The 775$ Day

When I think of this day..part of me is so proud and sparkly..And part of me just wants to run to the nearest toilet and vomit .

For the purpose of this post I will chose to focus on the former.

I remember the day exactly as it was recently-the Christmas holidays 2014. There is always that swing and transition that take me a few days to get into over any holidays where the first few days I can’t unwind and relax or appreciate and then about by day 4 I am thinking “wow this should never end”

775$ day came at day 6 of our holidays. Right after all the Christmas prep was over and all our time was not taken up from cleaning, wrapping, decorating and planning like the rest of the world. I remember this day being a particular good one as the kids let us sleep in by not having ski practices and so it was a lounging day. I blogged and read and just soaked up all the wonderfulness of this day. The night before we had made massive portions of spaghetti to freeze and and a yummy baked dessert for dinner. We also enjoyed French onion soup for lunch. All of this cooking added up to a sink full of piled high sticky dirty saucy yucky dishes. But hey who cared right –they could wait until later.

Nobody knew at that point that tragedy would strike that evening.

As we managed to get our lazy butts away from the fire long enough to load up the dishwasher, I remember taking a brief moment and thanking the world that we had a dishwasher. I think I may have even taken a moment to tell it and pat it. We happily loaded it up, with still a second load waiting in the sink ,and let it work it’s magic.

Well. It’s magic ran out. In the middle nonetheless of our load. It started with a little red flashing light-never a good sign when a light is red and not a simple yellow or green. If you were not in denial,you might even realize the end is very near.

Halt. Stop. Middle of load. Second massive load in the sink.

All of this equals in my mind-DISASTER.DAY RUINED. REST OF HOLIDAY RUINED. The serene thoughts of reading and lounging and taking it easy were now replaced by massive loads of dishes being scrubbed by hands. I knew we had many many guests arriving the next week and just pictured them resenting us and breaking up with us as we would have no choice but to put them to work as slaves three times a day. Or picturing all the menus we had planned or and dreamed up being replaced by cold Big Macs and fries eaten off the paper itself as to not waste dishes. Not to even mention the dishwasher full of dirty dishes and soap and water that needed to be dealt with mid cycle and broken.

Well it was then and there where I made a strategic decision. A long term decision. I WAS NOT GOING TO ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN TO OUR FAMILY

When my husband suggested we just replace the part (25$) this option sounded reasonable until I heard the actual details. Ok the part it being the 4^th time we have to replace this part  was not too bad, or the part where this particular dishwasher seems to have to have manual labor on it every two months to function did not get me too much, but the part about the store selling the part being closed on the 25th of December was just too much to bear? I mean who dare close on Christmas day in such an important needed business?

This would mean we would have to sleep at home in the city ( actually  a really beautiful suburban home in the almost country) on Christmas night and come back to our precious cottage on the morning of the 26 vs the evening of the 25? Are you kidding me? To waste an actual morning of sleeping in and a night of being by the fire for a dishwasher part that probably will only last a few months anyways. This can’t be.

Well we discussed a lot my husband and me and really thought it through. I mean this was a biggie right? He was leaning towards the fact that we really didn’t have much choice in the matter did we unless we wanted to wash dishes by hand all the rest of the vacation. And then the wheels of my savvy mind started turning and I came up with an AMAZING alternative.

LET’S GO BUY A NEW DISHWASHER INSTEAD!!!!!

AND HEY TO SAVE TIME TO BE ABLE TO READ MORE AND BLOG MORE AND RELAX MORE-LET’S GO TO THE REALLY EXPENSIVE KITCHEN BOUTIQUE AROUND THE CORNER HERE UP NORTH AND TRY TO CONVINCE THEM TO GIVE US THE BOXING DAY SALE PRICE  EARLY!

So all 5 of us did that.. A family affair. Exciting. We were sweet talked by the salesman who had probably never had anyone buy a dishwasher from him in his life as he rattled off all the amazing attributes of “our “dishwasher as though it were a precious gem. We were lucky enough to get a 50 dollar rebate too! Yippee! I even convinced him to deliver it 3 hrs later he to our house as it was an emergency! And he listened to me!

