Retrospective – 25

Yep, that’s me – calculator in-hand at two.  An omen of nerd-dom that should have been heeded.

Today is my 26th birthday.  At 4.20am (go ahead, make some jokes), February 2, 1984, I poked my lil’ peanut head into the world, stuck my tongue out at my mother, and promptly became a joyous pain in everyone’s ass.  It’s been a good ride so far.

Every birthday I like to take a look at the previous year and see what I’ve done, how far I’ve come.  This is what Year 25 held for me:

• I married my amazingfantastic husband
• I moved to Oshawa
• I held my job for the 6th full, consecutive year
• I discovered the wonders of the blogsphere
• I started Jaka’s Tea Party
• I helped define and found a new social movement
• I started collaging again
• I branched out into new media
• I read 17 books
• I got my first pap in 3 years
• I started growing out my hair with its natural colour
• I began manymanymany new and exciting friendships
• I supported and loved my family and old friends
• I fell many steps back on my path to self
• I felt the absence of spirituality in my life
• I worried about moneyworklovesexfutureeverything
• I gave in to crushing panic and euphoric joy
• I had to decide if I could afford to cure my cat (I did)
• I maxed out my credit card
• I stayed home instead of going to the biggest social event on my calendar
• I attended the last-ever Bad Film Festival at the KCKPL
• I traveled to Mexico for the first time
• I went to Disneyworld!

In all, it’s been a fairly quiet year.  We’re so far away from our family and friends out here that not much happens in my life.  Even my introspection has come to a standstill (which bothers me immensely).  A lot of amazing and huge life changes happened last year, for which I am immensely grateful to the universe, yet I look back and feel that I could have done so much better on a personal level.  I could have done better by myself, could have been more in touch with and respectful of myself.

Here’s to Year 26.

Edited: February 2nd, 2010

One Vacation to the Next

Hey loyal awesome people!  I know you’ve all been dying to see more in my little space since I’ve been on vacation.  Hopefully those Mexico pics will satisfy your voyeuristic needs.  But!  There is a little bit of temporary bad news.

While I was away, I had a heart to heart with my momma and realized exactly how much I do in a day that’s not necessarily what I want to do and how stressed out that makes me.  In light of that, I’ve decided to take a break from the blogsphere for a bit (blogcation?).  Let’s call it until February after my birthday.  That means there’ll be no postage here and no wholestyle roundups until I get back.

No, I’m not quitting.  Yes, I’ll be working on other sekrit projekts in the meantime.

Here’s what I’ll be working on (besides, yanno, work):

• Designing a true home for the wholestyle philosophy
• Establishing better ways to construct the roundups
• Sewing more Roogaboos
• Collaging in mass quantities
• Branching out into using objects in collage
• Reading The Complete Sherlock Holmes (published 1938)
• Playing Final Fantasy IX (bitches)
• Going to movies with my husband

Sound like a plan?  Awesome.  I’ll see you back here in February, then!  And, just to tide you over, here’s a hair update for you:

Edited: January 9th, 2010

What Happens in Mexico…

Over the holidays, my brother and I traipsed down to New Mexico to meet up with my mom, her boyfriend, and his son in anticipation of a week-long sunstravaganza on the beaches of San Felipe, Mexico.  Whoohoo!  We ate soooooo many tacos and drank soooooo many margaritas.  We fished, we camped, we shopped.  And no one got kidnapped, stabbed, robbed, or contracted Montezuma’s Revenge.  Hooray!

You can flip over to my Flickr page to see the other good ones (the not-so-great and the family pics stay safely on my hard drive, thank you).  And keep watching this space!  Got a short announcement coming up soon (nothing terrible special, I promise).

