Month: December 2019

Pack or unpack your bags…… let’s go!

Does the thought of traveling fill you with delight? Are you already dreaming of your next vacation? Or does the thought of traveling make you worried or anxious?

I absolutely love traveling. I love to see new places, discover a place off the beaten path. I love to try new food and I’m drooling at the thought of a delicious dessert. I am delighted to go away but there is no place like home and sleeping in your own bed. I am always happy to come back home!

I have been blessed with so many amazing adventures over the years. Some trips and locations I wish I could go back and re-do because I feel like my negativity clouded my enjoyment. I went but did I really enjoy it to fullest?

I love random road trips and getting lost in the moment and discovering something you didn’t even know was in the area. I love to discover the true beauty of a new destination, to find a hidden gem you never knew existed. That to me is the best part of a trip.

Flying has always given me a bit of fear. I struggle with sitting in that tiny seat for hours on end. I am a tall girl who struggles with leg room and getting in and out of the seat. I always hit my head. I am that girl who claps when the plane lands. If you have ever seen the movie alive you will appreciate arriving at your destination.

Before any trip the packing always gets me. Do you find yourself making lists? Or just throwing things together? Do you bring to many things? or not enough?

I make lists. I check them many times over. I always remember the important things like my identification, tickets, money, keys, wallet and phone. I always remind myself that if I forget something it’s not the end of the world. I can make do without it or surely in this day and age I can by something to get me through the trip.

Packing for a trip got me thinking about how much I pack around every day. My work backpack, I believe, I could survive out of it for weeks at a time. My purse is filled with survivor essentials too. I am guilty of over packing. Sometimes it hurts to carry so much around so why do I do it?

Packing got me thinking about mental baggage and the thoughts we pack around each and every day in our minds on repeat. The amount of wasted space we keep packed with such useless thoughts. Why can’t we let go? Why can’t we make better choices of what we carry around? YOU CAN!

I am guilty of having a hard time unpacking. When I get home from a trip I just dump everything into the laundry to wash, then dry and the easy part is done. I always avoid the folding and putting away because that’s the “not so fun” part. If it’s not easy or fun we tend to skip over it. I am guilty of it sometimes and even today I have laundry to put away. Spoiler alert I am not perfect! I don’t get everything done every day. I just do my best and if my best isn’t good enough fuck it. I don’t beat myself up for not getting everything done in a day. Did I accomplish a lot of things today? YES! Could I have done more? Oh yes absolutely. However I took time out for me. I believe having time for me makes me a better person and allows me to get more done tomorrow. Having time for your self is very important.

Unpacking mental baggage is probably some of the hardest work you can do. To learn to let go, to process the reasons for you carrying around your mental baggage is raw and real. I cried a lot during this process. When I started to learn about mental baggage, I didn’t think I had that much I was holding onto until I decided to write some of my negative repetitive thoughts down on post-it notes and put them in a bag. I am a visual learner and so I wanted to see just how many post-it notes I could write. I am here to tell you there aren’t enough post-it notes in my house and I love post-it notes. I always have them in all the colours! I could have more than filled a suitcase. I would have had to sit on the suitcase to close it. The suitcase probably would have split at the seams because it was that over packed. I would have been denied boarding at the airport it had that much in it.

I didn’t deal with all these thoughts in a day, a month or even a year. It will always be a lifetime process. I still have to stop myself and shut down a negative thought or deal with it in the moment. Stuck in negativity I was never able to do that. When you live in doom and gloom you attract more doom and gloom and you get stuck. You cannot see a way out. Life passes you by sure you live it but you don’t love it or really enjoy it. I know I let a lot of years pass me by. I know I will not let another year go by wasted.

Lately I have been rocking the saying “Let go. Let the positivity flow”. I absolutely love this idea. I decided to take all my negative thought post-it notes I had and I re write them into positive sayings.

I challenge you to re write the way you think. To turn your negative heavy unwanted metal baggage into the light airy positive thoughts I carry around with me. What are you waiting for? Get packing and let’s go!

I cannot give away all my tips and tricks in my blogs but feel free to get in touch today. I am here to help you become the best positive version of yourself!

Thank you to everyone who has traveled with me! I look forward to more trips in the years to come. Thank you to all of those who have helped me on my un-packing journey to destroy negative thoughts. Thank you to all of those who continue to inspire me. I am so lucky to have such wonderful inspiring people in my life.

One thing….

I was recently driving with my son and my niece Aria and the song that came on was Finger Eleven One Thing. I absolutely love this song so I immediately started singing. While I was singing my heart out I got to the part that goes:

“If I traded it all
If I gave it all away for one thing
just for one thing”

My niece Aria immediately says, “If I could trade it all for one thing it would be the ability to time travel”. Interested I had to know what her destination with time travel could possibly be. Aria’s time travel destination would be to the age of thirteen. Thirteen? Why thirteen? Aria believes at the age thirteen she will be able to do whatever she wants. Oh my goodness, her parents better buck up, her teenage years are gonna be interesting.

My son’s time travel destination would either be to the age of 16 so he
can drive a truck, or the age of 100 so he can experience what it is like to be an old man. He is obsessed with getting old.

Let me tell you it was hard to keep the car on the road I got laughing so hard at those time travel answers. Then the question came, “Auntie what would you want if you could have one thing?” That question really made me stop and think. What is one thing I have always wanted? What is something I would trade everything for?

In the thick of darkness before I was blessed with being a mom the one thing I wanted was to die. If you asked me when this song game out in the year 2003 what I wanted, my answer would be very different than the answer I have today nearing 2020. In 2003 I wanted the pain of being alive to stop. I wanted the thoughts that haunted me to go away. I couldn’t see any other option. I wanted out. I thought my life was over and I let so many valuable wasted years pass me by, because I didn’t embrace my failures. I added it all to my own very tragic story. I thought my book was one big long depressing story. A story no one would want to read. I didn’t know I could start a new chapter or start over completely fresh. I didn’t know I could write a different more positive book. I didn’t know that my ending could be a happy one. If I died today I would die happy. The biggest part of re writing my book is the ability to let go and let positivity flow.

The life I have created now and going in to 2020, is the best version of me. I am living my best self. I have battled so many demons and seen the depths of darkness. I have tasted death. I think back on all the accidents I have been in and all the stupid things I have done. All the things I did to harm myself and I think if I could time travel I would go back to being a teenager not because I would want to change anything but because that’s where my darkness started. I would hug teenage me. I would tell myself how much I love myself.

When I think of time travel I think of the movie 13 going on 30. Where she goes into the closet at a birthday party and wakes up 30, which was her birthday wish. I could probably recite every line of this movie. I have watched it that many times. I absolutely love the part where her boyfriend dances to Vanilla Ice Ice Baby! If you have not seen 13 going on 30 stop everything and watch it.
I always thought how cool it would be to be 30 when I was growing up it seemed so far away. I wonder what would I have learned if I could have skipped from being 13 right into being 30? What would I have thought about my life? On my 30th birthday I had just gotten the corgi puppy of my dreams. Oh Charles! I was in a messed up situation. I was doing fairly good and then darkness my old friend pulled me back in. Truth is 30 did me in. I started regretting my life thinking only of my failures. Turning 30 tested everything I had in me to give. I found out I was going to be a mom from a very unhealthy relationship, which ultimately left me to be a single mom. Becoming a single mom was my biggest fear. I was terrified I would fail as a mother. I think if I skipped from 13 to 30 I wouldn’t have wanted to grow up ha-ha.

Becoming a single mom has been by far the greatest accomplishment of my life. I have the most amazing son. Yes, sometimes he makes me want to pull my hair out, but for the most part he is such a kind loving (old) soul and I am blessed to be his mom. I couldn’t be any more proud of our little family and all of our accomplishments. I cannot wait to see what our future holds but for right now we embrace and enjoy as much as we can of each day.

Now I am closer to 38 than anything and I do not hold any regrets. I am happy for how my life played out. I wouldn’t change anything or I wouldn’t be who I am today. I celebrate my darkness and embrace what it has taught me. I learn from my mistakes and I am going to rock the future. I am a force to be reckoned with. I love myself. I love my life.

Time travel is an amazing idea but don’t rush life. Enjoy the simple moments. Remember that bad times are just temporary and change is always an option. Learn to love yourself and everything in life becomes easier.

Aunties are like moms only cooler…

I am so lucky to have had a childhood with an Aunt who was way cooler than my mom. My Auntie Kirsten, my mom’s younger sister, was that auntie. I have no idea why I called her Auntie Jean as a kid, apparently I couldn’t say Kirsten? Most of my childhood pictures from the 80s, auntie appeared to be smoking. I don’t remember her smoking but she looked so cool in the pictures. She never wore the same clothes twice. She had an outfit for every occasion. Kirsten always had the latest and greatest hair-do. She was a hair dresser and a fashionista. As a kid in the 80s she was my role model and my confidant. She cut my hair and helped me style my clothes. She pierced my ears. I dreamed of being just like her when I was a kid. I would crank Cyndi Lauper and dance around dreaming of one day being as cool as Auntie Jean.

Kirsten still inspires me to this day. She always taught me to be weird, wild, and unique but most of all too always be myself. I have had every hair cut I think you can have. I have had my hair all the colours of the rainbow. I have always preferred my hair short and she has helped me find so many amazing short hair cuts that make me feel confident. When Kirsten cut her hair off short, we almost had matching haircuts for a while. Now I dunno if I am still trying to be like her or if she’s trying to be like me. I got my love of fashion from my auntie. I even did a little modeling as a teenager. Shocker but I chose not to follow that path. I didn’t like to be other people’s version of beauty. I just have always wanted to be me.

Auntie Kirsten is the girl you want to go shopping with, despite her being painfully cheap, she will hit a thrift store and for a limited amount you will come out looking like a million bucks. She has an eye for fashion like I have never seen. Recently granny and I met her at a store where she arrived first and had so many amazing things set aside. I have more boots that I will ever need. I love a good boot. If you need fashion advice for any budget available I can arrange that she can be your cool auntie too.

I have many aunties out west in B.C. but I didn’t grow up with them smoking at my birthday parties and giving me weird haircuts and fashion advice. They are also cool just not in the same way as my one and only Ontario auntie.

When I found out I was going to be an auntie for the first time I was just a teenager, but I vowed to be like Auntie Jean, that cool auntie. I wanted to always be the fun one that my nephew would want to hang out with. My first nephew Landon forever changed my life. I didn’t know what love was until I saw this cutie. My heart instantly melted and I was so in love. To be an aunt is such a great honour. Landon forever changed my life by giving me a reason to keep going. Teenage years can suck. I wanted to watch him grow up. I wanted to always sing our hearts out in the car. From the time he was little he would just belt out song lyrics. He would always ask if I had his music when I picked him up. He would make music request after music request mostly “Presidents of the United States of America” oh the” kitty” song on repeat, haha. I still always crank the tunes and make him sing anytime were in a car together. Landon is now an adult who, after years of bugging, has a driver’s license and a job. He has grown up way to fast. He continues to make me proud. I still run and hug him every time I see him. I mean like “run and jump you better catch me I love you more than anything” auntie hug.

I am also an auntie to three awesome nephews who live in British Columbia. Christian, Delane and Diego. Oh boys you are the best. I am super sad we didn’t get the chance to grow up closer and spend more time having fun but you make every trip I make to B.C a million times more fun. From the time I first met all three of you, all of you have just been so accepting. You three have always kept in touch thanks in part by your mom and dad. You have kept me busy and always have me laughing. I am thankful with technology I can bug you all the time.

My last trip out west with my son I was over joyed to be able to take Christian on a road trip. He will tell you I almost killed him with my driving but it’s not true. We had a blast driving around in my rental Kia Soul visiting our families. You will forever be my son’s best buddy! Christian just graduated high school and is on to the next big chapter of life. I cannot wait to see what you do next. This kid is amazing at anything you need fixed or built. No project is too big.

Delane is smartest person I know. I have spent my whole life trying to solve a Rubik’s cube. This guy in no time flat, boom solved, like it’s no big deal. He’s an amazing artist. His drawings should be displayed in a fancy museum. He talked to me about video games I smiled and nodded but I have no idea what we were talking about. Oh and speaking of no idea what he’s talking about he learned Japanese. This nephew constantly amazes me. This is nephew I will be calling when I struggle with my son’s homework.

Diego the baby of the family he is the outdoors man. He would live outside if you let him. He shared with me many awesome adventure stories. I wanna come back and dirt bike with him. I absolutely enjoyed our long kayak adventure. He is the little brother who is glad he was the last boy. He thought my son was a lot because he was like the annoying little brother he never got haha. He made me laugh so much it hurt. He had a great idea for me to come back every year like an anniversary but it’s an “aunt” iversary. I just love this idea. Party every time I come back!

Last but not least finally after 4 nephews I have 1 niece, Aria. Aria is only a couple months apart from my son in age and they spend a lot of time together. Sometimes they even fight like brother and sister- like my brother and I used to as kids. I am so glad we have kids the same age that can grow up and enjoy times together. Aria reminds me how awesome it is to have a girl in the mix of all the boys. She’s cool and cut her hair off and was rocking a “faux hawk”. She hates to wear clothes, she’s wild and crazy, and she absolutely loves science and gross things. She makes me laugh a lot with her funny stories. She is her own girl wild and free. I have more auntie competition with this girl because she also has 3 other aunties but I vow to always be the best auntie ever. The cool auntie!

Thank you Auntie Kirsten for always being you! Thank you for always giving me fashion advice and cool hair-dos. Thank you for being an amazing GREAT auntie to my son. You took that promotion seriously. (As I finish this blog were heading to aunties house for lunch. My son will be in the hot tub)

Thank you to my amazing nephews and my niece. You five make every day the best. You always keep me smiling, laughing and grateful for you all being a part of my life. Love you all so very much! Thanks for having me your auntie. I am blessed.