Booksies!

I've been feeling rather empty lately for a number of reasons, one of which is a lack of time to read! It's frustrating that all the things that bring light to our lives are often the ones that must be pushed to the side when we are too busy.
Thus, not too many books to list since my last reading post:

The Mieville I was reading was sadly set aside as one of my favorite authors' new book came out! It had been a while since her last one in this series, so I was really excited!!!
The third and final in the Shadowfell series, I found The Caller to be a little less...well, just a little less, I suppose. I don't know if she was distracted by other projects in her life, but I found it to be a shade less to her usual standards.
The lore was fantastic, as well as the characters, but I found the story wrapped up a little too neatly, and that this book was just not up to snuff.


While reading this one, I also read a non-fiction on the side - one recommended
by a friend as a 'must-read' for all parents: The Way They Learn. I picked it up right away from the library:) I found it very interesting, and very helpful! I'm often frustrated with how to get through to my daughter sometimes, as well as getting my son to focus. This book basically labels people with semi-specific learning dispositions through a series of questions. It's helpful to label yourself too, and discover better ways to communicate with everyone.
I am also listening to Game of Thrones on Audiobook while I drive to work. I absolutely love the show, and was curious if they had actually stayed true to the books. I'm only about halfway through the 28 discs (!!!) but so far the show has been very accurate - a rarity!
Worth noting too: the reader, Roy Dotrice, is just brilliant.

Now that I'm through The Way They Learn, I picked up a non-fiction
that I thought might help with my tendency to feel overwhelmed in my daily life, called The Organized Mind.
Prominent Canadian author too - win!
Will let you know if it miraculously cures me:)

Now, I always have a novel in my bag, but as my favorite fall event is beginning this Saturday, I usually lay off the fiction and depend on Calvin & Hobbes to get me through November.

Will post in the next few days on all my prep to dominate my NaNoWriMo story this year:-)

Cheers,
Kelly

The Worst Morning.

Ever had "one of those mornings?"

Here's mine:

*warning* This is graphic, and may disturb you. (I'm actually serious.)

Alarm playing. 5-ish am. Lazily hit snooze. Twice.

Murmer to hubby to wake you when he gets up. It's his birthday, can't forget. You want to get up with him and cook him bacon and eggs-something you never, ever do.

Suddenly you are at a hospital. It's not one you've ever been at. 

Walking along the corridor, you see a door on the left holds a post-it note bearing the word, BIRTHS.

You enter.

The immaculate room is exactly what you need. You're in labour, after all.
You sit and turn to your husband that has appeared by your side.
"I don't think she's coming today."
He blows his nose. Stupid cold.
The nurse is on your left handing you chopsticks. You narrow your eyes. Chopsticks?
She makes a motion with them and your confusion clears. Of course.
You insert the chopsticks, spreading open the birth canal.
In a rush of blood and fluids, her body comes barreling into the world.
You are ecstatic and hold her writhing, slimy body close to yours and your smile at your husband through your tears. The nurses take her from you to "clean her" and they ask you her name.
You look at your husband.
"We haven't even thought of it," he admits. How did that happen? You can't even recall any names even being a possibility.
You turn to the nurses, and there, sitting up between your stained thighs, sits your daughter.
Cascading amber hair falls to her bottom, barrettes adorn it throughout.
"Oh, sweet girl, you were born with barrettes," you coo.
Of course she was.
Perhaps she should be called Rapunzel, you think.

But the golden moment is over and you are suddenly in a dank room. Cold, concrete, bare but for a full-length mirror. You are in front of it, nude, a hand on your flat stomach. Where did the swell go?
A grey bed appears behind you. You scramble onto it, laying on your back, frantically pressing into your stomach.
One orange-sized lump rolls beneath your fingers.
Breathe.
Wait, what is that?
Another lump. It rolls freely. Downward. Downward.
You pull it from your loins.
A small fetus, blue and alien, torn umbilical cord hanging...

