A Little Update

The longer you put off writing, the harder it is to know where to begin!  Well, to be honest,  I haven't really been putting it off.  It's been so crazy busy.  

• Work at the office has been busy as I'm ploughing through a to-do list with my colleague before they replace him with a new trainee, and then I have to focus on bringing her up to speed and won't have time for all the other things.
• Piano teaching has been great, but I have my first recital in like... 10 years?  8 years?  coming up in a month today, so I have been working on my own piece to play, getting students organized and learning LOTS of duets with them.  On top of that, I have a couple new students joining my studio next month, which is awesome.
• Photography is on hold.  My camera has been in need of repair for a good month now, and I am just FINALLY getting around to taking it to the shop tomorrow.  (Had to try and troubleshoot everything I could on my end first).  That is also a large reason for the lack of blogging.  IPhone photos just aren't the same as taking them with a real camera, and I don't like blogging without at least SOME pictures.
• Working with Nick for his company has been insane, too.  I put in a good 25 hours over the long weekend there.  Still in training / working for free until I learn the ropes for a lot of it, and working on  sales commission for the rest.  (170 people phoned this weekend, whoot!  I can leave a message on an answering machine like no one's business).  
• Violin practice has been... um....  I will practice for real next week.  No, it's going okay, just haven't had much time to address it in the past bit here.  But I keep meeting people that play and that want to help me out, so it's good motivation to get back at it.

But I am getting things done!  Last weekend I did the laundry (it's been like a month... for real).  I also cleaned the house finally at between 9pm and 11pm last Sunday when it got too late to call clients.  And today?  Today, I got almost a normal amount of sleep after staying up NOT too late watching a movie with my husband last night (sorry, violin - priorities and all).  Then I had a really productive day at work, and taught a batch of students down where I used to live (who are really all starting to sound quite amazing as it gets near recital time).  Came home and went out for coffee with my mentor as it's guys' bible study night tonight, and then practiced piano for a half hour or so and am now blogging while I wait for Nick to come home.

I do have to admit that I hit a wall after the long weekend.  I was SO tired on Saturday that I didn't manage to get myself out of bed until 3pm.  (Granted, I was working at a wedding with Nick until the wee hours of the morning Friday night).  Then I felt SO sick.  Massive headache and so nauseous from abusing my poor body all week long, so I only worked until about 8pm before I went to sleep for the rest of the day again.  Sunday was my uber go-get-em' day: 10 hours calling people and cleaning the house afterwards.  Then Monday was "mostly" a day off.  Sort of.  I still had to go out for about an hour to teach piano, and spend about an hour arranging some other piano stuff.  And then the 170 people I called the previous days started getting back to me, so I had to address a number of texts and emails.  But it was kind of a rest.  By Tuesday I was a mess though.  So burnt out.

So, I'm a little bit intrigued by my sudden gust of chipperness and energy as I write this post, but I will take it where I can get it!  I think knowing that I don't need to work this Sunday is massively improving my mood.  A day of rest on the horizon does wonders for the soul :)  Anyways, I will end this pictureless post now as my husband just walked in.  Sorry the update is not more interesting!  Next time maybe :)

Mexico 2013

This is where God is.  In the present.  I AM - His very name....  It's not the gifts that fulfill, but the holiness of the space.  The God in it....  This is supreme gift, time, God Himself framed in moment.  ...and time is only of the essence, because time is the essence of God, I AM.  

This I need to consecrate:  time.

Ann Voskamp - One Thousand Gifts

On our vacation, I started rereading a life-changing book that I received for Christmas a couple of years ago.  It is a book that follows a woman's journey of learning how to live a life of continual thanks and awareness of the presence of God.  It is the type of book that is easy to read when you are immersed in turquoise waters, white sands, and warm breezes.  When salt curls your hair, fish eat bananas out of your hands, and you stay up til 5:00am just because.  When you stroll through colourful markets, star gaze on the beach, and chase sand out of your mouth while wrapped in a blanket against the ocean breeze.  The words come easy surrounded by endless food, recreation and napping opportunities.  The words come easy when you have nothing but an abundance of Time.

