Monthly Archives: November 2009

Gratitudes

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…2 unexpected visits from Leith: one on Thursday night, and one on Sunday afternoon while I was in the throes of an unexpected stomach flu.  My hero :)

…the health of my little bugz.  I don’t often talk about the fear and guilt I felt about having 2 NICU preemies, but every day I am so happy to watch them grow and thrive, with little-to-no delays in their development.  They are even ahead of the game in many areas!
…the help of grandparents
…spontaneous visits with old friends!
…the safe arrival of Jhett Manning this morning (finally!) – congratulations Bailey, Curt and Jaxen :)
…the amazing people I am blessed to work alongside every day
…a sweet surprise
…an incredible business planning session for 2010
…my new iPhone :)
…did I mention that husband of mine, and all his love and support??
…finally starting to feel human after a wicked, wicked 24-hour stomach bug!  I rarely get sick, so it just destroys me when I actually do
…happiness, security, family and friends.  And above all else, belief in myself
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Stretching

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Welcome to a world where enough just isn’t enough.  Where settling is never an option.  Where the sky is the limit, and the people around you serve your purpose by sincerely lifting you up to your dreams and your goals.
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Welcome, readers, to my world.
This is what I am exposed to every day at my office, on every phone call with my colleagues.  We are committed to lifting each other up, to encouraging each other’s successes.  No one (not ONE person) is stepping on anyone else to get where they need to go.
We are all equals on the playing field, every day.
I am surrounded by incredible mentors and trainers every day and they are constantly teaching and encouraging me every day.  But do you know what the coolest part is?
They treat me as their equal.  Every.  Day.

I think that sometimes, people just don’t get how I could possibly LOVE a financial services career.  I mean honestly, when you hear “financial services”, don’t you yawn just a little bit?  But truly, honestly, from the bottom of my heart, I LOVE WHAT I DO.
So much of it has to do with the families that I work with.  The nitty gritty of what I do each night stirs my soul and keeps me up in the middle of the night.  I have searched long and hard for a job that would allow me to help people, and to also help myself.  Every business I have owned has revolved around a passion of mine, but I rarely saw the difference it made in others lives.  I was servicing my own passion, but I could not spread it to others effectively.  As a result, I suffered financially and consequently my passion for that chosen career suffered.
Here, I am absolutely helping people every day.  I am giving them breathing room, hope for their future and stability in their lives.  Unspoken stresses are lifted from their lives.  Maybe I can’t fix it all at once, but I can get them started.  And in return, I do not take a single dollar out of their pocket in exchange.    How huge is that??  I get paid well to do what I do.  Double score.  But even greater than that, they tell me how much of a difference it has made.  They stumble over themselves to thank me for what I have started doing for them.
Moreso, I am surrounded every day by people encouraging me to dream big and achieve my own goals. They are paving the way for me and sharing their experience and expertise.  Every door is open for me.  Ask, and ye shall receive.
This fills me with a life energy that I didn’t know existed.  It has changed the way I view the world, and also view myself.  It has stretched my belief, my self-efficacy and my standards.  I can no longer “settle” for good enough.
Enough is not enough.
We live every day of our lives accepting life as it is.  Hoping that we will get that promotion, hoping that we will save enough for our next vacation, hoping that we will provide a better life for our kids.  Hoping, hoping, hoping.
Who reading this is actually living IN THE MOMENT??  Guess what?  Now is now.
Check out this bit of wisdom that was passed down to me today:
NOW NEVER ENDS.
Seriously!!  Life is what it is, and it is what you make of it.  Why are you so settled with “good enough”?  Why don’t you want more from your life?  Why are you letting other people dictate your worth?  WHY do you keep waiting for tomorrow?
Why are you sitting back and accepting the hand you have been dealt?  YOU (and only you) control your destiny and your life.  You make decisions every day, and you are the one who gets to determine which choices are excuses and which choices will propel you further ahead.
No one else will ever, EVER get to live your life.  It is yours for a reason, a gift from God.  Use it to its fullest potential.  Surround yourself with people whose sole purpose is to lift you up and help you grow; leave behind those that are holding you back.  They are only holding you back because they are scared of the greatness you are capable of.  They are scared that they too might possess such greatness.
Don’t be trapped by fear.
Quit settling, and start living.  Stretch your mind to encompass the possibilities of this world, and start discovering all that you really are and can be.
Now never ends.

101 in 1001 recap:

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It’s been awhile since I’ve posted much about my 101 Challenge.  I have been slugging through some of the longer tasks for awhile, so it seems like I haven’t made much progress when really, I have.
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Tasks I am currently in the process of completing:
-take photographic proof of each completed task
-read the whole Bible
-donate preemie clothes to the NICU every 6 months
-write a weekly gratitude list
-take monthly portraits of my girls
-pay off $8000 of my student loan
-match my $300 RRSP contribution each year
-make at least $125/week
-give birthday cards to Mom, Dad, Jocelyn and Leith
-go to 5 new restaurants
-take a multivitamin regularly

That is 11 items that I will cross off my list just before March 29, 2011.  However, there are definitely going to be some other items on the List that will come down to crunch time.  I need to find time!!  I’m only halfway through my 1001 days, but I am already feeling the pressure.  So, while I pondered my next “good habit” this morning, I thought about my 101 goals.
Here is what I plan to accomplish in the next month:
-go one week without using my favorite swears :)
-donate blood
-spend a full day at the spa
-go ice climbing
-bake a pie

Here is my plan for the next 6 months (ending May 31, 2010)
-go skiing in the mountains
-start a compost bin
-plant a tree (like I don’t have too many already!!)
-start my honeymoon album
-write our wills
-get my Bug & Bee tattoo
-watch the Godfather trilogy
-turn off my cell phone for an entire weekend

I’ve currently accomplished 28/101 tasks.  If I keep to this schedule, I will have completed 13 more which will put me at 41/101 by June 1st.  I’ve got 11 in the works, and at least 3 to cross off this summer as well (half marathon, marathon and sprint duathlon, baby!!).
Putting it all down in writing makes me feel better.  Thanks for slugging it out through this boring post with me ;)

Good habits

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I am trying to find a new habit to form.  I started off my bi-monthly quest to form good habits in August.  The first was to floss every day (yawn!) – it worked and I am not scared to go to my dentist now ;)  My second habit was to drink only one cup of coffee a day.  In that, I failed miserably.  I did succeed in making it through the 30 days, but I realized that I am definitely a person who needs likes to have more than one cup of coffee on any given day.  It just didn’t work for me, mostly because I didn’t want it to.  I thought that my insomnia was related to my caffeine consumption, but I found that if I’m meant to be awake or asleep at 3am, coffee has nothing to do with it.
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Now December 1st is looming on the horizon.  What do I want to change or add to my life to send 2009 out with a bang?  I have two options that I am tossing around in my head.  One has the potential to improve my overall daily productivity, but will take a lot of convincing on my part ;)  The other is easier to accomplish, but may have bigger repercussions in my life.
The first option is to get up at 6am, regardless of the day.  I currently sleep in until about 8am, and I fight the urge to lay there all day.  Fortunately, I have children so I do have to get up :)  But if I were to pull myself out of bed regularly, I could shower and enjoy my coffee before they wake up.  Then, when they go down for their morning nap, I could get a LOT accomplished.  Plus, on the days that I actually have to be somewhere in the mornings, I might stand a chance of feeling relaxed as we head out the door.
My second option is the cheesy, but well-proven idea of writing my goals downs and reading them twice a day: once when I first wake up and once before I go to sleep.  Little endcaps on the day to keep me focused on the bigger prize.  It sounds simple, and it would seem like that is taking the easy road (versus fighting my body’s love of sleeping in!), but it is a daily habit that has been proven to have massive effects on whether or not a person actually achieves his or her goals.  And my goals?  They are both huge and important to me and my family.  Every little bit would help.
So there you have it.  That is the incredibly thought-provoking and world-altering dust that is floating around in my mind at 5:30am today.  What do you think? 

Update:

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Um, ya.
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So Kit-kat did not respond well to the shrinking of Bunny. She looked very concerned when I revealed the new, smaller Bunny to her this morning. She wouldn’t hold or hug Bunny. I tried to fluff Bunny up with a hairbrush. It didn’t really work.
“Bunny sick?”
“Yes, sweetie, Bunny is sick”
All day long, all I heard from her was, “Bunny sick? Bunny cry.”
So there ya have it. She bestowed me with her trust, and I ruined her Bunny.
Where’s that Mom of the Year trophy?

Oh. My. God.

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I killed Bunny:

I am officially the worst mother EVER!

