When I started praying for the leadership of our school two years ago, I never knew that I would end up praying for myself.
On the post-it-note on my computer monitor I wrote:
🙏🏻 Wisdom
🙏🏻 Hope
🙏🏻 God to fill in the gap
🙏🏻 Encouragement/Strength
🤩 JOY
(Those that know me know that I LOVE post-it-notes.)
Yesterday, it became public knowledge that I will be starting a new job this summer. I will be the HCOS Regional Administrator for the NORTH! (Kind of like a Vice Principal in the campus system, but different because I teach and work in the virtual world of home learning.)
Yes, you heard it and no, we aren’t moving. I will be supporting and serving the teachers and families working and living in the north from our house here in KCity, but then travelling up north a few times per year for meetings and events. This northern girl will have part of her heart back in the north because of her beautiful work!
Who loves a good northern road trip? MEEEEEEEEE!
Williams Lake, Prince George, Tumbler Ridge, Burns Lake, Terrace, Dawson Creek, Fort St. John and wherever else I am lead to go… watch out, I am coming for a visit and most likely bringing the boys too! Isn’t it cool that I can bring my boys to work as well. My school truly loves and support families, including my own.
This is really the best of learning and teaching in all ways!
New job coming soon: August 1st, 2023
Have a super duper uper Saturday and love what you do.
My one thought about my job today: I can be replaced in a minute. The leadership of my school is so remarkable, I could probably be replaced in less than a minute.
Yes, it’s true for me and for you. No one is irreplaceable in their work.
I recognized this shortly after my mom died and I fully grasped that she was truly irreplaceable.
Gone forever.
Never to be replaced.
Yes, we have had phenomenal people “fill in the vast gap” my mom left, but no one can restore her place in our lives as a mom and super nana.
A job is a unique arena of life as we all need to find ways to house and feed ourselves, but this great loss made me understand the temporality of work and life.
This morning, I am interviewing for a new job for the next school year. I am taking this mentality into my interview and I feel free.
Free to ponder.
Free to choose.
Free to open the door and see if this new opportunity will help me be a better wife, mom, friend, teacher and human being living on this earth.
Free to live!
So folks, as you ponder this next year ahead of you, what would you change if you knew you could be replaced in your job tomorrow, but never be replaced as a mother, father, daughter, brother, sister, cousin…?
Today is our 26th wedding anniversary plus two days of me being 49 years old. The best part is that Sexy Neck’s birthday is two days from now, yes it is a fun week of celebration, at least this is what we thought when we were university students on our semester ended in April and Steve was getting ready to head to the National Team.
When Sexy Neck and I got engaged in November of 1996 at the West Edmonton Mall we were talking about a possible wedding date. We thought it would be hilarious if May the 3rd fell on a Saturday in 1997 so that could be our wedding date! Well, God knew that our brains would think like that and yes, you guessed it, our wedding day was on Saturday, May 3rd, 1997.
Sidenote: Sexy Neck was going to propose at the top of the rollercoaster at WEM, but we ended up getting in a disagreement because I didn’t want to go on it. He ended up putting the personally-designed ring in an ice cream, which I thought was the sweetest thing ever! I was shocked.
May 1
May 3
May 5
The beginning of May is a week of celebration!
On top of thinking about the date in which we decided, or God decided, for us to be married, I have been reflecting on being married for more than a quarter of a century.
It’s all about “choice”!
Yup, choice.
Not sex, love, infatuation, coercing, settling, changing someone, manipulation… it’s simply about a personal choice made daily by each person in a marriage.
I remember in the pre-marriage counselling that we did before May 3rd, 1997, the counsellor talked about marriage as being about a “daily choice”. As I sit here today, I couldn’t agree more.
My personal choices that I think about often are:
Do I bring out the best or worst in my husband?
How do I listen and also feel heard?
How do I show love even when I don’t feel the emotion of love?
How do I support my husband’s personal life journey even when it adversely affects my own life?
Do I want to be my husband’s biggest cheerleader or the “bring him downer” in his life?
How can I share my needs and also consider my husband’s needs?
How do you live with someone who has very different standard of timelines and schedules? (We shared a computer when doing our Bachelor of Education degrees. It worked beautifully because I always finished my projects a week ahead of time and he did everything the night before. And guess who always beat me in the marks department, yup Steve! Probably because I always stayed up with him and proofread all of his work. HAHA)
Choice.
Love.
Partnership.
Best friend.
Marriage.
Choice.
26 years baby!
Have a wonderful Wednesday folks and love what you do!
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.
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.
Do you have any teeny tiny dreams that are wriggling around in your heart right now? I have had one for years. I didn’t know how it would be possible, or even if it would be possible, but it was wiggling and jiggling around. I wanted to take our boys to Europe. To see, smell, taste how we lived for three years in Europe before they were born.
