The One

I have never fallen as hard as when I met him.

(Fell in love that is).

He took my breath away (literally) and I am not sure I have ever gotten it back.

Since that first day I met him, not a single day has gone by that I have not thought of him, fretted over him, respected him and loved him.

When he became mine in that New Year, my life surely changed forever.

I understood what true love was. I felt it deep within every single fiber of my being.

Becoming his Mommy was the very beginning of my life in most ways.

Chase, my firstborn. My baby boy who changed everything that I ever thought about boys. I always thought I would have been the Mom of three girls. What did one do with boys? Did you have to play with cars to be good at it?

I never realized the delicious, intoxicating journey of being a Mommy to boys. I never understood before having two of them, what I would have missed out on if I had kept wishing for girls only. If I had a prescription pad I would prescribe that every Mom have a boy of her own.

Chase. My gorgeous, green-eyed, chubby cheeked baby who commanded attention from the moment he was born. The type of baby that every single place he went people looked at him, and stared at him, and adored him and wanted to hold him. From his very first weeks-he looked right in everyone’s eyes and smiled brightly at them all. He was intense. He always has been. He belonged to me, but everyone loved him.  He was the type of baby and then toddler who made everyone around him feel special, important and loved. He had that quality where you just wanted to be near him.

My Storm Baby. Born on New Year’s Eve 1997 days before the Quebec historical icestorm. No electricity for weeks on ends-moved 5 times during his first 2 weeks of life. We loved every moment of it-just so thrilled to have him in our arms.

The storm has never left him. His thunder is strong, his rain is heavy, his sunshine is radiant and his rainbows are many.

Since the day of his birth he has occupied so many of my thoughts. Not many moments go by in my life where I am not thinking about him. He leaves a strong impression. He always did. Intense he is that one.

Wondrously loving. Calculatingly affectionate. Gloriously charismatic. Breathtakingly beautiful. Hardheaded and temperamental. Needy and demanding. Hilarious and hyper. Deeply talented and aloof on some levels. Complex, complicated, sensitive, loving and bold. Arrogant and alert.

He is all of those things. He continues to take my breath away each and every day. Being his Mommy…..is absolutely one of the most powerful experiences that has ever happened to me.

Smaller than most and stronger than most too. Have always had people’s eyes on him for so long….deciding if he is much younger than he is…but realizing quickly his maturity as he speaks. All eyes on him always-wanting him for commercials, for modeling, for pictures. Trying to capture that smile. Attention always on him, people’s comments, people’s critiques, people’s admiration. Always at the center of attention. Hard to be there. Hard to give it up. Hard to stay there for too long.

He will drive you crazy with his energy. Sometimes you just want to smack him but you never do.

Sometimes he makes you laugh so hard you think you might break.

Sometimes he worries you so much-you think your heart might break too.

When you are in room with him he commands your attention. Sometimes there is no space left for the others. Sometimes he makes room for them.

He is a hard negotiater and always tries to make the best deal.

He is the best brother EVER. He loves those two as if they were his own two children. They worship him like God.  His brother is his best friend and he reminds him all the time. A week does not go by that he does not lift his little sister in the air, twirl her around and tell her how cool and beautiful she is. When he visited his brother in the hospital, he cried the whole way home in the car as he was worried he did not talk enough and Bear would be sad. He did not speak because he said he was scared that Bear would sense his quivering voice and be more scared himself about how sick he was. He loves those two with a strength so strong it brings me to tears. I am so proud of the brother he has become.

He is extremely athletic and excels at anything he does with his body or picks up with his hands. He instinctively knows what to do with any ball ,any trampoline, any bike or any water. He is one with water. You ask him what sports he does and his answer will be “I don’t know..lots” He is talented but dispassionate in some ways. He can be an attention seeker but he is not a showoff.

As crazy as it might sound in some ways he is very introverted for such an attention seeker. He is shy underneath it all.

He is messy this kid. Halloween wrappers all over the floor no matter how hard we try. He has my messy gene but unlike me, does not seem to care or want to make it better.

He is dramatic, high spirited, bossy and lovable. He is all consuming. He is a heartbreaker. He is a homebody. Not a single day or night goes by that he does not tell his family he loves them-many many times. He loves to cuddle and he gives the best goodnight kisses ever. People can tell me this will change as he gets older, but he is almost fourteen and we are still the proud recipients.  He is filled to the brim with love and affection. He is passionate about his family. This may alter over the next while and come out differently-but he has this in him. This is him. He loves home. He is all about family.

He and I have always had a special bond.  A bond so deep and so strong.

Recently I gave up a big racket with him and I told him so-you should have seen his face! I mean imagine your Mom telling you aloud that they even had a racket with you at all? That they believed something about you-and invented it even-something that was made up and not even true? Took some courage on my part, let me tell you…but it was worth it. It needed to be given up..it was time.

