Embarrassed by Blessings

There are a few things with this whole "house-building" thing that I am having a hard time wrapping my head around.

I think the biggest and weirdest thing is that I feel embarrassed. Let me try to explain that.

The first year of our marriage, Jason and I lived in my dad's basement. Jason was going to college, and I was working ten-hour days as a courier in Red Deer. We were broker than broke. Every month we got a little farther behind, meaning we had to put a little more on the student line of credit just to survive. I don't know how we would have survived without Dad's help.

After that year, Jason got a job working in the computer department of a company in Calgary. He worked down there for a month before we were able to move into a little 900-square-feet-including-the-two-flights-of-stairs-and-the-teeny-
tiny-veranda condo, during which time he lived with my uncle and aunt--what a blessing they are to us. We made the official move the day before our first anniversary. Our rent was almost $1 per square foot, over-and-above utilities, etc. (We thought prices in Calgary were stupid then! HA! I bet that condo would rent for at least $1500 a month, now!)

One month later, Jason was let go from that job, due to what his ex-boss later admitted was simply a conflict of personalities.

Suddenly, we were in the situation of being saddled with a huge amount of debt (student-loan, plus some credit card debt I had accumulated through poor financial habits while single), and no income to speak of. My part-time job as a day-time supervisor at Roger's Video brought in barely enough money to pay for our groceries every month, let alone rent. As the months passed, and no job offers came in sight, we slid farther into the hole.

In Calgary, as in so many places, it's all who you know. And with the exception of my uncle and aunt, we knew very few people there--especially those that might have connections in the field Jason is trained in.

Well, that's not quite true. We knew a couple that Jason had become friends with during his years as the director's assistant at Sunnyside Camp in Sylvan Lake. As it so happens, they lived in the same neck of the woods as us, and happened to come into the video store one day and "let it slip" that the then-current director was planning on giving up his position soon, and we should maybe "get on that." While we were confident that Jason knew that camp inside out and backwards, he was also only 28 years old at the time--meaning that, if he got the job, he would be the youngest director that camp had ever had in its over-fifty years of existence.

The Lord saw fit to bless us with that job, obviously. THAT was a huge blessing. We got to move into a beautiful home, right on the camp property, that came as a "perk" of the job, meaning no rent, utilities, or upkeep out of our own pocket. The house was only 4 years old, as the previous director had finally replaced the original director's dwelling with a manufactured home while he was there. There was more room on one floor of that house than our entire condo in Calgary had sported!

And I was even a little embarrassed by that. What had we done to deserve this blessing? We didn't squander the opportunity, though. We used those years at the camp to pay off huge, gi-normous chunks of our accumulated debt, as well as to give as generously as we were able to causes and charities we felt led to support. But I felt bad, in some ways, that we seemed to have done so little to "earn" this financial boost, while friends of ours were struggling along on extremely limited incomes, or had huge mortgages to go with their houses.

While at the camp, our family expanded from two to five. So when it came time to move to Peace River, we knew we had to find a house with room for our rambunctious boys, and to house a home office for our various home-based businesses. We had never purchased a home before, and because our focus had been mainly on paying off as much debt as possible to free us up to go overseas (a long story that still has not materialized), we had nothing to speak of in savings. The government has a program that will help first-time home buyers without the requisite 25% down, but the problem was we didn't even have the amount of money they wanted!

Our original plan was to rent, then buy later when we had a better idea of what the town was like. We spent one whirlwind December weekend in Peace River, just Jason and 2-week-old Jabin and I, looking at rental properties here and in nearby Grimshaw. There was really nothing that appealed to us--everything was either too old, too dumpy, or too small (700 sq. feet!) Last-minute, we decided to look at a house for sale. From the asking price, we did not think it would be in our budget, but we thought It never hurts to ask.

The house was huge--it was originally 2000 square feet over two floors, but ten years after the original building was put up, a 1000 sq. ft. addition was put on the back. The basement needed to be almost completely re-done. There were various renovation projects throughout the house that were only half-finished, or extremely poorly done. The last person to paint had been anything but careful. And the movers had come only the day before, leaving muddy footprints all over the carpet.

We took it. In three weeks, we negotiated the sale of the house to something within our budget, took possession on December 21, and moved on the 22nd. Even that would not have been possible without financial help from family, and I am sure some divine pushes in the process.

Funny how you can expand to fill up whatever container you are in. Your habitually-traced steps just find new paths to create. Your junk finds new corners to fill. You actually buy more to fill up the space. (This is a materialistic habit which I abhor, but recognize it in myself, none-the-less.)

Little did we know that the dinosaur would be so hard to feed. Our first full month of utilities bills was January--the coldest month in our year. When I opened the envelope, it felt like I had been kicked in the gut by a horseshoe made of liquid nitrogen. I thought, at first, that it was because prices had simply gone up so much since the last time we had had to pay utilities. But upon comparing the bill to friends with similar properties, I realized that no, we had simply purchased Peace River's most energy-inefficient building.

