Overdue. Overwhelmed. Over Excited.

I failed. Big time. I can’t even commit to writing once a week, what kind of blogger am I? Funny thing is several things have come up over the last two weeks and I’ve been having a craving to write while in that specific mood or mind frame but then something comes up and I forget to write… so what I’m saying is that I’m a blog slacker. There I’ve said it.

I’ve been thinking about how the summer is going WAY too fast, which in a way I’m very thankful for cause I kind of wished it to go fast since I want the fall to come so I can get the keys to my new condo, specifically in time for my Birthday. (Sept. 22^nd I’m turning the big 2-7 and I’m currently accepting birthday gifts from now until… well… forever I guess. LOL. (side note: I love gifts and I need my Birthday to be made a big deal lol) Anyways, back on track with this thought. Over the last week or so I started to reflect on what it is I’ve done this year SO FAR. I got kinda bummed out as I was thinking and feeling like I haven’t really done enough. Grown enough. Check things off my to do list enough. Then I remembered a list I created for 2011 that I sent a friend on Dec. 31. 2010.  It’s actually thanks to him and our correspondence at the time that I learnt that I do actually like to write which got me started about creating this very blog. See at the time I was feeling somewhat inspired and the only writing I was really doing was writing some emails. So today I dug up the list … Thankfully I am an email hoarder which by the way, comes in handy at work all the time! So let’s see how I’m doing so far in 2011:

Top 10 things I’m Excited for in 2011…(It’s actually 9 things as I had to remove the 10^th as it was a bit too personal to share on this blog)

1. Buy my own place √ Big Check!

2. Make more money … still trying to figure this one out.

3. Buy a professional camera… #1 got in my way and now it’s on the back burner until possibly the New Year or until I’ve saved enough money. Or a miracle happen. Ugh.

4. Take a photography class and do more photography projects…see #3’s excuse. However I’m starting to get back on track with projects as I recently did a photo shoot for some friends and it’s got me super inspired. Half check? √

5. Spend more time with friends and family… some friends would jump down my throat here but I’ve been trying my best to make my way around. √

6. Stop and realize how lucky I am more often… this is hard for my type of personality to do.  When I’m down or feeling depressed about things that have happened to me or certain ways things have turned out in my life, I find that reflecting on how lucky I am and the GOOD in my life. This really is a good strategy for me to stay out of the dumps. I have been doing this quite a bit this year or trying my best to anyways so I think I can give it a check. √

7. Tell people I care about more often how much I appreciate them… truth be told, with exception to a couple people I may be failing in this department. There’s still hope.

8. Perform random acts of kindness to strangers …well I can say that I performed a random $249 act of kindness. The recipient will remain nameless. They were not a stranger BUT I think I can count it for this. I should have left the “strangers” part off cause in all honestly I do try to treat friends and those I care about when I can whether it’s picking them up their favourite drink at Starbucks on the way to see them or the dinner tab. If I can, I will. So I’m doing OK on this one too, well at least satisfied.√

9. Do more crafts (scrap booking & card making)...I’ve started the preliminary work on this. As soon as my craft supplies are out of storage I plan on joining a group of ladies who gets together once a week to scrap or card make SO the later half of this year I will be getting my crafty little fingers busy. I may even post the good stuff I make. We’ll see, but what’s important is that #9 is being thought about and strategized about so that it doesn’t get left out.

10. Confidential.

… So that’s 5 out of 9 checks. More than half. I’ve never really been the type of person who settles for C’s and D’s in school so let’s just say that I’m thankful that there’s still months left in the year. This was a good exercise for me to review the list and remind myself of the things I said I was looking forward to accomplishing. I think it’s too easy to set goals at the beginning of the year and forget about them or start feeling shitty about yourself mid way through the year cause you’re not achieving when in reality you likely are to some degree and that little degree does deserve some acknowledgment.

On a sad note: This past Monday was a year exactly that my Grandpa passed away. So I won’t say much about this other than it was sad and mentally noted. Not only was it the first person I lost from my family, it was also a rough time for me last year and I was just reminded of the dark place I was in this time last year. I didn’t let the dark visit too long I just briefly acknowledged it.  Here is a photo of my Grandparents. RIP Grandpa.

You ever hear a song and it has brought you RIGHT back to a moment? That happened to me recently. Listening to this particular song was like we were on that dance floor again. I was being held in his arms all over again. I can recall the way the lights danced across the side of his face. The way my hand fell perfectly in his. The way his arm felt so comfortable around my waist. The way we sang the lyrics together. The way I felt so content but knew that moment and feeling would naturally slip away. The way my head lay on his shoulder. The way he kissed my cheek and I returned it quickly back. The way his whiskers felt on my lips. They way I wished the song and moment would last forever. It’s crazy how a silly song can ignite all your senses. 

