Michael Jackson beat to his own drum, but no matter what, his songs were truly danceable and everybody had a good time. Thanks for the music.
Check THIS out to see just how much people all over the world enjoyed dancing to him. It's kind of funny (ok, a lot!) but I think it makes my point.
RIP MJ.

Portugal

Yikes.
It's been too long.
Click on the pic for some photos taken in Portugal. These ones were taken in Lisbon and environs. The lighthouse, cliff and sunset photos were taken at the most western tip of Europe. The custard tarts are my new favourite dessert (breakfast, lunch and dinner...anytime is a good time!) We also visited Sintra, an old walled town. Belem tower and Lisbon city gateway as well as some artsy ones of fuchia flowers and murano glass chandalier in a palace we went to.

Short entry...but I need to get back into blogging. Will try to do a big, juicy entry on the weekend.

Happy Eastern!

My Dad could never get it right...he always thought it was Happy Eastern (not Easter!) It's an on-going little joke now, but a nice way to remember him.

It's been a nice weekend. Saturday I cleaned up the backyard and got the vegetable garden area tidied up. It was a lot of work, but very satisfying. I am planning to plan what we are going to plant while we are away. This time next week, we will be in Lisbon! I am so excited, and can't wait to see new places. We are renting a car and driving up the coast from Lisbon to Porto. No plans in Portugal other than getting in the car and driving! We will go wherever the wind blows us. Our first 4 nights in Lisbon are busy with the conference I'm attending, but they have tours and dinner plans arranged for us every night, and Greg is included in those plans. I'm really looking forward to it. Last year, they held the conference at Hilton Head which was also really amazing.

We are ending our two week vacation with 3 nights in Paris and 1 night in Vienna. Those hotel rooms are booked already, and there are great reviews written up about them. I'm hoping that they will be as good as people say because the rooms were only $100 CDN a night, which is pretty cheap by European standards, I believe. The hotel we are staying in in Paris is in Montmarte and 100 metres from the Moulin Rouge. Expect to see a few pics of the windmill! I think we are going to splurge and go to the show while we are there. Why not?!

Today Greg and I took the dogs to the beach today for a long walk. OMG did they love it! They both went swimming Lake Ontario, in fact little Laila took her first little dog paddle all by herself! Needless to say, both dogs were soaked and smelled quite fragrant. They seemed to like the way they smelled, but I think both knew that they were in for a bath as they tried to hide under the coffee table the second we got home. Two dogs in the shower and a lot of shaking led to a very wet bathroom, but at least everyone smells better now. I found a pink rock that I will add to my garden edge, but it did look prettier when it was wet. Never mind, I will call it my Easter Rock.

We are heading over to Greg's Dad's place for Easter dinner. I'd much rather hang out at home, but that's not going to happen. We can't bring the dogs with us, because Greg's step-Nona has an artificial leg and is afraid the the dogs will knock it off! That would stir up some excitement, wouldn't it?! Amazing Audrey will dog-sit for us this afternoon, and may even stay at our place to make cards. I have turned our dining room table into a card making studio and we've been having fun just gabbing and making cards. I'll try to post some this week, because they really are quite pretty.

My brother is one person who actually buys items from infomercials. I don't know why he does this, but he has bought a Doctor Ho (electrical massage!) and breathalyzers, and a bunch of other stuff. His latest purchase was for my Mom's birthday: Smooth Away: Removes Hair Instantly and Pain Free! Discovered in Europe! (but made in China) Gently Exfoliate While Removing Hair! No Pain. No Chemical. No Razor Burn. "But wait!!!! Buy one now, and for absolutely free, you will get a second package. Ab-so-lu-tly Free!" So he bought it, and 8 packages arrived.

He gave me one, and, I have to tell you....it's phenomenal! No word of a lie. I have not shaved my legs all winter, and within a matter of minutes my legs are as smooth as anything! I went a little crazy and also attacked my upper lip, and my beard and also my peach-fuzzy cheeks. Hair....GONE! Who knows what will happen once the hair starts growing back, but for now, I am giving it a 10/10.

