Dear Friends!
I’ve been running around aimlessly for the past ten days trying to keep up with the endless stretch of post-it notes that lay before me! I feel like my life at this time is a disarray of scribbles notes and random appointments that I either do or do not manage to remember. Really…what’s better than a life of chaos to keep you out of trouble?!?!
Anyways, my inbox is currently overflowing with messages that I had full intention of replying to but instead, have begun to haunt me in the night as yet another day goes by. As I turn off my light before bed, I can hear the likes of my hotmail and facebook accounts quietly whispering my name as a reminder of just how far behind I really am!
So what’s a girl to do when confronted with a panic-inducing schedual that has no end in sight??? She blogs!!!
I currently have a whole list of things that I’ve been meaning to write about (I’m sure it’s written on one of my post-it notes somewhere!!!) but right now, I will take this opportunity to use my blog as the “stress reliever/multi-tasker” that I so desperately need right now. While I would love to be able to sit down and reply to everyone one eloquent email at a time…the truth is, at this rate, your reply would likely come as a 2008 Christmas card sometime in early December!! That would be another perfectionist’s worst nightmare! So for this brief moment…I have a Starbucks in hand…the Blue Crush soundtrack on to induce mellow feelings of sun and surf…and my sexy laptop to let my fingers do the talking!! And it goes a little something like this…
Needless to say that 2008 has kept us on our toes and slightly out of trouble!! While Steve and I knew that the first half of the year was promising to be eventful, I don’t think either of us could have anticipated the constant thrill that comes with so much excitement…the most obvious of which being our new house. We have our final inspection next Tuesday and it will be the first time that we’ll see it completed and looking even remotely live-able. From the outside, it looks like home…on the inside, it’s still a mystery!!! I think that the two of us are enduring a slight case of the “second-guessing” phase regarding the endless choices that we had to make. Now that we are on the single digit countdown, it has also brought with it a unique anxiety about the final product. It’s been so long since we made those choices that we’ve almost forgot what to anticipate and in times like that, the imagination tends to take on a life of its own!! On the flip side though, we are, of course, beyond excited! After eight months waiting and planning, we are ready to take on our new home with a vengeance!! Slowly, as the days go by, our apartment looks more and more barren. Boxes are piled up against every wall and it’s becoming very apparent just how much stuff can really get collected when you stop looking!
A group of us ran the Hypothermic Half-Marathon yesterday morning and for lack of better words…it sucked!! We found ourselves in the deep frost of an 8am Sunday morning doing the same 2.5 kilometer stretch of the Experimental Farm EIGHT TIMES!!! I don’t think that I need to go into much depth here about just how boring this can be on a well-trained day nonetheless a day when your legs feel like lead! To make things even worse, we had to run right through the finish line in order to complete our last 1.1 kilometer only to find out that they actually stopped running the clock. Thanks for that Running Room!! Nothing makes a runner happier than having to imagine the misery of their finishing time (jerks!)!! On a good note though, I finally finished a race with Jesper, Kathy and Charlotte!! There isn’t three other people that I would rather be more miserable with than the three that I ran with!!! I’m sure that we’ll find ourselves laughing about this race in due time but, when I came home tonight, I found a registration form for the Ottawa Race Weekend in my mailbox and the only thing I could think was “Pfft”!!!!! So as of right now...I'm not laughing yet!!!
Plans for our trip are coming along nicely. In total, we have purchased a total of ten airline tickets and earned ourselves a boatload of points on our credit card!!! Like Canada, Australia is one of those places in which you can’t really see the Rockies and Niagara Falls in a day trip…hence, you will find yourself logging many miles in as little time as possible. All of our visas are arranged and our accommodations are reserved so really, the last thing left to do is figure out how to entertain ourselves for twenty-six hours worth of flying!!! I have a sneaking suspicious that I may find out things about my husband that I would rather not know!!
In the midst of all of this, there is of course work. Life at the Gallery is going well. We are opening the exhibit for the Saskatchewan sculptor, Joe Fafard, this week and it’s turning out to be quite the anticipated show. The reviews so far are wonderful and I’m really excited to see the installation once it’s complete. One of the most fascinating elements of working in an art gallery (for me anyways!) is when you get to work on an exhibit in which the artist is still living. It just brings such dimension and perspective to hear about it directly from the mouth of the creator and from my experience, they are generally so humbled to have their work shown in a national institution. It’s an incredible thing to be a part of.
On a side note, Lent is coming up. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what commitment and sacrifices I want to make for Lent. I have been feeling lately as though I have not really been outwardly expressing the best version of myself that I could be and that upsets me a little bit. I’ve been so busy and caught up with things that I haven’t really been able to stop and take inventory on how I’ve been feeling of late. This has created a bit of an imbalance in some friendships of mine that are very important to me. I’ve been having emotions towards them that I am unable to explain, and therefore, have been unable to understand. I do know however, that as of late, I have been feeling anxious about whether or not I matter as much to some people in my life as they do to me. For some, this may seem like a silly concern but, for me, it leaves me feeling as though I need to protect myself. It leaves me feeling as though I can’t get too attached because I feel a strong possibility of coming to the harsh reality that my role in someone’s life wasn’t as I once thought.
