Doing everything. My achilles heel.

It's been a few years since I last blogged but I'm determined this time it'll stick. A few things have happened...namely...I ruptured my achilles tendon last fall doing step-ups at the gym. It's taken a year and a half to recover. A ruptured achilles is not something I'd wish on my worst enemy. I even tried to start an achilles blog (it seemed like a good topic and I had lots of couch time available).

I had surgery to attached the two ends of the tendon together, spent six weeks in a cast, then months learning how to walk and put weight on the foot again with crutches, then a sexy cane. Lots of physio. Then, the surgery site became infected while I was on vacation in Florida. After putting all my weight on one leg, my other achilles started to have trouble - tendinopathy. One year, five pairs of sneakers, and thousands invested in physiotherapy and I'm back to something resembling what I was before the injury.

So, what did I learn? I learned my husband is an excellent nurse with a LOT of patience. He cooked breakfast, drove kids, made dinners, listened to my complaints and drove me to appointments. He got my kids to start pulling their weight - they walked the dog, made lunches and cleaned their rooms. But wait, all of these things were part of MY job description before I injured myself.

Lesson learned. Although I know I'm obviously the best at doing everything and have internalized the schedules and activities of everyone around me, not to mention memorized the contents of the fridge and the cupboards, no normal human should try to do all of that by herself.  I learned to sit back and let others do things for me, and learn the range of responsibilities required to run a house. I learned my family members are quite capable, but I don't let them show it.

A year and a half later, my daughters are lapsing back to letting me walk the dog. My husband is leaning on me more and more for laundry and dinner. But I refuse to give up on the lunches. A girl's gotta draw the line somewhere.

They didn't mention the aging...

When  you turn 40 the machine starts breaking down. Has anyone noticed? Literally, the DAY I hit my 40s my eyes started to fail. I needed readers immediately and now I'm onto full time specs....if I could muster courage to visit the eye doctor.

Then there's the beard I'm growing. No, I'm not kidding! I'm like an old Greek woman, sprouting two inch beard hairs overnight. Only noticeable in the daylight, and enough to preoccupy you during meetings. Not cool....

The the sun damage started to appear. All at once. As thought I did all the damage on one day in my 20s. The fact is, the damage took more than a day. The sunbathing, burning and peeling took real dedication and I was the woman to do it. But I looked fabulous at the time.

Oh, and then there's the hair colour. I fear the day I must let it go grey, but that day is not today. In the meantime, I sport grey temples like an old labrador retriever.....as my husband mentioned jokingly one morning on the way to work.

There's an epidemic of working mothers drinking too much wine and slipping silently into alcoholism in their own homes. Not to make light of this serious situation, but I can kind of see why. Being an aging beauty queen is hard work! 

The maintenance is increasingly expensive. There's the dying, the tweezing, the moisturizing, the abdominizing....and now the visits to physicians and dentists to have dinosaur teeth tended to.

And all while holding down a job and maintaining trophy wife status and measuring up to yoga moms in the neighbourhood. This is full time work my friends.

But the solace comes in the commiseration with friends. Thank goodness for aging pals who are experiencing the same wrinkles and sagging and greying temples. I appreciate friends who can lend me their Chapters reading glasses and tell me I look fashionable in them. And for those who compliment me on my low heeled boots and attempts to be hip.

I wouldn't want to be younger, as long as I have my beauty queen peers beside me, getting more elegant and wise together.

The tedium of no sodium

.....and we're back! It's been quite a while since I last posted.....I know you were lost there for a while ;)

There's lots going on now that I feel people can relate to....at least if they're women, over 40, maybe have a job and kids? 

It appears I've been doing some damage to my bod! Of course I have kind of known it all along. It all started when I was in my late teens. It was then I believed I looked best with a deep, dark tan. Every March break and every summer I would bake, burn, peel and glow....comparing my tans with my pals when I returned to school. Well, this year.....precisely, this year....the chickens came home to roost!

