Daily Pondering.

Retarded Tree.

The other night the 16 YR old decided to assemble the Christmas tree as she said she has most of her Christmas gifts now and has no place to put them, so....she put the tree up and it somehow ended up looking like this: a giant mutated Charlie Brown tree and she couldn't figure out why and why part of it didn't quite fit right and she had to struggle and fight to get it in but she eventually did....and when I got a closer look at it I could see why: it was 2 different trees she was unaware of she accidently put together; a hybrid! if you look closely you can see: the bottom part the branches are a different shade of green as well as a different texture, making it looked warped and retarded but at least she tried and we got a much taller tree than usual; it reaches our 10 foot ceiling this year. In any case after everyone got a good laugh my hubby fixed it taking out the extra piece and the 16 YR old said she wondered why when she took the pieces out of the bag there were 4 of them instead of 3....Look! It comes with an extra piece!

Then of course we plugged in the lights and they didn't work, just our luck, it figures, so my hubby(without checking first) goes out and buys the most tacky, cheap, hideous lights ever, seen here. It's like a donut or crown you put at the top and the lights all drape down the tree like tentacles and when lit up it's not soooo bad but it looks really really cheap, like ping-pong balls or turtle eggs, and I bet he got it at the Dollar Store or something and it's likely some cheap-ass product from China that doesn't even pass safety standards and is likely a fire hazard. It's just soooo ugly I want to torch the tree every time I see it.

There's no way.

Here are the ugly things up close and the 25 YR old agrees with me that they look stupid. I took them off. No way is he going to bastardize our tree like that.Not happening.

Since no one is going to decorate the tree I told my hubby as long as he brings up the boxes of decorations from the basement and carries them upstairs I'll decorate since I'm still recovering from surgery and  I can't carry and lift as last week when I brought a box of decorations up I felt something pop in my abdomen and think I split my incision inside but I'll try and see what I can do just not put up as many as I normally would.....but he came back saying the mice had chewed thru them and ruined them all, seen in the photo here, so he ended up having to go out and buy more decorations and lights yesterday so I can't decorate it until today. I hate those damn mice; they always come in over the winter and they're such a menace they ruin everything; they even ate thru one of my shoes and ruined it but that's one of hazards of living out in the country. We're also supposed to get a snowstorm tomorrow (10-15 cm) but I actually like snow in December though as it doesn't feel like the Christmas season without it.

Today's Truth.

For me: happiness, beauty, and love.

Eye Trouble.

Good news! The 12 YR old's app't with the eye doctor went well! She said the ultrasound showed that the "bump" on the nerve at the back of his eye was just a harmless mutation; normal for him but not of any concern. Originally they had been concerned it might have indicated intra-cranial pressure although he never presented any symptoms indicating it such as headaches, vomiting or seizures. Thank God! I didn't even know that's what they were thinking or looking for; I thought it was some sort of eye trouble they were possibly detecting like a tumour, glaucoma, cataracts( esp. since it runs in our family; both my mother and Babushka had surgery for them and both my hubby and I were told we're developing them and will need surgery within 10 years to remove) or something along those lines; I had no idea they were even thinking along the lines of fluid pressure in the brain from CSF, swelling, bleeding, etc. which, of course, is much more serious, but thank God he's OK. There's always something, and always something to cause me great anxiety and worry.

I also got this "revelation" that due to my declining kidney function(every time I get blood work done every 6 months or so it shows continual kidney decline) I'm dehydrated, and that's why I'm so constipated and having trouble shitting and also why my eyes and skin is so dry and I hardly pee and it stinks like cat piss....hmmm....could be....I also read about the funniest thing the other day,too: a sweet-looking old lady in surgery and shocked the doctors when they discovered she had obscene tattoos on her boobs and ladybits with arrows on them saying Lick this  Suck this F*ck this . I just about died laughing. It has got to be one of the funniest things I've ever heard about. The 16 YR old also said something along the lines of None of us have to worry about a hitman ever coming for us and I replied, Well, I might.... but I'm not sure if she heard me or not because she never responded.

