Pain is ____________

I am in pain, every joint, muscle, rib. Breathing is stretching, moving my hands sends splinter feelings up my knuckles, getting out of the chair is what I imaging 90 must feel like. I am crippled and I love it. 

Monday to Thursday I spend 85% of the day on my feet, I spend 50/50 of that either under a (most likely difficult and unruly) horse and at the forge learning how to hammer steel into shapes. I have blisters ON my blisters, and they are all in the creases of my second and third knuckles. Breathing reminds me I need to see a chiropractor to get my rip placed back where the good Lord intended. I am so happy.

Last night, while attempting to fall asleep in record time I lay awake thinking about quotes on pain. “Pain is beauty” is the one that pops to mind first. Indeed often it can be, but honey, my hands look like a 50 year old loggers, and that ain’t beauty. I read a haunting book last year called The Secret History, by Donna Tartt. Read it. Here’s a quote that struck me:

Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming…Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.

Beauty is terror. Interesting. So I went on a “it’s 12 am I now have 5.75 hours left to sleep” rabbit trail in my mind. You know the ones. Here’s the long, run-on sentence that it turned into.

Beauty is Terror, Terror = fear, The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, I always thought the truly wise knew what and how much to fear, therefore Wisdom = managed fear. Wisdom is beautiful = wisdom is terrible;

Wisdom is Pain.

I’m sure it was the late hour and the fact that every time I rolled over my bones creaked like an old snag tree off the west coast but this meant something slightly awesome to me last night. 

I’m n half a bottle of cab sav in, Something’s Got to Give is playing in the background, and I am getting ready to brush my teeth before getting into bed. Once again, before ten.

 

Life is beautiful

 

Moi xoxo

Today has been such a great day.

Today has been a great day!!! My new life is amazing. I have started school to become a farrier, one who shoes horses for those of you who need clarification. I am one week in and I have never been more scared or more happy. Today we went on a field trip to Laughingstock Ranch in Langley. Laughingstock is a pony party for hire company, they have over twenty mini ponies, goats, bunnies, and puppies! Today has been a fan-freaking-tastic day.
When I came back, grandma made cake!
Hope you’re life is lovely.
XO Moi

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I’ll Spare You

I’ll spare you the long drawn out apology as to why I’ve not written because, hey it’s my blog not yours. However it is the first of 2013 and I felt the need to resolve some things. Go figure. 

To update the previous years list:

8.) Make a sour dough starter. Keep it alive forever. 
9.) Harvest. Cultivate. Enjoy. 
10.) Make epic costume. 
11.) Bake every weekend. Of just this month… maybe.
12.) Go to Sudbury for Christmas. 

 I made bread in August, not sour dough. Also I got into Kombucha and have nearly made my own batch. I feel fine about that.

I harvested amazing tiny grape tomatoes off my tomato plant, (obviously), I realized I do not know how to cultivate, I did enjoy.

I made a spectacular Steampunk costume. Someone must have a picture of it somewhere. I used all my own clothes and realized I have some kick ass taste. Oh ya.

I baked three weekends in a row, then on the fourth our lab ate my rolling pin, and on the first weekend in December both dogs broke into all the baking, and ate it. All of it. I cried. 

We stayed in BC for christmas, we just got married, we’re broke.

 

I’m half way through a list of things I’m thinking of updating you on soon. I’ll let you know later as I plan to get back to publishing a post once a month at least. I may not though, as I have recently discovered pottermore.com and I am a bigger nerd now than ever. I am a 28 1/2 year old Hufflepuff, and I’m bad at potions but I rock spells. You looking at me?

Peace and have a super year! Hey we survived an apocalypse, that’s at least two now for me, I feel like Buffy.

 

 

Moi xoxo

A Mother’s Prayer For Her Child: By Tina Fey


“First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches. May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty. When the Crystal Meth is offered, may she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer. Guide her, protect her when crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age. Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit. May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers. Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen.Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait. O Lord, break the Internet forever, that she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed. And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it. And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes. Amen.” -Tina Fey

 

 

 

While looking for tattoo pictures I stumbled onto that somewhere in the intweb, I laughed. Funny, I heard she was a comedian.

Moi xoxo

Geeking Awesome

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Guess what! (Note that is an exclamation point and not a question mark; that should indicate I’m about to tell you the answer without you having to ask; ie: A rhetorical question.)
Joss Whedon has filmed Much Ado About Nothing! And if that weren’t enough to make me stupid happy the ridiculous couple of Beatrice and Benedict are going to be played by Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof – that’s right, Angel‘s doomed couple of Fred and Wesley. Be still, my softly weeping heart.

