April 6th, 2003 - Sunday

The crazies

March's WordGoddess topic was "What drives you absolutely crazy?" As you can see, March was a dismal journal month for me and so I'm very late with this. However, I couldn't miss such an appropriate topic, so here it is.

In no particular order, what drives me completely batty: (this may not be a complete list)

Time. Time is totally getting away from me. I nearly dated this entry April 4th. I was two entire days off. Where did that time go? Where did the last six and a half months go? Easter is in two weeks? Gah! And I've been desperately trying to reign in the crazy clutter and organize and clean and and and... There just isn't enough time in the day. Yesterday, one second I was mopping floors and it was morning. Then I blinked and it was 6 o'clock at night. I just don't understand.

Also, a lack of time. It took me forever to get started on my latest hobby, scrapbooking. This weekend I managed to do three different layouts but I've been wanting to do them for at least three weeks now. And this entry? I started it on March 3rd. Then I deleted it and tried again in the middle of March. Deleted and tried again at the end of March. You will note that it is now April. Man.

Changing the clocks. I've never been very bothered by the time change. In the Spring it just meant that nice days were slowly approaching. In the Fall it meant an extra hour to sleep. When you have a baby and you're already tired all the time, losing an hour in the Spring is cruel and unusual punishment. Yuck.

Clutter. Speaking of clutter up there, it's driving me crazy. We have too much stuff and not enough space for it all. Everywhere I look there's stuff. I don't necessarily want to just trash everything (though I have been doing a lot of that as of late, which is impressive since I'm a packrat by nature), but I want sensible ways to store it all. Considering we only have an apartment and we don't have much storage space, that's becoming quite the challenge.

Caesar. He has got to be one of the most irritating and stinky cats in the world. I'd go into further detail but then I'll just get even more annoyed with him and go shake my finger in his face.

The weather. For two weeks straight I went out and took Hayley for a walk in the sling every day except for one Thursday where it poured rain. It was wonderful. I was getting exercise, she was getting fresh air and sunshine, and it gave us both a break from the mid-day blahs. It's two o'clock and she's getting cranky? No problem, let's go for a walk! Then all of a sudden the temperatures plummeted back to subzero conditions and over the weekend we got dumped on by a bunch of fresh snow. I know that I should know better by now and that just because the calendar says Spring it doesn't mean the weather will actually cooperate. But really, I'm missing my walks now. Especially when she gets all irritable in the afternoon and I don't have anywhere to take her.

Teething. People told me there was no way she could possibly be teething "already" when she started up at three and a half months. Now, at six and a half months, she has four that are fully through, one that is just starting to cut through, and one that is still lurking below the surface. It's like three months of non-stop teething and it's wearing thin. I feel so sorry for the baby and sometimes, when she's cranky as all hell, I feel sorry for us too.

Anxiety. Having anxiety sucks. I have gotten so much better in the past year. There was a period of almost two years where I suffered from various degrees of it and for awhile I was even taking Kava to get through the day. Certain places always freaked me out and brought on anxiety, and other times I could go to the same store ten times and be fine only to suddenly get an attack out of the blue the eleventh time that I went. Ever since I had the baby I've improved. I sort of talked myself down, reminding myself that I can't let Hayley learn anxiety from me and I get it less frequently. I'd still really like for it to be completely gone though.

Baby diarrhea. Sorry. You weren't eating were you? Hayley has had a runny butt for days now. Today it's actually much improved and we're giving her Pedialyte to keep her hydrated, much to her delight - she seems to love it. I am glad that she seems to be feeling better and that the diaper rash she got as a result of her bout of sickness is clearing up. I am also glad to know that when I put a fresh diaper on her that I won't need to change it again within the hour and it's been nice having a few nights of uninterrupted sleep where I don't have to get up at 4 in the morning to change a poopy diaper and equally poopy baby pajamas.

Renting. I'm somewhat encouraged to know that our building has been sold to new owners who are apparently far less cheap than the previous bastard of an owner was. However, I still hate the fact that we live in an apartment. I do like this particular apartment for the most part but I wish so much that we lived in a house. I keep holding on to the thought that maybe one day we will.

Lack of at-home opportunities. When I was a child, my mother stayed home. She stopped working partway through her pregnancy with me, took her maternity leave and then never went back until several years ago. I have always wanted to do that, or at least stay home full time until Hayley is in school, and then I could work part time. There have been so many advances in computers that you would think telecommuting would be so much more visible but I'm having some serious trouble finding work that I can do from home. Sure, I designed a website for a friend who's got a production company but that sort of thing is occasional money. What I need is a steady resource. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed for freelancing because I just really don't want to go back to work.

George's weird aversion to putting the coffee and peanut butter back where they belong. Seriously. I know that it's probably a bit anal of me to have this need to keep my pantry in order, but it's a very simple layout. Canned vegetables go here. Canned soups go there. And for the love of God, the coffee and the peanut butter go right on this shelf HERE, next to the coffee filters and the container of tea. They don't go with the creamed corn. Augh!

SPAM. If I ever spontaneously combust or my head mysteriously explodes, it's most likely going to be caused by the rage I'm starting to feel towards the sheer volume of unsolicited e-mail I get daily. I don't CARE about American mortgage prices since I'm Canadian. I don't WANT to help the widow of an ambassador from Nigeria. I really don't give a rat's ass about barely legal teens gettin' it on via webcam. Fuck off already.

Running out of coffee. The way I feel these days, you may as well let me run out of AIR let alone coffee.

The expression "embedded reporter". I watch a LOT of CNN. Like, I mean tons of it. I am so sick of hearing that expression. To me, it sounds like someone took a reporter and literally embedded them into the side of a tank or something. It's annoying.

People who shove their opinions on me. Dear God, I am so fed up of having opinions crammed down my throat. And for the sake of my blood pressure, I am not going to go into detail, but suffice it to say that if I ever wanted to be constantly told the only single possible way to do something properly, having a baby was the way to be in that position. I am going to adopt a new habit - sticking my fingers in my ears and singing, "LALALALALALALALALA!" really loudly.

You know, there is so much more, like my frequently mentioned loathing of people who can't say thank you if I hold the door for them in the store (to which I holler, "you're welcome" which startles them to say the least), the fact that my brain seems to have melted since having the baby (I forget my phone number, I forget what I'm talking about, I can't concentrate, I put the kettle in the fridge, etc), and so on and so forth. But if I don't stop now I may turn this into the longest entry ever known to man.

Oh and what also drives me crazy is not writing in this journal enough. I'll try to rectify that, but there are no guarantees.

Have a good one!