I’m in a scrappy mood today, creating cards for a workshop this weekend and organizing photos for a retreat in a few weeks. There’s nothing like older photos to make you think about how fast your kids are growing. I can’t believe B is four. I can’t believe R is one. I can’t believe how funny and fabulous they are (most of the time ).

As I thought about the photos, layouts and journaling I want to include in their scrapbooks, I knew it was time for another quick post about the things they say. The idea that I’ll forget all these little things scares me. So here’s a new list of “B-isms”:

Tim portans – Tim Hortons

omesie – onesie

Actually you’re wrong – He has a bit of a habit of correcting people, we’re working on that. But hearing him say actually all the time cracks me up.

Twinkle, twinkle little star, How I wonder what you ate for breakfast – This was his favourite silly song for a while.

He loves jokes, especially ones his dad taught him. His favourite for a long time was:
What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back? A stick.
I love listening to him tell jokes.

R doesn’t say much at this point, but she can do a great dino roar and is the baby of a thousand faces. The little personality in there is hard to contain 

Since it’s a scrappy kinda day, I though I’d also share some layouts of the two of them.  <3

Here goes …

How do you want it all to feel?
I want to wake each morning feeling the sense of wonder and accomplishment I get at the end of a run, like I can do anything. I want each morning to be as calm as the cool breeze that wakes you from an afternoon nap in the sun. I want every run, no matter how long or short, to feel like my Olympic moment, my final competition, my goal race. I want each hug I give my kids to feel like birthdays, Christmas and every holiday they know all rolled into one. I want my family to feel safe and secure like my favourite handmade quilt.

What’s one dumb thing you used to believe in?
I used to believe I couldn’t make mistakes. I used to believe that it was painful and embarrassing to make mistakes in front of others. I used to believe there was no greater hurt than being laughed at, ridiculed, than being a joke. I used to believe other people actually cared about my mistakes, or even worse, that they didn’t make their own. I used to believe mistakes were failures. I used to believe they were un-fixable. I used to believe there were no do-overs, no fresh starts.

]]> http://cherylane.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/i-used-to-believe/feed/ 4 cherylane The Burning Question Series from Danielle LaPorte http://cherylane.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/get-rhythm-when-you-get-the-blues/ http://cherylane.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/get-rhythm-when-you-get-the-blues/#comments Thu, 16 Feb 2012 21:31:33 +0000 Cherylane http://cherylane.wordpress.com/?p=1040 ]]> Okay, I stole the title from Johnny Cash. But think about it, it’s brilliant. A good, no great, song can make you happy, make you sad, make you angry. I love music and I love that about music.

No secret that I had a rough time last week. This week has been better, mostly, maybe because I decided to make it that way. I started working through a worksheet from my brother-in-law/counsellor extraordinaire called Be Inspired. So I’ve spent the last week or so thinking about the things that matter to me. Today, as I edited and listened to my running playlist, I realized music matters to me. I know it sounds trivial but stay with me here …

How many times have I joked on Twitter that there’s no bad mood we can’t cure with a glee dance party? I sat here today and realized I need music in my day, every day. I need to sing along, dance, belt something out, bust a move, whatever. I need it. Maybe I need to start using my iPod as my alarm and wake up to a great song. Maybe I need to dance with the kids at 6:45 and really greet the day with joy. Maybe I need to dig out a song that makes me cry. Whatever, different needs, different days, different songs.

I started thinking about all this because I planned to share my running playlist. I am always curious what other people run/workout too. (It’s super long but it’s at the bottom of this post.) As I listened to my list, one of the songs struck me. I found myself thinking, “I may have a new theme song.” Here it is:

Breathe – Ryan Star (Watch the video here.)

