Women's March

Yesterday, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States of America.

You have no idea how much I wish that was the opening line to a joke. But it isn't. It's very real.

Watching the news over the last 6 months has made me increasingly more worried, more concerned. 

I studied history. I know that women and minorities have had to fight for almost every right, every privileged that's been granted to them through out history. I know that the fight continues for some of those today. 

I saw a public figure make bold and disturbing statements that threaten the social rights progress that has been made over the last few decades. I saw people accept what that public figure said. I saw people support, defend and "brush off" those statements. Then I saw the unthinkable happen:

I saw a nation elect that public figure into what is arguably one of the most powerful political positions in the world. 

I'm no longer worried, I'm terrified. I'm terrified that a strained situation is going to snowball and get worse. I'm terrified that those who were able to accept those disturbing statements will become so complacent that they start to accept disturbing actions. 

I'm beyond terrified that those attitudes will filter into my country, and that my nieces will grow up in a world that treats women, minorities, civil, social and basic human rights worse than the world that I was lucky enough to grow up in.

Forget making America great again, let's try returning hope to all those who struggle, who are oppressed just because of their gender, religion, skin colour or sexual orientation.

I am hopeful for a world of harmony, acceptance and grace, where the United States isn't being lead by a bully and where basic human rights aren't in jeopardy.

This is why I support all those women and men who were marching in peaceful protest all around the world today. Thank you and Good night.

Sarah

Gyms and Whitesnake

Last winter, during my blog hiatus, I had a minor crisis occur in my little world. My gym, quite abruptly, closed.

Ok, I know this sounds like no big deal and in the greater scheme of things, it isn't, but to my little world at the time, it was a huge deal.

I'd been going to the gym for over a year at that point. Which was a pretty big deal for me. I'd finally found a place and a routine that worked for me. Somewhere I was comfortable. But one day in February, I showed up for my after work workout to find a note on the ground floor saying that effective immediately, the place was closed. The poor staff were blind sided too. I was stunned. And very upset. I even cried a little. You see, this wasn't just some gym. It was a life line. Even now, sitting here writing this, it's upsetting me again and I have tears in my eyes.

The exercise was helping to keep my mood in check during the winter, helping me to keep my inner demons in check and securely locked away. I made friends there. I'd see the same people during my work outs and became invested in their lives and their progress. The coaches were our cheerleaders. We laughed together. It wasn't just some gym where you went in, put your head down, did your workout and left. People noticed when I wasn't there. People were genuinely invested in how I was doing and how I was progressing. And just like that, it was all gone. Poof. I actually felt like someone had died. I grieved the loss. And truthfully, I was terrified. I was at a complete loss as to what I was going to do. I couldn't switch to another location because there wasn't one close enough to my home or work to make it viable. I seriously didn't know what I was going to do. Didn't know how I was going to cope.

About a month later, my friend MA convinced me to try an aquafit class at her gym. I've taken one before and I like swimming so I gave it a try. I liked it. So I signed up. For roughly 9 months, I've been going to aquafit. At first it was 3 times a week and then it dropped to twice a week. We did try adding in a floor class to fill up that 3rd day but couldn't find one we liked or were comfortable with. By the end of November, I think I was making it to 1 class a week and as of today, I haven't been to a class since mid-December. I've lost all desire to get in that pool. Part of that is the fact that I don't like standing in -20C weather, with semi wet hair, waiting for a bus after the class. It's a welcome change in the summer but in the winter, it sucks.

Between December 2014 and now, I've managed to gain roughly 25lbs. I've never been bigger in my life than I am right now. This isn't good. It's bad. Very, very bad. I've stopped going places, I've stopped seeing people because I'm embarrassed. Hell, even my 3 year old niece called me out at Christmas (totally adorable "out of the mouths of babes" moment, which I actually laughed at). I'm not comfortable in my own skin at the moment, and that hurts.

Don't get me wrong, I still have self respect and dignity and will put anyone in their place should they dare say anything negative me about my weight but at the same time, I've very aware and conscious of the fact that I'm slowly killing myself.

Today I took a tiny step to try to fix things. Well, actually I took the step last Friday, they just didn't have any spots open until today. All those friggin' New Year's Resolution people taking up the prime spots. Bastards. LOL. Anyhow, I signed up for an orientation session at my new gym. Hell, I've been there for almost a year now so I guess it's high time that I figure out how to use something more than the pool eh?

A personal trainer takes us around the gym and shows us what to use and how to use it. It was an hour long session with 3 of us and the trainer. He gave us a basic and rather simple follow plan. It's doable. 5 minutes of warm up on a cardio machine followed by 4 machines and then 2 strength exercises done on the floor, with 10-20 minutes of cardio to end it off. The trainer recommended that we do the cardio part 5-6 days a week and add the weights in for 3 of the days. I managed not to laugh in his face.  I only had a hard time on one of the machines. I have to give the trainer props here. He looked at me and said that he had an alternate for me as he didn't think this particular machine wouldn't be effective for me. He wrote the other suggestion on my sheet, wrote down the name of a website where I can find a tutorial on how to do it and gave me his card so that I can email him and let him know when I'd be in the gym so he could come and see me and show me how to do it as well. Well then.

I was anxious before the session and I felt a sense of trepidation walking into the gym but I made it through the session and then stayed to do some walking on the treadmill. I then ended up doing a whole boat load more walking while I ran errands and got groceries and I've been hobbling around my apartment all afternoon/evening but that's a whole other story. My previous gym was a women's only thing. And there weren't any mirrors in the gym. This one is co-ed and there are mirrors all over the damn place. This is one of the times/places that I want to be invisible. I'm ok with a trainer watching me but I don't like others being able to do so and I sure as shit don't want to be able to see myself when I'm working out either.

But I guess I'm just going to have to get over that eh? Now I have an entire day ahead of me to psych myself up to attempt this on my own Monday after work. Cue Whitesnake.... :) (bonus points to anyone who gets that reference).

Sigh. This should be interesting........God help me!!

Good Night!

Sarah

"Venus in Front of the Mirror" - Peter Paul Rubens

Happy New Blog

So I guess it's been a while eh? Over a year in fact. 

I'm writing this as a gift to my mother, who repeatedly has told me that she's getting tired of reading the same blog post. Even though so knows that I haven't been writing, she checks my blog every morning. I'm glad to know that I have at least one dedicated reader. 

So 2016 is upon us and I have to say, I'm happy to see it. It's not because 2015 was a bad year, because it wasn't, it's just that I have a gut feeling about 2016 and it's a good gut feeling.

It's off to a good start so far. I spent NYE with my friend MA. We stuffed our faces, watched a movie and toasted with Sparkling fruit juice at Midnight. We're real wild women aren't we? Today I helped her cook a feast fit for royalty and joined her and 3 others for a very wonderful turkey dinner. One of the friends I've met before and I think she's a hoot. The other 2 were people I was meeting for the first time. We all hit it off and had a grand ol' time. Food was enjoyed, stories were shared. Laughter rang out and smiles were abundant. We're not even 24 hours into 2016 and I've already been social and made a couple of new friends. I certainly hope this is a trend that continues into 2016. 

Looking back, 2015 was a pretty good year. I got to spend time with several people who are near and dear to my heart. My last blog was written 4 days after I started a new job. I'm still there! I've settled in and have learnt pretty much everything about how it works. It's still a bit of a work in progress but it is progressing. It's quite far from being my dream job, but it pays the bills and it's serving its purpose as a stepping stone and learning opportunity on my path. 

In May, I headed home for my birthday and had a great (but short) visit with my family. 

June saw a new owner taking over my apartment building. This has been a good thing. They've made some fantastic improvements. I'm still living in the same crappy apartment but it's now a slightly less crappy one thanks to the improvements. My balcony garden was a pretty awesome one this year and I added a new hibiscus plant to my collection. 

