Achoo

The squirrel has a head cold. Poor me.

There is so much news since I last blogged, that I am cowed at the prospect of trying to bring you up to date. Here's my wild and furry life, in a random-off-the-top list:

• Am writing to you on spanky-new but unfortunately not yet really paid for lapttop
• I love my job at the little branch with the big heart
• Aside from how much I like the staff and the public that I am working with, I am also really enjoying planning public programs - It's like a party every day!
• My next big event at work: a book-themed speed dating night, to celebrate Saskatchewan Library Week (an opportunity to find love in the Library - how cool is that). An idea stolen from a library somewhere in the States (thank you, whoever you are).
• I am occasionally moonlighting as a house painter and getting paid for it! Perhaps this will dig me out of my laptop debt. Spent 3 solid weeks working full-time at the Library during the day and painting late into the night on a whole house interior job. Darned-near killed me. Made my fur dull and matted, at the very least of it. Paid off my Visa bill, though!
• Spent 2 1/2 weeks in the car (we traded in our crappy car for a less-crappy car, and can now travel out of town with aplomb) going to Vancouver through the mountains and back
• Oh, the beaches. oh the food. oh the mountains. oh the fancy coffees. oh the hot springs. oh the food. oh the vintage shopping opportunities. oh the good times with old friends. oh the food.
• Do I dare to eat a peach.
• We shall choose not to remember... oh the whipping of markers in the car by a bored 4-year-old. oh the fights between the 4-yr-old and the 2-yr-old nephew. oh the terribly steep cliffs. oh the painful three hours in a traffic jam behind the logging truck that had rolled on the highway. oh the mind-altering power of just a few gummy bears on the brain of the small child. oh the impish decibel screaming of the impish 2-yr-old. oh the bad habit my husband has of sleeping late on work days, and unfailingly getting up at the crack of dawn on holidays to annoy me (who's trying to sleep late for once)...
• Ahh... holidays.
• I have somehow become the President of the Parent Council governing our neighbourhood preschool. It's a wild time: we had to hire a teacher, and we don't have enough kids to fund the school so that it breaks even, so we're suddenly serious fundraisers. It's stretching my human resources skills in many directions, between team-building so that the parents are a strong group, and helping the new teacher to get settled.
• Aunt Frieda is off the rails crazy, but yet still so strong a self-advocate that I'm afraid to mess with her. If I start any sort of investigation into whether we need to get power of attorney on her behalf, she'd 'get' me. She slept for two cold nights last week in her broken down car in Wosetown, and refused to spend money on a hotel room. My 73-yr-old Auntie, with arthritis and now perhaps diabetes. Let's understate it: it's a worry.
• Sprout - oh, proud Mama! - Sprout learned how to ride his bike without training wheels this summer! One evening, he told me to take them off, and 10 minutes later he could ride alone with merely a push-start! It was so cool.
• On the other hand, Sprout is also worrying us a tiny bit. He hasn't had a peanut allergy episode for two years, but just this past week, his top lip has swollen up twice after eating supper. Once was in a restaurant, and I accept that risk as one I had taken. Tonight, we ate at home, a meal I've been making for 10 years - with no known nuts in it. Very worrisome. The only thing we can figure is that perhaps the hard cheese we grated on it was cut into chunks on a nut-laced cutting board at the cheese shop? Oh dear.
• Preschool started today, and of course, I am obsessing about other people taking care of my child when he's unexpectedly getting swollen lips.
• On top of working full-time at a mad pace and being the Preschool President in my off-hours, I am also on the union's negotiating team for this round. It's my first time in bargaining, and it is truly as frustrating as everyone says. It's a wonder that labour standards exist anywhere in the world. Thank God for labour legislation, is all I can say, or we'd never get anywhere.
• Am completely addicted to new Nina Simone recording, "Remixed and reimagined". Am doing miles on my treadmill while daydreaming about disco dancing, all in the privacy of my own home. It's bliss for an old fuddy-duddy ex-diva like myself.
• Spent 2 days trying to figure out how to move to Vancouver for a year, for a temporary holiday from the rat race. It was a nice bit of escapist dreaming. The closest I got to a workable plan was to do my MBA. Perhaps.

What would a squirrel do with an MBA, though, really?