Asking the dead

I often wonder in minute situations my mother's opinion and surely I am not alone on this one. Like today, I could use her advice on a home remedy for my little one's cold? Or does she have a secret ingredient for chicken soup. Sometimes I forget if she even made chicken soup. My mother died almost twenty years ago and not a day goes by when I think of her or need to ask her a question. I have five doe sisters but it doesn't add up to a mother's touch. A service for asking the dead is needed. Your deceased loved one just a call away! What a cool invention, no offense to the channelling your spirit industry. Being able to call your dead mom for a quick chat is a novel idea. My Doe's offer advice all the time: some good, some idiotic and some not warranted but really some things are better broached with your mom, dead or alive. Especially the non-judgemental and motherly words because face it mothers are also over bearing, opinionated, and sometimes nosy. By the way, I make a yummy chicken soup and my son is back to school healthy and lively as any seven year old. Right about now he is proving my point as he litters the snack wrapper wondering what his mom would think if she knew. Mother's opinions are warranted not necessarily always right but welcomed but in my case.

Kids and money

Last night my son sorted coins from piggy bank, making a racket, I entered his room, looking at his bed the coins rested in the pleats and rumbles of the comforter. He explained a unique way of tallying up his coins. As I exited the money-counting scene, he asked to join me on the next trip to the grocery store. This morning he asked the same thing, retorting back I reminded him it was a boring chore to grocery shop, he insisted. He wanted use a Coin Redeemer contraption at the customer service counter. Aha, I thought. What is the motive behind this sudden need for cash, I wondered? After he left for school, it was still on my mind. Did my son want to buy something? If so, what? Moreover, why not ask me? Or did he just want spending money? The idea of money was beginning to form more concretely in my son’s mind. Always a great saver, I noticed lately coins in his pocket, occasionally riding his bike to the corner store to buy candy. One day I sat him down and made it clear it was his money but needed my permission to spend it, hoping to teach great money habits. Therefore, this morning’s conversation puzzled me. But as I thought about it more things began to add up. Over the summer, he mentioned things a famous rocker owned. He talked about cribs of the rich and famous and what he would buy with a million dollars. Dirt bike, ATV, BB Gun, and a Sport Car. Being a smart kid, he understood the material disparity between our life and theirs. It was this particular sense of disparity that concerned me. I knew disparity quite well. Growing up, disparity was a huge focus for me. I noted it everywhere and not only monetarily. I noted in love, family, belongings, intellectually and even physically. I knew how it affected a person’s confidence and worth. Knowing how damaging it could become, I did not want it taking too space in his life.

I really wanted to tell him money does not indicate your worth. Where and when did he get such ideas? From me. From his dad. From his friends. Knowing it did not necessarily come from just one source, I found an area that blinded my son into believing money makes the man. Reality Television. Reality television showcases people doing just about anything for money, like: eating bugs, selling their dignity, dancing, tattooing, and living in the jungle. We are in the midst of a era where the younger generation want fame believing to some extent its equivalent to money, thus equivalent to happiness. Once they have the money, the tendency viewed is it is an end all to everything. Money is naming us, making us do silly things, undignified things; we’re letting money be our ticket. To where? To MTV, to mansion full of disposable material items, to a shallow life based on such an intangible item like money. Reality shows fail to show, for ratings of course, the downside of fame and money. There is no footage of maintaining fame or the costs of sustaining a highly publicized lifestyle. In reality, fame and money more often than not messes up a young person’s life. Proof. Read today’s Page Six in the New York Post on a young oil heir’s problems maintaining such an extravagant lifestyle. I want to tell my son “look at this young man.” I do not want him disillusioned by popular culture, not to equate happiness with money, fame, or material things.

I want him to know money is only one aspect of life. Being a good person tops the list. In my son’s life, I constantly show him all the other aspects of importance like family, school, sports, love and helping others. It is every mother’s dream to raise their children with good morals and values. Distressing as it may, reality television tantalizes my son like many other young teenagers in North America. Recently, my husband blocked out channels, specifically MTV and limited television viewing. Whether we like it or not, access to popular culture not only exists on television but on the internet, at school and amongst friends to name a few. It’s going to be part of their life in one aspect or another, being our own reality television show of sorts by showing your child love, respect, equality and the art of giving not taking is a start. Deep down my son knows the truth or the reality of life because as I write this he is at school helping somebody with something. One of his many endearing qualities………

"Just Knowing" copyrighted DoeSister 2008

Did you ever just know something? Call it intuition, your gut, or just knowing, the label is not important but the meaning is. Intuition according to the New Webster dictionary means quick and ready insight or my definition: just knowing.
Most people experienced intuition on some level in their lifetime and some use it quite often. From business people to mothers, intuition plays a vital role in our lives. I can honestly admit to using it a third of the time. I remember years ago using an exercise from Laura Day’s book titled Practical Intuition for a job I had applied for. At the time, I had my resume out for two positions but one I really wanted. I did the exercise and wrote down in detail the job even noting the color of the paint in the lobby. About a month later I was in the neighborhood and decided to pass by the office. To my astonishment the paint was the same color I noted. Now months later, there on business I had the opportunity to visit first hand. I did intuitively get the paint colors correct for the next door office and albeit I had taken the other job I applied for. I thought I was using intuition but I wasn’t experiencing its full power. Looking closer at this ; I recognize that I was getting a job even better than the one I longed for, in the same environment I wanted and even better hours.
Just knowing things are going to work out is intuition. Just knowing the right thing to do is intuition. Just knowing everything will be okay is intuition.
For women, it’s been labeled mother’s instinct, for men their gut feeling. At this moment hundreds of men on the trading floors of stock exchanges and brokerage firms are using their own version of intuition. Even famous people, like Albert Einstein and Oprah use it and I bet even Warren Buffet. I have this theory of Warren Buffet just knowing. It goes something like this if I can put it into words because I just know. Buffet’s approach to investing has intrigued many, while most investing today is done short term, his approach to it is long term or termed value investing. How did he know a stock like Coke would grow to what it is today? I call it “just knowing.” Instead of looking to the immediate I think Buffet uses his intuition and believes these companies would exponentially grow, this my friend is called “Just Knowing.” I am not inferring his entire fortune rests on intuition but I would guess a large percentage is bestowed on it.
“Knowing just Knowing” is trusting yourself enough to regard those gut feelings or intuition that is in you, in everybody. Like just knowing I will have a great day, bye.

Feeling Good

Today I choose to feel good.

Is it not one of the simplest statements and yet one of the hardest to accomplish?

When you think about how many times in a day you feel good, think again. Try to recall how many times your thoughts wander into not so "good thought" territory? Like right now, are you thinking about what to make for dinner, how your kids are doing at school, is your sister still pissed at you? In fact, in a span of less than a minute you could have up to 100 not so good thoughts. Try this, in one day, in a morning, in an hour or in ten minutes, count how many times you feel good and how many times you feel bad. You really need to monitor closely and at times it can be quite challenging. For example, you're driving to work and the traffic is almost non-existent, you feel great that your actually traveling past 30 mph on the freeway. But then you think, is there something wrong? Where are all the morning commuters? Is today a holiday? OMG I sent my kids to school on a holiday? You call your husband to see what day it really is? This my friend is not feeling good. On top of that, it could have all transpired in less than a minute. So instead of embracing the moment and enjoying it, you allowed your thoughts to trail off into the abyss of negative ones.


Is it just too hard to feel good all the time? For a reformed pessimist it used to be. Now, I train my thoughts to feeling good. Great news. Currently, I keep a conscious note of feeling good and I must admit at times it too is challenging. In the span of writing this blog, my thoughts are all over the place and I continually bring them back to the idea of sharing my little tidbit for today is a good thing. Then I smile. The results have lunged me into the good spectrum of the rainbow and is quite noticeable by HH (Hot Husband). So much so, not long ago, he gave a toast to me in front of a group of our closest friends and family. He talked about how much I changed for the better and he was so sincere and gracious I smiled as it brought me to tears.
So, yes it is possible to feel good most of the time. All of the time is quite another endeavour. I still need the odd time to get pissed, feel bad and or angry. I have not mastered utopia like the Dali Lama or Mother Theresa. Plus, I feel great trying. :)

