TToT: Back After A Long While #OctoberSurprise #BlindnessAwarenessMonth #10Thankful

I could have posted my favourite quote about the month I most love, but that “October” quote from Lucy Maud Montgomery has been added here in previous years. I will stick to my own words today.

I’ve been out of this gratitude post activity for months now. I still practice gratitude in my head and in my heart, but I have my moments of self pity and fear also and so I wanted to break that block I had which kept getting in my way of sharing here.

Ten Things of Thankful #10Thankful

I am thankful for this, my favourite month. The air is fresher and crisper and cleaner than the earthiness of spring or the humid, heavy heated air of summer in southwestern Ontario. Winter is good also, with the smell of snow in the air all around, like a snow globe. I look forward to that, though I worry about people I love who find the long, dark months of winter a challenge to their mental health and energy levels.

I am thankful for my yearly seasonal fresh apples. They are giant, some I call pumpkin apples. They are special and tart/sweet and so crisp and sour at times. I am thankful for those who pick them from the apple trees this time of year.

I am thankful for how Canada is mostly pulling together and facing this pandemic with grace and a common goal of staying healthy, as many of us as possible. I lay low and protect myself, as I’m on my way to 25 years with my father’s kidney come 2022. Those I love are staying safe too.

I’m thankful for staying close to family during such strange times. I am lucky to have parents who taught their four children respect and love for the gift of a sibling, brother or sister, for the different things they bring to the table of sibling closeness. Our parents know they won’t always be here and how important it is to keep growing a bond with a sibling, no matter where life takes any one of us four. We’re here for each other and I don’t see that changing, but I hope I can do my part to keep the bonds strong.

I’m thankful each sibling and I have talks and they each keep me sane, in different ways, at different moments when I might be struggling to voice my concerns and fears over the state of things. I tend to let my imagination run wild with these things, am frightened for what’s to come in the US especially in the coming months. It’s hard here too, as helpless as I feel because I can’t contribute a vote against the man currently occupying the people’s house there in DC. I can only watch from up here, in horror and disgust and embarrassment for it all and the still real possibility that it could go worse still.

I am thankful for a more successful year for me, compared to 2019, dangerously contagious unknown virus that has come upon us in 2020 notwithstanding. I’ve started doing what’s called sensitivity reads for a children’s publisher in Toronto and now an accessibility review for a science journalist who was presenting at some sort of UK science journalism conference. She wanted to do all she could to make her slide presentation, with its images and alt text on those images accessible for everyone and needed someone with a screen reader to look everything over. I feel like I am doing my part in this world to improve accessibility for myself, others with the same needs as I have and that’s something at least..

I am thankful the show I do with my brother is
now available
in more places than one. We’ve had some incredible guests on the show in recent weeks and we’re not done yet.

I’m thankful for the nature documentaries on Netflix I’ve had to escape into for distractions lately.

Most of what’s available on Netflix now is audio described, allowing me to imagine the scenes of wildlife and the natural world in my mind as I’m listening.

Watching these, I felt peaceful for a brief but necessary break in my day, but also I’ve been reminded why I love nature (my religion) and the need for action to protect it.

I’m thankful I have an essay
about Braille
I wrote, published in my third print book, not counting the
magazine
I now have my name on as assistant-editor over the last year or so.

I probably should have confirmed, but I’m unfortunately unsure I can post the correct photo description, as I am unsure which one I went with here. I just chose one from my photos, one from that day, something with the print magazine my essay is in, me holding it or it being open and showing the page with my name or my story on it.

I’m thankful for the Women Who Travel online study course I’ve been taking, for the virtual walk around New Zealand next month, and the nature writing class I’m taking in January, 2021, all of which give me something meaningful to focus on, to work on, and to use as inspiration until I can travel again one day.

I’m thankful for the recent online fiction writing class I started, every Friday night until right before Christmas. It will keep me accountable..

Though we don’t know what will be by the time Christmas and the end of this wild year arrives, but until then I am doing my best to get by.

So, if you ask me that usual, general question from now until at least 2021 and the hope of a possible COVID-19 vaccine is perfected, even if I sigh, suck it up and answer “fine,” I won’t exactly be fine, but I’m doing what I can to stay hopeful and sometimes I fall back into that trap of answering in a way as to not make others feel uncomfortable to continue any further talk with me.

