Mr. V has kidnapped me to a place filled with trees, mountains, cold weather, REALLY cold weather, crazy drivers, and did I mention REALLY cold weather? Welcome to my spring vacation!
We are here in Alberta, Canada. So far the trip has been a fun adventure. Mr. V has a little over a week of leave, so we decided to go on a vacation. Since he is the one who is about to go on deployment, I let him pick the trip. So everything we are going to do here is all his idea...with a little input from myself (i.e. I refuse to go on a gondola ride that hangs thousands of feet over the ground, so he settled for one a little less scary. I also refuse to hike in the back country of avalanche territory, along with other scary dangerous things he would love to do.)
We left Oak Harbor Saturday morning and made it to Revelstoke, British Columbia by nightfall. The ride was an adventure. I'm sure I'm just a wimp, but my sheltered east coast upbringing kicked in big time as we drove through snowy mountain passes. I have learned that Canadians are completely psychotic when it comes to driving. They drive at least 30 miles over the speed limit on wet or icy roads and around sharp twists and turns without ever hitting their brakes. If you aren't driving as psychotically fast as they are, they are quick to pass you in no passing zones, while driving around a sharp turn. Needless to say, the drive was a bit scarier than I ever imagined it to be. I'm not exactly sure WHY they insist on driving this way. I would be inclined to say that they know what they are doing, but we passed one tractor trailer shell on the side of the road (it was obvious that it flipped over, and burned to a crisp on one of those sharp turns. Did I mention that the 18 wheelers also drive insanely fast? I was amazed that they just left the shell of a truck there on the side of the road. It looked like it had been there for a while.) A few hours down the road, we passed yet ANOTHER tractor trailer that had overturned on the highway, around a sharp turn. We have pictures of that one that I will upload when I get a chance to organize the pictures. You would think that burned trucks, flipped over trucks, and bridges with guard rails that have obviously been hit, would inspire people to drive a little more carefully, but apparently not.
The crazy drivers, along with the snow and ice that we encountered in several areas made for a scary drive. But thankfully, we made it to Revelstoke unharmed. We stayed at a really nice hotel for the night, and in the morning we headed off to Banff, Alberta.
The drive to Banff was interesting in several ways. First, it was absolutely beautiful. Ever since moving to Washington, Mr. V has driven me crazy with his constant speeches of "Brooklet look! There are big snowy mountains around us!" I do think the area of Washington that we live in is beautiful, but to me it was a beauty that wore off quickly. I still think its nice, but I just can't get excited about it every day like he can. So I wasn't really expecting to be amazed at the big snowy mountains up here, but I was. This is a beautiful area. The rocky, jagged mountains (I had an epiphany when I said "Hey the Rocky Mountains are really rocky!"), are pretty spectacular looking and I have to admit that I am impressed by the beauty up here. We drove through 3 or 4 national parks on our way to Banff (Banff is one of them) and on the way I had some more scary shocking moments. We are apparently in avalanche country out here. I can't even count the number of times we saw signs that said "Avalanche area...do not stop". That was just a little shocking to me because I've never been in an area where avalanches are common. We even saw the results of several of them. The roads up here have avalanche tunnels that are strategically placed at the bottom of frequent avalanche areas. I thought that was interesting when we drove through the first one. I thought that was REALLY interesting when we drove through several of them in a row that were completely covered by snow...the result of avalanches. Thats another thing I will upload pictures of eventually.
The next interesting stop for us was on the border of British Columbia and Alberta. There is a small, quaint, little town called Field. There's nothing extremely exciting about the town, but I just found it interesting because there couldn't have been more than 50 homes, and it is hours away from any larger town. It was just so secluded and quaint that it almost seemed unreal. To me it looked like a town that is placed around a train set at Christmas time. I don't know how people can live there 365 days a year without going crazy, but I could happily live like that for a few weeks before I'd lose my mind :-).
We are staying at the Banff Springs Hotel, which is a dream for a history nerd like me. It was built in 1886 and aside from renovations and upkeep, it still looks like an old historic hotel. Mr. V definitely made a good choice in choosing a place to stay.
Today was spent on the Banff Gondola and on Sulpher Mountain. This was the least insane of the gondola rides Mr. V wanted to go on. I still freaked out a bit when I saw how steep it was, and he has a video of me on the ride up that no one will ever see (I had no idea he was filming me as I had a small panic attack.) This particular one stays fairly close to the top of the trees, wheras the other crazy one he wants to ride, is WAAAYY above the trees. I chose...well...compromised...on this one based on the fact that it stayed lower. However, I didn't know that it is one of the steepest gondolas in the world, which is what caused my panic attack when we got on, and I looked up the mountain. I am happy to say that I survived the trip and saw an amazing view of the Canadian Rockies at the top. I'm also happy to say that I survived the cold at the top of the mountain and even managed to hike one of the trails that had a sign saying "Hiking not recommended."
Tonight we're just relaxing back at the hotel, but tomorrow brings more adventures as we check out the famous hot springs here! I'm not sure about the idea of swimming outside when its 10 degrees out, so we'll see how this goes!
Monday, March 30, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
How do I maintain my sanity?
I was going to sit down and write a pretty long blog about the visit from my in-laws last week. However, I think the majority of the visit can be summed up in one single conversation that I had with my father-in-law on the last day he was here (This is almost word for word exactly as he said it. The only way words are changed is if I forgot what he actually said. There is no sarcasm or exaggeration.):
FIL: *spoken in the most condescending tone I've ever heard* "Brooklet, I'd like to talk to you seriously for a minute. I don't want you to take this as a criticism because its not. I am just genuinely concerned about you. I don't know if you are going to be able to handle it when Mr. V is deployed. First of all, you have 9 cats to take care of. Do you understand that that is a lot of work? I don't think you are going to be able to handle it. You really need to think about downsizing and getting rid of at least 3 of the cats. I don't think you completely understand what is going to happen when he's gone. You are going to have to take care of the house. You are going to have to learn how to do certain things...like learning how much money you have in the bank account, balancing the checkbook, and learning how to pay the bills."
I interrupted him at that point because I could only take the condescending insults for so long. First of all, yes sir, I know I have 9 cats. And you know what? If I downsize to 6 cats, I will still have to feed them, scoop their litter boxes, take them to the vet when needed and give them attention. The only thing that happens when I have the 3 "extra" ones is that I tend to trip over them more often. Otherwise, I still have the same number of litter boxes to scoop and as gross as it is, 3 extra piles of poop is not something that is going to cause me to falter and prove that I can't live on my own.
