being patient.   And trying to stay off the sleeping pills.  I don't wanna get hooked.  Finding a fuzzy comfy fog in a little blue pill every night seems just a wee bit too tempting now-a-days. 

And this morning I woke up with a crick in my neck - I look like a friggin' moron, turning my whole body to look around.

And, other than that, I'm pretty numb.  I'm immersing myself in work as much as possible (having D here instead of out doing the jobs is kind of distracting, but as of the 15th he'll be out doing sales calls, much better for growing our little company.  In my haste to anticipate having my days to myself again once Spring had sprung I forgot that hiring a crew meant that he did not have to work sun up to sun down if he didn't want to.  Right now we only have one vehicle, so he has to stay home with me all day 'till the crew returns.  As of the 15th we'll have two again.  Thank god, or I'd probably... I won't finish that sentence.)

I listened to my uncles songs yesterday and had a good cry... every so often I look up in the sky and look out for birds(wondering why?)...  I'm thinking of uploading some of his music for you all to hear - is that something that would appeal to y'all?  It's not in English but the melodies are gorgeous.  I'm not 100% how to do that without putting 'em on YouTube, or in my sidebar like my songs are, so any tips would be GREATLY appreciated! And I'm gonna get back on the Juri and the Bears Blog.   I think it could be a great support to adults and children alike, who are going through a terminal illness.

And my plans for today? I've got more company organization work to do, customer calling to do...


and more F*ing positivity to radiate.  <3

Mumbo, Jumbo & Sad

This post may seem sporadic and un-connected - but that's exactly my state of mind, so it's fitting.

The last week has been a whirlwind, I'm not going to re-cap cuz it's too painful.

If ya'll really wanna know what happened, you can read my last post, or read through my tweets to get a better sense of stuff.

For now, I'm just gonna write. Like you are my diary. 

It's been so weird being at my Mom & Dad's house for so many hours straight in the last few days for Shivah.  I haven't spent that much time there in years. It was the first time that I have been able to do it though, without fleeing home after an hour or two.  I usually get very uncomfortable, so I'm glad that didn't happen this time.

I'm already judging this post - thinking I'm leaving things out, not considering my words enough, not conveying  the 'right' message. But I'm gonna ignore those feelings.

I feel so fragile right now - like any more rocking of my boat will cause me to capsize. And possibly drown.  If not drown, than at least lose all my worldly possessions (my mind) in this wicked and wild sea of life.

I have so much admiration towards my parents' friends.  They have been so supportive. This is supposed to be a good thing, but it has made the sparse network of 'real life' friends that I travel in seem even more useless than it did before. This rocks my boat.

My Sessie cat is not feeling well.  She hasn't moved almost at all in 2 days, and won't eat, and I'm having to force feed water to her to keep her hydrated. And one of D's toxic toads got out, so I don't know if she came into contact with it. He found it in the dogs food dish.
This rattles and rocks my boat.

I'm exhausted but I can't sleep without seeing and hearing my uncles last breath. Which means I can't sleep, even when I'm drugged (like last night, when I'd 'wake' from a 1/2 asleep state with odd thoughts in my brain...for example... if I forget the name of the diagnosis they gave my Dad in the hospital, I won't be able to help him if he feels sick again)

This VEHEMENTLY SHAKES my boat.

I'm thinking about the fact that when my parents die, if my network of 'real life' friends is as sparse and frivolous as it is right now I will undoubtedly capsize and sink to the bottom of the sea.

I'm thinking about how people keep telling me that my mother will undoubtedly crash after Shivah is over because she will have such an immense and seemingly unfulfillable void in her heart - and how they look at me like I'm supposed to know what to do is COMPLETELY freaking me out too.

This past week of trying to comfort her, act as her equal in terms of 'hostessing' the shivah house (despite the fact that one is really not supposed to do that in terms of Jewish tradition, but my Mom would not have it any other way) has all but made me bedridden.  I'm not sure how I'm still standing.  My legs and back are throbbing, almost constantly, but I'm so numb.  I can't even cry anymore. 

