I spent a good chunk of yesterday prepping myself to make up a Wholesale pricing sheet for SkyWorks. There's been a fair amount of interest in my stuff from various companies over the past couple years and some fairly serious talks with a local business. I've finally decided that I can't continue ignoring how badly my sales have been in the retail end and stay in business. I need to expand into another stream of potential revenue to keep going.

So, a wholesale pricing list. I couldn't decide on an attractive and professional layout and look for it so I ended up looking at the various templates Microsoft offers for Excel. As usual I got sidetracked into looking at all the other templates they had. I found a couple useful ones, like a personal budget spreadsheet and a personal fitness chart.

The chart's interesting. I put in my height, weight, and various body measurements and it gives me back my rough lean body weight, fat body weight and BMI. I think the BMI is total bullshit, but the rest is kind of neat. That you can track your measurements and weight over time is the most useful. I think I may start using it on a every week or so basis. No more because that way madness lies.

It got me thinking about size, weight and self-esteem. I want to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. It was a good weight for me -- comfortable, good energy levels, strong. The weight I'm at now is hard on me, on my feet, my back, everything. I had been within 20 lbs of my goal weight after I moved back from Toronto. (Oddly enough being unable to eat without vomiting from stress for months makes you lose weight! Imagine that! Hah.) Then I quit smoking and gained 60 lbs. According to the little scale I bought a few weeks ago I've lost 16 lbs since I bought it.

I can't tell but I'll accept that. I usually lose about 10 lbs every spring and regain it in the fall. It's just the way my body works.

That's the hard thing about talking/thinking about weight -- it's so hard to keep focus on how my body works. To keep in mind that I'm a German housefrau body type courtesy of my genes and I will never look like my sister, much less the "ideal". I'm ok with that, I really am. I've fought damn hard to accept that I'm who I am, my body is the way it is and I have limits. Ever since I hit my adult height I have never been smaller than a size 15 (cotton ginny) and my biggest has been a size 24. I'm best at a size 18.

That's just my body truths. I can be active (biking everywhere, working as a theatre tech, etc), eat well (according to the Canada Food Guide!) and I'm still fat. So where's the profit, the gain in being dissatisfied with how I look? I gain nothing but self-loathing. Who gains? It's no secret. The diet and exercise industry does. Millions if not billions of dollars are spent every year on changing who we are. It's powered by self-loathing.

I admire the people that diet and work out for their health, and only for that. The people that take joy in the power and movements of their bodies. The people that go to the gym because it feels good. I think I know one. Everyone else I've ever talked to about their bodies use phrases like "I'm fat.", "I'm ugly, look at this gut!", "I have to lose 20 lbs... I'd be beautiful then." and so on. Self-loathing.

I'm no different. If I really focus on my body I hate it all. I hate my breasts, I hate my gut, I hate my thighs, I hate my double chin, I hate the flab under my arms. I hate it all. I hate myself. The fuck? So then the diet industry says "DIET! Count calories! Micromanage your food so you can lose that ugly FAT! You're a fuck up if you're fat! You're bad!" (I once pulled out a print ad for diet pills that literally said if you eat a piece of chocolate cake you're bad. The fuck?) Then the exercise industry says "Come, exercise! It's not real exercise if it's not in a gym! You can't lose weight without a gym membership and you're fat! Bad!" -- And because I hate myself I buy into it. Then I do everything "right" and I stop at a size 15 because that's the way my body works. And then I hate myself and I spend more to beat that "plateau" and fail. Lather, rinse, and repeat.

So I don't even play that game. But because I'm so fixed on not falling into the trap of self-loathing, I'm not sure how to go about getting myself healthy. It's a tightrope.

And that's 30 minutes.

Just put a batch of Bobby to bed and it's only 10am. Granted I only got such an early start because I was up at 6am with my back aching. I've been really bad about my Physio exercises, so it shouldn't be a surprise when my back hurts me. I'm going to try to get back into the routine of doing them right after dinner tonight. I've definitely seen improvement in my pain levels and functionality over the past eight months I've been going to Physio.

