Canine karma

Keep calm and carry on. A great mantra to repeat and live by, right? Massively challenging for a big mouth, temper losing control freak like me however. But I continue to struggle to meet this challenge, hoping that the day will come that I will achieve both inner and outer serenity and all who know me will be able to say, wow, she is just so soothing to be around. Okay, okay, I can hear you all saying, hey Lis, maybe don't set your goals too high, right? Baby steps, baby steps. So after blowing my top at my brother and sister in law this weekend, I am out to redeem myself, if only to myself, and challenge myself to keep it all together when things don't quite go my way.

Fantastic opportunity to put myself to the test arrives Tuesday when what should be a straightforward trip to the vet with my golden retriever goes awry. To say my dog is a big baby is a massive understatement. Basically he is a 100 pound cowering whimpering lap dog. He has this amazing super power of being able to shed virtually all of his hair at once, onto me when he starts to have a panic attack. Which he does upon arrival at the vet's office. I speak in soothing tones, comforting him, telling him (and myself) that it's just a quick visit and we'll be on our way home soon. Dr. Natasha (yes, she has a heavy Russian accent for real!) gets things underway, and it's all going quite well, when a tech suddenly enters the room and tells Dr. N. that she is needed right away. Dr. N apologizes and explains that she has to go deal with an "emergency guinea pig situation", but she'll be right back. Hmm. So Xander (that's my dog) and I wait for several minutes, and finally Dr. N. returns, but moments later the tech is back exclaiming that the guinea pig is in distress, and Dr N grabs a teeny tiny stethoscope and rushes off again. This time we wait even longer, and I can feel my old friend big ugly impatient red temper tantrum starting to stir. I mean, come on, someone could at least let us know what's going on, or send us home, or something. But I take a breath, and wave him off, no easy feat as I am working hard to keep Xander's panic attack from turning into a full blown heart attack, oh my god, that's all my vet needs. At some point another tech brings him some water, and offers me a coffee, leading me to believe the vet is not coming back any time soon. But I tell myself - and Xander - that it's fine, we have no where else we have to be right away, and imagine the trauma room scene playing out nearby. Do they have teeny tiny little paddles fired up, is someone yelling "clear!" while a tearful family looks on from behind the team of medics? Pay it forward, I tell myself, be a thoughtful patient person, because I would expect the same priority treatment if my pet was in dire straits. I strove to communicate this to my dog, and felt him start to calm down - easily done as at this point he was actually lying on top of me, as much of himself as he could get into my lap anyway, so I could get a pretty good read on how fast his heart was beating etc.

Anyway, eventually the vet came back, pronounced my dog to be in great health, finished our check up without further disruption and we headed to the desk to pay the bill, feeling really good about how we had both managed to keep it together over the past hour. And then it happened - a true moment of cosmic karma payback, a tangible reward for our most excellent behaviour. As the receptionist handed me the bill, she smiled and told me that as a thank you for our patience they were throwing in a FREE fecal test for Xander. Woohoo! I smiled right back and said "right on!" Can you imagine my excitement?  I could hardly wait to rush out and gather that sample to bring in.  My healthy dog and I headed home proudly with our fecal sample gathering kit glowing like the trophy that it is.

But seriously, while it may not seem like much of a reward for maintaining my cool, I'll take what I can get. Count your blessings and all that.  Because in the end, I never did find out what happened to that guinea pig....

cleaning house

So.....it's been awhile. Remember that cold etc that I had last fall? Well, it turned out to be pneumonia and a  sinus infection, and the combo of the two laid me out for pretty much the rest of the year.

Nuff said. It's January, and I am more or less back in action - being super sick was fabulous for weight loss, although I admit to getting carried away and ate most of it back over the holidays, oh well.

Another thing being super sick did for me was what it seems to do for many folks - made me appreciate my good health when it started to return. I want to hang on to that feeling. I want to take better care of myself, without living in fear of becoming unwell again. I want to live more in the now, and still protect myself for the future.

