darn good advice...

...don't buy into everything. But do buy a great denim jacket because it goes with everything!

fen shui for the soul...

When Steve and I first moved into our house, there was something about our dining room that I just didn’t like. Something about it, aesthetically, wasn’t working for me. I am certainly not an interior designer by any means, but I do know when something doesn’t fit. Often times though, I don’t know what it is that doesn’t fit. Like life, all of my design preferences revolve around balance. I need things to look and feel balanced in order for me to enjoy them and if they don’t feel right, it will nag at me endlessly until I make it right.

Our dining room was especially daunting for me because I had never had a dining room before. The second floor of our house (home to the kitchen, living and dining room) is very open and in turn, offers a unique challenge when going from decorating a small space to decorating such a large space. We didn’t want to over clutter the room but at the same time, the large wall added a rather dramatic advantage that we had never enjoyed before.

One night, Steve came home from work and I had removed everything in our dining room and had it all sitting in the kitchen. I stood looking at the dining room, completely bare, with nothing but the chandelier and the table. I had gotten so frustrated with the look of this space that I had just decided to start all over again.

Slowly, throughout the night, Steve and I began to replace certain items in the room and one at a time, we rebuilt the décor of our dining room. In doing so, it was much easier to identify what was throwing off the balance of everything else. Eventually, we discovered the culprit and our dining room is now one of our favourite and most loved places in our house.

This strategy of “going bare” had never occurred to me before. In the past, I would just put on my best fen shui hat and play around with things until it looked right. This time though, I was so overwhelmed, mostly by all of the little things, that I felt the need to disassemble and start again from scratch. It worked well though. By pulling apart the bigger picture, all of the small details weren’t so intimidating.

This summer, my life felt much the same way my dining room first felt; cluttered, unbalanced and it made me cringe every time I looked at it! Also like my dining room, the task of figuring out the one piece that didn’t seem to fit felt overbearing and unappealing. Come August though, I decided to try the same technique that I had used on the dining room; remove all the activities from my life that were taking up space (good and bad), leaving only the essentials, and slowly but surely, start putting them back in to see what works and what doesn’t work. Of course, there was a bit of unease towards this process as it also meant removing some of the things that I love as well but sometimes, even the things that we love most need some tweaking.

So, that’s what I did. I took a nice long break for all the “extras” in my life to see how it would fit. For two months now I haven’t run with my group (so sad!), volunteered, attended church activities or extended myself beyond the fundamental activities throughout my day. I am normally quite a busy person, so this experience proved to be more difficult than I anticipated but it was good though…enlightening. It was refreshing to see what it is that actually consumes my time on a daily basis and how much they contribute to my well-being (or don’t).

The result wasn’t necessarily surprising. I concluded that like space in a house, it’s not really a matter of how much time you have (because that’s not going to change!) as much as it matters how you use the time that you are given. Running with some of the best training buddies ever – GOOD! Watching the new remake of Beverly Hills 90210 – NOT GOOD! Bible study and church BBQs – GOOD! Facebook – NOT SO GOOD! Reading a delightful book with a yummy coffee in hand – VERY GOOD! An hour on a crowded, smelly bus – TERRIBLE! It’s all a matter of priorities really! But sometimes you have to blow the dust off in order to even catch a glimpse of them.

I’ll admit that it’s a little bit of a shock to the system going from two months of “quiet time” back into the full swing of things but I’m trying to consider it kind of like going back to school; no more slacking…it’s time to put yourself to good use again (at least for five days out of the week!). As my day timer is slowly filling up again with lots of delightful commitments, I’m trying really hard to keep a close eye on it and not let things become too cluttered again. After all, I’m a busy girl…I don’t have a lot of time for cleaning anymore!

and baby makes many...

If everyone recalls correctly…about nine months ago, there was a rash of baby announcements made within our circle of friends! All of which actually, mere weeks apart! It appears that the water in the area had been tainted with something delightful and miracles were happening all over the place!

Well, ultrasounds have been had, bellies have grown, bedrooms have been redecorated and at long last, all of the new family members have happily and safely arrived. Isn’t God great!

First up was Colin and Sandra who welcomed their beautiful baby girl…Brooklyn Alexander, to the world. This little one will likely be dog-sledding before she learns to walk if Daddy has anything to do with it!!

A week later was the arrival of a second son to Mark and Hélène…Rhys Donaldson, and if this little guy looks anything like his older brother (we haven’t seen pictures yet), Mom and Dad are going to have their hands full when all the girls start randomly showing up around the age of twelve and giggling incessantly over how handsome their boys are!!! Good luck with that!!!

And last but certainly not least is the newest member of the family for Mark and Trish…baby Noah Brinkman, who despite potentially fun stories down the road, was not named because of the extreme rain fall and flood warnings! Fear not, baby Noah…you don’t need to start building a boat just yet!

Congratulations to all of our fabulous friends who clearly, make equally fabulous babies!

the fall of summer...

It’s the first day of fall today and my favourite time of year. Lindsay and I were sitting outside at lunch today and commenting on the amazing smell in the air. It’s the kind of day where it’s summer in the sun and fall in the shade, and there is a golden shimmer cast upon everything in sight. It’s stunning.

I’m always relieved when fall comes around. I’m not a person that is very comfortable with summer. I love the warmth and the sunshine but I find the summer to be very unpredictable and it makes me anxious. We are always out of our routine in the summer and something in the air seems to flip the world upside down. Most people seem to desperately long for the reprieve from the cold weather whereas I just consider it a season to be survived. It’s as though I hold my breath and just pray that I make it out alive. So far I have.

I’ve never entered into the month of September as the girl that raves about months spent at the beach or on patios. Instead, I’m the girl eager to wear all my new fall clothes even if it’s still thirty degrees out! With the exception of the summer that I got engaged and the summer that I got married, I don’t generally remember summers fondly. I’m usually chomping at the bit for it to be over so I can enter into a safer and more familiar time of year. Odd, I know but it wasn’t always this way.

Growing up, I used to spend the better part of my summers out a ranch just outside of town. I would spend my days swimming, camping and best of all, riding. My Mother always worked so hard each year to be able to send me and every year, I couldn’t wait to be back. It’s actually kind of strange because I was never very comfortable in groups. I was intimidated very easily and large groups (especially of girls) made me feel overwhelmed and scared. But I loved the horses and I did love my summers spent with them. I made new friends, got out of the city and gave my Mom some space from the confines of being a single parent.

My favourite memories of the ranch were getting up really early in the morning to round up the horses from the fields. Anyone who knows me well knows that I am not a morning person in the least but, I could never resist the opportunity to wake up to the early morning air and walk out into the fields that were lightly covered in dew as the horses stood in the distance. Together, we would watch the sun come up. It was so quiet and peaceful at that time of day and although I was young, the staff always let me go out and start bringing in the horses for breakfast. It was gorgeous to watch them first thing in the morning and I always got the impression that they talked about me when I wasn’t looking!

I went to the ranch for a long time and because I essentially grew up there and had such a strong understanding of the horses, I was offered the opportunity to work there at a fairly young age. Of course, I jumped at the opportunity to be paid for doing something that I loved but there were challenges that I would have no way of anticipating or dealing with.

