I’m a very grateful and appreciative WHINER

Confused? Yah, me too. Just kidding, I have been sick lately and absolutely tired. Haven't recovered yet from the holidays. I managed to get myself pretty stressed out despite making a lot of effort to simplify the season for our fam. Anyway, I have been feeling sick for a God-awful amount of time now and so I can't help but be a bit complainy. I do have to stress however how much I realize how blessed I am in the big picture, and I remain grateful and appreciative of everything I have in my life right now, hence the bizarre post title.

the "crew":

One major reason to be grateful right now, is my trip to Peurto Vallerta, Mexico with my best girlfriends for one of our "crew"'s wedding. I am very much looking forward to it and I think it will be the beginning of a fantastic chapter in my life and this new year. I just turned 30 about a week and a half ago and I am really certain that it will only get better from here. I think this is going to be a huge year for me on a personal growth level and I am so ready for it. I am stressing a little ( a lot) about being away from my kids and David for that long and the likelyhood of some homesickness. I am also terrified of airplanes and have not been on or around one since 2000. Actually. It was the trip that did me in. Australia. Enough said. Love the country, absolutely stunning, just loathed getting there and back. What I especially loathed, was the fact that not only did we have to take like 4 flights to get to the place, we flew all over the frigging place once we were there. I think I remember taking something like 50 take offs and landings in the month that we travelled. No biggy...if you don't, like, really truly believe that you're going to die every single time you happen to take off or land in a plane. You guessed it...I really truly believe that I'm going to die every single time I happen to take off or land in a plane. Yup, that's me, I'm that girl. The good thing is that it dulls down to a somewhat bearable general sense of dread once we are in the air, but the anxiety doesn't go away because I know about the whole landing thing that is inevitably going to happen. None of this would even be that bad if it weren't for the fact that the low-grade terror keeps me from being able to get out of my seat(even to go to the bathroom, I just don't go), or sleep, or look out the window(it's just so unnattural for this huge machine filled with hundreds of people to be gliding and propelling its way through the air, tens of thousands feet above the ground).

Then there was the "incident" that occured mid-flight over the Pacific, going the opposite way of the sun for the entire flight (ie, pitch blackness the entire time) on our way to Australia. It was an incident that both completely solidified my loathe for flight and proved my ineptness in the face of crisis in one fell swoop that came in the form of a man collapsing. Let me set the stage first, I was actually the only person around me that I could see that was awake for miles on the plane. I was miserable, exhausted, and watching "Ninth Gate" of all things (a horror movie), when all of a sudden I notice a rustling behind the sheet that acts like a second smell barrier(I'm assuming) that is in front of the bathroom door. Suddenly a man falls through the curtain, BAM, flat onto the floor on his face. Doesn't move. Nor do I. It was probably only a few seconds, but it seemed like an eternity that I sat there in sheer terror, paralyzed with fear, both because of the shock and the watching of a horror movie, staring at the man which I believed to be a corpse, at this point. It was then, that rather than get up to help the man(because I was scared he was dead), I clamoured for the attendent buzzer and started whisper yelling "help please!!!!" "help!!!" while frantically pressing said buzzer. They came pretty quickly and it turned out that he had just passed out. Anyway, it was a miserable little lesson that told me that I need to get a hold of myself in crisis. Yikes! HA!

One thing I do have to say is that because my step mom travels a lot, she was at the time a part of the AIR Canada VIP lounge, so we got to travel going to all of the lounges in every airport. Lots of free food, booze, showers, comfortable places to relax, games at some of them. It was awesome and honestly made the whole thing so much more bearable for me.

Anyway, this time I am hoping to get a prescription for something...maybe horse tranquilizers?

Okay so, gazillions of pics and stuff to share:

LO of the fam jam on the beach on Owen's bday:

Boxing Day at my Dad's and Step Mom's:

A blur of hussle:

Christmas Day at my sister in law', David is the freak with his toque on in the background, kinda cute though, because the toque he refused to take off was his new John Deere toque from Owen and Ella:

Christmas morning, 5:30, ungodly:


Cards I made for Christmas:

Christmas Eve, we watched Elf:

December 23, my sister and her bf Alex came over for our Christmas celebration, the kids had so much fun opening the awesome gifts that their Auntie got for them:

After dinner, it was Monopoly time, I was the bully fish that kept cornering everyone's pieces.

Getting pretty serious

Yay, playing outside:




Recent lo:

My birthday dinner, my sister and I:

Then out to a comedy club after, can't explain everyone's weird faces:






Bathtime:

Steph's wedding shower:

My best friends:


Card I made for Steph and David:

Ornaments that I made for Owen's teacher and the kid's babysitter:




Christmas pageant:


Tree Farm:

David lugging our HUUUUGE tree inside:

A little poster I made for my Dad to advertise his jam group on Kijiji:

So finally that's done for sharing old pictures, I have many more new ones and some ScrapMuse stuff to share, but it will have to wait, I am tired now.

Good night!

~Tricia