There have been lots of clothing posts at FIFI: nap dresses, swim dresses, bikinis, sports bras, cycling jerseys, beach pyjamas, angry white pyjamas for Akido, among others.
This is my not-very-stylish but oh-so-practical contribution for this summer: the towel fabric changing robe.
Diane in a striped robe, with trees and her beloved pond in the background.
It has a kangaroo pocket and hood, neither of which I use. I don’t actually use the slits that allow me to reach inside, remove my swimsuit and put on clothes either.
I do wear it a lot though. I throw it on over top of my suit and ride my bike to the pond while wearing it. Often, I hop on my bike afterwards and ride to the community garden to water my plants. It has been a miserably hot and dry summer, so leaving my wet suit on helps me stay cool. I haven’t yet continued on to the grocery store before going home, but I have been tempted.
I have clearly reached the age where I no longer care even a little bit about looking ridiculous if I can be comfortable.
I recently went kayak camping with 6 friends at a remote Ontario provincial park called Killarney. Over 6 days and 5 nights we kayaked on a lake to 3 different camp sites. It was a chance for some holiday rest but also some active challenges.
Each site stop meant packing and unpacking my (borrowed) kayak: sleeping gear, food gear, hygiene gear, camp chair, bug repellants, clothes, and drying line. These were stored in dry sacs that kept stuff dry in inclement weather or if the kayak tips. We also agreed to each pack out our own garbage, which had to be stored every night in our kayaks to avoid attracting animals.
Though I was a girl guide and did family trailercamper trips as a kid, I am newer to camping where you haul your own gear, purify your own water, eat primarily rehydrated food, and eliminate in a “thunderbox”. On every trip I learn more through observing others and asking questions to find what arrangements suit me best (eg, tent vs hammock for sleeping, what vegetarian foods I can take, etc.).
I’m on my own to make sure I can carry what I pack, I pick up after myself, and I keep myself clean, dry, sated, and injury-free. Although this seems like regular adult stuff, in nature with no other amenities than what I carry, I must plan ahead and be self-sufficient. As one of my friends said during the trip, “Doing this as a woman, as a group of women, is empowering.” (Another one said camping is having fun while being mildly uncomfortable.)
What is empowering is not just taking care of yourself but also working together as a group. These women harnessed 7 kayaks in a trailer safely for highway driving, navigated to a remote provincial park, kayaked to multiple camp sites, used fishing gear, arranged in pairs for food prep and clean up, found wood, set up big tarps in case of rain, and shared anything that was needed, from extra salt to insect repellant to tampons to skin bandages.
For nearly a week were on our own but also together: travelling, paddling, swimming, fishing, card playing, pleinair watercolor painting, food and drink imbibing, mosquito repelling, storytelling, and looking out for each other.
I am grateful to have learned so much about the tricks and tools of kayak camping from these women. It’s given me a sense of accomplishment and pride in a hobby that’s fun but not always easy or convenient. I’ve chosen from here this quotation, attributed to Madonna (who may or may not also be a kayak camper), to sum up my thoughts:
“As women, we have to start appreciating our own worth and each other’s worth. Seek out strong women to befriend, to align yourself with, to learn from, to collaborate with, to be inspired by, to support, and enlightened by.” – Madonna
What do you do, on your own but also with others, that gives you a sense of personal autonomy as well as community?
7 kayaks hauled by a truck7 women in kayaks5 women sitting in front of a campfire at duskThe view, of an overturned kayak near the water’s edge, from my tent at dawn
I board my elderly horse Fancy in a rural part of Ottawa. She lives outdoors and someone else feeds her daily so I don’t get out there very often these days. The exception is haying season, when it’s all hands on deck to get enough hay stored to keep the horses who live inside fed through the winter.
Farm math: over 30 percent of farm workers in Canada are women. The real number may be higher as many women may still be taking on informal roles alongside male operators. But the number is increasing and being documented as more women get operations and bank loans in their own names.
The place where Fancy boards is almost entirely women-run. Ingrid owns the operation. Jen is the manager. It’s a co-op where almost all the boarders are women, so they pitch in every day to do chores.
More farm math: on Saturday we stored the last of the small bales of hay for the season. Ingrid and Jen had to figure out how much to order to keep all the indoor horses fed until next year. They got just shy of 3,600 bales, or six big trailer loads worth. Then they had to figure out the odds it can be cut, baled, delivered and stored before it rains, coordinate all that with the farmers growing hay, and with the people who were going to put it away.