Second, not all husbands control every single thing that their wife does. Some husbands let their wives have access to their bank accounts. Some husbands even let their wives handle paying the bills ALL THE TIME, which is what we do. I pay the bills now. I've been paying the bills for well over a year. Before I met Mr. V, I paid my own bills for the house I rented ON MY OWN (well with a roommate, but still...). I have been paying my own bills since I was 18. I turn 28 in a month. I think I know how paying bills works. Oh and the bank account? I am the one who balances our checkbook and keeps Mr. V in check when it comes to spending money (he's not a bad spender, but I just have more knowledge of what's in the bank account because, oh that's right, I PAY THE BILLS!!)
I did tell him all of that, in the politest way possible, but I think I let some anger slip into my voice anyway. I really tried to be nice and patient and tell him nicely that I already knew how to maintain a house on my own, but its hard to be that polite when you are seething with anger. I know I should just let it go, and brush it off my shoulders, but I was VERY insulted by that conversation with him.
Couple that conversation with the 2 hour conversation we had at dinner one night. Apparently, FIL thinks its absolutely important that Mr. V and I produce some children NOW! He stated reasons such as "You don't want to wait too long. Brooklet is getting older." Thanks. I know people have children when they are much younger than me, but I wasn't aware of the fact that I had reached an age where child bearing almost wasn't possible anymore. When Mr. V explained to his father that he has been under a LOT of stress and pressure lately and didn't even have the mindset to think about children right now (which I think is a pretty good excuse - he HAS been really stressed lately, so why in the world would you want to add more responsibilty to his already heavy load right now?) Mr. V also explained that if and when we do have kids, we want to try to plan it so he will be around more than he is now. I am adament about the fact that I want my future children to have a father. I don't want to be a single mother, and the way life is right now, even when Mr. V isn't deployed, I would essentially be a single mother because he doesn't have any extra time to throw around. We both understand that perfectly planning when to have a child doesn't always work, but at the same time, we don't think that means we have to be irresponsible on purpose. Father-in-law came back with reasons why all of our "excuses" were bad ones. He basically said that its ok if I'm a single mother because kids don't need a dad to raise them (umm maybe they don't, but I'd like it to happen if possible). He also said that when dad IS around, he just needs to spend all of his time with his children, therefore leaving his wife in the dust and not paying any attention to her (which I have a major problem with). He said that grandparents can help raise the children (which might work out if the grandparents lived anywhere near us...but they don't) He kept making comments like "Whatever. You'll get through it" and you know what? I know that we WOULD get through it. HOWEVER, now is not a good time for us to have children. Its not even a good time for us to THINK about children. If something unplanned happens, then yes, we will get through it. But I really think its insulting and somewhat crazy that my father-in-law cares about nothing except for the fact that you are supposed to have kids, so why don't we have any yet?
They were here for 9 days and I was more than happy to say goodbye to them when they left. My mother-in-law is a VERY sweet lady and I feel bad for her because she never has much to say when FIL is talking, but I can't complain about her too much. She went with me, and my sister-in-law to a Mary Kay event that we had a lot of fun at, and she bought me a nifty early birthday present from an antique store in nearby Freeland. She found these earrings that were made from the insignia of a World War II military uniform. They are WWII planes, that someone sodered earring backs onto. Since I'm a history nerd, and my husband is a pilot, I thought they were great! So that was a nice diversion from the annoyances of my father-in-law's "How to live life MY way" speeches.
So now the visit from my own mother is a month in the past. The visit from my in-laws is already starting to fade away. Now its just Mr. V and me until deployment. We are going on a pre-deployment vacation to Canada next week and I have never looked forward to getting away from here more :-).
FIL: *spoken in the most condescending tone I've ever heard* "Brooklet, I'd like to talk to you seriously for a minute. I don't want you to take this as a criticism because its not. I am just genuinely concerned about you. I don't know if you are going to be able to handle it when Mr. V is deployed. First of all, you have 9 cats to take care of. Do you understand that that is a lot of work? I don't think you are going to be able to handle it. You really need to think about downsizing and getting rid of at least 3 of the cats. I don't think you completely understand what is going to happen when he's gone. You are going to have to take care of the house. You are going to have to learn how to do certain things...like learning how much money you have in the bank account, balancing the checkbook, and learning how to pay the bills."
I interrupted him at that point because I could only take the condescending insults for so long. First of all, yes sir, I know I have 9 cats. And you know what? If I downsize to 6 cats, I will still have to feed them, scoop their litter boxes, take them to the vet when needed and give them attention. The only thing that happens when I have the 3 "extra" ones is that I tend to trip over them more often. Otherwise, I still have the same number of litter boxes to scoop and as gross as it is, 3 extra piles of poop is not something that is going to cause me to falter and prove that I can't live on my own.
Second, not all husbands control every single thing that their wife does. Some husbands let their wives have access to their bank accounts. Some husbands even let their wives handle paying the bills ALL THE TIME, which is what we do. I pay the bills now. I've been paying the bills for well over a year. Before I met Mr. V, I paid my own bills for the house I rented ON MY OWN (well with a roommate, but still...). I have been paying my own bills since I was 18. I turn 28 in a month. I think I know how paying bills works. Oh and the bank account? I am the one who balances our checkbook and keeps Mr. V in check when it comes to spending money (he's not a bad spender, but I just have more knowledge of what's in the bank account because, oh that's right, I PAY THE BILLS!!)
I did tell him all of that, in the politest way possible, but I think I let some anger slip into my voice anyway. I really tried to be nice and patient and tell him nicely that I already knew how to maintain a house on my own, but its hard to be that polite when you are seething with anger. I know I should just let it go, and brush it off my shoulders, but I was VERY insulted by that conversation with him.
