No goal left behind

While feeling down one afternoon, I decided to take a stroll outside to clear my thoughts. Once I had done one lap of my large property, I decided to lay down on the weird moss mixture that makes up the majority of my front yard. I laid down and mashed my hands into the soft moss and tried to will my body to relax and feel the nature.
While laying on the moss with my forearms bent out in front of me, holding up my torso, a little green grasshopper hopped into my line of vision. I sat quiet and still. Watching this little green beedy eyed bug hop about my lawn. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to his hopping. He would hop. Assess where he had landed. And then hop again. Now I’m no grasshopper whisperer but I’m pretty sure this little bugger had no idea where he was going. He just kept hopping until where he landed is where he wanted to be. I have a sneaking suspicion that he was headed towards my vegetable garden but you know… innocent until proven guilty.
I really think this little fellow was on to something. Many times in life the only direction we get is knowing that we are not where we want to be. Sometimes it is intuition and sometimes it is circumstance. But we always know when we have landed in a place that is just not right for us.
So if you find yourself unhappy with something in your life, take a lesson from the grasshopper. Keep moving until you land in the plentiful garden of your desires and aspirations.

I find it interesting that you can know an acquaintance or friend for quite some time without knowing what is truly important to them. We are raised in a culture where everyone is offended about people’s personal beliefs and opinions. We keep quiet about what is really going on in our hearts and our minds out of fear of being reprimanded, hurting others or offending them. Fortunately for me, I lack brain to mouth filter within minutes of meeting me, I will tell you whatever you want to know about my life, my thoughts, my beliefs. I am an open book. Now sometimes, my lack of filter does exactly what people fear above. Sometimes, I unintentionally offend people. Sometimes, people hear my truth and walk away because it does not resonate with them. I have come to accept these outcomes. The fear of causing these situations is not as great as the joy of the positive outcomes. Sometimes, I speak my beliefs and they do resonate with someone. Sometimes, I find new friends because I am open about who I am. Recently I was open about listening to hymns. To my surprise one of my friends was blown away. She had no idea that I was raised with a strong faith in Christianity because I choose not to go to church. Because my children do not attend church.  Although I still believe in the traditional Christian beliefs, my beliefs are mixed with spiritualism. I believe that you can be strong in your faith without sitting in a church pew.  This is my belief and it conflicts with others. I believe you can be a good Christian and still have some beliefs from other religions. I do not believe that any one religion has it right. It is whatever is right for you. For your family.  So the outcome in this situation is now my friend speaks freely about her faith. She is free to send me messages and hymns that she thinks I might enjoy and I am free to do the same. This can be applied to all areas of your inner thoughts and beliefs. Your situations as well. When I struggle with something, I am sure to let people know I am struggling. I reach out for advice from everyone.  Sometimes being open to someone you thought was not feeling your vibe, will allow them the understanding they need to get on the same page as you.

About two weeks ago, my beloved cat was injured and sustained a wound to his jaw. I took him to the vet and we did a round of antibiotics and pain medication. In the last twenty four hours, I have noticed a smell developing on my cats face. How did I notice a smell in his face? Well I stuck my face to his face and inhaled deeply through my nose. To put it simply, I deep sniffed at extremely close proximity to his fluffy nose. So I did what any good cat mom would do and I called the Vet. The vet tech on the line greeted me cheerfully. She asked why Merlin needed an appointment and I told her there was a new smell coming from his face. Instead of the reaction I was expecting, the vet tech said “Eww!”. To me this was a very strange reaction. As a nurse, I have been groomed to know the smell of an infected wound. This is so deeply ingrained in me, that it does not even register on my “eww!” Scale. So now my mind is truly wondering how much different things must be in the Vets office versus health care facilities. Are bad smells really not as common there ? Maybe the vet tech I spoke with is young ? Who knows! I’m slightly excited to meet this lady later today at our appointment! In addition to these burning questions, I am also wondering what other skills nurses posses that seem to go unnoticed. There was never any time dedicated to identifying smells. It was a skill I picked up on from working to heal many wounds. When you are charting a wound, it only asks if there is an odor present. Never what kind of odours are present. So today’s deep thought is, what skills do you posses that no one has taught you? That only experience could gift you? Do some reflection and write them down!

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The horrors of parenting this week.
Did you know you can break a toilet seat ? Did you know it can be done in more then one way ?! Well let me assure you it can! This week my girls somehow busted the hinge right off the toilet seat. I found the whole seat on the floor. While looking at the disgraced toilet seat, I noticed that the seat itself was actually cracked on the left side as well.
How does this happen with everyday NORMAL toilet use, you ask? Well to understand that, you would first need to know that my youngest child is still too small to sit down on the toilet. So to get her midget sized butt cheeks onto the toilet, she does a small little naked booty flying backwards onto the seat hop. I can only assume this is what caused the impact to the hinges and broke them. In the toilet seats defense, it did last a whole 4 months.
I have a pretty good idea that this is indeed how this all went down. I know that I can tell her to use the stool in the bathroom to get on the toilet. I also know the odds are pretty slim she will follow my advice.
So on this glorious Monday, I will get to go toilet seat shopping. I will be buying the hardest most uncomfortable seat I can find in hopes that my daughter will no longer favour the booty slam toilet jump. I’m hoping everyone else’s Monday are just a bit more glamorous than mine!

