50 Days of Life As I Know It. A Plan to Savor Each Moment Left

It's official. I have 50 days left until I am on board a plane with my sister to Bali, Indonesia. I have thought of this for so long and now that reality has set in I have a mix of emotions. Of course I am beyond excited to be traveling in South East Asia for 6 months, but there is that sentimental side of me that has been creeping up every day since we booked our one way ticket. As the 50 day mark came upon me I realized that life as I know it is about to change in every way, at least for 6 months, maybe forever . I decided that until I leave I want to savor all of those little moments, those little things, that I may not feel or see for a long time. I thought of coming up with a list of 50 things to do, or 50 things that I will miss but I could only get to 35. So here is a mix of things I want to take in before I leave:

1. Enjoy the fall leaves
2. Do yoga as often as I can while I can still do it on a whim in my bedroom without getting in the way
3. Play my music out loud when no one is around
4. Wear as many outfits as possible and dress up for work. I'm going to be living out of a backpack soon enough
5. Spend useless bored moments on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and remember that I have entertainment for now
6. Make a smoothie every morning not because it's healthy but because I can. Those blender days will be over
7. Eat as much pumpkin pie as possible
8. Lounge around in yoga/pj pants whenever I want
9. Lay on the couch and watch TV whenever possible
10. Spend countless hours killing my hair with a straightener
11. Use up all of my make up by getting done up every day
12. Take as many random photos to send by text or Snapchat as possible
13. Enjoy having a routine. I should want to run from this but it keeps me sane
14. My stuff. My pictures, my jewelry, my books, my stuff.
15. Love waking up in my own bed. Blankets, cool air, big stretches, sleeping in
16. Breath in the cool fresh air because it's going to be hot and humid
17. Wear sweaters as many days as possible
18. Bake cookies, cakes, chicken anything that involves an oven
19. Have long hot baths. This is something I will terribly miss however I'll let the ocean be my bathtub
20. Change my nail polish often while I have many options
21. Drive a car whenever I have the chance
22. Hug everyone in my family every time I see them
23. Wear jeans. My body will not see these for a very long time
24. If I get a chance, enjoy the first snowfall. I never wish for snow early but I want those big night snowflakes that stick in your hair.     
25. Buy a tub of ice cream and eat it all before I leave
26. Talk on the phone. I don't do this often but love when I do and shall do more of it
27. See as many friends and family members as I can
28. Enjoy the simple hot showers
29. Don't take for granted those moments when people need me
30. Have as many silly random conversations with as many inside jokes as possible, those are the moments I will think of when I miss people
31. Enjoy food like Kraft Dinner, grilled cheese, anything that is home
32. Play with the new roommate (the baby), when I get back he will have grown so much
33. Make sure I am not mad or holding a grudge with anyone or them with me
34. Did I mention eating lots of pumpkin pie?
35. Remember how many wonderful people are in my life and know that each one of them had some part in getting me to where I am today and whether I am close or far I love every one of them in some way

Each day that gets closer to my departure these things are going to get more important to me and that day I take off who knows what will happen but I will be able to look back at this time for the rest of my life and be glad that I let it all soak in. For now I have a ton to do but I am going to enjoy every second that I can in life. There's going to be a new adventure ahead of me and a new blog coming soon. I'm sure there will be many murrments along the way though!

Saying Goodbye To First World Problems

Last week I had the misfortune of dropping my Iphone and breaking it with three months of my contract to go, so I bit the bullet and decided to upgrade, resign and get the Samsung Galaxy S4. Amazing phone I must say but one week into having it, just when I got used to the device and downloaded all the apps, I dropped that phone through the crack of a table, smashing it on the ground. I guess I didn't knock on enough wood when I protested how in all my years I had never broken a single phone. Luckily I am able to get a replacement but that meant four days straight without a phone. After the initial separation anxiety and grieving of my lost pictures and conversations I decided what better time to disconnect myself from having something attached to me at all times.
There are certain things you realize when you don't have your phone anymore that seem like big problems which become unimportant after a few days. For the first twenty four hours here were my first world problems I had to deal with:

