Category Archives: author

author, blogger, Christianity, encouragement, God, Jesus Christ, mindset, musings, positivity

Be Here

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If you asked me what I love most about summer, it wouldn’t be the vacations or the long list of things to do.

It would be the way life seems to exhale.

Breathe in 1, 2, 3, 4.

Breathe out 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

The calendar loosens its grip. Evenings stretch a little longer. We linger over dinner , gather around the barbecue, read books we’ve been meaning to open for months, and find ourselves talking more, not because there’s an agenda, but because there’s finally enough time.

Somewhere between the sunshine and slower mornings, I start to remember who I am when I’m not racing from one commitment to the next or scheduling one commitment or another! haha

We’re halfway through another year.

Already.

That realization can make me feel one of two things: pressure because time is slipping away, or gratitude for the chance to pause before rushing into what’s next in the next six months.

I’m choosing the second.

Summer has become my invitation to pause and reflect.

To notice what has been life-giving.

To acknowledge what has been heavy.

To celebrate the prayers God has answered and quietly place the unfinished ones back into His hands.

Lately, I’ve found myself returning to some familiar rhythms.

I’ve picked up my journal again, filling pages instead of just filling my calendar.

I’ve been writing my blog and about research not because I have to, but because words help me hear what my heart has been trying to say.

I’ve been listening to worship music that gently redirects my attention away from striving and back toward the One who never asked me to earn His love. What a gift!

I’ve been reconnecting with old friends whose conversations feel like coming home.

And, after months of frustration, I’ve found myself moving again.

Not quite the way I had planned.

A foot injury has changed what exercise looks like for me, reminding me of another season back in 2022 when training for Ironman took an unexpected turn. Once again, I’m learning to adapt instead of quit. So these days you’ll often find me on my bike, lifting weights or deep-water running which makes me grateful simply to move, even if it looks different than I imagined. (What a mind shift!)

There is something humbling about discovering that joy doesn’t disappear when our plans change.

Sometimes it just finds a different path.

Maybe that’s what summer offers all of us.

Not an escape from real life, but a return to it.

A chance to step outside.

To feel the warmth of the sun on our faces.

To laugh a little longer around the table.

To read.

To pray.

To listen.

To breathe.

To remember that the richest moments in life are rarely the busiest ones.

As we begin the second half of the year, I’m finding that I don’t need another ambitious checklist.

I need presence.

I need gratitude.

I need space to hear God’s gentle voice again.

Because when I slow down enough to notice Him, I almost always notice the goodness He’s been weaving into my life all along.

So wherever this summer finds you, my hope is that you’ll give yourself permission to slow down.

Reflect on where you’ve been.

Celebrate how far you’ve come.

Release what you’re not meant to carry.

And simply…

Be here.

Happy Canada Day friends!

xoxo Joanna

author, blogger, Book, Boys, God, home learning, Jesus Christ, life, musings

Be Juggling Flaming Bowling Pins while Riding an Unicycle

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If you asked me how life is going right now, I’d probably laugh before answering.

Picture someone juggling flaming bowling pins while riding an unicycle. Now replace the bowling pins with a master’s thesis, the end of another school year, conference planning, countless emails, family life, an ever-growing list of ideas and health issues that stop me from falling asleep. Welcome to my current season.

Some days I feel like I’m absolutely thriving. Other days I can’t remember at 11:30am where I left my breakfast… or whether I actually ate it.

This spring has been one of those “full” seasons. I’m researching homeschooling and online learning to prepare to start my Masters thesis, comparing Grade 9 and 10 student achievement across different learning models. It turns out I genuinely enjoy looking at spreadsheets and statistics, which surprises no one who has ever watched me colour-code or create summary fields in a Google Sheet.

At work, another school year has wrapped up. There’s something deeply satisfying about seeing students finish well, teachers catch their breath, and families celebrate another year of home learning. It’s also a reminder that education has never been one-size-fits-all. Every student carries a different story, and every family chooses a different path.

At home, life continues to remind me how quickly time moves. Our boys are teenagers now, building lives of their own and travelling around the world. (As I write list, JC has just landed in Lison, Portugal to compete in his first International trampoline competition representing Canada! CC is getting ready to go to the World Cup in taekwondo and our youngest is a practice players on the BC summer games team!) It’s a strange and wonderful transition, from packing lunches and driving to sports to cheering them on from the sidelines of growing into adulthood.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I keep coming back to the reason I started Be Enough.

Not because I’ve mastered contentment.

Not because I’ve figured everything out.

But because I need the reminder as much as anyone else.

The world constantly whispers, “Do more. Be more. Achieve more.”

God quietly says, “You are already loved. You are enough. I am enough.”

I’m learning that my worth isn’t measured by another degree, another accomplishment, or another perfectly checked-off to-do list. Those things are good, but they were never meant to define me.

So if life feels a little chaotic right now, you’re in good company. Mine certainly is.

Here’s to unfinished projects, overflowing calendars, unexpected joy, abundant grace, and learning, one ordinary day at a time, that we have always been enough because of the One who made us.

Thanks for following along on the journey.

Have the best week!

Love ya, 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

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