i'm darkness and light, bubbles and faerie wings.
i am sparkles and glitter, shadows and clouds.
i love purple, and faeries, and books, and music.
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Today I am 42.
This is the answer to the meaning of life, right? I should understand, and know, everything now?
*waits*
No, seriously.
*waits some more*
Is this, like, something that takes a little bit to boot up? I can wait. By tomorrow it’ll be installed right? This meaning of life knowledge that comes with 42?
Kurt Vonnegut wouldn’t have just made this sort of thing up, would he? I mean, I don’t know him or anything, but he reads like a really honest guy.
@—@—@
So today wasn’t 40-below zero. In fact we had ourselves a lovely ice storm. Thankfully I had asked Shawn to take today off from work to spend with me. The downside was that we were outside within minutes of waking up, hacking about 2 inches of ice off the car, and steps, and backyard so the dogs could get out. We also missed the movie we were going to see, that I had even bought tickets for on my movie app, because freezing rain just didn’t stop. Plus side there, it was cheapy tuesday so we only lost $12 off of a gift card.
@—@—@
Because it’s my birthday, and I saw a few people post this on FB this month, I’m going to answer some questions!
1. Favorite smell – Lavender. Or patchouli.
2. Last time I cried – last Wednesday, after being sick at work (ugh)
3. Favorite pizza – not really a pizza gal, but I do like being able to customize my pizza at Double Pizza here.
4. Favorite Flowers – Daisy, and since I discovered them two summers ago, Sunrise Lantana
5. Favorite dog breed – Finnish Lapphund (obviously), French Bulldogs, mixed breeds!
6. Untie laces- WHY?
7. Roller coaster- That’ll be a hard no, Greg.
8. Favorite ice cream – I do not like ice cream. (Though if I want some, it’s got to be vanilla)
9. Shorts or Jeans – Jeans
10. What are you listening to- P!nk, and The Cranberries on repeat
11. Color of truck – I do not have a truck. I have a car. It’s red.
12. Color of eyes- Green-Hazel
13. Favorite food – I really like bread.
14. Favorite Holiday – Halloween
15. Night owl or day person – Um… mid-morning through lunch time. Rest of the time I just want to sleep.
16. Favorite day of the week- Saturday
17. Do you have a nick name – Pookie, kit-cat, Cattypants,
18. Favorite music – indie pop
19. Tattoos – 6 (obviously I need to fix this because I can’t handle even numbers!!)
20. Piercings – 3 (was 4, I took out the eyebrow piercing in September.)
21. Number of pets- 2 dogs, one feline overlord
22. Real book or kindle – real book. I really do not like eReaders.
23. Shower or bath – shower
24. # of pillows on your bed – 4. One is for the dog (Yoshi).
25. What food do you hate – brussels sprouts, asparagus, onion, liver…I could go on.
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As long as I can remember, I have always associated the weather on my birthday with -20-something degrees celcius. I remember frigid walks from home to the bowling alley (or back from) in my teens. We always say stuff like, “Oh, it’s just Cat’s birthday with 40-below temperatures!”
Every time I see a forecast with an above-zero temperature for the 23rd of January, think how odd that is. How abnormal that is. It’s not Birthday Weather with cold so biting that the hairs inside your nose freeze together when you try to breathe!
And yet… I looked up historical weather information for my birthday and see that my frozen birthday memories are… false?
They are predicting a high of 6°C , no precipitation, this year. I feel very weird when the temperature is above zero on my birthday. I always thought the warmest birthday I ever experienced was in 2009 when I went to Disney World. But I was wrong, I suppose. I do believe that was the only time I was able to be coatless & bootless on my birthday though. My birthday is a week away however, so the actual temperatures and weather are subject to change one billionty times between now and then. You can be certain that I will note it down on that day of course.