Once it was delivered the team needed to figure out the geometry to get it stacked with no collapses, how many people we needed to get hay off the trailer, up the elevator and into the barn, and how many doing the stacking with minimal waiting around.
Diane in a pink shirt with part of a trailer full of hay to her right. In the background, you can see the elevator leading to the barn. There is a single bale of hay at the top. She looks very hot and is grateful to have a break while the trailer is moved into place for unloading.
I’m glad I only had to do a couple of hours of grunt work. Even if it was hot, sweaty, dusty grunt work.
Saturday’s delivery was two trailers full of hay, so probably a little under 1,200 bales. Each of those bales weight 40-60 pounds. It took 11 of us (8 women and three men) a little under 2 hours to unload both trailers, move it up to the top of the barn using the elevator, then stack it.
I couldn’t lift the bales much higher than my waist. I am in awe of the people who were able to toss them to people working up higher.
A backlit view of team barn after the last bale was in place. If you look closely, you can see just how sweaty the two people in the front are: their shirts are soaked. Photo by Mel Donskov.
In case anyone is wondering, the outdoor horses get those giant round bales that need to be moved by tractor. How many bales, and the cost of a tractor, is a whole other set of farm math.
A social media friend does a class called MELT in the UK. I knew she used foam rollers but that was about it. So I did what everyone does these days and Googled it.
Apparently it’s a self-massage treatment that is designed to increase fluid flow through the fascia and reduce pain and tension. And apparently it’s available in several countries and there are courses available on line.
Cool. What’s not cool is our current weather. I am melting in this heat and won’t be exploring MELT until things cool off. In fact, this is a very good time to have a rest day or two. And hydrate.
Eating ice cream totally counts towards hydration!
Yesterday, I finally got to swim in a pond- my first time this summer!
Yes, the angle of the photo, the fact that only my head is above water, and the colour of my swimsuit contrasting with my pale limbs does make me look like some sort of strange pond creature in this shot. I hope you find it as funny as I do. Image description: a photo of me swimming in a pond. The photo was taken from a dock and you can see my head above the water and my arms underwater out to the side and one of my legs kicking out behind me below the water. My hair is pulled back in a ponytail and I am squinting in the sun.
It was big fun and it felt summery and relaxing and like I was letting out a breath I had been holding for a long time.
And it was all because I decided to reprioritize my summer fun.
But then some work projects went off the rails, and my foot started hurting, and the weather kept getting in my way (too hot, too rainy, too windy…you know the deal), and my weekends and evenings were crammed full of stuff and…
The short version is that I got overwhelmed.
And once I got overwhelmed, my ADHD went into overdrive and made it impossible for me to tell the difference between ‘meh, I don’t wanna’ and ‘this is actually an obstacle.’
And, as usual, it kept trying to get me to finish the stuff on my list before it would let me go into relaxation mode.*
Note: You might think this tendency is about needing to be productive or to really earn my rest, but that’s not the goal there. Instead, my ADHD wants me to finish this stuff so when I do rest, I can ‘really relax without this stuff hanging over my head.’ Alas, it also gets in the way of me actually finishing the stuff so it simultaneously keeps me from working and keeps me from relaxing but pressured me about both things. (This situation is just as fun as it sounds.)
I have been doing some fun things and relaxing here and there but I haven’t been able to really get into the plans I laid out in that post.
Here’s how things have stacked up so far:
I’ve been doing some relaxation exercises (imagine how tricky the past month would have been without them!)
I haven’t done any cycling.
I’ve done some yoga on the patio but not the 3-5 times a week I had planned.
I haven’t done any hiking.
I’ve done some hula hooping and had fun with it – I’m not any better yet, though.
And until yesterday, I hadn’t actually gone for a swim in a pond this summer.
Luckily, last Friday, my friend sent me a message asking me to hang out and swim with her on Monday afternoon.
My instinct was to say no but when I looked at the date on the calendar I realized that we’re well into July and I have barely done any of my summer fun!
That realization pulled me out of my ‘don’t relax until you can REALLY relax’ loop and reminded me that stopping to rest and to have fun is not only good in its own way, it might actually help me be able to focus when I head back to my desk.
So, on Monday, instead of trying to work on ALL OF THE THINGS, I picked three main things, worked on them until noon, had lunch and then headed out to see my friend.