Edited: January 8th, 2010

Best of 2009: Word of the Year

Main Entry: abide
Pronunciation: \ə-ˈbīd\
Function: verb

transitive verb 1 : to wait for : await
2 a : to endure without yielding : withstand b : to bear patiently : tolerate
3 : to accept without objection

intransitive verb 1 : to remain stable or fixed in a state
2 : to continue in a place : sojourn

This year has been a time of change for me.  I moved to a new country, established a home, planned a wedding/got married, cared for a dying car, had a kitty crisis, joined a gym, started a blog, and founded a philosophy.  That adds up to a lot of stress on my part; historically, something I’ve not been very good at handling.

But this year, it’s been different.  I magically found myself able to roll with (most) punches instead of freaking out  (although I did fall into hystronics occasionally).  Wedding details blew up, and I managed to ignore my inner control freak to smooth them over, and I never turned into a Bridezilla (even after people told me I’m totally that kind of person).  I’ve gotten a stronger grip on my irrational jealousy, as well as my desperate need to please other people.  While it’s not all perfectly erased, my tendencies toward despair are melting away.  Maybe it’s maturity, maybe it’s short-term memory loss.  Either way, I’m welcoming the change.

And thus my word of the year is abide.

Not in the I’m-a-doormat kinda way, but in that The-Dude-Abides kinda way.

I’ve learned the art of abiding.

Edited: December 31st, 2009

Best of 2009: New Person

You guys can probably already guess this one; I talk about her enough that you guys probably think we’re “special friends”.  My favourite new person this year is Birdie.

I met her through Twitter (after stalking her site and twitterfeed for about a month) during the setup period of my blog.  I’d been bitching and moaning about how very little I know about CSS, and she swooped in with DMs and eventually email to help me get on my feet.  Sweet, right?

We got to talking one day after exchanging personal email/Gchat info, and I explained my wholestyle idea to her.  Through a series of conversations spanning days, she helped me put my nebulous feelings into words, effectively translating all my crazies into a coherent and real philosophy (which you can read here).  I couldn’t ask for a better partner in crime!

After getting past all the initial “are you a crazy person from the internet” weirdness, both of us opened up and we started talking every day about just about anything.  Turns out we get along awesome (although that’s not to say we haven’t butted heads (cos there’ve been some doozy days)).  We bounce creative ideas off each other, vent when shit’s fucked up, confide our fears, get each other out of “the hole”, crack each other up, drool over fashion we can’t afford, and generally wish we didn’t live on completely opposite sides of the continent.

So yeah.

Birdie,

Thank you for doing everything you do; I couldn’t have done any of this without your help, encouragement, and persistant ass-kicking.  Thank you for sharing your fears with me and listening to mine.  Thank you for making me giggle at completely immature things like poop and farts.  Thank you for enduring my obsession with Robert Downey, Jr.  Thank you for reminding me that I’m amazing when I feel the least worth the dirt I’m made of.  Thank you for lending me writing space when I had none.  Thank you for sending me links to Bloggess articles and LOLcats all day.  Thank you for letting me comfort you as best I can when you’re sad.  Thank you for valuing my opinion.  Thank you for putting trust in me.

Like everything in our lives, we’ve had ups and downs in our short time knowing each other, but I think every minute has been supremely worth it.

Thank you for being my Super Twin (or Borg Sister, whichever it is today).

xxxooo,

Edited: December 28th, 2009

Genuine Health’s Multi+Joy Vitamins: Natural Mood Enhancer Review

You may remember a while back when Gala Darling raved about the Canadian miracle vitamins that she bought while in Toronto.  It seems like everyone, including me and the lovely Ginger (who reviewed the Daily Greens), hopped on that bandwagon and rushed to check out Genuine Health’s line of supplements for themselves.

Now, I’ve had a long history of un-professionally diagnosed mood disorder (which runs in my family) and Canada’s got long, dark winters, so I thought I’d give their happy-pill formula a shot, Multi+Joy.  Here’s the breakdown of “special” ingredients from their site:

Selenium: Clinical studies show Selenium supplementation can improve anxiety and depression.

Chromium: Studies show Chromium supplementation can improve symptoms of depression and control carbohydrate cravings.

Magnesium: Proven to help mood disorders including bipolar, chronic fatigue syndrome and PMS.

Folic Acid: Studies show Folic Acid may have a beneficial effect on mood-regulating neurotransmitters.

Vitamin B12: Those with mental disorders have been found to be low in B12. Leading health experts recommend 800 mcg of Folic Acid and 1000 mcg (B12).

Vitamin D: Studies show 400-800 UI can improve mood during winter months. Also proven to positively influence attention, motivation, and alertness.

Sounds pretty good, right?  And it’s actually been fairly great.  Coming up to the end of the bottle, I’ve noticed the following things:

• I fall into “the hole” less
• When I do fall in, I’m there for less time and for real reasons
• I’m chipper and upbeat more than usual
• I do crave less sugar, starch, and carbs
• I’m not boredom-eating
• I’ve lost enough waterweight/bloat that I fit better in my pants

I’ve been on SSRIs before (several years ago) because I was crying at cat food commercials and any not-100%-positive comment would send me into a two-day spiral.  Not a happy place to be.  But I went off them because I hated feeling so muted all the time.  Everything about me had been turned down a few notches, including my good feelings and perfectly normal emotional reactions.  I couldn’t stand feeling like my natural highs and lows had been wiped out in favour of a grey in-between.  So I quit.

And I noticed a slight resemblance with the Multi+Joy, but only in one very specific way: I can’t cry.  I know that sounds great, but it’s kind of not.  I still have the wonderful highs, I’m able to let small/medium things go much easier, I’ve got more emotional control.  But there are certain things that should make you cry.  Like little old ladies in the mall cooing over their baby grandkids, puppies and kittens snuggling each other, getting your feelings hurt by something meaningful, missing your SO/mommy/best friend.  Since I’ve been taking these vitamins (and I just noticed this recently), I’ll get the upwelling of emotional response, but there’s no release.  It’s very frustrating.

So that’s weird.  I’m not sure I’ll keep taking these, at least not at the two-pill-a-day dose.  I love that I’m not muted while getting the intended benefit; even Mr. Man has noticed that I’m not sad anymore.  But is it worth giving up being able to tear up a little when it’s totally normal?  I’m not sure yet.  I’ll keep you posted.

Edited: December 24th, 2009

Best of 2009: Project

My best project of 2009?  It’s a two-way tie between starting Jaka’s Tea Party and rolling out the Wholestyle Manifesto.  Which works out since they’re inter-related anyway.

Back at the launch of this site, I wrote a little intro explaining how I got here.  I’ll repost the important parts for those too lazy to go back and find it (including me):

Enter Doe Deere and the ever-popular Gala Darling. Cliche by now, I know. I stumbled on these lovely ladies completely by accident and it opened up a whole new wing of the internet for me. So colourful! So positive! So hip! So sassy! I was totally agog. And so I dove deeper and deeper, discovering so many fashionable nooks and explosive crannies (my, but that sounds dirty, doesn’t it) that my head nearly imploded. What a wonderful section of blogsphere I’d stumbled upon! I fell in love.

Then the pieces matched up and I thought, “Hey…I should do this!”

[...]  Jaka’s Tea Party is a work in progress. I’m still searching for a solid theme to follow and a gajillion other things too boring or terrifying (for me) to mention.  I have no set posting schedule, no backlog of articles, no lists of topics, no general plan whatsoever as of yet. But it’ll come. The best advice I’ve read so far has been from the inspiring Ms. Nubby Twiglet – “While preparation is great, perfection is impossible. Waiting isn’t doing you any favors.” It’s hard for me to swallow, I’ll admit, but I’m taking baby steps toward changing my neurotic need for everything to be justright before I unveil it.

Six months later, I’ve gone through some good times and some tough times, finding out a lot about myself in the process.  I love that I have this little space in the web, but I often wonder why I do it.  There’s a lot of introspection that goes on every day to see where I want to take it, along with all kinds of metacognition about blogging.

The wholestyle project is actually the seed of my entire foray into the web and the impetus for this site.  I wanted to come up with a term for what I feel is the key to true style: knowledge and culture.  I’m so freaking passionate about this idea and I’m having a hell of a time getting the word out.  I want to shout it out from the rooftops, hand out flyers like a weirdo on the street, send postcards to strangers.  Thankfully, Miss Birdie has been absolutely incredible in her support and her help has gotten lots of amazing people to hear the gospel.

The dream is to have a network site where people can come to exchange ideas, share information, chitchat, write, and generally just create a community for the philosophy.  With any luck, my purchase of a supersekrit domain name will pay off in the next month or so and we’ll be able to move forward with the project.  I wish I had more to write about this, but I find that I have trouble putting the emotions into words when it comes to my passions (something I’ll have to work on).

Thanks to all of you for supporting me and my wacky ideas.  Yes, I struggle with it, but it’s wonderful people like you reading this right now that keep me at it and sorting out the kinks.  I’m glad you’ve all buckled in for the ride.

Edited: December 21st, 2009

Coming to Terms with My Hair

I haven’t seen my natural hair colour in 10 years.

Until I cut all the blue and bleach of out it, ending up with about an inch of dark, ash-blonde fuzz.

The Saga of My Hair has been a long, fascinating story spanning a full decade.  When I was in junior high, I decided that I wanted to have blue hair, but my mom strictly forbid it until I was 16 (at which point and since then she’s helped me with it).  I didn’t start there, sadly – the first experiment was with Natural Instincts brightest red – but over the years, my hair’s been nearly every colour I could get my hands on.  I’ve had white, black, natural brown/red/blonde, fire-engine red, midnight blue, royal blue, turquoise, apple green, ultraviolet, and bubblegum pink.

People always asked my why I did the crazy colours.  Am I being a rebel?  Sticking it to someone?  Trying to be a punk?  Trying to be fashionable?  Looking for attention?  But it’s never been about any of that.  Nothing to rebel against, really, and I get plenty of positive attention already.  I do it because I think it’s pretty, and, as someone once sagely commented, because my natural hair colour is the only one that doesn’t look right on me.

And now…

Now I’m going to grow it out, healthy and unchemicaled, for a year.

I’m not sure what spurred the change.  I think it’s got something to do with laziness.  Having to do upkeep on the bleach and the colour in my increasingly-porous hair is pretty time-consuming and can be expensive.  Plus, it’s hell on the hair itself – it shouldn’t stretch when it’s wet, yanno?  And the length has something to do with it, too, I think.  I grew it for a year before the wedding and liked the end result (even if you can’t tell in the pics cos the guy put my hair in a bun!), so I want to see if I can do it again.

But I’ve run into a bit of a brick wall.  I’ve had crazy hair for so long that it’s become part of who I am; losing that aspect of my description, of my beauty, is harder for me to cope with than I’d anticipated.  Like, I know that it’s part of the reason Mr. Man was/is attracted to me.  Now that it’s gone, I find myself feeling extremely vulnerable and worried that he doesn’t think I’m as pretty anymore because I lost that “edginess” (I have the same worry about my piercings, which is why I still have them).  When all that damaged hair hit the salon floor, some new idea opened a crack in some of my issues and I’m working on healing it up.

Part of me is going to miss the little old ladies in the supermarket who say, “Your hair is so beautiful. I wish I could dye mine (insert colour here).”  And the little kids who excitedly tug on their mommy’s and daddy’s shirts saying “Look at her hair!  Can I do that?” in hushed tones.  Part of me is going to wonder if I’m less special now because I’m not colourful or funky.  If I’m going to become bland on the inside to match what I see on the outside.  Part of me is going to feel like my husband doesn’t find me as attractive.  That I’m no longer the hot, sexy mess he first lusted after.

But I’ll go forward and iron it all out and work on other ways to be different.  And I’ll still be special and I’ll still be sexy without my hair to identify me.

Edited: December 14th, 2009

Best of 2009: Article

As many of you know, Mr. Man and I got married back in June (and it was glorious!).  But I’ve always had some rather stinging personal insecurities when it comes to the long-term aspect of my relationship.  They’ve got very little to do with the person I’m with and everything to do with (largely unfounded) fear, centering around infidelity, boredom, expectations, and resentment.  It doesn’t bother me the majority of the time (and definitely not as much as it did when I was younger), but every once in a while something happens and I start sliding into “the hole”, inconsolable until I’ve worked through to the other side.

In the course of my massive internet-reading during the day, I inevitably come across things that trigger me or hit close to something I’m sensitive about.  But this year, because I’d agreed to take my step up my relationship and commit to one man for the rest of my life, I decided that I would make valiant attempts to push through these moments of insecurity on my own. So when these three articles came across my desk, they each turned into a day-long battle with myself full of questions and rationale.  While I won’t go into great detail about my emotional quagmires, I’d like to give a brief overview of why these pieces gave me pause.

• Surviving Infidelity: His, Mine, and Ours: Cheating is one of my biggest relationship fears, and it doesn’t help that it’s comprised of so many different aspects and delicate balances.  The story of this woman’s marriage travelling a rollercoaster of what seems to me the culmination of everything that keeps me up at night had me pinned to my chair.  But in the end it’s okay.  They survive, even though the situation(s) could have been handled with far more grace and maturity.  More than survive, they flourish, finding their love stronger for their growth.  While the story isn’t a happy one, the article both challenged me to think about why I’m afraid of infidelity and gave me hope that it wouldn’t be the end.
• Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear:  Abandonment is another one high on my list – the fear of one day my husband turning to me and saying “I don’t love you anymore.”  I break out in sweats over this if I let it get too far ahead of me.  This woman refused to allow what she believed to be a passing mid-life crisis destroy her or her family by quietly saying “I don’t believe you” and giving her husband six months of space.  And in the end, he realized it wasn’t true; he had just lost his personal pride and took it out in the wrong place.  I wonder if I could be so strong as to weather this kind of storm, should it come.
• It’s Hot! It’s Sexy! It’s…Marriage!:  This article is my favourite (it helps that it’s funny, too).  The other two gave me reasons to think about my issues, but this one filled me so full of hope I thought I’d explode.  Even though he talks about fantasizing about other (younger and prettier) women, which gives me twinges of nausea, and he’s very open about marriage being difficult at times, this guy loves being married.  His dismisses the notions of running off with a newer model, rhapsodizes about his wife, and generally paints it a realistic colour.  I printed this one out, highlighted it, and hung it on my wall.

It’s a bit strange that these articles are the ones that stand out most to me when, in this year alone, I’ve done more recreational “news” reading than any other year of my life. I’ve read about everything from new links in the evolutionary chain to grand disappointment in the new Mickey video game.  But striking my emotional chords seems to really do the trick.  My marriage is extremely important to me (even though I do have trouble vocalizing that sometimes), and I’m actively working to accept the universe’s suggestions in the form of other people’s writing in an effort to quell my fears and move forward.

Edited: December 3rd, 2009

Best of 2009: Trip

[[Many thanks to all the lovely blogladies out there that inadvertantly pointed me to this challenge issued by the illustrious Gwen Bell.  I may not write about all the topics, but I think that December is a wonderful time for reflection, so I'll give it a whirl.]]

Hands-down, the best trip I’ve taken all year was the honeymoon. I wrote about our Orlando Disney adventures a while back, but the rest of the vacation was just as magical.   Both Mr. Man and I couldn’t have been more ready for a getaway; the sunny shores and sparkling sea were exactly what we needed.  In fact, we might even go so far as to look into getting a timeshare (gaspshock!).  Here are my favourite pictures from the best week of my traveling year.

xxxooo,

Edited: December 1st, 2009