Blog Post #27. Appreciating what we have is a great way to start the day and find happiness. We all have something, or many things, to be thankful for. Thinking of all I have and all that is good is the way I try to start my day. I took this photo in Vancouver near where I live on Thanksgiving Day. Beauty, inspiration, and appreciation captured on one amazing October evening in Vancouver.

While it’s great to be thankful, it doesn’t mean that we can’t strive for more. It’s just that it’s important that ‘the more’ is not a requirement for happiness. We can always choose happiness all along the journey, whatever journey that may be.

Recently, I’ve been tackling a number of writing, educational, and fitness projects.

Writing: I have four current projects on the go. Unfortunately, I don’t have any more published articles to share at this time but hope to have one or two before the year is finished. I did find a writing job that I was going to apply for. The ad said, “Plummer wanded. Must be sertified. Locals to Halfiax only.” The ad was wisely placed in the “Writer Needed” section.

On the education front, I have been reading regularly to increase my nursing and medical knowledge. It can’t all be suppositories, misunderstandings, and laughter.

Fitness: I have moved from body weight leg training sessions to the real deal barbell squats and dead lifts once a week. I’ll let you know how it goes once I can stand up straight and feel my feet again.

Giving Thanks

Thanks to everyone who has supported my blog by sending me e-mails, or social media messages with words of encouragement. I have even had a few people at work that I don’t really know say they’ve liked my writing. It’s been encouraging and fun. I hope to keep it going and continue to enjoy the journey. If you like my work, please ‘share’ or ‘like’ my articles and blog posts on social media and pass them on to your friends and family…..or you can e-mail me money directly:)

Warning: Sense of Humour Required.  

My wife and I have recently booked a flight to take part in a foreign humanitarian aid project. Fires have devastated many areas around the globe this past summer and my wife and I really wanted to find a way to give back. We will be travelling to Napa, California in February to support the wine tour industry and local wineries by viewing the area (isn’t that how world leaders help disaster areas?), sampling local products, and giving moral support. It was the least we could do. Don’t let it be said we didn’t do the least we could do.

Words of Wisdom

1. I recently read an amazing quote that I wanted to share. I couldn’t find who originally said it. I want to give credit where credit is due. I’m just going to assume whoever said it was inspired by and got the words from Jesus. So I’ve taken this quote from Jesus and added to it for ‘Words of Wisdom’:
“Motivation, inspiration, and determination will come. It may not seem like it sometimes. These things will eventually find you. You just have to be at the gym warming up.”

2. Reading and math are important! In my last post I shared about my new reading challenge. I challenged myself to read ten minutes a day in the morning before starting my day. So far so good as I’ve stuck to that goal. I’m now going to start a new challenge. I’m going to work on my math skills for ten minutes each morning before getting on with my day. That’s 55 minutes a week of working on my math skills. Over four weeks, that’ll be 310 minutes of math practice time! I’ll let you know how it goes.

It’s time for the ending joke/stories. It’s a little fun. No need to be offended. Enjoy.

My wife and I drove to the States last year for a mid-week getaway brewery tour. On our return, the border guard was not very nice or personable. She began asking all sorts of questions about where we had been and what we were bringing back.

She asked, “What were you doing there?”

I replied, “We went on a brewery tour.”

“What do you do? What kind of jobs let you go travelling and brewery touring in the middle of the week?”

“A job like yours; a 24 hour-seven day a week-functioning organization that needs people to work at any and all times.”

“What were the names of the breweries you went to?”

“Ummm, there was Backoff Brewing, Interrogatemuch Brewing, and TheWhatsYourProb Brewery…..we didn’t make it to the Powertrippy Brewpub.”

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I recently took a course on how to deal with people who become agitated and angry (through dementia, delirium, drugs, mental illness, anger issues etc). One strategy suggested that you offer them cookies and ice cream and show them photos on your phone of your cat. It was a long day talking about a myriad of issues and scenarios. I went to work a week later and someone asked me what I learned from the course.

I said, “Well, one strategy is to take out your phone and show them photos of your cookies and then offer them cat and ice cream.”