Happy Anniversary, Canada!

Our, mine and Canada's anniversary, that is.  I emigrated to Canada 3 years ago today.  Wow, just like that, and 3 years are gone.

I'm not sure G realises the significance of the day, he hasn't been well much of the past week, so for today we have mainly addressed immediate needs: we went to the store to pick up dog food, the deli to buy meat (we like to frequent the local butcher as much as possible to get good, fresh cuts), and the gas station to top up the gas can and the truck (gas prices here astonish me, considering Canada produces its own).

I could have bought the dog food on my own, but I insisted on his company for the meat shopping and the gas pumping, chiefly because I don't know one cut of meat from another and would simply accept whatever is offered so long as it is reasonably priced, whereas he is quite particular about his protein, and I have never pumped gas into a receptacle before, and pumping gas is quite the ordeal for me due to the gas cap on the truck having its own key and requiring opening and closing in a particular way.  I absolutely hate struggling with opening and closing anything, it is one thing that will easily send me flying into a rage.  I am not sure why this is so, I have never tried to examine the roots of that particular issue.

Looking at myself today, and at the self that arrived in Canada, it would be easy to think they are quite different.  I have grown and changed quite a bit in the last 3 years, and though I am certain there is much more growing and changing ahead of me still, I am not unduly disappointed with myself.

If you'd asked me 3 years ago if I would expect to be working now, I would have said, "Of course!".  I could have had no inkling, though, that working would mean two part-time jobs, and one of them in a field I swore I would not go back to but find myself enjoying nonetheless.

If you'd asked me 3 years ago if I would count meditating and working out among my essential daily activities, I would have said, "No."  Now, I start my day with a yoga sequence and meditation, and am committed to at least 3 resistance workouts each week.  My body and mind now both reflect these interests, I am more "toned" (as in, there's less fat on me so my muscles show up more) and even developed in some areas I never gave any thought to (hooray for defined traps and delts), and I am calmer and less prone to hyper-anxious episodes.

Living in Canada has changed me, yet many things about me remain the same.  Many of my fundamental definitions of myself and the world are still firmly in place.  Of course, 3 years here compared to 36 years in Jamaica (minus about 18 months spent living in New York) isn't enough time to overturn these definitions, but some have been altered, perhaps even radically.

What about May's Goals and Notes,though, you ask.  Yes, enough of all this retrospection and introspection, what did I do with the month gone by?

I continue to save in the 52 Week Money Challenge.  As the weeks mount up, it is going to become even more challenging to set aside the funds.  May weeks were 19, 20, 21, and 22, for a total of $82.  I managed to squeeze $41 out of two pays for the month, reduced as my income was.  I keep reminding myself that with only one job last year (and the same amount of bills!) I was able to save all the weeks up to 26, so I should be able to manage it now with two jobs making up the same number of hours as the one job last year.

I could not do as much paying down as I wanted to of the next credit card on my hit list.  I had to make adjustments based on the reduction in hours/income, and that was one of the things I had to reduce.  I am keeping an "every mikkle mek a muckle" attitude towards this credit card, knowing that every little bit will add up to the balance as long as I keep plugging away at it.

Last month I read "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", read more from The Simple Living Guide, and completed the final two Headspace Packs in the Performance series, Creativity and Happiness, as well as the first pack in Headspace Pro.  In the Pro series, there is much more silence and less guidance than in any of the other series.  As you can imagine, keeping my mind on track is challenging, but I am enjoying this series.  As much as I never minded Andy's gentle tones, I find I quite like sitting in silence to start the day.

I see by the clock that it is time to wrap up this month's entry, I am on duty as the sous chef and bottle washer.  The dishes are done, but I am responsible for preparing the asparagus and broccoli that will be served with the prime rib tonight.  I like easy recipes, and preparing the asparagus is a matter of tossing with olive oil, salt and pepper, and broiling for about 8-10 minutes.  The broccoli I plan to stir fry in butter, as steaming it is not my favourite method of preparation.

This month's glimpse into my life:

The family tree, planted for my arrival in Canada.

