91, each with a story.

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My family got our Christmas tree on the weekend.  It’s a bit earlier than we usually do, as December is not yet upon us, but the kids were asking and we had a free weekend afternoon with mild weather, so we took full advantage.  We get a real tree, and we do as city-people do, and trek to one of the local rural Christmas tree farms for the full urban Instagram experience.  Gone are the days of my Albertan prairie childhood, when we would drive country roads and walk through waist-deep snow in search of “the one.”  The opening scene of Chevy Chase’s ‘Christmas Vacation’ comes to mind.  These days, my husband and I do our best to give our kids a new version of that experience, and it’s definitely a Christmas tradition that we all look forward to.

We borrowed my father-in-law’s saw, again part of the tradition, as my husband remembers his childhood Christmas trees being cut down with that particular saw.  I marvel at the changes in our children each year, and remember the early years of babies in carriers and blankets, sneaking in tree-cutting between naps and feeds, worried about the cold and the little legs that couldn’t hike very far.  Now our kids are involved in the whole process, from cutting to carrying, unloading to decorating.  My daughter’s choice of tree got the nod this year, a point of pride for her, and my son placed the star on top.  In fact, once we got it home and in the tree stand, the kids decorated the whole tree by themselves while my husband and I sat on the couch, acutely aware of the fact that we’re in the midst of a wonderful stage of parenting, sandwiched between the emotions of toddlers and the moods of teenagers.

We carefully unwrapped the ornaments from their newspaper homes and laid them on the coffee table one by one.  And as the table filled, we counted: 91, each with a story.

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Each year, I get a family photo made into an ornament.

Many come from my parents, as they give both of my children an ornament based upon their current interests- we’ve got everything from Thomas the Train to Elsa, Captain Phasma to Dora, Harry Potter to the Toronto BlueJays.  When my kids move out, they’ll take their ornaments with them and have a head start on filling a tree of their own.  Many come from my husband’s childhood, the most precious being a tiny stocking from the year he was born.  Some come from gifts from friends, some from Winter weddings, some from school crafts.  But consistently, year after year, the most magical part for me is not the ornaments themselves, but the stories they tell.

We’ve got 91 stories on display;  91 feelings of nostalgia, 91 tokens of gratitude, 91 memories of happiness, 91 reasons to give thanks.

Merry Christmas.

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Online Booking is Here!

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Online booking.  Just saying that phrase makes me happy.

This has been an exciting week for me at Burlington Sports & Spine Clinic.  It’s been a long time coming, a lot of research, a lot of discussion around the clinic, and a lot of conversation with colleagues…… and I’ve now ventured into the world of online booking.

We’ve transitioned our clinic software to a new platform, and after more than twelve years of using our old program my learning curve has been steep.  But our reception team has been quick-to-learn and our October 22nd switchover went smoothly, considering all the moving parts of a multi-disciplinary clinic.  With that change successfully under our belts, the next implementation was online booking, a major reason that we made the software change to begin with.

I’m the test case, and we rolled out these patient-centered options this weekend.  My practice has adopted online booking options via four different options:

Many of you have already put these links to work, and I’m glad to see that you’ve jumped on board with this idea.  Of course, we will still have full reception support if you prefer to call or email to book your appointments, but we hope that these changes give you additional, convenient options.

Stay tuned for the rest of the clinic to make the move to online booking, and thank you for sticking with us as we strive to be the very best in patient care and customer service.

 

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I have Thursday guilt.

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I have Thursday guilt.

You see, I don’t “work” on Thursdays, at least not officially, not at the clinic.  In fact, I haven’t worked on Thursdays for many, many years.  And at the clinic, we’ve built our practitioner schedule around that; on that day, my treatment rooms are free for the taking by other staff.  Over the years, the clinic has grown into such a busy place that we’re bursting at the seams, and the reality is that we’re now at a point where I wouldn’t be able to work on Thursdays even if I wanted to, because my rooms are full with other practitioner’s patients.

When my daughter began full-time Kindergarten in 2016, joining her older brother in the all-day-school world, I envisioned lazy Thursdays of long runs and naps, hot coffee and newspapers.  Fast forward more than two years and I think I’ve taken a nap once.  Once in about 112 Thursdays.  Because the reality is, Thursdays are usually my busiest day of the week.  They’re the days that I get groceries, tidy the house, squeeze in appointments for myself, run errands, arrange coffee dates, and do all the things that my other days do not allow; they’re the days that I do life.

But inevitably, when a patient asks to book in on a Thursday, and I reply that “I don’t work Thursdays,” guilt nags at me.  I’m a people-pleaser, by nature or nurture, and it niggles at my brain when I can’t be all things to all people.  A character fault for sure, and one that I’m working on, but part of me wonders what they think when they hear that my work-week doesn’t include a traditional Thursday.  Now, logic will tell you (and me) that I work more evenings than the traditional work-week and more Saturdays than the traditional work-week, but logic doesn’t always win.  Logic will also point out that I have very carefully constructed my practice life to align with my values, and Thursdays off have given me the space to find balance for both myself and my family.  But again, logic can be easily strong-armed by guilt.

Is guilt a mom thing?  A female thing?  Or just a me thing?   Perhaps it’s a bit of all three, rolled up and exponentially powerful, a wasted emotion that has no positive value.

Do I work Thursdays?

I sure do.

(And even if I didn’t, that would be okay too.)

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