Where Have I Been?

Hey everyone, I'm finally back to blogging!

So as many of you may know, my last blog post was back in February, and honestly the first reason as to why I stopped blogging back in February is because I'm awful at keeping secrets.

I have an older cousin who lives in New York and I love her so much, she's my inspiration. In late January, her friends and family from back home in Canada decided to book flights over our March break to surprise her for her birthday. We've been discussing the possibility of going to New York and surprising her for her birthday back in June/July 2015, so there was no way I was going to ruin the surprise.

I honestly came close to letting the cat out of the bag (as did some other family members) about this whole trip while on the phone with my cousin. From February into March, my family and I had limited contact with my cousin and kept all conversations general, we were all scared of spoiling it.

I keep my blog extremely private and only a handful of people know my identity behind the screen, and my cousin is one of them, so I decided to stay clear of blogging until the trip happen.

My cousin's family and friends all arrived in New York and she was really surprised to say the least. There were a few glitches that my family still laughs about to this day, but overall it was all that we expected.

I actually filmed the majority of our trip to make a birthday video for my cousin as a present, so the weekend after we got home, I was in the middle of editing my first ever video and my laptop broke!

That's the second reason as to why I haven't been able to post until now.

Do you know how expensive it is to pay for an unexpected new laptop? It's not fun.

So since then, I've worked as many shifts as a swim instructor as I could to pay off my new beautiful MacBook Pro and I'm currently two thirds of the way to finishing my lifeguarding course!

Since the last time I posted, some pretty amazing things have happened to me, so I'll list some off:

• I turned 16 and have had my beginners for a fair amount of time now
• I will be returning to New York in 21 days (or so) with my school band
• I have been teaching mermaid classes with an actual mermaid company, they give me a tail and I help them manage the kids
• Teachers at my school have asked me to represent my school and give a speech at City Hall

Overall, I'm happier.

I've had amazing opportunities come my way since my trip to New York in March and I don't see them slowing down anytime soon.

I think I've caught you up on most things, so I will be back to posting regular from now on and I'm so happy to be back and blogging again.


One More Girl, no longer online

Give And Take

Although my current boyfriend is the only one I've ever had, he's the best one I've ever had.

He makes me laugh, comforts me when I'm said or upset, takes care of me when I don't feel well, talks me down from potential anxiety/panic attacks and he's bought me chocolate just because.

It's amazing to have him in my life and he does a lot for me. For example, when I'm in one of my low moods or generally not feeling well, he'll come over and watch Disney movies with me.

This is a guy who grew up with an older brother and never got into the whole Disney scene and never watched the princess movies.

This is a guy who loves horror movies yet knows how scared and jumpy I get from them so he'll settle for a Disney movie with me.

I'm sure we've gone through almost, if not all, of the Disney princesses movies and he hasn't complained once about. I'm sure he's joked about it, but he never seemed to mind watching the movies with me.  

Now I've never been one to watch sports. I think it's definitely something to go see live if you have the chance, but it's just not the same through the TV in my opinion.

My boyfriend loves to watch sports, he's a hockey player and follows the National Hockey League (NHL) as if it's his religion. Hockey is his main sport, yet he'll watch any sport.

As many know, Sunday was the SuperBowl. 

I've never watched football in my life yet we made plans to watch it together.

I've never watched football nor do I understand the sport all that much, my guy still wanted to watch the game with me.

I wish I could say that I tried my best to follow along, but honestly whenever the whistle blew for fouls, I was already asking about 20 different questions.

He had no knowledge of Disney movies and I had no knowledge of football games.

When you're with someone special to you either it's a partner in a relationship, a friend or a family member, you should always take the time to watch something they like and learn about that person.

Even though you find that whatever your friend wants to watch is absolutely boring, stick it out because that's what every relationship is about: Give and Take.

He took time to watch Disney movies with me so I'll make sure to watch the Stanley cup playoffs with him.

