Author Archives: Melissa

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What are you thankful for today?

A moment of gratitude. I try to have at least one every day. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s really, really hard. Today my moment of gratitude is super easy. Today I am grateful for Dottie the Dotted Dog.

I have often wondered how I would react if I felt in danger – specifically if I felt threatened in my own home. I have wondered this more so since last winter when my ever-so-brave cousin ran outside barefoot in her nightgown to save her dog from being attacked from a cougar. Much as I measure cold water by being “creek cold” or not (our creek at home is fed by the Rocky Mountains and can cause numbing pain unless you are brave and prepared for the cold) I measure bravery in terms of “Cherie brave”.I’m pretty sure I’m not brave enough to run outside and chase down a cougar. But, I did discover today that I’m also not the run away, arms flailing, screaming for help type either.

I was downstairs enjoying a nice cup of tea before the kids came home and I heard the dog barking, feet moving and people talking upstairs. It was an hour before kid time, so I knew it was not one of them and I wasn’t expecting anyone. I went and stood at the foot of the stairs to get a better listen and sure enough there were people in the house. I could hear Dottie growling and someone saying “hi dog, nice dog”. I stood there looking at the door to outside wondering if I should just bolt out the door and call the police when I thought ‘no way. My dog is upstairs. I’m not leaving her here with intruders. I thundered up the stairs screaming “what the f**k are you doing in my house? My dog will attack you. Get out!!” I arrived upstairs to see 4 terrified people standing there, one of them stammering “I’m a realtor, I’m a realtor.”

Realtors are supposed to call and set things up. She swore she called our realtor but she didn’t. This woman just walked into our house (along with her clients). I yelled at them to get out of the house, it was not available to show right now and that they could call and set something up. I’ve never seen people run so fast out of a place!

I have never been so grateful for my Dotted Dog who stood at the entrance to the main part of the house growling at them. I have always felt she would protect us, but today I saw how right I was. Those people were lucky they weren’t really attacked (by her or me!) I was also glad to see that in a time of fear I was in fact able to act. Perhaps bolting out the basement door would have been smarter, but I am thankful that as much as Dottie wanted to protect me that I also wanted to protect her.

 

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Sometimes I get short with my Dotted Dog. She can be a maniac and takes a certain amount of understanding and patience. For example she got into the garbage 3 times last week (sigh). But, today was a good reminder that the pure, true love she has outshines anything else. I love her and I am so thankful for her.

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Living by your moral code

I know I have a big old pair of Mom-goggles when it comes to my kids. It’s hard not to when they’re such great little people, but I do try to see them as regular human beings with flaws like the rest of us ( they just fewer of them lol).

Actually, although I know I approach situations with the “mom-goggles” I do try and keep a balanced view of who they really are when they’re out there on society. I really do try to see them “as is”, warts and all.

But, I still hope that they’re going to be out there in the world treating people with kindness, love and respect. That they treat their neighbours as they would themselves and with that that they treat themselves with gentle, loving kindness.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to see Jacob live by his moral code. We were on a band field trip to Kings Dominion and I was the chaperone of his group which included 4 boys. They wanted to go play one of the games – the one where you have to sink a basket to win a basketball. I had told Jacob he could play one game and one game only. So we payed the hugely overinflated price of 5$ for two throws and off he went. He hit the rim both times but it failed to go in. Then he stood and watched the man next to him shoot. One of those balls hit the backboard and bounced right into Jacobs hands.

Jacob stood there for a couple of seconds and then a huge grin appeared on his face. He started doing pretend shots and one of his friends was egging him on to throw the ball.

I’m so glad I was standing a little off to the side and managed to retrain myself not to get involved because what happened next made me so proud.

He tried to hand he ball back to the guy running the game (who had very limited English). This guy thought it was Jacobs ball and was motioning for him to throw. Jacob tried again to hand it back and he guy again motioned to throw it. I saw Jacob hesitate, deciding what to do, and then turned and tried again to give it back saying it had just bounced to him and wasn’t his ball. The guy still didn’t understand and I came over and said “this was the other man’s ball and just bounced over here. He’s trying to do the right thing and give it back to you”. The man smiled and took the ball back.

