Moving Time

I've gone silent again the last few weeks. My life has been rather stressful and topsy turvy. I've elected to move early, for several reasons. A large one being that my apartment has an increasingly serious cockroach problem and I am not willing to wait around another month as it just gets worse. My parents have found me a wonderful little two bedroom apartment on the edge of town, very near my grandmother's, which I'm very happy about. The official move is Tuesday, so most of my belongings are already packed up.

I have been up to things other than stressing though. I baked up a Chocolate Guinness Cake with Cream Cheese Icing back around St-Patty's day. It's the third time I make the recipe and it's amazing every time, probably one of my most favourite cakes. I also finished up this round of belly dance classes. I'm really going to miss dancing with my ladies, but it's time to move on.



I met Laura way back when we both started taking belly dance classes in January of 2012. I thought she looked like a really groovy lady, and like someone I'd like to get to know. So I wrote up my name and number on a piece of paper and introduced myself, saying I'd like to try and be friends. It may have been dorky, but it worked, and we're great friends now. I'm really going to miss her, and my other friends here. But there are plenty of people in Sturgeon who are looking forward to having me there, old friends I'll be able to catch up with and strengthen those relationships. My future is looking really good. I'm about to head out and say goodbye to some more of my friends now though. I hope you are all having a lovely Easter weekend. Cheers!

Basic Pastry Graduation

You'd think with how proud graduating with my Basic Pastry certificate from the Cordon Bleu made me feel that I would have posted it about it immediately. It's been over three weeks now though, and it seems like a lifetime ago that I was taking classes there. I'm still sad that I'm not going back, attending Intermediate Pastry with some of my classmates and learning from our wonderful Chefs. Part of me hopes that within the next year and a half, I can pony up the next large chunk of money required and take it too. For now, I'm going to be proud of what I've managed to accomplish so far.

Chef Jocelyn above was the one who spent the most time teaching us and watching over us during our practical classes and I really adored him. He's such a character! But really, all the chefs are total characters and I adore them all. Even the grumpy ones heh. Chef Hervé below was another of my favourites, and the one responsible for helping me decide on Pastry rather than Cuisine, something I made certain to thank him for that evening.



Saying goodbye to my classmates was also pretty difficult. We were a very large Basic Pastry group - 36 in total - but I got to know a few of the people in our C group a little better. Most of them hail from very far away, be it China or way out in Alberta, so the odds of seeing any of them again are slim. But there's always Facebook, as I kept hearing that night.



I'm so glad I went through with all this. I can't imagine having done anything else, this whole process just felt so right, it really suits me well. I have more confidence in myself and my future now than I ever did before. Life can be scary sometimes, but it's a hell of a fun ride if you let it be. Dreams really can come true. Cheers!

Past Pandemonium

I can't believe I never got around to posting my photos from the Pandemonium Festival! Apparently I just take forever to do just about everything these days, unless it involves food or laundering my school uniform. So here, months after the fact, are the photos (a whole whack of them) from my time spent with my wonderful friends Becky and Marty at the Pandemonium 2012 music festival back in August.

I consider this to have been my very best and most favourite festival experience so far, in the few years I've been attending. It's one of those times that will stay with me until my very last, a joyous time I take out and turn around in my hands and smile in gladness, knowing it is mine and no one can take it away. I love my friends, so very dearly, and I love that we shared this experience together. I hope you may all know such joy and goodness. Cheers!

Pandemonium

I just got back yesterday from the Pandemonium outdoor electronic music festival in Quebec. I had an absolutely amazing time once again. And I even managed to take more than 6 photos this time!

I've been having computer issues though and I'm heading back to the shop a second time to trade up for a stronger unit after replacing my old dinosaur of a desktop. My poor hard drive kicked the bucket (thank goodness for my external hard drive). I hope you're all having a good week, and I'll leave you with this until I write something more later. Cheers!

New Arrival

I spent my weekend out in the wilds of Québec, and had an absolutely amazing time. We were camped out on the tippy top of a small mountain, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. The weather was gorgeous and we couldn't have asked for better. I mean really, what more can you ask for when you crawl out of your tent to this kind of view?



And on top of having a totally amazing weekend, I got to come home to a new baby crested gecko. The eggs I had been incubating finally hatched - of course while I was away - and I was delighted to find a new little life in my home. Sadly one of the two seems to have escaped. I'm hoping it just hid somewhere and that I will find it soon. Admittedly I am worried that my cat ate it. Hopefully not! The one that didn't escape is adorable. I think I might name it Toffee.



The sun is shining and my heart is filled with joy and love. My mind has been expanded and my eyes have seen new sights like none before. I hope you all had a weekend as great as mine. Cheers!

