A gift.....

Today my cyber-friend Mountain Goddess sent me a poem she had written for me and Liam.

I have no words to express my gratitude.

BC Boy

Scented in cedar

he runs

always in my mind's

eye

Mountains,

gracious towering wall

between me

and love

My heart and his

always

stolen

from our raincoast

home

Let the rain fall

into my open hand

Fright Night

This night and tomorrow I will be decorating the house, getting ready to welcome over 30+ friends, kids and neighbours into our home for HALLOWEEN! My true religious holiday :) I love Halloween, it speaks to the child in me who always wanted to be a princess, no a Troll, no a Donkey, no a Robot....I love that my friends get into the spirit. I love that Greg makes decorating the house an EVENT....I am looking forward to all of the fun in store....and because I can't wait, Quinn and I are going to a Haunted Firehall tonight for some creepy pre-Halloween goosebumps :) :)

Happy Halloween all.

Ladies and Gentlemen....

I give you my brand new tattoo.....which in my opinion turned out beautiful if not a bit bigger than anticipated. I have waited so long to do this that it felt cathartic in making her a reality. My hour+ in the artist's chair could not have been made more comfortable. My sister kept me focused and busy looking at a book of body tattoos that probably took lifetimes to amass. That made me feel pretty humble about my wee girlie here. Tim (the artist) was very accomodating and respectful. He is a talented dude for sure and said he appreciated "popping a beautiful woman's *cherry* so early on a saturday morning"...LOL...referring hopefully to the fact that this was my "first time".

I am so pleased with her. She is as powerful, gorgeous and feminine as was intended.

Thankful

I have always felt that Thanksgiving is kind of a pointless holiday for Canadians. In fact I wonder how we ended up with a version of the American pilgrim dealio at all...However, being a government employee for the last decade I am *thankful* for the extra day off and I really appreciate the fact that NO stores are open so I have no excuse but to lie about digesting the dinner from Sunday :)

That being said this is the first year that I have had “MY” family around me in any sort of numbers for this Faux-Turkey Gobbling day and I have to tell you I got a misty twinge in my eye when all of us said what we were thankful for around that table. Each of the kids said “family” first and foremost with the exception of Liam who was thankful for his dessert fork! LMAO My Sis and I agreed that we were most thankful for the health of our families and I think secretly my Mum was most thankful that her gravy turned out!

So we had Greg’s family dinner on Saturday night and then my smaller version of a family’s dinner on Sunday. A proper family meal in my Mum’s new house with my Sis and her family. What a treat (and I am also making reference to my Mother’s cabbage rolls – of which I have been bereft for a decade).

For that (and all of the above) I am truly thankful.

I should....

I’m trying to scrabble around on my mental floorboards these days and find my “big girl panties”….I’m trying to embrace the idea that I am going to turn 40 in a few months time. When I reflect on this time in my life, mostly I come to the realization that truly in my mind I am still 22. Still irreverent, the class clown, the smartass.

I’m still stringing it together one day at a time, lurching through my life feeling as goofy and as unprepared as I ever did. Which to be truthful, I expected to be over by the time I was 4-0!!!! I mean really, I am the mother of a teenager. For God’s sake I thought the self-doubt and schoolgirl notions would have long past dissipated into a mist of wisdom and inner calm. I was unprepared for feeling like I just left highschool and still had yet to get my shit together.

Grounded as my life seems to be, mired in responsibility and stuffed full of “shoulds”, I think I am ready for a break out moment. A moment that is truly selfish and I have now decided that I will follow my bliss in declaring myself to be my own. My body to be my own. Regardless of the strings and entanglements that are attached to it and me.

So I go into this time with a declaration that although I hold many titles….mother, wife, professional, sister, auntie, volunteer…..I am truly at the core of it all Carla. In that I am decided that I have always wanted to get a tattoo (regardless of what anyone else thinks of them) and that this will be my gift to myself in my 40th year.

My long attachment to water speaks to me wherever I have lived, moved…in the water I have always been truly beautiful and free, emersed in a feeling of warmth, at peace in nature and in my life. So I have chosen a mermaid to be placed in the center of my back so that when I turn my back on myself in the mirror I am reminded that the other side of me, the other side of Carla still swims inside the body of that woman who owns all those “shoulds” and that she is strong, capable, beautiful and is still the same fabulous smartass she always has been.

I am.

Because I have enough love if not enough time....

Pudge is his name, he is currently living in our home on a trial basis. So far so good. The only issue Pudge seems to have is that he has never seen a cat. YIKES Hopefully a truce can be called within the house soon, if not Pudge is going to be quite a handful. :) So I guess it's a good thing he is so damn cute. The boys are in like but I'm kinda in love.

I like to be spontaneous. I think it is a rare and precious thing to allow yourself the luxury of being so. Most of my “spontaneous combustion” involves doing something for others. Some of the things I like to do are:

A) impromptu dinners out with my guys just cause
B) buying a present for someone outta the blue when I know it’s a sure thing for smiles all around
C) going somewhere on the fly….no plans….just happy accidents waiting to happen
D) doing an activity out of the ordinary for the experience (i.e. belly dance classes)
E) bringing in treats to work on a Tuesday (or a Thursday or Friday morning….lol)
F) picking my sister up from work randomly so she doesn’t have to walk
G) midnight beach swimming with my girlfriends
H) finding and taking advantage of quiet times alone that I can manage to coordinate
I) random acts of kindess (my FAVOURITE thing in the world to do)

Do you practice the art of “spontaneity”?

I guess some people would think that doing or starting spontaneous things, activities etc are a sign of a random mind or a lack of direction. Some friends and family of mine think I’m just plain OUT THERE….but I think developing the art of being random opens us to experiences and people that maybe we never would have had the opportunity to enjoy. I prefer to look at random or spontaneous events as gifts ready to be unwrapped. Gifts of joy. Living a safe existence peering over the chasm of opportunity doesn’t resonate with me I guess. I prefer to leap and to do so with wide outstretched arms, smiling into the fray. Call me crazy.

Today I completed some spontaneous efforts:

· I bought two tickets to an NFL game for my Greg and Liam to enjoy this Sunday while Quinn and I attend a birthday party.
· I overheard a woman at our YMCA asking about our transit service here in Town (I coordinate that of course for our community) so I stopped and offered to walk to Town Hall with her and get her registered for the handi-dart service. She was so pleased!!!
· I know my niece Maya wants a ticket to the dance tonight so I got her one.
· I emailed my sister and advised her I had bought us a copy of the Diana Gabaldon book just out this week….cannot wait to get into that!

You?