I may have found my next "Gilmore Girls" last night. I can't remember what promotion I read or heard for the new series "This is Us". I know it was on Facebook because I stopped following everyone on Facebook except "This is Us" so I wouldn't forget about its upcoming premiere. I refused to watch any more trailers because I hate ruining something I think I may enjoy by knowing too much about it. I simply didn't want to forget when it started airing because I had a feeling it was something I would want to watch. It aired last night.
I was utterly exhausted at the very end of a very long and hard day. I do not have the stamina to deal with a one-year-with-a-cold at the tail end of my reign as a daycare provider. Then my on-line auction ended at 6:00. I had 31 bids come in at the tail end, as a bidding war started five minutes before my auction ended which ramped up the excitement level and increased my overall profits.Then I had to contact all of my auction winners. And Mom called me in the middle of this.
Long story short, I was pretty tired at the tail end of the day. Then I remembered "This is Us" was on (thankfully I taped it) and I plopped my weary body down and tuned in.
It was good. I enjoyed the way all of the characters were introduced. I liked the build up of a complicated character and could see this will be a good series to turn my attention towards. I was getting wearier and wearier and had to rewind and rewatch a few scenes so I didn't miss anything. But I was awake and coherent. Yes, it was a very good way to wind down a very tiring day.
Then there was a twist in the final few minutes of the show. I didn't see it coming but it all made perfect sense. The show I thought I would enjoy suddenly became the show I wanted to watch again the minute it was over so I could see the way the writer wove the story together to produce the ending of the beginning of the story.
I love a story that surprises me. I enjoy watching something new, with no build up or knowing too much. I like when life pleasantly surprises me when I have few or no expectations. Most of all, I think a show must be pretty darn good to keep me awake after the day I had yesterday.
This morning, I watched the cast talk about last night's episode (it is on the Facebook page of "This is Us" (https://www.facebook.com/NBCThisIsUs/) with the caption that says "Hear what the cast has to say about tonight’s episode. Spoilers ahead."), I reheard what I heard last night but didn't absorb.
One of the characters was dropped off at a fire station and abandoned by his father when he was an infant. By the age of 36, this baby was a highly successful, married, father of two kids and had everything money could buy. He found his father, showed up on his doorstep and told him "I came here today so I could look you in the eye, say that to you, get back in my fancy ass car and finally prove to myself and to you and to my family who loves me, that I didn't need a thing from you!" He says this in a way that shows he has been driven by this emotion for the better part of his life since knowing what his father did. It is an emotion packed statement and I hear my sons in his voice, his demeanor, his emotion and in his heart.
Who doesn't want to walk up to someone they feel has done an injustice to them and say those exact words? It is a powerful moment. Then the father calmly asks, "Do you want to come in?" And his son bends his head in a submissive and almost indiscernible manner and says, "Yes". That scene. It did it for me. That son is my son.
I'll be back for more.
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
No Definite Plans
It has been a week since I discovered my financially solvent life was briskly coming to an end. I've had a week for the news to sink in and take hold. A week to conspire and plan. A week to work myself into a frenzy. It has been a week and I am firm in my believe "this" is exactly where I want and need to be right now. This temporary lull with no defined outcome is a gift. The gift of being flexible.
I love that I have also been given the gift of stability for three months. Being committed to tending one child versus five feels easy breezy. I am tied to life as I know it for three more months. Life as I know it, without the stress I have been feeling looks and feels very comfortable to me. When I'm comfortable, I make better choices. The very fact that I'm able to look ahead and know I'm in a spot where "flexibility" is my new reality, I feel at peace.
As I cull my way through the excesses of our world, I am looking at the bigger picture. I'm trying to pull "myself" out of much of the space within our home. There is a deep, quiet knowing that I must make room for change. The process of emptying cupboards, closets and drawers is cathartic.
It has almost been 29 years since I moved my little family out here. We arrived with very little. Our first home was furnished with the bare necessities of living and our basement was empty. Our lives were upended within the course of a month and at the end of it all, we had the basics in place to start our new lives with a fresh, new slate.
I don't have a great desire to wipe my slate clean at this point of my life but getting back to the basics, purging the excess and a fresh new beginning with the stability of the life I have built to this point feels right. So very right.
Mom is at a place in her life where I simply want to be able to pack up on a moment's notice and "be there". Everything is fine. There is no need for concern right now. But I simply want to be able to say "I can be there, if you want me to be". I haven't been able to say that before.
There was a short period in my life when I couldn't have cared less what my employer thought. I just picked up and left with no notice and came back when it felt right to come home again. I did that once. I did the same thing during my last holiday. I knew that was what I wanted to create in my life. Room to pick up and leave on a moment's notice.
I am almost there. Three more months. In searching for someone who could move into my life while I move out yesterday, I wrote the words "I could be out by the new year. Just think about it ..." That suggestion came from a recent conversation where we each laid out a glimmer of what we were thinking may lie in our future. A conversation where we said, "I'm just thinking about this", like it was a far fetched dream. I thought of my dream and their dream and the possibility of how we could work together and make both a reality.
