Introducing Betty the Mixmaster

Vintage Sunbean Mixmaster

Well, I found the golden egg of my thrift store creeping career yesterday. Yes you guessed it! A vintage Sunbeam Mixmaster. I love it and although our first date may have been a disaster, I know it is probably my own fault. Seriously, who attempts a recipe one has never attempted before, on a first date? It was chocolate mousse and even though most people will think that it is an easy recipe, I have not much experience with egg white fluffery. However, the verdict is still out as the concoction is chilling in the fridge as I type. Is it suppose to go runny after you add the melted chocolate and have made the sugar egg white mixture fluffy and hard but not too dry? Alas, I do not know. So, tune in and see if I have failed my first outing with my illustrious Sunbeam Mixmaster... Whom I have decided to call Betty.

It only takes One

My lovely friend, Jenn reminded me the other day that I have to let the guy come to me. Unfortunately, I am not good at that. I have never been able to do that. I guess it comes from the old fear that if I don’t let a guy know how I feel he’ll be too scared to tell me how he feels. I have always been told that guys are intimidated by me and all through out high school guys had crushes on me but none of them acted on it because they all thought I was above them. (Now that’s a ridiculous thing to think!) They all thought I would only date college guys. It’s crazy how people get ideas in their heads about other people and even though they have no proof, they believe what they assume. I found this out a few years after school was over and when I told the guy that I didn't have a boyfriend all through out school and he was floored. That's what you get when you don't ask questions, boys!

Again, I have to stop with the old beliefs and rethink how I think. The old me always thought; There are not enough single men in my city. I intimidate men. Men only want me for sex. Men only want to be friends. And the freakiest thing is that the two times a guy did come to me, both ended up being psycho. My first was the abusive one and the second one was some psycho who was actually diagnosed as psychotic. Something I found out after we broke up. But he still stalked me and it took me four months to get rid of him. So I am a little gun shy when it comes to thinking I should let them come to me. (Third times a charm?) I also felt like I never had a choice when it comes to men. I had no choice when my Soldier left. I had no choice when the next one decided he didn’t have time for me when he didn’t even know how much time I would have asked of him. Like I said before, ask questions.

I understand now how my inner dialogue has put me in the same boat as the boys in school that assumed things they shouldn't and now I believe that it will only take one good man to come along that won't be intimidated and will ask questions. So no more thinking there's not enough men. Now I think that it only takes one.

With that said, I will try it Jenn’s way.

Come on Baby, find me!

10 Things about me

I was inspired by my friend Jenn, who was inspired by someone else, who wrote ten things about herself. I thought I would try it myself. I thought it would be fun to do it without editing any part of it… Other than spelling mistakes of course. I’m too anal for that.

1)      I used to say I want to be a writer. Now I say I am a writer. I used to think I wanted a book on the New York Times best sellers list. Now I just want to publish a book.

2)       Up until I was 39 years old, I had never been in love. When I did fall in love, I fell hard. It has taken me just over a year to get over it.

3)      I love chocolate. I would like to have a chocolate fountain running in my home, car and office 24/7 so I can eat chocolate any time I want. When my Mom was diagnosed with cancer I medicated myself by eating pounds upon pounds of M&M’s. I heated them up in a little glass bowl. Oh the lovely crack of the candy coating and delicious burst of melted chocolate. As a result, I gained about 45-50 lbs.

4)      At 36 I lost my Mom, had major surgery (Hysterectomy) lost my job and the man I dated for almost ten years, who would never make me his “girlfriend” left me to be with another woman he did make his girlfriend, all within a span of five months. As a result, I had a major break down that was very quiet and internal. I hid it by almost never leaving my home. Hiding it was the dumbest thing I could do so I finally took the advice of a good friend and talked to my Dr. about my depression. It took me about a year to get out of it but ever since, I have been very happy.

5)     I own a 1969 BSA which is a very pretty old British motorcycle. 

6)      I have loads and loads of tattoos and I find them very helpful while riding the city bus to and from work. No one will sit beside me unless the seat beside me is the only empty one. I love it. Having the seat to myself means I don’t have to be forced to listen to their cell phone conversations, feel their grime and know they must stink even though I can’t smell them or have some useless conversation about the weather. But I also hate them for the same reason. When I am in the grocery store in the winter and they are all covered up I get treated with respect. In the summer, the same people that treated me with respect in the winter treat me with distain while they are showing in the summer. Never did quit get that one. Oh well, prejudice is everywhere.

7)      I don’t have a sense of smell. Never have, probably never will. My sense of touch is heightened. When someone touches my face gently in a loving manner, I can feel their fingerprints. I can taste but not as much as some people can. I taste sweet, sour, salty and savory. I can’t tell you if there is garlic, rosemary or any other flavoring in a recipe.