• How was I going to Snapchat all the pictures of me eating ice cream to people? I found some great deals on ice cream and it's sad that my first thought was to take a picture and send my find to someone. (I did buy two boxes of Drumsticks and a box of 24 Fudgesicles in case you wanted to know)
• How was I going to continue the everlasting ongoing text messages that I had going on? Some of these were very important conversations that I no longer was able to continue.
• How would I Instagram my selfies of me doing nonsense things like making dinner on the BBQ? 
• How would I check in to all the non important places I went to on the weekend on Facebook?
• How was I going to survive a bus ride without my playlist of music?
• How was I going to check my daily horoscope?
• How was I going to check the weather for today, tomorrow or next week in Ottawa or a random city? (I did get poured on today not knowing it was going to rain)
• How was I going to set my alarm in the morning for work? I don't have an actual clock in my room anymore.
• How was I going to get all my pictures off of my phone? (They were pretty dumb ones but still)
• How was someone going to call me (Let's face it my total talk time in a month is maybe ten minutes)
• How was I going to make plans to meet up with people and know if either one of us would show or be late?

After a day or two these things became so irrelevant in my life. I still have a computer so I still have Facebook. Anyone that matters knows how to get a hold of me through Facebook or email and they have. So today I woke up for day one of work without my phone and it was amazing how many things are different without it. I loaded up an Ipod shuffle because I can't live without my music and set on my way. Here are some things I noticed without having a phone:

• The moment I walked out the door I had three construction guys on my street say hi to me all in a row.
• My Ipod is so much lighter than a phone and easily fit in my pocket, freeing up my hands for my purse and bus pass without me being all awkward.
• The bus driver actually said hello and smiled at me this morning.
• I may have danced at the bus stop listening to Fleetwood Mac's Sweet Little Lies and am now obsessed with the song.
• I paid attention to people. There was one woman doing make up on the bus, one reading a book, a man outside cutting hedges on the sidewalk side of his property, a mom with her child on a slide at the park. It was the people watching I love to do.
• I realized how boring my job really can be without the extra distraction at my desk. This could be a very good or very bad thing.
• I started looking at vintage clothing, looking into my dreams, reading the news. Stuff I used to care about.
• I stopped looking for my phone, waiting for text messages, deleting junk emails. All the things that waste so much time in my day.
• My phone does have a voice activated command thing. I finally used it and realized I can set my alarm, send and receive text messages and call her a whore when she doesn't do what I ask, but then she tells me to come back when I feel like being nicer and that she doesn't understand when I say goodbye forever alone. 

At the end of the day I'm not completely disconnected from the social aspects of technology, they just have to be done at a different pace. I have noticed there is more time in the day and that I am generally at peace without my phone. Tomorrow the new one comes in and I may just treat it a little different than before.

I may just want to wear my jean jacket, pretend it's 1987 and listen to Little Lies on a plain old Sony Walkman.

What Are The Hardest Things To Ask Yourself?

A few months ago I sat alone in my apartment and was really trying to figure out my life. Maybe I think too much. I just wanted to find out some answers to things I couldn't comprehend. Why were people treating me a certain way? What did I really need in life? What direction did I want to take? These are all questions that popped in my head but they didn't really get down to the core of who I am inside.
One of the hardest things to do is to be honest with yourself, look inside your mind and heart and then write down some answers that you truly believe in. Not answers you think people would want to read. Answers that challenge yourself. I wrote down five questions in a journal. These questions seemed simple until I wrote them down. The key is to write all five out, leaving spaces for your answers, just like an English test in high school. The words on the paper scared me, haunted me and were extremely challenging to answer. I actually took a couple days filling in my blank lines until there staring back at me was exactly what I was looking for. Here was my key to finding my own happiness, I was realizing things that I did and didn't want in my life and things that I could be proud of. It was a very freeing experience and I still think about these questions every day.

I challenge people to try this out and see what you can learn about yourself.
Here are the questions:

1. What are you good at?
2. What do you like about yourself?
3. What do you dislike about yourself?
4. What makes you truly happy?
5. What makes you sad or angry?

I've passed it on to a couple of friends and hopefully they were able to gain some good insight to themselves. Maybe you can too.

