satellite

i don't know why, but she insists on telling me that i've gained weight. i know this. i knew it months ago, i knew it years ago. it's constant and ever increasing. i don't need to be told this by someone external to me. what i need is some encouragement that i can overcome. a point in the right direction. some help along the way. i've been told that my goodlife membership won't begin for another 2 weeks. i'm disappointed, but also think i've been so busy lately that two weeks of rest before my new workout regiment will be nice. sometimes i feel a need to tell people "i've gained weight" just so they know that i'm aware of the fact and don't secretly cringe at my appearance and oblivion. the world is made up of different cultures and different social acceptable interactions. i understand this so i'm not mad at her, i just wish she'd not judge me for it.

as i walked i noticed my right food pointing out. it's always done that. my left foot points straight as it should, but my right foot points out. my dad is the same way. my mom used to giggle at him when he walked in the snow because it always left a path of one crooked foot. seeing my foot and thinking of my dad, made me imagine if my kids right feet will point out too, and i'll say to them "mine too, and same with granddad, it's a family trait". only at that point did it cross my mind that my family heritage did not just begin with my dad. i wondered if my grandpa's feet pointed out too. i never knew my dad's parents, and he doesn't talk much of them. i wonder if my grandma's fingers curled up like mine do, or if she was funny. it made me wonder if in fact we're just all just reconfigurations of other people. all cut from the same cloth.

yesterday i decided to take a look at the mls listings for ktown. it's been a while since i received a HOMES newspaper, and i haven't had the pleasure of window shopping and dreaming. so i took a gander online and found the perfect house. there is part of me that feels disappointed that such a great house would come on the market at a time when we're not interested in buying, we have the means, but have decided to stay put for a while. too bad the timing of that ideal house is off by a few years. however, i tell myself that great houses seem to come on the market regularly and there will be many perfect houses between now and then. and maybe a little closer to the neighbourhood we want to grow roots in.

first we admit our mistakes,
then we open our eyes.

accident

i've decided to start a change collection in my cubicle. whenever i have spare change in my wallet i'm going to empty it into my desk drawer. i rarely need spare change in the real world, but i'm always digging in my desk in vain. i'm going to bring a little jar from home to start with.

rach made me some homemade underpants for my bridal shower. i really like them. they're really loose and sit kind of low. they make me secretly giggle when i walk in them. i wish my clothes always made me giddy.

where did you put all those letters that you wrote to yourself?

counting

i'm really enjoying this week of doing nothing. man, it's relaxing and totally what i need. i fell asleep on the couch at 9:30 again, had me a little nap before bedtime. and yet i still had a really hard time getting up this morning and i was late for work. i think i've been operating on less sleep than i should be. rest is good. it's like sweetness to my soul.

for the first two months of regular marriage routine with b, i struggled to keep within budget when grocery shopping. i've simply been buying too much, but thankfully i'm starting to get the hang of it again, it just takes some time to adjust. i like that b and i hi-five when we come in under-budget. then we go "whoo, whoo, whoo" and whip our fists around like arsenio hall... JUST KIDDING.

so last night we walked the mormon proposition. similarly to milk, it was frustrating and heartbreaking. the mormon church is vemenantly opposed to gay marriage because it is an affront to their belief system. it literary screws up their eternal plan that gay people exist. so they solicted all of their members asking for huge donations (one family with 5 small children donated $50,000 - their entire savings, their childrens educations fund, etc) for the campaign against proposition 8. it's essentially legal, a church organization is not permitted to give substantial contribution to political causes. as documentaries go, it was alright. it was informative, but it's apparently very biased. i can see that they only told the story from one side, but i don't believe what they said to be a fabrication or a lie. it was accurate if not unbalanced. it's my feeling that gay marriage will be one of those things that people look back on generations from now and say "i can't believe gay people weren't given the right to get married!" similarly to how we think "i can't believe rosa parks got arrested for sitting at the front of a bus!" the reality is that laws cannot come out of a portion of the populations view of morality.

so continuing on my movie marathon, tonight at storytellers we're watching a movie. that will be fun :)

you were never anything but beautiful to me.

flexible

since the last two weeks of our lives has been excessively busy the dishes in our kitchen really piled up. so instead of cooking we went out to royal angkor for dinner. i love that it's slowly becoming our place, it's in our neighbourhood, it's consistently good, and not busy. we were the only people in the restaurant except for people who'd come in occasionally to pick up their take-out. it was really nice. we sat talking about the movie milk, about how amazing it was, and about how civil law vs morality. we shared the same point of view and felt equally passionate about it. oddly enough (and this was purely coincidental) one of the other 2 movies we rented (great deal at classic, 3 8-day rentals for 5 dollars) is a documentary about proposition 8, and we're going to watch that one tonight.