It was something small, but he really wanted to win a ball and I was so incredibly proud that he chose to live by his moral code and do the right thing instead of giving into temptation.

Excellent moment

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Walking Unplugged

With the arrival of some spring-like weather I’ve been getting out for my morning river walks again. I got cold and wimpy through the long, cold winter (and then into the cold, rainy spring), but I’ve been back at it for the past few days and it feels fantastic. It’s such an important part of my morning in helping me get grounded and settled into myself for the day. I always make sure to stop and be grateful for a few moments that I am fortunate enough to be able to do these quiet morning walks.

One really important part of my walks is that I go *by myself*. I don’t walk with anyone, I don’t have any electronics going (I do take my phone with me just in case there’s an emergency or I see something cool I need to take a picture of), and I just try to empty my mind. Which sounds easy but is excruciatingly difficult for me. I spend the first half of my walk fretting away whatever chatter is going on up there and then usually am able to settle into enjoying the walk for the second half. Usually. Sometimes I’m either starving or have to go to the bathroom (a killer when you’re walking by running water) and am trying to rush through it.

I notice how many other people I see on the path who are engrossed in their phones. Texting or doing something like that. There are lots of people running and walking listening to music – I don’t have music on walking, but I totally understand the need to when jogging. It’s the only thing that would help keep me running. But, there’s also a lot of people either reading, texting or talking on their phones while walking. Which I don’t get at all because it means they totally miss all the cool things that are out there.

Such as this thingey I came across this morning:

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Thinking about how I *don’t get at all* how these people immerse themselves in their phones and miss out on the beauty of the walk made me think about how I sometimes fill my day with white noise. Sometimes I get upset at the kids for wandering around the house holding their laptops (headphones on thank goodness) watching a show, completely oblivious to what’s going on around them – usually what’s going on is me trying to get their attention. Then I reflect on my own behaviour. I both love and hate our portable devices. I think they’ve helped make it much easier to take the quiet out of the day. I’ll listen to music while I get ready. I have the iPad hooked up in the kitchen so I can watch a show on Hulu while I am cooking or doing dishes. I watch the iPad while I’m on the elliptical (otherwise I die of boredom), sometimes I even soil a yoga practice by having something playing in the background (a show that is, not music). Much too often when I’m bored or lonely I turn on a show instead of opening a book or heading outside.

Although I’m noticing now that I’m more aware that those moments are becoming less. When I’m bored and have some downtime I’ll try to head outside with my book – even sometimes just sit out there in silence and listen to nature and watch the birds and my fish. Living here has brought a lot of quiet into my life. Some welcomed, some not so much. But I think there’s a big lesson to be learned in it. To welcome and surrender to the quiet. Every moment doesn’t have to be filled with some mindless noise or mindless activity. I’ve found that those quiet moments bring up thoughts and feelings that sometimes aren’t so welcome and that the immediate instinct is to go fill those noises up with the white noise of TV or Facebook. But also those quiet moments bring real, pure, golden thoughts and feelings and emotions which I would have missed. I’m trying to bring more of those into my life and I’m pretty sure one of the best ways is to find more ways to unplug. Which is incredibly difficult for me a lot of the time.

Except on my walk. It’s the only place in my life right now I never have the desire to be plugged in. So, I will keep up the walking, the peace, the “unpluggedness” that comes with my morning walk.

Namaste

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Adopting a better food routine while on vacation

Last week we had our fantastic beach vacation and we were lucky enough to get a really good rate at the Residence Inn Virginia Beach Oceanfront (thanks in part to the millions of points my husband gets from staying at a Marriott). A huge bonus to staying here was that the rooms come with small kitchens – so we could bring and make our own food! This may sound like kind of a pffffft thing to do on a vacation, but we don’t eat fast food, we all try to eat whole and natural foods that remember where they came from, I’m a vegetarian and I try to follow an Ayurvedic diet as much as possible. So, this was going to be a huge deal for us. Not only did it mean that our tummies  would be a whole bunch happier, but we would keep a lot of extra money in our pockets from not eating out every single meal.