Couple that conversation with the 2 hour conversation we had at dinner one night. Apparently, FIL thinks its absolutely important that Mr. V and I produce some children NOW! He stated reasons such as "You don't want to wait too long. Brooklet is getting older." Thanks. I know people have children when they are much younger than me, but I wasn't aware of the fact that I had reached an age where child bearing almost wasn't possible anymore. When Mr. V explained to his father that he has been under a LOT of stress and pressure lately and didn't even have the mindset to think about children right now (which I think is a pretty good excuse - he HAS been really stressed lately, so why in the world would you want to add more responsibilty to his already heavy load right now?) Mr. V also explained that if and when we do have kids, we want to try to plan it so he will be around more than he is now. I am adament about the fact that I want my future children to have a father. I don't want to be a single mother, and the way life is right now, even when Mr. V isn't deployed, I would essentially be a single mother because he doesn't have any extra time to throw around. We both understand that perfectly planning when to have a child doesn't always work, but at the same time, we don't think that means we have to be irresponsible on purpose. Father-in-law came back with reasons why all of our "excuses" were bad ones. He basically said that its ok if I'm a single mother because kids don't need a dad to raise them (umm maybe they don't, but I'd like it to happen if possible). He also said that when dad IS around, he just needs to spend all of his time with his children, therefore leaving his wife in the dust and not paying any attention to her (which I have a major problem with). He said that grandparents can help raise the children (which might work out if the grandparents lived anywhere near us...but they don't) He kept making comments like "Whatever. You'll get through it" and you know what? I know that we WOULD get through it. HOWEVER, now is not a good time for us to have children. Its not even a good time for us to THINK about children. If something unplanned happens, then yes, we will get through it. But I really think its insulting and somewhat crazy that my father-in-law cares about nothing except for the fact that you are supposed to have kids, so why don't we have any yet?
They were here for 9 days and I was more than happy to say goodbye to them when they left. My mother-in-law is a VERY sweet lady and I feel bad for her because she never has much to say when FIL is talking, but I can't complain about her too much. She went with me, and my sister-in-law to a Mary Kay event that we had a lot of fun at, and she bought me a nifty early birthday present from an antique store in nearby Freeland. She found these earrings that were made from the insignia of a World War II military uniform. They are WWII planes, that someone sodered earring backs onto. Since I'm a history nerd, and my husband is a pilot, I thought they were great! So that was a nice diversion from the annoyances of my father-in-law's "How to live life MY way" speeches.
So now the visit from my own mother is a month in the past. The visit from my in-laws is already starting to fade away. Now its just Mr. V and me until deployment. We are going on a pre-deployment vacation to Canada next week and I have never looked forward to getting away from here more :-).
Monday, March 9, 2009
Down on the Farm
People tend to make comments about my house full of cats pretty often. Sometimes I have mixed feelings about these comments, when I find myself wondering "Should I be happy that he just said that? Or does that mean that I'm really a crazy old cat lady?"
For example, this past October I made the rounds of Petsmart and Petco for their annual Halloween Costume Contests. I dressed up the cats, and my rabbit. At Petsmart, the cats as a group won 3rd place (don't laugh - you win money for this stuff!). At Petco, my rabbit, dressed as a scarecrow won 3rd place. However, while the rabbit was a winner at Petco, the cats got their own special prize. At the end of the contest, the manager of Petco stood up and started talking about wonderful people who do animal rescue. He was talking about cats, and since there was a kitten adoption event going on in the store, I didn't think much about his speech. I just thought he was talking about the adoption event. Then at the end of his speech he said something along the lines of "And today we have 2 people here who have started their own rescue in their house, and we are thankful every day for people like them." He was talking about us. During the contest we had to show everyone our animals and talk about them a little. So of course we were introducing cats by saying "This is Wendy. She was living in a dumpster when we found her." "This is Patches. She was living in a bush begging for food at a restaurant that we stopped at." And so on... So the "prize"? We were given 6 large coupon books full of items for cats. They are the same coupon books that you would be given if you were to adopt a cat at Petco. In the books were several coupons for free food, which we can ALWAYS use! He also gave us a bag full of food samples. We were VERY greatful for all of this but we were also slightly in shock. Both Mr. V and I were thinking "He just called us a rescue. Is that a good thing? Or are we crazy?"
Fast forward to this past Friday. One "fun" thing about having a lot of cats is dealing with them when there is a medical issue. Sometimes its hard to figure out which cat is sick. Sometimes when we do find a cat with something wrong with it, it means the the other 8 also have the same thing wrong with them. So about 2 weeks ago I took my cat Wendy to the vet for a dental cleaning. She had minor dental disease and I have been told for several years that she needs a professional dental cleaning. I kept avoiding it because cats need to be under anesthesia for dental work, which is expensive. February was Dental Month at Best Friends Veterinary Hospital, with 10% off so I finally caved and took Wendy in. $500 later, she had clean teeth and updated shots (some of that money went to some extra monitoring that I opted for while she was under anesthesia ). They also ran some lab tests on her, did a "fun" stool sample and found out that she has coccidia. Coccidia is a wonderful, fun parasite that is one of the harder parasites to get rid of. So of course, I asked the vet if my other 8 cats would also have coccidia. The answer? "Not neccessarily, but its very likely." Wonderful!
I went home and debated back and forth with Mr. V about what to do about our possible coccidia outbreak. In the midst of debating whether or not we should drop a few thousand dollars on ALL of the cats at once, another one of the cats, Moses, started scooting his butt across the floor. Wonderful. While that action is funny to watch, its also really disgusting. It usually means one of 3 things. 1 - he's cleaning his butt after using the litter box (absolutely gross, but this would have been the best answer), 2 - he has anal glands that need to be drained, and for anyone who knows about this procedure, its something that can be done at home, but it is worth any amount of money in the world to have a vet do it for you, or 3 - he has worms/parasites. Since Wendy was just diagnosed with coccidia, it meant that Moses was off to the vet too!
After a pretty thorough checkup, it was decided that Moses also has coccidia. I asked the vet again about the chance of the others (now 7) having coccidia. I got the same answer. "Not necessarily, but its very likely." Wonderful! This was a different vet from the same animal hospital.
I asked her what I needed to do about this. Do I really need to bring every single cat in for an exam? I think she saw the horror and panic in my face as I calculated what this was going to cost me, so thankfully she helped me out. She told me that by law, a vet can't prescribe medicine to an animal, unless that animal is a patient. The law states that there has to be a doctor/patient relationship. Awesome. HOWEVER, there is a loophole in this law :-). When a vet goes to a farm and one animal is being treated for parasites, then ALL of the animals will be treated, regardless of if they have been seen by that vet. So after talking to her boss, the vet who owns the hospital, she pretty much classified me as a farm, gave me enough medicine for all of the cats, and I got out of there with a $300 bill, instead of a $2000 bill.
