My Mom...and other things

I just dropped my mom off this morning at the airport to fly back to the Westcoast after a 5 day visit. It's funny how when we spend so much time together we get a bit tetchy, but the second she'd gone through the doors into security at the airport, tears sprung into my eyes and I didn't want to let her go. I love my mom so much. It makes me so sad to know how unhealthy her heart and her lungs are. The air here in Calgary is so dry and it was pretty chilly when she first arrived and trying to breath she had tears in her eyes and I was scared that I would have to take her to the hospital. I am so thankful that for the 5 days that she was here the weather was uncharacteristically warm, otherwise it would have been quite difficult for her to be here.

I am quite disappointed with myself as I look back on the 5 days my mom was here. I cherish my mom, but I am not sure that she would know it by how I behaved. When my mom was slow (she needs to walk slowly as not to tax her heart and lungs or breathing becomes difficult), I would be annoyed. When she coughed or needed to smoke (she's quitting and is smoking 1/3 of what she used to. It's very hard, she began smoking when she was 13 and nicotine is more addictive than cocaine, don't judge her), I was short and abrupt and sometimes downright rude. I think this has been my coping method for years and years. My worst nightmare has been that my mom would die young due to smoking and all the complications it brings, and then when I needed her most she wouldn't be here to love me and to be loved. Who would help me get ready for my wedding (someday), and tell me all the little things I need to know about being a mom?? It scares the shit out of me to think that she might not be around for my whole life. So when I get all annoyed at her habit that has stolen so much LIFE from her is pisses me off more than I can express and it hides all the fear. If I didn't get annoyed and angry, I would cry all the time and be filled with worry. BUT...the thing is...my annoyance and anger is with the HABIT not her, but I am afraid that it seems like I am annoyed and angry with her. Mom I am not angry with you.

Lord, as I write this I am filled with fear and I need to know that you have my mom in the palm of your hand and that you will protect her and keep her. Dear Jesus please, will you heal her? I beg you Jesus to restore life to her. And please help me not to be scared, but to trust in you so deeply that all my fear is swallowed up by your love so I no longer will any fear that I need to hide by anger and annoyance and can just love my mom.

Lost and not Found

Well I had an incredibly deep post all typed out that bared my heart and soul for all the www to see and hit some obscure button and lost it. Now all you get is this. The typing was cathartic and now have no need to write it all out again. That or it still freaks me out to type stuff like that for people to actually see. You'll never know now!! Cheers.

Gallavanting and Homecomings

I left this fine conitinent that I live on and went to another. I left a couple of weeks ago for Germany and England, to go to some meetings and a conference and see some friends. It was good. That's really all I have to say about it. I met some really fantastic people and saw some neat places, but am I so incredibly happy to be home.

You know the saying, "Home is where the heart is"? Well I think it's true. My heart was in Germany and the UK for a bit, and I remember when it was in Portugal and Spain. Near the end of my trip, my heart was at home and I wasn't there, so I was left longing for home. When I say home I don't necessarily mean home the geograpic location, (but that is part of it), I mean the people you love and connect with...they are what makes up home for me. As an example, I consider myself to have 2 homes. Where I grew up is where all of my family and old friends lives and that's what I call "home home". Calgary, where I live now is "home" and here lives my newer friends and the girls that I've adopted as sisters. The last time I travelled, I was with two of my adopted sisters and so home was partly wherever we happened to be at the time. I did miss the rest of home, but I could handle being away from it for longer because of the part of home that was with me. Are you following my drift here?

Anyways...I was extremely excited the day I was to catch my plane and come home. Of course as Murphy's Law exists and comes alive during just such a time, it would have me miss my flight home so I had to endure another 24 hours apart from my beloved home. Yes, I missed my flight and I did in fact feel like I was in a movie and it wasn't really happening to me. It turned out that is was real life however, and I found myself facing many long hours in which to occupy myself until my replacement flight took my home. Well at least it took me close to home. It took me to Edmonton then I had a 3 hour drive until I hit home. I would have hated to be the guy in the movie, "The Terminal". I found that airports are incredibly noisy in the wee hours of the morn when you'd think it might be a tad peaceful. I would have gone and slept in the chapel if they would have let me, but they said they didn't encourage it and apparently a nice officer strolled through periodically through the night. Well thank goodness for comfy Starbucks chairs. All you have to do is push two of them together and voila!...you have a makeshift bed.

I thought periodically throughout my unexpected extra day in England, "I'm too old for this shit." Meaning I should just fork over the money and get a hotel, but instead I resorted to flawed logic. If I just stayed in the airport for the night, not only could I be sure that I wouldn't miss another plane, I would be sooo stinkin' tired that I would be able to sleep on the plane ride home. I had tried taking gravol to sleep on the way to England but it had no effect. And if staying up for a bazillion hours didn't work, I could still try gravol again and if that didn't work, there was always the nice little bottle of alcohol that I bought.

I didn't sleep one lick of sleep. I tried all of the above and I have come to the conclusion that my body simply rejects airplane sleep. Next time I am going to take whatever cold medication my friend Daniel took when he conked out in his bathroom while shaving only to wake up later asleep on his bathroom floor and the batteries in his shaver were dead. Give me some of that!!

So HOME!!! I am home and I am loving it!! It has been snaining (snowing/raining) today and I don't even care!! I am just absolutely delighted to be home. Thank you God for getting me home.

Cheeky Weather

I am of two minds today. Actually that's true of most days, but today I am of two minds in regard to the weather. A part of me (the one that grew up on the West coast), is really happy to see it raining. I love the smell of the earth when it is rained on. The other part of me loathes the idea of summer ending and winter coming. I think I was made for warmer climates. There is also a part of me that looks forward to blizzardy days that leave behind a snow-blanketed world that seems to be covered in mystery and silence. I think it's the romantic part of me that likes this because I imagine walking hand-in-hand with someone and then sitting by a nice warm fire cuddling. Actually the romantic part of me likes something about every season because they each hold images of romance.

So it's still raining and instinctively I want to do something warm and cozy and be lazy. Could someone install a hot tub in my back yard please? Or a fireplace in my house? Pretty please?

Many moons

It has been many moons since I last wrote here. I have not been inspired to write of late. That's a lie; I have been inspired, but I have not been willing to write because the things in my mind seemed too personal to expose to the world wide web and my friends that read this spot. I am still hesitant to write, but nonetheless find myself here to add another entry.

Life is beautiful. Life is confusing. Sometimes life is ugly. I mostly live in a life that is beautiful. Right now I feel like I am in the beautiful camp and the confusing camp. We are complex people, with insanely instricate minds and personalities and it's no wonder that life can sometimes be confusing. You put us together with other people and our intricacies overlap creating something of beauty, wonder and things we cannot wrap our minds around, but look at in awe and intense curiousity. Things that make you go hmmmmm.

What does my future hold? Does it have you in it?

My Mistake

So I had the lyrics to the one line that I thought I remembered, wrong. Funnily enough though, they were close enough that a friend recognized it(despite my BAD, BAD rendition of faking my way through the line and humming some of the tune[except it was off tune]). Thank the good Lord for friends who know lots of songs!! So I am a happy camper for now until the next song comes along to drive me nuts!!

Okay new topic...so I found out today that the Queen was in town. I don't really know what she was doing here and what all the hubbub was about but hey...she's the queen. Honestly, with no offence meant to my fine British friends, I don't really have any sort of affinity for the queen or any of the royal family for that matter. As a Canadian I feel the queen and family are far too removed from the reality of who we are here. On the other hand I recognize the HUGE influence they've had on the shaping of the Canadian government. I can't dismiss that, but in my day to day life, I can't say that I can identify in any way, shape or form with the Royal family or the roles they play in this world. I also must claim ignorance because honestly, I don't really know what they do besides look pretty, wave nicely and smatter the press occassionally. If any of my British friends feels inclined to educate me, please do.

Next on my list of things to chat about...I wish I knew what I am doing...become a mailperson ( I still like to say mailman...sorry if that offends anyone since it's not a gender equal title), become a reading teacher, go back to school and get a masters in Ed., keep on keeping on...become a superhero with the fantastic power of being able transport people to the exact spot where they would like to fall asleep. Just in case you're curious, this wish for such an odd power comes from my experience as a little kid who still had the WHOLE drive home before she could fall asleep even though she was VERY tired and wanted to sleep now and always wished she could be like Dorothy in the Wizard of OZ and click her heels and say, "There's no place like bed!". Speaking of bed...

One last thing...Has anyone read Neuromancer?

Crazy Like That

The title really has nothing to do with me coming back online and blogging again. The title is lyrics in a song I am looking for but cannot find. I hate when that happens and it seems to be a fairly consistent occurence in my life. I VERY often don't remember the title or artist of a song and so finding a song when you don't know the pertinent information can prove to be difficult. I can probably sing part of the song, but that doesn't mean anyone else will recognize what comes out of my mouth, because what comes from my mouth never sounds quite like the song playing in my head. This at times has proven to be a mild embarrassment, especially when looking to others for assistance in song finding. Oh well...I can laugh at myself.

On to other things on the mind. I went out for a friend's B-day last night and we went dancing. If you know me well, you know that I LOVE to dance! I don't claim to be a stellar dancer, but I can hold my own. On with the story...we went to Tequila's Nightclub to celebrate. I must say that it was skanky. I know my scale of skankiness may be different from other people's but hey...I'm writing this blog, so we'll go with my scale. It seemed the crowd was younger than other places I have danced at. It seemed just more...skankier as well. I had fun don't get me wrong. I like to dance, what more can I say. Give me a chance to dance and automatically I will have fun! I was praying lots while dancing because watching the people around me was a "Crazy like that". Every now and then a song came on with great lyrics that I could sing to God as a prayer and that was terrific. I just needed to dance and pray. I think I need to dance and pray more because places like Tequila needs it, aint no question about that. On that note...if anyone knows the song that the title lyrics belong to let me know...I think it's a Destiny's Child song.

Cravings and Addictions

I am 8 days into my Detox diet for cleansing and once again have re-discovered that I am a carbohydrate junkie. I have seen some progress since my last detox, but still, I have not overcome my addiction to carbs.

The last time I cleansed or detoxed or tortured myself, as I like to call it, was about a year ago and my first day was rough. I had some serious carb cravings to the point where I was thinking, "Just give me some damn chips or fries!". I was having a grumpy day as a result of dealing with my withdrawal symptoms. As soon as I got home that day I fried a potato to a crisp and that was that, but it wasn't bread and cereal.

This time around, I am doing much better. I still have cravings, but they are muted. I pray that the other more insidious cravings and addictions in my life will be muted and eventually just go away. Namely the things that feed pride, the addiction I have to myself. Sherry, get outta the way! More of Jesus and less of me. That's all folks.

Detoxifying

I have just started the Wild Rose Detox program. I must admit that it is with some reluctance that I submit myself to such things as this. I have to abstain from eating so many things that I love! It is distinctively painful to be in my own home and have my roomie bake a chocolate cake, which smells absolutely divine, and know that I am unable to enjoys it's pleasures. It doesn't help that we have random goodies floating around the house as well.

For dinner tonight we enjoyed a black bean and rice casserole. It's an odd recipe. It has eggs and rice and black beans and tomato sauce...it IS tasty though. It looks funny, but tastes good.

I noted today with disdain, that my sense of smell becomes heightened while I detox. Paul opened a bag of corn chips and I could smell them like I have never smelled anything before. It was an intense smell that caused my stomach to growl and once the bag was finished the smell lingered to torment me.

You gotta love detoxes. It takes discipline, which I am not the best at, but am obviously working on. That would be another blog entirely of it's own, which I might just write up tomorrow since it is supposed to blizzard most of the night, and I think I may spend most of the day at home rather than risk frostbite or a car accident.

Well, I meant to be in bed an hour ago, so off I go!

Auspicious beginnings

I just have to say that I really, really like the way 2005 has started. It has had an auspicious beginning.

I flew in New Year's Eve to party with the Epic gang down at the Jupiter and we had a blast. We did pack it in a little early in my humble opinion. It was a fun filled evening nonetheless. January 1st was a day all unto itself (of course it was, how could it not be a day unto itself, but I am trying to build up to what a great day it was).

It all started with a great sleep in. I believe that I rolled out of bed around 11 am and lolled around like a sloth for a while. You know what that's like. Take a shower and stay in and stand under the falling water until you feel like you are going to fall asleep standing up and you're wishing you drew a bath instead. Then you lounge around like a cat in your bathrobe and sit in front of the window that has the most sun shining in. Maybe eat something sugary and leave your bowl on the floor because you can. At some point you decide to get dressed because you have nothing else you have to do. Nothing but relax and welcome in a new year that comes in carry nothing but potential in with it. It has not brought with it yet any disappointments, frustrations, pain, broken dreams and the such. It has thus far brought nothing but hope.

It gets even better. I went over to Abby and Nat's place with some other friends and we were going to hang out, play games, eat food and relax. We played games from 4 in the afternoon until about midnight. We played the funniest, most hilarious game of Cranium I have ever played! Have you ever tried to act out 'REPRODUCE' ? Yep. All I have to say is that there was a lot of laughter, sore stomachs, maybe some tears and it was definitely hard to breathe for a bit. I love laughing like that. Uncontrollable laughter has got to be one of the funnest things to do. I wish more things were funny like that. Maybe things are funny like that and I am just too boring to notice. It sure makes everything else after that seem funny too.

To end the first day of the year we took some time to pray with each other and for each other and for ourselves and let God re-ignite us yet again for another year. We prayed to die to self, way, way, less or me and way, way, more of God; we prayed to see miracles and then prayed that we wouldn't doubt; we prayed for loved ones, we prayed for people we don't even know in Southeast Asia. We prayed that we would know the heart of God for this world and feel the heart of God for this world.

It is going to be a great year!