I’m happy to say that “any rumours of my demise are greatly exaggerated” which is a complete theft from Mark Twain.

Hello, I hope you are enjoying your day.

Thank you reading today and for reading my past posts. I began this blog to see if I could do a blog and gratefully I found friends in the blog world who read my posts and so I continued. I never meant to take a break, but life intervened and then I found myself having “cold feet” per se about what to say to you.

My blog has a number of different categories and I tried to make it meaningful to you, the readers. I thought that a blog must have something of worth for the readers.

I think there is part of me that wants to keep trying new ways to be creative, and challenge myself. I have always been trying things and I recommend it to everyone. Yoga, tai chi, 10 km running, and more.

The world isn’t static, our lives are changing so let’s keep learning and challenging ourselves. What are you doing now to challenge yourself?

I have continued as a Toastmaster but I have added new elements to my routine like making jewelry, and I am taking online educational courses albeit only spending a short time each day.

I have resumed a routine of regular reading to focus myself, I found that social media was destroying that ability I used to have of being swallowed by a book and speaking of books, and reading….

The last words (almost) of the book, Three Against the Wilderness that I finished reading today are:

Something attempted, something done.”

It’s was a succinct ending to the book that perfectly summed up a 30 year biography of a fur trapper in the British Columbia (BC) wilderness.

That ending and quote certainly reflects also the part of me that want to stay active.

The wilderness was truly wilderness in the 1920’s when Eric Collier arrived in BC. Eric and his wife Lillian set out where there was barely a trail with a wagon, tools, and two pack horses to build a one room cabin and survive on their own.

Now, and after having spent five long days in the saddle, skirting the edges of the marshes and following the deer paths through the forest, and in all that time glimpsing no other furbearer’s track except those of the coyotes (their tracks were everywhere, I summed it all up by declaring,

“It’s hopeless.”

Lillian was staring into the flames of the campfire. With a sudden impulse, she looked up at my face and said quietly,

“Eric, I never want to hear you say that word ‘hopeless’ again.

We may not have much of anything here in this wilderness.

But the one thing that we’ll always have plenty of is ‘hope.'”

I was fortunate to find a copy of this book but it has been printed at least eleven times. It must be a classic because when I went to a used book store, they knew at once what I sought.

My copy is signed by a previous owner in 1970. I don’t know how many people have read and shared this book, as I surely will. It has at least 56 years worth of appreciative readers.

Eric Collier wrote this single book, printed in 1962.

It contains his story that he concluded so succinctly.

Perhaps you will be fortunate enough to find a copy to read for yourself. ♣

This is not…

This is not a “check in” like you may have received at Christmas time wherein I will list the places I have visited, trips taken and so on.

I wanted today to let anyone wondering about me that I have not forgotten about my blog, but time has slipped away as I have diversified so I don’t sit at the desk as much.

I am doing my best to be healthy, and enjoy my priceless gift of being born.

I celebrated being SEVEN this year.

I celebrated in April of this year my seventh anniversary of my kidney transplant with dear grandson and granddaughter.

When I woke up in Vancouver General hospital more than seven years ago I had no inkling that I had such a wonderful job ahead of me being a “Pop Pop”♥

There is nothing like the eyes of a child who is happy that you are there.

Another gift that my kidney donor gave me.

I am daily a grateful person.

If I fall behind in posts again, please imagine me riding my bike, or reading to my grandkids” .

I value your encouraging words, and thank you for your blogs, and inspiration.

I hope to hear from you ♥ David