But I don’t have a racket anymore and part of the process was telling him about it. I have come compete with capability. I am so excited what will happen next. I am in awe of watching what happens when you give up a racket with your child and you set them free. I am passionately excited to watch the next chapter of his life-to watch him flourish, to watch him grow, to bloom, to fall, to get up, to fail, to succeed, to love, to lose and to become.

I feel so honored to watch the process of my baby becoming a man. The man he will become. I cannot even imagine the love that he will bestow on his wife one day. He will whisper sweet nothings in her ear that will last a lifetime. He has so much love inside of him.

There are so many things he is this boy.

A friend  commented recently” It’s funny you don’t speak about Chase as often on your blog as Bear and Beauty.” I told my friend it’s because he takes up so much of my brain it hard to find room for him on my blog.

I love him to pieces. I admire him. I adore him.

He is my firstborn. My truelove.

I can’t imagine anything sweeter

I will always be his biggest fan. I will always hold him in the highest regard.

I will watch him intensely from the sidelines of his own life. With my arms wide open wanting to catch him. But understanding now  full well that he does not need to be caught.

I will continue to watch him grow and set him free. I will continue to give him one by one his suitcases and umbrellas.

I will watch by myself as he lifts these loads and has to get  his hair wet. I will hold him at the end of the day and receive his wonderful “ I love yous”. I will take them in..one by one.

He is my boy but he belongs to the world. I can’t wait to watch his journey.

The Happiness Project

It’s rare I read a book twice. Probably never.

I just however broke my own rule and read “ The Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin again. A good friend of mine just finished it and has been discussing it with me so I figured I wanted to brush up on some of it again so that she and I could discuss in more length.

I am so happy that I read it again. I absolutely loved it.

By the same token ,certain concepts that bothered me very much and there were certain chapters I could not wait for to be over.

A paradox. Makes it all the more interesting!

Overall though I was left with a sense of “Wow!” just like I was the first time. This is the type of book that can inspire anybody. It has an awesome way of just putting things into the simplest of terms and making us feel that anything is possible. It’s a book that appeals to ,I would imagine , just about anybody in the world and that is why I like it most. It is written for the masses. Almost guarentees success by that very fact.

I admire things that bring in a lot of money. This having been on the New York Times  Bestseller list over 2 yrs now I am imagining it is racking in the dough. Combined with a high traffic blog... I would say that Ms. Rubin must be feeling pretty cozy by now. She has done really, really well.

What I admire of her most is her ability to do what she loves, do it well, make money and do goodness in the world. She has changed so many lives by this book.

I know she has changed mine. Just today I sat and wrote my own happiness project for my life (which took me 1 hour compared to her 1 year by the way-lol!) I am very confident I will be putting this into place the minute I get home (weird characteristic of mine to “save “happiness  for real life and not start immediately on vacation? Wonder what Gretchen would think of that?)

The book hit me as one of the most practical, fun loving self books I have ever laid my hands on. For me its success is purely in its simplicity. There are many components of the book that I outright dislike  and which I will talk about later , but overall I think it is a must read for anyone wanting to live a more deliberate and fulfilled life. It is for those of us who don’t want to let life simply happen to us. It for us who want to choose as best we can how it happens and  how we live our daily life.

The part I liked the most was one of Rubin’s Secrets of Adulthood.:

What you do everyday matters more than what you do once in a while”

Love it!!!!! Honestly this one phrase totally reframed everything for me in my own life. I am highly successful at all the once and a while stuff...a true winner. It’s in the everyday stuff that I need help with. It’s applying success to everyday that has baffled me (until now).

For work that part have always come easily to me, I can succeed everyday at work. On the home front I am much more inconsistent. I have not yet nailed it down. I need development not on Passion or Precision, but on Persistence (more on the brilliant  6 P’s in a different post).

I immediately made a list of the 10 things that I will now ensure I do daily to ensure happiness. Not some days-but all days (unless I am really sick and in bed or 1 day a week I will give myself off and holidays) See again...weird me to want to take a forced break from what makes me truly happy?

I also loved Gretchen’s “Identify the Problem” concept very much. If taking a shower takes too much time after a workout and stops you from doing it-don’t stop the workout-find an activity where you don’t need to take a shower. If cooking a meal 3 times a week seems overwhelming but you love the idea of cooking-get your husband to cook and cook one delicious meal a month but don’t abandon cooking all together.

I also clearly identified with “Give Proofs of Love “So often I feel so much love in my heart but don’t give signs. I feel a smile but keep it for myself. Have a silly thought and don’t share it. I need to let my inside, more outside, more often. I need the people I love most dearly to know I love them not just by my thoughts of them, or words, or bigger actions but by smaller daily ones. I am a big picture kind of person...and often it is the small stuff that I forget.

What I found difficult about this book was that it was too academic in my opinion than it needed to be. I was very tired by the end of the countless cites and quotations of all the happiness research that went into it. I wanted to hear about Gretchen’s happiness project and felt bogged own by the many references to the studies, and philopshers and research that she had done.

Although very interesting at times I felt like this author-did not claim her territory enough in this book and relied on the thoughts of others much too heavily for such a simple self help type of book. I felt she appeared to be justifying her own thoughts and feelings much of the time-as though they belonged to others and not to her. By the end of the book I wanted to tell her to seriously lighten up already. Just smile..and write about..but stop researching and studying how to smile. Just do it! Your smile is yours and noone else’s.

I felt she did not give herself nearly enough credit for her thoughts and perceptions. I felt she was way to humble and needed to stake her territory a bit more.

Another thing about the book that bothered me at first was the “Be Gretchen “part. I felt that it came through in the book that there were clearly things about herself that she as not happy with and that she wished were different but that she did not stretch herself enough to change them or alter them-she focused more on acceptance.

However by the end of the book I felt very in harmony with the “Be Gretchen” part” I felt it was vulnerable, believable and logical to understand and accept our own innate natures and go with the flow of them instead of trying to change them. I came to peace with not always having to be in the stretch zone to be successful. She taught me something  very valuable there.

Both times I have read the book I have had a strong desire to contact the author. There is something there. An exploration maybe?  She and I have a lot in common. I actually felt both times as I read the book that she stole MY book!
However, I know as clearly as day that she is the one on Oprah, and she is the one with a second book on Happiness coming out, she is on the best seller list, and she is a genius as far as I am concerned. Who knows what my imagined book would have been? She was brilliant enough to get there first. Congrats and Kudos go to her.

I still feel there is a connection there. I feel like she and I are destined to meet one day although likely polar opposite people from the sounds of it. Her happiness project would make me miserable by the same token that mine might make her jump of the nearest cliff.. Something there nonetheless...

 I may simply want to tell her: (and give her a big hug at the same time and alot of recognition and she is too hard on herself)

"If I were you Gretchen..I would press Jamie more for those gold stars. I mean quite frankly-you are a prize to be cherished, honored, and sought after and adored. I mean look what you have achieved Madame? Not only are you widely successful-you have changed the hearts and minds and soul of millions around you with your power, intellect and generosity. Trust me..Jamie needs to give you those gold stars. Demand them.-you are worthy of every single one your heart cries out for. Go ask him for then now”.

All in all a great read. Extremely well written and practical. I am not surprised that thousands flock to this woman’s blog nightly. She is humble, she is generous in sprit, she is savvy and she possesses an intellectual and a critical mind. She has written a book that is every bit as useful as it is fun to reread and easy to apply. I have no doubt that she has touched people’s hearts across the globe with her candid, vulnerable and practical approach.

Great book Gretchen! I will use this over and over again in my own coaching of clients and refer this book to many I come across.

Thank you for especially making me aware that my next step is taking it to another level-the daily level to achieve on what is left to tackle in my own life. You have inspired me to focus on areas of my life that I have not succeeded in before.  I will guarantee you that in 6 months from now I will have made tremendous strides. First time in my life I believe I can make change in these tough areas that have been on my resolutions lists for years. How did you do that????

As you say so eloquently “Do what ought to be done” “Do it Now” and “Enjoy the Process” .

Maybe we are more alike than I think.

I would give you some serious gold stars if we meet one day. You can count on that.

To Busy to Breathe?

One thing I absolutely adore about being on vacation:

Is getting a vacation from having to endure everyone around me telling everyone how busy they are every moment of the day.

And trust me I am not judging around this. It is a fact of life I know and something we all do. I personally do it all the time-even though it annoys the hell out of me and even though I try very deliberately not to do it.

Being busy is a safe haven. Telling others how busy you are –is almost a type of cult I have noticed. I tend to belong to this cult as often as the next gal.

That’s why I love being on vacation. I love taking a vacation from this part of society and this part of myself.

On vacation, down south as I am now beside the sparkling Caribbean seas-it is quite rare to see someone and say:

“How are you?”

“Very, very busy”.

Somehow it is just not as believable when the person is in a bikini, with a drink in their hand, sand in their hair and deciding if they should go suntan at the beach or pool.

I have a very unique relationship with busyness personally. I am extremely busy and stressed most days of the year-but I find it quite embarrassing to admit it. I find it makes me seem less successful. I don’t wear busyness as a badge of honor as many people around me do……I don’t think of it as attractive.

At the office if I look like a truck ran over me from staying up all night, or I barely have time to notice the new picture of someone’s child on their desk or ask them about their recent holidays….I am deeply not proud of these episodes.

When I seem bothered, or stressed, or constantly on the run…I am embarrassed about it. I feel less effective as in why could you not get your work done in a reasonable amount of time? Are you a slowpoke??

I am just tired of hearing “You have no idea of how busy I am!!

Trust me I do. I get it completely.