Joss Whedon is responsible for how I viewed women at an early age. He successfully protected me from the angry poison of feminism while still empowering me to be bad-ass woman who dates who she wants, doesn’t take crap, and kicks vampire but. I watched Buffy every Tuesday night at the impressionable age of 13 quickly followed by Xena… I may have been overly violent as a teen.

In one of my “I live with my parent’s again” times of life, we watched Firefly. I had already seen the show, however as punishment for making me a Second Generation Trekkie, (as in I am the second generation), I hushed my dad’s “What’s a Space Cowboy?” questions and we got together once or twice a week and watched The Captain and crew. My dad still sings “Find me a horse! Find me a gun, I won’t rest until I’m done!” loosely in the tune of The Ballad of Serenity by Sunny Roads.

I’ve watched pretty much anything Joss has done over the years. I enjoy his snappy dialogue and the way he fleshes out a character to the point of realism. You can almost see the family like atmosphere he creates on his set between the crew. I am so happy to see the cast of characters in the upcoming Much Ado; it looks like a family reunion. Here are the one’s I recognize; there are about four more who I don’t from various Joss films etc.

Nathan Fillion – Dogberry
Clark Gregg – Leonato
Amy Acker – Beatrice
Alexis Denisof – Benedick
Sean Maher – Don John
Fran Kranz – Claudio
Tom Lenk – Verges

Pass the popcorn.

Moi xoxo

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I’ll see you two later.

 

 

 

I would like to dedicate this post to IMDB.

So It Goes

Anyone out there absolutely LOVE Vonnegut? And then simultaneously realize sometimes you just can’t handle him? Moi. Over here; right here. Ya. I think, was he for real? And then I remember how I felt the first time I read about Bokonists pressing one’s feet against another’s….

We will touch our feet, yes,
Yes, for all we’re worth,
And we will love each other, yes,
Yes, like we love our Mother Earth.
-Books of Bokonon

Whatever pilgrim! I didn’t come here to talk about the Kurt.
(I’ve been watching a lot of Family Guy. I’m seriously stuck on Peter’s John Wayne impersonations….Pilgrim.)

Remember this?

1.) Find running shoes: start couch to 5k.
2.) Decide on and put a payment on a wedding band from Tiffany’s. 
3.) Hike to the West Coast, take pictures as proof. Start garden. 
4.) Celebrate last birthday as a “single” lady. Go to SanFran with BFF.[Amended to "Seattle w TF"]
5.) Throw a kick ass, stress free party for all my friends so they can watch me get married. Live the moment; you only get married for the first time once. 
6.) Paint a picture.  I chose to garden instead…also I still haven’t unpacked therefore can’t find my easel.
7.) Read a book I’ve put off from the NYR/2011.
8.) Make a sour dough starter. Keep it alive forever. 
9.) Harvest. Cultivate. Enjoy. 
10.) Make epic costume. 
11.) Bake every weekend. Of just this month… maybe.
12.) Go to Sudbury for Christmas. 

Me either, however things are shaping up pretty darn awesome. Well this little update was basically just for books! I count books on tape iPhone as a book read. I just do, so get over it.

This last two months I have devoured five books and I’m on my sixth. I love Miriam Toews, so I read two of hers. A Boy of Good Breeding, funny and entertaining. Irma Voth, tragic and beautiful. I still count The Flying Troutmans as my favorite of her books. I really read those ones, with pages and everything.

I’ve listened to Crime and Punishment, Paradise Lost, and now I’m on Middlemarch. Here’s something I had to pull over to write down it got me so good.

“We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips and in answer to inquiries say, “Oh, nothing!” Pride helps; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our hurts — not to hurt others.”
End of chapter 6
Middlemarch
George Eliot

I like Pina Coladas, Kittens, Birds, and Great Danes.

So I once went to this stag party. There weren’t many people there that I knew and it was  a full on drunken camping weekend in the reeeaaly hick part of the Island. I was actually scared my tent and I would get run over in the middle of the night, so I parked it behind some trees that were behind an over-sized truck, then stole the keys to said behemoth that spoke plainly of it’s drivers complex.

My good friend was getting married, she and her soon to be husband decided to celebrate together and throw a huge camping extravaganza on a lake. This over the top party contained kegs, (and subsequently many keg stands), potato guns, quadding, overloaded boats desperately trying to pull tubes full of inebriated humans, and my favorite memory, a man in a mexican fighting mask walking around like a zombie at 7 am. There was a guy who bit the head off a live fish people, this was a bachelor/ette weekend I’ll never forget.