We quickly realized that we would either have to make more money to live here, learn the fine art of living without eating, or move. Then, a miracle happened. Jason got a job offering 50% more than what he was making. The pressure was off. I began teaching piano a few months later. We could actually afford to do "fun" things again, once in a while.

And then winter came again. Despite not feeling the icy fingers of More Debt scratching out my eyes last year, we both recognized that there may never be a better time to move than now.

My mother's husband Mike, with his keen "spidey sense" for good deals on land, had us go check on the property we are now moving to sometime just before the new year. With his experience as a general contractor, and his willingness to take a summer and do so, he is going to be the major driving force behind our house being built. Because of that, we will be able to build a literal "dream house", for us, at least. No, it's not one of those bazillion-dollar homes that you see in magazines. But for the same or lesser mortgage, in a market where real estate prices have sky-rocketed in the last year, we will be able to get a nicer, much more efficient house on a sizable acreage that we would not have been able to afford for many more years to come without this help.

And I'm embarrassed. I catch myself trying to explain the situation, say too much, when people ask about our land, or the house we are building. Justifying what seems to me, in some ways, to be extravagant. The house is big, but not huge. Ironically, the cost of living there will be much less than here. We are hoping to have more money to invest in causes again--perhaps even save up for a real family vacation. And most definitely get our own cow! No more chlorinated water. (The well was drilled on Tuesday, and the water is fine.) I can grow my own vegetables. There are twenty-two acres of trees for me--uh, I mean "my boys"--to run around in. And with all this, I think I am afraid that people will think we are either living beyond our means, or that our means are a lot more than they really are.

Why do I care so much about what people think? Is it my sense of fairness? It's not fair that we have these blessings, and have been blessed so much, when other people struggle and have to go through years of toil and tribulation to receive the same payback. It's not fair that we can conceive a child almost by merely thinking of it, while other people have to go through expensive and costly medical procedures, or never even be parents at all.

And then it occurs to me. I remember all the times (these and many more) that we have been blessed by other people in our lives. I remember all the times that we have given to help others, even if it meant going without a little ourselves. And I realize that soon it will be our turn to "pay it forward." We have been blessed, so that we can be a blessing. Almost daily, I pray that I and my family would be a blessing to someone today.

The easiest way to be a blessing is to have something to give away. God, through our family and friends, has blessed us in a huge way--not so we can horde and hold on to what we are given. No, in His economy, the more you give your blessings and your talents to others, the more you receive yourself. And He only ever gives you what your abilities can handle.

Funny how that works.

Funny how easy it was for me to forget that. Time for me to stop being embarrassed, and to start pouring these blessings right back out again.

(I'm so glad we had this little talk.)

There's nothing that keeps its youth, so far as I know, but a tree and truth.*

"What's that noise?" Jude asked as the maple overhanging our front walk let out a mournful wail.

"Was it a squeaky noise?" I asked Jude, wanting to make sure we were talking about the same thing.

"Yeah, kind of a squealy, squeaky noise."

I eyed the two branches that were dancing cheek-to-cheek, and replied, "I think it's this tree. Two branches are rubbing against each other."

Jude giggled.

"Yeah! The tree farted!"

*Oliver Wendell Holmes

Pocket Full of Milestones

Today was the first day that Jabin did this:



Besides that, it occurred to me today how very little-boy-like he is becoming, very quickly, too! As nice as it is that he is now able to eat almost completely unassisted at meals (except soup), using a salad fork and teaspoon, and that he is showing all the signs of being an early talker (he already makes "his" versions of more than 30 words!), what happened to my baby? He has most definitely flown the coop, leaving this toothy, cheerful toddler in his place.

Noah, while progressing slowly in the potty-training department, has been making steps at least. Besides that, he is now in pretty much the same size of clothes as Jude, with the exception of slightly shorter pant length. He takes a nap about 5 out of 7 days. This weekend, at the home-schooling conference Jason and I attended, we realized that he is a "participatory" learner, meaning he doesn't understand something if you just tell him about it or show him--he has to actually do it. This would explain why we can sometimes not even get him to do a simple, single-pronged command--his brain is simply not set up to retain the information. Hopefully, now that we are armed with this knowledge, we can work with him a little more effectively on so many fronts. (The boy is brilliant, just different. At twelve months of age he could put together and take apart any wooden puzzle in our house, and would frequently sit doing so for half an hour at a time. That same attention span gets shortened to half a nanosecond when you ask him to, say, put forks on the table.)

After attending the conference this weekend, we have decided to put Jude into Kindergarten at the Catholic School this fall, but more than likely home-school after that. Some friends that were also attending have done that with their girls, and made some very encouraging remarks about the kindergarten program and teachers there, but want to homeschool for many of the same reasons I do. Jason and I just feel that Jude could really benefit from being in a group setting where he has to pay attention to a different authority figure than us, and not be totally distracted by the other kids. Also, Noah will likely benefit from the less-divided attention I will be able to afford him while Jude is at school.

