When I read or hear those words in the title above I get childhood flashbacks. I can hear my first or second grade teacher tell this repeatedly to us in class as we worked on whatever assignment she gave us. Or my parents telling me the very same thing whether it was in ballet class, that paper mache project, Easter egg dyeing or learning to ride a bike without training wheels. Over and over.
But it's also the 4th agreement in Don Miguel Ruiz's book The Four Agreements. Ah. A few weeks back I made a commitment to read one chapter a week and blog about it. And I'm just a couple weeks behind given another book which distracted me profoundly and a quick mental vacay on my typical blogging day Sunday last week. But it's all good. Now I am realizing this is probably my last post of 2011. Where does the time go?
OK, focus. Ruiz sums up this chapter like this: "Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret."
See what I mean about words that are so simple and so profound? I've probably made that comment ten million times in each post about these Agreements. Don't plan on this book being a quick read if you really want to get the most out of it. You'll want to re-read each chapter several times.
And the beauty of this chapter is that this 4th agreement points back to the other 3. Always Do Your Best to...1. Be Impeccable with your Word; 2. Don't Take Things Personally; and 3. Don't Make Assumptions.
Ruiz goes on to explain how much "doing our best" will vary. When we're relaxed and refreshed our best is going to be better than when we're tired. It will be different when we are happy as opposed to upset. And, as we continue to incorporate the 4 Agreements into our lives, our best will become better than it used to be.
If we do our best we won't judge ourselves. We won't punish ourselves. Ahhh...how freeing is this!! Especially someone like me who inherited a big ol' Perfectionism gene. If it couldn't be perfect - whatever it was - it (or rather, I) sucked. I beat myself up. Or I'd get so overwhelmed I'd procrastinate or even worse not do something at all. What an ugly downward spiral!
It's taken years for me to wrestle and fight off that unreasonable, unrealistic quirk that's so deep in my DNA. Probably a little over ten years ago when I first started seeing a therapist was this pointed out to me. HUH? Well, she was right.
My new, more modern, personal mantra? "Excellence, not perfection." And I guess that's similar to this 4th Agreement in a way. These words resonate deep in my bones whether I'm focusing on a work project, getting ready to hit the ice and play hockey or continue to grow my Silpada jewelry business. And every other area of my life too.
Ruiz explains more: "When you do your best, you take action. Doing your best is taking the action because you love it, not because you're expecting a reward." He goes on to explain the cliche of a worker. A worker who only works because he/she is expecting the reward - the paycheck. They work hard the whole week, suffering the actions. They have to work to pay the rent, to support their family...and when they do get their paycheck they are unhappy. There's only a couple days to rest (aka the weekend) and they then try to escape by getting drunk or what have you.
If we take action just for the sake of doing something without expecting a reward, we will enjoy every action we do. If we like what we do, if we always do our best, we are really, truly enjoying life. We have fun, we don't get bored and we don't have frustrations. Man, sign me up!
What about when life takes away something from us? Ruiz explains - "...let it go. When you surrender and let go of the past, you allow yourself to be fully alive in the moment...if you live in a past dream, you don't enjoy what is happening right now, because you will always wish it to be different than it is. There is no time to miss anyone or anything because you are alive. Not enjoying what is happening right now is living in the past and being only half alive. This leads to self-pity, suffering and tears."
Practice makes the master. Ruiz reminds us that we didn't learn to speak, read, write or ride a bike right out of the box. We had to practice, practice, practice! And not judge ourselves when we fall. If we break one of the Agreements, we tell ourselves OK, we'll start over again tomorrow and try again. It will be challenging at first, but as we practice we will get better and better at honoring all four. Stay in the moment and do not worry about the future.
See why this book is going to be a perma-fixture on my bedside table for awhile? It's powerful stuff. Life transforming.
After reading this book I now feel like I have a new, freshly-sharpened set of tools ready to make 2012 an even better year than this one was!
Today is December 26, 2011. It's the beginning of A New Dream.
Oh man ohmanohmanohman...I am sitting here grinning ear to ear, sunshine streaming into the home office...and...
