Finding My Way

Note: This is a long, rambling post, that gives lot of history to get to a very short point. If you don't want to slog through it, just skip to the last two paragraphs.

I feel lost in my hobby.

I have been playing in our medieval hobby group for 17 years, and Hubby has been playing for 13 years. When I first started playing, it was on my own. I was married and had a toddler, but he didn't play (long story). Even so, between Primus staying home with his father and the help of friends minding him, I was able to do a lot of service, teaching, and art. And I had big dreams: to advance my art to the point that the people I look up to and admire in Society would find my artistry acceptable, and that the way in which I conduct myself and serve others would enrich this game we all play to the absolute highest standard. In the next few years, I had a second child, and my friends continued helping me to do everything that brought me joy. In early 2007, BD and I broke up, and several months later, I met and began dating Hubby.

Now that I had a partner that was an active participant in our hobby, the help with kids started to dry up. I'm not bitter about that; it was to be expected - we now had two active, involved, and engaged parents, and I didn't need as much help from others. Besides, everyone wants to hold a baby, but toddlers and preschoolers? Not really. After all, they want to be on the ground, running around! And then I got pregnant. We wanted four kids altogether, so this was the plan. During that pregnancy, I had the opportunity to serve in the largest capacity of my "career" in the group, in a key retinue position. I worked hard, and feel like I acquitted myself well, even with a new baby. One job blended into the next, and I took on an administrative role in our Principality. 16 months later, I had another baby, and I was a very active player until sometime in 2011, when I hit the proverbial wall. I had a "helium hand", and wanted to do as much as I could for as long as I could. I wasn't a good steward of my own resources, and as a result of that, I burned out - HARD. I no longer loved my hobby, so I took a hiatus of more or less two years.

In that time, Hubby took a brief break, then resumed playing. And I began to question my place in the group. Had I made an impact? Had the work I'd done made things better for everyone? Had my efforts in promoting courtesy resulted in a more courteous Society? I felt that there were no concrete answers to those questions, and as a result, it took me longer to come back to it than I had originally anticipated.

The collateral damage of taking a hiatus is that your "career path", for lack of a better term, tends to veer off the map into limbo. People forget who you are, what you did, that you ever did anything, or what you are capable of. And sometimes, you forget, too. In that stretch of time, I really feel like I lost touch with who I was within the greater context of Society. I was boiled down to "wife of" and "mother of", and didn't feel like an entity unto myself

I reluctantly returned, at least part-time, in 2013 because I could see how much Hubby wanted me to. My first event back was when he petitioned our local Baroness to be her Courtier. I wanted to be there to support him, but I wasn't really feeling it, and I spent a good part of the day feeling very isolated. And I know it was me isolating myself; people I hadn't seen in a year or two seemed happy to see me, but I felt nervous and shy. Hubby was playing much more actively than I was. He went to events that I didn't feel like going to, and sometimes, he went to events that we couldn't afford for both of us to go to. His arts mentor encouraged him to attend more and larger events, and these were also events that I did not attend, staying home with the kids so that he could follow his dream. I encouraged it, because he was still passionate about it. I was having a lot of difficulty rediscovering my passion, and I really needed to sit down and think about why that was. Over time, the thought of walking into an event where Hubby had a cadre of friends I didn't know became more and more daunting for this introvert. They certainly wouldn't know who I was, apart from "spouse of that Really Cool Dude Who Does The Neat Stuff"; would anybody know - or care - that I am an embroiderer, weaver, knitter, illuminator, archer? Or am I just support staff for the guy who is clearly on his way to a peerage? What would I do now?

My artistry was suffering. I had hardly picked up silk and needle, or brush and paint. Goodness knows, there isn't a lot of time in the day to create art when you have two kids in diapers. Serving for a year as Treasurer on our elementary school's PAC executive took time and energy, as did the day-to-day work of being a wife, mother, daughter, sister,friend and home-based business owner. I was exhausted. The strain that was placed on us every time Hubby entered a competition was difficult; his focus was singular, particularly in the few weeks leading up to the deadline for documentation, and then leading up to the competition itself. That singularity of purpose, often borne of procrastination and the resulting feeling of last-minute panic sometimes made him short with us, and the lion's share of the work of running and maintaining the home fell on my shoulders. The one saving grace was that he still did the bulk of the cooking - a thing that I appreciate to this day. But it was hard, and I admit that I bristled inwardly each time he announced that he was entering a competition, because I didn't feel like he considered the impact it had on everyone else in the house. It took a lot of difficult talks for him to understand that instead of announcing that he was entering a competition, talking it over with me *before* making a decision was going to go over a lot better, and result in a more supportive and encouraging spouse.

I fully came back to the hobby when I was ready. I missed eventing, and I really missed the people. I missed creating. I missed serving. Most of all, I missed the me that I was when I was doing all of those things. But by the time I came back, my path was untended, and I didn't know how to cut away the overgrowth; how to stand up and allow myself to be seen. Hubby had this whole new group of friends with common interests, and I felt very much not a part of his SCA journey. And I started to feel forgotten. Resentment crept in, which is a horrible thing, because I was truly happy for his progress. But I felt like I had sacrificed my own path in order to secure his. And really, that's exactly what I had done.

I spent seven years feeling like that. So we spent some time talking about that, and getting on the same page.

This past March, just ahead of the shutdown of so many things due to COVID-19, Hubby was recognized as a Peer of the Realm. He had achieved what he had worked so hard for - recognition of his scholarship, his intelligence and his talent. And I was there, right behind him, as I always have been; I saw the look on his face when he realized what was happening, the look of pride on his mentor's face as she called him up, and proceeded to both beam and weep throughout his elevation, the looks of joy, respect, and admiration on the faces of his peers, and the look of delight on the faces of our King and Queen as they bestowed this accolade on him. The Queen was gracious in indicating that Hubby should hug me first before being embraced by his peers, but there was still a part of me that felt very much on the outside of things. He is the first to introduce me to his friends, and to try to include me in conversations with them, but invariably, the topic turns to something I know nothing about, and I get quiet and withdrawn. I still feel very much like I exist on the periphery of his world. The pandemic shut our Kingdom down the day after his elevation, so the isolation and lack of eventing that has ensued has only served to magnify those feelings of disconnect for me.

Where does that leave me? I have spent some time considering not only what I want to pour into my hobby, but also what I need to get from doing so to maintain balance and not spiral into another burnout. I need to figure out who I am in Society now, and who I want to be moving forward. I don't want to spend my days as only "spouse of Peer X"; I want to distinguish myself and be seen as a valuable member of Society in my own right.

So how do I do that?