We gave our credit card and even went to spend an extra 21.50$ to celebrate our new purchase over chocolate croissants and hot chocolate with whipping cream next door at the bakery (on the credit card),

When it was delivered a few hours later and my husband installed it which took a few hours ,and we realized it has a very inconvenient way of needing cutlery to be loaded, and no baskets for small parts, and very little room for pots and that each time you touch this particular stainless style (i.e. : every minute) that it leaves a big hand mark that has to be removed by a special product, and that it didn’t even clean better than our old dishwasher even without the new part…we kind of felt….depressed.

We don’t have 800$ (plus tax) at all to make this kind of spontaneous purchase. We didn’t need a new dishwasher. We had buyer’s regret. We had no money to pay off our credit card (especially after Xmas!). We have made a boo-boo and now it was too late.

There is no happy ending to this story people. This is where it ends. We spent more money on an unneeded dishwasher than most people spend on a trip to Cuba all to have an extra morning at our cottage of holiday when it comes down to it. We have a very mediocre dishwasher in place and have to work many hours to make up for the money it cost us to buys the new one. Even to this day each time I see it running in the kitchen I feel a little confused. An each time I pass the one frozen outside that we haven’t bothered to haul up a steep hill to the highway garbage-I miss it a little.

(And that precious next day at the cottage? I think we fought most the day and the kids were all after another and in bad mood anyways). Basically we could have spent 25$ and because of me we spent 775$ more than that for very little improvement or difference if any at all.

See why I want to mostly vomit???? (And no it is not because my husband slapped me so hard in the face for this mistake that I am feeling nauseous LOL and joke).

But…but. There is always a but. Hidden jewel-nuggets of happiness to any story. I found out the very very hard way..Where my priorities lie. And they might not admit it but my husband’s priorities and even my three children’s priorities to a certain extent. I found out that day that we are willing to go to great lengths to enjoy a holiday together. That the price of a day at the cottage all together is worth a lot to us ($775 to be exact). That we are willing to do some crazy ridiculous things to ensure we get and claim that precious time together as a family. And as ridiculous as it may seem to you to hear or for me to write or admit-the success of our family has always been to get our priorities straight and to let nothing interfere. We make time for things that are important, we don’t cancel on important occasions, and we get what is important to us done. We align our values with our actions, we try as much as possible to walk to the talk, we fight for space in our lives to live what we work so hard to protect.

And even if this 775$ day was stupid and ridiculous and arrogant and pompous, we could not afford it ,and we made what appeared to be a ridicules and stupid choice…

There will be part of me that always walks past that dishwasher and pats in on it’s stupid stainless steel front with my dirty hand that then leaves its mark on it 500 times a day and in between wanting to puke for all the money we don’t have that we wasted on this stupid, dumb appliance………..that I feel sparkly from the inside core and proud and good and lightheaded in a good way because this little good feeling amongst all the bad ones…reminds me:

That I make deliberate and ridiculously good decisions.

And that wild horses won’t hold me back from continuing to do so.

That I am back in the game. Alive and kicking. I am now back to who I once was.

Disclaimer : if you want to comment on words like "tragedy and crisis" to describe a dishwasher breaking or to point out these are third world problems-save your breathe. I already know and am fully aware. Keeping it light once in a while

It All Came Together

"No one is busy in this world. It's all about priorities."  If you truly prioritize something, you will make time for it. Be certain of that. "

Did he really think I was going to give him a toilet plunger for such an important b-day and to mark such an important year?

I guess he did-as he was thoroughly surprised last night!

We did a surprise 2 weeks late bday party/slash you made it through 2014 party for my Guy . And it is a miracle it worked out as so many glitches along the way.

9 adults and 9 kids –turned into 8 adults and 12 kids…turned almost into 5 adults and 8 kids. But finally we were a whole bunch!!!! Sadly missing Michael and Ian with very good reasonsll!!!!!!  It is honestly a full time job to coordinate all us working parents- schedules teenagers with hockey and exams, sick kids, illness etc. this morning I almost literally just cancelled the whole thing. I couldn’t take it anymore!!! Was supposed to be our closet 3 sets of couple friends and my mom. And older kids. Ended up a different version of that with some key players missing and young kids added.

BFF’s couldn’t  make it..Husbands were sick or away..Kids showed up with contagious sores in their mouths and we quarantined them in our room with no contact with anyone. We had changed the date several times for one of our BFF’s work and finally he wasn’t able to make it at all as was stuck on a plane. Our three kids are in final exams the next day-ended up was a bad date to choose because of this. Really bad

And then I decided to just shut up and just go with the flow. And I did.

