I am sitting in the Outhouse, the cool coffee shop near my house, stealing an hour away from the kids while our nanny/babysitter watches Madeleine and Thomas. Alexandria comes two mornings a week. I usually still have the baby while she takes Madeleine to the park or the library. Sometimes I lie in bed ad watch a video. Sometimes I organize the house. Sometimes I make stuff. Rarely I write. The words have been few since our little boy arrived. Unlike the birth of Madeleine, when the words came like a flood, today I am a woman of little poetry,

One thing I can always draw from in these dry times is the stories of others. I am making time to sit down and talk to one new woman each month and hear about her journey, listen to her heart. This is where the Seeking Eve stories are coming from right now. I had hoped to have had the book laid out in the computer by now, but I am finding this part of the process very slow and I need larger windows to really get into the design — so I am making cards and other little crafty projects (felt star ornaments for the family this year) in the little windows afforded me. Another Christmas window missed to sell the book — I have to give myself grace in this — I am human. And I read somewhere once that publishing is not a race, that you should enter it when you are really ready. 2012 is the year.

Grace.

It’s something I have been learning a lot about. The words I have been hearing over and over for the past few months are this:

Just be who God has made you to be and the rest will take care of itself.

Motherhood is so full-on that I don’t have it in me to do anything else that is not life-giving. So, if a project — even a project I LOVE, is feeling like labour, HARD, then it is not for me. This has been so life giving and helpful and freeing…

The card line I started, lost and found goods, has begun to take off here in Toronto. A top shop in the Distillery District sold out of their first stock in three days and have asked to carry the line exclusively.

This Christmas was my first away from Vancouver and family. Michael really wanted to stay here in Toronto so the season was restful, which I think, in the end, was super wise. Michael averages 12/13 hour work days so we don’t see a lot of each other and work is incredibly demanding. Such a change from our Bowen Island days when he worked from home every day. Our goal is one more year in this role and then he’s going to apply for the Oxford post-grad diploma in History to help him get into his PhD. We’ve learned that he can do his job from London, so a move there may happen in a couple of years. If we live in the U.K. for 3 years it will save us 2/3 the tuition costs.

I am hoping to take some kind of course this coming year. I am craving intellectual challenge.

I have a number of opportunities to write for print and television but am trying to trust the timing on my career, wanting to be at home with Madeleine and Thomas and giving my ALL to them. Madeleine’s babyhood is long over and I just see them growing out of my arms in a BLINK.

I have decided to go ahead with my internet fast for one month, to see what I will see. So, from January 1 to February 1 I will be offline. Each day I will be writing a letter to my friend Marisa who will post the progress here.

Happy New Year, one and all.

I don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer, but is all change good?

I am weary of computer technology. Yes, I own a Mac. Yes, I blog. Yes, I Facebook. I spend time on these things in fits and starts, as I feel led, working hard to not be led by compulsion.

I see the world around me running full-tilt into the arms of a technological lover and I’m having trouble understanding why.

Screens aren’t faces. Scanners aren’t hands.

Maybe it’s because I’ve become a parent and I am hyper-aware of the misuse and missed opportunities surrounding technology.

For example: Our local library has a self-checkout system. I go there once a week with Madeleine and Thomas for story time. By the time 11:30 AM rolls around, we are tired, hungry and I am one mama juggling a writhing two-year-old and an infant strapped to my sweaty, over-dressed body.

We approach the counter helter-skelter. I want to make eye contact. I want my child to pass our carefully chosen pile of books to a librarian. I want HELP. So, I smile and ask the woman behind the counter if she can help us check out our books. I hope she’ll smile at Madeleine. Hope she’ll strike up a conversation about the books she’s picked. Hope she’ll encourage a love of reading. Hope Madeleine will have her own memories of the librarians at her childhood library, like I do. Instead of helping the woman asks me if I need a tutorial on the checkout machine. No, I think, I’m not an idiot. No, your machine is not fool-proof. It usually takes me three tries to get all of our items successfully on the screen and, oh, I’d like my daughter to meet you and, oh, CAN’T YOU SEE I NEED A HAND?

The Toronto Library is seeing major cutbacks and the Literati (led by none other than Margaret Atwood via Twitter) are fighting back. But the truth is, our library staff are working themselves out of a job.

Is this change good? I can’t see how. When lines are long and people are in a hurry, perhaps self-checkouts at the library expedite the process. But when there is no line and there are young eyes seeking connection, looking for help, the technology is not the greater of the two.

The computer is not, never will be, better than you.

“The more we give away, the more we discover how much there is to give away. The small gifts of God all multiply in the giving.” ”He who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.” - Proverbs 11:25 NIV

- Henri Nouwen

Image: Mark Tansey, Myth of Depth, from Adbusters Tactical Briefing #19

“For months, tactical briefings from Adbusters have poured into my inbox. The advertisement-free anti-consumerist magazine and foundation at the centre of the Occupy Wall Street movement has one aim: to address global social and economic inequalities and the undue influence of corporations. No small feat.

Since September 17th they have staged an ongoing series of demonstrations, sparking a worldwide sit-in. New York is simply the epicentre of a world-wide movement. Here in Toronto, my adopted city, tents and voices have been raised in the same spirit.

I am not a poster child for radical action. With a newborn at home, my life has not afforded me an opportunity to set up, or even visit, the St. James Park camp. So, why am I an Occupy insider?

Because I believe in jamming culture. Asking the hard questions: like, why does a corporation have the rights of a human individual?

Because I believe in throwing a wrench in things…

…The Occupy movement is important, not because it’s reshaping the institutions that it must, but because they have seized the global conversation. They’ve put the 99% on the table. They’ve got us guessing at their next move. Could the 1% really step up to the plate and start shelling out to meet the needs of the world? Could this shift — straight out of Acts — really take place on a global scale?”

______

Read the full post HERE.

“When I asked to tell her story, she said there’s not much there.

She said the same.

And so did she. And she.

But I said, “You’re wrong. There’s so much. So much you’re missing. The thriving career, working with the big-name designer. The kids kept safe, the lives you’re shaping. The Friday night make-stuff-party you host in your loft apartment.

“Don’t you see?”

________

Friend, will you join me over at SheLoves magazine for Seeking Eve Monday, today?

londontown, 2009

“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.”

- Leonard Cohen

I love old things - buttons and bellbottoms, postcards and polkadots. So, you can imagine my excitement when my husband first showed me his vast collection of scouting badges. I have been brainstorming a fun project for them for most of a year.

Back in Vancouver I began collecting more badges in hopes of launching a kids onesie line along with my friend Jen and sister-in-law, Brittany. When our clothing supplier dropped the ball, I kind of sidelined the project. Until now…

Introducing lost and found goods!

If you are my friend on facebook, you’ve probably already noticed that I launched an Etsy shop last week.

There is a delightful nostalgia to collected things — old stamps, polaroids, postcards, buttons, and badges. First and foremost, Lost & Found is a paper goods line featuring found objects from across Canada but I hope to add onesies soon, too.

All vintage cards are snow white square and each order comes with a flashcard insert typewritten with love and care.

I would like to offer you a discount on the cards in the shop. Simply use the coupon code: LOVETHEBLOG at the checkout and you will receive a 15% discount.

One more thing…

A GIVEAWAY! Post a comment below and you will be entered into a draw to win a free card and a gift bag with other little trinkets.

Thank you for reading!

[acrylic, foil and paper on canvas]

“All of us are trees in winter, with little to give, stripped of leaves and growth, whom God loves unconditionally, anyway.”

- Brother Lawrence

She’s playing with blocks. small pink ones. pressing them onto big blue duplo.

fit. fit. fit.

and then she presses a little too hard and pop! they all crumble under the weight of her small hand.

but she doesn’t miss a beat. gathers them all up and begins again — building something new.

oh, the things i can learn from my children.

to let go of what i’ve built. let them fall. peacefully pick up the pieces and begin again.

___________________

Joining with Emily today…