Days that don't suck are a good thing.
Late last night I got an email from the little one's teacher asking if I could step in for a field trip in the morning. I knew Little L would be thrilled and so I agreed and then surprised her this morning when I told her I would be going on the trip with her class today. Of course, then I looked outside and saw the foot and a half of snow that we had to navigate through to actually get to school. I realized that the last time I was on a yellow school bus in a snow storm was sometime in late 1989 when my bus got stranded and stuck in traffic for 5 hours on our way home from school. This was going to be interesting.
And yet, despite the odds against us, the snowpocalypse, 50+ six year olds Grade One students going to see the ballet, and no time for me to get a coffee, it went remarkably well. My kid has the best teacher (I am not kidding, she is amazing and I am seriously worried that my kids are going to peak with their best teacher in Grade 1), and she had her class of 20 kids running like a well-oiled and extremely colourful snow-geared-up machine.
The ballet itself was so much fun. It was a production/adaptation of The Night Before Christmas put on by the students of Vimy Ridge Academy and I was incredibly impressed by the caliber of dance and performance that these kids have.
I watched Little L from my seat at the end of our aisle. She was the one kid who sat on the very edge of her seat, who clapped the loudest, and who noticed little details like the different costumes and different music used by the contemporary dancers versus the ballet dancers. I saw in her eyes that her love of dance is thoroughly entrenched and my life as a dance mom is all but inevitable.
After everyone had been safely bussed back to school and to a much needed "collation" (that's French for snack), I made a snap decision to go to the mall and check out Black Friday at a few of my favourite stores. It was a gamble to be sure; would I even make it there with the streets covered in snow? Would I find parking? How bad were the lines and how good were the sales?
In the end it was all worth it. I found a decent parking spot, the mall was surprisingly not as busy as I expected, and after circling Anthropologie a few times, I asked a sales person to find my lobster, the one item that I have been coveting in the catalogue for the past few months. She found it. I bought it - at 25% off too - and my day was officially made!
I am not sure what to call her yet (I am leaning towards Frida), but I do think I may be developing a little bit of a throw pillow problem...
Today was one of those days. One that defies (bad) expectations. One in which it feels like time is on your side, that there is plenty of it, and that all will be good in the world.
At least for today.
n~
folding to the panic and chaos
Last night, everything kind of hit me all at once. Some things I can talk and write about, others I can not.
I am trying to take care of everyone and everything and starting to feel very overwhelmed.
There is just too much going on and not enough of me to go around...
My reserves are severely tapped. I feel as if I am driving an old beat up car and just filling it up $5.00 at a time and never running on a full tank.
This is not a good way to live.
I spend my days daydreaming of sleeping for a whole day (or a whole weekend). Of taking off to a far away island somewhere to stand in the sun, like some kind of mom-version of Olivia Pope. Of not having to worry about anyone or anything for just a few hours.
It just doesn't seem to be the year for that.
We are in the height of flu season, I have had a head cold for over a week that I just can't shake, and I am perpetually paranoid about passing any kind of respiratory illness to my son. I know I am going to have a giant panic attack the day he gets his next fever and while I rationally know that this is ridiculous and that he will be fine, it's not something I can get away from yet.
Yesterday, he had a follow up appointment with the audiologist. It's an almost 2 hour appointment and halfway into the second hour, my phone rang. It was the kid's school. They were sending my daughter to the office and asking me to come pick her up because she had a fever and a tummy ache.
I froze. I didn't know what to do. I was on the other side of town, finding out that my son's hearing is not improving and may, for some reason, be getting worse, and my daughter was at school with a fever and a tummy ache and historically, these symptoms usually precede some kind of expelling of bodily fluids. I am fully aware that I have had far worse days than yesterday, and some quite recently, but it was just all too much. We cut the audiology appointment short and promised to follow up on another day for the debriefing part. We made it to the school within 25 minutes and I found her with a warm forehead, red cheeks, and a rumbling tummy, waiting quietly for me in the office. We all went home, changed into our pyjamas, laid out some towels on top of the bed (just in case) and had a nap.
Well, that was my plan at least. The kids "napped" for all of 15 minutes and then went off to play and demand things like snacks and Netflix access and reading of books and a bunch of other things that were not SLEEPING. And damn it, I was just so tired (and a certain someone got over her feverishness very quickly).
After dinner, The Consort and I managed to get the kids to bed early and then I planted myself in front of the TV in the living room and settled in for my version of a soothing, brainless, providing-order-when-I-feel-surrounded-by-chaos, activity: folding laundry. I sat and folded and surrounded myself with neat little piles of my family's perfectly folded wardrobes and felt a calm descend upon me.
And then I decided to watch Benjamin Button and cried all the tears.