I'm figuring it out, and I've got a lot going for me. I have the good fortune to be surrounded by beloved friends, truly the family of my heart, that are invested in my happiness and success. I get really sound advice from people I trust implicitly. I have been asked to assume leadership of a large project by a Peer that I adore and admire, that feels I am that perfectly suited for the task. It marries both artistry and service. I am also on a team of people tackling another large project.  Hubby has told me that he's ready to support me on my journey. I think most importantly, I am embarking on a new path, with a new service mentor whom I admire and respect greatly. I have set myself short-, mid-, and long-range plans for both my artistry and service that will allow me to focus my energy on the things that really bring me joy, and I'm learning where the edges of my resources are, so that I'm never pushing the envelope again.

I chose the elements of my personal heraldry when I first joined based on my interests at the time and personal preferences, but the heraldic meaning of it is so much more meaningful now: well-governed industry. So my intention is to ensure that my industry is always well-governed, that I am not taking on too much and risking burnout again, and that I am pouring my energy into activities that always bring me joy. Because if you're not finding joy in your hobby, why are you doing it?

Dad

I’ve been thinking about my dad a lot lately.

We just celebrated the first of two family Thanksgiving dinners, and it gave me pause to remember that Thanksgiving dinner was the last meal I ever cooked for my dad.

Three years. Three years that I haven't been able to call him and laugh about how ridiculous US politics are, or Canadian politics, for that matter. Three years since I got to go over the most recent BC Lions score, or rail at how easily the Canucks gave up their lead. Again. Three years since I asked for his advice about something, anything. Three years since my children crawled onto the armrest of his overstuffed recliner for a snuggle. Three years since I saw saw him smile, or heard his voice.

It was the Monday after Thanksgiving when my father  was hospitalized for the last time.

I had been feeling down for a few days before I realized why:

Grief never ends.

I found a poem today that resonated with me, so I'm going to share it below.  Hope you get something out of it.

Gasping for the Flash

A flash
An instant that is meaningless in the endless cosmic cycles
Yet so significant it changes everything
Takes the breath of life from someone you love
A lasso from heaven swept across the sky
Grasping his neck
And taking him back to the dirt and the dust
As our tears turn to rust
As they blanket our face and turn our smiles to stone
And cover our world in a fog of raging fumes
For we lost you
And we are lost with confused chaotic minds
No matter what our beliefs
It doesn’t change the pain of losing a life
A light
Every passing thought of you
Makes the world stop
For moments that seem like hours
And hours that seep into days
I see the air come out of my mouth
Sweet and steaming from a fiery body that still moves
And I feel my life intensify
For every small flash of our lives is so precious
And fragile
I still can’t believe you are gone
You are still so real here
Fresh in our mental recollections

– SHILOW

A Whole New Year

Here I sit, the second week of school upon us, and I already have Tertius at home, sick. That said, he's done three pages of curriculum work in his summer book, and helped me to empty and reload the dishwasher. I'm rewarding him with a documentary on Netflix now.

Here's how the fam-jam is doing:

Primus is in his second-to-last year of school, and the pressures of life are beginning to weigh heavily on him. He came out as bisexual last month, and I feel that we as a family have dealt with the news well, assuring him of our love and support. Things in that respect are going well, but we've known for some time that he is given to anxiousness and sadness, and that takes a toll. We hit a crisis point over the Labour Day weekend, and are now trying to figure out the new normal. These are completely uncharted waters we're wading into, and Hubby and I are hoping that we are making sound decisions, supporting Primus while still having clearly defined boundaries, and helping him to become a healthy, whole, and contributing member of society. I feel like we've somehow lost the sweet kid who loves and feels deeply, but we're working towards rebuilding trust and hope to come out on the other side stronger for what we're now coming up against. He excels academically, he's athletic and musical, and has a large circle of friends; he has a lot going for him. I love this kid like crazy, and desperately want him to know that with every fibre of his being.

Secunda is now the top grade on her middle school, thanks to a massive district-wide grade reconfiguration. Last year, she was new to the school, and this year, she's a peer leader, helping the two new grades to find their footing. She's really enjoying this opportunity, and I think that it will do wonders for her self-esteem. Over the summer, she had a crisis of conscience when asked to keep a secret that she felt was unhealthy. We helped her to work through it and come to terms with the first and best rule of secrets: if it harms you or someone else, it shouldn't be a secret, and you must tell an adult you trust. I am constantly blown away by how poised, articulate, and caring she is; I'm so proud to be her mother.

Tertius is now in Grade 4, and seems to be enjoying school more than in the previous two years. I can't help but feel like his elementary school experience has forever been coloured by the death of my father; Tertius' attendance began to be an issue around the time of Dad's final hospitalization and death, and he has seemed like he wants to avoid school. He adored my dad, and that love was returned in spades; his death hit Tertius hard, and he became a sadder, more quiet child as a result of the loss. He will still talk your ear off if you let him, but there is an undercurrent of melancholy that wasn't there before. I worry about him. That said, he is a generous and loving child, whose boisterous energy when he speaks on a favourite topic is somewhat infectious.

Quarta is now in Grade 3, and finally becoming a person in her own right. She has very clear likes and dislikes, and is my "Drama Llama". I am hoping that this is the year that she outgrows the temper tantrums over not getting her way. She is also a remarkably affectionate child, free with her hugs; I often spend the praise and worship portion of our church services holding her hand, or with her arms wrapped around me as we sing. She is learning how to knit and do cross stitch, and shows an interest in helping others.

Hubby got the best possible news this Labour Day weekend - he has finally successfully posted into a permanent teaching position in the district, which means that he no longer gets laid off at the end of June, clears out his classroom, and waits until the first week of July to see where - and what - he'll be teaching the following year. He is at the school he likes best (having taught in almost every single school in this district over the last 11 years), teaching subjects he loves at levels he loves. When he went through the interview process over and over in the spring, without a job posting, I told him not to worry, because his job was coming. This position is what he's always wanted, and I'm so very happy for him!


I am trying to establish more of a routine for myself this year, and that starts with remembering to do some self-care. And blogging is a part of that. I honestly feel more balanced when I blog, so it really needs to be a regular part of my week. I never work on a Monday or Tuesday, so I will work weekly blogging into the schedule for one of those two days. I'm working part-time for myself as a house cleaner, and have devoted this year to knitting only things for me and mine - nothing knitted for sale in 2018. I'm still taking commissions, but I'm being very selective about what I take on, to ensure that my family and I are warm and cozy, too. I spent most of the summer both working and teaching crafts to kids at the cultural centre again, and really enjoyed the work. I look forward to teaching again at Spring Break.

Well, that's us in a nutshell. I will try to come up with a topic to write about for next week. In the meantime, be well, be happy, and I'll see you on the flip side :)

Now Is The Summer Of Our Disorganization

Oh, have I fallen off the organization wagon.

This summer has been a combination of work, teaching, and trying to relax in the down time, along with spurts of madly tidying the living room, dining room and kitchen and scrubbing the bathroom before friends arrive to visit.

While I love having my family home during the summer, I have to admit that I'm really, REALLY ready for everyone to go back to school and for our home to slip back into a routine. My laundry day got completely derailed, and I'd like to not have to scramble to put a load of wash on so that I have underwear. Sorry if that's TMI, but that's reality at Geek Central.

I have taken the last two weeks off of work so that I could actually, legitimately relax, and while we took four days to travel 6 hours away to visit friends, and I did relax and enjoy that, I feel a bit at loose ends now that we're home. I want to get stuff done! I just want to kick everyone out for a day and get a bunch of stuff done, because painting the bathroom when five other people want to use it is not fun. I have a lovely, huge spice rack that was custom built for me, and that I painted, and it's just propped up against the kitchen wall where it's to be mounted because of stupid things like actually getting to the store for the drywall anchors and making the countersink pilot holes. I have the paint upstairs, waiting to put the second coat on the dining room and living room, but I can't move the bookshelf by myself. I really want to get the painting done, so that we can start enjoying life in our dream house the way we want it to look.

Oh yes, I had mentioned teaching. Have I told you about that?

I was asked to be an instructor at our local cultural centre for their kids' art camps, so I taught cross stitch for two weeks, blackwork embroidery for a week, and knitting for a week. Average class size was 5 students, except for the knitting class, which had TWELVE kids in it! The first three classes were really relaxed and enjoyable, but that week of knitting was a challenge!From students having crying jags in frustration, to students not bothering to try because they didn't do it perfectly the first time, to giving up on teaching them how to cast on, it really tested me as an instructor. But by the end of the week, most of the kids had a significant chunk of knitting completed to show their parents, and at least one of them had already gone out and bought knitting supplies to do more at home.  If even one child picks it up as a hobby, I consider it a resounding success :)

The day after the last class, we took off to visit our friends, and arrived home a week ago. There was a whole mess of birthday gatherings in the last week, as we celebrated my 45th birthday, as well as my in-laws' 45th anniversary, and my father-in-law's *mumblemumble*th birthday.

But enough about my summer of (relative) sloth; Hubby is ready to go get those drywall anchors, so it's back to work for me!

Once More, With Feeling.

So very much has happened since my last post on here. And my heart can't bear to go through it all.

The good news is, shortly after my last post, we were given the opportunity to move to a much larger stand-alone house in a good neighborhood, and we made that move on October 1, 2016. On October 9, we hosted our families for Thanksgiving - minus my dad, who was too unwell to come over. A plate of food was packed up for him to enjoy. On October 10, my dad was admitted to hospital for the last time. Between our regular day-to-day busyness, and ferrying my mother to and from the hospital, and the added trips to the grocery store and pharmacy and wherever else my mother can no longer drive herself to, life swept us up and carried us along at breakneck speed, and this blog fell by the wayside.

We lost Dad on October 27th.

It's still hard as hell to write that.

With Dad's final illness hot on the heels of our move, unpacking was really the last thing on our minds, and blogging was the last thing on mine. Grief took over, and I made my family the priority, a decision I will never regret. I ended up being treated for hypertension, and it really shouldn't have surprised me that my blood pressure was through the roof, considering all that was going on.

I'm now almost 6 months out from that day, and I finally feel like I have my feet under me again. The blur of work/errands for Mumsy/kids' activities/church activities has slowed some, and we've settled into a better, less frenetic routine. And that means that I feel like I can start blogging again.

So, here we go again - once more, with feeling.

My Journey of Hope: Craft Room Conversion!

Hubby said the sexiest thing to me this past Saturday. He took my hand as I was about to head out of our bedroom, smiled at me and said, "How about on Sunday, we stay home from church, and..."

Planning In Secret Out In The Open

Hubby and I desperately want to take the kids on a real vacation. We've been to Seattle a couple of times for a few days at a time, but we're talking about a two to three week drive down the I-5 to Anaheim, LA, and San Diego.

With one real income, that's just been out of the question. But now that I'm working (very) part-time doing housecleaning, I suddenly have a stream of income that we don't rely on for the day-to-day necessities.

I have this huge plastic jar that used to hold Winnie the Pooh cookies many moons ago. We cut a notch out of the lid, and it's been our savings jar for years. Right now, it has a piece of paper in it that says, "Van Fund". Now, we *are* saving for a van; we have money from income tax set aside for that, and are hoping to have another bit of money coming in soon so that we can go van shopping. We've let the kids know that the primary concern is replacing the van, to be followed by replacing Hubby's vehicle, and then we can start saving up for a vacation. And as far as the kids know, this jar is being used for that, in that order. In reality, this jar is solely for saving up for a family vacation. We'll take stock at Spring Break to see how much we have saved up, and that will determine the kind of vacation we can take.
                                                                                                                                                                    So what we've committed to is this:

- all money I earn from housekeeping goes into the jar
- all money I earn from selling my crafts goes into the jar
- all money we receive from D&D meals goes into the jar
- every time we have money come into the house (payday, child tax credit, GST, what-have-you), anything smaller than a $10 bill in our wallets/pockets goes into the jar
- any money I find in the dirty laundry goes into the jar

In addition to this, with the child tax credit increasing in July, we will have $350 more for both July and August, then when Quarta turns 6, we'll have $270 more each month, which will be immediately funneled into our long-term savings account (the home of the van fund at the moment, but will also hold replacement car and vacation money).

And once we've taken stock at Spring Break, we're planning how to surprise them. So far, the idea is to buy a new scrapbook, and do exactly one page for it - the title page. I already have a lovely, sparkly sticker that says, "Disney Vacation". Then we'll tell the kids that I bought a new scrapbook to put our vacation photos into, and ask if they want to see it. I think we'll need Uncle Jakk over here to take video of them freaking out :)

The State Of The Bee

So, I've been quiet for the best part of the month, but I haven't been idle.

The last two weeks of school are always a mad rush of field trips and fun days, classroom parties and child meltdowns as the realization hits that their entire routine is about to change drastically for the next 10 weeks. And this year has been no exception.

Primus had his last day of middle school classes on June 15. On June 16, I woke him up nice and early to accompany me to the intermediate sports day at the elementary school. It's not as bad as you're all thinking; there were a handful of his friends there as well, and he did a great job of busying himself lining kids up for their heats in the running races while I handed out ribbons. When I had to leave at recess to go to work, he stayed to set up and then run one of the stations for the kids (the "throw the football through this hoop" station). It was only after that was finished that he went over to a friend's house to hang out, and he was great about keeping me apprised of his location.

There were classroom parties, movies, ice cream parties (earned with classroom "money"), year-end hikes, assemblies, awards handed out (Secunda achieved 'A' honours for the year, and 'G' effort for the year; Primus achieved 'A' Honours for the year, and received the Grade 8 Band Award for excellence), and the requisite trip to the waterslides.

