On Top Of Spaghetti, All Covered With Cheese. I Lost My Poor Meatball When Somebody Sneezed. It Rolled Off The Table, And Onto The Floor

I’m sure EVERYONE will be thrilled to know I found the spaghetti.

Yesterday I sat down in my living room to read and my coworker sent me a text and just as I reached over for my phone I saw the corner of the container under the other arm chair

A chair both I and Little E looked under multiple times. So I called both the kids in from outside and had them sit in the chair saying I had a question for them. They were so excited thinking it was going to be a fun game. Instead, I asked them both what they thought was underneath the chair, but the weren’t allowed to look. I asked if they thought there was anything special about the chair they were sitting on, and if perhaps it was hiding something. I was trying so hard to get a read off their faces but honestly it was a wash.

They knew nothing. So finally I let them know that the missing green spaghetti container was under them, and they both needed to pick it up and deal with it.

So it was lost and now found, but I still don’t know it’s journey in between the fridge and the chair. If only spaghetti kept blogs.

Each Day I Feel So Blessed To Be Looking At You ‘Cause When You Open Your Eyes, I Feel Alive

Oh my gosh! Kids are seriously the sweetest most innocent things ever created in the history of creation and I love mine to bits. I often think about posting photo’s of mine here for the sake of cuteness, but well as unlikely as it seems after reading my posts, I do have limits.

Anyways, in today’s bit of adorableness, Little E and I went for eye exams just to make sure everything is all hunky dory in the optic world for us.

So the assistant is doing the pre-exam stuff, asking all the family history questions and Little E is listening intently to all the answers and even adding his ‘helpful’ information as he feels is needed or asking questions when he doesn’t understand one of my answers. Then she asks if I’m on any medications and I tell her which ones and she asks is I have any additional conditions not mentioned in her questionnaire and I say epilepsy and Little E says what’s that? And so I reply seizures, and he goes ‘Oh yeah when you roll and shake around in the bed at night’. And I could just tell by the look on the ladies face that she honestly thought Little E had walked in on me doing the dirty so often that I had straight up lied to him telling him I was having seizures and I could barely contain my laughter, instead just answer with a straight faced yes. So the assistant’s face was turning so red and she’s like ok that’s everything the Dr. will be right in and got out as soon as possible. Meanwhile Little E is like what’s so funny, over and over. But I honestly didn’t know how to explain it to him so I just told him that the details of someones illness can sometimes make other people feel uncomfortable and we need to learn to be more subtle about it. Lame answer I know, but how else was I supposed to explain that she mistook his complete innocent truth for a twisted lie on my part?

Anyways, the Dr. finally comes in and quickly determines Little E also needs glasses. He actually only needs lenses for one eye but the prescription is pretty big and is causing his good eye to over work. As soon as she announced it I saw tears well up in his eyes. He was not impressed. But she explained that he would only have to use them while doing school work and reading etc so his one eye wouldn’t have to work so hard, and maybe eventually he could switch to just a contact lense in that one eye if we felt that would work for him. But when out playing sports and all that, it wouldn’t be necessary. That still didn’t help his mood. He didn’t really want to choose glasses but finally ended picking an adorable pair in the end with a smile, which was helpful. He just needed the reassurance that he wouldn’t have to wear them 24/7 like Z and I, and after that it wasn’t that bad to pick out what he liked.

Honestly, he looks so handsome. Which is why I want to post a picture but I won’t. I’ll just live with the knowledge on my own that my kids are the most beautiful and handsome ever as well as the fact my optometrist’s assistant thinks my son has seen me have sex and thinks that’s what a seizure is.

Like they say, kids say the cutest things.

-Beyonce/Blue-

I Wake Up In The Basement I’m So Hungry/ I Must Be Here Sleepwalking

How to explain the unexplainable.

Sunday night I made homemade spaghetti and meatballs with ceaser salad for dinner and the kids loved it. Everything was all good. So I decided to send the leftovers with them to daycare for lunch the next day. I asked Z to get out 2 containers for me to divide it up for them. She made a big deal about her getting the green lid one and Little E said he wanted the green one too, leaving the blue lid unclaimed (seems like a stupid detail but just wait). I ignored them hoping they would forget about it by the morning, a pick your battle kinda situation and just closed them up and made my salad in my own Tupperware, with a red lid for anyone keeping track. Then I stacked all three in the fridge, thinking nothing more about it.