i think it's funny at age 30 i've only just grown to like hairspray. it helps keep my hair in the right places!

so you know that time that i mentioned that brendan and i are going to cornerstone as our big trip next year? well... in addition to going to cornerstone... we've decided to go to ireland as well :p we're pretty excited about it. both our dads sides of the family are from northern ireland, so we're going to go venture around our forefather's stomping ground. i get so energized when i look for cheap deals online, and when i look up places to visit. brendan's coworker (also named brendan) is from ireland and has given him all sorts of tips. he said he could give us a whole itinerary, then listed off a months worth of activities. we're probably only going to go for 10 days.

beforehand though, i need to get a new passport. i sent in my change of name request a while ago, but it recently came back to me saying i missed a few things, didn't send enough money, or filled things in incorrectly. hmph. i should redo that this evening and pop it back in the post. feels like there's a lot of hoops to jump thru. they make it sound so much easier than it actually is.

i hope i'm not getting tendinitis. that would be sucky.

she was cuffed to the truth like the truth was a chair.

canada post sometimes receives letters to God.
that's fascinating! what a world we live in :)

argyle

woo! it was a BIG weekend. full full full.

1) rehearsal dinner and rehearsal followed by andrew's crazy bachelor party while shannon gathered with her own posse at the toucan

2) sleepover at shanno's... make-up by cas, quiche by les, photos by miguel

3) beautiful, fun, unique ceremony at next... many giggles had and tears were shed

4) wedding party photos at bell island park

5) power nap at home with b

6) reception dinner at next. wedding party entered to the tune of sabotage by the beastie boys

7) fantastic dinner provided by many talented cooks

8) a wide spectrum of speeches

9) dance party at the legion. super fun! brendan danced his little butt off all night. i was so proud of him!

10) on sunday a very exhausted group of nexters gathering together. no attender was not suffering from a wedding-hangover (not from drinking, just from attending!)

11) hectic clean-up in the lovenasium...

12) ...followed by a relaxing afternoon of movie watching and napping (we watched 'milk' which was really good. it was mind-boggling, infuriating, and heart-breaking. what an important story!)

13) living roomers gathered to talk shop, all still feeling wasted from wedding exhaustion

14) early night, great night's sleep

15) b started his post office job with much success!

16) les's employer won a big contract in south america securing her job indefinitely.

shannon and andrew looked so happy at their wedding. shanno kept saying that the reception dinner was way better than she even imagined. that's so awesome :D it's so great that they are finally married and are honeymooning in quebec city. frig, that place is like mini-europe, how awesome! i'm looking forward to when they get back, what a momentous occasion.

yesterday was brendan and my 3 month anniversary. we've been married 3 whole months and it's really going super-fantastic. i'm having the best time ever. friday night was the first night we spent apart in 90 days. i was quite surprised to discover that i really don't like sleeping away from him. i was telling shari that on saturday and she said "that's a good sign". she's a counsellor and said "you wouldn't believe the things i've heard, that's seriously a good sign". which was nice to hear. i think it's that sharing a bed is still a novelty and i'm still very happy each night that he doesn't leave for another home. plus, i'm always the perfect temperature when i sleep next to him.

i liked watching jase and rach dance. when i saw them i'd think "that's thirteen years of marriage right there. thirteen years of highs and lows. a thirteen year partnership that has brought them into sync with each other and they're having a blast". lovely.

i'm a good kisser and you're a fast learner.

undignified

i own 6 ani difranco albums. the interesting thing about this is that i've never actually purchased one. i inhert them from people. bren and mike were getting rid of the rest of their cds last weekend (they're completely digital), so while i was at the demolition derby brendan walked down to their place to pick out whatever we'd like from their outgoing collection. i like that he brought home 3 ani albums for me, and none of the were duplicates of what i already had. although, he did bring home a badly drawn boy cd that's already in my collection.

tomorrow... after SIX YEARS in the making... andrew and shannon are getting married. she will wake up a gendron, and go to sleep as a cardiff. super exciting. the next 2 days (today and tomorrow) is going to be INSANELY busy. it's kind of overwhelming, and i'm only the best lady. i can't even imagine how shannon's feeling.

since we're on the theme of weddings... last night i went to melissa's church bridal shower. it was fun. unfortunately, i didn't seat myself at a table with people i knew. during one of the games i wanted to sit down to knit, so i sat at the nearest table, and ended up getting stuck there :( the girls i sat with were all young marrieds. since i'm newly married myself you'd think i'd fit right in, but i didn't. i felt like i didn't know the secret handshake or something. it's nice to know that it's not actually our marital status that made us different - which is what i always used to think it was - it's something else. something i can't put my finger on. however, i suspect that what makes people connect is kind of mysterious. often the people we'd in theory hit it off with simply aren't in reality. friendship is a mystery.