Hubby had the task of packing up his entire classroom (with the help of Primus one of the days), because while he is a continuing teacher in our district, he does not have his own contract. That means that every year, he gets "laid off" as it were on June 30, and waits for the phone call a few days later to find out what school, subject, and grade he'll be teaching come the fall. We've been fortunate that for the 6 years he's been on the lay-off/recall list, it's always been a full year of full-time teaching. He's actually got a decent shot at being at the same school next year, and possibly even teaching the same thing, so we are now waiting for that phone call.

Life on the home front hasn't been quiet, either. I've picked up a second cleaning client, this one weekly, and so I'm driving for half an hour each way to work there. It's a nice drive, and I don't mind it, and they have a lovely dog that only barks until she gets her biscuit :)

My parents have been having a time of it, however. My father was hospitalized for two weeks in February, and Mumsy has a laundry list of ailments, and all the requisite medications that treat them. They are in their 70s now, and I've really seen them go from vital middle-aged people, to elderly people, and it's been hard to see it, and to know how frustrating it must be for them.

Right now, we're dealing with my father's second hospitalization (four days so far), and my mother's bladder cancer diagnosis. So at the moment, I am not only working part-time and taking care of my own family, but also being Dad's legs and hands, and Mumsy's wheels, getting her to and from appointments and visits to Dad, washing up dishes, cleaning expired food out of the fridge, taking out the garbage, and when I can, doing housework to help them stay on top of things.

And it is exhausting me. Please don't misunderstand - I am so glad that I'm able to help. I liked having a quiet visit with my dad this morning while Mumsy had her CT scan downstairs. I don't mind taking Mumsy to the store, even if it means that it takes an hour longer than I anticipated. She so rarely gets out to the stores without feeling rushed by Dad, whose energy necessitates that trips out are quick and to the point. She and I love to troll the dollar stores :) But even though I am happy to do it, it still takes a toll.

I think the solution is to establish a schedule once Dad is home from the hospital. For one, we (being my brother and I) need to get our stuff out of storage in their house. We also need to help them downsize, because their home is WAY too much house for them. So we are wanting to help them prepare to put the house up for sale and move somewhere more suitable to their needs. And that needs some structure.

So, if you don't see me on here as often, this is why.

Of Frailty and Mortality

February was a medical roller coaster ride, one that I would most definitely not want to ride again.

February 1st dawned, a lovely sunny day. It was a Tuesday, and in the world of Busy Little Bee, that means Sanity. I picked up my friend T and brought her back to the house so we could grab a coffee before I dropped her at her dentist's appointment later that morning. Tertius and Quarta were both home sick, and played quietly in their room. As we sat chatting, I started feeling... funny. Not HAHA funny, but rather, somehow off in a way that I really couldn't describe. Within 10 minutes of the onset, I felt like I needed to put my head down, so I must have felt some sort of low-grade dizziness. Then I had to close my eyes, and I absolutely felt dizzy by that point.

I thought I was having a blood sugar issue, and my blood glucose tests seemed to bear that out, but when the nausea hit, and the clammy sweat began, and the falling sensation started, we knew I needed to get to a doctor. T called our friend A, and the three of us figured out a plan for getting T to the dentist, and me to the ER. I texted Hubby to let him know what was happening, and that I'd keep him updated.

When A arrived, I was sitting on the sofa with my head laying on the arm. We talked about her driving the kids and I to my parents' house, dropping the kids off there, then taking me to the hospital to get looked at. Once Tertius and Quarta's coats and shoes were on, she asked me if I could get up and into her car on my own, and that's when the world started moving out of my control. I sat up, then laid right back down again, on the other couch cushion, unable to stand. A took decisive action and called the ambulance, and I called Hubby in the middle of class to tell him the ambulance had been called - he only answered because he knew something was going on, and me calling would only be in an emergency.

The EMTs got there and did an assessment; the decision was made to transport me to the hospital. I had the chance to call the kids over and explain to them that Mummy was feeling very dizzy and sick, and that the nice men were going to take me to the hospital to help me feel better, and that A was taking them to stay with Granpa and Grandma while that happened. A put my shoes on and the EMTs helped me to stand, walk down the stairs, and get me onto the gurney (I felt like I was falling the whole time, and also like I was leaning horribly to the right). The wave of nausea crashed over me hard, and the dry retching started.

T got picked up, A bundled the kids into her car, and we were all off. I think the door got locked, and my purse was grabbed and put in A's car. The ambulance stayed parked at the end of the driveway for a few minutes while they got some Gravol into me and asked me some more questions. Then I went for the worst car ride of my life. If you ever feel dizzy and nauseous, please avoid driving anywhere.

It took a while to get into the ER proper, and the awesome EMTs stayed with me the whole time. Hubby arrived not long after I did, followed quickly by A. She stayed until I was safely tucked into the ER, and Hubby never left my side. The diagnosis was vertigo, brought on by a nasty viral infection. T kept in touch with Hubby to see how I was, and A went home and made soup for my whole family for dinner. Arrangements were made for my dad to pick the other kids up from school, and they hung out with G&G until I was discharged around 5, I think.

I was still not feeling well; having frequent dizzy spells and nausea. The prescription for vertigo meds was filled, and we headed over to my parents for rest and dinner. Hubby was only able to get a few spoons full of soup into me, so he popped out to the store for Powerade and the prescription. I was still getting hit with overwhelming waves of dizziness and nausea every time my head moved. Mumsy hated seeing me so powerless, and as she also has vertigo, she knew exactly how bad off I was. It was decided that I just couldn't make it back up the stairs that night, so we arranged for Uncle J to kid wrangle overnight, and Hubby and I would couch surf at the 'rents. My father has been experiencing increasingly poor health over the past two years, and his hemoglobin levels had slowly been declining, causing extreme fatigue for him. We've been very worried about his health, but his GP (who retired in December) just chalked it up to getting older.

And here is where I see the hand of God in all of this.

Because I was on the couch, I could hear my father labouring to breathe in his sleep, and his restlessness. Because I was on the couch, I heard my parents whispering at 6:50 AM, talking about how horribly he'd slept, and about the angina he'd been feeling all night. At that, I was wide awake, trying to sit up, and informed them that I was calling an ambulance. By God's grace, Dad didn't argue. Instead, he sighed and said, "Okay."

He spent the next 16 days in hospital, trying to build up his hemoglobin, and undergoing numerous tests to try to determine the cause (without much success, I might add).

It's one thing to come face-to-face with your own frailty, but quite another to be faced with your parent's mortality. I have watched my parents' health decline to the point that I worry for them almost daily.

This wasn't in the manual.

Life in the Sick House

What a month! Here I am, trying to write something pithy and relevant with three kids home sick, and the accompanying chorus of sniffles, phlegmy coughs and bickering over the tablet usage (carefully metered out by me).

