Thumb!!!! Dum ditty! Dum dum dum!
Today's blog is brought to you by Al Perkins (a children's author with books similar to Dr. Suess if the first part of this blog made no sense) and a very under-rated body part which I will definitely not be using on a drum in the next little while.
This week I have learned several lessons...
1. Rumour has it that dull knives are very dangerous in the kitchen. That may be true but so are really sharp knives, especially when you had no idea that they have been recently sharpened. Please always tell your family members when you sharpen knives. It truly is important.
2. If you use a sharp knife to cut yourself, it makes a rather clean cut with minimal effort. Perhaps it's a really good thing that my sword is made of wood...
3. We use our thumbs for everything!!!!! The struggle has been real but I've been learning to adapt. From getting dressed (buttons), to shampooing hair, to cutting up food to eat I have provided hours of quality entertainment for my family members. There may have been a few tears of frustration and a few giggles of support along the way.
4. The pad of our thumbs bleed like crazy when they are cut and have a hard time clotting.
The short story is I sliced off part of the pad of my thumb while cooking dinner on Friday night. It is not the kind of cut that can be stitched up so my husband used his first aid skills to bandage me up at home. There was a lot of blood and it really looked quite dramatic.
All joking aside... it definitely has slowed down my progress on some of my goals. I have taken the time to focus on the goals that I have been able to do so progress does continue. My momentum this year has been one of starts and stops. I did not want to allow this to become a pause or worse yet, another stop. As of tonight, I have had the bandage off for much of the day and it seems to be healing but I will continue to be careful with it in the meantime.
Monday 21 May 2018
Tuesday 15 May 2018
One of My Inspirations
This past weekend was Mother's Day. I was blessed with time to spend with each of my kids individually. I was allowed to soak in how they are each so different and amazing in their own special ways.
First thing Sunday morning, I received a text from my mom wishing me a Happy Mother's Day telling me that I was a great mom. I reminded her that I had learned from the best. Her response was that she had had a great teacher.
The past little while, my mom journey has been full of many bumps, lumps and bruises - raising a teen and a tween is no joke. Even in our hard moments, I could not love my kids more. I learned to love well from the women who paved the path before me.
My sweet grandmother was a force to be reckoned with. This tiny but mighty soul experienced more pain and challenge than I can wrap my brain around and came through it with a beauty and strength that can only come from the struggle. She grew up with a fairly privileged life in Ontario - by that I mean she was blessed to receive an education, she had electricity and running water... She finished school and went on to get her first year of university which allowed her to become a teacher. This in itself was significant because this was around 1940. During a summer break, while on vacation with her sister, she was having some troubles with her bicycle as a cute, young man happened upon them. This young man was a soldier waiting to be shipped off to Europe. Over the next few years, many letter were exchanged. He sent home money so his mom could buy a ring and mail it to her. Once he was done fighting for his country, the plan was for my grandma to take the train to Alberta, get married and start a new life.
Sounds like a movie right... This is where the fairy tale starts to get real really fast. One of the last things her mother said to her before she boarded that train was - you'll be back. With a strong stubborn streak as motivation she set off across the country into the wild west. Almost immediately after getting off that train, she was whisked off to get married - after all, they did not have enough beds to have a guest so they needed to do the proper thing. With that life on the prairies began.
This life looked very different from the one she was used to. No electricity, no running water... They moved into a converted grainery with a dirt floor that would serve as a one bedroom home. (Yes this was in Alberta and winters were not any warmer back then). She soon became pregnant but that sweet baby passed away during childbirth. She ended up losing two babies during childbirth and many of her other births were breach and very difficult. Eventually they did fill up that one room grainery with one daughter and three sons.
With time they did move out into a home that they built - that had electricity and water! But the hard times continued. My grandfather suffered a massive heart attack very young. He did survive but it meant that he was no longer able to farm in the same capacity so my grandma went back to teaching. Not your conventional family in the late 50's, early 60's but they did what needed to be done. Over the years, she would spend time away over the summers and did finish up her degree. She taught generations of families in the same school and even after she was forced to retire could be found reading with the kids or tutoring them.
