Get in the Picture

(sorry for no warning!! Was away 10 days with family to Orlando and Caribbean cruise.  At airport on way home now and will post first and last blog. All the in between parts about our vacation and pictures I will post this week)

 

My goal on this trip is to be more present.

 

Vacations are so precious. Expensive in time, in money in energy. I want to lap in every single minute when I am blessed enough to be on them. More importantly to treasure these precious moments the five of us. I started counting on my fingers how many more vacations we will be easily the five of us without kids jobs/college etc. making it hard. I counted one (Chase will be. 18) if we are lucky two. (Chase will be 20!!) in between we will travel alone or with one kid at a time. That is our formula and it is brilliant if I do day so myselfJ. The 1-1 grade 6 trips were/are amazing.. The perfect age and so bonding. We will do another alone trip after high school and enjoy that unique stage too. It really is just an excuse to travel! We feel strongly that any type of cultural educational trip will involve at least one kid. Romantic trips for us. Adventure and culture for all of us. For us there is nothing like the bonding that goes one travelling with one kid at a time.

So part of me being present was to do just that on this trip. Less pictures and less recording on blogs. No texting (except mom every few days to check on her and a couple of oxygen emails to bffs) and no emailing in that moment at night where I might usually blog... I now read or sleep. In the moment waiting for the others on the roller coasters that make me sick.. I people watch. In the car moments I make my kids laugh. There are so many moments and so little time to have them in it feels.

I want a life with no regrets. These vacations are priceless as far as I am concerned. As I told a friend recently who suggested I save money in future by not going on these vacations: I would rather juggle in the streets as a night job than not have these times with my family. Outside of travel we are not big going out to dinner people or shows or movies out and presents and popcorn. This is the time we do this stuff in.

We are all about experiences this family. Now 3 days in we have not visited one gift shop one store or bought one single thing. And I can almost guarantee it will remain that way. We buy time and very little of anything else. The kids were passed down this gene for sure. Have u ever met a kid who goes to theme parks and never asks for anything even when they were 4 years old ? They have always asked for experiences and never for things. Their parent's children to the core.

 

So as I start the first couple of days of vacation and I decompress, my goal is to be there fully. Not necessarily disturb the moment with a picture or a note or even a thought if I can help myself. But to just bask in the present even if that means that in the future I will only have my memory to remember those moments in many cases. Don’t get me wrong there will still be pictures..  but never at the expense of a moment. I won't disturb the peace and present to get them because I know... that I am at my very best...

 

When I get in the picture.

The real picture.

 

 

 

 

A Dream Begins

My husband and I base a lot of our decisions on instinct in life and we can be also very impulsive. Not on many areas of our lives but when it comes to buying important things such as a house, an office, a car etc…When it comes to the kids and careers we are fairly sane.

Unless it involves property.

Over the last 6 months we realized a dream of ours: very impulsively. We bought a charming old small house in a beautiful village nearby to move my husband’s law practice. He has been in his discipline since he was  20 yrs. old and has been renting in big commercial areas so far. He has had two dreams:1--always wanted to own his own office 2- Has always wanted to own it as an investment later in life when he sells it to make money and revenue for our future.

Well he seems to have realized the first dream!

The second is a bit of an issue. More than a bit of an issue. We have overpaid by a lot and bought a money pit. Not looking like such a great investment is it? This is where the impulsivity came in. For the first time in our lives we are questioning if we should buy the new bread or the on sale two day ago a bit stale bread. We have noticed the price of bananas has gone up lately too-never mind gas.

But….and big but here…..a dream has begun.

One my dear friend’s blog yesterday I felt her words were written for us:

“Everything will be alright in the end. And if it is not…..it is not yet the end”

Yesterday as the big renovations began I walked there in the morning with my daughter an then early this morning walk with my husband today (it is walking distance from our house!!!)….and I allowed myself to feel.

Feel it. Feel the dream. Imagine it. Let it in. Start falling in love with that sweet property.

Until now I have been unable to-fear has gotten hold of me and gripped me. Stress. Anxiety. Worrying. Planning. Hoping. Praying.

I have not spoken much about this on my blog because I have wondered if this is the first huge mistake we have made in our lives? I have done more than wonder. It has obsessed me in some ways. Taken hold of me. Imagine how my husband feels?