In my blog posts, I try to avoid writing about personal relationships simply because you never knew what could be coming down the road, however I thought that my relationship would be a really good example for this and the topic of give and take.

We might not have the same taste in movies, but that's okay because we can either compromise on the spot or one of use will give the other the choice. 

Admittedly we have a lot of "You pick." "No, you pick," moments, but in the end it doesn't matter what we do because we just want to spend time together in the end.

Try something new for someone special in your life because it's all about finding that happy middle ground where everyone gets a chance for something they like.

One More Girl, no longer online

Life Happened

Isn't it a little ironic how when I make a post about coming back from an abrupt break, I disappeared for a bit?

Sorry about that.

In the time that I've disappeared from my blog, it's not that I became less interested, but life got in the way. 

Allow me catch you up.

I've got school exams starting next Monday (January 25th), however I've mainly been procrastinating with my studies. I only have three exams; English, French and math. I know I can study for math, I'm going to write up proper notes for all the modules on my math exam, but I have no clue how to study for a language exam.

French will be very easy for me considering my upbringing so I don't feel the need to study it at all, however for English, I could use all of the help I can get.

I'm doing well enough as it is, but I'm awful at analyzing texts and going "deeper" into the symbolic meaning of it. 

I feel like I should be worrying about my exams a lot more, but I'm not and it confuses me a little bit. However my Sunday night post might be me writing about how much I'm worrying about my exams on Monday.

Along with those classes, I'm also taking band. 

For that class, we practice conducting for a week and then had an exam (The exam was just conducting a small piece to the class while the other students played). I was feeling really good for the conducting exam because every time I practiced in front of the class, I felt as though I did really good; the only thing I had to remember was to distribute my weight evenly and not lean to one side.

Midway through my exam, I tried to shift my weight, I missed a beat and missed a cue.

Honestly, I thought my mark on my exam was going to bring down my overall mark in band, but my semi-bad exam raised my mark. I got a 99% on my band exam.

I was shocked and extremely happy.

It just goes to show that you should have faith in yourself because you'll do better than you might think you did and that exams aren't going to define who you are as a person if you mess at the wrong time.

That's everything that's happened to me during school, but more has happened outside of my school life, too.

Friday night at supper my mom got a call from my uncle. He was calling to let us know that he was in hospital and recovering after getting treatment for a heart attack.

He was shoveling his driveway and started to have chest pains, but he waited the following day before telling my aunt that he needed to go to the hospital.

It was definitely a shock to my family, but we knew how to handle it since my dad has suffered from two heart attacks himself.

My uncle is the father of my cousin who lives in New York, so she came home for a bit to be with her parents. My mom and I were able to visit her, my aunt and my uncle when he was able to return home. He's doing really good though, he's recovering greatly.

That's family life covered, only thing left is personal life.

I'm doing pretty well, I feel as though the realisation of exams will hit me later sooner or later. I, myself was in a hospital for a bit because of chest pain, but I was told I pulled some muscles across my chest while teaching from the repeated force of having kids jumps into my chest rather than my arms.

Other than that, I'm in perfect health! I'm sleeping more, going to the gym and eating actual, full meals.

So that's everything I missed during this accidental break and it's really nice to be back to blogging, but as I said, life got in the way.


One More Girl, no longer online

A Perfect Balance And Pumpkin Races

My last post I mentioned how I'm going to not put too much on my plate, I'm not going to take any more extra shifts unless I was sure I could do it without missing something that's important to me such as something with friends that was planned in advance, homework or shifts/special events at the museum that I volunteer at.

Today I had my shift at the pool in the morning, but two weeks ago, I said that I could work a shift the same evening because I thought my schedule would be clear.

Turns out that I mixed up the dates and it interfered with plans that I made with my friends.

Knowing that I had plans with friends that afternoon, but also realizing that I took the shift, I told my co-worker of the original shift and we worked something out! I said that if we couldn't find someone else to take the shift, then I would cover it because it was my mistake and she was completely fine with that!

