it's getting to me

The days are short and dark. It's cold and icy. And we've all been sick for weeks. I'm finding winter hard this year.

Yet I feel healthier today than I have in weeks. I need to get outside in daylight hours. I need to get moving.

I'm trying to develop a more positive attitude towards winter. Maybe I'll even grab my skates and go check out the canal. It's time to embrace winter.

Or maybe I should join a gym. Read a good book. Watch Netflix while I knit.

Or bury my head under the covers until it's over.

What do you do to cope with winter?

Update:

of high tech and low humour

I just learned that my most recent brain MRI is clear. I'm feeling greatly relieved. It's not that I have any symptoms (although who doesn't get headaches?) but the long wait for results (10 days, when it usually takes less than a week) had me worried.

And then there's the fact that Herceptin doesn't cross the brain blood barrier. 

But for now, all is well and I can worry a little less for another three months.

The nurse did ask me if I have had a sinus infection. She said they mentioned it in the MRI report. That's some pretty high tech diagnostics.

Also, Tim wants me to make sure and include his joke: "They scanned your brain and they didn't find anything."

i want more

We've all been sick, these last couple of weeks. It seems that as soon as one virus leaves, another sweeps through. Or perhaps it's all the same bug. At the moment, I have a sinus infection that used to be a cold and my 10 year old has a fever that used to be an ear infection. We've been through a lot of facial tissue (my father worked for a subsidiary of Scott when I was a child. I try hard not to call them Kleenex).

I think that ill health is likely why the only resolution I've come up with is to check all our pockets before loading the washing machine. Raging head colds don't lend themselves to introspection.

But I have been thinking a lot about the kind of life I'd like to be leading and of the kind of change that's within my control. What it comes down to is that I want more. Not more stuff or more obligation, pressure, failure or shame. I want more love, more play, more laughter, music and creativity.

The tricky part is getting there. There are things I need to do to have more of what's good but I have to make sure I don't fall prey to what's bad. Exercise is great for me but instead of beating myself up for not racking up the minutes I've set as an arbitrary goal, I can go for a walk. Writing feeds my soul. Except when I'm stuck. Then, I can pick up my journal. Or my knitting. And if I get sucked down the rabbit hole that is the internet, well that's OK too. I can always do things differently tomorrow.

I think I'm trying to say that there is a corrollary to "I want more" and that's "Be nice to yourself." So I guess those are my resolutions for 2014. It hope it still makes sense when the cold dope wears off.




It was only after I'd drafted this post that I remembered that Lynn Miles said it before me and best.

This song is from the album "Downpour." I've bought it 5 times so far and you should too.

in others words

I have pre-empted my scheduled blog post because the internet kind of exploded last night and it spilled over into today. The whole thing made me so emotional as to be almost inarticulate with rage. Luckily, there have been several good pieces published today that make my words unnecessary.

Sorry for being so cryptic. Just click through. You'll understand.

"On Live-Tweeting One's Suffering" (Megan Barber in The Atlantic)

"Bill and Emma Keller’s bizarre pieces about cancer patient Lisa Adams" (Daniel D'Addario, Salon)
"I have cancer. And I'll write about it as much as I fucking want." (Bob LeDrew, Medium)

best gingerbread house ever

I'm feeling like it's time to start blogging again but as I come out of the post-holiday post-headcold (and it was a doozy) fog, I'm finding that I'm not quite ready to jump into the blogging pond.

Instead, I'll dip my toe in and share this with you. I do think it's the best gingerbread house I have ever seen.

Those are heads growing out of the roof. My 10 year old has the best imagination. Or perhaps the most twisted. Either way, I love it.