Life is Good - Part Two

This morning when I crawled out of bed at 6:30am, exhausted from yet another night that my two year old did not sleep through the night, I felt like I was the most tired person on earth. Then I remembered my sister and her new born baby and figured her night had probably felt a little longer than mine.

When I was pulling out of my driveway at 7:01am on my way to work, I felt like I had to be the only one up in the whole city.  But then I saw my neighbour who was also on her way to work.  We chatted about our jobs (we are both teachers) and how great our students are and I thought that I was actually really lucky to have, not only a job, but a job that I love. When I got to Tim Horton’s for my bagel, I realized the woman behind the counter had been at work since before 6am and the same for the teenager at the local coffee shop who had started work when I was crawling out of bed (yes, I sometimes make two stops in the morning…don’t judge).  Clearly, I was not the only one up, not by a long shot.

Yesterday, I had been on the phone complaining to a friend that my husband was going to be away overnight and that I was going to have to be alone with my kids (ok, that sentence makes me sound like a terrible mother but I am going with it anyway) and then I remembered that her husband is gone from her and her three kids for the better part of the year for work.  I felt a little insensitive.

I was so tired tonight that I dreaded having to put my kids to bed (it is currently 9:38pm and none of them are actually sleeping yet).  But as I was tucking in my baby and as my five year old was showing me her latest dance moves on my bed, I remembered that some parents don’t have their children to tuck in anymore and they would trade all that they own to have one more bedtime with their beautiful child.

It is easy to complain about the things in our life that we have and take for granted. It is even ok to complain once in a while. We are only human. The thing is, many of the things I complain about the most are some of the best things in my life.  So, let me take this moment to acknowledge how truly fortunate I am in this life.  I need to be a little less dramatic and show a lot more gratitude for all that I have.

It is a beautiful thing that I can wake up early, stop for a tea on the way to a job that I love, call one of my best friends for a chat and have a cuddle each night with my kids before they fall asleep.  Life is good and I know that. I just need to remember it more often.

Pretty Little Cookies from Hell

A couple of years ago, I was introduced to the world of cookie decorating. At Easter, a good friend of mine presented me with a tin of the most beautiful cookies. They looked professionally done and they were almost too pretty to eat. I was inspired. I chose last Valentine’s Day to try making them myself. I thought it would be a fun Sunday activity to do together with the kids. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. This was a foreign world to me and there were moments that Sunday afternoon (early evening and into the late night) I wished it would have remained that way.

The day started with the instructions and shopping list. My friend gently encouraged me by saying that they only looked overwhelming. I had never even heard of piping bags, couplets and meringue powder. With the assistance of the nice woman at the bulk store, I armed myself with all of the necessary supplies. I was in the bulk store for over an hour trying to choose the right size piping things and colours. It had been a lot of work (and money) already. My enthusiasm was waning early.

Preparing the cookie dough was easy. I like to bake...I was remembering why I took this challenge on in the first place. I failed to read through the instructions far enough to read that the dough would have to chill for an hour. Much of the day had already been eaten up by the gathering of materials. Now we would have to wait even longer. My daughter was ready to go into hysterics at this point because all she wanted to do all day was decorate the damn cookies. I made a mental note to prepare the cookies the day before next time so that family fun day might actually be fun.

Eventually, the dough is chilled and rolled and cut into hearts. They are baked and ready for decorating. I had no idea of the delicate dance it would now take to make all the various colours of icing, some to spread over the whole cookie and some to use for the finer details. I was up to my elbows in red and pink frosting but I was able to give my daughter the satisfaction she was craving of decorating a few cookies. I gave her a knife, some sprinkles, and a bowl full of frosting. I knew she wasn’t ready for the ‘real deal’ of cookie decorating. 

I was beginning to wonder why my friend had encouraged me to do this at all.  Oh wait, she hadn't encouraged me...I had been inspired.  Ugh, why is it that everytime I am inspired by something I feel the need to ruin it by trying it myself. Why hadn't she warned me how much work this was going to be?  Maybe she has a different skill set than me. Maybe I was not cut out for the world of fancy cookie decorating. There was no turning back now. I was in too deep.

I still had not decorated one single cookie myself and it was time to put the kids to bed. I remained in the kitchen with dozens of undecorated cookies, as many bowls as I own with various shades of frosting in them and equally as many piping bags loaded and ready to go. It looked as though a Valentine’s Day bomb has exploded in my kitchen. I got to work. I piped around the edges, filled them (another new term for me) with watered down frosting and then painstakingly decorated each cookie in its own unique way. It was midnight before I would finish. MIDNIGHT. This was supposed to be a Sunday afternoon activity and it had consumed my entire day. And I still had to clean up.

I crawled into bed absolutely exhausted and sure that I would never, ever decorate cookies again. But, I have to say, that when I looked at my cookies with fresh eyes the next morning it felt good. The kids were excited to eat them and, in some small way, they made that Valentine’s Day special. Only a person clearly out of their mind would ever attempt to engage in such nonsense again. Yet, for some reason I can’t explain, as this Valentine’s Day approaches, I am getting the itch to do it all over.

(A sampling of last year’s cookies. In my mind, they were a lot more amazing than this…)

　

Smile!

Isn’t it charming when people feel the need to give you unsolicited observations about your appearance or mannerisms.  You know, as if they are pointing out something you hadn’t already recognized in yourself a thousand times before.

People love to tell me that I never smile.  Or when I do smile, they love to say, “Wow. You’re actually smiling”.  I am never quite sure how to navigate this.  I usually launch into my defence that just because I don’t walk around smiling all of the time it doesn’t mean that I am not happy. I am just not a smiley person.

I then spend the next portion of my day observing others to see if they walk around with smiles on their faces. Why isn’t everyone else subject to the same smile expectations that I am?  Then I think, maybe it isn’t that I am not smiling but that I am scowling.  I carefully study my face in the mirror and try to see what others are seeing.  It’s not so much a scowl, I don’t think. I practice turning the ends of my lips slightly up.  But thinking about having to do this all of the time is exhausting.

I suppose I don’t want people thinking I am grumpy all of the time just because I was genetically engineered to slightly frown.  Maybe their advice is useful and I should take it as an opportunity to improve myself and people’s perceptions of me.  Because I am happy damn it; well I’m happy most of the time anyway.

My friend has recently run into similar unwanted comments.  This month alone she has been told by a number of people that she has emotional baggage that she needs to deal with and that she has fifteen years of bad posture. And even though she was completely annoyed by the nerve of these people to be offering their two-cents, she has spent most of the month crying and trying to stand up straight.

I think a lot of us sometimes walk around in a bit of bubble about ourselves. We are so used to us that we don’t see what everybody else sees.  And then someone (or ten people) comes along and makes a comment that makes us stop and think. As I said, I already knew I wasn’t a smiley person but the fact that my peers are feeling the need to tell me I never smile makes me think I am a lot less smiley than I thought I was and certainly less the average person.  My close friends might not notice this about me because they are too used to me to.  At some point in our friendships, the good and the bad just all get rolled into one acceptable package.

There is a large part of me that does not care what people think of me. But there is an equally large part that does.  We care what people think because our connections to others are all we really have.  I want to look on the outside the way I feel on the inside. And on the inside I am a (mostly) happy person.  Smiling a little more often can’t be too hard, can it?  I am sure someone will tell me soon enough.

When the Cats are Away

Let me start by saying that I love my family. I love (and chose) to have three children and, more times than not, they make me very happy. But I am human. And as much as I love the sometimes joyful and sometimes torturous noises of having a family, once in a while there is nothing better than the sound of extended peace and quiet. This morning, my wonderful and marvelous husband, left with our youngest two children for an overnight visit with his family in Buffalo (hear me letting out a sigh of joy and happiness).

I have been anticipating this two day oasis for weeks; as has my eight year old son who is like me in more ways than he’s capable of seeing at his young age.  We have been secretly planning our time together every night at bedtime.  It sometimes has been hard for us to hide our excitement from the others. A couple of times Eric was wavering on whether or not he would just stay home.  My son quickly learned the art of subtle persuasion reminding his dad how important it was to visit his family.  Well played, son.

