here in my head

I can’t find my stopwatch.

It’s not a big deal really – it’s not a fancy watch or anything, but it does the trick of keeping track of time. Something useful as my walks start getting longer. Mike bought it for me a few years ago for Christmas or my birthday – either way, Dec. 25th. I was starting training for my first half-marathon walk and it was my constant companion on those walks. He bought it because it was purple and he knew that would make me smile. And I need it.

But I can’t find it. That watch is one of a growing list of things that I can’t find since the move; things that include my passport, my birth certificate, and the paperwork for the guarantee for my wedding rings. There are many others like them, needed in the moment and then left unfound for now. We still have boxes upon boxes in our basement, in Mike’s parents’ basement, in my parents’ garage. Things that I would be tempted to say we don’t need if we haven’t needed them since October, except that there are things we do need. Things that I can’t find. Because as much as we are home in this new house, we are not settled. We unpacked really only the essentials when we first moved in because we were getting the house rewired, and so why unpack a bunch of stuff when it would all get dusty and dirty and need to be repacked to give the electricians room to punch holes in walls and pull wires everywhere. So our boxes remained unopened. And then it was Christmas. And then it was the new year, and water was rushing through the wall between our dining room and kitchen and more holes were being punched in walls and here we are, almost five months since we moved in, with countless unpacked boxes in three locations, and unfinished renovations.

I can’t wait until we can finally have everything in it’s place…

I wish I had more talent in interior design. I wish I was better at picking paint colours and visualizing what a little paint chip will look like when it’s fully on my wall. I wish granite countertops weren’t so expensive. I wish Mike and I had more similar tastes so it didn’t take so long for us to come to a consensus on what we want for the house. I wish renovations didn’t cause so much dust, and didn’t take so long. I really wish my contractor was actually a fairy godmother and could just wave a magic wand and make my house perfect again. I wish our pipes hadn’t leaked. I wish my kitchen wasn’t torn apart making cooking difficult. I wish, I wish, I wish.

I know that once this is done, we will be even happier with the kitchen than we were when we first bought this place. I know that once this is complete, it will be worth it. I know that once this is done, I will have a space that is my own, not just inherited from someone else’s tastes. I know that once this is done, we will have shiny black granite countertops. We will have the simple, crisp, white subway tile back-splash I love so much. I know that once this is done, and my house is once again in order, I will not feel so much in upheaval. I know that this will not last forever. I know that it will be done soon. I know that it will be worth it. I know, I know, I know.

But still. It would be grand if it didn’t have to be torn down to be built back up. It would be grand if we didn’t have to have chaos in order to have peace. And it would have been good had we not picked such a stupid colour for our dining room wall…

Today was apparently the the most depressing day of the year, and, I don’t know how it was for you, but here it certainly lived up to it’s moniker. I awoke from a night of tossing and turning and very little sleep to dark grey clouds and absolute pouring rain. Which would have been fine, aside from the fact that it’s JANUARY and I live in Ottawa and therefore I shouldn’t be waking up to temperatures eight degrees above zero and massive amounts of rain. And because it is January and I live in Ottawa, I will awake to a skating rink tomorrow as temperatures cool and all that lovely rain that pooled over sidewalks and walkways (and the ski hill – I’m already dreading Thursday’s lesson) will freeze. Remind me again why I live in Ottawa…

So, the rain, on top of very little sleep, a stressful weekend, and unsettling dreams made for one very cranky Suze today. Luckily a long meander home after the rain had stopped and the sun had come out just in time to make the sky pretty as it set helped to put me in a slightly better mood. I can’t tell you how much I love that I can walk to work. How much I love that my walk home takes me through the Byward Market. How much I love my neighbourhood. How much I love that our lifestyle has shifted to one where the car remains parked much of the time and we walk to get the groceries we need, or to go to the movies or to our favourite Indian food place.

Despite the stressors of the last few weeks, I am all-in-all content. Happy.

On a completely separate note, this past Saturday night was date night. We went for dinner and a movie – Up in the Air. And I realized that I have had a crush on George Clooney since I was nine years old and he was on Facts of Life. Sure Mackenzie Astin would have been more age-appropriate, but it was George. Always George. I’m still crushing now. That’s 25 years of crush, people. 25 years. One hell of a crush commitment… I’m sure if he knew he’d care not a whit…

Yet another crappy week this week. The hits just keep coming, and now we have hospital visits to try and work into our already over packed schedule. It’s nothing we’ve not dealt with before – these hospital visits seem to be a semi-annual occurrence in fact – but it still is stressful each time it happens, and each time we’re blindsided, with no warning given.

I’m going to focus on the positives, and try avoiding dwelling in the negatives. Life, on the whole is good. Really.

Hell, even amongst all this stress my blood pressure was a perfect 120/80 when I saw my doctor yesterday morning, so really, I can’t complain…

See – this is why I gave up resolutions. Even non-resolutions set me up to fail…it’s been almost a week since my last confession post. What can I say…I have been entirely bloggy uninspired. I’m trying to remember what I used to blog about, way back when I was blogging nearly every day. I’ll cut myself some slack, ease my self back into this blogging business…

I’m trying not to live in the past, but to be really present with where I am now, and yet I can’t help missing the holidays. Not having to do the 9-5 thing was a boon for my creativity. Having time to breathe was nice. But instead we are in the new year where I have, once again, booked myself full of activities in the evenings. Monday and Wednesday I have my strength training class for 1.5 hours. Which would be fine, not that invasive to my personal time, if it wasn’t for the 2.5 hours I have to endure on city buses to get to my class and back. I moved downtown so I could give up OC Transpo, and then I go and sign up for a course offered only a gym half way across town. Because I’m smart like that…

Thursday nights is skiing. Once again, I am braving my fear of heights, my fear of loss of control, my fear of sliding, and my fear of hurting myself and am putting sticks on my feet and sending myself down a mountain (okay, fine, not a mountain. Would you accept a really big hill?) I’m hoping to recapture some of the excitement I felt at the end of last year’s lessons without going through the crippling panic of the first seven weeks of lessons. First lesson is Thursday. Apparently I never learn. Or I’m a glutton for punishment. Or I’m still convinced that doing things that scare me is really the way to grow. Either way, wish me luck.

Oh, and if you could pass along a few blogging ideas as well, that would be swell too…

To the asshole who hit me with his bike while I was out on my evening walk:

Bikes are vehicles – they are to be ridden on the road. Unless you are under the age of six, which you, clearly, were not, you should not be riding on the sidewalk. I understand you might not like biking on the road – I, myself, am a nervous biker when biking with traffic, so I get that. But it was 9:40 p.m. in a sleepy little suburb – there is no traffic on the road to speak of. The roads were clear.

Also, when you do hit someone when you are riding on the sidewalk, it’s customary to stop to make sure they’re okay and not just continue on your way, with barely a backward glance. The least you could have done was mumble a sorry or something. You were the one who came up behind me, I had no idea you were there until your handlebar connected with my arm, leaving me with a nasty scrape and a bruise and causing me to stumble and drop my water bottle, so you were the one responsible for avoiding a collision.

Fucker.

You know it’s not going to be a good day when you wake up half an hour before you’re supposed to be at the dentist, which is a good 25 minute drive from your home.

But, then you think your day might be improving when the dentist announces “look ma, no cavities!”.

But no, you know it’s not going to be a good day when you then discover that your credit card won’t work to pay said dentist after all the scraping and poking and proding of your teeth and gums are done.

But, then you think your day might be improving when you manage to catch your bus just seconds after you leave the dentist office.

But no, you know it’s not going to be a good day when you can’t find your bus pass no matter how hard you look and have to then fish out the $3 in change to pay for your ride.

But, then you think your day might be improving when you remember that you still have enough on your old starbucks card to pay for a latte. And it actually works!

But no, you know it’s not going to be a good day when you get to work and realize that the latte? It’s now breakfast since the microwave is broken and you can no longer make your full-flake non-instant oatmeal for breakfast.

And then, then you know your day is really going to suck when you reach in your purse to pull out your iPod to discover that it’s missing. And you know you tossed it in your bag this morning.

And then? That is when you realize it’s not even 9:30 am and you might have cried a little at your desk…

*** Update (11:35 am) – the iPod has been found! It was hiding in a pocket of the bag I searched three times while looking for it. In an open pocket of a bag that was emptied and then shook upside down in panic. The only explanation I can come up with (other than Suze is an idiot, which clearly cannot be the case…) is that the fairies took it to play with and they have now returned it… (see, makes much more sense than Suze is an idiot. Really…)