Nowhere I can't Flow

My beautifully unruly way - I like that descriptor for what I am making up today to be.

I could barely roll myself out of bed today, I was so exhausted. It's also a bad habit when I'm doing laundry - I do my sheets last and always end up having a night where there are no sheets on my bed. It's so easy to cocoon myself in my super awesome duvet and drift off to la la land, making it that much harder to wake up in the morning. It's so cold out there, and so warm in here, so busy out there and so calm in here. This is the cold and chaotic story I tell myself every morning of what will happen as soon as my toe touches the ground.

Today's chaos included three review classes (the last of the semester), and a dentist appointment - all of which, unfortunately, do not give me a lot of time for studying. I was freaking out this morning. But I found an alternative - I will stay home from my review classes. They're not going to tell me anything so fundamentally important that I will fail my exams if I don't hear it, and I'm in a position where I will pass (barely, mind) if I choose not to show up for my exams anyway.

At home, the tea is free, the only one judging me for sneezing into my elbow is my dog, and if I feel the need to bend into down-dog after a few hours of being hunched over my notes - I can. I could absolutely do this during a review class to, but something tells me that it wouldn't go over too well.

I put myself in a hard position though. If I stay home, what am I missing? If I go to class, how much time am I wasting? These are the stories in my head this morning, this is what is eating at me.

So, I go into the kitchen, make some tea, and break out into down-dog in my kitchen in the hopes of some miraculous, yoga inspired, answer to my stress. My necklace smacked me in the face.


It's from energy muse, and the basis of this necklace is that it will provide me with energy, endurance, motivation, balance, wisdom, and a positive attitude. It's called Flow. Now, I'm cynical about the fact that these stones are going to give me anything other than a pretty necklace - but it does serve as a reminder when it hits you right in your face. I can flow anywhere, I will do whatever needs to be done and I can do it anywhere - school be damned!

Have a Little Faith

I love reading borrowed books, and I love lending my favorite books out. People read so differently. I know someone who reads with a highlighter and highlights her favorite sentences. To mark my pages, I use a bookmark I was gifted by a friend that says "Oh my god! I'm wierd in a good way and you're creepy in a good way!" HIGH FIVE (and it's now, years and years later I notice her spelling mistake....but maybe we are a little wierd). It was one of our many revelations over coffee, and one of the many that circles back to the fact that how we're being in that moment is the only way to be. Our moments are perfect, and deserve high fives. I dog ear the bottom of pages to remind me of the things I like, much like my highlighting friend.

The funny thing about this, is that for me, it works like a diary. A book I read and dog-eared 2 years ago would be dog-eared in entirely different places today. Maybe I'm a buddhist reader, the world is neutral and the only thing that exists are our reactions to it...how we interpret things, and that can change if we want it to.

This is something from have a little faith by Mitch Albom that I really liked...

One concerns a farmer who wakes up to find his horse has run off.
The neighbors come by and say, "Too bad. Such awful luck."
The farmer says, "Maybe."
The next day, the horse returns with a few other horses. The neighbors congratulate the farmer on his reversal of fortune.
"Maybe," the farmer says.
When his son tries to ride one of the new horses, he breaks his leg, and the neighbors offer condolences.
"Maybe," the farmer says.
And the next day, when army officials come to draft the son - and don't take him because of his broken leg - everyone is happy.
"Maybe," the farmer says.
I have hears stories like this before. They are beautiful in their simplicity and surrender to the universe. I wonder if I could be attached to something so detached. I don't know. Maybe.

This is so lovely to me. I want to go to India, but the possibility of that happening this May was looking better last week than it is today. I know I'm going to India - I want to see what all the fuss is about, I want immerse myself in it - so, I know I am going. But, I'm attached to how I'm getting there. It HAS to be through my school, it HAS to be this May, it HAS to happen in THIS way. The fact is, most of the things I want to do in India, I could do without ever leaving my house if I really wanted to, so I don't even really HAVE to go to India.

This is why I love reading.

MAYBE I'll go to India, MAYBE it will be this May, MAYBE it will be through school. MAYBE I'll stay home, MAYBE I'll go in February, June, or next year, MAYBE it will be through the time machine in my basement. BUT I will still have 10 days to myself that involve nothing but yoga, indian food, no one to talk to, and lots of time to wander in and out of my own head. Those are my objectives and I'm getting there - that's what I'm attached to. I'm not attached to the 'how' of things and it opens me up to so many more opportunities. I mean, c'mon...a time machine in my basement is a pretty cool way to travel.

Maybe is my new favorite word.

