Sunny day, keeping the clouds away!

By winter standards in Vancovuer, it is paradise! No rain yesterday and sunny today. Very odd, but I'm not knocking it -- no siree! I'm going to enjoy it!

I've finally got my shit together and have boxed up some things to be sent, some for the holiday season, some that have been waiting for some time.

Nate and Justin are sitting on the couch having an intense conversation about cranberries (Nate's current snack favorite).

It is my last week of work in my supervisor position and I'm pretty much ready to be done. I really like the job and I love my team, but I think I'll like having less responsibility. It has been a full year with lots of challenges for me and I've learned so much. I'm ready for more time to spend with Justin and Nate.

I introduced Nate to Gumbi this weekend and he loves it! I forgot how much fun they were, but also had forgotten how American they are. George Washington, the Declaration of Independence, Ben Franklin all make appearances. Still so much fun.

He was once a little green slab of clay...

One trick pony

sell my condo
sell my condo
sell my condo

my roller coaster relationship

with real estate.

This is getting ridiculous! I'm soooo close to going home that I can taste it, hell I've even been dreaming about it lately. I know that's weird, but I had this dream that we all moved home into my mother's house which was, as it always happens in dreams, not my mother's house but a huge gorgeous old mansion with a basement to rival the coolest of houses. And in this dream Idjie was alive. I dream of Idjie a lot, and I'm not entirely sure what he is doing in all of these dreams except being Idjie. Anyhow, in this dream I'm joyous 'cause we are home and everyone is good and lights are sparkling in the sky (seriously!).

So I know that all won't be fabulous and all my troubles won't melt away just by going home, but dammit we had a plan.

It looks like we might have to lower the price on our condo if we want it to sell. I'm generally okay with that, but it brings up the whole what are we doing and why are we doing it thing. I feel like if I don't make this all happen perfectly then it won't happen at all and the stress is starting to get to me a bit. Part of me is also wishing that I had done this six months or a year ago and we'd be sitting pretty. Stoopid crash, stoopid banks, stoopid people who won't buy my condo.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry really. Or buy video games. Maybe an X BOX to take the edge off. Just a little bit of retail therapy.

I feel like something has got to give.

I love it when a plan comes together....

or almost comes together.

I got word on Friday that my director is supportive of my telework agreement! This means I can take my job to Halifax!!! No kidding! I had been trying hard not to count on it or jinx it (or think of it in any way)since it was a bit of a long shot. This means I can take my Analyst job with me and work from my home office in Halifax. When I get a home office, that is. Currently we haven't had any offers on our place yet and we are getting a little antsy. We had a fairly well attended open house on the weekend and have two showings tomorrow.

I really love the place we are offering on in Halifax. With my guaranteed income now we may be able to keep both places, but it would be stretchy. The idea was really to have no debt, not increase it. On the other side of it, if we can afford it the Vancouver rental market is waaaay hotter than the selling market right now, so we could make it work.

Keep up the voodoo magic folks, it seems to be working!

Patty

Sell this frickin' house

So our deal to sell this place with our neighbor fell through and we are now on the market. Being on the market makes me feel veeeeery insecure. As anyone who reads the papers or watched the news, or is alive knows, whatever "the market" is, it is not good. Places in this complex similar to ours previously sold in one lousy day! Now we are holding our breath to see if we can get at least $40, 000 less than we could have got for it six months ago. It isn't the money (well mostly it isn't), but the uncertainty that is killing me. I want to go home! I have a house all picked out and everything. Anyone who imagined me stamping my foot with the last sentence is abso-frickin-lootely right. So whoever is reading this do whatever prayer, strange pagan ritual, voodoo magic or whatnot you can to get this sucker moving.

In other news, Nate is awesome! We took him around and about on Halloween and once he hit the first few houses all hesitance went out the window! He was walking into peoples houses! Yesterday, he threw his arms around my legs and said "Mama, I'm your best friend." He tells me he loves me every night before he goes to bed (something I did even until my teens with my Mom and Dad--oops and now that I think it I still do it). It breaks my heart in a good way and I will never get tired of hearing it.

Screw being a rock star academic -- being a mom is better.

Nate and Sosi - PEI 2008

Home again, home again.

