letter to C-Note

Whats up my little humpback whale?

I am pretty sure you NOT be impressed that this is the photo I chose to share of you this month, but I couldn't resist. Let's just say there were others more revealing which you will be grateful are not posted here! I cannot believe how much you are growing.

We have the potty out to try and teach your older brother how to use. He has absolutely no interest in it but you have a BALL sitting on the potty. You think it is hilarious and you sit on it every opportunity you get. You haven;t actually used it for the purpose for which it was intended yet, but if you keep sitting there something is inevitably going to happen I am certain.

I love you so much words cannot even express. You make me so happy and leaving you in the morning when you cry to come with me just tears my heart out. Mom holds you at the back window and you wave and blow kisses until we are out of site. I hate this part of the day and look forward to every minute until we are back together again.

The weather is getting better and better and you LOVE to be outside. In fact, you love being outside so much that you scream blue murder when we try to bring you inside! The days are getting longer and you think that as long as the sun in shining you should be outside. This might prove to be a bit of a problem for us in June when there is daylight for 20 hours a day. I have been having some fun with the burn pile because the weather is nice, there are no bugs and it is perfect to have a big bonfire. You are a very good helper, but more interested in making your own way around the yard than in hanging out with me. I can see there won't be many opportunities to sit outside and read a book this summer with you making trails in the yard. It makes me laugh to think how differently your mom and I live our lives with our boys than we did before you came along. Our lives revolve around you and to be honest I wouldn't have it any other way.... just slow down for me as you trek across the yard ok bud?

I love you to the stars and back.

Rest your head, close to my heart, never to part baby of mine.

Love mama.

Going for a walk

Letter to Main Man Maxwell

Hey Pal.

Another month has passed and you are growing up right before our very eyes. It is INSANE to realize how tiny you were just three short years ago. You are learning words and starting to talk more and more and I have to keep reminding myself that you are almost FOUR.

You are old enough to play soccer this summer, old enough to be learning to skate, to be riding a bike, to be doing all kinds of things that assert your independence and I don't think I am ready to let go. I am most upset that you are big enough now to open all the baby gates in the house and let yourself and your younger brother out of (and into) things you should not be! This letting go thing is going to be a challenge for me.

I am so happy that you still want to spend time sitting in my lap, but we really need to renegotiate your desire to be carried. Your feet keep getting tangled between my knees and we are going to have a WICKED accident sooner or later.

I love you desperately.

Rest your head close to my heart, never to part, baby of mine.

Mama

99 things to do....

Ok So I am still thinking about this list. Obviously I don't even have 99 things yet, but I am working on it and I HAVEN'T forgotten!

1. Sort through the box in my bedroom closet that I have moved to two different households without sorting through.
2. Write monthly letters to my sons. ( I am thinking this should actually count as 24 "things to do" and not one. Depending on how much I get accomplished I may change this later!)
3. Start my thesis.
4. Finish my thesis.
5. Participate in Chad Darnell's 12 of 12 every month.
6. Go to a movie, in a theater, with my spouse.
7. Clean out the bathroom cupboard.
8. Do at least ONE cross stitch project.
9. Get an updated criminal record check
10. Get a carbon monoxide detector for the house. (THIS IS COMPLETE! January 2010)
11. Fence the dugout.
12. Renew my first aid.
13. Find our marriage license.
14. Change our last names - to a blended last name.
15. Send my spouse to see her dad in the USA.
16. Get haircuts for the boys.
17. Take family photos.
18. Finish my stats class.
19. Work on my mom's 60th birthday present BEFORE her birthday!
20. Get the carpet up off the staircase - remove the staples from the steps.
21. Get the hallway painted.
22. Lay new carpet on the staircase.
23. Make myself a bookmark.
24. Replace Shels' cell phone (COMPLETE. FEBRUARY 2010)
25. Cancel the contract on my cell phone. (COMPLETE. February 2010)
26. Put up Maxie's toddler bed.
27. Change the furnace filter. (COMPLETE. January 2010)
28. Hang hooks in the bathroom. (COMPLETE. January 2010)
29. Put together the smart shopper cards from IGA. (COMPLETE. February 2010)
30. Sort the tools.
31. Work on the boy's baby books.

Thursday Thirteen: 13 words my son can say!

