Listography #13

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Meaghan

The May long weekend is upon us. That dreadful time of year when Leith abandons me and his offspring to go do boy things in the mountains beyond cell coverage. Ah, bliss. After a 3-way tantrum, both girls are fast asleep over the dinner hour (yay, 11pm bedtimes!!), and I am soaking up the sun on our porch and catching up on my celebrity gossip.

And blogging. You know, productive stuff. Like lists!!

List #13: Things that make me cry

TV shows
Constipated kids
Sad news
Happy news
Sappy movies
TV commercials
At weddings (but oddly, not at funerals…I feel like I should be stronger for the family)
Songs on the radio
Being tired
Being overwhelmed
Being stressed
Being mad
Being happy
Watching my girls sleep
Watching my girls dance
When my students break through a barrier
When my grandparents leave to go back home
When friends band together to pick me up
While reading books I’ve read a million times, yet hope that the pages somehow change the ending…

List #14: In my dream garden

About 2.5 yards of new garden mix (hopefully next week!)
No icky bugs or destructive bugs – just nice, helpful, pretty bugs
Fairy houses and toadstools
An absence of weeds, including encroaching wild rose bushes and poplar trees!
Lush, green lawn with no anthills or dead patches
A garden swing that doesn’t collect cobwebs
Wattle fences around some of the beds
An enclosed vegetable bed, with a fence high enough keep out the deer!
Stepping stone pathways, and chickens running freely
A bathouse or seven, to keep the mosquitoes away!
A huge lilac bush and a weeping willow
And NO ICKY BUGS!!

My goal for the weekend is to work up my raised bed and dig up the bed under my front window. I have a ton of bulbs and roots to plant that I bought from a school fundraiser, and they NEED to get in the ground! Hopefully I’ll have my new (live!) dirt on Monday if all goes according to my master plan.

What are you up to for this beautiful long weekend?

Step one: be mind-full

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Meaghan

It’s no secret that I let myself go this spring. I blame the lack of running, the hectic scheduling, and the wickedly long winter for the sorry state of my physical health these days.

Oh. Don’t forget the stress. Oh, my! I am a stress-eater and a stress-sleeper. Stuff and hide is my motto!

My pants are all too tight. Last year’s shorts don’t button. Were it not for my yoga jeans, maxi skirts, and long, stretchy tank tops, I would be naked right now. As it is, my underwear is riding up my bum because it has quite frankly given up on the enormity of its task.

I don’t hate my body. My body and I have a fairly decent relationship. I love my curves, appreciate my strength, and relish that I will never be a stick-thin, angry waif at war with myself. What I do hate is my habits…or sometimes, lack thereof. I hate my lack of discipline, and the havoc it wreaks on my health when I don’t take care of my body.

When I fuel it with too much junk and too few vegetables.

When I water it with too much coffee and wine, and can’t remember theist time I hit 2 liters of water in a day.

When I step on the scale to weigh Ceilidh Foofer-Snerf (yes, she has a name now!), and find out that I’ve surpassed my heaviest personal non-pregnancy weight sans puppy.

I am not impressed.

But in the midst of all this health-destruction, I was also painfully aware of what I was doing to my body. What has eluded me is the desire to do anything about it. I fell into complete and total apathy, and it shows. It shows in my hair, my nails, my waist, my hips, my skin, my face, my eyes, my sleep, my energy. Everything is affected.

And even after yesterday’s hard, cold bathroom scale slap across my backside, I’m still lacking the drive to do anything. Thus, I am taking baby steps. I refuse to embark on an all-out fitness and health quest when I can barely convince myself to step away from the coffee pot and pour myself a glass of water.

I am taking weekly baby steps, and this week, I am being Mindful. I am watching what I eat (but not necessarily changing it). I am paying attention to how hungry and/or full I am. I am seeing how I feel after meals and snacks. I am deciding what is necessary, and what is just gluttony.

And I am drinking my 2 liters of water a day. Minimum. This is never a problem for me. It’s only a matter of doing it. I usually drink 3+ liters when I’m not being as lazy as I have been. One liter also has apple cider vinegar in it, because gluttony has left me wickedly bloated and I just feel gross.

I don’t know what next week’s baby step will be. Maybe I’ll start recording what I eat, or stopping when I’m 80% full. I’m not sure. But for this week, I will just pay attention and keep my mind full with my actions instead of my apathy.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Meaghan

To all the moms in the world, with their own babies, others’ babies, husband-babies, and fur-babies. You are awesome!