I headed East in August to visit on my oldest friend (as in the friend I've known the longest) and we had ourselves a great adventure in PEI and the Moncton area of NB. I went swimming in the Ocean which I haven't done since I was kid, I saw a jellyfish (didn't get stung!) and walked on the Ocean floor in New Brunswick. I got to visit with all her boys and made a friend for life with her cat, even though I'm quite allergic.  I'm pretty sure that I've fallen in love with PEI. This could end up being an expensive obsession.

The end of August/start of September brought me a very welcome visitor from BC. I got a chance to play tour guide once again in my fabulous city and get caught up with one of my favourite people. The first weekend we nearly melted it was so hot. The 2nd weekend, we nearly froze and were quite damp around the edges. LOL. Gotta love Canadian weather.

I got a real treat in October when my parents came to visit me for Thanksgiving. This was a first. They've never been here for Thanksgiving before. It was a great but way to short visit. I even managed to cook a spectacular turkey dinner with all the fixings in my slightly less crappy little apartment. 

I just got back from my Christmas holidays 2 days ago. I had a nice, long visit with my parents. It's funny. No matter how long I'm home, it never feels like it's long enough. Every time I get on the train and I wave good bye are we're pulling away from the station, my heart breaks a little. You'd think I would be used to it by now, but no, I'm not. 2016 marks me having lived away for home for 19 years. That's the same amount of time that I lived at home. And yet I still get crazy excited when I get to see my parents and I get sad and heart broken when I have to leave or they have to leave. Part of the heart break is that I know that they're getting old. I don't want them to get old. The older they get, the closer I get to having to say a final goodbye to them. That's something I can't fathom doing. My humble words can't begin to convey how amazing my parents are or how lucky I am to be their daughter. I honestly have no idea what I'd do without them and I hope and pray that it's a good long time before I have to find out how to do that. 

So, in a nutshell, that was 2015. I'm keeping the faith that 2016 will beat 2015 in awesomeness. I hope I get to spend even more time with those near and dear to me. I hope I get to see even more of my country or even the world. I hope I smile more. And laugh more. Spend more carefree days at the beach or wandering my city. I hope to convert more strangers into friends. I hope to worry less and let more things go. I hope to love myself more and take better care of me. I hope to read more amazing books and watch less television. I hope to hear my soul sing more and hope to keep shorter chains on my demons. I hope to love more. And most of all, I hope to live more in 2016.

Let's do this!

Good Night!!

Sarah

Cavendish Beach, PEI

True Patriot Love

Life is full of little ironies. Like the fact that I'm sitting here, scrolling through Pinterest in search of "healthy" meals while making my way through a small pile of Hallowe'en candy minis and am pouting because I just dropped 2 M&Ms on the floor (you only get like 10 total in a pack!). I think it's time to lay off them though as I'm beginning to feel ill. It's been a rough week and I'm PMSing to boot (explains the Hallowe'en candy, doesn't it?).

I started a new job this week. Change and I are old foes but we're reached a truce over the last few years so the transition into my new place of work wasn't as traumatic as it would have been say, 2 years ago. It was both exciting and frightening at the same time. My new work environment is drastically different than my previous one. For starters, I am now one of the "younger" employees in my office. Previously, I was somewhere in the "middle to older" range. My new office has an 80 year old. In my previous office, I knew the names (and faces) of all 191 staff members. There's something like 178 people in my new office, spread out over 4 floors. As of today, I can recall the names and faces of 10 people and two of them have the same first name so I only have to remember that name once. The bathrooms are much better though. There's actual ventilation in these ones. Not once this week have I walked into the washroom and thought to myself "OMG, what died in here". At my previous place of work, that was almost a daily occurrence. And the people in my new office don't eat lunch together. Almost everyone goes to the food court to buy lunch and then they eat at their desks. I'm a much more social creature than that. My goal for next week is to find a lunch buddy.

I did get to know some of my new co-workers a little better on Wednesday though. My building was put on lock-down until 5:30pm after a fucked-up idiot shot and killed an honour guard and shot and wounded an un-armed guard while running around part of downtown Ottawa and Parliament Hill.  It was a home-grown terror attack. In my city. And all I keep thinking is: "How dare he".

