A mishmash of thoughts...

I finished the book. When I read the 'sex' chapter, tears rolled down my face and I fell off the couch laughing. When I read it to Hubby, he wasn't quite so amused...possibly because it hit too close to home??!!?? I think there needs to be a version that is less prone to four letter words and more relevant to women who are living the same life, but with a faith aspect. But not like other Christian women books which talk about praying more about sex and parenting; but acknowledging the good, bad and ugly of life with a husband, kids, work etc. I'm hoping my friend, ACJ takes up the challenge!

Day 3 of our Advent box tradition, board games with the girls. Both an exercise in frustration and fun family time.

One of my favourite Christmas CDs is Sarah McLachlan's Wintersong ~ The First Noel/Mary Mary is my go-to song. Listen to it here.

It took me an hour and a half to get to work today and an hour to get home. I knew there was a reason that I like going in so early...there was even a rush hour at my drive through coffee place!

This post is symptomatic of my day...scattered.

My Formerly Hot Life

This book is making me laugh out loud! I've only read about 6 chapters this afternoon, but I have laughed so hard, tears rolled down my face. I think what makes it so funny is that the author is just 7 years older than I am and has seven year old twins, so our lives are similar. Except that she lives in New York and is a successful, published author....otherwise we are exactly the same!

There is just something so satisfying about reading another woman's journey through body image, motherhood, marriage, work, pop culture and relevance in this world.

You should read it. As long as you don't get offended by the odd curse word.

First Sunday of Advent

Advent, a season of waiting and anticipation. A journey to Bethlehem, the birthplace of the Christ Child.

Advent Lighting Liturgy ~ written by friends at GCBC

One: Why do we light one candle?

All: This light reminds us to listen for the voice of the One who brings us hope.

One: Why do we light two candles?

All: The light of the second candle reminds us to listen for the voice of the One who brings us peace.

One: Why do we light three candles?

All: The light of the third candle reminds us to listen for the voice of the One who brings us joy.

One: Why do light four candles?

All: The light of the fourth candle reminds us to listen for the voice of the One who brings us love.

A trip down memory lane...

An eggnog latte in a beat up leather chair, fresh pastries from the Italian bakery. A stroll through the old neighbourhood, hand in hand with my girls. A couple of hours of meandering around a sale of all handmade goods by friends at my old church. The girls each bought a bracelet, I bought a necklace and a liturgical calendar with art by a good friend. Better still, we had many good conversations with friends, people that we journeyed with for years. Our last stop in the 'hood was to visit the Tyes and drop off our ornaments.

It was the perfect day in the old neighbourhood.

Almost forgot!

Today started rough, but ended so well.

The start involved an early morning wake up, a bleeding nose right after I put on a white shirt and a sick kid.

The evening ended with coffee, wine and laughter with friends. (and early bedtimes for sick kids also helped)***

I also received a prophetic word about me, my life and Nineveh.

***I discovered that when a day starts rough, my capacity for late night travel into the big city is non-existent...I'd offer my apologies to the lovely Tyes, but my hunch is that the party was a huge success despite the absence of our family...

Snow Day

I'm not going to lie. I was pretty excited to wake up to a snowy day.

Our family, made to scale of course!

A good news kinda day

Today was chock full of good news:

~I did reading group in Pookie's class today. Initially, I was only supposed to do half the class (5 kids), but the other mom didn't show, so I had all of them. It was like herding wild cats...but pretty fun too.

~Hubby got permission to join us in Ontario a mere 2 days after we go. Which means he is there for our big family gathering...so thankful!

~I get the opportunity to pick up some more work hours till we leave for the holidays. Very great for those extra holiday expenses.

~In the mail today, I received a note from my old church and a copy of the Advent booklet that they are using. The booklet contains prayers, liturgies and a guide through the Advent season. It was a beautiful gift to my spirit and I felt loved and connected to that community.

I am really liking Advent Advent.

Propaganda

I am a firm believer in propaganda, especially in parenting. We have a few standard spiels that we feed the girls whenever we can:

1. The Christmas season DOES NOT start the day after Halloween. It starts with Advent.

~Now the girls heave great sighs of dissappointment when they see Christmas lights up and Christmas displays at Starbucks. The best is when Pookie yells at a house, "Why do you have Christmas lights on! It is not Advent yet!!!"

2. Your mother is beautiful and brilliant. (I am partial to this one, especially when Hubby is the one drilling it into their brains)

~Last week when I had to take the girls to work with me, my boss complimented my work to the girls. Pookie looked up at him and said, "Of course I know that, my mom is beautiful and brilliant." It was awesome.

3. Your parents are the coolest people you will ever know.

~We reinforce this whenever possible. When possible, we get other people to say it to them too. So far, so good.

There are a couple more, mostly around how to live life, but you get the idea. As you can tell, we take our jobs of raising these two lovely little girls very seriously. And finally we are seeing the fruits of our labours.

Day one of Advent Advent

Day one of what I am calling Advent Advent on the suggestion of my good friend ACJ. It is like the lead up/ prep time before Advent.

So, walked the kids to school, helped my Dad with a computer thing, did a big Costco shop, laundry and a dentist appointment.

I consider this day a success.

A bit of a break

Tomorrow is going to be the beginning of a week off for me. A week where I can take my kids to school and pick them up. Volunteer in their classes. Do some Christmas shopping. Get ready for Advent. Clean my house. Hit the gym a time or two. Go to the dentist. Read. Eat. Nap.

I can't wait!

1st Cavity

One week ago I noticed a spot on Bear's tooth. Yesterday, I took her to the dentist and they confirmed that, yes, Bear had a cavity. We've been down this path before with Pookie. Although with Pookie, the first dentist told us not too worry. But the time I got referred to a pediatric dentist, the cavity that we didn't need to worry about turned into a tooth that got pulled...and she had huge amounts of problems that require a General Anaesthesia and 2 hours of dental surgery. Apparently, Pookie's teeth were clean, very clean, but she has grooves that make it almost impossible for us to keep cavity free. Genetics are a b!tch.

Needless to say, I was a bit more proactive in advocating for Bear. We went back today to get the one cavity filled. She was a trouper, took the drilling without any numbing and had it filled in 15 minutes. She has another one that will take a bit more work, but is so minute that it would wait. The kicker is that Bear has weak enamel...a condition developed in utero.

Let's just say that whenever your kid has a condition that develops "in utero" it is hard not to feel guilty about it. This clinic is so great at both explaining things to kids and reassuring parents in how they are caring for the kids. The dentist told me over and over that it wasn't my fault that my kids got the short end of the genetic pool in terms of teeth....but I needed to be on top of it.

Awesome. Cause I'm so on top of everything else.

Snow

Just came home from a Giants hockey game, in a full on West Coast blizzard. Of course, Hubby who is from a part of the world where it really snows just laughs...but the girls and I are West Coasters who get down right giddy when it snows like this.

The best part? Coming home to the village and realizing that it must have been snowing for a while out here, cause there is a good layer covering everything.

Can't wait to see if it is still there in the morning...or as Pookie says, "This is every kid's dream!"

Rain.

A while ago I was chatting with a friend whose parents had also immigrated from a tropical climate. Though we've both grown up here, we struggle when the cool rainy season starts up here. I've decided it is because we are genetically wired for hot, sunny weather.

Now, if only a job in a tropical climate would appear....

I have strong feelings about stuff.

It comes as no shock to the scads of readers of this blog that I have strong feelings about stuff and things. I've mentioned a few such things/issues/topics over this year of blogging...no need to rehash right now....

Let me introduce a new topic into the mix, it ranks in my top five:

Churches that don't care about their youth.

Churches won't straight out admit that of course. They hide behind budget shortfalls, controlling boards that hamstring their youth workers or just complain about the 'mess' that youth leave in their wake.

This past week in Banff, I heard more than a few stories of churches ditching youth workers in a variety of ways...and I always wonder, what happens to the youth in these groups? And what are we teaching them by constantly getting rid of the very people we hire to "deal with youth"?

Here's what I think we are teaching the youth:

• You are not important. Our agenda is. Tough luck.
• You are not worth it. See above.
• Commitment. There is a double standard here. We expect you to be committed, but we will pick and choose when we will commit. And most likely we won't commit to you.

I could go on, but I won't. The reality is that youth are the marginalized in our churches. They are the least understood, least welcomed group in the church. They don't dress right, they are loud, rude, have nothing to offer and are a bit intimidating.

OR, they are creative dressers, passionate and excited about life, discovering themselves and their gifts and have love and loyalty to offer in abundance. It all depends on your point of view.

