back-up

well! after blogging for five and a half years, i've finally changed my blog design. this is a big deal for me – i don't like committing to a new change unless i like it more than the old order. but i think i dig it.

*exhale* i'm happy. i feel that it brings me into the new decade. it was time for a change.

when my washing machine spins it shakes the whole house.

i finished gone with the wind today. i loved it. it's possibly one of my favourite books ever. i'll miss it, and yet i'm excited to move on to something new.

sometimes it's painful in the light of the truth.

irresistable

when i was in highschool there was a group of people we referred to as "the cools". the modern equivent would be "the plastics". while we didn't actually think they were cool, they clearly thought they were and gave off a vibe of superiority. i'm sure you know the sort. well... it seems there's an emerging "cool crowd" at work. when i first started in 2003 there was no one even remotely close to me in age. everyone was in their late 40s and 50s. but now that i'm in my 30s, there's a whole crowd of people in their 20s and they seems to flock together. i don't share their interests, and i find the fact that they all have the same haircut very dull. but as time goes on i'm increasingly getting negative vibes from them. i didn't used to, but i feel as though because i show no interest in joining their crowd they're becoming kind of hostile towards me. and to be truthful it sucks. i'm 31 years old and i'm being socially ostracized by my coworkers. they were nice to me up until the christmas party. before that, one of the more outgoing guys told me "i can't wait to meet your husband!" but at the party he didn't speak to us, and hasn't really spoken to me since. i don't know if it's because of brendan's beard (because i'm sure that would be weird to them), or because we sat with my department colleagues instead of the young cools, but they're not friendly to me anymore. it's hard because they're all on the united way committee with me. it's kind of weird because the committee has become some kind of watering hole that they join like it's a pep-squad or something. i joined the committe because i want to help people and engage with my community, i wonder sometimes if those things interest them at all. but maybe it's wrong of me to question their motives.

i baked for the united way bake sale last night. it was stressful and my oven-baked smores got a little more roasted on top than i had planned. part of my anxiety over that was caused by the feeling that the girls would criticize my baking-fail, and make snarky comments behind my back. when i dropped off my baking i said spoke to cools several times, and was ignored by all of them except for the one really outgoing girl who seems to like me. i seriously said words and asked questions and no one responded to me.

my one other "friend" who wasn't part of that group has stopped speaking to me because i got fat. i'm not even kidding. she used to tell me that i was so beautiful, then one day in the fall she came by my cubicle, asked me if i was pregnant and started grabbing at my bulky parts, and now doesn't waste time talking with me. needless so say, i don't have an ally in her.

at this point i'm not really sure what to do or how to respond. i'm usually driven out when i feel undervalued and unwelcome, but i don't want to give in because i feel it's all a matter of misunderstanding. i'm introverted and i like to read at lunch time. i don't party and i don't spend money willynilly. i'm just different from them, and it would probably do us all some good to be exposed to our opposites. it's just harder than it was in highschool because i don't have strength in numbers.

 

i know what it's like when we're caught between a crowd.

zone

i've gotten really good at drinking water. how can that be something a person is good at you ask? well! i chug 1 cup (sometimes 2 cups) of water before every meal. drinking enough water used to be a big challenge for me, but i've made it part of my routine and i really quite enjoy being hydrated. plus, i'm kind of proud of drinking a whole glass of water in 4 gulps :D i'm going to keep it up even after i reach my goal weight because water is really good for us!

i saw a man at the coffee station today filling the kettle with filtered water. that is puzzling to me. isn't boiled water and filtered water the same quality? don't you boil water to make it drinkable? seems like an unnecessary step to me.

sometimes i have a sharp tongue. last night brendan said "what do you think if i ask so-and-so about such-and-such?" and i responded by saying "well everyone seems to think that the sun shines out of such-and-such's ass, so i'm sure so-and-so would think that's a great idea..." he didn't find that particularly helpful, and switched me off at that point. brendan tells me that just because something is true, doesn't mean it's not mean. i want to learn to use my keen observing skills to provide constructive feedback not just unnecessary cutting remarks. it's more easily said that done i guess. my mind either races or fails completely.

build a better rome.

hardly

there's a guy in the cubicle closest to me. in my 7.5 years here, i've never had a close neighbour, and it's making me crazy. i hear his conversations, he hears mine. his annoying macho yuppie friends come by and chat to him. this feels like an infringement on my introvertedness.

