liffey

we've just arrived in belfast. our hostel is really great. super chilled and quiet - only 3 other guests. brendan is playing on a hostel guitar while he waits his turn on the computer. there's a pool table too and we're going to play later. i said to brendan "we've never played pool together before" to which he said "ya, i've never beat you at pool before" :S

we're having a great time. i'm feeling a little jet lagged still, but on the whole things are fab :) the weather is really perfect, today we went out walking without coats, and i had barefeet in sandles!

yesterday we explored dublin by way of a hop-on hop-off bus that took us to many of the main sites we wanted to see. our main highlights were... visiting the guinness storehouse, where we learned about the history of guiness, and got to drink a pint at the end from the top of the storehouse that provided a stellar view of the city. i have to admit, i'm quite a fan of guinness, it's very smooth. it may become my beer of choice (even though it's a stout). we also went to kilmainham jail where we learned more of the history behind the fight for irish independence.

one thing that has really surprised us that (at least in dublin) all the signs are bilingual - first irish gaelic, then english. we even came across an irish newspaper so there must be people who speak it! irish bares no resemblance to english, so you can't just guess at the words. like "grianghrafadóireacht" means photography. the accent in dublin is quite different to the accent in belfast, and on the whole the dubliner accent is much harder to understand.

this afternoon we went to the ulster museum here in belfast and learned about the troubles in belfast. after learning that history more in depth i'm not that surprised that there is still a police-state here in belfast since the last bombing was a little over 10 years ago. i couldn't help but notice that the last many of the countries i've visited in recent years experience mass amounts of violence during the 70s and surrounding decades. it both gives me hope that the parts of the world that are war torn at the moment will experience peace in the coming decades, while at the same time feel discouraged that it may take 30+ years.

when we left kilmainham jail (gaol) yesterday, our guide said "enjoy your freedom". it was a good reminder that freedom is not for taking forgranted, and that around the world people have fought for it, and died.

ireland is very beautiful. as brendan said "you can't take an ugly picture of this city". i'm slightly surprised by how multicultural it is, for some reason i assumed there would be mostly english-speaking folks, but there is a very large polish presence here, among others. and at our last hostel it was predominantly german guests. we were some of the few regular north american travelers. which again surprises me.

it's neat to see how common the name brendan is here. upon exciting the airport we passed a man holding a sign that said "brendan vacations" - the name of a tour company! we were tempted to take his photo.

our two hostels have been great so far. but at yesterday's place we had a room with two single beds that we had to push together - that's happened before. in cambodia 2 of our 3 hotels had arrangements like that. it's ok, but we were happy that this hostel has a regular double bed.

tomorrow we're heading to (london)derry. so fun! and educational :)

where the buildings are old and you might have lots of mimes.

link

we've arrived in ireland. our trip went great!

 

our hotel in syracuse was nice, our 8 hour layover in nyc passed lickety split, i got to ride on the train that bbd built, i slept well on our flight, and we caught the bus into the city to our hostel with no problems. we're having loads of fun already. now we have to kill 4 hours before we get get into our room - wish us luck! brendan didn't really sleep so we'll see how it goes :)

 

one minute left on this computer! gotta go!

speak

we're heading out tomorrow. i'm really happy, there was a chunk in the afternoon that i was so overwhelmed by things at work that thinking about ireland wasn't on my radar, much less being excited about it. but i got everything finished and now i'm home, and i've packed my trusty backpack, i baked some muffins to eat during layovers, and got everything in order. now i'm excited. and happy too! really happy.

tomorrow is our 9 month (wedding) anniversary. it's been a great 9 months. it's exciting that we're able to go for another trip even within our first year of marriage! and i have to admit, i like him more and more all the time :) that's pretty awesome i'd say. that b is something special.

i love traveling. i love that i'm becoming quite experienced at it. i love that brendan loves to travel too, and that he's a good travel companion.

i like being on the edge of something. i like being in a story that's unfolding. i like being present and joyful in it. i definitely am feeling intoxicated with possibility and goodness.

if you've lost your way, i'm seeing you through.

liquids

i had a dream last night that my cat pekoe had a doppelganger. he was an evil doppelganger with slightly bigger/more pointy ears, and his face was nasty mean. he was kind of a stow-away in our house and we didn't realize he was there because he never appeared at the same time as koe-koe. we eventually got rid of him, but i was left wondering if we'd banished the correct one or not.

