High speed!

Wow! After only 8 months of having water in our new home we finally have high speed!  This feels like the last convenience - almost as great as a dishwasher!  It sure took long enough.  Dan had to badger several companies for months before some tech guys finally showed up.  Then it seemed to go remarkably easily.  We now have a pretty inconspicuous mast on the top of our barn and Dan is busy digging the wire in a trench to our home so we don't immediately wreck the whole system.  However, this page popped up immediately instead of the usual 5-10 minutes to get dialed up and load. I cannot believe how wonderful this will be.  I can finally consider a website.  I can access Facebook and all the people that have recognized me but I couldn't acknowledge because that process could take up to half an hour.  We can surf and even check the weather without a ten minute commitment!!  Hooray!  Not to mention iTunes!

I am so sick this week which is unfortunate because it is also finally lovely weather.  I planted some of my bedding plants this morning because it rained last night and so the soil was nice and moist, however that was enough to require an hour lying down.  I had to cancel one of my little clients today because I don't want her catching whatever this is.  Also I can't think all that clearly and certainly can't move all that fast.  May has worked out to be almost a holiday for me from Attic Therapy.  Lots of cancellations because of sickness.  I guess it was my turn.  That's good because of my often hinted at need to consider my future and options.  I've had time to think and talk with Dan more than usual.  And get the garden in!  It looks so nice right now - all black and soft and even.  I love the first two months when everything behaves and nothing is too tall and untamed.  Everything green and healthy growing in straight lines.  Very lovely.

Dan thinks that I try to be all things to all people and I should stop. I don't think that's possible.  I just need to decide where to be so the people I am with are the people I should be with at any given moment.  No problem. Most of the time the decision is made for me anyway.  However broad strokes are up to me - volunteer at school or not?  Work more or less?  Spend time with friends or family?  I think too much.  Now I'm going to be online too much.  Hooray!!

puzzle before supper

What a week. I am trying to understand my place in the world.  I am trying to figure out what piece I fit into and I feel all corners.  It's like having a blue piece of a puzzle of the sky that doesn't fit anywhere at all.  It almost does and it is enough to drive one crazy because the urge to snick it into place is almost physical.

I'd talk more about it and vent but of course everything is so darned confidential when it comes to employment and business.  I am turning 40 and feeling needed (and kneaded) in all ways and in all directions.  Suffice it to say that everywhere I look there are things to do, urgently, and all of them go off in contrary lines of sight and many are completely mutually exclusive.  I'd love to spend my life writing, at times like this.  Once you put words on paper they begin to sort themselves out into some sort of order.  But actions just go on rippling in the universe with consequences and counter-consequences and cross-consequences.  Life in theory is so much simpler.

I just heard from my hairdresser today that we are probably entering another 7 year drought, supposedly drier than the '30's.  She heard that by the end of it the entire Nesbit forest (which surrounds where we live for miles in all directions) is most likely going to be completely burnt by more forest fires.  This is unfortunately the only way to clean it up after a succession of smaller fires and drought or flood or tornado-killed trees have fallen over and are carpeting miles of dry forest tinder.  The new trees only start after enough heat bursts the cones, as most people know.  They need a good fire.  That's not a comforting thought.  Especially after last night I dreamt an extremely vivid dream where we lost our home to a forest fire, although we were all safe.  That was before my hair appointment!

Probably this is all on account of the weather, which is extremely unsettled for spring even, swinging wildly from 20 above to windy and cold and 3 below with freezing rain (as in this morning).  Two of my kids are home sick and I'm being pretty cautious with them given there are now two non-Mexico related cases of swine flu in the health region.  None of this makes me feel wildly optimistic and adventurous.  I don't even feel like going to a theatre and escaping.  I just need to sit still and think.  But thinking requires some sequential logic or more preferably intuitive wisdom which for me requires writing.  Thus here I am.  Unable to write about details but venting all the same.  