do people actually live like scarlet o'hara does? emotionally unaware and disconnected to other people? i can't imagine living life without being forthright. it ultimately makes her and everyone else in the same situation miserable.

i googled the christian heritage party today out of curiousity - i don't suggest it. while in theory, they should most closely align with the teachings of jesus, but they actually seem out of touch with jesus and this century. i learned that they're advocating to reinstate capital punishment. my goodness, how backwards. it seems ironic that a faith group, based on a person who was killed via capital punishment, would be proponents for execution.

it's been calling for thunderstorms all day, but is currently sitting at 16 and cloudy. at one point it was 27 with the humidex. can't decide if i should go for a walk or go to the gym. i prefer being outdoors.

i had to admit, i'm glad i'm not planning a wedding. we were in the thick of it this time last year, and i really really don't miss that.

 

if you're running away, then i'm looking for you.

page

i made dinner last night - vegetarian lasagna. brendan had a late lunch so decided to have a late dinner. i was on the computer in the bedroom while he ate his lasagna in the living room. i suddenly heard him pause from eating, put down his plate and charge into the bedroom. he gave me a big hug and said "that is a really good lasagna, love!" awww. perhaps i'm not as stinky a cook as i thought. b is very encouraging of my cookery, and i appreciate it.

every year i permit myself a small sum from my tax-return to buy something special. i had my mind set on a drawer for filing from ikea, but after i got the house tidied last week i found i didn't need it. so after giving it some thought, i decided to buy some converse high tops. i've never had high tops before and this idea appealed to me a great deal. so on saturday i bought me a pair of lavender high tops from the shoe company. they only had two colours - black and lavender, so i went with the purple. i'm pretty excited about this, although reminded that i'm slightly embarrassed of the super white rubber on new converse sneakers. so i've been trying to dirty them up a little bit, and they're looking a little more lived in.

i used to be a one trick pony. but i've discovered that my one trick was incomplete, and only a small portion of something more complex.

love left a window in the sky.

tolstoy

lately i've been doing a lot of thinking, and the subject of my thinking keeps arising in different places and spaces.

 

i came across a great gandhi quote yesterday which said "i like your christ, i don't like your christians. your christians are so unlike your christ". i'm not a fan of christians myself, but man, i like jesus.

having grown up in church you'd think i'd be heavily in doctrined with jesus's teachings, and yet i was not. church exposed me to christian culture and moral rules, not to jesus. i've been seeking to find, i've been digging to the root of what christian faith actually is. i've been wanting to know jesus, to know what he teaches, and the live it out. i feel like much of my faith experience was full of distractions, things that hindered me and bound me. obligations and burdens. but i'm finding jesus, and it's very freeing. i want to live as jesus tells us to, not so i can qualify for heaven or approval or anything else, but just to love him and let that make a difference.

 

i'll learn to fix stuff, if you will teach me love.

sprout

this is not our anniversary, but it feels like it is.

i concluded today that i'm so glad we got engaged on easter morning because it's our favourite day of the year. the day when we celebrate and remember that there is hope, that we are being redeemed, that the world will turn and that it's worth fighting for. next was full of excitement and celebration this morning, it was great, and i'm feeling pretty pumped and joyful.

i have meaning, and purpose. i'm ready.

you make beautiful things out of us.

iron-on

last night brendan played a show at the mansion. i arrived after book club and brendan was already there. when i got there, i made a bee-line for brendan, bypassing the guy at the door. later in the evening he approached me and said "it's actually a $5 cover"... "my husband's in the band" i told him, and that seemed to do the trick because he walked away. i was half-surprised that i didn't have to explain to prove my case any further. i felt like the disciples on palm sunday saying "the lord needs it" about the colt. that comparison makes me giggle. regardless, i liked that those words carried the necessary weight.

i guess he's an xbox and i'm more atari.

lemon

yesterday i discovered that larry king has been married as many times as elizabeth taylor - 8 marriages to 7 different people. the thing i find odd is that liz taylor is notorious for her many marriages, and larry king flies under the radar. double standards!!!

two people at my work got fired this week. around here they call it being "walked out". because they literally escort you out of the building. being a somewhat mundane office, news like that spreads like wildfire. the rumour mills is saying the two were in cahoots somehow, even so it makes one suddenly aware of how quickly a person can go from being employed to being unemployed. we are all vulnerable.

this morning i woke with my barefeet propped up on the arm of my nearly naked husband. we've been together for 18 months today. marrying that guy was the best decision i've ever made.

