dusting

i was telling andrew and shannon the other day that i feel a need to change my wardrobe. i have too many samey-cotton shirts. last year i started buying wool sweaters and i liked that. but this summer i was not happy with my clothes. i think i'll need to do something about that next spring. anyways, i decided that i was overdue for treasure hunting at thrift stores. i'd like to get rid of some of my cottony shirts and replace them with different textures. so i walked over the the sally anne today and totally lucked out! all clothing, linens and shoes were 50% off! so walked away with two hands full of new outfits at the reduced price! PLUS, i got this little glass dessert dome like andrew and shannon have that i'd just recently been thinking we could use something like it. the key to treasure hunting is taking the time to look in EVERY section of the store.

on the way home i popped into coffee way to buy brendan a boston cream donut because he probably wouldn't forgive me for walking past it's front door and bring him a donut.

i must be going. we're about to start assembling out new fancy shed that we got for 10% off! i'm guessing it will take around 3 to 7 hours to complete, and that b and i will communicate poorly at least once. we've named it 'shedrach'.

how do i get there with these old feet?

rejected

i've just had another colleague die! and earlier in the week a colleague's wife died. i hope this completes the series of three and we won't have any more deaths for a while.

yesteday at the wellness fair at work, i got my cholesteral, blood sugar, BMI and blood pressure checked. i was pleased to discover that i'm quite healthy! i was in the right range in each category, which was encouraging. lately i've decided that i need to come up with more creative evening snacks. i'm having to think outside the box because the only two things i remember for having as an evening snack as a kid was chips and raisins. quality and wholesome snacks is not particularly a tradition in my family, before sunday lunch my mom often serves potato chips. with the results from the wellness fair i feel very affirmed to keep working at improving my eating habits and be creative.

sometimes it seems that bands are hit and miss. on one album there might be a handful of stellar songs and a handful of less then stellar songs. i kind of don't like that.

on sunday, living room starts up again. this will be the last year under my leadership. in the spring i had a conversation with rach about her garden, and she was taking this summer off to let her soil rest because it had been seven years. afterwards, i was thinking that living room has been going seven years, and i definitely felt it was time to turn the soil. so i called together some long-term key living roomers with garry and we chatted, but came to no clear conclusion. the summer went on and garry resigned as pastor from next church. after which, i decided i'd give one more year, making it my official final year of leadership and leave the seat open to someone else. i feel good about this decision. i want to finish well and i think having clear expectations is fair for my group mates.

i'm looking forward to this weekend. brendan and i are going to buy and assemble a shed that will take up residence at the end of our driveway. i'm excited about this and did a lot of investigating different sizes and styles. i'm thankful how multifunctional our driveway is. i like that having limited space forces me to be resourceful and not wasteful.

paperbag shoes tied 'round these old feet.

alligator

i stayed home with a headcold today. feeling all congested and such. i haven't had a cold in a long time so i thought it was reasonable for me to lay low so that it goes away faster. it seems to be working. today has involved a lot of sleeping and lying around. soup and a hot shower. i think i'll be well for work tomorrow.

some matters in life are big and intimidating. i've been doing a lot of reflecting on the future, the present, the past. it sometimes makes me feel too little and i don't like it. in some ways it's nice not having any control over how things play out, but in other ways life feels like a roller coaster that whips me around in a frenzy and leaves me feeling motion sick. after much thought and reflecting i've kind of concluded that the best thing i can do is go limp. you know... being tense makes us more likely to get whiplash. instead i'll just let the chips lie... let them lie where they may. this probably makes no sense. i'm totally combining many different thoughts into one paragraph :p

i think i have some cabin fever. i need some stimulation. this evening we're going to andrew and shannon's place for dinner. we've implemented a twice a month dinner date like we had back when b, shannon and andrew all lived together. i'm looking forward to some external conversation.

so let go,
jump in,
whatcha waiting for?

upgrade

maybe it's just me, because i like to listen to songs on repeat, but it's really annoying when a song i like is followed by a song i dislike (or even worse... is super sad). i start to associate them and end up hearing the other more much than i'd like.