 

the winter always ends with water on your lips.

sloan

i'm coming down with a cold. crappy timing :S yesterday it seemed contained to just one nostril, but it seems to have spread to both and my throat. sucky. i'm gonna get some kind of cough medicine and hope that it helps. i often get sick right before vacationing, and other times right after.

bren lent me her old gortex rain jacket last night. she insisted that i needed something waterproof for ireland and that my nylon vest wasn't gonna cut it. when i tried it on i stood in their living room while mike, bren and rowan all looked on - it fit. m+b noticed that even their dog was very attentive to me in bren's coat. i felt around in pockets to see if there might be a hidden treasure, and after pulling out a few duds my hand grabbed hold of half a dog treat and pulled it out. i gave it to jessie who ate it up immediately not caring how old it was.

the temperature was 15 degrees in dublin today. i'm really looking forward to that. i've been freezing all day! spring is waiting.
 
i came across a photo the other day on facebook on my cousin's profile. it was labelled as my grandma. she looked to be in her mid-20s. the colours were vibrant and she looked candid. i'd never seen a photo of my grandma younger than 50 before and i was quite captured by it. she was beautiful, but while i searched her face for any resemblance of me i didn't find anything. i look like my dad, and my dad looked like his mom, so i thought surely i would see my face in hers as well. but i didn't, our hair was similar but our faces weren't. when i showed the photo to my dad he said it wasn't her at all, and he had no idea who that was. i was kind of disappointed and yet kind of glad. while i did want so much for it to be true that it was in fact my mysterious grandma who in theory i bear much resemblance to in both face and in body shape. it was kind of a relief since the woman, as pleasant as she was, did not resemble me so it makes sense that she is not the missing piece of my family tree. i don't suppose i'll ever see her face. but there was one nice surprise. among all the photos there was one little tot who my eyes passed over -18 months old, brown hair and brown eyes, with long wavy locks, it was my dad! i'd never see a photo of him younger than 13 before, so it was super neat. while one thing was lost, something better was found.

all the cursive claims you've yet to make.

cake

i had an exchange with this strange man-child yesterday.

first he insulted me over our trip to ireland (said it was a lame place to visit) - whatever, to each their own.

then he mocked my baby niece for her unisex name (apparently he'd never heard of 'erin' before) - poor taste to mock a baby, but she won't remember or be permanently damaged.

lastly he attacked my b (his intigrity, his ambitions to change the world, his decision to go back to school) - i nearly gouged his eyes out. oh how i wanted to rip his face off.

i'm still feeling extremely angry, i woke in the night still angry and couldn't sleep. this ignorant dump truck who has never met brendan, who barely knows me. it's indeed a challenge to love someone who is not like me, who i don't like, and who it seems doesn't like me. i think he knew he crossed the line and tried to dig his way out a little by spreading the mock around, that just put him in deeper. at that point i was on the verge of tears and just shook my head at him in bewilderment. shortly there after he silently exited and his wife gave the excuse that he "had an errand to run". perhaps it was a medical appointment to get his foot out of his own mouth. probably a difficult proceedure since he seems to have swallowed it so deeply that it was coming out of his ass.

 

everybody, everybody, love, love, love, love, love.

know nothing

the true count-down to vacation has begun, and i'm feeling it. i've got ireland on my brain and i'm antsy for this week to wrap up - even though it's just starting. i'm just really tired and i don't wanna do anything!