I have 3 demanding kids, two homes to take care of, I work for a high performing company and have my own business, and my husband has a career where he is not home before 10:30pm at least 2 nights a week and we both have a massive workload.  We entertain a ton and host family and friends regularly.

That being said, we chose all this stuff and all these careers, and decided to have all these babies and entertain all these friends. We did these ourselves. And most of the time we absolutely love our lives.

When things get super busy we always have choices to make. We could give up out cottage, I could not coach extra clients, my husband could make less money, and we could cancel X-mas at our house. 

I find it fascinating to watch around me though how so many people feel that they have no control over their own lives. As though it is there life (and not them) who choses never to take a vacation, never to hire a sitter and have a date night with their partner, never to put makeup on, never to watch a favorite TV show and never to have time to host a dinner party.

But…some of these same people have tremendous time to line up their soup cans in alphabetical order, have floors so clean you could eat off of them and have perfectly manicured nails that they have professionally done three times per week.  

Are these choices any better or worse than the choices I have made in my life?? Absolutely not….they are individual preferences. The difference is when it comes to owning these choices and priorities. The realizations that by making a certain choice you may be sacrificing on another level. Those super clean floors might mean less date nights (or a whole bunch of at home date night on the kitchen floor perhaps??) Or that having a second home might mean less order in general in both of them. You have to be willing to accept the consequences of your decisions. Stand up and own them instead of using “I am so busy” as a constant excuse. Stop and examine what exactly you are so busy doing?

At work it especially irks me when people talk about how busy they are all the time. I mean aren’t be supposed to be busy there? What kind of job would we have if we got to sit around and get paid for surfing the net or manicuring our nails in the washrooms? Aren’t we paid the big buck to produce, deliver and tolerate higher levels of stress? For me it’s about work ethic….and realizing that we own our own career. If we sincerely feel we have too much to handle then it is up to us to figure it out and find solution. To manage our workloads and our projects.

No one in business if going to come and say to us “Gee Jane-you sure so look tired these days-can I help lessen your load” Business is business. There is a bottom line to consider. There are profits to be made. Even if it is a business that really cares (like the awesome one I  work for) it is still up to me and not up to them to holler if I am in need. And it is my job not just to holler and complain but to come up with solutions to these problems and prove to them that these solutions are effective.

I am all about win- win solutions. They feel good. I feel good. Win and win. No one has to lose at all do they?

And don’t even get me started about the home front either…..especially people with babies who often say they cannot take a shower they are so busy. I mean seriously….what is wrong with putting your baby in  a little chair beside your shower and letting them wail their lungs out for 10 minutes while you lather up?

Trust me I know I sound harsh on this one but the basis of the type of coaching I do is all about prioritization and understanding that we make choices in life and are accountable for these choices. True success comes from living life by our values and making deliberate choices that we can stand by and feel good about.

Often the teacher is also the student right? In my own case this applies to me. I might always have time to take a shower having endured three wailing babies over the years, but there are other areas of life where I am totally lame and aggravate myself from my own complaining. I hate the sound of my voice whining to others that I am too busy to exercise 3 times a week or to take the time to tuck my kids in properly every night.

As much as I try I seem to be too busy to exercise on a regular and consistent basis, I seem to be too busy to cook, I seem to be too busy to cut up celery with peanut butter for my snacks at work and revert to easy granola bars. I may be really good in some areas but I severely suck in others. I need to fix this. Quickly.

My poor mother, because she works in or home a few days a week gets to see the lovely “I am soooo busy side of me “ too often. Haggard, distraught, stressed, complaining, bitchy. Party because she loves me unconditionally  and I feel I can act this way and partly because she happens to be at home during the “witching hour “when I take about 30 monstrous minutes to truly successfully transition from my work like to home life.

Unfortunately for her and me..she usually has to leave right before the 29 minutes right about when I come down the stairs, with a bit of lip-gloss on, a bigger smile, in my PJs ready to conquer the second part of evening shift. Those 30 minutes in between however are frightening on many days and probably why the smart people head straight for the drinks to minimize the impact  of the nasty transition from work to home.

So as I sat here on the gorgeous beach today and chit chatted with a bunch of other vacationers throughout the day..I realized that I don’t miss hearing “I am crazybusy”  in response to  a simple“how are you?”

Makes me think that I need to start asking another question when I call people on the phone or walk by their offices. Something that focus less on busyness and more on happiness. Less on circumstances and more on choices.

 Maybe we are due for a change in society? Maybe the worldwide “How are you” …..needs to be replaced by something else universally that provides, happier, more accountable, more uplifting and more joyous responses?

I will have to give that some serious thought. And here away from blackberries, deadlines, business, busyness and everything else-I have all the time in the world to ponder.

I am excited to see what I come up with. Could be a revolution.

