A Ridiculous Habit

I've been thinking about my blog.

What is it about?  What is the purpose of writing here?  One person I know writes about her journey through weight loss and increased health and happiness.  Another writes about her journey through addiction towards health - physical, mental, spiritual.  Yet another writes a blog about Canadian history.

What do I write about?

I muse.  I ponder.  I observe and write about the people around me and I do an absolutely shit job of hiding their identities.  I worry sometimes about friends reading back through old posts and deciding they don't want to be friends with me anymore because of what I've written.

I was a different person when I started this blog.  Younger, yes.  Definitely more naive.  I wrote on here as if it were a private journal, oblivious to the fact that once it's online anyone - anyone - can read it.

I've learned the hard way not to use people's names.  I've learned the hard way that people can figure out who I am extremely easily.  That what I write here is read by other people and that what I write here can come back and bite me in the ass, oh, so quickly.

All of that and I'm not sure I even have a purpose here.  I started this blog because someone told me to, back when I was young and naive and highly suggestible.  I started for no real reason and I just haven't ever stopped.

Well, not permanently, anyway.

What started this train of thought was, in part, chatting with a co-worker who is starting a blog.  She keeps asking me for advice and I don't really know what to tell her.  I'm not a consistent blogger nor am I a terribly wide read one.  I don't do all the upkeep you're supposed to do - reading other blogs, leaving comments, creating a trail back to my own blog to generate traffic, all that stuff.  I write sometimes.  That's it.

And I was thinking about what I do - writing - and how ridiculous it is.  I take words, ideas, out of my head and put them down on a piece of paper - not even always a real piece of paper, sometimes it's virtual which makes this even more abstract and ethereal - and that's it.  That.  Is.  It.  Carefully thought out or randomly flung, either way it's just words, intangible thought bubbles, set onto a page.

It's absurd.  Absolutely insane.  I don't build houses or cut out tumours or make food for hungry people or plant seeds in a field.  I write shit down.  The end.  And I want it to matter for some reason.  But really, it's fucking insane!  I laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of what I do, right there alone in the car, laughing like a lunatic.

But I still want to write.  I'm not going to stop writing just because it's such a bizarre habit.

It might be pointless.  It might be crazy.

And I might never find a real purpose behind it.

But I'll never be able to stop doing it.

And I'm not sure if that's a blessing or a curse.

No Visitors

Today I took Z. for a walk.  I learned a few things - she's much less of a wuss about cold weather than I am.  I guess that's all I learned, really.  That and I should have worn a toque.  My ears hurt when I go out in the cold without one.

On our walk I saw a house with a paper taped to the door.  "NO VISITORS".  It strikes me as an odd sign.  No solicitors, sure.  No junk mail, no sales people, no Jehovah's Witnesses or door to door evangelists.  But no visitors?

I hope that person isn't sad and lonely.  I hope they just couldn't figure out how to spell solicitors.

Shit Just Got Real

My mom has cancer.  For real this time.

That makes it sound like she's calling me up all the time, being all like, oh, I've got cancer!  Haha!  Psych!

Just to clarify, she doesn't do that.

The reason I say 'for real this time' is because a few months ago the doctors mixed her test results with someone else's and told her she had cancer.  Days before they were scheduled to cut off her boob they realized their mistake.  They did some extra tests to be extra-special-sure, and this lump, this 'for real' cancer lump, was one they hadn't even noticed before.

They gave her the option of having it removed, or ignored.  "It's probably benign," they said.

She said something along the lines of "Get the fucker out of me.  Now."

So they did.

And this fucker is malignant.

They think they got it all.

I hope they're right.

But they're kinda batting a shit average right now.

It's summertime I guess

So.

I could write a laundry list of what I've done in the past month but that bores me.

Although I did get engaged, which is exciting (for me, anyway).

It's super hot outside.  The hottest day of the year so far.  I don't like being hot.  It makes my brain slow and my body lethargic and I really have no thoughts that I feel are worth writing down here.

But I wanted to say I'm still alive and I'll (hopefully) have something more in-depth to say tomorrow.  Or next week.  Or whenever I remember about this blog next.

Also, I've been reading The Year of the Fat Bastard and for some reason I feel like mentioning that here.

Time Keeps on Slippin', Slippin', Slippin'...

I was going to apologize - once again - for not writing for a while.  Then I realized that a lot of my blog posts have been apologies for not writing.  So screw that.  I'm sounding stale.

