With a smile and a song

This past couple weeks, I've been trying my darndest to stay positive and surround myself with wonderful and uplifting-spirited people. So far it's been working well for me.

Last night I stayed at my friend Stacy's house. We're both newly single for the first time in a while so a good girly bonding evening was much needed. We spent all this morning singing songs at her piano - worship, inspiration pop music, and Disney songs.

I remember the song "With a smile and a song" from Snow White ever so well. I remember Christmas morning of 1994, lying on my new Snow White printed blanket and watching the movie, singing the song, not fully understanding what the words meant until 17 years later.

"There's no use in grumbling when raindrops are tumbling. Remember, YOU'RE the one who can fill the world with sunshine"

Why did it take me 17 years to figure that song out?

Long story short, I feel great. I have been looking at life from a positive perspective.

I went to church tonight for the first time in a dog's age and a message was delivered to the congregation in tongues. It stated basically that we need to seek God with all our hearts and that He has great plans for us in store for us when we do. The irony of it all, Stacy and I were discussing the verse last night from Jeremiah 29:11: "'For I know the plans I have for you,' says the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." I knew God was using this message to speak to a lot of people, but I felt I was definitely one who needed to hear it.

I have no fear. No hurt. No pain. The Lord is on my side and the joy of the Lord is my strength.

Dating again?

I just ended a relationship and I've had a few offers for dates almost immediately after. But, I'm holding back. Why? Because I need time for me. I need to rediscover who I am again, and doing that while in a relationship can be difficult.

Also, while this may sound weird, I don't want to date around. I want to wait on God's perfect timing for someone who is absolutely perfect for me.

I made the huge mistakes of doing things on my own timing, and that ended in disaster and heartache.

I just want to be friends with people and get to know them for who they are. I'll know when God wants me to take "just friends" to the next level.

I think the biggest thing for me is just to follow God. Do what I feel He wants me to do and be who He wants me to be and all the rest will fall into place.

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things will be added on to you." - Matthew 6:33

<3

Respect yourself

I feel like after this whole break up, I have been a way stronger person. I will share alot more when I am ready, but all I can say is, girls. Speak up for yourselves. Never let a man make you feel like you have no control or that you aren't good enough. They are not worth it if they do. You are far more precious and valuable to allow some guy to do that to you.

I remembered this Christina Aguilera song from when I was in jr. high. I know right. Christina Aguilera. But the lyrics really speak truth.



So, what am I not supposed to have an opinion
Should I keep quiet just because I'm a woman
Call me a bitch 'cause I speak what's on my mind
Guess it's easier for you to swallow if I sat and smiled

When a female fires back
Suddenly big talker don't know how to act
So he does what any little boy would do
Making up a few false rumors or two

That for sure is not a man to me
Slandering names for popularity
It's sad you only get your fame through controversy, so sad
But now it's time for me to come and give you more to say

This is for my girls all around the world
Who have come across a man that don't respect your worth
Thinking all women should be seen not heard
So what do we do, girls, shout louder

Lettin' 'em know we're gonna stand our ground
Lift your hands higher and wave 'em proud
Take a deep breath and say it loud
Never can, never will, can't hold us down

Nobody can hold us down
(Hold us down)
Nobody can hold us down
(Hold us down)
Nobody can hold us down
(Hold us down)
Never can, never will

So, what am I not supposed to say, what I'm saying
Are you offended with the message I'm bringing
Call me whatever 'cause your words don't mean a thing
'Cause you ain't even a man enough to handle what I sing

If you look back in history
It's a common double standard of society
The guy gets all the glory, the more he can score
While the girl can do the same and yet you call her a whore

I don't understand why it's okay
The guy can get away with it, the girl gets named
All my ladies come together and make a change
And start a new beginning for us, everybody sing

This is for my girls all around the world
(Round the world)
Who have come across a man that don't respect your worth
(Respect your worth)
Thinking all women should be seen not heard
So what do we do, girls, shout louder
[From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/c/christina-aguilera-lyrics/can_t-hold-us-down-lyrics.html]