i did have a really great weekend though. i'd almost say wonderful. which might have something to do with my jimmy-leg for next weekend. saturday was really productive. we got our taxes done, which is always a treat because our tax guy is very amusing. it turns out brendan went to camp with his daughter and they were all chatty-mcchat about that. our taxes worked out well, which is good as i was a little concerned about that. we discovered a few months ago that our RRSPs were set up incorrectly, so i was a wondering how they would effect our taxes, but it worked out pretty well. obviously this was our first time filing together as a married couple, so we felt super grown-up :)

nancy and we (us? we? what's the correct word this this kind of sentence??) spent a good chunk of time vacuuming out our car. it's the cleaniest it has ever been since 2008. we are so ready for our roadtrip to syracuse next weekend :D i'm really looking forward to that relaxing start to our vacation. i'm feeling a little mentally checked out. i dunno how i'll make it thru the week! i love traveling. i got all our travel papers sorted out - hostel confirmations (so we won't be homeless like we were in siem reap), our travel intineraries, our e-tickets, and any extra info. i'm feeling super organized! i'm not a naturally organized person, so i have to be intentional about it. it's much easier when i have interest in what i'm doing.

i'm having one of those days where i feel like i might just collapse into a puddle underneath my desk. i feel like i'm slowly evaporating.

we're both kind of outsiders. i think that's why i like her. we probably have very little in common other than the fact that we're related and we're both looking in thru an invisible partition. being told that we don't belong, when actually we do. we belong just as much as the rest of them, only we've been voted out because of apathy. majority rules. well the majority kind of stinks anyways. i'll try my best to help her, we're both intrigued by the unknown. who they were.

 

we're always on the edge of something bigger than this.

snapshot

it's out of context and i love it...

1) i got a little freaked out about my fallopian tubes this morning.

2) i'm the worst for assuming the worst. what is wrong with my brain!?!?!

3) he's like an effeminate version of harold from the red green show.

 

4) sometimes i spell plants with an e in it. like planets. nuclear planets. they'll be the next big thing i'm sure.

 

5) it's weird how similar naivety and nativity is. like shoes and choose. choose and chews. the english language. it's quirky.

 

6) my needs and wants don't always line-up, and i mostly default to my needs, or sadly even just whatever is right in front of me.

 

7) i'm very thankful that i married someone i connect with so well. i frequently have nightmares that instead of marrying him i marry my exboyfriend.

 

8) i think our laundry (95% mine) has been out "drying" for at least a month :S

 

like a hundred eyes aiming at the words in your breath.

i think i'm falling asleep from the feet up

sometimes my legs are so comfortable that i don't want to move.

but it's time to go.

go time.

home time.

callipygian

for some strange reason i'm finding lent this year particularly difficult. i've chosen to give up being late. it doesn't seem too difficult, it doesn't seem more difficult that changing one's sleeping habits or dietary approach. and yet, it's been super hard and i've been struggling. today i skipped out on brushing my teeth, eating breakfast, and putting in my contacts (all things i occassionally skip in order to save time), and i still arrived 10 minutes late for work. to be honest i felt pretty crappy about it, and on my way to work i spent some time meditating on this. i considered whether it was worth trying if i was going to fail at it. i considered what this said about my priorities, what it said about my commitment to this endeavour. i was soon able to conclude that it's not about succeeding, it's about the journey i take over 40 days. that quiting because it's hard serves no purpose at all, it's better to do the best i can than to not do at all. where is my heart, i asked myself. am i leaning in or leaning out? am i failing because i'm not actually committed or am i failing because it's just plan hard. so with a new appreciation for the challenge ahead of me, i start once again. i continue.

i bought this ring on etsy last week. it was not exactly what i was imagining. i thought it was white, but it's actually kind of transluent. it arrived on thursday. i was not in love with it. i was kind of half-hearted, but i thought i'd give it a go. by tuesday it was broken. oh well. at least i'm not hugely disappointed. just means i wasted 8 bux.

we're currently doing this radio survey. they sent us a booklet and 2 dollars each to fill in a diary of which radio stations we listen to and when, each day, for 2 weeks. we received a package in the mail addressed to "Brenden and Leslie Mckight". they effectively spelled each one of our names incorrectly, plus got our name wrong twice removed. i suppose it doesn't matter that much, they're not seeking to know what the mckights listen to, so much as people in general. we're people, so i think we qualify.

brendan thinks that honey speaks with an accent. i'm not exactly sure where she would've picked up such an accent. she's just little.