Thank you, Kristi and everyone, for still being here to show me the way on staying as accountable to being thankful as humanly possible and a recent Happy Birthday to our hostess here at the TToT.

And finally, this is a shot of my pal before I had to say goodbye and have him put down last month.

RIP and I’m glad there’s no more suffering for you. Staying positive here, as best I can. There’s always something to be thankful for.

TToT: Happy Seventh Birthday – Transplant/10ThingsofThankful anniversaries #Annedemic #Janndemic #AntiRacism #StrawberryMoon #10Thankful

“Go home and stay home.”

—Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

In mid March our PM told us this and I’ve been interested to see how things happened since then. This has been the last few months and we’re just now starting to gradually, very gradually open things back up a bit, and we shall see what happens over the summer ahead.

Long before all of this coronavirus talk, for me, it’s been five years of
Ten Things of Thankful #10Thankful
and I’ve found great value in this exercise in gratitude along with several other bloggers every week, especially now.

Current host says: Friendships were formed, and a community was born.

This is true. Thanks,
Thankful Me,
and thank you to Lizzi and Josie, those who have kept it going ever since, when one person needed to pass the torch and someone stepped right up to take the TToT on to keep it going for us all for all these years.

After I discovered the TToT, I was lead to another and there’s a partnership between the two weekly blog hops, at the moment for this thankful birthday celebration.

Finish the Sentence Friday with Finding Ninee

I’m thankful for this extended blogging community. I’ve done better in life with a place to go to remember gratitude in the tougher times and in the joyful, celebratory or reflective weeks.

From
Annedemic
to Janndemic, Jann Arden is one of my favourite Canadian musicians and she’s been going on daily walks with her little pup and taking her fans along on Facebook live. She is wise and talented and she has a calm voice of reason and comfort during corona, all the way out there in Alberta where she lives.

I call these walks Janndemic jaunts.

I’m thankful for our, let’s just say, more stable and practical leadership and direction during the first few months of the coronavirus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjhF1GI9n8A

The longest pause on record, it felt like, but what should he have answered?

As a certain #45 is nearing the end of his first four years, I hope he will be gone but I’m just trying to make it to November so we can see him go. I need to focus on what I’m grateful for because all that’s scaring me can feel massive and distracting.

Black lives matter.

Canada is muddling through the coronavirus like any other nation and we have racism here and discrimination—and discrimination with incidents involving cops and African or Indigenous Canadians. We aren’t as bold and in-your-face as all that goes on in the US, but we are hopefully seeing where we need to shape up and I look for signs of change. This appears to be a global movement, along with all the others, global warming and pandemic and economic etc.

Privilege. Apathy. These are just two ways I’ve benefited or faltered with our society’s white supremacy. I’ve done advocacy work with disability long enough to know I have nowhere near all the answers, I will make mistakes and frequently do, but I won’t stop trying to do better because we’re all interconnected, but must remember we don’t know another’s pain or experience in their own body.

I’m thankful I have people that I look to, learn from, and wish for their success and ability to be seen and heard. I want things different, for my nieces and nephews, for their future but also for the present they are growing up through, for every disabled child being born now, every Black child throughout the world, and every black, disabled person.

I write about these days we’re living through and also to document this year, here on my blog. I know, the perfect storm, but pandemic or no pandemic, these demonstrations are bringing people out, speaking of antiracism so nobody will be able to look away anymore.

I’m thankful for the daily diary I’ve started where I write to my grandma (gone 15 years next month) and share with her about this historic time she didn’t live to see. I have a place where I can go to express my biggest fears and anxieties of this pandemic.

I’m thankful for a few writing wins to focus on while the world is on fire.

From Feeling Stupid to Feeling Included – Folks

I wrote this about my journey to finding a safe space to explore movement, through yoga and then Pilates.

I’ve also got an essay about reading and braille that is likely coming out this summer sometime.

I’m thankful for the old rerun episodes of Young and the Restless, airing while new show taping is taking a pause. This is a different year from the almost fifty years of this particular soap opera they play and usually have a theme for one week’s shows, like greatest romances or villains. I can go from an episode I remember watching, at a younger age in life, or I can see an old enough episode that I was barely born when it first aired. It’s taking me back, distracting me once a day for an hour, and it reminds me of my oma who watched for years. She’s been gone ten years next week and I wonder what she’d make of this virus, after she faced war and moving to Canada and all.

I’m thankful for some of the shifts this virus seems to have ushered in, even though much about this time is hard, along with those brought on by systemic racism and prejudice, though these injustices are unacceptable and I am cheering on the protests and this time where a bunch of the best of 20th century are making an appearance in a bundle of fun: 1918 pandemic, 1930s economic woes, and the unrest of the 1960s in the Civil Rights movements to follow. (Sarcasm here, but it all feels like that.)

I’m thankful for the virtual Crip Camp I’m attending this summer, every Sunday, where presenters speak about internalized ableism and activism and mentorship in the disability community. I know I’m not alone in feeling helpless, but I must move beyond that if I want to get anywhere.

I’m thankful for tonight’s strawberry super moon taking place on my kidney transplant anniversary: twenty-three years and counting.

I’m thankful for my kidney, after a few scares with my creatinine and then my potassium level since the start of the year. Things are stable again, for the moment, and I’m thankful for the dedicated specialists monitoring things, always there, and the continuation with phone clinic visits.

I’m thankful I’ve been able to get through such a stressful time and that I practice the attitude of going with the flow (while lying low), even on my worst days of fear and weariness.

Happy 5th Birthday TToT!

TToT: An Epoch In My Life – Equations and Conjugations #BlackSwan #OneWorld #TogetherAtHome #10Thankful

“’The matter with human beans,’ the BFG went on, ‘is that they is absolutely refusing to believe anything unless they is actually seeing it right in front of their own schnozzles. ‘” …

—The BFG by Roald Dahl

So much going on that writing here often now slips through my fingers and gets lost in the recesses of my brain, but I have plenty to be thankful for-so let’s go.

Ten Things of Thankful #10Thankful

With the novel coronavirus, covid-45 up to his bullshit, and now the worst mass shooting in Canadian history having taken place this past weekend. I am trying to find moments of joy, ways to distract myself and my racing thoughts, and ideas to harness the creativity I have inside.

I wish, oh how I wish the world could all be on the same page with this, to work together, which seems so very simple to me. Apparently not?

We can sit around and blame China or the US or anyone else, but where does that get us?

All the finger pointing and wide gaps in the seriousness of the way this virus is being taken and all those conspiracy theories floating around. Why can’t things just be what they are? Like the quote I started this week’s TToT with, humans refuse to admit until they see with their eyes, and during times like these, not even then.

I am thankful for this song.

The Book of Love – Gavin James

I am thankful for a new online writing class I’ve started and the community of writers who are willing to open up and share.

The instructor started a WhatsApp group for all of us and we’re all leaving audio messages there, for each other, and as a place for reflection and contemplation.

She suggested we think up a name for the group and I thought of black swan because it’s a term being used to describe this pandemic and also, there are swans down at the park by my house now. I remember their white, graceful, loveliness as I watched them glide across water. Now I no longer see them, but I think a swan could be still beautiful, even a black one. Why not?

I know we’re often tempted to describe tough times like these as dark times, looking for the light, but I often get tired of these images we use to describe the bad and the good of life, but yet I know I can’t make every person stop describing life this way. It is what it is, as a writer, but I know the images that are created powerfully in words that bring to mind such metaphors.

I see it as a way to express how we are all going through an unprecedented period in history together, but also, along with all the negatives there can be beauty.

I am thankful for music to get me through hard times, like the live concert I got to see the other night.

Sarah Slean sold tickets, but for much much less than I’d pay to see a show in person, certainly less than I paid to see her live on a bitterly cold December night back in 2017.

Day One – Sarah Slean

I know Zoom has its issues, and I had to turn the voice off my iPhone while watching or else all the hundreds of people commenting would make Voiceover go berserk.

Sarah is so cheery, the kind of cheery you can hear in her voice, as her smile is audible when she speaks. Her singing voice is just brilliant and so is her piano playing.

She is excellent with a string section behind her, don’t get me wrong, but there was just something about the simplicity of a woman and her piano in her home in Toronto with 776 people listening to her performance.

I am thankful for the virtual camino walk I’m on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3Ekot38tV8&feature=youtu.be

I have many places in Europe I’d like to get to, but Italy was never high on that list for some reason. I am not sure why, but now Spain is up there.

A writer who creates unique travel experiences put together something to occupy us and help us find our way through all this, starting a group on Facebook and every day she posts a file where she describes a chunk of a camino, Camino de Frances in this case. I would have trouble handling such walks in real life, with my blindness and my chronic pain issues, but this is totally doable. No blisters if I choose not to imagine them, though I know I get off easy in this case.