She’s fine most of the time
She takes her days with a smile
Moves like a dancer in light
Spinning around to the sound
But sometimes she falls down

Breathe, just breathe
Take the world off your shoulders and put it on me
Breathe, just breathe
Let the life that you live be all that you need

She likes New York at night
She dreams of running away
Shine on bright like the sun
And even the sky turns gray
I need you to hear me say
I need you to hear me say

Breathe, just breathe
Take the world off your shoulders, put it on me
Breathe, just breathe
Let the life that you live be all that you need

Let go of our fear, let go of our doubt
Let go of the ones who try to put you down
You’re gonna be fine, don’t hold it inside
If you hurt right now then let it all come out

Breathe, just breathe
Take the world off your shoulders, put it on me
Breathe, just breathe
Let the life that you live be all that you need

Breathe, just breathe
Take the world off your shoulders, put it on me
Breathe, just breathe
Let the life that you live be all that you need

Let go of our fear, let go of our doubt
(Let the life that you live be all that you need)
Let go of our fear, let go of our doubt
(Take the world off your shoulders, put it on me)

“Let the life you live be all you need.” Come on! Tell me that’s not good? Tell me that’s not a lyric I need to hear.

So what song gets you? What’s your I need a good cry song? What’s your belt it out in the car, drumming on the steering wheel song? What’s your I could run four more kms song? What’s your man I am so homesick song? What’s your angry song?

Here are mine:
Cry song – Hear you Me, Jimmy Eat World
Belt it out, drumming on the steering wheel - Be Somebody, Kings of Leon (or maybe Moves like Jagger/Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Glee cast)
Run forever – The Edge of Glory, Lady Gaga
Homesick – Sailing, Rod Stewart
Angry song – Closer to the Edge, 30 Seconds to Mars

Listen, I make no apologies for the music I like or don’t like. I am not even remotely embarrassed that I love show tunes, Glee or anything else.

And here’s my Run playlist (always on shuffle):

Jet Lag (feat. Natasha Bedingfield) – Simple Plan
Fire – Raghav
Barbra Streisand (Original Mix) – Duck Sauce
No Heaven – DJ Champion
The Edge of Glory – Lady GaGa
Run the World (Girls) – Beyoncé
Born to Be Alive (Mix 79) – Patrick Hernandez
I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You – Glee Cast
Sandstorm – Darude
Born This Way – Glee Cast
Stronger – Glee Cast
Humble Neighborhoods – P!nk
Loser Like Me – Glee Cast
Love Like This Before – Faith Evans
Raise Your Glass – P!nk
Use Your Love – Katy Perry
Don’t Stop Believin’  – Glee Cast
Give Up the Funk – Glee Cast
Super Bass – Nicki Minaj
I Wanna Dance With Somebody – These Kids Wear Crowns
I’ve Just Seen A Face – Jim Sturgess
Uprising – Muse
Run Runaway – Slade
Closer To The Edge – 30 Seconds To Mars
Home For A Rest – Spirit Of The West
Club Can’t Handle Me – Flo-Rida
Twilight Zone – Golden Earring
Radar Love – Golden Earring
Brighter Than the Sun – Colbie Caillat
Pumped Up Kicks – Foster the People
Say Hey (I Love You) – Michael Franti & Spearhead & Cherine Anderson
Run the World (Girls) – Glee Cast
We Got the Beat – Glee Cast
Shake It Out – Florence + the Machine
Heads Will Roll – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Hollywood – Collective Soul
I Love New York / New York, New York – Glee Cast
Slam the Hammer Down – Slade
Moves Like Jagger/Jumpin’ Jack Flash – Glee Cast
We Found Love – Glee Cast
Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ -  Glee Cast
Smooth Criminal – Glee Cast
Bad – Glee Cast
Scream – Glee Cast
Dog Days Are Over – Florence + The Machine
Take Me or Leave Me – Glee Cast
Friday I’m In Love – The Cure
F**kin’ Perfect – P!nk
Rhythm of Love – Plain White T’s
No One Mourns the Wicked – Kristen Chenoweth
Tonight Tonight – Hot Chelle Rae
Undo It – Carrie Underwood
The Time (Dirty Bit) – The Black Eyed Peas
Footloose – Kenny Loggins
Devil’s Dance Floor – Flogging Molly
I’m Alive – David Cook
Living On Video – Trans X
La Vie Boheme A / B – RENT Soundtrack
Sugar, We’re Going Down – Fall Out Boy
All These Things That I’ve Done – The Killers
Romeo And Juliet – The Killers
Check Yes Juliet – We The Kings
For the First Time – The Script
Cuz I Love You - James Blunt
Price Tag – Jessie J
Stuck Like Glue – Sugarland
Barracuda – Heart
Still Got Tonight – Matthew Morrison
Jump Around – House of Pain
Hey Tonight – John Fogerty
Authority Song – John Mellencamp
Be Somebody – Kings Of Leon
Thin Red Line – Glass Tiger
How Far We’ve Come – Matchbox Twenty
Wherever I May Roam – Metallica
I Want To Break Free – Queen
Helter Skelter – Dana Fuchs
My Song – Glass Tiger
When You Were Young – The Killers
Stay the Nigh – James Blunt
Hurricane (Featuring Kanye West) – 30 Seconds To Mars
Kings And Queens – 30 Seconds To Mars
Search & Destroy – 30 Seconds To Mars
We Are Young – Glee Cast
Without You – Glee Cast
We Are Young (feat. Janelle Monáe) – Fun
Firework – Glee Cast
Last Friday Night – Glee Cast
Friday – Glee Cast
Bust a Move – Glee Cast
You Can’t Stop the Beat – Glee Cast
Dog Days Are Over – Glee Cast
Control – Glee Cast
You and I/You and I – Glee Cast
Safety Dance – Glee Cast
Sing – Glee Cast
Lights – Ellie Goulding
Sing – My Chemical Romance
I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight – U2
Last Train Home – Ryan Star
Breathe – Ryan Star
Back Of Your Car – Ryan Star
Dance With You – Ryan Star
La Isla Bonita – Glee Cast
A Little Less Conversation – Glee Cast
Sexy and I Know It – Glee Cast
Part of Me – Katy Perry
Turn Me On – David Guetta & Nicki Minaj
Higher Ground – Stevie Wonder
We Found Love (Cahill Edit) – Rihanna
Without You – D. Ghetto Feat. U. Shiro
We Found Love – Boyce Avenue
Without You – Boyce Avenue