I’ve been on a photo high since…. Well Sunday. Crazy I know. I’ve been going to work feeling hung over from lack of sleep editing photos all night long. Who does this? Seriously. Just some crazy apparently.  I totally forgot how much time I can loose in editing a single photo. I gotta say I’m thankful for good looking friends who want to have their picture taken and who live on a nice little slice of country heaven. I must say, these two are quite something to witness together. I can’t believe how in love they are. I mean I really didn’t even need to instruct them on how to “make out” and create an intimate looking moment for the camera, they did it all on their own. In some of the photos I wanted to take an approach that I was “spying” on them and i think i was able to capture that in a couple of them. It’s has been a long time since I’ve seen this girl so happy. It’s refreshing to see a couple, a new couple at that, who dove into each other headfirst despite possible baggage they may have had from previous relationships. You can tell from the photos I took that she is one happy and satisfied woman.  The camera and my eyes definitely don’t lie. It was my privilege to capture some moments of them. Hopefully they love all the images as much as I do and they have some memories and photos to put on their walls. They sparked it up with each other, but they just may have gave me the spark I needed to get serious about my photography passion and starting my business sooner than later. In the mean time I need more projects. Here are some sneak peaks.

    

  

  

  

Well I promise it wont be two weeks again before the next post.

-J-

A Week of Mixed Emotions

Another week has come and gone. This past week has been a mix of things, and I can’t believe how it’s all happening and falling together. It’s currently 63 days, 1512 hours, 90,720 minutes until I start my new life in my new place that I will soon call home. The countdown is definitely on! In the last year there have been many significant things that have happened that have signified the birth of my new life, however moving in my place feels like the official ribbon cutting ceremony.

I’ve been doing some freaking out this past week about in regards to moving into my new condo. Don’t get me wrong, I’m super excited to see the finished product. To see all  my hard work in person, to decorate, to have my own official space again BUT I’m also realizing that all these things aren’t nearly as fun when your buying and building a home with a partner. It’s scary.  It’s Terrifying. It makes me a little nauseated when I stop and think about if for more than 5 minutes at a time. It worries me about how I’m going to cope when it’s all said and done and it’s just me, the four new shiny walls, and my boxes. What will happen next? What do I do next? The feeling of ‘Now What’ gets me stressed since I’ve always been a person who needs to see a plan to keep calm. This feels like a true test for sure. It’s definitely a different way of life that I’m not quite used to. I’m sure this is just life’s plan for me to start living a little bit outside the original lines I’ve drawn for myself. I can only hope it’s going to be a colourful masterpiece in time!

This past week was also a very expensive week for me. I bought a new LCD TV for my new place and a new pillow top mattress. $1,500 later I walked away with nothing to show until it gets delivered Sept. 15^th. I hate that feeling. I know I bought something but it feels like I just got my bank account robbed. The new mattress is quite heavenly, it’s like sleeping on a bed of feathers. I think it may even be softer than my last bed. The only downfall is that it’s a bit smaller than I’m use to – it’s a queen. L But it’s only me so I don’t really NEED a King, although I’m sure I’ll have some warm company eventually in my new queenie. ;)

Hmmmm….What else happened this past week? OH YEAH… I got trashed! It’s not the way it sounds. Since I escaped walking down the aisle, I had a wedding dress and a photography credit to utilize. So I decided to get my girls, in our “ex-wedding attire” and have some fun. I trekked my girls, a big poufy wedding dress, 4 bridesmaid dresses, some rifles, paint and a professional photographer through the bush to get to the Barber Paper Mill in Georgetown. This place is SO cool. It’s a HUGE old abandoned mill that has been trashed. Tons of graffiti, broken down bricks and remnants of old architecture. It was perfect backdrop to trash our outfits. I’m super excited to see the final product of the photographers work. I started out clean and ended up like the corpse bride. I’ll be sure to share the REAL photos once I get them. At the end of the session I ended up in the Credit River soaking wet, dirty and painted. All I can say is that wedding dresses weigh a ton to begin with never mind getting them soaking wet. This photo shoot was fun for me, but it was an opportunity to get rid of my dress in a fun artistic way. This was also the first time I had been reunited with my dress in a year and a half. It was time to free myself of all the things the wedding dress represented. It was undoubtedly a liberating experience. At the very end of the shoot we each hung our dresses on the fence that surrounds the mill as if they were displays of art. The people who come to explore the Barber Paper Mill next will be greeted by a wedding party of dresses and I can’t help but wonder what they will think. The strangest feeling was walking away and leaving them hanging there. A wedding dress is more than fabric and stitches, it represents so much more. This was my first wedding dress I had ever bought which did mean something to me so I wanted to give ‘her’ the send off she deserves and I think I accomplished that with great friends by my side. It’s Thanks to a friend who took some photos on his Blackberry that I can share some photos from the day. These aren’t the best quality but it certainly gives you an idea.

Enjoy the sneak preview below.

~J

  

The Good, the Bad and the Random

So it’s been a week since the first entry. Writing defiantly takes some getting use to and practice I might add. I think my personal goal is to write a minimum of once a week. I think that’s a realistic goal for myself that I can try to keep.

It’s no secret for those who know me that I have a love of photography. When I grown up I want to be an artist through a lens and capture people. Capture anything really but mostly people. I hope one day to get my dream underway, but for now I just tinker, and use terms like “press what thingy”!  I follow a number of really great professional photographers’ blogs and decided to rip-off a writing format that one of them do for their blog. Their’s is called: The Good, The Bad & The Blog, I’m going tailor it to my blog and call it: The Good, The Bad and The Random. So… a quick glance at some happenings in my life over the last week.

Friday July 1^st was a beauty of a day spent with an eclectic mix of friends, pool side, a tasty BBQ pot luck dinner, topped off with lights sailing in the sky. There’s something quite magical about fireworks. It doesn’t matter if you're young or old they bring thousands of people together and for those minutes we all have commonality among such a variety of people. I find it sweet how everyone packs into the park to watch fireworks that last barely 20 minutes. We arrived an hour and a half early just to get the perfect patch of grass reserved for our blankies and rears and got to enjoy a nice sunset. The grass was a of patchwork of blankets, families and lovers~ The Cozy Good

This past Saturday was spent in the country. Yup, that’s right, I went where no princess has ever gone before. TO THE STICKS. I visited a new place, called Glen Huron. Now, if you’re anything like me I know you’re thinking, where in God’s creation is that? Well It’s about 15 minutes south of Collingwood . A place where everyone stops what they’re doing to see who’s driving by your lane way to wave, a place where there are lots of smelly chicken barns, a place where the dirt roads feel like roller coasters and you get a little bit queasy driving on them, a place that has a store where you can buy, and I quote, “Gas, Ice Cream Cones and Wedding Gifts” . I think I also saw some tools and hardware stuff in there as well. I wish I would have got a picture of this place where we stopped for ice cream it was something out of a red neck movie. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they pumped your gas shirtless in overalls. Only in the country! Oh and I forgot to mention, Glen Huron is also a place where my good little lady friend and her new beau nest in a farm house (well on the weekend anyways). Ohhhh and how could I forget, it’s also the place I shared the bed with a 4ft stuffed cat fish for the first time.  I guess there’s a first for everything ~The Country Sweet & Randomly Fishy

On my way home from Glen Huron I got out of my car in Shelburne to take these photos of the wind mills. They seem to go on forever and ever.



Over the last week I’ve been on a desperate search for new dinnerware set for when I move into my new place. I still haven’t found something I’m in love with and I’m all tapped out of places to check out. On this search I’ve once again realized I’ve got way expensive tastes for my own good. ~ The Very Bad (for my bank account)

While out on my quests for new dinnerware and new home items I picked up some cleaning items including a toilet brush. Well wouldn’t I be dammed if I got out of the car, closed the door and found myself half way across the parking lot when I realized my left side felt a little bit weighted down. I looked down and there it was. The toilet brush was dangling from my purse. It somehow got caught on my purse and I was proudly sporting this thing as if it’s the latest accessory on my Coach purse. Needless to say I quickly did the walk of shame across the parking lot and back to the car with this thing in my hand. I got a couple weird stares but all I could do is laugh. ~The Embarrassingly Random

It’s funny how the simplest things can sometimes make your day. I got a text from someone who I just so happen was thinking about last night when I couldn’t sleep. Just hearing from him made my day or should I say night. You know who you are. :) ~The Randomly Good

I think those are the highlights from this week.

Since Canada Day fell on a Friday this year, and I normally have that day off, I get to take tomorrow off in lieu of the stat holiday. So Happy Canada Day to me on July 6^th J