"Mom. Mom! Look what time it is!"
My son is shaking me now. It is 7:24 am. We usually leave for school at 7:40.
Shit.
"Wake up your sister! I'll take the dog out! Then get yourself some breakfast!"
The dream is still lingering, my hands are shaking as I grab my sweater and get the door into the yard. I quickly wash, yelling instructions to the kids and the three of us manage to leave for school six minutes before the bell goes. 8:19 am.
It sinks in that the hubby left without any fanfare for his birthday, and the dream won't leave me. It makes me ill. The hubby and I decided a long time ago that we were done having kids.
It also takes me a while naturally to just "wake-up." Thus, it's not until I'm done getting the kids to class and driving to work before I actually begin to comprise coherent thoughts.
Text manager: coffee?
Thank God she said yes. This is definitely a Grande Pumpkin Spiced Latte Morning.
With  a Pumpkin Scone.
(And an Oat Bar.)
And wine later.

Kitschy

So the other day I was baking scones. As usual, I was multi-tasking and doing 17 other things while they cooked, until I sniffed and realized they were done. Not really thinking, I took them out and went to turn off the timer, only to find I hadn't set it at all.
It's things like this that make me wistful.
You see, I would love to open a bakery. I love to bake - I do it almost everyday, just to give myself a little bit of peace. But I also love books and I think a little bakery/bookshoppe/tea place would be a lovely thing to run. I know I would love it.
But then I think, "oh, this city doesn't need another little kitschy tea bakery, I would likely fail." Or I think, "to run your own shop you would really need a killer sense of business and ass-loads of confidence. Fail."
So my dream-shop falls by the wayside and I just keep on keepin' on.
*sigh*

Readin'

So I finished up The Time-Keeper by Mitch Album. It was terribly unique, and I quite liked it! Unlike anything I often read, so it was a good one to try. It was also unlike what I had read of his before, so that was a surprise, but a pleasant one:)


I seriously need to reign in my book-buying, as my TBR pile grew into a shelf, and has now taken over a bookcase. Really, I need
help.



So, when looking at the overwhelming pile/shelf/bookcase, I did what anyone would do...I chose a totally different book that technically isn't on that bookcase, Hehe. I felt like tackling one of the Austen's that I haven't read yet, so I began Emma. (I haven't ever read it, so it still counts, right?) This unfortunately became the first of a run of books the began, but were never finished. While I love Austen, my life just did not allow me to become absorbed in Emma. I wanted to read it, but I feel like Austen requires more time than I had at that time. So it went back to the shelf until I can give it the time it deserves.



I searched my TBR shelves again and was too indecisive, and ended up wandering over to my shelves of fiction that I had already read and picked up Diana Gabaldon's first novel, Outlander, as I knew the TV series would be coming out soon. It has been so long since I read the original, I barely
remembered it! But it was a fun, fluffy read even the second go around. I was perfectly content with reading about the drool-worthy Jamie Fraser. I mean, honestly. Such a chore:)
And then looking at the pictures that were coming out to promote the new Starz show. It was fun to re-read with that simultaneously happening. And sooooo hard to look at those...just terrible:) And I just have to post this amazing art by Natira. Seriously. Yum, right? And click on her name to go check out more of the stunning work on her Facebook page.
Anyhoo, got a little sidetracked there, my bad.

After Outlander I picked up Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi. I really enjoyed the translation of the "Evil Stepmother" role into this early twentieth-century, abused protagonist. As I got further into it (about 1/3), I felt again that it required more time and thought than I was granting it, and ended up putting it down. I want to read it when I can truly give it the attention it deserves.

I stumbled back to my shelves, determined to find something that would survive the "5-minutes here, 5-minutes there" schedule that was all I could afford. On a whim, I snatched Conjured by Sarah Beth Durst. I barely read a few pages before I knew it wasn't what I wanted at the time, and put it back.