God of Shuffle

........Organic Coast - Hawksley Workman

"And you'll be lucky with that old sexy stocking...they're turning me into a hermaphrodite fish...aquasexual delish...we're refugees to suffer the lost art of imperfection...oh, their tricky, tricky, languages...tonight we're learning how, tonight we're learning how, tonight we're learning how........"

Sounds about right. Maybe.

I love the gods of shuffle, they always know what to play :)







P.S. I stole most of this from this

Happy Place

Thanks to a wonderful yoga instructor, I've been having a few conversations about happy places lately. Where is your happy place? Where you go to in your mind when you need to take a moment, when you're bored, when you need to push yourself a little further....

I've gotten a few interesting answers, but most paint pictures of relaxation, beaches, sunshine, water, and loved ones. One answer, I really liked...my happy place IS that moment when I'm bored, and that moment when I need to push myself a little further, THIS is my happy place...why would I ever leave?

AWESOME. 100%.

In my happy place, I'm wearing this dress:


dancing down the street (any street, all streets) with all the amazing people in my life, singing this song.

My happy place is a circus, and it's pretty great.

But, as the 100% awesome answer above, I invite you to create today as your happy place. Choose to be happy in everything you do today, it's your happy place - create it that way.

Losing my shit

It's so awesome how the little things can get you to do big things.

I was returned my gym bag today by a lovely lady who would prefer it if I were "Carrie" instead of "Kairee", but really she can call me anything she wants. Since I got it back, I actually organized it.

A friend, someone who I am super grateful to know and happy that she is part of the 'family I choose', posted a game thinger on her tumblr . My life would be defined if I flipped to a sentence in a book. Mine said Clear your desk. That's all. So, I did, and I feel like I love right now a little bit more.

My horoscope says:

The nature of the game is changing. Do you know which game I'm referring to? I mean the one that everyone's playing but no one's acknowledging they're playing. The rules of the game had held steady for quite some time, but recently they began to shift. Now even the game's rewards are in the process of metamorphosing. My advice? You don't necessarily need to splash a big dose of raw candor all over the place, but I do recommend that you at least tell yourself the truth about what's going on.

and I say:

IT'S ABOUT FREAKIN' TIME!!

P.S. I'm really happy that my favorite pair of underwear has been returned to the safe, warm, embrace of my....underwear drawer. Like I said, the simple things.

What's really gone?

I lost my ipod last week. I wonder if it was some sort of karmic retribution for either doing or not doing something. Either way, the message was lost in translation.

Everytime I lose something, I ask myself what is really lost? I have a back-up ipod. The mini-van of my newly misplaced cadillac. It does it's job most of the time. It gives me something to concentrate on at the gym and something to fall asleep to on the bus. It serves it's purpose - so what am I missing?

I'm missing constant access to my email, your facebook page, horoscopes, and dan savage, but I can live without instant gratification.

I did realize that each of my ipods and each of my ex-boyfriends seemed to have similar shelf lives though. My mini-van's windshield is cracked, and once you turn it on it won't shut off until the battery is dead, and even that sounds eerily familiar. It was a good 4 years. And the cadillac...I was kind of hoping it would last longer than it did, but again, what's really lost? I can't help but think that the next time I go to the apple store that I'll really be shopping for a new boyfriend. I'm content without having the newest model though, I'm not really feeling all this "face-time" stuff. There's something to be said about silence.

However, at the time I lost my ipod I was involved in a very intense game of words with friends with a lovely lady who grew up in the former USSR but is now living in California after a brief stint in Canada. She made her kids' costumes for halloween, and I never got to ask how it went. For the record though, I was about to play "fictions" for 111 points.

If my friends thought I was losing my shit last year around this time, let me tell you, 2010 is just as interesting. I left my gym-bag on the bus today. Goodbye hairdryer, straightener, perfect shoes and my favorite pair of underwear. I am getting all of that back, but it just begs me to ask the question again - what am I missing? Nothing really! I'm only slightly serious, I really would miss that pair of undies.

Maybe I'm just supposed to be thankful for what I have right now. Comfortable in the silence, not in need of luxury. And I am, it's kind of awesome.

The SuperForest Humanifesto

Give this a listen:




For those of you who don't know, I am madly in love with positive vibes, finding happiness in the small things, and love itself. And for those of you who get to talk to me on a daily basis, and know my varying madnesses, know that I don't always exhibit these things but often circle back to them in some way.

Superforest is a positivity blog, and reminds me to be amazing everyday. Even more, when I think I'm not being amazing, it reminds me that amazing isn't something you be it's just something I am. Pretty cool huh? If you can spare about 2 minutes and 35 seconds I implore you to check out their humanifesto and maybe take a gander at one of their most recent entry's about Preston that I am in like with.

