we’ll shine together

Someone said once that worrying was like walking around with an umbrella put up over you just in case it rains. Like you can have the umbrella but putting it up is just wasting your sunny day.

So this blogging thing got a little bit away from me. Real life sort of gets in the way sometimes. My last couple of posts were about not feeling sorry for yourself and boy did life give my family a good solid test on that theory. Successfully I might add. It’s nice to know all of those words weren’t just hollow coming out of my mouth I suppose! Or my fingers as the case may be.

Anyway the umbrella as always is put away – except when we go to Vancouver, it almost always rains on me there, but I only put it up when it’s actually started to rain! Sunny days, or something!

I started this blog with the intention of having something to say at the very minimum every month, and I’m going to get back on track with that – I think. I’m going to try anyway. I can promise to try even if I can’t promise to succeed in that. I’ve don’e a lot of awesome things in the five months that I haven’t said anything here, started to write a little, and draw, went on trips, reconnected with a friend, read more, grew my hair out, started a written journal, downloaded instagram, so much more stuff! Haha. I could have bored your asses off about nail polish even. And I might just yet.

PS: Last time I went to Vancouver it was beautiful, I had my umbrella in my bag and didn’t even need it, I was prepared, but I walked around with my face tilted up enjoying the hell out of that sunshine!

I ain’t gonna be just a face in the crowd

A few years ago I was really sick. I let myself get bogged down in that for a while. I almost died a couple of times and I felt like I should be really really careful and feel sorry for my self, blah blah blah. I got over it.

Not just wiping it off my shoulder or forgetting about it, but not using it as an excuse or letting it take over.

Somehow that let to me deciding even more so that stuff doesn’t just happen, you gotta make it happen for you. Obviously you can’t control everything but you can sort of aid it along and think positive and do fun things within your means and even sometimes outside of your means if you want. But you have to find what makes you happy or what’s the point? Anyway slowly I started doing things that I wanted to do, making fun a priority.

I’m going to quote song lyrics from a cheesy 80’s band… albeit a band that’s passed the test of time. “I just wanna live while I’m alive..” – And it’s true! Also Bon Jovi is awesome and I don’t care what you think about that!

So somewhere in there I decided that nothing huge and awesome had to happen but in little ways I’d try and make every year better than the last. In some years that’s been a bit of a stretch and of course bad things have happened but I focused more on the good, and it’s worked!

A summary of 2011 for me.

JAN:
It snowed a lot, and I hated it. I went to Oilers skills. I spent a lot of time outdoors according to photos, though I can’t even imagine why I was out in the snow, lol.

FEB:
I seem to have talked about the Canucks a lot, what shock! Haha. I fell on ice and got all bruised up. Me and my sis went to Vancouver for Canucks skills, I got sick and we stayed an extra day. I broke up with a friend there and haven’t talked to her since. Went to Calgary for a course and had so much fun at the bar.

MAR:
Saw Nashville and the Blue Jackets here. We went to California, saw game in LA and Anaheim, and Phoenix. I got sick and we came home early. This was the start of my headaches.

APR:
Started taking assorted meds and getting tested for a million things. I saw the Canucks play here and went to Vancouver for the last game of the season. I had an MRI on my brain which may yet be the single worst experience of my life. The Canucks finally beat the Hawks in the playoffs. <3

MAY:
Still had a headache, most of Feb, all of March and April and nearly all of May – every day. I had a little bit of a flip out about waiting for doctor’s appointments but I saw a neurologist who could only tell me something was wrong, but not what. He set things up for me to see more doctors though. I started swimming more.

JUN:
My headaches stopped and there was joy in all of the land. Well in my world anyway! The Canucks won in the third round for only the third time ever!!! I decided a lot of people that I know and don’t know needed to go eat a bad of dicks. Another neurologist have me Luvox for headaches – he said they were tension headaches and I took it. And liked it. Idk how well it’s done with the headaches. My boys lost in game seven of the finals. Random people in this city yelled at me. I ran away to North then South Carolina. Hung out with two lovely friends of mine, hot tubbed and drove around the mountains, then spent a bunch of days on the beach.

JUL:.
It was my birthday and I know we did outdoorsy type things but I legit can’t recall anything else! Haha.

AUG:
I started this blog. Saw Buble in concert. <3 and we started going to derby! I LOVE IT! It was my sis’s birthday and I know we did dorky things then too. Maybe little ball bowling.

