Shedding It

It was another early morning and very busy day with far too many meetings and phone calls. I finally escaped with barely enough time to get myself to the barn for a lesson. Fortunately, Fancy was relatively easy to catch (it appears she prefers carrots to apples). The lesson was hard work, with a horse in the arena when we arrived, and another who came in shortly before we were finished - which made her very distracted. I worked on body position again. It’s a constant for me as my core isn’t as strong as I would like, my left leg is noticeably weaker than my right, and I tend to twist my upper body to the left. Ad in the fine details of hand position and elbow relaxation, and you can see how each ride becomes a workout for my brain as much as my body. Despite the hard mental work, I left the barn feeling refreshed. All that rising trot had blown the cobwebs out. I had gotten random visits from someone’s happy dog. Nacho the barn cat wanted cuddles. I had successfully managed 1200 p

A friend follows this cartoon and periodically shares them. This one was perfect for a day that seemed endless. We didn’t actually mess up anything, but it was a full day of putting out random fires and trying to keep up with the endless stream of emails. I left work late, again, but the only unfinished task was an award recommendation for one of my teams. I started it, and remembered to save my draft, so tomorrow I get to try again.

I work in a place with crazy hours and my main clients are in far distant time zones (about 10 hours ahead of us). I have been dealing with several complex and time-consuming files for months, while short-staffed. This week another major challenge got added, which is great for my program, but... Oh, and my boss is traveling, as is my counterpart who also reports to him, so I’m trying to cover off their jobs on top of everything else. Don’t get me wrong. I love my job and the people I work with. But it’s just past 8 pm, I have been yawning for ages, supper was potato chips, and I need to be up early again. I can’t even work up enthusiasm for yoga with Adriene, though I likely would feel better if I did 15 minutes of stretching. Instead, I will finish editing an essay for my daughter, and go to bed early so I can be at the barn early tomorrow morning. One of things I want to work on this year is finding a way to vent (whine) less and turn that energy into something productive, instead.

It’s garbage night. As much as I want to post about a reasonably productive day, or my great ballet class I am not feeling the blogging love tonight. As I sat here, I started poking through a little bowl that has been on the counter for ages. It collects bits and pieces of things I might need again - coins, keys, batteries that need to be taken for recycling, etc. Tonight I emptied most of it out. Those keys I can’t find a lock for, and the old lock I lost the key for are both going into the recycling. I spotted a battery recycling box at work, so I now I have a place for them. And all those bobby pins and screws and whatnot? Heaven knows when they were last used, so out they go. Sometimes unloading the little things really do unlighten the load - they can take up more mental energy than the big things.

Today was full of back-wrenching, heat attack-inducing wet heavy snow. It was beautiful, thought. I also had a great ride. It has been a few weeks but Fancy was really good, even when snow was sliding off the roof of the arena. The rest of the day was devoted to making a soup to use up a ham bone, laundry, watching videos for one of my on-line courses, and working on crafts. My big sticks are now trimmed to the right size for a couple of projects, and I made some progress on finishing a mitten.  Since it was otherwise a great weekend, I’m trying not to be sad or jealous about not getting to go cold water swimming yesterday. I had made plans to go right after swim practice, but my swim buddy cancelled and went with someone else today. It’s childish, but I liked it better when it was just us. It is getting so hard to coordinate that I find I am losing my enthusiasm, even though I really like the time spent with my swim buddy. I’ll just have to get over myself and plan my own tr

This is a topic I am likely to return to fairly often because I am a big fan of community-supported agriculture, eating local, calculating the environmental cost of my food, and Michael Pollan’s Food Manifesto (eat food, not too much, mostly plants). Today’s thoughts are sparked by three things: 1) I was prompted to try a few old recipes this week. The first was a 1933 meatloaf that used only one pound of ground beef, but was clearly intended to feed a family. The second was chicken divan, which used a single chicken breast plus a half cup of cheese, with a pound of broccoli (and a few other ingredients). There was enough food to serve four; it didn’t look that way at first, but it was surprisingly filling. Finally, I made a corn chowder from The Joy of Cooking (mid-1960s). I used 1/2 cup of ham rather than bacon, but otherwise followed the recipe quite closely. I ended up with enough hearty soup to serve four people as a main course. I am constantly amazed at how how older recipes