 

150 straight days of meditation

Marking Year 2

As of yesterday, I've been in Canada for two years.  I want to wonder at how quickly the time went, but that would be almost too cliche at this stage, right?  I mean, it's only been two years.  Of the sum total of my life, that's 1/19th of the whole.  I suppose it is how much has been packed into the last two years that makes it seem like such a long time that has somehow gone by really quickly.

It was a very normal day, my two-year anniversary.  Normal in the sense that mundane events of my life were represented: I got up, showered, ate breakfast, went to work, took a break for lunch, completed my shift, came home, made dinner, ate it, went to bed.

A few things here and there were out of the "normal": I had to be at work a few minutes earlier to participate in a 2 hour training session meant to prepare us for upcoming changes to operations in the fall.  Interesting stuff, I am looking forward to engaging fully with those changes.  More and more, I am coming to see this job as part and parcel of my life here, not just something to make money at until I find a job similar to what I used to do in Jamaica, because that is highly unlikely.  I do enjoy my work environment, the work I do is repetitive but the human element guarantees that it is never boring, and though chances for advancement are small to non-existent at this time, I think in the long-term there are possibilities.

Another not-so-normal occurrence is the inescapable conclusion that I have developed carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS).  I was familiar with this condition only in the vaguest possible way, a former manager was afflicted with it but I never cared enough to ask what the symptoms or treatments were.  Around two weeks ago, though, I began to be plagued by an annoying tingling pain sensation in my right thumb, fore and middle fingers.  At first I dismissed the sensation as possibly resulting from a minor infection of a puncture wound to my thumb caused by a sharp surface at work.  When it spread to my fingers, and remained concentrated in the tips of all three, I thought perhaps I had scalded them one evening while doing the dishes by running the water too hot.  When I noticed the sensation was actually especially bad in the wee hours when I would get up with Nipper to let him outside to toilet, I was baffled.  The last straw was going to a workout with my personal trainer and finding that my usually stronger right hand had a painfully weaker grip somehow.

I conferred with a friend who is a certified radiologist, asked Google what were possible causes, and they both agreed on CTS.  The more I read the symptoms described on WebMD, and the more my friend talked about the anatomy of the hand and why my wrist and fingers would feel as they did, the more convinced I was that they were perfectly correct.  As of yesterday, I am wearing a wrist brace, especially while sleeping or using the computer, to relieve the pressure on the median nerve and hopefully return my hand to unencumbered working order.

It's beautiful outside most days these days.  If you discount the blackflies and mosquitoes.  Last Saturday, G decided it was safe to refresh the garden for this year, so we drove out to the garden centre to get some new plants.  I chose to get a variety of herbs, as I have always wanted to have fresh herbs available.  I picked out the plants according to the refrain of a song, for some reason I can't remember the movie I heard it in, but I cannot forget the line, "Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme".  We could not get thyme as another customer bought all they had left at the time, but got the other three.  In addition, we bought lemongrass (which we call fever grass in Jamaica) and basil.  I barely managed to avoid being eaten alive by the mosquitoes, and complained to G the entire way home that mosquitoes in Jamaica did not attack during the daytime!  Over the course of last weekend, he weeded the garden, planted my herbs and his shrubs and flowers, and I zapped the dandelions and crab grass with Weed-B-Gon.  Between us we have dozens of insect bites, but we're quite happy with the garden and lawn.

In two weeks' time, it will officially be summer.  I suppose eventually I will get used to the abbreviated spring here, and hope that summer is not often abbreviated like it was last year when the leaves were turning to fall colours as early as the first week in August!  I suppose that should have been a warning about just how bad this past winter was going to be, but having not seen a winter that brutal in as much as a decade, even people like G who have lived in E.L. for longer than that were taken by surprise.  As much as I like the changing of the seasons and consider it one of the best features of living in Canada, last winter was just brutally cold for days on end, to the point where I teetered on the edge of losing my joy in the season.  As a consequence, I am consciously trying to revel in the spring (such as it is), summer and fall this year.

In leaving, I close with some of the beauties that sprung up in the garden this year: