Seriously.

I honestly don't know HOW:
a) things like this happen to me
b) my Psychic didn't see THIS one coming.

I got into another car accident a few days ago.
Fucking hell. I know!
Mother Nature really does not like me.

So this is what happened:

This past Monday, 10:30am.
Weather reports indicated that if possible, to stay home due to the onslaught of snow and ice and winter nastiness.

I was chatting on Facebook with my sister, telling her of my plans for the day and how I was going to BestBuy to look at some speakers for my computer as they were having a sale anyways, and also because I desperately wanted a set for my home office because I NEED to feel the bass against my feet as I design. I don't know how some corporate offices don't allow music; it's like a life blood, at least for me.

She specifically told me NOT to go, or at the very least to be careful.
"Yeah yeah, sure sure" I said to myself as I typed "I promise I will be careful"

OK for the record, I was being VERY careful.
At time of impact, I was doing 25kmh.

So I'm driving along Wellington, going north towards BestBuy. Saw the entrance, put my blinker on and then...something made me look out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head to the left and saw a mini-van, obviously losing control in the snow, swerving right to left to right again and then it hooked sharply to the left and aimed for me.

A car pulled up beside me just as the van jumped the median, slammed into her who slammed into me. It literally happened THAT fast. 123 done.

I spun out and ended up several meters off to the side, but from what I could tell there was no real damage caused. I mean, the front end was NOT smashed in like my Escort. And the engine was still running.

Opening my door, which now creaked like you were bending back metal, when it didn't half an hour prior, I got out and inspected. Yep, there was for sure a nice big dent and lots of scratches but to my (untrained) eye, I assumed maybe $1000 damage, max.
HA.
Yeah I really don't know nothin' :)

I cursed under my breath; what are the odds that after 2.5 months and a new car I would be in another accident. Sheesh.

Turning into the frigid wind, I stepped away and approached the other drivers to ensure everyone was okay. Both their vehicles were so badly damaged you could tell they were both write offs. As I exchanged information with them, I realized that if it weren't for the car between us, I would have ended up in worse shape.

No one was hurt, THANKFULLY, and what was more alarming is that in the van was a 4 week old baby, coming back from her first check-up. I teared up a bit; babies are so so so precious. I all of a sudden took back all the "crap, my 9 week old car!" comments in my mind and silently thanked God that she was unharmed.

Tow trucks came, and I went back to my car and called in the claim. I decided the speakers could wait, lol, so I drove home and decided along the way since I was passing through town to stop off at my mechanic's. Might as well, right?

Jerry took one look and directed me across the street to an auto-body repair shop. I spent damn near 45 minutes in there between initial assessment to calling in my claim for verification to securing a rental...

...I still have the rental: a 2010 hot blue Focus. LOVE it, other than the fact it's auto :(
I miss my lil' 5 speed!!

Anyways, my car suffered close to $4000 damage.
See where I was about 3-grand off? Haha....
New door, rocker panels, quarter panels, head lights, front bumper, paint job...all this for a set of $50 speakers.

Guess I shoulda just stayed home eh?
My sister knows best!

I will have the car back by end of next week ::hopefully::
Until then, I'm not driving ANYWHERE if there is more than an inch of snow.

So I Was a Celeb Today...

Ya. Totally.

Every morning, I wake up to 103.1 FreshFm, a local station outta London who plays the mainstream pop/rock/top 40. Yes I'm one to rock out to Metallica from time to time but I can't say no to Lady Gaga :) Taylor Swift? I could do without...

ANYways.

Yesterday, during the wonderfully entertaining segment entitled The World According to Mindy, she was talking about how Valentine's Day is approaching and about those who are single and that it really IS okay to be single on such an overly-saturated day.

This caused for me to, literally within moments of hearing the rant (I say that with love) in it's entirety, email her and thank her for her opinions.

This was my email, literally in it's entirety, that I wrote to her:

Thank YOU.
Thank you, thank you, THANK you for today's "World According to Mindy" in regards to love and being single.
Your point of view this morning felt like it was written for me, about me.
Even the opener, about attending a wedding after being newly single rang bells of familiarity with me.

