Adjust your sails

The apartment could use a good purge and clean but whenever I get home all I want to do is read or sleep or just not do anything so nothing gets done. I managed to get some of the laundry done last night and reorganized my closet so at least that's something. Still, whenever things are messy I start to feel like everything's chaotic.

Things that are blah
1. Work is busy but somehow incredibly boring at the same time.
2. I forgot to move my car into the driveway last night and had a ticket this morning.
3. My eating and exercising habits are still terrible.

Things that are good
1. John and I had a really nice weekend. We got to see Deadpool with some friends on Saturday afternoon and had a really nice dinner on Sunday.
2. I got new books! I picked up Kate Beaton's Step Aside, Pops: A Hark! A Vagrant Collection & the third volume of The Wicked + The Divine
3. I've been doing rather well with my goal to put more money in my savings.
4. I managed to reschedule my dentist appointment until April...which probably wasn't a good thing to do but boy, it made me feel better! For those that don't know, I have dentist phobia so appointments tend to be anxiety filled ordeals. I knew I wasn't in a good head space to have the appointment this month so I'm happy to have it rescheduled.
5. Um, the weather? Well, today it's good. The last few days have been bitter cold but we've gotten a break so today is nice.

So despite my mood being blah the good does out weigh the blah today.

Hey, just wanted to update to let you allknow I'm still around and haven't abandoned my journal :P I will be doing a proper update/catch up this evening once Newfoundland's deep in another snowstorm (provided we don't lose our power) but here's a quick run down the month:

Jan 4 - 8th - Was spent getting ready for a trip down to the Caribbean to watch some old friends get married. Washing, packing, re-packing, stressing, working a lot, getting stomachaches and more re-packing. I am not the most chill traveler as it turns out. I mean, once I was on the plane everything was good but before then I was a bundle of nerves.

Jan 9th to Jan 17th - Was spent flying down to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, sailing to Labadee Haiti & Falmouth Jamaica, watching my friends get married and generally having a good time on a cruise ship before the tedious trek back to Newfoundland via plane.

Jan 18th - Helping hang lady_green_bat's art show & sleeping.

January 19th to now - Holy fuck work. We're in mega crunch mode as we draw closer to year end and we need to all books received by mid-February to prepare ourselves for the new system roll-over. It's not helping that our new library system (Ex Libris Alma for those curious) is still buggy as fuck. The data transfer from our old Sirsi Workflows system to the new one went poorly. I've also been in a mental low which hasn't been helpful either and is one of the major reasons I haven't been motivated to write despite having so much to write about. I'll write more details about my travels and such in later posts though as I have to get back to work.

I hope everyone has been well and I hope to catch up with you all soon!

Wow, it takes a lot of time to catch up if you've been off LJ for a week lol. I try to do a bit of catching up and commenting this morning but if I missed anyone or anything major, sorry!

Last night I started a new list on day zero project although I decided against the usual "101 things in 1001 days" lists that the site was pretty much created for. Instead I decided to do my own "50 things in 501 days", since I usually manage to get most of the 101 list I figured 50 should be fairly easy to finish. I've still got to add another few goals so the list isn't finished yet but I may post it here once I have the full list though no promises.

Lately I've been wondering if it's better to share goals or to keep them to yourself as I've read arguments for both ways. Some say sharing goals makes you more inclined to reach them, others say keeping it to yourself makes you more likely to reach them. I generally find it depends on the goals and who I tell. With LJ I usually find it helps as I've posted past 101 lists here and gotten most of them finished but I find telling people I know offline is usually less helpful...though I'm not entirely sure why that is.

What do you guys think? Do you find you do better when you talk about goals or better when you keep them to yourself? Or a mix of both?

I hope everyone is having or has a good holiday this year but if you’re not, know that that’s okay too and I hope things get better soon. So far it seems like most people I know are in good spirits but it’s important to acknowledge those who are not.

