The Hard Times Put The Shine Into The Diamond

Towards the end of 2015 I declared that my word for 2016 would be RISE. I was all gungho to participate in Ali Edward's One Little Word prompts and spend the entire year rising. I wrote out specific ways I wanted to rise during the during and how I would incorporate the word into every aspect of my life. I wanted to focus on being more successful and more confident. Connecting with nature and rising above. That was in January. Eleven months later I'm starting to find the humour that the vast majority of the rising I did this year was not really about success... 

In the beginning the two things that kept reappearing as I searched for quotes that contained the word rise were this quote:

"Don't carry your mistakes around with you. Instead, place them under your feet and use them as stepping stones to rise above them. Never regret, if it's good it's wonderful, if it's bad it's experience." 

And the song 'Riser' by Dierks Bentley neither of which was what I was looking for, but they kept coming up over and over again. At one point Riser was playing on the radio every time I got into the car. The quote that I officially picked was "If you're going to rise you might as well shine" which my mind had interpreted as "If you're going to get up in the morning you might as well be confident, talented and noticeable." 

It's only in the past few weeks that I've started to accept that Rise did not play out the way I wanted, but the universe was trying to manage my expectations from the very beginning, I just chose to ignore them. I envisioned climbing a staircase, easy and intuitive. Instead, I built the staircase...and I will be the first to tell you that carpentry is not my strength (or of any particular interest). 

The opposite of rise is descend and although rising didn't look the way I wanted it to I don't think I did much descending this year either. 

This year rising looked like birds...

And radishes...

Not a staircase in sight. And maybe it would have been nice to know that a year ago I like to believe that there's a reason I didn't. Things aren't as intuitive or straightforward as I imagined but I chose the word rise for a reason and I'm glad that I did, even if I didn't know what I was getting myself into. 

Linking up with Alyssa's Back to Blogging Non-Challenge//One Thing About Today You Wish You Knew A Year Ago.

Oprah Wasn't Built In A Day

If you're a regular listener to Stuff Your Mom Never Told You you probably listened to last weeks podcast that talked about failure. I happened to listen to it on my drive home from visiting H. & R. this weekend and it was scarily accurate. In the last six months I've either completely failed or partially failed at a lot of things. In the past six weeks alone I've encountered upwards of a dozen disappointments and I'd be lying if I said I was handling it well. I was handling well, I had nothing but hope and optimism and I even channelled all that positive thinking/secret/law of attraction stuff and went ahead and sticky-noted in the dates for camp sessions for a job that I really wanted. And now I mostly just feel defeated. Which isn't to say that I'm miserable because that's not the case either. I'm so happy that I went with my gut and didn't wind up unemployed in an apartment in the city. I'm thankful that I'm no longer in a relationship with someone who doesn't get camp or own work boots. And being home will always beat being anywhere else (I don't really want to relocate to Labrador). I'll always acknowledge the silver linings but that doesn't mean I'm ignoring the massive storm clouds. And that's okay.

This time next year I hope that the things I've sacrificed have been worth it. I hope that the successes outweigh the failures and I can see the completed puzzle, because right now all I see is a pile of disjointed pieces. I don't know how to make the pieces I have fit together and it seems like each time I   start to make some headway I discover that the pieces I'm working with belong to a different puzzle and get taken away. So I need to start again. 

I want to remember how satisfying it is to complete a puzzle and how boring it is when the puzzle is too easy and only takes a few minutes to complete. Because the truth is maybe this time next year I'll still be working on the puzzle and I need to be okay with that. I want to remember that it's okay to keep working on things but sometimes it's okay to move on too. 

I know that there are bigger lessons to learn from all the recent disappointments but as the saying goes 'Oprah Wasn't Built In A Day' and I can't expect things to be handed to me on a clipboard or learn everything from one disappointment.


Linking up with Alyssa for Back to Blogging/One thing about today you want to remember a year from now. 

My Soundtrack

Alyssa challenged everyone to choose three songs that could be the soundtrack to our lives. I like to follow the rules so I tried REALLY hard to narrow things down to three and eventually was successful. There's lots of great songs that didn't make the cut but I think these three do a good job of creating a well rounded soundtrack. 

Mr. Jones - Counting Crows

This song immediately transports me to playing 4-Square in the main building of the camp where I grew up. It's one of those songs that was embedded into the camp culture by way of the counsellors and then the campers who became counsellors who still played it because it reminded us of camp. 

Left & Leaving - The Weakerthans

I don't remember the first time I heard this song but at some point during jr. high I was introduced to it and it's followed me around ever since. I've always been sentimental and nostalgic and this song is both of those things.