So I heard back from the lovely Melanie yesterday. She had been trying to get us a better rate on the car loan than the 7.5% we have from the bank up to $20000. Of course here is where we pay for our previous bad credit decisions come back to bite us. It's still a gain, we didn't think we'd even get the credit card this application much less a pre-approval on a car loan. We're just going to pay through the nose for it.

We finally sat down with solid numbers last night and crunched them. This car is going to cost us about $600/month to have and use even at our limited planned km. To manage that we're going to lose most of our allowances, any savings we had been making, and I'm going to have to start pinching pennies. I personally think we had a nice comfy, lush lifestyle before. We could afford to do most things, we grocery shopped based on desire not frugality, we both got a fair chunk of cash to spend without justifications needed and there was room to play if we needed to.

Mike says that's a "normal" lifestyle. I don't think so, but I also know I'm coming from a fairly poor background. According to my "normal" we lived and live in the lap of luxury. The idea of being able to afford clothes when needed and getting my teeth taken care of outside of emergency situations is unbelievable to me if I actually stop to think about it. I've spent most of my life surviving with a rock of a stomach from the stress of figuring out where I'm going to find enough.

But that history and experience means that I can work with almost anything for a budget. So taking a $600 hit on our monthly income is more than doable especially when it gives me mobility. Part of the expense of our life right now is because I can't comparision shop. I can't get our canned goods at Food Basics for 20 cents less. I can't go to the market on Saturday Morning and buy the meat and produce for the coming week. I'm tied into the nearby Zehrs for everything.

I think we need to get this car. The smart move would be to wait another 6 months, or even better another year and then buy. In that amount of time we could improve our R rating through the credit card enough to qualify for the various financing incentives. That would be smart. But what happened was we realized that we could make a car happen. We started thinking about it. We started wanting it. We were never happy without a car, but there was no other option. Now it's an option. Not a wise one. Not a frugal one, but it's an option.

And with that I can't say no. Rather, I refuse to say no. I refuse to go back to "making it work" at the expense of my self-esteem, my time and my back. I've had enough and just knowing that there's a way out makes me desperate for it. I'm so glad that we decided on the car we want before I got to this point. Until we sat down and said, "ok, we want to buy it. This is what we want." in Rheal's office it was still an option. After that it's a decision.

Mike agrees with me about all this. We crunched numbers and cursed and swore until we found a number we could live with. We can live with this. We just have to change nearly everything we do, everything we prioritize; basically the way we live our lives. Enh.

And that's 30 minutes.

Ok, so I'm going to steal 15 minutes from my surprisingly busy day today to do a quick journal entry. I find that if I plan to go on into my day right after walking Sara to school without coming home, I get an awful lot done before noon. This morning I walked her partway (I don't walk her all the way if she's been a massive pain in the ass about dawdling through that morning's routine) to school, and then headed over to the bank to put in Mike's income tax refund.

It's a tidy sum this year. We've already spent it in our heads too. So much to the Visa, so much to the GST repayment we should have done in the past year but we didn't, so much to the RRSP, and finally the remainder is split between both of us. Gives us both a few hundred to play with. I've earmarked my chunk for a sewing machine and accoutrements. Mike's thinking about an iPod.

We could take it and put it down on the car as the down payment. We really could. I think it's a bad, bad idea to do that though. I mean, we have this money spent in our heads. It's something we look forward to all year this chunk of guilt and explanation free cash to spend on anything our little hearts desire. To turn around and take it away to put it on this already expensive car would be a recipe for massive resentment. At least for me. I *know* I'm going to be mighty pissed at putting out $500/month before gas and maintenance until I get used to it.

The messier this car buying gets, the more time it takes, the more I think it's a stupid move to do this. But it's not at the same time. I'm torn between the two. I guess I'm not seeing yet the benefits of all this bullshit. All I'm seeing is the stress and what it's done to my quiet little life. If it's going to be another 2 weeks I think I want to go on another test drive. Hah. It's been 3 weeks since we got the loan and got started on this. On the plus side i have 15 minutes of driving fun.

Ahh hell. I'll be patient. I'll do what I can to keep my life on an even keel and try to be patient. I just feel like I'm holding my breath. Doing the "that should wait until we have the car" game.

That's 15. And now I have to call the lovely Melanie back.

I've spent the past half an hour walking around our apartment too keyed up to do anything. Both my and Mike's days have disappeared spent on this fucking car. I'm not at the curl up and cry point in my stress level but I'm getting there. I haven't really felt anything for a week. I'm not sleeping and when I do sleep I have nightmares about test-driving or about being able to make payments. In 10 minutes I have to get dressed to go get Sara and then I'm on as a mom for the rest of the night.

This is a fucked up world. We're buying a car. It's just a big expensive bar of soap but somehow I got tied up in knots over it anyways. We've spent weeks now on this and honestly there's no end in sight yet. And that's just screwy.

On Saturday just past we put an order in for our new car. A 2004 Toyota Echo, Manual transmission, no a/c, no frills, basic as hell car. We're waiting to see what they can find to decide on the colour -- we prefer black, but if the dark grey is less of a wait we'll go with that instead. Apparently people in KW don't buy cars without a/c. We test drove on Saturday afternoon, walked back into the dealership and ordered it.

We have the bank loan pre-approval for 7.5% but the current special with Toyota financing is 3.9%. It's a $1700 difference over the length of the loan. We have nothing to lose and $1700 to win by applying for the dealer financing. So we spent another hour or so upstairs applying for the financing with a lovely young woman named Melanie. We finally left the dealership on Saturday around 5pm with a temporary bill of sale and the expectation of two phone calls today -- one from Melanie about financing, the other from Rheal about where our future car is at the moment.

So this morning we walked over to our insurance agent's office to get all the preliminary quotes finalized and the insurance taken care of. Oddly enough we need the VIN of our car to insure it! *sighs* It's a big circle of patience. We need to wait on Rheal with the VIN so we can then get the insurance so we could then get the loan finalized. For the most part all I can do right now is wait. I'm not good at patience. I can be very patient and slow with coming to a decision but once I've decided I want it done NOW.

Anyway, all of this has been extremely straightforward and game-free. We took the sticker price on the Echo with no dickering because we decided (before we went near the dealership) that the sticker was a reasonable price and what we might gain by haggling wasn't worth the stress. Period. It wasn't out of naivety or ignorance it was an informed decision. We've pretty much decided everything on face value. Anything else, like the all-weather mats that Rheal marked included, is gravy.

The financing from Toyota at 3.9%? Is gravy.

So when I return a call from a woman at the dealership that we never met or spoke to, I really didn't expect or want to start the games.

Coming off of hold after hellos and her getting our file.

Sandi: Linda, I have good news! You've been approved for the financing.

Me: That's wonderful!

Sandi: There's just one thing. They're going to need a down payment.

Me: Oh? How much of a down payment?

Sandi: Well they want $1500 down to approve you. They were asking for $2200 but I've been working all morning on working them down to the $1500. That's the absolute lowest they can go.

Me: (I just let my filters go here. I'm so proud of myself.) We can't do that.

Sandi: Pardon?

Me: We cannot pay that. That's why we applied for 0 down; we are unable to make a down payment.

Sandi: Well they won't give you the financing without it. You know, with the down payment your monthly payments would be less too!

Me: What about a higher percentage with nothing down?

Sandi: No, they won't approve that. Maybe you should discuss this with Mike?

Me: I don't need to discuss this with Mike. We cannot afford a down payment and we don't need to. We have a bank loan with 0 down. We are buying this car with or without your financing. We'd like to finance with Toyota, but we don't need to at all. If this is a hard limit then we'll be going with our bank loan.

Sandi: More pressure that we can find the money *somewhere*

Me: You know, I'll talk to Mike about this. I'll phone back later.