Back To School

Today is a big day in my household, my boys are back to school and HH (Hot Husband) has a full schedule this week. Yippeee!!! I feel a little guilty saying that or in this case writing it but it's true. For the first time in two months I get quiet and stillness in my home. I am a creature of this, always was and always will be. The anxiety of the first day of school showed on my face and my body, I had pep in my stride to the bus stop as my boys less than eagerly trudge their way. I was smiling inside and out. I had their lunches made before they were up, I set my alarm for an early 6:00 am start, coaxed HH out of bed and reminded him the horrible first day back to school traffic. My eagerness today turned out rather annoying for some by the look my older son shot at me as I skipped down the front stairs on our way to the bus stop. In previous years, I was despondent on the first day of school seeing my boys off, missing them before they even left for school, I cried on many occasions feeling my boys were growing up to fast, but mostly was the fact that I didn't spend enough time with them during summer vacation. They spent it with someone else, like a sitter or at camp, and it should have been spent with me, I am their mother. It was the Mother Guilt(MG). Today, it's still here camouflaged by the extra wide smile on my face on the first day of school. There is a tinge of MG sadness my smile tries to erases it but it lurks, right there in the corner where the fresh pink and delicate skin of my upper lip meets my glowing complexion, It's there like an eye tick or a tiny flutter but you need to look very closely. Maybe use a magnify glass.
But mostly, I am happy and exhilarated that I am home alone and have time to myself, which is quite necessary for most people. So what am I going to do with all my time? Hmmmmhhh. Write, read and do a few errands, relax and just enjoy the moments of solitude.

"The In Between"

The other night over dinner conversation with my BBF and her husband, my HH (Hot Husband) began discussing middle age health issues asking his counterpart if he too questioned his own vitality. HH said each ache and pain he felt did just that! In his thirties, he just brushed off such things now it plagued him, so much so, lately he began reading the obituaries focusing on the age of the deceased. Noting the age of the deceased were getting closer to his in some cases. My BBF who had a serious condition years ago said she too felt like that each time she felt malaise. Agreeing with her, I said for the past year worry filled me too. I had pain in one of my breasts. I chuckled for the first time revealing the pain I felt was from the under wire in my bra, different bra, different pain in addition my recent weight gain was the culprit. Did I mention my cleavage and wonderment at my breast size, I'll save that for another time.

Then one of the most touching things I heard came from my BBF's husband. He cautioned HH not to think of life like that and gave a version of life that I will always hold dear to me. Here goes, his version goes something like this: he said we come into life and leave life the same way; in a pile of shit hoping someone will clean, it's a fact of life and death that the two are inevitable. So, don't waste your life worrying about the things you cannot change: birth and death, enjoy the "in between". He recalled a time while driving his Dad, who recently died, somewhere and his dad said his life was crap now that he was sick. That it was not so, he accomplished so much in life and pointed it out all the things "in between". How could he say that, it was not true, he lost sight of the fact that his life was full. So BBF's husband told Hot Husband enjoy the "in between" because you know the ending, you don't know the date, but you knowing the ending so enjoy the "in between".

Those are words to live life by.

"Just What I Needed"

