OFF THE WAGON
Even the strongest among us fail. Merely being able to recognize a weakness gives one very little power to overcome it. Even those who have walked this path before can succumb to sweet temptation over and over again.
All those promises I've made to myself to bolster self control, all those private pep talks to curb an unhealthy, unreasonable fixation, all those post-frenzy moments of clarity when it becomes crystal clear what I have done - yet again. All undone (as usual) when I was at my most vulnerable; snow still piled high on my gardens, spring fever raging in my blood.
Hello. My name is Jocelyn, and I am a garden-aholic.
This weakness - this dangerous tendency of mine - is hereditary. It affects all the females in my family to some degree. And, because we women tend to spend a lot of time in each others' company, not only does the actual genetic weakness exert its influence on us, but hanging out with other addicts reinforces a bad behavior. They warn you about that sort of thing. It's what's called a double whammy.
To make matters worse we have all managed to marry enablers - guys who are easily talked into cultivating another stretch of ground for a perennial bed here, and a strawberry patch there, here some asparagus, there some raspberries, here a bush, there an apple tree ... e-i-e-i-o. They can even been sold on the idea of hauling massive rocks into the yard and inserting them into a hillside for esthetic appeal - even if they're not sure what that is. Trust me, I know.
On the surface there doesn't seem to be a big problem. I mean, what's another flower bed? It can easily be rationalized as 'curb appeal' or 'doing our bit for the bees'. An addiction dressed in environmentally friendly clothing can fool a lot of people, but while these don't seem to be so bad to the casual outside observer, living on the inside with the day-to-day consequences of weeding and watering every waking moment is another story.
It can tear families apart ... or indoctrinate the next generation into the family failing; it can go either way. Just ask my own children about their childhoods of conscripted slave labour spent out in the potato patch.
I confess all this to show you how my life has been a rocky path of self-inflicted gardens. But I also want you to understand that I have gained at least a small modicum of insight into my struggle. I do comprehend the magnitude of my weakness, and I know I am helpless to battle it alone. There are twelve step recovery programs out there for everything and if I ever find one for gardening I hope I have the strength of character to join. Until then I am on my own.
Over the years I've had my ups and downs. Sometimes I've been able to hold the line on reasonable expectations - you know, making sure that the tilled square footage/available manpower ratio is in balance. And, other times, a friend will be giving away loads of perennials and I say 'yes!' to everything only to come to my senses when I get back home and remember that every square inch of my flower beds is already full.
My willpower ebbs and flows on me; I'm never stronger that at the end of a hot summer day, having weeded all morning, picked beans all afternoon, and made pickles after supper. And I'm at my weakest in front of gardening bulb display in early March ... as the VISA bill will attest to when it comes next month.
It was the old case of one plant is one too many, a thousand is not enough. If I could have just walked on by I might have been okay, but I had made a premeditated decision to buy a few begonias ... which derailed my self control and led to a question of 'which ones?' which grew to 'how many?' which in turn spiralled downward to 'how many of each?'. In no time at all, with ringing in my ears, my eyes glazed over, and my pulse elevated and erratic I piled a large bag of gladioli into the cart to keep the begonia company and topped them all off with seed packets of sunflowers, cosmos, marigolds and zinnias. As I furtively stowed this contraband in my car for the trip home I knew I had fallen off the wagon yet again. I have my stash hidden down in the basement for the time being while I try to figure where on earth I'm going to put them.
I know this is just me rationalizing my failings here, but it could be worse, right? I am helping out the bees, after all! And it does make the yard look pretty. Now that the kids are gone I'm only hurting myself, right?
I'll move on to promising myself it will never happen again the day I plant 45 gladioli in a flower garden that doesn't even exist yet.
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Sunday, March 12, 2017
ONE FOR THE RECORD BOOKS
I don't know where this image in my head originated but I do know that it's been filed in there for a long time. It's a picture of two old people sitting in rocking chairs reminiscing about some of the stand-out memories they have in their lives. You know, it would go something like this:
"I recall, back in ought 7 - that was the year old Bessie had a set of triplets and they all lived! Prize cow, that Bessie was!"
And the other person would reply "Yep, and I remember my one and only bumper crop back in '86. Had to pile it on the ground. There was mountains of grain everywhere. Pity it wasn't worth nothing ..." But that's another story.
At any rate, you get my drift. People toward the end of long lives examining the outside-the-box moments during their time under this sun. I already have a few to keep the conversation lively when I get to my rocking chair, and as of last week, I have one more to add - the blizzard of '17. It was a doozy.
This winter has already had some significant weather, especially compared to last winter when the only significant fact was that it was such an easy-peasy walk in the park. Just enough snow to make it look like Mother Nature tried and no major cold snaps of note. Maybe Mother Nature was saving up, I don't know, but this winter has certainly been a different story.
The Christmas Day blizzard hit the news bigtime. It was a big deal, true enough; lots of snow and wind and the forecasters really making a big deal of it. More than the actual weather hazards, I think it was the timing that had everyone going overboard with the warnings. Is there a time more associated with people on the road than when everyone is headed to Grandma's for Christmas dinner? The authorities wanted people to STAY HOME. The storm certainly warranted those warnings, and with any other winter that would have been the highlight. And the extreme bitter cold the week after New Years, too. And that night Saskatchewan pretty much shut down because of wind (we were in Mexico at the time but social media couldn't stop talking about it) - these too, would have made the 2017 headlines on their own.
But, fast forward to March 6th ... after a period of warm melting weather that kind of softened us up for spring, and at a time when one would normally accept as safely past that March Lion we always look out for ... and we were back to blizzard warnings again.
It's not that we didn't believe the warnings. A March storm is fairly commonplace. The first eyebrow-raiser was that they were calling it a blizzard when it wasn't even here yet. There are certain criteria to meet in order to use the big "B" word and Environment Canada don't use it lightly. We're usually well into the storm before they admit that's what we have on our hands. Not this time - 36 hours out and our phones were constantly dinging with Blizzard warning text messages.
It blew in right on time and they tell us we got the amount of snow they predicted (although how they measure when it comes in sideways at 80 kph and piles up in rock-hard banks wherever the trees hold it, I have no idea). The thing of note is that it went on, and on, and on, and on. I cannot remember another storm with that kind of constant power, that lasted so long. There was a graphic on the weather news that listed the 5 longest blizzards going back to 1959; last week's storm was 31 hours long, the next longest was 19.
Another measurement compared our barometric pressure to a typhoon in the Indian Ocean - ours was lower. We had the worst weather on the planet; the winds were equal to a EF2 tornado. I ventured out to try for a few pictures and believe me, I've never been out in worse conditions and I wasn't there for long.
And the aftermath is amazing. Our yard has a tree shelterbelt to the north and west. Snow blowing across miles of open fields built up into amazing banks around our house and right back through the trees to the road. Every one of them is concrete hard from the force of the wind. Our grown son who lives in Australia laments he can't be here to build a snow fort, our grandsons are too young to appreciate to opportunity. This is likely a once in a lifetime event.
I've gone out and tied markers to where the branches come out of the snow banks so that we can measure their depth when the snow melts; we are guessing 12 to 14 feet but there is no way to tell at the moment. I am also going to do a time lapse project when the melt starts to see how long it will take for it all to go away because that's the kind of nerd I am. I am laying odds on there still being banks out there in May, and possibly even June. This was one for the record books ... and something to talk about in my rocking chair in the old folks home some day.
I don't know where this image in my head originated but I do know that it's been filed in there for a long time. It's a picture of two old people sitting in rocking chairs reminiscing about some of the stand-out memories they have in their lives. You know, it would go something like this:
"I recall, back in ought 7 - that was the year old Bessie had a set of triplets and they all lived! Prize cow, that Bessie was!"
And the other person would reply "Yep, and I remember my one and only bumper crop back in '86. Had to pile it on the ground. There was mountains of grain everywhere. Pity it wasn't worth nothing ..." But that's another story.
At any rate, you get my drift. People toward the end of long lives examining the outside-the-box moments during their time under this sun. I already have a few to keep the conversation lively when I get to my rocking chair, and as of last week, I have one more to add - the blizzard of '17. It was a doozy.
This winter has already had some significant weather, especially compared to last winter when the only significant fact was that it was such an easy-peasy walk in the park. Just enough snow to make it look like Mother Nature tried and no major cold snaps of note. Maybe Mother Nature was saving up, I don't know, but this winter has certainly been a different story.
