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The garden 

Today was a much quieter and more mellow day. Today’s happiness moment was this evening while I was tending to my (overgrown) garden. I haven’t had a garden like this in 10 years – the entire time we were away. I am so happy puttering around with my flowers and vegetables.  It brings me such peace and happiness.

Today it also brought me some delicious lettuce, and Jenna and I sampled the tiniest carrots that have ever existed. Tiny as they may have been, they still were excellent. And that lettuce. Oh man. What can I say. Fresh food grown with love is unlike anything else. 

Happiness comes in small moments like the one today and big moments like all of yesterday. Those big moments stand out more, and make for great memories, but life is made up of the little moments. So, I’m thankful for today’s little happiness moment as well as the entire day yesterday of big happiness moments. 

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Canada (boxing) Day in Waterton

Boxing Day is generally my favourite day of the year. It’s the day after Christmas, when we get to just relax and hang with family and enjoy everything we weren’t able to during the chaos of Christmas. 

I feel today like we took a Boxing Day for Canada’s birthday. A day just for the enjoyment of each other. 

The kids and I headed to Waterton – one of the most beautiful places on earth in my opinion. 

I woke up at 5:30 to this view from my bedroom window. When a day starts like this, you just know it’s going to be a good one.  By the way, that’s the moon hanging over the mountains. An amazing full moon.   

We arrived in Waterton and went through the bison paddock. There aren’t any shown in this picture, but the view….

Then off to the town to skip rocks. Part of our routine from last year. I love this lake.  

  

Next up: flower hunting. Last year we were too late, but this year was perfect. 

Here’s our provincial flower the wild rose. 
  

A stop on the way to Red Rock Canyon. I was looking for flowers, they were looking for the water to play in at the end. 

  

Yellow Paintbrish, it’s rare to find, but it was all over this meadow. Beauty. My spirit sings here. 

More of them. I got obsessed.   

  

Monsters still waiting to get to the canyon. 

At last the canyon and some water to cool off in. It was almost 30C and there was no wind. A big deal in a place where the trees grow sideways from the blowing! 

We had to drive up to Cameron Lake which was unfortunately very busy and we couldn’t rent boats. Fortunately though we came across tons of Bear Grass which is unique to this area. 

 A long drive home chasing the sunset (and being chased by the moon) and I feel like my soul has been strengthened and cleansed. I need these kind of days where we just stop and enjoy each other’s company and marvel at the beauty that is in the world. 

  
The great thing about it being light from 4:30 am until 11:00 pm is that we sure can pack a lot into a day. 

This was a much needed break.  I’m so thankful that I had this day to nourish my soul and fill up my heart with happiness. 

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Canada Day

This is the  second  year in a row that we have been home to celebrate Canada Day. Already we have started making new traditions. My sister and her kids, me and my kids, and my cousin’s kids start the day off by driving up to Canmore to watch the parade. I hadn’t been right in the mountains since last summer and it felt so good to be in the warmth of them and receive a mountain hug. My spirit is drawn to those mountains. I find peace by being in them. Today we also found candy, clowns, and water guns in them.  It was awesome. 

  
After the parade we go to the annual Canada Day party at my great aunt’s house. Here I got to visit with old aunts and uncles that I don’t get to see often enough. Today I had a long visit with my uncle Harvey. He and my aunt held the Pony Club at their place when I was a kid and a lot of my best childhood memories are from that era. It was also the place where I learned to be courageous and brave even when I was terrified. Amazing the bravery you can find trying to keep up with those really brave big kids. We did everything from sleep in silos to jump terrifying cross country jumps. Loved every minute of it. It absolutely helped shape me into who I am today. 

Of course before we left, the kids and I had to run out in the field and take out annual weird picture at aunt Irene’s. 

 
I am so glad incredibly thankful to be back in the fold of our tribe. I am even more thankful for the fact that we have this tribe. My happiness moment s for today was celebrating Canada’s birthday with my family. 

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Summer vacation. 

I have the best job in the world (for me). Ten and a half years ago when I gave birth to Jenna I left my career as a teacher and became a full time mom. My husband and I made an agreement that he would pursue his career (and he’s got a great one that  provides wonderfully for us) and I would be the full time parent. It’s certainly been a job full of challenges – babies crying, sleepless nights, having a single income family, supporting kids emotionally through many moves – but I truly believe it was the job I was put on the planet to do. Being their full time mom has without a doubt made me a better person. 