All these ancient routs that pilgrims went on, going back to the sixth century or the tenth. I simply can’t imagine. This music she shared told a story to perspective travellers. It puts me in that frame of mind.

I write a daily corona diary to my long since departed grandmother, but I also take her and all my ancestors along on the camino with me.

I am thankful for something called Annedemic.

Winter Green – The East Pointers

The band, The East Pointers, they’ve come up with something to help raise money for struggling musicians who have lost touring opportunities. Themselves or one of their friends or musicians they’ve played with read one chapter of Anne of Green Gables a night on Facebook live. It’s always entertaining and I forget how much I love that story. It’s just a lot of fun to distract from all that isn’t.

I am thankful I can travel even when grounded in place.

TVO Original TRIPPING the Rideau Canal

I love the Rideau Canal and especially when it freezes over in winter and becomes a long stretch of skating surface.

I experienced that back in 2015 and I wish to go back there, since skating again with family in these last five years and most recently, right before the coronavirus took centre stage.

I went to Ottawa last year, right around now, to a conference and I brought a friend with me. I stood out on our balcony and recorded a soundscape of the capital city of Canada and I still plan to write some poetry of some kind and record my voice reading it over that city backdrop.

I am thankful to be in Canada during covid.

In spite of everything, this country is handling the pandemic better than many other places. When I heard an interview with Andrew Cuomo I heard someone who knew what he was talking about and who works hard. That’s what leadership should look like, but other so-called leaders are impossible to follow.

Here we have kept the numbers of infections and dreaded dead down to a lower amount than elsewhere. We come together during hard times, like this virus and now the shooting Nova Scotia has suffered.

I am thankful I got to speak with my family members, even if we’re social distancing for now.

My niece and nephew told me all about what they got from the Easter Bunny and then my niece gave me a book report, of sorts, about the BFG.

Snozzcumbers Soph, really?

The main character’s name is Sophie – close but we call our Sophia Soph.

I really should get a copy of a book my niece is reading and read along too. We could have a little Roald Dahl book club of sorts, even from a distance. My teacher read us Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and, I believe, and the Glass Elevator in fourth grade, but I hardly remember except for some truly awful alien creatures in the latter story. I could use a refresher.

I am thankful that the re-test of my blood, creatinine level, it was repeated and has gone down again.

From 70-80 for years and years, up to 110 at the end of 2019, down to 100 at my birthday, and now down to 93 – I’ll take it, for now.

And I am thankful for this poem and the journey it relays.

David Whyte: Santiago

My writing instructor recommended it. I had not heard of David Whyte before.

As Anne Shirly would say, this is sure to be an epoch in my life, this virus, for better or for worse and everything/everywhere in between.

TToT: The Luxury of My Breathing – Hammer and Dance #10Thankful

And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still.

And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.

“And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.

“And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new wats to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.”
– Kitty O’Meara

Photo caption: massive flock of swans on a pond at the side of the road. Reminds us of how the world of nature and our environment might have been calling for a shut down of our regularly scheduled programming for a while now and to slow down and learn to value what truly matters, not what certain fake leaders think life’s all about.

And nature also takes a breath, as my favourite Canadian song writer (Jann Arden) says: “good things come from bad things.”

I am full of gratitude for so many things, even though this pandemic rages on across the world, moving in waves, inclines and declines, and I wait at home for news…for something.

Ten Things of Thankful #10Thankful

It all starts and stops, begins and ends with breathing.

I’m thankful for every breath I take that’s unimpeded by the virus in question and any other.

I’ve never experienced pneumonia before. I’ve been on ventilators before, during surgeries, but any remaining memories of that sort of thing are super vague.

I’m thankful my family are all safe right now.

Speaking of breathing, my sister has asthma and I’ll never get over the shock when I walked into my brother’s hospital room, after an emergency medical condition had him requiring help to breathe and we’d not had any warning.

I’m thankful for medical advancements in the last one hundred years.

I’ve read and studied a lot about the Spanish flu of 1918 and I know this is different, but the biggest we’ve seen since then.

I’m thankful my two essential worker parents are okay.

My mom looks after people in a group home and my dad drives a wheelchair cab.

People with disabilities already have greater difficulties during these large events because they can not drive and depend on others to do that and more.