A few years ago, I came across an article on a woman who had evaded police for years. She had committed financial fraud and hit the road when the cops were onto her scheme. While she was on the run, she lost over 60 pounds, grew out her short hair and dyed it black (from a natural blond). She fully committed to changing her identity. So while pondering this over my morning coffee, I wondered what changes I could make if my freedom depended on it. Obviously the fear of jail was enough to motivate this once obese blond woman to become a skinny dark and mysterious woman. In my life, I have always been overweight except for a brief period after I left my ex husband. During this time in my life, I believe for the first time ever, I took a genuine interest in who I was becoming. I made decisions based on what supported my goal of becoming a fit and healthy single mom who could rock the same cute little outfits as all the other girls on the dating sites. That became my identity! I made it work no matter what. Going from a size 18 Jean all the way down to a size 4. I had very little money at this time, so I became a frequent shopper at thrift stores. Every time I dropped a pant size, I gleefully donated them back to the thrift store I bought them at and bought 2-3 pairs in my new size. I was not hesitant at all. I knew I was never going back to those jeans. Flash forward to now. I am back into size 14 jeans (GASP!). So what changed for me? I lost the single healthy mom identity. I traded it in for the “tired overworked mom and girlfriend” title. I stopped caring so much about what foods I was fueling my body with. I stopped exercising everyday. I stopped shopping because it was no longer a joyful experience for me. So today, I am choosing to take back my identity. I am choosing to make conscious decisions that are in alignment with the person I want to be. This can easily be applied to all areas of your life. Do you want to be an avid reader? Well start taking the time to read every single day. Carry that book to work with you. Read on your breaks! Do you want to be more physically fit? Start a walking routine, join a gym, buy a home work out! Meal prep like your life depends on it! My favourite way to change a part of me is to listen to audio books and YouTube videos by people that are already doing it. Make the change part of who you are!

Have you ever been driving home and in such an intense thoughtful state that you arrive home without any memory of the journey? You’ve done the trip home it is so automatic that you don’t even have to pause to think about it. You know in exactly two minutes, you’re going to see the tree with the business sign on it. You know when you see that tree, you’re turn is immediately after, so you flick on your turn signal. You know when you pass the sign for the road before your house, that your turn into your driveway is just a few moments away. How are you so confident in all these things that you do that automatically? Well because you’ve done them repeatedly. Almost everyday since you moved into your home. Some days, you’ve went out more then once and done the same journey home. Repetition/practice is what makes things appear to be easy. It is what makes autopilot in your brain an accessible function. When I first started nursing, the incredibly long medication passes seemed like a soul eating never ending task. After about 3 months on the same unit, the task seemed easier. I had just as many patients as before. None of the patients had any less medications. So what was the deciding factor here? It was the fact that I knew where every patient would be because I had learned their routines. I learned who would still be sleeping and to pass them up and return later. I knew who would refuse medications and to leave them for last so that I had time to persuade them to take their medications without delaying the patients who would worry if their medications were late. So I was quicker and had a strategy. I also now had the advantage of knowing when the medication pass would likely be finished. So at the starting line, I knew when the finish line would be in sight. Flash forward to 6 months on the unit. Now I knew my patients extremely well. I knew all the medication changes in the last 6 months. I did not second guess any doctor’s orders as it was likely I was there when the orders were written. I knew why they were written and sometimes I had even suggested the medication changes to the doctor. Now my job felt easy and comfortable. Again, time and repetition put in will make the task seem easier. This can be applied to any area in your life. Starting a new diet? Give it time and repetition! Forming a new habit? Time and repetition! Trying to get your house to be sparkly clean? Say it with me now! Time and repetition!!!

I am guessing you read the title and assumed this blog was going to be about ditching carbs. At this time, I’m going to leave the diet planning to more educated dietitians. So what does the dinner roll refer to? To understand my metaphor, I need you to hear my story of an old Jack Russell. Her name is Kia and she is in the golden years of her life. She’s been my fur baby since my first year of college. As I was cleaning up after an event at my house, I came upon stale dinner rolls. My faithful old shadow was dutifully standing by my side. I grabbed a dinner roll and gave it to Kia. Kia delightfully took the dinner roll and off she went. A few minutes later she came back, still holding the dinner roll in her mouth. So cute! Hours passed and she was still carrying her dinner roll around. This went on all night. Just before bedtime, she “hid” the dinner roll in her dog bed. I couldn’t help but laugh at her indecision. She stressed about her dinner roll all day! Bringing it room to room. Eyeing anything that walked by her while she was holding it. This to me is a perfect example of overthinking. The dinner roll was too good to leave behind but just not what she wanted to eat. If I handed her a piece of steak instead of the dinner roll, it would have been gone in less than a second. If I had of handed her a piece of broccoli, she wouldn’t have even taken it from my hand. What choices in your life are dinner rolls? What choices are you making because they are good but they aren’t the steak you really want. Never settle for the dinner rolls of life! You want the steak job, the steak relationship, the steak of health choices!