It's. Only. 11am!! Not noon!
Seriously, people, our flip back to Standard Time (clocks go back one hour) is my most FAVORITE time of the year. Payback...we balance the books. It's no secret DST kicks my ass when we lose that hour in the spring. I feel jetlagged that entire week, and perpetually stressed that I am constantly running late. Tired + late = bad combination.
But now, time to chill. I woke up Saturday just knowing this morning was coming. Kinda poked around the house and later, fueled by a salted caramel mocha from a Starbucks drive thru (which I RARELY do even though there is one just 5 seconds from my house), I drove out to visit my dear friend T in Sammamish. She's going to do a Silpada party later in December - an absolutely perfect time to host a party as it's prime time shopping season! Blue sky, leaves turning - ahhh anytime I need to whip out sunglasses in November I am a happy girl.
I had a major sushi craving as I was driving home, and swung by the Metropolitan Market to pick up some other groceries too. I used to commute through the Houghton neighborhood a couple of years ago when I briefly worked in Kirkland and I miss it. The Metropolitan Market is absolutely amazing, and the people who work there have their shit together. Nice, knowledgeable, energetic. You can just "feel" it when you walk in.
So I grabbed some pre-made sushi (it's actually pretty decent as they make it fresh right there in the store), got home and added an extra blob of wasabi and a few shakes of Nama Shoyu (unpasteurized soy sauce as recommended in my raw food cookbooks). Even found my chopsticks too! Bliss.
...almost as blissful as sleeping in today until 10am (which really was 11am but I remembered to turn the clocks back tonight - oops, well most of them). Funny how my cell phone didn't make the automatic change (booo) but the old, crappy laptop here sure did.
So that's about it. Just enjoying a nice, lazy weekend - hockey is the big exclamation point later tonight. Can't wait!
And the nice people at amazon.com are sending me a book that was very highly recommended by my new friend D. I'll leave it at that for now - it's on it way and I will likely have my first ever book review post in here soon!
Wow.
OK, I'm tired. I can't decide if this is a good tired or not, so I'm going with good...for now.
I got a lot of seeds planted over the past year and half. Seeds like job connections. Doing the pro bono work with my friend/colleague when I was unemployed. Representing Silpada. And it's funny how sometimes the seeds sprout up all at the same time!
I had one of those weeks where I barely had time to sneeze, starting with Tuesday. Oh yes, glorious hockey. Hockey is that regular rhythm that is such a delicious part of my lifestyle...a wacky outlet that continually surprises people when I tell them I play (yes, year 'round, co-ed). Normally we have games on Sunday nights, but this week we played on Tuesday night...a 9:30pm faceoff at a rink about a half hour drive from my house. We had a tough 4-1 loss, but on the other hand it was probably a good 'keep the ego in check' kind of game, because our previous two games were blowout wins.
Getting home at 11:30pm on a Tuesday night, knowing morning is just around the corner, is surreal. It's hard to wind down and immediately get to sleep, so the next day I am usually on adrenaline and crash early the next night.
Wednesday? After work I met with a former co-worker for a quick drink. He used to be my Director way back in the early 2000s, and we have kept in touch over the years as our career paths moved onward. Most recently he and I worked together on that pro bono project with another mutual colleague.
...that project which is pro bono no more! Later that night I got home, got a 2nd (3rd?) wind and fired up the home laptop. Did I mention that the company did finally land some actual business with an actual client? And that while the gig was in progress the founder of this company (my friend/colleague who was actually doing the work himself because it wasn't enough to justify hiring someone) meanwhile also landed some full-time work of his own with a different company and moved to Baltimore? And asked me to help finish up the project? Yes, 'tis true. Whew, did those last few sentences make sense? It's all a big whoosh, just like it's been in my head trying to process it all. I'm flattered he asked me to take over the work to be done, and also am learning how much my brain needs to stretch to keep the mental "work" energy fresh and vibrant for an extra 10 hours or so a month. I got home Wednesday night after that drink with M, called A (who is on east coast time so it's super late for him), fired up the laptop here and worked for an hour on another version of a project schedule. Ah, the classic time and resource constraints. We now have a recommended schedule and a shortened, condensed version of the schedule, which we may have to resort to if our client's budget runs out end of calendar year. And we need a decision quick because time is ticking. Nope, the calendar is not our friend.
