Just a Moment
—Turning inwardArchive for Just thinking
It’s 1 am
And I’m still up. Spent more than 2 hours pouring through discussion boards about the Manulifebank One account vs. other mortgage options. My banking is such a mess right now and so complicated. I actually bounced a couple payments last month which put me in a tailspin. But, 15 minutes of Qigong and a very funny call from my boyfriend wacked me back to center.
Anyway, point is: I love money, I collect it actually, and want to be really good at having lots of my own some day. It’s not a measure of success for me, it’s a measure of freedom.
I turned 44 in New York City last month. Probably a highlight of my year so far. That and my kids still wanting me to lay down with them so they can go to sleep easier…now that’s true success.
Moon smash
The moon was used as a garbage can today; completely on purpose.
How is it that the fine folks at NASA, who are supposed to be smart, thinking, educated people, actually thought this was a good idea? What possible good could come of this “cause” and yet to be realized “effect”?
Are these the same-schooled scientists who, 50 years ago, thought dumping garbage and toxins wouldn’t harm the earth.
According to the NPR article:
NASA has emphasized that the impact won’t hurt the moon, which is used to getting hit by space objects. It has no atmosphere to protect it and constantly gets bombarded by all kinds of meteorites, large and small.
Are they sure it didn’t hurt anything? Are they sure there will be no effect on our tides and atmosphere? In my opinion, they are so caught up in their science project, they’ve lost sight of the number one rule: Don’t mess with nature because payback is a bitch. The moon may seem a passive player compared to the sun, but it’s no less a life-force.
The best question is, why didn’t they just wait for the next “natural” hit if they were so interested? I’m sure they are sophisticated enough to track a meteor headed for the moon and swoop in for a shot or two.
Patience people, if we are meant to know the secrets of the universe, they will be revealed when we are ready to accept them.
I’m sure the cost of this endeavor could have had a greater impact here on earth. In my opinion, the weirdos who got off on this should walk a mile in the shoes of the hungry, sick, and homeless.
I’m constantly amazed at the expense paid for useless research but this one tops the charts. We are in a global recession. Reducing green house gases and lowering our carbon footprint are high on corporate and personal agendas. Where does this seemingly useless act of destruction and waste fall on the social responsibility scale?
The bottom line here is that not only have we damaged our earth through waste and destruction, now the moon has intentionally been used as a junk yard.
It’s disturbing, like the movie Wall-e.
In other news, President Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize. Ok. And, Marge Simpson will be on the November issue of Playboy. What a weird day.
Oh, and a friend’s Dad passed away. Which is what really caused my heart to hurt. I can see him right now in front of me, what a gentle soul. May you all find peace in your own time.
No expectations
The ability to live your life with no expectation is hard to master. Our minds are full of shoulds, coulds, woulds and what ifs. It’s a tough, drippy tap to turn off. For me, freeing myself of judgement (both of self and others) is when I’m the happiest, just enjoying the ride of my life, arms in the air.
Qigong started tonight and guess what? That’s what it’s all about. I’m definitely in the right spot. Don’t ask me to repeat what I learned, I’m still absorbing. It will unfold, be patient and I’ll share it all as it comes to my enlightened self.
Immediate benefits: my cold is better and this stiff pain in my right foot (from crashing into Justin on the trampoline a couple of weeks ago) is exiting. I can actually wiggle my toes again.
Anticipation
Tonight I did my homework and researched Qigong. Wow, I’m really excited now. Watching the videos, it’s coming back to me just how much I loved tasting the sampler back in 2000. I know I have a VHS tape here somewhere, but it does me no good because who still owns a VCR anyway?
I didn’t realize there are so many benefits to Qigong, what with the exercise and healing powers it brings. It’s been effective for acute and chronic illness and I’m psyched…can you tell? Maybe my cold will be gone this time tomorrow night.
Korey got the Stanley Cup tonight for a week. We are planning a parade for Saturday or Sunday. Stay tuned, I’ll post a video. His hockey tryouts are Sunday as well. And, he has his second 1 to 1 hockey school session on Saturday, so he should be good and ready. I hope he makes one of the more competitive Novice teams so he will remain keen. Last year his hockey desire was waning a bit from no action. I’m biased, but I think he’s a great goalie with lots of potential. A natural. I’d post a video, but Youtube is not accepting my upload right now…it must be full of Kanye West/Taylor Swift/Patrick Swayze uploads tonight.
And now for something new…CFQ Qigong
Tuesday I start a new course in CFQ Qigong. (I’m mindful of how difficult it is to type a “Q” without adding a “u” after it).
Back in 2000-2001, I took a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course, affectionately called BMAP (Body-Mind Awareness Program) from someone who has become a great friend to me. Actually, my current circle of influence is still speckled with souls from this group. During this program, I was introduced to Qigong and I remember it being an extremely relaxing, healing form of movement that seemed effortless yet effective.
I’ll be exploring Qigong with Dana Marcon of DM Personal Training, who was my fitness instructor back in the 90′s at my company’s gym….funny how time evolves us.
Level 1 focuses on the meridians and level 2 on the mind. Through the course, I will become certified to teach Qigong and I’m already envisioning my application, although open to all possibilities. I haven’t started yet, remember.
Anyway, my goal is to record my journey through my blog, so if this bores you, tune out…but wait, don’t really, cause, you know me: I’ll probably forget to update and jump into another topic of interest, like my kids or how much I miss my boyfriend.
Oh, and I just finished a two week “Fat Flush Program” (Anne Louise Gittleman) and lost 12 pounds, but it’s creeping back now that I’ve allowed some gooey good food in my mouth. The best thing about the fat flush is that you can always start again. So, tonight it’s a long-life cocktail (get the book) and some fishoil (by Ascenta Health…an innovative Nova Scotia company). Tomorrow I’ll start with the hot water and lemon to cut through the KFC and DQ ice-cream I devoured tonight. As I type this, I can actually feel the acid reflux symptoms again and can’t believe I lived that way for so long. It is true, whole real food makes you feel whole.
Are you like me? For years I would experience excruciating pain in my chest, become light-headed, anxious and my mind would not be clear about anything. I would wonder if other people ever felt like that or if it was considered somewhat normal. I can’t imagine we are supposed to live our lives with constant aches and pains and a foggy-ness that clouds your entire being. The Fat Flush allows you to return your body to a normal natural position, free of the heaviness. Your liver will love you.
It’s not overly restrictive. Last night’s dinner consisted of pan-seared scallops, baked salmon trimmings, 1 small baked potato, green beans and cucumber. It was yummy and I’m having the rest for lunch tomorrow.
I’ve actually been doing the Fat Flush for over 5 years. Every once and a while I would spend two to four weeks eating really good and it always paid off. Unfortunately, when you have an insatiable sweet tooth and a busy life, it’s easy to fall off the flour/milk/sugar wagon.
That, and all my friends and family just smile and say, yes…that’s tasty Heather; but stop asking me to contribute.
This will just take a sec…
It’s now 11:53 and I have until 12:00 to write, so I’ll get straight to the point.
Tomorrow I promise I will get up when the alarm goes off at 5:45 and get ready to go to work. No diddle-daddle, just me, moving at the speed of “I mean it”. There’s a full day inside that inside office of mine, full of work that’s all started, yet far from complete and the office itself is far from decorated or tidy. In fact, it sickens me to sit there. I move from file to file, touching everything, completing nothing. It’s not how I prefer to work.
I’m reminded of a saying that came from what was probably the first time management course ever to be labelled something other than common sense. The motto is: Touch each piece of paper only once. It was such a great idea that people would have it engraved on the back of the nameplate that sat on their desk, so the world could see who they were and they could see what they were supposed to do.
I’m going to do this…tomorrow. Tonight I touched my taxes about 20 times. I could get busted for feeling up the government.
It’s 12:00.
Coming back to normal
This past year my life has been jammed with work and kids and other pleasant me-stuff. Taking on an interim new role at work was challenging, motivating and super confidence-building. But, my writing time suffered and I feel like a neophyte as I type this.
Let’s see if I can get back in the zone…testing, testing…
To feel life within your heart, you need to hold the joy and pain, the laughter and tears. Without them you are empty and stuck. Each breath is a moment that crescendos to the peak of our existence. We don’t live to breathe, we breathe each moment to create a life worth living and it’s ours to experience without judgement from others. Accepting ourselves as we are frees us to become who we want to be.
Ok, that was painful.
I have so much to share. So many learnings and lessons. Hurray moments and disappointments, but tonight I’ll just mention that my new kitty is growing balls. Enjoy ‘em while you gottem’ Mel.
The big difference
Something keeps gnawing at me. Whenever I see those anniversary wishes for people who have been married, say 50 years or more, I’m always quick to retort that they probably haven’t spoken to each other for the last 20. I’ve been saying this since I was a teenager and I don’t know why. My parents were only ever married to each other and most of my friends came from two-parent families…some of them still very much in love, on the outside anyway…see, there’s that gnawing pessimism again.
So it came to me one day. There are two kinds of marriages: mutual commitments and partnerships. The commitment-based marriages seem to last longer. The partnerships faulter due to lack of understanding, differing expectations and independent agendas.
Next time, I want one of those commitment-based marriages. The ones that feature unconditional love and support, no matter what (with the exception of abuse in any form).
Medavie Bluecross isn’t really there for me
Last month I began massage therapy to fix up a whole bunch of problems probably related to my less than ergonomic desk set up. After two sessions, I took my receipts to our Medavie Bluecross Quick Pay office and was told that I needed to have a form completed by the therapist in order to submit my claim. “I will give you one form, but for any further claims the therapist will have to provide you with one. She’ll have to order them from us.” I thought the response was odd, but the person seemed cranky and I was on day 2 of not smoking, so I took the form and left, tail between my legs.
My massage therapist completed the form on my next visit and back I went, this time with three receipts. I was greeted with the bad news that the form wasn’t completed properly because the benefit code for massage therapy wasn’t included. I asked if they knew it and was told there were different codes for different types of massage. The claims officer tried to reach my therapist, but, she was, as therapists usually are, probably therapying on someone else. So, I left again, tail between my legs and rightly frustrated.
My therapist called me with the code and suggested the claims officers know the code and there’s no reason why they couldn’t have completed it. So, down I go again to the Quick Pay office and present them with the code. To which, the claims officer says, “I’ve never seen this code before.” And, she refused to pay me.
Ok, I’m pissed off at this point, can you really blame me? She suggested I leave the claim with her and when she reaches my therapist she will call me or mail the cheque to me. I told her to call me when it is ready and I’ll pick it up.
My therapist called again and said that the person she spoke with at Medavie Bluecross apologized and suggested the reason for the confusion was that there was a relatively new person on the case who didn’t know they could fill in the code.
So, for the fourth time and 3rd time today, I returned to the office and very sternly asked for my money. The claims officer looked at me like she didn’t know what I was talking about. I gave her the correct code and then they all gathered to explain that it was my “plan” that was keeping them from paying me. My “plan” didn’t allow them to pay claims without the code. Then, the supervisor called me Ma’am. Never a good idea. No one apologized to me.
The point is: The claims officers knew the code all along. All massage therapy is covered at the same percentage. They could have entered one for me, paid me and then followed up with my therapist to confirm. That would have been the client-centric thing to do. I was going to get my money in the end, why they made it so difficult for me just doesn’t make sense.
And, if this pops up on your media monitoring Medavie Bluecross, do feel free to comment. I’d love to hear the response to this blatant lack of respect for my time and blood pressure. And, before you tell me that the “plan” is your client, remember, I pay premiums too and I had an extremely poor customer-service experience today in your Halifax office. You’ve got to do better than that.
PS: I wrote the title of this post before I went to the Medavie Bluecross website and discovered their tagline. Spooky!
Bigger isn’t always better
When I was young, I always thought the laundromat would be fun. It was. The first time. Then it became a chore I detested. When I bought my first house there was no dryer, so all the clothes were dried inside in the wintertime and softened with an iron or body heat. I didn’t complain though, it wasn’t my chore any more.
Growing up, my mother always did these tiny little loads of laundry and I couldn’t understand what part of “super duty” she didn’t understand. I mean if the thing was made to be stuffed, then stuff it. So when I finally got my first complete in-house laundry facility, I did just that. Stuffed the thing full of whatever was in the hamper, dosed it with detergent and then dried, re-dried and re-dried again.
As married couples do, we divided up the chores and the laundry became mine, at which point my ex stated that the laundry pretty much did itself. He quickly learned that steps 4-6 could take up to two weeks to complete given my adversity to folding, sorting and stuffing clothes back into swelling dresser drawers. He conceeded and we began sharing the laundry chore. I still remember the cute little way he would fold my underwear and hook my socks together. Not a reason to stay married, but it had merit.
When the kids came along, things got worse; we were overcome with laundry. Fortunately, we had lots of help from his Mom, who also did tiny little loads of laundry. It was just as annoying as when my mother did it.
Once I was on my own, some good intentioned souls counseled me to do a load of laundry every night to keep on top of it. But then I was just doing laundry every night and throwing it in a hamper to be folded and sorted two weeks later.
I decided the answer was to buy bigger, taller hampers so I didn’t have to do it so often. The problem then became the hallway dressers that held our mash of clothes for weeks (sometimes folded, sometimes not).
Every morning I would mine for the right socks and underwear and gym day or regular day attire. It was a constant curse fest.
Over the holidays I had an enlightened moment where I discovered the solution to my seemingly insurmountable battle with the three extra large clothes hampers used to contain the majority (and often times all) of our clothes.
I bought three of the smallest, shallowest rectangle hampers I could find and labelled them, Korey, Justin and Mom. Now, we each put our clothes into separate hampers and on wash day (or night) I do three tiny little loads of laundry, with minimum water, less detergent (as I learned), on a shorter “light soil” cycle and dry them separately with one push of the dryer button. Then, I take each tiny little, pre-sorted load, quickly fold it, put it back in the hamper and put it away. Laundry now takes less time, uses less detergent, water and electricity and there are always underwear, socks and pants available on our rushed mornings.
I guess our mothers were right. But, who knew I had so many bras.
