Ahh... chocolate

A quote I recently found about chocolate has inspired me to get at least one thing done a day:

"Put "eat chocolate" at the top of your list of things to do today. That way, at least you'll get one thing done."
-"The Rules of Chocolate"

Ah, such simple rules. Eat chocolate. Easy enough, right?! To make this a lot easier, my dad - amazing man that he was - decided to keep his women happy and create a "chocolate drawer" or what we lovingly call "the medicine drawer". Oh the convenience. My dad would come home, and occasionally skip filling the drawer - take out the middle man - and bring it right to us. There was always a choice too - he'd always buy one or two more than "necessary" so we could choose, and there would be an Eatmore or a Crunchie in there for him (provided one of us weren't eye-ing it) but he'd give it up to make one of his girls happy.

Eat chocolate. Done. I've accomplished at least one thing today. I've eaten some chocolate - courtesy of my big sister. Last night, she hucked a bunch of mini chocolate bars into my purse. A snack for later - Yay!

What's next on my "to-do" list today? Work on my mittens... get at least one done by the end of next week. Hopefully both are done prior to when they need to be given away. Yikes! I've got a grand total of 3 weeks, including today, to have them finished.

Alright - after mittens comes.... dinner?? No, that should come first. Get home, eat dinner then knit mittens. Then soothe my poor little hands by eating some chocolate. There's logic behind that, irrefutable logic, I promise. I just can't explain it. It helps.

So, I've eaten some chocolate, placated my craving for the moment, and I'll probably need to placate it again later. We'll see.

I've lost all sense of where I'm going with this chocolate idea, so I'll end the post here.

Stay tuned for a Mo-vember exclusive. I'll harass my brother-in-law until I get my answers. If anyone wants to participate in the Mo-vember post - shoot me an e-mail or comment with your e-mail and I'll send you some questions!

Check me into the loony bin

Oh deary, deary me. I was sitting at my desk today, laughing to myself. Audibly. Why? Cause I think... I could be going a tiny bit crazy... OR it could be the fact that I recalled a joke shared between a friend and myself on our way to pick up a third friend. I'm that goofy, laughing person you don't want to sit by on the bus. It hits me at the most inconvenient times. Like today, sitting at my desk. Oh - and the best part? I was recalling something that wasn't even all that hilarious. To us, sure, it was hysterical... to someone else listening in? Ridiculous. But that's how we roll.

Anyways, I'm sitting here, thinking about Coke Zero of all things... and that's when it struck me. A giggle fit. Crap. See, Coke Zero led me to remember a conversation we had about Coke Zero in my car... and what it does to us. Oh boy. Naturally, I try to hide the giggles, making them more obvious. Awesome, now, not only will my co-workers think I'm nuts, they'll have proof!

Of course, this led me to text said friend about my giggle fit, and hopefully... hopefully send her spiralling into one of her own. We'll see.

Have you ever been hit with the mysterious giggles?? Has it ever happened on the bus? by yourself? surrounded by people?? That, that is just an experience in itself. At least, when these strange fits hit and I'm in my car, I can pass it off like I'm listening to the radio, or on my phone - bluetooth people - and not look so crazy. On the bus, no such luxury - unless you happen to have your phone out and open just before it hits, and pass it off as a hilarious text.

Anyways, the point of my little rant, I think I might be losing my mind. That is, unless other people are afflicted just like me...

Is anyone else just as crazy as I feel???

Are you winning?

This is something I wrote, 19 days after my dad died. I was back at work, and missing my dad a LOT.  I found it again, looking through my sent e-mails, and thought it needed to be shared again.

We had my dad cremated, and when we picked him up and brought him home, we had a container ready for him. All his life, everything we found for him was too big. The sleeves on shirts were too long, pants were too long, jackets came down too far. Everything was too big. Low and behold, the container was too small. Oh, my mom and I couldn't help but giggle. For 53 years, everything was too big - or at least the last 25 or so. Still, that's a long time to have to alter clothing etc. 53 years. So, just to spice things up, he decides that something has to be too small. What's it going to be... the decorative container we were going to keep him in. What. A. Turkey. So, because of the dad-container debacle, he now resides in a manly-looking hat box on top of my piano. Front and centre. My biggest fan. Just where he'd want to be.