I know what I love to do and I know what Dan loves to do.  We both know our capabilities and limitations much better than 10 years ago.  We have a clearer idea that our kids will continue to need us in different but no less intensive ways.  It is hard to come up with a plan to make payments that covers all these bases.  Maybe we should just admit defeat and do what makes us tired but which brings in enough money.  However that approach is so dispiriting that everything in me rebels.  I can't believe that God does not want us to be ourselves or to dream, even after 40 when we know so much more.  So I keep sliding the puzzle piece around and around, trying every different way to snick it into place.  And that's all the time I have now, because I need to make supper! 

Chance prickly encounter

It's almost the middle of May and it is SNOWING for Pete's sake. Well, I guess it has died down at the moment, but I went running today through Christmas-y scenery.  Although on the edge of our driveway the green spring grass was poking bravely through.  Since I last wrote here we have been to the flooded part of Manitoba, visiting our great friends the dairy farmers (now organic dairy farmers, no less!) the Zacharias' in Reinland, and then our sheep farmer friends the Schatzleins.  Soo good to see both of them.  You guys were so encouraging to us on so many levels.  

The trip ended eventfully when we ran over a beaver in the dark near Yorkton.  Turns out those creatures are solid.  Our radiator was pushed well back and bumped into fans and other fairly crucial structures and we coasted to a stop next to some sleepy cows in the pitch dark.  This adventure required an extra night in Yorkton and then a cozy trip home towing our car with all 5 of us cuddled up together in the front of a rented U-Haul.  So we got home eventually but having spent a little more than intended.  This was followed by another accidental forest fire about half a mile from our yard, on the other end of Crutwell.  Thankfully the wind blew the fire away to the river, but it covered a lot of acres and provided us with a Sunday afternoon airshow complete with two tracker planes and two huge waterbombers.  We enjoyed this once we were pretty sure we weren't going to have to be evacuated.  Again.

After this soccer season started with games on MTWTh as well as me finishing up my proposal to the Health Region for a new OT position (unlikely to be successful but hey, I tried!). We had a wonderful birthday party for Heidi (7) and her entire Grade 1/2 class with a rented hot tub on probably the nicest day we'll have this summer, given the current weather.  Thanks to Carrie for the excellent idea and making sure I actually went forward and rented the thing and planned the party!  Whew!  Now it's Seth's turn and he is turning 12 so we do need to do something special as well!

I have been riding I think about 4 times in the last month on Jetta.  She is getting better at direction changes but still has no idea about speed control so I lurch between very fast and very slow for now.  She's a nice horse but a little childish.  I guess that is understandable.  I am getting impatient to go again and was planning for it today but it is freezing cold and I may wuss out.  Thus I am actually blogging next to the cold gray weather outside.

Last night soccer was cancelled (weather!) and so Dan and I went out and left Seth in charge. We have taken Conrad's suggestion (Zacharias) and put our kids on a monthly salary instead of paying by the job and the hour.  I think this will work out really well on average although when it is really busy at school and sports it is hard to give the younger two enough work.  Hopefully on holidays and weekends they can earn their money.  There certainly is enough to do.  Anyway, Dan and I walked around Little Red park for about an hour because I was restless and couldn't handle the thought of sitting still in a movie theatre or restaurant after a full day at work in front of my computer.  We talked and talked and then were pleasantly surprised to notice a porcupine in a small shrub just next to the path.  It was holding very still and hoping we wouldn't notice it from about 3 feet away.  We backed up a few more feet (I know those things can't throw their needles but you can't be too careful) and just watched it.  They're actually very adorable.  They look just like a stuffed animal or overgrown hamster with bristles.  It finally got disgusted with us and waddled off.  I do mean waddled.  I couldn't believe its gait!  The front legs traveled normally but the back legs looked like they were stepping over a large branch each step, or that one of its prickles had got caught in its underwear and it was trying to work it out.  It was so funny.  No wonder the species is protected so as to be available for "easy meat" if you are lost in the wild.  Anyone could take a large stick and just knock it on the head.  They're very slow and unafraid.

