Nope, Can't Answer This!

Really, this is impossible to answer! The one and only happiest moment of my life? I can't say. How can I isolate one moment without taking away from the others? Plus, the moments that really make me happy are small, often fleeting, unnoticeable to a third party. For example, you might expect me to say that the moment I married my husband was the happiest moment of my life. Well, in that moment, I was actually a little nervous that the person who was going to be handing out the ceremonial sweets after we signed the marriage docs would forget to do so. I was also aware of 200 people in the room and a cell phone going off. I enjoyed the day, don't get me wrong, and truly felt the love and support of people who love and support me and my family. But does that beat the exhilaration of finally delivering my first born child 36 hours after my water broke? And can I say that that tops delivering her brother two and a half years later?

Those are happy moments but the moments I actually take in that make my toes curl, my lips part in a full-on smile are the times when the kids are playing nicely, quietly in our living room and my feet are warm because I'm wearing my favourite wool socks, my husband is cooking one of my favourite meals and I know that I am doing work that I love. Other moments like that are like last night at yin class when I held pigeon pose and felt my hips open up as my head surrendered and found its way gently to my mat, my hands outstretched and cooling on the floor of the studio, every cell of my body taking in the chants playing in the background. In those moments I feel like I am in love in a way that I couldn't be with any one person.

Sometimes all it takes for me to feel that way is a nice hot, undisturbed, shower.

I may have evaded the actual prompt here but there is no way I could have answered that. My world doesn't work that way. I don't really know if anyone's does.

A Better Time To Write About Crushes

Maybe you won't notice that today is not November 17 or that on November 17 I did not publish a post. My morning yesterday was eaten up by a post called Most Of The Time I'm Pretty Neurotic that I wrote for my other blog. It was fun to write but you can imagine how delving into my neuroses would take up all of my writing time. I thought I could steal away in the afternoon for a quick post here but between feeding two kids lunch (never a fun task), my daughter's ballet class, making dinner and seeing a speech therapy client my entire afternoon was spoken for. After dinner I made a run for my favourite yoga class: stretchy, yummy yin. Got home at 9:30 pm, chatted with the hubby and then said in my sleepy state, "I'm going to go blog now."

My husband looked at me with half opened eyes (did I mention my son was up a lot the night before?) and asked incredulously, "You're going to blog at 10 pm?" I took a second to consider the time of night, my uber relaxed muscles and mind, and most importantly the topic for the day and decided it could wait until this morning. And here it is.



Seriously, and I'm not just using this as a scapegoat, but if I were to list all of my crushes we'd be sitting here for a long time. I'd have to pull out my journals from the time I was like 11 and keep going until I met my husband when I was 19. I'd say between that time there were two "crushes" that were more than just dreamy adoration but then since they don't qualify as crushes they don't need to be mentioned here. (Whew!)

I will, however, talk about the one life-long crush I have had and that is for none other than my tall, dark and handsome...Will Smith. As a pre-teen, I giggled at his cute antics as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and stared at the movie screen wide-eyed as a young adult. Just the other day I seriously pondered putting his picture up in my studio. I decided against that, by the way. The idea of my husband putting a poster up of his celebrity crush in his office (last I heard it was Alyssa Milano...guess it's been awhile since I asked him) made me feel uneasy. I figure I'd return him the courtesy of keeping my never-gonna-happen crush a little more discreet.

What draws me to real-life Will is his self-assuredness, his down-to-earthness, his humour, his connection to God (see, this goes deeper than you thought, right?!) and the way he looks at me from across the room when he thinks no one else is watching. But I see him. Out of the corner of my eye, I see his gaze follow me as I make my way over to the bar to order a...water...and he is impressed with my...healthy habits. My heart beats faster, my breath quickens as he unwraps his long legs and pushes himself gracefully up off the leather armchair, his eyes never leaving me. I silently command myself to look innocently at my freshly-manicured fingers and will them to not drop the water I am holding. I feel his presence before he places his hand on my left shoulder blade, gently but confidently.

"Excuse me, Miss."

Oh, my, excuse ME! Sorry, where did that come from? *blush* OK, that's not the kind of writing I was supposed to be doing. *clears throat* So anyway, teensy crush on Will Smith that has lasted just over 20 years. Looking forward to growing old with him.