SEPT:
I started making cards. Went to see the Canucks here in the preseason. I love Mancari and his name. Then I went to Ohio and hung out with my bff, finally met Sam, and met so many new people there. We had so much fun!!! And saw Jackets vs Sabres too.

OCT:
I got a blister from swim flippers, who does that?? We saw more Derby and had so much fun! We went to Vancouver to see the Canucks home opener. I got in contact with an old friend. And saw the Canucks here twice.

NOV:
We went to California again! Saw Preds vs Ducks and then saw the Canucks vs the Ducks and Kings. When I got home I went on a tour of Boeing plants in Washington and it was amazing! I had another lump in my breast that was once again nothing to worry about, thank goodness.

DEC:
I really like my boss, I just think that shouldn’t go without saying in a yearly recap. I saw the Jackets here and the Red Wings here too. I went to a doctor who treats MS patients and while I don’t have MS, I still had a million tests and she still wants to be my doctor because I’m an interesting case. Ha. Story of my life or something like that. I worked all of Christmas, planned a trip for January, and am sorting out a little plan that involves the bank and being more responsible.

Tonight I’m watching hockey, eating pizza and drinking cheap wine with my sis. More things happened, people got born and people died that I’m close to and not, but this was more about what I did so I didn’t include it in the recap. I have a good job that I actually like. I never feel like ‘ugh work today’ aside from the actual getting out of bed part, great people to work with, a nice family, my sister is lovely! I have good friends, all in all a great year!

It might not be many people’s idea of a great time, but it doesn’t have to be, just mine!

I'm sorry for the time I spent being more comfortable wallowing in the bad things instead of reaching out and grabbing a little happy, but the past is the past. And the future can be whatever I want it to be mostly. Gotta make your own luck.

Happy New Year, I’m aiming to make sure 2012 is even better, and if it’s not I’ll find some little ray of sunshine to focus on.

pity… party of one

I’m going to preface this with these are my feelings, of course, and when I say we and you, I mostly mean me, but saying me me me sounds silly. Mind you saying we and you sounds sort of overblown and douchey sometimes, let me tell you how to live your life! I don’t mean any of this that way at all, just looking back at my life a little and acknowledging traps and mistakes and trying to not let them happen again.

I used to be a much different person than the one I am now.

… Hold up, every single one of us could say that on some level. However for me I feel like I made profound changes in my life to get to this new version of me. It’s a version some people don’t even think is different, but that I know is. I’m the one that really matters in the end of things, and I like me more.

I would have said I liked me back then, but in truth my behaviours and the way I treated people were all very key indicators that I didn’t like myself much at all.

And how can we expect anyone else to like us when we don’t like ourselves? I know people (as a whole not in specific) tend to want someone to come into their lives and make them somehow be this better version of themselves and change everything about them. Sort of like some friend version of a knight in shining armour.

But most of the times you find that friend after you’ve decided to make the changes in your life to get you to a place where you don’t drive that person away. You can think former friends were mean or any number of things that make them former but in my case at least, I gave them no choice. Pettiness, jealousy, self-hate, my big fat pity party really did only have me on the guest list.

One of my facebook friends posted a link to a great blog that listed 30 things we need to stop doing to ourselves, and wow is most of this list so spot on. You can read it here if you’d like.

http://www.marcandangel.com/2011/12/11/30-things-to-stop-doing-to-yourself/

If you really look at it with your protective walls and barriers down – yes the walls that protect you from yourself as much as from other people, try and really be stripped bare of them when you read, you’ll probably find one or two that would work so well in your life it’s scary.

I have a few favourites that I think helped me change a lot or that I think are important anyway. Not that I had this list when I realized I needed to make changes in my life, I just knew that I had to change. Nothing scary or ridiculous happened to me, aside from going through some of the stages of the grieving process of losing a friend. She didn’t die, but regardless she was no longer in my life.

Stop trying to hold onto the past and stop berating yourself for old mistakes seem to go hand in hand, to me anyway. Good or bad, but especially bad if you keep looking back your front just disappears. You have to make a lot of mistakes and probably stumble and fall flat on your face before you get to the good part, even if you think that’s never going to happen. It will, as long as you open yourself up enough to let it.

Stop lying to yourself is the one I have so much trouble with. Oh I’m on a diet. Well last week I had a cookie and it was okay so it should be fine today, and tomorrow, and… oh I’ll work out extra, I’ll do some extra laps in the pool. Nope, I’m lying to me and I know it and I let myself do it. Put the fucking cookie down! Haha. I may never figure this one out, and my pants size will reflect it forever I suspect. But I try!

Competing against everyone else, being jealous of others and complaining and feeling sorry for yourself all go together in my mind too. I used to look to other people and their lives to be the marker that decided if I was happy or not, and stopping doing that was mind blowing. I might not have a life everyone wants, people might think I’m silly, and people might thing whatever they like actually, they shouldn’t be looking at my life and judging either. Jealousy goes hand in hand with this ‘oh so and so has it made’, ‘I wish I made as much money as they do’, ‘aw they always get everything and I get nothing’, ‘you’re so lucky’. Ugh! Terrible. No one else knows what is going on in someone else’s life. It might be easy to say so and so is lucky but you have no idea how they struggle or what they do to be able to do the things that make you jealous. Of course feeling all this jealous makes you think ‘wait…. I need some of this on me… maybe if I talk about how hard I have it, someone will feel sorry for me’. I am here to say that as much as people might like you or want to like you, if all you do is complain they are going to run away from you. I get bogged down my negativity so easily I know this about me, and I sometimes either get mad, or get sucked in, but I try and think of a good thing for every bad thing. A few people aside most everyone I know at least can find some good spots in their lives. It doesn’t fix what’s wrong but feeling sorry for yourself only ensures that you’re always going to be stuck in the bad place. That’s not to say you can’t give in and feel sorry every now and then, but getting stuck there… that’s always a danger. Once again you’ll be at your own pity party wearing that ripped up hat – because life isn’t fair enough for you to get a good hat of course, and no one is going to be at your table.

There’s stuff in there about worry but as much as I think worrying does make you unhappy, thinking about worrying only makes me think I worry too much, so instead I like to do a lot of avoidance. And since I’m getting up there in age, then I worry that I don’t worry enough. So worry is something I may never solve, and I should probably worry about that? Haha.

A side note of worry though is focusing on the bad things that may happen. Good grief! I do this; we all do this, and its SO MUCH wasted energy. Focus on it if it happens, deal with it then, if you think about what might happen bad to you I think there’s a couple of things that can happen. For sure you lose out on time you could have spent doing so many amazing things. And I think there’s a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy that comes into play there. “Oh dear, this might happen, what am I going to do, what am I going to do?” – nothing happens and you fretted yourself into a frenzy for nothing, or you fret so much you drive yourself and everyone around you crazy and you end up in a predicament because no one even yourself likes you at the moment.

It all boils down to this, well these, though I think they’re two sides of one coin. Don’t look to others for your happiness, and stop blaming others for your troubles. If you aren’t happy with you, no one is going to be, and if you’re waiting for someone to make you like you, it won’t happen, in fact the opposite might. But then it’s so easy to sit there when that person gets mad at your passive aggressive behaviour and say it’s all that other person’s fault and not yours.

I can’t speak for everyone in the world obviously, but I know in my case, it was me. I made me unhappy, and I was so unhappy that no one wanted to be around me. I don’t blame them one bit.

I might still get full of pity, and sad, and want someone to save me, and worry about silly things, be jealous, be angry, be so many things, but they are so much in the minority of my feelings. So much more of the time I love my life. I hate my credit cards but I love my life and the things I do. But it took me a lot to get here, both being happy, and work, and money, and friends, and everything else. I stopped feeling sorry for myself and started living my life, and guess what, people wanted to be around me, wanted to be friends, I did more fun things, I recognized that they were fun and appreciated them. I made one of the best friends of my life. Up there with my sister, the old me never would have done that. She was all about not recognizing what she had and only focusing on the bad things.

The old me might be at that table all alone, but the new me would have one hell of a party with awesome friends, cupcakes, and drinks.

I’m so thankful and grateful that somewhere along the way I changed my tune and started living!

Pity party for one, or awesome cupcake party for plenty.

Should be a pretty easy choice eh?

a threadbare bridge of words

A lot of explanation for me to get to realize that I’m judgey and really easily second hand embarrassed.

I grew up in British Columbia, I moved there in 1979 and lived there on and off in the same little town in the middle of nowhere on and off until 1992. I loved the Canucks and my sister did too, to a lesser degree, but she loved the Oilers too. Given that it would have been nearly as far for us to drive to Vancouver in the same province as Edmonton in the next that makes sense. Given that we’re talking mostly about the 1980′s here and well the Oilers were a damn easy choice of team to love for people of our age, lol. Conversely, they were also a damn easy team to hate.

But I digress. They were so good in the 80′s that it was so easy to get all caught up in it, people started hating on them, the media did a little too, the whole Gretzky thing imploded, etc. Understanding that back then there was no internet, following a hockey team meant watching what games were on TV, our choices were Canucks and Oilers and whatever happened to be on Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday, s’up Leafs. Huge media coverage meant print and TV only, oh maybe there was a zine here or there but no one where I lived even knew what a zine was let alone would have made one about hockey. So while we were fans of our teams and had an impressive collection of gear and silly knickknacks it wasn’t like fandom is today. If someone wanted to say “Yeah, but did anyone pump Luongo’s tires” they pretty much had to do it to your face and not sitting behind their keyboard using words much tougher than they are. Consequently, people said stuff like that less, lol. Hell, there wouldn’t have been that huge press conference after the game for us to even know Lou said that in the first place you know? My point is, that the world, and indeed fandom was a different place.

I moved back to BC in 1996 and lived there until 2004. This time it was about three hours from the Alberta border, now in all the time that had passed there’d been a shift in the world and in hockey, no longer were the Oilers the kings of the world, and no longer were the Canucks still terrible…. I lie, they still kind of were, haha. But after our couple of years back east where the Canuck games (if they were on TV) started at midnight, we jumped right back into hockey again. Lorna liked the Oilers and Canucks, and I liked the Canucks.

Finally in the 02/03 season we drive to Edmonton and saw the Canucks play the Oilers. First time ever we saw both of our teams play live. Lorna bought an Oilers jersey for the occasion; the Canucks won and we had one of our most fun trips ever. We came back the next year and saw Dallas play the Oilers, and then made our first trip ever to Vancouver to see the Canucks play the Avs in the 03/04 season. Live hockey, amazing!

In 2004 we decided to change up our lives and move to Edmonton. Big jump for us, an industry that I’d never worked in was now my job, and of course neither of us had ever lived in a city before. Not only not lived in a city but the town we’re spent most of our lives in had less than a thousand people as the population, the times we lived in a couple of tens of thousand people population cities seemed huge for us. Thankfully the NHL got locked out that year and neither of us lost our mind trying to follow hockey and survive that first year here. I’m being slightly facetious there.

I only mention that part because during the lockout we had an AHL team here; cheap tickets, and they played the Moose. Understand that the Moose at this time had all of the Canuck kids playing for them because of the lockout, as did the Oilers playing for the Road Runners. The issue became that my sister did not like the Oiler kids at all. But she loved the big team – surely there would be no problem there right?

The NHL came back the next season and we went to Canucks vs Oilers for preseason – she wore her Oiler jersey and I wore my Canucks shirt. Post game, she felt awkward – the guys she didn’t like on the Runners were now Oilers, the fans that were so nice to her were jerky to me. Next game she wore her jersey again, but that was the last time.

That’s right, having spent our whole lives at odds when it came to hockey, we move to the hometown of her favourite team and she decides that she’s really more of a Canuck fan after all. Life is funny like that sometimes! So our next game we’re both wearing Canuck shirts and she gets to feel what it feels like to be the opposing fan in the away building.

Now, we’re good fans. We clap when our team scores, we stand up and clap if they win, and if we boo anything it’s just to each other under our breath. It’s not our building, and the people there to see their team deserve to be able to do so in peace. In my opinion. But I’m also paying as much as they did to see my team and I deserve to see my team in peace too. However that rarely happens.

I cheer for my team and the other team is irrelevant. That’s how I look at things. I don’t care who it is or who I like or don’t like, I’m there to enjoy my team win or lose.

That judging people on how I act and my beliefs thing gets me into trouble and hurt feelings all over my life. But I’m still convinced that people won’t be assholes at some point in my life… even if that so very rarely happens. And if I’m honest that’s a bad way to look at things, I know it. Some people are jerks and I’m not, the world is never gonna change that much. Rise above and all that. Rising above is so hard though.

Some of the things that have happened to us in the over forty games we’ve seen at the Oilers Arena include but are not limited to; getting screamed at to go back home even though we live here, getting called a fat bitch, a stupid bitch, general mockery, getting shoved into a wall, pushed down steps, etc, anyway the point is that we’re there for the same reason they are, and all that we saw for years was abuse at the hands of Oiler fans. No one deserves that. We even stopped wearing Canuck gear to games as protection on the walk out. We’re really proud and love our team, but are afraid to wear the gear seems like a ridiculous thing to do, but that deep down punch in the face feeling of being mocked and belittled is worse.