***

To my mom, who has set an impeccably high standard of mothering for me to live up to. I’ll never be as wonderful as her if I live to be a hundred. She’s the best ever. Love you, Mom!

***

To the girls who made me a mom, and then made me the greatest, most bestest homemade gift I’ve ever received:

***

And to my husband, for not only helping me be a better mom every day, but for finally giving in to my puppy demands and letting this little 17lb, 8-week old brute wriggle into our home and hearts in time for Mother’s Day!

No name yet, but Gracie has started to warm up…a little…

Keurigs and Kittehs

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Meaghan

April sucked. It sucked so much, in almost every area it could suck. We evicted our tenants. I spent our savings on our empty duplex. We had a huge sale fall through. A window freaking fell out of the duplex in a storm. Petey ran away and hasn’t been back since. And the list goes on.

Finally, my Keurig full-out exploded. Hot coffee grounds from floor to ceiling and all over me. No amount of drying and cleaning saved it, either. Believe me, I tried.

And with no coffee, I gave up all hope for the future.

Seriously:

It exploded.

The thin thread I’d been holding on by slowly disintegrated before my eyes. No coffee. No hope.

But there were forces at work in the universe. Well, in the twitterverse, to be specific. While I wallowed in despair, some amazing people starting to come together. And on Friday of that same desperate week, I met Natasha at the park.

And in her car, she had this:

From her. And Tom. And Sarah. And Dash. And Darci. And Raymie. And April. And I cried big fat tears.

I was speechless.

I was blown away.

I was unbroken. Pieced back together with love and kindness. Amazed by the hearts of the community I love so much. Some whom I know in real life and cherish dearly, others whose voices I’ve never heard speak.

And now I have the opportunity to give them thanks with every cup:

So, thank you, for helping me and supporting me in that very dark hour. Thank you for being the light in my world when I needed it the most. Thank you for being there.

Thank you for giving me strength, so that when we realized Petey probably wasn’t coming home, I was able to deal with it. Because in the last week, we lost Petey and the promise of our new puppy later this summer.

We’d priced out Mastiff pups, and had two breeders who were expecting June litters. Sadly, one’s pregnancy didn’t take and the other didn’t come into season in time for summer babies. So my 250lb furball dreams are put on hold.

Leith has been missing Petey a lot too, and so have the girls. Thus, we took a trip to the Parkland County Animal Shelter today and picked up this guy:

Meet Kitty Soft Paws. He’s embarrassed by his name, but he’ll get over it. Kit-kat had him named before we even got to the shelter. He’s 5 weeks of spunk and spitfire, and he has the chiweenie torn between mad love and heartbreak. I’m sure they’ll be cuddling in no time.

And the best part? He’s a polydactyl. He has 7 toes on each front paw, which apparently makes him very lucky.

I think that we can use all the luck we can get.

Kitties and Keurigs. Sometimes the simplest things in life have the greatest depth. It’s all up from here.

100 hearts

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Meaghan

I cannot believe it has been one year since THIS happened. It has been one hell of a year, readjusting to the demands of living my dream with a family in tow. My house has never been so messy and disorganized, and my heart has never felt so full.

I can’t even sum up the past 369 days since Kristi called me up with this opportunity. There has not been a single moment that I have regretted. It has been the single most incredible year of my entire teaching career. I have been blessed beyond belief.

My students have become an extension of my heart, to the point where I miss them in between classes. I even care SO MUCH about the students that I don’t teach! I can’t explain it. It’s like motherhood: you can’t describe the wholeness of it. You can only feel it.

Of course there were difficult moments. There were issues to deal with and personalities to learn. There were very busy times, and very stressful times. There were days when my own girls foraged for food while I was locked in my office. There were days when I foraged for food because I hadn’t been grocery shopping!! But it was all worth it in more ways than I could ever write here.

Of course there were awards. There were medals and celebrations and cheers. But there were also ice cream parties and crazy chicken sleeping bags dances. There were surprise older dancer hugs, and constant 3-year old hugs. I’m actually surprised my 3-year olds danced at all with all the hugging they had to get in!!

There were cards. There were flowers. There were emails. There were moments when the outpouring of gratitude from my dance family knocked the breath out of me and left me tear-stained and in love.

My family grew by over 100 young hearts, and their families who supported them and me. I have cried more overwhelmed happy tears this year than any year before. I have felt fulfilled in a whirlwind of chaos.

I have felt grateful.

I have felt whole.

