Something that makes you sad.

I wish I had something really profound to share for this topic, but the one thing that jumps to mind instantly is quite simply the loss of my Uncle Jim last August.  I have posted and re-posted the Tribute I wrote to him after his death, and I read it probably almost once a week still.  I write to his widow every month, I miss him terribly.  I have lost 3 of my grandparents in my life so far, and Uncle Jim's seems to outweigh them all (not that I didn't love my grandparents, I've just been much closer to Uncle Jim growing up).  Knowing that I'll never get to hug him again, sit down and have a great religious or philosophical discussion with him, or watch Aunt Pat roll her eyes at his bout of silliness breaks my heart over and over.  I'm making my peace with his death, but it still makes me so sad.  I miss him.

Last item you purchased.

thank you, blog-of-the-day list, for reminding me of a purchase I meant to make earlier this week.  :o)  I just ordered a table top card rack for my photography business.  I have mentioned before that I'm a photographer, and have my own business, Shutterbug Portraits & Design.  I provide event and portrait photography for my clients, and also sell my work as framed photo art, calendars and note cards.  I do a number of craft shows each year where I sell some of my stuff, and I've been looking for better display options for awhile.  I finally found a table top rack that will allow me to display my note cards much better and take up way less space on the table (something that is sacred at a craft show!)  I'm super excited to get it, as it will also help me get my inventory organised so I can tell what I do and don't have!

A photo of you without makeup.

easy enough!  I hardly ever wear makeup... even when I was working every day I hardly wore it (unless I woke up looking particularly exhausted...!) so most photos of me are me wearing no makeup.  I stepped it up for this one though... no makeup, still in pjs, no contacts AND unwashed/unbrushed hair.  Oh and I didn't brush my teeth yet either.  Mostly I took this one coz I had zero photos of ME with our new kittens at this point (still only have a couple, way more of Austin with them!)  I don't have anything against makeup, I wish I was better at using it, but I'm a pretty low-maintenance girl... I like to wash and wear so makeup doesn't tend to fit into that routine too well :o)

Talent you wish you had.

On a normal weekend, I'm sure I would have a different answer to this question, though on a normal weekend I'm not sure what that different answer would have been.  This weekend however, was not a normal weekend for me.  If I could have hand picked a talent to have this weekend, it would have been the talent of bending the will of any computer to my own.  I had so many technological issues this weekend... all induced by lack of time to properly set up my new hard drive, and working on a client project with a file nearing half a gig in size, which meant even the simplest action took about 35 minutes to complete.  I ended up canceling plans I had, skipping errands I meant to run, and barely managing to feed myself because I was so absorbed in the computer.

I consider myself to be an above average computer user (my brother is an IT God and would never allow me to wallow in mediocrity... by his standards of course) but some things simply can't be helped by normal IT standards... hence the wishing I had the talent to simply dominate the computer with the power of my mind.  :o)  On the bright side, nothing is broken, and this week should give me time to work on reloading all of my normal programs and files onto the new drive... thereby preventing weekends like this from happening... at least for a very long time!

Meaning behind your blog name.

The very first corporate job I ever had taught me a lot about myself.  Mostly, it taught me that I am not well suited for your typical "corporate" setting.  I don't like dress codes, I don't like sterile cubicles, I don't like people looking at you funny if you hug someone.  I consider myself to be pretty professional, but my first corporate job played a big role in teaching me that I can be my own authentic brand of professional, that I don't have to fit the cookie cutter boring suit eating salad with bottled water.  Over the course of that summer, I began defining my professional self.  That meant finding ways to dress appropriately for work and still be comfortable, it meant letting other people see that I could give them a colouring book page I'd coloured on my lunch hour AND kill it in the board room.  It also meant finding a way to sign my corporate, professional emails in a way that was authentic to me.  My standard personal sign off "Hugs" wasn't professional enough, "Sincerely Yours" was boring, "Warm Regards" was sterile, just my name was cold.  So I spent an afternoon pseudo meditating on the subject, and finally realised that if I could wish my colleagues anything, it would be happiness (many people in corporate jobs spend a lot of time looking grumpy!) and harmony (even more people in corporate jobs do NOT have enough balance in their lives!).  So that became my sign off in all of my emails.  This quickly spilled into my personal correspondence, and has become my mantra ever since.  As the years progressed, those two little words have become an integral part of my personality and my "corporate self".  In fact, there are people I have come in contact with who remember "Happiness & Harmony" before they remember my name!