Being younger than everyone else was hard. As a teenager, the two year difference between my peers and I was significant. The other girls spent most of their time chasing boys and getting excited about make-up (yes, even at camp!), and I just wasn’t there yet nor did I care to be. Our differences were obvious and it became a reason for them to dislike me. To add insult to injury, those same boys that were being chased became my friends and started to spend more time with me. I wasn’t completely naïve though. Even at sixteen I understood that my long legs and teenage waist contributed to their motives but in the end, we were friends and continued to be for many years. But these friendships didn’t go over well with the girls that I had to share a tent with all summer. In fact, it just fueled their dislike towards me and eventually I just found myself going home on days off crying and pleading with my Mom not to make me go back.

Late August, the summer that I turned sixteen, I was on site duty in the girl’s area for the night. We were deep in the woods but still close enough that I could see the lights from the chalet in the distance. Most of the girls in the area were under the age of ten and had been asleep for a couple of hours already. As eleven o’clock rolled around, I sat at the picnic table with my flashlight and a book. I heard the sound of someone approaching in the woods and when I pointed my flashlight in their direction, I noticed that it was one of the off-duty guys coming to check up on me. He and his sister were new to the ranch that year and we had become fast friends two months earlier. He was a calm and gentle person, as was his younger sister, and like me, he wanted to “belong”. He was a year older than me and his family had recently moved to the region, leaving behind all the friends and family that he and his sister had ever known. Sending the two of them to the ranch was their way of letting them make new friends while their parents settled into their new home and routine.

He came and sat with me at the picnic table and asked about my night. It had been a couple of days since I had last seen him and we found ourselves catching up on the recent happenings of our lives in the woods! It was no secret that, given the opportunity, he would have happily welcomed the idea of becoming more than just friends and more so, it had sort of become a running joke among staff throughout the summer. For all of his great qualities though, a summer love simply wasn’t part of what I was looking for and the closer we came to going home, the more I encouraged him to set his sights elsewhere.

Part way through our conversation, I asked him if he would watch the area for me while I went to go and grab a drink. I turned around to head to the chalet and somewhere between blinking, breathing and thinking…I was on the ground. He had come up from behind me and had pinned me on the ground. His face was right next to mine and I remember asking him what he was doing but as the words came out of my mouth, I already knew. I begged him to get off of me but he was heavy and I had never felt so small and tiny in my entire life. He was determined; If I wasn't going to give myself to him, he was going to take me...one way or another.

I don’t know how much time passed but I heard my name. Someone was calling my name and he heard it too. He froze in a panic, looked me dead in the eyes and made me swear not to tell anyone what had happened. He got up and stood behind a nearby tree in the darkness. At that same moment, a girl came bursting through the woods, grabbed me by the wrist and started walking with me on the dirt road towards the chalet. She kept asking me over and over again, before I could even answer, “Are you okay?”

As we walked in the cold night air, I could feel the dampness beginning to form. The trees were quiet and peaceful, all sounds had been made silent and as this girl marched with an air of intention, I followed like a lost little girl desperately searching for my parents. I kept looking over my shoulder for the shadow that I knew was behind me somewhere and each time I did, my breathing just lingered in the air until I turned my head and saw the lights again. Eventually, I just stopped in my tracks. I stood standing in the night, staring at this girl…dirt in my hair, my clothes torn, my body scratched and once again she asked “are you okay?”

She knew.

Just then the silence broke as footsteps ran through the woods. I, too, broke at that moment. As my senses finally began to realize what had just occurred, I threw my self on the ground in fear and tears overwhelmed me. The girl guided me up and we ran through the night again until we reached the safety of light. In my sobbing, I kept asking her how she knew and she kept telling me to keep moving and that she would explain later. So that’s what we did. Leaves rustled, branches broke, breaths quickened and the innocence of summer had disappeared forever.

It was later explained to me that my friend had been “persuaded” to do it. The other girls that disliked me so much had promised him unconditional friendship…but there was a price to pay; Me. Acceptance and popularity was the game and I was the pawn. He was asked to prove him self to them by surpassing his feelings for me. Adolescent loneliness can do crazy things to people.

As it turns out though, one girl’s morals ran deeper than her desire to belong and she came for me. She pulled me from the wreckage and carried me home. I don’t really remember anything after making it to the chalet. I remember writing everything down. I remember waking up the next morning to the snickers and grins of girls who felt they had conquered in the end. I remember refusing to press charges and I remember packing my things to go home. I remember telling my Mom about it over dinner one night as calmly and with as little detail as possible. I remember fall coming and I remember never going back to the ranch ever again.

A few months later, I got a letter from him. He told me how sorry he was and how terrible he felt. He told me that he had been going to counseling and he hoped that I would one day be able to forgive him. It was a nice letter…a sincere letter. Truth be told, I don’t ever remember being afraid of him. I was, most certainly, terrified of what was happening but I don’t remember being afraid of him personally. He kept saying my name and somehow, it made me feel like he didn’t want to be hurting me. There was pain in his eyes and even to this day, I sometimes wonder if that night hurt him more than it hurt me. Of course, everything about it left its mark; For a long time I was terrified of large groups and its only been recently that I’ve been able to be comfortable having trusting friendships with other people. I still get very nervous when people are behind me and I haven’t quite grown comfortable of the dark again. Mostly though, I miss the summer. I miss looking forward to the summer and yearning for its warm sunshine. I miss feeling the excitement of its unexpectedness and I miss breathing deeply the first time I feel its warm breeze over my face without a pain of anxiety filling my body.

While I have learned to manage and accept my feelings towards the summer that I turned sixteen, I still find myself wishing sometimes that I could live in a world only of fall.

helium's top rated girl!

So not too long ago, I joined a network of online freelance writers to see how my writing would be received among my cyber peers. Helium.com is a rather large and intricate network filled with any number of topics to submit to from politics and personal finance to arts and humanities. As a member, you post your articles to whatever channel you choose and other members rate your work. Each time you get rated, you move up or down in the list of articles relative to how others have been rated. What’s great about this site is that it’s also a marketplace for publications looking for specific articles. The better your ratings are, the more credible and appealing your work becomes to them and they are free to purchase your work directly from the site.

By no means did I join the network in anticipation of being published. Mostly, it was just to take my writing beyond my blog site to see how other writers (some professional) would rate my work. As it turns out, they are rating it fairly nicely! I’ve only submitted three articles so far but all of them have rated in the top 50% and just this morning, my most recent article became the top rated in its category! I’m so excited!

Below is the article that I submitted, which has been tweaked to the helium writing guidelines from a previous post that I had written. I submitted it under the category of Photography: Humour, which I was very apprehensive about doing because despite my best efforts…I don’t consider my writing very humorous at all!!

I realize that this is such a tiny baby step in the big, bad world of writing but right now, being at the top of Helium’s Photography: Humour list feels like being at the top of the New York Times Bestseller list!!!

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Picture This...
Article Submitted By:
Genevieve V. Georget-Smyth

Picture this…It's eight grade and you are at one of your last elementary school dances. The disco ball is turning, the lights are flashing and the DJ is playing something that you've heard on the radio a thousand times already (in my day, it would have been something by Heavy D or Criss Cross, remember them?) when suddenly, a slow song comes on. The gymnasium suddenly parts like the Red Sea, with all of the guys against one wall and all of the girls against the other. The teachers who are chaperoning the evening look about as uncomfortable as everyone else feels and somehow, you all know that you're all thinking the very same thing…who's going to make the first move? While everyone is standing there, time is slowly ticking away as you are contemplating whether or not you have the guts to ask THAT guy or girl (okay, never mind, ANY guy or girl) to dance. Slowly, one brave person begins to walk across the gymnasium into the adolescent equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle and the song ends. The moment is over and then TLC suddenly comes on the speakers reminding you not to chase after waterfalls…stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to!

