All posts by Be Enough

blogger, friendship, teaching, Wordsmith

Be Talking TO or ABOUT People

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I was a “full-on”, “on purpose” teenager.  I played volleyball, basketball and ringette.  I travelled all over western Canada for my sports. I played flute in the band as an out-of-the timetable course. I had a boyfriend in grades 10 through 12 and a large circle of friends in my neighbourhood and around the city. I enjoyed Wing Wednesday at Earls on the bypass and even went to park my car at McDonald’s to see what everyone was doing on weekend nights that I was in town.  I am not sure if I was oblivious to gossip, but I definitely lived on the outside of it as I was having too much fun living life. 

Lately, as I contemplate my last few years, I realize that there are two kinds of people in life: Those that talk TO you and those that talk ABOUT you. (I am not sure how I skipped learning this in high school, but perhaps I got lucky learning this now!) 

If you are saying my name and I am not physically within ear shot, yup that’s talking ABOUT me.  If you have an encouragement or thought about something I did and you tell me directly, with no third party involved, that’s talking TO me.  For me, there is not a grey area for talking about and to someone, even if you are praying for them.  One can build someone up and the other rips them apart, step-by-step.  

Why did I decide to write this today. Well folks, I am hoping that as you walk through life that you will have people around you that always talk TO you. I would rather be around people that are busy bodies than spend five seconds with a busybody.  

I hope this encourages you on your walk through life today. Have a terrific Tuesday and love what you do. 

Xoxo Joanna 

Education, Flexibility, radical sabbatical, teaching, Wordsmith

Be Talking about “Herbstferien”

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I received a text from a teaching friend in Germany who is on Herbstferien (Autumn break) for the next two weeks. She had been spending time walking in the woods, at a day retreat and then had plans to be with her family after a busy start-up to the new school year.

This one text made me long for the year round schooling schedule for my colleagues working in the campus school system in British Columbia.

Did you know that in most countries in Europe, they have year round schooling, where they shorten the summer to 4-6 weeks and then take more holidays throughout the year?

Autumn break – 2 weeks in October

Ski weeks – 2 weeks in February

Easter holiday – 2 weeks around Easter in late March or April

And oh yes, the usual 2 weeks off for Christmas.

When I taught in Germany and Switzerland, we never went longer than 6-7 weeks of teaching in a row throughout the ENTIRE year.

Did you also know that there were no substitute teachers to phone in to work in your class when you were sick or away? If you “had to” be away, the teacher next door would not only continue to teach their class, but also would cover for you and teacher your class. One thing to note in this scenario is that our “Director” was a businessman, not an educator, so you couldn’t expect them to come and help out in your classroom. This perspective definitely made you aware that you needed to come back from your holidays rested for the next 6-7 weeks of teaching.

The most beautiful thing with this school schedule and the lack of a substitute teacher pool is that overall the teachers, and children, were healthier. These chunks of learning also made for a well-defined learning schedule that helped with planning units.

A season of hard work and then a few weeks of rest. A season for all things!

Have a wonderful Sunday rest day folks and love what you do!

xoxo Joanna

blogger, Flexibility, Wordsmith, writing

Be Wondering about the “To Me”

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I have always loved the perspective of things happening “for us” rather than “to us”.  Lately, I have been wondering about the mental benefit of making this division in my mind between the words “for me” and “to me”. (You know how much I love words and my mind often does play mental gymnastics with words.)

In the last four months, I have had three things happen in my professional and personal life that I feel were definitely done “to me”.  Things that affected my life, without any type of discussion or collaboration beforehand. In one single moment, my life shifted. 

Fundamental.

Unprovoked.

Future shifting.

Life altering changes.

They have all ended up progressing me towards a positive, as I know when unforeseen things happen we can either become wounded or wise. I always choose wise.  But it still feels like these three things were foisted on me.

The latest example was my childhood kitchen table. The wooden, handcrafted fifty year old table that we ate every dinner at together as a family, celebrated birthdays and Christmases at, where my mom did her marking and my dad did his bookkeeping for his business. The hub of my family home growing up in Northern British Columbia where many memories were made. One night, a few weeks ago, I received a text from my dad with a picture of a new dining room set. Where had the kitchen table gone you ask? My father had suddenly decided to gift it to his girlfriend’s son. This one moment with the loss of my childhood table, which symbolized so many things about my sweet mom, brought me to my knees and made me reflect on all these moments in the last four months where things were simply done.

Gone.

Without thought of me.

Without any conversation beforehand.

Nothing I can say to change things “back”.

Done.

Unrecoverable.

Unchangeable.

Simply done and done.

As I sit in the sun today, I am not reframing these three events so that they sit better in my soul, I am simply sitting with this feeling and becoming wiser in who I allow into my life, what I hold tightly to and how I am spending my time.  Time is our greatest commodity friends.

Who? 

What? 

When? 

These are all up to me and allow me to live with JOY even when things happen “for” and “to” me.  

I am enough. 

You are enough. 

Keep being conscious of your who, what and when. 

Happy wonderful Wednesday folks and love what you do.

Xoxo Joanna 

Boys, Family, Parenting, Wordsmith

Be Living with Teenage Boys 

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Three weeks ago our youngest turned thirteen. The boys are now thirteen, fifteen and seventeen. Three teenagers in the house! I am not sure if what I am going to say next would be true for a family with mixed genders, but as we add a third teenage boy to the fold, I am noticing some patterns:

1️⃣3️⃣ – He wants to be more independent, but this independence often leads to boredom and then whining. He is embarrassed now when I drop him off to activities and doesn’t want me to stay.  Big feelings exist on the daily and we create space and honour those knowing this is “normal”. Bedtime tuck-ins are still mandatory and asked for every night.

1️⃣5️⃣ – We have solidly moved out of the early teenage stage and our 15 year old is now wanting his “mommy” again.  He is asking me to attend and actively watch every activity and loves one-on-one time.   He is making efforts to connect with others again, but still has big emotions, especially related to his siblings. Bedtime check-ins are a must and every night he asks, “Are you going to tuck me in?”.

1️⃣7️⃣ – This young man is almost an adult. He independently does most things and no longer wants any help with editing his writing from his wordsmith mom. The first few times that I did offer to help this year, he became minimally annoyed. (He is not one to move quickly to anger or sadness.). Our oldest now goes to bed later than us and is often the one saying goodnight to us, if we are still awake.

As we welcomed our third teenager into the fold, I now can internally say, “Oh, I have seen this before!” while I share a big mama hug and then gently correct a rude word or inconsiderate behaviour with a smile in my heart at these beautiful, incredible, growing boys.  We have always said that we don’t want to raise “robots” or “sheep”. I think we have done that!

I wonder what you remember about being a teen or what your journey with your own teens is like?  I am enjoying every second of this house of teenagers as I love change, evolution and watching people become their best selves.

Happy Friday amazing friends. Love what you do.

🤩 Joanna

Boys, Teaching, Wordsmith

Be Driving a Jeep for a Week

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Growing up, did you have a dream car? Please let me know because I am genuinely curious about you.

My dream car: I have always wanted a Jeep, until last week. At my high school, there was young man a few years older than me who had a Jeep YJ. I can still imagine it ripping into the parking lot with music blaring every morning as I walked up the path to D.P. Todd Secondary. 

Ever since, I always thought that Jeeps were a “really cool car”. I wanted to own one until my car got rear-ended a few weeks ago and the rental company gave me a Jeep.

Yes, it looks like a “really cool car”, but it was a rough ride and remarkably uncomfortable. It’s amazing how you can take something for a drive and suddenly your whole life perspective can shift. I will never be able to look at a Jeep in the same light again.

Sidenote: Anyone guess the topic that I am using my Jeep metaphor to now talk to my boys about? Don’t judge things from an external vantage point, especially when choosing a partner for life.

Happy Thursday amazing friends. Love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

Aging, blogger, Grief, life, love, positivity, women

Be Having Grandma Hands 

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I was hanging out with twin three years old last week and one of the sweet souls grabbed my hand and exclaimed, “You have grandma hands!” 

I wanted to cry as I looked down at my hands. 

I realized in this moment that I have MY MOM’S HANDS! 

I almost bawled. 

I cannot even put into words the pure JOY that I felt. If I can pour a portion of the love that my mom poured into the world through her life AND her hands, I will be blessed.  

Grandma hands. 

To bless. 

To give. 

To share. 

To love. 

Thank you Jesus for giving me this vision about my hands. 

Thank you for the privilege to live long enough to have Grandma hands.

Happy Saturday lovely folks and love what you do. Xoxo 

Joanna 

blogger, Goals, musings, Wordsmith

Be Adding More Fun F’s to 2024

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In early January, I posted five F’s that were my goals for 2024:

1️⃣ Fitness

2️⃣ Have Fun with Friends

3️⃣ Find Fantastic Fiction

4️⃣ Flourish in the Fine Art of Frosting a Fabulous Cake

5️⃣ Frolic Across Canada

I feel eager to share that that I am rocking and rolling through the top 3 F’s. 6 workouts done, lots of fun with friends and I have been reading some fantastic fiction. WOOP WOOP! We have our first birthday in the house in April, so I have a few months to find someone who will lead me in the art of frosting a cake and our frolicking across Canada dates are booked! Can I get another woop woop?

I had left my goals out on the kitchen counter for a week or so and suddenly I started seeing more F’s for 2024, so I have added to my list.

Here are the latest F’s I am excited about for 2024:

🤩 Faith-filled, festive fun with the boys: I have been trying to play more games, plan more get togethers and surprises for the boys the last few weeks. It’s brought a beautiful lightness and joy to our home.

🤩 Flourishing romance with Sexy Neck: After Steve was able to take a whole two weeks off at Christmas, the first in seven years, I realized how much I really missed spending time with him. We have been enjoying working out together, doing projects together and talking about daily life on a regular basis. What a gift!

🤩 Fun with Finances: As a girl who loves a good spreadsheet budget, this is a really fun activity for Steve and I to do together. We are updating our expenses and especially looking at our grocery bill and “extras” that we spent our money on. I am excited to see what shakes down and how we can save and give away more. Earn more, give more! That’s fun!

And that’s all folks, just a little update on the F’s goals that keep morphing into more in twenty twenty-four.

If you have a word or goals or some F’s to share for 2024, I would love to hear them. Big hugs to you all.

Have Sunday funday and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

author, Boys, God, home learning, musings, Parenting, radical sabbatical, Wordsmith

Be Willing to Talk to Anyone at Anytime

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I am a bit of an enigma in my blue crew. I will honestly talk to anyone at anytime. It has become somewhat embarrassing to my lovely teenage boys. My heart in doing this is to help: Help people feel seen and connected to the community around them.

If I walk by something and I feel God prompting me, I will strike up a conversation by saying hi or sharing something I “notice”: A beautiful scarf, something about the environment around us in the moment or recognizing that we may have crossed paths before. 

The other way I have used this choice to talk to anyone at anytime is that I will reach out to friends or friends of friends to help my boys on their journey to learn and find out what their passions are. I believe my job is to expose the boys to as many different situations and people so that they can make the best choices for themselves. This is a benefit of not having to sit six hours per day in a campus school building and is something I don’t take for granted. 

Sidenote: I believe that when you are looking at a career, you need to actually talk to people doing the work you want to do to learn about what it entails and the friction points. Every job has friction and it’s all about deciding if you can deal with the heat it creates.

In our five year home learning journey, the boys have been fortunate to talk to:

A friend’s son who works for SpaceX.

A cousin who is the CEO for a mutual fund company. (I just learned he was a CEO after talking to a random stranger on a plane that ended up working for my cousin. HAHA)

A friend’s brother who is a Conservation Officer in the Yukon. (We even did a field trip to visit him in person.)

Friends who payed off their mortgage early and manage their money very well. Thanks Bubba and Shane for sharing your wealth of knowledge.

A friend who owns an Engineering firm in San Fransisco and does work for Google, Ebay, Stanford, to name a few well known companies.

A friend of a friend of a friend who works as a Conservation Officer alongside his hounds at the head office in Kamloops.

A friend of the above Conversation Officer who works in B.C. Fisheries.

A husband of a colleague that I worked with in Vernon who is a truck driver.

Two friends who are RCMP officers who we currently message frequently.

A Gymnastic/Strength and Conditioning Coach.

Currently, I am talking to people to find someone that works as a mechanic in F1, F2 or F3. I cannot wait to see how this shakes down.

I love how God wants us to be connected.

It’s fun to see who He brings across our paths, especially when we are open to talk to anyone at anytime. Humans have incredible stories to tell and the connections between us are often very deep and sometimes hilarious.

Happy Sunday (and blessed back to school, for those heading back tomorrow). Love what you do!

xoxo Joanna