didn’t you say you were leaving?

1. a vacation… or some sort of break from working
2. a new contract lined up for the new year that has me working less than 30 hours per week
3. time to do a thorough clean and organize of my house
4. replace the two armchairs in the living room
5. design a better setup for my burgeoning music/video/photo libraries
6. a clean and organized garage
7. more time to spend just hanging out with JJ, Lizzy and Digger
8. to start running again
9. decorate my bedroom with the stuff I’ve already purchased
10. a clean car

Digger is big and black. And at times, like the twice per year when he sheds his entire coat of hair, he is very hairy.

Most often he is dirty. Or at the very least grubby. That’s because he really likes nothing better than to roll in filthy mud puddles or a mucky, spongy patch of dirt with a little bit of grass. And also because I loathe giving him a bath.

I think it is because he is big, black, hairy and dirty that he really, really likes to slink downstairs (and he most definitely slinks - which is odd because he is allowed to go downstairs, but it’s like he knows what he is doing down there is shameful and he must hide it) and rub his body all over the white carpet.

That’s right. I’m not sure which is more shocking: that I installed white carpet in what was always intended to be a kids playroom OR that Digger has a secret addiction. At any rate, let this be a little decorating tip for everyone out there: black dog and white carpet is not a good mix. It would be wise to consider another colour. Of carpet, I mean.

The transformation my daughter has undergone since she turned 8 is nothing short of miraculous.

Since about the age of 4 weeks, up until about 3 months ago, Lizzy has provided me with a constant array of challenges. Challenges which have shook me to the core of my being and made me really wonder if I would either snap under the strain or simply crumple in a bumbling heap, rocking back and forth with a spaced out look in my eyes. Yes, I’m exaggerating, but only a little bit. Raising Lizzy thus far has been a LOT of work.

I know raising kids, in general, is quite a challenge and a great deal of work. But Lizzy has always been in the “extra hard” category. I know she is extreme, but on the not-so-extreme end of extreme. Which makes me wonder how parents of kids on the extreme end of extreme can cope.

I could go on and on about what she is like, but that isn’t the point. The point is that lately she has been, well, reasonable. Consistently enjoyable. I’ve even stopped holding my breath when we are out in public as the likelihood of her engaging in really embarrassing behaviour has all but disappeared. Let me tell you, this change in circumstance is wonderful. And I know I’m totally tempting fate by saying this right now, but I’m finally seeing the joy of being a family. The reduction in my overall stress level is a bit surprising, but then I’ve been operating on a sustained level of high alert for years now.

I have been a parent for long enough to realize that this transformation has very little to do with me. Instead it is an intricately timed schedule of her growing up, when she was ready to grow up. I know that she’s reaching the point of being able to control her own behaviour. And boy does it make a big difference. The ability for her to control her own impulses is so much more effective then my influence. It makes me realize that all my worrying about doing the right thing, while evidence of my desire to be a good parent, didn’t have nearly as much impact as the simple biological fact of her maturing.

I realized just yesterday that I no longer count down the hours to her bedtime. This, more than anything else, seems like a sign of entering a new phase. One that I feel I’ve long deserved and I plan on fully enjoying. Because I just know that in another handful of years she will be entering the next phase: teenager.

My husband has many great qualities, but perhaps the most endearing one is that he has a handy solution for fixing just about anything that might be wrong with me (or him, for that matter). He feels that regardless of the situation, his solution will work. Why have a toolbox filled with stuff or a medicine cabinet jammed with pills. According to JJ there really is one treatment to cover all ailments. It’s his magical cure-all.

Got a cold?
Lost your job?
Feeling grumpy?
Bored? Lonely?
Antsy and can’t sleep?
Stubbed your toe?
Got a kink in your neck?

To all these things and more, JJ has one answer. Basically we should just start calling him JJ the Handyman. Or an adult version of Bob the Builder. Can he fix it? Yes he can!