Onward to my aforementioned e-mail:

            My Dad had a love for puzzles. He liked crosswords, Sudoku, those Crypto Quotes you find in the papers, and especially those mind-numbing 3-D puzzles that you could get from Hans Christian Toys – the ones with the ring that you had to somehow get off the metal contraption, or the homemade ones that his Dad made. Any kind of puzzle. He liked games too, solitaire, Tetris, any kind of game that made you think. I would come up behind him while he was playing a computer game, be it Tetris, solitaire, one of his little gem matching games like Bejeweled or various knock-offs, or even if it was while he was doing a crossword puzzle, I would rub his head and ask him “are you winning?” His reply was the same every time: “always.” That’s the same attitude he had towards a lot of things in life, he was always winning, as long as he had his family and friends – and possibly a glass of good wine or a bottle of beer. He was a happy man, always looking at the more positive side of things. I don’t think I have ever heard him say that a puzzle was too challenging, maybe that he’d made a mistake and messed it up somehow, but never that it was too hard. If I did hear him say it, it was very infrequently – a rare moment where my dad wasn’t the smartest man I knew, he had been bested by someone.

            People sometimes say that when they were given the diagnoses of cancer that it wasn’t a death sentence, but an opportunity to live their life as well as they could in the time that they were given. I’ve always thought that, as logical as that sounds, it’s rather hokey. I could tell that my dad thought the same thing as those other people. He didn’t let cancer bring him down, didn’t let it get the best of him. He grabbed life by the horns and did things he wanted to do – as much as he could in the time he was given. He took 4 amazing vacations with his wife – my mom, and one was with his family and his might-as-well-be family. He went in every direction, first it was east to Halifax and P.E.I, then west to Vancouver, north to see where my mom worked in Wasagamack, and then south, to sunny Florida, on a whirlwind trip to Disney World with his family, and some of the best friends a person could have. He made a table, a beautiful table that expands to fit a great number of people, exactly what he wanted for his family. He started to make hope chests for us girls, and he made a lasting impression on his family. He showed us how to live life, and how to deal with death. One of the few times he was bested.

            A good chunk of my memories of my dad are of him laughing, or making someone else laugh. Whenever we had people over, there were frequent bouts of raucous laughter, the best kind. We would be in stitches at the dinner table often, more than likely because of Bryn or me making ridiculous faces at each other, or recalling previous jokes, and having our dad egg us on. One day, we were sitting around the table, bobbing our heads to the music that was playing, and my dad all of a sudden said “Look at us, a bunch of bobble-headed Dycks!” Oh, there was no end to the laughter that ensued. We were literally on the floor, clutching our sides, trying not to choke on our drinks, crying from laughter. The references back to that little joke have never ended, all it takes is for one of us to bob our heads to the music, and someone will chuckle.

            All of my memories have music tied to them. There was always music in our house, and still is in one form or another. First it was records, we could have easily worn out the two Smurfs records we have if we were allowed to. CD’s were next, followed by Bryn taking piano lessons, and then in the more recent years, my singing and piano playing along with Bryn’s piano playing, CD’s, and constant laughter. Laughter will always be considered music to me. Aside from my mom, who constantly is trying to get me to either play piano or sing, or both, my dad was always my biggest fan. I asked him to sing with me in church one time, his reply was “are you sure you want me to sing with you?” He was worried that he wasn’t good enough to sing with me, when all I wanted was to sing with my daddy. One day when I was playing the piano, he and Bryn came up behind me as I was playing “Your Song” by Elton John, and they both joined in. We moved on to “Hallelujah” by Rufus Wainwright, and “Tiny Dancer” also by Elton John. It was probably the most fun I’d had playing piano in a while. A rare treat to have the three of us singing together. One of the things my dad wrote to me in a little letter was that he always enjoyed my piano playing and singing, wanted me to keep it up. In the beginning of April, I got the chance to record a couple songs professionally. I chose “Hallelujah” and “Dream A Little Dream”, two songs that I know my dad liked, one that he had told me numerous times that he wanted me to sing, and a jazz standard, a genre he loved. It was a surprise for him, and I know he loved it, he told me so. He showed it off constantly, brought it to his friends place, played it in the car, and brought it on a family vacation to show it off. He was very proud of his family, beamed with pride. He was the king in his castle, surrounded by four women. Just the way he always wanted it.

Warning Sign - No excuses

Coldplay has a song called "Warning Sign". I was just playing it on the piano, and when I signed onto my computer, I found it on YouTube - I needed to hear it played the way it was written. I take far too many liberties when it comes to playing piano and singing.  Anyways, my point - this song has some awesome lyrics. Now, I could take bits and pieces and make the song mean what I want it to mean, or I could take my favourite bits and pieces and share them with you, share my reasons for why they're my favourite... what makes them special to me.

