It's the Summer Of....Writing

Yes, one of the biggest perks of being a teacher is having the summer off work.  And if anyone tells you differently then they are lying.  For many educators this isn't as freeing as it sounds, as many teachers work other jobs or teach summer school, and for the majority of my colleagues they have their own children to entertain for those 8-10 weeks.  But for me, I am free- childfree to be exact.  I only have to really worry about keeping myself busy during the day.

From September to the end of June I hone my attention on the approx 150 students I teach per year, and the arduous task of educating them in not only writing, reading and oral speaking skills, but also how to be responsible and caring citizens of the world.  By the end of June I am exhausted mentally and physically.  So when my last work day ends and I'm driving home, I imagine the song playing in the background of the movie of my life would be Alice Cooper's "School's Out".  It is finally time for me to recharge my batteries for next school year.  This past school year was no exception; it was one of the most challenging years I have ever taught; from starting late to a rocky navigation of the linear/semester hybrid template, I found myself worn out by June 26th.  Not to mention the medical issues at home keeping me busy, I had no time or energy to indulge in my passion of writing.  Something had to give and regrettably it was my new manuscript and the push to publish the first one that had to take a back seat to my profession.

The only way I could get back on track was to get away from everything and everyone.  I packed up the vehicle and the dog and off I drove to my sanctuary- my parents cabin in Shuswap Lake.  For three days I only worried about me and what I wanted (and Triggs of course).  I ate, and slept when I wanted to, and swam when I needed to keep cool from the 38 degree weather.  One day all I did was read an entire book.  I'm not sure how many adults get that luxury.  It was blissful.  Then on my third day before my husband and friends were coming up to join me, I wrote for four hours straight and it was amazing.  I finally felt like myself again.  With enough sleep and my imagination full the words flowed out of me like wine at a family dinner- endless.

Every summer I come up a mantra or a goal for my blessed 8 weeks and this year I think it is going to simply be: Writing.  With no kids to mind of my own, I can get up when I want and drink coffee outside on the deck with my pen and paper or laptop and let the words flow.  And when the words aren't flowing I'll be the best domestic goddess I can be as that seems to simulate the imagination, I'm not sure why, but doing dishes or hanging laundry on the line it the best remedy for writer's block.

Enjoy the summer all!

In Sickness and In Health

Wasn't up until recently I determined I hadn't blogged in a few months.  It certainly wasn't because my life had stopped; well in actually, my 'normal life' did disappear.  The usual routines and rhythms of daily married life were lost in what had become the 'new norm'.

In December of 2014 my husband discovered he had another hernia, and at first things didn't change much in our lives, besides seeing a doctor and waiting for a specialist appointment.  But as the weeks tumbled along so did his pain, and his energy diminished significantly.  Unable to sit still and always full of zeal, Scott took on the world everyday, though now, with the hernia he'd barely get through a day of work, only to arrive home too exhausted to do much more than sit on the couch, before he'd fall asleep not long after the sun sets.  By Saturday, when normally we'd be planning a day running around town or hiking in nearby trails, my other half needed to recharge.

As the months carried on with no sign of a surgery date, we had to take it day by day in terms of what to expect.  Before, our social calendar was jam packed, and now there were many times we'd have to cancel last minute, which was frustrating for everyone.  Thankfully we have some awesome friends who are understanding.  By mid March all my time and energy had been focused around Scott and his hernia.  I made sure to get the house work done before he could offer to help, as I knew he was exhausted and in dire pain. Between the two of us we were contacting the specialist and Work Safe BC on semi -daily basis, about when the surgery would be and to see if he would be covered.

These past five months have tested us mentally and emotionally, not to mention, for Scott physically.  When we got married almost three years ago I vowed to stand by him 'in sickness and in health'.  My exact words were I promise to stand by your side and hold your hand , even when it is easier to let go of your grip.  And though it has been arduous and wearisome I have not loosened my hold.  It was amazing to how this medical issue took over everything we did.  I no longer had time nor desire to do the things I loved to do, like yoga, writing or even plan our trip to Iceland.  It became the sole topic of conversation most nights trying to figure out a game plan to get surgery quicker, as there was no word from the specialist as to when there would be relief.