So now we have been recognized as a rescue AND a farm. Which really makes me wonder? Am I really a crazy old cat lady? Is this a positive thing that people are classifying my house as these things? I guess I should be thankful that my animals area all healthy (minus a coccidia outbreak) and no one is classifying me as a hoarder. Since a hoarder typically has more animals than they can care for and those animals are showing very noticable signs of being unhealthy, I guess I should be thankful that people notice that we do take care of the cats here. There may be 9 of them, but they are all loved, although you wouldn't know that right now. Apparently coccidia medicine is quite horrifying to them, so after their last dose today, maybe they will come out of hiding and love me again :-).
For example, this past October I made the rounds of Petsmart and Petco for their annual Halloween Costume Contests. I dressed up the cats, and my rabbit. At Petsmart, the cats as a group won 3rd place (don't laugh - you win money for this stuff!). At Petco, my rabbit, dressed as a scarecrow won 3rd place. However, while the rabbit was a winner at Petco, the cats got their own special prize. At the end of the contest, the manager of Petco stood up and started talking about wonderful people who do animal rescue. He was talking about cats, and since there was a kitten adoption event going on in the store, I didn't think much about his speech. I just thought he was talking about the adoption event. Then at the end of his speech he said something along the lines of "And today we have 2 people here who have started their own rescue in their house, and we are thankful every day for people like them." He was talking about us. During the contest we had to show everyone our animals and talk about them a little. So of course we were introducing cats by saying "This is Wendy. She was living in a dumpster when we found her." "This is Patches. She was living in a bush begging for food at a restaurant that we stopped at." And so on... So the "prize"? We were given 6 large coupon books full of items for cats. They are the same coupon books that you would be given if you were to adopt a cat at Petco. In the books were several coupons for free food, which we can ALWAYS use! He also gave us a bag full of food samples. We were VERY greatful for all of this but we were also slightly in shock. Both Mr. V and I were thinking "He just called us a rescue. Is that a good thing? Or are we crazy?"
Fast forward to this past Friday. One "fun" thing about having a lot of cats is dealing with them when there is a medical issue. Sometimes its hard to figure out which cat is sick. Sometimes when we do find a cat with something wrong with it, it means the the other 8 also have the same thing wrong with them. So about 2 weeks ago I took my cat Wendy to the vet for a dental cleaning. She had minor dental disease and I have been told for several years that she needs a professional dental cleaning. I kept avoiding it because cats need to be under anesthesia for dental work, which is expensive. February was Dental Month at Best Friends Veterinary Hospital, with 10% off so I finally caved and took Wendy in. $500 later, she had clean teeth and updated shots (some of that money went to some extra monitoring that I opted for while she was under anesthesia ). They also ran some lab tests on her, did a "fun" stool sample and found out that she has coccidia. Coccidia is a wonderful, fun parasite that is one of the harder parasites to get rid of. So of course, I asked the vet if my other 8 cats would also have coccidia. The answer? "Not neccessarily, but its very likely." Wonderful!
I went home and debated back and forth with Mr. V about what to do about our possible coccidia outbreak. In the midst of debating whether or not we should drop a few thousand dollars on ALL of the cats at once, another one of the cats, Moses, started scooting his butt across the floor. Wonderful. While that action is funny to watch, its also really disgusting. It usually means one of 3 things. 1 - he's cleaning his butt after using the litter box (absolutely gross, but this would have been the best answer), 2 - he has anal glands that need to be drained, and for anyone who knows about this procedure, its something that can be done at home, but it is worth any amount of money in the world to have a vet do it for you, or 3 - he has worms/parasites. Since Wendy was just diagnosed with coccidia, it meant that Moses was off to the vet too!
After a pretty thorough checkup, it was decided that Moses also has coccidia. I asked the vet again about the chance of the others (now 7) having coccidia. I got the same answer. "Not necessarily, but its very likely." Wonderful! This was a different vet from the same animal hospital.
I asked her what I needed to do about this. Do I really need to bring every single cat in for an exam? I think she saw the horror and panic in my face as I calculated what this was going to cost me, so thankfully she helped me out. She told me that by law, a vet can't prescribe medicine to an animal, unless that animal is a patient. The law states that there has to be a doctor/patient relationship. Awesome. HOWEVER, there is a loophole in this law :-). When a vet goes to a farm and one animal is being treated for parasites, then ALL of the animals will be treated, regardless of if they have been seen by that vet. So after talking to her boss, the vet who owns the hospital, she pretty much classified me as a farm, gave me enough medicine for all of the cats, and I got out of there with a $300 bill, instead of a $2000 bill.
So now we have been recognized as a rescue AND a farm. Which really makes me wonder? Am I really a crazy old cat lady? Is this a positive thing that people are classifying my house as these things? I guess I should be thankful that my animals area all healthy (minus a coccidia outbreak) and no one is classifying me as a hoarder. Since a hoarder typically has more animals than they can care for and those animals are showing very noticable signs of being unhealthy, I guess I should be thankful that people notice that we do take care of the cats here. There may be 9 of them, but they are all loved, although you wouldn't know that right now. Apparently coccidia medicine is quite horrifying to them, so after their last dose today, maybe they will come out of hiding and love me again :-).
Saturday, February 21, 2009
On My Own Again...
Well, I'm not really on my own since Mr. V is here, BUT my mother is gone and that makes my life a whole lot easier! As much as I was happy to see my mom, I was equally as happy to drive her to the airport and say goodbye to her.
My mother and I have never gotten along wonderfully. We butt heads about many, many things and she is still trying to raise me, even though I am almost 28 years old and have lived on my own since I was 18. For some reason, even though I've been living on my own for 10 years (in all fairness, 4 of those years were spent at college so I did go back to my mom's house in the summer), she STILL has some issues accepting the fact that I am capable of surviving on my own. I'm really wondering when she'll learn that I'm not going to fail at life the way she thinks I will. I can't even tell you the number of times she has told me to do something, or not do something, and then explained to me that I'll never survive in life if I don't listen to her. However, its amazing to me that she claims that I do so many things wrong, yet somehow I actually have managed to survive on my own for several years without any major problems.
Here are some examples of conversations that took place while my mom was visiting. Her words are as close to the originals as I can remember. My words are probably going to border on complete disrespect and sarcasm, but after several days of this, I lost my cool completely. I tried my hardest to be nice in response to her criticisms, but in the end, I did get a bit sarcastic with her in return.