That's it. I wish you all a wonderful Easter Sunday. I hope you got out and enjoyed the day following old traditions, or inventing new ones.

Pupsie Doosie and Pupsie Doosie Twosie

It's been a while since I've posted any pictures of my babies. Remember how little Laila was when we first got her? She was all of 8lbs and smaller than the cats. She used to love to sleep in the cat baskets in the window and although she is now the same size as Buddy, she somehow still manages to sqeeze herself in! She is a funny little thing and has quirky ears...I guess it's her party-trick. One day her left ear will be pointing straight up, the next her right ear, and then she'll be in the mood where they are both up. Lately she prefers just to have her right ear at attention. We are lucky in that all of our pets get along so well. Buddy and Laila are best of friends and they are always side by side. Wherever Buddy goes, Laila is not too far behind. In fact, usually she is hanging on to his collar so we won't run too far ahead.

They have a ton of nicknames, but they often get Pupsie Doosie and Pupsie Doosie Twosie. No idea how I thought this up. It just happened.

For a bigger pic, click!

Yesterday was an absolutely beautiful day and my first outside cleaning up my front garden. I just love getting my hands all dirty. I worked up a sweat, and lobster-boy Greg got a slight burn on his face.
In the middle of the night I woke up because Mr. Mao wasn't in his usual spot under my right armpit. I'm so used to this sleep position and have never squished the little guy yet. Anyway, I woke up and thought it was strange that he wasn't there so I went looking for him. Poor little guy was outside on the kitchen window ledge and looking just a little cold. The weather had changed from a balmy spring day, to a freezing rain mess! I opened the kitchen door to let him in, but he didn't want to get any wetter than he already was. Rather than go out into the sleet myself, I spent 5 minutes figuring out how to get the screen out of the kitchen window. Mr. Mao was saved!
I brought him back to bed, and he snuggled under my arm, purring so loud it took me a while to get back to sleep.
This morning, the winter wonderland had returned.
That was the shortest summer EVER!

It's a grey, rainy day today and I'd like nothing better than to be at home in my jammies snuggling with a couple of furry creatures. Instead, I am at work, but with the door closed and have just finished a chicken club wrap and a gigantic serving of fries and am now looking at my blouse and admiring the stretch-satin across my belly---pulled to it's maximus maxim. Add to that a hot flash that is causing sweat to pool above and below my lips and at the nape of my neck, and you've got one hot lady. Not. Oh well....one of these years I will pull myself together. Maybe.
What's new here? Not much. Just the benign day to day stuff. One of our neighbours, who we called Chatty Cathy behind her back, has moved. And, I'm glad. Sometimes I think I'm not really as nice as I think I am, or other people might think I am. Chatty is the kind of woman who talks non-stop, and it's all about her and her job. What's gone on in her day, what one student said to the other student, how one of her boy needs to wear deodorant, blah blah blah. If ever I dared to mention something about my job, she'd immediately interrupt me and say "Oh ya, it's just like today when one of my kids...." About a year ago I stopped going for the evening dog walk with the ladies because I couldn't stand to listen to her. She has a Sheppard that would run up to people barking and snarling and then instead of disciplining her dog, she'd tell the person it was their fault because of their body language. Like...I think I'd be afraid if a big German Sheppard came running at me and my body language wouldn't exactly be warm and welcoming. One time we were in the middle of dinner, with guests over, so walking the dogs at the usual time was not on our agenda. She marched through the house with her dog and kid and hung out in the backyard while we ate. It was the middle of winter and pitch black outside. 10 minutes later she let herself back in, sat down on the couch and waited for us to finish eating, the whole while monopolizing the conversation. What kind of person does this?
Every evening I'd be thinking in my head : "shut up...just shut the F up!" I secretly wished that she would move....And my wish came true! The only thing, is now we have no more stories to tell about them, and there were sooooo many of them. It isn't just her who is annoying, but she is married to the ultimate Dufus who I'm sure can't even tie his own shoes. I'm pretty sure I noticed Velcro straps on his sneakers.

