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Random Things That Happened Today

March 6, 2011 By

Today has been busy. I have had a house full of people, as most of of the wedding party came over to toss around ideas and go over to-do lists. At the same time, I have been running on no sleep as my son George seems to have developed yet another tummy bug (please, God, don’t let either of my kids end up in hospital this time).

Anyway, with all of this going on, it’s a bit difficult to put together a coherent blog post. So for today, I’m going with the random.

Things that happened today, in no particular order, are the following:

  • I woke up this morning and saw a fresh layer of snow outside. My first thought was, “Cripes, more f*cking snow.”
  • I failed to go for my run. After no sleep it would have been virtually impossible. I would have been found wandering aimlessly around the neighbourhood chanting incoherently to myself.
  • I dragged a massive pile of laundry into the laundry room and then failed to actually put it into the washing machine to wash.
  • I delegated a list of wedding planning items to the best man. He will be receiving many emails from me from this point forth.
  • I cleaned out George’s designated puke bucket several times.
  • I made a giant pot of coffee and drank most of it myself, and ended up feeling jittery, but still exhausted. Not a pleasant feeling.
  • I realized that I need stuff to put in the kids’ lunches during the week and I haven’t been to the grocery store. I decided to just wing it with what I have for the next day.
  • I realized that I since I don’t actually have the capacity to make a lot of sense right now, I should just give up today’s blog post as a bad job and try again tomorrow.

 

Filed Under: Random Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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Eight Weeks To Go? Really???

March 5, 2011 By

When Gerard and I first got engaged, everything wedding-related seemed a little abstract. It was more real than it had been before, obviously, since it was something that was actually going to happen. But it was happening far enough in the future for me have a somewhat lackadaisical attitude about it all. There was no rush and no stress. We were talking about something that was happening seventeen months away.

I watched those wedding planning shows on TV, shows like Rich Bride, Poor Bride and Wedding SOS, and I smugly thought about how my wedding planning would never be as fraught with stress as the wedding featured in those shows.

Now, with precisely eight weeks to go until my wedding, my smugness is sticking in my craw, threatening to choke me.

There is a lot to be done. A scary amount of stuff. The dress is almost complete, the bridesmaids dresses have been ordered, and the church and the reception hall have been booked. Apart from a couple of other minor details like my shoes and my makeup person, that’s pretty much all that’s actually under control.

We finished the guest list last night. Invitations are being printed this weekend and will go out on Monday.

Starting this week, we will be attending mandatory pre-marriage counseling.

Gerard and his groomsmen have to figure out what they’re wearing.

I have to send photos to the person who’s making our cake so she can give me a quote.

Flowers, decor, and guest favours have to be arranged.

I need to confirm a hairdresser.

Transportation has to be sorted out.

The DJ and photographer has to be booked.

We need to decide who the Master of Ceremonies will be.

The rehearsal dinner has to be planned.

And more.

It’s an awful lot of activity to fit into eight weeks.

And so, this weekend, wedding planning has suddenly kicked into full-gear. Out of the blue, Gerard has started voicing opinions about the wedding, and he’s coming up with really great ideas. We have most of the wedding party coming over tomorrow to help us with tasks and ideas. Task lists are being made, ones that have actual deadline dates on them. Our first song has been decided.

Things are happening and a bride-to-be is stressing out.

Somehow, it will happen.

Somehow, we will create a wedding that will, for all the right reasons, be a day to remember.

Filed Under: Wedding Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Taming The “Girls”

February 9, 2011 By

The story so far…

December 2009: Gerard proposes to me moments after I become a Canadian citizen. It’s a weird, weird feeling. When I woke up that morning I was an immigrant living in sin. Now I’m a bona fide Canadian living with a fiance in my own country. Sounds a lot more respectable, doesn’t it?

