A perfect storm?

Sometimes it takes a perfect storm, a molten lava volcanic eruption, an implosion of unrelated-yet-ever-so-connected details, to make us appreciate how good we have it.

Our starting point, the point we reflect back on, is often one of sheer happiness. A feeling of wholeness, of being complete. As time goes by we become complacent in our happy-ever-after lives, we accept gifts as simply being, we take for granted that all will remain, and over time little annoyances become big obstacles. We start to notice more and more of what isn’t working, and over-look all that is right. It doesn’t take much once we reach this point to set-off a chain reaction. The little stuff gets bigger, the big stuff insurmountable, and we blow.

If we’re lucky, we don’t step over the line, to the point of no-return. If we’re lucky, we can learn something from it. We can re-gain appreciation for the right stuff. The stuff we realize that we don’t want to, nor are we able to even fathom the thought of, living without. We can take a few steps backwards, or perhaps simply start over. We can re-energize ourselves with all that we know is right in our world, and re-focus.

From Drop Box

It happens to the best of us, it happens to the rest of us, it happens … to all of us. Sometimes it’s a new job, school, a place of residence. Sometimes it’s a relationship, a friendship, a romance. Sometimes is simply a state of being. We live, we love, we ___??? What I do know is that if the anticipation of loss accentuates the desire to make it better… If it yields an internal reaction that is strong enough. Intense enough to generate physical reactions. It’s worth looking deep within and taking stock. Just what is lost? Or could be? Just what can be renewed, revived, re-lived? Is it worth losing? Is it time to move on? Or is this simply the rebirth, regeneration, revitalizing inspiration needed to take it to the next level?

As cliché as it may be, we often need that push to move us in the right direction. It opens our ears to listen, it opens our eyes to see what is in front of us, it opens our minds to consider more. And then we must choose. Do we go on? Do we build something bigger and better? Can we weather the storm better next time around if we do?

If I’ve made the right choices leading up to this moment, in most cases the answer will be clear and obvious and right. If I haven’t, I may have another storm to ride out sooner, rather than later.

How do you weather the storms? What do you do to make every experience a part of the journey?

I’m a Mommy Blogger? really?

My children have changed my life. There is never any doubt about this. Of course, it has happened in the most obvious ways – I get woken in the middle of the night, I require childcare arrangements before I can make my child-free activity plans, my home is cluttered with toys and items strewn about where they left them…

But I tend to talk about how they changed my life in more obtuse ways. I used to be very controlling. Now some might argue I still am, but I know otherwise. 😉 Becoming a mother has meant that eventually I started to let go of that control, little bit by little bit. At first I totally bucked it, and everything that my ex-husband did that was counter to what I wanted to control became a much larger problem. After we split up, I was forced to let go even more. I *could* attempt to control the way things work when they are not at home with me, when they are at their dad’s on weekends and vacations, but to what end? While I have mostly let go. (I’ll admit to lapsing a few times and making a big issue out of something I deemed worthwhile). I’m not saying it was easy, but it has gotten easier.

My children have also helped me to get better at setting all work aside and just being. We will take days and do nothing but spend time together as a family. Of course, being a mom has brought about much work that forces me to not be so care-free, but I value the time spent simply living life, so much more, especially when I do it with the people who I care about most in my life.

They have also given me a much greater appreciation for the ability to care so deeply for another person that you are willing to sacrifice anything for their protection.

Many people define themselves as a parent first, a person/woman/man/other identity second. I have done the same on many occasions. And depending upon the circumstances, I sometimes still do today. When it comes right down to it, being a good mom is the most critical part of being me today. But something being a mother has taught me, is that I need to be ME, first. I can’t be the best mother/spouse/friend/etc. I can be, if I don’t allow myself time to nurture my being.

It is through this need to take care of myself that I re-started a lot of activities that I love. I started running through a need for self-care during a critical time in my (unofficially, still – but that’s another story) former marriage. I went back to school, as a single parent, to improve my chances at a meaningful career. I re-started my hobby with photography when I graduated from University recently. I started writing again because I realized that the exercise of writing once was an integral part of my being. It is because of my children that I had the motivation to be a better me.

So, it is ironic to me, that most people would refer to me as a mommy blogger. While I do occasionally write about my experiences as a mom, or about my children; and while I AM a mother I do not think of myself as a mommy blogger. I blog because writing allows me to ground myself. I write of the many things that I value. I write as an exercise in separating my identity from my outward responsibilities. I think of myself as a blogger, yes; as a mother, without doubt; but as a mommy blogger? I just don’t think it fits.

Do we identify ourselves as mommy nurses, mommy doctors, mommy bus drivers, mommy teachers, mommy police officers, etc.? Generally the mommy descriptor only applies if it is integral to the work we do. Sure I’ve blogged about being a mom. But I also have blogged about running, fundraising for a cause, photography, Nova Scotia, Halifax, poverty… the list goes on. I don’t think anyone would define me as a running blogger (I once blogged only about my efforts at fitness, so at that time it may have applied); or a photography blogger (by any stretch). If I were to define my blogging it would be about life, and perhaps leaning on the edge towards social change.

When I blog I am hoping to connect with people from all walks of life. People who care about life. People who want life to be better for generations to come. This applies to mothers, to be certain. But it also applies to fathers, grandparents, aunts & uncles, friends, caregivers, children, and on and on and on…

Yes, I am a mother. Yes, I am a blogger. Must they be one and the same?

Giving thanks & making connections

I have great intentions to do gratitude posts, that just never seem to stick (the intentions, not the posts). But this is the time of year (especially this weekend, if you live in Canada) to express your thanks.

I’ve written a lot of disgruntled posts lately, and hate that I haven’t written about many positive things for some time. There is always so much to be grateful for. I am a fortunate woman, born and raised in this wealthy, developed and peaceful nation we call Canada. I am always seeking to change things and make it a better place, but that’s mostly because we ARE so fortunate. This IS a place where change happens. It’s the place where universal health care is one of our paramount values. It’s the place where we pride ourselves for peacekeeping (even if there is some debate of what peacekeeping has been looking like of recent developments), it’s a place where most of us are newcomers (or our families once were) and where we take pride in our diversity.

This diverse nation has so much that adds to its vibrancy from the ice fields to the prairie wheat fields, to the gentle Pacific coast and rugged Atlantic shoreline, to the Great Lakes and rolling hills, to the spectacular Rocky Mountains… Our citizens are just as diverse in so many ways from the colours of our traditional dress, and the varied faith customs of our people, to the small rural towns and urban metro centres. But I can’t say it nearly as well as Shane Koyczan did when he spoke the words “We are More” to the entire globe at the Vancouver Olympics.

This post isn’t about Canada though, it’s about being thankful. It is with gracious acceptance that I choose to raise my children here, in Halifax. Where I feel they have great opportunities, and room to grow. I am thankful that we are able to include them in so many experiences, from cycling along the waterfront, to reading page after page after chapter after chapter after book after book, to traveling to spend time with loved ones, or simply relaxing in our own backyard.

I’m thankful that I have such easy access to so many connections across the globe. That with the birth of the internet my children and I can experience things that never seemed like more than a distant dream just a few short years ago. It is through these vast connections that we stay in touch with our family all over the world, with live chats and video conferences. It is through this unfathomable web of interconnected computer systems that I met my spouse, my partner in life, and my closest friend. It is also through these connections that I have learned of and become acquainted with so many great people. Whether they make me laugh, or think, or join me in a crusade. I’m thankful for social networks like Twitter, Facebook and blogging sites, that facilitate so many connections. It is people like my friend Natalie who has shared her experiences as well as her expertise, or Tim with his fascinating insights into municipal politics and local issues, Chris and his guidance to change the world, Dan at Single Dad Laughing, or Eric Ehm and her YummyMummyClub… It is these people (and so many more) who make life more interesting, and feed my desire to give back more of the same.

I am thankful to have made so many of these connections, and hope to make many, many more. Perhaps you’ll be the next one? Perhaps you know of someone I should be connected with too?

Why not post a comment about what makes you thankful?

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Coulda Woulda Shoulda’s

Coulda Woulda Shouldas

After hearing from a long ago acquaintance recently I got to reminiscing about the past, but even more so about what I had once thought I would make of my future someday. I don’t know about you, but my life has turned out nothing like I’d imagined, so far. I had expected I’d go to university, start a career, fall in love, then think about marriage and children sometime after the age of thirty. Here I am 35, already married and soon(I hope)-to-be-(officially)-divorced, two children (who are almost old enough not to require childcare), never did establish a career path – but rather strolled down many and could never make up my mind… Now I hope to embark on a career (finally), but still feel uncertain, undecided, and to be honest a little inconsequential.