Oh, this is tough. This is really tough. On the one hand I want to say you never really leave your childhood. It lives somewhere in your inner organs, following you through your life for better or for worse. But I know that there is that transition too when you are more adult than child. I don't think it relates to any physiological change or age; it's probably related to events in your life. Things that happen that wake you up to responsibility, hard work,and consequences.

I lived with my parents until I was 23, then lived away for about 8 months, then moved back in for another year before I got married at the age of 25. 25! That sounds so ridiculously young to get married in this day and age and yet so old to say that that's when I became an adult. I think that's when it happened. When I was no longer physically in the care of my parents. When I lived with them, I didn't really have much responsibility. My job was to go to school and make a life for myself. Anything else would get in the way of that so my parents took care of everything for me. I married a man who had to become an adult much sooner than that, who had been providing for his family and taking care of the house since he was in his teens. Comparing transitions to adulthood with him is eye-opening for the both of us.

My transition to adulthood has been a dragged-out process. Even after we got married, my job was still to go to school - I started my masters degree just over two weeks after we got married! So for the first two years of our marriage, I was in school 12 hours a day and studying on weekends; so again, my meals were taken care of for me and I was given my space and whatever I needed to get my job done. At the age of 27 I got my first full time job, 10 years after my husband started working full time!

At 29, when our daughter was born, that transition to adulthood jumped up about 10 notches! Not only was I now responsible for myself in more ways than before, I was also responsible for the life of another human being! And now, being the one at home all of the time, it only made sense for me to take on more of the household tasks. I wanted to go back to work desperately!

And now at 33, I have two children, 2 careers, and I'm still at home most of the time...I have never done so much laundry in my life! My husband has always done more than his share around the house because it's practically built in to him to do so; and it's built in to me to have someone pick up my slack. At the end of the summer it all came to a head when he pointed out how much more often I choose to let the household "go" for a sweeter deal like reading my novel. You know, pleasurable activities! It was easy for me to do that because I knew that the work would get done by someone who prides himself on doing a good job. It sounded win-win to me but not to him.

So, now, I've transitioned further into adulthood by stepping outside of my old way of thinking and doing things a little differently around here. This past week, actually, I realized how much pride I do take in doing things around the house - and in doing them well. It actually allows me to enjoy the real pleasurable activities more because I feel so much more balanced. That's pretty adult, right? To look at the big picture like that? I think so.

I can easily become a child - or I should say my inner child easily comes out - when I haven't created something in awhile or when I'm feeling under the weather. But I don't throw tantrums, I just deal and use my adult brain cells to solve the problem or to ask for help when I need to lay on the couch for a bit.

I hope I don't have to transition any further. I kind of like it here.

Take You Back To My Room

This prompt takes me back to my favourite bedroom growing up. Of all the bedrooms I have had, and there have been many, this was my absolute favourite and one I have written about before. Why I am so drawn to this room is still kind of a mystery to me - it definitely wasn't my largest room. In fact, the double bed pretty much took up most of it, though there was space for an old hand-me-down chest of drawers and a short, narrow bookshelf against the opposite wall. That left a small carpet area that allowed my closet to open and that's about it. I enjoyed that bedroom from just before my 9th birthday until just after my 13th birthday when, heartbroken, I moved across town with my parents and younger brother.

Every inch of that bedroom was mine, from the floor where I played with my action figures and dolls...everything from He-Man to Transformers to My Little Pony...to the ceiling. Almost every inch of wall was covered in magazine pictures of Chad Allen, Kirk Cameron, Will Smith, and other teenage heartthrobs.

The bookshelf housed my collection of Babysitters Club books next to all of the Sweet Valley High books passed down from my cousins. Where there weren't books, there were little figurines I collected and other assorted paraphernalia, mostly of the 5 cent machine variety. I also used to make these little "mice" out of pistachio shells. They lived in my bookshelf, too. I guess the bookshelf doubled as a doll house - each shelf was a separate floor in the house.

