Eshakti Lurve

 One of the best things about being back to work is I CAN AFFORD MORE ESHAKTI DRESSES.

What? You've never heard of eshakti.com? It's my addiction, MY PRECIOUS. It's a women's fashion company that sells fabulously funky dresses in sizes from extra small to 6X – and, for only $7.50, they will custom make any dress in your exact measurements!

I KNOW, RIGHT?

This isn't phenomenal news for those who can buy stuff off the rack but, for people like me it's a godsend. In the past, my biggest reason for buying clothes was they were in my size. Didn't matter how ugly they were – if they went up around my lardy loveliness, I bought 'em.

Unlike most plus-sized gals, I have no boobs. I have boob-like calves, yes, but no actual boobs, and since my calves don't have nipples, they're not overly attractive. Then again, I have massive arms. Imagine a body builder with huge muscles. Now imagine the muscles have fainted. My youngest son once asked, before I disowned him, why my muscles grew upside down.

With MY PRECIOUS, none of this matters. I send them my measurements, they send me a custom made dress that fits me like a glove.

Well, a glove that would fit me if my hands weren't the size of ham-hocks.

Fear, loathing and nap withdrawal

Going through a lot right now and I'm not sure I have it handled.

I started a job for one thing. A really great, really cool job. On paper, it's perfect for me and I think I can be good at it. But, man, I didn't actually want a job. I haven't worked for more than two years. I have kinda forgotten how.

The best thing about not working is you can poop whenever you feel the urge. And the Food Network. I will miss the Food Network. And coffee. Whenever I want it. AND NAPS.

*sighs*

I was hoping I wouldn't have to work again; that early retirement (I'm 55 this year - Freedom 55, get it? hahahahahaha!) was truly mine. After all, Dave has a well-paying job, we were renting out our basement and I was selling the odd painting. We weren't getting rich by any means but it was enough to pay the bills on our very nice house, for Dave to buy a fishing boat and for us to go out for dinner every once in a while and see a movie.

Then the price of oil dropped, tons of oil workers were let go and the once booming town of Cold Lake quickly learned that the opposite of "boom" is "bust." Suddenly we couldn't rent out our basement. My paintings stopped selling. We got a few unexpected bills. And, voila, money was tight.

I realized I would have to look for a job. Problem is, there aren't a lot of jobs I can actually do. I have virtually no cartilage in my knees, which makes standing for any longer than a couple of minutes excruciating. Plus I'm fat, ugly and old, which limits both Walmart and the local peelers.

I've worked my whole life in newspapers and, as everyone knows, newspapers are dying. Graphic design work has all been shipped to India and the Philippines. (Thank you, internet.) Reporting is a job for young people with good knees and lots of energy to chase after weekend events, terminally long council meetings and hockey games out the wazoo.

I didn't know what to do. A friend suggested I apply for a disability pension. I asked my doctor about it and she thought it was a good idea so, with her help, I applied last February. Talk about paperwork. Talk about a rigamarole. They certainly don't make it easy. I finally heard back from them a couple of weeks ago: no disability for me. No cartilage. Crohn's Disease. Anxiety and depression. None of it was enough to qualify.

Feckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk me.

So anyways. I got a job. And I like it, I do, but the stress of working again has hiked my anxiety to new highs. I freaked out on Dave last night because he said it was OK for relatives to come up without checking with me first. I maintain that he should check to see if I'm good with having overnight guests, but I didn't need to freak out on him as much as I did.

And, oh, god, after only one day I was exhausted! What the heck am I going to do after an entire WEEK?

Then today I caught my kid doing something he shouldn't. I'm not going to say what that is, but he has been in trouble with it before and he has promised not to do it again, and then, feck him and the boat he rode in on, he did it again today.

He is 18. He knows better. I resent that he makes me act like a parent when he's old enough to act like a fecking adult. I was having a nice, quiet, stress-free day when suddenly, bam, everything's in the toilet, thank you very much.

Oh, and on top of everything else, three weeks ago I had carpal tunnel surgery on my right hand (OF COURSE I'M RIGHT HANDED - NOTHING IS EVER EASY), and the damned thing is infected and hurts like a fecking BEAR.

I feel better writing this. Not having many friends because I am an obnoxious bitch, there aren't a lot of folks I can dump on.

