JANUARY JUGGERNAUT

For the last decade, Friday mornings in January had me check the weather to see how low the temperature was expected to dip within the coming 48 hours.  This weekly tradition helped me understand how my weekend was going to be spent (-10C registered as balmy and -25C as housebound).

If I was lucky enough to be blessed with a mild winter, one of the two days had me strap on my snowshoes and head out with the pups. Nine times out of ten I would land at the cottage but if I did not have the luxury of half the day to myself, the golf course across the street was an excellent option for my weekly ritual. 

A few years ago, when our beloved Dotti's hips began to be an issue, my biggest winter priority was ensuring she had a series of snowshoed paths for easy access around the lower level of our yard, so she would never struggle when out to do her stinky winter thing with nature. 

With our Puddin’ entering her twilight years, it seemed my winter weekends were once again destine to be spent blazing trails with my showshoes. With her general lack of speed and muscle mass, I knew she would be appreciative to be able to navigate her turf with general freedom; and yours truly, grateful for the outdoor exercise. 

That said, with my husband having his own personal health setback at Thanksgiving, he too is in search of whatever exercise he can easily accomplish. 

You can tell by the picture I am sharing (which I snapped standing in my showshoes) that my trails are getting an updated facelift, and my longstanding pup efforts are being replaced.

Can't stop change, only manage it!
#yagottalaughaboutit
TAKEN: JANUARY 31st, 2021

I don't mind his initiative, I honestly don't. My girls will love their new trails that are wider and much easier for them to navigate. 

I guess my wee issue is that this whole lockdown situation has NOT been my friend. 

I may do my best to do my due diligence in the exercise department - only to come back into the house and enjoy a plethora of warm milk and cookies.

I know I have no one to blame but myself. But I will say, that not spending an hour every morning on my appearance to head into an office job, has enabled my keen ability to shroud myself in clothing that masks the number of calories being enjoyed at any given yummy juncture. 

Wanting to embrace my glass half full, I have decided to shift my mindset to an uber positive outlook as my appearance changes.

My new mantra? I prefer not to think of myself as overweight... 

Just substantially easier to see!!

#missionaccomplished

HARD DRIVE DOLLAR DAZE

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, 

but in having new eyes."  ~Marcel Proust

Over the holiday break, I decided to clean the crawlspace underneath our beautiful front entrance stairs. This 'out of sight out of mind' task can only be described as the long brewing perfect storm of general guilt, individual curiosity, and ultimate discovery. 

Neatly tucked away, when you opened the door you were greeted by a gloomy space filled with decorations, old video game paraphernalia and the remains of what I decided to store when I disassembled my marketing firm after the banks fell back in 2008. 

Around the corner and under the actual stairs, where the single light bulb couldn't reach, was a massive technical graveyard. A segregated area full of old laptops the kids killed, and any desktop towers I had been blessed to receive the blue screen of death on. 

It was also where old printers, monitors, scanners, and ink cartridges from my digital press were also laid to rest. And it wasn’t until I began to haul everything into the downstairs living room that I came face with thousands of hard earned and impulse spent technologies dollars looking back at me.

My two office assistants completely ignoring my technology exorcism.
TAKEN: DECEMBER 27th, 2020

You would think my biggest shock would be loading everything up for disposal but after harvesting more than a dozen hard drives from their original graves, I began salvaging data.

Using a sata adapter I had purchased years ago to try and revive one of the lost backup drives, I began a methodical process to look at them all individually. With each one I connected to, a new snippet into a past life appeared. It was like revisiting a personal digital roadmap of the last twenty years.

I managed to restore all of the stored family photographs (from 2002 onward) that  I thought were gone forever. All of my digital business files as well as client portfolio items that had been rewarding creatively to develop; not to mention profitable to release.  

Graphic design files, full page ads from the Toronto Star, large radio campaign mp3 audio files, as well as copies of the television commercials I produced. My week spent digging for hard to find password locked data was both amazing and very cathartic.

Once again reinforcing one of my true core philosophies... 

That self discovery, or in this particular case re-discovery, is always the best investment you can ever make in yourself !

REMEMBERING 2020

 Most Significant Moment: The arrival and living with COVID-19. 

Everything from the toilet paper crisis (the centre pic was my rare cottage find when there was none left within the Province of Ontario), to the end of Donald Trump as the President of the United States. 

I feel 2020 was the year of solitude; served with a side dish of hatred and divide!

TAKEN: Throughout 2020

January: I participated in a five weekend advanced digital marketing (in-class course) in downtown Toronto. An amazing and eye opening experience!

