Goodbye Old Friend

Last night I was at the theatre with my Mom, Sister and good friend Judy. For years I have told myself that one day I would get season's tickets to The Grand. Well check that one off my bucket list! First show of the season was Side by Side by Sondheim and we loved it :) We went out for dinner to Garlic's beforehand and although I'm not an official reviewer of restaurants I know what I like...... I doubt that any of us will be going back there. The food was VERY salty. My dinner probably tasted the best of the 4 and I ordered the scallops. But the after affect? Whoa! My body did not agree that I should have consumed it at all... enough said.

The Grand is a venue where you can get dressed up if you want or wear your jeans if you want and nobody cares either way. I chose to dress up a little bit and wore dress pants with my brown leather heals. Now since I have become 'a walker' my heals have been gathering dust in my closet for sometime. I blew them off and carefully walked to the car when my mother picked me up. For those of you who have been to The Grand you know about the stairs and the potential for dizziness when you are finding your seat in the balcony. I will tell you that I did not feel safe wearing these high heals in the balcony. I kept envisioning myself toppling over the edge. Once seated we enjoyed the show immensely and I climbed out of there in one piece.

Walking to the car afterwards was another matter. I'm sure you're all aware of the infamous grates in the sidewalk of downtown London. I kept telling myself, "don't step on the grates", but well, we got talking and boom.... heal stuck in a grate. It was not just a little bit 'wiggle out of here' stuck. I had to remove my foot and pry the shoe out, which now has much of the leather destroyed on the heal. I really do look and feel like a crazy person wearing these things and I have vowed to myself that our relationship is over! All those heals in my closet will find a new home once I take them to Goodwill.... including my very sexy orange boots :(

Goodbye old friend.

High School Prom

It is July 2nd and my daughter has just left for her high school prom. I am sitting on my lazy boy feeling the way one feels when something impossible has been accomplished. I would be happy just sitting here for about 4 hours just doing nothing and thinking nothing. Only a parent with a daughter who has gotten ready for prom will understand how I am feeling. This event involves buying a dress, buying shoes, buying the tickets, stressing about the dress not being right, buying a second dress that is right, returning the shoes for the 1st dress, buying shoes for the 2nd dress, buying the clutch and hairpiece, having the 2nd dress altered, finding out you can't return the 1st dress, buying the after-party dress, buying the after-party shoes, booking the after-prom room at Grand Bend, getting makeup done, getting hair done, and finally finding out at 3:30 that you are supposed to be ready at 4:30, not 5:30. Today is 10 days after my daughter's 18th birthday and as I sit here, trying to make sense of this whole prom thing, I find myself thinking about the day 10 days after my own 18th birthday.

It was April 24th 1974, the day I got married for the 1st time. I was a young girl, and I hadn't even had my high school graduation ceremony yet. There I was..... 18... married and working full time at a nursing home. I made my own wedding dress and the bridesmaid dresses too and I remember my sisters wearing yellow floppy hats. There is no way to explain how wrong the whole thing was, but it happened and I can't say that I remember it as a happy time in my life. But I can use my own life experience to give me a different perspective today.

I saw my daughter today looking so beautiful in the most stunning prom dress ever... hair and makeup perfect and she was smiling and I knew she was happy.... and that we'd pulled it off. Yes, I do allow myself to take a lot credit for the successful outcome of these preparations! And my heart is happy just knowing that my daughter will have a high school prom that she will remember with great joy :) Was it all worth it? Darn right it was! Would I want to do it again? Ask me in 3 months after I forget!

Happy Friday

Today is my Happy Friday off work. I get every other Friday off and I appreciate you all paying your Union Gas bill so that I can keep working there because my job is pretty great. For a long time I was telling people (and myself) that I hate my job, but I no longer do. I always feel unhappy going to work when I think I'm being useless, but right now I am doing some pretty cool stuff and loving it.

Years ago I would have slept until noon on a day off, but 7:00 AM.... there I am eyes wide open and excited that I have a hair appointment at 9:00. Daisy has other ideas about going for a very long walk, but she'll have to wait. Rose of course is still asleep and thinks that since I'm not going to work than she should not go to school. School is winding down nd another year has gone by. Which brings me to the point.... ROSE IS GOING TO BE 18 NEXT TUESDAY!! My last baby is getting all grown up!

Many changes are happening in our family life. NINO AND AISHAH ARE GETTING MARRIED IN 3 WEEKS!! Yes, the cutest couple in the world are tying the knot and we will all be celebrating together on July 8th. We are having a bridal shower for Aishah tomorrow and drinking tea (yum). I wonder if we are playing games.

GIANNI IS GOING TO COSTA RICA TO WORK WITH SEA TURTLES!! The world may tell you that it is an irresponsible thing to do Gianni..... but many days I wish I could throw caution to the wind and go live in Costa Rica for a month. So I say do it! You'll get a job later.... (well you'll have to unless Nino and Aishah are going to adopt you) :)

JENN IS COMING HOME FROM ARGENTINA!! If you have not seen Jenn's pictures in Facebook from her current trip, well you really need to! They are amazing. Jenn will be back for the wedding and bringing Carlos with her too (her very patient boyfriend who has developed a relationship with Skype) and then she will be leaving for Peru a couple weeks later.

GRACE!! WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO? Haven't talked to Grace in a while, but last I heard she is liking her new job and moved to a new apartment in Toronto. I think I am due for a road trip to visit you Grace and we'll go out for dinner.

Lots of changes ..... Life keeps happening ...... It's all good :)
.... Now for that HAIR APPOINTMENT!

Walk to the Dog Park

Daisy and I went for a long walk tonight, along the river trail and ended up at the Adelaide Dog Park. It was a perfect night since it was cooler and not humid at all. There's so much to see on the bike\walking path; boys fishing, girls roller blading, old men on bikes, young men on bikes, families walking, mothers with baby carriages. Most people pass and say Hello, or at least smile.

When we got to the dog park Daisy took off like a bat out of hell. She never does that! I am always proud of how she listens and doesn't go far from me. Well we have not been to this particular park for quite some time and she remembered! The thing she remembered was the huge lake-size pool of watery MUD that is at the far end. She could not get to that mud fast enough. I don't know if you have ever seen a dripping wet, muddy golden doodle, but it is not a pretty sight. Or I suppose you might think it was very funny if you weren't her owner! There seems to be different social rules at the dog park than those on the walking trail. People don't talk to people much.. it is all about the dogs. There will be a group of people standing around, not saying a word to each other, all just looking at the dogs .... standing guard in case there should be a 'humping' incident.

Then there is always one guy who brings a ball for his dog. He brings it there to throw for HIS dog even though there are 30 other dogs ready to steal that ball. You stand there and hope that your dog is not going to be the one snag it so you have to do the whole 'drop it' thing and pass the slobbery ball back to its owner. I often wonder .... when dogs and humans are all there together behind the fence.... if the dogs are thinking that we all look stupid and boring just standing there watching them. I believe if they served alcohol in dog parks the owners would loosen up and have a lot more fun. It's a thought.

House Maintenance

It is Sunday morning May 16th and I can hardly move for the stiffness in my body. Yesterday my physical activity was comprised of pulling dandelions, cleaning up dog poop, cutting front and back lawns, pulling out the many weeds that were growing around the bushes and throwing down some mulch. I’d like to point out that I am not a ‘gardener’. I will procrastinate week after week until I realize I have about the worst looking house on the block and then I start out of sheer guilt. But once I get started I don’t stop because I know that I may never get started again.

On the dandelion subject…. I wonder how long it will be before we embrace the lovely yellow flowers and stop trying to rid our lawns of them. I see that many people already have reached that point, or given up maybe; not sure which. Pulling dandelions is tedious, back breaking labour and I don’t care if you have one of those pulling thing-a ma-jigs, its still hard on the old bod. I bought the thing-a-ma-jig at Home Depot yesterday thinking it was a great thing because it had a 25 year warranty. Will I be pulling dandelions when I am 80? NOT! So if any of my children want to place dibs on a great dandelion remover that will last a good chunk of your lifetime you can have it now …… but only if you are willing to pull my dandelions too.