When I need a bunch of people from all over the world to give me something to grab onto when I lose my grip, this is where I go. Check it out! :)

LOVE!

My food and I were in a mutual state of love for each other last night,

Who are you going to make a point to express your love to today?

Not really being that present

I got up at 4 a.m today, so I could study for the exam-related hell that awaits me at 8 a.m., so I could print off the study notes off of Blackboard, that I didn't print off last night...so I could go to bed at 8 p.m....so I could get up at 4 a.m.

And why do it at 4am instead of 8pm? Because I am disenchanted with my education right now. I'm ready to be done, to be outta here, to get on with 'it'. I fail to see how one more group project, one more paper, one more class that's eerily similar to the last 8 classes, is going to make me a better manager. It's about experience, but I don't think controlled experience is actually experience. I feel like I'm 3 years old again and screaming at my mom, "I CAN BLOODY WELL DO IT BY MYSELF" I feel like I could save the world but school isn't letting me.

I feel like writing 45% of my grade in one day is ridiculous, especially when I'm writing for profs who have admitted that I am not their priority. Yet, they're my priority. Yet, they're teaching me that whent there's a misalignment of priorities, there are issues.

I'd rather be planning my trip to India, because that's experience. Because that will make me a better me. I'd rather be changing into my running gear or grabbing my yoga mat. I'd rather spend the day watching TEDTalks and talking about it with friends. I'd rather be finding a way to get to the Leaders causing Leaders conference, because I think it would be a better use of my time instead of regurgitating redundant information on a peice of paper.

That's why I didn't print my notes off of blackboard last night. Because you can't study like that. I woke up this morning, decided that today was the best day ever. That I will write the best exams ever, because this is the best day ever.

And blackboard is down. I can't print my notes, and I somehow feel that this is a karmic fuck-you since I internally bashed a service I'm being provided with, that probably will help me in the future, so much last night.

However, it was decided 2 hours ago that this is the best day ever, and I am so awesome that I don't actually need to study for my exams. Ye-ah. That's right!

I am still a little pissy about it all though. The 3 year old needs a nap.

The Germans are coming!

Do you ever feel like things are piling up?

The laundry basket is full even though you just did it all? The ironing pile gets a little more wrinkled with each passing moment? The bananas are rotting? The studying for my 3 back-to-back exams won’t do itself? Work can’t wait? If it’s not the French Delegation, it’s the German Delegation? You can’t run fast enough? You can’t do yoga calmly enough? Your want-to-do list is longer tonight than it was this morning and you’ve been chucking at it all day? It’s already 4 p.m.?

What do I do with my time?

Merde!

Where you are right now, is where you are meant to be

Among so many other things, I champion being present in everyday life. I think all you can control is how you feel and how you show up for others, and that the best way to control this is by not dwelling on the past or trying to predict the future (both of which I do incessantly, but we can't all be perfect). I think you start doing this by simply being aware of your surroundings.

But the thing is, I've been falling down stairs a lot lately. At the leg. building this week I had to run something over to the speaker's office, and I was so nervous! I don't work in the legislature building (the fancy one), I work in the annex (the ugly green one), and I don't have to go over very often. It's such a confusing building! To get to this part of the second floor, you have to go downstairs, take the elevator with the bullet hole up 2 stories, and down this other staircase....that type of thing. What's more, is I make myself up as silly and stupid for working on the leg. grounds for 2 years and still not knowing where the Speaker's Office is. I mean, c'mon! But, anyway, I found it, and on my way back to my building, I tripped down the stairs, that I had walked up only 10 minutes before, right in front of the ledge in front of about 60 people. To add, I'm not a graceful person, so you can only imagine.

Then yesterday, I did the exact same thing at school over a set of stairs that I've come across only a thousand times before. It's so bloody annoying!

And even one more thing yesterday, where about 20 other people are as non-present as me at 8am... We all got off the bus and went to cross the street, but there was an ambulance coming. Granted, there's an emt building, a fire hall, and it's downtown so we're all a little desensitized to e-town's alarm clocks, but half of us had to run ahead to avoid being hit by the bus, and the other half of us had to slam on our own brakes. ALL FREAKIN' 20 of us weren't paying attention! It astounds me, seriously. When I'm crossing the street, why can't I be crossing the street, why am I already 100 feet away in my health class already?

I love life's little nudges in the right direction, and I'm giving props to myself for recognizing them. Right now, I am scanning notes for a friend and writing to no one in particular. The nap, dinner, and relaxation in my near future don't matter...I am being present.

