Philosophy and sore knees

Wow I am tired! I generally wake up very tired and perk up by 11 or so but today I am just a dishrag. Aagh. I tried protein in the form of leftover angel food cake with whipped cream which was yummy but is still not putting me over the edge into humanity. Dan had coffee with me and told me, all concerned, that I look really terrible. So I guess this morning feeling is obvious. It's a very beautiful day and I finished planting my garden this morning which usually would make me feel very chipper (all except the potatoes -that is a huge job and traditionally I do this with the kids and there always seems to be a thunderstorm that appears by the end). I'm not chipper. I'm just exhausted. Yesterday I did in fact go with the Cindy workout (which is pretty grueling) and then I vacuumed and mopped the living room (probably equally grueling). However that really is not generally enough to knock me out this hard. So that means it is probably hormones.

Anyway, writing is always something that cheers me up so here goes. Hmm. So I am still feeling extremely philosophical these days and using my time oh so wisely in trying to puzzle out answers to questions no one to my knowledge has ever actually answered. Why do good people suffer? Why does everyone feel certain that they know God's will and it is always diametrically opposed to the next person over? Why were we made in the first place if it is a human characteristic to screw things up?

I can't seriously contemplate that there is no God. Really that is too much faith for me. If I ever had any doubts at all, my anatomy class put them to rest. The human hand is a thing of wonder. It really is. Seth would feel the same about a frog or a tree.

Anyway, I have spent my entire life feeling close and cared for by an extremely personal God who I have communicated with relatively easily (especially compared to trying to communicate with certain people!). I could list off probably several pages of fairly direct answers to prayer or events that seem to stretch the odds of coincidence very far. I have studied the evidence for the Biblical account of Jesus to some extent and find it solid enough that I don't have any problems reading the gospels as historical fact. I think that the story of redemption through the cross is so simple, elegant, counter-intuitive, and outrageous in its claims that I cannot honestly imagine anyone making that sort of story up. Certainly not dying for it, as it is not a religion that, purely practiced, is calculated to give anyone any sort of personal gain. Quite the opposite. So I believe in God, and furthermore, I believe that He has gone as far as a deity could to communicate with us on our terms by actually becoming human, dying and then returning from the grave to assure us that he is in fact God. There is no other religion that comes close to making that sort of assertion. Or that paints such a complex view of a personality that is God. You just can't please him behaviourally or with magical thinking or by going through hoops. He requires less and more. All of that fits for me with what I would expect if there was a God who had the characteristics of both love and justice - two things that generally seem diametrically opposed.

Where I run into problems is always when I look away from the story of the Bible in its unvarnished and terribly readable form, and start to listen to other people's interpretations and where they go with what they believe. Then I get a headache. A solution to this is of course to keep my eyes down and just not listen to anyone who is claiming to know how to live. But that is also stupid as there are many really good insights that other people have that I will never come up with on my own. That's why we're all so diverse and why the diversity is healthy and beautiful.

Paradox and dichotomy and conundrum. Love and justice. Choice and dignity and evil and chaos. Individual self-determination and the infinite power of God. Nature and nurture, for Pete's sake!

So here's what I know:

not very much.

Here's what I think:

I think we are complex and infinitely interesting and our choices matter and have real consequences for pleasure or pain for an almost unimaginable number of other people because we are made in the image of God and that is the way he is. I think we are constantly horrified by death and our own mortality and the law of entropy because that situation is not natural for the planet - we were thrust into a state of dying and winding down at a certain point because of a collective human choice. I think that that choice is made in many little ways by each one of us and it boils down to saying to the universe, "I am God and you are not." I think that every time we say that we contribute to the wrongness around us because it is a statement that is NOT TRUE. No matter how much we wish it was.

I think that saying to the universe, "You are God and I am not" is the single hardest thing that any human being can say. We are saying it into the void because we can't see or hear or touch or taste or smell anyone out there. Which proves there is no one out there. Except we have other senses that we know very well mean something real and to discount them is to be as idiotic as the generation that truly thought science and education would save the world and which produced the atomic bomb as a result.

I think that all of us spend most of our lives trying to find what we can dimly sense out there in order to control it. We use religion, science, psychology, frenetic housecleaning, working too much, socializing too much, addictions, causes, and saving the world in order to impose some kind of order into what is essentially too big for us. I think that when Jesus came to earth and lived a life as God and man he demonstrated a conscious choice to give up control over his life and die. Which is pretty weird. And hard to emulate on any level.