She was not without her own health struggles over the years. In her 60's she beat lung cancer even though she had never smoked a cigarette in her life. Then again in her 80's she beat colon cancer. Shortly after the colon cancer, she suffered a life changing brain injury that took her independence along with most of her memories.
She fought hard her entire life. She loved on everyone she met well. She was one of the most inspiring people I have ever had the opportunity to know.
This is a picture taken in 2003 the week that Waylon was born. She had already suffered her brain injury at this time but she loved babies. I was lucky that my mom was able to get her a day pass to bring her to my home to meet her new great grandson. My children never had the opportunity to hear her stories told from her perspective. She passed away just shortly after I became pregnant with Georgia. She was one of the first people to know about our coming blessing and she was so excited that there would be another little person for her to love.
So what does this have to do with my journey towards mastery? I look at how she touched and inspired so many people. She had pluck and grit and a never give up attitude that allowed her to have an impact that will ripple down for generations, not just in my family but in the community she lived in. To me, mastery is without a true purpose if it is only for yourself. I want to push my limits to show my kids and their kids that they can be so much more than they can imagine. I want to be the example of how I dream my kids will live. In a world filled with mediocrity our kids need an example. I could easily sit back and wait for someone to be the example or I can get up and try to be that example. Many days I am not proud or happy with the example that I am setting but each day my plan and goal is step closer to being that inspiration, to loving well and to having a life well lived.
First thing Sunday morning, I received a text from my mom wishing me a Happy Mother's Day telling me that I was a great mom. I reminded her that I had learned from the best. Her response was that she had had a great teacher.
The past little while, my mom journey has been full of many bumps, lumps and bruises - raising a teen and a tween is no joke. Even in our hard moments, I could not love my kids more. I learned to love well from the women who paved the path before me.
My sweet grandmother was a force to be reckoned with. This tiny but mighty soul experienced more pain and challenge than I can wrap my brain around and came through it with a beauty and strength that can only come from the struggle. She grew up with a fairly privileged life in Ontario - by that I mean she was blessed to receive an education, she had electricity and running water... She finished school and went on to get her first year of university which allowed her to become a teacher. This in itself was significant because this was around 1940. During a summer break, while on vacation with her sister, she was having some troubles with her bicycle as a cute, young man happened upon them. This young man was a soldier waiting to be shipped off to Europe. Over the next few years, many letter were exchanged. He sent home money so his mom could buy a ring and mail it to her. Once he was done fighting for his country, the plan was for my grandma to take the train to Alberta, get married and start a new life.
Sounds like a movie right... This is where the fairy tale starts to get real really fast. One of the last things her mother said to her before she boarded that train was - you'll be back. With a strong stubborn streak as motivation she set off across the country into the wild west. Almost immediately after getting off that train, she was whisked off to get married - after all, they did not have enough beds to have a guest so they needed to do the proper thing. With that life on the prairies began.
This life looked very different from the one she was used to. No electricity, no running water... They moved into a converted grainery with a dirt floor that would serve as a one bedroom home. (Yes this was in Alberta and winters were not any warmer back then). She soon became pregnant but that sweet baby passed away during childbirth. She ended up losing two babies during childbirth and many of her other births were breach and very difficult. Eventually they did fill up that one room grainery with one daughter and three sons.
With time they did move out into a home that they built - that had electricity and water! But the hard times continued. My grandfather suffered a massive heart attack very young. He did survive but it meant that he was no longer able to farm in the same capacity so my grandma went back to teaching. Not your conventional family in the late 50's, early 60's but they did what needed to be done. Over the years, she would spend time away over the summers and did finish up her degree. She taught generations of families in the same school and even after she was forced to retire could be found reading with the kids or tutoring them.