Tonight it was the Royal Winnipeg Ballet performing The Wizard of Oz. I have a love/hate relationship with this company. They do some bold experiments with new choreography and incorporating modern technology. Sometimes it is an absolute disaster. This time, it worked pretty well. There were flying monkeys and lots of puppets (including Toto), and many bold lifts. The scenery was a mix of more traditional ropes, mixed with video and a yellow brick roa that not only moved around the stage but ha yellow brick dancers to move it and keep the story going The Tin Man’s footwork was amazing. The costumes were lots of fun, and the musical score really suited the story (often very jazzy and early 20th C, just right for something we all know best as a movie from that era). Of course no photos were allowed, so this is one from a review in the Ottawa Citizen.

Tonight I had my biannual visit to the optometrist. A new joy of ageing is that I discovered it is possible to get fat deposits on your eyeballs. Apparently this is caused by being in the sun too much without sunglasses. I hate wearing sunglasses, though I do have a cute prescription pair with purple frames. From now on, I will need to wear them more often, and my next swim goggles for outdoors will need to have polarized lenses. I looked at glasses frames and decided there was nothing that appealed to me more than my current glasses. Last time, I bought two pairs that I still love, so I am going to get the lenses replaced. Since I wear progressives that will still be a healthy investment. I might even get new lenses in my sunglasses, since the prescription is older (but no progressives since I mostly use them for driving).

I put in about 15 hours at the office today. I think I got most of the critical things off my desk. By the time I got home, it was bedtime, but I did my little yoga session. It’s amazing how those stretches and  deep breaths are allowing me to relax. I suspect I will sleep well. Which is good, because I have another early meeting to start what promises to be another crazy day.

I had planned to post last night but ended up having a really rotten evening. Ballet was great, but it was a bitterly cold day. I had to walk the whole way to work because Occasional Transpo was up to form again (ie the bus showed up earlier than scheduled, and not when the GPS tracker showed it would arrive). Then I had to stay late at work and go directly to ballet and walk home afterwards because I didn’t have access to my car in the evening thanks to the girl child. I did get lots of steps in, but was truly grumpy when I got home. Today was a little better, but still a very long day. I am trying to juggle far too many balls at once. There is no real solution except for some patience to get through the next few crazy weeks. I have cleared out some of my box of donation stuff as my daughter has promised to take it to the charity shop. That is one little stressor gone, though there is still lots more to drop off. Time for some yoga and an early night to bed.

Fancy hasn’t been ridden since Tuesday, so I decided today was a good day for a lesson on ground manners and working on the lunge line. That ended up being a good call as someone decided that clearing snow with the big tractor right outside the arena was a good plan. Clearly, that person doesn’t actually deal with horses. She was nervous, but did pretty well. My evening has been spent fixing her winter blanket. Somehow she tore a foot-long strip off the side; the lining was missing a chunk and the whole thing was full of ice and bits of hay. I managed to use up a piece of wool roving by stitching into the the lining, then sent way too long mending the rip. As much as I like to get rid of things I don’t need, I hate the idea of sending things to the landfill. The blanket should be perfectly usable now, though it definitely has “character”.

I pulled a stack of DVDs off the shelves to send to the charity shop or the church bazaar. I also cleared out the tea cupboard. I have a lovely wooden tea caddy and a daughter who loves to buy all kinds of tea but rarely finishes any of them. Tonight I got rid of two tins plus seven boxes. The tins were already empty, as was one of the boxes. I moved the tea from the others into my wooden caddy, and some into another empty tin. I also sorted the jars and boxes of loose tea so they are easier to see and use up. This started mostly because I was low on tea at work so bought some more, and thought we were out of Sleepytime and green tea. It turned out neither was true, but now I have room for the extra boxes. Oh well. At least I know those are two kinds we both like and will use up. My next job will be to drink up all the kinds she doesn’t like (but at least now I can see them and start the job).

Today capped of an incredibly busy couple of weeks. We had a high-level visitor in from Afghanistan so I was in meetings non-stop all day. It was lovely to see him, though. I celebrated tonight with an extra taco, and made up a meatloaf from a 1933 cookbook as well as a batch of pasta sauce. Yoga plans were ditched in favour of a mug of hot chocolate and a couple of episodes of The Crown. My shoulders are telling me the yoga would have been a good idea, but sometimes turning the brain to happy mush is the best thing to do.

I walked to work this morning, because I had the time and it wasn’t too cold. This evening I was supposed to go for a riding lesson, but the plans went awry. First there was a big accident on the highway, with stop-and-go-traffic. I called my coach and cancelled which turned out to be a good idea. I got to the barn early enough that I might have been able to have a slightly late lesson if I caught my horse right away. On a night as cold as tonight, that shoul have been easy. Instead, I spent almost an hour trying to convince her to let me get close enough to put her halter on. I really needed to get her into an extra blanket because it is getting really cold tonight. She has other horses and a warm shelter, but she is also getting older and the weather is supposed to stay really cold for the next few days. Also, when she is misbehaving, it is important not to let her get away with it. Maybe the real lesson here is that horses can be a great form of exercise - hauling feed, mucking

Yesterday was my boss’ birthday so there was a little surprise party. I popped in for a couple of minutes and ended up with a glass of prosecco in my hand, which I promptly drank. Of course. It was cold and bubbly, and I was thirsty. So much for my dry January goal. It was just a silly thing but still disappointing because I like to meet my goals. I won’t start over. I will simply pick up from where I left off and finish the month if I can. Tonight I left the office after 9:30 at night, having started my day just before 6 am (I did take time out to shower, change and grab breakfast in between the emails). My first call tomorrow is at 8 am. So much much for the work-life balance I encourage in my staff. Far too many of them were also working late, either in the office or responding to messages from home. There is no way to get that time back, but I have told one staffer she is not to cancel her cross-country skiing plans for tomorrow. I have committed to myself that I will make it to

Today was a good day. Since the downing of the Ukrainian Airlines flight in Iran I have been very busy with the response, due to the death of 13 Afghan citizens (for context, I am responsible for Canada’s relations with Afghanistan within the headquarters of my foreign affairs ministry). I also have several other balls in the air with high level visits and briefings on my big project. Several of those pieces fell into place today thanks to the strong analysis and quick action of colleagues on three continents. They made me proud to be a public servant. It has been a very long and difficult week for Canadian and other families, and for everyone helping them to cope with this tragedy. I am consciously trying to celebrate their hard work and dedication, instead of dwelling on the long hours, endless emails, and general confusion as too many people try to handle too many things at once.  In the past, I didn’t believe people who said that you could sometimes change your mood just by try

My day started with a 7 am work phone call and went non-stop for over 11 hours. I thought I would lose a lung as I raced to catch a bus that was unexpectedly early (arrived just as it was pulling away) so I had to walk to work with my very full knapsack. It was full because I had my dance gear and some extra food, just in case I didn’t get away from the office in time for class. It was a good thing, too, as I barely made it to my 7 pm class on time. I danced hard (okay mostly I stretched and built strength as I worked on the exercises) for 90 minutes. At the end, I suddenly felt a burst of satisfaction, or happiness, or possibly pure joy. It was an actual physical sensation that I rarely, if ever, experience. My body felt tired but strong; my mind had swept away all the jittery racing thoughts about work that still needed to be done, and tasks that had to be added to one list or another. I felt calm but energized - but not so energized that I am going to struggle to sleep. I want to

I spent most of my day yesterday on the smart phone, dealing with messages related to a major crisis that affects my work and one of the countries I am responsible for (I’m in the Canadian diplomatic service). I even had to go in to work for a bit, jeans, favourite old sweatshirt and all. Dinner afterwards with friends was great for the spirit, but not quite relaxing as the restaurant was noisy and we were all waiting for the predicted freezing rain storm to start. I knew there was going to be another meeting today, as well as a call with representatives of several countries - including mine - but the details were not available last night so I got up early to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. There was still no news so I took an hour out to go to church. It was a good call. I spent time chipping ice off my car, which is kind of fun. As a bonus, the neighbourhood birds were in full voice. The service itself had comforting familiarity, and I actually had thoughts about the sermon f

Today was the first day in the pool since June. That’s when my swim club stops for the summer so everyone can take advantage of the opportunities to swim outside during the summer. I broke my arm just below the shoulder near the end of July; although I was back in the water within a few weeks, there was no way I could keep up with my lane when the club reconvened in September. It felt great to be back today, seeing friends for the first time in months. I was so excited to be back, I even broke out a new suit for the occasion. My facial expression doesn’t reflect it, but I was really happy to be there. I was also fairly pleased with my swim. I didn’t do all the individual medley sets, and I had to use fins for part of the time, but I managed 1875 metres, including butterfly. The last time I tried butterfly was in October, and I nearly drowned myself because I couldn’t get that injured arm out of the water.

It has been an insanely busy week at work. It has been really interesting, and sometimes exciting, but I am absolutely drained. Next week promises to be more of the same in some respects, but I it means that I am making progress on my big project. It’s all the side projects that are challenging. This week we added in the crash of the airplane in Iran - so many young and talented Canadians and students at Canadian universities were lost. Plus the visit of a high-profile visitor with just a week’s notice to prepare a program. And a major change in our staffing practices that has about half of my team freaking a little over their future with the department.  My shoulders are killing me from tension right now, despite a massage last night and a trip to the chiropractor’s this morning. In a weird, dysfunctional way, it’s how I know it’s good to be alive. Being an adrenaline junkie is one of the habits I really need to shed. I started working on that today by joining in for part of our

My friend Bess has a rule about getting rid of things: if you throw out just one thing every day, no matter how small, eventually you will have shed the junk out of your life. It can be as small as a pencil stub or a paper clip, but if you get into the habit of finding that one thing to throw out every day, it will stick with you forever. I have tried to live by that for the past few years. Some years, I do really well. Other years, it has been hard and I have given up altogether. Sometimes I need to combine it with a purposeful reorganization of a room, or a drawer. One of my tricks is to keep a small laundry basket in my room. When I find something I don’t want to hold onto, I put it in the basket. When the basket is full, I bag up everything and take it to the charity shop. There is a bookshelf in my son’s bedroom where books I am finished go until the annual used book sales in my neighbourhood. I don’t count things like paper (unless it is a major file clean-up), or ordinary thin

The fitness part is relatively fine. I’m actually enjoying the yoga, and all those planks and downward dogs are making my shoulder feel much better. Decluttering my physical space is coming along (and I swear I’ll take down the Christmas tree right after this post!). Decluttering my mind is a bit more of a struggle. I worked for a bit over 12 hours today. It was a day burdened with sadness over the plane crash that killed 63 Canadians plus over 100 more who were traveling to Canada. Many were permanent residents or students. I don’t envy the colleagues who work on consular affairs and are dealing with grieving families, as well as the grim task of identifying and repatriating the deceased from a country where we don’t even have diplomatic relations at the moment. On top of that was my usual work of leading a team that is working flat-out on important and time-sensitive projects. And somehow we made time for a mini management retreat to do a mid-year course correction and plan for the

I have seen various people writing about the one word they want to hold onto for 2020. At first I thought it was silly. But today I chose a word that has lots of different meanings for me - Balance. The sidewalks were icy and I worried about slipping and falling, even though I was doing my best “walk like a penguin”. Balance. I wear a knapsack on my back to try and minimize the hunched up shoulder that comes with carrying a heavy bag on one side. The knapsack is also a regular reminder that my left shoulder is still not fully healed after my fall last summer. I need to keep exercising it to regain strength and full range of motion, and manage lingering pain. Balance. As I walked, I thought about last night’s dance class where, possibly for the first time, I really connected with psoas muscles to pull my spine and rib cage up and free from my pelvis so I could dance. My posture felt beautiful and graceful. I spend far too much time sitting at work, and walking while engaging those

Tonight was my first night back after the Christmas break. I desperately wanted to dance when I was a little kid, but lived out in the country and was big for my age - no classes, no way anyone would see me as ballerina material. Fast forward more than 40 years, and I discovered adult ballet. My daughter started lessons when she turned four and loved it. When we moved to our current home, I signed her up at the local dance school. Then I remembered reading about adult ballet classes at the National Ballet School in Toronto, so I called up the school and asked if they offered classes for fat old ladies. I was told they preferred to call it adult beginner, but yes. That was about 15 years ago. I stopped for a few years when I injured a foot and then discovered belly dance as an alternative, but now I’m back and loving it. I forgot to take a picture of my studio, which feels very professional as we have a pianist rather than recorded music, but here is sweaty happy me after class.

