This summer and fall Jim has been working on one of his passions; birding.  Not watching, although he does love that too, not feeding, although he loves to watch the little ones feed at the feeder, but banding.  He’s working on his certification to become an official bird bander.  In another life he should have been a biologist, or a forest ranger or something that involves nature.

Over the winter on any given Friday, he and his friend Daryl could be found in our garage, dust masks in place, sawing up wood to make bird boxes, bat houses and bee houses.  This was part of a project for the Priddis Greens Golf Course who holds status as an Audubon certified golf course, and who needed an upgrade for their bird houses.  The particular birds being attracted there were the Mountain Bluebird (with my new knowledge of the four-letter identification system used, I’m guessing these are the MOBB – I could be wrong but it sure sounds good!)

If you have never seen a Mountain Bluebird (MOBB), you’re missing out.  (I’ve just been told the official four-letter ID code is MOBL – I still prefer MOBB!) Their beautiful bright blue-turquoise feathers are unparalleled in beauty.  They are a medium-sized bird, between the size of a chickadee (BCCH) and a robin (ARBN).  We loved watching for them when we lived on our acreage for they heralded the coming of spring.  Now living in the city, we see less of them since they stick to the Bluebird trail, out of the urban areas.  The Priddis Greens Golf Course happens to be situated on Bluebird habitat, so they were interested in encouraging these little beauties to come to nest on the course.  And so, it came to be that the construction project in the garage took flight.

When spring came, the boxes were mounted just before the arrival of the birds and Jim and Daryl were thrilled that out of 75 boxes put up, almost 50 were inhabited in this first year.  And as it so often happens in life, what starts out as one thing, soon becomes another.  Once the bluebirds arrived, the boys knew they needed a system to keep track of them.   In the early weeks, they went out to the course, clip board in hand and recorded the number of babies in each box. 
A few weeks later, before the babies were ready to leave the nest, Jim went out with an official Mountain Bluebird bander, Don, to learn the official ropes.  Jim loved his day and voila, a new passion was born. 

Before long, the clipboard was replaced with a spreadsheet, the circle of banders was increased to include more friends and new banders at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary in Calgary.  Jim managed to land himself a volunteer position at the Sanctuary, where once a week, he stole out of bed before five o’clock so he could continue to understand the art of banding.  Each week he arrived home excited to share his new knowledge.

Apparently, to catch the birds, the sanctuary uses something called mist nets.  Think of them as very fine badminton nets.  Birds of all species fly into, and become temporarily trapped in the nets.  Jim and the master bander, Steve, head out to the nets, and one by one they gently remove the little birds from it, and drop them into individual, clean, cotton, draw-string bags.   Surprisingly, the little (and big) birds are not stressed by this. 

Once in the bags, the birds are taken to the banding table where they are identified, examined for health and age, measured, banded and released.  Jim is amazed at the way the birds simply lay back and allow the process to unfold.  Needless to say, the incredible experience of the master handler plays a big part in this.

This whole idea of entanglement, examination and release got me thinking about life.  How often in life do we get tangled up?  We find ourselves in situations that make us feel trapped, afraid and unsure how to move forward.  Often, we are unable to see our own pattern of behaviour that lands us in the same position over and over again.

If only we could take a deep breath, become more master bird-bander-like and use the opportunity for simple observation.   What if we could look at our mess of tangles as a scientist might; with an eye for looking at data without adding all the judgements that could accompany it.  What if we could sit quietly and think about, perhaps even keep notes about, what got us to where we are, how often we find ourselves in a similar situation, how we even build our own nets that trap us, and what we might do differently to avoid finding ourselves there again.  And then what if we could simply set ourselves free?  I’m thinking our four-letter code might become NTGL and a five-letter code might be PEACE.
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My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What does untangled look like for me?’

Elizabeth is a life and leadership coach in Calgary, AB.  She provides leadership coaching for individuals and groups and she creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  Contact Elizabeth to help you or your organization to figure out to stop tangling yourself in your own nets.

What a crazy week it’s been.  In the news, Colin Kaepernick, who I wrote about in an earlier blog, Too Good to Be True?  was revealed as Nike’s newest secret weapon in their newest advertising campaign, and in my little corner of the world, I completed my first ever bike race, the Sea-to-Sky Gran Fondo, a 122km race from Stanley Park in Vancouver to Whistler, British Columbia.

I’ve been preparing for this race since last Thanksgiving when the idea was hatched at the dinner table over turkey and pumpkin pie.  Step one of my training was simply uttering the words ‘I’m in!’.  Knowing full well that bike racing is very different from the road racing (running) I’ve been doing for years, I realized I had a learning curve ahead of me.

My winter training looked a lot like it normally would have. I rode the stationary bike, kept up with yoga, strength training and dance and threw in a few runs for good measure.  With spring refusing to commit this year, it was May before I was able to get my road bike out and dusted off.  My first ride was not pretty.  I did not feel strong, I did not feel confident and I wasn’t sure what a training program should even look like.  The only thing I had to draw on was marathon training.  This, I knew, involved a long run every week, and other shorter runs in between.  With nothing else to guide me, I decided to apply this same strategy to biking. 

Recognizing my lack of confidence, I wondered if having a training partner might help.  Scrolling through the rolodex of my family and friends in mind, I thought of my friend Rhonda.  We had never done any training for anything together.  But I knew she had a bike; she and I had completed one ride together earlier in the year; a 17km ride around the Glenmore Reservoir, followed by a stop at a coffee shop. 

I agonized about whether to ask her.  Most people think these endurance adventures of mine are crazy.  I know this because they tell me.  I wondered what Rhonda would think.  She had been on a few adventures of her own, but not on a bike race.  Back and forth I went in my mind.  My saboteur was having a ball with this one.  Finally, I sent her a text, telling her what I was doing and asking if she would like to join me in a ride once each week to help me train.

Rhonda’s response was quick and sure. ‘Yes!’, was her reply.  Only later would she confess that when I mentioned that we would start ‘short’, perhaps a 60km ride, she began to wonder what she had signed up for.  Sixty turned to seventy.  Seventy to eighty.  Eighty to ninety.  Ninety turned to a double summit of the Highwood Pass.

We clicked right away.  Our riding compatibility just worked.  After a few weeks I dared to suggest that since Rhonda was doing all the same training as me, she might consider registering for the race too.  This time her response was less quick.  I suppose I wasn’t using my saboteur as much by then so she had started paying rent in Rhonda’s head.  It took a few weeks, but eventually the response came, ‘I’m in!’

Many times, as we trained, we wondered if we were crazy.  Neither of us slept well on Monday nights, anticipating our early morning Tuesday rides.  The mountains at Whistler, already big in real life, grew in our minds.

This past week, on September 8th, our big day arrived. We lined up in Stanley Park, in the dark, with Vancouver’s beautiful skyline at our back, along with some 4700 other riders.  The rain clouds loomed and we debated, ‘Rain coats on or off?’, ‘Full gloves or half?’, ‘Foot booties or not?’, ‘Crazy or not?’

The race couldn’t get started quickly enough for me.  As usual, I felt the sting of tears as O Canada was sung pre-race.  And then, finally, we were off.  For seven hours we pounded up those mountains, through cloud, and rain, and cold and even a flash of sunlight.  We stopped at aid stations for fuel and to wait for slower members of our little group.  We laughed as we passed the ‘Bacon Station’, where, you guessed it, they were grilling and handing out bacon!  With one kilometer to go, Rhonda and I waited on the side of the road for the rest of our group to join us so we could cross the finish line together.  I smiled the whole way.

In Colin Kaepernick’s Nike video, he says, ‘Don’t ask if your dreams are crazy.  Ask if they are crazy enough.’  When he first took a knee two years ago, Colin Kaepernick likely wondered if he was crazy.  He also likely could not have imagined what his ‘crazy’ would bring to his life.

This line from the ad kept running through my head as I rode.  I know I am doing things that are just crazy enough when I feel alive doing them. I felt alive when we first talked about this race last Thanksgiving.  I felt alive when first invited Rhonda to join me.  At that time, I could not imagine everything that invitation would bring to my life; a wonderful training partner, an incredible friend, a dream-sharer.  And I felt VERY alive last Saturday.

In any good life there needs to be some crazy; something that makes us feel alive.  It will be different for each of us.  For some it will mean taking a course, for others it means leaving or staying in a job or a relationship.  Some will find crazy in a new hobby or skill.  Each of us knows what is crazy for us. 

My friend, Chad, and his sister Carena, just finished the seven-day, Trans Alpine Run across the alps through Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy.  Crazy?  Maybe.  But I’m looking into it.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What is ‘Crazy for You?’
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Elizabeth is a life and leadership coach in Calgary, AB.  She provides leadership coaching for individuals and groups and she creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  Contact Elizabeth to help you or your organization figure out how to bring the right kind of crazy into your life.

My sister, Mary, was taking a course in Moncton, New Brunswick in August and she tacked on a few extra days to head to Sussex to visit with our cousins and only living Uncle and Aunt who live there.  Uncle Roy is my Dad’s brother.  He is the youngest of four children.  His six children, our cousins, hold such a special place in our hearts and in our book of childhood memories.

When we were kids, as the end of the school year approached and summer was almost in reach, the excitement in our house would begin to mount.  We knew we would be going to ‘The Farm’ for our holiday.  At the time I believed we were rich beyond belief.  None of my friends went on a driving trip, pulling a homemade tent trailer.  None of my friends had been to New Brunswick.  None of my friends got to help milk cows, and put in hay, ‘go out over the hill’, and even sleep in a hay loft.  None of my friends went to The Farm.  Uncle Roy and Aunt Muriel’s farm.

It didn’t matter that I, and several of my siblings were extremely motion sick and spent most of the three-day car journey in a less than glamourous state.  It didn’t matter at all.  What mattered was that the journey took us to our beloved cousins and their home, The Farm.  The Farm was a dairy farm as were many of the farms in Kings County, located just outside of Sussex, along the Kennebecasis River.  When you operate a large dairy farm, you don’t get to go on holidays away from the farm.  Cows need milking morning and night and this ritual keeps a dairy farmer firmly tied to the farm.  To us as kids, this of course, was all part of the intrigue.  It seemed as though our cousins lived such a glamourous, adventure-filled life and we just could not wait to be a part of it.

Our days on The Farm were full.  We loved being able to join in with the work.  Getting up early to go to the barn for milking was magical.  Finding new-born kittens in the hay loft felt like a far better ‘attraction’ than any we might have found in Disneyworld.  Our days were full of farm chores, fresh air and freedom.  Our evenings were spent building forts ‘out over the hill’, playing baseball, coming up with pranks and singing together in the kitchen.  It was magical.

We had six cousins on the farm and two more just on the other side of Great Uncle Frank’s house.  Our grandparents lived there too.  We too had six kids in our family at that time.  We loved that we were exactly the opposite of Uncle Roy’s six kids.  Their order was three boys, followed by a girl, boy, girl.  We were three girls followed by a boy, girl, boy.  Somehow that made us feel even closer.  We usually only stayed on The Farm for about ten days but by the time our holiday there ended, there was crying and grief of the deepest kind.  Each year we vowed to write letters to keep in touch.  As the months of each year went on, the letters dwindled but the memories did not.

You can imagine my shock then, the first night Mary arrived at The Farm for her weekend visit in August when her text arrived, ‘THE FARM IS SOLD!!!!’. 

