No more kids: not as easy as it looks

Disclaimer: Please stop reading if you’re my grandparent or my dad. Just, please.

Here’s a little story for you, inspired by my friend Natasha:

Leith and I have this really great agreement going on. It’s called No More Kids. It’s working pretty well, considering I gave birth over 4 years ago and have yet to be cursed with another uterine spawn since then.

Unfortunately, keeping a hollow uterus isn’t the cake walk I’d hoped it would be. In fact, it’s such a pain in the ass that I would LOVE to pass on my ability to conceive to any of my friends who are currently struggling to conceive. I would gladly wash my hands of all fertility to allow them to bless their families with more babies.

Alas, that’s not in the cards. It turns out you can only share your uterus, not donate it, and I really, really, REALLY hate being pregnant.

So that leaves us wading in the scummy pools of modern birth control.

I spent the better part of 10 years taking a plain old boring birth control pill, then stopped, popped out a set of twins, and said, “NEVER AGAIN!!”. Since then, it’s been…fun.

ARTICLE ONE: The Mini-Pill

Pros: Can be taken while breast-feeding.
Cons: Must be taken at the exact same second of every day or you will screw it up and get pregnant. Because that’s something a new mom of twins can remember. Oh, and you won’t get your period, so best of luck keeping your fingers crossed when you DO screw it up. Sucka.

ARTICLE TWO: The copper IUD

Pros: No hormones, no remembering, dirt cheap over the course of the 3 years its good for, generally quite awesome for its entire existence…until:
Cons: It decides to get drunk one day (my version…) and FALL OVER, embedding itself in your uterine wall. You know, for funsies. This renders it completely useless, a bit painful, and a bit of a jerk because a) you now wonder how long you’ve been playing with fire while it lolled around all tipsy, and b) it requires a referral to a real OBGYN, instead of just getting yanked at your regular doctor’s office. Jerk.

**oh, and the increased risk of eptopic pregnancy too…but we avoided that one.
**oh, and husband will become paranoid and terrified when it falls over, and declare that it is the WORST FORM OF BIRTH CONTROL EVER. Trust between husband and IUD is over.

ARTICLE THREE: The birth control patch

Pros: Wear a sticker on your butt for a week. Change each week. Take a week off. Once a week is easier to remember than every freaking day. Also, can be used with the tipsy IUD while waiting for the OBGYN referral.
Cons: Develop sudden numbness and lightheadedness, and other stroke-like symptoms. Call your doctor while your coworkers encourage you to go to the ER. Throw the Patch in the garbage. Feel better. Discover that you cannot tolerate systemic hormones ever again in your life, or YOU WILL DIE. Awesome.

…if you’re following along, my choices are now: a) get pregnant and die, or b) take birth control and die. Excellent.

ARTICLE FOUR: Mirena, aka hell in a one-inch chunk of plastic

Pros: Same as the copper IUD, but with the added protection of synthetic progesterone only. And it stays local, so I won’t die. And I won’t get my period ever again!!! (or for 5 years…whatevs)
Cons: This will require a bullet list:

• massive mood swings
• ridiculous levels of irritability
• depression relapses
• unconquerable fatigue
• all the joys of PMS with no period to tell you why you’re being a bitch
• impossible to lose those last 10lbs
• did I mention the mood swings and irritability? the fatigue? the depression?
• other yucky stuff that I won’t write on my blog
• headaches and achiness without other causes
• basically feeling like a ticking time bomb of early pregnancy, without the uterine spawn

And then some.

There are days when pregnancy would be a welcome change compared to my little plastic friend. It sucks that much. I hate it. And unfortunately, it was our last modern-pharmaceutical resort.

Yay.

So that leaves us with three options:

1. Fertility awareness method, which I’ve used and loved but am far too lazy to trust myself with…
2. A tubal ligation for me, which I am vehemently opposed to because I’ve seen way too many friends with waaaaaay too many complications that I just don’t feel like dealing with. Ever.
3. Booking an appointment for the husband.

Guess what I’m picking? Hint: it ain’t #1 or #2.

In the meantime, I have the green light to get this little hormonal plastic alien from hell ripped from my body. I have my consultation with my family doctor on Friday, and hopefully she can book me in for the yanking ASAP. I cannot wait to get back to being me again.

