Hearts Content

This past weekend has been a horrible one for one community in Saskatchewan. By now, we’ve all heard the tragic news that 15 lives were lost in an unbelievably terrible collision that involved a semi truck and a team bus carrying the Humbolt Broncos. This morning, news that there had been an error in identifying two of the young men resulted in a dream come true for one family, and the beginning of a nightmare for another. Parker Tobin, who grew up in Stony Plain, where I live, was thought to have survived, while Xavier Labelle was thought to have perished in the crash. Today we learn that in fact it was the opposite. I can’t imagine the pain that every single one of those families is going through.

These people joined a team, a club, that I’m sure no one ever wants to join. They joined a group of people who have lost loved ones in a tragic way. They didn’t ask to join this club. In the words of Pastor Sean Brandow in his address to the thousands of mourners who gathered last night, ” I don’t want to be here.” None of these people want to be here, to be mourning the death of their brother, son, friend, nephew, father, coach, teammate. But they are. Now what?

For us, our lives are affected in that we feel their loss, and we grieve with them, but we got up and went to work today, or took our kids to school, and we hugged our little ones as they made their way out the door. These families will never get to do that again. They will never get to see their boys grow into old men. They will never see them stand at the altar and get married, or have children themselves. They will never again get to hold their hands or hug them. These families lives changed immeasurably in one instant. That’s all it takes. ONE SINGLE SECOND, and it could happen to any one of us.

I think that is why we connect so deeply with this tragedy. We don’t know these boys( though some of you do), but we know these boys because they are our boys. They are every young man or woman who dreams of playing the sport of hockey. It could be any one of our children. We send our kids on buses to band concerts, or volley ball or basketball games, or even just to school on a daily basis and we trust that our children will be safe. We expect that. And normally they are. But in a single second a tragedy can occur. People will blame the semi driver. Anger will come. Hatred and resentment and a burning desire to see him harmed too; for him to feel the loss the same way they do. Those feelings are normal. But in the end, no one can put any more blame or anger or remorse on that driver than he will himself. That driver’s life also changed Fri night. That driver will never be okay. He will suffer for the rest of his life with guilt and grief and anger. We need to feel compassion and empathy for him too. It could very easily have been any one of us who had this happen to them. Most of us have been in some sort of small collision or fender-bender. Think how quick that happened. That’s exactly how quick this happened.

As the hours and days and weeks pass, most of our grief will lessen, and we will return to our daily lives, and with time, we will never forget, but we will remember this in brief moments of passing, as some terrible event that took the lives of so many. But the families, teammates, friends of the people who died, will never get to move on in the same way. People say “time heals all wounds”. I don’t believe that. I believe that like a scar, there is a covering that hardens and becomes a part of you. It changes the fabric of your being. Time lessens the pain yes, but that pain never ever goes away. You could be walking down the street twenty or thirty years from now and see a picture or smell a fragrance and the pain will come rushing back. You could hit a bird with your car and burst into uncontrollable sobbing for no reason. Except, there is a reason. That grief, that pain, that wound, has not healed. It just lays dormant until it is exposed again.

I can’t pretend to know what it is like to lose a child or a husband. But I think most of us have lost a loved one, or two, or many. We share in the grief and trauma through outsiders eyes. We are not trying to be ghouls. We want the families to know that their loved ones mattered. Their men were people who in life touched many, but in death touched even more. When I think about the 6 people who will live because Logan Boulet signed his donor card just weeks ago, I get chills. I remember being in the heart unit at the Mazankowski, and having to shuffle past the transplant room as I was walking to gain strength again. The room was cordoned off so the patient wouldn’t get any infections. Having gone through heart surgery myself, I couldn’t imagine what that person was going through having received a heart in order to live. My surgery was serious, but nothing like that. Logan’s donations are the act of a true hero. I respect and honor that beyond anything. His death has given hope to 6 families, and we never know what that will mean for the future. Maybe one day, these people will also save other lives by becoming doctors or nurses or police men or women. Maybe they will become teachers or firefighters or lifeguards or hockey players. Maybe they will be able to become parents and grandparents. We may never know, but we will know that 6 families have their loved ones for a while longer because of Logan. It’s a good time to go sign our own organ donor cards or the back of your driver’s license. Take Logan’s example and do it now while his death is fresh in our minds. It becomes easier to not do it as time goes by. Even with my having had heart surgery, I have signed mine.

As Humboldt mourns, so does Canada and the world. Our thoughts and prayers are being sent to everyone who has been affected by this awful event-the first-Responders, the people who came upon the accident scene first and called it in, the semi driver, the nurses and doctors at the hospital. From the people who had to make the phone calls to the families to the victim services people who rushed to be there in order to help the families, you are all in our prayers, but no one more so than the families, friends and teammates of the men who died.

To the families of the Humboldt Broncos, please know that as time passes you will be learning to live a new normal. One without your boy; your man. One where he is missing from your life everyday. As time passes, and we have all gone back to our everyday life, please know that even though we may not share your grief and loss in the same way, we will still think of your boy, your man, with heavy hearts. Let us help. Talk about your son, brother, friend, husband. Help us help you. We don’t know what you are going through, but we share your loss in the only way we can, with hugs, and prayers and hockey games and tributes, and tears and laughter. May whatever your beliefs guide you and comfort you in this time of grief and sorrow, and know that the world is with you.

We often go weeks, months or even years at a time between seeing family members. Not through lack of desire, but as one of my other posts says, life seems to be busy, and as I’m aging, I realize how fast time is really going. I remember as a kid hearing my parents or grandparents say things along those lines, and I never really understood what they meant. Summer was long hot golden days, school lasted forever, and being 30 was old! Now I’m nearing 50, the summer days fly by so fast, and work still lasts forever! I’m sitting here listening to a song called “You’re gonna Miss this”, and it seems more true now than ever.

We were blessed this past summer to attend 3 weddings, each so very different, and each so very special and memorable in its own way. The first was on Greg’s side of the family, and the other 2 were on mine. Our families are so big that different people attended each one.  I realized how much I really miss our families when we got to see them again. We go through the days, not thinking about anything else really except getting through the work day, and looking forward to each weekend and they all seem to go so fast, but then when there’s a wedding, all of a sudden time seems to slow down for a while as we sit and tell stories and share memories, and laugh and feel so connected by getting to meet our cousins kids, or their spouses or significant others. The memories we share bring us closer together, and as I sat at each wedding, I noticed how many similarities there are with my children to their cousins, and it’s weird how when we’re with Greg’s side of the family, we see those similarities, but when we’re with my Mom’s side, I see those, and yet when I’m with my Dad’s side I see those. It’s sometimes in the shapes of the eyes, or the smile, or color of hair, but more often than not, it’s in the mannerisms, or sound of the voices or when they laugh, but it always amazes me how many similarities there are. Greg looks like his brothers Lorne and Leo, and sounds even more like them! He does things like scratches the back of his neck when he’s frustrated, just like his dad did. He always tells me that I look like my Auntie Viviane and act and sound like my Auntie Mona. He means them as great compliments, he adores them as much as I do!

I find it interesting to think about the genetics and history that comes from our parents, grandparents and great grandparents. I am lucky in my life to have a long traceable history on both sides of my family. I wish when I was younger I knew then what I know now to be true… that all things come to an end, including having our grandparents, and even our parents. I wish I would have sat and listened to the stories they told more often…and that I would have appreciated time more. But I think that only comes with age. Every time we lose someone, it’s harder and harder because it makes us all realize our time with each other is so short, and oh so precious.

My brother Kelly and my dad have been tracing some of our family history on both Dad’s parents sides of the family and some on my Mom’s side too. It’s so incredible to me that we can trace both the Smith and Bouvier side to the very beginnings of Canadian history, to the early 1600’s in both Canada and the US, and even further back into France and England. To think of the courage and strength it must have taken those people to climb on the ships to come here, knowing that they very likely may never reach the shores of “New France” or “The America’s”. Three and four months on a ship, or longer;  that when the water ran out, there was no more fresh water or food. That there were storms and rats and sickness, and that if, and that was a big if, they were lucky enough to reach the shores, there was nothing here but long, hot, mosquito infested summers of hard torturous work, and even longer, colder winters filled with life threatening blizzards, even more sickness, unbearable loneliness, or the possibility of the “savages” attacking. It’s incredible to me, as I sit in my nice warm house to think about what they went through, and to think that this was my family… and that that is where and who I come from. And it wasn’t just that generation, it was every generation after that. From the very first of our line who landed in Canada, to my great-grandfather who moved from Quebec to Southern Saskatchewan to set up a homestead there, to my own Dad who moved our family from Southern Saskatchewan to Alberta to start his own business. Those moves are what have helped to settle this country, and to make it what it is today. It amazes me too, to think of my Mom’s parents who came from Scotland and Ireland in the 1800’s, to do the same thing. As I read the history books of the settling of Canada, I can’t help but feel a great sense of amazement and pride that this is who I descend from. I know that many First Nations resent us, but some of those First Nations became my relatives too.  These people risked everything down to their very lives to create a better life for themselves, and by doing so, have, in large helped create the life I take so for granted now.

It’s interesting to me to watch my brothers pick up their families and move to start new lives too. It makes me realize that there is a little bit of our adventurous grandparents in them too. And that they have spouses who are also adventurous and courageous. And as our children reach the age of adulthood are doing the same thing in their own way too. Many of the kids are choosing travel and adventure over the “standard job”. Good for them, but it’s interesting too to me that many of the current generation think they are the first “adventurers” in their families, but if they look at the history of their families, most of our grand parents, great grandparents etc, came from other countries to Canada to make better lives, and now so many people are complaining about the immigrants coming here and “taking” our jobs. Most of the immigrants that I know, and I know many, are doing jobs that we don’t want, or won’t do because it’s “beneath us”. Many of those immigrants are far better educated than we are, but can’t get jobs in their own fields without doing their full training all over again. It’s just not worth it to many of them to do that, so they clean the malls, or pick up garbage, or drive cabs, or work at Tim Horton’s, but they are “taking our jobs”. Many of my friends who have come from other countries live and work together to buy one family a home, then do the same for the next family and the next. We, in the Western culture can’t seem to do that. We grow up, move out, kick our kids out at 18 and tell them ” Go! Have a good life! See you when you visit next time!” Thankfully, not everyone is like that.

This  past year was Canada’s 150th birthday. That’s pretty exciting! But what is really cool to me is that like a few of our friends’ families, we have nearly 400 years of history here in Canada. Greg and I have been blessed to travel a bit, and have visited Quebec City, Windsor, Ontario, New Orleans, and so many more places in the last few years. What I enjoyed the most about these places,(and every place we go), is the fascinating history. Our Canadian history truly is one of determination, courage and resilience. So much so that from the early 1600’s to the mid 1700’s we had settled much of Eastern Canada, fought wars both for and against Britain and France, and by the 1700’s there were still not many families in Canada, maybe few thousand, and yet in 1755 the Government decided unless people swore allegiance to Britain, being French and being Catholic was against the law, and so deported something like 400 families from their homes and lands, and sent them out of Canada. These families were on ships for months before the government decided what to do with them. They finally decided to send them to parts of the US like Maine and Connecticut, but many of them ended up in New Orleans, though other areas such as France and the Caribbean, too. These were the Acadians. Most of them came from what is now known as Annapolis Royal, but was known by Champlain as Port-Royal in Nova Scotia. Eventually, many of these families returned to Quebec, had families there, and I am one of their descendants. The history of our country is short in comparison to European history, but is fascinating, and hard-won, none-the-less.

My dream, and I know my Dad’s and my brother Kelly’s dream is to start in Annapolis Royal, and Grande Pre, Nova Scotia, and make our way down to Connecticut, and eventually down to New Orleans, and trace our family history along the way. I think it would be educational and interesting and life changing! I would also love to travel to Scotland and Ireland and learn about my Mom’s side of the family too. Again, I wish as a kid I had taken advantage of the little time I had with my grandparents and listened to their stories more. The older we grow, the less time we have to learn about our family history, and unless we as parents make the efforts for our kids to meet their cousins, they will have no idea who they are. I know I even feel like I never had the chance to really get to know some of my cousins because we live so far away from them. Luckily, now there is Facebook, and when used for that purpose, it’s great! We get to communicate in ways never before possible. We get to know our families even though we are separated by distance.

Greg and I tried to make as many efforts as we could  when  our kids were young for our kids to visit with their cousins. It was easier for us than for my parents; 40 minutes drive versus 12 hours! We always enjoy getting together with both of our families and extended families, and we get to know them all over again. Which brings me full circle to the weddings this past summer. We were honored to be included in them, ( and LOVE being invited to any all family celebrations…hint hint!) and are so grateful for the opportunity to see people, especially when we know, every time we see them, it could be the last time, and in fact, it was the last time we got to see my Auntie Karen’s husband Scott. He died shortly after that of cancer, that God awful terrible disease. We were blessed to get to visit with him and with everyone before he died. We laughed, listened to stories, visited, danced, got shown up by my 75-year-old Uncle Mike on the dance floor ( we left at 1 am and he was still going at 2 I hear!) We love a good party, ( in case you hadn’t known that,) and I know Scott was very ill, but also know he had a very good time.

• Picture 1: Family Roots I made this sign for my Mom for Christmas one year
• Picture 2: my Dad and some of his siblings at my cousin Natasha’s open house the day after her wedding
• Picture 3: my Mom and some of her siblings at my Auntie Fran and Uncle Glen’s 50th anniversary in Mankota
• Picture 4: the house in which  I lived in Kincaid, Sask when I was really little
• Picture 5: The Canadian Club museum and store in Windsor, Ont. OH MY GOODNESS is it every gorgeous inside!! and the history in Windsor! Wow!

The history that is a part of the weddings, the funerals, the family reunions is for me, some of the best parts of these gatherings. Getting to say “I love you” to people matters to me. My family and friends have shaped me into who I am today, and given me the courage and strength I need to move forward.  When we know where we’ve been, and who we are a part of, it helps us to know where we are going. It gives me a sense of belonging that I feel lucky to have. I have many friends who are adopted, and some of them have tried to find their birth families, but others haven’t and don’t care to, but for me, it is truly important to know who I am and where I come from. It gives me a sense of pride and hope… hope that I can be as strong and adventurous and that I can face the challenges that come…. just like all of my ancestors did.

Continue reading “I am Canadian!” →

As many of you know, one of my favourite things to do in life is to cook and bake for my family and friends. There are so many tasty foods out there, that if I tried all of the recipes I pin from Pinterest or post off of Facebook, I’d be as big as a house. I absolutely love trying new recipes though. As I’ve tried new recipes or adjusted ones that I’ve made before, I started to write down some of the things that I do. For years now, I’ve sneaked vegetables and fruit into recipes to try and get my very very picky daughter Alicia some nutrients that I know she was missing. She still does not enjoy vegetables or fruit, but will eat them, albeit very reluctantly. ( and she’s an adult!)

About six years ago, a very dear friend of ours was diagnosed with cancer. He was given a maximum of 10 years to live, but told that there was no treatment for his type of cancer- chemo and radiation would not work. Of course we were all devastated to hear this news. He and his wife were and continue to be, very proactive in his treatment. They went to a wellness clinic in California and learned all they could about natural and alternative treatments. For these past six years, they have been sharing their knowledge with us. Many of our group of friends have taken what they have taught us to heart, and have changed how we eat and care for ourselves too. I’ll try and share some of what we’ve learned from them, and from reading about natural alternatives. I am by no means an expert, and if you really want to learn about eating healthy, my girlfriend Tracey is the one to talk to!

Our friend has been doing all kinds of natural alternative treatments, including hyperbaric oxygen treatments, but he and we, truly believe that his change in eating is what is keeping him healthy and helping his tumours to not grow, and in fact, to shrink. We are very grateful for our friends’ guidance in helping us all eat better, and live better. I’ve always thought that I cooked healthy, but now I have learned even better ways!

The very first, and probably most important thing we’ve learned is that sugar feeds cancer, and causes tumours to grow. Sugar is probably the worst thing that people who are fighting cancer can eat. or drink. There are many alternatives to sugar, but the one I’ve found to be the best is Xylitol. I know, it sounds very chemical, but it’s not. It is a product that comes from birch trees ( so if you have an allergy to birch, probably best you don’t use it.) Xylitol does not affect your Glycemic Index the same way that honey or maple syrup or sugar do. Even if you are using natural substitutes like honey or maple syrup, it does affect your blood sugar levels, which helps cancer to grow( and is bad for people with diabetes or heart disease too).I switch sugar to Xylitol on a one for one basis, unlike Stevia which is also very good and natural, but very sweet, and can leave a funny after taste. Using Stevia takes about a 1/4 of what you would use for sugar or Xylitol, but I don’t care for the taste of it, where as Xylitol doesn’t give me that funny taste.

Vitamin D is probably the next thing that we’ve learned is so important. Most Canadians are very deficient in Vitamin D. We have such long winters and most of us spend our days looking through windows, not out in the bitter cold. Doctors are recommending we take vitamin D, but they usually don’t tell us that we can take double, triple or even up to 10 times the amount that most of us take. We have upped our daily vitamin D to about 3000 iu, but I know our friend takes 10000 iu. (international units).

Eating clean, whole foods is also incredibly important. Fresh vegetables,fruits, and lean cuts of meat are so delicious and so much better for us, but I don’t know about most of you, but I LOVE FOOD! I love sauces and gravy and breads and butter and cookies and cake and chips and meat and, and, and… it just goes on! I truly love almost all foods, and most of them are not good for me!( now ask me about mussels or sardines or liver or kidney or gross stuff like that, that is another story!) But give me anything that is smothered in gravy or butter, I’m in. When I’m asked what my favourite food is, my answer is… food! My mom’s Christmas dinner comes to mind first, and every thing that entails. My mom is a fabulous cook, so yeah, my mom’s Christmas dinner is my favourite food. For me, learning how to take some of those absolutely delicious recipes my mom has, and change them into a healthier version has been fun and challenging, especially because I didn’t want to lose the flavour of them. Learning what some of the food substitutes are and what they are used for has been interesting. Most recipes can easily be changed to Gluten free, or dairy free, or vegan just by changing some of the ingredients. I can admit that not everything turns out the way I think they should, and sometimes the taste is no where near as good as the regular foods, but with each try, I learn something about what works and what doesn’t.

Below are two recipes for banana bread. The one is what I used to use all the time, and the other is my alternative recipe that makes it Gluten, Egg and Dairy Free, but not taste free!

Regular Banana Bread

3/4 cup sugar 1/4 tsp salt

3 frozen bananas 1 tsp baking powder

4 Tbsp melted butter 2 eggs

1 1/2 cups flour optional 1/2 cup chocolate chips or chopped nuts

To thawed bananas add sugar and eggs. Mash until smooth, then add melted butter. Fold in flour, salt and soda ( and chocolate chips if wanted). Bake in a greased loaf tin for 40-45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Jackie’s Banana Bread

3/4 cup Xylitol 1/4 tsp sea salt

3 frozen bananas 1 tsp baking soda

4 Tbsp melted vegan butter, or I use avocado oil

1 1/2 cups gluten free flour 2 flax eggs

optional – 1/2 cup GOOD LIFE chocolate chips ( these are gluten free, dairy free, nut free)

I use Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free flour because it is a straight conversion from regular flour to gluten free.

To make a flax egg, it’s 1 tbsp of ground flax meal to 3 tbsp of water. Mix together and let sit about 2 minutes, then add to the bananas. You do need to let it soak for a couple of minutes or it doesn’t allow the mixture to raise and bind properly.

Follow the same directions as above to mix and bake. To grease the pan, I also use vegan oil. I find you may have to adjust the amount of time baked, but I start with the same time, and go from there.

The Gluten free, dairy free vegan version does not raise quite as high, but the flavour is the same, and won’t raise your Glycemic Index quite the same way.

There are so many ways to make recipes a bit healthier. Change from using dairy based milks and creams to using coconut or rice or almond milks. Use Avocado, olive or pure vegetable oil. Use brown rice, whole grain pastas ( unless gluten intolerant), and make your pasta sauces using fresh tomatoes and other vegetables. Switch from regular to lean cuts of meat, especially ground beef, or use ground chicken or turkey, and use spices instead of barbecue sauce. I like the Epicure brand because most of them don’t contain salt either. Switch from white potatoes to sweet potatoes. Use mashed bananas or flax for eggs, or tofu for ricotta cheese. Drink lemon or lime in your water or if you need the bubbles, drink carbonated mineral water with some fresh fruit. Some take a bit of getting used to, but if you are going to try to eat healthier, or if food allergies drives you to have to take a new and different road when cooking, there really are some great alternatives that can help us all be healthier and live longer. And after all, it’s still Mmmmmm,FOOD!

“I’d love to go for coffee, we’ll set a date when I’m not so busy.” ” I’m so busy right now, I have to take the kids to dance, and to ball, and to hockey, and I’ve got a hair appointment and a nail appointment, I’m working, and a I’ve got to take my car in and I’ve got to go to the dentist; the doctor; the whatever…” I am so guilty of saying all these things. I’m guilty of creating that “busyness” that makes life. Sometimes , I think we all just need to disconnect from the technology in our lives, from the phones, from the TV, from the computers at work and at home, and just experience life the way it’s supposed to be. Life can’t be meant to wake up every day, go to work, pay bills, run around like mad men and women, then go to bed, only to start the whole thing again the next day. Can it? Is that really what life is supposed to be like? What happened to Sunday supper with the parents and grandparents? What happened to going for a walk or a drive and looking at the local sights? What happened to sitting down at the supper table and talking about our day with each other? Things can’t go backwards, and I wouldn’t want to live without the conveniences of today’s world, but sometimes, I would like to go back to the simpler, slower times. The times when we were kids and played hopscotch or skipped, or played on the swing set or in the sand box all day. My friend and I would usually be at our house, my younger siblings would be with us, and we would spend hours and hours outside. Or as we got a little older, and I babysat after school everyday, my friend would come over, we would put a record on, and play Canasta for hours… yes Mom, I was babysitting, (kind of)! If only life could be that simple again. If only …

It’s amazing to me how quickly I’ve fallen back into the routine of work. I get up between 530 and 545, or (lately at 4 am), shower and get ready, go downstairs and feed the animals, make coffee and breakfast, grab my lunch, and am out the door sometime around 630 or so, and don’t get back until usually around 5:30 or 6:00. Alicia is usually up shortly after me. We both work in the city, so the drive adds time to our day. By choosing to live in the suburbs, it extends that drive time, but is so worth it to me. I am in training mode right now, so my days have been long. There is such an incredible amount to learn, and I’ve barely begun! It’ll be fine, I’m sure…. my boss recently left on immediate and indefinite sick leave ( not good, not good at all), I’ve hired a new Operations Supervisor, and have a team of people who are pretty gun-shy of all the ‘ new’ and all the ‘ changes’. The learning curve of any new position is retry steep, and I’m being told that in this company 6 months and might know a quarter of what we have to know…. yikes!

All of this being “busy” because I’m back at work, got me thinking about that in general. I think we are all probably guilty of saying that we can’t go to something or do something else because we are too busy. When in fact, it’s likely because we really don’t want to go, or don’t want to do something. For me, it’s going to the gym. I still hate exercising. I know I have to do it, and I do it, but I friggin’ hate it! I have never felt that “euphoria” feeling, that ” runner’s high”, that great feeling people tell me that they get from exercising. It just plain sucks. I do it, but it sucks! So when people ask me to do things that involve exercise… I’m busy. Most of us are legitimately busy much of the time. We really do have all those appointments, or our kids (or ourselves) are involved in so many activities that we have no time left for a “quick coffee with friends”, or whatever. But we also all have something that makes us say…” I’m too busy, I can’t”. Whether it’s going to the family gatherings, or helping a friend move, or volunteering, or exercising or some such thing. We all do… so why do we say ” I’m too busy,” and not…”no, sorry, I don’t want to help you move”, or “no, sorry, I don’t want to volunteer”, or ” no, sorry, I don’t enjoy going to the in-laws, so I’m not going”… why is it that we are… too busy? Most of the time I think it’s because we really don’t want to hurt other person’s feelings and we feel guilty or bad about saying no to people we care about. Sometimes it’s not about that though. Sometimes it’s about protecting our own psyche or energy. It’s about looking after our “self”, and that often times is what makes us feel the most guilty. One of the things I learned while recovering, is that it really is necessary, or rather, it’s vital to take the time for me. It continues to be the most difficult thing for me, because I really do want to visit with family and friends, but OH MY GOODNESS, I am just so tired sometimes! Friday nights are the worst for me. I’m pretty sure there are many who feel the same way… by Friday night, we’ve been up early all week, we’ve dealt and handled and made decisions and stressed about work all week. My brain hurts by the end of the week. It might get better as I learn everything I’m supposed to know at work, but currently, my brain is so full of all the new passwords, and computer systems, and even just my new employees names! I forgot what it was like to have to learn completely new systems. Even in the course that I took last year, my brain didn’t hurt like it does now! I was speaking to my nephew-in-law and he was saying the same thing because he started a new job not long before me, so I’m glad to know it’s not just me!

We were speaking with our friend Con recently, talking about what we would do if time and money were of no consequence. That’s a fun, but sometimes frustrating conversation. I’m sure I’m not alone in dreaming about what I’d like to do for work if I didn’t have to make a ton of money. Con said the same thing. If he didn’t need the money to pay the mortgage and car payment and all of the other first world trappings that we’ve collected, he would most definitely not be doing what he’s doing now. Me neither! Greg Neither! We’d be traveling and I’d be taking photos and writing and learning about other cultures and countries, and about my own country. I’d need a home base to come home to once in awhile, but I would be gone for so much of the time. So… how do I get there? I’m really not sure, ( anyone want to pay me to travel and take pictures—anyone?)…but I’ve learned enough to know that if I can’t do it for work, then I will do it for pleasure, because those things make me happy. And life is too short to not be happy doing what we’re doing, and it’s too easy to fall back into the same trap of “I’m too busy” to take all of the courses I want to, or to visit with all of the people I want to, or go all of the places on my bucket list. It’s too easy to fall back into the same old routine of ” I should” do this or “I should” do that, not what I want to do. I should get a job that pays me so much money. I should go see my family. I should pay bills. I should.. I should… I should… My brother in law calls it “shoulding ourselves”. We should ourselves to death. Sometimes it just needs to be about what we want to do, not what we should do. And then, I think, that “busyness” might just disappear.

I have found in the two months or so since I’ve started back to work, that it has been very easy to fall into that same old routine. I haven’t written in my blog, I’ve barely cooked ( thank God both of my girls and Greg are all good cooks or we’d be eating take out because I’m too tired to cook when I get home!) I haven’t done any of my wood working that I so enjoyed doing last year, and I’ve been “shoulding” myself about it. Greg and a friend went out recently. They asked me to go. I said no. I decided that that night was a night for me. The girls were out after studying all day. Greg was gone. It was me, the cat and the dog. And It made me so happy to just have a few hours of me time to write, to listen to music, to read– to just take a few hours of precious time to unwind and relax doing a few of the things I like to do. I know–it was 9:30 at night, I was in my pjs having a glass of wine, writing my blog–and thoroughly enjoying myself. It wasn’t traveling somewhere glorious, but it was being “busy”, sitting in my home, enjoying the simple things that life is also about.

I know a few young kids who have traveled a good part of the world. They have made choices that have allowed them to do so. They have chosen travel over having a traditional career,the traditional trappings that we expect of our kids ( and ourselves.) It’s such a different world now than when I was a kid. The kids nowadays understand more what they want out of life, and many of them aren’t afraid to not take that “normal” career path that we think they should. Many of us have had the same desire but it was so frowned upon in my generation, to not get a job and go to work and start making money and get out on our own. I can honestly say that sometimes I am envious of their chance to make the choices they do. Not because I don’t want my family or the life I have ( God No), but because they are still young and carefree enough to be able to do it all yet, and they haven’t wrapped themselves up in the same busy life that we felt we had to. They can do the travel, and still have time to have a career and family. There are days when I feel like I am too old, too tied to the material trappings of this life we live to make the changes needed to go travel that way. So, I live vicariously through everyone else, and I enjoy the pictures and the stories, and I sit in my kitchen and write and dream…and remind myself that it’s ok to have a “busy” night of doing nothing too!

In my last post I talked a little about managing an apartment while Greg went to school. Let me back it up a bit and give a bit of history to how all that came about and what it did for our family.

Greg and I moved in together when I was 18. I had graduated from high school and started working at the Bay in West Edmonton Mall when I was 17. I was staying with my Auntie Helen and Uncle Garry, and was incredibly grateful for them letting me stay, but I also knew that if Greg and I were going to make things work, we needed to make it happen together. We moved into an apartment beside West Edmonton Mall by the Miseracordia in Jan of 1987. Greg found a job pumping gas, I think he made $5.00/hour so he also refereed hockey to help us make ends meet. Our rent was $435 for a one bedroom apartment and we both had car payments we were making. I was getting part time hours, making $4.50/hour.. It was tight some months, and we sure didn’t eat as healthy as we do now, we were happy if we had some macaroni and hamburger with tomato soup! And if we had 20$ left at the end of a paycheck we thought we were doing well! Eventually we moved from there and moved in with friends of ours, Blair and Marcie, and lived with them, cost sharing for 6 months or so. We moved again after that, and Greg found a job with Cloverdale Paint. Things happened and I moved in with my girlfriend Colleen and Greg moved in with his buddy Brian. She would end up being my bridesmaid at our wedding, but she’ll never know how she helped me at that point in my life. Greg and I worked things out, and low and behold I ended up pregnant a few months later. ( I have no idea how that happened, o1bviously, because it happened twice!). Anyway, Greg and I moved back in together and and started saving our money and when I was about 6 months pregnant, we bought a mobile home. We lived there, in Westview Village in Winterburn until Alicia finished Kindergarten. While there we had Melanie, got married, met Jan and Neil and their kids Ashlynn and Kyle, and Bernie and Angela and their kids Allysha, Chelsea, and Morgan. To this day, they are all some of our dearest friends. We spent hours and hours together. Allysha and Alicia were in kindergarten together. It was Alicia Ho… and Allysha Ho.., so they were always lined up beside each other and partnered together, so now my Alicia says they were the 2 A-Hos! I just laugh at that. We were so blessed to meet both of those families, and be able to still have a friendship with all of them. Bernie, Angela, Greg and I played cards almost every weekend. I’m pretty sure that was what saved our sanity when money got tight. We had great friends, and could get together and laugh like loons over cards, our kids got along, and we didn’t have to spend a fortune to have a great time. Jan told me once that she saw us outside with our little daughter and she told Neil that they needed to go for a walk so they could meet us. I don’t know what I would have done if we hadn’t met them. Our kids spent a lot of time together, dying their hair with felt pens, making musical instruments out of pie tins and rice or Kleenex boxes, elastics and wrapping paper tubes. I have such great memories of that time with all the kids. If it hadn’t been for Jan and Neil when I was pregnant with Melanie, I have no idea what we would have done. I suffered from severe hyperemesis gravidarum, which means that I threw up for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week the entire pregnancy. I was hospitalized twice because along with the severe vomiting and dehydration came extreme migraines, to the point the doctors thought I was having an aneurysm in my brain. Jan and Greg brought me to the hospital, while Neil looked after Alicia. They ended up keeping her for a few days while I was in the hospital and Greg was working and coming back and forth. I’m so thankful for them. Jan and Neil ended up moving to Lacombe, Bernie and Angela moved to Moose Jaw for a while, and we went and visited them and our family there a few times, and then they came back here, and we had moved out to Stony Plain.

And that’s where this story started. We had moved to Stony because we wanted Alicia and Melanie to go to the French Immersion program at Meridian Heights. It was where my sister Renee and brother Rick were going to school. ( For those of you who don’t know, my sister Renee is 5 years older and brother Rick is 4 years older than Alicia. My brother and sister went to the same school, at the same time, that my kids did! )The school at the time was ranked as one of the top French Immersion schools in the province. We had started looking for houses, but decided to move into the apartments that were right beside the school while we made a decision on a place. I was still working part-time evenings at the Bay, Greg was full-time at Cloverdale. He worked til 4:30, and I would leave and go to work for the 5:15 to 10:15 shift 3-4 days a week, and I worked pretty much every weekend. One Monday morning Greg came home from work about 9:30 in the morning. I remember looking at him and asking him what he was doing home. I also remember him telling me he had been laid off. On the Friday before he had come home and told me that his boss had given him the chore of deciding who would be laid off on Monday because the economy was tight and the company needed to “downsize”. He fretted and worried over that all weekend. It really upset him that he had to make that decision. That Monday he came home and told me it was him, and I remember just saying to him” Why am I relieved and not scared?” You see, Greg had been suffering from terrible nosebleeds and headaches from the paint fumes he was exposed to every day. They had lost his one boss to cancer not that long before this, so I looked at this as the Universe or God’s way of telling Greg that he needed to be out of that job so he could stay alive. I was terrified because we had no real income ( my part time job did not bring in a ton of money), but I also knew that we would do whatever it took to keep our family together. I was super happy we hadn’t bought a house though! I jokingly told Greg that I would clean ‘ shitters’ for a living if I had to… little did I know that would be a premonition of what was to come! And two days later we made the decision for Greg to go back to NAIT to get his Business Management and Finance Diploma. We would figure out money somehow. The people who had been managing the apartment were really nice. They were young and had a brand new baby and he was taking sign language classes to teach it at the school for the deaf. (No none of them were deaf). They introduced us to their boss Arlene, and we ended up managing the building in Edmonton, as I said in my last post. Yes, the “ant building” as we came to call it. Thankfully that didn’t last long as Terry and his wife decided they didn’t want to manage the apartment building in Stony and quit, opening up the opportunity for us to take over. It was such a convenient place to manage because it was right across the street from the school the girls would go to right up to grade 9.

For the rest of the story, I won’t use full names…I don’t want people to come back and say… Oh I know them! I’ve put my foot in my mouth too many times to do that, and have learned my lesson! The apartment we took over had 48 suites– one, two and three bedrooms. It was 4 floors and was known to the police as “Party Central”. We did not know this when we moved in, however we very shortly learned this taking over managing it! I remember shortly after we took it over, Greg was studying for mid-terms already, and it was about 2:30 in the morning and the buzzer to the front door went off. We jumped out of bed and answered it to a girl telling us that the garbage bins were on fire because someone had thrown a burning mattress into it. We quickly called 911 and Greg went barreling out the back to see if he could do anything about it. ( He had been a firefighter in Entwistle for more than 13 years, so was pretty versed in putting out fires). It was a rather large fire and the firetrucks showed up very quickly, followed in short order by the police. We had talked to the girl and she had told us that she saw the person throw the mattress and from which apartment balcony he threw it. So the police came to our door and we tell them who we think it was and which apartment to go to. They pull their guns!! This guy was well-known to them! The police go to the door and bang on it very loudly, and they can hear him inside…snoring! So Greg took them up there with the key so they didn’t have to break the door down, but what had happened was the guy, I’ll call him Mr. J , had fallen asleep in bed, drunk, while smoking a cigarette, with a fan blowing over him because he was a BIG guy and it was quite warm. The mattress caught fire, the fan blew the blaze up, he woke up, realized the bed was on fire, tossed the mattress over the balcony, went down from the 3rd floor , out the back door, flipped the burning mattress into the garbage bins, and went back to bed and passed out again! We were so lucky that it wasn’t worse. He could have burned the entire building down, killed us all and been killed himself! Yep, that was our first real taste of life as an apartment manager!! And of course it had to be the middle of the night on a night that Greg had to be up at 5 to go to the school to study for exams he was taking that day!

For me, it kind of goes down hill from there. Greg really didn’t mind managing the building, but I thought it was the worst job ever. We did meet some really fantastic people while managing. Doug and Barb( this is their real names, and I think they would love being a part of this so, I’ll use their names) were a couple who lived in the suite across from us. He had been a diplomat with the Canadian government and traveled all over the world until he had a heart attack and had to retire. They came home to Stony and had lived in the building for a quite few years before we took it over. One day fairly early in our term as managers, the girls and I were out in the halls washing the walls. Doug came out of their suite and asked me what I was doing. I kind of looked at him funny ( um, I thought it was pretty obvious what I was doing!) I told him the walls were gross, so I was washing them. He looked at me with amazement,and said that in all the years they had been there no one had ever cleaned the walls. I just told him, “well this is my home too and I want it clean for people, especially because it’s my name on that sign that says I’m the manager! I wasn’t going to live in a pig pen. I think that was the start of them really liking us and our having a good friendship with them.

While we were managers Greg and I had to evict people more than 25 different times. We cleaned house, literally!! I cleaned a couple of apartments that people did the “midnight moves” from, and they were left absolutely disgusting!! In the one suite the couple had the sweetest, cutest little girl. I wanted to take her home. He would sit on the 4th floor with his pellet gun watching his girlfriend take his wolfhound dog and daughter for a walk. She was only “allowed” to walk where he could see her. Yes, I called the police and Social Services on them a couple of times. They left in the middle of the night – after being evicted for not paying their rent of course – leaving garbage, dirty diapers, bloody women’s pads, dog crap, and mounds and mounds of dog hair, as well as much of their broken down furniture. It took me almost a month to clean that suite and air it out properly. I’d take Alicia to school in the morning, and take Mel and go up to the suite and work on it all day, every day. It was just horrible. Greg would come home from school and help me move out some of the furniture and get rid of what we could– And then I cleaned and scrubbed and washed. We rented it to a woman and her daughter. The woman ended up marrying that Mr. J from the first part of the story. And let me tell you, the situation did not improve much! All that work, only to end up doing it again. That was one situation where I didn’t listen to my gut instinct about not renting to her, but we were under the gun to get it rented out, so we did, against my better judgement. Lesson learned… trust my gut—always!!!

Another suite that I cleaned out was rented to a guy I’ll call Mr. G. He and his girlfriend again did the “midnight move” but this time they left EVERYTHING! There was furniture and mattresses and an antique sewing machine and a gorgeous old cedar chest and 2 sets of encyclopedias, one from 1905 and one from 1943. And of course gross rotting food and garbage etc. Again, I had to clean out what I could, then we had to wait the legal time frame before we could say that they actually left and weren’t coming back, and try to sell what we could to recoup the costs. The saddest thing for me was that inside that old cedar chest was baby pictures, wedding pictures, an old beautiful wedding gown, an old handmade quilt and so many more memories. I just didn’t understand how people could leave all of that behind. It had obviously meant something to them at one time, but what caused them to just leave everything? The answer to that, sadly, was cocaine. They had both become addicted, and got into trouble with the law and went on the run. It was a true eye-opening experience for me as it made me understand what the costs of addiction were – and are. It was a lesson about humanity that I’ve never forgotten. They had been normal people prior to that, and it made me realize it could happen to anyone.

There are so many memories, and many of them I can now laugh at, but they were truly terrible, ( or I thought they were) at the time. For example, there was a young woman who lived on the second floor. She had come down to the door one morning and I was actually laying on the floor in our apartment because I had put my back out and couldn’t even move. I called for her to come in, and she told me her toilet wasn’t working properly. I asked her if it was urgent, and that if it was I would have Greg go up that night, or I could call a plumber to come in that day. She told me it wasn’t, and that any time that week would be okay. I said that Greg would be up the next day or the day after that then. Well, that night shes comes back down to talk to Greg. He was very cautious around her because this girl had a HUGE crush on him.( I used to tease him that she would jump him in a shot if she could! She looked at him with such lust in her eyes!) He took Alicia with him up to her suite for protection! Not joking! He really did feel like he needed someone with him and I couldn’t go anywhere so it was poor Alicia. Well, he gets into her bathroom and she tells him that she hasn’t been able to flush the toilet in over a week! WHAT!!!! Why didn’t you come and tell us before, and why did you tell Jackie it wasn’t urgent?!?! Anyway, she had been wiping her butt and throwing the dirty toilet paper in a bucket beside the toilet. How disgusting! And you know what the problem was? The chain had slipped off and she just had to reconnect it. She could have taken the back of the toilet off and lifted the chain up to flush it! I mean REALLY!!! Poor Greg and Alicia! They were gagging so bad, and to top it all off she had 3 cats in the apartment and their littler boxes were in the bathroom too. It still makes them gag to think about it!

Greg and I came up with names for some of the people in the building. By having a really warped sense of humour, it helped Greg and I keep our sanity. I know it wasn’t nice to come up with some of these names, and was pretty terrible of us, but it really truly kept our sanity. We called Doug and Barb, Dangerous Doug and Bodacious Barb, and they loved it! ( they were the only ones we told that we did this!) Doug had a great sense of humour and helped Greg come up with some of the other names… one was ” Oh Ye of Large Proportions!” Another was “Hugemoungous Appetitetis ” …I know, I know, that’s terrible and I’m ashamed of it now, and I absolutely would never do that now, but back then, I kind of didn’t care.