Besides all that, we are building a house this summer! Yes, you heard me. The land has been purchased, and providing we can get a construction loan (so we don't have to camp while we are building!), we will begin building in about three to four weeks. How. excited. am I?!!

However, with the amount of time that this will be taking, among the other factors already mentioned, not homeschooling seemed like the best idea for this fall. (If it's not working, we can always change programs half-way through the school year.)

The last, but definitely not the least milestone I want to include in this post is that yesterday was Jason's and my seventh anniversary. After the craziness of having relatives visiting us last week (which we conscripted to help renovate), and the weekend away, we didn't do anything particularly special. But I have to say how amazingly special it is that I have got to live with the man of my dreams for seven years now. Sometimes I still want to pinch myself when I think about it. How did this guy end up picking me? But he did. And with each passing year, the love keeps growing.

"Blessed" doesn't even begin to describe how I feel.

Just Dandy!

Today was memorable because...


...it was the first time that my oldest son came up to me with a fistful of Alberta's most prolific flowers clutched tightly in his hand, and with a beautific grin on his face, said, "I picked these for you, Mommy!" Noah was right behind, with his own offering of sunshine.

I know dandelions are "weeds"--so is it weird to say I've been kind of looking forward to that?

On Helping

"Suri is like a three-year-old: She thinks she can help with everything, but really, she can't help with anything."
-Jason Winters, said today while Suri was trying to assist in painting our Great Room.

New research on the effects of Fluoride

There was a very interesting post recently over at Sepp Hasslberger's site about new research that has come out on the effects of fluoride. It's not a very long read--I would encourage you to pop over there and at least scan it.

From the article:

Fluoride accumulates in pineal gland: Fluoride, added to the water supply of many cities and counties and sold by WalMart in its nursery water, has a tendency to accumulate not only in developing teeth causing discoloration, and in bones making them brittle. The mineral is associated with cancer and it also accumulates in the pineal gland, an important hormone control center, where it wreaks considerable havoc. Paul Connett of Fluoride Action Network comments on Jennifer Luke's research which was part of her PhD thesis and had just been published in Caries Research under the title: Fluoride Deposition in the Aged Human Pineal Gland.

Fluoride is a poison, yet we add it to our water and toothpaste and even call it a supplement, although it has no nutritional value. Its medicinal value - the prevention of tooth decay - is the official explanation for adding the toxic mineral to the water supply. But that value is far outweighed by its toxic side effects - amply documented by Paul Connett in his Statement of Concern.

Recent European Union legislation on food supplements lists fluoride as an essential element to offer for supplementation. This is somewhat ironic when contrasted with the European legislators' feigned concern over the putative toxicity of vitamins and their efforts to limit dosages of these vital nutrients in order to "protect public health".

Spring Shots

Suri and her bears (Jude and Noah were sharing)

Jude, Future Professional Soccer Player

"Look, Mom, he's littler than me!"

The world's biggest strawberry.

Good Ol' Mulligan Stew

I haven't shared any soups with you for a while, have I? I've been experimenting with a few new ones, lately--some worth sharing, some not. Today, I've decided to post one of the "sharing" ones.

Believe it or not, I had never made Mulligatawny Soup before a few weeks ago, although my memory of Chef Richard's version (at the Black Knight Inn in Red Deer) was mouth-watering.

Although I started with the recipe from the Company's Coming cookbook Soups & Sandwiches, I have altered it significantly to adjust for personal tastes, as well as to disguise onions from picky eaters amongst my children. I took out the flour and decided to blend it to thicken the soup, instead. I am not sure if the "true-blue" version is supposed to be thicker than this or not--but this tastes delicious, anyway.

Bon appétit!

Mulligatawny Soup
Makes about 8 cups.

2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
2 tbsp. raw, organic butter
2 medium onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp. curry paste (I used 1 tbsp. each mild and hot to make medium)
3 medium apples, washed and diced
3 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
3/4 tsp. sea salt
1/8 tsp. fresh-ground pepper
6 cups homemade chicken stock
2 cups cubed cooked chicken
2 cups cooked Basic Brown Rice
1/2 cup heavy cream (preferably raw & organic)

In a large saucepan, melt butter and olive oil together, then add onions and garlic. Sauté until onions are soft and clear, then add curry paste, apples, carrots, sea salt, and pepper. Stir-fry for another minute or two, until apples soften, then add chicken stock. Cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes until carrots are soft. Remove from heat and blend right in pot with a hand-held blender (or allow to cool slightly and run through a blender in batches, then return to pot).

Add cooked chicken, cooked rice, and cream. Heat through on low and serve immediately.

Goes well with sprouted-grain toast and butter or salad.

As a kid, I had the Hoyt Axton song "Fearless the Wonder Dog" memorized, thinking it was one of the funniest things ever. Thanks to the line from the song that made up this post's title, every time I think about this soup the song becomes lodged in my brain, somewhere right behind my left ear, for about 2.5 days. I was unable to find the lyrics on the internet anywhere, so here, to the best of my memory, they are.