I went for a swim with my friends Nadine and Tom this morning. Air temperature was -4, and the water was right around 0. I hadn’t been since around Canadian Thanksgiving, so it was hard to get into the water. I walked for quite a bit, then finally managed some head’s up breast stroke, once across the beach. I was in for a total of 7 minutes. Not exactly the purposeful movement I should be aiming for! However, it was delightful to spend some time with them and the air and water looked glorious. Here I am, on my way out. I felt chilled all afternoon so ended up going out to visit my horse and give her a good grooming, but not ride. At least she is tucked into more blankets for the cold snap that is starting tonight. According to one of my fitness apps, grooming and tacking up a horse burns some calories; again, not really purposeful movement, but pleasant enough that Fancy got a few kisses on the nose (something she rarely gets from me).

I hear that’s a thing you’re supposed to do, to avoid injury etc. I’m not very good at it. Mostly I power through until I fall down exhausted. Today felt a bit like one of those days. I slept in, got a hair cut, had a nap, then finally got up the energy to buy groceries and do a load of laundry. I want to go to bed now, but I’m going to do my yoga set first. Tonight’s edition is all about the back, and I know I could use it.

I’m not doing much about this one just yet, but I am trying the dry January thing for no reason except that I like silly challenges. I am also working to clean out my refrigerator, freezer and pantry by using up things I have in the house. This challenge could be both hampered and helped by my fondness for old cookbooks and recipes. One of the things that fascinates me is how portion sizes appear to have grown over the decades. As an example, my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe from the 1964 edition of Betty Crocker’s Cookbook makes five dozen cookies. Those cookies are incredibly tiny compared to what we consider normal today - 1/3 or even 1/4 the size of one cookie sold at my local coffee shop. Here’s another example. I’m tempted to try this mid 20th century recipe this weekend, because I have all the ingredients in the house. It looks pretty awful in the photo, but if made with frozen peas that are mixed in (or even placed in the centre of a ring mould for a more retro loo

On January 2, I am turning my mind to things I can let go of. I have read Marie Kondo’s books, and watched her Netflix show. Some of those things made a lot of sense to me (keep the things that spark joy, thank the unwanted things for their service and let them go). I grew up in a household where we didn’t have much money and we moved often; things got lost or broken during moves, or got packed into long-term storage so we didn’t have them when we needed them. My mom came from a poor farming family, born during the Depression in Alberta, where you hung onto things for seven years in case you needed them, and then another seven years just in case. On top of that, I have my own environmental ethos (repair, re-use, repurpose) and a rich and active hobby life. Those things combined to make me reluctant to get rid of things I didn’t like, didn’t really need, or thought I could use later, because you never know when something will come in handy. Over time, I have learned to keep a small la

I drove to Montreal to meet up with my swim buddy Nadine’s Facebook friend Susan, who was in town from Victoria. It was a nice drive, and I came close to finishing knitting a mitten as we caught up after a couple of months. It turned out to be unsafe to get into the water at any of the spots that had been open just a few days ago, so we settled for sitting at the water’s edge and splashing a bit. There had been discussion of making snow angels, but we sensibly repaired to a pub for lunch instead. On the drive back, we had a long conversation about if and when separate spaces for women’s sports are necessary, sparked largely by news of some women we know who have run into difficulties getting their swims accredited by organizations that are often little more than one guy with a website. Sometimes separate spaces, at least for now as is the case in Kabul Afghanistan: ( https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/22/world/asia/afghanistan-kabul-women-swimming.html ). In other cases, we hate the ide