Category Archives: Family

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I\’m at it again…

Yeah I know, do I ever really stop?

Not usually no.

Anyway lots of craziness has happened in the past little while.  Far too much to write about, but hey here\’s some highlights:

Spider man & hello kitty in cake form:  I was asked by the other bosses wife to make a hello kitty cake and a spider man cake for their 2 children.  Hello kitty is easy (or so I thought) and spider man, well I did a Google search for spider man cakes and found a great website that had lots of images of a 3-d bust of spider man (sorry no pictures camera is MIA) although I was assured that I would be e-mailed some.  Anyway, I was So. Ridiculously. Sick. on the day of the event that I was due to not only cater the food but finish the damn cakes.

Mission impossible?

Hell yes! Not entirely

At first glance I had my doubts about it looking like spider man, more like the victim of a tragic farming accident.  Had to re-make the fondant 3 freaking times and of course it just wasn\’t going red like I wanted it to.  So I had to finger paint on the red.  Next time I\’m buying red fondant, in a pail because the cost vs effort, well there\’s no comparison what so ever.  In the end it wasn\’t perfect but looked close enough to spider man to make the little man happy and for a first attempt in conjunction with being deathly ill I did OK.  Even hello kitty fared pretty well in the end, thank God!

I also got quite the tip for my efforts which was nice.  I My Visa will appreciate that 🙂

I also made a killer snow white cake, which of course the pictures are on my memory card in my camera that I can\’t currently find at the moment.  (keeping my fingers crossed that its in Pete\’s car/Apt)

Not to mention the most bitching wedding cake ever, with the help of Pete.  I honestly don\’t think I could have pulled it off without him.  OK I\’m pretty sure I could, however I have to say that having him around made this task a lot less daunting and working with him was nothing short of pure greatness 🙂  I also made Clint a grooms/birthday cake which I do have a picture of, on my freaking camera of course!

Anyway without further ado, the most bitching wedding cake of the century!

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Pete has better pictures but there\’s a general idea for you.  The little wee one is for Jen, she can\’t have raspberry so we made her a non raspberry one just for her.  The cake in case you were wondering was lemon sponge finished with a raspberry liqueur simple syrup and each layer\’s filling (4 per tier) was alternating lemon curd Swiss meringue butter-cream & raspberry Swiss meringue butter-cream which was then covered in a combination of the lemon/raspberry Swiss butter cream and topped with lemon flavored fondant.  Was a huge hit and everyone loved it!

Once I get the pictures from Pete I\’ll post them here 🙂

In other news, I decided to volunteer for IAMAlive which requires me to be certified as a suicide prevention counselor that\’s offered through Eastern Washington University.  50 hours, costs $250.00 so I will be hitting people up for sponsorship to help offset the cost.  Its important to me and more importantly it will help to benefit my foundation as well.  All in due time of course, for the moment I need to focus on getting better physically and feeling better emotionally.  Which I seem to be getting there on both levels.  Physical aliments I can deal with, working in a daycare those seem to come and go.  I\’m more focused on the emotional aspect of it now.

Also on a final note, I got a surprise when my best friend from ON decided to come to Montreal for this beautiful long weekend and I got to spend some awesome time with her and her lovely family including her beautiful new baby boy.  OMG he IS the sweetest little thing ever!  Was a good day, did lots, seen lots and had a great time.  Was so good to see them!

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Happy Mother\’s day Mom!

I love my mom, my mom=win more so then anyone Else\’s.  I can say that because we all know that its true for the following reasons:

  1. My mom & I get tattooed, sometimes together sometimes not.
  2. My mom has piercings, cool ones at that.
  3. My mom & I go to bars, which rocks the awesome.
  4. My mom and I can swap all kinds of secrets and that\’s exceptionally cool.
  5. My mom & I would totally go to a strip club together.  I am so taking her to 281 when she comes next time.  Early so we get better seats on a Thursday or something.  Saturday was crazy but I\’ll save that for another day.
  6. My mom and I have gotten wasted together on a few occasions 😉
  7. My mom bailed me out of jail once.  I\’ll save that story for another day.
  8. My mom is my best friend <3

Those are just a few reasons why my mom rocks the awesome on so many levels.  If I wrote them all, this entry would be a mile and a half long.

I love my mom, no matter how bad I fucked up and on occasion still do so, she still loves me.  My mom has taught me a million things but the most important things being: Patience. UN-conditional love.  My life simply wouldn\’t be the same without her and that\’s what really matters at the end of the day.

Thanks for bringing me into this world mom.  For all the hugs, the skinned knees that were magically made better, for making so many sacrifices just so that I didn\’t go without anything, for dishing out the tough love and teaching me the meaning of: You made your bed,now your going to lie in it and for just being really, really freaking awesome.

I love you and I appreciate you more then you will ever know.