This scenario, like so many others, is a perfect example of what happens when we let the moment slip away. When we long for something but, neglect to take the opportunity because of fear or insecurity or as Bono would so eloquently put it "we're stuck in a moment that we can't get out of".

What happens when we stand there against the wall of the gymnasium, staring at that one single person that we so desperately want to approach? Is it a fear of rejection? Fear of what we know? Or fear of what we don't know? I think that in many cases, our imagined reality (that the guy/girl of our elementary school dreams secretly has a crush on us and wants to ask us to run away to Mexico with them!) is better than the potential truth of our current reality (that they may say no and immediately go running for the hills!).

Here's the thing though…how often, when weighing these odds, do we stop to consider the difference between probability versus possibility? Anything is possible but the odds of the worse possible scenario happening are a lot less in our favour when we consider the probability of it happening! All this to say that, okay, perhaps that guy/girl won't suddenly be stuffing your desk with little Garfield Valentine cards but, odds are that they also aren't suddenly going to transfer schools the following Monday just so they don't have to look you in the eye ever again! My guess is, whatever does happen, come grade nine, it won't matter anyways because you'll find yourself in a whole new adolescent abyss and four years of just trying to avoid embarrassment! With that being said though, you will also never have to look back and wonder if those four years could have potentially been spent on the beaches of Mexico ordering virgin daiquiris with your elementary school flame!

How many of these little things have happened to you? A moment comes and provides the best, and possibly the only, opportunity and we spend so much time contemplating it and weighing its options that before we know it…it's gone. How many times have you failed to seize the day? Seizing the moment, any moment, is guaranteed to do two things; first, it is guaranteed to throw you into the unknown. What's interesting about this is that this is why most people don't seize it fear of the unknown. Secondly, it is guaranteed to change your life. What's interesting about this is that this is why most people DO seize it; regardless of the outcome, your life will be altered in some manner and more times than not, in a forward motion. Either way though, you will never be left wondering what could have been.

So, after spending the day reflecting upon this enlightenment, I noticed that there is one thing in particular that I have never seized…my passion for photography. My husband and I collect photographs, usually purchasing a new work to mark each new occasion in our relationship; moving in together, getting married, our honeymoon. I simply love photography and always have. Perhaps it's my love of people watching or the fact that I'm highly intuitive when it comes to people's emotions but whatever it is, I feel the need to capture it somehow. Oddly enough though, I've never taken up photography and I've hardly even owned a camera before! And, much to my surprise, I can explain this (God bless psychology classes!); I have no idea whether or not I would make a good photographer but, my imagined reality that I'm an award winning photographer in hiding is better than the potentially true reality that I'm a terrible photographer altogether. Crazy, I know! But sometimes, we just want to believe something so badly that the possibility, whether its true or not, is easier than the probability.

So, what's a girl to do when confronted with this dilemma? Well, you have to allow your hand to let go of the wall and make the long journey to the other side of the gymnasium with everyone watching (yes, even the teachers!) and you have to ask that cute boy from home room if he'll dance with you because they are only going to play Boyz II Men once tonight and you better believe that you are going to be in love when they do! And you know what…even if he says no, you can still find joy in knowing that the moment you crossed over to the other side of the line, everyone else took a deep breath and did the same thing. And because everyone else was so busy worrying about their own sweaty palms, they didn't even notice that you had to swallow your pride, walk away and touch up your cherry flavoured lip-gloss!

So that's what I did…I let go of the wall, seized a giant online camera sale and bought a Nikon D40 (go big or go home, right?!?). It's sleek, sophisticated and perfect for capturing our life on film! I'm certainly not saying that National Geographic will soon be knocking at our door but, at the very least, we now have a digital witness to our lives; Some thing and some way to look back and smile at the moments gone by…the moments that we seized so we'd never be left wondering.

calling all followers...

I know that everyone wants to be a leader but in this case...following is good!

Blogger just came up with a new widget feature called "Follow" which essentially allows me to have my very own fan club! Am I excited about this feature? We'll see!

As flattering as this could be...it could also be the universe's way of seeking revenge on me for having the following voice mail message:

"Hi! You've reached Gen and Steve. Unfortunately we can't come to the phone right now but if you think you're important, leave a message and if we think you're important, we'll call you back."

So, if you're a fan (preferably of a none "stalk-ish" nature!)...scroll to the bottom of the sidebar and be the first to be a follower!! Please...my ego is counting on you...

(and if in a few weeks time, you notice that the follow feature has mysteriously disappeared and our voice mail message has changed...you'll know that karma had its way with me!!!)

ahead by a century...

I have a confession to make…

Yesterday, I pumped gas for the first time!! This may come as shocking to some and even shameful to others but it’s true! The reality is that I’ve never owned a car before and hence, the opportunity to fill it with gas never presented itself until now! I’ve spent, quite literally, all of my driving eligible days living downtown and until I met Steve, a car was never a part of my life. Even now, Steve is really the one who uses our car the most and in turn, maintains it. I take it out for the odd shopping trip from time to time but more or less, our set of wheels is Steve’s baby!

Steve has been away in Calgary for most of the week which meant that Tugger and I were left to hold down the fort on our own. More importantly though, this also meant that with my chauffeur out of town, I found myself at the ripe old age of thirty experiencing my first solo excursion to the gas station!!! I was a bit shaky going in but I managed to keep my cool and figure things out without any damage to myself or the vehicle!! High fives all around!!

This does lead me to my second confession though…I love being domestic!

This may not come as a surprise to those who know me well but it did come as a bit of surprise to even to me! With Steve away, I’ve also been doing everything else around the house that either Steve would do or we would do together; Grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, getting the mail, laundry, feeding the cat. All in all, I’ve been a one man band this week and guess what…I LOVE IT! What’s funny is that none of this is new to me. I lived for years by myself before Steve came along and all of those things had to be done then too but somehow, with age perhaps, I’ve come to develop a certain appreciation for being able to maintain the comforts of home.

I’m sure as I write this, there are women out there convinced that I am the demise of our gender and would gladly wait in line at the chance to shake the 1950s out of my system but I almost find it necessary to step up and admit to the fact that, while I’ve spent a lifetime working towards my career, it’s possible that I could be very happy (dare I say it) without it.

One of my favourite writers, Sarah Ban Breathnach, has spent a lot of time writing about the Victorian era…a time when it was actually considered an art to maintain a home and those that lived within it. The ability to achieve balance and serenity within the home was held in the highest of regards and no amount of corporate ladder climbing could compare. During the Victorian days, home truly was where the heart is and they cherished it as such.

Even decades later, during the Depression, women everywhere made it their mission to find happiness in the home. While there was very little to go around, they quickly learned that home had far less to do with monetary value as it did the nurturing that went into it. Calm spaces, warm atmospheres, organized living…this is potentially what maintained so many people through some very dark days.

