Little Green Being

Yeah, so whatever. We’ve all seen Pretty In Pink.

We live in a very affluent area. Our school fundraises money that most Toronto schools could not imagine possible. So you can imagine even a grade 6 graduation from our school triggers an avalanche of spending on prom clothing and accessories.

Certainly something taken for granted for 99 percent of the kids going to graduate from our public school.

I was reading the May 2012 North Toronto Post.  It profiled a local resident named Cindy Blakely  co-founded a non-profit agency that allows girls from low income families to get a prom dress and boys to find grad clothing too.

The non-profit called New Circles is only two years old. In it’s first year, it provided 7500 clothing items to hundreds of families. In 2011 they gave out 170,000 clothing items to a staggering 16,000 families.

It certainly gave me pause for thought, given how often I have to purge my 9 year old’s room of clothing that will not fit into drawers any more. We are very lucky that it is easy to make donations to a women and children’s shelter though the Sporting Life store just 5 minutes from our home.

Every year I vow to buy less, and be more. It’s time that message resonated louder with my children.

Here’s a reality check from the article that make me weep:

“Blakely recalls one young woman in particular.  As she was leaving he prom boutique, she asked when she had to bring back the dress.  Blakely said that she didn’t, the dress was hers.” That young girl’s mother returned to the agency to tell Blakely that once a week her daughter puts on that dress. “It makes her feel beautiful”.

If you have clothing to donate, or time to give. Please consider them. http://www.newcircles.ca/

Now up to the attic to grab some fancy clothing I wear once a year.

Be more. Be more. Be more.

What used to make me a good living as process engineer and management consultant is now ruining everything I see.  Perfectionism. 

Meticulous, detailed, solution-driven. Source of success.  Source of suffering.

I am launching into research now about perfectionism as a problem, rather than as a solution.  I see flaws in cleaning, home repair, laundry, dish seasoning…

Setting standards high for a working life where many variables are predictable and controllable works.

Setting standards high for a family life where many variables are UNpredictable and UNcontrollable is misery.

Problem is, the mantra LET IT GO is like nails on a chalk board or  hair on the yoga centre floor. Some people are housekeeping myopic, they are perfectly ok with whatever level of clean, organized, performing home they have.

My brain can see an imbalanced picture frame at 40 feet, in near dark and only off a few degrees.  Only a marble rolling off it would know it wasn’t level. And me.

A phrase caught my attention when googling perfectionism that gave me pause for thought. “Work for excellence, not perfection”. 

Trying to breathe and commune with the dust bunnies. Namaste.

Tonight I randomly stumbled onto the 60 minutes website because Mike Wallace passed away.  I was poking around when I saw something called the Khan Academy story.

I was blown away.  Nothing sobers me up, or makes me more seriously upset than the standard quo of education in North America.

www.khanacademy.org has begun the massive revolution in the way millions upon millions of children, youth and adults will gain a world-class education.  All they need is access to the web. 

We are very lucky in Toronto where libraries offer free internet access.  In California where various schools are piloting introduction this way of learning into the school systems, computer labs are open until 10pm so all children can have access afterschool to the site.

It is nothing short of the miracle needed to start the change this generation so desperately needed.

Please watch this 60 minutes interview to see how grounded, humble and real the creator of the idea and approach, Sal Khan is. 

Please spread the word.  It is amazing.

I have been a sketchy yoga practitioner for some time now.

I discovered Ashtanga yoga several years ago.  Lucky for me, one of the two Mysore dedicated yoga shalas in Toronto is located a nice walk from my home.  I remember climbing the stairs tentatively.  It felt so weird. Like I was underage buying booze as I was looking at the items on the shelves. I bought the Yoga Mala book, a mat and the Kino Primary Series DVD and skipped home not knowing that the medicine comes before the spoon of sugar. 

The warmth (physical and personal) at the centre is what makes my practice progress more than anything I could do at home.  The Ashtanga Yoga Centre of Toronto was really the door opening to healing in a way I never imagined.  I saw Kino MacGregor there for the first time give a talk about meditation.

Ashtanga is not a casual kind of yoga.  It’s the disciplined 6 day-a-week type. (Saturdays and moon days and “ladies holiday” off).  What is scarier than the true ashtangi early morning rise, is the opening up that your soul experiences when your practice seems to be finally “working”. 

In my case, it unleashed a lot of emotional stuff I had no clue was in me.  Unpretty and difficult, I persisted.  In between the episodic soreness of starting the sun salutations and the deepening into the primary postures, I caught glimmers of awareness and bliss that not much else has afforded me.  Maybe gazing into my children’s eyes on the best of days and seeing heaven there falls into that category.

Or maybe I see heaven in their eyes on the best of days because the yoga practice influence has grounded me enough to be aware when I am in that moment.

For many of years I had the desire for a 6 day practice, but not ready to attain it.  I’d have good weeks and many patchy weeks.  I found it frustrating, got stuck on postures, and quit took long breaks several times.  I must be a slow learner because the start and stop was punishing for me.

Flexibility (for me) is the easy part.  It’s the strength bit that is my weakness.  I build muscle quickly, I also lose it easily when I stop practice.  So the graceful vinyasa still eludes me because my practice is still not regular enough.

I am so excited to develop the muscle strength for the gravity defying jumping back and through which visually, (for me)  makes this yoga so mesmerizing.

The hardest part of my home-centred practice is really unrolling the mat.  Ignoring the laundry, the tidying up, the dust bunnies being displaced as I unroll it. It’s bullshit hard.

It was all kind of parallel to reading A New Earth.  I started and stopped reading it many times.  I knew I needed to read it but it didn’t happen until I was ready.  The seed was always planted , like a small stone in my the shoe of my soul.  I knew it was budding, even though the soil was not very fertile and I forgot to water it.

The hardest part of reading it was figuring out what I was if all the temporary and material things about me were stripped away.  It was around that time I stumbled into Ashtanga yoga and they kind of went hand in hand.

It’s been a winding road. Today, it feel less uphill.  For that I am truly lucky.

I wanted to share my blissing out today because I am so grateful for all the things that came together for me to get here.

Namaste.

Idas

I’m in love with a 5 year old.. and she’s not my child. (Now don’t get all freaked out yet.)

Of course we love our kids, we are generally built that way. 

We have a little play date pal Zoe who is just dreamy. Dreamy. Dreamy.

A average play date here usually goes down like this:

Good playtime, a tiny bit of bickering, some adult intervention, more good playtime, toys littered everywhere but actually played with, healthy and treaty snack time, more play, easy pick-up time departure.

A bad one = me: referee, a kid saying no to 50 f*cking food options and me: looking at the clock non-stop for the pain to end. (*ahem, usually the product of either helicopter parented children or marshmallow parenting..ugh)

It’s usually a crap shoot.  Good one week, crappy the next.

If we could, we’d have a weekly standing appointment with Zoe.  The kid asks for edamame for snack, barely moves any toys around and brings my (almost) 5 year old into incredible imaginary worlds. 

I. Am. Smitten. 

When Zoe goes home, I feel like I should pay her babysitting money for keeping things so positive & tidy; blissful.

Zoe is  teaching me how to be a better person.  She brings out the best in both my kids (~ 5 and 9)

Might be weird to tip a 5 year old?  Hmm, I just bought some Girl Guide cookies at the door last night…she deserves to take the box home at least.

Her parents are doing something really right…I hope they share some secrets to how they have a child who knows how to get along, share, and play like the good ol days.

Need dinner inspiration?

Today I discovered these pesto and tapenades at Whole Foods. They are make from all fresh ingredients.

So convenient, container keeps it super fresh.

Tonight dinner for me was going to be leftover baby asparagus that the kids didn’t finish.

So I grabbed some Naan bread, I  toasted it, spread the olive/sundried tomato tapenade and cut the extras asparagus.

You could add some goat cheese or grilled tofu for protein.

Dinner in five minutes.

Amazing how just a smidge of something can take a simple ingredient and go from blah to yay instantly.

Healthy & super fast.

Enjoy!

Their website has loads of recipe ideas.

http://maisonlegrand.com/en/nos-produits/

Oh, and add that the can also live next door to the Judge who allowed his pardon in 2007.

Try getting a pardon for pot possession.  Sexually abuse a child, hey, take a free pass.

What a shameful day in Canada.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/graham-jamess-alleged-first-victim-finally-has-his-say/article2372297/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=Referrer%3A+Social+Network+%2F+Media&utm_content=2372297&utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links