Goals.....

" When we remember that life is a process, it helps us put our goal-setting in perspective. The purpose of setting goals is to give us a temporary structure in which to operate. Unfortunately, when we begin to believe that the structure is solid and real, we lose touch wit the process of getting there. This is why we often feel so depressed and let down when we reach our goals. We have not let ourselves enjoy the experience of that journey, and when we reach the end, we have missed the journey.
Being in the present allows us to experience the journey, and to respond to the process of the journey. When we operate this way, we see that all goals are just temporary ideas that change as we draw near to them."

Each Day is a journey. Each day is a process

~Anne Wilson Schaef~

I have often used those phrases "life is a process" and "this is my journey". Although I mean those words when I say them, like Anne says I tend to lose touch with the enjoyment of the journey.

I am a very goal orientated person. I have always enjoyed projects and assignments whatever it might be. Unfortunately, I looked to the end product to give me my reward and not appreciate the hard work and effort and the process in getting there. I missed the journey.

I am fortunate that I recognize this and have an opportunity to change. I want to slow down to enjoy the process and ultimately the journey. I am the captain of this ship and I guide it's course...it's time to enjoy the course in which I'm am charting.

Ramblings.....

I started writing this post at 0420 this morning. I had been awake since 0230.... my mind was very active thinking about many things. I stayed up until 11pm last night I wasn't tired but I knew it was going to be a long day today so I thought I should try and get some sleep. I had a bad dream....which partially had to do with a program I had watched on TV last evening.

Have any of you ever watched that program Intervention? It's about people who are addicted to drugs, alcohol, food whatever....but it's where the addiction has taken over their lives and the families have requested that an Interventionist steps in and helps the family see how they can help their loved one. The Interventionists points out to the families who their behaviours at times enables the addicts behaviours. The purpose of the program is to get the addict to agree to an intervention by way of getting treatment for their addiction. I watched back to back episodes. The first two shows dealt with people who were addicted to alcohol. The one man was in very bad shape. Being a nurse I have seen patients like him to many times to count. This man was so far along...you could see the tremors, the vomiting, the perspiration as it dripped down his face....his shear sense of anxiety and need to get another drink. It was very sad to watch. In the end these people did take the intervention....some people are successful some are not.

Another episode was giving updates on previous interventions....one was for a gal who was addicted to methamphetamine and the other was killing himself with food. Both of them had underlying issues regarding their sexuality and their families refusal to accept it.

The individual who was addicted to methamphetamine came from a profoundly religious family. She was a top notch athlete in the running for the Olympics. What I found disturbing in this episode was when the mother said that her daughters sexuality was demonic. I truly could not believe I was hearing this woman say this about her daughter. The father wasn't much better...they were making it sound that she was intentionally being gay to hurt them. Although I believe the parents thought they were speaking out of love for their daughter I found both their comments to be terribly hurtful and detrimental towards the daughter's well being. In fact it made me wonder if she possibly sought out the drugs as a way to escape and hide from the pain caused by her parents beliefs. There was a lot more to this episode than I am sharing here, but what stood in my mind was as parents we sometimes don't realize the effects our behaviours, actions and comments have on our children.

The reason I mention this is that last evening my middle daughter called me...I could tell she was upset....and I asked her what was wrong and she immediately broke down in tears.

You see back in September she started off on a new career path in the safety field as a Safety officer for construction sites. Now there is a lot of rules and regulations that govern jobs like these and having to be the enforcer of these regulations can be stressful. The soul purpose of her job is to ensure the employees that she is responsible for stay safe. In order to achieve this it is essential she ensure to the best of her ability that the standards are being met. This can be a daunting tasks especially when it is compounded with the fact that she is female working in a predominately male environment. She is knew to the site and has the responsibilty of telling someone who has been there for 15 years that they are not following protocol...not an easy task. As a result she has had to deal with the jeers and the derogatory comments...not a job for the meek and timid which I might add she is not. I tried to explain to her she is not there to make friends....she is there to make sure the workers are safe and that no one gets injured on her shift. If that makes her unpopular then so be it...chances are that reinforces that fact that she is doing her job. There have been times when she could have shut the site down but she didn't...instead she went the extra mile and did what it took to make it safe and to try to minimize the work stoppage.

