My Pick

Click to view my pick for BEST PERFORMANCE during our historical inauguration weekend.





Click to read my baby girl experience witnessing history.

To Achieve Your Dreams

REMEMBER YOUR




Avoid negative sources, people, places, things, and habits.

Believe in yourself.

Consider things from every angle.

Don't give up and don't give in.

Enjoy life today, yesterday is gone, tomorrow may never come.

Give more than you planned to.

Hang on to your dreams.

Ignore those who try to discourage you.

Keep trying no matter how hard it seems, it will get easier.

Love yourself first and most.

Make it happen.

Never lie, cheat or steal, always strike a fair deal.

Open your eyes and see things as they really are.

Practice makes perfect.

Quitters never win and winners never quit.

Read, study and learn about everything important in your life.

Stop procastinating.

Take control of your own destiny.

Understand yourself in order to better understand others.

Visualize it.

Want it more than anything.

Xcellerate your efforts.

You are uniqwue of all God's creations, nothing can replace YOU.

Zero in on your target and go for it!
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The above is a poster I bought at a store when my girls were in elementary school 17 years ago. Instead of framing it in a poster frame, I took it to a frame shop and had it professionally framed.

I wanted my daughters to know what it took to achieve their dreams and today they are living their dreams because of the words on that poster. I personally benefitted from reading the words on that poster because I thought my dreams were over when I heard, “You have multiple sclerosis”.

I was one of those people who defined themselves from their profession and salary. I now know the depression I went through behind having to quit my job because of multiple sclerosis was a massive waste of time out of my life.

It is true when one door close another one open. Multiple Sclerosis changed a lot of things for me, but living with multiple sclerosis has open a door for me to help others in a way I would not be able to do if I was working in the profession that once defined me.


I Achieve My Dreams and Remembering the ABC’s helped me along the way

Waterfalls and Wellsphere

Did you Hamilton is the waterfall capital of the world ? 121 waterfalls
Have a look here:
Waterfalls of Hamilton There's a listing that includes amazing photos and directions to each one.

It never hurts to have additional resources for health information. I signed up at Wellsphere. They have a growing MS community there . Always nice to find new and different MS bloggers.

I'd like to post these links on the upper part of my main page, but honestly I can't remember how to do it. The help section isn't much help to jog my memory, although it sure is better than the help at my new web host. Never believe IT people when they say something is "as easy as 1-2-3" Trying to get my website going again is turning into a big hassle.

I dumped the old web host because I could never make any changes to the site without the photo section getting messed up. All the pictures would disappear! The tech support people couldn't figure out why. They also billed me twice every month on Pay Pal and I had to go in and cancel the additional payment. When they emailed me to say that the subscription was canceled by accident and I had to sign up again, that was it. All the money I gave them and I always had to clean up the mess they made. I decided not to renew and go with a new company.
So instead of being decent about it, they took my site down and now I have to start all over. I still had a month of service left too. The new web host will be better, if they ever let me get into the site builder that is.

Had to change my keyboard on the computer The t and j decided to not work anymore. Lucky I have a spare, althoughI find the keys very stiff on it.

I have these evil thoughts of wanting to kidnap a techie . I would keep them around to fix up all this computer stuff for me . I have similar thoughts about electricians and carpenters . They would all live in the basement and I'd be happy to feed them, do their laundry and supply a t.v. and computer.

I decided to go off the Amantadine. Not cold turkey, as I know that could lead to side effects worse than the ones I have taking it. Not that they are so bad, I'm just fed up. I want to see if the fatigue will be worse without the medication. Honestly I can't remember how bad it was before. I take as much time off work now as I ever did . I was hoping the medication would curb that. Maybe I expect to much ?
What I have done is instead of taking a pill first thing when I get up, I wait a couple of hours. Each day I increase the time and have now reached the point were I can skip the afternoon pill.
Gradually I will keep on delaying the time until it's too late in the day to take it . Then I will skip a day and so on. I want to be off it completely by the end of January.

No ill effects to report so far.

Oh Yeah ! I Have a Phone Camera

It was a pleasant walk home this afternoon with bright sunny skies and above freezing temperatures. I forgot my camera, then I remembered my phone camera! I guess my old school mentality can't get use to having a phone that does twenty things.

Above you can see how the snow has piled up The top photo was taken in front of my house. I don't have a car, so my parking spot is vacant. It is used as a communal snow dumping area by my neighbours . I don't mind, since it prevents the usual weirdos from parking in front of my place. The last photo above is an abandoned church I don't know the name of it. All the times I have walked past and never bothered to check that out.


Below is an interesting building on my street, Central Public School . Built back in the days when we cared what public building looked like.
















































Now public money goes to bail out crooks, with no strings attached. We will regret it. If you don't believe me, read what the Cassandra's at Asia Times have to say about it. Yeah they are over the top but at least they have a different perspective. Unlike our own media. They seem to be going along with whatever the government says. It is not the job of media to be cheer leaders. They should be casting a critical eye on what is happening and informing us, the ones who will end up paying for everything.

Slowly we are creeping toward the end of January. At work management is quiet, no word from the union, the medical officer and Health Canada are silent. I'm waiting till the end of the month to ask about what is going on with my medical. Usually no news, is good news. In my case, no news is driving me crazy !

Cream Puffs

It's been a quiet weekend with snow, lots of snow. They have a commercial on the t.v. and radio,
of an immigrant couple talking about how excited they were to experience their first snowfall. I think it's to sell snow blowers or shovels. The man says" Oh I was dancing and crying, I was so happy" Yeah I guess it would be an amazing thing to see for the first time. I know when I was a kid I loved it. After about a couple thousand times though, it really loses it's charm. At least I'm lucky that I have somebody around to shovel the stuff. I can remember a time when I use to actually enjoy doing that.
I'm on a baking kick, which I really shouldn't be on . I started watching all these cooking shows on Saturday and one called "Every Day Baking " is to blame for my pastry mania. Today I made cream puffs with custard and whipped cream filling. Too good. I think I should stick to watching Bollywood movies like I use to on Saturdays,. They aren't fattening.

My leg is recovered at last. It felt really good today to go out for a walk and not be limping.
The tingle in my hands is become more pronounced. They feel like they are falling asleep all the time. Not painful, just annoying.
I might try tomorrow to get out at lunch and take some winter scene shots with my camera. Haven't done any photography for awhile and I miss it. I have to admit the snow does look pretty. It just isn't very practical in the city

Blog Anniversay

One year ago I began this blog. My symptoms decided to celebrate by flaring up on me. I would have preferred a cake.

As I have stated before, ( first post) my main reason for starting a blog, was to have a day to day journal to record everything that was happening to me with MS. Unlike the photo above, I never thought of it as my own mike to tell the world my story .My own soap box to spew my opinions.
Not that I'm saying you shouldn't do that. That's the beauty of blogging. You can do whatever you want.

One of the benefits of having an MS blog, has been the knowledge I've acquired, and for that I have to thank all the MS bloggers out there. You have helped so much to give me a better understanding of my condition. How to cope with it, what might happen, what won't.

I really helpswith the frustrations of MS And it's So ! frustrating!

So all you MS bloggers out there. Thanks for a great year of helping me survive this crazy MS life. You are a decent bunch.
Oh and Thanks to the folks who take the time to stop and post comments. I've published everyone, so don't be shy . I enjoy all opinions as long as you keep them reasonably clean.

Wonder where we'll all be next year?

Laundry !

You know times are strange when I can get excited about doing laundry.

Finally the washing machine I bought a month ago is working properly. I feel vindicated too.
The repair guy kept insisting over the phone that: 1. the machine wasn't balanced properly (it was) 2. It wasn't hooked up properly(it was) 3. I didn't understand how to use a front loading machine(what's there to know ?) Turns out the circuit board was faulty and had to be replaced
Now the machine works like a charm ! I'm saving the old board to go along with the old computer hard drive and some other bits and pieces of tech garbage. I might make a sculpture ?"tech fail"?

Have to face it, the doctor is right, I'm having a relapse. Heavy tingling in my hands, wonky balance,twitches, tremors, and sparkly in my right eye. I'm also making more and more spelling mistakes, and not just when I type. It happens when I write too. I don't seem to be able to put the letters in the right order. It made me cry, because I think what a fool I am to have believed that my MS was going away and that maybe I would never have another attack.

Talked with my union rep. today. She claims she is pushing ahead to get me tele work. She too is frustrated with the delay of the Health Canada report. She also noticed I was a bit unsteady on my feet. Progress? I'm not sure. Who knows what goes on behind the scenes. I know when I was a union steward years ago, I was always uncomfortable with how cosy the upper echelons of the union were with management. Still though, the union would get a boost if it were successful to get me tele work So many people want it and would benefit from it. Just hope I don't go bankrupt in the meantime.

Now I have to go check out Wellsphere and see what it's all about. I'll comment tomorrow if I have the energy.