10 shuffle

interesting experiment: go to iPod, choose Songs and then shuffle.  list first ten songs.

ok, here goes:

I just bought these 100 Ella Fitzgerald tracks last month. I think it was only $6!
She has to have The Perfect Voice, in my humble opinion.

Let's see... fun movie, fun song. Makes me happy, happy, joy, joy like Earth, Wind and Fire.

Ah, Coldplay. I've heard interviews with Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland. And I would love to meet them in person... wouldn't you?

Reminds me of 60s British Invasion, soundtrack from Heartbeat. But the first couple of seconds drive me nutters!

iTunes has a featured free Song of the Week. I usually download it. This may have been one of those, or it may have been found while looking around for some more ethereal tracks to accompany my Boards of Canada songs. Not sure which.

Mother, Mother. Canadian (yay!) and we love 'em in this house. I don't 'do' poetry/lyrics kinda frou frou stuff, but did post lyrics to one of their songs. Once.

iTunes also has a Chanson de la semaine. I download these less frequently, mostly because Quebec music didn't seem to throw off it's folksy Voyageur ancestry and rebel. Hence there are too many backwoods songs for me. Or ballads! omg, ditch the epic ballad! Mind you, it's made Celine millions, non?

Oh look! Ella again... (well, there are 100 tracks in there now)

Another freebie. Sometimes theyr'e current (like this one - score!) and sometimes not so much. But hey, the price point. Can't complain.

henh, another FreeB. Upon initial, sample listen thought "umm, no... not my cuppa tea, thanks anyway". But then there's something that stuck and I ended up downloading it. They sound 'tight'. Which always sounds simultaneously dated and pretentious to me, but is a great way of explaining that the band or group of musicians sound like they've got it. Practiced and polished and talent present. = 'tight'. Daddy-O.

So... going to try this 10 Shuffle experiment for yourself?

parental posts

I've had these seemingly random draft posts collecting dust on here. Or, maybe they've just been fermenting. Hopefully nothing explodes. I've decided to squeeze them all together and see if something gels.


I have a couple of on-line friends who are at a younger stage of parenthood. When I read their blogs, I do a number of things: quietly smile and nod first of all... it's amazing how similar things are sometimes no? It also brings back memories of my own, and they feel further away with each passing year. It also shines a light on just how much has changed. How much my children have grown. Yet amazingly, I haven't aged a bit!!

Just this weekend I felt it: another slight apron string snapped. A very subtle one, no big milestone happened, I just felt a ping.

as an aside: I solumnly do swear, that if I ever become a Grandmother: I will keep my big mouth shut, my nose out of their business, my opinions to myself, help as they see fit... etc etc etc. My Mom and I do not have a good history, but if there's one thing she's done amazingly well is to help how I've needed help and keep all her opinions to herself. I know what she thinks about things (at least, I think I do) but she has never, ever given me grief about my child-rearing. wow, something positive about my Mom... think I'd better share this one with her!

"You need a license to buy a dog, to drive a car - hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But they'll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father."  -- Tod, in Parenthood, 1989

I would change 'father' to 'parent'. Cuz I've seen a fair share of asshole mothers too. Actually, given that I've dealt with more mothers than fathers I'd say I've seen more maternal assholes than paternal.

I have had this quote run through my head too many times to count. I find it amazing that there are so many wounded children walking around in grown up bodies, messing things up for the next generation.

Except that: I ultimately believe that we humans are an incredibly resilient species. I chose to believe that - even though I see the asshole behaviour - we human peoples have an amazing capacity to also heal. And I may not see that healing behaviour.



What It's Like Being a Teen Girl
I think my sister referred to this one on Facebook (?), about the time when a teen suicide made headlines here in Canada.
I've been lucky enough to not have such negative experiences, but I sure have heard a lot of this kinda thing from other friends. Makes me livid.



ok, so let's end on a postive note, shall we?
10 Habits to Stengthen Your Relationship With Your Child
Can I brag a bit here? I do... all of these... seriously! well, except for all that f&*king hugging. I've read a lot of parenting articles and books and websites; this is the first time I've seen in print what I believe is the best way to live with kids. Dealing with the emotions behind the behaviour - oh! so true!! Especially when they get older; mine are teens now and this article seems to be geared towards parents who are still reading articles (grin). The parenting sites and magazines are loaded with stuff for younger kids; once they get to be the age that my kids are... not so much. Or: it deals with all the bad behaviour and how to fix it in my age range.


OK, I think I have mined the parenthood angle. At least for me. This post feels like a jumble of tenuously connected thoughts. Look around at those links above, let some things ferment in you too and see what comments bubble up.