And because I love to nerd-out over the weather (temperature) records for my birthday, here’s my list!
| Year | Hi | Low |
| 1976 | -26 °C | -31 °C |
| 1977 | -12 °C | -16 |
| 1978 | -4 °C | -7 |
| 1979 | -6 °C | -12 |
| 1980 | -1 °C | -13 |
| 1981 | -4 °C | -11 |
| 1982 | -2 °C | -22 |
| 1983 | -2 °C | -5 |
| 1984 | -6°C | -13 |
| 1985 | -5°C | -11 |
| 1986 | -9°C | -16 |
| 1987 | -5°C | -17 |
| 1988 | -3°C | -13 |
| 1989 | -4°C | -12 |
| 1990 | -1°C | -10 |
| 1991 | -4°C | -18 |
| 1992 | 1°C | -16 |
| 1993 | 3°C | 1 |
| 1994 | -16°C | -22 |
| 1995 | -2°C | -6 |
| 1996 | 2°C | 0 |
| 1997 | 6°C | -18 |
| 1998 | -5°C | -18 |
| 1999 | 7°C | -2 |
| 2000 | -14°C | -23 |
| 2001 | 0°C | -7 |
| 2002 | 6°C | -2 |
| 2003 | -6°C | -21 |
| 2004 | -17°C | -21 |
| 2005 | -14°C | -21 |
| 2006 | -3°C | -9 |
| 2007 | -3°C | -13 |
| 2008 | -5°C | -14 |
| 2009 | -11°C | -14 |
| 2010 | -2°C | -14 |
| 2011 | -18°C | -25 |
| 2012 | 4°C | -13 |
| 2013 | -22°C | -27 |
| 2014 | -17°C | -23 |
| 2015 | -12°C | -14 |
| 2016 | -8°C | -13 |
| 2017 | 0°C | -4 |
As you can see, there are few -20+°C days on here. Perhaps I have memories of the temps WITH windchill added in? All the historical info only gives you the actual highs and lows, not the extra “feels-like” information. Looks like the actual date I was born still holds the record for coldest January 23rd ever here in my neck of the woods.
I’m silly insomuch as I like to know the records highs & lows for dates. I like to know what time it is all the time, and I like to know what the temperature is. I don’t really care about the weather itself – unless I am tracking how much snow we’ve had in a winter
This is likely a very dull post for most of you. I think my mum will find it interesting though. I may have gotten my weather-obsession from her. (Including the “what is the water temperature today?” part from our summers on Lake Champlain!)
Yes, these are things I think about on a regular basis. Which also means I spend, like, an hour looking up historical data on temperatures from my birthdate while sitting on the couch in my pjs. There are likely 1000 more productive things I could be doing with my time, but this is what amused me for the past hour. If you have known me long, and still like being my friend, I thank you for putting up with my quirks and weirdness. You are wonderful people in my life. heh
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There’s not a whole lot in 2017 that I feel I need to look back upon. I’m not the only one who felt it was kind of a bummer of a year, but…
2017 was an interesting year for me. It was a year I needed. To reset myself. The first year in a long time that I didn’t work in an office, instead I went back into retail.
I needed that reset in my life, but I’m ready to move on again. I feel more centred, confident, less willing to take crap, and ready to tackle new challenges.
2017 didn’t end on a high note. All things considered it could have been worse. It wasn’t. I am thankful.
I made decisions this past year that made things better for me. I distanced myself from many things that were drowning me in negativity. I am on social media a lot less than I was. I barely even check twitter. I understand that people have strong opinions about things, especially political, but I chose to block a lot of that out. The world is becoming a little too toxic. You may choose to crusade one way, but I choose a different path.
I spent more time in my craft room this year than I have in the past. Part of this was because I had more time to do so. Part of it was because the crafting helped me in many ways.
I am not hopeful, or rather, full of hope, going into 2018. If I’m being honest I think I lost the ability to be hopeful years ago. I know that sounds sad, but it’s true. Hope just manages to get you high enough to hurt more when you are let down.
