Cross Country Skiing

Paul and I have really grown to enjoy the cross country skiing while we have been out here! Sadly, the spring-like snow conditions are taking a toll on the edges (what "edges" there are for starters) and bases of the relics we are riding... On top of that, Paul dropped one of his skis binding down the other day and a critical part of the binding broke off! Since my skis are in desperate need of pine-tarring before I can even think about using them again, Paul ended up stealing the part from the binding off one of my skis so that he can still ski to work in the mornings. Needless to say, we were down to only one pair of usable skis, so we began looking around for an affordable new or used set up. Whee found out about a used sports store in Courtenay called "The Blue Toque" and decided to check it out when we were in town next. The first opportunity came yesterday. The Blue Toque has to be the best used sports stores either of us had ever been too; they had everything from double sea kayaks, tele set ups, climbing gear and awesome outdoorwear - all in amazing shape! We both ended up walking away with some new toys! Paul bought a pair brand new of fat back country touring skis for $100 (he still needs to buy bindings for them, so he can only pet and drool over them for now... ) and I found some older (but certainly a huge jump up from the last pair) of xc skis that came with not only with bindings but also a pair of boots that fit me perfect for only $40!

As soon as we had managed to finish up the turnover on the Chalet this afternoon we decided to get out and go for a ski. The weather wasn't the greatest and the snow had the consistency of a slurpy, but we did a good 5km loop and had a great time!

Rockin' the pants undone style. Soon all the trendy kids will be doing it - nothing like being a fashinista.

Paul ended up renting a pair of newer skis to try out. The difference is substantial! The glide is so good on the modern set up and you can really get going fast!

Me and my new skis!

The new (to me) skis and boots felt great! I am super stoked about being about to go out and ski more often!

First Baby Photo!

For those of you out there with good imagination skills you should be able to see the baby in that photo! Its a pretty good profile (as far as ultrasounds go) and you can make out the nose, mouth and ear in the face. The white blob in front of the babies face is a little hand, above and beside that you can see 3 fingers of the other hand and a shadow of the forearm. The dark spot in the chest is the heart. The baby had legs crossed and you can see a bit of a knee/leg over the tummy!

Baby was very active during the ultrasound; there was lots of kicking, arm moving, wiggling fingers, rolling over and turning upside down!

No stats on how big or what heart rate was till we can meet up with the Midwife again!

The Birth Plan

On the green chair during night skiing at the hill

Life up on the mountain has certainly bloomed into an amazing opportunity for me to connect, celebrate and tune into myself, my body and the our growing baby. Most days I enjoy the luxury of sleeping as much as I need, which turns out to be quite a lot! I rarely roll out of bed before the crack of 10am (although the alarm is set for 8:30 it promptly gets turned off if its not a turn-over day) and I often nap for up to 2 hours at some point during the day before heading back to bed around 11pm. Every morning, as soon as I have eaten (I am ravenous by the time I wake up) I treat myself to a head-to-toe self massage with sweet almond oil and hemp lotion. This not only feels great but has the added perk of making my skin soft and silky! Once I am all greased up I am ready for a gentle and slow yoga session that usually lasts some time between an hour and an hour and a half. As amazing as the yoga feels the meditation/quiet reflection time/nap that I do right afterward is equally enjoyable and a highlight of my day! Since I am not suppose to lay flat on my back in Savasana (or Corpse pose -commonly used at the end of a yoga session for a closing meditation), I instead lay back in to a modified Supta Baddha Konasana (or reclined bound angle pose - soles of the feet together with heels close the pelvis) onto pillows propped up against the couch. With extra cushions placed under each knee and a pillow to cradle my neck and head, this pose is heavenly and it has some great benefits too! It stimulates abdominal organs (ovaries and prostate {if I had one} gland, bladder, and kidneys), improves general circulation, stretches the inner thighs, groins, and knees, best of all -consistent practice of this pose until late into pregnancy is said to help ease childbirth! If I can manage to stay awake this is a great chance to practice meditation or just connect with baby and work on enforcing a positive pregnancy and birthing image in my mind.