This issue has been fired up in my brain for a couple of reasons, the first being the friends at Banff who feel alone and abandoned by the very churches they serve. The second is hearing about what is happening in my niece and nephew's church right now. And the third is a vaguely familiar feeling that has been absent in my life for 3 years...a desire to be back in ministry.

More than half of the day today I spent thinking about youth, their lives and what I used to love about being a youth pastor. I think having the 5 lovely ladies spend the weekend with us reminded me of the gift of being able to journey with youth through the teenage years.

There was something that was reawakened in my spirit today. Maybe it was hope. Maybe it was a renewed desire to engage again. Maybe it was the still small voice of God asking if I was ready.

Warning: Post contains excessive bragging.

I'm not going to lie...I think my girls are awesome. Exceptional even. But I try not to brag too much about them.

HOWEVER...I can't resist this time. Their school had a art "contest" of sorts where each child was encouraged to draw a picture of a season. 12 pictures would be chosen and turned into cards that would then be sold in a box with envelopes as a fundraiser. Both Pookie and Bear's pictures were chosen! Not that I'm bragging or anything....but I'm a pretty proud mama!

Pookie's picture titled: Summer: A playful day - Rainbows under the water

Bear's picture titled: Spring: Bear is hiding

It is always sunny in the Village

It is a well known fact that this neck of the woods is often sunnier than the rest of the Lower Mainland. OFTEN. Yet, there are always the doubters...who shall remain nameless..***cough, JD cough***

Anyways...Today was exactly that. While Vancity was socked in with rain, by the time I was heading home there was blue sky on the horizon. The village horizon, that is.

I love my sunny little village.

The Ultimate Slumber Party

Last night 5 lovely young women came to our house and had a slumber party with the girls. As in, Hubby and I had a night away in a bed and breakfast, while they partied with Pookie and Bear.

There were homemade pizzas, toenail painting, dance party and movie watching. Then muffins and tea in the morning and church.

It was quite beautiful to walk into church with these 5 girls, aged 18-21, some that we have known since they were as young as our girls. They come from all different ethnic backgrounds, our very own little United Nations crew. Lots of people asked me how I knew the girls. There are lots of different answers I could give:

• They are my entourage
• Hubby's harem
• We were the 'Angelina and Brad' of the Drive and we adopted all of them
• They were once kids in our programs, teens in my youth group

The reality is that they are our family, pure and simple. And we are so blessed to have them in our lives.

Unstoppable

I think I crushed Hubby's hand for most of this movie, it was that intense! It helped that I'd been in that part of Pennsylvania and that Denzel Washington is such a great actor. I love spontaneous movie afternoons!

Things that make you go hmmm....

Today I read this article: Your relationship style determines how you relate to God.

I am not sure how I feel about this because I didn't really feel as though I neatly fit into any of the categories. I did, however, really like this quote from the article:

For many who claim to be Christian, much of modern-day thinking about how to connect with God has been reduced to a theory of sin management - that what we do or don’t do in our daily lives is the gauge by which we measure why we are, or are not, close with him.

It perfectly captured this sense of how far we have distorted the truth of the Gospel, the Story that God is trying to weave with us, His broken creation....and really how we have cheapened our relationship with God.

So, the question is, how do we/I, recapture the holistic beauty of being in relationship with God?

I'm looking for answers people. Don't be shy.

Home sweet home

So glad to be home, so thankful for time away.

The words of Saturday

I heard words spoken today that finally articulated this space that I am living in...the words of Saturday...the waiting day, the God-muted space, the exile.

More to come as I process. I consider it a victory that I may also be in bed before midnight.

Introvert overload

Just finished 18 hours of being with people. In 6 hours I need to get up and lead communion....I asked for two wake up calls from the front desk, just in case all my other alarms fail.

Banff.

This is my view from my hotel room in Banff.

It almost makes up for the crippling guilt I feel at leaving my family for 4 days.

A good way to spend a Sunday afternoon

Chalk drawing, a bike ride and playing in a park....a great way to spend an afternoon.

Hot Hubby


Pookie was really in the mood to have her picture taken. This is one good one of many that I liked, she looks so grown up.


Bear was NOT in the mood to get her picture taken. I felt lucky to get this one!

Day #2 of being locked down at home

Bear is sick. Enough said.

To add the the bonus of sickness, Hubby was away all day attending a conference. The cool thing was that Pookie got some much needed one on one time with my parents today.