A magpie just walked along our balcony railing with a peanut in his (or her) mouth.  It stopped and peeked in our window, took a look at me with the dog snoozing on my feet and kept on walking.  Smart choice, bird.  I've never understood why people hate magpies, and by people I mean my dad.  They're beautiful and smart.  Sure they don't sing worth a damn (or at least I've never heard them sing well) but who cares?  We caught a baby magpie once, after my dad got tired of their parents waking him up at 5 o'clock in the morning every day and shot a hole through the bottom of their nest, killing one parent.  The other parent took the near-fledglings (seriously, if he'd waited another few days they would have left on their own) and led them, hopping from branch to branch, to a safe place way, way out back by a grainery.  While they were thus occupied my brothers and I managed to catch one - it took ages, because they're so smart - and brought it to the house.  Mom ki-boshed the idea of us keeping it for a pet, which was too bad because I'd heard that they could be taught to speak and wanted to give that a try, but within minutes of catching it the little birdy had figured out that we were a source of food and stopped trying to get away.  It just sat on my finger waiting for us to produce more delicious scraps.

That's pretty smart for a wild animal.

My dad didn't like a lot of birds growing up.  Blue Jays chased smaller birds away.  Seagulls were pigs that would eat a chickadee whole.  Magpies were pesky farm-destroyers.  None of them sounded nice.  I'm not sure where he got all of his prejudices from - except the seagull one, that one he saw happen so I can understand why he didn't like them.  Seeing a chickadee get eaten whole and alive would be upsetting.  But Blue Jays make lovely noises when they get going.  Magpies don't destroy farms in any way I can see - perhaps I've just never seen them descend upon a field and eat the entire thing.

I think those views came from his dad though.  Grandpa has - or at least had - some pretty strong opinions.  Some of them are interesting, some are valid, and some are really...how shall I put it?  Antiquated?  Bordering on racist? I guess that's the generation he comes from.

I work in a vintage car museum and Dad brought Grandpa by the other week.  I got to learn some things about my grandpa I hadn't known.  He learned to drive on an Overland - we have one in our collection - but after that he only drove Willys until he moved away from home.  Him and Grandma owned a grey 1955 Chevrolet Bel Aire.  And he's aged a whole hell of a lot since the last time I saw him.

Someone told me that babies and the elderly age the same way - constantly and surprisingly.  It's the middle part where things stay static.  I guess that's true.  It's a little sad for both - you have the chance to miss so much more with both the young and the old.

I guess that's a reminder to be present with them when I am with them, and pay attention.  Otherwise I'll miss out on that short, precious time and suddenly the babies will be adults and the old ones will be gone.

Just like the magpie on the balcony railing.

Shit, Shit, Shit!

Whoops!  I totally forgot to post anything on here last week.

Sorry.

I've been busy?  Is that a valid excuse?

No.  Years ago I decided to stop making excuses.  I still make them, but I am more aware of it now when I do and I (usually) stop and make myself take responsibility for whatever it is I'm making excuses for.  The honest answer here is that I forgot.

I have been busy though.  We just finished training the seasonal staff and getting things underway; I've been putting in longer days just to try to get everything done.  It seems like I just get caught up and then new things need doing.  Isn't that how life is though?  I guess I shouldn't have expected to 'catch up'.  And then I'm in rehearsals (which started the same weekend as seasonal training...yeah, didn't think that one through).  And then Diablo III came out.  So yeah.  I've been busy.

I've also been doing The Artist's Way.  I've owned the book for years and now I'm finally reading it.  And doing most of the exercises.  I didn't do morning pages every day though.  I think I need to do afternoon pages, because morning is busy and there is really no way I'm getting up an extra half-hour early to write gibberish on three pages a day.  Not long hand.  Not with my cramping wrists.  So I think I'll wind up doing mine in the afternoon, which I hope is allowed because it just fits my schedule better.

If it isn't I guess I'll never know, unless Julia Cameron notices this post and informs me in the comments that it just isn't kosher to do them in the afternoon.

Oh, I also got a working spinning wheel.  I'm still figuring it out - it's amazing how much you can forget in 10 years.

Gah.

I'm going to stop now...and probably go play Diablo III.  Priorities, you know.

Bring on the Wonder

So it appears that I forgot to post last week.  Whoops.

I am forgetting things this week, so at least it fits in with the theme of my life.

It's been very busy at work - we're in orientation and training, leading up to the grand summer opening.  Tourist season is upon us, folks.  Let the tourons begin massing.  Tourons is a real word, invented by someone who obviously worked in tourism.  Tourist + Moron = Touron.  I (at least partially) jest.  They aren't all morons.