~~ ~ ~ ~

It's been two hours now since that phone call and I am fucking livid. I was pretty pissed when I hung up, but with 2 hours to stew on it I've managed to work up a pretty good lather. So has Mike. We're to the point now that we're discussing cancelling the order on the Echo and buying elsewhere. I did what the woman urged me to do; I called Mike. I guess he was supposed to tell the little woman where the money for the down payment was going to magically appear from. Oddly enough he's now pretty fucking angry that a stranger called instead of the person we agreed to deal with.

What's sad about this is this woman in her fumbling 5 minute phone-call has ruined the rapport and goodwill we had built with Rheal and Melanie over an afternoon. I'd like to think that it was pretty obvious that in this process I am the number cruncher, the one to convince, the one to sell. Mike's paycheque is paying for it. But I'm the one that pays the bills.

So to have a stranger phone me and tell me to talk to Mike when I give a clear, firm no has me absolutely livid. To have this same stranger present a demand like she's done me some sort of favour has me spitting nails. That this has come out of left field has me seriously considering taking our $20000 somewhere else. Sandi has no idea about Mike and my dynamics, has no idea who she should be selling to, or how she should have sold it. She gambled and treated me like the little woman. That move most likely cost them $1800 dollars in financing profit and if there isn't a decent recovery from Melanie it may cost them the sale.

And now I have to go call Melanie back and see if they're willing to salvage our sale.

It's March break so Miss Sara is home all the time right now. That means I most likely won't get a real entry up at all this week. I just can't get myself into the writing mode when there's part of my mind focused on where everyone else is around me and "are they reading over my shoulder?" worries. I can't write for an audience and I always attract one when I type for more than a minute at a time unless I'm alone. (Or they're asleep)

So next monday, I'll hopefully get my 30 minutes alone. Until then I'll just update the photoblog and leave it at that.

We're at the point now in our car shopping that we're heading out to do the test-drives as soon as we can. We got the loan for $20,000 but frankly we can't afford the monthly payments on that much of a loan. I did some math and we can manage at the most $18,500 so that's become or top limit for the final purchase price, including delivery taxes and everything else.

(Totally off topic -- I have some seriously weird stuff in my iTunes playlist that I have no idea how they got there.)

Anyway, playing around with the taxes and the approximate delivery fee we're looking at roughly $15,000 available for a car. Means my highly desired automatic transmission is out if we want to buy new at all. Fine, I know how to drive manual; I just don't like it. I'll survive. Means we have no room for air-conditioning or power locks or anything else people think we need. Enh.

So within that budget we can afford to buy in new cars (All 4-door sedans. I want 4 doors more than I want auto transmission.):

The Chevrolet Aveo
The Hyundai Accent
The Toyota Echo
The Saturn Ion.1

The Ion was the biggest surprise. We figured anything from Saturn would be completely out of our budget. We already knew about the Accent and the Echo from last year's trip out to visit various dealerships. The Aveo was something new that we blanked on last year. So four cars within our budget... it helps as a boil down for us. Can't debate what we can't afford to buy, right?

So the next stage is to take the four of them out on test-drives and see what we think and boil it down a bit further. I want to get the majority of the decision-making done away from the dealership and pushy salespeople before we have no choice but to deal with them. I'm both dreading and looking forward to the test drives. I'm excited because it's a serious step. I'm nervous because it's been years since I drove stick and I figure I'm going to stall all over the place. (Even though I've never stalled all over the place driving stick, even when I was learning initially)

One thing that's been fascinating and frustrating about this process is how weird people are about cars. I've actually gotten into arguments about what I want in a car with people other than Mike. Mike and I are the ones going into debt, paying for it and driving this car but you'd think we weren't by the force of some of the arguments. We need air conditioning. We're "fucking stupid" because we're buying new. I should consider Kia, even though I've stated clearly there's no way in hell. Apparently Mike's been hearing about what we should buy from co-workers too.

It's so weird. Why do people care? Is it an extension of the car culture? That the idea of a car being an extension of the self is so pervasive that what the car your friends own says something about you? Frankly for us it's a means to an end. It's convenience, mobility and a measure of freedom. I don't much care what we end up with as long as it's comfortable, reliable and you know, moves. It sure as hell isn't an extension of my self.

