Happy New Year’s Eve. It’s another beautiful sunny afternoon – not at all our typical December 31. It looks like October or early November. Still no snow. I think there are no more typical anything or back to the normal. We have to embrace change and learn to speak and do different. We have to stop clinging to the past and old cliches. We have to be brilliant so we can be resilient.
You know it. Those are my words for the new coming year. Resilience was my first choice. But when I saw the be brilliant sign, it grabbed me, too. I like to shine once in awhile. I don’t like being dark and gloomy all the time. What better time to shine than at the brink of the new year? I have to put up signs to remind me to glow instead of glower which is my nature. I have my work cut up for me living my words.
The sun has finally risen, lighting up my world. I’m happy to see it. I’m feeling my moody blues coming on. I’m treading carefully, not making any quick decisions or moves. I was thinking of thinning more out of my closets and drawers. I nixed the idea and to wait for a better time. Not having anything of urgency on my to do list today, I feel it’s ok to just wallow in whatever it is here for me now. I can just relax into my mood.
It is the perfect morning to have another cup of tea and finish watching an episode of Lewis on Prime Video. It did help to ease my moody mind. I’m ok with feeling what I am feeling. I’m focused enough now to sit here and tap out a few words and thoughts. I’m wearing a jacket I was gathering for the goodwill bin. I tried it on, discovered it still fits and match what I am wearing. Looks pretty good, doesn’t it? It is keeper. I will throw out something else in its stead.
I am not so full of vim and vinegar today. I am relying on good habits to help me along. It’s a good thing I’m reading Atomic Habits at the moment. It contains many good ideas and motivates me in moments like today. It’s like that light in the tunnel that keeps beckoning me forward.
The plantar fasciitis in my left foot is better today. I dare not feel too gleeful. I am tempted to head out for a walk around the block. The sun beckons.
My foot is feeling a little better. I’m planning my movements before I move. Before I get out of bed in the morning I do some ankle circles, point and flex my toes. They get a workout before they hit the floor. I take care not to stand too long and not make long treks through the mall. I’m driving around the outside of the mall to access the stores. I’m exercising my brain instead of my feet.
It’s a bit of a shame because the weather is sunny and warm. It’s good weather for walking – for healthy feet. Last year this time we were cross country skiing almost every day at the Wildwood Golf Course. It looks like there won’t be any skiing any time soon. We’ve been hitting the gym these mornings. It’s good to have alternatives.
The weight scale is dipping a wee bit for me. Dieting hasn’t worked for me yet, so I am not. Cutting back makes me want more and think about food all the time. Instead, I try to eat wisely and healthy so that I don’t have sugar lows and cravings. Time will tell if it works. Meanwhile washing dishes still gives me pleasure and a sense of order. I’m getting pretty efficient at it, too. It feels good to be good at something and have even a small measure of success. It keeps me going.
I am disappointed that I’ve stumbled and did not show yesterday. I left coming to the keyboard late. I did some shopping for my parents in the afternoon. It required some walking. My plantar fasciitis flared. It was slow and painful making my way through the mall. I came home tired and hungry. You know what happens then.
I had to make myself a cuppa, put my feel up and had a snack. My energy and willpower flagged. I lost myself in watching Lewis on Prime Video. British crime shows are great stress relaxers for me. They do eat up a lot of time being 90 minutes long. It was supper time when the show was over. But it was so worth it. I needed that! I felt rested.
We went out for supper. I had been looking so forward to having fish and chips at Pink Cadillac. Having had it, I am disappointed. It wasn’t that bad. It was big enough, unlike the skimpy thin ones I had at Red Lobster a few weeks ago. But it was a bit over fried. It seems like they were better in my memory and in the past. Disappointment aside, it dampened my desire for eating up for awhile and for fish and chips. There seemed to be not just a few weighty customers. The only slim jims were the waiters.
Did I tell you that I plan to lose 10 pounds and keep it off? I guess I should cross out fish and chips on my list. Mmm. Now in my head I’m seeing that banana split floating by to the next table.
It’s a beautiful sunny Boxing Day afternoon. All is calm. All is bright. It’s 5℃ out and 6.2℃ in the greenhouse. I’ve seeded a small tray of lettuce greens in anticipation of our present weather trend of warm temperatures and no snow.
I’m deeply immersed in reading A Thousand Acres. Did you know it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1992? It was hard to tear myself away to write this post. I’m on a streak of showing up now every day for a week. I don’t want to break the cycle and end up in a slump before January. I’m practicing discipline and succeeding.
I’m not doing as well rehabbing the fasciitis in my foot. It is a very slow process. It is very discouraging since I am faithfully doing the exercises every day. I’m learning patience and forbearance. I have to remember that Rome was not built in a day. And I have been careless and abusive with my feet since summer. So now I have to put in the time to heal it. I have numerous resources on treatment besides YouTube. One thing for sure is there are no quick fixes.
There are no quick solutions to lose some of the holiday fat either. It’s another slow and discouraging process. It keeps coming back again and again like a bad penny. But that’s something we can talk about tomorrow. I have to get back to my book. It’s calling me and I have to get up and move.
And so it is Christmas, a sunny warm afternoon. It is 0℃ outside and 4℃ in the greenhouse. The forecast is for above 0 temperatures for the next few days. Who would have thought? I think I’ve shut down the greenhouse too soon. This is probably the year I could have lettuce all year long. It is not too late. I shall seed some greens inside and move them out to the greenhouse once they’ve germinated and grown some. The days are getting longer now. More daylight and sun.
And so it is Christmas. Not doing much. I would go for a walk except that I have plantar fasciitis in my left foot. It would be a painful and slow walk. But I finally got my concentration mojo back and am reading A Thousand Acres, a novel by Jane Smiley. It was highly recommended by whom I can’t remember. It’s been sitting in my Libby app on my iPad for a long while. It’s a very good read about family dynamics and drama – an appropriate topic for this time of the year.
So this is Christmas 2023. I have enjoyed it. Hope you have, too. Looking forward to what will come. Maybe there’ll be snow and we can go for a ski or two. Certainly the days will be longer and lighter.
It’s a sunny Christmas Eve afternoon. There’s no sign of a white Christmas. I’m making sticky rice as my contribution to our family meal at my brother’s this evening. I’m not at all in a yuletide mood. But my mind is cast back to my childhood memories of winter solstice and New Year in China.
Though we have left China behind, my mother have kept some of the traditions alive. Now that she can no longer make the traditional dishes, she has instilled the love of Chinese food in me. Enough so that I can sort of fake a dish or two. There’s YouTube now with instructions for any dish you can think of. It’s too late for Winter Solstice but I can make rice dumplings for New Year’s. Chinese New Year would even be better. It would give me more time to prepare. Here’s an excellent video on how.
New Year was an exciting time for me as a child. All the aunties would get together on the eve and spend the night cooking up all kinds of pastries. I can still hear the murmur of their voices as they tend the fire and pots while I lay upstairs in bed, fighting sleep. It was a magical time. I would wake in the morning to find a new outfit to wear and a little red envelope.
Now back to my sticky rice. I use a fail-safe recipe by Amy and Jacky. It is cooking in the Instant Pot after a little mishap. I was forgetful and not paying attention. I started pouring water into the pot then realizing the liner pot was not in it! Lucky it was just a little water and it came out the bottom. I was afraid it might short circuit the electrical and wreck the pot. I used my hairdryer to blow dry everything. It worked. Saved for another day!
There’s something very pleasing about washing dishes. It soothes and smooths me, much like tapping on the keyboard. It’s easier though. It requires no thinking. I turn on the tap and away I go, scrubbing one thing after another. Then there’s the rinsing and putting it on the rack to dry. It’s a dance of the dishes – scrub, rinse and dry.
It has a calming effect on me when I am at a loss of what and how to do. A dance session at the sink settles my nerves and erratic thoughts. By the end all the scrambled thinking falls into their rightful places like – pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I feel such pleasure at this moment. I sink into it so that I can remember and conjure it up when there are no dishes to do.
In the moment, I am in the flow. I am one with the Universe. In the moment, I know what and how to do. The words and ideas find their way to me. And I tap them onto the page before they are lost.
I have not been feeling like myself for awhile. How long I can’t tell. You know how it is when life happens and you have to respond. Things creep up and your usual self slowly erodes. Other times you get hit with a monkey wrench. You get knocked to the ground. You learn how to get up but things are never the same. You give your whole being into surviving. You live and you think you are doing hunky-dory. Then you wake up.
So this is where I am at. I’m waking up as from an enchanted sleep to find things and I have not been so hunky-dory. For one thing I’ve lost the pleasure of doing anything. I feel overwhelmed and tired just thinking about it. Perhaps that’s the thing – overthinking. The other trouble is that I’m getting more forgetful. It’s frightful – enough to wake me up to do something about it. It’s easy and comfortable to coast, to scroll and let social media and Prime Video entertain and comfort me. There’s no risk of failure or rejection. But it does kill the brain and spirit.
I’ve waken up and stepping out again into my old self. I want to be a better version, a new self. I’m finding Atomic Habits a helpful tool. I’m a self-help junkie. I have to be careful not to get addicted to just gathering self-help books and courses. I have to work it. Being only 3 days in, it is too early to brag but I have shown up every day and writing. I am exercising my dendrites to snap more efficiently. And I am starting to feel pleasure in doing again. It’s an awesome start.
I will always remember my first Christmas and year in Canada. My father and his cousin had a cafe in Maidstone, Saskatchewan. We (my parents, my sister and I) lived on the second floor for the first while. We had 2 adjoining rooms. Cousin Gary and his wife and their nephew also shared the upstairs. That first Christmas did not really leave a huge or any impression on me. There was a tree, what you might call a Charlie Brown one, in the dining room. My sister and I got our pictures snapped in front of it as you can see.
But we did not celebrate with presents, baking and a Christmas meal – not that I can remember. The tree was on display for customers. I was too young and new in Canada to be disappointed or have any feelings about the whole Christmas thing. Those came later. We moved out of the cafe into a tiny house in the back of the cafe when my brother came along. That Christmas we didn’t have a tree, presents or any of what you would do for Christmas. We were poor though I didn’t know it. I was still unimpressed and unaffected.
Our fortune slowly improved. We moved to a bigger house with a living room and 2 bedrooms. I had my own bedroom for a short while until our grandparents came to live with us. Then I had the top of a bunkbed while my sister had the bottom in the living room. My baby brother shared with my mother. My father stayed at the cafe during the week. By that time we had a Christmas tree and some new clothes.
It was about that time I started feeling a ‘gap’ between me and the universe, that I did not fit in. And I’m missing out. Embarrassment is perhaps what I felt. Now I’m back where I began long ago – no Christmas tree and no presents. I’m also not impressed or affected. I’m no longer embarrassed if I’m not fitting in. I’m not totally humbug though. I believe in the spirit of Christmas. It can be celebrated in many ways and on all days.
onethousandandtwo 