Although I will miss having something to blame for my occasional bitchiness 😉

How MagzD got her Groove {It} back

Since I could move, I’ve been dancing:

But in 2005, I quit ballet.

I left the Teachers’ Training program at the Edmonton School of Ballet, defeated and jaded. I knew that I would never take my Associate exam, because I felt that I would never be able to pass my Intermediate exam without major orthopaedic surgery or a small miracle from God. I was almost 24 years old; I had only been seriously studying ballet for 5 years.

The same year, I closed Expressions Dance Studio: my baby, my dream, my everything. Small town dance training was just too much for a girl in her early 20’s with zero business sense, in a time before social media and online marketing. I was out of my league, and I left my dream baby in the streets of Thorsby to collect dust.

That was 7 years ago. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long when it seems like just yesterday. It’s hard to believe I was only twenty-three years old when I walked away from all of it. But I took a lot from those life lessons, those months and years of dedication and poverty. Every ounce of who I am today found its seed in those years as a ballerina-in-training and small-town dance teacher. It is the very depth of my dance roots.

I thought I found my way back in 2010. After a few years of casual teaching, I found myself immersed in a different niche of the dance world. Needless to say, that ended painfully and brutally. But somewhere, deep in my heart, that seed of dance lived on.

When Kristi asked me to teach her teen ballet class this year, I was hesitant at first. I was scared, I was jaded, and I was uncomfortable. Little did I know that taking those 18 teenagers for an hour and a half a week would be the balm that I needed to soothe my love of dance back into existence.

The moment I played that syllabus CD again, my body woke up. I was alive again. My muscles remembered, and they coaxed my heart back into a rhythm I’d missed so much. Every Monday night, I left happier than when I’d arrived. I looked forward to seeing my Monday class. It reminded my of my little studio, the little dream that never fully matured – right down to the small town hall and the old ladies’ potluck dinners in the basement 🙂

Then we started dancing, choreographing, creating. I started to build a vision for my ballerinas’ festival piece. I had a song I’d saved for years, and a dream of how it would look. A spark that I thought I’d lost was reignited. I was creating again. I was contributing to my art again.

It was beautiful.

It was hard, of course. There were weeks that I felt locked and choked, rushed for time, and as if I was constantly yelling over 18 teenage girls. Oh wait…I was 😉 But then came our showcase day, and I was thrown back into the flurry and excitement of lipstick and eyelashes, sweltering heat and butterflies.

And I danced. I danced on that stage.

It was nothing, really. A little finale number that Kristi and I decided to do with the kids. But my god – it opened up my soul to sweat under those lights, to smile and laugh and DANCE. It felt like a long-lost friend.

And then?

On a dark night in April, I won a choreography award for my little dance. I was shocked. I squealed and skipped a little. My dancers laughed at my excitement. It had been so long. I was so proud of them for interpreting my vision – they made my work look good.

And then?

Another choreography award, and a gold mark at their last festival performance. And suddenly, I knew who I was again – I’d found my heart again, and knew that I still had the wings to fly. I knew that I could still create beauty and excitement onstage, and that I could still inspire students to be beautiful and exciting.

Dance has been my existence for as long as I can remember. What started as a favour for a friend and some free time this fall has reignited a passion I thought I lost. It’s filled a hole in my heart and soul – one that I thought was irreparable. I thought I’d never dance again, and yet here I am, dancing to the radio in my kitchen. Moving and shaking, laughing and singing.

Living.

Because MagzD finally got her Groove {It} back.

Get rid of it!!

This is how I feel today:

--from Hyperbole and a Half

Except instead of “cleaning”, I want to throw everything in the garbage.

I was reading the comments on a completely unrelated post last night and stumbled across this quote:

“We don’t need to increase our goods nearly as much as we need to scale down our wants. Not wanting something is as good as possessing it.” –Donald Horban

I realized that there was only a handful of things that I would truly miss if our house burned down tomorrow, and that even those things wouldn’t make or break my life. A couple of  pieces of family jewellery passed down to me. That’s it – the grand sum of the objects in this home that would truly make me sad to lose.