there's a smorgasbord of unspoken poisons.

extras

i stayed home from work sick with a cold yesterday. i had regular sneezing fits that would leave me quite worn out. brendan was annoyed at me because i wasn't consistantly covering my nose when i sneezed (twice, i drove him down to staples so he could fax some paperwork to canada post for his new job, and the sneezing would often happen when i was driving the car - which made it impossible for me to properly cover my face). i had some chicken noodle soup and slept. i don't know if it's because i was sick, or because it was the rare occassion that i was at home and not busy in the evening, but i fell asleep on the couch at 8:30 both tuesday and wednesday. one of the best feelings is when i wake up in the night feeling like i've been sleeping for ages and discover that it's only 12:30. i love that. i actually made it to work on time. i think i'll try to revert to my rule about turning off my computer at 9:30. it's much easier being in bed on time without that distraction.

it was my mom's birthday, so we had to go out for dinner with my family. she picked red lobster, i really don't like red lobster. everything is pre-fab. i swear they don't cook anything there. the food is not bad exactly, it's just so obviously defrosted. it reminds me of frozen entrees from the grocery store, in themselves are not bad, but do not deserve a $13 price tag. next time i have to go there i think i'll just stick to a salad. i'm not even convinced my mom likes it, she just picks it because it's one of those places we couldn't afford to go to when we were younger, so she thinks it's fancy.

b starts his new job today. we're pretty excited. he would like to be a mailman some day (they're now called 'letter carriers'), but at the post office you have to start at the bottom and work your way up. he would be a great letter carrier. he loves walking, he thrives on routine, he's very dedicated, and he wears the same thing every day. he's working on getting his drivers licence because it's one of the qualifications for being a mailman. his lessons are going very well, my dad said he's getting an A or A+. he'll probably take his test in november. anyways, the new job is a 2-week temp position as a volumn counter. joy did that job twice in university and really liked it. it's basically sorting mail. joy liked it because she could listen to booktapes while she worked. she told us that after, they kept offering her more jobs. basically once you get your foot in the door you have a lot of job opportunities. the downside is that brendan currently has 3 jobs, but i've suggested that he consider quitting one of the others. my dear b has a really hard time with change, so this has been quite overwhelming for him.

this thing called love's got me crawling under my skin.

glide

highlights of tuesday, september 21:
- lunch time yoga
- brendan got new job (temporary postal worker)
- yummy green curry leftovers

lowlights of tuesday, september 21:
- coming down with a cold
- brendan's new job was awarded last minute and conflicts with shifts at other job (was hoping for enough notice to ask for time off in advance)
- slow day in the cubicle

currently looking forward to this evening:
- grocery shopping after work in order to increase food supply at the maxi pad
- knitting
- watching 'extras' with b

my world pauses for you.

chamber

:) ben and meg got married yesterday. it was quite apparent to me that what was said and done was a revelation of what was already true. they were already committed to each other, taking care of each other, and fully connected to each other. so yesterday was an opportunity to include everyone else in that experience. i dunno, it's similar to when you're trying to put your finger on something, or trying to remember something but can't quite recall and yet you feel like the words are on the tip of your tongue. that's what ben and meg's wedding was, it was the bursting forth of something you already knew to be true. those moments create explosions of jubilation. we were all just super happy for them. it was a great celebration.

b and i got picked up in a crazy awesome stretch limo. it had leather interior, a bar with mixed nuts, and a tv screen embedded inside a mirror. funnily enough, within seconds of me being inside the limo i was falling over lengthwise off the seats. i'm definitely not fancy enough for a limo :p brendan made this cheeky comment about expecting me to fall over AFTER the wedding, not before.

ben and brendan, along with ben's other brother thomas, got dropped off at meg's brother's hotel. then ben's sister pearl and i got dropped off at the frontenac club inn where meg and her sister-in-law christine were getting ready. the hotel room was amazing. we hung out there a long while, got ready, chatted about wedding stuff, put on fake tattoos of unicorns (we are all the hamilton sisterhood) in secret places. christine is super nice and was great to hangout with (she has a new baby only 7 weeks old), and pearl is a precocious 11 year old who was extremely charming. i had a great time with all the girls. meg looked FANTASTIC. she did her hair herself which was very impressive, there are a lot of girls out there who would've paid a lot of money for their hair to look like that. she wore her mom's wedding dress, but had it altered to include a lovely purple silk sash.

the ceremony was outdoors. the weather was great and there was a lovely view looking out over the lake. meg got chocked up coming down the aisle, which got me all teary too. brendan and i walked down the aisle together then parted ways to stand on either side with our specific group. it was neat having him stand across from me, and we'd take quick glances at each other at the really romantic or significant moments.