Skip forward to Monday morning when I tell Little E to get their lunches ready and he says there’s only one spaghetti container in the fridge. I yell from the bathroom to look harder KNOWING I just put it in there last night, three Tupperware one on top of the other. You can’t miss it. A minute later he calls back saying it’s not there.

So I’m thinking he’s just being lazy and not seeing something that’s surely right in front of his nose, and I stomp off to the kitchen prepared to whip the door open and prove him wrong and find the green lidded container that had most likely dropped behind something and go one with our day. I open the fridge. I look. I can’t find it. I LOOOOOOK hard. It’s not there. I look in the freezer. It’s not there. I check kitchen cabinets. Nope. I look in the damn garbage. Nothing. I call Z thinking she might’ve possibly hid it in some secret place to ensure she got the green top. She has no clue. I might’ve gone over board on my interrogation techniques, because seriously wtf could it have gone, but I could tell both the kids had no clue, and as a mom you know if your kid is lying. So I let it go as far as them lying went.

Then, since I was running out of options I even went so far as to check to make sure all the outer doors to our house were locked (lol I know) to make sure no one came into our house in the middle of the night and indulged on my fantastic spaghetti and then left leaving everything else untouched. Locked, obviously. So now I’m left with sleep walking/eating? And I’m like 100% sure it’s not my kids since I hear when they get outta bed to use the washroom. Little E is in a metal bunk bed that makes hella noise when he moves let alone gets in and out. And Z just doesn’t understand how to open a door quietly. So was it me? Like honestly did I eat or hide this stupid container? I’m not sure about anything anymore.

So I give Little E my salad since we’re running out of time and I have to get to work. When we got home I started a mass hunt for this thing. I looked through the fridge thoroughly again, under couch cushions and beds. Double-checked all the cupboards and drawers. Backpacks and purses. Everywhere and anywhere I thought of I searched and I can’t find the stupid Tupperware. And I know I used it because it’s not in the cupboard clean. It’s not in the dishwasher. I remember the kids fighting over it.

So we have some proverbial fairy stealing pasta making me go crazy. But I honestly have no idea what happened to it, and I don’t want to find it in a week or two based on the rotting smell coming out of somewhere.

And if someone in my house IS sleep walking? Well that’s just a whole other level of stress I don’t have patience for.

– Alice Cooper / The Awakening –

My Shadow’s The Only One That Walks Beside Me

I went to Wal-Mart last week and found this for Z’s room (see previous post for reference)

Yes, I know the hair is covered which kinda defeats the purpose, but my options were limited and it was better than nothing. Next I went to the dollar store intent on buying gold paint to redo her dresser handles and match the painting (which is massive) and ended up calling my mom for advice. This was where I made my mistake. All I needed was advice on if the kind of paint they had there would stick to the metal handles or if I needed to go elsewhere, since I’m not a crafty person I wanted to get it right. That’s it. But nope, as my 31 years should have taught me long ago it’s not that simple with my mom.

I guess I just still feel like no matter who you are/what you’ve done, you should always be able to have a relationship with YOUR OWN MOTHER! At least that’s what I’m trying to teach my children. So anyways, I guess deep down in me, I keep trying. Trying no matter how many times I’ve been hurt by this woman, to keep reaching out. Opening up, and just end up getting slapped in the face.

So I’m in the dollar store and I call her for paint advice. She really doesn’t know but just tells me to get what they have and that it should work and to by some of the cheap brushes they have there too. I have some at home but I just let her say her thing and give her motherly advice even though I say twice I already have brushes. I briefly explain why I’m doing this for Z, and it doesn’t really faze my mom, which bothers my on it’s own, but I know by know not to expect much from her in that area. She’s kind of a you made you bed now sleep in it woman. I go on to give other small updates regarding my life. How I registered Little E for soccer, she asks why didn’t I sign Z up for dance, I explain it doesn’t start until the fall. I talked about how I was looking for a second job, both to keep busy as well as meet new people and bring in extra income. She poo-pooed the place I was interviewing at. I explained how I had just come from the Dr’s that morning and filled my seizure med’s and had also asked for a prescription for anti-depression medications, because I just didn’t think I could make it until spring anymore, and basically rounded out the call with “and that’s what’s new” to which she responded with “Actually C none of that is really new. It’s all very round about and the same old stuff for you”

So I was just like, ok bye. And all I could think about is how my family always complains that I never share things with them. Can they not see that when I do share, I get responses like this? So I sent her the following text.

And so I find myself here.

