Life Update - February 2013

It's the second month of the year and I think it's a good time to take a moment and see some progress with my resolutions and life.

So let's get the easiest topic out first.

Work

My days basically start with me waking up at 5:45, snoozing in until 6:28, drag my ass to the bathroom, brush teeth, wash face and drag myself back to room to get dressed and be out in the 7th circle of Hell cold morning to wait for my first bus at 7:02. (Though we had warmer days, it's been about 2 weeks of epic minuses making having 2 scarves over my face and my tuque down to my eyebrows, looking like a gangster - and worse of all - I foken love the looks!) By 8 am I am in the office where I have a good 30 mins to settle down, make tea and order my day's work if I have piles of paper. Most of the month is a rather smooth ride composed of me playing phone/faxing yakuza hunting down clients who haven't sent us meter reads since the last century and inquiring about the love story between them and their copier machines. Then around the 12th, my team mate sends out requests and the juice flows in and I have an express ticket to Heaven! I love entering data! It's ... how to say it ... very routine like, linear ... open email, open pdf, open the right window, get the first codes in, open second window, enter the read, mark as okay, move to the next. But while my fingers automatically do these, another part of my mind wanders far off in spiritual meditation or creative blooms and I find myself a thousand miles away in new stories or landscapes. Near the end of the month, people go crazy and I am being invited to the party.

I prepare invoices, I print them out. I also handle small credits (get request, send it off for approval at Toronto head office, get signed copy back, input it in Great Plains). I make piles and piles and piles of invoices. Me and my team mate we also try to gather the max reads before the month's end - which means I get to be social on the phone and press some lazy ones to get movin'! And then the last day of the month, we become an undeclared crazy house. Everyone freaks out, loose their heads, panic, abuse the servers, try to do one million things at the same time, which slows down our server, making us even more edgier. Just yesterday was such a day and we stayed at the office until 7:23 (normally I leave at 5) to wrap up everything up and post everything so that it becomes available for the Finance department in Head Office.

The next day (like today) I get my katana out and I slice and dice piles of invoices. I basically verify the client's code and see if they only have one or more invoices. If it' only one I shift them to a pile which I will fold with the folding machine and put them in envelopes and stamp them and mail them out. This usually lasts 2-3 days. Then it get's back to playing social on the phone and time goes until the 12th and then it's a circle in motion, but stuff always come up in between!

I am happy though. I get to better my customer care relationship and speak and help them out. I gain confidence in myself, in my skills and abilities. I also am growing more accustomed to the way the software works, the way the team works, the way the work works.

Health

I significantly improved on this too! First time ever! I started gradually, second week, I think, of January by including baby carrots and spinach  leaves in my diet. Of course at first I didn't cut down the meat and salami, but at least I added some vegetable! Filo sheets became my best friends! Not that I prepared them the way most websites will give you recipes and indications to. I will soon share my own technique and recipes and tips. I also included frozen beans and carrots to my rice and tried to lower the amount of meats/salami overall.

This week that is ending was the best though! I managed a whole week without meat and I have never felt this full of energy and light and aware. I mainly had wraps with eggs, spinach leaves, feta cheese, rice with veggies, spinach and orange slices, again Filo sheets with feta and spinach leaves and I started a new trend at the office! Two weeks after I started the baby carrot as a crunchy side dish - 2 young other women followed and tried it out! One recipe I especially liked this week was spaghetti with spinach leaves, feta (both cheese and the water in which I un-salt them) with a trail of pineapple sauce and canned mushrooms I boiled and sauté-ed a little. I never thought a bag of spinach leaves would go by so fast! By Wednesday I was out! I also have a yogurt as a dessert for the sweet, which cuts my need for bad sugar like candy or cake or artificial fattening calorific treats. Not that I totally cut that out of my life! I still have a few Fibre1 caramel bars for mornings where I need a little extra energy source. But I try to be more aware and conscious of my choices, not giving into bad sugars too easily. (I did indulge myself with Two Bites Cinnamon Rolls this morning because I stayed at the office until 7 last night and I wanted to treat myself a little.)

It's incredible when I compare myself how light I feel after a good healthy veggie based meal (rice + spinach leaves + baby carrots and a bit of cheese) versus a fully meat based one (turned egg + salami + cheese + pickle). I sleep better, I dream better (if I go to bed early too, it helps, thus why I have cut my social actives on the net to 3 hours a day (counting from when I get home at a little after 6pm until 9pm, giving me a hour to fully relax and de-connect from the day's tiredness and by 10 I am really ready to drift into slumber and dream land. I would recommend this actually. Half an hour or an hour to just listen to music in your bed, meditate, let thoughts out, pray, do what ever to build a strong yet smooth bridge between you hectic day and your peaceful night.

As for the physical exercise part, I have bought a yoga mat and 2 weights of 8 pounds each but I still need to set up a work out schedule. And as soon as the afternoons will be less dark - I am thinking March, April - I will subscribe to a gym near me and go there maybe 2 days a week + week ends to get toned and fit for the summer.

Personal Life 

Couldn't be happier! I am officially booked since last week I think ... Monday or Tuesday (I swear Time flies by so fast I loose track of what happened when!) ... I was saying, I am booked at Burning Monk Tattoo Shop here in Montreal with Jeff (the artist I wanted the most from that shop) to get my first tattoo on the date I wanted the most! February the 9th 2013. (Accordingly to my Facebook - it happened January the 24th and I quote myself : "Emilia updated her status. "omfg I'm so fucking happy!!! I will get fucking tattooed by Jeff at Burning monk tattoo on Feb 9 !! Ooooh can I just like explode ??!! thank you God!! now if this current state is not happiness, it's free crack cocaine!!" 