My plans for Christmas are going home to stay with my parents as I do every year. On one hand I do feel a little bad that I’m not spending it with John but it is our tradition and my parents only have me now so I’d feel even worse not spending it with them. He’s staying at our apartment tonight and going over to his family’s place tomorrow since his room at his folks place is now a storage room. I invited him up with to Bay Bulls but he didn’t want to have to drive back to town tomorrow by himself since he’s not as familiar with the drive as I am. Oh well, we’re all (his family & mine) are all meeting up on Boxing Day for dinner which should be....interesting. It’ll be the first time my parents will be meeting his so I’m a little nervous about that.

Last night was good, John and I went out for sushi and then up to our landlords part of the house to celebrate Tibb’s Eve. Which apparently is usually only celebrated in Newfoundland. Basically it’s our way of breaking the Advent early and getting a drink lol. It was nice; we got to learn a lot more about our landlords who are really nice people.

As for today, I’m at work for a “half day”. If we don’t come we lose the day so everybody comes and we have a big party for the library staff kids. Very rarely do people stay for the full half day but I am as a favour to one of my co-workers. Our public desk has to stay open until 12 and usually every 24th he covers the desk but this year he & his girlfriend have to celebrate Christmas on the 24th since she’s a nurse & has to work on the 25th. So I volunteered to do this year. It’s nice and quiet and we only have one person so I get to pip off and write an entry. After I get off work it’s back to the apartment to exchange gifts and hang out with John for a bit before heading to my parents.

Hope you’re all well.

On December 6th, 1989 fourteen women were murdered for being women. I was five when it happened and I don't remember if I knew then what had happened but in 1991 December 6th became the national day of remembrance and action on violence against women. I learned about the massacre when I got older and was naturally horrified that this could even happen at all but also horrified that it could happen in Canada, my home country that I had always been brought to believe was a safe place. As a whole it generally is a safer country than many places in the world but even here violence can happen, as the events of December 6th and countless other horrific events over the years have shown.

I think what boggled my mind the most as a child was that these women were killed for simply being women. I was a very lucky kid so the idea of gendered violence was something I hadn't known about personally. Learning about the massacre was pretty shocking and it was one of the reasons that while I was growing up I made a point of trying to learn more about women's history when I was a teen and in college. In fact, learning about this event was undoubtedly one of the motivations for me becoming a feminist ultimately.

Before anyone says it, I know violence happens to everyone and that it's important to acknowledge all victims but I think days like December 6th are important. I think it's important to remember specific events because those events unfortunately do carry a horror with them. A horror that has the ability to slap us in the face and remind us that we have to try and stop these things from happening again and again.

I'll probably make a actual update later on but I just wanted to talk about this because I feel it's worth remembering and talking about.

So that song ‘Love myself’ by Haliee Steinfeld is about masturbation, right? And is it sad that after hearing that song so many times I only realized this yesterday? Not that there's anything wrong with the song, I still like it and think that's even better if that's what it's about lol.

Anyway.... on to Thursday night. I lost my car keys last night after bowling and had a minor freak out as I searched all over our porch, yard and near my car until I found in my locked car. Yep. Naturally my spare set of keys was still at my parent’s house, about a forty minute drive away. The whole while I’m beating myself up for being so careless and stupid and John’s there reassuring me that I’m not useless or stupid and then offers to drive me to Bay Bulls even though it’s 10 at night and he’s car doesn’t have winter tires on yet. Sometimes I don’t know how he stays so calm and puts up with me being so frazzled and so grumpy.

Actually, I do know how because I know I have been able to do the same when he gets upset about stuff. Anyway, we got the keys, made it back in one piece and made a Tim’s run for a stuffed cookie for John & cranberry white chocolate muffin for me.

As for bowling, it’s going well although I wish my game was better/more consistent. I did average on my first frame, fantastic my second frame and terribly on my final third frame. I will keep with it but I think I need to somehow fit in some more practice, especially since the best player on our team won’t be able to come for the rest of 2015.

Alright, that’s a recap of my Thursday shenanigans. Hope everyone’s having a good Friday and you all have a good weekend!

