content?

In an effort to clean up my hard drive a wee bit, I was sorting and simplifying my files, when re-discovered a folder titled "blog content?" which contains a very random collection of images from last year.

I have long since forgotten the context of many of these photos, so I think the best plan is to toss them all up here together, and let them speak for themselves.

So... yeah.

Ta daaaah!!

(I can tell you that these next two are pre-wrapping, and wrapped gifts for a family that my workplace sponsored for Christmas this past holiday season... hurray for context!)

three months

The time is flying by.  I need to find a way to slow everything down, to savour it and really appreciate how precious each of these moments are.  If someone out there figures this out, please let me in on the secret?

She's been home for just over two months now, but it feels as if she's been here all along. We just fit, the three of us, perfectly.

I have nicknamed her "Turtle" due to the goofy way she looked up at me, all wide-eyes and wrinkly-necked, when she was learning to move her head around on her own.  I loved cuddling her on my chest, nestled beneath my chin, and the way she would lean back and pear up at me, blinking, and smiling... my heart could barely stand it! 

So she's my Turtle, or Turtle Dovlet, or Little Missy Peanut Sauce, Emmi, EmmaLaLa, Lovey, Bean, Beansie... and so on. The poor kid is going to be so confused about her name with me as her Momma!

a decade.

It's been ten years already.

I want to write down my account of that day as it plays over again in my mind. I want to itemize the events. I want to tell you how I was just shy of 18 years old, in the second week of my first year of college. I want to share my feelings and thoughts and all of the realizations I've come to in the years since that day.

But I don't need to do that.

The repercussions of that day are still happening. The world is still broken (most likely more so). What's important is the remembering.

I remember.

my favourite memories

I wouldn't have any clue how to choose just one...

my first kiss

I was a naughty little girl, and my parents tell me that I have been smooching on the boys since I could toddle myself over to them... yup. The first one I remember was Corey, we were five, and it was while playing in his basement, hiding from the babysitter. There was much giggling, as I recall.

My first "real" kiss (aka "French" kiss) was in eighth grade, under a jungle gym at the park, and there was too much saliva going on.

*shudders*

Yup. So that's that!

:)

my siblings

My family is a bit unorthodox and all over the place, and explaining my familial relationships can be a bit confusing... so hold on to your butts! ;)

My parents split when I was a few months old. My mom met the father of my younger half-brother and half-sister when I was about a year old. Though we grew up together, we were very different people in a series of very hard situations, and we had some rocky patches that drove us apart over the years. I used to leave for periods of time to go visit my dad, and there was some animosity over our different last names. I used to feel like the odd man out, because they look(ed) so much alike and shared more genetic similarities between them. I realize how silly this is, after all these years.

Despite our differences, there is this bond I share with them that I cannot explain. Maybe it comes from being scarred in the same way... or just the collection of memories that shaped us together.


The above photo is from Thanksgiving two or three years ago. The last occasion that we were all together for, I beleive.

My sister Andrea and I are really close now, and I consider her to be one of my very best friends. She is stunningly beautiful, and a wonderful mother to my nephew Matty and niece Olivia(with another on the way). She is my "baby" sister, and I am fiercely protective of her.


My brother Rick has grown up to be such a good dad to my niece Julia, and I really wish we could be closer. Both geography and the demands of day-to-day life keep that from becoming a reality.


When I was 22 I had a life-changing situation that you think only happens in movies. I found out that I had a half-sister who was just three years my junior, who had lived near my grandmother for much of her life, and we had no idea about each other.

As it turns out, when I was three, my father had been in a brief (rekindling of a previous) relationship with Jasmine's mother. They have known each other since high school, and have a long on-again-off-again history.


In 2005 (I think?) they got back together and after many revelations decided to have a DNA test done, which revealed that my father was also Jasmine's. The next year our father and Jazz's mother were married, and are still all shmoopy-goopy over each other to this day. Caren, my step-mother, also has three sons (Christopher, Joe, and Adam) from previous relationships, who are now my step-brothers.


