New Motto

I read a LOT of blogs. Okay, maybe not that many. But so many of them are written by women who are married with young kids or well, at least one kid usually or about to have a kid. Recently, I added a few bloggers to my "must read" list who are actually single (ie: dating, not married, and no children). I had a few of these in my list before but now I have more and it is lovely.

One such blogger is Sarah from He Loves Me Not.

My new motto will be:

"I wasn't going to fight for someone that isn't confident in wanting me."

Go over there and read where that came from.

That, for me, was a light bulb moment. Now, I'm not going through that right now. It's been two months since my last relationship ended. A relationship that lasted 16 months. A relationship where I thought we would get married because we loved each other that much. Except, due to issues he has had for 18 years he does not see himself ever being married. So, suddenly I was launched back into the single and looking world. Fine. It's been two months and I'm not quite ready to date yet but each day I feel a bit better about it. I'm not as terrified. The idea of dating doesn't make me sick to the stomach. I'm not so worried that the first time I kiss a new guy, that I will start crying. This was a solid concern of mine for much of the last 8 weeks. It's tough when you didn't think you'd EVER be in that position again. So, really, I found Sarah's blog at just the right moment in my life I think (I started reading her blog about a month before the break up).

So, as I ready myself for this whole dating and meeting guys thing...this is a good light bulb moment. I will not be fighting for a guy that isn't confident in wanting me. That will now be my mantra.

Other mantra: no dating guys who can't, within the first few dates, tell me whether marriage and babies are something they want. They HAVE to say it is something they want. Not just nod their head when I say it is something I want. That didn't work out too well for me last time. Just saying (see: 16 months, ugh).

Anyway, that is all.

September 2007

Back in September 2007 I was a new Vancouver resident and didn't really know my way around the city. In fact, I had only been there a handful of days when I attempted to take the bus from South Surrey/White Rock back to Vancouver. I had been visiting my aunt and uncle for the night. Anyway, I ended up having a horrible experience trying to get on the bus in South Surrey but I managed to make my way back to Vancouver. I then managed to miss my bus stop so I walked 9 blocks back to where I needed to be. 9 proper city blocks. Ugh. So there I was at the corner of 49th and Granville. My phone was dead so I didn't know what time it was nor did I know when a bus would appear. There is a girl at the bus stop as well so I attempt to ask her if she knew whether the bus I was looking for had come yet or when I might expect it or I dunno, what time is it??? She actually just stood there staring straight ahead. I kid you not. She did not want to even acknowledge my presence. If she couldn't understand english, there was no mistaking that I was talking to her so she could have given me shoulder shrugging or bewildered eyes or whatever but nope, nothing. She didn't want to acknowledge me. I ended up waving my hand in front of her face going "hello, are you there??" and FINALLY she looked at me. She just said "no it hasn't come yet". It was pretty awful considering I had only been there a few days in this big, massive city that I really didn't know.

I took from that day, that I was always going to be friendly and nice to everyone and be as helpful as I could be, even if I didn't know much at all. I would go out of my way to help people who needed it, regardless of who they are or whether I would ever see them again. That girl was just plain rude and sadly, she's the one that will suffer long term because her parents obviously didn't teach her very well. It willl translate over into the workplace and be her downfall. Karma, it gets you.

2011

We're 6 days into 2011 and I've been spending a lot of time thinking about things I would like to accomplish this year. I need to stress though that these are NOT New Year's resolutions. Anyway, here we go:

1. Continue working with my Naturopath. I've been seeing a naturopath for a few weeks, so it's still pretty new but I'd like to continue with that. Over the last three weeks I have noticed an improvement with my stomach. We didn't really change much at all but I think that's key to being able to continue with it. Small changes over a longer time frame. Already he's given me confidence that what is going on with my stomach is NOT okay and that I deserve to have it seen by a specialist who can and will rule out some serious conditions.

