finally

The past few weeks have been a bit of a blur. Work has been really busy for both of us. Mark's had a few doctor's appointments which have keep him on the run and I have had a few extra meetings regarding my volunteer work. Everything seems to ramp up just before the holidays. Things only really shut down for a few days but the prep work for those few days seems to take a lot of our time. Today was my last day in the office until 2015. I feel worn out, mentally and physically. Of course, I have a list of things to do over the next week that is as long as my arm. This weekend though, I think I'll not worry about that list and just take it easy. I'm exhausted and have been fighting a bug all week so may just lay down on the sofa and see what happens.

fun shot

For many years, I strongly opposed getting an annual flu shot.  The first year our health unit strongly promoted them in our region, Mark and I went to the local high school to get our shot.  I felt that it was my civic duty.  Mark was driving a taxi and was exposed regularly to all kinds of gross germs, we lived with a little old guy (Mark's dad Joe) at the time.  It was the right thing to do.

That winter, I experienced what I can only describe as a creeping malaise.  I constantly felt like I was on the verge of being sick but never actually got good and sick to get beyond that.  It was a huge bummer, feeling tired and run down, all the time.  I had never experienced this before and blamed the flu shot.

In subsequent years I refused to get a shot. I hadn't had the flu since the year that the Brady Bunch movie came out (I remember this because the flu hit me like a tonne of bricks while I sat in the theatre) so I felt okay not getting it.  Fast forward a few years and I get hit with a bad dose of the flu.  Horrible, I thought I would die.  As I lay in bed dying (ha!), I thought that for sure, this was why old folks and little kids get flu shots.  Whatever I had would surely kill someone who was not as strong and otherwise healthy as I was.

Every year since, I get a flu shot.  Mark and I go to our local health unit for it.  There are several things I like about getting our shot at the KFL&A Health Unit - you can book an appointment online, they have great parking and, more importantly, the staff and volunteers are friendly and very professional.  It's a very easy way to protect yourself against the flu and, this year, they had fun band aids (I got a Snoopy one and Mark had a Taz band aid). 

It was quick and easy and painless.  Everyone should do it, to protect yourself and the folks you love.  Have you been shot yet?

Sweet Gracie

Some folks call it "gotcha day" but around our house, we call the day that our dogs joined our family their "barkaversary."  6 years ago today, our sweet sheltie, Gracie, joined our family.  Sam had been with us since March that year and was suffering from separation anxiety whenever we went to work.  For those of you who doubt that dogs can have anxiety, I have photos of the destruction he caused because of it.

Once Gracie came on the scene, Sam never tore up another piece of furniture or carpeting.  The two of them were instantly best buddies.  We were really lucky it worked out that way.  In our case, two dogs were no more work than one, on some levels, two dogs are easier than just one.

She's such a sweet girl.  A wannabe momma doggie who herds us around and wants to take care of us when we're sick.  Today I was home sick with a nasty bug and she never left my side.  Nurse Gracie was on duty. 

Happy Barkaversary Gracie, we love you more than you love bacon!

Blissdom Canada is all about ME!!

Again this year, I was fortunate enough to get a ticket to Blissdom Canada.  This was my fourth year attending and I really look forward to this weekend all year long.  With everything we’ve been coping with here at home with Mark’s surgery and chemo and general life stuff, it’s been a busy year.  While I was excited about going to Blissdom Canada again, I feel like this year it really crept up on me and I didn’t have much time to think about it or prepare for it.

The little bit of prep I did do this year involved hanging out on the Facebook page and reading some “how to prepare for a conference” blog posts which were being shared around.  One post in particular, by Joe Boughner (How You Can Get The Most Out Of A Blogging Conference ) gave me a light bulb moment and totally helped me figure out how to get the most out of my weekend.  In past years, I found myself rushing from session to session, head down, trying to get a “good” seat and then, once I arrived at the session, tweeting madly throughout the whole thing.  This approach left me tired and I felt like I was missing out on something.  Joe’s advice was to tweet if you wanted to (and what you wanted to) but he admitted that he had stopped doing that and allowed himself to be immersed in the sessions instead.  Lightbulb!! I realized that I was missing out on a lot of what was happening in the room by tweeting.  Instead, I took notes (with a pen and paper!) and allowed myself to really listen to the speakers rather than trying to transcribe what they were saying and post it in my twitter feed!  It was very freeing and I thank Joe for that!!