It's quite interesting to me just how much Jazz looks like our dad, and how similar we are in personality, humour, and even hand-writing style, despite never knowing about one another when we were growing up. She is so sweet, and silly, and I love her to pieces. We've still got a lot of catching up to do, and a lot of lost time to make up for, but I love spending time with her and my newest little nephew Cameron.

<3

a moment

My cousin Kenny and I in 1987, just out of the bath, finding something my grandmother said to be utterly hilarious.

my best friend

my first love

Love is an interesting thing. Looking back on past loves through experienced eyes, you can see clearly the difference between childish crushes and the real deal... but when you're in the thick of it, the all-consuming lust of a new relationship, or the acute longing for someone who doesn't reciprocate your feelings can seem like so much more than what they are. The intensity with which I've felt these things in the past has made me feel like I've been in love countless times... and maybe I was, in some way.

The thing is, looking back now and comparing all those feelings against the depth and breadth of my love for The Boy, is like comparing apples to oranges. As much as I may have thought I was in love, I don't think I ever truly was until I met him. I suppose that's why I married him... haha!

The first time I recall feeling I was "in love" was with a boy named Alec. I was six, he was a much more mature and wise seven-and-a-half. We used to play on the swings and the play-structure made of tires behind the complex in which we lived. I remember the way my cheeks would burn and how my little heart would flutter at the sight of his ginger hair and freckled complexion. I was certain that we would be married, and that he, an accomplished musician, along with our six children, would accompany me on my trips around the country as Canada's first female prime-minister (This was pre-Kim Campbell, of course).

But then my wee heart was broken, and my musical-political dreams crushed when we moved out of the complex and I transfered to a new school, never to see Alec again. I still have his second grade school photo in a box of mementos somewhere down in the crawlspace, and I come across it from time to time when I'm looking for something else. The messy inscription on the back still makes me smile.

It's been twenty-one years since I saw him, but I'm sure if I did I would know his face. I wonder if he remembers our time together, and if he still has those ruddy cheeks and mischievous smile?

my beautiful boy

Bad Company.

I got this on my Formspring today:

Since I have neglected you - my dear blog - for a long while now, I thought I would share my answer here, since my response felt like something I would share here anyway...

Alright... Here's a random memory:

When I was nine years old, my Mom, little brother, sister, and I went to live with my mom's friend Mandy and her family for a while.

That summer the whole lot of us went to visit people who I think were Mandy's relatives. They lived in this really cool old house that had "secret" passageways between some of the rooms, including upstairs bedrooms and the attic. Creaky wooden doors in the backs of closets led to hidden, narrow hallways behind the walls. The house had a humid, sticky feeling to it, and for some reason I remember there being lots and lots house plants around.

It was made clear that we were to stay out of the way. While the adults sat in the backyard in a circle of lawn chairs, shooting the breeze, drinking, and whatever else, all of us kids crept around upstairs, pretending we were spies on an adventure.

I remember crawling up to this window that was open just a few inches, overlooking the backyard. It was one of those old wood-framed windows, with years of white paint caked over the hardware, weighing it down. There was a can (or maybe it was a jar?) propping it open, and all I could hear was "Feel like makin' love" by Bad Company blasting out of a stereo somewhere downstairs and into the yard. The smell of weed being smoked wafted in the window, accompanied by the heavy ozone smell that summer air takes on just before a thunderstorm.

I remember looking at my mother, her head thrown back, laughing... smoke from her cigarette curling around face. She looked so happy in that instance. I remember wishing I could keep her that way... wishing I scoop her up, and put in my pocket, or hide her away in one of the secret passageways of that house. I remember feeling so sad, because I knew that I couldn't, and even at nine years old I was aware that time marches on and changes everything, no matter how much you wish it wouldn't...

I heard that song today on the radio, and I thought of my mom. In my mind it's been forever linked to her and that summer.