The Christmas Day blizzard hit the news bigtime. It was a big deal, true enough; lots of snow and wind and the forecasters really making a big deal of it. More than the actual weather hazards, I think it was the timing that had everyone going overboard with the warnings. Is there a time more associated with people on the road than when everyone is headed to Grandma's for Christmas dinner? The authorities wanted people to STAY HOME. The storm certainly warranted those warnings, and with any other winter that would have been the highlight. And the extreme bitter cold the week after New Years, too. And that night Saskatchewan pretty much shut down because of wind (we were in Mexico at the time but social media couldn't stop talking about it) - these too, would have made the 2017 headlines on their own.
But, fast forward to March 6th ... after a period of warm melting weather that kind of softened us up for spring, and at a time when one would normally accept as safely past that March Lion we always look out for ... and we were back to blizzard warnings again.
It's not that we didn't believe the warnings. A March storm is fairly commonplace. The first eyebrow-raiser was that they were calling it a blizzard when it wasn't even here yet. There are certain criteria to meet in order to use the big "B" word and Environment Canada don't use it lightly. We're usually well into the storm before they admit that's what we have on our hands. Not this time - 36 hours out and our phones were constantly dinging with Blizzard warning text messages.
It blew in right on time and they tell us we got the amount of snow they predicted (although how they measure when it comes in sideways at 80 kph and piles up in rock-hard banks wherever the trees hold it, I have no idea). The thing of note is that it went on, and on, and on, and on. I cannot remember another storm with that kind of constant power, that lasted so long. There was a graphic on the weather news that listed the 5 longest blizzards going back to 1959; last week's storm was 31 hours long, the next longest was 19.
Another measurement compared our barometric pressure to a typhoon in the Indian Ocean - ours was lower. We had the worst weather on the planet; the winds were equal to a EF2 tornado. I ventured out to try for a few pictures and believe me, I've never been out in worse conditions and I wasn't there for long.
And the aftermath is amazing. Our yard has a tree shelterbelt to the north and west. Snow blowing across miles of open fields built up into amazing banks around our house and right back through the trees to the road. Every one of them is concrete hard from the force of the wind. Our grown son who lives in Australia laments he can't be here to build a snow fort, our grandsons are too young to appreciate to opportunity. This is likely a once in a lifetime event.
I've gone out and tied markers to where the branches come out of the snow banks so that we can measure their depth when the snow melts; we are guessing 12 to 14 feet but there is no way to tell at the moment. I am also going to do a time lapse project when the melt starts to see how long it will take for it all to go away because that's the kind of nerd I am. I am laying odds on there still being banks out there in May, and possibly even June. This was one for the record books ... and something to talk about in my rocking chair in the old folks home some day.
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
THE PERKS OF WORK
I've been asked many times over the past four years whether I miss work. That would be the paying kind of work where a person shows up for predetermined hours, performs designated tasks and gets a paycheck for the effort. As far as I know there is no way to retire from the non-paying-and-it-never-seems-to-end kind of work I'm still doing.
The short answer to their question is "no". I drove to town to work for 31 years - that's half my lifetime - and I'm not sad to be set free from that. But that's not the complete story; the last thing I would want people to believe is that I wasn't grateful for such a good job or that I didn't enjoy my time with customers and coworkers over the years, because I am and I did. It's just that life is short and I had other things I wanted to do.
A more in depth answer is that although there were bad days (everyone has them) my years of working for a paycheck were, by far, a happy experience. Conversations with both customers and staff kept things lively; some were happy and some were serious and sad but they built a connection with my community that I still feel today. The opportunity to bond with my fellow Redversites on such a regular basis is something that I do miss.
The silly and sometimes borderline crazy moments we staff members had behind the scenes are some of the happiest work memories I have: taking a time out from the boredom of sorting fliers to dance to some music (eh Terry?), the private challenge I would set myself to get the Coop statements sorted even faster than last month (summer afternoons were pretty long and boring), and then there was that gift thermos of Christmas coffee that will go down in history (eh Rhonda?). Good times.
And, this might sound strange to anyone who hasn't been a wife and a mother in a busy household, but that quiet drive to and from work, even though it was only seven miles, was a precious pocket of solitude I looked forward to every day. You have to have walked a mile in those shoes to appreciate it but trust me, it's a real thing. And if I hadn't had my job I wouldn't have had that; I guess you could call it a perk.