We live in a small, remote city so the excitement that not only I but the kids had about getting to shop at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s was almost equal to the excitement of going to the beach. Actually we did half our drive to the beach and ended up in Charlottesville where we went into vacation mode by having lunch at the Whole Foods there. I got to dance through their buffet and the kids gorged on sushi and pizza. When we got to the beach the first stop we made was at the Whole Foods there. Normally I prefer to buy fruits and vegetables whole and then cut and prepare them right before we eat. But this time I took advantage of their wonderful selection of prepared produce. This way we could still eat fresh food, but I didn’t have to spend the time to prep everything (plus I wasn’t sure what we would have in our kitchen – found out when we got there that they had a stove but no oven which could have made some things interesting to say the least!)

I love Marriott Hotels – I’ve always had good experiences at every one I’ve stayed at. This one was no exception. Every single room is ocean front. It’s a relatively small hotel, offers free breakfast (which made the kids unbelievably happy and I had my stewed apple and buckwheat in my room), was very clean and the staff was incredibly friendly. Add to that the fact that we could do our eating there and it made for 3 very happy vacationers.

The kids had fun helping choose what they wanted to eat.

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Fresh berries, guacamole, and OMG –  have you tried the mango-pineapple salsa? It’s to die for! I make mango salsa at home and this stuff is awesome!

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A huge selection of pre-cut veggies and I also bought a veggie platter. I’d just put it out every time we came back into the room and the kids crashed in front of the TV. I was really impressed with how much they ate, and I had to refill it a few times.

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Even pre-sliced cheese for their afternoon cheese and crackers.

 

 

 

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We saved HUNDREDS of dollars by doing this, had really happy tummies, and it was really not much work at all. The kids were really happy about the food they were eating and never once asked to eat out. We were there 6 days with all the signs for food around and every time they were hungry they asked to go back to the room to eat the food we had brought. It totally changed the way I vacation with them.

It also allowed us to go out for dessert feeling guilt free (because we were on vacation after all)

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Actually, Whole Foods helped with one of our desserts as well:

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Strawberries and whipped cream – oh yeah!!!

In case you can’t tell, Whole Foods is my absolute favourite place to shop. I always liken it to skipping through a Disney movie – I always expect the woodland creatures to dance out and join me in a song. It is a happy place! My kids share my love for this place, so the three of us got a lot of enjoyment out of being able to  make such good food choices!

 

 

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Bucket List Check Off – Horse riding on the beach

I don’t even remember the first time I was on a horse. I do have a memory of the first time I thought I was going to fall off a horse though! I was about 4 and riding Chubby with just a blanket on his back and someone was leading me around. Chubby took one of those grand shakes that horses do and I thought I was going to shake right off. I think the only thing that stopped me was the fact that my little legs were spread out in a Thelwell like fashion and that Chubby had what had to have been the highest withers and backbone ever grown on a horse.

My whole life I have wanted to go riding on the beach. Growing up in Alberta I didn’t see how it was going to happen unless I was somewhere on an exotic vacation (which never seemed to happen). So, it remained quietly on my bucket list waiting to be filled.

Thursday we were on the bike trip from H-E-double hockey sticks when we passed what looked to be empty corrals on the sand. Naturally we had to stop and see what that was about. It was, in fact, about Virginia Beach Horseback Riding and they were going to be giving rides Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So, Friday afternoon the kids and I headed over and booked our 5pm ride – the earliest ride we could get. It was kind of windy and there was rain in the forecast but we booked anyway and crossed fingers and hoped for the best.

5 pm finally came around and we were assigned our horses and ready to go. The guy doing the payment asked us several times if we were sure we wanted the hour long ride instead of the half hour one that everyone else was doing. There were black clouds coming and he said he was pretty sure we would be coming back in the rain. The kids were adamant they wanted to do the hour-long one, and I have spent more hours than I want to think about shivering on the back of a horse so we were good to go.