 

i shut my eyes for a moment's rest
'cause i get so tired.

sit

maybe it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it's weighed on my mind for over a decade.


what thing transpired while my body slept?
beset my mind

quick

i've been knitting some socks for a while. actually i started them last spring at the next church retreat. but then i got busy with our engagement, and summer happened, and then i started knitting christmas gifts, that the socks got put aside. then in january i picked up my needles again and completed the first sock. soon after i continued my work on them i decided i'd give them to bren. she's a person who appreciates socks, and appreciates knitting, and i knew she'd appreciate a pair of knitted socks more than i would. i can knit myself a hundred socks, and i wouldn't delight in them the way bren would.

so i had to find a way to figure out her foot size. i knew she was roughly my size, i knew we'd talked about our foot size before, but could not remember her size. i considered asking mike, but didn't want to make him keep a secret. i considered asking one person to ask another person to ask another person to ask bren her foot size, but knew she'd piece it together when she saw me knitting. so when she told me about her new black boots that she found at the sally ann, i used that as an excuse to ask her "what's your foot size?" perfect.

i finished the second one this morning, and all day waited to give them to my friend. finally by evening i needed to get out of the stale air of being sick in an apartment all day, so i walked down to her house to give her the sox. she was so shocked, completely dumbfounded. it was awesome. in fact, she asked several times if i was sure that i wanted her to have them, and i assured her that i've been knitting them for her. it was great, the exact reason why i wanted her to have them. i know they will be well loved.

i can feel it in my bones.

evaporate

i'm sick. i'm at home with a tummy ache. in the last week i've come to realize that some of the ways my body functions is not normal. things i've seen as routine are actually a sign of unhealth and shouldn't have been ignored by myself or my former physician. after coming into this knowledge it's difficult to ignore the way my body works. i'm not alarmed by this, rather i'm listening to it and becoming more in tune to what it says.

i often a liken cars with bodies. sometimes a car can make a rattling sound and the daily driver doesn't hear it because she's so accustomed to it. then someone will point it out and from then on she hears it each time she drives. 

i had a flash flood of sickness last night after living room. i thought i'd feel better by morning but i do not. usually i'd just think "maybe i ate something funky, or picked up a bug somewhere". but now that i'm looking back over the history of my body i see a pattern unraveling, becoming exposed. i'm seeing my doctor on wednesday and i'm hoping to get to the root of the problem. whatever it is.

i don't want to be at home sick. we were never allowed sick days as kids, and since then i've always equated sickness with a guilty feeling. since i'm feeling under the weather i'm also feeling low emotionally. i almost feel sorrowful. not about myself, but kind of the world in general. how it doesn't make a lot of sense and is full of contradictions. sometimes it overwhelms me and i feel like a failure from every angle. 

brendan has left for work, so i'm going to make some chicken noodle soup and find something to do that involves lying down.

spring blooms and you find the love that's true.

unannounced

i've been doing a lot of thinking. i suppose it's been the result of a certain kind of awakening. for the first time ever, i'm coming to truly understand what it means to be poor. i'm so accustomed to seeing luxury and over the top wealth that i would place myself in the "have not category". but i've been exposed to a few alternate realities lately, and it's really humbling.

first, i've been reading gone with the wind. the characters have come thru the civil war with nothing. their houses and crops have been burned, they have next to no food and next to no animals – they eat yams and peanuts every meal. they have the clothes on their back, there is sickness all around. it boggled my mind to imagine a world where one couldn't just go to the store to buy more food and supplies. it made me realize how vulnerable we are as humans, how if our part of the world took a drastic turn i would not know how to be a farmer and take care of our basic needs. the civil war was ruthless. and it's left me stunned by how privileged we are.

in addition to that (the timing interesting since it built on what i was already thinking), brendan and i saw biutiful last night. that exposed me to modern poverty. it had immigrants who had to sleep on the floor of a warehouse basement in rows, a group of 25 people lying side by side. people scrounging for food and money to feed their children. apartments with paint curling off the walls and cockroaches covering the ceiling. i have no idea what it's like to be truly without. to struggle.

i am awake. i hope these lessons stay with me. i need this sobering reminder regularly. i want to learn to not be wasteful, and not take for granted.

i've been asleep for a long, long time.