Yesterday however I felt 100% sure this is the right thing. On many levels. For whatever reason. I pictured my husband peaceful looking out the window and seeing the trees blowing in front of the conference room. I pictured my daughter and her friend stopping by on the way home from school to grab a candy from the glass jar we will place at reception. I pictured the blue the decorator chose for the ceiling and wall upstairs that look like the sky. I pictured walking a future dog with one of my sons to go get Daddy at work and walking back with Hubby the next morning for exercise. I pictured the second office as mine one day to run my own sort of business right beside my husaband in the office just next to it. I pictured an artist painting a city scene on the side of the building.

I pictured our vision of it all finally. I pictured the lifestyle. And I liked that vision a whole lot.

I knew it was all coming together when Hubby looked at me the other day and suggested putting his Mom’s antique sewing machine in the conference room with a plaque on it dedicated to her with her dates of life. Because the place used to be a sewing machine place in the olden days and everyone in the village remembers the property for that seeing store.. (awww....)

My husband is a beautiful man with a huge sentimental heart. I loved that he thought of this. Our best ideas are always his. He speaks when it counts. I love that.

(I hope one day my kids dedicate a sewing machine to me. Or a hair straightener or somethingJ)

And so today I allowed happiness to flow. And I don’t know if it will stay or go. If it can remain even during stressful and anxiety provoking times. But I knew it felt good. And I know we both felt in our element hand in hand walking towards this dream.

And just like he pictured me at our current home now as he saw my face in the kitchen window from the backyard as we visited it with the agent many years ago…I pictured him looking out to the trees and the charming sidewalks, and the beautiful golf course view now. And I felt convinced that this place belonged to him. I felt happy for him and peaceful. And broke.

It has been baptized by us since we name all important things:  “Awada Klondike”

To be determined if it was the seller or the buyer who made gold?

I Hate Technology

Last night sucked.

Mondays are HUGE days for me. I run my own business. I work for the company I work for part of the day. I try to get caught up on  personal/personable things. I try to exercise.. I try to be a somewhat stay at home mother from 3:30-5:30pm. Needless to say Mondays are long and exhausting. 6am -11pm usually.  And nothing is ever still complete.

By 11:05 pm I am more than ready to cuddle up with a good book and a grapefruit cup. That was my plan last night.

Except Bear was still up downloading his stupid English project to You Tube and to to the class internet site. He swore that if it was not posted by midnight his team would lose marks. I had a few issues with this: 1) go to bed it is 11pm and I want kids out of my face 2) what the hell is your 70 yr. old teacher doing up at midnight looking at the internet site? 3) how is it your fault if the internet is not working???4) What is wrong with a good old fashioned project in a yellow doutang?

Well my husband also came home from work at 11pm. That is how lovely are Mondays always are. And then our one little hour together he had to stay up and done load this F…g thing. And in the end it did not work. So we had to write to the teacher before midnight.

Where was Bear? He was asleep We tried to wake him up to do it  himself ,but he told us to go away and come back in the morning.

Yes a serious case of helicopter parents last night. Not usually our style but when you have a future orthodontist or cardiac surgeon in your house you tend to try a bit harder right??? Hahahahah. That is what Bear reminded us of anyways before he went to bed. Try harder; I am worth it.

It’s not over. Book was never read. So we go to bed at 1:00am and set alarm for 6am in order to get Bear up and submit and upload this damn thing. So 5 hours sleep. Hubby sets the alarm.

So at 6am-the alarm goes off with this huge loud beep instead of calming music. We put on the lights and start getting out of bed and talking about the day. I feel weird. Really, really, really tired. I can’t believe that I have already slept for 5 hours-it feels like 5 minutes….the night went too quickly!

Well ya it did. For real.

Hubby looks at clock and it says 2:15am!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He set it wrong! Here we are up and discussing day and getting dressed. I even took out my tooth whitening that I do one night a bloody year! So much for that 75 dollars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was so so so mad at my husband. Very irritable indeed. I started screaming while he snored. I stayed up fuming.Very effective.The only good part of this is that I knew I had another 4 hours of sleep I did not expect. Bonus.

Then we got up at the real 6am and Bear uploaded that dumb project. And it worked right away. We could have slept another hour. So I decided to scream at him too. Tell him he takes too much on with a team and to NEVER EVER be the technical editor again. I told him if he broke that rule he was grounded.

And so he started crying as he left the house. And he never cries.

And I am a bitch.
And I know it.

It happens.

So I wrote him a text. And he did not answer for a long while.

Last night sucked. And today I feel like a truck ran over me.
Meditiation at lunch will do be some good hopefully. Maybe she has another little grape to offer me to make it all better?