My early morning brain to fingertip connection was all lubricated yesterday morning when I laid out the possibility that maybe, just maybe we could work together to make a change within our lives, while each of us held onto the real estate we have adopted as part of "us" and part of our lifestyle. I thought of how I never in a million years would have thought of a collaborative effort if we hadn't had that conversation where each of us spoke the words out loud and said, "This is what I'm thinking about".
I truly believe we have to speak about what we want to bring about. When we say the words out loud, they hold more power to redefine our world than when we simply sit still with them and hold everything inside. The same can be said about the words which have the power to bring us to our knees and hold us down.
Say the words out loud to someone you trust. Give your hopes and your wishes some hope by speaking them aloud. Take the power of the demons of fear, shame, secrecy and embarrassment away by sharing them in some way. Write, speak, sing it out loud. By working together, by sharing that which brings us up and that which brings us down we can change our own little world. When we change the way we look, feel and live our lives we change those around us.
I absolutely love this place where I am at right now. This place of "no definite plans" is empowering me to believe I can go and do and be wherever I need and want to go. By not making definite plans, the world looks and feels entirely different. Because I am starting to feel empowered again, I am also starting to feel like I have something to give again. The life of holding onto everything I had, not wanting to share my time, myself or invite people in was confining me in ways I didn't even realize.
The ability to dream is life affirming. I've said it before and I'll say it again. When I stop dreaming and believing I have the power to turn my hopes into realities, I stop living. When I stop living, my world becomes far too small.
This temporary state of a life with "no definite plans" is exactly where I want to be. It will give me what I need to find out where I want to go next.
I love that I have also been given the gift of stability for three months. Being committed to tending one child versus five feels easy breezy. I am tied to life as I know it for three more months. Life as I know it, without the stress I have been feeling looks and feels very comfortable to me. When I'm comfortable, I make better choices. The very fact that I'm able to look ahead and know I'm in a spot where "flexibility" is my new reality, I feel at peace.
As I cull my way through the excesses of our world, I am looking at the bigger picture. I'm trying to pull "myself" out of much of the space within our home. There is a deep, quiet knowing that I must make room for change. The process of emptying cupboards, closets and drawers is cathartic.
It has almost been 29 years since I moved my little family out here. We arrived with very little. Our first home was furnished with the bare necessities of living and our basement was empty. Our lives were upended within the course of a month and at the end of it all, we had the basics in place to start our new lives with a fresh, new slate.
I don't have a great desire to wipe my slate clean at this point of my life but getting back to the basics, purging the excess and a fresh new beginning with the stability of the life I have built to this point feels right. So very right.
Mom is at a place in her life where I simply want to be able to pack up on a moment's notice and "be there". Everything is fine. There is no need for concern right now. But I simply want to be able to say "I can be there, if you want me to be". I haven't been able to say that before.
There was a short period in my life when I couldn't have cared less what my employer thought. I just picked up and left with no notice and came back when it felt right to come home again. I did that once. I did the same thing during my last holiday. I knew that was what I wanted to create in my life. Room to pick up and leave on a moment's notice.
I am almost there. Three more months. In searching for someone who could move into my life while I move out yesterday, I wrote the words "I could be out by the new year. Just think about it ..." That suggestion came from a recent conversation where we each laid out a glimmer of what we were thinking may lie in our future. A conversation where we said, "I'm just thinking about this", like it was a far fetched dream. I thought of my dream and their dream and the possibility of how we could work together and make both a reality.
My early morning brain to fingertip connection was all lubricated yesterday morning when I laid out the possibility that maybe, just maybe we could work together to make a change within our lives, while each of us held onto the real estate we have adopted as part of "us" and part of our lifestyle. I thought of how I never in a million years would have thought of a collaborative effort if we hadn't had that conversation where each of us spoke the words out loud and said, "This is what I'm thinking about".
I truly believe we have to speak about what we want to bring about. When we say the words out loud, they hold more power to redefine our world than when we simply sit still with them and hold everything inside. The same can be said about the words which have the power to bring us to our knees and hold us down.
Say the words out loud to someone you trust. Give your hopes and your wishes some hope by speaking them aloud. Take the power of the demons of fear, shame, secrecy and embarrassment away by sharing them in some way. Write, speak, sing it out loud. By working together, by sharing that which brings us up and that which brings us down we can change our own little world. When we change the way we look, feel and live our lives we change those around us.
I absolutely love this place where I am at right now. This place of "no definite plans" is empowering me to believe I can go and do and be wherever I need and want to go. By not making definite plans, the world looks and feels entirely different. Because I am starting to feel empowered again, I am also starting to feel like I have something to give again. The life of holding onto everything I had, not wanting to share my time, myself or invite people in was confining me in ways I didn't even realize.