The rest of my day trucks along at a similar relaxed pace with a lot of eating, drinking teas (going pee) and usually some other form of exercise like walking or xc skiing. I am really grateful that I do have this opportunity to really take some personal time. It was a hard adjustment at first and now I think I will really miss the peace and solitude of these days to myself. I definitely have many friends and family to thank for their words of inspiration to help me find this path! I am very happy and am feeling great.

I dont remember what Paul was saying to me when he took this photo, but that is some look on my face...

I'm still not huge yet, but I have out grown my stretchy pants!

With all the time to reflect and think about the baby I have started to put together a birthing plan and think about how (ideally) I would like to see things go. Now, I have to say I not only plan on giving birth non-conventionally, but am doing my best to think about it non-conventionally as well; I strongly believe that there is a lot of power in suggestion, environment and the energy that you surround yourself in. The imagery of birth in popular culture is one of unbearable pain where women scream as if this was the worst thing that ever happened to them. Combine this with the standard atmosphere of a hospital, where there is no privacy, constant interruptions and you are laid into a unnatural birthing position, it is no wonder that birth is seen and experienced as a traumatic, painful event! I seek to not fall into this trap.

My goal is to create and intimate, relaxed environment with minimal distractions, control pain naturally and have not only a momentous physical and emotional experience but a spiritual one as well. I am going to do this by going back to the basics; a unassisted home birth in water where the midwife is only there as a precautionary measure.

In early labor I have a whole list of things that I can do to ignore, rest and relax through this first stage; Sleeping (if I am tired) is probably going to be an interesting thing to try since I am sure I will be excited and anticipating whats to come, but it would be a great way to ensure I was rested fully. Mediation and yoga are a definate going-to-happen and with all the practice I have been getting, this should feel like the natural thing to do.! I can also knit, paint/draw, go for a walk, give a self-massage or have Paul give me one (probably both)!

As I progress into harder labor the midwife will be called, the birthing pool will be filled and I hope to try to focus inwards and listen to my body. We are fortunate that we have a team of four certified and experienced midwifes, which guarantees us that one of them will be on call and ready for when we need her. The choice to have a water birth seemed an obvious one to me; it promotes relaxation, allows for easy movement into what ever position feels comfortable, reduces pain and can even reduce the length of the labor. Practiced as commonly in Europe as what we see in North America as "the standard way to give birth" (on your back, your knees wide and up in the air with someone staring into your vagina) water births are safe for both mom and the baby and you cant argue the benefits. In addition to the birthing pool (usually a 3-ring kiddy pool) I hope to create a intimate setting - one similar to what you would have if you were to set the mood to make love; low light, candles, relaxing music and importantly an emphasis on intimacy between Paul and I with as little interruption and as much privacy as possible. When looking into birthing options I found many sources that promoted this idea of a intimate, romantic birth setting; They explained the benefits of being relaxed and comfortable as well as the similarities of birth to the act of sex - how both simulate the same places in your vagina as well as release the same hormones into your body. The practice of a "orgasmic birth" has the potential of simulating pleasure rather then pain from the birthing experience, and although this is not my "must have" goal, its certainly something to try for! You might be thinking, "Don't be idealistic/naive - It's just Not Possible - child birth is Painful!!" but I truly think it comes back to expectations, environment and energy; I like the comparison of trying to have a sex in the hospital setting used for birth; if you have people coming in ever few minutes to see how you're coming along (haha, bad pun), hooked up to monitors that are making all kinds of noises, you're wearing a not very comfortable gown and you're in a strange and not very comfortable environment -it would be hard to perform! Same goes with birth! On top of that when you THINK or you KNOW that it is going to be unbearably painful, then it will be. Say that, I am not discounting pain all together, but hope to rather use meditation as a way to experience the pain as something other then pain, and/or embrace it's purpose of bringing a child into the world. Its not going to be easy, and that's why I have started practicing already! I am actually really excited for my birthing experience and think about it several times a day.

After the baby is born, he/she will be placed on my chest and I hope to get as much uninterpreted bonding time with Paul and the baby for the next several hours and days. There is no routine separation between the mom and the baby in midwife care. This allows me to maximize some of the most powerful moments of bonding with my baby. In the days to come, expect that I will be asking for privacy to continue getting to know my baby, recovering and relaxing. We will call you and when I am ready to start seeing visitors we will let you know!

