My office is participating in the 2010 Bowl for Kid’s Sake raising funds for Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Lanark County, which will be held at our local bowling lanes on February 27, 2010.

Jason and I are collecting donations, so if anyone is interested in sponsoring us, I have created a paypal button that will allow you to easily give a donation.

Apparently, you can also sponsor a bowler from the Bowl for Kid’s Sake website, but I don’t know if our office is registered there.

This is a post about vomit and vomiting, so don’t read it if that grosses you out.

YOU

HAVE

BEEN

WARNED

There DEFINITELY is such a thing as “throwing up a little bit.” I know this because I threw up A LITTLE BIT in the middle of the night two weeks ago on Wednesday, and I threw up A LOT last evening.

Last evening, without a doubt, ends my streak of not being REALLY sick enough to throw up in years. Let me qualify that I am not counting any time that I ate or drank something that caused me to vomit – like really greasy food or a little too much alcohol. Let me also qualify that on occasion I have FELT sick, and needed to throw up, but have usually had to resort to enducing vomiting, for example by going for a car ride – motion sickness added to regular nausea usually does the trick for me.

Last evening was the first time in a long time that I spontaneously threw up, multiple times, until I finally emptied my stomach.

It all started off as a little headache that I noticed when I got back to my desk after lunch. I didn’t have any Tylenols or Advils with me, and it wasn’t a terrible headache so I ignored it. After work, I went straight to the laundromat, and I still had a headache but it wasn’t debilitating, so I ignored it. When I got home from the laundromat, Jason and I started to play a game on our good ole PS2. About 15 minutes into the game, I started to feel what I attributed as motion sickness. So, I turned off the game, and took a couple of Tylenols for the headache – which had gotten bad enough that I couldn’t ignore it any more.

What followed was the worst 2 hours of the last decade (rough estimate) – excepting the time I got car sick on the ride up to our Girl’s weekend in the mountains last January [edit - not last January, actually, it was in January 2007] and I threw up on the side of the road, and then suffered from motion sickness the entire rest of the ride up and residual effects the entire weekend.

By 7:30 PM, I had been resting on the sofa for almost 30 minutes, I had eaten two slices of dry toast – because despite all the nausea, I was starving – and drank a glass of 7-Up watered down with Club Soda. I was still feeling awful, but everything stayed down until I went to bed at 9:00 PM intending to read for a bit. I was so exhausted, I fell alseep right away, and slept until my alarm went off at 6:15 AM.

I came into work today, determined to be feeling better, but if I get even the slightest twinge of a headache or nausea, I am going straight home. I do not want to go through ALL THAT again, especially not in the shared bathroom here at work.

Lately, I have been feeling malaise relating to my job. I’m not sure if this is the result of the environment, the workload, the peer interactions or if I have changed somehow. I think it might be a combination of all of the above.

When I first started working here, I was on part-time nights and weekends. Within a year, I had moved to weekend overnights – and the shift was more of an on call situation, so I was allowed to sleep on the job provided there were no calls coming in. About 10 months after that, I started working the occasional weekday as training for when I covered for a co-worker while she was on mat. leave, so by the end of my second year here, I was working full-time days. I was offered a permanent full-time days position a few months before that contract was up.

Earlier this month marked my 4-year anniversary with my employer. I have never worked anywhere for 4 years; I don’t think I’ve ever worked anywhere for more than 12 consecutive months.

This job was the first job that I loved from the start and continued to love throughout most of my time here. It’s only recently, within the past year, that the glow has begun to fade. When I was working nights and weekends – and overnights – I was mostly on my own in the office. I came in, I covered my shift, I did all the work that came up as it came up, and then I went home. I loved that. When I was covering for my co-worker’s mat leave, things were a bit different. I was no longer alone in the office, but I worked solo on most of my projects, so I still came in, covered my shift, did all the work that came up as it came up, and then went home. The permanent position that I was offered is in a more team-like setting. Now I interact with coworkers a lot more than I ever did in the other positions. So, I come in, I cover my shift, I do all the work that comes in for me as it comes in; the difference is, if someone else is sick or on vacation, I might be asked to cover some or all of their work. On the face of it, that doesn’t sound unreasonable, and it isn’t. But, over time, my attitude has morphed from “glad to help” to “feeling overwhelmed and put out,” and I don’t like that.

I have never been a particularly patient person. I tend to get frustrated and annoyed way too easily. Lately, this has started to be a problem for me at work. I am constantly on edge and terse when people ask me questions, or approach me for assistance. I REALLY don’t like that.