This shouldn’t have been a shock.  We knew my cousin Terry and his wife Marcia, who took over the farm from Uncle Roy and Aunt Murial years ago, had put the farm up for sale quite some time ago.  But a big, now very modern dairy farm does not sell over night.  So, when one year and then another went by without a buyer, I put it out of my mind.  Even last year, when Jim and I stopped in for our visit during our Canada 150 Tour, knowing the farm was for sale didn’t mean I really believed it would sell.

The truth is, in the last forty years, I’ve only been back to The Farm three times.  That is, in person.  In my mind, I’m a regular visitor there.

For me, The Farm was so much more than just a place to go for a holiday.  The Farm grounded me, and all who went there.  On The Farm, however we showed up was absolutely perfect.  No judgements were ever made and no expectations were put upon us.  Oh, we had to tow the line and follow the rules but never did we believe that we were not enough just how we were.  It was a place of incredible acceptance.  It was a place I felt I could be myself at my best.  It was a place I learned about nature and about the natural cycles of life.  It was a place I found great peace.  And it was one of the few places where after our mother died when I was just ten, I continued to feel ‘seen’.

When Jim and I got married and talked about our dreams for how our life would be, I wanted us to create a home that had a feeling like The Farm.  I wanted people to feel welcome and accepted in our home.  I wanted dreams to thrive in our home.  Jim had not been to The Farm; he had not met my East Coast relatives.  It took us fifteen years to save the money to take our children there when they were eight and ten years old.  It was well worth the wait.  Jim fell in love with it and with my cousins and aunt and uncle just like I knew he would.  I think his favourite part of our visit to the East last year was standing in Terry’s newest barn in fascination, watching the robots milk the cows.  In my mind, my Grampy was sitting on his little milk stool doing the same.

I’m guessing that my heart will eventually catch up to my mind on the selling of The Farm.  It really is time.  It is part of the life cycle of this place. Once I’m done feeling sorry for myself, I know I’ll have an abundance of gratitude and comfort knowing the memories I have of this place have helped make me who I am, have helped create the home I live in, and have given me confidence to believe that I am enough.  That’s a pretty good harvest from one Farm.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘Where is The Farm in my life?’
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Elizabeth is a life and leadership coach in Calgary, AB.  She provides leadership coaching for individuals and groups and she creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  Contact Elizabeth to help you or your organization to figure out how to bring The Farm to your table.

It’s been another sad week for the world.  The news has been filled with stories about the life and service of Senator John McCain from Arizona, who died on Saturday, August 25th.  It isn’t often that a Senator invokes such an outpouring of love and grief upon their death; clearly Senator McCain was a special man.

As I’ve listened to and read many accountings of stories from his life, from his time in the military, to his capture and holding as a POW, to his release, to his service in politics, to his family life, the thing that is so interesting is the steadfastness with which he travelled his time on this earth.  As people who knew this man well, and some who knew him not as well offer their memories of him, each story sounds the same.  The setting and the characters are different of course, but the theme is always exactly the same.  Anyone who seemed to interact with this man, in the spotlight, behind closed doors or in the quiet of his own home, discovered they were always dealing with the same man.  He did not seem to be one person in one setting and then become someone different in another.  He was consistently himself.  As far as I can tell, that meant he was someone who was honest, kind, who put country before politics, and who believed that service to something bigger than himself was what gave his life meaning.

It’s very easy to write these words. It’s very easy to think that I could aspire to this standard.  In reality, he made it look much easier than the rest of us find it to be.

Times like this give us pause.  For those of us who are introspective, it is times like the death of someone who is greatly admired that cause us to wonder, even if only for a brief moment, what our enduring legacy will be.

I can never be a John McCain.  I’m relieved to know this.  It is far too much pressure to try to be someone else.  Goodness knows, I have trouble enough being myself some days.

As I’ve thought about Senator McCain this week, I’ve pictured people going to see him for the past sixty or so years.  Some may have been seeing him in his place of work.  Some may have seen him at public events.  Some at family events.  Some may even have seen him in regular everyday activities.   What people seem to have been saying is that no matter where they saw or interacted with this man, they always knew what they would get.  They would get the exact same person every time.  What a comfort this is.

It made me think of times when I have gone to see some incredible wonder of our world.  How disappointed I would have been if when I had seen the Rocky Mountains for the first time, they had decided to be less majestic.  Or if when I had gone to Niagara Falls, they had decided to back off on their force.  Or what if the elephants and giraffes had all chosen to lie down on the plains of the Maasii Mara when we had our safari there.  Or if the sand on Bondi Beach had decided to turn grey when we walked that shore.

Recognizing that each of my examples involve non-humans, the idea remains.  We long for things to be exactly how we know they are at their best.  This holds true for humans.  This was true for John McCain and it sounds, by all accounts, as though people were not disappointed.  This too holds true for each of us.  When others choose to spend time in our presence, they long for us to be exactly how they are hoping we will be; they long for us to be at our best.

The question becomes then, what does it mean to be at my best?  It does not mean to become like John McCain, although that would not be a bad thing.  It does not mean that I can never have a bad or weak moment. It does not mean I cannot be disappointed or hurt or in grief.  It does not mean that each seminar, workshop, client appointment, and meal I create must be a work of art.  It does not mean that each bike ride or run I go on must be better than the one before.  It does not mean I need to smile when I am sad, or be the life of the party when I am weary.

It does mean I have a responsibility to myself, to figure out what makes up my character, and to act with integrity to align to that minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day.  Our character is something we chose.  It is not gifted to us, nor can it be taken away.

I have a fairly good understanding of what I want my character to be made up of.  I strive to live with integrity, to hold an open mind, to learn to be less fearful of things that are unfamiliar, to have a loving and welcome home, to encourage others in their pursuits, to be a good friend, sister, daughter, mother, grandmother and partner, to be a contributor, to add to society and to continue to challenge myself.  I hope others find acceptance in my presence.  I also strive to recognize my shortfalls, apologize when I notice it is needed and to find joy in all places in my life.

