Warning and welcome!

Warning! This is NOT your little sisters blog! If you're looking for the latest review of the Anthropologie catalogue, or a linky party or even an instagram photo you are in the wrong place. What I've got is the popcorn-for-dinner, teenage-daughter-as-a-different-species, homeschooling, hospicing kind of life and that's exactly what I intend to write about. So sit down on a sticky chair, pull up a cup of tea that you've rewarmed in the microwave 3 times and have a laugh at the Further Adventures of Cassie Canuck; homeschool edition.



Friday, February 26, 2010

Diary of a snow day: 5:00 PM

Still snowing.

Had a nap with the boys and that helped. Not having to worry about dinner helps as well.

Watched Ellen today. She had an old lady on the phone who said that sometimes going out isn't worth the effort of putting your bra on. I can soooooooo relate. In fact I've decided I'm not going to wear a bra past the age of 65. Some days I'd like to push that number up to 40. My 69 year old mother in law fell shaving her legs in the shower. That made me decide that I'm not going to shave mine past the age of 50.

I'm choosing to do something hard tommorrow. Hard and risky. May be the right thing though. Or else it's going to be an epic fail.................... Trying to gather up the courage to do it. Hope that the weather co-operates. I had to do something similarly hard back at American Thanksgiving and I prayed for a snowstorm that didn't come. Here it is. God answers prayers, just 3 months late!

Diary of a snow day: noon

Well........... things are better than I thought they would be at this point. A great morning snuggle with Little BunnyFooFoo improved my mood. Little Miss Teen is in the best mood she's been in for a few days and that helps. I got the basement cleaned and that helps too.

Field trip was cancelled. If I can't have fun then I guess it makes me feel better that nobody is having fun. No fun for us tonight as game night has been cancelled as well. That leaves me with just our share of the potluck for dinner. Huggyband is going to pick up fried chicken to go with it.

Nap time for the boys, some down time for me. Maybe a little webkinz? Should start Nanimo bars.

Diary of a snow day 7:30 AM

It's a snow day. I've said before that the whole concept is a little foreign to me because back home we would have gone to school in this but apparently it's a big storm since all the schools this side of the state are closed. And I'm mad!

First of all Little Miss Teen has the day off for an in service so she would have been home anyways. But we're not supposed to be home today.

My depression is having a pretty severe flair these days. Some days I don't want to get out of my pjs and leave the house. Other days I'm desperate to do go somewhere, anywhere! Can you guess what kind of day today is regardless of the weather?

We are supposed to travel to a city an hour away for a field trip to a police station. Please God let this be the only time I see my boys in the back of a police car. Then run some errands like getting Little Miss Teens bangs cut. It sounds like a small thing but when you have depression small things ARE big things! Besides I've been trying for weeks to get them done and haven't found the time. Don't suggest that I do them myself because I always cut them too short. And, I was supposed to have a lunch date with a friend. I've been trying to set up this lunch date for the past 6 weeks and I'm desperate for adult conversation so this just isn't good.

The house is half clean. Well...... maybe only a third. If I were in a glass half full mood I would say that being stuck at home today gives me more time to clean. Right now my thought is that having everyone at home means I'm going to have to work hard to make sure they don't mess up the clean areas. You want something to stay clean leave the house.

More guilt. I think if I was a good mom I'd do creative things with my kids on snow days or every day for that matter. I'd make cookies and pull out the art supplies. Honestly my goal for the day is to keep everyone from killing each other and the house standing. I'll employ whatever means necessary including let them have the TV all day (so what else is new) and early nap times. Popcorn is my go to snack on days like this.

The good news is that in anticipation of this storm Huggyband stopped and picked up diapers and a few things for lunch so I don't have to go out today. The other good news is that the church 5 minutes down the road is having family game night. It's a straight shot down the highway so I don't see why we couldn't make it. If they cancel I will cry because that's what I was planning on doing for dinner.

Stay tuned!

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Loving unconditionally in a disposable society

More about moving on.

More about letting things go too easily. And more wondering if that scares me. What are the costs? What does that say about us as a society? Who suffers when we give up on things?

We're having company on Sunday and I'm on a cleaning kick. It's a rare thing so just go with it. I decided to wash the shower curtain liner. Sometimes I have washed them and other times I have bought new. This time I saw an article in a magazine about how you just soak it in the washing machine with some vinegar, wash as usual and away you go. Yes! Away you go to Walmart to buy a new one because that one somehow dissolved in the washing machine!

The decision about whether to fix something myself or buy a new one is usually pretty hard for me and for the most part decisions just aren't. I think because decisions like that involve money and guilt both of which I'm bad at. For the most part I'm cheap; cheap is trendy now so that's good. And it's real good because as a one income family we have to be cheap. So with the shower curtain it made sense to try to wash it myself rather than buy a new one. But then there's the time factor and time really is money. Ok, so the shower curtain sat in the machine for a couple of hours and it didn't really cost me much time so it's a bad example. But last year when we moved we bought new burner pans rather than clean them ourselves time was money because we were short on time and those suckers were black. Cheapo replacement pans were cheap. This week I've thrown away 3 pairs of Mr. Moose's jeans because they had holes in the knees. I'm sure that fixing them with an iron on patch would only have taken a few minutes, unless you count the time it would have taken me to find the ironing board...... I don't think my boys have ever seen me iron and wouldn't know what to do with an ironing board unless it was to use as a surf board and slide down the stairs. The guilt comes in when I start to think that if I were a good mommy I would patch those jeans. My Huggyband would disagree with that one because he views anything homemade as being of less quality, so to keep his pride in tact he would have thrown them out too. Thanks to the world's best thrift shop, kids clothes are cheap and easily replaceable so tossing the jeans was a fairly easy thing. Replacing the shower curtain became a necessity. For the most part given the choice between cleaning and fixing or replacing we almost always choose the later. Unless of course it's computers or cars because my Huggyband is gifted with them and for that I am grateful.

Everybody has their own decision making process about what gets fixed and what gets tossed. I remember a lady who scandalized the parenting boards that I read by admitting that she'd rather throw out leftover dinner, Tupperware and all, if it got nasty in the fridge rather than empty it and wash it. The more I think about it the more I think that we place pride and value on fixing something and not to do so brings guilt. I'm becoming less and less tolerant of guilt but I'm about to show you that some things shouldn't be given up on or thrown away.
The shower curtain is an example of life in a disposable society. Turns out that most products these days aren't meant to last. The example given in this article http://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/07/disposablesociety.asp
is of stait razors and disposable diapers. They were built to last and you bought them once and used them forever. No need for upgrades. Goods that last benefit the consumer but are bad for the companies that made them. What you are supposed to do now is have is products that come with planned obsolescence. Stuff that either constantly wears out like ink cartridges or stuff that constantly has new and improved styles like video games and cell phones.

The problem with stuff that doesn't last is that replacing it is a nuisance. In my house anything that requires batteries falls into that category. It should be easy to have as stockpile of them or to get the rechargeable ones but it isn't. Same with the ink cartridges and water filters and a whole bunch of things that are cluttering my junk drawer because I don't have the time and energy to find replacement parts. Maybe that's the key, maybe it's just easier to buy a whole new thing rather than replace the parts.

Besides, some of the new stuff just doesn't work as well as the old. I have a friend who recently bought a fancy dancy new washer and dryer that apparently doesn't get things nearly as clean as the trusty, rusty Maytag of days gone by. I have another friend who came and drooled over my 20 year old microwave that still works. It's huge and not energy efficient but J tells me to enjoy it while I can because the new ones don't work as well. Do we long for things like that? Buy it once and you've got it for life?

Or are we as a society more like my sister in law who constantly upgrades her cell phone for the latest and greatest design. If it's broken or she's just bored with it out it goes. Advertising has taught her that new is good and old isn't. Our values have taught her that forward motion is a good thing. We wouldn't want to stay still would we? What are you still doing with that old thing? You want to be cool don't you? In our house I recycle what I can and donate what I can't but the truth is that the minute something starts to not perform well for me (like the can opener which I'm sure was an easy fix), out it goes. And that kind of scares me. Now I'm going to make this huge leap and connect my can opener to relationships, and I'll ask you to leap with me.
I guess what I'm wondering and fearing is if the whole "consumerism" thing goes for relationships as well? Do we throw them away and move on to something better a little too easily? Are we afraid of the time and work involved in fixing them? Do we think it's our right and for the better if we move onward and upward? If I gave up on the burner pans and can opener easily without any work to repair them then have I done that with relationships?

I almost gave up on my marriage this summer when it got hard. Was I thinking that I could just throw it away because it wasn't working well for me? Was I thinking that the idea of being single seemed more stylish and appealing and new? I was thinking that my marriage wasn't filling my needs. I didn't want to fix it. I wanted to throw it away. Commitment. Good old fashioned stick-to-itness. If I give up on the can opener I can always get a new one. If I give up on my marriage..................

Recently a group of friends gave up on me when being my friend required a lot of work. Giving up on and giving away are the same things. Just as walking away and getting rid are the same things. I was abandoned and not for the first time in my life. I'm sure as I move into the area of bereavement counselling I'll discover proof of what I already suspect; that grief, whether from death of a loved one or divorce brings on the loss of not only the loved one but of friends as well. Unconditional love: loving when something requires you to work. Not just work but to work hard, to sweat or even to sacrifice. Unconditional love; loving someone when they're at their worst. When they hurt you, when they need you. Shower curtains are disposable relationships aren't.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Standing firm in a forward moving society

Yeah I know I said I'd write more about fear today but I'm really feeling compelled to write about faith which is the opposite of fear. Besides, there's really only a couple of poems that I want to share with you about moving past the fear and taking the risk. I'll get to them..............