{Sigh}
Maybe I should just take up colouring like my friend Elan has.
n~
Sunday
Sundays around here are usually our lazy days.
Except when they are not.
Like today, when The Consort and I go into some kind of weird deep cleaning marital pas de deux. He vacuums and does the toilets and takes care of small repairs or hanging of things that have otherwise just been resting up against the wall; while I wash the floors, change bed sheets, do all the laundry and dust all of the tiny things on the kids shelves in their rooms.
The kids kind of stand back and wonder what the heck has gotten into us, or find a channel that is playing back to back kids movies and try their best to stay out of our way. They have yet to catch this same kind of cleaning bug.
In the midst of it all though, I have to stop obsessing about washing all the water drop stains that my dog leaves on the floors every time she drinks from her bowl and sit back and be thankful for all that we have.
So I stopped. And here you go...
Today I am grateful for the following:
1. A husband that washes toilets - all 5 of them in this house! Seriously... in my books this is a major win and quite possibly one of the reasons I agreed to marry the guy. (And yes, I know, we have way too many bathrooms for a family of 4.)
2. Slow cooker meals that I can start at 10 AM, that fill my house with beautiful aromas, and that convince my mother-in-law that I am a genius in the kitchen!
3. My kids being just tall enough to give me what I think are the best, super-tight-around-the-waist, hugs a mother could ever ask for.
4. Persimmons.
5. My husband holding my hand while we watch Walking Dead, because he knows that even though the show terrifies me, I can't look away!
~~~~~
Grace. It is a simple thing, but still a practice. Take care of and notice the small things too.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I really must get out those damn spots!
n~
bathed in blue light
We are getting new street lamps in our neighbourhood. This is a good thing. We are in an older hood, the old lamp posts were starting to get all rusty and nasty looking and in an effort to be a greener city, the new lamps have LED lights in them and are much more effective at actually lighting up the streets. I saw the workers on our street this morning digging up more holes with an auger, but I didn't think much of it, because 90% of the lamp bases have already been installed on our block. And then I came home and saw what they had done and now I am rather pissed off!
This is the configuration of the three (yes, 3!) VERY BRIGHT new street lamps that will now be surrounding our house. Number 1 is the replacement for the existing lamp post and #2 and #3 are new. Our house and property is literally going to be bathed in a swath of blue-ish, somewhat creepy LED light from about 5:30 PM to 7:30 AM from now until late, late spring.
We've made some calls and left messages and I've sent a few tweets to my city councillor, but I am not sure if it is going to change anything, since the crew poured the cement for the bases while we were having dinner tonight. And I hate to be a complainer, but to be honest, we are paying for these particular lights (our neighbourhood voted to get the upgraded fancy light posts), and since we didn't get any kind of notice from the city about the placement of these two new lights, I feel like an explanation or some consideration of what we would like is in order.
I am probably overreacting. Maybe. I mean, it's just street lamps right?. And who doesn't want to have their street well lit at night. Right. Or... maybe this is a big deal. That sure does seem like a lot of lights for one corner. When does light pollution outweigh the green LED initiative to save money and energy? Because with this amount of lamps going in around our property, I will be able to sit in my backyard in the dead of night and comfortably read a book!
And now I am starting to sound like the crazy neighbour lady getting all bent out of shape over lights. OY!
OK, I'll just have to focus less on the lights and more on the re-landscaping that we are planning for next spring. I am not sure if I have mentioned it, but our yard is going to be EPIC!
I have even more than halfway convinced The Consort that I need a cool shed/writing studio thingy. I was thinking something along these lines...
This little baby house should take my focus away from all that eerie blue light, right?
n~
~~~~~
Day 6 of NaBloPoMo.
One post a day, every day in November.
Please keep reading and sharing and/or commenting. It helps.
An 11th hour List. #nablopomo Day 4.
Nothing like leaving it to the literal 11th hour to get a post written for the day! I has such high hopes for the post I wanted to write today, but it will just have to be tomorrow's. It's a good one, I promise.
Tonight, you get a list.
A list of the things that I did this past week that made my heart smile:
1. I like to shop alone. I am not one for the big girls shopping trip to the mall, to try on all the clothes and such. If you want me to come and be your personal stylist, sure, I'll do that, but if I am shopping for me, I prefer to be a one-woman wolf pack for that. However... the problem with solo shopping is getting a second opinion that is not from a commissioned or quota driven salesperson. So, I like to be that for other solo shoppers like myself. The lady at J. Crew this week was very appreciative of my feedback and I left with my new jeans and a feeling that I helped a fellow lone wolf who rocked that purple t-shirt way better than I ever could!
