BERJAYA

It’s that time of year.

The time of year where I’m constantly dealing with a chill, lamenting the loss of the heat, beaches and summer road trips. The time that my husband loves, he finally comes back in full force to the fun and carefree man I fell in love with. He’s out for walks, enjoying the crisp fall air, geocaching in what he calls the “perfect geocaching weather”, not too cold but not too hot to explore. But its also the time of year where we fight the most. I guess I shouldn’t say fight so much as strong bickering over the little things. We fight over the fact that I’m freezing and desperately want to turn on the heat while Chris still has the windows open telling me that its finally the perfect weather to have the window open. The back and forth banter of, “Shut the window, I’m freezing my rear off here!” to be returned with “Put on a sweater if you are so cold.” The back and forth of, “Kim there is no need to turn on the heat yet.” to come back with, “Dammit Chris, if you kept the windows closed I wouldn’t have to turn on the heat.” Then of course is the back and forth of me closing the bedroom window and him opening it the second I go to the bathroom. I’m foolish enough to think that I can pull off just a bit more time wearing my flip flops then Chris catches me with an exasperated, “No wonder you’re cold Kim!”

We have a good yearly battle going on. It’s all in good fun, no hurt feelings, just the everyday banter of a couple who has spent almost a decade together. But even with the bantering back and forth, the loss of “beach weather” and the bit of hail (HAIL?!?) that we were graced with today, off and on since I woke up, we are embracing the fall season. As we get closer to Halloween, we find our stride. Chris finally starts leaving the windows closed. The heat goes on but only low and we’ll fight about the heat til spring. Chris packs away my flip flops while I whine about how my feet feel way too confined in socks and sneakers. I get to enjoy my hoodies and sweater coats again. And I love my sweater coats. At last count I think I had about 20-25. And they range from the ratty one that goes with my sweat pants, the knitted one that was passed down to me from Chris’s mom right up to the fancy ones that I wear with dress pants or dresses. I love to layer my clothes.

But there are other things we love about the fall. The colors that come with the changing leaves. The beauty of Cape Breton in the fall. I dare all of you to google image search for “Cabot Trail fall colors” to see what I’m talking about. Fall used to mean the return to school for us, but not anymore. But it still means Thanksgiving in October, the hunt for the perfect halloween costume, going to a local farm to buy my pumpkin and the countdown to my birthday. It’s also the time to enjoy the cooling off but still time before the snow makes an appearance, and I hate the snow.

Besides this, my life over the past few weeks has been hectic. Emotionally, I’ve been fighting to get back on track, to get over my owns issues and convince myself that every pregnancy is not out to get me like my internal dialogue thinks it is. Chris decided that working out west is too much for him, so the fear of finding the money we need for treatment has been put back on my mind. I’m worried about him finding local work again and now I’m looking for a second job. I’ve been fighting with my parents since Chris decided he wasn’t going back. My father lacks understanding of mental illnesses so he thinks Chris just doesn’t want to work and he’s lazy, even though it has nothing to do with that. My relationship with my father right now is rocky at best and that is now affecting my work, which isn’t a surprise considering that daddy dearest is my boss. Add to the fact that we are all still coming down from a bad month last month (my uncle passing away suddenly, the family drama associated with that, a dear friend being diagnosed with a tumor similar to the one that took the life of my uncle), and I’m already stretched a little thin emotionally to begin with. So my patience is thin because of all that and I seem to be taking it out on everyone around me or who comes in contact with me. The moving date has been pushed back to mid November now because of contractors not showing up to do their job at my parents new house. I’ve just been so frazzled. I hate the lack of control in my life as of late and everything is suffering because of it. Even my blog, reading other blogs and commenting. I find it hard to keep my concentration on anything. So I really don’t know what is going on with anyone. I sit down to read and catch up and fall asleep sitting up. I go to comment on what I’ve actually read and I’m staring at a blank comment box waiting for the words to come. But they never show.

Plus I’m also not afraid to admit that even with the password protected posts, everything that happened has made me double think everything I write. I don’t want to let what they did affect me or my space, but I’ve been burned by people who only look to judge, mock and belittle me despite having nothing else to do with me or my life. My words were taken and construed into something that was hurtful and mean even if it was only about myself moving on and my own hope that they find peace despite what happened. But that comfort of having a safe place to write is slowly coming back a little more each day. I’m finally starting to feel the urge to write. Words are starting to form. This post formed itself with little prodding from me. I have the urge to read again. I started to re-read The Hunger Games trilogy over the past week and it’s reignited my need to devour words again. To check in. To write and comment. Now…I just need to find the time.

To all my fellow bloggers, what’s up? I miss you guys. What have I missed? And my apologies if you see a sudden slam of comments from me on older posts. Don’t mind me, just playing catch up!

To anyone new, welcome.