I think that I myself am a control freak of almost unimaginable proportions. Oldest child alpha female +++. I think that a God who loves me probably would, if all of the above were true, continually challenge my sense of control over my own life. In fact this is happening on a pretty regular basis. I really hate that! At the moment my boys are both injured and unable to participate in sports. And my daughter's 6th goldfish recently died. There is very little that has happened directly to me that is as painful as holding my son while he cries because he won't be able to play capture the flag on a year end school trip because his knee is inexplicably screwed up. I can't help him and I can't deal with that. It seems ridiculous to me that this event would make me question the love of God on a cosmic level, but it does. It's hard to live in a world that is truly dangerous. Not just to me but to my children.

Are we at war? Is there an unseen battle being waged on earth's surface between good and evil, or are we just existing in a mindless struggle for survival - fittest of the species and all that? I want to believe the first and throw the second away as far as I can. I have spent my entire life working to help "the least of these" - children who need help and can give almost nothing back. So any sort of worldview that discounts their essential and intrinsic value is absolutely abhorrent to me. But thinking about a Marvel comics sort of fight going on invisibly around us just makes me raise an eyebrow and go, "really . . . ?" I can't get too far into that imaginary world without losing my ability to suspend my disbelief.

And that's probably where I am on this beautiful last day of May. Stuck between two scenarios that I find equally hard to totally swallow. I guess the best I can say is that I really truly do not know very much. Less every year, in fact. Except that there is a God. And He is God. And I am not. And love exists and we humans certainly did not make it up. So that's a hopeful sign!

Magic hour

I love this time of the day in summer when the sunlight is so horizontal that all the colours looked drenched in some kind of super-yummy syrup. It also helps that my kids are in bed and Dan is off on his motorcycle enjoying all our leather gifts for his birthday and there is this lovely hush. Even the dishwasher just turned off.

This weekend I went on a terrifically lovely horseback ride with one of my great friends from her place to mine - roughly 16 kms. It was funny because I tried very hard to slow down and enjoy the journey, knowing my tendency to go faster and faster when I am on a horse as the adrenaline and endorphins make me happy and that makes me want to accelerate. Apparently I was still a little rushed from her perspective so that is something to continue to work on. Slow. Breathing. Look around. Stop even. Ha ha. We had a great time and hopefully we can do it again a few times this summer and perfect our pacing. I took Chess of course to keep me confident for the first time in even seeing if trails existed, but I really want to start riding Jetta who is a little less of a cement-mixer in terms of feel. Now that the last of the spring birthdays are past I am feeling a bit more optimistic about time with her. She has calmed down considerably even in the 12 or so hours I've put into training her on the ground. I think that she'll do great now that I have a solid program to follow that makes sense to me and obviously to her as well.

Seth was off this w/e to a full-fledged bowyer course "tillering" a longbow. He came back tired and glowing with one more full day to go. I'm so proud of him and his bizarre interests. He's been making his own arrows all week and they actually work.

Levi on the other hand has come up with the interesting and misleading hobby of finding, cleaning, sterilizing and using old cast-off beer bottles. He is constantly on the lookout now and nothing will induce him to actually cash them in. Oh no. This is a collection with a purpose. Unfortunately I have now become so used to rows and rows of empty beer bottles lining horizontal surfaces outside and inside that I fail to remember to get him to clean them up when people come over. So I think our reputation for clean living and sobriety may be taking a steep down turn. Also if you happen to see my kids reading Calvin and Hobbes and sipping occasionally from a brown bottle, that's homemade lemonade they are enjoying. Really. :)

So far Heidi's hobbies continue to be normal, like trampolining with a hula hoop. And painting all our deck chairs, lamps, etc. with chalk drawings.

The garden is half planted now - hooray! I am in the enviable dilemma of trying to decide whether to priorize going bike riding, running, doing weights with Cindy (Crawford), finishing the garden, working with Jetta for a couple hours, or (wait for it) vacuuming the living room. Probably that last one is by far the most necessary but I'm thinking if there is any sun at all it will not happen. Maybe I can do ALL of them! By noon! No, just kidding. I really am learning something. I will definitely only do half of them by supper. Which will be leftovers.

Ah, the magic is fading outside. Now it's almost a sunset but not quite. Gotta go, here comes my biker husband!

The meaning of life!

This is why we live here. May. It is incredible. I have just been sitting outside soaking up heat and colour and life. And because it froze last night - no mosquitos. Even better. Went on a 12 km ride with Chess this morning and thought again, this is why we live here.

