Category Archives: author

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

author, blogger, Boys, fun, musings, Wordsmith, writing

Be Sharing Random Shower Thoughts

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Let’s kick off 2024 with some fun!

Our twelve year old, OC, has been sharing “random shower thoughts” from various websites he has found through his searches. (Sidenote: Through writing this blog, he showed me he has a whole files section on his device with these random shower thought jokes.) OC will share these thoughts at meals and on car rides and it’s always fun to see what makes our family howl. Here’s a few that made me chuckle out loud:

😂 “Go to bed, you’ll feel better in the morning” is the human version of “Did you turn it off and turn it back on again?”

🤣 “Beans bags are just boneless sofas.”

😅 “Math is the only place where someone would buy 60 watermelons and 40 cantaloupes and no one asks any questions.”

😉 “If the earth was flat, the edge would be a tourist attraction.”

😝 “I correct autocorrect more than it corrects me.”

🎢 “Theme parks can snap a crystal clear picture of you on a roller coaster going 100 km/h, but a security camera can’t get a clear photo of a robber standing still.”

🍅🤮”If tomatoes are fruit, then ketchup is jam.”

🍎”Why aren’t iPhone chargers called Apple juice?”

💪🏻 “Pregnant women are the only true body builders.”

🤣”Maybe urinals were invented when a tall guy walked by the sinks and asked, ‘Why not?’.”

😂 Watching a graduation ceremony is like sitting through a movie that’s entirely credits.” (Shoutout to all my friends with Grad’s this year – both high school and university. There are quite a few of you!)

🤣 “Remember when teachers use to say, ‘You will never be walking around with a calculator in your pocket!’. Well look at us now.”

🌮 “If you weigh 99 pounds and you eat a pound of nachos, are you now 1% nachos?”.

🧼 “If you drop soap on the floor, is the floor now clean or is the soap dirty?”.

💻 “If Apple made a car, would it still have windows?”

😜 “If you are waiting for the waiter, are you the waiter?”.

🤣 “If you work as security at a Samsung store, does that make you a Guardian of the Galaxy?” (Throwback to our Disneyland trip in 2023.)

😂 “Why is the pizza box a square if the pizza is a circle and the slice is a triangle?”

And that’s all folks, I hope you have a fun start to the year in all ways.

Happy Monday and love what you do.

Xoxo Joanna

author, blogger, writing

Be Multiplying in Multitudes in KCity

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This summer marked our tenth year of living in KCity. We chose a 1960’s fixer upper home in a beautiful older area of town which is 3.5 kilometres from downtown and the beach. In these ten years our property price has doubled, the traffic has become something you need to plan for/think about and the amount of portables at schools are often more than you could imagine that are allowed as they don’t have water or washrooms in them. 

The last five years in KCity has brought a serious housing shortage and an equal inflation of prices for every home and apartment. Our last two mayors and city councils have had a mandate to try and fix this problem. They have allowed secondary suites in most neighbourhoods and now they are choosing to allow homes morphing into grotesque cookie cutter monoliths called six story wooden framed apartments. (Yup, because of construction practices wooden frame apartment buildings can now go higher than four stories!)  

And this is why I chose to write my thoughts down today: Two years ago, City Council almost gave a building permit to a local chiropractor to change 3 homes, down the street from us, into an over fifty suite apartment building. It didn’t pass by one vote. From 3 homes to over 50!

Last week I saw this article: Enroute to our son’s trampoline gym, four homes are becoming 124 units AND there is a similar apartment building being built right across the street. The craziest part, which I have talked to one city councillor about, is that our city building code only requires 1.5 parking spots per apartment building. I am not sure why builders aren’t required to round up or even what 1.5 cars look like, but I do know the aftermath of this. More cars on the streets and less streets to bike on safely. Yes, as you know, we are a biking family. We love to bike as much as possible and this is why we chose where we live.

I am having a hard time with this city development and parking spot math. Properties are not simply doubling by adding a secondary suite, but they are growing more than 30 times the original vision and planning for our city with its roads, schools and parks. 

