Cameo

I am putting in a cameo appearance here at my own blog before I high-tail it off for another weekend at my cottage. On the heels of my trip to Ontario where I met, yes, two of my favourite bloggers, Indigo Girl and Oreneta, guess who's who here (hint: my sister and Riley both are included):

I am so incredibly grateful that Indigo Girl and Oreneta (and/or their husbands) drove silly distances just to get together in the flesh. Time is indeed so precious and I am glad that they seized their moments and helped make it happen. Forming community, growing friendships has become essential to my own well being.

What an incredible journey this summer has been. In just under two months I have travelled, often times not so far but often times deep into nature. I have railed and moaned and crowed and laughed. I have frightened and secured and built and deconstructed. I had no idea when school ended on June 23 that so much would have come to me and mine in just under two months. So much of it is good, rich. All of it is ultimately healing and encompassing.

Oddly enough a theme that has popped up this last week has been bee/wasp stings. My sister's partner got two in short succession last Sunday, my sister got one shortly after his, I got one the day before but only realized what it was once the swelling had gone down. And today I got a bumble bee sting on my neck. I had brought in a bundle of laundry from the clothes line just before a thunderstorm and tossed it into the dryer. Stepping back I heard an incredibly LOUD drone. I spun around and around, trying to find the source not realizing it was attached my neck. I hated to kill the bee but, well, let's just say I am in way more pain than he is right now. I like Ted Andrew's description of the bee, "it remains a symbol of accomplishing quests that appear to be impossible", which pretty much sums up my life. Of course it symbolizes many other things (fertility, productivity and certainly the balance of work and play). More to examine there as we have dealt with a few bee *ahem* issues (like a 5,000 + hive in the floor of our garage just two years ago).

So many openings came these last months. I don't know if it is because I have tried to attune myself to the rhythms of nature or if it was just what had been coming down the pike regardless of my personal input. In the end I don't think it matters. It is here, I am living it and even if I'm not sitting on the pot of gold, I am alive and more vibrant that I could imagine possible.

Now as I head back off to the wilderness it is with a box of school supplies and printed strips to identify each and every one of the 2HB pencils, markers, glue sticks, pocket protectors, duo-tangs, binders, exercise books, tissue boxes and other bizarre requests. I have to admit I remember the days when I was given ONE 2HB pencil at the beginning of the year which was replaced once it was used up, exercise books were provided free as were pencil sharpeners, erasers, colouring pencils, construction paper, scotch tape - all of which we now provide for our own kids. When I was in grade school I never had to wash down desks as my son has had to do as a regular class activity, that was a custodian's "job". Which probably goes to show what a geezer I really am. And, proud of it.

Wordless Wednesday

{Virtual Coffee}

Oh hello Tuesday, it's time for virtual coffee! If we were meeting for coffee today I would want one of these ventilowfatmochahalfsweeteasywhips

because it's been a while and I have been disciplining myself to live cleaner and less extravagantly.

If we were meeting for coffee today I could bore you with lots of photos but instead I will share some colour.

and say that nature just does it better.

I would tell you about my boy's intuitive side and how he is using nature to call in spirit. He was working owl spirit pretty intensely on Friday night and Saturday we fell across this

which wasn't exactly what he had in mind, but I heard the answer.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would try hard to not freak out that it is August 9 and instead remind you (and me) that there are still three more weeks before Riley starts school. But I did have a long hard look at the school schedule and would tell you that out of the 18 weeks before the Christmas break, only 8 of those are full 5-day weeks - the other 10 weeks include some regular holidays and pedagogical days. And that the longest stretch of 5-day weeks is 3 weeks in a row, which occurs at the end of March. My, my.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you I will be gone for much of this next week, on a road trip that looks like it includes (eeeeek!) meeting two fellow bloggers in person!

I would say that I feel like I am really living this season, despite spending a tidy sum in gas, I have frequently picked up and gone into nature and am learning to occasionally put my own needs first, even if for only short periods of time. I feel a slippery grasp on living with intention because that is the best I can do at the moment and it's helping me to get closer to knowing what, or who, I want to be when I grow up.

Then I would say let's go and see what Amy is talking about over at Lucky Number 13.

