From There to Here

Posted on January 23, 2012 by sandi

I got started at making my way in the world at the tender age of 18. I moved to Europe to attend school and ended up working at a ski-camp for a semester. Then joined by my new friends I backpacked through the Middle East and Europe. I came home, moved into an apartment and worked as a waitress. My goal? To save enough cash to support myself as a volunteer in overseas missions.

Long story short, I met my man and everything changed.

Within a short time we were considering what “…as long as we both shall live” could mean and the conclusions we drew lead to decades of building, collecting, committing, investing, reproducing, parenting, educating, home owning, loan-paying, and so on. For the next 25+ years our focus on growing and gaining positioned us as keepers of a large home, the possessors of interesting and lovely things, the happy recipients of years of memories and echoey hallways and empty bedrooms.

Through a series of circumstances beyond our control, re-evaluation pressed upon us and consideration “…for richer, for poorer” needed re-addressing.

Three years passed and here we are, down-sized, de-cluttered, living light and loving it! We went from this

to this

 

and haven’t looked back. Well not much, anyway. Do we miss our old lives? Yes, sometimes. Do we have regrets? Nope. In the current economy when investment losses mount and people who haven’t been forced to, don’t know how to live more simply, the prospect for these, our dear friends, is scary. I understand. We would be there too if we hadn’t been forced here.

Be brave, friends. We have found God faithful in provisioning our needs. Letting go is a process. The best part is that living true to our values creates a freedom and sense of peace that is worth far and above the heap of trinkets we took to recycling.

Posted in Faith, Family, Home, Musings | Leave a comment

Becoming Family

Posted on January 22, 2012 by sandi

Weddings are pretty special in anyone’s books. Our family directly participated in three within four years, which is a lot, and added to it was the inevitable emotional letting go while one more offspring launched into a family of his or her own. However, the palpable loss was compensated for by the great gain we made in adding three endearing young adults to our family. Each one bringing personality, gifts, perspective and experience that continues to broaden and bless us.

I want you to meet them.

Marc is Amanda’s husband and the father of our wee Gabrielle. He is an outdoors man with an incredible memory for facts – our human encyclopedia and more. His cooking skills are second to none and he even cleans up after himself! These are some of his great qualities but I think the thing I appreciate about him most is his love and care for our daughter and granddaughter.

Siobhan is married to our son James. She is every bit his intellectual equal and keeps us all on our toes with her clever come-backs. She is most gentle and kind, loves the domestic side of life and everything she touches: canning, crocheting, yoghurt and perogie-making, turns to yumminess. “Delightful” is the way I most often describe her and I love her like my own daughter.

Andrea is married to our youngest son, Brendan. Last Christmas Marc took the family into the woods for target practice and Andrea represented the female contingent of the clan. Her shooting skills did us proud and are a token indication of her athleticism, her determination and strength as a woman in her own right. She expresses her individuality with femininity and class. Her sweetness, smarts and sense of humour as well as her love for the outdoors and travel are a good match for Brendan. I also love her like my own daughter.

The gradual process of adding family members has been an adjustment as the family dynamic changes and our children shift our intimate conversations to include someone new to us.

Then there is the new title and role as mother-in-law, which sounded too much at first like step-mother and brought to mind images of fairy tales and Disney movies where the only actions of such persons were evil. Someone asked me not long ago if I viewed my daughters-in-law as competition. I honestly have never thought that. From the beginning I celebrated my daughter’s husband and each son’s wife for more than what they brought but for who they are: the essence of joy and love, maturity and companionship, gentleness and beauty.

Along with my own children, these are the people whose names are first on my breath each morning. They are first in my thoughts when the weather turns. They are first in my heart when life gets tough. They are the first item of praise when I count my blessings.

Children-in-law, surely you know, we feel entirely and completely blessed to call you family.

Posted in Family | 6 Comments

A Challenging Course

Posted on January 19, 2012 by sandi

We moved to Malibu in 2008 because Gord landed a job in the maintenance department of this up-scale Young Life camp. Let’s be honest, what YL camp isn’t up-scale? Anyway, we arrived in the fall by boat and worked all winter fixing, plumbing, moving furniture, shovelling snow (and there was a lot that year, if you recall) from boardwalks, decks and roofs. The pipes froze, then unfroze with sewage midway, exploding into dorm bathrooms. The only raw sewage I had encountered until that point, other than my own, was my children’s and let me say, that love makes a lot of difference when it comes to sewage.

We worked hard, soaked up the beauty, played around in boats and looked forward to spring when things kicked into high gear.

It became clear sometime in April that a key staff position was as yet unfilled so my dear husband found himself the Challenge Course Manager. For outdoor enthusiasts who love climbing it would have been a dream-come-true. For my acrophobic man, this turn of events was looking like a resignation. I’m proud to say he hung in there and, with the essential help of two amazing interns, set-up, maintained, repaired, tested, and disassembled the course from spring to the end of summer.

