Tag Archives: mom

blogger, radical sabbatical, Wordsmith

Be Astounded by Top-Down Wipers

Leave a comment

I was 49 and 3 days years old when my son pointed out a Lexus with a back wiper that came down from the top.

Astounding.

Revolutionary.

Mind blowing.

Why don’t all wipers come down from the top?

The wiper was hidden up at the top under the overhang of the car. I didn’t even notice it! It wiped away the equal amount of the window as a wiper coming from the bottom, so why don’t all cars have this?

Imagine scraping the snow off the window in the winter without a wiper to contend with at the bottom?

Imagine not having that back wiper sticking out to grab onto an oversize sweater you are wearing?

Imagine less wear and tear on the wiper as it doesn’t sit in the snow/rain/hail/sun every single day?

I am guessing in the next few years that every single car will have a back wiper that comes down from the top, unless someone can tell me some negatives from this really revolutionary idea.

And that’s my random thought from this week.

Have a sunny, relaxing Sunday and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

blogger, Grief, life, love, Self-help

Be Leaning Into Pain and Moving Towards Pleasure

4 Comments

I have had quite a few lessons in life where I have had to lean into pain. How about you? Any pain coursing through your body and mind these days?

As a 15 year old, I had a very close friend who decided to hangout with older friends that partied, smoked and drank. I had to literally walk away from her as we discovered we no longer had anything in common as I pursued my athletic goals and knew that health was my future. It’s painful to lose people who you have been friends with you for years.

As a 21 year old, I was injured in my third year of university volleyball. Right after I hoisted the cup as the captain of my university team declaring we were the best team in Canada, I had to make a choice. I made a very painful decision to retire from volleyball after deciding not to do a surgery with a questionable outcome.

As a 39 year old, I grieved deeply as we moved from Vernon to Kelowna. I said goodbye to my parents living ten minutes away. We lost the routine of preschool pick-up seeing friends who had known us since before we had kids and having the beautiful Vernon Music School and the “Peanut” park just down the road. No longer could we drive 25 minutes up the hill to be at both world class downhill and cross country skiing.

Now in 2023, I am watching quite a few people in pain around me right now: Dealing with deaths, or divorces or illnesses or poor choices by those around them or …. just plain and simple pain.

What I want to say friends is: LEAN IN! Lean fully into the pain. I don’t believe that ignoring it, drinking it away, binge watching netflix or not fully acknowledging pain helps us as human beings in any way. Denial and distraction don’t really help us move through the pain. These two D’s help us get stuck!

Right now, we are personally having to lean into some pain, some uncomfortableness and a lot of uncertainty. I know that leaning into these feelings will help us move towards pleasure and not make any rash decision based on pain.

Not one single decision based on the pain we have experienced have been good ones.

Lean into the pain, then seek the pleasure and run towards it.

Sit against that wall in the darkness and feel that pain going through your body and then know the sunshine of pleasure will be just around the corner.

I have experienced it.

I know it.

I choose it!

Lean into the pain.

Feel it.

Soak in it.

Feel.

Deal.

Heal.

Then you will be able to truly make a decision based out of pleasure and not pain with the added bonus that you won’t make any rash or “bad” decision based on that pain alone, like we have done in the past!

Now, go have an epic Thursday and love what you do!

xoxo Joanna

blogger, Education, mindset, Teaching

Be on a 450 Day Streak with Duolingo

4 Comments 
Schönen donnerstag

Today marks the day where I have been logging into the Duolingo App to practice my German for 450 days in a row. Almost 15 months of daily practice for at least 5 minutes that has moved me through 23 different lessons on various topics in German. One restriction with my practice is that I have the free account and thus only have “five hearts” per day to work through my lessons. Yup, no paid app that would allow me to have unlimited practice. This means that if I get more than five answers wrong, I have to stop my practice and login later in the day to complete my practice, with usually only 2-3 hearts.

Now, this milestone has me thinking: What other daily habits could I instil into my life and consistently do for 450 days?

Healthy, clean eating? This would be amazing.

Drink a minimum of 4 cups of water? My body would love this.

Get into bed by 10:00pm each night? Ohhh, that would delicious.

Are there free apps for all these things?