It seems that at some point for the last five weeks, someone has been sick every day. When you stop to think about it, we've got 5 people in three different schools, so I suppose the odds of one of them bringing home a virus are pretty high. But this has created an awful cycle of infection, mutation and re-infection that has Tertius and Quarta missing their fourth day of school in a row, and has even laid out Secunda, who would rather eat lava than miss school. It's even affected Primus, who normally has Wolverine-like restorative powers*.

Through almost all of it, Hubby has been trucking along, working all but one day where he really hit the wall and took a day to rest. The tricky part of his job is, you kind of need to be a bit psychic: to know far enough in advance that you're feeling sick enough to miss a day so that you can write up TOC (Teacher On Call) notes for the person filling in for you, ensure the resources are prepped, and have it ready for them at the school office, or on your desk for the following day. What often ends up happening is that Hubby works on the day he feels the worst, spending extra time after school prepping for the TOC before he can come home and collapse into bed, exhausted. On top of that, taking more than one sick day at a time can negatively impact his lesson plans, putting the students behind where they should be. In a semestered school, this has even more impact. This does not exactly set him up to get better quickly; rather, it puts him into a position of going back to work before he actually feels better, and having a further compromised immune system to work with. The end result is that he is more susceptible to subsequent viruses, and functions at a low-grade sick level with periodic flare-ups for the rest of the winter.

The kids are snot factories, coughing without a care for where their little "sick particles" land. I feel like I'm constantly reminding them to cover their coughs and sneezes; the words, "Please don't cough into my face/tea/food" are uttered more than I'd like.

And me? I've been sick this whole time. Low-grade, not bad enough for cold meds for most of it, but in the last 5 weeks, I've had what bordered on an ear infection, swollen glands and lymph nodes, laryngitis, impacted sinuses, and most recently, blisters on the back of my throat. Unrelated, I've also been having bad flare-ups of the tendonitis in both wrists, what feels like arthritis pain in both hands, neck and shoulder strain, and a pinched sciatic nerve on one side.

I'm so ready for this to be over. I have big plans for de-cluttering our house, setting up new furniture pieces, reorganizing the master bedroom, and painting the bathroom.




* I swear, this kid gets a sniffle, sleeps for 18 hours straight, and he's fit as a fiddle!

New Year, New Leaf

Greetings, friends!

Here we are, at the beginning of a new year, and approaching the season of rebirth and renewal. It finds me wanting to press the re-set button on my life; re-establishing good habits, and establishing new ones.

I find that I really enjoy blogging, but I have allowed life to carry me away with it, and many things I enjoy have fallen by the wayside. So on this, my first day of building new routines, I am committing to work on my blog three times a week, and posting once every 7-10 days. If I break it down into 15 minutes at a time, I think that I'll find the process easier and more pleasant.

So, if you want to come along for the ride, read on!


Today is the first day back from Christmas Break, and despite our best efforts, we ended up getting out the door late. We began using some new routines (and continuing with some established routines) yesterday, including ensuring that the kids' lunches were made, backpacks ready and in a location convenient to the front door, clothes were laid out, keys were at the ready, etc. The goal is to prevent the bottlenecks at the top of the stairs and at the front door, and to get out of the house on time and without yelling or stress. But it went off the rails, and fast. And her name is Quarta.

Hubby wanted to be at work a little early to do some prep, so getting him out the door went seamlessly. Primus, who is 13, was left in charge while I drove Hubby, and all of the kids were awake, most of them dressed. The round trip took a total of 12 minutes, and when I returned, Quarta had not done a SINGLE THING since I had left. She wasn't listening to the instructions of her older siblings, despite being told by me that they were in charge while I was gone, and that she was to get dressed first.

I have never met a child who is equal parts intelligent and stubborn. Quarta is really testing my parenting abilities, and I am left scratching my head, wondering what to do to get compliance. But I think I may have hit on something.

We just recently were gifted with a first generation iPad (Thanks, BioDad!), and she and Tertius LOVE playing on it. So tonight, I will explain the new system to her: her access to the iPad after school hinges on her getting up and ready without complaint or delay. I imagine that a few days of no iPad will cure her of her intractability.

I'll keep you updated.

Teetering on the Precipice

Here it is, the Saturday evening before school begins anew, and I feel the muse pull at me, urging me to write down my thoughts.

This is my very favourite time of year, for many reasons. First and foremost, I love autumn. The crispness in the air, the smell of cold on the wind, the bright, sunny late summer days, the way the sun shines through the vividly coloured leaves as they gently drift to the ground. I love the crunch of dry leaves under my boots, the sweaters, the warm drinks, the rainy days that give me an excuse to curl up under a blanket on the couch, put on a much-loved movie, and create something with my hands. I love wrapping my hands around a warm drink, sitting down to a big bowl of stew with dumplings, or having the house cool enough to bake again. It's all about putting away the accoutrements of summer and pulling out the hand-knits and throw blankets; trading iced vanilla lattes for  steaming mugs of chai or apple cider; retiring shorts in favour of my fuzzy polar fleece pajama pants.

*sigh*

It also means that my beloved husband and children will return to the routine of school. I love this for a whole host of other reasons - the house becomes more calm during the day, I get more crafts done, and my home has a chance of staying clean for more than 30 minutes at a time.

This year is different for me, because my youngest, my baby, sweet little Quarta is starting her educational journey in earnest. She will start Kindergarten on Tuesday, and I find the feeling a little bittersweet; I am both eager to have the house to myself during the day, and unsure of how I will actually feel about it when it happens. Will I miss hearing her random, "Guess what Mummy? I love you!" throughout the day? Will I feel a twinge of sadness knowing I am alone in the house - well, alone as one can be when there are two cats living there? Will I be filled with pride for my littlest hobbit, watching her take those first real steps toward independence? I have a feeling that I'll be a mix of all of it, all jumbled together in a messy, tear-streamed, smiling package.

So bring it on, autumn - I'm ready for you.

Turning Petrified Mini-Doughnuts Into Perfect Dessert!

Hubby's favourite dessert is bread pudding.

In our almost 8 years together, I've made it for him exactly zero times.  Whenever we've eaten French Toast and had leftovers, Hubby has diligently saved them in so many Ziploc bags in the freezer, waiting for the day he would be rewarded for his thoughtfulness. And every 6 months or so, I go through the freezers and toss out those frozen relics of brunches past, sighing at the waste of perfectly good bread and egg, cinnamon and vanilla extract.

Sure, I've talked about making it innumerable times over the years, but since I've never made it before in my life, I found the task somewhat daunting.

Until today.