This morning, the girl’s bags were packed and waiting at the door by 9am.  Waves of guilt would sporadically wash over me but I had to stay focussed on getting them out the door.  As they drove away, I felt a little sad but then shook myself out of it.  It was time to celebrate. I have two days at home with a mostly well-adjusted eight year old who loves his down time at much as his mother. It doesn’t get any better than this.

We jumped into action by heading to our favourite place to go for breakfast together. We’ve been going there, many times just the two of us, since he was a baby.  They know both of our orders without asking (which, by the way, are identical) and while we wait we play a competitive game of squares.  The next stop is at the bowling alley where he proceeds to legitimately beat me (well, he used the bumpers a lot more than I did) two games to none.  We ended our morning together at the bookstore and then he was off to a friend’s house for the afternoon.  I know. This is crazy good.

I head home to build myself a cocoon of warmth and bliss.  I first stop at the movie store to find the perfect movie for a woman alone on a snowy afternoon. I select a movie that any woman without her husband and children around might also choose; a movie about a senior citizen who reveals that he is gay and lives out his life exploring his newfound sexuality.  See what I mean?

Back to my cocoon, Eric didn’t have time to chop wood for a fire for me so I decide to do it myself.  I am clearly desperate for the atmosphere a fire is going to create because this would be the first time in my life I would be swinging an axe around.  I almost learned the hard way what proper foot positioning is for times when one misses the target.  Anyway, I got enough small pieces to make a go of a fire and got is started with surprising ease.

The point of all of this is that…I love being alone?  No wait. It’s more than that.  It’s that I do love my family and I love being a mom and wife but I also love being Lori.  The Lori, who when stripped of so many of the things that seem to define me on a daily basis, is the same old girl she has always been.  I don’t feel bad, like so many mothers do, about wanting, needing and loving time to myself.  Time alone or time with my friends, refuels me.  It gives me perspective and it makes me happy.  Why should any of us feel guilty about that?  And it’s not only about people with kids. We all need to step back and shut out the rest of the world sometimes and just feel good about being alone.

Tonight, like two college buddies, my son and I will pick up dinner at McDonalds and mindlessly eat it while we watch hockey. I will go to bed knowing I’ll be sleeping through the night and then we’ll wake up and quite possibly go out for breakfast again.  By the time everyone arrives home tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be recharged and well-rested and ready for the craziness of having a family to consume me once again.

Our House

I drive by the house I grew up in on my way to the market every Saturday morning.  I always look at it (for as long as I can while driving) and point it out to the kids.  It’s not a particularly outstanding house. It’s not a house I would necessarily buy myself. But, when I drove by early this morning, with the ground and trees blanketed in snow, all I could see was how beautiful it was.

As a child, it didn’t matter that it wasn’t the prettiest house or the biggest house or that I shared a room with my sister or that we all shared one bathroom for a long time. It was just our house and I was comfortable and happy in every part of it.

Thinking about that house and the life I had there has given me a needed chance to reflect on my house now.  I tend to fuss over it and complain about it a little too often.  I don’t like this or I am tired of that.  I covet other people’s houses and neighbourhoods overlooking the best part of ours which is simply that it is our home.  Our home where our kids play (and eat) all over the place, where we love to host our friends and where we have built most of our life together so far.

When I drove by my old house this morning I was hit all at once with a lifetime of memories with my family.  Where my sister and I played catch on the front lawn and broke the new lattice on the fence that my Dad had just finished building.  Where my Dad would spend hours doing something or another in the garage and where we woke up to over twenty years of Christmas mornings. And where my younger sister infamously climbed a ladder leading up to my other sister’s room to break in to steal her clothes.  

That house saw my sisters and me grow up.  It is where I picture my Dad on his chair in the rec room.  I can still hear the radio playing, like it always was, while my mom did the dishes after dinner.  Every room and scratch and banged up wall holds a moment from my past.  I think all of these memories are what made it so hard for me to even go into that house, one last time, right before it was sold. I just couldn’t say goodbye to the life that I had loved so much.

And there it all is, right there in front of me, every time I pass by it.  It’s on the lawn, in the garage, on the front step my mom and I would always sit on after dinner and in the top left window that was my tiny, perfect bedroom.  I loved my life in that house and it is that happy life that I am hoping to create for my own kids. And maybe one day, when they drive by this house, their house, and think it is not a house they’d ever choose for themselves, they too will think that it is beautiful.