The reason I will never forget, is because I was too damn scared to get wasted. Thank heavens. I knew precisely four humans there, and they were all sorts of irresponsible; so I hung out with the dogs.

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t lame or anything; I wasn’t a wallflower, I had all kinds of fun. I sat in beach chairs in the lake and drank beer from 7:00-23:00 PST, I just drank responsibly. There was no mixing, there was no tequilla, and there was absolutely no …. Mary Jane as my mother likes to call it. And, when the party would get out of hand, I’d move off to the tent and make sure Odin, the Great Dane, had supper and kept me warm.

My good friend and her husband broke up a while ago. I was sad as he was my favorite dude for her. She is now with the fish head biting man… she likes to keep it real. Me, if I”m uncomfortable at a party, or decide I’ve conversed with drunk adults long enough, you’ll find me hanging with the cat/gerbil/dog/horse. And that’s exactly why my honey of a girlfriend sent me this picture on Facebook, and tagged it as me.

 

Embrace thyself, and animals.

Moi xoxo

Goodkind? Not Really.

So I got married. I know, you’re sick of hearing about it but this is relevant. I swear. McHusband and I received some gift cards as presents, awesome. Two of them were pretty gender specific. He got the one to the local Marine shop, and I got the one to Chapters. God Bless you, whoever you are… I’m pretty sure Rebek wrote it all down and I’ll send you a thank you note soon.

Last Friday GermanG and I went down to Nanaimo, or as I also like to call it, civilization. I spent a beautiful time in Chapters all by myself while she had an ‘attack and destroy mission’ in Costco. I browsed books for at least two hours. I loved every minute of it… until I found this.

I’m pretty sure I raged about this book sometime last year, however let me repeate myself. WHY?!

Terry Goodkind wrote the Fantasy saga The Sword of Truth. I lived in this world from the age of 13 to the age of 23 when he brought a lovely and perfect conclusion to a riveting story line. Or so I thought.

You would think I’d be happy to dive back into those well-loved characters and a familiar world wouldn’t you. Well you’d be wrong. I live in a perpetual state of fear that an author will die, and leave his or her characters literally (heh geeky double entendre) hanging! George R. R. Martin is probably the worst offender, but Mr. Goodkind did take 10 years for me to read a series and I was pretty nervous the whole time.

Of course, I bought the book. I’m 15 chapters in and begrudgingly enjoying myself. The poor check out clerk named Tyler had to deal with an unexpected answer to his “Did you find everything you were looking for?” question. I gave him the whole rant and I think he was convinced that I was an insane sci-fi geek. He’d be right.

Take care my lovelies.

Moi xoxo

You can be a real bag.

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This is the first night we spent on our USA road trippin’ honeymoon. We spent the evening looking at Vancouver Island, in a VW. Rock on :)

I have been so M.I.A. this last month that I have SO much fun stuff to write about! So much, in fact, that I can’t remember any of it.

For starters, I got married in May. I threw, (we threw), a kick ass, stress free, party for our friends to watch us get hitched. Cross #5 off the New Years Resolutions list. Apparently I have to paint a picture for June; you may or may not get an update of that. But – straight after the wedding we did what you would expect. Took off.

McHusband and I drove to the coast of Oregon said hi and then drove to Portland. We spent a good quality 38 hours there. We shopped vintage pendelton, went to the worlds largest and coolest bookstore, (where I got pretty lost somewhere in the purple room? Orange level?!), and we ate at this super cool place called The Fish Grotto.
There’s no sales tax in Oregon, score! Score quite a bit thank you very much. Some Nike, a rose gold Kenneth Cole watch, a pair of 20 year anniversary edition Vans for him, and much more. The one thing we should have bought and didn’t we both have un-buyer’s remorse over.

If I wasn’t trying to post this on my new iPad I’d guarantee there’d be a cool pic to go with that link; check back tomorrow I’ll sort it. 

Sorted.

Chrome is a super company who makes messenger and other bags for all you cool pedal and motorized biker people out there. There’s some ultra aqua proof material and a seatbelt styled clip that doubles as a bottle opener. It’s the most Canadian American bag ever. We both need one.

So! We’ve just, (two seconds ago), decided to take the bikes to Portland and buy two of the bags. Grey for me green for him. We’ll make a day of it, buy beer and ride home.

Ain’t love grand?

Sayanora muchachos

Moi xoxo