The other side of fear is faith. Despite my relationship with Christ, I honestly don't have a lot of faith. Sometimes I panic in a crisis and fear the worst. Sometimes I don't and I am very calm. Today I realized I may have more faith than what I think. Yeah it's the church situation again. I refuse to give up and believe that it's truly over. In fact on Saturday I'm going to go to a healing service at the very church that exiled me. Yes I do think that the Pastors are going to poop a brick when they see me but....... And yes I do know that I'm crazy for wanting to go but as usual my craziness got me thinking. I got to thinking about the whole concept of moving on. We prize ourselves on it. It's one of our values. Even the gospels speak about shaking the dust off your feet and moving on if things don't work out however they also talk about standing firm. Forward motion is good. Katrina Onstad in the January issue of Chatelaine says: "Movement-forward, onward, upward - is the guiding principal of the New World. In jobs, real estate and our personal lives, movement is success ands stasis is failure. There's no better balm for "He dumped me" than 'You've moved on.'" I wholeheartedly agree. Off the top of my head I can think of at least 2 dozen country songs that talk about getting over it and moving on. Housing shows with titles like "Property Ladder" indicate that upward motion is the only way. My 20 year high school reunion is this summer. I know that if I go I'll be expected to talk about where I've gone in life. It's not where you've been but where you're going that counts right? Movement is desired but only at a set pace. You don't want to be accused of running away from things and you also don't want to seem too transient. Commitment is a desired trait as well. Boy do we ever send conflicting messages to ourselves.

What if moving on is overrated? What if moving on can be hurtful? At least being forced to move on before you're ready? I know that happens with grief. I was forced to move on after the death of baby Jonathan long before I was ready. The result of not dealing with it in my own time line was that it messed me up for later. It was part of the gunk I dealt with last summer. 10 years ago someone I loved was murdered. It was summer. In January of the next year I cried in public over it and while I'm sure some people were sympathetic what I remember most about that day is the person who asked me why I still wasn't over it. Over it? It's been 10 years and I STILL cry in public! I am STILL not over it. Yeah I know the point is to move on past the pain but sometimes I need to confront the pain in order to heal. Sometimes it's ok to stay where you are until you're ready and you are the only person who knows when the time is right. Your experiences your timeline.

I think of one of my aunts who has lived in the same house for about 40 years. She also worked at the same job from the day she graduated high school until the day she retired. No upward movement there. No bigger and better house. No long resume. Instead she and her family built stability. A house that is full of memories and a strong, strong family. Honestly I envy her. I would trade our gypsy lifestyle in a minute for an address people could write in their books in ink.

And what about the times when moving on isn't the right thing to do at all? What about the times when it's best not to move but to stand? That's where faith comes in right? I believe our church issues will be solved even though there's no shred of evidence to support that right now. But I guess I have faith. I have a friend whose wife left him about a year ago. Last time I looked he was still wearing his wedding ring. That inspires me. He still believes. I think of all the people who have sat by the bedside of a loved one, hours and hours after the doctors have said that there is no hope, or even suggested it's time to stop life support. The people who pray and wait and believe. They sacrifice hours and meals maybe even their own health and jobs. They know that behind their backs others are whispering about them; about their weakness not to let go or that they're in denial. That they need to move on; it's for the best. But still they believe. It's not time to move on yet. They have faith. And then one day the loved one moves, the monitors flicker and a miracle happens. I'm sure that history or even modern society is filled with stories like that that I would love to hear more about. Not just to get me through this current crisis but to build my own faith with.

What about the families of people who are missing or abducted or who just leave by choice? Don't they hold out hope? Don't they refuse to move on? Jaycee Duggard was gone for 18 years, Elizabeth Smart for 9 months. Physically their families moved on but what if they had quit believing? Restoration, reconciliation. It's hard to believe that you're ever going to be reconciled with somebody who has hurt you. It's hard to be the only one in the whole wide world who's believing in something. But as Garth Brooks said: "As long as one heart still holds on then hope is never really gone." Hold on. Stand firm.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Taking the risk and feeling for those who don't

So when I think about non conformity and rebellion I also think about risk. For both non conformity and rebellion are risky. When I was in junior high I had an amazing drama teacher who told us to "take a risk." It was a good lesson. Good words to have running through your head for 20 plus years. Dare to lead. It turns out that she was on to something. A quick search of "risk taking" leads to all sorts of life coaching sites that point out the amazing things that happen when we take risks. Check out this list from Lance Armstrong's Livestrong site http://www.livestrong.com/article/14727-becoming-a-risk-taker/
 
* To laugh is to risk appearing the fool;* To weep is to risk appearing sentimental;* To reach out for another is to risk involvement;* To expose feelings is to risk exposing true self;* To place your ideas, your dreams before the crowd is to risk their loss;* To love is to risk not being loved in return;* To live is to risk dying;* To hope is to risk despair;* To try is to risk failure;* But risk must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing;* The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing and is nothing;* He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love and live;* Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave and has forfeited freedom'* Only a person who risks is free.

To even use the word "risk" seems.......... well............ummmmmmmm? Risky! Risk comes in 2 types: the risk that involves physical harm and negative stuff like "at risk behaviors" and "at risk youth" (In all my naivete I'm still not sure I know what they're at risk of?) and the risk that leads to good stuff like leadership and adventure and confidence and courage.

My Dad was in the occupational health and safety industry. Playing spot the safety hazards was one of my favorite childhood games. "Accidents don't happen they're caused" and "no stupid human tricks" were popular sayings around my house. Sayings that for the most part I followed. Except for the time I tore around a rice paddy on the back of a motor bike without a helmet. We didn't get the H1N1 vaccine and we don't own hand sanitizer. Risky I know.......... Although I kind of think that the risk of disapproval from other moms is bigger than the risk of viruses. So as far as the physical goes I would say that we as a family don't tend to take risks. No bungee jumping for us. Although I will admit that the zip line over Robson Street in Vancouver looks like a lot of fun!

Do I take social and personal risks? Yooooooooou betcha. All the time. I took a risk when I married a man I had known for 4 months and had met in person only once. One of my aunts was sure that I was marrying an axe murderer. But my Mom had taken a similar risk and she and my dad had been married for 30 years at the time of her death; I guess it gave me the confidence to think that if it worked for her it could work for me. On the other hand nothing prevents you from taking a risk faster than having a bad experience. Past history of taking risks determines future willingness to take more. Like all things you learn from your success and failures. You probably learn more from the failures than successes.

Risks are often blocked by the thought of "what if.............?" The decision to get pregnant again after the loss of baby Jonathan involved the question of "what if it happens again?" And it did happen again. Seven months after losing Johnathan we lost baby Noel. The decision to have another child after that was "what if it happens again?" times five billion. The result of the decision to take the risk anyways turns 3 tomorrow. It was a good risk. So was getting married to the "axe murderer." The axe murder's usual response to "what if?" is "what if Barbie had a hand grenade?" He means that we can't possibly answer all the "what ifs" in the world. Just move on and do it anyways.
 
The decision to move to Georgia came with the obligatory "what if we don't like it?" . We had hoped that we would, and hope is definitely one of the things that encourages people to take risks, but in the end we didn't like Georgia at all (that's not the ENTIRE truth but go with it for now and I'll tell you the story sometime) When my Huggyband lost his job we were relieved to have a reason to move on. We took a risk, it didn't work out as we had hoped but we met some great people along the way and ate a lot of fried chicken and I got to wear flip flops clear through to November. Our curiosity about what it would be like to live there is satisfied. Now we know. Like the Garth Brooks song "How you ever gonna know" says:


How you ever gonna know
What it's like to live there
How you ever gonna know victory
How you ever gonna know
What it's like when dreams become reality
How you ever gonna know
How it feels to hold her
How you ever gonna know
What it's like to dance
How you ever gonna know
If you never take a chance

That's not the only Garth Brooks song that talks about risk. Check this lyric out from "Standing outside the fire."

Standing outside the fire
Standing outside the fire
Life is not tried, it is merely survived
If you're standing outside the fire.

Sometimes playing with fire gets you burned. What if the "what ifs" come true? What if my marriage hadn't worked out? What if we had lost yet another baby? Would the risks have been worth it? I guess so, I don't know...........

What I've learned in the course of writing today's blog is that initially I thought I was 100% in favor of taking risks. Truth be told I'm only about 98% in favor of them. I tell Little Miss Teen all the time to "just do it." Take the risk who cares what others think? Yes the risks may not work out but that's ok, how bad can it be?

I've learned in the last couple of months, and maybe for the first time in my life, that it can be bad. Sometimes you DO get hurt when you take a risk. I guess that's why it's called a risk not a certainty or guarantee. Apparently we took a risk getting involved in the last church we were at, who knew that joining a group of fellow believers could be risky? I'm learning that all relationships involve the risk of getting hurt. In the end things didn't work and it was messy and painful. Do I think it was a bad risk? I don't know. Give me some more time and I'll be able to see all the good stuff that came out of it. There's another great line in a song about "farther along we'll know more about it. " Does this apparent failure prevent me from wanting to take the risk of joining another church, building relationships and possibly getting hurt again? Just a little. Give me while to heal and develop trust again. Deep down inside I know that taking risks is worth it. So while I started today's blog entry ready to slam all of those people who don't take risks, when I think about it and search my heart I feel compassion. Tomorrow I'll write about fear and how fear of something prevents you from doing stuff. In the meantime I know that taking risks is worth it. I look at these amazing quotes and I understand it.