Part of the process involved a trip to a YL camp in Oregon for certification. During training, another wife and I were asked to participate so the trainees could practice on us. My part was to climb the Pamper Pole, so named because it is reputed to be terrifying enough that jumpers needed Pampers to stay dry while jumping. The pole stands 50 ft high with a 1 ft by 3 ft platform on top. I was to climb the pole, pull myself into a standing position and jump. The anticipated action went against everything I had been taught about safety, self-preservation and high places.

I jumped, didn’t need Pampers and it was just fine. Glad to be of help.

Our Malibu experience challenged us in many ways and I would like to say it was good for us. Maybe it was and I just can’t see it yet. It’s difficult to know when you do something unusual, how it will turn out. Often I don’t have a clear sense of the impact until long after the event. Malibu is like that for me. I am beginning to accept it’s something I will never know.

From my Pamper Pole climb and jump I gained a real sense of accomplishment.

Maybe that’s enough.

 

Posted in Fitness, Musings, Outdoors, Travel | 3 Comments

To the Moon

Posted on January 17, 2012 by sandi

When I was 9, I remember a warm summer evening sitting crossed-legged on my living room floor with my sister, absolutely glued to our old black and white TV set. I also remember it was my dad’s excitement that trumped the routine and allowed us to stay up past our 8:00 bedtime. The date? July 20th, 1969 and Neil Armstrong was about to take a small step that forever justified humankind’s ambition for exploration.

The DVD series entitled, The Moon is filling our evenings of late as we hunker down for snow. I find myself caught in the wonder of it all. As a person of faith, I believe in grace; the grace I receive to love those around me, the grace to respond to God’s promptings and will, the grace in order to choose well toward the hope of living one day with my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. The grace I don’t often consider is the grace that keeps me breathing, regulates my temperature, keeps my feet on the ground, and provides me with food and water. The Moon series brings the latter grace to the fore. One cannot help but be humbled and I catch myself wondering at our collective hubris when we think these gifts are our right. Or worse, we don’t think much about them at all.

As we consider the hope of travel in the months ahead and find ourselves re-thinking the money it costs, the time it takes, the distance from loved ones it creates, we are also reminded that for no other reason than a longing to explore do we invest in such travel. Maybe it’s not a lucrative investment when you consider the return – especially if my memory fails in years to come – but I believe it reflects the true us. If you think my thoughts odd, I’m okay with that. Those guys who went to the moon were a pretty peculiar bunch too.

Posted in Community, Faith, Musings, Travel | Leave a comment

Soapbox on Packing Light

Posted on January 16, 2012 by sandi

Have you ever noticed that when you embark on something new a plethora of advice finds its way to your wide open ears? At no time has this been more clear than when we became parents. If I had a dollar for every piece of advice we received, I could have dressed my kids in Gucci and Armani.

We are lugging around a weighty grocery bag of travel books of late as we prepare for 2 months abroad and each one has an entire section on packing. Writers talk about the climate, modes of transport, “casual but tidy” dress decorum for each culture of the half dozen or so countries we plan to visit. Our travel experience highly motivates us to keep our packed belongings to a minimum because not doing so means more laundry, limiting carry-on convenience, the expense of paying someone to help and as we are aging (uh hem) – potential injury.

Motivation to pack light also derives from painfully observing over-burdened travellers who drag half of their possessions around like an elephant-juggling circus act.

The history of the word baggage may be derived from the verb baguer, which means to “tie up” according to the Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories. Extra baggage does tie one up. Every time we travel, we travel lighter because there are always – and I mean always – things we don’t use. If I plan to invest a good portion of our earnings and time on a trip we have expended months in planning, it’s crazy to make our lives more difficult by over-packing.

You may be thinking, “boy, she sure goes on about this stuff” and you are right. I’m off my soapbox with little more than a handbag and it feels great!

Posted in Holidays, Musings, Travel | 2 Comments

What’s in a Name?

Posted on January 15, 2012 by sandi

One of the most difficult things I have had to do in my lifetime is name my children. Our firstborn was without her name for her entire first month. When I considered that my children would become identified by their names, along with our last name which is another story altogether, the decision seemed all the more daunting.

When people ask me about my last name, which is Smoker, I like to one-up them by telling them that my husband’s aunt was Constance Smoker, and his uncle was Ernest Smoker. Our helpful friends had all kinds of suggestions when I was expecting our babies. Names like Pipe, Non, and Pot. Uh huh, as if.

Our son’s name is James, which is a name I have always loved. We thought it was a safe name as far as teasing or misspelling or mis-hearing but when he was in college the other students misheard his name during role call. One day, a friend asked him why the teacher kept calling him “Chain Smoker”. I guess James Smoker sounds a little like chain smoker. Anyway, you can’t think of all eventualities when it comes to naming.

My friend is 10 weeks pregnant and when I spoke with her the other day, she said her future baby’s name needed to feel right in her mouth. That makes sense to me. It’s one of the words she is going to say with great frequency and it has to feel right in all kinds of emotional circumstances. Giving the choice the consideration it deserves requires time, patience and respect for the one who will bear it. It’s the first of many decisions a parent makes for her child of which the child bears the brunt or blessing. As if the sound of the name isn’t enough to wrestle over, there’s the importance of its meaning. No wonder the decision feels weighty!