The garden is rototilled and the horses are in it trimming around the edges where I can't get. Also the goats just because they like to be where the action is. I still don't think they are pregnant but I keep hoping and checking for some sort of belly. They look incredibly svelte. Shoot.

We also have another set of chickens as our black ones have unfortunately felt it was okay to spend the winter hours pulling feathers off each other. The result is a bit obscene and certainly not appetizing in any way. They are still laying but now they are laying outside in the "chicken yacht" while the newbies, who look like large doves and seem to have similar temperaments, are inside the "chicken condo" and starting to lay tiny little white eggs. I'm thinking the black ones may not last.

This last Saturday (the long weekend) we finally tried canoeing from Crutwell to P.A. This is something we have thought about for at least 15 years and finally got organized. At the last minute we were somewhat dismayed to find out that Seth, in whose honour the trip was being made as he just turned 14, had sustained a fairly serious supraspinatus injury. For all you non-physio types, this is just one of those darn rotator cuff muscles that is really helpful but which no one really thinks about. Anyway, paddling was definitely out for him as it was in the super-acute stage where any type of stress would make it ten times worse. Paddling for 7 hours being a type of stress.

This was crushing for Seth and almost as crushing for me as he was to be my partner so Dan could go with Levi and Heidi. This would have made for somewhat even "teams" as we had two canoes. Anyway, we decided to go ahead. We already had the canoes and the day was nothing short of perfect. Neither of us was certain exactly how far this was and no one we asked could remember even how long it had taken them. We figured 3 hours - 5 at the outside.

Well, it was slightly more than that. I finally downloaded Google Earth after the fact and realized that there was in fact a pretty big bend in the river which the highway distance disguises. I'm thinking it was around 30 kms if not slightly more. That's a long way. We switched up kids pretty frequently and the little ones helped tremendously, although they mostly kept our spirits up with chatter and name-calling to each other and so on. Poor Seth was really good at making the best of it and stayed amazingly cheerful. Around the midpoint he hooked his legs into Dan's canoe so we were effectively "attached" which allowed Dan to give me a much-needed break. A few times the wind came up and even though we were going with the current I needed to row pretty hard to make any headway. However, I must say that despite being privately pretty scared that my old shoulder injuries would resurface, they did not. I was tired and that was it. I wasn't even really sore the next day although I didn't feel like doing anything. Wow. That was amazing given that a few years ago I quit my job over a shoulder tear. So all in all it was a really great day. Poor Heidi was falling asleep on her feet by 7 that night though. She worked so hard. As did Levi.

I have to say that this is the first spring in a long, long time that has felt manageable. My typical spring feelings are a mixture of excitement and crushing disappointment as I see the possibilities in the yard with the beautiful and so short-lived weather, and then have to let them sail by as I have to go back to doing way too much. This year I am enjoying so many moments and still I feel able to look after Dan and the kids with all their birthdays and play dates and track meets and doctor's appointments, and of course, all the eating everyone does. It's very nice and it leaves me wondering how anyone is actually able to do it all. This is coupled with the reality of feeling the loss of my income. It doesn't help for me not to work and yet, it really helps. Such a conundrum.

At this point I generally go off in my head into the "why are we here?" space. Also the difficulty of human suffering and how I can ever truly enjoy so much of my existence when so many others exist in poverty and fear and abuse. Not to mention families with kids with autism, etc. It is so NOT fair and I really wish life were fair. I wish I could actually help somehow without breaking down myself.

In my evangelical upbringing, I don't think I was prepared very well to be a person accepting help or needing help or even being needy, period. I was thoroughly prepared to help others. That's great until it becomes a problem to oneself or one's own family. There is obviously no point in helping others if the people who have been placed next to you suffer as a result. What a dilemma! Here I am, with my husband actively looking after me by taking up the slack and becoming a primary breadwinner, and I cannot figure out how this is okay. It is so hard to accept someone caring for ME. Not that I think it's wrong, I guess, just so unexpected. Where do I put that? Given all the urgent needs in the world, why should I be loved so effectively?

So I go back in my life and think about all the messages I absorbed as a child and young adult. I was given two streams of brainwashing, I think. One from the church and my family, the other from the secular world. However, both agreed in this point: I was capable of much, and much was therefore required of me.

