My heartbreaks, my regrets, my joy.

A day of plot twists, it was. First was the pie, the birthday pie I was asked to make for Stephen's mom's birthday. I had made the pastry on Saturday in my mom's kitchen, under the supervision of my baking mentor, mama. I've made pastry maybe a few times in my life. I've made maybe four pies on my own. Cake I can do in my sleep. Pies are still a new challenge, and boy did this one set out to test my mettle.

I am constructing the pie in Stephen's kitchen and hadn't packed flour in my toolbox for rolling out the pastry so it sticks to everything, the rolling pin, the mat, me...etc. I have corn starch with me so I cross my fingers and make it a substitute for the flour. Unfortunately I have to roll it out twice, once for the failed attempt where the pastry refused to let go of the mat and then a second and final time. You need to be careful when working with pastry that you don't overwork it or it will end up tough and may shrink when baked. Sure enough, it shrinks in the pie tin. Plot twist number one.

I then set to make the lemon curd filling. This requires five egg yolks; the whites would be saved for the meringue topping. It is very important that no yolk gets into the whites or the meringue won't work. I bust a yolk on egg number 4. Despite our best tries, neither Stephen nor I can collect all the yolk out of the whites. They would make a lovely omelet, but are useless for meringue. Plot twist, plot twist.

Finished with the curd on the stove, I pour it into the crust and then we leave for my house. We had our first real dumping of snow the night before so I needed to get home to do some shoveling. I had also forgotten to pack my hair dryer and needed it to make something out of my goldie locks.

While Stephen starts on my driveway I retrieve the carton of egg whites from my fridge, my hair dryer and my snow brush for my truck. I go to find mitts so I can join Mr. Plow outside. I keep my winter things in a bag in my closet and this is my first time accessing it since March. I pull everything out but only manage to find three different mitts, no matches. I consider wearing a mismatched pair, thinking at the very least it would make Stephen laugh, but I can't even do that since I'd only found left hands.

Stephen had found my scoop shovel for pushing the snow off the driveway.

"That thing hurts my knee," I say.

"It works great, you just need to learn how to use it properly." Stephen proceeds to demonstrate pushing the scoop across the snow and then dumping it with a slight tipping action after pushing it up the newly established bank. He then offers the scoop to me.

"You learn by doing," he says. Right. I'm dating a teacher. The thing is, my dad had given me the exact same speech and demonstration numerous times. It's eerie, really, to hear the same words coming out of Stephen's mouth. He is a movember-stashed, splash pants and blue toqued version of my father. He's also recently taken to affectionately calling me JB, which previously only my dad had ever addressed me with. This starts feeling weird.

Back in the boy's kitchen, I get to work on the meringue. It turns out lovely. It's my new favourite part of lemon pie now. I spoon it onto the filling and put it in the oven to toast. It gets a bit over-toasted but otherwise is good. When we eat the pie, I am happy with the meringue, mostly pleased with the lemon curd, but know the crust would not pass the Barrott standard of excellence. I still have practicing to do.

At the end of the night I gather my weekend luggage in the kitchen and get ready to leave for home. I'd brought so much stuff this time I feel like I'd traveled hours from home. I loathe this part of Sunday nights. They feel sad, heavy and arduous on my arms and my heart.

I don't get very far down the back lane before I realize I'd forgotten my cell phone and iPod. I pull up to the front of Stephen's house where he is shoveling his steps and sidewalk.

"Cell phone and iPod," I say. He is not fazed by these Alzheimer's moments of mine. I still beat myself up about them but am consciously trying to be more accepting and forgiving of it all. I just don't want to come to terms with the fact that I forget and lose things because I think that it means my brain is smaller than everyone else's. I shake my head at the terrible insults I hurl at myself when I make a mistake, but when someone I love err's, I know I am good at smiling and forgiving. Why can' I lend myself the same level of compassion?

I go around to the back of the house and into the kitchen to retrieve my electronic devices. When I come back outside, Stephen is there to meet me. I am set to hurry back to my truck, but he stops me, smiling.

"Hey, where's my bonus kiss?"

And right then and there in minus seven degrees I start to melt. He kisses me once, then again, and then again. The weekend that had zipped by is suddenly on pause as he and I become the couple of the moment to share a tender kiss with the snow softly falling around us. I think about that moment the whole drive home. I think about it so much that I miss my turn off and have to drive an extra six kilometres. Never mind twist, this is a plot detour.

If I hadn't forgotten my phone and iPod tonight, I wouldn't have had that sweet moment that I will replay in my head when I need a warm thought. I forgave myself tonight for my brain of fluff.

I feel pretty

Yesterday was the first day after a haircut. Women know what this day means. It is the big test to see if they can recreate in their tresses all the bounce, shine and fun that their hairdresser did. I armed myself with hair product, my blow dryer and two different brushes to try to coax my locks into showing volume, shine and sleekness. I was nervous but felt prepared and had a tactic in mind so I set to work.

I had already done my make up and was pleased that my face was not red and cranky much. I had managed to apply just the right hint of eye shadow to enhance my peepers in natural shades. If I could get my hair to do what I knew it could, I'd be set.

I started off with good volume, but I couldn't get the hair to lay in the right place and stay. My bangs fell hopelessly infront of my eyes, no amount of sticky paste or hairspray could convince it otherwise. On top of that, I had over-done it on the product. My strands looked heavy and greasy. I was dismayed.

Stephen had just arrived looking cool in his green hooded sweater, jeans and a moto jacket and suggested that we start our afternoon out with a drink.I stood in front of the mirror and assessed. My hair was a small fail. My outfit, comprised of a red t-shirt layered over a long-sleeved white and black striped t-shirt and dark jeans, which had seemed fine a moment ago now showed a frumpy side. I frowned and the little red balloon in my heart that carries my spunk and confidence completely deflated. I felt un-pretty.

I don't think guys can really understand when a girl says she doesn't feel pretty or what difference it makes. I know Stephen looks at me and sees the same blue eyes he saw on our first date. The clothes I put on don't matter much and he has told me he still thinks I'm beautiful with my face all washed off for the night. He says lovely things but still, I want to feel pretty on my own terms. 

It didn't really matter before Stephen, but now it does. I want to feel kissable when I am with my beau. I want to feel like the girl he wants to plant one on in the middle of the produce section at Safeway. A frumpy outfit and bad hair doesn't make me feel kissable. It makes me feel like the friend who is tagging along on the outing.

It's hard to give love to someone else if you're not feeling in love with yourself first.  To do that takes care, time and a strong effort at being gentle to one's self in front of the mirror. It starts with appreciating your bare skin and loving all the freckles, lines and scars. Then it means loving the hug of the clothes on your body and seeing the features that are so striking they command the world's attention. A smile, vivid eyes, a beautiful neck, legs that go on forever--anything. It is seeing all this and knowing it comes with the soul of someone with beautiful, loveable qualities and quirks. When I lose touch with these things I need time and space alone to find them again, which is hard when your boyfriend is standing there looking la-ti-da amazing himself and you have about 15 minutes to get out the door so you can get your to-do list done.

On top of feeling un-presentable that afternoon, my house also felt like a mess. In the kitchen I started to spin out from it all, This climaxed with me trying to find a place for the microwave plate cover in the refrigerator.

"AHH! What am I doing?" I slammed the fridge door shut and threw the cover on the toaster. Stephen grabbed me by the shoulders, spun me around, and hugged me. Bad hair, frumpy outfit, messy kitchen me. 

I did end up changing my outfit and I covered my hair up with a cute hat. I smiled in the mirror when I was done with the transformation. I felt pretty and when Stephen and I walked hand in hand out of the restaurant, I felt happy, beautiful, and loved. 

No fear

I do a core workout class twice a week at the gym. Thursdays are my favourite class day because I like the instructor. Today was her first time teaching the newest release and she asked if anyone had done it yet. I had, and another guy in the middle of the studio nodded.

"What did you think of it?" the instructor asked.

"Hard," he said.

"Hard! We don't say hard in this class! We say challenging."

I smiled at this. The other day when Stephen said relationships are hard I said I couldn't use that word. I didn't it like it. To me, hard is a word you use in exasperation. Hard is saved for things that are not only difficult, but questionable as to why you keep doing them. I don't want either of us to describe our relationship as ever being hard.

