Here’s a value I’d like to instil in the kids: the simple but unfailing joy of going for a walk 
outside.
It seems overly simplistic, overly optimistic, easy to brush away as pointless. I know this because unless I’ve gone for a walk recently, I forget just how important it is. But I’m glad that I do know, that my parents valued (and still value) “going for a walk” as a worthwhile pastime and that they passed that value down to me. Continue reading
Back in November, Timothy Snyder, Housum Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna shared the following advice for resisting totalitarianism.
It’s an important reminder than we are no better, wiser nor more powerful than those citizens who have found themselves under totalitarian regimes including fascism, Nazism and communism in the past. I wanted to share it here on my blog as I feel it is incredibly important information for all of us, around the world. Continue reading
On Halloween night, I was thinking about random acts of weirdness and how they can brighten someone’s day. Of course what got me thinking about this was when I realized that using just my #sexyghost costume, I could really either freak people out or make them laugh by simply standing very still — say, under a streetlight, or in a dark corner of our yard. How much fun would it be to wear the costume around dusk and stand in the woods just off a bike path somewhere? I mean, as long as I didn’t get beat up.
This got me thinking of other random acts of weirdness — something that used to be one of my favourite hobbies. My best friend and I used to do things like rollerskate around the neighbourhood in angel wings (we were 18, not 8), and we had grand plans of setting up a fake Christmas tree in the park in the middle of May. I also like to buy flowers and hand them out to strangers, paint rocks and leave them in unexpected places, or create treasure hunts in the library for strangers. I miss doing these things! Continue reading
(**Top portion is my recounting of the 2013 flood in Calgary, AB. For practical information on preparedness, please skip to the first subhead below – or, for the super-quick and dirty version, read my Top Five Tips at the very end.)
When we went to bed in Calgary on Wednesday, June 19, it was pouring rain, but I don’t think anyone thought much of it. Sure, there might be some flooding – it’s happened before – but we knew what to expect even if that happened. I had our annual Solstice camping trip planned for the weekend and Neko and I were so excited to hit the road for this cherished annual tradition in our favourite spot.
But we awoke on Thursday to some serious news. Canmore, an hour west of Calgary, was practically washing away. Already, the Trans Canada highway there was closed due to flooding and washing out. There were mudslides all through Kananaskis Country and campgrounds – including the one we were headed for – were being evacuated.
Throughout the day the situation became more dire. There was an H2S (sour gas) leak in Turner Valley, near where we had been meant to camp. The town of High River evacuated completely, and soon it was under water. By the afternoon, evacuations in Calgary had begun.
Now, Calgary is not a place that gets evacuated. I’ve heard about some explosions over the years (industrial accidents) and other such random things, but they are few and far between. Tornadoes happen near us, but so far never here (it’s not out of the question, but it’s certainly not the norm). We get some pretty bad hail storms, especially in the northwest corner of the city and south of the city, and there have been some incidents with high winds, particularly downtown. And we get droughts. We don’t tend to see very serious blizzards here (by Canadian standards), wildfires aren’t generally a danger, even flooding has never been all that serious before now. Aside from the remote prospect of a terrorist attack during Stampede or something, even the serious preppers here feel quite safe (hell, I’ll admit that a lot of us stay in Calgary for these very reasons I’ve listed).
So when the evacuations started, many Calgarians scoffed – somewhat understandably. I, on the other hand, saw it this way: in Calgary, we don’t get evacuated. Therefore it follows that if the Mayor (our beloved Nenshi) is telling us to get out, we need to GTFO.
I won’t give a play by play of what followed over the next week, as it has been covered extensively in the news and on other blogs. Basically, it was beyond anything any of us could have imagined possible. Everyone in the city watched in shock and horror as the muddy waters rose far beyond our wildest nightmares, and we wondered what we would see when those waters eventually subsided. Then, when evacuees were allowed back into their homes and power began to be restored to evacuated and surrounding areas, we all rolled up our sleeves and began the hard work of cleaning up and rebuilding.
This is the view on June 20 from the ridge near our house – before the water got *really* high.
We were very lucky. Though near one evacuated area (one that was, thankfully, not very hard-hit), we were never in any danger of evacuation nor flooding. Our two favourite riverside parks were basically obliterated, which, to me, is tragic, and many of our friends lost a little bit, or a lot. Justan lost a week of work and I worked from home because I couldn’t get to my office. Later in the week, we chose to leave our home when a train bridge about two kilometers away collapsed, leaving six rail cars full of “petroleum product” (three of distillate used in the oil sands, one of glycol and one empty) dangling dangerously close to the river. But all told, we lost nothing material, nor any family members.
There were times during the week that we were basically isolated in what felt like our little island community, cut off on three sides by river and tied up roads. Our only way out was into the country. Other Calgarians reported feeling the same way, depending on where they were located. It was very surreal knowing what was happening in the rest of the city, seeing it on the news, on Twitter, on Facebook, seeing our friends’ photos showing their homes and neighbourhoods, and not being able to get out and see it for ourselves nor help, yet. It was almost more surreal walking into our neighbourhood grocery store and seeing full shelves and no people (though we still had access to three large grocery stores, the population that was contained within our area is quite low).
So what did we do? We talked to our neighbours. We went for walks in the rain (and prayed for it to stop). We had a bonfire.
Walking in the rain to a neighbour’s house on June 22.
The one thing that neighbours (and friends, via text and social media) asked me again and again was how they could be more prepared in case anything even remotely similar ever happened again. I’m fairly vocal about our family’s preparedness, and while it worries me that many of my friends joke that their “emergency plan” is simply to come to my house and live off of all my food and water and skills, I’d rather spread the word about prepping than try to hide the fact that I’m prepared. Plus – we’re Canadian. Through all of this, people in Calgary have been mostly polite, even humourous. When residents decided to rush out and buy all the bottled water just in case the water treatment plant went down, there were long line-ups and the shelves emptied, but shoppers mainly reported that people were polite and good-natured. The stories from around the city, throughout the State of Emergency, were of friends and neighbours and strangers helping one another – not looting, not rioting, not climbing over one another to provide for themselves. In fact, if anything, there were too many volunteers in many cases, too many homes and not enough evacuees to fill them, and many eager Calgarians chomping at the bit for ways they could help out.
Even at the “Crisis Cafe” (volunteer and resident refuelling station) in Sunnyside, there was recycling!
So How Do I Prepare Already?!
I promised my friends that I would provide them with information on how to be prepared. This is written not for the doomsday prepper nor the survivalist, though if you follow these instructions and suggestions you’ll be more likely to survive. They are for the lazy, the overwhelmed, the busy, the more… er, shall we say, “moderate” (ie. those of you who DON’T think we’re due for a civilization collapse). I will say this: ANYTHING you do to be more prepared is worth the effort. If you feel drawn to do one particular thing first – be it working out, saving up, storing water, storing food or learning a new skill – do it. Read over this list and try to do a bit from each section, but don’t feel like you have to follow anyone else’s protocol. If there is one thing I have learned this week, it’s that every single thing I have stored is useful. I might not need it personally, but I can help out affected friends by sharing my supplies and tools with them. In most States of Emergency, there is a high likelihood of essential services like power and water being affected, as well as municipal services such as garbage collection. Taking action now to reduce your waste and be less reliant on municipal power and water supply WILL be helpful during a State of Emergency – take my word for it.
What to do first
There are tons of resources out there on emergency preparedness. Generally, you’ll see two extremes. At one end, you’ve got government recommendations to create a 72 hour emergency kit with food, water and supplies. This is a great place to start, though I urge you to keep your own unique needs in mind as you follow their instructions – for instance, do you have special medical needs? Are you breastfeeding or pregnant? Where do you live, what services do you rely on and what hazards are around you? At the other end, you’ve got survivalist guidelines. These are the ones I love, personally, because they’re thorough. However, if you’re new to this and just looking to coast through the next power outage comfortably, you’ll probably find them overwhelming and possibly even silly. My suggestion would be to check both, use your common sense, take everything with a grain of salt and then prioritize for yourself. I have included links to my favourite resources on both ends of the spectrum at the end of this section.
The very first thing you should do is try to visualize what you would like to prepare for. I’ll speak directly to Calgary here (and this is largely transferrable to most other major cities on the Canadian prairie), but please, if you live elsewhere, superimpose your own location onto what I’ve written. When I sit and think about preparing for, hopefully, any eventuality (except nuclear fallout. I’ve decided that if that happens, I’m just shooting myself like the mom in The Road.), I try to identify what could happen, and in which particular cases we would stay at home or get the heck out of dodge. Then from there I picture either what we would need to take with us, or what we would need at home. So in my planning, I have mainly prepared for blizzards, power outages (and the combination of the two), tornadoes, flooding and general societal collapse (okay that’s a whole other post and one that you might not be preparing for. Just, you know… full disclosure.). We are lucky in that we have a location outside the city which we can easily reach on a quarter tank of gas, that has food and all the tools we could need in the event of a longterm crisis. However, for many disasters, we would stay home – in a blizzard, we would, in fact, be forced to do so.
