I don't like to share

Yesterday at work, one of the senior managers, a director actually asked if she could use my computer because hers was not working and she had to do something "time sensitive".
What, am I going to say No to a director - of course I let her, and I walked away to give her privacy. But then I had this weird dream last night that she was Internet gambling, and I'm the one who's going to get whacked with it.

It's true, I don't like to share.
I am an only child, I never had to learn how to share.

Actually I don't like to share is probably not very accurate. It's more like I don't like people messing with my stuff.

I don't always like lending things out, it stresses me. For example I lent my Friend Deanna my Season 10 of FRIENDS like 3 months ago, and I haven't seen her since. Every time I see the gap in my media library, I get the sweats a little.

I hate lending out one of my books or DVD only to get it back tattered, the spine broken, juice spilled on the pages, etc.
I had a friend once, she was suppose to be my best friend. I lent her a book, finally worked up the guts to ask for it back like 2 years later, and she actually laughed at me when I asked "Like I could find it now!" was her response.

I hate when my cousins are over in the summer - yep, like 6 or 7 extra people living in my house for like 3 months. They just come into my room and put a DVD into the player, don't put the old one back in the proper case, just leave stuff out on my bed. They used to never rewind videos either when they were finished with them. My perfume has all bee tried, and I know of course because the caps are all over the place, never put back on the bottles.

Whenever I would complain to my Mom, she told me I was bad at sharing because I grew up to be "selfish" as an only child.

But seriously - is it so hard to give me back my stuff in a timely manner in the condition you received it?!
And I wouldn't have said no to my cousins using my TV/DVD player, Perfume etc, I just wanted to be consulted first. You know, recognized as the owner of said stuff.

So please consider this my warning to you - please don't mess with my stuff. If you do I might just ......... politely and very apologetically ask you not to?

Maybe that's my problem!

The Trouble with Boys

Ok I've got a beef.

I am going to make a general statement here, and in my experience it is 100% true (yep, 100%)
When a guy is not interested, instead of letting you know he's not interested, he wusses out and just doesn't call you back - even if he tells you he will call you.

I'm a nice girl, and I've been on dates where I do not click with the person I'm with, and I call them and tell then that we didn't click.
It's not rude or impolite, in fact I think it's very respectful.

Here's how the conversation usually goes:

Me: Hi
Guy: Hi
Me: I had a nice evening, and enjoyed meeting you last week/night/Wednesday/etc
Guy: yeah, me too
Me: I just didn't feel like we connected as I was hoping we would
Guy: uhhhhh
Me: But I did have a nice evening, thanks for lunch/dinner/movie/etc, and good luck with (whatever we talked about on the date)
Guy: yeah, thanks, you too

See, not so huge.
It's not like it's easy for me to make that call, but I figure it's the respectful thing to do.

So why the heck don't guys do that?? And if you're not going to call, for heaven's sake don't say you're going to call.

That's my beef.
I get it if you're not interested, and I'm ok with that (there's lots of times when I'm not interested either) , just tell me nicely.

Installing Love

Tech Support: Yes, how can I help you?
Customer: Well, after much consideration, I've decided to install Love. Can you guide me through the process?

Tech Support: Yes. I can help you. Are you ready to proceed?
Customer: Well, I'm not very technical, but I think I'm ready. What do I do first?

Tech Support: The first step is to open your Heart. Have you located your Heart?
Customer: Yes, but there are several other programs running now.Is it okay to install Love while they are running?

Tech Support: What programs are running?
Customer: Let's see, I have Past Hurt, Low Self-Esteem, Grudge and Resentment running right now.

Tech Support: No problem, Love will gradually erase Past Hurt from your current operating system. It may remain in your permanent memory but it will no longer disrupt other programs. Love will eventually override Low Self-Esteem with a module of its owncalled High Self-Esteem. However, you have to completely turn off Grudge and Resentment. Those programs prevent Love from being properly installed. Can you turn those off?
Customer: I don't know how to turn them off. Can you tell me how?

