Growth

One thing that most of us have in common is the need, desire and drive for personal growth. Some people seem to be able to accomplish this better than others. And after something I discovered today, I think I'm doing a pretty good job at it too.

To gauge our growth, we have to look to the past and evaluate the people we were then and then people we are now. I'm not a big fan of doing that. I try hard not to live in the past. And I try very hard to not let bad memories/experiences from the past have a negative influence on things I do now. For someone who hates change, I'm doing a fairly decent job at embracing it.

Since I have a 4 day long weekend and have a friend coming to visit in 3 weeks, I decided that this weekend would be a good time to start my spring cleaning. I made some really good headway on Friday and threw out a lot of stuff that wasn't useful anymore and was just taking up space. Yesterday I decided that I needed to find a new way to store my shoes/boots/sandals. There's not enough room in the hall closet for them and their current location of being in a pile by the door doesn't work well, especially since I keep tripping over them and then when I go hunting for a pair, I can only find one half since I've punted the other one halfway across the kitchen. Anyhow, I remembered that I have two large plastic bins in my closet (currently being used as a shelf for my TP and Kleenex). I thought that one of them might be a good container for my shoes. So this evening, I decide to grab one and clean it out.

These bins have been in the closet since I moved back from Calgary...4 years ago. I have no idea what's in them really. I think I've only opened them once or twice since I moved back. The bin I grabbed contained a whole mess of misc. items: Birthday cards from family and friends, note cards, a couple Christmas cards, souvenirs from various trips, post cards from friends and family, a couple of neat things from my past that I decided somewhere along the way that I wanted to keep (like the interview I did with Sean M. from Great Big Sea...which my buddy Kevin got the band to sign for me when he met them!). A lot of it brought back a whole bunch of memories. I ended up throwing out 2/3s of the box.

The me from 4+ years ago found some need to keep a lot of this stuff, but the me today didn't. Somewhere in the last 4 years, I've grown and emotionally developed enough to put away those parts of my past. Sure, I did keep a few sentimental things. I kept a few cards from my parents that had supportive and motivations messages from them inside. Who doesn't need a little pick me up every now and again eh? And I did keep the last birthday card that my Gram sent me before she passed away. Seeing her hand writing on the page made me smile and miss her tremendously. I also found the copy of the Tennyson Guyer poem "The World Is Mine" that my Gram gave me when I was a little girl. I kept that too.

I also found something that I really no flipping idea what I was thinking when I decided to keep it. It's my journal from mid 2000 off and on until mid-2002. I could feel the negativity coming off it in waves without evening opening the book. Those were some of the darkest times of my life. I was so un-sure of myself. So depressed and frustrated yet there were pockets of hope. Why the hell did I keep it?? I only read a few random pages in it but it was enough to remind myself that I never want to go back to that place again. Keeping it the last time I came across it was a mistake. I believe that you can only make any one mistake once because the next time you make it, it's not a mistake, it's a choice. So this time, I'm choosing to get rid of it. Burning it seems like a fantastic idea. LOL. I'm more likely going to tear it to shreds and just toss it out however. I don't want to risk anyone thinking that I'm attempting to burn my apartment down. The memories of those years are in my brain. I've learnt from my mistakes, have grown and moved on. I don't need the visual reminder.

Four years ago, when faced with the same task as today, I couldn't bring myself to throw a lot of that box away. But today, I did. That is growth. That is emotional development. That is making peace with the past and moving on. And all of that makes me very happy and quite proud of myself.

Speaking of being proud of ones self, I pulled off a couple of culinary firsts for myself this evening. I cooked a prime rib roast for the first time (just a little, one rib one) and it turned out perfectly! My mom would have loved it since it was nice and juicy. Dad would have hated it. He's a well done kind of guy. LOL. I also make Yorkshire Pudding for the first time ever. They were actually really easy and turned out quite well. I really enjoyed my dinner and I have a lot left over. It's dinners like these that make me wish I had someone to share them with. I really do enjoy cooking for others, especially if they're willing to do the dishes up in return.

I think I'm going to try to get more cleaning and some laundry done tomorrow and I might just venture out to see if I can find some reduced to clear Easter chocolate.

Good Night!

Sarah

My little Yorkshire Puddings

Well That's Certainly Darker Than Planned...

Over the years, my hair has been many different colours. I have been a blond (once by accident and once on purpose), had my hair fire engine red (again, once by accident and once on purpose) and I've had it jet back (totally on purpose). I'm fortune in the fact that my skin tone lets me look good with lots of different hair colours. I used to dye it myself but over the last 5 years or so, I've been paying professionals to do it. Mainly because I had blond highlights for a long time and after the one and only time I let my mom give me highlights, I vowed never to let anyone other than a professional highlight me.

Seriously, she turned me into a blond. And took far too much joy in poking me in the head with that little stick. It was a kit where you wear a plastic cap with little holes cut out into it and you take this plastic hook like thing and poke it though the holes and pull a small strand of hair through (so the highlight look natural). I'm sitting in a chair, in my Gram's kitchen, with my mom stabbing me in the head. And then the grand son of one of my Gram's friends was over so mom let him take a stab at it. Literally. I should have known it was going to be a disaster by how much hair mom pulled through. I only wanted a few highlights. She did my entire head. The next issue arose when rinsing out the dye - mom freaked out a bit because my hair looked a bit orange, not remembering that hair darker when wet, so she decided that it wasn't done yet and made me sit longer. The result? Almost white blond hair. For a solid week I freaked myself out every morning when I first looked in the mirror.

