We are leaving at 4:30 am on Thursday morning to go to my birthmother's sentencing. That's a 4 hr if-we're-lucky road trip, and under the circumstances, it probably won't be a road trip buzz either. No, it'll be a long, CBC-listening drive (and to make it clear, I hate listening to CBC this way. Why? Because my sister doesn't listen to it loud enough. It's bad enough that we always seem to be listening to re-hashed arguements or badly-chosen music programmes that early in the morning....

My sister had her first day of morning classes. It was my first day of my second week of holidays. Her girl and I spent the past 2 hours playing with playdough, watching kid television, and making scrambled eggs. Just before my sister pulled up in the driveway, she handed me a pair of goggles. We waited until she pulled in the driveway and as she made her way into the apartment, we pulled the goggles over our eyes. She laughed, of course. And then said, "Hey, why don't we go to the be...

In my own day-to-day living I behave pretty much the same way as I do online as I do at home. I'm a regular woman, with regular hopes and dreams and a lifestyle to match. I have my dark moments, yes, but I have been able to find a certain sort of peace within myself as well. I'm loyal, tend to think before I speak, and bite my tongue far more often than bite the heads off of others when I'm pissed off. I know how to stand up for myself and am a firm believer in self-defense. I feel th...

This is my third attempt at writing an article this afternoon. The first one was about my job and office politics, and the second about dream interpretation. If I had been using paper and pen, than just a keyboard and hitting delete, I'd be surrounded by crumpled bits of paper by now. I really can't formulate anything that's been bugging me lately, but in the most brief manner, I can state that I'm sick of complaining customers and having to put on a happy face, I am infatuated with so...

cA couple of years ago, I wrote and acted in a play that was based on my relationship with my birthmother. It was produced solely because The Centre for Indigenous Theatre were lacking in committed students. I, who had been hired mostly as a gofer, ended up being able to participate in the program while getting paid for helping with it. It was one of my first attempts at acting, but not my first for trying to make some sense of my relationship with a woman who unquestionably means a lot to me...

Kinda like the same way, where if I've been scheduled a 6 AM shift and I suddenly realize that I may just have fallen asleep and might possibly have woken myself up by snoring, I feel like I've been yelling all day and have just realized in the quietness of now that it might have been loud and crazy for a moment there . Try as I might, I can't even attempt to make the above sentence any more simple. I think that's my problem today; making mountains out of molehills, spending too much t...

My daughter is dying to go back to school... She is bored of summer, and can't wait to see her friends, meet her new teacher, and start learning new stuff. Every day she complains that nothing good happens, that she hasn't been doing anything but just sitting around, even though I know that she's done a lot of fun stuff with my parents or other relatives when I'm at work. Hell, even if we spend a fantastic day together, she'll still complain later about not having much to do. Ah... ...

I haven't been having much fun, lately... By that, I mean, I haven't been having much fun on my own . It feels like all I've done for the past 4 weeks is work, mother, clean and sleep. Oh, and spend money on necessities, like milk and vegetables . I had some fun this morning: I took my girl out for a walk, and then for some good, clean fun at the batting cages. She's a slugger, that's for sure. And the rest of the day was spent at my mother's house; cutting up cardboard boxes to us...

I've been blessed to have such wonderful parents. Every day this summer, while I'm at work trying to bring home a bit of bacon, they spend time making sure that my girl is well-cared for, and loved. They never ask for a dime, and have always insisted that it's better that she's there with them, than in a different summer daycare program every week. Finances aside, they've insisted that Kole's well-being means far more to them, than free time. Even when she's at school, they are very inv...

I've always dreaded imagining my girl coming home with dreams of signing up for figure skating. Or hockey. Or soccer. Selfishly, I intensely dislike the idea of getting up at 5 o'clock in the morning to get my kid to the rink in time for a 40 minute lesson, with her dressed in fancy, sequined dresses and leg warmers, or heavily padded and safety helmetted uniform. And I cannot even think about the idea of sitting out in a hot, sweltering soccerfield at 9 o'clock on a Sunday morning. N...

My sister told me a story about a woman she met in the park. My sister remarked on her daughter's straight brown hair that was waist-length, the same as my neice. While their daughters played in the wading pool, the woman told her about her used-to-be friend and neighbour. Turns out that the neighbour had offered to babysit sit for the woman one day while she did some shopping. When the woman got back to pick up her daughter, she found out that while she was gone, the used-to-be friend ...

I've been thinking about switching back to the nightshift. I worked it last October, and ended up dropping it because I wasn't sleeping enough. Nights started at 10:00pm and ended at 6:30am. Back then, I was going back to my parents' home to wake up Kole, get her ready for school, take her, and then wake up in time to pick her back up. Unfortunately, I was finally getting home around 9:00, getting to sleep around 9:30- 10:00 and then trying to wake up at 2:30 to pick her up for 3:00pm. On...

For all the smarts I acquired in both college and University, I never really learned that much about financial planning. I know next to nothing about interest rates, the difference between net and gross pay, and what percentage of my income should go to savings. And forget about education plans for Kole or retirement funds for me in the future. But that's the thing; I don't want to forget. I don't want to look back at 65 and not be able to retire. I finally got off welfare a little m...

I'm from an artsy town. Or at least, a small town that has a rather strong collection of artistic-type people. We haven't produced a Meryl Streep or a Al Pacino; Dustin Hoffman has never dropped by. We've got musicians that you may or may not have heard of, but really, my town is always going to be small. The local University has influenced enough of us to be able to dissect a performance to the bone, and most have enough of a critical theory background to use some really big words about th...

I fall in love too easily... After 300 articles, it's not hard to gather that I have a habit for having crushes on guys that usually lead nowhere. Well, actually, my crushes generally end up with the two of us becoming good friends, but nothing more. What makes me the buddy girl? After many years of experience, I know that its more due to my own reticence than a disinterest from them. I have a bad habit of just letting crushes die instead of proactively showing how much I care. ...