2. My nephew is two and a half years old and we spent our first one on one day together last week. Being the youngest of all the little cousins, it's not very often that we are not together with the rest of the family, so this was a treat for both of us. We took Willow to the dog park and he was all, "Come on Willow, let's g0" the whole time, even when she was trying to lick his face and/or knock him over with her enthusiastic tail wagging. We then headed out to the play cafe and I saw a whole new side of the kid come alive. I think this had to do again with him being on his own with me, and not in the shadow of his big sister or big cousins. He was free to do what he wanted, explore the place on his terms and be all kinds of busy and happy and silly and also, one of the older toddlers there that morning. We had fun. He was a tuckered out little boy and I was a tuckered out auntie by the time my sister picked him up that afternoon.
3. I attend a weekly yoga class at my friend's neighbourhood studio. We are a small group of women, most of whom know each other or run in similar circles of friends. Last week only three of us were in class and while I won't share any details of what transpired or what was said in that room (it's a safe/sacred place for quite a few of us), the mutual sharing and connection that happened that day was extremely good for my soul. I am grateful for each and every one of these beautiful, vulnerable, perfectly imperfect women, and our weekly sharing of energy and light with each other.
4. I cleared out the storage room. This may not sound like much, but after a while all the "things" that just keep getting piled in there to be dealt with "later" become too much. Seeing it all makes me feel like my own insides are cluttered up with STUFF and I just need to be brutal about going through all of it and either chuck it out, or give it away. Which is what I did for three hours on Saturday and then a trip to Goodwill on Sunday. It felt good to do this. Like REAL good.
5. I bought a new pillow. It makes me super duper happy!
~~~~~
What did you do this week that made your heart smile?
n~
Welcome to my guest house.
Sometimes life is hard.
The news is not good. People are awful to each other. Fear and hate seem to be winning and love and compassion become afterthoughts to feelings being expressed in 140 characters or 1000 word blog posts. There seems to always be a "spin" being put on the information we receive and deciphering this coded language is enough to make even the most hardy of folks weary and tired.
When life is hard, when the world feels like it is going to hell in a hand basket, I tend to curl up in a ball like a southern three-banded armadillo and wait for the "threat" to pass. I shut myself away from everyone and everything until I feel like I can come out and deal with it all again.
But today, I didn't.
Today was an odd day for me.
Today I looked outside of myself and tried to really see others around me and let them see me. Just regular people that I interact with in my day to day life. And yet today, because I opened up my shell a crack to let some of them in, they let me into their lives a bit too. Today was filled with moments with these people. Moments of clarity, of love, of acceptance. Moments when, for just a second, we recognized in each other that same scared little child, that hopeful kid, that barely-holding-it-together adult and said a silent, "I see you. You matter. Right here. Right now." to each other.
In yoga class, my friend Mandy shared this Rumi poem with us:
THE GUEST HOUSE
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
~~~~~
So be hard World.
I can take it.
I will welcome the pain and fear, because beyond that is healing and courage.
Take all you want from my house, so I can make room for new guests, new thoughts, new paths to forge ahead on.
Spin all your news however you think it will matter. I won't let it spin me, or my conscience, or my convictions.
Today I learned that curling up in a ball may protect me for a time, but opening up and letting people in, that is what is going to really change my world.
And maybe,
in some small way,
eventually,
I'll change the the Big Bad World out there too.
Peace,
n~
space
I should really write something.
Like a post about Blissdom Canada and my first speaking gig. Or a post about the bullshit that is going on with Gamergate and the horrendous abuse that women in the gaming world continue to be subjected to. Or how my much younger and newly single cousin just showed me what Tinder is and OH MY GOD!! I am so thankful that I am not in the dating world right now. Or how I have the best friends ever, because upon learning of my first trip to Victoria, my friend Sarah sent me TEN texts in a row full of restaurant and shopping recommendations. Apparently, we will be eating non-stop for three days!
Instead of writing though, lately, I have been organizing. Tidying. De-cluttering. De-STUFF-ING. I came home from Blissdom and cleared out 50% of my wardrobe (and posted most of it HERE). Today I tackled the linen closet and shoes. The kids toys are an ongoing project and get done once every three months. There is just too much stuff. And we don't need it. All of this unused or just-in-case stuff just sits in closets and boxes and drawers and the case never arises? It has to go.
~~~~~
Did I mention that I started meditating regularly? I think I did. And I think this new practice of mine may be part of why I am feeling this need to clear space. Literally. And while I am clearing all of these spaces, I am noticing that I am starting to feel lighter. The mind is a wonderful thing and when we use it to actually become mindful of our everyday thoughts and behaviours, the perspective this can provide is... well, for lack of a better word, kind of mind-boggling.
