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Super Grover

 

 Some days the happiness moments are harder to find. That is one of the reasons I do this blog. It keeps me searching for moments of sunshine during cloudy days. 

Today was a cloudy day. 

The moment of happiness came in the form of Super Grover. While we were at the hospital my sister and I decided to go visit my cousin who is in after being bucked off his horse. 

We picked out (manly) flowers and as we were standing in line, my sister leaned into a bin and pulled out a stuffed Super Grover saying and we will get this for him too. It will remind him that the next time he falls he needs to pull out his cape. Then we giggled and thought of Grover screaming and flying through the sky, arms flailing. The great thing is that our cousin loved it too – and totally got the humour. 

A moment of happiness brought to me today by loveable, furry old Grover. 

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A walk through family history 

For at least the last year Jacob has had a lot of questions about where he comes from. He wants to know his roots and understand more about his family. 

He always has lots of questions about his great grandma (my grandma). He has some memories of her – she died when he was 2.5 – and often talks about remembering visiting with her. 

Starting a few months ago he started asking to go visit her grave. It’s not a place I’ve been back to since she was buried. For me, if I need to feel close to her, I just sit in her kitchen. Which is easy since that’s where my parents live and is a 30 second walk away. 

But, he had a really strong need to go to the graveyard. So we went. I went for Jacob, but I also went for Grandma. I remember she used to take me there to visit Grandpa’s grave and put flowers there. Then she would walk me around and look at the other graves. My great grandparents are there, as are many great aunts and uncles.  The doctor who delivered me is there. All of “old Cochrane” is there. She would show me where everyone was buried and tell me stories about them. 

I realized that even though it may not have a lot of meaning for me, it had a lot of meaning for Grandma. That she would probably appreciate flowers and a visit there. 

 
So we went there. After a little searching we found the graves. 

Not knowing how I would feel being there, I was amazed at the sense of peace I felt being in that place. It was actually a huge sort of comfort standing amidst past family and friends. Really standing there in our roots. 

I did notice that there was a planter in the middle of my grandparents’ headstones and although it was too cold today to leave flowers out, I will go back and put a pot of geraniums there when it warms up. 

So, my happiness moment of the day today is kind of a weird happiness moment. It’s not one of screaming joyous laughter. Today it is the happy feeling of standing in the roots of family and the feeling of love and belonging that grows out of that. It’s a deep seated contented  happiness that I am grateful for. 

Because it was rainy and cold out, afterwards we went to a local coffee shop and had tea, hot cocoa and a little treat. A different kind of happiness. 


  

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Living with blinders on

  

So, this anxiety thing. It’s mostly fear based. Worrying about what’s going to happen in the future. Worrying that things in the present aren’t the way I had wanted them to be. Being afraid to breathe into that moment. Trust me, I had the ability to find anything to be anxious about. 

I had lots of real things that caused me to be fearful and anxious. But there were also a lot that were just made up in my head. Things that I was afraid of that never happened but that I wasted a lot of energy on. 

Ever since I returned home I feel like a pair of blinders have been put on me. Like I’ve been placed in a bubble and all I can focus on is what is happening at the present moment in my bubble. 

Being with these blinders does not protect me from fear or anxiety and it does not block me from happiness and joy. In fact I have felt every emotion you can imagine lately and I’ve felt them all intensely. 

But, all I am able to focus on is what’s happening right now. There is no fear based anxiety about the future or things that could happen. Somehow The Universe has decided to put blinders on me and only allow me to be right here in the present moment. 

That is a gift. 

Happiness moment was picking Jenna up from school and seeing the parrot she’d been  making as a beading craft at school. They’re going to donate them to the Children’s Hospital. I love it when she discovered a new craft. She loves to create. 

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How does your garden grow?

 
Spring! It’s a happiness time. New life, new growth, new hope. 

This spring there are lots of emotions going on here, but there is always a reminder that things carry on. That new life is always flying in on the wings of old. 

We all come from somewhere and to some extent carry along parts of our past with us. Nurture or nature, we all carry our ancestors with us in some way. 

I love seeing all the common family traits. Some of them learned by watching behaviours and some of them passed on through genes. 

Just like those seeds we are planting in our garden, all our new life here is sprouting hope and happiness and promise. 

My happiness moment today came buying the flowers pictured above. It carried on into this evening when I looked out my window and saw my brother in law digging the garden. 

That is hard work. 

 
Tomorrow for the first time in 10 years I will plant a vegetable garden. Beside the barn my grandpa built. Using potatoes my great grandpa brought over from Ireland. With my Mom, my Dad, my kids, my sister and brother in law, my niece, and my nephew. 

All those generations joining together to plant new life and new hope. To watch what was started carry on. Together. Surrounded by love. 

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An eclair to share 

Today, after a very busy and emotional  day I found a quick moment of happiness with Jacob. We came home and abandoned all responsibilities to sit in front of the TV, watch The Golden Girls, drink a cup of tea, and enjoy the sinful indulgence of an eclair. In that little moment all was good, all was right, all was happy. 

And isn’t life really all about the little moments? 

Quiet, simple, easy moment to breathe and regroup with one of my favourite people in the world. 

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Mother’s Day 2015

For the first time in 10 years I got to spend Mother’s Day with my Mom. What a blessing and my happiness moment for the day all by itself. But the day was made better by the fact that it also included my dad, sister and her family,bmy aunt and uncle (who have always been an extra set of parents to me), and my cousin’s daughter. What a blessed day to bring the family together for a meal and a visit. 

It was pretty relaxed and we were able to actually sit together and laugh and have conversations about everything and nothing.  Having family is such a special blessing and if I ever took it for granted before we moved I never will again. 

Extra happiness moment was sneaking off with my sister for a walk and some bonding time. We don’t get to spend enough time together just us and I treasure it when we do. 

Happy Mother’s Day. Mine was spent exactly as I wanted it. I am so blessed to have the kids God gave me. They have taught me how to be a better version of me. 

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Photo surprise

Every day I try and do a little unpacking. Today I attacked the study and found a little package of forgotten photos. I had to sit down and take a little trip down memory lane. They were all pictures during the time we lived in Rhode Island – when the kids were still little kids. 
Here’s me and Jenna during my blonde phase at a lobster shack near Mystic CT.  

  

Here’s the monsters at our local turkey farm in Connecticut. We used to drive to Baldwin Brook Farms to get our raw milk. Sometimes we would stop at Ekonk Hill Turkey Farm on the way home and have a turkey sandwich and oooohhhhh my they made the best little doughnuts. 

At Mystic Aquarium. My kids are consistently weird.    

Happiness moment for the day: remembering the good times we had in Rhode Island. Like with everything there was good and bad, but there was a lot of good fun there. The kids were little and we had a lot of really cool adventures together. I feel so privileged that I have been able to participate in the big and the little events in their lives. 

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Putting down roots 

To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul. – Simone Weil 


My cousin put this quote on my Facebook wall yesterday saying it was something that reminded her of me. A lot of time over these past few years have been spent figuring out what grounds me and what to do about it. 

What grounds me? I rediscovered last summer that this grounds me 

  
I remember laughing about this fact years ago when I was riding all the time the only stable thing in my life is my horses. Over the years I’ve thought about that statement and refined it (I was in my early twenties at the time and if you’d told me I would be moving away from Calgary I wold have laughed hysterically)

Being home grounds me. Home in the larger word than just a house. Home where family is. Home at the ranch. Home where I look outside and see the barn. Home where I walk outside of my house and the first sound I hear is the gentle zerbert sound of a horse sneeze. Home where little Melissa ran around and played with her sister and cousins in the same yard her mom played and in the same yard her grandpa played. 

Like roots attaching into the ground I can feel myself grounding back in here. A different and more purposeful grounding than I had before when I took it for granted. 

This morning while driving home from the school drop off I had to pull over and take in the view of the mountains. It was breathtaking and I felt my soul smile as I stood outside of the car breathing in the morning air. As I stood there I thought about being grounded and being home and sticking my roots in. 

