New Years Thoughts: Stream of Consciousness

I’ve been back and forth on the topic of New Years Resolutions. I’ve weighed the merits of having “resolutions” vs. “goals”. I’ve considered adopting a word for the year (“happy” and “discipline” are in the running, in sharp contrast to one another). I’ve thought about creating a list of things I want to do in 2014 (get a tattoo, save up x amount of dollars, take up running again, spend more time playing with the kids). I want to be more organized, make smarter financial choices, gain momentum towards achieving my career goals, and have more fun. I want to eat healthier, continue to cultivate my minimalist mix-and-match wardrobe, and take more risks.

I’ve looked into participating in challenges–a diet bet. Taking a photo a day for a year. Reading 50 books in 52 weeks.

But in the end, I feel like my heart isn’t in any of it. And if I am not motivated, and my heart is not in it, then I will have failed before I even try. What I find, is that when I start a new challenge I am all gung-ho about it. I exercise every day or I can’t wait to get out my camera or I spend hours online creating meal plans. But invariably, I get bored. I skip a day. Then two. I make excuses. And whether it’s on day 3 or week 33, I throw up my hands and decide it doesn’t matter.

Checking off the items on a year-based bucket list may not matter. Strictly adhering to a diet may not matter. Going out to a certain number of social events a month may not matter. But improving my life does matter. Forward motion is important. It’s what gives us a reason to live. I do not want to spend my days merely going through the motions, but nor do I want to put undue pressure on myself and end up feeling like a failure because I only made it to week 26.

So what’s a girl to do? Adapt. Grow. Change. Learn. Perhaps one of these could be my word of the year? And yet, they are the words of my life. I live them every day. I never stop reaching, dreaming, trying. I may give up on this challenge or that plan, but I never give up on being more, or doing better.

This is a stream of consciousness post. I had hoped that by the end of it I would have figured out what it is I am trying to say–what matters most to me, or the direction in which I hope to take my life this year, but no such luck.

What I want to be, is authentically me. The direction I wish to go? Forward.

Not Your Mother’s Holiday Playlist

Happy Holidays everyone!

I hope you are getting ready to enjoy some cozy downtime with those you love. Whether you are hosting dinner, throwing a party, having a game night, or just hanging at home with your family, music is an essential part of settling into the Christmas spirit.

I’ve spent some time this season looking for some unique Christmas tracks to get out of the traditional holiday music rut I seem to find myself in every year. Without further ado, I present you my holiday playlist. Enjoy!

How to Avoid Going Holiday Broke

Money is tight this year for my family, so I compiled a list of ways for us to save through the season–and all year!

I’ve decided to share them here–lucky you.

How to Avoid Going Holiday Broke:

1) If you’re buying gifts this year, make a list and stick to it. If you find the perfect item for someone and it isn’t on the list, take back another item you already bought them. This year I really wanted to get my son a toy space ship. I couldn’t find one anywhere, so I bought him something else instead. When I happened across the perfect toy rocket, I returned his other gift to the store. It’s easy to want to get loved ones anything and everything we know they’d like, but ultimately, the perfect gift is perfect. Take back the other one.

Eco-friendly rocket by Green Toys

2) Create a budget and stick to it. Keep your receipts and track your expenses. If you find you’ve gone over, it’s the same as rule number 1–some of it goes back.

3) Keep your holiday meal simple. If you have your heart set on turkey and can afford it, go for it! But stay within your means. For our traditional holiday dinner, our family has a very simple meal of French bread and an assortment of meats, cheeses, veggies  and condiments. It is fun to build our own sandwich creations and eat with our hands. As a side we have beer an cheddar fondue, which is easy and cheap, and dessert is usually holiday cookies or brownies. Not very fancy, but delicious and a snap to make.

4) Avoid malls. Seriously. You will end up seeing a bunch of items you want to buy and it will make it that much harder to stick to your list and your budget. Try to do all your Christmas shopping in a day or a weekend, and then just avoid the mall until January. As a bonus, you’ll avoid crowds and endlessly circling the parking lot, looking for a space to park.

5) As you’re out and about running holiday errands, you’re bound to get hungry. Pack something from home to eat if you’re going to be out for more than a few hours. Fast food adds up fast.