(Which I just hilariously misspelt as Mormons.)

Yeah.  I crack myself most consistently up.

I've been watching a lot of Bones and wishing I was an anthropologist.  My two most recent television addictions involve anthropologists - Lie To Me and Bones.  I think I'd do better as a Lie To Me kind of person rather than a Bones kind of person.  Dead bodies do ick me out a bit.  Live bodies intrigue me.

But I'm not an anthropologist.  At least not right now.  So I watch Bones instead.

The last episode I watched had a lovely song at the end.  It made me cry and then I bought it - actually bought it off of iTunes, people, this is a big deal - and listened to it multiple times on repeat.  I am turning into my mother.

Here's the song.  I can't find an official video, so this is what you get.  There is one of her playing the song accoustically in a shed, which is neat, but I like the non-accoustic version better.

That's where I'm at right now.  Another short post, but it's better than not posting at all.

Oh My God, What Does It Mean?

We got our first real spring shower today (that I count, anyway, since it didn't turn to snow).  I saw a rainbow over our house afterward - a full rainbow, all the colours.

It wasn't double but I smiled as I thought of the guy from the video who was so overwhelmed by his rainbow that he didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and sounded like he did both at once.

Rainbows are kind of overwhelming.  They're beautiful and ethereal and while I understand the science behind them they kind of defy logic to me as well.

That's kind of all I have to say.  Not a long post, but it wasn't a terribly deep thought.

I Spoke Too Soon

Remember when I wrote about sugar a few weeks ago?  And I said that while I definitely had physical reactions to sugar (congestion, sore throat, etc.) I appeared not to react emotionally?

Yeah.

I spoke too soon.

I’ve since discovered that sugar gives me a flash of a good mood and then, the next day, turns me into an irritable bitch.

Dammit.

I told my mother this, and she laughed.  It’s bizarre to be able to relate about an addiction.

Yes, I said it.

I’m addicted to sugar.

I drink pop like an alcoholic drinks booze.  I crave chocolate to the point of distraction.  I sneak candy like a boozer would sneak a gulp of vodka.

I would say I hate it, but I’m still getting used to the fact that it’s even true.

I’d say that it’s different from alcoholism in that it’s a biochemical addiction, not an emotional addiction, but I don’t know enough about it to know if that’s true or not.  Talking to my mom, it sounds like once you get the biochemistry balanced the rest falls into place.  As she put it - “I just forgot to eat sugar.”  I can hardly believe it - forgot to eat sugar?  Seriously?

Wow.

The upside is that if my mom - who is a recovering alcoholic and a recovering sugar addict - can kick two addictions, I sure as hell can kick one.

The sugar addicts program only has 7 steps too.

My problem is that I want to do all 7 steps at once.  I asked my mom how long it took her to do all 7.  She said, “About a year and a half.”

Dammit.

She said I’m not the first one to look at the list and say, “I can do all that starting next week!”

She also said not to cut sugar cold turkey; to start by reading The Sugar Addict’s Total Recovery Plan; and to be gentle with myself.  Heaping judgement on my head won’t help me heal my body.

So that’s what I’m going to do.

Starting today.

Unpleasant Revelations

Last September I went to an Arbonne training conference known as CNTC.  One of the speakers there was a man named John C. Maxwell.  He's a leadership expert and does a lot of speaking engagements where he teaches people how to become better leaders.

What he had to say intrigued me enough to ask for a few of his books for Christmas.  It's taken me ages to actually start reading them but I am reading "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership" now and I'm both encouraged and disheartened by what I'm learning.

The encouraging part?  I see that I have a lot of innate leadership potential.

The disheartening part is to see how clearly I have not used it.  Any of it.  At all.  Ever.

That's a bit of an exaggeration.  I do use some of it - my ability to read people, for example, which is a strength of mine.  However, I have not trained myself to think like a leader.  I've been very unaware of areas in which I could grow personally to become a better leader.

For example, my character is not nearly as strong as I thought it was; at least not when you measure it by integrity, authenticity, and discipline (especially discipline); and respect, potential and consistency (especially consistency).

