Better shared or kept in my head?

Late last year I won a gift card in an online auction. It was for some hypnosis sessions.   They were pretty cool, very relaxing and they are helping me to lose some weight and break the cycle of fat, get thin, get fat, get thin.  I get to listen to CDs each day and I settled down yesterday evening to do that. "small person, I need 30 mins of peace to listen to my tapes. Got it?"  "Yes mom!"  No going out, no one comes in...got it?  "Yes mom"

15 mins later as I drift into relaxation ..."mom, can my friend come in to play? Mom! Mom! Mom, can you hear me? Can my friend come into to play? Mom, I'm talking to you".  Hmmm

Then stomp stomp stomp up the stairs, I hear two small boys open my office door..."mom, can my friend come in?"  I say nothing...so they proceed to tickle my feet to get me to wake up.  What's the point eh?  Maybe relaxation is for other people. Cd on Pause, life back on Play.

It's been an exhausting long long week, working 12 hours a day and whilst that is horrible there is another layer to it that made it nasty.  There were no emergencies, no one was trapped in a mine shaft, no one had 46 minutes of air left...it was just that a volume of work was some how cranked to very loud. I'm reminded of that story about the frog in a pot.  If you drop it in boiling water it will notice that for sure. If you put it in cold water and warm it slowly it doesn't notice it for a long long time. I think I am the frog in that pot and the water got my attention. It's a big pot and there are lots of us in it. I worry that frog soup is the future at work.  I did some stuff to turn the heat down for me and frogs around me but weekends do see me puzzling how to break this cycle...as you are readling now.

Before my live hypno session the hypno lady asked a question from nowhere that is rattling around in my head..."do you count summers?".  " sorry I don't understand what you mean" "do you count summers, how many more summers you might have on earth? Do you understand how little time there is in a lifetime? If you understand that you will focus on enjoying life, enjoying the summers. If you don't focus on that, and live busy, just doing the everyday and you miss an opportunity to enjoy life to the full"...do I count summers?  Yes, sort of I guess. For 20 years I have known that the pursuit of wealth and status will not bring me happiness. What brings me happiness is the joy in a single day, that adds up to a joyful week that adds up to a joyful month, you get the idea.

I have tried to articulate this to people for years to help them live life to the full.  I struggle to articulate it in a way that they can see past their concern that I am a anti establishment anarchist hippy...I'm not, I'm a hardworking person whose priorities include " me and mine" in equal or greater measure to paid work.  I guess it's none of my business how other people choose to live their lives  but having "got it" 20 years ago I feel compelled to pay that knowledge forward. Live your life, have fun. Sit in the sun and do nothing regularly.

So for today's joy small person and I are off to Niagara to ride water slides...not down the Falls.  Then off to the botanical garden to buy seeds for the season ahead. Happy days

Happy days to all
Namaste

8,000 and counting

We walked to the park today and I sat in the sun for an hour as small person played soccer.  Nothing too remarkable in that, other than that yesterday we woke up to an inch of snow and he had to do his egg hunting in a parka.  He came in half way to get gloves as it was so cold. Today, no snow anywhere, sun out, sun glasses on.  Energized by that burst of vitimin D I just popped into Home Depot to get some spring colour but sadly nothing to buy.  A few more weeks before a pansy or primrose appears.

It was strangely nostalgic to be looking for spring plants. Having spent the first 16 years of my working life in horticulture Easter has pretty much been the colourful, busy start to the season. But that was an ocean away as here everything is still sleeping, ready to wake up in a few weeks for 3 days of Spring before going turbo into Summer.  But still, the environment was reassuring.  I reminisced about how much less stressful life was when I was managing a garden centre. But nostalgia isn't real, those days were no less stressful if I'm honest, it was just that I had other problems to solve back then.

I have just announced to my husband that "I am ****ing sick of problem solving at work.  Why is everything so bloody complicated?"  And as I compare now to 25 years ago I can see the same patterns.  Maybe that's what drew me to Home Depot, maybe I was looking for a familiar less complicated environment?  Back then I had mountains of work to do, limited people to do that work, new stuff arriving all of the time and the challenge was to work out what would die first (plants that is not people, although...).  The days were long, days off were spent at work, or were frowned upon as Laziness.  So roll forward 25 years, same jigsaw pieces, new stuff arriving, not enough people, nothing dying persay but having to choose what to do and, most days, what not to do.

A year ago I was micro stressing that my inbox was approaching 2000 emails, most read but many unactioned.  Last week my inbox hit 8000 emails, around 80 unread, the rest read and waiting for someone to do something.  Maybe these emails are the Pansy's and primroses, fresh and eager when they arrive then gradually they die away, unloved, untended as I frantically squirt water at a fire elsewhere.  What does any of this tell me?  It tells me that I am drawn to jobs that cannot be fully completed; where the daily chore is not mostly doing the work, but is mostly arranging the work into piles and then doing maybe 3 key things each day.  It tells me that whatever hours I put in there will always be a mountain more to do.

So as I sat in the sun, in Canada...in Canada for goodness sake!...most days I don't even recognize tht I am here.  Life in conference calls has no sense of presence.  I sat in the sun and vowed that enough is enough.  I don't want to spend every night and weekend on email.  I do want to have the energy to drag my son away from the iPad, I want to live outdoors, feel the sun everyday, not just at weekends. I am reclaiming my life from that side of my personality that works non stop.  I am a part timer and from now on I am going to deliver that dream.  Let battle commence.

Why I love Canadians - Reason #42

Saturday morning, no wait, afternoon now.  Still in bed because I have a horrible cold.  It's visiting the North West region so Fiona Land, holidaying in my sinus track although indications are that week two will be a visit to my chest via a raw sore throat. I could get up and do stuff - I spent two days at work feeling like this, but maybe a day in bed with the cats is better. They certainly seem to think so.

That's an old picture, but still a goody. They are mahoosive now and still growing. There is talk of getting the a treadmill wheel thing so that they can get more exercise...we shall see.

Second day of Spring today.  Yesterday I spent 9 hours getting home form New York.  A journey that should take less than 3 hours.  A sloppy wet blizzard hit NYC just as my flight was due to take off.  The plane arrived two hours late, but hey, it arrived.  Some people were looking at 3 days to get home.  The lucky ones boarded the plane and settled in for the 55 minute flight.  We were still there three hours later.  Plane had to be sprayed with de-icer, then they found a fault that took 2 hours to fix by which time the de-icer was useless so they had to respray us. But it took off and we got back to Toronto.  Having left Manhattan at 11.30 I walked in the door of my house at 9.30.  

So is there a point to this blog?  Yes, it's another one of those gratuitous " I love Canadians" stories.  As we sat on the runway waiting for hours, I think it was close to 4 hours in all, no one complained. No one shouted at the aircrew, no one talked loudly expressing an opinion hoping for others to start a riot.  It was very polite, very civilized, very calm.  What conversation there was was " yeah, it's annoying but better safe than sorry".  I love Canadians.

Now off to sleep to let the snow bugs travel south for their week two vacation in my chest.  

Namaste.

Friday 13th. Hmmmmm

The sun's out, snow's melting.  I can't really ask for more than that.  Today sees the start of Spring Break, so no school for a week.  Small person is brewing a snotty cold, and having spent the day at school in his PJ's as part of festivities he has come home and taken to his bed with a cuddly Ipad.  He knows that he is not allowed to watch the American MineCraft videos on YouTube because the guys curse and swear, so what does he do?  He has shut his door "so you can't hear what I am watching."  Nice!

I had the day off today which is a misnomer for a home worker in this century I think.  When your home is also your workplace I suspect the only true way to get a day off is to leave the house.  I'm not grumbling, its all in my gift to control, its more of a realisation. I spent a very quite three hours tying up some loose ends at work, then an equally quiet hour filling in immigration forms so that we can stay in Canada a little longer.  Hard to believe that we have been here for 18 months already. 

Small person and I went back to the UK last month, just to check that it is still there.  It was physically unchanged and it felt compact and bijoux.  The bank has turned into Domino's Pizza.  We deposited some cash and withdrew a medium veggie feast pizza and he gave us a free Tex Mex.  I suspect he was trying to entice us back...sucker!

We had a great time seeing friends, colleagues, colleagues who are friends.  I had a few pangs of home sickness, mostly for the countryside and landscape as Kent is very beautiful and Ontario is very flat and dull in places. but 5 days into our trip we were both missing "home".  I was increasingly grumpy about having to get out of the car to get a coffee; and not being able to park near the shops that I wanted to go to.  I missed cheery shop workers and an automatic car.  Oh that poor rental car...the gear box cried real tears.  Small person missed his dad, TVO and the cats but I'm not sure I got the order right.