I basically made fun my priority for the afternoon and I followed through.
And I had a glorious time alternating between being a pond creature and a creature who eats chips and chats with her friend.
Yes, I know the joke in the title is ridiculous but I couldn’t resist.
Let’s just roll with it, shall we?
I find goal setting a tricky business overall.
The process of breaking things down into small steps and prioritizing is valuable but my brain does NOT want to do it. In fact, that type of thinking is my brain’s least favourite thing.
It likes to generate all kinds of extra factors and complications and ideas and it wants me to account for EVERY SINGLE ONE so I can PROVE that this goal/plan is the ONE RIGHT WAY to get where I want to go.
Is this helpful?
It is not.
Can I stop my brain from going into that loop?
No, I cannot.
Can I try to find a workaround?
I can try!
In order to work with my brain and ensure that it won’t fight me every step of the way, I have to find a healthy combination of specificity and flexibility – specific enough so that my brain registers the idea as an actual thing that is happening and flexible enough that my brain won’t revolt at the idea of being trapped in a plan that past me made.
This kind of sums up my brain’s feelings on a lot of my plans. image description: a screencap of a tweet by Marly (@VerbsRProudest) from Oct 3, 2014 that reads ‘I hate to cancel. I know we made plans to get together tonight but that was two hours ago. I was younger then, and full of hope.
And while I bristle at the idea of ‘making the most’ of summer (or of any season or event, really – the pressure! Ugh!) I do like the idea of making each season feel a little different by doing things that feel like they belong in that time of year.
So, to summarize (summer-ize? ha!) I want to do some seasonal things to kind of anchor myself in the moment, I want to have loose plans that help me actually do those things, but I want enough flexibility in those plans so my brain doesn’t get cranky and stubborn.
Here are a few categories of fun/ideas/goals/plans that I am playing with at the moment.
Cycling – I’m looking into buying an ebike but it’s not in the budget quite yet and I also want to make sure that I will actually use it so I am trying to use my regular bike more (and yes, I see the conundrum here – an ebike would increase my likelihood of riding more but…yeah) But the vague goal of ‘use my bike more’ is not helpful so I need to get specific – two 20 minute rides per week for the next three weeks and then reevaluate?
Patio Yoga – I love doing yoga on my patio either in the sunshine or in the evening with the little patio lights on. I want to say that I will start or end each day with yoga on the patio but I also know that I will get thrown off from this plan. So I think I will aim for daily outdoor yoga but with the idea that 3-5 times per week is more likely.
Hiking – I’m not inclined to do long hikes at the moment but perhaps that will change. For right now, I plan to do two short hikes (2 hours or less) in July and 2 in August. At least one of these hikes will involve a picnic and some reading in the middle.
Swimming in a pond – Last summer, I only managed to swim in a pond 2 or 3 times. This year, I am conspiring with a friend to ensure that I am going to *at least* double that.
Hula Hooping – I really *want* to be good at hula hooping but I never practice consistently enough to get the knack. I’m committing to bringing my hoop outdoors with me every time I hang out in my yard to write and I will practice for at least 5 minutes per writing session. Will this help me improve? Maybe, maybe not, but I definitely won’t improve if my hoop stays propped against the wall downstairs.
This photo is from a few years ago but it’s the mental image that arose when I thought about bringing my hoop outside to use when I take a break from writing. Image description: a blue, green, and gold hula hoop rests against a long table covered in a blue table cloth with an ipad and some art supplies on top. The table itself is on some long-ish grass under some trees and there is a mix of sun and shade.
Deep relaxation – I’m going to follow daily, deliberate relaxation practices and hopefully get some of this lingering stress out of my brain and my muscles. (I know this one isn’t summer-specific but summer is supposed to be relaxing, isn’t it? Let’s say deep relaxation is thematically appropriate )
Sounds like some fun stuff, right?
Specific but not super-detailed?
Now as long as I keep below my brain’s ‘Oh hell, no!’ radar, I’ll have a great time this summer.
The photo below is largely unrelated but it made me laugh all over again a few minutes ago so I thought you might like it, too.
Yes, the joke in my title is kind of recycled. I made this card during my first year doing the Index Card A Day challenge. I’m not sure what the prompt was bears? summer? summer bears? Hawaiian shirts? It could have been anything. All I know is that in brainstorming the prompt, my sons and I ended up saying ‘Summer bears (and summer not)’ which kept us laughing for ages. That should tell you a lot about our sense of humour, right there. Image description: a drawing on an index card shows a brown bear in a Hawaiian shirt and a yellow bear in a green and white jersey standing on either side of a round container filled with ice with glass bottles of drinks sticking out of it. It’s a summer day and there are puffy white clouds in the blue sky.