Jacob’s horse had FOMO (fear of missing out0 and took off to be with the other riders, but Jenna’s horse seemed to be in need of a nap and would not go above a snail’s pace for anything. I stayed back with Jenna and the trail leader was ahead with the others. I hadn’t mentioned I knew how to ride (I have found that if I say that I’m experienced they give me the greenest, meanest horse they have and I just wanted to enjoy my ride). but I guess he figured we were ok behind by ourselves.

I have always said that my most valuable life lessons I have learned with my horses. This time was no different. I have been working on surrendering control. Much as I like to think I don’t have control issues (those of you who know me can just be quiet here) it turns out I actually have waaaaay more than I ever thought I did. To top that off apparently I’m also much, much more of a helicopter parent than I like to admit. I actually think Jacob rode ahead because I was so busy yipping at him about how to keep his horse looking ahead that he got tired of it.

The great thing about riding a horse is you can’t really control anything. You can kid yourself that you’re in control of the horse, but really the horse just decides whether or not to do what you’re asking. You also can’t just (usually) allow them to completely take over the journey, so somewhere in between you have to figure out a way for you two to meet some sort of balance.

Well, Jenna’s horse didn’t want to be doing this ride at all. We were heading into the wind, there were only the two of us left and good old King decided he’d just had enough. At first he just stopped. Dead. In his tracks.

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I stopped too and then was stuck with a difficult decision as to what to do next. Do I keep my horse walking hoping that King would decide to catch up? That didn’t seem very likely as King only really seemed to want to head back home. I figured if I turned around to head back for her King would also take that as a sign that the ride was over and he’d find his fast walking feet and stay ahead of me. This was when I had to let go. Let go of my desire to control and to helicopter Jenna. She had to figure this out herself. I could tell her what to do (kick, turn his head forward), but she had to do it herself. She sat there kicking and crying (brought back memories I tell you) and I just had to sit there. Then Barry, the man leading the ride, saw what was going on and cantered back, grabbed King’s halter which was under his bridle and force-marched him ahead.

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Problem solved and I could go back to my serene ride.

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Jenna rode up to me a little later and said “Mommy, I’m so glad I didn’t give up earlier. I wanted to and I was crying and crying. But I kept at it and that man helped me move my horse and now I’m having so much fun.”  Which pretty much sums up my obsession with horses. They are the most frustrating creatures ever at times. But a lot of the time that’s because I’m working on my own agenda instead of working with the horse (not always, sometimes you just get an ornery little bugger). But, when things are good it’s the most soul freeing experience I’ve been able to find.

So, this has been checked off the bucket list, but it’s an experience I hope to share many more times with my kiddos.

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Like Waves in the Ocean

We drove home from a most enjoyable, relaxing, exciting, laugh-filled few days at the beach yesterday. Yesterday morning after breakfast Jenna and I decided to walk to the King Neptune statue and back for our last beach walk. We forgot that just because the weather  can be sunny and look warm and inviting that cold water air can make things less than ideal. We made it almost to Neptune before turning around and running back to the hotel to warm up. Since our last walk had been not exactly what we had wanted we decided to take another stab at it a couple of hours later (a bonus of having got up so early – we had lots of time to enjoy there before having to drive home).

Jacob joined us and we started by throwing a ball at the shoreline. The kids got involved in a game of their own and I left to walk by myself along the water. Deep in thought I began to ponder what coming back home would mean. It was so nice for a few days to just leave all the daily blah behind, but now my mind turned to coming back, selling the house, moving on. I thought of how this would be the first place ever that I left where I never felt like I had settled in and how incredibly lonely the past few years had been. I began to feel quite sorry for myself even letting a few drops of my salty tears leak out the sides of my eyes. As this leaking happened I began to think of a passage in the book I’d been reading by Wayne Dyer. I had summarized it in my head while walking, but here I’ll put the passage in the way he wrote it:

“You are a divine creation of God. You can never be separate from that which created you. If you think of God as the ocean and yourself as a container you may find it helpful in moments of doubt, or when you feel lost or alone, to remember that you are a container of God. When you dip your glass into the ocean, what you have is a glass of God. It’s not as big or as strong, but it’s still God. As long as you refuse to believe otherwise you won’t feel separate from God.

Think of a drop of water from the ocean of abundance that’s separated from it’s source. Separated from it’s source, that droplet of water will ultimately evaporate and return to its source. The point is that while it’s in liquid form, disconnected from its source, it loses the power of its source. This is the essence of the secret of always treasuring your divinity.

When you’re separated in your mind from your source, you lose your divine power, the power of your source. Just like the drop of water, you too will change form and ultimately return to your source. as long as you feel disconnected from God, you lose the power of your source, which is the unlimited power to create, to be miraculous, and to experience the joy of being alive. The drop of water, disconnected from its divine source, symbolizes your ego.” (10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace by Wayne Dyer)

As I was walking and thinking about this I started looking at the footprints on the sand and I began to realize that even though I was walking on the beach alone, there were signs everywhere of other people (and dogs and horses) who had travelled the exact path I was on in the not so distant past, in fact I could see people who I had never met ahead of me:

 

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I turned to thinking about something I’d learned in my Ayurveda course called the Wave Concept. Basically this is that we are all like waves on the ocean. We may feel that we are all individual waves bobbing along in the ocean, but underneath that wave we are all bound together. Sometimes our awareness of the ocean beneath us has been cut off, so we see each wave as separate, unique, individual and isolated. However, beneath each and every wave is that same ocean holding us all together.

As I had the thought of how I’m not so separate and am just one of many waves bobbing along in the ocean tied to all the other waves I had the feeling that I needed to turn around and look back at where I’d been walking. When I did I saw this:

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Those two tiny “waves” running along the shoreline together giggling their heads off chasing to catch up with me to join me on my walk are the two waves that make my whole world light up. . There is no solo wave out there in the ocean, we are all bound together. I am so blessed to have these waves surfing along with me. They caught up with me and we took our first beach selfie:

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The universe

I’m reading You’ll See It When You Believe It by Wayne Dyer. He’s broken down and defined the word universe in such an obvious way, yet I never thought of it like this before :

“Take a few moments and study the word ‘universe’, the term that we use to describe this immense world of form in which we find ourselves thinking and breathing, day in and day out. Breaking the word down, we have ‘uni’ meaning ‘one,’ and ‘verse,’ a ‘song’. That is our universe, my friends. No matter how we separate into individual notes, we are all still involved in the onesong. ”

Beautiful.

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The Greatest of These Is Love

I came across 1 Corinthians 13 the other day. If you’re not familiar with it – here it is:

 

13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

 

 I was lucky enough to have a little love thrown my way last night. I was downstairs with Jenna and she was showing me come scratches on her arm. She asked me to kiss them better for her. She’d point at one and say “this hurts here, kiss it” which I would do. When I was done with all the scratches on her arm she puckered her lips up and said “this hurts here” and pointed to her mouth. I gave her a big smooch and after she giggled and said “you know my lips didn’t really hurt right mommy? I just wanted a kiss”.
Love, pure, unconditional, lovely love. It is the greatest.
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Give All To Love

I have been thinking a lot about love and peace this weekend. Love and Peace – they really are the key elements to a happy life aren’t they?

My thoughts on love brought my mind back to a poem I first read at Mount Royal for an American Literature class. In that class I studied many of the great American authors including Thoreau, Emerson, and Mark Twain. In our time in Rhode Island we were lucky enough to go to Sam Clemens’ house in Hartford CT. and also got to Concord to walk around Walden Pond and drive through the town where Thoreau and Emerson lived (among many other great authors – it was an intellectual mecca there).

