"No Thanks"

I had a feeling I might be getting an iPad for Christmas.

Once I found my suspicions were correct I said "No Thanks".

Once again leaving me with the dubious reputation of "worst person in the world to buy a gift for"
and a very perplexed spouse.

I did actually, at one time, think and iPad WAS what I wanted.  And as my eye sight deteriorates a larger screen seems advantageous.

But here's the thing..... having an iPad worries me.

I am already far too attached to my iPhone. 

Far too attached.

As much as I would use an iPad, would enjoy an iPad for many things I think I have proved to myself that I cannot be trusted not to cede far too many hours to that iPad.

So I have said "no, thank you"

Leaving my family in despair.

"What now?" they ask....."Where is your list?"

I honestly have given these questions a lot of thought.  

It's only fair if I decline their big idea that I at least make an attempt to come up with an alternative.

But as soon as I start my conscience kicks in..... I really want for nothing.....sitting here in my warm and cozy living room.....

It doesn't help to imagine that money is no object because it is.... it's a constraint and I want to be wise.

I am sure I could be more stylish but asking a husband to buy clothes brings on hives and he knows me well enough to know if he gives me cash or a gift card I will likely spend it on others.

And this is the massive contradiction I find myself in.

I love buying for others and yet I am totally lousy at knowing what I want to receive.

My joy is more in watching others open their gifts than in opening mine.

I know that makes me a royal pain in the patoot for those wanting to demonstrate their love in a tangible way, who also want to see my joy.

This year has taught me so much about appreciating the small things,  the little gestures, the quiet moments... to appreciate what I already have, to be settled in my heart, not longing for more of anything.

So my apologies to my family.....for being useless at a gift list....remember this....there is always coffee....and books - I love books.....

Maybe this is a guide that would work for me?

Do any of you have trouble with gift lists?

23

This time last year we "Celebrated" our 22 wedding anniversary in London's Heathrow airport between two veeeery long flights and with one very sick husband.

In fact directly after our airport pub lunch we loaded him up with some cold meds and found some valuable real estate on a day the whole of the UK's air traffic control system went down and half the world it seemed was stuck at Heathrow.......the boys napped while Lindsay and I shopped Terminal 5.  

Tres Romantic!

As if the day could get any more thrilling we made good use of our air ticket investment with high class drinks with "dinner" on British Airways.  Cheers to us.

While we were in South Africa my amazing sister-in-law organised THIS Amazing Race to show off our town to the kids and take Allan and I down memory lane..... which brought us here....

Worlds View - a beautiful spot overlooking the sleepy valley of our old home town, Pietermaritzburg!  

Not JUST a lovely view point but also site of our first date (after the drive-in movie we came here to see the City lights...uh huh....yup....).

So of course, despite being in a madly competitive race Allan and I took a moment to remember our first visit here.....almost exactly 24 years earlier.  

Having the entire extended family watching and knowing "someone" was pointing a camera at us......we kept it decent!

TBH there is evidence of an actual smooch thanks to the lovely photos my sister-in-law sent us this week but it's NOT going on the interweb mainly to save our children from further trauma.

Allan was mortally offended when I suggested the kiss may have actually been a delaying tactic to try and get the boys team ahead in the Race and insists it was to celebrate our love!  

I'll believe his story.....mainly because the girls team won anyway 

(with a Byres at the wheel there was little doubt about that).

Which brings us to today...... almost 23 years after we said "I do" on December 7th, 1991

We are celebrating in luxurious fashion at a beautiful oceanfront hotel.

Alone.

With good food and wine.

It is one more memory in a marriage spent trying to figure out how to do life together in a way that honours each of us, that calls out the best each of us has to offer the other and our family, that holds onto vows even when they ring hollow, that perseveres and chooses love day after day after day.

It's a moment to reflect and rejoice that we are still together.

And Happy.

And in Love.

A fact that is miraculous to us and held very gently and tenderly for we know the fragility of that gift we have been given.

Allan Byres......I love you.

TBT....... one year ago......

A truly throwback Thursday for me, for our family, as we contemplate that one year ago today our bags were packed, our freezer and fridge near empty.....

We were less than 48 hours away from and ready for our great adventure to South Africa.

In many ways we were well prepared.  

As nervous as I was a year ago about all the details of the trip, almost every one of them turned out exactly as planned or better.....giving credence to the notion that planning pays off.

We had prepared the kids as best we could, as best as one can prepare a person for a new experience that will be so vastly different from anything they have ever done.

In many other ways, ways we could not have really predicted, we were not ready.  

Mostly in emotional ways.  

I was unprepared for the flood of tears and the deep sense of relief I felt at my first glimpse of Table Mountain through the airplane window on descent into Cape Town.  

I so carefully thought through those first few hours on the ground. 

Knowing we would be travel weary after 36 hours en route and jet lagged and 8 hours before we could check in to our accommodation, I had a plan.  I wanted to avoid as much stress as possible, I wanted a breathtaking moment.  

I really prayed for those few hours.


We touched down in perfect weather.  A small blip as the car we rented didn't work out but we were soon on our way.  

