Vacation – sorta

Visiting my brother and his wife in Northern Alberta. I’d forgotten how beautiful a drive it can be and how many photo opportunities there are. Of course, like an idiot, I see something and think, “Ooh, I’d love to take a shot of that,” then spend the next three to ten miles trying to decide if I should turn around and go back for the pic, or not. Because I was driving by myself, I talked myself into it about 25% of the time, but I need to improve that number. Life is too short not to stop and smell the roses click the shutter.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll fire up my other laptop that I brought (it’s a working vacation) – the one with a card reader – and try to post a couple of the pics that I went back to take.

This is my first full day here, and I’m really enjoying it. My brother and his wife have been very active in community theatre for decades, and they’ve just started their own small theatre group and are opening their first show this week. It looked for a while like I was going to be going to a BBQ and sex toy party (how could I resist? what happens if they confuse the two?), but we skipped that and instead I’ve spent the evening helping my brother prep sound cues – looking for public domain audio files for sound and dialogue effects. Gotta love descriptions like “highland-wedding-march-drunken-piper”. Our imagination of it was WAY funnier than the actual file, though.

Holy cow!

Wow. I… wow! Seriously, I had no clue that it’s been so long since I was here. I need to find another source of income than working full time, because the days and weeks (and months!) are flying by faster than ever now, and they were already trucking along at a fair clip before!

I’m fine. Great, actually. As is the family and all who I love. Well, my folks are noticeably fading, and I’m going to have to spend some time coming to terms with that and then helping them come to terms with that, but all in all I have an extremely blessed and joyful life. Still.

Let’s see…. my business, despite the doom and gloom media, has been great and I’m as busy as I want to be, and at times busier than I can comfortably handle. I was having some trouble finding my groove and keeping all the balls in the air when I got several new clients in rapid succession, but I just lost one of those clients – the one who was draining a disproportionate amount of my time and energy – so I’m looking forward to relaxing into the spot and enjoying the work more again. The client was, I’m convinced, manic-depressive or bipolar or something, and as much as I liked him as a person, he was driving me crazy and making me dread Mondays. That telegraphed into all my other work, which I don’t normally dread, and it took a while for me to figure out what was going on.

Our daughter, Jan, broke up with her longtime boyfriend/fiance who she was living with, so that threw everything into a kerfluffle for a bit. They’d been together five years and were almost as good as married, so it took some untangling to separate the two lives physically and financially. But she’s living back home again now (as evidenced by the fact that all her shit is back here and we can’t walk without stumbling over a packing box – LOL!) and she’s happy. Truly happy. Something I had seen missing in her eyes for quite a while. It’s weird having a kid move back home. We found ourselves excited and loving it, but also… ya know… feeling like we’d lost a bit of ground on our independence, somehow. Not that we need to worry – she’s already scoping out places close by to move into on her own, and she’s signed up for some part-time classes to start back to school in the Fall. Our daughter has definitely got it all going on and a firm grasp on the world, and I feel like I’m probably visibly bursting with pride.

Our boys are both doing really well, too, and a strange thing is happening. They’re getting along, for the most part, and tolerating each other, with brief moments of actual friendship. It’s kinda scary to see this foreign beast in my home, so I just watch from a distance and don’t poke it when it wanders by. Ari doesn’t seem to hate me automatically before I even walk in the room or open my mouth anymore, which is a very nice change from the last dozen years of his life. In contrast, I’m seeing Cob and his dad have this fuel and flame, instant aggravation thing going on that was like Ari and I, and I’m getting to experience what Doc experienced for so long – complete bafflement and helplessness when two people you love drive each other crazy.

Uh… let’s see, what other updates and news can I tell you that might be even remotely interesting?

I joined the local gym with Jan. I had never been in a gym before in my life, but figured I’d better up the ante on my own personal exercise program, because I gained 15 fricken pounds over the winter and spring, and damned if I’ve been able to lose them. I don’t know if it’s a peri-menopausal thing (shush, you), a thyroid thing, or if it’s because I’ve been working so damned much and I haven’t taken the time to take proper care of myself. I haven’t been this heavy, or this uncomfortable in and unhappy with my body, in over a decade. Not really the way I wanted to go into summer! But even though I’ve been knuckling down and behaving (well, kinda, mostly), trying to lose the weight, it’s all stubbornly sticking around. Around my waist, to be specific. Annoying as hell. But since it’s the only thing in my life that I have to bitch and gripe about, I won’t bitch and gripe very loudly, because I wouldn’t trade any of the other things that are currently going right in my world – health, finances, love, career – in exchange for a perfectly fit and gorgeous young body.

Hmmm, well, actually……

Nope. No, I wouldn’t. No.

I don’t really know what else to write, which is probably why I haven’t blogged here for so long. This used to be my outlet to vent my frustration, exasperation, and befuddlement with the world. But, you know, along the way, I’ve either gotten more tolerant, or I just don’t give a damn about the little idiosyncrasies of life like I used to.

I think it’s more tolerant. I hope so.

With a dash of laziness, probably.

You’re probably thinking: why the heck did I come here to read this drivel? That’s fair – I’ve turned this into a long post about not much of anything. I don’t want to not have a blog, but at the moment it just isn’t calling to me to come write anything. So, uh…. I’d like to think that I’ll get back into the swing of things and write here more often, because it’s a hugely invaluable tool to me whenever I feel unsure about my footing in life and want some perspective. But for now, I think I’ve got a fairly good handle on things, and I’m too busy living to be writing. (Or to be reading other people’s blogs either, actually. I hope you’re all doing great!)