By Sarah, on July 8th, 2009 So I thought about it, and here’s what I came up with as a template for my days:
On most mornings, when I’m not fighting off illness, I tend to wake up naturally around 7:00. I’ll do the tea/coffee and email/blog thing for a half hour or so. Just enough to keep the email landslide at bay. While I like and enjoy technology, I’m trying to make sure I’m not a slave to it. I was starting to feel that way for a while there, but I think that recently, I’ve found some balance on that front and no longer need to read every twitter or respond to every blog post. There just would never be enough hours in the day.
After that is the usual shower/breakfast/get dressed trio, and Daisy often needs a mid-morning walk as soon as I’m presentable. Perhaps I’ll take the camera along on some of these and see where we go.
An early afternoon snack, say around 1ish, with a magazine and a cup of tea may be a nice way to break up my day. I’m thinking it also may be enough of a break to shake me out of any possible morning brain-stuck I feel setting in. Because the plan is to not waste away entire days uselessly.
Tuesday afternoons are the Farmer’s Market/CSA pickup, and taking some time to peruse fresh veggies is always a real treat. And the bonus of being off this month is that I can get there early and swoop up the good stuff before it’s gone. You know, instead of being the one at 5:45 in the afternoon, moaning, “Darn! The peas and spinach are all gone again?!”
And I hate late dinners (one of the blights of my current existence) so if I start cooking promptly at 4 p.m. every afternoon, I’ll never have to worry about feeling bloated at 10 p.m. and may even have enough space for the occasional dessert!
And finally, since I generally tend to run myself into the ground every evening before plunking down into bed too tired to even wash the makeup off my face, 8 p.m. will now be my Gettin’ Ready for Bed Time. I’ll still probably end up doing all sorts of things in the evenings before falling into bed exhausted, but at least I’ll be doing them fresh-faced and already safely in the PJs.
Now you’ll probably notice that there are a lot of things that I didn’t book into this schedule, and that was on purpose. There are things I wanna do when I’m ready, when the mood strikes. Not when my schedule says I must do it. Stuff like writing, trips to the gym and the library, more walks with Daisy, visiting with friends, chores, chats with my mom, etc. I want each individual day to have its own feeling. To be memorable in some different way, instead of each being exactly the same, stamped out by a cookie cutter. I get enough of that during my workdays. This time isn’t about that, it’s about discovering me.
By Sarah, on July 6th, 2009 So yesterday was something, that’s for sure. After that last post, I started looking up all sorts of stuff about the countryside. Then my mind turned towards farming and how cool it would be to have an organic micro-ecofarm. I even asked Dave what he though about it. But like the level-headed half of this partnership that he is, he stayed typically reserved and noncommittal.
Well, I went back to my research, looking all sorts of things up. But the more I researched, the less sure I became. What if this was me grasping at anything again? How could one buy and start a farm with a negative amount of money in the bank, anyway? And that inevitably led to another meltdown. I ended up crying, feeling trapped by my lack of choices in life, worrying about the future, and upset with myself that I’d tried to grasp onto another harebrained scheme again when I promised myself I’d stop doing that.
Seeing my distress once again, Dave sat me down. He said, “Look, I think you’re trying to jump from Step 1 to Step 3 without going through Step 2. Getting to where we wanna be in life is gonna take a lot of hard work and sacrifice, more than we’ve had to do in the past. But you need to be prepared. It’s like that old equation says, any project can only be two of these three things: done with high quality, done on time or done on budget. If you want something of high quality done on time, it’s gonna cost you. If you want something done fast and cheap, you forgo quality, and if you opt for high quality done on the cheap (which is probably a good analogy for what we want from life) it’s gonna take a long time to get there.” Longer than, oh, the five minutes I generally have been giving myself. What can I say, patience has never been one of my virtues.
We continued talking, Dave trying to make me feel better, and me trying to be okay with our current lot in life. I eventually came around to the realization that I end up so easily grasping onto all these random career paths because none of my life goals actually have anything to do with a career. My dreams for a self-sufficient life of gardening, baking and child-rearing has zero to do with working for the man or climbing the corporate ladder. “So,” Dave said, “maybe what you need is some crap job to help you get from here to there. Maybe that’s what we both need.” But we already have crap jobs that pay more than a lot of crap jobs and we barely scrape enough money together every month. “Ah, yes,” he said, “but we currently have dead-end crap jobs. What we need are crap jobs with some growth potential.” So that’s the point we’re at now, thinking about looking for crap jobs with growth potential so that we can scrimp our way from here to a home we can fix up, with a huge yard and/or a little bit of land. So that one day I can feel like something of a suburban homesteader: growing things, making things, raising children and being happy. That’s the real goal. And the real detriment to our current jobs, since it is unlikely that we well ever get another raise or promotion there. We instead just remain in a holding pattern, able to pay most of the monthly bills but forever hounded by the thousands of dollars of impenetrable school debt I have. (Hard to believe, huh, that we both have respected university degrees and we’ve come to the conclusion that all we can hope for in life is getting a crap job?)
Maybe we’ll have to move to a basement in Scarborough, cancel the phones and the cable TV. There are some debts that can’t be reduced, that we’ll just have to keep paying till they’re gone, like our gym debt. It was a good idea, and I’m happy we did it, but getting a trainer at the gym was, in all honesty, way beyond what we could afford and I shouldn’t have made us do it. We all live with the consequences of our actions, I guess.
So I have a month to figure out how to live the next five years on the cheap. Somewhere in there getting rid of my $40,000 school debt, saving a down payment for a home and perhaps even starting a family. Cloth diapers are still nouveau-chic, right?
By Sarah, on July 5th, 2009  Whenever I read British magazines like, say, Country Living, I often get overwhelmed with a sense of nostalgia and longing. There is something so different and almost idealized about the British countryside. It seems fuller, richer, more respected, and filled with greater opportunity.
Trying to compare the countryside life I see in British books, movies, magazines and TV to the Ontario countryside is like night and day. (Though, admittedly, I have no experience with one and very little experience with the other.) The Ontario countryside that I’ve experienced is, frankly, little more than urban sprawl. Outside of Toronto is the GTA, which seems to be another name for vast subdivisions of hastily erected houses on too-cramped lots, close by newly erected Smart Centres. (You know, those giant parking lots ringed with various big-box stores.) There doesn’t seem to be any town life or career opportunity close to home out there. It just seems to be nothing but a holding pen for middle-class families whose parents commute the hours a day into the city for their office jobs. Ugh. And beyond that are aging towns whose young people have moved on to greener, concrete-laden pastures. My view may be admittedly biased but it is the view from here: living outside of Toronto is career suicide.
All may know my great dislike for city living. The longer I live here, the less I find things appealing. Especially in this internet age when one can have almost anything shipped straight to their door by Canada Post. In fact, if I could figure out a way to make a living in the country doing something with my hands and my mind that didn’t require a two-hour daily commute back into the city, I think I would do it. The what has never seemed quite as important as the where. Probably because there are a lot of things I could do that would make me perfectly content and have nothing to do with a computer or a six-lane highway. However, one cannot live in the country unless one owns a car. (Or wishes to be completely cut off permanently from the outside world.) Also, I doubt Dave would appreciate the country life as much as I would, nor would he appreciate leaving all our friends behind in the city.
But the more I think about it, the more I wish it were possible. I mean, I know very little about Western or Eastern Ontario. My only experience, as I said, is with the GTA, north to Muskoka and east to Peterborough. An admittedly small sample to be making such broad deductions with. Perhaps I can do a little research. Because I think that the longer I stay in the city, the unhappier I feel. And since I can’t really move to the British countryside anytime soon, this may be a good start.
By Sarah, on July 4th, 2009 So yesterday was my last day at work. Stretching before me now is a whole month to figure stuff out. Yesterday was also my friends Ram and Mezan’s respective birthdays. It was a lot of fun to go out for dinner and before we left, Ram was awesome enough to let me borrow his Canon DSLR for a couple weeks. I’ve been drooling over the Canon Rebel series from afar for a while now, and it will be nice to actually get to try one out. Especially now that I have this time off and I want to blog my way through it, having a camera that takes great pictures will be super helpful, I think.
I’m a very visual person, and being able to see the world around me through a camera lens, while I decide which path to take, will be a different and challenging experience. I’m usually too wrapped up in myself to remember to take pictures of anything. Yet, whenever I do, I’m always so happy with them. They end up meaning a lot to me, like my grad photos that I just edited and uploaded this morning. I was happy to have those pictures and with them, the ability to remember that moment clearly. Since I am trying to slow down, be more deliberate and think about things more, the camera should help. I just have to remember not to get so caught up in it that I’m not actually experiencing the moment. The perfect capture every time is not necessary.