Yesterday, as I stood in my kitchen a great lightening bolt moment came to me for a post, I intended to write it down but was lost in the chaos of leaving for the water park with the boys. So a great story is somewhere in my kitchen for me to catch one day. But always with something to say or share here is an inspiring and uplifting book I came across by fluke and truly struck a chord within me. I read this great book, from cover to cover, on a ferry ride across Lake Champlain the other week titled "Just Who Will You Be?" by Maria Shriver. I seen her on Oprah on the odd day I lay in bed in the afternoon. She spoke about her upbringing in the Kennedy clan, her commitment to contribute to the family legacy and striking out on her own in a career as a television journalist. Then she got to the part that made me sit upright and listening more closely. It was at the time her husband became the Governor of California and her world started to crumple. She was fired from her job and felt completely lost for the first time in her life. No longer was she something of substance. Her children reminded her she was unemployed and just a stay at home mom and in public, she was the First Lady of California and so on. With no career she felt identity"less". As a driven person most of her life, she was now fifty-two, label"less" and lost. Then her nephew asked her to speak at his graduation, after numerous refusals she relented and spent sometime trying to figure out what to say. In that time she discovered she was finding out about herself too. She asked "Just who will you be?" to the graduating class but more personally to herself. After fifty-two years, she was surprised to asked a herself that very same thing. There is a time in every one's life they ask that same question, I felt elated that I was only 43 years old and had a good ten years on Mrs. Shriver. However, fundamentally, I was awed that she felt that too. I spent the last couple of years asking that question to myself, albeit, in other words. She to needed to reassess her life just like me. What a powerful and thought provoking read for anyone in the midst of a career change or life change. Although, I felt okay questioning my existence and pretty darn sure at the time on the ferry what I wanted to do, her book gave the "more power to you" feeling and it was "Just What I Needed".

Summer Vacations

I survived!! It's hard to believe there are less than two weeks left of summer vacation and I am here to write about it. As a freshman of sorts, staying home with my boys for the summer is one of the best things I did in my life. I spent the first part of the summer trekking back and forth from the local pool, dodging the rain each day. Hot husband had a four week vacation that began week two of summer vacation. By the final week of his vacation we were close to divorce. Spending every waking hour together was nerve racking and tense by week three of his vacation. Let me say I was happy to have him home and happy to see him back to work. Next summer, I plan on spending two weeks at home during his vacation and the other two weeks out of town. One month into summer vacation, my boys were getting bored and on my nerves. I was running out of things to do and wondering if it was too late to sign them up for camp...... One day I had a brilliant plan to spend the day on the waterfront downtown and enjoy some of the attractions, we were taking the train into the city but missed it. So already behind schedule, I raced to the waterfront and paid dearly with a speeding ticket bigger than my monthly car payment and more demerit points than I wish to share. None the less at the end of the day, we had a great time and all was forgotten about my traffic violation. Next summer I know to plan better for activities and consider summer camp for the boys to hang out with kids their age. Here's to the last days of summer, surviving, and to my sanity.

Fudge

There's this cute saying on a fridge magnet I bought for one of my sister's that went something like this: "Families are like fudge, very sweet but with a few nuts" I tend to agree. Don't get me wrong, I love my family as much as the next person but I can understand why many people move away and just start their own life. Family is a constant, a given, friends are chosen. I like many moved away physically and until recently, emotionally. No harm intended but a well deserved vacation from my reactionary emotions when I am around certain family members.
I had this friend in college who had a tenacious relationship with her parents, she just thought they we at times awful. I recall one time over dinner she accused her father of loving me more than her, I could have crawl under a rock than be put in the middle of her tantrum with her family. She was at the time twenty! I thought how immature was that and feeling quite mature. Aha!! Twenty years later, I see her point and I completely understand. Like Maria Shriver's book title :"Just Who Will You Be" when you grow up. She was fifty-two, I was forty-two. Just who will you be when you grow up. I will be a person with an opinion, a person with a priorities of her own, a person who will decide what she wants to be not what is expected of her, a woman with a career she loves and best of a great wife, mother, sister and person.