Winter Wonderland

I think it’s funny how much people love to complain about the snow and winter.  I think the winter is just an easy target because it’s not cool to like the winter.  Everyone loves the summer and the nice weather but personally, I think summer weather is over-rated. 

I love winter. I love a huge snow storm even more.  I love to sit inside with the fire going and watch the snow coming down so heavy you can hardly see anything else.  I love to go for walks when the snow is falling, especially when it’s dark out.  I love to play in the snow with the kids….I love even more to watch the kids playing in the snow.  I love to go out for breakfast to our favourite breakfast place and sit in the window eating French toast and bacon and drinking pots full of tea.

I go into hibernation in the winter. I think a lot of us do. And I know I need it.  By the end of the endless nice weather in the summer, I’m ready for a break from it. I can only enjoy so much nice weather.  In the summer, from the minute I wake up until darkness sets in (which, I’ll remind you is very late in the summer) I feel like I have to be outside enjoying it.  There is no time for rest and cuddling up on the couch and just doing nothing. And I love doing nothing.

Yep, the winter suits me just fine. On any given night, when I don’t have to go out, you may very well find me in my pajamas by 5pm. And I might not change out of those pajamas until sometime the following day if it’s on a weekend.  I like to fatten up a little in the winter too.  Ok, maybe I don’t like it but it happens.  I like to eat all of the comfort food I can get my hands on and since there’s no chance of anyone seeing me in a bathing suit for several months, I always say yes to seconds.

People don’t like the winter because they hate being cold and dealing with the snow. I say, embrace it.  Find the beauty in shorter days and longer nights and rest while you can.  I am sure when the summer comes I will remember all that is wonderful about nice, warm weather. But for right now, while the snow is falling and I am in my pajamas on the couch, I am more than happy that it is winter.

*************************************************************

The snow falls like it has a thousand times before

Still, it captivates me and tricks me to think I am watching it fall

for the very first time

The snow falls and wraps the earth in a soft, white blanket

and I am filled with warmth

The snow falls and as it falls it dances and

the child in me is dancing with it

The snow falls and grips the earth and

I am moved again.

My New Love

So, I never understood what people like Oprah were talking about when they would say things like, “Find what you love to do and do it.”   What did that mean? Where was I going to find it? I am in my thirties for crying out loud. Don’t I know everything by now? I love my job but let’s face it, if I won a significant lottery I am not sure I would continue to do it, full time anyway. But somehow, when I wasn’t expecting it, what I really and truly love to do crept up on me and, like good reality t.v., I can’t get enough.

I have always liked to write.  I still have much of my original poetry from seventh grade.  I have never minded writing speeches and there is a notebook beside my bed that has various entries about random subjects that spans years.  My love of writing has always been there, I just wasn’t paying attention.

Now I spend whatever free time I can muster, writing about things that I am not sure really matter that much but that make me content in a way I have never been before.  Writing allows me to be the complete version of myself. A new, improved version possibly.

I love reading about other writers and the process of writing. The Paris Wife is one of my all-time favourite books. It is a piece of historical fiction that tells the story of Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley.  Now, I’ve never actually read any of Hemingway’s work, but I loved reading about him and his love of writing. 

In discovering this new passion of mine, I have had the full support of my husband and that has made all the difference.  I sneak away to coffee shops when I can and only pretend to pay attention to the movies we are watching together when really, I am working away at my next piece.  I am not sure that I would have been as supportive to him as he has been to me.  When someone discovers a new side of themselves I think it can be a little threatening.  It not only requires time but it also that you allow them to grow when sometimes it is easier when the people we love just stay the same.

Allowing myself to embrace this new passion of mine has been a vulnerable time for me.  Not only have I had the support of Eric but also of my friends and family who have acted like my cheerleaders along the way.  I have never really thought about how important it is to really and truly support people during transitional times in their lives.  I think I have always paid lip service but I don’t know that I supported the people closest to me in the way that I should have. In the way that people have shown me.

I am not sure where this journey is going take me, I only know that I am happy to be on it.  If you haven’t found what you truly love to do yet, keep looking, it is somewhere inside just waiting for you to pay attention.