the result!

Here is my hair cut! I think it turned out pretty good! one step in the fresh start direction DONE!

shake it up!

Last night, I got it in my head that I hated my hair, I have been growing it out for about 4 years now with not a single cut so I could have long beautiful tresses at my wedding ( yes I planned my wedding hair before my engagement, I knew we would get married one day!). With the big life changes going on right now, it may be at least two years before we tie the knot, and I am not going to keep my hair like this until then.

So last night I took some scissors and attempted to cut my own hair in the "scene" style......needless to say I am not a hairdresser at all! I should have looked at the botch job I did to the poor dog a few days ago and left well enough alone :(. But after a few snips it was apparent I would not be making a masterpiece and so today I am going to go get a REAL 100% PROFFESSIONAL haircut. YIPPIE!!!! I have been wavering on getting my hair cut like this for months and finally I'm going to do it!. Anthony Robbins says never to leave the site of a decision without making one step towards making that decision a reality. So by botching a part of my hair I have forced myself to go and get it done!.

Here are the pictures I'm bringing to the hairdresser (not me), fingers crossed it all works out!

Limbo!

For the past few months from January until about April, life has been in stasis. We (Chris and I) have needed to make changes but could not get on the same page as to where and what these changes needed to be. Allot of circle talk abounded where we discussed our future and both Chris and I refused to budge on our position of where and what we were going to do with our lives. But something BIG does need to change, Chris's career is not stable enough for family life, I need to find a career that allows me to be the mother I want to be, the baby deserves to be a part of a big loving family. The lifestyle we are currently living is no longer fulfilling either of us.

As it stands Chris is now working a job he doesn't like to pay the bills at a crappy rate of pay, while I love the bakery I am only working part time because raising my baby is more important to me. While Nova Scotia is still far more affordable than most other provinces, you still cant get ahead if the decent paying jobs are not available. We went in a matter of a year from comfortable to making ends meet and if we stay here that is all that is going to be possible for us.

Change can be hard, especially when you have an innocent little life in your midst that depends on some degree of stability. But sometimes you need to take stock of what you have and have faith that things can be better if you take a risk. We have a house out here, and I have a few good friends but that is ALL we have aside of course from each other. I know if we move we will be back to renting again for a few years, and I HATE renting but what will we gain?. A new career for Chris and myself living in a province where work will be constantly available, friends and family that have gone years in between visits. Yes we will have to start all over from scratch again, and while it should be daunting and frustrating I'm actually really excited for a fresh start.

Chris has a fantastic opportunity thanks to my step dad to get into an Apprenticeship in HVAC. The first part of the paperwork has gone through this week and now we await for it to go through the union, then for the job application to be approved. So that would mean a big move across the country for us to Vancouver! My home town :). Once we get there I plan on taking my E.C.E at home while I watch baby and hopefully I will be able to watch one or two other children while I spend the days with my girl!.

That's the plan, now while we wait to hear back from Chris's job we will be spending the next month fixing up the house so it can be put up for sale by mid June. I'm a little bit concerned about finding a place to rent with the dogs but we will do it!. So much change on the horizon I'm excited, I know it will not be easy but once we finish school the rewards will be worth the hard work!.

So much catching up to do!

So whats new in the life and times of me?? Halloween was awesome! I managed to sew/ create our family themed Halloween photo shoot as Jim Henson's Labyrinth characters!. Christmas came and went it was nice and quiet, just Me, Chris and the baby, we set up our first Christmas tree together and made our first turkey. It was good times. Baby had an accidental fall from her highchair the first week of January and fractured her femur bone, it healed nicely by months end and she is crawling/ attempting walking just fine on it now. I started to work a few half days at the bakery again around November, I only leave the baby when she is able to spend the time with Daddy, I really don't want to leave her with strangers for child care if I can help it.

We decided this January we were going to move back to Saskatchewan and Chris was going to go back to school to become an Electrician, I am planning on doing homeschooling to get my Early Childhood Education and Daycare Management so I can stay at home with the baby and still bring in a full time income. Gluten free baking is becoming a bit more lucrative for us, we added cookies and brownies to the bread we bake and they seem to be doing quite well. I cant believe how many people suffer from celiac disease these days. We planned to start renovating the house to sell it by summers end, we bought new flooring for the living room, the down stairs hallway and the office. As of today it remains in box waiting to be installed. We are trying to come up with a new 5 year plan, still debating when or if we should have a second baby, I'm hoping to lose enough weight this year to order my wedding dress, fingers crossed we settle on a wedding date soon too!.

Nostalgic friends.....

Lately I have been feeling a bit alone in life. Yes I have Chris, the baby, my family, That is all good. I have more than allot of people do in life and I am very grateful for the blessings I do have. So what am I missing? whats the problem?.

~Close friendships.

All of my life when I have made close friends with someone it seemed it would not be long before they moved away (in more recent years it has been I that did the moving). The theme has been with me from kindergarten right up to present day. I have been on this coast for nearly 5 years now and managed to connect with only two girls out here. One moved away and now lives in another city, we recently got back in touch online and send letters which I really enjoy :). The other left for Europe for 2-3 years and just moved back home a few months ago, she is a sweetheart but our schedules make meeting up at times a bit difficult.

I have tried connecting to other people and we do have fun at times, but it doesn't come naturally, its hard to be yourself. There are always people you can chat up and have fun with but its so hard to find the type of people you can really connect to. I guess I would best describe it as superficial friendships, people who you like but your values are just different enough you can never really get close to them. I also suffer from severe social anxiety, there are days I feel like everyone enjoys my company to my face as a social nicety but when I walk away they sigh with relief.