On my blog.

At the request of my oh so loving mom. With literally nowhere else to turn. I’ve made no friends here in 8 months. K and I no longer talk and I long for those meaningful conversations with someone who at least pretends to care.

I have nothing. And it’s more difficult than it should be for anyone pretending to live at a level where they have to maintain sanity for the sake of their kids, but when does even that seem stupid and pointless?

And for those wondering, I haven’t spoken to my wonderful mother since, nor do I have any plans to in the foreseeable future. 🤷🏻‍♀️

-Green Day / Boulevard Of Broken Dreams-

I Wish I Could Be Every Little Thing You Wanted All The Time

Last night Z nearly broke my heart.

I was washing her hair, which could be considered a full time job, although we do it on average once a week if I’ve had enough coffee and sleep, when she made the comment that she doesn’t like her hair and wished it was like all her friends hair, which is in her words ‘smooth’.

Z has the most fantastic Afro, which I’ll admit at first I didn’t at first know the first thing about dealing with for obvious reasons, the main being I never had hair like that so why bother learning right? But over the years as her hair grew I realized it was getting more curly and thick and I would need more insight on how to care for her crowning glory to do it full justice, I started researching what the better quality products would be to use. I learned all about a wash n go and wet plopping and deep conditioning which to be honest were all very helpful for my hair as well since I also have curly hair, although not to the extent of Z’s 3c/4a curls. I learned not to use drug store brands that contain sulphates and other harmful chemicals that will further dry her hair out. I learned how to trim her hair myself to maintain it and get rid of dry, split ends on my own without spending a fortune on a hairdresser. I will admit though that I still cannot plait her hair, but I have learned twist outs and how to lay her edges so I’ll just take that as a win for now. One step at a time. 🤷🏻‍♀️

But when she was upset last night because her hair wasn’t ‘smooth’ like all her friends at school my heart fell into my gut. I can only be so much of a roll model for her in this area. I wear my hair as big, full and curly as possible, because I honestly feel the bigger the better, and I truly think natural hair is better. I’ve straightened my hair maybe once a year since finding out all this information about hair for Z. Little E wears his hair pretty close cut because he just has no interest in keeping a style and prefers it practically shaved, and even when he does grow it out, it’s not as curly as Z’s, it’s more of a thick bigger curl. Her dad maintains a bald head although they don’t see him often (as my regular readers know 3 visits when we went back at Christmas and before that it was February last year). So I guess my point with all these “examples ” is that she has no natural hair role models as far as her hair texture. I’ve shown her on places like instagram woman with beautiful hair like hers and how they wear it even bigger than hers. For reference, her fro averages between 6-10 inches but I don’t fluff it out on the bigger side often. She prefers to style it pushed back with a headband or with a few clips or two pigtail afropuffs. Which is for the best because those are the only ones I can pull off half decently.

Anyways this is a very roundabout way of saying I hurt for her. I want her to be proud of every part of her, but this is a way I can’t directly be a role model for her. Yes, I can wear my hair naturally and I do, but her hair is distinctively different, not only from mine, but from the streets of Kelowna and even where we were before and heck even in a Kenya because of the mix, and others notice. I think it’s fantastic and beautiful and many others do as well. We constantly receive compliments while out about how nice her hair is of which I reminded her last night. I told her that her hair is original and beautiful and she should never want to change who or how she is. I was detangling it and showed her how long it was while wet and stretched out and she was so impressed, since it reaches to her elbows. So after the bath, I did one long braid for her down her back and she was much happier and kept mentioning how long and smooth it looked. Albeit it only lasted about 15 minutes until it was completely dry and shrunk up to her neck but it made her happy in that moment.

I’m just wondering how to move forward from here. I’m WELL aware that my kids should have strong black role models in their life, but if there aren’t any around… I can’t just produce them out of thin air.

My in laws are not an option, her dad is out of the question. The black community in Kelowna is to be honest practically nonexistent (trust me, I’ve looked). But I know that it will be something they need to become the fullest version of themselves they can be.

I guess that’s the most frustrating aspect of this experience. Knowing I can be the best mom I can possibly be. I can make all the healthy lunches and arrange all the play dates and study up on all the hair care and do all the sex talks, to name a few examples, but facts are facts, and facts in my situation is that my kids are half black, there’s no denying that, and I would never want to. And that culture is not something I can provide them, and they desperately need it.

It makes me feel so inadequate.

Knowing no matter what, I’ll never be enough. And I can’t do it on my own.

And what’s worse it that the right people are not offering to help.

***update***

Just stopped at Walmart and saw this ironic and timely display showing Robert Munschs books on display

All had been picked through except the braids book (which Z owns). It’s a book about a girl with hair like Z’s and how she doesn’t like to have it braided since it takes a while and hurts. Etc. But anyways it’s literally just shows how no one in Kelowna has that culture in their life nor is trying to pass it on to future generations here and I’m on my own with my kids. 😑

*Z with morning bed head for reference*

-Dishwalla / Every Little Thing –

Leaving To Find My Soul Told Her I Had To Go And I Know It Ain’t Pretty When Our Hearts Get Broke

The fact that I am alive is proof enough that I am a God.

No one can confirm for sure how the world started. Not when or how or at what point, which leaves it wide open for interpretation on exactly how or why we got to this place in history or the present place in the universe.

Did we come with a purpose? I believe so. Once being to discover the fact that just being here makes our journey complete. We fundamentally have made it by making ourselves. We came. We saw. We each individually have essentially conquered the obstacles of creation by mutually not only choosing to co-exist but at the same time to create the same reality we all choose to collectively perceive and view as real or life if you will. That fact, in and of itself makes us all God, or a portion of ‘God’ or a ‘soul’ on the outside, all jointly looking in on this world we have created and living out through human existence.

Many over the course of this dynamic perception have tried to explain this phenomenon. Some use science to get closer to the answer. Some simply trust in the unknown God/deity they choose to represent the beginning. Other pure and simple refuse to acknowledge that question at all, which leads them not searching for an answer. In fact the large majority of today’s population have been satisfied with just living that they have no desire to wonder how their life came into being in the first place. They have become complacent. The are satisfied with a big bang, or a creation, but when it comes down to it, humans are afraid to dig deeper. Since when you try to truly uncover further into the origins of not only the world, but yourself, it will leave you looking starkly at one thing and one thing only.

No matter which theory you align yourself with, we all started at the same place. All at the same time. When I say ‘we’ I don’t mean on the surface level of the life ‘we’ live as you read this. I dive deep into us as a humanity and a universal perception.

The creation of this reality had to start in A moment. Where we all collectively branched out on our own journeys to create at will. Maybe we went from one to a million in an instant big bang style. Maybe ‘we’ collectively planned our futures and our memories and agreed we would just agreed to have thoughts and memories that extended so far back to create a reality and at the count of three wake up one morning go on our way. Maybe ‘we’ split in two and then four and then eight etc, like a baby in the womb. Maybe, we did all of the above, and agreed to each carry a different version of the conception deep in our thoughts hidden in so many lifetimes. This would help us to never return to the loneliness of being one together, since we knew we would never allow our views to change once spread so vast and becoming so hardened.

But once spread out and functioning as a world as we are now, what if two or more individual humans began to think as one again on such a level that they shared this kind of information? What would it do to the origins of the entire perception of the world? It could destroy it. It could destroy the original ‘creation’ that came from thinking independently. The separation and joy and individuality that came from the creation, that allowance to have different thought processes and different opinions that would have never occurred had we all remained as one, would be wiped out. We would return to that being of oneness.

So the fact that from the source and the beginning there are differences should bring the most joy as well as enlightenment. Joy to know the source of this world had knowledge to discover it must become different in order to expand and create eventual life. And enlightenment to acknowledge that you are a byproduct of that source.

This empowering knowledge lends to the discovery that along the way our thoughts at one point in the past were connected. Before we became so focused on the perception of this tangible reality, we were all connected and intermingled not as humans, but as souls, or thoughts. So if we did it before, lived as one in a bodyless haven, why should we limit ourselves to the possibility of creating this reality or perception we see every day, and focus instead on uncreating or returning to that for our souls.

I’m not suggesting it will happen overnight, as many indiscretions have been made against each other or each soul or thought process throughout this creation process since our infinite decision long ago to part ways. It will take many conscious repairs to mend bonds that were broken along the way, but can be made easier with the knowledge that we are all the source and the beginning, and therefore we all originally had intentions of creating a reality. Did we know exactly how it would turn out? No because we gave each other the freedom to create and be individuals. But with the brokenness, we may not feel like it on the surface, but our souls are longing for healing.

We are all longing to come back home to ourselves as one. Where we all began.

-Macklemore / These Days-

Show Me The Meaning Of Being Lonely Is This The Feeling I Need To Walk With?

So I’ve been living here in Kelowna for 7 months. Plenty of time to get nice and settled and make massive amounts of new friends and join plenty of clubs, classes, activities what have you.

As much as I feel at home in my house, and actually enjoy the town as a whole, basically because of the views, I’m not really thrilled with the choice I made to move, since it’s been leading me to some weird… stuff.

It’s a catch 22 at the moment. My kids are overall so much happier, and because of that, I am confident that I made the right decision in relocating. Their school is superb and they have made good friends. The daycare is crap, but there really aren’t too many other options for someone in my position to change that right now so it will have to do. I find the school incorporates so many more activities into the children’s day which is something I just don’t have the energy to do. They’ve had people in to teach them about inline skating, parkour, indigenous people, petting zoo tours, gone ice skating, hiking in the mountains, tobogganing, and have swimming planned for the upcoming weeks. That’s for both Little E and Z’s classes, getting to do all those things within the last few months of school. I feel like it helps lift the burden off of me feeling like I need to get out often with the kids to give them those experiences when they are having them at school and enjoying them with friends.

My family here in town has been good too. We’ve gotten together a few times for dinner or going out for walks and visits. My uncle even took the kids for supper last Saturday then to an arcade just to give me a break for a few hours.

It was weird. I didn’t know what to do with myself while they were gone since to be honest normally I would go to sleep but I had to stay up wait for them to get dropped off back home. So of course all I could do was think about how lame my life had become when it’s completely obsessed with taking care of my children. So here I am. Home alone at night for the first time since we moved here 7 months ago, and I had nothing to do. It was pathetic.

I had no friends to call.

No hobbies to turn to.

Nothing off the top of my head that would be fun for me to do.

So I made myself supper and then spent close to an hour trying to find something to watch on prime video since I had recently cancelled Netflix to save money. Then once I finally decided on a show, ended up just scrolling through Instagram while the show played until the kids came home around 9.

It was the most pathetic night off ever. Don’t worry you can judge me, I know it was bad.

And all the thoughts I was trying to avoid all night was how lame and lazy it was. How lame I was. How I’d been living here 7 months and hadn’t made any friends that I could call and chat with. How I’d been here this long and I am still so alone. Which of course moved into how I should stop having conversations with myself because I refuse to think I’m crazy. Since my kids already have one parent with mental health issues, they don’t need a second locked up in the psych ward. So keep it together C. Don’t become like E.

But to be honest…

How does a person know if they are not crazy? (This is where my alone thoughts take me lately… this and where did the universe start, which isn’t any more helpful) Sure I function in my day-to-day life perfectly fine. I get my kids up and out the door to school on time. I perform all my duties at work without any issue. I’m 100% aware of what’s going on around me…. I think. But that’s the issue. What if I’m missing out on something, and I’m not aware of it. How would I know?

I think about that a lot. Do people with mental health issues know they have them? Or to put it simply and very politically incorrectly, do crazy people know they are crazy?

Especially someone in my position. I don’t have any friends to talk to, or to tell me I”m acting differently lately, so how would I know?

Because to be frank, I feel crazy sometimes. I feel like there is stuff going on in my mind that I cannot stop or understand or explain, and that I did not put there. But how do I know if that’s normal or not normal? How can I explain if this is how it’s supposed to be, and something everyone is probably experiencing, or if I’m the one-off? Because some of the thoughts are so far out there, it’s not something you can bring up in casual conversation with someone new you meet at the coffee shop (not that that ever happens anyways). But I want to have deep conversation about deep things that I have going through my mind and thoughts, but to be honest, I’m worried and scared that if I shared them with your average joe, they’d give me the side eye and maybe call me in to have a welfare check done on my kids. I’d never harm my kids. Trust me. I’m doing everything I can to be the best mother I can. But it’s something deeper and more powerful than that that I’m trying to overcome and I don’t know how. I don’t think anyone knows how. SO who is there to talk to if it’s an issue no one has dealt with before?

Yes it’s most likely all the spare time that is leading me to this pattern of thought, but is it good or bad? Am I discovering something that’s never been discovered before? Or am I going crazy and I just have no one around to tell me.

I guess no one will know. Since its indescribable. And if I can’t describe my problem, no one can understand it, let alone solve it. Not even me.

You see my problem.

Definitely too much alone time to come up with this problem in the first place.

But it makes you think.

-Backstreet Boys / Show Me The Meaning Of Being Lonely-