things went really smoothly. the mc's were great. the speeches were fantastic (brendan's was particularly amazing). the food was good (i had salmon, it was very dilly which i love). to make ben and meg kiss people were supposed to tell a joke. i think it was a coincidence, but brendan's was the last one told - that could be interpreted in various ways.

when the music started i was super close to convincing brendan to come up on the dance floor with me, but that was delayed because by then it was clear that ben was in the middle of a dance off with a baby. she was less than two years old, but super into the whole dance scene. the dance off lasted for an entire bruce springsteen song and went into the next one. it was too hilarious. when that was all over i did manage to get brendan to come up and dance with me. it was super fun. i'm excited that he agreed and feel this is a good sign for decades of dancing ahead of us.

nancy and gerry offered us a drive home at 11:30. they dropped us off at our mechanics so we could pick up the car (i dropped it off there on friday evening because something was rattling from our previous repair. thank goodness they fixed it for free), i wanted to drive it around a bit to listen to the ride quality. brendan felt like a snack so we got some drive-thru and took it down to lake ontario and sat eating and chatting in the car. it was a great end to great day.

come, baby come on the dance floor.

turkish

last night brendan and i went to the stelmachs for dinner. b was babysitting and i was going to take back the night with shannon and rach after dinner. it ended up getting canceled due to the rain. or postponed rather.

anyways, chelsea just turned 30. we talked a little about growing older and how it's easier to age when we've accomplish the things we wanted to do. it got me thinking about my 30s and what i want to do with this decade. my 20s were much more obvious. i wanted to establish myself, find a job that i liked, get rid of my debt, find a partner/get married, and travel. i didn't actually get married in my 20s, and even if brendan and i were not together i think i would've been ready to enter my 30s regardless. i'm going to give some thought to what i consciously and unconsciously want from my 30s, and also dream a few more things:

• i know i want to buy a vespa, i'm going to get my M1 licence in 2011.
• and i do still want to live on wolfe island, but we might leave that one til my 40s.
• i'd like to have kids in my 30s, i know that, but i don't see having kids as accomplishment, at least not in the normal sense. i can't just pop out a baby then cross that off a to-do list and say "birthed a baby, done and done". i see having a baby as more of a change in life-style or a shift in how life is experienced. but i suppose i can say that at some point in my 30s i'd like to experience that paradigm shift.
• i still have several countries to visit before we have kids, so i definitely want travel to remain part of this decade.
• and mid-decade we'll buy a house.
basically i want to live fully in each decade, regardless of how old i am. i like that my needs with change with every life phase. that keeps life interesting.

BEN AND MEGAN ARE GETTING MARRIED TOMORROW!!!!! i'm super glad they're getting married in 2010 instead of in 2009. b and i have small families (only one sibling each) so i would've missed out on the only family wedding had they wed last year. tonight it the rehearsal, i think it'll be fun. then tomorrow we're getting picked up in a limo. i'm pretty excited and happy. i feel like i lucked out with awesome in-laws.

try not to let your head spin.

badge

this morning i did an online excel course as part of my professional development as required in my yearly objects at work. i aced it. the best part was learning how to calculate how many days old i am :)

i am 11,231 days old.

to make sure i did it correctly i calculated how many days until andrew+shannon's wedding. it came out as 9, which is correct. thus confirming i'd got the hang of it.

then i calculated how old brendan is.

he's 8,008 days old
frig, he's just a baby.

then i calculated how many days older than brendan i am.

3,223 to be exact. next time he sasses me i'll remind him of my days of seniority and tell him to put that in his pipe and smoke it :p i'll say "oh ya? well... check back with me when you're ten thousand days old and we'll see if you still think the dishes need to be done" ;)

it's so wonderful to finally have a practical use for excel.

speaking of brendan and his 4-digit existence... his wisdom teeth are coming in. it's cute and funny. for some reason it never occurred to me that he still has his wisdom teeth, or that they haven't yet erupted. he's been in a lot of pain this week which i've found very adorable. not that i like his pain, but rather that he's so green. he's in his salad days, awwww. thankfully we have dental coverage for him, so it shouldn't be too costly for us. his two upstairs teeth are fine, and will grown in straight but they're going to remove them anyways because the downstairs ones need to come out because their impacted. it doesn't make any sense to keep the upper ones. he's a little bit nervous about not being sedated, but i'm assuring him that the laughing gas will be enough to distract him. i wikipedia'ed (what's the verb for looking up something on wikipedia. is it wikipedied? or wikipedia'ed?) 'wisdom teeth' and found that other languages have different names (instead of a translation of wisdom) for the teeth. my favourite is the korean "love teeth". i'm going to call brendan's his love teeth because they came in after we got married.

hmmm, i wonder if i can calculate how many days i've been sitting in this cubicle... nope, i need the latest version of excel to do that. hahaha. i'm not even kidding.