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Most moms who destroy their kids most beloved toys probably have backups, or at least know where to find a backup, and PROBABLY aren’t dealing with a highly emotional 20-month old whose sister is also 20 months old and highly emotional, and a husband who is out of town.
Where. The eff. Is my paper bag??
Kit-kat puked. Like, everywhere. EVERYWHERE.
5 times in one hour.
One of her casualties was Bunny. Dear, dear Bunny, who in the past 6 weeks has become her closest of companions. Bunny, without whom life would cease to exist. Sweet, fluffy, Pomeranian-in-the shape-of-a-rabbit Bunny:
This Bunny got hit bad. It looked somewhat chocolate-like on the first go ’round. Sponge-bathing Bunny was not going to be an option here.
So I thought, “Hey, let’s throw Bunny in the washing machine with the sheets and clothes just like my mom did with all my animals.” Makes sense, right? I mean, I don’t remember a single one of my animals being destroyed. Sure, they weren’t as fluffy as before, but it was kind of like a sweatshirt – still cozy and functional. And really, I have the spankiest of spanky front-load washing machines that could gently bathe a newborn baby.
Then I saw it: SANITIZE. What possible other function could that setting have other than for taking the barf out of my laundry????
APPARENTLY, IT’S SOLE PURPOSE IS TO ROB MY CHILD OF HER BELOVED BUNNY AND MAKE ME LOOK LIKE A MONSTER!!!!!!!
Who knew (who knew??) that extra hot water caused massive shrinkage? WHO KNEW??? I seriously didn’t freakin’ know!! I thought hot water + hot dryer = shrinkage. I DIDN’T PUT BUNNY IN THE DRYER FOR THAT REASON!!
No, no, no. Now, Bunny is sanitized. She is also HALF the size she was, and she has a HOLE in her head.
A hole. In her head.
Like, the stuffing is falling out.
What. The. Eff.
Seriously, if this is some kind of sick joke that all you perfect moms are playing on me, IT’S NOT FUNNY!!
How am I going to explain the shrunken, Rasta-Bunny that I am left with??
Kill me now.

Gratitudes, full of WOW

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…the insane number of ever-increasing international hits that this little blog has been receiving. At first, I thought it was a fluke, but every day the number grows and the geography expands. I am humbled to think that my words are reaching the corners of the world, and that you would take time out of your day to actually read them. Thank you!
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…for my wonderful husband, who came home Friday night. He even brought me a cold McDonald’s cheeseburger. (I know, I don’t get it either…but I’m just so happy to see him. And no, I didn’t eat it)
…big bugz in forward-facing car seats!! Oooh, fancy :)
…finding the perfect balance of family time and social time this weekend
…my new glasses!!
…Norwex, baby! Sherrie took me to a Norwex party so that I could finally get my hands on some. It is an amazing line of cleaning clothes (yawn, I know, but keep reading) that are completely antibacterial and clean using only water. What’s even more interesting is that this huge phenomenon is based out of little old Dauphin, Manitoba – hi Aunt Dot :)
…audiobooks from iTunes. Right now, I am listening to A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. I highly recommend it. I find listening to non-fiction books a lot easier than reading them, and it makes my hours of driving time a lot more productive
…Vampire Diaries. Edward who??
…my new red wall and all the art that I have fearlessly hung on my walls this week :) Thanks Sher :)
…ducks and bunnies
…a whole day left to spend with my husband and bugz :)

Phobias

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Once upon a time, 6 days before my wedding, I did a bad, bad thing:

I thought it would be a good idea to paint my kitchen red. It was a bad, bad idea on May 19, 2007. It caused much stress, many tears, and too many trips to Rona for any long weekend. Yikes. But through the miracle of tinted primer and saintly Rona employees, I was able to fix it the next day and get married the next weekend.
Leith has never let me live that one down. Thus, it has manifested into an extreme anxiety-inducing phobia of taking decorating risks. Yes, I love color. I adore color, and I will never have a “neutral” home. But I am scared of making semi-permanent mistakes. So scared am I that I only hung 4 pictures in my entire duplex and had a near-panic attack when I asked Leith to hang a couple of shelves:

Yes, I know they are eensy-weensy, tiny miniscule shelves. My point exactly!

So, suffice to say, as we have made ourselves more and more at home in our beautiful acreage dwelling, I have been faced with the inevitable: making decisions about my walls.
Painting? Not so bad. But my walls have been bare. Sherrie has been mocking me. Finally, I stood up for myself and said, “I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE YOUR MOCKING, SHERRIE-PIE!!!” and I went to Pier One (Pier 1?) and bought 3 paintings:


They ultimately led me to do this:
(a framed print I’ve had for years)

And to hang these metal squares from Urban Barn:
And to buy this gorgeous print from Rona:

And group and frame these:

(2 framed “drawings” by Kit-kat & C-boo, with a photo of Leith
ice-climbing in between them; my family wall)

And ultimately, it caused me to go from this:

To this:

Yes, through the grainy blur of my BlackBerry camera, your eyes do not deceive you. I have painted my living room wall RED! Screaming, candy apply red. And do you know what? I LOVE IT! I have one coat on, and I LOVE IT.
It was a leap of faith and a nervous journey of fear-filled color-matching at Rona, but we matched the vibrant red of my Starbucks cinnamon mint tin and I can strongly say that in a mere 48 hours, I conquered my fear of walls.

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Thanks, Sherrie-pie :)