Lettin' 'em know we're gonna stand our ground
So lift your hands higher and wave 'em proud
Take a deep breath and say it loud
Never can, never will, can't hold us down

Check it
Here's something I just can't understand
If a guy have three girls then he's the man
He can even give us some head and sex her raw
If the girl do the same, then she's a whore

But the table's about to turn
I'll bet my fame on it
Cats take my ideas and put they name on it
It's aight though, you can't hold me down
I got to keep on moving

To all my girls with a man who be trying to mack
Do it right back to him and let that be that
You need to let him know that his game is whack
And Lil' Kim and Christina Aguilera got your back

You're just a little boy
Think you're so cute so coy
You must talk so big
To make up for smaller things

Said you're just a little boy
All you do is annoy
You must talk so big
To make up for smaller things

This is for my girls
This is for my girls all around the world
Who have come across a man that don't respect your worth
(Respect your worth)
Thinking all women should be seen not heard
So what do we do, girls, shout louder
(Shout louder)

Lettin' 'em know we're gonna stand our ground
(Stand our ground)
So lift your hands higher and wave 'em proud
Take a deep breath and say it loud
Never can, never will, can't hold us down

This is for my girls all around the world
(For my girls)
Who have come across a man that don't respect your worth
(Around the world)
Thinking all women should be seen not heard
So what do we do girls, shout louder

Lettin' 'em know we're gonna stand our ground
So lift your hands higher and wave 'em proud
Take a deep breath and say it loud
Never can, never will, can't hold us down

No change of heart, a change in me

What a wicked week in every sense of the word. Wicked as in the wicked witch of the west-type of week. Not wicked awesome.

I think I will be okay.

From the time I picked up Matthew at the airport one week ago to now, things have been okay to not great, to bad, to ugly, to at rest.


Matthew and I broke up after our three year long relationship. I felt I just couldn't go on anymore. I wasn't really happy for the longest time. I was content sometimes, but content is not enough. Especially after nearly three years of dating. I know Matthew tried sometimes but it was not enough and towards the latter end of the relationship, since February mainly, when he hurt his back, he took me more and more for granted. I felt that while I loved him, I knew he was immature and had a lot of hidden issues which I never disclosed to anyone. On the outside, we looked like our university's super couple. But I was slowly drowning.

At first, we fought. Matt told me some pretty cruel things which helped me to really see the side of him that was bringing me down.

While Matt was three years older than me, I felt a lot more mature. I knew what I wanted in life, where I wanted to go and how I was going to get there. Matthew was still trying to figure all that out.

The good part is that I'm not hurt anymore, nor mad, nor bitter. It will take some adjusting. But I know this is for the best. I do want to be friends with him. At the same time, I want to distance myself a bit. The thought of him seeing other girls makes me sick.

I realized that Matthew needed to love me for exactly who I was and not try to change anything about me. I changed so much of my life to mold into his, which in the end, left me feeling completely worthless.

I really wanted things to work out and we'd be together forever. But in the back of my mind, I knew neither of us could live completely fulfilled lives by staying together.

I know I will be fine. I have God on my side, who I am letting guide my decisions. Matthew isn't a Chriatian and I more afraid of seeing him cripple himself by the decisions he makes. I guess I can only pray for him.

Change is a good thing.

I need a change.

I feel like life has been living for me, but I haven't really been living my life.
Does that even make sense? It's like this, I get up every single day and do things in order of importance that I have to do for that particular day and then that is it. I think it's mainly because I know my days of "academic prison" are short and numbered and it won't be long before I'm in the real world, making my own decisions about what I want to do with my life. No more of this set schedule of courses I'm supposed to have completed by certain dates, deadlines for papers and projects, test dates. None of it. I will have complete freedom of what I do with my life and all the decisions I make.

Sounds wonderful doesn't it. Nope, not exactly for me!
I'm scared to death. Hence the reason I've been blogging oh so much about this dreaded "doomsday" they call convocation.

