I should really be hopping into the shower right now instead of writing a 30-minute entry. Hah, maybe I should start 15-minute entries. But I realized this weekend that I've been busting my ass for everyone around me and not really myself again. Not that I think I should bust my ass for myself, it's more that I don't spend much time focusing on me. That's kind of why I started the webpage again and spent all that time setting up MT, so I'd have a place to do stuff for me.

Then I got busy. I've always been this way, my entire life. I've always felt that what is most important in a life well lived is what you give to the people around you. I learned in Therapy that sometimes it's more important to worry about what you give yourself, for the reason that if you don't give to yourself first, what you give your loved ones ends up being lesser. I agree with that, but I find it very hard to live it.

I lie to myself about what is "me time" that going shopping for the latest thing we need to make our home life easier counts. It doesn't really. Me time, the me time that was best was the kind spent sitting in a coffee shop, smoking, drinking coffee and writing about what I saw, who I was, the things around me. I don't know where to go for that anymore. It's something I miss about not being in TO. Plus, there's always this pressure that I may miss picking up Miss. Sara from school or something.

I don't want to be the one to drop the ball on being the responsible adult. I've never allowed myself to. That's not completely true. I've dropped the ball tons of times in my life. And I've always hated myself for doing it. That I should always be perfect somehow. Enh, I dunno. Auch ja.

I went shopping on Saturday with Miss. Sara. I discovered that my beloved Cotton Ginny actually was open and stocked! We were only supposed to be getting Sara a new winter jacket since it's gotten surprisingly cold over the past week, and her broken-sipper jacket just isn't acceptable. I've been keeping my eyes open for new shirts, but nothing serious. I still hate the idea of buying clothes for this size I'm at again, I don't feel it's my accurate size and I will go back down to my lifetime standard of size 18. But I seem to start hating myself when my clothes don't fit.

It makes me feel ugly and sloppy. I've always been highly casual in my clothing choices, my entire life. I've always been a pair of jeans and a T-shirt girl. But there's casual and then there's sloppy. And I've been sloppy. So I've been trying to find some inexpensive yet nice shirts to go with the jeans I finally grabbed. In comes CG Plus! I found 2 long sleeved, V-necked (perfect to keep me from looking like mighty boob woman!) striped stretch shirts, 2 button down shirts (one that makes me look like a late 70s hipster mom) and a plain white T-shirt, V-necked of course. I no longer feel like the monster from the deep, and god, it's wonderful.

I'm not stylish or thin by any means, but I feel better about myself. It's really nice not to walk around with that just under the surface feeling of self-loathing.

I was thinking this morning on my walk home from dropping Sara off that we've adjusted really well to our new lives and home here. It's been a bit more than a month since she came here full time and I can barely remember what it was like not to have her around all the time. I feel more rushed, and more hemmed in by all her lessons and needed routines, but they're helpful too. It's nice to know that when 5 pm rolls around I'm pretty much finished for the day, and my home life starts. A home life filled with regular dinners, and TV. Mmmm, brain rot, TV.

We had the boys over to visit last week. I've been missing them both a lot lately (when I stop and give myself time to miss anyone), so it was really nice to go out for dinner and a visit. I don't remember exactly what we talked about, but I remember laughing and laughing. Sometimes I wonder about this part of my "growing up", the distance that has come between my friends and me. These people that were the most important aspect of my life in High School. So many of them are gone now, lost into their own lives, the same as I have become lost in my own. When I stop to think about it, I hurt terribly. I've tried with some of them to get back into contact a couple times, and it's hit the point where I know I have to let it go and see what happens eventually.

I hate that idea though. With one person specifically, someone that if you had told 16 year old me I would be missing the most, I would've bitterly laughed in your face. I don't know if I will ever sit across from him ever again in a coffee shop... and on the other hand, there are the people that you just know will be there. For me it's the boys. They're coming up on their 10th anniversary and I can remember clear as day the winter they fell for each other. I know even if we don't talk for months, someone will call or email and we'll go out for dinner and laugh.

I keep wondering about who Sara's people will be. What are they going to be like? She's so quiet and shy; I worry about her. I worry that with moving here, she knows nobody in the neighbourhood, and won't do the gutsy stuff you need to do to make friends cold. And now I remember 9 year old me going up to a young girl riding her bike in the back of our apartment building and saying "Hi! I'm Linda, I just moved here, want to be friends?" I can't even remember her name anymore but we became friends.

Sara will find her way. Hell, if all us 'losers' could find each other in the Art Room and become such a fun group, Sara will be fine.

On other thoughts, I'm having a huge-ass sale at SkyWorks this month. It's selling out like crazy. I'm thrilled, and it gives me the cash influx that I need to make some of those changes to my business. Like finally getting Business Cards. Hee. I'm also considering doing a redesign of the site, the labels, everything. Keeping the font (Lynda Cursive!) and losing the clipart logo. I've been paying attention to various medium sized businesses and font seems to be the biggest "logo" thing they do. We'll see. I think I may take some of my work with me to the pool tonight to work on while Sara has her swimming lesson. I have forms I need to send into Health Canada before the "new" SW launch.

And that's 30 Minutes.