The purse junkie no more is signing off ..

I have mentioned previously that I am turning over a new leaf -- thinking in the positive - and you know what I believe it is starting to work. I learned this week that my neighbours of the past 5.5 year are moving to their hopefully dream home ( she is a great gardner and will be enjoying a real big yard with a pool). And while I am please for them, I was upset as well. We all know I don't like change that much!! The fear of the unknown neighbours!! I am going to hope for the best -- and wait to welcome the new people. I choose to believe the people who will be moving next door in a few months - will be good solid people.

This week , I set aside a few goals for myself -- little things -- but things to help me stay on track with my goals  (see side panel)  -- so check off decrease facebook friends  from the list : really does the guy I crushed on in grade 10 really care about my life? No - he has't written or posted anything since he asked me to be his friend. Or the boy I loved when I was 18? Does he need to see the pictures of my family and me? No. The girl I use to be friends with? Again no, because if they wanted friendship - they would have involved themselves with me.

Relationships take investiment, and we choose to invest in the people who invest in us -- I have co-workers I like, I have school friends that I will catch up with once in awhile. I am choosing what and who to purge from my life - either because it is just a piece of junk in my basement or because I do not add value to someone elses life and they do not add value to mine.. Life is meant to be a celebration of love and experiences. So if you are not someone I will sit down and have a cup of tea with, and I am not that person for you.. then really does it matter if we "facebook?"

Facebook as a social networking has brought  me some joy -- one or two reconnections, and  allowed keeping in touch with a few others to become easier.  In the end, did it add value to my life? I would say.. it is just another thing to spend time on in front of a screen. But blogging - this has added to my life an outlet that I want to explore more.

So dear friends.. as I shut off my computer today.. it will be the last entry for the purse junkie no more :) It has been fun, it has been a journey of growth for me. It has been 130 entries to a virtual diary ..

something new awaits, something more creative, something real, something that lets us connect ---

My New Blog can be found at:

http://livelovelaughconnect.blogspot.com/



Live  Love Laugh

Not sweating the small stuff

Do you worry about silly things, have expectations of yourself and others that really are over the top? I some times do, and you know what.. I don't want to anymore. I have created a series of strange rules, weird things like.. I can never eat sweats ( when I do I beat myself up about it for days!! )  I must be in control of everything, and within that control there is always tons of chaos and very little happiness with myself. I seem to always be striving to be something I am not.. skinnier, richer, more like so and so. I feel a lack of contentment with the wonderful things I have. Take for example my home, instead of being pround of owning a house in a much desired neighbourhood in this city a hop and skip away from the busy downtown streets ( love my location huge!) , I talk about the fact it is small. Yet, it is a character house, filled with lots of love and neat features ( like the hatch in my room under my bed - 1904 version of a bank)  or the beautiful curved door that leads into my kitchen - your picturing an arch - nope it is curved.

Somwhere along the line, I started to become a negative speaker - not good enough, not big enough, not skinny enough, try harder, don't do this, don't do that.. seriously I finally have figured what is enough -- enough of the negative self talk in my head -- Richard Smally needs to be my friend - because I am GOOD enough,.. LOL seriously though, I have to stop sweating the small stuff.

I spent part of my weekend - ears plugged and having taken too much Benedryl, yet the people around me where laughing having fun and playing with my little girl, and me - we swam, we talked we laughed and they chilled me out when we had a melt down in the New Sudbury mall over a stuffed dog. ( one of my OH NO people will judge me moments)  I spent 10 hours in a weekend traveling to see people I love, in a beautiful place ( I really need to get pictures of the rock formations in Sudbury - The park view on the road over looking the valley beside my friends development is stunning - even without the leaves) 

So I have made a decision - no more sweating the small stuff - going to speak in positive as I once did -- and I am going to realize how lucky I am -- because any girl that comes home to a big bunch of flowers -- really doesn't have too much to complain about in life!

Live Love Laugh

Melanie

Heading towards Mid Life --- how did that happen?

This year I will be 38 years old.  In two years I will be forty... How does this happen? It seems like yesturday I was 19 and the world of adulthood was just becoming a reality.. Now I am almost half way through my life ( if I am blessed to live till even my 70's)  and I am not yet freaking out -- ( but imagine I will be in a couple of years ) what have I done? What have I contributed to the world? What more can I do?

These are my questions, and yet I have so much to look back on fondly- I am not someone who will hold desperately to youth, it is not in my nature, however the white or Nordic Blonde as my hairdresser Joseph says - is starting - for the first time this year - I found a white hair! Can you believe I was just happy it was the snowy white - I can hide it well in my highlights!

I may not be a spring chicken, but by no means am I yet old ( even if I feel it once in awhile) time to plan for the next part of my life -- finally have some wisdom, some money and some true understanding of who I am -- they way I see it, the best is yet to come!

I look at the people who surround me - at work, in my life and in my home -- ages across the lifespan -- you know what I have noticed.. it is the ones just starting life, and the ones entering the last half  that I need to soak in and enjoy - their stories are the ones that can shape the middle !

Reflective, thoughtful and a little curious about what lies ahead, and what I can do to make the most of what I got now -- I can dream of the future, but what can I do today to celebrate the life I have been blessed with?

Live Love Laugh .. learning Gratitude

Sometimes you just need to keep pushing through ...

When I was  listening  to my Itouch on the way to work, it clicked over to Miley and her song The Climb - now I will admit to having it on my Itouch - for a couple of reasons - I like the song message, but I also like the way she sounds! there said it -- I have a disney pop sensation on my Itouch - that one song.

It could not have been played at a more appropriate time, feeling a little down but not horribly low.. just one of those days when I want something  in my life, something different then what I have now - not more just different ( which makes no sense - so no need to analyize it to death).

I should be happy - I weighed in today and have returned back to the 12 pound weight loss mark ( had a couple of weeks there where it crept up a few pounds, after I was sick, now back down) I have great friends, a good stable job, a wonderful home and family.. so yeah I know poor me right?

One of the things I don't do well is be --- sad -- I don't like depression or sadness in myself let alone anyone else - so it comes off more like anger and / or withdrawn and disintereseted,  then what it truely is.. I believe this is the case because, I have all my life been a people pleaser and people don't like when the "happy good girl" isn't happy. Bbelieve me I know, have had friends tell me this. Yet if someone who is typically quiet, on the reserve side is  extra quiet or sad -- no one says a thing! -- I know rambling but his this what your getting today!

I  am often described as pleasant, funny and entertaining to be around oh and nice. You know what I am.
Tired and sometimes I really don't want to be nice -- yet it is this thing inside me that makes me do it!  Like the good girl monster or something!

So with an effort  --- I am going to learn to say NO to people ( when I don't want to do something), Not always give up my seat on the bus ( this would really actually shock me if I did this because I actually hate when people don't) and  I am not going to hold doors open at subways, and malls etc only to stand there for 10 minutes while people walk through without saying thank you! and I am going to stop apogizing to furniture I bump into, I think nice and good girls always get the short end of the stick -- sure we have lots of friends, and people like us ( I have won an award or two for being nice) but you know what --- I think those types -- you know mouthy , opinionated and loud ( wait that might be me too) seem to have a bit more fun! They also in some industries tend to be leaders in their fields -- and guess what the nice girl is the one off to the right holding her bag.

Hmmm, something for me to think about -- may be a rant, but it is what it is -- today you got my uncensored thoughts..

My mom has a good quote on her email signature that says :

 "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit." - Harry Truman  

I think this is a FANTASTIC team work quote -- and 98% of the time I do feel exactly the same way -- but sometimes -- it would be nice to get credit -- rather then assumptions that you will just do it anyways -- team work is not just at work - it is in the community, in the home and in life all around us.

Live Love Laugh --- rant

Enjoying my new hobby

I thought I would share a few of my postcrossing postcards with you.. I am really enjoying my new hobby. And I have recieved 5 postcards so far.

( I don't have a scanner so sorry they are not super clear)

London

This is really neat, it is a photograph that has been lamiated. I think this is great, on my profile i mentioned that i wanted "ART" - no matter what kind - so  I have recieved images of famous paintings ( one from Quebec) I have recieved a collections of galleries from one in Polland..

This is a great hobby.. imagine somewhere out there 5 strangers have held the thought of who I am in there minds, based on a blurb on a website..and sent me these wonderful snap shots of there lives.. I love it.. and when I look in the mail box.. each one made me smile. Pretty good way to start an evening at home.

I am hopping to continue recieving wonderful moments from around the world.

Live Love Laugh -- Enjoy the words of others

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WEEK -- TO ONE HELL OF A WOMAN - MY SISTER

While the third is her birthday , it is more fitting to celebrate an entire week, as she is an amazing woman who deserves the extra glitter a few more days will bring. My Sister and I, have had a story that will always be ours alone.. we have grown, we have faught, and cried and laughed. but it is only as I have grown older, sharing the joys and tears of motherhood, as I navigate the beauty of life that I  can truely begin to appreciate that - she loves me as I do her -- for exactly who we are.

To me she will always be snoopy crayons and mittens on the top bunk, presents opened before anyone else was awake, worms squished in hair, the only one who could brush my curls, orange cat strays .. and pink elephant unberellas. She will be why I went on the bus alone, the first spicy patty, flea market gold rings, and music I never understood the words but loved the beat. She will forever be the reason flirt chased me in circles around the kitchen. She is the one who safety let me explore things I really shouldn't have done - then made sure I never did them again. She will be the one who listened to fears , who I feared would disapear into being a grown up without me, and who would be there when no one else could be.

My life is filled with thousands of moments, of crazy hair, from growing and shrinking, to baby booties and the red sweater.. I am grateful - for while we have had our struggles, in the end she will always know - no amount of time apart, no amount of life evolutions will change one thing -- she is my sister, I love her and I am proud of her life, who she is and what she is in this world.

My big Sister -- Dawn I love you and I hope this year brings you more beauty, more love and happiness into your life. Your home is a safe haven for many, and that alone whould make you special -- but it is everything else about you, all the little things that only a few know that truely make you who you are.

To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time. ~Clara Ortega

And for once --- I remembered -- for you know I have no memory for dates... I love you, Happy Birthday

Live Love Laugh ...Sisters

My Canadian Pride ... glitters with the Olympics .. but is shines on the people

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NQaWk_GTNc&feature=player_embedded

This link showed up on my Facebook page today .. posted by a happy popping friend ( she knows what I mean!)  --  while this is not new to me, it is a fantastic look through the eyes of someone else what it means to be Canadian. - Simply a true canadian company (100% now)  a Tim Horton's commerical that has sparked a few happy thoughts since I saw it once again today.

My Canada ---

My Canada was not always as it is today.  Not so long ago in my childhood it was the small town, skating on the lake in a town where almost everyone did look like me, the image the Canadian life of many before me. Generations of my family had been here by then, but the British and French immigrants from my families far past - still influenced much of what I saw around me -- fish and chip shops (no Thai to be seen) and tourtiere  baking in the oven ( Yummy) .. but that was the 1970's and the world was going on around me. It was evolving and new a new generation of  imigarnts were coming - and not always on the streets were the words welcoming to them. Women where gaining more and more rights ( a battle hard faught by my mother and the mothers of my friends)  There was clashing, there was racisim in Canada , but we as a society were beginning to emerge.

When we moved to the city when I was six years old - I was surrounded by more people just like me.. only now there were others too. And my experiences began to form how I see the world now. I watched as more friends arrived from different places , I learned all about Greek School on Saturdays, and Jewish Hebrew lessons, I learned that there was such a thing as Naan bread and it was yummy! And rice steamed is the best way to eat it right out of the steamer!  I learned that "different" was a cool thing! But it was not all roses and happy smiles, these lessons required an open mind, a global view of the way in which we accept each other and truely open ourselves up to the stories they bring with them, and weave them in among our own.

In the 1980's while visiting my father out west, another influx of immigaration was making news and the landscape of western Canada was begining to change - the Canadian Cowboys, and high powered business types were learning how to get along in a different world to the ones they had been exposed to. This Canada  From the Four Nations to the busy streets of this -  the worlds most multicultural city ( as named by the United Nations).- this evololution this is my Canada.

My Canada -- is a place I am pround to call home
A place where even though it is a struggle -- you are welcome to try and make a life for yourself here
My Cananda allows those that I love to love who ever they want because their heart chooses for them
My Canada will host world Pride .. With Pride!
My Canada will allow us to stumble and make mistakes and say stupid things -- but we will accept our critisims and learn to see your point of view -- even when we don't agree
My Canada celebrates Health and Wellness - making sure we all have access to healthcare - even if we don't think it is the best - it is better then many others have access to
My Canada believes children deserve an education - all children
My Canada belives that I can make a difference in the lives of others -- so they demand my participation in supporting the world through blood donations , cash donations and human scarafice.
My Canada may sparkle in the olympics -- but it shines in the heart of the people who call it home!

Live Love Laugh .. Be pround not only of our athletes but of those who have shaped and formed this country from the experiences they have brought with them.