Mom: Mr. V is really good to you.
Brooklet: Yes he is.
Mom: Well...don't you understand that he's really good to you?
Brooklet: Uhh yes. I do understand.
Mom: You should consider yourself lucky that you have someone who does everything for you.
Brooklet: He doesn't do EVERYTHING for me. I am capable of doing things on my own.
Mom: Well I see him doing a lot of things for you.
Brooklet: He does do a lot for me. But that in no way indicates that I don't do anything on my own.
Mom: (with complete bitterness in her voice) Well..I see that he does a lot for you and you need to appreciate that.
Brooke: Oh my God. I do appreciate it. What is your point?
Mom: Just that you're lucky that you have someone to take care of you. I'd hate to see what you'd be like without him.
Brooklet: Thats great mom. I lived for several years without him...remember that?
This next conversation is partly my fault. I haven't written all of our wedding thank you notes yet because I can't find my list of gifts. We got married in June 2008, and moved in July. We did a full DITY move (do it yourself move for the non-military people reading this), and between packing, finding a home, and leaving a home, we planned on writing thank yous once we got to Washington. Somewhere in the move, our notebook with our list got lost and I have been frantically searching for it since we got here and haven't had luck yet. I am very well aware of the fact that I need to get these thank you notes out, but at the same time, I am not sure what to do because I can't find the list. All I can promise is that the moment I find the list, people will be properly thanked, and given an apology for the lateness of my note. My mom isn't ok with this. We have spent MONTHS arguing about this.
Mom: You still haven't written your thank you notes.
Brooklet: No I haven't. I still can't find my list of gifts.
Mom: I didn't raise you to be rude and inconsiderate.
Brooklet: No you didn't and I am not intentionally being inconsiderate. I just can't find the list. Do we have to have this conversation for the 500th time?
Mom: I don't want you making me look bad anymore.
Brooklet: How am I making you look bad?
Mom: Because you haven't written your thank you notes yet.
Brooklet: How does that make YOU look bad? I think it makes ME look bad, which isn't your problem.
Mom: Yes it is.
Brooklet: Why is it your problem?
Mom: Because I am trying to teach you to do the right thing.
Brooklet: You have taught me to do the right thing. I CAN'T FIND MY DAMN LIST!
Mom: Well you need to stop making me look bad. I am tired of trying to raise you and you not listening to me.
Brooklet: I hate to break this to you, but you've already raised me. You are not STILL raising me. (and yes, I do understand that parents will always be parents, but my mom tends to treat me like I'm 10...all the time.)
Mom: I want to clean out your car.
Brooket: Please don't clean out my car.
Mom: But I want to.
Brooklet: Ok. well I DON'T want you to.
Mom: Well I came out here to help you.
Brooklet: I thought you came out here to see me.
Mom: I did. But I also want to help you.
Brooklet: Ok. Then if you want to help me, then let me tell you what I need help with.
Mom: You need help with your car.
Brooklet: Actually I am more concerned about getting my house put in order.
Mom: OK I'll help you with that. Then I'll clean out your car.
Brooklet: (starting to get mad) Please DO NOT clean out my car.
Mom: I don't care. Your car irritates me. I'm cleaning it out.
Brooklet: No you are NOT going to clean it out. It may be messy but I know whats in there and I don't want my stuff touched or moved around.
(This goes on for about 10 more minutes)
Mom: Fine. I won't touch your car.
The next day I woke up at 8:30 to my mom saying "I cleaned out your car. Do something with all of this crap." I then saw a pile of papers and stuff on the table. In the papers were my registration and insurance card which I obviously need to keep IN the car. When I got mad and asked her why she didn't listen to me, she told me that I'm not HER mother so she doesn't have to listen to me.
The next conversation which I'm not going write all out was the exact same thing as the car, except this time it was about my garage. After repeatedly asking her to NOT touch any of the boxes in my garage, I woke up one morning to find her opening boxes, unpacking them, and placing things around the house where SHE thought they should go. Then she yelled at me for not being completely unpacked. Then she told me I have too much stuff. Then she told me that she was exhausted from helping me. To which I replied "Its not my fault you got up at 5am to do things that I asked you over and over NOT to do."
My next problem with her involved my cats. I have 9 cats. I am very well aware of the fact that not everyone likes cats. I am VERY well aware of the fact that my mom hates cats. When she first told me she was coming out here, I told her that was fine. I also told her that she could stay at my house if she didn't criticize my life. If she was going to have a problem with the way I lived then she could stay at a hotel. She agreed to this. She agreed to this KNOWING that I have 9 cats. I promised her that I had our guest room closed off and that no cats went in there, but they had free reign of the rest of the house. She said that was fine.
Mom: There's a cat on the couch.
Brooklet: Yes there is.
Mom: I can't sit on the couch.
Brooklet: Why not?
Mom: Because there's a cat on it. It needs to move.
Brooklet: Then move him.
Mom: I'm not touching that...thing!
Brooklet: Well I'm not moving him. I already told you that they had free reign of the house and you said that was fine. Go sit on the chair instead.
Mom: I can't sit on the chair.
Brooklet: Why not?
Mom: There's cat hair on it.
Brooklet: Actually, there's not, since 30 minutes ago you insisted on vacuuming up all of the cat hair around the house. You vacuumed the chair. Therefore the chair is clean. Sit on the damn chair.
Mom: I just can't. This just creeps me out. Ugh I can't do this.
Brooklet: Then please go stay in a hotel.
Mom: I don't have extra money to spend on a hotel.
Brooklet: Well you should have thought of that when you agreed to stay in a house with cats.
Mom: *gets mad, stomps into the guest room and locks herself in there claiming that she was too disturbed to come out of that room because the cats creep her out.*
Mom: There's a cat in the litter box.
Brooklet: Umm good. They are supposed to go in the litter box.
Mom: Thats gross.
Brooklet: Actually, its pretty gross when they DON'T use the litter box so be happy that they are doing the right thing.
Mom: How can you stand that?
Brooklet: Stand WHAT?
Mom: The cats. They are creepy and gross.
Brooklet: Obviously I don't agree with you.
Mom: But...but...the litter...they pee and poop in that.
Brooklet: Yes they do.
Mom: And then they walk around the house.
