Category Archives: Fun

You might like this, and, “SPIDER CRISIS!” Another post written late at night.

Posted in Blogging and Other Fun, Bumpboobs, Fun, Life, Writing by

Oh my goodness, it’s getting late! You know what that means? Time for another rambling middle of the night blog post!

Except this week I’m keeping it very short, and possibly sweet if you enjoy this sort of thing. So, obviously Bumpyboobs is my little home on the internet. Many people reading this blog have their own little homes on the internet. We know how important these spaces are – these are the spaces in which we can say what needs to be said, find support, bring our own take on hot topics, begin conversations and much, much more.

Sacred spaces. 🙂

Oh blogging, I do love you.

Anyhow, this week I want to share another project that I think we can really relate to. Over at my new second home online . . .or would that be my third home after facingcancer.ca and fourth after SisterLeadership and fifth after twitter . . .

Hmm. ..

Anyhow, my new thing is OttawaWrites, which isn’t truly focused just on Ottawa. It’s a podcast for writers, simple as that. And this week I had the loveliest interview about creating social change through writing. And what better community to share that conversation with than BLOGGERS?! OR, those who read blogs and quietly think “I’d like to share my story too.”

The nice thing here, is this interview is about an Alternative Media Assembly workshop – writing for social change, and that is going to be live streamed on Saturday. You can catch the streaming here from anywhere in the world: http://psfaltmedia.tumblr.com/livestream

(In the meanwhile, here’s the podcast chat about writing for social change)

alexisshotwell

In this interview, the lovely Alexis Shotwell explains how she wants to make writing accessible for everyone. She also talks about writing for change – and so importantly, how an advocacy piece of writing isn’t simply a rant, but will leave the reader with takeaways to consider, be it questions, or suggestions, or guidance, etc.

So I think this might be perfect for many of you writers (and to-be-writer) who have a message to share. Therefore, I’ll link in the podcast, and if you like go giver ‘er a listen.

Enjoy!

(P.S. I am in the forest this week at a retreat. We’re reworking a client’s website/blog and focus, so went away from the world to really slow down and focus. Zsolt is alone at home fending for himself in terms of food. Thank goodness for takeout, otherwise I think the man would starve! MMUH to my man, if you are reading this post! )

Oh lord, now it’s 11 pm and the room may…. be spinning…just a little. So, this post is over. I’m tired.

Back to bed!

P.P.S. I’m staying in the basement of this cottage, and there is a really big spider on the wall right by the bed. OH MY GOD, it just flew through the air toward me! OPERATE ELIMINATE SPIDER IS ON!

P.P.P.S. It was a fly. I wasn’t wearing my glasses. In any case, it’s been taken care of. eep.

Good night! (Don’t forget to listen to that podcast if advocay in writing is your kinda thing. Even if you aren’t in Ottawa, they will be live streaming the talk this coming Saturday – so everyone can catch it.)

 

Hot Thrashing, a 3:00 AM Story

Posted in Finding Home, Fun, Life by

These are one of those posts concocted in my head at 3:00AM. It feels like a good idea at the time. . . so I start writing it (in my head) and then say, “No you don’t, brain! We are going to sleep now, not write blog posts.” So it gets grump and tries to keep writing. And I need to make a promise that tomorrow (if we go to sleep now) I’ll write a real post all about the idea, and share it here.

hot thrash

Therefore, here we are with another blog post.

This past week I had one major angry fit. It was like hot flash amplified. There I was lying in bed reading a YA novel about magic and realms and pettiness amongst ‘friends’ when in walks the Zsoltster. He says to me,

“Can you clean the apartment tomorrow, because it’s really messy.”

And I erupted into a dragon, blowing a stream of burning fire, filling our bedroom with my rage, and then stormed out of bed into the other part of the apartment. Anxiety began pulsing all over and I was just-so-angry. SO-ANGRY.

This is the bit that kept me up last night. “It wasn’t a hot flash” says my brain, “it was a hot THRASH! High-five!” So at least a part of me finds that hilarious. Probably the part of me that also loves reading YA magic books.

I guess I should make it clear that my husband has been working his butt off these past few weeks. Like morning till midnight. We help each other out, right? So when he is crazy busy, I try to take over things and vice-versa.

Anyhow, I was doing my best, and it just ticked me off that it was pointed out that my best wasn’t good enough. Of course Zsolt would never actually feel that way – but I’m a hormone flashing woman, plus a writer, and therefore will, without doubt, read into all statements made about my housekeeping.

While my husband hid in the bedroom, I began throwing everything in the apartment into this large bin. In went my purse on the ground, in went the papers on the kitchen table, in went my new camera, in went the clothes on the sofa – everything went in. Even stuff I needed. It just all went in.

So that felt good. The apartment seem a bit more tidy, all the crap was now isolated in one place.

Then I went over to where the floor was sticky. Apparently my soup leaked on the floor. Not that the observer of this leak cleaned it up. So, continuing my anger, I got down on my knees and scrubbed that damn floor! Scrub, scrub, scrub!

All the while, I’m sweating like crazy having one hot flash after another. (or working out, this may also be the case.) It became quite late, and there was still that damn box of stuff. But first, I could no longer stand the site of all those stupid dishes piling up. Still pretty furious, I began washing those dishes – one after another, after another, till I’d washed about 1,000,000 utensils and maybe 20 different plates.

That felt pretty good.

And then there was the bin of crap.