Without wanting to sound like UKIP'ers, who are screaming loonies with black shirts in their closets, it did jump out at me that most people working in the shops and restaurants that I went into were from Eastern Europe. It was very noticeable, and as an immigrant myself I say good on them but it just felt very different to be in England and to hear so many different voices.  Here I take it for granted - I really hope that the UK can get to where Canada is with newcomers.  Unless I am missing something everyone seems welcomed here and comes understanding the need to, and with a willingness to, contribute and join into society.  To be fair you kind of have to work hard here because there are no social handouts or tax credits like in the UK. 

One thing I do miss here is British TV.  I miss watching John Snow read the news on C4 and I miss programs that make you think and form an opinion. I watched a few "documentaries" I think they were.  Nothing Bafta nominated - one about people living on benefits in the UK and one about Romanian Gypsies looking for a better life.  I have to be honest - if I was handing out the money those kids in Romania would be getting the cash tomorrow.  The contrast between their lives was stark...penniless in a ghetto living in one room of a burnt out building vs. living in a rent paid flat, getting cash for nothing from the ATM twice a month and spending it all on booze and upgrading your iphone.  One couple moaning that they had to pawn the XBOX to get food.  One guy said "I'm only 18, I'm too young to settle down and get a job, I want to live a bit first."

There is something very wrong with a society that lets you leave school with hardly any education; a mindset that getting a job is a life choice rather than a necessity and give you money rather than help to get on a more self sustaining track.  I guess that's easy to say from here eh?

Curly Sue moments

I wrote this, sat in O’Hare airport as the sun set on a long, long but enjoyable week. 

It started well, arrived Sunday lunchtime and spent a calm 2 hours wandering around the Art Institute.  I’d love to sound erudite but in honesty I was very tired so just tried to absorb and get inspired by just being there.  I had my “go where your gut tells you” brain on…not hugely interested in Asian ceramics I ended up there in error and thought about turning back to the main corridor, but some thing told me to keep going.  So I did and that is where I found the coolest artwork.  In the Japanese section there is a darkened room with 16 identical square pillars (can a pillar be square?  Dunno).  It was calm, quiet and it had serenity and soul.  The art was the physical and the spaces in between.  Did I stumble on it by chance? Universe at work?  Planets aligned? ... there is something in this intuitive business.

Storms raged in the East so my trip to NYC didn’t happen.  I stayed in Chicago the whole week; had a great meal out with colleagues and then 4 great meals by myself in my PJ’s.  They were room service rather than a fashion choice in a restaurant.  My need to be in NYC was for a 2 day meeting so in order to participate I ended up dialing into that from Chicago.  Two days, in a windowless room, on a conference call speaker phone.   And then a saw it…the wall of the room was a white board.  14 foot wide and 10 foot high…it had to be done.  I drew a mandala…then it got bigger, then it became a flower.  By last night it was 8 ft high and 4 feet wide, with a flower pot at the base.  Then there was an elephant next to it – a request from a colleague in another State. 

Last night I wandered back to the Art Institute to get a gift for small person, both for my being away and for his achievement at school – he was given an award for his conscientious behavior – best in his year last month.  That’s huge progress from last year when he was miserable and struggling to find his tribe.   So I surfed the gift shop and got cool museum gifts and then I wandered back to the hotel via a different route.  Looking for a tech store, but also getting some air.  I turned right on instinct and saw what looked like a tech store 300 yards ahead.  It turned out to be a men’s clothes store but right next door was the biggest most fabulous art store ever...Blick.   All tech purchases became irrelevant and I had a great hour drooling and buying sale items.  “Look how much I saved!” being my mantra.

So today, back to work – same room, no window, day three.  The white board now clean and white - much to the disappointment of the team sat outside the room.  Earlier today a young guy stopped in the doorway, wanting to see it close up!  I had thought that I was doodling in private.  We had a chat, he asked me if I was an artist and I said “yes, I am” which was cool.

Then as he walked away it occurred to me that if they could all see through the etched glass office window, to see the doodle, then most likely they could see other stuff.  Had they seen those Curly Sue moments earlier in the week when I was wearing a dress and had to keep yanking up my tights like a six year old at a birthday party?  We shall never know.

