I've been writing.

It's actually been a few years since I've written on here and even more since I've written anything at all. 

I suppose that I could continue on writing.

A lot has changed for me since 2018. 

First off my children have grown up. My youngest is going to graduate high school this year. Our oldest moved with his girlfriend to another province. He definitely doesn't call enough.

We bought my parents old house about five years ago and I'm still happily married.

We lost our beloved dog, Jessy in 2019. We still have our Kado and we have a new puppy named Roscoe who is two in June. 

I went back to school and took online courses, I don't have a degree but I think at this point it's just about the learning. I've always loved to learn.

I've had health issue first it was carpal tunnel and I had surgery on both wrists and them I started getting migraines in 2022ish I think. They continue but have changed and may have come on because of perimenopause.

I'm still at my job but took a secondment and am working for my First Nation in my community. I go back to my old job in September of this year.

I've taken up new hobbies, beading and crocheting. Crochet has become an obsession but I'm no talent like some I see on the internet.

So there has been some good and bad and in between but all in all life is life and moving along. I've almost become more reclusive living out in a country subdivision and after covid. So I spend a lot of time at home doing my crafts, spending time with my husband, kids and dogs and watching too much tv for sure. But we garden, trying to grow year round and walk/hike in our woods, there are so many trails. Not to say life is perfect, we have everyday worries and others but we move along like everyone. 

So that's my update for now. :)

Donna

I started my day getting up at 7am ready to hit the gym. I spent the night in pain and was still in a bit when I woke up. My osteoarthritis in my knee had decided to flare up.  I was side tracked by kids, obligations and finally made it to the gym by 9am after taking some motrin. No one was there, and I really like it this way. I was ready to getting my cardio in and some weight training. I hoped on the treadmill and found I was a little stronger than I was at my previous visit a week before. I was able to move up to a high speed quickly and found I felt like running. I then remember I had an appointment at 10am with my Life Coach. So I though great, I will run to get my heart rate up. My knee didn't agree, I ran about a minute or two and my knee got painful so I stopped and moved on to my weight training.
I stopped and grabbed a bit to eat and coffee on my way to my appointment. My energy was pretty good today.
My appointment with my Life Coach went great. I have many issues/struggles right now but I'm very resilient these days and find I can rise to the occasion instead of spiraling down into the dark place.
My main focus these days in staying on top of my game. I've starting online courses to go back to school. I'm working on getting back on track with the plant based eating and getting my exercise in.

So that was yesterday.

Today, I went to the gym again. Walk/ran for 31 minutes and pushed through some pain in my knee. It didn't get too back so I wasn't overdoing it. Did some great stretches after that.
I ran home and had a visit with my husband before he took off to his shop to do some work. Then I went and had brunch with two girlfriends. One who's been away for 6 weeks. So it was nice to catch up.
Came home did some homework. Did a pile of dishes and did some cooking and baking to prepare for tonight's' dinner. Got my son on his homework he's been putting off all weekend. He's almost done now.
Had a big blow out with my oldest son, we are usually pretty good communicators but there have been some struggles lately and we stepped back and took a breath and talked straight after that. It's been a hell of a year with him but I can see we are starting to make progress.
I'm super tired now, I looked at my fitbit dashboard and saw I only had 4 and half hours sleep last night. So now going to do one last errand and his the hay, as they say! :)

Feeling reflective today on my 43rd birthday. What is success? I've always measured it by my job and being financially stable. What the last five years of crawling slowly out of debt and other life stumbles have taught me that life is fleeting and we don't really need all these things we think we need. They are just things that we can't take with us when we are dead. We need one another.

Success is my family, I have a loving and supportive husband. I hope I'm the same to him. I have 3 sons, who are all brilliant and challenging and so very loving. They will be spectacular men. They make me so proud. My supportive Mom and brother and my niece and nephews who I don't see often enough are the safety net around my heart. I love them more than they will ever know..

My tribe, my girls, my ladies. I have a small circle of friends. That lift me up, challenge me, make me think outside the box and who are so supportive beyond belief. I'm rich with friendship. They've helped me grow as a woman, they've given me the love and support all women need and I hope I give that back.

What I know about myself. I'm an introvert, it took me a while to figure that out but I am. I won't get in your bubble or invade your peace of mind or judge cause I don't want to disrupt your way.I want you comfortable and to feel loved. I like to recharge by myself. Which had be hard when you have a house full of boys and their friends. I cherish this time with them though because all too quickly they will grow and my house will be empty. I hold them so close right now.

There are so many men and women who have come into my life over the years that I have meet through work, school, courses, classes, volunteering, who know or work with my boys and just in the community who have been so kind and given their little bit of time and parts of themselves that have made the world a little better because they gave off their wonderful positive energy.

All of these things; kind words, hugs, comforting messages are things that shape us and make us whole. They make me want to do better and help. We've gone through some hard times at times and it's because of all of this that life is good, Compassion for others is what make us human, forget all the political bull**** out there and just love one another because that is what gets us through.

Humans are amazing creatures, versatile and adaptable.

I hope that I make you feel as loved and accepted as you all make me feel!

