a question

When you love what you do but not where you do it, what's the answer? 

I know, but...... change is hard......

I work as a employment resource worker/career counsellor and I love what I do.  Adult education is one of my "things" so I love what I do.  The sticking point is working where I work.  This unhelpful, unproductive, reactive kind of place just sucks the life out of me everyday.

I'm working on my resume as I work with clients.  I need a new challenge.

favourite songs

Since I'm 50, I've been thinking about favourite lists and whether I should come up with my top 50s.

I think I'll give it a shot.   So here are my 50 favourite songs.  Well that was my intention but it was hard to narrow some down so here's my 50 (or there abouts) favourite songs.  I realised finishing this list, that these are the songs I like to sing in the car.  Maybe there needs to be another list for songs I like to listen to. :)

1 blue monday, Bizarre Love Triangle - New Order
2 Imagine - John Lennon
3 What's Goin' On - Marvin Gaye
4 Brickhouse - Commodores
5 Everyday is like Halloween - Ministry
6 Don't Go - Yaz
7 Jupiter, Bringer of Jollity/Mars, Bringer of War (from The Planets) - Holst
8 Mirror in the Bathroom - English Beat
9 Heroes, Modern love, anything really - david bowie
10 Hallelujah and Suzanne - Leonard Cohen
11 Light My Fire - The Doors (or just about anything, really)
12  Constant Craving - k d lang
13 Sledgehammer, Book of Love and In Your Eyes - Peter Gabriel
14 There Goes a Tenner and Cloud Busting - Kate Bush
15 I Walk the Line (or just about anything by Johnny Cash)
16 Boil the Breakfast Early - The Chieftains (or any really)
17 The message - grandmaster flash & the furious five
18 Love Removal Machine - The Cult
19  Burning Down the House and Once in a Lifetime - Talking Heads and Once In a Lifetime - Clannad
20 Anarchy in the U.K - The Sex Pistols
21One Step Beyond/Night Boat to Cairo - Madness
22 Whip It - Devo
23 Mexican Radio - Wall of Voodoo
24 Scatterlings of Africa - Johnny Clegg and Savuka
25 Genius of Love - Tom Tom Club
26 Blister in the Sun - Violent Femmes
27 One - Metallica
28 Baba O'Reilly - The Who
29 Planet Rock - Afrika Bambaataa & Soul Sonic Force
30 Cryin' - Roy Orbison (and the version with kd lang)
31 Everyday I Write the Book - Elvis Costello
32 Just Like Honey - Jesus & Mary Chain
33 So. Central Rain and It's the End of the World as We Know It - R.E.M.
34 Superstition by Stevie Wonder and Karma Superstition by Alicia Keys
35 Here Comes the Rain Again - Eurythmics
36 Under the Milky Way - The Church
37 Save it for Later - English Beat
38 Ant Music - Adam Ant
39  Danny Boy - just about any version
40 Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream) - Icicle Works
41 The Promise - When in Rome
42 Bella Legosi's Dead - Bauhaus
43 Indigo Eyes - Peter Murphy
44 Love will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
45 The Art of Parties and Visions of China - Japan
46 Moon Dance, Brown Eyed Girl - Van Morrison
47 Lips Like Sugar - Echo & the Bunnymen
48 Sweet Jane - Cowboy Junkies
49 I Fall to Pieces - Patsy Cline
50 Sweet Jane - Velvet Underground

Springing forward

I drift in and out of creativity.  I spent many, many hours in my 20s writing poetry and making art, jewellery, customising my clothes.  In my 30s, happily partnered, I worked full weeks and tried to write.  In my 40s, we adopted, my Dad died, I went back to university and sometimes I worked in my art journal.  To be fair, there was a period in my late 30s when I discovered online communities and art journalled quite a bit.  But by 40, I had run out of steam and it seemed, creativity.

I'm 50 now, and it's time - time to rediscover my creativity, time to give myself permission to be who I think I am, time to make/take the time to be creative. 

I have an idea for a children's book, a novel, a shoe company, paintings, so many projects.  But right now, they're just ideas, with no physical forms, not even notes.......

