Well, Gemini, it was a helluva day. It started off with chairing a project meeting and none of the participants showing up. To think of it, that could have been today’s theme! Well, it’s your party and you can eat an ice cream sandwich and have a nap if you want to. Remember, Friday night’s coming up and it’s will be the right time for margaritas.

“You should glean teachings from all directions, keeping true to those that bring progress yet remaining open to changes in yourself.”

Deepak Chopra ‘The Book of Secrets’

The weather here is wild. We have had a lot of snow over the last couple of weeks and got a big pile today, added to -20 degree temps. Brrrrr….

I like snow. When I am sitting at home, enjoying a mug of tea and reading a book. Not so much on a two and a half hour drive home from the office. Vey.

The highlight of the drive was coaxing the car up a winding hill, slipping and sliding all over the road and realizing that I was talking out loud to the car. Sounded a lot like: ‘C’mon girl, we’ve done this before…you know how to kick this hill’s ass! Forget about those stupid other cars, they don’t know what they’re doing…c’…mon…nice, nice…’

And then out of nowhere, singing ‘We Built this City’ by Jefferson Starship.

Because it helps?

“There is nothing I could care less about than what people think I am.”

Ben Harper

I think that it is human nature to want to live up to the expectations of others, especially if the “other” is a person we care about. Observing this in others, but only having experienced this from my point of view, I will make the sweeping generalization that this is especially difficult for woman. The clichéd, but nonetheless accurate, aspiration to be a “good girl”.

A while ago, I was watching an interview with Ben Harper (who I lo-o-ove), and he was asked if he ever feels limited by what people think he is, after all of his success. Without missing a beat, he rolled out the quote above. It immediately resonated with me as something to aspire to.

What is left after we put our aspiration to become the model of perfection, the “good girl”?If you really knew me, you would know that I am a woman who has a wonderful life: a good job, great partner, lovely home…many blessings. But you would also know that while I try my damnedest to present an edgy, assertive, funny but no nonsense image, under all of that is a girl waiting for her gold star. And that has been really pissing me off lately. Because I feel a little bit like I am living my life according to someone else’s plan, someone else’s idea of the right path. And greedily, I want this life to be all mine.

So I am trying to be a little quieter, look beyond that affirmation-seeking layer, and listen for that diminutive voice, the one that guides me to my hearts’ desire, and encourage that voice to get louder.

I now have that podcast set to that exact spot so whenever I open it, that’s the first thing I hear. Watch the interview below. I am astounded by how the right bits of wisdom hit you when you really need them.

This morning on my way into the office the wind was so fierce that it was quite tricky to keep my poor li’l rattletrap in its’ own lane. I was just five minutes away from my building but still considering having a bath, putting my robe over my jammies and curling up under the goose feathers today instead of sitting in my cube.

But instead I had the longest day of my life. Not bad. Not stressful. Nothing monumental happened. But did it droooooone.

So what better way to spend my evening than cold cereal for dinner, a bubble bath and curling up with my laptop? A nice, lazy reward while the wind still wails outside. Spent some time visiting the finalists of the 2008 Weblog Awards. Big congrats to my home and native land nominees for ‘Best Canadian Weblog’.

(In a sing-song) And a cup of love-ly mint tea…

January started off with such fervor and enthusiasm, looking forward to an amazing year and being so completely grateful for the wonderful things in my life.

Well, I don’t know what happened, but in the last two weeks I have come down with a mad case of the crankies. It lasts through the day, from grrr-owly mornings to emotion-filled evenings.

Is it just me? Last week, I swore that it was an onslaught of Seasonal Affective Disorder, as I was a bear to get out of bed and refused to eat anything that wasn’t entirely sugar-based. (Luckily, the first Cadbury eggs of the season are on shelves!) And, the most depressing day of the year was this week, Blue Monday, it’s called. Fantastic.

Here’s to next week not containing ‘The Most Depressing Day of the Year’. Things are looking up!

However, I can’t stop listening to the ‘Juno’ soundtrack, which is fantastic and full o’ pep. My favourite today is ‘Loose Lips’ by Kimya Dawson. Do-do do do do…

He: “How come everyone is an idiot except me and you?”

She: “And I’m not even sure about you.”

I have always found dreams and dreaming very interesting. Sleep, in general, is a great hobby of mine, and dreaming is a fantastic product of the sleeping. Kimberley and I took a dream course last year at the Transformational Arts College and I logged and tried to interpret my dreams for a couple of weeks after.

Since last week, just for the heck of it, I started listening to some old remote viewing tapes that Tim dug out from the back of a filing cabinet. Holy cannoli! I have been dreaming (and remembering) wild, epic dreams consistently, every night. It’s a four episode television mini-series in my mind each night.

What I think is really interesting is lucid dreaming. Being able to manipulate my recurring: ‘I am traveling somewhere, am late and can’t find/don’t have the things I need to get there, and am going to miss my flight because I don’t know where the airport is’ dream sounds pretty good to me. Oh, there my passport and sunscreen is. And the cab just pulled up…

Last night I think I had my first, semi-lucid, dream and it was a particularly emotional one. I was at my grandparent’s for a holiday dinner. It is usual for us, to come to the front door to greet with a hug, any family member arriving for dinner. The door opens, and it is my great-grandmother who passed away 5 years ago. I think to myself: ‘This is a dream, Baba is dead.’ I walk up to her and give her a hug (which I swear I could feel) and say ‘I love you, I am sorry we did not have enough time together.’ She says, ‘We had lots of time.’ I ask, ‘You are dead, do you still love me?’ She says, ‘ I have loved you since you were born, I will always love you.’

After that point, I lost control of the dream. I woke up this morning remembering that part of my dreaming in particular, and recounted it tearfully. It felt so happy today, thinking of that dream. How beautiful to have dream contact with a much loved relative? I have renewed gratefulness for having the time I had with her. Because she’s right, if you count what time we did have and weigh it according to how wonderful the moments were, we did have a lot.

My favorite Baba memory is packed picnic lunches in a Skippy peanut butter pail, eaten on the yard swing.

“It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, ‘Always do what you are afraid to do.’” Emerson

We spent a chunk of Sunday pulling up the carpet at the top of our stairs. Not exactly noteworthy, but something I have been refusing to do for the last year. Why the refusal? Not because I enjoyed the aesthetic of a frayed and dusty blue kitty scratching pad squatting in the prime real estate between the bedroom and the bathroom, that’s for sure. Every time I walked over it I would say to myself (okay, mostly out loud): ‘God damn. I hate this bloody carpet. Oh fantastic, the cats have pulled that corner completely loose now.’

I am not exactly sure what pushed me to yank it up today. But I did enjoy pulling that stinky thing up and chucking it out the back door. And alas there was hardwood underneath. Not lovely hardwood; worn, fragmented, uneven hardwood. But hardwood that I can live with for now. Hardwood does not trap the dust mites and make me curse on the trip from the bedroom to the bathroom simply by being there. Hardwood cannot be rip-rip-ripped at by cat claws, in the middle of the night, just outside the bloody bedroom door.

I spent a lot of time imagining the horrors that were hidden underneath that patch of carpet. Why was it there? What was it covering up? Must be some really nasty bits under there. Errrr, let’s just leave it for now. Scary carpet.

What if we stopped being scared of what might, could, possibly go wrong? What if we yank up all the carpets and see what wonders are hidden underneath?

Thank you, 2007, for:

Knitting. 2 pairs of socks, 4 scarves, 2 blankets, and 3 Christmas stockings. Working the stitches feels like prayer beads

The increased closeness, honesty, and love of my family

A new job to restore confidence and rekindle the love of learning

Christmas 2007 Air Hockey Tournament

All aspects of my health, physical and emotional

Teaching that, like any other area of life, mental health needs to be worked on and that is not shameful

2 healthy black cats, one grey cat and a little yellow dog

Coaching. Such a gift which challenges the approach to life

A glimpse of what letting go feels like

A wonderful new home to enjoy

Ben Harper’s ‘Lifeline‘, Jack Johnson’s ‘In Between Dreams‘, and Jimmy Buffett’s ‘Songs You Know by Heart’

Tim

Shelving judgment and comparison

SARK

Summer roadtrip: peddleboating and canoeing, massaging rapids, and reading.

2 small gardens to tend

Fabulous friends

Teaching that beauty is in everything, including myself

Meditation

Reminding me that anything is possible

All of my thanks.