1. I wake up with her sleeping on my face. 

2. She is right by the door whenever I get home from work. 

3. If I walk around the house, she follows me wherever I go. 

4. She wakes me up every morning at the same time to get my attention. 

5. She sleeps on my chest. It would be cute but she is heavy as hell. 

6. When I shower, she'll poke her head around the curtain and stare are me. 

7. When I cook, she jumps on the table and stares at me. Or she will stand by my feet and I will always accodentally step on her. 

8. She sleeps in my dresser drawers. 

9. If I shower, and my door is closed, guaranteed she is right outside the door. 

10. When I lock her out my bedroom, aggravatingly, she paws at the door all night until I let her in. 




Dec 24 - Drive home with Sana. I ended up meeting a fellow FI at StatsCan who knows all the DND FORD people. I cannot stress this enough: the finance community in Ottawa is small. 

Dec 25 - Crazy family Xmas dinner prepared by moi! It was a long night, but great time to spend with the kids. Regarding their parents though, let's say some things never change. 

Dec 26 - Drinks with the boys + gf at Coopers. I always wondered what these guys would look like in relationships, and I must say it's pretty adorable. 

Dec 27 - BBT with Candy. She's been through a lot since the last time I saw her during Thanksgiving, but it was great catching up. I've never known anyone more honest with their feelings. 

Dec 28 - Engagement day! (more on this later). Hung out with Steph, visited her condo, shopped downtown and met up with the happy couple for dinner at Kinton Ramen. Ran into Mike & friends and ended up going for drinks and Korean fried chicken afterwards with them. 

Dec 29 - Annual dim sum brunch with Thomas & friends at Emerald. Went to Lisha's party at her downtown condo. We played pervartistry and girls won, even though we were outnumbered 6-5. Fun!


The Remainder of My Holidays...
- Lunch at Panera Bread with Becky
- Coffee shop time with Denbo
- Downtown NYE's party with Charis, Seth & friends
- V time
- Hang out with Jacey & Mike downtown
- Drinks with Kevin at West 50
- Maybe Ripley's aquarium with my parents & my youngest brother's family
- Seth's bday at Etsu and karaoke at BarPlus
- Become a beggar on the street after spending too much, become obese from all the delicious food consumed, and pass out from exhaustion. 


When it comes to a dysfunctional family, the feelings of "happiness" and "love" is an anomaly. When it comes to my family, all reason and reasonable means of communication are thrown out the window. Instead, we scream, we swear at each other, we throw inanimate objects and we slam doors in a huff. All for the most inane of reasons. We stay angry for days, not talking to each other, and when we do, we are cursing each other off. Being on my own for so long, I forgot how hot-headed and temperamental my family is. Is this why my oldest brother decided to cut his family off? Is his psychotic personality a result of growing up in this family environment? Because I remember him being normal when he was younger. Am I going to turn into him in 17 years? Is this why he is bald? All important questions. 


I am laughing right now but I am sad. Really really sad. Merry Christmas, I guess? What's different now is that I now understand that my family is just like this and instead of trying to fight it, I am just laughing at it because that's all you can do. When they say hurtful things, remember that it's only out of anger and there is no shred of truth in it. The devil wants to put you down and make you fight back, scream, throw things, curse and say hurtful things back at the people you love. But what if you just walked away from the situation and let it cool down? Makes for a congenial environment. 

On to a positive note, I am home for Christmas, my loves. Play with me. 


He is selfish. 
He is childish. 
He is callous. 
He is self righteous. 
He is cruel. 
He is tempermental. 

As much as it helped me grow, I never want to relive that one summer at home. Coming back does remind me why I ever left in the first place. I am traumatized, and I will always be as long as I live in fear. Unless something drastic changes, nothing will stay the same. I never enjoy walking away from a problem...


So my brother and his family are set on making the move to Ottawa. I just want to scream at them, DONT DO IT!!!! Don't get me wrong, I like this city. It's nice. Just nice. But it's not home to me. I don't feel a part of the community here (and thank goodness for that, because there are A LOT of weirdos here.) Ottawa is vanilla ice cream. It will not disappoint you, but it won't excite you either. 


My sister-in-law always has a "grass is greener" mentality which is not good because you are never going to be content in your life. You will always be hoping for something better. She will be close to her family, however I don't think my brother is going to love it here. At least I'll have more family here (while I'm still here) and I can get to see more of my neices!