Robin | Farewell Stranger

New House and New Traditions

November 4, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

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So, we bought a house yesterday.

<– That’s it. Pretty good, eh?

We jogged into town on Wednesday afternoon, bought an iPhone (because, obviously) and started looking at houses yesterday at 10 am. The deal was done about 10:00 last night.

We are totally thrilled with how this worked out. It’s almost miraculous. We got a house we love and – get this – the possession date we wanted. We’ve agreed to be out of our house by the 26th and will be into the new one on the 28th. Of November.

So that means we’ll be in our new house for Christmas.

I’m not actually sure what our Christmas plans will be this year, but I think it’s going to be a little odd. We’ve spent every Christmas except two at home with my parents and other assorted family. We’ve picked out a tree at the same nursery every year. We’ve done the same lights tour. We’ve eaten Christmas dinner at the same table and hung our stockings from the same fireplace. Those things will change and it will be okay, though I’m feeling a bit sentimentally sad about it.

What we will have, however, is this, which we woke up to this morning:

There’s actually no guarantee we’ll have a white Christmas but if we do I will be a very happy girl. Despite many years on the coast, it never feels like Christmas without snow. And I think this little dude will like it too:

We’ll be in town for good just in time to gear up for Christmas, which will involve my sister and her husband, and my parents are planning to come out too. My mother-in-law lives here, so we won’t be short on family.

And it will be kind of fun to start new traditions and find new holiday comforts. We’ll go visit the great light display they do in a park here and actually enjoy hot chocolate in the car without being too warm. I’ll prove to Connor that I do, in fact, know how to build a snowman. We’ll bake my mom’s Christmas cookies in our new oven in our totally awesome new kitchen, and then we’ll sit by our new fireplace and eat them. (Or maybe I’ll leave the boys downstairs and eat mine upstairs because our new bedroom has a fireplace in it. Squee!) We’ll introduce our stockings to their new home and make sure Santa knows we’ve moved.

And we’ll enjoy the snow. Until we’re sick of it.

***

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Filed Under: Happy things, Stuff I like · Tagged With: family, favourite activities, firsts, hope, living life, The Universe

30 gifts for 30 strangers [video]

November 2, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

This is just happy – 2 minutes and 45 seconds of happy – and I wanted to share it with you.

Filed Under: Better world, Happy things, Hello, Inspiration · Tagged With: community, gratitude, living life, spreading the love

Striiving to Get Over this Slump

November 1, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

About four years ago pedometer challenges were really big in my workplace. Aiming for 10,000 steps a day, people did team challenges, take-the-stairs challenges, and all kinds of other things designed to motivate the unmotivated. I was training for my third half-marathon at the time so didn’t really feel the need to jump on board that particular bandwagon, but I tend to be sort of an organizational culture geek and I think getting involved is important. Plus, higher-ups tend to notice if you don’t participate in these sorts of things. Or maybe they just notice if you do. In any case, sticking a piece of plastic that can count on my waistband is worth it if it gets me on the good list. So that’s what I did.

One day at lunchtime as part of the motivational rah-rah, we had a speaker come to talk about how great tracking your footsteps is. At one point he asked the crowd to guess how many steps it takes to burn off one M&M. I can’t remember what the number turned out to be, but it was a lot of steps. Like, 439,000 or something. Okay, maybe not that many, but it was a seriously big number considering the goal was 10,000 steps per day. It gave me a newfound gratitude for those long runs I was doing at the crack of dawn each Sunday.

I played along for a while and then, as tends to happen, the collective enthusiasm for step counting petered out. One day I forgot to put my pedometer on and I came across it again several months later in the bottom drawer of my dresser. So much for that.

It didn’t really matter because I didn’t need it at the time. Shortly after that I got pregnant and when I needed motivation to exercise I had a very perky Denise Austin and her four pregnant assistants on DVD to keep me going. (Hey, it worked.) Then I had a baby and, when I had recovered from the c-section, started running again so I could run one of my favourite races – an 8K, which I ran when Connor was four months old. And I just kept going. Until sometime this summer.

I was fairly active while I was on leave because for me exercise has always been a critical part of not feeling crazy, but for some reason when I weaned off all meds except the anti-depressant I seemed to eliminate all motivation for exercise at the same time. And now I’m writing posts about needing maternity clothes when I’m not pregnant. I am now the unmotivated.

It’s time to do something about it, and as part of the Just.Be.Enough. team I have an opportunity I think will kick me in the pants. A few of us are going to try out a Striiv, described as a “sleek fitness device that fits on your keychain and counts every step you take.” Ah, but there’s more.

This device gives you little kicks in the pants throughout the day in the form of games, personal challenges, and opportunities to have donations made to charity. All of that is powered by physical activity, naturally, and if games and challenges aren’t enough to get me going, having each step count towards a donation to charity (at no cost to me) just might. Well, that or the fact that our JBE team has decided to do a little challenge amongst ourselves.

The other team members have their devices already but since I’m in the Great White North I’m still waiting for mine to arrive on my doorstep. (Note to Canada Customs – give it up!) When it does get here, well, if it weren’t counter to the JBE spirit to say I’m going to kick some butt I totally would say it. Kidding, of course. I’ll take motivation in whatever form it’s provided.

We’ll be writing about our progress weekly with a wrap-up post on Just.Be.Enough. every Wednesday. Feel free to follow along, and if I need a little extra kick in the pants you’re welcome to give me one.

***

Here’s some info if you’re interested or want to get a Striiv for yourself so you can challenge us (bring it!).

Striiv features include:

Walkathon in your pocket in which every step counts toward a donation to charity, at no cost to the user.
Activity-based games where progress is based on walking, running, and taking the stairs.
Daily challenges and trophies to reward activity.
Charts and graphs to track progress. (Yes! I love charts and graphs!)
TruMotion Technology which is always on and always sensing if you are walking, running, and even climbing stairs.

Find out more at www.striiv.com.

Share your thoughts on Twitter (@striiv) or Facebook.

Striiv videos can be found on their YouTube channel, including a new video of the device in use.

Striiv is available for $99 on www.striiv.com, or on HSN and HSN.com with an exclusive holiday bundle for $99.95.

I received a Striiv (or will) to allow me to participate in this challenge but was not compensated for this post. All opinions are my own, and if this doesn’t get me back to regular exercise I fear I’ll have to buy a new wardrobe.

Filed Under: Uncategorized · Tagged With: running, Striiv

The Blogger’s Manifesto

October 31, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

There have been a lot of posts lately about burnout. Bloggy burnout.

Alison wrote about doing less as a result of running out of fuel.

Kim wrote about finding balance in unplugging.

Jessica wrote about blogging less and breathing more.

And probably lots of others. (Have you written about it? Fire a link at me.)

We all go through that at times. Some scale back and worry it will mean they won’t be The Next Big Thing. Others scale back and find they write better and enjoy blogging more when it’s not such a big part of their day-to-day. And some, of course, quit altogether.

I haven’t found the secret or the magic balance. Lord knows I ~~blab~~ blog too much. After my relatively brief time here, however, I have developed a philosophy. And thus I present to you The Blogger’s Manifesto:

Pin It

Filed Under: Randomness · Tagged With: blogging, expectations, perspective

The Truth

October 30, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

Just before 4:30 on Friday, I left my afternoon meeting and got into my car. I drove a few blocks and then pulled over to an empty parking spot on the side of the road, pulled out my BlackBerry, and wrote my resignation.

And hit send.

As of November 19, I will no longer be employed at the organization I have worked at for almost six years. I will no longer be employed at all, in fact.

The truth is this causes me a slightly-larger-than-small amount of anxiety.

The truth is it’s more freeing than scary.

When we started talking about making this move I presumed I’d get a job and then move. I applied for some, interviewed, and then sat there waiting for the phone to ring. And one afternoon I realized I was waiting for the phone to ring but hoping it didn’t.

That realization was freeing too.

By all normal logic, I should have a job. My husband is a stay-at-home dad and I have a preschooler who’s growing so fast I’m starting to hope capris become a hot style for three-year-old boys.

We intend to buy a house in Calgary, but with the equity in our current house we’ll be able to do that. We sold that house on Friday – the papers have been signed, the for-sale sign has been flipped, and less than a month from now we’re going to hit the road.

I’ve busted out of the golden handcuffs before and it’s not easy. (One of these days I’ll have to tell you the story about how spending a weekend at an alternative treatment centre with my mom when she had cancer ultimately led me to leave a totally secure job and take a pay cut to do the kind of work I wanted to do.) It hasn’t been easy this time around either. But I have never once doubted it’s the right thing to do, and after all that’s happened over the last few months I’m not prepared to take the wrong job just so I have a job. Sometimes I think you have to just GO. The right job will find me.

“Aren’t you scared?” a good friend of mine asked a few weeks ago. “Shitless,” I answered truthfully. But I’d rather be full of fear for a short time than full of regret forever. (And then last week, for similar reasons, that friend quit his job too. The truth is out there, people. It’s spreading, and it’s AWESOME.)

The truth is we spend too much time being scared. We think “scary” equals “wrong” so we stay scared and we do nothing. We stay the course.

The truth is I think I’d die if I stayed the course. Physically, I already came as close as I care to. I’m not letting what I “should” do steal my soul.

Image credit: kxlly on Flickr

There’s a whole other layer to what’s happening in my work environment right now and, while I decided to move on before that begun, it’s been, frankly, awful. There are things I want to pour on this page, but I can’t. That’s one truth I can’t tell. So I don’t have this outlet and my emotion and frustration and grief over a difficult situation have overflowed elsewhere.

Truth: It’s affecting people I care about, and that’s hard.

Truth: It’s damaged a relationship, possibly irreparably, and I regret that while at the same time feel like I can’t do anything about it.

Truth: It feels like I’m leaving part of me behind in this process. Not just the part I have intentionally ditched, but a good part. A stable part. A rational part.

It’s the truth. But it has consequences.