Welcome back! I lost touch with the blog for a moment there – totally unplanned – and it’s great to be typing something especially for you again. I’m a creature of routine, so being back in routine is a relief.

Here’s a little catch-up post.

My parents visited us for 5 weeks. It was good to see them again and to be able to show them our new digs here in Canada. Unfortunately, they came in one of the coldest winters in 57 years, with lows of minus 30 degrees Celsius (and wind chills of -40 – it was insane). We spent a lot of the time closeted up together in the house, due to the cold and the fact that some kind of plague descended on us and we didn’t want to risk spreading it to more undeserving victims. We were all down with the flu in turns, some of us more than once. Still, we visited some amazing places in the betweens, so I’ll definitely share those photos with you in the near future.

How did we cope with this arctic bomb (◄ that’s what this strange cold front is called)? We shovelled lots and lots of snow. My arms are going to be more defined than ever at the end of this winter. I’ve been learning loads about snow shovelling. The first lesson – don’t leave it until the morning. For this reason, Jan and I were outside, shovelling on Christmas Eve. Lesson 2 – don’t pile all the snow on the same spot. I now have a snow mountain between the greater front yard area and the driveway, which needs to be flattened, and soon. Lifting the shovel that high to toss the fresh snow over Snow Mountain is doing its part in defining my biceps and triceps. As I’m typing this, my shoulders are shaking. Folks, this writer is only fit in the fingertips, but my arms are super weak.

Speaking of finger-fitness, I’ve been writing like my life depended on it. My parents were gracious enough to offer to watch Kayla for me so that I had some time to work on the novel. Since I never have that luxury, I grabbed the opportunity and worked. And worked. And worked. I’m up to chapter 33 in the new draft, and feeling good. Watch out world, The Physician’s Apprentice should be reaching you in 2018. (Note to self – please, Yolandie, please finish the damn novel this year.)

As for resolutions, I have none. I never complete them anyway, and have always been a big believer that we’ll make time to do the things that are important enough to us. If you need to lose the weight in March, there’s no reason to wait until December 31st to start working on it, right? Having said that, I have some goals that need achieving in 2018.

I’ve shared the first with you – I need to finish TPA. The second is to learn to play the ukelele. My hubs spoiled me with a uke for Christmas, and I’ve been putting aside a little time to learn to play every day since. I’m currently working on La Vie en Rose, one of my all-time favourite songs, and I have to say – it’s going better than I thought it would. I can now strum something that sounds like a melody, and learning chords isn’t as difficult as I imagined. I’ll keep you updated on this.

My third goal is to open a shop for my art and dolls. I’ve been threatening to do this for a long time, but then immigrated. When the dust settles after this move, I really want to start selling some of these things (we really don’t have the space to keep hoarding hand-made stuff anyway). Again, I’ll keep you updated.

Then, I have to finish some of the half-done writing projects I started in 2017. This is the fourth goal, but hand-in-hand with that goes the fifth – to blog more regularly than last year. If you have ideas for blog topics, please don’t hesitate to share them with me. As always, the blog evolves and changes as I do, which means that the topics I like to write about change a lot too. You might want to see some different stuff that I’ve been delivering, though, so please, tell me what you like to read.

The sixth goal is to make some art to fill the empty walls in my house, and the seventh is to finish learning German.

The eighth goal is to look at life through my own eyes, and not through the screen on my phone. I want to be in the moment, experience what it offers, and only take a picture of it because I’m inspired to. The blog has forced me to take so many photos that our hard drives became too full, but often I took the photos because I had to, and not because I wanted to. I think I’ll be less anxious without adding the pressure to pose things for the blog. This might mean fewer photo posts, but the ones that you do get should be of higher quality, and less random. Except, of course if I’m inspired to take random photos. 🙂

And with that, I’m going to leave you. I hope that 2018 is a big year for you, filled with love, happiness and successes.

Yolandie