The most important contributor to my healthy well-being is getting outside, enjoying the weather, and playing. And of those three the most important is the ability to play.

It doesn’t really matter if you’re playing golf, Scrabble, or just playing in the mud. The important thing is to enjoy as many moments as possible.

It can include small children, or just a few good friends. If you have to volunteer at a daycare centre or in a Children’s Hospital ward. Just don’t forget how to play.

Try to just get out there and do some mall walking, or snowshoeing, or just walking around the block, saying hi to everyone you see and smiling!!!

If you have the ability, go sledding, find a nice big hill and just go and laugh and have fun. If we quit having fun, we quit having joy.

GO PLAY!!!!

May I be safe. May I be healthy. May I be happy. May I live life with ease.

I can remember my mother telling me stories of when she was young and the work she had done helping this lady with a fur coat business. I could tell just by the sound of her voice that she was extremely proud of the hard work she had accomplished.

My mom would read any book that she could get her hands on. Her favorite, of course, were murder mysteries, or the Classics.

When I was around nine or 10 years old, she got a Readers Digest subscription. All those condensed novels were seen on her shelves. Those brown covers with the gold script. Tale of Two Cities. The Great Gatzby. All the classics. She would play guitar and sing the latest songs. Summer was outdoors, fishing, and gardens. But winter brought knitting, crocheting, reading, and tv.

One year, along with the Readers Digest that regularly came in the mail, my Mom ordered a Miniature Encyclopaedia of two volumes, a two volume dictionary, a huge World Altas with information about the earth, planets, stars, and the moon. One of my most vivid memories of that book was a picture of the Earth during the day, and the Earth during the night. You could see all the lights from all the cities from all over the world. And one of the greatest things that came with this package was a replica of the moon globe. As astronauts had taken walks in the Sea of Tranquility, I could find it on the moon globe. This was like magic for me be able to see exactly where they had walked.

One of the games my mom loved to play was she would find a name of a country or a city in the big Atlas and ask me to pronounce the words. She would laugh so hard as we went through Cucamonga and Kalamazoo and Zimbabwe. But it peaked my curiosity about other lands.

My mom loved the English language, mathematics, problem-solving, and learning about the world. She was a master of the New York Times crossword. She would set the timer and always beat the clock.

My father had a grade 8 education. A product of the dirty 30’s. Off to war as a merchant marine, and then to hard work. Generally, the men of Irish immigrants were good for labour jobs. They didn’t need a lot of other education. But my father was strong and he did have an excellent skill. As an ironworker he would walk 30 stories above the streets on a girder, carrying hot rivets and a riveting gun.

I always wondered as I got older why my mom stayed stuck. My dad could be extremely violent when he was drinking. And even though we lived on hardly nothing some winters, his pride would never have allowed us to get help from anyone. Or be conceived as not able to provide for his family by having his wife work.

Getting married at 16 years old and raising my three children, and being a stay at home mom, I dreamed of feeling something more, seeing something more, and being something more. I was stuck in my mom’s life. After my youngest went to school I was working. I took college courses while I worked but I was still at home with an alcoholic husband, cleaning fish, and raising chickens. Waiting for the guys to get back from fishing so I could feed them. I had never been out of my own province. After 17 years of marriage we made it to Kenora, a three hour drive from home.

I didn’t want to become the miserable housewife, knowing all that she had missed, all the dreams that couldn’t be fulfilled. I have no regrets. I have travelled to Europe and seen the most beautiful sights in the world. I have enjoyed success in both college and university. At the age of 65 I will now graduate high school. I have been able to dream. I have had a great love. I have been able to seek all the joys that this world has to offer me.

I’m sorry my mom never had anyone that could say go for it. You don’t have to have the same life that your parents and grandparents had, you can dream of a whole world that is at your fingertips. Don’t let others keep you down ever!!

Dream big!!!! Remember that your world is only limited by you!!!!

May I be safe. May I be healthy. May I be happy. May I live with ease.

I’m usually pretty peppy. But not this week. I started off with having to study all weekend for my exam. I realize that at 65 I’m a little stressed about having to write a mathematics exam. But I did something really stupid.

I haven’t eaten red strawberry liquorice Twizzlers since I was, I don’t know, 30. So of course I decide that I want to have some while I’m studying. Wow the next morning I wake up feeling like I’ve got big wad gum stuck in my intestine. I was sick all day. Chills. Went to bed completely dressed and the heating pad.

But this morning I wrote my mathematics exam. I’m pretty sure I did OK. And on the way back my stomach started to gurgle and I knew that this was not going to be an easy walk home. If you can imagine the picture of me trying to go as fast as I can to get home and hold my cheeks together at the same time, you got the picture. I just managed to get into the door at home before the explosion occurred. I am hoping that whatever this stomach bug was, that it is gone. I have two weeks off before my last course!! English!!

Higher education isn’t always an easy thing for anyone. But it’s part of my goal so in order to graduate I will study, get upset stomachs, and remember that eating junk food never ends well.