6) If you’re a Starbucks fan, you’ll be tempted to grab a holiday drink to put you in the Christmas spirit whenever you’re out and about. As a cheaper alternative, buy the ingredients and make your own hot chocolate or coffee bar at home. There are plenty of recipes for specialty coffee drinks on the internet, and you’ll save a lot by filling up your travel mug before you hit the road.

7) Host cost-effective holiday gatherings. If hosting the entire extended family for dinner or throwing a swanky party is going to break the bank, pare back. Have a family pot-luck, invite neighbours over for Christmas Eve brunch (holiday omelette anyone?), or throw a cookie exchange with friends.

8) Don’t buy anything for yourself. As much as you may want that sequined sweater to wear to Christmas dinner, wait until the January sales when you can snag it half off to wear next Christmas.

9) Don’t go overboard on the decorating. If you’re like me, you want your house to look festive and your tree to look perfect. But never, ever, ever buy your ornaments in December. Again, wait until January and get them 75% off. Your wallet will thank you.

10) Give homemade gifts, but listen closely. Only do this if it actually plays to your abilities. If you are a champion knitter, pull out the needles and get started. If you wood-work, then your family and friends would appreciate your carvings. If you are a killer baker, fill up those gift baskets with sweets! Just don’t do what I did last year and attempt to be crafty if you’re actually not. You may end up with ruined materials, running around at the last minute trying to find something for everyone who doesn’t want this:

Happy Saving!

Ordinary Day: Lifestyle Photography Blog Circle

Our Lifestyle photography blog circle has been on hiatus, because we’ve all be crazed, but this month it’s back and I couldn’t be more excited!

This month’s theme song is Ordinary Day by Vanessa Carlton, so what to do besides take pictures of my kids enjoying an ordinary fall day?

We had great weather last weekend, so we went outside and played in the leaves–a simple but awesome fall activity if I’ve ever heard of one.

Enjoy!

Hope your ordinary days are filled with magic.

To see the next blog in the series, check out Lucy Elayne Photography.

If you shop on Thanksgiving, you are part of the problem

A fantastic post about the commercialization of our holidays.

The Matt Walsh Blog

I’m a capitalist. It’s not my religion, I won’t bow before its altar, I won’t kiss its ring, but I believe in capitalism. It’s an invention of man and it involves money, so it’s not perfect, but I’ve never heard anyone suggest a better system. So I’m a capitalist.

I am not, however, a consumerist. I like the freedom and innovation of capitalism; I loath the materialism and gluttony of consumerism. There’s a popular misconception that capitalism and consumerism are inextricably linked; that one naturally involves and requires the other. But this is a fallacy. Certainly the “stimulus” programs a few years ago ought to have dispelled this notion entirely. The government perverted the free market and elected to hand free money to millions of people, hoping that they’d go out and buy a bunch of stuff with it. This was consumerism at the expense of capitalism, and it revealed…

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Opting out of the Holiday Chaos

I love Christmas. I love everything about it. I love the music, the snow, the lights, the food, and even shopping for the perfect gift.

Around this time of year, I usually go all out. I pack our freezer with as many confections as it can hold, I start shopping in October, I fill our calendar with activities, and I try to create a magical experience for our kids.

This Christmas, though, I have decided to prioritize. I’m still going to bake and shop and decorate, but my number one thing in terms of holiday prep, is creating a comfortable and clutter free home for our family.

Cleaning is not my forte, and my organizational skills most definitely need work. But as my gift to my mess-hating husband, I am going to try to get our home in order. I want to clear out the toy box and consign whatever my kids no longer love. I’m going to go through our closets and do the same with our clothes. I’m going to de-clutter the linen closet so that it actually has space to hold, um, linens. Our fridge will be cleaned, our 30 year old couch will be replaced with a ten year old living room set graciously being given to us by my parents, and Christmas Eve dinner will actually be eaten off the kitchen table because I have made it my goal to remove the piles of papers and junk bins sitting on it.

This will probably mean that we won’t have 7 kinds of cookies, and that our tree might be the only decor in our apartment, but I am okay with that. Less is more.

I love going out and doing things during the holidays. Last year we extended Christmas to twelve days and did all kinds of fun stuff. But this year, we are going to take it easy, because what my husband and I want most for Christmas is a break. The kids may go to see Santa–or they may not. We may attend a holiday concert, or we may not. We will probably decline more invitations than we accept.