I had coffee with a good friend last week. We're pretty close but I've honestly never opened up to him and shared any of these feelings I've had because basically the last time we hung out like that (almost two and a half years ago from now), I had a major crush on him :P But we've become good friends and all that foolish nervousness is long gone from my head. I did manage to open up to him about how I was feeling about my current situation in life, where I wanted to go, and some of the struggles I was facing currently. He's a bit older than me, so I did take his advice to heart and really think about what he was trying to get through to me. He said, "_______, it's your life. You have one opportunity to do what you want and that is it. Do you really want to live your life around pleasing the needs of others if you are not happy yourself?" He is so right because that's exactly what I've been doing. Just cruising along, going along with what everyone else expected me to do, what everyone else was doing. Not really thinking about the consequences, really. I mean, don't get me wrong. I consider myself to be a relatively intelligent person who makes relatively intelligent decisions. But I could be living my life completely different. I could be 110% happier.

I find myself living this way at home with my mom, with my boyfriend, with some of my nursing friends. I know it's no one's fault but my own. But I just need to learn to stand up for myself sometimes. I know it will make me a whole lot more confident. And confidence is what gets you far in life. You can only make change happen if you truly believe you have the power to do it.

There are so many things I want to do in life. To name a few:

1. Learn the piano
2. Improve my French
3. Attempt to learn another language (Russian and/or Spanish)
4. Visit the Holy Lands
5. Do a Eurotrip
6. Eventually get my Master's in something (I was thinking of Speech and Language Pathology)
7. Get married
8. Have / adopt kids
9. Go on a missions trip
10. Go to bible college (NOT to become a pastor, but to expand on my own biblical knowledge)
11. Work as a street outreach mental health nurse at some point(Hello, Vancouver!)

That's all I can think of right now.

I find number 11 really pulling at my heart strings right about now. I will explain later. Right now, I'm going to bed and preparing for my first day of driving school. One thing crossed off my bucket list!

Wish me luck! =)

Vintage Finds

I, a cultured shopped was convinced it would be hard finding fashionable, vintage-inspired items that were original, yet inexpensive in this tiny city I call home. We have two main malls and two other major shopping centres for buying clothes. I find that while the prices of clothes here aren't bad, you'll find about a million other people walking around in the same outfit. There are only two other options. One is downtown shopping. Downtown has a bunch of quaint and adorable, locally-owner boutiques with very trendy, unique and striking clothing items. That being said, shopping for clothes downtown can be verryy pricey. The other option is to shop online, which I've fallen into the horrible habit of doing lately. It really hurts my bank account, though, in the long run, since even while the cost of the individual item may be cheap, it costs an arm and a leg to ship it here.

So, I have resorted to another type of shopping. Thrift store shopping! Dare I say it, but I've honestly found some AMAZING deals on items in there. Things that look like I could have easily bought off of ModCloth or Ruche but 90% less cheaper. The following items were bought recently from a Thrift store. I am so proud of myself for lucking into some GREAT deals!:

A beautiful autumn leaf printed scarf


A lovely pink and purple floral scarf, perfect for the last of these summer days


A black and red floral strapless dress. Perfect for the transition from summer to fall!

With a belt I already owned:


I am also all about finding trends in vintage shops that are all-the-rage in brand new stores, only a fraction of the cost of a brand name item. For example, this black chiffon blouse. I've seen a multiple of girl with the exact same one almost from American Apparel. I LOVE AA, but it is sooo uber expensive. I was really going for this look:


But I found this. An oversized black chiffon blouse with lace detailing around the buttons:


Today's outfit:

I find working with high school kids all day a challenge because you want to look professional and stay comfortable, yet, you always want to add a touch of your own personal style without feeling boring.

Today I paired the pink and purple floral scarf with a purple off-the-shoulder tee, jeans, a braided belt, vintage gold earrings, and my favorite pair of red Toms.



Lovin' these gold vintage earrings I also got for dirt cheap!


Braided belt to tie it all together!


Full outfit. Don't judge the ugly dorm room I've been sleeping in! I swear it's clean!


Love the clothes, I do!

Have a great day :)

Catch up.

I've been pretty slack on the blogging lately. Mainly because I'm flat out working during the week and on the weekends, I'm the social butterfly extraordinaire.