14 Things I love about (this) Vacation (since we are here 14 luxurious days)

1-Reading. Reading .Reading. I brought 15 books just for me! 12 are hardcover and take up a half of suitcase. You might wonder why I don’t change over to I-Reader?  I am a good old-fashioned girl when it comes to books. Love turning the real page :)

2-Wearing no makeup and not doing my hair. Au natural is so liberating. My husband prefers me like this anyways- so win-win.

3-Just having literally nothing to do and nothing to accomplish. The only real commitments we have during this vacation are to play tennis at least twice since the gear took up another half of a suitcase.And I need to work likely about 13 hours-but that is fine because I know it will make my first day back to work better and more relaxed if I have my projects done (and everybody knows I secretly love working anyways).

4-Waking up in the morning, looking at the clock and going back to sleep. This one should be number one. Our routine on this vacation is to wake up at 7am, lazily turn over, grab the other one out of bed and sleepily make it to the bed outside on the balcony over -looking the ocean and listen to the waves lapping during the next 1.5 hrs of sleep.

5-Walking on the beach holding hands (I know it sounds like a romance novel-but I like it and it is sweet).

6-Watching other people get married on the beach. I always cry and I only care about one part of the wedding: when the parents give the bride away-touches me and my hubby so profoundly that moment. Today we nearly lost it when the Mom and Dad walked the groom down the aisle ands gave him away. OMG....Chase and Bear ,we decided we only pay your weddings if we get to do that too.

7-Eating whatever I want and not being mindful. I like listening to my hunger signs and giving into them without setting rules for myself. Funny thing is last couple of vacations I have felt like I ate so much and did not gain an ounce. Might be something there..Maybe I have screwed up my metabolism over the last years and I need to eat more??? Wishful thinking!

8-Hanging out uninterrupted with my Protector. We never seem to run out of things to say and we barely talk to anyone else. I feel blessed we get along so well after all these years and don’t run out of things to talk about or enjoy together.

9-Being disconnected. From the Good, the Bad and everything in between. I cherish technology breaks and hubby does as much as I do.  I adore texting, email, and messages but need a break here and there to really just take it easy and disconnect from the hussle of life.. Neither of us will check our work email for two weeks or our personal email either. Rules are I get to work a couple of days but no email. We will Skype our kids twice during the vacation or get on email to chat and then log off.

10-Swimming in the ocean. It is not called “Turquoise” here for nothing. I have honestly never seen anything so beautiful in my life. I cannot imagine going to any other beach in the world and getting the pleasure from the water I do here. Nothing has ever compared.

11-The gift of Time. Time to think. Time in the shower. Time to daydream. Time to wonder. Time to blog!

12: Being able to plan our renovations, our travels, our goals, our futures and our wants from life. Travelling for us is always and opportunity to review, realign, make changes and readjust. We already made a list today of what we want to solve on this vacation and figured out one bucket today-our trips for the next 3 years. Yay.

13- Listening to the waves outside on our balcony in the morning and at night. There is no sweeter sound to me than the ocean. I honestly should have been a mermaid. Water has the effect on me most feel from a stiff good drink.

14-Seeing my sweet husband so happy and relaxed. He deserves it so much, He works so much, he takes on so much and he deals with so much everyday. I love seeing him so happy with his martini in hand, on the balcony, in a pair of boxers without a care in the world. It makes me tremendously happy to know that he is:) As I write this now he is out on the balcony, listening to the waves in the hands of  a beautiful woman............... Now don't get all excited now...she is the masseuse we hired for a few massages during our stay. My turn next. Indulgence.

Natural Beauty

(I have no time to write a blog tonight-but this situation really struck me today. It is short and sweet..)

There I was at the nails place getting a pedicure done for my upcoming vacation and I see two girls chatting getting their manicures done.

They were strangers and had noticed each other at the salon and hit it off and started having a big conversation, and exchanging phone numbers and calling their boyfriends and telling them that they had each met a new friend while there.

They seemed to really, really get along.

They kept saying to eachother how similar they were and how much they had in common ( well at least as much as one could decipher in 5 minutes that is!)

What was interesting from the outside is how I thought  how both of these girls were polar opposites as far as I was concerned.

Both would have been considered from society as very attractive. Much more attractive than average; but two totally different looks.

What impacted me about this situation is how much more fond of one type of beauty I am than the other. I am almost prejudiced about the other type of beauty-it annoys me!.

Beauty number 1 was tall and had platinum blond hair with long extensions, False eyelashes caked with makeup, red lipstick, fake boobs and was wearing “causal clothes” with high high boots. Her nails that she gets done 3 times per week she said were longer than my little finger. She worse a fur vest over her track suit and showed huge cleavage.

She went out to smoke cigarettes three times during a span of 15 minutes.

