Killing Time

I'm too tired to do a craft/hobby so I thought I would write you and keep you posted.

How has your weekend gone?  Did you spend it with friends?  Family?  Study?  Drink for St. Patrick's Day?  Maybe you celebrated your birthday ;)

Tuesday in Toronto went well.  It was anti-climatic.  We (my friend/neighbour C. came with me) got to the consulate early and when a gentleman was about to help me, he had to verify something and while waiting, helped (and put me behind) a family of 5.  Five.  With a demon-child (oh...faithful reader, you think I'm being facetious).  Which set me back almost an hour and a half.  In a hot office.  With said demon-child.  No matter, I wanted to deal with the same woman who's been helping me on my case so that was a small sacrifice.  Sure enough, young man went away and lady came back in.

So I'm a bit tense, right, cause I've gone over in my head a million times to make sure I've got all my paperwork and everything with me.  When I hand it in, it's a crutial moment.  This is it.  The end of it all.  Now there was a form she gave me to fill out; this was an assessment form of family history.  Like, a hundred questions.. names of parents/grandparents on both sides, dates and places of birth, dates and places of marriage, dates of immigration & naturalization, dates and places of ..everything.  It was challenging to get this information from my family because some of it is from so long ago we don't necessarily have the information.  So I hand this form to her and she says so casually, "Oh, I don't need this."  I let out a, "Ah!" in shock and bit my tongue.  I didn't care, I was almost there.  She took it anyways, it might help.

All in all, she put me in the system herself while I was there.  I beat the deadline.  I was in.

I walked around in a sort of daze after that, unable to make a decision (to the detriment of my friend).  Which is okay, cause we did some shopping.  I finally found a hoodie to replace the one I had that was old and full of holes.. *very* affordable at Old Navy.  Which was nice 'cause it offset the makeup I bought at Sephora :/  *cough*

So now I wait.  I'm told I'll hear in about 2 weeks.  In 2 weeks my life will permanently change, regardless of the decision (though I'm still holding on for a positive 'yes').  Two weeks will dictate what the rest of my year will look like.  What the rest of my *life* will look like.  Oh my.  Better not get ahead.  I keep praying.

I'm happy :)

26 days.

35 Days

Just over a month.  Eek!

I'm starting to plan our itinerary (this awful OCD side of me that needs to plan everything, which makes W. and I a perfect compliment because he's a "go with the flow/no plans" kind of guy) and plan meals (c'mon, you know I gotta bake some magical goodness to woo him) ;)  When I'll work (yes, I have to for a couple days because money has yet to grow on trees and which I'll regret every second I'm in that damned hospital), when to visit family, friends... and most importantly when to have time to ourselves.  There just won't be enough time.

*sigh*

Oh, and let me tell you about my paperwork.  A (very long emotional) story short, it took 3 calls to the Netherlands two days ago to get done in an hour what could have been easily done 2 months ago.  I.. can't even deal with how that all happened.  The Hague seems to be full of incompetency which makes me very nervous as I think it'll be them who'll be processing my citizenship and passport request.  I got more (and friendlier!) progress from a smaller municipality than I did the government's central hub.  But what do I know.  It's all over and hopefully this week I'll be in Toronto filing my paperwork.

I started going through some of my things, but I have a loooot more to do.  I don't even know where to begin.  I don't know what I'll need over the next few months or what I can do without.  The selling of things is going very slow which also doesn't help.  I want this stuff out of my apartment.

I think I gave up learning Dutch for Lent.

Oh!  So my landlord wanted to come in and take pictures of my place so he can post it online and I tidied up the best I could, but there's not much I could do with boxes and stuff all over the place cause.. y'know.. I'm moving.  Well, doesn't he come in, move some of my stuff and NOT PUT IT BACK.  I mean, even some things were staged (like random items on the stove).  A day later I'm still finding things that have been moved.  It's kinda creepy.

Babu; still trying to make arrangements for him.

Not much else to report.  Things are well otherwise.  Trying to balance life; stressful things with unstressful things (yoga, knitting, practicing Miserere for Easter/choir, time with friends) but sometimes it's hard and there aren't enough hours in the day.

How is your weekend going?  The weather outside is fantastic and I've shed the winter coat.  I might even go for a walk later.  I hope you're having an easy-going weekend, too.

:)

Catch-Up

Hey.  I thought I would attempt sitting and writing you to fill you in on what's been going on, progress, etc.  I'm not sure how I'm finding the patience to sit here; I have a million other things to do and only 2 days to do it.  I work every single day next week (an 8-day stretch) and I'm going to need all the energy I can get, which means my house has to be spotless because I'm not going to have time to clean it through the week.  Regardless, I've been wanting to write you for a while so here I am!  Now we just need to multiply me so I can be doing 5 things at once!

It occurred to me yesterday my paperwork is almost done.  Bittersweet, that is.  You put in so much concentration, effort and money that you're happy it's over, it's what you've been working towards...but...you get a drop from all that effort/energy.  And then you wait.  For what seems like forever.

Here's a basic overview of the process I've had to endure...
The Dutch consulate needs various information before processing my application for citizenship and my passport (passport is a helluva lot more simple than the citizenship, I'll tell you that off the bat).  They need basic information from me: proof of address, ID, Canadian passport, birth certificate (long form, please, not the card; filed for), etc.  What they needed from my father was a lot more complicated.  Well, not so complicated, but tedious and time-consuming.  I needed to file to Thunder Bay for a long-form marriage certificate of him and my mom, his Canadian passport, his record of citizenship papers which as I speak are rushed on their way to some government offices in Nova Scotia (and can take a looooong time to process, so please pray!!), a de-registration certificate that I had to file with the Dutch government in The Hague (I'm also waiting for his paper back; it's in lieu of an old passport that we couldn't find used to emigrate), and the birth cert. and marriage cert. had to be sent to Ottawa to be authenticated (yes, my legal papers have to be legalized).  Aaaaaall of this paperwork, when it returns to me, will be taken in person to Toronto, back to the consulate and handed in.  With, of course, a photo for my potentially-acquired Dutch passport.  Did any of that make sense?  Probably not, and don't bother trying to understand.  I'm still trying to after a month ;)

With what I've had to do and the money involved, I really can't complain and am very thankful.  I know other people have cases that are much worse, more time involved and more expensive.  You hear the horror stories.  Thankfully it's been fairly painless, barring a couple breakdowns and random "Oh my God it's really happening" reality checks.

And it's almost done.  I'm waiting for paperwork to return to me and as soon as I get everything, I go to Toronto.  And then I wait.  Excruciatingly, painstakingly wait.  It'll be out of my hands at that point and I have to give it all up to God.  I keep trying to trust in the plan, but it is challenging at best.  Ah well, what doesn't kill me...............................

 So, not much else to say.  Health-wise I've been on a completely whole-food diet (no sugar, no caffeine, no grains) and as far as my digestive tract, I feel fantastic.  I haven't used my meds in almost two weeks.  It's unheard of.  I'm really happy about that!  It's getting challenging at this point to come up with food and menu ideas, I'm *really* limited, so I'm trying to hang on and not get too frustrated.

Anyways, best to get to the chores.  Hope you have a great weekend.  It's supposed to be warming up a bit (FINALLY) in this part of the world, so try and enjoy the day!

What Just Happened?

I opened an email from the lady I've been speaking to at the Dutch consulate.

In it, contained an application for a Dutch passport.

Me.  Applying for a Dutch passport because I am entitled to Dutch nationality.

Me.

*speechless*
*need time to process*
*a little freaked out*
*will try to write more later and not be so vague*

I've had 3 drinks (1 scotch, 2 brandy) aaaaand.. I need to go to bed.  I'll try to write soon!  Bear with me if I don't, I'm overwhelmed!

:)

Eek!

I have my appointment with the Dutch consulate in Toronto tomorrow morning.  Please pray for me!  Send good luck wishes.. whatever ya got!  I'm a bit anxious, although prepared; all my questions are written down in my book and will bring legal documentation.

Wow.  That much closer......

Union Dues

So I decided to shake things up tonight and go to a union meeting at the hospital after my shift.  Never been before (which apparently I've been mistaken; more later) and was going to support a friend/co-worker getting elected as a Health and Safety Officer.  Turns out I didn't have to elect at all (someone else who was electing him showed up; I was just back-up).  It was nice, though, to hear a bit of union news; we discussed the cutbacks the government wants to make (similar to the Harris gov't some 15 years back.  Lets say if the gov't wants to cut back 30 beds, that affects many people.. including my job.  No beds, no mouths to feed, no job), how the gov't wants to slash housekeeping jobs and contract them out to an external company for minimum wage (worst. idea. evar), how the public views unionized jobs and how they really are, etc, etc.  I digress.

Since there were two of us there that were new (my friend and I) we had to be sworn in.  I had like, 4 people say to me with strange looks, "I thought you were".. which means I would have been to a meeting.  I said if it was, it would have been a loooooong time ago.  Anyways, we did it again just for kicks.

So... I almost got elected for a position with the union - Bylaw Officer (I had to hear first, what it entailed).  But there was some chatter, and by the time someone elected me, the nominations were closed.  "Not meant to be," I said.  Really, I'd probably escaped doing some really boring work, but, I would have gotten paid for my time in the meetings and if elected, I would have honestly invested my time in it and taken it seriously.

I've always said up till now that I hate unions, they're not for me, I pay union dues for nothing (yada, yada, yada) but when I go to meetings like tonight, it's nice to hear what's going on in the background.  We really do need people in the union (every day workers, not just officer positions) fighting for our rights.  Is that me?  Not so much.  I'm the ... strong, silent type.  I don't go to Parliament Hill and protest that we don't have this-or that.  We need the people that do and God love them for going, but it's not up my alley.

I don't know if I'll go to many more meetings.  I will probably go next month to elect my friend in and get him as many votes as possible, but... I don't know.  Part of me thinks it'd be good to be involved in something, but the other part of me thinks... I have no intentions of being a lifer, so why bother?  I don't know; with this union stuff, do you see me getting involved?  Am I the type?

Egg Farming Practices - News

Just ran across this article so wanted to post it while it's fresh..

If anyone has an interest about your eggs, where they come from, how the chickens are contained/treated, animal welfare, etc.. then read this article on Poultry Welfare, now instituted by the Egg Farmers of Canada.

Catch-up And Ramble

So I sit here with my organic cereal and Metamucil (every time I say that I feel like an old lady) and figured the best time to write was before the day even started.  The past couple days have been good (well, I've been off work, so there's your reason) and spent with friends, so my mood is a bit better.  Later today will be a bit of a busy one; work then choir practice.  A late night with an early morning to follow.  Ugh.

Health - Things are going alright.  I'm on two new meds and they're actually making a difference.  Things aren't perfect or cured by any means, but for the most part, it's improving my quality of life - slowly.  I still can't eat what I want yet, though (and I forget that sometimes. My body is sure to tell me when it's retaliating).  But I've got pills now that I take on occasion that let me travel a bit out of the city.  That's new to me.  I've been anchored in this damn town (as much as I love it) for the past 6 years; I'm happy to be able to travel a bit more now.  I made a trip to CZ's farm (1.5-2 hrs away) without even breaking a sweat.  It was flawless.  I was so excited!  (It's the small things.)  So anyways... the one medication I'm taking on a daily basis, I don't feel great about; it's got a couple ingredients I dislike (aspartame, for one) but it's seems to be helping take the bad bacteria out of the small intestine - which apparently was the problem (whole, or in part of).  And no one says I have to be on it forever, right?  God help me I hope not.

Work - Bleh.

Apartment - I'm kind of stoked to see a new place, I'm not gonna lie.  There are two available in the unit (of just 2 units; one main floor, one upstairs).  One I can easily afford (in fact, I'll even be saving money) and the second I'll have to do some number crunching.  I might be able to talk him down *shrug*

I have to comment on something.  Read my mind that I want to discuss the death of a particular world leader/very bad guy this past week.  (Sorry, but once you've been with military, you avoid the use of buzz-words, so I won't say his name.)  I don't usually bring such high profile issues to my blog, I don't think, but this one's kind of personal.  I won't reveal all my opinions, but please know these are MY opinions, and don't necessarily reflect the opinions of a) anyone else or b) anyone else similar in my past/current situation.  I'm so scared and hesitant to get excited about it.  Part of me is still in shock.  I (and many others) have been waiting for this day for years, for each of our own reasons.  YEARS.  Having had a relationship with K has tied me closer to this war that I ever wanted; it was the reason he re-enlisted, the reason I never saw him very often.  The death of this man, to me, always symbolized K would be one step closer to coming home.  Don't be fooled... there's a lot of work to be done; just because he's dead doesn't mean the fighting will stop.  But you know what?  We're that much damn closer to the end.  So... I'm not ready to accept this piece of information yet.  The world will continue to rejoice and I will sit back with skepticism.  Why?  I don't know.

Does anyone wanna go to work for me this afternoon?  Sure you do.  C'mon.  It'll be fun.

I think I'm gonna start my day now.  Been feeling really tired lately and not sure why, so doing things will take effort.

It's Thursday!  The weekend's almost here.  Hope you've had a good week!

I Broke It

I broke my Lent.  I had bacon today with brunch.

And it was glorious.

To be fair, today's a Feast day, so if I understood CZ yesterday, I am allowed.  I wanted to try it, really, because my stomach has not been doing well still, for the past couple weeks and I've been wondering if it's per lack of protein.  Today I'll make a heavy protein day and see what happens (so far it's been positive!).  I've already had half my usual protein.  CZ reminded me that sometimes we do things for ourselves even though we have the best of intentions of doing it for ourselves or for other people (me: giving up meat for dietary reasons, dedicating it to T.) but perhaps what I needed to give up was my pride (realizing I may not be able to go without meat because it's hurting my system too much.  Did any of that make sense?).  That was a hard pill to swallow (what? I'm human to a fault).  Today had been 16 days without meat.  If today continues to go well, I'll have to experiment if I can keep high protein without meat and have the same results, or if I will in fact have to program meat back in.  We'll see!

What else do I need to write about...

I'm finally starting to detox, de-stress and relax.  Of course, the time I do this, my vacation week is almost over and it's back to work Monday.  I will do my best to adapt to a laisez-faire sort of attitude and relax with what time I have left.  There might even be baking today!

Yesterday was nice catching up with a couple of friends I haven't seen in a while, and brunch with one today. I wonder if that's what started to help me unwind - human connection.  Good 'ol girl time.

Today will be filled with bookkeeping and finances.  I need to get my taxes done and do some budgeting and figure out what I really can afford to take on as far as vehicular expenses go.  Wish me luck.

Doctors.  Bloody, bloody doctors.  I hate them all.  I went to see my obgyn yesterday to discuss screening for endometriosis (per my app't with the GI thinking we may need to investigate that).  Well, she doesn't go "looking for it" and she threw me in the classification of "well, everyone has pain during their cycle" and "everyone's bowels are affected by their cycle".  Really?  I must not be the same cause when I gave her an analogy of the pain I'm having, she was a bit taken aback.  So, I can see this is going to go well.  Can you imagine?  My IBS as a result of stupid endometriosis?  The con: treated with hormones, which I DON'T want.  Anyways, I can rant forever about this and I don't want to right now, so... sorry 'bout that.

Canada will be going into election territory in May.  We're displeased.  The current government is toppling and we don't want Mr. Harper in power anymore, yet no one wants to go to the polls (they're far too frequent here, I fear).  So this will be interesting.

Well, daylight's burning so I better get my shit done.  It's Friday!!  For some of you, that's a blessing, for those who work this weekend, sorry :(  Hang in there.  It's sunny here (though very cold), so try and enjoy the day!

Good News

Well, it may or may not be successful, but it's a start.  For those interested, Monsanto's been ordered by the Federal Government (U.S) to remove and destroy all sugar beet seed plants.  Fantastic news.  Naturally, Monsanto is appealing and Lord knows they have the money to do it, but I hope this judge is as on his ball as he appears.

Drink Milk?

Borrowed video from a post by Bix at Fanatic Cook.

In the States?  Drink milk?  Care about what's in your milk?  You might want to see this, a blurb about Eli Lilly, which is a pharmaceutical company in the States (as the video says, for example, they create drugs for treatment of breast cancer).  Ironically, they also manufacture rBGH, a synthetic hormone that is injected into dairy cows, whose milk is believed to increase the risk of cancer.  That hormone was sold to them by none other than.... Monsanto.  Thankfully, it's banned here.

For My Fellow Canadians..

I don't often spout politics, but this one plainly pisses me off.  There are, I believe, even some not listed (I'd read somewhere once there was a legislation to do with farming, I forget the details, sorry).  I'll keep my personal opinions aside *mutter, grumble, grumble* about what selfish act Harper has just done (whoops, maybe not).  Want to know how the rest of Canada will be affected?  See this article by the Globe & Mail for a list of bills that just died.  Now they have to start aaaaaaall over.

(Note for other American and wordly readers: Our Prime Minister just prorogued Parliament - we're suspended for 2 months.  Yes, 2 months.)