Fearless the Wonder Dog
Hoyt Axton

Fearless the Wonder Dog is a very friend of mine.
He can't dance, he can't sing, but he will eat most anything.

Peanuts and popcorn and cracker jacks
and candy apples, too
Cinnamon toast and celery
and good ol' Mulligan stew,
Oh! Fearless the wonder dog is a very friend of mine!

Fearless the Wonder Dog is an elephant or bat
He can be a honey bee, or Honey, he can be a cat!

Lion or black bear or kangaroo,
Unicorn or deer
If you want to see him change
Just step over here.
Oh! Fearless the Wonder Dog is a very friend of mine!

*bows* Thank you, thank you!

Sparkle

This is taken from the journaling card hidden behind the photo on the layout at the bottom of this post. I created this layout earlier in the year.
Mom, I’ve been thinking about the journaling for this page for two months now, off and on. When I saw this photo of you, the title came to me right away. Despite the fact that you were in your grubbies, ringing out a rag because you were helping us clean the house we had just moved into, there is something about your eyes in this photo that inspired the large pink adjective on the front of this page. However, conveying the emotions that I felt as I scrapbooked this photo took a little more fore-thought.

Our history has been anything less than sparkly. While we had as much closeness as I suppose a mother and young daughter could when I was younger, at one point things went horribly, horribly wrong. Through the hurt, and wounds, and scars that followed for years after, there was no light between you and me. I could not see past the dark cloudy veil of my pain to see anything else. You were working through pain of your own. And Jesus was working in both of us.

One day, I got the call that the doctor had found a lump in your breast. You were in tears, and I did not fully comprehend the scope of the situation, having not much knowledge or experience with cancer. Over the years when divorce had left an ugly, gaping wound in my soul that would not heal, I had wished repeatedly that you would have just died, so that I could mourn and move on, instead of having daily to live with what had happened to us. But this phone call woke me up. Did I really want to go to my grave with the bitterness I held in my heart? Could I not meet you on some level, and get to know you there? Did I really want to go through the rest of my life wondering “what if?”

The road from there to here has not been easy. There have been many more painful moments. There have been a lot of things that we have agreed to disagree on. But through the power of forgiveness, to your victory over breast cancer, from the way you finally let me be a woman in your eyes, to the way I can see you, finally, walking the talk, we have grown. We have changed. Ours is not the relationship of a mother and daughter so much as it is of two women who have become—dare I say it?—friends. Finally, the veil is gone, Mom. The dross has been removed through the fires of pain and hurt, forgiveness and love.

And at last, I can truly see how you sparkle.

Photo: Jan 2006
Journaling: March 24, 2007

Pining for Seven

Well, I was tagged by this gal to do a meme. Here goes: Seven things about me that you probably wish you didn't know, so my advice is to stop reading this blog, go find your favourite book, and read a chapter instead.

Don't say I didn't warn ya.

1. Although I have strong dislike for the smell of someone's passed gas, and just about puke when my dog farts, I actually like the smell of my own. Well, "like" might be too strong of a word. But it doesn't bother me. Which is good, because for some reason, I pass a lot of it. (Probably due to that disturbing candida albicans infestation that I am currently trying to purge from my system.) Aren't you glad, all of a sudden, that you are reading this safely from the other side of your computer monitor?

2. I have disfigured little toe-nails on both feet. This is a genetic malformation, passed down to me from my mother. At least one of my children got it from me. (I don't remember if either of the other two did at the moment.)

3. I have hardly ever gone garage-saling in my life, up until now. Tonight was the third time I've been out this year (which is saying a lot, since we've only had a snow-less landscape for about five weeks). Two weeks ago I came home with a van full of stuff, and the only thing I'd paid for was the car booster seat--the rest was given to me for free, since I came around about an hour before everyone was shutting down. Tonight, my husband and kids were with me, and as we left the last stop, my husband says to me, "You're dangerous at garage sales." Maybe that's because I wasn't exposed early enough in my life to build up an immunity to good, cool stuff going cheap. Or maybe "A fool and her money are soon parted." ...No, that can't be it.

4. I have had long hair for most of my life. (No, that's not the weird, random fact about me. Stay with me for a minute. Um, I mean, go back to your book.) The thing about long hair is, as you go through your day, shedding the 150 hairs that is the average, they don't sidle off into a corner to be picked up later from under the desk by the vacuum cleaner. No, that would be too polite. They stick to your coat, or someone's sock, or your child's head, or fall into the soup. Of course, everyone holds you personally responsible for where these stray hairs end up. Never mind that just one of your hairs draws as much attention as would be attracted if about eight or ten of theirs banded together, painted signs, and started protesting in front of the bathroom for Stray Rights.

More than that, since I often have my hair held back or pinned up for the majority of the day, most of my daily hair-loss quota comes out in the shower. This has caused much consternation over the years as the various men in my life have had to use TNT to break through the blockage this causes in the drain over time. So, to try to avoid these conflicts, not to mention the renovation bills, I try to stick the retirees on the side of the tub surround until the shower is finished, then wipe them up and throw them in the garbage can. Unfortunately, I don't always remember to do this (wipe them up, I mean). So, if I ever stay over at your house, and you find enough hair stuck to your shower wall to make a wig for a chemo patient after I leave, I'm sorry. I forgot, that's all.

5. The pinky fingers on both my hands point inwards at the end-most knuckle joint at about a 15-degree angle--another genetic souvenir, I believe this one is also from my mother. Don't worry, though--I have managed to make a herculean effort to overcome all odds, not letting this obstacle defeat me, and become the pianist, typist, and handi-crafting DIY person that you know and love today.

6. In grade one, I shared lockers with a girl named Tegan, who had the exact same blue plastic Holly Hobby lunchbox as I. Tegan became a lifelong friend of mine, and we could often be seen together during and between classes. Despite the fact that the only way we could look more un-alike is if we actually had different ethnicities, other people would frequently get our names mixed up, perhaps because they are both somewhat unusual, and both start with "T".

One day in high school, I was thinking about this exact phenomena when I heard Tegan approaching with some of our other friends from the far end of the hallway. I looked up and opened my mouth to call her, and with astonishment heard myself shout, "Talena!"

That would have been so much less embarrassing if there hadn't been actual witnesses.

7. My parents got the name "Talena" from a science-fiction novel by John Norman called Gor. The book is about some hunky college professor, with a very dashing name which I currently dis-remember, who gets sucked through a portal to a counter-earth on the other side of the sun where everyone lives in a tribal barbarian society and all the women are sex slaves that get branded on their thighs, and of course the professor turns into a hunky barbarian hero. Talena is a princess (or mayor's daughter--whatever), who is of course beautiful and captures our hunky hero's heart--at least for the first book in the twenty-something-plus-long series.

I have never read the books. Due to their sexual nature, I was never allowed to as a kid, and as an adult, I have somehow lost interest. Partly because they made a really BAD movie of the book in the 80's that, having recently been exposed to the joy that is Conan the Barbarian, is even worse than that, if you can believe it. Mullets, poor special effects (especially by today's standards, but it was bad even then) terrible acting, and an editor whom I am sure had not graduated from movie school yet combined to make this quite the memorable experience. But to top it off, they pronounced my name wrong, calling her "Ta-LAY-na". How hard can it be? It's phonetic! (For anyone out there wondering, my name is pronounced "Ta-LEE-na".)

For years, I thought John Norman had made the name up, because I could never find it in any baby name books or on any sites. Then, through a long and round-about-y story that I no longer have the energy to go into tonight, I found out it actually derives from "Thulna", who was the Etruscan goddess of love. (I wonder if Johnny knew that and named his heroine that on purpose because of it?)

Anyway, just this week on Facebook, I met, for the first time in my life, another Talena. She lives in Ontario, has more pages on the web dedicated to her than I do, thanks to the popularity of the band she was in as a teenager, and is now going to university for bioarcheological anthropology and First Nations studies. (She's even got her own Wikipedia page! TA--that's very cool--I never knew that before!)

We are starting a group on Facebook for all the other Talena's out there. (Okay, not all of them. Only the ones that don't just use it as their porn-star name.)

Okay, that's it. I tag Vicki, Anne, Candice, Rohini, Colleen, Dawn, and Peg. Remember to tag your seven when you're done!

Now, I dare you to say bioarcheological anthropology ten times really fast.

And then spell it out loud backwards.

Adventures in Babysitting

Overheard today while the kids were waiting at the table for the lunch I was prepping:

"You wanna play hide and seek?"

"Yeah! What if...What if you hid in heaven?"

"I'm on God's team!"

"I'm on Jesus' team!"

Hmm. Isn't that the same team?

---

Overheard while the kids were watching Ice Age 2: The Meltdown:

"Who's coming after him?" as the short breathing-reed slides silently through the water towards the unsuspecting ant-eater kid.

"Just a turtle."

"A turtle's gonna eat him?"

"No, he's just comin'." The water explodes in front of the young ant-eater, who screams and runs away. A prehistoric tortoise with a reed sticking out of his mouth snorts laughter to himself, then slips back under the surface to find someone else to play his little joke on.

"Oh, look, there's the turtle! Now what's going to happen?"

Out of the reed comes a small gasp, then it disappears under the water.

Matter-of-factly, like he should have known better: "Look, he got eaten."

"Yep."

---

From the movie, said by a possum to his brother, in a group that also includes a female mammoth who had been raised as their sibling, a male mammoth, a male sabre-tooth tigre, and a male sloth:

"We might be the only creatures left alive! We'll have to re-populate the earth!"

"How? Everyone's either a dude or a sister!"

Never mind that they are not even the same species!

---

Also from the movie; a conversation between the two mammoths:

"You realize what this means, Ellie? It means we have an opportunity to save our species, now."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know. It's our responsibility--"

"Wait, what?!"