Things I'm Thankful for

So the thing is, I try to go through life with an attitude of gratitude. When things are pleasant, it's easy to forget to be grateful for the people and things that make it so. So, I try to be conscious of these things. I'm thankful for group photos, the people that are okay with my snap-happy tendencies, the people that will have team huddles with me over drinking games, that make fun of me for being a foot shorter than almost everything, heart-to-hearts outside 7-11, new people, turkey, bracelts with "pickled" on them, pumpkin pie beer and so many other things. And that was just last night. I'm thankful that I'm doing well in every aspect of my life, and I'm thankful for the people that have pushed and pulled me in every direction to get me here. I'm thankful for the random who gave me his cab last night, and I hope he was thankful for the $20 I slipped in his case of beer.

I've learned this past year to find the opportunities when things aren't so pleasant, and I've learned to thank the people involved in that. Without that first year of university, I never would have tired of going to the bar every night, switched out of education, found ambition and set that low bar for all of my friends (I know you like that!). When I didn't get all of those jobs I wanted, I got the job I have now and love every minute of. Without that 4 year relationship that ended last year, I never would have realized that I'm okay with being physically apart from someone for long periods of time, I never would have known how much I have to offer. And god forbid I didn't see the one or two asshats inbetween!

I have a few points to make here. It's hard to see the good when it's great, and it's hard to trust that the silver lining is the most important part when life seems to be shitting on you (it's not shitting on you, it's getting you ready for what's next). And I know I'm cheesy and 100% dork, but I honestly believe that. I've learned that I can take anything you can throw at me. And I can be grateful and present to it all, AND make room for it in my life. Guys, I totally got this down. I am so happy that each one of you are part of my life, whether you had an impact on me for 5 weeks, 5 months, or 5 years...I made room for you, and I'm so glad you reciprocated!

Also, I kinda love Thanksgiving.

How are you changing civilization?

Every four years there will be another presidential election, another world cup, one more go at the olymics, a leap year, and you'll be 1,461 days older. In four years, you'll be four years wiser. Think of all the information that gets passed along to us every day. We're smart people. We're amazing people. In four years, we can make where we are living last a little longer




This isn't a problem for you to solve. It's a responsibility we all have, to get creative, to get inspired, to get a little down and dirty together. What will you do? Will you start recycling in your home? Will you inspire your community? Will you turn your garden into a food garden? What message are you sending, how are you showing up?

I love my assorted ways, I contain multitudes

I've had to do a lot of self-describing lately. I don't want to call it justifying myself, or selling who I am to others. I know who I am, and you can take me or leave me. Hell, you can take parts of me and leave with them if you want to! I have a lot to give, and there's lots to go around.

In the last 6 months I've met new friends, new loves, new bosses, and I'm currently trying to organize my life to coordinate with 47 other people I just met and have to work with. You think with all the "I'm a hard worker" and "If I like you, I'll bend over backwards for you" 's that I've muttered over this time, you'd think I'd have a better idea of who I am, and what makes me me. And maybe I do know, in a sense. I know that I change constantly, or maybe I am change. I know that I contradict myself on every available occasion.

I'm the aspiring raw-foodie-would-be-health-nut, who smokes. Put me on a stage with a spotlight, and you bet that I'll rock it, but put me in a house party with a bunch of new strangers and I might very well be the girl who leaves early. I'm always rushing around, but I'm the person who strolls more so than walks or runs. I'm the albino hermit that feels like a nubian queen. Naked in front of 40 strangers? No problem! Fully clothed in front of that one guy? We might have some issues.

I am everything, a mess of contradictions, the assorted package of nuts, and I'll celebrate this as my divine advantage.

“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.”
- Walt Whitman

And this is how we milk your nuts...

I am obsessed with milking nuts. And not just because it sounds dirty. I take pride in the fact that I will soak nuts overnight for a glass of nut milk in the morning that is preservative free. So here goes...

Step 1:Soak le nuts. Personally, I prefer almond milk in the morning, so I put about a cup of almonds in my glass and filled it with water to soak overnight. It only needs about 4 hours, and it gets rid of all the gunk you don't need (there's actually some sort of enzyme it gets rid of or something, I don't remember, all I know is that this is step 1 and the last step is almond milk. Nuff said!).

Step 2:
Rinse les nuts. In the morning. In a bowl. It gets rid of more gunk.

Step 3:Put your cup o'nuts in the blender with a cup and a half water. Get Kairee a Vitamix blender for Christmas. And Blend. You may also add salt, honey, and/or stevia at this point...if you like salty and sweet.

Step 4:Put cheese cloth in a bowl. Pour blended awesomeness over cheese cloth. You can buy bags for this, but I couldn't find any last time I was at the store. I'm also 99% sure that you could, theoretically, use a lingerie bag but milking nuts where I wash my unmentionables is even too much for me.