So needless to say she is stressed. Yesterday she cut herself on a rusty piece of metal so she went to the First Aid and was going to write up the incident. The Superintendent at the sight didn't want her to write it up...told her to go pour some peroxide on it and put a band aid on it....now you know if I was at home...I most probably would have done that. But this is a job sight...it is the expectation that she follow protocol complete the necessary documents and seek medical aid. Setting standards can sometimes come with a price. You often make enemies and are not popular. Yesterday was no exception. She knew what she had to do. She also knew she had to get a tetanus shot. So when she called me it was around dinner time her work day was complete. She was on the bus on the way to the clinic to go get a tetanus shot. She was telling me that she really hated what she was doing. That she didn't want to do it anymore, that the only reason she was continuing was because she didn't want to let her father or I down. That broke my heart. I told I truly didn't care what it was she did as long as she was happy. I have not only said this to her in the past but I have said it to her siblings, and I stand by what I said. I don't care if she or her sisters bus tables for the rest of their lives as long as they are the best bus person they can be and enjoy what they are doing. You know what she told me, she said "Mom, I want to be a cop.....I am going to a recruitment session on Saturday" All kinds of pictures go flashing throuh my head. My daughter the Police officer, oh alrighty then,now my heart skips a beat.

Camera Critters #40

With winter strongly wrapped around most of the country with flooding on the Westcoast and snow storms on the Eastcoast, I thought it would be nice to show a little Spring. This picture was taken from my front window last spring. I was looking out my window when what should arrive at my flower box but this beautiful Butterfly. I wish I knew the name of this butterfly, do you?

If you would like to join in on the fun please check out Misty's Musings

Saturday Scavenger Photo Hunt

This week's theme is "Aftermath". I wasn't sure what to post for this theme until I had viewed some other blogs and realized that I might have something that would do. Back in 2006 we had the worst wind storms I have ever experienced in my life. Power was out for a week. Winds got up to 120km/hr....you've heard of white out conditions well we had what I called green out conditions...the roads were covered with trees and their debris...a four lane highway was down to one lane.....I had to drive to work that evening...it was the most frightening drive of my life....power lines falling down around you....swerving to miss flying branches.....Vancouver's Stanley Park was hit hard as well and lost thousands of trees.....the park is still recovering.....

Here's a glimpse of what happened at our place. My husband had some of those tent shelters....not anymore...we also lost some very large trees....Our driveway was blocked and we had to get the chain saw out to make a path to get through....We are very prone to high winds where I live and in the fall and winter months you expect to have a least one black out a week.....

If you would like to join in on the photo hunt please check out tnchick for all the instructions.

Let's get real.....

So I have really been trying to take every one's advice and just lay low and relax and heal. So I have read a few books and a text book for work, and done a lot of television watching....something I don't do a whole heck of a lot of.

Wow is day time TV full of crap or what.....You've got your Jerry Springer who's guests are always fighting with each other on stage...we see way to much flesh and at times it's beyond obscene...then you have Maury Povich....who dedicates most of his shows on teen pregnancy and who's your daddy...lie detectors and so on....throw into the mix all those Judge Murphy and Judge Joe and the likes....and of course let's not forget those home decorating shows...telling you how to decorate and drop an easy $1000 on some faux throw or something...or better yet what about shows like What not to wear? Dear god who died and made these two hosts the guru's for fashion....have you seen what they wear sometimes? Then there is the reality TV shows...now that is when it gets really interesting......The nanny, or Wife Swap....I ask you who on this planet would want to up lift their lives and go live with some strange family for a couple of weeks who's morals and cultural beliefs are so opposing to you own? Or what about that show...oh what is it called? hmmmm let me think....oh yeah it's something about all these California housewives...who all act like they are in their teens, behave worse than some toddlers and live off of their husbands fortunes and spend their days at spas, shopping and having body augmentation.....oh my goodness.....reality TV really really sucks!!!! Bring on the books.

Then if the programming isn't bad enough you get inundated with really bad commercials...and again I have found that day time commercials to be far worse then evening.... and are certainly geered towards a certain market. The female market... and based on the commercials I gather they think all stay at home mom's are obsessed with either wanting to lose weight, clean windows with the latest cleaners...or wash floors with some fancy shmancy floor cleaner and mop. But for me.....nothing burns my twizzlers more than commercials that keep telling us about losing weight.