8)      I love my Cat. Her name is Beans. She saved my life. A year after my Mom died my Mamma Cat died. I was lost without her and decided to get another cat straight away. I found Beans on Used Victoria and fell in love with her the second I met her. She was five when I got her. I still have a relationship with the people I adopted her from. They are great people and I am grateful to them every day of my life.  

9)      I love my Dad. We weren’t always very close. It wasn’t until after my Mom died that he and I got close. Now he is the most important person in my life.

10)  I am a Witch. I am a good Witch but I am not a very good Witch. Meaning, I am a White Witch but I am lax in my Witchiness. This bothers me and yet I do little about it. I think perhaps now that I have admitted that to myself and to you, I should do something about it.

So, that’s ten things about me. Unedited.

My Epiphany

All my life, even as a child, I dreamed of love. I hoped for a love that would inspire sonnets and song. I wished for a love that would last throughout the ages. I prayed for a love that would defy all the rules and last from this life to the next and the next…

I have watched my friends live their lives with their partners and I have almost always been the third wheel. For a person that has thought of nothing but love all her life, you can imagine how painful, frustrating and deflating that can be.

I watched all three of my close high school friends get married and each time, I felt left behind. I wondered when it would be my turn and in my sadness, I was unable to truly be happy for my friends. I wondered why it wasn’t me.

Later on in life it kept on happening that way. I would think a single guy was cute but he would get snatched up by someone else and again I wondered why not me. When another friend from work announced her engagement, I went to the bathroom and cried. Why wasn’t it me? Why was I always being left behind?

I also began to make excuses. There were more women than men in my city. If I saw a man I thought was cute, I would immediately say to myself that he wouldn’t like me because I’m not thin. It even got so bad that when walking down the street I would seek any kind of attention from a guy. Inwardly, of course, I wouldn’t have flashed him or said anything to him. But I would quietly hope he would look at me. None of them ever did. And then that escalated to situations where another woman would be on the sidewalk and he would look at her and not me and the inner dialogue would start up. Of course he’d look at her, she’s skinny, pretty, blonde, she has nothing wrong with her. Needless to say, it got me down.

It was then that I decided to announce to my friends that I was going to remain single for the rest of my life. I had a vision of me retired and living in a cottage with lots of pets and it seemed pretty lovely. I could be one of those old Witches that lived in nature and had loving pets as companions instead of a human companion.

It was shortly after that I met the love of my life. I call him that because as of today, he still is. But as you may have gathered from my other writings, it did not work out. So I went back to my old self, asking why? Why didn’t he stay? Why wasn’t love enough? Why? Why? Why?

Enough!!! Goddess! Shelley, just STOP!

It took me a long time but after quite a lot of reflection and really asking why in a constructive way, I finally figured out why it was that I hadn’t found and kept a true love, the kind of love I have been looking for all my life.

The answer is, in a nutshell… Gratitude. Rather, the lack thereof.

All these years I felt bad for myself, resentful towards my friends in relationships and the men that always said “I just want to be friends.” It never really occurred to me that I have to love the love I do have. To be grateful for the love my friends and family have for me. I spent some non committed time with a lovely man that thought I was beautiful just the way I was. I fell in love with a man that loved me just the way I was and actually thought of me as tiny. He always told me my body was beautiful and afterwards, when I began to realize what my internal dialogue was, I realized that yes, there are men out there that love curves. I remembered hearing that I was beautiful. I remember being comfortable with these two men and I remembered how great it felt.

It’s funny how we condition ourselves to remember, believe and listen to the negative. It’s absolutely amazing when you realize what your internal dialogue is and that there is evidence on the contrary.

I recall the day clearly when I realized what I was saying. I was on the corner of a busy downtown street and the sun was shining. I was feeling happy until I saw a really cute guy walking towards me. Right away I thought, “Oh! He’s cute. But he wouldn’t like me because I’m not skinny.”

I stopped dead in my tracks as I truly, consciously heard for the first time, what I just said to myself. And instantly another voice was saying, “How the hell do you know what he likes and doesn’t like? Aren’t you always getting cranky when people think they know what you’re thinking and it turns out they are way off?”

Wow, so that’s what an epiphany feels like! Okay, I can deal with this. It isn’t so bad.

So I set to work. I thought back on all those times I felt resentful, asked why not me and actually cried in sadness and frustration when I found out my friend was engaged to be married to a great guy. It was tough to look back and see how self centered it all was. How juvenile and destructive my feelings were.

Today, I am very conscious of my inner dialogue. I am very conscious of the here and now and I find my old thoughts creeping in and a new, stronger and much louder voice state, “No judgment.”

It is true, I have been feeling much more grateful for the love I have long before I realized why it was that a girl that has dreamed all her life about love has never truly kept it.

Being grateful has snow balled into being kinder to myself, learning why and turning that all around. It is true, I have not yet found love, but I know I am closer to it than I ever have been in all my life.

