The Blessing of Abundance

This morning, I woke up to find this message in my inbox and scoffed out loud:

WHO in the world would miss what I have to write? 

And when in the world did I classify myself "a writer" anyway?!

I went about my morning without turning on the TV and do you know what I accidentally found myself doing? Writing! 

I had a list of six "impossible things" on my to-do list this weekend. As of last night, I had done all of nothing on my list. I woke up this morning knowing I would hate myself even more, if I didn't do at least one of those onerous tasks.

The weight of doing nothing had me crawling on the ground (more like lying on the couch) and feeling angry with myself.

So today, I thought I would just sit still and do "just one thing".

I wrote up my daycare newsletter. Then I submitted another batch of columns. After that, I advertised to see if I could find someone who wants or would haul away what-I-consider-to-be-garbage.

Life is feeling so heavy right now and I know it is my own fault.

I haven't been writing because I don't like the sound of my own thoughts. Then I woke up to this message and realized I the person who is missing the "blessing" of my writing the most is ME.

It is Thanksgiving today and I have not sat still and focused on gratitude. I have shifted my energy into trying to pick myself up from under all that I am NOT doing.

There is a blessing within each of the tasks that I have been putting off:

A daycare newsletter to write, means I have an audience (my daycare families) who actually want to see and read what I have to say about their children's days spent at my daycare.

A deadline of columns to submit, means I have editors who believe what I have to write is worth sharing with their readers.

The fact that I have what I consider to be garbage, which may have some value to someone else, means I have too much.

I have a garage to clean, which means not only do I have a house to live in but I have a garage to shelter the car which I am fortunate to have. And I also have an excessive amount of "stuff" stored within the four walls of that garage.

The unfinished painting jobs I have been putting off means I have the privilege of owning a home.

The fact that I still have the mess of cleaning up after the installation of a new basement window and window well, means I have the means to maintain our home. 

All I need is energy, enthusiasm and ambition. None of which costs a penny. 

I am rich in everything which is important yet I seem to be poor at appreciating that which I have. 

These are not the thoughts of a writer who is celebrating Thanksgiving. 

These are the thoughts of someone who has more than they need and have forgotten how to be grateful for the small blessings which mark each and every day.

Is it possible to have too much? I believe that to be true. My burden is carrying more than I can appreciate. Material "stuff" is weighing me down.

I am grateful for the blessing of abundance. Now I must find a way to go out and spread it around so I don't have to carry it alone.

Preserving My Battery's Longevity

It seems every time I turn around something around here is in need of "recharging". My cell phone, the iPad, our cordless house phone and (not as often) the laptop computer.

Anything that isn't continually plugged into a power source starts to run low on power throughout the day. Depending on usage, these gadgets need to be recharged more than once a day. There always seems to be something "charging up" around here.

I correlated this feeling of "running low on power" to the way this week has felt. I don't feel like I've been fully charged all week long. I can't believe the energy it takes to drag myself out of bed in the morning. I am rested but not recharged.

The drain on my power has felt overwhelming.

My new little one year old seems to have a ten to fifteen minute level of contentment within her before she looks at me to make her happy for the fifteen minutes which follow that. This goes on all day, until nap time. She wakes up "fully charged", while I have only regained a 40 to 69% charge, depending on how quickly her friends settled down.

My power supply is being depleted by starting projects and not completing them. I feel like a telephone that is plugged in to charge before it's dead, then disconnected from the energy source at 60% full.

It is presently nap time in our daycare world. I have returned to complete this post which I started this morning, but didn't finish. Following that, I shall complete the daycare post I started yesterday, but didn't complete. Sitting beside me is the paperwork I have been puttering with for far too long. I started amassing my multitude of notes (written on scraps of paper, then stapled together so I wouldn't lose them) into one notepad which someone else could decipher (just in case I die before this land transfer is complete!).

I started assembling my notes after I didn't complete this post, and I shall finish that little job after I complete the blog posts I started earlier. Then, I must tend to the daycare newsletter I started at least a month ago ...

And the list goes on.

My list was so full that I started a new one. Finish cleaning out the garage. Finish the painting jobs I started. More columns to tend to. Dirt to move, rocks to shuffle and fall jobs to complete while the weather is mild.

I hope to run my battery dry over the weekend. Then I shall plug into a power source (otherwise known as my bed) and stay there until I am fully charged. Once that charge is full to capacity I believe my battery power will last longer.

My computer guy advised me the best way to prolong the life of the battery on our laptop computer is to run it down to about 10% at least once a month, then recharge it to 100%. I'm going to take my computer guy's advise this upcoming long weekend. I have one bookkeeping day to tend to, then two consecutive days off. I'm looking forward to losing so much power I have no choice but to plug in. This running down to 30% and only recharging up to 60% makes me feel like I'm only half charged 100% of the time.

