Thankful Tuesday: Three Things

I owe special thank yous to everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday. I had a wonderful birthday weekend with family and friends. Turning 40 was rough but 41 was pretty good. Thanks for sharing it with me!

Three of the many things I am grateful for this week include:

• Music. Music has a powerful link to our souls. It can express what we're feeling, even when words fail us.
    
• The chance to try something new. On Saturday we went to the Cannington Dog Sled Races and Winter Festival, where we got to go for a ride in a dog sled. I've wanted to try it since I read Jack London's "The Call of the Wild" when I was a kid and now I can check it off my bucket list.
  
      

• Swim to Survive. Swim to Survive is a lifesaving program that Ontario Grade Three students take part in. Swim to Survive teaches just the essentials needed to survive an unexpected fall into deep water - an important first step to being safe around water. After three classroom lessons, Jonas's class is in the pool today practicing these skills today. Between the lakes, rivers and streams we hike and canoe on, and our commuinty pool, this program is a real boon to my peace of mind.

Cheers!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Me at about age 1



40 years later and I'm still a work in progress!
(See how I can make myself feel younger? Do your math homework, kiddos!)




Thankful Thursday: Three Things

It's been a week of ouchies and colds in our house. Nothing life-altering. We've missed school, work and Scouts, and everything else is a little off-track too. As a result, I'm celebrating Thankful Thursday this week, instead of Thankful Tuesday. It seems especially appropriate to think about such things today, the day before my birthday. 41 years on this planet and so many blessings to be grateful for.

This week, three of the things I've been most grateful for:

• That I'm over the hill and not under it. Lupus started to put up a bit a fight a couple of years ago and there have been moments when I wasn't sure where that battle was heading. Whenever I start to feel like I did when the last Lupus flare-up happened, even because of something like a cold or flu, my worry gland goes into hyperdrive. It doesn't take long before those primal instincts start kicking in and I get determined to NEVER let that upper hand go without putting up a hell of a fight of my own.

• Video games. I don't enjoy video games personally, but they are one of the things Steve and Jonas bond over. They both especially enjoy strategy games. They're current favourite is a game called "Portal 2". It's billed as "a hilariously mind-bending adventure that challenges you to use wits over weaponry in a funhouse of diabolical science... Break the laws of spatial physics in ways you never thought possible, with a wider variety of portal puzzles and an expansive story that spans a single player and co-operative game mode." Like a lot of parents, we worry about the impact of too much screen time and have strict limits in place but, I have to admit that I love watching to them play together. While the video game scenario plays out on the screen, the father-son dynamic is in full gear and it brings me joy to be a witness to it.

• Homemade birthday cake for breakfast. It isn't good for my physical health but it sure does wonders for my emotional health. Tomorrow is my 41st birthday and also a school PA day, so  Jonas and I are going to spend the day together. When I got to the office this morning, the girls had gone all out. The office was decorated, everyone signed a card, one of the guys bought lunch and my boss made a homemade birthday cake. Rainbow chip with chocolate AND vanilla icing AND strawberries. Yumm!

Cheers!

Wordless Wednesday: Brothers by Heart

Written by Jonas's best friend Gavin

Wordless Wednesday: Highlights of Our Morning

Breakfast - peanut butter, honey and banana on whole wheat
- made by the 8 year old

Entertainment during breakfast



Prepping for a cold weather night hike with the Beaver Scouts tonight.
We were sure to pack our thermoses for hot chocolate!



School lunch and office dinner prep for Jo -
mini hotdogs and hamburgers!

Signing the agenda - with two smiley faces in a row!

Had to de-ice the locks and doors on the truck so Jo could get to school and I could get to work

One Angry Bird winter hat was forgotten at home in the garage after taking out the garbage.
Good thing there's a spare in his school backpack.
It's a chilly one today!

Stay warm!
Cheers!

Thankful Tuesday: Three Things

The last few days have been status quo for our family. Just our typical, every day life ups and downs.  Kind of like a rollercoaster in the kid's section of the amusement park - it gets your heart rate up and can take your breath away sometimes, but it's not too far up, not too far down, and the bends in the track aren't sharp enough to throw the coaster off the track. Some (not me) might call it boring.

While we've been going through the motions of every day life, close friends of ours recieved devestating, life-altering news a few days ago. The kind that stops the coaster in it's tracks. Boring, it turns out, is a blessing.

This week, 3 of the many things I am grateful for include:

• Our health. I've been counting my blessings just about every minute. Jonas, Tasha, Steven and I are healthy and so is our immediately family. We're blessed to not be dealing with any life-threatening illness or injuries. Yup, there is some stuff going on with some of us but all of it is manageable right now. For that, I am grateful.
• My circle of friends. It's pretty incredible to see the circle strengthen to support our friends and their family. It's a helpless feeling to realize that we can't do anything to alter the course of these events. What we can do is support them through it and that's exatly what we're going to do. I'm proud and reassured to be part of that, even though I wish I had a magic wand to fix it all.
• My husband. I don't want to imagine life without him. The stuff that drives me crazy about him pales in comparison to all the things I love about him.

Hug your loved ones today.

Cheers!

Accidents Happen!

I spent the weekend with a group of fellow Scout Leaders taking CPR and first aid training. It's something that everyone should do. You just never know when you're going to need to help someone. Taking a course like this will give you the skill and confidence to be able to help. You're not going to pull a Radar and do a tracheotomy but you will learn how to perform CPR, use and Automated External Defibulator and how treat illness and injury until you get professional help.

You just never know when something is going to go wrong. It's just a matter of time before you'll be faced with the ramifications of heart disease, diabetes, allergies and accidents. These are just four of the things you will probably be called upon to deal with at some point in your life. It might be your mom falling down the stairs, your son choking on a piece of food, you're grandparent having a stroke, your best friend slicing her hand instead of the chicken, a motor vehicle accident, one of your Scouts spraining an ankle.... (Yup, I've dealt with all of these.) If you're a parent or in a position of care for kids or the elderly, you're especially likely to be called upon to help. The life you save might be a family member, a friend, a co-worker, a stranger, and even maybe even your own.

I took my first First Aid and CPR course in Grade 9. I hate to admit it but that was 25 years ago. Since then I've taken about 10 first aid courses and used almost every skill I've ever been taught, except CPR. A standard CPR and First Aid course is 16 hours long. That's only one weekend. I promise you that it is time well spent. Call your local Red Cross, St John's Ambulance or ask your employer or volunteer organization to ask how you can get started today!

Cheers!