Great Expectations...

Okay, so it's not often that I come here feeling the need to purely vent but, this is one of those days!!

I've always believed that once we graduated high school, relationships would become a bit more sophisticated (a la "High Fidelity" to be more specific!) but, I have quickly learned that when it comes to certain people, that is just not the case!

Personally, I have a huge issue with people who harbour expectations of others without ever expressing those expectations. A certain sequence of events is inevitable when dealing with these people and it usually follows a very similar pattern each time...something happens...person A is disappointed or angry with person B because their expectations (whatever they may be) have not been met and they spend the next three months being secretly resentful with you because you are suppose to know what you have done to make them upset.

The real kicker about these people (and the very common denominator) is that the only thing they ever really do is react. They never bother to stop and ask questions or have the decency to confront the person they are upset with...they just react to what they think are justified emotions without really having the guts to communicate their emotions in the right direction. To make it worse, they become passive aggressive...they are polite to your face while really, they are an anger ball just waiting to explode (and there is a strong likelyhood that they will lash out in rage one day when you least expect it and get blamed for everything that's ever happened to them since the age of five!!). However, they are never quite polite enough to hide the fact that they are pissed about something and all the while, you are suppose to the spend that time trying to figure out what the heck you have done to offend them this time (and when it comes to this breed of person...it's always something!).

I think that it should also be noted that these people most likely haunt the realms of your email contact list. My theory is that they mostly stick to email so that if an attempt is ever made to confront them...you can easily be thrown the silent treatment or some lame excuse about how you're misinterpreting their one word emails. Hostility can easily be denied in cyberspace!

I am very fortunate to have an incredible group of girlfriends. They are smart, funny, ambitious, thoughtful, beautiful and best of all, they are mature enough to handle their relationships like adults!!! I love that about them!!! As for these "other" people, I'm sorry to say that there have been a rash of them around lately and frankly, I am feeling that they may have pushed me to the end of my rope! For the most part, at worst, I can tolerate these people and the games they play but now, I'm just fed up!!!!

I'll admit that when it comes to relationships, I tend to be the eternal optimist. I am always hopeful that given enough time and understanding, a middle ground can always be found. However, and maybe this is something that has come with age, I am beginning to feel that energy spent on such endeavours can, at times, be a fruitless effort. Life is short and really amazing friends are very few and far between so, why spend so much time just trying to figure out the rules of someone else's game when you can spend that time with the fabulous people that actually have something to offer (other than reminding you of what life was like in grade nine when the extend of most people's communication was leaving notes in each other's lockers)??

Fear not my friends, there is a silver lining to all of this frustration: the season of lent! Though we are already three weeks into lent, it's never too late to find new ways to commit to the season. Personally, I have a tendency towards purging myself of chocolate and all other wonderful foods that make the world go around! I love going out for cheesecake with a girl friend or coming home to chocolate chip cookies but, after a busy festive season of holiday snacking, lent is usually a good time to re-evaluate whether or not chocolate cake is really the breakfast of champions!

It has, however, just occured to me that there is more than one part of us that may require the benefits of detox during lent. Maybe, just maybe, it is just as beneficial to purge ourselves of toxic relationships as it is to cleanse our bodies of our sugar overdoses. Cancerous relationships isn't something that is new to me however, finding the ability to just let go and walk away from them is a bit foreign. So often, we get so easily caught up in the games people play and let's be honest, rejection always sucks. Whether it's our first crush, the bully at school or the girls out there who are always trying to make us feel like they are better than us, rejection is something to be avoided, sometimes at all costs.

This is why I have decided that, three weeks into lent, I am going to endure the ultimate purge...the filtering of relationships (if you can even call them that) of people who are more interested in helping you sink than swim. I have given up trying to understand their motives but, instead, I am going recognize that my happiness is worth walking away from people whose intentions aren't genuine. I refuse to spend another minute trying to make things work with someone who just tries to chip away at my self-esteem!

So how's that for detox!?!?!

I try to think of it this way....since we're all in recovery from something...what harm is there in a little rehab to get us back on our feet?!?! Maybe I'll see you there!

-Gen

Happy Feet...

