Countdown

I never did like the 'countdown' of hours-left-to-go-before-I-go-to-work.

Afternoon shifts were my nemesis. Nothing could be fully enjoyed because there was a continual time-check throughout the day. Four more hours. Ahhh. Three more hours. Quick! Time is running out. Two more hours. Minor anxiety in chest. One more hour. There is no time left. Half an  hour. I wonder how much I could squeeze in before I really have to go. Five minutes. I need more time!!

Then came the time when I truly felt that I had this whole countdown thing down to an art. I was in super-nesting-daycare-preparing-to-become-a-wife mode. I cooked, I cleaned, I organized, I was super-woman. Hear me roar! Oh, the things that I squeezed into that time that I carved out for myself before my early daycare day started.

This was followed by a year of education, a year of working from home then the finale - a year of working outside my home.

The education year? I was still superwoman, only I was having fun. I still ran my daycare before and after school and I completed my studies during regular school hours. I worked at a bookkeeping job part time. I danced! Oh, how I danced!! It was a perfect year of a well choreographed life. I was living, learning, working, moving and shaking. The game of 'How much time do I  have left?' became 'How quickly can I get my work done, so that I make the most of my time off?' It was a most wonderful use of my time!

The year of working from home was a close second to the year-of-education. Unfortunately I wasn't earning quite enough to pay the bills. I was still master of my time. Living my life, doing what I wanted and needed to do took priority. I got my work done in the cracks of living-my-life. Perhaps this was the beginning of the end of my productive time management skills. Housework took a back seat, cooking was becoming a feat of providing food (frozen food entrées became the norm) and I was honing the fine art of procrastination.

The year of working outside of my home was the year that everything came unravelled. I woke up at the same time each morning, got ready for work and waited for the phone to ring. Or not. These were times of high anxiety. The ringing of the phone dictated my life. It told me where to go. Every day was a new surprise. I needed the phone to ring because I needed to work. Yet the closer the clock got to the 'deadline' of starting a day on time, the more I wanted the phone not to ring. I accomplished next to nothing during that time. I existed. I survived.

Then came the year that I finally came back 'home' and restarted my daycare.

Now, my weekdays are very predictable. I know what time my kids start arriving and my parents are absolutely awesome about picking up their children on time. I can actually make plans again!

I write. I write here, there and everywhere. I squeeze writing into the cracks of my life and I am actually earning a small income from it. Writing is taking over the spot where house cleaning used to live. The house is a mess but my heart is more content. Priorities.

Then there is my bookkeeping. It is the job that is probably the basis of my retirement plan. I know that I will have to work as long as I breathe and I simply can't see tending children when I am 80. The business of tending numbers could be my bread and butter one day. I like the challenge, I enjoy working with numbers (trust me, after the year-of-working-outside-of-my-home taught me that I like black/white; wrong/right; balance-to-zero equations far more than I enjoy the phrase "Use your judgement!"). The only downfall to my bookkeeping job is that it has become the job that I am doing the Final Countdown as the hours melt away before I must leave for work.

I stared at the ceiling fan in my bedroom this morning thinking "If I get up now, I will have three hours". I got up and each step along the way, I am counting down the hours-left-to-go before I must leave my home (it is down to under an hour at the moment).

I wrote that paragraph, then checked to see what time the Oil Change store opens this morning. It turns out that I could leave right this moment, get my oil changed on my way to work and arrive just on time. I am back in the business of squeezing in the very last morsel of time before my work-days begin.

Now ... if only I was as concerned about cleaning windows or writing a book, I would have it made in the shade.

It is coming. I can feel it. My heart is slowing down and I am getting acclimatized to the renewed tempo of my life. Work, leisure, friends, family and down-time are all falling into a nice pace. I am regaining a little bit of everything. And with it? Myself.

The final countdown is on and I must run. But it is a good run. I'm not winded when I get there. I enjoy the destination and I love coming home.

Time is on my side once again. I am still counting down the time but I'm finding the rewards once again.

Signs

These are just a few of the 'signs' that have been paving my way this past little while. If I was a paranoid soul, I could make this personal and feel unwelcome within this world.

"No Trespassing - Violators Will Be Prosecuted"; 

locked gates;

 "Video Surveillance - Smile You Are on Camera";

 "Closed";

 "Open" (without service or a smile)

"Road Closed"

"Closed for Maintenance"

"Closed until 12:00"

My friend and I explored some of the hidden treasures within the countryside last weekend. As we found these 'omens' sprinkled here, there and everywhere throughout our little adventure, I commented that a person with an imagination could really turn our little country road adventure into a mysterious and threatening tale.

Instead, we chose to focus on the friendly dog that escorted us on the first leg of our adventure and the birds that sang and performed for us when we ran into a locked gate.

We zoned in on sights, smells and sounds when the signage and personal presence of proprietors did not open doors to welcome us.

We spent our energy on what was unveiled to us as we rerouted our travels.

I took a walk with my daycare family a few days later and ran into road blocks that turned a simple errand into a small adventure. 

Sometimes we need the 'signs' to be obvious and spelled out for us. Some signs keep us safe and protect the property of others. Other signs are not so obvious.

Like the "Road Closed" sign that stood between where I was at the time and where my son lives. He warned me "You will see a Road Closed sign, but just ignore it. There are some ruts in the road but if you go slow, you will be fine".

I take road closures seriously. Especially when that road is gravel and has several sloughs that come up to (and almost) greet the road. But I listened to my son (after further assurance when I reminded him that I was pretty much terrified of gravel roads on a good day) and proceeded past the closed road sign and tempted fate.

Who would have guessed that the best part of my trip was waiting for me at the end of the road closure?

Life is like that. It isn't spelled out for us with written instructions. Sometimes we have to just follow the road, go with the flow, trust in the assurance that it is going to be okay and forge past the warning. 

Signs can feel foreboding and ominous at times. Full of good fortune and welcoming at others. Sometimes signs are deceiving. The "Open" sign where you find an abandoned establishment. The "Closed" sign that is just a warning. 

Use signage as a guiding post but do not let it make you feel rejected and fearful. You just never know what lies beyond the warning signs until you venture out of your comfort zone and tread carefully.

Life is full of surprises when you open yourself up to following the road set out before you.  

Anxious

I had the most anxious sleep last night.

I went out to see a movie with a friend last night. We conversed. There was nothing out of the ordinary about our visit. The usual banter between friends. Light, easy and thought provoking. The 'usual' kind of evening.

I came home and was so pleased that I didn't feel exhausted. I thought to myself (as I do many, many a-night) "Ahhh! I will be able to stay awake long enough to enjoy watching some TV!"

Within no time at all, I felt the familiar pull of my eyelids.They wanted to rest. I could feel my body relax and become one with the bed. Darn it all anyway. I would not be able to stay awake. Again.

I succumbed to my tiredness, as I always do and I thought that was that. 'That' turned out to only be the beginning.

I often do have a restless sleep if I have done something out of the ordinary to stimulate my brainwaves. It didn't surprise me that I was restless. It has happened before and it will happen again.

What was out of the ordinary was each and every time I woke up, my heart was racing and very anxious. Not on a scary I-think-something-is-wrong-with-my-heart kind of way. Simple anxiety.

I cannot remember ever feeling this way before.

When my last relationship ended, I would wake up numerous times with a severe heart ache. My heart hurt. My thoughts woke me up and kept me awake (thus, the beginning of my severe addiction to needing to fall asleep to the sound of the television). But it wasn't like that.

I had many restless nights while I ventured out and worked outside of my home several years ago. Those were very stressful times and I woke up full of stressful anxiety. It was nothing like that.

The strangest part of the entire night is that Junior Cat stayed with me. No matter what.