Let me just state, this isn't like me. I usually find exactly what I'm looking for
and read like hell. To pick up 3 books in such a short time and not find the time/ mood/ whatever to finish them is unheard of in my world. And kind of disturbing. I HATE not having a book on hand that I can delve into. Makes me feel so...bare:-( The only thing I can think that may have contributed was that I was listening to a a lot of audiobooks at the time. I had previously listened to The Hunger Games on audiobook, so while redecorating the kids' rooms and driving back and forth to work, I listened to

Catching Fire and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. Although, now to think of it, I tried out Eve: A Novel of the First Woman by Elissa Elliott, but the discs were terribly scratched. I ended up having to return the set unfinished. Maybe the library jinxed me all along...

Next on the chopping block is Railsea by China Miéville. I mean honestly, what better to curb my indecisiveness than a teen novel in the spirit of Moby Dick, but with trains instead of ships, and monstrous, King Kong-esque moles instead of whales? Sweet:) I'm only a few chapters into this one, but am immensely enjoying it so far. This is my first Miéville novel, and I love his style of description. And his ability to make what otherwise would sound ridiculous, seem dangerous, mysterious, and even enticing. Cross your fingers for me, folks! And stay tuned!

Ella's New Room

So one of the things I wanted to do this summer was redecorate both of the kids' rooms for them. Once we got the okay from our awesome landlords, I went to work! Ella got her turn first:)

As you can see, the room needed some colour!

As many 5-year-old girls, Ella loves Frozen, and requested her room have as much of that theme as possible. I saw that there were a zillion decals, comforters, drapes, and even furniture coated in Elsa and Anna, but I didn't want to spend a fortune. Call me crazy.

One end of the room.

And the other end.

I began by having Ella pick her 2 favorite colours off of her Frozen poster. She picked a baby pink, and what we've titled, "Elsa Blue."

I scored these sheer drapes in "Elsa Blue" for $9 at Ikea. Win!

So Ella really loved this decal of Elsa, but all the places I found it at online would have worked out to more than $40 with shipping for an 8X10 decal. Instead, I whipped out the paintbrush and painted it myself. While it lacks the perfection of the decal, I'm pretty happy with it:)

Elsa silhouette

Instead of buying both the kids' new beds, Ella was happy to take her brother's loft-style Ikea bed. I painted all the (previously) blue panels on it a lovely, dark "Anna purple," as we called it. (Same purple I used for the Elsa silhouette above.) It's quite light in the picture below, but it's just the flash. On the panel at the foot of her bed, I painted the design on Anna's dress.

Anna's dress design.

I had searched on different sites to try and find a way to store Ella's princess dolls in a way so that their hair wouldn't become a rat's nest every time she pulled them from the toy box. I found different pictures on Pinterest that led me to sites where the parents of children with expensive American Girl dolls had come up with ways to store them carefully. While Ella's dolls are nowhere near as expensive, she just didn't want to play with them looking so disheveled, and then, what's the point of having them? 

In the end, I kind of came up with my own idea, then shocked the hell out of myself when it actually worked!

I bought inexpensive moulding, then measured and cut it to comfortably fit 3 of her dolls across evenly. I then painted them in the "Anna Purple" we had been using for accent in the room, and measured and drilled holes the width of the dolls torso's. I inserted cheap pegs (the kind you see in a store on pegboard holding up merchandise) and the dolls hang on the pegs by their underarms. It matches her room, is secure and child-safe, and gives her a great way to keep her dolls (and their hair) pretty and safe! Gotta admit, I was wicked-proud of myself for this one:-D

My mad skillz;)

I had done so well expense-wise, I decided to splurge on one item for her room. She really didn't need a new comforter, so I went for a stroll on the Etsy website and found a super-cute decal with one of Ella's favorite lines from the movie. And it was available in the "Anna Purple" with decent shipping prices! Sold!

Oh, child-Anna, you're too cute:)

So her room is all finished, but for some last minute small character decals I found on sale at Walmart. There is one bare wall however, but I have plans for it. I might have seen a gorgeous Elsa and Anna print at Calgary's comic-con that I will pick up from the artist's site and have framed. Maybe;)

It looks so much more inviting and playful, and Ella loves it, which is most important. And I love that for paint, drapes, decals and new decor, I did it all for under $160 and about 3 solid days of work. But throw on an audiobook, and away I went;)

Next up: Evan's room!

Cringer

A bit frustrating that only the
altered American version of the book
is available to us, but I explained the
changes as the story went along.

So my son and I reached an exciting milestone together: we listened to the first of the Harry Potter books on audio book. He is only 7, but his reading and comprehension are quite good, and he's shown an interest in the stories - so we went for it.
He (and my 5-year old, who was half-listening) absolutely loved it! He asked questions and geeked out with me, and it was just a blast. As a long-time lover of all the books, I had been waiting for this adventure to begin for my son and I.

That friggin' picture.

Once we had finished the book, I told him we could watch the movie together. (I would not let him watch the movie without reading/hearing the book first, unlike many of his friends who had already seen the film. I'm a mean Mom like that:) We finally had the opportunity to begin the movie, and as I prepared some snacks, he pulled out my Blu-Ray collection of all 8 films. He opened the case, to reveal a picture in the inside sleeve promoting the 8th movie. This image of Voldemort terrified him and he came into the kitchen and told me he didn't want to watch it anymore.I explained that nothing in that picture was in this first movie, and that there was nothing to be afraid of. He was emphatic; there was no movie happening. I let my anger get the best of me, as I had been so looking forward to sharing this with him, and I was unfair and angry toward him. Not my finest hour.
Now, in my defence, Evan's irrational fears have caused issues before. He isn't afraid of the dark, or being in a basement alone, or speaking/playing music/acting in front of others. He is afraid of scary images, strangers stealing him, running out of gas in the car, and camping during a storm. While kidnapping is a valid concern, I don't want him living his life in fear. It's the same for seeing this picture of Voldemort. I'm aware the other movies are not appropriate for him, and I would never let him watch them right now. So upon discovering that this incarnation of Voldemort is not in the first film, I wanted Evan to accept that, and watch it with me.When he wouldn't, I felt his fear was irrational, and frankly, it pissed me off.

Man up, Cringer.

It sometimes seems like he is too cautious, too anxious, too afraid. A friend has likened him to Cringer from He-Man. But how to I get Evan to discover the Battlecat inside? The next day, I actually texted this friend after the failed HP movie attempt, sharing my frustration.
She completely understood my frustration and was very sage in her reply:
"Healthy fear is a positive. The odd irrational fear is part of the human experience. But literally being so afraid of things, imaginary things, things that can't get you and aren't even part of the experience you're about to have, being that afraid that you can't partake in life? Insane. And problematic. Because what happens when real life throws scary curve balls? Part of fear - most of fear - is learning to live with and through it. Learning to face it."
Reading this calmed me down immensely. She validated my feelings and gave me the fortitude to talk to Evan the way I should have when he first told me he was scared. I showed him a picture of Ralph Fiennes and explained calmly that Voldemort was the result of a lot of makeup, digital imagery, and excellent acting. I

Quirrelmort

also made it very clear that what he saw in the picture was not in the first film. Then I reminded him that he knew exactly what to expect: we had listened to the audiobook and knew exactly what we were going to see. I told him that the only image I could think of that he might not like was Quirrel-mort, (which, granted, is rather disturbing) and if he wasn't ready for that part, we could fast-forward it. But I wanted him to conquer his fear and watch the rest of the movie, at the very least. He listened and decided to go for it.
We hunkered down and began.
Through the film, he exclaimed and hooted in excitement. He loved knowing what was going to happen next, and recognized scenes from the book. After the wizard chess part, Evan practically bolted from the room, knowing what was coming. He peered from a distance at various parts of the scene between Harry and Quirrelmort, but ultimately admitted he flat out didn't like it. I get that. When it comes down to it, it is a terribly freaky thing to see. It's one thing to imagine in your mind while reading it, but seeing a realistic interpretation could definitely be scary for a child.
By the end, as the Hogwarts Express puffed into the distance, Evan was besotted. He threw on his Gryffindor cloak and wore it with pride.
For me, I was so proud that he decided to brave the movie, and saw that there was nothing to be afraid of.
He also asked me when we could read the second book, which I told him wouldn't happen for a while.
"You'd be petrified," I said.
He just raised an eyebrow as I laughed hysterically.
I am just so excited to finally share Harry's adventure with him:-D
On a side note, when I was surfing Pinterest the other day, I found a link to an awesome blog post chronicling a grown man's experience with watching the first movie, for the first time. He subtitled it: "Wood! Balls! Murder! I can’t believe I waited this long." It is hilarious!
Check it out here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/danieldalton/wood-4-wood.
Regarding the subject of kids and anxiety/panic/worry, please share your advice! While this is a bump in the road, he has had legit panic attacks and I know all this worry, etc will continue. As someone who battles with panic/anxiety disorder, I'm equipped ( I think) to help him should he develop it too, but I truly, truly, TRULY hope this is just a passing phase.