Now I am by now means saying this is only Oiler fans – far from it. I know there are Canuck fans that are just as bad and worse, I don’t experience that so I can’t speak on it, but I know it happens, and it’s just as terrible. I’ve been to games in a bunch of other NHL arenas and I know it happens there too, but I don’t judge them as harshly as I do Oiler and Canuck fans. And that brings me to my point.

FOR GOD SAKE FINALLY!

Last week we sat in the very last row at Rexall, I like sitting there; you get a good view and no one can toss things or ‘accidentally’ spill their beer on you. Anyway, we sat with amazing people – they have season tickets and they were lovely, they let us cheer, we let them cheer, we talked about the game we all talked like rational adults – gasp – I know, we were amazed too believe me!

But from afar we could see Canuck fans reaching over Oiler fans to high five, and to boo ridiculous things, and Oiler fans yelling things, and tossing things, and just what I like to call general douchebaggery from far too many people.

Las night we sat with really well behaved Oiler and Canuck fans there was all in good fun jesting and hugs and laughing, it was awesome. But from afar a guy in a turban got told to go back to where he came from and someone had beer tossed on him, and two guys got tossed out for being jerks.

I’ve seen games all over North America, Canuck related and not, and I’ve seen bad fan behaviour other places too. Yet when I see it here and in Vancouver (where I’ve also see the Oilers play as the away team) it makes me SO mad! And wondering why is what led me along this over a thousand word trip down memory lane above.

Partly what I think is this.

I love this city. I’m very proud to live here. When people ask me where I’m from I say Edmonton. Of course lots of times after that they look at me blankly and I add Canada, haha, but whatever this is my city! I want people in my city to be better behaved.

I love my team. I’m so proud to be a Canuck fan. I’ve lived through ridiculously bad seasons – times where it really would be an embarrassment to be a Canuck fan, but I didn’t care, I love them. Having people mock them for getting to game seven of the finals is pretty laughable – but I digress, I love them, and I want fans of my team to be better behaved.

When I go to Rogers Arena and watch the Canucks play I don’t care what anyone else is doing. I get to watch my own team in their home arena, I literally don’t even care who they play let alone about other fans. I love my team and the other team is just some other guys out there.

I’d love to go to Rexall Place and see Oiler fans cheering their heart out for their own team and not not even caring who the other team is. I’d love to go to Rogers Arena and see Canuck fans acting the same way.

I know, unlikely! I know that I’ll have more games where my sister has to grab my hand because we are literally scared to walk out of the building, I know that there will be things yelled at us and blah blah blah.

That’s hockey? No. No, it’s not hockey. It’s people acting like jerks and somehow feeling like they have a right to because I like something they don’t. It’s childish and stupid for people to act like that. It happens in every arena in the NHL and other sports I’m sure, but that doesn’t make it right. It bothers me more here when the Canucks are in town, than anywhere I’ve been.

The other day I realized why this is.

Second hand embarrassment.

I don’t want to feel like I’m judged by bad behaviour. Oh Canuck fans are fickle. Oh Edmontonians are so rude. Oh Newfoundlanders are so stupid. Whatever is whatever, and I hate it all.

I hate that my city embarrasses me? And I hate that other fans of my team embarrass me? The fans that live in my city embarrass me because they reflect on me, and the fans of my team do the same thing. But in reality they don’t. Only I do. Rise above.

Next month we go to California where there will be double digit amounts of people yelling for us to go back to Canada in LA, and sure that makes me mad, but not as mad as someone in Edmonton telling me to go home.

So go Canucks go. I’ll be that girl walking down from the 300 level at Rexall looking all flushed, second hand embarrassed at everyone in the arena, and like I wish I had a teleportation device to get out of the building.

we all can’t read jane austen

The title comes from a visit to a bookstore at the mall, Lorna was buying a quirky but very funny book about vampires, not quite a romance, but aren’t all books in some way a romance? Anyway the girl working there said she knew someone who’d read it and loved these fluff books ‘after all we all can’t read Jane Austen can we?’ The me that I was then just gave her a look and let Lorna pay for the book. I’d like to think the me of today would have had something to say. But it’s easy to think things that didn’t come to pass.

I love to read. I think when I was very very young I didn’t like to so much, but I clearly recall my mom making us go to the library in Granisle and once I did, I was hooked. It was a very small town to the library didn’t exactly offer huge variety but for such a small town, having a library at all was pretty cool in the bigger picture. I’m not entirely sure of my favourite books back then, I know I read a lot of Tintin and Asterix and Obelix. And on vacation in Newfoundland I read a lot of Bobbsey Twins and Trixie Belden. It wasn’t until I read Gordon Korman that I really remember being ‘these books are the greatest thing ever’! In fact I’m still not unconvinced that his books aren’t the greatest thing ever.

At some point in my teen years it because all about the books I shouldn’t have been reading or at least in my mind I shouldn’t have been reading. Jackie Collins, serial killer biographies, anything from the ‘grown up’ section of our library. And of course the dreaded romances, modern and historical. Into my college years my tastes changed again, there was still some historical romances; but I’d started to love geography and anthropology. Instead of fiction I was pouring over the history section. Anything about Russia, anything about culture from anywhere in the world. I became obsessed by a book called Families Of The World. I tried to teach myself how to speak Spanish. I not only had a library card in the town I lived in then, but in the next town over too. And then there was the college library, and art history.

There was a point in my life after college that I only had one bookshelf and a good part of that was filled with stuff rather than just books. Not the four full sized bookshelves that I have now. But that gets me ahead of myself.

As I got older my tastes changed again, and sort of came full circle. There was a long time trying to find books that I’d loved as a kid, I have almost all my favourites from then and those that I couldn’t find I still look for. Searching for some half remembered plot twist or a character name. The Internet of course changed how to search for and made finding them much easier. A friend had given us a book to read, it was a novel in the middle of a series of Marion Zimmer Bradley books, Darkover. I was hooked. Hooked! Little did I know that most of these books were written in the 70′s, out of print, and oh yeah the author was dead now and the series wasn’t over. A chance encounter with a lonely clerk in a used bookstore in Fort St John, BC led us to a few websites where you could buy out of print books from all over the world. Boom! Suddenly the whole world of books was open to me! I did find all of the nearly twenty books in that series, and thanked my lucky stars that she had left notes to other authors and let them continue her series and I still await more of them to be written well past her death. Now of course I live in a city, and luckily in a city that not only has bookstore chains but many used bookstores as well.

Today I’m just as likely to be reading a biography of a hockey player, or a book about teenage vampires, or adult ones, or British orphans, ancient tribes and cultures, daimon hunters made by the goddess Artemis, history, lovely novels about England, teenage angst, adult angst, Wizards, mysteries, things that scare the pants off me and make me stay up half the night because I can’t stop picturing the words come to life in my head, dystopian worlds, pretty much anything that catches my fancy. I don’t have a type, I don’t have a genre, I don’t have anything that decides what I might decide to read other than my mood at the moment that I pick up a book. Regardless of my sister saying I only shop in the teen section that simply isn’t true.

Having said all of that, no we all can’t read Jane Austen, because some of us find her novels boring as fuck. But just to be contrary I absolutely love books about her books. Whether it’s novels about people that love her books, or novels that are using the theme of her books but in a different setting, or even a book that’s about Jane herself being a vampire and fighting the French army. But as many times as I have tried to enjoy her books, I just can’t get into it. And you know what, that’s absolutely okay, and nothing to be looked down at by some snotty intellectual snob of a clerk at a bookstore. Reading is fun, an escape, learning, pretending, whatever you get out of it is personal to you. And I love that. Since January 2010 I’ve read 203 books. Some of them are re-reads, some of them are amazing works of literature, and some of them are the equivalent of watching reality TV, but they’re all a view, with some good imagination – a visit, into a world that’s different than my world, and that’s the whole point regardless of how ‘good’ the book is.

it isn’t an exact science

I never claim to be a good cook. I sort of have a love/hate relationship with food, or more to the point with cooking. When I’m feeling it, I’m inventive and I plan things out and I love to cook, when I’m not feeling it, I’d kind of like to dip whole wheat saltines into sugar free chocolate pudding. There’s a little bit of half made home made in the middle there, but I’ll admit to those extremes. Lately though, I’m enjoying cooking again.

I work 12 hour days, four on, four off. Generally on my last day off I cook dinner for the next four nights, and plan out something for lunch and snacks for all four days. Coming home after those days involves half ass paying attention to some tv, and then sleeping and heading back out the highway.

The other day I went to T&T to buy some shirataki noodles. I like the ones made with yam flour, or something to do with yams, not the tofu ones. There’s a lot of health stuff about these noodles, such as the lack of calories and some sort of off colour things about how your body processes them. Haha, what a lovely start to this entry.

Anyway, I like these noodles. They come in a bag of liquid, sort of a fishy brine, they frankly stink, however when you rinse them off, there is no smell or flavour; aside from what you add in there. If you’re expecting them to be like a pasta noodle, change your expectations! However, if you take them and cook them in a pan some they dry out a little and then you start adding in some flavour, and you’re cooking! Literally.

Since most of the packages of things are labeled in languages that I don’t know and can’t read or even differentiate from, a lot of the time I just stick with buying veggies there. This time it was onions, bean sprouts, savoy cabbage, the noodles, carrots, and mushrooms that sort of looked like bigger Enoki mushrooms, a white and a brown. Admittedly I bought them because of the shape, but they were very soft and tasty. With some help from google they turned out to be buna and bunapi – shimeji mushrooms. At any rate all of those ingredients stir fried up with some soy sauce, ginger, and a spice packet made me a delicious dinner for all four of the nights that I worked this last week.

With all of that being said, I have Sunday and Monday off and no plans yet. I did buy a frozen paella though and worked out a recipe for pizza in a wonton wrapper, but if I do that that’ll be another entry for another time. Nothing life changing or spreading the word about cooking or the way I feel about it, but much like knitting I can’t seem to follow a recipe any more than a pattern either. I don’t know what it is about me, I must secretly be a little bit of a rebel.

And then she told three friends, and so on, and so on…

I started knitting in June of 2008. I’d watched my mom knit countless sweaters, and mittens, and toques over the years, scarves too, even blankets, though she preferred to crochet those. She still does. She crochets a lot more these days due to arthritis, but earlier in my life I never could quite get it. On vacation in 2008 I watched the friends I was visiting knit, and knit, and knit and I wanted to do it so badly that I came home and bam this time when my mom showed me it all made sense. Somehow at thirty six all of those needles moving in and out of yarn with no rhyme nor reason made sense. I saw the rhymes and reason and I loved it.

I keep on reading books about knitting, women (and men) who’ve had some profound loss in their lives and the pick up yarn and needles and it’s a gateway to making their lives make more sense, or at least the joy of it combined with the amazing people they meet is the gateway to healing for them. Or maybe some combination of all of that. But it wasn’t ever that for me. I always feel better creating something, maybe it’s my visual art background but I love making something, anything. I’ll never be a great artist, but gosh I love it. In college I focused on photography and fibre arts. There was a lot of yarn work, though mostly it was weaving, but I’d argue that knitting is a form of weaving, you are combining fibres after all. I like to think that my instructor Bridget would look at all of the things I’ve created in the last three years and smile.

I should interject here and say that this art background is also a little bit of a hindrance, I have too much imagination sometimes, I would possibly say that not a single thing that I’ve knit follows the pattern exactly, not because I can’t or because I don’t want to, I just like to add my own flair? Something like that. And back to those things that I have knit. Settle in for a list.

1. It started out with a square of garter stitch that in time became a beaver cape.
2. Then there was a long strip of stockinette that became a snake.
3. The ever present dishcloth.
4. And then I read a patter for the first time and made (and felted) a beautiful little heart that was stuffed.

Now this… this rocked my world. Knitting in 3D? Not making something flat and useful but knitting for knitting sake? Making something silly with no purpose but to have fun? Oh yes, I had found my niche.

My friend Jenni had come up with a gnome pattern that most of my friends had at least one of and we took them on our travels, this was the next thing that I learned how to knit. Pocket gnomes. I wanted to learn to make a cupcake but I couldn’t really figure out the patterns yet, and to be honest back then I didn’t have the skills to figure out the fancier things in patterns that are quite easy but when casting off is still brand new, ssk seems like another language.

5. Probably over the course of three years I have made between 20 and 30 of these gnomes in a lot of assorted colours with names such as Sangria, Truffle, Ozzie, Hordi, Swedish red headed twins, etc…
6. Chapstick holder shaped like a penis, again a round out, about 10 or so of these.
7. Cherries on a stem.
8. Tiny goldfish.
9. A mushroom, that looks more like a cupcake.
10. A ladybug.
11. A small cat.
12. A small dog.
13. A small bunny.
14. 3 Sets of fingerless gloves. – No pattern just figuring it out as I went along.
15. A pickle.
16. A small blue penis.
17. Small dogs in Oiler hats and scarves.
18. Peas in a pod.
19. A flat hockey skate, I’ve knit a lot of these as Christmas decorations.
20. A hockey skate stuffed toy, also a lot of these.
21. A felted eyepatch.
22. I started knitting a sock… I have the cuff and a few inches, then lost interest.
23. Many duck finger puppets.
24. And entire plate of sushi.
25. A hockey player finger puppet. – Pattern created as I went.
26. Stuffed bunnies. – Three of them.