Step 5:
Grab your cheese cloth/lingerie bag and milk dem nuts! Squeeze with good intentions, and you'll get more.

Step 6:
Enjoy! Add it to whatever you want, or drink it on it's own. So good.

Step 6.5:
If you so choose, you can take the almond pulp outta your lingerie bag, switch it for a freezer bag and freeze it. This way, when I get my dehydrator, you can bring over your pulp and I can make.....crackers! I know, I should let the cracker thing go.


Also on a side note, because I know you want to know what I had for breakfast this morning (after almond milk), here it is:

Blended: Blueberries, raspberries, bananas, flaxseed = yum.

Taken care of

This last week has been an exercise in listening and ignoring myself, and then suffering the consequences. I was house sitting for my uncle this past week, and typically I love it. It's like a little mini vacation for me. It's a 20 minute bus to school, instead of an hour and a half. I can run the blender at 5 am without worrying about waking anyone up. I can cook freely. The leaves are turning all these amazing colours and I get to run through all of them, because this neighborhood is so full of these pre-hibernating leaves. I can hunker down and kick school's ass.

That's what I usually do, but it didn't quite happen like that this time around. When the shit really hits the fan, we never take the time to properly grieve missed opportunities, change, or what have you. As my friend's mom puts it, we dig deep, we keep on truckin', we carry on. But sometimes we need that day off! So the last 10 days, I think I started coming down from my emotional frenzy the previous 2 weeks had been. Instead of cooking (at all, I don't remember eating), running, enjoying, and breathing, I was recalibrating. Figuring out which direction was up, releasing tension, and clearing my head. It's exhausting.

I had a yoga class last Thursday, and when you have scheduled time to get in tune with what your body is trying to tell you, it screams. I felt so much better after. Releasing tension in my back and hips. The instructor is pretty amazing, I never knew how flexible I could feel in my toes.

All of this, the plans falling through, the yoga...it's what I needed. I am always provided for. I left yoga on Thursday thinking that I could do that every day, and then I went to work on Friday to learn that we're turning a committee room into a yoga studio over lunch for the next month.

I chose to be exhausted and a hermit last week, to try and get back on the horse, so to speak. I wasn't loving my body the way I should have, and now what? I'm so sick. I have a head cold from hell and my throat feels like it's on fire. But I love it, I know what this is. My body is saying "you've come down, you've stretched it out, but you're out of balance, and you NEED to give your body the same things you give your soul." Sooo...to the nutrients!


When you cook your food, the enzymes break down and you cook a lot of the nutrients out of your food. Put simply, raw and organic spinach is better for you before you throw it on the stove. I'm new to this raw food thing, but I'm having so much fun with it. I threw a bell pepper, some strawberries, an avocado, and some spices in a blender...and voila! Salad Dressing! It's so yummy and amazing. I'll be eating this way for the next week (so expect lots o blogs) to help my body out a bit.

Also, my go-to's for when I'm sick: Oregano Oil (it kills all the bad bacteria, and leaves the good bacteria) on my toothbrush and a netti pot.

I love that my body sends me these messages, and that I am provided for in so many ways.

Ode to my Former Water Bottle

I want to tell you a sad story about my water bottle. One morning, I spent too long making my breakfast, and I missed my bus, but thankfully caught a later one. Upon arriving into the first of three transit stations I roll into to get to work, our bus broke down. About 20 minutes later we were rushed to a rescue bus that got myself, my purse, my wallet and most of my sanity all the way to work, but sadly my super amazing klean kanteen was left behind.

You don't understand the gravity of the situation. I pined over this particular, red, 27 oz, stainless steel, BPA free, environmentally-friendly-in-comparison container for an ENTIRE YEAR before I coughed up the $30 for it. For the month that I was it's proud owner, it was my constant companion. I even bought the sports cap for it so it could accompany me to the gym, and when it wasn't lounging atop my treadmill it endured the pleasure of my wonderful breakfast smoothie creations. Oh, the love affair!

I called the transit centre to see if anyone had turned it in, to no avail. I can only assume that someone recognized how awesome this container was, and swiped it for themselves. Well, you heart-breaking, klean-kanteen-stealing, wonderful person, I have something to say to you.

Please, experience the full awesomeness of this bottle. Take it with you everywhere. Don't just put water in it, it makes the relationship dull. On that particular morning you most likely found a wonderful blend of banana, strawberry, mango, flaxseed and vitamineral green that probably kept you alert and functioning well into your lunch hour. I would recommend bathing it in soapy water when you get home, but otherwise a little hot water will do. If you're lazy, you can even throw it in the dishwasher. Now, if you're active, you can get the sports cap (I'm still holding on to mine, sorry), be warned- it does leak, but if you e-mail the klean kanteen people they'll gladly explain away the irony in this.

