Tuesday, August 27, 2013

it's tuesday..

i finally managed to write something on a day that isn't the weekend! ahh okay that's a lie.. it's tuesday, but it's really my 'saturday' today. for years i didn't know what it was like to have a weekend off, then for a while i made my own weeks. now after almost three years of working straight monday to friday, i rotate my weekends off again. i kinda like it, having a tuesday to do shopping or go to the bank while everyone else is at work is kinda nice.

it's been a pretty good 'weekend' so far, i spent my 'friday' [monday] night catching up with an old friend out by the fire, and picked a whole bunch of freshness from the garden. i had planned to prepare for our journey east today, but the weather decided to be sweltering and i chose to get what i could done from the hobbit hole instead. the garden needed to have a good once over before we left anyways, lots of produce to preserve one way or another until we get back.

three years already it's been since i've been out east. i'm glad i get to take matt with me, he gets to meet some of the people that had an impact on me, and helped to shape the hippy that i am today. a full week of true relaxation, fresh air, lake and sea water, and good people.

when we get back, we will have to start preparing for fall and winter. the garden will need to be picked over again, so that we can pull everything out before we lay the bed to rest. it will be a good time to get some good hikes and bike rides in before the cold returns. winter will be a time to focus on the inside of our little dwelling, do some painting and organization and even crafts.. and to sort through everything we have collected over the years and brought together when we settled in.

i am so grateful for all that i have, the lessons of the past year and the potential that lies ahead. i appreciate this time that i get to sit down and think [and write!] about the simple joys in life, and that it's not so impossible to look forward into the future. having matt around has really changed me, he's made me calm and brought a peace to my life that has been missing for a long time. having a home base and someone trustworthy to share it with means a lot to me. forever forward ->

Saturday, August 24, 2013

follow the sunrise

i can't wait to get out there again.. it's been a few years already since i've been. the east coast is my favourite coast.. it's closer, cheaper, and more like home. culturally, i mean.. no matter where you go out there, you're family. and this time, i get to bring matt with me. he's travelled before, by means of flight to faraway islands, the very type of travel i have never done. yet... but soon, apparently. anyhoo.. i'll get to show him another way to travel. it's a shame we don't have the time to hitch around. regardless, no airplanes, no hotels, no plan. just a greyhound ticket.


we leave in less than a week. six more sleeps to be exact. it always seems so surreal until you sit down on that bus and it pulls out of the station, and then there's the smile... i'm getting out of here! finally, just for a little while. i got to travel earlier this year, i was sent to arkansas, the homeland of the company i work for. it's a beautiful place, i wish i had more time to enjoy it but our itinerary was full from before sunrise to well after sunset each day. it was hardly a vacation, as it wasn't meant to be. an experience that certainly changed my life, all i'm saying is... i still need a real vacation, some time to chill out! and nova scotia is the perfect place to do that. home of the sunrise, the ocean's playground. yep, six more sleeps...

Sunday, August 18, 2013

the weekend blogger

apparently i only post on the weekends.. i scrolled the last half dozen posts or so and i think five of them were specifically sunday. interesting.. well, that's about to change. my schedule at work is finally changing. i have been lucky enough to have weekends off for.. well the better part of the past three years actually, don't know how i managed to swing that, but i did. half of it was on the graveyard shift but still, weekends off!! it's one of those 'unheard-of'' things at my workplace, unless you've worked there forever, or you have a strictly office-hours-only role. i've played the latter a couple times now, and the former is starting to apply... but no less, i am monday to friday no more.

in fact, i will actually have to start writing my schedule down again.. and setting a separate alarm for waking up each day, even my start time is varying! strange. but what is even more strange is that this is the change.. that i have become used to having routines and an appearance of normalcy in my life. when in fact, i feel like an alien here a lot of the time, i feel.. strange. my existence once relied on the nowness of not knowing, i kept my cool in a life of uncertainty, i found peace in chaos.

sometimes i miss living in a tent. sometimes i wish i didn't have a home, a mattress, a place to store all of my stuff, and a bunch of stuff to store. but i take a deep breath and look around, and realize everything i have to be grateful for. living a 'normal' life isn't living a boring or meaningless one, it's just living a different one. the only constant in life is change, and i know it won't be this way forever. i never know exactly what direction my life will take [who does?] but i do know no matter which way it goes, i'm ready.

and also, i know there is always, always something to be grateful for. and that's why i want to start blogging more.. i want to share my gratitudes with anyone that will listen. that's why i started blogging in the first place. i have always kept a journal, kept a book of some sort recording keynote moments in my life, my biggest challenges and life's kindest gifts.. the people i've met, the lessons i've learned, and my reactions to them. well this is it now, these strands of writing posted publicly on the internet.

what's great about it is i don't have to carry it around. i just have to find access to the interwebs and voila! recorded and stored. cool huh? that's probably one of the biggest reasons i am grateful for the virtual world we have created, to have recordings of our lives not only to read back on and reflect, but also to share. what's the point of recording experiences if you never intend to share them?

one day when we're dead and gone our journals will be found and our histories uncovered. at least this way we can witness their uncoverings.. i always wonder if people would think i was crazy if they ever found my writings. this is a more likely way to find out.. ha. anyway, i learn a lot about myself if ever i have a chance to look back in time through the things i have written.. to see how far i have come, how much i grow and change as time passes, and interestingly, if i stick to my word. it seems a lot of the time i do manage to pull off all the crazy stuff i write down, and to fast forward and see that i have accomplished those things is a big motivator in the present.


Sunday, August 11, 2013

quality time

i've been so busy lately, i forget to visit the garden and just hang out. finally i did so last night, matt worked the night shift so i didn't feel bad pitching a tent out back. the fire was warm, the air was cool, i watched the leaves of the sunflowers dance in the gentle air current swirling around the yard. i wasn't tired any longer, i was filled with ideas and dreamings for next year's garden bed design.
i'm so grateful that we have this space. we call our bachelor basement apartment our 'hobbit hole', and the shire out back is shared with the community above. it's like our very own nature getaway in the middle of the city. the garden is a talking point, a home for tiny creatures, and food for the house. it's always an adventure to walk through it, something new and different every day. a newly ripened fruit, an opened flower, dancing honey bees... it's one of my favourite places to be.
summer is just about over. it's hard to believe it was three months ago we had just moved in, and started digging out back, and mowing down the meadow that the yard once was.  we have established somewhat of a routine in our little space, being on opposite shifts and schedules gives the dance an interesting twist. the kitchen is my sanctuary, if i have to be indoors that's where i prefer to be. it's the window with the most sun in the afternoon, which will be my saviour come winter to keep some green in my life.
but for now, there's still some summer left to be enjoyed. and the end of it will be spent on the east coast.. making the most of every moment, as always.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

just a little bike ride..

i'm not used to having random weekdays off, but with budget cuts at work as a reaction to the 'suffering economy', i have myself some newfound 'free time'. having no hours also means having no money, so finding cheap/free fulfilling things to do is the name of the game.

..and one of my most favourite free games to play, of course, is... Geocaching! my man is on the night shift so naturally he sleeps all day, which lends me opportunity to get some use out of his sweet ride. my bike was stolen out of a friend's backyard earlier this year, which may have proven to be a blessing in disguise. my bike was a cruiser from the eighties, white wall tires and all. not so bad for flat city streets, but not the kind of bike you would take on the path.

i rode around the city for a while, trying to decide where to go, scoping out some gardens, and i decided i should see how long it takes to get up to the canal from this end of town. turns out not as long as i thought, though it took me a while as i had to hunt for a few caches. i wasn't really expecting to be gone long so i didn't do much to prepare, once i decided i'd want to keep going i stopped at the grocery to pick up a snack.

it's been a while since i've ridden a bike just for the sake of riding, and i felt amazing. so free flying along the streets, a real switch-up from always walking everywhere. i got to see so much more of the city and the trail than i would have if i was on foot, and it made me wonder why i don't ride more often. also made me wish i had a motorbike.. maybe sometime.


before i knew it, i was up by bridge eleven, further than i had ever traveled along the Welland Canal trail before. i looked at the time, 11:11am, no way! i had left my house at nine expecting to take an hour long bike ride. i never realized how rugged and green it gets along the path once you get past the city, besides a few other cyclists and the canal itself, you'd never know there were other humans around. so quiet and peaceful, frogs and crickets making music with the breeze.

i felt great once i got out there, so i kept going. my success rate for finding caches was at about fifty percent, perhaps because the ones i decided i'd go for were in the most mosquito infested [yet beautiful!] locations along the trail. didn't matter much to me, the adventure [and the workout] is what i'm after. and the space and time to clear my mind and meditate on the things that matter in life, the fresh air and sunshine, and all the things [mostly people] i have gratitude for in my life. i ended up covering about fifty kilometers, and i can certainly feel it, especially from the way up the 'mountain'. i can't wait for the next random weekday off..