When Christmas rolls around, we will hang out in our newly organized apartment, gazing at our Christmas tree, drinking cider and eating a few well-chosen recipes, just enjoying each other.

I don’t want to be busy. I opt out of the holiday chaos. And I’m hoping this year we won’t end up needing a vacation from our vacation.

A Great Halloween, and Happy November

I wasn’t allowed to celebrate Halloween when I was growing up. Truth be told, I didn’t mind much. I was pulled out of school early before the Halloween parade started, and loved spending the afternoon hanging out with my mom. And we always attended a church sponsored party that evening, which involved renting out the local indoor pool, and getting a big bag of candy that all the church families pitched in to provide. Not too shabby.

When we had kids, I wasn’t sure what we would do about Halloween. I didn’t have the same misgivings as my parents–which was, that the holiday’s roots were evil and against the foundations of Christianity–but I didn’t see much point in dressing up my kids and going door to door to ask for candy from strangers.

The past few years, hubby and I have bought our kids costumes (usually nabbed on clearance the year before), and gone to the local pumpkin patch on Halloween for hay rides, photos and apple cider. This year though, our oldest is in kindergarten, and came home declaring his desire to go trick-or-treating. We would have to be out past his bedtime, and we don’t know our neighbours, but we didn’t want him to miss out. We said yes.

Halloween morning, we woke up to rain. It wasn’t just a drizzle–it was pouring. I went out and bought an umbrella to replace our old broken one, and after spending the day at school in his costume, we bundled up the kids and took them trick-or-treating. I am so glad we did.

We don’t live in the best neighbourhood. We live in a poorer area of an economically disadvantaged city, the center of which used to be the auto industry. Our city has a reputation, and we have allowed that reputation–and some of our personal experiences here–to prejudice us against our neighbours.

On Halloween, I saw a different side to the place where we live. Kids were out with their devoted parents, dressed up adorably, and happy despite the crummy weather. People greeted each other on the streets, ooh-ing and ahh-ing at how cute all of our children were, and the residents of the homes were friendly, kind, and generous. I experienced something I haven’t really felt since moving here: Community.

Money, education, and employment status do not dictate peoples’ ability to be warm and welcoming. If it wasn’t for the rain, I would have wanted to stay out longer. We had a blast.

The other aspect of this Halloween that I LOVED, involved my son’s costume. For months he has been saying that he wanted to be Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony for Halloween. I looked online, but could not swing $50+ shipping for one costume, so my friend Emma, who I have never met in person but know through a mom forum, offered to make my son’s costume. He absolutely loved it, so much so that he insisted in sleeping in it that night, and has worn the ears and mane to school for the past two days.

Aside from my friend’s generosity, there is something else about my son getting his wish. The fact that he wanted to dress up as a female character for Halloween was not lost on me. I am not making any declarations about my son and his gender identity–he loves ponies and pink, and he also loves cars and Transformers and pretending to do karate. He is balanced. He has not yet been touched by assumptions about what is for girls, and what is for boys. He simply is who he is–he likes what he likes. When I was in school, a young boy would have been tormented for admitting to liking My Little Pony. Now, it is no big deal. I’m not saying he didn’t catch some flak–I’m sure there are parents out there who judge my husband and I for allowing my son to wear his costume of choice. I’m sure there are kids out there who thought it was strange, and that he may have even been teased a little bit. But the tide is turning, and that thrills me.

I hope all of your Halloweens were as illuminating as mine. Long live neighbourliness, and kids simply being who they are.

P.S. Just a few years ago, my parents started handing out candy on Halloween. Whatever your thoughts on the holiday, I think its great that you are never too old to change your views and loosen up a bit.

Happy November!

A Life Well-Lived

The thing that strikes me most about my Grandmother, right now, is how much influence she had.

It is easy to see the effect that someone has on your own life, but sometimes it takes more to see the influence that they have on everyone else.

My grandmother was not a celebrity. You would not have known her name, or her face. But she touched lives in ways that I never knew, until I attended her funeral service.

The viewing was awful. I will not go into detail, but I could only take one quick glance before I had to look away. Because the body lying in the casket, was not my Grandmother. It didn’t look like her. It didn’t have her essence. It was just an object, really, and I sincerely wished that it was not there, so that we could be free to remember the woman that we knew.