I feel mostly anxious and uncertain as this year begins. I know I want change, but I don’t know what I want to change. I do feel like there is a lot of change to come this year. I am tired of feeling trapped, so this year I want to shake things up and make sure that change does happen.
Work-wise, I don’t particularly want to go back to what I was doing (though I miss the people very much), and I know I am ready to move on from where I am now. Finding a happy-medium in the workforce will be difficult. But I’m ready. I will look. I will try new things.
I want to create more this year as well. I started learning watercolour painting in November and made all my christmas cards. They aren’t perfect, but I loved every second of that painting. I want to draw and write more, so I started a bullet journal so I can draw my own planner every week. And add colour, or illustrations as I please.
I want to run a 5k this year. FOR REAL. I don’t know when the snow will go away (I am thinking, late April) but this year I am feeling ready for this. I have been dreaming about it. Once I dream things repeatedly I know I am ready for it.
I am in this forever search for happiness. There is a lot in my life that makes me happy, but I want that happiness to spread into every part of my life.
I had my year off; a year I so desperately needed. I am reset. I am ready to ignite and restart.
I am going to make 2018 into a year I want it to be. It won’t be easy. It might be very messy, but I want to come out of this year knowing that I didn’t just settle because I had to. There are things I want to happen this year, and I will do my best to make sure they do.
I am 23 days away from turning 42 and I am ready to start this new 365 day story. Let’s do this.
per aspera ad astra
– through the thorns, to the stars
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Twenty years ago today, the girl whose parents were certain they would have to sell with the house, moved out, and into her first apartment with her girlfriend.
Twenty years ago.
My parents sold that house almost 5 years ago. I didn’t go with it. In fact, I’ve never moved back home since I moved out. (Ok, there was one week during a rough relationship patch that I went home for a “visit”. But that doesn’t count.
That first apartment was huge. It wasn’t in the best part of town. It was actually a slum of an apartment with cockroaches, and an evil landlord. It had questionable tenants, one of whom tried to burn it down when he was evicted. That prompted a move to a new apartment less than a year into this first one. A place we felt safer. A place I lived in for 6 years. A place that had a possessed bathroom that always had a flood. But my life changed, and grew, in those years. Relationships fell apart, and new ones were created.
Six years later I moved into a place with Shawn. We were robbed. We got married. Our place burned down.
We lived for a year in my in-laws’s basement.
We bought a house. We had two dogs. We still own this house, but now have two different dogs.
In this home we own, we have had downs and ups. We have grieved. We have laughed. We have grown together as a couple.
I have a lovely new kitchen.
Twenty years ago, one month before I turned 22, I moved out of my parents’ home and began my own life as a person.
I have made mistakes. I have learned so much. I have loved, lost, and lived.
This may seem like a trivial thing to most. An odd milestone to mark, but for me, a girl with anxiety so bad she couldn’t sleep anywhere except her own bedroom, this is an epic anniversary to celebrate. I still feel like a kid, scared of the dark, and the realization that 20 years have passed since I LEFT home is bewildering.
About two weeks after moving out we had a major ice storm here. Something that will also be celebrating a 20th anniversary soon. It was awful. Everything was ice. People were without electricity for weeks (or months!) And I survived that, as well as so much more in the past 20 years.
I do sort of hope that the next 20 years have fewer challenges though. Fewer challenges, and more whimsy. That’s what I hope for!
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Hi. My name is Cat, and this is my 16th blog post in 2017.
I have written this before but… I miss blogging. I never seem to have the time to do it though. And the past few years I haven’t felt like I have anything that I can write about. Sure, I have a lot of things to write about, but they aren’t things I want to write about online.
And yeah, stupid FB takes up all the tiny, micro-stories I have to tell. It’s easier to write a paragraph there than post over here, and link back to FB so people can read me. Because besides my parents, I am not even sure anyone else reads the blog anymore.
But it’s December and that means that it’s time for my Christmas look. So here it is. Hopefully I’ll post more this month. I have some plans. But you know how things go when I plan them… they don’t go at all.
So who know how December will play out.
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