February: Jukebox and his band headlined a local event that was sold-out and attended by all, including my bestie @veronekak.

March: Our entire community rallied around our childhood friend as he battled a very debilitating illness. This event, held Saturday March 7th, 2020, was the last time I was out socially before the initial pandemic lockdown took effect.

April: The unexpected and very premature passing of my husbands step father from ALS. Rest in peace Ivy!

May: No longer able to live normally because of Covid-19, we moved full time to the cottage.

June: We planted and enjoyed tending to our very first cottage vegetable garden. (We have serious plans for expansion in 2021.)

July: We gave Stella, our floating picnic table, a serious facelift and added a trolling motor for speed. She became the talk of the lake.

August: My Sweetie and her sweetie. I captured this Kodak moment the first time JMrex visited the cottage to meet us.

September: I took a step back and made a plan to move forward!!

October: Our tiny bubble enjoyed a Thanksgiving pumpkin carving event. This was also the evening my husband suffered his life altering health issues.

November: The look of the last eight months as we prepare to hunker back in to yet another lockdown.

December: Totally locked back down and hoping this one word is what we all get to experience in 2021.

TINY BUBBLES

My electronic journal found some bizarre inspiration this morning. 

It was when the vinyl record player that is my mind kept hearing the classic 1966 Don Ho lounge lizard tune: Tiny Bubbles . (The song title is a link for those that have yet to have the pleasure.)

Now I'm sure we can all agree my chosen isn't a festive holiday tune, nor a track that plays into the whole 'reason for the season' vibe. Let's face it, as we crawl toward the end of a year so annoying it continually tripped over itself (twenty-twenty), a song about tiny bubbles within a lockdown mandate shouldn't be considered unfathomable.

My tiny bubble. Featuring my amazing Fab Five!
TAKEN: DECEMBER 25th, 2020

Now, not being one to pet a cat backward just to prove I can, nor jump off the bridge downtown simply because I live in a town that has one with a cool brace over it, I would like to disclose that  months ago I decided to invested in understanding why we were being asked to live in a 'bubble' and what it actually meant. 

As a result, since being told to 'assume the position', I have not waivered from the general directive. All guidelines have been respected. All internet trolls looking to stir shit for the sake of having their voice amplified when they normally wouldn't, were heard.

At the end of the day, it's really hard to believe that it has been over nine months since everything became so hateful and unnecessarily divided. Even amongst my bubble featured here, we have agreed to disagree - leaving certain subjects abandoned and all opinions respected on every occasion.

One subject never abandoned? My obsession with taking their picture.

As a mother, I've I known for many years they hate posing and having me take their photo. I know they don't really want me to, yet cordially comply because they understand (in the end) it may be extremely important... To someone else. 

Thus making my photo taking philosophy the perfect mantra for what will make 2021 tolerable for all. 

In a nutshell? Take the high road and always play nice. 

Just like those in my tiny bubble do every time an impromptu photo op awkwardly presents itself!

MY HOLIDAY MUGGING

My hug-a-mugga-fulla-java holiday tradition I truly enjoy.
TAKEN: DECEMBER 24th (l-r 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020)

I am sipping a hot cup of coffee in my home office, while streaming the Hallmark Channel of traditional holiday tunes on Sirius. Like most with small children will be doing tomorrow, I am waiting for the sun to rise so I can greet this new day. 

Today is officially the holiday eve when the big fat guy in red loads up his sleigh, and parents everywhere prepare to search of AA batteries until midnight. Though I pride myself to have never gone overboard in the 'buying of crap department', this year I struggled to find the one thing I truly enjoy searching for: my silly holiday coffee mug. 

It started a few years back when I began embracing Instagram. The mug became a unique way to send best wishes to the masses whilst embracing my love of taking pictures. Not an online shopper, before purchasing this offering (the mug on the far right) I really did have to search high and low locally.  

In the end, I chose the one I did for the one-word explanation it illustrates. 

I literally stood in the store talking to myself, wishing the past year had brought more joy and far less angst in so many areas of my life. My 2020 choice resembles what I hope the future will unconditionally bring to everyone. JOY.

Merry Covid Christmas eve everyone. More importantly... 

Java GREAT day!

MY CHUCK B. TREE

Miss Annie alongside my wee Chuck B. tree.
TAKEN: DECEMBER 11th, 2020

The good news is the holiday countdown is officially on.  The bad news is, I managed to accidentally kill our very festive holiday tree. 

