Inspiration of the day: Always be prepared

“I promise to do my best, to be true to myself ….. aaaaand sell lots of cookies”… pretty sure that’s right, or at least that’s the gist of it. One thing I definitely remember is “Always be prepared”. I’ll never forget that. Always be prepared. I feel that is such a huge responsibility for a little girl. How can you ALWAYS be prepared? and for what?? I would like to take this opportunity to blame the Girl Guides of Canada for heavy purses, shoulder droop and exposing me to a naked man at the age of 12, I promise it’s not as bad as it sounds, … but more on that later. I’m getting off track …

Where is this all coming from…

Well, the other day I decided I should clean out my purse. You know, get rid of old receipts, maybe find a nickel or a piece of gum. It is a fairly large size tote that I use when travelling to and fro. So I decided that it was time to go through and dispose of the garbage so that it is possible to actually find something in my supercalifragilistic tote bag! As I was dumping out my bag delicately removing the contents of my purse like a lady, it made me think of all those articles in magazines where celebrities show us what they carry around. How fun! I’m gonna take a photo and blog about it… hopefully its not as boring as it seems now that I’ve just seen it typed out.

You have 20 seconds to memorize every item, then I will take them away. Whoever remembers the most items doesn’t EVER have to play these baby/wedding/bridal shower games ever again.

At first glance it may seem like the necessary ingredients to be prepared for at least the most likely things that will happen to me in any given day.

Water bottle – there is a chance I might get SO thirsty in the 4 blocks between my house and my work that I will say to myself… “Thank God I was prepared for this”

Phone charger – that is legit. you know you feel lost when your phone dies…

Watch – what if my phone dies and I’ve lost my phone charger?

Glasses case – I should mention that my prescription glasses were nowhere near the case, but should they find their way into my purse…. Consider me prepared!

Timmy Ho’s O.J – that one was in there for a while, but does OJ ever reeeeaaally go bad??

Gravol – Just in case O.J does go bad.

A giant belt – this is not the kind that holds your pants up, it’s the kind that looks GREAT with everything. So obviously that needs to be in there.

My wallet – where else am I going to put my friend’s school portraits??

My debit card – you will notice it is not in my wallet… The last time I used it I was finishing up at the grocery store and there was someone behind me inching her way up to pay and I felt pressured to get my stuff and get out of the way quickly…. so I just dropped it haphazardly in my purse… you know you’ve been there.

A bracelet and a necklace – Took them off 15 minutes after I left my house the day before because I kept getting them caught in everything and it made me look very awkward. Clearly I am prepared to glam it up at a moments notice. I get invited to parties. I’m very popular.

Avocado – yup, that was actually in there…. I don’t even know.

“What’s that doctor? He needs an avocado right now or he’ll die? “

So I guess I’m pretty much the best Girl Guide ever.

I’m prepared for SO many things! I’ve grown and learned so much since my days with Girl Guide leader ‘Brown Owl’. She taught me to be prepared, lend a hand and not to take a bunch of girl guides on a hike through Wreck beach!

Irony joined us on the hike that day. It appeared the woman who taught me to always be prepared, wasn’t prepared for the possibility that there could be a nude beach in Vancouver… or maybe she was trying to help us get our ‘Good bye Innocence’ badge. I suppose it never really stood a chance anyway… I’ll get the needle and thread.

Inspiration of the day: Throw poop at the fan.

Yesterday was my birthday. A lot of people hate birthdays, but I love them. I get to do whatever I want, spend money even if I shouldn’t without feeling guilty, and nobody can get mad if I start drinking before noon. Now let me clarify…. this is no different from any other day, but on my birthday I have an excuse, and I intend to use it. Also, it was National Margarita Day, so there’s that.

I do understand why these days are not universally liked. Birthdays can be scary. As a child you think you will be at a certain point in your life, in your career, in your relationships by a certain age and birthdays are a reminder of the ticking time bomb that is your youth. When you actually reach the magical number that seemed so far away when you were 12, you realize you are no closer to marrying one of the backstreet boys than you were back then.

Who knew a bowl could be SO useful!

As it turns out, that’s okay. I’m glad things didn’t work out exactly how I planned them. If they did I would be a farmer in seattle and I don’t think I would get the same job satisfaction from the agriculture industry that I get from the fashion world.  (I’m not even sure why a little girl would have such a randomly specific idea of what she wants to be when she grows up, but apparently that was once my dream).

Inherently, I am a glass half full kind of person. I do mix in a little half empty to keep it fresh (no one likes the annoyingly positive person). I am good at being sarcastic and I can peer over to the dark side every now and then but I really believe that everything happens for a reason and sooner or later that reason will become clear. It wasn’t my exact plan to get married and divorced before 30, but as I said, everything happens for a reason… and I’m all about checking things off the list, so I guess now I can say I’ve done that! Check! 🙂

There are so many amazing things that would have never happened if shit didn’t hit the fan every now and then. So my goal for the last 2 years of my 20’s is to not freak out about a little brown splatter on the walls (that’s quite a powerful visual isn’t it. 🙂 ) but to enjoy the impromptu redecorating of my life and check a few things off the list that I didn’t even know were on the list.

Inspiration of the day: Happy .. Wha?!

I saw this a few days ago posted to a door in my friends apartment building… and I LOVED it! AlI could imagine was the little girl on the other side (Lets call her Tina) with big dreams of one day falling in love with one of the faces plastered to her wall, all the while being serenaded by the soulful sounds of One Direction.

Who said romance and chivalry were dead? 

It made me think of the faces I have had plastered to my wall… J.T.T (“Man of the house”/”mighty king”), Andrew Keegan (I can’t even remember what he was in), and the real love of my life… Leonardo Dicaprio. I spent many a night crying myself to sleep because he sank to the bottom of the ocean… We would never have a chance. The closest I would ever get was re-enacting that scene in my friends living room. Her couch was the raft and one of us would always sink to the bottom of that carpety ocean. yes, It was as traumatic to re-enact as you might think. At least the girls today don’t have to feel that heartbreak. Their leading men are supernatural hipsters! The biggest threat they face is ‘spending an eternity alone without their true love’… excuse me, but.. barf.

I’ve always been a bit romantically challenged. A guy once bought me a Stuffed Animal Stingray with my name on it and I spend half the day FREAKING OUT to my cousin. I suppose I should have seen that as a sign. It ended up being a bit of Steve Irwin style foreshadowing. Cuuuurse yoooou, Hindsight!

My mentality has changed a bit. My experiences have shaped me. Surprisingly, I’m not as romantically challenged as I used to be. I realize that the cheesy sappy stuff is kind of nice (once in a while! – Its not a complete transformation, but Im getting there) Tina inspired me to put it all out there, right on the front door for everyone to see. Her picture spoke to me. Those asterisks, hearts with the squiggles, and the UFO looking thingys spoke to me. What did they say, you ask? They said, Take a chance, Put yourself out there, Don’t let your past experiences define your future ones (Yes, they said ALL that, I can read between the squiggles) and Don’t let sweet impressionable little girls listen to One Direction. Seriously! They aren’t even trying to hide the sexual context! At least the boy bands of my day tried to mask their true intentions with lyrics of everlasting love! Why can’t these boys write a nice wholesome song like B44… “If you get down on me, I’ll get down… wait a minute. That might not be a great example. How about “MMMBop” I don’t think they were trying to say anything provocative with those lyrics, actually I don’t know what they were trying to say…

…I’m off track a bit now… Where was I?

oh yes, Happy Mushy/Sappy/Lovey or as sweet little Tina says … Happy Valintimes day everyone!

Inspiration of the day: Believe in Magic, cuz that shit is real.

I find myself amazed at something I can only describe as pure sorcery. Trust me. Its magic, I can ALWAYS tell.

This revelation came to my in the form of a book. (and no it’s not “50 shades of seriously, you could have stopped at one and called it a day”) This one was much less “ice cream flavoured” and more “How could you possibly know that about me when you don’t even know me cuz you’re a book!!!!” … Interested yet?

“I didn’t see beer pong in here, am I missing a page?”

This little wonder is called Strengths Finder 2.0. As a manager it is the most helpful tool I’ve ever used for creating/maintaining/evaluating a successful team. As a human, it is just straight up magic. The concept is learning and focusing on your strengths as a way to succeed instead of dwelling on the negative. The test tells you what your top 5 strengths are and gives you suggestions on ways to develop and perfect those skills.  There is a code in the back for your online assessment (aka the source of the sorcery) and it only takes about 30 minutes to complete. You only have 20 seconds to complete each question so answer quickly and honestly, your results will be more accurate if you do.

My results were pretty bang on, but I didn’t learn anything earth shattering or completely new about myself. What I did learn was a different way of looking at the traits I already knew I had. Things like Empathy and Adaptability…. seemed more like weak traits than strengths until I read the personalized description of Empathy and Adaptability as strengths and not just traits. Suddenly I’m not some bleeding heart pushover, I’m freaking AWESOME!

“bask in my awesomeness”

The results were so bang on that I decided to act on themes that kept coming up. Journalism, creativity, writing human interest stories. Now, I’m not crazy enough to think this blog qualifies as ‘journalism’ or that any humans are interested in my stories… but it’s a start. After all, not everyone can get  rich writing about red rooms and anal beads.

As much as I have benefitted from this book. I also feel as if I have been cursed. Everyone at work has been assessed, but that’s not enough. I’m craving more. I have this need to know everyone’s strengths and what makes them tick! I want my family and all my friends to do this and I want to talk about it to everyone!

…..but until then, I’ll be over here. Chattin’ with this dude.

Inspiration of the day: Always talk to strangers.

Yesterday was a good day. So good, in fact, that here I am writing about it a day later. “Poor Sunday”, you say. “It never gets the recognition it deserves”…. Calm down. It’s a great day too. It’s a day of late brunch, day drinking and the occasional Superbowl Nipple fiasco. It even has a fun rhyme that is associated with all the lazy, drunk FUN you’re going to have on said day.

We’re getting off track here…. what was the point? oh yea, Saturday. GREAT day. If you live in a cave, or worse, anywhere but Vancouver, then you missed out. Saturday was awesome. There is nothing like a beautiful sunny day in Vancouver, so I enjoy it when we get it.

There are 2 complaints I hear regularly from anyone who isn’t originally from here. 1. It rains too much. and 2. People in Vancouver are jerks. Wrong! … weeeell… no, it’s mostly true. Most people don’t even look up as you walk by. I am so jaded now that if someone smiles at me, I immediately check my face for leftover noodles or pen marks, and if someone talks to me, I assume they are slightly crazy or they have the worst job ever (You know the ones, they are out on the sidewalks, they have clipboards, are usually in pairs, they start the conversation before you even get to them so you don’t walk right by and have this amazing ability to smile even though you know they are dying to tell every person who ignores them to go #%!$ themselves).

…. I think I got off track again….

Oh yes, Jerks in Vancouver. Im probably one of them. How did I get like this? A few years ago I was smiling and saying hello to every person I walked by… and some lifelike statues (seriously. It was very embarrassing) This was just part of the life of working on cruise ships. If you were out in a passenger area you were expected to greet and ‘deliver the wow’ (which was interpreted in different ways depending on the person). At first it was awkward to say hello to EVERYONE. On a the first night, everyone was out and I’d end up feeling like Chris Rattan from Night at the Roxbury, but that could have just been my sweet blue suit.

When I started my integration back into the real world I couldn’t shake the habit. A friendly  “Hello” in the staircase at the doctors office would result in my getting the stink eye. Most people would react in 1 of 3 ways “Do you work here?” or “Should I know you?”. That’s only 2, and I’ve learned over my years of jaded integration that those are the 2 you hope for. The third option is that they actually talk to you. If they are under 60, you’d assume they are nuts. If this were a movie, that crazy guy would be Bradley Cooper and I’d end up dancing with him in competition where they only let 1 seriously under-performing couple compete, and he would fall in love with me. However it’s not and he isn’t yet. Reality looks more like this…

Sarah and I are walking home from a night out. There is a youngish guy waiting for the bus at around 1am.

Me: I’m thinking, how responsible, he isn’t driving. *I smiled as if to say “Good for you!”*

Him: “Would you ladies be interested in a threesome?” he didn’t even skip a beat. I mentally added him to my list of people to avoid on Transit.

The evidence presented would suggest I stop smiling at everyone but I am determined to outnumber the crazy/pervy interactions with normal less suggestive ones. I’m not the only one. February 8th is now “Say HI Vancouver day” https://www.facebook.com/SayHiVancouver

So smile at a stranger passing by …. the chances are pretty good they’ll just smile back, but if you’re lucky you might get an offer you just can’t refuse.

… We said no, by the way.