this weekend we were up at echo lake camp for the next retreat. it was really fun and memorable. this year my weekend was quite busy with other activities in addition to the retreat. so it required a great deal of juggling, paired with a go-with-the-flow attitude. sometimes we can't know how things are going to play out, so it's best to just roll with it. that makes life much easier, or at least more relaxing.

on friday night, we assembled our tent in the dark - quickly and very unmeticulously. it ended up raining all night, thunder storming at points and sounding like a tornado at other points. last summer at bon echo b and i camped thru a super scary and dangerous thunderstorm. after that, everything else seems like no big deal. or at least it does to me. for brendan, the rain on friday night was really stressful and made him feel panicky. he got next to no sleep and woke me up repeatedly with concern out the water getting inside. at 4 something in the morning i said to him "brendan, what are we going to do about it right now??" that kind of helped and he seemed to resign his concerns to some extent. in hindsight, i learned that b isn't at his best outside his regular routine or in undesirable circumstances. and i learned that i'm fairly rugged and less easily phased. when facing an unpleasant situation with no alternative options, i just make the best of it.

we spent the next day with no place to lay our heads and not really worrying about it. at around midnight when we arrived back at camp from a kathleen edwards concert in kingston, we ended up taking our sleeping mats and sleeping bags into the unused tuck shop and slept in the small space between the wall and the chest freezer. it was perfectly adaquate and we slept very well.

i took a nice long walk by myself to classic video last night in the dark. it was lovely and reminded me that i need to walk alone more often after sunset. it's very condusive to thought. i was reflecting on the weekend and thought a little about an observation bren made. she told me "you interact with babies like they're people". at first i didn't really understand what she was talking about, because obviously they are people. but she said most people are drawn to picking up babies and cuddling babies the same way they do with puppies. as things to be cuddled. i think she's right. i feel no more desire to cuddle a baby then i do to cuddle their parents.

 

we got nothing to lose.

wheelie

this has been a bit of a bittersweet week. it's been sad with the loss of david, but happy with brendan's new job. i got more good news today. i got promoted! this has been in the works for a little while, but it came thru quicker than i expected. i was hoping it would be official by christmas, but i was offered the new contract today. i'm very pleased. my new title will be 'communications coordinator'. i was hoping for communications specialist because it implies that what i do is specialized, but HR has weird rules about these things, so communications coordinator it is. it's a step in the right direction. in fact, it's several.

i'm very excited because there's been a few things i've been waiting to do until my promotion was finalized. first... there's a new rattling sound on the car that should be looked at. second... we need a shed for our bikes, the wagon and such. thankfully it's the time of year when things like sheds are going on sale, so i've seen several significantly marked down.

so it turns out that my sore throat the other day was not a cold, but acid reflux. this has happened a few times this year. it's made my voice all scratchy. b says i sound like an old man who's a smoker.

now that it's getting colder, darker and wetter outsider, i'm losing my momentum with jogging. maybe i'll just be an april to october jogger. it's disappointing because my legs were starting to get muscular and that's already disappearing. this is the downside to exercising outdoors.

 

today we say good-bye to david. the flags have been at half-mast all week. bittersweet.

 

i will miss your heart so tender.

bend

i've just found out that my friend and colleague david ferrence died suddenly.

 

i'm so sad. david was this quirky old man, who saw himself as quite the lady's man, even though he wasn't. instead, he was kind and intelligent and good conversation. i miss him a lot already. i don't have a lot of people at work who i consider my friends, but david was one of them. i even invited him to my wedding and he came.

 

he was 70 years old. he'd come by my cubical and we'd google stuff together. things like cranberries and the prairies. we'd talk about books, home-improvements and share bits and pieces from our lives. i went to his house for dinner once, back when april and mayelin were still around. the three of us got giggling when we saw in the dining room a bottle of "motion lotion", but never asked him about it. he lived on portsmouth, in a lovely little white house. i point it out to brendan each time we drive past that he now knows without my telling him.