As I was working over the phone with A updating the spreadsheet, I was mentally multi-tasking, thinking ahead to the next morning - Thursday. We had a training session onsite with that client, and earlier this month I was a little worried on if I'd be able to take a half day off from my "real" full-time job to go to the client site. Thursdays are typically super busy. But the universe smiled, and it was easy to get my time off approved. Even better, the FTEs at my full-time job had an offsite event all day, so I didn't feel too guilty about being away either. None of the pro bono work I'm doing is in direct competition with my full-time job, but still it feels a little funny doing this side work...not in a bad way at all though.
The training Thursday morning was in downtown Seattle. Le Sigh, how suburban I have become. I was laughing to myself remembering how long it's been since I've worked downtown. 17 years. How I miss it...I lived and worked in Seattle for years after finishing college and just took the bus everywhere - it was fabulous. And I never lived in the suburbs while working in the city - the only time I ever did any regular commuting from the suburbs into Seattle was - gulp - in 1988 when I was taking some classes at the U of W for some extra college credit while home for the summer between my junior and senior year.
So that night I was wondering just how bad the traffic would be for the morning commute. And I had to get up about an hour and a half earlier than I usually do. It was almost dreamlike, busting out of my routine, heading over that bridge into Seattle. The bridge where they're still struggling to get the toll functionality to work properly - looks like they've pushed out to start in December now. I actually made great time and got to the building about a half hour early. Ahhh, perfect. Enough time to join the super long line at Starbucks. I needed a double tall nonfat latte something fierce! I reminisced, remembering how I worked in a building just across the street from where I was, high up enough to where we could look DOWN upon this building as it was under construction. Back in those days when I dressed up for work in skirts, pantyhose and pumps, and the only computer in our office was a huge 386 desktop for all 6 of us to share. We did most of our daily grind on state of the art (back then) typewriters and our essential fax machine. Ahhh, that morning it felt strange to be going to work without my laptop briefcase. Just my purse and a notebook tucked inside. How much things have changed in 20+ years!
After the client meetings that morning, I headed back to the 'burbs and my full-time job. And made the drastic mental shift from consulting to...printing. What's going on here? Well, at my full-time job some of the team are conducting a long series of workshops where they use large wall posters as visual aids to do some grounding on why the heck we're doing the work we're doing. We're a little tight on our supply budget, so I was asked to help out by doing some of the large poster printouts myself, using one of the huge plotter-style printers that are in various locations around our campus. Sounds easy enough, but it sure wasn't. Finding where they are, finding out if they're open for other groups to use (meaning, not private), finding out if they are actually working or not, getting the right printer drivers installed... UGH UGH UGH. Now I'm not one to bitch about work, but come on now. How much money are we really saving having me, a well-paid (and, ahem, well-billed) consultant doing all this legwork that we could just hand off to a professional printer and be done with it? Hmmm.
A 10 minute drive across campus and 3 hours later, I completed the printouts. Getting them rolled up and clipped and into my car - in the rain - was interesting to say the least. Paper is goddamn heavy! No joke! I'd hoped to get some other work done while these huge posters were printing but nope, no dice. I found out just how high maintenance these print jobs are. The paper does not capture well after it prints, so I had to hold it just so, so it wouldn't fold up or bend.
And at about 4:30pm, I mentally shut down. I'd gotten up early, got out of my routine going downtown for half a day, then spent the other half of the day back at work cranking out posters on a huge printer. Guess that hit my saturation point. I went home, exhausted.
Friday was a good day to catch up on work missed Thursday, and I topped it off meeting up with D for a drink at Brix, a wonderful wine bar not far from my house. D's the one I ran into at the Michael Kors store a few weeks ago (see my Two Surprising Ds post for that funny story!). I'm really enjoying getting to know her!
