2015, Farewell

And just like that, another year is gone.

Something about December always makes me homesick.  I don't think it's all the winter weather, although that may be part of it, more for the lack of sunshine than anything else.  This December past, I had little time for the usual homesickness, as there was much to do at the beginning of the month.

My biggest challenge of the year came with the first weekend in December: G's sister was getting married, and I would have to drive us down to Toronto and beyond, to Brandtford and the town of Simcoe where we would stay, and beyond to Delhi (see Google Maps here) where the wedding would take place.  I was, quite frankly, terrified.  I fretted over the distance, I fretted over the route, I fretted over my inexperience driving on highways, I fretted over the weather, basically, by the time December rolled around, I was a welter of anxiety.  I think I hid it well, no-one had me committed to medical care for my own good! (Although, some Valium would have helped.)

Looking back now on the experience, I am still in awe of the fact that not only did we get there and find our way about and do all the things we wanted to do, we also did it economically, which pleases that cheap/mean part of me my mother never fails to attribute to our Scottish roots.  I call it frugal.  G calls it not having a heavy foot, as our budget for fuel came in way under my calculations, which had been based on his usage some years earlier.  Whatever it was, between my driving and his navigating, we went there, and back again, safely, and in good time.

Aside from my terror of being in charge of the vehicle whenever we had to move from Point A to Point B, a terror which stayed with me from Thursday morning around 8:30 a.m. when we left E.L. until we returned home around 6:45 p.m. on Sunday evening, I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend.  The wedding was beautiful, the couple was splendid and put on quite a party, and the venues were inspired.

In between activities, I had a chance to walk about Brantford and Simcoe a little, and see some of the rural areas of southern Ontario during our travels between venues.  In both Brantford and Simcoe, I fed my stationery addiction, there was a Staples at each location, and we hit them both.  Well, G was at the one in Brantford with me, I found the one in Simcoe on my own and "went to town" in that one on my own.  Suffice it to say, I will not run out of pens any time soon.

December 2015 was not without its excitements once we returned from down south.  It kept raining, and raining, and raining some more, and everyone started to wonder when winter would show.  Environment Canada had predicted a "milder" winter, and it seemed they were quite right.  We had a solid week of rain, followed by a mild dusting of snow on Dec 16 that then melted almost right away, and again on the 19th.  The winter solstice happened over a quite "green" landscape, but was followed by atypically heavy winds before Christmas Eve that actually downed power lines, blew away unsecured sheds, and messed up roofs.  Parts of town were out of power until Christmas Day!

We were fortunate enough not to lose power, and spent a quiet Christmas at home together with just the dogs for company, exactly as I hoped for.  The hectic busyness of December was finally winding down now that the holidays were here, and I took full advantage to have some much-needed downtime.  As the new year approached, I began looking back, so I could do my looking forward on New Year's Day, as I like to do.  There were goals to be planned, and achievements to be acknowledged, and a way forward to be forged.

I have often been able to summarise many of the standout years of my life by one word or phrase.  If 2015 will be remembered as anything, it will be as "the year of the drive".  Originally, it was meant to be the year of mindfulness, and I did make my goal of meditating for 365 days straight, but I found myself having to polish a skill I expected not to use very often but saw the wisdom of having at least the basic level of instruction, never expecting to put it to quite so rigourous a test quite so soon.  All in all, I think the year of the drive went well.

Hanging out with Mr Bell in Brantford

A very dapper G at the wedding

Yep, that was the beginning of winter

Not much happening just before Christmas

Christmas evening

Dec 28!

Hello, winter! Dec 29

Snow, and more snow, and New Year's Resolutions

Happy New Year, to everyone that reads this (assuming anyone else does).  Wow, it's already half-way through January 2014!  How has it treated you so far?  Wait, you say, what about Christmas 2013?  Christmas 2013 was very quiet, we went out of our way not to celebrate.  We didn't put up the tree, we made no formal exchange of gifts (although we did buy things for each other).  While not exactly totally into the "Bah, humbug!" camp, we may have set up tent on the outskirts.

The last half of December passed in a blur of work, extreme cold, early darkness and deepening depression.  It's the worst attack of seasonal affective disorder I have dealt with since being in Canada.  I could not seem to shake a sense of dread as Christmas and the New Year approached, seeing the way 2013 had begun.  On days when there was sunshine, I began sitting at the picture window in the living room, eager for light and warmth.

We had a quiet Christmas, entertained by friends of G at their house.  We were well-fed, and, being people who enjoy reading, they did not mind one bit when I curled into a corner of their couch and read on my e-reader.  I enjoyed not having the stress of preparing the usual elaborate meal that comes with the holiday expectations.  On New Year's Eve, I prepared stew peas and dumplings, a very Jamaican dinner which required a bit of time and effort, but turned out as one of my better efforts at that particular dish.  We watched a movie together, fell asleep, woke close to the close of the year to kiss the new one into being, then went back to sleep.

2014 started quietly enough, for which I was profoundly glad.  I did a workout as scheduled, as I want to maintain the consistency of my efforts at building my best body, regardless of time or space.  I then sat down to what used to be an annual task but had fallen by the wayside in 2013: New Year's Resolutions.

Yes, I know that this process has come to be seen as something of a joke, given that all too many people who make resolutions fail at sticking to them.  However, I have never been one of those people, I usually make a plan for my year under some broad headings, and  use this plan as a framework for carrying on through the year.  I am a goal-setter, I like having goals and targets and things to work towards, it gives me purpose and self-direction and a sense of being in control of how my life progresses, rather than being carried will-ye-nil-ye (willy nilly, as we say it now) by whatever happens in life.  I enjoy looking back at progress achieved thus far, and plotting a course towards the eventual achievement by making any corrective or evasive maneuvers necessary.

I won't go into detail on what my actual goals are, suffice it to say they cover most of the major areas of life, and this year are written down into what was supposed to be my Game of Thrones book journal but was not necessary for that purpose.  It sits on my desk, beside my laptop, ready at hand for consultation, random brain-storming, doodling, updating, and revising.  Yes, updates and revisions will be necessary, life has a way of throwing curveballs at you, but one must be prepared to either duck out of the way or swing a bat at it and knock it out of the park.  The operative word there is "prepared".  If you don't have a plan, you're not very prepared, that's how I roll.

Just over two weeks into 2014 and already we have had more snow, and it is snowing lightly today, with more expected for tomorrow.  On the whole, following the "polar vortex" experience of the last half of December, I find myself not minding the snowfall.  At least the temperature sits in a tolerable +5 to -10 *C range.  Yes, I just wrote that I find up to -10 *C "tolerable".  Coming from someone who has spent most of her life in an annual average of about 35 *C, this is quite the tolerance, if you ask me.  Once the temperatures descend into the teens below zero, I find it too cold.  I cannot seem to get warm inside, no matter how many layers I put on, and I hike the furnace up to 23 *C or ask G to turn on the baseboard heaters.  At that point, I am past caring about the gas or hydro bills.  I just want to feel warm again.

G is doing all the driving right now.  The extremes of cold followed by snow or icy rain have turned the roads into things of dread for me.  The roads are either bumpy with new-fallen snow sprinkled with rock salt, or slushy or icy.  No, thank you, I will be a passenger again.  I realise that I can only become better at handling these conditions by actually attempting to drive in them, but my terror of causing or getting into an accident and the attendant financial nightmare of such a scenario overrides my desire for independence.  My risk-aversion is in high gear in winter, and will likely always be that way until I am more accustomed to life in northern Ontario.

In just under an hour, it will be time to head to work.  It is Friday, which always makes us happy at work.  I am looking forward to unwinding from the week with G, and spending a quiet weekend catching up on the house work.

"Winter is coming"

I am fairly sure than when he conceived the Starks of Winterfell, George R. R. Martin was thinking of Canadians.  Possibly, those dwelling in the Northern Ontario reaches where I find myself making my home.  That "Winter is coming" is very much part of the psyche here is unquestionable, this I judge from the year and a half I have been here.

As soon as August this year when the trees began turning, I sensed a change in the mood prevailing, even my own.  It was a queer mixture of anticipation and resignation, flavoured with glee in some cases, stark unhappiness in others.