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I . . . I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." — Robert Frost

"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly." — Robert F. Kennedy

"Progress always involves risk; you can't steal second base and keep your foot on first."
— Frederick Wilcox

"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go."
— T.S. Eliot

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Baaaaaaaaah (part 1)

Today's blog is a promise to "get back to it" which sounds like a cop out to me but it actually means that I'm in the process of forming thoughts.

Little Miss Teen suggested that I write about "black sheepism." Sigh...................... Heavy sigh again.....................
 
In the English language, Black sheep is an idiom used to describe an odd or disreputable member of a group, especially within one's family. The term has typically been given negative implications. The idiom is also found in other languages, e.g., Serbian, Bulgarian, Portuguese, Turkish, Dutch, Spanish, Czech and Polish. (To me the fact that it's an idiom in other languages shows how common of a situation it is.)

Black sheepism is a hot topic in our house right now. Actually I think it's better said that it's an undercurrent in our house right now.
 
We were kicked out of a church. Officially we were "encouraged to move on" yeah same dif........ They used scripture in Matthew about God and Shepard's separating the sheep from the goats as justification. How we got to be goats I still have NO idea. So Little Miss Teen argues that we aren't goats just black sheep. Either way we seem to be labeled as disreputable. Worthy of being rejected and shunned.

I want her to know that it's ok to be the black sheep. And here is where I'll take a few days to explore my own feelings on the topic. I want her to know that I would rather her be a black sheep for the right reasons than to be a white sheep. I want her to know that it's ok not to conform. Conformity is overrated.

At 13 she's interested in rebellion. Not actually rebelling herself (I hope not!) but at the thought of rebelling against something. Protesting something excites her. There is a HUGE teachable moment here and I want to do it right. I have an amazing opportunity to shape her values and I want to be careful how I do it. I want to raise a leader. I want her to rebel for the right reasons and to stand up for injustice.

I'll go out on a limb here and be real candid and say that I'm kind of disappointed and hurt that the people in my church didn't stand up for us. As far as we know nobody went to the pastors and told them that what they did to us was wrong. I'd like to think that if I witnessed a situation like that I would, and I sure hope that I raise kids who will. Kids who will do the right thing no matter what the cost. Kids who will overcome fear and apathy.

So in the next few days I'll dig a little bit in myself, research, pray and see what I really believe about non-conformity and the trouble with sheep. I'll just write until I know. Stay tuned.............

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Mr. Rogers swam in it

Today's blog was inspired by a fact that I found in "Uncle John's Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader." It's quite possibly my newest favorite quotable source. Ok, ready for the fact? "Fred Rogers took a morning swim every day in the nude." I'll pause for a second while you think of Mr. Rogers in his birthday suit......... Can't do it can you?

My Huggyband disputes this so called fact as mere urban legend. "After all" he points out, "Mr Rogers was a Presbyterian minister." Some day I'll become a pastors wife and some nosy person will find this blog and the fact that I talked about nudity and we'll be done for. Seems I'm acquiring a bit of a past. But that's ok because it's been said that well behaved women rarely make history.
 
Let's talk about nudity and the bible. We may as well because the bible talks about it. I found 47 references to it in the King James version, 32 in the NIV and 25 in the Message (that surprised me I thought it would be the other way around.) Poke around Wikipedia in the topic of nudity in religion and you come across this:

The first recorded liturgy of baptism, written down by Saint Hippolytus of Rome in his 'Apostolic Tradition' insists on complete nudity for both men and women, including the removal of all jewellery and hair fastenings (chapter 21)[1]. This is also reflected in early Christian art depicting baptism.

The article goes on to say: One may also note the comments of Pope John Paul II in this matter: "The human body can remain nude and uncovered and preserve intact its splendor and its beauty... Nakedness as such is not to be equated with physical shamelessness... Immodesty is present only when nakedness plays a negative role with regard to the value of the person...The human body is not in itself shameful... Shamelessness (just like shame and modesty) is a function of the interior of a person."[9] Christian tradition does not usually teach that nudity is inherently wrong, but many Christians believe that it is only acceptable between marriage partners, and between children, or children and their parents.[citation needed]

Not coming anytime soon to a sanctuary near you: naked baptisms!

I wouldn't say that I'm a "fan" of nudity (NOT to be confused with pornography of which I'm NOT AT ALL a fan of, or nudity for sex sake for that matter) but I am "nudity tolerant." I'm ok with nudity in art. If we come across a painting or a sculpture of a naked person in an art gallery I don't gasp and cover my kids eyes. For a really good discussion on which are you more likely to let your child watch and why; a movie that shows nudity or one that's explicitly violent? Check out this link: http://www.boston.com/community/moms/blogs/child_caring/2009/10/which_is_worse_nudi
ty_or_violence.html

True stories about nudity and art class. My first year out of high school I did a year of visual arts at a local college. I was thrown into a drawing course half way through the semester. I walked in on my first day and there was a naked male model. Basically the first naked adult male I'd seen in my life. I hid in the farthest corner of the room behind a bunch of stuff to obstruct my view. About 15 minutes in the model stopped the class and told the instructor that he felt the artist waaaaaaay at the back (um, yes, that would be me) couldn't see and that I needed a prime spot up front!

I had a friend who then went on to employ that model as a house painter. Her 5 year old dashed back and forth between the painter and her mommy's studio before loudly announcing "I know you! You're the man Mommy has naked pictures of!" I assure you that in my drawings you could barely tell that the figure was human let alone a naked man.

I'm ok with being naked. I'm comfortable with my own body and I credit that to my Mom. It never occurred to me that there was something undesirable or unhealthy about my size. The words "weight, fat and diet" were never mentioned in our house. It could be argued that because we were all obese they should have. But they weren't and I was and am ok with that. Giving your kids a positive self body image is a gift and I'm thankful for it.

My big and beautiful body and I went to Asia and encountered public bath houses. Asian public bath houses seem to differ from European saunas in that you actually bathe. Bath houses are closer to Turkish Hammam's (yes I researched) where the purpose is to scrub vs the European thing of steaming (although you'll find a sauna component in Asian baths.) I couldn't find a good website on Korean public baths (where are those Malaysian girls when I need them?) but I did find stuff on the Japanese ones called "onsens" in Japanese. http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2292_how.html

1)
Take off all your clothes in the changing room and place them into a basket together with your bath towel. Coin lockers for valuables are often available.

2)
Japanese hot springs are enjoyed naked. Swimming suits are not allowed in most places. However, it is the custom to bring a small towel into the bathing area, with which you can enhance your privacy while outside of the water. Once you enter the bath, keep the towel out of the water.

3)
Before entering the bath, rinse your body with water from either a tap or the bath using a washbowl provided in the bathing area. Just rinsing your body is usually sufficient unless you are excessively dirty, in which case you want to use soap.

4)
Enter the bath and soak for a while. Note that the bath water can be very hot (typical temperatures are 40 to 44 degrees). If it feels too hot, try to enter very slowly and move as little as possible.

5)
After soaking for a while, get out of the bath and wash your body with soap at a water tap, while sitting on a stool. Soap and shampoo are provided in some baths. Like in private Japanese bathrooms, make sure that no soap gets into the bath water. Tidy up your space after you finished cleaning your body.

6)
Re-enter the bath and soak some more.


7)
After you finished soaking, do not rinse your body with tap water, for the minerals to have full effect on your body.

Let me translate with a personal story. The only heads up I'd had about public baths was a story about Turkish Hammam's in a women travelling alone book and maybe a one line mention in Lonely Planet. Eventually discussion at school turned to public baths and I was informed of a few things. The good news is that men and women bathe separately. The bad news is that you bathe naked in front of a whole lot of other women. I'm guessing it took about 6 months before I got up the nerve and curiosity to try them. I went on Easter Sunday with my pastor and his wife. So you go into a locker room, take ALL your clothes off and store them in a locker. Then you go into the bath room, pull up a stool to a low counter with a mirror and a shower hose and scrub yourself. You have of course brought all your bath gear in a plastic basket. You sit, you scrub, you chat with your friends. Then you head for a very, very large hot tub. Most bath houses have more than one tub with the water getting progressively hotter. After that you can sit in the sauna, get a message or a cucumber facial. Finish by lounging around on the locker rooms huge benches or even the heated floor, maybe take a nap.........

What you learn by this is that bodies come in all sorts of shapes and sizes; yes even Asian ones. Being naked just exposes the myth and the aging process. Bodies grow, bodies sag, bodies wrinkle. Children run naked through the bath houses and in the process of being scrubbed and loved on by adoring haramonies they learn that. Nobody stares because they're all too busy doing their own thing and it's no big deal. Unless of course your foreign and your whiteness blinds the poor Korean adjumas. And sometimes even the most wrinkled of grannies touch you and say nasty things about your big bits. Oooohing and awing over them like they're melons in the market place. I once met a young Korean woman in a bath house who had blue hair. Blue hair is certainly not common in Korea. Foreigners in a bath house aren't common either. Our eyes locked and we shared a look of awe and appreciation with each other. She didn't even laugh at my melons.

But other than that it's not too bad. The water is warm and it's quiet. My second year I didn't have hot water in my apartment and since Korean winters are bitterly cold I spent a lot of time there. Honestly I miss it.