And Saturday? Keeping up with me here? I did a Silpada party for my good friend S, who was my neighbor here in the townhouse complex for many years. She and her boyfriend recently bought an absolutely beautiful home in Lake Tapps and it was time for housewarming and playing with jewelry! We had a blast. It's an hour drive each way to their house, but so incredibly worth it. I earned $300 commission from the party sales - not too shabby for just a few hours of "work" eh?
So it's not surprising that I slept in till nearly 11am today. Yikes, that even is late for me and borders on feeling wasteful of the day. But that was how tired I was!
No rest tonight either save for a short nap maybe later. Yep, Sunday night means hockey. And tonight's faceoff?
10:45pm. Awww yeahhhh.
And, frankly, some of the most important work I have to do - take care of myself...look out for Numero Uno. Selfish? Nope - essential.
I love, love, love to write. And yet the writing I do at work, while I'm proud of it and I think I've got a good style, doesn't really feed my soul. Hence, this blog and other outlets.
It's Sunday and the air is full of sunshine, warmth and delicious smells. Cut grass. Barbecues. Does sunshine have a smell? If so, it smells great outside. I even heard the ice cream truck's clankety music earlier today.
A long, soggy and cold spring it has been...maybe, just maybe we've gotten past most of that, but on the other hand most of us know that summer doesn't officially start until after the 4th of July around here. We'll take these warm days meanwhile.
So what's the work today? Polishing up my resume. And networking. How time flies. Yes, it's time for me to get back out there and network again, as my current job assignment wraps up at the end of June. Am I surprised? Nope. The writing was on the wall in tons of ways two months ago, plus the end of June is end of fiscal year at this particular client, so it's definitely nothing personal; I am one of many who will be finishing up here in the next few weeks. This engagement - 13 months - has actually been my longest ever since I pulled the plug on longterm employment and began doing consulting gigs.
I'm definitely feeling a lot more confident this time around. Hell, it's not 2009 anymore. The job market is improving, and it seems overall there's a happier vibe out there - not sure how to pinpoint it. Perhaps some of that is ME being happier too. Choose your attitude, right??
And what a fun kickoff to the weekend...tiptoed out of the office a tad early to head over to my friend M's new law offices for a housewarming - and a jewelry show too! We had a fabulous combo of a sunny late afternoon - her conference room has a deck right off of it, a wonderful wine and munchies spread from M, and time playing with jewelry! I made about $200 in commission too - not too shabby getting paid to party, frankly!
I had a glorious sunny Saturday with my dear friend J, who treated me to a belated birthday lunch at Purple, a wonderful wine bar not far from our famous wineries in the deep Seattle suburbs. And they have fantastic food too. We then hit the Burke Gilman trail for a walk in the sunshine - yay that I remembered to plop on some sunscreen ahead of time. She and I chat on IM quite a bit so it's always fun to reconnect in person!
I woke up today - Sunday - knowing it was time to get to work. Time to get that resume up to date and circulated. So I spent a few hours today here in the home office doing that plus getting on the phone and calling a bunch of colleagues/friends to let them know my status and availability.
And then I got 'gripped' down in my office chair here. STAY AND WORK. Wha??? I had a hockey game tonight, but something deep within me said DON'T GO, you NEED to stay here and network. Call me crazy, but I do realize these instincts deep in my core need my full attention. So I opted not to skate tonight. Why would my instincts tell me not to skate tonight when I'm feeling perfectly healthy and ready to work off some muscle soreness from walking by...well...playing hockey? One of my favorite outlets ever?
I don't know. And I have learned to not question these strong pulls, as crazy as they sound written in words here. Maybe in some dark, warped way I wasn't supposed to be driving to that rink tonight because there would have been some horrible accident. I know, I know, that's a little 'out there.'
I do know that everything happens as it's supposed to. We don't always know it at the time, but it's so incredibly true.
And now I must get back to my contact spreadsheet updating - going on nearly 20 outreaches tonight and I'm just getting started!
May already?? Wow.