All of the kids are also coming up for Christmas except for the oldest and we'll be having at least 15 people here (we had to go out and buy more dishes!) incl. 2 of the kids' old friends from when they were teens, and we still don't know yet if my brother-in-law is coming or not and I'm sad the oldest won't be here and my heart is sad as I long to see him and I really miss him and haven't seen him in years. That would be the best Christmas gift for me actually; to see him; he's always been one of my faves.

Happy Thanksgiving To All My American Peeps!

Thought For The Day.

Shit.

It's been exactly 3 weeks today since my surgery and just yesterday the bruise from my IV site finally disappeared. I'm still constipated too and need to take a laxative 2-3 times a week in order to even be able to shit at all, otherwise it's hard and stuck and I have to push and strain and it feels like a log-jam in there like it's all backed up and it just won't come out. Even with the laxative the turds are so narrow and thin they're like my finger and light in colour, a light tan colour, likely due to my failing liver, and I really do wonder since the abdomenal surgery if there might be some sort of twisting or blockage in the bowel causing it as it shouldn't be this complicated to shit, esp. not still 3 weeks later, or maybe it has nothing to even do with the surgery but just a coincidence and it's a separate colon issue that just happened to occur at the same time? In any case, when I see the doctor in 3 weeks for my follow-up I'll mention it to her if the problem still persists. I've had issues with my colon before (IBS, divirticulitis, and polyps) for years so it could also be that....

My hubby also snarled that I'd be dead if it weren't for this country ( actually I'd be better off) when in actual fact this country is what's killing me, and today the 12 YR old sees the opthamologist for his ultrasound results and I'm really worried and scared but I try to rationalize it can't be anything too serious to wait this long for the follow-up although in this country everything takes forever to get booked so you never know and all day today I'll be in a constant state of panic and fear, worrying and praying, fearful of what they might say but I hope it's nothing serious(I'll post about it tomorrow once we know) and I can still remember waking up after surgery hearing disembodied but distinct female voices too one (I think the doctor) saying I want her oxygen sats to be better and another(I think a nurse) to me You better start waking up better if you want to go home today and also muffled voices as I kept drifting in and out of consciousness from the anesthesia and I guess it's true what they say that your sense of hearing is the last to go and the first to return...

My hubby also wants the kids' birth certificates and passports to scan he says for his personal info to keep on file but the suspicious part of me is well.....suspicious and wonder what his true intent really is and why he wants it,  and the other day the 16 and 12 YR olds were drawing together(which I like and encourage creativity) but she had to go to work in 20 minutes so I reminded her and she freaked out yelling at me she doesn't need my stupid reminders and that she's a responsible adult and I'm "obsessed" with her, etc. which really hurt. I love, care about, and worry about them and I want them to be healthy and safe and it's my job to make sure they are and to remind them and I'll do whatever I have to make sure that they're OK, and for her esp. to monitor her and make sure she eats ever since her eating disorder 2 years ago; I have to make sure she's ok and to reassure myself she is; it's only because I care but from now on I'll step back, let her go and set her free, no more reminders  now she's made it clear she doesn't love me, want me or need me anymore even though it breaks my heart and I do it out of love and concern for her.

I had a dream as well I was in highschool and had a school uniform and I wore it with pride as it symbolized that I was part of something, that I belonged and was part of a group, something I only felt at the YMCA group in Ottawa but never did anywhere else in life and was always an outsider that never fit in, and I always had this knowing feeling before I die I would see a Monarch butterfly and hear Led Zeppelin's Stairway To Heaven too and for the past 4 days I've heard the song and saw photos of Monarchs so I don't know if that means anything or not....

Wordless Wednesday.

Daily Laff.

Words For Wednesday.

Several actually....

Today's Truth.

Anam Cara.

