So now what?

Well here it goes, a more personal blog post than I usually do.

Let's be honest, I don't blog often enough to make that statement but I am making it anyway.

I am having a bit of an identity crisis.  I am too young for this teenage angst and not yet old enough to be having a mid-life crisis, yet here I am, experiencing both.

Let me explain

Since leaving home right after high school graduation, I have always been on the move. I spent 4 years in college, then got married. My husband and I moved from one community to another over the first 4 years, but always within the same general area. In this time I had four different jobs, all within the same field, always experiencing a 'promotion' with each job.

Then we had our son and felt the need to live closer to family, so we made our first provincial move as a couple, from British Columbia to Manitoba. Over the next three years we moved twice in Manitoba. I got my first pastoral job, and boy was it a job. It was amazing and frustrating and scary and exhilarating all at the same time. Looking back I was awfully inexperienced to be running such a large department and at times it showed. It was a breathtakingly painful experience to work in that church. The pressure, leadership, friendship and grace were intense at times but in the end it was not a fantastic fit for me or my family, and we found ourselves moving provinces again.

This time we landed in Saskatchewan, where I worked at one church and my husband took a job at another one. We both loved what we were doing and where we were. We were developing friendships and a community until the unexpected happened. My husband was offered an amazing opportunity in Montreal, and we just had to let him take it. This left my son and I alone in SK keeping on with life in the most normal way we could. This continued for two years, until his employer offered him a permanent position and we decided to move to Montreal, ending our 4 years in SK.

Fast forward to today. We have now been in Montreal for just over three years and if you have been paying attention, 3-4 years is the longest we tend to stay in any one place. We have had the same house, church, and school for 3 years. I have already started and finished a master's degree and am starting a PhD this week.

So here is where the identity crisis starts. I don't know how to live in place past 4 years. How does one stay in a place that long? How do I take those friendships and turn them into deeper friendships? How do I challenge myself in an employment that is starting to feel like the 'same old thing'? I think that starting my PhD will help keep me challenged and excited and in many ways it will, but in some ways it won't. More schooling does not have the same excitement as starting again. There is a thrill in applying for jobs, selling homes and moving. But I know that there is a sadness and stress in them too.

I don't know how to survive in a place once the excitement has worn off. And worse than that, I don't know how to survive in a place when my polish has worn off and the others around me can see my short comings.

This lack of long term experience in a place is freaking me right out. I just want to quit everything that I am doing and pack up and move. The question is where would we go? And for what reason? Could I do that to my pre-teen son? Could I move him again when he is just really starting to make great friendships here.

I can't. I know I can't.

I guess that means I need to learn how to put down roots in a place. I need to learn how to not fear failure, knowing that I can't run away from it. Not this time. Not right now at least.

Not right now.

Crazy productive day

Have you ever had one of those days where you are so productive that it makes you questions what you are going wrong every other day of your life? Well today was one of those days for me. I started the day with a bit a of a sleep in, I only got out of bed at 8:00 but I was feeling refreshed and after half a pot of coffee I ready to face the day. During my coffee drinking I checked my email, reading the positive and constructive feedback my supervisor gave me on my PhD application letter. I got quickly to work updating the letter with her suggestions and sent the next draft back to her and my reference letter writers before 10:00. 

That's when I hit the upstairs of my house, assembling two Billy book cases from Ikea, placing all the books on the shelves and vacuuming the entire floor. Okay, not the entire floor, I have not made it to my bedroom yet, that is a project that will take a different day. This was no small feat and it took me until almost 2:00 with only a brief lunch break with my son. 

Next was the main floor, it needed to be vacuumed so badly! We have two small dogs and between the dog hair, paw prints from the constant rain and left over pine needles from the Christmas tree it was disgusting. So, by the time 4:00 rolled around I had vacuumed and mopped the first floor, tackled my kitchen and got supper going. 

Now all of this to say that I have absolutely no idea why some days are so good and others I can barely keep the family in clean clothing! I never know when these days are going to hit, but I sure do love it when they do. 

I've try to examine the days leading up to a super productive day. wondering if there is something that I can pin point as a trigger, and I have yet to find anything. I wish I could. I wish I could bottle this energy and save it for another day. More than that I wish I could reproduce it and use it when my to-do list is getting long. But alas, I can't. So now I must just try to keep the momentum going. 

But not tonight. It is almost 7:00 p.m. and my supper is done, kitchen is clean, (dishwasher timer set) next load of laundry is in and my feet are up. I'm about to log into Don't Starve Together to kill the next hour playing before I should get my son started on his bed time routine.  

Can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring for productivity!!

Peace

Treasury of Memories

I have always loved to bake and cook, ever since I was a little girl. It probably had something to do with the fact that my mother is a cook and baker.  If you need a meal cooked, a banquet catered or a recipe, my mother is the person to go to.  She has been cooking for fundraisers, schools and churches for as long as I can remember.  She would always convince me to help her with her cooking endeavors and I would always readily agree.  I would love to spend hours in the kitchen with my mom preparing meals for others, reading recipes and making up our own as we went.  One of her go to cook books was, and very much still is, The Mennonite Treasury of Recipes.

 This classic cook book filled with tried and true recipes was so worn that it no longer had covers, there were notes written in every margin and each blank space had other recipes scribbled in.  Some pages had been so used and spilled on that you could barely make out the recipe, then again those pages were mostly memorized already and consulted only as a formality.

I loved this cook book as a kid.  So when I saw it on the shelf of my local Ten Thousand Villages store in Saskatoon this past June I quickly bought.  I love thumbing through the recipes looking for the next one to try.  And that is when I decided that I would cook my way through this wonderful cook book.

Now here is the catch.  As much as I love this cook book, it has some quirks that may make cooking my way through it rather interesting.  This cook book was published in the 60's, a time of jellied food and easy casseroles.  Many of the recipes also take for granted that you know a lot about baking or cooking and they use many vague phrases like ' mix until it feels right' or 'add just enough flour' (without giving a quantity). So the results could be...interesting.  I will be picking recipes to make, following them to the best of my ability, with no changes or alterations, hosting friends to try the recipes and then blogging about them.

So come back often to check out what I'm cooking next.  I'm going to end this post with a quote from the introduction:
        "By the time the book was on the drawing board it was decided to add a chapter of Mennonite recipes. Many of these originate from times of want and austerity and are no longer in use but may be of interest for coming generations, perhaps as inspiration to adventurous cooks."

Consider me inspired!

Blame it on the flu

So I have been sick for the last two days, well truthfully I am still rather under the weather, so all I have done is stay in bed or on the couch playing video games.  Well there was a problem with that, my husband and son where home as well, being the weekend and all, so I found myself without a computer to play on (we only have 2).  Normally I would hop onto the WiiU and play, but I have finished all the games I want to right now and there is only so much Mario Kart 8 one can play (a lot...but there is still limits), so I stole my son's 3DS and started playing Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon.  What a fun game. The game is absolutely beautiful, but also very fun and even a little challenging for this old lady.  I admit it, I have died a few more times than in respectable, so I will blame it on the flu. Luigi's Mansion reminds me of all the fun I've had playing any number of the Super Mario Bros games as a child and I am looking forward to playing more of it today.  I am about half finished the game, but unlike when I was a child I have things I need to do today, sick or not, so I will play in between loads of laundry and cleaning the kitchen.
Oh I should also make supper at some point...I wonder what Luigi would want.