Maybe it's a girl thing to get so hung up on certain words. I like the word challenge. I can agree that a good relationship has challenges. I like a challenge. I think I have some version of that statement on my resume. Take on a challenge and your are ambitious, driven, confident in your abilities and a problem solver. That's who I am.

I can't remember the wording of it anymore, but I used to have a quote on this blog about how having a relationship with millions of people was easy, it's having a relationship with one single person that's difficult. It resonated with me when I found it because it was easy to make new friends with random strangers but trying to create a meaningful relationship with one special guy was har-d.

Now I see the wisdom differently. It's always been easy to bare my rawest thoughts and feelings here. Perhaps it's the comfort factor of putting words on a page. It's a release and they just flow out so much easier from my fingers than my mouth. My arguments make sense here. When I try to speak my truths to one person, even the simplest statement gets stuck in my throat and then, like I am actually choking, my eyes water. It's annoying. I wonder if it would be any easier if I knew sign language. Maybe I could just draw them pictures?

I never used to be so afraid. I would worry about things a bit, but they wouldn't shake me. I journaled, blogged, vented to my mom and it was all very manageable. Now, I have something new and special that I am afraid to lose and it's different. I can only guess it is kind of like being a new parent who says "Oh my goodness this little thing is so awesome and precious but so fragile. Please don't let me break it!" Kids are a lot stronger than we know, and really, so are we. Even when we are
fumbling around and feel more incompetent than a dust bunny, we still have instincts to guide us. And, I believe, if we have good, honest intentions, we can do pretty okay. People can generally forgive someone who is trying her best. Love does that.

I am afraid to say out loud that I am afraid, because I don't want to be seen as weak. I want to be strong, tough, confident and the one you can lean on. I used to be that girl. I had to be that girl. It was called being an older sister.

I am afraid that if I find my voice and get the words out about my fears and needs, there will be too many for any normal person to handle, and the camel's back will break. But I'm also afraid that if the fear doesn't come out, it will grow, like a cancer. It will make me ugly and eventually destroy me. I can't keep holding it all in.

I used to come here to share my story with the hope that if someone else out there in the world was going through the same thing, they wouldn't feel so alone. They could feel normal.

Being afraid is hard. It is exhausting. And what if I actually have nothing to fear? What if I could stand there, in all my imperfect messiness, release it all and lose nothing but the stress of carrying the fear around? What if I released it and someone said, hey, me too?

Whenever I find myself staring at a wall of fear that has paralyzed me, I remind myself that I will survive. I always do. The wall crumbles. I leap. And I haven't died yet.

Dear Jill,
You're not perfect. You're working on stuff. I get it. I love you anyway. You're worth sticking it out for. Let's go have some fun and eat some ice cream.

Love,
Jill

The relationship you have with yourself is the most challenging one and the most important. It sets the stage for all your other relationships. It needs to be nurtured.

My Puzzling Experience

I've been beating myself up a lot lately for being a mess. It's exhausting and it's burning me out. I'm not a mess. I'm just a puzzle with many pieces of odd shapes and spaces that need some filling in.

I have spots where I reach out and spots where I pull in. I'm not even around my edges and not perfectly symmetrical.

Sometimes I think my life looks like this.

There are pieces here and there that I know belong somewhere but I haven't figured out where or don't feel like I have the time to put into place. Most likely there is a piece or two missing. It's probably under the couch or stuck to the bottom of my foot. I love the colours of my puzzle though and I tell myself I will get to finishing it soon.

And then along comes Love.

And those places where I am pulled in, Love reaches toward and fills up the void. Those places where I stretch out, Love accepts gratefully for giving what it needed.

Figuring out how the pieces go together and accepting the joining of those pieces isn't always easy. They are all different but they do all belong. Sometimes I fight it. Sometimes I try to force together pieces that don't actually fit. Sometimes I have to step back and take a break for a while or spend time looking at the big picture to understand what I am trying to put together, The tiny details I contribute to the beautiful thing I am a part of.

I have a beautiful puzzle. Even when I feel jagged, upside-down, completely odd-ball and like I don't fit in anywhere, Love has always grabbed me and guided me into place.

And really, how amazing does that feel when you're all warm and safe, in that place where you belong perfectly, with Love?