Brooklet: And if you're really observant you'll see that when they climb out of the litter box, they clean their paws and their butt.
Mom: That's disgusting.
Brooklet: Yes it IS pretty gross, but I'd rather them clean their butt and their paws instead of tracking litter and poop around the house.
Mom: But then they sit on your lap, and your couch.
Brooklet: And?
Mom: ITS GROSS! *stomps away and locks herself in the guest room again."
I want to go on and on because the conversations were endless but I realize I'm going to bore people that way. Let's just say that after she cleaned my entire house to HER standards, organized my house to HER standards, and told me over and over that she doesn't like the way I live, because SHE doesn't agree with it, I am BEYOND happy that she is gone. I am perfectly fine with letting her come out here again, but there is no way she's staying at my house again.
Edited to add: I just went back and re-read this and these conversations don't sound all that bad. Trust me though, they were. Especially when I had the EXACT SAME conversations over and over and over for an entire week.
My mother and I have never gotten along wonderfully. We butt heads about many, many things and she is still trying to raise me, even though I am almost 28 years old and have lived on my own since I was 18. For some reason, even though I've been living on my own for 10 years (in all fairness, 4 of those years were spent at college so I did go back to my mom's house in the summer), she STILL has some issues accepting the fact that I am capable of surviving on my own. I'm really wondering when she'll learn that I'm not going to fail at life the way she thinks I will. I can't even tell you the number of times she has told me to do something, or not do something, and then explained to me that I'll never survive in life if I don't listen to her. However, its amazing to me that she claims that I do so many things wrong, yet somehow I actually have managed to survive on my own for several years without any major problems.
Here are some examples of conversations that took place while my mom was visiting. Her words are as close to the originals as I can remember. My words are probably going to border on complete disrespect and sarcasm, but after several days of this, I lost my cool completely. I tried my hardest to be nice in response to her criticisms, but in the end, I did get a bit sarcastic with her in return.
Mom: Mr. V is really good to you.
Brooklet: Yes he is.
Mom: Well...don't you understand that he's really good to you?
Brooklet: Uhh yes. I do understand.
Mom: You should consider yourself lucky that you have someone who does everything for you.
Brooklet: He doesn't do EVERYTHING for me. I am capable of doing things on my own.
Mom: Well I see him doing a lot of things for you.
Brooklet: He does do a lot for me. But that in no way indicates that I don't do anything on my own.
Mom: (with complete bitterness in her voice) Well..I see that he does a lot for you and you need to appreciate that.
Brooke: Oh my God. I do appreciate it. What is your point?
Mom: Just that you're lucky that you have someone to take care of you. I'd hate to see what you'd be like without him.
Brooklet: Thats great mom. I lived for several years without him...remember that?
This next conversation is partly my fault. I haven't written all of our wedding thank you notes yet because I can't find my list of gifts. We got married in June 2008, and moved in July. We did a full DITY move (do it yourself move for the non-military people reading this), and between packing, finding a home, and leaving a home, we planned on writing thank yous once we got to Washington. Somewhere in the move, our notebook with our list got lost and I have been frantically searching for it since we got here and haven't had luck yet. I am very well aware of the fact that I need to get these thank you notes out, but at the same time, I am not sure what to do because I can't find the list. All I can promise is that the moment I find the list, people will be properly thanked, and given an apology for the lateness of my note. My mom isn't ok with this. We have spent MONTHS arguing about this.
Mom: You still haven't written your thank you notes.
Brooklet: No I haven't. I still can't find my list of gifts.
Mom: I didn't raise you to be rude and inconsiderate.
Brooklet: No you didn't and I am not intentionally being inconsiderate. I just can't find the list. Do we have to have this conversation for the 500th time?
Mom: I don't want you making me look bad anymore.
Brooklet: How am I making you look bad?
Mom: Because you haven't written your thank you notes yet.
Brooklet: How does that make YOU look bad? I think it makes ME look bad, which isn't your problem.
Mom: Yes it is.
Brooklet: Why is it your problem?
Mom: Because I am trying to teach you to do the right thing.
Brooklet: You have taught me to do the right thing. I CAN'T FIND MY DAMN LIST!
Mom: Well you need to stop making me look bad. I am tired of trying to raise you and you not listening to me.
Brooklet: I hate to break this to you, but you've already raised me. You are not STILL raising me. (and yes, I do understand that parents will always be parents, but my mom tends to treat me like I'm 10...all the time.)
Mom: I want to clean out your car.
Brooket: Please don't clean out my car.
Mom: But I want to.
Brooklet: Ok. well I DON'T want you to.
Mom: Well I came out here to help you.
Brooklet: I thought you came out here to see me.
Mom: I did. But I also want to help you.
Brooklet: Ok. Then if you want to help me, then let me tell you what I need help with.
Mom: You need help with your car.
Brooklet: Actually I am more concerned about getting my house put in order.
Mom: OK I'll help you with that. Then I'll clean out your car.
Brooklet: (starting to get mad) Please DO NOT clean out my car.
Mom: I don't care. Your car irritates me. I'm cleaning it out.
Brooklet: No you are NOT going to clean it out. It may be messy but I know whats in there and I don't want my stuff touched or moved around.
(This goes on for about 10 more minutes)
Mom: Fine. I won't touch your car.
The next day I woke up at 8:30 to my mom saying "I cleaned out your car. Do something with all of this crap." I then saw a pile of papers and stuff on the table. In the papers were my registration and insurance card which I obviously need to keep IN the car. When I got mad and asked her why she didn't listen to me, she told me that I'm not HER mother so she doesn't have to listen to me.
The next conversation which I'm not going write all out was the exact same thing as the car, except this time it was about my garage. After repeatedly asking her to NOT touch any of the boxes in my garage, I woke up one morning to find her opening boxes, unpacking them, and placing things around the house where SHE thought they should go. Then she yelled at me for not being completely unpacked. Then she told me I have too much stuff. Then she told me that she was exhausted from helping me. To which I replied "Its not my fault you got up at 5am to do things that I asked you over and over NOT to do."
My next problem with her involved my cats. I have 9 cats. I am very well aware of the fact that not everyone likes cats. I am VERY well aware of the fact that my mom hates cats. When she first told me she was coming out here, I told her that was fine. I also told her that she could stay at my house if she didn't criticize my life. If she was going to have a problem with the way I lived then she could stay at a hotel. She agreed to this. She agreed to this KNOWING that I have 9 cats. I promised her that I had our guest room closed off and that no cats went in there, but they had free reign of the rest of the house. She said that was fine.
