Category Archives: Luckiness

Happy Thoughts!

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It rained on Friday, which is highly unusual at this time of year – normally precipitation takes the form of snow – and the city smelled so fresh and clean, also a highly unusual occurrence.

It was dark and grey though, and I’m choosing to believe that was the reason that Costco, haven for bad humour everywhere, housed even more grouchy people than usual. For this post I considered writing merely “I took two kids to Costco on a rainy Friday. The End.” and that would have been a fairly complete description of my day.

It wasn’t the kids. They were actually exceedingly helpful: Mark fetching items I’d asked for and depositing them gently into the cart, Jake frequently looking at my face with some alarm and saying “Mom? Mom? Are you okay, Mom?” Because I’m sure I looked somewhat distressed at the human condition as see in Costco: strangers snapping at each other for their objectionable cart etiquette, children screaming, babies crying, drivers trying to run over pedestrians at high speeds in the parking lot. The fact of us making it out of there unscathed, with the items we went in for, no less, seemed to me to be somewhat miraculous.

So I felt Swistle’s post about happy thoughts was very timely, although she was talking about taxes, and not disturbing Costco trips, but still, here is my list of things that are making me happy right now:

1) Spring break! Girls gone wild! And by girls I mean me, and by wild I mean I’m going to enjoy drinking coffee at a leisurely pace rather than my usual habit of chugging down as much caffeine as humanly possible whilst striving to remain patient, yet encouraging, in the matter of the kids getting dressed, etc., recalling that comments like “What the? For the love of….just get your socks on already!” are not particularly helpful in this type of situation.

2) We’re going to the zoo tomorrow! I used to take the kids all the time when they were smaller but we have not been since school started. There is a new dinosaur display, with some funky animatronic dinos, that I am expecting to be quite entertaining. Plus, Jake is fascinated by the hippos and the fish that eat their fecal matter, and viewing that display always leads to some interesting and enlightening conversation.

3) The weather, other than the brief rainy spell, has been spectacular and not only have I been playing in the garden (so many little perennial sprouts, squee), but I have been able to send the boys outside. Yay spring.

4) My stinky dog is getting groomed tomorrow. Perhaps they will put a little bandanna on him.

5) I have a date! I have a date! My husband and I are going out to my favourite restaurant to belatedly celebrate our anniversary; dinner AND babysitting courtesy of my generous parents. I’ve already looked at the online menu to decide what, exactly, I am going to order, right down to a cosmopolitan to start, to make me feel all Carrie Bradshaw and whatnot. Without creepy Mr. Big.

So, dear readers, what makes you happy right now? Let’s start the week off right and tell me, what is putting a smile on your face today?

The Spirit of Thanksgiving

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“It’s amazing,” a friend said at school pick-up, “You can buy a goat for $100!” She was talking about the World Vision catalogue, where you can purchase livestock and building and school supplies for people in developing countries, as Christmas gifts. Nothing makes me feel more like a very spoiled North American than looking at the World Vision catalogue. It makes me revolted with myself. Cost-wise, my yoga mat is on par with a community latrine. My new winter coat and boots are equivalent to “Essential Health and Nutrition in Kenya and Ghana – for 100 children”. For the same amount that I spent on Lululemon tops alone in the past year, I could buy an ox and plough.

I was thinking about that after dropping the kids at school, how very fortunate and privileged we are, to have food and water and schools at our disposal, not to mention all the extras. As I pulled into our alley, I saw a man rummaging through the neighbours’ recycling bins, looking for refundable items and loading them into his beater of a car. I watched him for a few minutes. He was extremely conscientious, tidying up as he went along. He looked clean, and also sober. I thought for a minute about the mounds of bottles in our garage. I walked over to him with a case of empty wine bottles. He accepted with gratitude, introduced himself, and told me that this is what he does “for a living”. I said I had many more bottles and juice containers if he would like to come and get them. After giving him the bottles, I phoned my husband to let him know he didn’t need to make the trip to the bottle depot.

“ARE YOU CRAZY?” he exclaimed. “You let some guy going through the recycling into our garage with you? He knows you’re home alone? What if something happened, when would someone have figured out you were missing?”

Huh. Not for one second did it occur to me that I may be putting myself in a compromising position by inviting a strange man who was rummaging in the alley into our garage. At no point did I feel vulnerable. Still. Violent crimes do occur, and after all, it has been less than a year since a man tried to break into our house – with me in it, alone with the children – deterred only by my growling, barking dog.

I still think I was right. I still feel that man was harmless, trying to scratch out a living in an honest – albeit not quite socially acceptable – manner. However. The thought is still there, the “what if?” thought. What if?

And so on Thanksgiving weekend I am thankful, as always, for every blessing in my life.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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So after my pity party on Thursday, I really did sulk and drink wine and the next morning the travel advisories were lifted and we decided to make the trip! It was a great trip, the only snag being that Jake left a stegasaurus in the Tim Horton’s at Sicamous, and when we went there on the way home it was, of course, gone. Prior to this information, Jake was incredibly agitated – would it be there? Would someone have taken it? – but he seemed to get a great deal of closure on the discovery that it was gone forever.

Missing stegasauruses notwithstanding, the weekend was a success. My mother-in-law made a ham and a turkey, and carnivorous Jake was in his glory. Mark and his dad kept busy with their drivers and an old bucket of golf balls, and me? I pretty much ate my body weight in Macintosh apples and Concord grapes. A very successful weekend.
That’s me with a giant mouthful of grapes.

I have much to be thankful for this weekend and always, and I have a much more thoughtful post coming to that effect, but for now I’m drowning in laundry and the unpacking process. Happy Thanksgiving!

First Snowfall

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This morning I woke up to sweet peas that looked like this:


Snow!

Mark was the happiest person in the city. He couldn’t believe his luck. That kid loves the winter. It wasn’t long before he was outside shoveling off the deck,


and then eating the snow (check out my poor hostas).


Jake was soon persuaded to come out and eat a bit of snow too.


I’m pretty sure the dog did not pee on it.



It’s so trite to say that young children can teach you so much, but it’s really true. I will admit that my first reaction to snow is not pure, unadulterated joy, but after watching Mark frolic outside I smiled and simply put on a really warm sweater, without complaining. There is this great line in the book “How Yoga Works” after the main character is imprisoned. She says “I will make the inside of the jail the outside of the jail”, meaning that, although incarcerated, she was going to still live her life well, and her inner being had nothing to do with external constraints. I would love to be like that. So I’m greeting the snow not with gloom but with thoughts of happiness and opportunity – at least I’m trying to. After all, there’s something magical about the first snowfall, isn’t there? Even if it is only October 4.