And let's be honest - who wants to read a book where they are continually learning things about themselves such as:

I have no concrete plan for personal growth.
I haven't learnt how to analyze failures and then learn from them (I analyze well enough if brooding counts...).
I don't know what all of the people closest to me value most.
I don't feel like I live in a way that builds trustworthiness, nor do I feel that I help create an environment of trust around me.
I have not been aware of my need to be a leader, even when I owned my own business.
I have been unaware of what to look for in a leader and what to emulate.
I have been expecting results on inspiration, not on practice and process.
I can create the dream and plan the course but I do not take action on either so what's the point?
So this quote cuts from Jerry West me to the core: "You can't get too much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good."  Goddammit.

I have found reading this book to be a constant struggle between facing my stark reality and being absolutely discouraged and trapped in despair, and seeing my own potential for improvement and being completely reenergized and encouraged - and I'm only on Law 9.  The good news is that I can see growth in myself from a year ago - a year ago I would have stopped at discouraged and quit reading.  I would have placed myself in a downward spiral of despair that I would have had to fight out of over the course of weeks or months, and I probably would have never gone back to the book.  Today I'm recognizing that feeling of unhappiness, of disappointment in myself, taking a deep breath and getting over it.  Learning from it.  Allowing it to be the wound that spurs healing, the wound of the spirit that makes me notice where I have to grow.  Then I pick the book up and keep reading.

As John says in the part about developing leadership skills, there are three types of people: those who naturally understand leadership, those who can be nurtured to understand leadership, and those who will never understand leadership.  I know the last one isn't me, "because these people never pick up a leadership book."

So there is encouragement to be found, and part of that is the fact that I can see these unpleasant revelations about myself and instead of stagnating in them I'm being intentional about improving myself in those specific areas.

But it's not easy to face down.

I shared some of this with S. yesterday and he just nodded.  It made sense to him and he could see it in my life.  That sucked too - when the person you love most, who loves you most, who knows you best, nods when you say that you can create a dream, plan out a course of action, but then you stop and so what does it matter really? and they nod because that's not a surprise to them because they've said so, in essence, to you many times over the last two years...argh.  That cuts like a knife.  Like a knife of truth that you just want to shut your eyes and ignore, but I can't do that if I actually want to change, and I do.

So I'll keep reading, learning the other 12 Laws of Leadership, and then I'll go on and ingest more stuff that makes me think, that challenges my status quo, that forces me to see the good, the bad, and the downright ugly truths about myself.

As long as I can see both the unpleasant and the pleasant revelations, I think I'll be able to keep doing that until I die.

Lend Me Some Sugar

A few years ago my mother's health took a dive.  Doctors told her she had a couple years at the most and they had no idea what was wrong with her.  She did a lot of hard work, both emotional through rehab and therapy/counselling and physical with diet and lifestyle changes, and has brought herself back to a place of health.  She's also outlived the doctor's best guess and shows no signs of stopping now.

Part of her journey was food related.  When your heart won't allow you to exercise your only option for improved health is to change how, and what, you eat.  As part of her journey she discovered that she has several food sensitivities and that one of those foods is sugar.  She discovered that her body responds to sugar the way it responds to alcohol (she's a recovering alcoholic), thanks in no small part to the work Kathleen DesMaisons has done.  I'm not entirely certain what part of her physical recovery is due to cutting sugar from her diet, but she found that without sugar she enjoys more emotional stability.  A diet that stabilizes blood sugars and beta-endorphin release makes for a happier life.

Who woulda thunk it.

For the last few months I've been on my own food journey.  My mom gave me one of her food journals, a neatly laid out book where I can track what I eat, when I eat it, and how it makes me feel physically and emotionally.  I can also track physical exercise and include that in the equation - naturally occurring beta-endorphins are highly encouraged.  I haven't noticed a close relationship between food and my emotional state.  I'm sure my mom would be happy to hear that - I know she has worried about how her own relationship with food and weight may have influenced me growing up.

I have however noticed a direct relationship between what I eat and my physical health.  What are the odds?  What you eat directly impacts how your body feels.  I know, it's not rocket science, but it has been extremely eye opening.

It hasn't been what I expected, either.  I thought perhaps I'd find that bread and cheese had a negative impact - gluten and dairy sensitivities are common, after all - but I can eat gluten and dairy all I want and nothing happens, nothing I'm aware of anyway.  I thought I might find I was sensitive to tomatoes or oranges, like my mom.  But I can eat pasta sauces and eat citrus and again, I have no noticeable reaction.

Sugar, on the other hand…

I eat one Rocket candy and my throat gets sore.  I drink a can of cola and I can feel the fluids being retained in my ear (weird, huh?  But soda pop gives me an almost instant earache).  Down a double chocolate muffin, and my sinuses clog up.  Swollen glands and sniffles, you'd think I had a cold.  All of my chronic health complaints - except joint pain - are directly tied to the sugar in my diet.