January 2010: Gerard’s Mom, who can work miracles with a bit of fabric and a sewing machine, offers to make my wedding dress. This is an offer I am thrilled to accept. My future mother-in-law will make something way better than anything I’d buy in a store. For some reason, I remember that this happens on the same day on which I get my new laptop and my then four-year-old sweetly asks his Dad, “Where’s the f*cking donut shop?”

August 2010: Me, Gerard’s Mom, maid-of-honour Michelle, bridesmaid Jenn, and Michelle’s daughter Megan brave the wedding dress stores. We go from place to place and I try on several dresses to get an idea of what looks good. Whatever dress we pick will be the one that my custom-made dress will be modelled off of. As it turns out, the dress that I absolutely love the best is the very first dress I tried on, in the very first store we walked into. Funny how that happens.

September 2010: There is a stupid argument between me and Gerard’s Mom. The details are not important, except for the bit where the offer of a custom-made dress is rescinded. I love the family I’m marrying into, I really do. They are wonderful, wonderful people with gigantic hearts and generous spirits. It’s just that from time to time, they turn into drama queens.

October 2010: Me and future mother-in-law have a civilized conversation in which we calmly discuss the misunderstanding. The offer of a dress is reinstated and accepted. We are back on track! Me, mother-in-law, and her sister head to Toronto’s bridal shopping district to get fabric and lace for the dress (do you KNOW how expensive lace is? Baffling!). Within days I am being measured and a prototype made out of cotton is being fitted on me.

And now, the story continues…

About two weeks ago, the almost-complete wedding dress was fitted on me. To say that it looks gorgeous would be an understatement. The lace and beadwork on it is a true work of art, it is cut in lines that flatter my body, the colour complements the tone of my skin perfectly. The only problem was that the bra I was using to try on the dress with was – well, crappy.

Yes, I am indeed discussing my underwear in a public blog. Just thought I’d clarify that point.

It only makes sense for me to be fitted in the dress while wearing the bra I will actually wear on the day of my wedding, and the bra I was using was definitely not it. In fact, that bra is headed for the garbage can very soon.

Last week I went bra-shopping. I did not go bra-shopping in the way I usually do, which is to go to Wal-Mart and pick up the cheapest bra I can find, which generally turns out to be about as supportive as a piece of dental floss. No, this time, I went to a specialist bra shop. One of those places where you get ushered into a change room the size of my living room and offered a pair of slippers and a soft, fluffy dressing gown. The bra specialist (seriously, the word “assistant” is not enough for what this woman does) fussed around me with a tape measure, and then brought me a selection of bras to try on.

It turns out that my knockers are a lot bigger than I thought they were.

I walked out of there with a lovely new bra that I knew would complete the look of the wedding dress. I confess that my eyes popped when I saw that I was paying $90. For a bra! Bear in mind, I’m used to paying fifteen bucks at Wal-Mart, but then again, at Wal-Mart I’m not exactly paying for quality.

This is a quality bra. It will give me all the support I need.

I took it home, put it on, and tried on the dress. It looked stunning. Looking at myself in the mirror wearing the dress, I was convinced that the bra was worth every penny of the ninety dollars.

There was just one thing…

The dress was too loose around the hips. I’m not saying I had a little bit of wiggle room, I’m saying I had an entire gigantic wiggle house. The bit around the hips had to taken in substantially. Once that was done, I looked in the mirror with my mother-in-law beside me, and both of us sighed with contentment.

“You’ve lost a lot of weight since you were measured,” said my mother-in-law. Words that every woman loves to hear.

Today I will continue on my quest for my shoes. I still don’t have the damned shoes!

Filed Under: Clothing, Wedding Tagged With: , , , , ,
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Ashes And Roses

February 6, 2011 By

It is with a bittersweet feeling that I pay tribute to both of my parents on the anniversary of their marriage. The sweet part of the equation stems from the fact that my parents had a fantastic marriage. They had a deep, profound love for one another and apart from the occasional spat, they treated each other with the utmost respect. I could not have asked for better role models to show me just what a loving, solid marriage should look like.

The bitterness, of course, is because Dad is no longer with us. Today, Mom is in Cape Town without her beloved husband by her side, gazing longingly into the sea in which she placed his ashes six years ago today, on what would have been their 40th wedding anniversary.

As I reflect on this day, I cannot help but contemplate my own relationship with Gerard, now almost a decade old, and our own upcoming wedding. For all intents and purposes, we are already married. We have been living together for a long time, we have created new human beings, and our union is legally recognized as a spousal relationship. But still, getting married will, I believe, add a new kind of depth to our relationship. We see it as the chance of a new beginning, a new and wonderful chapter in our lives.

People ask why we waited for long to get married; why, indeed, we are bothering to get married at all. The answer, quite simply, is that we have arrived at a point in our life together where we feel that we can get married. You see, Gerard and I have been through a lot. We have survived a great deal: the loss of both of our fathers, my post-partum depression following the birth of James, George’s autism diagnosis, near-bankruptcy, to name but a few. Our relationship has been placed under unbelievable strain; it has reached the breaking point.

But when it reached the breaking point, it didn’t break. Somehow we saw our way through all of the dark times. We found a way to stick together, to emerge from that terrible bleakness and desolation as a pair, as an integrated whole. We know what we are capable of surviving. Neither of us could imagine life without the other one. We feel that we have earned the privilege of being married to each other.

I cannot wait. I am really, really excited when I think about the day I will exchange wedding vows with my beloved, in front of friends and family. It will be an amazing feeling, walking down the aisle on the arm of my brother, and then looking into Gerard’s eyes as I declare my eternal love for him. Mom will likely shed some tears, but there will be happy tears mixed in with the sad.

It makes me sad, knowing that I will not get a father-daughter dance with Dad. But I know he will be there, hopefully nodding with approval and glowing with pride.

February 6th, 2005

Dad has been gone for exactly two months. It is almost sunset.

Mom tentatively carries the urn holding his ashes to the edge of the rocks, with her sister standing a respectful distance behind. Clutching Dad to her heart one last time, she whispers her goodbyes to the wind, and hands the urn to the man standing beside her, the man who is surefooted enough to brave the rocks.

Mom stands beside her sister, and watches as the ashes of her beloved are gently transferred from the urn to the sea, from whence they will travel to who knows where? Many, many rose petals are placed into the sea to travel with the ashes.

Mom watches in silence as the ashes and the rose petals float out into the ocean. The tide is low, the rose petals waft lazily as they escort Dad into the beginning of his eternal travels. Together, the roses and the ashes reach the horizon. With the sun directly behind them, the ocean current moves them around in a small circle, as if they are waving goodbye to the widow standing on the rocks.

Ashes and roses disappear from sight, just as the sun dips below the horizon and closes the chapter on the day.

Filed Under: Bereavement Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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With These Shoes I Thee Wed

January 19, 2011 By

In 102 days – or 3 months and 12 days – I will be getting married.  I’m OK with this.  The list of things to be done between now and then is staggering, but as long as there are more than 100 days to go, I will feel as if there is plenty of time.  Lots of time to get the wedding dress finished and make sure all of the bridal party have their outfits sorted out.  Time to book the DJ and the photographer, and get our invitations sent out. Time to arrange hair and makeup trials, speak to the florist, decide on guest favours.  There is time for us to make up our friggin’ minds what we want the cake to look like (we both want something highly original, but we have differing ideas, and mine is definitely better).

As long as there are more than 100 days to go, there is loads of time to take care of this and everything else that I haven’t even thought of.

On Saturday, when there are 99 days left, I will probably go into total meltdown.  I even know what the meltdown will be about.  It won’t be about all of the stuff I just mentioned, which might stress me out, but I know it will get done on time.  Most of it has been started in some form or another.

It’ll be about the shoes.

On Saturday, I will wake up and realize that I have only 99 days to find, purchase, and break in the perfect pair of shoes.