Thus is my birth plan so far. There is certainly a lot more baby stuff on my mind, but I have already ranted for long enough! I will save it for a later blog!

Very excited about the baby and loving life. Tomorrow is the 20 week ultrasound, I cant wait to see how big the baby is getting and for Paul to see the baby for the first time!

Peace, Love and Anarchy
Shy

A Good Mt. Washington Day

You can tell when it's going to be a good day at Mt. Washington just by the sound. Actually it starts with the lack of sound. Most of my mornings here start with the sound of the clock radio; whatever AM station seems to offer the best signal, not too loud yet not quiet enough to ignore. But on a good day I slowly drift into consciousness at an unhurried pace. Then the realization: no alarm! I look through darkness to where the red digital numbers reside and find that they are absent. And there I lay in the dark, quiet perfection that is the start to a good Mt. Washington day. To offer insight into why darkness and quiet are good omens of the impending day requires very little explanation, in fact so little that it can be reduced to a single word: snow. The reason for the darkness is that snow has piled up so high around the house that sunlight no longer enters bottom floor windows; and the silence is the result of last night's heavy snowfall knocking out the power lines and thus silencing my clock radio.

This is a work day though, so there's no time to wast as I've already slept in for an hour. Pull on some clothes, a quick bite to eat and I'm off to the next sound; the distant growl of diesel engines. Now this may seem as strange to you as darkness and silence, however this too is easily explained; the snowcats that groom the runs on the mountain work all through the night to be ready for the lifts to open at 9am. Usually when I'm on my way to work the snowcats are almost done their night's work and are off cleaning up around buildings or helping to plow the parking lots. But on a good Mt.Washington day they are still out on the hill, working at a furious pace, trying in vain to keep up with night's heavy snowfall. On a night like this the dozen cats worked non stop just to keep a select few runs groomed and to keep the snow plowed from under the chairlifts.

I'm now half done my ten minute commute to work and I'm greeted by one of the greatest sounds a skier almost never gets to hear. A loud, sharp thud that can be felt in your bones and in the ground you stand on. The ski patrollers have started this mornings avanache control. It starts in the distance and high up. They start at the top and work down, using explosives and making ski cuts in avalanche prone areas. Once all the suspect areas have been deemed safe, they give the okay for what terrain will be open today. Being as this is a good Mt. Washington day the cloud cover begins to break as the sun rises, giving little glimpes of the snowy summit, as well as the ocean far below.

I'm at work now, busy going about my usual routine, but on a good Mt.Washington day I sneak away and listen for one last sound. Just before 9am I make my way up to an outside deck on the second floor of the alpine lodge. The two way radio on my belt crackles to life and it is confirmed that the avalanche control is complete and all of the snowcats are off the hill. With this final tinny sounding, staticy crackle, the chairlift starts loading the people eagerly waiting in line. It only takes seven or eight minutes for those first people to reach the summit. A few moments later the same people once again come into view, making first tracks down the steep alpine slopes, down into the glades and into the trees. Heading whatever way they desire in the un-tracked blower
powder, disappearing briefly in a cloud of snow with each turn.

I didn't get first tracks today, but maybe I will tomorrow.

Late in the afternoon at the end of my shift, I prepare for the commute home. For me the trip to and from work happens on skis; old wooden ones given to me by my grandparents. After spending the day looking at the new, advanced, and fashionable ski equipment that is used by the modern skier, I really get a kick out of showing these off. They are a good 7.5 feet long, and 2.5 inches wide, tip waist and tail. They are outfitted with the old standard 3 pin binding, into which fits what basically amounts to a duck-billed bowling shoe. I live at the bottom of the resort and what is pretty much a long bunny hill lays between the house and the alpine lodge where I work during the day. To get to work I ski up this bunny hill (almost 1km in length I'd guess), it is only a green run but heading up it in the morning provides instant feedback on weather I've selected the correct kick wax for the conditions. At the end of the day I descend the same route, this can be quite sporty if the snow is hard packed or icy! I have this vision of myself one day soon casually cruising down this slope making gracefully linked telemark turns, but I fear that this may prove difficult; I feel that the logistics of turning these almost eight foot long, non sidecut, and no metal edged beasts in such a manner may prove to be beyond my ability. I still work on it everyday though.