The advantage of a paycheck is obvious. Having a job with a pension plan; likewise.
But yesterday when this prairie storm came howling in I was reminded of one of the best 'extras' my job in town ever offered - the impromptu holiday of a grownup sleepover at a girlfriend's place.
Actually it wasn't me who thought of this first. The girlfriend I used to stay with called to say how much she missed having friends who lived in the country and worked in town, thus stirring up all kinds of memories of those happy times.
There are so many levels of being storm-stayed that make the experience special. There's something about sharing a meal with friends - breaking bread together - that we humans value no matter whether the menu is a simple bowl of soup or a three course meal. An entire evening of conversation can be so much richer than a simple chat over a cup of coffee. The mini adventure of finding an extra toothbrush and something to suffice for pyjamas is its own kind of fun too.
When you wrap all of these things together, though, in a cozy house with warm-hearted people, when a storm is raging outside while you and everyone you love are safe inside, when to try to get home would have been dangerous or even deadly but instead you find yourself invited on a mini holiday: well, there's just not a better perk to working outside the home. I hadn't thought about it until she called, but missing a storm sleepover is a definite downside to being retired.
So, to the question "Do I miss work?" the long answer is "kind of", especially at a time like this.
I've been asked many times over the past four years whether I miss work. That would be the paying kind of work where a person shows up for predetermined hours, performs designated tasks and gets a paycheck for the effort. As far as I know there is no way to retire from the non-paying-and-it-never-seems-to-end kind of work I'm still doing.
The short answer to their question is "no". I drove to town to work for 31 years - that's half my lifetime - and I'm not sad to be set free from that. But that's not the complete story; the last thing I would want people to believe is that I wasn't grateful for such a good job or that I didn't enjoy my time with customers and coworkers over the years, because I am and I did. It's just that life is short and I had other things I wanted to do.
A more in depth answer is that although there were bad days (everyone has them) my years of working for a paycheck were, by far, a happy experience. Conversations with both customers and staff kept things lively; some were happy and some were serious and sad but they built a connection with my community that I still feel today. The opportunity to bond with my fellow Redversites on such a regular basis is something that I do miss.
The silly and sometimes borderline crazy moments we staff members had behind the scenes are some of the happiest work memories I have: taking a time out from the boredom of sorting fliers to dance to some music (eh Terry?), the private challenge I would set myself to get the Coop statements sorted even faster than last month (summer afternoons were pretty long and boring), and then there was that gift thermos of Christmas coffee that will go down in history (eh Rhonda?). Good times.
And, this might sound strange to anyone who hasn't been a wife and a mother in a busy household, but that quiet drive to and from work, even though it was only seven miles, was a precious pocket of solitude I looked forward to every day. You have to have walked a mile in those shoes to appreciate it but trust me, it's a real thing. And if I hadn't had my job I wouldn't have had that; I guess you could call it a perk.
The advantage of a paycheck is obvious. Having a job with a pension plan; likewise.
But yesterday when this prairie storm came howling in I was reminded of one of the best 'extras' my job in town ever offered - the impromptu holiday of a grownup sleepover at a girlfriend's place.
Actually it wasn't me who thought of this first. The girlfriend I used to stay with called to say how much she missed having friends who lived in the country and worked in town, thus stirring up all kinds of memories of those happy times.
There are so many levels of being storm-stayed that make the experience special. There's something about sharing a meal with friends - breaking bread together - that we humans value no matter whether the menu is a simple bowl of soup or a three course meal. An entire evening of conversation can be so much richer than a simple chat over a cup of coffee. The mini adventure of finding an extra toothbrush and something to suffice for pyjamas is its own kind of fun too.
When you wrap all of these things together, though, in a cozy house with warm-hearted people, when a storm is raging outside while you and everyone you love are safe inside, when to try to get home would have been dangerous or even deadly but instead you find yourself invited on a mini holiday: well, there's just not a better perk to working outside the home. I hadn't thought about it until she called, but missing a storm sleepover is a definite downside to being retired.
So, to the question "Do I miss work?" the long answer is "kind of", especially at a time like this.
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