Tag Archives: musings

author, blogger, Grief, Parenting, words, Wordsmith

Be Having a Transplant after trying some Bandaids

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Within the last six months our family’s life has flipped upside down.

🚴🏻‍♀️ This morning on my bike ride, I was thinking about this transformation and the best metaphor that my mind could come up with was living with a really “bad oweee” (or hurt place) and healing it with bandaids versus having a transplant.

Ten years and one month ago we moved to K-City. The boys were almost 2, 4 and 6 years old. The day after we moved, my mom was diagnosed with cancer and I spent the next six months doing all that I could to support her and my dad, while living in a new city with very young children. At this time my family of origin was unravelling before my eyes. I have an older sister and that’s all I would say about that plus a father whom simply wasn’t coping well with a partner who “did it all”, but now was dying before his eyes.

After my mom and Super Nana died, I gained weight and lost it. I was alone and lonely. I taught at an online school, substitute taught at our local public schools, taught physical education and also ventured into the business world as an entrepreneur selling two different products. I supported Sexy Neck as he moved from high school to middle school, to being in charge of an International program an hour away and then our local International program within K-City. Steve’s mom died as well as his beloved grandparents, and uncle. We said goodbye to our sweet Labrador, Summer and said hello to our Goldendoodle, Winter. I did all this on top of taking care of our beautiful, busy, athletic three boys while trying to make friends in a new city, be good friends to those I knew and going through a grieving process that is still often difficult to put into words.

Throughout this last decade, I was using a lot of bandaids.

Bandaid #1: Exercise was one of my favourite. Did you know that I was training for an Ironman when Covid hit? I was training over 20 hours per week during those years after I did a 70.3 triathlon (half Ironman) in 2018. Yup, exercise was a great bandaid for me to keep me going.

Bandaid #2: Busyness – By simply rocking my to-do list, I was able to hold things together. The list was never ending as I did 90% of the things around our home and it made me feel like I was “getting” somewhere, but really getting nowhere. It was just a bandaid.

Bandaid #3: Going down the social media “scroll hole”. I am not sure if this is an entrepreneurial thing, but social media because a bit too much for me throughout the middle part of this last decade. I would spend hours on Instagram or Facebook. I would plan what I wanted to share and it began to takeover my mind in many ways. Sidenote: I am very, very glad that I didn’t live in the era of social media as a teen. I think that would have really messed me up mentally. Comparison is truly the thief of joy.

I am not saying that Bandaids are a bad thing. They got me to where I am today and helped me realize what I wanted my life to look like on a daily basis. I now believe we need to rip these bandaids off to do the true, deep transplanting that our bodies, mind and spirits needs.

Over these last six months, I have gotten a transplant.

Transplant #1: Both Sexy Neck and I have changed jobs. Steve stepped down and I stepped up to serve our schools in unique and fun manners. We are both blessed to be able to serve teachers, students and their families in very interesting ways. It has been transformative for us both.

Transplant #2: We have started to share the responsibilities around the house and the boys are helping more. We are living in the “15 minutes per day” of everyone “helping the family” and we are finding a great rhythm to help our home hum with happiness and peace. It is waaaaaaay better than having one person, namely moi, do it all! Even going through the busiest week of the year last week, we had a tremendous seven days with no major stress or meltdowns. We were “humming”.

Transplant #3: I took social media off my phone and it hasn’t come back on. I barely exist on there anymore and I feel more present and peaceful in my daily life. I hear from friends in different ways now, in a more one-on-one authentic way. I have also let many “friends” go virtually and physically. My heart is happy.

Transplant #4: This summer, we watched our city go through a horrid wildfire where over 200 people lost their homes and our church camp, that the boys were at weeks before, burnt to the ground. This made us reflect on many things, including our physical needs, what we value and our ongoing spiritual life with Jesus.

Transplant #5: Sexy Neck and I joined a gym. We are simply committed to going 30 minutes, 3 times a week. It is a beautiful balance for us to get off the metaphorical treadmill and simply enjoy throwing around some weights and being together. Just like Goldilocks, not too much, not too little, just right. It is a major transplant for two recovering high performance athletes who have gotten grossly “out of shape”.

