Monday Morning Musings

Posted on January 10, 2022 under Monday Morning Musings with 3 comments

 

 

“Tiny bubbles (tiny bubbles),

In the wine (in the wine),

Make me happy (make me happy),

Make me feel fine. (make me feel fine).”

Tiny Bubbles – Don Ho

The first week of 2022 is officially in the books. Christmas decorations have been put away and people are tallying up the cost of the festive season… in the wallet and in the waistline. OMG. I was so supremely proud of myself when I arrived home from the north. I hadn’t had a drink all Fall and worked so hard physically at school that I had lost 12 pounds. That all went in the shitter in just a couple of weeks. It’s amazing how we can totally lose all semblance of discipline when the reins are loosened, and we’re untethered. I shouldn’t be using the royal “we”, but I can see a number of you nodding your heads in agreement. How does one know when they’ve eaten enough chocolate?!

I will be overjoyed when ‘tiny bubbles’ actually refers to champagne and not the isolating experience that most of us felt at Christmas. My bubble consisted of Peter and I and some dust bunnies.. and of course, my magnificent two-foot-high ceramic tree. This may have been the quietest Christmas I have ever experienced. It wasn’t terrible but all the customs built up over a lifetime seemed to have vanished. Having a creative son allowed us the opportunity to play some tunes and work on podcasts. More on this in a bit.

I don’t make resolutions, but I do have some plans and goals for the year ahead. No offense, Pat and John but I hope not to see either of you other than socially. Pat and John are great guys, both endowed with a generous sense of humour. They own funeral homes. As always, my number one goal is to stay healthy. With good health, anything is possible.

I also want to finish writing and publishing my 7^th. book about my adventures in the north. Because I have done four, 14-day quarantines over the past two years, I was able to get a head start on the book but hadn’t written a single word in 8 months until I put the hammer down earlier last week. If I can write at least 1000 words a day for the next month, on top of what I’ve already written, I should be in good shape. This will be by far my biggest book in terms of number of pages. I hope to publish and release it in late spring if all goes well.

I had every intention of not mentioning Covid in this piece but that’s pretty hard to do when it continues to be such an enormous drag and a huge pain in the ass. All of us know someone who has had it. Most people seem to be experiencing fairly mild symptoms but not all. I have friends near and far who feel like they have been hit by a fast- moving train. I think most of us feel like there’s a good chance that we will get it before all is said and done. Until the rest of the world’s poorer countries get vaccinated, we will continue to see new variants, according to epidemiologists.

So, hands. How many of you watched Episode 1 of theWeek45 podcast? It had its baptism last Thursday. https://www.week45.com/podcast-episode-1/. You are excused for not watching it if you were doing something more important like emptying your composter or paying your Visa bill. It’s not too late to take a look at it when you have 25 minutes. We received many favourable comments. I know at least one family who listened to it while they took down their Christmas tree. Yes. Watching the podcast is OK too. You see, Peter has inserted some wonderful photographs of places that were part of the journey.

Episode 2 will be coming up on Thursday and will continue to run weekly for the month of January. Now this is in the experimental stage. I can tell you that producing a podcast requires a lot more than meets the eye. The easy part is telling stories and chatting. However, editing this material, producing music, equipment rental, and adding photographs requires time and money.

If the response remains positive (please continue to comment), our plan is to do an initial 10- episode season. That means that if there’s enough interest, we will produce another 6 episodes after the trial run. Not unlike PBS, I will be reaching out to supporters to help with the costs of producing the last six episodes. Once we fine tune the production coats, I’ll let you know the bottom line. If you become a supporter, your name can be listed at the end of the podcast if you so desire or you can remain anonymous. Stay tuned. This is a new venture for us and we’re trying to see if it’s something you want.

Hope your year has started off on a positive footing.

Have a great week.