Anyways....

When Hubby came back and debriefed about the conference, he mentioned a guy, a youth pastor, who wrote a book during the great snowstorm of 2008. Remember that week and a half when our city shut down cause of snow? Yeah, in 10 days he wrote a book. 10 freaking days. And now he travels around talking about the book.

I appreciated how he said that he didn't want to be another white guy writing another Christian "prep" book. But he is. And it's working for him.

I don't know if the book is any good. It is for youth graduating high school, I guess to get them thinking about life after youth group/high school.

Kind of makes me think if there is a market for a slightly angsty, contemplative book about faith and mothering. One that doesn't makes light of the journey of motherhood, faith and life. Isn't so much about formulas, special little prayers or quick fixes, but more of an introspective look at how life and faith can change in the face of raising a family. Because it really feels like most Christian books that are geared towards women are either insanely light and fluffy, self help, 'romantic' fiction or full of If You Just Do This, Life Will Be Perfect.

Or, that could just be me.

It is all Rainbows and Sunshine.

Today, on a family drive, we saw a beautiful double rainbow appear. Pookie was in charge of the music in the van and she excitedly started looking for the 'perfect' song for this moment. She was right. It was the perfect song. But...please ignore the total cheesiness of this video, just try and listen to the words.

The Eternal Parenting Question...

I feel like this one question comes up at least once a day in my mind as I attempt to parent the girls:

Is it OK to parent the girls differently or must I always make the same decision/same rules/same parenting style for them?

This is especially relevant since Pookie keenly feels the difference and often feels like we 'favour' Bear. But they are such different personalities and different strategies work on them. If we say to Bear that she needs to eat alone, that will motivate her to finish everything on her plate in record time. If we tell Pookie that she has to eat alone, she will dig in and sit there for hours. They are pretty much total opposites in everything and right now they almost always choose differently from each other. This has led to us walking out of videos stores due their inability to compromise on a movie, grocery stores and libraries because I'm just so tired of trying to be fair.

At least they are learning that if you push Mom too far, you will end up with nothing...cause damned if they get a treat/movie/book by acting like if their choice isn't 'THE ONE', life is over as we know it.

Some days it just feels like we, as parents, are making the wrong choices ALL THE FREAKING TIME!

Or maybe I'm just really tired tonight. Hard to say.

I might need to fire our nanny...

Yeah. Right. As if.

But....

It was pretty amusing to catch our Super Duper Totally Perfect Person Who Loves Our Daughters totally blowing it.

She sent Bear to school without her water bottle two days in a row, forcing Bear to lament the fact that she had to drink out of the water tap! Then this morning, JD woke up with her alarm, checked on the girls, put the kettle on and then decided to lie down for a couple of minutes. At 7:50am, Bear went up to JD's room and asked, 'Do we have to go to school today?' JD had 30 minutes to dress and feed the girls, make their lunches and do the 8 minute walk to school.

Apparently they made it, but it was really great to be able to give JD a hard time....she got me back though. During a visit to the mall this evening, she made me put on skinny jeans. It wasn't pretty.

Now we are even.

NaBloPoMo

It is NaBloPoMo!!!!!

For those who aren't in the 'know', it is National Blog Posting Month...a challenge to blog every day for 30 days.

Phssst...amateurs!

Who knew I was so trendy??!?? Sooooo...readers of this here blog.....are you gonna do it?

ACJ, this post/challenge is for you. It's a throwdown! You gonna pick it up????

Candletime

So we made it through the madness of September, with the new routines and copious cash leakage for school....

We did October with birthdays, Thanksgiving, Hubby's trip and Halloween...

Now it is November and we have a moment to breathe before Advent. So imagine my joy when I stumbled across a new tradition at Ask Moxie....Candletime!

I'd like to announce that I've created a new holiday: Candletime. It runs from November 1 through the day before American Thanksgiving (so November 25 this year), and the celebration is that you dim the lights and light a bunch of candles in the evening when you get home, and enjoy a cup or tea or coffee or cider or glass of wine. The official greeting is either "Happy Candletime!" or "Light up! It's Candletime!"

So when I got home, down came the harvest decorations, a good cleaning of the downstairs and by 5 pm, candles were lit and dinner was on the stove. Pretty good considering I'd left work a touch early with a massive headache.

I officially declare Candletime a go from now till Sunday Nov 28, the first Sunday of Advent.