He is a fickle and nervous cat. As a rule, he stays out of my room until it is almost time for me to wake up. Even at that, he may do a 'walk around' my head, then quickly move on if there is not a hand out to pet him.

Sometimes he will stop and stay awhile. I just smile when I find him at the foot of my bed. But if I turn over or move a muscle, he is usually off like a shot.

Not last night.

I tossed. I turned. I moved. I rolled one way and then the next. At no time did he leave my side. In fact he moved up closer to me but remained resting. He wasn't in it to be petted.

Junior Cat's reaction to my anxiety was the most perplexing part of all. It was as if he sensed something was off and he was not leaving me. Did I mention that he is quite a fickle young cat?

I woke up this morning (again and again) and when I felt rested enough, I decided it was time to wake up and start the day. It is like any other regular morning.

I don't know what was going on within my subconscious mind last night. I just may do some 'checking in' to ensure that my ESP wasn't picking up something on its radar.

It was simply the most anxious sleep that I can ever remember having. I am not looking for a repeat performance!

Stranger. Danger?

I took my little daycare family out for a walk Monday morning.

It was supposed to be a walk to the post office and back which normally takes in and around an hour to make the full circle. But we kept running into road blocks that barred our way.

"Post office closed for repairs. Sorry for the inconvenience" was the first sign that rerouted our day.

It was a beautiful morning and we didn't have to be anywhere at any specific time so I asked my little 2-1/2 year old if she was up for a long walk. She agreed and off we went, in search of Post Office #2.

We jigged and jagged and made our way off of a busy street, down residential streets and cut through a school ground.

"Can I climb the mountain?" she asked (our school grounds have many man-made mounds of dirt covered with grass and she calls them 'mountains'). I didn't have the stamina to push the double stroller filled with one-year-olds through the grass so we took a half-block detour to make our way to a paved path so that my little mountain climber could run and pick the beautiful yellow flowers.

Our little 'detour' added some extra steps and time onto our little adventure but how could I deny the request of my adventurous little walker? 

Eventually (about an hour after we had left the house) we made our way to the next post office. We were met with a sign that said: "Closed until 12:00. Sorry for the inconvenience". It was 11:30. My little daycare family was getting hungry and thirsty. 

I was feeling a little defeated. I had turned a mundane little task into an 'adventure' and we were getting 'Closed' signs thrown in our faces at each turn. 

I had not packed a picnic lunch (though the thought had crossed my mind before we walked out the door) so we backtracked a little ways and went shopping at the grocery store within the same strip mall that housed our post office. Eventually I settled on a cheese, meat and cracker Lunchable, with apple juice on the side. Not half bad for a make-do meal.

We settled in to enjoy our picnic in between two stores that provided us shade, a window ledge for my weary 'world traveller' (she was not complaining about walking but I just knew that her little legs needed a rest) and we made the best of the situation.

The minute you walk out the door with two small children in a double stroller, you tend to attract attention. My two little one-year-olds are three months apart in age but people always ask if they are twins (twin stroller = twin children). I usually have one or two more little ones hanging onto the side of the stroller, so people do tend to smile and greet us on a regular basis.

(Side note: I walked past a school that I once worked at and I recognized one of the staff as she was outside on supervision. Granted, I only worked there two months and I would imagine that secretaries roll in and out of that location like erratically scheduled freight trains, so she probably didn't recognize me. But she beamed the smile that helped me through many-a-day at that particular school and said, "HI, KIDS!!", punctuating the fact that it is the kids that are the main attraction).

Back to my story:

People often make a little comment about my little daycare family and quickly move on. That particular day, a gentleman with a walker and a slur that made his English very hard to decipher hovered close to us. Eventually, I made out the words "... are sweet". 

We were in an area that attracts all kinds of people and I have to admit that I was leary of this man. When you are walking about with other people's children your defences run high but I really, really wanted this man to move on. And he did. I quietly nodded and smiled at his comment but I did not encourage conversation.