I ended up being able to find a sub for her the day before, so everything worked out perfectly.

Not too far from where I live, every Thanksgiving weekend, there's an event called the Pumpkin Races.

The Pumpkin Races are where people grow pumpkins that are over 1000 pounds and they paddle across a lake in the pumpkin that they grew.

It's a huge event that many people go to. A lot of it is a fundraiser for many things but there are also stands all over, for example one was a chili cooking contest, another to raise money for a school trip, another to raise money for a school playground and more, but then there were also concession stands and bouncy castles.

It's quite the event.

Either way, this is the first time my friends and I have gone to the event and we had a great time. 

Two of my friends joined me and one of the fundraisers there was a dunk tank. For five dollars, I could get six balls to throw, so I paid five dollars and we each threw two balls.

My first throw was a little off, but I nailed the second one! I hit it right on the target and dunked the girl! I felt bad because she must've been freezing, but she probably went and got changed after that.

I was really proud of myself, that was my first time doing something like that, so it was pretty exciting for me.

After that, we watched the races, drove home where one of my friends came to my house (the other had to go back home for Thanksgiving dinner) and we watched a movie.

I didn't have to go to the Pumpkin Races, I could've told my friends and they both would've understood seeing as they both have teaching jobs in skating, but I changed my schedule.

I rebalanced my plate so that it wasn't overflowing with work. 

I would've been at the pool all day, I would've worked so much that I would've been exhausted and cold for the majority of the day, but because I found another sub, I wasn't overwhelmed with my day, there was a perfect balance between work, friends and family.

You'll always have the chance to try and rebalance your schedule so that one thing doesn't outweigh the other. Sometimes you won't always have the chance to do this, but I'll always recommend that you try to because it will make you feel better throughout the day.


One More Girl, no longer online

Reaching Out

Since the summer, my anxiety levels have been a roller coaster.

During the summer, I would have good days and bad days, but it always felt as though the bad days outnumbered the good.

I would be stressed over everything, I would kick myself for every little thing done wrong and I just felt as though I was letting everyone down the whole summer.

That's a lot on one person's shoulders.

The whole summer long I felt as though I was letting everyone down and I didn't talk to anyone about it.

I felt so alone for three months, but I couldn't ask someone for help.

I felt as though I couldn't ask someone for help because I didn't think other people would understand. I thought that they would compare my constant anxiety to stressing out over a test that you only became nervous for a few minutes before you receive the test.

I felt as though I was always on edge and that anything could set me off.

It went on for so long that it became a normal feeling to me.

That's not okay.

I didn't do much to change things, but I did start to talk to people more, I started to say how I truly felt from time to time and it felt pretty good.

I knew that I'm defiantly not the only person who deals with anxiety in the world, but I felt as though I was the only person in MY world, meaning my social groups.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Did you know that nowadays, about one person out of three deals with a mental illness of some sort?

That's insane, it's absolutely insane. One person out of every three? That could be your mother, father, brother, sister, cousin, best friend, teacher, classmate, it can be anyone and you don't know who because you can't always see a mental illness.

I went to the movies tonight with two of my good friends, and at one point, one of them left about two thirds into the movie.

I figured at first that he was just going to the washroom, but as time went on, I got more and more worried about him.

I hid my phone so I wouldn't disturb anyone else and then I sent him a text to see if everything was alright.

He kept telling me that everything was fine, but when I saw him after the movie ended, I knew something was wrong.

I'm not going to go into detail about the story because it's not mine to tell, but in the long run, my friend was outside getting some air.

He told me that he thought it was better out there than in the theatre and that's okay.

He needed fresh air, he needed time to himself and that's okay, my other friend and I understood completely! Of course we wanted to make sure that he was okay, but we also don't want to push anything.

He texted me after we all got home and we talked about it and how he'll always have my support.

I was so proud of him because he was talking about it to me, he was reaching out and trusting me.