There are two people in my life in particular that bring out this inner struggle in me. Both mean the world to me and both have such a strong sense of connection around them that I often wonder if there is any room in it for me. Steve says that we don’t always have to mean as much to others as they do to us, and for the most part (**sigh**), I would agree with that but sometimes, you just meet and know people that you want to “belong” to the same way they “belong” to you. And sometimes, the thought of not “belonging” to them hurts more than the thought of not having them at all. Do you think this is an only child thing?? Perhaps an abandonment thing?? Please…bring on the therapy!!!!! Anyways, this having been said, I’m trying to find a way to fit this fear and inner struggle into my Lenten commitment. I haven’t really shared much about this with anyone yet as this insecurity isn’t really something that I’m very proud of but, I realize now that it’s been making me sad…and while I probably should have shared it with God before sharing it here…I do hope He’ll understand!
So, here we are, nearly through the month of January already and I can hardly believe my eyes. There is this great new song by Raine Maida that I think of often right now. The chorus goes “If I knew now what I knew then…I’d back up and do it all again…I’d take a bow…take it real slow...take a ride down the yellow brick road…and wise up”. Every time I hear it, it reminds me of the days in elementary school when summer break seemed to take forever to go by and now, here we are, just wishing that the days would slow down long enough to write back to everyone one at a time instead of all at once. Wise up indeed!
Thank you to everyone that has touched based recently…I appreciate hearing from you!
Maureen…I haven’t forgotten about you…our conversation isn’t over yet!!
Kate…HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY beautiful girl. I wish I could have been there to tell you in person. xoxo.
Russ…what kind of radio station madness have you created over there in NB?!?!
Lesley…I have your buttons here ;)
“Victoria Chris”…the canal is open now and it makes me miss running with you!
Bermuda friend…we still haven’t convinced you into telling us who you are yet, huh?!?!?!
Abby...thank you thank you thank you for calling! I'm WILL call you back (and hopefully before your little one is old enough to answer the phone!!!!)!
Till next time everyone!!
Much love,
Gen xoxo
I’ve been running around aimlessly for the past ten days trying to keep up with the endless stretch of post-it notes that lay before me! I feel like my life at this time is a disarray of scribbles notes and random appointments that I either do or do not manage to remember. Really…what’s better than a life of chaos to keep you out of trouble?!?!
Anyways, my inbox is currently overflowing with messages that I had full intention of replying to but instead, have begun to haunt me in the night as yet another day goes by. As I turn off my light before bed, I can hear the likes of my hotmail and facebook accounts quietly whispering my name as a reminder of just how far behind I really am!
So what’s a girl to do when confronted with a panic-inducing schedual that has no end in sight??? She blogs!!!
I currently have a whole list of things that I’ve been meaning to write about (I’m sure it’s written on one of my post-it notes somewhere!!!) but right now, I will take this opportunity to use my blog as the “stress reliever/multi-tasker” that I so desperately need right now. While I would love to be able to sit down and reply to everyone one eloquent email at a time…the truth is, at this rate, your reply would likely come as a 2008 Christmas card sometime in early December!! That would be another perfectionist’s worst nightmare! So for this brief moment…I have a Starbucks in hand…the Blue Crush soundtrack on to induce mellow feelings of sun and surf…and my sexy laptop to let my fingers do the talking!! And it goes a little something like this…
Needless to say that 2008 has kept us on our toes and slightly out of trouble!! While Steve and I knew that the first half of the year was promising to be eventful, I don’t think either of us could have anticipated the constant thrill that comes with so much excitement…the most obvious of which being our new house. We have our final inspection next Tuesday and it will be the first time that we’ll see it completed and looking even remotely live-able. From the outside, it looks like home…on the inside, it’s still a mystery!!! I think that the two of us are enduring a slight case of the “second-guessing” phase regarding the endless choices that we had to make. Now that we are on the single digit countdown, it has also brought with it a unique anxiety about the final product. It’s been so long since we made those choices that we’ve almost forgot what to anticipate and in times like that, the imagination tends to take on a life of its own!! On the flip side though, we are, of course, beyond excited! After eight months waiting and planning, we are ready to take on our new home with a vengeance!! Slowly, as the days go by, our apartment looks more and more barren. Boxes are piled up against every wall and it’s becoming very apparent just how much stuff can really get collected when you stop looking!
