Erin's Journals

Just a thought… I have just three things to teach: Simplicity, Patience, Compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. [Lao Tzu]

You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

Welcome in and sorry to have missed my usual Monday journal here. I appreciate your patience; to say that it’s been busy around here would be an understatement – and, of course, a lot of that is my own doing.

Last week I shared with you the news that we’re surrogate parents to a one-year-old Havanese named Dot Calm. We’ve gotten pretty good at calling her by her proper name; when it’s an urgent situation – like when she mistakes a mat for a pee pad – we call her Rosie, after the puppy who had a lot of, shall we say, emergencies…although sometimes we go back even further and call her Molly.

Truthfully, though, she more resembles Pepper, the black and white boy here, and if she turns out to be as sweet as he was, we’ll be lucky indeed.

Looks as if Dottie won’t be needed for making puppies for four months or so, so that’s a relief. We will find it hard to be without her while she’s back at the ranch, so to speak, but maybe we’ll make a point of going out more. She cries when I leave, but when we both go out, Dotty is put into her crate with no fuss at all.

But what to do at night? Last week I so proudly told you that she was out-sleeping us. I shouldn’t have said anything. Soon, she and I were getting up – and staying up – at 5:30 or 6:30 am. But we soon remedied that: pee pads in the house meant she could do her thing and then she and I could then climb into my nice warm bed together. I checked with her breeder and Bev gave us the okay to do that, so long as Dottie still likes her crate for when we’re out.

I’ll be honest: a lot of my stress is self-imposed, as I don’t want her to upset Rob or cause any friction between us, as Rosie did. But this is a different experience and Rob has said that he wants to make this work, because I want to make it work.

Now, I’m the one who gets up with her, and walks her before bed in this glamorous ensemble of bathrobe, runners and long coat…and laughingly remembers the days when I moved here and wouldn’t even walk Molly without making sure I had full makeup on! I mean, seriously, Davis. Time to get real.

And we have. And at this point, I want to thank Rob for his open heart, for his love and patience (oh, and with the dog, too!) and everything he brings to our lives.

It’s his birthday today and I hope he’ll enjoy a few surprises and a dinner with his grandkids. One day they’ll forgive him for making them Leafs fans, but for now, gathering to watch hockey and, of course, Blue Jays is just the icing on his birthday cake. Which reminds me…I still have to pick up a cake. I told you I had a lot to do!

Oh, and if you haven’t heard the latest Drift with Erin sleep story, I heard from Kim who said she’s listened four times to Beauty and the Beast and still hasn’t gotten to the end. So, yay!

And don’t miss this Thursday’s Gracefully & Frankly podcast with Lisa Brandt and me. In episode 14, we’re sharing the good, bad and downright gross of online dating, a story that will give you chills, and how I inadvertently drove right into the future this past weekend. It’s pretty amazing.

You take care, have a Happy Passover tomorrow night and a peaceful and joyful Easter. I’ll be back with you next week. Promise!

Today’s journal: a surprise for you (and my whole family) as we add a new love bug to our lives! Enjoy…Dot Calm. Dottie? Dolly? Oh, I don’t know…! I DO know you have to watch this one today – because there are too many pictures to be missed.

You can find it on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

Just a thought… People with dementia may have a great deal to teach the rest of humankind. If we make the venture one of genuine and open engagement, we will learn a great deal about ourselves. [Professor Tom Kitwood]

You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

First off, happy Vernal Equinox! It’s the first day of spring and may it arrive for you, not just in name, sooner than later.

It’s been almost three months now since my trip to Kelowna in the BC interior, an hour’s flight from here on Vancouver Island, to move my soon-to-be 90-year-old dad from his longtime independent living seniors’ residence to one with more assistance. He stayed there all of two nights and we all found that he was just not mentally or physically equipped to live there without my sister sleeping on a nearby cot. So, despite their warmest welcome, we had to move Dad out again.

But this is where things got better: he moved into that same sister Leslie’s busy household, has his own room, thanks to Veterans’ Affairs is in the midst of getting everything he needs to live there and, of course, Leslie’s entire family – busy husband, equally busy teens, three dogs and, yes, even the cat – have all made him a part of the family. He’s gained weight and strength, and just having a Blue Jays game on repeat on the TV keeps him happy. Plus, it keeps Leslie from losing her mind when that all-too-tiny CTV News wheel re-peat-peat-peat-peat-peats.

To Dad, you see, every time he sees the game, it’s new to him. His short- and mid-term memory is almost completely gone. Although he remembers family, I had not even gotten off the plane coming home from that last trip when one sister told me he didn’t know I’d visited or helped him move. Leslie takes him to see his girlfriend and by the time he’s home he says she wasn’t there. By the end of the day, as well as being physically spent, Leslie is mentally exhausted from going along with his questions and stories.

And this former pilot is getting out of bed about three times nightly, asking what time he’s up in the morning for his flight, where his kit bag is, and so on. He asks for mom, who passed away 11 years ago. If we thought about it, it would break our hearts, but we’re pretty much ready for whatever comes.

At this point, thanks to the sisters, Dad is getting all the assistance the system allows. That’s almost half the job: the paperwork, the phone calls, the persistence and, of course, above all, the patience. He knows he’s surrounded by love, gets lots of his favourite food, frequent naps and, of course, the Blue Jays.