I was teaching Secunda and her friend how to use our Epicure Mini-Doughnut Mold to make yummy little treats (which will be served at my weekly social get-together tomorrow), giving them measuring, mixing, order of cooking operations and oven skills. For instance, they learned today to ensure that ALL the ingredients are ready before you start mixing stuff together all willy-nilly. I rescued the batter, and made three dozen of the little bites of heaven. But I managed to bugger up one batch of them. I had a bowl full of two dozen soft, chewy cake doughnuts, and a dozen hockey pucks. they smelled lovely - all sugar and vanilla and cinnamon. And totally inedible in their current state. It seemed such a shame.  That got me to thinking, and that thinking got me to an idea. Why not break them up and turn them into an improvised bread pudding?

These were the doughnuts that get to stay doughnuts

So, off I went to Allrecipes.ca, my go-to resource for all of the things I don't know how to cook.  And when I typed in the keywords, this recipe is what came out with both the highest rating, and the most reviews. Clearly, this was the place to start.

I used their conversion feature to alter it to feed two people (I don't know about you, but I can certainly eat 6 mini-doughnuts in one sitting!) and headed into the kitchen. In about five minutes, I was ready to put the baking dish into the oven.

Using our boiling pasta pot to melt the butter

Mixing the egg/milk/cinnamon mixture with the broken-up doughnuts

Ready for the oven

This was SOOO easy! Now I just have to wait for Hubby to get home from choir practice so we can enjoy it with a nice, hot cuppa!

All baked and waiting for the vanilla sauce!

Delectable caramelized vanilla sauce - delish!

Right in the Feels

Not sure if it was the sentimental tone of Call the Midwife tonight, or that I'm traversing the last week of BC pills this cycle, or that when my hand slid down the month of June on my new calendar as I wrote in peoples' birthdays, that it rested for a moment on June 29th, my Bumma's (grandma) birthday and I remembered that it's coming up to 10 years since I needed to write it down; for whatever reason, I'm feeling very emotional tonight, and I can't quite put my finger on it. And I'm sitting here, swiping absently at the errant tears slipping down my cheeks as I try to see straight enough to write this. And then the oddest thought pops into my head - that if my high school English teacher were to read this, she'd have to fight hard not to chastise me for my atrocious syntax.

I think that it might be my mind's way of steering me away from feeling all the feels, and gently guiding me back to a more comfortable place, the place where a wry smile, a shrug of the shoulders and a little laugh, along with a cup of tea make whatever weighs on me just that little bit easier to shoulder.

I don't know why it is that I'm trying to hold this in check, to keep the quaver out of my voice when talking to Rick so he doesn't spend the next 20 minutes trying to coax what's wrong out of me, because I don't think I need long hugs, or to wallow, or anything like that. I honestly don't know why I feel sad tonight, and that's okay.

Looking forward to a brighter day tomorrow.

A Bump in the Road

So, we've now experienced the first bump on Tertius' academic road...
When I dropped him off at Kindergarten today, there were no parents milling about outside the drop-off location. I found that odd, and assumed that we were later than I thought. I hurried Tertius and his little sister inside, and down to his classroom. All of the parents were stuffed into the room, as well as all the kids, two teachers, at least one EA and the vice-principal. It was chaotic in there, with so many bodies crammed into a space designed for no more than a couple dozen.

Once it seemed that everyone had arrived, the vice-principal thanked everyone for staying and began to explain why he was there. He announced that since the school had had lower than expected enrollment at the primary level, the district had decided to cut a teaching position at the school. As the newest teacher on staff, that meant that Tertius' teacher was being let go. If enrollment had been high enough in the other primary grades, they could have moved her around to another grade. BC teachers are all certified for K-12; they do try to place teachers in settings that they took specific training for, such as middle years or secondary, but they can teach any grade. Unfortunately, at our school, the numbers just weren't there.

My first, and most important question was to find out about Kindergarten enrollment. I had concerns, because I know that there is a hard cap of 22 students for Kindergarten. Still, I had visions of the school having to stuff 55 Kindy students into two classrooms as a result of this decision. The vice-principal assured me that they only have 43 Kindergarten students, so they're just barely under the class size limits for two classes. The VP also said that the school admin had gone to bat for her, but the district had final say. He encouraged parents to contact the district if they had any questions or concerns.

It was clear to me that Ms. M. was visibly upset, but she did a remarkable job of holding it together for her students. She can't have had more that 24 hours' notice of this. I asked the parents assembled to please give Ms M. a round of applause, and I hope that it communicated to her how much we appreciate how well she had prepared our children for school already, and how much we dislike the decision of the school district. I've written up a thank you card for her, and will be giving her a scarf that I made as a farewell gift when I pick Andrew up this afternoon. I'm actually in tears as I type this, and I'm not sure if I'm more upset for my son, or for his teacher.


Now Ms. M. is a DIT (District Initiated Transfer). She is owed a job by the district; if there is no job, she is placed on the TOC (Teacher on Call) list as a priority TOC, which means that she will be one of the first teachers called every day, as the district has to pay her, regardless of whether she works or not. I imagine that the district will want her TOCing as many days as possible, to avoid being out of pocket for a teacher who is being paid, but not working.

This creates a trickle-down effect for every other teacher on the TOC list. Teachers all get bumped further down on the list when there is a DIT on the TOC roster; DITs get first dibs on call-outs, and there are going to be new teachers who will have a harder time making ends meet until she is in a contract position. I know how this works – my husband did his time in the TOC trenches. In fact, while he has Continuing status, he does not yet have his own contract, and this is his seventh year in this district. Our school district is one of a handful that have been consistently showing modest growth over the last decade, but with districts having to stretch the insufficient government funding as far as it can go, classes get filled to their limits, staff get shuffled around within the schools, and that doesn't necessarily translate into more teaching jobs.


But for today, I can't concern myself with the larger picture. Today, I am the mother of a little boy whose school world just got turned upside down. By the time I pick him up after lunch, Tertius will have had to move to a different classroom, acquaint himself with a new environment, learn different routines and spend some time building rapport with a new teacher, along with 20 other kids.

What seems like a small change to the adults making the decisions is actually a monumental adjustment that they are expecting 4 and 5 year old children to just take in stride. I foresee some tears and confusion, and a lot of time comforting and explaining in the near future. And I don't know how long it will be before he can start to feel settled in school.

That's a lot to put on a little boy.

Summer Retrospective, Part One

As families prepare for the possible return to school, I am inspired to sit down and write out my own reflections of this past summer. In countless movies, we see children, hard at work on their first day of classes, writing out their first essay of the school year. And so, I take a page from that to bring you...

What I Did On My Last Day of School, by Busy Little Bee

To begin with, this year ended abruptly. There was no year-end party in the classes, no wind-down, no closure for anyone in that school. It just felt wrong.

