Welcome?

So.  This is new.  And really weird.  I've never really seriously considered trying this blogging thing, yet am somehow drawn to idea of finding a way to regularly and intentionally reflect on my life, in an ever-important attempt to strike a satisfactory (joyful, even?) work-life balance.

Crew KH is a stupid name for a blog (then again I think "blog" is a stupid name for anything).  But I was prompted by the cyber-gods to enter a blog name when I opened this site and I panicked.  So Crew KH it is. 

The actual KH crew is made up of me plus my 3 favourite male humans in the whole wide world:  John, my best dude, and our offspring:  Nicholas (age 8) and Andreas (age 6).  I love them.

Those also living under our roof (whom I love slightly less) include: Snowflake and Sal our 2 budgies, Icarus the gecko, and Rocket the crayfish.  Occasionally and somewhat regularly, other house guests include my parents from Ontario and John's parents from Saskatchewan.

The essentials about us:

John is a family therapist who works mostly with kids and families in crisis.  He is an avid cycling enthusiast, commuting by bicycle to work even through our most extreme winters.  He reads voraciously, everything from work-related non-fiction to crappy vampire novels (yes, even the Twilight series).  He is a classical guitarist and usually blesses our home with his music for at least an hour or so each day.  He is an uber-dad, most recently taking a hiatus from work for the summer so he could spend it with the boys.  Introverted, kind-hearted, and generous.  And he likes to think that today's teenagers still think he's cool.

Nicholas is a grade three-er (as he says).  He loves reading - yesterday he declared that the world's greatest invention was the library.  He also loves animals, especially kittens.  And large rodents, like raccoons and possums.  He, like John, is contemplative and introverted in nature, often preferring to bypass groups of people for the solitude of his own company.  Yet, he is confident and independent and is not afraid to share his thoughts and ideas even if it makes him unpopular with his peers.  He has the most amazing imagination and has been creating elaborate worlds for himself since he was 3 years old when we met his first invisible friends "Birdie" (the sparrow) and "Mice" (the mouse) on the Metro in Paris.

Andreas is in grade one. He is a warm-hearted, relational boy who loves to cuddle.  He also loves to play games and have books read to him.  He is interested in basically anything that his brother is and defers to him on most matters, from what colour candy he should choose to what game they should play together.  Andreas has a keen ear for music, often commenting on song lyrics or interesting instrumentation he hears.  He is very proud of the fact that he a recently learned to tie his shoes and while he looks forward to learning how to read, he is simultaneously fearful that this means his days of listening to stories read by others are coming to an end.   

As for me, I feel like (at least for right now) I am mostly defined by my inner struggle to balance my family/personal life with my work life.  And I almost never get it right.  My work is something that I take very seriously; I work with 6 great partners in a workplace conflict management firm.  I've been involved in the mediation field since 1996 and know in my bones that this is the work I was meant to do.  It's more than just a job.  However, raising my boys (together with John) to be loving, respectful, contributing young men is my most important work right now.  And they make this job easy (mostly).  I am very proud of the people that they are and am filled with joyful anticipation to watch them grow into who they are becoming.

Other random tidbits about us as a family:

+  John and I have been married for 16 years.  I am happy to say that I still really like him.
+  We've been living in Fort Rouge since 2006 when we returned from Belfast, Northern Ireland where we had lived and worked for almost a year.
+  Previous to 2005, we lived in the West End for 10 years.  We finally acknowledged recently that neither of us has any real desire to move back to our home provinces (much to our parents' disappointment).  This, however, also means that inter-provincial road trips will continue to be a regular family activity for at least the next decade or so.
+  We are active in a faith community where we have many friends and where we find food to fuel our inner journey/s.
+  CBC Radio One plays in the background of our lives almost all the time.
+  When the radio is off, there is almost certainly some kind of music happening in our home:  John on guitar, the boys practicing for their piano lessons, or some selection from a very eclectic collection of recorded music is playing.
+  We regretfully contribute vast amounts of newsprint to the city's recycling efforts every week.
+  Earlier this year we finally ditched our television.  The TV never went on during weekdays anyways and on the weekends, the boys sometimes watched dvd's.  They now watch their weekend dvd's on the computer.  Not much has changed.
+  We try very hard (sometimes unsuccessfully) to limit the amount of busyness we experience in our lives.  John and I are careful about over-committing ourselves to work and volunteer activities.  The boys are only involved in very selective extra-curricular activities - only piano and swimming and soccer in springtime.  This gives us all a lot of time to be together.  The fruits of this are clearly seen in the (mostly) joyful relationship that is developing between the boys.  They literally spend hours upon hours playing together in their basement playroom.  They hurry home together after school each day, talking animatedly about their latest lego plans (or whatever) and then promptly disappear as soon as they get in the door.

I think that's us in a nutshell.  I will be curious to see if this endeavor is one that I continue.  Not sure about any of it yet.  It's all a grand experiment.