What do you think?

Hey, do you like my new blog layout? It's long overdue and I've been enjoying how other people have revamped their blogs, so it was time :)

Tonight, I'm hoping to attend a workshop at the library about urban agriculture and growing gardens in the city so you can grow food for your family. I'm excited for it because it will show how even in the city you can use the space you have to grow food, and one of my goals this year is a) actually grow something edible, b) keep said thing alive, and c) eat or prepare the something. I'm thinking herbs are the least ambitious, but hopefully I'll get some ideas tonight.

My hairdresser told me it's the thing right now to eat avocado for your hair, so I thought, why not, and bought an organic one at the market last time I went. It went mushy really fast but I spread it on some rye bread to make a sandwich for my lunch, with brie, so we'll see how it goes, I'm a little leery as to how those two will go together. I have my side of edamame that I like having at work, yum. My coworker across from me emailed me some vegetarian recipes, including chocolate quinoa crepes, and they look really good. I need more motivation to cook things, and I'm not a very good vegetarian because I don't eat enough beans, grains, etc.

Just now, I signed up for a 10k race on May 1st, which should be interesting since I've been sick for a while and haven't been training at all. I was going to drop down to a 5k but since I'm not signed up for any other races this spring, I think I'll stick with it. It feels weird, usually I do 1-2 half-marathons in the spring, but not this time. Oh well. It will probably be my last race before my birthday- for some reason I always notice that on the registration because it asks how old you are on race day.

I guess that's enough rambling for now. When I'm home, I'm hoping to hit up the local library since they keep getting rid of books when they're not read after one year, and I'm sure I'm missing out on so many good ones, and there's not much I can do about it other than buy the ones I can when I am visiting:) Yes, I know, I'm such a nerd...they're usually kids' books, too...I really need to get more adult fiction for my bookshelf, heheh.

Happy Easter, everyone! Thanks for reading! ...xo...

Kind of fitting for just before Easter

It's been quite a few weeks. Just when I'm trying to sort out work/school details, life keeps happening...a memorial service/celebration of life, baby shower, poetry workshops, two fundraiser events (MS Walk and CN Tower climb), and I've had a lingering cough on top of everything. There hasn't really been much time or motivation to write...and I don't even have kids or anything...how do people do it?

I need to intentionally scale back some of my social stuff- it's not like I'm tremendously popular but I like to attend different events or activities and have a hard time saying no, and that doesn't tend to go well with studying lots, I hear:)

The lady in my church who died, whose celebration of life I attended on the weekend- it's hard to believe she's gone. I don't think I grieve well, if such a thing is possible- I tend to regress to five-year-old capacity and have a hard time absorbing loss, even if I'm not close to them. I have a number of close friends who have experienced significant loss close to them, and it's not something I can fathom. I don't know what I'd do, and I don't want to think of the possibility. See what I mean about acting like I'm five?

One thing I've noticed is that coming into contact with death makes me want to go visit my family more often, spend time with them, not miss out on anything I'd regret. It's that urge to hold them tighter as if to keep them safe. It's a big part of why I'm seeing my family at Easter, admittedly.

I came across a poem a number of years ago, in Patricia Maclachlan's book, Baby, which pretty much sums up my reaction to death, or expresses it the way I can't. I've returned to it several times because it's so honest, and I'd like to share it here:

Dirge Without Music

Edna St. Vincent Millay

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains - but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

I don't mean that to be depressing, but rather an affirmation of life with all its joys and small moments of beauty. You should read it in context (borrowed, albeit) in Baby; it's a poignant tale told beautifully by one of my favourite authors.

Wishing you a warm rest of the week (come on, Spring!) and a happy Easter with loved ones.

xo.

Some fall photos- LOLA fest and a race

One of many art exhibits, this was hung over the main stage during LOLA, and I couldn't get over the beauty of it; it changed the whole look of the park.

