Category Archives: The Heart of This Woman

  • Blogging, not so good at it lately! Choosing joy instead!

    I was sharing on facebook that I haven’t blogged a whole lot lately. I feel like if I blogged every day, it’d pretty much go like this:

    Monday- whine about missing hubby, then reprimand myself for whining
    Tuesday- Brag about what awesome kids I have and then whine about them not having their dad around.
    Wednesday- whine about hubby working so far away, then kick myself in the a$$ for being such a whiner
    Thursday- whine about hubby being gone over 8 months last year, then kick myself in the a$$ again. Ouch, that’s starting to bruise now.
    Friday- show appreciation for all the blessings I have in my life including a hard working hubby who’s living far away, without his family, so we can get our bills paid. I kicked myself in the a$$ hard enough the day before. :p
    Saturday- whine about our house not selling. Then beat my head against a wall because I know EVERY ONE is SO SICK OF HEARING ABOUT IT! Including me!!!
    Sunday- I’m too busy whining to God, to whine on the blog today.

    Really! I don’t blog half the time because I’m too busy arguing with myself!

    I actually do spend a LOT of time arguing with myself. A friend on facebook said I shouldn’t beat myself up so much, but really, don’t feel bad. I’m not beating myself up so much as I am reminding myself to choose another path for my thoughts, my attitude, each and every day!

    Yesterday, I did something I haven’t done in quite a while. I spent some money, for no particular reason. What brought me to the point of being willing to spend some hard earned cash on something other then bills and food? This continual arguing with myself. This relationship between me, myself, and I, it’s getting too complicated.

    I bought a package of these:

    http://shop.lilblueboo.com/product/choose-joy-wristbands-pack-of-20-shipping-included

    Now instead of arguing with myself, I’ll just keep repeating, “choose joy, choose joy!”

    If you’ve read Ashley’s story of “choosing joy”, you’ll know why there’s no reason I can’t, and shouldn’t, do the same!

  • Sometimes I start to feel sorry for myself, and then I get real.

    Sometimes I start to feel sorry for myself, and then I get real.

    I kick myself in the behind and remind myself of ALL my blessings.
    I also remind myself that there are others, who are fighting real battles. Not just battling self pitty, fighting REAL fights. And some of these people, are kicking themselves in the behind and not feeling sorry for their suffering, so how dare I?

    Tonight, Ashley of http://www.lilblueboo.com/ shared a video on her blog. You can see it for yourself here: http://www.lilblueboo.com/2012/01/a-rite-of-passage-a-video.html

    Ashley is fighting cancer. I’ve been following her blog for quite some time now. I can’t even remember how I first came across it, but I’m sure it had something to do with the creativity. I was simply following a fellow crafter, diy’er, a fellow mom.

    I continue to follow now because I stand amazed, at the strength, and the joy, in the midst of fighting cancer.

    Ashley shares on her blog tonight about shaving her head, she says, ” It’s just hair.”

    But in reality, while watching her video, it’s so much much more then hair.

    It’s her mother, being a role model, being a strength, for her daughter and her granddaughter.

    It’s a friend, helping a friend.

    It’s family, being there for family.

    It’s a young girl, watching her mother be strong, be joyful.

    It’s a husband, a father, loving his wife no matter what.

    And it’s a woman. A woman, being herself.

    A woman, being beautiful, and fighting.

    It’s so much more then just hair.

  • Breakdown 2012

    When wanting to start a New Year off on the right foot, a breakdown isn’t exactly what you’d call the right foot!

    Breakdown, meltdown, whatever you’d like to call it, doesn’t really matter.

    The end result is, I needed 48 hours of “mental health break” to come to grips with our reality at the moment.

    We received some bad news the other day about our property assessments (which we are fighting) that just about knocked my husband and I flat on our a$$e$.

    TOTALLY unexpected, and we were TOTALLY unprepared for it. We expected our assessments to go up, not down, and certainly not DRASTICALLY down by tens of thousands of dollars.