Well, it was quite a week. And how could we not recap a week without a big nod to the Royal Wedding - ? C'mon, even the most anti out there saw a few clips of it or at least the pictures? And maybe even cracked a smile? It was breathtaking. Not so breathtaking for me to feel like getting up at 3am to watch it live, but I do know of a few ladies who did get up early and have a pajama party - with their best HATS on. Love it! And pass the tea and scones, please, darling.
So, changes. Changes are good - good to refresh, re-analyze and re-group. My work assignment is getting a brief extension at least into the summer - possibly into the fall - but that still has not hashed out. Good Lord have I been back at work nearly a year? Yes indeed. All of that stress and anguish I went through prior to landing this gig won't soon be forgotten. So nice to have it far in the rear view mirror. But with a few scars...and that's OK.
Two of my closest co-workers wrapped up their assignments this week and are moving on. One won't be going too far it turns out, as she'll be joining kind of a 'cousin' team of ours, but I'll miss her 'partner in crime' that she's been this past year. Another is required to take about 3 months off - that's the rules with some kinds of contingent workers - and she is hoping to return and pick up where she left off.
I'm happy for them both but admittedly a little sad. But moreso I have a shitload of hilarious memories. Things that may have sucked before but are now funny.
I capped off the workweek with a wonderful dinner with my dear friend L at Brix, a wine bar a short drive from my house. She's a part of that circle of friends I get together with a few times a year - we're all about the same age and went to elementary school together. Unwinding over a nice pinot gris and to die for risotto was heavenly. L and I can just smile at eachother and 'know' what we're each thinking. Oodles of memories over some 35 years.
And the silver, silver, silver flows and flows. I'm taking a few extra steps in my Silpada business by doing a sort of correspondence course with a coach at the corporate offices. She sends me 'homework' each week for 4 weeks and I send it back at the end of the week. She sends me feedback, the next week's 'homework,' and we also chat on the phone during the week too.
Ugh. I know myself pretty well and am realizing where I'm doing well in promoting my business and where I suck monkey butt. I have a party next weekend that I'm SUPER excited about. And one night I met up with a good friend I hadn't seen in quite awhile for dinner and half priced bottles of wine. She asked about the jewelry I was wearing, I let her road test a few pieces during dinner, and voila - that evening I had a very nice order from her! So I feel comfortable when people approach me with questions or compliments. I've been complimented on my jewelry from random strangers in the grocery store to the cashier in one of our work cafeterias. You can bet I never go anywhere without my jewelry on and a handful of business cards. Yes, I'm learning the nuts and bolts of direct selling. It's all about connections, people! The woman who is hosting my party next week noticed my jewelry at work and it just flowed from there. You never know!
But I hate picking up the damn phone. It's no problem for me when I'm doing follow up calls to make sure people are happy with their jewelry and to answer any other questions, but just making outbound calls to people I know to talk about what I'm doing and to ask if they'd like to host parties. Well, ew. I am so not a sales person, and frankly, when I get home from work I am tired and the last thing I feel like doing is picking up the phone. I feel like I'm intruding on people's dinner time or other quality time with family. And you know I don't mean to be whiney in here because I DO love what I'm doing as a side business, but that's the area I need to really work on.
And it suddenly dawned on me why.
Email! Texting! Facebook! So much of my immediate circle communication is through non-phone, social media methods! Aha! Is that something unique to me? Or to this part of the country? I have beautiful snail mail postcards in my supplies which are used to send out reminders about parties. I don't know about any of you, but around here we stick with Evite. Is it because it's 'green'? Or technological? It's SO much easier to set up parties and have reminders sent automatically via email.
So these are some fun self-discovery things...part of the reason I chose to start this business was to get out of my comfort zone and do something I'd never done before. Same as my plunge into hockey back in 2003.
I'll be speaking during part of our monthly team meeting this week and I'm really honored to be asked. It's very informal - just sharing the tips I've learned from this 4-week course I'm doing on my own - but I really appreciate the chance to participate more in our meetings. 'Cause they're super fun!!
And now it's time to head to the bank and run other fun errands. Got a shiny new Silpada license plate frame on my car - let's see what happens!
Nope. On the contrary I have so many things whirling around in my head from this past week to write about that nothing has gelled yet. Not even this rather late in the weekend. Read on and you'll see what I mean.
Work contract extension. Jewelry "homework." Lots of parties this week...from a work party to a great girls night in with my neighbor A to watch reruns of the Real Housewives series on Bravo. Shamelessly. Oh, and Easter. Time with family today. An INTENSE Canucks/Blackhawks playoff series right now (I'm a huge Canucks fan, by the way). A fabulous silent auction last night to benefit a team a few friends will be playing on next week in a tournament to benefit Hockey Fights Cancer. Once I saw the spa package up for bid...AND the TPS hockey stick (a lefty - yay!) decked out in PINK, yep, with the breast cancer awareness ribbons on it...I knew those two beauties would be mine. And they are!
I started the evening yesterday meeting my dear friend J for sushi before we headed to the auction. And ended it meeting another friend J for a drink afterwards at the bar nearby...one of the guys I've know through the league for years but we fell out of contact recently. Good to reconnect. Too funny how I was tired yesterday and didn't think I'd stay at the auction too long, but I ended up heading home close to midnight with a pretty long drive ahead of me.
Now I'm even more tired and ready to hit the coffee before spending some time with my family to celebrate Easter. Can you believe how LATE Easter is this year? It's about as late as it can be.
Ahem, excuse my geekiness, but I happen to know why. There was a full moon just one day prior to the Vernal Equinox (the first day of spring) this year. Easter always needs the Equinox first, then a full moon, then a Sunday. So because a full moon was just the day prior to the Equinox this year, the moon had to go through a whole wax and wane cycle again...it wasn't full again until April 18, a Monday. Since Easter has to be on a Sunday we had to go another week till today, Sunday April 24.
And there's your Easter lesson from a rather tired fivenineteen here. Time to get ready for brunch, visit with family and then glue myself to the Canucks/Hawks game tonight. Can the Canucks finish off the series and send the Hawks to the golf course? Or do we have to go till game 7 to decide this once and for all?
I can now just about count on one hand the number of people I know where the first part of March truly is...a march. An emotional, gut-wrenching march. Is it the battle of Fledgling Spring vs. Late Winter out there? Is it the lingering end of the February "blahs" (see my last post). What IS it about this time of year? And the whole 'in like a Lion' thingy too, with a nod way back to elementary school years. Yep, in like a lion - out like a lamb. Guess we'll see how Lamb-y the month wraps up.
This stupid cold morphed into an even more stupid hacking, lingering cough. Billions and billions of hackhackhacks and seemingly gallons of phlegm. Good lordy already I've felt like ripping my sinuses out. And I actually took a true "sick day" from work on Tuesday, where I pretty much shut off my laptop and phone and said hey kids, sorry, this shop's closed. And went through a bottle of cough syrup in about 2 days too. The next day I had an early morning presentation to finish up and preview with my manager, plus some hard finger crossing that I could get through it without a major coughing fit.
I did and it went well. The major coughing fit actually happened later at the end of the day, when I stepped out of the office to meet up with my Director at the consulting firm who placed me in this current work assignment. After about an hour of talking and white boarding with him, I suddenly burst into a coughing fit, one where I had to bolt to the ladies room and just hack until it subsided. Hilarious! OK, it is now but at the time extremely embarrassing. No, I'm not crying...really. My throat and voice are just shot. And when that happens, my eyes water. Yay me.
And evening conversation. G's father passed away two years ago on March 2. He came by and we talked about this and other things and you know, I really don't want to elaborate in here. Not that the whole friggin' world reads this blog, but some things need to stay deliciously private. And they will.
Can you feel even closer to someone while learning at the very same time that there's so much more to that special someone that you don't yet know? But (and?) as you listen with every fiber of your being, saying something like "Man, I know how you feel," rings fake and hollow. Because I can't possibly know. I can't possibly. But my Care is bottomless.
I do know the feeling of deep, deep feelings woven in with our lifelong memories...like one's life as a big lake or ocean where some parts are calm while others are chock full of weeds or logjams. And there are cool, sexy waterfalls, swirling currents...and in some places dangerous undertow. Old patterns that we all have and we are so seductively drawn to, however destructive they might be. But they're familiar, right? Do we get sucked in, tugged and pulled back under again, or do we learn how to manage the deep tides, rhythms and storms that wax and wane inside us...when can you get close to your undertow? When do you steer far clear? And when do we learn how to swim through it all? Or how to tread water? Perhaps it's a lifelong Learning Swim.
B passed away 3 years ago on the 3rd. She was a dear friend from the hockey league and just an absolute joy. She had a game late in the evening of March 2nd. I'd seen her a couple nights prior at a Silvertips game with K, the guy who I was dating at the time - she was working one of the raffle tables in the arena. I gave her a huge hug and introduced her to K. And that was the last time I ever saw her. For during the last period of her team game two nights later on the 2nd, she suddenly was having trouble breathing on the bench. Game stopped, paramedics called. They did everything they possibly could but we lost her early that next morning. An aortic aneurism they said.
And I sobbed and sobbed. Sobbed so much I was sobbing that next morning while plumbers were at my house trying to fix a massive, unexpected overnight water leak in my garage. Hey guys, a friend of mine died last night, but carry on with what you're doing.
I'll never forget B. Her laugh, smile and warm heart. I have her initials and her beloved (jersey) #8 on my helmet in tribute.
On Friday I was chugging away at work - I share a large cubicle now with a co-worker - we've all just moved to a different building. And I sensed something a little 'off.' When I turned to glance over my shoulder, she was crying. Whaaa? L'd just found out a good friend lost a hardfought cancer battle. And my heart broke.
I fell into the weekend physically and mentally exhausted. G invited me over for dinner and for dessert-making for his Supper Club gathering which was the following evening. We had a relaxing evening combined with cooking projects, and were both so spent when we were done that 10pm felt like 2am. Sleeeeeeeeep.
G's Supper Club rotates hosting between 5 different couples - the theme changes each time too. Plus, the hosting couple gets to invite a sixth Guest couple of their choosing. Food themes? Well, sometimes No Theme is the theme and that's what Saturday's dinner was. Exquisite food, warm company and conversation. From potato leek soup with creme fraiche, parlsey and bacon...to arugula, pine nuts and goat cheese wrapped in prosciutto, to a mixed green salad with shallots, an incredible vinegar dressing plus small puffs of fried, breaded goat cheese nestled on top...to homemade duck sausage corn dogs with hand-crafted curry mustard, lamb sliders with aoli, lettuce and tomato on homemade brioche buns (and fingerling potato chips)...to dessert.
When I passed out pint glasses partially filled with Guiness for 'dessert', the table went abuzz. Just what in the heck were G and I going to serve up? Then, shot glasses filled with a mix of Jameson and Baileys. And beautifully-plated homemade vanilla bean ice cream with (homemade) chocolate dipping sauce and chocolate chip cookies with hazlenuts and cacao nibs. Yep, you drop that shot glass into your pint glass and Bottoms Up, my friend. That's an Irish Immigrant Car Bomb, by the way...a nod to G, Sr.
It felt good to reconnect with G by spending a good chunk of the weekend together. Let's face it, he'd been in Australia for two weeks and then he and I were each some sort of Sick for a week or two following that. Quarantined from eachother and tired for so many different reasons emotionally and physically. Perhaps now things will resume some sort of 'normal,' whatever that might be. I feel happy and relaxed with him and am enjoying this still-new journey we're on together. With emphasis on new, of course. What's yet to become we don't know. We talk about future things we want to do together - plans which make me smile in anticipation of experiencing more things together...and yet I can't help but stick the cautious card in there too. Is that OK, I have to wonder? Or this me trying to go full speed with the brakes on, my old self-protecting patterns? I don't know what about that is healthy or what is not. I just know I have to be true to myself, honest and open-hearted. And not self-doubt or second guess.
My eyes sparkle and my heart flutters when I'm with him. There's much, much more beyond that, but I think that's a great place to start.
And March marches on.
