Keep Calm and Carry On

Thanks to Ruby for helping me name this post. <3  Much love.

I saw that phrase for the first time at Fan Expo this year.  Tons and tons of mottos, all starting with "Keep Calm and...."  I saw everything from "Keep calm and carry a wand" to "Keep calm and ride a unicorn".  Yeah, people are crazy.

I like the original and the idea behind it, and if you want to know what it's all about, check it out here. But for me, it's been my motto for the last little while.

So.

Last week, Sebastian had his echocardiogram at McMaster.  His first is chronicled in my blog.  Because he woke up and fought the procedure, they wanted to do another with him completely sedated.  It took us this long - 10 months- to get the appointment. 

We got called 2 days before hand with an appointment at the last minute.  As we found out, that appointment time was wrong.  We were told a 1pm appointment time, with him having to be at the hospital by 12noon.  In reality the appointment was for noon, and he was supposed to be at the hospital by 10:30am. 

Because the timeframe was so short, Geoff had to take him on his own, since I couldn't get the time off work.  So, he and Geoff left the house about 10:30.  I got a call at 11:40, asking where we were.  Didn't we know we had an appointment?  *sigh*

Luckily, Geoff was just walking up the hall as they called me, so they managed to get him in, just a little bit behind. 

Geoff got to experience, first hand, the pain and sorrow of watching your son restrained and drugged.  I think he has a new appreciation for what I have done with Sebastian in the past.  He also got to experience the lovely time we have when Sebastian comes out of anesthetic, fighting and crying.  Bastian managed to rip his I.V out of his hand, and bled quite a bit.  The kid is fast and strong.   It is startling, when you aren't used to it, and even when you are.

All in all, he did very well, and Geoff managed like a trooper.  And we got our results.

Sebastian has a hole in his heart.

The doctor has said that it has been there since birth.  It's small.  He does have the leaky valve as well.  There isn't any enlargement of his heart (either condition can cause it, on their own, so I am thinking we are specially blessed, since he has both).  We don't need to medicate him right now, or talk about surgery.  Blessed.  We are blessed.

But...
We do have to monitor it regularily.  That means an annual trip to McMaster, to do this again. It means vigilance when it comes to his physical condition.  No blue lips, no grey skin. 

Geoff told me the news when he got home and we were on our way to get a special treat for Sebastian for being so good.  We haven't talked about it to each other since.  In my case, it's because I find it hard to talk and think about.  I think it is probably the same for him.  We are digesting.

That night, I went for a walk with the dog.  I pulled up my hoodie and plugged in my iPod and walked.  And cried.  I allowed myself, for a  brief, few, precious moments to mourn.  Because I know I won't be able to, again.  Now, it's about strength and being positive. I'm not allowed to be sad about it, or at least, not to let people know I am sad. I can't stand the judgment, and the lectures.

But then, it was about being sad.  It was about owning it.  About letting all of those horrible thoughts come flooding in, the ones that dance around the edges of my conciousness, that I don't normally acknowledge or entertain.  It was about honestly thinking about my, his, our future- the tests, the anxiety, the prayers that I don't ever see a change for the worse.  I owned it.  I made it a part of me, so that I can control it.

And soon, I was thinking about what to do next.  What my new reality was.  God, it would be a blessing in itself to stop having to do that. 

When I came home, I was hollowed out.  I was cleaned out and dry.  I could face having the conversations that I needed to have- with my parents, and my in-laws.  The one with Geoff, that still hasn't come.  I found my brave face, and put it on. 

So, there it is.  And I am doing what I do best- keep calm and carry on.

Rosie N. Grey
The N stands for " 'nuff is enuff."

Selfish?

Today I made a decision.  I quit the Autism Ontario fundraising committee. 

I joined about a year ago, after I had quit the charity committee at work (are you seeing a trend here??)  I had been with the charity committee at work for about 6 years (maybe longer, I lose track), and had lost my passion for it.  I was starting to get a martyr complex, so I knew it was time to move on.  I thought it would be a good idea to deal straight with the charity itself, one that I am passionate about and one where I think I can do some good.

The relationship at first, was great.  They were very much stuck in their ways, but I was able to make some suggestions and help out.  However, the core team had been together for a lot of years, were good friends outside of the committee and it was difficult to break into the circle.  After 8 months on the committee, there were still some of them that didn't know my name.  *sigh*

Lately, I was growing more and more resentful of the time and energy it was asking of me.  I have been trying to split my time between all of the mulitple facets of my life, but I was finding that less and less was going to charity.  It didn't seem right and it didn't seem fair, to them or to me.

So, I quit. 

It helped that they sent an email out, asking for a recommitment.  It provided the perfect opportunity to bow out gracefully.  I probably would have dragged it out for much longer, had the email not come along.

I am not closing the door on volunteering.  I have learned though, just like with money, the volunteering of one's time and energy is much easier, when it is there in abudance.  To give a day, when you have time to spare is easy.  To give an hour, that you don't really have to begin with, is much harder.  I guess I failed that test.  In my soul, it makes me feel bad.

But, there is a bit of weight off my shoulders.  With every meeting I rescheduled or cancelled, I felt more and more guilty.  I have volunteered to assist with some of the activities (come see me at the Pen Centre on October 19 and 20!) but I will no longer organize them.

Maybe, someday, I can go back to giving. 

Rosie N. Grey
The N stands for "not happy."

Thankful

This weekend, on top of being my Supernatural Geekfest, is Thanksgiving.  It's also my 13th wedding anniversary.  I will blog about that later. 

I love Thanksgiving.  Obviously, I got married that weekend, and we had Thanksgiving dinner for our reception.  Turkey and the trimmings is my favorite food in the world.  I love having a dinner with family, with the house smelling like good food, being in comfy clothes and sleepy with full satisfaction.

This year, I get 3 dinners, one with the Rousseau's on Sunday, one with my family on Monday, and one with all my friends on the following Saturday.  I can't wait for all 3 of them. 

We really don't have any big Thanksgiving day traditions.  For quite a few years, my family would head up to a cottage we would rent up north.  That was a good tradition.  We didn't do it this year, because of money, but I am hoping we will do it next year, or soon.

What I really try to do, though, is take stock of why I am thankful.  Hokey, I know.  Some years, it is easy.  Some years, it is very hard. 

So, why am I thankful this year?

- I am thankful for my job, as much as I sometimes bitch about it.  I work with good people, I can learn new skills, and challenge myself.  I can do good work (even if it sometimes feels trivial).  It pays my bills, keeps a roof over our heads, puts food on the table.  It keeps my family going.
- I am thankful for my parents and my brother.  My parents are both still with me, thank God, and relatively healthy (who doesn't have their aches and pains?)  They are active and involved in my life and the lives of my children.  They are kind and caring and giving.  My brother is coming into his own.  He is a wonderful uncle to my kids, and Sawyer, in particular, is enamoured with him.  I am grateful to know, and keep getting to know him.
- I am thankful for my in-laws.  I have been in their family for 20 years.  They have welcomed me with open arms.  We have shared happiness and sorrow, laughter and tears.  I am as comfortable with them as I am with my own flesh and blood. 
- I am thankful for my friends.  They stand with me and keep me strong.  They make me laugh and cry.  They keep me sane and grounded.  I have so many fun and wonderful memories, revolving around them.  When we sit and rehash old times, and plan new adventures, it is one of my happiest times.
- I am thankful for Geoff.  He loves me, truly.  He cares about my happiness, my health, my well being.  He supports me in anything I do.  When I am freaked out and crazy, he can calm me down.  When I am sad, he will let me cry and not judge.  He's in for the long haul, is trustworthy and good.  He really is a hero.
- I am thankful for Sebastian.  He has taught me patience and strength.  He is my pillar, my solid, my reality.  He is, very literally, a piece of my soul, walking outside my body.  I look in his eyes, every day, and am in awe of this magical boy that I willed into creation.  That he is mine is as true as the fact that I am his.  I cannot imagine, and do not want to imagine, my life without him. 
- I am thankful for Sawyer.  She is amazing.  I see myself reflected in those smart baby blues.  I hear myself in her voice and her laugh.  She is unrestrained and wild.  She is a fairy, who made it through the veil, because I wished her here.  I can't believe that she is truly of this place, but that she is an old soul, come back to test, and tease and grow up with me.  I think she will be my life's greatest adventure.
- I am thankful for my dog.  His smell, his warmth, his sleepy sighs.
- I am thankful for my home, warm and secure and cracked and old.
- I am thankful that I can walk through my neighbourhood at night, unafraid.
- I am thankful for my health, my intelligence, the opportunities I have had in my life.
- I am thankful for my blog, which allows me to speak, when I literally can't get the words out of my mouth.  It lets me be heard, when I feel tiny and silent.  It lets me reach out, when I am too shy and scared to move.

There is so much more to be thankful for.  But this is enough.  For now.

Rosie N. Grey
The N stands for "never enough gratitude".

All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse, and a good wife.

That quote is from Daniel Boone.  I happen to agree. 

Tonight, I shot a gun for the first time ever.  It was pretty fucking awesome.

A gun club in St. Catharines has an open shoot on Tuesdays.  For $12, you get 50 rounds of ammo, and a bunch of safety lessons.


not just my boobs,
but burn marks on my boobs from spent shell casings.
I'm hard core.



Geoff and I have been watching Top Shot on Netflix.  Both of us got jazzed up and wanted to shoot something.  I knew that my friend, Bill, had been to a shooting range before, so I reached out to him to find out.  He and Barb were interested as well, so off we went.

We did the safety instruction class first.  I will admit, I was intimidated as hell, when I first touched the gun.  Hell, even when I saw the gun, I was nervous.  There are all these steps you have to complete, in order to make sure the gun is safe.  You have to pick it up in a very specific way, to make sure that you are keeping the muzzle pointed in the safe zones.  I was so worried I was going to fuck it up, and honestly, when we were actually in the range, I forgot alot of it.  But I understood the basics, which is never point the muzzle at anything you don't want to shoot, and always assume that it's loaded. 

We got to fire .22 caliber pistols.  Mine was a left handed Ruger.  It was different than the one we practiced with, and mine jammed alot.  The guy thought it was how I cocked it, and it might have been.  I handled the thing like it was a live rattlesnake. 

When we first started firing, the thing that got me the most was the noise.  I have heard gun shots before, but never right beside my head.  Even with the ear protection on, it was loud.  Very loud.  I jumped a couple of times.  But that might have been the adreneline coursing through me, at the thought of loading and firing a real, live, honest-to-goodness gun.
It sent a shiver up my back, just touching the bullets, sliding them in the little magazine.  Pushing the magazine home, it was satisfaction made of metal.  And the first trigger squeeze....

I was hooked.

I didn't do great, but didn't do too badly either.  I hit my target with about 15-18 of my 25 rounds (you change your target half way through).  It was tricky to remember how to hold the gun, and to breathe, and to squeeze.  To line up your front sight through your back sight, to the bottom of the bull.  To be safe, and not wave the damn thing around.  It reminds me of golf, so much to think about, to make it seem natural. 



my own little shell



My gun seemed to like throwing off the spent shells.  I got hit in the face and the safety glasses plenty of times.  I caught a couple in my cleavage.  Let me tell you...shells fresh out of a gun are hot.  Damn hot.  I burned my chest, and of course, fired till the magazine was empty before I fished it out.  Next time, turtlenecks.

It ended all too quickly.  I have sore shoulders right now, but I think that is more due to the stress I had today at work, and the stress I gave myself about being good and being safe with the gun.  There was very little recoil with the little pistol, just enough to throw off my sights every time.

I will defnitely go back.  It was a bucket list thing, learning to shoot.  In a very real way, I am preparing for the Zompocolypse, when it comes.  I need to learn other weapons, if I am gonna keep us safe from the horde.  But since Geoff is a better shot than me (he hit the target 23/25 and 25/25 times) as he said "I will be the one on the roof with the sniper rifle, in the snow and the rain.  You and the kids get to stay inside." 

Yeah, right. 

So, I have a very healthy respect for guns and what they can do.  But I can't wait to try again.