I've done a bit of research apart from Dr. DesMaison's work, and I've found that (according to some sources anyway) sugar causes inflammation, which reduces the effectiveness of your immune system.  That certainly matches what I've experienced.

I have to be honest.  I have mixed feelings about this.  On one hand I'm glad that sugar doesn't seem to affect my emotions, at least not like it could.  As long as I eat protein with every meal I seem to be pretty stable, emotionally.  On the other hand, I fricken love chocolate and if, as my body seems to be requesting, I give up sugar, all sugar, forever and ever, I will really miss that silky sensation of chocolate melting on my tongue.  (I have also noticed that I do get PMS, contrary to what I thought, and I crave chocolate with I'm PMSing...badly.  Like, stereotype badly.  Giving that up could be dangerous to the survival of those around me, never mind their health, at least for a few days a month.)

All that being said, I'm also glad to find a possible solution to my health.  My immune system has never bounced back to what it was before I got mononucleosis four years ago, and I'm tired of having constant low-level congestion, low energy, post-nasal drip, and a lingering cough as a result of that.  I'm tired of always being on the edge of getting sick.  If giving up sugar means that I'm healthy again, I'll do it.

It won't be easy but I'll do it.


Something else that has been interesting to me as I've been learning this has been what I've been being shown in my meditations.  I use tarot cards as a meditation, which may sound weird but it helps me to locate and hear that little voice, telling me things that I already knew.  And in some cases I have had cards turn up that indicated things that I didn't see coming, that wound up actually happening.  So who knows, maybe there's an element of truth to the whole 'tarot cards tell the future' thing.  All I know is that I find them a helpful element to meditation, and they usually show me things that I already knew but didn't want to admit.  I don't meditate every day, but when I do the tarot is a part of my process.  My deck is bizarre too, but that's another blog post.

So while I've been sorting out this whole sugar thing - and it's been crystallizing mostly in the last few weeks - I've had these cards show up, and in this order:

Death
Temperance
A card I can't remember
Three of Swords

Keep in mind that I pick one card a day, so this isn't a spread where the cards influence each other.

This is what I got out of them.  Death indicates change is coming, change you can accept or change that is forced.  If I don't make the change in my health, it'll be made for me.  I'm not willing to have it taken to that extreme edge before I do what's best for my body.  Now I have to find out if I'm willing to make the hard decisions to make that change while I'm still in control of the options.

Temperance brings balance, moderation and an element of being tempered.  So this change, which I know will not be easy, will bring balance to my relationship between food and health.  I also have no problem seeing that I'll be 'tempered' into a (hopefully) better person by the experience.

There was another one in there that I didn't write down the name of, just what I saw in it; but it brought a reminder of the strength and focus required to overcome obstacles.  It was an absolutely necessary reminder to renew my focus.  That would be the day I realized I don't like strawberry wafers - although it took me 7 wafers to really figure that out.  :P

The three of swords reminded me that I have a support group to help me, a tightly knit group of people who will root for me, provide accountability and extend mercy when I can't do that for myself, encouraging me as I go along this path.  I need to be reminded that I need that as I bring harmony to my relationship with food.

Not every meditation I do has to do with my health but since that's what 've been thinking about it's an easy direction to meditate in.  And it's been kind of encouraging to be reminded of what it'll take to actually see this through.

There have been other reminders - an article on fear.less about cake, a word from Anne Lamott about the difference between food eaten in happiness and food eaten in misery - reminders that what I'm seeking is worth the struggle I'm going through to find it.

I'm not dumping sugar cold-turkey but I'm working down to nothing.  That in itself has been surprisingly challenging.  Sugar is everywhere.

So be a good neighbour.  Don't lend me some sugar, even if I beg and scream for it.  I'll thank you...

...in the long run, anyway.

Forgetfulness

I realized yesterday afternoon that I completely forgot to write on Monday like I had promised.  Apologies.

Forgetting things is something I am sadly very good at.  I forget where I put my phone, my keys, my purse, the lip balm, gift cards, you name it and I can forget where it was last put down.  I also forget to do things I said I'd do - laundry, dishes, or pretty much any other kind of household task or errand will slip my mind as though it had never been.

S. groans over my apparent sieve of a brain and the fact that I put everything into my phone but quite frankly, I can't afford to forget everything that I would forget if I didn't have little reminders for myself.

