Just A Little Off Kilter....

Why is it so shocking when someone does something nice for someone else for absolutely no reason at all? Let me explain... This morning, like yesterday morning, I hit up the McDonald's drive thru for an iced coffee and an egg McMuffin (I've stayed up too late and haven't been able to drag my arse out of bed in time to a "real" breakfast at home...don't judge...we've all been there) Anywho...I placed my order and drove up to pay and noticed a van behind me. I spoke to the nice lady at the window... "Good morning...I would like to pay for my order and theirs". I'm thinking not a big deal, it's just breakfast. "Umm, I'm not sure, do you know them, why?" she stammered. "I have no idea who they are, complete strangers but I would still like to pay for their breakfast" She was shocked and surprised but after some convincing, agreed to let me pay for both. As I drove away I got to thinking... Why was she so shocked? It...

My house has a big problem. It can never keep itself clean for more than a few days. I have been away for a week and was away for a few days before that so I can blame some, but not all of it on that. Here is just a sampling of the  many other reasons why this happens... The housecleaner never shows up for work. Oh, that's right. Because there is no housekeeper. I work full time and climb all weekend. Cleaning is not my favourite past time. I thought it would be interesting to take a quick survey of the random crap you can currently find laying around my house. Fifteen years ago it might have been things like beer cans, movie rental cases, Pepsi cans and empty pizza boxes. (I was in the army and had 3 male room mates). You know, signs of a good, young person time. Today it's... Climbing gear in the hallway Socks - but never in a pair, always straggling along solo looking sad. How this continues to happen I have no idea! Excalibur 3000 . This thing is huge,...

Magic of the forest...

This week I had the honor of watching my baby brother graduate from high school... You see...I live far away from my family and don't get to see them as often as I would like...so this week has been special indeed.  I'm proud of you Matthew. I love and will miss you much. Love your "favorite" big sister, Janet

Once in a while, when I have nothing better to do (or I choose to ignore a problem with one of my projects at work), I look at random things online. Today it was books on Amazon.ca and then I somehow stumbled upon kitchen gadgets (maybe it because I didn't eat a good breakfast and now I'm hungry). Sometimes I daydream about owning all sorts of fancy gadgets that I could never actually afford. Or that we can’t have because we don’t have enough room to store for them. Anywho, I stumbled upon this... Rachael Ray Garbage Bowl via Amazon.ca This is a garbage bowl. Yes, you heard that right...a garbage bowl. Meaning the purpose of this bowl is to throw away your scraps into it as you are cooking. I totally understand not everyone has a trash can positioned two feet from their cutting board. And I totally get that some people are more into cleaning and proper disposal than others. But do you need to buy a special bowl to toss the chicken fat or apple peels into before yo...

I've spoken before of  lollipops and rainbows, usually in terms of of awesome it would be to poop lollipops and rainbows, and so far I've determined the following: Lollipops = delish. Rainbows = gorgeous. But what about unicorns? Well...unicorns = freaky. Sorry. I know unicorns are supposed to be mystical, and merry, and lucky, and pretty, and all that jazz. But really, they’re just plain freaky. Consider all the other mythical creatures you can think of. They’re almost always half one thing and half something else. Isn’t there a half-person, half-horse? And mermaids. Half-woman, half-fish. You cannot tell me that mermaids are not friggin cree-py. Unicorns are better than that, I guess. At least unicorns are not cross-bread with humans. And at least they can fly, can’t they? Flying is a nice upside. However… they do have a horn growing out of their head, which kind of negates the other stuff. Can you think of any animal with a horn that is not threatening and w...

I think a child just might have the best observation skills around. When we're born into this world, everything is fresh, new, unfamiliar, and most of all, uncomfortable. By sheer instinct babies react to anything they're not comfortable with. They're on high alert for just about anything, albeit their mother's embrace. All too often when I see babies, or even young children, their eyes are wide, alert, and darting. It is this unfamiliarity, this sense of fresh exposure, that allow their traveling eyes to capture their surroundings. As we grow, antiquity and familiarity moss over the world, like a veil of dust. Our eyes droop...we look at our feet...and the child-like shine we once had disappears. And perhaps only returns every once in a while we play tourist. As much as I strive to observe, I... grow bored, grow tired, grow old. We attempt to observe the usual in unusual ways, but might fail to re-capture the freshness, magic, and enchantment little children all to...

I know that I am 1 in 7 Billion. Now that can be looked at in more than one way ... I am unique ... 1 in 7 Billion. Totally special, rockin' awesome. No one like me in the world. I like that. But ... I am 1 in 7 Billion...what do I matter? In the hustle and bustle of life, cars passing me every day hurrying to get who knows where, what does it all matter? Where are they going? Why are they in a hurry? Being angry, pushing shoving, ... don't they know, we're all going to die? Don't they realize their "all importance" will be forgotten? Thursday morning we lost an important and amazing member of our family at just 30 years old. She was 1 in 7 billion. She lived a life here on this earth. She was important. I know...to all of us.  Pause for reflection. Do I matter now? I ask this when I'm sitting in the middle of a bustling mall, when I'm driving on a packed highway at rush hour. There are 7 billion of us running around on this sphere...running...

I'm  generally pretty good at sometimes hiding how I'm really feeling with a few smiles, some  humour  and a good laugh so y ou may or may not know that I've been waging an angry war against a funk that I seem to be in.  I blame in part...infertility, IVF , frozen embryo cycle after frozen embryo cycle, a miscarriage and an upcoming IVF cycle.  At times, it’s been ugly, but I am holding my own. Even when we can’t rally against our enemies we just bunker down and avoid the weapons being hurled at our heads. In a manner of speaking. In another manner of speaking, my enemies haunt me every day. I’m constantly on guard. I walk around with one of those medieval shields and a giant lance just waiting for something to pummel me. Full disclosure? Protecting myself all day is utterly exhausting. And on top of it, I spend most of my time feeling ashamed, thinking about how I feel less and less like “myself” with every passing moment – more like a weaker me; a failu...