I am grumpy. I’m not sure which came first: I was grumpy or I’m having a bad day. Definitely the two are related.

So what does grumpy Krista look like? Well, she has very little patience and a short fuse. Which usually leads to some sort of yelling. So far today I’ve yelled at Lizzy and Digger. Although, I’ll justify that by saying both of them deserved it. It’s just that when I’m not so grumpy I can restrain myself, even when they do something to make me want to yell.

The interesting thing about yelling when you are grumpy is that it isn’t all that satisfying. If anything it just leads to more grumpiness. Except now instead of just me being grumpy I’ve also made Lizzy and Digger grumpy.

How does grumpiness come to an end? I wonder if you can talk yourself out of grumpiness. Or do you just sleep it off?

I suppose if the grumpiness is related to hunger, then eating would be the cure. And if because of fatigue, then sleep/resting would be the cure.

What if it is related to just not being very happy with life at the moment? Then it’s not so easy.

I should probably go for a run as exercise is one of those things that is a mood buster, pretty much guaranteed to make you feel better. The irony with that kind of fix is that it is the LAST thing I feel like doing right now.

Instead I think I’ll go for another possible mood improver: I’ll try to do something productive. I’ll pick something from the list of things to do that has been just sitting there for ages. If I can get it done then I will feel better. And if I can do that a couple of times, perhaps I’ll have a mood turnaround.

Of course the risk here is that I don’t successfully complete something on my list, in which case I suggest that you avoid crossing my path for a while until you see no sign of Grumpy Krista.

UPDATE: I really did complete this yesterday but I forgot to publish it. For that reason I will back date the publishing.

UPDATE UPDATE: Oh, and boy was I productive after writing this post. I cleaned out the games cupboard in the living room, setting aside a box of games for the school garage sale. I also cleaned out the “craft” drawer in the kitchen. Plus I got rid of a broken shop-vac, a broken paint sprayer, a really old plastic kids swing, a bag of Lizzy’s old clothes, and old t.v. and I sold a mattress pad cover. I folded all the laundry. The night finished up with watching Amazing Race and Mad Men. By the time I went to bed I was in a good mood.

Yesterday morning as I was going into the local Starbuck’s, I saw a Dad that I knew from Lizzy’s school who was on his way out. This was our exact conversation:

Me/Him: “Hi!”

I have a post-shower ritual that I do, pretty much without fail:

• I slather body lotion all over my thirsty, dry (old?) skin.
• I apply face cream to the delicate skin on face
• I put hair styling goop - Being Wild if you must know - in my hair

I’ve been using the same products and doing the same thing for years. I don’t always do it in the same order, mind you, which I discovered may be a bit of a problem.

Yesterday, as I step out of the shower, I’m busy thinking about my next blog post. I’m churning through possible topics and ideas. I grab my body lotion and slather it everywhere. Then I grab the hair styling goop and slather it everywhere. And at that moment I immediately stop thinking about blog ideas as my brain cries out “red alert” and I try to figure out what that weird sensation is on my arm.

Turns out I took the glob of hair goop and slathered it all over my arm. Unlike the body lotion, the hair goop has the consistency of tooth paste so the sensation was very odd. And as soon as I registered what I had done I just stood there staring at my arm.

Perplexed. Confused. Distracted.

We are almost out of toilet paper and boy and am I ever happy about the situation.

It was about a month ago that we ran out and it came as quite a shock to JJ and I. We’ve been buying our TP from Costco for as long as I can remember and those bags are huge. I’ve never bothered to figure it out, but when you buy TP at Costco you are covered for a while. Longer than you think. What inevitably happens is that you find yourself at Costco and think “Hmmm, we must be almost out of TP, so we should get some more.”