She was not without her own health struggles over the years. In her 60's she beat lung cancer even though she had never smoked a cigarette in her life. Then again in her 80's she beat colon cancer. Shortly after the colon cancer, she suffered a life changing brain injury that took her independence along with most of her memories.
She fought hard her entire life. She loved on everyone she met well. She was one of the most inspiring people I have ever had the opportunity to know.
This is a picture taken in 2003 the week that Waylon was born. She had already suffered her brain injury at this time but she loved babies. I was lucky that my mom was able to get her a day pass to bring her to my home to meet her new great grandson. My children never had the opportunity to hear her stories told from her perspective. She passed away just shortly after I became pregnant with Georgia. She was one of the first people to know about our coming blessing and she was so excited that there would be another little person for her to love.
Tuesday 8 May 2018
168....
Confession... I love time management books. I love looking at planners. I love dreaming about getting all the stuff done - all of it!
So anyone else who is totally into this sort of stuff knows the relevance of the number 168. It is the numbers of hours each and every single one of us has in a week. As long as you are living and breathing, this is it - 168 hours. Time is like that. It will not increase no matter how hard we try to add extra.
This makes it precious. I have found myself trying to explain how precious time is to my kids. I think they missed the concept totally. It is a lesson that is learned with time and is most relevant when you've seen someone not get their 168 hours...
So, you would think with my love of all things planning, that I would have it together. Nope! Not even close! I read the books. I think "Wow! Applying this would be life changing!" And then when it is time to follow through, I tend to default to how I've always done things. I am not living the drean and I am not getting all the stuff done!
As a work from home mom, I have so much flexibility in my schedule. I am sure many of you would covet this flexibility. There are so many blessings with having this type of lifestyle. My favourite is that with minimal fuss I can drop everything if need be. This has allowed me the opportunity to be there for my family in ways that far too many moms have not had the chance.
This flexibility also has a darker side... There is the illusion of lots of time but it is often poorly used. I am always finding myself believing that I can add something to my to do list because I have time. My family is forever adding things on the fly because I have time. My life on the most part completely lacks structure and often any sense of urgency, which can lead to time not being treated as precious.
I have tried to impose a set structure on my life but I have not seen a great deal of success. Each day looks totally different so it is hard to build a routine. I find that I believe that I will have time later to do many things, to find that later is not really a time in my day. This has been a constant struggle in my life. The lack of ability to manage my own time well shows up in how well my requirements are progressing. I wake up most mornings ready to conquer the world, to nail my requirements only to find that I ran out of time at the end of the day. This is not an uncommon struggle for many of you. My concern is that there are too many days where I get to the end of the day and I try to reflect back. I know I was busy all day but often can't pinpoint what I was actually busy doing.
Here is where the rubber meets the road... It is hard to change something until you face the reality of what you are trying to change. I do not always know what that reality is since I get to the end of the day and I often have no idea where the day went. Many time management people focus on how we can't really manage time but we need to shift the focus to actually managing ourselves and the people in our lives. I am apparently not terribly mindful of where my precious minutes are being used up.
So... I am going to start doing a time audit on myself to see just where the minutes are slipping away to during this next week. I've got a tracking sheet in my planner and I am ready to find out just where the time is going. Really, I am off to practice the two questions that we talk about all the time... Where am I? What am I doing? Then record the answers.
Numbers as of May 7/18
Push ups 4,424/ 50 000
Sit ups 4,475/ 50 000
Kempo 92/ 1000
WuDang Sword 180/ 1000
Distance 416.3/1609
Kicks 839/ 50 000
Sparring 248/ 1000
AoK 232/1000
Gratitude 231/1000
Journal 75/355
Piano 12.5 hours/ 80 hours
Reading 6/24 books
Geocaches 13/120 finds
So anyone else who is totally into this sort of stuff knows the relevance of the number 168. It is the numbers of hours each and every single one of us has in a week. As long as you are living and breathing, this is it - 168 hours. Time is like that. It will not increase no matter how hard we try to add extra.