12 Days of Christmas

According to The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, "Importance [certainly has] long been attached to the Twelve Days, when, for instance, the weather on each day was carefully observed to see what it would be in the corresponding month of the coming year."

Well if that is true, looking at the 2 week forecast for the UK, it's going to be a dry spring, cloudy summer and heavy rain in September.  I guess there may be something in this after all?  If I look at the forecast for Canada that would give us snow in July and August so maybe as a folk law it only works in Blighty.

So, these 12 days are meant to represent a cessation of work and 12 feast days as we say thank you for the year past and set things in place for a great year ahead.  Judging by the number of Out Of Office emails I got yesterday the cessation of work is certainly true.  I have ceased work for the week and am in that limbo of too tired to do anything, too bored to sit still.  Earlier this week someone refered to that as having a "monkey brain"...always moving and bouncing around.  Sounds about right.

Christmas Day tomorrow.  Three days ago I double checked with my husband that we were invoking the $25 a present rule ( I have bought him a DVD, who said romance was dead!). "Oh no, that was last year when we had no money" he told me.  Crap! What to buy, what to buy? And how funny that he thinks we now have money, bless him.  He reminded me that he wants a new razor but could I find the model anywhere? No. So yesterday, defeated, I emailed him at work to go to Walmart and buy it and I'll wrap it up. I found the present that he bought me hidden in the wardrobe.  By accident...honest.  It's wrapped up so I can't see what it is but the smart money is on one of those coffee machines that you put capsules in.   Ooh I hope so.

So back to 12 days and 12 months...every year for the last five years I have created a vision board for the year ahead. Sounds weird maybe but I believe that if you visualize and articulate what you want it will happen. Some say that it is the universe responding to your rhythms, others that the frontal part of your brain is now consciously seeking what you want.  Whichever, thinking about it and planning it will make it happen.  They say "be careful what you wish for" and that is why.

This year for the first time I also created a 12 month wall of activities...post it notes of fun stuff that I want to do each month.  I was staring at that wall planner earlier...it's huge, 5 foot by 4 foot.  And I have completed 38 of the things posted this year, just three things undone, maybe 2.5 because sometimes opportunities come along that are not quite what you wished for, but an interpretation of that wish.  If you fancy trying this visualization and planning then my friend Louise runs a cool online course starting next month.  There is a link to it on the right of this page.  I have taken it twice...it's a really great way to live the life you want rather than have days passing and you are flowing with the tide.

Next week I will visualize 2015...don't leave any magazines lying around as I will be ripping and tearing.  Scissors? No way, I do it old school.

Merry Christmas!

Afternoon nap with Graham Norton

Four more sleeps or is it five. Dunno. Head is groggy with a winter cold. I have taken to my bed on a Saturday afternoon whilst small person watches Stampy Cat on my laptop and my husband is out present shopping. Feels like a hangover but it isn't honestly.  Although alcohol has certainly played a part in my weight gain this last year,  not so much the wine as the snacks I trough down after a class of "sav" as the wine shop lady calls it.  Having spent many long days at work since the summer I have concluded that you can drink too much wine if you work in HR...others will argue that no amount is too much.  So as I recover from or move into a horrid cold I have declared Christmas to be alcohol free chez moi. We'll see how that pans out.  See if we can make it to NYE, then maybe have some fizz.

Small person broke up from school yesterday, and is very excited and shiny. "It's the weekend now for 14 days!". He has Art Camp on Monday which he will love...they will be making wrapping paper as well as splash painting a canvas. Love that place.  Christmas starts on Tuesday for me, when I shall switch off the work PC until 29th.  Christmas Day will start early on 25th around 6.30am then there will be 2 hours pleading to open other gifts before we give in and drag ourselves downstairs.  Hopefully Santa will have left a surprise gift under the tree...an XBOX One.  I have resisted all requests for video games up until now.  He's 48 for God sake, make do with the iPad!  But having seen small person dancing to Just Dance on the iPad I knew what we had to do. There is talk of MineCraft which we have avoided til now, but given that small person watches videos of other people's games I guess it's not a huge leap to let him build his own world. The family farm that we inherited from him, on Hay Day, just doesn't cut it any more.

So off to sleep now for an afternoon nap, listening to Graham Norton on tinternet...I wonder what Santa is bringing me this year?