We ended up passing him once again enroute to our post office (which was now open and had a very long and slow moving line). Once again, I nodded my acknowledgement to him as we walked by.

I couldn't help but think of this man as a person. I assumed many things due to the area of the city we were in, his slur, the way he lingered and his nationality. As I waited in line to mail my parcel, I wondered "What would Glennon do?" (click on Glennon's name to read a post that further accentuates my point)

This man is a person. Possibly lonely. Maybe he has had a stroke (thus, the walker and the slur). He most definitely has 'a story'. 

I humanized this gentleman as time gave me the opportunity to take off his label and wonder. I am setting an example for the children in my care, so the way that I treat people makes more impact than I will ever really know. Yet, it is equally important to treat people-you-don't-know with a manner that does not encourage 'crossing a line' (we came home, turned on our music and Patty Shukla sang the song "Stranger Danger" to me).

As we passed this man the third time (when we were finally making our way home), he asked for a dollar. By this time, I had removed the label and simply saw 'the man inside'. Perhaps he was begging for money so that he could buy his next bottle of liquor. Maybe he needed lunch just as my young family did. Who knows where that dollar would go? It was not my place to judge. I gave him a dollar.

I got home and wondered if I did the right thing.

I took the label off of a man and humanized him in my mind. I was cordial but distant as he hovered in the company of the children I was tending. I was polite and courteous. But distant. And I gave him a dollar.

What message did I give my children (oh, those children are such big sponges)? Children naturally trust everyone. People do tend to notice, make eye contact and talk with children. I always act as a 'buffer' between the adults we meet along our way and my borrowed children. 

Outwardly, I treated this man no differently than I treat anyone else who acknowledges us. No prejudice. Inwardly, I cowered. He was scary to me. Kids are sensitive. They pick up on these things. 

Did I do the right thing? Courteous and treating everyone the same is good. A little bit of natural fear and apprehension towards strangers is instinctive and right. This man did absolutely nothing that I could construe as wrong. He passed by us as we stood still. Once. We passed by him as he stood still. Twice. Had he followed us, that would have been a whole different story.

If I was that man, would I be hurt by the way I treated him? No. Would I understand that women are protective of their children? Yes. How would I feel after our fleeting encounters? I would feel validated as a person. I would be relieved that I didn't get the cold shoulder. I would be okay.

I think I did what was right for me, for my children and even for this man. 

This Early Bird Missed the Worm

The more time I have on my hands, the more I fritter it away.

I woke up with my alarm today. I was wide awake and raring to go. Rather than becoming an interactive cat toy (Junior Cat loves when he knows that I am awake so that I can scratch his ears and adore him exclusively), I decided to hop out of bed and make the most of my morning.

It is now 6:21 a.m. and I am (approximately) no further ahead than I usually am at this time of the day. I have tossed in a few loads of laundry and caught up on all of the blogs that I read. I took the time to watch a few videos that I found on my travels. But that is about it. I haven't even responded to the emails that I found in my inbox this morning. Hmmmm .... maybe I should do that right now.

Okay, it is now fifteen minutes later and I am back. 'This' is what I do when I have time. I go back and forth, hither and yon, my mind is in five different places at the same time and I keep looking at the clock. Only 25 minutes to go before I have to get ready for the day ahead of me.

I am defragmenting my laptop computer. My head is fast forwarding to the day ahead of me. I am thinking about the book I want to read and the invitations that I want to extend. I am thinking that I do not have time to be a-wasting because I have one Important Thing to do (my family book project).

I made time last night to tend to the business of submitting my columns. I have one paper left to go and that task is complete for the time being. The night before that, I managed to mow the lawn, donate blood and wash my hair all in the same evening.

I do have the ability to function after supper. I have been amazing myself. So why do I not amaze myself a little bit more and open up a chapter on my Book Project and whittle away at it??

What is my problem!??!!!

It is the excess time = excess frittering equation that is depleting me. A person does not feel like you have accomplished much, when all that you have to show for your hours is basically 'nothing'.