And to people here only to read my words and judge me negatively, especially if you are family who have nothing to do with me otherwise, take a hike.

Here’s hoping for a break from my slump! 🙂

Me and Hubby at the Ball

So, technically, Halloween isn’t til Monday. Or at least the Trick or Treating part of it. But Friday night was my Halloween. A group of us decided to get together and do something fun this Halloween. Find a party/dance and get dressed up and go out and enjoy it. I love Halloween but we rarely get a chance to do anything about it. Being childless right now, we are at a standstill with a lot of holidays. We don’t have young kids to show off to family and have a reason to go out on Halloween, I spend Halloween night out at my mom’s passing out candy. Christmas is bland and boring because all of the magic that comes with a child’s excitement at the idea of a big man in a red suit bringing gifts is no longer there. Thanksgiving, Easter, and now even summer vacation don’t hold the same enjoyment. Most of our friends have kids so the chances of doing stuff with them is minimal because they are spending these holidays with their children. So early in the year, I put it to one of my friends that we should pick a date close to halloween but not the day of and dress up and either find a party or have one of our own and just enjoy the holiday like we were still kids. She was game, and over the early parts of the year, we started getting others involved. We would plant the seed in their head and let them decide what they wanted to do. So by July, we started making our own plans. We found out that one of the local radio stations was hosting a Monster Ball costume dance with a dj and great local band and we said, this is it, we’re going. We started planning our costumes in early July. I went with Cruella DeVil and my husband and a group of the rest of our friends went with characters from the game Team Fortress 2.

We are proud gamers to our core and had I not gone with Cruella and already started gathering my supplies for my costume, I would have joined the group and gone as one of the characters. So we get to Friday, and we are all helping each other get into our costumes and get ready to head to the ball. Adam and Amy walk in and I promptly lose my shit. Seeing the entire group as characters from a game we all love to play was awesome. It made me realize just how much I missed celebrating the holidays with friends.

The Team Fortress 2 Gang. I was so impressed.

The dance was overall pretty good we dressed up, had pre-drinks. I made a big batch of caramel apple jello shooters and they went down way way way too easy. We danced, relaxed, drank and ran into people we knew at the dance and then we bowed out early, went to pick up late night grease and came back to our place and watched some Simpsons Halloween episodes til everyone called it a night. Everyone at the ball was pretty much dressed up in a skanky ________ (insert any costume ideas and I guarantee that there is a skanky version of it), but I was really glad to see the costumes that people clearly worked hard on. I always have respect for those that work hard on their costume. A homemade costume gains brownie points in my world. Because I am a plus sized girl, my options when buying costumes are limited and I don’t want to be a skank, So I have taken to making my costumes for years now. Last year I dressed as the road cone zombie from the game Plants Vs. Zombies. Another year, I did a snowman using a white painters outfit. Its all about the creating that makes me happy. The tracking down of parts to go together to make this wonderful costume. We had so much fun this year with our costumes that we plan to do this again. Next years goal is to pick a theme and have all of us go with it. The front runner right now is Disney Villains. I know I did a Disney Villain this year, but if we go with this theme I have a definitive plan to finally become a Halloween character that I felt I was always meant to be: Ursula from The Little Mermaid.


Me and Crystal doing the duck face.

I have always wanted to do this character, but I want to do it myself. Like learn how to use a sewing machine, buy the material and make it from scratch. I want to blow people away with my costume. Hubby proudly proclaims that yes I should totally do this because I have the big boobs to pull it off. Hubby wants to do Hades from Hercules, and the ideas are already floating around for the rest of our group. One of our friends wants to do Gaston. Another is all over trying to recreate Malificent from sleeping beauty. There are about 10 of us in the group and if we all stick to the theme, it could be one kick ass group of costumes next year. My goal this year is to get a sewing machine, re-learn how to use said sewing machine and then start trying to figure out how to make my kick ass dress. I could totally pull this off, right?

Overall, that was my halloween in a nutshell. Saturday, I made candy and caramel apples at mom’s while nursing a nasty hangover, and finished off the night at Crystal’s for fight night where I indulged in MacSwings (the only chicken wings…seriously, I dream about them) and a little hair of the dog (some Keith’s Harvest Ale to be specific…yummm) which was the only thing to help the hangover, followed by a re-nursing of a hangover on top of a hangover today while I sat through 16 kids yelling at a halloween party. I won’t lie when I say that I am really, really looking forward to bed tonight. Tomorrow I go to mom’s to wrap up all of the 70+ candy and caramel apples that we made on Saturday, and then spend the day watching Halloween movies while I pass out candy to all the kids trick or treating. So all in all, it’s been a Halloween to remember.

And on a completely unrelated (or maybe slightly related) note, I would possibly kill to get my hands on some sushi. Mmmmmmm sushi…