With the "great thaw" falling upon us (atleast temporarily!), you can't help but feel the natural energy of spring fast approaching. It's just so wonderful how coming out of hibernation puts everyone in such a friendly mood! To celebrate the sunshine and the countdown to spring...everyone must see the best movie trailer to hit theatres in ages.

Happy Feet was being previewed before the latest Harry Potter movie and if you ever need a smile...this is the place to find it!!! Turn up your speakers and join the quest to be "so unintentionally cool"!!

Coming to theatres near you...Happy Feet...November 2006!

It's A Boy!

Ladies and Gentlemen...please welcome the latest addition to the Smyth Family...our new nephew!!

KELLEN JACK SMYTH

Tuesday, February 21st @ 4:35pm

7lbs. 4oz.

Six Months and Counting...

Well, six months ago today...we were married! On a day much like today (minus the snow and about forty degrees warmer!!), Father Joe pronounced us Man and Wife!

It's hard to be believe that six months has gone by so quickly and yet, it feels like we've been together for so much longer than that.

We often get asked if married life is any different...and frankly, it's not!! It's still business as usual in the woods, except that now it's even more fun because we don't have the stress of planning a wedding to take up our time!!!

In the six months since we've been married, we've travelled the Hawaiian Islands...watched six of our friends buy new homes...purchased a new home of our own (then changed our minds!!!)...learned latin ballroom...experienced our first earthquake...received a new nephew (yeah Kellen!)...had another engagement in the family...travelled with friends...and watched the lives of those around change before our very eyes!

It's amazing really what life offers up over time and we can only imagine what our list will look like twenty-five years from now!

August 27th, 2005

The Ultimate Escape...

Every now and then, when the weight of the world gets heavy or I find myself a little off kilter, like most other people, I search for solace. Some people exercise, others eat Oreo cookies...I, go to bookstores. I love books. I have loved them for as long as I can remember and until the day I die, I hope that I always have a great novel in tow. Bookstores really are my great escape!

When I go to a bookstore (preferably with a mocha in one hand and a great jazz tune playing in the background), I get reminded of how many other things are going on in the world. My little journeys through the pages never fail to help me find my balance again. I just love getting lost in the language and getting attached to the characters. I truly think that the ability to put ones imagination and experiences on paper is among God's greatest gifts to the world.

I'll admit that I literally judge a book by it's cover!! With the huge diversity of literature out there to choose from, I really had to come up with a system to narrow down my selection! So, I tend to be drawn to those that I find the most aesthetically pleasing to the eye. With the exception of The Last Crossing by Guy Vanderhaeghe (it's all I could do to get through it!), my system seems to be working quite well so far...so I think that I'll stick to it!!

Currently, I am reading A Blade of Grass by Lewis DeSoto. It's quite good so far. It's about a family, a farm and the civil unrest that was taking place in Africa at the time. My absolute favourite books to date is A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (Oprah's "A Million Little Questions" is a blog for another time!!) and Rick Warren's A Purpose Driven Life. I have read A Purpose Driven Life probably four or five times now and I never get tired of the reflection that I get from him. I share it with family and friends every chance that I get and believe that this has, by far, been one of the most influential books that I have ever read.

Ultimately though, with every visit to the bookstore, I always find myself wanting to quit my job and spend the rest of my days in an over-sized leather chair, reading what the authors of the world have to say. What a life that would be!! But until then, I always have my favourite books to explore and new stories to find!

"A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking." - Jerry Seinfeld

-Gen

Snow For Sale...

The weather certainly never fails to keep us on our toes in the National Capital Region!

We came home on Monday night only to realize that we didn't have any power and though it came back on a couple of hours later, the Ottawa Hydro fix-it guys have been working relentlessly for days now to get the rest of our street powered up!

Though I have to say that with the unexpected snow fall yesterday...it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!! AGAIN!!

At the Age of 55...

• Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press from Mainz, Germany, publishes the first mass-produced edition of the Bible - 300 "42-line Bibles".
• Alessandro Volta, Italian physicist, invents the battery.
• Pablo Picasso paints Guernica, his harrowing mural of the Facist bombing of the Basque town.
• Bobby Riggs loses to Billie Jean King (age 29) in the tennis's "Battle of the Sexes".
• Ts'ai Lun, Chinese eunuch court officer, invents paper.
• Christina Olsen, a disabled Maine resident, poses for Andrew Wyeth's poignant Christina's World, one of the most popular American paintings.
• Cary Grant stars in Alfred Hitcock's North by Northwest.
• Fritz Wankel, German engineer, invents the rotary engine that will be named for him, the biggest improvement in internal combustion engines in more than a half-century.
• Rachel Carson, biologist, publishes Silent Spring, a warning about rampant pesticide use.
• Maimonides, rabbi and physician, writes Guide of the Perplexed, the famous 12th-century work that attempts better to unite science, philosophy, and religion.
• William Wyler begins filming his spectacle Ben-Hur.
• Irene Weir, painter, founds the School of Design and Liberal Arts, New York City.
• Alex Haley publishes his immensely popular multigenerational epic, Roots.
• Lorenzo Ghiberti completes his astonishing masterwork The Gates of Paradise, one of the finest artistic achievements of the Quattrocento.
• Neil Simon writes his comedy Brighton Beach Memoirs, the first in his "B" theatre trilogy about growing up.

So Dad...as you can see...there is always time for greatness!!

Happy Birthday!

What's Yours?

One of the fabulous parts of my job is when I get to go in every morning and search through everything from the Ottawa Citizen to the New York Times for the latest happenings in the art world. Generally, I am searching for articles and reviews regarding galleries, artists and recent exhibitions though, more specifically, I am usually keeping my eyes peeled for things related to the fine arts (which can be a rather debatable issue amongst some!).

However, every now and then, I come across something so intriguing that, although it may not really be up the fine arts alley, it is most certainly worthy of an honourable mention.

The most memorable review that I have come across was a few months ago in the Globe and Mail about a website that a guy had created for people to tell their deepest, darkest secrets. The rules being that your secret had to be submitted on a hand made postcard and your secret had to be something that you have never told another person before.

The result? A heart-wrenching display of amateur art and less than amateur confessions. The postcards poured in and so did, what seemed like, a redemption of sorts.

I spent a long time viewing people's submissions and in an intrusive sort of way, you feel like you should look away but, on the other hand, you appear to be looking at someone's freedom...the weight of their world finally unchained.

With Valentine's Day having just passed us by, the most recent submissions follow a rather predictable pattern but, none the less, the passion is there. The desire to leave the "untold" side of ourselves behind and walk away in another direction.

It made me wonder how many of us spend our entire lives trying to keep our secrets? How many of us spend our entire lives being trapped by a single moment or thought that we can't find the strength to admit? Is it because of what someone else will think of us? Or because of what we will think of ourselves?

We often say that our world is being plagued by a lack of grace and forgiveness. That over the years, our turn to violence and anger is a result of not being able to forgive other's wrongs against us, despite what the Lord's Prayer commands of us.

Is it not possible that the real plague is our inability to forgive ourselves? In not doing so, we have found ourselves with generations of people who spend their entire lives running from the ghosts of their secrets past? In turn, we've created an insatiable anger and instead of fighting for a cause, we fight for the person that we believe we haven't become.

We all have our little secrets and stories to tell. Some bigger than others but, either way, we all possess the ability to unchain ourselves from them.

So whether you find strength in a priest, a friend or the cosmic void that is cyberspace... what really matters, is that you find that strength...and use it towards the ultimate peace... forgiving yourself.

Peace be with you.

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

-Gen

February Blues...

Our lovely home of Ottawa has just had 5 centimetres of snow dumped on us and now we have approximately six hours of freezing rain to look forward to!! The tumultuous weather of Eastern Ontario is making us long for the days of our island life in Maui...


If you feel like daydreaming with us, check out the official site for the County of Maui in the beautiful Hawaiian Islands...it will make you wish that you had your surf board!

Oh Maui...how we miss thee!

Up and Running...

Well low and behold, we have finally found ourselves amongst the world of "the blog"!! We are finally ready to put all of our "random-ness" out there for all to see...

So stay tuned and watch us take the blogger world by storm!!

If you show us yours...we'll show you ours!