Merry ho-ho - I'm back at work today (Thursday), after a somewhat interesting Noel... Let's just say that, maybe due to a the fact they started the Christmas Season on November 1st this year in stores, most people were in crabby moods, totally tired and stressed, and well, xmas just wasn't the sparkling oasis that every year I wish it would be (and rarely is)...

I returned home with the evil thought in my head that everyone and their dog is totally messed up in life, that we're all just struggling along to survive, and that forcing ourselves to put on this 'happy happy joy joy' chirade while we all rush from here to there, meeting in a whirlwind frenzy of gift unwrapping, gorging ourselves on rich food (which ultimately leads to a nice stomach ache later on), and the endless driving back and forth to visit stressed-out family members just isn't worth the hassle. I came to the conclusion (as I do most years) that I'd much rather visit family on either weekend AROUND xmas, but not ON xmas, as our visits are much more enjoyable when there isn't so much hype surrounding them.

I found myself wishing we had children of our own, and that we could just stay home, where our pretty tree sits in the bay window, neglected, while we are running around the countryside. I really cannot wait for the day when we can wake up Christmas morning to the sound of excited kiddlies pitter-pattering around the tree, half-buried with treasures from 'Santa'.. And to be able to make eggs benedict with pemeal (sp?) bacon for breakfast, like my Mom always did, and opening gifts slowly and thoughtfully, actually taking the time to enjoy what each one contains, and to properly thank the ones giving them to you. Then maybe after brunch (and perhaps relatives could join us for that part if they live nearby) then we might go visiting. Or maybe not. I always loved Christmas day at our family's home. We'd get up really early in the morning and excitedly tiptoe down to the living room (at 2 or 3 in the morning, ha ha) and open our stockings. Then we'd play quietly with the toys and games we'd found in them, with only the light of the tree to go by (which always gave it a sort of magical feel) until our parents got up. Then we would be allowed to open our gifts from Santa only. Leaving the rest of the tree untouched while Mom made breakfast. After breakfast was over, we'd then sit back down infront of the tree and take turns opening our gifts. Then we had the whole day to relax in the living room, playing with new toys, trying on new clothes, watching tv, and all in all, just indulging in pure 100% relaxation time. Meanwhile, the turkey and big xmas dinner would be cooking in the oven, and we'd have a big supper before finally settling down to watch a movie or whatever and finally off to bed, our bellies full and our minds relaxed. THAT is how xmas should be, and will hopefully be again, once we have a family of our own...

There has been some talk in my family of our parents moving closer as well, so hopefully someday that will be a reality (speaking selfishly of course) and then we can also include them in our xmas celebrating, instead of doing this somewhat stressful 'rotation' schedule, where every second xmas we go to Luc's family's homes, instead of seeing my parents, and vice versa, which I think is hard on both of us. It's just kind of sad, as for example, this year, the way people's schedules are working, and with the amount of stress building throughout our family (due to many many factors, all out of our control), we will not be making the trip down to see my parents on New Years. I had been looking forward to it, however, after discussing it with my sister and mother, we have all decided that it's just too much hype and craziness to travel down there when people are working all in between now and New Years. I'm hoping that Becky and I will be able to take some time to go see them once Christmas is done and overwith, and things have settled down a bit with my grandparents. My parents are going on a cruise (bane of my existance at this point) and I'm hoping desperately that they can at least 'get through it' unscathed and will return home a bit more relaxed (doubt it though). My grandparents are also taking a very gigantic (and difficult) step and are moving into a home in a nearby town (about an hour from my place), due to my Grandpa's failing health, and that is weighing heavily on the family, my mother especially. So perhaps later on, maybe in February, I'll go spend some time down with them when there's no expectation, and we can actually appreciate seeing each other.

Ahhhh... So on to lighter things I suppose!! I did get some great gifts from everyone this year, including a coffee maker with a timer (yeh!!), a breadmaker (mmm, made italian bread last night!), a tripod for my camera (so perhaps images will appear in focus finally), fuzzy slippers, pretty jewelery, neat dvds (including BBC's 'Planet Earth' and a Norah Jones live show cd), and many other thoughtful gifts (like the blanket Becky made for me, with images of my family - myself, Luc, and my various pets sewn onto it)... :) I also have a big bag of dirt, and various pots waiting to be filled with pretty plants - and I set up a little indoor gardening area in the dog room with my pretty mini set of indoor gardening tools... :)

