Sounds like a plan

After feeling blue on Monday, I decided to book this Friday off. Here are my plans for a fabulous Friday:

1. Sleep in
2. Wash Truck
3. Get Hair cut
4. Hang out with some friends
5. Meet Mr. Blue Eyes for nachos

When it hurts to laugh it means that it was worth it

I hurt. Self-inflicted pain, mostly. I knew it was coming. On Saturday I went skating at the Civic Centre arena. It had been a while since I last laced up my skates. I had two goals: don’t fall, and don’t take out any little kids.

One out of two isn’t so bad.

I tripped on my toe picks. (Yes, I still use figure skates and no, I didn’t get the toe picks shaved off. What if one day I decide I want to do a double toe loop?) As I was falling I could hear Moira Kelly calling out “toooooooe piiiiiiick”. I fell forward, which some how seems better than landing on my back side. But I bruised my knee.

On Sunday I had Pilates. We were working with some new equipment and trying new things. Usually it takes about 24 hours for the stiffness to set in after a tough work out. I was feeling it already on the way home and I can still feel it today.

Self Love 101*

(*Dear God this is going to attract a lot of dirty-mind traffic.)

I wanted to write this post yesterday, but I didn't have time.

One hundred (and one) days ago I visited 43things.com and made a list of things I wanted to accomplish. One of my goals was to be open to love. After some self reflection I was feeling that I was trying harder to stay single than I was to find a relationship. So I called the goal, "I am open to love" and I set up a daily e-mail to remind myself everyday to be open to love. Here is the note I wrote for myself:

Dear future self,

Remember to love yourself. Remember that people love you.
Remember to glow. Love will find you.


Sincerely,
Your past self

I read that note everyday for the last 100 (and one) days. Some days were harder than others and I did not want to read my note. I wanted to tell myself, "I know, I know, love is all around, yadda yadda". Some days I read the note out loud (quietly, as I usually read it at work). Some days I would read it slowly and kind of meditate on the words. I really like the word "glow" and I really like the last reassuring sentence. And I really like that I started the whole thing off with "remember to love yourself".

Anyway, so what were the results? Well, after 100+1 days of self love, I think I did find some love. Okay no, Prince Charming did not bang on my door on day 100, but some other things, and not all romantic things, seemed to show up that really made me happy and glow-y.

Thank you.

I love you.

You know who you are.

Going fishing

Readers, I know, the blog has been rather dry lately. Where, you ask, are the embarrassing moments, the Jillisms, the boystories? Has Jill been living under a rock lately?

Since coming off of the holidays season the story mostly, it seems, has been work. And that's really not a terribly interesting story so I've been restraining myself from mentioning it here.

This weekend I decided to do something about the slumping plot line (heh, maybe my writers went on strike too). A couple of my guy friends were encouraging me to put a profile on a dating site. Last Saturday I even boldly suggested we have a race to see who could get the next date, and then the next relationship.

One of the guys is already far ahead. He was chatting with a girl for a bit and now they have a date lined up for this week. My friend has a new glow about him. It's really nice to see him in such high spirits.

On Saturday morning I checked out some of the profiles on the site. It didn't take long for one to grab my attention. He had the most beautiful ice blue eyes...

So I signed myself up in the "looking for people to hang out" category. I'm still not really comfortable with the online dating thing. I just don't think it allows for that casual, in-person kind of interaction you have with someone offline that allows you to get comfortable with him and figure out if you actually find him attractive more than physically. I am always open to meeting new and interesting people and then hey, who knows, so the "hang out" category seemed best.

I got a fair number of hits in the first 30 minutes. The first thing I noticed as I checked out profiles is that there are some old looking 27-30-year-olds. I looked at them and thought, wow, I don't think my friends look like that. I guess for starters, my guy friends are all very lucky to still have good heads of hair. But then again, it's hard to see how the people you've grown up with have changed over the years.

Once I had my profile set up with pictures posted, I sent a message to Mr. Blue Eyes. He wrote back with some questions and I responded. Then I went out for the night.

When I got home I checked my mail. No note from Blue Eyes and the number of new guys sending me notes had diminished drastically. Hm. So I decided to add more info to my profile.

Sunday morning came. I had some notes back from a few other guys I had written but still nothing from Blue Eyes. Boo.

I scanned some more profiles. It seemed that a lot of guys were on there looking for an escape from "drama, mind games, liars and cheaters". Wow. There must be a lot of shallow and fickle women in the city. How sad. There also seemed to be a number of guys who obviously spend a lot of time at the gym (which seems to me like a good place to meet like-minded people, but apparently not). Although I don't usually go for this type, I messaged one who was working on his masters in economics. He wrote back and wants to chat sometime.

Sunday night, after doing all the things that needed doing to get ready for Monday, I checked my mail again. Mr. Blue Eyes wrote back! He's asked lots of questions and sounds so friendly. I will take some time to consider my response.

Materialistic, or something

I am concerned that I am a tad, a wee bit, that I show tendencies, on certain occasions, towards being materialistic. I love things dammit! I don't love acquiring things, I just feel very attached to the things I have. Sigh.

Tonight I was dishing up some chocolate mint-chip pudding. This pudding is only available in America and it is very tasty. I spooned some pudding into a small cup, which was actually a Chinese or Japanese (uhg, now I'm an ignorant materialist) ceramic tea cup. My mom gave me the tea set when I moved out as it was only sitting on a shelf in the basement at her house. I don't plan to have any tea ceremonies, but the cups are very cute, especially as small bowls.

Anyway, so I put the pudding into the cup and then moved the cup to the corner of the counter. Not paying attention to what I was doing, I placed the cup at the edge of the counter and it slipped off, hit the floor, and broke into many pieces. Pudding splattered on the floor, cupboards and the mat in front of my sink.

I was upset, but I couldn't decide which I was more upset about:
a) That the cup my mom gave me broke, and that now I would never ever again have a complete set of 8
b) That I lost 1/2 cup of the best tasting, only-available-in-America instant pudding
c) That I had a huge mess of pudding to clean up on my kitchen floor and floor mat
d) That poor children in North Africa will likely never know the joy of chocolate mint-chip pudding

I will learn to let go
(after ensuring that the object I am letting go of will not fall to its untimely death)