I deliberately sat near the back, away from where most of the family was seated. There were a few reasons for this, not the least of which was the fact that the coffin was up at the front. I also felt like I did not want hundreds of eyes on me as I said good-bye to one of the women that gave me life. It may have been seen as a sign of disrespect, but I grieve better alone.

Once the service started, I forgot about the casket, and focused on the words of those who had been asked to speak. My Grandma had had an effect on each of them.

For me, she was the fun, spunky, comforting woman who had lived with me when I was young. One of my oldest memories is of walking down the street, holding her hand. I was always thrilled when she came to visit, or on the rare occasions that I had the chance to visit her in Jamaica. I remember her endless energy–how me, a young, healthy girl of 12 could not even keep up with her as she strode through the market place, buying fresh foods and hand-made goods. I work out so that when I am seventy, I can be as strong as she was then.

My Grandmother beat the odds. She was supposed to have heart surgery thirty-five years ago, but refused and instead opted to treat her heart disease with medication. The fact that she lived another thirty-five years is a testament to her drive and will.

I was not sure how many people would show up to pay their respects to my Grandmother. We have a large family so I knew the count would be over one hundred, but I was amazed to see how packed the church was. They had to pull out chairs from the Sunday school room and put them in the aisles, which I’m sure was a fire-code violation, but that is how far her influence ranged. I hope that when I am gone, it will be discovered that I touched many more lives than I ever realized.

Listening to my cousins and aunts speak, brought revelations. My Grandmother was something different to each of us. Our relationships with her depended on what each of us needed. She was a place to hide away when things weren’t going well. She put some of us through college, and provided a home for both relatives and friends who had fallen on hard times. She attended the high school graduations of children whose education she’d paid for in Jamaica, and would beam and declare “That’s my boy!” or “That’s my girl!” when it was their turn to accept their diplomas.

Around her neighbourhood, she was known simply as “Grandma.” She did not need to be blood to be family. Her love was limitless, and though she was not a wealthy woman by any means, she still found a way to help those who had even less than she did.

She was amazing. I am sad that she’s gone, but I understand that nobody can be around forever. It pains me that I will not see or talk to her again, but I am grateful. I am so grateful for the moments I had with her. I am grateful that she was a prominent part of my childhood, that she danced at my wedding, and for the fact that she was able to meet and hold and play with my children.

In the end, all we leave behind are the lives we touch. My Grandma left behind a lot. 7 children, 15 grand-children, 10 great grand children, and a plethora of honorary family and true friends whose lives have all been enriched by knowing her.

I am grateful for her example, and the fresh perspective that a person does not need to be rich, or famous, or particularly important in the common definition of the word, to change lives.

Fall

I was going to write your stereotypical “Fall” post, anticipating the arrival of new seasons, changing leaves, and pumpkin everything. Somehow though, that post is not reflective of where I am or how I am feeling. One of the reasons I changed the name of this blog from “The Greatful Mom” is because I no longer feel that title is representative of my journey. This blog has morphed from a gratitude journal about life and motherhood, into something else. So, welcome to Words, Rants, Rock n Roll. I’m still under construction and experiencing a few glitches, but this is my new internet home for the foreseeable future. Thanks for stopping by.

So, here we are, at the beginning of Fall. The kids are going off to school and I have a passionate desire for everything I eat to be pumpkin flavoured. I’m looking forward to taking the kids to the pumpkin patch, seeing them decked out in their Halloween costumes, and consuming copious amounts of the best homemade apple cider I have ever had the pleasure of drinking.

But there is more. A lot more. The leaves are not just changing colours, they will fall off the trees and be buried under snow. We harvest now because we can’t grow in the winter. Squirrels everywhere are hoarding nuts so that they won’t be left without enough to eat, and the other day I saw Canada geese heading for warmer climes.

Change is everywhere. But Fall doesn’t just represent change–it represents work. Struggle. Maybe even desperation. I guess you could say that’s where I’m at. It’s not that things are horrible, or that I am no longer grateful, or that I am out of hope. It’s more that I realize that for life to begin anew in the spring, there is a process.

Darkness. Cold. Death. Then–re-birth.

Under Construction

Please bear with me as I update my blog. Being technologically challenged, I have no idea why all my photos have disappeared. I’m workin’ on it. 

Please feel free to still enjoy my words!