Tag Archives: last day

The Last Day

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Today is the last day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. To everything there is a beginning and an ending. It is only right I should come and close up shop. I’ve already did an assessment yesterday. There’s no need for another. There’s not much left to say. I have noticed this time around, many are writing and posting early and earlier in the day. There’s not much traffic quite early in the afternoon. It did give me a sense of abandonment in the beginning. I got over it and did not feel the need to hurry. So now I am just limping leisurely across the finish line. It is only 1:30 pm in my neck of the woods.

My life feels so busy nowadays. I am retired. I wonder how I managed when I was still working. Likely I wasn’t. But that is water under the bridge. Everything works out at the end. I am happy to be finished but I will be back for the next UBC. I am a week behind in the Inktober Challenge. I can catch up. There’s no rush.

Last Day

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It’s the last day of May and what have I to show? Not alot but I thought I should show up and wrap up the month of May. It is hard to be cheerful and optimistic when the world is a fire hazard. The other day our premier declared a state of emergency after Manitoba declares provincewide state of emergency over wildfires. Yesterday our sky was grey. There was no sun. The air was acrid with smoke. The air quality index was 11. Today the sun came through but so did the smoke. The air qulaity index right at the moment is 9 which is worse than same time last night. I hope it’s not the trend for the summer.

I’m hoping for rain. We’ve only had 2 rains this year. We’re lucky we have many rain catchments. It helps to water the greenhouse, fill the raised beds and water the garden. When life gets hard, I resort to turning on the city water. It’s easier and faster. I know we won’t have enough water in our catchments. I’m being smart, saving my energy on days when I don’t have any. We are so dry this year, the elm trees are putting out tons of seeds. It was windy yesterday, creating a windfall of elm seeds. It looked like a snow storm. There’s piles of it everywhere.

What else can I say about May? Oh, yes, my goal was to use May to develope better habits. And I have! Isn’t that wonderful? I’ve read Atomic Habits before. What I used from it was to keep things easy and simple. B.J. Fogg’s Tiny Habits is the real game changer for me. It has the same principles but much more. I don’t know how to go into the specifics now. Maybe I can in June. James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits actually took the Tiny Habits course before writing his book. That goes to show how good it is.

I think this is enough chatter for now. It is getting late. Keeping it short and simple, good night.

A Month of Words

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It’s here – the last day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. All good things and bad ones, too, come to an end. This one has been more of a pleasure than others in the past. I can’t say it was effortless. Some days were difficult to get the words out. Those days I had to work and push hard to get past the block. Doing so gave me more confidence. I’ve learned that if I come to the keyboard, the words will come.

What have I learned? I’ve strengthened my stay-with-it muscle by continuing and finishing when I I felt blocked, dull and bored with it. I felt not as motivated when others fell off their writing block. It always felt better with others’ company. But it builds character to carry one’s own torch and not mind what others are doing. I am inspired by others who also carried the torch through their difficulties. I have much gratitude for their shining examples.

Much thanks to Paul Taubman for leading us through another Ultimate Blog Challenge. He is a powerful leader of the pack. Thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts, knowledge and interests.

LAST DAY – Working Hard

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It’s the last day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I am still working hard at it. Now that I have the habit of showing up every(almost) day, it’s a good idea of keeping up the momentum. The challenge can be about showing up every day for writing, painting or/and for working at my paper clutter.

I have already started on the paper clutter, starting with the bills. I discovered that I forgot last month’s. I don’t know what’s happened to me. Is it that I am getting old and losing mental clarity? Is it that I have let things slip and slide too long? It is probably a combination of both and much more. It doesn’t really matter what the reason(s) is. What matter is that it is out of control. I have to pull up my socks, buckle up and get to work on it – today. Tomorrow never comes.

January has been a great month. I wrote 30 posts out of 31 days. I started an acrylic painting class. I had looked forward to it before it started. I hated going when it started. Now I am comfortable and having fun in it. I’m a bit of a weird duck. In January I cross country skied only twice. Now the snow is melting. There will not be much skiing this winter. I am not completely heart broken because finally in the last few days, I can walk without pain. My plantar fasciitis has finally resolved. Pain free is good.

Thanks to Paul, our great maestro for leading us this month. Thanks to all who participated and conversed with me. I think this is the most enjoyable round for me. Having read the Atomic Habits helped a great deal. I’ve let go of many bad habits in my head if not in real life. You must have heard the saying, Change your thoughts, change your life. It really does work.

Day 31 – the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

LAST DAY

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The last day of April. The last day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I have to show up to wrap up though I don’t know where or how to begin. I am feeling the overwhelm of too many loose threads. My mind is far from being a clean slate, a blank canvas upon which I can paint/write the life I want. Instead it is a muddy eddy of scattered thoughts and memories. What are/were my goals, my wants and loves? They are not necessaily the same things.

I’m always eager and engaged at the beginning of any new endeavor. I feel focused and pumped. However, it doesn’t take long before my burst of enthusiasm develops a slow leak. I lose sight of the whole enchilada. I tread water, don’t show up, and/or write the same damn thing day in and day out. Sometimes I pride myself in just showing up/trying. I guess you can say I am beating myself up. That’s not it though. I’m giving myself a pep talk.

April and any given month is a hard month. And so are any given day. If I am being repetitive, so is life. There is a tediousness to almost everything. I/everyone have to work through that part. No one is exempt. How do you work through that? I heave and sigh alot. I make a cup of tea. Lately I had to change up on my cup size and kind of tea. I was getting too much caffeine. My heart was skipping a little too much and my lymph nodes swelling up. The change has been good but I still get cravings of my endless cup of Orange Pekoe tea. Listening to Caroline Myss on the Addict Archtype and Tara Brach on Letting Go helped alot. Writing about the tedium opens up the way out of it, too.

I’m not as morose as I sound. Really, I am not. It’s my way of working through hard spots and hard times. I’m not protesting too much. A friend reading my posts once offered me help and sanctuary because she thought I needed help. It was such a lovely and generous gesture. It’s a beautiful memory I have of her. Both she and her father were such a help to us when we first came to Canada. She walked me to school every morning and took me to Sunday school till I outgrew the need. I hope she still keeps an eye on me from Heaven.

WILD GEESE

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April 2. It’s a grey snow falling on the cedars kind of a day. Not one speck of sun. The temperature was still in the minuses this morning. We thought we would go for one last ski. What a foolish decision! It wasn’t full of joy. I caught myself thinking ‘how fucking stupid is this!’ several times as I picked/slid/skid carefully and gingerly along the miserably bumpy, icy, gutted tracks. I felt somewhat like Tiny Tim as he tiptoed through the tulips. As I uttered my last expletive a flock of geese flew overhead. I couldn’t help but think of Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese. Two of the birds came down to perform a dance for me.

It changed my thoughts completely. I was very happy to be out on that f’g! track. It was so worth it. I wasn’t being good. It wasn’t as bad as if I was walking on my knees. It felt magical being out there with these wild creatures, the snow, the bare trees and the grey sky. I felt part of it all.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

I KNEW IT WAS MY LAST DAY THERE

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The snow on the ground this morning made me think of my first time to Ghana, land of palm trees and warm beaches, being close to the equator.

Here I am, with my own chief, sitting on the balcony of our chalet, facing the ocean, creating my own photo memory.  I knew it was my last day there.

Pictures flashed through my mind – the woman in her black Benz on the red clay road, the son who thanked me and the balloon-filled sky as Nana drove towards the airport.

I remembered I was a woman of grace.  I am still.