Things I love:

I love reading. I have a love of books, paper, I can't do the reading on screens. I supposed one day I will have to but right now I have shelves and shelves of books. I have many favourite authors and I keep reading their new works and old over and over. I still have books from when I was a child and teenager, because books speak to me. They bring me to new worlds and experiences. They give me so many emotions, laughing, crying, frustration, you name it.

Since I do work full time and have a family of five (including me) to care for. Well we all do our fair share. I don't have as much time to read as I would like. I usually get some times on the weekends and if I can manage it I get about 15-30 minutes before bed.

For awhile while I was depressed, I didn't read a whole lot at all. It was a terrible slump and I tended to just reread books because I found it hard to try new authors.

I do the Goodreads challenges and each year I've gone up 5 books as a challenge. At first I was just making it. I've been doing the challenge since 2011 but goodreads does not show the years 2011 and 2012, so I don't know if I did them those years.

2013 28 of 50 challenge
2014 28 of 25
2015 25 of 25
2016 38 of 30
2017 62 of 35
2018 -- of 40
upping my challenge each year.

I've also been apart of Audible for a few years I've really used it a lot the last 2-3 years. Who keeps track really. But it makes life so much easier to have a story read to me as I work around the house or drive or do grocery shopping or workout. It really helps me multitask.

I've discovered many new authors this way and tried new books. I'm also using the library more often  than I used to. One way to save money!

Currently I'm reading:
Betrayals by Kelley Armstrong (probably my top favorite author)
The Rosie Project
Listening to:
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan (reread)
One Dark Throne by Kendare Blake
 Yes,
 I like to read more than one book at a time.It's something I've always done not sure why.

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And around and around we go.

Life is just crazy lately. I feel so busy and can't keep up with things. Things should settle down after Christmas, I suppose! :)

I'm trying to figure out what it takes for me to save my life. This is how important it is to me but for some reason I can't keep the momentum, I can't change. So that is my negative talk right there. I've been having a fight with it the last few weeks.

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The truth is only we can fix ourselves.

If we don't take responsibility for our choices and decisions then there is no growing, there is no moving on, there is no enlightenment. We may think there is but there is not.

Religion gives us a great scapegoat.

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On Day 4.

Each day is getting better. It's hard at first to eat this way, it's so nutrient rich. And sometimes a little bland!

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Feeling so good. I was down for a few weeks, really not right in the head. All that negative energy just kept pulling me.

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I have always been afraid.

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Back in November I somehow hurt my knee. I have no clue what happened, it just started hurting. It seemed like it as swollen on the inside. It ached for some time, weeks and seemed never be going away. It went from pain to an ache with the occasional spike of pain and I've been quite careful to keep it from being injured further.

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The past weekend I spent out in a cabin by the river. It's the best little holiday one could ask for. It was part of a Family Camp through our First Nations Government. So I took a couple of my boys and nephew and we joined it. It was a great weekend with lots of activities and crafts and social visiting with friends. I made some good friends through the previous Women's Retreat and Family camp, so it was great to see them again. We got to visit and chat and enjoy the outdoors sitting by the river and just talking. It was so special.

The next morning after that I woke up sick. There has been a nasty little bug going around town and I got it. So I was home and sick in bed for two days. Now I'm not so sick but still coughing a lot and it's keeping me up.

I was very much off plan over the weekend, since they do all the cooking. It was very good food and I ate meat and dairy but did the best I could. 

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I don't even know how to start this. I haven' been in any major way blogging at all in a regular fashion in sometime. I'm just not sure where my head has been, all over the place I guess.

It's usually the same thing over and over, I go in circle I tell you. Circles. It can be frustrating at times. Right now I'm on this purpose thing. My life needs meaning. Is this depression creeping in or am I on a new path of discovery.

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Today, December 5th,

The last few months my feeble attempts to get back into blogging. I'll keep on trying. :)

Alright, I'm back on track. Up at the crack of 5am and hit the gym shortly after, finally after a week of sleeping in. It was a sweaty morn but I feel real good now.Now to get back to biking and walking to work, if only there weren't so many bears around making me scart'. LOL! And Mom will be back soon so I won't have to use the van every day to go up the hill. Yes! I got my van back last week! I'm so very happy about that. They take good care of my van at Chief Isaac Mechanical! It's running like a dream right now!

So I feel like I'm constantly restarting my journey but maybe it's not really restarting just lagging behind for a bit and then catching up again. I really need to ...stop saying I need to. I'd like to just not worry about it and just keep moving forward.

I couldn't fall a sleep last night. This keeps happening. Drives me crazy. Then I woke up at 4:50. Sleep or gym. So I got up and went to the gym. I kept skipping days because I was staying up to late or not being able to fall asleep. So it was a must this morning. I did a bit of walking and then I did some upper and lower body weights.

Yesterday, eating was not the best. I went for lunch with a couple of girlfriends and we had chinese food. It was good but not in my plan. Then later my other half asked me to get chinese food for dinner. He works late and we went out and had dinner with him, so all five of us were together. That just doesn't happen very often lately. So it was nice.

I feel a little hungover from all that high salt and msg food. It was good but it didn't do my body any good.

So I need to do some prep cooking for sure this weekend.