And it feels like it needs some photos, but I've been searching for appropriate ones for a couple of weeks now and nothing is making itself obvious... so I'm just going to click publish and move on.

expectorant

My sister beat me to this blog post...
(I suppose if you've clicked over from her blog, you can now compare who is the more screwed up. I vote for me...)

Susannah's weekly week-end offers included this link, and I thought 'hmm, I wonder what my over-expectations are?'



I am supposed

to be more mentally stable
to be thin, effortlessly
to (like to) eat vegetables
to (like to) ski
to put things away
to make my kids eat properly
to be an artist
to have everything organized


Let's change that, shall we?

I will

congratulate myself on my present excellent mental health
be comfortable in this skin, reside in my body
appreciate my appetite
celebrate my family's skiing ability (from the spa. heh heh)
tidy, but not expect pristine
educate my kids on refueling themselves
be an artist, of sorts
embrace messy

That's better. Be your own best friend...

remember what is important to you

[source: orientaloutpost.com]

remember what is important to you:
jot it down, record a voice memo, keep a memory of it somewhere somehow

remember what is important to you:
is it stuff? travels? feelings?

remember what is important to you:
perspective... it's all about perspective isn't it

remember what is important to you: not your husband, or your best friend,
or your community... what is important to you...

why I don't colour my hair (anymore)

There's talk in my circle of authenticity, living life whole-hearted... and yet I don't understand why everyone (everyfemaleone) is not being their authentic self...? how can one be themselves if they have fake hair colour...

wow, that's simplistic huh? (ok, and a bit judge-y)


For me: I was fed up. The kicker was when I read online how one woman kept mascara with her at all times so she could fix her roots in the washroom. Much like I quit a popular diet -- >ahem< lifestyle management -- company when they advocated counting each stick of sugarless gum (5cal), that was what did it for me. No way was I about to start getting that persnicketedy.

oh, come on! it was 1989...

I have curly hair, so I don't have a part and thus no skunkline of regrowth, but I have been going gray since my teens so after 18 years of colouring the gray away I was starting to see more gray regrowth than I felt comfy with. But fussing that much? nuh uh. I find having to reapply lipstick too tedious sometimes...

So six years ago I let it go au naturelle. Telling myself that I knew where my fake hair colour formula was and could return to it if I wanted. No biggie.

Except I haven't looked back, and I am more comfy now than I ever was. I've never been a primper, so I have a fairly basic routine. And I follow the Curly Girl approach to taking care of the tresses: cleansing my hair usually only once a week with mostly just conditioner (aka the No Poo approach to hair maintenance). Blow dry on occasion, always with just the diffuser and never completely dry. Very often I just clip my hair up wet, sleep on it and in the morning remove the clips and I'm off! And I haven't used a brush or comb on my hair in years. I just use my own two hands.

ps :: I'm not dissing authenticity 'n stuff, I'm in complete and total agreement with Brene Brown and her work... sometimes it just seems strange for people to wander around declaring "this is the real me!" when it's not, completely, y'know? and yeah, I guess the same could be said for makeup (yes, I wear makeup) but somehow that doesn't seem quite the same.

What do you think? Could you go gray...?


edits and further thoughts:

[my husband just read this and admitted that a fellow dogwalker asked him last week where his Mum was since she hadn't seen me out walking our dog in a while...]  8D

[which then reminded me of when we were car shopping 16 years ago and the car salesman asked if I was planning on buying the car for my son, gesturing to my husband nearby]

[which goes to show that it wasn't due to my hair colour, but due to the fact that my husband looks far younger than his years... see photo below... he's actually older than me!]

he's 27 here!

7 lessons from my dog

When someone arrives, run to the front door to greet them.

If someone is willing to rub your belly, it doesn't matter how silly you look... just get comfy.

At the end of a long day, nothing beats a cuddle on the couch.

Waiting patiently while your dinner is prepared is far more productive in the end than whining for it.

Taking your collar off at the end of the day... one of the best feelings!

Regular grooming is essential. It is a hassle though...

Getting out of the house for a nice long walk does a body good, both physically and mentally.

Blaze on the dock at Bird Lake

10 Things You May Not Know About Me

1. Once I know something ~ a tidbit of news, a secret ~ I somehow assume that everyone else knows what I do. Makes keeping secrets for me stressful (not to mention potentially dangerous for others) and also leaves me feeling distinctly unspecial. Or humble. Somewhere between those two. It also makes creating lists like 10 Things You May Not Know About Me difficult since on some level I think I'm so obvious that everyone already knows many more than 10 things about me. Circuitous.
2. I have synaesthesia. However I have probably the most common form of it. And I simply can't imagine NOT having all these colours involved in my daily life.
3. I see photographic opportunities all around me daily, but have difficulties acting on them.
4. I can become paralyzed by my perfectionism.
5. I think I should be living elsewhere. I have difficulty feeling 'at home' most places.
6. I secretly suspect that I deserve all the goodness that I have right now. I'm okay with this feeling, but I don't know how to express it without it coming off as arrogance.
7. I don't believe we have a soulmate, and I don't believe we can have only one great love.
8. I do believe that human beings ~ as a species ~ are incredibly resilient.
9. I know I don't have all the answers yet. Nor does anybody else.
10. I think depression and anxiety disorders are on the opposite side of the coin to creativity. They co-exist, and help each other.

lexicon needed

You know, there should be a term for what happens when you go online to look something up and then next thing you know TWO HOURS have spun around the clock and you've forgotten exactly why you opened your laptop and the battery is running down and you're lost somewhere in the tangled branches of the internet tree.

a rebirth? no, not that.

Once upon a time there was a young girl. Let's say she's 10 years old, living in a large multicultural city nearby. Despite everything, life really sucks. She's got two parents, a fairly stable financial situation. 


Gets pretty good marks, even though she seems to not do as well as expected. She has siblings, someone to play and argue with. Friends at school. Doesn't cause problems.


So, what I'm saying is: things could be so much worse. 


Eventually she grows to adulthood, having learnt how to deal with her anxieties mostly by herself. And then things start to fray, and she is compelled to live a better life. 


And she does: she gets better, moves ahead with her life. Doesn't become bitter, mean. Learns how to juggle vulnerability and strength. 


So now she looks okay. To her family, to the world around her. Proof that her parents did a "good job" raising her. Right? No. Not at all. In order for her to heal, the grownup young girl has had to put aside the needs of her younger self: packaged them up and squirreled them away. Secured, and personal. Those unfulfilled needs have only made her sick. 


But this looks the same to her parents as if everything had been rosy in her childhood. So do her parents think that they did a great job? Probably, but don't care what they think. But I do care for that young girl: she's had the short end of the stick twice. Once as a child, and now as a memory in adulthood. 


"I'm sorry." That's what I'd tell her. 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

And I've said all that to get to this thought: now what? 


If you've spent so much time and energy healing and all that, and then you achieve it... then what?? If one spends the bulk of ones's life... occupied... with a project, and then the seemingly neverending project actually comes to an end... 


then what?? and: how does one honour her presence without living and carrying a grudge the rest of the time...

aloneliness

I've been musing on how lonely the human experience really is. Sounds depressing, I know... but in reading and then realizing how similar we really are it stuck me: we're all alone. Geez, that looks horrible in print! :)


It's very liberating, really. At least I think so; changes my expectations. I don't need others to heal myself, I'm quite capable of taking care of myself if need to. Relying on others for help is great, but expecting others to solve it... well that just leads to frustration and results in depression for me. 


Fits in with your Tribe of One, Susannah. I visualize my socializations as a series of nested circles: at the very centre is Me: a solid, brick-red circle. Surrounded by increasing larger, gradually looser circles of family and friends. 


A couple of years ago when feeling blue I would ask myself "what would your best friend do/say?". Cuz a truly best friend would be honest enough to call you out on misbehaviours: "well, you are eating ice cream every night..." or "no wonder she's upset with you, you did promise to help her on the weekend" as well as provide a calming voice. Be Your Own Best Friend. That's what I call it; very often she's takes on my Inner Perfectionist. And wins!


I read a poem years ago that referred to "some people, infrequent people" as the ones who are True Friends, the ones on the same wavelength as yourself. Who 'get' you. But that most people you meet are not these kind. I have a very small Tribe I realize: I think I prefer to fill it with Infrequent people...


And, luckily for me, my sister Wendy is one of them...

let me count the ways

I didn't early adopt, but I am comfy around technology. (except for the new TV setup. how can two adults with at least six combined degrees in total NOT figure the damn thing out?? even the 14 yr old 'just fiddles' around sometimes. argh!)

Around these parts, conversation leans towards Blackberry v. iPhone. I'm in the iPhone camp. I understand the plusses of the Blackberry, but I'm happy with my choice. The iPhone is more like a wee tablet, and I couldn't be happier that technology is kinda starting to catch up with my scifi brain. (except for the hover car... where IS it??)

So - just off the top of my head, my iPhone is not sitting in front of me - this is what I use my iPhone for just about every day:

check the weather

listen to radio

text my family and friends

check in and look around fb

tweet

pin

find friends; okay family

see when the library book is due

flashlight

alarm

calculate the tip

other calculates

voice memo to remember... something

photography and instagram

track my period

find out where the ISS is

check my email

read

listen to music

oh, and make the occasional phone call

my online presence

As of Jan 2012, this is where I hang out online


facebook, twitter, pinterest, instagram, tumblr, blogger, vimeo, youtube, flickr...


I wonder which of these will still be around and provide a giggle ten years from now...?