horseman

i'm wearing purple and green today. i'm a little unsure about the combination because both the green and the purple are quite deep vibrant colours. but you know, i have a cardigan (that i'm not currently wearing) that has those two colours and i've always been pleasantly surprised about how well they go together. perhaps i'll be a trendsetter around the office with this combo.

when her intestines were put back inside, they ended up in a different place. i've never been one for changing the familiar, i didn't even like how my teeth felt after a filling! so i can appreciate how annoying that would be for her.

brendan got his new schedule that will start in april. the whole process was a catch 22. he was given two options, neither are particularly good. i was disappointed when he told me which he selected, mostly because we weren't on the same page. i preferred him working evenings if it meant having weekends off, he preferred having mon-tue off because he'll have most of his evenings free. i'm trying to remember that it's just temporary. it's only 5 more months, but the last 7 weeks have gone by slowly so 5 months seems like a long time. i'm sad that we won't have saturdays together and that he won't be able to come with me to sunday lunch.

i've officially lost 10 pounds since christmas. i've worked my ass half off! hooray! i'm feeling good, positive, and more streamline.

he's an engineer and a real stickler for details. now that i can predict it, it makes me laugh, even in my frustration. i like how laughing breaks any tension.

even though i thought i was all alone i was wrong,
i'm not.

post-it

plants and animals played at zappa's last night. i'd never been there before, and i have to say that i really like it as a venue. it's spacious and functional. i may even go so far to say that it's the best venue in town (for bigger shows like that - way better than the ale house).

the show was great - both p&a and the opening band karkwa. they're a quebecois band who won the polaris prize this year. they're actually very big in french-canada, so touring with p&a is a great opportunity to introduce them to english-canada. they were well received, regardless of the fact that they only sing in french and most people didn't know what they were saying. one things bren and i loved about them was that instead of drinking beer on stage, they were drinking red wine. it was so awesome :D

 

@beckie, you should check them out for some stellar french music. both bands are from montreal.

when i got home last night the house was completely dark. it was around 12:45, but brendan had told me that he'd wait up for me. i was disappointed that he hadn't. but when i got in the house i noticed that there was a candle burning in the bathroom. knowing that brendan doesn't tend to light candles for ambiance i called to him "brendan, what's going on?". the power had been out for 3 hours, including the phone and the wifi. at 3:30 in the morning i woke up to find the house completely awake with lights on in every room. i said to brendan who was deep in sleep "brendan, brendan why are all the lights on?" repeating myself until it was clear that he was not going to wake up, i finally realized that the power had come back on lighting our house in the process.

the fridge was off for 5 hours in total and my goat cheese was very soft this morning.

i got this great cuff in the mail yesterday. i bought it on etsy. i love that site :)

 

i want you, 

i want you, 

i want you, 

i want you to help us out.

surfacing

i'm almost out of gas. so so almost. but i made it to work. i reigned supreme over that gas gage. I AM VICTORIOUS! i couldn't stop for gas or i would've been late.

today is ash wednesday and the beginning of lent. last year i gave up sleeping in (it was hard at times, but was over all a very positive experience), and the year before (my first time participating) i gave up meat. i saw a really negative rant about lent on facebook the other night (see below), it left me feeling stung. lent isn't supposed to make you feel guilty (or spew obscenities on the internet), if it does than you're not really understanding the practise. in my experience lent is about freedom. it's an opportunity to free myself from something that acts as a vice (not that meat was a temptation for me, but it was my first time and i wanted to ease myself into it). this year i'm giving up being late. last night i got wondering if it was too vague, so i hashed out some parameters: i won't be late for work or bedtime, and i would arrive on time for work and church. in a way this is similar to last year, which is good because i enjoyed last year's lent immensely. that should be the experience, if you're not enjoying it then don't do it. brendan's not participating this year, he's taking a break.

i added her as a friend on facebook in hopes of getting better acquainted. we rarely crossed paths as kids and when i saw her last she was quite kind and sweet - it seemed. but in the last month or so i've determined that she's actually a really terrible person - bitter and toxic. i don't think my life is enriched to have her part of it, even if it's in this minimal manner. i don't want to delete her, but i don't think i want to be exposed to her either. needless to say i'm rather surprised by this and a little disappointed to find that she's a phony.

