Finally . . .

Another month and my whole world has gone upside down again, like the ship in the third Pirates of the Caribbean. Last Monday I resigned from Mental Health and finally decided to commit to Attic Therapy whole-heartedly. I have tried in many ways to keep both roles, but the perception of a conflict of interest persisted with the valid point that I was serving the same general population in both a public and private role. While I think that our public system really needs to provide OT to kids with complex mental health/developmental issues, I guess I had to choose once and for all if I was going to do that and give up private practice totally. Couldn't do it. So I have given up working for the health region with great regret. Hopefully they can find another OT to take on that role which would be a great scenario. I have one more week of finishing up reports and tying up loose ends. Then I have a completely free week to treat kids for the first time since I quit my preschool position! That is exciting.

This weather is fantastic - beautiful fall skies with clear sunshine through the bare trees and cold but calm and really, not that cold at all. I am slowly revving down today after a very tumultuous week of dealing with the emotional fallout of my decision. Today I feel completely limp despite two large cups of strong coffee. I may get laundry done but not much else. I have made a lot of good friends in a short time at Mental Health and other friends I have had for much longer. I am hoping to keep those friendships despite the change in work location. On the other hand, the idea of not constantly wrestling with a juggling act is appealing. My coordination has never been that great. This will also give me the time and room to do things that I feel like I need to do to stay myself - do stuff with my horses, be outside, keep up with the day to day stuff with the kids, write.

I can't even think of anything else to write now though - I am so tired! Other stuff has happened - H1N1 shots, Levi's 9th birthday, pickling beets, Halloween and so on. However, that's all I can say about that. Cheers, all!

Colors

Well I am now on my third course of antibiotics in 7 weeks. This time it is for an ear infection that has been giving me constant and sometimes excruciating pain for two weeks. I have been downing ibuprofen and Tylenol in large quantities as per the doctor's suggestion and using eardrops and Nasonex and Flovent and of course decongestant and it has just gotten worse. I wish I could have a notice come up on the little computers in the doctor's office whenever I come in saying "do not bother with conservative treatment regimens - this person is a walking breeding ground for extreme diseases". As in, go straight to the real stuff, and save me the inevitable two weeks of gradual worsening of symptoms.

It's so typical. I can't be moderate in anything at all. I think that I have been doped up for so long now that I can't even imagine reality in full colour. Everything is just a little blurred. I can function but the edges are off. I can only hope that the general effect is a softening of my own rough edges but that is probably too much to ask.

I downloaded a Quirks and Quarks episode today about synesthesia because I heard the teaser last month and wanted to listen to the program but of course didn't happen to be driving at that precise time slot. It is so interesting that a.) not everyone sees months in a colour and arranged in a specific pattern in space, and b.) that there is a word for that phenomenon. It brings up all sorts of interesting brain biology questions and of course the inevitable wondering about how other people perceive reality. I wrote a poem a few years back about windows and how I used to think everyone was looking through the same one and that poetry was just describing the view and that I had just realized that there were actually a lot of windows and we don't really any of us share much of a view. That perspective was kind of devastating to me at the time. Now I'm thinking it's even worse than I thought and maybe we're not even in the same building looking out in different directions, but rather spread out all over a large space and looking in various windows of unrelated buildings and shouting out what we see as if it's the only reality.

Aaagh!

My poor husband does not suffer from synesthesia of any sort whatsoever and I see this blank look of terror sometimes slowly spreading across his face if I try to describe how I feel or how a situation has made me feel. What do you do. It's exactly the same though if he starts to try to explain the mechanism of the clutch in our car and how my actions in driving can affect the mechanism (he very gently and considerately tries to phrase this in positive ways as he sees the same sort of look of terror spreading across my face, probably). Numbers and mechanical objects, having no colours in my mind, do not arrange themselves in any sort of pattern that I can grasp or remember and so do not behave with anything but the most capricious randomness. Whereas kids with autism shoot out the most incredibly clear emotional colors and textures that are ever so easy to respond to. Even more so because they are authentic and from their core. And there you go - I lost him again. Fortunately I married a man with almost no variation in essential colour and textures and so he is very comfortingly consistent which tends to bring me back to where I should be eventually. My kids on the other hand are such interesting blends of depth and shade and hue and becoming even more so the older they get.

All of which brings me to my latest book find - "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller. What a great writer! The title hooked me because of course jazz is blue and the cover was exactly the right shade for it. As it turned out the whole book is ramblings on Christian spirituality as opposed to Christianity. Very non-sequential and brutally honest and so a lovely refreshing read. Much like jazz music. Almost you can't read too much at once. It's a little too sweet.

And as for life events - I believe I can finally reveal a somewhat definite plan for the next year!! There's a story behind all this but for now I am continuing with Attic Therapy and increasing my hours at Mental Health to approximately 0.8 FTE. This should be interesting as I am very busy in both roles and my home life is none too calm either. We'll see if I can work out workouts in there somewhere. After, of course, I finally get healthy. Gravity is pretty unforgiving.

Just for fun

today I am eleven

that is, off the scale

a little to the right of perfect

and somewhat prime

odd

uneven

but symmetrical

(that’s good!)

not quite into adolescence

past childhood

difficult to add and subtract

easy to multiply

impossible to divide

I am not a base of much

open-ended, that’s me

sideways, I would equal

laugh out loud if you like

I am in alliteration, albeit under an alias

did you know 11 times 11 equals

one to one?

If only that formula worked more often

but you see when you are eleven

you are tippy and prone to

fall towards the teens

that unsettling group of know it alls

who don’t accept you but you don’t fit into

the 1-10 crowd either

(you don’t even fit into 9-5 very well)

So I will make myself a slide and shoot away

into space

or a tower of shining beech trees that reach to heaven with me inside

or perhaps two needles to mend and create

a book cover

or even two praying hands

I will be today

innumerable

booklist

I just read The Shack. It was one of those books. Past the head and straight to the heart. Very truthful that way. Much recommended. Just have Kleenex.

Other books that have really been important to me . . . no particular order and I'm forgetting a lot:

George MacDonald's "Princess" books

C.S. Lewis - anything at all, but I've read the Narnia series at least 50 times

Tolkien (of course)

Lullabies for Little Criminals

One Child

Jane Eyre

Schuyler's Monster

This Present Darkness

some book in my elementary school that was about a child who lived with badgers for a year (I think now he must have been autistic, but I don't think that was mentioned)

A Wrinkle in Time (the whole series)

Magic by the Lake

Exodus (by Leon Uris)

Calvin and Hobbes

L'Abri

God's Smuggler

Something More

The Hiding Place

The "Jungle Doctor" series

Star of Light

John Lyons on Horses

To Kill a Mockingbird

The Little Drummer Girl

I'll probably add to this list as I think of other books. These aren't my "favourite" books. That's another list. These are the ones that have clicked pieces in me that helped make me who I am. Just a little idealistic but I hope that never changes.

Ode to Labour Day camping.

My kids are hilarious. Hilarious. I don't know whether to laugh or beat my head against the nearest picnic table but there you go. They do lighten up the soundtrack quite a bit. This weekend we took them camping to Waskesiu for a couple of nights. It was hot all last week - really hot - and it was supposed to be hot on the weekend but it wasn't. Now we're back to school/work and it's hot again. Go figure. Anyway, we took them camping in our minimalist style, all 5 of us crammed into the Camry that was much bigger a few years ago when Seth wasn't taller than me. They sat on blankets and pillows and we all carried stuff in our laps and we brought exactly enough food to last for most of the w/e and no more. Certainly no camping chairs. We had a great time. Levi could not keep away from the fire and explored all its properties despite frequent reminders to not walk around the forest with a burning torch. He honestly had a hard time remembering that one. Heidi had some true Heidi moments. She tends to be at least a beat and a half behind the conversation and says "What?" a lot even though her hearing is fine. At one point she tuned in while we were alternately talking about stopping to look at some tamaracks and stopping to get some Kleenex from the trunk for Seth who was quite runny-nosed. She panicked and yelled out "What?! We have to blow our noses on TAMARACKS?!!"

We had to give Levi a serious spitting lesson too. Because of the bears of course you can't go around spitting toothpaste into the forest. So we instructed the kids to spit in the fire. Levi did so enthusiastically that he sprayed toothpaste all over the bannock baking in plain sight on the grate of the fire. We didn't really enjoy the clean minty bannock taste.

Seth spent as much time as possible splitting wood with our extremely heavy duty welded metal splitting axe that probably weighs 25 lbs. He felt terribly sorry for the site next to us full of college age "men" who had only a pitiful little hatchet, and at one point went over and offered the use of our real axe. They declined. Probably couldn't have lifted it as it was heavier than a beer bottle. Just kidding. Anyway, Seth has grown up a lot in the last year and this summer has started to feel compassion for us as we parent. It's very sweet but disconcerting when he tries to lighten the load for us by whispering suggestions or restraining comments to the other two who have definitely not yet discovered that corner of empathy. At one point we were eating lunch together and I had this flash of realization that all too soon Seth will be gone. Working or with his own friends or worse yet with a girlfriend, but not part of our tight little circle forever and ever.

