I realized earlier this week that been working through my own “five stages” lately, or at least a modified version of them:

Denial
There was very, very strong denial at the beginning. Possibly because I thought we were on the same page, and so all this seemed to come out of left field, but soon the little hints began to add up and I began to suspect that there was something more to his off-hand “jokes” and comments.

Anger
Anger is perhaps a strong word for the emotion I felt, but my feelings were certainly far from happiness as my denial turned to disbelief. There was shock. There was displeasure. And I was definitely vexed. But as all of those wore off, I was mostly just confused. How did we get here? What had changed?

Bargaining
I’ll admit it. I tried to shape the conversations, and perhaps do a bit of convincing of my own, but it soon became clear that the decision was made in his head and that there was no bargaining to be had.

Depression
Again, depression is too strong of a term for my stint in this stage. Perhaps woefulness or glumness would cover it a bit more precisely, as I started to realize that this was a reality – I had given it a good fight, but the fight was taking too much out of me. I had to give in to avoid being consumed.

Acceptance
So, Yes, I have finally accepted that we are getting a mini-van.

Except, that last one isn’t totally true. I’m trying to accept it, I really am, but there’s a little part of me that feels like he will change his mind when the time comes. Now, if we actually had the mini-van I think I could accept it (it’d be hard not to, what with it sitting in our driveway and all), but until the moment that the keys are handed over, a small part of me will always hold out hope.

So I guess it’s not actually that melodramatic to say that a small part of me – that hope – will die when we get a minivan

Two years ago, when I was about six months pregnant, we decided to build a fence. We had the fence holes dug and posts placed by professionals (at 6x6x12ish it was a smart move), but the rest of it was a DIYer (with Charles completing a bit more than me, given my issues with bending over too far … being six months pregnant and all).

It took three or four weeks, working weekends and evenings, but we’ve truly enjoyed our fence for the past two years, so it was definitely worth the sweat and blood (yes there was blood – I was briefly banned from using a hammer).

The pictures below don’t fully capture the work, and definitely do not capture the length of our fence. But they do show some of the fruits of our labour.

(There was also the new laminate floor that Charles installed in our basement when I was about eight months pregnant. That change, however, was not initiated by us but was in response to one of our cats taking offense to the carpet that had previously covered it.)

Surprisingly, this year we decided to continue the “Tracy pregnant = start home improvements!” trend by building Abby a swingset. But, not just something that could be thrown up in a matter of a few hours. Noooooo. Little did I know when I agreed that a swingset would be a good idea, that monkey bars were also part of the package. And if you have swings and monkey bars, you need something to bridge the two – and not just a slide platform, but a little fort. With climbing wall. And sandbox. And all of this comes in two tidy cardboard packages, delivered to your door.

The instructions said it would take two people eight to ten hours to build the playset. And although I’m kind of 1.5 people right now, since we do have Abby to contend with Charles was pretty much left on his own for this one while I entertained the small child. And waved from the window occasionally. I also helped hold some pieces at one point.

Again, the pictures below do not seem to truly capture the work. At least this time there was no blood.

I would say that it probably did get finished within the sixteen to twenty hours quoted in the instructions, and with the exception of the sandbox (as we need to buy sand and figure out how to cover it so that the neighbourhood cats don’t use it as a large litter box) it has received the approval of Abby.

Wheeeeeeee.

I thought we had a decent thing going here, but after 9+ years, you decided to move on. Apparently you brought this up before, but, like in many failed relationships, I didn’t get that message and now it feels like you are issuing ultimatums out of nowhere and without giving me an option I like (see, this is why communication in a relationship is key), so … I have to say good bye. But that’s okay, it’s probably for the best anyway. Or at least that is what I will tell myself.

And although you may feel it is a bit soon, I feel I have to be honest and tell you that … I’ve met someone else. Although we had a few communication issues in the beginning, we finally started to really open up to each other and I have already learned so much in the short time that we’ve been together that I feel it’s really going to work out this time. We have a few small differences to work out still, but I’m sure that over time we will get those minor things straightened out, and then it will be smooth sailing.

Meet my new friend, WordPress.

Last year, we participated in a card exchange. Our card looked something like this:

Of course, it took many, many attempts to get those two pictures, but it was fun (mostly) and we got several comments on how cute it was. Which, of course, meant that I felt a little pressure for this year’s card exchange. And this year I also had to wrangle a baby.

A few outtakes:

Finally, with a little more practice and the help of Photoshop, we had a card!

It didn’t quite turn out as I had envisoned, but I’m still pretty happy with it. And I know the cats aren’t in it – this is what I get when I try to include them.

We decided to try an organic foodshare this year (we’ve actually be meaning to do it for years, but never quite hooked up with the right people) and tonight was our first pickup. Since we had never tried it out, we thought we’d start with the small bag for a month and see how it went.

This is what it looked like spread out on our counter.

Many of the items were easy to identify, but I did have to take to the web to identify a few (and after an hour, I still had not identified one). We were pleasantly surprised by the variety in the bag (although you will note that there are three different kinds of salad greens. Good thing that we like salads. There may be four if Pak choi is considered a salad green, but so far I have only gone as far as identifying it, not figuring out how to use it).

In case you are curious, they are: 1. Green onions and chives – 2. Lettuce (green leaf) – 3. Shiitake Mushrooms – 4. Rhubarb – 5. Bananas – 6. Pak choi – 7. Bag of greens (which once unpacked also yielded mint and another item that I can recognize but not name) – 8. Raddishes – 9. Asparagus – 10. Lettuce (butterhead, I think) – 11. Lemon – 12. Potatoes – 13. Carrot – 14. Parsnip – 15. Mystery item

The mystery item has me a bit stumped. I thought I recognized the smell of it, but the look of it was a bit off-putting.

Kind of creepy looking, no? In the end I decided to try to taste it and while it still seems familiar, I just can’t place it. I may just cook it and see what happens!

In the past year I have:

• switched jobs
• renovated a house
• moved
• purchased a new car
• adopted a puppy

And if I didn’t count the job switch, everything else was done in the last six months.

This from the woman who doesn’t like change.

Previously (green jolly ranchers taste like soap)

I think somehow one of my posts got combined with someone else’s post when Blogger went to save it. This text was appended to the end of my post from December 23 (which I’ve now fixed):

“a fico completamente feliz, ou mesmo, não tão feliz, mas em paz.
Tenho muitos fantasmas. Fantasmas demais para uma única cabeça.
Hoje r”

Translated (from Portugese to English, using Babelfish):

“it I am completely happy, or same, not so happy, but in peace. I have many ghosts. Ghosts excessively for an only head. Today r”