Beauty number 2 had just come from a school soccer game where she was on the team. Hair up in a ponytail with a sparkly headband to push her sweaty hair off her sweaty face. Short, shorts making visible a set of gorgeous and sculpted and athletic limbs. Little hoody with the hood worn over her head in the rain. Not a stitch of makeup. Cross trainers on her feet. Gorgeous and expensive purse and wallet and tasteful french manicure with short, square nails. Her eyes sparkled and her hair shone.

I am convinced if I gotten closer she would have smelled like baby powder.

Fresh faced and beautiful she was. I realized in that moment how much more I relate to the second girl. How much more inspired I am by her. How much more beautiful I think she is.

She did not need a single thing except for her smile, her happy eyes and a whole lot of confidence (ok her hot body helped!)

I pray my daughter one day has the confidence and self assurance as beauty number 2. I think in reality I was looking at her so closely and appreciated her because she reminded me of my own daughter in so many ways…freshly scrubbed and wholesome. Shining from the inside out.

I found it strange from the outside to look in on this conversation and wonder what these girls actually had in common? It was not for me to judge. Only to wonder.

I felt sorry for Beauty number 1. I felt sorry for all the energy that went into her look that I thought was utterly wasted. I felt sorry for her that her time was spent in a nail salon as opposed to a soccer field. I felt sorry for her that likely someone along the way in her life had mad her feel that without a pile of makeup-she was not worthy or beautiful at all.

I had to stop myself from getting up and putting a cold facecloth in her face full of Nivea Cream and rubbing off her layers to see what was underneath it all.

I am sure she was indeed very lovely.

I am so thankful in my own life and in my daughter’s life too…..that we do not feel compelled to wear an extra layer and shield ourselves from our naturalness. I feel happy that people love us and appreciate us for our smiles, our sparkles and for the bodies that hold us up every day.
I feel blessed that both she and I in a heartbeat would choose quality time with others and experiences over long episodes of nails, makeup and long sessions of hair of nails. We choose life. (So far that is- let’s see when my own little  Beauty is 5 yrs older!!!!)

And not to say that I am against taking time to look attractive…..I have spent more than a fair share on blow-dries; highlights and lip gloss so don’t get me wrong. I love clothing and buy a lot of it.  I believe in looking your best. But naturally.
I would not give a second thought to walking out my door, hair in ponytail, a coat of lip-gloss on my lips and a tracksuit (or pyjamas for that matter!) and hitting the grocery store.

For work I have to look more polished for sure-but my regimen is 15 minutes maximum. I feel like I would die of boredom if it was longer than that. What’s the point anyways????? If you can’t fix it in 15 minutes then why bother?

I became very thankful for the big joke that my husband has with all of our couple friends that they all tease me about where he says “She does not need any new clothes, or purses, or shoes. She is a natural beauty!!”

Thank you hubby. After today I will take that as the highest complimentJ I know the underlying message to me-is to stop spending money, but still I think that you and I are on the same page when it comes to beauty.

You can dress her up all you want. Real beauty is much, much more complicated than a long pair of nails and a fake pair of eyelashes. True beauty is a combination of everything you naturally have……and your positive attitude toward it. You have to appreciate yourself inside and out to have others appreciate you too. Start with yourself-the rest will follow.

The Only Thing that Heals the (happy or sad) Heart is Time

When we moved from our old cottage to our new one, less than one year ago, I literally thought our hearts might break. I was so incredibly worried about my husband especially that I felt I may have done wrong in encouraging us to leave. His sadness, loneliness and depression over this move seemed more than I could handle. We felt hopeless, distraught and truly sad. Our bank accounts were emptied out. We felt like we had lost total control.

What was incredibly crazy is that we were surrounded by beauty, by luxury, by liberty of choice, by the empowerment of a choice that we had made mostly together nonetheless. We moved to a cottage that by most people’s standards would have been a dream.

We could only see happiness through other people's eyes as they visited the new cottage. And bless those friends who decided to make a big old fashioned fuss over it all. They saved our souls  during those visits. We got to see-what others saw. We got to feel happy through them.

Sitting here as I am now, in front of our newly installed fireplace, my husband and daughter in the kitchen happily cooking a delicious meal as I write this, music blaring, and a martini in my husband’s happy hand….. we are feeling all very different  now. We feel truly and utterly over the moon with happiness.

The only things between the sad time and this happy one are……time. We needed to experience all the stages and feel all of the things to get us here. There was  simply no way to skip those phases-we needed to go through them.

At the time of this transition-I felt tremendous guilt and also alientation  mostly because I knew most around us could not at all understand this blanket of sadness around us that enveloped us every moment for so long. It of course seemed like such a happy time-since we had bought this gorgeous new cottage!  What could we possibly have to complain about?? Most could not understand. We did not understand. I felt so guilty for complaining about….heaven really. Regretting what we had free will to choose and chose to reject.

There is a reason that moving is right up there on the list of lives biggest stresses along with death and divorce. I remember as a kid using this “Stress List” for a project in school and even as young as 14 yrs old questioning why moving would be such a big deal. I mean clearly death is. But moving???

Trust me, even now I would take moving every day of the week over death. And moving over divorce too. And I would take divorce over death. But I still really comprehend why moving is so stressful and sad and has its place on that list. I understand now that on that list are not only negative things ,positive things have their place in stress too.

For us we left a family cottage that had been in my husband’s family for generations. He built the newly renovated winterized version with his own two hands; he poured love into the place. He grew up there, his mother loved him there, and he ate bagels and made pies there every weekend. He spent summers there lifting up his girl neighbor’s shirt! He knew every corner of that lake far better than he knew his job or his own body. He lived breathed that place for so darn long.

Once I joined the scene 17 yrs ago-we raised our babies there. Our kid’s lives were there since the moment they came into this world. We lived there with our first newborn during the Quebec ice storm. We made pizzas there. We fought there, we made up there, and we grew up together there as adults and parents. We almost lost each other there more than once. My husband almost lost his life there when a tree fell down inches away from him and crashed the sailboat as opposed to his skull there. We ate many, many creamed filled donuts there.

When we left there, my Protector left people too. He experienced it like death in many ways as that is where he felt he left his mother and father who had died years before. He left their memories there all alone. He divorced his ties in many ways it felt to the life he had known, to his sister and her family who still stayed there. He buried a part of himself there along with his dad’s ponytail and our kid’s umbilical cords in the garden trees. He was the leaver. He left it all.

He left it all.. for the potential of something better. The promise of a future that was always meant to be ours. He left it for the unknown-for the deep black hole of ambiguity.  He left it on an intellectual basis but was tied to it emotionally. He left good for good. He left something he loved in hope that he would love the next one. I imagine it felt like divorce to him in a lot of ways. I can understand why.

As we sit here now. I cannot even begin to tell you how truly happy and blessed we feel now at Trent.  We love the leaves here. We love the long walks. We know how to work the jacuzzi and we understand how the water well works. We know  how to turn on the TV and we know where we store our flashlights. We have a place for our slippers and a name for every room. Our antique oven is with is. His Dad’s chair is in our livingroom. We have a round table to eat at now again.

Our perfect candle is lit at every meal-becase everyone knows that cottage food just tastes better when you have that candle on.  

Our fireplace is installed and my daughter wears a chef hat to cook. We have time to cook and to watch a movie and we know people’s names around here. We finally finished unpacking and have lamps to read with behind our chairs.
We get people to write on corks sweet messages when they drink wine at our house and we have a special calendar to circle the next day we look forward to back up at Trent. We have homemade  rocks for goodness sakes to hold napkins down-that were made for us. We have special personalized pillows and frames and beautiful quotes hanging on our walls. We have traditons there.

We have love again.

We love our beds and the view of the water. Water has found its way back into our hearts. Merci Beaucoup!

So like I said, I would take moving any day over death….but I am also grateful to have gone though this experience to know that the grieving process is a long one whether that be for death, for divorce, for moving or for anything really that involves a sense of loss, sadness and creates stress for you. Sometimes grieving is for things that are sad (like death) and sometimes they are things that end up happy (like us moving).

What this experience has taught me is to believe that the only way to get from where we were then.. to where we are now-is to simply let the days between those two places happen and to allow ourselves to feel them. It actually doesn’t matter who understands or does not understand. It’s only ourselves that we have control over. And when it feels like things are spinning out of control we have to trust that we will end up in the driver’s seat again with clear vision at some point again in the future.

We will always get happiness back somehow. We can always claim it.  We covet it, need it and deserve it so it always finds its way back if we want it bad enough.

If we want happiness –we will find it. In this family we won’t sit around waiting for it to find us that is for sure.

We are desperately, hopelessly in love with Trent. Phew. What a relief. Music to my ears. Glad I did not give up on us. Glad I waited and survived.

Onto the next big project for us! Hmmmm..what shall it be?

FAQ-Hitting the Books!

FAQ-What about academics? What is the best way to ensure our kids do well in school? Should we push them to get good marks?

My answer would be yes. You should push them.

Academic success is a person’s ticket to success in the world in a lot of ways. If they don’t have that ticket- life can be a lot tougher for them.

My view is that with good education and good success academically –they at least have the choice in the future. The choice is theirs to exercise the right of their education or not-but at least the choice is there.

In terms of marks-my view is that the actual marks are not as important as the quality of education. I think there is big difference in the types of education schools offer and carful consideration should be given to where your child attends school.

I would argue that there is a school for each kid’s needs and it is not a “one size fits all” decision. There is a school for every child.

I am aware that in different provinces, countries etc..the educational systems are very different.

Here in Quebec, we have tremendous choices and choosing, especially a high school, for child is often a life changing decision...

In term of marks-I am a firm believer that it is not necessarily the marks that are important but the academic support and “pushing” from home. I think academics are an area that we can not just let happen. We need to intervene to ensure that our kids are realizing their full potentials.

