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

An (almost) Perfect Day!

What a day! Finally, after months and month of ice, snow, cold and bleak weather, we were reminded today that humans are meant to be outdoors.

I started my day off by sleeping in. I then had a lovely shower, did my hair and make up and headed downtown to meet Gidgett for brunch. She was kind enough to retrieve my iPod for me which I'd left at work on Thursday, so I feel whole again. The brunch we were headed to wasn't just any brunch. It was a special, epic one, at my favourite restaurant: Courtyard Restaurant.

That place is amazing. It's in an old stone building and is beautifully decorated. The food is out of this world. This is what I had " 'Perfect' Scrambled Eggs, Crème Fraiche and Chives, Sourdough Toast, Bacon or Sausage, Oven-Roasted Tomato, Herbed Hash Brown". I have to admit, they really were perfect scrambled eggs. Before the main course, they served as a scone with jam (which was delicious), we had a mimosa to drink with our meal (champagne and orange juice) and then for dessert, we each ordered a different option and then split the two. We had: "Flourless Chocolate Cake, Cherry Purée, Cherry Crumble" and "Sticky Toffee Pudding, Caramel Sauce, Crème Anglaise" Both were outstanding. The Sticky Toffee Pudding was my favourite. I'm pretty sure this is where I want to go for my birthday dinner.

After all that food, we headed out into the sunshine and the market. We met up with Adele and went on a sight seeing/shopping tour of the market. I ended up coming home with fresh spinach and feta ravioli, roasted garlic tomato sauce, highly addictive rosemary and sea salt artisan bread crisps, drunken sausages (they have Mill St. beer in them) and some cupcakes from the Cupcake Lounge. It was a good outing. I had the pasta for dinner and 1 cupcake for dessert. A winning combination really. The sun was out the whole time we were venturing about. It was so great to feel its warmth on my skin again. It renewed my soul and spirit and gave me new hope that the warm spring weather will soon be here. It was also nice to spend some time with a couple of ladies who I rarely see outside of work. It's very therapeutic to be able to talk to people who can relate to some of the stuff I'm dealing with or for me to be able to offer advice because they're going through something I'd been through before. It nice seeing things from a different perspective too.

After dinner, I was ready to settle down for the night when Xtintor texted. He was home alone for the night as his ladies were at the in-laws so he asked if I'd like to go for coffee. Despite being rather sleepy and having already taken my bra off, I said yes. I got dressed and we headed out. I opted for herbal tea while he went for the Venti, full caffeine version. We headed to Britannia Park where we found a trail near the beach that was mostly clear of snow. We walked and talked and admired all the beautiful stars that are out tonight.

Just as I was being dropped off, my father phoned to rub in the fact that his hockey team beat my hockey team. I guess there had to be one flaw in my otherwise perfect day. LOL.

So now I'm quite sleepy and I'm pretty sure my feet stopped talking to me about a half hour ago. I think sleeping in tomorrow is definitely in the works. So's cooking a prime rib roast (never tackled one of those before).  I hope everyone has a very happy Easter.

Good Night!

Sarah

Outside of my favourite restaurant (in the summer)

4 Day Weekend!!

It's finally here. I didn't think it would come, but it's finally here. The coveted 4 day weekend. Now for those of you who are about to start bitching that you don't get 4 days off...Family Day back in February wasn't a day off for me so this makes us even.

The morning was pretty calm. The Easter egg hunt went well and I'm pretty sure all the eggs were found. I also ended up with a good deal of chocolate - gifts from my co-workers. That's kind of nice since the Easter Bunny usually doesn't come to my place anymore. I don't think he can hop up all those stairs.

5 of us went out for a nice lunch for Xtina's birthday (which is tomorrow). The food was good and so was the company. We pretty much just venting about work all lunch. It was very cathartic. Best part? We had lots of time to eat and we didn't have to rush to get out of there. B and I were on time for French class. In fact, we were in the lobby waiting for the elevator when our teacher came strolling in. Once again, there were only 3 of us in class. Which kind of makes for a fun class. We get more practice this way and more individual attention, which is really great. Class flew by. We all got tripped up on the last 2 exercises of the day. We had a map and the directions were read out (in French of course) and we had to say which location they instructions took you too. LOL. What a gong show that was. I kept getting my droit and gauche mixed up (right and left). It was fun though.