But the thing is, since it takes forever to go through all that TP, you aren’t actually out of TP. Now you have two huge bags of TP. And in a house as small as ours it becomes a challenge to find a place to put it all. So you get creative. And promptly forget where you stored it so that when you need to break into the second bag you can’t find it. Or, worse yet, you forget you have the second bag and, guess what you do? That’s right, you buy another bag. Of course as soon as you get home with the new bag you find the bag you already had. And so it goes, the likelihood of running out of TP gets lower and lower.

So I was shocked when we ran out. Really? We have no TP? None? Not even the second bag that we put in a super secret place and we forgot about?

The thing about a trip to Costco is that is requires some planning. It is a bit of a drive for us and we only like to make the trip if we have to get a bunch of things. And since we had just been the day before, returning to just buy TP didn’t make sense. So I went to the grocery story to get the TP.

I realized as soon as I got there that it has been YEARS since I purchased TP from the grocery store. First all, it is expensive. I’m pretty sure for the same amount of money I was only able to purchase 1/3 of the TP. All the same, I convinced myself that I was shopping “locally”. Though I’m sure the TP travelled a long way to get to the store so it isn’t exactly the same thing as buying veggies from the local farmer. Whatever, it felt good to stick it to Costco and buy my TP from someone else for a change.

The glow of that purchase ended as soon as I got home and put the rolls of TP in our fancy TP holder. The rolls from the grocery store were downright anemic. I had become accustomed to the gianormous size of a single roll of TP that comes from Costco. And instead of viewing that as “big”, I now saw the grocery store brand as “really small”. So small that the rolls looked ridiculous, rattling around in the TP holder.

And the small size is apparent in how frequently we need to change the roll. It feels like we go through a roll every day. Every. Day. It makes me think too much about the quantity of TP we use. Thoughts I would rather not dwell on. I’m willing to conserve on all sorts of things but I draw the line at TP.

I was happy with how the grocery store TP felt: it was thick and soft. But I was completely annoyed with the white fluff that it would shed from the edges of the roll. It didn’t seem right that the fancy, expensive, grocery store paper should make a mess.

This whole rant is my way of saying that we are on the next to next to next to last roll of this stuff. Never before have I been so excited at the prospect of buying TP from Costco.

This past Saturday was Halloween and Lizzy and I didn’t have any plans that day, apart from getting ready for trick or treating later that night. At about 2:30 p.m. the little girl that lives downstairs came to the door to give Lizzy a treat, thanking us for the Halloween cookies we had delivered earlier in the week. She was all dressed in her costume, some sort of corpse bride, and when we asked what she was up to we discovered she was off to the mall to do some afternoon trick or treating.

This piqued Lizzy’s interest and since we didn’t have any plans we decided to get the costume on right away and head out.

As we were getting ready, I started to campaign for a change of venue. Instead of going to the mall, I wanted to go to Oak Bay village. It was a beautiful fall day and I preferred the notion of walking around outside. Plus it was much closer. After some discussion, Lizzy agreed and we headed off to the village.

We parked at the east end of the village and walked up one side of the street, crossed at the far end of the village and then made our way back to the car. It turned out to be great idea and Lizzy and I had quite a bit of fun, stopping at Starbuck’s so I could get a treat. We missed out on treats from a few places since they were already out of candy, but Lizzy ended up with quite the haul, regardless.

Our second last stop was the french bakery/coffee shop where we squeaked in as his last customer. Instead of commercial packaged candy, he was giving out their handmade meringue cookies. Lizzy got to choose from 5 or 6 different flavours. I thought that was great. Lizzy even let me have a bite. Yummy and super sweet.

The last stop was at Carleton House, the super posh retirement living place connected to the Serious Coffee.

We went in the doors and were greeted by several (elderly) people, excited to see the kids all dressed in costume. It was a warm and welcome greeting, with several of the residents hanging around and chatting. We were directed down the hall to what looked like a small cafe where they handed out some candy. We said hello to several more people and then headed out.

As we walked out the door, Lizzy turned me to and said “That’s our fanciest hotel in Victoria.”