The ability to dream is life affirming. I've said it before and I'll say it again. When I stop dreaming and believing I have the power to turn my hopes into realities, I stop living. When I stop living, my world becomes far too small.
This temporary state of a life with "no definite plans" is exactly where I want to be. It will give me what I need to find out where I want to go next.
Monday, September 19, 2016
Strange Things Are Happening to Me
I was wide awake twenty minutes before my alarm went off again this morning. I think this has been happening for at least a week now. Maybe more. My alarm is set for 5:00 a.m., it is pitch black outside and I've been going to bed later. This is nothing short of a miracle. I love it!
I love the quiet of the morning and I have been sabotaging my own happiness by sleeping through this, the happiest part of my day. I wake up motivated to get as much done before the rest of the world seeps into my day.
What to do? Where to start?
Unfortunately, I have replaced my addiction to TV watching with on-line selling. I started selling off my excess daycare wares two weeks ago and I'm still going strong. I have made $343.25 to date and I have 16 more items up for bid at the moment. My goal of selling $50 per week is being exceeded but far better than that, I seem to have regained a foothold on the excess that was taking over my life. I am finally willing and ready to let go.
It was not so very long ago when I opened a drawer or a cupboard or focused on the clutter within the garage and I felt defeated. I was overwhelmed. I had a sickly attachment to "stuff" and deciding what to purge felt akin to deciding which toe I could live without. There was a physical and emotional hold which resulted in a lot of television watching and sleeping in lieu of "cutting off a toe".
Granted, the decision to close my daycare has been a catalyst for this change. If this decision wasn't so right for me right now, I wouldn't find this process so easy. It is not just letting go of "the stuff", it is letting go of the lifestyle. Our house is not going to look like and BE a daycare. If not a daycare, then "what"?
I know that part of my fascination with the Home and Garden network comes from the idea of wondering what our home could be transformed into next. The entire time I was babysitting, I wished for the HGTV network to knock on my door and offer to do a renovation on creating "convertible spaces" within my home. Somewhat akin to how a Murphy bed disappears into a wall when not in use as a bed, I wished for a home where booster seats, playpens and play areas could "vanish into a wall" the moment my daycare day ended.
My goal is to make our house "work" for me. It has served well as a daycare for the better part of the last 18 years. It has been done a very good job. But what now? What can I do to help this house pay its own way in the world?
My dream goal has been to open a Bed and Breakfast. Ever since I stayed in my very first B & B in 2005, I knew "that" was it for me. That was the direction I wanted to work towards. My dream was open a B & B, do bookkeeping on the side and write. Just write.
I'm at a crossroad now. My daycare days must end. It is hard but it is necessary. Now it is time to transform my world and turn it into what I have been dreaming of.
As I dig into the closets, drawers, garage, playhouse, nooks and crannies around here I am not yet "cleaning". I am purging. Simply erasing the identity of what once lived here. This house has to work for me. I don't think Scott McGillivray is going to drop by and turn my main floor into a fully independent rent-able space for me, while he pats me on the back and applauds me for choosing the downstairs suite as my own home. I know I would have his approval but I know just as certainly, that he won't offer to do it for free because it would make a good half hour segment on his rental property TV series.
Since I can't count on Scott, I must count on myself. I don't have the funds for a full-on renovation. I must work with what I have. I don't have much. I have $343.25 from sold daycare assets but that may have to go towards groceries in the next month or two. I must start from where I AM and look forward.
I'm still looking off into the sunset and seeing the retreat I want to create. An oasis, a shelter from the storm, a quiet place for someone to go off, lose themselves and find themselves in the process. Yes, the dream is still very much alive. I'm glad.
But in the meantime, I must pay the bills around here. Am I scared? No. Am I nervous? Amazingly not. Do I know what I want? Hmmm.
My very wise son sat down with me and looked at me rather incredulously when I told him this. It was that look of "Who are you and where is my mother??" It was a look of "Oh no. Has she slipped from reality and relying solely on 'faith' to get her where she needs to go next?" He reworded his question and said, "Really now. Where do you see yourself going? What is your end goal? What does retirement look like to you?"
I slipped into my newfound peaceful spot and told him this:
First of all, I need to fix "me". I need to get happy, stay happy and like myself again. I need to start from there and move forward. That is the gift "the next three months" of forced slowdown in my daycare world has given me.
Secondly, I need to get financially independent &/or solvent. I may never earn what I can earn from my daycare again. This is sobering. I liked my lifestyle. I didn't go crazy and wild, but if I wanted something I could buy it. If I wanted to give someone a gift, I didn't have to think twice about it. I gave and did and spent what I wanted. I don't need extravagance but I do want stability and comfort.
Thirdly, once I am all grounded and happy as well as self supporting and independent, I would like to get married. Yes, "get married" slipped off the tip of my tongue before I censored myself. "Get married", as in I want an equal partner in life to walk beside me as I go forward from here. Once I have my feet firmly planted on the ground again and am content in the life I have built, I want to find a companion, a partner, a yin to my yang.
