Life is a Carnival

I’ve had that song lyric going through my head for the last couple of weeks or so, for  no real reason other than it was once a misunderstood lyric on my part (I thought it was life is a carnivore for a really long time), and I actually had to Google it to see who sung it in the first place.  Last week though, while listening to my new favourite radio station in the GTA (the Rock out of Oshawa) they actually played the song.  One of those interesting coincidences life offers up to you occasionally.

Of my goals/intentions for 2010, I had focused on four as being the ones with the highest priority:   working on my health/fitness, increasing income, starting RRSP and savings accounts, and enrolling in Law Clerk courses.   So an update in those areas:

Health/Fitness:  I have been woefully inadequate in this arena and pretty much need to get into the game or get off the ice, basically.  Vow for this upcoming week:  I will eat breakfast everyday (more problematic for me than you would think), and walk for 1/2 hour three times.

Increase Income:  I have actually been actively working on this one, alas,  no results have been forthcoming as of yet.  Based on that though, I have rethought, regrouped and expanded my outlook  and am formulating a new plan of action.  Basically, I realize this will happen however I cannot put a time frame on it and just need to keep putting myself out there.

Savings:  February was the last payment on a loan I was paying off, which will now free up a fairly substantial portion of my monthly income starting in March.  My plan is to open several savings accounts (probably via PC Financial’s high interest TFSA):  emergency fund, travel, and planned spending, as well as an RSP – and to save somewhere between $4 – $5,000 dollars (at least) this year in those various categories.   At this point in time, this is a fairly aggressive goal for me and I need to be really disciplined about my money going forward.  I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching lately though, as well as research into how to make your money work for you, and I’m confident that I have put my previously financial asshattery behind me, and that this goal is do-able.

Law Clerk Courses:  I wasn’t able to swing this for the January semester, and there may or may not be a strike by college teachers that may or may not affect my taking a course, so I’ve made the decision to wait until that’s been decided before proceeding.  So this will be pushed back to the spring or summer, depending on the outcome of the negotiations.

Oh, and my goal to take up snowshoeing this winter has been curtailed by a lack of snow.  Which I am conflicted about as it’s definitely a boon in the driveway shovelling area, but this winter has not been the one in which I threw myself out the door and rolled around in the season, unfortunately.   Still planning on kayaking though.

It has to be said….

I’ve been controlling myself for the last six months – however my annoyance level has risen over the last  weeks of 2009 to the point where I cannot control, nor would I be true to  myself  if I didn’t say this:

The first decade of the 21st century ends on December 31, 2010.

Expect my end of the decade lists on Jan 1, 2011.

My One Little Word

Via my lovely niece Meagan, I was introduced to Ali Edward’s One Little Word concept (her blog and the idea behind One Little Word can be found here) – my word for 2010 is Re-build.

Today is the last day of 2009 and although I know all years have their ups and downs, 2009 was a rough one for me.  It was a year of endings, the latest of which was the death of my beloved kitty Max, who had been my companion for 18 years.  Max and I shared a lot of history together in that time span – he was my “go to guy” when my mother had her first seizure and throughout her subsequent health problems, when my step-father died, for the end of numerous romantic relationships and the floods of tears that accompanied each one (he was also apparently a better judge of men than I was), as well a lot of other life disappointments and triumps.  He also still loved me despite my admittedly bizarre habit of speaking to him with an English accent (and I am Canadian).  His death was not unexpected but difficult nevertheless, not only with his actual loss, but because it also symbolizes for me the end of an entire era of my life.  A door has closed behind me and I need to step up and into what life has in store for me going forward.

Which I plan to do with anticipation and enthusiasm, and this is where my One Little Word comes into play.  The last year has been spent  Owning Up and Cleaning Up, 2010 is going to be about rebuilding my life  -  to that end, I’ve come up with a list of goals I plan to accomplish in 2010.  Some are more difficult and/or more time consuming than others, some are such that they will take more than a year to accomplish but I plan to start in 2010 so they qualify.

In no particular order, these are my goals for 2010:

1. Get to healthy body weight, incorporate regular exercise into life
2. Increase income by $7,000 – $8,000 a year.
3. Enroll in Law Clerk Courses
4. Learn to drive manual transmission (I want to buy a Jeep)
5. Start hiking again
6. Pickup two new activities:  snowshoeing (for winter), and kayaking (summer, obviously)
7. Learn to speak French
8. Go on a date
9. Take photography & art courses
10. Start RRSP & four savings accounts (emergency, travel, Jeep, savings) – have $5,000 in savings total
11. Enroll in one UofT course
12. Complete a sprint length triathlon
13. Keep a visual journal for the entire year (and keep track of accomplishments)

Next up:  the game plan, with timeline, next steps and all that fun stuff.