I went in to have some sun damage frozen off at my doctor's office. While there, I asked her to check my blood pressure. Uh oh. I sat thinking about my heart and could literally feel it speeding up as she measured my BP. Turns out it was high. Can't figure it out. I run, I work out at the gym. I eat lots of veggies.....and well....I'm invincible. Not so much!

My doctor and I think the culprit is SODIUM. Or maybe STRESS. Or a bit of both....Hmmm do you think? I find myself running logistics through my mind regularly, Hitting targets and deadlines, planning timing, doing laundry, making meals, shopping, scheduling. It's really freaking stressful. To reward myself for all the exercise and stress, I eat chips, bread, crackers, cheese, smoked salmon, olives. Guess what all these foods have in common. SODIUM.

It's no wonder I have high blood pressure. It's part of the job. Yet, somehow I feel like a failure. Like I need to be perfectly healthy, fit, organized and calm. Oh yeah....and good looking! OK I may have ONE

of those nailed down....

So now I'm stressed and confined to a salt-free diet that includes almonds, rice cakes, raw veggies and no crackers or cheese or olives. Fresh food is a good idea, but it feels bland for the moment. But like all things, it will require discipline. And who better than a working mother to exercise this kind of self control?

It's a tough, stressful, sweaty, fragmented and thankless job....and I'm just the girl to do it!

The routine that refreshes

The return from Christmas vacation is very weird this year. Maybe it was the timing of Christmas and New Year's day but it feels like people are having trouble re-entering the routine.

As a consultant, this can be unnerving.

Dunn & Associates Communications and Public Affairs officially returned to work last week. I e-mailed some clients, did some edits, started some planning. But my messages sat....unanswered, my dutiful edits...not reviewed. I realized, there was no one at the other end to receive my missives. I was trying to kick start some work, but my team mates in the outside world were not ready to play.

Today is the first official work day back and now we will stand by while everyone reviews their e-mails, makes plans and prepares for the next onslaught of work. Some real work might happen by Wednesday, but in the meantime, we all hang on to the afterglow of the holidays and wait for the action to begin.

I notice my friends all posting motivational sayings and quotes online - emphasizing brand new starts, the endless possibilities a new year brings, to potential they hope to achieve. It occurs to me this is meant to shock us into action and optimism....and it works.

I hate to admit it but I want the work to get crazy. I want my schedule to fill up. I need my kids to start booking in birthdays and basketball games. It's the only way I know what to do with myself. This is kind of sick, I realize, but it also may be an indication that I've had enough holiday days.

Ready for my routine now.

Welcome to work camp

I think I may not be the only woman who believes she is working too hard.

Every day when the howling dog wakes me up just before 6 a.m. to go out, I think I can't make it through another day of "work camp."

I get up and walk the dog, make the kids lunches, feed the dog, make coffee, wake the kids, nag the kids, make the kids' breakfast, pack their bags, walk them to school, walk home and work for eight hours - with a workout in the middle - then pick up kids, walk them home, help with homework, make dinner, do the dishes, nag the kids, read them a story, put them to bed then work an extra two hours before taking a break to sleep. Oh and I run a second business that I love, so I squeeze that in sometimes.

So what's my problem, you ask?

Well, I could blame my husband, but he seems to be working too., and unable to take my call at the moment.

I think I lack some form of escape. I check my hobbies - shopping and drinking wine - but those don't technically count. So how does one escape?

Vacation is a temporary thing, and I spend my entire vacation worrying about the end of the vacation, so that isn't a real escape. I watch TV shows and those are fun, but again, over before I even get started. How can I/we truly get a break that will be enough?

I think maybe I need to pay more attention and live in the moment. I think this is a skill to develop, and it requires focus....which paradoxically, takes away from the moment.

Then I realize that I need to just put it into perspective. I signed up for all this and I authored the script. I chose two kids, two pets, a renovation, a side job, my own business. I even choose to work out every second day. Well it's not really a choice, but a fear of what will happen if I don't.