"In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang (also yin-yang or yin yang, 陰陽 yīnyáng "dark—bright") describe how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another." ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang
I am looking toward the future with great hope and a healthy dose of anticipation. Do I know all the answers? Not in a heartbeat. Am I nervous? Truth be told, I can't dwell on that right now. But I have the very same feeling I had when I moved to Saskatoon 29 years ago. It's going to be okay. I know this with every fibre of my being. “Everything will be all right in the end. If it’s not all right, it is not yet the end” ~ Patel, Hotel Manager, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”
“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”~ Joseph Campbell
I feel like I'm starting to live in my "Field of Dreams" again. If I build it, they will come...
I love the quiet of the morning and I have been sabotaging my own happiness by sleeping through this, the happiest part of my day. I wake up motivated to get as much done before the rest of the world seeps into my day.
What to do? Where to start?
Unfortunately, I have replaced my addiction to TV watching with on-line selling. I started selling off my excess daycare wares two weeks ago and I'm still going strong. I have made $343.25 to date and I have 16 more items up for bid at the moment. My goal of selling $50 per week is being exceeded but far better than that, I seem to have regained a foothold on the excess that was taking over my life. I am finally willing and ready to let go.
It was not so very long ago when I opened a drawer or a cupboard or focused on the clutter within the garage and I felt defeated. I was overwhelmed. I had a sickly attachment to "stuff" and deciding what to purge felt akin to deciding which toe I could live without. There was a physical and emotional hold which resulted in a lot of television watching and sleeping in lieu of "cutting off a toe".
Granted, the decision to close my daycare has been a catalyst for this change. If this decision wasn't so right for me right now, I wouldn't find this process so easy. It is not just letting go of "the stuff", it is letting go of the lifestyle. Our house is not going to look like and BE a daycare. If not a daycare, then "what"?
I know that part of my fascination with the Home and Garden network comes from the idea of wondering what our home could be transformed into next. The entire time I was babysitting, I wished for the HGTV network to knock on my door and offer to do a renovation on creating "convertible spaces" within my home. Somewhat akin to how a Murphy bed disappears into a wall when not in use as a bed, I wished for a home where booster seats, playpens and play areas could "vanish into a wall" the moment my daycare day ended.
My goal is to make our house "work" for me. It has served well as a daycare for the better part of the last 18 years. It has been done a very good job. But what now? What can I do to help this house pay its own way in the world?
My dream goal has been to open a Bed and Breakfast. Ever since I stayed in my very first B & B in 2005, I knew "that" was it for me. That was the direction I wanted to work towards. My dream was open a B & B, do bookkeeping on the side and write. Just write.
I'm at a crossroad now. My daycare days must end. It is hard but it is necessary. Now it is time to transform my world and turn it into what I have been dreaming of.
As I dig into the closets, drawers, garage, playhouse, nooks and crannies around here I am not yet "cleaning". I am purging. Simply erasing the identity of what once lived here. This house has to work for me. I don't think Scott McGillivray is going to drop by and turn my main floor into a fully independent rent-able space for me, while he pats me on the back and applauds me for choosing the downstairs suite as my own home. I know I would have his approval but I know just as certainly, that he won't offer to do it for free because it would make a good half hour segment on his rental property TV series.
Since I can't count on Scott, I must count on myself. I don't have the funds for a full-on renovation. I must work with what I have. I don't have much. I have $343.25 from sold daycare assets but that may have to go towards groceries in the next month or two. I must start from where I AM and look forward.
I'm still looking off into the sunset and seeing the retreat I want to create. An oasis, a shelter from the storm, a quiet place for someone to go off, lose themselves and find themselves in the process. Yes, the dream is still very much alive. I'm glad.
But in the meantime, I must pay the bills around here. Am I scared? No. Am I nervous? Amazingly not. Do I know what I want? Hmmm.
My very wise son sat down with me and looked at me rather incredulously when I told him this. It was that look of "Who are you and where is my mother??" It was a look of "Oh no. Has she slipped from reality and relying solely on 'faith' to get her where she needs to go next?" He reworded his question and said, "Really now. Where do you see yourself going? What is your end goal? What does retirement look like to you?"
I slipped into my newfound peaceful spot and told him this:
First of all, I need to fix "me". I need to get happy, stay happy and like myself again. I need to start from there and move forward. That is the gift "the next three months" of forced slowdown in my daycare world has given me.
Secondly, I need to get financially independent &/or solvent. I may never earn what I can earn from my daycare again. This is sobering. I liked my lifestyle. I didn't go crazy and wild, but if I wanted something I could buy it. If I wanted to give someone a gift, I didn't have to think twice about it. I gave and did and spent what I wanted. I don't need extravagance but I do want stability and comfort.