It’s not likely that you’ll soon find me standing in my kitchen with my hair in rollers as I bake muffins, but it’s reassuring to know that there was a time and a place where my love of cleaning would have fit in just fine and even more so, I could have raved about the likes of grocery shopping and pumping gas without being looked at cross-eyed or concern that I might be hospitalized!

But so it is with life…the best artists are never fully appreciated until they’re gone!

it's just that easy...

It’s a really, cold, dark and dreary day in Ottawa today. It’s been raining for a number of days now (tail end of Ike) and I’ve been shocked to see how much the gloom of such weather can suck the soul right out of me. It always makes me think of my Mom who lives out in the middle of the ocean. As beautiful as it is out there, she’s always telling me stories about months passing without even the slightest glimmer of the sun. Oh, the agony.

The thing is that I actually really love the rain. I love curling up in a big, comfy chair with a good book and spending the day lost in someone else’s world. I guess the thing is that I don’t really do that too much anymore. Even when it rains, it still seems to be business as usual in the woods these days. I guess that rainy days used to signify some special for me…an indulgence in the lazy weather and a good excuse to let my soul do the same. I’ve noticed that I find myself fighting my natural tendency to want to hunker down when the skies break open and in turn, my body and mind resist with every part of my being. Rainy days just aren’t meant to be frittered away on the usual.

One of my colleagues just came back from her three week vacation in Europe and she was asking this morning if I found it hard to get back into the routine of things after our return from Australia. The answer to that would be a resounding YES! It wasn’t actually returning that I found difficult. That, I was prepared and even excited for. It was the speed at which life seems to occur that I wasn’t ready for. I was telling her that one of my favourite parts of our vacation was getting up each morning and just slowly having breakfast while we would read the paper or watch the world go by in downtown Sydney. The “rhythm” of vacation was almost intoxicating and I found that whatever seemed to happen throughout the rest of the day, it never seemed to damper our mood too much because our day had already started so wonderfully. THEN, we return home and are faced with somewhat (not always) frantic mornings that include rushing to eat breakfast and moving around in a fog until my mind catches up to my body. It’s exhausting!

For anyone out there who is already eager to hit the comment button so that you can tell me that the chaos our life endures is always choice, please spare me!!! I’m quite sure that I’ve told myself that enough for all of us!! Fear not though, I have decided that one way or another (though I’m not yet sure how), I am determined to reclaim both my mornings and my rainy days!! It simply must be done!

And so…

I, Gen with a “G”, hereby agree that I will no longer stare in envy at those enjoying their morning coffee in peace nor will I resist the temptation of a good novel and an even more tempting pillow on days when the predicted rainfall equals five millimeters or more.

[imagine signed dotted line here]
------------------------------------
Genevieve V. Georget-Smyth

Et voilà!

time to take some notes...

I've had a lot of feedback lately from people who have been wanting to post comments on the site but don't know how. Don't worry...you're not alone!!

So let's take a brief blogging pause for a little tutorial, shall we?!?!

For those of you who would like to join in the "cyber-conversation"...it's as easy as clicking on the COMMENT button below and joining in the fun! And despite popular belief, you don't even have to register a blog site to do so...just click on "comment" and hit either the "other" icon or the "anomymous" icon and TA-DA...no registration necessary (and we have the added fun of sharing our thoughts with everyone). I know all of you well enough to know that you have something good to say!!

So, come on...get your blog on!

too many floors down...

A couple of weekends ago, we were painting our bathrooms. After two days of inhaling paint fumes, I found myself in our basement doing the inevitable and dreaded clean-up of all the paint supplies. I hardly ever go down into our basement. Aside from throwing the odd box down there from time to time, it’s really Steve’s terrain and frankly, I usually even forget that it’s there. During this rare moment though when I was in our basement, I found myself feeling very unsettled. As I stood on the cold, concrete floor, hunched over the big plastic sink cleaning the paint brushes, I felt like I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I’ll admit that it caught me a bit off guard. Finally, I heard Steve upstairs coming towards the basement stairs and it suddenly hit me…For about four months, from September to December, after I graduated from University, I used to live in a basement not unlike the one I had just been standing in.

As I’ve discussed many times before, the year that I graduated was a very hard time for me. I was going through a devastating break-up, I was overwhelmed at the thought of not being a student anymore, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life and the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel had most definitely been turned off for an indeterminate amount of time. Needless to say that it wasn’t amongst my brightest of days. During this time, it was very hard to make decisions regarding housing when I didn’t have a full-time job (or any job for that matter) and I didn’t know if I was staying in Ottawa or moving away. The extraordinary problem solver that is my mother, promptly stepped in and took hold of the situation with a sense of perspective that I simply wasn’t capable of at the time. She arranged for me to live with some friends of hers that had just moved to the region and weren’t using their basement. It wasn’t ideal but, it was inexpensive and non-committal. It would give the time and flexibility that I needed to figure things out without many of the external stresses that were already making my life very challenging.

So, late that August, I packed my stuff (which wasn’t very much) into the back of their pick-up truck and we drove to the outskirts of the original city boundaries of Gatineau, Quebec. I had never lived in Quebec before and I had never even seen suburban Gatineau before, but as we drove further and further away, I began to feel relieved at the distance that I was putting between my self and the memories that were making me feel trapped. Sure enough, we arrived and sure enough, it was indeed a basement. The floor was concrete, there was insulation along the walls covered in clear plastic, there were wooden beams in all directions and a big, loud furnace in the corner just next to where my bed would be. No doubt, it would be gloomy but then again, so was my life…so it seemed oddly appropriate at the time. Looking back, I think that by this time, I was almost prepared to just roll over and accept the despair that seemed to have taken me over. My soul was tired and beaten, and I no longer had the energy to fight it anymore. That is, until one crisp, sunny morning when planes started to fall from the sky…

I woke up in the basement of September 11th, 2001 and just stared up at the ceiling while I listened to the amplified sound of feet walking up above. For the past couple of weeks, that sound had become the essence of what my life had become…me, hunkered down in a cold, dark cave while the sound of other people’s lives woke me up in the night. I began to despise the very sound of the family living up above…the sound of them sitting down to dinner together…the sound of them getting ready to go out for the night…even the sound of them arguing over the car…it all just seemed like such a cruel reminder of the hollow existence that I was enduring. In fact, the sound came to bother me so much that since then, I’ve never lived beneath anyone ever again.

I’m not sure how long I stayed in my trance while I listened to their morning routine above me but eventually, the furnace kicked in and I was startled back to reality. I rolled over in my bed, tried to catch of glimmer of the outside world through the tiny window in the corner and turned on my stereo that was next to my bed. Just as the song finished, the DJ from the morning show came on and said “for those of you just tuning in, we’ve just received news that a plane has just crashed into the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan. There is still no word of casualties however it is suspected that this was indeed, an act of terrorism. We will report back with any further details as we receive them. I repeat…we are receiving reports that the United States of America has just been attacked by terrorist.”

Given that I was already running late for work, I quickly got dressed, grabbed a walkman that was sitting on the living room table and ran out of the house. As I turned to close the door behind me, I noticed that the others had forgotten to turn the television off when they left for work. As I approached to hit the power button on the remote control, I quickly glanced up and realized, to my horror, that I was watching a second plane approach the towers. I stood stunned as the impact occurred…not just to the World Trade Center but also to my terrified eyes.