One day this girl buzzed our door at midnight, higher than a kite, and accused Greg of towing her car from the spot that it had been broken down in for months. Then she tried to reach through the door and punch him! She threatened to go to the police and charge us with theft. Greg finally got her to leave, but she showed up again the next day with a bunch of buddies in her car..with baseball bats to come after Greg. I called the police and my boss! I was so upset! I was crying and scared and told my boss that we quit! I wasn’t putting my kids and husband at risk over a damn apartment management job! Calmer heads prevailed, and the police talked to Greg and he explained to them what had actually happened. He also talked to our boss who had come out. We really couldn’t give up the job, but I was so mad! Thank goodness Greg is a calmer guy than me! Anyway, the girl had gone to the police and laid a complaint against us, but we explained that it really had started at midnight the night before, and Greg showed the police the car she thought we towed. It was sitting in the exact spot where it had been for months, with leaves all over and two flat tires to boot! The police just looked at Greg and kind of smirked. He told Greg that maybe Greg shouldn’t have called her a “fat effing cow” ( yes Greg used the full word!), but also said that he understood, considering it was the middle of the night and she was attacking him! The kicker to all this was her parents also lived in the building and her mother came storming into our suite swearing and yelling at us!– At me! Telling me that I had to take what her daughter was dishing out because that was my JOB!!! ( wanna talk about pissing me off! Yeah, that did!) We were going to evict this girl for not paying her rent, but she decided she would just move so we didn’t have to. Her mom was mad at us because after all the crazy events of the night before we banned this girl from the building. Her mom was upset that she wouldn’t be able to come and visit. My thought was ” who the hell cares, that’s not my problem!” But again, cooler heads prevailed, ( again, thank God for my husband’s calmness!) Greg apologized to her for calling her names, and he made her come and apologize to me and my kids for terrifying us for coming after him with a baseball bat and a bunch of guys! Her mom also apologized to us, because of course, she had told her a very different version of events than what actually happened. The only reason we let her come back into the building was because her dad was a really nice guy and was so incredibly embarrassed by both his wife and daughter.

Oh the memories! Oh the absolutely terrible, horrible, funny, lovely memories from that time! Greg would play marbles with the girls for hours and hours in our living room, on the warped, lop-sided floor. They’d shoot the marbles, aiming for a cup, and the marbles would roll so far the other way because the floors were so bad! While I was at work during the summers, ( I had picked up more hours when Greg was off school for the summers), he would take all the kids in the building and set up the water sprinklers for them. Doug and Greg would sit on the lawn and have a beer or two and all the kids in the building would run through the sprinklers. Greg would tell the kids,”go ask your Mom if it’s ok that you come down, and they would run up and ask their moms (there were a lot of single moms in the building), and the kids would come running down yelling ” My Mom said I could, My Mom said I could”. So Greg would set up the sprinklers and all the kids would have an absolute hay day. Our girls loved having their dad home, and he was most definitely the fun one of us!

That time in our lives taught us so much about who we were, what we were capable of doing, ( to this day, I still know how to change a thermocouple in a water heater, I can put a new door up, including frame, I can manage people and their work processes, and so so much more!) It taught us the strength to do what we need to do in order to survive. We learned how to work together in the most challenging of situations. I learned how to step out of my comfort zone, and what I really don’t ever what to do again! But we also met some amazing people who really were just trying to live a life. Doug died shortly before we stopped managing and moved into our new place.Before he died, we had renovated a suite on the top floor and moved them up there. They were both so ecstatic to be living on the top floor in a nice “new” suite. It made the last few months of his life happy. We felt pretty darn good about doing that for them. Another gentlemen we met was Grandpa Huey. He was an older gentleman who was really all alone. His family lived across the country and so our girls became his surrogate grandchildren. Greg and Grandpa Huey would take our girls to McDonald’s for ice cream all the time. It was as good for us and our girls as it was for him. We cried when he died too.

I learned so many lessons from managing an apartment building. I learned to be grateful for a loving, wonderful, incredibly hardworking husband, to be grateful that our family does not suffer from addictions. I learned to speak up for myself against abusive people, and to stay calm in times of turmoil and chaos. I learned to manage people and the work that needs to be done, which helped me get the careers I have had, and will have. Greg, the girls and I are pretty willing to do whatever it takes to help our family flourish. For me, managing an apartment felt like a very degrading thing to do, but I realized that many people are really thankful to have people who care, and who tried to make their home a better place. I might have started out thinking that it was a degrading job and that I would end up looking like Mrs Roper from Three’s Company with her muumuu and curlers in her hair, but that the skills I developed and the people I met, made it worthwhile. I came to learn that we were not “normal” apartment managers, and that we left the places we managed far better than what we got them.

I have come to understand that everything we do in life leads us to where we are and where we are supposed to end up. It might feel like hell going through it, but that the other side looks pretty darn good. By our doing what we did, Greg was able to have a really good, strong career, and so have I. His going to school was the catalyst for the life we live today. It forced us to look at people and life from different perspectives, and helped us to become better people. It changed our entire lives. We would never have been able to afford for Greg to go to school had we not managed that apartment, so as much as I say I hated it, I am grateful for the experience it gave me. It made me step outside of what I knew, and grow. It helped make me the strong, capable, determined person I am today. You do what you’ve got to do in order to survive, and I can look at that time as crappy and terrible and awful, or I can look at it as the opportunity it was… as the step it was to where we wanted to be. I think I’ll look at it as the opportunity…with a side of crap!

This picture is one I took of some buildings on a farm north of Evansburg. I made Greg come with me a few weeks ago to take pictures of old abandoned buildings. Greg doesn’t really like things like this, in fact, he really doesn’t like them at all. Every time we go somewhere and I see buildings like this, I always want to stop and snap some pics. He just says that he thinks they should all be torn down so the yards are cleaned up. I understand completely what he is saying, yet there is something about them that still attracts me to them…maybe its my Saskatchewan roots and the history I see in the buildings, and the stories these buildings must have, or maybe it’s that I kind of relate to them, sitting alone and forgotten on a landscape, and every once in a while someone will drive by and notice them. It’s like they still have some hope. I’m sure most of us have felt like that at some point in our lives, and if not, well, I think you’re lucky to not have felt that.

I was speaking with a few different friends recently about finding a job and going back to work. This economy in Alberta has been difficult for quite a few people. Many of us have been laid off, let go, terminated, fired…whatever you want to call it. For some,the downturn in the economy resulted in jobs being lost so businesses could stay in business, whether through job restructuring, or position elimination. For others, it was because someone decided that they had a hate-on for them and wanted them gone. There are many reasons people lose their jobs, and each job loss has far-reaching effects. Financial…physical… spiritual…mental. Financially, many of us were lucky enough to be able to claim Employment Insurance, at least for awhile. The Federal Government even extended EI for some people. That’s really great. For many though, 50-60% of the former income is just not enough to make ends meet. Losing their job meant losing their house, their car, etc, especially if it has taken a long time to find another job. Some of my friends left the oil industry and their homes behind to move elsewhere to start over. A couple of friends have started their own businesses in completely different fields, one opened a restaurant., and one her own travel company. Financially, all of these things have affected them and their families. Tied to that are the mental thoughts that go through our heads when we lose a job. Feelings of guilt, anxiety, vulnerability, insecurity and anger manifest physically through flus, colds, headaches, sore muscles to the point one feels like a freight train has run over them. Depression for many is very common. This past weekend, some of my friends and I took a two-day Mental Health First Aid course to help us assess and identify someone with mental health concerns, and so we know that there are actually things we can do to help. It was a great course, and really well led by our instructor. For me, the reason I took it was because of the industry that I’ve worked in for nearly 30 years, and because of the mental health concerns with my own family and friends. I have had many many situations where this would have been helpful before, so now at least I have some actual solutions and actions that I know I can take to help if need be.