Things are multiplying by multitudes in our city, but I am not hearing anything about multiplying our current infrastructure that includes roads, parks, water, sewage, schooling or even how this is all going to impact our recycling program and garbage dump. 

I am concerned.

As one of the fastest growing cities in North America, how is this growth going to envelop and change our dry climate and mountain-bound valley?

How much growth would you want to see in your own city? What do my fellow Kelownites feel about this?

Happy third week of Advent my friends. I pray that God is bringing the JOY into your life. Love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

author, Boys, home learning

Be Destroying English for Another Generation

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Anyone that writes a blog, I would think loves to write. I know that I truly love to write! It is the way that I process. I truly having fun playing with words…

But, back in grade 11 English, I stopped writing. I was a flute-playing jock who spent most of their time in the gym, with friends or in the band room. In my free time, I loved writing down quotes I came across and writing in my journal. I wrote every single day as a 15 year old.

But, I had a grade 11 English teacher that shoved, pummelled, and used literature to criticize students at every turn. You were never “good enough” and you were called out when you weren’t. We were made to memorize and perform Macbeth out loud. As students, we had to read and reflect on the haunting and odd book, Lord of the Flies.

Can you imagine my heart as I now watch my grade 11 son, 32 years later, reading and experiencing these same two books? Week by week, I am watching his love of literature being sucked out of him and his love of writing being taken from him. Why must students’ focus on having the correct formatting for quotes? Why must students’ write down quotes verbatim from a book? Why must students’ write an essay with a hideous word count that would be more directed towards a student that wanted to study and deepen their understanding of English literature? Why must we use the same books as 1991?

Love a duck folks!

Love writing.

Love speaking.

Love communicating.

Share your words.

Share your story.

Share who you are.

And Google the rest!

Lord, please break the cycle of the use of literature that doesn’t bring insight or inspiration for this generation of students (nor my generation either).

And that’s all from me folks.

Happy almost December and love what you do.

XOXO Joanna

author, blogger, friendship, health & fitness, Jesus Christ, Wordsmith

Be Writing a Controversial FB Post (Oct. 29th, 2021)

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Two years ago, during C@vid, I made this post to encourage every single person in my life. Back then and now, I made a commitment to never share my personal opinion or share anything about my personal health during this time of the greatest science experience during our family’s life. We made the commitment to watch without judgement, to pray without ceasing and to support every single person in our lives.

After I posted these words, I received emails about waxing and masks plus judgement that I was anti-wax and anti-mask. I found this very interesting.

Here is the post from two years ago, and you can take a look for yourself and reflect on where you were at two years ago with your friends who were stressed working in health care, friends who were stressed in general and others that were discriminated against here in British Columbia because they wouldn’t share their health status.

Humbly, here we go with sharing the FB post that included my smiling face and a big old high five hand in the front of the frame:

“High five on this Friday 🖐🏻 to the people who are waxed and unwaxed. To people who are doing their best every day. 😅🤗 To the people grieving deep loss from C, to the people afraid to see their doctors because of C, to the friend who’s family won’t speak to her because she isn’t waxed (even though she is now waxed but isn’t telling them!), to people supporting children with new neurological issues and cousins with enlarged hearts due to waxing. To people’s whose passion is coaching, but no longer can because their doctor is not recommending they get waxed. I SEE YOU!!! 🤩😍 I am NOT a fan of coercion or incentives for people to get waxed. I am NOT a fan of people having to police 👮🏻 other people (unless you are a police officer, of course)🙏🏻It’s obvious to me looking at numerical data and the hearts of my AMAZING friends, we need to do something different than the 100% focus on waxing. 😳😳😳😳 I am a FAN of seeing people healthy and free!

🥰 Thank you to ALL our coaches TODAY, and ALWAYS, who pour into our children and inspire them daily. Sending you LOVE today. 💞💞“

… and that’s all folks, that was the post that I am sure has some of the people in my life judging me in a certain light. It simply is a reminder for me that “we don’t see things how THEY are, we see things how WE are.”

Keeping being you and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

author, health & fitness

Be Wondering about Weed

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Okay folks, I have a real question for you here after I share a little ditty from life on the culdesac in K-City.

Growing up my mom was a smoker, alongside many of our friends and neighbours, until I was in grade four. Basically, my sister and I hounded her for years, yes years, until she overcome her addiction and was able to quit. But, my everlasting life problem is that my asthma and breathing issues are now probably due to breathing in smoke in our cars and home for ten years of my life.

Now, on our culdesac in K-City, we have three new neighbours and one of them smokes weed morning, noon and night, not in their home, but somewhere on their property. Yes people are getting smarter by not exposing people in their homes and cars to weed, smoke, and vaping, but what about the neighbours? I can no longer go into our front yard, in our garage or sit on the chairs in front of our house without smelling and breathing in the smell of pot.

Are we moving?

I don’t know. It is so disgusting and literally hurts my lungs, I am not sure what the future holds.

What would you do?

It’s a gift to breathe fresh air, especially if your lung are sub-par.

Have an epic Tuesday folks and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

author, blogger, Grief, Parenting, words, Wordsmith

Be Having a Transplant after trying some Bandaids

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Within the last six months our family’s life has flipped upside down.

🚴🏻‍♀️ This morning on my bike ride, I was thinking about this transformation and the best metaphor that my mind could come up with was living with a really “bad oweee” (or hurt place) and healing it with bandaids versus having a transplant.

Ten years and one month ago we moved to K-City. The boys were almost 2, 4 and 6 years old. The day after we moved, my mom was diagnosed with cancer and I spent the next six months doing all that I could to support her and my dad, while living in a new city with very young children. At this time my family of origin was unravelling before my eyes. I have an older sister and that’s all I would say about that plus a father whom simply wasn’t coping well with a partner who “did it all”, but now was dying before his eyes.

After my mom and Super Nana died, I gained weight and lost it. I was alone and lonely. I taught at an online school, substitute taught at our local public schools, taught physical education and also ventured into the business world as an entrepreneur selling two different products. I supported Sexy Neck as he moved from high school to middle school, to being in charge of an International program an hour away and then our local International program within K-City. Steve’s mom died as well as his beloved grandparents, and uncle. We said goodbye to our sweet Labrador, Summer and said hello to our Goldendoodle, Winter. I did all this on top of taking care of our beautiful, busy, athletic three boys while trying to make friends in a new city, be good friends to those I knew and going through a grieving process that is still often difficult to put into words.

Throughout this last decade, I was using a lot of bandaids.

Bandaid #1: Exercise was one of my favourite. Did you know that I was training for an Ironman when Covid hit? I was training over 20 hours per week during those years after I did a 70.3 triathlon (half Ironman) in 2018. Yup, exercise was a great bandaid for me to keep me going.

Bandaid #2: Busyness – By simply rocking my to-do list, I was able to hold things together. The list was never ending as I did 90% of the things around our home and it made me feel like I was “getting” somewhere, but really getting nowhere. It was just a bandaid.

Bandaid #3: Going down the social media “scroll hole”. I am not sure if this is an entrepreneurial thing, but social media because a bit too much for me throughout the middle part of this last decade. I would spend hours on Instagram or Facebook. I would plan what I wanted to share and it began to takeover my mind in many ways. Sidenote: I am very, very glad that I didn’t live in the era of social media as a teen. I think that would have really messed me up mentally. Comparison is truly the thief of joy.

I am not saying that Bandaids are a bad thing. They got me to where I am today and helped me realize what I wanted my life to look like on a daily basis. I now believe we need to rip these bandaids off to do the true, deep transplanting that our bodies, mind and spirits needs.

Over these last six months, I have gotten a transplant.

Transplant #1: Both Sexy Neck and I have changed jobs. Steve stepped down and I stepped up to serve our schools in unique and fun manners. We are both blessed to be able to serve teachers, students and their families in very interesting ways. It has been transformative for us both.