 

i guess it works both ways.

bonus

sometimes we spend the entire evening in the living room watching tv shows on dvd. we drink beer and eat popcorn. i wouldn't want to spend every evening that way, but we do it so rarely that it's a guilty pleasure. we may have a repeat this evening.

today has been one of those days when i'm particularly optimistic. to my delight, when i weighed myself this morning, i've lost another 3 pounds. i've lost 15 pounds since christmas. i'm pretty happy about that. it's not nearly as difficult as i thought it was. my hair is growing, it's much longer than realized. i feel good, and that feels good. sometimes change is just a matter of time. sometimes i get so stuck in the present that i'm blind to what is to come.

ever since i de-clutted the pad on saturday, i've been feeling particularly content. i love the maxi-pad, and i feel happy to live there for many more years. i have all my needs met. and i'm pretty thankful for that. i think i'm even on my way to more balance with how i spend my time.

i like what is tangible. i only really like tangile possibilities, tangile expressions of love. my peace is tangible, that's my favourite kind :)

i've got places to go and i need to fit my clothes.

acoustic

it feels like winter again. but i refuse to wear winter clothes. i'm so done with winter, it can bite me.

it was a full weekend, and i really enjoyed myself. on friday night, brendan went on his first solo roadtrip to perth to play a show, so i went out with jill-rach to the goat. i like being with them.

saturday morning i met with melissa at windmills for breakfast. she was quite surprised to see me at 9 am on a saturday morning, but i've turned over a new leaf, and am becoming an early bedder and early riser. after that we parted ways in the rain, me without a raincoat or umbrella. i ran away from a military parade all the way to the church book room. they didn't have the book i was looking for, and i was that much further away from home in the rain. thankfully shanno was working at david's tea so i went in and chatted with her for a little while, then got some tea and read at one of the tables. shanno has introduced me to a tea that smells and tastes like cupcakes, so i drink that instead of eatting delicious small cakes. again i ventured out into the rain, going to next for a japanese benefit garage sale, and bumped into bren, she gave me a drive home :)

i spent the rest of the day doing a massive overhaul in our home. there is a pile of stuff at the top of the stairs ready to be taken to value village. i'm super pleased with my progress. it's tidy, spacious, uncluttered, de-junked, and pleasant. i didn't tell brendan, so when he arrived home our new and improved home was a surprise to him, one that left him speechless and vowing to do whatever i wished for the rest of the evening. so we went to royal angkor and rented far and away.

last night i went to bed at 9:45, but didn't fall asleep til way after 11. it sucked. b arrived home around 10:30, so we chatted for about 15 minutes, then i was left thinking about our conversation and a phone message he retrieved from the phone for me. it was a person (who called twice) asking me to call when i have the chance. this is kind of unusual, and i was left me feeling that i was being confronted about something. needless to say, i didn't sleep very well, and was tired come morning.

my brain is functioning at a high level these days. brendan asked me if i was on drugs :p i like that i'm being productive and that my mind is exercising. i think it's my influx of sleep, but maybe it's something else entirely.

 

after some thinking, i'd say i'd rather be

a functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me.

shadow

i overheard a guy this lunchtime talking about a church nearby his house. he said every sunday morning with the good christians are done their morning mass (but then clarified that it didn't need to be catholics - he want to spread the statement around to cover all religions), they're all too busy trying to exit the church parking lot to let him out of his driveway. that's one side of the coin. the other is an interaction i had yesterday with a christian planning on voting conservative because it's "the least of two evils". i don't disagree with the evil label, i disagree that it's the least evil option. i feel so dumbfounded as to why she would believe that the tories reflect her faith. i scratch my head and wonder what bible she's been reading.

from one side we get people viewing christians as self-centred and on the other christians viewing themselves as morally superior. all i can think is that we're failing big time to live what jesus told us to do. i know that i'm a loser, that my nature is bound on destruction. i know i need jesus to make me the person i'm meant to be. i want to not only say i love the person who judges me for my faith association, but to actually love him. to say "you know what? i'm really sorry that the church-goers come to your neighbourhood and do nothing more than clog your street with traffic. we're losers". to not just say i love the person who shares my pew, but to really love her and say "please don't get so hung-up on your morality that you feel exempt from living ethicially. jesus wants more for you than to be good."