Mom: There's a cat on the couch.
Brooklet: Yes there is.
Mom: I can't sit on the couch.
Brooklet: Why not?
Mom: Because there's a cat on it. It needs to move.
Brooklet: Then move him.
Mom: I'm not touching that...thing!
Brooklet: Well I'm not moving him. I already told you that they had free reign of the house and you said that was fine. Go sit on the chair instead.
Mom: I can't sit on the chair.
Brooklet: Why not?
Mom: There's cat hair on it.
Brooklet: Actually, there's not, since 30 minutes ago you insisted on vacuuming up all of the cat hair around the house. You vacuumed the chair. Therefore the chair is clean. Sit on the damn chair.
Mom: I just can't. This just creeps me out. Ugh I can't do this.
Brooklet: Then please go stay in a hotel.
Mom: I don't have extra money to spend on a hotel.
Brooklet: Well you should have thought of that when you agreed to stay in a house with cats.
Mom: *gets mad, stomps into the guest room and locks herself in there claiming that she was too disturbed to come out of that room because the cats creep her out.*
Mom: There's a cat in the litter box.
Brooklet: Umm good. They are supposed to go in the litter box.
Mom: Thats gross.
Brooklet: Actually, its pretty gross when they DON'T use the litter box so be happy that they are doing the right thing.
Mom: How can you stand that?
Brooklet: Stand WHAT?
Mom: The cats. They are creepy and gross.
Brooklet: Obviously I don't agree with you.
Mom: But...but...the litter...they pee and poop in that.
Brooklet: Yes they do.
Mom: And then they walk around the house.
Brooklet: And if you're really observant you'll see that when they climb out of the litter box, they clean their paws and their butt.
Mom: That's disgusting.
Brooklet: Yes it IS pretty gross, but I'd rather them clean their butt and their paws instead of tracking litter and poop around the house.
Mom: But then they sit on your lap, and your couch.
Brooklet: And?
Mom: ITS GROSS! *stomps away and locks herself in the guest room again."
I want to go on and on because the conversations were endless but I realize I'm going to bore people that way. Let's just say that after she cleaned my entire house to HER standards, organized my house to HER standards, and told me over and over that she doesn't like the way I live, because SHE doesn't agree with it, I am BEYOND happy that she is gone. I am perfectly fine with letting her come out here again, but there is no way she's staying at my house again.
Edited to add: I just went back and re-read this and these conversations don't sound all that bad. Trust me though, they were. Especially when I had the EXACT SAME conversations over and over and over for an entire week.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
An Almost Cat Emergency
After a fairly uneventful day, I just came about as close to a heart attack as I've ever felt before. The day started off with with an FRG bake sale at the squadron's hanger, followed by some quilting to finish my Valentine's Day project. Then I came home...
I lit a fire and was burning some papers in the fireplace when one of my cats decided to check out what I was doing. They are all semi-interested in the fireplace and we've never worried about that too much. Once they stick their heads close to the fire, the heat usually freaks them out enough that they stay a good distance away. 8 of my cats are short haired cats, but the 9th one is a Maine Coon mix. I'm not sure how to classify a Maine Coon as far as hair goes. Its not quite long haired, so maybe he's considered a medium haired. I'm not sure. All I know is that his fur is wild and fluffy and all over the place. In fact, this is what he looks like:
Notice how well the snow sticks to his crazy fur in that first picture.
So Moses hopped up onto the fire place and watched me poke at it for a while from a fairly safe distance. He was on the hearth, but he was being good and just looking at the fire. THEN he decided to turn around to face me. In the process of turning around, his big fluffy tail went INTO the fireplace and INTO the fire!! I screamed as soon as I saw his tail touch the fire. Now, if you know Moses, screaming is a bad, bad idea because he has the tendency to spaz out psychotically when he is scared. Once he walked into a plastic bag, got it stuck on his head and he ran around the house for a few minutes at what seemed like 500 miles an hour, with the plastic bag trailing behind him like a superman cape. We couldn't help him get out of it because he was freaking out so badly.
So anyway, I screamed. Bad idea. Moses freaked out like he did with the plastic bag. I'm not usually a quick person when reflexes are involved, yet somehow I must have also been freaked out enough to grab him in a split second and stop him from running around the house with his tail on fire. Thankfully only a VERY small portion of fur on his tail was burning and I quickly put it out with my hand (I was too freaked out to think about that being a bad idea). Thankfully my hand only stung a bit and I was fine. The burned fur fell right off and I'm pretty sure that the stupid cat had no idea that his tail was even burning! The only thing he was scared about was the fact that I screamed!
So basically, I had this image in my head of Moses running around the house like he did when he got stuck in the plastic bag. In the process his tail would continue to burn and he would spread the fire around the house too. So I am thankful to say that I just managed to avoid losing my house to a fire started by a cat, and I saved Moses and myself from a trip to Mt. Vernon to see the emergency vet.
If anyone ever tells me that life with cats is boring, I will have to vehemently disagree.
I lit a fire and was burning some papers in the fireplace when one of my cats decided to check out what I was doing. They are all semi-interested in the fireplace and we've never worried about that too much. Once they stick their heads close to the fire, the heat usually freaks them out enough that they stay a good distance away. 8 of my cats are short haired cats, but the 9th one is a Maine Coon mix. I'm not sure how to classify a Maine Coon as far as hair goes. Its not quite long haired, so maybe he's considered a medium haired. I'm not sure. All I know is that his fur is wild and fluffy and all over the place. In fact, this is what he looks like:
Notice how well the snow sticks to his crazy fur in that first picture.
So Moses hopped up onto the fire place and watched me poke at it for a while from a fairly safe distance. He was on the hearth, but he was being good and just looking at the fire. THEN he decided to turn around to face me. In the process of turning around, his big fluffy tail went INTO the fireplace and INTO the fire!! I screamed as soon as I saw his tail touch the fire. Now, if you know Moses, screaming is a bad, bad idea because he has the tendency to spaz out psychotically when he is scared. Once he walked into a plastic bag, got it stuck on his head and he ran around the house for a few minutes at what seemed like 500 miles an hour, with the plastic bag trailing behind him like a superman cape. We couldn't help him get out of it because he was freaking out so badly.