I hope I never get there. It would be such a disappointment to wake up some day and think that I have become as good as I can be.  I think if John McCain had been given another ten years on this earth, he would have continued to have put himself in situations that challenged his character; I also believe he would have found ten more years worth of ways to make his character shine through.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What part of my character am I revealing?’
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Elizabeth is a life and leadership coach in Calgary, AB.  She provides leadership coaching for individuals and groups and she creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  Contact Elizabeth to help you or your organization to figure out how what character you hope to be known for.

Last weekend, I was registered for, and I thought trained for the Ride to Conquer Cancer.  I had only been firmly registered for a week and I’d been more afraid of raising the money required to enter than I was of the ride itself.  It’s interesting how sometimes I get it completely wrong.

There is a mandatory minimum fundraising amount required from each participant who wishes to ride.  Twenty-five hundred dollars.  To me it seemed impossible.  Added to that, my upbringing of never asking anyone for money ever, I was reluctant to get started.  I know better than this. I know people want to help and they love to know they are contributing to some good in the world.   And yet I still couldn’t contain my complete astonishment when six days after signing up, and asking for donations on Facebook, I had fifty-three hundred dollars.  I’m still not sure I believe it.

The training was a different story.  Even though I hadn’t known I would be in this ride, I had been training for my upcoming race in Whistler in September so when the invitation came to join a team on the ride, the physical part of it just seemed like it was very doable -and that it would be great training for Whistler.  To be clear, the Ride to Conquer Cancer is hard.  The website described a two-day event.  One hundred kilometers each way, just east of the beautiful Rocky Mountains.  The course was described as hilly, with a lot of climbing in the first twenty kilometres and then nice gently rolling hills.  I knew I was trained.  And I felt nervous but ready.

You can image my surprise on race morning when I arrived at the start to hear someone announce, ‘We’re almost ready to get started on this epic 120km each way ride!’  The crowd cheered!  My training partner and friend, Rhonda and I looked at each other with that wide-eyed look of the shocked emoji.  In fairness, when you’re standing among 1800 riders, some of whom have yellow flags on the back of their bikes signalling they have or have had cancer, it’s pretty hard to think that an extra twenty kilometres each day is a hardship.  We knew we had nothing to complain about.

The unexpected factor was the smoke in the air from the forest fires burning in British Columbia.  For the past two weeks, Alberta had been the recipient of some of this smoke which blew in on the jet stream.  Day after day Jim and I had locked our windows tightly and avoided outdoor exercise.  Every few days we would get a few hours of easy breathing air and then it was back to choking smoke.  And yet the forecast had predicted that the smoke would let up overnight on Friday and that Saturday the risk factor would be low.  Sunday was forecast for showers; this always helps with smoke.

When I woke up early Saturday morning to go pick up Rhonda and be at the start by 6:30, the smoke was awful.  It was far worse than it had been the past few days, and those days had not been good.  I wondered if the race would proceed. 

The start of the race was overwhelming.  I was overwhelmed seeing the yellow flags, indicating the wide-reaching impact of cancer. I was overwhelmed seeing the wife of the man who headed our team, in tears, knowing he was going to try to ride but that he would not make it far. I was overwhelmed to see his daughter and his grandchildren and his brother and sister-in-law out in the early morning light supporting him.  I was overwhelmed to feel the energy.  I was overwhelmed to have been asked to join.  I was overwhelmed at the smoke.

As we biked along on Saturday morning, the mountains completely invisible because of smoke, riders disappearing into the smoke in front of us and finding it harder and harder to breathe, we said more than once, “If only we could get a breath of fresh air”.  The construction masks we donned helped but by kilometre 75, when we were told that the road had been closed, while our hearts were disappointed, our lungs were relieved.

The next day the smoke continued and I mentioned more than once that if only we’d been able to get a breath of fresh air, we would have been ok. 

On Monday morning I sent a letter to our team leader, thanking him for including me, thanking him for his grit in dealing with his unwelcome visitor called cancer, and letting him know I was disappointed we couldn’t finish the ride.  His reply, thanking me for my ride, let me know that we, those other four members of his team, were his breath of fresh air that smoky Saturday morning.

This past week, in our neighbouring province of Saskatchewan, a farmer, Brian Williams died the day before our race with his crops still in the field.  On Sunday, neighbours arrived in droves to harvest his 258-acre field of durum wheat.  Twenty combines drove in a V-formation and over one-hundred volunteers were on hand to help.  The job was complete in just a few hours.  I am guessing there was a lot of dust kicked up by those combines.  And I’ll be they were such a breath of fresh air for Brian William’s family.

My inquiry for you this week, ‘How can I be a breath of fresh air?’

Elizabeth is a life and leadership coach in Calgary, AB.  She provides leadership coaching for individuals and groups and she creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  Contact Elizabeth to help you or your organization to figure out how to bring a breath of fresh air to your life or to your life’s work.

With the city too smoky to venture out into most days this week, I’ve taken the time to find some ‘indoor’ activities to amuse myself.  The pantry and my closet could have used my company, as could a couple of upcoming work projects, and eventually I’ll get there but my first choice has been to pick up my knitting.

I learned to knit when I was a little girl. I learned to crochet at about the same time.  I’ve only recently learned that it’s rare for a person to know how to do both.  Apparently, most people find that the one they learn first becomes their favourite and they either never learn the other or simply quit pursuing it.  I enjoyed both, I continued to do both and I taught my kids both.  A ball of wool and a hook or pair of needles is pretty cheap amusement.

Not long ago I was talking with one of my clients about the term unravelling.  She mentioned that she used to watch in awe as her grandmother would be crocheting an item, notice a mistake and then simply remove the hook and unravel the project until she reached the mistake.  At that point the hook was easily reinserted and she could start anew.   She loved the idea that mistakes did not have to be permanent; that they could be corrected with very little effort and with no waste of wool.