It's time for me to stop sitting mindless in front of the TV.  It's time for there to be a purpose to the journal and art supplies I carry around.  It's time for me. 

memories

A friend was writing about her grandfather and some of her memories of him today.  I smiled thinking about my own grandfathers and their different personalities.  One of my grandpa's was a very quiet man, who lived through some awful things and liked to whittle and take drives around the countryside.  The other had a huge personality and a brouge that I can still hear calling me "wee lassie".   He made his fortune purely on blue eyes and way with words. 

I'm about the same age my grandfathers were when I was born..... that's a weird thought.

One set of grandparents (paternal) emigrated to Canada seperately and one set (maternal) were first generation Canadians.  Both their sets of parents emigrated from Scotland in the late 1800's. 
They were all very thrifty and set good examples for us on living frugally and well. 

I wish I had more pictures of them.  None of my grandparents liked having their pictures "made".  I guess it was a long process and none of them had the time or money for things that weren't necessities.

I have fond memories of my grandmothers' kitchens - warm smells, well loved dishes and cookie jars and a wonderful canister for crackers; glass cheese covers, worn cast iron frying pans, and constantly boiling kettles, too.

My grandparents' houses had huge gardens.  I think I love sun-warmed raspberries, fresh peas and red currants more because they remind me of wonderful, buzzing summer afternoons.

I think I need to do some gardening this weekend.

daily brew

I like my morning coffee.  I really, really do.   I only brew once but it's 2 big cups worth of coffee.  I drink one at home and put the other in a thermos to bring to work. 

I'm slowly realising that all this bloat and tummy upset might be IBS or gluten sensitivity (I'm pretty sure I don't have celiac disease because I'm not losing weight that rapidly).  And both those things mean I should probably cut back on coffee.  :(  very sad face.

Changes, how I avoid you......

new decade, new perspective

So.... I'm 50, officially.
I celebrated my birthday in Quebec City with my sweetie and our daughter.  It was a great weekend of being spoiled and having fun.  I took pictures and wrote in my journal and enjoyed myself.

I'm getting unstuck, slowly but surely.  I like writing in my paper journal and I'm using that space to work on some  new thoughts and feelings.  This year is the start of something new for me - being in the moment and trying to use all those techniques I've been reading about.  Stay present, positive, energised.

Ready, set, GO!

waiting, waiting, waiting

I have to talk to someone official at work today and she's not ready for me yet so I'm waiting......

In case I haven't mentioned, I'm not such a fan of waiting.  Sometimes it's okay, if I'm early for an appointment say and I have some time to read my book, but usually, I'd rather do just about anything else.

I'm reading a book on menopause and I know that at least in part, my edginess about this appointment is from a fundamental rearranging of my priorities.  My patience for endless bureaucracy is much, much shorter than when I first graduated from social work school.

Things have changed at work recently - new contract the City bullied our union into accepting.  The stuckness of some of my co-workers is more evident and my lack of patience is going to get me into trouble.

I don't feel valued here, not by management or my co-workers anyway.  I know I'm appreciated by clients because they tell me they appreciate me.  I think I need to do what I do here, just for another agency.

I had hoped that at some point in my career, I'd be a respected expert on something, valued for my information and experience.  It's not going as planned.

I'm good at what I do, I know I am, but.......

I've always felt second best at work, even before I got my degrees.  I worked as a secretary for a long time and never really felt valued for my skills.  I went to university to get a social work degree so I'd be a professional, someone with a purpose and skills.  I like working with clients and I'm good at it, but here, in this environment, I feel like I'm treading water - working really hard and not getting anywhere.

Decisions need to get made before my mouth makes them for me......

portents

I woke up this morning thinking that something's changed.  I'm looking for signs to see what it might be.

grey and rainy

It is spring, after all.

I'm reading a book on menopause (I'm close to that milestone birthday).    I'm amazed to read that all this stuff that's going through my brain is actually part of a process of redefinition.  I didn't do all the "normal", average things that some women do - didn't marry a man, didn't give birth - so it took me longer to realise that I'm being given an opportunity to redefine myself and move into the second act of my life with revised dreams.

It's good to know that all the turmoil and self doubt is for a purpose.