I hate shoe shopping with a passion.  I find it next to impossible to find shoes that meet both of the following two basic criteria:
1) To be comfortable
2) To be pretty

When I look at the shoes that other women wear, it boggles my mind.  How are these ladies able to squeeze their feet into tiny little capsules that compress their toes and are on four-inch heels, and still walk normally?  If I tried to pull that off I’d stumble around like a drunk giraffe and then fall over in a very undignified manner and twist both of my ankles.

My feet, you see, are too important to me.  I am addicted to running, so I kind of need my feet just for the sake of maintaining my sanity.  I need to take care of them, so my shoes have to be comfortable and stable.  I have to have space to wriggle my toes around.

“Open-toed shoes!” I hear you call out.  Yes, open-toed shoes do tend to be more comfortable for me, and in the summer I wear them a great deal.  Open-toed shoes do have a lot of potential to meet the “be comfortable” requirement.  The “be pretty” requirement is another story altogether.

My feet are ugly. I do not say this with embarrassment, but with pride.  My feet with their calloused heels, and with their blackened and missing toenails, are a testament to my running. They tell the story of many hours of training in the gruelling heat and the biting cold, the accomplishment of personal best times, the amazing feeling of triumph at half-marathon finish lines, and most importantly, the funds raised through my running to benefit people with autism.

Yes, I am proud of my feet in all their butt-ugly glory.

They look crap in open-toed shoes, though.

I am looking at getting running shoes for my wedding.  On Friday (when I have 100 days to go) I will start my quest for running shoes with bling. Shoes that will be comfortable and look pretty, and have the added bonus of reflecting who I am.

Or maybe I should just go barefoot.  No-one’s going to see my shoes anyway.

Filed Under: postaday2011, Shoes, Wedding Tagged With: , , , , ,
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A Case Of Faint Religion

January 14, 2011 By

This coming Sunday, I will be going to church. The last time this happened, it was to attend the funeral for Gerard’s 103-year-old grandmother.  I have been to church maybe ten times in as many years, and there has always been a specific reason for it, like a funeral, a baptism, or a wedding.  I’m not what one might refer to as “the churchgoing kind”.

When I was about sixteen, I had a firm belief that I had developed an allergy to churches.  This was based on a very strange trend that started at this age: every time I went to church – EVERY time – I would faint.  Whenever the congregation was called upon to kneel, for whatever reason the blood would just rush from my head and I would be out like a light.

There was a medical reason for this, of course, although I cannot remember now what that was.  I went through a somewhat inconvenient few months where I would faint at the drop of a hat, whether I was at home, in a store, or in math class.  Presumably I wasn’t allergic to all of those places as well.  What convinced me, though, was the absolute regularity of it.  When I went to church – any church – I could be completely relied on to faint and disrupt the proceedings.

I had a theory about this.  See, I was educated at a girls-only Catholic school run by nuns (some of the nuns were very nice, but some of them were MEAN!). Every week, all of us – including the non-Catholics like me – had to attend these religious education classes.  And on the first Friday of every month, the entire student body would troop over to the nearby Catholic church to attend “First Friday Mass”.

In addition to all of this, I was a Sunday school teacher at the Anglican church my family belonged to, AND I went through a phase of regularly attending the Evangelical church that my parents referred to as “happy clappers”.

That’s three – count ’em – THREE churches that I frequented on a regular basis.  That’s a whole lot of religion for a teenager.

My theory was that overexposure to religion had given me an allergy to churches.  Kind of like the time I got 67 beestings in one go and ended up with an allergy to bees.

Because I was allergic to churches and all, I stopped going.  I mean, it was hazardous to my health.  Everyone knows that if you expose yourself to something you’re allergic to, the allergy gets worse and worse.  I just assumed that my church allergy would work the same way.

I couldn’t get out of the First Friday Masses at school.  The nuns were very weird about that.  If a student had an accident and ended up with, say, a severed arm, the nuns would definitely take that student to the hospital.  Right after the student had attended Mass with the severed limb sitting there on the pew.