The Planet Earth DVD's are wonderful too - it really makes you realize just how awe-inspiring, beautiful, cruel and harsh the world really is, and how oblivious we are to it. The fact that once upon a time we might have been one of those species of 'animals' just fighting for our lives, picked off daily by some hungry predator who, likewise is just trying to keep itself and its young from going hungry. Every day may have been our last, and there would have been no 'moral' wrong in that. Now we take so much for granted, we are virtually indestructable, and life has become this crazy thing that we "hoard" to the point where we won't even let people who WANT to die die, it's just crazy to think of how there is still a brutal fight for survival going on every minute of every day with almost every other living thing on the planet, besides ourselves. The images are amazing too - and I can't get over the crazy tropical bird species that flip themselves into different wacky looking shapes and dance around. So far, that's been my favorite part.. ;)

Here's a picture of the male bird, who has flipped himself into an incrediblely bizzare shape, and is dancing for a rather uninterested female... ;) The narrator says, as the female walks away 'it's disheartening when one's very best is just not good enough...' ;)

Anyway, I think I mentioned in a previous post that I had signed up for a 12 days of Christmas daily message. Of course, being the 'Kerr' that I am, I am always late but in earnest ;) but late is better than never. So far, I've only had a brief chance to skim the first message before I was called away from the computer. Sooo, I'll post the link here, for anyone who might have some quiet time to themselves, and who might want to take a moment to 'reflect' on their lives. I'll post the next soon.. :) http://www.innerchristmas.com/071.html
Wishing you all a peaceful rest of your holiday...
:) S

Craziness abounds in my life.. Well, not exactly, but there's a big 'shift' going on right now, and as Luc and I were saying last night, everything is up in the air right now, opportunities are piling up around us, and we really need to give things time to settle before we figure out what our next move in life is...

I spoke with our mortgage broker yesterday, and while our current lender won't work a deal with us to extend the term and/or remortgage the property to release some more moolah for upgrades, there's potentially another lender that is willing to do all that, and sooner, so I have him looking into that for us. The idea would be to try to get some money out of the house now, so we could put Luc on the course he wants to take, as well as pay off some of our debts. However, no sooner did I get off the phone with the mortgage broker, then the real estate agent called. Apparently we have a potentially very interested buyer on our hands. Hmmm.. He's going to see it in early January, and if he likes it, will put in an offer right then and there.
So it begs yet another question - what do we want to do? Keep the house, invest our money (and that of our tenants of course) into making it better, and sell it when we'll make a profit? Or cut our losses now and walk away, at least eliminating any stress that comes along with trying to find tenants and do repairs/maintain the property? Hmmm...
Difficult really to say what will be best... I guess I am going to take the usual Shelley approach and just 'wait and see what happens', knowing that either way, we gain something (either independence and lack of stress, or money)... One thing I DO know, is that the next house we buy should be newer, because while I think 'hey, if we got rid of the apartments, we could put in a new kitchen and refinish the floors in our house (+ another list of things a mile long)' I realize that to me, that is a MAJOR inconvenience, and I believe Luc shares that view as well... So we'll both stall on it until we lose the opportunity to do anything about it.. Hm...

Secondly, my job has taken on much the same feeling as our apartments - it's like I've reached a fork in the road here too, and various possibilities have been presented to me, none with any guarantees, however, and so for now, I wait to see what happens, but either way it will eventually come down to a few key questions that all wittle away to 'money, or peace of mind?' because, I find, despite what the big corporations will tell you (that money buys happiness), money does NOT buy peace of mind, in a lot of ways. Yes, it ensures you no longer have to worry about 'survival' things, but you DO have to worry about a lot of petty, seemingly important, but ultimately draining things in life once you're playing with moolah... At any given time, any one of us could find big dollars, if we're willing to take risks for it - ex: I could become a sub contractor, give up any sense of security in my job, have to take on the marketing for myself, months off would be spent at home, unpaid (and stressing), but I'd make twice what I make now... Conversely, I could go find myself a cushy job in the gov't, doing a job that potentially does have a fairly low 'ceiling' on it (read: the salary stops quite short of where it'd be if I was NOT working for the gov't), with the risk of extreme boredom, but hey, I'd be secure and know that I would always have a job to go to... So that's what I'm weighing now too. Not subcontracting, that's not for me, but either consulting through my agency (which I love, but where I will have to invest a lot of time and hard work to really get anywhere), or taking a step down and finding a gov't job, refocusing myself on other aspects of ma vie... Hmmm... So I wait... :)

Lots of musing about boring things I guess.. Sorry!

Okay, here's a silly dissertation on something that bothers me (I'm giving into my retarded, petty side). I was thinking today that I'd like to go see the Golden Compass (and not just because Daniel Craig is in it!! He really only appeals when he's a pouty, devilish, weapon weilding Bond with gigantic muscles - day to day Daniel just isn't worth talking about... ;) ) But something I noticed today, is why I don't think Nicole Kidman is pretty. You hear it all the time, how she's gorgeous, but I find often when I see her in movies, or just pictures of her, there's something WRONG... I know what it is - I have CRACKED the Not-Pretty-Nicole mystery! It's her HAIR!! (Okay, and her choice of dress colours)...
I noticed that, at the premiere for the Golden Compass, she was there with her hair pulled off her forehead, wearing a cream-coloured gown. She looked, for all intensive purposes, like she was dead, and washing herself out with pale colours (that only serve to accentuate her ivory white skin), further accentuates the fact that her eyebrows are RED, while her hair is platinum. Furthermore, the fact that she tends to have her hair pulled back in a severe pony tail, or swept backwards off her face totally accentuates her rather wide forehead. I don't know why it bugs me, but it does. Don't get me wrong, I'm no beauty (which is why I don't get to stroll down red carpets in x-thousand dollar gowns, but I AM bored, so here, I grabbed some pictures to prove it (because I'm totally wasting time at the moment)..
Image 1: Nicole with yet another pale dress, pale hair, and looking totally washed out...

Image 2: Nicole with red hair - what a difference! Eureka! She looks VIBRANT!

Image 3: Nicole with her bangs pulled severely off her forehead...

Image 4: Ahhh, sweet, feminine bangs, totally softens her sharp features...

Okay, I'm done!! ;) But if I were her, I'd get ahold of my stylist and, well, fire them. ;)

So, the last week of Advent, and I must admit that I didn't do much at all to formally recognize it. However, for anyone who might be, the focus of the last Sunday of Advent is on the joy you feel at the end of the period of waiting (and the beginning of a couple weeks of celebrating, visiting with family, and eating waaaay too much).
I have decided, because I love Wavery Fitzgerald's writings so much, that I would re-read through each of her weekly thoughts that I used to subscribe to (I saved almost all of them). For this week, her focus was, naturally, on acknowledging the moments of joy in your life. And if you were having a difficult time feeling any 'joy' amid all the crazy preparations for the Christmas holiday, she had suggested that you ask yourself where you find joy in the holidays, and focus on those times. For me, I'd have to say my moments of 'joy' during the holidays are times when I'm with my family (eating!, ha ha), and especially during those quiet moments, like on Christmas Eve, relaxing by the tree with a baileys in one hand, the fire crackling beside you. Of course opening Christmas stockings are always very fun too (reminder to moi: must go get some stocking stuffers!), and getting together with friends on Christmas night (as well as brunch that day with family) are all highlights of my xmas holiday. Typical, I guess, most involve food or drink of some kind. I also love those days at work, when the festive spirit encourages people to stand around, talking, laughing, and sharing (and in our case, usually drinking some forbidden beverage safely hidden inside cans of coke)... And the days when you go in to work, and no one else is there, so you can listen to some music, or enjoy the silence, and just get things done.. :)
Yes, I do love this season, but for some reason this year, I still can't manage to feel Christmassy!! I look around and barely see any xmas lights up (that's my neighbourhood for you - I'm sure Hull is ablaze with gawdy colour again this year - it was always fantastic for that), and my shopping is pretty well done, the last few things just nagging 'I have to pick something up to add to that present!' types of things...
No, I think for me, the joy of this holiday will be the down time, where I can just sit and do absolutely nothing. :) I'm really tired this week!
Anyway, looking ahead to 2008, I'm happy to see that they're predicting a rise in housing prices - by 3.5%! That's good news for Luc and I, who have our house on the market. It also inspired me to contact my mortgage broker, to see about getting our mortgages straightened out. I'm hoping the interest rates will drop, due the the price increase in the housing market, and then I can perhaps switch our personal mortgage to 25 years, and see about switching our apartment's mortgage to 40 years, over the next few months. This, ideally, would free up some $$ monthly to go toward paying for siding and windows (increasing the value again), and we can then write off the interest charges that will be horrendously high on the apartment's mortgage. I'm starting to feel slightly like I'd like to hold onto the apartments still, as in a way, as long as we can have the tenants paying for the big stuff, we can handle the small stuff as we need to... Dunno, it's something to consider. If we kept them for five or ten years, we'd be able to sell them when we were ready to buy (or build) a new house...
Food for thought, and definitely a potential source of 'joy' if we can do this right... :)

Soooo, it's been almost a month since I've posted on here. There have been various things going on in my life, concerning my career, my family life, and getting ready for Christmas, that I could have written about, however, I had hoped to not make this into a journal, and yet, because of its total lack of purpose, this blog tends to house a lot of personal (and probably boring) thoughts about my life in general. So in an effort to get away from that, I haven't written anything as it would have been me meandering through my days and nights and putting everyone (if anyone reads this) to sleep.. ;)