So anyway, I screamed. Bad idea. Moses freaked out like he did with the plastic bag. I'm not usually a quick person when reflexes are involved, yet somehow I must have also been freaked out enough to grab him in a split second and stop him from running around the house with his tail on fire. Thankfully only a VERY small portion of fur on his tail was burning and I quickly put it out with my hand (I was too freaked out to think about that being a bad idea). Thankfully my hand only stung a bit and I was fine. The burned fur fell right off and I'm pretty sure that the stupid cat had no idea that his tail was even burning! The only thing he was scared about was the fact that I screamed!
So basically, I had this image in my head of Moses running around the house like he did when he got stuck in the plastic bag. In the process his tail would continue to burn and he would spread the fire around the house too. So I am thankful to say that I just managed to avoid losing my house to a fire started by a cat, and I saved Moses and myself from a trip to Mt. Vernon to see the emergency vet.
If anyone ever tells me that life with cats is boring, I will have to vehemently disagree.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
New Quilting Project
I am just about to finish up a new quilting project (even though my first quilt isn't quite finished yet) so I thought I'd post a picture of it here. My friend and I took the original quilting class together, and have been going into the quilt store quite often to work on our quilts. My friend told the teacher that she was interested in doing a Valentine's Day project so the teacher came up with a class to make a pretty heart wall hanging. The entire thing ended up being about 2 feet by 2 feet. Its a curved piecing project which I thought would be hard since I had only done straight lines up until now. It ended up not being hard, but it IS time consuming and it takes a little more concentration to make sure your curved lines line up straight. Its hard to see in this picture, but the entire project is actually made up of 10 rows of 10 small squares. Each heart is pieced together with 10 squares each (some of them overlap into other hearts) and in the end this is the result:
I still have to finish quilting it, which will involve outlining the hearts and putting a backing onto it, but I finished up the top piece tonight and I'm quite excited about it :-).
Mr. V actually picked out the fabric for me while I was having my surgery, and I'm pretty impressed with his choices. I like the way the colors accent each other, and I love the purple background. Its purple paisley (I love paisley), so I think he did a good job considering the fact that he wasn't all that thrilled to go pick out pink fabric for me :-).
I'll post the finished project when I make it back to the quilt shop to do the actual quilting part.
I still have to finish quilting it, which will involve outlining the hearts and putting a backing onto it, but I finished up the top piece tonight and I'm quite excited about it :-).
Mr. V actually picked out the fabric for me while I was having my surgery, and I'm pretty impressed with his choices. I like the way the colors accent each other, and I love the purple background. Its purple paisley (I love paisley), so I think he did a good job considering the fact that he wasn't all that thrilled to go pick out pink fabric for me :-).
I'll post the finished project when I make it back to the quilt shop to do the actual quilting part.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Babysitting Rant - Is this finally the end?
If you know me well, then you know that I am NOT a confrontational person. I am barely capable of picking up the phone and ordering a pizza without freaking out first. Well, I just emailed Crazy Woman and told her that I am not babysitting for her anymore. I know I probably should have called her, but she tends to talk her way out of things and into getting her way. I have enough of a phone phobia as it is, so I know I would be a blubbering mess if she started to beg and trip me up somehow.
Basically, I told her that I am not healing as quickly as I thought I would, and therefore have no idea when I will be able to go back to work. I told her that she should ask the girl who is working for her now if she can stay on (although I know this girl, and I know she isn't going to), or start to look for someone else because I can't be a reliable sitter right now.
I am hoping that she'll take this well because I really don't feel like dealing with her. The worst part is that most of what I told her isn't even a lie. I AM healing slower than I thought I would. I still have bad swelling and pain, and I still have 2 black eyes (although they are starting to go away).I can't touch my nose without it hurting and yesterday I was rubbing my eye, and rubbed too close to my nose and ended up in excruciating pain because I rubbed my nose WAY too hard. Even if I liked this job and even if she paid me well, I still wouldn't go back anytime soon because my face is just still too sensitive. One day when I was babysitting, the little girl was playing dress up and she was pretending to put makeup on me. Seems harmless right? But its not. I can't have a 2 year old rubbing my face and tapping it and playing with it - no matter how gentle she is. I also can't lift her up. I went out bowling with some friends this past Saturday and I thought I would be fine. I picked a light 8 pound ball and started bowling. It took 4 times of throwing (rolling?) that ball for me to feel pain in my face again. It was just a stretching, painful feeling, so before I did any severe damage, I sat down and let Mr. V finish bowling for me, and then sat out of the second game.
So my point is, technically I should be going back to work for this lady next Wednesday and I don't think that can happen regardless of my distaste for her.
Just wish me luck, that I don't have to talk to her about this for a long time. My fingers are crossed that she will just read my email, say "ok" and go find someone else to work for her.
Basically, I told her that I am not healing as quickly as I thought I would, and therefore have no idea when I will be able to go back to work. I told her that she should ask the girl who is working for her now if she can stay on (although I know this girl, and I know she isn't going to), or start to look for someone else because I can't be a reliable sitter right now.
I am hoping that she'll take this well because I really don't feel like dealing with her. The worst part is that most of what I told her isn't even a lie. I AM healing slower than I thought I would. I still have bad swelling and pain, and I still have 2 black eyes (although they are starting to go away).I can't touch my nose without it hurting and yesterday I was rubbing my eye, and rubbed too close to my nose and ended up in excruciating pain because I rubbed my nose WAY too hard. Even if I liked this job and even if she paid me well, I still wouldn't go back anytime soon because my face is just still too sensitive. One day when I was babysitting, the little girl was playing dress up and she was pretending to put makeup on me. Seems harmless right? But its not. I can't have a 2 year old rubbing my face and tapping it and playing with it - no matter how gentle she is. I also can't lift her up. I went out bowling with some friends this past Saturday and I thought I would be fine. I picked a light 8 pound ball and started bowling. It took 4 times of throwing (rolling?) that ball for me to feel pain in my face again. It was just a stretching, painful feeling, so before I did any severe damage, I sat down and let Mr. V finish bowling for me, and then sat out of the second game.
So my point is, technically I should be going back to work for this lady next Wednesday and I don't think that can happen regardless of my distaste for her.
Just wish me luck, that I don't have to talk to her about this for a long time. My fingers are crossed that she will just read my email, say "ok" and go find someone else to work for her.
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