Anyhow, December of 2011, I got tired of being a blond and went back to my roots as a brunette. I haven't actually coloured my hair in the last year. My stylist left the province and I have a hard time parting with the kind of money that salons charge, so I decided to try the "at home" approach again. Since I was going with a solid colour, I knew I couldn't screw up too badly. Last week, Baby F and NB helped me pick out a colour.  I was having a hard time deciding between 2 shades and silly me, I opted for the darker of the two. One of the cardinal rules of hair colour is always pick the lighter one when trying to decide between 2 colours. I knew this and still choose the darker one.

So....I dyed my hair tonight. And it's darker than it was. But a lot. Not quite 50 shades darker (ha-ha) but several shades darker than the photos on the box. It kind of looks like I'm attempting to channel my inner goth or something. It's not black but it's damn close. We'll go with dark chocolate. I will admit that I did want my hair to be darker and I wanted the little silver hairs that keep appear to be covered (and they totally are) but this is quite a fair bit darker than I'd hoped for. Oh well! I'm sure it will lighten up after the first wash or two. I'm also wearing a white top right now which probably makes it look darker than it is. I'll just have to remember to wear something dark to work tomorrow to compensate. LOL. And definitely remember to wear blush. And like my mom said, don't wear red lip stick...well, I could but people might not get that I'm just trying out my Elvira impression.

My hair feels soft and it's really shiny now though, so that's good. And my scalp doesn't feel like its on fire which is really good! It will be fun to see how many people at work tomorrow notice the colour change. Maybe I'll try for hot pink next time.

Good Night!

Sarah

At least it looks natural!

200th Blog

Today has not been one of my better days. Emotionally, February always sucks. It's been dark for 4 months now so my SADs is at its worst, 75% of my family have birthdays in February and I'm not there to celebrate any of them and right now, work has me stressed out. This week was bad. It took an amazing amount of effort to actually get out of bed and convince myself to face the day and get into work. But I made it through and other than being more sarcastic than normal, I don't think anyone at work noticed that anything was up.

As a result, I was really looking forward to a day out today with a friend, hoping to take in a movie so I could laugh and escape for a bit and get out of my own head. But that didn't happen. I was bailed on, again, and reminded why it is that I have such a hard time trusting people and the stuff that tell me. I keep a lot to myself. I very rarely admit it when I'm feeling this low and I almost never reach out to anyone when I am. But I tried taking the risk this time, doing that. Admitting that I didn't want to be alone and probably shouldn't be alone....and it blew up in my face.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why I don't trust people. Why I don't open up to people, even those closest to me. Because at the end of the day, no matter how many times those around you promise to be there for you, promise to help you, promise that you can count of them, you're still alone. And the only person you can be 100% sure of and count on 100% of the time is yourself. I'd been lulled into a false sense of security as of late. I guess this was life's way of reminding me of that. That and the fact that I don't like burdening others with my problems. I figure everyone has problems so why I should I try to burden someone else with mine? I don't mind it when others do that to me, because it simply gives me a chance to focus on something/someone else and I can give my worries a rest for a while. What can I say? I love escapism.

The worst part? This isn't the first time this person has done it to me. If it had been, I might have been ok. But as it was, this issue has been bugging me for a long time and in true Sarah fashion, rather than address it sooner, I let it go and fester and a final straw came along and *BOOM*, I went off. I remember my mom warning me about "fair weather friends" when I was younger. You know, people who are only your friends when they feel like it or when you're of use to them, or when they don't have a current boyfriend? Yeah, it's that kind of situation. Except in this case it's a "when I'm alone/bored and my husband isn't here" kind of friend. There's a lot more I'd like to say about that situation but I'll bite my tongue. It's not my place to say and my opinions weren't asked for, so they shall not be offered.

All I'm going to say is that I'll NEVER change who I am for anyone nor will I ever let a man/my husband dictate my life to me. And if that means staying single for the rest of my life, so be it. I will never settle.

So, then I was faced with a fun old catch 22. All I wanted to do was throw myself onto my bed and spend the rest of the day sleeping/crying on and off. But that's not a healthy option. It just feeds my depression and makes it worse. So option 2 was to go out and get some fresh air and sunshine into my system, which meant being around laughing, happy people, which I really did not want to be around. Ironically, after the events of the morning, I simply wanted to be alone. Being a good girl and learning from my mistakes, I sucked it up, got dressed, slapped on some make up, did my hair and headed out. I'm not a child and I know how to take care of myself. Not that I have much choice. If I don't do it, there's no one else to! Besides, it's not like I enjoy feeling like this and I know I need to be pro-active to get out of the funks when they come along.