"No, no! That came out wrong!"

"I'm not a mammoth for five minutes, and you're hitting on me? Well, I got news for you! You won't be saving the species tonight, or any other night!"

Jude: Why are you laughing, Mommy?

Me: (snorting) I'll explain when you're older.

---

The kids were outside, picking up pine cones from the enormous pile of them dropped by the tree in our front yard. I go out to check on them, and there is Brinay, blithely holding the only five flowers I had in my flower bed--red and yellow tulips--in her tightly-clenched fist, a gift for her mother, no doubt.

I sighed. A little later, when I had time, I started a few more sunflower seeds sprouting, so I can plant them on Saturday.

---

E-mail from me to Jason, as I start on cleaning my fourth bathroom today:

"If you were wondering about what I might like for Mother's Day this year, I would love it if we hired a cleaner for a day to come and clean this house from top to bottom.

That would be great.

Love you."

Ain't life grand?

Sunrise, Sunset, Swiftly fly the days...

Okay, first of all, I would like to say that despite the fact that Heather Anne has recently been introduced to Facebook, too, she is still managing to post every day. And really good posts, too, not like this one. Or that cheap-out one I did a couple of days ago. (Not to diminish it's importance.) What's your secret, Heather? Anyway, if you want something much more entertaining than the dry diary-like rendition of my weekend that is about to follow, pop over there and read a post or two. You'll leave smiling, for sure.

The weekend was a little crazy. Okay, really crazy. Friday night was Jason's and my turn for Date Night. We planned on going to Spiderman 3, which opened in our town that night. (With our itty-bitty 2-theatre cinema, we'll be lucky if it's in for longer than 2 weeks. Especially with all the other blockbusters due to be released this spring.) The way it worked out, we even decided to go on a super-long date and do dinner first. So, we dropped the kids off at Gregories at about 5, then Jay and I went to an amazing Mexican restaurant here in town called Su Casa's. It was our first time there. Imagine our disappointment, then, when Jason overheard the owner tell someone else that they are closing down on the 19th! Something about the rent going up again, and not making enough money to cover that. Phooey. On our way out the door, I compared the whole experience to starting to watch Firefly, knowing that there are only 16 episodes, and Fox will never, ever air another one, so no matter how much you love it, the affair is doomed from the start. (At least they had the decency to allow Joss to make a movie as a follow-up for all of us cult-following-type fans.)

Anyway, the food was good, but the service was slow (as it seems all food worth eating is worth waiting for), so I had to get half my order boxed so we could head over to the theatre. We drove past the theatre, keeping our eyes peeled for a parking spot, at 6:50--five minutes after the movie was supposed to have started. Said eyes almost popped out of our heads, because the line-up was still half-way to the Associate Clinic on the other end of the block. And it was raining. All these people (who were most definitely NOT there for Blades of Glory, which had already been in for a week) were waiting, in the rain, to get into a movie which would either be starting really late, or which they would miss the first ten minutes for.

Now, once upon a time, in younger, more carefree days, we might have joined them. Indeed, we actually parked the van, dug out the baby blue "La Senza" umbrella (which, for some reason, Jason did not offer to carry! :-D), and went to stand at the end of the line. We waited. No one moved. We looked at our watches. We shivered in the rain. And then we decided that we did not want to wait all that time to get into a movie wet and late, or to pick up our kids way too late from the sitters...

...So we got back into the van, drove over to Movie Gallery, rented something, and drove home. We watched about 45 minutes, enjoying the quiet house so much that we nearly forgot to stop it to go get the kids, then finished it after we got them into bed. It ended up being a pretty late night, because before we popped it back in for the end, I had to buzz around cleaning up the house and prepping it for the Crop I was hosting for National Scrapbooking Day the next morning.

Despite a short night, I was up bright and early, prepping my lunch contribution and giving the baby-sitters I had hired the run-down on the rules. This was the crop that is normally held at our church once a month, but for various and sundry reasons (one of which being the small turnout this time), I agreed to host it at my house, instead.

The day was fun, although as hostess, I got very little scrapbooking done. As soon as it was over, and everyone went home with their tools, paper, and containers from their potluck lunch contributions, I went and traded in my jeans for a skirt to go to a concert in Grimshaw being performed by renowned international concert pianist Angela Cheng--a concert which the Peace River & District Music Teacher's Association was organizing and running, meaning I was supposed to be there to help. I had had little supper, and my short night and busy day were catching up to me, so sadly, I dozed through about half of the pre-intermission section. Even while I faded in and out, I berated myself for missing out on the great music. However, after that little nap, I was wide awake and able to enjoy the post-intermission segment, which comprised of three Chopin pieces. I particularly enjoyed her finale number, Chopin's Ballade in G minor, which you will recognize from the movie The Pianist, if you saw it.

Sadly, the majority of her CD's had sold out at her previous engagements, and they were gone before I had made up my mind to buy any. I shall have to do a search online, I suppose.