Lots about this world isn’t accessible and all the work-at-home modifications being made to keep people working and our economy from total collapse are things those with disabilities ask for normally and are often denied.

Not so much the time to harp on that now, but it’s a valid point.

I’m thankful for the technology I do have in 2020 so I don’t feel so alone, even while practicing social distancing in my home where I live by myself.

I have family and friends nearby and am rather used to spending large amounts of time home.

I’m thankful for all the work being put into fighting this coronavirus thing here in Canada and around the world, all the brilliant minds working and the front line people seeing this covid-19 up close, but I feel intense appreciation I am in this country and not in the US, but I worry for all my friends there during such days as these.

I’m thankful for the message Prime Minister Trudeau sent out to the children of this country.

Trudeau gives Canadian kids ‘special thanks’ for helping fight coronavirus – CBC News

I envy my three-year-old niece, but I wonder if she’ll feel any of these issues going on around her. My older niece and nephews can’t go back to school and I know that will be an issue. I’m okay because I know their parents are there for them, there to explain things when they ask questions.

I can’t imagine running a country during a global pandemic, especially after Sophie Trudeau tested positive for the virus. He isn’t perfect, but better than many alternatives worldwide and I feel safer here than many places I could be right now.

Justin Trudeau: Working at home just like the rest of us – Politico

I’m thankful for a body that knows how to heal itself, at least somewhat.

I went for a walk last week and twisted my ankle and scraped up my knee.

I’m thankful for strange pain pathways that don’t feel how bad my knee looks/feels. I was able to put weight on my left foot and right leg and finish the walk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jO2wSpAoxA&feature=youtu.be

I’m thankful for the beautiful words of children.

I asked my cousin if I could share the following thoughts from her kids. Good place to end the TToT for this week (copied, with permission, from Facebook):

We’re all poets. And have something profound to share. Here’s the sentiments of our sweet Anders and Nevie.

Nev😇
I am happy
I wonder how many animals there are in the world
I hear the radio
I see the lake
I want a pet hamster
I am silly

I pretend I’m an animal
I feel proud
I touch animals
I worry about wildlife
I cry sometimes
I am kind

I understand the way of life
I say I love animals
I dream happiness
I try hard
I hope this virus goes away
I am calm

Anders🥰

I am strong
I wonder about the world
I hear nature calling for me
I see love
I want to have a nice life
I am proud of who I am

I pretend that I can fly
I feel happy
I touch nature
I worry about other people
I cry sometimes
I am filled with love

I understand nature
I say freedom
I dream of the world being saved

I try to be my best
I hope I can listen to other people’s feeling and help them if they’re sad
I am the best, best version of myself

Write them for yourself and your loved ones to stay connected to Self and one another. Stay true folks❤️❤️

I AM
I WONDER
I HEAR
I SEE
I WANT
I AM

I PRETEND
I FEEL
I TOUCH
I WORRY
I CRY
I AM

I UNDERSTAND
I SAY
I DREAM

I TRY
I HOPE
I AM

Try these prompts out for yourself in the comments, as comments, if you want and take care of yourselves.

TToT: Thirty-six Pick Up Sticks #BlanketSea #10Thankful

Let’s just dive in.

Ten Things of Thankful #10Thankful

I am a little older and wiser since the tenth of the month and yet I don’t know what I’m doing or where I’m headed. Currently, I am listening to a live feed from a famous pub in Dublin, Ireland with live, Friday night entertainment.

I did turn thirty-six recently and my niece and nephew were so excited to start celebrating with me. We had a cake made and sampled by the time my sister arrived with dinner.

I am thankful for family on my birthday. Even my nearly three-year-old niece sang. She loves to sing.

I am thankful for loved ones who can bring me smoothies, milkshakes, and oranges to soothe my sore throat.

I am thankful my post birthday cold didn’t last too long.

I am thankful for the nerve blocks I’ve been getting.

I am a little wary of being injected in my head, but in the nerves specifically. I have had Botox to try to treat headaches in the past. Nerve blocks are helping one very specific headache I get.

I am thankful to have written a poetry review for a talented artist’s first poetry chapbook.

You can read it here.

If you like what you hear, check her out.

I am thankful for my core group of three writing women who I get to write with twice a month.

They have such unique imagination in their heads and stories they read out to the group.

I am full of gratitude that they share with me in such a special way.

