Wherever you go, there you are

I wrote this post weeks ago, meant to go back and do a proof-reading/edit, never did. Today, I have some time, so instead of going for a run I am dedicating an hour to my craft.


Wednesday night was my last class for Level 1 Interior Decorating. Our instructor handed back our final projects and sat down with each of us to explain our marks. I was last to get mine back.

The assignment had a few components: develop a furniture layout for a given floor plan, draw four elevations for the living room and dining room and one elevation for the bedroom, do a furniture and accessory collage for those rooms and write a profile of the imaginary client, demonstrating how the plan met the client's needs.

I was disappointed with my mark on my last assignment, a 71, given that I knew I'd put a lot of time an effort into it. My weakness is in my drawing. Everything must be measured and to scale. I take my time to measure no less than twice before committing my pencil to the paper and I line things up on graph paper to avoid lines with an undesired angle. Still, accuracy eludes me.

I didn't look at my mark when I got it back this week. I still haven't. My instructor pointed out to me where I'd missed details, how my dining room chairs were not consistent in size and my end tables in the drawings did not match the photos I'd selected. With every error she pointed out I grew more frustrated and more certain that this was not the class for me.

Floor plan, left. Furniture and accessory collage, right.

Furniture and accessory collage, left. Fabric and materials collage, right.

"You just need to take some more time and care with your drawings," she said.

More time? I spent all my free time, every weekend, for four weeks, working on the project. I don't have any more time or energy to give to this.

"But your client profile is the best profile I have ever seen. Absolutely. You have a great deal of potential," she told me. "Your furniture and accessory selection went along so well with how you described the client and her needs. You achieved a very sophisticated look that you don't see in any of the other students' projects. I really hope that you do take some time with practicing your drawing and continue on in level two. I think you have a very fun and modern design style."

I was touched by the praise and encouragement. Even in writing it can be hard to get someone to see the potential or merits of a work in progress.

"I don't know if I can give that much time to working on my drawing," I confessed. "I did spend a great deal of time on them, it wasn't like I left it to the last weekend."

"How long did you spend on your client profile?" she asked.

"Fifteen minutes," I said.

My instructor blinked. "Wow. You should be in marketing!"

When I told Lisa this story she laughed and said, "so you basically confirmed that you chose the right career path from the start."

I took the class because I got spooked in 2010 when I found myself miserable in my job and feeling like I had no out until something better opened up. I decided to try taking up something new that I could flip over to if I ever needed to make a quick exit to save my sanity. There is no easy path. Even when you put yourself on the path that you have a natural sense of direction for, you will stumble. You will meet great challenges. Trying to minimize the frustration of those challenges by finding other paths will open you up to finding more road blocks. There is no easy path. And really, how much fun is a never ending stretch of easy street anyway?

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

How can we make this day more manageable?

Lisa loathes daylight savings time. Well hey, I don't exactly love it either, who does? Yesterday she noted to me on our way to a bible babble meeting that she was grumpy. The hostess this week put out a big bowl of Cadbury Mini Eggs, much to the delight of all, including Lisa.

Today Lisa texted me, "Ugh, I'm cranky again."

"But less cranky than yesterday?" I asked, thinking that there was perhaps hope to be found in the declining levels of foul feelings.

"Mmm, not really. Couldn't sleep last night."

"Eat a mini egg. Fixes everything", I said. "Someone should make a mini egg latte."

"We should invent that and sell it in our cupcake/natural cosmetics store."

I wash my make up off now with honey and a warm wet facecloth, by the way. Another great tip from CrunchyBetty.com.

I let my best gal pal know that David's Tea is now stocking a Jelly Bean tea, with real Jelly Belly jelly beans in it and then I added a PS that I KNEW would fix everything.

"Robert Downey Jr. on a miniature pony."

For us, this scene from the sequel of Sherlock Holmes will never get old.

 On the topic of getting old, I went into Shoppers Drug Mart on Sunday to buy a $14 thing of magic potion lotion that would make my skin glow. I walked out, $91 with an entirely new makeup regime from Cover FX.

Yes, I am saving money on my cleaning products so that I can spend it all on putting fancy, skin-coloured dirt on my  face.

I now get great coverage for my red, cranky skin in just a teeny tiny bit of liquid make up, but I must be doing something wrong in the application process of the coverup, setting powder and foundation because everything settles into the fine creases under my eyes, aka, wrinkles. Maybe I can Spackle some honey in there and make them go away. I'll get back to you on that.

Good enough to eat?

There's something about a sunny spring day that makes a girl feel like blogging again. Where to begin?

