My jumbled brain

Sometimes an idea for a blog will hit me at the craziest times and when it comes time to sit down and actually do it, I find myself completely lost as to where to start.

The other day I was driving to my sisters from work and looked out across a country field and was overwhelmed with the need to write a blog about an adventure I took while working for the Cambridge Reporter back in the day. I was so set and determined that I would write the blog and post the awesome pictures.

Then life happened.

Life keeps happening all around me and it is amazing and wonderful, sad and painful. My friends and family members continue to have gorgeous babies, plan wonderful weddings, give their hearts to the world around them and their time and their money. It's wonderful and joyous and fantastic.

And when I look around, I just feel like I'm treading water sometimes. Going through the motions every single day. Not really getting anywhere, but not really being left behind either. I'm just here and the days just keep going on. Day turns to night, night turns to day. My ideas float around and then disappear. Sometimes I make something of them. Sometimes I don't but I find it interesting the way my mind works. They way it constantly weaves and sways backwards and forwards. Sometimes it's overwhelmed, sometimes it's completely in charge.

A few weeks ago I was at my dad's house and we were talking about the past and the future but not really about today. (I think it's something that people who have experienced loss are very good at doing.) He was giving me some of my mom's rings, as we are finally dealing with her will, and we were looking through some stuff in the office. He looked at his large bookshelf of photographs and confirmed again that I wanted his photo albums in which I instantly said yes. There is something so wonderful about having the memories all captured together in an album and having my father's words underneath explaining what was happening and the funny story involved. I realize that pictures on a computer screen can never capture that same moment. You don't get the emotion and they are cold.

I began to realize that there moments in my life that on the screen would just seem cold and empty. I looked at some of our wonderful parties we've had over the years and realized that wouldn't it be great to immortalize them into a book. I created a book with some of our wedding photos for my husband for one of our many wedding anniversaries and I love looking at it. Why can't I do that with other wonderful moments?

And so I want to create a book for the Beer Olympics. The big party that I hosted and helped organize for all my friends back in 2008. The pictures for some reason are no longer showing up on the site, but it's still there in essence. I know that I've had some requests to bring it down now that we've gotten older and some of us have become more concerned about our names and images being accessible to employers and the world. It made me begin to feel that it's time to immortalize those memories and images after I'm gone.

I have also been toying with the idea of putting together a memory cookbook of my mom. I needed a recipe around thanksgiving, which was a few weeks after my mom had passed, and I ended up finding all these wonderful recipe cards that she had hand written. Some on scraps of paper with notes as to who she got them from and when. I think it'd be fantastic to put them together with pictures of her so that we have them for all time. I also think it'd be the best gift I can give my siblings to keep and cherish of my mom.

I know that all of this is mourning work. We've been talking in my Coping group about the difference between grieving, which is the feelings we hold inside and don't show anyone and mourning which is the outward manifestation of those feelings. Looking at pictures, sharing stories, crying, all of these are outward and visible and are all part of the process. There is nothing wrong with them and I find great comfort in them all. I feel like she's with me.

This week in session was a hard one. We talked about the moment it happened, when we found out and who was immediately there afterwards. I mentioned how my mom passed and how my aunt who recently passed away was a great comfort to me. She put her arms around me for a big hug and she whispered in my ear to tell me that my mom loved me. In that moment I was filled with so much warmth. I can't even begin to describe it. When my aunt passed a few weeks ago, I found that I had to do the same for her kids. I don't know if they felt the same warmth that I did, but I knew it was an important thing to do. Recalling that story made me cry, and it's making me cry now, but that's good. I need to cry sometimes.

In a way, this blog is also part of my mourning work. It allows me to get my feelings out into the world so that you can see what I'm going through. Some people think I should be all better now and back to my happy go lucky self. Some people have never lost someone that meant so much to them and so they never understand that the feelings linger and that they sometimes manifest themselves in different ways. I'm learning through my group that it's okay if I'm not ready to be around certain people. That it's okay if I change a bit and that it's okay if I don't ever go back to the person that people thought I was before.

