fighting temptation and staying hopeful

so, tris you know I am doing this for you...miss you girl!

life is...

-20 C and walking to work with my toque on at 5:45am...I was wearing a winter coat too...

retail therapy on ebay because there are no stores in three hills...

being told I need to 'be brave' and head up the bread making assembly line on sub sandwiches at the lunch rush...not quite the adrenalyn rush of catching a baby...

watching hairspray and singing through the whole movie with the subtitles on...

christmas music and chai tea watching snow fall

A few more observations...

ok so I haven't really felt like blogging much lately. I have found that my communicative skills have suffered a severe blow due to the lack of emailage I have been getting since being home. It is like this...I am addicted to email. I open my account and wait to see if I've got mail; I luv the little header that says...you have 7 new messages...and then i know at least 3 have to not be adds or bills...so I get excited about life and then I'm happy.
Lately my headers have been saying you have no new messages. This makes me sad, which then makes me uncommunicative and unblogworthy...
I am addicted to this virtual life.
So what does an addict do about this strange second life. These little black markings that take on too much meaning and have no tangible expression in life other than to make me feel somehow, someway, real...weird, I know.
Well I could be like dwight and create a second, second life...but that is silly, sorry dwight.
So I won't.
I've decided instead to go into mourning. I am going to mourn my virtual life, my precious emails. I can do this simple gesture of appreciation to a mode of communication that has become so important to my life. To my emotional stability.
Seriously, it was getting so bad I was thinking that in order to have real friendships with my friends here in the hills of three I would have to make them sit down with a pad and paper and write convo's with me instead of talking.
Then one of my cousins said I come across much funnier on paper than I am in real life...so virtually I'm hilarious and really I actually quite un-funny.
So I will mourn. It will be a period of time set aside to just take stock of words that I can write and ways of expressing myself that I find very comfortable. Communication that does not require me to be awkward and in person and those subtle silences and correct eye-contact timing and quick witty phrases. Apparently real life calls me to rack my brain to find the right thing to say in the moment and put my foot in my mouth and also to not be very funny.
so, goodbye virtual funny self...
on to life as me and in person.
I will come back to visit my funny virtual twin from time to time...but for now, I mourn.

observation

I think I need church everyday.

Drama, Drama, Drama...

So, the thing is, Subway is drama...it has a lot of high school kids working there...and me. I am too old for this silliness. An average shift when i am with the girls involves talking about who the cute guys are and our code for them is 'distractions' if you see a 'distraction' come in the store watch out, mistakes will happen. One girl accidentally gave a distraction 4 cookies instead of three...she kept looking at him instead of the cookies. My two-cents added to this craziness was to say that it's not necessarily the looks that qualify the distraction-it's how many mistakes you make while putting him thru. Unfortunately this happened to me, someone came in looking like Jim from the office and although we all agreed he was not good looking, the girls just watched me and laughed...I could not do anything right...it was a gong show.
Working with the boys consists of listening to angry rage music or the sound track for 'rent' and then being the object of their explanation as to why 'rent' is such an amazing movie/play. It's not, and now that I know what it's about, I'm sure I like hairspray better.
So basically I feel like I am in a weird, small town version of high school musical where no one is in love with eachother and being sandwiche makers we are like the basketball team but really we want to sing and dance thru the rest of our lives with soundtracks playing in the background. Ok, so maybe I'm not too old for this silliness. I just realize that sometimes the soundtrack to your life sounds like the country radio station and the sports morning edition as your riding in a car madly trying to find a topic of conversation with your boss whom you have nothing in common with-other than he pays you-so keep trying to find something, anything to talk about so the 45 minutes passes quicker.
In other news the boys got haircuts...they look like little lambs who have just gotten shorn. They are cute, or as Korban would say, 'I dust dot a haiw tut.'

Signs

my eeyore blog,
ok so i went to work the next day and the nurse on duty had scrubs with Eeyore all over it...it was a sign. I laughed. nobody else got it...then a mouse was on the cafeteria floor and I got it into a trash can and threw it in the dumpster...yet another sign.