By Mother's Day we had both hit our breaking point.  I remember being on the verge of tears everyday as I felt so helpless and hopeless about the situation. To see my husband in such extreme pain everyday was taking a toll.  I think that was the toughest part.  It wasn't the extra work or missing out on date nights; it was literally having to watch the one I love the most be in pain everyday and there was nothing I could do.  Luckily we didn't have to wait much longer for a doctor to finally listen to our cries for help.  Since the specialist we were recommended never gave us a date for surgery we had to seek out another.  And with one look at Scott the doctor said that he needed to operate asap.  One week later our prayers were answered as Scott got his hernia fixed.

Now is the easy part- recovery.  With great support from friends and family we are so fortunate to have extra help on the road to recovery.  And before we know it our lives will be go back to normal.  Who knew normal sounded to nice.

Dog Ma

"No I don't have children but I'm a mom to a lovable, senior German Short-haired Pointer." This is my standard response when I'm asked about my motherhood status.  Many women may think I'm being trite when I compare being a Dog Ma to being a mom to a child, however I do know and can appreciate the difference.  Though there are more similarities than one would think.

To raise a well mannered, healthy dog, who is has high separation anxiety and is a high energy, hunting breed takes dedication, love and patience; this is true of any parent.  When we rescued Triggs five years ago, he showed up from Utah at our doorstep and we were unprepared at how to raise this neglected 4-5 year old dog.  Like any new parent we didn't get a manual with him, nor much of his life story- like his exact age, so we learned as we went.  Some how it took us a while to figure out he prefers to be crated when we are out.  After the 2011 riot (not the Vancouver Stanley Cup 2011 riot), I'm referring to the riot Triggs had in the spare bedroom one day while we were at work.  He destroyed the room and that was when we decided the best thing to do was to put him in his crate during the day.  No riots since.  When he was younger we learned he required two runs a day to remain obedient, but now as he is in his senior years he does just fine on one a day.  Most of his time now is spent sleeping on his bed by the fire place or on the couch, or on your lap.  Yes, like a child, he too loves cuddle time and every night he snuggles in with us on the couch before bed time.

And like a kid, he too eats things he isn't suppose to.  There has been nights that I'm awake cleaning up dog vomit or letting him out several times in the night to "use the bathroom" so to speak.  I recall one night I literally didn't get any sleep as he ate a charcoal briquette from the propane fire pit.  Every 20 mins he wanted outside to eat grass to try to force himself to be sick.  Finally by 9:00 am he got rid of the charcoal and we both slept for hours.

Speaking of sleep.  If you think dog parents get to sleep in, you are mistaken.  As our fur baby has aged he tends to get up earlier and earlier to be fed.  He will never be old enough to pour himself a bowl of kibble, like kids eventually learn to eat cereal until mom or dad gets up.

Other things like education and recreation have some relevance in a dog's life.  We, too, stress about how our little ones does in school.  Training was a big part of our lives in the first few years we had him.  And I remember worrying about how he was going to perform in obedience class.  He isn't a straight 'A' kind of dog, but he did well enough.  Now as a dog- mom I'll never have to worry about hockey or soccer practices but Triggs does love a rousing game of fetch, hide and seek, and tracking small prey in our backyard.  He also loves to swim and this year he got a chance to kayak with Scott.  Hunting, fishing, and camping as also his favourite hobbies.

And like some 25 year- olds, who live at home in their parent's basements, Triggs will never get a job or move out.  So we are stuck with him until he passes on.  This I'm totally fine with.  There are many cool things about living with a dog, such as he always loves me.  He is always happy to see me when I get home.  He loves to snuggle when I'm sad, and he makes me laugh all the time with the weird things he does.   I'm sure most parents would say the same thing about how awesome their kids are.

So for Trigg's milestone 9-10 birthday we had a little dog party for him.  Three of his dog friends and their parents came over.  The dogs played together, while we adults had a few drinks.  From what I can remember from going to various 1 year old parties it was kind of the same thing, expect no smash cake.  :)

Triggs' present for his birthday, a big bone.

In all honesty I know that being a real mom is a heck of a lot more work.  But you can't deny the fact that having a dog takes effort too.

Tea Time

Last week my Writing 12 class and I had our first Tea Party Tuesday, where everyone brings in a variety of tea and a cup to sip from and we enjoy the simple act of taking in tea.  Since it was our first Tea Party and a writing class, it was only natural to write poetry around this old aged tradition.  I too wrote a poem, which was inspired by my late Nan.  And she must been present today as when I went to my parents house for lunch and tea my mom told me a story about how Nan would always sing this silly song about inviting a certain family for tea and ending with tickling a person's bottom with celery.  Not sure how it tied into drinking tea, though my Nan had lots of silly songs to make us laugh.  She drank tea almost everyday, and  it was with her that I learned how to drink tea.  So here is my poem to my Nan about our Tea Parties.

For Nan

No, I'm not a Red Rose kind of gal, I'd never claim to be
But just this once
I'll sip with you

No, Orange Pekoe is not my cup of tea, I prefer Green
But as you steep the dried leaves in my mum's blue pottery, stained with this tradition
I'll stop and sip with you

No, 3:00 tea time is not my ritual
Though a spot of milk in the bottom, followed by England's finest, swirling and eddying around
the bone china cup,
with two hard biscuits to dip
Is the correct order you state, handing me a steamy cup and saucer.
And so for this afternoon,
I'll sip this ritual with you

No, I'm not a Red Rose kind of gal, I'd never claim to be
But a year later, after you left us
I'd now sip tea every afternoon 
just with you

Through Mindful Actions...

It's that time of year again when I choose a word to help set an intention for the next 365 days.  2014's word was BREATHE.  In 177 yoga practices this past year I do believe I did a fair amount of breathing.  In class I could be zen; outside of class I really did try to maintain the stillness, but there were times I couldn't keep the stress at bay.  But I did find myself breathing more deeply when I needed to calm down and take a beat.

In search for a word to encompass my life for 2015 I had to deeply reflect on the past year, and this is what I came to realize.  I spent the better part of 2014 running to stand still.  This paradox is the only way I can describe how I spent most of my days. Getting caught up in the stress of balancing a demanding career, a clean house with home cooked meals, being completely present with my husband, working on a new manuscript, and trying to maintain a healthy/thin body I became completely spent.  I actually found myself acting like the white rabbit from Alice In Wonderland- running around saying' Time, time, who's got the time?'  I certainly didn't feel like I had time to breathe and be present in the moment, with the exception in yoga.  I was so starved for down-time I started practicing yoga 6 times a week I hopes to find some peace.  Guess what?  I didn't.  I actually became more stressed because I was losing time at home with my husband.  This wasn't adding up.

I have come to realize I can't keep this pace and be happy or healthy.  It needs to slow down.  So unless I can convince Gordon Ramsay to come cook for us everyday and hire a cleaning lady, I need to find the fine balance.  I need to figure out my priorities and what I value and focus on that.  And that's the easy part, the hard part is maintaining that.

So I thought time or balance might be the new words, but I was unsure what this was going to look like.  Then on Dec 31st I was lucky enough to participate in a yoga class where we set our intentions for the year.  And the more I meditated on my situation I finally came to see the light.

I created my Sankalpa (heart felt intention) for 2015:

Through mindful actions I have balance within my life.  Through mindful actions I have health and strength.  Through mindful actions I have gratitude. 

By saying this over and over I can find the peace I need.

Reflection of 2014

As December 2014 winds down with only a few more days on this years calendar I find myself reflecting back on the past twelve months and marveling on how fast they sped by.  2014 met us with our usual daily life routines, you know the ones that get in the way to really living, but there is always comfort in the routine.  However routine is never exciting to highlight, so here are the moments that made imprints in our hearts or brightly coloured our ordinary daily lives.

Jan/Feb: The most profound event in Jan was the passing of my Nan on Jan 25th.  Her death rocked our family as she was the grounding to our family's foundation.  She was the last of my grandparents to leave the earth and it saddens me to think they are all gone.

