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December 29th 2023

 So it's that time of year again. A few major positives this year and a couple of bad ones.

The Good Stuff:

I had several of my bucket list items come true this year:

  • I flew on an airplane for the first time. I admit it's a lot of stuff to go through to get to the plane but the ride itself was super. I even had a window seat on the way to Calgary. 
  • I have always wanted to spend some time at the Calgary Stampede and this year I got to spend several hours on the fairground and I watched a couple of chuckwagon races. Maybe next time I'll get to see some of the trick-riding and the bull-riding stuff which are the other two things I'm interested in.
  • I have always wanted to see West Edmonton Mall and we spent a couple of hours wandering around there.
  • I got to see Joseph on stage!
Plus a lot of other good stuff happened:
  • We went to Canmore and I got to see the Three Sisters (Mountains in Alberta, I always thought it was all flat country)
  • We took a road trip during the color change in the fall and I got some lovely photos
  • I rediscovered my love for Photography and treated myself to Photoshop and I'm having a blast with it.
  • I have always wished I could draw the images I get in my mind and this year in December I discovered the power of AI as an artists tool and have been able to recreate a few of the images and gotten new ideas along the way.
  • I got to see my sister for a few hours for the first time in three years, sadly I was not feeling myself so it wasn't an overly long visit.
of course a few bad things happened:
  • one of the worst ones happened in the summer and it sent me into as deep a depression as I have had in years. I'm still recovering from it but I feel I'm doing a bit better than I did from August to November.
  • my hips and left shoulder have developed some type of Arthritis I think, Whatever it is it hurts on top of the Fibro
  • We put Coco Chanel to sleep which added to the depression. I do not know if her death was the triggering event or if it was my visit to the graveyard, or if it was something else entirely. All I know is that I was sad all fall and it is still going on.
With all that time stuff, my sense of time is out of kilter apparently I've been in this particular depression since last year so the trigger must have been the breast cancer and all the stuff that went with it. GD#3, the cousins at the graveyard, putting Coco to sleep they all came after that.

I am hoping it is lifting and I'll get some of my old self back but I got a feeling that that Cheryl is gone and I'm going to have to build myself anew.

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