Sunday, I slept in, so we decided to have a family morning at home, rather than stress ourselves out trying to get to church on time. The morning was quite enjoyable. In the afternoon, our friends the Magnussons dropped by, and we hadn't had a chance to just hang out with them for so long (thanks to Darryl's busy work schedule as a welder) that we enjoyed the rare treat of playing games, ordering pizza (with the multigrain crust!) and relaxing with these dear friends. Before we knew it, the day was gone, the guests had left, and the kids had been put to bed.

Another weekend gone. A very busy one--but a very good one. It is hard to believe that it is already Wednesday, and soon another week will be over. I am so glad I started this blog, so that when I look back at the blur that is my life in a decade or so, I will actually remember what I did with my time.

Thank God for all these little moments that make a life worth living.

What Will The Future Be Like?

"Bob, it's time to wake up and smell the future!"
-Larry the Cucumber in Larry's Wonderful World of Auto-Tainment

Today, I read a sobering and well-thought out projection of what our future will be like when the inevitable happens and our sources of petroleum run out. I highly recommend you take the time to read it yourself, but be warned--it's a bit lengthy. Allow 10 to 15 minutes for this one. Set them aside--write it in your calendar, if you have to. It's time for all of us to "wake up and smell the future"--and if it does play out as predicted in this article, there will be many good things, but many not-so-good things that it's best to be prepared for.

We Must Imagine a Future Without Cars (by James Howard Kunstler, taken from alternet.org): "Two years ago in my book The Long Emergency I wrote that our nation was sleepwalking into an era of unprecedented hardship and disorder -- largely due to the end of reliably cheap and abundant oil. We're still blindly following that path into a dangerous future, lost in dark raptures of infotainment, diverted by inane preoccupations with sex and celebrity, made frantic by incessant motoring.

"The coming age of energy scarcity will change everything about how we live in this country. It will ignite more desperate contests between nations for the remaining oil and natural gas around the world. It will alter the fundamental terms of industrial economies. It will ramify and amplify many of the problems presented by climate change. It will require us to behave differently. But we are not paying attention."

Hockey Night In Canada

Most people around the world are aware that the sport of hockey is something that is integral to our image as Canadians. In the famous "I. Am. Canadian." ad campaign, we are even referred to as the "first nation of hockey."

I have never been what you call an "avid" fan of the sport, myself, despite having been raised in a house where we had two options: we could cheer for the Calgary Flames, or we could live somewhere else. (My dad believes in freedom of choice.) While my brother plugged into this program with full watts on (able to recognize the entire Flames team by name at the age of 5), I was always, "Okay, yeah, whatever. It's a sport on television. Do I know anyone on that team? No? Lanny? He's the guy with the funny mustache who sells cars on T.V., right? Okay, go Flames. Rah, rah, rah."

I was somewhat flabbergasted when, upon entering Grade 10 Phys. Ed. class, I was informed that hockey was not, in fact, our national sport--lacrosse was! Something to do with the fact that it was invented by Native Canadians, long before the imaginary map lines that created our country existed. This situation has now since been rectified, making us one of the only (I'm sure) countries to have national summer and national winter sports.

For those of you who don't understand the full cultural impact hockey has on our province of Alberta, let me give you some background: Alberta has two hockey teams. The Calgary Flames are located in the city of Calgary, in the southern half of our province. Three hours drive north of this, along a straight, densely-populated (for our province) corridor of highway lies our province's capital city, Edmonton, home of the Oilers. Traditionally, everyone north of Edmonton (or the northern two-thirds of our province, land-mass-wise) cheers for the Oilers, those near-to-and-south-of Calgary root for the Flames, while those in the middle are raised in a confusion of conflicting loyalties that can lead to all kinds of problems, such as losing sleep, business partners, harmony amongst extended family, and the occasional marital separation during the playoffs.

My hometown of Sylvan Lake is at almost the exact half-way mark between these two Hockey Cities. (Fifteen minutes west of Red Deer on the map I linked to.) While most of our friends cheered for the Oilers, due to the fact that they had Wayne Gretzky, five Stanley Cups, and the audacity to put "The City of Champions" on their city sign, the little enclave of my brother, parents, and I put on the Red and Gold colours every spring. My dad taught us that loyalty was important, and called many of the so-called Oilers fans "Romans" who only cheered for the Edmonton team while they were winning, alluding to the way the Romans in the Shakespeare play Julius Caesar would be swayed back and forth between "Kill him!" or "No, don't kill him!" every time a new speaker opened his mouth. So we would cheer for the Flames.

I remember 1989. Oh, glorious day for any Calgary Flames fan, when instead of coming to the last round of the finals and failing, the great Stanley Cup got to live in the Saddledome for one magnificent year! Every year, as anxious Flames fanatics follow the playoff stats, watching Calgary come this close, they think Maybe this will be the year. Maybe we will get the Cup! This might be 1989: The Resurrection! Oh, how painful it was when their nemesis team, the Oilers, took the cup north again in 1990. Oh, how often since then could they taste victory, like a kid who stuck his tongue onto the swing set in January, only to have it ripped away by another team. The bitter, bitter gall of it all.

