Strong and Steady - January 20th 2010

As I was driving to Toronto yesterday the following phrase came to me as a means to express what I was experiencing......I was placing my fingers on the pulse of a dream, testing it out to see if it was at the right stage to progress.
The drive itself was wonderful. The hawk is a bird I love. I notice them everywhere I go. Yesterday there were more than I've ever seen on one trip sitting in the tops of trees all along the journey from Windsor to Toronto.
Holly shared her GPS unit with me so I was able to find the location with no difficulty at all. This also took me on a different route than I would have taken, the route recommended was to take the exit for the 403 just at Woodstock. It was really nice to get off the 401 at the stage and travel a different path. The traffic was better going that way as well.
The school I visited was in Cabbagetown, on Carlton St just west of Parliament St. I have never spent time in that part of Toronto so I really enjoyed walking around and looking at the architecture of the buildings and taking in the flavour of the neighbourhood.
The info session at the school was very good. It confirmed all that I had expected the program to be about and that it is a reasonable way for someone like myself to gain training necessary to potentially become a therapist.
A little side detail that intrigued me was the floor on one half of the main meeting room. The school is located in a row house on Carlton St. There is an office when you first come in the front door. Then you go up a staircase to the second floor entering a kitchen space at one end and a large living room set-up at the other end. The kitchen floor was a beautiful mosaic tile artwork. Mosaic art always speaks to me. My Dad made a tile-topped coffee table while he was in school and I always loved it. I have not yet done any mosaic work myself but know that I will one day. I do draw and paint and have always felt that the shapes and colours I'm drawn to would work very well in tile.
It was a refreshing trip and I'm so glad I went. Thanks to everyone for your support and encouragement!

Courage to Look in the Mirror, January 15th 2010

I've been feeling rather touchy lately. I try to pay attention to what my way of being in this world is trying to teach me. When I'm feeling more positive I'm able to "just be" but when I'm feeling negative I try to see what is going on that I need to address.....not to eliminate negative from my life because I trust that it's part of life for a good reason to move me along the greater path.
Anyway, this time I might have made a connection that will help in the future. As I'm feeling critical with others around me, seeing faults and irritations, the real issue is not feeling good about myself.
I've spent a lifetime using the actions of others to keep my focus on Them rather than on Me.
I have scheduled myself to attend an info night at a school where I can train to become a therapist. As this night approaches I am becoming nervous, coming up with numerous reasons why I shouldn't attend, and becoming less tolerant of everyone around me.
I am not unusual in my ability to defeat myself at life. I recognize it in others and encourage anyone in this position to push through and just believe in themselves. Of course it is much harder to take one's own advice.
The interesting find in all of this for me this time, is recognizing that when I'm doubting myself I start seeing negative in everyone around me. I hope this will help me in the future to more quickly recognize issues in my own life so I can deal with them instead of masking them in other people's stuff.
I am terrifed of next Tuesday night. I'm afraid it will not be what I hope it to be and then I'll have to search out a new destination, I'm afraid it will be all I hope to be and then I'll have to follow through.
Only 4 more sleeps and then I'll know which fear I get to work on next.
To anyone taking time to read this, thanks for bearing with me, I really wanted to place these thoughts here to remind myself in the future of what I've learned today.
Love and wishes for courage to all, (even my wishes for all of you are based on my own needs;)

I Did It! January 13th 2010

I had the good idea last summer to walk to the library one day. Well today was that day. I had no idea how long it would take and that's what stopped me in the past. It took about 40 minutes one way, not bad at all!! I was thinking it would be at least an hour.
This was a goal that I thought would help me maintain some of my northern experience - where I walked everywhere. And that part worked too. I really enjoyed being out there and seeing things from a walking pace.
The temperature is -2 and the wind is 27 km/p/h. I wanted to check that when I got home because I would not want to venture out on this walk or a similar one with any more wind than there was today. If it was colder it would need to be a very light to no wind in order to have a comfortable walk of that duration for me.
Last year at this time I was getting off the anti-depressants I had been taking off and on for about 14 years. I often wanted to walk places, go and do things, whatever, but either didn't have the energy or the motivation. I am so happy that today I had both:)
It's getting milder and I expect most of the snow will be gone by the weekend.
I found a fantastic hairdresser this week. So exciting. I was getting tired of trying to keep my hair looking respectable on my own. It would take about 3 days to get a trim to look the way I wanted. And my straight razor is getting dull so it was painful as well!
I spotted a lady in the parking lot at work and loved her hair. She came into the store and I asked her where she got her hair done. She raved about her hairdresser and gave me the name and number. I called as soon as she left the store and made an appointment. I've been there and had it done and am extremely happy! So relieved to be able to go somewhere to get this done for now. She is very good with colour too. I don't want to cover all the grey that I've so patiently grown out. We talked about doing some colour blocks just around my face and keeping the natural grey everywhere else. I think I'm going to be able to have some fun with colour again!
Hope this finds everyone happy and well,

January 9th 2010

Greetings All, so, after that lovely exposition on headaches and the relief I found, I have now been dealing with head pressure and slight pain for a week now. Why don't I learn not to talk about these things????? I think I've finally narrowed it down to probably being a slight ear infection or sinus irritation or something like that.....after two dreams about elephants that didn't make much sense other than they have big ears:)
I'm a big believer and trier of home remedies. Yesterday I went to the mall and bought my first package of ear candles. I got Steve to help me with the ear that's been giving me the most discomfort. He was not impressed. There's quite alot of smoke that goes along with ear candling which I didn't know about. He was constantly fanning the air around my head and had the patio door open to get the smoke out. I told him not to worry, smoke is good for cleansing our souls so we would be so healed at the end of the session....he didn't buy it. Anyway, I didn't feel any great results, but there wasn't anything bad either. It wasn't quite the relaxing atmosphere with Steve freaking out about the smoke. Next time I'll get Holly to help me and I'll put on some nice music, some scented oils, etc. It's possible that the symptoms were slightly relieved. About 5 hours later there was a noticeable improvement and when I went to bed the pressure was significantly less.
Today I remembered I had that big old syringe from Buddy's visit to the vet a couple of weeks ago,so I mixed up some sea salt and lukewarm water and proceeded to Neti Pot my sinuses (using the syringe instead of a neti pot since it didn't cost me anything). That definately helped. Then I put a capful of hydrogen pyroxide in my ears, one at a time. The difficult ear has some issues going on for sure, the other one seems fine. I think after a couple more treatments I will be on the mend again.
I really enjoyed the holidays. And now I'm enjoying getting back to a non-holiday routine. Gently easing myself into healthier food choices, a little exercise and a more regular work schedule. It's nice to flow with the seasons, the special times of year and the more mundane times. When I pay attention to the rythym and allow myself to flow with it I feel really good.
It was my Wonderful Friend Isobel's birthday on January 6th. She passed away a few years ago. I think of her often and remember all the balance she brought into my life.
The pics today are from this morning from right here in our apartment complex. The little puppies refused to walk in the "deep" snow for very long. So we walked all around the shovelled walkway instead. This was our first big snow of the season.
Love to all,

January 2nd 2010

So, I thought I'd go ahead a ramble a bit about headaches. Please remember I am not a medical professional in any sense so the words offered here are from personal experience only.
I have suffered from headaches since somewhere around the time Holly was born. I don't really remember having them much before that but I also don't have a very good memory:)
Please also note that in no way am I saying this has anything to do with Holly:) I do wonder if the hormones involved in having my beautiful daughter were part of some trigger.
So, having these headaches over the years has been at times disturbing, at times discomforting, at times dangerous....as in, if this is how it feels to be alive....and so on. We have moved around a fair bit so I have not had a steady physician in my life. I was told on at least one occasion to just go home and relax. I was in so much pain and nauseaus on that occasion that I begged Steve to just buy some type of hard liqour so I could pass out...I never have been a drinker and never will as it just does not sit well with me, but I was desperate.
When we lived on the farm the doctor gave me migraine medicine Imitrix to try, it worked sometimes and sometimes it didn't and it was very expensive so the times it didn't work made my headache worse with the stress of knowing how much money I just swallowed with no relief.
Alot of times a sinus-allergy over the counter medicine would work, but I would have to take quite a few of them, more than the recommended dose and there is quite a bit of information out there now about how bad that is for you.
Well this past year they have been getting worse and more frequent. I finally went to the clinic and the first doctor intially gave me some serious pain medicine....they didn't do much. He told me to come back and get on with the new doctor that was at the clinic so I could have some steady follow-through. The new doctor gave me a sample of Replax. And I now have a new life. This medicine...for me....works. I don't have to take it right at the start of a headache, it works whenever I take it, so I can kind of wait an episode out to see if it's going to get better or get worse, and if it gets worse, the medicine will take it away. I've had a month now with no days "lost" to headache agony. Again these pills are not cheap, however one works for an entire episode, not one a day or every 12 hours, but one gets rid of what would have been a 3 or 4 day headache. And so that's that.
One thing I learned once it seemed it was narrowed down to migraine type headaches I went on the internet to do some research (my favourite past-time, I love learning little tidbits of information this way). Apparently the anti-depressant I had been on for the last 5 years or so (Effexor) is sometimes prescribed as a daily medicine to prevent migraine headaches, so the fact that these headaches increased both in duration and occurance since last year (when I quit taking the anti-depressant) is probably not a coincidence.
The holiday season is over at work now, we will be back to our regular hours. It was a good season at the store I think. Even in these hard times...and maybe because of them....people wanted to make sure their pets had fun holiday treats and toys.
For New Year's Eve Steve and I watched the World Junior Hockey game between Canada and the US. And then I fell asleep. I haven't seen too many New Year's beginnings in my lifetime.
We decided on Chinese Food for our dinner and Steve had a nice social time at the local establishment with what seemed to be 1/2 of the city there to pick up their dinners too. I think he was there over 1 hour for a 20 minute estimated pick-up time.
Hope you all had a Happy New Year's Eve and that the new year will be all that you wish for.

