Category Archives: OCD Moments

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Maybe its a good thing?

I’m cautiously optimistic lately.  For good reasons of course.  May 3rd marked the eighth month of his passing.  I got through the first few days thanks to some very awesome people who could have very well saved my life that day & the one’s that followed.  I got through the first Christmas and recently the first, not to mention milestone birthday.  Most importantly I got through the past eight months and survived.   Death hurts, not matter which way you look at it, who it happens to.  We all deal with it differently, we all feel pain on different levels.  People are like snowflakes, unique and very much one of a kind.  We all feel the same emotions, except  on different levels at different times.  We all also deal with them differently as well.  I find that we all tend to loose sight of that when dealing with something.  How often have you heard/said “If that was me…” OK I’ll give you that, however we also need to keep in mind that we don’t all think alike.

Death by suicide?

That’s a whole different animal right there.

There’s no answer’s, only speculation.  Guilt.  Selfish thoughts such as wasn’t I good enough to live for, or my own personal favorite, why didn’t I try harder to save you?  I know now that I couldn’t (save him),but part of me wishes that I tried just a little harder for a little longer.  I might have had him for a little longer, as selfish as that is.

So many questions and there’s never a proper answer.  Then I got it.  The days leading up to his birthday were some of the darkest I have ever experienced.  Simply put, I didn’t care.  To say I felt dead inside was putting it mildly.  Why should I feel that way?  I have some of the best people in my life that a girl could ever ask for, a career, my own business, I’m starting a charity and have a whole new perspective on life.  Except for that brief period…

None of it mattered.  Not a single thing.

Can’t really explain it, nor rationalize it other then I got it.  Jason’s death made sense to me.  Kinda.  Maybe that was what I needed to feel in order to make sense of it all.  To gain a better understanding of his thoughts and feelings.  I stopped blaming myself a long time ago, the guilt has finally started to ebb away.  Maybe I’ve finally reached the stage of reconstruction/working through and acceptance?  Who knows, only time in and of itself will truly tell.

For a lot of reasons, Jason’s death was a major turning point in my life.  I learned a lot about myself, the capacity of just how strong I could be, needed to be to get through this and have some semblance of normalcy in my life.  The biggest kick in the proverbial ass was looking at my life, the things I have done and what made me UN-happy and took some major personal inventory about the things that I didn’t need or want in my life.  Certain people needed to go, a career change and the burning need to make a difference.  I have however come to the conclusion that I need to work on me first before I can conquer helping others.  Because when your not feeling “normal” then how on earth can one expect to help others with the same pain/issues/emotional turmoil.    A lot of what has occurred goes back to his death, I almost feel like I’m borderline obsessing about it because I have OCD and tend to take just about everything over the top sometimes.

Its been a long ugly road, full of some serious uphill battles, personal reflection and so many questions.  I never lost sight of a bigger picture, except I didn’t really know what to expect of that, because I had a hard time seeing it.  So many things got put on hold because I just didn’t couldn’t see it.  Then things started to happen, things that I didn’t expect to happen.

Him.

(by him I mean Pete for those of you not in the know)

Somehow he managed to restore some of the damaged faith I had in myself and others.  I honestly didn’t think I had the capacity, the want, the need or the know how to give a damn about someone new.  Turns out I was wrong, delightfully so.

However, not everything was is shiny & pretty with cupcakes, kittens and unicorns.

He changed me…

Now that’s not a bad thing, it has however been quite the learning experience.  We’ve talked about it a few times and while I am not going to write about what he said/did because its not my place to do so.  I had one hell of a epiphany the other day at my friends wedding no less (of all places) dear God!  Between the stress of making their wedding cake, the sleep deprivation,  working amongst all that will make any sane person crazy on some level.  Top that off with too many margarita’s, allergy pills, anti-inflammatory meds, just trying to deal and occasionally feeling like the walking wounded, I had a sneaking suspicion that I was about knew I was going to have an epic meltdown and it was going to happen sooner as opposed to later.  I kept my cool when the cake wasn’t working out the way we wanted to, when all that hard work & materials totally went to waste.  I didn’t freak out once, which for me was likely a record.  Chef’s are notorious for being emotionally UN-stable/passionate people when it comes to their food and I am certainly not an exception to that rule.