However, it is in the returning home that the words dig a little deeper.  It is when the clock starts to count again, the rain clouds over the sky, and you take your phone off of airplane mode that the real challenge begins.  Coming home was little like being hit in the face with a brick (literally, if you consider I just had all four of my wisdom teeth out without any sedation).  It is when you open your account to 114 waiting email messages, when you are asked to add just another 10 hours to your already 65-70 hour work week, and when you feel like if one more person asks you to do one more thing you may just scream.  THAT is precisely when Time most needs to be consecrated.  

It is in the real life.  In the busy.  In the hectic.  In the mundane, and the stressful and the ordinary that Time is the most easy to lose.  And it is in the here and in the now that I am most determined to not lose it.  Nick and I are entering a season in life where we cannot slow down our surroundings, but we can slow down our hearts.  It is now, more than ever, that we need to live in EACH moment, fully aware of its being a gift from God, and fully aware of the God that takes us through every second of every day.  The hands on the clock do not offer us a racing partner.  They offer us 86,400 moments in a day to experience living life fully, where ever we are, whatever we are doing.

And as the tan peels away, as my mouth throbs from its recent extractions, as Monday morning looms, and as I miss Nick just a little bit more each hour as I have barely seen him all weekend, I sit here in thankfulness.  

I am thankful for a time away and a time of rest.  

I am thankful for great dental plans and lack of swelling.  

I am thankful that the excessive mouth bleeding has ceased.  

I am thankful that I have the means to wash the pile of bloody shirts 

in my closet should I choose to get around to doing so.  

I am thankful for pain so that I can be every more appreciative of when it stops.

I am thankful for dates with my father-in-law.

I am thankful for the chance to play on the worship team this weekend at church.

I am thankful for work that Nick loves to do and direction and purpose in his career.  

I am thankful for a great job to go to every Monday.  

I am thankful for time to write.  

I am thankful for time to reflect.  

I am thankful for life's greater purpose.

I am thankful.

I am thankful.

Less Than 36 Hours Til Mexico Launch!

When I was a kid, there was nothing more exciting than summer camp.  Not even birthdays or Christmas could compare to the anticipation that caused me to count down the days months in advance and pack my suitcase weeks prior to leaving.  I would live out of that suitcase until I left.  Each morning I would remove my toiletries, use them, and then pack them away again.  I treated my clothes the same way.  It would annoy me when I had to put my clothes in the wash, because then I was no longer "fully packed".  It was a little bit ridiculous.

Now?  Now I am the opposite.  We leave Monday morning for Mexico (the same place we went to in February of 2012), but I am only starting to prepare today.  I have a to-do list that is "scroll worthy" in its length and am flying solo, as Nick is off on a weekend, road trip adventure with his dad.  I have spent the last 10 hours:

• Getting my hair cut and died (and having my stylist slip me samples of good-quality shampoo, so I don't need to squeeze mine into tiny bottles for the plane!);
• Taking our money to the bank and getting American cash;
• Picking up "food blocks" for the fish that last three days each;
• Arranging with our neighbour to drop a new block in the tank every few days;
• Spending forever trying to find a bathing suit that is a two-piece AND still is relatively modest;
• Picking up sunscreen and travel-sized toothpaste;
• Practicing some last minute violin before we leave;
• Blogging (obviously);
• Mailing a letter that has been in my bag for a week now; and
• Contacting a few clients that I needed to touch base with before next week.

Please ignore the below photo quality, as Nick took my camera, and all that I had to work with was a cell phone!



Unfortunately, I still have loads to do!  I still need to:

• Arrange to get our neighbour my keys;
• Arrange transport to the airport;
• Set up auto replies on my work email accounts and voicemail;
• Practice a bit more violin;
• Freeze and deal with all the food in the fridge;
• Clean the fish tank;
• Teach one piano lesson on Sunday;
• Update our budget and make sure credit cards are paid; and
• Contact a couple more clients; and
• PACK!