Sitting down at the now clean kitchen table, I sorted that crap (much of it not actually being crap, but very useful things) into different piles according to their ‘home’ within our apartment. Then, one pile after the other, I put it away. Finally, I filled out a survey for the OICC where I get my vitamin C, because it had been in that pile of crap, and had quietly weighing on my mind  all week. e.g. “when am I going to do that survey, already? Later. Later, later, later.”

By this point, exhaustion had really hit me. I was KNACKERED. It’s hard to be furious when you are knackered. And by this point the fury had left me. Instead I felt really damn satisfied.

And since that point, I’ve stayed pretty darn-tootin’ satisfied. The apartment is tidy. I like that. Life is better this way. And we are eating better. And I’m not as overwhelmed, for some reason.

Sometimes you just need to get incredibly angry. Or at least, I do.

Hot THRASH. Change of mind, that is hilarious. High-five, Catherine who wakes up at 3:00 AM and dictates blog posts. See? I kept my promise.

The End.

And Counting! 32 Life Lessons on my 32nd Birthday

Posted in Bumpboobs, Fun, Life, Love by

Today I turn thirty two. That sounds pretty darn tooting good, doesn’t it? I want to make this occasion with a short blog post. Here I am at thirty two. Just past evening last night (or today, I guess), Zsolt asked me about my sixteenth birthday. What was it like? he asked. For the life of me, I can’t exactly distinguish it from my seventeenth birthday. All I know for sure was that I had watched The Sound of Music too many times and had this picture of sweet sixteen involving dancing around a gazebo on a moonlit night singing “I am sixteen going on seventeen.”

32 years old birthday

One thing for sure, I feel more sure of my self sixteen years later after having turned sixteen. My self-confidence isn’t perfect, but somehow, through some miracle of life, I’ve managed to connect myself with the very best of people who are fantastic and supportive and such good friends (which includes my family). When I walk down the street in my bright red trousers, thick pink glasses, rainbow hat and polka dot jacket, I feel beautiful. (Sixteen year old Catherine would have never left the bedroom, let alone the house, in that outfit.) And I have a more secure sense of myself.  Okay, I’m still a bit of a drifter, but at least I know what I like and don’t like in a very clear way.

Okay, it’s 6 AM when I am writing this, but here goes nothing. For my 32nd birthday, here’s a list of 32 things I’ve learned over the years. Damn, this is going to be a long list!

1. Good people are worth investing in, and they’ll invest in you too.

2. Walking down the street in red trousers with pink glasses, a rainbow hat and a polka jacket is the best way to dress.

3. When it comes to Love, don’t settle. Love is far too important to settle.

4. The best way to become anything is to start by admitting it aloud. For example: I am a writer. I am also an entrepreneur.

5. Birthday are always better with cake and a loud round of Happy Birthday.

6. The outside often reflects the inside. To feel better, clean something.

7. If you expect to work with amazing people, you will end up working with amazing people. Like love, this is an area where it’s not worth settling.

8. 6 AM is not a good time to wake up and make a list.

9. School is great, but travel and adventures are better.

10. Hollandaise sauce is really easy to make – use a double boiler, but don’t leave the top pot directly on the steam. I hold with a mitt and lift to control the temperature.

11. Everyone is normal in their unique way.

12. Successful people are great people. There’s no use in being intimidated or thinking they see themselves as better. They are hard working and have tapped their talent. Better to learn from them than be insecure.

13. Assholes aren’t worth more time than it takes to read this sentence.

14. Holy hotdog, am I seriously only on number 14? Okay, I have learned not to make a list at 6:15 Am.

15. The best way to travel is by boat – big, luxury boats. It’s beyond first class.

16. Everything is easier the fifth time you do it. Keep going.

17. Say hello and smile.

18. Even hot guys can be nice guys. I’m thinking of my husband here, who was a jock and who I would have never gone near when I was sixteen because he is far too good looking.

19. Being invisible can have its advantages, but damn, it feels good to be seen.

20. Life won’t unfold as expected, but fuck that – chase after your dreams. Even if the road to realization doesn’t go as planned, you can make it there nevertheless.

21. Sometimes it is useful to know that we are a tiny spec of life in this infinite expanse of space, and when you zoom away from Earth we literally disappear into the nothing because there is so much out there. I’m not saying we are not important, I’m just saying that when life feels unfair, it is good to remember the vastness of what is out there – and how “unfair” probably isn’t a concept in space.

22. Everything you experience will leave an impression.

23. I should really be in bed right now.

24. Things can and will get hard. But not always. And often times they get better. It’s a bit of a cycle.

25. Once that really big thing happens to you in life, you can never go back to the way you were before. It’s like #22, but a thousands times that. It’s okay to cry for the loss.

26. Some people will find you intimidating.That is both reasonable and bizzare, but maybe it means you are doing something right? I don’t know. Check back with me when I am forty and making another damn long list.

27. Hope is important.

28. Paprika – it’s an under appreciated spice, but so totally worth your while.

29. If a guy ever wants to “save you,” run in the other direction. (Unless you are hanging on the ledge of a cliff or something similar. I am more talking about that desire to fix what is not broken)

30. Feminism is good. There are many things that are good – Feminism is one of them. (I realized I was a feminist around the age 16 or 17, and it surprised me.)

31. When you wear glasses, people assume you are smart. If you stand straight, people will assume you are confident. If you smile, people will assume that you are kind. There is a trend here.

32. Every birthday matters.

Bonus Lesson:

You can always go back to bed. 🙂 I will see you later.