Then the wedding happened.

Which was great, but I’ll save that post for another day.  This isn’t about the wedding, more so what happened (to me) at it.

A very minor incident occurred which under normal circumstances wouldn’t have bothered me for more then about 30 seconds but to pile that on top of everything else, something inside me snapped.  I tried to rationalize it in my mind, but in my drunken state it was just beyond me to do so.  My panties got in the biggest knot and I felt the need to say something about it.  Not the right time, certainly not the right place either.  I did however know that if I squashed it and left it attempted to leave it for another day, or just a better time I just might have totally exploded.  It was petty, so ridiculously petty.  Not to mention something that wasn’t worth making a fuss over, however I just seemingly couldn’t help myself (of course).  So I said what needed to be said and thought it best to let it go.

However it was far from being that simple.

Of course.

It however turned out to be a good thing in the end.

After all, everything happens for a reason right?

I like to think hope so.

I also like searching for the meaning behind it all and following random timeliness of occurrence in my life to piece it all together.  Especially when something horrific happens.

It helps me on a number of levels.

I occasionally recommend it even.

It does have its downfalls though, sometimes (more often then not) I tend to talk too much about things that aren’t truly relevant per say. At least not to whomever I’m conversing with.  Sometimes I do it because to know me, especially if your personally involved with me is to have a base understanding of where I am and more importantly where I’ve been.  Sadly because some of those occurrences shaped me into the person I am now.  However, I need to keep in mind that sometimes making such statements may in fact hurt other people.  Which I have no knowledge of unless its presented forth to me.  Which it was recently and I’ve been thinking a lot about why I do that.  I tried to explain it to someone to help them make sense of it all, and to help me make some sense of it all as well.

Then something dawned on me…

I’ve settled far too much in this lifetime.

I rather vehemently stated that I refuse to settle anymore except for work.  Because regardless of how qualified I am, I still need to pay my rent and even if that means taking a job that doesn’t pay me as much as I would like, I can at least take care of basic essential needs.  I also found that I settle too much in personal relationships and I have to say that Pete really opened up my eyes in this regard.

It was a rude awakening.

Also shameful, disappointing and several other things but you get the picture.

It made me realize that by saying certain things out loud, makes it seem real, but it also helps me sort it out in my head which is a bit of a discombobulated mess more often then not these days.  It also made me realize that I have settled too much in this lifetime.  My 32nd birthday is looming ahead and I’m at the point in my life where I’m evolving and changing and  so many other things and having realized that I thought to myself WTF, I’ve wasted so much of my life!  Then I thought to myself, NO its not a  waste.

All those moments made me who I am today.

All those moments also make me appreciate what I have now more then ever.

Especially Pete.

Meeting him was a total fluke of epic proportions but it was meant to happen.  All the douche-bags that came before him make me appreciate him that much more.  He’s a good person overall.  I need want more of that in my life.  He’s not perfect, but almost, at least to me.  I couldn’t have asked for anything more and I am grateful for that.  If anything he’s taught me something very valuable that has left and will most likely continue to leave a lasting impression on me.  That’s a big deal, at least to me.  While its somewhat sad in a way that I was so mistreated previous to meeting him that I felt compelled to tell him how awesome he was about every five minutes at the wedding in my drunken stupor, I meant it. Every. Single. Time. Because he is.  He’s changed me in a few ways, not because he himself asked me to change, because I pretty much know that he accepts me for who I am.  Because I wanted to, for me and no one else.  I’m quite thankful for that.

I don’t think either of us realized that my inviting him to be my guest to Clint and Jen’s wedding was a hidden translation for:” Take a ride on the Steph’s-about-to-have-an-epic-meltdown-fail-train” but in spite of it all that night was a total win in the end.

It just goes to show you, that you can dress me up, but you can’t take me out.  That’ll learn him now won’t it 😉

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I have a plan…

I like plans, I like knowing that I and I alone hold some semblance of control over *my* life and no one else.  So after the most epic meltdown that I think I have ever had which Ian bared the burnt of that via  a telephone conversation last night after making the mistake of asking me how my day was lol.  So my boss is being a twat and I have officially reached my breaking point!  I’ve been talking about going back to school for years now to pursue something else but that takes time and money that I don’t necessarily have.  Especially time!  Being in the culinary industry is a total time whore!  No its not impossible to maintain a job and go to school, I’ve done it.  However its so un-predictable it makes time management a tad difficult on occasion.

Enter this beautiful thing that technology permits called e-learning!  Lasalle college offers a year long program in multimedia techniques which is online and the tuition fees aren’t outrageously high either so that’s a plus!  I have little interest in some aspects of the program, but meh why not?  Won’t kill me to learn something new which is somewhat in retrospect to what I was after anyway.  I’m also going to be taking a crash course in web design.  I have background knowledge  in it anyway and seeing as how my code skills could use some work anyway might as well.  Jason and I had discussed that prior to his untimely death and well I figure there’s no better time then the present.  I put it off for several reasons, one of them being he was my personal coding genius.

I already have a copy of the entire macromedia dreamweaver suite (which is included with said class) and associated programs but maybe I’ll actually learn how to actually use it lol.  Because their tutorials well they’re shit…  I also lack the patience to sit there and figure it out on my own.  nothing like have a grossly over-priced piece of paper to add to my current collection that say YAY I know how to use it! 😉  Originally it was more so for my own personal benefit with Jason’s & company’s joint ventures but I figure since he’s gone now and even though James did agree to come on board (thank God!) it would be to my own personal benefit to actually know 100% how everything works so that I need not rely on anyone/anything else…

So in order to achieve this I have to continue to whore myself out to the industry that I really am growing to despise and don’t exactly enjoy anymore regardless of where I work I now have a goal in mind and that if anything gives me the motivation to tolerate this a little bit longer (I hope!) knowing that in the end something bigger and better will be there at the end.  Again I can hope right?  So we’ll see what happens, in any case my website will benefit from it in the end (I think).

So I have a job interview tomorrow evening for a sous Chef position which is more *my* deal, and well its more stable since its in an upscale retirement home as opposed to a restaurant environment so if anything its consistent as opposed to being in an alternative culinary environment where your hours are dictated by the amount of customers you have in a day.   I need more stability in my life when it comes to my finances because well I have a tattoo habit to support.  Also decided that since my knee issue has improved sans surgery I’m going back to the gym.  I miss kick boxing, people may say that its violent blah blah blah but really aside from having and I quote ” good old fashioned angry sex to make me feel better” which is always fun, I need an outlet for the reams of anger I seem to be experiencing lately and well I like it.   Not only that my sex life is well not even in exsistance :p

So maybe I’ll start shopping for hot pink hello kitty boxing gloves ha ha!

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So I was thinking that

maybe I should buy a helmet for all those occasions that I want to bang my head against the wall.  I find myself fighting that urge more and more and I ask myself do these people not realize how foolish some of the things they say really are?  Reminds me of a line from a suicidal tendencies song:” silently screaming as I bang my head against the wall.”  Everyone has those moments where the most ridiculous thing flies out of your mouth without even thinking about it, yet when you converse with someone daily and it seems to be a regular occurrence you almost want to smack them.   Almost makes me wonder what in the hell I was thinking when I met them 2.5 years ago…  Let alone what I seen in them in the first place…  Actually I already know the answer to that question & its almost shamefully shallow…  At the time though, it was totally worth it!  Now not so much I’m thinking these days.  Not enough to totally cut them out of my life per say, more so enough to start keeping my distance.

Need a career change, been contemplating that for years now of course.  Hell I even went to school for something else and like most things took something away from it, lost interest and moved on.  Yet cooking is something that’s stuck with me year after year and in light of my current job and the half ton of BS that it brings almost every single day I’m about ready to snap…  I have no issues taking responsibility for my own actions, I always have and at my age most likely will continue to do so.  However to blatantly tell me that I haven’t done this that or the other thing when you fucking well seen ME DOING IT 2 DAYS PRIOR really, really, really pisses me off!  Among a million other things, like ASSUMING I’m being defiant because your simply not intelligent enough to realize any other conclusion, or even better God forbid admit that YOU are in fact the one who’s wrong…  I’m 31 not 15, defiance is something that left my life a LONG time ago…  This is real life, not high school!

Here’s how I see it: First off you tell me not to do this that and the other thing yet expect me to assume responsibility anyway?  That’s a huge WTF on my list of things I can’t currently stand.  Also don’t sit there and tell me that you want me to use “your” recipes when in fact you don’t A: Have any of your own, you rely on Betty Crocker’s cook book that was published before I was even born.   B: When you actually DO provide them they’re incomplete and missing crucial steps leaving me no option but to improvise. C. Have NO background in culinary what so ever!

Who’s the one who went to culinary school, not cooking school but actual culinary school oh yeah that would be ME not YOU.  Who’s the one who has the background in international foods, nutritional sciences and what not once again that would be ME and not YOU so you can go fuck yourself!  I could sit here and write pages upon pages of things that quite simply piss me off about that current situation but I won’t.  What I am going to do however is start documenting every single damn thing I do while there so the next time I hear you didn’t do this, that or the other thing I can call your ass on it!  I think when it comes to the point that I would rather get a Brazilian wax EVERY day for the rest of my life & attempt to scrape off my tattoos with heavy grit sandpaper then go to work its time for me to move on…

*end rant*

In other news, I painted my bathroom again.  So I can officially say that I have in fact painted every single room in my apartment twice with the exception of my bedroom.  That thankfully only got painted once, there’s too much big stuff in here to be moved around to do that again.   When I moved in it was this tacky shade of baby blue which reminded me too much of the generic shade of blue that is associated all too often with baby boys.  Not only that, it had finding Nemo wall paper cut-outs liquid cemented to the wall!  I mean seriously who does that?  I had to use an old Chef knife to scrape them off the wall and had to plaster over that before I painted.  So anyway my bathroom used to be pale yellow and for the most part I liked it.  Then I started noticing little things that were inadvertently driving me nuts and thought I had some paint left over which I did but it was the wrong hue!  That’s the downfall to making your own custom colors which I do often yet when you run out of paint your essentially screwed.

So I trekked off to home depot because I decided it was high time for a change anyway.  Had to buy special primer because it was oil based paint that I used and since the question has in fact been asked a million times yes you CAN cover over oil based paint with latex under the following circumstances: Either you need to buy a primer that is specifically engineered for both types of paint.  They do exist but they’re not all created equal so read the damn can!  I personally bought zinsser bulls eye 1-2-3 latex primer which had awesome coverage and could be tinted but I didn’t bother since I wanted to paint the ceiling as well which I left white.  Or you need to sand down your walls first with low grit sandpaper to take off the sheen left by oil based paint because its a harder substance and has no flexibility unlike acrylic latex does (in any case I did both, its a small room and I wanted no margin of error).  And anyone who says you can’t put oil over latex is a moron, I’ve done it a hundred times with no problem.

I’m pretty picky about color and I find for the most part that paint is grossly over-priced and since I don’t own this place I really have no interest in spending a ton of money on paint and related supplies.  Behr does have exceptional paint but at almost $40.00 a gallon its more then I’m willing to spend on a rental.  However if you buy lower quality paint, your color options are generally limited and that’s when I go seek out the oops paint section and see what I can manipulate to my needs which generally works out pretty well in my favor (with the exception of one time).  Until I discovered recycled paint!  This stuff is AWESOME!  Its made by boomerang and its exceptionally affordable too ($12.00/gallon)  not to mention better for the environment as well.  It does have its limitations since it doesn’t come in pure white (but close) so you can’t tint it to suit your needs you pretty much pick a color and go with it.  I had my doubts when I bought a gallon to paint my living room but I figured that the cost was so minimal that it was worth trying out.  Thankfully I wasn’t dissapointed since 2 gallons (1 was white from another company) and this paint which was much too dark out of the can itself and I made it lighter myself I was able to paint my living room, and the hallway and still have plenty left over for touch ups and such I was quite pleased.  So I decided since my living room is various shades of “shore” (which out of the can dries to the color of almost milk chocolate) I wanted to stay somewhat neutral and decided to go with “moss” knowing that it would dry darker since the color magnifies itself once on the walls.  I liked foliage too but I had a sneaking suspicion that it would be far too dark and since it is my bathroom I didn’t want it to appear the size of a closet.   So now its a lovely shade of sage-esque green and I quite like it.  Except now I have to go out and buy new decorative touches for my bathroom since my shower curtain is very similar in color it appears to match a little too much for my own personal tastes.   Needs a third coat though since the color underneath it was a little on the bright side and I want to ensure total coverage.  Its not a huge space though so it takes almost no time at all to paint.  So yes Ania, I will finally post pictures!  Seeing as how I *think* I finally have this place looking the way that I would like it to look 🙂