And it was all so beautiful.

But we were there to celebrate my Hubby. On a weeknight for 2.5 hrs. as that is all we have as weekends forget it as even more of an administrative scheduling nightmare. We sat around and laughed and chatted and enjoyed for those few hrs. With each other and the man of the hour. Who was in shock because he really had no ideas at all this was happening. Love this part!!! Love surprising people!

I came home an hour early to check on Beauty’s decorating job (she is so good!) and set out a few appetizers. Catered Lebanese meal arrived as expected ,piping hot right on time at 7:15pm. Mrs. Sweetheart made his absolute fave Score bar cheesecake-bless her sweet soulJ I had invited only a fraction of people as was very intimate and our couple BFF’s who we always hang out with as I knew this is what Hubby would want-but we had asked a good 15 people to email messages for him. I put them all into a scrapbooking format on a HUGE card and it will be a keepsake for a lifetime. So special and meaningful are the words so  people wrote.

It was a short and sweet and wonderful evening. Like a warm blanket of love. And each time one of these friends events end I feel so blessed that we have this bunch. We have all supported another like a village in our marriages, our careers, raising kids. It truly is the village I always knew we needed to be successful in our lives.  It all worked like like magic. All great people and a super dynamic.

And no exam the next day, or any other priority could be more important than making these types of events happen even if it is a full time job to plan. These are the moments we will all remember. Not the ski competitions or the hockey games or the soccer weekends. Not the marks, or the missed work or the scheduling woes.

With good  friends we have always made it happen. And we will fight to our graves to ensure it always does.

This is the stuff life is made of.

The Mother I Am

A few emails in the last couple of weeks from blog readers inspired this post. They suggested that I was a great Mother (or at least sounded like one) that they were envious to some degree of the deliberateness I put on mothering.

I wanted to clarify.

If you feel a little green it should be for the strategic and deliberation I put into parenting-that is fine. Feel jealous of that part-I rock in that area. Hopefully you will read my books one day and attend one day my hopefully famous key note speeches on deliberate and strategic parenting:) I deserve this envy If you feel at all envious of my actual mothering however…..don’t waste a single brain cell on this. Yours is probably much better. Don’t waste a single shade of green on me.

You see I am not a natural mother. I work hard at it. I really really do. And I love my kids ferociously..I do. But it is that part between loving them and showing them that on a daily basis that is hard for me.I am not a natural mother. And they are all naturally mine in every sense of the word.

Mothering is something I want to be good at, desperately; I know it is the most fulfilling job in the world, how these are the best years of my life, knows that there is nothing even comparable to this. but it does not change the fact that sometimes on a vacation or even a weekend I feel a strong need for an anxiety pill, or the fact that I often think in my head that I have to “deal” with my children” or the sheer fact that when I get to my office chair and sit down to the computer every Tuesday morning, I feel more instinct there and control that I ever did holding my children in my arms for the first time.

I learned to be a great mom. And I would say I am not great at all. I am highly visionary and strategic and well organized and very bright and very devoted and committed. But in between all these great adjectives- is a bit of a hot mess when it comes to mothering.

And this is why I likely need to write about parenting so often. To remind myself more often to try and be good at it.  Mothering is very unlike sleeping or reading or writing or planning or eating or spending time as a couple is to me. Natural. Needed. Instinctual. Mothering takes a lot of work for me to do. Sometimes it is super easy and natural to me-and as the kids get older these moments are more and more often. Much more so than when they were little. I feel and ease with teens that I didn’t have with little ones. I can relate to them, to their needs, to their mood, to their being irrational. I adore teens-there are so interesting and lovable in many ways. 

And even with this ease and adoration of this particular age I often cannot match my intentions to my behavior. I worry about their long term happiness much more than their short term happiness, in some ways it is great and in others it can be destructive. I let their teenage hood get to me to the core and eat me up from the inside. My intentions are always to love them and show them that-but it rarely makes its way to the surface I would imagine. I try my best but inside I know my best is not good enough. And I don’t have the energy to change it. Sometimes I wish I was more instinctual-that things were easier for me as a mom. That I was naturally good at this as I am at work. That I wouldn’t need to think about it all so much. I watch many mothers around me doing the same –they have good intentions but they sound like witches much of the time. The kids must end up resenting it-resenting all us bitchy moms who want only the best for them for their future but waste the present on nagging and teaching and bitching. It can’t be fun. Sure they will love us in 20 yrs. and look back and know we did everything for them-but their present experience of us now should be good too right?