I keep thinking that I'm heartless because I only cried the day it happened, and the next day at the funeral.  It's like after the funeral I just turned it off somehow and I've been playing the happy hostess since.  But I'm exhausted.  And so not happy.

Ugh. This is enough for tonight.  I can't believe I'm posting something so un-planned, un-thought out, un-edited.

Take it or leave it people, it's all I got right now.

The NaVe&D Zoo - Part One

It's amazing how a blog face-lift can inspire!

All I've been doing all morning is thinking up blog posts - and the one that won out for today? Part one of the zoo post I've been promising since the beginning of my little adventure here in the blogisphere! I'm going to do it in two parts to make it not so long.  We have a lot of critters!

Today, ladies and gents, you will be introduced to the furry members of our little (mostly) harmonious zoo.

First stop? The cat fur babies.

This is Sess, Sessie, Sesscabob... you get the point. I'm not quite sure how old she is. She's my first cat EVER, and the reason I am now only one step away from being a crazy-cat-lady. (D keeps me balanced precariously on the ledge of that particular pitfall) I got here as a rescue from an Animal Hospital I worked at in 2004/2005.  She was kept in a cage above where I kept my stuff and kept playing with my ponytail every morning.  It was pretty much love at first sight.   She has a broken K-9 which I am going to have to sell my first non-fur baby to get fixed (joking - OBVIOUSLY I WOULD NEVER DO THAT. But that's about how much it's gonna cost).  She also pukes pretty much daily, not quite sure why, but she's a happy girl, eating and pleasantly plump, so I'm just gonna keep loving her!

This funny guy is Topper.   He can be found in most cases laying on his back twitching like he's seizing 'cuz he's purring so hard.  There is a YouTube video of that coming soon! He's my baby - we rescued him as a tiny kitten from a friend who took him from a crack-head's house, half his whiskers had been burnt off and I'm pretty sure he has ingested some hard drugs at some point in his life. He was once really skinny - which you can see here is a faint memory at best.  He's as happy-go-lucky as can be now... and I'm pretty sure he thinks he's a dog.  YouTube evidence of that coming as well. He's completely fearless (or slightly stupid, we aren't sure) and won't back down from either one of our big dogs.  Our female dog raised him as her puppy.

This picture pretty much summarizes the story.  Can you see how Sess recoils at the mere sight of her adopted brother Topper? Poor girl - she really loved being an only child.   She hates him and the only time she ever grooms him, or tolerates him at all, is when I "force" her to by holding him in front of her face so she can groom him.  It's pretty funny. I had to do this at first to teach Topper to groom 'cuz he was a nasty little shit-stained kitten who never had a chance to learn to groom from his mommy.

Now, to the dog fur-babies.

This is Bronx.  He weighs 100 lbs. He is going on 11 years old - wouldn't think so would ya?  He's got a bit of grey under his chin though, and he's starting to appreciate my fibromyalgia gait when I walk him, gives him a chance to meander along with me and smell the roses.   He's a HUGE suckie baby... until he sees a dog on the street.  Then it's ON!  He was attacked by a pit bull as a puppy and D has never been able to get the aggressive reflex to relax in him.  Callin' Cesar Millan!  We need his help!  We love our pups to death, but their aggression towards other dogs creates a barrier between us and all our fellow dog-walkers/lovers.  And it sucks for the dogs too because it means that they NEVER go off leash.  Ever.  And we don't have a yard, so that sucks even more.  But we do our best, and aside from some recent issues Bronx is a happy and healthy boy!

This is Atilla.  She weighs 75lbs. She's going on 10 years old.  As you can tell in this picture she loves to be comfy.   This dog HATES going camping.  Can you believe that?  She whines and cries when she has to sleep on the ground outside.  We literally have to bring couch cushions for her to sleep on.  She's a princess.   And a lean mean fighting machine.  She learned Bronx's hatred for other dogs and sounds like a wild jackal when she's see's one... "mommy, mommy pleeeaaasseee let me rip up that little fifi dog!" It's sad.   We try and try to teach them to love other dogs, but it's just not happening.  Our friends just got a little puppy - we're hoping to introduce our dogs to it with strong cage muzzles on.  We are thinking that perhaps the puppy smell will lessen the aggressive instinct.

 When we first moved in to this apartment (date is wrong, it was actually in 2007) we gave the big sucks our old mattress.  Check out Bronx, maximizing comfort by using a pillow.  They both steal pillows from our bed at night if we aren't careful.

And here are a few more of my fave pics of the furry babies.

Oh man, I have a billion pics I could put up here..... I'll put up two more... just two more..

Ok! Thaaaaaat's All Folks!  If you wanna see some more - leave a comment! Leave a comment even if you're sick to death of seeing pics of my fur-babies.  Moral of the story? LEAVE A COMMENT!................................................................please!

Utopia

D and I have always had the same vision of our ideal future.

 Our Utopia.

The ideal place for raising children, living organically, and spreading peace and love to those who we meet.

This mutual dream has held us together during some pretty rough patches. I think it's so important to have the same vision for the future, and while our present seems to indicate that we are quite opposite, our shared vision always manages to prove to me that our differences now will become our strengths then.

Obviously, having children is a big part of our mutual hope and dream for our future.

But we have other some very specific desires as well.


Right now we reside in the concrete jungle that is Toronto, Ontario.   And while we live outside of the downtown core, and thus we have more trees and grass up here, we still can't look around us without seeing towering apartment and condo buildings.


And we hate it. H.A.T.E.
We hate the traffic and the noise and the ignorance and rudeness.
We hate the rush and the bustle.

Our Utopia?
We hope to buy a parcel of land - SOON.
It's pretty expensive, even further out from the city, to get a decent parcel with a fair amount of acreage , but we are saving up and also keeping our eye on foreclosures/land auctions etc.

Once we have said parcel of land, we will probably be completely broke, thus having to start saving again to build our home on it.  I'm kind of excited to be "land poor" though - we plan to buy a trailer (and use my interior deco skills and D's handyman skills to supe it up so it's the coolest trailer you everdidsee) to live in until we can build what we want. We haven't fully agreed on what style of home we'd like to live in, but treehouses, log homes, and underground bunkers have all been discussed.

We will plant seeds, have *some* farm animals, for milk and eggs (working on D to become a veggie. Almost there).  

I'm also thinking I may like  to be able to homeschool my kids.  This is not something I am 100% decided on though. I feel that social interaction is absolutely vital and would not like to take that away from my children however if our plan goes as we hope, we would have not just our family living on our land.

We would also open our land up to like minded individuals and ideally have a co-op/commune/kibbutz type environment going.  All of us working to sustain ourselves and our happy, peaceful lifestyle.  Away from violence, away from hatred, away from intolerance.

Anyone interested? 

I know, I know. We should've been hippies. Man, we would've made great hippies...

My Newest Creation

I was thinking...
It would be great if I could bring Topper with me to visit my uncle.
He'd provide a buffer, and everyone would love him off.


BUT



he's a cat.

And cat's don't really enjoy being put on a leash and paraded in front of people.
The few times I have taken him outside, the only reason he tolerated (mildly!) it all was because his buddies Bronx and Atilla were there, and they were attached to us by a thick string as well.  Wasn't so demeaning that way. (you can watch that video in my YouTube widget above by the way!)

But to take him to the hospital and display him like that? He would not have that. No way.
Only a creature who lives soley to please it's human would do that.
A.K.A.  - a dog.


Topper would make the coolest looking dog.
White with blond streaks and blue eyes.

Now if only I could figure out how to do it in real life and not just on photoshop.

I'll bet Paris Hilton would want one.

YAY! PRIZES :)

This is a bit belated... OK A LOT.  But hey - I had a good reason! Trying to use a laptop who's keys don't work makes typing not so fun.
But I'm going to catch up now, I promise.

First order of business?  Accepting my blog award from Roxy! 
Until now I  didn't even know there was such thing - but I'm thrilled & honoured to receive it!  Roxy is an amazing woman - so supportive and caring! Thank you for being a friend!

So... I'm told this is how it works:

• Thank the person who nominated you for this award. - check!
  
• Copy the award and place it in your blog. - check!
  
• Link the person who nominated you for this award. - HEY! didn't know how to do this before either! learning so much stuff tonight! check!
• Tell us 7 interesting things about you. - below...
  
• Nominate 7 bloggers.
• Post the links to the 7 bloggers you nominate. - um... .below!

I nominate: (in no particular order) - Don't mind the twitter names.
I am a lover of anonymity :p

1. TTC_Queen
2. Fertilitychick
3. Ahmymarriedlife
4. exceptformonday
5. iwillbeatpcos
6. thehoneyb
7. PCOSChick

And Now... 7 interesting (?) things about me....

1. I am a musician of sorts - mainly a singer at this point (as you know, and SHOULD VOTE FOR YOUR FAVOURITE NAVE SONG!) but I started off on the piano - got up to grade 8 and then switched to Viola.   I played the viola all though high school and into university, but gave it up (though I still regret totally giving it up, and still own my instrument so I'll probably go back sometime soon).  My real desire was to play the cello but my high school music teacher told me my hands were too small - I kinda proved her wrong though, in my final year of high school I taught myself to play. Couldn't afford to buy an instrument though :( I also taught myself to play the guitar - but that's purely for fun - I pretty much suck, but I enjoy it so I figure it doesn't matter.

2. I am trained as an interior decorator, but work as a receptionist DH & my home maintenance company (his father started it and left it to him, so I had to quit my other book-keeping/reception job to help him run it), and I dream (DREAM!) of being a writer... Blogging is helping a bit with that dream.  At least I'm not getting rustier & mustier as days go by.

3. DH and I have a small zoo in our 2 bedroom apartment.   Here's a list of what we currently have (we have been considerably downsizing since starting our TTC journey...)
AHEM....
- 2 dogs (one rottie/sheppard, one rottie/sheppard/pit)
- 2 cats (one is a flame-point siamese, the other I call "sweetcat cutecaticus")
- 1 iguana
- 1 chinese water dragon
- 1 mali euromastyx
- 2 chinese fire-belly toads
- 170 gallon salt water fishtank (used to have over 100 species in it, but again, we're downscaling, so now theres 3 fish and a shrimp in it :p)

4. I have been diagnosed with 4 different mental illnesses.
I don't think I have any of them.

5. I can read very very fast - but that means that I don't always retain everything the first time round, so I wind up having to re-read things a lot.

6. I have lived in Toronto, Ontario (or subburbs of) my whole life.... but I am pretty much sick of it here and can't wait to move further North ( Fertility Chick - you live in my dream spot, pretty much :P)  I dream of big open spaces, trees, clean air, nicer people, slower pace.

7. I tend to do what I can to make sure I don't hurt anyone's feelings.  This means that my feelings tend to get hurt a lot, because of being uber-flexible.   But this is something I am trying to work on.  So if I become a bitch suddenly then ya'll know why :p

Ok - so I got more brief as I went on, but you are all welcome to post questions, comments, whatever your hearts desire. 
I am an open book :)

Wordless Wednesday

I kinda already put a pretty wordy post up today - but here's my Wordless Wednesday anyways :)
Missing Topper's kitten days today for some reason... 

A little more detail...

I've been meaning to do a "who am I" series of posts since I started this thing... but it seems life's little ups & downs keep dragging me from my plans. 
Tonight is the night tho.  At least for part of my story... Here I go. 

I'll start back in 1999.  I graduated from high school a year early (in Ontario we used to have 13 grades, I "fast-tracked" to get out early).   I hadn't planned on doing this throughout the course of my high school education, but a summer trip to Oxford, England made me realize that I really needed to get out on my own. ASAP.   So as soon as I returned to Toronto I high-tailed it to my high school and changed around my whole schedule so that I could finish a year ahead.  

As brilliant as that plan had been (to get out of my parents' stifling home), I pretty much lost my mind that final year of high school.   Too much stress I suppose - my school was a high-pressure, fancy-shmancy all girls private school, and I was taking a more than full course load, all while doing an insane amount of extra-curriculars.   I officially burnt out in March 1999, started cutting, and wound up in the psych ward at the hospital.