As the wife of a BC Public school teacher, I was in a unique position. I knew that I needed to pay close attention to the BCTF website on June 16th; when the announcement was made, I did a few things to end the year right:

- I had purchased the teacher's gifts at least a week before, so I made sure to wrap them up that night
- I tucked two fabric shopping bags into each child's backpack, to pack up their desk
- I stuffed a dozen plastic shopping bags into two other bags to take to the school for the end of the day
- I sat my school-age children down to explain to them what was happening, and to prepare them to say goodbye to their teachers and friends for the summer
- I gave them cards to write in to accompany the gifts
- I checked our pantry shelves and freezer to take stock of what food we had
- I prayed for fiscal responsibility, to successfully get us through to July 15th, when Hubby's summer payroll savings would kick in. And I prayed for strength.
- I prepared to call our landlord, to ask him not to cash our rent cheque for July

What do you mean, this doesn't look like your summer preparation list? Normally, it doesn't look like mine, either. But this year was different. I can't say special, because there was nothing exciting about it, nothing to look forward to but financial uncertainty and enormous stress and anxiety.

On the last day of school, I went in early for pick-up. Tertius and Quarta were with me, and we gave the bags full of bags to their siblings and sent them back to their teachers with offers to help deconstruct their classrooms. See, we knew they were only being given 45 minutes by the government before they would be locked out of their classrooms, or their schools, and I noted that most teachers had elected to park in the church parking lot just off the school property in anticipation of that deadline. Tell me, how exactly are teachers expected to clean out their classroom properly in 45 minutes? The quick answer is that they can't. I knew that when I walked into Secunda's classroom and asked, "What can I help with?". The look on her teacher's face was an odd mix of panic, sadness and mirth. She smiled wryly, and said, "Well, everything's got to be cleared out of the cloakroom. Can you stay to help with that?" I told her that we would stay the full 45 minutes, and it looked like she was about to burst into tears. I know she's not one for emotional outbursts, so I quietly took the kids out of the room and began work. We stayed as long as she had work for us, and at some point, she looked around the room, sighed, and said, "I think that's all we can do. The rest will just have to be done in September." That afternoon, I cried.

I cried for my children, who didn't get the chance to say a proper goodbye to their friends in the schoolyard, because unlike past years, people didn't stick around. Children were scooped up and whisked off school property like there was an outbreak of leprosy. I cried for their teachers, likewise denied the chance to give their students that important sense of closure, to give them one last supportive gesture to send them on their way. I cried for the other kids, who had come to school wholly unprepared for that day. Not in the, “Gee, sorry you forgot to bring a bag to clean your desk with” kind of way, but real grief for the confusion and hurt they might be feeling, the sense of disconnectedness, and the uncertainty about the following school year. I cried for my husband, who went through the same thing as the other 41,000 teachers in this province. He couldn't leave anything behind; his contract was only for that year, and we still didn't know where he would be teaching in September, if at all. I cried for a lot of reasons that day. And I did it while hiding in the bathroom, because I knew that I had to present a brave face for my kids, and a strong one for my husband, should he feel the need to cry.



I don't ever want to have a last day of school like that again. And as a citizen who has been fully awakened to the realities of public education in BC, I know I won't.

Cautiously Optimistic

I couldn't sleep on Monday night. Twice, I ran the battery down on my phone, checking for updates on the bargaining between the BCTF and BCPSEA. I had been experiencing some stomach discomfort, but I chalked it up to too much garlic in our dinner. Then the excruciatingly painful cramps started and I knew I was in the grips of a full-on colitis attack.This doesn't happen too often for me, thankfully. It is only in times of major stress that it rears its ugly head and renders me a whimpering blob of flesh, rocking incessantly back and forth, trying to self-soothe. 

And then the song starts. 

I blame it all on Amaz-Aine (name bungled to protect the individual). See, she made me a CD a few years back, and its my kids' favourite thing to listen to in the car. The first half of the album is Great Big Sea songs, but it's the second half of the album that has them so captivated. She knows me so well, and gave me a bunch of Arrogant Worms songs to enjoy. On this particular disc is a catchy little jazz number, called "IBS" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc6m0fqUzds&index=4&list=PLgX4Lji6mCw8OzgBrFJykd-ysqRikMw-t). Yes, whenever I have a colitis attack, I now have to suffer the further indignity of having this ear-worm stuck in my head until the colitis has worked through my system, typically, 24 hours or so. I suppose it helps to pass the time...

Anyway, all of this is to illustrate for you, dear reader, what the government's strike against teachers is doing to people. I'm not even a teacher, but I am married to one, and the stress of not knowing where rent was going to come from, combined with trying to be the taskmaster for the kids (teachers have earned even MORE of my respect for their phenomenal classroom management skills), keeping up with the housework and being a support to Hubby have taken their toll. And Monday night, I hit the wall.

And so it was that I was up in the middle of the night, in the throes of another round of "ohpleaseletmejustdiesothispainwillstop" when I refreshed my phone's Facebook app and saw that a tentative deal had been reached.

Colour me cautiously optimistic.

I knew that the BCTF would not let E80 stay in the language of the agreement, so I figured it was probably a good deal, or at least, as good a deal as the BCTF were ever going to get out of this government. And while I forsee this being ratified, I don't for a moment think that the BC Liberals have backed down from their plan to dismantle public education in BC.

As the wife of a teacher, and the friend of so many others, I can assure you that teachers want to be in the classroom as soon as is feasible.

This strike was not about pay raises, as the government would have you believe; it was about something far more fundamental - it has been about protecting the constitutional rights of teachers, and the charter freedoms of children. It was about preserving public education to prevent the ever-growing chasm of haves and have-nots. Teachers took an enormous financial hit to stand up for the right of BC children to receive the education that the Charter of Rights promises them. And it took an immeasurable emotional and mental toll on them all to do it.

I expect that these excellent men and women will need continued understanding and support, even encouragement, to move past such a fractious time and refocus their considerable energies on what they truly love: educating our children. So when you have the opportunity, hug a teacher and say thank you. I know I will.

Time for The Tide To Turn

I was so heartened the other day to see an open letter from a Port Coquitlam school administrator to school parents, detailing the increasing fiscal constraints placed on the public school system here in BC by the BC Liberal party. Their school annual budget plummeted 87% between 2002 and 2014, from $181,000 down to a paltry $23,000 This is a district that had 30,000 students when Hubby worked there in 2007. Were he still working there, he would have been laid off this year, along with the 800 other teachers that had less than 8 years' experience in their district. To put it into perspective, that would be the equivalent of laying off EVERY SINGLE TEACHER in our community of 70,000 people.

This government is not putting families first. It is systematically destroying public education, attempting to break the teachers' union, and using shock doctrine tactics to prime the voting public for a privatized education system that creates a larger divide between the "haves" and "have-nots", and removes choice for children whose families cannot afford the private system.

Can we afford the BC Liberals?

Tertius explains his sign to the art teacher at his big brother's new middle school

Fighting Despair

We are fully in support of the teachers in the current labour dispute and government lockout. And we are going broke to do it.