One of our other neighbours, J is an ex-Biker dude. They had a dog named Farley, a beautiful golden retriever and J would walk the dog up and down the street about 10 times a day. The whole neighbourhood knew him, and talked about him. See, J is a big guy and never, ever, and I mean NEVER! picked up after Farley. When the snow started melting a month ago, it was really noticeable, and you know...big dogs have big poos. I was ticked off too, but at the same time I knew that some of the littler poos might have belonged to my dogs because, lets face it, when you have 4 feet of snow you can't always find what the pups left behind. I took it upon myself to clean up all the street poo that I could see, and it filled an entire grocery bag. Just as I was finishing up, J's son-in-law came out of the house with Farley. Great timing! Very nicely I walked over to him and explained the situation, including that the neighbours were upset. I was told put the bag by J's door and that they would have a talk with him. Later that day, J's daughter came knocking at my door, very apologetic and embarrassed. I assured her that no one had a problem with J or Farley, but that it wasn't right that he wasn't cleaning up the mess. She then went on to tell me that she knew that it had been a problem and had spoken to him before, but that they were having so many issues with J's own cleanliness and behaviour in the house that she can't handle it anymore. She then told me that J had signed the house over to them with the agreement that he would live in the basement, rent-free. He has no other place to go. The things people I don't even know tell me!
Fast forward a few weeks and J is seen walking up and down the street 10 times a day, but with no Farley. He's also lost about 30 pounds. Turns out that his daughter decided the best thing to do would be do give Farley up for adoption, so she took him to a shelter. Luckily, the dog is fairly young and was adopted quickly. Initially I felt really, really guilty about this and thought it was my fault. I should have just kept my mouth shut and J would still have his dog. When I asked J what happened, he only said that his daughter thought it was the best thing to do.
Greg spoke to the daughter a few days ago. Turns out that there were a few reasons why they had to get rid of the dog. J wasn't taking proper care of him, but also Farley had bitten their young son a few times and they didn't trust the dog anymore.

My neighbour to the right of my house recently brought her 93 year old husband home from the hospital. He is a man who believes in naturopathy and up until this year, has never taken prescribed medication in his life. Now he is taking medication for atrial fibrillation and is convinced it will be the death of him! The other night, V knocked at our door and asked if I could come over to witness the signing of some legal documents. Turns out, that he never had a Power of Attorney nor a Will! Now that's positive thinking!
Poor V has had a hard time of it lately. She is a collector of anything and everything. She finds a use for it all. She collects clothing and arranges for it to be sent to Third World countries. She collects household wares, books, children's toys and saves it all for the Church Bazaar. Every time I had something to go to the Goodwill, all I had to do was bring it over to her carport. Needless to say, her house was chock a block full! Over the past few weeks, her children have been over and emptying out her house of all of this stuff they consider garbage. I have to admit, it was pretty hard talking to V (who is 81) while she had tears running down her face, thinking of all this good stuff going to waste. The truth was, her house was so full, that when the ambulance team came to get her husband to go to the hospital, they had to be careful to stay on the path between the living room and bedroom. It was pretty bad. I had only ever been over there once before, but it did look like hoarders lived there.
I hadn't intended for this to be all about my neighbours, and truthfully, maybe I'm even being a bit like Chatty....just going on and on.
But it has been nice hiding out in my office. I might even sneak out early today!

One month later...

I feel like I'm almost always apologizing for this blog every time that I make an entry.
No more apologies...it's my blog, if you happen to read it...that's great! Sigh.
Things aren't good with Greg's job, and without getting into things too much, let's just say things are pins and needles. I don't like being Negative Nellie or turning a headache into a tumour, but it's a little too close for comfort. I know it sounds very Sopranos, but Greg knows too much and they are trying to force him out. It's not a huge deal in terms of political politics, but internally, it's pretty huge. Enough said.
Work for me is good. I'm thinking that I'm not going to complain about anything because I have a job, and for the time being, a safe job. I've been thinking about joining an agency just in case, but I'm jumping the gun. The funny thing is, I think I'm more upset about this than Greg is. I am most definitely NOT an A-type personality but I can't help worrying. I know so many people who have lost their jobs.

It's kind of a strange time, because we have planned a trip. It coincides with a work conference in Lisbon and as much as I'm stressed out about things, I can't wait to get away. I want to run away, but I know that's not going to happen. We have 4 nights accommodation in Lisbon, a car in Portugal, 3 nights in Montmarte, Paris, and 1 night in Vienna. We plan to wing the accommodations in Portugal after Lisbon. There. I've planned our trip!

All in all...if I had to rate how things are going...its...6/10

I spent the day today at a workshop that discussed data tools and analysis. Far out of the realm of bedside nursing, but all in all, I learned a lot that can be applied to the job I'm doing now. One of the good things about this position, is that I am actually encouraged to go to Organizational Development workshops, and now I actually have the time to go. Frontline nursing only has the oppportunity to go to these kinds of workshops on their days off...and who in their right mind would want to head to the hospital on a day off?! I've made a point of going to as many workshops as possible, conflict management and resolution, effect change management, giving and receiving feedback, teaching the adult learner...lots. I may only have another 6 months left of this job, so I think I'm going to make the most of it. As much as I have days that I'm frustrated, and think about going back to the bedside, I also know that I've learned so much and am only now starting to understand how to put it all together. I think for a newbie Educator, I've done a fairly decent job, and definitely nothing to be ashamed of. I cover 6 areas which is a very large group of nurses, and my position extends far beyond educating.

Anyway, enough about work. I think I'm feeling good about it today because the workshop was really helpful.

Have I mentioned before that I am not a morning person? Most days, I can be up and out of the house in half an hour, 45 minutes if I have to have a shower. This morning was one of those half hour mornings (well, more like 25 minutes, and every minute DOES count!) I was racing around and threw on a sweater that was not too wrinkled that had been lying on a bedroom chair.

I got to the workshop on time, but when I finally caught my breath, I looked down and realized that I had enough hair on my sweater to knit another pet! OMG! 2 dogs and 4 cats shedding their winter fur, and it was all on my sweater! Thankfully, it was cream coloured, so it wasn't quite as noticeable, but even I thought it was gross. I started picking the fur out, but then I thought if I just left it alone, maybe people would think it was part of the fabric...

Yeesh.

After work today, Aud and I went to Goodwill. They were having a 50% off sale, and the place was packed! I scored 4 cobalt blue wine glasses for 75 cents each, 2 yello pyrex serving dishes, and a book by Emily Giffin called Baby Proof that I had been looking for. Small things, but I felt good buying something that didn't cost a lot of money. Actually, I didn't even pay for it, Aud did as we carpool with my car and I refuse to take gas money from her. I am very glad that I've found a friend who loves Goodwill as much as I do! We have spent quite a few Saturdays going from one to another.

This week, my mom and bro are off to Costa Rica for 2 weeks.
Seems like my mom has found a new travel partner?! Uh...ya.
I could have gone, but it seems like I have a job.
Am I bitter? No...not really.
Everything comes with a price...right?
Anyway, Greg and I do have a vacation planned. It corresponds with a work conference and Greg is tagging along this year! We are going to Portugal! We leave the middle of April and are gone for two weeks. We figure we'll spend 5 days in Lisbon (3 days of which I'm at a conference) and then head north up the coast to Porto and then spend af ew days in Spain. Afterwhich (is that a word?!) we go to Paris for 3 days and Vienna for 1 day. It'll be a busy vacation, but I'm looking forward to being away.