I don't always see them or even know what they mean, but I do know that their important little details that make me wonder sometimes...

Eeyore

So the thing is, that mums was trying to tell me that some motivational speaker was sharing about his life and that one day he had to make a choice, was he going to be a tigger or was he going to be an Eeyore...this presumably so I would then share in that epiphany as well...
my response maybe gives this whole blob away but, in Winnie the Pooh stories not everyone is Tigger, there are Ru's and rabbits and piglets and yes, Eeyores too. Not everyone can be a tigger, some are Eeyore's...likewise in reality not everyone can be that tiggeresque bubbly person.
And in the 12 step program to 'know oneself' denial is not the first step to inward honesty. Tell yourself the truth and step up to the Oprah self help challenge and as popular culture would have it, BE your own individual...which in some cases would be an Eeyore. And a truthful Eeyore is much better than a lying Eeyore...because we all know that Eeyore has enough to deal with, without being a liar.
So if you don't look like a tigger, act like a tigger or bounce, why kid yourself. Your not a tigger and maybe, heaven forbid, you might be an Eeyore.
I think mums gave up at this point.
But then again I think it will come up again in other 'talks' as maybe a flower vs a weed; or a doer vs a whiner; or a Ranch vs an Enns...or she might just resort to calling me Ms Hannigan (from Annie) and I'll probably smile.
but here it is, I am an Eeyore...and now I'm 11 steps away from helping myself be...helped...

I am that auntie.

I am the not official, 'official' babysitter of my nephews...this has brought me great joy and the realization that i am that auntie...

I am that auntie that tells them if they crawl on the counter and take the halloween candy their teeth with all turn black like mine...my fillings were then examined by a 2 year old and a 4 year old for proof.

I am that auntie that lets the kids play with the box that their new puzzles came in so I can make the puzzle...

I am that auntie that skips sentences (if I can get away with it) in order to get through the stories faster...

I am that auntie that makes up what the pictures mean so that I don't even have to read the stories...

I am that auntie that makes them repeat the words that they lisp...

I am that aunt that asks if they want a snack, so i can have one too.

I am that aunt that gives them smarties just so I can watch them eat them off the floor like hippo's-it's the cool thing to do I guess.

The older the kids get the funner it gets, the harder I have to think to make them believe stuff and do stuff. It is a challenge being that aunt but I find i am quite happy to rise to the occasion...after all what would life be like without that crazy aunt.

write a book....

so apparently my mum had a brilliant idea of how to solve all my financial problems about getting to the mission field without having to ask anyone for any money...."Maria, you should write a book!"
She just watched Miss Potter and I think maybe took alittle too much out of the movie...seriously mums, I am not writing a book, who would buy it...
I think it's enough that I put my little self out into the world wide web and write on this blob...thank-you Tris for reading:)
Deep down i am kinda flattered that she would say that though, but seriously, a book...
I can't even stick to one topic in each paragraph much less put together an organized book.

terrible no good, very bad day...turned miraculously upside down and makes you laugh

ok, so I had the dreams and went to work and it was an 11 hour day of subs and driving with my boss, who as always, still intimidates me.
then at 8am I realize I have lost my ring and start to get this icky feeling that it's gone welling up...I check the trash, my boss checks the trash (which was very nice of him), we check the floors-nothing, and even though just cause you lose your chastity ring nothing has changes, still I kinda felt like I had lost my chast-ness without that little ring...the promise is lost and I am no longer pure...ok, so basically I was alittle melodramatic that day...
then i get home and everything falls apart and my parents skype and i cried and of course Dad is like, I'll get you a new one...but how can you replace chastity, once it's gone it's gone, i say....
and then i got up at 6am to go to work yesterday and I miraculously found my ring on my bathroon sink soap holder...I am chaste again!
but then i had to tell my boss in such a way that he would laugh and not get angry that I made him go thru the trash...seriously a huge dilemma, but my co-workers helped me out as I yelled I found the ring and ducked into the fridge at work, Jenn explained how miraculous and funny this whole experience was...and he laughed I guess, i don't really know, I was in the fridge...
okay so life is miraculous but now I don't get a new ring...too bad....