Coulda Woulda Shoulda

I decided I need to purge a bit of all that is evil about myself. *blink* *blink* Okay, so MAYBE a bit melodramatic, but I thought it might be fun to throw out a confession about myself every Monday so that everyone else who is struggling with Monday can feel just a little better about themselves. See? Aren't I nice? Taking one for the team on Mondays. So, quick and dirty, here it goes. Since buying the upgraded HD cable package, I watch WAY too much TLC. Cake Boss. Yes to the Dress. Little People Big World. 300 kids and Counting. Geckos that can't Climb. If D is studying, I am sneaking some shows about people's lives. And there are SOOO MANY of these shows. They even branch out from TLC - the National Geographic channel is constantly playing Dog Whisperer. I knew I was also in trouble on the weekend when I was giddy about another show on the NG channel (cause that's what you call it when you watch it more than 5 hours a week) called Dog Rescue Ink or some...

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I decided that I needed to really give myself a bit of inspiration and structure to get this blog back on its feet. I have more time, now that I'm not commuting and don't really know anyone so don't really do anything (did I just make myself sound pathetic?) and so I may as well take this opportunity to get as many stories down as I can before I forget that they even happened. But of course, I have also given myself a safety net so that I will not forget what happened. This, ladies and gents, is a box which D has come to refer to as 'the box we continue to move around with'. I, on the other hand, have a very different name for this box  - it's the Scrapbooking Box. Yes, that's right, it's the box that holds ALL of the things that one day I will put into a scrapbook and no longer have the box for. And it's a subtle reminder that if not for D, I would probably have many more of these boxes and need to call the e...

I noticed that it's been over a month since I decided to take a few trips down memory lane and write about some of our travels. I haven't been slacking, although I suppose it may seem that way since I have yet to post anything Flackback-ish. A few weeks ago, when I started to compile my first post, I was led down a worm hole of frustrating discovery: we had somehow misplaced multiple travel pictures. I say multiple, I'm talking MONTHS of collection - MISSING. I leave it to you all to picture just how WELL I took this discovery and leave it at that. And so I was a little blocked creatively and got sidetracked with running and visitors and general lazy-ness but can now report was was once lost is now found. D's lovely parents came to stay with us for a couple of days and in addition to some much needed familiar faces, they also brought a couple of CDs that appeared to be travel snaps. Praise be to the sky - they were!! - and now all is right with the world. Be...

This morning, I set my alarm for earlier than I would to get up for work. That's right. On the 'day of rest' I set my alarm to make me stop resting earlier. And last night, I sipped caffeine free tea and popped myself into bed at 10pm. Same time as if I was getting up for a hard days work. One of my biggest fears in life is that I would never stop loving smoking. That I would always like it and therefore always smoke because my mantra is to do what I love to do (within reason, people). And just as my hate-on for smoking surprised me, so has my desire to get up early. I don't get up early. And I say this in the Tom Hanks-League of their Own-"There's no crying in baseball" voice. And yet, guess what? I do. Not only do I get up early, but I throw on some fitness gear, fill up my running belt bottles and head out to conquer the road, 1km at a time. This morning met me with glorious sunshine, so much so that I didn't need all the layers I had ...

I'm not really sure I can describe the awesome-ness that is seeing mountains towering behind a beautiful cityscape and after once again this weekend taking the camera out, I'm not sure that I'll ever get to SHOW it either. I'm sure one of you savvy picture taking peeps could probably enlighten me on how to pull the mountains out of this shot and make them 'pop' in the way that it makes my readers feel like they're RIGHT THERE with me. But then, perhaps that is more Mother Nature's point - you actually have to BE there. Because as hard as I try, I can never get those mountains to look as spectacularly LARGE in a picture as they do when I stare at them. I mean, they're awe-inspiring. I just can't stop staring at them. And so, spent another weekend saying, "Oh my god will you LOOK at those mountains?", so much so that D finally huffed as I was midway through the sentence for the 2034th time and said YES YES  I SEE THEM and I've b...

I have had quite a few people surrounding me - online and offline - who are in need of a whack of positive energy. I figured I'd throw it out to the Internet-verse to see if I could muster up as much as I possibly could to help them along the paths that they are currently facing. I've been going through a bit of a transition myself lately, one that I'm quite familiar with and one that is not all that great to weed through but always leaves me feeling much stronger as I get out the other side. I've talked about the 3 month hump before - the strange period that seems to hit after I've lived somewhere for 3 months where I feel just at a bit of a loss - missing those things I left behind, perhaps eager to discover more about the place I am currently and the general sense of uncertainty, unknown, insecurity. I find it painfully hard, mostly because I AM a very confident, outgoing person and feeling hesitant makes me irritable. I think it also stems from coming fr...