Tech Support: With pleasure. Go to your start menu and invokeForgiveness. Do this as many times as necessary until Grudge andResentment have been completely erased.
Customer: Okay, done! Love has started installing itself. Is that normal?

Tech Support: Yes, but remember that you have only the base program. You need to begin connecting to other Hearts in order to get the upgrades.
Customer: Oops! I have an error message already. It says, "Error - Program not run on external components." What should I do?

Tech Support: Don't worry. It means that the Love program is set up to run on Internal Hearts, but has not yet been run on your Heart. In non-technical terms, it simply means you have to Love yourself before you can Love others.
Customer: So, what should I do?

Tech Support: Pull down Self-Acceptance; then click on the following files: Forgive-Self; Realize your Worth; and Acknowledge your Limitations.
Customer: Okay, done.

Tech Support: Now, copy them to the "My Heart" directory. The system will overwrite any conflicting files and begin patching faulty programming. Also, you need to delete Verbose Self-Criticism from all directories and empty your Recycle Bin to make sure it is completely gone and never comes back.
Customer: Got it. Hey! My heart is filling up with new files. Smile is playing on my monitor and Peace and Contentment are copying themselves all over My Heart. Is this normal?

Tech Support: Sometimes. For others it takes a while, but eventually everything gets it at the proper time. So Love is installed and running. One more thing before we hang up. Love is Freeware. Be sure to give it and its various modules to everyone you meet. They will in turn share it with others and return some cool modules back to you.

Customer: Thank you, God.
God/Tech Support: You're Welcome, Anytime.

** disclaimer, this is not my original work, someone sent it to me as a forward, and I wanted to share it. I don't know who the author is**

Has anybody checked their vibration frequency recently?

So while drowning in work - relief is on the horizon, in a couple of weeks I hope.
I have surfaced for air on a couple of minute occasions.

And my, my what interesting tidbit my trips to the surface have brought.

First off I spent a week-end on a church retreat. My church joined with 2 other churches for a 20-somethings retreat. And while I may be on the upper end of 20-something, I'm still technically in my twenties, so I went.

So here are a couple of things I learned on this retreat (which by the way, I did enjoy):

1. I was born in a desert country and my body was made for HEAT! This freezing, every building heated by a measly fire is not an option for me. I was practically sitting in the fire, and I still managed to feel cold almost the entire week-end.

2. Christians get married ridiculously young. It seemed that almost everybody between the ages of 21 and 25 is either married or engaged. And here's my theory about that
- In my humble estimation, I think Christians get married young to circumvent pent up desire.
- because like 98% of Christians get married young, if you're over 25, Christian and unmarried, there is a REASON you are single. I realize that this theory paints me in a particularly unfavourable light (I am Christian, over 25 and single), but I stand by it.

3. Weird is never a synonym for endearing. While most people at the retreat were married or in a couple, the few REASONS were like beacons for the whole REASON theory (see #2 above). There was the cowboy-hat-guy (I don't know his name). He was just as eager to sit in the fire as I was, but while I would go early to get the closest seat, he would come late and squeeze himself on the ground by the mantle, asks me "schootch a little" and then I would sit squished for the entire session, while he spread out like he owned an acre of real-estate. Where does such a skinny guy get off taking up 3 times as much space as I do anyways?

4. You can never catch up on lost sleep. When I got home, I went to bed around 8pm, and somehow still don't feel fully recovered over a week later.

Following the Retreat the next Saturday, I went to my Running Clinic for the Nutrition talk. Well instead of nutrition, we learned about this thing called The Secret. Have you heard the Secret? Apparently it is a scientifically backed theory about the law of attraction. According to our speaker's explanation, we each attract what we put out there. And we put it out there based on the frequency that we are each vibrating. Hence, if we increase the frequency that we are vibrating, we then attract more positive things into our lives.
It's suppose to be on Oprah on Feb. 8th.

It sounded interesting enough to look into, I asked Mr. shaw about it - he sent me the link for it from Google Videos, but the picture is very grainy. I tried to watch it, but found the bad visual very distracting, I only got through like 2 minutes. Oh also, apparently each time you watch the video your body adjusts by increasing the basal frequency at which you're vibrating. So just watching is suppose to be a powerful boost.

I wonder if I could augment the frequency I'm vibrating at to scientifically vibrate the REASON right out of me?
I would not look forward to the experimentation process, but the results would be interesting.

Can't talk - working!

Is anybody else drowning in work these days?
No relief in sight?

If I have one more person walk past my desk or send me an e-mail that starts "Oh, by the way" I think I may actually start to spit nails - machine gun style with no concern for casualties!

SO I've been pseudo promoted at work. I call it a pseudo promotion because it hasn't officially happened yet - I'm still technically suppose to be doing what I have been doing up to this point (in reality I find myself trying to juggle 2 full time jobs instead).

It comes with a pay raise of $0 - yes you read that right, $0.
Possibility or a raise in April.

And magically once it was announced, what people seemed to hear was - everybody call ME all at once for absolutely anything and everything.

The fact that it's year end doesn't help - because it seems to be that everybody else is feeling the same sense of drowning in their TO DO lists.

Currently mine is about 3 months worth of stuff to do, that I somehow have to complete in a couple of weeks, while continuing to do my old job, and oh yeah, train my replacement. If I can't train my replacement fast enough, that's just the more time I spend in my old job.

Plus it's not like my home is a haven, and I come home to a peaceful place to regenerate. Remember my Mother the catastrophizer? Yeah, the daily ins and outs of that can be demanding.

So I've decided that I'm going to go on strike. Yep, that's right a Strike from my life. Anybody want to join me? While I can't physically go anywhere, and I don't want to do anything to jeopardize my new job (which by the way, I am actually excited about, it should be a great role for me)I plan on in my head floating on an inner tube in the middle of the ocean for the better part of most days. With the exception of eating , bathroom breaks, sleep and TV - that's where I'll be. We could turn my inner tube into a raft - I am a social person, and would prefer to do nothing with someone else than all by myself anyways.

The Sky is Falling!

DO you know anybody who is a catastrophizer?
You know what I mean, a person who makes mountains out of molehills.

My Mother is a catastrophizer to the nth degree.
Ever night before going to bed she is compelled to watch the weather forecast. And if the forecast is something like "tomorrow there is a 80% Probability of precipitation and we should receive about 3mm of rain". She interprets that as a storm of hurricane proportions and says "Ohhhhhhhhh, oh boy!" "What am I going to do tomorrow?"
"Why Mom, what's the matter?"
"There's going to be a storm tomorrow! I'm sure that the water on the ground will be so much that tires will spin and I will get water in the engine and the car will break. Then I will be late for work and will probably get fired. So then I will have no job and no money and no car, and no money to buy a new car, because my car broke from the rain".
**sigh, long slow exhale**

Or like for example when I put the first scratch on my new car. Yes, I put the first scratch on my own new car about a month after I got it. I did it with a snow shovel while shovelling the driveway. So I'm bummed about it and I tell my mom, and instead of giving me a soothing word "It's ok, just a small scratch, it was bound to get scratched eventually, no big deal" I get:
"Oh my God! What have you done! Now it will rust, probably tomorrow, then the rust will spread, and your entire car will fall apart, probably in a few years, maybe before you've finished paying it off!"
"Mom!! That's not helpful to me!"
"Oh, sorry, well maybe you could get it fixed. How much would that cost do you think? Probably more than the car cost you in the first place, so now you've paid double what your car is worth, but at least you'll still have a car."