So. We've done it. We are selling the house here in Vancouver and moving to Nova Scotia. We pretty much decided it was time when we were home this summer. Now we are off our butts and have taken the plunge. A neighbor has put an offer in on our condo and we have some promising leads on places in Halifax.

Wow.

It feels really odd to be doing this, even though it has been our plan for a long time. I keep wondering how we can leave all of our amazing friends behind. It kills me to think about this, we have so many wonderful people in our life. We really love Vancouver but the bottom line is that it is too tough to make ends meet here, and Nate (and us too) really needs to have family close. And let's face it, for the last few years we have hardly been availing ourselves of the whole urban Vancouver scene. It's nice to have the choice, but we aren't living here for the night life, you know?

I have some job stuff to sort out and we have some house stuff to sort out, but it looks like we will be landing in Halifax smack dab in the middle of winter. BRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Guess we'd better get some snowsuits.

Also, I'd like to take thi opportunity to let anyone who might still be reading this sporadic blog to have a look at Justin's blog. I'm loving it and am finding things out from it that I don't know about his day to day. Is that scary?

Vaykayshun, cha cha cha! Vaykayshun, cha cha cha!

As you may already know we are on vacation. On Wednesday it will be two whole weeks with two more to go until we go back to Vancouver. The first week was totally about lying low and hiding out from the rain-of-biblical-proportions (Hello tropical storms). We were just hanging out at my folk's place and doing some cool kid in Halifax stuff with Nate. We hit the Museum of Natural History (where they have a butterfly house and a functioning hive of bees you can watch) and the Discovery Centre (where they make bubbles you can stand in). We also hit the public gardens on one very foggy evening and let Nate get freaked out by the ducks who like to get up close and personal (he did really like them though in the end). 

Nate loves my parents. He was completely mesmerized by my Dad (who he calls grandfather) and followed him around everywhere (as most kids and pets do). After a day or two he refused to let my mother go to work in the morning (stay here Nana! No go!). They got him a water table, let him run around through the sprinklers (on the nice two days), and were all around spoily spoily with him.  Then it was bye bye to PEI to stay with our friends Lori and Paul. 

How many ways can you say magic? The weather was lovely from the moment we left Halifax, the ferry ride went without a hitch, and the lovely and talented Lori was on the other side waiting to give us big hugs. The past days we have spent here have been the most relaxing time I can remember in a long while. Sosi and Nate are, for the most part, in love with one another and play great together and give us adult-types time to breathe with the play they can cook up between themselves. We have missed the Lopes family so much since they moved and are having an amazing time just chatting and shopping and hanging out and catching up. We will be so sad to leave in a few days. 

Y'all being in the Maritimes makes me go hmmmmm a little. I mean it always does in the what-if way of the world but this time I'm giving it a really serious hmmmm. Can it be that the tirade is ready to move to a smaller city? Stay posted sports fans. In the meantime I'm hoping to catch up with lots more friends while I'm home. 

We took Nate to the beach today and he freaking loved it! We could barely get him home. He and Sosi spend much of their time in the backyard running around like little savages and splashing in the kiddie pool. Lori and I went to the local flea market this morning and found some great stuff for prices I was almost ashamed to pay. Island life is good. 

I'm so tired after a long day at the beach that I'm not even going to proof read. I'm just gonna click the friggin button. 

I am Legend

I ordered it from the cable company and sat down to watch it last night. It turned out to be a not-too-subtle-but-different-enough-to-be-interesting remake of a Charlton Heston movie called The Omega Man (which I have seen a few times and liked in a creepy cultie movie kind of way). I like Will much better than Charlton, by the way and I thought he did a great job. 

So y'all, when the movie finished I burst into tears for like 15 mins. Truth be told, this end of the world humanity screws itself through bio warfare/nuclear destruction/nature strikes back kind of stuff terrifies the snot out of me. The. Snot. Out. Of. Me. Also I am fascinated by it. 

My question is: why do I do this to myself? 

I saw The Day After when I was 13 years old and I have been terrified about living through some world changing, population killing, cataclysmic event eve since.  Guess what? Still scared (but hiding it better). 

Now that I have a kid these fears seem to be more attached to fearing what would happen to Nate if such an event were to occur. Call me crazy, but if/when the big whatever it is comes I think we will need more than bottled water to fix things. I know this fear is exacerbated by all of the mass tragedy around the world that has been in the news. And I have no survival skills. I know that. I would have very little to contribute to a post armageddon society. 