I think probably my generation was one of the first to have women's lib sort of assumed. There was perhaps a bit more emphasis on how we as girls should not be afraid of maths and sciences, and also an enthusiastic pushing of non-traditional careers, but it wasn't militant. And we as girls were not worried about entering any sort of field we cared to. The downside was that the math of time and energy requirements for daily life were sort of glossed over. Of course we could do anything boys could do. That was self-evident. However, in reality, someone needs to look after the kids. And no matter how wonderful one's spouse is, he will definitely require regular maintenance to stay that way. And having other people look after kids during the day, as everyone knows by now, is not the same and does not necessarily lessen the emotional load of children and their real needs for attention, affection, and frequent cleaning.

So a picture was painted by my secular mentors that had my husband and I cheerfully sharing all the roles of homemaking and careers. Which my husband and I have certainly done in every possible combination since we were married. This is a solution but not one that is open to the vast majority of people whose jobs are not so in demand and therefore so flexible. And it fails to allow for much in the way of specialization. Somebody has to priorize their job in order to make ends meet. And it works far better for someone to be on top of what groceries are needed and who should be where when. I think that efficiencies such as these common-sense division of labour solutions have always been in play and in fact were used by the very teachers that were encouraging us to not use them. I think they encouraged us in some sort of hope that maybe because of new gender equalities in society, certain things would be possible for us that have in fact never been possible. Like doing it all.

This was exacerbated in my case by my church upbringing that encouraged me with many terms such as "no compromise," "total surrender," "giving it all," and so on. These were forcefully and emotionally preached to men and women equally and gave the impression that the world needed our full commitment and there was no time to waste. This kind of cause is nothing but appealing to anyone with any ideals whatsoever, but it does not mix well with the day in, day out, very un-cause like needs of little kids. Which are hard to get worked up about but which cause huge problems if they are not met.

So there you go. As I told my parents the other night, I think I grew up in a perfect storm of great messages which added up to a bit of a weird view of life. And now God is inexplicably allowing me time to rest and heal and reflect and just breathe. And you know what? It's a very odd sensation. But I'm thinking that it is helpful in figuring out a normal rate of living as opposed to full out all the time. And no, there is no way this is fair as I think probably every woman in the world needs this and very few get it. And I can't deal with that. But I guess I don't have to. Not being God myself.

Horse wisdom

(That's Gingersnap whispering sweet nothings to Mr. Stinky, who is thankfully off to his next batch of girlfriends)

Spring was great! Spring was wonderful. Spring is over and now it is fall. It is cold and windy and gray and cold. And the newly melted snow which is collecting in huge sloughs all over our yard (and in my garden) is now nicely rippled ice that the Canada Geese are walking on probably feeling disgusted with their rush to get here.

I have been starting my horse program to get all three up to speed and feel in control of each very distinct horsey personality. It has been interesting so far to concentrate on putting a sustained and thought through amount of time into these animals. I am constantly discovering things about myself that are useful but humbling. For instance, I read all the wrong books as a child. The Black Stallion series comes to mind. What a load of horse patooey. These formative novels gave my willing young mind the idea that horses like to collaborate and also that they are capable of executive functioning. That means they can think. As a matter of fact, horses really don't like to think. They like to eat. And avoid work. Thus the rider is a necessary part of the equation. I am finally realizing that asking a horse to think is unfair and puts a huge strain on its trust of you as a leader because thinking is the very last thing they want to do on a sunny day. If they can't stand and doze and eat all day, they would rather be following crisp, clear instructions that are achievable and show that you are doing most of the thinking for them. This makes sense when put together with horse behaviour that I have experienced for 20 years. It sounds very obvious to horse people, probably, but if you grew up on the Black Stallion this is very shocking.

So I am telling my horses that from now on, I promise to be a good dictator. I will tell them exactly what to do and when to do it and leave decisions as to whether the oncoming semi or the fluttering garbage bag or the mattress dumped beside the train tracks not to them but to me. And if I decide that it is a non-issue, then it is a non-issue and we don't need to pay attention to it at all. This is really a huge leap for me. It goes to my entire relational style which is always wanting to collaborate and get consensus and have everyone reach the finish line at exactly the same time and could we all understand each other please. No wonder I keep burning out!

Boundaries. I gotta say, everyone in my entire life has mentioned that I may have some issues with boundaries and I have always thought, yeah, whatever. I have plenty of fences. Who needs more? But the issue is not the amount of fences, but how clear and consistent one is with them. This is finally making sense to me. Again, I am a little slow on the uptake, probably having read all the wrong people books as well. I want to think that everyone is basically decent. That a deal posted in the paper is probably less than the item is worth and so it wouldn't hurt to offer the guy a bit more for the bike rather than less. I think that if I extend some emotional courtesies than other people will unfailingly sense this and extend the same in return. It is hard to believe that other people are not always paying attention to the same nonverbal cues that I am, though.

I have, in the past, very occasionally lost my temper. This has always been when someone I thought I was excruciatingly clear with went over a line and did something unforgivably rude to me. I generally feel that such lines are painted with glowing neon paint on the sands of relational time. However, I wonder if they are. I know that sometimes people are unforgivably rude, but perhaps I should extend the benefit of the doubt somewhat farther and ask myself how clear I really am about lines in the sand. Just because I think they glow in the dark doesn't mean my horses understand them. Maybe some other people don't either. I might need to Spell It Out occasionally before completely losing it. I hasten to say that my completely losing it is not usually expressed very violently although I have been known to write a scathing email or two.

Anyway, this is all very good for character. I am trying to figure out who I am as a midlife non-crisis crisis. I have time this year and it is something to not have unbelievable time pressures to use as excuses for not being myself. Who myself is is somewhat murky and I think it is because I have been pretty foggy with the boundaries and therefore have been letting other people define me by taking whatever is left when everyone else is done with what I have to give. That's not a very good description of living life but I suspect it is true. Probably for other women too. This is after all the model of "servanthood" that I grew up with in the evangelical community. There are probably hundreds of songs that tend to glorify that sort of laziness. Because I think it is lazy if I let other people live my life for me. It's like winning the lottery and immediately giving it all away because you can't deal with all those choices.

This is not to say that the original concept of servanthood as portrayed by Jesus is bad. I don't think it is. However I think there are some essential pieces that aren't emphasized perhaps that could be. Stewardship of resources is generally more of a male concept, in my memory (Mennonites do have quite a male/female division of roles, I must say and I think this is more pervasive than we probably think). Anyway, at this point, as a woman, boundaries are good. Being clear to the point of subjective rudeness is probably kinder than not. Using my life intelligently towards goals that are not made by others is not only okay, but essential. Not giving away all my resources to the first person who asks for them each morning is also a responsible way to live. Amazing.

So when I get that far in my thinking (as I am picking up horses' hooves and cleaning them out and brushing out huge mats of winter hair), the next logical question is: what are my resources? How much do I have to work with, considering that I can consider it as "mine" and not belonging to the needy world out there? Turns out, not very much. I am also humbled to find out that I need, on average, 9 hours of sleep a night. Any less and I start to go into sleep debt, which I can do for a while but not forever. It will catch up with me. Nine hours a night!!! What a colossal waste of time! Can you believe in evolution at all when an organism is made that inefficiently? Sigh. So that's one thing to consider.

Second, I have been keeping minute detailed accounts of all our household spending for the last 4 months and my general foggy ideas as to how much we need for, say, gas or groceries or even miscellaneous birthday presents, are somewhat understated. Maybe by half. So that's why we are constantly feeling like the end of the month is farther away than it should be on a budget. Yech. Realistically, I don't think we are overspending on any particular category. Realistically, we eat a lot. So money is not in abundance and mostly spoken for the moment it arrives by any means into our bank accounts.

Thirdly, space. Huh. Well, the yard is soon going to be half-submerged and this may go up or down as the summer progresses, leaving us with fewer options for expansion of living and storage spaces (including for various animals). Furthermore, our house is exactly the right size for 5 individuals and the minute more are added it becomes what you would call cozy. No basement is not a plus when many kids are involved. Again, not at all undo-able, but a factor in terms of planning out lifestyle.

Fourth, energy. Well, we all know that I am one of those people who others think of as "energetic" because I am when I am with other people, but when I am done I tend to crash hard. So it's not truly energetic-ness so much as enjoying positive feelings and gaining short spurts of energy from being around people who make me happy. Like a sugar high, it is not real but still very pleasurable. I think in reality I am probably more of an introvert for the long haul than otherwise. I can spend a LOT of time alone without feeling any negative emotion beyond a tiny bit of guilt. However, there comes a point when I am screamingly lonely. At that point, what I am missing is not a party but a really deep and stimulating honest conversation. I think that is still more introvertish than extravert. So energy for me is hard to quantify. It is not good in the sense that I cannot predictably get lots of tasks done. I can if I'm happy or with happy people. If I'm feeling an onslaught of the terrible injustices and tragedies in the world (which I find to be everywhere and very emotionally disturbing) I begin to lose energy like a sand garden loses nutrients. This means that for very unrelated reasons I can have either productive or completely draining days. Again, evolutionarily speaking, quite an impractical way to be. If we could just fix all the suffering in the world, I think I would be better at keeping up with cleaning the bathroom.

Well, probably not.

So, as a therapist, if I was to figure out what my platform of strengths is on which to begin to work, I would actually have to dig down pretty low to find a template of a sustainable, healthy, balanced life. Low in the sense that I would not necessarily be accomplishing a lot of the "servanthood" stuff that I find so admirable in others. I would likely be able to get up, read my Bible in a foggy half awake state as I inhale coffee, make breakfast for the kids in the same half-awake and somewhat non-responsive state, work out so as to fully wake up, have a second cup of coffee after a shower, consider carefully what to do that day, plan supper, do laundry (always), clean up breakfast finally, work with the horses and use up relational energy in the process, talk with one friend in a meaningful way, complete one task that is not strictly maintenance (I'm talking a very small task, like grocery shopping or planning a birthday party), and then deal with the kids as they come home from school and practice piano and tell me the woes of their day and do their chores and make a mess all over the kitchen with snacks and lunch-making and then make and have supper and read to everyone, watch an episode of ER, and then go around unplugging appliances and putting our dog away for the night and doing one more load of laundry before bed, and there you go. The day. And Heaven forbid Dan is gone and I need to add chores and making the fire every 8 hours and being in two places at once for sports events and so on. Which is often the case and so my days feel pretty full and I really have always thought that all that stuff was what you did before morning coffee break. Ha.

Anyway, that is some of the stuff that is rumbling around in my brain as I try to do a good job of the platform of strengths that I have. I can make cream of wheat and unload the dishwasher and butter toast and listen to calm music all at once. I cannot coherently answer my children's questions about the notes I was to have signed at the same time. That requires a full pause for deep and intense thought. And so, perhaps I should concentrate on these basics a while longer before adding in a whole ton of new challenges. :) And now I should really stop procrastinating and do something - anything - before I have to go and do my one task of the day which today is to pick up our Toyota after getting its brakes done. And that's a whole other story but I didn't lead with it because it's more of a Dan story and he wants to stay out of this. Ha ha.

Cheerio!

Well, my brilliant kids cleaned up at the Regional Science Fair. Heidi got silver for "How to train a Betta Fish" and Levi got bronze for "The dangers of smoking and why people accept those dangers." Seth, sadly, did not get to Regionals despite his gripping portrayal of the trials and tribulations of a Raven-Watcher. And the squirrel did eventually get eaten, although not until we left for Edmonton to visit family there. So that's over and next comes Music Festival with various well and truly played pieces being adjudicated (I love that word. It just sounds so great if you say it slowly over and over).

Just a sec, I have to go put duct tape on my kids' warts for the night . . . This is an actual podiatrist-recommended remedy that has worked far better than anything else - and we have tried everything else. But you have to use the good stuff. No knock-off duct tape. Therefore we have little squares of duct tape coming off of socks in the dryer all the time. Also kind of disgusting bedtime rituals. Lots of handwashing, let me tell you.

So just like absolutely everyone else in Saskatchewan I really really REALLY want spring now. The last two mornings have been -25 and tonight it is supposed to feel like -30. That is ridiculous and depressing and very aggravating. I went shopping today for new running shoes. Dan does not think I should run ever again. Now that I have wrecked my shoulders and knees I have been working on wrecking my feet. Actually my shoulders are very well healed and as strong as they have ever been judging by the weights I can lift. But it took a full job change and lots and lots of physio to accomplish that. And if I continue to work my quads very religiously my knees do behave. However my feet have been giving me grief for the whole winter, give or take. I have taken advantage of my home ultrasounder frequently with pretty good results but any time I have tried to walk more than 4 miles, or heaven forbid, run at all, they act up again. This is not good. Running is so critical to my mental well-being! So I am not quite ready to give it up totally. Last summer as I probably wrote about I tried biking as a replacement but with spring coming that is not thrilling to me as a prospect for getting out there. I want to run! I want to feel the shock of the earth pounding through all my joints and to push through the forces of gravity and aging and injustice and stupid bureaucracy and all the things I am not allowed to say and all the conflicting paradoxes of life and just run! Yes I have issues but going out on the old train tracks and passing numerous wildflowers and bear scat and bends in the road is Very Good for Me.