How exactly do I do this? Well, in New Year's resolution fashion, I have set out a plan to clear away anything in my life and my home that isn't working. I'm talking anything from relationships to hairdryers. If  it's busted, it's outa here. If I can fix it with a minimum of energy and/or cost expended, then okay, it can stay. But otherwise, it will be purged from my world. It's about cleansing my life, and myself. Reducing the wear and tear on my existence, clearing the path of my journey, whatever. Too many apps running wears out the battery, so to speak. Or something like that.

And hopefully while I am cleaning out the closets, I will manage to clean out my mind and my soul a little too. See myself more clearly once the clutter of life up till now is sorted out and put to rest. If organizing your home can make it run more efficiently, enable you to find what you want, and  allow you to have space for the things you enjoy, then I'm hoping the same principle can be applied to my life, for my self.

I will keep you posted!

Something interesting happened on the way to the barbecue.

Each year the parents of my children's elementary school host a welcome back barbecue during the month of September. All the other logistics aside, the greatest challenge of recent years seems to have been how to get people to actually come to the barbecue. Which honestly is a bit odd to me, given that our school is relatively small, less than 300 children from kindergarten through grade 7. We are quite a tightly knit little community, what I would almost call a small town in the midst of a much larger city. Many of my parental peers actually grew up themselves in this same area, went to the same schools as our children now attend. But for some reason, people drifted away from each other, and consequently from supporting our school as a group too. Granted, it can be very difficult to maintain relationships with other parents and families if you are working long hours yourself, which leaves very little time left over for your own family, let alone your friends.
But last night something kind of amazing happened. Blame it on the nice late summer/early fall evening full of sunshine, or maybe the full moon that appeared later on, but it was fairly overwhelming, and certainly unexpected. Forms had been sent home inviting everyone to come and requesting that food orders be filled out so that we could gauge how many people to cook for. A small group of us parents spent the day of the barbecue shopping, slicing and dicing on the verge of hysteria (trust me, you try cutting up onions for almost 3 hours with someone who has resorted to wearing their daughter's bright blue swimming goggles in an attempt to keep from onion induced helpless weeping) and setting up all the necessary tables, chairs, food, drinks etc. The pre-order forms had come back with decent numbers, so by the end of the school day all we had left to do was sit back and hope everyone showed up.
Within the first half an hour though, we could see that our event was shaping up to be something completely different. The families started to arrive, and they just kept coming. And it wasn't just the folks who had filled out their order forms ahead of time. There were almost as many people showing up on the spur of the moment, hoping to be able to pay for supper on the spot and join in the fun. While I tried to split myself between the barbecue station, the condiments and drinks area, and the ladies selling the extra food tickets, I noticed a near identical look on the faces of all the parents who were volunteering to run the show. Everyone was wearing a look of almost fierce concentration and excitement, which I realize today was a result of the pride I would say we were all feeling at having somehow managed to bring all these people together. Not to mention the atmosphere in the gym and on the playground - it was almost electric. Incredibly, we ended up almost selling out of all our food and drinks by the end of the evening. I believe there were eight hamburgers left, and a few diced tomatoes and onions which are currently brewing in my crockpot as spaghetti sauce. A great many hands other than those who had signed up to help turned out to clean up and by 7pm the evening was a wrap, and we went home fairly exhausted but definitely exhilarated.
Why was it different this year? Maybe that's just how things go, you cycle through some bad years and then back through some good years, I don't know. But there was something in the air last night for sure, something exciting. And I wasn't the only who felt it - many parents and teachers expressed to me the same feelings that I was having. So now we have to ride the wave, keep this good vibration going. Something interesting definitely happened on the way to the barbecue. What's next?

If women ruled the world....

If women ruled the world, tampons would be free. At least I like to think so. Maybe not diapers, but men would have to change more of them.
If women ruled the world, there would be dancing every day. Every PAC meeting would end with dancing. We would have dance breaks at work. I'm talking full body, let it all go, dancing with total abandonment dancing.
If women ruled the world, there would be no such thing as underwire bras. Muffin tops would be desirable, and stretch marks worthy of adulation.
If women ruled the world, rapists and child molesters would be dealt with swiftly and never heard from again.
If women ruled the world, there would be no such thing as supermodels. Just super role models. 
If women ruled the world, shopping would be a recognized Olympic sport.
If women ruled the world, being a housewife and/or mother would be among the most highly valued and revered jobs in society around the world. And it would pay well too.