One thing that has really been bothering me is the way that some people look to me to be this wild and crazy party person. They expect me to be full of life and joy when out in large groups. They don't know the other me. The one who only feels comfortable and secure with people she knows. They don't know that it takes me 3 days to recover from being in a large group. They have no idea that in reality I'm introverted and that sometimes it's very difficult for me to talk to new people. Sure I can be loud sometimes and I can get rowdy, but only when I'm truly comfortable and feel in control. If I don't have that control, I don't act recklessly.

In many ways, I feel for my husband. He doesn't quite understand, even though he's introverted too. He has found an outlet every week at karaoke. He feels comfortable, included and part of the crowd. He joins in and sings. He laughs and has a great time. Every week he comes home and tells me how I would really love it and whenever music is on he tells me that I should sing this song or that. He doesn't know how it feels to be completely overwhelmed sometimes by the large group and  how it actually hurts inside to think of going up on the stage. I know that the one time I went there were a large amount of people there I didn't know. Everyone was welcoming but I still felt on the outside looking in, like I didn't belong. It's still nice to know that people ask about me when I'm not there, but they don't realize how hard it would be for me and how that one night of going would probably make me want to stay inside for a week.

Sometimes, I will go places where there is a smaller crowd. And sometimes I will still come out of my little shell and talk to people. But it isn't where I'm comfortable. This is my "new normal" as we keep talking about in my group. I feel comfortable there. Everyone has experienced loss. They've all had the heartache that continues to plague me. They've all had moments where they've forgotten where they started and where they were going. They've all been stopped dead in their tracks realizing that what they were about to do wasn't going to work because the person they were going to do it for, or that they were trying to contact is no longer there.

Loss is hard.

And it's jumbled my brain.

This weekend I want to celebrate life. In the only jumbled way I know how, with cherished friends and family, and by myself. I feel that for the first time since my mom passed I should really follow through with the promises that I've been wanting to keep.

Quick Update

I have a few blogs in my mind but until my final assignment is handed in Sunday I think it's not fair to finish them.

Sunday. Eek! How could the past 4 months gone so quickly? Last week I had to hand in a synopsis of my entire book from start to finish. Considering I hadn't even written it all yet this was no easy feat. Luckily I had my husband around long enough to sit with me while I agonized over it sitting in a Pizza Hut just hours before it was due.

I also started out at the Coping Centre last week. As you may already know, I've experienced a lot of loss over the past 14 months. My uncle passed away after a 7 year battle with liver cancer last February, my mom was diagnosed in May of Stage 4 cancer and passed away in September with my dog going two weeks after. A few weeks ago I also lost one of my favourite Aunts. There have been other losses over the past year and a bit and it's made life a little difficult for me. I'm not just the same happy go lucky person that I once was and I'm hoping this group can help me cope with everything.

A few weeks ago I stayed at a fabulous B&B in Stratford called the Blue Spruce on Erie. I have a big ol' blog post written about that in my brain that I still need to flesh out. Before I have a chance, please take my word for it that it's a great place to stay that's not too far from downtown.

While in Stratford I went to check out some dogs as me and the hubs have decided we are ready to find a dog perfect for us. While at the Humane Society they let me walk one of the dogs, a very sweet girl named Chanel, but halfway down the stairs I ended up going down with a really bad sprain. Or I hope it's a sprain. I need to get an xray this week (somehow at some point.)

This week I have 4 family birthdays and the potential birth of two babies that I'm planning on loving like my own. My bestie Devon is having a c-section on Friday and my sister-in-law is due on Tuesday but the baby could come any time. Heck, she could be in labour right this minute and we wouldn't know because of the fact that they don't allow cell phones. So I'll be rooting for them all week. I also have a wedding shower out of town on Sunday afternoon.

All this craziness means that I have zero time to do all the thousands of things I want to do, and I need to instead spend every waking minute working on the first 20 pages of my novel along with a letter to a publisher where I'd like to market my book to. Tonight I've set the ground work on the publisher, again. I had done work at the start of the course but now that I'm writing I feel that perhaps a different publishing house might be more suited to my work.

So yeah. That's as much of an update as I have time for right now. I'll have a bit more time to breath next Monday night but until then - it's nose to the grindstone! Wish me luck!

Harlequin's not so secret secret

I need to let you all in on a dirty little secret.