My recommendation as the next step you should take would be to either buy a couple flats of water or, if you have water jugs for camping, fill them and store them full instead of empty. Also, start to think about preparedness as part of your regular line of thinking. When you go to the grocery store, if you see a sale on a food that doesn’t require cooking (and that you like!), buy an extra box. If you’ve been wanting to learn to can or dry foods, maybe now is your time. Keep an eye out for tools and simple camping gear at yard sales. Any extra item that you have in your home is an extra bit of security. Other than that, I do recommend making copies of important documents. I printed a list with all our account numbers on it – bank accounts, credit cards, insurance policies and utility service provider account numbers – then photocopied our passports, drivers licences, birth certificates and marriage certificate. I gave one copy to my parents, who live in a different city than us, kept one copy in our office, and put the last copy somewhere else – I’m not telling you where. I can tell you that when we were worried we might be evacuated due to the train derailment, it was very reassuring to know that all of those numbers were gathered up in one place far away.
Next, I would make an emergency plan. This takes up a bit of time, but again, it’s very reassuring to have in place. It limits confusion and streamlines a tough process like evacuation. My emergency plan includes phone numbers for all family members as well as some neighbours, all contact information for my daughter’s childcare, phone numbers and addresses for my parents (choose a close friend, family member or someone else – whoever would be your point person outside your area), as well as the fastest and lowest-risk route out of the city from our house. I’ve also included phone numbers and email address for an out-of-country contact person. In other, larger scale emergencies such as 9-11 and the Japanese earthquake, I have heard that local circuits can get tied up and rather than attempting to call a number nearby, it can be helpful to have a backup point person far away. It’s crucial that family members (in this case, my parents) know this plan, though. Also in my emergency plan are instructions for shutting off water and gas, and the location of the electrical box and the floor drain. I printed two copies of this list and put one in the glove compartment and one in our house, then printed three copies in small font, done in three columns – when trimmed and folded, these fit perfectly into our wallets and the ID pocket in Neko’s backpack.
The last thing that I believe is very important is physical fitness and the ability to travel without a car. During this disaster, bikes gave many citizens mobility when traffic was tied up. People who have kept themselves in good physical condition were more able to help with demolition and cleanup, for days on end. If you are able, I highly recommend keeping fitness as a top priority, for so many reasons. I don’t mean trying to be skinny. I mean taking part in activities that keep you functionally fit – maintaining your cardiovascular fitness, especially through interval training; and focusing also on strength, whether that is through Crossfit, resistance training at home, lifting weights, or otherwise.
Of course there are all sorts of tools and items that would be great to have on hand. And there is no end to the lists out there that people have made based on their opinion of what you need. My favourite way to make my own list was to go through the “List of Lists” on the Survival Mom site (see links below). I also have a bunch of lists myself – if you’re a personal friend I’d be happy to sit down with you and go over them.
This is the very least you should be doing. My last word of advice is to start thinking like a prepper. You don’t have to go overboard. But say you’re at the grocery store and you notice toothbrushes on sale for 88 cents each. Why not buy four, or ten? Little actions like this add up (not to hoarding, hopefully) – whether it’s having extra items on hand when money is tight, being prepared for a longterm disaster, or simply having donations to contribute to others in need during an emergency situation, these extra items are good to have. Simple actions like keeping an emergency kit, some water and some snack bars in the car; or keeping a few days’ worth of extra food in the pantry bring you one step closer toward being comfortable in the event of an evacuation or emergency.
Favourite websites:
The Survival Mom (an endless source of great tips for families)
Ready Nutrition (general preparedness advice)
Get Prepared: the Government of Canada’s 72-Hour Preparedness Page
City of Calgary: 72-hour preparedness kit list
On research: I find social networking sites are best for keeping abreast of emergency situations. I generally hear about things on Facebook and then research them on Twitter. Be aware that Alberta also has an emergency broadcast system that is available on basically every radio station – but this means you have to have the radio on when the alert plays. Building community is another way to stay in the know. Connect yourself with someone who stays on top of things and ask them to contact you if they hear something. Once you know there is a situation unfolding, try Googling a plausible Twitter hashtag for the event, complete with the “#”. For instance, when I heard about the Vancouver riot, I Googled “#YVRRiot” (remember to use the airport code where applicable). Even if you’re not on Twitter, Googling a term like this with the hashtag will bring up any existing tweets, allowing you to view the tweets right on Twitter without an account. You’ll then see other hashtags being used, which you can then search. I usually find the top couple of hashtags and have a couple tabs open, one with each hashtag going. Then I refresh regularly. When the emergency is in your area, this is the absolute best way to get to-the-minute, on-the-ground reports of what’s happening.
On evacuating: Don’t be the douchebag who decides to stay. If the cops are telling you to evacuate, just get your stuff and go. If you’ve ever wanted to thank a first responder for everything they do, do so by showing them some respect and evacuating when they tell you to. Have a bag ready so this is easy to do.