And that's 30 minutes.

You know, whenever I do dishes/wash my tools I end up thinking over whatever has caught my interest at the time. It's like a prefect place to think about stuff, I find. I mean, what else am I going to think about? The cutlery? "Oh yes, a knife. Swipe here, swipe there, dip, put in rinse water. A fork. Swipe here, swipe there, dip, put in rinse water..." I guess when I started doing dishes I would've needed to pay attention to what I was doing; but by now and however many thousands of hours spent doing the exact same thing I have it down to a process as automatic as breathing.

So I just finished up washing my tools after making a batch of Angel Wings (finally!) and I found myself going over and over my interactions with Ryo this past weekend. I used to be friends with her once, when we were still in High School but then she moved to Toronto and I got married. When I moved out there we rekindled the acquaintance and maintained a sort of friendly relationship until I finally got tired of her continual comments and brutal bluntness.

Since then I've kept my distance except for outings as a group, like last Halloween and last Saturday. Anyways, that's not what I was thinking about. What I kept on remembering was a conversation we had in Lee Valley while waiting for the boys to finish ohhing and ahhing.

We're sitting there talking about her business (making and selling handmade sock animals -- beautiful creations and work) and how she's going to one of the One of a Kind Shows. These shows are big, major shows. They cost a lot of money to get the table space. I know this because my Dad has been doing Shows for at least the past 15 years and we talk about it. I mention that Dad's been doing craft shows, kind of offhand (he's been doing them as long as I've known her, not that I expect my acquaintances to remember what my parents do for a living but I also don't expect it to be a complete surprise, you know?) and we talk about what he makes and sells.

Then she says "Well your Dad doesn't do the type of shows I do." -- clearly implying that she thinks he's hawking his wares in some rundown flea market.

I swear to god I was torn between ripping her head off and laughing in her face. I only said "No, he doesn't do One of a Kind, he does Signatures." And tried to leave it at that. (Signatures is the main competition for the One of a Kind shows. They're equal, IMO, in prestige, cost and income.) She made another snarky comment about his product (which she has never seen) and then a woman came and struck up a conversation with us.

On one hand, that's just the way she is, but on another it's a perfect example of this attitude that I fucking despise. It's a mix of arrogance, pride and ignorance. That she knows everything and there's nothing she can learn from anyone else. Almost every time I talk on the phone with my Dad we talk about the shows, about business, about what he does and what I am a bare neophyte at. And I am grateful for every minute of it. I don't agree with everything he does but I don't close myself off from learning because of it.

She in that one sentence displayed her complete dismissal of a business that has succeeded in the area she's just begun working in. He's done shows all over North America, has made enough money at it to finance a comfortable lifestyle with no other source of income, has created a business that is respected and desired at these shows.

I can take snarky comments about my business being part-time or a hobby because I know that I'm unwilling to take the risks I need to take to ramp up to a full time commitment. It's not a hobby to me, but fine. But listening to her snark on my Dad and what he does is hilarious, infuriating and kind of sad.

That's 30 minutes and I still haven't articulated what I was ruminating on while I washed my tools. Ahh well, they can't all be complete essays, right?

... Actually as a final thought... I lost my admiration for her remarkable, beautiful creations because of her rudeness. Losing sight of what you have to offer as remarkable and admirable because you're focused on putting down someone else's remarkable and admirable gifts is a tragedy, an honest to god tragedy.

I just realized as I was finishing up my 30 minute tidy that I spent a lot of time talking about how I needed to find a routine and a balance in my life but now that I've found one that is working (somewhat) I haven't really written about it. It's like that a lot when I write a journal anywhere. I focus on something that needs changing, but instead of taking some time to celebrate and chronicle the change I simply move onto the next challenge, the next change.