“Well, it’s not actually a hotel, Lizzy. People who live there are retired and it’s called retirement living. I think this is one of the nicest ones like it in town.”

Lizzy thought for a minute, then looked up at me and said, “When I get old, that’s where I’m going to live. Did you see all the candy they had!”

I have many ways in which I can take photos to “capture the moment”, at this point more than ever before. This comes at a time when I seem to be taking fewer and fewer pictures. And it really bugs me.

I know in the past I’ve struggled a bit with whether I should be busy living a particular moment versus capturing the moment. And there really is a difference. When you are taking photos, especially if you are like me and tend to get fixated on taking good shots, you are definitely an observer. You need to step back and survey what is going on, decide the kind of shots you want to get, and then set them up and shoot. Plus there are technical things to consider - the lighting, the background, aperture, speed. For the most part my camera tends to get stuck on “P” so I can at least control some of the settings. But there are times when I want to have full control which requires a bit of concentration on my part as I try to remember what settings make sense. As you can see, if I’m busy doing that while the birthday cake with candles fully lit is being presented to the birthday girl, I’m most certainly not paying any real attention to the birthday girl or the moment.

I’m not sure really why I’m bringing up that debate because that isn’t what is going on here. Long ago I think I struck the right balance between capture and enjoy. Lately the pendulum has swung in the direction of very few photos and I think that has to do with my available time and, I hate to say it, the age of my child.

The time thing I won’t dwell on as it is obvious - I am working more hours than I have in years, I am volunteering at the school on the PAC committee (as the Chair, no less) and I now have my parents in town. All of these things take up part of my day, in fact, most of my days.

But what about Lizzy’s age? Why does an older child mean fewer photos? I don’t think it is a straightforward combination, because definitely my lack of time to nurture my photography hobby is one key element. But something has changed as Lizzy has gotten older. I spend a lot less time sitting on the floor playing with her and watching her. An activity that would ultimately inspire me to take a photo. I still watch Lizzy at play, but not nearly as much as I used to. Those early years were full of observation. It seemed like every time you looked, they were doing something new or they had changed. I think that is still true, but the changes are more subtle and harder to capture on film. Sure, Lizzy looks much older now, but her maturity and emerging life skills aren’t good material for bringing out the camera. I seem to spend more time in thoughtful contemplation than I am inspired to pull out the camera.

Plus, we are generally much busier as a family. Lizzy now has hobbies of her own that require my time to enable - lots of driving and then sitting around and more driving. As a very young child, every experience was the first one or relatively new, and the activities seemed to change often, so taking photos to capture the moment came naturally. Now that Lizzy is entering her second year of hockey I wonder just how many shots I need of her and her friends all decked out in hockey gear. It isn’t as inspiring and it takes away from the fun of simply watching her and the team play hockey.

That doesn’t explain why I never even considered taking out my good camera to take a decent shot of Lizzy in her Halloween costume this year. Yes, I have one or two snaps, but no real photos. This is the first year where this has happened. There were plenty of opportunities as she was dressed in costume twice this past weekend. With fancy eye make-up that I created. And she looked great. None of which inspired me to capture it. In this case I’m a little sad because it might be nice down the road to have those photos.
I guess maybe it does come down to whether you capture or enjoy the moment. As I have less time to do both, I seem to be spending more time enjoying the moment. I have no regrets with the time spent during Halloween as I had a blast with Lizzy, so what does bug me?

I suppose it is the loss of a hobby. I really like taking pictures. Good, thoughtful pictures. I like going through my shots and picking the best ones. I enjoy fixing a good picture and making into a great picture. And I still think like a photographer: I see things and I imagine how I would set up the shot and how it would turn out. But, alas, now is not the time for this hobby. Now is a time for parenting and working, now is the time for family and home, with a little bit of time for friends. My camera can wait. In the meantime, I’ll have fun living in the moment and learn to enjoy the simple pleasure of a snapshot taken quickly.