Sometimes, when I'm in a very mischievous mood, I wonder what it would be like if I just fuelled the fire.
In my head the senario plays out like this:
"Mira, I think the sky is falling"
"Oh yeah Mom, didn't you know?"
"What? You know about this? Explain it to me!"
"Well, just like you said the sky is falling, scientists are predicting that the world is going to end next Thursday."
"Oh my, Thursday. What are we going to do?"
"There's nothing we can do, we just have to sit and wait to die"
"Well, if we're all going to die at once, then there's probably going to be a line-up at Heaven's gate, and what if I have to go to the bathroom! Then I'll loose my place, and have to wait even longer. I will probably end-up at the back of the line waiting to get into Heaven for all eternity!"

Poor Mom, for her the sky is always falling.

I'm Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick!

Ugh!! I am so sick!
I can't breath through my nose.
I probably look like a Neanderthal gulping for breath with my mouth open at all times.

I feel like the guy in the dristan commercials rummaging in his basement for a power drill to "help" with his congestion.

I got sent home from work yesterday. Yep, my first day back from a whole week off, and my manager let me talk for a whole 5 minutes and discussed me going home. I worked from home for the afternoon yesterday.
Too bad I was too sick to enjoy it. There is something to be said for working from home.

I have only been home for about a day and half, and I was still working yesterday.
Today, I am sick, restless and bored!
Everytime I think, well if I'm restless and bored, do something, I start moving, exhaust myself in about 10 minutes and have to take a nap.

This is ridiculous!

So I've resolved that what I need is a germ cleansing. I stripped my bed, flipped my mattress, and opened the window. I changed my PJ's, and am going to take the world's hottest shower.
I am smoking these germs out baby - because I am so sick of being sick! (It's been 2 days)

In my delirium, I imagine the germs laughing at me -
"poke her there, ha ha ha"
"wait, let's make her gasp for breath again!"
"This is so great, I love torturing people, we're never leaving!"
I bet they're green and bubbly shaped and wearing army helmets with names like Gleeba and Rhonon.

Plus there's a reason why people work during the day, because the TV sucks! The only thing on is soap operas and daytime talk shows. I don't care if your cousin is your uncle and the father of your baby!
Maybe daytime TV is a government conspiracy to keep unemployment rates down?

So I'm smoking the germs out because I refuse to stay home again tomorrow!

Ah, How the body forgets - TRAITOR!

So this morning I went to my first day of clinic with the Running Room. As some of you may know, I joined the Running Room in May, and have been trying to learn to run ever since.

So I had just completed the 5K clinic in December, and miraculously actually managed to run 5k by the end of the clinic. My first and only 5k was on the very last clinic night,and it took me 37 minutes to complete (doing the usual 10:1 run/walk program). This was a huge accomplishment for me. Most of my clinic mates had been running 5K for a good 3 weeks, but I had never broken the 25 minute barrier.

So I decided to take the 5K clinic again, in the hopes of both improving my endurance and speed. My goal is to finish the clinic able to run 5K somewhere under 35 minutes.

So today being day 1, we start off nice and slow to ease back into things, 5:1 for a total of 20 minutes, that's all. I figured it would be this leisurely run, where I got to know the new people and I wouldn't break much of a sweat or have laboured breathing.

HA!! My traitorous body had other ideas. It has been 4 weeks since I last run, and magically it feels like my body forgot that I have ever used it to run in any shape or form in the past. I was the last person in the group of 11 - last again! I was huffing and puffing and kept calling out to the facilitator "How much longer?" on a 5 minutes interval! How wussy am I??!!!!!

Then we get back to the store, our run is complete, everybody else is smiling, stretching gently, while I'm beet red, puffing vigorously and almost doubled over trying to get some strength back. It was like I was secretly running a marathon, while they all went on a Sunday stroll.

So new goal, just get through the 5K clinic - try to actually run the time allotted each week.

The Knitting Resolution Part Deux, and other 2007 accomplishments

Ok, time for a Knitting Resolution update. Remember how in the original posts I mentioned how come January it would be 2 years that I have been working on this blanket. So the resolution was to work on it everyday until December 31st, in the hopes that it would be completed.

And I am nothing if not resolute, so I diligently carried my bag around everywhere I went - if you've seen me at all into he past 2 months, you probably never saw me sans my knitting.