Little Miss Busy

I can't believe it has been almost a month since my last blog post but life has been crazy busy and it's just going to get busier. In on of my previous post, Big Changes Are Coming, I had mentioned that I was going to have some big changes in my life in order to take a trip of a lifetime. Since then I have moved out of my lovely apartment and am living with some friends for a few months to save up some funds. My last month has pretty much consisted of packing, moving things into storage, moving things to my new home and getting settled in. And to my surprise, I actually love it here. I had a year living on my own, no one around, did whatever I wanted, but it was extremely lonely. I guess I am more of a social person than I thought I was. I have been here in my new home for almost two weeks and it's great.
That has been my last month and today I realized, as I input my next two months into my calendar, that it's just about to get busier. There are the usual engagements of course, birthdays, baby showers and most exciting is the visit of my best friend from Luxembourg whom I haven't seen in a year! I've also decided that this is going to be the year to volunteer my time and efforts into a few different things. I'm sure it will be posted all over Facebook shortly but I am going to be riding the Big Bike for Heart & Stroke with MBNA again this year, missed out last year for the actual ride by 10 minutes, but still got some good fundraising in. This year some of us are working on a fundraising yoga class in one of the city parks which I will shortly start advertising and creating a website for info and sign ups if people are interested. I will be after those reading this that live in the city!
I signed up again this year to do the Ultimate Run for Men's Cancer's where I will be doing the 5km walk, I don't have the time to train for a run, plus I despise running. Both of these foundations are important to me as there have been family members affected by both.
I also found myself agreeing to do a Yogathon at the end of May in support of Because I Am A Girl, Woman for Mental Health, and Helping Hands for India. A full day of yoga is something I thought I would never do but now I am signed up for a yogathon and am in the works of a camping combined with yoga retreat in Vermont next month. I am quite excited to see what that is like.
Camping. Oh the camping. Nothing makes summer seem short until you try to plan out camping weekends. One trip at least, if not two are planned and ready to go to the Thousand Islands this year and hopefully another weekend I can get in with my sister, we have talked about it for a couple of years.
Pretty much three quarters of my summer weekends are booked up until August and I'm sure there will only be more. I am never complaining about being busy. I love it actually, especially when it's fun times with good people in nice weather.
Of course with being busy murrments are bound to happen. I have been posting most of them on the Murrments Facebook page and get a good laugh at the ones everyone else is posting. Keep them coming!

Murrment of the Week. Love On A Leg?

Life has been hectic to say the least. Last weekend I decided it was time to start packing for my upcoming move the end of April. I'm moving in with some friends for the next six months to save up for my big trip. I got home Saturday afternoon and went crazy packing. Some things are set for storage, some to take to the place I will call home and the rest for donation. Nine bags of clothes for donation, four storage bins filled and a few bags of garbage later I found myself almost set to move. I guess I had some good motivation that day because I started to run out of things to pack and have already taken one load of things to my new home.
With three weeks to go I then had to deal with living in chaos in my apartment with all of the containers and bags of stuff waiting to be taken away. It's pretty much like walking through a maze and getting up in the middle of the night to use the toilet is just a bad idea. I pretty much am guaranteed to trip over something. It makes me excited to move but it is no longer my home, no longer my sanctuary and place to find calmness in my life.
My murrment of the week starts with me trying to find some peacefulness in a life of craziness. I came home the other night and after looking around my apartment, seeing my artless walls, all of my last years memories packed away I just wanted to sit down and cry. Instead I decided to take a nice bath.
Being a girl as you all know requires the consistent upkeep of shaving ones legs so there I was in the bath spraying shaving cream on my leg and when I looked at it somehow it came out saying the word "love". I am easily amused by the small things in life and probably spent about five minutes admiring my leg with a possible word spewed on it.
My first thought was I should take a picture and Instagram it because isn't that what I do with everything funny I see? It would have been a great picture. Add a filter, maybe a frame, hashtag love. The usual. Here is where the problem lies. My phone was in the living room on my stereo playing music. I thought long and hard about how I was going to make this work. If I got out of the tub the shaving cream was bound to drip off my leg and would no longer would I have a word. Then I thought maybe I could get out carefully, keep the one leg up and woddle my way over to my phone. It could work.Then I remembered I would be naked. My lights were on and the curtains were open to the street so that would have caused a major murrment. So there I sat in the tub after realizing there would be no picture, no one would believe me, no hash tags would be made, no one would see this great little moment in life when the simple things pleased me and I found my calmness. Coming to this conclusion out loud all I could say was, "MURR".

Big Changes Are Coming

It's been a bit since my last blog post but as some of you may know I have been extremely busy lately. I've been trying to put a lot of my focus into my work, not really sure why but it gives me something to think of all day. I have also been going to the gym or working out at home five to six days a week, and on top of that have been planning on changing my life.

What is this change? Well after a long year of living on my own, trying to find my place in this new world, and endless let downs, I decided it was time to start living the life I really wanted. I had made a decision in the fall when my sister moved to New Zealand on a working visa that I wanted to try the same thing. The plan was to pay down some stuff, take a leave from work and go for a year.

Initially my sister and I had a little plan of meeting up, maybe doing some traveling and some random work, and then when she set off for home I could do the rest of the year on my own. This plan seemed great in a lot of ways however there are a few things that came up that stopped this exact plan from working out. I live on my own in Ottawa where it isn't the cheapest place to live and save money, and second as of today my baby sister is home early from her journey in New Zealand. A choice that she knows I respect and just hope that she is happy in whatever she does, however I will miss talking to her at 3am when I have the dreaded insomnia!

So even though my sister came home I decided that I still needed to do something for me. I need to get out of this city and do what I love...travel! I have always wanted to go to Bali, Indonesia for as long as I can remember, even before Julia Roberts and the whole Eat, Pray, Love thing happened. I started looking at planning a trip there. Then I started seeing the surrounding areas, then the surrounding countries and all of a sudden I had seven countries that I now want to visit. How was I going to afford it? Could I do it on my own? When could I go? And then it happened...

I realized I'm not the first person to ever do this. The cost of backpacking around Southeast Asia has fairly minimal costs compared to many other places I want to go or have been before and with some careful planning I could do it. It all came to me very quickly and I realized that I could actually accomplish this. I would have to make some really big changes in my life now and until I could leave, but I could handle that. It was the first time in my life I had an opportunity to do something crazy like this. No ties here to hold me back, and that is very rare to happen. Plus, Justin Timberlake got married this year so my hopes of ever becoming his wife went down the drain. Over the next little while I will let you all in on my plans and how I'm getting to live my dreams. Big changes are coming.

Top 10 Mini Murrments

I have random murrments happen to me which I have shared on here in past blog posts. These are my top 10 normal pet peeve style things that drive me nuts. Otherwise known as mini murrments.

10. Being early for the bus for once and then it's late. This happens to me all the time, but more so on days when it is raining, snowy, windy, or I decide to wear a skirt to work. I'm planning on wearing a skirt tomorrow so I'm pretty sure I will be late.

9. Doing your eye make up perfect and when you put mascara on it smudges on your eyelid. This also only happens when you have to go out somewhere and have spent more time on your eyes than the normal throw on one color and go.

8. Being stuck behind people who don't know how to use an escalator. If you want to stand, stand to your right people. Some of us are in a hurry and the left side is meant for the ones who want to pass by.

7. Knowing there is a quarter of a bottle of lotion left but the pump doesn't go down far enough to pump it out. You pump and pump and nothing comes out. Screw you lotion bottle! How is it even possible that this happens these days? After years of this happening to me I thought they would have it right by now.

6. Finding a hairdresser that does a good job and then they leave or the place closes. I haven't had a consistent stylist in a decade. Wow that made me feel old!

5. Losing articles of clothing when you live by yourself and have your own washer and dryer. This happened to me yesterday. I tore apart my drawers, made a mess of my room and relived my teenage years with a disaster of a bedroom. I decided to wear jeans instead only to find the leggings at the end of the day. They were in the dryer that I looked through four times.

4. Forgetting words.
Example.
I say, "I was sick and watched a bunch of movies".
Other person says, "Oh what movies did you watch?"
Me, ".......Ummmm".
Pretty much I felt like a dumb ass. I am horrible with names. People, movies, books anything that has a name.

3. Going to take a picture of something great and then your memory is full. This is such a disappointment. Not only did you not capture the moment, you actually missed it because you were buggering around with your camera or phone and got nothing.

2. Having a bunch of open tabs on your computer and accidentally hitting the close button. No word of a lie I just did that while I was writing this. At least this time it was only the blogger tab and not all of the internet.

