October 2007

October 3, 2007 :: Fun With Photobooth.... I should be busy tidying up all the loose ends from my website transfer. I should be finishing linking up my blogroll and adding all my archived posts from my old site. I SHOULD be cleaning my house from top to bottom in preparation of MONICA. Instead I’m over at S-A’s watching her kids while she takes a course, and playing with PhotoBooth. My new favourite pastime. YAY! This is what happens when Mrs. Hussey is in charge for the day. Sorta conjures up words like sophisticated, intellectual, and of course, scintillating. Ah, yes. That’s just the sorta gal I am. October 12, 2007 :: Not Sure... Okay so I’m not sure how I get myself into these things, but here it is. Friday already and the opening of the one act that I’m in for a one-act play festival. We, how shall I say this, are a train wreck. Yesterday at the tech and dress rehearsal we were the empitome of a gong show. None of us could remember our lines, we giggled thru the sound effects (a cow bell for pity’s sake? don’t even get me started) we guffawed, snorted and stumbled thru missed cues and homemade sound effects (whoosh? is that something a witch would actually say whilst casting a spell?) in short is was a disaster. An absolutely, positively wonderfullly hilarious disaster. I’m still giggling today. I’m nervous as heck that the same thing will happen tonight in front of an audience. But I’m praying that my sense of professionalism and decorum will kick in and I’ll keep a straight face - at least until we’re offstage and the whole thing is done. Honestly, I’m so nervous I’m tied in a knot. So wish me luck. I’m postitive we need it, if only to keep a straight face. October 15, 2007 :: Spinning Toward Nowhere... Sometimes I feel like I’m just spinning but not getting anywhere. Okay, that’s a lie. Most of the time I feel like I’m spinning and getting nowhere. Perhaps that’s normal. Perhaps it’s just the way things are in life - you can’t ever really see your destination even when you think you are purposefully pursuing a destination. Maybe it’s not. I guess I just figured that by the time I’d reached the age I am now that I have so much more figured out. That I’d have some sense of the direction my life was taking and an established pursuit. In so many ways I am aware that raising children and schooling them, and fostering their gifts and talents IS a powerful and worthy pursuit but it just doesn’t feel like my calling. And so I spin and spin and grasp at whatever comes my way. I wedding planned for a while. I’ve tried to sell stuff in that home-based business style. I’m involved in community theatre. I help people pick colours for their homes. I sew - sometimes for me, sometimes for others. I dabble in this and I dabble in that. I squander my energy and my focus. I exhaust my patience. I lure myself thru life hopping from one pursuit to the next. I recognize that this is unhealthy. I recognize the escapist tendencies in my behaviour. I recognize that I have to find a way to find a focus that isn’t destructive to myself or to others. And I’m working on it, people. I’m working on it. October 26, 2007 :: Gearing UP OR Why Am I Making This Face... Apologies for the silence over here. I’ve signed up for NaBloPoMo once again this year - which means I’ve been over here conserving energy and trying to come up with enough stuff to blog about every day for the month of November. I’m working on a schedule because that did actually help last year. It’ll probably be similar to the old list, just slightly tweaked. I’ll eliminate the recipes since I think I only did one. Also? Well, I’m pretty much doing away with any semblance of a schedule, because that’s just too structured for a whacky, read the magazine from the back type artsy like me. So here’s what I’m proposing. 1. I’m commited to writing little tributes to a bunch of people who I feel have impacted my life, taught me something, blessed me, etc. Kinda a NaBloPoMo version of this idea. So I’m making that list. Never know, you might be on it. 2. I’m going to try (I said try, don’t look at me like that already) to sketch in my book everyday. Lately I’ve been kind of privately lamenting all the things that I used to do that I feel too rusty at to try anymore. Singing and drawing are two things I used to feel sort of competent at and then life intervened and I just stopped making the time. Inspired by this book (I found a 1969 version Nicolaides “The Natural Way to Draw” at a used book store recently) all the familiar words beckoned me to try again and recall my university studio days, gesture drawing nekkid models. I promise to be worksafe if you promise not to laugh at my rusty ability. 3. “Words I Love” will probably make a comeback. 4. “Letters to Strangers” may abound, depending (apparently) on how hormonal I get. I’m betting I’ll start feeling feisty as this month rolls along. 5. “Things You Didn’t Need To Know About Me” No, not those kind of things. Quirky stuff, like the fact that I have to put my clothes on in a certain order. Underwear, bra, sock. Never NEVER socks first, because naked except for socks just feels so very wrong. Expect the usual musings to make appearances too. I think I should be able to fill something in everyday. Well. Here’s hoping anyway. PS: Anyone interested in a booby prize like last year? I could totally make something like I did last year and throw all your names in a hat. If you ARE interested, drop a comment. October 31, 2007 :: That Time of Year Again.... My children (like all children, I suppose) are excited about Halloween. It’s the candy. I remember feeling the same way - especially because my mum was kind of health food nut who back in the 70’s tried out all the new health foodie stuff on us, her two least willing but most readily available lab rats. So instead of Kraft creamy peanut butter we had freshly ground peanut butter - no additives - carob instead of chocolate, and homemade granola instead of Wagon Wheels. At Halloween though, she had no choice but to sit by and watch us devour real, honest to goodness treats instead of their paltry health food cousins. It was glorious. We each had one of those plastic trick-or-treating jack-o-lanterns that we stored our goodies in and I savoured each and every morsel of chocolately sugar coated goodness sometimes making that stash last well into December. That being said, now that I’m a mum, I sort of hate to admit that Halloween is my least favourite holiday. It’s hyperactive, sugar induced, delusional (and sometime verging on hysterical) behaviour makes me want to give it a very long and well deserved time-out. Nor do I enjoy the Idiocy that seems to follow Halloween around like a sycophant. Fireworks? Vandalism? Using a children’s holiday as a good excuse to dress like a tramp or a demon? Not my cup of potion. Still it’s hard to deny the draw for kids when I so vividly remember the excitement and energy that I felt on Halloween. Dressing up? Getting candy? Staying up past your bedtime - on a school night? What’s not to love? Although I have my suspicions this year that the candy factors in much higher than anything else. The biggest clue? They’ve decided that this year they are going as cardboard boxes. Literally. Now, isn’t that just about the most brilliant ruse to get candy you’ve seen all day? I thought so.