What I have learned is that when I stopped telling myself the same, tired old story over and over about myself, that is when I start to see the kind of changes I want in my life. When I stopped saying "I am just an impulsive person", I stopped making impulsive choices. Be they about food, shopping, work-out trends, over-volunteering, etc... When I stopped thinking that people only wanted to talk to me/be my friend because I am a "fixer", I stopped feeling the need to fix everyone and was more able to just be with people and accept them as they accept me.
The kids are even starting to get in on this mindfulness business as well. They have asked if they can meditate with me (I've found a few nice bedtime guided meditation videos on Youtube) and we regularly practice mindful eating at the dinner table. This is as simple as just taking a bite of food, putting down your utensil, closing your eyes and chewing and really tasting your meal. Bite by bite until your body tells you it is full. And really, isn't this how we should eat and enjoy all of our meals?
~~~~~
I was reading about the meaning of Mercury being in retrograde this morning and came across this explanation:
Mercury retrograde gives us time to catch up with ourselves, and reflect. Something from the past returns in a different form. People, ideas or buried insights that are keys to moving forward, float to the surface. Often it's felt as a slowed down, contemplative time, and depending on the sign, a chance to go over old ground again, to claim what you missed the first time.
Mercury has been in retrograde since October 4th and that seems to coincide with all of what I have been feeling and contemplating since I returned from my trip to Ontario. I've slowed down. I've needed this time to catch up with myself. I've cleared my spaces and perhaps after this weekend (Mercury moves out of retrograde on the 25th), I'll be ready to get all of those words and ideas floating to the surface once again.
I know this is a weird post and I swear, I had no idea where it was going when I sat down and typed that first sentence. But here is where I am. Breathing, clearing space, making room for all that is to come.
Namaste my friends.
N~
Sharing is nice.
Sometimes I like to share new things that I find with everyone. This is one of those times.
~~
These are quite possibly the most comfortable and flattering (on anyone) dresses I have ever owned. I have this one that I have worn at least 3 times since it arrived in my mailbox a week and a half ago and another one on the way! They have pockets that fit your phone/keys, come in great colours and patterns, and are made in the USA in small batches by a women-run company. I could go on and on, but really, just check out their website and get yourself one. I promise, you won't be disappointed. I only wish I had gotten this red one in my size before it sold out :(
Poppy King is The Lipstick Queen and in her own words,
"FOR ME, NOTHING IS AS GLAMOROUS OR AS EMPOWERING AS LIPSTICK.
It doesn’t just brighten up my face, it fires up my confidence, making me feel like I can take on the world! My mission is to help you feel the same way! Ever since I fell in love with the transformational power of a simple slick of lipstick, I’ve been obsessed with finding the perfect textures and shades to express every facet of a woman’s personality. There’s a lipstick for every mood, every occasion and every outfit and I am devoted to helping you find them.
So stick with me and my lipstick will stick with you!
Like Poppy, lately I too have been on the hunt for the perfect red lipstick shade that will work for me. I tried MAC, I tried Bobby Brown and then I went to my favourite local store, LUX Beauty Boutique, and was introduced to Lipstick Queen. And just like that, I have suddenly become a lipstick girl. Which my kids think is hilarious and have started insisting that I kiss them on the cheek to leave my lip marks on them.
I opted to get the Discovery Kit with three shades in it (Retail price $54.00 CDN) and I love all of them. The lipsticks are more of a mix between a gloss and a full coverage lipstick and don't feel overwhelming for a lipstick newbie like me. The Medieval shade is their universal red and I bought the red liner too, so I can intensify it for more of an evening look when I want to. I think the new red lips kind of go with all the fall leaves changing colours around here too.
Consignment Store Shopping
In the past week, I have shopped at two different consignment stores. While this is not really a big deal, it was a new thing for me. I usually like my new clothes or shoes fresh of the shelves with the perfect fold creases still on them or that distinctive "new" smell to them. I was getting frustrated by not being able to find a nice fall jacket anywhere, I remembered a friend telling me about the consignment store where she got her jacket last year and decided to check it out. While I didn't find a jacket that day, I did find a great Guinevere by Free People sweater for $34.00. Two days later at another store I scored a practically brand new pair of MizMooz booties and a turquoise Matt&Nat purse, and spent under $75.00 for both. Lesson learned; one woman's "not quite me anymore" is another's "these are PERFECT and half the price"!
My 10 minute morning meditation video.
I have been doing this thing where I choose one new habit to work on every week. Last week it was waking up 1/2 hour earlier than usual and doing some mediation and/or a quick workout before the rest of my family wakes up. I am happy to report that 4/5 days I did in fact get up and do this and already this week getting up earlier doesn't feel like a struggle. I found this quick guided meditation video on Youtube (it was literally the first one on the search list) and I liked it and it has now become my new way to welcome the day and get going.
~~
XO,