Well it paid off- sort off. At 6:52pm on Monday January 1st, I put the last stitch into the body of my blanket. I bound off, and laid it on my bed - it covers the whole thing. I called my family upstairs, made a lamo drum roll sounds, and invited them into my room to view the almost completed Masterpiece.

So now all that is left is the border. I spend most of yesterday driving around to 3 different stores in order to find the right kind of circular needles (aparently really long ones are hard to find) and they were ridiculously expensive. I took the whole kit and caboodle over to Joslyn's who's going to teach me how to do the border.

Apparently there is a problem with figuring out how to space out the border stitches, so I had to leave my bag over at her house last night.

Kinda feels weird to be mostly done. I'll post a picture of it when it's completely finished. I'm considering charging admission for people to come and view it :)

So I didn't exactly accomplish my task, but I'm ok with how much I have left.
I also have not stuck to my other resolutions and we're only 3 days into the new year.

I resolved not to spend any money in January (other than Gas, and regular bills) - and I bought those crazy pricey circular needles yesterday along with some wool to make a scarf.

Plus other incidental fees, I couldn't stop myself from spending.


I wonder why people even bother making New Year's Resolutions, it's kind of like purposefully setting yourself up for failure and disappointment.
Like saying "Hey, I think I'm going to pick on something I suck at, and then act totally shocked and disbelieving when I can't manage to become awesome at it within a day or two".

Maybe next year I'll make some un-resolutions, like sucky things, I will embrace sucking at.

Bye Bye Humbug

Well Christmas is over. All the exchanging of gifts, eating, eating and more eating is slowly tapering off.

And I always find it weird how we spend almost a month in anticipation of Christmas, carols on the radio, parties, all sorts of hoop-la-la and then once boxing day hits,it's all gone. All the decorations have been taken down. Everybody starts stressing about the holiday weight they gained, and taking about the diet and exercise they plan on starting in January.

No more Christmas music, Christmas trees, gift packages in the stores.

And the build-up to New Year's Eve isn't nearly as huge. Which is probably a good thing considering how anti-climactic new year's can be.
It's usually just a couple of days of deciding on plans, then that's it.

As I had mentioned previously, I don't generally get reflective at this time of year, I save my soul searching/goal setting for around my Birthday. So there is really not much going on right now. Back at work - same old, same old.

It's a little sad. What I love most about Christmas (not including the whole God becoming Flesh thing, to offer me eternity) is how social everybody becomes. I love going to parties, exchanging gifts, baking cookies, not really doing any work, etc...
And suddenly on December 26th, it all goes away.

Circle of life stuff I guess.

On a totally unrelated topic - People (doesn't have to be just ladies) book your calendars for Friday, January 19th. It's time for another Needle Crafts evening (I don't want to use the little bit naughty name).
7:30pm and onwards at my house.

The Day of No Work

'Twas the week before Christmas
and all through the office
No one was working
not even the Bosses

The phone lines were silent
no ringing at all
We were all in anticipation of the Holiday Ball

Employees were nestled all snug at their desks
While visions of Vacation days danced in their heads

My pod-mate was net-surfing and I took a nap.
When out from the Board Room there arose such a clatter.
I sprang from my desk to see what was the matter.

When what to my unbelieving eyes should appear
but the Senior Director drinking a beer.
He invited all into the Ball
There was food, wine and gifts, which he offered us all.

As we ate and ate and ate some more
he offered his well wishes to us each one and all.

Then in amazement the clock struck three.
"Hey, It's time to go home
Whoo Hooo, Hee hee".

The scary part is not only that I had the time to make this up at work, but also how close to my actual day it is.

Comments!

Ok I don't know why I's not working but I have been unable to post comments on several blogs since people have switched to the BETA version.

If you know me, you can imagine how it must be for my Psyche to not be able to "talk".

So I figured I'd just comment here:

Ghanima
You're better than I am, I am great at keeping other people's secrets (good thing considering my profession) but lousy at keeping my own (see previous entry entitled "Can you keep a Secret")

I also wanted to concur with you on the somewhat prohibitive nature of a public forum such a blog. I would say more (and did in the comment I tried to post), but you never know who might be reading ;)

Joy
I wanted to encourage you about being evaluated at the school this week. I know how stressful it can be, but I also already knew that you are a great and dedicated teacher, so it came as no surprise to me that you rocked it!

And that's all I have to say about that!

In other news, we had our Children's Christmas musical at Church this past Sunday morning. It took place in a Toy Store, and most of the kids played toys that come to life. While I didn't miss the point, it ended with me thinking just how much I would like to own a Miss Glamour doll - ok you caught me, BE a Miss Glamour doll, complete with Mr. Glamour doll, SUV (with leather seats) and beach house.

Short Staffed

Lately people have been dropping like flies in my workplace.
whether they quit or go on Short-term-disability, we are way low on people!!
I think we are missing a minimum of like 5 people.

Yesterday there was 1 person working intake on any given shift, I was the only bilingual person working for the morning and there was 1 other counsellor. And between the 3 of us we managed our second highest call volume ever!

And it must have been a full moon or something because almost every counselling call I took was about a Domestic Violence situation.

No wonder I came home with a headache and missed my run with the Running Room.

It's amazing to me that we haven't exploded or something.

Sometimes I get this weird mental picture of our heads expanding like balloons while on the phone with a caller. Then eventually the balloon gets stretched too thin, and explodes! In my weird David lynch style fantasy, nobody notices, and the caller keeps talking on the phone, business resumes as usual.

Then eventually the cleaning staff come in and just vacuum away the balloon pieces, and magically everybody comes back the next day and it all happens over again - kind of like the movie "Groundhog Day" from the darkside.

Well enough of my morbid thoughts - only 13 days until Christmas - then that's 2 days of celebrating, gifts, eating and sweet relief from work!!

I think it's also a busy time of year in general. Do people ever slow down?

Egads, THE TIRED has returned

When I first started at my current job, I started on the overnight shift. 11pm-7am or 12 midnight-8am 5 days a week.

I learned rather quickly that I am not good at being up all night, all the time.

The only time working overnights worked in my favour, was when we did the all night Lord of The Rings Trilogy, all 3 extended versions - I was the only person who didn't fall asleep even once.

Within a couple of weeks of starting, I was falling asleep anywhere and everywhere. Trust me it's embarrassing when you get caught having fallen asleep in church because you closed your eyes when the Pastor says "let us pray" and didn't open them again until 25 minutes after he was finished praying.

It didn't matter how many hours of consecutive sleep I was getting during the day - trust me I was sleeping for like 10 hours a day, I just couldn't stop being tired.

I would be going along, doing just fine, alert, awake, smiling and joking, and then BAM! Exhausted and can't fight against it. It would happen at work too, in the middle of a shift. So I named the phenomenon THE TIRED.

Because we're talking about more than just being tired here, we're talking about a wave of exhaustion that hits suddenly, is all encompassing and you are powerless to fight it.

To put it in the monumental terms of a comic book - ahem, sorry I mean graphic novel: as Kryptonite is to Superman, so THE TIRED is to me.

So THE TIRED kind of went into retirement as a nemesis pretty quickly after I was switched off the night shift. But there have been some bouts of time when THE TIRED has tried for a comeback.

First there was the era of the ON-call shift. Pretty much working my day job and then being paged all night 3 or 4 nights a week. THE TIRED had a short but successful run at that time.

And somehow tonight THE TIRED is back. I hope it's just a one night appearance.
I woke-up at 6am as usual to the sound of running water, as usual (and amazingly it doesn't make me have to pee frantically anymore).
I got to work for the start of my 7am shift.
I went to an appointment after work at 4pm.
I got home for 5:30pm, made and had supper.
I went to the People's Church production of "Two from Galilee" where my friend Kellen plays Joseph (two enthusiastic thumbs up).
And as the musical ended, THE TIRED struck.
Now I'm home, I still have to make a trifle for tomorrow - and I'm going to be in a seminar all day before the celebrations of the evening.
And I can't move my butt off this computer chair.

zzzzzzz...............zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.........

what was that? oh right sorry, gotta make a trifle.

Oy, Humbug!

Ok, so if you don't frequent Emma's blog, check out a snipet of our Knitting Extravaganza on Friday night.

In other news, is anybody else more Chirstmassy than usual this year?

I have found over time that Christmas gets less and less Christmassy for me over the years.
I remember being so excited to go to the mall, buy gifts, sit on Santa's lap, wake-up on Christmas morning, eat, eat and eat.

I'm not sure if it's about me getting older or just that time changes things, but I get less and less Christmas-like every year. Now I grumble about having to take the tree out of storage, decorating it, having to take it all down and put it away, baking treats (who has time, and they're not healthy to eat). I complain about traffic, parking lots and slow moving revellers in the mall, who keep stopping right in my way. I moan about how many gifts I have to buy, how much it's going to cost me, and the pain that wrapping is (doesn't help that I suck at wrapping gifts).

But this year, somehow the Christmas spirit has come on full force.
I enjoyed putting up the tree, and decorating it.
I finished all my Christmas shopping in November - and have happily avoided the malls. I listen to Christmas music and hymns in the car and sing along unashamedly.

It's great, but weird - because it's such a turn around.
I don't know what bug bit me, but I think that if I could bottle it, I'd like to get bit every year. This is much more fun than most Christmasses, and not nearly as stressful.

So, if you're having an Oy, Humbug! Holiday - maybe we can figure out to bottle the Christmas Spirit bug and share the joy.

Living in the Past

Isn't it amazing how much of life is a mater of timing? Like in a bad soap opera, you overhear the wrong part of a conversation, take it out of context, and put into a play a series of events that permanently alter your path.

It always surprises me that despite the outlandish nature of soaps, the framework is not that far off reality.

And then we spend most of our adult lives with these weird habits, beliefs and idiosyncrasies (like having to finish all the food on your plate). All instilled into us from our childhoods - where we spend most of our time complaining about this that or the other that our parents did.

Or we carry it into our jobs and our friendships, our relationships. And we have all these weird issues about what should be benign stuff.

Then we use all these mind reading tricks and assign meaning and ulterior motives to other's behaviours.

And somehow we never figure out that if we just put our assumptions aside, and talked to people, instead of trying to "figure them out" life would just flow so much more smoothly.

I guess I have noticed lately that we all seem to be living wrapped in our pasts. I noticed originally because I remember being curious about how upset people were getting about things I didn't think were that big a deal.

At first I wanted to attribute it to my maturity - but then I smartened up and got to thinking about everybody's buttons.

So, I don't know if there is anything I can do about it, but I sure hope to try not to live trapped in my past and be upfront and straightforward with others.

That being said, I know I've never brought it up before, but I've been wanting to talk to you about .......

Final Jeopardy

I actually guessed the final Jeopardy question correctly today.
That never happens!
Mind you, so did all the contestants, so it was probably an easy one - but I got it right, and that made me smile.

That's all I have to say about that.

Ah Nostalgia!

The past couple of weeks have been a walk down memory lane in all sorts of ways.

It started with meeting my old boyfriend for drinks- which turned into dinner, and then spread into the bulk of the night a couple of Thursdays ago.

It was a good night, we played catch-up (it has been 6 years), and reminisced a little bit about our "cult of the green carpet" days.

Back in OAC year me, my pre-ex, my best friend and his best friend we sort of an inseparable foursome. We would spend every Friday night, Saturday and Sunday together. Usually one or 2 others might join us, but we were the core. Mostly we hung out in Steve's basement - which had a green carpet. Hence our cult name.

Then I bought Beverly Hills 90210 Season 1 on DVD - it came out on November 7th. I loved this show while in High School. And I have been watching episodes whenever I can. Even just the beginning of the credits brings back great memories!

Then last night I went to the Audio Adrenaline Farewell Concert (last one, they're retiring). So mix the music I started listening to like 15 years ago with going with my old church (the friends I was going with had a last minute emergency, so I hooked-up with my old church), and you have a potent memory lane mix.

I spent most of the night with my old best friend (same as above) and her now husband (the other guy from above). It was like Memory Lane overload.

interestingly, in my dinner conversation, when I talked about feeling nostalgic, he told me "well none of our relationships have stayed the same".

So I guess nostalgia or not, there is no staying in the Good Old Days, life marches forward whether you want it to or not.

My Knitting Resolution

Ok - you can directly blame this on my friend Kevin (unbeknownst to him)- I have been reading his blog recently and he recently posted about what he calls "The November Resolution"

So thanks to Kevin I now have "The Knitting Resolution" - well I just borrowed the name form from him.

I consider myself still a fairly new knitter even though I've been doing it for about 6 years now.
I have analyzed myself (ah Physcian, heal thyself) and I figured out why I have completed very few projects. I am a results kind of girl, and when I can't see the results of my labour quickly enough, I get easily put off. Couple that with the 98% social me - while knitting is usually a solitary activity, you can see how I tend not to participate all the time.

I am continually surprised with just how social I am. Just last night, I was late for my running group, and started out alone to catch-up with them. I couldn't run more than 3 minutes at a time, I stopped to walk frequently, and I was ripping myself a new one with my negative self talk - it went something like this "you're pathetic, who did you think you were kidding, you can't run, you can barely walk for 4 minutes straight, look at you, huffing and puffing all out of breath, you've only been out a few minutes - you belong on a couch, lazy and fat forever, just accept it" It was truly awful, I don't think I've talked to myself like that before. Then I catch-up to my running group - actually they caught up to me, because they turned around halfway. And I ran the rest of the way back - we even raced for the last 6 minutes, no problem. It was like a Jeckle and Hyde experience.

Anyways, back to our regularly scheduled programming, I have this Afghan I've been working on - it's my first. I've made sweaters, scarves, hats, dishtowels, and baby booties before, but this is my first blanket.
So I started it January of 2005 - that's right 2005! Which means that this January it will be 2 years, and I'm only 1/3 of the way through.
So I decided last week that I will endeavour to work on my blanket every day, every SINGLE day until December 31st and hopefully I will be almost done by then.

So far it's been 8 days, and I've managed to work on it for 7 of them. I even brought my bundle to work today to get my quota in.

So you can call me on it - hopefully I'll have a blanket to show you in January - Hopefully.

Assumptions and presuppositions

Do you ever get frustrated while driving?
Boy do I ever! To begin with I really dislike driving in the first place. I love the freedom and independence it gives me, and I would never go without it. But usually I am driving alone, which, for social me is pretty sucky.

So I am usually just trying to hurry up and get to where ever I am going (not speeding, just in attitude). And some days it feels like every other driver on the road has been purposefully put in my path to slow me down, and muck up my timing.

I know what you're thinking - easy Egotistical there Mira - the world does not revolve around you! And you're right, the impractically of every driver just waiting for me to hit the road, then doing everything in their power to mess with me leans the balance completely away from that theory.

But sometimes, despite my most rational efforts, I can't help but feel that way.

Now here's the funny part - when I get frustrated by other drivers I mutter the make or model of their car, as if it's a bad word. So if for example you cut me off, I would probably say something like "hmmm...Camry". Then For a few minutes I have a genuine dislike of all Camrys. And I always equate the license plate with the newness of the driver. So if your plate starts with an AW or AY or AZ I just figure you're a new driver, and I can add inexperience to the litany of reasons why I don't like you. The irony, I got a new car about a year ago, and my license plate starts with an AX. I am not however a new driver - I've been driving for 12 years (can you believe it's been 12 years already!)

I wonder what other drivers think about me?