Allow me to set the scene... It was a warm June evening, I was tucked into bed, soundly asleep until suddenly my senses were assaulted with the unmistakable scent of a skunk. As I lay there, wide awake,  I decided that getting sprayed by a skunk would really threaten the stability of my sanity. I'm not sure what actually is the worst part about that thought. Well, sure I am. It's the smell. I can imagine it would sting my eyes and burn my nose. And would it hurt my skin? And what about my clothes? What if I were wearing really nice clothes that I loved? Or wearing my most comfortable pajamas? The logic of this fear tells me that I would probably be wearing pajamas because skunks are crepuscular.  Crepuscular  species, i.e.  rabbits ,  skunks ,  cats , and  hyena , are often erroneously referred to as nocturnal.  At any rate, all that matters they are out in the dark and if I were to encounter one, it would be at nig...

  Another wonderful Bon Echo weekend... There was tree climbing... A newly discovered cliff with lichen the size of your head...  Broom party tricks... Much kayaking... What an amazing way to spend a weekend...and the best part...I get to do it all again this weekend!

There are many stressful experiences that we go through in our lifetime. Buying a home, starting a new job, having a baby etc.. but I think that supermarket self-checkouts should be added to that list. When approaching the checkouts with your three items of shopping, there are usually two choices open to you. You can queue up behind the families putting their monthly groceries through the tills of the new trainees or you can risk your mental health by using the self-service checkout systems. The world of personal shopping really has gone out of the window, to be replaced by a form of torture only previously seen on bad Japanese game shows. Still, it can’t really be that bad…. can it? A few days ago, I gave the self-checkout at Loblaw's a try (I've been avoiding this for some time). My first challenge came with deciding where to queue. There were three rows of checkouts and other customers seemed as perplexed as me about choosing which queue to join.  I stood there asking myself...

Went to the store yesterday on my way home for butter (Adam promised home made cinnamon buns) and lip balm and had the displeasure of ending up in line behind a woman who, for some reason, insisted on facing me/the back of the store, rather than standing in the direction of line motion and goal achievement. Worse, she just stood there staring at me, seemingly oblivious to my increasing discomfort. There are unspoken rules in our society, many of which involve body placement and direction, and most of the time I assume that everyone's read the same rule book that I have, but, as usual, I'm wrong. In order to avoid conversation and eye contact - since the only thing I had to say was, “Hey, how about turning around?” - I suddenly became captivated by various items for sale in the checkout line. It’s always interesting to see the stuff they think we’re going to want at the last minute, isn’t it? The sewing kits, lip balm (but hey...I needed this), razors, tape—it’s all there for a...

I regret to inform you that I’m not doing all that well in the Be Kind to Bugs - Project Karma department. One day this week, just as I walked into the kitchen, I noticed an ant by the patio door. I stepped on it, and I smushed it. Just like that. It was not an accident, but it was not exactly premeditated, either. Let’s just call it involuntary antslaughter. One second the poor ant was alive. The next, it was not and I was muttering, “Crap, I just murdered another bug. This isn’t good.” That dead ant seemed to set off some sort of murderous tendencies in me, too. Within the next 5 or so minutes, I stepped on a few more ants.  I don’t know what got into me. I just don’t. It was an ugly, ugly day as far as Bug Compassion goes. Just the thought of it makes me feel dirty inside. Then, I dropped a battery that I was taking out of the package and it rolled under the TV bench . At first I refused to stick my hand under there and get it because the it had become encased in cobwe...

The phrase “crack of dawn” is an ugly one. It has always reminded me of another infamous crack, and not in a good way. It leads me to believe that the person who coined the phrase “crack of dawn” was not a morning person. No, if this person had been a morning person, she would have called it, “the first glorious hint of dawn.” Crack of dawn? Crack? That’s a word that only a dawn hater would use. Just my opinion. Anyway, I’m on a mission to give Dawn a better name. I want to call it something more pleasant, something like Kiss of Dawn. I really like that. First, it rhymes with bliss. Second, dawns are pink, and a kiss could be pink (I think). Cracks are definitely not pink. Third, isn’t it more pleasant to wake to a kiss than a crack? Who wants to wake up to crack? Who? Not me!   This morning, I just so happened to be awake at the Kiss of Dawn. (See? Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?) Please note that I did not rise early for any truly Zen reason. It wasn’t to medit...

How was your weekend?

It’s time to play “by the numbers,” an equation of types for reviewing your week. This is a fancy way of saying that Math + blogging = quick post. Much liketired Janet + stress = someone locks themselves in the bathroom and sobs. Here, then, is my week by the numbers. 15: Times I yelled, “Are you kidding me!” 38: Invoices I sent. 2: Locked myself in the bathroom and had a good cry. 1: Pair of new glasses. 12: People who asked me "Is that purple in your hair?". The answer is Yes! 112: Animal facts the strange delivery guy shared with me. 7: Hours sleep I lost from wearing a Holter moniter. I hate that thing. 3: Used the bathroom and found there was no toilet paper. 1: Used bandaid I peeled off the bottom of my shoe. Ewww! 7: Times I asked, “Are you making more work for or less work for me?” 2: Had Lucky Charms for dinner. They are magically delicious! 1: Dropped a full, open bag of milk on the floor. 8: Dog poo poo or bags filled with poo poo left on the street/grass. C...