Old Pictures

Have you ever chanced to look at the family photos of a stranger? Not the posed kind but rather those shots of everyday life that mean more than what you see on paper. In the albums of strangers the world is beautiful.

 

The pictures from my childhood are strange to me. It is hard to distinguish if my recollections are genuine or reconstructions based on pictures.

The girl in the picture is a stranger even though I know she is me.

Devious, or How I Accomplish Goals

As you could probably tell from my unfinished projects and less than stellar attention span, I like to take on projects. I might have mentioned before that starting things has more appeal to me than doing, and for that matter, finishing the thing.

So I learn to trick myself. It seems to work for a while but my brain eventually catches on. Often, before I can get any decent work done.

I try harder and yesterday I tried my very hardest.

I have been wanting to bike to the Old Port for many summers now. It's about 15 to 20 kilometers from my house. I, obviously, never got around to it. But then I got a new bike. It's grey-blue and beautiful and just my size. I longed to take my bike out on a really long ride.

I decided to bike to my office. While it's not the Old Port it's still about 15 kilometers away and there's a hill. And so that morning, clad in work-out clothes with an extra outfit tucked neatly into my backpack (along with a small towel, deodorant and a brush - I do plan ahead) I set out.

I discovered a few things. The first being that I am crazy. I hadn't biked any further than the library all summer and here I was taking on 15K. The second, and probably more important thing, I can accomplish anything if I have absolutely no way of getting out of it.

If I got tired at 9 or 12 K what was I supposed to do? Abandon my bike and walk? Go back? Clearly I gave myself no option but to press on. And I did, by stopping to drink frequently and overcoming the burning in my thighs I arrived at my office only 15 minutes past my usual time and I was triumphant! Albeit sweaty.

I considered not going back the same way, but I knew my quest would not be complete until I had gone there and back again. That's how quests work.

So back I went with the wind blowing full in my face and my legs discovering a whole new level of burn.

I now know what it takes for me to reach any goal: I have to tap into my inner evil genius and give myself no way out. Now if only I could apply this principle successfully to my studies ... just think of what I could achieve.

Once More

Once more, I come full circle - wondering where summer went. Once again, I never found time to make a day bike trip to the City's Old Port. The Lad and I have been meaning to do that for about three years now. It's that one goal you make at the beginning of every summer that you know will never come to pass. And yet you set it anyway - as if announcing that summer adventures may now begin.

Adventures I did have. Wine touring and Maid-of-the-Misting at Niagara Falls, Ontario - that seems like it was two weeks ago. Disney World and beaches in Florida, that was actually two weeks ago. Both these trips were as fantastic as they were different.

I've been indulging in some instant gratification knitting, i.e. baby clothes. It's nice to be the youngest person in an office in that respect: baby talk gets directed at everyone else and I just bring the clothes. I'm also going to get back into some baking. The last week was spent, as you know, painting and mending the kitchen. By the end of it all I didn't want to spend any more time in that room.

Overall it looks great, although the new light fixture is a thorn in my otherwise pristine pride. It flickers... all the time. Our house is old and has no grounding wires but we've never had a light fixture that liked to remind us of that fact. I accept it as an uncontrollable imperfection and move on.

I've been getting better at rolling with the punches. So many things still bother me but I'm learning to let go. It's going to be some time before I can say that I've been even moderately successful. But at least I can say that I'm trying.


I feel there's still enough time for a few more adventures.

Oh, How I'll Play

I stumbled through the door of my home a day ago after having been gone for a week. It's so good to be back! Yes, I've been gone; did you miss me, my friends?

To sum up my vacation: Florida is a nice place but I would not really want to live there. I'm too Canadian; I missed coniferous trees, cooler mornings and most of all, I missed my City. But (warning - cliché imminent) they say you have to leave in order to know how you feel about something. To be sure, I did not realize just how much I loved about this place until I was away.

It was not all bad, do not get me wrong. And while I won't regale you with tales of delayed flights and nights spent in Detroit I can tell you a few things.

My inner child got to have the run of my body for our day at Disney's Magic Kingdom.  She had the time of her life. And as you can see, my inner child still lives in the 90's. That's me on the left. My friend was so concentrated on shooting aliens that she did not even think to pose. Fantastic, right?



To infinity... and beyond!

That day was well spent, and as we trod sleepily back to our hotel at the end of the night we could have fallen alseep in the elevator. Yes, the day was that good.

We ate like Queens at a great sushi restaurant that brought cotton candy with the bill instead of mints. How cool is that, I ask you! At the beach we took yoga pictures while the waves washed handful after handful of sand into our bathing suits. And to cap it all off, the only time I got a sunburn was in the car - and only on one arm.

I would call the past week a successful vacation. And now we get down to business. I've missed two consecutive knit nights which means next week's is pretty well set in stone. With the weeks sliding closer to the first day of class (they starting reminding me with those confounded commercials in July!) I still have much to do.

My parents are off on their second trip in as many weeks so while they're away I'm fixing and painting our kitchen. The last two times my Father left on business, I painted my room and got a fish tank. There may be a pattern here but you must admit, it's much easier to get things done around the house without the whole family underfoot.

I love renovations almost as much as I love assembling Ikea furniture - if I could get payed to do that I would in a second! So despite leaping out of that proverbial frying pan into the fire I'm looking forward to this week, and telling you about it of course.

I missed this.