Tag Archives: New years

Aging, health & fitness, musings, radical sabbatical, Wordsmith

Be Doing Five things for Fun! (Happy 2024)

December 27, 2023 Be Enough 4 Comments

I love listening to podcasts when I fold laundry or am doing some other routine tasks. One of my favourites right now is Mel Robbins. I listened to this particular podcast on the weekend. The focus was on six questions you can ask yourself to have the very best 2024. I won’t get into the nitty gritty about what she shared because you can dive deeper and listen, if you are compelled, but I did want to convey that for 2024: I am going to bring the FUN! (And yes, I have a fondness for fine alliteration, so prepare yourselves for this linguistic journey..)

Here are five things that I want to do for pure FUN in 2024:

1️⃣ Fitness : This fall, Sexy Neck and I went back to the gym together for the first time since we lived in Bad Saulgau, Germany. YIKES! That was interesting to think about and realize how long again that was. For my personal fun fitness routine, I want to lift weights three times per week and then have fun adding in walking, cycling, skate skiing and downhill skiing. All just for fun!!!

2️⃣ Have Fun with Friends: I want to host, organize or become involved with a game night or book club again. When I lived in Vernon, I organized a wonderful book club with seven other very diverse, intelligent, fun women. We chose eight books to read and we met to talk about one per month. Once a year, we also met to do a retreat. Moving to KCity in 2013, while having a 2, 4 and 6 year old, plus supporting my mom with cancer, made the book club fall to the wayside. I simply lacked the mental space to continue to organize it. Let’s see what I can make happen for 2024.

3️⃣ Find Fantastic Fiction: I love reading books, but I often bend towards non-fiction as I love to grow myself. This year, I want to find some fun and fantastic fiction books to put into the mix. I already Gael 10 good old “mind candy” books on hold from our fabulous library.

4️⃣ Flourish in the Fine Art of Frosting a Fabulous Cake: My mom always made the best cakes for the boys’ birthdays. Two years ago, my goal was to simply make all the boys cakes from scratch. This year, I want to be able to decorate them well too! (Anyone know someone that could teach me? I don’t want to use fondant, but good old icing!)

5️⃣ Frolic across Canada (Yukon + Quebec) and perhaps even enjoy a far-flung trip to enjoy the beauty of skiing in Japan: These are three trips that are on our radar for 2024, on top of our regular jaunts to Vancouver for sports. I am wanting to do these three trips as JC goes into grade 12 next year and these are places we have always wanted to go together as a family. Bring on the 2024 frolicking!

And that’s it folks. Enjoy these last beautiful days of 2023 and pray about what the future of the year two thousand and twenty-four, since Christ, could bring. Our Heavenly Father loves you so much and has a beautiful plan and purpose to your life. My one ragged, righteous, and radical life is proof of that. I am skidding into the end of 2023 with a smile on my face at all the non-coincidences that have happened this year.

Happy Wednesday and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

Boys, Family, Self-help

Be Burning The “To Do” List

March 15, 2015 Be Enough Leave a comment

How many moments have I missed by the “to do” list that runs in my mind?

How many words have just floated by me as I stare at my “to do” list on the counter?

What am I missing when I attend to my ‘to do’s”?

This endless list that gives me a perception that I am fruitful, productive and moving in the ‘right’ direction.

Right now I choose:

To stand still.

Allowing time to float by.

Having no schedule.

Nothing “to do”.

For a few days, I have the gift of sunburning the “to do’s” to the basics – food, water, sleep are the only necessities we have.

Time to notice.

A season of slowing down.

A time to play.

A season to see.

An opportunity to be.

Myself.

Imperfect.

Unproductive.

Human being.

Be.

Me.

Boys, christmas, God

Be Having a Snowy Epiphany

January 7, 2015 Be Enough 1 Comment

More snow than in over seventy years.

First ‘snow’ day school closures in over forty years.

Days of snow falling.

Big thick snowy flakes pouring from the sky.

Great memories with friends and the three brothers playing together.

Hours upon hours of creativity and outside snow time.

It has been a monumental Epiphany.

Nope, no epiphany for me today.

Another kind of Epiphany.

We are celebrating the twelfth day after Christmas that symbolizes the three wise men arriving from the East to worship the newborn King, Jesus.

Here’s the boys Epiphany play:

The wise men have spent the last weeks traveling from a faraway ~~box~~ land arriving in our ~~bookshelf~~ stable in Bethlehem.

We created three ice candles and placed them in our front yard, which is coincidently (or not) to the East of our home. We didn’t realize this was the East until JC pointed it out.

Sexy Neck read about the three Wise Men and we eventually talked about how we both came to know God personally in a private manner.

My beginnings with God began, coincidently, with a writing journal in my bedroom and for Sexy Neck, he came to know God through snow. Another coincidence? Hmmmm….

It was a privilege to celebrate Epiphany today and it is an even larger privilege to know a personal God where snow is the gift of “Epiphany”.

Boys, God, Grief

Be Alive (2014)

January 5, 2015 Be Enough 3 Comments

Being alive is not only the opposite of being dead.

Being alive is also ALERT and ACTIVE

Alert.

Active.

In the last year, my life has being painfully touched with the cycle of life and death.

I have tasted the acidity of death.

I have reflected on the sweet life lived by my precious mom.

As I think about 2014, which started five days after my mom’s death, I am acutely aware that my year could have been different without the prayer of my “people”, the presence of some very wise souls and my brood of boys that surround me.

I would not have survived without these “Saints”!

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(Yup, that’s me on the right after our workout!)

With my whole heart, mind and soul, I want to shout:

I am ALIVE.

I am ALERT.

God is ACTIVE all around me.

Working things out for His good.

Helping me see His ways.

Allowing me the privilege to taste life anew.

Savouring each workout with incredible women in His creation.

Doing things for the first time, things I thought I would NEVER do.

Enjoying every moment with people I love and adore.

I am grateful to be ALIVE.

cancer, DP Challenge, Family

Be Remembering Mom(New Year Goals)

January 1, 2014 Be Enough 1 Comment

This journey through cancer with my mom has been a rich and horrific time. Watching my mom deal with pain on a daily basis, seeing her fortitude to choke back elephant size pills (we both hate taking pills!) and all of us trying to figure out what to do to help when there is really nothing you can do stretched me beyond my limits most days.

Today, my journey has been to look through old photos to try to remember what my beautiful mom looked like pre-cancer.

The light in my mom’s eyes never faded. They were strong and clear and loving until the last morning when she said, “Hi” to me. Her muscles atrophied and her weight faded, but her determination did not. Every day she set a goal for herself, some days it was just to eat more protein, others it was to put one foot on the floor beside her bed and lastly it was to have that one drink of thirst-quenching water.

What goals do you have for this New Year?

My goals are simple:

– Live one day at a time.

– Look into the eyes around me.

– Live my life with determination, just like my mom.

I love you Mama. I miss you dearly and I can’t imagine my life without you. BUT I have learned a lot from you and I take these things into my new year. I love you Mama. I miss you so much.

Goals, health & fitness

Be a Beginner

January 7, 2013 Be Enough 11 Comments

I am always amazed at watching my 5, 3 and 1 year old boys. They are always trying something new, trying to figure something out, moving around, climbing on things and generally just moving through their world in a different way each day. I was inspired!

I decided that my three goals for this year are to laugh more, love more and make more mistakes. My type A personality loves the t’s crossed neatly if you know what I mean.

So, today I tried to include all three of these goals into one activity: Zumba! A year or two ago I said that I would never try Zumba and that I would never join a gym again… well never say never people! I did both of those things this morning. My very wise neighbour had, over time, convinced me that I should try Zumba.

IT WAS INCREDIBLE! It was fun, I made a fool of myself and I got some great exercise. It was one activity where I had to solely focus on what I was doing. I couldn’t worry about the boys at home, what I was going to cook for dinner or the pile of laundry.

Here is an image that I got off the web that sums up the experience for me:

Now off to have a rest, I am sore!

What are you going to do this year to “be a beginner”? What new pathways are you going to create in your brain?

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"Be" ENOUGH