Exploring Ottawa’s Christmas lights displays 🎄🎁🎊🤶🏾🎅🏻 #exploringottawa #myottawa #downtownottawa #christmaslights (at Ottawa City Hall)

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@thislifestartsnow
Exploring Ottawa’s Christmas lights displays 🎄🎁🎊🤶🏾🎅🏻 #exploringottawa #myottawa #downtownottawa #christmaslights (at Ottawa City Hall)
Climbing right into my weekend! 🤸🏾♀️🧗🏾♀️#hotyogamorning #boulderingafternoon #climbingwalls #bouldering #verticalreality #ottawa (at Vertical Reality)
Watching Parliament get lit up for Christmas with @ahmazingmaddie really gets you into the Christmas spirit! 🎄🕯🎊🎁🤶🏾 #parliamenthill #ottawa #christmaslights #litup (at Parliament Hill)
One day we’ll have a big tree mama 🎄🎅🏻🤶🏾🎁🥂 #firstchristmasinourhome #christmastree #dollarstorefinds (at Downtown Ottawa)
So This is Goodbye
After seven years together I think it is finally time to say goodbye to my Tumblr. I have struggled for some time now regularly pumping out content that I felt truly helped me grow as a writer. A chance meeting with a lovely individual at my Yoga studio introduced me to the world of Medium, where I would like to see if I can pursue some more serious writing to help me be better. While our time together was transformative and really helped me grow I would like to start this new year off with some positive changes. When I stand at the precipice before a sea of change, I would like to dive right in and practice some self-care with a new "medium" to write in.
And with that my tumblr friends I bid you adieu.
If you enjoyed my writing...not that I know anyone really still reads this feel free to follow my medium account and stay tuned for some posts.
My medium name will be: Narm Charm
This page will stay active for posterity and also I mean over the last seven years it has been an online diary to me so for record management and memories I will keep it alive.
Lots of love!
& remember....
This life starts now!
Because I’m always going to be his little girl, I still draw him pictures in his birthday cards just the way he loves it! 🐭🧚♀️✏️👩🏾🎨 #pencildrawing #disneysketch #mickeymouse #tinkerbell #handmadebirthdaycards #happyearlybirthdaydad #missyou (at Downtown Ottawa)
Stuck in the Past
Sometimes I feel like I am stuck in the past. Scratch that... I am always stuck in the past. When I was in highschool all I could think about were those great days I had in grade 7 and 8, the "happiest" times of my life...well some of the. And I remain ever so nostalgic about that period. I know just about all the songs that came out that year. It was about 2005-2006 and to me it remains to be this epic time for music...when in reality I don't think it differed any more or any less than the rest of the 2000s. But because of how I was doing and where I was in life I remain oddly nostalgic about it, able to sing the lyrics to most of the songs from that time and to this day still listening to those songs...
Another period of my life or rather year that has stuck on me would be...2014. A seemingly innocent year. I had just started the last half of my third year of university and continued on into the first half of my fourth year of my undergraduate degree. I had my first serious relationship...my longest until my current one. And that boy, because he sure did not act like a man at the time, obliterated my heart. He took this fragile thing I had kept in safekeeping for a long time and he crushed it with his bare hands into an unrecognizable mass of fleshy longing, low-self esteem, and distrust.
And now as 2017 draws to a close I have to say it was also one of the good years. I found a new career/job, I got engaged, I moved into a grown-up condo. I host dinner parties, I'm on an intense journey to lose weight. I went to Japan, I got my hair done (mixed feelings about that one), I am able to do so much more in yoga than I ever was able to before.
It seems like life ebbs and flows like the waves do, as the tides comes in and goes out. Some years are high tide years where we struggle to manage it all, others are low tide years where we feel a vast emptiness, and even still we have years where the tide has come in but everything seems to be just right.
I had some friends over for drinks just this last weekend, and one of them commented how I always had 90s-early 2000s music playing when ever he came over. It made me chuckle but it's true especially with music I remain ever so nostalgic. I may not have been alive when a lot of the great jazz I listen to came out but I love hearing it and it just transports me to another time, it creates this ambience this ethereal feeling.
Some might say this means I am stuck in the past, I do often self-reflect. Others may think I don't look ahead enough or have trouble remaining present. At the end of the day these times of my life both the good and bad were apart of it for a reason. They left lasting impacts, some years leading me to live a rough couple years to follow them. However, would I change it? Would I do things differently if given the chance? I don't know, I mean I know I would not want to feel as hurt. I know I might have wanted to resolve things differently.
But life is not like a present, it does not neatly wrap up all the lose ends to get tucked away all tidily. Life is messy, and random, chaotic and a explosion of experiences and memories. How we sift through it all is a true test to our characters and what we make of what we have been given really does say something about us.