So what we see is that attitudes towards nudity are cultural. Obviously the Asians are ok with it in some circumstances, public baths are ok but letting your bra strap show is taboo. It's common knowledge that Scandinavians have a relaxed attitude towards nudity in the right context as well. Context here is the key word. I read an article that said the Swiss now frown upon naked hiking (do ya think?). Turns out that skinny dipping in the Trevi fountain in Rome is also a no-no, should you ever get the urge. How about my home and native land? How do Canadians perceive nudity? Funny you should ask because I just came across a Federation of Canadian Naturist study from 1999 that proudly states:

8.9% of Canadian households or approximately 2.7 million Canadians have the naturist/nudist mindset (have gone or would go to a nude beach and/or club/resort).

! A further 11.6% of Canadian households or 3.5 million Canadians have naturist/nudist tendencies, since they have gone or would go skinny-dipping in mixed
company.

That means a total of 20.5% of households or 6.1 million Canadians have some interest in naturism. GO CANADA GO!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

A toy story

Little Bunny FooFoo turns 3 on Saturday. You know what that means don't you? I get to go toy shopping. Blah!

Toys are a bit of a pain. Toys are a lot of a pain when you step on them. I have a friend who became entangled in one of those wire-bead-maze things and dislocated her elbow. Toys need to be kept organized (just like kids), proper storage is key (just like kids?) they occasionally need to be cleaned (just like kids! Before I had kids I had NO idea that when it comes to buying rubber duckies you want the soft plastic ones that are easy to squeeze the water out of because otherwise the water that gets trapped in there turns nasty). Toys get underfoot (just like kids). Toys need batteries (kids come with their own but you do need to feed them and sometimes that in itself is a chore). You can't let toys overtake your house (kids!).

The problem is that toys are easy to come by. I'm told that back in the day children only got toys twice a year; Christmas and birthdays. Back in the day toys were appreciated. My kids get a new toy about...............? Once a week? Without doing the research I can guess at the reasons. First of all plastics became very cheap; hence dollar stores. Second of all McDonald's did it. Sit in any McDonald's play land and you'll hear the battle cry of all parents "you can't have the toy until you eat!" As a nanny I clearly remember eating at McDonald's when I didn't particularly want to just so my precious charges could complete the set of interactive Tarzan toys. A quick check of my favorite parenting board site shows that there is still a big business in whole sets of McD toys. And then there's the guilt/bribe thing. Yes I have bribed my kids with the promise of a new toy if they do X and yes I have bought them a new toy to quiet my inner guilt about putting them through Y. I once said "Mr. Moose you have A LOT of toys?" His response? "I know Mom, Santa Claus keeps buying them for me." Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear ya. He can't buy them himself, I've got only myself to blame.

Reasons I hate toys? The "crunch" factor. As in "how much of this toy is going to go "crunch" under my feet? I once looked at a Mr. Potato Head set that had 100 pieces. My Huggyband joked that in our house that would be mashed potato scattered under the couch. Barbie accessories and Polly Pockets were the same way. The key seems to be to containing where a toy is being played with and cleaning it up immediately afterwards. (No duh Cass!) Crayons, games and puzzles must be immediately cleaned up or I'll be finding them in my shoes for weeks. Last Christmas I thought that I wanted to get the boys Lite Brite and then I thought about if I really wanted to spend money on something that was destined to become vacuum cleaner fodder within a week. Good idea just not for now. While big toys take up a lot of space at least they are one piece.

There's also the noise annoyance/obnoxiousness factor. When I first became Little Miss Teen's mom I saw that she had a whole room of toys that needed the batteries replaced. "What type of parent doesn't keep up with batteries?" I thought (give me a break I had been a parent for about 5 seconds.) I marched out and bought all sorts of batteries for all sorts of toys. 2 days later I understood why her parents had let the batteries go dead. See all those toys in the thrift shop that only need their batteries replaced? Take it as a warning, it's not because the parents were too cheap to buy batteries it was because the toy was annoying and once the batteries wore down the parents had an excuse to get rid of it!

The biggest thing is the "will he actually play with this?" factor. Basically, is it interesting? Will he actually play with it for more than a day? No sense taking a 3 year old into a store to see what toys he likes because he will inevitably be interested in ALL toys at his eye level; for about 3 seconds. As all Mom's who got caught up in the Zhu Zhu pet craze will tell you just because a child asks for a toy DOES NOT mean they will play with it for more than an hour either. Toys that especially fall into this category are the "As seen on TV" ones like Bendaroos and Moonsand. Little Bunny FooFoo is asking for: 2 puppy dogs (toy of course), 2 Geotrax (that's good, Mommy likes Geotrax) and big race cars. At least I have it easier than my friend who's son asked for a cloud for his birthday.

So yes we have a high turn over of toys in our house. Most of them come and go from the thrift shop. Like I've said before I consider the 27 cents I spend on a rescue hero as a rental fee. Use it for a few months and then return it. Catch and release. Here it is Valentine's Day and I'm already pitching Christmas toys. Some toys were headed for the bin by Boxing Day like the remote control race car that Mr. Moose broke the antenna off of on Christmas Day. Huggyband assured him that he could fix it. Yes I'm sure he CAN fix it, the question if WHEN can he fix it? There was also a fishing game that was broken on Christmas Day. I think I've already packed up the 2 stuffed cars from the movie "Cars" that I bought at a thrift shop. Turns out that I bought the blue car who happens to be the girl car named Sally (silly Mom, I mean Santa, don't you know anything?. The boys are getting to the age where they are specific about cartoon characters and I guess I must consult a Disney website before I make a purchase.) Anyways, Mr. Moose was devastated that he got the girl car. Bah! who needs stuffed cars anyways? Also turns out that within hours they were using them to hit each other with so back to the thrift shop they go. Easy come, easy go.

What stays? What toys have made the monthly purge cut? Dress up clothes: 2 years ago for Christmas I collected all sorts of dress up pieces; some cool like masks and mouse ears, some common like a cowboy shirts and silly hats. The possibilities are endless. Realism: binoculars, cameras, wallets. Not the kid ones from toy stores just cast offs. Who cares if the camera is the old type that takes film it's just a pretend prop. Cars: I keep the hot wheels even if they do get everywhere, I picked up a cool bin that they are "supposed" to be returned to. The cheapy McDonald/$ store cars go into a backpack that stays in the van and comes out at church or visiting. I figure who cares if we leave accidentally one of them behind? Action figures are good. We also like build a bear stuff. Musical instruments of all sorts get lots of use in this house (despite my dislike for the noise), so do ride on toys (some of ours have miles of them) and balls (downstairs only please and not the tiny rubber ones either).

Turns out that there's an actual toy hall of fame in New York http://www.museumofplay.org/index.html. Toys that have been inducted are basics like alphabet blocks, bikes, dolls, balls, crayons, lego, playdough, teddy bears. Also included are sticks and cardboard boxes. The non toy toys really make me smile because right now my boys are playing baseball with balloons and coat hangers. Yesterday the coat hangers were hockey sticks and my place mats were snow boards.

So I'm off to Toys R Us. If you don't hear from me for a few days you know that I'm still lost in the aisles. On the second hand, judging by what they're playing with now, maybe a quick trip to the home goods section of Target is more in order. Besides I need a new laundry basket/boat/ animal carrier/ race car..........

Monday, February 15, 2010

Learning to hear "I love you" in the middle of the grocery store.

Valentine's Day. You either love it or you hate it. And I've been thinking that with the exception of maybe Mother's Day/Father's Day it's unique amongst holidays for that distinction. No other holiday separates the haves and have nots, am and am nots like this one. Except for maybe the aforementioned Mothers and Fathers Day.

If you have someone to love, and as much as we kid ourselves about different types of love, we do mean romantic love, you're cool, you're in, you celebrate. If you don't then you don't. Unless of course you're South Korean where single people go out for Chinese food on Black Day in April. As someone who didn't get married until I was 32, I've had my share of single Valentine's Days.
The absolute worst was in Junior High. It was the school custom to sell carnations to students on Valentine's Day as a fundraiser for? I'm pretty sure that we were in 8th grade and I was sooooooooo not popular. In fact I'd even go as far as saying that I was the class geek. I did in fact receive a carnation that year. I was signed by boy X. The guy in the special needs program. I knew it was a joke and I was crushed. But not so, so, crushed when later in the day one of my friends laughed and told me that yes it was sent by a group of mean boys who spent a lot of time plotting it, not realizing that they were doing so right next to my friends locker. It was still a mean thing to do but at least knowing that made it a bit more tolerable. I tore up the tag and took the flower home to my mom claiming I had bought it for her. She was thrilled and never knew the difference.

A few years later I wrote an essay that I'm pretty sure was titled "Why I want to be spit over the heads of dancing couples." Does that tell you anything about my high school love life? And if you needed any further proof let me tell you about the time in high school math when one of my friends pointed out that I was the only virgin in the class. Ahhhhhhhh but now my daughter would be proud if she had such a label.

I seem to remember a Valentine's Day tea party in my 20s. It was thrown by a widow friend of mine and only single women of all ages were invited. It was very fun and celebrated all things girly and womanly. I wish that I could find more excuses to host tea parties.