And I'm sure we're not the only ones.

We were lucky; because Hubby had the foresight to sign up for payroll savings, 12% of his paycheques from Sept to June were banked, to be paid out over the summer months. Thank God for that. Even so, with no paycheque at the end of June, I had to get creative to keep us from going broke then - literally.

I have a unique skill set. Our family plays in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), a not-for-profit society devoted to the research and re-creation of the Middle Ages. As such, I have developed the cross stitch I learned from my mother into pretty competent blackwork embroidery

I've also learned how to do tablet weaving, to make trim for Hubby's 10th century Norse persona.

Other people seem to want to buy my work.

I've made just over $500 selling trim, and it has gone either directly to the grocery store to feed us, or to the dairy for milk, or into our gas tank, or into our savings account, trying to set enough aside to keep a roof over our heads in October. I feel like I can't weave fast enough, because we're running out of time, and money.

And that strikes fear in my heart.

The hobbitses can see the strain Hubby and I are under, and I know that it's affecting them, too. Not being able to attend school is taking its toll. So I've developed some study units for them, and will try to implement them while trying to weave as long as my tendonitis will allow. Primus has been experiencing some insomnia this past week, and I know it's due to stress. I just wish I could make it better for him, but he was already given to feeling anxious about starting middle school; now we have to throw the uncertainty of an unknown start date and no orientation into the mix. Secunda is mostly just wanting to find out who her teacher will be - Ms C or Ms H - and is digging in to the material I've worked up for her. Tertius asks almost daily when he will be able to start Kindergarten; he seems to take the delay in stride, but I know he'd rather be at school. Quarta seems to be least affected by it, and I started her on printing practice and letter recognition today.

And it appears that my colitis has resurfaced.

The roiling, gurgling and excruciating pain assault me at night. I stay awake, hoping one more trip to the bathroom will settle it, and then I tell Hubby that I have insomnia instead of telling him that my guts are trying to turn themselves inside out so that he won't worry.

We have been fortunate in that we have received amazing support from people. Our church family gave us a gift card that has fed us when nothing else could. Our union local had a $50 grocery card to hand out to us. Friends have dropped by with vegetables and fruit, pasta and sauce, tea and sympathy, and one friend from over 8 hours' drive away is express-posting a grocery card as I write this. Other teachers in better financial situations have gifted us with money, and opportunities to work for money. All of this is appreciated more than I could adequately express. But I still don't know how I'll keep the power and heat on, how I'll keep the phones or internet running; how I'll keep the water flowing.

I am beginning to despair, and I am looking for something to hold onto.

The Price Of The Labour Dispute In My House

Here we are, teetering on the precipice of a new school year, and for the first time, I dread what is to come.

Normally, I eagerly await the beginning of school, buying school supplies (I always pick up a few office supplies for myself, because a compulsive list-maker needs notepads), finding a new outfit for each child, and spending time sorting out snacks, re-setting sleep schedules and returning our home to an oasis of relative calm from the usual summer chaos.

But not this year.

Instead, I have purchased the barest minimum of school supplies to get my kids started off for the year, and I am left wondering when that will be. I have not bought any new clothes, because whatever money we have has to last us until this dispute ends. Back-to-school shopping has been replaced with food stockpiling; Secunda needs a new bike, but we need to make sure we can pay rent and utilities to keep a roof over our heads in the face of being virtually penniless by September 15^th. Why do I sound so alarmist? It's simple: I am the wife of a BC public school teacher.

We are still working to re-pay 11 years of student loans for Hubby's three degrees. There is no nest egg, no rainy day fund. We live simply; we don't have cable, we eschewed a landline to reduce our phone expenses, we don't go to the movies unless it's at the second-run theatre, and even then, only on cheap Tuesday. Our kids have handheld devices thanks to the largesse of grandparents, when they upgraded their own phones. Our home is filled with second-hand furniture and electronics, and our big expenditure this year was a $70 splash pool so that we wouldn't be paying out of pocket to take the kids to the rec centre. We buy our gas and dairy south of the line, because that's how we can afford gas and dairy. We cancelled the kids' martial arts lessons, and they have not been replaced with other activities. Secunda would dearly love to take piano lessons, but I just can't justify the expense right now.

We are members of a hobby group and have had to significantly curtail our activities in it, even though up until the lockout, we played very active roles. This is a hobby that has been a great source of enjoyment for our family for a number of years, and serves as a stress release for me and Hubby. The unofficial motto of our group is “Real life comes first”, and we have really put that to the test this year, forgoing events and delegating responsibilities at them because it just wasn't financially responsible to go.

We are careful with our money. I have a calendar where I write down every bill, every due date, every time money comes into our house, and painstakingly monitor when each gets paid to ensure that we are never at risk of having our power cut off, or of getting an angry call from the landlord.

These past three months have been an exercise in spinning plates, deciding what bills must be paid now and which can sit for a month; making those excruciatingly embarrassing phone calls to utility companies to ask for extensions, explaining our circumstances and hoping for an understanding and lenient person on the other end of the phone.

I can't help but shake my head, because shouldn't teachers with their professional training be able to make ends meet better than this? Should we still be living hand to mouth 8 years post-grad?

We have four children. The oldest is 12 and will enter middle school this year; the youngest is not yet four and is at home for another year. The agreement we made was that while the kids were small and at home, one of us would be at home with them. Hubby's earning potential is higher, so it was a no-brainer. Even so, this summer, I have secured some very part-time work, and I am earning some money doing commission crafts. I have also made a preliminary inquiry about a job that would give more hours, and hopefully, keep the wolves from the door for long enough to see a resolution to the dispute. Hubby would already be out there, doing something else, but no employer in his right mind would hire someone who would leave as soon as the labour dispute ended.

I have watched him throughout this whole thing; I have seen him run the full gamut of emotions. Many days, I have seen him bring home a bag weighed down to the breaking point with marking. I have watched him formulate letters to parents and segregate himself from his family to make phone calls home, and I have watched him organize strike shifts; I have seen his face light up when reading a student's essay, and I have seen him despair in the face of the government's contempt for his profession. It breaks my heart to see that a government that is supposed to be representative of the people of BC would vilify the very people who educate our children and bring forth generation after generation of critical thinkers, decision makers, artists, athletes, and public servants. To watch as they seek to dismantle one of the best education systems in the world in order to churn out worker drones for their pet projects.

I have lost all faith in the provincial government. I have no belief that they have any interest whatsoever in resolving this. I see my children being denied their right to an education while the BC Liberals wait out the appeal of Justice Griffin's decision in October.

How long must my children wait for their rights to be protected? How long must my husband be denied his livelihood? How long must we all suffer at the hands of people who have no thought for the people they purport to serve?

How long are you willing to wait?