On a brighter note though, January was the month I finished my first manuscript: Marbles and Wine.  And many copies were distributed to various honest friends to have a read through and provide feedback.  Most have long since finished and helped me fine tune my masterpiece.

March: After some busy months working hard, both Scott and I needed a rest, so Sechelt  was our first pick.  The ocean air and calming surroundings rejuvenated us completely.  This trip turned out to be our only vacation away for 2014, besides Shuswap.  Hopefully 2015 will bring forth more travel.

April: One of the biggest highlights for me this year was a visit from my friend Erin.  She traveled far from Fort Smith to hang out with me and observe my teaching practice in the hopes of fine tuning some of her own.  I really think that was a cover so we could finally see one another after 9 years apart.  And from the moment she stepped off the plane, to the minute she had to return to the airport three days later, we never stopped talking.  It literally was like old times.  We hung around Fort Langley, relaxed at my place, went for a fine dinner at The WAG.

Her trip ended, and within hours my sister and her family came to visit for Easter.  This was another highlight of 2014.  Having them stay with us was so much fun.  My sister and I chatted well into the wee hours every night.  My nieces brought huge life and laughter in our little home.  And my brother in-law had us in stitches with his funny stories and jokes.  Between the egg hunt and big family dinners it was epic.

May/June: We slowed down again for the rest of Spring, until June.  Then I started summer vacation weeks earlier as job action hit it's peak- full walk -out until mid Sept.  This was the damper on summer travel.

July: Feeling utterly worn out and defeated I packed up Triggs in my car and we had a week to ourselves in Shuswap.  This was a new adventure as I had never really traveled alone with a dog before.  It was great just relaxing in the warm Okanagan sun, reading, writing and doing nothing.  Then within a few weeks I was back up there again to celebrate my nieces fourth birthday with the whole family.  Then the following week Scott and I, with Triggs in tow, had a relaxing four days at the cabin.  We arrived on our anniversary to find the cabin without power, but that didn't kill the romance.  We lit candles and watched the storm roll by.  The rest of the time we enjoyed the warm days and cool nights.  We even kayaked with Triggs.

Aug: After being fully recharged we came back and built a deck.  What a crazy fun project.  Who knew my husband could design and build a deck?  Once completed we had a few dinners at the outdoor dinning table with friends and family.  Scott's sister also came for a quick visit that month and then came back in late Oct for another.

Sept: To distract me from the fact I wasn't going back to work right away I hosted a Reader's Dinner for all the people who read "Marbles and Wine".  Not everyone could make it, but for those that did I have to say it was one of the best nights.  We sat under the stars, ate food inspired by the novel, drank wine and talked about the book.  It was incredible for me to have others take such pleasure in reading it and want to discuss it too.

Scott went hunting in late Sept and came back with a big moose.  It was also the time I finally got to go back to work.

Oct: Back in the full swing of things I was pleased to have a low-key Thanksgiving with our dear friends Jonny and Lisa at their home.  And then later that month Scott and I hosted a rockin' pirate party for Halloween.  It was one party for the record books.

Nov/Dec: Normally we go away in Nov, but this year we didn't have the time.  Scott was busy with work and so was I.  However Scott did take up the guitar and is doing quiet well with it. December was our busiest month.  Lots of parties and events going on.  We even took a trip to Vancouver with the neighbor crew and started a new tradition of "field trips".  This time was to Gourmet Warehouse, Peaceful Restaurant and Stanley Park.  No homework on this "fieldtrip."

Dec 21st started the epic week of family time, as my sister and her brood came for Christmas.  Between dinners, and outings it was a whirl wind of fun!

In between all of this were many trips to the yoga studio, where I learned to breathe.  Here's to another 365 days of awesomeness.

Where do you belong?