Summer

Into week five of summer vacation? Have I lost my mind yet? Not quite but certainly I need a mini-vacation. This full-time mom stuff is hard work. I am camp referee, camp counselor, camp superintendent, camp, bait person, fish line De-tangler, and mother!! Last week we went to the cottage for the first time this year and it was grueling. First off, it was quite painful to be there without my dad and knowing he would not show up mid-way through our vacation like he normally did, he past away months earlier and he left a big void in my life. That on top of mothering my two plus two cousins. Preparation, Preparation, Preparation. I needed at least another half day to prepare and verify all was packed because my son supposedly couldn't find the UNO cards perfect for rainy days and long evenings in the wilderness, younger son ran short of clothing, and our food supply was scant. On the brighter side, my younger son caught the biggest trout of the trip and the biggest one in years. The smile on his face was priceless, just thinking of his smile and all the it said makes me smile. He lit up the cloudy day on the shore of the brook. He beamed with pride and rubbed it in to the others that he caught the biggest fish. I forgot my camera ^*&%$^$^%$. But Hot Husband heard our screams of joy from the cottage and made his way to investigate the ruckus. Another day as we were changing into swimsuits, wails of screams and cries echoed in the musty humid second floor bedrooms, then three kids stampeded to my room, hiding behind me like a monster was in the cottage. Surprisingly, there was, a chipmunk jumped out from behind one of their beds! My boys immediately got into hunting mode so naturally, it took me aback. They had fishing nets and proceeded to catch the rodent to the girls delight. The thunder of their feet echoed now and the rampage down the stairs made the second floor move to the beat of their feet. And as fast as they ran down stairs was as fast as the little bugger ran upstairs freeing itself from the nets. Then I seen the bravery in my boys that was so clear, my little not flinching a bit and my older one, with such authority written across his face, chasing the chipmunk around the the rooms, only to have the girls flinch,scream in terror and hang on to their aunt for dear life. I reminded them, they were a hundred times bigger than the chipmunk and he was terrified of them!! That fell to deaf ears as they clenched my arm so fierce, I thought Oh, this is what men feel when we're in labor holding their hands. Poor guys!!! The screams were so loud my ears hurt. As I calmed them down, my boys capture the monster and put him outside, never to return to such a chaotic place again. The children were sad to leave and begging to stay a few more days, hot husband said one more day but I had it, I wanted to go home, go from four kids to two and sleep in my own comfy bed. We will return in the weeks to come with back up in the form of adults and more alcohol. So now I am on to the next adventure. Up until now, I have spent five consecutive weeks with my children and it's great, four week with Hot Husband and that a blast. So as we leave to yet another leg of summer vacation, you read it here, I am having the best time. Catch up later.

Birthday Horoscope

As I was browsing the Internet I seen an ad for horoscopes and it reminded me about this idea I had to write my own birthday forecasts. You see, tomorrow I will turn 43 years young and I recall reading the horoscopes on my birthday for a glimpse at the year ahead. I revelled the idea and was lured by the fact it could contain a road map of my life for the upcoming year. It was great until it didn't quite pan out as written. Put it this way, the entertainment purpose wore off and that's when I decided to write my own horoscope. It lasted a short while until I decided to begin my day with a deliberate intent on how I wanted the day, month or year to be. So, my year ahead forecast, as I intend it, is as follows: it will be fun filled and wonderful. I will enjoy my family and friends, and make some new ones along the way. As the sun rises each day I will be grateful for all that I have. Romance will be play a big part until one on my kids yell "Mom". I will laugh and be merry and sometimes cry and be sad but mostly laugh and be merry. The year ahead sees me moving into a new home and new job. Yippee. Also, I will receive a windfall of money, beyond my wildest dreams. My book will be published and I will travel to an exotic location with hot hubby. All in all it will be a great year because I intend it to be. Happy Birthday to me.

Independence Day

Happy 4th of July America. Independence Day. Freedom.

As I give thanks for the independence and freedom we have in the western world, it makes me think why there is not a day to celebrate one's own personal independence. Independence of thinking and thoughts, independence of consciousness. What I am getting at is I choose to celebrate each and every day for ME. But there should be a national holiday celebrating just being. Yes, we all have birthdays to commemorate of age but we need a day to celebrate just being. A Being Me Day or Me Day. A day of celebrating yourself and all that you are. A day to celebrate all the stuff that makes you unique. Uniqueness Day!! Nah. Me Day!!! A day to celebrate who you are as an individual, who you are as a person. A day to revel in yourself more so than spending a day at the spa. A day you would list all the great things about yourself. A day at work and at home, you would need to list one of your best qualities on the and celebrate it.

I just think we give so much attention to how we are viewed by ourselves and others that a day to celebrate just being ourselves without the identification or labels could do us well. I could see this going over well in the board rooms across the world. LOL. But seriously, it's an honest suggestion. Enjoy your freedom today as a country and if you can as yourself.