2. Travel a bit. Nothing far and wide. The boy can't leave Canada since he doesn't have a passport since he isn't a Canadian citizen, but a mere landed immigrant for the last 30 years. Anyway, so my travel goals will be to visit a friend in Edmonton, a friend in Summerland (hello Wine tours!), and head back to my home of two years, Vancouver. It would also be nice to knock off a destination I haven't ever visited so let's say Montreal. However, should the boy get his passport soon then hopefully we can visit a few american destinations as well. We've talked about Minnesota and Texas (was Texas? or some neighbouring state?). I'd also like to head to California for a wine tour. He's been (pre-passport rules for land border crossings) before but why not go again, right?

3. Find a job that ISNT a contract job. I'd like to work in the same job for more than a pre-determined time frame. This is mostly because I'd like to buy a condo or house next winter and I won't feel comfortable doing that if I don't have a longer term job. I'm hoping I find this job before April, here's hoping!!
3B. Hopefully this job will cross me over into the corporate world because dude, pay in the charity world sucks. I love having a dogooder job, but at some point I'd like to work on the other side (in a do-gooder type role, of course).

4. Continue to be madly in love with my boy.

5. Buy a house (or condo). This is something that is really important to me. I know it probably won't happen before December however, it needs to be on the list now because it is a goal that I am working towards. I don't want anything fancy, preferably something that I can make my own but that isn't a money pit. The boy lives out of town. I drive out there a few days a week. Because of his work, he won't ever move to the city but it's also really not feasible for me to commute every day and I don't want to live with my parents forever so house it is.

6. Continue and hopefully get really really close to paying off my school loans. That would be lovely. And that's the plan. I'll hopefully have the vast majority of it out of the way by year's end. Finally. YAY!!

As you can see, these are all lofty goals. Okay, maybe 4 isn't that lofty. But as such, I don't have room to list off things like "work out more" or "insert other thing here". Not that I won't be doing these things but I think this will be my major list. Maybe in a month or two I'll come up with a more fun list :)

Oh, holidays

I'm currently on a sort of vol-and-told holiday right now. Our office shuts down between Christmas and the new year but we HAVE to use our lieu time or holiday time to fill in the gaps between the various stats. I've been spending my time doing not much of anything other than hanging out with my mom, my nephew, my dog, and my boy (in no particular order).

I've managed to fit in a couple workouts which I hope to continue. I'm not a big person, in fact most consider me quite slim however, I have a very petite structure to go with that so a little extra fat on my thighs looks like a lot more on me than on others. So, I am working on toning up my thighs. Nothing crazy, it's all in the name of good health to be honest. I'm quite happy with my appearance, I just want to firm up a little bit. No biggie :)

Anyway, a job search will be starting up full force in the new year so that should be fun (or not). I'm hoping that many good things will happen this year just like for the last couple years and I know that in order for these good things to happen, I need to work to make them happen so that is my goal. However, I won't be itemizing them at this point. Maybe sometime in the next few days, maybe not. I'm not much for New Year's Resolutions so it wouldn't really be a New Year's Resolution more like a game plan for the year.

Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays, whichever)

Merry Christmas!!!

I had a great couple festive days. Usually, I feel a lot more festive leading up to the *big day* but this year not so much. I've decided that because I don't really have coworkers that this is why I have such malaise. I mean, it makes sense right? Normally, part of the whole lead up to Christmas is talking to your colleagues about all the shopping you're doing, the tales of conquering a person's gift or failing miserably etc etc. I do have A coworker, but we're in separate offices so chit chatting is often at a minimum. She's also not in all the time because her position takes her out of the office a lot more than mine. So yes, basically, a lot less Christmas chit chat was going on at work for me and I think that affected my overall festive spirit.

Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas but I seriously could not get it through my head that Christmas was coming. I had done all my shopping so it's not like I was ill-prepared in that fashion, I just didn't feel very festive. Anyway, it has come and gone now and it all worked out and by the time the day was upon us I was just as festive as anyone else.

Wow. What a great day.

Worked my butt off all day...but in a good way.

Had a great dinner with colleagues.

Travelled over to a mall to take care of the boy's Christmas gift.

Met a lovely person from BC on my way back to the hotel.

This is why I love that I am independent and comfortable in a great many different situations. I'm good at spending time alone. I'm great at travelling by myself. And then I'm perfectly comfortable to start a conversation with someone.

And I'm glad that I have a boy who loves these things about me.

Win Win Win all around


(I only mention the boy because I've been in relationships where the guy actually hasn't been that comfortable with that side of me, often due to him being insecure)

On Sunday, we fell back an hour. Each year when we spring forward, I remind myself that in the fall I'll gain an hour of sleep. Now that time has come for this year and I have mixed feelings.

You see, Sunday went quite well. I had stayed up far too late Friday night and any sleep I get past 830am appears to be useless so even though I slept until 1030, I probably should have just gotten up at 830. Anyway. Saturday night I was exhausted as was the boy. We went to bed early (10/1030), because we're cool like that. Sunday morning he actually kind of slept in considering he's been setting his alarm for 4am recently (it used to be 5am). It was by accident (alarm not set properly) but it worked out well because he had been sick and it helped to clear up a lot of that. And then I proceeded to sleep until about 9am. Yes, 9am after the time change. Now, keep in mind that I wake up for about an hour to two hours when he gets up. And I also take about an hour to fall asleep (unlike he who sleeps like a rock and falls asleep in a flash). But still, that's a lot of sleep. And then I read for an hour. YAY!

Sunday night I went to bed around 10/1030 again. Sweet. I figured I'd be able to get up a bit earlier than my usual last minute o'clock. And I was even kind of right about that. Didn't LEAVE any earlier but I did get to take longer to get ready for work so that's a plus.

Monday night comes along. I've had a somewhat stressful afternoon/evening. Nothing all that huge but just a bunch of small things that added up and basically left me feeling like I could cry at any minute. Hey, I'm sensitive, whatever.

Again we went to bed early. 10? I thought awesome, I'm totally going to get up at 6. This is going to be great! 3am rolls around and I wake up. And basically I watched the minutes tick by until 7 when I actually got up. That's not to say I didn't get ANY more sleep but boy, it was sparse. At 330 I wanted to cry I was so upset about feeling restless and how it was RUINING MY PLAN!!! (Type A much???)

I'm tired, yo.

At about 4am I was cursing the time change. Blaming it for all my misery.

I think it was actually a combination of the time change, my stress level, and the fact that the boy was sleeping poorly. He usually doesn't move at all and I'm basically the princess from the princess and the pea. He was moving around and that definitely was having an impact on me. Oi.

Anyway, now it's nearly 1230 and I'm, uh, overtired I think. I had a conference call that lasted until 11 and I haven't quite wound down from that yet. SIGH.

I thought I had espaced this time change unscathed. Alas, I was wrong.

I just wrote a post and of course, blogger messed up and it's gone. That's it. I'm not re-writing it but the jist of it was that I am going to start taking notes when blog posts come to mind while I'm driving to work. Taking notes on pen and paper, no cell phone...that's against the law :)

Be back tomorrow

Sick

I have had a cold now for two weeks. It gets better then worse then better then worse. It's never quite as bad as those first few days but ugh, does it suck. Today, I'm feeling especially gross but I think it's because it's been going on for soooo long and I just want it to be done. Now. I'm sure I'll be in bed and fast asleep by 10 tonight.

You know how when you're not very sick, you just keep on going and so it takes longer to get rid of? That's definitely what's going on here. Today, I had to go to a meeting and I ended up being dragged to The Bay with my mom (a post for tomorrow perhaps!). But otherwise I have been napping/relaxing so I'm hoping this pays off. Cross your fingers for me.

Hopefully, when I feel better tomorrow (positive thoughts!), I will write tomorrow about my "lovely" experience at The Bay downtown. Unimpressed barely describes the experience.

I recently went to Toronto on a work trip. I actually had the opportunity to be a bit of a tourist rather than be stuck in a hotel working the whole time so that part was really nice. What wasn't nice was trying to find places to eat around my hotel. OMG that was brutal. I ended up having one dinner at The Keg which was nice since a lot of their stuff is very gluten free friendly and they even have a separate menu which was a nice touch but of course, that's a bit more expensive. However, much more reasonable than the lunch I had at my hotel. OMG. BRUTAL. Which is what lead to me wanting to find a different place for lunch the next day.

I hopped on Google to try to figure out what was near by and noticed there was a Boston Pizza not far away. They have GF pizza's that are just sooooooooo good. Except, while it looked not far away it was a good 15 minute walk from my hotel in plus 35 (celsius) heat. Awesome. And when I got there they were full and the wait was 20 minutes and I was dying of the heat. I ended up deciding to go elsewhere which was pretty much my 2nd mistake (my first was not opting to go to The Keg again for lunch, lol). I ended up going to a couple other places and reading their menu outside to decide if I wanted to go inside. Except, I didn't. I ended up at Tony Roma's and when I asked the manager there about GF options he was USELESS. I'm sorry but if the manager is useless, then it's really just a pointless restaurant excursion because OMG if they don't get it, their staff won't either. I ended up having fries. yay!!!!!! Anyway, I later found out that all their rib sauces are GF so I could have had ribs but since the manager was useless, I didn't know that. Woohoo.

Anyway, I figured Toronto would be super eassy to find GF food because hello, huge city! That means more people with a special diet like this. But nope, I had bigger obstacles than in Winnipeg. Although, I'm pretty sure the only reason I don't have huge obstacles here is that I'm familiar with the lay of the land as it were and so I know where to go. And I have a car so I can go wherever I please rather than being at the mercy of where I can walk/taxi/bus without getting lost. Oh well!!! I was there for a conference of sorts and I must say, they were awesome at ensuring GF meals HOWEVER, my only complaint is that I had to find a server and ask them for my food (it was a buffet for most people). I felt like this created an obstacle as well as singled me out. I work in the disabilities community and I really strongly believe in eliminating barriers. I hate when people need to ask for a key to an elevator in order to ensure accessibility, that type of thing however, I felt like I was basically "asking for the key" in order to get my lunch. I really just wish they had had the buffet items labelled as to what they are with a little "GF" symbol next to them. If I couldn't get protein off the GF buffet, then fine, make me ask I guess but almost guaranteed there were items I could have had from the buffet but since they weren't marked, I wasn't going to risk it :(

Anyway, this has made me want to become more involved in advocacy work. I think the more restaurants know about gluten intolerances and the more they know how EASY it is to accommodate then the better. So yes, I am on a mission. Watch out.

In happier news, I discovered Kinni-Kritters this week. Yum!!! I've been a wee bit jealous of my nephew because he can have all the animal crackers he wants but yay now I can have them too!!! Other than bread and pasta, there aren't a ton of gluten type foods that I love. I like cookies but I don't love them so no big deal. I've really only ever like chocolate cake/brownies and I have a store that makes FAB GF brownines so that dilema is solved. And Glutino makes amazing crackers that I love. The Kinni-Kritters just completes the "missing" food from my life. YAY!!!

Back to School Time

I still totally think of this time of year as back to school time. Will I ever grow out of that?

I don't have kids so it's weird that I think that way. Although, my fabulous farmer DOES have a kid so that COULD explain why this year I am thinking of it as being back to school time (FF is the primary caregiver). Hmmmmmmmmm.

Regardless. It is now September 7th and I feel weird that I haven't bought a back to school outfit for myself....It's been 3 years since I finished Uni and gosh, 8 years since I finished high school. WTF?

I bought a new computer today.

Maybe I should back up.

I am a computer killer. For real. I know computers, I understand computers but somehow they die on me.

Three years ago this month I bought my last computer. It was after the fan died on my laptop, we didn't know and decided to run a disc defrag. Guess what? It overheated and DIED. Melted the motherboard. YaY! So right before I moved to Vancouver I had to buy a new laptop. Not exactly where I wanted to put the last of my money, but okay. I did need it in order to find a job when I got there.

So that one was the fan. K.

The replacement was a lemon. Something didn't work properly so I went to exchange it. That didn't go well since they didn't have a replacement and somehow things were rung in screwy but after a 2 hour "discussion" at the store we finally got it sorted.

WELL. The new laptop was even more of a lemon. Over the first two years of having it I had to reinstall the operating system probably four times. Fine. I also had to have the hard drive replaced twice. This was under an extended warranty. Whatever. Well, that warranty ended a year ago so I actually took it in a couple days before the warranty ended just to make sure it was "fine". It was. Darn, no replacement for me.

Just short of a year after the extended warranty ended it died. The fan broke and it was overheating like CRAZY. After 15 to 20 minutes of use it would slow to a snails pace and threaten to die. Ugh. That is absolutely no kid. And when you consider that it was at its max for memory (at 2 gigs) and the fan didn't work, the little plastic hooks that hold it shut had long ago broken off, it had about 20-30 minutes of battery life and half the usb ports didn't work. There was no point in trying to fix it. After three years I don't think it owed me anything.

I should mention that this was one of two laptops I was using. The other one crapped out three days earlier. After having run a diagnostic test we determined that there was no fixing it.

Both of these laptops crapped out on me around the same time about 26 months ago. This was when one was brand new (work related) and the other was about 10 months into its warranty. They died within days of each other.

Makes sense that they died within days of each other again. This time it just wasn't worth it to fix them (it was free before).

Now I have a pretty new laptop that runs oh so fast and doesn't have vista. Sweet. AND I can listen to music while surfing the internet without having it plugged in and it still lasts quite awhile. None of this 20 mintues crap. Currently I'm listening to Dashboard Confessional. I don't think I've listened to "them" in about 4 years but I'm loving it. Shhhh, tell no one.

This all sums up with the conclusion that I am terrible to laptops. I bought the stupid three year warranty and I guarantee you that I WILL be getting a replacement laptop. Guaranteed this thing dies three times before that 3 years is out. IF I had bought the three year warranty three years ago, I'd be using a free replacement laptop right now (it died about 7 days before the three year mark, amazingly.

Being gluten-free

About 6 weeks ago I cut out gluten. It's been at times quite trying but definitely a really great decision.

The story -- stop reading now if you're squeemish --

You see, I've spent nearly 8 years in pain. Nearly 8 years of wondering why I was so sick all the time. Not sick in the contagious sense, I have a great immune system. Sick in the bloated, frequent BM, tired but can't sleep properly come night time, gas, migraines, iron deficiency, "IBS" (what a b*ll sh*t thing by the way), etc. The biggest, most annoying thing was the whole needing to run to the bathroom about 30 minutes after EVERY MEAL! Okay, maybe not every meal, just about 95% of them. It was horrible. So I was trying to just eat healthy and properly and not have food with preservatives as much as possible. I mean, during this time we also discovered I couldn't wear contacts anymore and they figured it was likely from the preservatives that are involved so it would totally make sense that it would be preservatives hurting my tummy. Except, this didn't completely solve things and my doctor just said "oh you have IBS" and "oh well some people just have that many BMs in a day". Seriously? 3 times a day? 3?? And in that um...shall we say consistency? Oh, and let's not forget that during this time I've suffered through on and off again bouts of fissures. YAY!!!!!!!!

I've also known about Celiac Disease during most of this time however refused to believe that that's what was going on. What I didn't realize is that you can have a gluten intolerance as opposed to a gluten allergy (which is what Celiac Disease is).

Over the last 8 years more and more people have figured out that they have this problem and over the last 8 years more and more food has become available in more tradional grocery stores. Now, you can actually go to your local grocery store and find special gluten free foods rather than driving half way across town to a little tiny store that charges an arm and a leg for these things. Now, I do totally support the little guy but um dang this stuff can be EXPENSIVE!!

So about 7 weeks ago I said to my doctor "can we do the blood test for gluten sensitivity". "sure" he said. So a week later I did the test. And right after that I stopped eating gluten. Guess what? I felt so much better. I didn't even realize how bloated I always felt. Apparently, I was just always bloated but sometimes I was EXTRA bloated. Oi! How terrible! Well, the test has since come back negative but, here's the thing. Those tests aren't terribly accurate AND I really wasn't eating tons and tons of gluten before the test (which I have since learned is QUITE important).

There have been two occassions where I knowlingly ate something with gluten in it. 4 weeks ago I ate a hot dog with a regular bun. I spent the next 24 hours with gas cramps. And this last week I ate something that had just a weeeee bit of breading and yup, gas cramps for 18 hours. But, was it worth it? Hell yah! I loved every bite. But something tells me I should be confirming that it's a gluten intolerance and not Celiac Disease (I should point out that I generally don't crave things that have gluten in them because I KNOW it could make me feel VERY crappy and it is sooooo nice to not feel crappy).

Now that things will be calming down a bit at work I'll be going to visit my doctor again to talk about these developments and see what our next steps are. I may have to find a proper doctor (as in, not the doctor I've seen since I was 5) and start down this path with a new doctor. But, it should be an interesting journey.

I've been reading a lot of blog postings lately that are reminiscing about when those writers started blogging...back in the day. You know, when it was an online journal. I myself started out at diaryland back in December of 2003. Gosh, that was so long ago. In December of 2003 I was 19 and in my 2nd year of university. I'm 26 now and so much has changed. Unfortunately, the last couple years I've spent allllll my time reading about other people's lives (because they are so fascinating!!!) and not much time at all chronicling my own life. The funny thing though is that each day I compose an entry in my head while driving to work. For real. And then I never put pen to paper or in this case, fingers to keyboard. I am once again vowing to do more of this. Writing every few months or more is just not working for me. I love to write. It gives me an opportunity to reflect on the events of the day and I love that. I suppose that's why I still compose entries in my head all the time. Hmmmm.

Today is a busy day for me. I haven't decided (still!!) how much to share regarding certain key indicators that would identify me. I adore and applaud those who do but am not sure if I can do it yet myself so I suppose I won't be sharing what it is that is so busy about today but rest assured, today is a very important day for me professionaly.

And I just want to say, in case sometimes I forget, that my boyfriend is mighty sweet sometimes. He isn't big on mushy, sentimental things, but this morning he texted to wish me a fun day and wake me up. Awwwwww. lol. But really, I know when he does stuff like that that he actually, truly means it because he isn't about saying things for the sake of saying things. Does that make sense?

Anyway, in closing I hope to be here a lot more often and I hope to be writing a little about what's been going on the last few years to fill in some gaps. I want to be able to remember some of these things when I'm older so I better get cracking!!!

A Passing

This Saturday marks the one year passing of a friend and coworker's death. He committed suicide. I'm not really sure how he did it, I'm not even sure if it matters. I know that sometimes I wonder because I guess I wonder if it will somehow help me to understand why he did it.

He was recently married. Seriously. He had been married what, 12 days?? 12 days. They had gone on a holiday for a week and then returned to work on the Monday. By Thursday he was in our boss' office telling him he was stressed out, he couldn't handle what was going on. Which, was understandable. We were all stressed. I mean, we were preparing to host thousands of athletes from around the work in less than two months. We had way too small a budget, not enough staff, and were trying to make miracles happen. But where some people thrive on this sort of stress, others falter. I guess he faltered.

Our boss assured him we would assign help to him. He wasn't sure how it would be done but that he would make sure it happened. Of course, this wasn't about the job. We gather it was about his entire life because generally these things are not only about one stressful piece in the puzzle of life but rather a perfect storm of multiple things. Perhaps this was the straw that broke the camels back, but perhaps there were thigns we didn't really know about. To be honest, we were "just his coworkers" so it's not like we ended up getting answers to questions we so desperately needed answers to. It was and still is awful.

I use quotations around "just his coworkers" because as any one working an event knows, working as part of such a close knit team on something so huge means really becoming a family. So while maybe his flesh and blood family didn't understand how close we all were, we definitely were close. I spent a lot of my time speaking with this friend, getting to know him and understand him. Sure, he drove me absolutely bonkers at times but he was still a part of my work family and I understand where he came from.

Anyway, our boss sent him home to try to relax. Told him we'd work it out. Less than 24 hours later he went missing never to be seen alive again.

Searches were organized, tearful pleas were made. In early July a body was found in an area where we thought he may have gone. We weren't told about this at the time. It was the Sunday before our massive event started that we found out for sure that he had killed himself. I received an email from a family member. I was sitting at a stoplight at an intersection when it came through. It was a long light so I started reading it realizing that the sender was a family member of his. I was very fortunate in that I was less than five minutes away from the office (yes it was Sunday but realize we were a week away from things really getting going). (To clarify, the event was to start in just under two weeks but realize that an event unofficially starts a week earlier.)

I managed to get myself to the office with tears streaming down my cheeks. There were only a couple people in the office when I got there which was a relief. And those people had already heard. I went to my desk and cried. I was grateful to know the outcome but just couldn't believe that this was happening. That someone so full of life was gone. That he couldn't handle whatever struggles he was facing even though he fully seemed on the outside to be someone who could handle anything and everything life threw at him. He was newly married for goodness sake!

It's been nearly a year and I still haven't fully come to terms with it. 90% of the time I'm fine. But when I think about it I just can't understand. I've grieved the death of a loved one before but always a death where it was easy to reconcile in your head. Older relatives, individuals with a degenerative illness that was terminal etc. Never someone so young and so....well, not sick. Not sick in a way that can be diagnosed with concrete tests. No, depression and all mental illnesses are much different than that. And it's hard to really reconcile that. I feel anger, sadness, disbelief, confused, and a whole myriad of other feelings. The grief process, as I have found, is completely different when someone commits suicide. When someone chooses to end their own life. And my feelings are felt all at once, just to add to the confusion. And I don't think it needs to be explained but none of these emotions is straight forward on its own either. The anger is anger towards him, towards myself, towards a system and society that fails men more often than woman (boys don't cry afterall....), anger towards him for doing this to his family, his work family, his brand new wife. Sadness that he didn't think we could help, sadness that his wife lost her husband so soon, sadness that his parents had to bury their son, disbelief that he isn't here, that I know someone who was hurting this bad, that he left us all, confused that this has all happened, that he couldn't find his way out. I could go on and on.

We found out after his death was confirmed that he had left a note. I still don't know what the note said, I know nothing. I wonder if that would even make a difference. Probably not. I would probably be just as confused as ever.

What I do know is that this weekend I will be mourning the loss of such a great individual. I will be praying in my own way that this won't happen every again and that we can find a better way to reach out to individuals who are feeling this way and help them find their way out of it. And I will be praying that I NEVER know another person who feels so lost, so confused, that they don't feel they can reach out to me or anyone else for help.

This weekend, I will be taking time to reflect on all that has happened and try to find a way to make a difference.

I started my new job about two weeks ago. It's been pretty interesting thus far. I've learned some things and I've contributed so that's nice. I'm currently on my second trip in less than two weeks but I don't think I'll have to travel again for awhile. I've been driving a lovely Niss@n @ltim@ which is actually pretty. I'm a G*M girl so I haven't really driven many other types of cars but this one has definitely been pretty awesome. I can say that it is definitely a car that is comfortable on a road trip since I drove it 3.5 hours yesterday and again today.

Last week's trip involved spending a day and a half with my new boss (she lives in a different city) and it was really interesting to get to know her. She also came out to Winnipeg at the beginning of the week and that was great too. She has so much knowledge that I can't wait to see what I can learn from her. Anyway, it was really great to learn that they had interviewed 6 people and that I was head and shoulders above the other candidates. I searched for so long to find the right position for me so to hear that definitely was an ego boost. Some of the other candidates had better resumes than me (better in terms of previous experience not in terms of how well it was written) but just turned out to fall flat I guess when they actually came in to interview. Apparently by the end of the day they knew they were going to hire me. YAY!!!

Ego boosts are so much fun!

Life of Leisure comes to an end

I start my new job tomorrow. That's right. I gots me a job!

I'll be working in a fundraising type role that involves working with special events (hence the attraction). It's a bit different than the events that I've worked for the last few years but I think that it is the right direction for me to go career-wise. There are definitely more opportunities to do this type of work (although, it is still a relatively small field though) so I'm super excited to be starting down this road.

BTW, road trip went well!! We had some hiccups, some pretty big hiccups but for us it was nothing. We just rolled with the punches which is kind of how we roll everywhere else so why wouldn't a road trip be the same I suppose!

I am not good at making up names for posts

Just some quick updates:

1. I have broken out with 4 pimples in a lovely crimson shade. Booooo!!!

2. I have a couple interviews this week. One which I am hopeful for, but am trying to not get toooooo excited about. (I actually think I have a good shot at both BUT one is out of town, not so good)

3. I am going on a road trip this weekend with my lovely boy. There will be two full days of driving by the end of it so that should be interesting! We've never fought so hopefully we don't start (not that we actively avoid fights, we usually agree on things OR if we don't have the same opinion/view point we listen to each other instead of turning it into a fight. I've only really felt mildly annoyed a couple times but for things that haven't happened again so I'm happy about that!)

4. I hope he likes my friend that we're visiting. We're visiting with her, her husband, and their baby. It should be fun. I can't imagine why it wouldn't be. He agreed to go and without me having to convince him or make too many pouty faces (haha). But I still can't help but feel a wee bit nervous. I think that's normal though.

BUSY!

I feel so out of touch with the blog world right now. I am severely behind in my readings and since I added a whole slew of blogs over the last 4 weeks I am more behind than ever before! I hope to rectify that over the next couple of days.

You see, the problem is that I have a life I guess. But not even that really. I generally read blogs before I go to sleep. This usually means about an hour of reading. Which would probably be enough to keep up to date. But then 2-3 nights a week I spend out in the country where my boyfriend lives. And he has dial up. So there is no going on the internet before bed. Which is fine, because I have HIM before bed. But it does mean falling behind. And I'm a bit sad about that. I don't even work right now so when I start working, I guess I'll fall behind even more? That's hard to say for sure simply because I pretty much am working full time right now. Full time looking for a job!

Hopefully my next post is more entertaining.

Job Search Update!

Last week was definitely a rough week for me professionally. I felt pretty defeated and that's not a great feeling. This week, already, things seem to be going better!!

Last week I found out I didn't get a job that I really truly wanted. I felt pretty down about it but while I was down about it I did some things that I think were pretty important.

1. I signed up for a job search workshop available through Employment M@nitoba. It started today. Not sure how much I'll learn but if I even learn 1 thing that I can do better in my search then I think this will be helpful. I don't have a job so it's not like spending a few days there can hurt. Gets me out and about a bit more so there's a bonus too!

2. I sent out some of what I call "cold emails" kind of like cold calls, but in email form. I sent them to places I'd be interested in working for. I sent out only a few of these and guess what, 2 have already contacted me to meet with me. They don't have jobs available right now but it's still good to meet with them because they could in the future or they may know people that are looking and pass on my name. YAY! They say it's not what you know, it's who you know and that is 100% true. Even more so in my industry.

3. I sent an email to an organization I like about doing some volunteer work for them. It would be good for them and good for me. And they wrote back very interested in having me volunteer with them (that wasn't really a surprise I suppose) but also asking if I'd like to apply for a position that they have open right now!!! I have been on all the job boards and have not seen this job posted anywhere but maybe they only posted it today. Who knows! But it's nice that they are asking me if I'd be interested in applying! Doesn't guarantee me an interview but still! It makes me feel good about myself that they even asked me!!!

4. I met some cool people today at day 1 of workshops. They are all so nice and friendly. None of them are on a similar career path to me but honestly, it's like 15 or 20 people in a room and there are about 15 to 20 career paths going on. Very diverse group of people. It'll be interested to see what I can learn from them. And to see what will be refreshed in my memory!

5. I'm going to a To@stmasters group tonight. I'm just going to check them out. See if they are the right group for me (ie: to see if I'm comfortable) and I'll go from there. I'd like to work on my public speaking skills and from what I hear, this is THE way to do it. So here's hoping.

6. I think I had other things that are exciting but I can't think of them right now. Oh well!!

Winter is on it's way out here in the Peg and that's a good good thing. I feel like with Spring will come some great opportunities and I'm feeling really good about it all. (Hopefully I'm not sitting here typing the same thing about summer! haha oi!)