Before that, I had always felt that there was 'something' in me that kept me from acheiving happiness.  I was always melancholy, a bit dark, introspective (though not shy) and had brief bouts of depression/eating problems from the age of 13+.  They came to a peak in 1999 and I started my journey into the world of psychiatric medicine.  


I'm not going to bore you with all the details, but basically I have been on almost every anti-depressant there is, have had 4 different diagnosis', and in the end... I really don't think there was a need for any of it. In fact, I think some of my problems have stemmed from being put on the wrong medications at too young an age. More about that in another post... 



Those trials & tribulations lasted from 1999 to about 2004.  During that span of time I went through 2 extremely abusive relationships, was kicked out of my parents' home (after having to come back from residence life at University due to mental health issues), and basically did a whole shit load of stuff that I either can't remember or am totally ashamed of.(I may write more candidly about this part of my life in a later post as well, theraputic reasons mostly, I think it would be good to finally owe up to some stuff and just move on)



But for now... Lets skip to the part where things start getting better. 


I wound up living in Government Housing (ok, so that's not the getting better part, but it's coming I promise!) in a really crappy & dangerous neighbourhood with a really abusive guy.  That was not a good time in my life, but I have to mention it in the "getting better" chapter because that's where I met & fell for my hubby.   We were roomies while I was with "the looseball" (that's what we both call him now)  and we became close friends really quick due to our common love of all things animal.  We also had so many other things in common, and he made me laugh, and laughter was so foreign to me at the time.  I had pretty much been living through 5 years of total hell up until then.  


Being friends with him gave me the confidence to move out of that hell hole, and in 2005 I got my first real apartment, and my first real home as an independant person.  


I lived in my pretty pink & white girly space for a year before I decided that I just HAD to tell future-hubby what my feelings were.... 


And luckily he reciprocated!

After that it was a pretty quick turn-around from my one and only year as a single woman, to being in a wifey roll.  He moved in, bringing his various reptiles, giant fish tanks  and 2 big dogs with him ( much to the dismay of my only kitty at the time, Sessie, who lived in my walk in closet for a month before re-staking her territory from the dogs).  Did I mention I had been living in a bachelor apartment??   It was... cozy!


After about 4 months of tripping over fish tanks & animals we realized we really really needed to get a bigger place and so we moved away from my beautiful apartment (which was in a GREAT part of town) and got the 2 bedroom apartment we live in now, which is in a part of town I really don't like.  Now it's just about saving that dough so we can get a house. 


Things are pretty calm now in my life,  other than the medical aspect of things (infertility, fibromyalgia, endometriosis) And for that I am grateful.  It gives me time to think about the things that I want to improve, instead of just being in emotional crisis mode all the time.  

I am getting better at facing my past - hopefully blogging about it will help to make it truly my PAST, and not just baggage that I carry around in the present.  
'till next time!

 

RIP Phlangey the Chameleon :(

 

So this morning we got up out of bed to find that our chameleon, Phlangey, is no longer with us.  I have never owned a lizard before being with my guy, but I actually got kind of attached to the little guy.  We bought him 3 years ago from a pet shop that, to be honest, really shouldn't be a pet shop.We got a lot of our "rescue" lizards from there.  

Phlangey was a fastinating guy.   He loved his bugs (I think he masterminded a plot to have crickets breeding endlessly in his habitat - I know we sure didn't do that on purpose!!!)  and he loved to hiss and bite people :p   Not the friendliest of lizards, but he was stunning to look at as he changed colours to suit his environment.  

We aren't certain why Phlangey didn't live as long as we'd hoped.  We'd estimate he was about 3 1/2-4 years old and they should live 5-8 years.   Not sure if that's in captivity or just in general.  

My only hope (and only worry) is that the Topper the Cat didn't have something to do with it.  Stress wise only - he never got into the habitat at him physically.  But Topper would frequently watch Phlangey - and in fact, I think Phlangey may have taught Topper to hiss!   We tried our best to keep him away from the habitat, but when Mommy's away, cat's like to play....

Anyways, we are sad today at the loss of one of our beloved little zoo.

RIP Phlangey! 

pls. excuse DH's mountain man appearance in this photo!  Sometimes I just can't get him to shave it off :p