I have not participated in TT for a long time and I thought it was about time I got back into it.
You can link to other participants HERE.
At the beginning of this school year we met with the speech therapist and set goals for our son for learning words this school year. We asked what a realistic goal would be and she said that if he could say TWO words by the end of the school year (JUNE) that was realistic.
So here we are.
It is the end of February and we have 4 more months of school left before we break for the summer.
My boy says more than 13 words for SURE, but here are 13 of my favorite (words or phrases)...

1. Hallway
2. Onion
3. Go away ( I think it is cute that he says this - just not when he says it to me!)
4. Up high
5. Mama
6. On
7. Hello
8. Cup (although sometimes he says "puc" and not "cup")
9. Bowl
10. Ice
11. Bye
12. Cookie
13. Bubbles

what the Color Career Counselor has to say about me...

Since I am supposed to be working on Stats - you KNOW I am procrastinating. I went to Careerpath.com and took the Color Career Counselor test. It took a minute and a half.
If you are interested you can link to it HERE.

Best Occupational Category
You're a CREATOR
Keywords

Nonconforming, Impulsive, Expressive, Romantic, Intuitive, Sensitive, and Emotional

These original types place a high value on aesthetic qualities and have a great need for self-expression. They enjoy working independently, being creative, using their imagination, and constantly learning something new. Fields of interest are art, drama, music, and writing or places where they can express, assemble, or implement creative ideas.

CREATOR OCCUPATIONS
Suggested careers are Advertising Executive, Architect, Web Designer, Creative Director, Public Relations, Fine or Commercial Artist, Interior Decorator, Lawyer, Librarian, Musician, Reporter, Art Teacher, Broadcaster, Technical Writer, English Teacher, Architect, Photographer, Medical Illustrator, Corporate Trainer, Author, Editor, Landscape Architect, Exhibit Builder, and Package Designer.

CREATOR WORKPLACES
Consider workplaces where you can create and improve beauty and aesthetic qualities. Unstructured, flexible organizations that allow self-expression work best with your free-spirited nature.

Suggested Creator workplaces are advertising, public relations, and interior decorating firms; artistic studios, theaters and concert halls; institutions that teach crafts, universities, music, and dance schools. Other workplaces to consider are art institutes, museums, libraries, and galleries.

walking in a winter wonderland

We have had a most spectacular winter season this year. For some reason we have had more hoar frost than I can remember since arriving here six winters ago - I think we are on our seventh winter here already?

This is the part of the barn we finished painting red. We need to finish it all this summer - my goal is to get a ladder! When the window trim is all white and the barn is finished it will look spectacular. It didn't look bad today at all.

This is a tree outside the office at work. If I had been wearing my boots I would have trucked over for a closer shot, but I think you get the idea.

What a gorgeous day today!

Monday Movie Meme

Link to The Bumbles if you are interested in checking out more participants of the Monday Movie Meme.

This week the topic is "Popular Movies that You Hated".

Ever get excited to see some movie the whole world has been gushing about, only to discover that you thought it was a dud? Not only are you completely annoyed that the movie didn't meet your expectations, but you don't have anyone else to complain to because you're the only one who didn't like it.


Here are mine:


1. Titanic

2. Pulp Fiction

3. The Big Lebowski

4. Pirates of the Caribbean

smart shopper cards

Have I mentioned that we live in a small town? Well we do. One of the drawbacks to this little town is the grocery shopping. We do have an IGA in town and it is open 24 hours a day (at least that's what is posted, but I have been there when it was locked and I was very confused).

They have these little things called "smart shopper coupons" and you get one coupon for every five dollars that you spend in the store. You lick the back (or if you are me you DON'T lick the back and you collect millions of them and store them in a baggie) but theoretically you lick the back and put ten on a card and then you can use them in the store for savings, like coupons.

I HATE licking them. They are disgusting. The other day I overheard someone in the store talking about using a glue stick on them and I realized my dreams had come true - an alternative to licking!

So I sat down yesterday afternoon with all the glue sticks I could find in the house and I went to work on smart shopper cards. I will admit I ran out of glue sticks long before I ran out of coupons, but I made a beautiful stack of cards we can now use.


It took a while to do and as I was sitting there gluing away I was calculating how much money we had spent to get that many coupons and what the were worth. You know - they really are not worth much in the great scheme of things. Each card represents 50 dollars spent in the store. most of the things you can redeem them for use at least three cards. Some things (like milk) are worth more to us as a family because we use a lot of it and it is dang expensive. But other things - like eggs - you can usually get a dozen eggs for three cards. So the store gives you a dozen eggs, a value of about three dollars - for every $150.00 you spend there. That's REALLY cheap. The store has to make a PACK of money and to give back the equivalent of three bucks to everyone who spends a hundred and fifty seems laughable. Especially when you think of how many people DON'T use the cards. I am certain I am not the only one who hates to lick them (and who never thought of glue sticks before).

I remember shopping with my grandmother and aunt in Southern California when I was a teenager. I know that was a long time ago and groceries in So Cal are STILL ridiculously cheaper than they are up here, but back then you could go through the paper and get coupons and clip the coupons. Some grocery stores would take the coupons of any other store and some stores would give you "double coupons" credit. There were some seriously good deals available by coupon back then. Not so much now and DEFINITELY not so much at IGA.

Thankfully now we have a huge stack of cards and we will absolutely use them. For as much as they "aren't" worth it is still a savings and we can use all the savings we can get shopping in town. Unfortunately for me I have never seen glue sticks available with smart shopper cards.

Stairs

We have lived in our house now for over two years. There are many projects that we need to work on but like all old homes, once you begin a project it turns into something much larger than originally anticipated and so we are now living in a house with many "started" projects and very few "finished" projects.
One of the things we did immediately (before we even moved in) was to take out the nasty old carpet in some of the rooms and on the stairs. Unfortunately when we took up the carpet on the stairs the carpet pad had been glued down and try as we might, we could not get the dang thing up.
This is what each step looked like. It is a horrendous catcher of pet hair and other gross things and we vacuum it more than once a day (it helps to have kids who like to vacuum) but the steps were NEVER clean.

Add to that the staples that were in each step. I have no idea why there were so many, but I estimate from having pulled them out, that there were at least 30 staples PER step. These staples made it increasingly difficult to get the carpet pad off and they were very painful to step on!

My maintenance man at work found this tool which he has fallen in love with. He saw it advertised on television one morning at 6am and he was on a quest to find one for himself. I have heard many renditions of how wonderful it is and he has even had me over for a personal demonstration of the wonders of this tool. He assured me that this tool would solve all my woes and sent me home with it this weekend to try out on my stairs.

It is every bit the wonder he assured me it was. It was AMAZING. I had a BLAST using it and the stairs look amazing. I did have to spend some time taking out the staples by hand, but the job is now almost complete (I have two steps remaining at the top which I will complete this week) and I loved every minute of the project. So did Max and CJ.

I don't know why I don't have a good "after" picture. I need to take one and post it for sure. It looks sooo much better and feels fantastic. Now all we need is a new carpet and we will have one home project COMPLETE. What will that feel like?

getting carried away with boys and missing my favorite day of the year

My spouse is home, we all survived and we are all hap-hap-happy!
It was my intent to post the whole time that she was gone, but I just got too carried away with hanging out with the boys and keeping my head above water with all the comings and goings in our lives to log onto the computer at all for a few days.

I even missed posting on my FAVORITE day of the year - Fat Tuesday! I LOVE me my Fat Tuesday. It is a tradition for me to give up "hope" for Lent, but this year I have seriously considered it and I have decided I am NOT going to give up hope. I am going to wait it out this year and reconsider next year if I should take up the tradition again. I'm not going to feel guilty about it for one minute because I am not even one minuscule part Catholic, so I don't have to give up anything for lent at all. I suppose if I were pressed on the topic I will say I am giving up "giving up"!

On the home front I have a sick kid, a teething kid and a sick spouse, so I don't anticipate getting much more rest in the next few days than I have had in the last few days but right now I don't even care. We are all home together again and that's the way it should be.

Day four: three days left!

It is no surprise to me that C was up at the crack of dark. My clock still had a "6" as the first number... So much for a Saturday sleep in! Mornings are the hardest for me because I just do not wake up "ready to go" for the day. I know the boys are hungry and need to eat, but I almost need to sit down and fully wake up before I feel like I can get moving for the day.
My plan for the day was to make bacon and eggs. Max stood next to me and ate every piece of bacon I put on the paper towel to soak. I think he single handedly ate a half pound of bacon - i know C and I certainly didn't have anything worth commenting about! I made scrambled eggs, which neither of them ate and when I was done with all the bacon I fried myself an egg the way I like it (dead, dead, and crispy dead) and sat down to eat. Well apparently my egg was more appealing to the boys than theirs were and I sat at the table with a boy on each knee while they ate my egg! Too funny.
We cleaned a bit, made a mess a bit, and hung out for the day. We were going to go and get haircuts but while I was cooking breakfast Max laid his head on the paper plate where I was putting the bacon to drip and got a head full of drippings. Turns out there was a line of people to get their hair cut anyway (so much for getting someone else to wash his hair!)
I had a plan to do a craft today and have the boys make something for Shel for when she got home. Unfortunately that plan went to the dogs when Max ripped up all the construction paper on the way home from the dollar store.
Max didn't have much for supper, but I figure a half pound of bacon can probably tide him over for the day :)
We are having a good time, missing mom a lot, but I love being home all day with the boys rather than dropping them off at a sitters then picking them up after working all day. Things are much smoother when we hang together. I still cant wait till Shel gets home! I had big plans for the night after the boys went to bed but I am now ready to just pack it in and go to bed.

Day three: four days left

Friday was day three (yesterday). I was scheduled to have the day off work but there was a check out and so I needed to go in for room assessments. When I went in there turned out to be issue that needed my attention by the computer and phone and so I didn't do any room assessments... it was a real bust of a day. I feel like my time was completely wasted and I would MUCH rather have been at home with the boyo's.
I picked up the boys, we came home, made dinner, hung out for a while and went to bed. I wanted to blog and do laundry and some more dishes, but I was wiped out from the day and went to bed. Last night was actually better than the night before but Max was still up in the middle of the night telling me he was "finished" sleeping!
I think if I can get a good rhythm we will all be ok, but so far things aren't flowing yet. C had pickled beetroot for the first time tonight. Max won't go withing ten miles of anything new but C tried it and didn't gag! (That's a bonus) I think if he tries it a few more times he may like it a lot. He did think they pink dye on his fingers was cool!

12 of 12: February

For 12 of 12 this month, mom is away and it is just me and the boys all alone at home hanging out. I don't know how interesting a day at home will be in photos, but here we go!
12 of 12 is hosted by Chad Darnell at his website which can be linked to above.
Thanks Chad!

Here is my day.....



7am

The new morning ritual is to come into our room and hang out with us first thing in the morning. It is a kid/pet bonding moment for sure. I am not ready to get out of bed yet.





7:30 am

Too early for me to be eating but the boys need to eat right away so I am diligently cooking bacon for them. Max stood next to me and ate everything that came off the pan and I didn't even realize how much he ate until it was all gone and C and I didn't have any!







8am.

I just ducked out the back door to take a picture of the sun rising. The sky has been really pink in the morning for the past week and of course today it was not nearly as bright as it had been. Oh well! It is getting brighter earlier every day.





8am

I turned from taking a picture of the sunrise to take one of the amount of snow on the roof. We need to pull it down before the ice buildup at the bottom gets too big, but this is NOTHING compared to past years.

9:30am

So breakfast is finished and it sure looks nice outside. Someone is dreaming of getting out and playing in the snow.... OK. I'll suck it up and get out there!

10:00am

Still outside (which is a miracle for me - I am NOT a fan of the great outdoors when it is cold out!) Here sits the shovel, still thinking about making our own rink on the dugout, but it is warming up now so I don't think it is worth the effort this winter. Maybe next winter when the dugout is fenced and the boys are a little older. I really HAVE to teach them to skate. Having mothers who are not "into" winter sports is not going to get our boys any slack when they are the only boys who can't skate and we live in Canada for crying out loud!

1pm
So we "napped" (well in actuality we had "quiet hour" because there was no-one sleeping) and I thought I could buy myself some time to catch up on some television. What happened as I sat in the living room was that the boys decided to "cook" and dumped out the Costco sized container of garlic powder onto the kitchen floor. I should have known it was too quiet. Thankfully, they love vacuuming as much as they love "cooking".

6pm.

We have gone through three outfits today and already taken three baths. My boy with the addiction to cords is carrying my phone around in his pocket plugged to the charger. Electric cord junkie.

6:30 pm

I went to the kitchen to get a snack and it appears that SOMEONE has already had the beginnings of a snack!

7:00pm

In the living room now, waiting for the Olympics to begin. This was a gift to me from one of my professors when I graduated from university. I love it and unfortunately my boys do also. It has certainly been well used but I think it is on it's last legs. I certainly could not have predicted it's future on the day I received it.

8pm

DUN DUN DUHHHHHHHH

The Olympics is beginning! This was about all I saw of the whole opening ceremony. The boys were simply not interested.

8:30pm

The boys are in bed and I came back downstairs to have a few moments to myself. I watched one television commercial (this one) and I have decided I am going to go to bed myself.

Night night!

day two, part two: six days left

The night started out amazingly. I was feeling like parent of the year (in my own mind obviously). The kids were fed, bathed, in clean pajamas and in bed by 8pm. Maxie didn't try to get out of bed ONCE before he fell to sleep. I was in bed reading and after 45 minutes I thought I would venture downstairs to watch the season premiere of Survivor. As I walked past the bedroom where I THOUGHT the boys were sleeping, Ceejer piped up "Mamma!" I went in and decided to take him downstairs with me, sit him on my lap and snuggle with him in the dark, watching survivor. He is normally a very good snuggle pal.
Well he snuggled for about a millionth of a second and then got up to play with his trucks. I kept the lights off thinking it would keep him in "sleepy" mode, but it didn't. When Shel called me she heard him squealing before I even said hello and she greeted me with "Uh oh" and not "Hi"!
It actually is NOT that big of a deal that he was up, because he is really good, and he plays without any problems. When I went to bed at 11, I took him up and laid him down and he just rolled and went to sleep. I got into bed, read my book for another 20 minutes and turned out the light. Well the turning off of the bedroom light somehow woke Max in the other room. I swear he has a sixth sense for electrical current - and he was wide awake, out of bed, and told me he was finished sleeping for the night. For some reason he was very weepy. I let him get into the bed with me, thinking all along about how Shel predicted I would be sleeping with one or the other of them before her side of the bed had even cooled but I was determined he was NOT staying the night with me.
He started to cry, saying over and over "mamma gone, mamma gone". By this time it was well after 1am and although I was tempted to call Shel and have her talk to him there was no way I was disrupting the whole household to have her say goodnight (which we had already done earlier anyway). I tried to balance between reassuring him she was returning and showing my version of sleep deprived compassion and putting him back in his bed. From that point on the night was a complete write off. He didn't stay in bed more than 15 minutes at a time and I was up and down the stairs getting bottles and other things for him trying to find what he needed to settle for the night. FINALLY around 4 am he seemed to fall asleep IN his bed and it took me all of a millisecond to fall asleep right after he did. THEN the little cherub was up again sometime around 5 and we were all up for the day. Day three away from mom had a rocky start. I hope tonight goes better - I hope he collapses from sheer exhaustion and sleeps the night through. Now I just have to keep Ceejer in bed. There will be no attempts from me to sneak downstairs tonight. I just hope I don't need the bathroom!

things that happen to travelers

So my spouse busted out of the great white north and is off to visit her family in Wisconsin. (How funny is it that she went SOUTH to Wisconsin?)
We have been nervous about her going to the USA since she became a Canadian resident, but we made the giant leap and sent her off. In the process of getting her ready we neglected to pack a bottle of medication.
We knew that being seven days without it was not an option and so I got a hold of a phone number for a pharmacy there and spoke tot he pharmacist and explained the situation. What we needed was 7 pills. Let me insert here that these are not pain pills, not narcotics, not anything she could sell on the black market (is there a black market in Wisconsin?) and we were going to have the doctor here fax the prescription to the pharmacy there. Well the pharmacist said that they would not fill a prescription written by a Canadian doctor because he was not licensed in the USA to write prescriptions. I understand this in "theory" but "practically" it makes no sense to me. I get it that our doctor is not an American, but how is it possible to buy drugs online between countries? I don't think it was an outrageous request to ask for seven days worth of a medication. Are we the only people in the world who travel and accidentally leave medication behind? What about people who lose their luggage while traveling, has it never happened in the history of the world that someone would lose a medicine and need a temporary refill?
It really brings home to me how far apart we really are - Canada and the USA that is. I know many people think that the countries are very alike, in fact they are more different than similar. Crossing the border IS like going to a foreign country.
We managed to get everything worked out, got her in to see an American doctor who was nice enough to take her word for it (she does have all her travel documents and we could get a fax from our family doctor here) but even when she went to get the prescription filled - paying cash for it - she virtually had to sign her life away. They wanted all kinds of information about her and I have to ask - for what? All's well that ends well I suppose, but what a pain and a lesson learned.