I feel like it’s time for a change, but I’m reluctant to try to find another job. What if I go through the entire process and wind up still feeling this malaise? What if the problem lies entirely with me, and a change of venue doesn’t change anything? And that’s not taking into account any guilt I’ll feel for leaving my current employer in the lurch, so to speak. I’m not the perfect employee, but I think that I am a pretty good employee – at least as far as productivity is concerned, even if I need to work on my attitude.

This entire situation is upsetting. Most upsetting is the fact that I used to love working here. I remember loving working here. It makes me feel sad that I don’t love it anymore.

I have a huge stash of yarn – wool, cotton, acrylic, hemp, you get the idea. I also have many books and magazines and printouts of patterns that I have collected in the last 18 months or so. I also have numerous projects that I have started in the past 18 months, but that I never quite finished.

There are 3 95% completed newborn baby cardigans that I started last January, for Lara and Vicky’s babies (born in May and June 2009). There’s a hat for my sister Melissa that I started last February. There’s a scarf for my mother that I have started and ripped and restarted so many times I cannot count. There are 2 5% finished 6-month old baby cardigans that I started last fall to replace the ones I started last January, for Lara’s babies (who are now 8 months old). And many others.

I am thinking of taking the bull by the horns and digging out all my unfinished projects, laying them all out, photographing them all and then doing something about them. It’s time to admit that some projects are not destined to be completed, and those need to be ripped out. As for the rest of them, it’s time to buckle down and finish them off.

Wish me luck, and stay tuned for updates (with photos).

Last night, I watched the movie Julie & Julia. I’m not writing a review here, so I’ll just tell you that I liked the movie and get on with what I really want to say.

This movie is about a blogger, who is also a foodie, who is also trying to “find herself;” there was no way that I was going to be able to watch it without being affected by it.

At the very least, the blogging aspect has influenced me to try a little harder to keep up with my blog. I doubt I’ll be a huge success (in terms of blogging) by the end of this year, but I can see that just like me she had days when she almost didn’t want to blog at all. I am going to assume that if you are reading this, then you can relate to that, since you are probably also a blogger.

As far as being a foodie is concerned, there’s no doubt that I love food, and eating (if you’ve ever seen me in person or in photographs the evidence is indisputable). I’m not sure I would ever commit to Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 365 days; and I know I’ll never write a breakthrough, revolutionary cook book; but the fact remains that I love food.

Which leaves us with trying to find oneself. There’s a scene at the begining of the movie when Julie is out to lunch with her suit wearing career girl friends and you can almost see the words “I FEEL LIKE A FAILURE” written across her face in black magic marker. I’m going to assume that the girlfriends in the movie were more of a caricature than an accurate representation of Julie’s actual friends – if only so that my career girl friends do not think that I see them that way. It’s really tough to be the only person in the room who doesn’t have a CAREER, and it’s hard not to feel like a HUGE FAILURE, no matter how happy I am in my job. I can relate to sitting at a table with a bunch of people who are doing what they want to be doing WITH A PURPOSE and not feeling comfortable discussing my job, which is something I do because I have to work to earn money to pay my bills, and I really haven’t got a purpose at all.

I harbour no illusions that someday this will lead to a book deal, or that I will ever become so popular a blogger that I’ll be able to sell ad space and live off the income my blog brings in. I won’t pretend that I have never fantasized about it, but on the whole I am realistic in my expectations of where this is all going. My blog is at once a diary/journal where I can record the various goings on of my life on a day-to-day basis, and a newsletter for keeping my friends and family in the loop of said goings on. I set myself some goals from time to time, but on the whole, I want to keep it light and fun because if it becomes too much like work, I might not keep writing.

Having gotten the disclaimer out of the way, I am inspired by Julie (the Julie in the movie, who may or may not be exactly like the Julie in real life) to blog about something more meaningful (to me, and hopefully to others) than just the random blah blah blah of my day-to-day life. As much as keeping a journal for the sake of journaling alone is a good thing; keeping a journal to log your progress towards achieving a goal is a great thing. I’m pretty sure the average reader would rather live vicariously through me plowing through my unfinished knitting projects (complete with photos) than live vicariously through me taking a couple of loads down to the laundromat.

I know this blog is advertised as being about my journey to motherhood – and I missed the flight AGAIN this cycle (more on that later) – but really it’s also about me, the person making the journey to motherhood.