So what do you think? Am I going old lady everything is dangerous crazy? 

Off to the Big Smoke

I'm busy doing laundry and prepping for a business trip to Ottawa this week. I've never been there so I'm a bit excited. The really exciting thing is that I'll get to see my sister's family (including a new nephew) and my Auntie and her family while I'm there. Who knew there would be so much waiting for me in the Nation's capital?

I took Nate to get a haircut today. His hair is short (like short short). I felt like it was too much with the summer coming on for him to mess about with lots of hair. He went from baby to boy in 15 mins flat. I will post pics here soon. He also got a lolly from the hairdresser and was very excited. I think it might have been his first.

I got my hair done but no lolly.

Sometimes it sucks to be an adult.

Hot and Not

We have had two days of heat and sun and Vancouver seems to have exploded with flowers and summer, or maybe I just wasn't paying attention. 

One of my aunties is coming to visit us tomorrow from Ottawa and I am totally excited. I was very close to her growing up. Her parents used to make her take me on dates when I was younger, and it seemed like she had limitless patience (in retrospect) for her little chaperone. 

She moved from Halifax a number of years ago and has never met Nate. It makes me almost stupidly happy that she is going to come here to see us. I very rarely have the chance to show my family what my life is like out here in Vancouver. I guess I'm proud of what we have built here.

Mama Tirade

This morning my family let me sleep in to an unimaginable 9am (the luxury)! Nate woke me up yelling 'Happy Mother's Day Mama' at the top of his lungs. It sounds sappy, but it was music to my ears. This was followed by a very proud "I help make pancakes!"

They were lovely. Justin pulled Nate's step stool up to the kitchen island and he poured and stirred and then sat at the table with us while we all ate pancakes with golden corn syrup.

A great morning.

I love being a mom.

What the #@*&^%$ is wrong with me?

Y'all I'm tired.

This week I feel ground down to a chubby nubbin. Not pissed off, not self righteous, not fierce at all. I feel very un-Tirade-ish. It could be the heat in my cubicle at work that I'm sure is about a kazillion degrees when the sun shines in Vancouver (I yearn for but fear nice days). It could be my really crappy food choices (bad, bad ones, don't ask). I feel like all the good has been sucked right out of me. So today when I was staring at a woman who I supervise wondering why she wasn't doing my job instead of me (cause she is that frackin good and I feel tired and old an broken down) I think I hit on it. I need a vacation. An honest to goodness get the fuck out of Dodge vacation. I have been going non stop without more than a few days strung together off since I before I started my new job. I went from working a job with some insane overtime to a job where we created a new unit from scratch. Mighty satisfying but I think I'm pooped.

And what is worse? It means that I'm less present for my kid and mate and dog. That truly sucks. This is a good thing to realise.

Now to do something about it.

How the mighty (and ridiculous) have fallen

So I have a great job. A lot of people think it might be a bit depressing but it works for me. I am a little cog in a wheel that endeavors to help compensate survivors of violence. I love the work that I do and I take pride in it. I recently found out that our department will be absorbed into another department. A department I never would have wanted to work for and wouldn't have applied to work for at all, EVER (or so I thought) for very real ethical reasons. So here I am feeling like I've compromised something. I feel like one of little ghosts that pacman used to eat. I feel dirty.

Lets face it--I am unlikely to leave the work and the people I love (I seriously do love them all). What does that make me? I have stated often and loudly that I would not want to work for this place. Sellout. Turncoat.

Is this what it is like to grow up?

Hey, look at me!

New Promise

So you've all heard the promises of blogging to come, of renewed blogging etc. I am going to try to post sometthing every couple of days, even if it just a sentence. Let's see how it goes.

About 1/2 hour ago Nate came up to me grinning. He said, "I'm drinking water mama!" On a closer look I noticed that his face and shirt were covered with water.

*DING*

"Were you drinking Snoopy's water Nate?"

"Yeah, I a dog!"

Oh my.

Just in case anyone is still out there!

Nate wakes up in the morning now in his crib and plays. When he's had enough alone time he yells, just loud enough for us to hear, "Mama, Dada, where are you?" How freaking heart breaking is that? It works on me like a magic wand.