At least when I sit still and read an actual book, my mind is digging deeper and I feel a longer term motivation and inspiration. Yet that book sits to the side of me, underneath my little to-do pile. I can even turn reading into a job.

I am far more productive when I keep my to-do piles tended.

I wrote that sentence and shuffled my piles, tended to my laundry and took a step towards getting dressed today (I picked out my clothes). Oh. My. Gosh. I have become a two year old in my mind!

My attention span is getting shorter by the minute. I seem to have lost the ability to multi-task. I cannot sit still and complete one thing.

I gained an hour by getting up with my alarm today and I have all but lost it. Or have I?

I have reached out and touched four people in some small, insignificant way. My laundry basket is empty. My to-do piles are shrinking. And I am motivated to keep moving in a forward direction.

If I clear my mind during the day, I should have space to think about more important things tonight. When the house clears out and becomes quiet in the after-supper hours, I could tackle a small part of a big project.

I could ...

Now will I? What have you set out to do today? I know my mom always mapped out the day ahead of her before she went to bed at night. She accomplished many things with the hours that she had at her disposal. I believe the key is in the planning.

I need to start planning better. I will.

It is now 7:01 a.m. and my son snuck into the shower ahead of me. I was one minute too late! I got up early and I am now running behind. It is in the planning. It is all in the planning ....

Bad Hair Morning

The very first thing that I do as my feet hit the floor in the morning, is run my hands through my hair. The story is old and boring. It (almost) always tells me pretty much the same tale. It looks and feels about the same as it did before I went to bed.

Not this morning.

I washed my hair last night and was unable to stay awake much beyond the point where I sat still. Usually I realize that going to bed before my hair is absolutely bone dry is a very bad idea. Last night? I was (apparently) too tired to think (or care).

I awoke with a rat's nest of a hair style.

I plugged in the hair straightener and fought with it. It still looked pretty funky (in a very bad sort of way). Usually I don't care what the back of my head looks like. But this bad style was working its way towards the front of my head and I couldn't ignore it.

Finally I sprayed my hair down and started over from scratch.

The free time that I had saved by washing my hair last night was all but lost as I fought my way through the mangled mess this morning.

I accomplished a lot (a little) last night and my reward this morning was to wake up to an empty agenda with lots of free time to sit and write. But I fixed my hair instead.

And that, is the reason that I have nothing to say and had no time to say it this morning.

I hate days that start with bad hair stories. But the good thing is that the 'lion has been tamed' and I can go on from here.

Isn't that the way it is with life? Little things get in our way. We let these things take priority when they are really insignificant in the whole scheme of things. Ask anyone who wishes that they did have a head of hair to contend with.

The good thing about a bad hair morning is that I do have hair. I have a lot. And for that? I am grateful.

Country Roads

A friend and I set out on a loosely structured adventure yesterday. As she laid out her suggestions, I quietly panicked inside. These were new roads for me. New roads scare me.

Then I realized that these were well travelled, paved highways and the chances of losing a wheel in a pothole or sliding off of a gravel road into a slough were minimal. My anxiety quickly passed and I started to anticipate what we may see along our travels.

The very best thing about our mini adventure was the lack of expectations, our mutual appreciation of the birds (oh! the birds!!) we spotted along the way, the view of the rolling hills as we travelled down this new, country road and simply the wide open space before us.

There is something very therapeutic about placing some distance between where-you-are and where-you-live. Worries take a back seat,  your heart takes on the beat of the rhythm of your day and you feel a sense of peace seep into your bones.

We both have roots that are based on growing up on a farm. That is quite possibly where the similarity of our stories start and end. She lived her whole life on a farm. I moved off our farm and into a booming metropolis at the ripe old age of nine. It amazes me what an impact of those first nine years have made in me.

When we walked into a deserted small town restaurant, it smelled like my childhood. Oh, the anticipation of those rare restaurant meals. Meals! Ha!! As if I ever ate anything but French fries as a child!! But it still felt very good and very right.