So over the past while I've been trying to create a home for my little family and me. Some place clean, safe and comfortable. In many ways I've succeeded beyond my wildest imaginings. It would now be unthinkable to live in the type of mess we had before. Simply because we've been getting used to both the clean home and the work it takes to keep it clean.

I found some pictures hidden away in old directories here on PtF of the way it was before. The very idea of ignoring the mess the way I used to makes me shudder. We'd ignore it for months at a time and then we'd have to clean up for whatever reason and we'd take 2 days and clean like mad. Now it's a matter of 5 minutes tidy and closing of the bedroom doors. Nothing is spotless, I couldn't live in a spotless home but it's tidy and clean.

I was thinking about routines and habits that make this possible when I was wiping down the kitchen counters. I like reading the various "How do you clean up" threads on forums because it's so neat to see how people approach the same chores. I have two backbone chores to this major change of mine. The 30-minute tidy and weekend floors.

The 30-minute tidy is simply that. I set the timer for 30 minutes and I start at the entryway. I pick up garbage, lost items and put them where they belong. I fold the couch blankets and put the end pillows back at the ends of the couch. I wipe down the coffee table and tidy the TV guides, remotes and candy dish. Computer desks get their dirty dishes removed and then are ignored (desks are personal spaces and are the responsibility of the owner). The kitchen table gets cleared and washed. Then it's rinse and stack of the dishes in the kitchen for washing later. And then a final wipe down of the counters and stove. Usually that's the end of the 30 minutes there. If I have extra time I'll do a quick tidy of the bathroom.

The weekend floors came from a truism I've always known -- If your floors are clear and clean your house will always look cleaner than it actually is. I figure it's something about open spaces reducing the impression of clutter. This routine also comes from reading about how you need to do 4 passes with a vacuum each time you vacuum to actually clean it well. So I've started doing my floors every weekend, usually on a Saturday morning.

There's a whole process to it too. I pull out all the rugs on the various floors; sweep the hard floors (I mop every month or earlier if it gets gross) and then swiffer them. (I love the swiffer. Cat hair and dander is so much less of a problem now) Then I vacuum the rugs and put them back. Finally I break out my Discman and vacuum the hallway then the living room. I actually look forward to vacuuming because it's a chunk of time I take to listen to my various CDs, sing along (much to Mike's disgust) and vacuum-dance. So much fun.

I figure those two little things, those two basic changes to my daily and weekly routine has enabled us to live in a better home. There are other things we've been working on. Doing dishes together every night is one. We're trying to get into the habit that we eat dinner then we wash the dishes. I don't count it as a changed routine yet because we're still having growing pains and finding it difficult to stick to it.

I really want to do more fancy stuff with the place in the future. I want to paint the walls in the hallway and the living room in this coming year. I want to build in shelving in a couple of the closets. I want to sew comfy pillows for the couch. I want to sew curtains for Miss Sara's room and buy her a fabulous flop rug for her floor. I want to build shelves for the unused wall space right above my desk.

Let's see if I can do it. :) And that's 30 minutes.

So it's time again to sit down and do a 30-minute entry, I think. I debated doing a quick 15-minute one but I have time today. Not much to write about off the top of my head, but who knows what'll come up, right? Heh.

Miss Sara and I finally did the threatened major cleanup of her room yesterday. I've been after her to keep up ever since I lost my temper with the mess a month or so ago. She's expected to do a daily 5-minute tidy after she's finished her homework and a clothes pick up when she changes for the night. The main problem has been the disaster area she had to work in. At one point her 5 minute tidy was "here's a garbage bag, fill it" tidy.

I've been threatening to come in there and clean up my way for a couple months now. I set the first deadline for sometime in early January but then realized that she would have no time to clean up over the holidays. So I pushed it forward to March 6th. The threat was that I could potentially come in with big garbage bags and clean that way. I was serious about it too.

Instead we got a system going. I grabbed all the laundry baskets in the house and set them out in the hallway with signs above that read: To Keep, Donate (Still good, but never used things) and Throw Out (Broken, Ungiftable things). Sara took a basketful of various junk I was sweeping out from under her bed, in her closet, various stash places and then sorted them into those 3 areas. After that we bagged the garbage, packed up the to donate stuff and sorted the to keep.