Their first stanza:

A warning sign
I missed the good part and I realized
I started looking and the bubble burst
I started looking for excuses

All I can get from this is that, chances are, I've missed something awesome. I've missed the good part...when am I going to realize it? When am I going to find out what it was? or what it is? And when I start actually looking, am I going to get my bubble burst? Is it going to be one of those things where I was probably better off not knowing what I missed? Am I going to be extremely put out when I realize what it is that I missed?? And then that next line "I started looking for excuses". Shoot. I'm going to make excuses for missing out on something, for missing something. Wait... don't I already do that? I make excuses as to why I am late for something all the time. "Traffic was horrible." "I almost got sideswiped by some moron." "I woke up late." Why can't I just own up to it? "Yeah, I'm late, I'm really sorry. It won't shouldn't happen again." Jeez, am I that person? The one that makes excuses for everything? I certainly don't want to be that person.

They go on to say (sing):

When the truth is
I miss you
Yeah the truth is
That I miss you so

Oh boy. This part of the song gets me every time. There are so many people that I miss - in varying degrees and for various reasons. I miss my dad, because, quite frankly, who wouldn't miss their parent if they passed away? On top of that, I was a daddies girl through and through. Proud to admit it. I loved my dad a LOT, still do, always will. I miss friends that I don't talk to as much as I used to, or at all. I'll admit it, it's partially - if not mostly - my fault. I have no excuse for it. It just is. It takes two people to start a conversation, and two people to make a friendship work. In those cases, I was the one person who didn't try hard enough at some points... many points... all points. In those cases, I helped the friendship fall apart, and wither. I could have stopped it. No excuse. I miss them. I miss ex-boyfriends. Not necessarily the relationship we had as boyfriend and girlfriend - as awesome as they may have been - but I miss their friendship, their companionship. I miss them as a person, not as a significant other. As. A. Person. I miss some old jobs, the people I worked with there, the work I was doing. At the time, I may not have enjoyed it all that much, but I miss it now. Ironic, huh. Again, I left those jobs. My doing. No excuses. I miss relatives because they're far away. Not their fault I don't visit. It's mine. My own fault. No excuses. What's really stopping me from driving out of town on a weekend to pay them a visit? Heck, what's stopping me from driving across town to pay them a visit? My own ideas of what's "more important" for me to do with my time. What is wrong with that picture? When I go in for my knee surgery - whenever that might be - who is going to be the one visiting me? My computer? My TV? My cell phone? Nope... my family. So why can't I, while I'm still relatively mobile, and able to get around, and while I have free time, why can't I pay a visit to my family? Because I'm lazy. I'm unable to motivate myself to make a phone call to see if they've got time for a coffee, if they've got time to go to the movies, if they've got time for a chat? And this doesn't just apply to my family. What about my friends. What on earth is stopping me from picking up that phone, calling my friend and saying "hey, what are you up to tonight?" or "what are you up to this weekend?". Not a heck of a lot more than my own, un-motivated self.

Maybe this song is my warning sign. Maybe what I'm missing are all these great relationships I could be having. Maybe, what I'm missing is a fellowship-filled life with people who I care about, and who - I would think - care about me too. The song is right. I started looking, and look, I burst my cozy little bubble. It's not fun pointing out the fact that you're failing at something... especially when you're pointing it out to yourself. Try it sometime. Find out what you need to change, and point it out to yourself. Out loud. On paper. In an e-mail that you'll send to your work account, or right back to the same account you sent it from. In a blog like I'm doing. And again, the song is right. I started looking for excuses. I did. "Maybe it's not just my fault." Sure it's not just my fault, but in reality, could I not say it's mostly my fault? After all, I'm the one sitting here saying how much I miss them, and doing nothing about it. It's time for me to change that. No excuses. I need to change that. I think everyone can find something that this song could apply to.

What are you missing out on? What is going to be your warning sign? This blog? Awesome. What are you going to do about it? I challenge you to do this, find what you're missing, what you're missing out on, and quit making excuses for why you're missing it. Burst your cozy bubble. Get uncomfortable. It's the only thing that's going to get you working towards comfort. For me, it's the comfort of those relationships that I'm striving for. Who knows, maybe I'll stumble upon something else that I've been missing. This isn't just a one-shot deal. This could apply to millions of things. Maybe you're missing out on a relationship with someone who is just such and amazing person, but your excuse for not being their friend is that they're too awkward, they're too weird, they're too different. Maybe you're missing out on a job that you would love to do, but your excuse is that you'd have to go back to school. Maybe, you're missing out on the opportunity to try and reach people through a blog, or song, or sermons, but your excuse is that you're too scared, not talented enough, not good enough. Get uncomfortable. No excuses.

Try it out. It feels a lot better once you're uncomfortable.