How are you going to unplug this holiday weekend?

Rebuilding Another Today

It isn't just my muscles and joints that are starting to seize up and become less flexible the more I age. My thoughts, ideas and actions are becoming somewhat immobile too.

I thought I was pretty good at learning, adjusting and going with the flow.

I can keep up relatively well with the changing technology within my little world. I adapted to a new computer, an iPad, a smart phone, PVR and digital cable box within the recent past.

I keep a bookkeeping job on the side and I learn as I go along, adapt my ways to the ways my boss likes things done and I think I'm doing a decent job. She keeps asking me back, anyway.

I write to keep my thoughts well oiled and lubricated. Some of those words may be better kept to myself but I am afraid for the day when this brain of mine snaps. I may need to leave clues behind in case I ever have to be glued back together. So I let the words come as they may.

I run my little daycare and think I'm doing okay. Then ... a new one year old enters the room and everything I thought I knew about kids and how to handle new challenges goes out the window.

"One" is hard. Yet it is easy. One year olds seem to have the essence of being the sun and the rest of the world revolves around them. Which is easy when you look at it from their point of view. But very, very hard when you have three other "suns" in the same solar system and one "planet" (that would be me), tending to each of these unique rays of sunshine and trying to help everyone co-exist within one small world.

Yesterday? Was a lesson in futility. Everything I did was wrong.

Thankfully one to three year olds sleep. It gave this old "planet" a chance to regenerate itself, regroup and try it all over again a few hours later.

Things went better after a two hour reprieve but they were far from perfect.

Children are mirrors of the world as they see it. It is unfortunate when the two year old mimics the one year old and instantly "forgets" all he has learned. A little boy, who can count well into the teens, sings the ABC song (and knows his letters!), recites animals and the sounds they make, recognizes colors and is so smart it makes my head spin, has started talking baby talk to our little one year old and is back to putting everything in his mouth.

It has only been a week. Rome wasn't built in a day, but it was destroyed in a matter of hours.

I'm seeing "Rome" falling all around my feet and I'm scrambling to hold it together. 'Tis one of the challenges of running a daycare.

I suppose this offsets the lack of stimulating conversation within my day. As I sat down and tried to "talk taxes" with an expert in the field last night I felt my brain matter melting into a hot molten puddle of lava. "I don't talk after 6:00" I explained, "And I spend my day in the company of one to three year olds. Please excuse me ..."

I am picking up the rubble of yesterday and taking what I learned to rebuild another today. It is really all we can ever do.

May you build a better today than yesterday within your own little empire.

Let Sleeping Cats Lie

I was ready, willing and able to hop out of bed before my alarm went off this morning. Except for one thing. No, make that two. Our cats.

Cat #1 hopped up onto the bed as soon as he knew there was a hand that was awake and willing to pet him. He is not a snuggler. He seeks out and finds affection. If there is no cat caressing to be found, he may stay and sleep a while. But more often than not, he hops off the bed and finds his own favorite place to rest.

Cat #2 jumped onto the bed some time later. His first job was to wash the first cat's face. He does this like his life depends upon it. He thoroughly washes his buddy's face and this usually leads up to a wrestling manoeuvre where he does a half somersault over top his cat sibling and then proceeds to "take him down".

This morning, there wasn't any wrestling. Our second cat walked over top me and headed for my feet. He loves to attack feet and if he can't get a good enough grasp of what he is after, he will nuzzle his way under the covers and go for a "sneak" attack.

I fully expected our feisty little kitty to bite my toes but he must have been tired. He nestled in for a little rest instead.

I was wide awake and could not drag myself out of bed this morning because one or the other was relaxed and enjoying the moments before my feet hit the floor and the spell is broken.

I could have done a lot with that hour. But sometimes? It is just best to let sleeping cats lie and enjoy the quiet moments of consciousness before the day takes over.

That Wasn't So Hard!

I left the house just after 5:00 p.m. on Friday night and made it home by 7:00 last night. I was away for a grand total of fifty hours. Considering I have a hard time leaving the house for a few short hours before I start getting homesick, I was amazed how easy this quick trip felt.

I think the key was the five and a half hour drive going to and from my destination. I rarely sit alone with my thoughts these days. When I am at home, I am either tending to the business of my day, on the computer, watching TV or sleeping. I rarely sit still and gaze off into the sky. Maybe never.

Five and a half hours of computer, telephone, texting and television silence. Who knew it could feel this good?

Fall is an amazing time of year to drive down the prairie highways. The landscape is beautiful but I couldn't think of how I may have missed the "peak" of the colorful autumn season by a week or two because some of the trees were stripped bare of their leaves.