My Top Five Tips in Case You Didn’t Want to Read All of That
I’ve organized an outing to go dance walking here in Calgary, and thought I’d put it up here on my blog so that maybe the general public could find it. We’ll be dance walking down Stephen Avenue at 1 pm on Friday, June 1 – you should join us! You can find the event on Facebook (whether you’re on Facebook or not) by clicking here.
If there is one thing our life is not, it’s predictable. Acknowledging that each of us leads a very different life with very different challenges thrown in, let’s just assume that if you’re reading this, your life involves some level of unpredictability. Maybe you’re a doula, or you or your partner are on-call, or you only have one car, or you are a contract worker who doesn’t receive paychecks on a reliable schedule. Well, pretty much anything that could be unpredictable in our lives (aside from the roof over our heads and the number of people in our family), is. I’d like to share with you some of the strategies that we’ve found to help us, to the point where things in our life generally run smoothly.
First, there are a few variables that will generally play into how unpredictable life can be. I would identify these as follows:
a) work (fixed schedule, on-call, contract/freelance, travel)
b) children (illness, etc)
c) childcare (especially if it needs to accomodate an unpredictable work schedule)
d) transportation (unreliable vehicles, public transit, carpooling, one car family, cycling)
e) money (unreliable/unpredictable paychecks, self-employment/contract work, chronic shortfall)
f) health (dealing with chronic illness or that of a loved one, or just health in general or low immunity)
These are all points that need to be considered when putting plans into place. The first thing you need to do is think about your own worst-case scenario (no… not death. But a pretty bad day.). For us, that is both parents at work, no pre-arranged childcare or our pre-arranged childcare falls through, low on cash, short notice, and Justan needs the car very early in the morning so I have to get Neko to childcare and back to the store in time to open up in the morning, without a car. Have plans A, B, C and at least D in place for each factor so that you are never left hanging.
Our situation is that thanks to Justan’s career in the film industry, we sometimes have as little as an hour’s notice that he’ll be headed to work. He may be working in town or out of town, for anywhere from an hour to two weeks. We only have one car, and our budget and scheduling constraints make part-time or full-time childcare less than ideal, not to mention the unschooling which requires that Neko is hopefully somewhere where she’ll get similar stimulation and socialization as she would at home. If both of our jobs also paid very little, the entire balance would be off and the situation would not work; however Justan’s work pays very well which makes the volatility worth it. That said, it has taken a LOT of getting used to, and I have never been able to find any articles or guidebooks out there to help me through it, so I’ve had to figure it out mostly on my own. I would love to see a book on managing finances when both partners are self-employed, but all the financial advice books I’ve read seem to assume a reasonably consistent wage.
Work
Try to match one parent’s work schedule to your childcare schedule. That parent also needs to think about transportation to childcare, and from childcare to their job. For us, I have matched my work schedule to my childcare schedule (after lots of tweaking, and seeking out the right situation). Justan’s work is the more unpredictable between the two of us, so I’ve set my store schedule to match the one that works for my childcare swap. If one or both of you is doing freelance or contract work such as writing, design work, or something else that you can do on your own schedule, this is a lot easier to do, as you can schedule client meetings, interviews and work time for whenever your childcare happens to take place. If both parents are freelance with flexible schedules, and can get your work done in 30-40 hours per week, building your schedule around one another, and tag-teaming on chores around the house might be a great option.
Neko and me in one of many family photo shoots that Justan was out of town for. Photo Credit: EpicDanger Photography
Children
As for the unpredictable nature of children, mainly meaning getting sick or hurt, this is where you’ll need to have some sort of emergency contingency plan built-in. For us, this doesn’t come up much as we have a very healthy and generally cautious child. However, when she does get sick, we assess the situation and talk to Nicole (our childcare swapper) and decide whether she wants to expose her kids to whatever it is; and we decide whether we have the heart to send Neko to someone else when she is sick. The nice thing about the childcare swap is that both families feel more like a big, extended family than childcare. When Mairead and Finn get sick I generally just tell Nicole to send them anyway – chances are we’ve already been exposed to the bug. We have chosen a few times to avoid the bad, puking bugs, largely because Justan happened to be off those days, and we had the option. We also have other friends that we can check with if needed – we would pay them to take Neko, but it’s an option when we don’t have anywhere else to send her. Our worst case scenario in this case (and my business partner, Jaime, has had to do this once if I remember correctly) is that one or more kids is sick and we simply can’t work that day, and our partner is either away or can’t get the day off work. This is when we have to scramble to make it work at the store. It’s very stressful, but we’ve always managed, even if it’s by the skin of our teeth. I once received a customer complaint after I took 4-year-old Neko to work with me after an employee flaked out on us and Jaime couldn’t come in because her oldest daughter was throwing up – I wish that customer could have known how close we were to having the doors closed that day! Some days, this is just the life of a small business owner.