I figured why not check up on Facebook and see what old friends were up to, but I think that has only made the problem worse. I know people change, life gives you new experiences to learn and grow from, priorities change, personalities change. I guess I just didn't realize how drastically those changes could take place in such a short period of time. So many people I considered Friends (and I don't use that word lightly) just don't seem to be who they were before. I try to picture in my head what it would be like to get together with them again and I can honestly say I don't see the potential for a close friendship like we once had. I would even go as far as to say they are complete strangers.

Thank goodness some people remain grounded and change at a pace that makes them still relatable I look forward to seeing my friends Ryan and Debra in Vancouver when I go home to visit this April. There are people I communicate with via blogs and online that I wish I had spent more time with when we lived closer together like 'Madam Diva', Heather and Georgia. There are a few back home in Saskatoon I still communicate with in letters like Jordan and Karen that I know I would be able to be myself around. I remind myself that there are glimmers of hope spread all over Canada, kind people, that I know give friendship honestly and wholeheartedly, people that don't take advantage of others and call it friendship. That picks me up when I get into a funk like this. For now I meet up with the few people I have connected to when I can and when I cant I fill the void with looking for more from myself, finding private hobbies that require only my own company.

The universe provides...

Since I began my mat leave finances have been a bit tight, we are shy an extra six hundred dollars each month that I used to bring home working full time. Chris has also been waiting for a new contract in animation to begin but the industry out here is running cold this year. We have cut back on spending where we could, we pay better attention to sales flyer's and buy things we'll need before we need them (like diapers and dish soap) if we can save the $$$ on them. I have also taken to clipping coupons and throwing them in my purse "just in case" which has come in handy on more than one occasion. I have never grown up with allot of money ~so frugal is not a foreign concept to me. Still some days its hard not to worry what will happen when my maternity benefits run out and we receive an even larger drop in income?.

There have been a few times in the last few months where things have seemed pinched, like maybe a bill would not be paid until the following month. Then right when the worry starts to creep in something happens, A card with a belated baby gift containing a check large enough to pay that bill arrives in the mail. Someone comes to purchase our extra dryer the night before the bank account is set to go into overdraft, once again the right amount of money comes at the right time. I can be prone to worry about these things obsessively if I allow myself. Chris has a much more zen mentality. "We're not going hungry, we have a roof over our heads were healthy and that's all that matters". I am starting to pay attention to the timing of these little financial saves that show up right in the nick of time and its hard to deny the belief that the universe will provide what you need.

I used to be so embarrassed about discussing finances, especially when they are not doing so well but in the almost 6 years I have been living on my own I have come to learn something about life. Its like a river current, always moving always changing. There will be times when finances are golden, you can splurge you can go out for nice dinners and afford to be generous to others. Then there will be times when you have to watch your spending and count your pennies, sometimes its a career change or a lifestyle change but finances like every other part of life are fluid. You just have to learn how to change your paddle stroke to maneuver through them best.

Life.....

Life has taken a lazy turn the past few weeks, many imagined projects and ideas but little motivation to get them started. The house is in a state of chaos, which seems to be the only state it can exist in. There never seems to be a point in getting it immaculate though, as soon as we tidy it a new project gets started- never finished and piled up in whatever corner it can occupy. It took me four days to assemble two prefab bookcases last month, they should have taken 45 minutes but between taking care of the baby and the other things in life the task was painfully prolonged. I just try not to think about it too hard the clutter and debris screw with my head to the point of breakdown some days.

I have been becoming a time thief stealing moments just for me and my sanity. Sometimes they are after everyone else has gone to bed, other times I wake up before the rest of the house and have my morning shower and coffee. The recent plan is leaving Chris with the baby and doing laps around the track at the park, I still have 10 lbs of baby weight to shed and 25 to my goal weight. I have decided to try to find a hobby or passion, In fact my latest goal is to become like Dos Equis most interesting man in the world~ my new role model. I have accumulated readings on stage hypnotherapy, speaking German and martial arts. I also have a teach yourself to sing program. I am by nature more inclined to daydream then to do, so I am going to try to offer myself a reward to work for. If I lose my 25 lbs and accomplish one of the above mentioned programs I will reward myself with a Katana!!!

Being on Mat leave I have had to tighten the spending belt as of late but I have had some success in the trading department!. I collect statues called Windstones and they don't come too cheap. In my collection there were 5 pieces I bought that just didn't fit quite the way they should so I went to the online forum and found some people to trade with. I was able to get 4 paint your own Windstones (which are nearly impossible to snag when they restock in the online store). I received two Kirins (oriental unicorns) and two Unicorns, I plan on painting one of each for the baby to start her first Windstone collection :). I also found someone trying to sell the one Gryphon I am missing so I was able to trade them a few smaller pieces for the larger Gryphon. So I was able to get 5 new statues that I have been wanting at the cost of shipping. Now I'm just waiting patiently for the Gryphon to arrive and the time to start painting the others.

Other than that I'm just living life at a slow pace and planning, plotting and waiting, My family should be moved out here in a month and I cant wait to have them around!!!. I may go back to work part time for two half days just to start making some Christmas plans $$$. Chris is going back home (Sask) for a wedding in October and I need to get my ass in high gear making our Halloween costumes. I also had an Epiphany the other day, there are tons of children in this neighbourhood, so Halloween should be awesome~full of little grubby trick or treater's!!!. I can hardly wait!.