i can make pancakes for you.

deck of cards

a number of weeks ago i sent shannon an invitation to a friday night of mystery. from time to time i'd send her instructions, but told her nothing else.

so friday arrived and i waited for her at my house. as 6:30 came and went i was a little concerned that we'd crossed wires, so i decided to call her. as the phone rang she pulled up in a taxi, but didn't have any money to pay for it (she was going to use debit, but the taxi man's machine was broken). so i got in with her, we had to go to the closest ATM so she could pay him off.

when shanno's debt was repaid we got in line at the memorial centre for the roller derby. i told her that this was the first of 4 events of the evening. we saw a lot of people there who we knew, and there were all sorts of vendors. but since i was conscious of the time i was quite distracted and couldn't really relax. i thought the roller derby would be higher action, it felt a little slow moving or perhaps i didn't really understand the rules. we had fun though. when we left, i blindfolded shannon and drove around town to disorient her. i drove us to chelsea's place, she had no idea where we were as i directed her into the house and took of her blindfold. everyone was there but remained perfectly silent. so she was MAJORLY surprised!!!!! it was great :D

it was an 80s themed party. chelsea and i had gone shopping to pick up the bride-to-be's costume and it was made up primarily of a purple prom dress, a gold belt, some mony tights, a tiara, and some geeky glasses. she wore it well. all the girls looked great. i was going for a billy idol/punky brewster look, but it didn't turn out as well as i'd hoped because i didn't really have the right amount of time to get ready. several elements were missing because they'd slipped my mind. oh well.

shannon opened gifts as michelle crimped her hair. she got all sorts of outrageous gifts, and we had some great laughs. after that we played a major game of broken-pictionary - which is her favourite game. it was wedding themed and I've never seen so many stick figures with boobs ever. too funny. chelsea stapled all the stories together and gave them to shan for safe keeping.

after the food and drinks and games and gifts and costume contest were finish we headed out into the night. a number of girls took their leave at that point, but that was a-ok. we walked around daring her to give cake to a stranger, to trade a condom for something bigger and better, be lifted like a bride by a random guy, to go into grecos to ask for some free food, to kiss a gargoyle. the biggest most embarrassing stunt of the night was when she had to go into the goat and sing. as we stood on the street corner while she tried to decide what to sing, i noticed that robb was sitting in a booth at the goat. and immediately connected that with the fact that brendan was with him. SUPER AWKWARD. i instantly felt like a teenager with a crush and i did not want b to see me. but that just made it funnier. shanno on the other hand felt much more comfortable because brendan was there. she said she just pretended he was the only person and that made it ok. he whooped and hollered, and was highly amused. i asked him later "did you tell people 'that's my wife'?" and he said "yes, of course i did" :S

the downtown shinanigans ended and we headed to the maxipad for an 80s dance party. shannon loves dance parties so we danced it up. after 1 pm we were pretty pooped, so liz and little shanno retired to the balcony to smoke a stogie and spied on poor b who'd just arrived home and was trying to mind his own business. too funny. everyone headed out at 1:30. it was a long and fun night. i have to say... we threw her a bachelorette party that surpassed her wildest dreams. it was a success.

let's get down and dirty.

textile

yesterday i gave andrew his second driving lesson. he's been wanting to come visit my office for over a year, so i decided to treat him and direct him to drive out towards millhaven. so i showed him around and he wrote me a little note for me to read this morning. while he was here we took a closer look at the renovations being done to the washrooms and ventured into the mens washroom. haha. that makes me laugh because if i'd had a dream that i was standing in the mens washroom at work totally gutted with andrew it would've seemed really odd! he's doing well with his driving, it's just that first gear that gives him heck. i think it will make his wedding day extra memorable if he hops and stalls along the way to bell island. what a story that will be.

i'm coming to understand that some things matter more to other people. which makes seeing eye to eye difficult. if i come across something that's a shade of grey i plant myself on that spectrum and don't really bother myself about what either side has to say. i don't like to be bogged down with things that are not resolvable. nor do i wish to convince anyone else to change their opinions. your opinion is your opinion, and my opinion is my opinion. what's there to talk about? let's all just live freely and lovingly. i remember my sister telling me once "you can be right or you can be happy", i don't mind much about being right. besides that, i'm not a people pleaser, i'm not motivated by making other people happy. i like it when people are happy, but it's just an added bonus. this is something that people pleasers have a hard time getting their head around. i'm married to a people pleaser, i suppose that on occassion this will be a challenge for him to figure out where to stand.