A group of us ran the Hypothermic Half-Marathon yesterday morning and for lack of better words…it sucked!! We found ourselves in the deep frost of an 8am Sunday morning doing the same 2.5 kilometer stretch of the Experimental Farm EIGHT TIMES!!! I don’t think that I need to go into much depth here about just how boring this can be on a well-trained day nonetheless a day when your legs feel like lead! To make things even worse, we had to run right through the finish line in order to complete our last 1.1 kilometer only to find out that they actually stopped running the clock. Thanks for that Running Room!! Nothing makes a runner happier than having to imagine the misery of their finishing time (jerks!)!! On a good note though, I finally finished a race with Jesper, Kathy and Charlotte!! There isn’t three other people that I would rather be more miserable with than the three that I ran with!!! I’m sure that we’ll find ourselves laughing about this race in due time but, when I came home tonight, I found a registration form for the Ottawa Race Weekend in my mailbox and the only thing I could think was “Pfft”!!!!! So as of right now...I'm not laughing yet!!!
Plans for our trip are coming along nicely. In total, we have purchased a total of ten airline tickets and earned ourselves a boatload of points on our credit card!!! Like Canada, Australia is one of those places in which you can’t really see the Rockies and Niagara Falls in a day trip…hence, you will find yourself logging many miles in as little time as possible. All of our visas are arranged and our accommodations are reserved so really, the last thing left to do is figure out how to entertain ourselves for twenty-six hours worth of flying!!! I have a sneaking suspicious that I may find out things about my husband that I would rather not know!!
In the midst of all of this, there is of course work. Life at the Gallery is going well. We are opening the exhibit for the Saskatchewan sculptor, Joe Fafard, this week and it’s turning out to be quite the anticipated show. The reviews so far are wonderful and I’m really excited to see the installation once it’s complete. One of the most fascinating elements of working in an art gallery (for me anyways!) is when you get to work on an exhibit in which the artist is still living. It just brings such dimension and perspective to hear about it directly from the mouth of the creator and from my experience, they are generally so humbled to have their work shown in a national institution. It’s an incredible thing to be a part of.
On a side note, Lent is coming up. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what commitment and sacrifices I want to make for Lent. I have been feeling lately as though I have not really been outwardly expressing the best version of myself that I could be and that upsets me a little bit. I’ve been so busy and caught up with things that I haven’t really been able to stop and take inventory on how I’ve been feeling of late. This has created a bit of an imbalance in some friendships of mine that are very important to me. I’ve been having emotions towards them that I am unable to explain, and therefore, have been unable to understand. I do know however, that as of late, I have been feeling anxious about whether or not I matter as much to some people in my life as they do to me. For some, this may seem like a silly concern but, for me, it leaves me feeling as though I need to protect myself. It leaves me feeling as though I can’t get too attached because I feel a strong possibility of coming to the harsh reality that my role in someone’s life wasn’t as I once thought.
There are two people in my life in particular that bring out this inner struggle in me. Both mean the world to me and both have such a strong sense of connection around them that I often wonder if there is any room in it for me. Steve says that we don’t always have to mean as much to others as they do to us, and for the most part (**sigh**), I would agree with that but sometimes, you just meet and know people that you want to “belong” to the same way they “belong” to you. And sometimes, the thought of not “belonging” to them hurts more than the thought of not having them at all. Do you think this is an only child thing?? Perhaps an abandonment thing?? Please…bring on the therapy!!!!! Anyways, this having been said, I’m trying to find a way to fit this fear and inner struggle into my Lenten commitment. I haven’t really shared much about this with anyone yet as this insecurity isn’t really something that I’m very proud of but, I realize now that it’s been making me sad…and while I probably should have shared it with God before sharing it here…I do hope He’ll understand!
So, here we are, nearly through the month of January already and I can hardly believe my eyes. There is this great new song by Raine Maida that I think of often right now. The chorus goes “If I knew now what I knew then…I’d back up and do it all again…I’d take a bow…take it real slow...take a ride down the yellow brick road…and wise up”. Every time I hear it, it reminds me of the days in elementary school when summer break seemed to take forever to go by and now, here we are, just wishing that the days would slow down long enough to write back to everyone one at a time instead of all at once. Wise up indeed!
Thank you to everyone that has touched based recently…I appreciate hearing from you!
Maureen…I haven’t forgotten about you…our conversation isn’t over yet!!
Kate…HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY beautiful girl. I wish I could have been there to tell you in person. xoxo.
Russ…what kind of radio station madness have you created over there in NB?!?!
Lesley…I have your buttons here ;)
“Victoria Chris”…the canal is open now and it makes me miss running with you!
Bermuda friend…we still haven’t convinced you into telling us who you are yet, huh?!?!?!
Abby...thank you thank you thank you for calling! I'm WILL call you back (and hopefully before your little one is old enough to answer the phone!!!!)!
Till next time everyone!!
Much love,
Gen xoxo
p.s. I'll post pictures soon and I’m sad Heath Ledger died ☹
2 comments:
Greetings returned to our thoughtful writer. Writing is difficult until we appreciate that we, all of us, live "storied lives" on a journey. Some of us make and design our journey and others of us simply live through our movie. How we write our story is the key. Uncla Neil
Well, I love the name, Hypothermic Half and I had considered it for 2009 but now I think I may just stay home and take an ice bath insdead. But as "they" say, at least you finished. GOOD JOB!!!
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