Category Archives: musings

Boys, mom of boys, musings, Parenting, radical sabbatical, Wordsmith

Be Watching A Phenomenal Amount of Youtube (Mom of Boys)

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I remember shortly after my boys were born that a mom friend advised me to try to join my children in their play. We were already an active family that loved to cross country ski, walk the dog, eat together, read together and play board games together. This very sage mom friend who was a few years ahead of me was very wise in her advice as she knew what was coming:

Technology.

Screens.

Computer games.

Movies.

Minecraft.

And yes, “Youtube”.

I am very grateful that I learned a long time ago, when the boys were little, to try to always join them in their “play”. It’s been a truly and very fun unexpected journey.

Our current favourite Youtube channels are:

Mark Rober = An engineer who used to work for Nasa and Apple. You may have heard about the backyard squirrel maze or glitter bombs. If you haven’t definitely check him out.

Dude Perfect = A group of five Christian men who met in University and now do trick shots and short skits. We did a “Dude Perfect” birthday for our oldest 16th birthday this year. It was a hit!

Jet Lag, the Game = This is a group of three young men who play real life “board games” around the world. We support and watch them on the streaming platform Nebula and always watch the new shows together. *Some swearing and one of the young men often gets drunk as part of the game.

Fidias = We got hooked when Fidias was trying to get a hug from Elon Musk. It is interesting to see what he comes up with and how positive he is.

Mr. Beast = I am sure everyone knows about Mr. Beast and his huge budgets for making videos. He is a young man who has a passion for creating and has been blessed by this creativity. He has so many channels and the main one is good, but there are some videos we don’t watch. The boys are excited to try his chocolate bar: Feastables.

Max Fosh = This is a new favourite from England because of his wacky ideas – sneaking into things, “Welcome to Luten” sign, buying a traffic circle… He’s light and fun!

On top of these channels, all of our boys have started their own Youtube channels following their passions. Their work is my ABSOLUTE favourite as I watch them film and edit these pieces of art sharing from their heart.

OC (11 years old) = Our youngest loves Lego and doing creative custom builds. Here are some of his amazing creations at “Brick of Lego”: https://www.youtube.com/@BrickofLego

CC (14 years old) = Our middle guy thoroughly enjoys talking and sharing his love of cars! He’s got a channel called C Cars that he started many years ago and has recently started adding to: https://www.youtube.com/@CcarsYT

JC (16 years old) = Our oldest doing what he loves most, flipping! jcanflip is his channel and he flips for every subscriber he gets and posts nightly at around 10:00pm PST. https://www.youtube.com/@Jcanflip

What are your current favourite Youtube channels? Please share as we love adding to the things that we can watch together as a family.

Have a funday Sunday folks and love what you do!

xoxo Joanna

musings, Teaching, Wordsmith

Be Living Through Bumper Cars in a Car Wash

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If you have ever had this experience or know someone that has, I would like to know.

It was something that I didn’t even know could happen. I had never spent a single second of my 49 years here on earth thinking about this and I will admit I have thought of quite a few other catastrophic situations.

Yesterday, I had a very bizarre experience.

I had decided to take my friend’s daughter’s car to get a car wash and fill her tank up with gasoline for her birthday. (It was parked at our house for the weekend.) I filled the car up with gas and then was driving to the car wash. I was going to wand wash it, but was feeling lazy so I decided to zip into the new car wash with the double bays of fancy automatic, colourful, cleaning apparatuses.

The next part of this story makes me feel physically ill: As you are told to do, I drove the car into the track with my left tires perfectly place in the rollers. I put the car in neutral, took my hands off the wheel and enjoyed the gift of an automatic car wash. I may have even let out a sigh at this point.

I was in the soap cycle, with the colourful splatters of foamy soap hitting the front windshield and the big, floppy rollers whipping by the windows, when I felt a “thump”. It felt like I hit something. Then a few moments later I felt another “thump”. I immediately knew after the second thump that something wasn’t right. My heart rate went up and I was sweating. I couldn’t see a single thing. It wasn’t until I felt a “bump” from behind that I knew that something was really wrong. And then there was another “bump” from behind. I now put my foot on the brake to try to get all this thumping and bumping to stop. And then the car wash finally turned off.

The soap started streaking down the windows and I could see. I opened the window. The car in front appeared to have come off the track and wasn’t moving forward. The car behind was directly behind me. Three cars all within one section of the carwash.

Playing bumper cars.

No sight.

Just thumping.

And bumping.

In the hot, colourful, foam-filled car wash.

Apparently this isn’t called car wash bumper cars, it is called “a tunnel collision”, according to the car wash where this happened. The fault lies with the person who held up the tunnel and who caused the crash, even though we were all, hopefully, in neutral and running on a track that the car wash had created. According to the manager, the person in front may have taken their car out of neutral, grabbed the steering wheel or had done something else for us all to get jammed up and thus bumped around. But the car wash never stopped. We all keep moving along and thumping and bumping.

Our friend’s daughter’s car ended up with three scratches on the back bumper from the license plate of the car behind it bumping into it over and over. I found at that the car in front was an older gentleman had turned the wheel and therefore knocking his tires out of the track. He took off before anyone could talk to him.

I was given an ultimate wash to go back through the “tunnel” to get all the soap off. I did do it because I didn’t want to return the car with soap and streaks all over it, on top of the three scratches. I did make sure there was no one in front of me in the “tunnel” nor anyone behind me, but I will admit it was a stretch for me to go back through that automatic car wash, aka bumper car car wash. I am not sure this will be a service that I use again. I did ask the manager of the car wash, “How often does this happen in the car wash?” They handled the entire incident beautifully, but this question they didn’t answer. Hmmmm….

I will leave this to you, my beautiful blogging friends, to let me know if you have heard of this happening before or am I the first?

Happy Tuesday folks. Remember cars aren’t meant to be bumper cars and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

P.S. Sorry again Bubba!

July 28th, 2023 Update ~ The car wash company had agreed to fix the scratches on our friend’s car, but the whole hard plastic bumper was going to need to be replaced. The car wash company backed out. They told us it is the fault of the person in front who went out of the track. We were all in neutral and isn’t it the fault of the employees who didn’t shut down the system when they saw me bonking the car in front and then got bonked from behind which caused the accident? We shall see what unfolds folks.

author, Christianity, God, Jesus Christ, life, musings, Self-help

Be Knocking Off the Big Chunks

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Overwhelm? Have you ever felt it?

Our family has lived the last few years in overwhelm with a plethora of multi-faceted situations

Death of multiple family members and then grief.

Moving.

Full on jobs.

Changing jobs.

Boys growing up and the adjustment that takes.

Health issues.

And now here I sit today miraculous typing on my computer about what shifted for me.

No longer overwhelmed.

No longer feeling that my life is overwhelming.

Here is what changed:

I knocked off some “big chunks” in my life.

First and foremost, prayer, the bible, thoughts about God and weekly church services became a priority.

Second, I cleaned up my sleep hygiene. My phone went into the bathroom. I started a wind-down time before bed and I only brought my book and Sexy Neck to bed with me. (I wrote about this back in February.)

Third, I started moving. I have a good friend that is a physiotherapist that says “motion is lotion”. I really do believe that by simply walking, I helped myself move in a positive direction. It also have me time to think and ponder my life. In February, I started off with walking for 30 minutes per day. I added on cycling in May and my husband and I started a 30 minuted 3 times per week boot camp two weeks ago. I cannot tell you how much better I feel. This big chunk hasn’t been easy. You can see where I was at a few months ago here. I am proud to say I have been again walking around in a tank top this summer and feeling confident (and safe!) to be me.

Lastly, I am sure you have read this before, but part of my journey on this earth has been to be a “human being” rather than a “human doing”. I once got a trophy from my book club for being an “Actionator”. Yes, I make things happen and relaxation is not my strong suit! haha. My last big chunk has been to really notice things and attentively listen to what people are saying, especially the boys. This has been huge for me. I have felt calmer and more peaceful simply by looking and listening.

(Sidenote: One random other thing that didn’t fit into any of my four points that helped me a ton was I decluttered my front entry. You know that part of the house that everyone sees when they come to the door? Mel Robbins in a podcast about decluttering mentioned this and it has been a GAME CHANGER! Weird, but true. So satisfying!)

Spiritual life.

Sleep hygiene.

Movement.

Immersed in the world around me.

Those were my four big chunks that helped me shift so that I can now focus on the little chunks (work/life balance, emotional health, decluttering my home, meeting up with friends, fixing a watch battery that has been sitting on my dresser for years, organizing neighbourhood block parties… plus jumping into a new job on August 1st.)

What chunks would you like to knock off to start your healing journey?

Have a wonderful Wednesday and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

Education, musings, Wordsmith

Be Wondering about Water, Garbage and Plastic

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🎶 Fish and Chips and Vinegar, vinegar, vinegar. Fish and Chips and Vinegar. Pepper, pepper, pepper salt. One bottle pop, two bottle pop, three bottle pop, four bottle pop, five bottle pop, six bottle pop, seven bottle pop, pop. Don’t throw your junk in my backyard, my backyard, my backyard. Don’t throw your junk in my backyard cause my backyard’s filled. 🎶

Anyone else remember this song? It came to mind today as I took a 75 kilometre (46.6 mile) bike ride around our beautiful valley this morning. I also pondered a few things about our beautiful, healing planet.

What would happen if every person in the world resolved never to buy a container that was composed of water or was water itself? Shampoo, lotion, laundry soap, cleaning products, juice, chicken broth are a few that come to mind. Imagine if products ONLY came in concentrated pacs or bars or granules and then we added the water to that product once we purchased it. I have no idea how this would work, as I sit here on a Sunday night, but I wonder how much money would be save in transporting costs and how would the world we live in change?

What would happen if everything that a manufacturer churned out, they also had to dispose of on their own property? How would our personal spending habits change if we had to dispose of every single product that we acquired in our own backyard? (Yes, now you see the connection to the song I was singing at the top. HAHA!) How would the cycle of consumerism profoundly change with these two patterns?

What would happen if every plastic product on earth was banned? I am not a scientist, but I have heard rumblings that recycling is the greatest myth of my generation. Plastics are mostly petroleum based and there are some scientists that believe that they are never destroyed, but simply get smaller… and smaller… and smaller…. (Yes, you can see what I am throwing out there!)

And that’s all for this Sunday night folks. Keep thinking, hugging and loving what you do.

xoxo Joanna

musings, Wordsmith

Be Enjoying Snow in March

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Before Sexy Neck and I’s May 3rd wedding up north, on 53.9 degrees latitude, my mom had the water hose strung out across the lawn “watering away” the last of the snow in the corners of our lawn. My mom was determined that there wouldn’t be any snow on the lawn for our wedding day!

Growing up in the north and then moving east to 53.5 degrees latitude to go to university, winter existed from October until April. Yesiree bob, it was winter for more than half the year.

I believe, deep in my Canadian-heart, that every single person in Canada should live at least one year of their life, preferably before they turn 30, at 53 degrees latitude or north. If I live to be 100 years old, I will have lived one quarter of my life at this latitude.

I currently live at 49 degree latitude where “winter” exists for maybe three months. (Yes, I put “winter” in quotes because we often don’t have snow on the ground for all of these months PLUS we will usually only have two to three weeks of cold weather: below -10 degrees Celsius.) You can probably guess where I am going here…

Why are Canadians complaining about the season of “winter” especially those living at my latitude or lower, which is over 75% of the population in Canada?

I have a theory.

Yup, a theory! Feel free to test it with all your family and friends around you.

Canadians that complain about the winter weather have never lived above 50 degrees latitude and simply want to continue with their “summertime” life all year round. I am always sorry to tell these folks that this is a mentality that will lead to absolute failure and even depression. This “all-the-time summertime” mentality isn’t possible because of the weather that exist for most of us.

Snow.

Sleet.

Hail.

Blizzard.

Grue.

Cold temperatures.

And yes, even snow in March!

If you want to bike outside in the winter, you are going to need special tires and clothing. If you want to run, you probably need to resort to an indoor treadmill or strap on some yak tracks. Yes, life needs to ebb and flow throughout the season for us human beings.

We are enjoying every single second of this snow in March as we wind down our winter activities.

Cross country skiing.

Downhill skiing.

Snow fort building.

Sledding.

Snow picnics.

And taking lovely walks in the crunching snow.

(Can you tell I am a Chionophile?)

Embrace every season of your life and see what unfolds. It truly is a beautiful thing.

Happy Sunday funday everyone and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

P.S. Definitely let me know if you test out my theory about peoples love of winter being determined by where they have lived and if they try to continue with their summertime life. I am so curious myself!

Aging, Boys, cancer, Grief, love, musings, Wordsmith

Be Asking Your Mom Five Questions

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I love it when “not-so-random” moments come across my path.

I have been experiencing some deep grief moments about my mom lately as her birthday is tomorrow. She would have been 80 years young this year. Man, she was epic. Did you know that six months before she died she was on a cycling tour in Mallorca riding more than 90 kilometres each day? Did you know that I never cycled long distances with my mom? I took up cycling about two years after she died.

One of the best memories involving my mom was when I was playing in the backyard with our three boys, all under the age of 4. My mom came through the side gate all sweaty and red-faced pulling in her bike beside her. She say, “Hi, I just popped in for some water!” I asked her where she rode today. She stated that she had just ridden to Enderby and back, a mere 70 kilometres (@44 miles) and then went into the house to get some water. She was always doing crazy things like that that seemed like a walk in the park to her. My mom was an exceptional athlete, teacher, friend, mom and so humble too!

Back to the reason for this post: My “not-so random” moment this week was when I stumbled across this article about a daughter who lost her mom and the five questions that she would have liked to ask her.

I have been pondering my own five questions and here they are:

  1. What legacy/memories/values do you want to leave for your grandsons and great-grandchildren? (We will always talk about you Super Nana!)
  2. What did your body go through as you moved through menopause?
  3. Are you afraid to die? What are your thoughts on dying?
  4. What parenting advice would you give me as I move through the different ages and stages with the boys?
  5. What are some of your best memories as a child, other than Jimmy the horse?

And that’s all folks. Be sure to hug those people you love and ask the questions that are on your own heart to the people that matter most.

Have an epic Wednesday and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

Education, Family, health & fitness, mindset, musings, radical sabbatical, Wordsmith

Be Learning Nordic Skiing before Alpine Skiing

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This is a public service announcement for anyone with children or grandchildren that haven’t yet tried alpine skiing or have children under 5 years old.

It is spring break skiing and the season where we see many young human beings flopped on the side of the mountain screaming, usually while wearing a “dog leash” (aka: ski harness). Insert gif here with child flopping like a fish in the snow while making shrieking noises.

Both Sexy Neck and I received kinesiology degrees before we got our education degrees. When the boys were young, we talked about our children’s physical literacy skills as much as their reading/writing literacy skills. We wanted them to be physically active for life. We introduced them to coached programs for swimming, cross country skiing and gymnastics. I also taught them skating shortly after they could walk.

One of the best things we did for our boys was putting them into the “Bunnies” (skinny ski) program when they were 3 years old at our local nordic ski area. It was parent participation and this program gave the children the skills to move bilaterally on skinny skis at a pace that was perfect for their growing bodies. There was no screaming, flopping, or crying from the parents or the kids. They could go at the speed that they felt most comfortable moving at and could attempt the hills when they were ready. Plus placing teddy bears along the track, kicking tennis balls in the track and gummy bears in your pocket can go along way!

Right now, we are seeing many parents strap on the big, thick alpine skis and attach the leash to their young ones. Then off they go. You can see that these young first timers are moving at a speed that they are uncomfortable with and thus the screaming, flopping and crying. It’s very tough to watch. I believe that even if the kids spend only one season (10 weeks) in a Bunnies or Jack Rabbit program, none of these experiences would need to happen for our young alpine skiers.

PLUS the added bonuses when kids start on skinny skis is that when they start alpine skiing those thick skis are easier to balance on and they even get to ride up a magic carpet or chairlift or t-bar instead of having to climb up the hills on skis. The children will really appreciate this new sport and hopefully have experiences on two types of skis that help them be active for life!

Have an epic Sunday folks and love what you do!

xoxo Joanna