I was so excited about starting my tai chi classes again. Last night as I speed walked the 2km from work to get there, they had just started. And as he shows the first movement it felt like coming home again. But as we moved on to the second and third movements I realized that this isn’t what I remember. This isn’t what I did while I was in Cuba on a sandy beach.

I had asked him while in the middle of this class if the movements were in a different order than what I remembered from his last classes. He just smiled and nodded and said oh yes this is different. I ran this over in my head all night.

I went back and I looked at my 24 form Tai Chi videos on YouTube. These were the movements that I practised and tried to not forget.

So this morning I went, why am I stressing about this? I’m taking tai chi because it is so relaxing and it exercises all my arthritic joints, and my inner organs, and my happy feelings. I like taking the class with others to improve my social and physical health. If this class isn’t doing that why am I going?

Unfortunately I had to cancel my classes. But I see this as growth more than losing something. Prior to being happy, I would’ve not questioned why someone was making me uncomfortable. I would’ve just sucked it up and went with the program.

This was a situation where I am in control. I am deciding what makes me happy and what makes me uncomfortable. It is also a situation where I can decide if I have a choice or I don’t have a choice. I can weigh the seriousness of the situation. This is not life or death. Even though I struggled with this decision, I finally excepted that my feelings were the most important. My happy has to stay happy. And to have that happen I have to eliminate unnecessary stress.

I have to accept disappointment. I have to move on, let it go, and just keep finding my happy.

And just as I am finishing this blog, my Amazon package gets delivered. So excited to snowshoe in the bush. Sigh!!! It all works out in the end.

May I be safe. May I be healthy. May I be happy. May I live with ease.

So when those hemorrhoids are bothering you, and a friend reminds you they have no legs, smile and be kind, and know that the hemorrhoids are still a pain in the ass.

Or how to not hit rock bottom.

This morning I was messaging with one of my best friends Cindy. We were discussing how we love ourselves a little bit more and enjoy life a whole lot more than when we were swamped with stress, anxiety and anger. She happened to mention how hard it was staying out of the pit of depression. And I said that I was often standing on the edge looking down into the pit. She returned that message with, “Yep me too! 🤣 I can see us bungee diving into it – bounce bounce bounce bounce 😆”

So of course I told Cindy that I would be using this analogy in my blog. That is exactly like it is.

When you start to understand and use the tools that keep us calm, it does become a bungee jump. You have to be brave enough to take that jump in life, and yet your fear is unbelievable. But on that quick ride up you see the sunshine in the blue sky and life is worth living. As you learn to love yourself and accept yourself just the way you are, the length of time spent at the top becomes longer and longer.

May this day only bring you sunshine and blue skies.

May I be safe. May I be healthy. May I be happy. May I live with ease.

Or as Dad said, “Stop your crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!!!”

One thing I always hated as a child, was when my parents would be fighting, screaming at each other, calling each other names, and I in my bed could not stop crying. My father would come into my room and sit on my bed and scream, “If you don’t stop your goddamn crying I’ll give you something to cry about!”

I was terrified as a child. Very often my mother’s and father’s screams would result in my father hitting my mother. Or throwing something at her. So when he came into my room and sat on my bed and yelled at me to stop crying, every part of my body wanted to stop crying. I would hold my breath. Giant hiccoughs would result in me sucking air trying so hard not to make a sound. Yet even as a little kid I knew that if I could keep his attention with me long enough mom would be able to go to bed. And he might just sit down and fall asleep on the couch.

So yes in my own little world when problems come to me now I try to just stay calm and think of solutions. I don’t have a fear that I had then because I don’t have anyone screaming at me to stop crying.

With therapy and the love of my family and friends I have learned how to handle little things, and even the big things.

But I do realize that not everyone is as lucky. So when that person comes to you very upset about something that a lot of people would think they’d have gotten over by now, remember to not make them have to try to pretend not to be sad or not to cry over something that no one else understands. Kindness and compassion is the best gift towards healing emotional anguish. The best gift to receive and give to yourself. You deserve to be happy but are allowed your grief for the past.

Stay strong. Stay positive. It all works out in the end.

We didn’t have much as kids and we didn’t socialize with other families in town, so there were no birthday parties or spontaneous buying of gifts. But at Christmas, great gifts would miraculously appear under the tree.

For my 10th birthday my parents bought me a small Kodak camera. A roll of film and a package of flashbulbs. Christmas morning ice fog had frost on every tree outside. For the first time I was able to capture beauty. I used up the whole roll of film and my mother paid to get the pictures developed. In black-and-white of course. I would gaze in wonder remembering the spectacular beauty.

Times got tougher soon after that and we could no longer afford to buy any more film or have any more pictures developed.

When I got married at 16 and my husband was 19, the one thing we owned was a Polaroid camera. We took lots of pictures of our children. Plus pictures of each other. I have always been grateful that he always wrote the month and year on the back of every picture. But it was never my camera, or always my choice of what picture I thought would be good.