Reminders aren't always available and what do you think happens?  I'll tell you.  Yesterday I spent 40 minutes looking for an allen wrench key at work and never did find it.  We use it to unlock the bars on the doors so they can just be pushed open instead of requiring effort.  The door can be unlocked without the allen wrench, and even then we have a spare but it still niggles at my brain.  Where the hell did it go?

I might never remember.

Or I might remember out of the blue in three days, like I remembered to write here.  In three days it'll be my weekend so there will be precious little I can do about it but at least I'll know where the damn thing went.

So you can see why, for me, better late than never is a really, really apt saying.

Next stop, Procrastination Station

Why is it that every time I have a day where I could write, uninterrupted, I don't?  Instead I spend the day doing things like the following:

Having a long shower.

Doing my hair and makeup.  Gotta look pretty for the computer.

Laundry.

Taking Z. for a long, long walk.

Planning the supper menu.

Paying bills.

Doing banking/books.

Playing XBox games.

Phoning XBox because of a stupid clerical error that indicated that I wanted to renew my Gold Membership when, in fact, I did not (that error is locking me out of any games that require downloadable content - so far, all of them).

Checking the mail.

Checking my email, Facebook and Twitter.

Playing with Z.

Daydreaming.

And then...

Doing a little wee bit of writing.

And S. will be home soon and there will go my uninterrupted writing time.

At least I'm feeling better today.  I had a wicked ear infection over the weekend and now understand why babies cry so badly when they have one.  Ear infections hurt!  There is no way to hold your head that doesn't include pain of some kind.  Thank God for antibiotics.  Of course it never occurred to me that I could also take pain killers because that's just not how my brain works.  I'll remember for next time, although I really hope there isn't a next time.

It's a lovely day in my part of the world.  The Balcony Babies are out on their balconies, playing in the sun and screaming at each other.  They come and go as they please, the doors left open for them, going up to the bars that separate them and screaming some more.  They're both wearing clothes which is unusual.  Typically one is in a diaper and the other in a shirt and diaper combo.  Today they both have shirts and pants.  It's a miracle.

I've got a busy week of work ahead of me.  We're launching our annual spring family event and my project for it isn't quite done.  This year has been flying by - I didn't actually realize we were a week away from launching until we were a week away from launching.  It feels like I've been finishing things in a last-minute rush but I'm not the only one so that's reassuring.  Either I'm still on schedule or the time got away from everyone.

Of course when you procrastinate, it's amazing how often that will happen to you.

That Time of Year

I'm doing taxes today.

I'm not feeling particularly creative or wordy.  Numbers are running around my head in loops, screaming their importance to an uncaring world.  Z. keeps wanting to sniff and disrupt my piles of receipts, taking keen interest in the milage record book.

Now that she spent 40 minutes running at the dog park she'll be less intrusive.  It's hard to eat paper when you're sleeping in the sunny patch on the floor.

Taking a break was good for me too.  A mild refreshment for my brain so it doesn't get overloaded and shut down.

But now the break is over and it's time to get back to the screaming, racing numbers.

Hello Again

Well, I haven't posted since November.

I've been working on other projects, which is poor comfort for anyone who has come here looking for fresh new words.  But I have been writing which is much comfort for my soul, as well as for anyone who has to spend any time with me.

I am planning on being more regular with my posts - as in, once a week instead of once every six months.  I might start with one a month, or every couple of weeks, but I promise I'll work up to once a week.

Once a day just isn't going to happen though.

I just sorted through a year's worth of paper on my desk (fortunately for me, it was this year's worth so only a few months, haha) and found all kinds of journals scribbled on yellow legal paper, journals I write while at work.  Most of them are about the various parents I'm watching and judging.  Some of the regular parents who come by are jewels, and so are their children.  I don't mean they behave all the time - but when they do misbehave, their parents actually follow through on whatever consequence has been promised.

The parents I judge harshly can't get their progeny's attention even after (or probably because of) repeating their name twenty times.  They say they're leaving in five minutes and wind up staying two hours (with five minute warnings throughout).  The kid throws a tantrum and the parent threatens, and the kid gets their way.  I really don't like those parents, but on the plus side they are showing me what not to do in the event that I ever have children.

I want to be a jewel parent, not a "dear Lord in Heaven, here come those people again" parent.

If I look at Z. I'm afraid I'm somewhere in the middle.  But at least right now she's being quiet...because we gave her a pizzle, aka dog candy.  Sigh.  We totally bribe her to be good.  At least we're aware of what we're doing.