As an adult, my church attendance has been limited to events like weddings and funerals.  When the kids were born, we joined the local Anglican church so we could get them baptized (what they do or don’t do with religion as they get older will be up to them).  And now, with my own wedding coming up at the end of April, it is time for us to do the church thing again.

When we first started making the wedding plans, I was never really gung-ho on the idea of getting married in a church, particularly since we’ve been living in sin for the last ten years.  It didn’t really make sense to me: Gerard is a non-practicing Catholic, and I am a lapsed something-or-other.  We try to live our lives as good and decent human beings, and although I believe in some greater force, a Karma of the Universe type of thing, I don’t really believe in God in the traditional sense.  When bad things happen to people I care about, I pray for them, but I am not praying to a Biblical God.  I am praying to the forces of energy that shift the Universe around and affect the way things happen.

When I talked about not getting married in a church, my future mother-in-law almost cried.  She is a devout Catholic, and had been holding out hope that we would get married in a Catholic church.  I went along with it, because honestly, I don’t care where I get married. As long as I’m a Mrs by the end of my wedding day, I’ll get married in a bus shelter if it makes people happy.

The Catholic church did not turn out to be a feasible option, firstly because the Catholics are a bit picky about presiding over a marriage where one partner is not a Catholic, and secondly because we don’t like the priest at our local Catholic church.

So we went back to the Anglican church in our neighbourhood, to talk to the same minister who baptized my boys.  We had a lovely long chat with him this week, and he told us that he would be happy to preside over our wedding.  We would be happy with this as well: the minister is really a lovely person, and the church is a welcoming, neighbourly type of place.

We will be going there on Sunday, because we feel that if we’re going to have our marriage blessed in a church, we should at least take the time to show up, hear what the sermons are all about, and get to know some of the people.  We do not want to observe such an important day of our lives in a place where we are strangers.

I just hope I don’t faint.

Filed Under: Church, postaday2011, Wedding Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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Blowing out another set of birthday candles

December 2, 2010 By

When I woke up yesterday morning, I felt a little bit down. It was my birthday, and for some reason I was thinking that very few people would remember or care. The previous day had been torture for all of us – it had been a very rough day for George – and none of us had managed to get much sleep. I think that at the start of my birthday, I was suffering from exhaustion as well as emotional fall-out. For a variety of reasons, I just wasn’t expecting a lot from my day.

Then I turned on my computer and checked my email. There were about a dozen birthday messages waiting for me from friends and family members. I opened my Facebook page and my eyes popped as I saw birthday wishes from about fifteen more people. It was only six in the morning and already I had received birthday wishes in one form or another from almost thirty people.

Wow.  Maybe my birthday wouldn’t be so bad after all. I got myself dressed and looking semi-presentable and left for work.  My pathetic self-pity tried to follow me, but I knocked it on the head and fed it through the paper shredder.

In the middle of the morning my Mom called.  This is always a highlight of my birthday. Even from the other side of the world, my Mom manages to make me feel special in a way that only Moms can. Later in the day, I got a call from my brother. He was calling from a cell phone in South Africa, so we had only a brief conversation that I struggled to hear in the chaos of the bus station, but it was so lovely to hear his voice and know that he was thinking of me.  And all through the day, the emails and Facebook messages were pouring in.  By the time I got home from work last night, I was feeling touched by all of the kindness, and truly humbled that so many people had taken time in the chaos of their own lives to think of me and wish me well.  Even today, the wishes are still coming in.

When I got home yesterday evening, there were flowers and a birthday dinner and cake and presents. As I sat there among my family, the feeling of being loved and appreciated settled on me like a soft snowfall.  How had I thought, that very morning, that people would not care?

Turning 40 worked out well for me. I became a citizen, received a marriage proposal, and after a rough start, I had a great running season. Now that I’m 41, I look forward to more great things. My wedding, for one, which is just five short months away. Now that I’ve joined a running club, I expect to go from strength to strength. I have started the process of conquering demons from my past and making positive changes to my personal life.