The chest of drawers contained my clothes, of course, but also the jewelry I loved to wear, my Final Net hairspray and a little lamp that didn't provide enough lighting as I agonized over every detail of glamourizing. My dad tried to give me a math lesson in multiplication once; he said "We have 6 mirrors in this house and you spend 10 minutes in front of each one before we leave the house. How long does it take for us to leave the house?" I don't think he was joking.

The absolute best part of my room was my bed. A double bed to a 9 year old is huge! I felt like a queen climbing into that bed at night, clicking on the lamp attached to the headboard and opening up my latest novel. I remember the nights I would read until I could barely keep my eyes open, sliding ever further under the quilt my parents brought over from Kenya. Finally, I would succumb to sleep, knowing that I'd end the next day this way, too; I knew that Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield would be waiting for me to read about their enticing adventures.

This bed was also the place where I wrote my very first journal entry on July 1, 1988 just after my 10th birthday. It was the bed on which my mom taught me how to fold laundry and where I would spend many summer afternoons folding my clothes, listening to Mariah Carey on my tape recorder. My window curtains moved in the breeze as I imagined the freedoms of being a teenager (what did I know?), contemplated things like love, happiness, and friendships. From my window I could hear children playing outside; sometimes I joined them, sometimes I stayed in and read. Those long, long summer days when I knew I could always find safety in my haven when the frequent outings and visitors got to be too much.

Winter in that room was oh so cozy! Getting out of bed to go to school was my least favourite part of the day. I used to do this terribly dangerous thing - I would drape the shirt I was going to wear for the day over the lamp on my chest of drawers so it would warm up while I brushed my teeth and went to the bathroom! I have no idea how I didn't burn the entire house down in the process. I did this all the time. Yikes.

If I wasn't reading, there was always music on. Everything from Bobby Brown, The Boys, New Kids On The Block, Mariah Carey and Bell Biv Devoe. It was fun to listen to the music and imagine that I was cool enough to be a dancer in their videos. Who am I kidding? Sometimes I still imagine that!

I miss that room and have often visited it in my dreams. In some ways I am trying to transfer those feelings to my new space that is only mine: my studio where I am right now. Is it OK for a 33 year old married mother of 2 to hang up pictures of Will Smith in her studio? Hmmm...I'll have to think about that. I don't think this studio, or anything else, will ever take the place of that room. That room also represents an era in my life, of when my parents and my brother and I were all under the same roof. Those days are untouchable.

New Rules

OK, so here's the deal. I didn't officially register for National Blog Posting Month, aka NaBloPoMo, only because I missed the deadline to do so! However, I said I would write to each prompt and just sort of "catch up." Yeah, that's not happening. First of all, I'm getting confused. And I'm thinking, there are so many things I have to keep track of, why am I adding something to my list? At the rate I'm going, I'd have to crank out 2 or more blog posts a day to catch up and I don't want to just be spewing out crap for the sake of saying "I did it." So, I'm making up some new rules here, seeing as this is pretty much my own game anyway.

From today, I will blog to the prompt assigned for each corresponding day (no more confusion!) and if I have some spare time I will go back and blog to the ones I missed. Maybe even after the month is over. Sounds good to me. And look what I figured out how to do...I don't need to re-type each prompt!



Yes, I have faced fears before; in fact, I feel like I do that on a regular basis. I fear looking like an idiot, yet I push past that pretty much every time I post a blog, both here and on Let ME Out! But probably my biggest fear is that I am going to get to the end of my life and wish I had done things differently. That would suck. There are a few things in my past that I sometimes look back on and think, I wonder what would have happened if I had done X instead of Y. But overall, I'm happy with where I am in my life at this point and know that all the events of my life including the outcomes of my decisions, have led me here. That's kind of oversimplifying things, but the prompt isn't asking me to divulge my regrets and how I've come to terms with some of them to the extent that I have. Lucky for you!

Still - there is room for error. I can't say I've overcome this fear of screwing things up/missing an opportunity/growing into a big ball of regret, but I am learning to accept the imperfection that is being human. And hopefully, when I'm letting go of this life in a warm bed at some point in my 90s, looking forward to going Home and having a good rest, there won't be anything major holding me back. Hopefully by that time, all that I would have needed to make peace with will be dealt with.