Being a grownup sucks

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Meaghan

I’ve been up for an hour and a half because I forgot to sign and send my tax return back to my accountant. That slight oversight very nearly meant a penalty on Leith’s return when we are already strapped for payment. I’ve been wide awake since 1:17am, embarrassed by how my stress has managed to creep in to every corner of my life.

The overwhelming stress of the spring dance season is nothing compared to this: that mountain of fear was a cake walk compared to what I am feeling now.

Oh yes, it’s all related to that duplex of ours. I’ve never lost so much sleep over a situation. Empty since April 1st, with a mortgage looming and a real estate market that just doesn’t want our property. A loan wrapped up in that, lurking in the background, demanding payment that we just won’t have. Trying to find other financing options to pay it back. Throwing around words like “bankruptcy” and “foreclosure”.

Scraping pennies to buy paint and rent a carpet cleaner. Finally giving in and agreeing to choke down the cost of new windows. Giving up my entire savings for our dream to a bank, and knowing that I won’t recoup the cost for 5 years.

Adding up all the costs from the past month, past 4 years. Wondering if we should have never moved out here and just stayed in our duplex that didn’t sell back then. Wishing hindsight wasn’t 20/20. Crying about all our lost dreams, lost savings.

Trying to keep perspective: hot rental market, our health, the strength of our marriage. Trying to breathe when breath has been the only means of avoiding panic for 7 days now.

Trying to tell myself that we don’t need material things; that we can start from scratch again, feel the burden of needing two incomes to survive. Trying to tell myself that it doesn’t matter how much we make in a year, that it doesn’t matter that we will be busting our butts on a more-than-comfortable dual income and yet barely keep our heads above water for the next 5 years.

Trying to convince myself that it will all work out. That one family can only experience so much distress and instability. That this has to be as low as we can go, and that from tomorrow morning on, we will only be rebuilding. Not backtracking.

Please. Don’t let us backtrack anymore. Please.

{the end}

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Meaghan

And with that, she gave up all hope for life.

Listography #10 and on…

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Meaghan

I am STRESSED RIGHT NOW!! Holy cow. Our empty duplex has been for sale for 4 weeks, and I am freaking out a little. Since I like to make lists to soothe my stress, I thought I’d spend the morning catching up on my listography! I’ve skipped one of the lists in the past couple of months, since I don’t have a son, and then just ended up distracted and not blogging! So here goes:

List #10: In my dream home:

Truth be told, I love our house. I’d love it more with a few upgrades, and maybe some baseboards. But if I was going to go all-out, here’s what I’d be sure to add:

First and foremost, a housekeeper. Someone to cook and clean, shop for groceries, do my laundry (and actually put it away), tidy up, file my paperwork…and rub my feet. They do that, right?
A laundry chute. This was THE SELLING FEATURE at The Acreage, and I can’t imagine another house without one. Even if the laundry is on the same floor, I want a magic transportation tube for it.
Central vac with the baseboard suction hole thingies for sweeping. Magic. Pure magic.
A garbage disposal. I miss scraping plates into the sink.
A master ensuite with a big bathtub and walk-in shower, and (more importantly) water that smells really nice.
A bigger closet. Not a walk-in closet…just a bigger closet in every room with built-in shelves and drawers.
Floor-to-ceiling windows in my living room. We already kind of have that…but I want MOAR!!!
A walk-out patio from my master bedroom
A new deck, with a hot tub that is sheltered but open. Like a pergola, but no spiders living in the corners.
A slightly bigger kitchen with a gas range/big hood vent, and room for an island. If we could transpose my mom’s kitchen layout into my house, it would be perfect. I love my current kitchen style though.
Equal-sized bedrooms for my girls.
A finished basement that walks out to our fire pit, doesn’t smell like cat pee, and has a guest bedroom suite PLUS an office (rather than crammed into the same room…)
A broom closet. A cleaning closet. Some kind of storage space on the main floor for the vacuum that isn’t just my hallway.
A non-cave-like laundry room. Something with sunlight.

List #11: Best Blog Posts I’ve Written

This is really hard. I have to give up a little modesty and admit that some of my posts were pretty decent, whether from my own feelings, conversations generated, or traffic.

The one about formula for moms. Oops.
Bikram vs Moksha. Who knew I’d become a Google first-pager?
Running…naked running…barefoot running!
What not to do on the internet – LOL!
Fighting with my birth control
Finding my groove…and reigniting a dream
Birthday letters to my girls

Surprisingly? Nothing about coconut oil. Hmm.

List #12: What I love about spring

I love spring. This year, it would appear we are skipping spring. So, this is more or less a list of what I can vaguely remember about this mythical “spring” season:

Longer days!! Coming out of class at 9pm to daylight! Wheee!!
Snow melting into puddles, splashing in those puddles
Walking to the mailbox each day
The first backyard fire of the year
The smell of sunshine in my girls’ hair at bedtime
Walking the chiweenie, without having to carry her because she’s cold
Planning my garden, and turning up the soil once it’s thawed
The dance season wrap-up, complete with dance festivals and fun days
Opening up the windows, and sleeping with fresh air in the room!
The first rain showers, and the first thunderstorms of the year!
That first hint of green washing through the trees
Pussy willows
Running outside

Now, with that taken care of, it’s time for me to go and do my duplex-selling dance with C-boo so that we can get rid of all this stress! Wish us luck!!

Run

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Meaghan

When I run, I am at peace. I am living one breath at a time. I am whole-heartedly aware of every fibre of my being.

It is my communion. It is my solitude. It is everything to me.

When I can’t run, I feel agitated. It makes the winter feel long and bleak. When I am not running, I feel an emptiness. I crave it when I have to step away for a long time.

Running has been my sanity in this crazy world. It has been my serenity. My peace. It is the gentle hand that lifts me up out of the pits of hell; it is the soft voice that tells me I am worthwhile.

Today, my heart is broken. Of all the bad news that flits across the screen each day, this is the first moment that I have ever felt instantly gutted. My soul is crying out for my brothers and sisters whose celebration has been devastated. Tears well up in my eyes uncontrollably every time that I think of our shattered landscape.

Running isn’t political. It isn’t elite; it isn’t polarizing. From the beginning, humans have been born to run. The fact that someone has stolen this innocence has me completely twisted in agony. I want to cry out, to wrap my arms around my running family and weep.

I want to scream and shout, to curse anyone who would steal our peace, our happiness. I want to rail against the darkness, beating my fists against this pain that keeps rising up in my chest.

I want to run until the hurt goes away.

This next step

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Meaghan

When I originally started this blog nearly 5 years ago, I called it “This Next Step”. I was a mom to almost-3 month old twins, and MagzD really hadn’t been born yet. I was taking the next steps in adulthood and needed somewhere to record the milestones.

Tomorrow, I am registering those almost-3 month old babies for kindergarten. They are in seventh heaven after driving past their school for 3.5 years. They are so excited that I could barely convince them to go to bed. I have a feeling they may be very disappointed when they realize that they won’t actually be going to school until September…!

I, on the other hand, am a wreck. I’m nearly 32 years old, and all I want to do is ask my mom to come with me.

I’ve been dreaming about kindergarten for years: sipping coffee in the quiet 8am dawn light, strolling peacefully through my clean house, running errands without 5-point harness clips in every parking lot for TWO WHOLE DAYS EVERY WEEK (and every other Friday!!!!). I won’t lie: at times, I’ve been downright giddy about it.

Yet now, I’m laying in bed wondering how this all came to be. I’m blogging on a practically defunct blog to a nearly nonexistent audience because I am so overwhelmed by the process of pushing my babies out into the world.

Onto school buses with other kids.

Into classrooms run by other adults.

Onto playgrounds with other family values and structures and ideas of right and wrong.

I am so scared.

Of course I know they’ll be fine. I’m the mom who sits idly while her kids explore the playground, instead of hovering over them. I let them eat dirt and play by themselves for hours unsupervised.

But I’m also the mom who silently worries when they aren’t getting their back floats in swimming lessons, and cringes when I see them struggle. I leave them to their own devices, but it’s hard. And now, I won’t be able to see if they’re struggling. I may never even know. I won’t see who hurts them or who helps them. I won’t watch them master skills, and I won’t be there to celebrate.

And my house will be so empty. Like an only child going off to school, but twice as quite. No more giggles and stories and glitter and crayons and princess shoes. On those days, my house will be so empty. I see myself sitting at the front window, waiting, watching for that school bus all the long day through.

And when they get off the bus each afternoon this fall, I won’t be there. I’ll be at work, and all of their bubbling excitement and news will fall on someone else’s ears. I will only get to kiss their foreheads while they sleep.

But I will put on a smile tomorrow morning, and I will pretend that walking through the doors of that school is the most exciting thing the three of us have ever done together. We will make cookies in the afternoon to celebrate and I will listen to the two of them chatter excitedly about being big kids.

In my heart, I will cry.

MagzD Life