This has been a draining week.
I've been trying to figure out how to word what's been going on this week; I suppose I'll just have to out and write it down to really get it to make any sense. I don't think anyone involved would be reading this --it wouldn't matter if they did, anyway, it's not like it's a bad thing, or a big, dark secret-- but all the same, since I'm still in the decision making process I'd rather wait until I know my decision WITHOUT A DOUBT before I go writing about it.
Well, I'd like to wait a bit before writing about it in any way other than hugely cryptic sentences, that is!
I'll post about it soon enough; I've pretty much made my decision, I just need to think it over and consider it as the big picture in progress. We'll see.
/fingers crossed
Friday, July 31, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Weapons Goodness
Don't make me go medieval on yo' ass!!Because I'll pull out my foam maces and battle axe; what YOU got?!
Pa-TOW!!
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Garden Planning
With the addition this summer of our gorgeous, HUGE deck --deckzilla-- David and I have been planning on redoing/redesigning the entire back garden from bottom to top.
Even with the "outdoor stage" on the back of the house, we still have a large, almost square amount of space with which to work. We're VERY FORTUNATE, too, as the majority of houses around here have smaller narrow, sometimes longish, gardens. SO having all of this space, we need to fill it. And being as there's so much space, we can "assign" different things to different areas; i.e., an area where I can finally have a clothesline (YES!), David his veggie patch, an area for a shed so we can store things there instead of in the already too tiny garage, and so on.
My ideas for what sort of flowers and things I'd like to have back there, though, as changed constantly, though I'm starting to narrow it all down, and I've got some definite favourites that will take important focal roles. When I first started planning out the flowers beds and all in my head, I wanted an extremely fragrant, garden, with nothing but white and cream and the palest of pink flowers.
BUT...
The more reading I do, and the more plants and flowers I see, the more I've been going for the mishmash of colour. I have to say, though, I have so far stuck to whites, pinks and purples, but I'll add more colour in. The most important criteria now --aside from the obvious "will these do well in our soil/area?" is fragrance. My dream is to walk outside to sit on the deck, or maybe to go to the shed, or to hang laundry, being able to smell the perfume of the garden from any area OF the garden. So when we go to garden centres and nurseries, even walking down the street, if I see something I think is pretty, and might consider for our garden, you can believe I've stuck my head in it, and am smelling the flowers. It's almost therapeutic!
So far, we've chosen buddleias (Maybe "Butterfly Bush" rings a bell? That's how I knew them growing up.) with their fragrance and long, draping cones of flowers, and hydrangeas, in white and pink --hopefully they'll stay those colors! Also some Corkscrew Hazels, which, even though they have no flowers really to speak of, I LOVE them for their fall display of catkins, and twisty branches. We also have plans to get some Osmanthus Burkwoodii (a relation to the "Tea Olive" I love so much back home), some "Mock Orange" and some "old" or "cottage" roses. But wait....
Did I say hydrangea?! And my criteria is fragrance for the flowering things?!
Well yes, but people should ALWAYS consider an exception to their own rule. You see, I've got history with hydrangeas: The palest pink of hydrangea heads were on my wedding reception tables and delicately dotted on my wedding cake --I've always seen hydrangeas EVERYWHERE back home, and I've known since I was a little girl that the colours of their flowers can change depending on the acidity or alkalinity of their soil. Also, my mother sent me a lovely white hydrangea for my birthday this year, to remind me of home. The huge mopheads of flowers turned pink after a few days of being the most crisp linen white, and having my own hydrangea plant so very up close where I can see it grow and change has caused me to fall madly in love with them.
Along with fragrance, though, I'm also wanting texture and interest, which I hope to achieve by using different plants, shrubs and compact trees --cue those gorgeous Corkscrew Hazels! Fatsia Japonica, as well, is on my list, for its deep green, large waxy leaves that lend themselves so well to floral arrangements. Just yesterday I found dogwoods at one of the local garden centres; even though I don't remember those flowers having frangrance, the compact body and destinct leaves would add yet another dimension.
So far, though, this is about all I've planned out. And although we already have three hydrangeas, three buddleias, and two hazels, we don't have any of the other plants, yet. Hopefully we can decide on more plants and things soon, really get down to the business of finalizing the designs of the planted areas, pick up the rest of the plants, trees and shrubs we'll need in the next few weeks, and get everything in!!