Writing about feeling down yesterday was pretty helpful and I think acknowledging it in a semi-public manner was the kick in the pants I needed. Why is it always easier to write here how I’m feeling then it is to tell people in my day-to-day life? I suspect it has to do with the fact that my friendslist shares so much that it makes me feel more comfortable doing so. That and I feel like there’s less expectations, if that makes any sense. Anyway, last night I made a point of trying to get back into writing in my paper journal (yep, I keep both an online & offline one) which always helps me figure out what’s wrong and what I need...when I keep up with writing in it.

One problem I noticed was my increased smart phone usage the last few months. I’ve developed a bit of a bad habit of mindlessly scrolling through my phone, especially before bed and when I get up. The new plan is to replace that with more paper journal writing and reading, which will hopefully help me feel more productive. There will be a bunch of other small changes too but I won’t bore you with the details....especially since I want to share these images instead:




These origami pieces are part of Cristian Marianciuc Origami journal series which I first saw on mymodernmet.com. I love this series! I’m nowhere near as good as this artist but it has me itching to break out my origami papers again.

I give you my feelings in gif form:


I've been pretty stressed at work lately (about work and other stuff) and people have noticed more than I thought. Or at least my department head noticed. She commented on it and gave me the same advice she gave her girlfriend about taking a decadent shower to relax. Showing after the gym will have to do but I'm thinking that will help with the stress. I also put in for a few vacation days in November. So far I'm feeling better already...but then getting off work generally makes me feel that way lol.

There's no major plans for this weekend, aside from checking out Crimson Peak with a group of friends on Saturday. Ultimately I'm just aiming for cleaning and relaxing and maybe making soup. Oh, and watching Halloween/horror themed stuff naturally. Lately we've been watching Scream Queens which I have to say I am enjoying. It's got issues but it does remind me of a gorier, sillier Heathers which is one of my favourite 80s films ever.Scream Queens is sadly lacking a decent JD or Veronica type character but Chanel 1 makes a great alternative Heather 1.

Another quick drive by post because holy-crap busy. So looking forward to the upcoming long weekend. I will try to catch up but just want to say I hope everyone's well :)

Who has two thumbs and makes a goal to post everyday only to skip the second day? This gal! Oh well, I was considering it a pretty loose goal anyway. It was super busy at work yesterday and then after work John and I went to see The Martian. We both enjoyed it, John liked it better than Gravity which I can understand because it's more story focused and isn't solely focused on one character so you get a feel for the other people and the world in the story. I'm not sure how it compares to the book, which of course everyone who's read it claims the book is better, but I did enjoy it. I was also surprised by who was in it and John & I enjoyed making all sorts of Marvel jokes thanks to Sebastian Stan and Kate Mara being in it lol.

Now, onto the halloween/autumn goodness. I was going to post pictures of my two costume dresses which arrived yesterday but sadly one of them has to be sent back because it's damaged :( I'll still post pictures of the other, non damaged one later and hopefully I'll get the replacement one before Halloween but I figured I'd post about something else. Instead of costumes I decided to post about one of my favourite witchy movies, The witches of Eastwick!



It's campy, dated, fun, and probably the reason I liked Cher as a kid. This and Mermaids. It's loosely based off the John Updike novel The Witches of Eastwick and is one of the rare examples where the movie is a lot better than the book. Like miles and miles better. If you like the book, that's cool and I respect your opinion but my opinion is 'Fuck that book'. There are few books that I can say I absolutely loath but that's one of them. It's sexist, homophobic, and all characters are completely unlikable. The only redeemable aspect was that author used some real witchcraft lore in it but other than that, it was awful. I finished it because I kept hoping it would get better and I'd see some of the charm that I saw in the movie but no.

Now, I'm not saying the movie doesn't have flaws because oh boy, it does have some flaws but I think the flaws are easier to ignore because ultimately it's fun. The Alex, Jane, and Sukie characters are likeable leads. Jack Nickleson's character, Daryl, gets a few laughs and pulls off repulsive yet the viewer can still somewhat understand why the Alex, Jane, and Sukie are charmed and attracted to him. Plus, who doesn't love it when the trio get to pull some witchy comeuppance on the judgmental people in their town? I'll stop here because I don't want to spoil in case anyone hasn't seen it but if you like witch movies it's worth checking out. If only for Cher/Alex's snark.