Those potentials may differ very greatly from child to child. For one it might be all 60’s and for another 95’s …but the effort needs to be there for all of them in the same way and pushed to it’s full potential.

A 60% child I believe should still be pushed in the same way (and rewarded) for efforts as the kid with 90%.

Too often parents give up on the child with the lower marks..and both self confidence and self image are affected as well as overall ability to reach his or her full potential in the future.

In my household, and I refer this system to a lot of clients too, we have a “Pay For Performance” system. This is something I devised through years of reading, conversation and advice from many people I know with high school aged kids. I was very, very hesitant to put such a system in place initially, as I feel very uncomfortable in many ways of “paying” for either chores of marks In the end however I changed my view on both elements based on trial and error and also to be honest-my other methods weren’t working and I needed to find something else that would.

Pay for Performance elements:

-An intricate and complex Excel spreadsheet that works per semester

-There is an Objectives section (marks) and a Value and Behavior section (efforts and attitudes). Both are fairly equal in weighting

-It starts only in high school for our family and only if the child is going to a school which is very high performing and difficult where we see that the studying is almost like having a job. If my other children would go to less demanding schools I am not sure I would use this system at all. It would not be needed in my opinion.

-It is based on each child individually. Marks expected and rewarded are based on past performance and their individual academic potential levels (a 70% for one could mean the same things as an 80% for another).

-Goes well beyond academics and takes into account other behaviors such as “getting out of your comforts zone in school (ie: joining a new team) “or “finding your passion” (ie” experimenting with new types of books etc..)

-Half the $ earned on this each semester is kept by teen-other half is put into a bank account for when 18yrs old toward major purchase (travel, car, apartments etc..)

-There is also a comments section for positive or negative comments received from teachers. A child could be an excellent student but be very disrespectful and disruptive in class and this portion of the sheet addresses this.

Last but not least below I have listed a few tips and tricks for creating the right environments for homework which I believe should start as early as grade 1 in homes:

-Kids should be doing a good part of their homework on the weekends. They should use this opportunity to get ahead and to have the time they need for more relaxed reflection, and gain more of their parent’s time for support if both parent’s are working outside of the home during the week.

-One parent should sit down with each kid weekly and ask them to show them what their work is for the week and ask them what  their plan to get it done is. By high school this should be slowly minimized and this initiation should come from the child but discussion should still be had and take place every week.

-Kids should be doing as much of there homework as possible independently as early as Grade 1. They should try their best and have a set amount of time that they need to work on homework alone. After that time has passed parents can then support and help out, but kids should be as autonomous as possible to build independence and confidence and a sense of pride in accomplishment.

-There should be a “technology block out” period during homework time (and an hour afterward). This will ensure kids have time to focus and are not tempted to rush homework in order to watch that show or get back to the computer. It allows them the space for further creativity and innovation. The extra hour block out allows them adequate time to prepare for the next day, organize their things and then play outside!

-Kids should have a special spot to do their homework with all the essentials and good lighting. Homework should be a very deliberate exercise and not be random.

-Report cards should be discussed with both parents each semester (if applicable) They should be discussed in a friendly, democratic way and taken seriously. Solutions should be found together and action plans put into place based on effort and results.

 In conclusion Celebrate, Celebrate, and Celebrate. Do not fear using the report card (and not the marks received) to continuously remind your kid of how awesome she is. They are in school so many hours of the week and need you to understand how deeply important this is to them on so many levels. Celebrate their efforts praise them, and shout to the world and brag about them when they have accomplished something that they and you are proud. Whether that be a 60 that was well earned or a 95 that was well deserved makes no difference as far as I am concerned. What make the difference are the efforts, determination and willingness to strive for the best they can accomplish.

You are your child’s advocate and if you are not making their accomplishments visible..nobody will. Stand up for your kids and take notice. Be proud of them and push them to their limits. Ensure that they are getting what is best for them out of their education. Treat their education and their report card with pride, careful consideration and care.

My Dad, who passed away earlier this year- he and I had many differences in our lives and a very difficult relationship together. One thing I will however always so much appreciate is the value of education that my Dad instilled in me from very early on. I knew even as a very young child that this was very, very important and to be treasured and valued in life.
My Dad was passionate about academics and education and his passion around this had a strong impact on me. I am not sure I would be where I am today in my career if my Dad had not given me a sense of pride and passion around learning and academics. It is something he gave me..that I treasure very much. My education and dedication and determination allowed me access  many things in life on many levels.

I was always very proud that in our house....education was important and the expectation was that we all went quite far in terms of career.

Take your child’s education to heart..then they will too. Treat it with the same care that you would an important hockey match and cheer for them, praise them and support them.

Show up at every game.

Make it important.

After all-a hockey career lasts a few years..an education lasts a lifetime.