All of this leads me to talking about finding a job. I can say it has been one of the most challenging things I have had to do, not because it is physically hard to look for a job, but because of all the feelings that come up. I have felt insecure, inadequate, guilty, angry, hurt, hesitant… you name the emotion, I have felt it. I am writing this because I am pretty sure that many of my other friends are going through the same things I am, and maybe this will help us all to feel more “normal”. Most of us don’t like talking about our feelings, and certainly not when they are negative. I lost my job the day after I found out I needed life saving surgery. I had known it was coming for some time, but finding out the day after that news was heart wrenching, to say the least. I had worked for the same company on and off for nearly 18 years. I had been promoted 7 times over my career, to increasing larger stores, and finally to looking after 13 stores. I had received special awards from the owner/CEO of the company, and made bonuses regularly. I had built a solid reputation for working successfully with my team, with my home office business partners, and for being the ” go to fixer-upper”. Every promotion I was given was directed by the CEO because she knew that I could “clean” up HR issues. I enjoyed my work, my business partners, and my team that reported to me. When I was laid off I felt like my identity was stolen from me. I know, I know, we are NOT what we do, but truly, many of us feel that. When we are introduced to someone new, we don’t ask ” Who are you?”, we ask “What do you do?”. Since I no longer had a job, I felt like I couldn’t answer that question. I would laughingly say ” Oh, you know, I’m sitting on my ass doing nothing”, or I’d say ” Um, I’m not working right now, I’m recovering from heart surgery”, but really I was given the go ahead to go back to work after a year. This last year, I truly didn’t want to go back to work… partly because I was loving being able to be home and being able to develop some of the creativity that I had always wanted to develop. But now, it’s time to go back to work because I am starting to get restless, and financially I like the life that Greg and I have set out for ourselves. I like being able to travel, I like our home and having 2 cars. Financially, we have set our lives up for 2 incomes, so it’s time. But… finding a job can become a very daunting full-time job in itself. And it’s so different from years ago when we had to print of our resumes and drop them off, or fill out applications at each individual place , and wait to hear back from the hiring manager. Now, there are so many websites to scroll through, applications are all taken online, resumes can be posted to those websites and companies can find you. It’s a very different mentality and culture than when I was looking for work 18 years ago. There are hundreds of resume writing websites and cover letter writing sites and templates and it just goes on and on. It can be daunting to start over. And then we have the actual interview! Well, that’s a whole other story about anxiety and nerves. I had not had an interview in nearly 18 years. I have done hundreds of interviews, maybe even thousands, but always on the giving end, not the receiving end. It’s a very different feeling, and one that for me has truly not been comfortable.

It has brought back memories of when we were managing the apartments while Greg was in school. He had been laid off from work back in the 90’s, and within 2 days we knew he would be going back to school. We had 2 kids, I worked evenings and weekends at the Bay, and we now had no main income. It was terrifying, but we also knew that if Greg didn’t go back to school, we would never move forward. So we knew we would do whatever it took for him to go back. He decided to take Financial Management and Business Management at NAIT. We had moved to Stony Plain and into an apartment because Alicia was going to start grade one, and we were going to buy a house in town. Am I ever glad that we had decided to wait to find the “right” place, because at least we didn’t have a mortgage to pay too. The people who were managing the apartments we lived in were young, and we had helped them out a few times, so they suggested we contact their boss and see if there was a place we could manage. There was, but it was in Edmonton. We really wanted Alicia to go to school in Stony, at Meridian Heights, because it was a French Immersion program, and was the top ranked school in Alberta at that time. We decided to take the apartment in the city, but that I would drive Alicia to school everyday. As luck would have it, the apartment was right by NAIT so Greg would be able to walk to school. We started managing the building in the summer before Greg started school. We cleaned up the building and started trimming trees and just really fixing the place up. One day the owner of the building drove by. He went around the block a couple of times, and then finally pulled up in front of the building. He laughed as he got out of the car, telling us that he didn’t recognize the building because it looked so good! It was nice to hear that our work was valued. A few weeks later we got a call from our boss, and found out that the people who had been managing the building in Stony Plain had quit. We had told her that we actually would have preferred to be in Stony, so she offered us that building instead. It meant that we would be moving again, after a short 6 week stint in Edmonton. The thing was, we really wanted to be in Stony so it was worth having to move again, though I’m pretty sure our friends who helped us move didn’t think so! But, we were also really happy to move back to Stony because while we lived at the building in the city, Alicia’s brand new bike was stolen right off our balcony, and as we were packing to move, the girls and I were sitting on the couch in the living room. I looked up at the ceiling and I noticed a little black mark that I thought was a hole. Beside the hole it looked like there was a little bug. It moved, so Greg went up to squish it. He grabbed a stool and got up closer, and asked me to grab him the broom and a bucket. He poked the hole a little bigger, and THOUSANDS of ants came spilling out!! THOUSANDS!!! The girls and I screamed and ran, he was freaking because they were all over his arms and legs, and the ants were scurrying EVERY WHERE!!!!! It was a scene out of a horror movie! It was GAWD freaking awful! Needless to say that was motivation to move even faster. As a final action as apartment managers for that building, we made arrangements to fumigate the building and got our behinds out of there!

We managed the Stony apartments for almost 3 years. We met some really great people while living and working there, but we also met some very “interesting people”. That’s a conversation for another blog, because let me tell you, holy man, the stories we can tell! Anyway, I decided it was time for me to get another job after we had managed for about 2 years. Greg was about 3 months away from graduating, and I thought it would take me months to find a job. I remember crying and basically just freaking out because I truly believed I had no skills. It was an awful time. The self-doubt and the fear and the negative thoughts and emotions I had about myself made it really hard on my entire family. I had skills, but didn’t believe that and couldn’t find the words to put them into a resume anyway. Greg sat me down one day and helped me write a resume. It made me feel so much better, but I was still filled with anxiety and self doubt. Anyway, I was hired quite quickly as a manager for General Nutrition Centres and sent to Vancouver for training for a month. Greg was left to deal with a ton of stuff! He had two little girls, one in school, he was in school full-time and getting close to finals time himself, and we were still managing the apartments…and off I run to Vancouver. Let’s just say that Greg was a busy guy, and it was probably one of the most difficult, trying times in our life and our marriage. The whole point of my writing about that time though, is that looking for work this time around brought back a lot of those negative feelings and fears. What kind of work could I do besides retail? I had been in retail 28 years. Did I have the skill-set to change my career? Would I ever find work again? I had taken an online Medical Administrative Program so I had a diploma, but would people hire me with no experience in that field? Was the information I was putting in my resume helping or hindering? Things had changed so much from when I last wrote a resume. Back then, it was important to put things in chronological order, listing dates and companies worked for. You were supposed to include hobbies and interests and even references. Now, it’s recommended to not put dates on your resume at all, and to use job titles, rather than company names. You include who you worked for, but you highlight your position more so, and never include references. So many things to know! I used all those websites and tips and tricks and followed templates and wrote and rewrote and rewrote and rewrote so many times. I updated my cover letter every time I sent out a resume, even if they didn’t request one because the websites all say to include a cover letter that showcases quickly your skills and why you are a fit for their company. Between November and the middle of March I sent out over 150 resumes and cover letters. I had quite a few interviews, some multiple interviews with the same company. The thing that I found the worst is when I did have multiple interviews with the same company, (like 5 for one company), and then they don’t even have the courtesy to contact me to let me know I hadn’t been given the position. I mean, come on! Even when it was ” just a cashier” position that I was interviewing for, I’d call or email a little note that said ” Hey thanks for your time, we’ve decided to go with another candidate, but we wish you every success in your job search.” Or ” Hey, I still haven’t reached a decision, I have more interviews that I’m running, I’ll contact you before the end of next week.” AND I DID!! That’s it, that’s all, it took me two seconds, but it didn’t leave people hanging. It’s just rude! Ok, that’s my rant for the moment!

I think most people feel fear or self-doubt when we are exposing our vulnerabilities to the world. I know that it also brought feelings of anger towards my previous boss because I had been with the company for nearly 18 years, and it was gone. Every single day while with Indigo, I was able to see, touch, talk about, read and enjoy the books. Books for me are like breathing, they are an absolute necessity, so when I lost my job, I also felt like I had lost that too. I had 2 years where I really didn’t have to think about those feelings, but then as I started to look for work again, those feelings of anger and loss came to the forefront again. It took me time and conscious thinking to overcome those feelings, and to not blame my former boss and company. Looking for work is a time when we self reflect, especially when we’ve been laid off. It might be different if you have chosen to leave and move on, but when that choice is taken from you, as it was for me, I found that I had lost my sense of control. That might be more closely tied to being ill and needing surgery too, but this has truly been a time when I have been self reflecting and reviewing my career and choices and options and opportunities. It’s been educational and eye-opening for me. It’s made me realize a lot about myself. I don’t recommend losing your job, but I can honestly say that it wasn’t the worst thing that I’ve faced in my life, and I’ve also realized that whatever position I take ( I have accepted a position as an Operations Manager with Diabetes Canada, and I am very excited about it), but whatever position I take, I will give it a fair and honest time frame, but if I feel like it’s not working out, I get to choose to leave. I get to be in control of my decisions and of my mindset. Fear and self doubt and anxiety have no place in my future. I am working to overcome them, and with the love and encouragement of my family and friends, and with the relationships I have built through my former work, I know I am perfectly capable of being successful in whatever field I choose. Those skills that I didn’t think I had, well I do, and they are very very transferable. And to all of my friends who are looking for work, and there are actually quite a few, I hope you find your hope, your joy, and your passion in your next career! You all deserve it!