Thirdly, once I am all grounded and happy as well as self supporting and independent, I would like to get married. Yes, "get married" slipped off the tip of my tongue before I censored myself. "Get married", as in I want an equal partner in life to walk beside me as I go forward from here. Once I have my feet firmly planted on the ground again and am content in the life I have built, I want to find a companion, a partner, a yin to my yang.
"In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang (also yin-yang or yin yang, 陰陽 yīnyáng "dark—bright") describe how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another." ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang
I am looking toward the future with great hope and a healthy dose of anticipation. Do I know all the answers? Not in a heartbeat. Am I nervous? Truth be told, I can't dwell on that right now. But I have the very same feeling I had when I moved to Saskatoon 29 years ago. It's going to be okay. I know this with every fibre of my being. “Everything will be all right in the end. If it’s not all right, it is not yet the end” ~ Patel, Hotel Manager, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”
“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”~ Joseph Campbell
I feel like I'm starting to live in my "Field of Dreams" again. If I build it, they will come...
Life isn’t a project to be completed; it is an unknowable landscape to be explored. Be open and excited for whatever terrain you encounter this weekend....Or as the Swedish army manual says, “If the terrain and the map do not agree, follow the terrain”. ~ Project Happiness
Saturday, September 17, 2016
38 Years of Parenting
Thirty eight years of "parenting" have come to this:
Jet - there is nothing he won't try, there is no rule he will not break.
And this is Ray. He is our "good" cat.
It's no wonder I need to close my daycare. I've lost all authority in this house. Even the cats know that.
This just in:
And this is what a roll of toilet paper looks like EVEN when it is stored "safely" behind a child-proof cupboard in the bathroom:
Friday, September 16, 2016
Energy Begets Energy
Energy begets energy. I knew this, yet I couldn't muster the energy to turn off the TV, walk out of the room which is my quiet, private oasis and do one hard thing.
I finally did it. I walked out that door and into a room which has been begging to be taken care of for months (maybe a year) on end. I did one hard thing. I made the chaos within the room even bigger and taller and messier. I stood back and took inventory of the excess and knew something had to be done. And I'm doing it.
Suddenly everything in the house, garage, playhouse and yard is on the chopping block. "I don't need you! You must go!!" Then I hop onto Kijiji and offer to give it away for free. I have found there is very little (if anything) in the world that some other person may take, if it is offered for free. Of the nine items listed to give away, I have only one left.
While discerning between selling, giving away or throwing something away there has been precious little which has gone by way of the garbage. A broken weed eater, a paper shredder with a dead motor and a few small slats of wood are all that my friendly neighborhood garbage truck has taken away.
Everything else is or has been sold. I started purging on September 5th. It is now 11 days later and I am $328.25 richer. And I have only nicked the surface of all there is yet to sell. I'm living in a gold mine here. Who knew?!
I have auctioned off most of my items, listed others on Kijiji. Between free stuff and items I have sold, my neighbors must be wondering what is going on with all of the coming and going around here.
I have basically stopped life in its tracks so I can be available whenever it is convenient for others to come and pick up their wares. I have even stayed awake and dressed as late as 9:30 to sell something.
I was weary, I was tired of the day, I wanted to walk away from the computer, crawl into my pajamas and fall into a weary sleep. But I didn't. I waited. And waited. And waited some more, for this person to come pick up their playpen.
While I sat at the computer, I worked. I finally, finally, FINALLY submitted columns to the papers I write for. I thought "this" was going to be it. The night before, I even wrote my pre-resignation email to one of my editors but I didn't have the energy to proofread the articles I was sending so I didn't send it. Then the next day happened.
My weekly letter to my mom had been postponed longer than it should have been. I started writing it on Sunday. I added some more on Monday. I started selling stuff and listing more items for sale in between all the cracks of living my life and I talked to her on the phone on Tuesday and Wednesday.
By Thursday, I thought I had to mail something. Even if it was nothing. So I wrote. Then I started reading my blogs of the past week and I realized something. My words are flowing again. I may not be writing the Great American Novel here but I'm writing. I'm not only purging the excesses within our house but I am starting to let go of some of the words which have been holding such power.
I read back a week, then two. I saw how life has transformed itself and how I felt it coming, embraced it and did my best to make peace with it. There is an energy force which has gripped me and got me back into action. Moving and shaking up the contents of our home has restarted the flow of words.
My life is mirrored by the way our home looks and feels at the moment. It is a bit of a mess. Sometimes you have to pull everything out of the closets and put them into clear sight before you see the way through the mess is and make even a bigger one. Once the closets are emptied, there is room to make way for new life.
I am on my way out of the daycare business. I have "emptied my closets" literally and figuratively. My future feels a little like the way our downstairs playroom looks. It looks chaotic and if I stopped now, it would only get worse. The only way through the mess is to keep moving forward.