In ALL ways, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally and professionally, it has been a transformative transplant. I feel like the bandaids in all areas of our lives have been ripped off and as a family we are experiencing a “transplant”. There is a newness to our lives, almost like we are moving to Kelowna for the first time, but this time we are healed and whole and not simply living in a deep hole of grief. I am excited to see what God has in store for us in this next decade.

If you are in the state of slapping on some good old bandaids, I hope you know that that works. For the season you are in, the bandaids will hold things together, but hold hope for the transplant. Sitting where I am today, I have to tell you that this is a pretty sweet place to be within my mind, body and spirit. Not perfect, but I feel like I can breathe again.

Bandaids.

Helping

Holding.

Breathe.

Hope.

Newness.

Wholeness.

Transplant.

And that’s all for me on this Sunny Sunday. I pray that you love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

author, Christianity, encouragement, Family, God, life, Wordsmith

Be Sleepless in Edmonton

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Last week, I returned to the town where I went to University as our oldest was competing in his first trampoline nationals. (Sidenote: You can see his journey unfold starting tonight on his Youtube channel: jcanflip) I hadn’t been back to the University of Alberta in at least a decade and I was giddy with excitement for this trip. Our oldest was going to be staying in the Lister Hall residence, where I spent two “University years” of my life. JC was competing in the Butterdome, where I did many courses and also spent time working out. We managed to stay at the campus hotel about a ten minute walk from the venue which was the hotel where my mom cooked many Thanksgiving dinners when I was playing volleyball. Did I set the scene on what a special trip this was going to be?

I spent the whole week of our time in Edmonton, sleepless. My mind wouldn’t shut off at night and I often woke up feeling unsettled and unrested. I have never had a stretch of sleeplessness this long in my entire life. Previously, after a few nights of sleeplessness, I would often fall asleep out of pure exhaustion, but this never happened last week. I didn’t sleep well and wake up rested until eight nights later when I fell asleep in our bed at home.

These were my few lessons from these eight days and nights:

âś… It is one hundred percent okay if I have sleepless nights. It didn’t affect my mood or any of my relationships with myself or others. I shouldn’t have “worried” about my lack of sleep so much when I was lying in bed nor when I was awake during the day.

âś… It is really important to be excited about the things we are able to do, but to also manage my personal expectations. I was excited to “go back”, but my expectations didn’t line up with reality. Can we ever really “go back”?

As I continue to recover from these eight days away, I know that more lessons will come my way, but I wanted to encourage anyone that may be having “sleepless nights” right now. Your body will get the rest it needs and it’s okay to lie in bed resting and awake. Our bodies and minds are truly incredible. Plus, you know me and I believe that God’s got us and can work through these sleepless nights. I know He did some deep work in me through these nights.

That’s all for this Friday night folks. Have an amazing weekend 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, blogger, Family, finance, Flexibility, home learning, Parenting, Wordsmith

Be Compartmentalizing your Life

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When I was a ten years old, I remember lining up at the Scotia bank in Spruceland strip mall with my dad on Friday afternoons so that he could get cash for the weekend before the bank closed. This is such a vivid memory that I can even remember some of the clothes I was wearing when I went and some of conversations we had with people as we lined up (weekend fishing trips, accidents that happened in the bush, local hockey scores…).

When was the last time you lined up or were at the bank in person?

This week?

Last week?

A month ago?

A year ago?

I am genuinely curious. Would you let me know?

My bet is that you are like me and you are checking your banking online at home, scanning in any cheques you receive and receiving and sending e-transfers rather than going to the physical bank building. And this story about banking is exactly why I want to talk about “compartmentalizing your life”.

(Sidenote: I am actually speaking to myself about this topic, but I thought you would all like to be a part of my musings and unconnected thoughts and personal stories as I connect them.)