My destination was Confederation Park for Winterlude. As I feared, the park was crowed with people and it was damn cold. Those lying bastards at Environment Canada said it would be -6 today. Yeah, right. Anyhow, I wandered around the park and got in line to view the ice sculptures. I growled at the little brats that ran into me and nearly threw a snowball at the young couple sucking face by the garbage can, but other than that, I made it through without causing any great harm too. Even managed to use the Port-O-Potty without freezing my ass to the seat (but it was close). I got some lunch and treated myself to some maple taffy on a stick (one of my most favourite things in the world) and then I headed to the mall so that the feeling would return to my left foot, right hand and my face. After checking out a few places in the mall, I headed for the market.

Mmmm, maple taffy.

By this point, I was feeling better. Being outside in the sun and the air was helping, as I knew it would. The crowds were annoying me less. All good signs. I stopped at the butcher and got some of my favourite sausages and a stuffed hen for dinner tomorrow night. I got one of my favourite cheeses and grabbed some veggies from a very cool organic type market shop. I traded text messages with my buddy Xtinktor while waiting for the bus and we had a laugh making fun of the Leaf's fans. All was good until I got home and turned on my computer.

Despite telling said person "leave me the fuck alone" they couldn't leave well enough alone and had emailed again when I was out. Well there went any salvation of my mood. Kind of impressive how someone can ruin your day twice in the span of 8 hours. But I took the high road this time. I simply hit "delete" and the went onto Facebook and distracted myself with some farming. If only real life farming was that simple and easy.

I had a nice phone chat with a good friend this evening and a few good laughs. I know what brought on the call and I'm not really impressed by the catalyst, but it was great chatting with her none the less and I'm happy that she called. We've been emailing between baby naps and long days of work and sometimes it's hard to find the time to sit down and write out everything that you want to say.

After that, I realized it was kind of late and decided to re-heat my leftovers for dinner. I watched tv and played on the computer but I don't actually recall much of what I was watching. Online I was checking out some cool plant ideas and cool planters. Some of the stuff out there is very innovative! My dad called to rub in the fact that Toronto beat Ottawa and to update me on my parents' night out with my 2 great aunts and my great uncle. I'm glad that they all had a fun time. It stuff like that that I miss the most. Thankfully, the two calls helped make me feel a bit better, so this evening has been pretty good.

So now here I am, writing my 200th blog. Sorry it couldn't be a more upbeat one, but that's life. I really should get to bed. Despite getting to sleep in, even after Michelle texted me and woke me up!, I'm kind of sleepy. Being emotionally drained does that. I've got a whole laundry list of stuff I need to take care of tomorrow, including laundry, so sleep is a good plan. Tomorrow's another day and hopefully I'll be feeling ever better still tomorrow.

200 blogs. Wow. I can't believe that I'm still doing this. I can't believe how much it's helped me. I can't believe what a big part of my life it's become. I started it late last July because I love to write and I wanted to do something everyday that I love and as a way of getting the thoughts out of my head so I could sleep at night or relax when reading/watching tv. What an awesome experiment this turned out to be. Now if I could only think up a good story line for a book....LOL.

Good Night!

Sarah

My favourite ice sculpture - they're mermaids.

Paper lantern tunnel

Skating on the Rideau Canal

Winter blahs have arrived early

I feel like a hurricane stuck inside of a vacuum. I'm listless, bored and antsy, but I'm tired and lethargic. I kept waking up last night. I couldn't seem to sleep for more than 2 hours at a time. I had to pee, I was too hot, I was too cold, I was uncomfortable. That seemed to set the pace for the day. Every time I tried to get something done, I got interrupted. And when it was quiet, I had to force myself to focus and get stuff done because I really, really, REALLY didn't want to work. Toss in a meeting this afternoon that sounded a little like Sesame street on crack (they like to use a lot of abbreviations in this meeting) and it rounded out my day. And just when I didn't think things could get worse, they did. A lovely mistake was discovered. Crap. Can't say for sure who made the mistake in the first place, but I should have picked up on it so I'll take responsibility for it. At least it was caught faster than the last time something like this happened. Fuck. I'm so pissed off about that. I can't believe it happened again. Crap.

And adding to the delight of the day is the fact that the air at home and in the office is so dry that my poor nose keeps bleeding almost every time I blow it. And because it's dry, I'm sneezing more (dust allergy). Fun times. My apartment is a disaster yet I have no energy what so ever to do anything about it. For dinner I resorted to opening a can of Alpha-getti because I simply had no desire what so ever to attempt to cook, despite the fact that I've got some good stuff in the fridge to make.

I HATE FEELING LIKE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh yeah, and it fucking snowed today. So much for the forecast of sun all day. Stupid weather. No snow until December! And even then I'm not a fan.

I know the feeling is temporary. I know it won't last. But right now it's just so hard to get out of bed and face the day. If my doctor wasn't such tool I might attempt to talk to him but the 2 failed attempts at having a physical back in Aug/Sept hasn't really instilled any faith in him into me.

I'm just overwhelmed and over tired and probably spending way too much time by myself.

So sleep is probably a really good plan right now. I have to be able to focus at work tomorrow. I have far too much to do that requires my un-divided attention. Yeah. We're screwed.

Good Night.

Sarah

My balcony from last winter