I'm really impressed at how well her sorting went. There were only a few things that she kept that I felt could've gone elsewhere but she managed to explain to my satisfaction. That was the big thing, see, everything she wanted to keep she had to justify to me. She has so much stuff. For the most part I agreed with what she was keeping. Now that we have everything broken down into stuff she wants to keep in categories she can start the really hard part -- figuring out her organizational system.

The worst part so far has to be the nasty sandwiches she was hiding. I found two mouldy nasty allergy hell bombs tucked into a suitcase that was also a toy chest. I threw out the "sandwiches" while cursing up a storm about it. I also threw out the suitcase and everything in it. Basically in that one move Sara lost most of her small Barbie things. But there was no way to get it clean.

Somehow she had gotten the idea that she couldn't throw away food. Why hiding food so it rots was a reasonable alternative I have no idea, but hey. I don't like seeing food thrown away but I'm more concerned about food poisoning and the creation of allergy hell bombs than I am about a sandwich being discarded. I've tried to make that clear to Sara last night and today that if it's time to clean out her lunch bag after school and she's not going to snack on what's left -- it goes out. Especially if it needs refrigeration.

Since I opened that suitcase I've been finding it so hard to breathe. I haven't wheezed and coughed this much since the month after I quit smoking. I'm basically having one hell of an allergic reaction to the suitcase from hell. What's sad is how long it took me to take some allergy pills this morning. Heh. Ahh well, it's out in the garbage now and Sara's room is clean. Finally.

I also went out with the Boys and Ro to Mandarin, Lee Valley and Ikea on Saturday. That was an interesting outing. I'm pretty proud of myself, actually. There were a few things that just pissed me off greatly and one occasion that it started becoming "poke Linda so she gets mad" but I managed to keep my cool.

And that's 30 minutes. Time to get the laundry.

So yesterday I was bemoaning my lack of drive in the morning. I had intended to get up, have my shower and catch a bus uptown so I could buy some lye. Then come home, make some soap and do various little daily things. That was the plan, but instead I spent most of my time reading web boards and being really really slow and lazy.

Somehow that slow morning and average looking day turned into one of the best and most meaningful days I've had in years. I'm still not sure how on earth that happened.

The first wow moment came when I was waiting for my sister to call me back. The phone rang and the display came up "TD Canada Trust", I pick up and it's Floria who is very pleased to let me know that our pre-approval for the car loan has been accepted. We're accepted! We have the loan! We can buy a car! Oh my god! I think I ended up shrieking at my poor loved ones when I phoned them.

The second thing was a completely impromptu decision. I find the way I "screw my courage to the sticking place" is to decide something and then just do it. Don't think about it; just take a deep breath and go. I walked into the law office that's on the way to pick up Sara. I've spent many a red light looking at his sign and debating doing exactly what I did yesterday. I walked in and asked if he handled Divorces. He does and I now have a meeting in early April to discuss it with him.

I dealt with his receptionist and she was wonderful. She put me right at ease. I'm hoping that someone that hires a woman like her has a similar personality. We ended up chatting about bad divorces and I was able to ask her right out "How do I do this? How do I pay? I've never retained a lawyer before, I have no idea what to do or how to do it." She answered all my questions and was just fabulous with me.

And for the first time in a long time admitting that I have been separated for 7 years and haven't started the divorce yet didn't feel like I was saying "I eat small children". It was simply understood that I had my reasons, and honestly it's better that it's been so long as it's now a matter of making the way we live our lives legal. I am beyond the initial stages of hurt, confusion, and anger. It's just something that has to be done and now I am finally in a position to make it happen.

It changes nothing in the way we live our lives, but I think it will serve to emotionally free me from the child I was when I got married. I was 19 years old, pregnant and desperate for my prince charming to make my life ok. So I got married. I was a fucking idiot. All the things I knew were problems before I got married were still problems after. I walked out one September day and I've never honestly looked back. But for the first five years after I left I was barely keeping my head above water, the very thought of finding a thousand dollars to divorce was the equivalent to hugging an anchor. There was just no way.

