One Little Word

As with last year, I am adopting Ali Edward’s One Little Word for my own personal use, and for 2011 have chosen (or it chose me) , the word embrace.

Last year I chose Rebuild, and despite a lack of evidence of it here on my blog, it was actually an amazing year for me as far as rebuilding was concerned, and many times over the year as I slogged through my own personal little trials and tribulations, that word came to mind and it helped me remember why I’d started the whole process in the first place, reminded me what I was trying to accomplish and kept me on track.

In between Christmas and New Years, I thought about One Little Word and that I had to pick a new one for 2011, but I forgot about it until I saw Ali’s post early today (or yesterday I guess), and the word embrace came to me immediately and so it came to be.

According to Merriam Webster, this is the definition of embrace:

1

a : to clasp in the arms : hug

b : cherish, love

2: encircle, enclose

3

a : to take up especially readily or gladly <embrace a cause>b : to avail oneself of : welcome <embraced the opportunity to study further>

4

a : to take in or include as a part, item, or element of a more inclusive whole <charity embraces all acts that contribute to human welfare>

b : to be equal or equivalent to <his assets embraced $10>

Reading this kind of gives me THE SHIVERS showing me this is absolutely that this the right word, so yippee ki yi ya  to that and all that good stuff.

I also plan to embrace this blog and write in it more frequently, which I have said before but unfortunately, the 2010 rebuilding didn’t seem to include blogging that much.

But it’s a brand new year and I am feeling the urge to share it, so here we go again.

 

 

My birthday is next week

and because it is an “extra special” one, I wanted to do something kind of extra special for myself.  Going to Paris, New York or London were regretfully dismissed immediately due to my new found embracing of fiscal responsibility, also the reason I’m not going to a spa for the weekend, or buying myself a Blackberry Curve.

So I’ve spent a fair bit of time thinking of something that was “special” but also affordable and after a visit to the Chapters by my work* I came up with the perfect idea:

Every pay day, I will buy myself a book.

I love books and buying new ones really makes me happy, so this will a whole year of happy!  Yipee!

Since I have joined a book club and the October read is Salman Rushdie‘s Midnight’s Children, I’m assuming that will be the first purchase, but I do actually think it will be interesting to look back in September 2011 and see what I did actually purchase.

As part of the fiscal responsibility part, I’ve decided to make used book stores the primary point of purchase (and will need to go on a hunt for some excellent ones in the GTA), but as with the Rushdie book, I will buy brand spanking new ones as well.

You’d probably have to be a reader to appreciate how excited I am by this prospect, but I’m sure this post would find a few who would agree this is  a pretty excellent birthday present to myself.

Woot!

Early morning musings

I’m up very early this morning.  Even for a workday it would be early, but today is a holiday here in Ontario, Victoria Day, and I don’t need to go to work at all.  I’m not normally a morning person, but I woke up around 5:30 and after a few minutes of lying in bed, decided to get up and come into the living room and open my windows.  So here I am, listening to the sound of birds chirping while squirrels natter away to each other.   I’m also thinking that it would be really nice to hear the sound of a horse whinnying as well, but this is unlikely, here in the midst of Scarborough.  The morning air is lovely.  Toronto seems to be having an early brush with the humidity we normally deal with in July and August but at least right now, it’s a cool breeze seeping inside.  Very nice for sipping tea.

The cats are happy with my decision.  Generally speaking, this time of day is fairly active for them (if their early morning cat tussles are any indication), and both have spent equal amounts of time sitting on the windowsill, enjoying the addition of sound to the virtual world they watch on a daily basis.  I should try to do it more often, I would imagine it adds a little bit of excitement to their otherwise routine lives.

I have of course, not written in awhile.  This is due to a few factors; a perceived inability to think of anything  interesting to write about, and a bit of self censorship – the things that have been happening are not things I can talk about, at least for now. But this morning I decided that I would just start writing and see what came out of it, and here it is.

I watched the finale of Lost last night, and enjoyed it very much.  I actually liked that they didn’t answer a lot of the questions about the island because how could they have done so in a way which would have made everyone happy, and also because life doesn’t always come with answers, sometimes you just have to enjoy it.  And appreciate the people who take the journey with you I guess,  because what else is there?

And now, a cup of tea and the setting of an agenda for the week beckon.

We’ll see if today’s early morning writing is an anomaly, or the way of the future, in subsequent missives.

I had an epiphany today….

And realized that the “chaos” of my physical environment distracts me from concentrating on the things in my life that really matter and should be occupying my time.

So I:  cleared out my back  storage room enough to move some things that didn’t belong in my living room back there, went through the mail and sundry papers that were hanging about and separated it into shredding and recyclables, moved all the books that tend to lounge around my front room onto a bookcase, vacuumed and dusted, did my dishes, cleaned out one of the cupboards in my kitchen, cleaned up the bathroom, went through the piles of clothes in my bedroom, hanging what need to be hung and putting the rest in the bureau,  stripped the bed, moved some furniture around, swept the whole apartment, made an orzo salad for this weeks lunches, and did my laundry.

And now, I’m too tired to make my bed.

Sunshine on my shoulder makes me happy….

It is a seriously lovely day here in the frozen north, 11C, bright and sunny.  Spring is in the air and as a Canadian, this makes me very, very happy.

In one of those things I am excited about that I think make other people think I’m weird; while watching TCM yesterday morning, I found out that they will be playing Akira Kirowsawa movies each Tuesday evening for the month of March.  As a fan of movies, I’ve often thought I need to expose myself to more of those that are considered to be classics and of course, he is considered one of the best directors in the history of the medium.  I’ve only seen one of his movies to date, Ran, which I enjoyed very much, not in the least because I found it so audaciously bent.  So of course my plans for the next few Tuesdays are now to watch as many of the films as I can, and as of now, to write about them but we’ll see how I actually make out with that part of it.

In other “things that make you shake your head” news, I had to drive to my local PetValu today to pick up cat food/litter* and while on my way, had to stop suddenly for a woman who backed out of her driveway without looking in any direction at all, she just got into her car and “proceeded into the street”, in cop type parlance.  When I honked at her to both let her know that I was there and was wondering WTF she was doing, she looked at me in confusion and then waved merrily as she drove off.  So you know, a pox on her and all of that fun stuff.

*I bought World’s Best Cat Litter.   Since I believe there is a direct relationship/correlation between how much something costs and a cat’s likelihood of using that product, this could be the beginning of an interesting experiment.

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.