Childcare
Which brings us, of course, to childcare. To me, this is the number one key. I need to know that I have Neko somewhere where she is happy and enriched. I like consistency for her in this aspect, because so much of our life is ever-changing. She handles it well (thankfully she is not a kid who requires a strict routine, or we’d have to make drastic changes), but I feel a lot better knowing that she is going to the same place on a regular basis and that she is happy to go there. This has been a long time coming! Up until last fall, we had cobbled together childcare at a dayhome (this also worked well, largely because my dayhome provider is amazing, and would let me know when she had extra space available and was open to drop-ins – she also lives five blocks from my house so was very convenient), through another swap (which was also great), and by paying friends to take Neko on the days that we needed it. Paying friends worked all right as well, except that I always felt like I was bothering people.
If you do only need care once in awhile, paying random friends can work well. There are a few keys, though, to success (success being defined as actually finding care for your child, and also not losing friends). First, it doesn’t hurt to have a large network of friends. If they have kids, even better. No friend network? Or all your friends are without children? If you can find a local parenting group, that’s a good place to start. I belong to the Calgary Attachment Parenting Group and have since I was pregnant, and thank heavens I do. Let me be clear, here – do NOT join a group just so you can find people to provide childcare, or to help you move. Gross. I shouldn’t have to state this, but I’ve seen it happen – joining a group, or making friends, just so you have people to help you out, is gross. People will pick up on your ulterior motives, and you’ll be right back at square one. No, only do this if you actually want to make good friends, and if you expect to ever get help from anyone, understand that you need to be happy to help others and expect nothing in return. This also means that even if you help people all the time, you can’t get all passive aggressive and up in arms if people are unable to help you when you need it. But a lecture on appropriate actions within a friendship is better left for another day, so I’ll continue on trusting that you know how these things (these things being mature friendships) work.
Okay, so let’s say you have friends now, and that you are generally liked and trusted and that you help people out when they need it. Now to find childcare, possibly on short notice, possibly in a pinch. Here, social media is your friend. I’m going to assume you’re on Facebook or Twitter or maybe even some sort of forum. If you’re not I’ll let you adapt this to your more Luddite lifestyle. Here is where we post with hope but without expectation. If you have a partner (or several?) and they can post as well, fantastic! I usually say something along the lines of, “Would anyone like a Neko to join them, 9-6 on Wednesday?” Simple as that. I may, though, sweeten the deal with whatever I can. “Will pay,” with or without the amount, doesn’t hurt. Or maybe, “I’ll take your kid(s) for a day in exchange!” This is usually appreciated. Or maybe you’ll provide dinner afterward, or you have something else to offer. Barter. Whatever you can give.
The next step is really, really important. If no one responds, leave it at that. Please, for the love of cats, do not post a passive aggressive response along the lines of, “Well fine then, I guess I can’t work on Saturday.” It is not your friends’, nor anyone else’s responsibility to sort out your life for you. (Sorry about the lectures… I may have seen this happen before. It’s painful to watch. Don’t be that person.) This is your puzzle to solve and this is why you have Plan B (or C or wherever you are along the spectrum at this point in your day). Our next Plan when no one responds is to lay out our next options, depending on the situation. Can we reschedule some aspect of our work? Is there someone whom we think might be happy to take Neko who might not be on Facebook, or may have just missed the post? This is where we make a couple of phone calls just to check. I would also check with our dayhome if I needed to. And get creative! There is always shuffling you can do. Maybe someone can only take the kid(s) for part of the day, or it’s dependent on something. Think outside the box – what can be shuffled or adapted to make it work? There have been lots of days where Neko has been in the store with her LeapPad or a DVD for the first or last hour of the work day.
My personal favourite set-up for childcare, not in any small way because it accommodates our unpredictability, is the childcare swap. I’ve already written an entire post on this so, rather than reinvent the wheel, how about you go read that here.
Mairead, Neko and Finn spend a lot of time together, and it shows in their closeness and their bickering.
Of course, a more traditional route such as a dayhome or daycare may work well for you, if you have a younger child. For the older, homeschooled child, things like classes, a blended program (where they go to school one or two days a week and school at home the rest of the time), or working on projects while you work are all options. This summer, Neko will be attending a couple of daycamps and sleepaway camps, and come fall she’ll be in classes through the Calgary Homeschoolers Association ever Tuesday.
You can also look at the options for taking your child(ren) to work, depending on what you do. If you choose and design your own space, take this into account when you do so. Developing a child-friendly space can be worth it!
I should also add that if you find yourself the sole parent much of the time, either because you’re a single parent or your partner is out of town often, it is really worth it to hire a babysitter to come one night each week. Even 2-3 hours gives you enough time to go unwind with friends or alone, and take a deep breath. Work out, grab a coffee, see a movie, or just wander through the grocery store without the incessant whining. It’s also a good idea to have at least one (ideally three) babysitters whom you can call when you’re in a pinch for a nighttime event or job.
Transportation
The underlying context to transportation is proximity. This is the first thing you should always look at when making fundamental changes (moving, choosing a job, and so on). We live five minutes from my store, so taking a bus or cab isn’t out of the question for me. The location of our childcare swap partner is another five minutes along the same road. It’s all workable. Don’t pick childcare or work or a house that is way out of the way unless you have two reliable cars, a lot of money, or just plain aren’t living this lifestyle.
We have one car. Usually we can make this work by having one of us drop off the other, or one of us use public transit. One really helpful development has been that now when Justan gets a job out of town, he either carpools or requests a rental car. If you are a one-car family and one of you periodically or regularly works out of town, this could be worth a try. This has been life-changing for us – in the past, when Justan would go out of town and take the car, I would be without a husband and without transportation, but would still need to get to work, take care of the house, and do all the other things I am committed to normally. Let’s just say I drank a lot of wine then.
Now the one-car issue is more of a problem when Justan is in town, and working. For days that we can’t shuffle things to make them work, I again have a number of contingency plans in place. First is the bus. I know my transit schedules and I know them well. I know the exact times I need to be at the stops to make things work the most efficiently, and which stops and routes work best depending on the situation (do I have Neko with me or not? Are we going in in the morning or afternoon?) and weather. I got the free Calgary Transit app for my iPhone (a smartphone also makes our life a lot easier, as we can locate each other at any time, and change plans on the fly) and use it often. I also always carry a pair of headphones in my bag so I can listen to music or play games on my phone on long bus rides, in case I get bored.
Finn, Mairead and Neko on one of our epic bus journeys. Bus bingo helps!
When I’m completely stuck, we cab. The downside to this, at least with younger kids, is that you may not have a carseat available. I didn’t cab much when Neko was under booster seat height/weight, but I may have once or twice when I absolutely had to. This is our we-missed-the-bus-and-if-we-wait-for-the-next-one-I’ll-be-45-minutes-late-for-work option. It’s expensive, and you may lack a child seat, but when worse comes to worse, it’s good to have cash or a credit card (with available space) in your wallet so you can call a taxi. Another reason I need my cell phone! And did you know that by dialling #TAXI (anywhere in the USA and Canada) on your cell phone, you’ll be connected to the first available taxi company? So handy.
Another tool I have worked into our transportation options is foot power. When Neko was younger, I had a child seat on the back of my bike and would ride the approximately 15-20 blocks to the friend’s house where Neko was going for childcare at the time, when we didn’t have the car. From there I knew which bus to take to get to the store on time. Now, when I bus to Nicole’s, I find it just as fast, or faster, to run the 4K from her house to the store as it is to wait for the next bus and catch that. If I commute on foot to and from her house in the morning and afternoon, I also get in an 8K workout that day! (Not recommended unless the distance is comparable to something you would normally do.) To make all of this more possible, it pays to be prepared. On the bike you want a small backpack packed, and while running I find it ideal to have nothing on me in the way of a bag. Keep supplies for your child (clothes, diapers, bottles, etc) at their childcare, and keep extra clothes and some food at your place of work. When we had a freezer at work I would keep one dozen Amy’s frozen burritos in there and a jar of salsa in the fridge, so I always had lunch on hand.
If you see this girl running along Glenmore Trail in the morning, I’m on my way to work.
Money
Tricky one! What a loaded factor. Obviously I can’t speak to your money issues, but I can offer a couple of tips.
First, plan for the worst case scenario. Have I drilled that into you yet? When choosing a place to live, assume you’ll be making the smallest amount you could make in a year, just shy of forcing you to change careers. I won’t go into safety nets like insurance and such here, but basically build in as many safety nets as you can. You have a kid(s) relying on you now. While you may be able to survive with rotten teeth, freezing to death on a bare mattress, I doubt you want that for your offspring. When we applied for a mortgage in 2005, they approved us for $200,000. We scoffed. We couldn’t afford to pay that much in mortgage payments each month! In the good times, sure, no problem! But it’s not always good times. And we knew that as soon as things dried up for a period of time, we’d be behind on mortgage payments. We chose a house for $145,000 in an area of town with more… er… “character” (we love it, by the way), with just 650 teeny tiny sq-ft of space and a nice, spacious yard, and we have thanked our lucky stars ever since that we bought the house we did. There was one year (I think it was 2009) where even this felt like too much. Justan was out of work for six months and to say we barely scraped by would be the understatement to end all understatements. If we’d had a 30% larger mortgage we wouldn’t own a home now. Make do, make it work, and make the best of it. Same goes for cars, using savings to go on vacation, and so on. There is a reason we don’t have a second car!