The rest of my day was spent in a fog of confusion. I had managed to catch the bus to work in downtown Ottawa only to find out that businesses everywhere were shutting down for the day. Police and RCMP could be found in every corner of the nation’s capital as we had suddenly turned to survival mode. With the American Embassy, the Prime Minister’s Residence and Parliament Hill all within four blocks of each other, downtown Ottawa had become chaotic with panic. I remember a bunch of us standing in front of television at the Radio Shack store downtown watching everything unfold live before us. Shortly after, the manager came and turned off the television because we were too many in the store and were creating a fire hazard. Funny…literally three minutes earlier we had watched the first tower collapse and all the while, we were considered a fire hazard.

Shortly after the attacks occurred, the RCMP had closed down all of the interprovincial bridges between Ontario and Quebec and I could no longer get home. I felt stuck in a war zone with no way out and no safe place to go. As every minute passed, businesses were closing their doors and the roads were congested with commuters making their way back to their families. But I had nowhere to go. I had no friends in town or family that I could go to. All of my colleagues had returned to their own homes and I felt all alone and desperately afraid. I finally found my way to the gym that I had been a member of and amazingly, they were still open. I spent the next four hours with the few people still forced to work and we watched and cried and wondered how the world would ever be the same.

Eventually, they too were given the go ahead to shut their doors and once again, I was out on my own. I headed to a corner store nearby and while inside, I overheard a cab driver say that one of the bridges had just been re-opened about twenty minutes earlier. I desperately plead for him to take me home and an hour and a half later, I arrived back at my basement. While the entire world had changed…the basement had not. It was still cold, dark and damp, but it was all that I had at the time and it would have to be good enough.

I hunkered down in my bed for the next couple of days and never took my eyes off the television. I ate gummy bears and drank chocolate milk and never received a single phone call from anymore…nor did I make one. In the depths of the night, as the family upstairs was curled up on the couch together, quiet as ever, I had no one; no friends, no family, not even any neighbors to go through this hard time with. I only had this basement. Then, and only then, did I realize just how far I had really fallen. I had drifted beyond sadness and into apathy…a dangerous little hole that knows nothing but hopelessness.

That was my darkest day. And about four months later, on January 1st, 2002, it would be become my second darkest day (a post for another time) but it was also the day when I discovered that I wanted things to change. For the first time in a long time, I cared again. Or at least came to recognize that perhaps I had still really cared all along.

I would continue to live in the basement for four more months after that and while it would prove to be one of the saddest times for me, it was also a time that helps me to appreciate every moment after that so much more. It sounds ridiculous in a way but I needed the basement. I needed to know that even the dampest and darkest of places couldn’t break my spirit. I needed to know that enduring one of the scariest days in my life without anyone else to share it with also couldn’t break my spirit. Mostly, I needed to know that although it may have seemed that way for a while…I hadn’t actually given up on myself.

In the months that followed, I found my first career, made new friends, learned what it was like to be in my own company and eventually, moved back to the city that I loved and into my own (and first) apartment. I moved into the top floor of that apartment building actually and for all the stairs that it took me to get there…I was always elated to be on the top floor…in a room with a view. Many challenging and sad times still followed as I tried to figure myself out again but none as hard as that moment, on that day, in that place. I pray daily that I never have to be there again but if there is one token of wisdom that I took away from such an experience it’s that whether it be the cold, dark corner of a house or the cold, dark corner of your life…if you ever find yourself in the basement, it means that there’s no where left to go but up! And take my word for it…that is reason enough to wake up every day and search for the tiny bit of light and the glimmering rays of hope that shine through that small corner window, even if it is tucked away behind the furnace.

the road to hell is paved with paper...

So it turns out that our Tugger has a thing for eating paper! I’ve never met a feline with such a craving before. I’ve known cats who like to play with paper and even some who like to sleep in paper, but never one to eat paper!

And apparently he’s not very particular about what kind of paper either. It could be a paper bag, a receipt, a bookmark, tissue paper, bus tickets, our grocery list, our visa bill, toilet paper…you name it, he’s got a hankering for it!

At first, we just considered it one of those cute little quirky attributes that only a cat could possess but as of this morning, he’s taken his paper fetish to a whole new, and rather questionable, level…

This morning, we woke up to a rather well chewed up Bible!! Our beautiful, hardcover Bible generally sits on the floor next to my side of the bed and even though it’s been there ever since Tugger joined our family, up until last night, it apparently didn’t satisfy any of his cravings. It seems though that he has tired himself of his usual paper snacks and has decided to move on to bigger and better things!

I’m a little bit concerned now though about Tugger’s well-being come the day when he decides to make an appearance at the pearly gates of kitty heaven; I mean, I know that the Old Testament can be a bit of a drag sometimes but I really don’t think that God’s going to be impressed knowing that half the book of Exodus is digesting in his tummy!

Really, Tugger…regardless of how adorable we think you are...we've got to draw the line somewhere!!!

first comes love...

I’m exhausted! Truly…there are no words for the degree of fatigue that I’m feeling right now! I went to bed at 8:30pm last night and still felt like crying when the alarm clock went off this morning! My lack of shut-eye was all for good reason though as we just got back from an amazing weekend in Tilbury, Chatham and London for a variety of different visits but mainly, for Dawn and Josh’s wedding.

As I mentioned late last week, I was quiet nervous about the prospect of returning to London as it’s been nearly a decade since I’ve really spent any time in my old neighborhood. When I left London to move to Ottawa, I was very ready to leave and it was important for me to leave various parts of my life behind in order to become a better version of myself (which I wasn’t doing a very good job of in London).

I had just turned nineteen when I moved. My cousins were all much younger back then, our family was going through a variety of different changes and just as the seasons were changing…so were we. In fact, a lot of us were moving on around that time. Change is good. Actually, as the saying goes, sometimes change is as good as a break but, with that it also means that things were seldom ever the same again…at least for me.

So anyways, needless to say that this past weekend was much anticipated. As we drove to the church where the ceremony was being held, memories of my childhood flooded over me with an impact that even I wasn’t quite prepared for. What was interesting was that the everything looked exactly the same…and yet, every single one of us were different. We were all grown up…some of us were married…some of us with children of our own…some of us still enduring change and others finally settling into life. It was heart warming actually.

After the ceremony, Steve and I had some time before heading off to the reception so, we parked the car and I took him on a walking tour of my old stomping grounds. There was something nearly divine about walking past my old house and by the old cemetery because those very spots are where the early pages of my book takes place. I’m sure that most of you know this already but for those of you who do not; with lots of encouragement and gentle nudging, I have indeed started my book. The first words found their way on paper last fall and while the beginning of 2008 proved to be a bit too busy for me to commit much time to it, I have settled into writing mode once again and the pages are slowly accumulating. The first chapter (so far) happens in that very home and on the grounds of Woodland Cemetery. So walking through this part of my life, while living in my present life, added an element of intensity to what I am experiencing at the moment while writing. It all seems too oddly appropriate!

So, we are home now and having spent a weekend in my old home makes coming back to my current home have a whole new meaning. It’s as though we were literally driving through the time and space that changed everything. That eight hour stretch of highway 401 changed my life forever and has continued to do so every time I make the trip. I’ve always been a home body for as long as I can remember and this weekend I realized just how much I love home…both of my homes.