I could go on. And on. What am I saying? That we don't rule the world? Hmmm. So if not, why not? What would it take to get there? Do we have to rule? Could we be happy being co-captains of the world, or at least our own worlds? Maybe that should be the ultimate goal for all of us. Being happy in your life, being proud of what you do, feeling valued for what you contribute. That would be a pretty perfect world.
Oh yeah, and don't forget the free tampons.

the marital bed

Yes, I'm going to stand up and say it. Why on earth do we continue to attempt to sleep in the same beds as our spouses night after night? Let me be perfectly clear. I am not referring to the sexual side of the marital bed, not at all. Get it on whenever you can, and all the power to you, especially if you are trying to squeeze it in(ha, so to speak) between nocturnal visits from your kids. But other than that, what are we thinking? Let's face it. Unless you are the uber perfect couple from another planet, at least one person in each partnership snores or grinds their teeth or flails around all night whacking the other person periodically in the head or talks in their sleep(or if you're my husband, yells, laughs, and carries on lengthy conversations) and so on. You all know what I'm talking about.  I mean, when Lucy and Desi had twin beds in their room, we assume that it because back in the day the networks couldn't show a couple sharing a queen size mattress together, heaven forbid. But now I am thinking that maybe they were actually on to something. I however would venture that we take it a step further. I will go out on a limb here and say that I believe every adult should have their own master suite. Really, can you imagine? Wouldn't that be great - dare I say fanfrickingtastic? But it rarely happens. Why? Because no matter how desperate we are to get a good night's sleep, we don't want to hurt the other person's feelings by making them think we don't want to be near them. When in reality, we really don't want to be near them, WHEN WE ARE TRYING TO SLEEP. Why is that such a bad thing? I cannot tell you how many times my husband and I have both lost sleep because one us has put a pillow over the face of the other one who is snoring, causing that person to wake up and wonder loudly why there is a pillow over their face...and then we're both awake, and crabby and you all get the picture. So we should just each have our own rooms. Think about it, we could each decorate to our own tastes, so if you're a girly girl it won't matter to your husband if you want frilly pink pillow shams anymore, and he could watch Sportsnet all night long if he wants to in his man bedroom/cave. I think it's a win win no matter how you look at it.
Okay, but here's the tricky part. See, we are a very busy couple. Like most people we know, our life is full. By the time we are done with work, dinner, soccer, homework, fixing broken plumbing, cleaning up the dirty dishes, making lunches for the next day etc etc etc, it's pretty late in the evening. So our quality time together tends to spent in bed for the last hour before we crash for the night. And there's the problem.  We both finally relax and indulge in our favorite evening past time together - watching the Real Housewives and the Food Network, come on, get your minds out of the gutter - and then eventually fall asleep. If we had our own rooms, which one of us is getting up to go there before we fall asleep and which one of us gets to stay put? Do we have to work out a  schedule, take turns? See, because now it sounds like maybe just too much work, one more thing to pencil in and organize. So until I figure out how to teleport from one room to another, I suspect the marital bed will remain shared, and we will just have to stock up on Breathe Right strips and earplugs. Good night!

Easy button.

I want an easy button. You know, that big red button you get to push when whatever it is you are trying to accomplish just becomes too overwhelming, and you just can't take it any more. And if could have one, I would swear to use it for just one purpose. I would willingly slog through every other thing that comes my way, if I just have the easy button for this one thing. What am I talking about? The LAUNDRY. I know, I know, just the other day I said I hated trying to figure out what to make for dinner. True. However, the upside of that chore is that once you DO figure it out, all you have to do is cook, and the task is complete. With laundry, the job is never done, you never get to the finish line, it just goes on and on and on.  And I swear to god or whatever almighty thing may be out there in the universe that there is a conspiracy by my family to make my laundry nightmare as complicated as possible. So here are my list of laundry rules that I would like to try to live by, since I suspect that easy button aint coming my way. In fact, I think I am going to print them out, laminate them and post them somewhere I know everyone will notice  -  like the tv.