August 1st, 2023, I am starting on a new teaching/work adventure and right now I am dialing in my schedule and thinking about what I do during each day that I really need to account for and compartmentalized. I am not only thinking of every single thing that I do throughout my day in person, but also what I am doing online. My brain hurts a bit. Have you ever tried to account for everything you do within a week?

My first stop on this brain train has started with banking. I do banking throughout my days as bills arrive, as e-transfer requests come through and check our banking regularly as money moves in and out of our account monthly. Banking is now moving over to Sexy Neck. Boom shakalaka. He now has a handy-dandy chart with everything that regularly moves in and out of our account plus a lovely storage system for the boys and I to use to place the bills. Viola, first stop done.

My second stop has been around regular house cleaning. What currently happens around our house, well until yesterday, is that I do cleaning during the weekdays so that we don’t spend the evenings and weekends doing this chore. What did I do with this gargantuan list? I hired a cleaner. Yup, I did. This goes back to my first year of teaching when we had our beautiful friend Faye clean for us. It was such a gift. I decided to take on a few extra students and give myself the gift of a clean home every two weeks. Write a Student Learning Plan and report cards or clean? I am choosing SLP’s and report cards any day of the week!

My last stop as I have gone down this list making exercise to compartmentalize what I do in my day-to-day life involves redefining the blue (Sexy Neck) and pink (mine) jobs in our lives as parents as we raise three amazing young men into adulthood. (It makes me incredibly happy-sad that our oldest is graduating in two years!!) At one of our weekly chats, Sexy Neck and I sat down and redid this list from over five years ago. The blue/pink job list now sits proudly on the fridge. I know what things I am taking care of and he knows what he’s doing. We always try to help each other out, which is a beautiful thing, but when we are in the busy seasons that happen in the magnificent world of education, we can always fall back on this list to keep things running smoothly.

Banking.

Cleaning.

Parenting jobs.

Compartmentalizing these three things so that I can find space to add a 28 hour work-week into our home learning, dog walking, movement loving family!

Have a fabulous Friday folks and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

author, blogger, encouragement, psychology, writing

Be Wondering Why I Wrote My May 28th, 2023 Blog Post?

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In the wake of what I wrote on May 28th, 2023, I have had many, many people reach out via phone call, messenger and text to express their shock at what I shared about my mental and physical journey the last few years.

Yes, I am strong, but I am also a sponge. I feel things deeply.

Yes, I am a good listener, but I am also not great at sharing what I am experiencing. I feel things deeply.

Yes, I am realizing that I need to create a circle of support where I can be seen and heard. I feel things deeply.

Yes, I am one thousand million percent grateful that I wrote what I did and shared what I went through. I know that I truly shocked some of you, but I think it really reminds us that these last few years haven’t been easy for many people, whichever side of the “fence” you chose to be on. I wrote this post and had it sitting in my “drafts” for a few weeks, but I decided to publish it for three groups of people.

First, this last autumn season we had two very remarkable young woman living in K-City, one was my niece and the other was Bubba’s daughter, my oldest friend in the world’s daughter. It was such a special time to have them here. When I wrote this post, I thought of them and our three boys. Perhaps one of them will stumble on to this when they need it the most. I hope my sharing will help them is some small way.

I never wrote this post because I needed help right now or I wanted something from someone or I wanted to bring shame or guilt onto anyone else. My message was simply to help one other person, either now or in the future when someone stumbles upon that blog. One beloved friend wrote to me a few days after my blog: “I just wanted to say a huge thank-you for sharing your last post on Be Enough about re-claiming your health (mental and physical)…. Basically all you have been through and how you’ve described it is EXACTLY how I’ve felt the past 3 years.”. The second reason was simply to help one person feel less alone!

Lastly, I was also thinking of all the young people who have committed suicide these last three years. (And no, suicide was never an option or thought for me personally, but my darkest moments made me think about the hopelessness people must feel when they attempt or commit suicide.) Every day in Canada 11 people commit suicide and 200 people attempt it. Did you know that 75% of the people who commit suicide are male? The saddest part for me as I learned about suicide rates in our beautiful and “in need of healing” country was this rate is rising, not going down, with everything we know about mental health.

I wonder what would happen is more of us shared our stories, without worrying about judgement of being labelled or worrying about being put into a box or then having people try to “fix” us. I wonder if people were exactly where they are, when they are, how they are what our communities would look like?

And that’s all for this Thursday folks. Love what you do!

xoxo Joanna

blogger, Education, Family, Grief, Teaching, Wordsmith

Be Framing Your Job with One Thought

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 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…?

Here temporarily.

Never to be replaced within your “family”.

Have an epic Tuesday and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

homeschooling, radical sabbatical, Teaching, Wordsmith, writing

Be a Hard No to Retention and Acceleration

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My current occupation as a teacher is as an Online Teacher with students in Kindergarten through grade nine. I help set-up individualized programs for my students, suggest resources, provide weekly feedback on learning samples, do home visits three times per year and write two report cards. In my world as an online teacher, everything is individualized for the student. Yes, every little thing! Parents are free to use any resource from any grade, with some supplementation when needed. Students can work on their individualized plan throughout the year or intensively for months and set-up the schedule that works for their family’s rhythm and any activities that they choose to schedule.

Sidenote: I LOVE THIS HOME LEARNING LIFE!!!!!

In the last three years, I have worked with over twenty-five different families, totalling almost fifty unique students. Out of these fifty students, I have had four students whose families have wanted their children accelerated through the grades that they are currently in. This means that they felt that their child was exceeding what was expected for that particular grade in the nine or ten subjects that they were enrolled in with me: Math, English, Social Studies, Science, ADST, Art, Careers, Christian Studies, Physical Education and a Second Language, if they were in grades 5 through 9. Yes, they believed that in every single subject their were not only above the grade level, but they needed to be in the higher grade. This has put me in a terrible position as the educator “gatekeeper” for this process to happen. I have had a mom scream in my face, inches from my face. I have had a mom have every email and ever conversation revolve around acceleration. I have had mom’s question why I didn’t think their child should be accelerated. And I have had to get really crystal clear on my thoughts around accelerating children, which was never a discourse that I had had in the years I spent in the public campus schooling system.

First, I think all children are amazing with unique gifts and talents. Truly! I see such gold in all the students that I have the privilege to work with over my 23 years of professional teaching and many years before that through coaching and camps. I have never met a student that I didn’t genuinely like. I see preciousness in all of them.

Second, I believe that if you are in favour of and allow for acceleration that you must also be in favour of and all for retention. And, I would NEVER encourage retention for any reason. I have worked with a student in grade seven that was born with part of his brain missing that functioned intellectually as age five, but whom fit in completely with his grade seven class with the support of an EA. (Educational Assistants or EA’s really are saints!) I worked with a hard-of-hearing student in grade six, who had difficulty communicating, but could write like Shakespeare. I also had a student who couldn’t sit in his seat nor focus when someone was verbally speaking to him. He needed to move and have visual cues. Imagine if any of these students’ were “retained”. What needed to happen is that, I as the teacher, needed to be “retrained”. I needed to see what supports and programs needed to be put into place to support this student and their learning style so that they could be with their peers. Retention would not have solved anything. Retraining of me the teacher changed everything.

If we have this flexibility in the online learning world plus I fully believe that retention is never an option, how can I support acceleration?

If a child is bored, try hands-on learning or games.

If a child is flying through their resource, choose a different one or let them fly.

If a child needs greater challenges, have them take an online course or write their own problems to solve.

If a child is wanting to be with a friend in an older grade (yes, a parent has even given this reason to me for acceleration), they can learn patience to meet with their friend after school or at other activities.

Retention.

Acceleration.

These two words really mean to me that we need to retrain ourselves to see what the child is needing to do to learn in the best way possible.

Stepping off the soapbox today!

Have an epic May long weekend and love what you do!

xoxo Joanna

blogger, radical sabbatical, Wordsmith

Be Astounded by Top-Down Wipers

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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