Bandwagon Jumping

I hate all the hooplah around New Years and I especially hate new years resolutions. This year, however, I decided that there was no time like now to make a decision about my life. So my resolution for 2008 is to stop being a consumer. I can't stop all together, but I can give it a good try. Really, I decided it for totally selfish reasons - if we stop spending all our money on absolute crap then we can save it for things that are really important to us. Then I saw "The Story of Stuff," and I realized that there was more to this non-consumer thing than I had realized at first. I was absolutely outraged and poor Ian has had to listen to me ranting about "planned obsolescence" and "perceived obsolescence" on a near constant basis for the last couple of days (when I heard that Warner Brothers will no longer release DVD's, only Blue Ray....well....It's fair to say I was frothing at the mouth about it). So today, I put this up on my fridge -




It's a start, right?

Then last night we watched a documentary on CBC called "WalMart Nation," and I was absolutely sickened. Oh yeah, I've always known that WalMart was bad news, but I ignored it. I shop at that store all the time....How can I not....Formula for Frances is TEN dollars cheaper at "The Mart" than anywhere else. Ditto for diapers, and cat food, and kitty litter. No one can compete price wise. I pondered my dilemma all night and at about 3:30 (after Mary woke us up and before Frances woke us up) I came to a conclusion. If I don't buy that plush hot pink hippo at Walmart that sings and wiggles it's ears when you push it's foot, well, maybe I can afford to pay a little more for formula. If I don't go to Walmart and drop $300 on God only knows what crap, I can afford a bit more for diapers and cat food. We were actually planning on buying Ian's glasses (God, he's getting old the poor thing) at Walmart, but we have changed our minds. We are going to do our best to boycot that awful place.

On to other topics. Do you know how fun it is to have a three year old with (as the doctor put it) severely infected tonsils and a very bad ear infection? Can you guess how much more fun it is when you have a 7 month old baby with diarrhea. This is my life right now, although the diarrhea seems to be abating (thank Christ!). Poor Mary is absolutely miserable and in pain, and poor Ian is freaking out. His tonsils nearly killed him when he was about 24, and he wants to rip Mary's out tomorrow to avoid her going through the same. We also have a referral to a Speech and Language Pathologist for Mary. She's really not speaking a lot of English, and enough people have commented on it (including the Doctor) that I decided that it's probably a good idea. My brother had terrible problems with language when he was her age, mostly due to his tongue tie (which Mary had too) and severe recurrent infections in his ears. We've never noticed ear infections with Mary before this, but the Doctor did say there was a bit of scarring in her ears so it's likely that this isn't her first. In happier news, we finally have an actual Family Doctor. Yay! I really like her, she's fantastic with Mary, and while she isn't taking new patients my Step-Mother called her and demanded she see Mary a while ago, and now we are all in.

We started serious practice on our play this week, and eep! They want to go "script free" on Sunday, and I am not ready! It's like the lines go in one ear and out the other...my brain is a sieve. The practices are every Monday and Wednesday night, as well as Sunday afternoons...hopefully working with the others will help things stick in my brain. Oh! And we have a date for our show in North Battleford - It will be on March 27th. I'm thinking that on the Friday after the show I may run over to Edmonton to visit for the weekend - sans husband or children too! I really need to use that Spa gift certificate I got for my birthday last year, and this may be the perfect opportunity. March 27th, just over 2 months away. Pardon me, I need to go puke now...