You can read Harlequin books online.

For Free.

It's crazy I know. But you should check it out.

http://www.harlequin.com/articlelist.html?activeTab=READ

It's given me all sorts of quick reads the past week since my instructor turned me onto it. Might reach my 26 in 52 after all!

My garden today

I'm about to head out into my garden for the first time this year and I know it's only March 11th.

Where did winter go?

We certainly didn't get a winter here in southern Ontario. It came and went so quickly that it's amazed we had any show at all. It came and hit with a force and then melted within days. I can't help wondering whether the predictions in that lovely movie Al Gore made called "An Inconvenient Truth" might actually come true. It talked about how with the way the earth was headed we were going to get temperature extremes and faster, more severe storms. There would be an increase in everything.

I also wonder if this was brought on by that earth quake last year that shifted the earth on it's axis.

Either way, it's the middle of march and I could probably go outside and start planting. I'd love to but I think it's much more important for me to do some cleaning first.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have a lot of dreams for this year's garden. I hope that I can have something that I'm proud of. I guess I'll just have to go off my quote for this week:

"Dreams don't work unless you do."

And with that - I'm off to clean up the mess that was left from last year. I'm off to try and get it all pretty and ready for planting in a few weeks. This means getting rid of dirty pots and digging up roots I should've already removed in the fall. At least the sun is shining.

Exercising with Jenny McCarthy

I did something I very rarely do last night - I went into a video game store.

Yes me. And no, my husband didn't bring me kicking and screaming.

He was on the hunt for some game, I think a racing game or something. He never plays with the games he has now so I wasn't entirely sure what the sudden pull was. We had nothing going on, I was having a very down day so I really didn't care what we did as long as it wasn't wallowing in the sad funk that I found myself in on my drive home yesterday.

Anyhow, enough about that.

We went to the EB Games near our house and immediately upon entering I found an end of rack area set up with fitness games. I've been talking about how I wanted to start getting fit using the Wii for awhile now, but my lazy arse couldn't be bothered to put in any batteries into the balance board so it's just sat there taunting me for a few months. Okay, maybe it hasn't been taunting me. It is hidden behind the laundry and so therefore I did shut it up quite good.

Back to the games. There were a few that I was interested in.

#1 - an MMA Fighter fitness game that was all about punching and kicks and stuff to kick your ass into shape. It had this handy little contraption that wrapped around your leg and was connected to controllers so that it was able to track your movements.

#2 - A Zumba fitness game that had you dancing and shaking your way into fitness. I was very intrigued as I've heard nothing but positive things about Zumba and about how much fun people have. This game would've been cool, but it came with a belt that I could tell would fit around my fat leg and not my fat stomach as they showed on the box. It was built for smaller girls, not for big girls like me, so I ruled it out.

#3 - A game that features a video camera that is mounted to the game where they actually can see you and your progress. You don't have to stand on anything and you can be any size fat ass that you are in order to start. Jenny McCarthy acts as your personal trainer, or at least her digitized cartoon version is. Per the box it says "Fitness that's fun and focused on you."

Intrigued by all of them I called over my hubby. He told me "If you want it, go ahead," and then proceeded to leave me alone to fight over the differences. As you can tell by the title of my blog, the one I chose was #3.

Your Shape featuring Jenny McCarthy

I brought it home, put on my workout gear (minus the sneakers), got the camera set up and prepared to get started. No time like the present right? There were some minor glitches with the camera - the angle it was focused on, that I was wearing black pants and the camera couldn't differentiate between my legs and the bedspread behind me because they were both dark, but we worked through them and I found that I actually felt good from the work out.

Of course I ended up doing extra because I screwed up in the beginning and had the absolute wrong weight set in the system for me and there was no way to correct this once you got past the initial run - which is a big glitch in the game in my opinion. But other than that, I really felt the game lived up to what it said. Because they could see my movements, they were able to tell me what I did wrong, which was a nice feature. Next time, I'm going to wear sneakers though because push ups on a carpet with socks on are very difficult.

So essentially what I'm saying is, thank you Jenny McCarthy for making it possible for fat asses like me to get up and do some exercise. I look forward to working out with you again.