1. Getting ice cream on the back of your hand. You know when you reach into the ice cream container and the backside of your hand hits the side of the container and you get that little bit of ice cream on your hand? I can't handle this. It actually makes me cry. When I was younger I refused to get ice cream if it was close to empty. My best friend thought it was funny to do it on purpose to me one day. Let's say it didn't end well for the eggs in the fridge that day. I knew I was doing this post today and purposely put ice cream on my own hand to take a picture. What a horrible idea. I panicked after the picture was taken, but at least I got to lick off the ice cream and then had a bowl after.

Murrment Remedies- How to Shake Off That Murr Feeling

Sorry it has been awhile since my last post. After some people got on my case I figured I would head back to blogging. The only problem has been I haven't had any murrments to write about. In general, life is pretty good right now so I can't complain. Then today I woke up just in a murr mood. One of those days where you feel like you woke up on the wrong side of the bed. You had bad dreams, you are feeling a cold coming on and there are suppressed feelings that decide to come out for no reason at all. It's a case of the murrrz as some people would tell me. So I decided to write about different things I do to get ride of those feelings. Each person deals with life in a different way but these are the things I have learned over the last year to help me.

Laughter

There is nothing I love more in this world than making someone laugh. I'm weird and have a messed up sense of humor and when I am feeling murr I tend to find something humorous that makes me laugh and share it with someone else. This may be through text, on Facebook or in person. In return I get to bring a laugh to someones day and I remember that this is what life is about for me. Plus most times I get something funny back from them.

Ice Cream

Anyone that knows me knows that I adore ice cream. I eat it everywhere I travel and it is my summer addiction. I hate being cold, so I don't get it as often in the winter and having it in my freezer is just bad news. Somehow it disappears really quickly. I think it ends up in my stomach somehow. In my family we will all agree that ice cream or tea will fix any problem and it usually does. Maybe it makes me feel good because it's a reminder of summer, of family, or because it's just so darn yummy.

Good Chat With Someone

This tends to be my first thing I do when I can't shake a feeling. It happens a lot that I'm not the only one having a murr day. It may be why it helps because you figure out that sometimes your issues are nonsense compared to someone else's. It always seems like someone you haven't talked to in ages will message you out of the blue on these days asking you how you are. Maybe it's a strange sign. Maybe that's why they are in your life that day. Who knows.

Music

The most important thing when using music is to listen to something that does not remind you of anyone. It can remind you of something you went through, somewhere you were or something you did but never listen to music that reminds you of someone when you need to clear your head. Find something that suits your mood and won't make it worse. I usually try and find something upbeat and maybe do a little dance around the house, yelling at the top of my lungs, just don't let your neighbors see you. Then you would have a murrment on your hands.

Yoga and Meditation

This is not for everyone and it takes a lot of practice to get it right but it is worth it. I keep my yoga mat out at all times and use this website http://www.doyogawithme.com/. On this site they have classes for any level, length of time or type of yoga. There are also a lot of breathing and meditation exercises available. I light my incense, take a deep breath, begin to clear my mind and end with the feeling of walking on clouds.


I did all of these things today and then wrote about it. Feels a lot better that is for sure. Hoping that today was just a temporary murr day and tomorrow it will have passed. If not I may be getting murringiteous.

Murrment of the Week: Quotes Going Wrong

It's time again for the Murrment of the Week. First of all I should let you know that my all time favorite movie is Dirty Dancing. I grew up watching this movie over and over again, knowing every line, every sound, and every dance. I can even tell you the moment you can pause the movie and have a screen full of Patrick Swayze's naked bum frozen on your tv screen. Needless to say, I always wanted to fall for a sexy bad boy like Johnny Castle. 

Last weekend I was in a little knick knack store and was ecstatic when I came across a Dirty Dancing key chain. It has buttons which will play one of six quotes from the movies, including the famous, "Nobody put's baby in the corner". After annoying my coworkers with this I decided on Tuesday to throw the key chain in my purse and go home for the day. 
I stopped at a little corner store on the way home to fulfill my craving for salt and vinegar chips. There was an Asian attendant behind the counter and as he gave me my total owing I reached into my purse. As always, I spent what seemed like an eternity digging through my purse looking for my wallet. At this moment of all things that could happen, I had to mistakenly hit the button on my key chain. There I was alone in the store with this man and very loudly all that you could hear was, "I'm scared of who I am, and most of all I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you". All I could say was, "Wow that was awkward". I then explained to him what it was that made the noise and all he could say to me was, "Well at least what you said wasn't meant for me". Murr

I have since learned to take my key chain out of my purse, however I will never stop longing for my Johnny Castle....

Forever Alone?

 

The grass is never greener on the other side. I remember at times wishing I was living on my own, no one around to bother me, to have freedom to do whatever I want. Those things are great don't get me wrong, but living alone has it's downfalls too. So here are the best and worst things about living alone.



The Best

• You have the whole bed to yourself. You don't fight for covers, wake up to someone tossing, snoring, or talking in their sleep. You can sprawl out to all four corners of the bed. Most people would love this, however I still sleep in one corner of the bed and sleep in the same spot all night. When I wake up I don't even need to make one side of the bed. It's still perfectly in place.
• You can watch or listen to whatever you want. No fighting over the remote, no getting stuck watching shows that you can't stand. You can listen to whatever music you want, as loud as you want, at any time you want. There is always music on at my place, mainly because I can't handle the sound of silence, mixed with the humming of the fridge, but also because music is my life. It's on while I get ready, while I write, while I work out, while I cook and always when I just chill on the couch.
• You can make whatever you want to eat. I eat pretty much anything and some days I like to spend the time and immerse myself into cooking a big meal (this will last me for days of meals), and sometimes I come home and eat nothing. No one ever complains about how long it takes to cook, what is being made, or if they like what I cook. If it's bad, I don't make it again. If it's good I usually forget what I did.
• The only mess that is made is your own. You don't have to clean up from anyone unless you have company. My towels are always in place, everything is where I want it to be and if it's not I know I have to clean it up. My own mess.
• You are always right. By far my favorite. There is no one around to tell you if you are hanging a picture wrong, building something wrong, or just acting wrong. At the end of the day you always get to be right because there is no one to tell you otherwise. This won't always apply because as soon as you tell an outsider and they say you are wrong, you aren't always right.

The Worst

• When you are having a really bad day and you come home and just want to have a hug and cry it all away, there is no one there. This just makes the bad day even worse. At this point just go to bed.
• You can't blame anyone for anything but yourself. If there is a mess, something isn't done, a bill needs to get paid, you went over on you internet usage, or you are out of food, you can't blame anyone but yourself. This was the one that went in between the good and the bad when it came to the mess. You made it, but you also have to clean it all up.
• You spend way to much time talking to yourself. There are days I am sure I have gone crazy with some of the conversations I have had out loud with myself. I guess I'm never really lonely. Just a basket case.
• It's cold being alone. There are no hugs, snuggles, or anything to keep you warm. I have become attached to my wool socks and multiple layers of clothing to keep me warm. It doesn't matter how high I turn up the heat, there is nothing like skin to skin contact to keep you warm. This one makes me sad. Murr
• There is no one to make you comfort food. There are those days where it's cold out, you are grumpy, something has ticked you off, or you are just having a murrday. Those are the days I just want someone to make me a grilled cheese sandwich. It makes everything better. Making it yourself is not comforting. It seems like so much effort on those days. I usually just end up with toast with peanut butter instead.
• There is no one to share silly little moments with. I see, hear and do a lot of random things in my life and those really close to me get my texts all the time with strange pictures of something happening, but sometimes it's a lot of effort to send something and try to explain it rather than seeing it in person. This must be how I end up talking to myself.

There are goods and bads to any situation but those are my thoughts on living alone. It's been a strange year for sure and it's taken a long time to realize the good, and they usually outweigh the bad. At the end of the day if I could have my own bed, a maid, my own room to listen to music in, while I had someone to keep me warm with snuggles, give me hugs and make me grilled cheese who would listen to my random stories, then I think it would be great. Or I could just get a maid/cook and a dog. That may also solve my problems but then I would be forever alone with a dog. Murrr

Murrment of the Week. Dirty Murr

This week was actually a very good week in respects to murrments. It was pretty uneventful and I was worried I wouldn't even have a Murrment of the Week post. Then I came home Wednesday after work, turned on my hot water, ran it for about twenty seconds and then it ran dry. This week has been ridiculously cold. At times with the wind chill it was minus forty Celsius, so my first thought was maybe the pipes were frozen. I don't know the first thing about plumbing. If you take me to a hardware store, the only thing I am doing in the plumbing section is admiring to copper color of the pipe pieces.

