Helpless and Hopeful

Sometimes life is simply beyond my control and out of my hands...

What seems like months ago, actually only 2 weeks, my Gram was admitted to the hospital. Three days prior to that she had already been to the emergency room with complaints of horrible back pain. They pumped her full of pain meds and let her on her way. Now my girlfriend who works in ER would probably encourage me to see the bigger picture before bashing the health care system in Leamington for not running further tests. Truthfully it's not because they wouldn't run further tests that I am peeved, it's because they never took the time to determine how out of the ordinary this scenario was for my Grandma.

She is 83, 84 on Monday, and very active. She walks, she drives, she moved OUT of a condo and into a townhouse last year so she could have a little yard to tend to if she wanted. She volunteers at the nursing home pushing people younger than her down the hallways to Bingo and to get their hair done. She goes out every Thursday to get her own hair done and watches hockey like it's her job! THIS was out of the norm for her, so I am pissed that she got treated as 'just another old person coming in with aches and pains'. Now perhaps my Gram made little fuss about this, blowing it off and hoping it would pass......it didn't. So what started off as horrible back pain spiraled fairly quickly into kidney failure, blood infections and the true source (likely) of everything INCLUDING the pain, an infected abscess on her spinal cord resulting in back surgery. Since then she's been on a road to recovery, laced with minor setbacks that are quickly taken care of.

Perhaps odd, and perhaps not, once they determined what the source of pain was and informed us they were going to operate on it, I felt totally at peace. She was in the hands of an extremely great neurosurgeon whose confidence and humility reminded me that sometimes it's just time to let go and let God. Some people were put on this earth to perform miraculous things and they come in all shapes, sizes, races and genders. They are skilled and the really good ones are also gifted ontop of that. When you go to a surgeon's website and they state that belief and prayer can far outweigh medication....whew....you've got someone who sees a much bigger picture! My kind of professional!

Prior to the surgery there were frequent visits to the part of my brain that said 'what if she doesn't make it through this?' but since then all I can think about is 'when will she get home' rather than 'will she get home'. Mind you, the road between here and there has it's own challenges. A very impatient and fed up woman who would, if she could, walk out the doors tomorrow, lays in a hospital bed every single day frustrated as hell. She has good days and bad days, today was rough. She has physio and she can walk, just not far. She is slowly building back her strength while endurance is another story. But it's hard to see her in her bed when she's unhappy. When she can't quite lay right or get comfy or she's restless or hungry because the hospital food tastes like crap (it really does....I tried it). The worst is when she dreads the night time. She says it's as if time stands still in those hours between dark and daylight.

It's funny because she was originally supposed to have a mastectomy on Nov 26...instead she had back surgery...makes me wonder whether she would have ever made it through had it all gone according to 'the plans' with all the other complications she encountered. But that, I will never know the answer too and I am ok not knowing the answer to that one because it is not an issue that is even on the table right now. My deepest hope and belief is that the cancer was just a manifestation of all the other shit and once this heals, perhaps it will be gone as well. I am grateful for the hospital teams and I am also grateful that I have alternative perspectives to provide myself and my family about the entire thing. Not that everyone listens all the time, yet I know it goes in there somewhere :)

I have learned that we all do things because we care and on the other side of that coin is a different kind of caring; a caring that says, I need to give all of this space, I need to give you space, I am not the person who can help you right now, but I will sit here in case I can. I say we because I have seen it every day for the last two weeks with family after family going through the intensive care unit. I can also say I because doing things is a way I show I care just the same as not doing things and just being is as well.

I am proud of myself for acting upon the important things in my life and for asking for support when I really needed it without hesitation and from the people I 'didn't want to bother'. Turns out that asking others to care, even just a little, can result in some powerful peace, gratitude and release.

Thank you ;)

Distressed - Life and DIY

I have had a lot of time off from work, which has been VERY welcome as I often spend months between cities and hotels. I recently repainted my room. The change in colour unleashed a streak of transromation both in my life and in my decor. Simplify. My room has gone from a modpodge of unkempt 'stuff' sheltered by orange/yellow walls to simple, soothing light purple and greyish white and a more monochromatic scheme of decor. Blacks, whites, small specs of coloured decor and tidiness. Everything has a place, if it doesn't, it's in a box under my bed! Truth be told, changing my environment has helped me shift my life as well. Simplify....no facebook!!!!! It's great! I have so much more time to putz around with DIY projects and actually see just how creative I can be!

My Frame Project Tutorial...

I really wanted to keep this frame, but the brown didn't really go with the theme of the room. Enter Pinterest and Google :) I am pretty sure the site I used the most was Decorating Bug. I will tell you what I did anyways.

Materials:

- item to distress

- two colours of paint (or just one depending on the look you want)

- paint brush

- sand paper (probably not the heavy duty stuff though)- no sand paper? try steel wool or pumice stone...something rough

I tend to try and use materials and things that are already around my house instead of going out and buying new stuff. Be resourceful. You might find you are more creative than you thought. ;)

PS. Avocados were on sale for 77cents this week.
(Don't mind my 'table protection'. My workspace is currently my mom's kitchen table!)

This is the frame pre-distress.

I decided to sand it down a bit prior to any painting. I wanted some of the wood to show through on the inside edges so I had to sand through that plastic-y looking coat on it.

I used white craft paint from the dollar store as my under colour. I wanted the white to be UNDER the black because I wanted the dominant colour to be dark. If you put on a reasonable first coat you don't really need a second. You be the judge. There really isn't any way to mess this up.

 I used my hair dryer to help along the drying process. Note: it works well with craft paint, not so much with cupboard paint.

Once the white was dry I put on two coats of leftover black cupboard paint from one of my mom's projects. Again, putting on a solid first coat, you may not need a second. I am impatient and somewhat sloppy, so a 'good first coat' actually rarely happens for me.

Then I busted out the sand paper and went at it. I also took a screw and made a couple of scratches and banged the corners a little. Its a great way to get out a little frustration too! lol Like I said, you can't really mess this whole distressing thing up, go for it.

The frame fully distressed to my liking.

 

Voila!

 

The white matting you see below is straw and is the original matting. It

 used to be straw coloured, but I put a coat of my white craft paint on it to bring in the right colour scheme. I have a few pops of yellow in my room and thought this yellow accented photo I had taken years ago of the birch in our backyard in fall would be perfect. And it was!

I am extremely happy with how it turned out and how it looks on my photo shelf! It feels SO good to actually have pictures up, in an organized manner and that add to the serenity of my experience in my room.

 

The photo collage beneath the photo shelf is individual 5x5 photos. Some from my instagram, some edited in the Fotor application on my computer and put in an old frame I had hiding under my bed.

Putting photos together hasn't been easy. I know I am not the only one who thinks that, especially in the digital age when we actually have to go out and PRINT them! Keep with it. Would love to hear what photo feats you've undertaken and been happy with!

A Little DIY - Picture Frame Earring Organizer

I KNOW this is not my typical 'Here Comes the Sun Post'. Over the last year I have been dabbling in a lot of DIY projects and I've been trying to get them up on Pinterest without having to create entire blog posts on here, but they only give me 500 characters! The teacher in me cannot condense it THAT much! :) So be ready to see some more of these

Picture Frame Earring Orgainzer

1) Find a picture frame and dismantle/paint/make it how you want it to look - I just bought this from a 2nd hand store, scrapped the painting and used both the inner and outer frames for projects.

2) Create your lines/wires/ribbons to hang/pin your earrings on. I used regular crafting ribbon to pin my studded earrings and then two 1/4 inch thick wires for the hanging ones and wrapped the wires in the same colour ribbon. I taped them on the end. (This was a bit of a process. I think I'll do it differently next time. I also had to pre-poke holes with a sharp pin before putting the studs through because they don't go through that ribbon easily. Next time maybe I'll use burlap or screen or something less tightly woven)

 
3) Test the various lengths of your hanging earrings to ensure they stay within your frame (if that's what you want)

4) Staple/tape/nail/pin/glue the ribbon and wires in place (i used staples b/c I was impatient when I did this) I made loops for the wires to move in and out of (non necessary) but you do want them all to stay put! So do whatever you gotta do.

 5) Put your earrings on it and voila! - When you are done you want to make sure there is a bit of room between the wall and the frame. I put two of typical pushpins on the corners of the back of the frame at the top so it leaned up against the wall without the earrings touching - otherwise the earrings don't have enough room to hang properly.

Inspired by:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/130182245448651255/

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/130182245448565713/

Put That Moment In My Pocket

Holy F...It's been a rough and emotional week. You know how the Universe subtly sends you nudges and then when you don't pay attention it throws a brick at your head? Well I had one of those weeks. 2 days in a row I had a sucker punch to the gut with information I was totally unwilling to accept, yet clearly hearing the message that it's time to pay attention.

