My new blog!
24 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: blogging, design, home decor, things I love
I’ve started a new blog. For years, I’ve been in love with designing homes and decorating. One of the things I loved about house hunting was getting ideas or thinking about all the fabulous things I could do to a house. When we bought this house, there were tons of things i wanted to change or improve, so I thought this would be a good way to document it all. Lately I’ve really been bitten by the bug, and decided to feed my obsession. Not sure how I’ll manage four blogs (this one, the new one, my sorely neglected professional one, and the Social Chicks one,) but it makes me so happy to blog on that topic I’m going to do my best not to let it fall off my to-do list.
So let me officially invite you to my new space! Designfraud is a reference to the fact that I’m not really a designer, but I like to play one. 
So while I still plan to be the Girl on the Side, please check me out at Designfraud too!
Happy birthday to me
21 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: aging, all about me, birthdays, chocolate
It was my birthday on Monday. I’m 37! I know lots of women who had a hard time with 37, and most birthdays after that, but on my birthday I have to say I felt really good. I got lots of birthday wishes and some thoughtful presents and cards.
I also made myself (and my kids) a birthday cake. I love double-layer chocolate cake, but as I’m trying to lose a few pounds I decided to just make a smaller version. It was perfect!
I’m looking forward to what the next years bring. Bring it on, 37!
Dilemmas
02 Feb 2012 2 Comments
Okay, so it’s a new year now and I just got so bored of looking at that white background on my blog. So here it is, a new (temporary) look. It’s only temporary because I found a FANTASTIC theme for my blog that I have downloaded and will be installing when I get a chance. Honestly, when I went searching for a new look for my blog, this theme I found is IT – a beautiful design with my favourite colour and exactly the graphic elements I was looking for. But I’m not posting a link to what it looks like just yet – you’ll have to wait and see when I get it uploaded and working – hopefully in the next week!
With all the changes I have been making, (or trying to make: I fell asleep and missed yoga tonight, but clearly my body needed the rest,) I’ve been thinking a lot about my career. Since our vacation a few weeks ago I’ve been considering where I’m at and where I want to go, and how my current situation fits into that. I really enjoy my work and my workplace, but I’ve been a little itchy take on a little more of a challenge. But what that means opens up a whole world of issues.
In the last few weeks I have had a few interesting job postings emailed to me and I nearly applied for one yesterday that would be a fantastic opportunity and a great challenge. I emailed a politician friend who works with this organization and asked his opinion. He had rave reviews, and even offered to act as a reference for me. For the better part of a day, I was convinced I was the right person for the job and worked really hard on my resume and cover letter. I envisioned all the exciting work I would get to do, the responsibility I would take on, working in a busy downtown office, just like I did years ago before kids.
But suddenly towards the evening, I started thinking about how it would be an hour commute each way and I would likely have to leave for work at 7am and get home at 6pm every night, and how that would affect my life and family. A is self-employed with a growing company and is not available very often, if at all. I basically cannot rely on him to be around for the kids. And although the kids are getting older and I’m working on helping them become more self-sufficient so I can look at more work opportunities, this would mean they would be on their own for three hours after school each day.
A and I discussed it for almost two hours last night and although he was willing to make adjustments to his schedule to accommodate that kind of work schedule for me, he couldn’t guarantee that he could be around in the middle of the afternoon for them. I still felt unsettled about it at the end of it all, so I’ve decided not to apply.
I had a chat with my “boss” (technically client, since I’m on a contract basis) at my current job today about where my role there is going and what I’ve been thinking about. We talked about options and what I would like to do. Some of the options she said she could offer sounded good, and she is great about trying to give me work that I enjoy doing. I’m going to come back to her with a plan of things I’d like to do and how I see it working and we will talk about it next week after she has a chat with her superior. But I still can’t shake the feeling that I want something that will scare me a little bit more. The problem is, with the kind of work I want to do, there aren’t a lot of opportunities in the area where I live – I would be looking at doing that commute. She and I talked about that, and the pros and cons of working close to home – not making as much money, but with a husband who works 60-80 hours a week, someone has to be there when the school calls with a sick child or there’s someone needing to be taken care of, not to mention making normal life happen for my kids, like going snowboarding or to extra curricular activities or friends over after school.
Without wanting to sound like I’m whining, I will say that I wish someone had sat me down and told me the impact it would make on my life, career and choices to have kids at a young age and choose to stay home with them. I don’t regret being a mom for 10 years, but it’s done a number on my options career-wise now. I’ll admit I feel a teeny bit of resentment – I look at my husband and what he’s been able to do in the years that I stayed home and he worked, and I look at a lot of women my age, some with kids my kids’ ages, and they are established in their careers and moving into management positions. I feel so behind, and a little inferior. I want to get there in a few years too. But I still find that I swing back and forth between “I’m going after an exciting career whatever the cost – forget these people, I put my life on hold for them for years, it’s my turn” and “OMG, my kids are going to be teenagers in a couple of years, I need to be around or no one else will be!” Where’s the balance?
I’ve done contract and freelance work, but to be completely honest – I like working in an office with other people, having a schedule. Working at home is fine, but I don’t get the same sense of energized accomplishment at the end of the day. I’ve gone back and forth on this over the years, and I think I like the separation of work and life – and for me, freelancing blurs that line too much. I don’t like getting emails and calls from clients on a Saturday or Sunday, even though I’ve made it clear I work regular office hours. I also have a hard time wrapping up a client job for the day, when I could just do a couple more hours, and before I know it I’m rushing to get dinner on the table at 7:30 at night.
I had lunch with one of my favourite friends last weekend and she just started a fantastic new job that she is really loving. (It’s on the same street that the job I was considering applying for is located.) She and I were stay-at-home moms when our boys were babies and toddlers and we kept each other sane and coherent in those early years. She went back to school and started working again about five years ago. I asked her how she makes it work in terms of her family and her son, and her answer stuck with me over the next few days as I was considering applying for the job posting: it works because her husband has a flexible schedule. Their son is only on his own for an hour after school and then her husband gets home. “If he wasn’t able to do that, I don’t think it would work,” she said, looking me straight in the eye.
I’m not sure where my career path will take me this year. What would my future self say to me today? Would she say “put family first, it will all fall into place,” or “it’s time to be selfish, or else you’ll be putting your own goals on hold forever?” Maybe staying where I’m at is the right thing to do for now, as it looks like there are opportunities to do more work there. Maybe something new in the right geographical area will appear. Who knows, but I’m asking the universe and staying open to whatever opens up to me.
Like I don’t have enough notebooks already
01 Feb 2012 2 Comments
But OMG I love this journal/scrapbook. If I can get back to Michael’s this week I’m so buying one. They even offer sticky notes, scrapbooky-type decorative trinkets, and other adorable accessories to personalize your book. Must. Have.
80′s Retro hour
29 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: family, memories, music, the good stuff
Hanging at my sister’s tonight with the family – my parents, sisters and all the kids. Gin said she’s been listening to a great 80s pop channel she found on a radio app on her iPhone. So we enjoyed listening to songs, reminicing what they reminded us of. (Sheila E.’s “The Glamorous Life” was the choice my friends and I made in grade 6 for our school air band competition. My best friend was the lead singer, a couple of us ‘played instruments,’ and I was the drummer, with glow-in-the-dark Slurpee straws for drumsticks, for my rad drum solo. We did this in front of the whole school. All seven minutes of the song. Oh god.)
Anyway, it was fun taking a trip down memory lane with the very people I spent the 80s with. We found out Amy still hates the Kinks’ “Come Dancing” (at a year or two old she would cry whenever it came on) and wondered whatever happened to Sheena Easton. We had some laughs about 80s memories and even somehow got onto the topic of some other 80s culture, WWF wrestling, which I watched until I was about 11, and then Gin was a huge fan of for years. She reminded us of Ravishing Rick Rude, and of course we had to Google him, which induced more laughter.
Then as we were getting ready to go home, my dad called from the other room, “Hey Beck, this is that song you used to like, ‘It’s Alright to Party!’” My sisters and I looked at each other quizzically, and I said, “I don’t remember a song called “It’s Alright to Party,” as we walked back to the room where the music was on. Suddenly Amy said, “He probably means “Fight for Your Right to Party!’” And sure enough…haha!
Good laughs. Good times. I love my family.
Shaking it up
24 Jan 2012 1 Comment
Saturday’s workshop was a blast. We did some thought-provoking activities, had some laughs, a few tears, and a lot of honest and frank discussion. And I did find the clarity to my vision for 2012 that I was looking for.
The theme was Cooking Up 2012, and although it wasn’t a cooking class, we were invited to look at our lives like a recipe – adding ingredients, mixing things together, testing recipes, adjusting them and adding heat. It was a really fun way to look at the upcoming year, even during the introductions when we were encouraged to name what ingredient we would be in a recipe. (I was peppermint – I’m wanting something fresh an invigorating for 2012!)
One of the most interesting activities we did during the workshop, to me, was the Wheel of Life – a circle divided into eight areas of our lives, and we ranked each one in terms of how satisfied we are in each area. When I was finished, I looked at mine and noticed something interesting. Every area was a solid mid-range ho-hum, and the two areas that are about me – Personal Development and Health, were low. So that gave me one thing to focus on – some personal interests and new opportunities to grow, but my whole life needs a boost, something fresh.
From: http://www.timstringer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Wheel-of-Life.png
Then we came up with ideas for our “perfect recipe.” I loved this. We were to come up with goals for the year in a few categories: Appetizers – something we just want to get a small taste of in 2012, maybe take a class or try something new; Main Courses – the major things that are your central goals, the “meat and potatoes” of your life; Sides and Salads – things that are good accompaniments to your main courses; and Desserts – the indulgences that would just make your life that much sweeter. So here’s a few of the goals I set:
Appetizers – take a beading/jewelry class
Main Courses – healthy eating for me and my family
Sides and Salads – yoga class 2x a week (continue)
Desserts – travel (San Francisco is on the radar for May, and possibly more to come!)
I had lots more written down for each section, but I don’t think I’m ready to share them all just yet.
Then we did our vision boards. We were encouraged to just cut out things that struck us as significant, don’t think too much, and see what emerges. I started finding pictures of things that looked odd – easy to do with magazine ads – like a double-ice cream cone, a Kohler ad with a woman in a tub amid a Japanese garden, Lady Gaga, a couple riding an elephant – things that represented something out of the ordinary, something that would remind me to think differently, and do differently. And as I thought more about it, I was reminded of the Wheel of Life, and how when I saw how mediocre all the sections were, I wanted to shake it, like a frying pan – I guess as a visualization of the changes I wanted to make to each area. So I also found a picture of a frying pan, and it became one of the central images.
We were encouraged to find a theme for our year, and my theme became “Shake it Up,” with a subheading or tagline, “Fight Routine.” They were added to my vision board too.
Then we each shared our vision boards and were given a few minutes to explain them. There were some powerful images and phrases on many of them, and I think I fell in love with each woman a little bit! After sharing your vision board, you got to choose from a basket where earlier we’d each placed a card on which we’d written an ingredient for happiness, and then we got to choose a little gift, a pewter shell with an inspiring word on it. The ingredient for happiness that I got was “Selfishness – (taking care of self first.)” My shell said “Balance.”
I was so inspired when I left that I stopped on my way home and bought more poster paper. I was going to add more to my vision board, and I knew my daughter would want to participate. And we spent the next three hours talking and creating. It was really a wonderful way to spend a Saturday.
I can’t say I’ve been perfect at everything so far, but I’m trying. I’ve already stumbled across a few things that fit my goals – I found a jewelry beading class today (and I wasn’t even looking for one!), two friends and I asked me to schedule some running times (and A sent me a link to sign up for the Sun Run, early-bird rate runs out soon!), and I even came across an announcement for a new yoga studio that is opening on Saturday and is offering free classes that day – so I emailed one of my yoga-loving girlfriends and invited her along. All this in two days – serendipity, anyone?
Love the idea of Cooking Up 2012? There’s a repeat course taking place in Vancouver on February 19.
Planning to Plan
18 Jan 2012 3 Comments
I’m really excited because after all this talk about making 2012 great, I found that a friend and colleague of mine is offering a workshop on making 2012 a great year – so I signed up.
So on Saturday morning, we’re going to look at the last year and review what was great, what wasn’t and what we want to improve, and make plans and goals for this year. We’re even doing vision boards, which I’ve been hearing about in lots of places lately and I’m eager to do one of my own. (We’re supposed to bring magazines to cut up, so I’ve been diligently collecting some – thank you, recycling bin!)
The main reason I think this will be good is that I have so many ideas for this year swirling around in my head, that I worry that a) I’ll forget some of them; b) there’s too many ideas and I may have unreasonable expectations of how much I can make happen in one year; and c) I will become so focused on making changes that I won’t take time to enjoy what IS, or see opportunities that could be great but may not be immediately part of my plan.
A and I have made many plans over the years, and some have worked out great, and others we’ve been crap at following up on. I’ve been accused at time of not wanting to stray from a plan to a fault, and he tends to abandon a plan at the first sign of something more enticing. I think we just need to find the happy balance of setting goals and achieving them but also being flexible enough to know when to adjust and amend.
The workshop is based on a cooking theme, “Cooking Up 2012,” and one of the things we are being asked to bring is a recipe to share with the other participants. Here’s what I’m planning to bring:
Greek Salad
Red pepper, diced
Green onion, sliced
Cucumber, diced
Sundried tomatoes, sliced
1tbsp olive oil
oregano, to taste
basil, to taste
salt 1/2 tsp
pepper, to taste
Feta Cheese, crumbled
Mix vegetables, add olive oil and spices, crumble feta cheese on top. Serve immediately. Also delicious in a whole wheat wrap.
Enjoy!
(Mmm, I’m hungry – picture to come later, after I make some)
Step One – Inventory
08 Jan 2012 4 Comments
in Uncategorized Tags: goals, going places, life
I’ve been reading a lot of articles and blogs about starting anew for 2012 and setting goals, etc. I was off in the Caribbean (more on that later) and was deep in relaxation and vacation mode, so I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about what I plan to shape 2012 into, although I admit it was in the back of my mind. I have a deep sense that this is going to be a year of profound change in my life, and I have a few ideas floating around in my head. There are a few key thoughts that keep popping up in my head repeatedly, and I can’t ignore them anymore.
There’s a great quote from the movie Babe:
Farmer Hoggett knew, that little ideas that tickled and nagged and refused to go away should never be ignored; for in them lie the seeds of destiny.
One of the ideas that has been dogging me is that I don’t think I’ve ever done anything truly hard or difficult in my life. I’ve given birth twice, but I don’t really count that because that was only a few hours on two days in my life, (and the second time was so fast it was kinda almost cheating.) And parenting is WAY harder than giving birth anyway. I went to school and took a challenging, intense program for three years while being a wife and mom and working, (two jobs during the last year) but im not sure that is the kind of challenge I am thinking of. I think it’s time for a challenge that is going to force me to do scary things, learn something, and become a different person. This year is the beginning of that.
So as we made our way home from our vacation yesterday, sitting at the airport, all those hours on the plane, the drive home from the airport in the wee hours of the morning, and this morning as I contemplate the mound of laundry that awaits, my brain began turning more and more toward where I want to go and what I want to do this year. But in the jumble of thoughts, I realized that before I could come up with a solid plan, I needed to take stock of who I am now and where I want to go. I also noticed a number of people who had chosen a single word to define and guide them throughout the year, and I put some thought into that, too. So after mulling over a few words during the past 10 days, I decided on a very small, simple word that will be very important in all I want to accomplish this year and beyond: Do.
It reminds me of slogans like Nike’s “Just Do It” and even the leader of the LDS church when I was a kid, Spencer W. Kimball, had a plaque on his desk that said “Do It”, although his meaning was to share your testimony of the gospel with people. Not my goal obviously, as I’m no longer a part of that belief system, but what I take from both those slogans is to forget about fears and doubts, forget about overanalyzing and running away from it, just do it. As long as I’m “doing,” I’m accomplishing and learning, and that can only get me closer to reaching my goals.
Today I sat down and wrote a little inventory of who I am, my interests, and thoughts, and where I want to go. And I defined a few things I want to learn and some things I want to do this year. I even listed some people I want to keep in my life and cultivate friendships with. I have a vague vision of the woman I want to be in 3 years, one month and one week when I turn 40, and while I am her already in some ways, I am at square one in others.
Step one taken and many more to go. I’m sure it won’t always be rosy and pretty along the way, but I’m going anyway!
My favourite view at the beach in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
Happy New Year 2012
01 Jan 2012 3 Comments
As I write this, I’m sitting in the lobby of a resort in the Dominican Republic. The open air is humid but warm, and people are everywhere, dressed up for the evening, drinks being prepared by the hundreds at the bar to my right, and Spanish music being played in the stage area somewhere in the far corner. There’s a festive feeling in the air, and it’s my favourite night of the year.
It hasn’t been the easiest trip so far: after spending the entire night preparing, (never made it to bed, because I had to dye my hair – long story – and damn it, those towels were getting folded before I left if it killed me!) and departing for the airport at 4am, an 8 hour flight, with a stop in Puerto Plata where we watched the biggest rainstorm we’ve seen in a long time, and turbulence on the last leg of the trip, I arrived to discover my luggage didn’t make the flight. However, I am ready to welcome 2012, even if I’m only wearing the same yoga pants, sneakers and hoodie I’ve been wearing for the past 40 hours.
Fortunately, my luggage has been located, but it looks like won’t make it here tonight. So no dressing up for me and welcoming the new year looking my best. No mind, because as I told Carly in a belated ‘happy birthday’ email earlier, we have decided to walk the two minutes from our hotel room and ring in the new year on the beach, our feet in the waves of the Atlantic and watching the endless number of stars in the sky, with the palm trees swishing in the wind as our background music. Our daughter is having the time of her life and I’m so happy to see her happy. Our son, well, he’s nearly a teenager and he’s happy there’s free food in this all-inclusive resort!
So before I go, I wish anyone reading this a wonderful, dream-achieving, life living 2012, whether you’re dressed to the nines or in your comfies like me. Make this the year you always wanted instead of waiting for that time to come. Happy New Year!
When it’s time for change, you need to rearrange…
26 Oct 2011 1 Comment
Two blog posts in as many days. Mark it on your calendars!
I felt inspired to write because last night’s post got me thinking. I’m making small, slow changes in my life (which isn’t like me, I usually go whole-hog rather than slow and steady, but that probably speaks to why some of my changes crash and burn,). A good friend of mine recently told me she is making major changes in her life; really exciting changes, and that really got me thinking too.
I’m feeling a bit itchy. Whether it’s wanting to move on career-wise (I don’t want to leave the workplace I’m at, but I am starting to feel a little need for a bigger challenge,) my clothes (my wardrobe hasn’t been this sad in a long time,) my hair (I’ve been contemplating going super short for a long time, but wanted to wait until I lost a few pounds – I just feel as if I’d look like a have a tiny head – I know, I can’t explain it either,) or if I need to do something altogether different with my life. Like move somewhere really different. Of course, that one would be difficult considering I am married and have kids, and my husband has an established business.
Maybe travel is what I’m looking for. For a very long time, I’ve been planning trips in my head (and in my notebooks) to Tokyo, Chicago, New York, Australia, and other places I have never been. This year we are taking our kids to Hawaii for the first time, so I think that will be a good starting point.
I’ll have to give this some more thought. In the meantime, I’m sticking with the slow and steady approach to better things in life. I’m getting there!