We spent our first year of marriage, at the age of 23, in a northern town in France called Harnes. Sexy Neck was playing professional volleyball and I coached and played a bit too! I used to go running around Vimy Ridge, carefully staying to the trails as I didn’t want to detonate a latent bomb from WWI.
We spent our 29th and 30th years on this earth in Germany and Switzerland.
At 32, I discovered I was pregnant with our first son while travelling in Europe for our friend’s Patrizia and Roman’s wedding in Switzerland.
And now, we are 45, our boys are 12, 10 and 8, and we are taking our radical sabbatical on the road…. to Europe!
29 days.
5 countries.
Hotels, hostels, a bible school, a mountain resort only accessible by tram, the Oberamerhof where we lived in Germany and dear friends’ homes will be our abodes for this adventure.
Over 3000 kilometres in a stick shift European automobile and on the autobahn to boot! Those little towns we lived in don’t even have a train station, so its car travel for this family.
Plus some gymnastics training thrown in for fun!
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Where would you go if you could choose an adventure for your family?
Any advice on travelling Europe with kids?
Here we go folks.
The dream is unfolding in under a week!
We know we will get lost.
Meet the most interesting people.
See castles, villages, forests and cities.
Eat interesting food.
And get hug after hugs by our amazing friends.
I am MOST excited about this last one.
Friends we have known before we had children.
Friends who grew with us through living overseas, travelling and having children.
Friends who have walked the gift of grief with us from across the Pacific.
Friends who just “know”.
The words aren’t always known, but the feeling is unexplainable.
And now they get to meet our boys.
Dreams do come true!
Let this 3000 kilometre adventure unfold in His will.
Do you like surprises? Have you ever been surprised so much that it makes you jump and shriek? (I used to love surprising my mama!)
I am jumping for JOY over this radical sabbatical right now.
As a volleyball player I was never known for my vertical, but I think I can fly right now.
The boys driving their “learning”!
I love seeing my boys happy.
Truly happy.
No more morning stomach aches before school.
I love living this small space, small refrigerator and no dishwasher life.
Hands in the warm water and our family working together to get cleaned up.
I love wandering with no direction.
Walking out the door, into the woods and then deciding which direction to head.
I love being so far away from town that I don’t pop anywhere.
At. Any. Time.
I love the relationships I have that are growing deeper through fascinating conversations and not just two minute fly bys in the school parking lot.
Facetime. Phone Call. Texts. They all keep us genuinely connected to those people who are embracing our radical sabbatical and supporting us on this journey.
I love perspective brought on by the time and space of stepping out of life’s routines and the mundane moments of life.
Time.
Space.
To do the work that I need to do to accept the death of people I have loved deeply, to accept the direction that my family of origin has taken, and to accept where I am right at this moment.
Acceptance.
I love learning acceptance.
I love less laundry. We wear pretty much the same thing every day, except when we go into town.
I love making a weekly meal plan, ordering my groceries, picking them up and sticking to it.
Like I mentioned, we don’t pop anywhere. Nothing is open at the ski hill right now, so we are flying solo or relying on the generosity of wonderful neighbours, if we forget anything from the grocery store.
I love our simple super food nutrition that gets delivered to our door.
I love saving money.
I love being stretched to try new things. Living a small refrigerator life has caused me to find an alternative to the gluten free Costco pizza crusts we used to devour. I have been making sourdough spelt bread and pizza crust from scratch. Can you believe it? And I love it. It is incredibly simple to do and takes only a bit of prep time either the night before or the morning of. Small spaces need simplicity and I am finding it through baking.
Our family loves to walk, no matter where we are in the world. We love to explore on foot and see what we will see. No agenda, no timeline, just walking, talking and seeing what is around us. We have noticed that there is a rhythm in the mountains that is more in touch with the seasons. There is a flow that reminds me of squirrels. Right before the season change in autumn, people were bustling around chopping wood and preparing their homes and cabins for winter. It was a beautiful thing where families worked together and often ended the day with time around a fire. The city doesn’t really have this flow. It seems that most people have similar routines and rhythms no matter the season. I encourage everyone, as you read about our radical sabbatical, consider the seasons of the year that exist where you live and what could those different seasons look like. I believe that change is a great things for human beings to feel fully alive, and noticing the seasonal changes can help us live in the present moment.
I love watching my boys learn and seeing where their learning takes them. I am surprised at how much they love learning. My boys previous love of schooling involved recess as the highlight.
Amongst ALL of these surprises the largest have been my absolute delight to step outside of the “school system” and the holiday of Halloween.
I am jumping and shrieking as I write these words.
Eeeeeekkkk!
These were scary to jump out of culturally, but oh so wonderful now.
The “school system”.
All Hallow’s Eve.
Schools are filled to overflowing with delightful teachers and parents as well as amazing kids. But anywhere that there are more than a few people gathered, there are bound to be systems in place to make things “easier”. A system meaning “procedures, principles or methods in which something is done”. These ‘procedures’ and individual teacher’s ‘principles’ often are there for the greater good of a class. From personal experience as an elementary school teacher, I know it is really hard to truly individualise learning in a school system and to really see our students every single day. Not every child’s needs can be met on a semi-regular basis. Teachers do need to have eyes on their students, so they can’t have them zipping around the neighbourhood or even the school grounds during class time. We are truly grateful to be outside of this system for this year of homeschooling. As I write these words, my eight year old is researching bakeries in Paris, my ten year old is learning about “Game Theory” in Math and my twelve year old is zipping around the online program IXL learning about Grammar. It’s a beautiful thing to watch. They are fully immersed in their learning. Soaking it up and working hard. The past seven years in the school system, I have 2 times per month, taken my boys out of school to ski or enjoy a day at home or to go visit relatives, but I didn’t feel good about it. There was this tension that they would “miss” something. As we have stepped fully away from the “school system”, I don’t feel that we are missing ONE. SINGLE. THING. Truly.
The boys meeting with their teacher.
My other huge surprise this fall has been realising the energy and thought that went into the holiday of Halloween for our family. How do you feel about Halloween? For me, it has always been a holiday with a spiritual ramification that I try to ignore. Is it a dark holiday that creates more bad than good? We may have to ask a law enforcement officer to answer that one. I don’t know the answer to this question because the optimist in me always creates good from every situation that I encounter. I have chosen to embrace Halloween because I love the opportunity it provides for my boys to be creative with their costumes and meet our neighbours. How often do neighbours get a knock from a child to say “hello”? Yes, my kids do love the candy too, but for me, I love the opportunity to say hello and get to know our neighbourhood. I wonder if my boys will miss it this year. We will be standing on the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France on October 31st and most likely walking up the 674 steps. We thought this would be a fun alternative to Halloween this year! We did have our eleventh annual pumpkin carving get together with friends, which is always a highlight. Other than that, we are stepping aside from Halloween this year. Whew!
Jumping for joy.
Happy boys.
Small space living.
Less laundry.
Simple super food.
Saving money.
Shrieking.
Jumping.
Grateful on this Thanksgiving 2019 for this opportunity to be surprised on this radical sabbatical.
Imagine biking away from school on June 28th knowing that you would not be returning to that industrial looking school building and schedule for over a year?Imagine being able to design your learning, travel the world and live at a ski hill with the foundational goal of skiing every single day of the ski season? Imagine moving into a nine hundred square foot home with five people and no dishwasher nor in suite laundry?
Imagine.
What would your radical sabbatical look like?
This imagining above is the reality we are creating and that I will be writing about during our radical sabbatical. Our family of five is riding our bikes away from grades two, four and six and walking into grades three, five and seven as homeschoolers living in a two room condominium, overlooking the ski hill.With the addition of two trips, one month long trip to Europe and one two week vacation in the spring, you now have the big picture of what is going to unfold over the next twelve months and corresponding chapters of this book about our life yet to be written.
Could you imagine?
Would you ever step out, take a time out and shake up your reality to press pause on life?
Stopping all activities except skiing and gymnastics.
Withdrawing from all volunteer positions on boards and activities in our community.Renting out our main house and only bringing the bare essentials into our small living space.
Inspired by the gift of grief given to us by my beautiful mama over five years ago.
Fanned by the gift of grief given to us this year by Sexy Neck’s mama, grandma, grandpa, my aunt and our Labrador, Summer.
Walked out first and foremost, by Joanne Kraft when her family took a year off from activities outside of school. Her book, “Just Too Busy: Taking your Family on a Radical Sabbatical”, jumped off the library shelf last winter and cemented this idea in my mind.
Watered and lovingly supported by our friends who live our freedom and growth lifestyle.
Practically supported by our teacher friends and the school that we will work with to educate our boys over the next twelve months.
Divinely inspired by our Father in heaven who knows our hearts and allowed everything to seamlessly and truly effortlessly unfold.
Now, we create space for us to live in a nine hundred square feet condominium.
Building a learning space for three creative and hardworking eight, ten and twelve year old boys.
Building a triple bunk bed so that we have more space to play.
A radical sabbatical.
Twelve months to pause and change our routine.
New rhythm.
New schedule.
New space.
Finding our rhythm.
Our schedule.
Our space.
So, I sit here and ask again: What would a radical sabbatical look like for you? It doesn’t have to be as extreme as what we have done, but maybe it’s something as simple as eating dinner together every night or what Joanne Kraft did and taking a break from extracurricular activities. Whatever speaks to you as you share our journey with us, may it be meaningful to you and light up your life!
These are exciting times my friends. Truly exciting!
xoxo Joanna
#befree
#momofboys
#isalife
<Note: Joanna is currently seeking a publisher to partner with to publish her book as she helps people be free on their own journey as she shares her radical sabbatical with others.>
"Be" ENOUGH 