Roll 18 years ahead, getting divorced, starting with nothing, and my daughter is going to be graduating. I had managed to be able to get a few things together and I saved enough to buy a small camera. So I was able to take pictures and memories again and get them developed.

That camera lasted me 10 years. It captured my daughter’s university graduation, my second love of my life, Brian and my first Christmas together. I first seen the Rockies with that camera. The pictures were beautiful but I knew they could be better but that was a big cost. And during most of those years I paid child support for my youngest son and helped my daughter as much as possible to subsidize her student loan. So no fancy camera.

By Christmas 2001 I had 6 very successful and kind children. They knew due to an inheritance, that I was going to get on a plane for the first time in my life and fly to Europe for almost three weeks in May of 2002. So they got together and bought me a pocket digital Canon. The autofocus feature took fantastic pictures. The memory card could hold thousands of pictures. I went through a lot of AA batteries in those three weeks. Belfast, Amsterdam, Lucerne, Venice, Rome, Florence, Vienna, and Paris. A photographer’s dream.

That little camera lasted me over 15 years. I just finally started to realize all the different settings I could use on it, and that it could take lenses. The collection of pictures during that period were spectacular. I loved it. During all my times of depression the one thing that always brought me out of it and out into the world was my camera.

So I then decided to semi-retire and move to Selkirk and lo and behold my little camera was lost. I don’t know if it got put into a box and got thrown out. It may have even gotten left in the rental car that I had and just never got returned. For years after, I would hope that maybe here is where I decided to tuck it away. But never found. Finances were a little tight due to reduced income so I convinced myself my iPhone was good enough. And I did have some fantastic photos but they would be blurry when enlarged. If a wanted a 8×10 the picture wasn’t sharp. I wanted sharp.

Then came the time when I was feeling really good about my life both emotionally and financially. I had turned 65 and I decided to complete two of my bucket list items. Graduate high school and travel to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and the Cabot Trail.

Just prior to my birthday a friend asked me to take their wedding pictures. And so I decided to buy my dream camera. So late one night I clicked on my Amazon and ordered this wonderful camera kit. All kinds a little accessories. The second part of the order was the book Canon Rebel T7 for Dummies.

The wedding pictures were fantastic. And the east coast pictures unbelievable.

I finally again realized my dream of capturing the beauty of trees painted with frost. Dreams may take a while but they do come true.

Prior to the Covid restrictions I had really enjoyed tai chi classes. They were held at a local high school and the instructor was extremely knowledgeable, and extremely patient with our group.

There are all kinds of advantages to taking Tai Chi including flexibility, meditation, and relaxation. It is an age old form of martial arts. When you learn the movements correctly, when done quickly, they can incapacitate an opponent. I don’t wanna do that so much.

But back in 2019 I was on a nice soft beach in Cuba. The soft sand was warm beneath my feet as the morning sun was rising. There were a few others on the beach and I decided to do my tai chi. I closed my eyes, I slowly recited and repeated my mantra, and I completed my tai chi movements. I reached an inner peace that I had never ever felt in my life. I can’t even find the words to describe it. It was like I was one with me. For maybe the first time in my life I didn’t care who may be watching me. I wasn’t concerned where anybody else was. And all I cared about was enjoying the moment.

And next week I will be back to tai chi classes. I wish that I would be able to practice at home or at the park or anywhere without having to worry that somebody’s watching me. But you know what, I feel better about me than I did even four years ago. I’m really gonna love this.

May I be safe. May I be healthy. May I be happy. May I live with ease.

Four little phrases: May I be safe. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I live with ease. (Repeat)

These four little phrases brings calm from the panic, breathing from hyperventilating, and happiness from the madness.

I was very lucky to have a fantastic psychologist that knew so much about cognitive therapy. This was the first book she recommended that I read.

A long time ago a friend of mine gave me the book Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff by Richard Carlson. And even though it told me not to sweat the small stuff, my mind was filled with anxiety about all the small stuff. I had a virtual cornucopia of small stuff. Words ran around in my head constantly about the small stuff. I dreaded the thought of a crisis happening. And so I would plan on what I would do if the crisis happened.

And when a large problem did happen I had no room in my brain to process it all. I would often get past the crisis, but I would definitely go into a deep depression after. I would be back to the little girl curled up in my bed with Kleenex and crying it all out.

As I lay there no clichés or words of positive thinking could help. My head was full of all the questions. Why did I do that? What other words could I have used? Will they still like me? What if I would’ve done it this way? What if I lose everything? What if nobody loves me?

These four little phrases have given me the ability to calmly and rationally have time to think. It gives me time to have clarity. It gives me the time to remember that I am a pretty smart intelligent and independent woman.

So if all the crew are deciding that they’re all going to go for the self-improvement goals for the new year, you only need one goal. No it’s not lose a whole bunch of weight. It’s not exercising more. It’s just learning to love yourself. To have some care and compassion for the human that you are. Because if you learn to love yourself you learn to care about yourself. And everything else just falls into place.

May I be safe. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I live with ease.

Have the best year ever!!

Happy New Year 2023