It hit me square between the eyes. It’s something I’ve believed in for sometime, and something we definitely practice in our house…to a degree. Leith and I both decided awhile ago that we’d rather spend our immediate extra money on experiences like family swimming, or annual holidays. We didn’t want to spend our immediate money on things. Things are great, but they don’t last. Memories last forever.

We’ve been putting it into practice over Christmas and birthdays. We try to tell people not to get the bugz much, and our personal requests are limited to things that are immediately useful. Case in point: my mom gave me a label maker for Christmas this year, and I’ve used it almost every week since then!

BUT.

There are years of STUFF piled up in our house. Years of clothes that still fit, and are still in good shape, but are never worn. Closets of jackets and hoodies in the basement. Boxes of miscellaneous junk that was never unpacked when we moved TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO. Obviously, not important in our lives.

There are boxes of papers. Soooooo many papers. Manuals from gadgets we no longer own. Bank statements from 4 years ago. Notes from school. Just in case.

There are board books and toddler toys that get played with and looked at, but that we’ve actually outgrown and DON’T need. There are stuffed animals that need to be corralled…

CDs that might get listened to again. VHS tapes. V-freaking-HS tapes. We don’t have a VCR. Do you even know what a VCR is?? Do they even still make them??

There is so. much. junk.

It’s not hoarded. It’s just there. Hiding behind closet doors and in cardboard boxes. And it has to go.

So this weekend, when the bugz are visiting their grandparents and Leith is working, I am going to DECLUTTER ALL THE THINGS.

Ruthlessly. I have a one-ton truck that we use for garbage dump runs, and I hope that it’s full. I hope that my trunk is full of to-donate bags and boxes of clothes and toys, CDs and VHS tapes.

I want it all gone.

I don’t want to open a drawer and see 30 pairs of pyjamas for two 4-year olds.

I don’t want to fold clothes for 6 hours because we can last 2 weeks without doing laundry.

I don’t want to hide from my office.

I don’t want to feel suffocated by THINGS anymore. I want less so that I can feel more.

So while I prepare, I ask you this: What are your favourite organization/de-cluttering tips and tricks? What do you absolutely keep versus absolutely toss? Do you have too much STUFF?

No beans!!

There are two things in this world that I absolutely will not do:

1. Buy no-name Q-tips.
2. Put baked beans in chilli

Fake q-tips are like pipe cleaners. Baked-bean chilli is like campfire sludge. Use of either is wrong and punishable in my household.

Yet tonight, I put baked beans in my chilli. I’m disgusted, disappointed, and dejected by this. I had the meat cooking, the tomatoes and corn simmering, and the pantry drawer pulled open to discover…no beans.

Not a bean in the house.

Not kidneys, or garbanzos, or blacks. Not even a dried navy bean in the cupboard.

No beans, except for a couple of cans of baked beans with pork and molasses.

Sigh…

Now, on their own (and occasionally with a few cut-up hotdogs 😉 ) I really like baked beans. But there are just some things that are not allowed in chilli. One is mushrooms, especially canned, sliced mushrooms. The other?

Baked beans.

Nothing makes a hearty, spicy, flavourful chilli boring and mushy like some good ol’ baked beans.

Nothing screams, “CAMPFIRE! SMOKE! PEEING IN THE WOODS!” like baked beans.

Nothing cries, “LUNCHLADY HAMBURGER HELPER SPECIAL OF THE DAY!!” like baked beans.

Nothing makes my seriously awesome chilli more shameful than baked beans.

And there you have it.

Baked beans in my chilli. I did it. And I’m not proud.

Starving my wallet

We’ve worked really hard in the past year to get rid of our debt as a family. Of course, by “we”, I mostly mean Leith. I did my part by working full-time for most of 2011, but it was his hard work that really put us past the months of stretching ends to make them meet and catapulted us into a lifestyle where I can stay home with our girls every day.

And thank goodness we did, because in the last week, we were dealt two big blows:

1. Our income tax shifted from a perpetual return every year to us owing an astronomical amount. Like, $625/month for a year kind of astronomical. Eek!
2. Hubz’ office girl misplaced half his time sheets, right before month-end. Right before ALL our bills are scheduled to come out. Yes, we’ll get it on the next paycheque. In the middle of May. After everything is due… Gulp.