All the kids really enjoyed themselves even though it was cloudy and rainy the whole time. We did two hikes. The second one was my idea and against a chorus of protests. See, last year we had a great beach day once. Towards the end of the day, as the wind was picking up I told everyone of my good memories of swimming in Kingsmere Lake on a little deserted beach a short way up the hike to Grey Owl's Cabin. I thought the hike was a few minutes so they trustingly started out after me, all in swimsuits, carrying our towels, wearing sandals and most ominously with absolutely no bug spray on or along. Half an hour later after I had twenty times reassured everyone that it had to be around the next bend, we arrived. We were incredibly hot, sweaty, scratched from the brambles and completely covered in mosquito bites. When we got there the water was lovely (it's a very very shallow part of the lake with great waves to play in) but the horseflies were even more vicious than the mosquitos, if that were possible. Poor Heidi had to use the bathroom (no. 2 of course) and there are absolutely no facilities there as it is basically just a part of a trail. So then we swam, very quickly and mostly to get away from the horseflies. On the way back we were wet and that much more appetizing to the only wildlife that counted. Poor Dan who tastes good to all things insect was just blanketed. We ran the half hour hike back with Dan carrying Heidi most of the way so she wouldn't get left behind for the bears. It was nothing but memorable.

So this time, we were prepared. We wore full apparel over our swimsuits and carried our undies along to change into. We went to the bathroom before. We sprayed ourselves liberally with bugspray, and we wore good shoes. Most importantly, we expected a half hour hike and were not therefore disappointed. When we got to the lake it was great although disappointingly cold and even more rainy than when we left but still great fun. By the time we got back we were tired but nicely hungry for the aforementioned bannock (and stew) supper around a fire. Levi started out saying he had a "really, really bad feeling about this, Mom", but after about 15 minutes said, "I have a really bad feeling about this. So that's better than a really really bad feeling . . ." Thanks, son.

Okay, I have to go back to parenting. My middle child is chattering at me with a tinfoil helmet on and I suppose at some point I should really pay attention. You never know with him.

Happy September!

asthma

It is quite ironic that this spring and summer have been the worst ever for our children and ourselves in terms of upper respiratory function. Our counter is a complete pharmacy sporting multiple puffers, nasal mists, antibiotics all with completely different regimes (it is so clear which doctors have kids and which do not, yet) as well as antihistamines and decongestants and of course hundreds and hundreds of used Kleenex that bloom like perennials no matter how ruthlessly they are harvested.

One of the major reasons we pushed through last summer and moving into a brand new trailer of terrible workmanship albeit much more counter space, was Levi's asthma and our fear that our old trailer which was truly very very old and decrepit and starting to take on lives of its own . . . was contributing to his difficulties with frequent and prolonged chest infections. Well, this summer on July 23 we all celebrated as the old trailer was moved away, rumbling up the driveway whence it had come rumbling down only 14 years ago. At about this time all the kids became sick and just continued to get sicker.

Granted, it has been a very wonky summer weather-wise and the docs all agree that there is more asthma around because it's so wet and hot and cold and dry and humid. However, all three kids suddenly flaring up and not being able to run for a month or more and having constantly runny noses seems like major allergies to me and that leaves living in the country with trees and horses and flowers and bugs - none of which seems reasonable to give up. Anyway, now after the whole summer of being the sole healthy survivor I am feeling the dreaded furry sore throat and my voice is just about totally gone. Great. I am so sick of sickness I could scream. Except of course I can only kind of croak.

Anyway, that is the major reason for the scarcity of posts this summer. It hasn't been as cheery as I would have liked. Not to say it's been bad. Kids are incredibly resilient and for the most part have been very unaware of exactly how sick they are, only melting down occasionally at bedtime and reading a bit more than I would expect for a typical summer. I have been doggedly working through my various responsibilities and gardening when I can and playing with the horses when I can as well. Seth is now able to take Chess and just go explore the forest. That's great. Bluejay continues to be sadly neglected and I have done very little with Jetta except lots of groundwork to drive home the speed control issues she was having - as in, I control the speed. They are mostly employed cutting the grass which they do exceptionally well.

So, now that I've caught you up on our exciting lives, I will go and attempt to harvest Swiss Chard whilst looking after six kids as our neighbours are dropping theirs off for the afternoon. On a rainy afternoon. I'm thinking the kids' rooms will need the services of Dan's Bobcat by this evening!