Even with the "outdoor stage" on the back of the house, we still have a large, almost square amount of space with which to work. We're VERY FORTUNATE, too, as the majority of houses around here have smaller narrow, sometimes longish, gardens. SO having all of this space, we need to fill it. And being as there's so much space, we can "assign" different things to different areas; i.e., an area where I can finally have a clothesline (YES!), David his veggie patch, an area for a shed so we can store things there instead of in the already too tiny garage, and so on.
My ideas for what sort of flowers and things I'd like to have back there, though, as changed constantly, though I'm starting to narrow it all down, and I've got some definite favourites that will take important focal roles. When I first started planning out the flowers beds and all in my head, I wanted an extremely fragrant, garden, with nothing but white and cream and the palest of pink flowers.
BUT...
The more reading I do, and the more plants and flowers I see, the more I've been going for the mishmash of colour. I have to say, though, I have so far stuck to whites, pinks and purples, but I'll add more colour in. The most important criteria now --aside from the obvious "will these do well in our soil/area?" is fragrance. My dream is to walk outside to sit on the deck, or maybe to go to the shed, or to hang laundry, being able to smell the perfume of the garden from any area OF the garden. So when we go to garden centres and nurseries, even walking down the street, if I see something I think is pretty, and might consider for our garden, you can believe I've stuck my head in it, and am smelling the flowers. It's almost therapeutic!
So far, we've chosen buddleias (Maybe "Butterfly Bush" rings a bell? That's how I knew them growing up.) with their fragrance and long, draping cones of flowers, and hydrangeas, in white and pink --hopefully they'll stay those colors! Also some Corkscrew Hazels, which, even though they have no flowers really to speak of, I LOVE them for their fall display of catkins, and twisty branches. We also have plans to get some Osmanthus Burkwoodii (a relation to the "Tea Olive" I love so much back home), some "Mock Orange" and some "old" or "cottage" roses. But wait....
Did I say hydrangea?! And my criteria is fragrance for the flowering things?!
Well yes, but people should ALWAYS consider an exception to their own rule. You see, I've got history with hydrangeas: The palest pink of hydrangea heads were on my wedding reception tables and delicately dotted on my wedding cake --I've always seen hydrangeas EVERYWHERE back home, and I've known since I was a little girl that the colours of their flowers can change depending on the acidity or alkalinity of their soil. Also, my mother sent me a lovely white hydrangea for my birthday this year, to remind me of home. The huge mopheads of flowers turned pink after a few days of being the most crisp linen white, and having my own hydrangea plant so very up close where I can see it grow and change has caused me to fall madly in love with them.
Along with fragrance, though, I'm also wanting texture and interest, which I hope to achieve by using different plants, shrubs and compact trees --cue those gorgeous Corkscrew Hazels! Fatsia Japonica, as well, is on my list, for its deep green, large waxy leaves that lend themselves so well to floral arrangements. Just yesterday I found dogwoods at one of the local garden centres; even though I don't remember those flowers having frangrance, the compact body and destinct leaves would add yet another dimension.
So far, though, this is about all I've planned out. And although we already have three hydrangeas, three buddleias, and two hazels, we don't have any of the other plants, yet. Hopefully we can decide on more plants and things soon, really get down to the business of finalizing the designs of the planted areas, pick up the rest of the plants, trees and shrubs we'll need in the next few weeks, and get everything in!!
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Excel is a BIATCH!
But Mama needs a new pair of shoes. And money for bus fares to the US --along with a house, some furnishings, and some wheels.
So she's brushing up on her Excel and overall Office proficiency and is gonna knock 'em dead in the UK job market with her extremely fabulous style, looks, accent, personality and resume.
Oh yeah, and mad MAD Office skilz...
So she's brushing up on her Excel and overall Office proficiency and is gonna knock 'em dead in the UK job market with her extremely fabulous style, looks, accent, personality and resume.
Oh yeah, and mad MAD Office skilz...
Sadness
I'm a facebook addict, and have been for a good while, though it took me longer to really get IN to facebook than most. But I'm fully hooked now, and through FB I've been able to find long lost friends and old classmates, ex-boyfriends, family, and people I know from back home, but don't really see that often. It's nice to be able to keep in touch, or at least read the statuses of all of these people.
But for months now, I've been watching the transition of a friend of mine -via FB- from a happy guy with a great life and the best relationship, to a single guy with lots of anger and doubt, and a lost love he can never get back. It's heartbreaking.
I believe it was late last year when my friend's partner was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He'd been a smoker all of his adult life, as I understood, and had been diagnosed with a brain tumor --a product, if I'm not mistaken, of lung cancer having silently spread throughout his body and deciding to settle in his brain, as well as other places. This beautiful friend of mine, and his beautiful love now had a third entity in their relationship. The trips they took to beautiful places slowed and then stopped, as the entity crept along and took over. Surgeries were performed, treatments and drugs prescribed and tried, but in the end there was nothing they could do as the entity took over. Once graceful steps had become shufflings and stumbles, once sound ideas had been replaced with obsessive behaviours, and the youthful vigor was slowly drained from entirety. My beautiful friend had gone from loving partner, to loving carer, in a matter of months.
My friend is an amazing writer, working for a magazine that I pick up from time to time when I'm lucky enough to be home visiting, and I've always marvelled at his articles. When everything struck their lives, my beautiful friend --whether he consciously did it or not-- began to write about it all. He wrote about how he felt, how his partner felt; how this day was alright, or that day had been hell. He explained it all clearly but with a strength and love that shone through brightly. Looking back, now, I can clearly see the progression of the entity, and how my beautiful friend's partner was slowly, relentlessly taken from him.
I'll never forget when my beautiful friend's partner died. There was merely a short sentence of an update, something so subtle that had you no idea what was going on, you'd have thought it a positive statement. I had considered quoting it in this post, but I think I'll leave it out. It's not MINE to be sharing; I just needed to relay a bit of background.
Through my beautiful friend's clear and thoughtful writing you could tell that when his partner died it was the most decimating, liberating, confusing, hurtful and raw journey he'd ever had forced on him. Everyone's heart must have died just a little bit with his, when reading his delicate and loving description of his partner's passing. I know mine did.
What I saw next, though, worried me a bit, but I knew it was the natural way out of the situation he'd been in. He seemed a bit relieved, although that's not the ONLY thing he was feeling, I'm sure, but he seemed like a burden had been lifted --hadn't it, anyway? Surely death has to be better than the pain and suffering leading up to it, especially when that's the only possible outcome?! His writing of course had slowed down, but seemingly happy pictures of my beautiful friend started surfacing on his friends' FB pages; his smiles seemed genuine, his face relaxed.
But I knew (from personal experience) that that relief would eventually subside and the rest of what he was feeling from it all would come through: Sadness, confusing resentment, hatred and burning contempt for the entity that had ruined his life and taken his partner from him.
That's where it is now. I'm watching my beautiful friend go through his depression, his mourning, his loss, with the mixed emotions that only death gives us. His strong writing has taken a break for now, being mere responses to a meme he has posted. His brusque answers are a harsh departure from his demeanor; he is again telling us how he is feeling through his writing. And it breaks my heart to see his suffering. His offhanded comments about anti-depressants and counselling, his legitimately bitter, acidic remarks about not being able to marry the one he wholly loved, simply because they were both men, and the fact that he mentioned not getting out of bed until 1pm, all tangle together into an easily seen state of confusion and depression my beautiful friend has fallen into. My feelings cry for him.
This post doesn't REALLY have anything more to do with Facebook than the fact that that's how I'm most easily able to keep up with my friend; what REALLY matters here is that a beautiful, lovely, gorgeous, and vivacious man, easily full of all the kindness and love and thoughtfulness that people STRIVE to have, is hurting. An unfair, unrelenting, piercing hurt.
And I'm having to deal with my own feelings of unfairness for what he's gone through, and continues to go through.
I love you, Egg. Hang in there.
But for months now, I've been watching the transition of a friend of mine -via FB- from a happy guy with a great life and the best relationship, to a single guy with lots of anger and doubt, and a lost love he can never get back. It's heartbreaking.
I believe it was late last year when my friend's partner was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He'd been a smoker all of his adult life, as I understood, and had been diagnosed with a brain tumor --a product, if I'm not mistaken, of lung cancer having silently spread throughout his body and deciding to settle in his brain, as well as other places. This beautiful friend of mine, and his beautiful love now had a third entity in their relationship. The trips they took to beautiful places slowed and then stopped, as the entity crept along and took over. Surgeries were performed, treatments and drugs prescribed and tried, but in the end there was nothing they could do as the entity took over. Once graceful steps had become shufflings and stumbles, once sound ideas had been replaced with obsessive behaviours, and the youthful vigor was slowly drained from entirety. My beautiful friend had gone from loving partner, to loving carer, in a matter of months.
My friend is an amazing writer, working for a magazine that I pick up from time to time when I'm lucky enough to be home visiting, and I've always marvelled at his articles. When everything struck their lives, my beautiful friend --whether he consciously did it or not-- began to write about it all. He wrote about how he felt, how his partner felt; how this day was alright, or that day had been hell. He explained it all clearly but with a strength and love that shone through brightly. Looking back, now, I can clearly see the progression of the entity, and how my beautiful friend's partner was slowly, relentlessly taken from him.
I'll never forget when my beautiful friend's partner died. There was merely a short sentence of an update, something so subtle that had you no idea what was going on, you'd have thought it a positive statement. I had considered quoting it in this post, but I think I'll leave it out. It's not MINE to be sharing; I just needed to relay a bit of background.
Through my beautiful friend's clear and thoughtful writing you could tell that when his partner died it was the most decimating, liberating, confusing, hurtful and raw journey he'd ever had forced on him. Everyone's heart must have died just a little bit with his, when reading his delicate and loving description of his partner's passing. I know mine did.
What I saw next, though, worried me a bit, but I knew it was the natural way out of the situation he'd been in. He seemed a bit relieved, although that's not the ONLY thing he was feeling, I'm sure, but he seemed like a burden had been lifted --hadn't it, anyway? Surely death has to be better than the pain and suffering leading up to it, especially when that's the only possible outcome?! His writing of course had slowed down, but seemingly happy pictures of my beautiful friend started surfacing on his friends' FB pages; his smiles seemed genuine, his face relaxed.
But I knew (from personal experience) that that relief would eventually subside and the rest of what he was feeling from it all would come through: Sadness, confusing resentment, hatred and burning contempt for the entity that had ruined his life and taken his partner from him.
That's where it is now. I'm watching my beautiful friend go through his depression, his mourning, his loss, with the mixed emotions that only death gives us. His strong writing has taken a break for now, being mere responses to a meme he has posted. His brusque answers are a harsh departure from his demeanor; he is again telling us how he is feeling through his writing. And it breaks my heart to see his suffering. His offhanded comments about anti-depressants and counselling, his legitimately bitter, acidic remarks about not being able to marry the one he wholly loved, simply because they were both men, and the fact that he mentioned not getting out of bed until 1pm, all tangle together into an easily seen state of confusion and depression my beautiful friend has fallen into. My feelings cry for him.
This post doesn't REALLY have anything more to do with Facebook than the fact that that's how I'm most easily able to keep up with my friend; what REALLY matters here is that a beautiful, lovely, gorgeous, and vivacious man, easily full of all the kindness and love and thoughtfulness that people STRIVE to have, is hurting. An unfair, unrelenting, piercing hurt.
And I'm having to deal with my own feelings of unfairness for what he's gone through, and continues to go through.
I love you, Egg. Hang in there.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Moving (Virtual) Home
Well, I've had a blog off and on for YEARS now, and from time to time I get the urge/need/yearning to switch it up, and move it around.
This time, though, it's just a little bit more than simply continuing on from where I left off. I've come over to blogger and I've changed the name a little bit, but it's still me, and hopefully this will encourage me to write a little more often than I had been.
Only time will tell. But for the moment, I'm having a good time playing with colors and layouts, and seeing what I can do with my space. Awesome.
This time, though, it's just a little bit more than simply continuing on from where I left off. I've come over to blogger and I've changed the name a little bit, but it's still me, and hopefully this will encourage me to write a little more often than I had been.
Only time will tell. But for the moment, I'm having a good time playing with colors and layouts, and seeing what I can do with my space. Awesome.
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