speaking of b and driving, he's having his second driving lesson with my dad today. did i tell you about this before? i don't have time to teach him, and learning to drive while learning to drive stick is hard. so i suggested he get lesson with my dad. they're both available in the day time, my dad has a car to teach him, and he's a really good teacher! b was reluctant, i think he feared it would go badly and it would ruin his relationship with his new father-in-law. but the first lesson went great :) i liked that at the dinner table that night brendan said to me "you know what my new favourite thing about george is?" george, it makes me laugh that he calls him by his first name.

well i guess this isn't what i had in mind.

tassels

ugh. we had the worst night's sleep last night.

i was at andrew and shannon's place til 11:40 working on bookmarks. when i got home i chatted with b and was not tired, so we watched a TED talk on the myth of violence. when we finally got into bed at 1 pm a convoy of transport trucks began coming down our street really loudly. one after another after another. i was so annoyed that i wanted to find out what was going on, so i climbed over b to look out the window, injuring him in the process. it turns out it's all the carnies arriving for the fair. argh. i hate the fair. we woke up several times in the night. b is struggling with his wisdom teeth and suffered from a lot of pain in the night. by the time my alarn clock went off i was exhausted and did not want to get up. blah. such a crappy end to a good weekend.

on friday night a bunch of awesome girls and i threw shannon a bachelorette party. i'll tell you more about that later.

then on saturday, b and i cleaned the house then went to the bank to invest our savings in some RRSPs. we felt pretty fancy grownup! while we were there i had the chance to go up to goodlife for a visit. i still haven't got my membership. things are pretty crazy at the moment so i think it will have to wait. it's unfortunate, but it's better to not overextend myself.

ben and meg are getting married this saturday. we're pretty sure excited about it. i think it's going to be a really good time and fun celebration. they're so well suited for each other, and that makes me really happy. they're like velcro.

ok. more later.

i've stood here before inside the pouring rain.

sharp

SO! couples things to fill you in on...

1) i have had to bow out of the terry fox run. i'm really disappointed about that because i really want to do it, but i haven't had any time to think about it or even start to begin to fundraise. then on top of that, it's immediately after ben and megan's wedding, and the same day that living room starts up again. i'm going to keep it in my mind for next september, i'll sign up sooner and get on the ball with fundraising asap.

2) believe it or not... but today is the 7 year anniversary of me starting to work at bombardier. i have sat in my 8x8 blue cube for 7 years now. only 3 more til i get an additional week of vacation! it's been a good career so far. i definitely take forgranted everything that's occured since the start of my tenure here. i'm grateful, and feel especially fortunate now that my work environment is less toxic. it's tough working a 40-hour week, but i honestly feel if i have to work 40-hours somewhere, i'm glad that it's here. it's a product i believe in, it's a global organization, it originated in canada, and things are always changing.

3) the girls at book club and i have begun reading a magical new book. it's called 'belonging'. it's just so charming, the author is a beautiful and lovely writer. i seriously dog-earred something on the third page! i'm much further in now, and just feel incredibly uplifted by her prose. it's like smelling sweet flowers, it's like a summer-time nap. man i love reading. this is a major shift from the girl who kicked the hornets nest :) both good, but for completely different reasons. "the girl who..." is like eating raisins, it's like a winter coat. ooh, i think i'm on to something with my book/real life comparisons. at lunch i read a chapter of belonging about living abroad and how homesickness sets in. i dog-earred the page with a great line that said "longing can blind you to everything else", and the wonderfully written antidote "pay attention. this is where you are". *deep sigh of satisfaction*

my mind keeps asking why i wait so long.

return to sender

last night i saw eat pray love with mayelin and her friend evelyn. i read the book a number of years ago, and since then heard a lot of bad rap about the book. it's been criticised a great deal, and i have to admit it started to effect the way i felt about the book. but when all is said and done, i liked it because it was a memoir (i like reading all the intimate details of a person's life) and it's about travel (which i love to do). i once heard someone say that at the end of the day, liz's problems really aren't that bad, which is true. however, what needs to be remembered is that she was struggling with depression, which can make the most perfect life seem miserable. what bothered me about the book is that she fell in love at the end. i'm kind of tired of the concept that life is only figured out and complete when a lady finds a man. it bothered me a lot, since i myself had been on a life discovery journey and it only resulted in me being single for 6 years. it's not always as straightforward as going on a trip and meeting a guy at the end. that being said, i did find it quite lovely last night in the film (partly because i liked the film version of her lover more than the book version). the love story seemed less about her needing to find a man in order to complete the process, but rather about her trying to figure things out while incorporating her new partner. anyways... this is not the point of my entry.... i wanted to talk about liz's clothes. i really loved all her outfits in that movie. i sat there admiring all her clothes, the colours and textures, and the way they fit her so comfortably. i know she has a costume designer who picked what she wore, but i really felt inspired. also really inspired to get in shape! clothes fit much more comfortably when my body doesn't feel bulky.

