Meaningful possessions

I've been reading Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin. I read about it somewhere and put it on my amazon wishlist. On Christmas Eve, I found it in one of the boxes from my sister that I was instructed to "just leave the goddamn box sealed until the 24" and then wrap the contents up. I wasn't too excited but the moment I started reading it I changed my mind. I'm reading it slowly, trying to think about the things I've read and actually remember them. (I'm not one who can easily remember details from reading, I'm better at big pictures.)

I'm slowly making my way through Chapter 1 which addresses possessions and simplifying. She challenges the idea that having less things around us will make us happier because for some people, these possessions mean much more than simply their physical value.

From my point of view, my sister has a lot of things. Many of them I really like and often find myself wishing I had. When we were visiting this summer she had a coffee cup that was shaped like a Starbucks take out cup and it looks like a black piece of paper with circles cut out were placed on a white mug. I loved it. When I was leaving she gave it to me. It didn't mean much to her but i use it every time I sit and have my coffee at home. I love it. The energy and story behind this mug, despite its simplicity and that my sister probably hardly gives it a second though, means a lot to me. I'm reminded of my sister each day and I get to hold something that she held even though she is many thousand miles away. So possessions are important to some of us.

Shortly after lunch today I turned on Olivia for the kids. I stood there watching them for a few moments and, as I so often do, I rubbed my back with the back of my left hand. Something hurt. I was a little surprised. When I brought my hand in front of me the diamond was missing in my engagement ring. I had cried. I'm extremely sad about it. It feels like such a bigger loss than just a stone. I imagined having it for many years even though it wasn't grand or fancy. Big Love chose it because it had a lot of color in it - sometimes I could see a bit of a rainbow inside.

My sister had talked to me and told me that Dad was talking about coming back to Canada for Christmas. (He was living in Norway at this point.) It was always very stressful to have him in her house for two weeks straight during the holidays and she had asked me to try and dissuade him from doing so. So on a Saturday while on my way to choir rehearsal (I used to sing in a professional choir) I was talking to him on the phone. Because even then our relationship was strained I would often talk to him at this time because then I had an excuse to get off the phone. We were talking about him coming for Christmas and I told him that he may want to hold off on a visit because if things went the way I was thinking they were, he'd need to come in the spring or summer for a wedding. Big Love was at my apartment when I got home about 5.5 hours later and with a little bit of nervousness in my voice, I asked him if it was ok that I told my Dad that. Big Love looked at me with big eyes and calmly asked, "Do you think it is ok?" I said yes and then he reassured me that everything was fine.

I found out a few weeks later that while I had been at rehearsal, Big Love was out buying my ring. He was so nervous he made a few laps around the mall before he actually went into the store. After buying it, he was so nervous/excited that he walked home to his apartment rather than taking the bus (the walk could have easily been an hour). Then he put it away in a safe spot and hopped on the bus to come to meet me at my apartment.

This diamond is so much more than just a diamond. I can not even think of all the things that it symbolizes for me. I have cried and I just feel sad. I really want a little miracle to happen and it show up but I don't have my hopes up. It doesn't seem plausible. It also isn't plausible that we'll be able to get a replacement in any foreseeable future.

(This post has rambled a bit and I'm sorry, but I felt I needed to get something out somewhere!)

And now I need to find the energy to prepare for Sweet One's 4th Birthday Party tomorrow!

Pumpkin Heads

My Dad used to make awesome Jack-O-Lanterns. They have noses and ears that stuck out, eyebrows and so many other details. And this was pre-google search "angry mean jack-o-lantern". We always loved watching to see what they would turn out to be.

One year when I was in grade 6 we had huge pumpkins.

We went to the same school that my mom taught at.

My mom's birthday is on Halloween.

So I'm sitting in class and start hearing about something going on in the school. There was a man with a pumpkin on his head. "Who is that?" I was curious but when I saw our pumpkin in the school I wasn't really surprised. (Once upon a time school's weren't locked and someone could come and do a bit of a halloween prank without being handcuffed!) Yup. It was my Dad! He had put on his work coveralls and a ski mask, then placed the giant pumpkin on top of his head. Later in the day my Dad asked what I thought of the whole thing and I said I was embarrassed. Then he said, "I had a mask on my face. If you wouldn't have told them, no one would have known it was me!" He got me there!

I thought of this all afternoon was I was making the Jack-O-Lantern's with the kids. Sweet One really wanted a mean/scary one and I figured that Little Man's should balance things out with a big goofy smile. They're not quite as nice as my Dad used to make but the kids love them.

Pizza Night

Pizza for supper tonight. We don't order in because this town does not have gluten free crusts and I feel so much better if that's what I eat. (I was shocked how many Canadian pizza places had it!) So buy frozen crusts for me and other crusts for the rest of the family. Grate all the cheese, cut up the pieces of what we're putting them on so we can each have just what we like and then I remember.

We never bought our pizza growing up. My Dad would make the crust and the sauce. It was quite an ordeal.  Exciting. We even got to drink pop with that meal (or soda for those of you who use that weird word) which was a very rare occurrence. We used canned mushrooms and my Dad would let us eat some of them as we were assembling our pizzas. It is almost ridiculous how much detail I remember of these nights. The crust wasn't thin but nor was it thick. It was just my Dad's crust. So much fun for all of us.

One night I got home from wherever I was early. I'm not sure if it was work or babysitting but I got downstairs and said I was hungry. My Dad's suggestion was to order a pizza if I'd go and pick it up. So I did. I brought it down to the basement where I scarfed probably half of it. We never spoke much. I heard later from my sister how surprised my Dad was at how much I ate. If I had taken a moment to look up I probably would have seen a look of complete relief. That was in the middle of my almost-anorexic stage. The teenage years were hard for me and how much I ate was the one thing I felt I could control. I liked how skinny I felt. 97 pounds isn't very much. My Dad was incredibly worried but didn't know how to talk to me. I think that is about the time things started declining for us.

So my family and I will eat pizza tonight. And it will mean so much more to me than I ever imagined.