Archive | March 2017

Fear of Loss and Regression

There are few things scarier as the spouse of a person with severe and clinical depression than a regression or a “slip up” on the new life patterns.

Thankfully my current and more recent experiences with these “lapses in change” are few and far between, but it happens. Add in work stress, deadlines, someone at the office quitting suddenly and equally quickly I see Ken slipping into old patterns. Chores undone, choices in chores a wee bit wacky (he seriously is the only person I know that, when he falls back into old destruction choices finds himself a BIGGER chore to avoid the ongoing list). All I see is a great big red WARNING sign.

MY frustration is quickly felt as household promises fall to the wayside in favour of work and stress. After all, part of Ken’s therapy is the realization that (as long as it won’t endanger the household) it is not appropriate for me to swoop in and do something FOR Ken. That gives him an out, like a child who does a chore badly to get out of it (and I HAVE experienced that, I might add). Rather, I have to (equally frustratingly) sit back and leave the chaos to rest until Ken comes round to the mental and emotional realization that he must stop running from that particular responsibility.

This is all something which, when Ken is in the moment, he DOES NOT SEE. And there is a balance there too, I can’t just scream out DO THE CHORE the second day on, he has to have the opportunity to become self aware (little heads up – we are NOT there yet… quite). Self awareness is a tricky thing. Do we ever clearly see our own actions when emotionally compromised?

There is always, in the back of my head, a little voice saying – “keep aware, be diligent.” I know I have mentioned this before and talked extensively about being the “healthy one,” but sometimes it is a hugely frustrating endeavor. I am not sure WHEN I will ever assuage myself of the guilt of missing cues. Why didn’t I see the spiral earlier on? Why was I so blind to the now obvious suffering of one of the most important people in my life? So there is the additional worry that I will be hyper vigilant or accidentally take to “calling wolf.” (are we all familiar of the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf? If not HERE)

Luckily this newest roller coaster (mini as it was) was over messes at work that were not the fault of himself, and deadlines and crazy hours (like skype at 3 am… kid you not, darn international companies!). What is utterly amazing is that every phone call, ever little WORK related deadline or promise was hit, met and exceptionally dealt with. Just don’t ask about the dishwasher issue, the pictures that need to be hung where tall people live, or the room we tore apart to paint… oops.20170214_210130

January and the Beginning of 2017

So we have placed our feet firmly into 2017. January has come and gone (and at this point February is quickly going the same way). But what, exactly, did we do in January? Chinese New Year fell on January 28th this year. You can take a peek at our celebrating of the start of the Year of the Rooster HERE. We had a wee bit of snow, but nothing exciting…IMG_20170110_092553_627

The only snow structure we managed to make!

The only snow structure we managed to make!

20170116_102843IMG_20170111_110136_013OH! We helped Darcy celebrate her birthday with dinner out and cake.20170121_213340

This meant we also got to see our godson Anthony play indoor soccer (they won, as usual).20170121_194012

20170121_20452720170121_202011I spent A LOT of time at the YMCA.IMG_20170101_160539

IMG_20170119_000313_948IMG_20170114_152113_768IMG_20170108_215013This in turn meant the kids spent A LOT of time at Cluby.

Slightly out of season but someone donated house kits for the kids at club.

Slightly out of season but someone donated house kits for the kids at club.

Waiting for swimming lessons.

Waiting for swimming lessons.

We took our Christmas money from Grandma and Grandpa Mike and spent it on some new clothes.20170116_201043

Even luckier than the clothing sale... a pretzel sale!

Even luckier than the clothing sale… a pretzel sale!

Did lots and lots of learning. Mostly in the sunshine on the floor.IMG_20170118_014220_363

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Completion!

Completion!

Cousin Robbie came for an overnight visit.20170111_203533

20170111_204355IMG_20170111_194933_737IMG_20170112_175531_252And I crocheted up a storm.

Yarn was purchased and a hat requested... not half bad!

Yarn was purchased and a hat requested… not half bad!

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Snuck some cross stitch in here too.

Snuck some cross stitch in here too.