Now in the past few years my life has stabilized and with that I've had to come to terms with how I feel about a divorce -- what it says about me, how I feel like a failure (very common feeling apparently!). I just haven't been emotionally ready to take that step. And my ex being who he is... he's not willing to pay at all for the divorce or make any effort towards it. Because I'm the one who left, I am the one who should pay. Unfortunately I agreed to this and my word is my word -- I will honour it.

So it's been up to me to screw my courage and make the step. I tried initially with a cousin of mine who worked in family law but then realized that I don't want family in my divorce at all. Then I went to our families' lawyer, Adolf. He took it (after telling my ex that having me pay for it all is shitty) and then did nothing. I called after several months to see what was going on with it and apparently his assistant was on vacation and she'd call when she got back. It's been a year and I'm still waiting. So I've tried with no success.

Walking into that office yesterday was a big step for me. I've made up my mind. I want this millstone off my neck. I want the ability to say in full truth that I am finished with that family as anything other than my Daughter's family. Sara's Father, Sara's Grandmother, Sara's Family. I think that the boundaries that form familial relationships are blurred by the lack of the divorce and I want them finalized. I want to make it damn clear I'm not a 19-year-old child, willing to let the 'adults' around her decide her life, anymore.

To do that I think it damn near time I act like an adult. As I said to Mike and then Susan, the awesome receptionist, getting married was easy -- getting divorced is the most adult thing I have ever had to do. And as much as I feel like a kid no matter how old I get, I am an adult. I am Sarabeth's mother.

Totally not about the divorce/lawyer appointment... the final cherry of the day was getting our haircuts. I made an appointment with a nearby hairdresser to finally get our mop-hair trimmed a few weeks back. I was hoping she would be good because I'm biased towards supporting local small business owners and I know we'd be better about maintaining our cuts if it's only a 10-minute walk away. She was everything I hoped for. I now have a haircut that is lively and youthful. Sara's hair is tidy and long enough to keep her happy. Plus it only cost us $22 before tip!

Yesterday was a super-duper fabulous day.

We got the car loan. Fucking-A.

I think today is a good day for another 15-minute entry. I need to make out the menus and grocery lists for March today and that always takes a couple hours. It's an investment of time when I do this but it saves so much time and a bit of money over the month. It's so easy to make dinner when the humming and hawing is eliminated. I was going to do it yesterday but I ended up going out with M. I've called them a couple times over the past month and sent a couple emails but there hasn't been much response.

I'm not one to judge on the lack of a response, I know just how bad I am about calling people. I guess all I personally expect is some acknowledgement of my standing and what's going on. I figure in my case, I'm very clear about how poor I am at responding to emails or phone calls so someone having an expectation that I would be anything else is unreasonable. I'm usually the one that never calls, but I do try to be better at it.

Some of my relationships it's flipped and I'm the one that calls the majority of the time. I'm ok with it as long as I know I'm not considered a nag or someone to be avoided. All I need to hear is that I'm calling too often, they're busy, please go away for a bit and I'm ok with that. I was kind of assuming with the silence from the boys over the past month and change that I was being too pushy and they were being non-confrontational.

Turns out they've been busy and I wasn't clear enough that even a phone call would be cool. I seem to have given the impression that I'm not up for simple phone conversations, that it always has to be an outing. Which is true to an extent. I prefer face-to-face interactions. I find a phone creates a distance there that I stumble over at times. But I also understand that a phone call can be the easiest way to get some interaction without disrupting an evening.

So I need to be clearer about what I want. Make clearer plans and intentions. When I phone to suggest we do "something this weekend", make it "let's go to the market on Saturday?" and say that I'd like to hear back either way.

I suggested to Mike last week that we should start having our friends over for dinner on the weekends we don't have Sara. We have one planned for March and I'm really looking forward to that.

And that's 15.