Learning at 40

I've written blog posts in the past about the challenges that come with teaching my little girl. Sometimes she succeeds, other times she stumbles. But no matter what I hope she learns something and continues to grow. Because you know what, even at 40 years old I'm still learning!

If there is one quality I'm not particularly proud of about myself it's that I'm stubborn. I love going out and doing activities, and usually they turn out to be great adventures. But sometimes they don't turn out so well and I have a hard time admitting defeat.

Last year, in the early spring, Margot Jen and I rented an off-grid cabin in the Quebec woods northwest of Ottawa. Next door to the cabin was a trail that I had planned on going for a walk on. What I hadn't planned on, however, was the 3-foot deep snow that we sunk into every step we took. Unfortunately, I pushed my gang a little hard to keep going and they weren't too pleased with me (to put it mildly).

Unhappy cookies

This past weekend we booked a one-night house rental in the opposite direction - northeast of Ottawa near Eganville, Ontario. On the way to our rental I planned a trip to Dacre Heights, which supposedly was a place where we could do free cross-country skiing. However, when we got there and tried skiing the trails, we realized that you had to be an expert to do them as you were essentially skiing up a massive hill on ungroomed trails.

Not exactly gliding on the slopes...

Did I want to keep going? Yes!

But this time, instead of pushing Margot and Glosette Girl to complete an impossible and un-fun challenge, I reined back my stubborn instincts and called it quits.

Guess this ol' dog can still learn. Fortunately, later that afternoon, we found another trail elsewhere and ended up having a great time on properly groomed and do-able trails. They were still steep...but in a fun way (i.e. the trails sometimes went downhill)!