It's Been a While

1. It's Sunday morning, I've been lazing for hours, that internal debate raging: do I go into the office and sacrifice Sunday to "the man".  Do I go for a long run now...or later? Can I motivate myself to run today, tired, Sunday-angsted me.
2.  I had a very large coffee, some yogurt, and a piece of buttered bread, standing in my kitchen, and I made lunch for today in case I DO go to the office but then I thought...what to do next? I looked around my (messy, truly) loft and thought about tidying. Sighed. Sat down. Signed in here.
3. I haven't been blogging or even checking in on my blog, or other blogs. I've been reading here and there, as always.  I finished The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud, and I've started on Moonlight Sonata in the Mayo Clinic, a kind of illness memoir interspersed with randoms about medicine.  I'm not sure how I feel about this book yet.  It's by Nora Gallagher if you want to check it out, and for the record, she seems like a bit of a self-obsessed person. I kind of don't like her. Which is affecting my perception of the book.
4.  I have 5 issues of the New Yorker on my kitchen counter, unopened, just sitting there. So ashamed. On an upnote, that means I've picked up my mail in the last three weeks.
5.  I re-read Madness by Marya Hornbacher. What a read, about her battle with bi-polarism and its toll on her life.
6.  I am continuing to train, half-assedly, for this half-marathon on June 1st. Admittedly, I've been good about my kms and recording them. Yesterday was a wind-blown run, very windy, my least favourite condition, uphill, all that.  I ran by the track and noticed, finally, that I could actually see it, the snow had melted enough.  Glimpses of earth, yellowed grass, smells of earth (and of people's dogs' poo, gross, pick up after your damn dog).  After the windy part was over I noticed it wasn't biting cold and the sun felt warmer. I've honestly forgotten that feeling.
7.  On another up note, I went grocery shopping with my mom yesterday so I don't have to do that today. I can meal-prep to my heart's content, and get my whole week of eating planned out.
8.  Am I having more coffee? Because that's what I'm leaning towards right now.
9.  Canada Blooms/Home Show ends today. I went on Wednesday with a co-worker. The Home Show was disappointing, but Canada Blooms was amazing. All those flowers, all those trees, outdoor spaces inside. Orchids, my favourite plant (a relative of the vanilla bean, did you know? Fun fact).
Apparently at the end of the show they give away flowers. That would be today.
10.  Laundry.  Cooking.  Banking.  Washing the floors. Doing my taxes.   Those are also all things that need to get done today.

Happy Sunday. I won't say "Spring" just yet because, well, really, it doesn't feel like it,  I mean, it's minus 8 degrees celsius, and last week on my Sunday run, I couldn't feel my toes for a while, something that rarely happens to me. It was awful.

Happy Sunday anyway. :)

Short 'n Sweet

1. It's Tuesday. And it's still winter. I know you already know, but it's here, it's dark, I'm living it, and I had that feeling driving to work this morning like it's NEVER GOING TO END.
2. Tooth pain. Tooth problems. Horrible. Awful. Hot. Cold. The dentist. Ouch.
3. Kitchens. And business stuff.  The business stuff is kind of killing my creativity and I kind of need that to design kitchens. I need alot of it, really.
4. Olympics. I'm not watching them, ok? It's my own personal boycott, I'm not going to talk about it (maybe on Facebook and Twitter) and I'm not going to judge the athletes for competing because they've trained and trained and it's not their fault that Russia got chosen. But still. Still. Canada. I'm disappointed.
5. Work. More work. Oh my God.  I can't believe I have not gone south yet this year.
6. I'm drinking wine. It's Tuesday, it's supposed to snow tomorrow, and I have brought about 10 files home to possibly work from home tomorrow. I am not repeating last Monday's drive to work again--ie, me, driving up the Bayview extension, and then..sliding right back down again (watch out cars behind me..)
7. Creativity. I have been looking at decorating magazines. I mean..I got nothin' right now.
8. Winter running. Last weekend: Stomach flu. This weekend: Tooth pain and husband visiting. Two weeks off. Let the self-loathing begin. To defend myself I'm still kickboxing every Wednesday, after giving myself the "you paid for it, YOU'RE GOING" self-pep-talk.
9. Reading. The New Yorker. Loving it. I'm three weeks behind and trying to catch up fast.  Next on the list; Clare Messud. Two of her books, The Emperor's Children and  The Woman Upstairs. I'm excited  about finding a new writer.
10. I'm white pale right now. And I don't like it. I also have a new hair dryer, which I will be testing out tomorrow morning. I don't know Groupon's return policies, but they're getting it back if I don't like it, (like the flatiron I bought--terrible.)

Happy Mid-week....

The Toronto Sky in Winter

 I worked from home today, sandwiched between downtown meetings and drugstore runnings (stomach flu abated, then came back for another round) and as I hurriedly worked and  swigged tea, firing off emails and doing calculations and scratching out reminder notes to myself, toward the end of the workday the absence of coffee made sense to me.

I snapped these with my iPhone outside the window of  my loft, the frigid day giving the clouds a look of being suspended in time, as well as the buildings being on fire.

 

 As previous posts have alluded to, it's
been a long cold lonely winter.
(I had to. And to be fair, the sun
 DID come out today, offering no
real warmth, just a cruel bright
glare bouncing
off the white expanse of
concrete bleached by
salt, my car a colour
I don't recognize.)

I'm normally a very "winter"
person, loving the cold weather
running and all that but this
has been....
a long month.

Ramblings on a Winter Sunday

It's the last week of January, and even for this cold-weather-creature, it's been a long winter so far.

What can I tell you about my week/weekend in this never-ending deep freeze?

1. It was the Interior Design Show this week. Let me say this; that designer party they have on Thursday night REALLY needs to move to a Friday. (Or I need to schedule the next day off). It was a late night, followed by a day of meetings and blown concentration and just...well, I'm forty. Those late nights need to be followed by late mornings.

2. The next night, the Friday, was another event, a more artsy one, still with free food and drink. It was in the distillery district, not far from my condo and normally I would walk there, but in the minus 30 or whatever (I've stopped listening to the weather, it just doesn't mean anything to me anymore) and the gale-force winds, I drove there. Yes. I drove under 3 kms, a city-dweller, a winter runner.

3. Fast forward to Saturday and a virus/stomach thing that came out of nowhere and saw me asleep for twenty-odd hours, with a fever, and chills and no avail from the cold. I could not get warm.
The only upside, besides all the much-needed sleep, was, between naps, reading a great new book,
"Swimming Studies" by Leanne Shapton. (I have a previous book of hers--she is quirky, an illustrator, writer, Canadian to boot {Toronto!} and my exact age). Her book is about her former life as a competitive swimmer and all that entailed. Fascinating to me, someone who prefers dry land, but I could relate to her athletic quest. Really enjoyable book, very visceral, she is amazing with olfactory memories and descriptions and although it's choppy at times, the book reads like a well-edited diary, the diarist almost just observing her life as it happens, from a distance. Loved it.

4. After my wasted Saturday and upon waking Sunday with a determination to make something of my day (despite that fact that, after waking at 7:15 am and having some tuna on toast to clear the fog in my head of over 24 hours of nothing in my system but liquids and saltines, then going back to sleep until noon) I finished the Shapton book. I then moved on to coffee, the rest of my early-morning sandwich, and laundry. I made a grocery list, got outside, got that done. No running. My head's been acting up all day, just a routine headache, but one I didn't want to have worsen with exercise. I normally would have felt more guilty about a no-running weekend, something that has not happened in over six months, but my new mid-week kickboxing helped me through this pseudo-guilt.

5. Work. So busy. And the week's are so busy too, with all the outside-work things. I brought work home and had every intention of working on it today but time ran away. Making dinner, making lunches, making the bed, cleaning the bathroom, washing my rat's nest hair after a day of being sideways, all took precedence. I'm sure my clients will so care about all this. What can I do? Dedicate myself throughout the week, that's all I can think  of.

6. Tea, an Alexander McCall Smith novel, and the Grammys on in the background (I don't really know any of the 'new' music. And most of the time I don't really want to...).

7. There is snow on the ground.
Again.

8. Another short weekend comes to a close. (A topic for another post, why do I only get sick on weekends?)
Happy (winter) Sunday..

In 2014 I want to....

lie in bed and listen to the rain more
wear earplugs less
write in free-form more
less structure (everywhere)
more lists
meditate more
run new routes
take more chances
pay attention in church
look for signs
pray more
be grateful
buy suspended coffees
donate blood, shoes, time
look in the mirror less
read meaningful books
define meaningful
cherish the gray days too
set boundaries at work
write poems and read more poetry
keep up with the New Yorker
be supportive to friends
lend a hand
nurture my dreams.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Couldn't resist the little teaser title, those old spaghetti-westerns that my dad used to watch on
Great Movies on City TV on Saturday afternoons.
It's the yearly round up, everyone's doing it, why can't I?

It's past noon here on this last day of 2013, and I'm still in pajamas. My boss gave me the half-day off, I cancelled on the client I was supposed to meet, and I'm drinking coffee and Mike is here, puttering about in the background. Pink Floyd is playing in the background.
List format is all I can manage today. As I said, Mike is here and we've had a couple of later nights.

The Good
Well, we know what number one is here.
1.  Work. The departure of not one, but two key people at my office. How did I feel that April day?
Well, it was like my birthday, Christmas, and wedding day all tied into one with a beautiful bow.
After the Ugly portion of work (November, 2012 to the day before this day in April), the Good part was even sweeter.
2.  Vacations. Namely Key West, where I want my ashes sprinkled when I die. Yes, it was that good. Weather perfection in the middle of dreary January, Mike, the long drive to get there, Florida in general, the birds, the foliage, the water, the colours, the 4am closing time. I can't wait to get back.
3.  Summer vacation in Maine is pretty damn good too, and when I think about the years and years of no-vacation-taking I look back and want to cry for my poor, strapped, twenty-something-self, and early-thirty-something-self. Vacations, like sport, are the toy department of life (I read that on twitter, that's another Good thing--great quotes, more about that in a minute).  Weather in Maine in August was a big improvement over the July, which was rainy and grey. August meant vacation with my sister and her kids, my husband working away, and our friend L. joining us from New York City.  A full house, lots of laughs, wine, nail-painting and the grand finale; watching Miley Cyrus remind us how damn old we really are at the VMA's.  Oh, and I turned forty. And I love it.
4.  Forty. A new decade, a new viewpoint, the previous thirty-nine years research for this one (another great quote).  I feel stronger, I feel older (in a good way).  And I feel grateful.
5.  Running. Mastering it once again. Having it re-master me. Falling back in love with it, slowly, one (sometimes painful) step at a time.  It's been a rainy year and it was an early winter so that's been great for this cold-weather runner. Cross-training of roller-blading in the summer was great, as was spinning in the winter.
6.  Reading. Ebooks. Wow. Just burning through books faster than I thought I could. I read way more this year than I have in the previous three or four years, the only downside being that once I return the ebook to the library it's easy to forget how many titles I've read. I vow to start tracking that this year. I really want to count how many I read in a year. But read some great books this year.
7.  Mike. Of course. He's really the top of the list, but I'm just randomly writing, so forgive me.
After the holiday rush is all over I still get one nice last little day--our anniversary, this year, our second, and it's a nice thing to look forward first thing in the new year.

I could go on and on about my family and friends (my niece and her progress at art lessons, my nephews wonderful prayers before meals, first communions), but I'll just say this, I'm not going to make any Bad or Ugly listings.
Were there tough times this year? Yes, like every year. Mike not being here all fall has been very hard. The back-and-forth short visits to Maine are fun, but also very hard. One day I'm in rural New England happily watching football then the next I'm back in the cold hard reality of my city life and my long-distance marriage.
And work, while good, has been almost all-consuming.
This blog has been sorely neglected, and I've very much missed writing. But after long weeks of work I'm simply too tired.
The weekends go by with frightening speed, running, the market, church, and spending time with family takes up most of the two little days.

So Happy New Year, 2014 is hurtling toward us, this revolving door planet somehow keeps on spinning, and we right along with it.

Enjoy the ride.

Book List

It's harder to do the book list this year as I've been e-reading library books and they leave in a puff of smoke once I'm done reading them.
Meaning...I do a good job of falling headfirst into them while I have them, but they leave behind no physical trace. They are vapour.

I'm trying to remember some of my most memorable this year, and some of them have been mentioned in this blog, but here goes.... (random order).

PS: I've been working on this post for two weeks. It's hard on the iPad. Also, I keep thinking of more books...

1.  "Where'd You Go, Bernadette?"  Maria Semple.  Easily one of my favourites this year. Done in email/letter format, a format I normally don't care for (it has to be masterful--this one is). I can't tell you too much without giving it away, but it started as a New Yorker piece and wove on from there.

2.  "Rules of Civility" Amor Towles. Just read this. It's unforgettable. New York in the thirties. The female protagonist is brilliant.  One thing from the book has stayed with me since I read it. She quotes her father on his theory of life. "When you get up in the morning, do you want that cup of coffee?" That's it.  I find, pretty much every morning, I want that coffee. I think it's an amazing way to look at life.

3.  "Gone, Girl" Gillian Flynn. A tale. Woven. Threaded. Webbed.

4.  "Horns" Joe Hill.  Stephen King's son. Need I say more?

5.  "The Twelve Tribes of Hattie" by Ayana Mathis (one of New York Times Notable book of the year).  Oprah's bookclub. Intriguing.

6.  "The Dinner" Herman Koch (also a NY Times notable). Didn't live up to the hype for me, but I got through it.

7.  "We Need to Talk About Kevin" Lionel Shriver. Closely related in topic to The Dinner but a superior book in my opinion.

8.  "Tiny Beautiful Things" Cheryl Strayed.  The collected advice columns of the Rumpus' "Dear Sugar"

9.  "I Love You But I'm Leaving You Anyway" Tracy McMillan. Could not put this one down. Part memoir the one line that stayed with me as she described herself as a child "I was Pippi Longstocking without the monkey."

10..  "A House in the Sky" Amanda Lindhout. Memoir of captivity at the hands of Somali terrorists. Tough to read.

11.  "Save Yourself" Kelly Braffet. Stephen King's daughter-in-law. A serious talent.

12.  "The White Album" Joan Didion.  Collected essays. Cultural review. Sparsely styled, one of the hallmarks of Didion. Loved it.

13. "Seven American Deaths and Disasters" Kenneth Goldsmith. Amazing read, especially the chapter on the shooting of John Lennon.

14. "The Long Good-bye" Meghan O'Rourke.  Memoir. A parent's death from cancer. Tough for me to read, but very memorable writing.

15.  "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" Allan Stillitoe.  Working class England, spare style here, too, and incredible dialogue.

16.  "Born to Run" Christopher McDougall.  About ultra-running. Amazing.

 I'll stop here and I will create a follow-up soon--just thinking of more titles.
Enjoy! Every book on this list is eminently read-able and will stay with you.