I didn't take a whole lot of pictures of Dawn and Josh's wedding because I was too busy getting my groove on but, to see the remainder of the pictures that I did take, click here.

where the heart is...

I’m going home tonight. When I say “home”, I mean London, where I spent the better part of my life growing up. It’s been a really long time since I’ve been back. My mom moved to B.C. shortly after I came to Ottawa and slowly but surely, everyone just moved away. The more settled I became in Ottawa, the less reason I had to return to London. I’ve gone several times to visit briefly with Christina (which is reason enough) but I really haven’t spent any quality time there in almost ten years.

Dawn and Josh are getting married there this weekend and their ceremony is being held in the neighborhood where most of my time in London was spent. I finished elementary school there. I started high school there. I had a crush on the boy next door there. I said goodbye to my grandmother there. I had countless birthday parties and some of my favourite holidays there. I made friends and lost friends there, and I even found and lost my self there a couple of times. Really, I grew up there. I was sad to leave and am apprehensive about going back. Nervous almost.

It’s not home the same way Ottawa is home or the way the canal in the winter is home. It’s not home the same way being in Steve’s arms is home or the way Christina, Russ or Joanne are home. It’s not home the way hearing Tugger first thing is the morning is home or my Saturday morning runs are home. But it is one of the first homes that I’ve ever known and such a large part of my memories growing up. And now I’m going back…ten years later…a different person from when I last saw it.

They say that it’s never too late to go home. I guess we’ll see.

looks like we made it after all...

This past Wednesday was our anniversary. Our third anniversary actually! Apparently the third anniversary is represented by leather, which we thought was dumb...so we went out for steak instead!!!!

While we don't necessarily make a really big deal out of our anniversaries just yet, I think that as every year passes, we do begin to gain a certain degree of pride in the accomplishment that is marriage. I'll admit, we're getting better at being "us". We understand each other better, we listen better, we compromise better, we work our way through the waves of spending a lifetime together a little bit better. In a world tainted with a divorce rate of nearly 50%, I think that as each year passes, we certainly acknowledge that every little bit counts!

When Steve and I were preparing for our wedding, we spent a lot of time with Father Joe preparing for the part that would come afterwards...the marriage. One of the final questions that Father Joe asked me in the last week before our wedding was "what scares you most about getting married?" My answer was "getting divorced". While I had no doubt regarding our commitment to one another, I also knew that nothing is a guarantee. I suppose that is the risk that you take though and what also makes the commitment so sacred.

Over time, I have to come to discover a side of my marriage that has left me confident than ever that my fears will never see the light of day. I've come to realize that while Steve and I are not necessarily very similar people, we do in fact, want very similar things in life. This shared vision for our life together really seems to make many elements of marriage much smoother. It appears that, as unromantic as it is...practicality just might be one of the keys to marriage.

It wasn’t until one of my favourite writers, Elizabeth Gilbert, sparked the most interesting thoughts regarding marriage in her novel, Eat Pray Love, that I finally began to let go of the preconceived notion that marriage had to be held together by love alone and that I began to give myself some credit for what appeared to be some insight regarding this adventure that I’ve been on for the past three years!

I clearly can't cover it nearly as eloquently as Gilbert does but, in the latter part of her book, she discusses the fact that a hundred years ago, our fathers would have sat down with our potential husbands and asked all of the practical questions regarding our future life together; where will we live? How will we support ourselves? How many children will we have? Is he a cat person or a dog person? You know...all of the fundamentals that make spending a lifetime together a little less complicated.

Over the past century though, we've experienced the feminist movement and a variety of other factors that have given women an independence unlike any other time in history, and this includes choosing a spouse. This does sound wonderful and progressive, and in most ways it is but there is one thing that we, as women, have forgotten about; we are emotional creatures. We tend to react and feel our way through life based on the rush of hormones that we experience and the cyclical delusions that can often be created because of it! I'm not saying this is bad at all...I'm saying that father stepping in to take the marital bull by the horns also wasn't necessarily a bad thing either!

As women, we are smart, ambitious and successful but, most of us, when it comes to love, still hope for the fairytale ending and still yearn to be rescued by Prince Charming. Of course, I can only speak for myself but, regarding matters of the heart, my vision can be a little bit cloudy! Even with the best of intentions and with my greatest of desires to keep my head on straight, it never fails…when I fall in love, I have a tendency to fall hard and fall fast! Steve was certainly no exception!

As the amazing creatures that we are, our emotional tendencies have a habit of taking over our more logical and practical side on occasion. This, Gilbert claims, is where we need to be careful; while we may have replaced our fathers in the process of choosing our spouse, we haven’t progressed with the same zest when it came replacing someone to ask all of the important questions. In turn, we have allowed our emotional selves to make this rather significant choice in our life only to find out years later, when the fog finally lifts, that we don’t have a whole lot in common with the person we are sharing our life with.

Is this the cause for our alarmingly high divorce rate? Possibly. Is this a valid issue to consider regardless? Absolutely! Believe me, I am by no means an expert in marriage by any stretch of the imagination. Heck…my twenty-one year old cousin has been dating her boyfriend longer than I’ve even known my husband! Semantics aside though, if there's one thing that I've learned during my three years of marriage it's that all of those little shared desires in life, while they may not be the things that the perfect Valentine’s Days are made of, are necessary. The bottom line is this...if one of you wants to live in the mountains and the other wants to live in the city...someone is going to be unhappy, regardless of how much you love each other. Wanting the same thing matters.

So ladies, to make a long story short…Prince Charming is definitely out there to give all of us the fairytale ending that we’ve all been waiting for. But when he shows up on his white horse and sword a blazing…be sure to take a moment and ask him which hockey team he’ll be cheering for come playoff season!!!

until there is three...

I spent an evening last week with an old friend of mine whom I haven’t seen in awhile. As we indulged ourselves in some ice cream and much needed catching up, we crossed paths with an old colleague of hers taking a stroll with her young daughter. We chatted for a couple of minutes and just before parting ways, this woman said to my friend “when am I going to see you out here with a little one? You certainly seem to be late in the game!” As I stood there appalled at what I had just heard, my friend stood there crushed. While she smiled politely and gave the standard answer of “all in due time”, I could tell that she was devastated.

My friend and her husband got married about five years ago and for the last three years, they have been trying to start a family of their own. So far, to no avail. With no easy answer to their difficulties, they just keep trying. What started as a fun reason to “practice” quickly turned into charting and temperature taking and one month at a time anxiously waiting to see if they would have to endure it all over again. It hasn’t been easy for them and fertility issues aside, one of the biggest challenges has been tolerating people’s complete lack of consideration and sensitivity to a situation that frankly, is none of their business.

There seems to come a time in every couple’s life when all of the cosmic pieces seem to fall into place and you suddenly wake up one day realizing that everyone around you is expecting an announcement unveiling the expansion of your family. I know because Steve and I are currently in the thick of that storm. We’ve been married for three years, recently bought a house, went on a big trip and got a pet. In the lottery of life, it appears that we have four out of the five winning numbers which, to the outside world, seems to mean that having children is the next obvious step. And maybe it is (or even surely it is) but, as a couple, it would be nice to be able to make that decision without an entourage of people waiting with baited breath to spit the words out before we do. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that loved ones don't have the right to be joyful and optimistic about the prospect of children. In fact, even we have our own small little circle of trusted friends that have always shared in our intentions and with whom we are already grateful for their support, discretion and excitement towards our future, whatever and whenever it may come to be. I can say though, from experience, that there are times when the hopefulness, spontaneity and surprise of starting new life can get lost in the all-consuming desire to avoid the inevitable question...