Needless to say, those two events have caused some mini-heart attacks. Okay, some MAJOR heart attacks…but the good news is, we are one of the lucky families who will be able to ride this out without too much struggle.

The new monthly, ahem, fee in our life means that our winter holiday in 2013 will have to come from overtime instead of our guaranteed salary. I’m okay with that, and so is Leith. A vacation is a reward for hard work, and he always works long hours in the summer. Most years, those extra hours have gone to debt. This year, they’ll go to fun. That’s worth it 🙂

The month-end stuff though?? That still terrifies me. I’m staring at my bank account, which is skimming the “it’s okay” line by about $50 extra, as long as I spend absolutely nothing from now until May 11.

That’s a long time. Like, a really long time. It’s the kind of long time that has me grateful that the dance season is over, because it means that the only have-to driving we have each week is to swimming lessons on Thursdays.

Thus, the diet.

Instead of cutting back on food, we are cutting back on money. We are spending nothing but the following for the next 3 weeks:

• Fuel for my car.
• Physiotherapy once a week
• As little food as possible
• One gift 😉

That’s it, that’s all. $265 a week for everything we need, tops. Everything else has to wait. Our food bill has been slashed in half, which is scary when you have to buy tons of produce and whole food for our celiac/gluten-free diets. No cheap junk! But the beauty is that I am not sacrificing anything we need: our bills are paid for, our insurance is paid for, our savings accounts will still get their weekly top-up. Our mortgage is paid, on both our home and our rental property. And on May 11, we will get 1.5 paycheques. And we will be fine.

This was a huuuuge wake-up call to the amount of money we waste every week. Little things, like coffee dates and lunches out, won’t happen. Even planned purchases will have to wait – I was so excited to buy new underwear this weekend for the first time in 18 months!! But I’ll survive…as long as I’m not in a car accident 🙂

It’s both bizarre and refreshing to be on this side of making ends meet, where things will be tight but it won’t be a monthly cycle of never-enough. This is the first time in our marriage where we’ve been able to sail through a rough patch without lasting panic. It’s a small dip, instead of a roller coaster, and I am SO okay with that.

Now all I need is the strength to say NO to my wallet for the next 3 weeks…and that will be a triumph of its own!! So here’s YOUR challenge:

• Those of you who know me in real life need to keep me accountable to this. You can be a jerk, if necessary. But be a nice jerk. And bribe me with sparkly things, if you’d like…
• Those of you who won’t see me before May 11 can harass me gently via social media, or by giving me your tips and tricks in the comments for this post.

Who knows? Maybe this will be a huge shift in our spending habits. It will be a good exercise for sure – we will be flexing our restraint muscles like never before!

Counting up

Sooo…April was kind of a bust in a lot of habit-keeping areas. One thing that fell by the wayside was counting my gifts. So while this list is short, with a lot missing in the middle, rest assured that I did not miss any of my gifts in the past 4 weeks. I just neglected to write them down 😉

248. Silly wisps of fog being chased away by the morning sun

249. Fluffy yellow dresses

250. Excellent customer service, via social media

251. A fresh, clean house

252. Measuring cups and spoons that click together!

253. This moment

254. A lunch bag full of healthy snacks for us

255. Flourless chocolate cookies

256. Quiet snuggles and Gravol

257. Sunshine and no jackets!!

258. Seeds planted, and waiting for the ground to thaw

259. Fuzzy soft puppy ears

260. Earth Day: celebrating the world around us

261. A return to bikram yoga…and surviving

262. Less pain than expected after a 15km run

263. When they sneak into our bed to snuggle

264. Playing for hours in the sunshine

265. Seeing friends, talking to friends, feeling love everywhere

266. Surprise visits from my parents

267. Freshly tilled earth

268. Their bathtub giggles

269. Good, real, healthy food for us, every day

270. +20 degree weather in the still-early spring

271. The chi weenie frolicking in the fresh air

272. A strong body, for running, yoga, yard work, playtime

273. Swinging in the sunshine

Dissecting The Shred

I have a confession to make: for several years, I have had this bizarre urge to try The 30-Day Shred.

It’s not what you think, though. I can’t stand The Biggest Loser. I can’t stand the extreme measures they take with people, and the way they pit them against the scale. Forcing people to starvation and injury is NOT a responsible way to train people, regardless of how overweight and out of shape they are.

Then there are the trainers’ personalities. Screaming, yelling, demeaning. Embarrassing.

So when Jillian Michaels’ 30-Day Shred came out, I rolled my eyes. Another celebrity trainer cashing in on their fame at the expense of the public’s health and wellness…sigh. But the popularity has intrigued me – why are people drawn to it? Why do they keep coming back, despite the voracious hatred they spew when they mention it? What’s the catch?

Fast-forward to today. I finally gave in, for two reasons:

1. I need some strength training to compliment my running, and I’m too lazy and uncreative to set my own workouts right now…and I need batteries for my Gymboss timer…
2. I wanted to do a somewhat professional critique of the actual program.

So here we are. And after two days, here’s what I have to say:

The Good:

I love the style of the workouts. They are very similar to what I would do with a client – compound exercises, full body workout, minimal equipment (one pair of 5lb dumbbells), etc. It’s circuit training, home-style. Most of my major movement patterns and muscle groups are covered in Level One.

I love the time commitment. If I’m going to do something for 30 days straight, it has to be short. 20 minutes is great. Get in, get done. Because of the exercise choices and combinations, it’s efficient. Plus, I run or walk every day. I don’t want a program that cuts into that time. My time is valuable.

And that’s about it.

The Bad:

Where do I start? Ohhhh, where do I start??

1. “I have 400lb clients who can do jumping jacks, so you can too.” Um, no Jillian. You irresponsibly give 400lb clients jumping jacks without modification. That being said, if you are morbidly obese, I would suggest a real-life trainer over a DVD as due diligence to your health. This can be a beginner workout, if you have some level of fitness already. It is NOT a square-one starting point. Bad.
2. “The reverse crunch really works your transverse abs.” No, Jillian, it doesn’t. In theory, maybe it does a little. But for most people, it will just be another activation of their rectus abdominis (6-pack), which further exacerbates our hunched-desk posture and causes incontinence. So while it will make your abs look pretty, don’t fool yourself into thinking it will flatten your tummy.
3. Jillian, your demonstration form is horrible. From your wobbly lunges, to never fully extending your elbows in your bicep curls. Your models are pretty decent; maybe that’s why you spend more time talking about what they’re doing, instead of demonstrating yourself.
4. The corrections come too late. Important alignment cues come during the 2nd set, after we’ve spent the first set doing them dangerously wrong. This alone makes me want to call her up and ask what back alley she got her training from…or ask her producer why they didn’t storyboard a little more before filming…
5. The tone. The demeaning, demanding, low-voice, threatening approach made me ECSTATIC…when I muted the video this morning in favour of my iPod. No encouragement – just “do this, or you’ll be fat and lazy forever.” Okay, she doesn’t actually say that…but it seems that way, and I am a confident, educated trainer. If I get that tone but can see past it, what does it do to the self-esteem and self-efficacy of a regular person trying to make a change? It’s going to make them push themselves too hard and get hurt, or it’s going to make them give up because they can’t live up to the expectation in the video.
6. The cool down is a joke. First of all, it’s too short. Second, the static stretches aren’t held long enough. Third, they’re done with horrible form, so they lose all purpose and effect. Finally, the only stretches are a wide-leg seated stretch (which is difficult for most people – even Jillian!!), a couple of poorly demonstrated chest/shoulder stretches, and a BADLY demonstrated quad stretch. The big FAIL at the end of it all. I shake my head…

All in all?

Great exercise choices for someone who has a decent level of fitness, some body awareness, and is just looking for some at-home inspiration.

But if this is your first foray into fitness? Do yourself a favour: hire a trainer for even just one session, or head to a fun group exercise class. Go somewhere where you can interact with the trainer, and where you feel comfortable asking for modifications to suit YOUR needs.

That, my friends, is why a huge client roster means NOTHING when you’re looking for a great trainer. Education, approachability, flexibility, and personality are far more important, both for your body and your bank account.