I am thankful we in Canada are starting to work on healing the deep rifts here between Indigenous groups and the government and your average Canadian citizen.

Canada loves the rule of law (unless we’re talking Indigenous rights)

Okay, well if we’re not doing a great job so far, I at least hope everyone doesn’t give up and keeps talking.

I know things seem particularly rough right now, but at least we’re facing these issues, head-on. When we push them down and hope they won’t make too much trouble, it only prolongs any possible solutions.

I don’t pretend to know the answers, but I feel quite emotional about it all when I think of the history of this land and how it will all progress in future.

The live performance at Temple Pub and they are doing a version of this, one of my favourite songs by The Cranberries, after all this time.

It reminds me to keep on dreaming for myself. I am extremely grateful for dreams, but I remind myself of this lyric often:

“Don’t mind dreams. It’s never quite as it seems. Never quite as it seems.”

I am thankful for February. This winter hasn’t been as cold as some likely have been, but still cold enough for complaints, but I love this time of year better than summer.

I am thankful for anything I can do to distract myself from some of what’s going on in the world these days. I’m nervous that 2020 will be a long, rather scary year in some ways, but that’s why I keep doing all the things that bring me fulfillment and joy to balance it all out.

TToT: 2020 and Feeling Good As Hell #JusJoJan #10Thankful

Once again, I have been absent from this
Ten Things of Thankful #10Thankful
exercise in gratitude and I did mean to join in more, but life got in the way.

I am thankful for
Kristi
and her taking on the TToT and for making a lovely effort to ensure accessibility is as common as possible, even with all the things that are out of her control.

I will go back a few months to start things out – back to 2019.

I am thankful I got to attend an old friend’s wedding back in November.

It was wonderful having a celebration with good friends and family too. The event wasn’t too big and I danced as much as possible.

I am thankful for a fun few days with friends (both old and new) at Social Media Week Toronto, only a few days after the wedding.

Caption: Kim, me, Amy, and Victoria

It was a nice getaway to Toronto and it was cold, mid November, but I was mostly thankful for the slight warm up but still cold enough, on my last evening in the city, with the most delicate snowflakes falling as we walked to find some dinner before I had to catch my train home.

I am thankful for the chance to be a guest on a podcast about culture called
Culture-Hacking – “Seeing the World Differently”.

I am thankful for a fun-filled Christmas season with family.

Caption: I’m with my nieces, watching The Simpsons on the tablet, with the tree in behind us. (Hmm, did I end up posting this photo more than once?)

I am thankful for a speaking gig I had lined up for January.

PROBUS Canada

It was good to get to speak to a room of women from the older generations, to share a bit about my blindness experience, including all the travel I’ve done and some of the obstacles I face, not to mention informing them of the existence of the
Canadian Federation of the Blind
here in Canada in 2020.

That website is where you can go to read the latest issue of The Blind Canadian, November 2019 where I am newly an assistant-editor.

I am thankful I had a meeting with the woman/writer I’m planning to walk the Thames River path with this coming September and with my friend and travel agent who is helping us plan the month long adventure ahead.

I am thankful for this new audio podcast platform.

anchor.fm

We may use it to record and share daily updates as we go and I have started a profile there and have recorded my first two episodes. I will probably make these, as an audio version of my written blog, capturing the months ahead and all the planning and preparing I’ll be doing. It’s a cool site/app I can even add music to my recorded voice and I can do it without having to depend on my audio expert brother all the time. I think this one, it will be nice to be able to do it myself.

And I am thankful, last but certainly not least, for a mostly positive result on a blood level that had jumped in recent weeks for unknown reasons.

I have lived by that number for more than 20 years, creatinine to measure my transplanted kidney’s excellent function. I don’t remember it being more than 70-80 in years and suddenly I received a call that it had jumped up to 110.

On re-test, it did go back down, not down as far as I’d necessarily like it to, but 100 – and I will take that, for now.

I tend to lean into my more negative side with these sorts of things, but the doctor wouldn’t commit to the idea that my kidney is slowly declining. He said, at this stage, it could be that, but maybe 100 is my new baseline level. It happens and there’s no reason, at this time, to think anything further to be the case. I am getting re-tested in April and going back again in June for my once-a-year, usual doctor’s appointment.

But he did seem quite sure I’d be walking in England by September and that nothing renal related would get in the way of that. (Still…one more reason I want to do this walk, to help raise awareness, and to explore the world while I have the chance.)

I am thankful, extra thankful, to that hospital and the transplant outpatient program and the doctors that keep such a good eye on things for me. I am lucky to be living where I am living, as I hear more and more stories of the medical costs in the US that people live with.

To start 2020 somewhere, I was glad to participate in an entire month of blogging with prompts coming from certain participants of the yearly activity, participants such as
Wendy
and the blogger to run the whole thing. Thanks
Linda,
for getting my year started, with writing and blogging and your Just Jot It January #JusJoJan challenge, so I can at least begin somewhere for the year.

Caption: a Just Jot It January completion badge

I am about to celebrate this blog’s six year anniversary and my thirty-sixth birthday – 2020 and I say “bring it on!”

TToT: An Ode and Lament For “No Need to Argue” #FlashbackFriday #10Thankful

Had they but courage equal to desire?

William Butler Yeats – Poetry Foundation

It’s around that time: celebrating The Cranberries biggest and best of all their albums – No Need to Argue, 1994.

First off, I just like that message, being someone who never liked to argue much at all myself.

It’s not only one big time radio single that’s on offer here, but a lovely and haunting collection of songs, that moves me from start to finish.

From family ties to Ireland’s well-known Troubles to a tribute to a long-since-passed Irish poet.

During the later half of the 90’s, I’d place the tape in my walkman, crank the volume in my headphones, and drown out the world, a world of medical tests and uncertain outcomes. Not all my childhood was about, but a big big part of it and this album was a piece of that.

And it all started with my sister (thanks) and an Irish boy on our school bus.

RIP again, Dolores, and a great owing of gratitude to the entire band for this album.

What album (not song) has been there, done this sort of thing in your life? Albums are often neglected pieces of art as a whole.

Ode and Lament (From my 20th anniversary post for this album.)

I’m back for another round of
Ten Things of Thankful #10Thankful
and this week I am thankful for more than ten things, but for every song on this memorable album and for those who made it – those still alive and those no longer with us.

I think of that quote from the top of this post and hearing her murmur those words of W.B. Yeats (in that song on the album) and I often wonder if my courage is equal to my desire for so many things.

Her haunted voice will forever ring inside my head.

Had they but courage equal to desire?

Had I? Have I?

TToT: From Beach to Bog and Through the Pages of a Storybook #ByeCoolBog #10Thankful

“Make visible what, without you, might never have been seen.”
—Robert Bresson

I am struggling with my own life/self/situation and with that of the wider world. Still, I always have things to be
thankful for
and that’s what keeps me going.

I’m thankful for a lovely weekend with siblings, parents who are grandparents, and with nieces and nephews.

I’m thankful for those times when my niece or nephew takes my hand to walk somewhere.

They know I am blind, learning it by degrees as they grow, and all they really know is to be helpful. I am proud of the kind little people they are.

I’m thankful for lovely weekend weather to enjoy family time out in.

I don’t like the humidity and this final, full weekend of August was not too humid-just perfect.

I’m thankful for a beach day.

The water was cold, on initial immersion, but the water out beyond the rough shoreline was pleasantly refreshing, but felt great being out there.

I’m thankful for a niece who loves rides and a nephew who loves the water park facilities at
Storybook Gardens
in London.

I’m thankful for the fresh smell of the water park. I enjoyed lounging on a chair while they played. It smelled so fresh there and the air was cool and breezy.

I’m thankful my niece and nephew from out of town came on
Outlook CFB
with me and Brian.

They were their silly, sweet selves and we wanted to ask them about having an aunt and uncle who can’t see, but that question wasn’t one they could verbalize.

We think this is a good thing because it means our blindness is simply something about us, the aunt and uncle they love and know, but that it is not a big deal. They are often asking questions and their curiosity means they are learning.

We wish, in a way, that every child was born into a situation where someone in their family had a disability of some sort, blindness specifically. Then, instead of people never having come across someone who is blind and being totally unprepared to react/interact, everyone would just know about it and have lived with it. Only saying, this would be helpful, but not the way it is of course.

I’m thankful for glimpses of the Downton Abbey movie.

I’m thankful I’ve had someone to talk over what’s been going on lately. It helps because it’s a fresh take on things.

I’m enjoying time with family and trying to klook toward the future.

Caption: my family with Humpty Dumpty at Storybook Gardens in London, Ontario.

