Keeping up with the Joneses baby

I never have been a trend setter. I don't worry about the latest thing to do or see or drive or wear. I just dont care about impressing other people - I have a hard enough time impressing myself. However - now my actions reflect on my daughter and I suddenly feel the need to step it up a notch. The thing is I dont know how much more I can do ! I already drive a late model car, I am well educated with a good job as a professional, own a home... all of that. One thing makes me feel 'less than' - well.... several things actually.....quite a few several things...... pounds ! Oh - dont forget those nagging little things called years too. Yea - sigh - not only am I about 35 pounds different from these ladies with babies - but I've got about 10 years on them too. sigh again. The pounds I can work on - but the years - I'm stuck with them. So - be sure to consider this, girls, when you're thinking you've got lots of time to have that family.

I do have 1 comfort though - I have a VERY beautiful little girl - and I am not just saying this - and I do get a secret glee out of thinking that they are all saying to themselves that I must have something going for me - even if it is only my genes !

Non-smoking room

Seriously - I didn't think anyone smoked anywhere anymore. In Canada - or at least in Nova Scotia - the tolerance for smoking has dropped to an all time low. No longer can you enjoy a coffee and a smoke ( a delicious favourite of many an imbiber of both vices) or a beer and a smoke or even a smoke and a catch-up chat with a friend.... not inside a public building nor even outside one ! Now there is a move afoot to penalize those poor frozen chain-smoking-on-their-break souls if they flick their butt or drop and stomp it. Someone wants to deputize Butt police !

As you can tell probably, I have a small measure of sympathy for these tortured souls, having smoked myself for 20 odd years. If it had not been for the desire to finally quit, coupled with the absurd and still escalating cost of a pack of cigarettes topped off with a $500 bet from my younger brother that I would never last the 6 months to my birthday - I would still be smoking today. I liked smoking - I liked pretty much everything about it . I loved that first smoke of the morning and that last one before arriving at work. I loved the coffee smoke and the catching up smoke. I loved the instant camaraderie between smokers that I presume is even more entrenched today. Its something non-smokers will never understand.

Which brings me to my in-laws. They have never smoked - I don't think it ever even crossed their mind. I suppose living in the English Dales with all that greenery and open spaces and lack of tobacco advetrtising contributes to that. My 43 year old husband (their son of course) has never smoked anything either. Suffice it to say they are not a fan. So - imagine the chaos when we arrived en masse to check into a hotel and discover that we've been assigned Smoking rooms ! Oh - the humanity ! Despite repeated pleas we were assured that there were no other rooms but we could have our pick of several . So off we go to sniff the various rooms and finally( after also complaining about the 'perfumery' smell in one of them and the slowness of the elevator ) settle on two. I kept quiet the whole time - very unlike me. I think I was secretly hoping that someone would smoke in my general vicinity - as death defying a thrill as I am likely to expose myself to these days. I got my wish !

New Year - New Me ?

Another day - another dollar. Another year... another...what ? Back surgery ? Car accident ? Financial crisis ? Baby ? Who knows. I don't. I think, though, this year I am going to drive this bus that is ME.

If you've read this far - don't give up on me just yet. I am just having a bad day - you know - mid January blahs, fierce windchill outside and a ants-in-her-pants 3 year old inside. Add to that a recent house reno that has us still crab stepping around debris.

I have decided that I am going to write this blog for me - and whoever else happens to wander across it. I think it will be my little secret.... well - now its 'our' little secret. I am not going to tell anyone I know - so I won't feel the need to censor myself in any way.

Feel free to chime in anytime.