i got an email form shanno last week telling me about her new gym membership. she and chelsea joined goodlife and they work out together. she was very excited. then i got a work email about a corporate discount at goodlife, so i thought "maybe i should consider this instead of just going back to the Y, the cost is comparable". so after some encouragement from shannon, debate with myself, and discussion with b, i decided to do it. i'm pretty excited. the women-only gym is conveniently on my way home from work, and i could go to the downtown one with shan and chels too. the only downside is that i can't just start whenever i want, i have to wait for my membership to be processed thru bbd. t'is ok. i'm going to get a free one week membership so i can start tonight after work! the problem is that i find it hard working fitness into my rather full life, BUT b and i feel i need to make it a priority since i'm pretty miserable with my physical self lately. once my full membership goes into effect i'll consult with one of their trainers at goodlife. i'm kind of sick of trying to figure out what i'm doing wrong, it's so hit and miss, and what i did a few years ago doesn't seem to work anymore - i think my body is changing, i AM 30 now, so i need to adjust my workout accordingly. i really hope the effort will pay off, because i'm very motivated when i begin feeling a difference. i'd like to fit comfortably in my clothes again.

plus, lately i've really really really wishing my hair was really long again. i hate my hair at this length. it's so boring and i can do NOTHING with it! it seems everything old is new again, because about 5 years ago i was trying to lose weight and grow out my hair :S i sure wish i wasn't back in this situation. oh well.

as an aside, i brushed my hair today for the first time in 18 months. i dunno, lately i've noticed it's been a little fuzzy and i thought brushing it might calm it down a little. however, my hair is too smooth, i want to wear it up with a scarf to ben+meg's wedding, but my silky hair doesn't seem to keep the scarf in place. hmph! i'll try buying some hairspray to give it some texture and some stay-power.

down by the water you can dip your toes in.

bewitched

b and i went camping again this weekend. this time we went to bon echo. it was FANTASTIC! we had the best campsite in the place. you could do a complete 360º and not see another campsite. we're totally going to book site 453 again. it was really reclusive and the forest just kept going and going, and it had these two big boulders among the trees. we loved it. we hung out there most of the time, only leaving once to buy some propane (because we left our supply at home).

we spent the evening stoking our campfire. the wood was unfortunately damp, so it didn't catch very well, but we did eventually get a nice fire roaring. it required excellent teamwork to get it really going. as night fell we sat chatting under the cover of night. sometimes we sat in silence, other times we had really deep and meaningful conversation that could not be contrived or conjured. sitting at the edge of that campfire i was struck with the thought "God knew what he was doing when he invented marriage". i'm very thankful for b, i have the best time with him.

in the night time, when we were in the tent i was afraid of bears. bren told us that hardwood hills had a bear sighting this summer, which of course made me paranoid. i'd hear sounds outside the tent and immediately fear "bear". i regretted not bringing pots and pans into the tent with me to frighten a bear away with. also, it turns out that having other campers farther away is if i heard them at all i got rather freaked out. b slept soundly :S all that to say, no bears or people entered our site, but i do think a deer visited, and we did have a run in with a mouse in our picnic basket. i couldn't help but wonder why our cats weren't there when we needed them. honey would've been ALL OVER that mouse.

it rained this morning, but we still managed to get a good fire going. after breakfast i roasted the rest of the marshmallows while it drizzled. i figured i might as well roast them because camping season is ending for another year. b didn't like the rain so he hung out in the tent reading. the sugar got me kind of wired.

when we got home this evening andrew came over and i gave him his first standard driving lesson. he needs to learn before his wedding in 3 weeks so he can drive the truck their borrowing. he did very well. we drove for about an hour and a half. i forget sometimes how it's not instinctive at first, until i'm teaching again. andrew did very well, he's getting the hang of it. it's fun to see someone learning to drive stick because it's a really great watching them gain confidence and feel empowered. that's awesome :)

all i need is this right now.

goblin

when i was a kid there was a prison break. i remember very distinctly helicopters flying overhead looking for the escapee. to this day i can't see a low flying helicopter without some level of fear or concern. conditioned i guess. on thursday i sat in the grass under a tree on my lunch break reading my book. as i sat i heard the sound of a helicopter, then it came into sight. it was no more than 50ft above the ground, it circled our buildings several times and lingered in the air before flying off. my office is very close to millhaven prison and escapees have entered our premises before. all i could think is that maybe i should go back inside, but i didn't. there was never any news as to why the chopper was there, but i was struck by the fact that helicopters hold such a specific meaning for me. i find that very interesting.

i hate it when i buy a cd because i like a particular song by the singer, only to discover it wasn't included on that album :S

i've been having some chronic pain in my left foot the last 4 months. specifically two of my toes. after seeing a masseuse and a doctor, i've finally figured out on my own what the problem is. it seems those toes are coming out of joint. before (when i didn't know what the problem was) i lived with pain for several days at a time before it went a way for no clear reason. but now i've learned how to pop them back into place and the pain vanishes immediately. i don't know how long this will go on or what's causing it, but at least i know how to fix the problem right away. yay!