Rosie N. Grey
The N stands for "NRA, baby!"

If I were...



If I were a UFC fighter, I think I would enter the ring to this song.  I can't decide, there are others that I might possibly choose.  But this is definitely up there.

I hear this song, and I want to kick someone's teeth in.  Not anyone in particular, just someone.  The "Sawyer" side of me rages. 

Rosie N. Grey
The N stands for " 'nucks, brass 'nucks".

6 more sleeps...

...until Nerdfest 2011!!!

That is, Supernatural Convention 2011!  I am heading out again this year, with Val, Dawn and new addition Shannon, to that bastian of nerd-dom, that shangri-la of geekiness. 

We don't have the huge drive that we had last year (reminder to those that don't keep track of the trivial aspects of my life, it was in Chicago last year) so we will be better rested and in good spirits for all 3 days.

While I can't wait to see the boys, to get autographs and have some fun, what I am really looking forward to is the comraderie of friends, of being away from home and care-free, even if just for a few days.  I will miss Geoff and my babies like crazy (usually within the first 3 hours of so) but I think it's going to be fun. 

Dawn and I are going to try and stock up on Rolling Rock, and maybe she can find "Tacos at Midnight" chips for Val.  While we might not have pulled pork sandwiches as big as our head or Butt-faced Amber beer, I think we will probably end up with some great stories.

Oh yea, and there will be cute boys and hot cars there too.  :)

Stop judging me.

Rosie N. Grey
The N stands for "nerd, round 2".

Backroads

Last weekend, we had a really nice Saturday.  It was sunny and a little cool.  Geoff and I had talked about taking the kids to the zoo, since I had gotten a Groupon a week or so before, but neither of us had the motivation to get up and moving that fast.  Instead, I cleaned out the car, vacummed and Armoralled it, and we took it out for a ride.

We piled in the kids and a couple of drinks and headed out on Highway 3.  We drove and drove and looked and sang.  We ate snacks, and saw the sights.  We were out there for 6 hours.  We made it to Aylmer and back.  By the end, we were all a little sore in the butt and needed to stretch our legs, but it was a great day.  Sebastian peed on the side of the road at least 3 times.  I did discover that if I or the kids talk about having to pee enough, we can drive Geoff to have to go badly enough to pull over. 

I love taking the back roads.  I will take them 9 times out of 10.  Unless I am in an absolute hurry, and the city streets are the best ways, I am taking the back way.  An old friend of ours, her kid used to quote me.   I don't really remember saying it, but I know we were on our way somewhere, and I decided to find a faster way down a dirt road.  When everyone wanted to know where I was going, I apprently told them, "every dirt road leads somewhere."  Maybe I will have that on my headstone. :)

It's pretty hard for me to get lost.  I have a decent sense of direction and Sebastian has inherited it from me.  By the time he was 4, he could directly me to turn left and right through the city to get to where he wanted to go- Papa and Grammie's house, Walmart, Tim Horton's..wherever. 
I'm not afraid to turn down roads I have never been down.  I know I can find my way out.  Sometimes you find good things. Most times, you find good things.

I love looking at the homes, sometimes with well manicured lawns, sometimes with broken down cars.  I love the smell in the spring of the fresh turned earth and newly mowed grass.  I love the smell of the summer, of cows and horses and growing things.  I love the smell in the fall, of wet leaves, and burning wood, and cold, cool wind.  I love the smell in the winter, of sharp snow, of fireplaces. 

I try to imagine myself in those houses.  I imagine my tree in the front window.  I imagine my kids running on the hills.  I imagine a garden, and a chicken coop.  I imagine a horse, and dogs.  I can picture my tractor, and how I would keep my barn.  I can see the paint peeling off the window sills, and see the lace curtains in the kitchen.  I can smell the wood, musky and damp, piled up near the house, to prepare for the winter.  I can see it, feel it.  I want it.

The rides down the backroads help.  Geoff is patient, and, I think, over the years he has grown fond of them as well.  Not quite as much as me, but still, not resistant. 

I think we might go for a ride tomorrow.  And see what we can see.

Rosie N. Grey
The N stands for "not in neutral".