And next year, I will not start my birthday by feeling sorry for myself – life is too good for that!

Filed Under: family, Friendship, life Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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How it all began

June 11, 2010 By

Several months after packing my life into checked baggage and moving halfway around the world by myself, I started dating a guy named Barry. I don’t know why I went out with him, to be honest.  I had met him on the Internet and liked him, but when I met him in person there was absolutely no chemistry there.  Physically, he was not really my type, and his personality didn’t gel with mine.  Even after I had seen him a few times, he didn’t exactly rock my world.  Don’t get me wrong, he seemed like a nice enough guy.  I didn’t like him, I didn’t dislike him.  I was indifferent to him – I could take him or leave him.  And yet, I somehow found myself dating him for six months.  Looking back, I can only assume that I did it because I was alone in a new country, with no social support structure, no friends, no-one to talk to at the end of the working day.  I was – there is no other way to say it – unbearably lonely.

In retrospect, my relationship with Barry was very odd.  We hardly ever actually went out together.  Twice a week, we would get together – usually at his immaculately neat apartment – and we would have dinner.  To give credit where it’s due, the man was outstanding in the kitchen.  Whether it came to mixing martinis or cooking, he was practically a male Martha Stewart (in fact, he was like that when it came to decorating as well).  After dinner, we would go through his library of DVD’s (“collection” is not an adequate enough word), and we would select a movie to watch.  I would stay over, and we would go our separate ways in the morning.  What was odd about this was the unrelenting regularity of the arrangement.  We had assigned days of the week for getting together (Mondays and Thursdays).  We never saw each other on weekends; we hardly had any communication with each other between “dates”.  I think we spoke on the phone twice during our entire six months together.  The whole thing was very regimented.

After six months, the whole thing abruptly went pear-shaped.  First I discovered that Barry was not technically single, he was divorced.  That I could live with – people don’t necessarily want to be splashing that kind of thing on their Yahoo profiles.  But then I discovered that he wasn’t actually divorced, he was still married but separated from his wife. At this point I started worrying about what else I was going to discover, and we got very weird with each other and started sending off angry emails to each other (because we never talked on the phone, remember, and we were only allowed to see each other twice a week).  He went off on a camping trip to Algonquin and I didn’t hear from him again.  It was an ugly, ugly breakup with a lot of unanswered questions.

Two weeks later, I decided to take a walk in a park.  I was feeling very unhappy and sorry for myself.  OK, so I had never been in love with Barry or even felt particular affection for him, but I was still hurting.  I was lonely and confused, and my self-esteem was nowhere.  To be honest, I was surprised at how the breakup with Barry had derailed me.  So I took a walk in the park one gorgeous summer’s evening, to clear my head and try to regain some perspective in my life.

I sat down on a rock just outside the park entrance, to let the last of the day’s sunlight wash over me.  As I sat there, a man came up to me – a complete stranger.  He sat down on the rock beside me, gave me flowers purchased from across the street, and said to me, “You have beautiful eyes”.  To say that I was speechless would be an understatement.  I sat there and stared at him.  Partly because of the boldness with which he had approached me, but mostly because of the instant connection I felt with this man.  The electricity passing between us could have powered a small city.  I could not speak; I did not even want to move for fear of breaking the spell.

He asked me if I would like to go for a walk; I nodded dumbly and rose to my feet.  As we walked along the road bordering the park, the cat released its hold on my tongue, and I chatted with him about nothing and everything.  At some point we must have exchanged names.  He bought a burger for a homeless man, and then we had dinner together.  It was a magical evening; I felt as though someone had wrapped me in a quilt of happiness, and I didn’t want the date (for that is what it had become) to end.

People told me it would never last, that I had fallen into this while on the rebound from Barry.  Barry?  Within moments of meeting this new man, Barry had receded into the depths of my memory.  It was the equivalent of being in a space ship and traveling away from a hostile planet at high speed, watching it become a speck in the distance.  What I had with the man in the park was real, and I just knew it would last forever.  Sometimes these things do happen in real life.

The rest, as they say, is history.  Despite the predictions of many people, Gerard and I are still very much together.  We make a great parenting team, I support him in his business, he supports me in my running, we are finally getting down to planning our wedding.

Sure, we have had some tough times through the years.  We have had good times and bad, and we have overcome some pretty big hurdles together.  No matter what life throws at us, Gerard will always be my man in the park.

Filed Under: dating, relationships Tagged With: , ,
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Thank you for being there

April 1, 2010 By

Every now and then I have a run that is so great that I do a happy dance at the end of it.  I mean that quite literally – I stand in my driveway and do this weird little hoppity-hop thing that I’m sure makes the neighbours more than a little perplexed.  I had been looking forward to this yesterday’s run since the weekend.  I am currently enjoying some time off from work, so instead of dragging myself out into the dark at 5:00 a.m. yesterday, I was able to wake up at my leisure, get the kids safely off to their respective places, and hit the road at about 9:00 a.m.

I woke up feeling a little rough.  Although I had a reasonable amount of sleep the previous night – meaning I got more than six hours – half the night was spent on the sleeper couch with James, who had woken up feeling lonely (quick diversion: I want my kids to know that they can come to me at any time of the day or night. There are people who believe co-sleeping with their children is a Very Bad Thing.  I am not one of these people).  Here’s the thing about the sleeper couch: it ruins my back.  When I sleep there I wake up feeling as if someone has spent the night pounding on the back of my neck with a rubber mallet.  However, I was determined to go running – I am a bit weird that way, once went for an eight-kilometre run with a sprained ankle – so I did some stretches, laced up my shoes and went out.

It was only 5km, but it was a really fantastic run.  For the first time since returning from my illness/injury, I actually beat my virtual partner.  Maybe I should explain the virtual partner.  A few months ago I upgraded my training watch to one that has GPS.  The new training watch has a feature that allows you to set a target pace per kilometre, and throughout the run you can visually see how you’re performing compared with the target pace.  The virtual partner “runs” at the target pace.  Since recovering from my illness I have been consistently running fifteen to thirty seconds per kilometre behind the virtual partner.  I have been OK with that – I have, after all, been in recovery mode.  Today, though, I finished my run several seconds ahead of pace.  The psychological boost I felt from that was tremendous.

Yesterday’s run was part of what is turning out to be a phenomenal week.  On Tuesday, I had my first consultation with Brandon, my holistic lifestyle coach.  Under his guidance, I am going to take steps to get my life in balance.  It will have a positive impact on all areas of my life – parenting, running, work, my relationship with Gerard.  I feel as if I have entered a new positive phase of my life.  I also have a maid of honour for my wedding!  There are no words to describe how amazing my friend Michelle is.  What started as a simple car-pooling arrangement has turned into a deep friendship, and it will truly be an honour to have her standing beside me when I get married.  My friend Jenny also deserves a special mention.  She has been my best friend since we were both ten.  She has put up with all kinds of crap from me, seen me through some very intense crises, and just been there for me no matter what.  The fact that she lives on the other side of the world to me has not lessened our friendship one bit.  And because distance will prevent her from being here for my wedding in person, I know that she will be here in every other sense.  She will be as involved as she can be in the planning of the wedding – thanks to the joys of the Internet.

Yesterday I went to the airport to pick up my friend Fran.  Fran is a South African who moved to Vancouver (well, an hour outside of Vancouver) a few months ago.  I have known her for years, and have not seen her for a long time.  She is staying with me for a few days: we are planning to hang out, relax, have fun, go running together (even a race on Saturday!), and gossip about people we both used to spend a lot of time with.

In talking about these people – my family, my friends, people like Brandon who are helping me in a professional capacity – I realize just how blessed I am.  I am surrounded by really incredible people.  I am very lucky, and I hope I can always remember that when things get rough.  And I want to say to these people – Gerard, my boys, my Mom, my late Dad, my biological parents who did such an amazing unselfish thing to give me a better life forty years ago, my wonderful, wonderful friends, everyone who touches my life in such a special way – thank you for being you.  Thank you for being there.

