We are at the cottage (rental) and I don’t have my drawing pad with me. If I did have the drawing pad, I’d sketch you a doodle of the view from this window. There’s the lake in the background and the green forest of Tar Island, and here just in the foreground are a sparse layering of trees – their trunks are thin at the top (this cottage is set upon a cliff face, and so I’m looking through the tops of these trees), and the branches are tapering to a point, like a very tall Christmas tree or something. Reminds me of a painting I did for my grade six art project. It was a tree trunk, with a branch, and a lake behind with blue sky above.

This is the cottage. We arrived here Thursday evening, and are able to come and go as we like. Tomorrow I’ll be back in town for Canada day. But today we are here. And today it is nice.

Zsolt and I have been making many decisions lately – several of which I am not allowed to talk about. (Which is really, really difficult.) Let’s just say sometimes stuff works and other times stuff really doesn’t work. However, we’re fine and eventually we’ll manage this whole ‘career’ thing. In the meanwhile something good has come from a series of infuriating events, which is (cause I can talk about this, thank freaking goodness) a trip.

Soon Zsolt and I will fly to Hungary for a month. Following that we’ll fly to England and visit friends. After this we’ll take a boat to New York from Southampton (7 night cruise) and hang with family and visit the city. Then we’ll take the train up to Montreal (12 hour trip), where we’ll finally catch a bus back to Ottawa. We’re leaving mid (ish) July and returning September.

I’ll let your imagination create the reasons for our booking this massive, non-refundable trip when neither of us has full-time employment, and then say that while plans can change beyond our control, it is not the case with non-refundable bookings. So the silver lining in all this crappiness is that my husband and I are going on an adventure. And that’s a really awesome silver lining.

When we return, we are 100% determine to move out of my parent’s house – even if it means living in someone else’s basement (hopefully with a separate entrance), and working on getting my man Zsolt into the intellectual property field. He’s got a talent for it. He’ll be even better when working for a company full-time.  (If you know anyone looking for a patent agent trainee, please do let me know.)

And I think everything will be alright. We’re at the cottage today. I’m going to have the first draft of my book finished before we leave for Hungary. (Really I am, I’ve only got like 3000 words left to write before that’s done.) Zsolt is planning to help me turn my Bumpyboobs adventures into mini e-books (woohoo! So then I can make myself a large button to wear that says, “Self-Published Author!”).

And everything is going to be alright.

Everything is going to be alright.

Maybe I should tattoo it onto my forehead, just a reminder. 🙂

As support to this assertion, my mammogram checkout A-Okay. I’m still totally annoyed with the screening situation, but hey – no cancer. Woohooo! Nooooooo Cancer!!

AND, I turn 30 next week.

Plus, the canoe we bought is turning out beautifully. Another big purchase we may never have made  . . . but was inevitably done. (Because I said to Zsolt, if not now, when?) And so we’ve been paddling around this lake at the cottage and the rivers near Ottawa – enjoying the beauty of the area and just stupid happy with every stroke. You know, back in the land of chemotherapy day-dreams, one of my musings was to buy a canoe and just forget about the bullshit. That’s what happens whenever we take it out – it’s not about looking for work, surviving cancer, growing up, staying healthy . . . it’s about stroke-stroke-stroke, and glide-glide-glide.

Right now, for our lives in general, I think we’ll just have to focus on the present. Just stroke-stroke-stroke, and glide-glide-glide.

 

P.S. kudos to Zsolt who is circling me as I post this outside the cottage, killing black flies and keeping me bug-bite free!