 

ferrence loved smoking with pipes, but had given it up years ago because it's bad for your health. he was a sloppy dresser, but it didn't matter. man, i'm going to miss him. i'll think of him all my life. he might actually be my first friend to die. my first loss of a friend. i hope he knew that i enjoyed his company. i don't feel we're done yet. we there's still so many conversations yet to be had. i wish i could've hugged him and said good-bye. but i guess sometimes we don't get that opportunity. so instead of a period at the end of a sentence, my time with david ends with an ellipsis...

montage

i haven't been adjusting to being back in my home time zone. It's been taking forever for me to fall asleep and it's super hard to get up in the morning. plus, i have a mildly sore throat. i wonder if it would be a cold if it wasn't for my multivitamins. i used to get colds every two months, then emma told me to start taking multivitamins and i haven't had a cold since last november or december. that said, i don't really like the lingering pre-cold i've got going on right now. i'd prefer to either have a cold or not.

so brendan got a job! he wasn't even looking. i can't remember if i wrote much about his job search in may. it was a stressful time for us and one that made me frustrated and disillusioned. however, after about 3 or 4 weeks of that, we switched gears. sometimes actively waiting for something makes it that much more apparent that it hasn't arrived yet. so i figured we just needed a distraction. b needed to find a new routine and if a job came along then great, if not that's fine too. so he spent the summer at rustle, helping to run the store and such. it was a very enriching experience for him and he enjoyed himself very much. then, at the end of the summer his teacher sent him a job posting and told him to apply for it. he was pretty reluctant after having had such a negative time job search in the spring, but after his teacher sent it to him the second time urging him to call, he did and everything has gone smoothly since then. it's funny sometimes how certain things just feel right from the get-go. anyways, he'll be co-facilitating a PAR group (partner assault response) over a 16 week program. i'm super proud of him. this next semester is going to be saturated with social work experiences, i'm sure it will be extremely beneficial and rewarding too.

i don't consider myself a controlling person (but who knows, most controlling people don't). instead i struggle because i frequently dream up a scenario that i think is perfect and have become disappointed when it doesn't work out that way. however, once i've adjusted to that disappointed i'm a-ok with the change. thankfully i've enjoyed many great surprises so i've grown to be quite open to different possibilities. usually my day dreams are based on the current possibilities and how i imagine things unfolding. these day dreams changed as the circumstances change. i've actually found that life is much more interesting and exciting when things don't go according to plan. had brendan got the job i'd hoped he'd get at the end of april we wouldn't have had the valuable and enriching summer we did have. where we let go, we just rolled with it, we made the most of the circumstances, and we learned to trust that everything was going to be ok.

 

we all do what we can.

cold feet

you know those times in high school math when you thought you'd never need to know *this* in real life?? well... i need to figure out the length of one side of a triangle based on the lengths of the other two sides. i seem to recall this was my preferred kind of high school math, but it's a lot less simple than i remember it. i actually resorted to drawing the triangle, then measuring the side, but it's not at all the same results as i get using math. hmph.

 

i'm on a losing streak.

*sigh*

I'm in t.o. I'm actually walking while typing because I don't wanna sit down again after a longish flight. For the first time ever, I'm not looking forward to another trip. I just wanna be home for a while. I better understand why my colleagues complain about traveling so much. I miss home. I miss my partner. I miss my friends.

I remember Sarah saying once that places visited are made special by the people they're shared with. My feeling right now is that calgary was just ok. My experience may have been different if shared. However, I've travelled alone enough times to know that it's not just my companions that make an experience enjoyable. It often has to do. With how alive it made me feel. If it broke me from a rut. That did not happen. Probably because I wasn't in need of a lift.

I'm back at work tomorrow. I have two lieu days from last weekend that I'll use later.

Blah. I'll bet you that this next flight - although only an hour - will feel longer than my last four hour flight.

Sent from my iPod

Stampede

I woke up this morning at 4:30. I stayed in bed til 6:45, then got up for a jog. It was the perfect temperature and I enjoyed getting to see more of the city. Afterwards, I went swimming in the hotel pool. All this before 9 am! It's been relaxing and fun, but also a little boring. I'm sure tomorrow will be more busy after the event opens tonight.

Sent from my iPod

Palliser

So I've arrived in Calgary and sending you a message from my iPod. It automatically adds caps to words. It's weird.