That's exactly what he have to do more. We need to trust the people in our lives a little bit more, we need to open up if we ever feel too stressed or worried or anything else and we need to reach out.

If you ever need someone to reach out to and don't know who, I will always accept emails and help out whoever and however I can at the email address onemoregirlonlineadvice@gmail.com

I can promise you that someone will always be there, whether it's myself or someone within your social group, willing to reach out to you too.

One More Girl, no longer online 

The Beginning Of An Amazing Adventure

I've always been a wanderer at heart.

I remember when I was younger, my mom would be in the living room with her cup of tea in the morning and she would be watching travel shows, and I would be making mental lists of where I wanted to go.

I would watch the show with her, but I was never actually there because I dreamt about being in the location of the travel episode we were watching.

Growing up. I still am filled with wanderlust, but I can't exactly do anything about it yet.

I can picture these grand and amazing adventures when I can't even afford two packs of gum.

As I grew older, the desire to travel and to have an adventure was put on the backburner while I started to focus more on school and my jobs.

When things in my life started to get too chaotic, I saw adventures as a way to leave everything behind. It's like as soon as I have the greatest adventure of my life, I'll be okay.

I'd be leaving the stress of work, of school and of home life behind me.

It would only be me and an unexplored part of the world to me that was just waiting to be explored.

I've heard travel stories from dozens of people, and every time I hear a story, I feel as though something is missing in my life and and I won't feel while until I have this grand adventure.

I spent the day with my friends today and one that I'm particularly close to kept saying that we were going on an adventure whenever we started to walk to a new destination.

I never realized how right he was until today.

According to Google, the definition of an adventure is "An unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity."

Although it's not always hazardous, spending time with my friends, there's always something unusual and exciting. There's always something to laugh at, you never know what topics are going to come up in conversation; it's always an adventure.

Something else that's unusual and exciting is that from where I live, there's a lunar eclipse tonight.

I've been photographing it and watching in amazement as the moon is slowly becoming dark and then red.

I don't think I've ever watched a lunar eclipse before, so this is something completely new and interesting and amazing to me.

With all of these events going on, I realized that adventures don't have to be as big and as extraordinary as I pictured them when I was younger, they just have to be something new to me.

I am not in the part of my life where I can control anything whenever and however I want to and I know that, but I'm not going to let that stop me from trying to fill that emptiness I have from not being able to have a great adventure right now, but I don't have to go far to have an amazing adventure.

Sometimes the greatest adventures of them all happen where you least expect them to.


One More Girl, no longer online

No More Wondering "What If?"

I jumped into this new school experience thinking that I would make friends right away and that I'd know the majority of the people in my classes.

I was beyond wrong.

I'm a rather shy person and I usually won't initiate a conversation. I'll try to keep it up, but I also tend to be the reason for them to fade out because I think that I talked too much or that the other person isn't interested.

Even on my anonymous blog, I have a few dedicated readers that leave lovely comments and I'm more than grateful for it and I keep myself updated with their blogs, I read them on a regular basis, but even then I don't want to comment in case it's confusing, read in the wrong way or it's unclear. I type out a comment that I find is really nice and has no problem with it whatsoever, but I work myself up to believing that it's wrong in a way and I end up erasing it.

If I can't even comment on blogs owned by the sweetest people ever, then I'm defiantly not outgoing enough to have friends yet.

I've talked to people, been introduced and have introduced myself, but nothing is set in stone yet.

I'm still nervous to go to school, I still don't really know anyone or can go up to someone and start a conversation so I find myself alone the majority of the mornings before school.

Being in band class is helping me out quite a bit because I can spend lunch in the band room and that's helping me meet people with common interests.

But seeing as today is Sunday and it was a beautiful weekend day, I went to the beach and relaxed.

I went with my parents, my godparents and cousin in-law (my poor cousin had to work in perfect beach weather) to a beach and I really enjoyed the time.

I took a nice, long walk on the beach, went in for a swim and what I thought was tanning turned out to be a major burn once I got home, but the beach was still enjoyable.

My cousin in-law is really sweet and she was asking me how the transition was for me and she was telling me a few of her high school stories and her story of when she changed schools in the middle of high school.

I was really interested in her stories and I found myself relating to how she felt when she went through it more and more.

She told me advice that I've heard so many times before but didn't take seriously until now.

Don't hold back.

She told me all the things she regretted not doing and how you don't really think about it and regret it until later in life.

I guess it's the fact that it was personal to her and that she had a hint of sadness in her voice for not doing everything she told me about that made me realize that I should expand my horizons a bit.

I've decided that I'm going to try out for my school's baseball team.

It's nothing much, but it's a start.

I don't want to regret anything from my school years, I'd rather do it and say "Why on earth did I think that that was a good idea?" than always wonder "What if?"

I'm going to make this school worth something for me and you guys shouldn't be afraid to do the same.


One More Girl, no longer online.

Battle Hard

Well I just got back home tonight after a 12+ hour ride home from a softball tournament and it wasn't too bad.

We ended up coming fourth out of nine teams and we weren't disappointed by it, but I can't say that we were over the moon about it either.

Still having a bit of a bad ankle, I only played half of every game, so I think I played a total of 2 or 2 and a half games. I understood why, so I was alright with it.

As some of you may know, I wasn't the closest with my teammates.

Some of them, I got along with just fine, others I felt as though they never wanted me on the team to begin with.

I felt really lost and didn't feel as though I was viewed as the other girls on the team, I felt like the joke of the team and it got me down.

Going into this last tournament, I was a little nervous to be with my own team, but I never said anything.

I tried to stay out of the other girls way, I did my thing and I let them do theirs, so in a way I was alone, but I was also content with it at the same time.

There are a few tight-knitted groups in my softball team and it was especially hard for one of them because one girl is moving to the other side of the country for the first semester of school.

Two girls got the idea of making her a shirt with her name and number in the back with a softball on the front and have everyone on the team sign the front of it with a little message for her.

It was a really sweet idea and everyone got in on it.

We all signed the shirt and it was given to her after our second last game.

She teared up and "You guys are a great family," and went to hug the girls who made the shirt for her.

She called us her family.

In the end, just because I didn't feel as though that I belonged doesn't mean that that's how everyone else felt.

Just like a softball game when you're down by one run with two outs and a runner on third and second who can either tie the game or win it for you, you have to battle through.

You have to battle through to the last little bit because it might be worth it. Even if it's not, you'll know that you gave it everything you could.

If you feel alone, there's never any shame in talking about it, but most people tend to battle through that feeling in the end, trying not to let anyone know how they feel.

Yes, we'll try and battle our emotions, but what we should always battle are the things making us feel down.

I know that this is said often; but battle through the bad times for the better times ahead. It'll be worth it.


One More Girl, no longer online

Something Bigger Than Us

Today's been a pretty special day seeing as it's my parents 20th wedding anniversary.

Although they both had their own things to do today -my dad had to work and my mom was out helping my grandmother- they were going out to dinner together.

I wasn't expecting my dad to open the door to our basement when he got home from work and yell down to ask me where I wanted to go for supper.

It's their anniversary, not mine! They should've gone out just the two of them for a date night like I originally thought that they were going to do.

I thought that it would be only the three of us because my sister often goes out with her friends after work and my parents and I have gone out without her on many occasions, but my parents said that we were going to wait for my sister to get home because she would be coming out with us.

My sister and I never really get on that well. 

Sure, we have our sister moments where everything is fine, we get along and talk to each other, but most of the time we stay clear from each other or argue. 

Definitely when we're out in public, when know when to draw the line, so usually we don't really talk to each other then either. 

Today though, we put our differences aside for our parents.

It wasn't something that we discussed and agreed on, but it was something that we knew needed to happen.

Admittedly, we put our parents under a lot of stress with all of our jobs, last minute plans, arguments, etc., so we had to do something nice for them, especially today.

In the end, family is something bigger than us and sometimes you'll have to make small sacrifices to make other family members happy. Sometimes you'll have to make compromises on something that you're not all that happy about for a better end result.

We can't pick the family that we have, so you learn quickly that family can be about compromises and sacrifices for others because family is there to stay whether you like it or not. It doesn't have to be about parents and siblings alone, it could be about aunts, uncles, cousins or anyone that you define as family.

Overall, happy 20th anniversary mom and dad, I love you guys.


One More Girl, no longer online

My Life, My Time

Seeing as it's summer, my parents want to see me outside, hanging out with friends and generally being out and about, but that's not necessarily what I want or what can happen at the moment.

Admittedly, I haven't gone out of my way to make plans with friends because I feel as though they're all busy and I don't want to bother them by texting them.

I've also been spending a lot of time at home with the dog, but today my mom reminded me that it is okay if I leave the house for a few hours because my grandmother also goes out and leaves the dog on her own.

After she told me that, I just so happened to be told that I could go out and meet my dad for lunch.

This seems like a perfectly nice offer that any teen stuck at home would've taken because it's a free lunch at a restaurant, how wouldn't want that?

It just wasn't what I wanted today.

I love my parents and with everything that they do for me, I don't mind spending time with them. When my mom told me that I could go, I feel as though she was certain that I was going to say yes.

Honestly, I was a little hesitant but I still went.

I was hesitant because I wasn't hungry for lunch and I was a little tired.

Seeing as though I was on the fence about going, I decided to go anyway.

In the end, I did end up enjoying the lunch and I ate most of what I ordered.

I couldn't help to think that this could be part of the problem.

A little while back, I wrote my post Bad Habits and how you shouldn't be ashamed of them and if you want to overcome one, it will take time.

Another one of my bad habits is to put everyone else's feelings before my own.

When my cousin came up for vacation from New York, she had tickets for us to go to Jazz Fest, but I also happened to have a softball game that night. My dad had to go drop something off at the field, and when he was there, he called me to let me know that my team was down one player and would most likely have to forfeit if I didn't play.

I was torn, not by what I wanted to do, but what I thought everyone else wanted me to do.

I see my cousin for about the time period of one to two weeks per year, I rarely miss any softball practices or games, I would be missing part of an event that my cousin and I were looking forward to for months, my team would lose a game because of me, my cousin payed for these tickets herself, my softball team would be single handedly let down by me.

I had so many thoughts going through my head that I couldn't even think of what I wanted for myself.

My mom told me that I would be upset one way or another, and seeing the time and situation I was in, I decided to go to the concert with my cousin. That didn't stop me from feeling terrible for the first few hours.

With lunch today, I decided to go myself, but I thought that if I didn't go, I'd be disappointing both of my parents.

When I got home, I started to think about things like that more.

In the end, it's my life.

I shouldn't have to spend time doing something or going somewhere that I don't want to go.

If I end up regretting, then all the blame is on me. 

If I'm on the fence about something, I always try and give it a chance because if I don't like it, I can stop whatever I'm doing or leave wherever I was heading to.

If I want to do something or go somewhere, great, I'm all in, but I don't want to spend time from my life doing stuff that I don't enjoy.

I wouldn't be blogging this today if I didn't like writing.

Although I'm still young and I can't have a complete say as to what I do all the time, I'm going to start managing my time better because I'm tired of doing stuff that I don't actually want to do. 

It's my life, I can spend it's time however I want to and I shouldn't feel guilty about it. 

Even if I can't start that now, that's one of my biggest goals for the future.


One More Girl, no longer online

Bad Habits

Everyone has bad habits.

Personally, I bit my finger nails when I get nervous, worried, stressed or anxious. It's something that I do that I'm aware that I'm doing it, but I can't help it.  I could be telling myself to stop, but I'll continue to bit my finger nails.

Bad habits aren't anything to be ashamed of, everyone has something that they do, you can't judge someone on a bad habit that they have when you have one that's equally as bad.

Another bad habit of mine is to babble on.

When someone asks me something and I'm nervous for some reason, I'll tend to give a long answer when a brief answer would've been enough.

For example, someone could ask me what type of music that I like around someone I just met and I'll go on to give my answer and practically defend myself and go on to give reasons as to why I like that type of music.

Admittedly, I babble when nervous, but I also babble when it's something that I'm passionate about.

I'm passionate about a few things such as writing, reading, music and a few other things.

As I mentioned, I'm passionate about music.

I'm currently at my aunt and uncle's cottage along with my older cousin and like myself, my uncle is passionate about music, too.

Everyone was up and in the living room area by about 9:00 this morning, but we were all reading so nobody really talked until about 11:00 or so.

By about 11:00, we started to get a move on things and my uncle started to make some pancakes.

While he was making the batter, he was talking to me about music because he had his phone plugged into the stereo and was asking me if I knew whatever song or whatever artist was playing.

I said no and then I went to ask him if he knew someone because another artist covered their song and they changed it to make it acoustic and slower and it's currently one of my favourites songs, and seeing as it's something I'm passionate about, I wanted to mention it.

I was talking to him while he was doing the batter measurements, and at one point he cut me off by saying "Shit!"

Asking what was wrong, me told me that he got the measurements wrong and had put in way to much milk. 

He then turned to everyone else and said that it was because I was distracting him by talking.

They all laughed and I didn't know what to think because I really thought it was my fault, I thought I ruined everything.

Then I understood that he was most likely joking, but I still couldn't help but feel bad about it. 

I just got into something I was passionate about and as usual, I started to babble.

I understand that it's a bad habit of mine, but they're hard to break. It's not an overnight thing, many people realize that, but I still felt as though that I was really bothering him, that he would've preferred that I hadn't said anything to begin with.

You live and learn. Bad habits are a part of that learning because so many people might be used to it from you that it might start to annoy someone else. 

Having it annoy someone else and making you even more conscious about it might help you become more aware of it and help you manage it.

Bad habits are hard to quit, I completely understand, but I think the first step to stopping one is to manage it. Doing it only at certain times and working yourself down so that you're doing it less and less might help you quit for good.

Nobody's perfect, not everyone, if not no one, will be able to stop their bad habit on their first attempt, so don't be disappointed in yourself if you have to try and try again. 

It happens to the best of us and it makes us insecure, but remember that you're not the only one out there.

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Eternal Love

Whenever I heard the term "eternal love" when I was younger, I would always immediately think of couples and families.

As I got older, I started to realize that you didn't only have to have an eternal love for someone but also something. 

Last night, I got to really see that.

Granted I didn't write a post yesterday, but I was out at a jazz festival concert with my family.

I went with my parents, my aunt and uncle, and also my two older cousins (one of which was my cousin who's currently visiting from New York).

My city is currently holding a jazz festival and the show we went to last night was Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings.

All I can say about that performance is "Wow."

Sharon has an insane amount of energy, the band was incredible and the show was amazing.

When my family and I got through the gates, we went to sit in the bleachers,

After a little while, I started to feel claustrophobic. The bleachers were so packed that once you sat down, you were in and couldn't get out without having to get at least one person to move.

I really didn't like it, I focused more on the people around me rather than the show and I hated that. I can't enjoy the things I want to go to because I get to worked up about other things.

My cousin got me to go dance with her, and once we were out of the bleachers, she told me that she got me because I  looked bored. I told her what was really going through my mind and she walked around with me, brought me to a less crowded area and held my hand or had her arm around me for the remaining of the time.

I was really grateful for that.

Because of my cousins' actions, I was able to focus more on the concert.

Before my cousin got me out of the bleachers, I could really only focus on the people around me.

I saw old friends meeting up for the first time in awhile to enjoy a concert together, I saw couples enjoying each others company, I saw friends run into other friends that didn't know they were also going to the concert, I saw others families meet up, I saw people who didn't care who was watching them but would dance anyway and I saw people watch or do something their passionate about.

You don't have to meet a person to know what they love, nor to find out what one of their eternal loves are and I think that's an amazing thing.

None of you know me, but you all seem to know that one of my eternal loves is writing. 

You can love something and you can have passion for something, but once you have both of those things together, I think that's when it's eternal love.

Even though I was uncomfortable at the concert, I still liked being able to take my time and properly look at the people around me. 

When you catch someone doing what they love without the other persons knowledge, you know its real and it's pretty amazing.


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Canada Day Family Barbecue

As I mentioned on my blog post before this one, A Long Awaited Homecoming, my older cousin is home and tonight was the big Canada Day barbecue.

Before I get into the story as to what majorly happened, I should explain that this is my mom's side of the family. 

On my mom's side, the ages are quite diverse. My eldest aunt just started university when my uncle was born. For that reason, I have cousins that are all grown up, married and have kids. At that point, my mom's side of the family had this sort of agreement that even if their your cousin, if they're older than you by a lot and have their own kids, you can call them your aunt/uncle.

My cousin that cam home for the first time in awhile is actually my cousin, but I could call her my aunt if I wanted to.

For the barbecue, I was pretty surprised that not everyone showed up. I easily thought that we were going to be 20+ people when in reality, we were only about 18. I was okay with that because I really was expecting more family members to show up.

I'm really happy that I went because everyone that I saw tonight, I only see them a handful amount of times per year.

The supper was pretty nice; we got there early, sat around, talked and caught up with everyone and we all had a good laugh.

I felt terrible at one point though because I had a terrible choice of words. 

My cousin moved to the States, out of country, to be with her boyfriend. After a little bit of her living there, they decided to get married to speed up the process of her getting a green card. They had their wedding ceremony at City Hall, but I know that they want to have a wedding party or maybe even a typical marriage ceremony with the white dress, tuxedos, reception and all that. I'm not too sure what they want to do, but I think it's something along those lines.

Anyway, when things quieted down, I asked my cousin (when everyone could hear) "Hey, when are you having a proper wedding?" 

That's not what I intended, that's not what I meant, but I couldn't find another word by the time the sentence started to come out of my mouth.

Everyone had a laugh and my cousin thought it was pretty funny. My mom was telling me to stop talking, but my cousin and her husband understood what I meant, so I guess that it's fine...? Overall, it wasn't my greatest moment.

During the supper, everything was good, it was pretty much the same as before supper.

After that, everyone was settling down. My little cousins gave us a little gymnastic performance and then a highland dance performance, so it was really fun to see that. It was so cute considering that they're all still in elementary school.

We started to clean up and we were all inside, so my grandmother decided to give her wedding present to my cousin and her husband.

My grandmother started this tradition for children and grandchildren only that she sews a quilt for each of us and gives it to us on our wedding day or as a marriage present.

My cousin was so excited to get hers because she knew exactly what it was. Turns out that my grandmother waited 13 years to give that to her, so it was nice that she finally got it.

Seeing as though my little cousins are young in age, they left the party with their parents and that left eleven of us. 

We got a fire going, roasted a few marshmallows and had some s.mores. Admittedly, this was my first time ever having a proper s'more. Those things are good! I could only manage one though, they're also pretty filling. 

Surprisingly. my grandmother wanted one, but when i went to give her a stick to roast the marshmallow on, she said "Oh, I thought you were making me one," so I did.

That was it, really. It was a lot of catching up with family I don't see often, so that was nice. 

I'm not the biggest fan of big family gatherings, I have to admit, but I got to talk to family members face to face that I only see twice a year. We were all able to have a laugh and no one was really stressing over anything.

If you ask me, it was kind of a perfect way to spend Canada Day with your family.


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