I got home at a decent hour and was able to drop all my stuff off at home and then head out to Walmart and the grocery store. I stocked up on a few things for the weekend and then came home and made my Tofu Udon Noodle Soup for dinner. It was really good and I have a lot left over for lunch tomorrow.

Apparently B and I missed some fun while we were in class. Somewhere between 3:15 and 3:45, the computer systems went down.  Our evening peeps were doing a bunch of manual things with the mail and such until it came back online. That really had to suck. I bet everyone was hoping to be sent home early. I can't say I blame them. An early start to a long weekend would be great.

Speaking of early starts, I think I might opt to get an early start on sleeping. I woke up at 4:30 this morning and could not get back to sleep. It was so friggin' annoying! I think I feel asleep about 15 minutes before my alarm went off. I was not a happy camper. But I get to sleep in tomorrow so that's great. I probably should spend tomorrow cleaning, since my friend Michelle arrives in 20 days :)

Good Night!

Sarah

Signs of spring!!

Common Sense Doesn't Seem So Common

For a short week, it's kind of feeling rather long. That might also be due to the fact that I've managed to get my days mixed up almost all week. I knew Monday was Monday but that was the end of that. Everything's been messed up since. LOL. Just one more day...actually, it's only a half day since I have French tomorrow afternoon. Wow. I'm kind of excited about going to French class. That's kind of messed up. What an amazing difference switching to the afternoon and actually having a good teacher can do for your outlook eh?

So, it was pot luck day at the office. We didn't have quite as many people participating as in the past but we still had a good turn out and the food was excellent, as usual. My taco pies were a hit and there wasn't anything left over so I was happy. Which reminds me, I have half a tub of sour cream in my back pack. I really need to put that into the fridge. Oops. A few of my co-workers and I have decided that we need to develop "Pot Luck Etiquette" for the next one. Things like "don't hog the pizza" (16 slices, 50 people participating in the pot luck - taking more than one piece is just plain rude!!). You know, things that should be common sense but aren't.

Just like the fact that I have to send a memo to the staff tomorrow that reads "Don't put paper towels in the toilets". Seriously??? WTF? Who does that!!!??? Who is stupid enough to do that? And why the hell do you have paper towels in the stall with you in the first place? Yes, the building supplied TP sucks, but it's still better than the sandpaper paper towels they provide. Or how about ensuring that the toilet bowl has cleared before leaving the stall? How hard is it to watch to see if everything goes down and if it doesn't (our toilets don't have the best water pressure), I dunno, try flushing again? When did common sense become so un-common? People really don't seem to have any respect for their co-workers or their work place anymore. When I'm at work, I pick up after myself. If I use the last of something, I go and get more. Just basic things that makes work easier for whoever comes along next.

Sigh. Some people. LOL.

Good Night!

Sarah

Why yes, that is an out house,.

Nagging Thoughts and all that Jazz

Something's "off". But I don't know what it is. I wish I could put my finger on it so that I could address it, but I can't. It's like a quiet, gentle, nagging sensation in the back of my head. It's not so annoying that I'm always aware of it but it's loud enough that when I'm trying to relax, I can't fully do so. I kind of hope it's just spring fever. A need to get off the couch and get back out there into the world, into the light. I've been doing a little meditation before bed lately and that seems to help relax me and turn my thoughts off long enough to fall asleep. Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something and I haven't been patient enough to sit down and try to figure out what the message is. Maybe it's the full moon (ok, it's not full until tomorrow but close enough). Maybe it's stress.

