Thought I’d let
you know that Sacha is doing well in grade one—if he had been your student for
some reason, he’d make you proud, no doubt—and Heidi is loving life in her
final year of pre-school. Your other grandkids are thriving, too. So are Jamie,
Kari and I, and Dina and Matt and Kate. We’re all doing just fine and life is
treating us well.
Well, on second thought, I don’t really need to bring you up
to speed on this stuff. I think—I hope—you already know it, watching from
wherever you (and dad, of course!) might be today. That, and I think about you
and speak to you regularly enough as it is, I suppose. So I guess you’re up to
speed.
Yes, we’re all doing fine.
But on days like today—noting that you've been gone from
us for two years now —I, we, really wish you were still around to see all these
lives unfold, up close and personal.
Love you, miss you today... just like yesterday, and tomorrow.
It's right about now that we cannot help but take stock of all that has gone before, and decide for ourselves the pathway ahead.
Some people call this process 'making new years resolutions'. I generally don't believe in 'em and rarely engage in such a process. Well, looks like 2015 is a year that I will engage... sort of...
In November 2014, I brought the year to a close with a minimal, yet painful and invasive surgery from which I am now at the 'tail end' of recovering. I had some... issues... in 2013, which recurred, and got worse in 2014. Some of the root causes, I have experienced since a teenager. It was high time to manage these things, so I was very glad to go through the process. All of my resolutions stem from this health issue. But my resolutions might sound quite the opposite to a lot of the typical resolutions.
For one, being in pain so often meant pain medications.
Yup. pretty glad to see the backside of these.
Which meant no alcohol. Narcotics and booze don't mix where one's liver is concerned.
so, my resolution...err...
Anti-lution #1: Drink more in 2015.
I'm not talking about benders, don't worry, people. But it will be nice to maybe have a beer on a Friday as a reminder to myself that I am pain-free.
Anti-lution #2: (This one will piss a lot of people off) I want to put on a ton of weight.
I shed many pounds in the blink of an eye following my surgery. I'm one of those obnoxious people who's metabolism requires strength training exercise in order to gain weight. It's the only thing that's ever worked. Let me tell you, those lbs were gained through extremely hard-fought gym sessions, and I am very sad to have lost them. I want them back. I don't know how long it will take me to put it back on though I'm hoping not too long. Oh, and I want a few pounds extra added, in addition to just getting back what I lost.
Anti-lution #3: See less of my family.
OK, so this one is a bit tongue-in-cheek. I love my family, and love spending time with them. But I'm very keen to keep up with my resurrected kayaking life in 2015, and I hope that will mean some quality time on the water, a few regattas, and (?) maybe even a spring training camp out of town
(location and scope TBD).
Suffice it to say, the pain I suffered in 2014 and the fix to said pain kept me out of the training loop for the past several months. Can't wait to get back to it!
So, that's what I'll be up to for some of this year! How about you? Whatever your goals are for 2015, I hope you achieve them! Make 2015 your best year yet! Or don't. Like I said... I don't really believe in resolutions :P
In our house,
the tree is up, the lights adorn our front porch, our Elf on the Shelf is
providing daily delight (YES, I said DELIGHT… haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate…
thank you Taylor Swift), gift purchases are well under way and various
Christmas parties are filling up the calendar.
It’s not an easy time for everyone, let’s admit that.
Mostly, it's because life doesn't stop just because Christmas rolls around, much as we may like it to.
Krinkle, our Elf on the Shelf. Animal lover, or
is this bear his captive?!
In the last few months, my wife has been wildly overworked,
my daughter basically cut off the top of one of her fingers—thankfully, it was successfully
reattached and she’s recovering well—, my son is navigating the social
adjustments that come with a grade one class, and I myself am recovering from a
minor yet invasive and intensely painful surgery.
Outside of our house, it goes on, too. One of my colleagues badly injured her foot a few weeks ago and will spend the holidays trying to heal as
best she can, faced only with the likely prospects of surgery ahead (turns out having your foot run over isn't the comedy show that movies would suggest).
