Valentine Lovin'

Valentine's Day! You either hate it or you love it. You either feel it or you don't. I am usually into feeling it but after hearing my husband complain year after year of how overdone and materialized it is... I tend to lose my inspiration. This year, just days before Valentine's Day, Cyril starts to complain that there is 'soooo much pressure' on Valentine's Day, there is just not enough time, and he just isn't coming up with anything 'good'. I try to keep my cool but inside he has really hit a nerve! I simply tell him that the only 'pressure' surrounding Valentine's Day is the 'pressure' that he puts on himself, and it's not like this is the first EVER Valentine's Day. I mean it is clearly stated exactly 2 weeks into February on every calendar ever printed! Please don't try to say that this day has 'snuck up' on you. So, I say, you can either figure out a way to tell me how wonderful I am or don't bother; but what you can't say is that you didn't have time, or money, or lack of ideas, or blah, blah, blah. Like I said-- you either feel it or you don't.

I should start out by saying that I have never been the kind of wife that expects (overpriced)flowers and chocolates and fancy dinners and all the frills and stuff. I think one of the best things that Cyril has done for me on V-Day is write little messages on post-it notes and put them all over the house for me to find after he had left for work. Note: I was pregnant with Alex.... first born... over 6 years ago!
In Cyrils' defence I must say that he does buy me flowers when I am sick, or before my first triathalon, or for no reason what-so-ever. I can't make him out to be totally unromantic and cold. He really does show his love and commitment to me in other ways... but Valentine's Day is his chance to just lay it all out there!



Soooo...... I hear Cyril wake up with the kids sometime around 7:30 on Saturday morning so I naturally roll over in hopes to catch a few more zzzz's. Then just after 9 am my lovely family wakes me quietly and pass me the menu featuring the Valentine's Day breakfast items for me to check off. Then they all leave and tell me to stay in bed and they would return in a half hour. They all file in after working hard to make my breakfast together, the kids were just so excited to do this for me and Cyril had a big happy smile on his face. This is what it is all about!! We took the kids swimming that afternoon and I made Alex his favorite supper, shrimp stir fry. Cyril wanted to have a chocolate fondue with me after the kids went to bed but we decided to introduce the kids to fondue..... they loved it!!! What a great Valentine's Day!!

Importance of Time

So lately I have been completely entangled in the careful planning and execution of an elementary school dance, crafts, concession and silent auction. It is over and the night went off without a hitch... just I had prayed for and lost sleep over. The children had fun(from what I could tell) and the parents seemed happy with our parent council's efforts.

This is my first year working with fellow parents to better the environment of our loving kids. We have a great school with fabulous teachers and our council has some strong spirits.... me included. Why you ask?
A new personal goal became clear to me last year after attending a Discovery Workshop with World Vision. The workshop was designed to make us reflect on our time and the availability for volunteering. It was there that I had an 'AHA' moment. The WV coordinator was discussing how stress can affect our time and the symptoms of unhealthy stress. An example that was used was that if you are given a task by your boss at work but not given a deadline to complete the task you will more than likely put off doing it. If your boss gives you a deadline to complete the task, there is a healthy stress added( the deadline) so you will be more apt to complete it.
I realized that because I am a stay at home Mom and have been for nearly 5 years, that I haven't had that healthy stress of a deadline or a commitment(outside of the home/ kids stuff). I have to add that after getting home from the World Vision workshop and revealing this revelation to my husband he states, " So do you want me to tell you that the floors need to be mopped by Friday?".
My answer was of course "No".

What I realized was that with being home full time I had stress- stress of school schedules, busing issues, shuttling, lunches, fundraising, grocery shopping, cleaning, homework, cooking, laundry, yard work, shoveling crappy snow, food and drug safety, WHMIS, etc. There was/is never a deadline. This is just the stuff that I prioritize and re-prioritize over and over throughout a typical work week. It all just needs to get done. Have I worked into getting around to cleaning the caked- on dust off of my bathroom fan? Nope, just haven't gotten around to it ( and so NOT a priority).

So after nearly no thought, the answer was clear. I needed to get out of my house and have some responsibility for something other than my family..... though I can't let it overshadow my family.
I quickly became a WV Special Events volunteer and more extensively became the social committee chair for my son's school parent council. The latter is a huge commitment and most importantly, has deadlines!! I think that it has been really good for me to lose sleep over something other than how my son got slashed in face with hockey stick at school last week while watching some students play shinny outside his bootroom!! Good times.
My next goal... get to bed earlier. All these deadlines are keeping me up too late!!