More about why I’ve picked these goals, and progress updates will follow, so tune in if you’re interested.

Corrie Strikes Again!

I went to Nuit Blanche with some of my friends last night and was having a great time until I twisted my ankle stepping down off a curb and am pretty sure it’s sprained.   Definitely not as bad as the 2nd degree sprain on my left ankle of last year,  but it’s sore and swollen and just a huge pain in the ass as well as the ankle.  Ai yi yi.  Add this to the burn I got earlier this week on my oven, and my title of Queen of the Klutzes doesn’t seem to be in danger. It’s an unfortunate time for it to happen as well, as I’d just made the decision that I’m going to be doing the Resolution Run on January 1, and really need to get started on training.  Hopefully this will only hold me up for a few days though.

During a pre-Nuit Blanche shopping expedition, I spied a quilt that I loved and am pretty sure it will be the design I’ll use for my first attempt at quilting:

I would of course be using different fabrics, but I like the big squares and the needlework within each of them.  So the pattern has been decided, now I’ll have to check out fabrics and decide which way I’m going to go.  I also need to figure out how to get my hands on a sewing machine, since I don’t have one presently and although I know I could do it all by hand, I’m not sure that’s the way I want to go.

I haven’t done any further work on my plant pot, so it’s still bright red, I have a pattern in mind for it, but I’m going to practice drawing it on regular/tissue paper before doing the pot itself.  I will probably get started on the second one before proceeding with the first, as I definitely know what I’m going to be doing with it.

Also on the agenda:  fall photo shoots.  This is my favourite time of year to be out taking photographs, but unfortunately it’s been raining for the last six days or so  – hopefully that will clear up soon too so I can go out.  A friend will be visiting from Halifax next week and I’d really like to go down to the Guild Inn and get some shots of her down there.

Pics will follow, of course.

Update:  The ankle injury did turn out to be a 2nd degree ankle sprain, laying me up for six weeks.  I may not be the only person on the face of the earth to have cause such grievous damage to myself walking, but I’m the only one I know personally.

Monday.Monday.

I had the worst sleep in the history of civilization last night (my co-workers have accused me of being dramatic, by the way).  Couldn’t get to sleep and then couldn’t stay asleep, woke up multiple times including from around 3 – 4:30 a.m.  Once I got back to sleep the second time, I kept waking up again and had some crazy ass dreams.  Oh, and I had to stop about nine-freaking-thousand cat fights as well.  Cat fights are particularly annoying as when you are finally driven to the point that you get up to confront the furry bastards – they’re all like “Yay!  You’re awake.  Purr.Purr. “

I did some painting on the weekend – a terra cotta pot as I have to replant one of my Christmas Cactuses.  I’ve painted the pot crimson red and am going to paint some kind of tree silhouette with curly cue branches.  I’ll be doing it free-hand so it could turn out to be very interesting, but if I manage to pull off what I want to do, I think it will look pretty cool.   I also did some work on my first ever art journal project – I used water colour pencils on paper and did a stripy background.  Loved working with the water colours, but I actually found all of the painting very relaxing and felt very serene and zen.

Tonight – after four or five months of no TV, I’m getting cable hooked up again.   I love watching TCM, plus there’s a channel here in Canada called Drive-In which features those cheesy black and white horror movies from the 50s/60s which I am a huge fan of.   Because I have other services with the cable company, I am getting their full package for three months, then I decide what I want to keep.   This also means I’ll get my all time favourite, (non movie) channel, Discovery Civilization!

So it appears my winter will be full of black and white movies, painting and Civilization.  Sounds fun, huh?

Cravings……

Well, in one of the weirder cravings I’ve ever had, I’ve decided that I absolutely, positively, have to have hot and sour soup.   I’ve been checking out recipes and since they seem to all be in the same general vein I think I’ll try this one from All Recipes:  Chinese Spicy Hot and Sour Soup (although I think the “Hot” in the title generally refers to the spice factor already and thusly the “Spicy” is redundant).  I’ll be leaving out the ground pork (cause I don’t like it), have no idea what a wood ear mushroom even is and am pretty sure I won’t find tiger lily buds in Toronto, but the recipe looks pretty easy.  My science project for the weekend, I think.   I like the idea that soup is frequently eaten for breakfast in Asian countries (at least according to about.com it is) – it just seems a much more civilized way to start your day than cold cereal.