This being said, for months now I haven’t been able to do so much as sneeze without people asking me if I’m pregnant. For the most part, we don’t validate these comments with a response but at other times, we have been forced to put some distance between ourselves and the inquiring minds because we simply don't want to continue to justify why we currently only have the pitter patter of little paws instead of little feet.

This brings me back to my friend, my beautiful friend who grins and bears it every time someone throws an interrogative remark her way. I'll be the first to say that surely no one's ever had the intention of hurting her feelings or indirectly reminding her of how hard they’ve been trying to make this happen. In fact, some may even have the best of intentions but, even then, you could still be opening the flood gates for someone that may already be struggling to keep their head above water. You just never know. Having children is not like buying a house or going on a trip. No amount of saving your money or planning your vacation can create a child and at the end of the day, it’s God’s timing and not yours.

I suppose my sadness and heart ache comes from the recognition that maybe someday that could be me. Again, you just never know. Maybe someday I could be sitting here three years from now desperately wanting to be a parent but instead only feeling the betrayal of a body that doesn’t seem to be working and the pressure of people anxiously waiting to share in yet another part of our life. Someday it could be me smiling politely at yet another acquaintance who has suddenly decided that my private struggle should be their public knowledge. I can't help but wonder what the reaction would have been if my friend had just answered truthfully. Somehow I think the discomfort alone might have caused her old colleague to think twice before taking it upon herself to decide who's "late in the game" ever again. But then, by sparing her the embarrassment and awkwardness, my dear friend was giving more compassion than what was being offered to her in return.

So, as I trudge through my own journey amidst the perfect storm, I pray that not only, when the time comes, will the creation of a family come a little bit easier to us, but I also pray that the friends and family that we already have will be a little bit easier on us as well.

I’m sure that creating the miracle of a child is hard enough all by itself…so at the very least we should be able to enjoy our ice cream in peace!

an olympic recap...

Alright, alright...I know that as a blogger I have been unforgivably tardy with posting but I've been spending the past sixteen days glued to a different screen for a change.

As I write this, we are watching the closing ceremonies of the Olympics and starting tomorrow...it's detox for those of us that have been seeing coloured rings in our sleep! Even this morning, as we woke up (albeit rather late because we had been up until all hours watching the men's volleyball final), we turned on the television only to find channel upon channel of Olympic-less programming. By mid-afternoon, a nervous twitch had set in and the comfortable groove that we've become so accustomed to on our couch was starting to resemble its original shape. Frightening!

A part of me is terribly sad to see it all come to a close and another part of me is looking forward to life proceeding as usual. The difference in time zone has certainly added a bit of strain to our sleeping schedules as the two of us are so easily seduced by live coverage! Getting to work on time in the mornings has been a challenge. On the other hand though...it's our turn next! The countdown is on for our moment of glory in Vancouver (537 days to be exact!) and I have no doubt that it will be spectacular!

So, now that we've had plenty to soak in, I feel that no Olympics would be complete without a Top Five list to wrap it all up (and it helps with the withdrawal symptoms!!)...

The Water Cube

By far one of the best Olympic venues ever made. Home to countless Olympic accomplishments and evidence of just how brilliant Chinese architects really are.

Olympic Commercials

As someone who spends every day in advertising and marketing, I can be a bit critical of what crosses before my eyes but the 2008 Olympics had me completely fixated. The commercials were brilliant. My favourite of this games would have to go to Bombardier and the Nike.courage campaign.

Show Jumping

My favourite Canadian Olympic moments this year were in show jumping. The Olympics are dominated by the young and it was fantastic to watch the more seasoned competitors get their moment in the sun. Eric Lamaze and Ian Millar brought me to tears every time!

Water Drums

How fabulous are these and how have I never seen them before?!?! I mean really...how sexy an interlude is this to have for water polo?!? It's so sexy in fact that I wish it were me!! I love it! Every day should start with these!

Steiner Wins Gold

Matthias Steiner, superheavy weight lifter became my favourite "non-Canadian" moment of this Olympics. After enduring the very sudden and unexpected death of his wife just weeks before the Olympics, Steiner managed to blow his own personal best record out of the water and take home the gold medal. He held a picture of his wife as he stood on the podium and took a little piece of all our hearts with him.

There are so many more but, in the end, that's what defines a truly great Olympic Games. And with that, we bid farewell to China and yet another splendid triumph of sport. Thanks Beijing, you really know how to put on a good show!

Vancouver...you're up!

victory at last...

I’ve received a bunch of rather random emails as of late encouraging me about my writing. Some as simple as “please write your book!” I’ve found them to be so thoughtful and much needed. I wonder if people have sensed my discouragement in the universe?!?! While I haven’t lost all hope entirely, I have been wavering from time to time regarding my place in the writing world. Though, even as some of the wonderful emails have said…doesn’t every writer wonder about that?!?!

On another note, I was thinking the other day about one summer (of many!) when I lived in London. Our city used to be home to the London Tigers Minor League baseball team. Back in the day, Canada still supported baseball and even the small teams brought a lot of patriotism and a slight competitive edge to our little urban centers. When the Tigers weren’t playing though, the city used to stadium to host other major events that happen to be going through town.

One day, my Mom took me to the stadium for a show jumping competition. I’d never seen one before and at the time, wasn’t overly interested. I was a Western rider and spent the better part of my young life at a ranch during the summer months. Even during the school year, my Mom would drive me out to the ranch on weekends while I taught groups and spent time with the horses. That one summer day was really my first introduction to equestrian riding of any kind.

Sure enough, I fell in love with show jumping. While I had no desire to pursue it myself, I just loved the intensity and elegance of the sport. I never would have thought that I could be sitting at the edge of my seat in anticipation during such a competition. Low and behold though, my Mom and I spent the entire day at the stadium, hot dogs and pop in hand, one heck of a sunburn was brewing on our foreheads and we watched these incredible animals lunge and jump over obstacles. Better yet, we watched the beautiful harmony between man and beast as they tackled each little challenge and conquered in the end.

At the end of the day, when the two of us were leaving, one of the riders was sitting near the fence with his horse. An absolute horse lover myself, it was only a matter of seconds before I darted over with little regard for any rules or my safety. With little hesitation, the rider let me pet his horse and told me a bit about him and their history together. As we left, he let us take a picture with him and signed an autograph for me. It was a really great encounter that I’ve never forgotten, mostly just because of how kind the rider was to me and how passionate he was about his sport.

As it turns out, that rider was Ian Millar with his trusty horse Big Ben. And now, at the age of 61 and after participating in nine (that’s right…NINE!) Olympic Games, Ian gets to bring home a silver medal for team show jumping. Not only am I excited because this is his first Olympic medal but I’m thrilled because I can’t think of anyone whose kindness (to a complete stranger) could possibly deserve this more.

This has, by far, become my favourite Olympic story of 2008!

Read more about his fantastic win here.

olympic rings of controversy...

