This month, I’m doing January.

“This month, I'm doing January. I'm going to get through each day of January.”

I saw this on my Facebook feed somewhere, posted by someone else, and I thought that's exactly how I feel. 

One day at a time, face to the wind, anticipating spring and the hope it represents.

January is generally a time of goal-setting and dream-casting, both of which I annually participate in, and this year is no different though recently some of my goals and dreams have changed.

If you've been following my previous blog you'll already know that our daughter had a near-death experience that brought me and Norm back to Canada from where we were snowbirding in Mexico. It's been a month since then, living in a basement suite kindly provided to us by strangers, with no more than what we brought with us in two backpacks each. You would think it would've been a time with space for reflection, but in fact it's been busier than ever.

The good news is our daughter is recovering from her surgery and she was almost ready to go back to work at an optometry office when she came down with covid! Everyone in the house she lives in got it (two of our sons and our son's fiancee), so it was only a matter of time. Thankfully, she had a relatively mild case, probably because she's triple vaxed, and has nearly recovered from it. It's a huge relief to me because her catching covid and not knowing how she'd do with it was a big worry.

Once we knew that Tasia was home and doing better, real life set in, and I started to think about things like real estate and mortgage rates.

Weird, I know.

Where we live, the price of houses has jumped dramatically and I'm thankful we bought when we did, because we'd be priced out of the market in our city now. It's been in the back of my mind to buy out east where our son Joel and his wife Shadi live (if you are part of my Facebook readers group, you'll recognize those names). I told them to take a look, and long story short, WE BOUGHT A HOUSE.

I definitely didn't see that coming.

It's really quite amazing how we got it in this really tight market, and how fast it happened. Buying a house is a lot of busy work which has kept us digging for paperwork and ID and proof of this and that, but it's exciting to buy a house with Joel and Shadi while we still can. Real estate is on the rise there as well.

Personally, I've been doing far too much sitting. Life balance is important to me, and it's been out of whack for some time. Not only am I lacking exercise, I work too much. This is a hazard for self-employed people. You're responsible for all the balls in the air, and over time, the sky gets hard to see. I've known I was overdoing things for some time. Anyone close to me will tell you that I keep saying I'm going to slow things down, but… you know how it is.

Our family emergency put a highlight on this. I dove into my publishing and writing schedule for 2022, twice, to relax the timeline. Even so, there's still two Rosa Reeds and four Ginger Golds coming this year, plus, if all goes well, a Ginger Christmas novella.

Great segue into book news!

I thought I would be living in Mexico in January where I could post pictures to promote the upcoming Murder at the Fiesta.