My birthday is quickly approaching, and I usually try to do something really nice for myself on that day.  This year however it needs to be really nice and really cheap so I think I’ll pick up some terra cotta pots and paint them, then transplant my Christmas Cactus’ (which are refusing to bloom in protest of their current housing), as well as a book(or two):  Tales of A Female Nomad  (which I read about on Susannah Conway’s website, Ink On My Fingers,  as an alternative to Eat, Pray Love) and  How to Be An Explorer of The World, by Keri Smith (this rec came from Magpie Girl), because the title of the book is GIVING ME THE SHIVERS.

I’m thinking that the pots, books and soup ingredients, will run me around $30 – $40, which I believe is an acceptable amount when buying oneself birthday presents.  I’d also buy myself flowers but one of my cats craves them, so that’s a no go.

On Friday I’m also going for Mexican food (and Margueritas), with my friend P, to celebrate her upcoming move aaalllll the way across Canada to British Columbia; which I’m sure will be fun and every so slightly bittersweet, like a delicious Lindt chocolate bar.

And that’s how it goes on this lovely September day.

I’m still in my pyjamas

This is pretty much me in a nutshell:  if it can be walked into, tripped over, slipped on or used to harm myself in some fashion, I’ll do it.   I’m a klutz.

Undoubtably, this will add increased layers of difficulty to my newly minted artistic endeavours, I’ve only just begun and I’ve already had an “interesting” experience with a glue stick, and lost the lid for my blue acrylic paint (as well as getting blue paint in my hair while trying to locate it).  I also found out that apparently gesso is made from catnip, since as soon as I opened the jar I had two out of the three cats I live with milling about, trying to lick the gesso off of the lid, and pretty much trying to get cat hair on everything (which they succeeded at).  But I perservered and the first page of my first ever art journal is gesso’d and painted, only awaiting the “from head to page” migration.

I’m trying to convince myself that there’s nothing wrong with an adult female creating art that an enterprising toddler could do in daycare, and photos of the completed project will be shown regardless of what I end up with, since I’ve decided that “putting myself out there” needs to be part of  this endeavour.

Ack.

In the immortal words of Pink, I am my own worst enemy.

8 Things – Musical History

The theme for Magpie Girl’s “8 Things”    today is 8 Songs That Shaped Your Life, which if you’ve read any of the previous entries in this blog, is pretty apropos for me.  I used some of her ideas and came up with a few of my own.

1. Song which most captures my love of music:   Absolutely the song “”Magic Power” by Triumph.   When I was a kid I used to lie in my room and listen to the radio the way some kids will lie around watching  TV.  The lyrics to this song encapsulate my whole relationship to/love of music perfectly.  I’ve posted them below (behind a cut), just in case you want to check them out.  I’d highly recommend checking the song out on YouTube as well, the song seems to do the same for a lot of other people that it did for me.

2. Song that Most Reminds me Of my Childhood Home: “Life in a Northern Town” by Dream Academy.  Because I grew up in a town in northern Ontario, and I just like the song.

 3. Favourite Driving Song:  “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” – Tears for Fears.  Also makes me feel like dancing.  As does the song “Moondance” by Van Morrison, by the way.

4. “My” Song: When I was a teenager, my friends and I all picked songs for each other that we thought best “represented” the person it was picked for.  Mine was “Refugee” by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers – I still identify with this song in a big way.

 5. Song  That Makes Me Think of an Old Love:  “White Flag” by Dido.  I am a woman on the losing end of an “it’s complicated”,  which I knew would not end well for me but I decided to go for it anyway – to go “down with the ship” so to speak.   Regrets, I have a few.

6. Song Which Stopped Me Dead In My Tracks The First Time I Heard It:  Downtown Train by Tom Waits.  While watching TV late one night the video for Waits’ version of this song came on.  I was struck by how so evocatively weird and beautiful it was- it set me off on the path of “alternative” music and turned me away from MOR, top 40 music forever. 

