Growing Versions

Sometimes life gets on top of me.  I am either so busy living my life or coping with something that consumes all my energy that it is almost like I become deaf. I vaguely notice that something in my body is not working, my knee hurts, or my head pounds.  I tripped over a pile of things when I was sweeping a while back and jumped back up.  10 hours later, I started wondering, "why can't I grip anything with my left hand?" It was not until a while later that I remembered, "oh yeah...I fell on it." This deafness to my self causes me to block out pain and work too hard. The voice of me inside gets so muffled I start doing things based on old information...ways I used to think, old beliefs and discarded notions. Recently, I've had a chance to unwrap the cotton wool from around the crevices. The wool that was insulating me from me. The padding that was allowing me to fall flat on my face and not notice until several hours later. In the process of u...

We never reach yonder. Just as we approach it, another one replaces it.

Anytime I have been stumped by a problem, I have turned to my trusty pet solution: Work Harder. Money trouble? Work Harder Relationship trouble? Work Harder Career trouble? Work Harder Lice? Worker Harder Lately, I've been introduced to a new solution: Learning. What should I do about this problem?  Working Harder seems to be making it worse?  Learning how to improve things and when to forget it seems to be a better solution. So far, I've learned a lot and I've had more naps. Seems to be better already. I found this  article  a very interesting take on learning our way out instead of working our way out.

My daughter is growing up.  She is funny and caring and she loves to write. Like many mother and daughters before us, our relationship is getting trickier.  Her job is to grow up and apart, my job is to help her doing that safely and steadily (isn't it?).  Those two job descriptions are, as you would expect, often at cross-purposes, or so it seems. I have come to expect that a certain level of conflict in our relationship is inevitable and normal and to back off when I get too sucked into its undertow.  However, at times, I miss those easy days when she looked to me first for ideas, suggestions and merrily (usually) went along with them. These days, she is exercising her birthright of controlling her own life by rolling her eyes at my harebrained schemes, feeble attempts at getting my children out of doors or socializing. I miss the discussions most of all where we had time to talk, not just about video games, but about things she thought were interesting....

 Christmas vacation is the first time since summer when our lives are rearranged.   Our diet shifts,    the furniture gets moved around,  activities change, and the decor is altered. As everything gets rearranged, so do we.

I have had a bad relationship with math. As a grade 2 student, I remember not really understanding what the teacher was getting at when she placed a handful of cubes on my desk and asked me to take some away. Things became more fraught in grade 4 when I was one of 2 kids who was disqualified from a class taco party for not knowing all my times tables (we were eventually brought back into the fold). I developed math anxiety which made things worse. I excelled in other areas that involved language and I came to accept that I was just not a math person. As a parent, I was determined not to pass on my anxiety about math to my daughter.  By then I was also running a business that involved daily math and I discovered things I actually liked about math. I embraced math, outwardly at least, as much as possible. One day this week, my daughter wanted me to help her with her math homework. I took on the task with gusto, not betraying my underlying self-doubt. I stared for a ve...

Boxes are a hot commodity in our household.  Squabbles will be fought and lost (or won depending on the outcome) over really good ones. One day we saw a box for a large appliance down the street and we were so excited only to get down to the street to discover it had already been pinched. That was a sad day. Boxes contain not just 4, but  6 or more sides ( chances) to create a world, a room, a closet, a machine, a....anything.I save up boxes for days when we are home bound and they rarely disappoint. The best boxes have two elements.  Sturdy material and interesting features...  ...they do not have to stay intact to be good. It will take a long time for me to break the box collecting habit.