Do you like how you can see the cathedral and high-rises in the background? The shows usually had a better turnout, but the weather was rainy on and off. I was volunteering part of the time so didn't get that many snapshots, unfortunately.
One of my favourites, Leaf Bird, from Chicago. It was their first time playing outside of Chicago, and they had a laid-back, folksy feel. I'm glad I happened to catch this.
This one is a little bittersweet- Liz's shiny bronze cowboy boots she got at a thrift store, next to her pile of baggage, the day before she moved to the States :(
Lisa and I just after her first half-marathon, in Toronto, last September. She rocked that race, and I did pretty well too- all in all, lots of fun.

Phew! Now that I've overloaded you with photos, maybe it's okay if I post a few without ;) Still, I'd like to get better at photography, so that could motivate me to take more photos. That, and the fact that it's finally SPRING!!

Later!

Catching up with some photos

Leyla & Ben with Jenny and me on the stairs on the way up to a lookout in Montreal. We were getting together, the three girls, to hang out before Liz's wedding and maybe find a dress- none of us did, but it was so great to spend time with each other again.

The cross at Mont-Royal, I think

Sandbanks Provincial Park with my high school friends, our once-or-twice-a-year hangout weekend in which we gallivanted about on the dunes, toured some wineries in Prince Edward County (a fantastic wine region), and played board games:)

Jenny came to visit last week, and I had a couple days off from work to see her before her second Africa trip. We found two spots to hike right by London, which, I regret to say, I had never yet been to! It was just the ticket, slogging through snow, being in nature, ahhh :)

These holes in the snow were crusted over with ice- looks cool eh?

Jenny and me, squinting in the bright, yet overcast, light

These are a little out of order since I can't move them around- our lovely mid-March snowstorm. Pretty, but we were so ready for spring already!

I've got a few from fall yet to post...

French films

I really want to make a concerted effort to post here. Upon re-reading my last post, though, I realized I wasn't saying too much and kind of dancing around topics, so I also want to be a bit more obvious without using this as a platform for rambling about every thought that crosses my mind ;)

So. Currently, or maybe as an on-going thing, I'm really into French films. This may or may not be related to the fact that I just watched Amélie this past week, it is hands-down one of the most insightful, creative films I have seen, plus it's got a good dash of romance in there, and the French do know how to put something romantic into a film. It's funny, though, that culture- it's a mix of subtle gestures and also overt affection, quite a paradox when you think about it.

I thought I'd share with you a few of my absolute favourites:

-Amélie - I love how it was directed (by Jean-Pierre Jeunet), and it's just so layered with good moments.

-Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (I've Loved You So Long)- Kristin Scott Thomas is phenomenal in this film, and it even makes me, a notorious non-movie-crier, shed a few tears. To be fair, when I watch it with Liz, she's in a puddle of tears next to me, so that helps ;)

-Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis- downright hilarious, if a bit hard to follow at times. It bears close attention or the accents lose you a bit. Dany Boon is wonderful, and so is the whole cast, really.

-MicMacs- another Dany Boon, directed by Jean Pierre Jeunet. Another winner, extremely quirky and smart and just enough of the odd factor as well.

-just about anything with Juliette Binoche. I'm kind of obsessed with her right now. Sometimes I'll watch something just because she's in it, which has led to some really strange films, some which felt like a nightmare that wasn't mine, in some kind of film noir genre. In general, though, she is inspiring in her performances. If you can sit through it, try The Red Balloon. It's long and seems disconnected but its images stay with you.

I'm sure there are more, but those are the ones that come to mind from what I've seen recently. Then there's all the other foreign films/independent films that explore culture, like the movie Bella, among others. I don't know many Québec movies but I have seen Père en flic which was pretty funny, and also Bon Cop, Bad Cop with Patrick Huard and Colm Feore, which wasn't as good as other films of its genre but I enjoyed the back-and-forth banter in French and English, a clever premise anyway.

Have any of you seen any from the list? Do you have any favourite foreign films?

~à bientôt, mes chéries! ~

In like a lion?

Is that the saying about March, in like a lion, out like a lamb? I hope it turns out to be true because we've been having some crazy winter weather and I just can't wait for spring.

On Saturday, I got the one goal in soccer (woo hoo!) even though we ended up losing, and I got a goal in ball hockey last night, which was also exciting because it's really not a familiar sport to me- I only started in the fall.