7. First Album You Owned:  The first album I ever bought in my life was a Jim Reeves album, when I was around seven years old.   I grew up in a house in which a lot of country music was played – I still love old school, twangy country (much to the chagrin of anyone who’s ever had to drive anywhere with me).  The first album I bought as a teenager was The Pretenders first as well.  Love Chrissie Hynde then, love her now.

8. First Live Performance:  Not my first by far, but the most significant.  A few years ago I went to see Eric Clapton play at the Air Canada Centre.  I have to confess up front I’m not a huge fan but at one point in the concert, Eric turned around and had a confab with his band.  They started to laugh, Eric turned around and hit the first few chords of “Layla”, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.  In that moment, I realized why he was a Big Deal and also that I would remember that instant forever.  First live performance was actually Tom Jones, which I was dragged to by my mother (I was a kid at the time).

“Magic Power” Lyrics

The goods…..

The trip to Midoco is a done deal, I went on Saturday afternoon and wandered around for an hour or so (it’s not a big store) and loved it.  I bought a couple of “kits” to get myself started, some paper I liked, and a book – which I realized will not work once I got it home.  Photographic representation of the weekend haul is here:

I picked up 24 watercolour pencils and a package of  12 Derwent coloursoft pencils – which should be more then enough to get me started.

I ‘m excited to get going, I spoke to my sister last night, who is very artistically inclined and talented and she was full of encouragement.  A good thing ’cause it’s always daunting to tackle something new, especially if you are not 100% confident in your ability(ies).  I have to remember though that this whole project is for me and it really doesn’t matter if I’m turning out works of art or things other people will like.  It’s my party, man.

My hair is still not red, I want to do more research before proceeding with the henna.

Finally, a story that does actually have relevance to my post:

I used to live within a couple of miles of the grounds where the Canadian National Exhibition is held on a yearly basis.  Every Labour Day without fail  my roomie and I would be en casa, when suddenly the house would start shaking to it’s very foundation.  We’d run from our rooms and ask each other “Did you feel that”?  ”What is that”?  After agreeing that we did both experience the shaking, we’d run outside to see what the heck was going on, to be greeted by the sight of jets flying very low overhead – close enough for us to clearly read the registration numbers written on the underbelly of the aircraft.  We’d look at each other and start laughing, feeling ever so slightly ridiculous because we’d forgotten once again that our house was on the flight path for the aircraft participating in the air show.

After I left Midoco and was walking back to the subway on Saturday, I heard the familiar whine and couldn’t resist looking into the sky as four fighter jets streaked by overhead – amazingly close to each other and in perfect formation.  It’s a pretty impressive sight and brought immediately to mind the mental image I have  of my roomie and I standing in the kitchen going “The house is shaking?  What could that be”.  D’oh indeed.

Another story of living in that house:  one year during the Molson Indy (now called the Honda Indy), I was speaking to my sister on the phone and she said “I’m sorry to be rude, but can you turn down the TV?  I can’t really hear you” .  To which I had to reply “I don’t have the TV on”.

It was a cool place to live.

Loooonnnnnggggg Weekend

I’m planning a weekend of food and alcohol – I am going to try to recreate Thai Express’ Shrimp Fried Rice and bought myself a couple of bottles of wine to try (I’m not a huge drinker so this will last me far longer than one weekend),  but I’ve upped the ante slightly by adding Russell Brand to the mix!

As a pay day treat, I bought myself a copy of his Booky Wook:

I’m pretty enamoured of Mr. Brand and have wanted to read this for awhile and am therefore quite pleased with this purchase. 

I also took a look at journals while I was at the bookstore but didn’t see any I liked so am still planning on heading downtown tomorrow to check out the stock at a few art shops, as well as  the other supplies for inspiration and ideas on what direction I want to go with the journal.

Sunday my wild and crazy plans are to use the cassia obovata on my hair (if I find some tonight), which will entail wearing saran wrap on my head for an extended period of time.  This means I’ll be homebound, and I’ll probably use that opportunity to read and sip wine.  I’m actually wishing I had a hammock ’cause I think that would be the perfect vehicle in which to read and sip tea while one has saran wrap and a towel on one’s head.  Although I am considering another solo movie excursion as I really want to see Inglorious Basterds so that might happen as well.

Monday I am planning on heading out with the Nikon D40 somewhere to take some photos, and then Tuesday (which I have off as well), will probably be relaxing/housework and maybe working on the journal if I do pick something up.

Fun, fun, fun.