I have had a heart murmur since I was six. What that means for me is that one of my valves does not function properly. Instead of pushing blood all the way through and out into the body, it doesn't close all the way letting some blood flow back into my heart. I have known since I was little when my specialist drew a diagram that more or less looked like the one below. 'This is you going along good in life, once that changes it changes rapidly and you need a new valve'. (said in a very thick Asian accent...I am sure he said more words than that, but that's really the gist of it)

I went for a test last month to find that things have indeed changed. I thought my doctor (not my specialist) might have had a bit of tact in delivering the news to me, instead he went into high alert (after telling me earlier that it wasn't huge, but something to check out) telling me I needed surgery without first giving me the progression of events. So I started to breakdown...really, there was no point in even trying to hold it together. Thankfully he had an intern with him who calmed my nerves by saying what logically would happen next; testing, before ever even considering surgery.

Funnily enough my Gram had an appointment at the same time and we had agreed to go to lunch afterwards. We met out in the parking lot and she saw my state and quickly decided to talk my ear off about how it was all going to be OK. (I told her this too) Normally she frustrates me when she talks, but this time I was happy to hear the optimism coming from someone else. We got into the restaurant and sat at the table and the waitress was on top of it. She brought us waters straight away. Put my Gram's down and didn't really get a chance to put mine down because it had already fallen off the tray, all over the table and just as I began to worry that my Gram was getting soaked I felt the ice cold water all over my lap! All I could say was, "Damn that's cold!" and started laughing hysterically with my Gram. That moment in time I will always remember...the two of us needing and supporting each other and sharing a moment that snapped us both so quickly into joy and laughter. Seeing her laugh so hard and smile while trying to make the waitress and me feel better. I didn't care that my jeans were soaked, that the seat had ice all over it or that the floor and my feet were still wet. I cared that I got to experience my Gram as who she really is instead of who I think I make her out to be.

And of course as I thought about how special that moment felt to me I started bawling again in the booth...But I put that moment in my pocket and I'll carry that around forever and smile and probably cry every time it comes to mind because that little moment made me realize that life is simple and short, most things are trivial and it is meant to be enjoyed. I am putting the analysis tools away in favour of living.

Show Up...Even When You Don't Want To

Have you ever been somewhere and all you could think about was being somewhere else?

This really has been a recurring experience for me. Like I said in my last post, it is very convenient for me to stay at home and become a hermit from the world. Physically showing up at places is one thing, showing up fully mentally, spiritually and energetically is an entirely different thing. How many of you have been places where either your or someone else is physically there yet their being or their heart is elsewhere?

I have been experiencing this a lot lately. I am showing up physically for things that used to drive my excitement and now my heart is days behind. It is not that I don't care. In fact I care quite deeply. More than I would ever admit and it is because I care (or at least I think that's why) that I have disconnected myself. I became imbalanced, out of alignment with my true desires, with my true priorities and path and committed 100% of myself to something that will never nourish me in all the ways I need to be nourished, in fact, it became toxic.

I suppose this is part of the paradox of life that continually shows itself to me. Caring is often associated with a lot of attention and time spent or energy spent on something or someone when in reality it can also be the ability to step back and let that something or someone do what they must to learn what they need or heal (both have very different energies though). It can be a challenge. It can breed resentment at times because timing is a major factor in this entire process. Often times we don't let go until after we've tried really hard to change that person or thing and instead of letting go and becoming unattached from choice, we give up from sheer frustration or exhaustion or just 'being done with it'.

I am finding the tricky part about either of these is still being able to show up significantly when my heart has let go along with my mind. It's just like going through the motions now. My problem with going through the motions is that I begin to wonder why I am putting myself through it. And I begin asking self-defeating questions that only make me feel like I have failed at creating the experiences I would like.

The reality of this...It's a fu$king process. Life is a process of continually changing ideas and situations. Everything is fu%cking perfect just as it is. It's ok that I hate a couple areas of my life right now because there are elements to those areas that I have no control over other than my own reactions. And all I am being asked to do is show up and go through the motions right now because it is serving its purpose. No one is asking me to anything above and beyond x, y, and z other than myself because I have an expectation of what I 'should' be. My heart is finding its nourishment elsewhere and it's happy about it!

So maybe I can show up and go through the motions even when I don't want to because I know why it is important to me. I am still showing up because there are people and things I still have to be there for and that is beyond the heart. It is divine and as much as that frustrates the hell out of me, I cannot argue it, nor can I run from it (or to it for that matter) it calls me to show up and I do...with or without my heart in the game. I often feel like I signed up for something I am never allowed to abandon,  until I am allowed to.

Now is clearly not that time.