name game

i've had the last name lorimer for 5.5 years, and have recently been told by my husband that i say it wrong. i'm sure that we had a conversation years ago in which we agreed that we don't pronounce the 'i'. i took that to mean that we drop the 'i', but it turns out that he meant it's more of an 'aw' sound than an "ee" sound.

lo-ra-mur

1000 pieces

my sister gave me a puzzle of a painting of toronto island for christmas. i used to do puzzles a lot, but i haven't have space for puzzles in the last 4 years, since we didn't have a kitchen table. so i was delighted to have the chance to work on a puzzle again. at first i felt a little rusty, it was a busy puzzle and i wasn't sure where to take it after i did the border. but i got back into the swing of things, and was delighted that brendan and beckie both joined me with puzzling. it's really relaxing to do something peaceful and slow-paced to work on whenever we have a chance. we started it on saturday, and finished it this afternoon. so i guess i'll need to get a new one tomorrow!

it feels a little nerdy to be excited about puzzles. but surprisingly, it felt really good. i think partly because my christmas vacations since eamon have not been as restful as they once were, but this gave me that sense of rest, hermiting and creative problem-solving that i enjoy about my 10-day break from work.

self-preservation

brendan and i had some conflict on the weekend about parking in an arby's parking lot when there wasn't room in the starbucks we were going to.

he wanted to park there. and i REALLY REALLY didn't. especially when i saw the sign specifically stating that the parking lot was only for arby's customers.

when trying to explain my distress about it later, i said "i'm a worse-case scenario thinker", but this isn't exactly true. often times, i can't imagine how things could possibly go wrong, and then find out when things go wrong :p i'm not someone who assumes the worst about everything. instead, it's more accurate to say i am not a risk-taker – at all. i don't park in places i'm not supposed to, i don't let my kid stand inside shopping carts, and i don't call-in-sick to play hookie. if i perceive a chance that something might go wrong, i don't do it. life is full of enough unfortunate incidents that i try at least avoid all avoidable heartache. i can do without getting my car towed, having my kid injured from a fall, and damaging my professional reputation.

obviously, danger is a reality in life. i don't avoid all danger or else it would be impossible to live. but i suppose i view danger and risk as two different issues. and i guess for me, risk involves a element of choice. i remember watching a ted talk once where the woman talked about regret. she mentioned how regret often results from a small decision that could've gone either way – when simply making the alternate decision could have produced a different, more positive result. that's what that impulse is for me ultimately: a quick diagnostic of how much i might regret my decisions.

i don't gamble with what's important to me – my time, my loved ones, my integrity, my heart.

delayed

it's funny. i woke pretty early this morning (as i often do since my body is used to waking before sunrise), and i felt excited. i guess the enthusiasm for a new beginning just waited until the beginning actually started. it's nice getting a clean slate each year, and wondering what will happen over the next 12 months :)

going and coming back again

i spent some time this afternoon reflecting on turning 36; and found my conclusion troublesome.

i'm not sure if it's my stage of life, or if its the age of 36 specifically, but i feel that i lack a certain enthusiasm that i felt in the past at birthdays. not about getting older, but i always felt hope and optimism about the year to come. i had a sense of forward-moving momentum, that i was growing and developing as a person. while 35 was a year of big events and life changes, i don't necessarily equate this year with a time of character growth. and i'm left wondering if there's something wrong with me, or does character development even out as one gets older, or is it just that my focus has shifted and my concern is more for eamon's development than my own. i'm not unhappy, if anything i feel quite content. i guess i just miss that enthusiasm a little bit.

my reflections also led me to think about this...

i don't dislike change. it's usually something i welcome. i do struggle with uncertainty, with varying levels of anxiety depending on the circumstances and my state of mind at the time. i've known this for a while. it seems common among children of divorce. it's funny because from the time my dad left to the time my sister got married, everything stayed pretty much the same. and yet, i just couldn't get comfortable because some figurative door was left open. it wasn't until my late twenties that i felt settled and the door was shut. anyway, i've noticed something new related to that. i like the peace of gentle familiarity. it's like with a kid, who does better when they have a bedtime routine because they know what's coming next. deep down, i like a consistent pattern to life. not a daily routine, but more of an annual routine.

i wonder if that's why i feel troubled – because part of my consistent life pattern involves deep introspection and personal growth, and my current state is a departure from that. one thing i have learned since the summer is the importance of thinking on the present rather than the future. let's be honest, i've spent a lot of my life anticipating the future. it's probably time to be fully present, especially with a toddler.

well, here's to 35. it's been a good year. perhaps at 36 i will learn to be introspective AND live in the present :)

wet pants

our house has been a little chaotic lately, especially after i was so lazy over the weekend. so i'm very pleased that i mustered my whatevers and i actually got stuff under control. except for our bedroom, but maybe i'll do that tomorrow.

i'm only going to be 35 for a few more days. getting is older is a bit weird. i don't know about you, but as a kid it was impossible to imagine being anything other than young. part of me thinks i got so used to it that it makes aging difficult. not that i have a problem with aging, but simply that it's a gradual change that i wasn't really prepared for.

sparkles everywhere

last night i started to doze on the couch at 7:30 and that was it for the rest of the night. brendan came and told me around 10:30 that he was going to bed, so i stopped by the bathroom to take out my contacts, then crawled into bed. 

i don't know what was up with me yesterday, i just wanted to sleep sleep sleep! 

this morning when eamon woke up at 5:45, i'd already been sleeping 10 hours, so i was ready to get up too! with our spare early morning hours, we made our second attempt at a craft gift for my niece, and effectively failed AGAIN! i'll have to run out later today for more supplies to try for a third time. part of me wants to give up, but the other part of me thinks it will justify my previous two attempts if i can get it right eventually. 

work-home

it's been an interesting week. i've been forced to work from home due to a computer issue. i've found there are pros and cons to working from home.

pros:

• being able to sing out loud with the music i'm listening to

• being alone in an empty house rather than being alone in a crowd

• watching netflix at lunch

• napping at lunch

• baking at lunch

• quick trip to pick up brendan and eamon after work

cons:

• not having everything i need from my work computer

• not being available for meetings with colleagues

• having work infiltrate my personal space

• feeling tempted to do non-work related things

i'm hoping my computer issues will be resolved in the next week. but in the meantime, i will enjoy this casual transition into my christmas holidays :)

restored

after a week of feeling unmotivated, i've recovered my regular energy level and enjoyed puttering around our house this weekend. i rearranged a few things in our living room, and unpacked a few boxes i had stacked in the corner. with these slight modifications, i'm super pumped and find that the appeal and comfort of that room has increased.

this year, we got an advent candle holder, made by andrew, to do a weekly advent thing at home. we've been singing christmas carols together as part of the activity, which i've really been enjoying. brendan seems slightly less pumped than i am about the sing-a-long, but it's less novel for him, since he can sing and play whatever song he wants, when he wants. 

i received my norwex products yesterday. i thought i'd just try out the eco-cloth and ended up cleaning the whole bathroom. i have to admit, i was quite impressed. it is super easy to use, because i don't have to stop to spray everything. i've never found that spraying was time-consuming, but it is much faster to just wipe. i found i cleaned more thoroughly since i was on a roll and it was just so easy! it got me looking forward to hosting a party in the new year. 

brace

i know that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. and i know my desire to flee the latest drama at work is just my fantasy that life would be better if this or that happened. but i can't live my life chasing green grass. i guess sometimes we just have to face our weeds and brown patches and do our best to cultivate greener grass. 

autumn blahs

i'm currently under-motivated. i've gone from being super motivated to stay on top of household chores, to sitting on my butt watching too much netflix. to be fair, have been knitting a christmas present, but still.

on the brightside, i did get snowtires on my car today, which i have never done before in the 17 years that i've owned my own car. for some reason, i thought it would only take a half hour, but was told when i got there that it would take several hours. so i had to go home again on the bus without a stroller for eamon. on the way back, i wore him in our backpack carrier. i'd forgotten how empowering it is to wear your baby. but i'd also forgotten how exhausting it is to wear a 30lbs toddler for nearly an hour :S

i'm a little worried that i'm falling into a rut. maybe i just need to give myself a few days before getting worried. maybe it's just that we're getting settled and i don't know what to do with the regular routine of life. it WOULD be nice if i actually wanted to deal with the dishes or tidy our bedroom. instead i just put up with it as is :S i suppose the cycle will come back around and i'll get motivated again. i'll just let this get out of my system. it's just, the mess and the laziness is slightly depressing :S

learning curve

i have a toddler son who finds farts very funny. i also find them quite comical.

ever since he was quite small, he's giggled in response to an unexpected toot, which was extra funny to me, as i concluded that toots are fundamentally funny and don't need to be explained.

at this current stage, he loves to tell me "momma, i tooted". or sometimes, for example when we were in the change room at the pool recently, he went on and on "i toots, dada toots, momma toots", and then actually did toot.

all this to say, we are both highly amused by this. but as he's getting bigger, we're interacting with folks who don't find that sort of thing as funny as we do and there are statutes of limitations on this sort of thing socially. recently, when he told me in front of a more adulty person "i toot" the other person did not laugh, and then tried to pretend he didn't hear the conversation. which was extra funny to me internally.

so i guess i'll teach him to say "excuse me" so he can be polite while still giggling. best of both worlds i think.

back online

my computer at work was scheduled to be upgraded last wednesday. then i fell sick, so i got bumped to thursday (since apparently they didn't think to come get it or something). then i spent 3 work days without a computer. when i got my computer back, it didn't have any of my design software on it. so it's been a weird week.

i am however, adjusting to my new email and trying to set things up to be intuitive and easy for me to mentally process. i don't like a lot of distractions in an email account. for a while i thought that this was a sign that i was not an adaptable person. but i think it's just a preference thing. email is a tool, and i want it to be easy to use, and not face mental blocks or barriers along the way.

brendan and i are doing this marriage course just as some relationship maintenance. it's been fun, but also challenging at times. chores turned into a big fight, which is why we've instituted our 20-minutes a day cleaning routine. i'm happy to say that's actually working pretty well.

this week it used this illustration of rhinos and hedgehogs to show different styles of dealing with conflict. my first instinct was to think i was a rhino, but the more i thought about it, the more i realized i'm a hedgehog. i'm just a hedgehog who can articulate myself well when the coast is clear, which makes me seem more like a rhino. AND because i can be hotheaded sometimes.

it got me thinking about growing up – how inward i was. i rarely felt safe talking about my feelings, and as a result i didn't do it. it wasn't that the people in my life were unsafe, it was because of my own internal process. i can talk freely and confidently about things after the fact, but if i'm still processing something, it's not a topic of conversation. i guard myself pretty securely.

achy

when we were in greece, we did a LOT of walking and after about a week or so, my calves were so sore! they'd gotten all tight and ached when i walked. i would try to stretch them out in the evenings. 

on saturday, my calf muscles started feeling tight and sore again, but this time it wasn't from excessive walking, because i've been getting little to no exercise lately (not even my stationary bike, sadly). since them, it's spread to my arms, neck and wrists. i reluctantly tried googling it, since googling medical stuff can often make one worry, and the one likely thing i read was that it could be caused by inactivity. my dad also suggested it could be caused by dehydration. for a week or two i was working really hard at drinking lots of water, but i've quickly slipped out of that habit. actually, my calves have been less sore today, it's mostly my arms and wrists. 

lifting my growing toddler is a challenge because he's getting heavy and my sore wrists feel weak under the weight of him :S

gifting

i don't remember the last time i knitted. in recent years i've been crocheting more and more, and knitting less. one of the things i like about crocheting is that it's easier to correct mistakes. with knitting, it often requires pulling out lots of rows.

my mom asked for an infinity scarf for christmas, so i'm making her one. she asked for it to be colourful with brown in it. that almost seems like a contradiction. colourful yet brown. in recent years, my mom has become a bit rusty with receiving gifts. she expressed dissatisfaction rather than gratitude. it's discouraging. so i'm bracing myself for her to not be overly appreciative of this handmade gift. it'll probably end up not colourful enough, or not brown enough, or not infinity enough or too infinity :S

to summarize

stiching • mending • chatting

hangouts with b • the hunger games

christmas shopping • grocery shopping on budget

landlording • house-keeping • la caisse

dusting

this evening i went to a norwex party at my sister's house. it was nice because i was able to take eamon with me to play with the kids. norwex is a natural cleaning supplies company. i was fairly impressed with the products.

the party was, for the most part, the first time i've hung out with my sister's friends. joy is good natured and handles being teased well, and they teased her a lot. the thing i found surprising, is that they teased her about how infrequently she cleans her house. this is shocking because joy is the most into cleaning of all the people i know. not only does she love cleaning (has said she prefers cleaning to parenting), she's really diligent about it. the on-going joke is that joy only cleans every two weeks. it felt a little like i was in a bizarre reality. two weeks is pretty regularly, and she'd already said she cleans her bathroom every day. anyway, at one point, during the mopping demonstration, i asked something about her floors, and her one friend said to me "she only cleans every two weeks" and to that i said "she cleans SIGNIFICANTLY more often than i do". which embarrassed the woman a great deal. i told joy later "we lived on main street for nearly 4 years and didn't mop once".

i felt i couldn't be honest in the group about how brendan and i are just learning to do more than the necessities. up until now we've only done the stuff we had to do, like empty the dishwasher so we could put more dishes in. and i'm proud of us for expanding our cleaning routine.

i don't know how working mothers have time for things like housework. how do they do it?!? it guess they just prioritize it. i prioritize other things.

i've expressed interest in hosting a party. partly because i thought i'd get a gift bag for signing up, and i didn't. but it's a fun excuse to have friends over. except, since it's this lady's business, i'd really encourage friends who are interested in buying, rather than just hanging out.

message me if you're interested in coming! it'll probably be in january.

amused

so i'm hooked on the show "jane the virgin" on netflix. i'm actually really impressed that i haven't been binge watching it at every opportunity, but i want to make it last. it's so funny. i get that it's very soap opera-esque, but it's just a fun watch. it regularly shocks me with plot twists. 

i also like that it's gotten me back into hand-crafts. i haven't been doing hand-crafts in a while, i guess i've just been too busy or too tired or something. but there's something really light about this show that makes me feel capable of getting back into making stuff. 

it's kind of a refreshing change that it's a highly entertaining show without having to push the envelop or be really sexually explicit. it's funny and well crafted. it reminds me of amelie, with the observational narrating. good stuff :)

don't get your back up

years after my highschool boyfriend and i broke up, sarah harmer released a song that described the end of our relationship exactly. i could've written every line. it's like she was spying on us. years later, i told him about the similarity of our break-up and that song.

every time i hear it, i remember those late nights talking in my blue jetta, desperately wanting to go home to sleep, while him badgering me about something or other. it makes me wonder if it reminds him too. but i suppose he'd probably remember it very differently than i do.