And in just a few minutes we pulled over and into a parking lot - ripped off our runners and rolled up our pants and stepped onto the soft white sand of Africa....South Africa....and across the bay as clear as day was the iconic Table Mountain.


No longer a google image, or a postcard or someone elses photo....we stood there and WE saw it....We were there!

It's hard to describe what was going on in our hearts and minds.  I took the photo of a pensive Lindsay (top right) and I recently asked her what she was thinking and feeling at that moment...she was quiet for a while and then she said "I don't really know".

I get that.  It was so much to take in.  Even now as I type this my throat is tight and my eyes are full.


I think those first few hours defined our trip in so many ways.  

We ate well (and so cheaply thanks to the Rand Dollar exchange)

We were so hot (thank goodness we has our summer clothes readily accessible)

We talked to family (that day by phone but soon in person)

We saw breathtaking views, big ocean, mountains, beaches.....

We were adventurer's together....we had time together

We were exhausted...these sorts of trips are incredible and amazing but tiring and Allan and Lindsay were sick a couple times.

We were "home" but not "home" .... a concept that became well settled for me but unsettled for others.

We were welcomed...warmly.....everywhere we went...

Later

We renewed and reconnected with family and friends....and we remain so deeply grateful for the love we were shown, the time people gave us, the hospitality, the generosity....

Family is family forever and connections run deep, cousins connected, the Byres Clan so beautifully together.  

Friends are the family you get to choose and wow are we so lucky to have so many wonderful ones in SA.

We fulfilled so many dreams - we rode elephants, surfed with Great Whites, watched penguins be penguins, stood on the very tip of Africa, rode Ostriches, cuddled Lemurs and cheetah babies, learned Zulu dancing, sang Asimbonanga over and over again, encountered the history of South Africa in new ways, walked mountain paths and long flat beaches....

I can't say for sure what exactly happened in each of our hearts but this I know.... it changed us... there was healing, there was confusion, there was joy and excitement, there was identification and connection.

I wish it wasn't so far away.....I wish we could do it again....but I am grateful beyond words we had that 4 weeks in the Beloved Country.

Until we meet again.....

God bless Africa,

Guard her people,

Guide her leaders,

And give her peace.

                               Trevor Huddleston

Let's get crack-a-lacking

For a while now ....and by a while I mean....since the summer.... I have been waking up at around 4am every morning with shooting pain down my left leg.

Nothing I do at that point does anything to ease the pain.

I have shifted position, stretched...... basically tried to ignore it.  Prayed I could fall asleep again.

It never bothered me any other time of day or night.

Of course I employed "the google" to self-diagnose (and mainly to find out if it was fatal).

I was pretty sure I knew what it was but I couldn't seem to determine, even through fairly dedicated research, what I was doing that made it better or worse.....too much sitting?  To much working out?

I had, by now, determined it did not seem to be an aggressive tumor in my body trying to kill me.

But after hearing for the umpteenth time about the pain in my leg my family pretty much insisted I either do something or shut the hell up about it.

Not being one to shut up....and by now pretty tired of the pain and the wakefulness I took myself off to the Chiropractor.

It has been a while since I saw a Chiro......several years in fact.

It's not that I don't like them, or that I worry every time they touch me they may paralyze me..... it's just that the whole deal seems a little "out there" at times.

She is a tiny but mighty Dr and everything she says makes sense to me it's just hard to buy that I can be in such terrible shape (thanks to her scans and analysis) and yet be functioning so well (except maybe at 4am for the last 6 months).....  She tells me my neck, my upper back, my pelvis and TA DA my sciatic nerve are a mess.... the latter confirming my google-assisted self-diagnosis!

She tells me its great I am working out but I need to manage my stress better, my nerves need to be freed from the iron grip my muscles have on them and my bones.

She talks about sleep and vitamins - she reminds me my body is a system and each part is connected to the other and when one is as jumbled up as I am, as misaligned in my whole spine, then other body systems will suffer.

I get it.  I get it.........theoretically.

And then we move to the table of torture  treatment table.  Where she proceeds to pound on me in all the most sore places I have.

I do a lot of wincing and "ouching" and grunting in pain and even though I can't see her I know she is shaking her head at the mess I have presented her with.

I do wonder in those moments how this much crunching me and thunking on me is going to make anything feel better.

And I wiggle my toes after every crack my neck or spine makes just to make sure nothing important has been severed!

She is soothing but serious about my need to commit to my health,   I hear her.  Funny how pain can make you quite attentive to information you may be skeptical about?

I continue to attend my twice weekly "adjustment" sessions and while my body is in need of several more sessions, my attitude towards my Chiropractor has been truly readjusted to one of gratitude for her skills.

And for sleeping right through 4am thanks to a realigned pelvis and a happy sciatic nerve!

Annual General Madness

Hmmm I don't think that's what AGM actually stands for although from the vantage point of my desk it can sure feel like that sometimes!

Annual General Meeting....... a meeting no one really wants to be at.....

At least that is how it feels most often.

You don't usually get a crowd jumping up and down at the thought of spending an evening at an AGM.

I have come to dread it myself.

