My Job

My job is to be with you. To feel you move and listen to what you need. To be patient with the time you need to take.

It's All Ours

Yep. We bought a house. A really big house and it's allll ours! This is the Google street view of it...looking forward to summer! I have some pictures and stories about the house coming soon...

February's Theme

This print perfectly captures the theme of our month. Big changes are happening!

(via Cup of Jo)

Apartment Hunting

I'm currently in the process of finding a little corner of the world for D and I to share and while it's exciting, the process of apartment hunting can be somewhat discouraging at times. For example, we found our dream apartment as soon as we starting looking, only to have the people who saw it first decide that it was their dream apartment too. Now, every apartment we see will be compared to the unobtainable apartment...so the search continues.

Anyway, this got me thinking about the very first apartment I ever had and the list that Kirsty (then residence mate)and I made describing our dream apartment together. Here are some of the things on that list:

- lots of pillows (no clue)
- portraits of women we admired (Frida, Joni, Patti)
- paint and the tools to paint with
- typewriters
- first editions of our favourite books (Demian, Little Women)

Basically it was a list of things we wanted. Now, being a little older and wiser than I was at 19, I think more about the actual building I want to live in and the furnishings. Though I still love that creativity to was central to my and Kirsty's dream apartment and I know that it will be an important element of my future dream house. Here are some of my current "must haves:"

- hardwood floors
- a working fireplace
- minimum 2 bedrooms (for now...)
- space for guests (it's going to have to be a big house)
- lots of light
- warm!
- a spacious kitchen
- closet space
- nice old touches (the moldings, doorknobs, bathroom fixtures, etc.)
- some yard space for a garden
- a porch
- character

Oh, how the list has changed! It would be wonderful if we could find all of the things above in our new apartment; if not, I know that we'll find them in our dream home one day soon. And we will dance in the living room.

(Photo: view from my bedroom in apartment #2, 2005.)

French fries for dinner

When you were little, did you you think about all the things you'd do when you were grown up? You know, stay up late, eat whatever you wanted, drive a car, etc?

Well, everytime I eat something terrible for dinner, I think about being a little kid. I think about all the times I just wanted to eat spaghetti forever or didn't see the problem with eating a handful of HP sauce out of my hand (gross, right?). Well, I ate french fries for dinner tonight and as I was eating them I felt slightly ashamed (even though I'm alone) and thought about how much nicer it would be if I was eating a healthy meal around a table with my family. It felt kinda lonely and I'm definitely old enough to know better. (Even worse, I got D in trouble last night for not eating a proper dinner)

Funny, isn't it, how much we learn to value the things we were so ready to be done with as kids.

Moody blues

For the past week or so, I've been feeling particulary moody. Why that is, I'm not entirely sure. Maybe it's the combination of a few things (PMS? The state of the world? Not enough sleep?) or maybe it's nothing at all.

But when I'm feeling this way I like to go here:


And do this:


While remembering to keep things in perspective.

Have a wonderful weekend and Happy Mother's Day!

Reading & Writing

When I was four years old I was given a tape recorder for Christmas. ( I asked for it).

When I was eight or nine, I started writing stories with protagonists with names like Charlotte and Victoria.

When I fourteen I started keeping a journal, primarily consisting of my tortured feelings about boys who didn't know I existed.

When I was eighteen my friend Danyel convinced me to start a Live Journal, which is filled with self exploration and suburban angst (the worst kind).

In 2008 I completed a degree in English.

And now, as you know, I'm blogging publically for the first time.

Needless to say, reading and writing have been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember.

I have all these bits and pieces collected from my short life and together, I suppose, they give some representation of who I am. I've been digging through some of my journals (there's 20 of them!) and reading through old blog posts on LJ. This is both funny and bad for me...not only because I'm drinking wine and listening to the Rolling Stones at the same time...but because the past is just that. Past. I used to love nostalgia and spending time with relics from days gone by, but that's not me anymore. I think too much of that really holds you back.

Now, that being said, if you're careful, you can really learn about yourself by doing this too. I know I'm being contradictory, but I stand by each of my statements. So there!

I'm thinking of posting old entries from LJ here from time to time and perhaps even scanning some of my real journal entries for all eyes to see. Writing publically has been something I've struggled with for a long time and frankly, I'm done with that. Why not let my growing pains out for all to see? Ha, ha!

All my life I've wanted to be an artist and wondered if I am and what that means and what Art-with-a-capital-A means and what it means to me and why, oh why, does nothing happen when I sit down in front of an instrument and how can I have all this passion but feel no instinct as to how to express it and what happens if I never do and will it make a differene to anyone and does that matter, it should only matter to me because you have to please yourself and being self-concious about even talking about this stuff with anyone and feeling like less than I am and feeling envious and joyous for other peoples art at the same time and thinking there must be a reason I'm surrounded by artists ALL THE TIME, right?

Well, maybe it's time I gave myself up to writing. I tend to lost in words, but it looks like they might be all I have. I didn't choose words, but they certainly seem to have chosen me.

I'll always love you, Joni.

Joni Mitchell was one of the first (if not the very first) musicians I became interested in, all on my own. I was 14 years old and I saw someone singing "Both Sides, Now" on a made-for-TV-movie and I was hooked. I needed to know who wrote that song and where I could find more music like that. Once I discovered it was was Joni Mitchell, I saved every penny I had, literally, and when I had saved up enough money for her compilation album "Hits," I begged my mother to drive me to the mall so I could buy it.

From that day forward, Joni has always been there. No matter what kind of mood I'm in, listening to Joni Mitchell always makes me feel better. And if that mood was already a good one, then it just gets better.

It's safe to say that Joni Mitchell has had an effect on the kind of woman I've become.

A String of Pearls

When I listen to Glenn Miller, I think of my grandfather. When I think of my grandfather, I think of the sound of his voice, the easy way he walked and the things he loved. One of these things was Glenn Miller. He also loved golf, really good scotch and my grandmother.

I think about all of these things, but now, more than ever, I think about the kind of person I want to be when I think about Grandpa.

Listening to Glenn Miller and thinking about Grandpa keeps me going in the right direction, especially on the days when I think I may have started to stray too far away from the woman I want to keep becoming.