Happy Father's Day, Dad!!

                

Dear Dad:

Happy Father's Day! I may not always "show" that I love you as much as Emma always has with tons of cuddles and kisses, but hopefully you still know how much I love you since I did get that part of my personality from you. ;)

Thank-you for always taking me to the park to play catch with me and then raving to mum when we got home about how well I did.

Thank-you for always showing up (and usually actively watching) my games.

Thank-you for how hard and long you work to provide for our family.

Thank-you for all the work you did to organize the fundraiser at Roo's.

Thank-you for wrestling with Emma and I all the time.

Thank-you for all the random and fun video projects you created with me.

Thank-you for encouraging my creativity and "inventer" dreams by building huge creations with me using lego and mechano.

Thank-you for keeping up your end of our deal even though my room is currently messy again...

speaking of which, I've got to go clean it now.

Love,

Sarah

Happy 5 Year Bloggerversary To Me!!

Hello, everyone!

I can't believe it's been this long, but it really has.

On this day, June 15th, five years ago... I started this blog.

FIVE. YEARS.

Wordless Wednesday: Mary Ann's bday party (and band reunion)!

Musing Monday: Happy Birthday, Mary Ann!!

Today is a special day. On this day, 50 years ago, a pretty awesome woman was born.

Happy birthday, Mary Ann!!

Thank-you so much for welcoming me into your family; trusting me to love and care for and be loved and cared for by Peter, even though certain aspects of me are less than ideal.

Thank-you for the way you raised Peter; teaching him by example what a good relationship looks like, building his self-confidence, encouraging him to make good choices but still giving him lots of freedom...

Thank-you for teaching me to find my voice (okay, okay, I'm still working on it).

Thank-you for encouraging me to pursue my photography.

Thank-you for having me over every Sunday to watch Game of Thrones.

Thank-you for being patient with me through all my anxieties, awkwardness, and self-doubting.

Thank-you for not judging me.

Thank-you for all the bad-ass things you've done for me, directly or indirectly - getting me side stage for City and Colour and Mother Mother, helping my story get noticed for it to end up on CTV, fundraising for my surgery through your own freaking birthday party, basically co-managing my campaign, helping me find jobs here and there...

Thank-you for being strong enough for both of us when Peter was in the hospital. Enough said.

I hope to know you for a long time - I've still got a lot to learn from you.

Love,

Sarah

Throw-Back Thursday: Cool Kids Rollerblade... Even Inside the House (and how I got my black eye)

Sooo... this picture is extremely embarrassing.

But way too awesome to not share.

I believe it was my 6th birthday, and all I wanted was rollerblades. Imagine my excitement when that's exactly what I received!! And of course, complete with the knee pads, wrist guards, helmet, water bottle, backpack... yeah, I'd say that I was pretty well protected.

I might have been a bit too excited, though. I hardly ever took those things off. And when my parents finally told me that I couldn't rollerblade indoors, I still wore some of the pads around the house. I was a dork.

Interestingly enough, I remember that the pads I most often wore were the wrist guards - I remember liking the secure feeling they gave me.

Wordy Wednesday: Extreme Anxiety and Social Awkwardness, Both Online AND Off (Pt. 2)

Might I just start off by saying that my anxiety is sky-high just from writing this post?

Okay... trying to figure out how to even properly start this. I've wanted to write something like this for a while, but especially lately, it's becoming more and more relevant.

As much as I'm totally completely utterly extremely grateful for all the support I've been getting (both emotionally/mentally and financially), I've gotten to the breaking point where I'm so overwhelmed with it all that all I can do is curl up in a ball and either stare at the wall, stare at the TV but not know what show I'm watching, or attempt to sleep (sometimes I sleep WAY too much, and sometimes I can't sleep at all). I think this is from a mix of my normal physical (and emotional/mental) exhaustion of living with EDS+ and the additional pressures of replying to many many messages/comments/emails either wishing me well or asking me for advice and help.

And I feel like an utterly horrible person for often doing anything possible to not have to respond (at least for a good while).

These people have either taken time to send me beautiful messages of encouragement and/or message me because they think highly enough of me to seek advice and help with their own fight with EDS+. The very LEAST I can do is reach out and thank and/or help them.

And honestly, I usually do. And I LOVE doing it. But there's many times when it takes me FOREVER to do, if I do so at all.

What kind of terrible person AM I?!?!?!?

Tremendous Tuesday: Zach Sobiech

I don't even know what to say, other than PLEASE watch this. I've always tried to live as if I was dying (which is helpful since although I'm not terminally ill, my quality of life kind of is in a way), but this kid does that to the MAX.

I've never personally lost anyone this young to cancer, but I did lose my Auntie Sandy to cancer (not a biological aunt, but she was best friends with my mum from highschool until her young death a few years back). And of course, too many "friends of friends," and such.

Whether you've lost anybody at all or not, this is SO inspiring.

Tremendously inspiring.

I dare you to not cry (on the outside OR inside).

-Sarah

Musing Monday: What Do You Think About ____? Actually wait, please don't tell me. (Pt. 1)

Hearing the opinions of other people is a good thing, right?

I always say that I handle other people's opinions well. 

I've duped myself. Not sure if I fooled anyone else, though.

I can't take criticism. I just can't.

I mean, if you consider nodding and smiling and promising to change and do better and conform to what the other person is saying, then sure, I take criticism amazingly!

But really, if I even get a hint of somebody not agreeing with me, I go into panic mode and automatically assume that it means they hate me as a person and that I did something wrong and then I start a whole self-loathing episode and my brain reminds me of every single stupid thing I've ever done in my entire life.

It's bad. It's really bad. I know. But hard as I try, I've just always been like this. I have my suspicions as to why, but nothing confirmed.

So I just keep living like this. And it's always been this way. But why?

No amount of reassurance will help me. I appreciate it, but it doesn't work.

This isn't the best feature to have as a blogger/performer/artist...

I've been working on this post for a while, but it keeps tangenting into my other social quirks and anxiety-riddled life, and I intended this post to just be about not taking criticism well, sooo... I guess I'll just end it here.

Expect another more general post about my extreme awkwardness in the near future (I'll elaborate on this topic more, too).

I'm going to call this Part 1. Maybe make a mini-series of posts to try to explain my anxiety and accompanying issues. Hmmm.

-Sarah

Sing-Song Sunday: My High-School Rendition of "I'm Not Afraid of Anything"

First off: yes, I'm kinda cheating (posting this on Tuesday but setting it to appear to have been posted on Sunday). But in my defence, I already had it partially composed and was too tired to finish it and post it, sooo... my blog, my rules. ;)

Now, back to the post.

Okay, I'm about to go to Granville Island for the day with my Grandma Edna and little cousin Scotty, so I won't have time to do too much for today's post. But, a song that I preformed in high school keeps popping into my head, especially lately... it's called, I'm Not Afraid of Anything. But, in the song, you learn that the girl singing it really isn't as "scare-proof" as she would like to think.

I think it's rather self-explanatory as to why this is basically my anthem.

Give it a listen if you'd like! It's old, pitchy, shaky, amateur... and full of raw emotion. 

-Sarah