And how are you doing?
Things that are still hard for me to do:
- Answering emails, replying messages and returning phone calls within 72 hours
- Letting different areas of my life intermingle (personal, business, etc.)
- Being upfront with people and not sugarcoating how I really feel
- Going to bed before midnight
Things that are getting easier for me to do:
- Spending money on clothing
- Losing weight instead of gaining it. (Now at 130lbs, without even trying at all!)
- Putting pride aside in matters of relationships
- Letting go of my perfectionist tendencies where it doesn’t count
Things that are, surprisingly enough, no longer an issue:
- Talking on the phone with people I don’t know
- Eating less, eating slower, eating earlier and eating more often
- Running errands in the neighborhood and/or walking the dog without wearing a “proper” bra
- Drinking lots of water and taking my vitamins daily
Don’t read this. Just don’t. Are you reading this? Why are you reading this? Don’t read this.
Please, just don’t read this. Don’t read this. Don’t read it. No seriously, don’t.
You don’t care. What’s the point? Don’t. Don’t read this.
Don’t read this. Really.
I was watching the Ellen show yesterday morning when she played this video for the first time on national television, and HOLY MOTHER OF TRIPLE FROSTED CUPCAKES. After the third “don’t vote”, I swear to god my left eye twitched and my brain briefly contemplated watching Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric again. Without stopping. You know, for therapy.
And how did you spend your morning?
Today I woke up to a “sorry we missed you!” delivery notice.
“Hey Chanel,” it said, “I know you’ve been waiting for this VERY IMPORTANT PACKAGE and you pretty much need it TODAY, but guess what? You’re going to have to wait another day! HA HA HA! Isn’t that funny? We at Canada Post pride ourselves in our good humor.”
Naturally, I wasn’t going to take that. So when I happened to glance out my window several hours later and spotted a post man across the street, I decided to chase him down. True, it was quite unlikely that he was the same post man that had tried to deliver my package several hours earlier, but it was worth a shot anyway, right?
So off I went, without makeup or a bra, running across a busy street in my Ked sneakers and blue silk pajama pants. I chased him for half a block before he finally noticed me, and yes folks, THIS IS WHAT CRAZY LOOKS LIKE. I’m just glad (for the post man’s sake, of course) that I managed to get on pj bottoms before I ran out the door.
As it turned out, he wasn’t the same post man who had my package, but he did let me on to a secret. “I bring the undelivered pacakages to the postal outlet”, he said. “I get there around 3pm. You don’t have to wait until tomorrow, just show up today after three and tell the guy behind the postal outlet counter that you really need your package and I’m sure they’ll give it to you.”
Thanks, post man!
Rocks turn to sand, hearts can change hands
Come with me, my love
To the sea, the sea of loveCat power - Sea of love
There is a bottle sitting on my bathroom counter right now as I type this, and somewhere between the product description and the recommended usage is a fun fact. “Time is fun when you’re having flies”, it says; and if I could choose one sentence to describe my summer, that one would probably be it.
These last couple months have been amazing and different and somehow groundbreaking, or as groundbreaking as you can be when you only ever take things in small doses. I saw friends I hadn’t seen in many years. I traveled. I hiked up a mountain. I saw a shooting star. I got a tan line. I bought two pairs of nine west heels at $20 each. I never once stepped on a plane.
Celebrating 1.25 years of “You have a what?”
Though I made no reference to it at the time, last June marked the one year annivarsary of this website. Since its conception, I’ve written 104 posts and readers have responded with 1,010 comments. 82.68% of my visitors arrive here on a computer running Windows, and 10.06% are lonely. 60.34% of my visitors are smart enough to use Firefox, and 22.91% are still frolicking with the Internet Devil.
Compared to the millions of other websites, both personal and otherwise, there is nothing special nor impressive about these statistics. But to me, I’m somewhat amazed. People read what I write. People I’ve never even met. People I know nothing about. And perhaps even more astounding than that… I’m not shy when it comes to all that I’ve written, nor do I regret a single thing I’ve written.
This is a new idea for me. I have family members who drop by here, as well as family friends, business partners and offline friends—many of whom I never even mentioned my website to. Under difference circumstances, I would usually go through a certain effort to keep my writings private; I’m not exactly the kind of person who goes about sharing things they’ve written with random strangers… And yet, exactly what am I doing right now?
Chanel spends the day with mops, brooms and vacuums, hard work is rewarded with cupcakes and sprinkles
Really, do I need to say more?
The obligatory “going on vacation, wish you were coming!” post
Today I leave for Hope, British Columbia to attend a 10 day conference in the middle of nowhere. I’ve been going since I was three and unlike all my other trips, this one is uniquely different in the way that it is the closest I ever come to camping. Or the wilderness. Or a combination of both.
(Of course, I’m staying in a trailer, not a tent, and I’ll probably bring those hot pair of heels I picked up in California, but the lack of a hotel, city and internet and the possibility of bears and mountain lions makes this trip camping in the wilderness, Chanel-style.)
Despite the obvious setbacks of being in a location where there is no internet, I am terribly excited about leaving. We’re even bringing the boat up, and while I can assure you there will be no waketubing, I will sit on the bow, dangle my feet in the water and try not to tan. And it will be lovely.
Have double the fun for me, internet!
Simply lovely
For the past week or so, I have woken up to bright sunny days, clear blue skies, warm weather and a perfect summer breeze. It’s hard to come up with the right words to explain just how lovely it is to be outside under the shade, a gentle breeze tussling my hair and tickling my skin while I sip tea and relax to sounds of my favorite old records and the dull hum of distant traffic. Nothing can accurately describe the experience, suffice to say I would glad live this moment a million times through.
It’s remarkably easy to live a busy life.
It’s remarkably less easy to slow down, unwind and just be.
No distractions. No phones. No work. No people. No problems. No drama. No worries. Nothing to do. Nothing to say. Nothing to be. I enjoy a good day filled with productivity as much as the next workaholic, but sometimes the soul just craves a solitude that only comes from leaving the world and creating a whole new one for just you and yourself.
Just you and yourself.
Try it sometime.
Chanel eats everything, loses weight
Some of you may remember that just over a month ago, I set out a challenge for myself: to get in shape and lose weight. To keep myself to that, I promised that by the end of June, I would update with the results of my one month challenge. (And maybe include pictures.)
This is the update.
Before I go any further, I need to make a confession: I am a brat. When I want something, I get it. When it comes to material things, I have rarely ever wanted something I couldn’t rationally justify, so my brattish ways were never really a problem—but unfortunately, the same cannot be said for eatable things. Keep that in mind.
Knowing that I was embarking on a journey that was destined to fail if I tried the typical diet approach to achieve my goal, I decided to try something completely radical: the un-diet approach. No starvation. No carrot sticks for dinner. No denying myself anything. I was going to eat whatever I wanted, because dammit, I deserve to eat whatever I want.
The little brown house
In my neighborhood, a couple blocks from where I live, there is a little brown house that sits on the corner of two streets.
Long before I ever moved to this neighborhood, I used to know a girl who lived in that house. Her name was Lauren. She was in my first grade class. She wasn’t very popular. I remember that occasionally, some of the meaner girls in our class would tease her. I can’t remember why. We were friends.
I still know where some of those mean girls are at, today.
First grade was, according to most of my former classmates’ account, a great year. (I say “according to”, because unlike my classmates, I was still recovering from The Worst Year Of My Life.) We wrote and illustrated a school newspaper, had a class store, studied way too many insects (Madame Yvonne was exceptionally fond of them) and sang a whole lot of French songs, songs like C’est L’Halloween.
Before the school year was over, Lauren’s mother died from a brain tumor.