Now is where I realized that I didn’t just have to make small things because I was making toys and whatnot. I could make full sized stuffies. And the quality was good enough to give to kids, and I did with this one, well to my sister, to my cousin’s baby, and to a friend. Again, a whole new world open.

27. Stuffed Tigers. Two of them.
28. A penguin. My own pattern.
29. The globe.
30. A tiny Olympic mitten.
31. Three tiny elves.
32. Many bracelets with a flower embroidered, and a button closure.
33. Three fat rabbit dolls.
34. A house hippo.
35. A snowman.
36. A stuffed letter F.
37. A stuffed moose.
38. A weird little doll with no face that my sister wanted.
39. Chocolate chip cookie.
40. A small doll, based on me, my sis, my bff, and her sis.
41. A small house.
42. Two birds.
43. An owl.
45. Four grilled cheese sandwich halves.
46. An elephant.
47. A finger moustache.
48. A stop light.
49. A tiny hotdog.
50. A bald ballerina doll.
51. A small stack of pancakes.
52. A frog on a lily pad.
53. A broomstick bookmark.
54. An alligator that’s eaten a small girl.
55. A pencil.
56. Three mini donuts.
57. Three tiny mountains.
58. A voodoo doll.
59. A Canuck ninja. My pattern.
60. Two tiny bunnies.
61. A fairy doll.

As I finish this list I have three works in progress. Another gnome. A monster with another monster that lives in it’s stomach pouch, and a toque. Yes. You heard me right a toque. I dyed some yarn with my friend once, and it’s so soft and beautiful that a toque seemed to be the perfect vehicle for that. I had just read a book where a lady who’d lost a child found solace and basically her life again in knitting, and yes in the people that she met through knitting, and she centered mostly on scarves but when she found hats she found her way even more it seemed like. I don’t think that’ll ever be me. But it’s very self indulgent of me to think that any problems I’ve had that I’ve used knitting to escape come close to those faced by the people in those books either. But life is life, and finding something that makes you feel good and like you’re creating something is huge whether you are looking for something to escape or not.

This post has gotten so very long. Truthfully I never stared out with the intention of that happening, but I like looking at how I felt that summer, that summer that changed SO many things in my life and I grew so much as a person and to think about how much I have grown since then, and how many well learned and hard learned lessons there have been in my life since then, and I know that knitting has been a huge part of that. Creating something from a few words and some fibres and pieces of wood, well when you look at a fully formed something that exists because you made it happen, is still a great feeling.

And it really does bring people together. I’ve been sitting on planes, and in boarding lounges, in countless doctor’s waiting rooms, anywhere you have to sit a while, and no matter where I am or what I’m knitting, there is a conversation struck up by either another knitter, or someone who is fascinated by knitting. I hope that one day my enthusiasm in talking about it, will measure up to the friends I was inspired by and some of the people I talk to do go home and watch some you tube videos, buy a book, or better still talk to that someone they know that knits but they never thought it was a viable something to do, and my joy gets passed on to some one else. Even more than the gifts I give people being passed on to them, I hope that my enthusiasm is.

Fra of all trades, master of none?

I keep on thinking that I should blog about something. And that that something should be epic and important and something that I dabble in. Unfortunately, though I do dabble in an awful lot of things, they’re always so wide spread that nothing every comes together enough to make any smooth sense of anything.

For instance, I cook, but then sometimes I don’t. I’d post about recipes and whatnot one day. And then the next day I’d be off taking photos. And then the day after that knitting. Then writing, or drawing, or travelling, or reading, loving movies, or obsessed by working out but never quite getting there.

All very valid themes for an over all blog, but not quite enough of I just pick one to babble about. To sum up all of this, I suppose I’d say that I don’t really have anything in specific to blog about, but an awful lot in general? What I’d say to keep in mind is that you never know what you might get, purling, zesting, pencils, white levels, planes, words, reels, or crunches, you just never know! But I hope it’ll be interesting.