Every step forward is a step in the right direction. There is so much yet to be done but I have found a renewable source of energy within one small nugget of wisdom I have always known but always forget when I'm deep in a state of exhaustion. Energy begets energy.
I have been going to bed later, sleeping sounder AND (this is the best part) waking up before my alarm goes off at 5:00 a.m. feeling energized and ready to tackle another day.
I like this energized feeling. I think (I know) the television set was my kryptonite. It took away my power. It was the addiction I turned to, so I wouldn't have to "feel" the discomfort of the life I was (or wasn't) living.
What is zapping your energy? Energy is a renewable resource so if you can walk away from what is depleting you, you just may amaze yourself. Easier said than done. I know. One step in a forward direction will lead you towards where you need to go. Please remind me of this in a week or two when I fall flat on my face, will you?
I finally did it. I walked out that door and into a room which has been begging to be taken care of for months (maybe a year) on end. I did one hard thing. I made the chaos within the room even bigger and taller and messier. I stood back and took inventory of the excess and knew something had to be done. And I'm doing it.
Suddenly everything in the house, garage, playhouse and yard is on the chopping block. "I don't need you! You must go!!" Then I hop onto Kijiji and offer to give it away for free. I have found there is very little (if anything) in the world that some other person may take, if it is offered for free. Of the nine items listed to give away, I have only one left.
While discerning between selling, giving away or throwing something away there has been precious little which has gone by way of the garbage. A broken weed eater, a paper shredder with a dead motor and a few small slats of wood are all that my friendly neighborhood garbage truck has taken away.
Everything else is or has been sold. I started purging on September 5th. It is now 11 days later and I am $328.25 richer. And I have only nicked the surface of all there is yet to sell. I'm living in a gold mine here. Who knew?!
I have auctioned off most of my items, listed others on Kijiji. Between free stuff and items I have sold, my neighbors must be wondering what is going on with all of the coming and going around here.
I have basically stopped life in its tracks so I can be available whenever it is convenient for others to come and pick up their wares. I have even stayed awake and dressed as late as 9:30 to sell something.
I was weary, I was tired of the day, I wanted to walk away from the computer, crawl into my pajamas and fall into a weary sleep. But I didn't. I waited. And waited. And waited some more, for this person to come pick up their playpen.
While I sat at the computer, I worked. I finally, finally, FINALLY submitted columns to the papers I write for. I thought "this" was going to be it. The night before, I even wrote my pre-resignation email to one of my editors but I didn't have the energy to proofread the articles I was sending so I didn't send it. Then the next day happened.
My weekly letter to my mom had been postponed longer than it should have been. I started writing it on Sunday. I added some more on Monday. I started selling stuff and listing more items for sale in between all the cracks of living my life and I talked to her on the phone on Tuesday and Wednesday.
By Thursday, I thought I had to mail something. Even if it was nothing. So I wrote. Then I started reading my blogs of the past week and I realized something. My words are flowing again. I may not be writing the Great American Novel here but I'm writing. I'm not only purging the excesses within our house but I am starting to let go of some of the words which have been holding such power.
I read back a week, then two. I saw how life has transformed itself and how I felt it coming, embraced it and did my best to make peace with it. There is an energy force which has gripped me and got me back into action. Moving and shaking up the contents of our home has restarted the flow of words.
My life is mirrored by the way our home looks and feels at the moment. It is a bit of a mess. Sometimes you have to pull everything out of the closets and put them into clear sight before you see the way through the mess is and make even a bigger one. Once the closets are emptied, there is room to make way for new life.
I am on my way out of the daycare business. I have "emptied my closets" literally and figuratively. My future feels a little like the way our downstairs playroom looks. It looks chaotic and if I stopped now, it would only get worse. The only way through the mess is to keep moving forward.
Every step forward is a step in the right direction. There is so much yet to be done but I have found a renewable source of energy within one small nugget of wisdom I have always known but always forget when I'm deep in a state of exhaustion. Energy begets energy.
I have been going to bed later, sleeping sounder AND (this is the best part) waking up before my alarm goes off at 5:00 a.m. feeling energized and ready to tackle another day.
I like this energized feeling. I think (I know) the television set was my kryptonite. It took away my power. It was the addiction I turned to, so I wouldn't have to "feel" the discomfort of the life I was (or wasn't) living.
What is zapping your energy? Energy is a renewable resource so if you can walk away from what is depleting you, you just may amaze yourself. Easier said than done. I know. One step in a forward direction will lead you towards where you need to go. Please remind me of this in a week or two when I fall flat on my face, will you?
Thursday, September 15, 2016
What's Next?
It is both terrifying and exhilarating to be standing at this precipice in my life and wondering "Where do I go from here?" I am nervous about my income level being slashed to an all time low but grateful to be stuck in a place where I can't do too much about it.