Especially this time of year....just after the holidays....telling us to lose those extra pounds...blah blah blah....Ok I know we all need to be accountable for living healthy life styles and making good life choices. So where am I going with this you might ask. Well I was watching a Special K commercial today....and well it made me mad.....now it's not the first time I have watched this commercial....oh no....I have seen it a few times...and the more I watched it the more infuriated I got about it. It's a woman and her daughter playing outside...running around a snowman that they have just finished making....note I mentioned they were already outdoors doing something active. The mom is wearing a white coat, red scarf, hat and mittens. The young daughter pipes up and say something along the lines that her mom looks like the snowman.....at first I thought well yeah...they are dressed similar...but that to me is where it ends. The Special K folks want us to think that mom is over weight and needs to lose some weight...the next scene they show mom in the kitchen eating a bowel of Special K.....mom by no means was over weight.....

As I said it infuriated me...I thought what kind of images are they sending our daughters and other women.....So being the person that I am I felt that I needed to write a letter. So I went onto the web and found both the Canadian and US advertising and marketing representatives...and sent off an email explaining my displeasure with this particular advertisement. Now I don't know if it will get me anywhere....but I couldn't just sit by and say nothing. It was important to me to let them know I found this particular commercial in poor taste. One of the things I suggested they look at when they do commercials like this was to look at the persons BMI(body mass index)which is used to determine if someone is truly over weight. As I said the woman they had portrayed in the commercial was by no means overweight...and I just didn't understand what message they where trying to send.

So what I am saying here....couple of things...there's a lot of bad daytime tv out there....that portrays women in a bad light....and as an individual if I find something offensive then I need to speak up....I maybe only one voice....but one voice is better than no voice.

Have a great day....and might I suggest you pick up a good book or puzzle or better yet get out for a walk if possible...and turn off the TV. Cheers all?

Humor Thursday

A few people have asked me how I am coming along post surgery. My answer honestly would be slower than I had hoped. My chests from my sternotomy still is very uncomfortable......my old pacemaker site is uncomfortable as they did a lot of scar tissue removal and it required retention sutures to keep it closed...now that those are out....it pulls and burns at times....but I know that is just the nerve endings.....the left side of my chest where my new pacemaker was implanted seems to be healing well..but because it is NEW it takes longer to heal. I am getting a cold.....now if there are any of you out there who has ever had broken ribs or a sternotomy you will know what I mean. Sneezing and coughing and blowing your nose can be very uncomfortable. Last night hubby set up my vaporizer with some Vick's rub in it... he had me take some god awful cough syrup and a hot cold medication drink......well it did help me sleep for a bit, but moving in bed is challenging. I am still doing my daily walks...and trying to stay active as possible....some days it's just a couch day.

Hence my mood is not the greatest....and so I thought I would bring on some humour today to help pick me up....and maybe put a smile on some of your faces.....Have a great day!!!

Van Gogh Ear Award.....

This is the Van Gogh's Ear Award as created by Roger of Idaho Photo This is what he wrote about the Van Gogh's Ear Award:


"Every year I like to make up a award and hand it out to people that make a difference in the blogsphere. I like to make it a award for all to enjoy and pass out if one so wants to, I just ask if your going to give it out to link back to me as the creator of the Van Gogh's Ear Award."


Inspiration of the Van Gogh's Ear Award


"You may know the story of Vincent Van Gogh a well known artist in history. Although a brilliant painter in his later years went quite insane he received the nickname of fou roux ("the redheaded madman"). The most bazaar of Vincent's behavior is when he cut off the lower part of his own left ear lobe, which he wrapped in newspaper and gave to a prostitute named Rachel in the local brothel, asking her to "keep this object carefully. After this he suffered recurrent bouts of mental illness, which led to his suicide July 29, 1890 he was 37 years old. His works of art are priceless."

The point of this award

"We are all artist in are own way be it art, photography, writing, philosophy, comedy, blogging and we all go a little crazy sometimes. But if you ever feel so crazy to cut off your ear and give it to a prostitute 'Seek Help'!"