I hope you love this klean-kanteen just as much as I did, share it with your friends, and leave it on a bus somewhere for someone else to find and enjoy too!

Don't worry guys, everything is going to be awesome.

I am so freakin' excited, it's ridiculous. It seems like every year I'm a little busier than the last, and I love it! With classes and work, I come close to 10 and 12 hours everyday. Nevermind all the reading, 7 group projects that meet once or twice a week, yoga, and life! I've ditched going to the gym because I can't bring myself to wake up any earlier than 5 a.m. but I've started running again, and picked up yoga, finally. I'm cooking again too.

I love raw food. I'm definitely not a strict raw-foodie, as I'm making up that I need my previously mentioned juicer and dehydrator to make the commitment, but it just feels so good to be able to toss everything in the blender. Everything tastes so good too. And all these new foods, it's like I've found paradise. After my brief affair with detoxing, I ate only raw, organic, vegan foods for a week. I wasn't paying attention to calories, or nutrition really, but I felt so AMAZING! It felt like my body fell back into sync with itself. So amazing! I'm excited to be back there.

Everyone in my life right now is helping me be awesome, so thank you lovelies! :)

Never give a pretty girl a hand grenade.

Absolutely in love

I've fallen in love. This is it. I know what I would consider selling my soul for.

The Hurom slow juicer.

I'm not even shitting you. A lovely lady and I had a conversation about 4 months back about how I could save the world if only I had a juicer. The thing is, I never found a juicer I quite loved until this one.

You see, there are so many possibilities, because...wait for it..it seperates the juice and pushes out the pulp. This means that I get juice (duh) and then with a few special ingredients I can throw the pulp into a dehydrator and make crackers. Put the avocados in the blender and I have juice, crackers AND something to dip my crackers in. I'd totally take that over a double rainbow.

I mean, juice AND pulp? Get outta here!

So you know what? As soon as I find $500 lying around, world, you can consider yourself saved.

On a side note, something way too awesome happened today. Have you ever known something and forgot? Nothing super important, but a little tidbit of information, let's say. Only to have someone completely random remind you of it at the exact right moment you needed to really have that knowledge sink in? I love that life takes care of me like that.

Seeing beauty when it ain't pretty

Life is so funny. Or, at least I'm making it up as funny. I am a planner at heart. I daydream frequently about the people in my life, the places I'm going to go, and what I'm going to eat for dinner next wednesday. It's all pretend. Things get turned around!

Last week is a good example. I won't kiss someone who's been hitting on me for years because I truly feel committed to someone else, and even though there's mutual interest I chose to give someone else a chance, who later in the week doesn't give me that chance. I wait on the wrong side of the street for a bus, miss a class, and have to spend a few days back tracking, apologizing, and brown nosing because out of all the classes, that class shouldn't have been missed. A friend of a friend passes away because of low potassium in her sleep, and I eat an extra banana.

I didn't plan to be stuck with the short straw this week, or dig up old relationships to try and analyze more recent ones. I didn't plan on being so excited about my life. Without my 4 year, doomed to fail, way-too-long-distance relationship, never in my life would I have given the last 5 weeks a second thought. And maybe this time, I'll learn to ask about someone's previous relationships before I start envisioning one with them. And then, maybe I'll learn that I ask too many questions.

I love all of it. I love that I can give myself time to be angry, sad, and mope around the house, and when the time is up I can jump back in. Life sucks sometimes and you just have to enjoy the burn!
Also, of note, I'm so happy I have friends and family who will stand in the fire with me, again and again. I was talking about how ridiculous the last week has been, and we were sharing stories. At the end of it we decided that worse-case scenario, birds sing after storms (ohhh the cheese!). But fuck that! I sing during the storm!

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon...
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

By Oriah © Mountain Dreaming,

(p.s. candles totally beat the zippo app)

Right now

My horoscope for this week says "If I had to give a title to the next chapter of your story, it might be "Nothing That's Happening Will Make Much Sense Until It Has Finished Happening, Whereupon It Will Yield a Burst of Insight about the Big Picture of Your Destiny."

So I can stop worrying and sit back right?

I can let myself take things as they come. I don't need to know what tomorrow will bring right now, tomorrow will get here all on it's own.

I don't need to worry about how my relationships with the people I care about are changing. They will change, and things will happen.

All I can be conscious of is how I am feeling in this moment, and how I am showing up for other people right now. Right now, I can be whoever I want to be.

One Day

One muthatruckin' DAY!!!! Ow!

Who loves and praises you?

Oh my dad surely does. When he cooks a steak, it's practically a celebration in itself to have it sitting on your plate. Nevermind my raw food/vegan shenanigans lately, but I've never much cared for steak and I'm sure that special place in his heart is a little broken because of it. So when we got home tonight and I was appointed cooking duties, I gleefully shouted out, "Just so's ya knows....it's salad tonight!" I think my dad started crying on the inside a little, but I added chicken as a compromise. After the salad was made, and devoured, my darling dad says a little gruffly, "It's bland. But it's good." and said I did a good job. Go me! I don't see this as a I-have-to-compliment-you're-not-cooking-skills-because-your-my-daughter kind of thing. My dad liked it, I know he did but he'll never admit it. He knows I know he liked it. As in the picture above with the unplanned yet eerily similar facial expressions, my dad and I have mad skillz in silent communication that frequently befuddles my mother.

Let me Linger Here

I mentioned on twitter that I had something really awesome to share today. And I do! I've known about these t-shirts for awhile, but just got around to ordering one today. The concept is this: You spread joy. You wear a shirt with a stranger's face on it, upload your own face, and let someone else wear it. We're all one, and what better way to show it than by wearing eachother? I'm deeply in love with this idea. For myself, I will be wearing the vibrant Emilie Lebel in Electric Blue. She's 20 years old, from Moose Jaw and her passions in life are wine, cheese, intrigue in other cultures, music, happiness, film, photography. Ch-ch-check it out! And get your own!

I also wanted to share some of my own excitement from this week.






This is the wonderful carnage (and future gift wrap) I recieved from healthforce nutritionals. Half a day into the detox was enough for me, but I'm working out future, less intense ways to use my lovely product. I realized how much pressure I was putting on myself to detox, and what for? I will detox, in time, and maybe not with the level 3 intense 7 day detox I had imagined. It's not doing it THAT way that I want, I just want to DO IT.



And, of course, the lovely grey sludge that brought upon this insight.



On the very vibrant and bright side, I hauled all of this in from the grocery store. Yummmm! SO excited about this. I haven't had a stocked fridge in forever, I'm really excited about the time I get to spend in the kitchen right now. So good!


My lovely, supa yummy, strawberry-banana-mango-flaxseed smoothie this morning. I never use my blender. I make up that dragging it out, using it, washing it and putting it back will take up too much of my time for work. But this morning I slept in, made a smoothie, was early for work and clearly had time to take pictures.

Happy and ready for work - still very much alive and kicking after the interestingness that was Sunday!

Maybe I'm just a pansy but...

This detox is a lot harder than I anticipated, or the beef-n-oil-sand-lovin' ghost of Alberta is wrecking it's revenge on my recycling-newly-mostly-vegan ass. Calling healthforce tomorrow to find out if life is really supposed to be like this ;)

Either way, I'm not doing the Level 3 7day cleanse tomorrow. After I find out if today was "normal", and if it is, my 7 day is now a 30 day. Take that intense stomach pain! No one shall make me yell "MOTHERTRUCKER" at work (except for maybe the politicians, but even then I somehow keep it inside) ;)

And, in the interest of my safety, here's what happened today in the least graphic way I can possibly describe: Finished ALMOST half of Detox Day 1, by breakfast many trips to ye olde bathroom, later I just moved all my stuff INTO the bathroom since I was there so much, and then I had about 6 hours of violent puking, shaking, and freezing (my house is 32C and I was in sweats and a down blanket) my ass off. It has since then subsided, I stopped downing the pills and powders. Now I'm just dizzy, dehydrated and smell really bad.

SOooooo if anyone thinks that sounds normal/sounds allergic/sounds like something else, let me know. I'll love you more than I already do, if that's even possible. X.

Answer me this

Do boys have radar? I mean, seriously.

Where are your distractions when I'm chasing after some somebody for months and months? Why can't you occupy me then? But as soon as I'm not interested in anything with anyone it's like they come out of the freakin' woodwork.

Just an FYI, my multitasking abilities only extend to filing and talking on the phone. If y'all swarm the front desk all at once no one's going to get served. So, with this information in mind, please get behind the rope, form an orderly line, and I'll get to you when it's your turn.

I feel like I should be bragging about having "them lined up around the block" but humor aside, only this could wake me up at 1 in the morning.

I really want to read this book, Sex at Dawn, which talks about monogamy and how it doesn't "exist" but I don't think it's for me. I touched on a past relationship in the last post, and it only proves my point. Boy meets girl, girl falls in love with boy, boy sings girl cheesy songs, boy moves to a different continent. 4 years in an open relationship and I was mostly monogamous anyway. I don't have the brain power, or whatever it is, to think about more than one person at a time. If I like you, all of me likes you. When there's more than one person expressing interest in me it's deer-in-headlights-syndrome. Without any shadow of a doubt, I will stand there with a stupid expression on my face until something hits me.