I wonder about my old friends, and so I look back through the old yearbooks, read some of the end-of-year notes, and think: huh!? They all had me pegged… for something entirely different with my life… something that I always will wonder if was my intended path and I was somehow lead astray. Now don’t get me wrong, I know it was ME who chose that path, I certainly don’t blame anyone but myself for leading me there.

Blame. Blame is such a strong, negatively associated word. I don’t wish to mislead you too. I am happy I chose the path(s) that I did. Mostly. I wouldn’t trade my children for a million chances at doing it over. But I do wonder if I should try to fulfill some of those long lost dreams. I wonder how many are better left buried in the dust.

I have always believed that everything happens for a reason, or at least that I should make something of everything that happens in my life. And I know without a doubt that “they” are right when they say: what doesn’t kills us, makes us stronger. So even though I haven’t made it to where I’d like to be, I know that all of those other experiences will help me get wherever it is that I am going.

Where does that leave all of the friends left behind? You know the ones that you never imagined out of your life? The ones you can barely remember where they live today… Is it ever worth trying to go back?

Somedays I have this strange vague feeling that there is a whole part of my life that I started to live, and just suddenly dropped, one day. That I have unfinished business of a huge magnitude, but I can’t for the life of me remember how, where or why. I can see why people come to believe in reincarnation, because this very poignant feeling returns to me frequently and with a vibrancy that just cannot be imagined, and yet I am certain that whatever it is, never really occurred in my current lifetime. Or perhaps if not from a yester-life, it is a precursor of something yet to be?

How often do you experience the Coulda-Woulda-Shoulda’s? And what do you do when you do?

Dedicated supporter & My fitness/training plan

I am so fortunate to have tremendous support when it comes to bettering my life, in almost any way. If I want to become more learned, he’s behind me. If I need to follow a crazy strict sleep schedule to combat insomnia, he’s behind me. If I want to make more time for my children, he’s behind me. If I want to spend more time with family or friends, he’s behind me. Lately, his support has been focused on helping me get into a regular daily morning exercise routine. So much that he thought he’d rally the troops, by asking my mom for a favour… for her to push my butt out the door on Thursday while I’m at their place… little did he know, it’s a scheduled rest day. 😉

Tomorrow after work I’m heading to my parents (some other big supporters) where my children have been visiting since Sunday. I haven’t seen my girlies, except for a three hour visit on Sunday afternoon. In three weeks (less two days). I miss them, so I’m taking the first chance I’ve got to get to them. I’ll stay overnight and have a nice relaxing visit with mom & dad, then return to the big city (& home) on Thursday morning.

Part of my planning involved the consideration of my fitness routine. And I’ll admit I wasn’t at all disappointed that it would work out that Thursday is a rest day. Of course, I haven’t fully briefed himself on my plan, as it is a work in progress. Since I am prone to fibromyalgia flare-ups, and often overdo it (what seems reasonable for everyone else, often feels fine in the moment, but is a killer for me in the immediate aftermath) I want to be extra careful. I also have a nagging ankle injury that will never entirely be back to normal.

So, I started off a couple of weeks ago with a plan to run 30 minutes (my limit from my physio/osteopath) every morning before work (and the same time every day that I’m not working – to establish a sustainable routine), I didn’t want to give myself an easy out (but in the back of mind mind I was thinking 1-2 rest days/week would be reasonable). However, I don’t want to allow myself to just skip a workout because I found an excuse not to go.

After a few days, my ankle started hurting – so the plan was altered to include rest days when my body tells me I need them. Then I decided to try substituting some cross training once in a while to help prevent the problem while still maintaining the routine. What seems to be working for my body right now, is no more than 2 days in a row of running. And one rest day/week to rest & repair longer than the 24 hrs. It’s all experimental, so I’ve been working through most of this in my head.

The current “training plan”: run 2 days, ride 1, run 2 days, rest 1, run 2 days, ride 1, run 2 days, rest 1, etc. Most weeks I will workout 6 out of 7 days, occasionally the cycle will allow 2 rest days in a week – which allows for a cut-back week.

I know eventually I will need to change things up a bit to make it interesting, but for now the current challenge is to establish the consistent routine of early morning workouts. Since 30 mins seems to be a reasonable limit for me, I thought rather than attempt to increase the length of time I would gradually increase the intensity, as my fitness level improves. When I’m ready to attempt long runs again, I will have a good solid base of weekly mileage to start with.

I won’t run if it hurts me, but I have a plan now that I am going to stick with.

To get back to himself. I am so thankful that he’s thinking about me and that he’s got my back. Hopefully we’re both on the same page of the training plan again. 🙂

Airing my laundry (I just know this will excite you as much as it does me!)

I’ve posted a number of times about my clothesline woes and accomplishments. Many people likely think I’m insane to be so passionate about such a thing as a clothesline. I probably am a little.

So what’s the deal? We bought our home 2 years ago, we chose it for proximity to the girls’ francophone school (one of two in all of HRM) in hopes that it would make things easier for everyone down the road. Now it means we’re not as close as we’d like to be to a lot of other things… groceries, transit route, libraries, etc. etc. but we were okay with that as we’re an active family who will often walk further and/or use transit rather than take the dreaded C-A-R. Unfortunately, until the girls get a bit older, it means that one of us needs to drive on all days that both of us are working, as the children need to be picked up from their after school program and toted back home.

But, I’m off-topic already.

Our ultimate goal would be to have an eco-friendly home in an eco-friendly environment where we can at least reduce our own family carbon footprint significantly over time. So. We purchase our home in a relatively new neighborhood where most people don’t hang their clothes out to dry. Now, I have grown up with clotheslines. We’ve almost ALWAYS lived somewhere that our primary source of clothes-drying was for the majority of the year (with the exception of the North West Territories) was the outdoor line. After my marriage ended, I moved with the children back to the city I call home. I had no choice but to rent an apartment, and therefore had no clothesline, just a little clothes horse that could not serve the family well for the majority of our needs. I missed my line terribly.

I was so excited to be moving into our own home where we could hang clothes (I refused to even look at properties that might have enforceable covenants against clotheslines – these are thankfully, less and less likely to be enforced these days). However, there was (expectedly) no clothesline already in place when we moved in.

So we began the task of determining how and where to place one. As it turned out there was no feasible spot without installing a post into a pile of rocks. Where we live there is not a home that gets built without significant blasting happening first in order to get through the bedrock and actually lay a foundation. Needless to say it would also take a HUGE amount of fill to be brought in in order for there to be any more than a thin layer of dirt atop the rock. So, we opt to go with the clothesline umbrella. It still requires a hole, but nothing nearly as substantial.

I was very excited to use the line and enthusiastically hung my laundry day after day, but the umbrellas are not built with any kind of durability, especially to withstand the kind of winds we get in our parts. Given that I use the line so frequently, I was not one to take the line down between uses. Needless to say, we had replaced it 4 times before giving up.

The next solution was a temporary fix. We run a line from the front porch to the only tree that was serviceable, knowing it will not be long enough to accommodate even a full load of laundry at times (and was very close to the house, so therefore too sheltered). The plan being to dig a hole (out of rock!) in a better location and erect a post (cemented in) for a more apt solution. This took some time. I plugged away using the smaller line and some supplementary clothes horses.

From Scenic

Ian is a trooper, and loves a challenge, so he started digging and digging, and digging – this needed to be a significant hole to accommodate the underground section needed to support a long enough post to work well. At some point he gets the idea to borrow our neighbor’s sledgehammer in order to break up the rock. The neighbor suggests what he really needs is a jack hammer. Oh joy! A power hammer half the size of Ian! He’s loving this plan. So off he went to the hardware store to rent the jackhammer.

After half a day of pounding, the hole is an acceptable depth (I am careful not to even attempt to act as foreman of such efforts, and therefore took his word for it) the post is erected, leveled, with guy line and all, and cement poured. I then must wait an entire week for it to set! Ian readied the line, installing pulleys, etc. all but for actually installing the wire (so as not to tempt me before the necessary week went by).

Finally I get to put the clothesline to use! I can’t tell you how exciting this is. The line goes out in the open where it gets lots of sun and air circulation (wind!), and is long enough to hold two loads of laundry (easily).

From Scenic

The first use looks hysterical, as the line always stretches at first, and it’s a windy day so I cannot use the separators that help keep the line from sagging too much (resulting in the line getting completely tangled from the clothes whipping around it).

Once it’s had a chance to stretch we get the line adjusted properly and I put it to the true test. Between the new and improved line, and the previously installed short line – I can hang nearly four loads of laundry! This is significant given we live in an area where the rains (and/or fog) may not let up for weeks at a time, except for the occasional day or two of reprieve. With a family of four active individuals, two being girlies who LOVE dressing up, we wash a LOT of laundry.

From Drop Box

Many thanks to my beloved for indulging me. Our pocketbooks (via power bill) and the environment thank you too!