Love, Steph

Before I was myself you made me, me
With love and patience, discipline and tears,
Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,

Allowing me to sail upon my sea,
Though well within the headlands of your fears.
Before I was myself you made me, me

With dreams enough of what I was to be
And hopes that would be sculpted by the years,
Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,

Relinquishing your powers gradually
To let me shape myself among my peers.
Before I was myself you made me, me,

And being good and wise, you gracefully
As dancers when the last sweet cadence nears
Bit by bit stepped back to set me free.

For love inspires learning naturally:
The mind assents to what the heart reveres.
And so it was through love you made me, me
By slowly stepping back to set me free.


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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder…

\”Beauty is in the eye of the beholder means that different people will find different things beautiful and that the differences of opinion don\’t matter greatly.\”

So I was reading a post over at her bad mother .  Strangely enough I was talking to him about the time that my psycho ex boyfriends mom was and the time she said to me:\”You know Stephanie, you have a really nice smile.  Oh Thanks!  Although you could stand to loose a few pounds off your thighs.  *come again?*\” At least I know where he got it from.  I was maybe 15 or 16 at the time.  Anyway, hearing comments like that at any age is somewhat damaging, hearing it when you\’re in your early teens?  Damn near suicidal.   You see I had a really awkward time growing up.  I always looked different, growing up in a small town made my red hair that much more of a rarity, not to mention my freckles and my last name pretty much made me a prime target for being teased.  Oh yeah lets not forget I was the only one in my grade four class that wore a bra.  A real bra, not one of them training bra deals.  I was sassy but brutally shy on so. many. levels.  Cambridge was a bore, I grew up a little, learned to appreciate myself for who I was to a degree but I wanted more.  I got the utmost thrill from being bad (Sorry mom! I love you), rebel without a clue essentially sums it up.

I met Garnet when I was 15. He lived in Guelph which was a considerably bigger city that Cambridge and was everything that I wasn\’t.  We broke up after a few months, although we still had a few mutual friends in common and to make a long story short ended up getting back together later that summer at a friends birthday party.  The abuse started when I was about 16.  I was (and still am) a very stubborn, independent person with too much pride.  I should have ended it after his first attempt to kill me that day, but for some reason unbeknown to me at the time, I stayed.  Looking back on it now as a rational adult, I can see it so clearly.  At that age, its not so blatantly obvious.  He constantly berated me for the way I looked, the way I dressed, what I ate, how much I weighed, how much time I spent at the gym (too little for him apparently).  Essentially he took my self esteem and destroyed it.  I allowed him to control me and how I seen myself.  I. hated. myself. a. lot.  Case in point.  I obsessed over how I looked, what I ate and essentially had a borderline eating disorder.  I look back at pictures from that time period and of course I would kill to have the body I had then.  I however have since learned to accept myself for the person I am and I like me.  Now.  However back then, I loathed myself on so. many. levels.  Especially when you hear things from someone who claims to love you that they\’re repulsed by you, they\’re not physically attracted to you and so forth.

There\’s a huge correlation between an abusive relationship & how one views themselves.  I\’ve been asked countless times why I stayed.  That\’s a valid, yet totally loaded question.  Like I\’ve said on numerous occasions, its hard impossible to comprehend when your on the outside looking in.  Its something that you know in your heart is wrong, yet your so destroyed inside, mentally and emotionally that you don\’t have the courage, strength or the will to leave.  Your life is no longer your own, its dominated by the skewed way you view yourself, fear and having it drilled into your head time and time again that no man will want you looking/acting the way you do.  After a while you start to believe it.  Really it boils down to control, an insatiable need for it at all costs.  That is one key component to the mindset of an abuser.  I have since learned that its them who can\’t live without you, them who feels that they will be nothing if you leave.  God forbid if you try and obtain a mind of your own, the strength to stand on your own two feet and live your life the way you choose to.

I\’ll never forget the day we broke up.  I called him, he was crying and carrying on saying that I should have been upstairs with him (we lived in the same apt building) not waiting for my date to arrive.  I said no to him for the first time ever.  The cry stopped immediately and he said what?  I said no, no I will NOT come upstairs to be with you.  He then says to me \”Stephie, you finally stuck up to me, that\’s all I ever wanted you to do.\” Right, so that gives you just cause to beat me down on so many levels?  Anyway needless to say, the euphoria I felt at that moment is still to this day indescribable.  I finally felt for the first time that I and I alone had gained some control of my life and that was and still is to this day the best feeling ever.

I still on occasion have moments where I hear his voice in my head when i\’m having a bad day.  Every once in a while, those damn image issues come creeping up on me and I try to ignore them and most of the time I succeed.  I am who I am and while I am not perfect, I am perfectly flawed and in spite of it all; I have learned to not only accept myself but love myself for who I am.  I refuse to obsess about it, although I do know that I should pay far greater attention to taking better care of myself overall.