What a month

Just had the most fantastic time(s) with my side of the family - all my three brothers and their entire families as well as my parents. I am so blessed with my family, and I feel more than ever how much thought and care and prayer and love my parents put into our lives and how it is paying back now. As an aside, nothing says summer at our place like a good mud fight. However, there wasn't exactly informed consent in this case. Our boys asked if they could roll in the mud and we said yes. What they did not realize was that they were not under any circumstances going to make it into the nice hot showers like that. Nope, it was the ice cold hose for them. Poor little guys. Connor was the bravest. I think that Levi was close to tears but he manfully resisted. It had shades of Guantanamo Bay as it was not one of the few truly hot days we have experienced . . . anyway, it was fun when the picture was taken!

All this was tempered by the sudden and unexpected "stumbling into heaven" of my brother Dave's father in law - Art Budd. He fell 20 feet from a ladder and just like that, an incredible person went to be with God. My first impression when I got the call was wow, I forgot that people die. It shouldn't be allowed. You're going along trying to keep up with the laundry and the toilet paper and planning for a camping trip and irritated at gas prices and your spouse for forgetting to get toilet paper, and then all of a sudden, you remember that we are mortal - so dangerously so. It was a shock that is going to reverberate for a long time as Art was intricately bound up in many projects, not the least being Dave and Deb's log house that needs to be weatherproofed at least by this fall. Of course the projects did not define Art - but his incredible presence was most felt in hard work for his family - at least that was my impression looking in. Dan was more in tune with Art and his Budd work ethic as it is remarkably similar to the Lundell work ethic and expectations for a reasonable day's achievements. Very practical in their expressions of love and so every practical job will cause his family to miss him in a painfully tactile way for a very long time.

This tragedy happened just before our semi-annual Waskesiu Block (and Lundell) gathering and so we were able to all be with Dave and Deb and their kids first for the Memorial Service in Saskatoon, and then for a day later on at the lake. Lots of emotions.

Meanwhile, when we got the news we were waiting for Tim and Cheryl and their four kids, the youngest whom we had never met! to arrive at our place for a few precious days after two years of being 2 provinces away. So that was a wonderful time up to and including the service and going to meet everyone at Beaver Glen in Waskesiu. I can't really describe my feelings about all my brothers and their wives and kids - there is so much big sister in me still that I get choked up every time I see them which is so seldom as we are all so far apart and truly in the busiest seasons of our lives. I am proud and protective and bossy and mother-hennish and also just drinking in all the wonder of the little lives growing up around our knees and waists and shoulders and now head heights! So marvelous! I am so lucky in the sisters in law that my brothers chose and have committed to. They are all such incredible women and I admire, like, enjoy and also can just relax around them. Sisters that I never had to share my room with. :) They are all also doing really hard things and taking on challenges of spirit and muscle in ways that inspire me and encourage me to keep going in my own life, feeling a lot less isolated. Again, so much of what we are enjoying now comes back to the parenting we and the in laws received a generation ago. It is encouraging to stay the course so as to do this all again with our kids as grown-ups.

Now we as a small little family are slowly getting back to normal. We went to a second sort of gathering comprised of house churches - our own, Tim and Cheryl and their kids, and my parents with a few other families from Saskatoon at Smoothstone Lake Lodge. This was a little less like camping as the meals were provided and we slept under roofs but we spent the days outside on the beach with excellent weather. Apparently just south (at least in Saskatoon) it rained all weekend but we had almost hot weather. The point of this weekend was mutual encouragement I think but I must admit I was just selfishly trying to get as much time in with Tim and Cheryl and co. before the inevitable parting for who knows how long.

So, now that the laundry is caught up and the kids have baked another batch of cookies I will have to get back into gear for the rest of the summer where I will be working probably quite a bit. I haven't done anything with the horses for at least 3 weeks and the garden will start to need some attention (especially with the buckets and torrents of rain we got in the last 24 hours). I need to start up an exercise regime again - I never seem to stay in routine for longer than a month if that. Tomorrow is my last day of designated "holidays" and I will have to probably expect to not sleep til 9 every morning. Sigh. It's been a wonderful interval of outdoorsy socializing with great people, and now I need to use the encouragement to get back to work - good work with more great people, but definitely starting earlier than 10 am. Keeping in mind our mortality - amazing our capacity for denial of that. Life is thick like an Oh Henry chocolate bar. Parts of it keep getting stuck in our teeth and we forget what we're doing . . .