Humble & Kind - Tim McGraw

I knew I needed a country song and originally I thought it would be and older one by Alan Jackson, Tim McGraw or Alabama because those were the soundtracks to my childhood. I kept coming back to this song though, even though it's super recent. It just summarizes everything I was taught growing up and everything I feel strongly about now. 

Back To Blogging: Unpublished Posts

I have 41 posts saved in my draft folder. A few of them are posts for later this week and a few are posts that are essentially idea dumps that I should go ahead and delete, but most are posts that I started writing and either never finished or never felt confident enough to push publish.

Ten Things I've Never Done (And Probably Never Will)

I don't always relate well to people in my age bracket because there are just some activities that do not appeal to me. And sometimes I have unpopular opinions when it comes to what constitutes a good time. I haven't published this one because I worry it makes me sound super judgemental even though that's not the intention. 

Work Boots

You can tell a lot about a person by what kind of shoes a person wears. I've always known this but I kind of forgot it for awhile and now that I've been reminded it's an observation worth sharing. 

Ten Things I Won't Give You Advice About

I definitely have a lot of opinions on a lot of things, but that doesn't mean I expect everyone to have the same opinions. People should do what works for them and just because something works for me doesn't make me qualified to tell other people that's the way they should do things. (Refer to next  unpublished post.)

Experts & Extremists

This started off as a post about the onslaught of so called 'experts' in the world these days and the opinion that if you're not extreme about your opinions it's not valid. Again, it took on more of judgey tone than I intended so I never went back and finished writing or editing it to make it less harsh.

Mac & Cheese Recipe

I didn't even know this was buried in there. There was a time when I planned on blogging a lot more about food and recipes but I feel intimidated by all the Pinterest perfect meal posts so I never did take photos and finish this post. Maybe the next time I make mac & cheese I'll snap some photos and hit the publish. 

Bloom Where You're Planted

This post isn't super relevant anymore, I wrote it last spring when I was having some serious doubts about doing another year at camp. I never published it because it felt a little too personal but I should really print it and stick it into my notebook journal.

Weird Things People Have Asked About My Career Path

This was inspired after someone asked if I had ever considered applying to work at the bank. I'm not even sure where I was going with this, it's an entertaining idea but needs a lot of work before it sees the light of the internet. 

It's Alright To Be Itty Bitty

Everyone wants to be an expert or to run the show and that's not something I'm interested in. I don't need (or want) to live in a big city or be CEO or have the best and newest of everything. I actually really like this post and would like to figure out a way to finish it because right now it's a lot of rambling and the point gets lots. 

On Waiting

Sometimes I feel like all I do is wait and have patience and while I try to be a really patient person sometimes waiting is exhausting. Especially when it's a matter of waiting on other people. Writing this post just made me feel defeated so I abandoned it and forgot about it's existence. 

Project Life Updates

There are about six of these posts where I intended to share my Project Life spreads and write about what I've learned in the process. 

Linking up with Alyssa for the Back to Blogging Challenge!

Peace Like A River

I don't usually blog on Saturdays but before the storm I had planned to participate in the Back to Blogging Challenge and I didn't get to do that because we didn't have power. I think it all worked out for the best though because it's been a long week and starting the weekend with some positive reflection is a good way to go so I'm starting off with What Makes You Feel Peaceful?

I've mentioned before that my grandparents live in a teeny-tiny fishing village and my grandfather's warf/boat are my favourite places in the world. Being there is the best kind of peaceful because it's not necessarily calm & quiet but it's comfortable in the routine of hard work, community and contentment. It gets extra peaceful points watching the sunrise over the ocean. 

I love being in the kitchen, turning ingredients into food is calming and there's something extra satisfying about making something delicious. Photography is a fairly recent hobby, but something I've come to love a whole lot the world seems a little kinder when viewed through a camera lens. Campfires are flat-out magical. Some of my best memories are sitting around a campfire with friends either in silence as we all watch the flames or in joyful conversation.

Camp is the opposite of peaceful in a lot of ways, but there are small windows of time when it feels like a pretty peaceful place. My favourite time used to be in the morning for about half an hour before everyone was up and about for the day, sitting in the office sipping hot coffee and getting to check in with the counsellors as they went by getting ready for the day. And another window of time at the end of the day when mostly everyone was headed to bed sneaking away for a few minutes to watch the sunset. And at the end of a session eating the first non-camp food meal of the week (often Subway, pizza or chicken strips & fries) and watching episodes of Friends or How I Met Your Mother. 

The similarities of my peacefulness are pretty obvious. I like nature and the outdoors, food and documenting it all for the future.