Tessa, one day old

In October of 2011 my life completely changed when I gave birth to my daughter. Like you would expect, my sleeping schedule went out the window, and my days were filled with feeding, changing, and basically just keeping this new little person alive. Parenting a newborn is sort of like being a life support system, and I really couldn’t comprehend that until I was in the middle of it.

When I was pregnant, I often told people that I thought having a baby would be the hardest and best thing I’ll have ever done. 4 months into the experience I can say that I underestimated both ends of that spectrum. I was talking about some of that recently with Sona, my good friend and former boss. Yesterday she gently nudged me back into blogging, pointing out that not only would it be good for me to talk about the challenges of the early days of parenting, but it might be good for other new parents to read too. So here we are.

Tessa, 4 months old

In the spirit of keeping the blog focused, I’ve taken down all of the old posts except the ones that were personal. To everyone who wrote film or book reviews for me over the past couple of years, I apologize for not consulting you before taking down your posts, but I’m sure you understand given the drastic shift in the direction of this site, and you’re more than welcome to republish them on your own sites.

So that’s basically it. I hope you enjoy my future posts and if anyone would like to contribute their own stories or experiences about parenting, please send them my way at tara (at) versusboredom (dot) com.

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1. Isn’t bound to any time frame.
2. Comes from deep within.
3. Is surprising, even to those who know you best.
4. Is a commitment you only make for yourself.

And while I applauded the idea and Sona’s own outrageous commitment to become a yoga instructor, I didn’t feel like it was something for me.

You can make an outrageous commitment when you least expect it

Those of you who are keeping up with this blog already know that I’ve been working with a fantastic nutritionist since last July. Working with Leanne has been instrumental in helping me change my relationship with food so that I can be passionate about creating delicious, yet healthful, meals.

What I didn’t anticipate was how much a single cookbook would also change my views of food. After receiving a Chapters giftcard for Christmas, I picked up Mark Bittman’s The Food Matters Cookbook. Apart from providing 500 phenomenal, yet simple recipes made with whole food, it also opened my eyes to some of the problems associated with eating a largely meat-based diet (and if you’ve read Sona’s review of Food, Inc., you’ll know this is on the minds of a lot of people these days). I didn’t know that it costs two calories of energy to produce one calorie of plant-based food, versus forty calories of energy to produce one calorie of meat-based food. I also didn’t know that the majority of grain raised in the US goes toward feeding the meat that we consume at our dinner table every day, and that if we took some of that meat off the table we could help eradicate some of the world’s hunger issues just by giving that grain to people.

That said, I know that I need to eat some meat to feel healthy, so my outrageous commitment is this: I am going to consume meat in much smaller quantities, using it as a garnish as Mark Bittman suggests, and trying to only have it once a day. Also, not only am I reducing the amount of meat I’m cooking with, but I also want to ensure that the meat I’m eating is both raised and killed ethically. To that end, I’m going stop buying factory farmed meat and buy it from a local butcher.

I understand that this may not seem outrageous to some people, but for me it’s huge. I’ve always been a big-time meat-eater, and this represents a major shift in the way I will be purchasing, cooking and consuming food going forward. It won’t happen overnight and I don’t think it will be easy, but do I think it will be rewarding, since I know it will help me to improve my health and will be more sustainable for the environment.

And why am I putting it out here? I want to be accountable. So go ahead and ask me how I’m doing from time to time. I hope I surprise both of us.

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Okay, okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. In August we paid for flights to visit my family in Ontario, and then last month I ordered most of the gifts for our families off of Amazon.ca or Amazon.com. We also picked up our own gifts early (we have a system: rather than each of us try to guess what the other wants, we set a dollar amount and then just get ourselves whatever we want).

But we didn’t listen to Christmas music and, because we weren’t going to be in town for Christmas and because I was afraid our two little dogs would knock it over, we didn’t put up our tree. My parents’ home is always decorated enough for two houses anyway, so being with them for the days leading up to Christmas would help us get in the holiday mood.

You can’t plan for everything

It was a good plan, but it all got derailed this week when Neil got sick. Our flights were set to leave at 7:00 am on Monday, but  Neil got really sick on Sunday. As if the vomiting and headache weren’t bad enough, he ended up with a fever that was so bad I started to get afraid. He was in no shape to travel and I didn’t feel comfortable leaving him. It was hard at the time because I didn’t know what would be the right thing to do. If it was a 24-hour bug he would probably be okay to fly–do I cancel or not? The customer service agent I spoke with from Air Canada advised deciding in the morning, but I spoke with Neil’s mum who wisely said that if I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to travel, I should just go ahead and cancel and get a good night’s sleep.

She was right. I got my sleep and in the morning Neil’s fever was gone, but he was still in no condition to travel. I was relieved that I had made the right decision and that I had my family and godson’s gifts delivered to my parents’ house so everyone would still have their gifts for Christmas morning. So I took a few hours, mourned the loss of my trip and time with my family, and moved on. Neil and I would still have 12 days off in a row together, and there’s no reason why we couldn’t enjoy them.

Neil remained sick for another 4 days or so, which meant two things: I made a big batch of purple soup (I really should have peeled the purple off the carrots before throwing them in the pot with the rest of the ingredients!) and we watched a whole lot of Netflix. I left the house once to go to Planet Organic, but other than that we didn’t go anywhere until yesterday when we came to Neil’s parents’ place.

A Calgary Christmas

When it became clear that we wouldn’t be heading to Ontario, I said I wanted to stay over with Neil’s parents. We’ve spent the last two Christmases with them and I love waking up at their house and heading down to the main floor in my pyjamas for present opening and bacon rolls. If I couldn’t be with my parents at Christmas, this was the only other place I wanted to be.