I own this schedule. It's my crazy life to manage, and it seems I'll be doing that for the foreseeable future. I can get help and share the load if I speak up, so that might be a route. In the meantime, I need to embrace the moving parts and relish the fact I am needed, and that I keep things moving. Maybe that's what life's all about?

No wait, that's still shopping and wine!

Summer of (no) regret

As I sit looking out my Victorian window in Chester, watching the tanned vacationers pass by in their bathing suits, I wish I could be on vacation for more than a few days. I'm inside working, calling media, writing strategic plans, pitching business. This is good for an entrepreneur at Dunn & Associates Communications and Public Affairs. Make hay while the sun shines and all that. But oh the sun is shining a lot this summer, and it's hard to keep my eyes on the prize.

But what I also realize is that those vacationers are watching the clock and wishing the time wouldn't pass so quickly. Their freedom is limited so they're vacationing with gusto, drinking cocktails, swimming, sailing and looking uber-relaxed....relaxing as hard as they can. 

I suspect they're looking back in at me and wishing they could live here and have a job that would enable them to be in a vacation environment like Chester all the time.

Now the number of vacationers is dwindling. They've all gone back to reality, their kids are set for school, their paperwork is still waiting on their desks. But I'm still here. Still working, but fitting in little patches of vacation where I can - a swim after work, dropping my daughter at sailing lessons, a moonlit walk with the dog along the waterfront. Little breaks with beautiful scenery.

In the long run I win. I get to live in Nova Scotia and own my business with a flexible work schedule. I get to keep what the vacationers experience in a temporary, seasonal way. I don't have to wish for something I don't have. My vacation is what I make it. Now, it must be cocktail time....

Blue jobs

This morning I was commuting to work accompanied by my father and husband, wearing white pants. I should have known at something would go wrong just because I was wearing white pants. Innocently, I accepted a travel mug of coffee. Not a chic travel mug, but a brown plastic Tim Horton's model with a giant base that will not fit any cup holder. You see where this is going...

By about kilometre three, I picked up the mug to sip my coffee elegantly and the coffee slopped out the top and all over my white pant leg. Argh! I'm heading to client meeting, but I figured, they won't care, they probably drink coffee. And the meeting was at a coffee shop too so this was all part of the scene.

The coffee was just drying into a dull brown patches when I heard a whirring noise like when you drive off the road and over the washboard pavement patch designed to wake you up. But I was awake and not veering off the road at that particular point. I looked at my dad, flat tire. S&^%!

We pulled off and my husband and father jumped into action - like they'd been waiting for something like this to happen. Out came the spare, the wrench, the bolts they moved around, read the manual, broke off a portion of the frame by lifting the car in the wrong place. I stood and phoned people, cancelled my meeting, sent e-mails and worried about the cars zooming by. Don't fall into the road Dad, I thought.

Didn't think that about my husband. He doesn't fall or stumble much. I checked.

There's a point to this story. I got to thinking, what would I have done if I were by myself? The answer was "call CAA." My only recourse was to call another man to change the tire and save the day. I realize changing a tire is a job I do not want to do or learn. Much like plumbing, electrical work and changing the seal on a toilet. These are jobs best done by men, in my view. Blue jobs.

But what does this say about Holly Dunn the feminist and 21st century wonder woman? And what hope do women have for equality and power, with people like me segmenting jobs like I do?

I like to think I'm increasing my power by focusing on the jobs I like and those I do well. I can multi-task like an eight-armed juggler. I have a mastery of the English language, and I even enjoy mowing the lawn. I have handled garbage and compost....and do so with increasing regularity.

Do I need to learn to change a tire? Maybe. But in the meantime, I share the load and leave the male species to focus on what it does best, moving heavy objects, changing occasional tires, dissembling and reassembling engines and, of course, listening to crickets....