But on the side of the slightly ironic, what do you suppose happened today, on this, my first day off? Why, I feel like I’m coming down with something, that’s what. The feeling I had in my lungs and chest this morning was as though I had spent last night puffing my way through an entire pack of cigarettes. Something I have not actually done in a long time, and certainly didn’t do last night. I really hope this doesn’t knock me down for the count, but I was planning on forcing myself to take this time slowly, so this may just be the universe’s way of making sure that I do.
You know, it really is amazing how much of a weight I feel lifted off of me, just since I got the okay from my boss to take this time off. It’s shocking really, especially since earlier this week I could feel myself drowning fast. I’m almost worried that this euphoria will mask some of the goals I have for this time. This feel-good surge will be all too fleeting if I wind up right back where I started after this month is over. I just can’t let that happen. I’ve been letting almost everything blow past me in a daze of unresponsiveness lately. If this is going to work, it will have to be deliberate.
Fingers crossed and here we go.
By Sarah, on March 3rd, 2009 
Yesterday’s post really struck a nerve. A lot of thinking went into that. To distill who you are as a person down to a few words, it really pulls your life into focus. And the more you think about it, the more you see where you are excelling and — even worse — where you are lacking. It’s been a long time since I did thinking like this. Years, probably. Because I am never quiet anymore. It is never just quiet. There used to be too much of it. So much that I would fight it off, filling it with childishness and stupidity. Now, I forget what it sounds like, what it tastes like.
Without the quiet I stop seeing who I am. The me of before and the me of now have diverged somehow. I suddenly remembered everything I used to value most. Everything that doesn’t seem to have a place in my life anymore. I only speak the hollow words.
I used to write, think, read. I used to know who I was and have an emotional connection to myself. Now, I am the product of all external influence. I have more confidence but much less to be confident in. My connection to nature is lost, replaced by mechanical things. Where is that soft and sunny life I expected to have? Fresh sheets and clean floors, warm breezes and tiny buds? I’ve forgotten how to read, how to write, how to think. I’ve forgotten how to feel like myself, sipping wine, smelling incense. Didn’t I want a garden and a view? Didn’t I want to try for the best? Didn’t I shun materialism and the vagaries of the hipster life?
Where is that woman? For, in truth, she seems more the grown woman and I the naive girl. She the one who knew what she wanted and I the one still struggling. I think it’s about time I did some reclaiming of the woman I used to be. Then maybe I’d have something really special to blog about.
By Sarah, on February 28th, 2009 
It’s the last day of the month, and what a ridiculous month it was. Have you ever thought your hip was broken? And been under the age of 65? No? Now imagine how I felt when, at the ripe old age of 28, the doctor told me that I had a fractured hip. Yeah, exactly. Thankfully, it was a false alarm, but you can see why I’ve been a bit distracted from my blogging lately.
But it’s amazing how freeing and motivating it can be to find out that you don’t need surgery. Tomorrow, Dave and I go for our gym orientation, which means I can cross another goal off my New Year’s Resolutions. I’m actually really excited to go and start working out. I just wanna sweat, you know? I wanna burn up a bunch of calories getting my heart rate up, then go home and take a hot shower and relax.
Oh, by the way, I’m up for my dream job! After two interviews, I’m waiting to hear the final (?) word whether or not I get the job. I’m trying to think really positive thoughts. But truly, I feel like this job is mine, like this job and I were made for each other. It’s almost more excitement and anxiety than I can bare. But patience is a virtue, so I just need to stay calm and wait a few more days. Six at the most. It seems like a long time, but will probably fly by considering I have a lot of catching up to do around the house. There was a lot of stuff that sort of fell by the wayside when I though my hip was broken. Now that I know it’s not, it’s time to pick up all those dropped balls and get back on that horse! (Can you say “mixed metaphors”?)
By Sarah, on February 8th, 2009  Man, a girl decides to take on her first freelance copyediting gig and, poof, all her lists and schedules go up in smoke! I’m sorry I disappeared, but those were two crazy, work-filled weeks. Lots of 13-hour days, not lots of sleep, and then lots of recovering; you know how it is.
