Tag Archives: family

Axe throwing

I went axe throwing for the first time today. It was a lot of fun. It’s the kind of activity where a little coaching and a little practice can go a long way. I really enjoyed throwing one-handed as opposed to with two hands over my head.

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One of the coaches showed us an underhanded technique as well. I was far less consistent with most shots going too low, and some too high, but I found the bullseyes a few times with that technique too.

This would be a lot harder if the target distance changed, they set you up at a perfect distance for one full rotation of the exe. But even for archery I do the same thing, shooting again and again from the same distances. I imagine that after 1,000 throws, changing distances would be easy to learn.

For anyone that wants to try a fun activity with an easy entry point, this is a great activity to do with your family.

Taking a real break

There’s always more to do.

Always.

But sometimes you just need a break. Or rather, I do.

Spring break is here and I’ve got a two week break. Shortly after I return I’ll have an opportunity to book my vaccine. I’m heading into a break with optimism and hope… and I’m letting go of work for a good part of this time.

I’ll spend time with family, shoot a lot of arrows, workout (hard), binge watch some shows, listen to a fictional book… and do a little bit of nothing without feeling like I’m procrastinating.

There’s always more to do, but now is a time to do things for me.

Reconnecting with friends

Yesterday I was listening to a podcast and there was a poem on Friendship by David Whyte. I shared a minute of it on Twitter and a few other places.

I think that the absolute hardest part of the pandemic has been the challenge of not seeing friends and family. Yes, we can connect digitally, but I miss those face-to-face connections. However, if I’m honest, I am missing an opportunity that I didn’t take full advantage of before the pandemic. I didn’t take enough time to see friends even before restrictions were in place.

Life gets so busy and we all get caught up in our own worlds. This is a lame but honest excuse. We spend our days without filling it with the company we enjoy. We get caught up in routines and recycle our days rather than plan them. I hope to be more intentional when things open up.

I have a buddy that I see and don’t see in waves. Sometimes we get into a rut where we see each other and just sit and chat about life and the awesome history we have together. Sometimes we get bored with that and plan experiences because we want to make new memories rather than rehash the old. Right now, I’d like nothing better than to sit and have a beverage with him and just be in his presence.

Connecting for the sake of connecting… that’s what I’m looking forward to. Hugs, clinking glasses, and sharing time in the presence of friends.

A night out

Went out for a dinner with my family tonight. My wife’s birthday is coming up in a few days. It’s nice to have a family night out, to feel a little normalcy.

I know the vaccine is headed our way. I also know that this will mean slow and gradual changes, not a sudden reset. So nights like this are still pretty special.

Rewind

A year ago we were heading towards the March break and, at the end of February, had no idea that we would return from the break doing remote learning. I was recovering from breaking my kneecap, and not mentioning Covid-19 or physical distancing yet here on my Daily-Ink. That changed in March.

What a year it has been! Part of me wants to call it a rollercoaster ride, part of me wants to call it a long straight drive on a deserted road through the prairies. No matter how you look at this past year, it is nothing any of us expected a year ago.

Rewind to the end of February 2011, I was a principal in China, and found out I’d be coming back to BC to be vice principal of the adult learning centre. This would lead me to my current position both with Coquitlam Open Learning and co-founding Inquiry Hub.

Rewind to February 2001 and my wife and I had a 1 year old who completely changed our lives. February 2002 our second was born.

Rewind to 1991 and I had not graduated on time from university and went to a different university to finish my degree, choosing this school so that I could play varsity water polo. This brought me back home and I ended up lifeguarding and coaching at a high school. I wouldn’t be a teacher today if I hadn’t made this move and got experience working with and coaching students.

How will I look at February 2021 a decade from now? Will it be a blur in the covid years, or will it be stepping out into a post-covid frontier? Maybe that’s going to be February 2022… I think we will have to keep driving the long prairie road for a while, and look forward to slow and gradual changes in the coming year.

Work-Life Balance

I chatted with a friend recently and he said, “Imagine having a job that you just arrived at on time, left on time at the end of the day, and you didn’t have to think about work while you weren’t at work.”

I have to say that while I might romanticize that work/life balance, I also don’t know too many of those jobs that would appeal to me. Even if I had some kind of existential crisis and quit my job, I don’t think I’d find a new job like that anyway. So my focus for work/life balance is about finding the time to do things that fill my bucket… things that make me appreciate my home and work life; My family and friends; My health and mental well-being.

This isn’t an easy journey to do well. Living through a pandemic doesn’t make it any easier. So, find reasons to be joyful, do activities that are enjoyable, spend time (physically and digitally) with those you love.

I don’t think solitude helps, unless you are somehow enlightened. I don’t think sloth, laziness, or a bag of potato chips helps. Connections do help. Making time for others you care about is something that helps to balance you. Who can you connect with right now?

What are you waiting for?

Old home movies

Recently my wife had our home made DVD (digital) tapes converted to MP4 so that we could watch them on our computers. Last night we watched a few. The videos ranged from 15-20 years ago. With my daughters now at 21 and almost 19, it was a wonderful trip down memory lane.