This makes it precious. I have found myself trying to explain how precious time is to my kids. I think they missed the concept totally. It is a lesson that is learned with time and is most relevant when you've seen someone not get their 168 hours...
So, you would think with my love of all things planning, that I would have it together. Nope! Not even close! I read the books. I think "Wow! Applying this would be life changing!" And then when it is time to follow through, I tend to default to how I've always done things. I am not living the drean and I am not getting all the stuff done!
As a work from home mom, I have so much flexibility in my schedule. I am sure many of you would covet this flexibility. There are so many blessings with having this type of lifestyle. My favourite is that with minimal fuss I can drop everything if need be. This has allowed me the opportunity to be there for my family in ways that far too many moms have not had the chance.
This flexibility also has a darker side... There is the illusion of lots of time but it is often poorly used. I am always finding myself believing that I can add something to my to do list because I have time. My family is forever adding things on the fly because I have time. My life on the most part completely lacks structure and often any sense of urgency, which can lead to time not being treated as precious.
I have tried to impose a set structure on my life but I have not seen a great deal of success. Each day looks totally different so it is hard to build a routine. I find that I believe that I will have time later to do many things, to find that later is not really a time in my day. This has been a constant struggle in my life. The lack of ability to manage my own time well shows up in how well my requirements are progressing. I wake up most mornings ready to conquer the world, to nail my requirements only to find that I ran out of time at the end of the day. This is not an uncommon struggle for many of you. My concern is that there are too many days where I get to the end of the day and I try to reflect back. I know I was busy all day but often can't pinpoint what I was actually busy doing.
Here is where the rubber meets the road... It is hard to change something until you face the reality of what you are trying to change. I do not always know what that reality is since I get to the end of the day and I often have no idea where the day went. Many time management people focus on how we can't really manage time but we need to shift the focus to actually managing ourselves and the people in our lives. I am apparently not terribly mindful of where my precious minutes are being used up.
So... I am going to start doing a time audit on myself to see just where the minutes are slipping away to during this next week. I've got a tracking sheet in my planner and I am ready to find out just where the time is going. Really, I am off to practice the two questions that we talk about all the time... Where am I? What am I doing? Then record the answers.
Numbers as of May 7/18
Push ups 4,424/ 50 000
Sit ups 4,475/ 50 000
Kempo 92/ 1000
WuDang Sword 180/ 1000
Distance 416.3/1609
Kicks 839/ 50 000
Sparring 248/ 1000
AoK 232/1000
Gratitude 231/1000
Journal 75/355
Piano 12.5 hours/ 80 hours
Reading 6/24 books
Geocaches 13/120 finds
Friday 4 May 2018
Four Little Words...
It's Friday... Not my usual blog day but I wanted to leave myself a breadcrumb. So many blogs are written because we made the commitment to show up once a week and put something down. This is not one of those blogs. Today I write this blog purely for myself to go back and read - daily if I need to.
Between the bright light of spring and a visit to the infamous "couch", my mind has been full of activity. Some of this activity is good. Some of it not so good. On the most part, things are going fairly well. I'm not where I want to be but in most areas, but I believe that I am headed in the right direction. That is "good" thinking. The doubts that I struggle with about just how far I can take my own journey are not "good" thinking. Being realistic is a good thing. If you are not living in reality, it is hard to face what needs to be taken care of effectively. The doubts, though, are placing an anchor on my ability to progress. This anchor has a relatively short chain and as the waves swell, I get pulled under the water instead of riding the wave.
So the past two days I have been practicing four little words. I. Can. Do. This.
Yesterday I started what I will loosely call a learn to run - couch to 5km plan. I set out with my furry training partner - who by the way seems confused with the whole jog then walk situation.