Rather, I’m not doing it again, not doing the good things, not doing the things that matter, that feed my soul, that make me a better mom, person, wife.

I don’t know why, don’t know what did it, don’t know what triggered it. I just stopped, I gave up, I dug in my heels and decided all this “feel better” bullshit was too hard, too much work.

This is classic, really, good weeks come and go and I don’t dwell on them, don’t analyze them, don’t dissect them. Bad days or weeks come and I freeze, I analyze, I dissect but I don’t learn. I don’t move forward. I don’t work harder. I quit.

I kept noticing last week how awful my hands looked, dry, cracked, red and sore. It sounds like nothing but I knew. I knew it was a tiny sign that I was done taking care of myself. If I couldn’t be bothered to use one of the dozen bottles of lotion in the house, I sure as hell couldn’t be bothered to jump on the treadmill. I couldn’t be bothered to eat a real lunch or fix my hair and get dressed in sensible clothes. I stayed up too  late, stayed in bed too late, ate too much or not enough, watched too much tv. I did all the things I do when I am avoiding something.

This week, I’m just angry. Angry at myself, angry at the migraines that stole half my weekend, angry at my inability to stay out of this hole for longer than a few weeks at a time, angry that I can’t see how much worse some people have it than me, angry that I am wasting my time this way, angry that I have such ridiculous only-see-the-crap tunnel vision.

I’m rambling now, but I needed to. I needed to see in black and white, in front of my own eyes, how insane this sounds. There is nothing wrong, nothing, nothing, nothing.

Nothing that I can’t fix, if I can get out of my own way long enough.

Someone else take this black cloud for a spin, I’m fucking tired of it.

Image courtesy of Dreamstime – SUNBEAM7 © Malewitch

I first watched a paper bag album tutorial from The Paper Trail ages ago and put it on my “must make” list. My scrappy mojo took a vacation when I headed back home in November, since I was away from my supplies for so long. I’m glad it’s back, because I had a ridiculous amount of fun putting this together.

It’s Wicked, really. I took some of my favourite images from the play Wicked, some of the song lyrics, my program, some purple Glimmer Mist (which I can’t find a proper link for, sorry, that one goes to the Facebook page) and off I went. I used grungeboard covers and lots of paper. I forgot how therapeutic cutting, misting, tearing and just using paper can be. I only took one sad, far away photo at the show so a lot of the images I used came from the Oz paper collection from Graphic 45. The backgrounds are mostly from the Haunted collection from My Mind’s Eye. I also had some great (though discontinued) Stampin’ Up! paper that fit perfectly; lots of purple, black, very Elphaba, with a little green and orange, just because.