We (I) accidentally drove past the first point-of-interest on our Country Road Adventure. I didn't understand that the name of the game was that our destinations would take a small amount of seeking out. I expected signs on the highway to direct us to the inconsequential items on our itinerary. I would be wrong. And so would begin the most interesting part of our day. Seeking out and finding these points of interest within small town Saskatchewan.

Our first successful find was a pedestrian bridge. We were welcomed by a most friendly dog that acted like she had known us for forever. 

She escorted us up and down the bridge, walking right beside us as if to guide us along our way safely. I would love to know her story. I wanted to believe that she was a modern version of The Littlest Hobo - a homeless dog that spread goodwill and kindness (and acts of heroism) wherever she went. 

We were headed out of town when we spotted tourist signs for the pedestrian bridge that we thought that we had already found. So we followed where the signs told us to go and found an empty parking lot which led us to the locked gate which prevented us from going any further down that particular path. 

The bridge that we had originally intended to find was barricaded and there was no friendly ambassador to walk us safely to the other side. So we simply stood still and listened. The birds were in their glory in this sanctuary. The water, the trees, the quiet, the stillness ... it was absolutely heavenly. This bridge invited us to stay still and savor the moment. Our adventure was all about going with the flow of the day and this time the flow reminded us to be still. We listened.

The last destination on our flexible agenda was in the ghost town where two of my mom's sisters were born and where my great aunt had once lived. It was a place where some of my family's roots originated and it was called "Family Tree Forest and Gardens". This ... was the destination that I had been anticipating the most.

My friend and I are 'all about' honoring, remembering and documenting our family's stories and preserving our little bit of history within this great big world. I loved everything about what this place stood for. 

We circled the town without any luck. Luckily we found one lone soul sitting on her front stoop and asked for directions. We found our way and this is what we found:

It was beautiful. They took a piece of pasture land and turned it into a 'Family Tree Forest'. Their creation has been (at least) ten years in the making and each tree has been planted by hand. A small excerpt from their website is: "Trees put down deep roots, they are majestic, they bend and sway when the winds blow, but they stand firm against adversity. They are strong, and yet bend when they need to."

I knew when we found this place I would feel like I had 'come home again'. Sadly, life's true blessings and unexpected pleasures rarely come where you expect to find them. The property felt abandoned and the one lone man who we spotted seemed to avert our attention when we tried to approach him. We looked at each other and said, "There is a story here ..." (just not the one that we expected to find).

We made one last pit stop before we turned the car back in the direction of home and shared that much coveted order of French fries (something we both remember from our childhood).

We ended our adventure by travelling down those gravel roads that I feared the most to stop in and visit my Middle Son and his girlfriend at their farm. That ... was quite likely the highlight of the trip for me. 

My own son is working hard to put down his own roots. His roots don't go deep yet but they are weathering the adversity of these challenging times. They are becoming stronger and bending without breaking. 

My children are branches of me and my history. My heart swells when I feel my son's connection to land, history and establishing  his own independent 'roots'. 

Small town Saskatchewan has changed since I was a child. The land that our ancestors cleared by hand is now being farmed by big corporations. Abandoned family farms are scattered among the country side. The wind of change is (and has been) in the air for quite some time. 

Yet, there are still pioneers among us. People planting trees one-by-one. Young couples are forging out of the city and building their homes in the countryside. 

All is not lost. Not yet. 

As we drove down those country roads, they took me 'home' again. Back to a place where I belong. My roots are firmly entrenched within the family that I was born into. I am so very fortunate to have collected memories, stories and history that tie me to this land. It may be a tenuous bond, but it is a bond none-the-less.

Immerse yourself in your own family's history once in a while. Travel down roads that take you to places you visited as a child. Revisit your past every once in a while. Don't forget where you have come from. Put down deep roots. They will help you stand firm against adversity.

Travel down your own country road...