SO the big news of the week is that ben and meg are having a little baby :D i'm SUPER SUPER happy about this. both brendan and i woke up last friday feeling joyful and that life is good. our new niece is due on august 22.

and even if
you're scared stiff
you can trust in this.

elevator

they wheeled me around on a bed as though i was a shopping cart. it made me smirk and i hoped that no one noticed. on the way back i didn't smirk. my face was fallen and i was in a daze.

i received a letter in the mail from peter milliken thanking me for sending my passport thru his office. that really wasn't necessary mr milliken (or rather mr milliken's staff), find better things to do with your time. the salutation read "dear mrs lorimer" that may be the first time that's happened.

my dad and i drove in the car. i noticed yet another thing about him, he jumps from conversation topic to conversation topic. hm! i thought. this is yet another thing i'm similar too, except i'm self-conscious of it. it's not that i lose interest in the topic at hand i'm simply lead by my stream of consciousness, my words go as my brain directs me.

i tried not to cry, but i did a little. i knew he would feel badly and not know what to say. "oh well" i said "oh well". i couldn't think of anything better to say for several hours. "oh well" i still say and "we'll see". he bought me dinner, i think it was the only thing he could think of to comfort me, but he told me he wanted me to have something healthy to eat since i'd been fasting all day.

i been down, i been downhearted baby
ever since the day we met.

ride

i've been doing a lot of thinking lately about socializing. specifically the impact of having family locally has to one's social life. i don't think i realized that we are kind of unusual for having both sides of our family in town. i've noticed that we don't have to travel at holidays, but didn't really see any impact beyond that. i'm not particularly inclined to compare myself to others, but i do tend to spend time wondering i'm normal and look around me to see what's normal around me. am i progressing and maturing at a regular pace? am i achieving social milestones? i've been noticing some differences, neither good nor bad. i've overlooked the impact of having family locally, and have ended up concluding that the time we spend with our families other people spend with created family – a group of friends or a few families at the same stage of parenting. there's part of me that feels we're out of the loop, that relationships are being built around us, and we're not included – and i hate missing out of things. but there's a richness and longevity in investing in our parents, siblings, and nieces & nephews. so i'm ok with not being in on other gatherings. our situation is different, and i should stop looking out there to discover what's normal. that being said i'm hoping that soon (when life returns to a less teeter-totter phase) that we'll have more opportunities to hangout with friends :) we also hung out with sarah and paul the other night, which was great, and i want to do that more.

we had a great time yesterday with my family and brendan's family. it was a full day, but really enjoyable. we celebrated birthdays, and shared meals.

one time at storytellers we made a list of things that make us feel like kids. i had difficulty things of things. however, on a daily basis i do things that make me feel like a grown-up. i don't think the novelty has really worn off yet.

moonlight spills on comic books
and superstars in magazines.

tricksy

sometimes i wake in the morning and feel that the world is aglow. there are times, rare occassions, that i feel immense encouragement about life, and community, and family, and faith, and love. i cherish days like this.

oh man, the craziest thing happened yesterday. i was chatting via instant messaging with my colleague michel in montreal. out of the blue he said to me "my office roomie says hello". so i asked him who his roomie is" and he said "your ex-carpooler". CARPOOLER PAUL!!! i couldn't believe it! i didn't know he was working for corporate. when he left here he was returning to school to finish his degree, and i didn't realize he'd snagged a career job with us in montreal! crazy! the most insane thing about it is that i have only one friend in that office, and i've only had one carpooler. what are the chances that they would end up being officemates. i was shocked and laughed and laughed as the three of us chatted over IM. so funny. i know i talked to both of them about each other back in my carpooling days. they're both multilingual but paul always had a better grasp on english slang than michel does. so funny.

i feel uncomfortable taking photos in front of 250 people. clumsy and awkward. i could speak to them all no problem, but taking photos is not natural for me. i'm pretty sure i blushed a lot. my face betrays me.

i feel a little bit frumpy.

you got your mother's eyes,
you got your daddy's head.