This quote is on the wall as you enter the Africa exhibit at the Glenbow Museum. I love it.
Second, stock up on food. We belong to a food co-op, and I also freeze a ton of produce in the summer. We have a few months’ worth of food in our basement (this works well both for disaster/zombie prepping as well as a freelancer’s lifestyle!), including dried beans and legumes; flours; dried and canned and frozen fruit; tea and coffee and juice and almond milk; pasta and rice; canned beans and sauces and coconut milk; frozen meat; frozen broth; tortilla chips and crackers and rice cakes; popcorn; oils; sweeteners; and so on. This winter, Justan was pretty much completely without work for three full months and we survived off savings, credit, my small wage, and our food stores. We could have survived on the food stores a lot longer – we just ran out of money to pay bills and the mortgage. But we never went hungry! What a huge load of stress off our backs.
Third, yes, put aside savings. Whenever you can, either pay down debt (highest interest rate first!) or squirrel away money in savings. You’ll never regret putting money in savings or another form (again, making space on that credit card) that you can access when the going gets rough.
Fourth, if possible, find one steady source of income. Having even a bit of money that is guaranteed at the same time every month or couple of weeks makes a big difference. If you can’t find this, then look at how much you have coming in most months, and tweak the budget until you can live off as little of that as possible. Then stick to that budget and put the rest aside, so that on the months you make less, you can still have that steady income. We’ve determined the amount of money it takes us to live comfortable and without worry (this includes some new things – clothes, etc – and going out to movies, dinner, and so on as well) and we make sure that is what we get each month. That way, more money stays in Justan’s business’s account for the hard times, or for a bonus, or for taxes…
Fifth, say it with me now, contingency plans! Here is where unjobbing shines. Know your options! Networking is great. Talk to people and over time, collect ideas for places where you could do temporary or seasonal work when you’re in a pinch. Always have job options on hand. During that six months that we came close to selling our house, part of our survival depended on being paid cash under the table (shh) for landscaping work I did to help a friend out with her landscaping business, and Justan working with a neighbour with his playground building business. I also babysat for friends whenever possible. These little skills and services can float you through the hard times. If you have to, make a list of skills you’ve got, and people you know, and take note of any opportunities that might exist. If those people can’t give you work, they might know people who can.
And sixth, barter. Have skills and items available to give or lend that will get you services and items in return.
Health
I won’t actually speak to health, because it’s so varied and you know your own situation. I will say, though, that you must allow for proper sleep, and nutrition. Being busy is no reason to cheat yourself on sleep or food. Make plans in advance, have nutritious, frozen or takeout meal options in mind, and be sure to get the sleep you need, or you’ll pay the price, and it will make things so much worse in the end.
In closing, I’ll say that tonight, we had a worst case scenario night, and it all worked out just fine. Are we tired? Absolutely. But it worked out, we got where we needed to be, we did what we needed to do and no one was especially stressed out (except Justan, but that was because a key piece of equipment broke down, which made his life a lot more complicated). If you’re currently struggling to make a complicated situation work, I hope that some of my suggestions have got your wheels turning. Often, things can work out, it’s just a matter of a little creative thinking. Planning and a long list of back-up plans are crucial, and you may find yourself sitting on a bus with your child patting yourself on the back for having so many effective back-up plans. I’d love to hear about strategies any of you have put into play to make your unpredictable life more manageable!
Early this morning, at 7 am, my alarm rang to tell me it was time to wake up Charlotte, Neko’s friend who had slept over last night for Neko’s birthday party, to take her outside to see the lunar eclipse. I went outside to see if it was even visible, and on seeing that it was, wondered to myself what to do. If I woke up Charlotte, would it wake Neko? Would she be really overtired then? If Neko didn’t wake up, what would Charlotte do until she did? In the end I fell asleep for a bit, then woke up at 7:45 and when I went back outside to see if the eclipse was still visible, Charlotte woke up and came out to see. I’ve been a zombie today, though I guess it was cool to see the eclipse (I hate to sound like a brat… but I’ve seen about four now… and I wouldn’t normally get up at 7 am to see one).
After Charlotte had gone home, we drove up to my parents’ place in my hometown. There was a winter festival happening tonight in my hometown, and I’ve always wanted to take Neko to it. This is the first year it’s worked out. First, we had cake and gifts at my parents’ house, as it’s our niece’s birthday today.