Ottawa has a population of just shy of 900,000 people. Before Wednesday's tragic turn of events, Ottawa only had 4 murders on record for the year. That's it. Take Calgary for example. They have just over 1 million people and have had 24 murders so far this year. A lot of people are under the misconception that Ottawa is a boring city. I think we get a bad wrap because we're a government town and all the cool bands forget about us and are drawn to the flashier cities like Montreal and Toronto. But we are fun. We're a perfect mix of big city and small town. Want to get in some culture? We've got museums and the National Arts Centre. Want sports? We've got NHL, CFL and 3 post-secondary schools with great athletics teams. Want something more small town? We have one of the biggest, permanent Farmer's Markets in the country not to mention dozens and dozens of small towns all within a half hour drive from the downtown core. In my mind, it's a perfect city.

Or it was, until Wednesday. I've lived here for a grand total of 13 years. Wednesday is the very first time I've ever questioned my safety here. It's the very first time I haven't felt safe in my own city. And that is a sickening feeling. When I left work that day, I walked a little faster. I paid more attention to my surroundings and more to the point, I paid a lot more attention to the people around me. The man responsible for carrying out the attack on Ottawa wasn't an immigrant. He wasn't some bitter transplant from another country. He was born here. He was raised here. He was a Canadian. And that upsets me so much more than if it had been someone from some where else. He had the opportunity to grow up in this amazing country. He got to experience what freedom and democracy are. He lived in a country that had great social services and access to things like doctors, dentists, specialists etc... without huge price tags. And yet, somehow, he got it in his head that the Canada that I know and love isn't the amazing country that the rest of us know it is. He decided that he needed to attack it. And that's the part that hurts the most. 

Yes, we're not the global "boy scouts" that we were once known as being. Over the last couple of decades, we've taken on a much more aggressive role on the world's stage than the peacekeeping role we were once known for, but I think we're still a peaceful nation at heart. We all have to stand up for ourselves and stand up for those who can't look after themselves, right? I'm not going to get into whether or not I think our troops should be over dropping missiles on militants on the other side of the world but I am going to say that despite everything that has happened this week, I have never been prouder to be a Canadian.

I was going to have lunch in our food court today, but I decided that the weather was too nice to hide indoors. I also needed the chance to walk around my city again and to be reminded that it is still a safe place to live. My office is on the opposite side of Parliament from where the attack took place, so things are calmer in my area. My walk at lunch was a peaceful one. I enjoyed seeing all the other people out and about, doing the same thing that I was doing: enjoying the nice weather and our collective freedom. 

To the two soldiers that lost their lives this week, Patrice Vincent and Nathan Cirillo - thank you both for your dedication and service to Canada. And to their families - my deepest sympathies and condolences.

It's time for our country to pick itself up, dust ourselves off and show the world that we are still the true north strong and free and that this country is full of millions and millions of people who are very proud to call ourselves Canadian. 

Good Night.

Sarah

Canadian War Memorial in August 2014

                               

All That I Am Thankful For

Today is Thanksgiving so it only seems fitting that I take a moment to look back and reflect on things and thank the universe for the plethora of things that I have to be thankful for. 

I spent Thanksgiving on my own this year, completely by choice. I had several invitations to dine with others or head home but I opted to decline them all. I know what some people might think. Why would I willing opt to spend Thanksgiving alone when some people out there would give anything to not be alone today. Well that's one of the things I'm thankful for - that I have the choice.

Given the stress, anxiety and emotional roller coaster that the past month has been, I needed time to myself to decompress, relax and re-focus. I also wanted to save my remaining holiday days for Christmas. Yes I miss my family terribly and would have loved to have spent the weekend with them, but I fear that I wouldn't have been much fun to be around as I'm kind of stuck inside my own head at the moment. And my decision to stay here saved me from what has been described at "horrible" gravy.

