It’s the 4th day of 2015 and it is bitterly cold.  I am depleted of energy, ambition and creativity.  The cold has sapped me of all, though Sheba and I went around the neighbourhood in – 36 degrees C.  Perhaps I overdid it yesterday with the swimming and then a long trek in the dog park.  It wasn’t as cold then, but my phone and camera both died simultaneously.

I’m trying to find some oomph.  I thought I could bake myself out of this slump.  I bought out my baking sheets.  Then I put them back.  I’m sitting here at the keyboard.  My fingers are stiff and achy with the weather.  I’m pushing myself.  Just begin!  I scold myself.  Type one word, any word and the rest will come.  Does that sound familiar to you?  It does work, once you start and make a commitment.  Funny how that works.

I went to Nova Scotia once to meet a group of email friends I met on the internet.  We were from various locations in Canada and the United States.  It started out as a whim, just wishful thinking.  I was not am not adventuresome nor brave especially in the travel alone department.  But somehow I went alone to meet these people.  I had a car rented.  I don’t drive well direction-wise either.  With a car rented, I couldn’t just sit at the airport for a week, could I?  I had to begin.

I did get lost once or twice.  Most likely it was more often.  But I managed to meet up with my friends and spent a few days of good times in Halifax and thereabouts.  Then I went on solo to Prince Edward Island, the home of Anne of Green Gables.  I was so thrilled driving over the Confederation Bridge, all alone, by myself – the woman who still gets lost in her home city of Saskatoon!  And there I was – in Charlottetown.  I had someone snap this picture just to prove to myself that I was there.

Had I not made a start back in 2002, had I just dismissed the idea that I couldn’t – act on a whim, I would not have met all the wonderful people who are still my friends today.  We have lost two of these friends.  I would not have all these warm memories and pictures to rouse me out of my malaise to begin anything on this cold winter day.