City gardening for small spaces

     The days are heating up, the seemingly endless winter finally behind us, time to get ready for summer.  After the significant down-sizing since the dissolution of my marriage, I was a little stuck figuring out how to bring my love of gardening to our patio.  I miss having the ever ready crop of fresh herbs for cooking and sharing the joy of planting and harvesting our goodies with the next generation.  How to realize my dreams of a lush garden in the confines of a 12' x 4' deck.  Other than the size, it is ideal, getting full sun all day.  I decided to give vertical gardening a try after the flooding from the torrential rains last year due to the planters overflowing and the soil blocking the drain.  That resulted in me up to water well past my ankles frantically trying to dig the drain clear and finally throwing the planters over the railing when the water reached the edge of the patio door.  That was a super fun mess to clean up, but on the plus side, I added a bit of detergent to the water and gave the deck a bit of a scrub at the same time.  Might as well use the near disaster to some advantage.
     So how does a super busy, single mom get to achieve this with the minimum of fuss?  As much as the environmentalist in me wants to try making a hanging planter out of pallet wood, the reality is I haven't even managed to find the time to put up the shelves in my bedroom yet, so simpler needed to be the route to go.  I remembered having a canvas, over the door shoe organizer many years ago and with a bit of effort I managed to locate a new one that was not white.  My son and I selected a variety of herbs, including chocolate mint, which I'd never heard of before and of course, a selection of his favorites, spinach, and strawberries.  I had no idea if this would work or not, but we planted our selections and it seems to be going well so far.  The treated canvas has drainage, so watering is a cinch.  Somehow we ended up with a tomato plant that will have to be relocated to a bigger home but we are enjoying our new vertical garden.  Not bad for $12 for the shoe organizer and another $15 in starter plants.  Check back for updates on how the crops work out.  Happy gardening in your small but cozy spaces!

 

 

"I'm still standing." Balancing selfless with self.

When I decided to go back to school and become a real estate agent, I still envisioned it as a part time endeavor, with my role of mother taking precedence.  The tumult of that first foray towards reclaiming my independence from my husband and children probably hastened the demise of my marriage, but I knew deep down that it was doomed anyways.  I recognized I could not be happy living someone else's life and dreams.  I needed my own.  So with a child on one side and a baby in the other arm, I went back to school.  I studied at baby group, with the maelstrom of toddlers and babies, racing around me.  I studied during nap time, in 20 minute stretches, while I mopped, did laundry, dishes and the yard work in between.  I did homework, changed diapers, potty trained and spent countless, unpaid hours helping my husband expand his business.  Mine was the thankless work, the drudgery, the dishes and clean up.  A job I'm truly grateful belongs to some one who truly deserves it, and is actually paying for the opportunity.  Even through all that I accepted that my primary role was wife and mother, as long as there was a small corner of my world for me, but as often happens, my husband's needs eclipsed my own.  The marriage ended and he found someone willing to assume the role he wanted and I have scraped and scrambled up a seemingly insurmountable number of hurdles in an effort to make a life for myself and my kids.  I've accepted that so much is beyond my control.  I have limited time with the eldest child as he is my stepson, even though I've been there since he was 6 months old.  I've chosen to stay in a city where I have very limited support and the economic prospects are not great, so he would never feel abandoned by me.  I chose the hard road to keep the boys together as much as possible.  I faced the public scrutiny and whispers every day as I struggled to reign in my darker impulses, successfully, I might add.  No one's tires were slashed and the posters I had made to let the city know the truth of what had happened, never got distributed, there were very few public blow outs.  It was a close race at times.  Some days all I wanted was to get even.  It would have been epic fun.  But I didn't really see a future in being an evil queen, so I chose to walk through the pain.  No giving up, never stopping.  It's a year and a half after and I'm a single mom, working two jobs, and finally feeling like things might just be ok in the end.  I haven't managed to get divorced yet.  I've had to use the money for that to renew my real estate licence, so the closure is going to have to wait a bit yet.  I realized how far I'd come when I actually realized that I didn't have a picture to use for my Facebook profile in which I wasn't just an accidental inclusion in it's composition because someone was taking pictures of the kids.  And I realized, I'm not okay with that.  I deserve to be the focal point, at least part of the time.  For now my profile picture is a little out of date, but I will have a new one soon enough.  Besides, it was kind of nice to hear how great I looked in the photo, I thought the fact my bangs had magically grown out over night would have been a dead give away that it was 15 years old, but apparently not. 

New Year's resolution, 2013: strength

2013 is winding down, the presents long unwrapped, several irreparably broken already, the leftovers have been made in to soup and I must say, I am grateful that the year is done.  I feel terribly guilty for celebrating the days slipping irretrievably in to the past.  These were, after all, such important and formative years in the boy's young lives, but it has been a long hard fight, never losing focus on the future.  There have been a few days that I didn't have the slightest clue how I was going to get through it, and to be totally honest, I still don't know how I did it.  A new home, two new careers, countless sleepless nights and temper tantrums,  more mistakes than I can even count, but we have survived and even moved forward.  I know for a long time it was just a deep and burning anger that propelled me forwards but anger, justified or not, can only get you so far.  It burns itself out eventually, or it consumes you.  It has been replaced by a deep sadness over what could have been, but also by an acceptance of the simple truth that there are just people on this earth that just aren't going to get it and being right doesn't mean you're going to win. 
For the new year, I am making a promise to myself and my boys that I am no longer going to wish for things to be different and to deal with the realities we have been dealt in life.  For the coming year, I am going to remind myself often of something I had forgotten.  I would rather be called a bitch than dumb.  The things for which I want to be remembered when I'm gone are strong, capable, tenacious, loving, charitable, intelligent, funny, witty, resourceful, fierce and independent.  I don't remember wanting to be thought of as nice at any point in my life.  Even as a child, I strove to excel.  Why, over the last few years I have allowed that to be taken from me, is something I might never truly understand, but I'm happy to be able to see it with clarity now.  I owe it to myself and my boys to stand up and fight for them.  To be the warrior mother they deserve.  If I can't protect them from what's happening, at least I can show them that I fought the good fight and show them how a woman should be respected. 
With the changes we have undertaken through 2013, I can't wait to see where we will be a year from now.  I know the boys are already counting down to next Christmas with glee.  Only 358 days to go.
Happy New Year's!

Merry Christmas in a divorce.

As this year winds to a close, I am facing my first Christmas without my boys.  It would have been so easy to let the grief overtake me and spend the days ahead feeling sorry for myself, and to be truthful, that is very nearly where my holiday season went.  But instead of being consumed by bitterness and spending the days and nights in front of the TV with a keg of Malbec, I decided to embrace the unique opportunities this situation was going to afford me.  Seeing as it was going to take a direct intervention from God to change things, and He tends to prefer to work more behind the scenes, even at Christmas, I offered to work right through the holidays so I could give other people a chance to spend time with their loved ones while mine were so far away.  This plan will have the added bonus of saving me money on wine, and it's not like I could use the time to get caught up on anything out side the house.  Once I made the decision a huge weight just disappeared from my heart.  My boys just weren't going to be with me on the 25th of December.  And somehow, I didn't die with that moment of clarity.  Because of that choice, I get to celebrate Christmas with friends this year.  I'll still be surrounded by kids and people I care about, just not mine, I'll still get to eat what is sure to be a fantastic Christmas feast, I just don't have to cook it all.  This year I get to try a traditional vegan smorgasbord.  I'm sure it's going to be delicious.  I offered to try and prepare a vegan dish to contribute to the meal, but was politely turned down.  Most likely due to concern over my skill with that particular food preparation discipline.  This year will also mark my first ever visit to a store on Boxing Day.  I've managed to studiously avoid that rite of passage for my whole life because I needed to have everything done before Christmas eve.  This year, I get to try and save a bit by buying the bigger gifts on Boxing Day.  I suspect I'll need more than a bit of luck and a mountain of patience, neither of which I've ever had an abundance of in my life.  Perhaps I will buy some wine, just in case.  So here it is, Christmas Eve and I'm sitting in the mall, manning the kiosk, ostensibly being a Realtor, but mostly giving out directions, wearing shiny gold pants that I'm told make me look like a Christmas ornament because I've got carolling to go to afterwards, eating chocolate and donuts.  Not such a bad way to spend the night before Christmas.  Later I'll make sure to take pictures to send to my guys so I can show them Santa didn't forget them.  My little one is already questioning whether he's real or not, because he didn't get what he asked for.  But it's the same thing denied countless other kids before him, his family back.  I don't know what the new year will hold for us, but we've managed so far and when I get my boys back, they're going to get hugged so tight.  Merry Christmas!

As I clean my home, vacuuming up the bits of werewolf fur scattered about and the bits of white fleece and the packaging from the 20 plus glow sticks needed to bring my 4 year olds dream of a glow in the dark ghost costume.  My little guy has had a tumultuous and stressful couple of years adjusting to having his world turned upside down.  He's always been somewhat scared of the dark but last year, in the midst of the worst of the chaos, he absolutely refused to go trick or treating in the dark.  Things are calmer now, he'll stay in his own bed most nights and the stories of the loot his brother has gotten from his Halloween adventures inspired him to strike a deal with me.  He was willing to go trick or treating in the dark as long as he had a costume that lit up.  We settled on a ghost.  I ended up deciding to glue a bunch of flexible glow sticks to his baseball helmet and then covering it with white fleece to give him a classic cartoon ghost shape. 
His big brother's requests always seem to involve a lot more work.  He wanted to be a werewolf.  Specifically one with long sharp claws.  I covered a black stretchy hoody with long black fur and attached a nose and an impressive row of teeth to frame his face.  After a couple of false starts, I sculpted Fimo claws and sewed them to gloves using the button holes I poked through the base of them.  Both boys loved their costumes.  Unfortunately, the magical powers of the lighting up ghost did nothing to protect my little one from the terror his big brother instilled in him by growling at him while practicing his "werewolf-ness".  I found the little guy sobbing in a closet at one point.  We got through the bumpy start and I even managed to carve out a little time for me.  My self and a friend got ourselves all fancied up and went to see "The Rocky Horror Show" at the Royal Mcpherson Playhouse, put on by The Kaleidoscope Theater Production Society;  www.kaleidoscope.bc.ca .  It was hands down the most fun I've had since I moved to Victoria.  The cast did an amazing job.  We sang along, did the Time Warp, offered my ex husband to the drag queen mc'ing the costume contest, (no luck there, she didn't want him) and ate lots of cake with the cast afterwards.  I was mistaken for the lead more than once and I've decided it's because my butt looks like a 26 year old male dancer's, not just because of my height. 

I finally feel like I have carved out an identity for myself in Victoria, separate from my role as wife and mother and it feels fantastic.  I get to be me first, a mom next and a Realtor and artist too.  It's been an extremely difficult journey over the last couple of years, but every excruciating step has been worth it.  I can't wait for what life will bring me next.  I've taken down the last of the decorations and cleaned up the mess from all the empty candy wrappers and chunks of fur flying around and the only thing left to do is figure out exactly how much of the kid's candy I can eat before they notice.  I call it "candy tax".  It's payment for all the work I put into their costumes every year.  Now I get to take a little break before I start digging out the Christmas decorations.  :) 

It's one of my favorite times of year.  The trees turn all colours of fire and ochre, the sun is still glowing and warm, a chill settles into the night, the mornings are cloaked in a wispy blanket of fog and the non stop onslaught of over the top Christmas marketing has yet to crash it's consumerism down our throats.  I love October.  The kids have been back at school long enough that routines are established for all involved and we have yet to enter the long, seemingly endless, dreary, grey days that are our famously wet winters.  I am always the mom that shows up at school on Halloween in full costume, the ONLY mom to do so EVERY year as I was reminded by a very sullen 9 year old last year.  On the plus side of that, I now have leverage forever.  If he thinks it's embarrassing on Halloween, imagine how bad it would be if it happened on random other days, as "incentive".
This year, I've had the opportunity to share my love of this season with some truly remarkable people.  After someone let my preschooler play a zombie video game, he was plagued by nightmares for weeks.  I exhausted several more traditional methods for dealing with them with no success.  As a last ditch effort to get a full nights sleep, I decided to take him down to Victoria's annual Zombie Walk and introduce him to some "real zombies".  After a quick explanation from mom, everyone we met was super helpful in showing him that zombies were friendly and nothing to worry about.  He happily did sommersaults with a bunch of zombie kids and posed for pictures with assorted walking dead.  It worked like a charm.  I think he might have even had a bit of a crush on one cute little zombie princess!

I got to dust off some long unused skills and do both the make up for and appear in some fantastic photo shoots with local photographer, Darren Labiuk, of VL Photography.  I've made some amazing new friends from it and had an amazing time.  We did a highly demanded series of sugar skull style pin up editorials spanning an entire month of weekend to fit everyone in and I haven't run out of ideas for the make up yet.  It's a good thing there's still one shoot left.  I'm pondering a bit of a departure from my usual glam-centered, glitter and rhinestone encrusted, frosted, sugar faces and delving into a darker side of the season by trying out some of the zombie stuff myself.  But not too far.  I'm still going to wear all the glitz, just adding some of the gore to see how it goes.  Feel free check out the truly amazing work of one of this city's hidden treasures on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/VLphotography0202?ref=stream&viewer_id=100003596165309, but I do have to warn you if you're squeamish, you might want to wait until the Christmas season is in full swing and you can see how gifted a photographer he really is.  For the heartier souls out there, keep your eyes peeled for the calendar coming soon.

Fall Family Fun Fair, 2013

     We are finally settled into a new school year, past the first round of sick bugs and Thanksgiving is just around the corner.  The days are getting shorter as the clock winds us ever closer to the holiday hub bub.  This year, we got to kick off fall with a bang by hosting the first ever annual Fall Family Fun Fair at our church.  What a great time we had planning, organizing and pulling off what turned out to be a truly successful event.  In my old life, BC, (Before Children), I was promoter and event planner, so this was an opportunity to dust off my old skill set and use them on something other than an insanely elaborate, themed birthday party for my kiddies.
As an added bonus, I got to utilize Pinetrest.  I have a love/hate relationship with the site.  As anyone who knows me can attest, I have a multitude of boards covering every conceivable topic and am constantly looking for great ideas to add to them.  It used to be that I was the one that threw the best parties because I was the one with the best ideas and I guarded them jealously.  The recipes, the decorating, the projects, the themes.  They were mine and if you wanted access to them it cost you.       Thanks to Pinterest, all that is over.  Anyone can plan a great event, with a minimum amount of time.  It's not all bad though.  I have a great new career in real estate and I can use my old skills for charitable events and fun, with much less stress.  I'm a little new to working cooperatively, when you're working with friends and volunteers, it's very important to be inclusive and polite, I've learned.  No paycheck means people are less likely to tolerate even a benevolent dictatorship.
Our lovely group of volunteers from Providence Community Church put together an amazing list of super fun activities for the families in Oak Bay to participate in.  We had pumpkin bowling, ring toss, an obstacle course, mask making, beading, face painting, clay creations.  Our big crowd pleasers were the Imagination Station, I was completely stunned and amazed by what the kids built out of blocks of wood, buttons, string, feathers, marbles and glue guns, The "Make Your Own Caramel Apple Bar", where kids got to dip a granny smith apples in a home made caramel dip and cover them in their choice of toppings, raging from mini marshmallows to gummy bears and everything in between.  Outside we had a "Haystack Candy scramble for kids to dig through for prizes, under a huge tent of course because this is Victoria.  Add to all that hot dogs and tons of baked goodies all donated to help raise money to send kids to school in Uganda.
    

Local Oak Bay businesses also donated a great array of prizes to be won by attendees.  It was a great way to introduce our selves to our neighbours, and in turn introduce them to a wonderful cause worth supporting in one of the most needed areas of our world.  Next year, hopefully, we'll get a little more cooperation from the Big Guy, and not have to implement a rain plan, but even if the weather is worse next year, we'll still have the inside of the Monterey Center, just in case.
Providence Community Church meets every Sunday at 1442 Monterey ave, Oak Bay, Victoria, at 10 am.  Everyone is welcome and we have a coffee meet and greet afterwards.  There are also lots of special events all year long.  For more information check out the website:   www.providencecommunitychurch.com