Closer to home, I know my brother is probably feeling a bit of the
blues as we inch closer to Christmas. There is very little of our family left
in Kamloops now, and we grew up in a house that regularly gathered 18 people on
average. Even my brothers' parents’ in law are escaping Kamloops this year, so they won’t
even have his wife’s folks around. A quiet Christmas is a strange prospect for him.
Still close to home, my best friend lost his mother to cancer in the last few weeks. He, his siblings and their father are
staring down the barrel of their first Christmas without a cornerstone of their
family to share in the holidays. The progression of the cancer in past weeks
was so rapid that the plans went from travelling abroad for a last Christmas,
to ‘maybe we can make it to Christmas’, to ‘Christmas will be a miracle’, to
having already had to memorialize her loss.
Point is, there are undercurrents to Christmas that don’t
mirror the happy reflections we see in store windows. Loneliness, displacement
and loss are only amplified during the Christmas season.
Look! Even Vancouver can get some Christmassy
frost... in the shadow... on an otherwise sunny beach...
When I think about The Reason for the Season, I have to
admit… some of this chaos feels... familiar....maybe even makes sense. The Christmas Story isn't exactly all sugarplums and eggnog, y'know? Was Mary feeling delight and goodwill toward mankind, faced only with the displacement and discomfort of having a baby in a dirty donkey stall?
Uh, I
expect not.
It’s not the birth story we would want for ourselves, to be sure, but its an accurate reflection of how our lives--even during a blessed event--can be a bit cray-cray (as the kids say).
Here we have a holiday founded on the very idea that life throws major
curveballs. But it’s in that perfect
imperfection that I think the true holiday spirit belongs. We all lead busy
lives, and in doing so, we walk down paths it isolation, injury, and illness at
times. And sometimes, those days happen to be around Christmas.
We can still find beauty if we care to look for it.
If you are in a position to dread
Christmas a bit this year, I hope you find a way to let some of the happiness of the season
in. Succumb to the lights, the music, the Spirit if so moved, and know that
there are others (people like me), thinking of you, feeling a bit of your pain,
but despite it all, hoping you have a Very.Merry. Christmas.
Perhaps the Chase Family Video Christmas Card, below, can help spread a little merry? ENJOY! NO Bah-humbugging! Also, though our house delights in the elf on the shelf, this video is free of such items, if that is any incentive to any of you.
As for me: Kate and I will, for the first time EVER, be having Christmas morning in our own house; just the immediate family. I am SO looking forward to it.
Whatever your plans are, I hope you find a way to enjoy the holidays, too.
So, year #35 is here. Or is it actually my 36th year now? I never know how these things work.
I digress.
I feel like the past year was foundation for a great year ahead. Settling into my role at work. Goofy, interesting, intelligent kids in school / preschool, and game for adventure outside of it. Kate taking on interesting and challenging work. Taking up sprint race kayaking again for the first time since 2004, and doing all the fitness that goes along with that. I feel very blessed that the big buckets of health, family life and work have been keeping me well fulfilled.
Goofy kid being goofy
Looking forward, we're pretty much all done with our home improvements and can enjoy what's there. The battles with the raccoons seem to be over for the most part (see previous postings).
I thoroughly enjoy my work which constantly has me learning new things and developing great relationships... and my colleagues send me cards like this, which means they also share a good sense of humour:
I have a wonderfully supportive family who lets me get away with being on the water a few days a week, which has been very rewarding for me since I got back in the boat in the Spring. I made it out to the last regatta of the season at the end of September, and I look forward to racing again in 2015.
My brother phoned me today to wish me a happy birthday and inform me that I'm now officially closer to 40 than to 30.
It's not a thought that worries me.