When I started seeing Jason, it wasn't long before I found out that he was not a Calgary Flames fan. Instead, he cheered for the Blue and Gold. Fearing repercussions against the only dating relationship my father had ever approved of, I said, "Don't tell Dad!"

And he didn't. It was not until after we said "I do," and the first fateful post-marriage hockey season was upon us that the truth about his hockey loyalties came out. As it so happened, we were actually residing in my father's basement that year while Jason took one more year of college education. There were a few brief moments where I thought my dad was going to follow through on that "cheer-for-the-Flames-or-live-somewhere-else" rule, but thankfully, he reluctantly conceded and allowed us to finish out the college term!

Not that he would ever admit it, but the rivalry in hockey loyalties between my father and my husband has been one of the most fun parts of their relationship--they thrive on it. They call each other to gloat after each victory for their own team or loss for the other's; when my dad gets free tickets from a vendor or client to a Calgary/Edmonton game he will often try to take Jason. While living in Sylvan Lake, Jason would go over to watch the games on Dad's satellite, since we got no television reception at all at our house in the trees.

Since moving to Peace River, I think Jason has been feeling a bit hockey-deprived. We had not been able to get T.V. reception here, either, so he would occasionally go over to his friend Wes' to catch the games, when possible. I don't think it is quite the same, though, since he and Wes cheer for the same team. What fun is there in that? Also, with the additional considerations required for Wes' family time, these events have been a little few and far between.

Last week, Jason decided to change all that. He went to Liquidation World and bought a Radio Shack digital rabbit ears device. He has determined that our house will be hockey-less no more!

Apparently, it was not a moment too soon. When he turned the game on last night, Jude asked, "Dad, what game is this?"

Let the education--and the continuation of generational loyalties in the Battle of Alberta--begin!

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Jude and I read a story about a little boy who wanted to take dance classes tonight--between that and his current obsession with the movie "Happy Feet", I thought it was high time he had some point of reference for what REAL dancing looks like. So, we got onto YouTube and had fun finding all kinds of dance videos. I came up with some real treasures, including this video. (Which, apparently, everyone on the internet has seen. Well, except me, that is.) If you have six minutes, and are with me in the "haven't seen it before club," I highly recommend it. Enjoy!

A Mom's Job Description

"To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors, and holidays; to be Whitely within a certain area, providing toys, boots, cakes, and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute." - G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With the World

Four-Poster

1. I would like to point out this wonderful post that Anne did a few days ago about easy ways to be "greener." I can't believe I never thought of using my cloth napkins for everyday! They were always for "special occasions." So today, I put my paper ones away for when we have a load of people over--total switch of thought! I had just recently decided to try to avoid the paper towels whenever possible, so I had no new ideas for her. Oh, well. She's got lots for me and and you!

2. Jude got his first "real" bike on Saturday, with training wheels and everything. We've had a very tiny two-wheeler for a couple of summers now with the training wheels broken off and too small for Jude when we got it. The boys would sit on the seat and walk around with their feet on the ground, pretending they were riding a bike. However, using some gift money from Jason's mom, Jason went out and bought this bike for the kids, put the training wheels on, and started giving Jude lessons on how to ride. He is so. excited! He is always out there trying to ride it, and I just saw him and Noah out in the back yard, Noah "helping" by pushing on the back of the seat. Too cute!

3. This morning, while I was cutting Jude's hair, he was holding a party favour in his hands to distract him, a relic from Dawson's 5th birthday celebration on Sunday. It's one of those rolled-up paper tubes that unfurls and squeals oh-so-appealingly when you blow into it, with the added perks of a duck-call sound-alike feature in the mouthpiece, and a star-shaped cardboard character that slides onto the plastic part of the tube. To find out whose favours got left behind, I'm sure, Serena had had the presence of mind to actually write each child's name on the back of the star. As Jude inspected it this morning, he noticed his name.

Now, Jude is fully able to recognize his own name. "J-U-D-E," he spelled. "That spells, 'Really loud noise!"

"Does it," I said, a statement more than a question. Ain't that the truth? I thought to myself.

A second later, "E-U-J-D. That spells 'Really, really loud noise!'"

What a goof. Little does he know that 'Really, really loud noise!" is actually spelled "B-O-Y."

4. Today and yesterday were our "Big Switch" days from winter to summer gear. All the mittens and scarves are in the wash while we speak. Today I went through the closet and pulled out sandals and shoes the next size up for all the boys, putting away the ones that were outgrown, throwing out the ones that were worn out. Immediately, there were two tow-headed boys in sandals, happily playing with Tonka trucks in our back yard. Sandals=summer fun, I'm sure of it. (That's probably why I feel the obsessive need to buy a new pair of sandals every year, for the season that lasts only three months, while I have only three pairs of winter footwear which I use daily for nine. Go figure.)