Anyhow, I cleaned and did laundry today and I cooked and baked. I made cookies this morning (thank god I only made 1 dozen because I nearly ate them all) and then I made an apple pie and cooked a Prime Rib roast to perfection. So there are two more things I'm thankful for - that I can afford groceries (granted prime rib is a rarity and only when on sale) and that I know how to cook and bake for myself and that I like to do so. I guess that's 3 things to be thankful for.

I spent some time sitting on my balcony this afternoon (thankful for a warm fall) and watched the chickadees eat sun flower seeds and watched some orange ladybug fly around and climb on the balcony (and me for a bit too). It was very nice to just spend a few moments doing something so simple yet something that made me smile. So I am thankful for the simple pleasures in life.

I texted with a very great friend who lives very far from me for a while this afternoon and heard about the adventures of her day and what the week holds in store for her family. So that made me thankful for the technology to so seamlessly communicate with someone 2 provinces away. And it made me thankful to have someone as wonderful as her in my life. I am thankful that I have a set of friends that let me be myself. Even when I'm at my worst, I know I have a few strong souls to depend upon. And for that I am thankful.

A 3 year, 8 month and 1 day voyage will be coming to an end this week. For all that it's taught me and for all the great people I've met along the way, I am thankful and I am most certainly thankful for the new adventure that lies ahead. I'm hopeful for that one too.

And most importantly of all, I am thankful for my cheering section back in Southern Ontario. My family, especially my parents. It's funny. Some days I think that they don't get me or understand me at all, yet that never seems to stop them from giving me their 100% support and having my back no matter what I decide to do. Not only am I thankful for them, but I'm blessed to have them too. 

Now it's time for me to head to bed. I have a very long short week ahead of me. I need to figure out how to impart 3 years, 8 months and 1 day's worth of knowledge and wisdom onto someone else. And clean off my desk........

Good Night and Happy Thanksgiving!

Sarah

My Mom's fall mums from 2011

Lunar Eclipse and Horoscopes.

I like to read my horoscope every day. Not because I 100% believe it, but to use it as a kind of compass to guide my day. Sometimes it's pretty true to my situation and other days it's completely out in left field. The one that appeared in the local free daily on Monday was so accurate, it gives me chills. It said:

"According to the planets you have reached the end of one particular road and what happens in the run-up to Wednesday’s eclipse will point you in a new direction. After that it’s up to you. What’s holding you back? Absolutely nothing."


Long story short, there was indeed a total lunar eclipse this morning. And I signed a contract for a new job this afternoon, which is taking me down a new road as I'm changing departments all together. The new job is also a permanent one, rather than the term to term one that I'm currently in. It's also a higher level of responsibility (and pay!).

I was offered the job 2 weeks ago - on the new moon. I'll be starting the job 2 days shy of the next new moon so I think that's pretty close.

This has been a long time coming. I applied for it nearly a year ago. Career wise, this is the first move I've made that was 100% intentional. Most of my previous jobs have come along by luck or accident. This was a very deliberate action. I am thrilled. I really am. I'm very excited (and a little nervous) about this next adventure.

It's kind of funny. I'm someone who doesn't really like change. I like to be comfortable and routine is that for me. But it also makes me complacent. Which isn't good. So by actively seeking out change, I actually found it. And am welcoming it. Evening looking forward to it. My inner warrior is happy. So very, very happy.

Makes me wonder what other things I can accomplish if I decide to go for them and invite change into my life.....

Good Night!

Sarah

Pick a path....

New Moon

Tonight is a New Moon. It's the period of the month when the night is the darkest, since the moon isn't there to illuminate the blackness. For those uncomfortable with the dark, this can be a scary and troubling time.

But not for me. I enjoy the energy of a new moon. It's symbolic of new beginnings. It's a good time to set intentions for things you want to achieve. A chance to put new ideas in motion. A chance to ask for forgiveness for past actions. A chance to ask the universe for new things. For power. For strength. For hope.

A new start.

The power of the new moon is alive and well and I'm soaking it all in.

The winds of change are picking up.

Good things are coming.

Stay tuned...........

Sarah