Day two: six days left

Time is seriously dragging here. I feel as though we had a good day and I certainly got a lot accomplished, but the time is just moving at a snail pace. I Barbequed for supper tonight. It makes me laugh that I barbequed when the temperature was hovering around -15 degrees. Who does that? Why, people who live this far north!
I managed to make supper, put in a load of laundry, bathe the kids and get them to bed. I know this is the stuff people do ALL the time, every day of their lives and so it seems as though I am making a big deal out of nothing. It's just that I LIKE doing this with my spouse. I LIKE raising the boys with her. Max lately has been so "clingy" and I have no idea why. He and Ceejer were in the tub together and I went to pick Ceej up and Max almost had a fit. He wants me to pick HIM up and keep HIM on my lap when we are in the living room. The strange thing is he doesnt even really WANT to be in my lap, he just doesnt want C there. Thats why I like having two of us. I don't feel as though I am abandoning one boy for the other. I dont understand Maxies recent need to be babied, I am just a sucker for my boys I guess!
So it's after 10 pm. I need to go to bed and eek out every minute of sleep I can get. I was planning on taking the day off from work tomorrow and as it happens there is a check out and I need to do room assessments, so no day off for me. I REALLY wanted to just chill with my boys at home, but I guess I have to wait until Saturday for that. I was thinking I might do some dishes.... I hurried and thought of something else!
Oh, the buzzer just went on the dryer. I need to turn it on for one more cycle. Nighty night!

day one: seven days left

We got up super early this morning and drove the almost 2 hours to the airport. The fog was INSANE at 3am and worse at 7 am when there were more vehicles on the road. There was at least one accident I passed on the way home and if there were more I didn't see them because the fog was so thick.
Shel has had a LONG day of travel - she hasn't arrived at her destination yet, but I think she will be there in a few minutes. Two long car trips, two countries, one nightmare of immigration and three planes later and her trip has only just begun!
The funny thing is that usually on a Wednesday I work a really long day and stay in town overnight. I don't get home for about 24 hours. Shel has been gone for less than that, and I have been at work most of the day and I miss her! I haven't even been gone as long as I am normally on a week to week basis, but just knowing she is in the USA tonight feels different.
I am still waiting for her to call and tell me she has arrived safely. Seven days until we pick her up.

broken record

I feel as though life right now is a bit of a broken record.
We still have no idea what is happening with the adoptions.
We are still stressed and trying to handle our stress the best we can without impacting our boys who are emotion amplifiers. Neither one of them sleeps well at the BEST of times and when they pick up on our stress then fagettaboutit. Sleep is NOT happening in our home.
We met last week with two managers who heard our story and I will admit - we did a good job of telling it - but they heard about our "case", not about our "family".
It frustrates me to NO end that decisions can be made "in the best interest of the child" based on what people see written on paper, in a file. They see reports, made by people who OCCASIONALLY see us, and infrequently see the kids.
Managers say things to us like "two years is not significant bonding for a child considering the length of his life" and "they are not related by blood and so they are not bonded to one another". These are boys who have been with us since birth and know NO other family.
I wish that these people could see our lives. The lives of the boys whom we love with all our hearts, mights, minds and strengths. The boys who SQUEAL when I walk into the room when I get home from work, and who quiver with excitement at being picked up. I wish they could hear my son; my non-verbal, profoundly hearing impaired son say "momma" when I ask him who loves him.
They will decide the fate of our family over a desk. In a conference room. Maybe tired, maybe having read a multitude of files before they get to ours. They don't know us or anything about us and they hold our lives in their hands - and we wait.

dedicated to my boys

Countdown to the Year of the Tiger

I'm a pig. That is to say, I was born in the Year of the BOAR (or pig).

This year is the Year of the Rooster. Let me just say, that the year of the rooster is not a good one if you happen to be a pig. I don't know what problem roosters have with pigs, generally, but they do not get along. I can attest to this fact.

I looked up the pig outlook for 2009 and it was not good. Predicted were one favorable months, 1 neutral months, and the rest lousy months. Perhaps because I knew this I made it "happen" this way, but I am inclined to believe that much happened beyond my control in 2009 and little of it was good.

We had to put down three cats and one dog just for starters and things didn't improve from there. That's why I am excited for the Year of the Tiger. In exactly 12 days the year of the Tiger begins. Common sense would dictate that two farm animals would have more in common than a farm animal and a predator, but I who am I to say. My pig outlook for the year of the Tiger is 11 favorable months and 1 neutral month. Under normal circumstances I would not claim to be superstitious in any way, but if the Chinese Calendar says this will be a good year for me then I will not dispute it. I will embrace it. I will love it, and perhaps my loving it will translate into me having a better year than last one. 12 days and counting.