Goodbye Winter, I hope.

It occured to me a bit ago that I am going through a completely unique experience here in Winnipeg. Canada. I have never lived where it is so cold (Although we have had it mild) that you have to plug in your car to keep the engine from completely freezing.

we got snow on occasion, but here, it is more of a constant in our lives from late October through what would be Spring in sunny St. George. I see it differently, and one day, snow showed me it's uniqueness as we were hustling to the car.

A white view is what we see from our front door every day.

So this post is my formal thank you to Ole Man Winter for not being as cruel as I know he can be. And at times showing ordinary objects in a beautiful way.




Nature is crying to me that it is ready to re-emerge. I heard the birds singing and I found this in my back yard.

This is a picture of paw prints of a cottontail rabbit. I believe it is the same one that was hanging around our house in the fall (I saw him the other day). I have named him Twitchy. So, welcome Spring. I do not need the Ground Hog to tell me that winter is coming to a close.

I Hate January

I hate January! How can you hate a month, you may ask? Every year, it seems to be the hardest month for me emotionally and I am not sure why. Every year I get the blues for these 31 cold, depressing days. Maybe it is just my chemistry, or I am sad that the holidays are over, or I am contemplative of what goals I did not accomplish last year and if I should bother doing that again. I am not sure, but I do know this is something that has plagued me for many years. So I want to dedicate this post to my patient, sweet husband who has not divorced me over my foul mood, yet, and I remind him that we only have 3 cruddy, no good days left.
This past 6 months have been amazing and depressing all at the same time.
The Amazing
Last August, I accomplished something I was not sure I would be able to do, I graduated with my Masters degree in Mental Health Counseling. It was tough and I met many challenges along my path. I did walk in graduation in May and I knew I could kick butt through those last 15 weeks of Internship, but to actually get to the end and know I really had finished the fight was, well, it was amazing.
Sebastian and I fell in love, hard. We got married and had a naive plan on how to live in the same home, area, time zone, country, you know, near each other. No plans ever shook out for us and it was frustrating. On August 25th I boarded an airplane with the intent of living with my husband. It was miraculous, amazing, that we had finally overcome my schooling, had a job, and cancer to get to this point. I cherish that we got here, finally, and that we are able to see each other daily, not bi-monthly.
I got a job in a recession. AMAZING. It isn't my first choice and not the area of the US I would like to live in, but it is right and it is where I am suppose to be. It is by divine design that I found this job and was the candidate they selected for the position.
My new ward is fantastic and they have really made me feel welcome. I am a stranger in a strange land, but I know when I am at church, that is not the case. I am blessed and amazed to have a ward family, particularly Relief Society, that treats me like I have been there forever.
Not so Amazing
I am not trying to complain but these months have been challenging. For one thing, my leg ha acted up and been a source of much frustration and pain since October. Not so amazing.
I have been playing the waiting game since September 2, 2011. I am impatient and I really hate waiting. It can be such a source of aggravation and depression for me. On September 2nd I was offered my job. Then I had to wait for the North Dakota Board to review my schooling and decide if I was qualified to take the National Boards. Once that was approved and I filled out the next set of paperwork and paid the next hefty fee, I had to wait for the National Board to verify I had been qualified by the state of North Dakota. Then I had to wait for my confirmation. Once I had confirmation I scheduled to take the National Counselor Examination, but I had to wait 3 weeks until they allowed for me to sit for the exam. I knew that day I had passed but I had to wait for the National Board to send my passing score back to North Dakota. Then I had to wait for my old professor to FINALLY write the letter I asked her to send in September. Once my file was complete I had to wait for the North Dakota Board to meet and issue my license. So, after all of this waiting and hoops I have been jumping through, I will have my LAPC (Means I am a new counselor working to complete more internship hours) on February 1st. All this waiting has made me crazy, but I have gone from sitting and waiting to the rush to find a place to live in North Dakota and a start date of my job that I was hired for on September 2nd. I start on February 6. Not so amazing.
Living in a house with my very different and opposite mother-in-law. Not so amazing.
And, my most recent stint of having a fender bender with a public transit bus this past Tuesday. Scared me to death. I was going to pick Sebastian up from work. I was so excited. I had found the apartment and I knew I would finally start working, and it was date night. I had 3 different impressions to do something different that would have kept me from being in that intersection at that moment. I ignored all 3. So, I was 2 blocks from our house when I saw a bus barreling towards me. It scared me because these roads are narrow and covered with ice, so I stepped on the brakes. I must have hit them too hard because I then started to skid. I clipped the driver's side front wheel and hit my mirror. It broke the glass in the mirror and our steering is tight, but I know it could have been so much worse. I was fortunate that the bus was a training bus and no passengers were aboard. The curse was that this was a training bus and the inexperienced bus driver should have known not to come blazing down our road. The whole experience really shook me up and I have been even deeper in a funk these past few days. We will have the car looked at on Monday, and I hope that the damage is minimal. We shall see. Not so amazing.

I know I am blessed beyond measure and I need to break out of this depressed mood. I saw a quote today and it got me thinking. It said, "What if we woke up tomorrow with only those things we thanked God for today." Perspective, yes. As tough as things are, I have some pretty amazing things happening and I need to remember to be grateful and that even my lumps have a sugar coating.

Understand Why

As I was getting ready to right this long overdue update I kept chanting to myself, "You have to be upbeat. Keep it happy." I am hopeful that I can do this but it has been a trying few months.
The Leg
I try to pretend that I am normal and have not had major problems with my leg. I guess I am still in a bit of denial about my cancer, kind of weird, I know. On Sebastian's birthday I became extremely ill. So ill, that he had to hold me up in the shower and wash me while I cried from the pain. My leg had yet another flair up of Cellulitis. I did not ever want to revisit being that ill but it came. I started antibiotics and was hoping to be on the road to wellness. It seemed like that was the case when I started feeling ill again on Halloween night. I tried to sleep it off, but landed back at the clinic with a recurrence of Cellulitis. This happened once more before my trip to Utah. While home for my Pre-Christmas visit, I saw my doctor. He was so beyond fantastic to me. He reassured me and told me he was willing to do anything I needed until I was up and going at my new job and had a doctor here in North Dakota. He gave me a prescription with refills and said call and he would renew or prescribe more meds as necessary. It was a huge weight off of my shoulders. Then I forgot the prescription on the kitchen table the day I flew back to Winnipeg. I called my Dad the next day and begged him to get it off to me just in case. I had been through this endless pain and frustration of a broken leg and I liked having the 45 day supply of meds. Well Christmas and Boxing Day came, New Years was on there and the snail like postal system continued to frustrate me. I was fine until January 2nd. Within an hour I went from feeling so-so to laying in my bed shivering and praying to feel better. Back to being as ill as I was in October. Sebastian was ready to take me back to the clinic but I knew I had meds somewhere between here and Utah so I refused. I guess I became delirious that evening and Sebastian claims he now has an idea of what drunk Jamie may look like. We got the fever to break before bedtime and my Mother-in-law stayed home to ensure I was OK the next morning. The meds came at Noon and I was feeling better by dinnertime. All this has led to such a frustration of WHY?! I know in life we are left with a big question mark over our heads asking what can I do and why is this happening. I don't have the answer, but I have hope. I received a priesthood blessing from the missionaries (That was a trip, we had to consecrate the oil and the whole bit) and I have prayed to be healed without further surgery. I just got healed up from my surgeries in 2010. I also had some very spiritual experiences when I was so very ill and laying in bed. I guess I am just looking for meaning in all of this.
The Job
First of all, I am used to being busy, very busy. This waiting around has been hard but part of me (Back to the Why question) thinks the waiting has been by divine design while I had this trouble with my leg. I took my National Exam the morning of my 3rd flair up with the leg, fever and all. This test has 200 questions with 40 of those being practice questions for future exams (You don't know which ones). So it is scored out of 160. I got 134 and passed with flying colors. I needed to score a minimum of 91 to pass. My hard work paid off. Then it has been more of the waiting. But I know for a fact that I will be licensed on February 1st. I have started to try and find a place to live in North Dakota, hard when I am up here in Winnipeg, but I have faith that it will all work out. I know Heavenly Father brought me here and will put me in path He has designed for me. I just keep moving forward. And I guess then I will rejoin the working class and move forward. I am looking forward to be back to a wage earner, it has been 2 years. But I am scared to death about all the responsibilities of my new job.
Trip Home
I got to come home to Utah to visit in December. I was so excited to see my family and spend time with them. It was mire difficult then I had expected. It is said that you can't go home and I learned the meaning of this. I had been gone for 3 1/2 months and many things were different and I did not feel I had a place there like I did before. It was weird. I went through a bit of that when I came home from Salt Lake after the whole cancer thing, but not like this. I will always love my family, that will never change. But in the process of this trip, I realized that my family is Sebastian. I missed him so much and wished he was there sharing experiences with me. I did not see as many people as I wanted to or spend as much time as I would have liked, but I am glad I made the trip. The night before I left we had kind of a family "Christmas Party". It was fun and I hope it is something we will do again.
Sebastian and I
Sebastian and I are doing well. We hit our little rocks in the road but we are overcoming and growing together. We have made a goal to be sealed in the St. George Temple this year. That will mean a few milestones for Sebastian, Melchizedek Priesthood, Endowments, but we are ready and moving forward. We are liking the extra time together but realize that is soon coming to an end. It will be hard being apart during the week but we know it is only temporary and soon we will be on the other side of yet another hurdle. In the pictures you will see one of us out to eat. That was us ditching the Stake New Years Eve party. We showed up and there was no where to sit, weird music being played , and Filipino food that we were not big fans of so we snuck out and went to Applebee's. Yet another memory we have made together. It is nice to know that we are accomplishing our goals and moving over the many hurdles that we have encountered. I know it will keep going but we are up to the challenge.
So my toast for the New Year is Health, Strength, Understanding, and Faith to bless us all as we move forward on our journeys this year. We may not always understand why, but we can be assured that there is a Divine Design that will lead us into great paths if we allow Him to do so. Happy New Year!