Someone ….. I don’t know who yet ….. put the wrong kind of oil and too much of it into my lawn mower. When I went to start it up so much green smoke came billowing out that I half expected the enviro police to show up. There was only one thing I could do at that point…. Knock on my neighbour-the-mechanic’s door. I wheeled my lawnmower across the street, explaining to the gawking old guy next door my situation. His only response was “it’s a good excuse anyway”. What is up with some people’s brains that they would think I broke my lawnmower so that I could get layed? Some people are so creepy!!

I am having my roof done tomorrow. You can believe that my roof is in a desperate state for me to be doing this because I have not been very pro-active and willing to spend $1000s of $$$ on this annoyance. I have already given a contractor ½ of the money and the shingles have been ordered. Why is it that once you’ve taken that step that everyone and their dog tells you they know a guy that would have done it for a lot cheaper. For two weeks I went around asking people for advice on this and nobody was very helpful; but NOW I’m getting all sorts of stories and tsk tsk remarks. All I can say is…. Whatever….. I’m getting a new roof.

Today??? I’m painting my front door and how knows what else I surprise myself with!

Earth Week

This week a life event has been taking place for my sister and her life partner Blaine. As I have mentioned before, Blaine has cancer and each day his health has been declining more. It looks as if the end may be very near and they are together now sharing their last hours. I read a quote today that goes something like; 'Life is great, death is peaceful, it's the transition that's so troublesome.' All of my loving thoughts and compassion is with them at this time.

This past week has also been Earth Week. I did my best to get involved and do take reducing my carbon footprint very seriously. As I was walking the 8 km home one day I kept thinking about how far it was to my house and getting very tired and frustrated. When I realized that all my thoughts were focused on arriving, I switched to just thinking about the walking. I looked around and noticed everything around me more clearly and even found a new path along the river. Of course this parallels life in general; being able to live each moment, each day to it's fullest. I am grateful for today.

Over My 1st Hurdle

I have not said much lately about this walking thing, because all I have been able to think of is the pain and I’m not much of a complainer. The pain, that moved from my left arch to my left knee, then to my right knee and then seemed to find a permanent home in my right arch. Every step included a sharp jab through my foot, not to mention the stiffness that was making me move like I was ninety. A couple of weeks ago I decided that orthotics would help, so I ordered some and the pain continued, along with the strange feeling of these foreign things in my shoes. Falling back on the old life lesson “just when you get so frustrated that you want to quit, don't give up because things are about the change” I kept going. Today I am elated to have just walked 2 kms at lunch and NO PAIN! Not a single jab  It took a month and 150 km, but I am sure that I’m over this 1st hurdle. The next challenge will be hills. Currently everytime I see one I walk in the other direction.

Yesterday was my 54th birthday and I’m feeling pretty positive about being another year older. I feel grateful for everyday that I am given the opportunity to experience life, whether in easy or challenging times. Next year at this time I plan to be walking across the Pyrenees from France to Spain. The 1st mountain is a steep walk through wooded areas from altitude 50m rising to 1400m. I need to start walking towards those hills!

London's Walking Trails

What a great discovery! How have I never been aware of the great walking trails right near my house? London is just full of wonderful walking\bike trails and there is a map of them all here. I'm still struggling with pain quite a bit though and I have some orthotics ordered. I'm sure hoping they help the situation.
What a beautiful Easter weekend it was! Happy Spring to all.

Walk for Blaine

Walking with intention is much better than just walking to see how far I can go. For one thing it combines two things that I've been telling myself I need to do for years..... exercise more and meditate. Today's walk was filled with thoughts for a wonderful person; my brother-in-law Blaine. Blaine's battle with illness is a very tough one right now and I send lots of love to him today.

It is Easter weekend and I have 4 days off work. I plan to spend much of this time with my family and also lots of time outside enjoying this glorious weather. I have finished reading 'The Pilgrimage' by Coelho and I wasn't crazy about it. This was the 1st book that he wrote and even though it was about the Camino de Santiago, which I am very interested in, there was just too much weirdness in it to keep me from loving it. He spent lots of time talking to spirits and even at one point fights a dog because he needs to exorcise the evil spirit that lives within it. So that's my big book review for you. I normally do love Coelho and the next one I have to read of his is 'eleven minutes', which apparently is about sex, so hopefully he won't get too weird about that too! First I will read 'Hypnotizing Maria' which my daughter Grace lent to me and she seemed to like it a lot. Between working, walking and reading, housework is getting lower and lower on my priority least these days. Good for me I say!
Happy Easter :)

Thoughts on Pain

It has been cold and windy the past couple of days, so I haven’t gotten out as much. I know, I know, I’m finding excused already. I’m a wimp in the cold and I’ll have to toughen up! There are a few simple little things that I have learned in the past couple of weeks.
1. Pain hurts a lot more when you think about it.
2. Pain moves to different joints.
3. It is easier to walk with someone else because you talk and forget about the pain.
4. It is harder to walk with someone else unless you have the same pace.
5. It’s good to take a bit of spare change when you walk in case you meet a homeless person.
Certain parts of my legs are seeing more action than they have in a long time..... hence the pain. And the stiffness that follows the pain can be great fun. The only answer for this is to get out and walk some more. I’m going to assume that this pain\stiffness cycle is going to get better and before you know it I’ll have the legs of a 20 year old. Well maybe 40?

First Week!

It's been one week of walking. I'm starting to like this. I had some problems getting my pedometer to measure the distance right and found out today that when I thought I had gone 7 km it was really 12! Shows my judgement on distance! I think I input my stride wrong or something... also I found out that it depends where you where it because the front of your waistband does not measure you steps right. You might wonder why it matters to me to know how far I've gone, but when I think of walking the whole way across Spain and realize this means about 25-28 km per day and I really want to know just how far(difficult) that is! I know that I've walked at leat 30 kms this week and that's not bad for a beginner :)

Defining my Purpose

Today I walked 7km. Not sure If I should have pushed myself that far because when I started out I had the usual nagging pain in my left hip which, by the time I got home, spread throughout my whole leg and ankle. I am going to start doing some yoga stretches to sort this hip thing out. I'm sure I can do it; I just have to keep going.

As I walked into a strong icy wind, feeling my face go numb and the jab in my hip with every step, I asked myself, "why am I doing this?" I need to have a purpose or else it feels pretty stupid. Fitness has never been a huge motivator for me, so that's out. I have finished reading Sue Kenney's book My Camino and now reading The Pilgrimage by Paolo Coelho. I had thought that walking the road to Santiago would be such a fabulous thing to do, but reading Sue's book scared me a bit. It is obviously not easy to walk 700 km, but when you hear just how hard it really is.. well I just got thinking, "I don't know if I could do this". I don't like the idea of trying something and failing... of walking the 1st 100 km and giving up, so I sort of gave up on the idea altogether. But by the time I finished the book I immediately downloaded The Pilgrimage to my Kindle because I want to know more.

As I walked today I thought; What's the harm in setting a goal? I'd sure like to spend my 55th birthday on the road to Santiago and that will give me a year to get in much better shape. So now I have a purpose. Camino de Santiago in April 2011.

Passion and Purpose

In her book My Camino Sue Kenney states, I believe passion is the driving force that aligns with one's purpose. Without purpose there is no passion. Without passion there is no purpose. I have been passionate about many things in my life. It is always a joy to spend hours and hours doing something I'm passionate about. My passions have changed over time and I find that when I get interested in something I like to buy all sorts of books and 'things' that seem to support the 'passion of the hour'. I have relicks representing passions of years gone by all over my house. There is the bottom drawer of my bedroom that holds aromatherapy oils; there are the dozens of books and hundreds of homeopathic remedies that I purchased during my homeopathic studies. Homeopathy is still a passion for me, but I realize now that I did not have to spend the kind of money I did in order to learn about it. At one point I was passionate about organizing my kitchen cupboards so I spent hundreds of dollars in Tupperware. I've given most of it away because I don't have room for it now.

Right now my passion is walking. I know that I have already purchased an expensive pair of shoes and think there was no choice about that. As Daisy and I walked this morning I ask myself.... "what is this frenzy I go into when I get passionate about something?" Whatever it is at the time becomes my purpose and makes me love life even more. Sue Kenney says until she could define her life's purpose, she was content to use passion in the areas of her life that were important to her at the time. Is that what I have been doing? Searching for my life's purpose, hopping from one passion to another and spending loads of cash along the way? I am determined to not turn walking into another mindless spending spree. I see all the paraphanalia out there on the clothing racks.... yes I could go nuts.... but I will not. In fact I found a very nice little back pack in the spare bedroom closet this morning that will do just fine. Children leave many things behind when they leave home. I do not know who it belonged to, but whoever it was left a baggy in the outside pouch containing a small quantity of an oregano looking substance. It did not smell like oregano though. The non-oregano has now been disposed of and I have a free bag.