Ken, Renee, Chris and myself all went out to Matt’s Bar for Juicy Lucy’s.IMG_20170107_143800_695

We also visited a rather amazing display of quilts... I wish this one had photographed better. It was amazing.

We also visited a rather amazing display of quilts… I wish this one had photographed better. It was amazing.

Flat Stanley came to visit as well.20170129_122256

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It was a rather social month, but it was also a very education heavy with as much time spent outside as possible. Even from simply looking back at the images I have collected, I feel we started the year off positively. Smiles, friendship, knowledge and fun. What more could I ask for?IMG_20170105_120418

Church down the road.

Church down the road.

Emanuel is growing his hair out to donate!

Emanuel is growing his hair out to donate!

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This entry was posted on 07/03/2017, in Uncategorized. 2 Comments

Happy Year of the Rooster!

Chinese New Year is a holiday we have tried our best to celebrate for at least 5 or 6 years now. This is all thanks to the families of our two gorgeous god daughters (Anna and Isabella). Their moms are from the same city in China (Ghangzou) and have been kind enough to help us learn how to fully embrace this holiday. I love the changing date of the celebration based on the lunar calendar and it has come to mean more than the “traditional” North American New Years to me. We do a significant amount of preparation for this holiday, cleaning, researching and shopping for food, reading out favourite themed stories (The Runaway Wok by Ying Chang Compestine). This year it was Trinity’s turn to do a full on lapbook for the season. She worked really hard on it and it shows.IMG_20170128_134718_976

We finished up our day with take out from our favourite Chinese food restaurant – The Rose Garden.

I have worksheets to share:

  • Activity Village HERE
  • Education.com collection HERE and chicken collection HERE
  • Definitely make sure you search EnchantedLearning.com for their resources HERE

Books to suggest:

  • Happy Chinese New Year, Kai-Lan! HERE
  • The Nian Monster by Andrea Wang (a new book for us!) by Andrea Wang HERE
  • Celebrate Chinese New Year by Carolyn Otto HERE
  • Chinese New Year Crafts by Karen E. Bledsoe HERE
  • Chinese New Year by Grace Jones HERE
  • Celebrating Chinese New Year by Diana Hoyt-Goldsmith HERE
  • Chinese New Year by Ann Heinrichs HERE
  • Long-Long’s New Year by Catherine Gower HERE
  • The Runaway Rice Cake by Ying Chang Compestine HERE
  • Fortune Cookie Fortunes by Grace Lin HERE
  • Red Butterfly by Deborah Noyes HERE
  • Red Kite, Blue Kite by Ji-li Jiang HERE
  • Kai-Lan’s Great Trip to China HERE20170131_140611

And a few DVD’s for you to hunt down:

  • Celebrate With Kai-Lan! HERE
  • Stone Soup (a read-along) HERE

Of course there is the lapbook Trinity used! Currclick has it for 3.00 HERE. This is put out by A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks.20170222_184327

20170222_18431020170222_184322And don’t forget our yearly video!

For our Chicken/Rooster research we had a couple books as well:

  • Chickens by Katie Dicker HERE
  • Young Chicken Farmers by Vickie Black HERE

I used this amazing designer to make this year’s Zodiac animal – the rooster. I used her last year to make a monkey as well (see my County Fair post from last here HERE). Her site is called All about Ami and you can find her rooster pattern HERE and the monkey HERE.IMG_20170128_134658_879

We also splurged this year and bought two dresses for the girls off of Amazon. They were not overly expensive and definitely not high quality, but so cute!IMG_20170128_134638_408

Of course we also picked up new shirts for the boys at Walmart. And buzzed the twins’ heads. New clothes and fresh haircuts in a clean house. And I mean CLEAN! We threw out, sorted, donated… you name it we got rid of excess. And it felt amazing. So Happy Chinese New Year All! Let’s hope the year of the Rooster is auspicious and prosperous!20170128_132722_HDR

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The girls love to sort through their toys and find theme friendly pieces.

The girls love to sort through their toys and find theme friendly pieces.

This entry was posted on 05/03/2017, in Uncategorized. 2 Comments