This year, after discovering there was a tree shortage, we picked the best of the height challenged from our local spot the end of November; then proceeded to load up a six-foot tree with the hundreds of lights that usually illuminated our regular nine-footer. 

In hindsight, I fear this was one of many deadly mistakes made.

A week or so in I noticed my wee Chuck B was not taking on water. The second week I noticed my holiday ribbon beginning to sag. Figuring he was sent to market a month before he became mine, then proudly jimmy rigged him on a glass table so his star could reach the ceiling (next to a large picture window), week three had the inevitable happened. Suffice it to say, I had to officially call his very brittle time of death. 

Not one to throw dead needles out before a celebration supper, I decided to refrain from plugging in my beloved 700+ lights until our upcoming Christmas morn. 

Meaning, the neatly wrapped gifts will be lit by a lighter shade of green on Chuck's last day, then I will have him serve as my annual Boxing Day quick burn bonfire sacrifice. In a non-religious or Game of Thrones kinda way!

Jokes aside, I’m not even remotely surprised about the general fate of my tree. As a matter a fact, as we head back toward grey-lockdown here in Ontario, I will just add it to my long list of... “I didn’t see that coming at me in 2020." Which also reinforces the important message my buddy Charlie Brown (aka - Chuck B) has been reminding me for decades: “It’s not what’s under the Christmas tree that matters. It’s who’s around it.” 

I guess the difference between this year and all others previous, is if you happen to be one of the five in my bubble on Christmas Day, I must ask that you please refrain from standing around the tree with any type of heat bearing or igniting thingamajigs.

Better yet, best ensure ugly holiday sweaters are both flame retardant and cover off at least two of the four hazard categories for arc protection and flame resistance: being the tree itself and a turkey that may burst into flames in the oven. 

Guess as a proactive measure, I should promise to have both fire extinguishers and garden hose on standby to keep our wee bubble of visitors safe from any potential and unexpected harm. Which is soothing in itself. 

But let's face it.... 

Who the hell worries about an ongoing lockdown and world pandemic risk when I'm the one cooking a butter-basted bird?!

#yagottalaughaboutit

SNOW IT STARTS!

The frozen precipitation I deem a constant irritant and source of months of personal misery landed last week. Allow me to draw to your attention to exhibit 'A' below: my frustrating flakey foe. Stupid f*cking snow! 

My pretty pups posing with my frozen foe!
TAKEN: NOVEMBER 16th, 2020

Dirty chirps aside, like I do every autumn, I force myself to push through this horrible six weeks of time change purgatory, until the days begin to get longer and the UV rays reflect off our pristine white blanket in January. 

With my seasonal affective disorder at its most debilitating in November, I always spend time looking for positive distractions. This electronic journal helped me in the fall of 2011 and in post Thanksgiving time changes since, I have leaned on it more often than not. 

This year, with all that's happening you would think I would want to write more, yet my creative canvas appears completely blank. Therefore, if writing isn't going to be where I channel my energy,  I have resigned myself to the fact that I am going to need another outlet. 

With that in mind, three weeks ago I took a giant step and dug out and dusted off my trustworthy treadmill. It stands proud upstairs, looking out the big picture windows and I enthusiastically offer it social niceties multiple times a day. 

So far, I have yet to plug the power cord into the wall and take it for a spin. Guess its because I'm a firm believer you can't rush back into a physical relationship, when you've completely ignored its purpose for over five years; which is why this weekend I shifted my focused to the upcoming holiday season. 

With the kids grown and gone, there isn't near as much to look forward to as their use to be, yet I do my best to get into the spirit of things. Though I never ask for anything, I do love to gaze at my Christmas tree lights each night for the entire month of December, bringing specific enlightenment to my earlier attempt at a new energy absorbing distraction. 

You see, I put my newly dusted off old chum in the very same spot I always put the holiday Christmas tree that houses those 500+ beautiful LED lights I love. 

Knowing Christmas lights trump everything, I am feeling very grateful I only ever offered a cheerful good morning to my buddy, never hopping on with false intentions. 

Because I know now, that we would have just gotten back into a familiar rhythm, and I would have had to fold 'er up and move 'em to the cold garage, alone, until early January 2021.  Once again proving, the creative process and this silly electronic journal offer me the crystal clear clarity and self enabling justification I crave this time of year. 

Which leaves me hollering, yet again.... Pass the chocolate cake, spark another Hallmark movie, and deck the freaking halls! 

Oh, before I forget. Is there anyone around next weekend to help me move a treadmill?

#yagottalaughaboutit