Hate/Love List - February 2012

One of my biggest character flaws (or so people tell me) is that I am a big time hater.  I love to hate.  It's so easy and love doing it.

But since my husband (and my mom) hates that I hate, I thought that I would work on it.  I was originally going to post things I hate each month, but I thought to make it even and to silence my critics, I would include things I am loving (because I do love things as well).

I'm hating:

• inconsiderate neighbours.  The lady upstairs that is stupid loud with her singing, and her fat cats running around at 2 am, and throwing food out of her window that ends up on our window sill and starts to mold or on the grass and then Cooper goes nuts trying to eat it.  Or the one who blasts terrible rap from six years ago out of his windows for three hours straight.  Or the one who's guests park in our spot, that we pay for. JERKS!  Apartment living sucks sometimes. 

• not having money.  Kurtis and I are trying to save for a house (see above) and we are on a TIGHT budget.  We kinda blew it over Christmas and then neutering Cooper and then on an AQ course I am taking and then again on Valentine's Day, so I'm feeling very guilty AND poor.

• the weather.  It's February.  Enough said.

• online courses.  I'm taking an ESL course so I can get bumped up on the pay scale.  The course itself isn't terrible, but we have to do three tasks a session and each session lasts about three days so it's a crap load of busy work.  And some of the responses from my classmates make me want to vomit on my keyboard because they are so convoluted. And the assignments are such a waste of time.  One assignment was to reflect on my posts so far and give myself a level 1, 2, 3, or 4.  Gag me.  I'll write a post on hating rubrics and levels 1-4 next time.

I'm loving:

• that my favourite TV show, The Block, is back on! It is a renovation show from Australia and it makes us feel like we are back living in Australia.  My little dose of summer and warmth in February!  I stream the episodes here. 

• chocolate chip cookies.  It's my number one comfort food.  I eat one a day, at least, unless we run out.  And cookie-less days are terrible days. My mom makes the best, but I usually buy mine from the Loblaws' bakery. 

• Pinterest.  I used to hate Pinterest.  That was before I gave in and actually tried it. I heard about Pinterest after my wedding and I was over wedding planning and I thought Pinterest sounded like something dumb girls did when they wanted to overexpose their dreams and blah blah blah.  I tried it over the summer and I am an addict.  This was one thing I hated for no reason.  You can check my Pinterest here. 

• sheets.  I used to only sleep with my comforter and my husband is a sheet + comforter person.  We have these amazingly comfortable jersey sheets that I enjoy through the drop sheet and pillow cases, but I never bought into the sheet + comforter thing, that is until a few nights ago.  It was really cold and I was really tired and I added a sheet into the mix and man it was awesome! But I have to be in the mood.  

Our sick boy

Cooper isn't doing well.  He has an infected anal gland/sac.  I won't go into details, but all you need to know is that is hurts him to walk and poo at the moment.  We had to take him to the emergency vet yesterday because it was Family Day and our vet was closed.  He was constantly licking himself and wouldn't move without whipping around to get at his bum, so we had to take him in.  $500 later he is on antibiotics, pain meds, wearing the cone of shame, and sleeping all day.  Yesterday was the day we decided we needed pet insurance.

I wouldn't say he is an unhealthy dog, but I wouldn't call him healthy either.  He's had an ear infection ($200), a cold that went away on it's own, he ate a tennis ball and we had to get the vet to induce vomiting ($120), he refused to eat for 24 hours that gave us a scare, and now this.  Plus we suspect he has some kind of allergy but we don't know to what.  Oh, and he had an umbilical hernia which cost us another $200 on top of his $600 neuter.  Don't forget all the puppy vaccines and rabies which cost about $400.  Pet insurance it is.

In any case, in the past six months we have paid for Cooper at least four times over.  Having a dog is expensive.  People told me this.  All I thought that meant was treats, food, yearly check-ups, toys, crate, leash, etc.  Not infected anal gland emergency trips.

So now we will add another monthly expense.  Pet insurance.  Will I be organized enough to actually follow through on this? Time will tell.

In the meantime, we'll continue to pay out the nose for our little guy.  All of this has really made me appreciate the free health care we get here.

Who am I?

We are a little family.  There is me, a teacher, my husband, a teacher, and our dog, a dog.

Our family will get larger, but not for a few years.  We are renting an apartment at the moment, while we save for a down payment for our house.  We can't grow our family while living in our apartment.  I mean we could, but we would lose our minds.  For one, there isn't an elevator and we live on the third floor.  Dragging a stroller up all those steps? No thanks.  Also, while our apartment is bigger than most people's condos, and we do have a second bedroom, I think we would be a little cramped.

In any matter, we aren't growing our family anytime soon.  We're trying to manage our family as it is right now. Even though we've been married for a year and a half, I still feel like we're figuring this whole "adult" thing out.  We're both pretty disorganized and are crazy procrastinators so things take a while to get done.  Take our winter tires.  We just bought them and got them installed a week ago... we got the car before we got married.

So maybe we aren't growing our family because we aren't grown up enough to have kids.  And on a selfish level, we don't want to be grown up enough to have kids yet.  After getting a dog six months ago, we've realized what a commitment it is to have to care for another living thing and how much you have to give up to do so.  We still kill all plants that enter our home though.... our plants don't give us a voracious welcome every time we come home though.