But little kids annoy me to a large degree. I hate running after them-I hate reading to others-I don’t like showing people how to do stuff. I hate games and puzzles and most cartoons. On personality inventories I am the “BE Bold, be brilliant, be brief, and be gone!”  Fiery red style. Combined with a soft, sunshine yellow that truly cares about people, their needs, interacting loving, nurturing. I am a rare brand of determination and nurturing. Delivery and love. It makes me a great parent in a lot of ways, I am truly interested in my kids their friends, their lives, their decisions. But I also need them to be confident and capable and quick and listen to me-because I know what is best.

I am hard on myself in mothering. I know I am. I expect a lot of myself and am very unforgiving when I don’t perform. But I hear the way my kids friends describe me and our nieces and nephews and cousins etc. and they all say I CARE. I truly and utterly care about them-so that is good. And I show this all the time. All the time. So I should cut myself some slack right? (And maybe extend this love to my own children)!

But I try. God I try. I should be given a prize in my trying. And my heart aches when I see moms around me not fully enjoying every minute of those precious 5-12 yrs. of life of their kids as seriously after that family time is downhill. Trust me. Teen stage I love but it is very lovely in lots of ways-not as gratifying in many ways and more in others. You have to get it right in the 5-12 yrs. old piece-it is really your only chance to be a great parent-to set the foundation of your future family. You need to own this phase and make it more important than any individual need you have during those years, you need to commit to it, and dedicate to it whether forced or instinctual. It is your only time to get it right-it is the only time your kids will make it easy for you. It is the only time that you will be the center of your child’s universe and they will be watching your every move. Try hard to make these your family years and focus on family-which I have enough mothering and instinct in me to know. Bond them to you..Attach them to you…make them part of your life and yours their lives even if it kills you to do it. Don’t give up on every individual need you have, but give up on lots of them temporarily to show up for your kids. Start finding yourself again when they turn 13 as you will have a lot more time, trust me. Force yourself to show up to the parts of your life that are most important.

Never miss a ballet recital if you don’t have to. Don’t miss that family vacation. This much I know is true. Maybe I am a good mother?

I was great with babies. Not natural at all but really good. Great at getting my kids as they grew up to sleep, be good in school, be confident, make friends. I was good at pretty much anything I put my mind too. But I am not good at all the instinctual stuff. When my kid throws up in the night part of me wants to throw them out the window for disturbing my sleep, when they break something in the house-I might care more about the object than their bleeding heart. I often want what is right for me and care less about what is right for them. I am a better mother in writing than I am in person. My heart is revealed in written words more than in spoken ones. When I bake chocolate chip cookies (once a year from a mix) I eat the first one and hide three away to ensure I get more than my share.

Basically lets be real here if I was not the visionary I am …I would suck as a parent.

But you know what as I write this and expose myself in this way; I know what I have that most people do not. I know what I have those differences me as a person, a wife, a human and a mother. I have what I crave and love in others when I get to see it, I have what takes courage and heart, and I have something that will ultimately make me very successful in this parenting field.

I am authentic.

That is what the kid’s friend’s sense about me. What my friends sense about me, my colleagues. It belongs to me. It is part of me. It is who I am. I am not pretending for anybody. I am strong and I am weak. I am perfect and imperfect. And I am not shy to expose it and to say it. I am me. Here I am.

And it is this authenticity and deliberateness combined (my sunshine yellow and my fiery red) who makes capable of what I do in life and for what is ahead for me in the future. It is what makes me real and touchable. It is what makes you envious of me as a parent and what make me have the energy to go on every day. It is this weakness and this openness to let you share it it-and to actually admit it to myself that makes me the mother my children need.

It makes me who I am

The Mother I am. And the Mother I am not.

“I love them .And yet.”

Shift Work

I am trying to analyze what feels different about our schedules and life in the last little while-and I figured it out. As parents we kind of work in shifts now which is quite unusual for us. We spilt up a lot-do different things, each take turns to go get the kids etc.