This award was given to me by my dear blogging friend Akelamalu. When I was telling her that although I appreciated the award it struck me as funny how it was titled Van Gogh. You see ever since my surgery I had explained to people that the scars on my chest reminded me of a very bad Van Gogh painting and that the surgeon got a little scissor happy....and then what should happen I get this award.

Anyhow, I am very honoured to accept this award.....and I would like to pass this along.....


Cathy at Cathy's Place
Jeni at Down River Drivel
Michele at Rocky Mountain retreat

Sunday Critters #39

Gosh I haven't participated in this one for a long time.....being the bird lover that I am I think this week's entry will be of a the Blue Heron I took at the bay down the road from me.....

If you would like to join in on the fun....please check out..... Misty's Musings for all of the instructions.

Saturday Scavenger Photo Hunt

The first photo hunt for 2009 and the theme is "Hope"....seems kind of appropriate don't you think....when I first saw the theme I thought what kind of picture(s) do I have that would reflect such a theme...so I just looked at pictures I took this past fall and December and this is what I came up with......I'd hoped that all the canning I did this fall turned out....so far most of it did.....the pickles didn't...not sure what I did wrong....

I hoped that my daughter enjoyed her 16th birthday and all the wonderful gifts that she got....

I hoped that the snow would stop falling so my girls would be able to make it home for Christmas ...and it did

My eldest daughter hoping that her mince tarts would turn out....and they did!

If you would like to join in on the fun please check out tnchick for all of the instructions.

Here's "Hoping" you have a fantastic day!!!!

The New Year ahead......

The New Year has begun....and I was a tad disappointed.....actually allot disappointed. It snowed New Years Eve and when I got up yesterday morning it was still snowing. So what does this mean....it meant I wasn't going to be able to do the Polar Bear swim. I was pissed at the weather and at myself. I really wanted to do it.....but I realized that it would be fool hearted of me to think that I would be able to make it across the rocky shore...now partly covered with snow. I also realized that I wouldn't be able to tread water so again that would be foolish of me. I recognized that.

I started to think about all those wonderful people in this world that have had dreams and were faced with what some would say insurmountable odds....but through those challenges they persevered and made their dream come true. I wanted to be one of those people....not necessarily on the grand scale....just my scale....I feel I let myself down and for that I am pissed. If I had put more thought into it there could have been a way to make the Polar bear swim happen....For example if I had put on a life jacket I wouldn't have had to worry so much about treading water with my arms...my legs would have done well enough...and if I had the helping hand of my hubby or friend to just help me get to the waters edge I could have walked into the water.....there could have been a way....I just didn't think about it enough.

I am a goal orientated person, I have said this before....and for not being able to reach the first goal I had set for myself for the New Year really put a stinger in my mood for the beginning of 2009. It's important to me to make some positive changes happen in my life for this year....and only I can make them happen. I am sure there will many factors and challenges in front of me that will try to tell me it's not achievable or try to convince me I am reaching beyond the stars....but I am tired of letting it just be....I am tired of accepting things just because they appear to hard or insurmountable....not this year....this year I am going to strive to reach the goals, and as I do I will happily strike them off of my list. Some people may now consider these kind of lists as their "Bucket List".

I was reading an article the other day in Reader's Digest and it was about procrastination. When I think of procrastination I think about people myself included who sometimes are fearful of taking the next step....whatever that step might be. I read their list on how to try to over come procrastination....some of the strategies I tried through out my life....the biggest one of course is making the lists.... At the end of each day you would review your list...see what you accomplished...scratch it off....add more things...make adjustments...and get ready for the next day. I love the idea of lists as it gives me something concrete. Something that I can look at and say "hey I did that today" These daily lists don't have to be earth shattering....but they can be small things that lead up to something big that you want to achieve. Yes lists work for me...the most important thing to remember is to reward myself. Yes that is what they say we need to acknowledge our accomplishments in a positive way.This photo is of the Search and Rescue boat out in Cox Bay on the West Coast of Vancouver Island....this photo to me epitomizes challenges we are faced with in our lives...we have to face the storms...we must challenge ourselves.

What ever your dreams, desires, wishes, hopes or goals are for the coming year and the next....I wish you much success in achieving them.

~Each day is a journey. Each day is a process~ Anne Wilson Schaef