Will I keep doing my 30 days? Absolutely. I can handle it, and it gives me some structure. But I will absolutely keep her on mute, and I will ABSOLUTELY ignore her bad form so I don’t go crazy.

 

{run}

The sun has just dropped below the tree tops, but hasn’t sunk below the horizon yet. There is still a sharp sting of springtime snow in the air, but all I need is a light jacket.

Every so often, the rustle of a bird nesting.

Adele coaxes me on, sounds rolling in the deep from my pocket. No earphones tonight. I want to be present.

The gravel crunches under my shoes while the blue Alberta sky fades into a dusky springtime twilight. My stride lengthens as I crest a hill, smoothly transitioning back to a comfortable pace.

My body works, but doesn’t burn. It surrenders to movement and ebbs and flows with the world around me. Up onto the asphalt, down into the dry, sandy quad tracks in the ditch below.

Four deep brown eyes watch me from the stillness of the trees. Suddenly, white tails flash and they are keeping pace with me for 20, 30, 50 metres. Silly human. Gone, back into the underbrush with a grace I could only hope to have.

A few more miles, breathing gently and full of peace.

A sign tonight that, no matter what happens in this world, no matter how many problems arise, no matter how many battles we fight:

I can always run.

UNconnected

I love living in the country, but I HATE our rural internet provider.

I pay top-dollar for our connection, and it’s shoddy at best. I am always slack-jawed when I visit my parents, and pages load at the snap of my fingers. But the worst is when we try to use our Apple TV.

This is what I wanted to do today:

1. Get up
2. Use my Apple TV to home-share my already downloaded copy of Jillian Michaels’ 30-Day Shred
3. Maybe have time to run before the bugs get up

This is what I DID do today:

1. Got up
2. Screwed around with the Apple TV, reset our internet connection twice, started waiting 21 minutes for a 29-minute show (that was already downloaded!!) to load
3. Screwed around more while the Apple TV screen froze, rebooted everything, commenced waiting another 21 minutes, decided to start my run instead
4. Had the Apple TV say that The Shred was loaded, start workout, have it switch to “buffering” after the first 3 minutes
5. Started my run over again while the stupid show “buffered”. Seriously, is there any word more visibly annoying than buffering???
6. Had my kids wake up, thus interrupting all running and working out

I know you may be thinking, “Why doesn’t the personal trainer just do her own workouts? Why did she spend $9.99 on the DVD of a person she cannot stand??”

While those are very good questions (answer: I’m too lazy right now, I want to be spoon-fed instead of creative…), the more important question is this:

IF I’VE ALREADY DOWNLOADED A TV SHOW, SHOULDN’T I JUST BE ABLE TO WATCH IT??? And even if it does stream, why is it that I can stream Netflix easily, but NOTHING on my Apple TV will stream??

Why? Why, for the love of the internet-gods, why??

Why am I spending $65/month on internet that shuts downs 2+ times a day and can’t stream a tv show, let alone a movie rental?

And why is this even important? It’s not. It’s just that I really, really, REALLY was looking forward to doing this this morning, and instead I got to experience a touch of rage and 3 minutes of pushups/squats/shoulder presses.

And now I am sad 😦

 

**quick edit: Let me also add that I out-geniused myself and though, “Hey! I’ll just play it on my iPad/iPhone!” …which was great, until I discovered for some reason that all my playlists are empty thanks to “home sharing”. Thank goodness I found that out before I was standing backstage at a dance competition tomorrow night!!

Wishes

I wish that

…I had more time to blog here and here, and even right here
…my new treadmill would arrive sooner than next week
…I hadn’t eaten so much gluten-y junk this past weekend, because I’m paying for it dearly!
…the chiweenie pup cared more about housebreaking, instead of breaking my house…
…my kids would wake up covered in magical good-behaviour/quiet-voice dust!!
…I had time to Zumba with my favorite people, and spend more zen time at my Bikram home
…someone would please come and rescue me from laundry purgatory, aka, our guest bedroom
…I was actually asleep right now, as much as I love being awake 😉

But really? All that is minor in light of everything I truly have in my life. For fun’s sake, though: what do you wish for tonight??