if you only knew what the answer is worth.

culture

there are times when its easier to love someone who's farther away.

i remember a sermon a few years ago at church. i think bren spoke that day. she gave us a piece of paper and asked us to think of someone who's easy to love (i chose a good friend who lives in another city) and to think of someone who's hard to love (i thought of someone from work who i was forced to be with everyday). i think it's partly the individuals, but partly the amount of interaction i have with them. it's easier to not notice strenuous issues when you never see the person in real life. i was told yesterday that i shouldn't have people on facebook if i'm not willing to have an in-person relationship with them. and while i feel that is a valid point of view, it makes life very cut and dry. either you're friends or your not. but in my experience life is filled with relationships of a sliding scale. it's true that there are some people that i'd prefer to be an arms length away, and other i don't want to out of arms reach. i think that's valid. while i believe we should love everyone, i don't believe we have to be friends with everyone. in terms of facebook, i feel that just because we know one another and are acquainted on facebook, that doesn't increase our level of intimacy. so i guess the question is how do we live in peace with one another.

i think for starters, if people don't understand my facebook status, or outrightly disagree with them... then don't comment on them. heck, you're also capable of hiding my updates or deleting me from your list. while we're on the subject of voluntary reading... people don't need to read my blog. it's not required reading, so again, if the contents of pspd rub you the wrong way, or you don't agree with my opinions, please discontinue reading it pronto. over the life span of my blog i've been confronted less then a handfull of times over something i've written. i find this funny (and irritating). just because people read my blog doesn't mean they know me or even understand me. my closest friends know the context of my written word, or at the very least what's at the heart of it. while acquaintences who happen upon it misunderstand and then get bent out of shape. if visiting pspd makes it harder to love me, then maybe you should some space between us. besides, if you're seeing yourself in what i'm saying then it's not really me that's bothering you, but your own situation.

all that being said, the reality is that sometimes we bump into people we'd rather keep at a distance. or we lose touch with people we want to be close with. i suppose we just need to roll with the flow. it's an unfortunate but true reality that we can't always only be surrounded by our favourite people. so in response to that, i want to live more graciously.

my brain's repeating
"if you've got an impluse let it out",
but they never make it past my mouth.

so it seems that doctors give hamsters viagra to help them recover from jetlag.

i'm not even kidding!
you can't make this stuff up.

feature

mayelin and i got together for dinner and a movie last night. but unfortunately, the film we went to see did not have the correct time listed on the website and we showed up a half-hour too late. there was nothing else i was interested in seeing, so we made a plan to go see it next week. that was disappointing.

after i dropped off mayelin i swung by and picked up b because it was around 8 and he was just getting off work. i like surprising him. when we got home we popped some popcorn and watched "food inc" because we'd rented it from classic the other day. when i mentioned to bren the other day that we were going to watch food inc, she said "you'll never want to eat again". needless to say, i was quite disturbed by what we learned, but was encouraged to know there are options. i know that for me, i'm so used to seeing certain things in the grocery store that it's never occured to me that their presence there is actually against nature. it's difficult to say how the american food industry differs from the canadian food industry, because the meat brands there that dominate the country do not exist in canada or at least this part of canada. i tried to keep all my comments to the end, because i wanted to talk with b about it at the end without revealing any of my opinions so that we could see if we had naturally come to the same conclusion. that being said, there were times in the film when i had to shield my eyes which meant it was pretty obvious what i thought.

when it was done i turned to b and said "well?". we both agreed that we would begin by buying meat from only local butchers - either old farm fine foods or john's deli. secondly, we'd learn how to eat more seasonally instead of the same all year round. i guess i always thought that tomatoes were grown in greenhouses, but instead they are being shipped from far away places, picked when they were green and matured to red thru exposure to chemicals. thirdly, i'm going to get on with my plans to have a herb garden inside during the winter. i've been wanting to have an indoor herb garden for a long time, but didn't have a space where the cats wouldn't eat them. when we were at nancy's place on saturday i saw she had a little shelf hung across a window with plants growing on it. i'm going to try to do that.

one of our favourite people from the film was a guy named joel salatin. i looked him up on wikipedia. he's an unconventional farmer, who uses traditional farming methods - free range, grass feeding, etc. it was awesome, he was super clever. b and i both wished we could hangout with him in real life.

i dreamt about corn filled ketchup last night. did you know they grind up corn and put it in everything??? it's cheap and filling, but has next to no nutrience.

i'm glad that we learned some valuable things, and that b and i were on the same page about it. documentaries are awesome :)

close comes the winter.