I’m thankful we packed Storybook Gardens and the bog and ice cream all in in one day.

We have been talking about checking out a local bog for a while and the kids were fascinated. It was a lovely walk, along a boardwalk, and we all stuck a foot out into the muck of the bog.

Bye cool bog and bye August/summer.

The northern sky was amber and pale green over the fir tops. The air was cool, for August was nearing September

ANNE’S HOUSE OF DREAMS

TToT: For Those Rookies I Love and Remembering To Breathe #PeaSeason #JustBreathe #10Thankful

I spend a lot of time being attracted to songs with messages about remembering to breathe. I do it, of course, and I’m thankful I can. Still, I’m most thankful for music and reminders of such a thing.

Tough year so far, ups and downs, but if it weren’t for a few familiar favourites about this time of year, I would be totally lost.

I haven’t done one of these in months. It’s partly from the tough year and partially because the whole process of this
Ten Things of Thankful
thing is different now than it once was.

Yet, I am back and trying to fill out this middle of 2019 with a few items of gratitude and this is the place to do that.

I am thankful for July being the month for fresh peas.

They’re so fresh tasting, sweet yet healthy. I am thankful for the whole podding process that I am expert in after so many seasons of practice. It’s so sweet to me that my niece and nephew love peas too. I don’t even mind doing the podding for them, especially, and even the sharing of the final product. If I’m going to share my favourite fresh vegetable with anyone, it’d be those two. I try not to feel affronted when the two-year-old takes too many in a handful or one or two or a few more are dropped. (Common mistake for a rookie.)

I’m thankful for new experiences for those I love most. I can stand a difficult time of it for myself a little easier if I know someone else I care about is having a memorable time of a summer.

I’m thankful for the return to regular summer days amongst the really humid days.

There’s a big difference between when the sun is hot but the air is still fresh, with a lovely breeze and those days when it’s a sauna in the very air I need to breathe.

And, of course, I’m thankful for AC because, though I know I am spoiled in that, I am grateful I don’t have to tough it out.

Such heat and humidity is one of the main triggers I’ve so far discovered with my pain and headaches and I am glad I have another option.

I’m thankful we’re getting some more exposure for our show from a media source like
Accessible Media Inc.
with a feature on their TV network.

Check out Outlook on AMI This Week.

This was four months in the making.

The media are maddening in many instances, but some cases prove the opposite of that.

So, soon we say goodbye to July and summer half over. That may anger some, but I am looking forward to September.

I can’t say when I’ll be back here, but I’m thankful for my blog, always.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0r1AJMK79g

I need those reminders to breathe, between the other lyrics that get me through, especially with the headlines in places all over the world today.

TToT: Be Or Not Be, That Is Question – Go! #10Thankful

A birthday is a good time to reflect on all that’s happened since the last one and a chance to let go of whatever might need letting go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDocib2cAVQ

I am still doing this
Ten Things of Thankful #TToT
exercise, but I am feeling a distance from what used to be something so joyful for me.

I am thankful
Kristi
has been so helpful to make up for the lack of accessibility with InLinz.

I am thankful
Clark
is so skilled in his descriptions of his photos.

I love reading and sharing these TToT posts, but with this InLinz problem, I am left to consider if it’s time to move on…

But no because this is my weekly gratitude journal. It’s where I keep track of things that particular week and I like to include a photo of something that took place, a favourite quote I came across, a link to an article of interest, and a song I may have discovered and want to keep a record of.

I am thankful for the bloggers who did it first, when I happened across them in 2015 and that I am still here, four years later.

I am thankful for my brother, on his birthday weekend, and for the final few days of March.

I am thankful for what we’ve achieved with
Outlook CFB
so far and for Brian’s position at
94.9 CHRW Radio Western
already with his music show every Friday.

Without that, we never would have gotten the idea to do a show, based on the
Canadian Federation of the Blind
and a place to educate and to be visible.

I am thankful for our family weekend in Niagara Falls and for all the whacky stuff that transpired at that favourite childhood hotel of ours.

I am thankful I participated in my first group exercise class and that I was able to keep up and face my fear of looking ridiculous in front of other people.

I am thankful my father likes to walk and that we can have this new thing together, walking together, as I prepare and train myself for a walk along the Thames.

I am thankful my first paediatric kidney specialist from 96 saw me on the news and reached out via a good, old fashioned letter in the mail. A return to a simpler time.

Or was it just as complicated?