F*ing Perfect

Yesterday at 4:13 p.m. I was sitting at my desk spitting mad at myself. When I turned off my computer for the day at 3:30 and started gathering up my stuff to head to my after-work plans, I couldn't find my Truck keys. I dumped my purse, cleared my desk, nothing. I went down to the parkade where my Truck sat, waiting for me to jump in and get going to see if I could spot the shiny silver of my J-initial and Mickey Mouse key chain but no luck. I called lost and found and found no relief. I called my dad so he could bring me my other set of keys and I could get on with my Thursday evening.

I'd had a busy night planned for myself. I was to go to my gym class at 4:30, meet Stephen at the Forks for 6 and then head to my Writer's Fest volunteer job for 7 p.m. There was no room for scatterbrained mishaps.

My first disappointed thought was for missing my gym class. I've been very disciplined lately about doing a core training class three times a week and running three times a week. Although by the time I got to the gym the class was 3/4 done, I wasn't going to waste time pouting so I did my own thing on the machines and the floor. I could see the class from my spot at the glutes and hamstrings station though and I may have let a scowl escape.

Back in Truck, post workout, I turned the key in the ignition and was greeted by U2 singing I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. I will use my last breath to argue with anyone who disputes the fact that God is a DJ with a wry sense of humour.


At the Forks I took at seat on an aluminum chair in front of the coffee shop where Stephen and I had agreed to meet. My phone rang, on its last bar of power and Stephen's mug came up. A flutter of worry stirred in my stomach.

"I just turned onto St. Mary's and traffic is insane. I guess because of the Jets game tonight. I'm not sure if I'll make it to see you," he said. "I'll call you in 10 minutes to let you know where I'm at."

Stupid Winnipeg hockey traffic messing with my date night. It's pre-season people. Calm the hello kitty down.

I sat by the window waiting for my phone to ring or die. I went over in my head all the places I'd been with my purse and keys and decided that most likely they would've fallen out of my purse at Starbucks. I plotted to call them as soon as I could find their number.

While deep in my plotting and stewing, a pair of hands grabbed my shoulders from behind and lips pressed to my left cheek. Now, I was downtown so I did gasp at first and felt a shot of adrenaline prepping me to fight or flight, but then I quickly melted when I realized I wasn't being assaulted but actually rescued from my mourning by that guy who has a strong like for me.

In the lounge I indulged in a pretty martini called a Blue Eyed Blond. I needed the irony and the booze equally.

"Stephen you can run now," I said. "It's not going to get any better. It's probably going to get worse," I said, in reference to me and my losing things.

He just smiled at me and said, "Oh Jillian, don't talk like that."

I keep saying that if there was a pill or a shock therapy I could take that would help me not forget and lose things I would go all in. My brain failures cause me so much stress and grief. My parents are used to it and have had to rescue me numerous times but I was always nervous about someone like Stephen having to deal with this mess. Stephen is neat, right down to his penmanship. I've never seen him lose anything. Not even his patience, which is the key quality someone should have to spend time with me.

On the other hand, my brain of fluff kind of ignited his affection for me. On our second date he picked me up and took me mini golfing and then for gelati. I remember that I had put on my best outfit and was feeling like I was going to wow this guy with my mini golf or at least my good sense of humour. But for some reason when we were out I felt like I was struggling to hold up conversation which was super frustrating and made me feel really shy. At the end of the night he pulled into my driveway and all I could think was how I wasn't going to see this very cute and funny guy again. I was surprised and elated when he asked if I wanted to do dinner with him later that week.And then I couldn't find my mitts. I looked on the floor, in my purse, under my seat, under my bum, nadda. I was trying not to show panic or concern about losing my favourite, pink leather gloves given to me as a birthday present by my grandmother a few years ago and then I found them between the seat and the door.

I admitted to feeling rather embarrassed about the whole incident.

"Why? It's cute," Stephen laughed.

"But it happens all the time!" And then I laughed too because all night I'd been trying so hard to be the perfect date that it felt so relieving to be not-perfect and still have this guy's eye on me. Stephen used to remind me of this story all the time. Except when he tells it he also reminds me that he ended our night by leaning over for a kiss and I gave him something with the level of affection one would use for kissing a dignitary, or, as he calls it, a "toast kiss". Six months later though he's still buying me ice cream. When we do breakfast together he puts me in charge of toast.