Filed Under: family, Friendship, running Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
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Thank you for being there

April 1, 2010 By

Every now and then I have a run that is so great that I do a happy dance at the end of it.  I mean that quite literally – I stand in my driveway and do this weird little hoppity-hop thing that I’m sure makes the neighbours more than a little perplexed.  I had been looking forward to this yesterday’s run since the weekend.  I am currently enjoying some time off from work, so instead of dragging myself out into the dark at 5:00 a.m. yesterday, I was able to wake up at my leisure, get the kids safely off to their respective places, and hit the road at about 9:00 a.m.

I woke up feeling a little rough.  Although I had a reasonable amount of sleep the previous night – meaning I got more than six hours – half the night was spent on the sleeper couch with James, who had woken up feeling lonely (quick diversion: I want my kids to know that they can come to me at any time of the day or night. There are people who believe co-sleeping with their children is a Very Bad Thing.  I am not one of these people).  Here’s the thing about the sleeper couch: it ruins my back.  When I sleep there I wake up feeling as if someone has spent the night pounding on the back of my neck with a rubber mallet.  However, I was determined to go running – I am a bit weird that way, once went for an eight-kilometre run with a sprained ankle – so I did some stretches, laced up my shoes and went out.

It was only 5km, but it was a really fantastic run.  For the first time since returning from my illness/injury, I actually beat my virtual partner.  Maybe I should explain the virtual partner.  A few months ago I upgraded my training watch to one that has GPS.  The new training watch has a feature that allows you to set a target pace per kilometre, and throughout the run you can visually see how you’re performing compared with the target pace.  The virtual partner “runs” at the target pace.  Since recovering from my illness I have been consistently running fifteen to thirty seconds per kilometre behind the virtual partner.  I have been OK with that – I have, after all, been in recovery mode.  Today, though, I finished my run several seconds ahead of pace.  The psychological boost I felt from that was tremendous.

Yesterday’s run was part of what is turning out to be a phenomenal week.  On Tuesday, I had my first consultation with Brandon, my holistic lifestyle coach.  Under his guidance, I am going to take steps to get my life in balance.  It will have a positive impact on all areas of my life – parenting, running, work, my relationship with Gerard.  I feel as if I have entered a new positive phase of my life.  I also have a maid of honour for my wedding!  There are no words to describe how amazing my friend Michelle is.  What started as a simple car-pooling arrangement has turned into a deep friendship, and it will truly be an honour to have her standing beside me when I get married.  My friend Jenny also deserves a special mention.  She has been my best friend since we were both ten.  She has put up with all kinds of crap from me, seen me through some very intense crises, and just been there for me no matter what.  The fact that she lives on the other side of the world to me has not lessened our friendship one bit.  And because distance will prevent her from being here for my wedding in person, I know that she will be here in every other sense.  She will be as involved as she can be in the planning of the wedding – thanks to the joys of the Internet.

Yesterday I went to the airport to pick up my friend Fran.  Fran is a South African who moved to Vancouver (well, an hour outside of Vancouver) a few months ago.  I have known her for years, and have not seen her for a long time.  She is staying with me for a few days: we are planning to hang out, relax, have fun, go running together (even a race on Saturday!), and gossip about people we both used to spend a lot of time with.

In talking about these people – my family, my friends, people like Brandon who are helping me in a professional capacity – I realize just how blessed I am.  I am surrounded by really incredible people.  I am very lucky, and I hope I can always remember that when things get rough.  And I want to say to these people – Gerard, my boys, my Mom, my late Dad, my biological parents who did such an amazing unselfish thing to give me a better life forty years ago, my wonderful, wonderful friends, everyone who touches my life in such a special way – thank you for being you.  Thank you for being there.

Filed Under: family, Friendship, running Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
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