Today

Talking about today makes me need to preface last night. Last night at 9:00 p.m. I discovered that I needed a "Christmas" related costume for Riley for his swimming lesson at 9:00 a.m. this morning. So what is a hard-pressed mother to do? First up, scrounge through the holiday bins in the basement for the Santa hat. Check. Then get creative and pull out my Caran d'Ache colour pencils and VOILA!

Riley as a Christmas tree! Not too shabby for 12 hours of notice.

The rest of my day involved finding my main yahoo email account hacked, and with my deepest apologies to those who also subsequently got invaded via their emails in my contacts list. I have had quite a few problems with yahoo these last two years and am thinking I need to switch over to another provider. I also have tried GMail but am not crazy about their formatting. Any suggestions out there? And now I read in the news that Paul McCarthy also feels "hacked" and I guess I should feel as if I am in good company (snicker).

{Virtual Coffee}

If we were meeting for coffee today I would have a lot to say as I missed out on having coffee with you last Tuesday. I would show you the bowl of latte I had with my friend Tammy,

and tell you that we also ran into another friend who I always see at this cafe no matter what day or time of day I go, who also happens to be a member of the wolf club.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you that I have gone kicking and screaming out of July and into August and that I can hardly believe my beloved July is over.

I would tell you last week I had my second massage with the magical massage therapist, Maria, but when I got dressed that morning I forgot someone else on planet earth was going to see my underwear.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you that I have learned to know when I'm having a hot flash in a heat wave and that is when I am at the office and looking for another layer to peel off whilst everyone else is walking around in sweaters with their teeth chattering. And when I say, "is it just me or is it hot in here?" and everyone says that it's just me.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would show you the levitating crab apple

and then say, "fooled you!"

I love how kids can get so much time and fun out of something simple like a single crab apple. I would tell you that Riley took his first solo trip in the peddle boat this weekend as our delightful house guests had claimed the kayaks. I keep forgetting how much he is growing up and how trustworthy he is.

And then I would tell you about something else that happened on the lake on Sunday, something which made me confront a fear and which I am so grateful for happening. We were out in the canoe with our guests, two adults, two children when one of the children got twitchy and decided to leap out and swim back to our dock. But sixty pounds quickly leaving one side of a heretofore carefully balanced canoe means one thing - capsize. Before anyone knew what was happening it went over and before I had time to be scared I was in the water counting heads. We miraculously managed to pull/push the canoe to shore and emptied it and I might have photos to show of this except that my friend's non-waterproof camera was in her pocket at the time. My inner guidance had made me leave the dog and my own camera back on shore. A big lesson learned for the small fry was exactly why we wear life jackets no-matter-what in any boat (I expect to hear no more griping for some time about this) and I think the same lesson wasn't lost on the adults who had been cautious enough to be wearing them as well. Gratefully there was also sun after the event to help dry things out.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you that there has been some wicked office gossip going on behind backs. I do my best to disassociate from all of this on a regular basis but if there is any truth to it, it has cost the lives of two innocent goldfish and that's where I tend to take it to heart. How interesting that the Brave Girl's message today advised against engaging in any kind of drama so I am going to take that advice and take a few steps back to my usual Switzerland post (which is, in fact, what they call me at work because my reputation is not to engage).

If we were meeting for coffee today I would eventually get around to talking about where my soul searching has led over the last two weeks. What I seem to notice in other people's lives is their support systems and how I lack in that area. Which brings out the victim archetype in me thinking that if only I had so-and-so or so-and-so to help out or take on some of the daily details of raising Riley I would have more time and energy to get my life moving forward and although there is plenty of truth in what I am thinking, there is also plenty of truth in the idea that many things I don't do or get done for my own self is because I am not making choices that would grant me enough importance in my own pecking order. Being a mother has meant making sacrifices I never dreamed would be asked of me, some of these I have given willingly and others I have gone down fighting over. As my birthday approaches I am putting some energy and effort into moving my needs and wants up on my to-do list in the hope that with intentional practice it will become habit. And I would share with you the entry from June 28 on my "Women Who Do Too Much" page-a-day-calendar which reads:

"Some of those we are close to - like children, husbands, pets, and colleagues - experience our being focused as withdrawing from them...not so! Those around us need to learn that they cannot always be the center of our attention and our being focused does not mean that we have abandoned them. Our being focused is not about them. It is about what we are doing."

and ask you if you don't think those words are brilliant too?