Now I'm married and have someone to celebrate Valentine's Day with. On our first Valentine's Day together I was just a little bit pregnant and we went to the St. Louis zoo. The smell in the monkey house made me nauseous, however I don't think you have to be pregnant for the smell of a monkey house to make you sick. Exactly 3 years ago I was in the last week of my pregnancy with our youngest son. There was a blizzard on Valentine's Day that year. So much snow it made it impractical to go out but I needed to go out with just my Huggyband while I still could. I think we went to some pizza place? Anyways, it proves the point that sometimes it doesn't matter where you go as long as you're together. Last year Valentine's Day found us taking our daughter to a bible quiz meet in stuck-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-Ohio. When it came time for lunch coaches stayed with the team while Huggyband and I set off to find someplace to eat. God has a special place in his heart for anyone who gives up a holiday to be with kids who aren't even their own. We wandered around some country roads looking for civilization, thinking that the best we would get would be a Subway at a gas station. A fortuitous toss of the coin to determine left or right at an intersection lead us to a popular home cooking buffet restaurant. It was quite the find.
My Huggyband is not a romantic guy. He loves deeply but he doesn't romance. A year ago I wouldn't have even said that he loved deeply. Understanding how my husband shows love is one of the many things I've had to learn over the last 6 years. Yes I know that there are different love languages but learning to hear my husbands has taken practise. And it is just like learning a different language. When I first moved to Korea the language just sounded like random sounds to me. One day in the middle of all of those sounds I reached for a pencil and gave it to a co-worker. Why? Because she had asked for it in Korean and in all the random sounds my head registered the word "pencil." I had actually made sense of a sound. I had heard it. A few weeks later I said "yes" in English. Turns out that somebody had asked me a question in Korean and once again I had made enough sense of the jumble to understand. Learning how my husband says "I love you" has taken a lot of similar work.

I know a lady who one Christmas was waaaaaaaay over committed to making cookies for a church function. You know you're reaching maximum cookie capacity when the dozen number reaches double digits. By herself she was looking at pulling an all nighter. Her husband rolled up his sleeves and started to roll dough. At some point in greasing the five zillionth pan she looked at him and said, "right now you're screaming I love you."

I learned a lot from that story. I learned that sometimes actions do speak louder than words. that's something I really struggle with because words obviously come easy to me. The blessing of growing up in my house was that I heard my parents say that they loved and appreciated each other, and me, many times a day with many different words. Let's just say that my husband was differently blessed. If I watch closely I see the different ways he shows me he loves me.

He showed me he loved me the day our oldest son was born. Immediately after his birth Mr Moose had to be medi vaced to a hospital an hour away. I didn't need to ask, we didn't need to discuss, my Huggyband just went to be with him. The plan for where he would stay and what he would do about work or how and when I would meet up with him would be made later. He just had to be with that baby. He did what it took to care for his family no matter the inconvience. He's self sacrificing and puts our needs ahead of his constantly. Like the time he drove from Georgia to Ohio to look for work and stayed in his truck. Or the fact that even though his children have impressive wardrobes of clothes that take up two rods he rarely spends money on his own clothes. In 6 years of marriage I think he's only bought 6 shirts. He does what he has to do and in doing so he says "I love you."

I've never needed to ask or tell him what to do with the children. I'm not the mom who sits there and wonders how to get their husbands involved in childcare because he IS involved. He's involved at 3 in the morning with diapers and at 7 in the evening with science homework. He's stayed at home with 2 boys with strep throat so that I could get some much needed social interaction at church. I joke that some day we'll look back on Little Bunny FooFoo's baby pictures and wonder why his Daddy was always holding him. Couldn't he walk when he was two? Well yes of course he could but his Daddy insists on carrying him. Acts of love.

It drives me crazy that he takes forever to go grocery shopping. Last night I had him run into a store while I stayed in the van with 2 sleeping boys. There were only a few things on the list and I could have been in and out in 15 minutes, 30 tops. Huggyband was an hour. Why???????? Because I had asked him to pick up a few things for my lunch through the week and he had backtracked through the store 3 times to find me just the right stuff. Honestly, if I had been asked to pick stuff up for him I would have grabbed what was easy and told him he was lucky to get anything. For him the time he spent in the grocery store showed his love for me.

A month ago there were some moral charges levied against me. People were saying stuff that just wasn't true. Huggyband didn't even ask me for my side. Didn't question my actions at all, he just went to a meeting to defend them. And when I made the decision to leave the institution he left as well without hesitation as a show of support for me. Sort of like the time he went to bat for me over a bad meal at a restaurant. I would have been content to let it go but my Huggyband complained and got us 1 free meal a month for a year. Love.

This summer I was sure our marriage was going to fall apart. We were both so desperately ill and couldn't take care of ourselves let alone each other. I'll publicly admit that any and all thoughts of leaving were solely mine. D would never, ever leave me. Fortunately the wounds healed and on our 6th wedding anniversary we renewed our vows. Things are much, much better now. I love him and I'm glad to have him here. Happy Valentine's Day Huggyband!

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Where where you when the world stopped turning? The song will help you remember

Yesterday I wrote about strange but true holidays. The kind for which there are no Hallmark cards. How can there be cards when often there are no words? And that brings to mind other holidays that there aren't cards for either. I'm not talking about public stuff like wedding days and graduation days but private ones. Ones that may only be observed, since celebrated is soooooooo the wrong word, single person but are still significant and still worth being remembered if they choose.

Some private holidays are great. They celebrate victory. Prayers answered. Dreams coming true. The day an addiction was beat. The day freedom was gained. The day the tests came back negative, or on the other side, the day the tests came back positive and you found out you were expecting baby X. As a family we've had those days. But we've also had the other type of private holidays. The days that mark tragedy and grief.

In a song Alan Jackson asks "Where were you when the world stopped turning?" We've had a lot of world stopping days. On some of them the world has come to a slow stop. We've had a heads up that something was wrong whether because we've been called into a meeting or because the doctor has paused in his examination and you're holding your breath. Those are the times when you tell yourself not to worry but.............Sometimes what is probably nothing actually IS something. In all the stats about only one person in five zillion gets this or this happens to somebody has to be that one right?

Sometimes the world comes to an abrupt screeching halt. I feel like I get some sort of emotional whiplash on those days as my life suddenly takes an unexpected turn. Everything seems to move slowly like suspended animation. Things float in mid air, You stop in mid sentence. You are in the middle of doing X when it happens. The phone rings. There's a knock on the door or in these days more likely an email. An innocuous looking email buried amongst a lone line of others in your in box. An ordinary day that would otherwise just blend in with the week before it and the week after it suddenly becomes "the day X happened."


The good news is that the time around these days often fade. First, you forget that it was a Tuesday that it happened. That is good because there are only seven days in a week and you cannot avoid one of them indefinitely. You might move into forgetting the actual date. My head always has a love/hate relationship with forgetting. As much as I try to push something out and move forward from it I also feel guilty about forgetting all of the details of a crisis. I guess I equate remembering with love. If I really loved the person or if I really cared I would remember everything. Forgetting seems to be a disservice or loss of respect. And it is, whoa be to the husband who forgets an anniversary right?

Private grief days often attach themselves to time of the year. It was spring and the lilacs had just come into bloom when............... It was the hottest/coldest day of the year when.......................... We were setting up the Christmas tree when................. And now every time I set up the Christmas tree I get a little sad...........

My friend K is always amazed that I remember her anniversary. Want to know the secret? Her anniversary happens to be the exact same day that my Huggyband's late wife died. That means that while I was at K's wedding, secretly feeling woe full and jealous because I was sure that I would never, ever get married, a major life event was happening 2000 miles away that would change the lives of many, many people including mine. I don't know who caught the bouquet at K's wedding but I do know that I was the next to get married.

September 11th in my family is a bittersweet day. 2 years after the original 9/11 my Huggyband and I became engaged. Even now as others remember with sadness the events of that horrible day we celebrate the day we took a major step to becoming a family. I know ladies who gave birth on 9/11 and one who finalized the adoption of her child the same day. For us the day of great joy will always be tinged with just a little bit of guilt.
 
If you are very unlucky grief days happen on a specific holiday. Last year my Huggyband was diagnosed with cancer on Canadian Thanksgiving thank God he was un-diagnosed 2 days later. My brother died just before Christmas of last year; his remains reached home on Christmas Eve Day. Past Halloweens in my family have brought the loss of a job, the death of an aunt and an unfortunate accident that resulted in death.

I'm not sure what to do with those holidays. How to observe them. I wrestle with it as it's kind of a year by year thing. Do I want to do something for baby J's birth/death day? Or do I want the day to pass quietly, preferably with me just spending the day in bed? That changes day to day and even if I have a plan I reserve the right to change my mind at the very last minute. That would be a question worth asking publicly. How do you remember the birth and death days of a loved one? But I couldn't really ask it because society tells me that I must move on. I have HUGE issues about that one that I'll tell you about some day. It always seems these days should be marked somehow and I would feel guilty if I didn't do anything. The honest truth is that baby J won't care if I light a candle for him or not. So I guess the answer , like I"m sure most answers dealing with grief is to do what makes me feel good at the moment. Problem is that I don't always know what that is. As in touch with my feelings as I am, there are times when I don't have a clue what I want to do with those feelings.

"And even if the whole world has forgotten the song remembers when." It's a line in a Trisha Yearwood song that doesn't quite fit my context, but it's true. There are a lot of things that can trigger memories both good and bad. The stuff that takes you back to a specific time and place. Tastes, scents, sounds, songs. Songs that define that time and place. They make you experience it again. The good stuff like this song by Steven Curtis Chapman that always takes me back to a train in South Korea headed south through rice paddies:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2v-wZP6I3c. Songs that become the signature of a period in our lives or a relationship. "And we were singin............" They can just sum up a moment. When something happens to that relationship or person the song will still be associated with them but in a different context.
My friend C's memorial video included the line "don't you just hate it when they play a song at a funeral and it wrecks the song for you forever? Well don't worry I'm not going to wreck A song for you, I'm going to wreck a bunch of songs for you." As if that wasn't bad enough along comes this Toby Keith song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHZCAcSh7ls I miss you yesterday C as I watched the Olympic opening ceremonies from BC place. I remember being in the press box there with you in 7th grade when you did your best Howard Cosell narration of an imaginary game. I'll see you on the other side superstar. Until then I'll avoid the radio or at least that song...........