  
But then when I got back in the car the song Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond came on the radio and it brought me to Rhode Island summers. We had some beautiful summers there at the beach and driving to Newport and to Boston   That song is the song they play at the Red Sox games and Jacob became such a Red Sox fan there. 

I realized we had left roots everywhere we have been in some way, shape or form. 

One of the churches in Roanoke had this on their sign: bloom where you are planted and it became a mantra of sorts for me during my time there. I tried (perhaps too hard) to bloom and flourish no matter where I was. I have to say though, there are certain conditions that are absolutely better for growth than others. 

Learning about Ayurveda has taught me that a lot of my sense of being ungrounded is a Vata imbalance. I knew this, I studied this. I practiced a Vata pacifying lifestyle   And yet no matter what I did I remained unbalanced. 

Calgary physically is about the most Vata aggravating  place on the planet. It’s dry, windy, and cold, cold, cold. 

I knew that a lot of my imbalance had nothing to do with anything physical. I could live in a Vata pacifying place, eat Vata pacifying foods, and practice Vata pacifying routines and it wasn’t going to solve my problem. 

My issue was and is spiritual   And it’s being balanced in this most Vata aggravating of places. Where my roots are.  

Happiness moment: a little couch nap this afternoon with Ella the Cat being a purr machine on my chest. Part way through she rolled over, leaned down to where Dottie the Dotted Dog was lying, balled her paw into an unclawed fist and punched her a few times in the head. When Dottie looked up, Ella rolled over on her back and cuddled up to me so Dottie knew she was missing something. They pretend to hate each other but they actually have a pretty special friendship. Shhhh don’t tell anyone. 

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A little Ayurvedic magic

 
First of all the happiness moment of the day. It was a beautiful, sunny 20 degrees Celsius out today and the kids and I took an early summer break and went to our old favourite, Mackay’s  Ice Cream in Cochrane. It was lovely and delicious. I had a very non Ayurvedic scoop of chocolate fudge chunk and blissfully enjoyed every bite in an Ayurvedic approved manner of mindful eating. OMG it was good!!

This weekend Jenna has been complaining on and off of a sore ear. Yesterday I pulled out my essential oils and tried putting some of them around her ear. While it helped a little nothing was solving the pain. 

This morning she woke up in terrible pain and I actually ended up keeping her home from school. As I was preparing breakfast I remembered where  I had stashed my mustard oil and decided to give a remedy a try that I’d been given by a friend from India a few years ago. 

At one point both Jenna and I had sore ears. I put her on antibiotics and I used the Ayurvedic remedy to see who healed faster. I did at a significant rate. 

So, you get a pot and put some mustard oil in it. Then add a couple of cloves of garlic and heat it until the garlic turns red. Remember it’s oil so hot is hot! I put a clear lid on the pot. 

When it’s done, let it cool and then put some on a cotton ball and place it in the ear. Leave it for as long as possible. 

Jenna wore hers for 3 hours and her ear is completely pain free. She went from not wanting to move to skipping down the road smiling and laughing. 

Magic

I love learning about and healing with Ayurveda 

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A social solitude walk 

 
My walks are a very spiritual time of the day for me. I need that solitude in nature to connect with the Universe and to connect with my inner being. 

I’ve always craved a certain amount of solitude although our years in Roanoke taught me that there absolutely can be too much time alone.  It’s all about finding that balance to satisfy my introverted self. 

My solitude walks along the road by our house seem to be balancing this perfectly. For example, today I headed out with my Dotted Dog and about half way through ran into my aunt. She pulled over and we had a nice chat. I decided I should turn around because I was going to go for a drive with my dad and the day was slipping by. On the way back my nephew and a friend blew past me in their truck. Soon after that a cousin stopped and we chatted for a while. I kept walking and ran into my aunt again who was pulled over visiting with another cousin and Jenna who were headed off to check calves. Chatted again and then kept on walking home. My nephew blasted by once more  and yelled out the window holy Auntie Melissa, are you ever a slow walker. Because of course by then all the people I’d been chatting with were gone and it was just me again. 

Solitude and companionship. Both are so important to feed my soul. My happiness moment for the day was that I got to perfectly balance both.   

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