If you do find a tick on you, here’s advice from Health Canada on how to remove it.
How to remove a tick
Use clean, fine-point tweezers to grasp the head as close to the skin as possible and slowly pull straight out.
If the mouthparts break off and remain in the skin, remove them with the tweezers. …
Wash the bite area with soap and water or an alcohol-based sanitizer.
More from Health Canada…
How to avoid getting a tick in the first place
“Wear light coloured long-sleeved shirts and pants. Tuck your shirt into your pants, and your pants into your socks. Wear closed-toe shoes. Use bug spray with DEET or Icaridin (always follow label directions).”
But whatever you do, don’t stay inside to avoid them. Spending more time in nature is number five on the list of healthy summer habits I blogged about here.
Back in the spring, I joined up with an app to track my cycling efforts for Bike Month. I decided it was sufficiently fun that I kept going even after the count ended. Since June 1st, which is technically late spring, but a convenient place to start, and leaning slightly into fall by counting up to September 26 when I drafted this post, here’s how I have done:
Km ridden on my bike: 1,059
Greenhouse gases averted: 270 kg. A round-trip flight to Ottawa to Berlin creates 2 metric tons of GHG, so I’ll need to cycle at this rate for at least 2 1/2 years in order to offset a single trip to Europe. I am assuming I’ll cycle less in winter and use my car a bit more. This is the calculator I used.
Money saved by riding my bike instead of driving: $643. Honestly, this seems a bit low to me as most estimates have car costs per month in Canada at nearly $1,000, when you include financing, fuel, maintenance and insurance. I’m guessing this amount is just fuel and maintenance.
Critical mass rides to advocate for climate change and safer streets (including Kidical Mass and Fancy Women rides): 5
Organized social bike rides: 11
Km swum: 19.743. This is way lower than past years, but between shoulder issues and general busyness it was all I could manage. Next year!
Activities for a cause: 5 – apple picking for the food bank; helping on various rides; census of transit at various locations around the city for the annual Pedal Poll; swim Angel for Bring on the Bay, which is itself a fundraiser for Easter Seals; 15 km swim fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society
Personal cycling goals set and achieved: 4 (18 km each way for a bike swim bike at Britannia Beach, feeding my friend’s cat 20 km away, visiting my parents 25 km away, and visiting my horse 24 km away).
Walks: I didn’t add them up but there were lots, mostly as a way to catch up with a friend, but sometimes for a history tour or to go to the grocery store with my rolly cart.
What did I get out of all this? I discovered that I can do a lot more than I imagined. I have gone from being a steady short-distance commuter to the office to being the person who thinks nothing about using the bike for all kinds of errands – from medical appointments to picking up groceries, going to shows and concerts, to checking on my community garden plots or joining others for a swim, drink or to check new cycling infrastructure. And that I love being social for a good cause.
Kidical Mass Ride, with a range of bikes and people of all ages in a parkMy bike loaded with purchasesMe in the river, wearing a white swim cap and gogglesFriends checking out the new pedestrian/cycling bridge between Ottawa and Gatineau, folks at a social bike ride, and a group of people packing up boxes of freshly harvested apples in an orchard
I started writing this from my cottage property, where I hung out for a long weekend of mixed primitive and glamping with my buddy Melanie. The irony of writing on my phone about unplugging is not lost on me.
Though I call it a cottage property, it’s really just a plot of land with a clearing with a fire pit where we can pitch a couple of tents. It got a major upgrade a couple of years ago when Mel and I built and installed a thunder box (a primitive open-air version of an outhouse).
Mel, like me, loves to camp. But it’s also important to her to take time to just be together with other women, alone. Though she loves her hubby dearly and does lots of things with him, taking time away is invaluable. It’s the same for him – staying at home with the cats, indulging in all the baseball.
Mel came with a list of things she hoped to accomplish – clear a better trail to the thunder box, move the woodpile from one side of the clearing to the other, mark some walking trails.
What did I want from the weekend? To just “be”. Go for a swim if it got warm enough. Maybe break out the compass and see if I could identify the edges of the property.
For the most part, just “being” won out. Breakfast not eaten until it’s nearly lunch time. Remembering that if you just sit back and look at the stars, listen to the howling wolves/coyotes and the calls of loons, time has no meaning.
We did some serious contemplation of the impact of humans on the earth as our trail to the outhouse became clearer each time someone walked back there (no specific labour involved). And we thought a lot about the unpaid labour of millions of women who for centuries were responsible for collecting wood and water. It was hard work to replenish a modest woodpile without the aid of power tools.
In the end, we mostly celebrated just being together in a peaceful space with some goofiness,
Melanie, wearing a long-sleeved shirt, pants and a hat, is dancing around a campfire, using the fire poking stick like a tap dancer’s cane.
delicious food cooked over the campfire,
Roasted corn, green beans in a mustard cream sauce, and piri piri chicken are on a white plate balanced on my knees in front of the fire pit.
and a swim.
Diane with wet hair in a purple T shirt and Melanie wrapped in a blue towel and wearing a white bucket hat at the beach just after our swim, with the lake in the background.
We are already starting to plan next year’s trip, maybe timing it so we can watch the Perseid meteor shower. If we go a bit earlier in the year, maybe there will be more loons, too.
On Saturday, I participated in a couple of activities that fall close to the category of Elan’s Silly summer fun. But they also supported causes dear to my heart.
Swim: the day started with a 3.2 km swim as a swim angel for my friend Sarah from my master’s swim club at Bring on the Bay, an annual swim in the Ottawa River that raises funds for Easter Seals. This year, there were 651 swimmers. Swim angels are “buddies” for swimmers with anxiety, disabilities, or medical issues who want someone with them in case they need support.
This year about 20 of us were paired with a swimmer. A few more people act as “sweeps” available in case someone swimming alone needs assistance. It’s a great program and I benefitted from it years ago when I was anxious about cramping up following foot surgery.
Me in a white cap, multicoloured goggles and a swimsuit, with Sarah, who is wearing a red cap, black goggles and a wetsuit.Swimmers heading out into the river with their angels. Two of the sailboats, a kayak and SUP that mark the route and provide support are in the background. Sara and I are in the front of the group, on the left, closest to the green channel marker.
Sarah did great! She is actually a bit faster than me, but this was only her second open water swim and she had never swum this distance. She’s a musician, so my job was to be her metronome. I set the pace and she drafted behind me until we got close to the end. Then she moved up beside me so we could finish together. I was a good metronome: we finished within 3 minutes of the time I had predicted.
Bike: this was pretty straightforward as I biked to and from Bluesfest, a 10-day long series of concerts in Ottawa. Even though I have lived here for nearly 40 years and have been a commuter cyclist for 20, I’m still learning new ways to get around. My friend Florence showed me a couple of changes to the route I would have taken, which minimized car contact. 12 km done and dusted.
Run: technically walk, but 9.6 km worth of walk according to my phone app. This was the silly fun part. I’m a member of Bike Ottawa, a group that advocates for safe infrastructure for all people who bike. Every year at Bluesfest, volunteers run a free bike parking service to encourage people to bike to the venue rather than driving a car. This year, they parked their 100,000th bike. Any donations received are split between Bike Ottawa and Blues in the Schools.
The volunteers were a mixed group from teens through to seniors. The supervisors were dressed up in all sorts of bling for visibility. It works just like a car valet service, except we weren’t allowed to ride the bikes. We did get to admire some beauties though.
This was an incredibly smooth operation, but there was a LOT of wheeling bikes to their designated spots and retrieving them for their owners at the end of the night. We cleared out roughly 800 bikes, scooters and skateboards in about half an hour after the last concert ended.
A field filled with orange construction horseshoes, with hundreds of bike leaning up against them. A few volunteers in blue shirts are walking more bikes to their designated spot.
At their base, none of these activities was really silly, though I thought they were a lot of fun. So, because I can’t figure out any other excuse to share, here is a photo of my friend Gwendolyn and I, just after winning the teacup obstacle race at a friend’s 40th birthday party. The race involved running around a tree and then shooting a croquet ball through a hoop while holding a teacup full of water. Then you were blindfolded and turned around five times before being guided by your partner to pour your water into a container. The winning team was the one with the most water after each person had gone through the course.
Two white women, wearing flowered dresses and hats are standing in a trees park. One is blindfolded and holding a croquet mallet and ball. The other holds a teacup.