Sometimes remembering makes you sad.

Friday, February 12, 2010

Um? Does Hallmark have a card for this?

It's a big weekend around here. You know how they say that everything happens at once? Well yes that does account for long stretches of nothing to do ness and then really busy weekends. We are sooooooooo not an over scheduled family. We never were to begin with and now that we've changed churches we are even less busy. Our kids aren't in a million after school activities; they're not even in one. Maybe next year when there's a school to be after then they will but for now they're not. I'd like them to be but so far money and lack of energy have prevented it. This weekend we are busy, kind of sort of. This is a big celebration weekend.

The Winter Olympics start on Friday night. Usually I can take them or leave them but not this year. This year I'm taking in every last minute of them because this year they are not only in my home and native land but they are in Vancouver. As a foreigner I tell everyone I meet that I'm from Vancouver simply because a lot of people have heard of it and explaining the whole "4 hours northeast thing" is a pain. So we are having a few people over for an opening ceremony watch party and I can't wait.Vancouver was also just named the best city in the world to live in. Tell us something we don't know! Saturday is technically just Saturday but we're using it to celebrate Valentine's Day so that we can avoid the crowds on Sunday and so that Huggyband can stay home in the evening and do homework. Besides, Sunday is Chinese New Year. Although I'm loathe to call it that because of the Koreans dislike of the Chinese they insist that it's Lunar New Year. And, as I'm well experienced at, celebrating a holiday that nobody around you is celebrating is a little tricky. You have to learn to do things in the spirit of the tradition and celebration. So I'll probably just make Chinese food since we live in an area of very few Asians and finding good Chinese food is a challenge. Making it is also hard without the aid of a good Asian market. But..............in case you're interested here's how they do it back at "home."
 
 
Korea
By Alethea YipPosted Jan. 7, 1998
Caught between two calendars – and consequently two New Years – Koreans tend to celebrate the lunar New Year, or Sol, with a whole less pomp than other Asian groups. No firecrackers, ornate dragon heads or beauty pageants. Just nice quiet reflective family time, ancestor worship and lots of rich food – naturally.
A feast of juicy dumplings, steaming soups, sticky rice, noodles and sweet fruits is set out during family gatherings. The same type of spread is laid out before alters honoring relatives that have passed onto the spirit world. In addition to the food, Sol is observed by some Koreans by getting decked out in traditional dress, passing out envelopes of money to youngsters who do the obligatory bowing to elders and even taking the day off from work.

Koreans Celebrate a More Subdued New Year
By Janie HarPosted Dec. 16, 1996
Unlike the Chinese with their extravagant, traffic-jamming New Year's celebrations or the Vietnamese with their county fair-like Tet festivals, Koreans in the United States take a quieter approach to the holiday.

For one thing, although the traditional Lunar New Year might be the more widely observed of the two, Koreans here (and in Korea) often choose to celebrate either or both solar and lunar beginnings. Like most agrarian cultures, Koreans followed the lunar cycle exclusively until around the late-19th and early-20th century. That's when Christian missionaries started bringing Western practices to Korea. And then the Japanese, which had already adopted the solar calendar in 1868, colonized the country. In South Korea today, both days are officially observed.

The ways in which Koreans celebrate differ, ranging from a simple gathering of the immediate family to a full-blown affair with numerous cousins and people dressed in old-fashioned Korean garb.

Still, there are a few customs that most families practice to some degree.

One such custom is jae sa, in which family members bow and pay their respects to the dearly departed. Surrounding the pictures on the table are lit incense sticks and carefully arranged dishes of meat, bowls of sticky rice, platters stacked high with persimmons and Asian pears, slinky clear potato noodles called japchae, and colorful confections made of rice.

Korean children also receive envelopes of "good luck" money, but they have to work for their loot with a series of bows to the elders.

Traditional must-eat foods on this day are dduk gook and/or mandu gook. Dduk gook is a soup swimming with glutinous rice cakes sliced into ovals. Mandu gook is simply dduk gook with small steamed dumplings (think potstickers without the frying and you get the picture).

Whatever the practices may be, Koreans and Korean Americans, like everyone else in the world, use this day to spend time with loved ones, reflect upon the past year, make those resolutions, and of course, eat a lot of food.

For an even better description check out http://k-popped.com/2008/02/how-do-koreans-celebrate-lunar-new-year.html (Gotta love the sub title on that one: "We're Malaysian, we're hooked on all things Korea, we blog here." Think I could sub-title my blog: "I'm Canadian, living in the USA, I'm hooked on all things Korean, biased against all things American, I blog here."?)
 
I have a lot of "good" ? Maybe "distinct" is a better word, memories of sol lal. I remember trying to get my head around the idea of feeding dead ancestors. Feeling the conflict between the Christians who knew that it was wrong and their families who did it. I had a long running joke with some of my friends about how it must be very cold out there at the graveside doing a ceremony and couldn't they just run and drop off a happy meal for the dead? I had a big inner conflict the day the young adults from my church went to visit the head pastor and bowed before him. I had about 2 seconds to make a decision for myself and I chose not to participate. Maybe foreshadowing the situation I'm in now? Back then I had hoped they would understand that my refusal was a cultural thing; now and here they still don't get it. However I smile at the memory of a little girl in her families restaurant practising the bow she would do in front of her grandparents. Motivated by the packet of money she would receive of course, but still cute nonetheless. I have grrrrrrrreat memories of food. Not mandu and not rice noodles but japchae was and still would be (if I could find a good version of it or an easy way to prepare it) one of my favorite Korean foods. Just for the heck of it I participated in the gift buying trend and sent home a very coveted sol lal gift to my parents. It was the highly prized in Korea case of SPAM (SPAM is SPAM even in Asia.) Don't laugh you're talking about a culture that thinks that a case of toilet paper makes a great housewarming gift. Well, at least you know they'll use it.
 
I was also just reminded that Korea does Valentines Day a little different than we do. In fact they manage to stretch it for a few months. Valentines Day is celebrated February 14th, White Day is March 14 and Black Day is April 14. Check this out:

In Japan, Valentine's Day is observed by females who present chocolate gifts (either store-bought or handmade), usually to a male, as an expression of love. The handmade chocolate is usually preferred by the receiver, because it is a sign that the receiving male is the girl's "only one". On White Day, the converse happens: males who received a honmei-choco ({ス`R?, "chocolate of love") or giri-choco (``R?, "courtesy chocolate") on Valentine's Day are expected to return the favor by giving gifts, usually more expensive. Traditionally, popular White Day gifts are cookies, jewellery, white chocolate, white lingerie and marshmallows.[2] Sometimes the term sanbai gaeshi (O{ヤオ?, literally, "thrice the return") is used to describe the generally recited rule that the return gift should be two to three times the cost of the Valentine's gift.[3]
It's a little amazing to me that the Koreans would borrow a Japanese holiday but they made up their own in terms of Black Day.Black Day (April 14) is a South Korean informal tradition for single people (a.k.a. Unit Solo/Solo Regiment, lee: ) to get together and eat jajangmyeon (noodles with black bean sauce), sometimes a white sauce is mixed for those who did not celebrate White Day.

The idea is that those who did not give or receive gifts on Valentine's Day (February 14) or White Day (March 14) can get together and eat jajangmyeon (), white Korean noodles with black bean sauce (hence the name), to celebrate their singledom.

Anyways............. Here on this side of the pond Monday is President's Day: an official holiday celebrating the births of presidents Washington (Feb 22) and Lincoln (Feb 12). The only thing stranger about celebrating a holiday that nobody else is is celebrating (although it looks like nobody really "celebrates" it) that really isn't yours. Who cares, it usually means a day off work and school. In China we had Buddha's birthday off but not Christmas Day off. And then there's the whole thing about Federal holiday (affecting schools, banks and the post office, prompting the question "is there mail today?") but not affecting grocery stores, vs real holidays that everybody has off.

There's also Mardi Gras this weekend. Mardi Gras is one of those cool American holidays that Canadians think is cool. We've never lived in an American city that really celebrates it but I'd really like to. Mardi Gras is the carnival right before Lent that ends in Shrove or Fat Tuesday. The day indulgences like fat or rich foods and oil were used up before somber Lent.
Having a British Catholic mother I am familiar with Shrove Tuesday and like her I still make pancakes for it.

My youngest son was born on Shrove Tuesday. In this part of Ohio it's celebrated with some sort of polish donut that I can't reference for you because I can't even pronounce it to look it up. What I remember is not being able to eat those donuts that year because of the impending C-section. Shrove Tuesday is followed by Ash Wednesday and in my post baby stupor I barely remember trying to figure out why some people had ashes on their foreheads the day after Little Bunny FooFoo was born.

I'm also told that the Daytona 500 is this weekend. Thankfully my family is exempt from that and all sports related holidays, except for the Olympics of course.

One December 6th we celebrated St. Nicholas Day in a predominantly German town in some Midwestern state. A smart thinking mommy friend called me the day before to give me a heads up that all of Little Miss Teen's would be receiving token gifts that night and talking about them the next day in school. I didn't want her to be left out so I ran to the dollar store and picked up a couple of things. I thought a new tradition had been born until the next December found us in the deep south. Little Miss Teen celebrated it but nobody else did making everyone confused. My Huggyband pointed out that what had started as a tradition to make her feel included in the end made her feel isolated so we dropped the practise. Kind of, sort of. Some years elves come early and drop off little gifts.

