I love you tutu

Even though I am in love, I still seek to learn more about what love is, where it comes from and how it works. I saw The Tutu Project's video through Facebook today and it warmed my heart.




When his wife, Linda was diagnosed with cancer, Bob went into what he described as "self-therapy mode" and turned to photography to help him deal with painful new reality. His subject was himself wearing only a tutu, shot in locations across the globe. The photos made Linda laugh and feel uplifted.

“Oddly enough, her cancer has taught us that life is good, dealing with it can be hard, and sometimes the very best thing — no, the only thing — we can do to face another day is to laugh at ourselves, and share a laugh with others.”

Love isn't always expressed in words. It's not always delivered with softness, compassion and warmth. Sometimes it's even more endearing when it's not so poetic. Sometimes love is a pink tutu.

My birthday this year was very different from any birthday I'd ever had before. This time I had a date for it. Stephen took me out for dinner to a place in the city I'd had my eye on for a while. It was supposed to be the most romantic dinner spot in Winnipeg. Inside the place sparkled with white Christmas lights and a whimsical shoe theme. It was so me. I had gotten my suitcase back so I was able to wear the dress I'd purchased for the evening. I also even brought The Betseys out. I only wish I'd gotten some pictures of the night. I took a few of the decorations but they didn't turn out well. I really wanted one of Stephen and I together, all dressed up and happy. My first birthday date.  I know, so high school.

After dinner we came home and Stephen locked me in the bathroom. Well, okay, I busied myself in there brushing my teeth and touching up my makeup while he set up my birthday gift spectacle. When I came out the lights were all off except for five birthday candles lit on five of 24 birthday cupcakes that Stephen had baked and frosted all himself. The little cakes were fluffy white with rainbow chips and white frosting, my favourite. They were all different sizes and some rose in a lopsided fashion but they were pure Love with a candle on top. That was his pink tutu for me.

Last night we were supposed to get together to go to Costco and then decorate my Christmas tree.  I was annoyed when I learned that hockey game traffic would delay my love's arrival. While at the super warehouse, the boy decides it is fun to swat me with his mitts and call me puffy because I was wearing my Kenny from Southpark winter jacket. It's no cupcake, and what girl wants to have her guy call her puffy, but I think this is a tutu moment too. (I am an eternal optimist.) Tonight I am home solo, nursing a cold and I wish the mitt-swatter was here (not just because I really wish someone would make me some tea right now). It's just kind of quiet sometimes when he's not around and somehow that makes me even grumpier than I usually am. My grumpiness is usually wearing a tutu. I hope he can see that.

Eat and Run

I've definitely stepped up my commitment to my fitness regime in the last three months and finally I feel like I'm seeing some change and not just "feeling" stronger. I was getting frustrated with the actual results though as it seemed that none of my numbers were improving. Finally, last week I saw half an inch difference in my hip measurements. It's ridiculous, I know, but I needed to see something to assure me that I wasn't just imagining it all.

That same week I also came across a blog post by Lauren Fleshman, an Olympic hopeful in running. Lauren wrote about a fashion show she did during New York Fashion Week for her sponsor, Oiselle Running Apparel. Photos of her walking the runway were posted and she looked every bit like a champion.

But Lauren didn't feel these pictures were totally honest and wanted to set things straight.

"Out of the thousands of photos taken at the runway show after all that tanning and primping and posture-holding, one or two of them looked good. A lot of them looked pretty gnarly. Weird facial expressions, lumpy bits, zombie walks…but nobody would ever know…"

Lauren posted photos of herself taken later that week to prove her point. She showed pics of a soft belly hanging out and another one of her grabbing dimpled flesh on her inner thigh.

Thigh cheese on a world class runner

Lauren can run a 5k in under 15 minutes and was ranked 7th in the world in 2011 and sometimes her stomach sticks out. This gives me comfort followed by immediate discomfort for the fact that I need to be reassured that even fast running Olympic candidate athletes have chubby parts and wobbly bits. I think the way to break this vicious circle of comfort/discomfort is to eat a cookie. And then run. And then eat a chocolate bon bon. And then run.

Pain tolerance

Gah. I hate it when I have the blogging voice in my head but I ignore it and put off writing for days and then the words, memories and thoughts build up and start crashing into each other to the point that I can no longer untangle one post idea from another. It's like a laundry pile of bloggable stuff up there and I need to sort it out into the darks, lights, sheets, delicates and the stuff that needs to be pre-treated. On the upside, the blogger voice has taken up residence in my head again. (Who in the hills gets excited for voices returning to her head? This girl does, apparently.)

I read an article that showed up on my Facebook news feed this week and found it strummed on my strings. What do you think the most important question you can ask yourself today is? Mark Manson  writes that it isn't "what do you want out of life" but rather, "what pain do you want out of life" because everyone wants the same pleasure, but we all differ on the kind of pain we'll endure to get the rewards. What are you willing to struggle for, Manson asks?

Everybody wants to have great sex and an awesome relationship -- but not everyone is willing to go through the tough communication, the awkward silences, the hurt feelings and the emotional psychodrama to get there. And so they settle. They settle and wonder "What if?" for years and years and until the question morphs from "What if?" into "What for?" And when the lawyers go home and the alimony check is in the mail they say, "What was it all for?" If not for their lowered standards and expectations for themselves 20 years prior, then what for?

Coming around to month eight of the Stillian Relationship Adventure, I still get jumpy and nervous whenever I say something and Stephen states that he believes the opposite. How can we live happily ever after if when I say black he says white, when I want almond milk he wants beer or if my dream is for X but his is for D, M or S and there is no room for X. On Thursday night Stephen told me he missed mushrooms (I am strongly opposed to them anywhere on my plate) and asked if he would ever get to eat them again. 

"Couples do that, right, they eat different things sometimes, right?" he asked. On Friday when I was grocery shopping I looked at the fresh mushrooms and considered them as an ingredient in an omelet I'd make for him (mine would be 'shroom free, and cooked in a different pan altogether, that's how much I dislike their flavour). For him I would put mushrooms into my shopping basket, of course I would. My mom was always so good about working around our family's various nutritional needs and preferences that I see this kind of accommodation as an act of love and a challenging opportunity to be creative in cooking. It's a pain, but it's one I enjoy and will choose to take on.

"On the other hand, I am willing to live out of a suitcase for months on end, to stammer around in a foreign language for hours with people who speak no English to try and buy a cell phone, to get lost in new cities over and over and over again. Because that's the sort of pain and stress I enjoy sustaining. That's where my passion lies, not just in the pleasures, but in the stress and pain."

When I read this part of the article it grips my heart. Sometimes I shake my head and wonder why  and how people endure my nonsense, but I remember that Love is a choice we make. We shrug off the pain and stress, even enjoy the challenge of it. Not everyone would make the same choice but we find happiness in the path we take. I had a big exhale in the moment I realised the simple truth: I don't have to be the stress-free, pain-free option to be chosen by Love. How freakin liberating is that? Hey people who love me, I may be a royal pain in the hindquarters but I am YOUR pain in the hindquarters. Yup, you choose me and I am beyond humbled and grateful.

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.

This post title is blank because gremlins ate my blog

I just sat through an entire gaggle of UFC fights (what do you call a group of fights anyway?) and blogged happily all through. It was a grand post. Awesome. I was doing this whole comparison thing between fights and those on again off again relationships that we all do and then go why, why why?

I was working on Stephen's laptop. It's evil and hates me. (see, I just typed that and then the cursor jumped to the middle of the sentence to spite me. Evil possessed thing.) So as I was finishing up this grand post, the Laptop highlights three paragraphs and replaces the words with an A.

GAH!

So to fix this, I quickly closed the post, hoping to catch it before auto-save kicked in. Didn't work. I hit back on the browser and BOOM, the whole post disappeared. Yeah. Awesome.

Plot twist, plot twist, plot twist. Oh Jillian, those words just weren't meant for public consumption.

Pen and paper have never failed me. I am going back. At least Stephen doesn't have a dog to eat my work and his fireplace is a nice, safe, electric one.

Let it go...