Did you guys know that when I first went to University it was because I wanted to work for the Olympic games? The Olympics has always been a magical time in our household. Every night, we piled into the living room and spent countless hours watching the best athletes in the world in all their glory. And when I was little, it was a grueling four years between Olympics because they held both the winter and summer in the same year…so when it finally came around…it was a big deal!

I so vividly remember the Calgary Olympics and how spectacular it was to watch the torch make its way to the Stadium. My Mom even took me out to a small remote town to watch it go by in person. I was awe-struck and ever since, running with the Olympic torch has been on my list of “100 things to do before I die”. There is just an exceptional energy that comes with the Olympic games that seems to stop me in my tracks. I love it!

Of course, there is sadness that comes with it as well sometimes. I once had a chemistry teacher that went to Munich on the Canadian rowing team and as far as he’s concerned, those Olympics never happened. That time in his life never happened. It’s heartbreaking to think that his Olympic experience traumatized him for life and that he turned his back on his sport forever after that. It is however, the exception I hope and not the rule.

Over time, my love and appreciation for the games grew and I wanted nothing more than to be involved somehow. Sport has always been very important in my life and this event just represented the pinnacle of what it can do to a world, a nation and the thousands of people that patiently waited for their moment to arrive.

When my moment finally came along to take my first steps at getting my foot in the door, I quickly realized that there were elements of this passion that I hadn’t considered…most of which was the fact that I would be away from home and moving every four years. When I connected with people that were involved with the games, I realized that none of them had any long term relationships, any pets or even any furniture for that matter. Their life was at the mercy of the International Olympic Committee and their next choice location to host the games. Don’t get me wrong, this is a whirlwind experience and the job of a lifetime for anyone…except the homebody! When my first opportunity came up, to work for the World Cycling Championships, I cried for a week at the thought of moving. After five days of pacing around in endless terror, I concluded that this was not how my dream was suppose to feel. For all the passion and desire that I had towards the games and all that it stood for…it shouldn’t be this hard. There were simply fundamental things about who I was that couldn’t be overlooked for a job…any job.

At long last, the opportunity came and went. I felt relieved at the decision of letting it go and no more than two months later, I met my husband. It was my first of many signs reminding me that I had made the right choice. Life proceeded with the knowledge that I needed to do something closer to home and every two years, I would find my spot in front of the television and watch the magic once again!

This year’s Olympics though have raised a lot of questions about how Canada values sport. Already, we’re into day seven of the games and we haven’t won a single medal. Surprising? Maybe! Disappointing? Absolutely! A clear indicator that our country has failed miserably at producing world class athletes? Not so much!

The headline of the Ottawa Citizen this morning stated “Canada doesn’t really value sport” and that “Olympic medalist Silken Laumann challenges notion that nation has strong sports culture”. One look at this statement and I couldn’t even bring myself to read the rest of it because all I could think of was “whatever happened to sport simply for the sake of sport?” Yes, it’s true that our emphasis on funding may not equal that of the U.S. or many European countries but, dare I say it, medals aren’t everything and somewhere along the line, we seemed to have forgotten that.

All of the things that I remember loving about the Olympics; the hard work, the unity, the underdog, the opportunity for a country to show itself off to the world…all of these things seem to be getting lost in a flurry of politics, world records and endorsement deals. Where’s the sportsmanship in throwing your bronze medal on the ground or spending all of your air time criticizing the opening ceremonies? What happens to the lone athlete from Fiji or Zimbabwe (or Canada!) when the cameras only care about the winners? They worked hard to get there too…medals or not. And someone out there is proud that they did…medals or not.

While I watch the passion of my childhood disintegrate before my eyes, I can’t help but think that it’s certainly not our country’s value of sport that seems to be lost…but rather the priorities placed on the end result of such sports that seems to be losing its way. Sadly enough…I’m more fascinated by the commercials now than I am by the coverage.

Olympics of the past…I miss you!

to change or not to change...

Is it just me or does anyone else find that changing is hard? I’ve been trying really hard this summer to work on various things that I would like to change in my life…behaviours, patterns, hair styles…all of which have happened to no avail. Well, I say that but who knows…six months from now I may catch myself doing something and think “geez…that’s different, when did I start responding that way?” I’ve always thought of change as something that happens to me…instead of a process that tends to occur over time, often without us even noticing.

I’ve been finding the struggle to change rather interesting though because as a whole, change is one of the few things that we can really count on in life. It happens time and time again, whether we want it to or not. In turn, we find ourselves adapting to it time and time again (also, whether we want to or not!!) so, it leads me to believe that the act of change should come rather naturally to us, shouldn’t it? Or do we perhaps resist it because of the very reason that it already happens so often outside of our control?

As usual, I don’t have the answers to any of these questions but, I do know that it’s almost embarrassing to admit how many times I’ve tried to change my ways, only to find myself months later in the same trap that I’ve aimlessly been trying to free myself from. And I can’t quite figure out why. It’s not for lack of commitment or ambition. It’s not for lack of determination or vision. I’ve proven in more ways than one that all of these qualities are ingrained in the very essence of the person that I am. So I find myself puzzled!

I did however find comfort as of late in the Book of Romans, Verse 7:15…

“For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.”

It appears that even two thousand years ago, people were struggling with the same desire to be the very best version of them selves and yet, found their “usual ways” to be more overbearing than our ability to resist temptation.

I don’t know whether to feel encouraged or sad at this reality. For all of our coping mechanisms, change doesn’t seem to be one of those things that instinctively kicks-in when needed most. For all of the ways that we’ve evolved over the centuries, I’m stunned to find that there are certain things that never do change in the end. Our desire for chocolate and pretty shoes being one of them!

I guess what they say is true after all…the more things change, the more they stay the same!

let the voting begin...

Over the past couple of years, Steve and I have developed a new appreciation for the likes of stand-up comedy. I mean, really…what better way is there to spend an evening than laughing?!?! For two or three years now, we’ve been watching the reality show Last Comic Standing. The plot’s pretty basic; A bunch of comics go up…do their routine…people vote and the funniest moves on until (you got it)…there is one last comic standing!!!

Steve and I are not ones for reality television at all but, thanks to this show, we’ve found ourselves in stitches at least once a week due to some brilliant comic that we’re seeing for the first time! In turn though, we’ve also made it to the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal and are developing or list of must-see comics for the near future.

Tonight is the finale for this season’s show and let me just say that there has been a great round of laughs this time around! They shortened the season this year (I imagine due to the Olympics starting tomorrow) so each night it’s been two hours instead of one and we’ve religiously parked ourselves in front of the television in order to get our ab workout for the day!

Going into tonight’s finale…I have two favourites! Both are hysterical, both are worthy of winning and I’m sure that both will go on to be very successful regardless of tonight’s outcome. Us Canadians are apparently not allowed to vote (even though we had a Canadian comic in the running up until last week) but, if I had to pick just one…my vote would go to Jeff Dye, the twenty five year old from Seattle. Now, I’m not just saying this because he is beautiful (Which he is! Girls…I’m sure you’d wholeheartedly agree and wonder where he’s been all your life!!!!), I’m saying it because I think he genuinely deserves it. Oh man…is he ever funny! Steve and I found ourselves in tears last week watching his set and anyone who can make me laugh that hard about being eight years old gets my vote.

Please…watch it! And ladies…enjoy the moment ;)