I think most of it has to do with that we have no carpool to school during the week. We made this decision to reduce bureaucracy and back and forth emails and also to spend more time with the kids in the car. The result of it is a lot of early mornings that one or the other is driving.

Then there are the weekends of course with ski so one day Hubby drives them for the early morning and one day I do. usually twice to mountain before 9am (one shift 7:30 am and one shift 9am) Also now with so many activities and friends since all three teens- very often on a Friday night we could leave house 3 times to pick them all up at various places and so take our turns. We do shifts. And it feels strange. A little lonely actually.

Then we also like getting to know the kids friend and girlfriends better so we often offer to drive them home etc. Yesterday was a day off from school and I think between day and evening we drove and picked up about 13 times!!!! Craziness!

A BFF had asked me a while ago if kids have to ask permission for friends over etc..No they do not. When we are at home we assume they see friends as so little time not studying.  And the expectation which they all love is that if friends over during a meal we all eat together. And we expect we will always have at least one kid sleeping over if not many. At cottage I assume they spend family time (although now that is also blurred as two out of there have social lives now at cottage as of this season and we often drive them in evenings to stuff which is a big adjustment and hard on the family time) But hey we all know that the adolescent years are made for this peer orientation..but it's still hard to share them and let go.

Add onto that in the last year and a half my own career (s) has become much more demanding so my list of things that I ignore at home increases-so as soon as I have a spare moment at home I get to my list of all the ignored stuff that need to get done. We find because of this as a couple we spend much less quality time together-focusing more on efficiency than anything else lately. We actually spent the day together at the cottage Monday trying to find strategies as a couple to increase time spent together and more quality time. It was interesting to see that Hubby has much more of a need than I do to be doing tasks or activities alongside each other at this stage of our lives. It was interesting to hear him articulate it and the impact it has on him when we don’t have that time together. We came up with some interesting strategies that we are putting into place for next week-will be interesting!

Throw in broken dishwashers, MIA cleaning team, two broken garage doors etc..etc..etc.. And there is always a reason to be more organized and efficient than focus on quality time together. With a home and cottage something is always breaking or a toilet blocked (hence the plunger bday gift got my guy!)

One thing I am very grateful for is my Hubby's office being 3 mins from home. Never realized the advantages! He does a lot of the dr appts now and pick-ups from special events at school, and emergencies etc….wow this is awesome to share this load. He does more than his share now. I feel me needing to be the breadwinner coming on!!!

We both decided two years ago that with three busy teens driving them everywhere as often as we can is the way to see them and spend time. It is great quality time and they truly appreciate it too and a time when we always get “thank-you” from themJ. It’s a win-win.

So although shift work is not what I want to do for the rest of my life-I can be grateful for it now as in a few years when they are all driving, and then a few years after that when they are all moved out……I will grieve these special moments. Although often I feel I waste these special moments by feeling irritated, being angry or not being present in the moment. I can never win it seems. I have a plan of how I want to me-but I am often so irritated by life and my kids it often never goes as planned.

Even if for the moment it exhausts us and keeps us on our toes (last night set alarm for 1am to make sure son was home-and had to get up 5:45 for other son to ski with school!)

 -I know a good thing when I have it. And having our kids have plenty of friends and activities and wanting us involved in their lives-is a true blessing. I will look forward to it even more next year when Chase can drive by himself and share some of this load!

The 7 year Pen

I have whole arrays of symbols around the house. Little trinkets that tend to mean something to me. Objects to which I attach significance.

I have rocks and bookmarks, playing cards and quotes. I have a lucky necklace and even luckier charm bracelet and a zebra and Buddha on the fireplace. Even my late  dad’s urn  is a symbol. I have a little stress man at the cottage who is made of rubber and the same one at home but who is bald (I purposefully ripped his hair off in honor of my bald friend who is calmer than me and this symbol reminds me when I pack to pack like her (less irritably and less!)

When one of my sweet colleagues gave me for my bday the seven year pen (in pink!) I was very happy.

If you know me- you know I literally have about 20 pens scattered on any surface I am near at any time. I do not just use one pen. This shows how much I write. I write in the morning noon and night and even in the middle of the night often on a post it note. I use pens a lot but don’t really prefer one to the other. Having ink is pretty much my only requirement.