The Celtic word Anam cara means soul friend, the person you are connected to almost spiritually. You can read eachother's hearts you are so close, so connected, so bonded. It's like you are 2 halves of the same person, soul mates, best friends, connected on a deep spiritual soulful level. That's what Buddy and I are connected on such a deep level we know eachother's thoughts and can "read" eachother. I've never had such an intense bond or friendship like this before, such selfless unconditional love and when other people look at him all they see is an old Dachshund (he turns 14 in February, which is 98 in Dog Years! He's an old fart!) who is greying, has missing teeth, a chewed up leg ( he has arthritis in his hip and chews at it to relieve the pain) walks slowly, has death breath, a wart on his back, a chunk missing from his tail where the grey cat bit it and a constant scab under his eye.....but to me he is beautiful and the cutest dog ever. I don't see an old dog, I see a special soul. I see my best friend, someone who "gets" me like no one else ever has, someone who loves me with a pure heart and doesn't care what I look like or how broken I am. I see my Anam cara who has been sent to me from God to bless my life.He brings love, joy, purpose and meaning into my life and gives me a reason to get up each day, a will to live, someone to dote on, to need me, to love me, to miss me when I go away, to welcome me when I come back, to fill my days with smiles.

I also had a dream I was with a red-haired Scottish guy but in actual fact if I ever did get with anyone he'd most likely have grey hair at this point, and yesterday my hubby was in Toronto all day for work, for an evaluation( he got a raise!) and party and I had a nice stress-free day with him gone all day and Cadets is having a potluck Christmas party soon but I guess my "special" (pot) brownies would be out of the question although everyone would have a really good time if so, and Thursday is the 12 YR old's follow-up at the eye specialist and I know they must have found something on the ultrasound for the follow-up otherwise they'd just phone and say everything was normal and I have a bad feeling about it and it worries me but I hope it'snothing serious though and just something simple, like a dry eye and he just needs eyedrops or something and not sonething like cancer or glaucoma or cataracts and needs surgery or will go blind or anything like that..

All of the snow is gone too now, it has been for days and it's milder now once again: 8 C! My friend A (in Ottawa) was also at some lawyer's conference and boarded his dog and he said it cost 100$ a day! They also send him photos every day of them doing things with the dog and of it having fun. Shit....you can get some human hotels for around 100$ a night...that's sure one spoiled lucky dog!

Thought For The Day.

This.

This has got  to be one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen. Yes, it is. it's a 

roasted Dachshund.

At first when I saw it I knew right away what it was; it looks distinctly like a Dachshund with the shape of the body and oh, my God, the tail  looks exactly like Buddy's(and his tail, BTW, also just happens to be my fave. part of him) and I couldn't believe it and at first I kept trying to convince myself that, no, it can't be, my eyes are playing tricks on me, it has to be something else; it just looks like a Dachshund and then my rational mind started trying to "justify" what I was seeing and tried to rationalize it; no way it's really a Dachshund; it just looks like one, it can't be, maybe it's just a piglet or something but it's cooked so you can't really tell.....it just can't be.... who the f*ck would cook a Dachshund..... until I read the caption below the photo:

Dog meat market in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Holy f*ck. It really was what I thought it was. I really was looking at what I thought I was.All I could think of was my beloved Buddy, my dog I love more than anything, my best friend, and my heart just broke into a million little pieces and the tears ran down my face. Now every time I look at Buddy I see this. I just can't unsee it. I wish I had never seen this; it will be forever imprinted in my mind. The kids are always joking about cooking Buddy (because he looks like a hotdog) like putting him on the BBQ and such but this is real, an actual real Dachshund that someone most likely cooked alive. Definitely one of the most horrible things I've ever seen, that's for sure. Oh, my God.