Happy Tuesday Everyone!

Our Shared Vision

My Hubby is 12 years older than I am.

Usually we don’t even notice it. Other times we notice it a lot. We go through different phases on this.

Right now we are feeling it.

And no it has nothing to do with him snoring louder…or falling asleep quicker ..or getting out of breathe easier…..because although those things are a reality they are often unfortunately a reality for me too.

It has more to do with the life stages we are in. There is a big difference right now. I am 41 and he is 53. We have been married almost 17 years. (omg as I write this I fell sooooo old…and also soooo proud of where we are at it is seems such a rarity to say you have been married 17 years these days and still really happy).

We have kids who are almost all teenagers 11, 13 and 15. OMG how did we ever get here?

And now what is making our age difference obvious is our career stages. He just bought a beautiful and charming old small home that he is renovating and moving his office too for the last 10-15 yrs likely of his career…..and I am thinking of within 5-10 yrs. starting up the company of my dreams. (TBD what that dream is exactly!!!!!)

Polar opposite dreams. Stages. It is weird.

We have always been where each other has been in life. Especially as careers are concerned. I remember my maternity leaves three times were difficult for us because it separated us. Our days were different. We thrive on being on the same page. Maternity leaves were a beautiful but also challenging time for both of us who covet coming home and sharing our days over a martini and a diet coke. I remember wanting to get back to work for the sole purpose of him understanding me again and me understanding him.

I feel very very comforted that for the next 5-10 yrs. we will still be the same. Still have our career stability together. I am not ready yet. Neither is he.We will fend off this next stage of life for a while yet. It is definitely not time.

But yesterday on a walk we started discussing the inevitable. The likely situation. He will likely die before I doL((( I will be left alone. And we started discussing what that looked like and what he wanted for me and what I wanted for me. We decided to put it in a letter to our kids to open after one of our deaths. We are both on the same page around that.

But it still made me sad to even have that conversation. Very sad.

And then we started discussing our retirement….we will never really have one together necessarily. Neither of us really wants one anyways. We just want a whole lot more vacation time and longer weekend and summer off and winter off.  Should that count as retirement? Or just major slowing down at some point far off in the future?

We decided that in about 10-15 yrs. he should change careers and supervise others and manage others in his current domaine. He should do something physical and not mental. He is great at both.

And I should try to make us a ton of money. Just because it is fun and a challenge but also because we will need it to keep afloat. To even stay  where we are now-we will need to shake it up a lot. Thank god I am good at shaking it up when necessary.

So yesterday on our walk to the stream we did some of our best thinking and tried to think what life is might look like in 15 years’time when we both have some more free time.

He might be managing a real estate attorney or two from his new location. He might be a plumber or electrician a couple of days a week. He might be taking 4 day weekends in winter and summer. He might be playing golf and doing a whole lot of putzing around.

She might be traveling 50% around the world for work. She might take him with her a whole lot and maybe even her adult kids. She might be taking 4 days weekend’s winter and summer. She might be running a business in his new property. She won’t be playing a whole lot of anything as she will be super busy-but she will also make sure she has a lot of time to relax and play when she is off. He phone will always be off when shalways on when she is with him and always on when she is not.

Together they would do yoga and meditation classes. They would take long walks everyday that they are together. Together they would cook and visit the market daily for what they want to taste. They would pick up their vegetable and fruit basket weekly and cook everything in it. They would make curries and cupcakes and lentils with cilantro and steaks with lemon . They would travel to beautiful places and do beautiful things. They would babysit their friends kids all the time and teach them all how to waterski. They would call their own adult kid’s daily love their significant other truly and have them over to dinner as often as possible. And they would have enough money to always pay their kids gas to come to their cottage (aka always).

I remember my BFF Sister Savvy saying one day in Ontario…how beautiful the old man and woman at the chicken restaurant holding hands were, they were really old and you could tell that they had been together for a lifetime.

They had done life together from beginning to end.

As my husband and I walked and talked yesterday I realized that is us. It always has been and it always will be. Yes he is my coma guy. Is coma girl.

And no matter our age difference and no matter our career stage. We have created a symphony with each other that we will always still be on the same page. No matter what.

And if ever he-or I-shall dies first.  (knock on some serious wood that this is past when we are both 100 yrs old) we both know that we will still be with each other… wishing and wanting for the other what we ourselves could not provide not being alive anymore. Always wanting for each other for the happiness to go on and continue in the beautiful life we have created together.

I know for certain that we will always belong with each other. I will always hear and listen to his voice. And he will always here and listens to mine.

We will always be carrying out our vision. Always. Together. Seperated. Always we will be on the same page. The one we created and brought to life.

Together.

Ya RIght...

You know that saying " the dog ate my homework?"

I have a better one now. It might even become a book title on day it is so catchy.

"My teacher is cross eyed and thought it was me being rude but it was really the guy next to me"

"I swear to god!!!!"

Thanks Bear for that comic relief of the year.

Benevolence

I just love the sound of this word. It is so pretty.

The meaning is pretty cool too.

I rolled it around on my tongue yesterday at lunch. While I was meditating. And shortly after I rolled a grape on my tongue and stared at it for another 20 minutes. It was called a grape meditation.

Who could have known I could be a Yogi??????

In the last few weeks however I think I could be convinced. Three meditation classes later and my first yoga class behind me, I can say I like this stuff quite a lot. I can’t even believe I am open to it. So not my style.

Guess it is now.

So yes grapes on tongue and calling out to the beauty and benevolence of the world is an interesting thing to do at lunch at work. Breathing in and out and trying to sound like the ocean is quite lovely. And sending my problems to the universe to solve during a contemplative meditation is wierd but cool.

Having an image come to be out of nowhere of myself in the arms of Jesus Christ (dressed as my husband) and mini baby Jesus in his arms as a baby (me) was quite scary and weird-but my mind stays open. Stranger things can happen right? It's just another day.

Benevolence.

I love that word.

Today

Yup today is the day to say goodbye..to an incredible 3 yr journey on so many levels.

Having an angel on your shoulder much of the time for 3 years has many benefits but it can make you addicted a bit too.

Time to test out all you have learnt for yourself now. Time to put it into action on your own with a number of texts and blogs and some visits in between

So today I used banana shower cream instead of mint or strawberry

Today I wore pearls because our first “transformer” said that there is nothing like “good old fashioned pearls on a pretty girl” and that day in particular started it all off between her and I. So I repeated the outfit just for fun

Today I both dreaded but somehow accepted on many levels already

Today I will bid farewell to a teacher. A leader. A friend.

Mostly a strong  strong  leader. Put on this earth to lead me in way I never knew I needed. I was a lucky girl.

And she will still be there. Across the seas and the world. Juggling life and work and love. Being there for me and many others. The difference will be that we won’t share every day. And that will be hard-but interesting.

I think she is right. I can picture our texts being quick and dirty “Should I say married or get divorced”  Should I quit this job?” Concerta or Biophentin?” Do I kill myself today or tomorrow? Which color looks best on me? My ass looks fat these days any suggestions?” Am I lovable or a freak? How do I make a million dollars super quick? What should I fricking do???

So I look forward to that. I assume in some ways I will be a distant person but also paradoxically an important lifeline for her. And she will be one for me too.

I think she knows I need her. I think she knows she needs me too.I think we both get that by now.

I have learnt so much through her. About life. And friendship. Work. Love. We have had a very unique and strong relationship that I would have never predicted.

We set our daughters up well too. And the power of that situation will never be forgotten for any of the four of us.

We won an award together. I taught her some serious bold.

She shared such intimate parts of herself with me and taught me beauty

I taught her to ask and need

She taught me so much about two of my best friends and what I needed and wanted and how to get it. I have it nowJ

She saved me from losing some very important people in my life

I taught her to let her insides out

I taught her to ask

She taught me to relax

She taught me greyness and ambiguity and I taught her Grey

She taught me to accept myself fully

I taught her to love her situation and be open about it

She showed me integrity

She showed me friendship comes in many forms

She set me up for success in life

She showed me how to save money on my hair and save for Cartier

She believes in me

I will make her proud

She will likely invest in me and my future company

She will be in the front row of my TV show no matter how busy she gets

She drives for me

She cooks for me

She was there when I publically forgave myself and forgave my Father and I had only known her for a month. She gave me the strength through her own sharing of vulnerability. Really I did it for her. And for me. Because I knew we both needed it.

We met for a reason. For both of us.

It is also forever.

I will reach out to her if someone important is sick. And she will respond to me within 24 hrs  wherever she is and whatever she may be doing.

She taught me to be perfectly ok no matter what life holds

She taught me how to move on with or without support

She taught me how to give the very best parts of myself and offer them up on a silver platter

Today is Goodbye. And it is Hello.