Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Rain, rain, go away... or stay?

Dry fields in Zimbabwe - February 2007


Today we've set a record. As I'm sitting here watching it rain, I'm pretty sure we've beaten the record set in 1980 for the most rain recorded in July in Toronto. It's been a wet one. Rain can be inconvenient, especially in the summer. Plans get changed and we spend more time inside. Joel and I packed up a day early on our recent camping trip because of rain. Normally I'd be a bit annoyed that a lot of my summer so far has been spent avoiding the wet stuff, but this year my perspective is a bit different.

Last year in Zimbabwe we watched our friends suffer through a drought year. Our friends in the villages who grow their own food to survive had little to no harvest. Supplies of mealie meal were low in the country, and expensive when it could be found. People were hungry. When someone prayed, it almost certainly involved asking for rain. I remember woman at the local church spending a whole day together, simply to beg God for rain. They were desperate.

While I can't say that I've never complained or wished it to stop, the rain has now become a reminder of me to stop and think about my friends in Zimbabwe and to be thankful we live in a place where our next meal doesn't depend on our backyard gardens being successful.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

On the ninth day she rested... and ate!


Well, I did it. I've successfully completed my first week of consistent exercise. My goal was to do 250 minutes this week and I managed 316 minutes and 8 consecutive days. I tried a class at the gym called Body Flow which is a mix of yoga, tai chi and pilates. Although I wasn't sweating buckets it was good to work on my flexibility and balance which are two of my weaknesses. The best part was randomly meeting a teacher who works at my new school and getting to know her a bit. Perhaps a future workout buddy?

Joel and I have also started running together. Our goal is to complete a 10k race in October. We did a running room clinic for a 5k before we got married but all my endurance has gone. We're using their strategy of running a minute, walking a minute and gradually increasing the running each week up to 10 minute sets. We're only at 3 minutes, but each week feels like a mini accomplishment.

This week we are going up north to camp, so my only goal is to do our 3 runs this week. It will probably be the same for the following week as we're still on vacation. I've also been practicing my new strategy of eating whatever I want guilt-free. I think I had about 6 brownies yesterday. Perhaps my previous post where I said I never over-indulge on sweet stuff, wasn't entirely true! :)

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Getting Fit

One of my main goals this summer is to get in the habit of exercising. I know I wrote about that last December and shortly after I got hired to teach grade 5 and the madness began. Although I would have liked to work-out consistently it definitely wasn't a priority. Now I have a much more relaxed job lined up for September and have a whole summer ahead... no excuses.

I'm all about prevention. Most of my life I've gotten away with eating whatever I want and being active when I feel like it. But with turning 30 less than a year away I know my body is starting to make little changes that will force me to actually do something. I don't have a problem with healthy eating. I crave my daily dose of something sweet, but have never over-indulged on that stuff and would say I have good self-control. I enjoy healthy foods. At the same time, I've decided that this is the last year where I can eat whatever I want. Because eating is less of a problem I want to enjoy one last guilt-free year of it where if I want another brownie, I'll have one. Why? Because you have to give yourself a treat as you finish off your twenties and because I don't think it will be a big deal once I actually give myself some limits.

It's the other half of the health equation that I struggle with. Exercise. While I enjoy that as well I have less self-discipline and fall into the cycle of 3 days at the gym, 3 months off. So I'm going to do something about it. I have a monthly calendar and am writing down my daily exercise. I'm setting weekly goals of how much exercise to do. I want to be realistic and the weeks we go away I know I'll do less. This week my goal is 250 minutes of exercise which I think I can do. I'm off to a good start. While it's wonderful having lots of time to relax, it feels good to get off my butt every once in awhile and sweat. Okay, enough ramblings... can you tell I have more time on my hands?

Monday, July 7, 2008

Dispatch Zimbabwe Video



A beautiful four minute visual of Zimbabwe!

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Canada Day with the Bishop!


This Canada Day we had the priviledge of having our good friend Danisa Ndlovu in our home. Danisa also happens to be the Bishop of the BIC church in Zimbabwe. We spent many evenings at his home in Bulawayo with his family when we lived there and even got to spend Christmas in the rural village where he grew up. But I didn't imagine that he'd be in our home, at least not this soon. Danisa was in town speaking at the BIC conference in Toronto so we invited him to spend the night with us.

He was also here for the June 29 elections in Zimbabwe in which Robert Mugabe was the only candidate, and was sworn in for another five-year term as president. When asked about the situation in Zimbabwe, Danisa's answer was simple... "We continue to have faith that things will get better. They can't stay like this forever." He talked of how hard it was watching his country deteriorate over the years...once the bread-basket of Africa and now an economy that is beyond comprehension, one in five is infected with HIV/AIDS and a life expectancy that has dropped to 37 years. Yet Danisa is one example of so many Zimbabweans we met who press on during hard times and don't allow their challenges to define them. They are gracious in the the midst of suffering and have incredible faith that things will eventually change. They've been waiting for a long time!

It was wonderful to spend time with Danisa and look forward to hopefully hosting more of our Zimbabwean friends in the future.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

School's Out!

Well, I did it. I survived my year as a grade 5 teacher. It definitely had its shares of highs and lows but feels good to have made it through. This was by far, my most challenging year of teaching yet. It's hard coming into a room of kids about to hit puberty, in the middle of the year. I was a lot different than their first teacher which was a hard transition for all of us. It was hard to all of a sudden go from doing nothing to being constantly busy for 6 months straight. I like working, but my job is not my life and I wasn't a fan of spending after-hours time on it. But I worked with a great team and Joel was a huge encourager as always.



By the end of the year, I felt like I was finally connecting with some of my students. A group of girls would often come to me for help with relational issues and we'd have long chats about friendship and changing and growing up. All of my kids are going to middle school next year and some are moving away. This resulted in a huge sob-fest by all the girls 10 minutes before the bell ran on the last day of school. The girls were crying and the boys were very confused. One boy said he'd never seen so many people cry at once and I just smiled and told him sometimes girls do that. They often drove me nuts, but that night I worried about them and hoped they'd be okay as they went their separate ways. As hard as teaching is, it's rewarding. If I had my way I'd just skip most of the curriculum (they have to learn way too much anyways) and focus on the relational stuff.


Now that summer is here, I'm trying to find things to keep me busy. Getting a job meant my role in organizing our new home was put on hold. Joel has waited patiently and I'm ready to get it done, although I'm horrible at it. Fortunately I'm married to an organizational genius who is willing to guide me. It'll be nice for everything to finally have a place. I have other goals this summer but will save that for another post. For now, I'm enjoying some time to relax and planning out my list of things to accomplish.