Category Archives: blogger

blogger, Christianity, Education, God, Jesus Christ, life, Wordsmith

Be Having Dreams and Nightmares

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I am not sure if you are a dreamer when you sleep or if you have ever experienced nightmares, but I am full entrenched in the dream/nightmare camp. For my entire life, I have always had vivid dreams and nightmares that I can remember even after I wake up. I can even still remember my nightmares from when I was child.

When I was a child, I would often have a nightmare of being in a wooden cabin where the floor would fall open, In other nightmares, there would often be fires in this same cabin. In grade six, I had a dream I could fly. I thoughts this dream was so real, I tried to fly away from a confrontation outside my grade six classroom. Let’s just say that it didn’t work and I couldn’t fly. On top of these dreams/nightmares, I would sleep walk. One time my mom caught me standing in front of my door knob screaming with my hand stretched out. (It was hot from the flames from the fire in my nightmare.) I also once went for a sleep walk out our front door. I don’t remember this, but I have often been told the story. Our neighbour Mrs. Wood was having her “bridge ladies” over for game night when my dad ran out our front door in his “tightie whities”. Mrs. Woods saved my dad and told him that she would turn me around. She gently guided me back into the house. I don’t remember a thing about what happened that night.

On top of some really vivid nightmares, I have also periodically had realistic dreams throughout my life. The main reason that this topic of dreams/nightmares came to mind today was because I have had many dreams about Jesus, the reason we celebrate Easter. If you haven’t checked out the story behind Easter, I highly recommend doing some research and especially learning about Jesus, Judas, Pontius Pilate, Barabbas, the 3 Mary’s at the empty tomb and Joanna. (I was named after my mom’s friend Joanna, but I don’t think it is a coincidence that my name shows up in the bible here!)

Growing up, I didn’t know about Jesus. I attended the United Church a few times with my family and I did piano recitals at my grandparents Anglican Church, but there were no deep conversations about faith or bible reading or any type of spiritual discussions around the dinner table. Once I headed to the University of Alberta to play volleyball (and kind of go to school. haha!), I was fortunate to get connected to Athletes in Action and a very spiritual family that was leaving a very legalistic, rule-based church. They taught me about the love of Jesus and the grace of God. They took me to church where the donation bucket that was sent around was a KFC bucket and the pastor was gay. Remember this was the early 1990’s, so this was rare. This led to a beautiful journey starting at 18 years old involving knowledge and experiences in my waking life and dreams about Jesus when I slept. I have had Jesus driving me in a car and been face-to-face with him in my dreams.

The craziest thing that happened in regards to my Jesus dreams is that I once went to a retreat centre in the early 2000’s in the hills of our city called “Seton House of Prayer” and when I was sitting in the retreat centre, I looked at the wall across from me. There was a painting of the face of Jesus from the dream that I had a year previously. (BTW, Jesus is not caucasian!) In this moment, I actually had to leave the retreat for a few hours and lie down. Shortly after the retreat, I was able to find a print of this painting and it now sits in our house. If you are ever wondering what my dreams of Jesus look like, feel free to come on over.

As we celebrate Easter and all that Jesus did for us as human beings, I pray that your heart overflows with peace, that your mind is filled with knowledge beyond your own understanding and that your body would be surrounded by God’s love. You are a treasure to him.

Have an epic Sunday and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

blogger, Family, Goals, mom of boys, musings, radical sabbatical, Wordsmith

Be Moving Back to Vernon

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These last few months, I have been thinking that our family needs to move back to Vernon…. almost ten years here in K-City and, well, I am not sure what to say about it. In the last three months, I have ran into four friends from Vernon at Costco, the ski hill, for walks and I have realized the deepness of these friendships I really miss.

I miss those friends who:

~ knew me before I was a mom

~ knew my own mom

~ I spent time working with and on vacation with

~ walked through years of change involving birth and death

~ did Music classes with me when the boys were in preschool. (Such a sweet season)

Ten years ago we made the decision to move here as Steve was commuting to K-City, 45 minutes away from our house in Vernon, and he was seeing very little of us due to long hours and evening meetings. One day, yup one day, after we moved to K-city my mom was diagnosed with cancer. Five months later she had died.