First, if you get up in the morning and notice you are out of underwear, turn your last pair inside out, gather up your dirty pairs, take them to the laundry room and then ask me nicely if I would mind washing them. I can do that. However, what I cannot do is magically make a clean pair appear for you right now this second, and sorry but I refuse to go through everyone's dressers on a daily basis in order to monitor the levels of your clean underwear. In my books, if you are old enough to put on your own clean underwear and pronounce the word underwear, you are old enough to figure out when you are about to run out of underwear. This rule of course applies to my husband as well.
Second, if your clothes are dirty, please put them in your hamper. Do not put them back in your dresser, or drop them on the floor, or hide them in the back of your closet, or place them ambiguously on a chair or on top of a dresser. Then I have to play the "is this dirty?" game, which usually involves having to smell said clothes, and that can turn out to be quite gross.
If you try something on and decide not to wear it, PUT IT AWAY AGAIN. If I give you a stack of neatly folded clean clothes to put away, PUT THEM AWAY. Please. In your dresser.
And lastly, if I accidentally wash a red sock with your whites, and turn all your underwear pink, I am sorry. Look on the bright side - at least you have CLEAN underwear, right?

If this works, I'll let you know. I'll frigging patent it, make a million bucks, and hire someone else to do my laundry for the rest of my life. Now THAT would just be too easy, wouldn't it?

If you build it...

I like to think of myself as a "the glass is half full" kind of person - always look on the bright side of life if you will. (Cue the Monty Python music please) So when the sewer backed up into our basement yesterday, rather than despairing over the damage my first thought was, well, thank god I have this terrible cold right now, and I can't smell what according to my kids is an absolutely revolting odor coming from downstairs. My second thought was hey, maybe it's time to reno the basement a little sooner than we'd planned - I guess we'll get some nice new flooring out of all this. Easy for me to say, I am the idea lady, and my husband is the master of my disaster. This is the joy of living with a general contractor. Although I have to be very careful - if I muse out loud one day that it might be nice to get rid of that wall between the kitchen and the dining room, I have only myself to blame when I arrive home the next day from shopping or whatever and find the house in a total state of deconstruction, wall gone, kids cleaning up old drywall and nails.
I've heard people say that the renovation obsession is a relatively new phenomenon. While it's true that I don't recall a single renovation show on tv as a kid, I think people have been house proud since the dawn of time. And I totally get that, I really do. I walk around my home, and our property and feel an almost fierce sense of ownership at times. So while granite countertops and stainless steel appliances have replaced formica and shag carpet as the must haves in our homes, the need to create the perfect personal space remains the same. Although really, I'd like to know who died and made granite god? It's super duper hard, and things break when they fall over on it. But I digress.
Anyway, I am just as guilty as the next person, maybe more so. I went to school for interior design, so great was my thirst for building and architecture. I married a general contractor, who can build anything I can dream up. My kids have literally grown up surrounded by power tools and drywall mud. I take loads of before, during and after pics. We lovingly spent 4 years gutting and renovating our old rancher, and the moment it was done, we said "oh, isn't it beautiful now?" and then sold it. Honestly, I can't imagine living in a house where I wouldn't want to change a thing. Fortunately for me, it will literally be years before I will ever come close to that dilemma in our "new" home. And I wouldn't want it any other way. Maybe that's the real reason that ruined carpets, or leaking ceilings ultimately don't phase me. I am an optimist, it's true. But more than that, I love having something to look forward to, something to dream about. And it's even better when you can share that with someone. How does the saying go, the couple who renovate together procreate together? Something like that.  While my husband and I don't agree on everything - ha! - we do share a passion for renovation, and placing our personal stamp on our home. Thank god, because he's got some stinky, soggy carpet to deal with when he gets home tonight....!