It's been a while, I'm going to be completely honest and let you know I'm not sure how great I am going to be at this blogging thing. I do want you to know that I have a DESIRE to be great at blogging and I hope that I will become much better. So thank you for your patience.
I truly believe words are powerful! Don't you? I know the words we say out loud, the words we write, and the words we think gain power as we use them. The more we use words the more power we give them. So where am I going with this?
I have been impressed to give more power to my gratitude, by speaking, writing, and thinking more words of gratitude. What a positive impact on my life it would be if I chose to focus more on all I have rather than on other less uplifting thoughts. Could this make me grow as a person? Yes I truly believe it will, so here I am committing to you to be more grateful, and to back up that gratitude with words! I feel the desire for more personal growth in my life, and so it's time to do something about that.
Is it a coincidence that Canadian Thanksgiving is just around the corner? I doubt it, but I am awed that it is a natural time in our lives for Thanksgiving.
So this post had me a bit stumped, It is day 23 and the challenge is a way in which I want to be remembered.
It has me thinking of how I live my life, how those brief encounters with others can affect them. Do they remember me for a moment, for the rest of the day. I hope if they do spend a fleeting moment in remembering their day it's a positive memory of the stranger who smiled, who offered a helping hand, who held their place in line, who patiently waited for their child to finish. I'd like to think that I am a happy, positive, caring individual who if I even met you for the briefest moment you would want to smile from our encounter.
Now I know I don't always leave this impression, sometimes I have other things on my mind and I don't notice that I could have held the door open for that person behind me. I'm sure I'm not smiling 24/7 and I know that sometimes I am not the most patient person in the world (particularly behind the wheel). This challenge today is a bit of a wake-up call, to try to be more positive, smile more, be more considerate of those around me and more aware of the needs of others, even perfect strangers. A good reminder to live my daily life on purpose.
I also thought about how those who love me and know me best remember me, or rather think of me. I was lucky enough to marry the most wonderful man this summer. We found Jerry Stilson who is an amazing marriage commissioner. Each ceremony he performs is personal to the couple he marries, he asked us each to give him 5 words about the other, these words were to be kept secret and so we didn't know what the other had said until the ceremony. The words my lovely husband used to describe me were:
Intelligent
Kind Hearted
Silly
Full of Life
&
Caring.
This is high praise indeed (even silly is praise coming from my husband he means it in a positive way as in I'm happy and don't take life to seriously, that I enjoy life and laughter) and hopefully I can continue to live in such a way so that others will think of me in the same way. I guess I don't just want to live in the same way but strive to be better everyday!
We have hit Day 20: A food I like and a food I dislike.
Narrowing it down may be a bit tricky as I love a lot of food. But I'd have to say my favourite is a really well done Thai meal. It's always hard for me to explore thai restraunts because I'm searching for the perfect one with Gorgeous coconut rice. In Edmonton Viphalay is the best!
My usual order would be starting with the satay (SO fantastic) And Gai Himapan (Orange Cashew Chicken) with an order of coconut rice (they make an amazing coconut rice!)
Hello All, So I have been MIA it's because among other things day 18 has me stumped. I am still in the slow process of unpacking and setting up our home. So finding a favorite room at the moment is difficult and nothing is quite photo ready yet. SO I decided to just skip it and come back later.
On to Day 19: A talent
I feel blessed to be given many talents, but not only that to not be afraid to share and develop my talents. One of my talents is singing, I've been singing since childhood, I sang at weddings as a child. Spent my teen years singing in community talent shows, weddings, church, and even funerals. I've always had a love of singing and have sang in many different choirs, both church and community choirs. I now teach Music Together classes singing with children from babies-five years old and their grown ups who love them. I just love to sing so much and hope to spread some joy through music when the opportunities arise.
Here's a few little photographs of me singing my heart out.
check out my attitude
that's right I'm on a chair and bustin' out in song!
Karaoke with roommates... work it!
I wish I had some photo's from my stagette. We sang Karaoke, it was FANTASTIC!
Anyways what are your talents? I know I have some very talented friends and family.
Not sure how I'm interpreting this today, is this a piece of art I've made, or possibly a piece of art I love.....
I think I'm going to go with the latter.
It may seem morbid, and truly no picture I can find online does it justice. But I recall sitting at the Louvre and just staring at this painting for a very long time. I find it very moving and beautiful.
So I missed a day and this post is extremely late. It's been a BUSY last few days with very little sleep involved. I apologize for leaving you high and dry, cause I know there must have been tears shed when you checked my blog the last few days and found no new posts (obviously I am the highlight of your day ha ha). Without further ado let the challenge continue....
click this button to learn more about this challenge
On to Day 15: Five funny fears
So I found this day quite challenging... I don't have many fears and the fears I DO have are not particularly funny. BUT I will try to list five.
So I have a funny fear of witnessing a car accident, obviously not funny in some ways but funny that it is a fear of mine. I will be driving along and can envision an accident happening with the vehicles I see on the road, and actually it will play through my head like a movie. I then want to distance myself from that certain set of vehicles if I can, because the accident scene just keeps playing over in my head. I know it's strange... but there is one funny fear.
Funny Fear number two would be about the UFC fights. I'm not a huge UFC fan, but occasionally my husband and I will be invited out to watch the fights and we do enjoy socializing and don't mind watching the fights every now and again so we will join in on the festivities. But I have a funny fear of one of the fighters killing, or causing serious long term damage to another fighter while everyone is watching for entertainment value. Kinda gross and yet why is that a fear... weird I know. I'm not afraid the whole fight just the times when the one guy is punching the other guy in the head over and over, I just cringe. yuck.
I have a funny fear that when I order something different and unknown in a restaurant that I will be sick. Particularly if it's a restaurant that I've never been to before. This comes with some background, cause when I was a kid I threw up almost every time we ate out. There were times I had to sit in the lobby of the restaurant waiting for my family to finish their meal because if I stayed sitting amongst all the food and smells I would be sick. That would be number three.
On to number 4. I have a funny fear the first night sleeping at the cabin. I don't even know what I'm afraid of, it's just really quiet and really dark and there is no electricity. And so the first night I find it hard to fall asleep cause I'm just afraid... (really of nothing). And the next night I'm just fine.
just realized I don't have a pic of the cabin, but this is the beautiful view from the cabin
And last and probably least.... I have a funny fear of bugs in my hair. I'm not scared of bugs, sometimes they startle me but I've never particularly been afraid of spiders or bugs. But you know that moment when you notice a bug is in your hair and you just kinda freak out a bit, and then you feel like you have bugs in your hair forever after. blaaaahhh I get the heeby jeebies thinking about it.
I LOVE to travel, have been able to do a lot of traveling and I'm sure will always be looking forward to my next trip, either figuring out how to pay for it or booking and planning those few precious days that we can get away!
I have a short list and a long list of Vacations I would like to take, We'll likely just try to cover part of the short list today.
I want to take my husband to London, to show him around where I lived and all the little parts of London and the UK in general that captured my heart.
one of my first night time views of Big Ben
Lucky for me this has turned into our honeymoon and our flights are booked so next spring this vacation gets checked off our list and I am SO excited it's been too long since I've been back.
Australia and New Zeland have always been on my list and it seems for some reason they always get pushed back. I'm hoping to be able to cross this one off in the next 10 years or less!
hoping to see the 12 apostles along the great ocean rd one day
And the last place I'll share with you today is Ireland.
I am sad I haven't yet made it to Ireland and who knows maybe we'll figure out a way to head that way during our London honeymoon. But the thing with Ireland for me is that it is more than a few day trip I want to explore and wander and take advantage of everything I can. I would rather spend a month or at the very least 10 days. So it's been holding off waiting patiently for the time I want to give it.
I can't wait to discover all the castles and beauty in Ireland one day!
And there you have it, a little list of my Vacation dreams.
Here are Days 1-13 of the challenge if you want to catch up.
If you click on this button you can learn more about this challenge
Day 13: Five strange facts about me
Now I'm not exactly sure if I'm the best person to write this post. I'm sure if I handed it over to my sister or best friend or even husband they would be able to bring you much greater insight into my strangeness. But alas, it is I left with the task of deciding what is strange about me. (Super Tricky, as I am sure I'm perfect in every way .. ha ha)
I'm going to tackle these as they pop into my head. And in the end I did get insight from my sister who helped me out with two on this list.
I Love Peanut Butter and Cheese Whiz toast.
Yummy... when it's warm and they get all gooey together it's extra delicious
Made me think of cheese whiz commercials as a kid, does this bring back any memories?
2. I love to drink Tonic water (no gin... just Tonic)
I think this is more of a norm in Europe than it is in North America, but regardless I love it!
You can also find a much better selection in Europe .. well for sure in the UK.
Here you are lucky to find good ol' schweppes Tonic, no indian or russian or any fancy tonics.
3. I take delight in wearing HIGH heel shoes.
I know it isn't strange that I love shoes, and that I love high heel shoes. But some would say it's strange how much I LOVE to wear my high heel shoes. Most of my heels are around 4" and I will and do wear them for hours and hours at a time. and I LOVE wearing them. For my wedding I had lovely high heel shoes (that we already talked about on Day 5), and because my ceremony was on grass I didn't want my heels sinking in so I wore 4 inch wedge shoes. My day was spent in very high heels until the end of the night when I wore my birks. And I loved it! I have a large selection of heels to choose from but here are some of my "go to" heels ... typically If I'm looking for a pair of heels to wear it'll be one of these that I grab :)
Wedge Sandals Ala, Black Wedge JLo, Black Ankle boot La Diva, Green Suede heel Irregular Choice, Gold heel Ravel, Black studded heel Dollhouse.
Top view of same shoes
I'm sure now that I'm free to wear my wedding shoes whenever I would like, they will soon be added to this selection.
Side note- I've had the Green irregular choice shoes for some time and they are starting to look pretty worn :(
4. I have a capitol D in the middle of my name.
This may be more about my mother than me, but it's true. My name is not two words Jo Dana... it is one word no spaces with a capitol D plunked right in the middle.
JoDana
I think my mom chose to name me like this because it looks pretty that way and also to maybe get people to stop and think before saying my name... that one didn't work out so well I get Jordana, Joanna, and all sorts of other variations ALL the time but I'm not worried. I love that my name is different and to some Strange.
5. I have no fear of being on stage in front of people
I love Karaoke, I'm not shy of being the one randomly pulled out of the audience, and if I'm prepared I love doing a presentation or lesson. This has never really bothered me even as a child when I was on the buck shot show, I wanted to sing a song (and did) I was the quickest to raise my hand to be the child to announce the commercial break.
"we'll be right back after these special messages"
(but said with a missing tooth lisp... very cute if I do say so myself)
My mom had us children singing at family and friends weddings as children, I was in a Drama club when I was younger and I have often played piano and/or sang at talent shows throughout my life.
Some people find this strange, to me it's just me! :)
Have a good one, and let me in on some of your strangeness.
See you tomorrow for Day 14!
Oh and if you want to catch up on Days 1-12 Here you go....
If you click on this button you can learn more about this challenge
We have very different taste in music and the things we do like are quite random so it was actually a bit difficult to find our song to dance to but after hours of searching it was finally decided.
Crush by Dave Matthews Band.
It's a beautiful song and it was so lovely to dance to. We took dance lessons and learned to Rumba.... quite a fun first dance if I do say so myself.
Our first dance
We were a bit nervous and my dress was much bigger than we were used to, plus during out photo's we kinda broke part of the bustle but it was fun and turned out well.
The song we requested as our first get everybody dancing on the dance floor song was.
Camel Walk by Southern culture on the skids.
This is kinda our engagement song. We listened and sang along to this song on the night we got engaged and when I hear it I always think of that night and Kelly singing to me "ooooo eee you make me wanna walk..." It is a super fun song!
What song did you play at your wedding, Or if you are still looking forward to that wedding day what song do you hope to play at your wedding?
So I have no pictures on my computer from before 2005 therefore time to search through some pictures and scan and save....
I am not certain on the dates of all of these but I can guess approximately when. Enjoy a little trip through memory lane.
With my brothers in the Spring of 1985, so I would be 4 here.
Posing as my friend Sarah plays photographer, this would be around 1994 about 13 years old
This would be at Echo Lake in Montana I'm 15 yrs old so 1996
My Highschool Grad, 1999. I was 18.
Well I hope you've enjoyed our little trip down memory lane. Is it just me or do you all have a shoe box full of old photo's as well. Ok I admit I have more than one box full of old photo's. My husband has NO old photo's any photo's he has are digital and do not date back 10 years. I told him he's crazy but he thinks I'm the crazy one for hauling around all these old photo's. It would take forever to scan them all though... I guess it'll be on my to do list, just a bit further down the line.
Today's challenge is fun.... It is Day 9: A photo I have taken....
Feel free to click on this little photo to explain the challenge.
In case you've missed them here are Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7 and Day 8
For the most part I like to put photo's in my blog, cause I'm a visual person and enjoy seeing photo's in blogs. But this one is a bit different, because it's not just any photo it is a photo that I have personally taken. I decided to share photo's I have taken of nature, I am drawn to the beauty of nature and always seem to take photo's of the beauty around me, but rarely share these photo's so I figured it's time to share some. Now I want you to know I am a point and shoot photographer. I have never taken photography classes, I have not read any books on photography and I did not do any editing on these photo's. Please don't judge, I am sure there are many ways I could have improved these. Having said that let's try to just sit back and enjoy some of the many beauties I have shot in my travels.
Spring in Paris
lovely little hike in Nova Scotia
Sunset from a balcony in Edmonton
Glacier Lagoon in Iceland
Wandering through the Muttart in Edmonton
Beautiful Manitou Lake in Saskatchewan - view from the Cabin