Answers

In the wee hours of June 10, 2010, my dad went Home. Not his home here, with us in Elmwood/Glenelm, not his parent’s house in Fort Garry, not his first apartment with my mom wherever that may have been. He went Home, to Heaven – cancer free and chillin with the Master Carpenter. My dad had Pancreatic Cancer – battled it visibly for three months, but in reality, a lot longer than that. See, no one notices the symptoms of PC until it’s too late – it’s either inoperable, or it’s metastasized. According to studies, while Breast Cancer is the leader in numbers affected, Pancreatic Cancer, along with Prostate Cancer, claims the largest percentage of its victims. This is largely because of a lack of knowledge. A lack of funding. A lack of … everything. Manitoba didn’t even have a CancerCare branch devoted to Pancreatic Cancer until this year – due, in LARGE part, to vigilant efforts on the part of my sister and her sister-in-law. Those two ladies are amazing. Troopers. Trend-setters. The. Best. People. I. Know. Something needed to be done, and they did it. Lisa, the wonderful, uncanny, phenomenal, incredible, remarkable, charming, Lisa – I realize that’s all a bit redundant, but it needs to be said – this lady, is one of a kind. To have her on your team is like having every great and powerful person standing behind you cheering you on. This lady is spectacular. She, along with my sister, who is also all of those things, aside from Lisa – my sister is her own person – brought it to the attention of the CancerCare big-wigs that there was little to no funding for Pancreatic Cancer research. They, together, made SURE it was known that something needed to change. The two of them made sure they got answers.

People these days seem to lack the direction to get answers. They have a question, need direction, want help… whatever the case may be, and go for the quick fix, the band-aid answer. People, people, people. That’s not enough, you deserve SO much more than a temporary solution. You deserve a real answer. THE answer. I’m looking for answers all the time. All. The. Time. I ask my friends, I ask my mom, I ask my sisters, heck… I even ask people I’m not that close with. Why? Because I want answers, something to keep me searching for THE answer. Big T, Big H, Big E. THE answer. Band-aids fall off, they get dirty, become useless. You lose band-aids in the pool, shower, hot tub, your pocket, your desk drawer. They stop working. They’re not enough. Sure, if it’s something like “what’s 3 times 4?” The answer, inevitably, will be 12, and that could be considered a band-aid answer. It just covered it, didn’t explain it, didn’t make it make sense. WHY is 3 times 4, 12? Who knows? You count to four, three times on your fingers, and you’ll have made it through both hands and started in again with two more fingers. Take three groups of four apples, count them all, you’ll have 12. But you wouldn’t tell someone the answer to a complex mathematical equation is JUST a number. You would explain it to them. You wouldn’t put a band-aid on a deep wound that OBVIOUSLY needed stitches instead. So why would you stop searching for the answer that ACTUALLY answers your question.

Lisa and Bryn, these two amazing women – who I am more than honoured to know – made sure they didn’t stop until they got an answer that they felt ACTUALLY answered their question. They didn’t just stop at “we don’t direct funding there,” they made sure they got “we don’t direct enough funding there yet. Let’s chat about how we can fix that.” THAT, folks, is NOT a band-aid answer. Don’t stop until you get THE answer.

I have had constant knee pain in varying degrees of intensity for the past five years. I’ve seen four different doctors and have heard five different opinions. That’s right. Four Dr’s, five opinions. FINALLY, I was referred to a specialist. Five. Years. Later. This was not just something every teenage girl experiences – it’s not a period. This was not bursitis – I’m not that old and I hadn’t done anything to injure my bursas. This was not patella femoral syndrome – although that could still be a factor. It was none of those. My bones, as it turns out, are misaligned. Oh, the joys of biology. I finally had an answer. I got three answers actually – I currently have three different surgery choices to rectify or at least, help to manage the situation. Not a band-aid answer. A real answer.

A friend of mine is currently waiting for answers. Any kind of answer. Even a band-aid answer at this point. Doctors seem to take their sweet time with this friend. Over a decade of the same problem, something that makes my misaligned bones seem like a teeny tiny little problem in comparison. Tests have been scheduled to see if surgery is an option, but how long before those test results get back? How long before the doctors look at them seriously? How long does my friend have to wait, before they figure out that – oh, the scans are inconclusive, or oh, the test results were lost, or oh, there’s nothing we can do about your problem, or the one I’m hoping my friend gets to hear “oh, you know what? Surgery is totally an option! When are you available?” It’s taken 10 years of digging, and searching, praying and wondering, and even – I’m sure - absolute frustration, to get to the point where surgery might be an option. I can only look at my friend and be amazed. I’m amazed that their faith is unshaken, stronger even, than it was when this all started. I’m amazed that my friend hasn’t lost their mind over this. Amazed at the sheer determination of their mom, a wonderful lady who has been through more than most people should ever have to. I’m quite simply amazed. This lady raised her kids for the last 11 years on her own, and they are all absolutely amazing people. People I’m glad to know. People I’m utterly amazed by. They all make sure they get their answers.

Make sure you get YOUR answers. The real ones. None of that temporary, I’ll-get-back-to-it-later stuff. I’m working on getting mine.