A few things I learned:

• When the video tutorial says embellish the pages before attaching them, listen. I didn’t, I’m okay with that, but it would have been much easier if I had!
• Use lots of adhesive when you bind your book. (There are lots of ways to do it. I attached the first and last pages to my covers, but attached all the inside pages to a canvas “spine”. That spine worked well and misted well but I should have reinforced it with extra adhesive.
• …  And we’re back to embellishing first. Please do it, then you can measure your finished pages and make a bigger spine and your book won’t need a diet like mine 

That’s it, three lessons learned, hands stained and a mojo found! This was so much fun. Give it a try and tell me all about it!

So I have loved tea forever. Up until recent years, it’s been pretty basic. Black tea, orange pekoe, no green, no fancy stuff. I don’t remember when I started buying “good” tea. I dabbled in chai, which I still love, then started trying different herbal teas. (I am not a herbal fan, I learned.) I gradually built up to a cupboard with at least 12 different varieties of tea.

So when I saw Amber Strocel‘s Tea Stash post, I thought, great idea.

I need to look in there, see what I have, see what I like, what I don’t … I threw away a box of old no name orange pekoe after I took the photos today. Thanks Amber!

I poked around, took out the teapot, looked way in the back, and realized how much of this I will never drink! I hate herbal tea, I hate weak tea, I hate tea with no flavour. I do have good stuff in there, loose leaf tea from Teaopia. I would love to know learn a little more about brewing it properly so I could enjoy it to its fullest potential. I keep buying tea thinking nice tea after the kids go to bed will keep me from snacking. I won’t mention how that’s going ..

For now, I probably just need to pour up a decaf chai and stay warm. -27 is good tea drinking weather. Cheers!

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,700 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 45 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

There have been some crazy ups and downs this year and few of them have gone unmentioned here. The madness and the merriment was always met with kindness and understanding from the few friends who stop by here often.

So to friends near and far, IRL and online, thanks for always listening, commenting, helping and being close by your twitter when I needed you

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Season’s Greetings … I wish you well, whatever and however you celebrate! May your cup be full, your family close and your heart happy.

I’ve been watching (and tweeting) about accent vlogs today and it’s really interesting to hear the real voice behind tweets and blogs. So I did one too! Excuse the lame hair and red nose. Colds suck, y’know?

Sorry I got cut off at the end, I was talking about my Pop calling the remote a clicker, that’ll make sense after you watch!

Here goes …

Say the following words:
Aunt, route, wash, oil, theatre, iron, salmon, caramel, fire, water, sure, data, ruin, crayon, toilet, New Orleans, pecan, both, again, probably, spitting image, Alabama, lawyer, coupon, mayonnaise, syrup, pajamas, caught

Answer these questions:
What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that curls into a ball when you touch it?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you use to change the TV channel?

Every year, I say I’m not doing a big party. Every year, I lie to myself. It gets big without me realizing or intending it. B is four today (as of 11 pm tonight, technically). We had an Angry Birds birthday party yesterday. (Anyone who follows me on twitter saw photos of the cupcakes, the snacks, the balloons, etc.) I planned to keep it simple, keep it small, invite a few friends of his and ours.

In a nutshell, I failed.

I wasn’t going to have too many people. I had 12 kids and some parents.
I wasn’t going to do loot bags. I got 12 little bags ready with colouring sheets and dollar store toys.
I wasn’t going to stress about it. I was losing my mind trying to get ready.

And, worst of all, I wanted B to have a good time. He spent the first 20 minutes after people came in his room, playing by himself. (In my defense, part of that was due to him being too excited to eat breakfast and getting overwhelmed when people started showing up.)

Don’t get me wrong, we had fun. These are great kids and great parents we had over. B had a great time, eventually

It’s just that today, the birthday party hangover has me wondering who it all was for?

R’s first birthday is a month away. If I learn anything from this (and from B’s first, which was a little crazy), I will have our closest friends and family. If I forget everything I just said, I’ll be writing this same post on November 27.

Why do I get so caught up in this stuff?