At one point in my life, I decided to move across the country. I arrived in a small village in Nova Scotia. After the excitement of making such a large and bold move, I realized I was over 1,000 kms from everyone who loved me and celebrated my weirdness. I was jobless. For the first time in my life, I had to strike out on my own without my support system cheering me on. I felt incredibly alone. I had never even lived anywhere but the town I grew up in! What was I thinking?? Oh yeah… this is me we are talking about here. I was blazing my beautiful trail of destruction on the way to learn about life. This is what I do. I jump first and I ask questions about the safety of the water on the way down. I have come to just accept this as part of who I am. So, jobless and friendless, I found myself to be a little sad and lonely. I did what any twenty four year old woman in this decade would do and I texted my bestfriend. She immediately told me to get out there and shake shit up! Go meet those neighbours! Okay bestie. I hear you. I know you’re right. I need to embrace my inner weirdness and show these people what they’re missing! I got to work on a flyer for a Christmas Party hosted by yours truly. It had stickers. It was in green and red writing and it featured hot chocolate and cookies at my place. Who could resist ?! Next, I waddled my six month pregnant body door to door (that’s right folks! I moved to a new province and left my village behind at the time in my life when I needed them most. What could go wrong there?). I greeted each neighbour on my street and the loop that attached as well. To my delight and surprise, I learned that one of my neighbors was also pregnant! We bonded over sore body parts and our new roles as mothers. Three of my other neighbors had children as well and we quickly formed a tight knit group of friends. The moral of today’s story is to always remember to shake things up and reach out to people. I believe in every step of your life, you need a village. Find your village, add to your village and never be afraid to show people who you really are.

When I was a toddler, we lived next to a house that had chickens free roaming the neighborhood. Being the mischievous little girl I was, I chased them relentlessly every day. My mother said she never worried about me chasing these chickens because she honestly never thought I’d catch one. So I’d run around happily trying to catch the fat feathered beasts and my mother would enjoy a cup of coffee in peace. Win win situation. Then one day it happened. This 20 pound, diaper butt, curly haired girl caught that chicken! My mom said it was an amazing sight. A sparsely toothed smile grinned from ear to ear on my chubby little face. A terrified chicken clucking away and flapping like a show girl in Las Vegas. Victory was mine! This truly was an achievement for someone who was not even 2 years old yet. The moral of this story? Never trust anyone’s limitations on you. No one truly knows what you’re capable of but yourself. No matter how the odds are stacked against you, if you practice and learn, I promise you will catch your metaphorical chickens in your life. So go now my friends and chase the poultry !

Contrary to fairytale advice, I am going to share with you my spin on what to do with ribbiting amphibians. Instead of blowing sweet kisses to the frogs in your life, you are going to eat them. Calm down! This is a metaphor that was coined by Mark Twain. I do realize that some people truly do eat frog legs but that is not what this blog is about. A long time ago, I was a brand new nursing grad. For me, the hardest part of my day was a particular patient that was always mean to you. No matter what you did, this lady was going to try to destroy your day. I struggled with this constantly. Every shift, I would leave her until last with the medication pass because I was just that intimidated by the whole situation. Then I read in a book that you should “eat the frog first”. Meaning you should do the hardest part of your day first and then by comparison, the rest of your shift is smooth sailing. So I did. I started every medication pass with this woman now. The relief I felt was great! Now I no longer worried about what would happen when I got to her because I had already been yelled at and done everything I could for her. This had the added benefit of knowing she was getting first service. So while she was yelling and telling me how much nurses suck yada yada yada, all I was thinking is “you’re one lucky lady to get served first every day!”. Any requests she threw my way, could also be dealt with that shift as I had the entire shift to correct what she was concerned about. This was such a motivating and “aha!” Experience for me. Now I apply it to my housework as well. Neither me or my spouse enjoy dishes. So they build up and we both pretend they are not there because that’s the mature adult thing to do. Well, when I quit my job, I could no longer pretend the dish pile did not exist. So deep breath and eat the frog. Every single morning, I get the kids up and dressed and fed and put them on the bus. Then when I return to the house, I put on my audio book and I do the dishes. This magical little chore has really transformed my day. Now if the one thing I get done in the house is only the dishes, I know that really I have done more. I have cleaned the counter and the stove (naturally happens when you do dishes… I’m sure there is some habitual science behind it), there are no dishes in the living room or dining room and the girls room has had a quick sweep through and I’ve assessed the need to clean their room. As well, I have usually listened to a full chapter of one of my books. So from that one small change in how I start my day, there is a huge positive ripple effect. I am sure there is atleast one frog in your life that you could eat to make your own ripples. Give it some thought and let me know how it goes!