The first run interval hit. I practiced my four little words. I can do this????? Wait a minute. How many question marks were at the end of that statement. Try it again. I can do this?? Ok, that as a little better.
The second run interval hit. There was still a question mark at the end of the sentence but I was working really hard to remove it.
The third run interval hit. The statement was now a statement instead of a question but I still was not feeling it.
The fourth run interval hit. Ok, maybe I really can do this. I know more than four words but the belief was starting to settle in.
The end of the fifth interval. I can do this! Yup, I did it! Then a nice long walk home.
Now this run was not some massive accomplishment, that is unless you are me. This was a run I had been putting off for a very long time. Many excuses stood between me and this first run. It was a major first step in a particular direction towards a particular goal. Today I took another step towards this goal and did the same length of intervals but did seven instead of five.
The bright light of spring has got me moving. The glory days of summer will be a test to keep the momentum going. I have a decision to make come September. I have a lot of work ahead of me. I must cut the chain on that anchor because I want to see just where I can be at that time. As each day goes by, I will keep practicing my four little words (with proper punctuation).
I can do this!
Between the bright light of spring and a visit to the infamous "couch", my mind has been full of activity. Some of this activity is good. Some of it not so good. On the most part, things are going fairly well. I'm not where I want to be but in most areas, but I believe that I am headed in the right direction. That is "good" thinking. The doubts that I struggle with about just how far I can take my own journey are not "good" thinking. Being realistic is a good thing. If you are not living in reality, it is hard to face what needs to be taken care of effectively. The doubts, though, are placing an anchor on my ability to progress. This anchor has a relatively short chain and as the waves swell, I get pulled under the water instead of riding the wave.
So the past two days I have been practicing four little words. I. Can. Do. This.
Yesterday I started what I will loosely call a learn to run - couch to 5km plan. I set out with my furry training partner - who by the way seems confused with the whole jog then walk situation.
The first run interval hit. I practiced my four little words. I can do this????? Wait a minute. How many question marks were at the end of that statement. Try it again. I can do this?? Ok, that as a little better.
The second run interval hit. There was still a question mark at the end of the sentence but I was working really hard to remove it.
The third run interval hit. The statement was now a statement instead of a question but I still was not feeling it.
The fourth run interval hit. Ok, maybe I really can do this. I know more than four words but the belief was starting to settle in.
The end of the fifth interval. I can do this! Yup, I did it! Then a nice long walk home.
Now this run was not some massive accomplishment, that is unless you are me. This was a run I had been putting off for a very long time. Many excuses stood between me and this first run. It was a major first step in a particular direction towards a particular goal. Today I took another step towards this goal and did the same length of intervals but did seven instead of five.
The bright light of spring has got me moving. The glory days of summer will be a test to keep the momentum going. I have a decision to make come September. I have a lot of work ahead of me. I must cut the chain on that anchor because I want to see just where I can be at that time. As each day goes by, I will keep practicing my four little words (with proper punctuation).
I can do this!
Tuesday 1 May 2018
Bright Light of Spring
This past winter felt long, hard and dark. Someone I was talking to yesterday commented that we had 97 days of January this year. It felt like winter would never end... It is easy to curl up in the darkness and hide but that is not useful.
I'm going to step out on a limb and declare that winter is OVER!!! Spring has finally arrived and with it the sun has been working hard to pop out. It is time to emerge from hibernation and face what the bright light is revealing.
Last week I found myself learning a lesson about slowing down. The beauty in slowing down is you actually have time to think and to really look around. Then that bright light shone in and I was left looking at a great deal of truth. There is no hiding in the light.
The reality is, I am not where I want to be. My numbers are not where I want them to be. My relationships are not where I want them to be. My home is in desperate need of a declutter and spring clean. I don't even want to talk about the body clutter that seems to have found me in the dark of winter. I could look at nearly every area of my life and point out something that the light has revealed.
Now that I have taken stock of where I am at, I have choices to make.
If I follow the path of past mistakes, I will beat myself up about all of this then proceed to feel terrible. The next step along that path forks out into two directions. The first direction is to try to fix it all at once until I finally drop into a hot mess of burn out or illness. Coming from a place where I just had a forced rest for a head cold, this is NOT the path that I want to travel. The second direction is to feel too overwhelmed and do nothing. Neither of these options have served me well in the past. This path is well worn but I know that it will lead me straight off a cliff....
I spent hours working with a very wonderful neuropsychologist after my accident. She worked hard trying to teach me to drop my perfectionist views of life and embrace a different way of looking at things. She encouraged me to try a new path - one of acceptance.
Today I choose to accept where I am on my path. Today I choose to look around and accept what the bright light is showing me. Today I choose to just do what I can do. Tonight I will choose to let go of the things that I was not able to do today because that guilt is not helpful. Tomorrow I will repeat the process. I will never make consistent progress on this journey if I am not first and foremost kind to myself.
This is not a path that I am at all familiar with. Honestly, it feels like looking up the side of a mountain without a marked trail. I do know that if I can start to slowly work my way up the mountain, that the views at the top with outstanding!
Numbers as of April 30/18
Push ups 4,119/ 50 000
Sit ups 4,115/ 50 000
Kempo 80/ 1000
WuDang Sword 169/ 1000
Distance 363.9/1609
Kicks 709/ 50 000
Sparring 218/ 1000
AoK 209/1000
Gratitude 207/1000
Journal 68/355
Piano 11.0 hours/ 80 hours
Reading 5/24 books
Geocaches 9/120 finds
I'm going to step out on a limb and declare that winter is OVER!!! Spring has finally arrived and with it the sun has been working hard to pop out. It is time to emerge from hibernation and face what the bright light is revealing.
Last week I found myself learning a lesson about slowing down. The beauty in slowing down is you actually have time to think and to really look around. Then that bright light shone in and I was left looking at a great deal of truth. There is no hiding in the light.
The reality is, I am not where I want to be. My numbers are not where I want them to be. My relationships are not where I want them to be. My home is in desperate need of a declutter and spring clean. I don't even want to talk about the body clutter that seems to have found me in the dark of winter. I could look at nearly every area of my life and point out something that the light has revealed.
Now that I have taken stock of where I am at, I have choices to make.
If I follow the path of past mistakes, I will beat myself up about all of this then proceed to feel terrible. The next step along that path forks out into two directions. The first direction is to try to fix it all at once until I finally drop into a hot mess of burn out or illness. Coming from a place where I just had a forced rest for a head cold, this is NOT the path that I want to travel. The second direction is to feel too overwhelmed and do nothing. Neither of these options have served me well in the past. This path is well worn but I know that it will lead me straight off a cliff....
I spent hours working with a very wonderful neuropsychologist after my accident. She worked hard trying to teach me to drop my perfectionist views of life and embrace a different way of looking at things. She encouraged me to try a new path - one of acceptance.
Today I choose to accept where I am on my path. Today I choose to look around and accept what the bright light is showing me. Today I choose to just do what I can do. Tonight I will choose to let go of the things that I was not able to do today because that guilt is not helpful. Tomorrow I will repeat the process. I will never make consistent progress on this journey if I am not first and foremost kind to myself.
This is not a path that I am at all familiar with. Honestly, it feels like looking up the side of a mountain without a marked trail. I do know that if I can start to slowly work my way up the mountain, that the views at the top with outstanding!
Numbers as of April 30/18
Push ups 4,119/ 50 000
Sit ups 4,115/ 50 000
Kempo 80/ 1000
WuDang Sword 169/ 1000
Distance 363.9/1609
Kicks 709/ 50 000
Sparring 218/ 1000
AoK 209/1000
Gratitude 207/1000
Journal 68/355
Piano 11.0 hours/ 80 hours
Reading 5/24 books
Geocaches 9/120 finds
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