Taking videos like these really dropped off after those early years. I think this was a combination of two things happening. First, the kids were older and in school, which made for changes in the dynamics at home. Next, the iphone came out and suddenly you always had a video camera available. However, as convenient as this was, it also made me less likely to record everyday activities, when I knew that I’d also have my recorder ‘right there with me’ the next time. So, video became reserved for happy birthday wishes, and graduations, and ‘special’ experiences like these.

When I was watching these videos last night, I was so thankful for the experiences I recorded. I was sharing snippets with my parents and siblings, laughing with my family, and making comments about how young my wife and I, and my parents and siblings, looked. Moments in time captured and then re-lived.

With the advent of 3D video and fully developed 360° immersive cameras, I wonder what home movies of the future will look like? Will we be able to put on some immersive goggles and enter a scene from the past? Will we be able to enter a scene, turn our heads and see the expression on our own faces as we take the video? What will the experience of looking at ‘old’ home made videos look like for our grandkids?

It’s exciting to think how the experience could be different in the future, but for now, I’m quite grateful for what we do have. It’s nice to have easier access to our old videos, and we are going to enjoy the fond memories for years to come.

Holiday greetings

My parents were Jewish in background, but not really in faith. They decided when we were young that we would celebrate Christmas ‘like the other kids’, and so we always had Christmas trees and gifts from Santa. We had so many gifts from our grandparents, aunts, and uncles that it was embarrassing to have friends over to see half a tree above a massive pile of gifts.

My grandfather called our tree the Hanukkah bush. We would have turkey and a ham, and my dad would tell the same joke every year about the pig being circumcised, so the ham was kosher. So, (totally tongue-in-cheek) Christmas was about consumerism and blasphemy in our household.

But above and beyond that, it has always been about the spirit of giving and spending time with family. It’s about love and memories. It’s about being grateful and feeling blessed.

No matter if you celebrate Christmas or not, whether it’s a religious holiday for you or not, or whether you celebrate a different holiday around this originally pagan mid-winter holiday… season’s greetings and happy holidays. May the holiday season bring you joy, and may you find hope and promise in the year ahead.

Be well, be strong, and be kind.

Falling fairies

It was meant to be funny, but it was mean. Not one of proudest moments as a dad.

My oldest daughter was three, and we were outside, playing in the fresh snow on a weekend morning. The snow was deep, but way too fluffy and soft for a snowman. I went over to the huge tree in our front yard, covered in snow, branches laden with powdered snow, and decided it would be funny to shake the snow onto my daughter. A harmless joke.

I called here over. ‘Come here’.

“Why”

I gently pulled a branch lower. “Come over here.’

“Why”

‘If you listen carefully you can hear the tree fairies sing.’

My daughter came over, trying to listen, and I shook the branch. Puffy snowflakes came falling down into her. This wasn’t a dump of snow, it was a powdering, but still, a solid covering of her toque and face.

And then the tears came so fast that I couldn’t even laugh. Thank goodness because that would have been meaner that it already was. I gave her a hug and she cried on my shoulder. I realized my mistake and hugged her tight. At this point I did laugh embarrassingly, but held it in, my body shaking as I held back the noise, still hugging her and hiding my guilty grin. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry sweetie, it was just a joke.’

My mistake wasn’t dumping snow on her, that would have been funny. It was the comment about the fairies that was hurtful. I played on the gullibility of a three year old who really believed she was going to hear a tree fairy. When I tricked her, it wasn’t just a prank by dad for the sake of a joke, it was a betrayal, and a disappointment that made the betrayal actually hurt.

She got over it pretty quickly, and we were back to playing and having fun a few moments after the tears. Now that she’s almost 21, I’m sure this isn’t a scarring memory that she’ll end up needing therapy for, but it was not a great parenting moment for me.

We don’t always realize the way we hurt people with the things we say. To us it’s nothing but a lighthearted joke, a little poke, a passing comment. But to the receiver it can be more. It was falling fairies, not falling snow, that really hurt my daughter.

We don’t always see how our words and actions can really affect others. We say ‘It’s not a big deal’, others feel it really is. We see misunderstanding, others see malcontent. We see honest mistakes, others see betrayal. What others hear and feel is far more important than what we think they hear and feel.

And sometimes a sincere apology, or even a hug, can go a long way in mending fallen feelings.

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A related story, “T’was two nights after Christmas… A story of lost innocence.“
Salvador Dali - clock

Fast and Slow

How is it that time seems to go by really slowly day-by-day, but months and years seem to just race on? I recently celebrated my 53rd birthday. As a kid, 53 was old. Ancient.

My youngest daughter turns 19 in a couple months. How did that happen so quickly? It sounds cliche, but where did the time go?

I heard an interesting perspective on time recently: When you are 12, 4 years of your life is 1/3 (33.3%} of your life, that’s so long! When you are 52, 4 years of your life is 1/13 (7.7%) of your life… much less significant. The older you get, the less significant a set amount of time is relative to how long you’ve lived.

Time doesn’t just march on, it marches on at ever increasing speeds. It’s up to us to slow it down by making our days worth living. What will you do to enjoy life today, rather than just let that time slip by into an ever-decreasing amounts of significance?