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And I’m done…

With this damn apartment!  Back in the winter, my heating didn’t work very well at all.  Whomever lived here prior broke off the adjustment knob and I can’t get the heat to go up past 1 so when it was really cold outside it was on some occasions below 0 degree’s  in my apartment.  My living room/kitchen area isn’t insulated very well, no storm windows and plastic over said windows? FAIL…  I’ve been asking my landlord for MONTHS to get its fixed and by months I mean almost 6 now.

My hot water tank?  Yeah that’s another treat!  It would overflow, making my bedroom feel like the amazon because of the steam.  Soaked the floor which has ruined God knows how many things now at this point because there was just SO much water on my floor.  So I couldn’t shower for a few days, and when it stopped over-filling then it would take 10 hours to heat back up again.  My friends boyfriend who’s thankfully a plumber, not to mention a really nice guy said its working but pretty much on the way out.  Brought this to her attention, said to give  her two days she’d have it looked at, umhmmm yeah NOPE not fixed STILL!  I mean it works but one of these days its not going to work at all.
Then there’s my shower, the diverter stopped working so my shower was always on. Justin fixed it for me, then there goes my shower head which still spews out water everywhere but mostly not ON you while your in there… Again empty promises about having it fixed… Then she dumps the problem on me of tracking down the repair guys! WTF, NOT MY PROBLEM/RESPONSIBILITY! According to her, she’d send them over to my house because they “were in the area” which she CAN’T do, expected ME to make appointments with them because she lives really far and can’t be bothered and claims that she doesn’t have a key… This has been the repair battle royale for months now! I was fed up already, but today REALLY was the icing on the cake that was already poisoned…

When I moved in here there was noticeable water damage on the ceiling in my hallway which she said she would have repaired (yeah right!) Whatever aside from being slightly un-sightly it wasn’t too much of a bother to me. I had to run out & buy some stuff for dinner tonight, John was on his way over & I said I’d meet him at my place.
I’m coming home, John texts me to tell me that my hallway is leaking which I didn’t pay much attention to at the time because I thought maybe it was just because there was water on the floor from Heddy’s new self watering water bowl. Nope, that fucker was spewing nasty water from upstairs somewhere. Thankfully John threw a towel down on the floor & grabbed something to catch the water while I was gone. However what if I wasn’t home? What if I was in Ontario & John wasn’t there and there was a flood? So after almost wiping out due to the water on my cheap faux hardwood floors I snapped. I was stark raving mad! I have enough on my plate to contend with and then this? So I fired off a bitchy e-mail to my landlord, took pictures of the ceiling and I’m calling the Regie in the morning and filling a complaint. I’ve been nice about this because my heat obviously I don’t need right now and my hot water tank has behaved for the last little while but this tops them all!
I offered on NUMEROUS occasions to have someone *I* know come in and fix it. I know plumbers & general contractors who offered to get my heat fixed and my hot water tank BELOW cost because they know me, and will do it when I’m free. Because all those jackasses she told me to call DON’T work past 3pm unless its an emergency so she expects me to be home when its convient for HER *or* have one of my friends hang out at my house waiting for them to arrive, I think not!

To top it all off, my left arm is inflamed, I have little to no feeling in my pinky finger on my left hand so I think (read hope) that its just my carpal tunnel flaring up which is a simple surgery and I noticed I have a cavity that I can’t afford to address at the moment and can only hope that my new found OCD dental regime will hold it off until July.
I mean really can it get any worse? I’m not playing the woe is me card cos that’s not my style but DAMMIT I HAVE PMS & NO PATIENCE! So I needed to bitch.
There, I feel better now…