September drifted by, with the leaves in full bloom of colour, but by October they were already on their way to falling off the trees.  Still, there were some truly fine days in both months, real autumn days in terms of colour but blessed with temperatures in the low 20s (degrees Celsius).  Altogether tolerable, those days that held a lingering whiff of the summer than never quite was.

With the coming of November, the warmth began to recede and the cold stole the march.  The daily high temperatures slipped further and further down the scale, even though no snow came.  Oh, there were one or two sallies, apologetic snowfalls I called them, because the flakes had hardly hit the ground before they disappeared.  There was no accumulation even up to the middle of the month.  Not until the final ten days of the month, when talk of American Thanksgiving and Black Friday were everywhere, and Christmas decorations and music were already making their appearance, did the snow finally come.

The first accumulated snow was brought on heavy winds over the course of last weekend.  What did follow were almost Arctic temperatures that meant outer layers for me went from tights and sweaters to ski jackets and down coats.  The first winter storm showed up today, and shed an even greater accumulation on top of that which had largely been ignored as of little consequence.  Not today though, snow plows came out, people are shoveling driveways, and I canceled a possible trip to another library sale.  Days like these give me zero incentive to stir beyond the precincts of our house.

Here are some photos I took for both weekends, past and current:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, those last photos were taken out of doors, after dark.  I felt somewhat restless, in spite of thoroughly enjoying my day off following a harrowing end to the week at work.  So, I bundled up in my snow suit, put on my Caterpillar snow boots with their surefooted tread, and put the little Nipper in his harness and clipped the leash on him, and away we went around the block.  I found it rather soothing to be out there in the light snow, thoroughly cocooned from the snow except for my face, but enjoying the gentle bite of the cold against my cheeks and eyelids.

Officially, winter is not for another three weeks, the solstice this year falls on December 21.  Clearly, though, winter is coming, and Old Man Winter has stolen the last few weeks of fall for himself.

2013 So much, so little..

My last post focused on fall and the beginning of winter 2012/13, and I expected to update this blog sooner rather than later.

This year did not start well.  It started with a call from my mother in tears, and for a moment my heart stopped as I thought something had happened to my much-loved younger brother.  However, it was not my younger brother affected, it was hers.  My uncle, my mother's younger brother, one of four of my Grandmother's children, died 1 January 2013 of a massive coronary.  I left Canada for the first time since arriving in June 2012, not for Jamaica, but for New York State, where my uncle's life would be commemorated, celebrated and mourned.

I flew from Sudbury to Toronto, cleared US Customs in Toronto with minimal trouble (I forgot to fill in my I-94 immigration form, but the officer was gentle, I think he clearly saw my grief when he asked me my purpose of travel), and flew to JFK where I was collected by my cousin.  It had been more than a decade since I was in that airport last, nothing seemed the least familiar.  Even Yonkers was strangely unfamiliar, as we never went to any of the areas near downtown I had been used to from my time there, we spent all our time in the residential area my uncle now lived in.

Throughout the various events, I stayed well out of the way, did what I could to be helpful, and refused to spend any time in the viewing room of the funeral home.  Since childhood I have been afflicted with the inability to remember someone in life once seen in death, and I was determined to cling to the memories of my uncle as I had last seen him, happy and alive on the beach in Negril, Jamaica, offering me a freshly-caught lobster and a slice of lime.  I wanted no part of seeing him in the stillness of death, and it was my other uncle who understood that more than anyone else.

I returned to Canada two days after I left it.  Clearing Immigration and Customs was much less dramatic than my landing.  It was explained to me, although I already knew this, that these two days would be added back to my residency obligation as I had left the country alone.  I was still floating in that odd surreal fog that seems to surround a person when their life takes a sudden turn, and felt no particular need to say I was already aware of this.

I went back to work and life has continued in its usual fashion since then.  The winter was a long one.  As February and March slipped by, I began to feel a restlessness and urgent need for warmer days.  I had hopes that April would bring warmer days, and the start of Daylight Saving Time made me feel even more keenly that it had to get warmer, as I lost an hour of sleep in the name of more daylight hours.  Still, it did not get warmer, and G and I seemed to argue more often about my need to raise the temperature in the house until I felt more comfortable.

