2022 was the year we all tentatively left our homes and attempted to regain a semblance of control over our lives after two years of Covid and we tried our best to get busy again.
In January, we visited our favourite winter hike, The Grotto in Tobermory and as usual, it did not disappoint us. This is a spectacular place to visit in January if you want to get a real sense of winter beauty. The waves crash up against the shoreline and freeze, creating natural works of icicle art. We also hiked another of our faves – Standing Rock Caves – we have now hiked this trail in all of the seasons and each time, it is still one of my favourite hikes around Collingwood, but wintertime is when you have the trail all to yourself.
In April, we visited The Distillery District in Toronto for the first time and really enjoyed that, even though the weather was drizzly and cold. Wandering through the stores and boutiques, I was fascinated by the renovations and how well the buildings had been restored and modernized, giving all the shops we entered an immediate cache. If you have never been, it is well worth a visit when you are in Toronto.
As some of you may know, I got a bit involved locally with trying to preserve a section of land behind our house which has been purchased by a developer. It runs along The Pretty River, and my next goal is to work with a local neighbour and architect to develop a proposal which may help save some of the wetlands as well and help create a pathway and possibly a community type nature area which residents can enjoy. It’s a long shot at this point but this is right behind our house and I want to do what I can to help preserve it. On January 23, 2023, I get to present my vision to Town Council for 30 minutes so we shall see if I manage to add enough value with that presentation to get the Town to adopt my concepts…
In June, we went on our first big trip in the last couple of years – two weeks in Newfoundland with Dorothy and Mark and it was wonderful. If you haven’t read my post yet, take the time to click on the link and read the story. It was a great visit. Then we enjoyed a visit from Nick here in Collingwood for a week, which was emotional after our friend Karen had passed away during Covid. In July we spent a week in Montreal for Sebastien and Daphne’s wedding which was a beautiful affair held at a winery in the Eastern Townships.
In August, we bought a hot tub and spent a few weeks re-building our back deck and getting that installed. The deck turned out to be quite a fun learning experience for me. I hired my neighbour Larry for a day’s help. He is an experienced builder and he tutored me for a full day and helped me build the framing and taught me how to use a skill saw, which I bought for myself. Who knew this is something I’d be doing in retirement. It was a good day as we work well together. He has the technical know how and is a great teacher and I am good at figuring out how much materials we need and doing the grunt work.
In September, Yim went back to Montreal to visit some high school friends, then we made a visit to Victoria for five days for Karen’s Celebration of Life, visited some friends and then traveled to Edmonton for two days to see my Godson and nephew, Frankie and meet his wife Natasha and their children. All that made for a pretty busy summer.
In October, I got to spend some time with my long time friend, Tom Liszt playing some pool and drinking some local beers before spending a weekend at Twin Pines with Mike and Mark Vansteenkiste and finished up our year with a fantastic early Christmas dinner with Sue and Bill at her art gallery in Clarksburg before heading to Montreal for Christmas.
I write this annual journal, as much to myself as I do to share, about my life, because it helps me stay focused. It helps me appreciate everything we have and allows me understand what I am grateful for.
It’s been a complicated three years for us with my prostate cancer, surgery, radiation treatments, recuperation, ongoing treatment and the pandemic. The Hormone Replacement Therapy treatment, which was set up to for three years has caused some side effects neither of us like but we are doing our best to cope through them. With luck, the treatments will end in January 2023 and my natural system will return to normal and balance itself out. Although I didn’t see it myself at first, as the treatment progressed, I came to recognize the mood swings I was experiencing and was able to control them better, usually, but not always. They are not a welcome part of my life…
In spite of that, I think we have balanced our lives well. I am happy exercising five days a week. Every day after I finish my 10 K run, I feel a sense of accomplishment. Yes, I run 10K every morning, five days a week. On top of that, I have added an hour of strength training daily at a local gym, so I am feeling good physically and mentally. My body is getting stronger as I get older now and I like that. I’ve discovered I prefer the running side of exercise over the biking I used to do a lot of, although I do still bike. I like the solitude of running. It gives me the same sense of peace that swimming provides. It’s quiet. It’s just me.