Being apart of a group; the feeling of belonging is a very vital and basic human need in order to live healthy, and balanced lives.  Earlier this year my English 11 students and I embarked on a journey to explore the aspect of belonging and how it related to human beings.  What we learned was outstanding.  We discovered that a person needs to belong on some level in order to live a happy life; loneliness can be dangerous and life threatening; social media, thought to bring people together, can actually give one a sense of false friendship, and can lead to loneliness and depression; and finally to find satisfaction in friendships one must have face-to-face time or at the very least phone conversations, in order to achieve a true connection with another person- a confidant.  A digital friendships maybe convenient but they aren't as fulfilling as the real thing.

These lessons were not so shocking to me, as I have struggled with the theme of belonging and friendship for years.  I know that friendships are tricky to maintain in your adult life and require effort on both sides for it to work.  Think about it.  As a kid we have instant friendships through pre-arranged play dates and countless hours at school, where you have a sea of other kids to choose from to become friends with.  Considering you spend most of your day with your classmates you can easily maintain a friendship.  But once we enter the adult world we busy ourselves with careers, and finding a mate, so the time dedicated to seeing friends becomes less.  We end up whittling our pool of friends down to a few close bonds.  Add marriage and children to the mix and the close friends you once saw weekly, and told your secrets to, have become mere Facebook friends in a digital world.  Now if you are lucky your BFF and you have journeyed down the same life path, so you still have common interests and it might be easy to see one another and maintain a close bond.  This type of bond is the key to a friendship and the way to nurture it is by spending time together.  But far too often we take the easy way out and think the easy digital world is just as effective in keeping friendships alive.  Just a few clicks and you are on FB where you can creep into one anothers lives and in a matter of minutes know the status updates of dozens of friends.  But at the end of the day do you feel connected to these people?  Probably not.  As you yourself post only the 'best version' of your life online, so do others, so we don't really know one another.  Could you call these people and have a real conversation about how you are really feeling?  If you stick to just quick posts and status updates as a means to connect you will find yourself feeling the opposite, disconnected and lonely.

I, for one, am not a stranger to feeling disconnected from women who I once considered my close friends.  For years we'd spend a least twice a month getting together and catching up over food and wine.  We'd confess secrets and ask advice, like most close female friends do.  We were like the characters from Sex and The City, but without the high fashion.

Then slowly my group that I belonged to only saw one another every second month to the point where we sort of lost contact.  Our lives became too busy to see each other.  One friend of mine in particular moved away without telling me.  I wouldn't have found out unless I hadn't called her in the summer to arrange a lunch date with her.  Instead I discovered she moved to another city.  At first I was deeply hurt and confused about why she hadn't told me.  We used to be so close.  I knew more about her and she me than numerous of other people did.  When the hurt subsided I realized that over the last two years we had drifted a part.  Between her having her first child and me focusing on a new marriage we didn't make the effort to call one another, and we didn't see each other very often.  Both of us were to blame.  I soon realized that the group I once called "my close few" were all scattered like dried leaves in the wind.  Our lives didn't connect any more because we all led such different lives.  And its no one person's fault.  And though I still consider them friends, as we never had fights to dissolve our relationships, I don't feel as though I belong with them as my confidants.

It's hard to maintain friendships without similar interests and experiences.  I'm not saying you can't; I'm saying it is hard.  My best friend lives in another city and she is a mom, but we still make the effort to call one another.  I know I can talk to her over the phone and still feel the strong connection that we have always had.  I also have a new circle of friends that I feel I belong to, and the reason is simply because we spend time together outside of the digital world.  There is nothing more satisfying than to have a person next to you and see them actually listening to you and caring about what you have to say.  Even a phone call can give texture to a friendship.  I'm lucky to have these women in my life.

Furthermore, digital friendships are hollow and can be very one sided.  There is nothing worse than when you want to connect to another person but they don't make the effort to reciprocate back.  A strong friendship is a two way street, where both people put in the time and effort.  I'm tired of those interactions where I make all the effort to plan a night out or just go for a cup of coffee, and all I get in return are text messages and FB posts on my status updates.  It's not a friendship.

I've learned that it isn't the number of friends on FB you have but the number of actual moments with just a few people that truly matter.  I challenge you to pick up the phone and call a friend you haven't talked to in a long time.  The sound of a friend's voice is priceless.  It's the sound of belonging.