As I sit down and have a serious conversation with the family about moving back to Vernon, the boys are all a “hard no”. They were 2, 4 and 6 when we moved to K-City and this is really home for them. They have activities they love, a neighbourhood that loves on them and freedom to move around the city with confidence.

And now I remember a story from a wise uncle. Uncle John owned a fabulous apartment near Commercial Drive in Vancouver. He decided that he wanted to live a bit more freely and travel more than he already did. He sold the Commercial Drive apartment and moved into a great rental apartment on Chestnut Street beside the Burrard Street bridge and one block from the beach. His views were incredible and the accessibility to Vancouver was amazing. If I lived in Vancouver, this is the area I would want to live.

Uncle John loved living in this apartment building and weathered the loss of his parents and his sister. His entire family of origin died in a these short few years. Then Uncle John heard that his old apartment was for sale again, after being fully renovated. He jumped at the chance “to go back”. He rebought his old apartment, moved in and realized he had made a terrible mistake. He had bought the apartment “to go back” to a time where his parents and sister were alive. He wanted to truly turn back time. After a few short months, he resold his apartment on Commercial Drive for a second time and again moved back into his amazing rental apartment overlooking the Pacific Ocean. He was really happy and realized that you never can go back.

…and now as I ponder our family moving back to Vernon, his story has become my own. Why do I want “to go back” to Vernon? It is mostly because I want “to go back” to a time when my mom was alive and we had a wonderful circle of support around us. These have been lonely few years that have developed a deep well of resiliency and perseverance on my part raising three young men without that close support and encouragement as a mom. Even today when I receive a compliment on my role as a mother, I am always surprised because it is so rare. It often brings me to tears.

So we won’t be moving back to Vernon. The show must go on in K-City for this mom of three boys now ages, almost 16, 13 and 11. BUT, you never know where we will end up once the boys are graduated and finding their own paths in life.

Have a wonderful Wednesday and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

blogger, mindset, mom of boys, musings

Be Striving for Ordinary

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There is a lot of striving for extraordinary in our world these days!

What extravagant location will I visit?

What luxury brand of purse or clothing can I buy?

How much do I make per year?

What private school do our children attend?

What can I post on social media to make myself be seen and be extraordinary?

Me, I am striving for ordinary.

How many walks or hikes can I take around our town and local hills?

How little can I shop or how many weeks can I go between having to step foot in a store?

How can I help my children truly learn in their unique ways?

How many conversations can I have that are authentic and encouraging on a daily basis?

How many books will I read this year?

I have been pondering this concept of always striving for being or doing something extraordinary. It reminded me of my last eight years in the Network Marketing realm. I remember early on when I started sharing the products I love, I met a woman in her early 30’s who was a true light, with two young girls and a house on the hill. She explicitly told me that her sole goal in the company was to speak in front of 15,000+ people at our annual conference. Her financial goals were intertwined with wanting to be in front of 15,000+ people. I always found this genuinely fascinating and unrelatable to me personally as my best moments were often chatting in the line to the washrooms or sitting beside someone in the seats or simply walking down the street. Ordinary moments that turned into extraordinary relationships.

I have realized now in my teaching careers as I am asked to speak and present information to others that I would rather be the person stacking the chairs at the back than speaking to everyone from the front. (I actually shared this two weeks ago to someone in our school leadership team.) I am really happy being behind the scenes. (And clicking away on my computer keyboard as I share my musings. I am so happy right now as I write this!)

Striving for ordinary.

Yup, that’s me.

Have an epic Wednesday and love what you do!

xoxo Joanna

author, blogger, mindset, Wordsmith

Be Honest

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Honest

Latin word meaning honour.

Sincere.

Straightforward.

Above board.

Free of deceit.

Not concealing truth.

Open.

Honest.

This is the life that I am creating. I am choosing to surround myself with honest people. This quality is paramount. A foundation for my family, my crew of blue.

‘Cause here’s what I know from my place of learning; I haven’t always had honesty around me. I have lived my whole life until the last few years in the great unknown of where I stand with certain people and how to be in relationship with them.

It was confusing growing up.

It was tormenting as a twenty year old.

It was discouraging as a thirty year old.

It is no longer okay as a forty year old.

Until a few years ago, I haven’t had a core group of people who would tell me honestly about their experience of life and be straightforward with their words. Words and actions didn’t match up. I have always always been blessed with a smattering of honest and authentic people dotted here and there throughout my life, but never a solid, unwavering core people holding the value of honesty.

