mini mees

i had lunch today with a really good friend of mine and her two kids. amazing kids. a 22 month old toddler who is adorable and sassy and silly and outgoiningly shy. and a 3 month old who is so excited at the possibilities of life and the things that surround him. everything is so new and wondrous to his little blue eyes. those kids make me want to have babies a baby. like right now.

i got to spend individual time with both of them while my friend had her hands full with the other. the toddler told me about the purple star sticker on her hand and then taught me that her eyebrow is above her eye. she was very matter of fact and preferred to drink out of the bottle of water herself rather than have mommy hold it for her. the baby nuzzled my neck and cooed in my ear (and sneezed on my chest :S). he was so mellow and smelled that soft baby smell. and i thought, for the first time without any fear, that i could do this. i could have a baby and care and be responsible. i know things aren't always roses and peaches. i know kids cry and poop and throw up and yell and make big messes and do stupid shit and embarrass you and blame you and all that other shit.

but i think it would be worth it.

Emmess

her attacks are getting worse. the pain in her jaw brings her to tears. the heaviness in her chest will not go away. the nausea and vomiting wakes her from her sleep. her limbs go numb every once in a while. the headaches turn in to migraines which never go away. 'i can't imagine how cancer patients must feel {with this much pain}' she says. it makes her want to be six ten feet under.

the pain.
the fucking pain.
and i can't help her. no medication can fix her.
the medicine to take away the hurt makes her vomit until she has nothing left inside.
the medicine to knock her out into a painless slumber generates an allergic response.
the medicine to fix her does not exist.

my eyes will be wetter than normal for the next little while.
i need as much hope and strength as i can get.
please pray for my mom to feel better.

i need her.

hair so long you can braid it

with summer and a wedding and NHL playoffs* coming up, its time to start really working on the daunting hair removal process for parts of my body that are (usually) covered up in winter.

*instead of growing a playoff beard - cause, eww gross - i am choosing to grow a playoff muff. really hoping the playoffs are over before i start hitting the beach.

i was digging through my rubbermaid tower of beauty products and found some leftover linen strips used for waxing. being uber cheap, i thought i would make my own wax and use up the strips before buying a whole new kit. good idea? you'd think so....

being the expert googler that i am, i searched a bunch of sites for homemade wax recipes, which all seemed to have the exact same ingredients and the same measurements. all it takes is a little water, white sugar and some lemon juice. easy enough. or so i thought.

so i mix the sugar and the water and realized - hey no lemon juice, whatever shall i do? i figured the lemon was just to make it smell nice, so i added a few drops of tea tree oil instead. whilst in my first aid/baking cupboard - cause every first aid incident can be fixed with baking - i saw the food coloring i bought six years ago and have never used. oooo. the wax will look pretty when its blue. in it goes to the sugar and water and tea tree oil mixture.

cook. cook. stir. stir. everything was turning melty and somewhat sticky. it was mega hot though, so i took it off the stove to cool before i dumped the wax on my legs and lady bits. as said wax begins to cool, it started to crystallize. cool if i wanted to make a batch of tea-tree oil flavored suckers. not so cool when you want to make wax to rip out your body hair.

Light-bulb: adding more water will make it better. so i add more water and start to cook it again. it was too liquidy, so i added more sugar. and i left it to cook for a bit. Yay for it starting to become the proper consistency (finally). not so yay for the concoction turning a muddy green-brown. (totally spaced on the fact that when sugar caramelizes it turns from white to brown.... im losing it in my old age, folks)

i did the 'drop a drop of said concoction into cold water to see if it forms a ball' thing that you do when caramelizing sugar. things looked ready, just needed to cool the final product.

off to the couch i go, with the concoction cooling on 3 hot pads on the coffee table, DVR remote in hand, linen strips ready to go and cats sleeping in their tree (they tend to want to be with you during the most messy and awkwardest of tasks, so them being asleep is a major bonus.)

i finished watching Fringe. wax is still steaming. i watched Gossip Girl. wax is still hot. i slightly touch the layer of wax-skin that is forming as it cools. holy fucking hell. it burns worse than the burn i got when i was stirring the wax the first time around (did i mention that part?)

flushed burn under cool water. pouted a bit. continued watching TV. checked wax every 20 minutes and it wasn't cooling down very much. WTF?!?! and because it was taking so long to get to a temperature i could actually withstand, the top of the mixture was starting to crystallize. when i tried to move my spatula - to give things a stir - it wouldnt move. mutha-effer. back to square one.

i ditched the homemade shit wax and added the real stuff to my 'must pick up the next time i am out' list.

lessons learned:

• hot sugar fucking hurts
• i am not good at 'at-home' beauty projects. at all.
  
• sometimes spending $10 on a pre-made jar of wax is totally worth it

vacant lots and the procrastination that follows

i am sorry i have been away. i have been really unmotivated lately. i know exactly why, and i cant dont want to stop. its just easier that way.

i know there is no such thing as 'normal' - i tend to believe things are more on a sliding scale, but how does the 'normal person' keep going?
what makes you not want to say fuckit and not throw in the towel? not in a "i'm giving up because its too difficult" kind of way, more of a "i'm lazy and couldn't care less, until its too late then i kick my own ass for not trying harder" kind of way. its a recurrent theme in my life, yet i still don't care enough to actually do something about it at the time. complaining to posting my afterthoughts on the interweb is something i do better.

how does one obtain the drive to push forward and actually accomplish something in the way that they dreamed it to be and not in a sub-standard way that is just mediocre and barely acceptable?
how does one develop a passion for something?
how does one become inspired?
how does one care about something? anything? anything at all?
how does one make effort?
how does one get a wake-up call?
how does one continue when they lose interest in the things that surround them?
how does one learn to appreciate what they could be if they just applied themselves?
how does one achieve motivation? and stay there for longer than a minute?

i am surrounded by people who have the drive and initiative to pursue everything they want in life. i dont understand how they are so strong and can stay on the road. i admire those people. i long to be like them. to be normal. whatever that means.

i was told once that i have all the gusto to initiate projects and my grandiose ideas, but when it comes to completing anything, i fail miserably. this recording keeps playing in my subconscious, and has regrettably become my story. procrastination consumes me, to the point where i stop caring. is it because i cant let things go, and i fear completion will mean i have nothing?
how do i stop the story?
where do i begin?
how can i move more towards the centre of the scale?
how do i achieve balance when it comes to starting and finishing things in my life?
why is the beginning so amazing, filled with ideas and hopes and dreams, and the end is too dark and incomplete to even find the light switch?
do i need to enlist an accountable-a-buddy?
or perhaps i just need a personal assistant to do my bidding for me.... or to at least kick my ass when i start to slow down...
fuck.
where is that wake-up call?