Jocie's Blog

 Well you can almost here the collective sigh of relief as Christmas came, did its thing, and has now left us .. for many... alone.  And that is okay.   I read somewhere that 'Christmas' is a full time, temporary, job but one we love.  Putting up the lights in preparation for for shortest day of the year.  Putting up a tree to bring the light inside the house.. decorating it to bring even more sparkle to the long nights.  I have two televisions now.. and regret nothing.  I watched a White Christmas yesterday.. The Grinch the week before.  I could have music going upstairs while Gabe was able to binge on some Netflix (or Prime) series downstairs, where it was cooler.  It was a good Christmas for me.  Since leaving Jaffray I have spent a lot of Christmases on my own, so this year was rather special.  Not the case for many though.  But it seems people figured out how to have a good time and still obey the rules of the day....

My son Monte seeks adventure.  He is a civil engineer as well as a climbing and skiing guide with Black Sheep Adventure Sports. Check it out on Facebook. He comes by his talents honestly.   His father owns a contracting company, and his mom, well... I applied to work at the Fernie Ski Hill the minute all three of my boys were in school.  I was raised on that hill as my father was instrumental in creating the slopes, and my mother, the lodge.  Once I got married, I managed to get up there a few times with just one child, but once the third one arrived, it seemed an impossible dream.  Skip ahead five or six years and the boys  were off to school. I had a few hours free each day, and was eager to go skiing yet again.  I couldn't really afford a pass, but if you had a job up there, they gave you one.  I called called the ski school and asked how I would go about getting qualified as an instructor.  "You can start Saturday," the fellow said....

 So this morning I woke up and it was almost six.  Yesterday, I 'slept' in until 7:30.  This is late for me.  The last few years I am often awake in the middle of the night, but here, in my own home, in my own country, I am sleeping really well.  The only night I struggled was when I thought I was going to be working at Walmart - apparently I don't want a job. Or at least that one.  I wake up in the morning, make coffee and light the fire. Yes.. lighting the gas fireplace is done at the push of a button on my remote but someone has to do it. Then I start to think about what to do with the day ahead.  There is always something, even living alone, there is always something.  Last weekend, it was selling honey.   Rea opened her little shop in the barn.  It started with the ribbon cutting.  We had to wait a bit for the first car to pull into Honey Lane, but when they did we cheered and made a big deal of it.  They had a child ...

 Ya... I chickened out.  Or maybe just woke up.  Either way, it is a bit depressing.  I woke up yesterday, the day of my interview at Walmart, and realized there was no way I was going to drive through the snow, guaranteed at least some of the time in the dark, to work with people during a pandemic, for a wage that would barely pay for the gas it would take to get there.   This is what our front line workers do.   Very few of them get what they call a 'living' wage.  They are out there, masks on, dealing with people who are also 'over' this pandemic.  There was another case in Revelstoke or somewhere nearby, where a lady lost her sh't about wearing a mask.  And, she lost it on people who had got up that morning and gone to work in the dark, for just enough to get by.  At least I hope those people were getting by.. it is as expensive as heck to live in this country.  I am so grateful that I am able to not work if I so choos...

 So... I saw Bonnie Henry actually smile today!  That was cool. And, a relief after watching her all year just reel out the numbers of people in trouble with this virus.  She still gave us the numbers- 2000 over the weekend, more than six hundred today.  However, things actually are changing and there may be an end to this Covid thing after all.. if not in three weeks, maybe three months, or six or nine..  I have been spending way too much time on my own.  With all these regulations it hasn't been easy to not go visit the Kootenays, or visit the kids.  If the roads don't get you, the guilt about not following the rules will.  So, I stay home for the most part, but that gets old real fast.  I try to get outside as much as I can and today I went for another hike.   I have been finding a few trails around here.  Probably not a great time of the year to hike, but after that first snowfall, things have been pretty good.  But, t...

 I don't mind being alone.  I have been doing alone for, well, most of my life.  I like the quiet - I appreciate the ability to do as I like.  But, Christmas is a time for family and friends, food and music and noise.   I was so looking forward to Christmas this year, in my new house, in the snow.  But, apparently it has been cancelled because of restrictions as the numbers of cases of Covid are just too high.  Gabe and Val were bringing a couple of girls and I was so looking forward to it. They say this year will be different, but for me, being alone isn't that different.  I haven't had a joyful, family Christmas, in my own home, for more years than I can remember.   I bought a tree.  Put up lights, bought some poinsettias. Made that wreath. I used Rea's sewing machine and actually made stockings for Gabe and Val's girls and had started shopping for things to fill them with.  I furnished the house with the family in mind.. a p...