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Birthcontrol, Visa, my mom,FAIL

I bet your wondering what all four of these have in common…  Oh but they do!  See I am sure that I mentioned that some punk ass douche-bag \”compromised\” my Visa so mine was canceled as a precautionary measure.  So because of that  I had to wait for the new card to be sent to my mom\’s house in ON and then wait for her to send it to me registered mail.  Shiny new visa comes in last Thursday and I finally got off my ass to go to the post office and pick up because I had to sign for it.  So that\’s fine, I open up the envelope only to discover that my card wasn\’t ready to use, had to either activate it online or via telephone due to the chip I have with the pin.  So I tried to do it online but because I\’m not the primary card holder I apparently needed some of my moms info.  Turns out I didn\’t (bastards) but you know c\’est la vie.  So I dropped it off at home and trekked over to Gryphon to see two of my favorite people.  Had lunch with two of my favorite customers, played catch up and ran off to work to pick up my pay.

So I go to work, grab my pay, briefly tormented Freeman for a while.  So I detach my cheque from my pay stub (we use a company now) sign it, fold it in 1/2, shove it into my back pocket and run off to the bank that is literally 2 blocks away!  So as soon as I get there, I discovered that my pay was GONE.  W.T.F?!?!?!  Seriously?  FAIL!  F.A.I.L!  So I hoped that maybe it fell out of my pocket at work somewhere and went back.  I of course re-traced my steps which was pointless because it was nice and windy today and who knows where on earth it ended up?  So back at C.O.C, I called my manager to get the number of our payroll company to put a stop payment on it.  It was around 4:45, guess who closes at 4:30?  THE FUCKING PAYROLL COMPANY!  I was thinking seriously?  Your joking right?  So I ran back to the bank just to have a note put on my account file with the cheque number stating that I had lost it and to not accept it should someone try to cash it in my name because I signed it at work.  Which sounds crazy to some people but sometimes its actually safer because then no one can attempt forgery.  I consigned myself with the fact that most banks close at 4pm, which today being the ONLY time I was actually thankful for that!  I\’m hoping that if someone actually found it, that in an attempt to cash it they use the bank machine…  Yeah I know sounds nuts but I\’m thinking I should have a stop payment in place before it actually gets removed from said machine and cleared by the bank, best scenario.  Worst scenario, someone actually was able to cash it  on my behalf and then the payroll company tells me how utterly fucked I am…  We\’ll see what happens.

So I thought, all is not totally lost because I have a Visa (thanks mom!) so at least I have access to some funds and won\’t be totally poor and can just slap my pay onto that when I actually get it.  Except that wasn\’t meant to happen either…  I do all my running around, then I head off to the pharmacy to pick up my birth control pills for the month and what do you know?  MY FUCKING VISA CARD DOESN\’T WORK!  I was about ready to loose it at this point, but it was almost 7pm IE: free mins kick in, so I call the handy 800 number on the back.  \”Oh I\’m sorry miss your not the primary card holder\” So I said yeah I know, its my mom.  \”Oh is your mom there (in a condescending talking to a child tone)\” I said yeah well, she\’s home but she also lives 650km away in Ontario and I\’m in Montreal.   \”Well I need to speak with her before I do anything to the account because I have security questions I have to ask her\” .  Fine, its a security thing, I get that.  However all I wanted was my damn baby prevention script!  You see, they keep me sane and baby free, oh yeah and I don\’t have breakouts either but that\’s a side effect I\’m willing to live with.  In spite of the fact that I have awesome skin like that (thanks mom!).  So I walk home, call my mom in ON, tell her what happened and asked her to call me back once she\’s off the phone with them praying that it doesn\’t take hours.

So mom calls me back and I apologized for horribly inconveniencing her like that because I knew she wasn\’t feeling well.  She said its no problem Steph, I\’m your mom that\’s what you do as a parent.  See this is why I don\’t have kids, they\’re a pain in the ass!  I do however love my mom and all that she does for me <3.  However my mom tends to tell people a little too much on occasion, you know like the tattoo I have on my vag.  Yeah my mom goes out of her way to tell people about it.  One of these days someone\’s going to ask to see it and you know I most likely will show them.  Doesn\’t matter because my girly bits are going to be part of an art book (that\’s a whole other story).  Anyway getting off topic here…  So the person on the phone was a woman and my mom says to her my daughter went to the pharmacy to get her B/C pills but her card didn\’t work.  I don\’t need that to happen (her?  What about me? lol) she says oh yes, she would need those, can\’t have that happening now or she\’d blame Scotia for it (yes, yes I would).  Apparently they both though that was hilarious.  I however not so much.  Sooooooo I got my card activated and verified, head back to JCP for a second time, wouldn\’t you know it…  MY FUCKING VISA DIDN\’T WORK AGAIN!  So I told the poor cashier I was sorry for being such a pain, she says oh no, I feel bad for you.  I know you need them (yes, yes I do!).  So as I\’m walking home I passed a dep that had an ATM, thought well maybe its just the terminal?  Hello cash advance attempt.  Success!  Grabbed some cash and went back to the pharmacy for the THIRD time and finally got my pills.

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