It looked like harvest was complete most of the way but then I would drive past a crop that had a wide swath that looked "bountiful" to this non-farming-kind-of-girl. The year's work was almost done and fall is the time of year our farmers reap what they sew.

I have been mourning the loss of daylight since the first day of fall. The day when the darkness started overtaking the daylight hours was a very sad day for me. I like to bask in the sun like a cat and I was missing the daylight before it was even gone.

My brother mentioned he feels the opposite when our days start to shorten. It means the demands of the yard and all of the outdoor maintenance of the summer season is winding to a close. He can do his "fall clean up" then sit back and enjoy the darkness. Darkness = time off, in my brother's eyes.

I thought of our farmers (namely our dad) who work from sun up until sun down throughout the growing season and wondered if Dad felt the same as my brother as his work days started to shorten. Did he take that as a sign from above to slow down? Or did it create even more pressure for him as he raced against the daylight to do all he wanted to get done?

I don't remember our dad as "a farmer". I hear stories of how he got by on a few hours of sleep when there was work to be done. Dad was a worker. Was he working towards creating that window of "leisure time" that this generation has come to expect as a reward for a "job well done" (or done good enough)?

I would like to hear Dad's stories about harvest time. He worked under pressure. He had asthma that was nearly debilitating at times. Was fall one of the worst time of years for him as the grain dust infiltrated his mask and robbed him of the ability to breathe? Did the easing of the daylight hours bring him the same gift of relaxation my brother now feels? Or is the ability to recognize and savor life's natural cycle of slowing down a gift Dad would be grateful his son has inherited?

This quick trip to visit Mom and my brother was to tend to the parcels of land that Dad purposely kept, to pass along to his four children. We were just tending to the paperwork to make that reality come true easily one day.

This trip should have been all about thinking of Dad and his wishes. It should have been a time to reflect on the hard work and sacrifice Dad made to build an "empire" he wanted to pass along to his children. This trip should have been filled with memories of a time long ago and honoring the gifts Dad has left for his family.

Instead (this story has a boring ending) my mind was filled with my recent conversations with Revenue Canada. In an effort to ensure there are no surprises as we tend to the business of changing land title registrations, I called our friendly neighborhood tax department to ensure this would not result in any negative tax implications for Mom. Instead, I found out that this transfer of ownership will trigger GST. A story that does not yet have an end as I await a phone call from a Revenue Canada agent.

Despite everything we are trying to do, to make Dad's simple wish take place (without Revenue Canada taking a large piece of Dad's hard earned legacy), it seems there is going to be a "cost" incurred.

It seems so simple. Dad wanted to give his children a physical piece of his legacy. A gift. That is all. And Revenue Canada is dictating the rules as to how this will affect ownership and thus, taxes must be paid.

Thankfully memories, stories and that which we hold in our heart is not taxable. Take that, Revenue Canada! We are rich in so many ways which you cannot touch.

That which is not taxable is the best gift of all...

Powerless

I enjoy the energy surge that comes from a power outage within our home.

Last night, the power went off just as I decided it was time to go to bed. Unfortunately I have the bad habit of "needing" to fall asleep to the drone of the television so suddenly I was wide awake.

My son wandered upstairs with his lantern flashlight and sat it down in the middle of the living room. He found a comfy spot on the couch and both of our cats (who normally come and perform for my son and I whenever we are in the same room) calmed right down and "fell asleep" (do cats ever really sleep?).

The calmness in the air was palpable. It was like you could reach out and touch it. But you couldn't because you were paralyzed in the moment of quiet and bliss and family and cats.

Initially, I really hoped this would be a one minute power outage so I could resume my tiredness and head to bed. But as one minute led to the forty four minutes which followed, I thought less about the power and more about the connection that had been ignited by the forces within.

My son and I have short and sweet conversations which almost always revolve around our cats. We talk a little bit about his day, my day, his homework and school stuff. But 95% of our chats are all about the cats.

As our cats nestled in and enjoyed the "camp fire" setting (the lantern placed in the middle of the living room gave off the essence of sitting around a fire) their peaceful and (almost) sleeping bodies invited other conversation into the room with us.

We talked beyond the cats and more into our lives. We talked less of homework and more of "So, how are things going?" We talked a little bit about politics and religion (or lack thereof) and my son wondered why we don't talk about these things more often. My reply? "Because I really have very little to say." He talked, I listened. As I listened, all I could think was how I would like to hear how this conversation would play out if he was talking to his older brother about these same issues. I believe I could learn a lot by listening to their interactions with each other.

We chatted about the hard times he went through last spring. He looks back and says it doesn't even feel like it happened. He got past the moment but he is very leery about setting himself up for another fall. For the first time in about five years, he has stopped "knowing" what he wants to do after he graduates from high school. He just knows he can't (or doesn't want to) jump into secondary education immediately. I fully understand and support whatever decision he makes as long as he makes a choice to do something. Work or education. Working can be an education and teach you where you do (or do not) want to concentrate your efforts.