Well the 7 yr. pen-guarantee became a ray of sunshine and hope for me.! Not run out of ink? Became my fave. My one and only. Has been three months now I don’t let this baby out of my sight. I adore it. I have made it another luck symbol and have given myself the challenge to have it in 7 yrs. –with ink. It would be a lucky symbol if I can manage it.

Well well… not all story endings are happy right?

After just 3 short months the 7 year pen is already running out of ink!!! What a disappointment and betrayal eh? And there is only so much pen shaking you can do at work and not look like a complete idiot who can’t afford a new pen!

So I told my colleague and like everything else she does so diligently and well (so glad she is on my team!!) she wrote to the company and told them! Hurray!

We expected a truck to pull up the next week with a thousand 7 yr. pens! How fun we could distribute them across the company! This company would never want to piss off two people from a large global pharma company now would they???

Clearly I guess they do not care.

Today my colleague gets in the mail a new cartilage for the pen. No new pen? Just the damn ink? Are you kidding me?????? How cheap is cheap? This is pretty bad. We laughed and laughed and laughed at the absurdity of this move for customer service sake  Company may doing so poorly can’t even afford to replace a pen? Still recovering from all the outstanding lawsuits of promised and failed seven year ink?

The best part of this all is that I went to replace the cartilage and realized I can’t find my pen!!! I lots my lucky pen!!!!!

So now and on a mission to find it.

And just like everything else in my life that is a little symbol in our home this gives me massive adrenaline. When I run out of crisis to fix around me-I move onto the fun stuff! I actually enjoy sweating all the small stuff! I It's the bigger stuff I could definately do without.

Moral of the story: Don’t be fooled by unrealistic promises/ don’t put pressure on yourself to keep a pen 7 yrs/ always send a replacement gift to an unsatisfied customer if it is under 5$ (plus shipping and handling)/always have lucky symbols around your house. They count-especially if you don't lose them

Blog and Moods

I love looking at past blogs and patternss as it tracks my mood and state and life.

It is fun to look back and see where I was at and where I am at now. I am lucky my Hubby makes me a Velntines gift each year of a bound blog book –it is truly the best gift I have ever had.

This week theme is: BUSY and PREOCCUPIED.

Because I took one measly day off Monday to be at the cottage with my guy and plan our year and strategize (we do this twice a year as a couple and as parents)…I am paying for it big time now. (it was still worth it!)

Every single second is taken up by crap. Work is work but every other minute is house stuff, kitchen stuff, cleaning people cancelling stuff, allowance stuff, lunch money stuff. Boring boring useless CRAP.

So what gets ignored is anything pleasurable and relaxing including this poor blog.

(Pity party for me eh? I tell you..In life once we get rid of some of the big stuff to complain about we so easily fall back on complaining about and sweating the small stuff!)

Winning in Pictures

Our daughter had a GREAT start to the ski competition year. Her first race she totally rocked! It was incredible to watch-came in as number two girl on her ski team. I have never seen her look so proud and happy.  It was a great day overall and felt amazing to be there on Hubby’s bday watching it all.

What made the day special more than her great racing was the people there. As mentioned before the “girls” were there (Beauty’s long time 4 BFF’s) and they all ski at Morin Heights. Their parents were there too.

Love love love these girls!! (Beauty and Charlotte Missing-love them too!!!) We feel so close to these girls and have known them forever-I hope they all invite us to their weddings one day!!!!

It was a day of hanging out with the girls, having them dance around hubby all day for his bday, hugs, singing happy birthday, watching Beauty’s races, skiing in the friggin cold, hanging out at the bar and catching up with our buddies.

Just an all-around great day.

The two stars::))))

Circle of love always

In Beauty’s second race her time was more average and she fell so lost a couple of seconds there too-although still made the gate. She was greeted at the end of the race by all these beautiful adoring girls in a literal circle of love. I love these girls so much. They have truly made my life better in knowing them all and knowing that our daughter gets this circle of BFF's everyday.

This is Beauty after her best first race ever looking at her scores. Her Dad and I stood behind her admiring our daughter, Admiring her lean, long silhouette in her racing gear. Admiring the body that she always uses to push her physical limits with. Did we create this creature? Did we do this?

Yay Beauty! You are such a great racer!