I've been hanging out on Facebook a bit more lately and have gotten in touch with some people I've known in a past life, it's been fun actually. People I've known from public school, high school and from when I lived overseas. I think this is such a good thing, mostly because in my younger years I was so shy and self-conscious it's been a real eye-opener to realize that maybe I wasn't so different after all. Have you 3 readers been on Facebook yet? (Pez, I know that you are there!) It's a nice distraction, and I totally recommend it, even though I'm not on it everyday.

Anyhow, I've been wanting to enter something on this Blogthing of mine, so this is it.
Work is good.
The puppies are the light in my life (other than Greg and the kitties of course!)
I do have things to rant about, but I'm thinking I should save that for when I'm in a ranting mood.
Till then!

I am so happy that Barack Obama is the new President. I kind of feel like Canada has a new President! Our countries are so close...and yet so different. Is it safe to say that Obama reminds me of a Canadian? Hope I didn't offend anybody out there..but he just seems so....nice.

Things have been good around here. I am car-pooling with awesome Audrey...it was her idea to get me to work on time. That part is working, but poor Aud has to wait for me to pick her up and I am having a bit of trouble getting out of work on time. Thankfully, she is the patient sort who doesn't mind waiting a few extra minutes.

I have been very productive at work these past few days, and have been the chair of a few committees which is something new for me. I've decided to recruit various nurses in my areas into these committees to make them accountable for some of the changes and challenges that are going on. I figure that if they are in on the team decisions, that it might cut down on the complaints. It's a new way of doing things, but I'm hoping it will attract people's attention. I am going to ask different nurses for each new initiative. So far, so good.

My mom and brother went to Mexico last week. I was going to blog about it, but at the time I was so pissed that I'm not sure that it would have made sense. My brother basically came by on the Sunday night with his two cats, and said he and mom were going to Mexico the next day. I basically lost my nut, had a few too many glasses of wine (and SHRIEK!!!!) even smoked a couple of cigarettes with Aud. Anyway, I got over that. My mom offered to take me on a vacation next month, but I told her that I wouldn't feel comfortable going without Greg, because he needs a vacation too.
Two-Four spent the weekend with us last weekend. She's nuts.
Little SIL was accepted into a private college for Dental Hygiene Assistant. Little SIL is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but honestly, she's never been given a chance because 2-4 has always told her that she's disabled and "can't do that." The whole Freakin' weekend 2-4 talked about how she was worried that Little SIL wouldn't be able to do the course until finally we couldn't take it anymore. Everybody was yelling...I went to bed.
Some things, I really don't want to get involved with.

My mom called me at work today which is strange because she never calls me, and especially not at work. Turns out that her 88 year old friend was in the ICU at my hospital and she was wondering if I could find out what was going on. I have connections, so of course I was able to talk to his nurse. Poor man had already passed on by the time I arrived, but I was able to go and say goodbye to him on behalf of my mom. Now my mom is all depressed thinking that he was only 17 years older and her time is coming to an end. All I could think of to say was " you've got good genes...your mother lived to see 94. Don't worry...you'll be around to torture me for a long time!" Thankfully, I made her laugh.

Shhhh....I'm at work...and I'm blogging!

I've closed my door, turned on the radio, just finished my Swiss Chalet lunch and decided that I was in the mood to blog.

Some NY Resolutions I'm still managing. My upstairs is not too bad, I can clean up within half an hour.

Audrey and Darrell have been over a few nights for dinner as they are in the process of doing some DIY Reno's to their kitchen. They have the exact same house as ours, but the layout is opposite. Strangely, I can never figure out exactly where I'd be in my house when I'm in hers because of all the Reno's done to both homes over the last 60 years. Anyway.

