*just sighs* In the last 8 months I've grown up so much. I know that sounds all cliche and shit, but yeah. I just don't know where to start with all the words.. I had to sit back down and start writing a little again, get it all out, look at it.

Since January I have

* Went on a weekend road trip to Seattle with my older sister because I've been to Seattle 5 times and she hadn't so it pissed her off. We got real trashed in a cocktail bar (kinda) called the VooDoo Lounge, where a dog emerged out from under the bench tables and proceeded to lick my sisters coat. Oh.. and our lamp shade had the word 'Pussy' scrawled on it in sharpie. It rawked.

* Went to Las Vegas again with Husband. He won us a trip there for 4 days on the radio. This tended to piss off friends and family as we had went to Vegas the year before and much fun was had. I learned that the food court in the Luxor is the only place you will EVER find cheap bottled water in Vegas. If you go, watch the fountains at the Bellagio, they'll make you fall in love with the world again.

* I taught myself to knit in about May because it really really pissed me off it was one of the only crafts I couldn't do. I had taken a class on basic stuff the year before but sucked hard and didn't finish my sad little dishcloth. I've been knitting steadily since and found that there's actualling some punk, goth, and geek knitting patterns out there. I was in pure dork extasy when I learned I can eventually hone my skills to knit a scarf with five Final Fantasy characters. I will be boring you all with my kick ass knitting soon.

* I turned 30 and went back home to Kamloops for a big birthday party I threw myself. It made me cry that so many of my friends showed up and that they dropped everything to come. I felt good, I felt better than I have in a long time. I felt like me. I don't give a shit I'm 30, I'm having a good time with it.
For my birthday, my amazing husband got me something I would have never dreamed of asking for, something I've always wanted since I was about 8 years old.
My husband convinced all my friends, and our family and his family and even my boss, to go in on a trip to New Orleans for my birthday present. *just nods*

* August 21 we left for New Orleans and had the most amazing 5 day trip ever. We went on a swamp tour, we went on a city tour, and we went on a Steamboat river tour. I felt like I was home. I touched everything, and looked at everything, and just breathed it all in. It was so peaceful, and beautiful and old. The people there are amazing, or were.
Three days after we got home hurricane Katrine hit New Orleans. When my husband told me about it, I was sitting here listening to ACDC and knitting, I was still basking in my 4 days left of holidays and just being home.
I cried. I really really really cried.
I have a living room full of souvenirs for people from a place that just got wiped off the fucking map. I have t-shirts, and fake voodoo dolls, and mardi gras beads. I have hundreds of pictures I took of beautiful things that are now gone.
I have a big hole in me now.

* *exhales* I'm currently looking for a job. I've been working as a Nanny/Housekeeper for the same family for going on six years now. I feel lost. This is part of my family, this part of what I do, this part of me Angie. Those are my kids I helped raise. They don't want me to end my position but they want me to just stay part time. I keep trying to tell them I can't afford to work part time, and they are helping me look for a job during the day. (they want me from 2-6 now that all the kids are in school all day) I've been secretly looking for fulltime and part time work, I've just been looking for work PERIOD. It makes me panic and gives me nightmares that I'll be out of a job soon and don't know where I'll be working. I'm too fucking old not to take it seriously. I keep telling myself, 'I have a good resume, I have excellent references, somebody WILL hire me'.
No neurosis there.

* So far this year I've seen Annie Lennox and Sting, The Drew Carey All Stars (Drew now has longer bleached blond hair) The Comedy Allstars (Who's Line is it Anyways cast minus Drew Carey), The Doors (yes I know Jim's dead, Ian Ashtbury from the Cult took his place), Pearl Jam, Def Leppard, The Tea Party, Supersucker, Vanilla Fudge (yes they're still alive), Mark Knofler, Jamie Green, and we're going to see Greenday and Santana soon.

So I'm a little weirdly stressed right now, I'm obsessive about small knitting projects and I'm trying not to get that desperate hope on for a job. I can't watch the news right now because it makes me slide-down-in-my-chair-and-cry depressed.
So yeah, thats me right now.
I'm going to blog a proper good-bye to New Orleans soon too.. put up some pics of alligaters eating marshmellows ect, then all of you can share a little bit of it with me too. (in the good way)

I'm sorry I've been scarce, but I can honestly say in the last couple of weeks my life has been changing hardcore. I am one mother fucking DRIVEN woman. *fierce nod*

Two sundays ago my husband was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. I had posted this before but wasn't ready to talk about it so I deleted it. Sometimes you just need to wait for the proper words to come, sometimes you're just not ready to figure it out.
I needed it to just sink in slow, I needed to feel it for all it's worth.
That very day we decided no more. No more eating because we were bored, no more making jokes about being fat and lazy, no more sitting on our asses watching out life whiz on by.