I am still committed to my daycare for as long as my last daycare child is left standing. I must be home and available for nine hours a day (my workday got shortened by an hour, which also includes the side benefit of a nap time I no longer have to share with a wide awake three year old), five days a week. So I must stay home and be present for my little almost two year old who is really quite adorable when left to her own devises (her older friends have not been a good influence on her I'm afraid).
I have to stay home and make the best of things for the next three months. It is a tiny bit like a three month staycation. I will finally get that holiday at home I have been craving. I am pretty excited.
I woke up this morning and felt grateful for my work-at-home experience. I love this space. I am grateful for the dress code and thrilled that I don't have to wear shoes. Make up is optional and bad hair days are no big deal. I love my little self employed life.
The question is: "Can I keep doing some version of what I am doing?" Another question is: "Should I keep doing another version of what I am presently doing?"
I have been living a life without health benefits, sick leave, paid vacations and pension for eighteen years now. It hasn't been impossible and I have managed quite well. The thing is (and I suppose this is important), I am reaching an age where health benefits, sick leave and a pension have become something that is more important than ever. If I stop working, my income stops coming in. Immediately. "This" is what the next three months of my life will teach me.
I have been very fortunate to be playing such a vital role in my own decision to wind down my daycare. Life could have dealt me a very different hand. An accident or health issue could have stopped me in my tracks and not only would I be without an income, I would have to deal with the consequences of a body that wasn't in good working condition.
I often muse over the fact that often, if we don't slow down and take heed to life's subtle messages that we need to stop what we are doing, "life" takes that decision out of our hands. Take one exhausted, stressed soul and toss them back into the arena which is breaking them down slowly but surely each and every day and you end up with a person whose body starts breaking down under the stress. Or making an error in judgement or not reacting quickly enough to avoid some kind of accident.
I have been a strong believer that if you don't listen to life's subtle and not so subtle clues that you need to stop in your tracks and change something, "life" will take that decision out of your hands.
I'm grateful to be steering my own ship at this point. I knew I wanted to stop and enjoy the scenery at a harbor while I refueled, refreshed and "renovated" a little. That is exactly how I feel about the upcoming three month reprieve I have been given. This little benefit comes without income, benefits or a pension. But I have my health. I have my mind. I will find my quiet place in the sun. My answers will come.
If money is the worst of our problems, we are very fortunate indeed. I am feeling like I'm living a pretty charmed life right about now. What I don't have in dollars and cents, I have in appreciation for what I already have and common sense.
What's next? I'm not terribly sure. But I do know I'm glad I don't need to know this by tomorrow. Or within two weeks. I have been given the gift of time. "Time" is all I have been aching and yearning for. I never dream about being "rich". I am already rich in all that truly matters.
I am still committed to my daycare for as long as my last daycare child is left standing. I must be home and available for nine hours a day (my workday got shortened by an hour, which also includes the side benefit of a nap time I no longer have to share with a wide awake three year old), five days a week. So I must stay home and be present for my little almost two year old who is really quite adorable when left to her own devises (her older friends have not been a good influence on her I'm afraid).
I have to stay home and make the best of things for the next three months. It is a tiny bit like a three month staycation. I will finally get that holiday at home I have been craving. I am pretty excited.
I woke up this morning and felt grateful for my work-at-home experience. I love this space. I am grateful for the dress code and thrilled that I don't have to wear shoes. Make up is optional and bad hair days are no big deal. I love my little self employed life.
The question is: "Can I keep doing some version of what I am doing?" Another question is: "Should I keep doing another version of what I am presently doing?"
I have been living a life without health benefits, sick leave, paid vacations and pension for eighteen years now. It hasn't been impossible and I have managed quite well. The thing is (and I suppose this is important), I am reaching an age where health benefits, sick leave and a pension have become something that is more important than ever. If I stop working, my income stops coming in. Immediately. "This" is what the next three months of my life will teach me.
I have been very fortunate to be playing such a vital role in my own decision to wind down my daycare. Life could have dealt me a very different hand. An accident or health issue could have stopped me in my tracks and not only would I be without an income, I would have to deal with the consequences of a body that wasn't in good working condition.
I often muse over the fact that often, if we don't slow down and take heed to life's subtle messages that we need to stop what we are doing, "life" takes that decision out of our hands. Take one exhausted, stressed soul and toss them back into the arena which is breaking them down slowly but surely each and every day and you end up with a person whose body starts breaking down under the stress. Or making an error in judgement or not reacting quickly enough to avoid some kind of accident.
I have been a strong believer that if you don't listen to life's subtle and not so subtle clues that you need to stop in your tracks and change something, "life" will take that decision out of your hands.
I'm grateful to be steering my own ship at this point. I knew I wanted to stop and enjoy the scenery at a harbor while I refueled, refreshed and "renovated" a little. That is exactly how I feel about the upcoming three month reprieve I have been given. This little benefit comes without income, benefits or a pension. But I have my health. I have my mind. I will find my quiet place in the sun. My answers will come.
If money is the worst of our problems, we are very fortunate indeed. I am feeling like I'm living a pretty charmed life right about now. What I don't have in dollars and cents, I have in appreciation for what I already have and common sense.
What's next? I'm not terribly sure. But I do know I'm glad I don't need to know this by tomorrow. Or within two weeks. I have been given the gift of time. "Time" is all I have been aching and yearning for. I never dream about being "rich". I am already rich in all that truly matters.
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Crunching Numbers
The challenge is on. The moment I heard my daycare income was coming to a near halt three months earlier than anticipated, I felt like a squirrel who got caught off guard in the middle of summer. There he (the squirrel) was, merrily sitting back in the sun savoring the nuts he found, eating as he went along. Then POOF! The ice age hit and there he was, caught off guard with nothing stored for winter.
My bank account is akin to an empty storage bin. In fact, I borrowed a few too many "nuts" as I was busy living the past several summers of my life. So not only do I not have any nuts saved for winter, but I still owe Tom, Dick and Harry for all the nuts I borrowed to get me through the past several winters.
Yes, I have a good solid home to weather the seasons. There is plenty amassed within these four walls of ours (plus the four walls within the garage and playhouse as well), so even though my "nut gathering" habits have not been good ones, we won't be out in the cold or hungry. Not for a while anyway.
I started selling off the excess within a few weeks prior to finding out winter was coming early in my neck of the woods, budget wise. But when I found out the bulk of my income sources were going to be done by the end of the month, I stopped all spending immediately. Where do I go from here?
You can bet your bottom dollar that my desire to sell the excess within, is fuelled by need now. I still don't want to have to dip into these "rainy day funds" (in my deluded mind, I thought this could go towards a little holiday one day in the distant future).
My first thought is that I will need to dip into my pension after all. No matter what way I look at it, I need to pull from future income in order to pay today's bills. There is simply no other way. Those "nuts" that I was forced to save while I was part of the work force with benefits are proving to be vital to my well being at the moment. But in the idle chatter that never stops going on within the back of my mind are the words, "What can you do? What do you want to do now? What are you good at doing?" There must be a value to some of my talents, sparse as they may be. How can I make our house work for us?
Is it feasible to rent out the main floor? If each floor was ready to live independently on its own without sharing kitchen, bathroom and laundry facilities at this very moment, it would be a very viable plan. But spending money to make money right now doesn't sound like a wise idea.
What marketable skills do I have? My idea of wanting to be "the person Mom needs" - someone who could be available to take someone to a doctor's appointment, pick up groceries, drive them to the mall, tend to the house and yard and simply be a "Daughter for Hire" is something that keeps coming to mind when the house is quiet and I am still with my thoughts.
There has to be a way. There has to be. If I don't force it. If I simply let it come, the answer is within. At least I hope it is.
I'm pinning my future on an awful lot of hope and faith right now. I hope it is enough.
My bank account is akin to an empty storage bin. In fact, I borrowed a few too many "nuts" as I was busy living the past several summers of my life. So not only do I not have any nuts saved for winter, but I still owe Tom, Dick and Harry for all the nuts I borrowed to get me through the past several winters.
Yes, I have a good solid home to weather the seasons. There is plenty amassed within these four walls of ours (plus the four walls within the garage and playhouse as well), so even though my "nut gathering" habits have not been good ones, we won't be out in the cold or hungry. Not for a while anyway.
I started selling off the excess within a few weeks prior to finding out winter was coming early in my neck of the woods, budget wise. But when I found out the bulk of my income sources were going to be done by the end of the month, I stopped all spending immediately. Where do I go from here?
You can bet your bottom dollar that my desire to sell the excess within, is fuelled by need now. I still don't want to have to dip into these "rainy day funds" (in my deluded mind, I thought this could go towards a little holiday one day in the distant future).
My first thought is that I will need to dip into my pension after all. No matter what way I look at it, I need to pull from future income in order to pay today's bills. There is simply no other way. Those "nuts" that I was forced to save while I was part of the work force with benefits are proving to be vital to my well being at the moment. But in the idle chatter that never stops going on within the back of my mind are the words, "What can you do? What do you want to do now? What are you good at doing?" There must be a value to some of my talents, sparse as they may be. How can I make our house work for us?
Is it feasible to rent out the main floor? If each floor was ready to live independently on its own without sharing kitchen, bathroom and laundry facilities at this very moment, it would be a very viable plan. But spending money to make money right now doesn't sound like a wise idea.
What marketable skills do I have? My idea of wanting to be "the person Mom needs" - someone who could be available to take someone to a doctor's appointment, pick up groceries, drive them to the mall, tend to the house and yard and simply be a "Daughter for Hire" is something that keeps coming to mind when the house is quiet and I am still with my thoughts.
There has to be a way. There has to be. If I don't force it. If I simply let it come, the answer is within. At least I hope it is.
I'm pinning my future on an awful lot of hope and faith right now. I hope it is enough.
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