What’s remarkable to me is that some people become the meaning of their name. My name means “helper of mankind”. Helping is something I love and is a major part of who I am. My name has become my identity as well as what I am called by.

My husband’s name, on the other hand, means “nobby hill”. I’m not sure what to make of that. It’s a good thing I like the sound of it. He likes the name Sam. It means, “His name is God”. His name is actually Gord, which is awfully close to God. Hmmm. Maybe it’s a good thing he’s not Sam. I have enough trouble with my inferiority complex!

Posted in Creativity, Family, Musings | Leave a comment

Knit Night

Posted on January 13, 2012 by sandi

For years I tried and failed to acquire the fibre art skill of knitting. That was until last October when my daughter came to stay. Her needles, her yarn, and her prodding – at my pleadings – provided me with three dishclothes in increasing levels of improvement. I was hooked!

I quickly progressed to knitting-in-the-round and produced two adorable baby toques, one of which was cute enough to give as a Christmas gift to a lovely little lady named Hannah.

I find it odd about myself that whenever I get into something, I like to join a group. I’m not sure why that is but the pattern is well established by now and so when Amanda talked about Pender Island’s Knit Night, I added it to my Pender Island “must-do” list.

Last night was Knit Night and at the generous invitation of the girls, I went.

There is something reminiscent of the era of romance when women gather in a home to drink tea, catch up on news and work with their hands. If you have seen the movie, “Midnight in Paris”, you will appreciate the reference I make to the goldenness of times past. The movie makes the point that days present may seem tarnished in comparison to, say, the 1920’s or 1940’s but here is where we live if we choose to really live here.

Anyway, Knit Night and the cognitive remains of a Hollywood fim reminded me, this day, to live in the present.

Who would have thought it of Knit Night?

Posted in Community, Creativity, knitting | 3 Comments

Who Owns Who

Posted on January 11, 2012 by sandi

Apparently, dogs are all about dominance, so my daughter tells me. I have little experience with dogs as pets and have often thought it would be fun to own one. I have names picked out, like Chester, Schroeder, Grover and my favourite; Charlie. Some things I know about dogs are that they like to play fetch, chase after deer and rabbits and sometimes cats; they go into ecstatic convulsions when the owner comes home and they provide satisfying companionship.

As I have mentioned, we are house sitting a dog and her two cats. The dog does all of the above things that I expected of her and much more. She needs a lot of patting, gets constipated, eats grass and throws up, misbehaves by laying on the leather couch, not coming when she’s called and eating whatever happens to be lying on the ground as she trots by.

A dog is like a 2 year old that never grows up.

Maybe you are considering buying a dog or maybe someone wants you to take theirs from them, as my nephew did. His parents are now the owners of a busy little beagle named Bailey. My brother and sister-in-law seem to be enjoying the experience even with the downside of pet ownership. They don’t mind the expense, the clean-up or the fact that they now talk like smitten-dog-owners.

Of course, the decision is yours but if I may make a recommendation. Why not give the experience a trial-run? Look after someone else’s dog and see what you think. It has worked wonders for us and although I have learned it is unwise to say, “never”, I venture a guess that I will never be a dog owner because I think it’s far too easy for the dog to own the owner. I am the eldest of three sisters and I am far too attached to my subtle role of dominance to hand it over to a dog.

Posted in Musings | 2 Comments

The No Fun Tree

Posted on January 7, 2012 by sandi

In an attempt at eco-responsibility we decided last year to invest in an artificial tree from Costco. It came with its own lights already entwined on every bow. We bought early to avoid the rush, assembled and decorated it for Dec. 1. Guests commented on how real it looked and how the only thing missing was the lovely pine fragrance. It was lovely until December 23 when the lights quit working, just in time for the big day. Gord and our son, Brendan, strung working lights over the non-working lights and jury-rigged it so no one could tell. Needless to say we took the tree back after Christmas, which looked suspicious but had to be done.

This year, we did the same thing. Bought the tree and set it up for December 1. Exactly one week before Christmas the lights died. We didn’t string new lights this time. We left the thing dark and Gord named it the No Fun Tree. Today I undecorated it, tomorrow we will take it apart and once again, take it back to Costco. If we thought last year looked suspicious, it is nothing compared to this year. I wonder if Costco keeps records of people who return things. Why is it that guilt persists even when I have done nothing to earn it?

I don’t have to buy another tree of the same until next year but we are seriously considering other options. Tonight, however, with our No Fun Tree still standing tall and dark in our barenaked living room we reminice on the old days when real trees were the most fun trees. But in my experience, artificial or real, guilt is sure.

Posted in Holidays, Home, Musings | 2 Comments

A Day with Gabrielle

Posted on January 4, 2012 by sandi

Posted in Family, Grandparenting | 4 Comments