Fire and Ice

Some of you may know that we moved recently. It’s been a busy couple of weeks but things are starting to settle down and we are winning the war with all those boxes. The new house is lovely and I’ll go into more detail on a future post, but I wanted to talk about the old house first… the one we left. Although it was starting to feel a little small for us, there is nothing absolutely wrong with that house and there are in fact bits about it that I will miss, like the enormous garage (with automatic doors!), the lovely windows and our gorgeous French Doors that lead to the garden. All of those things we can eventually incorporate into our new house and are indeed already looking into replacement windows, but there is one thing that I had to sacrifice and will not be able to replace. My walk-in closet. Yes, in my old house I had a walk-in closet and it was a proper one, with lots of space for all my clothes and shelves for shoes, sheets, bags, and lots and lots of other things tha...

A couple of years ago I made a New Year’s resolution that I actually stuck to . That statement is so rare, so amazing that I am going to write it again: I made a New Year’s resolution that I actually stuck to . How many people can say that? In fact, to this day this remains my ONE resolution that I even remembered a few months down the line, never mind actually stuck to. I am thinking about this as I think about resolutions for this year. Last year I was too busy trying to remain graceful about being 9 months pregnant so resolutions and all that stuff kinda passed me by. Then the baby came and my resolution was probably to survive life with a newborn without resorting to alcohol. So this year I should make a resolution and I’m going with what worked for me. My resolution for 2010 is to log a total of 1000 km running. It sounds like a lot but I should be able to do it as I’m signing up for another one of those life-changing long distance races. I will be attempting to (m...

A combination of luck and circumstance meant that this weekend I had more time than usual to spend reading, which was great as I had two brilliant books I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into. The first one was “ The Pixar Touch: the making of a company ” which I had been meaning to read for some time. It appealed to my love of corporate histories as well as of course the relationship with Disney. The book proved to be informative, entertaining and very interesting but I wish it had more photos… however; my second book delivered those in spades. As soon as I put down “The Pixar Touch” I started on what turned out to be a gigantic coffee-table book (it didn’t look that big on the website!), also about Pixar called “ To Infinity and Beyond! The Story of Pixar Animation Studios ” which is more of an official story. I was glad I’d read “The Pixar Touch” first as it gave me enormous background, whereas “To Infinity and Beyond!” glosses over the details about how the company ...

Last night I read the funniest and most cringe-worthy thing I have EVER read. Unfortunately it’s not for sale so you can’t read it, it’s a sort of one-off. A manuscript, even. It was one of my earliest journals, covering 1986-87, the years when I was in 9 th grade and then graduated onto High School. So pretty formative couple of years, really. I’ve been doing some sorting out and found a whole lot of fascinating memorabilia (of which I should write in my blog later, really) but this journal probably was the best thing. I flicked through it before going to bed and was laughing and embarrassed all at the same time – it was like watching The Office. It’s amazing the amount of detail I put into this thing. I wrote nearly every day and recorded pretty much every single thing I did, what my friends did and even what scores I got on exams. It was like looking at my past, and I remembered people that were so important to me then but I didn’t even remember. I was surprised to read...

I have noticed that today is turning into an 80s day – from the music I’m listening to at work to some stuff I’ve seen online to the emails I’ve received, lots of things today have something to do with the 80s. 1985 was a long time ago, over 20 years, but somehow events from this year and the rest of the 80s have shaped my life in different ways, subtle ways. I started (and finished) High School in the 80s and this was a time when I grew up, took more responsibility for my life and made some amazing discoveries about myself. For example, I decided to join the Drama department – even though I’d never really done anything like this before. I just heard that the cast parties were awesome so there I was… I ended up spending the rest of my academic life in theatres and surrounded by actors and dancers. I gained a new perspective on musicals and it led to a love of the live theatre that survives to this day. I also noticed that most of my friends are people I met during these days ...

First of all – sorry for the “blog-neglect”. I am still alive and well, actually but it’s just that things have been a bit hectic lately! Lately I’ve also been thinking about history, more specifically my own history. I have never been a heritage scrapbooker and don’t actually own any old photos – I’ve said before that my mom has her own enormous albums where she has all her memories and my grandmother has few old photos but they are up on her walls. So as far as I’m concerned my family history is well looked after and I don’t feel the need to mess with that. The history I mean is my own past, the stories from when I was growing up and before I left Mexico. That part of my life sometimes feels like a distant dream to me, of living in a place where it was always hot or hotter, where I had lots of friends I could speak to any time, a time when I actually spoke more Spanish than English, a time when I seemed to have boyfriend after boyfriend. I am a prolific diary writer though an...

Tomorrow is my best friend’s birthday. The date also reminds me of High School (HS) as this is where we met and his birthday was only a few months after we’d started our first term in 1987 so this means that we’ve known each other for nearly 20 years! Did I really start HS nearly TWENTY years ago? But it seems so long ago... and surely I don’t look that old, right? But seriously – I loved HS and would do it all over again if I could – but of course it would never be the same. Other than loving it because that’s the place I met lots of my best friends (including Jose whose birthday is tomorrow. For the record: Happy Birthday!) I really loved the whole learning experience in those two years. Previously my educational experience was of course Primary and Secondary school, which I also loved – I guess I just love learning. But we mainly stayed in one classroom, had very strict rules about everything and the school day was tightly regimented. HS changed all that – we had different classroom...