Can you feel the happiness ? Just thinking about it makes my heart flutter and I get tingly fingertips! 

At first, I wanted a french man named Pierre from Tattoomania (I think), but he was overbooked when I sent him the email in December. He recommended me to a colleague but that one never answered me. So I looked around, found another shop (Adrénaline Tattoo) but I didn't felt a special connection with any of the peeps in there through their art, so I googled some more and through a forum post I found the  Burning Monk and it was love at first sight! The shop is zen themed like a Buddhist temple and after going through each artist's gallery, I set my heart on Jeff whose works pleased me the most. And it just makes perfect sense for me! Burning = fire, which is my astrological element. Monk representing what I do consider myself sometimes (I wanted to be a Nun as  kid and a monk in my teenage years); it's just perfect! And like I said - I got the ultimate luck and privilege to have the artist i just naturally feel comfortable to ink me on the day that is significantly important for me, in relation to the tattoo I am getting. The pieces of the puzzle fit perfectly!

I haven't done my hair yet as I planned but at least I sort of found the definitive look I like. And most importantly, I bleached out some of the black so I don't feel as depressive and "not me" as I did some weeks ago. Black was not my brightest idea let's say.

"It's not great shakes, but you gotta start with baby shakes!" ~ Christina in The Perfect Storm.

Works perfectly fine and it works fine because great shakes are bound, most of the time, to lead you to exhaustion and defeat.

Art and Crafts & Creativity

Not much as you can see by the lack of uploads in my gallery but, I have no time or no energy. I do try to do a little on the week ends and I do cheat and open a Word file on my office computer to jog down random bits of poetry when inspired. I also started 2 random stories on blackberry via my Facebook but I need to order them and revise and get them decent before sharing and I still am not sure where I am going. (Well, maybe I know but - I am still sort of figuring things out ;) )

Also working on my next poster illustration which I am not even sure will come out for the right date! And I have 2 more I need to upload on the 9th since they were originally done in relation to that date. Good thing my appointment is at 12:30 - i have just enough time to do that ;)

For the summer though, I would like to set up a small bookmarks project with beads and ribbons and my illustrations. We will see how things will go.

So ... I got a Bike.

I don't know how to start this one. So many things run in my mind.

So let me recall how this adventure started.

In the concrete facts, it did in Ireland, county Claire, village Doolin. That place gave me such a wild urge to bike ! It has ... not breathtaking a la ouh lala sort of landscapes, but it has another type of inviting, reassuring, making you want to explore and wander around to see every bit again and again and again. We spent 2 days there I could have spent my life, honestly. On the second day, we walked up to the hills, to go see the Cliffs of Moher, and a couple of cyclists past us by; that game me the initial notch - the spark - the desire to ride a bike.

I came back, and time past and things happened and I never got around to have the time, the occasion and the last little push that I needed to get a bike and get back into it. I did bike when I was a kid, back home in my village I had a tricycle ( and I fell from my grandma's little bridge in front of the house and had my first broken wrist) at 4 or 5, then I rode a bike at 7 in Bucharest at this lady's house where my mom and sis and I spent the night before the flight (it was a family with 2 boys ...) and so the boys and my sis played around with the bike, then it was my turn and I ended up in the fountain with the ducks. After that, I got a bike 2 years later, or maybe even more ... I know I was in grade school, my bike was pink and white and of course I learned how to ride it in the Jarry Parc. We used to go all three of us, mom, sis and I. Near the end, when I was like 12, my sister and I even rode all the way from home to the park on quiet empty long streets. But I never could bring myself to use the breaks. I just let the bike slow down naturally or I used my feet, rubbing them against the ground and using the bottom part until a hole was created. Yes, I did that to a couple of pairs of shoes.

And then came high school, and I had my accident and I never rode a bike ever again. And today I'm 27, going 28 this summer and voila. I got back on one !

I was leading up to getting one sooner or later. I checked Canadian Tire store web page for the bikes, I checked Costco too. I think that is the kick part. Costco is so close to me, the bikes are there, it could have been such a easy purchase !

But I got a better deal.

I was chatting with a girlfriend of mine from a previous job and this biking subject came into the chat and she said that she wasn't using hers, even thought it's a new barely used one. She lives close to the work so, no real need for travel and she has other hobbies for the week end. I was sold. Or rather, the bike got himself a new owner.

Things got arranged and last Saturday I was at her place to get it :D

When I said I had a super neat of a deal; store's half price for this bike, with 3 chains, gloves, helmet, bags for the back part, and a pump for the wheels !

Instant love. It feels rough, masculine, strong, it's a hybrid mountain-city bike, I would associate it in my head to a northern country horse with strong build, thick legs and lot of fur - lol.

Of course I chickened out about riding it back home ! I did perhaps maybe ... 30cms on it before I used the breaks for the first time ever and avoided bumping into a parked car, but, no, I was definitely not ready for a full ride on busy sidewalks, loaded with people, streets loaded with cars!

I haven't touched a bike since 15 years ! I was not ready for such a huge step, so soon. So I walked it home. Walk, walk, walk, metro, and more walking. But we eventually got home safe and sound.

Just to see it attached to the fence, waiting for me, being there, ready, available made my desire and will to ride it even stronger. I have been craving this for over a year consciously and God knows how many more time unconsciously ! And over the top incredible big step for me, I used the breaks ! that is so huge for me, it's comparable to a lot of "big deal" issues out there.