When I decided to start a blog, it was only natural that my blog would be titled "Happiness & Harmony" :o)

Last book you read.

The last book I read was The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson.  As a rule, I am skeptical of "overnight bestsellers" but a few of my friends talked me into reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and I became obsessed with the characters.  When I was reading The Girl Who Played With Fire, I would find excuses to take 2 hour long bubble baths so I could read uninterrupted.  My husband would keep peeking in to make sure I was ok because I don't normally get to take baths and they certainly never last that long... I would actually have to rerun the water partway through so it'd be hot again :o)

I also discovered the Swedish movies based on the books, and was oddly disturbed to discover that I can somehow actually follow Swedish fairly well without reading the subtitles.  It was a very trippy experience.  I'm now halfway through The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, and looking for opportunities to justify those 2 hour baths again :o)

Something you refuse to do

I have been considering this one all day.  I've struggled with it because I don't tend to believe in absolutes.  There are often times we may think we would never do something, and the circumstances change and there we are, doing exactly what we thought we would never do.  When it comes to refusals... I find it difficult to pinpoint something because my crazy head will almost always come up with some insane scenario where that wouldn't necessarily be true.

That being said, I think the one thing that I feel comfortable saying invariably that I now and forever will refuse to do, is to intentionally put someone I love in harm's way.  This means anything from emotional to psychological to physical harm.  I tend to be a bit of a martyr when it comes to protecting those I love... often times to my own detriment, but I absolutely go out of my way to prevent my loved ones from being harmed.  I honestly believe if someone were pointing a gun at someone I cared about, I would jump in front of it (I hope that is never tested, but it's 100% how I feel).  This probably is not a healthy thing, and probably has some deep and twisted interpretation on my self-worth, if I'm willing to die for anyone I care about... but it's who I am, and how I view the world.  When I love, I love all the way, and I don't want to see anyone I love hurting.

The best part of your day

Austin and I had guests over tonight, and we were very excited... we love to entertain, so having people over is a big treat for us :o)  We made pizza for the first time ever, from scratch (with dough Austin's granny made for us in her bread machine this week) and they turned out AWESOME... the best part of my day was making the pizzas with my husband before our guests arrived.

We took turns working with the dough, looking up tips online, saucing and adding the toppings... we had so much fun working together on it.  It was neat.  I am capable of sharing a kitchen with very few people.  Austin is one of those people, so we really enjoyed ourselves :o)

Your Work Space

I am unemployed.  My husband would argue that I'm self employed, but that's only true sometimes, and it's not enough to pay the bills, and I'm on unemployment, so I'm unemployed with occasional bouts of self-employment :o)

I'm also a grad student.  Which means I'm poor, I'm often up to my ears in reading and/or writing, and as a result can be very distracted at times.  Our apartment has a really great office in it, we painted it all pretty and everything.  I have a great desk and an awesome tech setup.  And yet this is my work space.  At least right now.  The office I share with my husband more frequently acts as our "crap we need to get out of sight but don't have time to find a real place for yet" room.  As a result, the door is often closed, and I always have to move at least 3 things out of the way to get at whatever I printed (my brother is an IT god so our apartment is also almost entirely wireless.  I am so spoiled)  Last week I was up to my eyeballs in a research paper for my last class (I only have one class per month, and it's an all weekend affair... like the reserves!)  I was struggling with getting my thoughts focused on this thing, so this is what my husband came home to that day from work... I had completely taken over the dining space... table, floor and walls... flip charts, class handouts, inspirational quotes, the whole shebang.  It was crazy.

Maybe I should make a goal of being able to repost this topic in a month, with a photo of our office back in functioning order!! :o)

Steal it Forward

the bath thing worked.  much better mood now :o)

Tonight I came across a blog that an old high school classmate of mine writes.  Hers is similar to mine (in fact, it's the same template lol!) in that it's mostly just random musings.  She stole this idea from someone, and I'm stealing it from her because I think it sounds fun!
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The idea is rather obvious, write a blog entry about the following topics: 

• Your work space.
• The best part of your day.
• Something you refuse to do.
• Last book you read.
• Meaning behind your blog name.
• Talent you wish you had.
• A photo of you without makeup.
• Last item you purchased.
• Something that makes you sad.
• 15 Facts about you.
• Your favorite thing right now.
• Best Christmas present you ever got.
• Your favorite teacher.
• Something you’re thankful for.
• A photo from your childhood.
• Something you crave.
• Your worst hair moment (if you skip this one, it’s totally cool).
• Favorite smells.
• Last time you cried.
• Last time you had to apologize to someone.
• Something that scares you.
• Something that really bugs you.
• What you dislike most about your appearance.
• Celebrity crush.
• A trait you deplore in others.
• A photo taken 10 years ago.
• First book/movie/song that moved you.
• What turns you off?
• The story behind one of your scars.
• This one was left blank so I will have to think of it when I get to it, unless anyone has a suggestion.

Baby if we're lost, then we're lost together

We've been listening to Blue Rodeo A LOT these last few days.

Today I feel like I got a lot done, and yet I've barely crossed anything off my giant to do list (which is posted on a flipchart that hangs on our wall...) When I look at the things that are left on it I feel like none of them are worth starting this time of night and then I feel like I'm blowing it off.  Ugh.

I had a pretty great day today, I'm not sure why I'm in such a yucky mood all of a sudden.  Maybe I'll take a nice hot bubble bath and read for a bit to see if that helps, it often does.  It's either that or turn on the tv and if I do that I'll be in front of it all night, something I'm trying hard to do less often.  I don't really feel like working out, or like editing photos, or cleaning the office, so I guess I'll try the bath thing and if that doesn't help maybe I need to call it an early night and hope for a better mood when I wake up. Hmmm

Swing Low Sweet Charriot

This song used to blaze through my mind regularly, and it's been a loooong time since I've heard it in my head.  Today I opened the blog thinking "I haven't posted in a bit, I should post something" and there was the line.

It's been a crazy week... my poor husband is seeing a side of me neither of us would have expected he would... I've been in paper-writing mode.  In September (the weekend before our wedding, mind you) I started back to school.  I am in a Masters' program which meets one weekend a month.  The structure works great for my schedule, but is also a challenge as it means we have about 2 weeks to complete all of our reading, pre-work and post-work.  It's intense.  This class' assignment was really giving me writers' block (never pretty) and I was soooo stressed out!  I've completely monopolised all floor and wall space in our living area in the apartment, meaning he basically can access one armchair and footstool if he wants to sit in there and do anything.  He finally cleared off the couch so he could watch tv if he wants, but other than that, I've taken over.  He's also had a few days off work in this time frame, meaning I've become pretty irritable since he's home trying to stay out of my way while still being bored and wanting to chat or hang out or go do something with me... something I've had no time for. Needless to say I've snapped at him a few times, and have certainly let more than a couple sarcastic retorts slide out of my mouth.  He's been a trooper though, and since the paper is due tomorrow, this too shall pass.  Until next month.

It has been nice these past few days, however, as I've been in the "editing & feedback" part of my paper which means I sit back and wait for responses from my friends who are reading it for me, and I've had a little time to reclaim my sanity.  My dad's been a dear and let me borrow his car this weekend, meaning I have been able to LEAVE THE APARTMENT!!! and run some errands as I felt like it.  In fact, after posting this, I'll be heading out to get a few errands taken care of before Austin gets home from work (he was supposed to work at 2.30 today.  He got there only to be informed they didn't need him after all and why doesn't he come back tomorrow morning instead.  Would be awesome if it wasn't a 45 min drive each way... we were both a little annoyed, gas is expensive!)

Well I guess I don't have a whole lot to say really, just felt like reaching out into cyberspace to see what's up with everyone.