I went home last night and put all my angry energy into cleaning my house. I find cleaning very therapeutic. This morning I was going to leave for work early and zip down to the lost and found. I packed up my purse and then noticed something I hadn't seen there before. Keys. Were they my spare set? No. They were my usual set with the Tigger house key and the Mickey Mouse key chain. Hidden in a tiny pocket, I had put them there yesterday morning, thinking they would be safe from falling out of my outside pocket and safe from getting lost in the very bottom of the main purse area. This is what aggravates me almost as much as my mush brain. I do try to be pro-active with my scatterbrained-ness. I know myself so I do things thinking I will prevent loss, stress and frustration but more often than not it just makes a mess anyway. I have no workaround!

I texted Stephen to tell him the news.

"Awesome! Good start to your Friday," he said. And I loved him for it. I lose my keys, no big deal. I find that they were in my purse the whole time, still no big deal. If we were bodies of water I would be a meandering river and he would be Lake Placid.

"Every river has an ocean it runs to
And I knew if I kept going
Someday I'd find you" 

Johnny Reid, Dedicated to You

I feel bad for making my dad come out to deliver my spare set of keys and I feel bad that I was a glum date last night, but at least two good things came out of the whole fiasco.

1. I missed my regular gym class and did my own workout which, according to my sore muscles, was probably more effective than the class. Maybe I should do my own thing more often.
2. I got my house cleaned up.

You're so mean
When you talk
About yourself, you were wrong
Change the voices in your head
Make them like you instead
So complicated
Look how we all make it
Filled with so much hatred
Such a tired game

Pink, F-ing Perfect

Spinning Wheels

"At least they're blue," I said. "Why do they all have to be so ugly?" I fixed my eyes on the funny looking shoe in my hands, trying to find something about it that I could love. Velcro? Ick. Synthetic materials? Ick. On sale? Redeeming quality. Then I noticed an inscription etched into the shiny black plastic sole: Step Into The Future.  Was this my future? Am I really going to do this? Is this love at first shoe?

I put the very technical and practical shoes back into their dilapidated box and with a shrug said to my mom, "well, if I change my mind I can always sell them on Kijiji."

I handed the box to the sales guy to put on the counter for me.

"Great," he said. "Now let's get you on a bike."

Finally free of homework assignments from my interior decorating class, I have weekends to myself again. For this one I went looking at new wheels. No, I am not putting Truck out to pasture. I'm looking at buying a road bike.

I don't know anything about bikes except that they have two wheels, handle bars, pedals, breaks and options in gears. I suppose that is pretty much everything to a bike, but for all of those components of course there are variables in materials, which essentially dictate the numbers on the price tag. That's what I learned this weekend.

Joe, one of my volunteers is an avid long-distance cyclist. I found out that there is a team cycling across Canada this summer in the name of organ donation awareness. When I shared this news with Joe I suggested to him that it would be neat if we met up with the team when they got to Winnipeg and rode with them out of the city. Some how Joe thinks that I said we should meet them at the eastern edge of Manitoba and ride with them to Saskatchewan. On Monday he came into my office with a Sportchek flyer and a grin that probably reached down into his transplanted kidney.

"Jillian, I am going to go check out this bike for you," Joe informed me. "It's just as good as one you would find in a bike shop but about a hundred dollars cheaper," he said.

I met Joe on Saturday afternoon to look at the bike he'd found. It was white with blue accents. This is what I noticed right away. Joe pointed out to me the gear components and brand. I looked at another bike that appeared pretty much identical to me, except for a lower price tag, and Joe explained the differences in the components and total weight of the bike.

"One pound can make a difference of a minute on every kilometre," Joe said. "Which adds up when you're doing a hundred kilometres."

I am amused that Joe seems to think I have a 100 kilometre bike ride in me. But hey, he's a senior guy living on a spare kidney and he rides probably 50 kilometres every day once the snow is gone.

At a real bike shop, one of the bike experts tried to explain to me the difference in frame construction and materials and how they work to make for a better ride. I tried to understand it all, really, but the guy may as well have been giving me a restaurant review in French for all the information that I actually comprehended. I trusted that the bike he was chatting me up about was a good bike, but all I saw was an eight hundred and forty dollar price tag for a red and black frame.