    If you’re not trying to sell your home so that your family, which has been split apart for six months now, can be together again under one roof, you might LIKE the idea of your tax assessment going down by tens of thousands of dollars! It means lower tax payments!

    However, when you’re about at your wits end with trying to sell your place, when you’ve already hit rock bottom in lowering your house price to try and get it sold AS SOON AS POSSIBLE before you loose that teeny tiny thread of sanity you still have left between all the gray hairs you’ve now acquired…

    Well, when your property assessment drops by tens of thousands of dollars in THAT situation, that teeny tiny thread of sanity begins to stretch REAL thin.

    And that’s what happened here this week. I’d say that thread of sanity pretty much snapped.

    However, after a 48 hour break, some words with the tax assessment office explaining why they had better get their butts over here to take a look at ALL THE FARKING IMPROVEMENTS WE’VE SPENT THOUSANDS ON (thousands that broke us, I might add, silly people we can be, daring to think it would help SELL our home…) before deciding our property has decreased in value by tens of thousands…
    and after spending some time with my children, getting our minds, our home, and lives back on track, I feel a little better.

    Not quite to the point I feel I can carry on with all this much longer, but at least to the point that I can carry on today.

    And today is good enough for now. I’ll worry about tomorrow, when I wake up in the morning.

  • Live Life Right… NOW! Begins.

    I have some silly fears. One of those silly fears is driving in the city. Heck, driving anything but in the country and/or towns! My sister asked us to come for New Years Day since we had to miss out on Christmas dinner with my family. My sister, however, lives in the city. She lives in Esquimalt/Victoria. A city 2 hours away. Meaning I’d have to drive through at least one other city just to get to the city in which she lives.

    *Gulp*

    Usually, this wouldn’t be a problem, since usually, my husband would be here and HE would drive. However, since Graydon (dh) has been gone 8 out of 12 months this year, and our life has been anything but usual this year, it’s either I drive, or we simply don’t go.

    Finally, I decided that enough is enough, I’m just going to get over myself, and make that drive! So I did! And guess what? We quite obviously survived.

    In fact, we not only survived, we ENJOYED it!

    The drive was lovely, the weather was wonderful, and since it was New Years Day, and a Sunday, it was the PERFECT day for someone like me, with silly fears, to drive to a city 2 hours away! The roads were clear, there wasn’t much traffic, and we were not rushed at all.

    I actually LOVE driving. In my ‘angst’ about other drivers though (some are pretty crazy around here, most likely, everywhere) I forget just how MUCH I love driving.

    After we spent some time with my sister, her husband, and my other sister’s two children (and a girlfriend) who were also visiting, we started to head back home. Then we drove by the Gorge. Suddenly, I turned the car around, and went right back to the Gorge.

    The Gorge is a place I’ve always thought was very pretty. When my husband and I first met, he was in the Navy in Esquimalt. We had driven by the Gorge MANY times and since moving to the Island 12 years ago, I had always planned to stop by there some time with the kids, but just never seemed to get around to it any time we were in the area.

    I wasn’t going to put it off any longer. I turned the car around and found a parking spot. We got out and walked along the boardwalk and snapped some photos of the view, and the wildlife.

    Then on our way home, we made two more stops at viewing areas along the Malahat and gazed, and snapped some more photos.

    I realized again how much I love driving. Not just for driving’s sake, but for the places driving can take me. When not in too much of a hurry, there’s just so much to see, so much to do.

    So much Life to Live Right, Now!

  • Live Life Right… NOW!

    With the start of 2012, I’ve been reflecting on the changes I would like to make. Changes in my attitude, in my ways, in my personal life.

    So often I get caught up in the busyness of my life, that I miss out. So much living that I’d like to do, and do it right, not later, but NOW!

    now:

    • at the present time or moment:
    • without further delay; immediately; at once
    • at this time or juncture in some period under consideration
    • at the time or moment immediately past

    As I pondered the changes I’d like to make, changes in my attitude, in the things I do, or don’t do, I began to make a mental list of everything I’d like to stay on top of this year. The list began to get long, and I know what happens when I have long lists. I start off great, work real hard towards knocking things off that list one by one. I do awesome for a while, I feel invigorated!

    Then, slowly, but surely, things come up in life, things change, routines have to change, the list becomes unmanageable in the way in which I designed it, and it becomes doomed to failure. Slowly, but surely.

    Sound familiar?

    As I continued to reflect on this, and this list of changes continued to float around inside my head, I realized one consistent theme in all the changes I’d like to make this year.

    I want to do things right, and do it now. I want to live life right, and live it NOW!

    I don’t want to keep putting things off, until a better time.

    So much of our family’s life is on “hold” because we’re trying to sell our homestead. We’re waiting, and constantly saying things like, “When we sell the house…”

    “When we sell the house, we’ll be together as a family again.”
    “When we sell the house, our finances won’t be so strained.”
    “When we sell the house…
    I’ll have time to do more riding, more fun schooling, more crafting, more playing…”
    “When we sell the house, we can start ‘living’ again…”

    And the list goes on… and on… and on…

    We can’t change that we’re trying to sell our house, it is what it is, and obviously we still have a while to wait some more. The economy is not great, acreage properties are not selling quickly in our area, and our hands are tied.

    BUT,  there’s absolutely nothing stopping me from doing everything I know in my heart that I should do, everything I WANT to do, the LIVING, the RIGHT THINGS I want to do with my children, right NOW.

    Nothing truly stands in my way.

    So my new motto for 2012 is:

    Live Life Right… NOW!

    All the things I know are “right” to do, the things I always want to do, like telling my husband & children that I love them, telling them I am PROUD of them, giving them a hug, doing something special for them for no reason, taking rabbit trails in our daily life because it’s fun, and almost always a learning experience! Rather then waiting to do these things (and then forgetting to do these thigns…), I want to do them right, live life right, and live it now. Not later.

    Being kind to a neighbour, opening a door with a smile for a stranger, taking an extra 15 minutes to groom my horse instead of feeding her quickly so I can get back to work. Reading the kids one more story, snuggling an extra 10 minutes before they go to bed, rather then being in a hurry to finish the day.

    When I hear that still soft voice whisper to me…
    “stay a little while, enjoy these moments just a little longer…”
    I will remind myself, “Live life right, Live it NOW!” 

  • A New Year approaches. Goodbye 2011.

    Every year once Christmas is over and the new year approaches, I begin to dwell on the past 12 months. This past year, 2011, has proven to be one like none other in this family’s history.

    Graydon (dear hubby) has spent EIGHT months of the past twelve working away. In our 21.5 years of marriage, we’ve never spent time apart, except for the very rare occasion one of us might have to go away somewhere. Daddy has always home each night to snuggle and give goodnight kisses to each of the kids. In 21 years of marriage, I’ve rarely slept alone. This past year, this change, has been a whole new experience. An experience I’m proud to say we’ve come through fairly well, yet, an experience I don’t really care to continue.

    I’m praying, with ALL my heart, that 2012 will indeed bring our family back together again.

    I’m the type of person who ponders. I ponder a lot. I probably ponder too much.
    With our children growing like weeds and seemingly getting older by the day, this time apart bothers me in more ways then simply not being together under one roof.

    It bothers me in many ways. It bothers me that our eldest is now TWENTY, and I know there isn’t going to be THAT many more years, even months, of living together all as a family, yet here we are, our family living apart.

    It bothers me that our youngest, our twins, are now TWELVE, and as my husband said the last night he was here, there may not be so many more years left of snuggling before they go to bed at night.

    Elsa’s almost 14 now and already doesn’t care much to ‘snuggle’ anymore. Alesia and Joshua were done with snuggling years ago. Time just passes much too quickly. Twelve year olds need their Daddy. Heck, 18 year old boys need their dad too. This is NOT a time I want to be apart, solo parenting five ‘almost grown up’ children!

    And I ponder that, often: Time passes MUCH too quickly.
    I’ve always known this. When my husband and I became engaged, we decided together that he would not remain in the Navy, but instead he would finish out his 3 year term and then we’d marry the week he was ‘out’. We didn’t want to live our married life separated by a career. We never wanted it to be about “money”. Yet, when you come to a point in life where there’s not enough money, sometimes you’ve just got to do what you’ve got to do. No matter how much you don’t want to.

    And here we are, 21 years later, living exactly 1,161 miles/ 1,870 km’s, apart. He’s living in Saskatchewan, and the five kids and I are on Vancouver Island. This just isn’t the way we pictured our lives to ever be.

    Yet, it is what it is. So many are not living their lives the way they expected. Hard economic times have changed many a life’s course. Why should we be so special that nothing in our lives would ever change?

    Yet at the same time, as I ponder the negative feelings I have about this whole situation, I also know there are many positives. I know that we have hope. Hope of a brighter future. Hope of a move for our whole family, to the prairies where we can begin again, together. Hopefully where land, and more importantly, jobs are plentiful. Where the cost of homes is less then an arm and a leg (and sometimes your first born thrown in for good measure!)

    Camera Plus

    We hope for a future with a slower pace, more time to spend with children.
    It seems so ironic to me some times, that we’re living apart, in hopes to spend more time as a family. And then again I remind myself that this is a ‘season’.

    I’m a “now” person, always have been, and this whole situation just… throws me.
    Throws me from what I feel our reality should be. Throws me from all that I’ve always believed.

    Yet through it all, there IS peace. There IS strength.

    Surely not my own though. Most days I’m really feeling quite weak, quite stressed, and quite frankly, at the end of my rope.

    However, when that happens, I can take a few moments and pray, and carry on.
    And for that, I am thankful.

  • Loss, suffering, grieving, and our society.

    There’s been a lot of discussion going on around the internet about the Duggar’s and the loss of their most recent baby girl who died before she could be born.

    I’m not in the mood to discuss people’s personal opinion’s on the Duggars, how many children they have, their belief’s, etc.. However, what I am in the mood to say is…

    If you’ve got something negative to say about a family who is suffering a loss, zip your lips and sit on your hands!

    I understand some people do not believe this baby was a ‘baby’. Fine, use that as your reasoning.

    I understand some people do not believe anyone should have so many kids. Fine, use that as your reasoning.

    However, EVERY PERSON in society SHOULD understand that if you have even one small ounce of maturity and compassion within you, that when someone FEELS loss, you don’t stomp on them, you don’t ridicule them, you don’t say nasty things about them.

    You come alongside, and offer support. OR, simply keep your mouth shut, or sit on those fingers of yours.

    It’s really not that hard, AND, it’s as simple as choosing to do so.

    “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

    A family is grieving. It doesn’t matter what you feel or what you think about that family, or their loss, as human’s, it’s our responsibility to show compassion.

    Otherwise, how else can we expect our children to grow up and be a compassionate society?

    Think about it.

  • Our days of breastfeeding.

    Our days of breastfeeding.
    I believe most who’ve hung around these parts for a while know what an advocate I am of breastfeeding. Not that I’m “against” bottle feeding. My belief in mothering is that each mother should do their very best, whatever their best may be, only THEY truly know. It’s not for ANYONE else to judge, and definitely not me! I’ll take care of MY parenting, and you take care of yours. 😉

    Read more

  • Seems I’m not the only one with a beef about the lack of rewarding customer loyalty!

    Wow, it seems I’m not the only one with a beef about the lack of rewarding customer loyalty!

    Read more

  • Christmas this year

    It’s looking as though Christmas this year in our home is going to be like no other Christmas we’ve ever had before.

    Christmas at my sister’s.

