Blog Articles About Joy

A Family Christmas

27 years ago, my parents, my sister and I moved to Canada. Only for a year and then it became two, then four and then we somehow put down roots and had two countries we called home. And home this is, but for many years, it was especially at Christmas that we missed our other…

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Having Plans

A couple of weeks ago, I watched a documentary called 65_RedRoses about a young woman with cystic fibrosis who was waiting for a double lung transplant. It’s a nailbiter and you need Kleenex and in the end, when you see her on the Dragon boat team of people who’ve had transplants, paddling furiously, you are…

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Thanks Giving

It has ripples, this thing. This exhibit. This fulfilling of a dream I thought was just a dream, something to wish for, think about, but never realize. A dream, a fancy, not an achievable goal. And besides the mindboggle of holycrapIhaveanexhibit!, there’s something more, a deeper awe. Because as Dawn said when I told her…

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Still, After All This Time

About a month ago, I wrote about living back from the edge and within that, about the slow coming back granted me by Enbrel and Humira. Well, in the beginning, it wasn’t slow. In the beginning, there was something new every day that I could do again, every day I laughed with the rediscovery of…

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Joy to the World

This weekend, it was warm. Not just not freezing, but actual warmth. Going out into the sunshine, I meandered through the neighborhood and saw buds, tiny leaves working their way out, leaving a delicate green tinge on branches that have been dead for months. Life is coming back. In a raised flower bed that is…

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For Alison

Yesterday, AlisonH came home after a harrowing experience leading to a hospital stay. A little lighter (I wonder how much a colon weighs?), but much healthier. And alive. Let’s not forget alive. Welcome home, my friend. It’s a good day.

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Ribbit

It all started with the shower curtain. When I moved into my own apartment (after years and years of waiting for one with attendant care attached to become available), AB sent me a fantastic shower curtain with a frog on it. Charming, whimsical, doesn’t matter what you call it, it makes me smile in the…

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Sidestepping into Happiness

I was talking to a friend the other day about how this particular set of holidays used to be my annual experience of manic depression. Well, not the actual disease, but perhaps a little bit of insight into what it feels like. Christmas is my favorite holiday of the year and there is nothing about…

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A Tink Christmas

For those of you who are new to my little corner of the world, I need to introduce the Tinks. Three years ago, my sister and brother-in-law created a set of beautiful twins named Morgan and Liam – I blogged about the day they were born here and John (a.k.a. TinkPapa) gave the background of…

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A Christmas Wish

Holly is the nicest person I’ve ever met. I don’t remember the first time my friend Andrew introduced me to his new girlfriend – I think it was dinner somewhere – but I remember coming home and when asked by my mother and sister what she was like, I told them about how incredibly nice…

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It’s All Gravy: Thoughts on a Small Life

Updated December 20, 2022 There is no happiness. There is only moments of happiness – Portuguese saying (allegedly) For most of my life, the transition to a new year has been hard. Caught up in the hype of endings and beginnings, I’d invariably find fault with my life, usually some variant of waiting for my…

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