As well, lately I have this bad pain deep in my back where my kidneys are as well as pain under my right ribs and the pain in my lower right abdomen where I think is from the surgery where something either got pulled or something as well as in my colon from either chronic constipation ever since the surgery 18 days ago or some sort of twisting or blockage. Either way I hurt and yesterday in church the lady that sits beside me asked how my surgery went and even offered for me to call her to come over if I needed help which I thought was super-nice and shocked me esp. considering my own family doesn't even give a shit and basically just left me alone to fend on my own.

Last night my hubby also kept asking me questions such as what is my middle name and how do I spell it, where was I born, what year did we get married, etc.. so I know he's up to something. He said it was info for my employee spouse medical coverage but I suspect not( and my intuitive Sixth Sense tells me not and that something's up and he 's lying and has an ulterior motive and with my life experiences I can always tell) and my guess he's trying to get answers for his security clearance at work to questions I won't answer because I can't risk secrets from my own family and my own past possibly being revealed but if if it is and Pandora's Box so to speak is opened up he has no one to blame but himself....there are some things that should just be left in the past and left alone for a reason....or, maybe he's secretly going to file for divorce and needs the info for that. I'm not sure how I'd feel about that. Happy to be free but at the same time concerned about my survival, the same as I always have been my entire life. Everything's always been about survival for me.

I also saw Frozen 2 and it had some of that spirit mumbo-jumbo but other than that it was really good and I really enjoyed it and they've also changed how you can convert to MP3 for music and download and sync it onto your iPod, making it harder to illegally download music and the usual route I used to use doesn't work anymore so I had to go looking for alternate sources and it's such a pain in the ass and eventually one was found but it wasn't easy and not without issues and I ended up finding ones that always had annoying pop-ups and I had to watch a disgusting porno before I could download and even after all that I still never got my download and others said I had to download other stuff first....yeah, right...nice try guys, it's likely malware....even so I still ended up with a virus of some sort I had to get rid of.....f*ck! Why is is so hard just to get some fine tunes nowadays?

Today's Truth.

The Tree.

I really doubt that we're going to even have a Christmas tree this year. Normally over the decades I've been the one who puts it up and decorates it but lately as my health declines I just honestly don't have the energy or stamina it takes anymore to do it. Just the other day putting up the Christmas decor in the house wiped me out; I was all sweaty, breathless and faint and felt like I was going to pass out. I also felt something pop in my abdomen following my surgery(it had just been 2 weeks post-Op) and today I still have pain there, only now increasingly worse; it really hurts on the lower right side, so I don't know if something's maybe infected or rupturing or what, perhaps that cyst on my right ovary, I don't know, but in any case, the pain is bad enough now to make me wince and to suck in my breath upon certain movements and  I just don't have it in me what it takes to put up a tree and decorate it. I thought the kids might do it but the 16 YR old said she's not going to and there's no way the 12 YR old will and it's doubtful the 25 YR old will and my hubby never has and my mother's in no condition to do it any more than I am. I like Christmas trees. and, in fact, them and the lights are my fave. part of Christmas( other than Jesus, of course; He's the reason for the season and don't you forget it) and this year I was hoping we could put up the white tree with the silver and gold ornaments the 18 YR old used to have in her room down in the livingroom for everyone to enjoy but when I mentioned it the 16 YR old said she already claimed it for her room even though she hasn't even put it up or decorated it yet and it's still just laying there on her bedroom floor. That's sad though, the thought of Christmas without a tree, but what can you do?

My friend in Austria also saw the new Frozen 2 movie with his kids only in German it's called Die Eiskonigin (with an umlaut over the O except I can't do that on my keyboard so it's missing here but I know it's supposed to be there, I didn't 'forget" it) which litterally translated means The Ice Kings which I suppose makes good sense and I really want to see it too so we'll have to illegally download it and watch it because we're cheap that way and I'm not going to pay 12$ to go see it at the cinema! I was also listening to music on Google Home and I exlaimed with glee Skynyrd! when a Lynyrd Skynyrd song came on and Google was listening in on my like a spy and replied back, here is a station playing Lynyrd Skynyrd songs....oh, my God, that just really freaked me out! It's actually really and truly spying on us, listening in our conversations and replying to what we say, even when we're NOT directly talking to it! Holy shit!