I’ve started swimming again and love it. Being able to swim a mile – 84 laps – twice a week has proven to me the value of the strength training I have been doing now for eight months. I wasn’t sure I’d still be able to swim for an hour non stop but my shoulder feels stronger than it has in years. Most of you know my left shoulder is compromised with metal pins holding parts of it together. Swimming helps.
In the afternoons, I am happy being able to spend time doing a little shopping for our food as needed and preparing lunch and dinner together. I am learning to be a better sous chef and thanks to Yim, we are eating fantastic healthy food. I am happy to be able to do a little bit of reading on healthier diets and how foods affect our bodies. I find that to be purposeful learning.
One of the things I have noticed with our plant based diet is my psoriasis disappeared, which amazed me. For forty years, Doctors could not solve the issue and three years eating a plant based diet and it is gone. I can only wonder what other benefits eating a whole raw food diet would bring…
We continue to become better gardeners in the summer and this year, we planted a Honeycrisp apple tree in the backyard and a Golden Russet apple tree in the front yard, which we created an Espalier for and if you don’t know what that is, you can read more here >
I have also found that I have disassociated myself with my working career relatively easily and on some days, am surprised by the changes in my thinking about the future and what I still want to do. I’ve noticed I have an increased interest in fashion, something I was quite interested in while in my 30’s, and the change in some of the places I want to visit, few of which involve scuba diving. I seem to be more interested in cultural travel now… but to be honest, that can change easily when I start watching a scuba diving documentary. It tugs at my heart…
I need to talk about Yim for a bit also. I am proud of her for so many things, from her being there for me during my health issues, as some of my side effects and the general ongoing injections and Doctors visits have been stressful for her, because they’ve been stressful for me, to her easy transition to our plant based cooking, her sewing business that she still operates, her dancing skills, which seem to increase with each year, to her learning how to make our own deodorants and many other things we use in our lives out of natural ingredients. She has inspired me to look more closely at anything and everything we can do to cut out any preservatives or chemicals from our lives. This is something I am very happy we have become more aware of.
Yim seems content, waking up and exercising most days with me, teaching Zumba twice weekly, taking Ballet, Salsa and Burlesque classes and preparing meals for us, to which I am grateful to her for. I think it is cool that she has started enjoying so many different dance classes. It’s something she loves and it shows when she comes home from each class. Plus, she gets to make her own outfits for the burlesque classes…
And now, as the year winds down, we are back at home after spending Christmas in Montreal with friends and family. The journey began with a harrowing 10.5 hour drive through a blizzard to get to Montreal and my nerves were frayed but we managed to spend some time with our friend Antonia on Christmas Eve, then enjoyed a wonderful dinner on Christmas Day with Leanna and Joel and their extended family. Being with them reminds me of the importance of being with friends who you have known for many years and the connection and understanding that brings to our lives.
Then we settled in for a full day of cooking on the 26th in preparation for a family gathering on the 27th, which was a ton of fun (as you can see above). Yim’s children were there, obviously, Cody and Natalie, our future daughter-in-law, Suyin and her partner Shawn, who also welcomed his brother Phil in for the day and Yim’s brother, Christy and his family attended – Juliette, their boys Karl and Adam and Karl’s friend Audrey-Ann. It was a nice evening of talking, eating, laughing and sharing.
On the 28th, I pretty much slept the entire day while Yim went shopping with Natalie and Suyin and Thursday morning we left for home but managed to fit in a detour to Peterborough to visit my second Mother, Jean Collins, who unfortunately, had to spend Christmas in the hospital but we are hoping she gets to go home shortly.
Right now, we plan on being very lazy for the next couple of days to bring in the New Year. To all of you who have taken the time to read through this, we are grateful to all of you for being in my life. We wish you all a Happy New Year.
Here comes 2023 and our big plan right now is visiting Paris in May for our 25th anniversary. Stay tuned…
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