I am happy that my friends have love in their lives. I feel gratitude when I see a couple walking hand in hand and I say, “I want that too and I am so grateful that they have it now.”

Instead of thinking a cute boy wouldn’t like me, I simply put a smile on my face regardless of whether or not he looks to see it. He is cute and seeing a cute boy makes me happy.

So with all that said, I am ready. My walls are down, my prayers are full of love for me as well as love for all and I am happier than I have ever been. The gremlins in my head are now shy instead of bold and when they do say something, they cower when I tell them… No Judgment!

Be grateful now. Be thankful now. Feel good now. And be in the here and now, always.  

Love and Blessings to you all.

Except Me.

Inspiration comes in many forms, a smile from a stranger, a beautiful photograph, nature in all her glory and Love.

Sadly, the loss of love has also inspired me.

I have always wanted to be a writer and it wasn’t until I lost my first love that I knew the full beginning, middle and end to a story. Falling in Love for the first time was both amazing and very painful for me. The relationship lasted a very short time but what hurt the most wasn’t just the loss of that love but the forever dragging out of The End. It took a very long time to finally get the truth and reason as to why it ended and through my pain I have been inspired.


I haven’t written much of the story but I have it tucked away in my head. I thought that it would be too painful to write while I was in the thick of it but I learned that it couldn’t be written until it was completely over for me, until the ghost of him was exorcised from my mind. That happened on July 1, 2011.

Here is an excerpt from Except for Me. (Working title)



July 1, 2011 Canada Day. Day before the New Moon.

There I sat in my Mom’s garden. It looked nothing as it did when she was alive. Nonetheless, it was still beautiful. The sky was blue, the clouds resembled sweet puffs of cotton candy and my Dad had recently cut the lawn. The breeze was soft and the winds fingers tickled the leaves of the fruit trees with the lichen covered limbs.

The cauldron sat in front of me on the grass filled with the papers of my past. His love, his promises and his lies, all waiting for the fires tongue to lick and burn them to ash. I too, waited for them to turn to ash. To turn into things of the past, to finally let go of the ghost of his love, the pain of his lies.

As they burned and smoked I felt cleansed. I felt my Mom’s spirit there in her garden and I felt a neat, clean, perfect piece of my heart open up to make room for you.

As the papers turned to ash I felt him tugging at me still. There was a tiny piece of him that held on like the chubby little fingers of a new born holds onto his mother’s finger. Although his hold was not innocent, I still felt the tug and wondered if I had done the right thing. Then I felt the cool breeze on my face, the whispers of the old ones and I knew that I had. If I wanted to free myself of the hold he had, I had one more task to complete.


Sax Point.


 The hard, sharp rocks cut into me as I sat on the cliffs edge watching the water rush and retreat, rush and retreat. The swooshing, sucking sound it made as it hit the rocks lulled me for a time. I watched the kelp sway to a fro and listened as a fallen tree thudded hollow against the rocks in time with my beating heart. The ring held tight in my hand.

In the birds songs I heard his voice pleading for me not to leave him. As the wind rustled the long grass I heard the earth’s voice urging me on. To let go fully is not an easy thing to do, but I closed my eyes and concentrated on the pleading in his voice. There, just there, yes I can hear it. The pleading was gone and the sounds of his voice began to sound like the cries and whimpers of a spoiled child that was told no.

That is not love. Wanting to be a part of my life in some tiny way but never fully being there is not love. It is a selfish act designed to keep me in a dark place where no one else can find me. He wanted me in that dark place as he stood in the sun, always knowing I was there but never inviting me to stand next to him, face tilted to the warmth.

With eyes fixed on a point between the rocky shore and a stand of kelp, I reached my arm back as far as I could and threw the ring into the ocean. I did not watch it slip down into the depths however, I was too busy tilting my head towards the sun and relishing the warmth on my face.

There is still a tiny piece of my heart that will always and forever belong to him, but now on another day, as I sit next to the ocean near the same place that I found my light, you have filled my heart with perfect love, and for that I am grateful.

Love

Finding true love is the best and worst thing that ever happened to me.

It took me a very long time to find it and once I did I was happier than I have ever been.

Sadly it lasted only a short time. I know he still loves me and I know I still love him. I know that we will love each other forever and always but I can't explain to you why we are no longer together because I don't know myself. Only he knows and he's not talking.

I held out hope that he would come back but after three or four months I decided that waiting for him was possibly a huge mistake. I tried to forget but it was very hard. After a few more months I managed to get back to my normal life and not really forget but I was able to feel again without that little twinge of pain when I couldn't tell him something cool that happened or feel his arms around me when I needed his strength. I even went on a few dates with a guy that pursued me and when he told me he had very little time for a relationship I was okay with it. I knew that this guy was sent to me to show me that there is life after my true love.

Life after my true love... I know it is possible. I know it will happen again and now that I have felt what it is to truly love, I wish for it again. It know that it will happen.

True love is possible.