I’m working right now and of course that takes up valuable time.  LOL.  But it is only part time, so I still have some time at my disposal.

I guess I should cut myself some slack.  I’m working part time and I am also studying at the Gestalt Institute.  I also have my commitments to my spiritual community and students, and every once in a while to my dad, taking him to appointments and such.

In December, I took a course on how to do hypnosis.  I am now a Certified Consulting Hypnotist!  Yes!  And right now, I think most of my anxiety centers around starting up some kind of practice and applying what I’ve learned.

I mostly hope to use my knowledge to help people in a clinical way, not in a “stage” way.  I’m already helping my sister to lose weight!

The course I took showed me just how subtle yet effective hypnosis is.  I’ve finished the course, but I’m still practicing to increase my confidence.  But I’m fully qualified right now.

I’ve got so much to do in order to set up a practice.  It isn’t so much that I don’t have time, I guess.  It’s that the time that I have is not used in an efficient way.  I find ways of avoiding doing some things because I’m scared!  Knowing that I’m qualified and that I would do a great job is nothing compared with the great unknown of marketing and getting clients.  Doing something well is just one tiny part of what makes up a practice.   Sigh.  And as for time, it is a fact that it takes time to build up a client base.

Oh, and did I mention that everything costs money?  Add a log to the anxiety fire!

I will keep you updated, both on my hypnosis, and on my progress in my Gestalt classes.  Gestalt is an ongoing thing.  I’m in year 2 of a 4 year program.

Posting on WordPress has become a bit of a chore lately.  WordPress wants its bloggers to “upgrade to pro”.  And one of the ways they’re making the upgrade more appealing is by making it sooo slow to do anything with a blog that you’ll do anything to change it.  Editing, uploading pictures, publishing.  Everything.  Painfully slow.

And so, even though writing isn’t a problem for me, writing on my blog is, and I don’t approach blogging with the joy I used to.

Wednesday last week was the 1 year anniversary of when my mom died. That day was quite similar to the actual day, but last week didn’t have quite as much snow.  It felt the same.  Dreary.  And it seemed to me that it was extra dark, but again, that could have been my perception!

I think about my mom every day, but on the anniversary I had forgotten, briefly, about the significance of the day.  But it soon came to me.

I called my dad and we talked for a while, like it wasn’t on our minds.  As I was finishing the call, I finally said, “I guess I don’t need to say anything about what day it is”.  We never said anything overt, but we were both holding back tears when we hung up.

I wrote a cryptic Facebook status about remembering and went about my day as best I could.  I was ok until I was riding the bus home and had time to think.  I looked out the window and hoped I hid my sadness.

I have started a new job and a new course since my mom died.  I keep busy.  Not in order to forget or pretend it didn’t happen, but to carry on and hopefully improve my life.

I wish I would have done that while she was alive, so I could give her something to be proud of.  She never said she wasn’t proud of me, but I certainly could have done better.

It’s a funny thing, perception.  I had a great time on Halloween handing out candy at a friend couple’s place, and we were out on their porch in our costumes.  It was warm enough to stay out for a while without coats, so that was great.  But after a while, it became chilly and we went inside.

Halloween has always been a bit of a barometer of how Fall is doing, weather wise.  All of the mothers with kids dressed like the dinosaur we saw, where the kid was inside a costume of hot material, were praying that it would be cool.

All of the young women who wanted to dress in skimpy, sexy outfits were hoping it would be warm.  Probably the young men, too!

So, it sticks in my mind, what it was like that night.  I have my perceptions about November, too.  I measure each November with how I feel because Erin always goes out of town for a week.  And I’m always dying to go to the Royal Winter Fair, but it usually falls on the same week that Erin is away, and it’s no fun to go by yourself,  so I usually don’t.  So poor November comes off as a time of sadness, of darkness and of cold.

But this year, Erin was here, so we went to the Royal Winter Fair last Saturday.  I love the fair!  And it has been sunny, too!  The light is uplifting.  Not the usual rainy and cold month.

Erin always laughs when I say things like, “It’s getting dark earlier than ever this year”, because the sun and earth have not changed position, and it is getting dark at exactly the same time as it was before.  It’s just my perception of it.

In a few months, I will notice that spring has come earlier than ever this year, too!  LOL.

Timeshares make vacationing more affordable.  Instead of, say, buying a whole cottage and maintaining it, you invest in building the resort and only have to pay maintenance fees for the time you are there.

I invested in the building of the resort, and worried at the time if there was actually going to be a resort built, or if it would be any good.

The resort more than met my expectations.  It has gone through some rough patches and economic hard times, but has come through it all, lo these 27 years.

The money I put into it for maintenance has been well spent, too.  There have been multiple upgrades and changes as the years have gone by, and I think some wise choices have been made in that regard.

As an owner, I feel like I have a say, as well.  I like to think I was the one who’s comments drove them to start up recycling (before it was cool-LOL).  If I need anything from the concierge, it is given immediately.

