Where has the year gone?

I had the best intentions. Really, I did. Is blogging passe? Perhaps.

Time is growing closer to birthday/Christmas time for me. Everyone in my life, with a few exceptions, has their birthday in November, December, and January.

And it was about a year ago that I started the course in meditation. And I am still not finished. The good thing is that I am a lot more successful in doing meditation now than I was a year ago. It has to be guided meditation, but at least it is a kind of meditation.

Life is a bit challenging at the moment. Mr. P has to work six days a week, so I feel somewhat alone. When he's not at work, he needs to rest, so weekends are not that much fun. I do have a surly 11-year-old for company, of course. It's funny how quickly they start to act like teenagers now.

Of course, this is nothing compared to being in many places in the world, oh, like Aleppo, for example. So time to count blessings. :)

Some Sort of New Record!

It has been so long that I don't even recognize blogger interface anymore.

Birthday came and went, luckily without mid-life crisis thoughts like last year. I recognize that I am not doing great, though by the amount of time I spend questioning everything. And wishing myself somewhere else. Preferably this would be somewhere near a beach, with drinks that have little umbrellas in them.

Read Jenny Lawson's book "Let's Pretend This Never Happened." Loved it. But also, perhaps on the scary side, I identify with a few too many things. OCD thinking is one thing. I wasn't aware that not everyone obsesses about stuff like that. It's zombie apocalypse and taxidermied (it's a word for me, OK!) animals for Jenny and for me it's disasters (from car crashes to tornados, you name it, I'm terrified of it) and jewellery. It's as if jewellery could magically protect me from said disasters. Which I realize is ridiculous.

So, meditation helps. It really does. It would help even more if I did it on a regular basis.

Lack of Progress

Not much progress in my happiness work. I've gotten caught up in the stresses of everyday. To be exact, I've been suffering from anxiety attacks. Big ones. Just like in the good 'ol days. Hard to say what the trigger is - lack of control most likely. And I am out of valerian, which does help - I mean taking it helps, not being out of it. And before you ask, a stiff drink makes things worse, so I've been staying away from that.

It's been a year since my sister-in-law, Wendy, died. I did not get to see a lot of her over the years, especially when she was ill. I wish I had. But that is the way of it all. I am grateful for all the times I did see her and we laughed and shared stories.

Meanwhile, I dream of sunny beaches and soft waves lapping the shore.

New Year

OK, it's the 15th of January, so not exactly New Year anymore, but it is still early in the year. Very early. And I am hoping this will be a better year than 2015, which I realize looking back was a very BAD year. It started off with the loss of my dear sister-in-law, Wendy on January 20. It ended with my mom having a heart attack (thankfully, she is recovering) and our friend and neighbour passing away in November. Crap, crap year. There were good bits, of course, but overall, I would like to cross 2015 off the books.

So I am hoping to boost my happiness in 2016. I read Gretchen Rubin's book "The Happiness Project," and I am inspired. I am not launching into a project like hers, but I would like to incorporate some of the things she writes about. And the old adage "if mama's not happy, ain't nobody happy" is true, so I need to take responsibility for my happiness and thereby increase everybody else's as much as is in my power.

So the work of January is to find out what makes me happy and what makes me unhappy. This sounds obvious, but it's not. I see some hard work ahead. And this is OK. I will try to report on progress here, even just to keep myself accountable. So stay tuned.