Just a touch whiny today

Okay, I think my kids are almost all better.  They are all in school today which is a huge change.  Course there's only 5 days left.  I made porridge as usual for them this morning.  Levi complained also as usual and I told him I did it out of love :).  For which he had no reply except his trademarked disgusted rolling of the eyes.  I also hate porridge as my mother also loved me enough to get up and dazily (she is also not a morning person) do the 5 minutes work to get it together every school day.  However, it is incredibly cheap.  And breakfast cereal is incredibly not.  And our kids are beginning to eat so much that calories per penny matters.  So there you go.  However they and I both know that I am not going to be making porridge in the summer holidays so I will have to either put together some granola on a regular basis (not cheap but a bit more filling) or we need to get chickens and have eggs every am.  I love my cold cereal - it's my ultimate comfort food but with the milk and with how much they can pack in their bowls its ridiculous. 

I always come back to how we should be growing our own food.  Dan and I are stuck in entirely the wrong century.  I would LOVE to have goats and thus have our own milk and lean meat supply to supplement the chickens and the theoretical garden (this is the wrong part of the world to garden let me tell you) and that would save so much money.  Ha.  Of course it wouldn't because the fencing alone is a 6 months supply of Superstore ground beef.  Also, I am getting tireder or maybe just lazier and I don't know if I really am up to the daily chores thing.  I can't offload another entire set of duties on Dan who works way too hard all the time.  And the kids could do it on days they don't go to school but that's it.  Otherwise they get overtired and sick and our whole month is off!   Such as this May and June.   Maybe we should homeschool and then we could at least not have to start the whole day at 6 am which is also something I dislike intensely.  Except we would fill our day up with so many mandatory chores that we would actually have to get up at 5 so that wouldn't work.  

It's pretty hard to live in this century and pay for cell phones and high speed and soccer every day of the week as well as two vehicles and a mortgage . . . and also dream about self-sufficiency and solar power and labour intensive food raising.  "I want it all!" Silly.  Which reminds me that I should do some work - paid money sort of work as well as cleaning up some aspect of this house which is smothering under 3-5 people's used Kleenex.  I hate being practical.  Romantic and idealistic is more me.  Too bad the real world won't cooperate!

Sensory processing and me

Well this is more like it.  It is hot hot hot.  Thunderstorms in the evening and not even windy.  My garden is finally coming up.  The grass is going to seed but at least it isn't brown - just enough rain to keep it alive.  One more full week of school and the last week of soccer, although again Heidi is missing tonight.  She missed going to the Melfort Wave Pool today and yesterday a really fun birthday party as she is struggling with a really bad virus.  She's been sleeping a lot.  This is the third one in a row and it is getting really tiring.  I think there have maybe been two or three days in the last month and a half where all our kids have been in school.  I have been a Mom on duty pretty much full time for a very long time.  Just in time for summer.  At least then I won't have to get up quite as early to get the healthy ones to the bus.  Levi did get antibiotics but no dice for Heidi.  I understand that they're overprescribed but after 6 weeks of being sick . . . come on.  How much school should kids miss?  The fact that Levi was amazingly better within 24 hours of starting his pretty much convinced me that they were the answer.  Course now he is back to his incredibly energetic self and seems even that much more larger than life after being sick and calm for so long.

Dan and I were working together with a child with Attic Therapy and afterwards he questioned why I had paused for such a long time at a certain point, when the child was obviously "frozen".  He felt that at that point it would have been more helpful to give clear directions, but I was waiting for the child to unfreeze and start processing again.  We had a long discussion afterwards which was interesting because it made me realize how "sensory" I am and how not everyone is (including him).  Sensory in that I am very very affected by my environment and often feel that it is "too much" or alternatively that I need more input to stay awake or to deal with information at all coherently.  I can be very controlling of certain parts of my environment and I guess I assumed most people are or would like to be, although I know that he isn't.  He is controlling in other areas of course but things like temperature, lighting, background music or lack thereof, and general "busy-ness" don't really register with him.  For me they are absolutely crucial to how I am able to function.  It often happens (probably once or twice a week) that I begin to shut down just because my brain is too tired to handle all the incoming sensory data and so one by one my sensory systems go "off-line".  It's almost like blacking out in stages. At that point I have to get away (usually just by curling up on the couch and reading or something very calm like that), and I certainly can't be driving!   Anyway, this is such a common occurrence for me that when it happened with that child I knew that the best thing would be to give him time without a lot of information until he came back "to his senses".  Which he did, and you could see him slowly start to register sight, then hearing, then position, then movement, then touch.  Pretty neat.

Most of what I do with kids I do because occupational therapy has an entire language and knowledge base that gives a framework to understand this kind of process.  I learnt the language but the therapy part is extremely intuitive.  OT just taught me why certain things work with me and why I feel pretty certain that a certain thing will work with a kid.  I know because I can look at them and at their eyes and just try to figure out "if I was in that space, what would I do to get myself organized?"  And because I have been in an awful lot of those spaces (disorganized, overwhelmed, underwhelmed, needing to crash into things, needing not to be touched, needing to move, needing not to move and so on) it's usually pretty easy to give them what they need and then get on with the fun stuff. 

My point is that I have been wondering how many other people function like this - constantly fine-tuning the environment around themselves and the people they love to keep it at exactly the right "temperature" for whatever needs to get done.  I find this process very tiring when there are 3 kids and myself and a husband (who isn't picky but sometimes gets his back up about the oddest things - for some reason I can't get into his head at all) to keep track of.  Makes me shut down quite early in the evening even though I am naturally an evening person.  I'd like to know what it would be like to parent without worrying about that stuff all the time.  Is it a lot easier?  Or do you just worry about different things that never occur to me?  Dan would say yes, like all the practical details of life such as closing the door, turning off lights when you leave a room, and remembering your grocery list.  I can never remember that stuff.  

Ah well, now I have to remember to make supper.  Getting fed is a pretty important part of my kids daily sensory routine.

Things I like

(This picture is "Hidden Lake" where all our kids really learned to swim - it used to be deeper).

I like the claw foot tub on our deck full of flowers.  I like John Lyon's training methods for horses.  They are so not stressful.  I like Friday afternoon when the kids come home all tired and I realize I don't have to get up the next morning and make porridge and sign agendas.  I like the colour of leaves against the sky in the morning and I love the look of swallows swooping around our yard in the evening when their tummies light up because the sun is low and syrupy.  I like writing without thinking such as this kind of writing instead of developmental reports describing the results of standardized testing!  I like really good piano playing.  Speaking of which, I really like Keith Green.  I like running when my knees don't hurt.  I like watching water run.  I like getting really dirty and then getting really clean.  I like the smell of horse sweat.  I like it when my house is sort of clean although the process I don't like so much.  I like going on a tear.  I like Nickelback really really loud although that cannot happen around our kids.  I like good boots and old jeans (as anyone who knows me will find obvious).  I like wool socks.  I love ice cream, especially with chocolate and nuts.  I like really well done movies that aren't really about serious topics - like Spiderman (although not the third one, that was awful) and Pirates of the Caribbean (although not the second or third ones - too wierd and dark).  I like talking for hours about feelings and dreams and ideals (except now that I go to bed around 9 that doesn't happen often).  I love sleeping.  I like riding really fast so you feel like you're flying.  I like it when everyone around me is having a really good time and no one is upset about anything.  I like being outside as much as possible and if you're inside having all the windows open.  Even in winter although that's not practical.  I like wood heat.  I like rototilling a lot.  I often rototill too much.  It's probably not even good for the garden but our quackgrass justifies it.  I like it when people are really honest.  I like black humour.  I like it when kids "get" something for the very first time.

I am feeling a lot better now!

Summer is here!!

It is so ridiculous to try to garden in this climate.  I have finished planting a huge beautiful piece of ground and so far in one week it has been dried, blown away, frozen and baked to a crisp.  It has NOT been rained on to any great degree and our water pressure is such that with a soaker hose (really the only option when it is 30 above and windy) it would take approximately 3 days to cover the entire garden changing the location each hour or so during the day.  And I had better not slack off either because by three days the first rows are bone dry again.  I tried mulching with straw around the peppers and tomatoes and now straw is flying everywhere. 

Furthermore we have a nice new inflatable pool that we have been waiting and waiting to set up until the little sticky poplar buds have all been dropped.  Today I looked up and saw waving green leaves and thought "great! I could set this up today since it is brutally hot and have it ready to go by the time the kids get home from school."  And since then the entire deck has been coated with sticky little pieces of tree gum including my carefully placed and rolled out pool. 

However, on the upside, I have been going at a moderate pace all day and it's almost 2 and I don't feel like keeling over, so I might be getting better.  It's hard to judge sometimes between normal morning tired (I am NOT a morning person) and stay horizontal as much as possible or you will pay tired.

The horses are really getting annoyed with me as not only are they bored stiff - I haven't done a thing with them for a week and a half - but I am not letting them out on the grass.  That is because the grass is not really growing.  I let them out for a total of 6 hours on our one acre pasture over two days widely spaced and the grass is probably shot.  There's no moisture.  We are back to a drought with a vengeance unless something changes.  I am just worried about the forest.  The Canwood fire is apparently still burning although under control.  That was bad and could have been worse.  I think there will be a lot more fires this summer at this rate.

Anyway, I am considering my energy and whether to try to work with Jetta this afternoon.  It is very hot but she really really needs it.  If I can I probably should.  On the other hand, if I do too much today I will not really lick this virus and working with horses means I completely forget about time passing.   Hmmm.  Oh!  Time to go move that soaker hose!

Smoke etc.

Well, another weekend, and another forest fire on the horizon.  This one was about 40 kms away but still in the same forest surrounding us and for a while the smoke was billowing quite spectacularly over the trees.  It's becoming a regular Sunday afternoon thing.  It is out today for which I am very grateful.  I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I am just draining from a terrific head cold that seemed to completely plug up my neural synapses as well as take away any vestiges of energy I had for the last week.  On Dan's birthday last Friday I temporarily felt better and made the big mistake of doing a full day's work including cleaning my fridge, baking an angel food cake from scratch, and vacuuming the whole house as well as laundry and dishes.  Plus I made a picnic supper which we had at "Hidden Lake" with the kids getting turns on the dirt bike and Dan taking a few adult style spins.  That was apparently a bit too much excitement and so the next two days I could not really function at all.  I finally went to the Dr. and thanks to Nasonex am enjoying a constant slimy feeling in the back of my throat which convulsive swallowing does not help at all.  However, occasionally I can feel my ears crackling again.  I guess they were completely blocked.  Heidi has been enjoying this same journey with me with the addition of wheezing in her chest that had the Dr. mention the asthma word.  Oh great.  I thought that was something the new house was supposed to keep at bay.  However, weekly forest fires probably don't help either.

Our internet cable is buried and the land smoothed up to the house (from the barn) and none too soon as Seth has been going crazy on the dirt bike and it was a near thing several times as he tended to forget about the existence of the overground cable.  That could have been bad.  We also now have a nice smooth "front lawn" thanks to Dan's Bobcat finesse and I have all sorts of energy rich ideas for landscaping.  That is the problem as usual - where to start? 

Now that a website is a real possibility I would love to practice with a personal one before attempting a professional one.  Both are big projects at least the way that I do things.  When it is raining like today I could go nuts but I hate to start something that I will not get back to for several months if ever.  Especially if I forget to do more important things as a result.  So I'll let it simmer and see how the day goes.  The rest of the week is very busy with both my jobs and that is likely to continue for the month.  The Waskesiu weekend with my whole family is coming up very quickly and I have no idea if we even own a tent.  Not to mention that most of our camping stuff spent the winter in the barn and the cats seem to have peed on everything of value in that structure.  They are really the most unhygienic, disgustingly dirty animals I have ever encountered.  But they kill mice.  And birds, and squirrels and the occasional rabbit.  Again, evidence in the barn.  There's a really pressing project, to completely clean that out and put absolutely everything in it on the wall somehow.

I wrote a poem last week for the first time in a very long time!  For Dan's birthday.  I wasn't sure if that part of my brain had completely atrophied but it's still there in the background.  Waiting for retirement, most likely.  

Well, anyway, it's been lovely blogging but I do need to get on with my day.  In some direction or other.

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.

dreaming

February is always the month where I want more animals.  This year it's goats.  We've had goats before, but they were older and the one we bred to milk had this terribly hard udder after kidding.  The vet said it was a caprine arthritis and incurable.  On Valentine's Day when I bought that goat book I found the exact kind of arthritis and turns out he was right.  Although he said it may have something to do with our soil and this book said it was genetic and so any offspring would likely also get it.  So we gave up on goats as we couldn't very well change our soil but now I'm thinking if we get young new stock from a breeder who can be trusted we will likely be okay. Anyway, I think that goats would be great on our land which is 70% bush and scrubby bush at that now that it's been burnt and flooded and tornadoed (those are other stories).  Of course, like any idea I have this one would just spiral out of control.  To take advantage of our land we need to fence it and of course fencing goats in is a pretty serious undertaking.  And it's not like I have any illusions about making money on anything like that anymore.  It would just be a great source of meat and milk and entertainment.  A few chickens which will happen this spring and we will have a lot less to spend at Superstore, which I detest.

I'm also eagerly awaiting spring and riding season this year.  Last year I did the bare minimum of riding as moving ended up being so all-consuming.  This year I can't wait to take Jetta out.  She's turning 4 and is a Thoroughbred/Percheron and now I believe some Morgan.  Very social and feisty but visibly growing up.  I think that she will be okay on the trails if Dan goes along with good old Chess who I believe will be turning 20 or 21.  I can never exactly remember her age and always have to work it out by when I graduated from high school and where I was when she was given to me.  Also another story.  However she's a great horse that has done a bit of everything and is starting to get stiff but still loves a good trail ride.  I am really hoping not to be so busy with whatever combination of work I am doing by spring that I can't enjoy the Attic because the last 11 years have been very consumed with all-out parenting.  Now that our kids have entered that glorious mid-childhood phase I want to enjoy all the stuff I have been putting off for so long, as well as doing things with them too of course.  So I'm going to garden, write, design a website, continue to develop Attic Therapy in new and interesting directions, ride horses, train horses, and also be the perfect attentive mom and home maker.  Ha ha.

Good morning

It is slowly getting light outside and I can see the horses dimly through a lot of ice fog.  It's minus 25 but nice inside here as the wood stove has been going cheerfully for a couple of hours.  I'm off to work soon and feeling more settled than I have in a while, probably just because I've had a nice long quiet morning.  Heidi is still asleep and my two sons are at sleepovers this February break. Dan is off getting the car fixed.

I love reading my Bible in front of the fire in the morning.  The first cup of coffee (first of two that I allow myself most days) is so good and I need that infusion of quietness before the day crowds in on me like a sensory avalanche.

Here comes Dan and so here we go.

Right and left

May 23, 1998

Chances

branch

skeletal against the light

Choices 

brush

fingerlike but out of sight

Days and nights

and a waning moon

a tilting planet

a rent cocoon

Caught or falling

awake I dream

Madness in the pattern round me

Serenity in an upper stream

Lightning quivers, winks and dies

Gravity has pulled me down here

roots my muscles

Time flies.

This poem keeps running through my head these days.  I wrote it back when Seth was one and I was agonizing over work and home and all those balance of life things that I'm still agonizing about.  I know it makes very little sense but it is exactly how the inside of my head looks right now.  Somehow writing down the chaotic mess inside me has always made the chaos easier to bear.

Anyway, part of the problem is the switching back and forth from the right side of my brain which is all images and intuition and feelings and colours, and the left side of the brain which is science and rational thinking and evidence-based and problem-solving in the conventional manner and scoring all the standardized tests I administer.  I like both parts of me but they get in awful arguments sometimes.  And then I really need a vacation from my head.  The thing I like so much about Attic Therapy is the chance to use both sides of me cooperatively.  Working with kids who don't express themselves verbally (at least not well) means that I need that intuition and nonverbal perception.  But dealing with parents and other stakeholders - the health care system, the education system, and funding agencies, means using logic and verbal reasoning quite a bit to explain the other stuff.  So it's all good but somewhat confusing.

Writing a blog - well, I feel like I need to pick a side.  And either one won't be honest.  So I have been mulling over all weekend whether I can be honest enough to use both voices.  I don't know yet.  But as I haven't come down on one side or the other at the moment that's what I guess I'm going to do.  Share the chaos!

Here I go

The question is, can who I am be separated from what I do?

The Attic is a mix of what I do and who I think I am.  It is the 70 acres our family lives on, smack in the middle of Saskatchewan, near Crutwell which still exists on most maps even though the hamlet is a slight interruption in the miles of mostly burnt forest around us.  It is the atmosphere of the place - dusty, old with the signs of many previous occupants tucked in unexpected corners, queerly shaped and poorly housekept, but with its own untidy beauty.  It is the concept of a spare space, outside of daily life but still joined to it in a treasure-hunting, archive-storing, secret-keeping sort of way as well as the idea that guests may find a place here unlike a typical guest room on the main floor.  Elijah was hosted on the roof which could be a kind of attic.  The Attic suggests old-fashioned, forgotten but valuable, sunlight slanting in separating dust particles, and time standing still.  These are all some of the essence of where we are and what we like to do and who we hope to be.

Attic Therapy, on the other hand, is an attempt to bring the exciting research, theories of the mind, theories of motor learning, theories of sensory processing, and theories of human development and human occupation and apply them solidly in the real world.  The world of cats and horses and gravel hills and sloughs with leeches and willows and sky and clouds and weather and trees and sand and growing things.  My husband, who is a physiotherapist as well as a father of three, and myself, an occupational therapist and mother of the same three, started this business two years ago in an attempt to fill a need for kids with complex disabilities to find a way to experience life with more depth and meaning and fun and interaction with people who loved them.  This blog is about me trying to put all these ideas together - figuring out constantly the boundaries between myself and others, between what can and can't be done, and what is and isn't work.

I am generally overthinking and often overtalking.  I am hoping this blog might start a conversation that will continue to sweep out the dust and create more usable space in the funny contours of my life and profession.    At the bottom, my philosophy is that what we do can create the treasures we are looking for - a very occupational therapist idea, but definitely challenging for someone juggling as many roles as most women do.  I think that doing with our children molds them, shapes their brains, and shapes ours.  But doing what, exactly?  And what is the balance between sacrifice and sanctuary?