I was wishing that was the case with my knitting this year.

I’ve committed, to myself only, that I’ll complete one item for each of our kids, kids-in-law and little Benjamin before Christmas. This didn’t sound like a tough proposition in January when I had the whole year spread before me.  But now the pages of the proverbial calendar are turning quickly and I have some rapid needle clicking to take on. 

Since this project is a secret, I won’t divulge the details of each item.  Suffice it to say item number one has been the toughest so far.  The pattern is very intricate and involves some ‘cabling’.  This means that at certain points a few stitches need to be transferred to a stitch holder to be kept while doing some other work in the background.  Then the stiches are then reinserted into the body of the work.   This happens in this pattern many times in each row, making progress slower than it might be if it were simply straight knitting or purling.  

The detail of the work appeals to me. I like the finicky-ness of it all.  And I especially love to see the beautiful pattern emerge. 

You can imagine my horror when I went to lay my knitting down for the evening and noticed that one place where my held stitches were meant to go in front, they instead found themselves behind.  If my horror wasn’t apparent to you in the last line, perhaps this will bring it to life.  The mistake was not in the most recent row.  In fact, I had made the mistake about one week earlier.  Since I was knitting about three hours each day, that was about twenty or so hours ago. 

I tried to pretend this one little mis-stitch would not matter.  I took a picture of it and sent it to my sister Mary.  ‘What do you think?’ I asked.  ‘Yup.  I can see it.  You’ll know it’s there.’  Still not willing to admit what I would have to do to make this right, the next morning I found myself waiting at the door of the wonderful shop where I had bought the wool, Gina Browns.

‘Oh.  This is beautiful work’, they said.  And then added, ‘Yup.  We can see it.  You won’t be happy knowing all the work you put in and knowing it’s there.’

Still not willing to face all the work ahead of me, I queried if there was a way to correct it without taking the whole thing apart stitch by stitch.  Their disappointed faces matched my own.

Knitting is not like crocheting.  When knitting needs to be undone, it must be done so stitch by stitch, reversing the pattern.  It takes almost as long to undo a pattern like the one I was making as it does to knit it in the first place.   The only way to avoid this laborious process is to remove the entire project from the needles and then to start again. In the case of project number one for me, the mistake was not quite half-way back, so one-by-one was the way to go.  About 15 hours to get it off.  Then another twenty to get back to where I had been.

That project is finished now and I am well into project number three.  All this time knitting has given me time to ponder; this pondering of course may well be what got me in the above pickle to begin with.  Nonetheless, ponder I have.  I’ve been thinking about how I approach certain things in my life.  I think I can create two categories.  I have my crocheting bits of life; these are the parts that I don’t panic about making a mistake in.  Mistakes here can be easily remedied. While my focus does need to be on these projects, it does not require the same intense scrutiny needed in other places.  When I think about it, a lot of my daily living can fit in this category; taking care of daily chores, having friends and family over for dinner, going on adventures, exercising, networking, dancing and even parts of my teaching and coaching.

The knitting pieces of my life are different.  These are the bits I have built stitch by stitch.  I am noticing that all of these knit pieces involve relationships.  These are much harder and slower to build.  Sometimes the stitches are put on a holder and move to the background for a while.  A mistake made in one of them can easily be missed and when it is noticed, can take some time and care to repair.  Knitted projects are also much harder to unravel.  This gives me great peace realizing that unless I remove the entire project from the needles, with care, it can be mended.   What I also know is that if I choose not to go back and put in the work to fix it, I will always know I have not given my best. 

I prefer knitting to crocheting and relationships to things. I’m going to renew my effort to focus on each stitch of my relationships, to go back and see what projects I may have laid down for a while that need my attention, and in what projects I may have missed a stitch.

It’s a long cold winter without a nice knitted garment.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘Am I knitting or crocheting?’
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Elizabeth is a life and leadership coach in Calgary, AB.  She provides leadership coaching for individuals and groups and she creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  Contact Elizabeth to help you or your organization to figure out how to knit the relationships needed for success.

This week I’ve had the word ‘Grace’ running through my head.  Usually when this happens, I notice a reason.  But when I first noticed the presence of this word I couldn’t imagine why I was thinking about it and I assumed it too, like so many of my thoughts, would fly right out of my mind.

Not so.

Grace has been persistent.  After being cooped up in the house for more than a week with a nasty virus, I dared to hop on my bike earlier this week, before the forest fire smoke filled the Calgary skies.  As I biked along, loving being on the pathways, loving the movement of my body, aware that my lungs were not where I wanted them, there she was again; Grace.

I could not get the word out of my head.  Sometimes when I can’t stop thinking about something, my solution is to decide to really think about it; that’s where I’ve found myself this week.  Thinking about and looking for examples of Grace.

I always thought I wanted to grow old with Grace.  In my younger years, what I really think I thought that meant was that I would somehow defy aging, thus being graceful in my continuous youth.  Alas, as many of us have come to realize, try as we might to stop them, if we are very lucky, the years keep coming.  I always hoped Grace would just come along for the ride.   And yet so often I have found myself confronting some of the new limits in my life with Grace nowhere to be found.
Such has been the case over these past couple of weeks.  Not feeling well, not being able to do my regular things, not being able to train for my upcoming events, found me not only feeling physically worn out, but I was downright fed up.  Grace took herself to a less miserable home I’m sure.  She certainly was not here.

Grace, like her meaning is not easy to pin down.  When I looked for Grace in the dictionary she seemed to have two main meanings.  One is the Christian definition which refers to receiving the favour of God for no apparent reason.  When we say, ‘There but for the Grace of God, there go I’ we mean that we recognize that whatever misfortune has befallen another, could just as easily have happened to us.  In other words, there is no logic for why we were spared other than we were the benefactor of Grace.

The non-religious definition refers to many things.  Grace was defined as moving with effortless elegance, a charming or attractive trait, and the quality of being kind considerate and thoughtful.  Oh my, I really missed the mark this past week.  Not only was I not moving with effortless elegance, I could not have been described as charming; cranky perhaps, not charming.

When I really think about the idea of Grace being effortless elegance, I bristle a bit.  There is something about the word effortless that rubs me the wrong way.  When I think of a dancer, I think of Grace.  Although such an artist may move about on a stage in a way that is incredibly beautiful and gives the illusion of a lack of effort, the truth is there is great effort needed to achieve this effect of Grace.  If it was easy, we would all be on stage.  Interestingly, this idea of great effort is where I find my peace with Grace.  I know how to do big effort; I must be able to achieve Grace.

I recognize that Grace will not simply come along with me for my ride into the rest of my life.  She will not be content to be my pretty sidekick. If I want to be blessed with Grace in my life I will have to work very hard to convince her to take up residence with me.  The effort may equal any effort I have made in other life pursuits I found to be life-giving and rewarding.

I will have to treat this pursuit as I am treating my latest training program for biking. I need to practice, risk falling and accept that the journey will not be linear. It may not even be pretty at times.  And for a person like me who likes to check things off lists, I may never ‘get there’.

As I biked along pondering these deep thoughts early one morning this week, I saw a runner approaching me in the distance.  Jealous of him being able to run, I watched as he approached from afar, waiting to give my cheerful runners’ ‘Hi’.  As I got closer to him, I could see that he was not a fast runner.  Even closer, I noticed he held one arm very close to his body; it seemed to have no motion and it appeared to hang heavily.  It dawned on me that he was lagging on one whole side of his body.  I don’t know for sure, but I assume he had suffered a stroke. I don't know how old he was.  Younger than me.  As I approached him, I slowed slightly, raised my hand in the runners’ ‘Hi’ and smiled as I said a cheerful good morning.  He had no words in response, but he flashed me a huge smile.  Ah, Grace, there you are.

I’m on a search for Grace these days.   I suspect she’s closer than I realize.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘Where can you invite Grace into your life?’

PS: I’ve signed up to ride in the Ride to Conquer Cancer next weekend.  It’s a 200km bike ride over two days. If you are able to sponsor me, please click here and you'll be redirected to my Profile Page for the race.  Thanks!


Elizabeth is a life and leadership coach in Calgary, AB.  She provides leadership coaching for individuals and groups and she creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  Contact Elizabeth to help you or your organization to figure out how to incorporate Grace into your team.

Jim and I have been insulted this week by a particularly nasty virus.  Rare for us, we both woke up in the night last Wednesday saying, ‘’My throat is on fire”.  Since we had planned to help Kaitlyn and Matt with their move for the next few days, we assumed that some Vitamin C, lots of water and good sleeps would see us through.

You can imagine our shock when we both found ourselves in the Walk-In Medical clinic on Sunday morning.  Now, on antibiotics and under self-imposed quarantine, we still aren’t sure we’ve turned the proverbial corner.  But we have been able to watch quite a few stages of the Tour de France I had saved on the PVR.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of cycling this summer.  I’m getting ready for several big events.  One is the Sea-To-Sky Gran Fondo in Whistler, BC, in September.  A Gran Fondo is a fancy way of describing a bike race that is at least 120km, is timed, has a marked course and has course control - lanes closed to traffic. Needless to say, I’ve been training hard.  Needless to say, I’ve been less than amused to not be able to be out on my bike this week.  Needless to say, this virus is also what has allowed me the luxury of sitting in my living room watching of the Tour de France this week.  And needless to say, this has brought about my pondering of the term ‘blow-up’.

There is a whole language used by cyclists that would have an outsider to the sport shaking their head.  ‘Blow-up’ is one that caught my attention this week.  Can you use that in a sentence please? 

The commentator might say, ‘He has to be careful not to blow up’. 

Good grief; the visual is not nice. 

However, in cycling, when a person ‘blows-up’, it means that they have just completed a particularly extreme effort and they have simply run out of energy.  Just prior to blowing-up, the cyclist will enter the ‘red-zone’.  This means they are on the brink of ‘blowing-up’ and ‘blowing-up’ is now inevitable.  Their body will not allow them to take on nourishment – the one thing that could replenish their energy stores.

Watching the Tour, I’ve discovered relief, realizing that my training partner, Rhonda, who is also competing at Whistler, and I will likely never blow-up!  The tour riders easily double our speeds on climbs and often triple our speeds on the flat.  In addition, they don’t seem to weigh their bikes down with the paniers that allow us to carry plenty of food!

I’ve been thinking about how we use this term ‘blow-up’ in life.  We might use it to say that there was a blow up at work today. This refers to someone getting mad and usually yelling.  It seems an appropriate use of the biking term as I can only assume that just before the blow-up, they reach the red zone where they have simply run out of self-control.

I’ve also heard businesses use the term by saying, ‘Let’s blow this thing up’.  In this case it refers to making something more successful that anyone could have imagined.  Let’s be unstoppable, they might have said. Let’s shatter everyone’s preconceived notion of us.

On social media when something ‘blows-up’ it means that many, many other people suddenly engage with you via ‘likes’ or comments or photos.

In my life, there have been times when I have wanted to ‘blow-up’ the ideas that others hold about me.  I want people to see me differently than they do.  I don’t want them to think that what they think they know about me is all there is to know.  Alas, this is when I’m operating from the place of ‘If the whole world would just change for me, my life would be easier’.  The truth is, perhaps what I really need is for me to blow-up some of my self-beliefs.

What people think about us is often only a reflection of what we think about ourselves.  When we show a pattern of behaviour often enough, people classify us in a certain way.  It is only when we get brave enough to enter the red-zone; to risk laying it on the line; to risk blowing-up, that we are declaring what we want others to know about us.

Many people would not label me as a risk-taker.  I might agree with them.  But I also know I do have the capacity for risk -taking within me and I’m trying to exercise it more and more.  Last week, when Rhonda and I were out on our weekly long ride, a total of 91km including climbing the challenging mountain Highwood Pass, I blew a tire.  I hit a rock and experienced my first blow-up.  I couldn’t believe it.  I had just had brand new tires put on to avoid such an event.  The rock put a hole right through the new tire and the tube.  We were in the mountains, out of cell phone range, 17km from the car in bear country. 

We thought about our options; Rhonda could cycle alone to the car, leaving me to fend off the bears.  We could look helpless and hope for a passing motorist to stop.  Or we could, as Rhonda proposed, pretend we were on the Amazing Race and figure this thing out.

In my panier I had a new tube, and tools, placed thoughtfully there by Jim.  Rhonda had a pump.  Neither of us had one clue about how to change a tire.  If truth were being told, I had never even watched anyone change a bike tire.    I recalled at my last dental appointment, the wonderful Dr. Charanduk, a much better cyclist than I, had told me it’s easier to get a back tire back on the bike if it’s in its smallest gear.  So that became step one.  Rhonda had seen someone using the little plastic tool and she began to work on getting the tire off the rim.  You cannot imagine my joy when I opened the new tube and found some instructions to follow.  Let’s just say this, we won’t be hired to be the maintenance crew for a Tour de France bike team, and we did end up covered in grease, but we DID change that tire.  All by ourselves.

We completely blew up what we had previously thought about our limitations.  I was forced to get into the red zone of no turning back before this could happen.  I think we both came home prouder of the tire change than of the successful ride.  And when I posted a picture on social media?  Why my account blew up (I think 33 reactions qualifies as a blow-up?!)

My inquiry for you this week is, “What needs blowing up?”

Elizabeth is a life and leadership coach in Calgary, AB.  She provides leadership coaching for individuals and groups and she creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  Contact Elizabeth to help you or your organization to figure out how to blow up pre-conceived notions that may be holding you back.

My wonderful dance group, Chinook Country, had a busy Saturday last week.  During the day we danced at A Taste of Okotoks, a street festival in a beautiful town just south of Calgary.  In the evening we were invited to be part of a Cabaret in Millarville, a picture-perfect hamlet in the Foothills of our beautiful Rocky Mountains.

Millarville hosted their annual rodeo in the afternoon.  This was to be followed by some family dancing and then a cabaret where the fabulous group, The Backroad Traveler Band, would play live.

As this was our first time being invited to this event, the agenda was fluid.  Our understanding was that we would perform a bit, then invite the crowd to join in a few simpler dances that we could teach, then perhaps we would perform some more.

As so often happens in life, I was glad we had brought a good dose of flexibly in our dancing boots.  It turned out that many families headed home post-rodeo which meant there weren’t very many families populating the family dance!  The evening crowd didn’t show up until after eight o’clock so that left us, about twenty-five dancers, the live band, and a couple dozen cowboys and cowgirls; some who had competed in the rodeo, some who had watched and some locals who were part of the organizing crew.

Whenever my ‘dancing sistas’ and I find ourselves in our dancing outfits with music playing, it doesn’t take long before our feet get tapping, someone recognizes that one of our choreographed dances could go along with the current song, and we whoop and holler our way onto the dance floor.

That was the scene in Millarville on Saturday night.  When we weren’t singing along to the familiar tunes played by The Backroad Traveler Band, we were on the dirt floor dancing.

At one moment we were dancing along to a Brooks and Dunn song and I looked outside of the open-air tent toward the arena and saw four or five children riding their horses in the beautiful evening sunshine.  What an incredible sight. I thought about how lucky these kids were to be doing what they loved without a seeming care in the world, and how lucky I was to be doing the same.

The moment the song ended we headed to the edge of the dance floor to grab out water bottles and figure out the next song.  We quickly recognized Take it Easy by the Eagles so we turned and headed back out on the floor. 
It was at that moment it happened.  A drunken cowboy asked me to dance.

To clarify, for the purposes of this blog, a drunken cowboy can be described in the following way.  He had enough to drink to have courage to ask someone to dance.  He clearly had enough to affect his vision so that my wrinkles miraculously smoothed out.  He was not falling down drunk.  He could speak clearly and walk in a straight line.  And he could keep a beat and mind his manners.

When I was teaching students in grades seven, eight and nine, about five times per year our Student Council would host a dance.  Prior to each dance my teaching colleague and good friend, Jack, would give dance lessons to all the students.  The first, and most important part of the lessons revolved around how to ask a person to dance and what to say when you were asked.  The answer we practiced was, “I would love to”.  We practiced saying this with a smile so it would be comfortable.  We also covered such things as what to do if the person danced in a way that made you feel uncomfortable, how to say thank you at the end of the dance and we explained that while saying yes once was appropriate, once the dance was finished, they did not need to say yes to the same person again unless they chose to do so.   ‘No stalking’ was part of the protocol.  In the midst of it all, we taught them a bit of two-step and a line dance and I must say we hosted incredibly fun dances.

And so, at this somewhat awkward moment of being asked to dance by a somewhat drunken cowboy I found myself uttering the words, “I would love to”, and before I knew what was happening I was whirling around the dance floor while the rest of the line dancers danced their practiced routine. 

The teacher had become the student.

As we danced I recalled how Jack and I had taught so many others that when someone asked you to dance, it cost you nothing to be kind.

And so, it came to be that on a beautiful sunny evening in the Foothills of the Rocky Mountains, in an open-air tent, when a drunken cowboy asked me to dance, I chose kindness.