Once home I usually find Ashley cooking some dinner (I'm so lucky!). Ashley has been spending a lot of time doing yoga, meditating, drawing this past few weeks (she even says she'll knit me some socks!). I think she has gotten over the cabin fever-isolation feeling of before a little bit, and really is making the most of her time here. Sometimes we go into Courtney to get groceries, sometimes we watch a movie, but eventually we turn in for the night.

And so ends a good Mt.Washington day; dark and quiet, in the same way it began.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Day 1 of the New Year

It is still sunny and beautiful out here on the Island. It's so clear that you can see the ocean and the mountains on the mainland!
This also means that we have not been getting any snow - at all 0cm in more than 48hours. Where's the balance?!?! The switch between epic heavy snowfall and none at all seems a bit extreme... at least I haven't even had to look at a shovel in days.

Since it has been so nice and the guest are in until tomorrow (so there isn't anything pressing for me to do), I decided to get out and wander around the village late this afternoon. It was good to get out and enjoy the scenery, fresh air and sunshine!

The hill has recovered 100% from the snow fall now; all the lifts are operational, all the runs are open (Alpine and Nordic) and the parking lots are cleared again. The banks were getting so tall and there was so much snow to deal with that they had to haul snow off the mountain in trucks to find somewhere to put it all. The snow pack has settled a bit and is 495cm currently.

The tummy seems to be getting bigger all the time! My cloths are rapidly getting too small now - in fact, just the other day Paul and I were going into town to visit with his family, so I thought I would put on something other then my stretchy pants. I pulled on a pair of dress pants and was surprised to find that they caused bit of a muffin top! I decided that this may be acceptable, in these circumstances, but that I should see how they would feel sitting down....

As I lowered my myself into the chair the button exploded out of its seams, and went rolling across the floor. They just don't make pants like they use to and they still felt too snug even with the button MIA.
Needless to say, I wore my stretchy pants out that night. Its a damn good thing they are in fashion.

Both Paul and I seem to have a growing affinity for the Island. We really enjoy driving past all the small farms on our way to town and day-dreaming about where we would want to live out here. The land seems almost enchanted; Fog hangs over the green pastures that appear suddenly in breaks between stretch of thick forest, modest homes nestled in the trees with smoke curling from their chimneys... I am amazed at how many colors - how many shades of green there are every where you look even though its the middle of winter. Nothing like the greyscale of Calgary 8 months out of the year.

However, I am afraid to write that all may not be well right now in our mountain paradise...

Paul is understandably not challenged or engaged by his work, which makes for long, tiring days. He's pretty beat at the end of the day (I am too if I have been working as well) and we often call it a night early. There is still the hopes that another position will come up, but its not guaranteed.

I am increasingly feeling lonely and isolated; The hill has very little night life (if any), most staff live off the mountain, and my job has no interaction with the main resort and very little with the guest here. This has made it very difficult to meet people and means that I generally just hang out at home or work alone in an empty Chalet. It is also challenging that Courtenay is 45min away and we really don't know much about where to go or what to do once we get there.

I hope that once we can afford to buy a ski pass for me that things would get a bit better. It is still always more enjoyable to ride with friends, however the freedom to be able to get out and have something active and engaging to do should still make a difference. Right now I just feel stagnant - I am not use to such a slow pace.


In the mean time, Paul and I have started looking into some ideas of things to together as well as something to get me out and meeting people. There is a prenatal yoga class in Courtenay that I would really be interested in and a few concerts that sound promising. Paul has even suggested flying me back to Calgary for a week, which would be great but I don't feel like it would solve the fact I would be coming back to the same situation.

I am not sure what is going to happen ultimately. The idea of coming back to Calgary could be the best choice for our overall happiness, but for some reason feels like running away or giving up to me. It'd hard to know what to do, what would be best for us now? In 4 months? For us as a family?