    While we were hoping Christmas 2011 would mark our first Christmas as a family in our new home on a larger farm in the Prairies, it now looks like Graydon (hubby) will be spending Christmas on the Prairies without us, while we spend Christmas here on the Island, without him.

    It really sucks. There’s just no nice way to say it. It just does.

    What bothers me even more about it is that knowing our eldest kids are getting older (Alesia is 20 now) you just know that Christmas as a family unit, as we’ve known it for the last 20 years, IS going to change at some point. Children grow up, get married, and have their own busy lives and I’ve been cherishing these last few Christmases more then ever, knowing that it won’t be too long before all that WILL change.

    That’s life! It happens.


    The kids opening the family movie night gift last year.

    So to have this now come up, spending Christmas apart, already, NOW?!
    Before the kids are even grown up and married, our family is being split?
    It just makes no sense to me and I am finding it quite frustrating.

    As a woman of faith, I actually find this entire situation quite frustrating, and more and more so with each passing day, week, and especially month. No matter how hard my husband and I both work lately, it’s just never enough. EVERY TIME we feel like we’re about to get “ahead”, something breaks down.

    The funds we just spent on fixing our appliances, which we went without for as long as we could, but since we are trying to SELL our home, we had to fix, COULD have gone towards flying my husband home.

    Instead, we had to scrimp and save to fix appliances, in HOPES of selling our home soon.
    Yet, here we still are. Still both of us, ALL of us, working many hours, all of us being successful at what we do, yet STILL not getting ahead. It’s really kind of crazy. We feel like we’re on a never ending treadmill.

    As a woman of faith, I know God provides. Yet, our family is struggling in a way we’ve never struggled before. We’ve had hard financial times before, believe me! We can get through hard financial times. We’ve eaten macaroni with no cheese. Gone many many times without milk money. Spent MANY Christmases making all our gifts. We KNOW hard times. Just about every Christmas our finances get tight. My husband’s former business would dry up for the month of December (people don’t do home reno’s at Christmas time), pad sales slow down in December (I get a few people who buy pads as Christmas gifts, but let’s face it, it’s not first on most people’s Christmas shopping lists!), so Christmas is always a ‘rough’ patch. However, we’ve never had hard times, APART.

    This is different.

    Christmas is ALWAYS Christmas when you’re together. The gifts don’t matter. The amount of baked goods being less because you didn’t have quite enough funds to really blow the budget on butter and flour and all kinds of chocolate, don’t really matter. Having to stay home because you can’t afford to drive elsewhere for Christmas, doesn’t really matter.

    Being TOGETHER is what matters at Christmas. For our family, this is what has ALWAYS mattered most. And this year, for the very first time in 21 years of marriage, it’s not happening.

    THAT sucks.

    BUT. I also know we are not the ONLY family who’s having to spend Christmas apart. I know there’s military families out there who’s loved ones are away. I’m sure there are other’s like us, with loved ones working away from home, who will be apart on Christmas.

    If they can do it, I guess we can too.

    A few mentioned ‘skype’ as a way for us to sort of be ‘together’. Unfortunately, we can’t do skype. My husband’s internet connection isn’t fast enough for him to do anything other then load websites that aren’t graphic heavy, and chat on msn, which has been our saving grace. We chat every.single.day on msn messanger. Yes, skype for Christmas would be nice, but it’s not possible.

    In the meantime, since he can’t come home, and has 6 days off over Christmas, he’s thinking of ‘volunteering’ to work for anyone who does want Christmas off. It could give him a few extra hours of work, and bless another family to be able to have THEIR husband/dad home.

    As for the rest of us, we’ll think of something ‘special’ to do for Christmas that takes our minds off our ‘problems’ and focuses on someone else.

    I just have to pull myself out of my current ‘sad’ slump, and wipe my tears so I can see the needs of others instead of worrying about ours. At this moment, I don’t even want to think about Christmas, or a tree, or decorating.

    I just want to be together.