I would tell you I finally answered Crow's call.

Oh Crow! This powerful, thrumming bundle was made by the magical Pixie Campbell and arrived in my mail box on a day when I really, really needed to hold it in my hand.

And I would leave you with a picture that makes my own heart thrum, pure joy

and suggest we head over to Amy's Lucky Number 13 to keep this conversation going.

On Heat and Navel Gazing

Yup, it's hot enough for me. Most of me is loving it, I really seem to thrive on heat, even if it is at a slower pace. To keep cool today it required an entire pitcher of iced tea

a bowl of cherries

and many, many yellow plums.

Although I will admit that even I have a heat limit, which I think I reached yesterday. These next few days I am painting Riley's room, getting some new furniture in for him. At eight and a half, I figured it was time to update the toddler bed and the change-table-slash-set-of-mini-dresser-drawers.

As I was saying, yesterday I reached my heat limit. After spending the afternoon in Riley's room, moving out furniture (on my word that boy has hundreds of books) trying to sort through and throw out stuff that has been in there for too long, I was sweating pretty heavily. The sweat would dry then the process would start up again. And I would dry off, again. After a few rounds of this my underwear was stuck to my body like glue. We were invited to swim in a neighbour's backyard pool but I couldn't get my underwear off to get my bathing suit on. I was thinking I was going to have to cut it off my body.

Today is day two of the room painting. Four hours and one stomach bug later, the primer is up, and I am sipping this jelly jar of cool blue Hpnotiq. Even the colour is cooling.

No worries about underwear sticking to me today, having opted out of putting it on in the first place. Which brings me to my first bit of navel gazing.

Two themes have been recurring in my field of vision lately. The first is choice. How we choose to spend our time. As much as I love summer vacation and the more relaxed pace (not to mention the weather), we are half way through summer vacation and I have felt robbed of my time. I feel more demands on me, things I am hard pressed to say no to. Which has left me undone. Is this how I choose to spend my time? I see others around me in real time and blog time who seem to be freer in making choices or maybe it's a matter of having a better support system for the choices they do make. More navel gazing on this theme is needed.

The second recurring theme is boiling down, if you can, the purpose of life to relationships. A few readings have come to me suggesting that the essence of our life is relationship(s). It is, obviously, not about the bigger and better toys or the lofty goals or the path we choose to reach them or even our learning process, it is about how we gift ourselves in relationship. Which has me asking what I am bringing to my own relationships. Those closest to me suffer the brunt of my impatience, my frustrations. Am I bringing enough good stuff to those ones that are important? Perhaps another jelly jar of Hpnotiq will induce a deeper sense of reflection, or sedation.

{Virtual Coffee}

If we were meeting for coffee today we would be doing a drive-through because, once again, we are on the road. Today we are driving into Ontario to help my mother with her move. Which will mean at least 3 hours of driving and moving boxes in sweltering heat. Which certainly beats moving boxes in a snow storm.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you we squeezed in another weekend at our cottage, doing plenty. First at another lake and another beach with friends which was lovely and second on the petit train du nord bike path where we rode at least 20 kilometers.

We also spent enough time chez nous, welcoming back an old friend

I think he thinks he's hidden

but then we caught him on our own dock too. In fact we kind of chased him around in our peddle boat but I think he may also have been enjoying observing us as he never flew too far.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you about this strange looking plane that buzzed our lake over and over.

Can you say, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"? And let me tell you that the deer flies are horrid right now, so horrid I picked up one of these

It's an electronic mosquito swatter. Or, make that an electronic "moisquito" swatter. (Doesn't anyone proofread any more?!)

Which must be why it also works on deer flies although it really just stuns them but it gives you the advantage to finish them off with your shoe whilst they lie there inert. If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you I was laughing with a salesman in a sporting goods store on Sunday over this, The Executioner.

He said it was like my moisquito swatter only uber strength. And with a name like that, I believed him. And if I had had it handy I might have used it on this

which was flying around my bedroom one morning. Except he disappeared and then reappeared days later, spent. I would qualify all this talk about bug execution with the philosophy that as long as they are outside (where they belong) I tend to leave them alone, except for things that are naturally aggressive like wasps and deer flies.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would ask you if your kids are crazy for go-go crazy bones.

Riley is somewhat obsessed with them. And if you had never heard of them I would tell you that stepping on one of these is exactly like stepping on a piece of lego. But when you look like this

you forgive him once the swearing is over. And then I would suggest we go over to Amy's Lucky Number 13 and see what's cooking.

The Conversation

A few nights ago I took Riley to the pool after supper and we unexpectedly met one of his friends there. Naturally, I thought this was stellar for me as I suddenly didn't have to go in the water. Riley played with this friend for almost two hours and when I pulled him out we had this conversation:

Riley: why didn't you come in the water with me?

Me: I didn't think you wanted your old, fat, stinky momma if you had a friend to play with

Riley: you're not stinky

Reading between the lines is easy. What struck me was how I described myself and how that story I tell myself about myself isn't true. I'm not stinky.

Wordless Wednesday

{Virtual Coffee}

If we were meeting for coffee today it would be somewhat of a miracle because I have been AWOL or perhaps AWL because I have been truly absent with leave, my own personal leave. And I could not tell you why other than it was just a gentle segue on my own part that I barely recognized my own absence.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you I have been to my cottage two weekends in a row. The first weekend my sister brought this mini-kayak for Riley

as last summer he was driving her own full-sized kayak on his own, without help and only ride-by supervision. He took to it like stink which made me go out and get this 8-foot puppy to paddle along side him.

Unless you have already paddled, it would be hard to describe other than it brings a special feeling of control and power that is rare to experience at any age.

And lest you think I am a bad mother endangering my son out on a lake by himself, I would tell you that there was always someone riding close by.

He discovered that his open style kayak is great for resting on in the early morning sun too.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would introduce you to this guy who has been beating up my country house something fierce.

I have had to call in unfriendly reinforcements as if I were to leave him (and his rather large family) on their own, I would have no house left. I would add that there has been lots of bird medicine appearing in my life and that in the last week alone these three unusual feathers have crossed my path.

And what would a blog post about nature be without a shot of dock scat?

It was easily six inches in diameter and, if you are like me, you are imagining the size of the thing it came out of.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you I have caught myself doing absent-minded-professor-like things like putting empty pickle jars in the fridge.

And that this is just an example of the harmless things I have done.

If we were meeting for coffee today I might broach the subject of my most recent change that has come upon me. I'm not even sure how to put it all into words, only that it is natural and likely long-time coming. I would tell you I have been feeling a certain lack in my life and instead of filling it with time wasters I have chosen to go inward and listen, or try to listen to my directives.

I would tell you I filled myself up with nature these last two weeks with lots of these

and this momma merganser with her nine (!) babies

On Saturday Riley and I went to the local beach and found exactly this many people there by 11:00 a.m.

We had the place to ourselves for awhile so we made some sand art

before the crowds hit. Later that day I discovered that now, when my knees get sunburned, they could double for elephant skin.

Which is a might sight better than what I discovered behind my knees.

I can't believe I never noticed them before but then again, I rarely look in a full length mirror and when I do, my legs are usually covered.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you that also in the last week I went to upgrade my ancient cell phone and came home with this

after being sweet-talked into it by the salesman. I knew almost immediately it wasn't for me so after a few days I went back and exchanged it for this

which is what I really wanted in the first place and it's kind of scary how much fun it is. I would ask you what apps you might suggest as the apps store is kind of overwhelming.

If we were meeting for coffee this week I would tell you that last week Riley had his first swim meet and at the pep rally just before it started, I thought he looked both so tiny and so grown up at the same time.

I would tell you how easy it is for him to make art out of nothing, like dirt on the road

or with an old pop bottle and gathered twigs.

How deeply he inspires me when I have these feelings of being in backward motion.

And then I would say I am sorry for not letting you get a word in edgewise and I would listen to your story because it is so important that we do that for each other.

And then we would head over to Amy's Lucky Number 13 and see what her pot is brewing.