So thanks for the dumping, dear Blogspot. Now if you could pour me a cup of tea you'd be fecking perfect.

What to do, what to do

 I've been thinking about my blog; there's that, at least. Not sure what I'm thinking, except for guilt. Definitely thinking/feeling guilt. This poor blog has basically been ignored for several months. I can't even look at it because I feel such guilt.

For a long time I didn't feel like writing. Hopelessly wordless. I think I blew my wad, pardon the expression, getting my books published and that task was so huge, so exhausting and, ultimately, so disappointing, that I just couldn't muster up the energy to even think about writing again.

Lately little ideas have been flitting around my brain. Thoughts. Like, I'll be driving somewhere and I'll sink into that mysterious funk-like state that used to meant ideas were hatching, and I'd think, gee, this would make a good blog post. But then I remembered that I don't actually blog anymore. Cause you have to blog to blog.

I know, I'm hella deep.

There's also the reciprocal side of blogging. If you blog, and hope other people will read your posts, you should read their posts as well. Obviously I haven't been doing that either. My entire social media interactions have been limited to brief Facebook scribbles, mostly jokes and occasionally a self-righteous arrow aimed at racists and other nasty folk. I've been spending more time painting, sewing and cooking than I have doing anything else. And only one of those at a time. I've always prided myself on multi-tasking but apparently if I'm sewing, I'm not painting, and if I'm painting there's going to be take-out for supper.

It's not like I don't care what my blogger friends are up to: I do. Sincerely. But I used to spend hours, every day, catching up with other blogs. I just don't want to invest that kind of time anymore.

So the dilemma is, if I'm not going to read other blogs, I probably shouldn't blog. But then again, I didn't start a blog to necessarily have it read by other people: I started one because I wanted to write, and blogging was new and exciting and I fell in love with every aspect of it.

I always promised myself I wouldn't write one of those "should I blog or not" posts, but here I am. I think this is more an out-loud argument for myself trying to line up the positive and the negative and finally answering The Clash's age old question, "Should I stay or should I go?"

Heck, I don't know. I'll see how I feel about all this tomorrow. Meanwhile, I don't expect you to read my drivel. Move on. Read a post from a blogger who truly has a passion for the game; someone who actually has something to say.

This? This is just the inner musings of someone putting off laundry.

The Albert Einstein Side of My Brain

I get my best ideas while changing the kitty litter, like solving world hunger and reinventing the square wheel. I seem to go off into some kind of scoop 'n poop la-la-land. One side of my brain is busy being Albert Einstein, the other half is, well, gawd knows what it is doing. Obviously not thinking, that's for sure.

I bought these cheap-ass garbage bags for kitty poop purposes and the first time I went to use them, I realized I wouldn't be able to get one open without wet fingers. You know how plastic bags glom together? You need mad skills to get some of them open, either that or some spit on your fingers.

Usually I lick my fingers in order to open said bags. But at that moment they were covered in kitty litter germs. Which are, like, fatal, right? I mean, who wants to get kitty poop in their mouth? I sat there staring at the bag, trying to figure out a way to open it without licking my crap encrusted fingers. Finally I just said, "feck it," maybe if I lick 'em real quick the germs won't stick. Like the three second food on the floor rule.

"Gah," I said, making quick work of the licking.

It wasn't until I was done spitting in the sink and rinsing my mouth out with gagloads of salt water and Listerine that Albert Einstein finally took over the D-oh part of my brain: I didn't have to lick my finger - all I had to do was SPIT on it.

Ice Hut Village

Ice fishing is not just a hobby – it's a way of life, and huts are like people's homes, as individual as they are. This painting has a smattering of different ice hut styles. Some, like the church, seem outlandish, but all of them exist on the world's frozen lakes. All you have to do is google ice hut villages and you'll be astounded at the variety of different huts you'll see. If you take a close look at the lures in this painting, you'll see they are all real lures, including the Swedish Pimple and the William's Wabler Ice Jig. See how many lures you recognize. Surely there's a hut and a lure you can call your own. My husband's favourite is the log cabin and the Wabler. Incidentally, that's my LEAST favourite. I actually am torn between the trailer and the skinny blue and white one. Which is yours?

36" x 12" original acrylic painting on stretched canvas. Gessoed. Varnished. Sides are painted black so no framing is necessary. For more information visit my Etsy shop.