I don't know how to juggle either.

So until further notice, one at a time please :)

Ode to Everyone

I'm trying to ask myself how I'm feeling right now, but that voice in the back of my head answers, and says, "I'm feeling excited! No, wait I'm going to puke. No! I'm excited!! Nooooo definitely going to puke." So I'll sum it up for you and say, I'm feeling AWESOME. And truly, I am.

My friend's Gams passed away about a month ago, but in her death I think she helped my friend realize that she's allowed to take time for herself, and that she impacted somebody in an amazing and loving way. I, having known her since she told me to rub green paint on my legs in preschool, knew this all along, but I am so happy that she's finally getting to realize this. And I am so happy that the impact she made on her grandmother, who loved her, wanted her to do great things, wanted her to be safe and happy, allowed for this. My friend is up to big things and I'm so glad that SHE IS DOING IT because no one deserves it more than her. As well, I wanted to share this from Gams' lips, to my friend's ears, and from hers to mine: "Change is as good as the rest."

It got me thinking. How did I get here? This puking-excitment makes me feel like my life is starting to change again and while I'd like some parts to, I'm really happy with my life as it is in this moment. Things are awesome right now, not gonna lie. But I still have that oooh dear in the back of my head, so I asked myself seriously....How did I get here?

Music has been a big part of my life, ever since I found the dulcet funk of the early chili peppers. They lead me to Jane's Addiction and Captain Beefheart. Who led me to Alice in Chains and Nirvana. Who led me to someone else and someone else after that. Eventually I made it to Hawksley Workman and Sam Roberts, who inspired me to plan a benefit concert when I was 15 for the maquila solidarity network. The bands that helped me out and played for free introduced me to new music as well. Somewhere along the lines someone suggested Jason Mraz to tingle my eardrum..who led me to Bushwalla, Tricia (who is a musician to my heart more so than my ears), Two Spot Gobi (who thankfully provided the soundtrack to the balcony in Corfu last May, and drowned out the shenanigans of my next door neighbour...you know who you are ;) ), and most recently led me to Tristan Prettyman. This last handful of people are leading me to a more conscious lifestyle, and they don't even know it. They are as much a part of my community as my friends and family, they are one of my many guides through life and I could thank them for hours. I'm also really excited to see where they're taking me next.

In short, I got here on my own, of my own accord, with the help from A LOT of people who are very different from each other. The people not mentioned, are the people who smile at me when I'm walking by, hold doors open for me, didn't smile for me or slammed those pesky doors in my face. I got here on my own, but everyone helped. So the next question is, how do I show up for other people? Am I conscious that the person not smiling at me as I walk down the street might be the person that NEEDS the smile?

On a side note, not really related but always connected, I want to gush about Tristan Prettyman for a little bit. I just found her today while at work and I've been digging through her music ever since (and you should really check her out!) and I came across her blog. I giggled at her last entry, I could have written parts of it myself. Not always, but most often I am an open book. I have no problem sitting down with strangers and telling them my life story. Once I start, I can't stop - and it is true - you never know what's going to happen! And, although slightly opposite, trying to break up with someone, them resisting, and then months later have them break up with you. That last bit happened only so many months ago, but reading that in her blog made me realize that I have a pair of fan-freaking-tastic feet that carry me wherever I want to go and I can, and am, moving on.

I mean, seriously, is this life?! HOLY FUCK IT'S AWESOME :)

(The people I mentioned above can be found here:

Jason Mraz
Bushwalla
Two Spot Gobi
Tricia
Tristan Prettyman)

Who are you remembering today?

Back in February I was talking to someone about skydiving and later that day I found myself purchasing a gift certificate for my cousin's birthday in march for her first solo dive at 3,500 feet. Naturally, I'd be going with her, and yesterday we finally jumped out of a perfectly good airplane just for shits and giggles. There's no one in the world I would have rather done that with than her, and I don't think I COULD have done it with anyone other than her. So today, I'm remembering her and our awesome experiences!

I'm also remembering the wonderful class instructor that made me practice my arches, my PFD and my emergency situations until I finally remembered that if I'm going to pull my reserve chute properly, I'm going to have to stick my thumb through the metal loop and pull. I'm remembering our jump master who kicked my feet off the wheel of the plane and told me to get the fuck out, I'm remembering our pilot, and our fabulous videographer who caught it all on tape!!


Perhaps most importantly, I'm remembering the lovely person who packed my parachute ever so expertly.