I am the proverbial Independent Lady..."lady" possibly stretching it a little, lol. I belch in the presence of friends and I guess that isn't lady-like.
Digressing.
I pay my own bills, I bought my own car, I have my own house (rental with option to buy so it technically counts, lol), and I raise my 2 kids on the low income that single moms are famously tied to: not welfare, just EI :D

I recently went through some difficult times, in order of appearance:
1. a separation; no one likes breaking up with the love of their life…but when they proved to not be exactly faithful, that kind of justifies the departure.
2. a car accident (in front of a Church no less) where my vehicle was totalled; oh did I mention that I had just dumped $300 into it 4 days earlier? :)
3. job loss due to the economy; ok honestly the first week of being laid off was great. I caught up on lots of laziness. Now I'm bored :)

Point is, I'm in a mountain of debt and somehow, SOMEHOW happier in the last couple of weeks than I possibly ever was in the last 2 years of my relationship with my Baby Daddy :)

So what does all this ranting have to do with your blog? Lots.
I've learned in the last 6 months, since the inception of our separation, how I truly needed to step back 2 squares and love who I am and appreciate all the wonderful morsels of my life. I was so wrapped up in being angry and bitter in my relationship that I forgot about me.

Since I've moved out and painted my walls turquoise blue, I've had a great deal of positive energy enter my life. Yes, I'm without a job. But now I have time to invest into my little stationery company. I've rekindled my love for writing. And I'm dipping my toe into the waters of photography and considering going to school for it this year (strike pending of course, lol) and really, I'm so very comfortable being ALONE. This does not mean I am lonely. I am more complete and stable and filled with love than I was 6 months ago. I'm much stronger as well.

So I am looking forward to being single on Valentines Day; I'm going to curl up with my kids, throw myself into my art, and probably have a nap that day. 

P.S.
The first wedding I attended after I left my boyfriend was for my ex-fiance. Somewhere, Alanis Morrissette is singing gently the lyrics to Ironic :)

So how did I get my 5 minutes of fame, you ask?

Whell, there's a little something called Feedback Fridays where she reads in summary format some of the obviously kewl feedback she's received on the past week's topics...I was sitting at my Mac, checking mail, sipping my morning tea today when I heard "and we got an email from Lisa who says that she's so comfortable being alone, and that she's more complete and stable and filled with love now..."

I jumped up and yelled at my almost-13 year old daughter to come and listen. Thankfully, my Mac's radio connection was about a minute behind so by the time she arrived, I was able to load the radio's page and we sat and listened: me grinning from ear to ear because SHIT, I WAS ON THE RADIO and Zoey, sitting there with a look on her 7:45am face that said "Um...wow ok Mom what's the big dealio?"

So yeah.

That's my story about how I was on the air for all of 30 seconds...maybe not the 5 minutes I previously boasted...but did YOU get your name verbalized on-air today? No? Ok then, you go sit back down and let me continue to bust a groove :)

Road Trippin' to Cayuga - The Neat Little Bookshop

So it's no secret to those who know me, either well or casually, that I love road trips. I almost advertise it with my fists pumping in the air once as I proclaim "Woo! Road trips! Let's go!"

I thoroughly enjoy to great depths, random spontaneous road trips that get me lost and take me on adventures.

And I have been going on road trips lately but they have not been random nor spontaneous, as they've had purpose. But they have, by all accounts, been adventurous!

So I bought a car, new to me but almost new and had a 30 day full warranty on it. Well wouldn't you know  that 5 days before said warranty expires my car decides to not start AND shudder when I'm coasting around 2500 rpm, regardless of what gear I am in.

I call up the dealership in which I bought it from, Haldimand's, and brought it in for a look-see. They looked. They see'd. They found nothing in regards to the non-starting but were able to diagnose and correct the shudder (MAF Sensor). Of course! Because what generally happens is your car only acts up when a mechanic is NOT within arms reach. I know how it all works, lol.

But for the hour they did have it, I decided to take a little jaunt into town to see what Cayuga really had to offer other than the fly-by-night appearance of Kevin Bacon a few years back for some 5 minute appearance in an after-school-special type movie that I think went straight to DVD; if I remember correctly. I guess that whole Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon theory really DOES exist!

I stumbled across the most adorable little bookstore on, I swear, the smallest "main street" in Ontario, with the most adorable little lady who owned and operated it: Lorna Walker.

Walking in you automatically feel like you belong there. Or maybe that's just me and my love for books and literacy and writing and sniffing the inside spines of old books...? OMG did I just type that out loud? Oops.

Either way, it's a cozy little spot to be with only 2 main rows of books along the walls and a few small tables in the centre of the establishment that display all sorts of titles and words and authors.
















Lorna ^^, who had just arrived to open for the day, slides off her coat and slings it over the back of a wooden chair that has seen better days. She offers me a cup of coffee and not one to decline a free drink, I accept.

I do not drink coffee by nature, I'm a tea girl all the way but I am courteous so I took the little China mug in my little hands, and dropped in 2 sugar cubes, added a sploosh of milk and sipped away while I perused the Poetry section. I was starting to think that this was better than Chapters...

Lorna and I bantered along nicely, as if we were old friends. It was really nice being in her company.

She asked if I would like to warm up behind the counter and sit at her small antique-looking desk as it was right near a large furnace vent. I accepted of course, because I get cold very easily and appreciate it when people, friends or strangers in this case, offer to aid in my warmth :)

I spent damn near the whole hour in there looking at all the books, waiting to see which spines popped out at me with colourful covers and attention-grabbing titles. I can usually tell if I will be interested in a book by the title alone. I think most people are. Kudos for a decent intro written on the inside panel of the cover.

She asked where I came from, what I was doing in town, and a whole gamut of other borderline-personal questions driven by obvious curiosity of this new stranger passing through in town. Had it been anyone else I may have been slightly more cautious about divulging certain aspects of my life to someone I didn't know, but it was her tone, her demeanour and her wording that allowed me to relax and end up story-telling her my autobio in the time frame of about 10 minutes :)

I have no doubt that once the weather improves I will return to Cayuga, to this Neat Little Bookshop and visit the space once again, this time being prepared to have coffee: 2 sugars and a sploosh of milk :)

Thank you Lorna, hope to see you soon!
Maybe I'll bring tea and you can try some of my favourite drink!

Playing Catch Up, not Ketchup

Yeah I know. I haven't been around. You called, and I didn't pick up. You came over and I wasn't around. We made plans and I bailed. I'm sorry.
This is why.

As per usual, my life does not go without some kind of activity.
I totalled my car two weeks before Christmas (black ice/mother nature/bad luck)...in front of a Church no less.

Then it was Christmas. And I was surprisingly poor. But watching people skate around VicPark made me smile :)

Then I had to buy a new car. This is a pic off the net, not my actual car although it's quite similar. As a result of this, I was poorer once again. But it's another 5-speed so I'm happy about that.

Then there was New Years. And I got snowed in my GF's loft for 2 days.

Then my other girlfriend Mel lost her baby (see previous post of her from the summer). Following that, a funeral for little Isabella.

Then I lost my 9-5er due to the economy.

Then I decided I would finish my kitchen.

Then I put down the brush and penned out a list of Things To Do for the first quarter of 2010.
Then I sat down and wrote this blog.
Because our relationship is important too.

H'alot's gone on as you can see. I've had to balance things, and process loss, and move forward with new plans. Losing my job oddly enough was a blessing in disguise because now I can invest all this time and energy into urbanLove. You have NO idea the plans I've planned :D

I'm living life with so much vibrancy and positivity that it's almost scary how great I feel. I lost my job right when I am in a MOUNTAIN of debt (separation + new car = $$$), and somehow I'm friggin' happy! I don't know HOW I know this, but I know I will come out on top and find true success in the coming months.

I've rekindled my passion for writing and am loving this new relationship with photography. I'm drawing and painting and smiling and laughing and raising my kids and paying my bills (I budget like a MOFO so even tho I lost my job, I've saved for a Rainy Day and this is my Rainy Day so I will be okay for a while). Life really is good. Just like GE said :)

Speaking of rekindling...Nick and I have been getting along nicely for quite a while now. We are better friends now than we ever were so it's nice to be able to say "Yeah I'm taking the kids over so we can all have a roast beast for dinner" or "Yeah he's coming over to help me with priming my kitchen." A great deal of people cannot say that they get along with their former partners. I'm glad I can with him. But I am also close with Jake too so it's obvious the ex's that matter, are still my friends ;)

Hmm what else...well, that seems to be it! I promise I will try and keep in touch more often but in all reality, until the kitchen is complete and my office is set up and organized, and certain urbanLovely things are launched you may not see me for a little while. I know, sad. I'll miss you too! But I'll be back, promise!