So today in my dad’s honour and for everyone who is or loves a senior, I’d like to share this wonderful sweet and funny story, author unknown. It goes like this:

The pilot of an Airbus A380 is on his way across the Atlantic. He’s flying consistently at 800 km/h at 30,000 feet when suddenly a Eurofighter with a Tempo Mach 2 appears.

The pilot of the fighter jet slows down, flies alongside the Airbus and greets the pilot of the passenger plane by radio: “Airbus! Boring flight, isn’t it? Now have a look here!”

With that he rolls his jet on its back, accelerates, breaks through the sound barrier, rises rapidly to a dizzying height, and then swoops down almost to sea level in a breathtaking dive. He loops back next to the Airbus and asks: “Well, how was that?”

The Airbus pilot answers: “Very impressive. But watch this.”

The jet pilot watches the Airbus…but…nothing happens. It continues to fly straight at the same speed. After 15 minutes, the Airbus pilot radios, “Well, how was that?”

Confused, the jet pilot responds, “What did you do?”

The Airbus pilot laughs and says, “I got up, stretched my legs, walked to the back of the aircraft to use the lavatory, then got a cup of coffee and a chocolate pastry.”

The moral of the story is this: When you’re young, speed and adrenalin seem to be great. But as you get older and wiser, you learn that comfort and peace are more important. This is called S.O.S.: Slower, Older and Smarter.

I love that. Sit back, relax and don’t forget to stretch your legs, enjoy the sweetness of life and be sure to take in that view.

Have a lovely week. Please let me bring peace to your nighttime with Drift Sleep stories, available for free wherever you download podcasts, and I’ll have a new Episode 12 podcast with Lisa Brandt on Gracefully and Frankly this week. We’re hearing it’s a new Thursday MUST for thousands of listeners. And we’re grateful to all.

Just a thought… You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. [Marcus Aurelius]

You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

Welcome in, my bleary-eyed friend. Two things people are talking about today: the Oscars, which I will have watched after writing this (and we’ll cover a few aspects of the show later this week in the Gracefully and Frankly podcast) and, of course, the second thing is the time.

I used to hate the Monday after we put our clocks ahead with the heat of a thousand suns. When you get up in the middle of the night, that hour makes a lot of difference, and my body clock would take a week to adjust. That being said, I’m not going to complain about it, because no one has asked me if we should move our clocks or not. And there are enough opinions out there on changing the time that you don’t need mine.

But I do want to talk about the concept of time. On Facebook Saturday I posted this picture.

It is about NOW, obviously, and how it is the only time we have.

I’ve been thinking a lot about time lately, especially the time spent away and the time I wasted, worrying about whether my friends were having a good time. And in the days since Lisa Brandt and I discussed this very thing, how ensuring everyone in the room or even, say, the lineup at the grocery store is not being bothered by anything, especially anything related to what I might be doing, is NOT my responsibility, not my superpower… I can’t stop thinking about it.

It’s a really eye-opening concept, and shakes up what those of us who grew up in either volatile or uncertain surroundings have ingrained in our DNA. Am I doing enough to make sure my mom isn’t upset? What was that sigh about? Is she mad I’m reading while she’s vacuuming? If I take too long finding my store discount app on my phone, is the guy behind me going to be angry? Is everyone at the dinner party okay with the music, the presentation, the meal?

See, this is why some people are easy, gracious hosts who regularly have guests over. I am not that person and I think it’s cost me some possible friendships here on the island. One couple inadvertently intimidated me so much with their high-end coffee maker (and I’m talking really high-end, like new-car-price high-end) and their particular wine tastes that I couldn’t bear to have them over to reciprocate their two invitations and risk not measuring up.

I know how ridiculous that sounds. So I ask myself, and you: at what age do we decide that it just doesn’t matter? It’s not our responsibility? To shake off the fear of not fitting in, meeting a certain standard or keeping the peace in uncertain surroundings?

I don’t know. It’s exhausting. But that’s been my journey this past week, with pieces of wisdom driving home that message almost daily in my inbox.

Mistakenly thinking I have that superpower of making everyone happy all the time has cost me precious time, and the chance to really make memories.

Now, on the other hand, my job as emcee, hosting a day-long event as I did last Thursday for a large corporate group in Victoria, BC, is exactly the thing I’m saying I should let go of: I am hired to make sure that everyone is having a good time. But it’s the difference between me taking responsibility if the buffet isn’t good (and it was) and just handling my own job: what I say, how I deal with screw-ups big and small in the moment.

Have I spent the last three or four days thinking of things I could have done better at the event? Of course. If you don’t, you don’t improve. You welcome feedback, which I’m happy to say has been 100% positive. You use it as fuel to be better. But unlike a recorded show where you can go back and edit, and believe me, occasionally Lisa or I will say, “Uh, yeah, that may have been over the line; let’s take it out,” it was live and in the moment, and nothing that happened can be changed.

It’s why all we have is NOW. We move forward, knowing it’s never too late to change for the better. We can alter our opinions, growing as compassionate and intelligent humans, and learning from our mistakes. And, most of all, we can remember the words of the stoic Marcus Aurelius: “When you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love….”

Sure beats hating that the clocks went ahead, doesn’t it?

Have a good week – and there’s a brand new Drift story for you tomorrow. It’s Raggedy Ann Learns a Lesson and I think you’ll like it. And Episode 11 of Gracefully and Frankly drops on Thursday. Grab a cuppa and we’ll talk to you then.