The Shadow and the Shimmer

  Oh hi! My poor little blog baby, always at the very bottom of the priority ladder. I remember when I first started S&S, I used to write these long journal-esque posts from my desk at Michael Kors (ha! F U corporate world) and it was such a nice little escape from my day. I also used to print up motivational quotes and make these beautiful collages in my notebooks. Still have a few! The good old days. So COVID has returned to Europe with a savage vengeance, and I have no idea what will become of life in the next few weeks. The Swiss government maintained a very relaxed attitude after our first lockdown eased up at the end of April, and they seem determined to avoid a second lockdown at all costs. Our cases are soaring, and things are looking pretty, pretty, pretty not good. But, let's see where this goes. Trying to take it ODAAT. There are a few points I'd like to review quickly before I get back to my 'day job', so here we go: 1. My bestie, Sally Beaton, just publ...

  One thing that I know for sure is this: not all days are created equally. As a most-of-the-time SAHM, I've become familiar with the great days, and the super challenging ones. Each night I go to bed  optimistic that I'm gonna land on a great day the following morning, but with two toddlers going through developmental changes at the same time, the going gets rough! I'm hiding out in the bath as I type this. It's 21:36. Jake fell asleep about 30 minutes ago after a 2 hour long bedtime battle. That kinda day. If you ever wanted to know what it's like to have two toddlers, born 11 months and 22 days apart, here ya go! 6AM. Woke up to Theo poking me and screaming 'Stella! SKY!' (The Paw Patrol girl character, Stella in French, Sky in English, my toddler is fancy and bilingual).  'Sky is in your rubber boot, Honey', I groan as I nudge hubby to get up and let me 'sleep in'. Today I can technically stay in bed until 7, but I don't end up fallin...

I know that I am at the tail end of the 'two toddlers' phase, and will soon enter the 'one toddler and one young child' phase. But...we're going out with a bang. Seriously, I really thought my complaining about being exhausted ALL the time days were over, but then they came back with a vengeance! (And a pandemic). Having two toddlers is like this (and I'm not shaming my kids at all, they are behaving appropriately for their ages and development levels...it's just mostly totally insane, that's all): *Both kids will strip off their outfits (including diapers, clean or not) and run around the house naked. Getting them back into their clothes and diapers is really tough, cause they just think it's a funny game. This happens about 3-4 times a day these days.  SOLUTION: Just let them roam in the nude at home. Saves me struggling to get them back in clothes. *Toddler fights. The boys will go from getting along super well, to freaking out because o...

If you ask me to tell you about a time in my life when I felt true freedom and joy, it is this.  I am about 6 years old. It's the springtime, and one of those amazing rainstorms is coming down. The rain is literally hitting the pavement in vertical sheets, tapping turning to pounding, and then back to tapping as it lets up a little bit. I'm sitting on our big brown couch, glued to the window, watching the rain engulf my tiny residential street. The sound is hypnotic and soothing. I can smell the freshness through the screen window, where an odd drop makes its way into our house, sometimes reaching as far as my chubby arms. It's late evening, but not yet dark. We decide to go to the park, my sister and I. The lightning has stayed away, and we are only 2 houses down. We promise to run home as soon as we see flashes in the sky. We arrive to the park, already soaked through to the skin, and jump into the big, red baby swings. We're too old for them, but we still f...

Today I wanna talk about the F WORD. FEAR, motherfuckers. Since I was 19, I have struggled with panic disorder and generalized anxiety. Last night, when I was falling asleep, I had a bit of an epiphany while I was doing my reframing exercises. For the past several weeks, I have been doing these nightly exercises, which aim to heal the relationship we have with past traumas. I learnt about this super helpful tool via Dennis Simsek, aka, THE ANXIETY GUY, aka, my current obsession and spirit animal guide! He's freaking amazing. Watch his video on how to reframe, below:  So as I was falling asleep, and making some contact with past versions of myself, I became cognizant of the fact that I used to be a fearless, angsty teenager. ME! Fearless?! It seems like such a foreign concept, but alas, I used to be scared of nada.   I was the girl who would never say no to a dare, who lived for thrills, and who didn't even consider fear when making decisions.  O...

 ***EDIT: I wrote this before Christmas, 2019, and didn't feel right publishing it then...today I'm cool with this*** My parents divorced when I was...18? I have had many, many years to come to terms with the demise of our OG family, the pain and sadness of my parents not being together anymore, and the aftershocks and consequences that this massive life change had on me. As a super sensitive child, the divorce was as traumatic to me as if someone I loved had died. And for many years I felt guilty that I felt so badly, like I was damaged and should just be 'getting on with it'.  Everyone's from a divorced family these days, right? The other day, I was looking through old family photos, and I had an epiphany. In an effort to heal from the divorce pains, I had completely blocked out the good memories I had from my childhood. Literally locked them up and never revisited them. It was too hard, and also, super confusing. How could I hold a sacred place f...

Another year is drawing to a close. As always, my fresh calendars and planners for the New Year are ready to go! Something about the new year always makes me feel excited.  It's a time to look back on the year that's gone by, take stock of what I accomplished, what goals I realized, and where I need to focus a little more love and energy. So here is my 2019 in a point-form nutshell: *Survived having Theo in daycare for 1/2 a day. This was a big step for me. I was so nervous to 'let him go', but ultimately, it gave me one afternoon a week to focus on bonding with/playing with/napping with Jake.  The routine and out-of-house time at daycare really helped Theo. He loved it!  *Had a fun mini getaway to Lucerne and the Rigi Kaltbad spa with my bestie in February. *Completed a very effective coaching program with my friend Sally (womenwithsparkle.com) and got my ass back to regular therapy sessions to work through the anxiety that 'came back' in 2018. *Tr...

The past couple of weeks have been an almost comical display of things getting cosmically f'ed up. The good news is that I have weathered the weeks with a pretty good sense of humour (a few meltdowns, but we'll get to that...). So it all started on Thursday, October 16th, under a Waning Gibbous moon in Taurus.  Arrived to the Montreal airport, baby in tow, after a really beautiful sisterly airport goodbye. Time to go home, to Switzerland! Final sister squeezes in front of mom's place. I'm so grateful to have spent so much quality time with my sis this year. Really special moments <3 I was so READY, cause I missed my oldest son and husband, and just wanted to get back to my day-to-day routine. Being away always makes me realize that home really is where the heart is. So, we board our plane, and I'm really feeling positive and happy. Going home! Have cute baby with me! Chatting with all of my plane neighbours. Trying to soak in the experience an...

Fall is here, and once again, I feel like I've neglected S+S for far too long! When you have toddlers, it's really true what they say, ' the days are long but the years fly by.' Here are a few things I've been up to: *Some freelance writing/but mostly free-writing/new poems.  I'm still submitting a few articles to www.TheRichest.com, but I don't always feel like it, to be honest! Doing freelance work is great, because it's structured (and paid haha) but I am feeling like I am really in the season of creative writing. Lately, I've been keeping an anxiety journal/tracker, to take note of when I feel crappy. Writing out the feelings also helps me to be less hard on myself when I don't see progress. Or when I am progressing but not 'fast enough' for my likings. Also keeping a dream journal again. I've always had such intense dreams. Signs. Symbols. Detailed conversations. It's kind of cool. I sometimes feel li...

Whoa. I haven't had a drink in 2 years. TWO YEARS! In retrospect, the years I spent as an active drinker seem way further in the past than that, possibly because I only drank during 2 months out of the past 3 years. But still! I respect official dates! The girl who used to struggle to string together 3 days without a cider now sits comfortably on her couch without having had any in 730 days.  My thoughts about drinking/alcohol dependence/mom wine culture etc; have ebbed and flowed, like a river, over the past 2 years.  Here's how it played out: LEADING UP TO 1 YEAR SOBER: *Needed to keep myself in active education. Reading, networking, blogging. All things about drinking and giving up. I needed to understand why alcohol became my go-to. I needed to sort out my feelings about how much of my life I had numbed out (almost all of it?). I had to get to the root of the habit. *Focused a lot on milestones. 3 months, 6 months, 9 months sober etc; *Still felt a lo...