Inside Outward

If you could take a peek inside my mind and see my thoughts, things would probably look a lot like the print on this dress. Bright. Cheerful. Bold. Lively. Dynamic. To name a few. There are so many joyous thoughts and plans rushing around in there. It's like a crazy game of bumper cars, with flashing lights and ringing sounds as riders get jostled roughly about. All in good fun though!

Dress - Purchased from Ninth Avenue Vintage on Etsy 

Earrings - Gift from grandmother 

Sandals - Sears

Of course, not everybody enjoys a good bumper car battle, and so not everyone is comfortable with me and my various forms of self expression. Like my clothes. Or my taste in music. Or my past-times. Which is really just a loss for them! I tend to think, about 98% of the time, that I am super-awesome-fantastic and anybody would be crazy not to like me. And while that's extremely egotistical, I'd rather be a happy egotist than an unhappy person overly concerned about others' opinions.

Of course that doesn't mean I don't care about others' feelings. I think this mindset kind of helps me. Being friendly and open and caring is a lot easier if you already think you're the bees' knees. At least it seems so to me. I don't need outside validation to be a happy person. I'm not seeking approval or support. Whether or not someone thinks my dress is obnoxious, or that my life views are naive really doesn't concern me. I don't worry about those things and I try my best to be nonjudgmental about those things towards others. It's harder for me to deal with the rejection of my friendship and love than it is to deal with someone thinking I have bad taste in shoes or need a hair cut. I'm a selfless egotist, perhaps? Or maybe self-confidence is too often called egoism and I'm getting them all mixed up. (Bumper car crash!)

Let's just say that sometimes I do come off as harsh. Beating around the bush is not my style and in some instances my blunt honesty can be a little more than people can handle. I don't intentionally try to be hurtful or unfeeling or self-centered, but in the end my priorities do revolve around myself. It takes a lot of effort and presence of mind for me to take other people's feelings and viewpoints into account when I interact with others. I'm not fond of people or situations that upset me or make me uncomfortable and sometimes I can lash out more quickly than I should. I'm still learning.

Oftentimes it feels like I'm at an emotional learning stage that I'm too old to really be in. I swear everybody else went through this awkward crap in their teens? I'm all thumbs. I blunder through sensitive emotional interactions. I have the hardest time reading the level of someone's emotions. Are they only kind of grumpy or are they enraged? Is she just a little sad or is she about to burst into nonexhaustible tears? And I always feel so clumsy trying to console or cheer someone up. It's frustrating because I would love to be that person, but I'm still busily gluing my own parts back together. Trying to help someone else do that seems beyond my abilities right now. I mean well, but I'm not willing to put myself in a position I know isn't healthy for me.

Anyway, all that nonsense aside, things are good. I've booked a bunch of days off this month for various activities. Tomorrow is booked for a major apartment cleaning, which isn't very exciting, but things spice up after that. Tonight is my weekly belly dance class and beers with my friend Laura. Saturday is my friend Helen's baby shower, and then a night out at the bar with a fun group. Next weekend I'm heading out into Québec to attend the Electronic Brain music festival. I am SO excited for this! So excited!! It's going to be a blast. And then the weekend after that one, I'm going up to Montreal to visit my super-awesome friend Nicole. Plus a bunch of other amazing things because my life is just amazing right now. Emotional awkwardness and all! I hope you are all having a groovy week. Cheers!

Zounds!

This outfit surprised even me. I wore it to go to the Orchid show with my friends and it took about two minutes before one of them exclaimed... "Hey, Célynne's wearing pants!" The only reason I was comfortable like this (and I still felt rather naked) was because my blouse covered most of what bothers me being seen. Also is it just me or do the people who make jeggings assume we are all 6 feet tall? Because these are a size Small and I've still got oodles of material pooling around my ankles and knees.

 

Blouse - Purchased from Cookies and Crème Vintage on Etsy

Belt - Déjà New consignment shop in Ottawa

Jeggings - Hue

Shoes - Hush Puppies from Sears

My weekend was a whirlwind. I attended a friend's baby shower on Saturday. It was the first time our girl group had been together in its entirety in years (well, our 6th musketeer is out in Alberta!) and it amazed me how much we had changed and yet stayed the same. One friend brought along her seven (!) year old daughter and it blew my mind once again that my friends are parents and wives and husbands. I keep forgetting we're adults.

 
I'd be lying if I said seeing these things - marriages and babies - happening in the lives of my friends didn't make me sad. While I am overjoyed that these wonderful people are achieving these happy points in their lives, I'm also mourning them a little. Anybody who's had friends have kids knows what I'm talking about. No matter how hard you and they try, it's always going to be different, and very much so.

 

It's everything from having less time and less money, to new priorities and new people. Parents spend a lot of time with other parents. Because us single folks can only take so much diaper-talk and I gather parents can only take so much of hearing about the life they can't live anymore. I'm okay with their choices and where their lives take them - their life is theirs to live after all - but I'll miss the way things used to be nonetheless.

I knew 2012 was going to hold a lot of changes for me - felt it true in my bones - but I never thought I would be going through such an intense personal transformation again. Imagine sitting in front of a huge pile of building blocks, with the task of building who you want to be, but without clear plans on how to do it. (Maybe your snot-nosed cousin tore up the instructions?) You work your way up, only to realize you made a mistake, or you don't like something, or you get a better idea. It's a fluid work in progress with more than one outcome and none of them need to be final. Right now, I'm taking blocks down, turning them around in my hands, and trying to imagine the next thing I want to build with them.

 

There have been a few false starts and I haven't built up much further than my personal foundations, but at least those are solid and dependable now. My structure will have a dependable base upon which to be built, and that gives everything I put into this a better chance of success. I'm also learning to trade building blocks with others, for parts we each might need. Yeah, I'm really digging this metaphor! I hope it makes some sort of sense haha... Anyway, I hope you all had a great weekend and that your Monday is going well. Cheers! 

Good Days

While I have to admit I've recently spent a lot of time feeling anxious and frightened in regards to my future, I still have had quite a few good days. Or at least periods of goodness within my days. My belly dance class is a weekly highlight for me, as are my Tuesday dinners with my grandparents. This past Saturday was a very good day from end to end though, from waking moment to hitting the pillow. With a warm, sunny day ahead of me, I took the opportunity to wear this gorgeous India cotton wrap skirt that the ever wonderful Anne gifted me.

 

Blouse - Thrifted from Value Village

Skirt - Gift from Anne

Shoes - Hush Puppies 50% off from Sears

I was reading Medicinal Marzipan's weekly Body Loving Blogosphere post today, and there was a link to another great post titled An Ode To Real Women. I really enjoyed it and just wanted to share. Too often you hear people say that a 'real woman' only looks such-and-such a way or behaves in such-and-such a manner, while this ode brings home the point that we are all real women regardless of our differences. That's just something I think more women - and men - should hear!

When my boots kicked the bucket last week, I had to find myself new walking shoes. I absolutely loathe and despise sneakers and running shoes. Seriously, how stupid do they look with a pretty dress?! I am stubborn and refuse to wear them, but this makes finding good walking shoes rather difficult. I'd spent over an hour - which is a lot so far as I'm concerned - scouring the shoe shops at a nearby mall. Nada. In a last ditch attempt I checked out the Clearance section at Sears and snagged these for 50% off their original $124.99 sticker price. Yoink! They've got a thick sole to cushion my feet, no weird parts to dig into or compress my toes, and they are just what I needed until it gets warm enough to break out my sandals. I'm not sure how I'll deal with rain, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.



I love the print on this skirt! And it's actually long enough to wrap around me without worrying about somehow flashing somebody when a gust of wind comes along, or when I sit down. Actually, I was scrabbling around the locks on the Rideau Canal dressed like this - with a certain amusing long haired fellow - and the skirt did a great job keeping up with my nuttiness while allowing for modesty. Methinks this skirt shall be worn a lot.

I hadn't realized my camera was still zoomed in when I took this first photo, but it turned out to be the one I liked most out of all of them. I recently started a completely different makeup routine with new mineral products from a seller on Etsy. I didn't want to spend ridiculous amounts of money on fancy mineral makeup when I knew I could be getting the same, if not better, quality from someone making the product by hand. not to mention knowing my money is going directly to that person. After inspecting over half a dozen sellers, I settled on Earth Angel Minerals. I bought a sample pack of 20 and I love the products. I've already got plans to buy full sizes of eyeshadow colours and to try out plenty more in sample size - which are generous enough to last me at least two or three months! There's an Eye Brightener which I swear is magic in a jar. (These are my own uncompensated opinions, fyi!)

I've recently gotten the idea of henna-ing my hair stuck in my head. Specifically I'm thinking of using Lush' Caca Rouge and maybe going a deep red-ginger colour. I have never dyed my hair with anything, ever. Not a once. So this would be a very drastic change for me. And you can't really undo the deed once you've henna'd your hair, it's basically live with it or chop it off. I do know that my current hair colour would probably let the red really come out bright and strong, which is what I want. But I'm not certain it would suit me. What do you all think? Have any of you ever henna'd your hair before?

I hope you all had a good weekend. I danced myself silly on Friday night, and my Saturday was fantastic. It was filled with coffee drinking at the Raw Sugar Cafe, wanderings around Dow's Lake, chinese takeout from my favourite place, an intense Super Mario battle and the watching of Labyrinth. All this topped off with some awesome hugs. Twice, because he forgot something and had to come back. Then Sunday I did more solo wandering around the lake and baked some peanut butter banana chocolate chip muffins. I'm seeing the lad again this evening which promises to be wonderful. I hope you're all having a great Monday! Cheers!