Do you know what it feels like to think back on your life and realize that you've been quite overweight for over 10 years. 10 MOTHER FUCKING YEARS. And what's my excuse.

Nothing. I have no excuse. None.

Sometimes the simple things people say to you are poignant. Maybe it's just the way they say them that hits you so hard or the fact that you're brain doesn't just hear the words but actually grasps the concept.  Somebody said to me lately 'hating your body gets you nowhere, absolutely no where.'
I hate my body.. it's my own fucking body, I'm sitting here going. .well fucking duh why didn't I just get off my ass and do something? Where the hell did it say I'd just sit here and settle. Settle on being stuck and RESIGNED to this being who I am.
Hell no. HELL NO I say.
I'm feeling fierce tonight. Every night since the day we found out my husband is diabetic we've worked out asses off on our treadmill. Every day we make very conscience decisions about what we eat. I will look a brownie or a cookie right in it's beady little creamy center and say 'HELL NO.'

I've lost 15 lbs since December. To me that's amazing, to me I feel strong and good and confident. I feel like I'm finally making some progress, I feel I can set goals and look forward and get excited about things. I notice I look better, I notice I FEEL better already, little bits, just little bits more and more and more.
A woman I've known as a acquaintance for 4 years was talking to me and a bunch of other women on the playground the other day and she says to me 'You know you look good, I mean you (hand gestures at body shape) look really good, what did you do??'  That made my mother fucking day, that made my mother fucking week, that made me stomping my ass off on my treadmill all the much easier. It just felt so damn good to know I'm doing it. To know I CAN do it.
I've decided I'm just not going to take shit from myself any more. I know that sounds kinda odd, but you get to a point in life where you're just making so many excuses for yourself you're starting to believe them. It's bullshit, I've changed so many times in life in so many ways you'd think I'd have caught on by now.
I've set a goal, by my 30th birthday (June 13th) I WILL be at least a size 18. You know I used to cringe when I'd admit I'm a size 22. Thats huge, thats like HOLEY SHIT ASS big. But now I'm a size 20 again, and soon I'll be a 19, and then an 18 and so on,  and then I'll drag all that cool shit back out of my closet that I kept because I knew I could do it sometime.

So lately I am feeling fierce, I'm just not afraid to change. Hell no.

I'm having a really emo day. *nods* Last night I couldn't get to sleep, and when I did finally come to bed, Husband was snoring like a chain saw.
So usually, I just lay there and depending on how tired I am I can either fall asleep despite the noise, OR I can push on him a little and ask him to roll over and hope he stops, or at least aims it in another direction.
After awhile  I  still couldn't sleep and I reached over and pushed on his tummy a little and said 'Hun, roll over please, you're snoring really really loud.. K?' He's like dead asleep and he takes my hand and slides his fingers between mine and says a muffled little 'mmkay' and rolls over holding my hand.
That's just floored me how sweet he is. Sometimes it's just a little thing like that that'll totally fuck you up (in a good way)  and make you think you're the luckiest person in the world to have your partner. 

Then, this morning at work, I'm shoving the kids into their coats, and mitts, AND toques (knitted caps or beanies) and the middle boy Jordie, he's got this little christmas present all kid wrapped in his hand and he's looking at me, then looking at it.
So I say to him, 'Hey? We've gotta  get to school, we're going to be late. Who's that for should I put it in your backpack??'
And he's all 'it's for you!'
And I'm all 'Huh? Oh wow, ok neat'
And so he waits for his brothers to get downstairs and I stuff them in all their winter wear too, and I open a corner of his cute little kid wrapped present, and I see a few stripes of color.
So I'm thinking, Oh cool! they got me a scarf, neat I can use a scarf.
I keep opening and when I finally get it out, I start to laugh and I'm kinda touched and it makes me want to cry cause the kids are really sweet.
They got me Rainbow Toe Socks. *big smile*
One of my best friends Mary got me a pair with my christmas stuff and I wore them to work and although the oldest boy thought they were kinda freaky to have divided toes while wearing socks, the other two thought they were cool and asked me about them.
I told them when I was little I had a favorite pair of toe socks and they had rainbows and I wore them all the time.(I had a great pair in college too that came up to my knees and I wore them out)  So when my friend Mary seen these ones she had to buy them for me because she remembered, and I wear them because they're special.
SO, my little monkey boys at work, well mainly Jordie it was his idea, while shopping with their mom, happened to see another pair. It made me feel really special they thought of me and my boss says to me 'Jordie said you had a pair when you were little and they were your favorite'.
My work kids bought me rainbow socks. Wow, it still makes me want to cry because I love these kids so damn much.

I just made Husband a new T-shirt. I love iron on transfer printer paper.

Unfortunatly, the picture doesn't want to show up well on here, as it's about 4 times the size on the T-shirt I just made. It says: 'Nintendo, F*cking kids lives up since about '85'.