Work has been a strange atmosphere lately. One of my co-workers nailed it the other day. He said that was having a great day, happy go lucky, until he walked into the office and it's like the all the happiness got sucked out of him. I completely understand. There's almost an air of negativity hanging around lately. It's very  strange and there's no real rhyme or reason to it.  Maybe everyone's grumpy because of the weather. It was so shitty for so long. Maybe now that nicer, sunnier weather is here, everyone will be a little more sunny themselves. Maybe everyone just needs a break.

I'm very much looking forward to the long weekend. I've got 4 days off. I can spend one day cleaning, one day having fun, one day doing nothing at all and the 4th day gets to be the wild card. An "anything" can happen kind of day. I'm really excited about Saturday. I get to have brunch at my favourite restaurant and then possibly get up to some shenanigans in the market. I hope the forecast holds. It's supposed to 7 and sunny on Saturday.

Today is a very special day. It's Sloan's (my niece) first birthday. I can't believe it's been a year already. I've only got to meet her 3 times but I've enjoyed it each and every time. She really is an adorable and remarkable little thing. I see my brother in a lot of the faces she makes. Reminds me of when he was a kid.

Happy Birthday Sloan! Aunt Sarah loves you very much and I can't wait to see you again.

Good Night!

Sarah

Just like me...Daddy's little girl :)

Day Off - Attempt #2

As you may recall, I took a day off last month. And it snowed. And snowed. And snowed. As a result, my day out with NB and Baby D didn't turn out as well as planned (except for the wonderful catch up time at her place). So, we opted to try it again today.

Thankfully, Mother Nature co-operated and we didn't get the all day flurries that Environment Canada had been calling for. Yay! Making things even better, NB's hubby took the day off and came with us so that he could help out with Baby F, which meant we got time to go and shop. And shop we did. I only came out of the day with 3 new tops but NB cleaned up. Baby D seemed to enjoy his day out too and even had a rather nice nap while we hit up one last store after finishing at the mall.

It was a very lovely day and I'm glad I got to see all of them. We didn't get to chat quite as much as I would have liked, but we did have fun trying on clothes. The pink "Jessica Simpson" pants I tried on at The Bay made for a good laugh. I also discovered that Mrs. Tiggy Winkles has more awesome stuff in it than I ever remember it having. Baby D got 2 new, very cool toys there. He sure seemed to like them. I almost broke down and bought some toys too. I found some awesome stuff to get for my nieces and nephews later on and  even found stuff I want (like the Big Bang Theory trivia games). Baby D really is friggin' adorable. At one point he did something that made me laugh and then he laughed at me laughing at him. So cute! Watching him interact with other kids and babies is just incredible. I'm really happy that NB and I got to spend some "girl time" together and got some pretty decent shopping done in the process. I'm sure everyone is going to sleep well tonight. I think we all managed to tire ourselves out.  But it was worth it to get nice new clothes for spring. Now we just need Mother Nature to co-operate and bring us Spring!

And I'm pretty sure we saw a coyote while we were stopped at a red light too. That's not quite something you see every day. It goes along with the two deer I saw last night en route to the Sens game.

The Sens game. It was Ottawa vs. Boston. I've never seen Boston play so it was a new adventure for me. I was originally going with Gidget from work but alas, March struck again and she had to go home for a funeral. So my back up plan was put in place and that saw Xtinktor and I heading out. Only problem? X is a damn Montreal fan. It's not as bad as a Leaf's fan but still. It turned out to be a good game. We had decent seats and the teams were well matched. Sadly, Ottawa lost with only 1:04 left to play in the 3rd. Shots on goal were 28 for Ottawa and 29 for Boston so, like I said, it was evenly matched. There wasn't a single penalty called in the first period. Sadly, the refs made some questionable calls in the 2nd and 3rd (for both teams) and made a couple really questionable off side calls too (again, for both teams). Other than that, it was a great game. There was a woman there who's 95 and was attending her very first Sens game. I thought that was really cool.

So it's been a pretty cool last day and a half. I got to go out and about, spend time with some awesome people and be able to get away from work and stop stressing for a bit, which feels AWESOME!!! And the best part? It's the weekend so I have 2 more days to relax and do whatever tickles my fancy.

