Animal Style

Do you guys know In-N-Out Burger?  I know a few of my readers do (Hi Tina! Hi Vicky!) but for the rest of you, let me take a moment to talk about this fast food awesomeness that is based in California. 

We discovered In-N-Out on a trip to California for Eric and Tina's wedding in 2007.  I was about 4 months pregnant and COULD NOT GET ENOUGH of the In-N-Out burgers.  

While we were hanging out with Eric and Tina's cool friends, we learned about the secret menu.  As if the regular menu wasn't enough, there are even MORE options.  One of those options is to have your burger "animal-style.": burger of your choice with hand-leafed lettuce, tomato, a mustard cooked beef patty; add pickle, extra spread with grilled onions. YES PLEASE. 

ANYWAY, since it's been 5 years since I last got to eat an animal-style burger I thought I would bring it up.  Also, it makes for a nice segue to my post today... about the zoo.  Get it? ANIMAL STYLE!

Don't worry, we didn't eat any of the animals you are about to see.  

It was a perfect day to spend outside.  Sunny but not too hot.  

The only thing better than going to the zoo is going to the zoo with your BFF!

Just for fun, let's pause to remember the last time I was at the zoo with Lilane.  In 2008.  

Anyone else feel old? No, just me?

Manon and Luana, our partners in zoology.  I know that doesn't make sense.  Humour me.

I have been accepted by a roving pack of Sticky Girls!  They have adopted me as one of their own. Somebody call the Nature Channel!

Their game-playing booty.  It was the most stressful game Manon and I they ever played.

All in all, an excellent day.  Not pictured: swimming in the huge wave pool, buying zoo-venirs (sorry) and dinner at the local St. Hubert.  Where we they do not offer animal-style burgers but it was delicious nonetheless.

I think today is back to school for kids in Quebec.  Everyone else is the day after Labour Day making this your last week of summer. What are you up to?

Heart, Lighter.

I used up all my deep thoughts on Monday's big post (thanks for your feedback btw! Mwah!) so how about a video?

 In this 1 minute and 20 second snippet, you get to see all the highlights of Alice's latest skillset: the hilarious booty scooch, talking on the phone, tippytoes aaaaand waving goodbye.

Alice Aug14 from Theresa Piercy on Vimeo.


Enjoy!


Must dash, have this tomato sauce simmering away so that I can make this for dinner.   I'll let you know if anyone else in this house will eat it how it goes.

Defying Gravity (*warning: discussion of a spiritual nature ahead)

The time has come, my friends.  The time to confess what a few of you suspect.

I don't have a job.

OK, this is not entirely true.  I do have a sweet development gig with my Dad's company for a few months but I don't have a "go-to-the-office-everyday" job.

Wow, how do you pay your bills?  Let me answer that.

Thanks to a very frank conversation with my mother, I had a revelation: I don't have to figure it all out by myself.  I don't have to fumble through the big decisions on my own.  I don't have to be unhappy.  And a month before I was supposed to go back to work, I couldn't ignore the tiny flame that sparked in the way-back of my mind.

I know I don't talk about this very much (EVER), but bear with me.  I put God back in charge of my life.

I'll let that sink it for a minute.

I put God back in charge of my life.

You can click away if you don't want to know about this, it's OK.  We can still be friends.  Regular programming will return tomorrow!

This brilliant cartoon best sums up the state of my spirituality the past few years:

God and I weren't on the same page and despite my wandering, I was dragged towards a wonderful life.  Healthy children, loving marriage, a job that challenged and gratified me, a home, material comforts, great friends, the list goes on.  

But.

At the end of my favourite movie, Dorothy has her own revelation:

If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard.  Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with.  

Or in MY case, the computer.  My heart's desire? To write. To be my own boss, to be available mentally and physically for my children, to be creative, to succeed.  A tall order, I know.  But that's the beauty of having a cool cat like the Almighty take charge, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

So, I decided not to go back to my perfectly good job.  I am chuckling a little because it's so easy to type that phrase but readers, it was a very, very difficult decision.  I mean, who leaves their job when they not only don't have another one lined up but don't really know for sure what they want to do?  You don't see a lot of  WANTED: someone who knows how to make movies and TV to write stuff from home, also, must be funny and occasionally schmaltzy.  But in my heart of hearts, I knew.  And after 24 hours of soul searching and heartfelt prayer, I got my answer, clear as a bell.

Walk away. I'll help you figure the rest out.

As I told my long-suffering husband that night (you want to do WHAT, now?), I needed to make this leap of faith.  Faith in my God, faith in His promise to take care of me, faith in myself and faith in my dreams.  

Well, I did and I am living what I can only describe as a magical life.  I know it sounds crazy but it's amazing.  Disneyworld-shootingstar-lotterywinning-newbaby-breathtaking-Broadway-champagne-goldmedal AMAZING.

But don't get me wrong.  I pray every single day for guidance, for reassurance and for courage.  And I am getting it.  Daily.  But oh, the relief, the joy, the utter FREEDOM of knowing that I am exactly where I am supposed to be?  I can hardly find the words.  Although from the length of this post you can see that I sure am trying!

A couple of practical points:

-when I say magical, I don't mean that money just appears on the sidewalk or that I suddenly lost 30 pounds. I mean that I don't have to worry about that stuff anymore and it's a feeling that is nothing short of... magic.
-yes, Alice is still going to daycare.  We secured her spot when I was still planning to go back to my job and since (don't hate me) we were lucky enough to get a $7/day spot, it makes sense to keep it so I can be productive at home during the day.  You know, WRITING REALLY LONG BLOG POSTS.
-my husband is an excellent provider but his salary can't cover all our expenses (Mama needs CABLE) so right now I need to bring home some bacon for material as well as mental reasons.
-our needs are being met.  This won't be the year we max out our RRSPs or anything but that's OK! (see my first point)
-when I have some concrete work developments I'll talk about it here but all I can say for the moment is that I'm taking a lot of meetings and having a lot of lunches.  Which is awesome because it just so happens I like talking to people.  Who knew.  (EVERYBODY.)
-when I say that I need to be available for my girls, I mean I need the mental resources to parent them well.  Not that you can't work outside your house and do that, but I don't want to have to make that compromise right now.  My 4 year old needs SO MUCH PATIENCE and the baby is well, a baby.  And as the saying goes, when Mama is happy, EVERYBODY is happy.  Can I get an AMEN?
-I have had a TON of support (prayer, encouragement, free drinks, you name it!) from loved ones in all corners and am convinced that you are all angels.  With my Mom and Dad at the head of the line. (Schmaltz alert!)  Thank you.
-Defying Gravity is a song from the musical Wicked.  Hearing the Glee version of it recently gave me the kick in the pants I needed to write this.  Go buy it from iTunes because a) it's awesome and b) it says everything I am feeling these days.

So that's it.  That's where I am.  This space won't change that much except that I will share stuff here occasionally that might not appeal to everybody but *singing, off-tune* It's my bloooog and I'll talk about God if I waant to, God if I wannt to, you would talk too if it happened to you!

Go forth and be inspired, friends!  Not by me but by what is POSSIBLE in your own life.

OK, off to take a few deep breaths before publishing.  See you tomorrow?

Blech

I don't know what's going on over here but I was hit by a weird flu deal last night and I'm still recovering.

No one else has it (thankfully) but if a person could die from fatigue and achy limbs, you should start ordering lilies and whipping up cupcakes because OOOOF.

Just to make myself feel better, I will share my all-time favourite vacation photo:

Man I love that kid.

Working on a big post to explain what the heck I do all day now that I don't have a job anymore (oops, spilled it!) and how my life took a big huge change for the better recently.  It's really exciting stuff but for some reason I'm having trouble getting it all down in an "interesting to other people, not just me and my Mama" format.

Monday, I'm shooting for Monday.

Have a great, mysterious illness-free weekend everybody!

Nine?

Reader(s), we have to talk.

I've started paying attention to my blog stats (prolly a mistake, but humour me) and most of my posts get between 30 and 100 page views.

The post about my baby daughter's VERY FIRST BIRTHDAY a few weeks ago? Nine views.  NINE.

What is wrong with you people?  Even my super lame update from the car while on the road from NYC got more love than that.  

But don't feed bad, just go ahead, click HERE and check it out. And note that there are a lot of previously unseen photos there. Oh yeah, I took my time and even revised it once or twice.  For nine people.

Comments like "oh my goodness I can't believe how cute she is"and "how could I have missed such a great post" or anything of a gushy nature will be gratefully accepted.

















Kthxbye.

Cool, Maman

The scene is bedtime.  À propos of nothing:

L: Maman, c'était cool au chalet.

Me: I'm glad you liked it, sweetheart.*

(*flashing back to cottage night #2 bedtime meltdown I wanna go back HOOOOME. So do I kid, SO DO I.)

 I think what she liked the very best was being able to say "bye! je vais dehors!" and walking out the door all by her bad self to hang out in the yard.  

Freedom and independence is her number one mission these days.

Speaking of thrills, I forgot about these pictures!  Of COURSE we stopped for photos in Times Square.

And NO WAY did we want to ask a stranger to take a family photo with our iPhones.  

Seriously, Alice looks like one of the cranky munchkins from the Wizard of Oz.  Whasssuuuuppp, yo.  She picked up some Empire State baby street cred while we were down there apparently.

Making memories is tiring, people.  Props to my parents.  

Anyone else go on vacation  yet?  I'm going to keep asking UNTIL I GET A COMMENT.  

Fish Out Of...

That's how I feel sometimes, so far from the ocean.  Not that I was swimming every day when I was growing up, but I guess I took for granted how easy it was to hang out at the beach.  

Fast forward almost 16 years later and I find myself yearning for water.

For me, it's not really vacation unless there is swimming.  

And when you get ducks hanging around, well, that's just a bonus.

Also, BBQ.  Eating BBQ every night was a treat.  

The stairs down to the lake, trod many times daily by this explorer.  

Maybe we did come back a little more relaxed after all.

Reboot

Ooops!  Yeah, I totally failed to post on my last day of the ballyhooed every-single-day-blog-posting-in-July extravaganza.

I blame Tom Cruise.

We brought our DVD of War of the Worlds to the cottage and once we popped it in I was a goner.  What?  That movie is STRESSFUL.  Plus I was reminded that despite all the cray-cray in his personal life, Tom Cruise rocks the big screen.  Well, on our case the very small screen but it was still great.  By the time he was done saving the world it was midnight and I was down for the count.

Which brings me to my next point.  Friends, if you are not a parents, you can ask anyone with little kids: family vacation IS EXHAUSTING.  Parents: can I get an AMEN?  Also - WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US?

But it was great.  Just not in a "wow, I feel like our batteries have been recharged" kind of way.

(Apply the old "we need vacation after our vacation" cliché HERE)

But we made lots of great memories and we made the most of our two weeks, no question.

Anybody out there have holidays coming up?