I realize as well I live 2 lives; the one on the outside that everyone else sees and the secret one I live inside my head that no one knoes about. Actually, I live two secret lives in my head: the fantasy one where I'm beautiful and free and I'm the way I wish and dream I was, and the real but secret one that only I or a select few people know about, with secrets never to be revealed, intrigue, secret loves and losses, untold traumas, hidden desires, secret thoughts , hopes and dreams, untold traumas, hurts, secrets, past, etc. It's a very busy place in my head full of things always swirling around in a frenzy, never to be calmed or tamed, always gnawing away, trying to escape, refusing to be buried, hard to contain, I don't know if it's the Asperger's or the Bipolar or just my overall general f*cked-up life....or maybe a combination of all three...

Daily Pondering.

Art.

What do you call an armless, legless man on the wall?

Art.

What do you call an armless, legless man on the floor?

Matt.

What do you call an armless, legless man on the water?

Skip.

or Bob.

What do you call an armless, legless man in a pile of leaves?

Russell.

Speaking of art, here is a sketch of an apple( Still Life drawing) the 12 YR old did at his youth group the other night. They had a professional local artist come teach. Good job, huh? It looks like he also ( along with most of the other kids and myself) has inherited the creative gene from my father's side of the family for talent, for either art, writing, or music, as several of the relatives on that side are skilled in drawing, piano, writing, etc. I'm glad though as creativity is a good thing, a really good thing and it makes one unique. My own creativity has either both gotten me into trouble or rewarded personally though, depending on the circumstances. I can remember in grade school always getting yelled at by the teachers( esp. in grade 4) for always being distracted by my drawing and writing in class I was told endlessly to save on my own time and to not do during class, and the art teacher I had in grade 11 that endlessly punished me for my assignments as I only ever did 10% of what was assigned and then added my own style and flair so that my end results never looked like carbon copies like all of the others( but isn't that what art is supposed to be, the creative expression of the artist and NOT the same as everyone else?) and she's give me shitty grades for it like in the 60%'s because it wasn't what was assigned and didn't look like the others...yet in grade 12 I had this awesome art teacher who loved my creativity and I got to do sculptures that year and he rewarded my free-thinking and unique designs and I got a 95% grade.

The 12 YR old also has this App(or whatever you call it) on his device where it alters your photo and can age you or make you look younger and I excitedly said Do the one that makes me look younger! and he laughed and asked why and I said So I can make it a profile picture! For once I'll have a photo that looks good even if it is photoshopped! and it turned out nice(see below) and he commented that when it aged me it didn't look any different(than I do now)....gee, thanks kid....and when he "aged" himself he looked like the 25 YR old does now which makes sense I guess and now he looks just like the 21 YR old did when he was younger but they are brothers so it makes sense they look alike,and so much so that, in fact, when I see old photos of the 21 YR old I can't even tell which one of them it is; is it him younger or the 12 YR old now? The only difference is the 12 YR old has glasses. Other than that you'd never be able to tell.....

The store the 25 YR old and the 16 YR old work at also had a party and he brought home all the left-overs, which was alot of food and we appreciate and need it and aren't too proud or ashamed to accept; he has this knack for always scoring free stuff, just like the oldest does, and today is also the second-oldest's birthday; she's 29, and I'm still constipated even more than 2 weeks post-Op and I have to take laxatives now to even be able to shit at all now and even so it's still hard to go and I really have to strain and it's hard and there's bleeding....I really am beginning to wonder if maybe there might be some sort of obstruction or something; it shouldn't be that hard just to pinch one off and when the laxative does work it just keeps coming and coming, an endless literal shitstorm; it's like it's all impacted and full and just blocked and can't come out and when it does, only slowly, bit by bit.it's just awful.