December 29th 2009

Christmas 2009 was a wonderful time. It started out with a potential for disaster on the home front. Buddy got into a wrapped box of chocolates on Christmas Eve afternoon (Fuzzy being the intelligent female she is did not participate in this very bad behaviour). He was quite ill and after a few hours of no improvement we headed to the emergency hours vet (read $$$). They put some goop in his eye that made him vomit all that was left in his tummy, syringed a charcoal treatment down his throat (and all over his white beard) to absorb residual poison, inserted fluids into his back, suggested an overnight stay (read $$$$$$) and told us he may not make it through the night:( We decided to bring him home and look after him with the knowledge that we might have to bring him back in if things got worse. The vet told me I had to use their special medical diet food and I told him I had issues with that. We discussed the crap ingredients in the special diet and he reduced the original 5 days to 3 days for how long I should feed this to Buddy. I went along with it and bought the food but you know I didn't use it. I was very thankful for all the good they did for Buddy. And I also confirmed for myself that despite the good intentions - that business is set up to make money and most of us are going to end up spending more than we really need to because we want to do what's best for our pets.
Happy ending, Buddy improved through the night and was pretty much himself the next day and completely himself the day after that.
So, onto the turkey. Our family is one of those that has Chevy Chase's Christmas Vacation movie in our holiday history together. We have watched that movie several times over the years. So of course when cooking the turkey we always hope it won't turn out like the movie. Well, I read or heard a tip somewhere over the years about cooking the turkey breast side down to keep the white meat moist. So that's what I did. When Steve went to carve the meat.....he struck bone with his knife where he thought meat should be. He had a moment of pure terror wondering how he was going to tell me I had completely over-cooked the turkey.....then he realized it was "upside down" and felt a flood of relief that all was well. The look on his face when he told me what happened was priceless and this will be one of our family's traditional stories from now on.
My beautiful friend Kim sent me some pictures over the holidays to brighten my days. Looking at those pictures brought back to life the picture journal beast with-in and so I'm back here in Blog World. Thanks Kim, I didn't know if I would find my way back here ever again.
Love to all and hope your holidays have been filled with wonder!

June 28th

So, I suck at making life an adventure back here in Windsor. I had the best of intentions....have had at many points in my life.
I'm not sure what it is that holds me back here, well, I'm pretty sure it's me, but I'm not sure what part of me.
I have always been someone who looks at things and sees how they could be rather than how they are. I'm guessing I can use this time to appreciate what is available in any given moment rather than what might become available in the next.
Steve got a bike for me and Holly to use. I've gone for one ride and enjoyed it. I also realized I need a few more rides to get back in the groove of regular riding shape.
I've begun the process of starting a morning routine of a walk of some length with the puppies.
I read yoga magazines. I love the idea of yoga and a yoga lifestyle, the comfortable clothes, the beautiful flexibility of body, the mind-body connection. Somehow I need to make a commitment to including it regularly in my life.....giving myself the gift of a yoga lifestyle.
When I returned home Steve had a beautiful rose for me. He has bought me one new rose each week. It's a lovely reminder of what we've been through and why we're here. This week's is a pretty yellow rose.

I learned from the flower lady at the store that you must use a knife to cut the end of the stem when you get home. Flowers have a vein that runs up the inside of them just like our veins. If scissors are used you run the risk of clamping the vein shut rather than opening a fresh area for water to be drawn up. The other tip was that you need to leave the two leaves closest to the flower intact on the stem. The leaves draw up somewhere around 65% or more of the water, if you remove them the flower has a hard time bringing up enough hydration to keep it fresh and alive-like for any length of time.

My Dad and Jean are getting ready for their summer vacation. They are travelling across Canada to the west and north. I'm sure they will have lots of experiences to share when they get home.

I've been reading lots of books from the library. I'm enjoying the mystery genre more than I have in the past. I'm also enjoying some television shows that are more dramatic in nature as opposed to the reality tv I used to watch. Heartland is my favourite show of the moment. Merlin is another good one. This Sunday I watched one the American Girls movies, Felicity. I really enjoyed that too. Kind of returning to my Waltons roots I guess.

So that's that. The adventure part of my life has included figuring out how to keep the dogs out of the garbage and the fridge. The fridge seal isn't the greatest and once Buddy figures out how to get into something like that he gets pretty determined to consistently get in there. This week he ate a good bit of a 7-layer salad and a key lime pie - two separate occasions. I'm sure Fuzzy helped, but Buddy usually gets the blame for the really bad stuff. Anyway, they are both healthy and well. It's always a little alarming when they get into that stuff and eat way more than it looks like their little tummies can hold. But as long as they can puke, pee and poop I figure they will be Ok. That's Buddy in the pic section, healthy and well.

Love to all, be in touch soon.