My flight was good. I watched 'take this waltz', which I've been interested in seeing. It was a little sad. It really struck me that people don't have to be unhappy to have an afraid, just growing apart from boredom. I know there are some who think it's silly to have boundaries in the bathroom with partners. But as demonstrated in that movie, other people can seem more appealing when they've never peed with you in the room (or vise versa). It's important to keep things fresh. While I miss Brendan already, it's probably good that we get to be apart every once and awhile, it makes coming back together that much more lovely.

Calgary is not what I excepted. It's still on the prairies and very flat. Plus, there's almost no trees. However, to the west there are some hills. When I imagine it covered in snow it looks a lot like iqaluit.

I've got to go. Marilyn and I are going over to the convention centre to see how set-up is going.

Sent from my iPod

dawn

i'm no expert, but it seems to me that my cats used my backpack as a litter box. this makes no sense to me, but my backpack reeks. i was about to pack for calgary, but that has been delayed. i'm so grossed out. it's not even like it smells a little bit, it smells a lot. the worse thing about cat pee is that it lingers for hours in your nose. my cats have never peed any where other than the litter box so this is really puzzling.

since i have no other options, i've put it in the washing machine hoping this will rid it of the scent and that it will dry out in time. i'm not completely confident that it won't end up damaging my backpack in the process, but there's no way it would be usable otherwise. i suppose mec backpacks have seen many a gross incident over time, and this is probably not the first time someone's tried running it thru the laundry.

yuck. my hands even smell.

oh, the wind, the wind is blowing.

spots

brendan and i have been really into angry birds lately. i downloaded it shortly after i got my ipod. it's super fun. we sit together taking turns - three each, then switch. it works really well. my favourite bird is the yellow triangle. he's has the most personality and seems to be the most angry. i guess the best word for him is assertive.

being a fan of the original nintendo, i've been pleasantly surprised to find that angry birds has done without all the things about super mario brothers that i don't like. such as the timer, only having 4 tries before you have to start over, having to start at the very beginning every time you turn it on. it's really a very clever game. with each level you have to figure out the key to strategically taking out all the pigs. it really works my brain! and i'm left feeling good, as though i've accomplished something - even though i haven't. it's fun/relaxing combined with the FEELING of accomplishing something, which i like.

b and i have some boundaries around angry birds. one time i got upset to find out he was playing without me. it was silly, but it felt like if he'd watched the latest episode of our current show without me. i wonder sometimes if it will still hold my interest after we finish the game or if i'll keep playing it. it's not like playing solitaire or something that is different every time. i guess that's why they keep coming out with new versions.

 

there were three of us this morning,
i'm the only one this evening.

apps

pekoe and i have been competing for the best seat in the house. this weekend i took some time to re-arrange furniture and move some things to the basement. i'm really pleased, the living room is much more spacious. i've been telling brendan that we don't need so much seating, but he didn't want to get rid of one of the blue chairs. so i moved one of them down into the foyer and turned it into a sun room. it's so lovely. the kitties sit out there in the sun and when it's my turn i like sitting listening to the wind in the trees. it's just a small difference, but one that really opens up our space. i like that it's always evolving and changing with us. it's funny because technically our place is very small - i regularly hear people complain about their small homes that are larger than ours (especially since we only live in 560 square feet) - but when it's tidy there's loads of space. often when i get up in the night to pee or for a drink of water, i catch a glimpse of our space in the moonlight and am struck once again by how charming it is.

emma submitted my new job profile for re-grading today. i don't know how long this process will take. i'm quite eager to know the outcome since i'm long overdue for a re-assessment. i hope i get at least 2 grades to compensate for forgetting to ask for a promotion in 2009. i don't want to get my hopes up though.

my running is going well. i'm now up to running for 3 minutes and walking for 4. yesterday was my first time. it was ok, even though my body felt heavy and slow. i can feel that my legs are getting stronger and firmer, even though the rest of me seems fairly unchanged. except i felt good when i woke up this morning, slightly more streamline.

i have to admit, leonard cohen is not the best singer. at times his voice strains like someone singing in the shower. but he's quite the poet though.

 

you were famous,

your heart was a legend.