Autumn Moments

This is a picture of Alley at our recent Tour of the Apple Barn and Pumpkin Patch. The top picture is of Michelle and I on the Hay Ride with our families.
We've enjoyed hiking in the nearby mountains, along the rushing rivers. This hike was in Golden Ears, on the Lower Falls Trail. The kids hiked slowly and in meandering directions. So, we took the path for an hour or so and then relaxed by the water, played in the sand and skipped rocks.

This is a picture of a recent "Daddy and Cherubs" campout. They loved roasting marshmallows and spending hours throwing rocks into the river.

Back to the Center

I just returned home for a trip to Arizona. My loving husband, in his love, encouraged me to go, to reconnect with my center, my soul-land. He also encouraged me to completely enjoy time with dear friends, to soak it up and rest in it, to know that he and the kids would be just fine (and would probably have more fun anyway!).

In all of this: our traveling and experiencing life and changing, I realize how comforting and centering it is to know that I have Bryan in my life. He is the constant. We are ever and always circling out and recircling back into eachother's arms. And I find great solace in that.

You see, I have been struggling with the change in weather again. And since Arizona is so glorious and sunny, being in it again made me realize how "dampened" my personality becomes up here in the great dark north. I felt like a sleep walker when I got off the plane in Phoenix. Being in Arizona, lying in the sunshine, hiking in the Sedona Red Rocks, walking in the sunshine... I felt like I was suddenly "plugged in" to a power source.

I do confess that it was the company as well that contributed greatly to a general feeling of sunshine. But at least a portion of it seemed to be physical.

So, now that I am home and in my quiet northern abode, I am trying to recreate it all. I have a steaming mug of Earl Grey, precisely 5 candles lit and flickering around me, white christmas lights encircling the plant to my right and a small warm lamp beside me, lighting the screen as I type.

It is helping; I feel uplifted this morning. I realized that an important aspect of my sense of peace and well-being is the creation of a morning ritual. I have been very disciplined in my morning ritual over the years until recently. My life has been busy and full and I often fall into bed and stumble out of bed. But for the last week, in Arizona, I was rested, and drawn into another's morning rituals I could easily insert myself into.

My dear childhood friend Natalie has an incredible sense of ritual. And I realized how restful it was to be a part of. Returning home, I feel recharged to recreate rituals of my own that bring a sense of peace and centeredness to my days.

So, this is a beginning.

I want to write briefly about the events of the summer, and move on into the Fall and Winter. The 3rd Annual Feast Collective happened in August again this year. It was a momentous time of connection between friends, sharing of music and art, good food, laughter and warmth around the fire. We added a Sweat Lodge and Women's Story Circle this year. And of course the Tie-dying and rock painting for the kids. The Traditions continue to grow and expand. We already look forward to next year.

In September, I traveled to Toronto for a Business Conference with Arbonne. While I was there, we stayed in the Sheraton Downtown where the Celebrities in town for the Toronto International Film Fest were staying. Just for fun, I'll tell you who I saw: Michael J Fox, Chris Nash, Sigourney Weaver, the cast from the 70's Show...and a bunch of other people I didn't recognize.

Bryan traveled to Boston for a week of training in his field of work as an Internet Affliate and Writer. Followed by a trip to Los Angeles to record his first CD. News on that to come...

We have started homeschooling Alethea through Summit Learning Center. We enrolled her in the Open School program and it has been incredible. Summit gives me Modules of Curriculum to do each month. They provide extensive support and programming through the Art Smarts Program. So far, she has been involved in Yoga, Circus Kids Gymnastics, and Tractor ride and tour of the Pumpkin and Apple Farm. On the horizon, we have celtic dancing, pottery, iceskating and way more than I can drive her to in a week!

I really enjoy having the curriculum this year as I begin. I enjoy the structure it provides. We often do work beyond the book, but it gives us a foundational groundwork for what she needs to learn this year. For additional reading lessons, I am using the "Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading" and she loves it!

To finish off, I want to continue:

Today, I am thankful for:

22-Dovesong
23-Toast and tea by candlelight
24-The warmth of the season upon us
25-A reawakened love for cooking and entertaining friends over bowls of soup

Music for the Soul:Woodsong

Over the last week or so, we've been exploring new music: Feist, Bon Iver, Craig Cardiff.  And over the summer, we returned to our favorite grassroots music festival called Woodsong Music Festival.   

We camped for 4 days beneath the Westcoast cedars and pines. And listened to almost non-stop live music. The kids enjoyed the Art Tent and created beautiful things: birdhouses, painted rocks, beaded jewelry. Each night, they showed an outdoor movie on the screen; families nestled together in fleece blankets and sipped on hot cocoa and spiced tea.  

This was our third summer at Woodsong, and we recognized return visitors, exclaimed at "how much the kids have grown!" and generally reconnected with ourselves, eachother and new faces I look forward to seeing next year.

Burke and Barbara Thomas are the creators of Woodsong. 11 years ago, they decided to open their gorgeous piece of paradise land up for an honour-system based music event.  They don't charge and they trust guests to camp responsibly, pick up after ourselves and donate funds out of the goodness of our hearts. They go to incredibly effort to make it memorable and extremely well done.  We love it.  Each morning, they offer a potluck-topping breakfast.  For lunch and dinners, we all bring our own concoctions to cook on the fleet of outdoor cooking equipment already set up for us.

I highly recommend Woodsong. It is a good-for-the-soul weekend that captures the heart of Woodstock and other music festivals, but without the drugs and junk that we wouldn't want our kids around.  Perfect combo, in my opinion.

19-I am thankful for the uninhibited way my son sings like Bob Dylan

20-The chocolate covered almonds on sale at Sav-On Foods today.

21-The sound of the ticking clock in a quiet (kids asleep!!) house tonight.

Full Summer Rapids

I came to this familiar space to begin again this morning. And I feel slightly overwhelmed by all the catching up I need to do.  I will begin with a list, and I will slowly (over the next month or so) work through the various events of the summer, sprinkled between the daily reflections.

Woodsong Music Festival

The Feast Collective

Toronto and International Film Festival

Boston Convention

Los Angeles Recording

Summit Learning Center

Homeschooling

Raw Food Diet Adjustments

A Hospital Move

Most of this happened in August and early September! Can we say "plate too full?" Oh my.

More to come.

Thrift Shop Find

I love thrift shop, treasure-hunting.  I found all of this for 5$ at the MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) Thrift Shop.  Because of our busy spring, we are cleaning out our home and life NOW, at the peak of summer. We are slightly delayed, I know, but it feels fantastic nonetheless, to simplify and to cull out some of what we trip over unnecessrily.

Through a dear friend (Bree), I was exposed to the tradition of clothing swaps. We've had a few over the last two years and in August, my sister is hosting one at her place. I am so excited! I spent sometime last night going through my closet and putting in bags anything I no longer wear.

In a clothing swap, a group of people get together, bring clothes and take clothes. There is no limit, just a chance to "swap" for free.  Anything left over is donated to a local women's shelter. We sometimes incorporate household items and shoes, anything that is still good and useable, a treasure for someone who wants or needs it. I actually just found a LINK to a huge clothing swap site that inspires me to grow the tradition to become a city-wide event.

But in the meantime, it is fun to get together with friends and family for an evening and return home with a refreshed wardrobe.

Today, I am thankful for:

16-the deep heat sunshine that represents Divine love to me

17-a wonderful, restful family trip to Vancouver Island and an afternoon at Willows Beach

18-the music of Martyn Joseph.

Time to Turn in

This picture is the view from a YURT bunk during our road trip last summer.  It was a beautiful night, especially once the stars came out.

It is night and I am returning late from a business event that went fantastically well!

I was ravenous when I walked in the door and wanted nothing but chocolate. But luckily, we are out of chocolate and I decided to stay Raw instead.

I just drank down a huge glass of Green Smoothie.  It was basically two handfuls of fresh spinach, two bananas, a tangerine and a few chunks of pineapple, some ice and water.  Yum! It was actually really good and extremely filling.

We are enjoying our raw food endeavor. However, a few times during the last week, we have been overcome with a desire to smell food cooking!  It's strange that on a raw food diet, you never really smell food.  Fruits and veggies have their natural scent, but there's nothing like cooking with spices and bubbling goodness.  We do miss it.

Bry laughed at us today. We were chop, chop, chopping away at fruits and veggies (cuz that's what you do on a Raw Food Diet!) and he said " We are so crazy!  We weren't even vegetarian and now we are Raw Vegan!  You'd think we would transition a little bit and go vegetarian first. Crazy!"

It's true; we are a little crazy.

It is late tonight and I need to awake early, so I will keep this post short.  

As I sleepily end the day, I am thankful for:

13-my husband's good-looking self, so easy to look at day in and day out.

14-the curl of my Soul-baby's hair, just at the nape of his neck.

15-the beauty of a dear friend's grad school accomplishment as a bonafide (publishable) poet.

At the End of the day

My shift at the hospital was a gong show today. We were running in circles, working over one another, flailing around as one odd thing after another flew our way. It was a WEIRD shift.  

We are moving hospitals in August.  What an enormous job! There are actually businesses that move hospitals, that's what they do. And ours is about to move.  The building our current hospital is in is a condemned building.  A friend who works with a heating and cooling company says the company no longer feels safe sending repair men into the bowels of the building to fix what needs fixing.  I suppose we need a new hospital.

All this change on the horizon makes change-lovers giddy and change-resisters downright grouchy. Today, I encountered some grouchy.  The adjustment in staffing means that we sometimes (in the transition period) have an over- or an under-abundance of workers. Today was a over-abundance of workers placed in odd shift slots. We had a bunch of us, clamoring around for who does what, but we were only booked half the day with no replacements. Crazy!

Anyhow, enough about that.  It just means I am glad to be home, and glad to lay my head on my pillow for the night-

And at the end of the day, all is well. The kidlets are curled in cocoons in their bunkbed, smelling like sweet bath wash. And tomorrow is another day to breathe and shine.

sigh.

Today I am Thankful For:

10-the pure miracle of childbirth

11-the opportunity to see the tender (lovable) underbelly of a cantakerous co-worker

12-the essential oil smell in my home after positively green clean!

Body and Soul

The health of Body and Soul are incredibly intertwined.  My soul feels enlivened and refreshed when my body is well-cared for. 

A dear friend and I are doing Body-For-Life together. My husband and I did it last winter and I felt tremendous afterwards.  I had some extra Soul-baby weight to lose and was able to drop 30 pounds with the 12-week system!

And so, I begin again, with another 15 pounds that I would like to convert to lean muscle.  I am always amazed how incredible it feels to work out, to sweat and get my heart pumping from exercise.  The inertia before beginning is so hard to overcome, but when I do I feel so energized.

The system revolves around a 6 day/ week workout schedule that alternates between intensive cardio and weight training.  We are commited to 6 days a week and are having a blast!  It is so helpful to have a workout buddy.

We have just completed day 4 of going raw. I have an upcoming post about that with pictures of some of our raw meals. The main motivation is to provide some relief for my husband's intestinal issues.  We have been trying a lot of cleansing diets and dairy free/gluten free sorts of diets with no relief. So, we are hopeful that the Raw Diet will help to define the underlying issue for him.

Today I am thankful for:

7-friends I can count on for spiritual and practical support and sharing.

8-the delicious afternoon nap we all took on this rainy day

9-the chance to see my friend's new business downtown and to watch it grow for her.

Soul Friend

The Smell of Sunshine

Early this week, I awoke to sunshine at 5 am!  My heart was lifted toward the window and I took in the scene and scent of sunshine.  

The smell of sunshine is to me like the smell of a sweet, sweaty baby. My Soul-baby, just two years old, still smells like goodness itself. And when he is sweaty from playing outside, I nestle my nose in his neck and take a long lung-fill of sweetness.  

I try to remember in those moments to stop, and to remember. Because he will soon be a stinky teenager dropping nasty-smelling hockey gear on my washing machine. And I'll be washing crusty socks and cleaning pee from missed streams around the base of the toilet. Believe me, I know. I grew up with all brothers and they are stinky! 

To continue this morning, I want to give thanks for three more things:

4-the strange pitch of bird song outside my window: cheerful and mournful at once.

5-a beautiful new friend who is committing to 6 days/week of Body-For -Life workouts with me.  

6- our decision to try a Raw Food Diet for 30 days together (thanks to Matt and Sara)

Today is an exciting day for me and my 4 year old girl. We are officially beginning our journey of  homeschooling and have enrolled with Summit Learning Centre. With my personality, it is the best combination of things.  

Enrolling with Summit means we get generous funding from the government for curriculum, internet costs, a membership to science world. We can participate in the Art Smarts program twice a week, join groups for field trips, have direct access to teacher support, and work together with a resource person to create a learning plan especially for my girl. I give myself permission to choose a different approach as I continue next year, but to begin, structure is wonderful!

I love having a schedule to work from.  Baselines and goals give me direction and peace of mind. And knowing what we must do (in regards to hitting milestones), we can then do what we want to do (touring the organic goat dairy for the afternoon or visiting the Vancouver Aqarium).

This afternoon, I meet with my resource teacher to pick up books and curriculum and all sorts of goodies. It will be like Christmas!

I was given a list of books to read through a homeschool association. Quite a few books by Thomas Armstrong look good. I would like to start with:

Awakening Your Child's Genius and 7 Kinds of Smart. 

Today, I have three areas of focus: a business related visit,  spiritual direction and a meeting with my Summit resource teacher.

So much about regaining balance for me is limiting the amount of things I think I can accomplish in a day!