I'm hoping to get back into running, at least running once a week on top of sports, because in April I have a lot in a short time. One Saturday night I have a playoff game for soccer, the next morning, a half-marathon (that I have yet to sign up for...oops...), then that Thursday will be the CN Tower Climb for WWF Canada (that's world wildlife fund, not wrestling, heheh). That's right, I'm doing the climb again, all 1,776 steps, and hoping to beat my time from 2009. I have to, because I'm competing with a friend from work:)

The City is putting on a poetry contest in which the chosen poems will be displayed on the city buses for awhile. Isn't that exciting? I'd really like to enter one, but we'll see...I'm so picky in choosing poems to enter in things, but I find the idea charming.

Lately, I've been coming across the same concept more than once, through a blog, a sermon at church- it's the idea of dreaming big, and praying big, and not being afraid to pray for what is on our hearts. It's a challenge to me, because so often I think I can't bother God with those things, when really it should be my first response. That's what I'm thinking of these days.

Life is so busy right now, but it's also the time that I'm trying to make some fairly significant decisions regarding education, community involvement, etc. Wait, this sounds familiar, have I said that before? (heheh) So I sound like a broken record sometimes. It happens. Anyways, these things take time to sort out, so much time that I am hopeful the end result will be something happy, something that months of work and research and wrestling with ideas and my own mind will pay off in terms of something just right.

Sound vague? I know. It is. I'd love to share more but something keeps holding me back. Fear? Indecision? A strong sense of privacy? Maybe a bit of all of those. Isn't a blog supposed to be a forum for sharing? Maybe I'd better figure out once and for all what my point is with this blog.

In the meantime, I'll keep rambling... thanks for your patience...

~Anon~

Happy New Year!..I mean, February:)

Hello again! I'm taking the plunge into blogging again. Recently, I've been mostly reading other people's blogs because they're far more interesting and anyway, I didn't want to get into what's been keeping me from my own blog.

However, I'm getting over it...time to be a big girl, hahah...

I think that first of all, I would like to look back on the past year, because I want to make more of an effort to be grateful for the people in my life, for what I have and to celebrate accomplishments.

Some highlights from 2010:

-made positive steps to pursue further studies
-travelled to Alberta/BC to reconnect with some friends and family and PRBI folk
-got a personal best in a half-marathon in April, then beat it in May (and participated with Liz)
(ran 3 half-marathons in 2010 plus a 14.7 km race)
-got 3rd in my age group/women in the Glen Tay Block Race
-travelled to PEI for the first time in the east coast with my friend Laura
-pursued courses in Early Childhood Education
-my sister Liz got engaged & married
-started writing a story for an online writing mentorship
-made a more active effort to participate in the arts in my community, and to shop more consciously in regards to where my food comes from
-joined a rec ball hockey league with my roommate

There are probably more, but anyway, I think it's helpful for me to look back and think of what has taken place in the past year.

Now, for this coming year...it seems rather daunting and I just don't know what it will hold. One of the reasons I've been distracted is that I'm trying to make some more plans for further study, and so far I've been foiled at every turn for how I'm trying to go about this. The beginning of January was pretty stressful for that reason, and I guess I let it get to me a little more than necessary. (It was a pretty big deal at the time, years of work out the window, essentially.)

Taking a step back from that, I'm choosing to focus on the positive; it's forcing to me find creative methods to do what I want to do in life or what I can be good at, what would make a difference or make me feel alive (or, hopefully, both). I feel like I'm in highschool again and, unlike some, I don't care to revisit that era!

Okay, enough navel-gazing! It's a new year. A time of uncertainty, in light of the current political climate for so many, and in the midst of disasters and floods and earthquakes and storms. For me, all this means it's time to reevaluate what's really important- cultivate and cherish relationships- truly live out a philosophy of life, not wear it like a label- figure out what is faith, and how does that impact those around me- I could go on for a while, but that's a bit of what I've been thinking about.

Wishing you all a lovely, meaningful year, my dear blogger friends.

xo