Audrey has this great idea of how to get me to work on time in the morning. Anyone who knows me, know that I am not a morning person. I snooze for at least a half an hour and then Greg has to sic the dogs on me. I am given a bath of kisses every morning by 2 dogs and a cat. Dutchess is a licker in the morning when she is hungry. So today we tried Audrey's great idea: I drive her to work in the morning. Her place of employment is on my way (pretty much) but despite leaving 15 minutes earlier than I normally would have, I STILL arrived late! The roads were bad this morning so I'm sure that had something to do with it, but we might have to leave a bit earlier. It's a little strange carpooling, especially in the morning. I like listening to the radio: the news, the song of the day, and the ticket-blitz contest. Audrey likes to talk. I missed it all! And since I was trying to listen to the radio, I'm not 100% of all of her conversation, either! I am going to either have to turn u0p the radio, or ask her not to talk. Either way...I'm wondering how long the car-pooling is going to last. Audrey is an early bird, up at 5:15, out with her dogs, and then leaves for work at 7am to hang out at Wallymart for an hour and then arrives at work at 8:20. There is no way in hell that I'll be doing any of that nonsense! She is desperately trying to get me into the habit of walking the dogs really early in the morning, she even got me a snood for Christmas so I would be nice and warm.

Here is my dog-walking get-up (please keep in mind that it is minus 20 degrees Celsius, which has got to be close to zero Fahrenheit)

I wore this to work today, minus the snood. I'm secretly hoping that someone will contact What Not To Wear and nominate me. Nonetheless, I was warm on my way to work, and walking the puppies.

People who know me from a former life, would never recognize me.

Happy New Year!

So far, so good.

I believe that I have kept 2 resolutions.

I am not only starting to clean my house room by room...but I am keeping the rooms clean!

We are really tight on $ right now, so we have been making do with whatever is in our cupboards, fridge and freezer. I've even found sample pet food and have discovered that The Duchess likes puppy food. Who knew?? At 16, she can eat what she wants!

I've been journaling my WW, even though I'm not attending meetings. I figure I can save myself $600...god knows I could probably teach the classes, I've attended so many.

I have kept my wine consumption under control this week, and have probably saved myself three bottles of wine so far. Not saying that I've quit...just saying I'm keeping tabs.

I've decided that I want to start work at 9:00am, and so that is my aim. I leave at 6pm no matter what time I go in and get paid for 7.5 hours. I figure that while I'm at work, I'm going to work hard, but since I'm not getting paid any extra time, I am more than happy getting to work at a time that works for me. I will make exceptions for meetings or whatever, but I am not going to be made to feel bad for coming in to work last every morning. (This was something that was making me feel bad...) As far as I'm concerned, my job requires flex hours to be available for evening shift workers, as needed.



Enough about work.

The holidays were good. My cousin Roland is my only 1st cousin. He, and his 16 year old daughter, Johanna, came to visit for two weeks. They stayed with my mom but I spent a lot of time with them. I have to admit, I really, really liked Johanna. I think that she is similar to the kind of girl I wish I had been at 16. She's very confident with who she is. She likes being different from everybody else, without being totally weird. She's not afraid to speak up, and yet she knows how not to be rude about it. She is who she is, and she seems like such a non-neurotic teenager. Which is pretty amazing considering that her step-mother is also her aunt and has been since she was a fetus at 5 months (I'll let you figure that one out!)

Anyway, it was fun hanging out with a cool 16 yr old girl who likes shopping in thrift stores. See where I'm going here? The girl came all the way to Canada to go shopping in THRIFT stores! We had THE BEST shopping day ever, and I discovered great new places to shop!

I'm ending here, and fully intend to continue where I left off, tomorrow.

Thank you

I spent some time today with a woman from Sri Lanka. As we parted ways I wished her a Happy New Year. She wished me the same then remembered that in her culture before the New Year, you actually thank people for the past year, and only after New Years' do you wish them a Happy New Year.
Lately I've been thinking that I'm going to be really glad to put 2008 behind me. It hasn't been a particularly bad year, no one really close to me has become gravely ill, or died, and I am definitely thankful for that. Yes, the market has taken a plunge, but I still have my job, and a good paying one at that. I have a great husband whom I love dearly, and my relationship with my mom has improved markedly. Greg and I did not get to travel together this year, but I did have a great business trip to Hilton Head/Fort Worth and San Antonio last May. We still have the trailer that sometimes feels like a stone around my neck, but at least this year I've got hot water and a real porcelain flush toilet to drown in! I've got a few close friends and good neighbours I know I can count on. I've got a new puppy (and Dutchie, Mr. Mao and Buddy, of course!) I have a roof over my head and enough food in my cupboards that I could survive for a month if we were snowed in.
So why am I so looking forward to 2009? I think because I am very, very close to hitting an emotional rock-bottom. I can't keep my house clean, I can't be bothered to cook dinner, my bills aren't paid on time, we live pay cheque to pay cheque, I can't be bothered to blog (which used to be a huge source of entertainment and also an outlet for me.) I make do with the clothes I have because I can't stand going to stores because (gasp!) I might have to try something on and I feel overwhelmed when I do go into a store. I don't answer the phone, rarely return phone calls and turn the upstairs lights out so I don't have to go dog-walking with the neighbourhood clan.
I know I have a problem. I used to think it was depression, and I know that is part of it but for all the years I made fun of Two-four and her diagnosing everyone with anxiety...it's either rubbed off on me, or I've been denying it. I cover a lot of this anxiety up by drinking way to much. I've always enjoyed drinking, but dare I say it? It's gotten out of hand and I know I need to do something about it. It's starting to affect me really negatively and this has got to change. I'm not a stupid person, or a bad person, but I think that this is the one thing that I've really got to get a handle on in 2009. I think I started drinking more when I found out that I couldn't have children so I just threw caution to the wind, figuring that it didn't really matter how much I drank. I didn't need to be responsible to anyone except myself and Greg and my pets. I've always done well at work, so I know I can function. There's that word: Function. I am a functioning Wino. I have a functioning Wino husband too, so I always have someone to play with.
I've been thinking about how to get a grip on all the things that used to matter to me, and that I've let slip. I know I need to start with myself. For years I've been complaining about my weight. I can pay all the money I want to go to WW, but it's useless if I use up all my points in wine. I complain about my dirty house, but if I got off my ass (and Greg got off his!) we'd have a clean house. I want to go out and be social, but I'm always thinking about how I'm going to get home, because in order to be social a few drinks goes a long way. And one thing I don't do is drink and drive. So, I'd rather be safe, and stay home.
People think that by being a nurse you know how to take care of yourself. I beg to differ. I think part of my problem is genetic, partly a lack of self-confidence/esteem, but trust me, a lot of nurses chose to be nurses because they learned how to deal with problems at home when they were growing up. They were the problem-solvers, the pleasers, the high-achievers. At some point, it all becomes too much. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty (most, in fact) who remain strong, level-headed and able to deal with issues head on, but I also know enough who use alcohol, drugs or food as a coping mechanism.
Anyway, maybe this is a problem no matter what you choose as a career all I'm saying is that I think I should know better, being a nurse. At some point I chose not to be as strong, to care less about my own surroundings and to let things not bother me by choosing wine over dealing with daily living.
At this point, I am not willing to go elsewhere to seek help. My doctor is aware, and has been aware for a while, but I'm not ready to admit it anywhere else but here that I need to help myself.
And that is my New Year's resolution. What a start. I've got a lot of work ahead of me.
For what little blogging I've done: Thank you for stopping by and being part of my year. Even if I don't leave comments on your blogs, I do catch up with you throughout your year. Thank you for making me laugh, for sharing your day to day life, for letting me glimpse through the lens of your camera, but mostly for making be feel like I have a connection.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to All,

and to All a Happy, Healthy and Safe 2009!

A few repeats worth repeating!