When it snowed on the 12th of May, Mother's Day, I almost broke down in tears.  It was quite more than enough, I was feeling a great deal of unhappiness.  Everything bothered me, and it seemed as though I had no filters and couldn't keep it from spilling over into my relationship with G.  Arguments over little things became even more frequent, and even our impending third anniversary couldn't bring us closer.

Finally, towards the end of May, the temperatures began to rise, and with them my spirits.  The snow finally all melted away, the city began cleaning the streets of the rock salt and sand, grass began appearing and trees began filling out with leaves.  The family tree in our backyard bloomed, and our anniversary approached.

We celebrated our third anniversary by staying the weekend at a bed and breakfast resort some way up Highway 17, heading west towards Sault Ste Marie.  I spent time on a lake in a canoe for the first time in my life, and did not freak out too much.  G was quite at home on the water, I saw a new side of him, and though we still had many rocky moments during that week, we came back together in celebration of our love.

 

 

 

The next event of significance was my 37th birthday, and I was treated to dinner by G this year in celebration.  I was happy that we could just spend time together, and at work some effort was made to make it a nice day, which I appreciated.

In the beginning of August, I accomplished a goal I set myself as part of my timeline for my first couple of years in Canada: I earned my driver's license.  Quite frankly terrified, I went to Thessalon, rather than take the test here in E.L.  My driving instructor felt that I would find it less intimidating to do the test where I was unknown and had less chance of feeling like I was making a fool of myself.  I made at least major blunder, but only one, as the examiner passed me.  I was still in shock on the way home, even as I held the paper in my hands.

I have been growing and progressing in my job.  With just under a year in, I have been trained to act in place of the head of my section, and been taken on as a permanent employee with benefits, although still part-time and not full-time/salaried.   I think that has been a goodly amount of progress for a year, I have put myself out to learn all I can and gain as much experience as possible, and can see myself continuing to grow.  It's not what I did before, but it can form a foundation, I think.

Over the summer we have done some entertaining, so far as we are able.  We have had friends to visit for Canada Day weekend in July, and this Labour Day weekend as well.  With only 3 weeks to the beginning of the fall, there is almost a sense of mourning in comments I have heard recently, as everyone turns their minds to the upcoming fall and winter.   As the trees are already changing colours, and have been since I went to take my drive test (when temperatures plunged in that week to such frankly unseasonable lows that I had to wear a sweater at least once!), many are the comments that winter 2013/14 promises to be a long, cold one.

This time around, I have resigned my mind to the need to wear warmer clothes, even at home, rather than adjusting the temperature in the house.  Quite frankly, after seeing our gas bills for the end of the fiscal year (August), I can now understand G's consternation every time I fiddled with the temperature gauge!  Now that I am taking a more active role in managing our finances, I find myself constantly on the lookout for various ways to save on our bills.

There are a great many more bills to be concerned with here than I ever had in Jamaica, or know of anyone having.  Where before there used to be just light, water, rent/mortgage, cable, telephone, internet and the odd credit card, here you have to add municipal taxes, natural gas and water heater rental.  I have actually created a spreadsheet to keep track, and bought myself an agenda, which I used to have but didn't get this year as it seemed unnecessary.  No longer do I deem this unnecessary, I need the sense of control being able to track everything daily gives me.  I feel more useful to G this way.

Tomorrow is Labour Day, and I will spend the day in my time-honoured fashion: doing nothing much.  I laboured long and hard today, as I usually do on Sundays, to make the house ship-shape and presentable.  Tomorrow, I hope to start a reading project that should take me the rest of the year.  I have been getting back into my reading, and taking time to focus on my need for solitude and reflection, respecting my introvert tendencies.

From here on out, I should be scheduling posts on a weekly basis.  Agenda in hand, I shall have the entry looking back at me, waiting to be ticked off as "done", and that should hold me more accountable.  With four months left in the first half of my second year in Canada, I hope to be better at recording the events I experience.