Full time motherhood has led me to search for who I really am as well as what I am here to do (my dharma). The kids still look to me for Love, for answers, for support, and guidance. Being able to fulfill those needs for them has lead me to have to have a much better understanding of what my core values are and how I want to help guide them as they become adults. 

Perhaps the biggest drawback of my job is the financial insecurity. As in the fact that my paycheck each month is a big fat zero. Even though if you asked me what I want to do or be when I grow up (ha!) it would be exactly what I am doing, there is huge financial risk involved. Then I think about my spirit and how this job that I’m doing is making me a better person, a kinder, more loving, and deeply spiritual person. And how at the end of the day that’s a huge reward in itself. I tell myself to continue to have faith in the knowledge that I’m doing what I was put here to do in this moment and time, and to be grateful that I can do it. 

We have finally started summer vacation and in my opinion this is when the rewards of my job are the greatest. I get to just hang with the kids instead of rushing to school or some activity. I get to see how funny and kind they are as they relax into summer mode. 

This is the time when I get to see who they really are. And I have to say, I love hanging with these monsters. Even when they drive me bananas. I love being with them.  

Dual monster happiness moments today: went to town with Jacob for his haircut. We rarely get time where it is just us so I really cherish those moments. Jenna and I cooked dinner together. She made her famous vegetable smiley face tray. Happiness. I am blessed and so thankful this is what I get to do. 

  
There’s carrot eyeballs under those long pepper eyelashes 🙂

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Cheers

One year at our church in Roanoke (well, actually the church was in Salem but close enough) we had monthly family potlucks. They were a wonderful way for families to get to know each other better and share some good times. Some of it was spiritual leadership and some of it was just visiting and relaxing. 

One of the exercises we had to do was fill out the words to the theme song from Cheers 

Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got

Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot

Wouldn’t you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go – where everybody knows your name

and they’re always glad you came

You wanna be where you can see – our troubles are all the same

You wanna be where everybody knows your name

You wanna go where people know people are all the same

You wanna go where everybody knows your name

The point of the exercise was for us to realize that the church was our Cheers and that it should  be the place where we could go where everybody knows our name.  What the exercise did was make me homesick for the place where I actually knew people. I appreciated what they were doing but ohhhhh it made me miss the place where people know my name. 

Today I had to take the car into the dealership for a tune up. The dealership is in the southwest part of town – if I actually have to go to Calgary I try and stay at the outskirts. While this wasn’t downtown or East Calgary or anything, it was off my normal path. 

I sat down in the waiting area and saw a neighbor/family member/friend whom I haven’t seen in a few years. We chatted for a while and got caught up on each other’s lives a bit. After she left I sat and thought about how blessed I was that in a city of over a million people I still could run into someone I know almost every time I go out somewhere. Even if that somewhere is off my beaten path. 

After the dealership I went to the natural foods store which is up in the north west. There I ran into a friend I haven’t seen in at least 8 years. I also got to see her boys who have gone from toddlers to young men during that time. We stood in the produce section and chatted for almost an hour. 

How blessed are we to be back in the place where people know our name. Where we are no longer strangers floating about unseen. My happiness moment for the day. 

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Where are you?

We have had many discussions about where to “put” Dad. Again, one more interesting thing about cremation versus burial. With burial you know you have a plot (hopefully), you have a date and time, and you go in there. Much more ambiguous with cremation. There are so many different options as to what to do (or not do) with the ashes once you have them. We are still in the “not do” phase, but eventually we will do something.

Right now Dad’s ashes are in his room and I have made an interesting personal discovery about that. I firmly believed that I didn’t care where his ashes went. I knew where he wanted them, knew where we’d talked about scattering them, knew that Jacob in particular wanted a place to go and “remember Grandpa”. But I felt that for me it didn’t really matter where the ashes themselves were. I believe Dad is with me wherever I go, I feel him when I’m out walking, in the garden, or sitting on the deck. What did it matter where the ashes actually were?

Yet, I’ve noticed something. Every time I go into his room to grab something I stop, turn towards where the urn is and have a little conversation with him. Nothing heavy, but how are you doing today? I miss you, I hope you’re doing ok. And then it usually goes a little off kilter Is this as weird for you as it is for me? I can’t believe I’m standing here talking to you in that little box, yet here I am. And even though I really should be self conscious, I keep on babbling away about what’s going on in my life.