this election has been provoking me. i feel really passionate because i'm finally getting what jesus has been harping on and on about. he gave us the tools to help his kingdom come, and his will be done. and i really just want to get on with it. i feel an urgency for positive change in this country. i know that change begins with me, and i will do my part - whoever wins the election. i just want to be contagious and for positive change to go viral.

love shines when we'd rather sing our hearts out then live the language of war.

co-shared

my right big toe has felt damp all morning. this may be psycological more than actual. the rain and my fear of worms.

at dinner with the melles's the other night bren and brendan agreed that i could be a detective. i find this amusing, and get why they came to this conclusion. but what puzzles me is why everyone doesn't have this ingrained ability to piece together facts. this may have something to do with the S (sensing) and N (intuition) portions of myers-briggs. to my surprise i discovered that bren is an N. this surprised me because i felt that she and i shared the same level of awareness of our surroundings, i suppose we do, but we gather that awareness thru different means. bren said the key defining element to an N is the word possibility. i didn't really grasp what they were saying and kept asking brendan for examples of times he took in information thru his intuition and facts to back up what he was saying. it turns out that was very "sensing" of me. sensors like concrete information to base understanding on. maybe that's why i like numbers. i'm not opposed to possibility, but it doesn't really interest me. possibility is endless, so i like only what is real possiblity. i guess i like that which is real.

i've discovered corrective tape. it's way better than white-out. i can't believe it took me this long to make the switch. i do miss shaking the white-out bottle. the lovely sound it makes when it sloshes back and forth. but corrective tape doesn't need to dry, and it doesn't get all messy and gross when i write over top of it. delightful.

 

time can't tell its tale.

233 minutes

she looked at me from across the room with a specific look in her eyes. i don't know her, but i know that look. i've looked with that look. the first time it happened i wondered if i was imagining things, but it happened again. the third time confirmed it. i knew it would happen some day, though i expected it in roughly six years. that a girl in the shoes i wore would look at me like i'm something other, like i'm something intrusive, something inconvenient. and i'm not sorry - for what i am, or for what she thinks i am. to her it's something that consumes her thoughts - while she lies at bed at night, while she walks along the street. but to me it's little more than a fleeting thought, or a scent dissolving on my skin - gone unnoticed. this one is my story. she'll have to find another. she'll have to look the other way and know we don't think of her, or even notice that she's absent.

 

i've got no direction without her little fingers,
barbed wire, razor wire, nothing keeps me from her.

write

i'm wearing a pair of pants (comfortably) that i haven't fit in since the fall 2009 :D that makes me very happy.

i've kept my internal clock in a slightly different timezone. i went to bed at 9:30 last night, and woke fully rested at 6:30 this morning. it's great, this getting enough sleep thing. it's been really hard for me in the past to make sure i get to bed at a time that works well with my early mornings. i usually function on less sleep because i hate opting out of things, activities, people. but i'm slowly starting to get what it means to take care of myself. taking care of my physical self is an important part of taking care of my emotional and mental self. so i'm going to be an early bedder. i always want to change the fullness of my life, maybe this is what i've been needing to do in order to declutter a little. i'm very cyclical. i go from busy to bored quite quickly. i think it's because i'm so feelings driven.

b and i drank guiness every day when we were in ireland. we'd pick up a can each at the nearest corner store, pour them into some pint glasses and chill-out! we've kept doing that too. only you can't just pick up guinness anywhere like we did in ireland. i'm looking forward to drinking my pint and watching 30 rock tonight, just like we did in belfast.

i don't know if i've mentioned this, but brendan's work schedule has changed again. he's finished his training so he has evenings off, which is great, but he's working saturday-sunday. that will be an adjustment, but so far it's alright. at dinner last night he caught me starring into space while i tried to calculate whether i see more of him with this new schedule, and i do. he doesn't like it when i'm specific with numbers. i don't know why, and i'm not sure why i'm so fond of numbers. i didn't realize i was. i have to admit, numbers are delightful because they don't lie. they just are.

sometimes sitting for a long time makes my butt feel flat. that time is approaching.

 

i don't drink coffee i take tea.

taoiseach

MEMORABLE EXPERIENCES - IRELAND 2011:
- spring! green rolling hills, leaves on trees
- sheep & lambs in pastures
- the british chocolate and the guinness beer
- learning learning learning
- the first time i saw the dublin spire
- missing the train in ballymena
- the ballymena cemetary
- the guards with machine guns in derry
- the 4 story empty hostel
- brendan losing his wedding ring
- brendan retrieving his wedding ring
- going to the movies in derry
- buying stamps then not finding any postcards
- staying with rachel & eric
- giant's causeway
- bumping into brendan's friend from chien noir at giant's causeway
- talking theology with brendan
- our inexpensive meals that we cooked at the hostels
- walking walking walking
- our black taxi tour of west belfast
- the cupcake cafe!
- the puppy at global village
- bus rides, train rides
- "god is love, and love is real" tattoo
- the two big group of americans at our last hostel
- our single beds at our first hostel
- the surgery sign
- siteseeing
- brendan losing his sweater
- the sky bruised in pinks and blues on our drive home

 

i think of your smile
i'm in love with your teeth.

reader

back when i was single, i found that traveling taught me new things about myself. things i'd never encountered before, even though they existed. the same is true now that i'm married, but it also reveals things about brendan and our dynamic together.

our trip to ireland exposed that i am very impulsive. i've known that for a long time, in fact my first blog entry was about that, but i don't think i understood just how often it comes up. i generally DO then think after, and in some cases sometimes worry later, but at the time i'm 100% certain of my actions. i think on the fly and deal with the consequences (if there are any) when the occur.

brendan on the other hand is a slow processor. he needs time to think and let the situation sink in. he tackles one thing at a time and plays it safe. quite frequently on our trip i found him thinking too slowly, and i would impatiently tell him "faster faster, come on brendan". this is something we're going to have to figure out, because the luxury of true contemplation is not always an option, while impulsively acting isn't always smart either.

on a busy street in dublin i dove into the backseat of rachel's car with my massive backpack on, then got stuck. all i knew is that we had to get in the car the fastest way possible, but after i did it i knew it was one of the dumber courses of action. b would extremely slowly dig thru the change purse trying to decipher between 50p, 10p, 20p etc etc, while our train was arriving or there was a line up behind us. to be fair, we were working with 2 currencies, and my snap decisions didn't usually get me stuck face-down on a car seat.

when it's all said and done brendan has a cooler head, i have a faster thought-process. hopefully we can combine these super powers and lose the negative side effects :)
 
if i had no boots, i'd trek through the mud.

botanic

we're having a great time here in belfast. brendan and i both feel that we could live in this city very easily. it reminds us a little bit of kingston, so it feels extra homey. 

we've been doing A LOT of walking. easily 5-6 hours a day, if not more. the weather is so perfect that we're neither too hot nor too cold. lovely for walking. the food has been great, and i've been eating a normal amount (not counting my calories) since i've easily been burning 1500 calories a day from all the walking. it's nice having the freedom to eat without thinking in depth about it. 

we've been eating british chocolate everyday, and drinking guinness. yesterday we drank two guinneses :) delicious. 

it's funny how traveling puts life into a new perspective. i'm perfectly content to not own a house. and i'm finding that i'm not using much out of my backpack, so things like clothes, hair, accessories are less important. just keeping things simple. i seem to take less and less with me when i travel, and i'm sure next trip i'll need even less. 

while we've been here we've kind of settled on names for our future kids. i'm afraid i can't tell you which names we've selected, since i like to keep those a secret :p but i mention it because now that we've got names for these little lorimerettes i'm finding that i'm thinking of them more. i've concluded that this trip would be very doable with a baby, so i've been thinking about traveling with kids. what that would be like, and so on. i'm finding that thinking about parenting seems a lot easier than it will be in practise. right now i have energy and idealism that i'm sure i won't possess after sleepless nights and no breaks from draining babes. 

oh, i forgot to tell you. on the morning we left ktown we went to an open house/college preview at st lawrence for b. he's the only male in his class (so far), and we couldn't help but notice that the current students who shared about their placements were mostly in schools or with kids. that does not interest brendan at all, and we got thinking about what his experience will be like. i think his will be different. the teacher explained that they won't place a student with someone with serious mental health issues when they don't have experience. but brendan has plenty all ready. i think it's also different because he's a man. a pretty confident/competent man when it comes with working with the marginalized in our community. i can't imagine those 19 year old girls (who use the words 'like' and 'you guys' all the time) working with some of the visitors at the house famous.

i'm gonna wrap this up. i'm feeling pretty exhausted after another day of walking. it's a good exhausted though :) tomorrow we're heading back to dublin.

i wanna tear down the walls that hold me inside.