Stay true to yourselves, self-reflect, romanticize the past a little, experience a little nostalgia but never feel guilty about it.
*Cue opening theme to Lion King* 🌅🦁#iflifewereadisneymovie #lionking #sunsetchasing #chaudierebridge #ottawa #myottawa (at Chaudière Bridge)
I, I keep on running, I’m building bridges that I know you never wanted 🌅🌆#burningbridges #chaudierebridge #ottawa #quebec #sunsetchasing (at Chaudière Bridge)
Challenging myself to not only read 50 books this year but a wide variety of genres! Here’s to my first graphic novel since Watchmen! 📚🤓 #graphicnovels #goodreadsbookchallenge #reader #papergirls #scifi (at Downtown Ottawa)
“Mìwàte” - Dazzle with light 🌃🌊 #miwate #gatineau #chaudierefalls #nationalcapitalregion (at Chaudière Falls)
Inexcusably Late, Long Overdue, Obnoxiously Overlooked
I pledged to myself that I would produce content for this blog fairly regularly. Regularly being, once a month, which in the grand scheme of things is a pretty small commitment, 12 posts a year guaranteed, a post every 30 days or so. However in the last few months my life has been topsy-turvy and tumultuous and I have definitely broke that pledge numerous time. A few new changes have taken place and as a result I have struggled to get time to make content.
1) I began to cohabitate with my partner, we finally moved in together after almost a year and a half of long distance.
2) I have moved to a new condo. It feels like a grown-up home, and homemaking has kept me quite busy.
3) I started a new job in the Federal government, also a very busy position keeping me quite occupied.
4) I got engaged and I have been wedding planning.
All of that aside, I know they are just excuses. Because if you truly love something, you make time for it, you set aside a part of your life for it. But that amid yoga and recently completing 12 weeks of the BBG (Bikini Body Guide) program have kept me on my toes. Also trying to keep on track with my reading challenge and a social life also take up the other chunks of my time. So I am left with barely any time for myself to pursue the things I love.
On the note of love. My partner and I were discussing recently how on date I believe four or five we decided to do the New York Time quiz on Love, mostly as a joke but it also served as a decent ice breaker to get to know a person better. And looking forward, here we are a year and a half later, happily (for the most part) engaged! And I mean I am not attributing our success to that quiz but it is quite intriguing that we did it and here we are. It makes me wonder the validity of these kinds of things. Is it the whole baring your soul to each other thing that is actually working or are the questions set up in such a way that there is no helping the situation. In any case we are a couple that I guess fell in love after taking the New York Times Love experiment quiz.
Speaking of commitments. Why is it so difficult to maintain friendships in adulthood? For one everyone is soooo busy, work does not help. But somehow even if being in school felt like having a full-time job’s hours not to mention the exams, midterms, assignments and homework, we still had time for social calls. Yet, in this day and age with just work for roughly 8 hours a day, it feels like we never have time for one another. Let alone time for ourselves. I text much less being out of school, I feel like I am on my phone much less. I rarely have daily conversations with people, I am lucky if they are weekly. I try to initiate conversations but it always feels so difficult…so contrived. My conversations that are long-term are often with my long distance friends. Those close by I only speak to in order to initiate a face-to-face meeting. Weeks fly by and every weekend just seems so busy, I just miss having free time. And yet that seems like a joke, when are we ever going to have the amount of freedom and free time we had again, unless we are students.
Adulting is hard. Having friends as an adult seems hard. Relationships get in the way, people decide to spend their time in other ways.
My next challenge these next few months is to try and be conscious of the time that is going by me. To try and cultivate friendships and be present, enjoy my time as it passes me by. Until then wish me luck.
Can you paint with all the colours of the wind? #lebretonflats #myottawa #fallwalk #sunsetchasing 🍂🍁🌅 (at LeBreton Flats)
For a quick fix when you don’t have your mother’s rasam accessible @davidstea ! 🍵🥄 #souptea #spicyrasam #remindsmeofhome (at Ottawa, Ontario)
Dom the Chef at it again with Chinese food night! 🍲🍽👨🍳👩🏾🍳#ihelped #sesamechicken #chowmein #charsiupork #homecookedmeal #domthechef @aquilina.dominic (at Downtown Ottawa)
Thanksgiving, the most popular excuse to take a break from your diet since 1879...🐶🍂🍁🦃 #thanksgiving #saultsaintemarie #northernontario #roadtrip #stuffedlikeaturkey (at Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario)
Road tripping for the Thanksgiving weekend...first stop was North Bay 🚘🌅 #sunsetchasing #lakenipissing #sunset #northbay #northernontario (at Lake Nipissing, North Bay ON Canada)