On the one hand, I could look at our familial track record of longevity--or distinct, multi-generational lack thereof--and freak out. But it isn't time for a mid-life crisis. It's time to enjoy just how life is. I'm not much worried about the next best thing. I have a lot of gratitude in my life for the fact that the next best thing is every day. I think it's way too easy to get caught up in wondering what's next, or spend too much time fussing on little things that don't add up to much in the end.
Don't get me wrong, the minutiae is important--it's why we have a whiteboard in our kitchen; a snapshot noting each lunch and dinner for the entire week, which kid is where, on what day, and what evening which parent is coming home late for whatever reason.
But the snapshot isn't the big picture. The big picture is 'fulfilled, loved and happy'
Best present ever.
P.S. Acting "Your Age" is overrated. Don't forget to stay a kid at least a little!
Way too long since the last update, so just gonna pretend I didn't miss a beat, and share a few recent stories of our goings-on...
Before. Pure bliss.
The renovation process in our house finally came to a conclusion with the finishing touches of the landscaping. We put in a new flagstone path that wraps around the side of the house, built some big garden boxes for veggies, and, as a piece de le resistance...insta-lawn, baby! 400 (or so) square feet of thick, lush greenery, tying together all the pieces of our now-complete backyard oasis. My sister and her family, who were visiting from the UK, were among the privileged first few to lay eyes on all its unscathed perfection. Wait, unscathed? was there a scathing?
Enter... the raccoons. There is no debate about their intelligence. There is no debate about their brazen approach. The only debate is whether I admire them or loathe them completely, after what they did to my pristine green, flat, weedless back lawn.
After the carnage... round #1
We had seen them in the yard a few times in the evenings. Two healthy, fat bumbly adults and three adorable babies in tow. For the record, I hold the kits free of any culpability; they just watched as their parents did the dirty work, far as I can tell.
The raccoons adapted nicely to our schedules. If we saw them, we hollered, threw things, sprayed them with the water gun... I even procured a vintage--and battle tested--slingshot from a colleague who spent days of her youth taking out squirrels in the boonies outside of Kamloops. But the raccoons learned pretty quickly not to come around if there was any sign of light or life in our house. And so, in the cover of night's darkeness and silence, they slipped into our yard and wreaked their havoc upon our sweet oasis, neatly rolling back freshly laid sod in search of the sweet worms and grubs they presumed to be beneath.
No, please, ignore me and drink up. You must be exhausted after all that tearing my lawn apart. AGAIN.
This whole issue had a real due date for resolution, as my household was going on vacation. What protections could we offer, what lawn could we replace, with no one really around?
Defences had to be established.
One bottle of coyote urine, a handful or rags, a trip to the home depot and 400 square feet of ski fencing and bird netting later, we had our best attempts in place. On hands and knees well into the night, we covered our new lawn completely, tacking it down as well as we could into the soft soil beneath. Soaking the rags in coyote pee, we placed them strategically at the perimeters. This is about the best one can do, to deter the critters, through scent and barriers to access; after all, raccoons cannot read--nor would they care about--a 'stay the f**$ off my lawn' sign. I was hopeful to be able to use the slingshot against them--not to kill them, just help them associate my lawn with pain, is all--but those adorable vermin are now wise enough not to show during the day or dusk, as previously mentioned. I'm still waiting for my chance, but at this point, I think we're in the clear (I say with hesitance, perhaps).
Defencing fencing... I think we're winning...
We came back from our vacation, and our sister in law, who has been living with us as she's knuckled down for med school exams--reported relatively positive results. The grass has mostly taken root, and any evidence of overnight visitors has evaporated.
If anyone needs a complete raccoon repellent system, please inquire within.
And, as for that vacation part? well, I won't type out many of the details. I'll let the video do the talking. long story short, a week plus of family and good friends in Quebec and Ontario respectively, lakeside accommodations, swimming, more swimming, train rides, plane rides and some half decent weather to boot.
Next up, school year starts again all to soon... presuming our teacher's strike in B.C. ever comes to an end... say, I think I just thought of the next blog post. But for now, more summer!
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