blah blah blah

lately i've started to notice that brendan's becoming something of a bed-hog. i find this very amusing and don't mind at all. often i wake up in the night to find myself squished between b and the wall with only enough room for my body.

man, this not shaving my legs thing is working out really well. it saves me so much time. i now get into my STANDING UP shower (as opposed to my sit down one at the old place) wash my hair, do a quick scrub with some soap and am out in no time. i shower almost as quickly as brendan now! i feel like not shaving is revolutionizing my life! i still go thru phases when i find the hair weird and other times when i don't. i do wish it was lighter though. even a brown colour would be nicer than the current black.

from the corner of my eye that lady looked like a flintstone's character. simply how she walked. it was just like betty!

woken from the dream by my own name.

bistro

sometimes when i feel like we've seen the worst, things get even crazier. a few evenings ago brendan and i sat at our respective computers reading off excerpts from news articles to each other about the naked man who ate another naked man's face on a highway on-ramp, and about the severed foot that was delivered to parliment. like that's effed up. interestingly enough, i listened to a news program last night on the cbc about this new drug called 'bathsalts' that they suspect the now dead naked guy was on. they were talking about how dangerous, addictive and how concerning it is. all i could think is if i was a drug user, the thought of eating another person's face would be enough to keep me far away from that drug. that disturbs me greater than the possibility of ODing.

well... for a complete change of pace....

brendan and i have started making our summer plans. and crazily enough the weekends are filling fast and we have only a couple left for just hanging out at home. we're getting close to booking our trip to costa rica, but more immediately... we've made plans to go visit jill in stratford and take in a play. it's funny because rachjill and i talked about us lorimers going to visit jill in stratford months ago, but we didn't talk about whether or not we could stay with her or not and i didn't want to be presumptous. so last night we looked into hotels and afterwards pretty much decided we couldn't afford it :S so we started working on a plan B. as we sat out front with a pen and paper jase walked by and said "whatcha working on?" so i told him our budget. he told us that jill would probably be happy to have us, so stratford was back on the table. within hours we'd made plans with jill to camp out on her floor. i'm super excited. wooh!

under a perfectly blue sky.

dehumdifier

this morning at work there was a big celebration marking the 20th anniversary of bbd in ontario. it was the kind of event that filled me with company pride – and let's face it... company loyalty. i found myself verklempt on more than one occasion. it's nice to be part of a big picture and to feel that i'm part of creating positive change around the world. sure, it's a different kind of change than those fighting poverty and injustice, but we provide a service and a product that increases the quality of life for millions of people. in a few years, our transit system will cut two hour commute times down to 50 minutes, and bring jobs to people living in favalas. considering all the for-profit companies in the world... i'm fortunate to work for one that i believe in. all this made me think about celebrating the 30th anniversary :)

day two of volunteering at KGH went very well. i had lengthy conversations with 4 people and helped 2 with their dinner (fixed their tea, encouraged them to eat, etc). i felt encouraged that i'm learning the ropes. last week i found the breaking the ice part the most awkward, but today it was much easier. it's nice that i start right after work and am finished by 6:30. that still leaves me my entire evening.

my new earrings arrived in the mail today. she sent me two for some reason, but i'm glad because they're slightly different from the other pair. they're more edgy. they also seem to have a better clasp system. my old earring never re-appeared.

our sprouts are really sprouting! it's so fun!

he'll look around the room, he wont tell you his plan.

abstract

when i was in grade 4, my family and i took at trip to england for christmas to celebrate my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary (they're anniversary was december 14). of all our many trips to the UK, this remains one i'm especially fond of. pamela still says that her favourite christmas was the one when my dad and uncle leslie (my aunt married a man named leslie after i was born) were there. when my mom came over on saturday she brought with her my journal from that trip. i'm glad she passed it on to me, i was always fond of that journal. sitting reading it yesterday afternoon i was quite stunned by what i stumbled across. it was just a normal journal entry, talking about what we'd done that day, but tagged at the end it said "aunt eileen and uncle david came over so we turned on the tv. the plane crash was on again". we were in england at the time of the lockerbie bombing. it's interesting that while i didn't understand the broad scope of that event, it did make an impression on me, enough that i mentioned it in my journal. that experience was the first world event that i was aware of. it awokened me to the bigger picture.

lately i'm finding that i'm listening to music less often, and instead enjoying the sound of my surroundings. on friday night, i sat on the floor of our den, re-stringing a broken bead necklace as the breeze blew in thru the open window and made the curtains dance around. it was so peaceful. sometimes it scares me when the things that used to filled my time, space, head, are no longer what i'm drawn to. it makes me feel like i'm losing myself. but i suppose it's just me evolving into a the latest manifestation of me. i suppose that maturing means changing. the things that defined my 20s will not be the things that define my 30s.

only the sound of chewing in the room.

cents

it seems to me that good music puts me in the mood to write. even when i don't have anything to say.

our front lawn is about 24 ft wide and 10 feet deep with steps to the house in the middle. it's a small yard, but we've converted it into a large garden. with andrew and shannon, we plotted out the garden in advance. even on paper it looks awesome :) it's funny because right now the garden still just looks like dirt, but soon the seeds will begin to sprout and it will start to resemble a proper garden. unfortunately, the flowers are super wilty right now. i really hope that improves because i want them to thrive and take over the space.

i think i've mentioned before that i have eczema on my lids. over the weekend i had a massive outbreak and it left my skin all puffy and swollen. my eyes were all runny and sensitive to light. i made an appointment with my doctor for today - after a bunch of my colleagues were like "oh wow, what's wrong with your face!?!?!". it cleared up by mid-week and now i have a doctor's appointment regarding perfectly healthy skin. hmph. oh well, i suppose i can go and they can give me some ointment or something.

things with my intern have gotten steadily better. i think i'm getting used to her and she's becoming more independant. i had to do her placement evaluation yesterday so she could send it to her teacher in order to graduate this june. it was a little awkward because i've never evaluated someone before. their rating system is different to (and in my opinion less constructive than) the rating system we use at work. i decided to use our system. in the end, i'm pleased with what i did and feel that i was tough but fair. not hugely tough, but i didn't just give her 100% on everything. it's not very helpful to students if you don't show them what their strengths are and where they still need to develop. i feel this whole experience has really given me a greater appreciation for my boss and what it's like to oversee other people.

sometimes i'll hear a song that i associate with a specific time of my life, but suddenly it applies to my current sitation so, so well.

my love is a bell,
it won't sing unless you ring it.

screens

it's funny how sometime we accidentally come across things we didn't know existed and they turn out to be very handy. especially with computer short-cuts.

on tuesdays, i'm beginning work at 7 so i can leave at 3:30. why? well, because i'm starting to volunteer at KGH as an 'elder life program' volunteer. yesterday was my first day and i shadowed a guy named kenny. it was a very interesting experience. the patients are, on average, in their 80s and have been identified as at risk for dementia. The job of the volunteer is to keep them alert, eating, conversing and doing some exercises. breaking the ice seems to be the most awkward part. the one man we visited yesterday talked and talked and talked and talked. he was nice and told interesting stories, but also had pretty strong archaic opinions. he went on and on about "older mothers" and how women shouldn't have babies in their 30s. kenny, a life sciences student, confirmed this by saying the optimal time to have kids is between 22 and 28. whenever i hear things like this, i inwardly freak out and feel i should go home to get pregnant immediately. i have to admit, sometimes i find it being very hard being in a world that tells me that i'm getting too old to have babies and that my husband is too young. i suppose it's just one of those things where there's always going to be someone of the opposite opinion, no matter what we do. i guess i find that kind of opinion difficult to deal with because age is outside of our control. i suppose in an ideal world brendan and i would be the same age, but we're not, so we're going to have to do things differently and hope for the best.

ANYWAYS... i'm getting way off topic. so ya, ken and i visited a bunch of folks and he showed me the ropes. when i'm done my shift i have to do a right up about each person, explaining what we did and how they responded. i kind of enjoyed the analyzing and reflecting upon each visit.

it turns out that the program coordinator is someone i went to high school with. i don't really remember interacting with her at all, definitely not in the last few years. i remember she wore doc martins and coloured her hair purpley-red. we had a nice chat though, and it turns out that she's now dating someone else who went to frontenac. i told her that i'd look him up in a yearbook when i got home. and i did. yearbooks are funny things.

i'm super pleased because andrew installed the new window in their door yesterday. it now looks like a proper apartment entrance. things are really starting to come together at our little house. we planted our garden on monday, but i'll tell you about that later ;)

 

will you still need me,

will you still feed me,

when i'm 64.

handshake

she reminds me of a book. the kind of book that doesn't hold my interest but that i'm committed to all the same. time drags the more i desire it to pass quickly.

i responded to a shed ad on kijiji today. the shed was in poor shape from the picture. the old metal kind we had in the 80s. i've seen many of these come and go on kijiji in recent months and they usually go for between free and $30. this one was listed for $100 OBO. so i wrote and told the person that i would take it for $50, explaining that that variety is usually posted for free. she wrote back saying it was already sold for full price. clearly she felt like a victor. since i'm feeling snarky today i was tempted to write her back and tell her that the person must have been a chump, but refrained. i think the chip on my shoulder is a side affects of the tedious book. it's not bringing out the best in me.

sometimes my mom accidentally drives past our rendezvous point for about 15 minutes before she realizes she overshot her destination. sometimes, especially when i'm trying to avoid something, i'm more than willing to be inconvenienced and just wait patiently.

last weekend we dug up some shrubs from our yard. once again it hit me that we own our house and can dig up shrubs if we want to. since then brendan has proceeded to dig up our entire front lawn. later today we're getting screens installed on our windows. i like the freedom and agency we have as homeowners to make these kinds of decisions/purchases. it's true, there's always something to work on that costs money, but it feels like a fair trade. with everything there's an upside. being one who is neither optimistic nor pessimistic, i tend to play the field. at my best i see the silverlining in everything. at my worst i see the only cloud in an otherwise clear sky.

i want to lean towards the silverlining.
with job searches, household expenses, tiresome books, and glass ceilings.

 

(i think my writing is best when i'm feeling slightly tortured).

 

if wishful thinking's all i got
i keep on thinking wishful thoughts.