The lady that wrote Eat Prey Love, Elizabeth Gilbert, explained that ideas are floating around in the air, like a great tiger, and if you don't immediately reach out and solidly take hold of them, they will fly on past you for someone else to capture and put to paper.. or not. This runs true for me. Idea collection is one of the reasons I like to travel so much.  Well, drive mostly.  It doesn't work for me in a plane, where I could easily capture an idea and go to work on putting it down on the page, as there is lots of time.  But driving down the road in my car, ideas for stories fly past me at incredible speed.  Sometimes they swat me in the face like a big wet fish that I wonder why others didn't duck, but usually they are illusive, like ghosts floating about in the air.  The problem for me is, while the idea can be a great one, and I can spend some kilometers of road thinking about how to expand or use it,  if I don't write it down, actually stop and ta...

Christmas in Canada is largely about the preparations.   It started with a couple of poinsettias.   The last lady in this house, Jutta, left a couple of her plants as transporting them would have been cumbersome and expensive, so what was a couple more. I bought two small, red poinsettias at the grocery store and put them on the steps leading to the loft that I seldom used.  That looked festive and elegant.   Next (still November mind you), came the wreath workshop.  It was local, just a few kilometers up the highway, and in the art studio, so I figured I might meet some like minded people and end an evening with a lovely wreath.  It sort of worked out.  Sure, I was an hour early, and it was already bloody dark so I went to the liquor store and bought tequila, but it happened.  The process was more crafty than creative, and the people were, well, not the artist clan I had been hoping for, but lovely.  We glued blue and gold balls on...

 Even though there is a pandemic apparently raging outside our doors, we really shouldn't lose our sense of humour. I laughed like a crazy lady alone in my car when CBC announced 'An unmasked man was seen fleeing the scene' during their news broadcast. It kept me giggling for the remainder of the day.. and still makes me smile. Sitting alone in a booth at a breakfast place in Vernon, a young family came in and before they even sat down I heard the mom instruct her boy, 'Please, don't eat the crayons.'  She didn't say 'mind your manners' or 'behave', but was very specific.. It so reminded me of my own kids at that age.  And even though the struggle is real, this is funny stuff.  People are funny! We are funny. I am funny! These days, many of us are spending a lot more time alone, and maybe some of those who are not, wish they were.  Either way, it is harder to find these moments of pleasure as we are forced to distance ourselves a little more ...

  Years ago, during a different life-time when I was a different, busier, younger version of myself, I wrote Christmas letters.   I miss that. It was a great time to reflect on the year.   I simply didn’t want to bore people, or be so narcissistic as to think anyone was interested in just what I did all year, rather than my family – nuclear and extended.   However, no one really reads my blogs anymore, so I shall reflect here on my version of 2020. It began in Puerto Vallarta.   During the cooler months of 2019 the year before, I had found my place in Ajijic, well, cold.   Sure the temperature rose when the sun came out during the day, but once evening fell, so did the temperatures and Mexicans don’t seem to comprehend central heating, or even a decent fireplace.   So, I had run for the beach.   I rented a place in a building about twelve blocks from the beach in Old Town.   Joanne and Lea were in the same buildin...

  It sounds simple enough- you save up enough money for a down payment, borrow the rest from a bank and pass it over to agent.   But nothing in life is ever simple.   The Down-payment.   By the time you have enough money for a down payment you have already been struggling for a good while. With this house, I didn’t save a thing.   My parents passed away and I inherited money. It was painful.   I miss them.   I miss my siblings that scattered when the going got rough.   I miss the partner I lost while I was losing my parents.   It took forever to finally get life to some sort of new normal.   But eventually I had a decision to make- what do you do with extra cash these days?   I decided I wanted to see my money, not just a number electronically on my computer but actually see it.   Hence..   Buying a House   It is all about timing with houses.   The people that bought my paren...

 December 2/2020 For the most part, 2020 has been, well a crazy year - for everyone, not just me.  Everything we think we want and are, has been thrown out the window.. along with all our planning.   I planned to be away from Mexico for just ten weeks.  I left to work one term in Australia's beautiful Northern Territory and then go back 'home' to Mexico.  And yet, here I am writing this in front of a fire in my new house in Blind Bay, B.C.  Canada.  Ya.. that wasn't even on the list.   But enough.  Everyone has their Covid-19 story- cancelled weddings and memorials.  I laughed the first time I heard the news about un-masked men running from the scene of a crime.  Un-masked?!  But, it is not all that funny anymore.  People are angry about having to wear a mask.. even people you think would appreciate the extra camouflage.  But that is not what I am writing about today.  Today I want to tell you about yes...