When I'm not blogging I often think of you, readers. Mostly when I have discovered a new thing that I love and want to tell everyone about. Like today when I stopped at Lush and let them slather my hands in Ro's Argan Body Conditioner. The stuff smells like roses and honey and when you wash it off not only do you smell yum, your skin feels like silk, which is what every body wash and lotion promises you but oh so few actually deliver.

Let's stay hanging out in the bathroom, shall we? I'll tell you about my latest hippy dippy cleaning product alternative. I can't remember how I stumbled onto CrunchyBetty.com but I did, and promptly fell in love. She's funny, friendly and straight up and she has all these cheap and easy alternatives to commercial cleaning products. My first experiement from her site was with ditching shampoo for baking soda and conditioner for apple cider vinegar. Yup really. The cider vinegar rinse leaves my hair oh so soft that all I want to do is pet my head. Two washes in and I am liking it, although it sounds like some people find it can leave your hair dry after a few weeks of this routine. Check the recipe if you are curious about going no 'poo.

That's all the words I've got today.

Miracles will happen as we trip

I was supposed to go to the gym tonight but I am blogging instead. And I washed Truck, which probably burned, like, five calories, so I can go ahead and enjoy that stick of gum or glass of Crystal Light now. Woo.

Betchya didn't think you'd see me back here, huh?

I hung up the phone this afternoon at my desk, shook my head and asked whoever would answer me (there were two possible persons beside myself), "is it a full moon today?" It was the only explanation I had for the odd conversation I'd just had.

I recalled to my mind's eye the vision of the very round, very bright white orb in the sky at seven o'clock this morning, while thinking to myself, it's going to be a crazy one today.

In the window from which I was observing the lunar awesomeness I have hung a snowflake mobile, of sorts. It was on sale in January at Hallmark for some ridiculously low price (six bucks comes to mind).

No lights

It's solar powered, so it lights up blue when the sun goes down. Or rather, it is supposed to light up. I tested it in the store by covering the solar sensor with my hand, and it worked. But when I hung it in my window and waited for nightfall, it did not glow. I thought that perhaps this was due to a bright street light or the background light of the kitchen and decided I'd reposition it later.

I decided today that the mobile is not faulty or hyper photo-sensitive, but enchanted, which is my more optimistic way of saying, haunted. Not long after I put it up I caught it moving on its own, although I can't totally rule out that the passing by of a large truck didn't transfer some vibrations. More recently I would notice it light up at random moments for short periods of time, as it did this morning. I went to the closet to grab my coat, notice the full moon and the thing was dim. I went to the table to pick up my keys and the thing was lit. I turned away and then looked back and it was off again. No vibrations, no knocking it with my klutziness, no change in light. Just enchanting, really. (I'm really focusing on that word at the moment because something just fell off the counter in my kitchen and made me jump out of my skin.)

Lit up, with the lights off

Today on the way back from coffee break I noticed a book left in one of the free newspaper stands. The title made it irresistible for me to pick up: The Ghost In Love.

The book looked well loved, so I first worried that it belonged to some poor student or patient who dropped it accidentally. But there is no bookmark in it, so I think it was just rejected. I'm sure it is a stinker, but the description on the back cover still has me curious.

Welcome to the luminous and marvelously inventive world of The Ghost in Love. A man falls in the snow, hits his head on a curb, and dies. But something strange occurs: the man doesn’t die, and the ghost that’s been sent to take his soul to the afterlife is flabbergasted. Going immediately to its boss, the ghost asks, what should I do now? The boss says, we don’t know how this happened but we’re working on it. We want you to stay with this man to help us figure out what’s going on.

The ghost agrees unhappily; it is a ghost, not a nursemaid. But a funny thing happens—the ghost falls madly in love with the man’s girlfriend, and things naturally get complicated. Soon afterward, the man discovers he did not die when he was “supposed” to because for the first time in their history, human beings have decided to take their fates back from the gods. It’s a wonderful change, but one that comes at a price.  

The Ghost in Love is about what happens to us when we discover that we have become the masters of our own fate. No excuses, no outside forces or gods to blame—the responsibility is all our own. It’s also about love, ghosts that happen to be gourmet cooks, talking dogs, and picnicking in the rain with yourself at twenty different ages. 

Crazy.

A man decides after seventy years
That what he goes there for, is to unlock the door
While those around him criticize and sleep
And through a fractal on a breaking wall
I see you my friend, and touch your face again
Miracles will happen as we trip

But we're never gonna survive, unless
We get a little crazy
No we're never gonna survive, unless
We are a little crazy


--Crazy by Seal