Facing fears is an active process and for me a daily process but it can be the fuel for a happier, fuller existence, especially if your biggest fear is settling for less.

The Balancing Act

NaBloPoMo's Prompt for Monday November 7: Making family time is important to me. How do you balance your children, relationship and work life? (guest post by Ricki Lake)

This is the question of my life. It's especially difficult, I think, when my work is something I absolutely love and want to do all the time. Being a writer and a creative life coach, my work is about passion: spending time with my own creative Self, helping others remember and release theirs, and connecting with people who are passionate about passions too. It's hard not to want to be immersed in that all the time. But spending time with my children and husband is more than just about squelching the guilt of neglecting them while I happily buzz about my business. My children and my husband give me a lot to write about! They inspire me to work hard and take care of myself so that I am a healthy role model for my children. Working on my patience is a separate post entirely.

I enjoy my husband's company; we started off our marriage as dreamers and we continue to do this together and support each other in seeing these dreams come true. Maintaining the balance is important. That being established, how does it happen in my house?

Well, the self care has become surprisingly easier these past few months. I committed to yoga classes at a local studio and, because I bought the monthly pass which is only worth it if I take at least two classes a week...I end up at the studio twice a week! My husband and I compare schedules every Sunday night (he sometimes has to see clients in the evenings during the week) and I select my yoga classes based on the nights he's home. It took some getting used to for me to leave him to put two sometimes cranky children to bed alone, but once I mentally got over that it became pretty easy - sometimes all you can see is a cloud of dust from where I take off running out the door! Taking care of myself and doing the things I enjoy doing on my own also got a lot easier after my husband started doing the same. Neither one of us feels like we're getting the shorter end of the stick because, for the most part, we each get a similar amount of time for our own enjoyment.

Since this past summer especially, we have taken people up on their offer to babysit and have spent more time alone together than we have in awhile. We also reserve at least one week night per week, if not more, to hang out after the kids go to bed.

My work time is a lot more limited than I'd like but this is because I have chosen not to put my son in daycare and my daughter is in preschool only in the mornings. Sometimes I am not sure why I decided this! But most of the time I know it's because they'll "only be this young once" and that one day they will both be in school full time (September 2015 to be exact). So I take advantage of the fact that my son sleeps in and I work from the time my daughter gets picked up for school (8:30am) till I have to wake my son to get ready for our end of the carpooling bargain, about 10:30am. I take 15 minutes of that time to shower and dress. I'd rather take a quick shower and work longer. Hey, at least I'm getting my showers in! I also have about 7 hours per week of babysitter and grandparent time (total). Needless to say, I have to take a little bit of time on weekday evenings and weekends to do a few things that don't end up getting done during the week. Especially because my work time includes: writing and all that goes with the business, being a speech therapist, and a lot of the house-hold related business. Except for the finances...thankfully I married a financial planner who actually is quite passionate about his work!

So would I say my life is properly balanced? In the overall picture, yes. Is there anything I wish I could do more of and anything I wish I could do less of? Yes - my problem is not finding ways to add family time to the week; it's finding ways to add work time. But then, I think that's kind of a good problem to have.

Pen Or Computer? It's A Little More Complicated Than That.

Dear Subscribers: Please forgive the influx of email right now - I'm just trying to catch up with the daily prompts presented by NaBloPoMo. Even though I'm not officially registered, I still want to make the effort to write to each prompt and I think they all deserve their own posts. I promise the emails will slow down shortly!

NaBloPoMo's Prompt for Friday November 4: When you are writing, do you prefer pen and paper or computer?

For the most part, I prefer the computer for the simple physiological reason that my fingers can type fast enough to keep up with my thoughts and they don't cramp up! So for blog posting, and all work-related writing I definitely go to the computer. If I'm brainstorming ideas or coming up with an outline for something like a workshop or an advertisement then I'll likely pull out a notebook and hunker down on the couch or something. Journalling is always done with pen; there's something a little more private about pen and paper. The only trouble is when I free write in my journal or really get going about something, I may have a tougher time re-reading it. My penmanship has deteriorated considerably since I have come to rely mostly on the computer for written communication. So I literally go back and re-write neatly above illegible words right away so that when I pull out my journal next I have an idea of what I was trying to say!