Oh, and congrats to my baby brother for passing his practical exam, despite being in pain/having ringing in his ear. Seriously, he's the most accident prone person I've ever met. But he's now got his certification (pipe fitter?? Not 100% sure on that...) and that's awesome.

Ok, I think it's time to pay one last visit to Facebook and the head to bed. I'll leave everyone with some photos from the game last night.

Good Night!

Sarah

Emotions

Those of you who follow my blog may have noticed that I haven't been writing as often. I've been really tried lately so by the time I've thought to blog, I'm just too drained to do it. So I'm attempting to blog earlier today in hopes of being able to stay awake and think clearly long enough to get something out.

The other issue is that there's a lot of very sad things happening in the little world around me and they've been on my mind a lot. And is silly as it sounds, I didn't want that sadness coming out in my blog. But that's the point of my blog. To write about what I think and feel and get it out of my system.

I'm a very emotional person. When I was a teenager, I used to think that people who expressed their emotions so much were saps and I made fun of them. Well I guess Karma's a bitch because that's kind of the person I turned into. When I'm really happy, I cry, but I laugh at the same time. When I'm sad, I cry. When I laugh too much, I cry. When I tired or frustrated, I cry. When I'm mad....ok, that's like the only time I don't cry. My point is, I'm very much in touch with my emotions. I recognize them and that they're there. They exist. And no, I don't spend a lot of my time crying. It's actually been fairly rare as of late, well before the last 2 weeks. I'm not a weepy person. I just recognize them and I know how and when to keep them in check and I know when to let them go.

Society put so much emphasis on hiding those emotions. We're supposed to pretend that nothing makes us sad and if it does, we keep it to ourselves. Heaven forbid a man cries - they're seen as less masculine. A woman who cries is seen as weak. Why? We all have emotions and keeping them bottled up inside is never a good thing.

To add to my connection to my emotions, I'm also quite empathic. Meaning, I pick up on and react to the emotions of people around me. If people around me are stress or tense or there's a large amount of tension going on between a group of people - I get a knot in my stomach. If people around me are being overly negative or angry - I become exhausted and edgy. If people around me are sad - I start feeling depressed too. I'm sure we all react those around us but I just seem to react to them more than most.

All of this back story is to say that I almost started to cry on the bus on the way home tonight. I was reading an email on my phone from my mom. She attended the second funeral of a dear friend today. It was Mr. B's funeral. My mom was telling me how sad it was and that they played the "Last Post", and that kind of did my mom in. It would have done me in too. I'm sure I would have been a mess long before they got to that part.

The whole thing makes me sad. The fact that my mom had to go to the funeral alone upsets me. It's one of those times that I wished I lived closer, so that I could have gone with her for moral support. Mr. B was like a second father to her so you can understand why she's sad. And the fact that Mr.B's daughter has lost both of her parents in the course of 1 week - that she's had to to go through 2 separate visitations and 2 separate funerals, each a week a part. It makes my heart break for her. And then there's me. I've known Mr. B my entire life. This past summer, my dad and I took him grocery shopping. I can't remember the last time I had so much fun in a grocery store. He was a hoot and a half. He got me to help him fill up a bag full of chocolate covered almonds from the bulk section. I put a big scoop in and then he told me to add more. I did. Then he told me to add more. So I did. This went on a few times and we had quite a full bag of almonds. He looked at me and said "Yup, that should last the week" LOL. I think the bag cost $12 on its own! Mr. B was quite the card, a real character. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm blessed just to have known him. And I really hope his family has a chance to grieve and heal now.

The weather here isn't helping either. It's still snowing. Today's the first day of Spring but you wouldn't know it by looking outside. We're in for another 7cms of snow or so between tomorrow morning and Friday morning. I'm just so sick of the cold and snow. Here's hoping the sunshine and warm weather find us soon.

Good Night!

Sarah

Mr.B and I

My mom and Mr.B