Here was the first poem I ever loved about love:

Give All to Love

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Give all to love;
Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days,
Estate, good-frame,
Plans, credit and the Muse,—
Nothing refuse.
’T is a brave master;
Let it have scope:
Follow it utterly,
Hope beyond hope:
High and more high
It dives into noon,
With wing unspent,
Untold intent:
But it is a god,
Knows its own path
And the outlets of the sky.
It was never for the mean;
It requireth courage stout.
Souls above doubt,
Valor unbending,
It will reward,—
They shall return
More than they were,
And ever ascending.
Leave all for love;
Yet, hear me, yet,
One word more thy heart behoved,
One pulse more of firm endeavor,—
Keep thee to-day,
To-morrow, forever,
Free as an Arab
Of thy beloved.
Cling with life to the maid;
But when the surprise,
First vague shadow of surmise
Flits across her bosom young,
Of a joy apart from thee,
Free be she, fancy-free;
Nor thou detain her vesture’s hem,
Nor the palest rose she flung
From her summer diadem.
Though thou loved her as thyself,
As a self of purer clay,
Though her parting dims the day,
Stealing grace from all alive;
Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive.

 

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That Road To Bliss Is Paved With Love

My dad sent me a really touching and loving email last night. He’d read my blog yesterday about bliss and sent some really wonderful words of encouragement.

He mentioned that both he and my mom had given up moments of their own bliss so that they could take my sister and I to our various activities – riding being by far the most expensive and time consuming of all (he didn’t mention the expensive part, but those hay burners don’t come cheap). How they too had struggled to find a balance of meeting their personal needs and bliss and giving what they wanted to my sister and I so we could have the kind of childhood they wanted for us.

I hope I’ve not been a whiney parent to my kids about not doing “me” things and doing “them” things because I actually really do enjoy going and watching or participating in their activities. I have the luxury of saying that because Jacob does Karate which is an inside activity and has little equipment to take along and Jenna does softball which they cancel if it’s raining out. No hockey mom here!

That said, if my parents complained about lugging my sister and I around I don’t remember much of it. I remember stressed out people rushing to *get* to an activity, but I don’t remember grousing about being *at* said activity. Imagine my shock when I discovered later on in life that we didn’t do Pony Club because it was some dream my parents were fulfilling. In my defense, probably 90% of the kids in Pony Club were there because it actually was the dream of their parents to be doing it, so I can understand why I was confused. 

I do remember one fateful show where Pirate decided to stop at a coffin jump and sent me smashing into the poles only to land right in the coffin. I laid in there for a while wondering if they would just fill it in and be done with me and finally managed to get back up and get back on and finish. After I looked around for my dad and couldn’t find him anywhere. After further searching found him in the back of the Jeep having a snooze. As only an irritable 14 year old can do I gave him a piece of my mind. Something along the lines of what kind of person sleeps while their kid is out on the course getting injured??? Indignant little snot I was (in my defense I had hurt myself really badly and was more than a little shook up – but still… snotty).

I have thought of that moment many times now that I’m a parent and hear my kids say “Mom says she’s watching us, she’s just watching from behind her eyelids.” Because at 14 I had no idea just how freaking tired a person could be. 

But, the point of this is that these people gave up moments in their lives where they could have been searching out what made *them* happy and spent hours and hours doing things that made *me* happy. Perhaps not in the right balance of them/me (in that they didn’t have enough *them*) but as I’m struggling now they struggled then with that balance. Because of their gift to me I was able to find something that gave me peace, balance and bliss. They have searched their souls and found things now that bring some balance and bliss to their lives. But, I know that they are much different things than they would have chosen 40 years ago to follow.

Reading and then reflecting on my dad’s email confirmed two things for me. 1 – that following my bliss at the expense of those that I love would leave both me and them feeling empty and unfulfilled. 2 – not following my bliss at all would leave me feeling empty and unfulfilled and also not let me be a good example to my children of how to follow my dreams. Somewhere in those two seemingly polar opposite positions has to be one tiny spot of perfect balance. 

My parents paved my road to bliss with their love and it’s a gift I sincerely hope I’m passing on to my kids. The gift of love.

 

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