My Blissdom Canada Wrap-up:

• Travel with a blogging buddy if you can.  This year, I caught a ride with Susan from Lil Ms Neat and we had the BEST time.  I met Susan the first year I attended Blissdom Canada (it was her first year too) and just love her.  The drive from Kingston to Mississauga just flew by.  We had a wonderful visit and got to see a lot of each other over the weekend.  Blissdom road trips are awesome!!  We have already made a date to travel together again next year.

• My hat is off to any of you who picked up a microphone to ask a question in a session.  Wow.  How I admire you.  Those of you who participated in the Power Hour, incredible.  I am not able to speak in front a crowd of people.  I have tried in the past, many times.  I can almost do it if I’m sitting on a panel but if I stand up, I forget to breathe and the whole thing is just really horrible.  You are a brave lot, you stander uppers with microphone people!!

• I am going to do a podcast.  Thank you podcast people for inspiring me.  My husband and I are working on something together.  It will take us a little bit of time to get it all sorted but we are going to work on it this fall/winter.  It will be a series of podcasts and I think it’ll be very interesting and I will probably bug Chris Read to listen it to for us before we post it.  I have listened to podcasts for a long time but never felt the urge to do one until now.  

• Proud to say that I had a really lovely chat with everyone on the list I made during morning meditations with Optimom.  I so enjoyed that breathing exercise she led us in that I’m trying to work it into my day, every day.  I thank her so much for asking us to make the list because I know I may not have got up the nerve to talk to those folks without committing it to paper!

• Heard a lot of talk about snot bubbles over the weekend but did not actually witness any of them.  There was certainly many opportunities for said bubbles to make an appearance but I didn’t see any.  Having said that, thank you, whoever decided to put boxes of tissue on the tables at the power hour.  My puffy swollen eyes and I appreciated them.

• I totally ROCK my camera now! I learned more about my Nikon DSLR in 60 minutes with Anna Epp, the amazing Beach Mama, than I had in the 7 years I’ve been playing with it.  I will never use the auto setting again.  She was able to cover a lot of ground in our session and I have noticed the results in my photos.  I feel like I have a brand new camera.  Thanks Anna!!

I love learning and sharing with the amazing Blissdom Canada speakers and community leaders.  My favourite part of the conference is the time I spend talking, laughing and crying with folks I have met in previous years and with new people I met this year.  I really enjoyed spending time with new friends Tammy Bell, Patsy Copus & Siobhan Gillespie.  Blissdom Canada is the only thing I do every year that is only for ME.  Being part of a community of folks who I don’t have explain myself too means more to me than I can ever express.

Thank you so much Shannon, Jennifer, Neil, Melanie, Jacqueline, Lindsay, Dana and Tara (and all of the Blissdom Canada elves) for another amazing weekend.  Can’t wait to do it all over again next year!!

sisterhood

Ordinarily, I don't have the wherewithal to compose a blog post while I'm still at Blissdom Canada but I wanted to share this as soon as possible.

I just returned from hearing Christine Bentley talk about the Art of the Pivot.  For folks in the GTA, she was a well known TV anchor for CTV.  More recently she has been on SiruisXM with her radio show What She Said.  The short story is, for many years she worked hard and succeeded in broadcast journalism.  When that part of her career ended, she needed to find something else she did, hence the move to radio (amongst other things).

Something she said at the end of her story struck me because I knew it to be true but had not heard it articulated in this way before.  Simply put, the myth that women are competitive with each other is for the most part a myth.  Her experience (and this has been mine in the digital world) is that women support each other.  Chris has found that women do not hoard their knowledge or their skills and that we share with other to help each other improve and succeed.  She's right, we do.

She called us a sisterhood and I loved that.  That is what this thing feels like, a sisterhood (and yes, it's still a sisterhood when some of our sisters are men). I love this awesome network of bloggers and tweeters and podcasters and am so excited about how the rest of the weekend will unfold.

Christine gave me goosebumps this afternoon and I thank her for that.  Looking forward to many more goosebump moments!!