The house is beautiful with both trees up, but it still didn’t feel quite like Christmas. We had a lovely dinner together and settled down to watch Whitechapel. It was excellent (review forthcoming), but after watching all three hours of the first season, I don’t think Diana or I were ready to go to bed–I know I was a little afraid of dreaming about serial killers. So the two of us then tucked in on the couches with some duvets, got a whole bunch of chocolate at the ready and set down to watch White Christmas.

The Christmas movie I needed

And that’s what did it. Watching White Christmas finally made it feel like the holidays. It’s long been my favourite Christmas movie, and growing up it was probably one of my top 10 movies. My paternal grandmother got me interested in musicals (I think I was the only six year old in the 80s who demanded to watch Betty Grable movies), and this was one of them, so watching it last night gave me a connection to home that I needed.

It’s hard to predict the way things will go sometimes, which can mean it’s hard to know what will make Christmas feel like Christmas. But sitting back and watching that movie made me feel like a little kid again and reminded me that Christmas is about family, whether near or far, alive or dead. And that means that even if I’m missing Ontario this Christmas, I’m grateful for my Calgary Christmas too.

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This summer Neil and I spent a couple of wonderful weeks in the UK. He ate a lot of haggis, I ate a lot of fish and chips, and we both ate a lot of sticky toffee pudding. By the time we got home we were both tired and I wanted to change the way I ate. Even before we went away I got very lazy with my cooking and was making a lot of convenience meals like ichiban, and telling myself that I deserved to regularly have Kit-Kat bars. I knew that while it’s possible to live that way, it’s not possible feel good while doing it.

Lucky for me, one of my coworkers is also a holistic nutritionist, and a fantastic one at that! I approached her about changing the way I ate and she showed me that baby steps are the way to go. Now instead of ichiban I’m having soba noodles and instead of Kit-Kats bars I’m having Coconut Bliss ice cream or raw chocolate nibs with coconut butter and organic granola. And don’t even get me started on how I ditched butter for coconut oil!

Leanne has helped me tackle some of the unhealthy attitudes I’ve had towards eating in addition to helped me see how happy healthful cooking can make me. I’m even looking at new recipes all the time and am seeing ways that I can fine tune them to make them healthier. I’m so happy with how Leanne’s been able to help me that I asked her to write a little something to introduce herself to you guys:

Hi, my name is Leanne. I’m a Holistic Nutritionist, yogi, athlete, and avid recipe creator. I offer one-on-one nutrition support to individuals in Calgary and Airdrie for weight loss, healthy eating, diabetes, children, busy moms, athletes, and much much more.

Having struggled with health issues at a young age, my journey to wellness has been an ever-evolving process. Numerous trips to the hospital and unexplainable symptoms lead me to begin researching ways to improve my health. This eventually led me to alternative approaches to wellness.

After experiencing the benefits of a holistic way of living I embarked on my career as a Holistic Nutritionist so that I could educate others on the importance of balanced living. I am extremely passionate about our connection to food and strive to create awareness within my clients to lead them towards permanently strengthening their immunity and overall well being.

If you’ve been thinking about changing the way you eat or want to eat more healthfully and consciously, contact Leanne today. You won’t be sorry.

P.S. While you’re over at Leanne’s site, check out the chocolate hemp pudding recipe I made.

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If you haven’t read any of Sona’s post, I highly recommend you check them out at www.sonakhosla.com. Sona’s all about living intentionally and looking for enlightenment and meaning. You can learn a lot from her.

And if you’re thinking of buying a Honda, you should get it from Crowfoot Village Honda. They’ll do right by you.

*That’s right–I got an additional subscriber since I started blogging again! Hello new subscriber! I’m sure you’re attractive and funny and smell really nice.

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Fast forward to this year. Despite not being in university since 2003, I’ve begun receiving emails from them. I thought that was weird, but whatever. I signed into my account, adjusted my settings so that I wouldn’t receive any further email and promptly forgot about them.

Well, forgot about them until a month later when I received yet another email telling me about my scholarship deadlines. This time I went into my account to confirm that I indeed had updated my settings, sent them an email asking them to cancel my account since I’m not a student and again, promptly forgot about them.

I think you know where this is going. After receiving another email in May, I sent them a very angry email making an empty threat to email all universities affiliated with them if they didn’t stop sending me email. I was kidding myself there–I’m not going to do that. I’m lazy. I have better things to do. But I’d hoped it would be effective.

Today I got another email. And while I’m not prepared to email every university to talk about what a bad service Scholarships Canada is, I am prepared to use my blog to tell anyone who does a Google search for them. But I’m still lazy, so rather than write up a rant right now, I’m going to use the perfectly adequate rant I emailed to them in May. Enjoy.

What do I have to do to stop receiving emails from you, because obviously deleting all of my scholarship data and opting out of everything didn’t work (see the attached screenshot of my email subscriptions). Continuing to send me email is ABUSIVE; STOP SENDING ME EMAIL.

Better than that, I also want you to DELETE MY ACCOUNT. I sent an email requesting that you do so a few weeks ago, but you clearly didn’t since I’M STILL RECEIVING YOUR EMAILS DESPITE MY SUBSCRIPTION PREFERENCES.

I have been out of school since 2003. I don’t need your services. More than that, by beginning to send me emails again in the last few months, you’ve proven to me that no one should use your services because all you’ll do is hound them years after anyone has outgrown their need of them.

Please send me email confirmation when my account is deleted or I will send a lengthy email about your abusive email practices to the awards office of all colleges and universities within Canada that are affiliated with your site.

Seriously. Cancel my account already.

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Francis Chan on Taking Risks

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