I called my landlord and there have been multiple attempts to fix the water but as of this moment it has been 3 days without running hot water. I just want a hot shower. They say when you can't have something you want it more. Well that is me this week. I want a bubble bath, a steaming hot shower, I even wanted to do dishes just so I could have a sink full of hot water, and I despise doing dishes.

My new best friend is my kettle. We are old friends and have a lot of history making warm tea together, but this week I have had to depend on him. I have had to boil water to bathe every morning. Those of you who know me well know I love camping and this isn't a huge deal to have to boil water to wash, but after a few days that novelty wears off. My horoscope this month told me I should learn to live with less. I get it. I feel like a genuine dirt bag. I think I am going to go to the gym tomorrow just so I can have a good shower. At least it's a good reason to get me there! Not many things make me really grumpy in life. I get cranky when I'm tired, I can't handle people snooping in my business, people who continually let me down and worst of all I can't deal with getting ice cream on the backside of my hand. Other than those things I'm pretty easy going. But this....is murr.

Why Straight Girls Should Go To The Gay Clubs

 

 

Last night I went with a good friend to Edge Nightclub downtown in Ottawa. This was not my first time in a gay club nor will it be my last, but I thought I would share for all the straight ladies out there why you have to experience this at least once in your life. I knew I was going to write this little piece before I went out, hence my random poses with people in the photo above. Anyone that knows me knows how much I love going out to dance. It's really the only reason I'm in a club. I'm not there to find Mr. Right, or a fling or anything to do with that and that is the number one thing I love about going out to the gay club. You can completely be yourself, enjoy the music and not worry about the creepers lurching around you. So here are my top five reasons why every straight girl should go out to the gay clubs.

 

 

1. It's a confidence booster. You have multiple men surrounding you telling you that you are gorgeous or beautiful or whatever may be and you know they aren't saying it to get in your pants like the majority of guys at a club would be.
2. It's has a co-ed washroom and by far the cleanest washrooms I have seen in a club. Going into the ladies room at a regular club is disgusting. It makes me ashamed of being a woman and these boys are clean. Plus you get to have chit chats about clothes while you wash your hands.
3. You can sing out loud to a whole Lady Gaga song and no one looks at you like you are strange when you are belting out lyrics at the top of your lungs. Look around, they are all doing the same thing.
4. They play amazing music that keeps you dancing all night! It doesn't have the typical flow of music like a normal club (The house to get the ladies dancing, the random rock to get the guys there, the hip hop to get the booty grinding and then the classic last slow song of the night, your last chance to pick up that one nighter)
5. You meet a ton of interesting people. No one is afraid to chat, take pictures, dance with you or just be crazy. People are very approachable and not awkward in any way.

 

So there it is. My top five reasons the ladies should try out a gay club. It's a lot of fun, minus when the bar runs out of vodka for the night. If you want a good place to dance the night away without the drama or the pressure then this is worth a try!

 







Murrment of the Week

Everyone seems to have understood what murrments means and now I am starting to hear people use the word murr more often which makes me giggle. I decided in keeping with the theme of this blog I would create the Weekly Murrment. This will be posted every Friday with the murrest of all murrments that have happened in my life for the past week.

 

It was hard to choose this murrment because dropping my Iphone, headphones still in my ear ,while on the treadmill was up there for murr. This seems to be a normal occurrence for me though. There was that awkward moment when your phone goes on the treads and flies off behind you and your first instinct is to reach down and grab it, but then you realize you will probably fall face first on the moving treadmill. That is never a pretty thing to see.