map

woo-hoo! brendan got accepted to college!! he's preeettttttyyyy excited! the open house/meet&greet is on the day we leave for ireland. so we'll go first thing in the morning then hit the road for syracuse.

i don't think i've explained this on pspd yet. so... after many dead-ends and submitted resumes that received no reply, brendan saw a counsellor at keys for some coaching. he explained his situation and what he'd like a job to be. in summary she says to him "so basically you want to be in social services, not customer service". and then a lightbulb appeared above our collective head. yes! social services, why did we not think of that before. this got me thinking, and i checked out the program online, then suggested to brendan that he take a look at it (i'd left it on my computer) if he was interested. so he did, and something inside us both seemed to confirm that this was the right direction to go in.

after that brendan decided to take a job at startek. between january and august he'll be able to save for both years of tuition, plus books and fees. he'll be able to do college sans debt - WHICH IS REALLY IMPORTANT TO US! yet another confirmation that this is a good decision.

who knows what job prospects will be like in the spring of 2013, but he'll have a college diploma which will greatly improve his hirability. i think this is great. i'm super proud of b for taking this big step. and i think social work fits him perfectly. in my experience, a fraction of my classmates are working in graphic design, but the ones who really wanted to be... are! i'm confident that b will do well and i'm excited that he has clear direction. hooray for b!

like a loose balloon, i am lost and i'm loving the view.

courier

my first pair of mail-order sox arrived last night. while i did open them, i didn't try them on until this morning. i wanted to wait so i could wear them all day long. i really like them. they're black, grey and red. i actually colour coordinated my work clothes to match them. this is what they look like :D

last night i went to see my niece and nephews race their wooden cars at AWANA. i wasn't sure what to expect, and was surprised to see so many people i know. rach & jase where there, joanne was there, people from highschool, people who used to come to next, my family, my family's friends, my old doctor. it was kind of surreal actually. the kids did pretty well, and i did have a good time. my dad wanted me to come even more than the kids did. he was very excited because he'd made a car and he almost completely made joelle and caleb's. he's a very entusiastic starter.

i have to admit, in many of our wedding photos i'm disappointed in my hair. not that i wore it down, or how long it was. mostly the fact it rained and made my hair kind of go flat and unpleasant. if only i'd discovered hairspray before last june. obviously i knew about hairspray existed, but i thought it was only for keeping up-dos in place. i didn't know it could be used on down hair too. now i use it all the time! if i had today's hair at our nuptials then i'd be very happy. today's hair is awesome, and i really dig it - it's unruly, wavy, with just the right amount of texture. sometimes when i see our wedding pictures i feel disappointed about my hair but then i remind myself that it doesn't change the fact that b and i are married, and that was the whole point. even if we had no pictures at all that would be ok.

it's funny to me how men shake hands and women don't. how often do you meet a woman and shake her hand? never huh? weird.

i buried it in the falling leaves,
looking awful green,
in the whipping wind.

peachtree

she's in abu dhabi and told me that the heat is getting to her. i wish i lived in a place where the heat got to me all year long.

i'm growing suspicious that scarlet's baby has simply been written out of the plot. i skimmed ahead 40 pages looking for his name and it does not appear. how bizarre. maybe it'll be like in a soap opera when the baby disappears for a little while and then returns from some secret boarding school as a grown man.

i'd forgotten how much i love zucchini. i fried one up last night while b was at work, and then stole some of his leftovers. who needs chips or junk food when you can eat a fried zucchini. not me.

sometimes when losing weight, i get impatient with my progress and feel that i should be a size 9 already.

one time when i was younger, my mom slipped on the front step and scraped her face on the pavement. she used oil of olay cream on it and her wounds cleared up in no time. that stuff is like a crazy drug for your face. she later gave it to me for use on the occasion of my eight hickeys. they cleared up expediently as well. ever since then i've been slightly phobic of hickeys, but just to be funny and kind of ironic i gave one to brendan on our honeymoon. suddenly everything was permissible and not sleazy so i wanted to simply because i could.

there were no seeds in my packet. i'm seedless, which i guess is ok. since it's wintertime and all.

we begin downstairs and we end up up here.