This summer has been FLYING so fast. I was just yesterday, it seemed, that I started my preceptorship. Now, I'm just finishing my second week at work. Yes, work. I am ACTUALLY getting paid real money. None of this working for free business I was doing with preceptorship.

The program I am working with for the summer is called "Med Quest". Basically it's a one week-long summer camp (we do it for 6 weeks, 6 different groups of kids), where high school students come from all over the province to stay in residence at our university and learn about the exciting and wonderful careers of medicine and health care. They are selected to go based on GPA, extra curricular/volunteer involvement, leadership and interpersonal skills. The kids are awesome to work with, since most are the cream of the crop from their high schools. During the sessions in the day, we bring them to different parts of the hospital and university to teach them about medical-related careers. Some of which include: medicine, nursing, pharmacy, chemistry, biology, biochemistry, physiotherapy, kinesiology, occupational therapy and more. I do most of the teaching on the nursing faculty at our university. I also teach clinical skills labs (I show them how to take blood pressure readings, how to do physical assessments, etc...) and also I teach an anatomy and physiology lab with real human body parts (from dead bodies, of course!). It's an AWESOME summer job!

In the evenings, we do fun activities with the kids. We take them somewhere fun for supper to eat and do a activities such as bowling, swimming or a hiking tour afterwards. The kids have a time and we basically get paid to have fun!

These past few weekends have been crazy. Last weekend, my friend Emily had a girls' night. We had cocktails and desserts and then went out to sing karaoke. Super fun time! I wish I had pictures, but my camera went all funky on me that night.

Might I mention that while I've started work I am poor, poor, poor. All my money is going towards my trip to Vancouver (1 month and a half to go!), bills and necessities (ie. toiletries, snacks for lunches, etc..). My friends and I have been very creative with trying to come up with fun ideas for us to do.

For example, tonight, my best friend Natasha came back from her month-long Eurotrip. She was obviously broke as a joke and so Emily had the bright idea to do a cook-up at her cabin and play board games. We cooked up canned beans and Kraft Dinner (that's Canadian for "instant macaroni and cheese"). Not the healthiest, but definitely the heartiest! There is something about Kraft Dinner that is so comforting, despite the 5 zillion grams of fat and sodium.

Matt comes home Friday at midnight after being gone for five weeks to go learn French in Quebec. I am really missing him :(

AND (drum roll please), I am doing the most necessary, most essential thing in the world tomorrow. Something I've been putting off to do since I was 16. Register for driving school. Yup. I'm 23 years old and STILL can't drive. Well, that's sort of a lie. I CAN drive, just not independently. I have my Learner's Permit, but that's it. No license. But I will be getting it by the end of this summer, baby!

So, that's my life and my explanation as to why I've been a spook. Not to worry, you will have another non-polyvore journal soon!

Until then

Good evening :)

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Happy birthday Mama!

Yesterday was my mom's 53rd birthday. Yes, she does look young for a 53 year-old, but as she always says, "you only look as old as you feel!" I arranged for a special day for just us and her close friends.

The day started off with a surprise birthday brunch

Me, Mom and her two good friends, Maxine and Bonnie







Then, after brunch, we were off to the SPA for a nice massage!





Haha!




Then, we went back home for some yummy supper and cake



Herb-roasted sweet potato wedgies, steak, and Greek salad!


My speciality cake baking skills: Red velvet cake with coconut cream icing :)

Recipe

Cake:

1 box of vanilla cake mix
1 box of chocolate Jello pudding
1 1/4 cups of milk
1/3 cup of oil
3 egg white
LOTS of red food coloring

Mix together and bake for 40 mins on 350 degrees.






Now the frosting:

2 cups of icing sugar
1/3 cup of margarine
3-4 tablespoons of milk
1/2 container of vanilla frosting
2 teaspoons of coconut flavoring
2/3 cup of shredded unsweetened coconut

Blend together icing sugar, margarine and little bit of milk until creamy. Add 1/2 container of store-bought vanilla frosting. Blend yet again. Add coconut flavoring and shredded coconut. Frost cake and enjoy!







Finished product!




Happy birthday, Momma Mel!



It was a lovely day :)

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