RIP

My Grandad passed away just over a week ago.

He was 90 years old and when I first heard a few weeks ago of his unwell state, I was certain there would be a medical breakthrough and immortality would be discovered through him. There was no man more stubborn. But Death won, as He usually does, and my Grandad passed away.

His illness and passing has revisited a number of complex emotions in me and thus, it has been a difficult week. Due to good 'ol family drama, I have gone through blinding anger, terrible remorse and unhealthy doses of anxiety since last Saturday. Mix that with the hectic last week of school for my kids, and you get the emotional, sleepless lump that sits at this keyboard. But more on that later.

Francis (Frank) Ambrose Christian was one of thirteen kids to my Great-Grandparents. Like many other men his age, he lied to enlist to fight for his country during WWII.

(If you find interest in War stories, there's a wonderful online project my Grandad was included in here.)
Grandad worked for the post office, and in the RCMP. He married my Nanny, Pauline, in 1948 and their only child is my Dad. They were married 55 years when she died of cancer a decade ago.

My Grandad kept an extremely active social life right up until the end: volunteering at the veteran hospital, playing cards, and travelling the world with his second wife. He was also a member of several organizations, like the Knights of Columbus. Apparently they gave him a proper send-off at the funeral.
Due to family drama, I could not attend the funeral, but chose a beautiful arrangement to be sent. Had the flower company not royally screwed up my order, my bouquet might be sitting on his grave now, but instead, they did and it is not. My cousin went to the service however, and informs me it was lovely. (I <3 you Scotty).
My relationship with my Grandad was strained as I became an adult, and we always found each other awkward, I think. I certainly admired his no-bullshit attitude toward life, even if I was never quite good enough for him.

Grandad and I, 2010.

Favorite memories of Grandad:
- Images of him lounging in his mushy lazyboy that always looked as though it was swallowing him.
- That he always took us around the corner for donairs at Toulany's when we visited, or brought it to us if he came out west. He reminded us every time that it was he who signed Bash's papers for him to stay in Canada, even though we'd heard it many times before.
- He and Nan would always buy some Little Debbie desert for my brother and I when we visited. And because they wouldn't eat it after we left, they always made us eat like, 7 of them.
- Every visit, right up until the last, included a tour of first: the tiny living room, which held a barrage of framed photos of all his various encounters with famous politicians or some such person, and then the rest of the house, even though I could walk it in my sleep to this day.
- His smell. Even though we had our differences, thinking of his smell brings tears to my eyes.
- The fact that his birthday often coincided with Thanksgiving, and if we were over in Halifax for it, we would have a turkey dinner and decorate his cake with "Happy Franksgiving."
- The fact that children were so completely alien to him, he once gave my kids random slices of processed cheese as a snack one visit. Oh my God, that was hilarious. I think I have a picture of that, it was so ridiculous. Hang on. There it is:)

Hahahahaha!!! Oh, the confused look on their faces is priceless. I think it was the first time they'd had processed cheese.

Yeah, my Grandad was a hard man, but he was very proud of his accomplishments and the many influential people he met throughout his long life. I love you, Grandad, RIP.