But then?  Then come Monday morning at 5:00am, we are heading out to a land of warmth, endless food, sunshine, white sand, turquoise water and NO cell phone or internet connection to our lives at home.  It will be PURE BLISS.  And this time?  This time I'm leaving my crutches at home :D

The ABC's of Life

I am afraid I have been neglecting my blog a little bit over the past couple of weeks.  I'm still trying to find a "rhythm" for fitting everything in, but by the end of this month I think I will have a pretty good system down :) In the meantime, here are the ABC's of what's been going on lately:


Anticipation for our trip to Mexico (11 more days!).

Blessings from God in the form of a still heart despite the business (sometimes anyway - certain people still have the ability to give me heart attacks!).

Calling lots of clients for my new part-time job (just got 300 more to contact last week).

Diligently working as my coworker is still off sick, and may not be returning any time soon, so I'm doing all my work, all his work, AND training a substitute for him.

Excitement over ordering new appliances for our place.

Freaking out over finding my first grey hairs :(

Going for my weekly lunch with my awesome friend, Tara, and feeling so encouraged and blessed by her.

Having way, way, way, WAY too much laundry to do at home.

Investing in a good barbecue, as our last one rusted through within a year.

Juggling classes at the hospital to clear the way for my vacation without having any back-up teachers yet.

Keeping up with violin practice ... mostly... okay, just don't count the last 6 days.

Loving the sunshine we've had lately, and wondering where it went.

Making excellent use of finally having a data plan on my phone and not having to hunt for wifi.

New t.v. series - Raising Hope - ridiculous, but entertaining.

Over-indulging in after-Easter chocolate sales.

Preparing for a piano studio recital in a couple months (assigning songs, picking my own, finding duets, etc.).

Questioning my "5-year plan" and revamping some goals and dreams to fit the directions God seems to be moving in - but all in good and exciting ways!

Renovations with my parents (including putting up crown moulding, painting the floor trim and soon to be ripping up the hall/bathroom/kitchen tiles and putting down a floating floor once it comes in next month).

Shooting my good friend and her family in a week and a half with Nick (photo shoot guys, not literally).

Teaching piano just Mondays, Tuesdays and every other Wednesday now (crammed all the lessons back-to-back to get them less spread out so I can concentrate on my other job on Thursday and Friday evenings).

Unplugging my straightener and getting creative with ways to tame my unruly hair that don't take as long in the mornings so I can grab an extra 20 minutes of sleep each day - really need to relearn to French Braid.

Visiting with family (my parents this last weekend, and Nick's dad coming up in a week or so).

Writing (yes, actually writing) monthly letters back and forth with my mom.

X-amining (it counts) all the various birthday gift options in my head for Nick and trying to choose one.

Yearning for a nice sleep-in, even though I just had one last Friday.

Zzzzz  (who I am kidding - I never sleep enough.  But.. I have been sleeping better for the last week if that counts?).


And now?  Now I'm going to go tackle the most dreaded task on my to-do list at work and see if I can't get a good chunk of it done :)

Tid-Bits

I was going to call this post "Little Bits", but then I realized that some of these bits are actually quite big!  So here are 8 random bits to make up for the 8 days I haven't posted.

1.  I am finally watching Harry Potter.  I have boycotted this series from the first day I heard about it.  Kids messing with witchcraft however "innocent" just seems like a bad scene to me.  However, I have finally decided that I should probably watch something before I have such strong opinions about it.  (Kind of like people having preconceived ideas about the Bible without ever actually having read the whole thing).  So far, the third movie is definitely in my "bad books".   Anyways, I had no idea there were 8 movies, nor that they were Lord of the Rings comparable in length!  I feel like in some ways, I have a bit more leniency towards certain aspects and, in other ways, I'm even more adamant about some of my previous concerns.  I am also watching them for free because I refuse to rent or purchase something that I'm pretty sure I do not support.  Always good to start a post with controversial material, right?

2.  I am really liking my new part-time job.  It's way more time-consuming than I originally intended.  However, I'm slowing getting a system down and getting in the groove.  I pulled out all the clients that I only have emails for and no phone numbers, so I can chip away at that pile on my lunch breaks at work.  I even landed a client within the first couple of days, which means I get commission for it.  As much as I love actually getting paid for working, I think I am currently more motivated just by trying to get some sort of controllable handle on the inch-thick pile of 60+ clients I need to touch base with!  40 down, 20 to go.  Phew!  Next up, some sort of organizing system to know when all the very many answering machines I got need to be reconnected with.  You're never really "done" the pile....

3.  After three years, Nick has finally convinced me to get data on my phone.   He largely did this because I am eventually going to need it to work at my new part-time job.  (I have to call out with my call display registering as the company name, and need an app that requires data to do this, or always be near wifi.)   This resulted in my having to surrender my grandfather plan that I took over from a friend a few years back ($28 a month for 300 minutes, unlimited evenings and weekends starting at 6pm, voicemail, caller ID, 2500 texts).  You can see why I was so loathe to change anything!  However, I just got a $60 plan for unlimited calling (incoming and outgoing) at any time, anywhere in Canada, unlimited texts (including picture and video which I didn't have before), voicemail, caller ID, and not 1, not 2, but 3 gigs of data!  And while I was at it, I might as well take advantage of the free phone that comes with it:

Anyways, turns out it was a mistake.  When Nick phoned two days later to get the same plan, they looked up my file and realized I should never have been given such a good plan.  That plan was only for NON-iPhone users.  Not only did they give it to me with an iPhone, but they sent me the iPhone for free!  Silly Rogers.  I'll take it, though!  Oh, and giving a Facebook addict / internet junkie / work-a-holic data on her phone?  It's marvellous I tell you!  I can know what's going on at all times and answer all emails almost immediately.  Well... as soon as I get it sorted so I can send emails and not just receive them.

4.  Everyone in my office is getting sick.  It's like super ridiculous.  I am starting to come down with it, too, but I am fighting it!!  I went into work two hours late today just to use a couple sick hours for the extra rest.  I.  Will.  Not.  Get.  Sick.   ... ....

... I hope.

5.  Violin is HARD.  Still practicing diligently, and still loving my monthly lesson.  But SERIOUSLY.  This is so. difficult.  You have no idea!

6.  My parents are coming down for Easter to help us with some renovations.  I am excited about this.  I haven't seen them since Christmas, so that's almost 4 months!  We have 270 feet of crown molding laying in our hallway that Nick and I need to paint this weekend.  Then my dad, with his handy nail gun, saw, and construction experience, is going to come with my mom and put it all up for us  -  yay!  Next up, new appliances.  (Replacing the ancient appliances, putting up crown molding, and replacing the tile portion of the floor were the three things we "shelved" when we first moved in and renovated.  In retrospect, far better to have just borrowed the money from my parents and gotten it done up front than wait until we saved up the money and now have to start renovations all over again years later).  But, on the bright side - no debt and these are truly the last things we wanted to do that would be considered "major".

7.  My OCD-ness about needing to constantly have a tidy house paid off.  They guys were meeting tonight for Bible study and their usual locations fell through.  Thus, I felt obligated to offer our house even though it means hiding in the bedroom all evening.  That being said, who just spent Monday night after a super long day cleaning her bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, dusting, sweeping and vacuuming?  That's right.  Impromptu people over without the stress.  (Kids will obviously be a challenge to me and my neatness condition....).  Plus, it's bonus cause I finished calling clients and got to blog (obviously).

8.  Last, but not least, we are going TO MEXICO!!!  It seems so surreal.  We knew we wanted to go back, but were thinking 2014 as a possibility.  We spent the last year saving up for just over half the trip, and were going to spend the rest of this year saving up the remainder.  However, with the direction Nick's job is taking, he might not really be free to take off next year, and he'll be working almost every weekend from May through to September this year, if not further into the Fall.  So any extended time together before Christmas had to be booked off work this April.  Thus, we took some unexpected money that came our way, made up the difference, and are heading out to hopefully sunny skies in - sheesh... like 3.5 weeks!  Craziness!!