"Does it come in blue?" I asked.

"No, they use a different colour each year. For this year it was red. Is there something wrong with red?"

I like red shoes. I like red Lifesavers. But I am also a girl who would only buy an orange truck because she knew that that was what she wanted. I don't want a red bike. Nothing about a red bike says "Jilly Bee".

At the bike shop I visited on Sunday they had white bikes with aqua, pink or grey accents. They looked much more like something I would sport, although I recognized that I had no idea if the brand, gears, or frame were worth the pretty paint job.

After I had picked out the shoes, Josh the sales guy grabbed one of the bikes we'd been looking at, adjusted the bike seat to my height, pumped up the tires and handed it to me. This was to be my first venture on a real road bike.

"Do you want a helmet?"

"Okay," I said. Clearly he had me figured out because he came back with a cute pink one.  Josh sized the helmet for me and then I wheeled the bike out into the spring sunshine. I put my feet to the pedals and zipped around the parking lot. The bike was fast.

"How did it feel?" Josh asked when I brought the bike back into the store.

"Like a bike," I said.

I walked out of the store with my fancy ugly shoes and no new wheels. Today my mom emailed me one of those group discount deals for a cycling tour in Italy.

"Hey Jill: This will get you wanting to take up cycling!"

I do have a desire to see Italy and a desire not to come back 20 pounds heavier due to eating pizza and drinking wine all day, every day. Maybe this would be a good plan.

"Human wheels spin round and round
While the clock keeps the pace"
 Human Wheels -- John Mellencamp

What 30 means to me

Finally I have some time for blogging. This also means I have time for catching up on the two weeks of PVR'd TV programs. I apologize if this post starts trailing off on quotes from House.

I'd wanted to say some words on my birthday to my family, but I ran out of time to pull my thoughts together so all I could muster was a story about how I had been singing along to a favourite tune on the radio that afternoon (That Song by Big Wreck, a tune of nostalgia if there is one), feeling great until the announcer came on and said "hard to believe that song is 15 years old now". I have favourite songs from high school that are now 15 years old. I am an oldie, moldy crust of bread.

So you crank that song
And it might sound dumb
So just leave the room
While I sit'n stare
Cause yeah that's rare
I really love that tune
Man I love that song
I love that song
I love that song
--That Song, Big Wreck


Turning 30 didn't really cause me any pain. Yeah, it's kind of a big number and yes, it means I have closed the door on the 20-something category. But really, the best thing about your 20s is that you're young. And the worst part about your 20s is, well, that you're young. I won't miss the days of being another recent grad with a generously spaced resume and limited awareness of my own strengths and talents.

At 21 I was a college/university graduate, at 22 I was seven months into my first career job and at 24 I was in the world of corporate communications at a large Canadian company. I also bought my first vehicle, brand new, and started blogging--my first public act of writing since grade school. A year and a half later I bought a house.

So many big and exciting moments happened in the first half of my 20s but 29 was probably my favourite year of that decade because in that year I believe I found my own two, very well-shoed feet. Some of my most frustrating, upside down and lost moments happened in that year, the year that my mom had to come to my house to scrape me off the floor where I was drowning in a puddle of my own tears. But even in that moment when I didn't want to open my eyes or for my mom to stop holding me, I had inside of me a flame I'd never sensed before. It's my pilot light that never goes out, even in the darkest moments. My fire in my belly is the small but mighty voice of wisdom that either took 29 years to grow or 29 years for me to finally hear it and believe when it says no matter what, everything will turn out and I'll be okay.

In mid-November I went to a craft show and spent probably 45 minutes reading all the fun and inspirational quotes a girl had printed on magnets, coasters and plaques. The most basic magnets were only a dollar. I bought a stack of them. One of my very favourites featured a quote from contemporary poet, Maya Angelou:

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”

When I'm in a hole at the depths of despair, I can't climb out of it fast enough. But once I am in the warm sun again I have an enormous appreciation for the challenge and the opportunity to use strength I didn't realize I possessed.
 
I learned so much about myself in the last year and a half or so. This knowledge is what made turning 30 so easy breezy. I'm sure I don't know it all, but I feel like I at least finally have a grasp of the territory. For now. Which brings me to the other favourite magnet I picked up:

"Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten"
--Natasha Bedingfield

I took the day off on Monday so I could enjoy a full day of celebrating. I wanted to spend time with as many people I love as I could. It started off with a free, birthday coffee from Starbucks that I drank while visiting with my senior citizen friends from the mall that I used to walk through on my way to work. Brownie and Emil gave me a box of chocolates along with their good company.

After that visit I went to the Urban Oasis Spa. (Thank you, Manitoba Blues Club, for that gift certificate parting gift.) I thoroughly enjoyed the steam room and the mineral pool before receiving a wrap treatment. My sister met up with me after the wrap and we got our nails done together, which we've never done before. After that we went to the bridal salon and Sister selected her wedding gown with big nods of approval from me and Mom. After that I rushed home and put on my party frock for dinner with the family. I'll let the pictures tell the story from here.

Sweet Sisters!

Birthday manicure and birthday glass o'wine

I told my sister, who planned my special night, that the most important thing of all for me was the Birthday Cake. She nailed this.

What a slice looks like

What the whole inside looks like. Cake, then cream, then cake, cream, cake, cream, fruit and chocolate garnish topped by a smattering of candle wax.

When I got home that night, alone with me, myself and I again, I lit one more candle, sat down in front of it, and unleashed all my joys, gratitude, and heart-bursting hopes for the future. When I was about done I said, "God/Universe, I don't know if you heard--" and before I could finish the sentence with "any of that" and the rest of my not-really-so-eloquent-yet-full-of-passion-and-conviction speech, the candle went out. Poof. No draughts and plenty of wax and wick left to burn. Spontaneous de-combustion* I guess. Or, a simple message reminding me to not worry, sit tight, drink lots of fluids and go to bed so I can get plenty of rest for the ride to come. I went to bed a little before midnight but I woke up on Tuesday feeling like I'd been hit by a truck and have been battling the sniffles all week. Ugh, this has been the most unpleasant welcome to a new era I've ever encountered.

Last magnet of inspiration, I promise (I have a very inspiring refrigerator):

If I'm not happy
in this time,
in this place,
I'm not paying attention.
--Jodi Hills

*un-combustion? anti-combustion? None of these is a word, according to Webster. Whatever, 30 means you are old enough to write your own dictionary.

My body tells me no, but I won't quit

My day started at three a.m. when I woke up in a sweat with Young the Giant's "My Body" stuck on repeat in my head, among other things.

I had a full day of presentations with classes of grade 11 biology students ahead of me. This day is going to be brought to you by Starbucks, I moaned when it was time to get out of bed.

After nearly leaving the house without my laptop I found my way to pick up one of my speakers--of the people variety, not the audio kind. (My head is still foggy and I couldn't figure out how to make that differentiation in a simpler manner than that.) The Creme Brule latte was helping.

I had three speakers talk today about their experience with organ donation. All of them have amazing, inspiring stories that I love hearing over and over, like a favourite TV episode (which is good when you have to make the same presentation with them five times in a row in one day).

I came home with a heavy heart though because one of my speakers, a kidney recipient, is facing kidney failure again a year and a half after transplant. He is 72 and would be the first to tell you that he has lived a full, good life and that dialysis and transplant gave him time to enjoy retirement from his career as a school principal and spend time with his grandchildren. But the odds of him getting a second transplant are not great and dialysis is not fun. In the next few months he will have to decide if he wants to go back on dialysis or let the kidney failure take its course.

This guy has so much life experience and wisdom in him and I have seen only a small part of it. He has a cute sense of humour that gets the students from high school to med school laughing along with him. I don't let my mind think about my 28-year-old friend Kristin not getting her heart transplant because she has so much life to live, but I also can't imagine the lights going out for this gentleman who continues to inspire, teach and affect people. His transplant only gave him 18 months or so free from dialysis. Was it worth it? Absolutely. If it had only given him an extra week it would have been worth it. I am so grateful it lasted long enough for me to get to know him.

I love this job but I know it is going to break my heart.


My body tells me no
But I won't quit
Cause I want more
Cause I want more
My body tells me no
But I wont quit
Cause I want more
Cause I want more

It rides out of town

Oh, it's my road
It's my road
It's my road
It's my road
It's my road
It's my road

And it's my war
It's my war
It's my war
It's my war

His eyes are open
His eyes are open

--Young the Giant, My Body Tells Me No

Update: Residential Decorator in Training Week 5

So far I am a solid A student with two scores of 14 out of 15 on my assignments. Here is my value scale assignment:

For this assignment I had to do a grey scale (white to black), a blue value scale (light blue to dark blue) and a blue tone scale (blue plus its compliment, orange). This is harder than it would seem at first look. In this assignment I learned about mixing paint efficiently. Working on this week's assignment, a colour scheme for a room based on a given carpet sample, I found that the value study would have been more educational if we had to do a scale of two tertiary colours (like blue green and yellow green) because I had a lot of frustration trying to discern and match the undertones in paint and fabric samples.  The pink carpet sample I was given reminded me of the Barbie Motorhome my sister and I had in the early 90s. When I joined my classmates in the sample room I thought I had totally scored when I found a leopord-inspired  upholstery. Right away I knew I wanted to fill my room with rich, earthy colours and patterns. I pulled together a collection of other materials but wondered what my instructor would think. The only thing she liked was the dark wood trim (top of the above picture). I was crushed. She went to the sample books and pulled for me a pink paisley pattern with touches of green, khaki, blue and yellow. Not exotic, not rich. Not interesting at all. But I'm no dummy, if the class instructor hands you a place to start from, it's a pretty good idea to use it. It is the same in every profession where there is a client: you have to be able to check your personal preferences at the door and work by the basic principles of your craft, be it design or writing. Back at the drawing board, this is the new colour scheme I picked. I forgot to take a picture of the assembled piece and when I got home tonight I realized I forgot the thing at my mom's and dad's (the location of my "design studio"). I changed out some of the samples, including the dark wood trim after I went online and searched for "pink colour schemes". This was my big lesson for the week. When you don't know where to begin, go online and look at what other people have done. I discovered that a lot of people pair pink with green, which makes perfect sense to me now when I think about the colour wheel (the colours are complimentary). I also observed that they often fill the room with white furniture. Putting the sample board together this afternoon I started worrying that my wall colour was too peachy and my blind sample was not peachy enough (tone problems). Again, the best part about this class is that I know when to let go. To me, it doesn't matter if I get marked down for some off-colour choices if in the end I know the mistake I made and how I'd fix it if I had more time.

The Hunt for Red Orange: one woman's attempt to pass her colour wheel assignment and not spoon out her eyeballs

My first assignment in my interior decorating class is due this Wednesday. We have to build a colour wheel out of scraps of fabric. Easy peasy, right? Go to Michaels or favourite fabric store, collect a rainbow and glue down onto a presentation board. Insert maniacal laugh here.

My mom dug up I had some scraps of felt in red, yellow and orange and a random piece of red-purple. In class last week were were permitted to beg, borrow and trade with each other to complete our collections. I scored some green, blue, blue-green, yellow-green and yellow-orange from my classmates, meaning I left that night only missing the blue-purple and the red-orange.

On the weekend I visited Michaels and found a square of felt in the blue-purple, and found a pair of magic gloves in the red-orange. So I thought. In the store the gloves were red-orange, in nature they were just red. I was literally, seeing red.

Tonight I searched my house and my parents' house for red-orange anything. A towel they wouldn't miss? Old shirt? Even a paper napkin would have satisfied me.  Every time I found something that might work I'd place it in the wheel and it would look like just plain, regular orange.

You would think a girl who drives an orange truck, (it had to be orange) would know the colour. And actually, looking at it tonight I mused that it might pass the bill for red-orange, but there is no way I was going to cut a 2-inch circle out of a quarter panel of my sweet ride.

Just before leaving my mom's and dad's I came across a Clinique makeup bag--the kind you get for "free", filled with samples as a bonus gift with your $26.50 or more purchase. The outside had a strong candidate for the colour and the inside lining had another solid option. I think I might have all the pieces now, just have to put them together in a presentable fashion.

I am trying to keep in perspective that I am doing this class to actually learn, not just to get through the assignments and tests. So today I learned that red-orange is a tricky colour that has the strength to drive me mad.

The hallway from the hotel in The Shining

REDRUM, REDRUM!