Anyway, so without further ado, I thought I'd write about Advent. Up until now, I'd been shying away from anything that seemed Christian in origin because of my deep distrust of organized religions, however, I'm finding more and more that there is a lot to be said for learning to appreciate a more structured approach to spirituality and life, without closing the door on nature-based spirituality, and without having to fully embrace the literal 'renditions' of the Bible.. December is such a wonderfully spiritual time of year too, that I want to embrace all parts of it, and not shut anything out. I'm actually going to miss not going to midnight mass this year, as I did last year with my Mom and my sister. We used to do it every year when I was a child, and then my 'departure' from all things 'Churchey' made it so I had about 7 or 8 xmases where we didn't go to an evening mass, but stayed home and gorged ourselves on food and drink... I always missed lighting those tiny white candles and singing Silent Night, followed by the family piling into the car to drive around the town, looking for the house with the most lights on it.. :)

So this year, though I'm starting late, I hope to acknowledge what is left of both the Pagan and Christian Advent calendar... To summarize what Waverly Fitzgerald explains on her school of the seasons site, Pagan Advent begins four Sundays before Winter Solstice, and is a period of waiting for the 'birth of the sun'. Christian Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas and is a similar period of waiting, for the birth of the 'Son'...

From her site:
The period of Advent, which means “to come,” is the period of waiting for the birth of Christ at Christmas, or for the birth of the sun at Winter Solstice. It is a period of anticipation, of looking forward.The main quality of Advent is waiting. If it were a tarot card, it would be the Seven of Pentacles. At this time we are unable to do anything but wait through the growing darkness until we can celebrate the return of the Light. Most Advent customs have to do with marking time: lighting one candle on the Advent wreath each week, opening another door on the Advent calendar. These markers show us in a concrete way how much time has passed and how much time is left before the event we so joyously anticipate.

According to her, one way to celebrate Advent might entail lighting of candles (for Pagans, on an Advent wreath), to mark each Sunday that passes, followed by a time of story-telling and caroling. Story-telling has been passed down through the ages as a way to pass the time in the dark months, while sharing important lessons and bits of history with those close to you. Obviously, during the days when the sun was the only light you had to go by outside, you would find yourself inside together for longer periods, waiting out the darkness. I think I read somewhere as well that the Celts were not even allowed to tell a story until after sundown, and that it was the elders who told the stories, but I might be dreaming that!
Advent calendars are another popular way to pass the time, and range from the little cardboard ones with tiny little chocolates in them that we buy at the dollar store ;) , to more elaborate home-made ones (created by people who are either uber organizers or have WAY too much time on their hands!) that open to reveal inspiring pictures, or ornaments to put on the tree (I liked that idea)... The nativity scene is also used by some people to mark the time, each figurine added around the stable marking another passing day until the Christ child is added to the manger on the 25th. As she says, if you don't find 'Christ' fits with your spirituality, creating any sort of calendar or 'shrine' to the sun would work, even creating 13 ornaments representing the birth of the sun (spirals, mirrors, etc) to hang on your tree.

To make an advent wreath: http://www.schooloftheseasons.com/wreathmaking.html

Another sort of neat thing she suggested was this site: http://www.lynnjericho.com/newsletter1107.html that will send you a special thought to reflect upon over the 12 days of 'Inner Christmas'. The strange thing is it starts December 25 and goes until January 6th. Interestingly enough, the Armenian Apostolic Church, which is one of the most ancient Christian communities, celebrates Christmas on January 6th. You can enter your email address and you'll receive a thought or question each day during that time, for you to meditate on, in order to inspire a sense of 'deep joy' and sense of purpose in the coming year. Why not, right? ;) I want to work on my meditation skills anyway, as it is rumoured to be a miracle healer for stress, worry, doubt, and general mind-clutter that we all suffer from.

I'm still not sure what I will do this year to mark the days of Advent, as I'm feeling slightly scatterbrained and find it difficult to focus on one particular thing long enough to get anything out of it... One neat site I found, which is entirely Christian based, gives you a daily thought, prayer and passage to reflect on each day throughout Advent. http://www.followingthestar.org/

Here's another that explains some of the traditions in different cultures: http://heaintthroughwithmeyet.wordpress.com/2007/12/02/the-advent-wreath-and-why-i-have-one/

No matter which way you choose to celebrate Advent, I wish you all a very happy holiday season - and I hope you find some time to enjoy the peaceful indulgence of waiting! :)

S