Transplant #2: We have started to share the responsibilities around the house and the boys are helping more. We are living in the “15 minutes per day” of everyone “helping the family” and we are finding a great rhythm to help our home hum with happiness and peace. It is waaaaaaay better than having one person, namely moi, do it all! Even going through the busiest week of the year last week, we had a tremendous seven days with no major stress or meltdowns. We were “humming”.

Transplant #3: I took social media off my phone and it hasn’t come back on. I barely exist on there anymore and I feel more present and peaceful in my daily life. I hear from friends in different ways now, in a more one-on-one authentic way. I have also let many “friends” go virtually and physically. My heart is happy.

Transplant #4: This summer, we watched our city go through a horrid wildfire where over 200 people lost their homes and our church camp, that the boys were at weeks before, burnt to the ground. This made us reflect on many things, including our physical needs, what we value and our ongoing spiritual life with Jesus.

Transplant #5: Sexy Neck and I joined a gym. We are simply committed to going 30 minutes, 3 times a week. It is a beautiful balance for us to get off the metaphorical treadmill and simply enjoy throwing around some weights and being together. Just like Goldilocks, not too much, not too little, just right. It is a major transplant for two recovering high performance athletes who have gotten grossly “out of shape”.

In ALL ways, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally and professionally, it has been a transformative transplant. I feel like the bandaids in all areas of our lives have been ripped off and as a family we are experiencing a “transplant”. There is a newness to our lives, almost like we are moving to Kelowna for the first time, but this time we are healed and whole and not simply living in a deep hole of grief. I am excited to see what God has in store for us in this next decade.

If you are in the state of slapping on some good old bandaids, I hope you know that that works. For the season you are in, the bandaids will hold things together, but hold hope for the transplant. Sitting where I am today, I have to tell you that this is a pretty sweet place to be within my mind, body and spirit. Not perfect, but I feel like I can breathe again.

Bandaids.

Helping

Holding.

Breathe.

Hope.

Newness.

Wholeness.

Transplant.

And that’s all for me on this Sunny Sunday. I pray that you love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

author, Christianity, encouragement, Family, God, life, Wordsmith

Be Sleepless in Edmonton

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Last week, I returned to the town where I went to University as our oldest was competing in his first trampoline nationals. (Sidenote: You can see his journey unfold starting tonight on his Youtube channel: jcanflip) I hadn’t been back to the University of Alberta in at least a decade and I was giddy with excitement for this trip. Our oldest was going to be staying in the Lister Hall residence, where I spent two “University years” of my life. JC was competing in the Butterdome, where I did many courses and also spent time working out. We managed to stay at the campus hotel about a ten minute walk from the venue which was the hotel where my mom cooked many Thanksgiving dinners when I was playing volleyball. Did I set the scene on what a special trip this was going to be?

I spent the whole week of our time in Edmonton, sleepless. My mind wouldn’t shut off at night and I often woke up feeling unsettled and unrested. I have never had a stretch of sleeplessness this long in my entire life. Previously, after a few nights of sleeplessness, I would often fall asleep out of pure exhaustion, but this never happened last week. I didn’t sleep well and wake up rested until eight nights later when I fell asleep in our bed at home.

These were my few lessons from these eight days and nights:

✅ It is one hundred percent okay if I have sleepless nights. It didn’t affect my mood or any of my relationships with myself or others. I shouldn’t have “worried” about my lack of sleep so much when I was lying in bed nor when I was awake during the day.

✅ It is really important to be excited about the things we are able to do, but to also manage my personal expectations. I was excited to “go back”, but my expectations didn’t line up with reality. Can we ever really “go back”?

As I continue to recover from these eight days away, I know that more lessons will come my way, but I wanted to encourage anyone that may be having “sleepless nights” right now. Your body will get the rest it needs and it’s okay to lie in bed resting and awake. Our bodies and minds are truly incredible. Plus, you know me and I believe that God’s got us and can work through these sleepless nights. I know He did some deep work in me through these nights.

That’s all for this Friday night folks. Have an amazing weekend and love what you do!

xoxo Joanna