Month: October 2020

Another cold drab week.  I was even more acutely aware of the preciousness of time and the speed at which it passes, as it was my birthday on Thursday.  Forty-something.  High forty-something. I’m definitely not happy about the whole thing. I don’t value the wisdom of age over the carefree (and pain free) naivety of youth. 

The day itself was like many other during this sabbatical.  Plenty of quiet time, pensive time, enjoyed with a glass of wine by myself as my family was off doing their various activities. 

I had time to take stock of my physical wellbeing. Sprained wrist from hockey, sore knees from tennis, but otherwise feeling good.  Got on the scale for a quarterly weigh-in.  Pleased to find that I tipped the scales at a 25 year low, right at my high school fighting weight. While my secret to weight-loss during my working life has been a regimen of stress and malnourishment, these past few months have probably been a slightly more sustainable path to good health…  All of that being said though, this may prove to be the bottom, as I spent the rest of the weekend dining out and drinking…

Pulled the birthday “card” quite a bit all weekend long to try to stretch out the rare time that the family focusses on me and I actually get what I want, for a change.  So when my wife suggested cross country skiing (or the “misery sticks” as my son calls them) on Sunday, I was able to veto that idea and organized a family outing to an Escape Room. I always wanted to be a detective. However, we didn’t get all that close to escaping, so I can safely scratch that off the list of career changes. It was a lot of fun though, and little bit of family team-building doesn’t hurt every once and a while…

Back to reality again this coming week as I return to being a shuttle driver and “regular status” (second class?) family member.

Not a lot to report this past week. 

It’s been a hard couple of months so I decided to get a massage and a pedicure to help relax further.  A guy needs to pamper himself every once and a while. This was the first pedicure in about 20 years, so needless to say, there was a good amount of work to do. Pretty sure she started with 50 grit sandpaper.

Generally housebound this week during this first spell of cold and snow in Calgary.  As a result, I decided to take up a new indoor hobby.  I signed up for an acrylic painting course on-line from the local arts university. This should be interesting, as until now this has been a substantially underdeveloped quadrant of my brain. My daughter loves painting so she’ll join me in the classes.  Should be good bonding time, and an opportunity to try to beat her at art…

Finally got around to re-assembling the doors and roof of the Jeep.  Been damn cold without them. Now need to fix the dent in the side panel from when I took the door off in the first place. Then I can get it on the market, as I’ve started a new project with my oldest son (my automotive advisor) to buy a “cool” new (used) car. Some difference of opinion on what a teenager and a middle aged dad thinks is cool. In any event, there’s been a lot of test driving and pretending I understand what mechanics and car dealers are talking about.  We’ll see where this ends up…

P.S. Let me know if you want to buy a Jeep. Like new. 🙂

Well, we’re now officially at the halfway point of the sabbatical…  ☹

Amazing how fast these first three months have flown by, not surprisingly I guess, what with all the fun being had.

I won’t go into a long and emotional retrospective piece this week, but I will acknowledge that it has been productive, and I’ve actually checked off a lot of the (stereotypical) boxes that one tries to check off while on sabbatical.  For example:

• Get more tech savvy:  created a “blog” on the interweb, and am now on Snapchat
• Learn a new trade:  woodworking (sort of)
• Learn a new language:  Italian (kindergarten level)
• Confront a fear:  skydiving
• Connect with nature:  4-day canoe trip
• Improve skills:  golf/tennis/hockey
• Bond with family:  drive kids to 6am swim practice, then to school, then pick up from school to take to practice…

Highlight of the past week was the one last hurrah at the lake out in the Okanagan to enjoy the Thanksgiving long weekend and the final vestiges of fall.  Thanks to the in-laws for the full turkey dinner with all the fixin’s. 

We also had one last surf session for the year.  While I never landed the 360, I will take small victory in the fact that I was the only one this weekend to surf without a wetsuit (not an act of bravery or toughness, simply a byproduct of being too large for our inventory of suits – in part due to the full turkey dinner).  It’s always sad to leave, but on the upside, for the first time ever I sat in the passenger seat as it was my 14 year old son who drove the whole way home (my wife has never cared much for sharing the driving…), so I actually got to enjoy the spectacular view .  Unfortunately, the “view” once we hit the Alberta border was winter…

So now that golf season has abruptly ended, will need to be a little more creative to fill in the gaps in the days.  But been busy this week already (hence my delay in posting), so should have some good updates for next week.

By the way, the blog has now actually reached an amazing milestone: 1,000 views! Thanks to everyone who has googled it and has hopefully enjoyed a brief peek into my sabbatical life. I’m not sure whether that number of views is good or bad, or what it says about everyone else’s life. But hopefully it’s monetizable somehow…

Well, we knew there was no way that this week was going to be able to match the excitement of last week… Kind of sad that the highlight of this week ended up being my dental appointment.

Funny story about that though. I’ve been going to this dentist for some years now. And as we were chatting during this visit (is it really chatting when only one person is talking at the other person who has a mouth full of scrapers and sucking tubes?), she confides in me for the first time that she is not just a dentist, but also has psychic capabilities and can see people’s “aura”.  Well, without me even having mentioned the sabbatical, she said she could see something very different about my aura this time around.  It was brighter and more vibrant. Night and day from before. Like a different person.  Now, I’m not sure that this is exactly the validation that I was seeking for this introspective “journey” that I’m on, but maybe it’s making a small difference after all…?

Ever since this revelation, I’ve been searching a little more actively for other signs of a physical or spiritual evolution.  For example, at the manicurist today (yes, I did…) I asked her if my healthy cuticles and lack of hang nails may be a sign of lower stress and greater awareness of self.  She said no, and implied that it was more likely from having lived a sheltered life with a general lack of manual labour.

Spent some time in Canmore this week. Absolutely beautiful views in the fall. Less beautiful was cleaning up the droppings of a pine martin (they’re like a mean mountain weasel – look them up) that had been living in the attic there over the summer.

Otherwise, it was an uneventful but enjoyable week.  The sun is now setting on the golf season.  Need to maybe get back to having a more goal-oriented mindset in order to drive results.  For example, I think I’ll learn how to make sourdough bread next week (?).