And if you're STILL short of reasons to celebrate may I suggest the following list from http://alum.wpi.edu/~wes/holiday.htm?
February 14th - Horned Lizard Day: For those of us who find Valentine's Day an appallingly saccharine and pointless holiday based entirely on superficial expressions of fraudulent love, Horned Lizard Day provides an opportunity to disorient our friends and loved ones with cheerful comments about interesting reptiles. Are you tired of Valentine's Day's hopelessly tooth-rotting sentimentality? Sick of supporting the flower and candy industries with hollow gestures of false affection? Does the color pink send you into fits of psychotic rage? Then celebrate something worth celebrating - celebrate Horned Lizard Day! I send Horned Lizard Day cards to my friends on this important occasion, both to spread happiness and to let them know what interesting animals horned lizards are. I feel that there is no better way to celebrate the 14th of February than with an animal that squirts blood from a sinus behind its eyes when threatened. See the dramatic struggle.

February 20th - Honey Creeper Memorial Day: Honey Creepers were these nifty little birds with long, curved beaks that lived among the Hawaiian Islands. Alas, Honey Creepers are now extinct. I encourage everyone to donate some time or money to the preservation of the dwindling population of our world's endangered species - and not just today, either.

February 22nd - Parsley Day: Acknowledge the world's greatest garnish by handing it out to total strangers in the street! Wander into fast food restaurants, walk up to the patrons, and offer to spice up the appearance of their boring meals with a sprig of festive green. Visit your friends and bestow upon them the gift of garnish. If no one will accept your offerings, you can always adorn your table with an elegant vase of nice fresh parsley, brightening the room and letting everyone know what a keen grasp of culinary decor you have.

March 23rd - Tulip Shell Snail Day: Okay, so most of you probably couldn't care less about a snail, but I think snails are nifty. Besides, all of the calendar's other listings for March are pretty boring - stuff like Ospreys, Molerats, Avocados, Corn, Long Horn Beetles, and so on. If you really need another March holiday and you don't like this one, I encourage you to make up your own.

April 11th - Red Wolf Day: I really like wolves. I have several wolf calendars, a few plush wolves, and the Folkmanis Big Bad Wolf puppet. Obviously then, I think that Red Wolf Day is worth celebrating. If you're more inclined to celebrate days that will confuse your friends, just wait until Ladel Day.

April 12th - Hermit Crab Day: Okay, so it's only a day away from Red Wolf Day - is this supposed to be my fault? I didn't make up the calendar and I didn't decide what order to put the pages in. Anyway, hermit crabs are really cool. Whenever I visit the New England Aquarium I go to visit the little tanks of poor, tormented animals that children can handle...I pity the poor things. Anyway, I stop to say "hi" to the hermit crabs, and I'm much gentler and friendlier than the children are. I haven't been for ages...I wonder if they miss me.

May 9th - International Sloth Day: Though November 19th is the official day for the sloth according to my calendar, I've been told by a reader of this page that they previously established May 9th to be International Sloth Day. I've got nothing against celebrating the sloth twice a year, or you can choose whichever one you desire. Just don't celebrate too actively, or you'll defeat the whole purpose of Sloth Day in the first place.

May 23rd - The Defenestration of Prague: This is an actual date in history, which warrants note whether you care about the actual event or not. On May 23, 1618, in Prague, a few royal officials were thrown out a window of Hradcany Castle by some noblemen, but survived the fall by landing in a cart full of manure. More importantly, defenstration is easily one of the most totally underused words in the English language. For those who are unaware, it means "the act of throwing something or someone out of a window." The date for this event also falls on an extremely Illuminated day of the year, 5/23, which incorporates both the Discordian number 5 and our old friend 23. Fnord.

May 25th - Towel Day: Towel Day celebrates the life and work of Douglas Adams, who championed the many uses of the towel in his book series/movie/radio series/movie/tv movie/breakfast cereal, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Carry your towel proudly.
Etc, Etc, Etc.

Oh look Huggyband! All the more reasons to give me gifts!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

I was going to write about procrastination but I'll do it tommorrow

"Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday."
Don Marquis quotes (American Writer, ColumnistAmerican Writer, Columnist
 
"Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy."
Wayne Gretzky quotes
 
"Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that there is nothing important to do"
 
"Procrastination: Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now"
Larry Kersten quotes
"Procrastination is, hands down, our favorite form of self-sabotage."
Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby
 
For the most part I am NOT a procrastinator. I'm a "do it, do it now!" type of person. Especially when it comes to my demands of others (isn't that right Daddy, Huggyband and Little Miss Teen?) However, I do occasionally leave stuff until I get around-to-it. Seems like "around-to-it" is the cousin of procrastination, not a refusal to do it but in the same spirit of doing it later. Or, as my new favorite excuse goes, I just wasn't in the mood to do it. Sigh.................. yes maybe I do use my moods as an excuse but........... Anyways........................

Sometimes there are good reasons why something isn't done right away. Reasons like: I needed the right equipment to do it; as in why have shortbread cookies been on my to do list for a month? Because I don't have unsalted butter and until the other day I didn't know that I could get it at the cheap grocery store. Why don't half of my kids toys have batteries? The official line is because I don't have batteries. The unofficial reason is that because they are too annoying with batteries. Besides, playing with an unplugged toy encourages creativity and imagination right?

For me it's a time factor thing. I'm a big picture thinker, there are no short term lists or goals just big stuff. Want to know what we're doing a month from now? Just ask me! (We pause now to hear the sound of Gods uproarious laughter.) What are we having for lunch today? Hmmmmmm........ (Not really because I've had it planned for a week but you get the idea.) To me there are no small tasks to be done by themselves there are only small tasks that tie into larger tasks that I really don't have time for. It's really about efficiency and lumping group chores together. I swear that the G family motto is "While you're there/up doing X you may as well do Y or the effort will be wasted." For example I can't just take the pile of outgrown clothes to the basement. I COULD take them to the basement but then I would have to put them away properly which would involve putting them in brown paper bags which would involve finding the bags and a marker to label the bags. Then I would have to put all the other clothes that I have just laying on top of the piles away, sorting them by size and folding them neatly. Then I would have to re stack the bags. Suddenly a 30 second trip to the basement to put away a few old sweatshirts becomes an hour long process involving sorting out 40 outgrown sweatshirts. And who has time for that?
 
Little Miss Teen, who right now is procrastinating about cleaning the guck out from under the sink, says that her reason is because it's too "eewy." I agree (that's why I'm making HER do it not me). Sometimes stuff doesn't get done because of the sheer grossness involved. Stuff like cleaning bathrooms, picking up dog poop and the occasional diaper fall into this category.

Prime example of this is a W family legendary story involving a turkey leg. My Huggybands late wife died in late July one year. We were married in late November (yes of the same year) but due to a colossal immigration mix up I wasn't able to live with him until late January. I arrived at his house on a Sunday night and since my arrival was very unplanned he had to work the next day. Leaving me in a strange house in a strange city by myself. I opened the fridge to find something to eat and discovered "the dish." "The dish" was a glass casserole dish containing the unidentifiable remains of some type of meat? I wasn't sure what it was but I was sure that it had been in there for a looooooooong time. I tried to guess at how long it had been in there. Christmas? Nooooooooo looked older than that, probably older than Thanksgiving too. I had no clue. But I did manage to throw it out and set the dish in the sink to soak for a very, very long time. Can you tell I was a newlywed? Because now I wouldn't have bothered with cleaning the dish, I would have just thrown the whole thing out corning ware and all. When my Huggyband got home and I confronted him with the fossilized food story and my questions of how long it had been in there he told me that in his defense he hadn't seen it waaaaaaaay in the back of the fridge. He also told me that I was right, it hadn't been left over from Christmas or Thanksgiving. It was left over funeral food. As in one of the ladies from church had brought it over after the funeral of his wife in JULY. Ick!

So yesterday I was in a "round-to-it" mood. I felt like conquering some of the chores that I'd been meaning to do for a long time. Yes, I do know that in doing the backlog chores I was avoiding the current chores but sometimes catching up on stuff makes me feel better. I'm not at all obsessive compulsive, but sometime bringing calm to the outside stuff brings calm to my inside stuff. So I went upstairs to the boys room and grabbed their fan. You know, the fan that's been there since summer? The fan that should have been put away in oooooooooh say September? The fan that at this point may as well stay there until THIS summer? It's one of those things that I had been meaning to do. They play with it even in the middle of winter. Playing with it involves using electricity and taking the fan away so they can't use electricity is my way of making myself feel better about the astronomical electric bill we got last month (because turning off lights is too difficult?) While I was taking the fan out to the garage I grabbed the bag of water guns (bought on clearance for $1 and given to my kids as Christmas presents) from the top of the closet (because even when not filled with water they are outdoor toys) and then downstairs to the basement to grab the sidewalk chalk (another outdoor Christmas present bought on clearance) and a couple of cars that I figure can be used outdoors in the sandbox I've yet to buy but am planning on. All of which I have been tripping over for months.

I've also been tripping over the Christmas tree (it's in the box but hasn't been put downstairs yet!). And you know................I'll do it.......... When I get around to it!

Monday, February 8, 2010

Walk

Think of summer, think of shoes and you think of flip flops (thongs as I used to call them) right? That's what I used to think too; I have a whole pile of flip flops in many different colors and styles. This past summer a different pair of shoes was thrust upon my feet. I wish that this Cinderella could say that they didn't fit but they did. They were (and still are) the shoes of severe depression. And so I walked in them. These shoes that I thought I'd never, ever wear. These shoes that I had judged others I had seen wearing. I had thought that the people who were wearing these shoes were doing it as a choice. I thought it was an excuse to be moody. I thought that people could just take them off. I. I had thought they were just being babyish or overly emotional. I had made so many wrong presumptions........I had never tried to imagine what it was like to be the people wearing these shoes with all of their fears and anxieties, pasts and prides. People in uncomfortable shoes who would sure as heck rather be wearing the shoes of love and peace and joy. Think of it as the difference between steel toed boots and flip flops.