The festival had a hay ride, craft sale, free hot dogs and hot chocolate, skating, and Santa. The local shops were also open late. I ran into a few people I knew, which was neat (a couple of them I hadn’t seen since high school).
Neko finally got to see Santa and tell him what’s on her wish list!
I wore one of my favourite winter dresses, an organic cotton piece from a Vancouver designer. With tights and long wool underwear, a hat and mitts, and my Keen boots, I stayed warm outside for quite a while! Though, it’s also only about freezing, so quite warm.
Dress: Two of Hearts // Coat: Bench // Long underwear: Hocosa // Boots: Keen // Mug: Contiga
My parents have a lovely woodstove so afterward we took to the loft and watched the Doomsday Marathon on National Geographic. (And ate oranges.)
Unjobbing – eschewing a conventional career curve to cobble together a living from your passion(s), often through creative scheduling, living simply, or generally thinking outside the box – can be a fun and exciting way to live as a student or single person. But often it becomes more difficult if/when you have children.
For some, becoming a parent can be a catalyst for the unjobbing lifestyle: in a two parent family, one parent can work a full-time job while the other works from home, runs a home business, does contract or freelance work, or works in an art or craft for extra money (or all of the above). Most often, moms fall into this category, and the jobs might include doula, home party sales rep (though there’s usually more free products than money in this line of work), house cleaning, book keeping, odd jobs, freelance writing, photography, teaching of different types, or childcare. This could also include, of course, the many industry-specific jobs a person might tailor to fit their life – taking your regular 9-5 (or whatever) and working half days, or partially from home, or consulting, or freelance, or job sharing.
The trickiest part of it all is the childcare. Unless you’re working a regular shift that is compatible with a daycare or dayhome, or you have a partner or family member whose schedule works well with yours, a lack of good childcare options can be prohibitive to being able to work at all. Even when you do have access to childcare, the cost can mean that you’re ending the month with only a few dollars of your wage remaining in your pocket.
Enter the childcare swap. I’m honestly amazed more parents don’t utilize this. It’s kind of a combination of running a dayhome (only with very few children, and with no money changing hands – like a form of barter!) and working. With luck, you can choose someone whom your own child loves, and whose child(ren) complement your own family and actually make your life easier (amusing your own kids while they’re over).
Here’s how it works (it’s really simple): the two of you decide how many days per week you would each like to work, up to 3.5. Generally 2-3 each works best, though you could alternate with one of you working two and the other three one week, and then the next week switching. While one of you works your set number of days, the other has your kids, and then on the days the second person works, you take their kids in exchange.
I’ve done this twice, successfully. The first time, there were three of us, each with one child. I had Neko, 3, Renee had Eve, 2 and Rachel had Hazel, 2. On Tuesdays, Rachel would take Neko and Eve from about 9-5. On Wednesdays I would take Eve and Hazel. And on Thursdays, Renee would take Hazel and Neko. The really nice thing was that the three girls became really close and loved the consistency; they each got the benefit of each mom’s strengths (and the dads sometimes, too); and each house had different things to do and a different playground or park nearby. We three moms did one day of childcare each per week, in exchange for two days that we could work.
I’m currently doing a swap with Nicole, who has Mairead, 4, and Finn, 2. (Neko is almost 6 now.) She has Neko all day Tuesday, and Wednesday afternoon, and I have her two all day Thursday, and Friday afternoon. This is working especially well as Nicole works at my store, so we also have the consistency there. Our kids get along great and I love sending Neko to her place, and having Mairead and Finn at my place. I also like this set-up since Neko is an only child (and homeschooled), so it’s like she has siblings half the week.
It can be tricky to find someone who lives close enough (especially important to us, only having one car), has compatible kids and parenting, and whose work schedule might work with yours. But it’s doable, and I really think it’s worth it. This arrangement gives Neko and me, as a homeschooling family (or when she was younger and not in school yet), the freedom to do the same things we would have been doing on my days off (playdates, taking in performances, going to the museum or science centre, going for walks, visiting the library), only it’s better because she also has other kids to play with. It also allows me to work and not scramble for babysitters. This is a problem for me otherwise as Justan’s work schedule is sporadic and unpredictable (he does location sound recording for TV, documentaries, commercials, etc), so we don’t always need a babysitter. And paying by the day can be pricey! I also hate being that person who is always posting desperately on Facebook asking people to look after my kid.
I have this idea for a childcare swap match-up site… but the idea would have to be a lot more popular first. Until then, putting the idea out there to friends, posting on parenting forums (I would use my local attachment parenting group), or approaching others in your line of work or on mat leave at your place of employment are all ideas that might get you some leads.
A round-up of the benefits of the childcare swap:
We, The Dancers 