This week I decided to go with something that happened to me on Thursday morning. I was taking the regular bus to work. Got off downtown like I do most days to grab a coffee from Bridgehead and switch buses. I got on the 95 bus to get to my destination. First of all I have learned this week not to sit close to the middle doors when it's minus thirty degrees outside, it's damn cold at every stop! So my morning seemed pretty normal, I was escaping into my extremely loud house music on my phone, had my gym bag and my purse awkwardly sitting beside/on top of me and was just chilling out. I look up and there is an Asian kid looking at me really strangely and then smiling. I looked away, looked back and he was still smiling then looked to be mouthing something to me. I thought ok I am way to old for this guy what is his deal. Then he starts pointing at his Tim Hortons coffee cup and then pointing at me. Finally after this going back and forth a couple of times I decide to take out my headphones. I must be horrible at reading body language in the morning because it seemed like he was asking me what kind of coffee I had. So I looked at him, my music still blaring in one ear and yelled, "IT'S BRIDGEHEAD!!" At this point the whole bus heard me, looked at me strange, and the kid still glared at me with a smile. I put my headphones back in and went on listening to my music only to look down and look at my purse and realize I had spilled coffee all over my purse and coat. By now I felt like a loser. I was the random crazy girl on the bus with coffee all over her lap yelling, "IT'S BRIDGEHEAD!!" I discreetly wiped the coffee off and hung my head in shame and said to myself...MURRRRRR

Should There Really Be Rules to Falling for Someone?

 

So I found myself in the book aisle of Walmart today looking for some cheap books and just as I was walking away I found a book called, "Not Your Mother's Rules; The New Secrets For Dating". I am not one for ever going near a self help book and especially a dating one, but something gravitated me to this book. After ten minutes of standing in the aisle looking through the pages, smelling some old woman fart and then hoping to God that the people walking in the aisle didn't think it was me, I realized that I had just read just enough snippets of this book to get me to buy it. I slowly put it in the cart, face down, not wanting anyone to see that I bought this. I do have to mention I did not buy this book for help in dating yet bought it as it shocked me how messed up we have become as a society. 

A big part of this book says to never share "the rules" with men. So if you are a man reading this close your eyes please. Here are a couple of things just listed on the back of the book which go into further detail inside:

• Stay away from his Facebook Profile
• Make yourself invisible and other ways to get out of instant messaging
• Stop dating a guy who cancels more than once
• Text-Back Time Chart
• Don't just hang out or see him 24/7
• TTYL: Always end everything first- Get Out of There!
• And much, much more!

So the contents of this book go over why we as woman should never text, call, Facebook message, add the guy first as a friend on Facebook, why we should wait at least 4 hours to answer a guys first text and then 30 minutes thereafter and don't answer texts after midnight. It also says don't talk too much in the first few weeks, don't pay for dinner or buy his love in anyway, don't choose a college, job or relocate because of a guy, don't be self destructive by dating married, unavailable, and other mixed-messages guys, don't sext a guy, accept booty calls, don't date indefinitely without a commitment, and then of course after all of these topics how to deal with rejection.

So I have failed miserably at all of these things. Going to try and not make those mistakes again! What happened to being yourself? Having a good conversation in person with someone and getting to know them? What happened to falling in love with someone for who they are? It's all a game.This book really makes men look like horrible players and woman look as needy as ever. Our world has come to communicating electronically and if that is all we have sometimes should there really be rules to falling for someone?

 

What is a Murrment?

So the hardest part about starting a blog is coming up with a name. That and the first word you write down on your first post. It's a scary thing. A blog is an insight to your mind. That could be a really sweet, amusing or crazy thing if you are digging in my head. After a few people mentioning it would be a good idea I took the leap into starting this blog. Murrments. Now most people who know me know that I have a word. A word of many meanings and only a few know the peculiar ones. My word for years has been Murr. It is commonly used as part of my everyday vocabulary however I can surprisingly shut it off when I need to be professional, or are meeting someone for the first couple times, I wouldn't want to scare them off! For those of you that hear me say it or write it you will understand when I give this explanation. Murr is a random word that is used when something is either strange, disappointing, sad, or pretty much anything that turns out completely different than you pictured. A good example of murr is the following: You have an ice cream cone with two scoops of delicious mint chocolate chip ice cream and you go to take a big lick and the ice cream falls straight to the ground like this:

THIS IS MURR



So now that Murr has been explained I will mention that this blog is not going to all be Murr moments like falling ice cream, although this is a normal occurrence in my life. This blog is going to be about anything and everything. It's going to be my prospective on art, travel, music, people, food, love and anything that comes to mind. It's about saying yes to new experiences, letting go of negativity, and celebrating those little moments in life. I will not mention any specific names in this blog unless I have already discussed so with that person so if you read something and your name is Bob it's probably not you. I have a ton of things to write about and the wheels are turning...so stay tuned!