I guess it's easy to feel for someone when they are going through the good stuff in life. Weddings, new babies......... We feel happy for and with the person because happiness is an easy and likable emotion to feel. But not the hard stuff. Grief, illness, depression; all bad emotions that we, as people who try to avoid pain, don't want to feel. Who wants to put on these shoes? Except for the days that we're forced to........

Some day I'll get up the courage to post a list I found on another site about what that particular person learned from having depression. How it made them better. For now, I'm just toying with the idea that it COULD make me better. It COULD give me more compassion; more understanding, more wisdom, make me less judging, more loving. Turns out that wearing these shoes takes a lot of learning. The mere act of waling or moving forward while battling depression is a learned skill. I've also learned from them. I learned what it was like to deal with depression and all that entails. What it feels like to be in the depths of despair. What self loathing feels like. What isolation feels like. What anxiety feels like. There are some things that you truly can't understand unless you've been there, until you've walked in these shoes.

Walk a mile in my shoes. Be me. Try to see things from my perspective. Try to understand what it's like to ------ It's not just an excuse it's a plea for understanding. It's a plea for compassion and unconditional love, for listening and sympathy. For space to make mistakes, for hugs and reassurance.
 
Until 5 minutes ago I didn't know that "Walk a Mile in my Shoes" was a song. (Maybe I did but not this version?) What a song it is! I like Elvis's version the best http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/elvis-presley-walk-a-mile-in-my-shoes-2-18-70/DED4B792DF7B7F103C4DDED4B792DF7B7F103C4D and Coldcuts version is also good:http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/coldcut-walk-a-mile-in-my-shoes/D43792783BC6CA069501D43792783BC6CA069501
 
I like the song so much I had to look up the lyrics
"Walk A Mile In My Shoes" (As recorded by Joe South) JOE SOUTH

If I could be you and you could be me for just one hour
If we could find a way to get inside each other's mind
If you could see me through your eyes instead of your ego
I believe you'd be surprised to see that you'd been blind.

Walk a mile in my shoes, walk a mile in my shoes
And before you abuse, criticize and accuse
Walk a mile in my shoes.

Now your whole world you see around you is just a reflection
And the law of common says you reap just what you sow
So unless you've lived a life of total perfection
You'd better be careful of every stone that you throw.

Walk a mile in my shoes, walk a mile in my shoes
And before you abuse, criticize and accuse
Walk a mile in my shoes.

And yet we spend the day throwing stones at one another
'Cause I don't think or wear my hair the same way you do
Well I may be common people but I'm your brother
And when you strike out and try to hurt me its a-hurtin' you.

Walk a mile in my shoes, walk a mile in my shoes
And before you abuse, criticize and accuse
Walk a mile in my shoes.

There are people on reservations and out in the ghettos
And brother there but for the grace of God go you and I
If I only had the wings of a little angel
Don't you know I'd fly to the top of the mountain, and then I'd cry.

Walk a mile in my shoes, walk a mile in my shoes
And before you abuse, criticize and accuse
Walk a mile in my shoes, shoes.
(c) Copyright 1969 by Lowery Music Co., Inc. - SONG HITS, Summer 1974.

This morning when I Googled "walk a mile in my shoes" I accidentally typed in "walk a mile in HER shoes." and came up with this result: http://walkamileinhershoes.org/ What you're looking at is a fund raiser/awareness campaign where men walk 1 mile in women's high heels to raise awareness of rape, sexual assault and gender violence. Why is that such a great find for me? Why do I think it's the coolest thing I've seen in a while? Because 11 years ago somebody I loved was killed by her husband. It ended a marriage filled with violence. In all of the stuff that I had to sort through in my head I struggled with the question of why she didn't leave him years earlier. I judged her quite severely for not getting out, getting safe and pressing charges against him. All so easy for me to say. Easy because I wasn't in her shoes.

So what if the lesson for me isn't that walking a mile in someones doesn't just pertain to depression or whatever I'm going through but ALL of life's circumstances? What if the lesson isn't just don't judge unless you've been there, but don't judge at all? There are days when we need to be very glad that some shoes don't fit us and sad that some shoes exist.

Quite possibly too much of a good thing

The news reports called it "snowmageddon." I called it "oh look it's snowing." I have known a lot of snow in my life. I like snow; sort of. Like most adults (ok most adults who don't depend on snow for recreational opportunities and since I'm in an American state that doesn't I can safely say that) my fascination with snow has diminished as I've gotten older. For a child snow brings endless play opportunities. It transforms that dark, wet fall backyard into a whole new playground covered in a pretty neat building material. Want a real challenge? Try explaining to a pre-schooler why this isn't the right type of snow to make a snowman. That neat building material can also be used as a weapon. This year Santa brought my boys snowball makers; think over sized scissor like ice cream scoops. He didn't bring them because he thought they needed him he brought them because he found them at his favorite thrift shop cheap.

And then there's sledding. Or tobogganing as I used to call it. Tobogganing as a kid is a lot of fun (well duh!). Tobogganing WITH kids is a lot of work (or so I'm told because I'm too lazy to do it with my kids.) Tobogganing is probably best done as a teen or young adult. I have great memories of hiking up hills only to freeze my but off sliding down them on garbage bags. Like most people I agree that it really doesn't feel like Christmas without snow on Christmas Eve although I have learned that Christmas will come regardless of weather you have snow or all your shopping done. And also, like most adults, I think that any snow beyond that is just an inconvenience. To start with there's the whole outfitting your kids dilemma. Dilemma isn't quite the right word here, "pain in the butt" is. Everything from trying to find boots (especially boy boots for not more than $15 please and thank you) or baby mittens (especially trying to keep them on the baby) to adjusting the car seat straps to fit over bulky coats is a hassle. One of my friends recently moved from Canada to Mexico and she was asked if she misses snow. She said that she missed it in terms of "oh look it's snowing on Christmas Eve!" not "oh for crying out loud it's April!'

Now don't go presuming that because I'm Canadian I should be used to copious amounts of snow. For the record, the city I was born and raised in gets about 35.8 inches of the white stuff a year. The city that we're currently in gets about 56.9 inches. True, I once spent time in a Canadian city where their idea of snow removal was to pile up all the snow in the center lane of the roads creating a very rat maze effect. Then there was the time a friend and I started to dig out a car only to discover that it was the wrong car. We learned that if in doubt clear off enough of the car in question that you can check it's color. Do not presume that the auto shaped mound you are vigorously attacking is your car just because that's where you swore you left yours.

Better than digging out your own car is having someone else do it. When I was single I cared less about eharmony and there 5 zillion methods of finding me a compatible spouse, all I really wanted was a boyfriend who would dig my car out for me; preferably while I stayed warm and safe in the house watching the fireplace channel. Thanks to the Internet I did find myself a husband who will clear off my car for me in a storm. Problem is he also expects me to shovel the driveway. I thought my disastrous, though honest, attempt at shoveling us out from the last storm would prove my uselessness at the task to such an extent that I would never be asked to do it again; it didn't. I shoveled yesterday all the while making a mental note that the next house we buy (there WON'T be a next house) will be one with a short driveway. Forget such criteria as fenced in backyard and storage space, a short driveway is a priority! Oh and I learned that in the winter it's best to keep the snow shovel close to the house not in the garage where you have to leap over 4 foot high snow drifts to reach over it.

Here snow is divided into 2 categories: lake effects and regular snow. A big fuss is made over what type of snow is falling, not that the snow itself cares. It's not like it falls in different piles or comes down in different colors depending on it's origin. When it lands in my driveway it is all just snow. Besides in Kamloops it's not the snow that will get you it's the cold. I do know what it's like for temperatures to be too cold to snow. I know what it's like for locks to freeze and I know that if you are talking about plugging in your car you're not necessarily talking about a hybrid. What I don't know about is snow days.

Snow days (for the uniformed that until a few years ago including me which is why I never understood the premise of the movie "Snow Day" ) are the days that school closes because there is too much snow. We were in some flat mid western state when I first heard of the concept of closing schools for weather. I took Little Miss (not a teen back then) to her first day of school and noticed that the driveway of the school was quite steep. At home I told my Huggyband that I was worried about how I was going to get up that driveway in the winter with snow considering that I'm the worlds worst driver and although I have lots experience with snow driving in it is a whole different matter. He assured me that they would cancel school long before there was enough snow to make driving difficult. CANCEL SCHOOL????? They can DO that? Until then, what you did on days that it was snowing had always been a personal choice. You could choose to go to the movies or not but the choice was entirely up to you since the theater was always open. Same with schools, churches etc. You could choose to brave the elements and make the drive or not but not many things were going to be cancelled on account of the weather. I often joke with the stereotype that if Canadian schools were to close every time there was snow then our kids would rarely go. Besides, parents would go INSANE if our kids were kept home for that long. If that were the case then Canadian parents would be clearing the roads themselves! Anyways, here school does get cancelled, they actually plan on having it cancelled for a few days each winter and build it into their schedules. Not only school but other things get cancelled as well; like church. One year church was cancelled on Christmas Eve because of a storm; and that's not the only time we've had church cancelled because of weather. This weekend the local ice festival was cancelled because of weather. No, it wasn't too hot; there was too much snow!