Who I Am

I am a mother of 5 children. If I were to pick a single phrase purpose, that is it. I became a mother 27 years ago and and I will always be a mother, but I am at the point of re-defining who I am in this journey of life. If someone were to say, "tell me about yourself", what would I say? Am I my job? I hope not. What am I other than the mother of 5 children? Don't get me wrong.... I am very grateful for that honour, but the thing is those children are now young adults and need to follow their own path ..... experience their own successes, hardships, challenge and adventure. They don't need me hovering over, fretting, and trying to control their destiny. It is time for my mind to open and to pay attention to where the universe is leading me. It is time to broaden my focus and to look about, beyond the walls that I have erected; It is time to walk.

Walk for Conan

This morning I got out to buy myself some shoes. That New Balance Outlet has some nice stuff and I bought WO1520GT's. A nice walking\hiking shoe that is waterproof and all I know is that their comfortable. I also picked up a pedometer so I can tell how far I'm going ... but mostly because I like gadgets.

I didn't get out for my 1st walk until it was dark this evening. Daisy and I got about 3\4 km away from the house when it started to rain pretty hard and since its a cold tonight, it felt like ice pellets. That's when I got thinking about the list of things you should take on a walk. I do recall reading somthing about that on thewalkingsite.com .... must revisit and make sure I'm prepared next time.

Our walk tonight was for Conan. Remembering great times we had with him.... Daisy jumping on his head to get him worked up, all the fun he had at the dog parks trying to hump other dogs, the worst smelling farts on the planet, never came when you called him ... stubborn as a mule. We love you Conan. It's only been one day, but we already miss you a lot.

Conan

Journeys do not always proceed as we wish them to. I am very sad that today will be our last day with our Rottweiller Conan. He has bone cancer and it appears to have spread to his bowels too. No words express the sadness we feel to see him go. Conan loves to watch animal shows on TV. His favourite of course is Planet Earth. Today he is watching the bears, but gets too excited sometimes when the animals are in danger, so we have to fast forward those parts. Conan has been loved for 8 years by all our family and friends and by his new little sister Daisy too. See picture at the bottom of this page of our baby. We'll miss you Conan.

Beginning

I hate exercise. I really do. I would consider myself a very lazy person in the physical sense. Mentally, not at all. I have a passion for learning and reading and researching and learning some more. I don’t watch television, consider it a sedative for the brain, but do enjoy a good movie. This blog is NOT about exercise and getting fit. I suspect on the way that may happen, but this is really about something more. I am turning 54 years old in April ’10 and for anyone who has reached the age of 50 you have lived enough years for many things to have happened. Great things, not so great things, sad, funny, amazing, disturbing, secret, boring, wonderful things. I guess you could say that I’m at a cross-roads and feel that I can’t move forward until I sort out all the things….. all the thoughts that perhaps are holding me back. Walking will be the way that I do this. I’m not sure why or how yet, but I’m very sure that it needs to happen.

I met Sue Kenney at the Women’s Lifestyle show here in London ON on Saturday. She wrote a book about walking 780 kms on the Camino de Santiago when she was at such a crossroads in her own life. Well I would love to tell you that I am in rigorous training and I am going with her in May when she returns to the Camino, but that would be insane. First off, I am a bad dog owner and do not even walk my dog enough. After hearing Sue speak on Saturday I took my golden doodle ‘Daisy’ for a 1 km walk. Today is Monday and my shins hurt. For one thing I don’t even own a pair of walking shoes yet and I’m in pretty bad shape. Not that I’m over-weight, but my muscles have been accustomed to very little physical work and prefer to be dormant at my computer or my lazyboy couch. I’m reading Sue’s book now and I will also watch the documentary that she produced. I will be updating on both those things soon.

My first mission is to buy a pair of walking shoes. I have been Googling many brands and hope to get out tonight to buy myself a pair. (I love Google!) Hopefully I will have a picture posted soon of me in my new walking shoes! Well it’s a start 