I’ve been off work for two years on March 17. The first year I can honestly say was pretty damn tough. The complications I had from my heart surgery made it a long difficult year, but this past year has truly been so wonderful. I consider myself very blessed to have been able to take this time and really just focus on my soul. I spent the last two years doing things for me. It took a bit of time to get over feeling selfish,to not feel guilty for taking the time and not rushing to get back to work, but I’m just so grateful that financially Greg and I had prepared for something like this. It gave me the opportunity to really heal, physically, mentally, emotionally. I was able to spend time doing things like gardening, painting, cooking, canning, woodworking, and going for lunch with my girlfriends as often as I could! I’ve never not worked, and sometimes 2 or 3 jobs at a time. I had spent years, literally years, working 12-18 hours a day, 5-6 days a week. The stress dealing with some of the stuff at my last work and the long hours and being sick and not knowing it, took its toll, and so having this time off was really necessary. I’ve learned that I don’t need to justify something that I cherish, even if other people don’t understand it. But the funny thing is, most people I’ve talked to in the last two years have said how much they would like to be able to do the same thing… to take time to heal their own soul.

We’ve always enjoyed visiting and seeing family and friends, but over the last couple of years, we’ve come to value and appreciate being able to do things with our family and friends even more. Visiting, hosting, getting together for games nights, going to gatherings where we get to see everyone… these have always meant a lot to us, but now we realize just exactly how important those things are. These little moments have truly become the big ones for us. I guess it comes from having lost loved ones, having had our parents be very ill and nearly die ( Greg’s dad did die), and nearly dying myself. It puts a perspective on life. People tell me that I’m brave because of what I went through, and because I’ve decided to say yes to different things, like blogging. I say thank you to that,and I’m in no way discounting what I did go through, but to me, the people who are brave are the ones who have lived with a loss so great, so horrible that they don’t know how they will go on. Yet they do. They become stronger and more caring and more loving instead of becoming bitter and angry. Our friends lost their little girl in an ATV accident. She was 6. My girlfriend lost her husband when her daughter was 3 and she was about 6 weeks pregnant. Yet these people have continued on in their lives; grieving and sad and devastated -yes- forever changed- yes- but they have gone on to live and to love again.They are the bravest souls to me. These people understand that it’s the little moments together, a look across the room from your spouse or lover, a hug from your child when you least expect it, that moment your child says or does something so embarrassing you want to cover your face and hide, a thank you and smile from a complete stranger, these are the things that make life worth living.

I always felt like I was just going through the motions of life when I was growing up, that I was a bit of an observer looking in at life, but never really living it. I dreamed such big dreams of travelling the world and writing the greatest novels that included all kinds of great recipes I’d made. I dreamed of having university degrees and of speaking multiple languages, of being somebody important. Not famous, but important. I’m certainly not famous, nor am I rich,. No, I’ve never saved a life. I haven’t traveled to every corner of the earth, yes we’ve traveled some, and if I could, I’d be gone traveling all the time. No, I’m not fluent in any language other than English., but I do speak and understand enough French to carry on a conversation. I can understand some Spanish, Italian and German. I’ve never written a best selling book, but I have started blogging and sharing some of my photos and recipes. I have been the best mom, wife, friend, daughter, sister, boss,etc., that I know how to be. And I’m learning every day. What I am doing is changing my thought process by being even more open to what the world is going to show me, give me, teach me. I think too, that these little thing, may, someday be the big things.

I’m pretty sure that most of us sit back and look at our lives, our ordinary, mundane, sometimes boring lives, and feel like we’re on the cusp of something so big, so great that we just can’t wait for those great, big, wonderful moments to come. But what if those little things, are not little? What if those little things, like going to work every day, like driving the kids to and from their activities every day, like making supper for our family every day-what if those moments really are the big ones? What if those moments are when the memories are made with our kids, with our spouses, with our friends? What if those big, great, fantastic memories that come from those incredible vacations we all love going on are so few and far between, that those everyday moments become what makes our life meaningful? Is it just me that thinks this way? Is it just me that has these crazy, ridiculous thoughts? Do other people feel the same as me? I think so. I think that most of us want our kids to look at their lives, their everyday lives, as being important, and fun, and boring, and life! I think we are all dreaming of the “good life”. I laugh and joke and say that I’d never go back to work if I didn’t have to, or if I won the lottery! Lol! But reality is, we are not likely to win the lottery, and I like our life the way it’s set up now. Most of us will go through life living and working and eating and sleeping just like we always do. So how, how do we really make those little moments between the boring and mundane and ordinary, count?

For me, those special moments come most often when we have friends or family gatherings. Whether we are hosting or whether we are going to someone else house, it’s about the people and of course, the food. (One of the appetizers that I make and get asked to bring all the time is my Spinach Dip. It’s below… no the girls won’t have to put the recipe on my headstone. It won’t be “over my dead body”that I share the recipe. I’ll share it now! )It’s playing games and laughing so hard I need Depends! It’s working in my garden and listening to my neighbours little girl ask her mom ” what the heck is that lady doing with all those sand pails? What is she doing? Is she crazy?” Then listening to her the next day as I planted my herb garden and say to her mom ” Wow, can we do that too, Mom, that looks so cool!” The picture I posted is the herb garden I put up on my deck. I’m pretty sure Greg thought I was crazy too doing that, but I wanted something fun and bright and colourful, so I did it! The pictures above are some of the woodworking that I did this past summer. The woodworking that I did is by no means expert, but it was so fun, so healing, and so fulfilling. That for me became a big moment. Doing this blog has become a big moment. For me, putting myself out there in such a public way makes me feel quite vulnerable. It’s also quite freeing. All the thoughts that I have, I’m pretty sure most others have too. ( though , maybe not, maybe I am just out to lunch!) But seriously, I have loved being able to try new things, to lessen my fears by saying yes to things I’ve never tried. I always was a perfectionist, and that was good in some ways, but it also meant that I had huge fears to try anything new because I wasn’t perfect at it right away. This time at home, this life changing situation that I was in, has allowed me to to overcome some of those perfectionist fears.

I’ve posted this quote by L.R. Knost on Facebook before, but I believe it’s worth posting again. To me, it truly does epitomize exactly what I feel about life.

“Life is amazing. And then it’s awful. And then it’s amazing again. And in between the amazing and awful it’s ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That’s just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it’s breathtakingly beautiful.”

I’m not sure I have the answers to my own questions, but I’m working on finding those answers. I’m working on feeling like what I am doing is enough. I’m working on taking each moment, each boring, mundane moment, and looking at the good, the fun, the positive that comes from each of them, and making each of those precious little moments count as the big moments. But I have also realized that sometimes just getting out of bed in the morning, is a big thing. Just stepping into a room filled with people, is a big thing. That just writing that first word, that just taking that first step, that these are the things that move me forward, that make me better ,stronger, happier. Michelangelo started the Sistine Chapel with just one brush stroke. Wayne Gretzky became the greatest hockey player ever by taking one step onto the ice. My goal may not be to be the greatest at anything, but my goal is to LIVE life; to share kindness and gratitude and love with as many people as I can. Starting with me. Starting with the little things, and making them count as the big things.

Spinach Artichoke Dip

Ingredients:

3/4 cup cream cheese ( softened) 2 cups sour cream

1/2 cup Miracle Whip splash Worcestershire Sauce

2 TBSP Lemon juice 1/2 cup chopped Marinated Artichoke

1 pkg frozen spinach (squeezed as dry as possible) 1/2-3/4 cup grated Parmesan

1-1 1/2 cup shredded cheddar

I use chopped dill weed, or if I’m not serving it to my friend Glenn who has onion allergies, I use Epicure Spinach Spice or Epicure Cheese Chive and Bacon Spices. These do both contain onion so I only use them when I know Glenn isn’t going to be eating the dip!

Mix cream cheese, sour cream, Miracle Whip, lemon and Worcestershire and dill or Epicure spices together until smooth. Add finely chopped spinach and marinated artichoke hearts. Stir in Parmesan and cheddar. Taste! Add more spices or lemon as needed. Use a fairly large casserole dish and bake for 30- 40 minutes at 350 Degrees.

For a healthier alternative, I use 0% Greek yogurt instead of sour cream, and light cream cheese and cheddar instead of regular. I do find that these do not melt together as well, and the sodium content is very high in the lower fat alternatives.

This is by no means a “healthy, low fat” recipe, but it is friggin’ DELICIOUS! And I finally shared it for all of you who ask… see no big secrets! LOL! Enjoy!