But there has also been a huge change in the small town that the resort is in.  It has never been easier to get to, and the hidden hiking spots that Erin and I used to enjoy have lots of advertising and signage.

I have such mixed feelings about that.  Easy access means that more and more people are coming up and the places that Erin and I would go to that were previously not so well known are now seen by more people.  It used to be that we could go waterfall exploring and hardly come across another person.  Now, my heart sinks when we arrive at a formerly quiet, isolated place and there are a bunch of cars parked there.

I can see that the small towns in and around the area where the resort is need the income that tourists bring.

I’m also aware that when my resort was built back in the day, there were probably people cursing it and saying that it would ruin the place.  So, I guess I can’t really justify my feeling that the whole area is  “mine”.

But I’m disappointed that houses have been built along parts of the Georgian Trail.  It’s like walking through suburbs.  Yuck!

I can’t imagine how many more people go to the resort area in summer than in the fall.  I don’t mind seeing people so much, but sometimes they are loud and I’ve actually seen garbage on the trails.  I mean, come on!  Who goes to the outdoors and then litters?

But there are so many good adventures I could write about, too.  And I will!

Of course, now that I’m back I can only think of how the house can use a cleaning and that laundry has to be done.  Vacation over!

She has to be one of the cutest cats I’ve ever known.  Sometimes, I look at her and I almost get overwhelmed because I can’t believe how cute she is.  She’s  waiting at the door when I come in, and she sits on my lap all the time.

She often “talks” too.  Meow, meow.  That’s why her name is Gabby!

She licks my face in the morning to wake me up.  Oddly enough, her tongue isn’t as harsh as a usual cat tongue.  She’ll meow early in the morning for a while, but has learned that it doesn’t get the desired  response, and that I’m not getting up to feed her, so she is slowly beginning to stop it.  I have found that if  I go out to the food bowl,  it isn’t empty at all.  She just wants company, I guess.

She is my workout “buddy”.  She makes sure that she lies right in the middle of my workout mat, so I have to work around her.  She licks the salt off me when I’m doing floorwork.  She once crawled on to my chest when I was doing crunches.  Well, that added to the difficulty factor! Thanks for the help.

When I’m on all fours, doing leg and thigh lifts, she gets under me and plays with the tie strings on my yoga pants.  Every once in a while, a stray claw hits my stomach.  Oh well.  Having her under my legs while I’m on all fours ensures that I don’t let my legs drop, so I guess she is good motivation.  Again, with the helpfulness!

Oh, Gabby.  You are truly in my life now, and integrated into all the aspects of what I do.  And I’m really happy about that!

Really?  Is that the biggest beef of your day?

It never ceases to amaze me how even the most progressive people can shrivel down when faced with the prospect of learning something new and having to change.  However insignificant the learning and changing is.

In a week’s time, those people who were spitting fire and “threatening” to cancel their Facebook account (take THAT, Zuckerberg!) will be quietly Facebooking away, having endured the mild discomfort of the “unknown” that has no dire consequences.

But I’m tired of hearing about Facebook and terrible human suffering.  That’s all I am saying about it at this time.

I currently have a luxury that most writers don’t have.  Time.  I have time that I can use to write, but I find all kinds of different fires to put out throughout the day.  And my writing takes a back burner.

It is said that if you set goals, you shouldn’t start with a goal like, “I’m going to write a novel”.  You should start off with, “Let me write 10 pages a day” or “Let me find a publisher who will like the idea of my novel” and then, “Let me have the courage to send my novel manuscript to this publisher”.

It just seems so much easier to think about the outcome of having a novel published.  First of all, in your fantasies the hard work is done, no payment negotiations or lawyers, and of course it is a best seller.  In your fantasies, the money pours in, and you have your days to yourself, not chained to a 9-5 job with its commute and working with other people.

That is the lure.  You think, “Yeah.  I can do that if I want”. Like at any time, if you felt like trying, you could achieve that.  But you don’t feel like it right now.

Yeah.  I’m too cool to try.  But by not trying, I’m not even achieving failure!

Like a majority of the people served by the CNIB, my dad isn’t fully blind but has sight impairment.   He has what is referred to as low vision, so he can see, but when he goes inside after being outside in the brightness, his eyes don’t adjust well.  Also, while he can see the outline of my face, he can’t see it fully because there is a black area of blocked vision.  We marveled that he said his vision was so bad but he did crossword puzzles.  We just didn’t know how long it took him or how he went about it.

When my mom was sick, we got angry at him for complaining about his sight, when my mom was going through, well, fucking cancer!  But he was feeling extra vulnerable at the time, so I can’t blame him.  We were all under stress and not at our best.

Seeing him go through the assessment,  I was astounded at the amount of real difficulty he lives with, and the ways he has found of getting around his problems.  Before my mom got sick, I’m sure she did a lot of small things for him that made his life easier.  But now that she is gone, he has learned to adapt.  I know that it is best to have him do what he has to do with a minimum of help.  Otherwise, he could never live independently.

There are so many things that the CNIB has that make living with vision impairment easier.  I went to their store a couple of days ago to pick up a few things.  Little did I know that the right kind of black magic marker pen would make my dad so happy.  He could now see what was written in his crossword puzzles and also find his “word find” markings much easier.  And while the ink makes an easily seen dark, bold line, it doesn’t bleed through the paper.  The magnifying glass with the built in light that I bought was just the thing, too!

Dad also has diabetes, which doesn’t help, and has some bearing on his sight.  Just after the Low Vision Specialist from the CNIB left, I went with him to the lab where he gets monthly blood tests done to monitor his diabetes.

I should have warned him.  Just like when I went to medical appointments with my mom, it took longer than usual for him to get his blood drawn.  I swear,  I’m a curse of long waiting to anyone that I go to medical appointments with!

It was so nice to get an invitation and as soon as we could confirm plans, we gratefully RSVP’d.

The thing about going up to a cottage is that once you are there, you forget about how hideous the traffic was to get there and you leave it behind.  Until you have to plan a leaving time.   Traffic returning home was a nightmare.  But it was worth it!

The cottage was located in an area that is touristy yet not too built up, and features lot’s of woods. Of course,  the outstanding feature there is  the Canadian Shield, which makes itself known by appearing almost as rock walls on the side of the highways, and showing through the woods as  bald patches of stone in the landscape.

It is one of my favourite sights. Anyone familiar with the Group of Seven paintings would recognize it immediately.  The rock is not jagged, but rounded and smooth, and often covered with soft lichen or moss.  If there is any soil there, scraping off an inch of it will reveal solid rock underneath. There are the lovely muskeg swamps dotting the scene, too.  In addition to it’s distinctive look, this land has it’s own pleasant smell, like freshness, soil and dead pine needles.  Lovely.

But the beautiful land was only a backdrop for the wonderful hospitality that was enjoyed at the cottage.  We were greeted by foxes first thing when we got there.   We felt terrible that we had nothing to offer the foxes because they were clearly used to getting fed.  I know, I know.  You shouldn’t feed the wildlife.  But look into those sweet fox faces and tell them that!

Our hosts  made us both feel so welcome and there could not have been better companions for our driving tour of the near north of Ontario.  Erin’s folk are from that area, and he is full of information and entertaining stories about it.

And the food!  So much food.  And the food tasted so good because it was shared with such good company.

I didn’t swim as much as Erin, but I really enjoyed the swimming that I did.  The water of Georgian Bay is cold, but it is very clear and clean.  The bottom was stony,  not weedy, and part of the adventure of swimming is getting in and out.  The cottage was right at the shoreline, and the “shore” was actually rock that went right into the water.  Getting out on the slippery rock proved to be a challenge, but well worth it.  Luckily, there weren’t many witnesses to my indignity as I  crawled out of the water like some kind of primordial whale.

I cant thank my hosts enough for inviting us and making us feel so welcome.  And the land, though formidable, welcomed us as well in it’s own stalwart way.

If all of the postings on Facebook and articles written are any indication, he was much beloved. One hears stories over and over again about how Jack Layton took the extra time and went the extra mile to make someone feel remembered, and cared about.  He was known for standing up for people and their families, and for social justice

It is a hallmark of his party, the New Democratic Party, to stand up for social justice.  Sadly, it has meant that they tend to appeal to those in society who have the least amount of power, and so the best they have managed up until now was being the Official Opposition party.

The New Democratic Party has produced some amazing leaders (Stephen Lewis comes to mind), but they have never been Prime Minister.  A loss for Canada.

I guess what hit me about Jack Layton as well, was how I related to his cancer.  My mom had a good prognosis when her cancer was first discovered, and what seemed overwhelming at first slowly began to look like  something that could be overcome.  Jack Layton had seen his father survive the same kind of cancer and his wife Olivia Chow had beaten thyroid cancer, too.

I had no idea at the time when my mom was sick that cancer was something that had individual treatments, based on the person and their type of cancer.  Hearing the word cancer applied to a loved one seemed like a death sentence.  I had no previous experience with cancer, and so, while I feared the word cancer and knew it was bad, I had also heard survivor stories.   It was exciting that something could be done.

I am still amazed at the amount of hope I had. I really thought she was going to make it.  That was just about a year ago.  I fell into the same trap when I heard Jack Layton had cancer, but this time I’ll admit to a little more reservation.  I saw his pictures, and they didn’t look that good. And while that gave me a twinge of concern, I still thought he would be around to shine as the opposition leader.

It really hit me when I read these words from his  letter to Canadians:  “Unfortunately my treatment has not worked out as I hoped”.  I guess I’m just the kind of person who can know that someone has cancer, and still be so shocked when it actually turns out to be fatal.