let down

It's been a week of let downs. 

Found out yesterday that the government program I've been trying to get into since June has been discontinued, effective last week.  I was meant to start on December 7th.  This has been a hell of a lot of work for very little intrinsic gain, and now I am out the $20,000 the program was going to pay me while I launched my coaching business for real.

Have also been in a ... um ... slightly diminished state of contact with a few people.  That always pulls on my fear strings, and puts my insecurities under a magnifying glass.  The worst, very worst, most horrible feeling for me in the world is feeling forgotten about.  It can come upon me quickly and is very nearly always completely irrational.  See, if I'm not in a room with you or actively communicating with you at any given moment, I have a sick tendency to believe that there's no way you could actually be thinking about me at all, and whats worse is you might be trying to avoid any future contact with me too.  I know it's weird.  I know it's irrational.  But that's what feelings are, and that's what I feel from time to time.

Interesting thing is, I suspect the universe was preparing me for this in a vague way.  I haven't done any cooking or baking just for the hell of it, in MONTHS.  And yet on Tuesday, I made two casseroles of comfort-y goodness in the form of my mom's recipe of macaroni with real cheese and tomatoes and a crunchy breadcrumb crust on top.  I also made a big batch of chocolate chip cookies.  These have been most helpful in the wallowing stage of this disappointing week.

Next week will be better.

Blog Action Day 2009

One very small step for this woman, one huge step for personkind.  Does it take a lot for me to write a blog post about climate change?  No.  Will this single action change the world?  No.  But, might it put climate change into your mind, get you to think about it consciously for a minute, or remind you about an important issue?  Yeah, maybe.

So this is one small step I can take.  I signed up for Blog Action Day 2009 and am following through. 

What's one small step you can take?  Do it.  Now.  There is no spare planet in a cupboard.

bringing SexyBack into the kitchen

Haven't cooked anything, seriously, for quite a while.  Today I got down to a batch of chocolate chip cookies, and a couple of Mom's Macaroni & Cheese casseroles to put away for later comfort-y goodness.  Cooking for just me loses a lot of appeal... I don't dig eating leftovers much.  Not in a snooty, I'm-better-than-leftovers kind of way, I just get bored of eating the same thing for days on end.  However it's times like right now, when my home smells pleasantly of warm cheesey casserole and fabulous chocolatel chip deliciousness, that I remember how much I really do like cooking.  I also like having a dishwasher.  A whole lot.

Tomorrow I'm going to have coffee with a guy I haven't seen since high school.  He's now a sargeant with the police.  I'm certain it's all just a ploy to finally bust me for buying booze for literally hundreds of underaged kids back in the day.  I never ever had trouble buying at the LCBO or Beer Store... it was all about attitude.  If they looked at me funny or it felt like they were gonna give me trouble, I'd just tell 'em to "Hurry up."  Never got carded buying.  Not once.  Once I turned 19 and it was all legal, buying booze and drinking really lost an awful lot of their appeal for me.  Thank god, because I've seen the other side of that coin and it's not pretty.

Weird.  That was ages ago now and absolutely feels like another lifetime.  But I don't feel old at all.  Well, except for right now because I have totally lost the remote control and have no freaking clue where it is.  Send the nurse in with my tapioca, won't you?

the times, they are a-changin'

October is my favourite month of the year - with the end of December coming in at a close second place for a Christmas fanatic like me.

It's a chilly and wild autumn day today, the kind I absolutely love.  Here it's sunny, now it's cloudy, rain is threatening, but then it's sunny again... the clouds are absolutely whipping through the sky on a racing wind.

It's the perfect metaphor for how I feel my life is going right now.

Whoosh... most fantastic relationship with best friend and favourite guy in the world keeps getting lovelier every day.
Swish... career development, client meetings, uncertainties, triumphs and try-agains, daily.
Zip... new and renewed friendships coming into focus, individually coming to the surface from time to time like the ingredients of a very good, very slowly-cooked hearty home made soup, making each day a new idea and each idea a good one.
Zoom... possible romance on the horizon, and while waiting for that to pan out time seems to s.t.a.n.d. s.t.i.l.l. in the delicious and torturous uncertainty, it rushes along at the same time.  Which poet was it that said something to the effect that in matters of the heart, days can seem like seconds and minutes can seem like years?
Vroom... did I really just turn another year older?  What?  That was over a month ago now?  No, that can't be right....

Just like the weather today, everything is flowing, changing, opposing itself so rapidly there's barely time to take it in.  Just like the weather today, there is no way to control or manage it.  Just like the weather today, I love it.

Bundle up, and accept the ride.