Who knows what they want to be at the tender age of seventeen years old?

I sat down and talked with a young man last night. In the shadows of our lamplight, I was amazed at how much he looks like his older brother. As I listened to him, I was impressed by the amount of insight he has gained by being quiet and absorbing life instead of simply reflecting it. He is a very deep and introspective young man.

The house jumped back into life when the power was restored and our cats acted like someone turned on their "on" switch again. Their eyes lit up, they watched and listened to the sights and sounds of power. The "electricity" that runs between them was rebooted and they started to wrestle, perform and entertain us again.

My son and I sat still and continued to talk but the magic was gone minutes after the lights turned on. I knew I had to get myself to bed but I knew I would never regret the extended life that a powerless night brought into our home.

Climbing Out of the Discomfort

I suppose (and I really do realize) it is a blessing to live in a world where people believe I can do more than I believe myself to be capable of. Because I live in a world of people who believe I am more than I am, it pushes me out of uncomfortable places into a better place.

I write out loud and in doing so, I put myself in a vulnerable position.

I write of my insecurities, my doubts, my feelings of inadequacy and when I start to feel overwhelmed.

I write when I am down. I write when I am up. I write when I am tired (that is dangerous territory). I write when I feel things. I write when I think I have discovered something. And when all else fails, I write about our cats.

It is a risk to write out loud.

I feel like I may alienate my friends when I write of how hard it is to walk outside of this door and interact with the world. I have friends who tell me they pull back from calling or writing or reaching out to me because they don't want to take something I don't have to give.

The thing about giving from that place of "having nothing", is that is exactly what fills me up.

I have felt depleted, drained, inadequate and taxed to the max lately. I have done my best to nurture myself and fill myself up with quiet, solitude and low expectations. I can also tell when I am saturated with that very nurturing which fills me up.

That is the point that is the most uncomfortable of all. I know I have to get up off the couch and move. No more excuses. It is the state of "doing" that starts to fill me up at this delicate part of the equation.

This week has initiated that phase of "getting up off the couch" and doing something. And I should know this from past experience but it always surprises me. Doing something is better than doing nothing. When you do find the energy to do, it is multiplied and you can accomplish more than you ever expected.

My list of things-to-do felt full of "hard things". But for each hard thing I do, the next thing becomes a little bit easier.

This week's task was to send off my columns to supply my editors with another month's worth of articles for their paper. It becomes harder each month. I have to do it quickly without over-thinking. I read something and if it feels like I have made a point worth sharing, I polish it up and send it off.

I did that job Tuesday afternoon and one short half hour after I hit the "send" button, one of my editors asked me to call when I had a chance. I had the "Oh no! I have been called into the Principal's Office again!!" feeling again. My writing has gone downhill and he was going to let me down easy. I "ripped off the band aid" and called him as soon as I read his message. This was no time to mull over the idea of why he wanted to talk with me.

It turned out, he just wanted to touch base with me and explain why my column hadn't been run for a few weeks. He planted seeds. He gave me a name and number of someone to call, who could help me promote my columns within our province's weekly papers. He planted the seed of compiling my "best work" and publishing a book.

He turned a scary moment into one of enlightenment and encouragement.

I have a few more "hard things" to knock off my list but I'm pushing myself out the door and headed to Mom's this weekend. In doing so, I have created a much-needed deadline to tend to some paperwork I've been helping Mom with.

My daycare has been undergoing some changes lately. It has been uncomfortable. Winter is coming and I am starting to panic. What will I do with these little one to three year olds when we can't spend hours outside? We will survive. We always do. But in the meantime, it has been hard to find the words to write my "seasonal" newsletter. One more "hard thing" sits on the back burner. I think I need to rip that band aid off as well.

I have to get myself back into the place where I believe in "me" enough to sell myself. Instead of quitting writing for my papers, I shall try to take on more. I need to find just one more friend for our daycare to help us through the long, cold winter. We need a "spark" of energy and new and fun added to our dynamic.

I need to find the words and energy to reach out to the friends I feel like I have alienated. I have friends who are so sensitive to the words I do and do not write. I have other friends who just tell me what I need to do.

I was floundering Monday morning. One of my friends told me exactly what I knew I had to do to push myself out of the moment I was in. I was thinking it all along. I would have pushed myself to do it. But who knows how long I would have sat in that place of such discomfort.

The place of "knowing" and "doing" is sticky and uncomfortable. It's a hard place to be. It feels wonderful to be climbing out of that hole. Again.

I've done it once, I can do it again. And I will need to do it all over again in a month or so.

This icky, sticky mess called "life" isn't always easy. We wouldn't appreciate the joy that follows the discomfort if it was always easy.