Since my electric scooter accident in August, that close brush with death, (and an even closer brush with the hot asphalt), has helped force me to appreciate my body and my health, as I worked to heal physically from the accident and mentally from the last 2 years.  And this month (Oct 2023), I finally walked over 62 kms, the most I have walked in a month, in the last 15 months, (15 months ago I walked 61 kms in a month).  But the last time I did more than that was 18 months ago, when I did 63 kms in a month.  Just so you know, in the last 10 years, half the time I have been in triple digits, over 100 kms in a month, sometimes over 200, so 60 plus is slowly but surely working my way back there.  😊 

In December 2021, I had hit a low with my weight, just a few points shy of *healthy* according to the BMI.  I was working 2 great new jobs online, and I was about to receive my MFA.

But then the serious disruptions to my life started. 

My stepson’s marriage ended, which meant he moved in with us for 3 months, and we started navigating grandparenting between two separate single parents, a huge change and sometimes challenge.

Then in 2022, my dad’s illness (FTD, Frontotemporal Dementia) reached a crisis resulting in the tragic death of the family dog (April 2022), my mom injured but alive, and he was put in full-time care.  My husband and I moved from Kelowna to Malakwa (May 2022, because we could not find/afford land in Kelowna for our manufactured home).  As much as I love Malakwa and feel certain it is our future home for the rest of our lives, my husband has to commute to Kelowna for his job, and that has been hard on his business.

Then I lost my full-time online job (June 2022), had significant wage arrears, and had to start a more than year-long process with Employment Standards (judgment finally granted in my favour Sep 2023).  But after more than a year of job searching and nearly 200 rejections later, I have been unable to replace my full-time online job, (I only have casual work online, for which I am still very grateful).  Then my stepson decided we were taking the “other side” in his divorce, and he needed to stop seeing us (Sep 2022).  The loss of that relationship has been tremendously painful, but thankfully we still have visits with our grandchild through our former daughter-in-law. My brother moved my dad from care in Terrace to complex care in Victoria (Nov 2022), a stressful trip for everyone, before and after.  I flew to Terrace and packed up my mom’s house (June 2023) after she sold the house that she and my dad had lived in for almost 3 decades. 

And now next week I fly to Victoria to unpack her in her new house, (to get it ready for her new puppy, which may finally heal her heart after the loss of her other dog).  And yet I am making it through, I am still here.  We can make it through things we never thought we could.

Weight gain December 2021 to July 2022 = up 32.6 pounds.

Sounds cliché, but never give up—never surrender completely to what life is throwing at you—fight your way back.  It may take a while (almost 2 years) but you can get there.

Weight loss August 2023 to today, October 31, 2023 = down 35.4 pounds.

Here’s to an even better November and beyond.  😊

I didn’t blog last week but that does not mean I fell face first into all the food at Christmastime. Other than a little issue with too much rum sauce, (butter, sugar, whipping cream, oh my), I ate well most of the time, not too much overeating, and I arrived this week only 1 pound more than before Christmas.

A good start to the new year 2023.

Which is something I really need after surviving 2022.

I don’t always blog about personal things that are going on, but the truth is I am currently looking for work, and have been for almost 7 months now, and it is stressing me out. And my EI is running out soon.

I have a casual job, where I teach 8-week-long online courses, a few times throughout the year, but it only amounts to a few hours a week. Once I initially wrote all the curriculum, (and that was a lot of hours of work for 4 weeks straight, but then it was done), I now just teach them over and over again, with a few adjustments here and there. I love the work, but I would need to teach at least 20 courses like that (instead of 4) per year to even consider it a part-time job, let alone a full-time job.

In 2018, I started grad school and for 3 and a half years I had this new long-term goal of getting my master’s degree to work towards. Also in 2018, because we knew we were going to have to move our modular home from where it was, we bought a piece of land 2 hours from the city and worked for the next 3 and a half years to get the land ready for the big move. Working, getting permits and work done on the land, and going to grad school, it was a very busy and stressful 3 and a half years. Before I finished school at the end of 2021, I got a full-time professional writing job, and that should have meant I didn’t have to stress anymore. I was on cloud nine. I had my master’s degree and now I was working as a full-time writer.

But 2022 had other plans for me.

My new professional writing job was for a start-up company, who, during the first 5 months of work, were late with depositing my pay on many occasions. Then starting in March and April of 2022, they missed entire paycheques, only paying once each of those months instead of bi-weekly. April was also when we moved our home, and we lived in a 5th wheel trailer for 7 weeks while the drywall was repaired, flooring was replaced, and the home was hooked up to all its services. At this same time my dad’s dementia became psychotic, and during an episode, he killed the family dog thinking it was a threat, (he had never, ever been violent before in his life). He gave my mother a black eye when she wrestled a hammer out of his hand. The RCMP took him away and he was hospitalized, and I wrote about it here. Writing really helps me.

By June, my dad was hospitalized permanently, and I knew I had a serious problem with my employer. They had not paid me since April. They laid me off on July 8 without ever having caught up my outstanding payroll arrears.

So, 2022 was a difficult year. I am still looking for a full-time job, and my EI will be running out in February. I suppose it is no wonder I gained 20 pounds last year. I should be happy it was only 20 pounds.

It helped that I started blogging weekly and posting them on Chris and Dawn’s Facebook page. As I said, writing really helps me. Writing about my health and my desire to lose weight keeps me accountable to myself and keeps me focusing on my health in spite of everything else that was/is going wrong in my life.

I hope 2023 has some good things in store for me, I know I will be working hard to make good things happen.