Anyway, we are again as usual contemplating our lives and what we really want to do.  I think it's mandatory as Dan is 40 and I am turning 40.  Life is so short! and at this point you begin to really feel it.  I know I felt it running this morning.  Not quite as springy as I used to be.  It will be interesting what we hear from God on various fronts in the next little while.  Our basic problem is that both of us like to take any reasonably good idea and stretch it into oblivion and total impossibility.  Then we paralyze ourselves thinking of all the possible things that could and probably will go wrong.  If we just took a good idea and actually did it, on the other hand, without first making it much bigger and better, it would probably work out.  Or part of it would.  In any event we would move forward.  Ah well.  It's hard to change.  But at this age, we should be mature enough to change just a little!

This is enough posting I guess.  I should take my own advice and resume my life.  I'll try to actually keep up with this in the next little while.

Light and dark

I'm back from Victoria where I spent a very enjoyable 4 days with my co-workers from Mental Health learning about FASD and the current state of research and ideas for intervention.  It was much warmer there and there were a great deal more boats than I generally see in a day.  I'll write more about the content of the conference on my professional blog which should soon be up with my website (hopefully!).  It was a good conference in that most of the concurrent sessions I went to went through sensory processing theory and how self-regulation is the key way in to manage behaviours that otherwise are pretty inevitable with FAS.

It was very different being "single" and sans kids for that long.  I don't think I've been away that long by myself in the kids' lives.  Not that I can think of.  Regulating short people's emotions is very tiring even when you don't know you're doing it and to suddenly be mostly responsible only for myself was incredibly different.  I felt so much more in control of my responses and able to use strategies so easily.  If I wanted to go running, it was pretty easy to fit it in.  If I wanted to talk, there were people around who could talk for a long time about abstract things.  I could see new things and spend time alone and nap and be giddy without regard for too many other responsibilities.  It was very unreal.  Back at home, I am catching up on housework and helping the kids with their homework as well as my own jobs and it is coming back to me that I get tired a lot.  I am very happy for the privilege of living in a family and having the roles I do.  I would rather have my life than the single Lynn life, no question.  But it is always good to know what energy output needs to be allowed for.

I could concentrate on my friends for good chunks of time in the way that I remember doing as a University student, but that is not realistic when I do need to concentrate on my husband and kids and still have the emotional and thinking energy to go to to work.

Dan and I talked a lot on the way home from Regina, where I ended up for an awards ceremony for my boss.  There is a great deal of hostility to families in the world, and I think it is very spiritual.  We feel that it has taken a great deal of energy to preserve our marriage and family to this point and that this has not been accidental or easy.  We also don't feel that adding any further "missions" to our lives is even possible, given the level of threat to what we have.  Paul tells the Ephesians to "be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.  Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.  Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand." (6:10-13)  I love that we don't even have to make it one step forward, just stand.  A lot of days that takes everything I've got and all my reliance on God's mighty power.

It's something to contemplate continuing to be involved fully with people in our culture which is so very anti-God and so destructive personally and relationally.  At this point in our lives, it is like entering a war zone with one's eyes open, able to visualize the pain of bullets and shrapnel, understanding that we are going into harm's way, on purpose.  That is not even a "mission", it is just life on this "dark world".  

I also love the passage from Philippians 2:14-16a: "Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life . . . "   That part of not complaining or arguing is pretty hard, but I like that we can "shine" just from holding the word of life.  We don't need to do much more than hold God's presence and words in us - his light is so much more powerful than the darkness.  In that way the warfare we wage is not through our own ability or decisiveness or goodness.  It is just being present with God while we are present in the world.  The dark powers and authorities and so on cannot touch us.  Jesus sent out his disciples as "lambs among wolves" knowing full well the power of their opposition (demonic authority) and yet knowing full well also that they were completely safe despite their complete inadequacy.  I love God!  He is so upside down from the way the world fights.  He loves trust from the weakest of us.  It's so freeing.

Anyway, the whole point is that whether I am tired from this or that, my real purpose on this planet is to be close to God wherever I am and hold his word inside me, preferably keeping my mouth from complaining or arguing.  No problem!  And I think that that is the whole purpose of man - to glorify God and enjoy him forever.  How can the devil fight that if we are willing to die standing doing that?  There's nothing he can do. 

So I am glad to be back pouring myself into my kids and my marriage and occasionally into the other special people who are brought into my life, enjoying God's care in the midst of destruction, but knowing that even my suffering is for a purpose and that spiritually I am completely secure no matter what.  That is something I can do.

Untangling

Whew.  What a week.  I cannot wait til spring.  Heidi is home with a cold and so I am home as well which is okay as I am still trying to untangle the various threads in my life and keep them all straight.  There is always the housework.  There are sports our kids are in.  There are our animals - especially the dog and horses who always need attention.  There is our marriage - very intensive.  There are our friends - as I've noted before I think I need to structure more time in for all of you.  There is the Attic as a whole - landscaping, fencing, home maintenance, getting chickens, and so on and so forth. There is keeping in shape which is very much a priority as my shoulders continue to act up with the least little strain.  There is Attic Therapy, which as I've also mentioned I am working hard to develop in terms of specific directions.  There is my job with the Health Region which dovetails more or less with my business but requires constant attention so as not to be a conflict of interest.   There is Dan's job with OnTask Rehab, which, as he is a co-owner/operator of Attic Therapy, requires attention so as not to conflict time-wise and also because we work together.  There is the need for continuing education which needs to be booked well in advance; unfortunately well in advance is not how I think. There is family who are important but all far away.  Last but least negotiable is my relationship with God, which at least is well and truly structured in as I can't survive without time alone with Him.  All of this stuff has to be considered and priorized and done and all of my decisions need to keep all of this in mind.

As I said before, we pulled out wedding pictures this w/e to show the kids and also a bunch of early days here at the Attic.  Our land was completely empty when we bought it and so our first few years we had relatively light footprints here.  The land was healthy and the fences were all new and the grass looked thick and green.  We didn't have "junk" or bare patches or a garden or started projects or an old trailer we can't sell.  Also, we hadn't had a huge forest fire on the heels of a drought which killed most of the forest and then a tornado that knocked down any remaining tall trees. It looked so clean!  I would like to get back to that time but of course you can't go back in time. Kids grow and so do lives and they get thicker. 

It somehow seems easier to untangle my life if I just write it down.  I don't know why. It's like sorting thread or something. It just requires me to do one thing at a time, one half hour at a time.  And not forget anything crucial, like my hair cut last week!  Oh well.  Keeping up my appearance is just way way down on the list.

Avoiding housework

Supper is almost made (it's in the slow cooker and I just need to make rice later on).  Some squares are in the frig.  I've done my Denise Austin dance workout (very funny but I did work up a sweat) and also done some book ordering for Attic Therapy.  This week has been an intense business week of setting directions and figuring out what is possible and what is not.  There are a lot of paths I could take and each one is intriguing in its own way but the cold hard fist of reality has me by the scruff of the neck and the above mentioned activities do still need to get done on a semi-regular basis.  Not to mention laundry and vacuuming which at the moment I am avoiding by writing here. I constantly struggle for moderation in everything I do and that generally means (wait for it, any OT's out there!) structure structure structure.  If I must do things on a daily basis and if there is a time set aside for them to be done and a place and materials ready . . . they still may not get done.  But at least I do not have an excuse.

This brings me to the whole issue of friendship.  It would be great to be able to be friends the way I used to be - those lovely years when I lived on my own with great roommates in a city far from my parents so I didn't feel responsible for their feelings . .  but also I didn't have any real responsibilities.  Except getting through university but of course you can always cut a class or miss a night of sleep and make things work.  Life was a lot more malleable back then.  It totally suited me.  I felt really close to a lot of people, each in a unique way.  There were chances to do tons of interesting and widely diverse things with other people and still stick to a student's budget of about $400 a month.  Not no more.  No sir.

Last night the kids made us pull out our wedding album.  Wow.  Lots of pictures of people I haven't seen literally since that day.  After our wedding we moved directly to PA where we knew absolutely no one and started completely new jobs and lives together.  While our marriage has I think mostly recovered from that shock, my ability to have deep and meaningful friendships has not. 

For one thing, I am now scared of commitment.  I'm not good at day to day structured contact.  I much prefer one all night conversation plumbing the depths of emotional reality to mundane phone calls and "coffees" together on a weekly basis.  However, I think (at least I'm coming to think) that relationships, like velcro, are made of hundreds of tiny points of contact.  Not one giant piece of sticky tape.  For another thing, who should I be friends with?  My life is so weird and I fit loosely and not well into so many categories that there is no one group of people that calls to me as a group I will fit in well with.  I am acquaintances with lots of people I like and admire.  But to take it to the next step - I'm somewhat at a loss.  Thus the blogging.  It's one way I can explain myself at my own rate and possibly someone else may be able to meet me occasionally - hopefully in person occasionally but also in ideas and ideals and mundane information day to day.  Wow.  This sounds like a really bad personals ad.  How did I get here?  Again, moderation, Lynn. :) 

On a lighter note, Dan was able to trim Jetta's hooves this weekend with absolutely excellent behaviour on her part.  We have been working on that for the last year and so I was proud of her.  It was necessary too as she had chipped a gouge the size of a good sized cookie out of the left fore.  I don't know how that can't hurt but she seemed okay with it.  I was contemplating riding her out this week but then it got way cold again.  However I did get an actual run in as some kind stranger has plowed the railway tracks for a logging road presumably and it's possible to run quite a ways.  That was the other day when it was only -4.  Very encouraging.

Okay, time to vacuum.

the kids are tired

Well, I've started a website finally.  Again.  I worked on one last spring for a long time and then my computer crashed and in the resulting wiping of the hard drive that one item did not get backed up like I thought.  I did not really understand website construction and the assumption of Apple that I would immediately publish it and so it would be safe on the web.  Ha.

I think I understand more this go-round having both read the manual and bought a book no less. It seems actually fun but very time intensive given that I am planning a huge website with lots of features and pages and options and so on.  Nothing simple for me, no way. 

The kids have had a full week of socializing with lots of sleepovers and today is the first day of the February break that we have all been home together.  I cannot believe how crabby everyone is.  We are such a family of introverts!  Debby and my Dad both think I am too but I still cannot quite agree.  I do get energy from being alone, but only to a point, and then if I don't have human contact I will go nuts.  I remember one summer job where I was alone in an office for most of the summer listening to CBC and doing something very mindless.  I have never talked so much each supper.  My roommates laughed at me all summer because I chattered so much.  It was the same when I was home with two small babies.  I joined a sewing group in Crutwell and just relished the chance to talk with other adults.  Until they started quilting and got serious about the task - then it was just work.  Sometimes if I have spent too much time alone I will talk to Dan for about an hour without even needing him to respond except for his classic minimalist "hm".

Anyway, the problem with human contact is that everyone is so screwed up.  If I could be an extrovert with all the well-adjusted people out there (all two of you) it would be clear to everyone that that is what I am.  But people continue to have feelings and as long as they do I will try to co-regulate everyone around me and while I love to do this and it comes naturally and it is fulfilling sort of to emotionally bond with people at all sorts of extremes, there is a limit to my energy.  This is where my husband, bless him, is so good for me.  He has no extremes, just one solid middle ground.  He is so calm.  If I am not tired that alone drives me crazy as it shouldn't be possible, but most of the time I am tired and so I can just lean in.

Today, however, my kids are tired and leaning in to me and I am trying to balance out their little emotional extremes and be calm myself.  This is the sort of day I like to be able to write.  The question is if anyone should ever see what I write!  Sometimes it is a bit too uncensored.  But then, what is the point of  a blog if I am censoring myself all over the place.  The whole idea is that there is an audience that I cannot control and if I cannot control the audience, then it does not make sense to try to control the message.