So anyway, I went to SportChek and was immediately identified and upsold and came home with $200 running shoes (Asics - my favorite) that I am wearing right now and LOVING. I think my whole problem was just my 3 year old running shoes and 4 year old hiking boots and now I will be All Better. I hope. This after poring over our budget and figuring out that I cannot really afford the $10 flipflops they sell in WalMart. Priorities.

The point being . . . okay, now I'm ready. Bring on the nice weather.

One of my horse-friends dropped in today as well just to make everything that much worse. I cannot WAIT to get away from winter and snow and regular housecleaning and budgeting and contemplation and porridge every single morning. There comes a wonderful day in about mid-April (usually, probably not this year) when I clean the house one last time and basically do as little as possible inside til fall. That day has not yet come and therefore I am continuing to clean the house very thoroughly and it is not fulfilling. Not at all.

However, I did feel fulfilled last weekend when I actually cleaned out our car for the first time in, hmm, probably about 10 months. I love going in our car now! Did you know that there are actual people that clean their cars (the inside, mind you) every week? Can you believe that? I can't. It is one of those tasks that in my head takes about 8 hours. In reality it took 2, but the effort expended was psychologically worth 8 so nothing has appreciably changed in my head. However there are big changes to the feel of being in the car. I wish it would last. That's the other problem. It doesn't last. I don't really feel like a weekly clean would accomplish any more than a yearly clean. On the other hand, it's been a week and my kids are still scared of the gleaming interior and are throwing crumbs carefully out the window, so maybe it would work . . . I'll have to figure out if that's another aspect of life I need to reframe.

Other news . . . hmm. Nope, can't talk about that. Probably not that either. Let's see, yes . . . no. I'll continue to consider what I can share ethically and non-invasively and compassionately and all that as I watch Seinfeld with my husband who doesn't want to be mentioned. Good night!

censoring sucks (can I say that?)

Yeah, so I love to write and I can almost feel my thoughts untangling as I type (which is now much more effective than handwriting for me and way more legible). Also, as I have been searching through all the corners of the house for addresses and contact info that are stored in various mugs and files and lists and mostly obsolete card catalog thingy's, I have reflected often that there should be a way to use this internet phenomenon to connect with people quickly and easily and without using a whole ton of paper and ink to, say, share funny pictures of my current life. Aha. Someone else had the same thought and it is Facebook. Huh. Okay, so the world is divided on this issue into two camps represented quite nicely by my husband (who doesn't even want to be named online and is horrified that I'm blogging at all and thinks that online banking will send you straight to hell or at least identity bankruptcy) and myself, who loves to chat and has a very iffy filtering system for thoughts at the best of times and at the worst of times can really enjoy a conversation with way too much information.

And there we are. And, predictably, because I actually love my husband and am attracted to people like him (strong, silent, inscrutable, able to filter thoughts, and sound wise, and otherwise way more mature than me) roughly half of my friends (because I have listed you guys in this latest effort to re-connect and it has filled two pages of small handwriting) are like my un-nameable husband and have no online identity and probably don't want to have one. The other half are like me and very happy to chat and have a total of probably a million FB friends between them. So there you go. It all makes for cumbersome list-checking-off.

Add to this that I work in health care and with families with really quite complex medical and developmental issues going on and there is a HUGE confidentiality thing that I am constantly aware of and very very careful to respect in every possible way. And so the bulk of my life that is interesting to me and has fascinating anecdotes that happen frequently and in fact is a huge part of Who I Am, is really off-limits for any sort of chatting at all. So that leaves me able to talk about, hmm, the garden. Which is currently under 2' of snow and irrelevant to my feelings at this time.

Anyway, I am just wanting to say that I love the idea of blogging as a way to let you all back into my life in a more personal and up to date way than my Christmas letters used to. However, many of you (on my list) will never see this blog unless I really try hard to persuade you to find a portal into the www. Also, most of what I would like to tell you about I really can't because other people (such as my un-nameable husband) would Flip Out. Not to mention that I just can't talk about other stuff. And then there's the whole thing about kids online and should you really talk about your kids online and should you have images of them for the world to see . . . which my uncle-in-law who was an RCMP officer cautioned me about speaking from sad experiences and so that pretty much wraps up that topic, certainly in terms of anything specific.

AAAAAGH. I am still going to continue blogging, however, because, darn it, I like it. If you feel like I am talking in circles, though, that is why. I am circling around the real topics of my life like the ravens are circling around the dead squirrel hanging from the basketball hoop in our yard that my son just shot with his bow and arrow for his Science Fair project, which is to befriend a raven. See? That's priceless. Stuff like that you can't make up. Welcome to my life in Crutwell. I would describe it in greater and more interesting detail than that, but I have to figure out the censoring rules first.

Update

Okay, okay. It has now been, let's see, almost four months since I posted here. That's pretty bad. However, in my own defence, I have been totally reorganizing my life. In December (probably exactly a month after my last post) Dan and I decided that I needed a full year "sabbatical" from Attic Therapy. I was just too tired. So I began the complicated process of winding down a very busy business involving communicating with a lot of families I care pretty deeply about. However, every week that passed made me more certain that this was the right decision. Right at the same time, Seth got sick with asthmatic bronchitis, and he didn't manage to kick that for a full 8 weeks - lots of Dr. visits and 3 courses of antibiotics and finally a visit to the pediatrician. Heidi had a short bout of the same thing over Christmas as well but she actually got better. Seth just coughed and coughed and was dead tired.

Anyway, Christmas was almost a non-event in light of those two complications. We went down to Regina for the Lundell Christmas which would have been wonderful except that two of my kids were feverish and probably contagious. They tried hard to act like they weren't sick but by the time we got home for Christmas Eve and missed the closing of the walk-in clinic they were extremely ill. After Christmas we went to the Blocks' in Saskatoon but I almost felt like apologizing for coming with all the hacking and red eyes. Heidi got antibiotics on the way, literally. But the Dr. had this bizarre concoction that despite my requests, could not in any way be put in pill form so Heidi was choking it back in a syringe and ended up throwing up all over the back seat. On the way.

Then after we got back and Seth and Heidi started to recover, Levi, Dan and myself (and Seth, and I think Heidi too at one point) got stomach flu. So the entire week before New Year's was unbelievably quiet as all of us had zero energy, not to mention appetite. It did not make for a festive feeling, but was definitely relaxing. By New Year's Day I was absolutely stir-crazy (feeling better myself but pretty much all by myself) and so I ditched my convalescing, moaning, reading all over the couches family and went and visited my neighbour after shamelessly phoning and begging her to let me out of my quarantine.

Everyone was better, sure enough, just in time for school. This did not thrill them but I was certainly happy to have everyone on the bus. That lasted exactly one day and then Seth was down for the count with his asthma taking one final kick at the can. I had one final diagnostic assessment to complete for Attic Therapy, which took most of January, and then I went through our entire house with a vengeance, organizing, cleaning, sorting, and throwing out or giving away Stuff. And that brought me pretty much up to the February Break. Which was filled as usual with sleepovers with my kids' best friends who all live too far away to get together often. And now it's Saturday, and everyone's healthy, and I have vacuumed my organized living room, and the Science Fair projects are almost completely done, and there is one last friend waiting to get picked up, and then it's Sunday, and then we are heading into a week where I desperately hope I can begin to feel like I am on leave from work.

So here I am, back on the web, pouring out my soul for the masses to read (or not), and wondering how to spend the next year. I am determined to spend quality time with the horses, all of who(m?) need training. I would like to write something. I would like to concentrate on my kids, hopefully not just in the health department. I would like to have fun again. It's been a while since that has even been part of my vocabulary, unless it has been making experiences fun for others. I would like to renew friendships that have drifted apart with time and distance. I am trying to figure out Facebook and find email addresses and even snail mail addresses for people I used to at least get a Christmas letter to. My computer crashed about 5 years ago right after I had painstakingly put all my addresses on it. I lost touch with quite a few people after that. It was just very demoralizing.

I am also hoping to work on moderation. It would do me no good to stop working in order to rest and then to burn out doing all the other stuff that has been tugging at my back burners. Typical, but not a good idea. So I want to go carefully here. Life is just so darn short!! Anytime I get any bit of energy I start tearing around doing stuff I have been wanting to do forever and then all of a sudden - crash. It's an extremely predictable pattern and I would like to try to break it. We'll see.

So anyway, that's where I am today. Soup is on the stove. Levi is reading Asterix contentedly, having baked us a huge batch of Grandmother's Soft White Cookies this afternoon while I was grocery-shopping, bless his heart. Heidi is with her friend probably getting rice and sprinkles all over her room. Seth and Dan just left for a 5 mile snowshoe before supper. It has stopped snowing and is no longer -39 with the windchill. Hooray. Tomorrow my parents come for supper after the kids have basketball practice. It's all good. So if you're reading this and you're one of my old dear friends, please find a way to get a hold of me. You're on my list to find!