When the song ended, I thanked my partner and he thanked me (several times!). I made my way back to the safety of my dancing group and life righted itself.

It’s easy to choose kindness in situations we choose or that are familiar to us.  It’s easy to be kind to people in our ‘circle of comfort’.  It’s easy to be kind when it doesn’t really cost us discomfort.  It’s also easy to think we would have been kind when we hear a news story about a person who suffered unkindness.

It is harder in the moment, when our actions may be judged by others or when we feel self-conscious or timid or embarrassed. 

Last Saturday evening I had a choice to make.  In some ways I was lucky.  If my drunken cowboy had become a problem (he didn’t) I had a great back up crew, all wearing red shirts and cowboy hats.  I still had to make a choice. I’d make it again.  I’d choose kindness.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘How can I choose kindness?’
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Elizabeth is a life and leadership coach in Calgary, AB.  She provides leadership coaching for individuals and groups and she creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  Contact Elizabeth to help you or your organization to figure out how to create a kinder workplace or personal space.

When I was a kid, our Dad would pack us all into the station wagon, later the van, hook up the homemade tent trailer and set off for our three-day journey to New Brunswick to see our cousins.  These of course were the days of not only no seat belts, but also of no air conditioning, no radio, no drive through restaurants, no Slurpee’s.  We did have a backward facing seat in the station wagon that produced excellent doses of car-sickness.

We left each morning at about nine o’clock and drove without a break until noon, when we would stop at the side of the road, make a picnic lunch, boil water to do dishes, pack everything up again and strike off from about one o’clock until four or four-thirty, when we would stop to make camp for the night.  I can only imagine what would have caused my father to institute a ‘NO ASKING “Are we there yet?” RULE’

We must have asked this relentlessly at some point but in my personal memory, I can only recall being very clear on the rule about NOT asking.

With this being the time of summer when no doubt thousands of families are striking off on road trips, perhaps equipped with more modern conveniences than we had, I suspect that this question is being banned in vehicles all across the country, by parents, like my dad, who are doing their best to just ‘get there’.

I remember sitting in the hot car, and when we were not singing to pass the miles we would talk about the possibility of there being a secret, underground road, that could get us to ‘the farm’, our magical destination where we would spend days playing with our beloved cousins, much more quickly.  I recognize now, that when we ‘got there’ we really did know that we were somewhere special and we cherished every moment of our holiday.

As I reflect on my more recent life, I notice that I’ve not been as consistent with my acknowledgement of ‘getting there’ as I could be.  How often have I found myself wishing to have some event hurry-up-and-get here only to forget to appreciate what I had when I was standing in the moment.

How many of us have wished to get a job, (I want this so badly; I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t get it; it’s perfect for me) only to get it and then to find ourselves complaining about how tired it is making us.  Or what about wishing for time off work, only to complain about how the weather didn’t cooperate.  Or wishing we would have children, only to end up wishing for time for ourselves.  Or finding we have time to ourselves when our children are grown, only to wish we had a full table once again.  Or wishing that, just for once, we could come home to a clean house, only to find ourselves missing the familiar signs of an active family.

How many times have we prayed for doors to open for us, then walked through that door and not even notice that yes, ‘we are there yet’.

It’s easier as I get older to recognize the fleetingness of life.  Where as the miles to New Brunswick felt like they were passing in very slow motion, the milestones in my life pass by in a blur.  It is only by my consciously telling myself to take a breath, to slow down, to take it all in, to enjoy it right now, am I able to bring some of the sense of wonder into my current life that I had when I spent those precious weeks on ‘the farm’.

This past Tuesday, I was out for my ‘long ride’ with my friend, and training partner, Rhonda.  We’re getting ready for the Sea-to-Sky Gran Fondo, a 125km bike race from Vancouver up to Whistler, BC.  We’ve set aside Tuesdays as the day we do our long rides together.  On the other days we each do our own shorter rides.  Every Monday, I get excited and nervous for Tuesday.  I get nervous because I doubt my ability on the difficulty and distances (we’re now up to 90km) and I get excited because I LOVE being out on the hills in the mountains.  Despite the conflict of emotions, I keep wanting Tuesday to arrive.

Without exception, on every single one of our Tuesday rides, we have found ourselves biking along when one of us says to the other, ‘Can you believe this?  How lucky are we to be out here in this beauty?’  This past week, Rhonda commented as we pedaled, ‘I cannot believe that these hills get more pretty each week.’ 

Both of us are smart enough to know that ‘We are there yet’.  We may not be at the starting line of the race, yet we are ‘there’.  We are right in the place we will remember for many years.  The gun for the race will sound and race day will pass in a flash, but this part, the training part, the part like this past week where we panicked and pedalled for all we were worth when we passed a bear, and we braked and stopped in our tracks when a wolf crossed in front, or the part when we took a lunch break at a picnic table and relished the silence, this is the part where we are smart enough to know that yes, ‘we are there yet’.

When I was working as a teacher, I often wished I had just one day a week when I could treat myself to a long bike ride with a friend.  I am there.  And I am not letting this go unobserved by me.

Nor am I letting some other things go unobserved. Like my weeks of Stampede Dancing; I am definitely there yet.  And time with our children and their spouses; I am there yet.  And minutes with Benjamin; I am there yet.  And Sunday bike rides with Jim; I am there yet.  And phone calls and texts from friends and family; I am there yet.  And facilitating workshops with incredible groups; I am there yet.  And even eating ice cream cones on summer nights; I am there yet.
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This week as you enjoy this middle of summertime, take time to notice that you just may be standing in the middle of something you once longed for.  Take time to ‘be there yet’.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘Am I there yet?’

Elizabeth is a life and leadership coach in Calgary, AB.  She provides leadership coaching for individuals and groups and she creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  Contact Elizabeth to help you or your organization to figure out how to become more ‘there yet’.