Cathie’s Chaos

It’s been a very hard year… to be humble!

First of all, I’m proud about the fact that I can make bacteria grow into the absolutely most to-die-for-tasting yogurt you can imagine! This is what keeps me going on all the baking & cooking for Sam’s very specific diet, which has amazingly kept his Crohn’s symptoms at bay since the summer.

Next, I’m kinda proud of my cat. We came up with the idea of theme-blogging, every day for the 4 weeks before Christmas. That was last year. “Dustie” has been blogging (almost) every day since! (Advent themes are back again, by the way, as well as plans for the Twelve Days of Christmas: http://crazycathie.livejournal.com/ ) It does feel good though, to be able to write this letter without her for a change.

And yes, I’m also proud of Husband; to whom I said, one day shortly after Thanksgiving: “I’m going to the fitness club on Friday, with or without you.” His response? “Okay: three times a week, 6 am or 3 pm; and walks on all the other days.” He meant it! (We’re doing it!)

Last and best of all, the shortest paragraph for the deepest-felt. I’m proud of a new household word: Ryerson. My. son. Mine! (Well, maybe I should say “ours”…)

Rej’s Ramblings

When I look upon the past year it seems that it was full of trials and nothing much changed. Yet, Sam did get healthier, and we do have an empty nest, but the little bird comes back every few weeks.

The real question for me is to retire or not to retire. There are 3 ways to retire. You could just quit, in which case you live on a pension causing a huge pay cut. You could plan it and dip into savings, but that just makes you poorer over the years. One could get a part time job at low wages. The real objective is to be able to retire and make more than you ever thought you could make. That is real career planning.

Last March I changed jobs within IBM. The objective is to break the job up and outsource as much of it as possible to Brazil. I didn't care for it at first, but having dealt with the Brazilians for a while, you begin to realize that there has to be a sharing of wealth, or mankind as we know it will begin to have social problems beyond anything we can ever

imagine. That might be well and good, but on the surface at least, it won't make me richer after I retire. In fact, it is the sort of thing that could force one into early retirement. All is not lost. In my effort to move work, I found something that they cannot do. In fact,

there are not many in North America even that have the experience to do it, so I might have found the ticket. In fact, I don't even have to convince them that they have a risk, they know it, so all I have to do is retire and I just might get a good part time job at my existing salary or higher if I contract. Who knows, next year could be a year of change. At this time next year I could well be retired and busier than ever. Now, that is my kind of retirement. The big mainframe computers will not die as everyone predicted. They will make some of us wealthy.

Sam’s Sayings

Another year, already. Wow! The fastest part of this year, for me, was the last few months I spent in university. I did more writing over that short period than I've ever done in my life; I'm now officially burnt out. I'm sure I'll recover for the next term, though. That is... if I can just stop writing for long enough.

If you don't already know, I started at Ryerson University in September; I'm going for a B.A. in journalism. It's a huge change. Living in rez is a wonderful experience, even when it does add to the ever-vast list of things to get done. I think I've met more close friends during this few months than I have throughout the rest of my life!

You're going to have to forgive the rambling, this year. I've been producing an average of one 500-word story per week, plus papers and other assignments. The stories are generally on events surrounding the city of Toronto; we get a topic at 10:00 AM, and are told to submit our story by 6:00 that night. That means we have 8 hours to do interviews, find a headline, write the story, edit, research and check facts, and get it all in. Tiring is an understatement! After all that, I'm finding myself mostly unable to write a topical paragraph, or even a decent sentence this morning.

Other than university, not a lot has happened specific to me. I'm getting my health back, slowly, and that's a good thing. We took a March vacation to Florida that I enjoyed while I wasn't in any kind of school, because we could. I continued, as is normal, to purchase all kinds of new electronic gadgets; I think I got that proclivity from my father.

Now, to have a restful, sleepy Christmas!

We wish YOU a Restful holiday, if not around you—at least inside you!

“I give you peace, the kind of peace that only I can give.”

(John 14:27)

Resting in Florida