So, maybe it does matter where his ashes are? I was pretty surprised by this revelation. Even when I became consciously aware of doing it I couldn’t make myself stop. Just as I wouldn’t have walked through a room he was sitting in when he was alive and not have said something, I can’t walk through the room where he is now without having a little conversation. Weird as it is, it feels completely natural and it makes me feel happy instead of sad. It actually makes me much sadder to talk (or write) about it than it does to actually do it.

It’s been a whole month since he died. The longest month of my life. It feels like forever since it happened and yet….. it’s only been this one month. How can that be? How can I miss him so much my throat hurts, still not believe he’s really gone – how can all this time of such heartache only add up to one month?

Dad, I miss you. I feel your love still surrounding all of us, but what I wouldn’t give to walk out to the garden and find you crouched over some flower happily taking a photo.

Happiness moment today: I had to go to the library and download some things for my course. In general I don’t mind being unplugged at home (no internet), but once in a while it’s a bit of work to get the things I need. I decided instead of being productive and working I would watch old music videos like this one, and this one (because who wasn’t pounding it out on the dance floor to this beat?), and this one (OMG these guys are hilarious in concert – I’ve never seen a group of grown men have so much fun), and this one (that one especially because he was such a badass and then cried the entire time he was on Celebrity Apprentice). Songs I used to listen to in my early 20s when I never would have guessed I would end up searching for happiness 20 years later. Back then my happiness was easy and obvious. Ride my horse, hang with my friends, be fierce in knowing what I wanted. That me needs to spend some time with present me and remind me of how much easier and fun things used to be. It was a fun couple of hours spent tapping my toes.

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The basket of love

Dad used to talk about how he felt like he was being carried in a basket of people’s love and prayers. In a different way, and with different love and prayers, I have felt the same way about the kids and I over the past few months.

We landed here with our bags, knowing we were here to stay, but knowing that everything else was not only out of our control, but scary as hell. Before  my uncle met us at the airport we were held in our own basket of love. My uncle, aunt, and cousins had worked like mad getting the old house ready for us. This wonderful, perfect for us, old house.

Dad was sick and in the hospital, but he got well enough to get released and to give us two more very precious months with him. Months that changed me forever and although they were painful, I am a better person for walking through this.

God picked up my kids and carried them to the perfect school for us. Not only is it a Christian school – faith being something we all have desperately needed to carry with us lately, but it is small, and we have members of our tribe there. I was able to leave my kids with them with the knowledge that they were safe and loved. And actually, the way they were loved and held onto there when their world here was so sad and uncertain was absolutely amazing. It’s left me with gratitude I can’t properly express. They were safe and they were loved. Not only that but they had fun and learned stuff too!

That basket of love has served us well.

My happiness moment today was sitting out in my yard visiting with my mom. It’s a beautiful day here, the birds are singing loudly, my flowers are beautiful, the vegetables are coming up. The kids were running between houses with their cousins laughing and playing. It’s a perfect summer day. I’m so thankful I get to have visits with my mom. We have been away too long from our tribe. I’m thankful every day we are back in it.

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Emotion soup

I had another one of those *kick you in the gut* moments last night. I felt so blessed and thankful to be at Jacob’s graduation, and for him to have a cheering section of family watching him walk the stage. He’s had that extended cheering section missing from his life for 10 years. I am so proud of him. He’s worked so hard over the past 8 years and it’s sometimes been an overwhelming struggle (for us both). And, here he was graduating from middle school and proudly walking across the stage.

Because it’s a christian charter school, the ceremony involved prayer. At the very end of the ceremony, family came up behind the graduates and laid hands on our loved one as the teachers prayed for them individually. It was so moving and so spiritual, and I was so joyful to be a part of it. And yet…

The last time we laid hands on someone was during Dad’s last communion. The last time we all stood together and held hands in prayer was after he died. Suddenly I had this overwhelming feeling of loss. I was so sad that Dad wasn’t there to see Jacob graduate. He was so proud of him. He loved him so much. He wanted so badly to watch Jacob grow up.

So, I stood behind Jacob bawling my eyes out. Difficult to do with a dress on because there weren’t sleeves to snork into, nothing to wipe my eyes with. So, I just cried. And missed Dad. And praised Jacob for the fine young man he’s turning into.

Gut punch.

Today’s happiness moment: I got stuck behind a little old lady driving the back road into town this afternoon. Driving behind someone slow on a gravel road forces one to drive slow and far behind so as to not eat dust the entire way. Because of this slow drive I noticed that the wild roses are flowering in the ditch. I love those wild roses. This is the best time of the year to be in Alberta.

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