So many hours of work to get ready.  So many papers to be assembled....minutes, financial reports, slates for the Board and the Parent Advisory Committee....... coffee and goodies to order and this year, in a first for our organisation....we had to find a venue!

We are THAT big now!

And yet today as I was editing and reading my report, that chronicles the ups and downs and twists and turns of the last year in the life of the SRCC, I found a new perspective on the dear old, much maligned AGM.

I imagined that if the SRCC were a baby, a child, then the entries in its baby book would be all the things we talk about at the AGM......that the AGM allows us time to stop, take a look at how we've grown and changed from year to year.....to remember the milestones we reached, laugh at some good memories and shudder a little at some missteps...... but without this moment, this meeting, we might never stop to contemplate and celebrate and take stock.

So I am embracing the AGM at 7pm at the Nature Park tomorrow night...... and looking forward to gathering our clan together and having a moment.....I promise it won't drag on....there will be chocolate......and coffee.

It also gives us time and public space to thank each person who plays a part in the work we do and on a day when our neighbours to the South are all about Thanksgiving it seems fitting that we do a bit of that ourselves.

Plus its a legal requirement and no one wants to have to post bail for the Board of Directors now do they?

Happy AGM day Society of Richmond Children's Centres......... It's been quite a year!

Also posted at www.richmondchildcare.org

Darling girl

This happened yesterday.

I watched my beautiful girl try on a prom dress.

Of course I knew this day was coming.....I knew I would be in a change room with beautiful gowns and my daughter trying on dresses this year.

But like many things in this parenting journey I just didn't know it was going to happen yesterday.

And despite desperately holding on to my outward composure my inner Mom was yelling "HOW did THIS happen?"

Too fast...... just too fast for my heart.

She walked out in that dress........ a beautiful gown that fitted perfectly.... my heart beat a little faster. I snapped some photos to distract from the tears in my eyes.

I wanted to say "Take it off" at the same time as "I'll buy it now"

I watched her looking at herself in that mirror.  I know she's looked at hundreds of dresses online already.  Many of her friends have their dresses already..... there is a whole instagram feed on this topic!  She took a selfie to share with friends for their opinion.

We lingered......we loved it but how wise is it to buy the first dress you try on?  What if there is something better out there?  What if there wasn't?

I saw the doubt in her eyes the longer she looked in that mirror.

We walked out without it.

And as the night went on she was happier and happier that she hadn't bought it.

And I was sadder and sadder about why not.

She wants a dress that makes her look thinner, that flatters her more......I get that....of course you want to look amazing at your Prom......but the message that thin is better, thin is the goal, the point of the dress is heart-breaking.

She looked amazing.  She IS amazing.

More than ever I wanted to hold her tight and tell her just to be true to herself.  To trust herself .  To know that she is beautiful not just in her mothers very biased eyes but in the eyes of so many.  I want to kick the world for its stupid messages that stop girls eating so they can conform to some unrealistic dress size....so that they despise parts of their bodies.

We had a long teary chat later last night where I tried to use my Mama voice to drown out those other lies.  Tried so hard to help her see herself as worthy and smart and beautiful and kind.  At 17 she is jaded and hurt by feeling she falls short on so many of the worlds standards.

Just like when she went off to child care, to kindergarten, to camp, to Grade 8......I have to let her find her way in the world, let her be exposed to who and what is out there, to hear messages I disagree with, despise, but I, we, do not have to let her do it feeling alone.

I WILL walk alongside her and speak the truth, stay close enough to catch her when she stumbles or falls, be enthusiastic and joyful when she is down, listen to her voice and her heart and her hurt, love her, hold on to her....we will laugh and cry..... together.

SO very soon she will be on her own, maybe next year, maybe in a couple of years....but for right now she has me, she has us.....you?

We will find the perfect dress - the dress that makes her feel amazing, on top of the world.....and with any luck she'll know it's just a dress, for just one night, and it DOES not define her.

My darling girl.....I love you to the moon and back.  All of you.  Always.

Challenged

I have been battling a cold all week and today I succumbed to my bed...... hacking away, listening to the radio.... while a big rainstorm raged outside......I needed the rest.

I won't bore you with the gong show of the week ..... and I wish I could say I have confidence that the week ahead will be less of a gong show but it's our AGM......and that is one of my least favourite events.

One great part of this week was that, despite a raging sore throat, I went with my dear friend SG to see Fleetwood Mac..... I knew about 6 of the songs they sang in the 3 hour concert and I think I was the youngest person there...... but I really enjoyed it.  They are rocking old people.....really amazing...very quirky but fun.

I was also nominated three times on FB to participate in various photo challenges but seeing how nutty my week was I am doing the challenges here - 7 photos of things that make me happy and 5 black and white photos.....

Here we go.......

Happy 1

Happy 2

Happy 3

Fun, Friends and Adventures

Happy 4

Happy 5

Happy 6

Happy 7

UGH - that was HARD........ I need 7 more.........or 70......

B&W 1

B&W 2

B&W 3

B&W 4

B&W 5

That was a fun couple hours trolling through old photos...... hard to believe it was almost a year ago that we left for South Africa..........

Off to take something to stop the hacking and get some rest.

Good Night.