Well, with that all done for the time being, I’ve had breathing room enough to take a look around. And what do I see? For starters, Month 1 of The Year of Freedom is already over. Most of it was spent playing catch-up and getting back in touch with my life. Lots of cleaning and stuff-purging and lots of getting together with people I hadn’t seen in months. There was a lot of thinking about the future going on, too.
February is shaping up to be just as busy. But this is a really good, new kind of busy. The busy of outings and social gatherings, of fun times and hard-won sleeps. Much better than the stress and strain of essays and exams, readings and homework.
And how are my New Year’s resolutions looking after this first month? Well, some of them haven’t been started yet (Good Life, you and I have a date next week.) and some of them, particularly my email mission, haven’t been going so well. Probably because I’ve barely looked at my email at all in the last two weeks, but still. I’ve got about a hundred extra emails in my inbox than what I reported having last month. I know, I know! Bad, bad!
How do people do it, not getting swamped under the landslide of emails that come in every day? Seriously, if you know some magic secret that I do not, help a girl out! I’m all ears.
By Sarah, on January 7th, 2009 
Now, we all know that I love lists. I just can’t help it. It’s built into my genes like brown eyes and left-handedness. And what time of year is the ultimate list-making time of year? New Years. I know, I know. I’m a week late, but you can’t blame me because I was sick, remember?
So I’ve been thinking about what my resolutions should be this year. I don’t always have the best success-rate with my New Years Resolutions. There have definitely been times when I’ve fallen back into old habits. And other times when I really have followed through, like that year I promised Dave I would stop smoking and did. (Thanks for helping me do that, hon!) This year, I’m gonna post my resolutions here so I can hold myself accountable for keeping them. I’ll have something to look back on and remind myself of my goals.
I had to limit myself to only 5 things. Like I said, I love my lists and if I want these resolutions to be important and meaningful I need to stick to a manageable number. I’m also gonna be checking back in on these every month or so to make sure that I’m sticking with my follow-through. But in the words of Thomas the Tank Engine, “I think I can. I think I can. I think I can!” So, without further ado, here they are:
New Years Resolutions ~ 2009
1. Clear out my inbox (all the way to zero) and then keep it cleared out.
I am THE WORST at keeping up-to-date with my emails. My inbox is generally in a state of overflowing and I almost never return people’s messages in a timely fashion. I know, horrible. Now, I’ve already started working on getting things under control and have my inbox down to around 325 unread emails. (Don’t look so shocked. A couple months ago it was around 1600!) My plan of attack? Process all emails that come in every day plus a few of the extras hanging around and slowly but surely that number will keep going down. Let’s see how it goes.
2. Stop falling asleep with my makeup on!
Seriously. Every night I’m always go-go-go right until the last possible second when I’m so tired I can’t even drag myself to the bathhroom to wash it off. I usually just end up flopping in my bed, eyes still plastered with mascara and shadow, only to wake up with zits and raccoon eyes in the morning. Not cool. Time to start working some relax-time into my evenings so I can leisurely get ready for bed instead of frantically trying to cram a zillion things into my evenings.
3. Take more pictures.
I have two cameras that I’ve finally begun figuring out how to use properly, so my goal for 2009 is to work my way up to taking at least one picture a day. But taking pictures is harder than you might think. You have to keep yourself in that “seeing” mode. I’ve been in it before and when you have momentum it’s easier to maintain but putting your mind into that space when you’re out of practice takes some time and some effort. Good thing I’ve got a whole year to work towards this goal.
4. Join a gym.
And actually go! To my great shame, I’ve never been one for regular exercise. Not like I’m against it or anything, I’ve just never really had time for any sort of regular routine, what with everything else I used to have balanced on my plate. Now that the Year of Freedom is here it’s time to get into shape and lose those 20 extra pounds. Dave and I have resolved to do this together. I think with a gym partner it’s a lot more fun and you can guilt each other into going when you really don’t feel like it. Ha!
5. Get a (financial) life!
Being a university student can really put a damper on your retirement savings plans, let me tell you! But now that school is over and I’m not having to come up with another couple thou every few months I think it’s time I start taking matters into my own hands. I’m gonna find a financial advisor, start tackling my school debt and saving for a house and for retirement. I’m not getting any younger, people. Living from paycheck to paycheck just doesn’t cut it anymore.
So that’s it! What do you think? Are any of your resolutions the same as mine? Let me know, because maybe we can form a little support group!
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