My experience with my old core group was:

People walking out of my life with no explanation.

People not explaining anything when genuinely asked something.

People saying things that are dishonest when you know the truth.

People hiding big things, in the proverbial closet.

Close people.

People that used to have a place of honour in my life.

People that had shaped and molded the old me.

People so dishonest that it became bottled up like a rocket getting ready to explode into space.

This rocket would explode through passive aggressive behaviour such as not responding, pretending everything is okay, and addictive behaviours. This was tricky for me as I didn’t understand that this type of behaviour was a form of aggression towards me and my family.

And the worst behaviour that I found on this dishonesty train was people giving ambiguous, tv commercial words to sell their position, putting on a smiling face to pretend that all was well.

Ouch!

Rejection at its finest.

A place that stings and burns.

Tender deep spots.

And this created an opening for honest people to come into your life.

Boom shakalaka.

The gift of grief and letting go at its finest.

A huge hole existed where honesty could step in, actually jump right in.

And now honesty is on overdrive and I am overwhelmed with gratitude.

Every day people are showing up in my life with with authenticity and messages like these (my words are in blue):

⭐️ Message 1 ⭐️

⭐️ Message 2 ⭐️

People showing up exactly as they are.

Exactly where they are.

Nothing to hide.

Nothings to be ashamed of.

It’s a beautiful thing, honesty.

It’s free.

Honest.

Honouring.

Sincere.

Straightforward.

Above board.

Free of deceit.

Not concealing truth.

Open.

Honest.

Have an epic Sunday and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

author, blogger, Boys, Communication, Parenting

Be Talking about Anger/Sadness (A Letter to My Boys)

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Hi boys,

Do you remember Thanksgiving 2023 when you boys were in grades 10, 8 and 6? Do you remember the Friday night when I drove away to give myself a few hours “timeout”? I am sure you do as I know that this was an upsetting moment for you as you could sense my sadness and could feel that I was angry.

Before I throw a piece of paper in the garage that I hastily wrote on, with stick people drawings, once I came back home, I wanted to enshrine it here:

What do you do when people feel sadness or anger?

  1. Be annoyed and get angry back?
  2. Try to make them happy?
  3. Allow them to feel. Show empathy?
  4. Any other options?

After I shared my little diagram, I love that all of you were able to to allow me to feel what I felt and even show me empathy. Oxford Languages says that empathy is “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” Before my timeout, all three of you tried one of these different strategies above when you saw my sadness and anger. One of you started getting angry with me, another tried to tell a joke and lighten the mood and one of you was looking at me with sadness in their own eyes.

After I shared this diagram and we talked, you were all solidly in the empathy category with what I was experiencing in that moment and it was such a gift!

Allow people to feel.

Hold space for them.

Allow people to heal.

Be empathetic for them.

Allow people to deal.

Give time for them.

To be.

To rest.

To process.

Thank you boys for walking that weekend with me and for being open to learning about empathy.

Enjoy your day. Love what you do.

xoxo MAMA

author, blogger, Family, friendship, musings, radical sabbatical, time, Wordsmith

Be Having No Time

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I don’t have time to talk about you because if you are an important person in my life I am talking TO you.

I don’t have time to worry about if you have lost or gained weight, I am 100% focused on my own health.

I don’t have time to ponder what you are doing with your life, but I am praying that you would have a life filled with love, joy and peace.

I don’t have time to wonder why you left my life and want nothing to do with me as I am completely enveloped with love by the people who choose to spend time with me.

I don’t have any time to think about who you love or want to marry, I am focused on making my own relationships better.

I don’t have time to wonder why my family of origin has fallen far apart since my mom died. The rich relationships that have filled this Grand Canyon gap from my mom’s death and the ‘chosen family’ who shower us with encouragement are greater than any gift I could imagine.

I don’t have time to judge what you do with your money, your time or your relationships because God is showing me all the good He is doing through knowing you.

I don’t have time. I don’t believe in busy. I don’t believe in missing anyone.

I create time.

Busy is a swear word.

If I miss you, I reach out to you. The only people I miss are dead. They definitely don’t have any time.

Make time for what’s important to you folks.

Have an epic Monday and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna