So, here is something fun too.
I was perusing back entries of In the New to cheer myself up, and found this site. Without further ado, here is my Chinese name, which I expect you all to you use going forward ;)
Hee :)Sunday, December 30, 2007
Why is personal growth so dammed hard???
Harsh reminder today that there is still a lot of work to be done before I am the person I want to be. I made a dumb mistake last night involving copious amounts of Jack Daniels. I am not going to get into more details to protect the privacy of the other person (and no ... I slept with nobody, nor tried to, and no it didn't involve the evil ex or anything like that), but I am ashamed of myself today and lost a very good friend because of it.
It seems like for every stride I make forward, I make 1 and 1/2 backward. Maybe I am too hard on myself, but I can't help but wonder sometimes .... if I was a better person, maybe I would not be alone and childless. Maybe I would have found my Prince Charming by now and be surrounded by the gaggle of children I always dreamed of. I know this is flawed logic, at best, because I know plenty of very good people who are not where they want to be in life. But when one suffers from depression, as I do (although I try to manage it as best I can), this is reality. The fact that I know it is flawed logic makes me optimistic that I am making progress with the depression (getting to the point where you know you aren't thinking clearly is good sign), but it doesn't make me feel any better.
Interesting that this should happen so close to the New Year. I have the quintessential time of personal change on my doorstep. I am sure as hell not going to waste it.
It seems like for every stride I make forward, I make 1 and 1/2 backward. Maybe I am too hard on myself, but I can't help but wonder sometimes .... if I was a better person, maybe I would not be alone and childless. Maybe I would have found my Prince Charming by now and be surrounded by the gaggle of children I always dreamed of. I know this is flawed logic, at best, because I know plenty of very good people who are not where they want to be in life. But when one suffers from depression, as I do (although I try to manage it as best I can), this is reality. The fact that I know it is flawed logic makes me optimistic that I am making progress with the depression (getting to the point where you know you aren't thinking clearly is good sign), but it doesn't make me feel any better.
Interesting that this should happen so close to the New Year. I have the quintessential time of personal change on my doorstep. I am sure as hell not going to waste it.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Merry Christmas!!!
If you are not Christian and reading this, then I also wish you a Happy Holidays!!!
I spent most of the last week sick with a cold. Ick. Double ick, in fact, as it seems that colds are getting more evil every year. I spent 4 days in bed, and another day resting on the sofa for good measure before I could get this one to Go Away. I think that is worth another "ick".
Without a really good way to segue into a new topic, please allow me to jump right in to a thank-you to a very good friend of mine. Most of my friends were acutely aware that I was not particularly looking forward to this holiday season because I don't have either family or a partner to share it with for the first time in my life. On the 23rd, I spoke to one of my good friends who had not heard from me in a few days as a result of my wretched cold. She wanted to make sure that I was ok, and that I wasn't letting all my free time get to me by spending it contemplating life, the universe and everything. Not being within "drop-in" distance, she told me she was coming by the next day. Yay! Company on Christmas Eve, if only for an hour or two. She arrived full of Christmas spirit and almost immediately asked me to join her and her family for their Christmas Eve celebration at her parent's!! This probably should not have been the surprise it was, knowing her, but it was. I guess she figured that I would have a hard time saying no to her if she was already at my house and ready to drive me there ... she knows me so well :) I am fairly certain that her offer was one of the nicest things to ever happen to me ... not just because she didn't want me to be alone at Christmas or because she was willing to share hers with me, but because her whole family (whom I had never met but had heard lots about) was as well. Family means something different to me than it seems to mean to those I am related to. The opportunity to spend time in a real family was the best gift I could have asked for. Thank you to all of them for making me feel so at home with them.
Despite not having a traditional Christmas dinner to attend, I was very excited about today. I spent the afternoon and part of the evening helping to prepare a meal at a shelter for homeless youth. Quite understandably, their usual cook wanted to spend the holidays with his family, so they asked for people to prepare a menu and cook. It turned out that about half the food was supplied through the shelter, and the other half through the volunteers. They had received some donations of turkeys, so we made 4 of those, gravy, enough smashed potatoes for an army (I know, cause I peeled them), green bean casserole and stuffing. The lead lady for the day also had a bunch of her friends each put aside some of their Christmas baking, which amounted to a huge amount of cookies and assorted other goodies which we assembled into festive bags with candy canes, and gave to the residents as their afternoon snack. The final "yum" was a veritable ton of homemade apple crumble for dessert. All in all, it went over pretty well. I can't help but feel sorry for anybody who is a resident of a homeless shelter on Christmas. It can't be enjoyable, but the shelter deals with it pretty well. With the help of donations and corporate sponsors, each resident received a gift bag with a healthy combination of the very useful (such as some TTC tickets for job hunting or getting to and from work) and the outright fun (like a gift certificate for the movies). We, the volunteers, also had a good time. It was a good feeling to have the kids make a point of saying thank you to us ... I don't think most of them were expecting homemade food for Christmas this year, and most of them were appreciative. I will be going back on New Year's Day to prepare another meal for them, and think I will be making this an annual tradition. I had a better time there than I would have expected, and I don't at all miss that I didn't get the Christmas dinner that I am used to, because I got an even better one.
I thought that I was going to spend today sad and full of the horrible memories I have of this time last year .... While I did go through a bit of that, I was reminded very harshly that I could be so much worse off than I am when I heard one of the young women at the shelter asking to put some of the food aside in her "eating for two" box, as she called it. So, while unlike any other Christmas I have ever had, I have to rank this among the best. This was the first time that I think I have ever experienced the true meaning of Christmas. This year it was not about the gifts and what was in it for me, as it so often was when I was a child. This year, it was about giving back.
I spent most of the last week sick with a cold. Ick. Double ick, in fact, as it seems that colds are getting more evil every year. I spent 4 days in bed, and another day resting on the sofa for good measure before I could get this one to Go Away. I think that is worth another "ick".
Without a really good way to segue into a new topic, please allow me to jump right in to a thank-you to a very good friend of mine. Most of my friends were acutely aware that I was not particularly looking forward to this holiday season because I don't have either family or a partner to share it with for the first time in my life. On the 23rd, I spoke to one of my good friends who had not heard from me in a few days as a result of my wretched cold. She wanted to make sure that I was ok, and that I wasn't letting all my free time get to me by spending it contemplating life, the universe and everything. Not being within "drop-in" distance, she told me she was coming by the next day. Yay! Company on Christmas Eve, if only for an hour or two. She arrived full of Christmas spirit and almost immediately asked me to join her and her family for their Christmas Eve celebration at her parent's!! This probably should not have been the surprise it was, knowing her, but it was. I guess she figured that I would have a hard time saying no to her if she was already at my house and ready to drive me there ... she knows me so well :) I am fairly certain that her offer was one of the nicest things to ever happen to me ... not just because she didn't want me to be alone at Christmas or because she was willing to share hers with me, but because her whole family (whom I had never met but had heard lots about) was as well. Family means something different to me than it seems to mean to those I am related to. The opportunity to spend time in a real family was the best gift I could have asked for. Thank you to all of them for making me feel so at home with them.
Despite not having a traditional Christmas dinner to attend, I was very excited about today. I spent the afternoon and part of the evening helping to prepare a meal at a shelter for homeless youth. Quite understandably, their usual cook wanted to spend the holidays with his family, so they asked for people to prepare a menu and cook. It turned out that about half the food was supplied through the shelter, and the other half through the volunteers. They had received some donations of turkeys, so we made 4 of those, gravy, enough smashed potatoes for an army (I know, cause I peeled them), green bean casserole and stuffing. The lead lady for the day also had a bunch of her friends each put aside some of their Christmas baking, which amounted to a huge amount of cookies and assorted other goodies which we assembled into festive bags with candy canes, and gave to the residents as their afternoon snack. The final "yum" was a veritable ton of homemade apple crumble for dessert. All in all, it went over pretty well. I can't help but feel sorry for anybody who is a resident of a homeless shelter on Christmas. It can't be enjoyable, but the shelter deals with it pretty well. With the help of donations and corporate sponsors, each resident received a gift bag with a healthy combination of the very useful (such as some TTC tickets for job hunting or getting to and from work) and the outright fun (like a gift certificate for the movies). We, the volunteers, also had a good time. It was a good feeling to have the kids make a point of saying thank you to us ... I don't think most of them were expecting homemade food for Christmas this year, and most of them were appreciative. I will be going back on New Year's Day to prepare another meal for them, and think I will be making this an annual tradition. I had a better time there than I would have expected, and I don't at all miss that I didn't get the Christmas dinner that I am used to, because I got an even better one.
I thought that I was going to spend today sad and full of the horrible memories I have of this time last year .... While I did go through a bit of that, I was reminded very harshly that I could be so much worse off than I am when I heard one of the young women at the shelter asking to put some of the food aside in her "eating for two" box, as she called it. So, while unlike any other Christmas I have ever had, I have to rank this among the best. This was the first time that I think I have ever experienced the true meaning of Christmas. This year it was not about the gifts and what was in it for me, as it so often was when I was a child. This year, it was about giving back.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Money makes the world go round
The idealist in me was totally and completely offended yesterday when I read that a lock of John Lennon's hair had sold for $48,000.00. No, really ... it did. I know the world is not perfect, but why is a lock of hair worth that kind of money? Along the same lines, J.K. Rowling auctioned a handwritten and hand-illustrated book for $4M. At least she is donating the money to charity ... It leads me to wonder, though, about the kind of person who would pay that much for something so frivolous. Everybody has a right to spend their money they way they choose - that is what freedom is all about (well, it isn't really ... freedom implies so much more than just willy-nilly spending). However, I shudder to think about the volume of people that $4M, or even $48K would help. Do the people who spend money like that also give to charities with the same "recklessness"? I wish I could ask them ...
On a related-and-yet-totally-different train of thought (related because I find both very disturbing and too common these days), I finished reading "Mommie Dearest" by Christina Crawford. All I can say is that I am so very, very disturbed by the thought of what people, and parents especially, are capable of. I was reading it when the story of this poor girl broke. It pains me how some people are such crappy parents, and yet others are unable to have kids. Life is so unfair.
On a related-and-yet-totally-different train of thought (related because I find both very disturbing and too common these days), I finished reading "Mommie Dearest" by Christina Crawford. All I can say is that I am so very, very disturbed by the thought of what people, and parents especially, are capable of. I was reading it when the story of this poor girl broke. It pains me how some people are such crappy parents, and yet others are unable to have kids. Life is so unfair.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Life's TO DO list
It's funny how life works, isn't it ... sometimes you think that you are the one going through the hard times. Suddenly, people get the courage to share their problems, and you discover that everybody has their own source of pain or discouragement. Which seems obvious when you think about it, but there is that little part of everybody that is totally self-centred, and sees mostly what is in front of their face and not much more.
I am trying to get over that little part because these days my troubles are reasonably few. The one that plagues me the most is that little, niggling voice that every now and then remembers a possession that I no longer have. The worst to date (other than the dogs and bird, which aren't really possessions) is my ficus. How utterly insane does that make me seem???? I bought her when she was but a sapling, and grew her (against the odds) into a beautiful tree. So, I am going to buy a new one in the near future. If only all life's problems were so easy to fix!
I am happy to say that of all the anger that I had been feeling toward the ex, it is down to tiny little flashes that simply annoy me now. Gimme a "P" for Progress!!!!
Wow ... when I look at things, I have it pretty good. It's nice to feel that way.
I am also, as the title of this post suggests, working avidly on my 150 Things To Do Before I Die list. Which is now expanding as I think of things that I would like to do that weren't already on the list. I think I am up to 154 now. I'll let you know as I cross things off ... there is a particularly amusing one coming up ... :)
I am trying to get over that little part because these days my troubles are reasonably few. The one that plagues me the most is that little, niggling voice that every now and then remembers a possession that I no longer have. The worst to date (other than the dogs and bird, which aren't really possessions) is my ficus. How utterly insane does that make me seem???? I bought her when she was but a sapling, and grew her (against the odds) into a beautiful tree. So, I am going to buy a new one in the near future. If only all life's problems were so easy to fix!
I am happy to say that of all the anger that I had been feeling toward the ex, it is down to tiny little flashes that simply annoy me now. Gimme a "P" for Progress!!!!
Wow ... when I look at things, I have it pretty good. It's nice to feel that way.
I am also, as the title of this post suggests, working avidly on my 150 Things To Do Before I Die list. Which is now expanding as I think of things that I would like to do that weren't already on the list. I think I am up to 154 now. I'll let you know as I cross things off ... there is a particularly amusing one coming up ... :)
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Hi! How are you?
This is the longest in a while that I have gone without blogging. Not because I haven't written anything, cause I have. It's just that some posts are better left un-posted, so they will remain in my "drafts".
It has, however, been a very busy week. I did get to the gym a few times (yay me!) and overcame my immediate intimidation by all of the supremely gorgeous people that seem to live in my building. "Perky" doesn't even begin to describe some of these women ... and some of the men too, however odd that sounds. I am getting ready for the Weekend to End Breast Cancer coming up in September. Why, you ask, am I training for something that far away? Cause it is 60 kms in 2 days, and I need an excuse to get my ass off the couch. Can you think of a better way to motiviate than fundraising? BTW .... if anybody wants to donate, I would be more than happy to oblige! http://www.endcancer.ca/site/TRC/Events/Toronto2008?pg=peditor&fr_id=1254&px=2430085
Friday, being my day off, I went to visit the shelter where I will be serving Christmas and New Year's dinners. The F&B manager would like to spend the holidays with his family, so they were looking for volunteers to prepare a meal plan and cook for 50 homeless youth (I hesitate to say "kids", as the age range is 16 to 24). I will be helping on the 25th and 26th (they already have people lined up for the lead roles), but on the 1st I will be expected to come ready to cook for 50 people! Can I say how excited I am about this? I can't think of a better way to ring in the new year. Hopefully I can do some addtional fundrasing to supplement the meal a little bit. The shelter manager said that while they get assistance from the United Way and some corporate sponsorships, the kids tend to miss out on some of the finer things in life, like fresh friuts and veg (cans and frozen are cheaper). I would really, really like to come with enough clementines to treat them to a few each ... it would be nice to make them happy, if just for a few hours.
It's nice, though, to know that even as stressy and poopy as my life can be, that I can still help those that have a really hard life.
It has, however, been a very busy week. I did get to the gym a few times (yay me!) and overcame my immediate intimidation by all of the supremely gorgeous people that seem to live in my building. "Perky" doesn't even begin to describe some of these women ... and some of the men too, however odd that sounds. I am getting ready for the Weekend to End Breast Cancer coming up in September. Why, you ask, am I training for something that far away? Cause it is 60 kms in 2 days, and I need an excuse to get my ass off the couch. Can you think of a better way to motiviate than fundraising? BTW .... if anybody wants to donate, I would be more than happy to oblige! http://www.endcancer.ca/site/TRC/Events/Toronto2008?pg=peditor&fr_id=1254&px=2430085
Friday, being my day off, I went to visit the shelter where I will be serving Christmas and New Year's dinners. The F&B manager would like to spend the holidays with his family, so they were looking for volunteers to prepare a meal plan and cook for 50 homeless youth (I hesitate to say "kids", as the age range is 16 to 24). I will be helping on the 25th and 26th (they already have people lined up for the lead roles), but on the 1st I will be expected to come ready to cook for 50 people! Can I say how excited I am about this? I can't think of a better way to ring in the new year. Hopefully I can do some addtional fundrasing to supplement the meal a little bit. The shelter manager said that while they get assistance from the United Way and some corporate sponsorships, the kids tend to miss out on some of the finer things in life, like fresh friuts and veg (cans and frozen are cheaper). I would really, really like to come with enough clementines to treat them to a few each ... it would be nice to make them happy, if just for a few hours.
It's nice, though, to know that even as stressy and poopy as my life can be, that I can still help those that have a really hard life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)