i am not someone who dislikes snow. this is not one of the reasons that i left winnipeg. in fact one of the things i knew i would miss, along with the endless lakes and rivers of eastern manitoba/western ontario, and the sunshine, was the snow. so i have to say, the snow that fell at the beginning of december and has ceased to melt is quite a joy here in this rainforest. one of my dreams has been to live in the woods during the snowy winters, and i did not think i would find that dream out here. i am not quite living in the woods just yet, at least not how my dream woods looked, but this is close, very close. to be able to so easily head out into the wooded snowy world is a gift. this morning i set out on my bike to get me a massage. i have been slacking off on self-care lately, but i didn’t realize it, which is maybe how it usually goes? moving here my lifestyle has changed quite a bit. in winnipeg it was easy to ride my bike places, it was flat there for one (being the prairie) but things were also closer. i lived in the city where my job was. out here i have joined the ranks of the commuter. i drive 90 minutes a day to get to and from work, and then when i’m at work, i often drive more. all my errands are done on my way home from work, so there are almost no occasions for me to ride my bike these days. i am not much of a pleasure cyclist, in that, if i am riding my bike, it is to get me somewhere i need to go. along with that, i love being at home. given a day off, i would gladly spend it, and any more, around the homestead. all of this to say, i am not getting as much exercise as i need to be. i generally also try to do yoga at least twice a week, but my yoga habits tend to happen first thing in the morning, and with both full-time work and holiday adventures happening (along with living in a cramped short-ceilinged bus!), my good yoga habits have fallen by the wayside. my shoulder has been acting up lately and my right hip has been sore, so i have been trying to stretch them, but apparently not as diligently as i should have been. my lack of self-care came to a head this wednesday when my back went out. sigh. this has happened before, but not this severely in a long time. my back was pretty bad in my early 20’s after a repetitive motion injury, but then i became a bike courier for 6 years and all of that riding helped strengthen and stretch the muscles. on top of that i also started dance training which i stuck with for another 5-ish years. my back grew much better with all of this strengthening and care, and it hasn’t acted up like this since the early days of dancing. it’s interesting how we perceive ourselves. despite not actively biking, i still see myself as a cyclist, same with canoeing and practicing yoga, etc. but in reality one has to do all of those things regularly in order to benefit from their healing effects. point taken. to top all this off i got water stuck in my ear near the beginning of the week. it’s disconcerting when you tilt your head and hear the sound of water bumping up against your eardrum repeatedly. you know the sound of water sloshing into those small cavities at the edges of pools? like that. i was hoping it would naturally escape but two nights ago i could feel it starting to hurt and i started worrying about infection, so last night i tried out garlic oil and it seems to have done the trick. i have adapted my yoga routine to after work. i like first thing in the morning because it is before i have eaten anything for the day, but when i return from work i am usually hungry, so this is also a good time. on wednesday i attempted my usual routine but had to do it MUCH slower and with no fast/sudden movement. i continued thursday and friday afternoons and my back is thankfully doing much better than i could have possibly expected. i made an appointment with a chiropractor for monday, and a massage for today. both of which i had been p l a n n i n g on doing, just hadn’t gotten around to. the bike ride today was delightful, the snow, honestly, gosh, the snow. it sparkles and catches the light. i went out at dusk last night too because i wanted to take a trail to the massage that i hadn’t taken in over 15 years and wanted to know if it was still passable. so two bike rides in two days! i am not used to being in this sort of forest in freezing temperatures, the duff must get moisture rising up under it when it freezes because each step i took crunched down into the earth. it felt amazing and unfamiliar.   there’s not much more to my days than working right now. i come home and watch bushcraft videos while weaving, or right now i am reading clan of the cave bear by jean m. auel (soooo good, and i have never read it before!), or try to figure out how to insulate my ceiling. i got a long-term assignment with about 5.5hrs of work per day. i am happy with the route, and happy to have regular for-sure work until i can probably move over to the wee-island. there was the opportunity for full-time work but i like the balance this leaves me with daylight. i can come home and still feel like i have many hours to play with before bed.

on other notes, i am thinking that maybe i should connect my other social-media sites to this blog. i have just uploaded the short film i made of emma and i paddling the liard/deh-cho in 2015, which you can see here. and this is my etsy site where you can find journals and art-cards i have made, along with the book i wrote in my early 20’s (and published last year). it is geared towards young women growing into themselves and is a book i wish i would have had when i was 14.

and lastly, a gratuitous cat-photo. this might become a regular thing, because isn’t she SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO cute?!

*i believe i read the title of this blog-post somewhere, but i can’t remember where. it is posted above my door.