I do love the game that Duolingo creates in my mind and I love keeping up with my streak. Why did I decide to use the App? Many of my students use Duolingo to help them develop their second language skills. I was super curious to see how the lessons worked and soon after I started in December 2022, I was hooked. My ultimate goal is to get back to Germany and have a conversation in German with my best friend and her children.

Cheers to streaks of healthy habits!

Have a beautiful Thursday and love what you do.

xoxox Joanna

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

Be Asking Your Mom Five Questions

Leave a comment

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

Leave a comment

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

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

Be Moving Back to Vernon

6 Comments

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

6 Comments

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

Boys, career, radical sabbatical, Teaching, Wordsmith

Be Changing Your Career in an Exorbitant Way

9 Comments

Hi Mom’s and Dad’s that have chosen to give up or change their careers because a wee one came into your life, I am sitting with you as I write this. Grab a cup of tea and strap yourselves in… I have a major wondering today.

Do you ever have a sense that your career changed in an exorbitant way because of your wee ones arrival on earth?

I have been thinking about my time on earth and my career a lot lately as I continue working through the gift of grief that my mom gave me in 2013. Yup, almost 10 years since that fateful day that our Super Nana died and I began my personal journey experiencing the finality of death.

With incredible clarity, I took leave from my career when our oldest came into the world almost sixteen years ago. I was a teacher, coach, volunteer and an advocate of campus education, but when that blonde haired boy with that straight edge part and blue eyes came into the world, my life pivoted and my career path changed forever. I never stepped back into a campus classroom full time and I have never wanted to. I am proud of the fact that I could help keep things simple in our family’s life by being the person “on the home front”. I never wanted someone else to raise my children or see their “firsts” or major milestones. I wanted to be the person to spend the most amount of time each day with them. We are only give twenty-four hours in each day. Those first few years on one income as we added wee one #2 and #3 were years of focus and frugalness, but our family never did without. We went down to one car, bought a home with a suite, took in international students, cut cable and reduced our expenses, by as much as possible, through figuring out what our needs versus wants were.

As the kids grew older, I took forays into selling Hawaiian Green tea directly to customers, ventured into Referral Marketing of health products, worked as an online teacher at a Vancouver-based school and even worked in my dream job as a part time Physical Education Teacher at an elementary school. This is what I wanted to share about today and is the reason I decided to write this blog post . This P.E. teaching job was absolutely perfect for me. I worked a half day Monday and full days Tuesday and Wednesday. I had the gym doors open every single day at lunch for the students. I felt that I could be creative in the physical literacies that I taught and truly impact the school as a whole in terms of health and wellness. I had personal time to train for and race small triathlons on the weekends. PLUS, I could be there for my own blue crew on the four days I wasn’t working as well as not work momentously long days doing prep for my teaching job. BUT, the boys didn’t enjoy getting themselves to and from their own campus school in grades 1, 3 and 5. They began fighting a lot and being unkind to each other on a level that reminded me of growing up when my mom went back to teaching when I was in grade 1. My dream job was no longer my dream job as I left to work with upset kids at 7:45am or came home to chaos at 4:00pm. Due to my family of origin and sibling experience, I have a very low tolerance for my boys treating each other like a-holes just because they are related. The dream career came to a clear closure.

I changed my career in an exorbitant manner yet again. I said no to a returning contract as a Physical Education teacher and came back home full time for the next few years. During 2020, I was drawn back to work as an online teacher again at a new K-city based private school, which I love, but isn’t without some friction within my family.

During this winter season, I have often wondered, what would I be doing if I hadn’t changed my career in such drastic ways. What would my days look like? Where would we be living? Who would I be surrounded by? I am not sure if any other mom’s or dad’s can relate, but I sometimes wonder if I have given up too much. This life I lead working from home is often lonely, isolated and takes a lot of personal motivation/momentum as I don’t walk the halls or share daily energy with any colleagues anymore. I have always had big dreams, an ever growing thought life and a vision of making a major, positive impact on the world around me. By keeping my vision narrow and focused on my family, perhaps I have lost the bigger picture of my life.

Career change

On top of more career change.

With three children.

Narrow focus.

Big picture.

Exorbitant.

Or not?

I am not sure.

Have an epic Sunday folks and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna