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Qualicum and Hallowe'en

This past weekend Charlie and I spent in the honeymoon suite at "The Inn on Long Lake" in Nanaimo. I was doing a workshop with St. Stephen's United Church in Qualicum on Saturday. The workshop was about Spiritual Gifts. It was well-attended and I think everyone really enjoyed it.

As for Charlie and I, it was so wonderful to have a whole weekend together! We did have a "three's a crowd" intruder with us though - Guinness! The hotel is pet-friendly so we packed up the raw dog food, leashes and bowls and headed out. The picture to the left I took from our patio glass door. Beautiful!

Guinness had a blast on the tiny little beach on this fresh water lake. Once she discovered it was water like the hose, she went insane. She ran into the water and leaped and splashed like a puppy. I just caught the tail end of it on video:



We came back Sunday afternoon just in time for the Trick or Treaters. We have very cool decorations that we've collected for several years - especially since the kick-ass Hallowe'en Party fundraiser we had here about 7 years ago. With no Alex, I had to carve the pumpkin myself for the first time in over 10 years! We had lots of kids and it was really fun. I took some pics of how the house looked from the outside:





Our creepy front door


















My uber-cool Jack o' Lantern

Our scary front window











Hey I got the MikeyTheBrat Christmas cards in the mail today! Woohoo! So if you know ten people who hate Christmas and love dogs, you can order a set for $2.99 + shipping. Just click on the picture!

Friends, Finland, Future Shop and Facebook

Last week of October coming up - unbelievable. Without the church year calendar in front of me 24/7 all the weeks sort of melt into one another.

I had a wonderful day last Tuesday. Wonderful, because I spent it with my friend Rob Pollock. Rob's living with incurable colon cancer. The treatments take their toll on him for sure, but this week he was feeling good, eating and enjoying a Guinness. Rob lives in the west end of Vancouver so we met at the Sylvia Hotel for lunch. There's free parking underneath and the food was delicious. Then we went for a walk along the beach and into the park. Rob was a forester before he was a minister so he knew all kinds of cool stuff about the trees. I just knew they were beautiful. The sun was shining, the leaves crunched under our feet and the soft breeze off the water made everything smell fantastic.

On one of the pathways we met this little fella - tame as could be:

I just walked right up to him and took his picture. Rob had the energy to walk for hours! It was awesome. Great conversation too. I took this picture of us and it's probably the most hideous picture of me, but our smiles are so indicative of the day!











It was a weird coincidence but I got 3 new clients via Skype this week - one from Finland, one from Sweden and one from Norway. All three are lovely women - intelligent and attractive. They're all suffering from emetophobia - one is so severe she hasn't left her house nor eaten anything in 2 years. Every day she drinks 4 "Boost" drinks and nothing more. She's too terrified of germs to go out or have anyone come in hence the Skype counseling. I hope and pray I can help her.

Since I'm doing almost all my work via Skype I decided to invest in a new webcam. The microphone on my computer isn't great and the camera is meh. I didn't buy the computer with that in mind. So it's a business expense. I also hope to do some "webinars" in the near future. I've discovered there are all kinds of ways to make money from home these days. Hopefully I'll get my new camera before I'm scheduled to give an internet lecture on leadership at Atlantic School of Theology (AST).

Charlie's away on business this weekend and Alvin is in Leduc with Alex, so no Skype calls with her either. Guinness is guarding the house! Oh ya - Alex took some hilarious pictures of Micah for "MikeyTheBrat" Christmas cards I'm making. Speaking of Mikey - read his blog this week and find out how he reacted to Guinness having to wear the "cone of shame."

Katie phoned yesterday and she's doing great at SFU - getting good marks. She'll be busy this weekend doing ballet rehearsals and studying for a midterm. Good luck Katie!

I found a friend on Facebook this week I haven't seen for 15 years. We both worked at Ballet Classique - when I had cancer I worked there in exchange for Katie's ballet lessons. She was an amazing and really fun modern dance and jazz choreographer from NYC. She lived in Vancouver that year, then returned to New York. We had some good times. Gotta love Facebook!

Thanksgiving

Our family enjoyed turkey dinner with a twist last Sunday. The seven of us gathered for dinner, as we always do, with our linen napkins, grandma's crystal and great-grandma's china. But at the end of the table sat a laptop computer, tuned in to Skype. And our youngest daughter, Alex, who is serving her United Church internship in Leduc Alberta "joined us." Our dinner was late getting on the table, and she ate early, so we shoved stuffing and mashed potatoes into our mouths while she chatted to various members of the clan. It was new, weird, different, sad and wonderful all at the same time. Luckily she'll be home for Christmas! Here's the menu:

• Roast Turkey with cranberry-apricot stuffing
• Sour-cream mashed potatoes and rivers of savory gravy
• Fresh green beans
• Sweet-potato squash
• Sourdough rolls
• Homemade cranberry sauce or jelly
• Home-baked apple or pumpkin pie with whipped cream
• Fabulous Filipino squash-cake-dessert-thingy that I can't remember the name but thanks to my new in-law sister, Nenita, for making it for us!
  

On the counseling front I've now got a waiting list of clients. That makes me a bit sad. I want to help everyone who emails me! But with the push of marketing I did over the last 3 months, and particularly in the past month, I should have expected it. If only the church could put up a Facebook ad that simply read "For help with your ______, click here" (Fill in the blank with a million things). And if only people would actually click, actually come, and actually be helped. But alas....that was Christendom and this is post-modernity...

Perhaps knocking myself out over the past years in ministry trying to figure out how to "market," where to market, when to market helped me get traffic to my blog and click-throughs on my ads with ease. So my counseling blog should come with a warning: don't try this at church! haha

The other fun piece of news this week is that Alex and Alvin finally got their wedding pictures from the photographer. They all downloaded in RANDOM ORDER, mind you. Geesh! So mom volunteered to put all 240 of them in chronological order, which morphed to "tell the story" order. If you know Alex or Alvin, you can go to their website and see some more, or download all 230 of them if you like. Just click on the picture to go to their site!



Oh ya - and on Wednesday Miri Lee and I made three RELAXATION RECORDINGS (guided imagery). She played harp and piano and I spoke with a soft melty voice.

The tapes will greatly help my counselees, but Miri and I are also going to sell them online. One I made as specifically Christian, since I've never found one of those before, and the other two are nebulous-new-age. But hopefully quite relaxing! When they're ready I'll put a note here and/or on my website if you're interested.

Cheers til next week!

Yaking, Yak and the Crystal Cathedral

Last week I came out of the closet here on my blog - as a person with a history of the debilitating anxiety disorder "emetophobia" (fear of vomiting). Just so you know, I'm now convinced that I am completely recovered. Anxiety-free. As evidence of this I survived Norwalk recently with no anxiety. I survived listening to Alex have Norwalk in the house with me with no anxiety. And this past week I've survived combing through the internet looking for pictures and videos with the search word "vomit" with no anxiety. Well maybe a little. Just before I click "play." Anxiety 0/100. Grossedoutedness 100/100.

That's been my week pretty much. Reading about puke, looking at puke, talking about puke.

On the upside, I've met some awesome new clients via Skype. They are women from California, Texas, New York, Ontario, England and New Zealand. It's been awesome to be able to reach out a helping hand, an understanding ear, from so far away and an honour to come to know each of them. They are all smart, attractive, likable women. And their lives have been completely ruined from being terrified every minute of every day. Today I prayed for them but mainly for myself. I hope I know enough and am skilled enough to help them.

Today I did something I thought I would never do: watched the Crystal Cathedral worship service on TV. I sang the hymns and listened to the solos and scriptures and sermon. It was good. I felt close to God. I didn't care that I wasn't part of the faith community, because I felt a part of the community of saints. In fact, I was glad not to have to pass the peace (I hate that) and glad not to have to go for coffee and make idle chit chat with people. Besides, I was in my pajamas.

Don't worry, I'm not a convert. Next Sunday I look forward to joining again with my United Church sisters and brothers again at Ryerson United Church. Sans pajamas.

Anna is officially...

This past week I've been spending inordinate amounts of time marketing and social networking. This involves blogging, writing articles, answering ads, bidding on freelance jobs, keeping a presence on some phobia discussion boards, designing and running ads, adwords, adsense. It takes a ton of time.

But it seems to have paid off. I've hooked up with a guy who markets a program to help people with emetophobia (fear of vomiting). Since that's what I had for many years it's a natural partnership. His program is very cheap and very sensible. Not a quick-fix, but a good program. So he and I decided to partner around the counseling I offer via Skype.

Since I'm one of the few counselors in the world who's a recovered emetophobic, I really enjoy working with other phobics and doing my part to help. Most therapists have never even heard of emetophobia, let alone treated it. So for half of my first session fees, this dude is going to send out to his emetophobia email list my name and bio. He ran a test email yesterday to 100 recipients and I got 3 new clients. Next week he's going to email out to the other 14,000.

Yikes!

I really hope I don't get 4,000 people emailing me for counseling. I can only take 10 clients/week and still have 3 days left for writing (which is why I quit my job in the first place - it wasn't to do counseling). I already have 7 clients - all emetophobic. So that would make me really sad - to turn thousands of people away who need help. I might have to spend a year writing a training manual for therapists or something.

Anyway, that's my news this week. I'm out of the closet now. Yes, I had a puke phobia. It was pretty severe for 30 years. I did 300 hours of therapy and can safely say I'm anxiety-free now. And my therapist has a really nice car.

Since I've outed myself, if you're curious about emetophobia, I have a secret website (well, how secret is anything on the internet?) It's www.emetophobiahelp.org

100% Woo Hoo!

Hey I just took an English grammar and punctuation exam on Freelancer.com. I guessed at three questions and was sure I got them wrong. One was "sheer cliff" or "shear cliff" (and 3 other ridiculous choices). I picked "sheer" and that was right.

The punctuation was quite tricky. One sentence I thought should not have any punctuation where the blank was, but "none" was not a choice so I picked a comma. Another could have been grammatically correct with either a semicolon or a period. I picked semicolon. Later there was another similar question with a capital letter after the blank - so that was the period. Whew!

I did the test in just over 7 minutes. You had 15 to complete the exam.

Check it out:

Results - English - Level 1

Result	Passed
Mark	100%
Time Taken	436 s
Time	22-Sep-2010 15:59:51
Topics Covered	Grammar 1 Punctuation 1
Award

Back to Available Exams

The Week of Loss

I'm glad that if things really do come in threes that the third thing to die this week was my dryer. Especially since I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon.

Both my cat and my computer went the way of the lobster last Tuesday (as in, lobsters as a buffet item on cruise ships after the recession....gone). They both started off sick, but I thought I could handle both the diagnosis and the treatment myself. They both got sicker. I ran every manner of antivirus software and "tune up" on my computer and it got sicker and sicker, eventually taking 90 minutes to boot up Windows. The cat had stopped eating altogether and I was force-feeding him, assuming the problem was stress cuz our dog likes to chase him and occasionally they - yes - fight like cats and dogs.

I finally succumbed and took the cat to the veterinary hospital. He lived there 5 days racking up $1000 but only got worse. He died Tuesday. 11 years ago I took two teenage girls to the SPCA to pick out a kitten. Mistake. They both fell in love with a different kitten so we brought home two, much to my "I-hate-cats" husband's dismay. Katie named him "Forrest" after Forrest Gump - adorable but stupid. The other cat Alex named "Biscuit" after a character on Alie McBeal who was smart but weird. Biscuit is a little lonely now but he's a healthy 24-pounder who just blorts around on the spare bed all day and purrs up a storm in my ear at night.

The computer I took to the "hospital" as well. It also had to be euthanized due to "hard-drive failing." It's under warranty but I have to return it to Future Shop to get a new hard drive. Bah!

Yesterday the dryer gave out. It just doesn't heat up, so I'll have to call someone in next week. Meanwhile my last load before it gave out is hanging all over my house - it couldn't have been towels or sheets - oh no. That would violate Murphy's Law. It's socks and underwear and gym clothes. My house looks like the back yard of a tenement.

From time to time my TV and my iPhone were acting weird this week as well. I wondered if either I or the house had been hit by lightning any time lately. Or perhaps it's Gremlins or Aliens. At this point I'd be like "Take me with you! I'll put up with the anal probe! Anything! Please!"

On a happier note the writing is going well (on Charlie's computer). I have secured some editing jobs and I'm working on a couple of screenplays. I have a few counseling clients now so that's also going well. Life is generally good...as long as this week's losses are confined to just three!

Leduc Alberta, Home of the Norwalk Virus

Alex, Alvin, Charlie and I (and Alex's dog Micah) set out on Friday, August 27th to move Alex to Leduc, Alberta for her 8-month internship. Since I can't sit in a car for more than 5 hours, we took 3 days to get here. We stopped in Kamloops at a really cheap motel ($69/night....no relation). Then we went to Jasper and stayed in a large suite at a nice lodge. It had 3 hottubs and we took advantage of all of them. The next day we did a little sight-seeing. Drove up Mt. Edith and hiked to the glacier which was on a glacial lake. Unbelievable. I can totally cross that off my bucket list now.

We stopped at a hot springs next and once again took advantage of the sore muscles and nerve endings. Then onward to Leduc. We arrived Sunday around dinner time. Alex's basement suite is nice - fairly new and pretty clean. The living room is open to the upstairs, so there's not a lot of privacy but Alex and I rectified that by moving most of the living room furniture into the large kitchen.

Charlie and Alvin got up early Monday morning and Charlie dropped Alvin off at the airport then drove my car home - it only took him 12 hours - haha.

Alex and I had great plans for the week (I fly home next Tuesday). Get the apartment organized, figure out suppliers of raw dog food ingredients, shop for some necessities. Instead, we got a Norwalk virus on Monday night. That was brutal. The kind of brutal where you sit on the crapper with a bucket on your lap. Except that there were no buckets or even garbage cans in the whole suite. So we barfed into her brand new mixing bowls, then bleached the hell out of them and boiled them in oil.

Tuesday was a write-off. We were so sick I actually phoned Charlie and asked him to fly here to take the dog out to pee. I kid you not. Somehow Alex managed to crawl across the street to the park with her and she was a pretty good sport about it. We did let her destroy a dog toy to amuse herself for the day. By the afternoon we had stopped barfing, and just lay around watching True Blood-the first and second seasons. Wednesday we were a bit better, and could eat some bananas and a bit of toast. Unbelievably weak, however.

Thursday Alex had an all-day workshop an hour away with her Lay Support Team and Minister-Supervisor. I unpacked her kitchen boxes. Then we both collapsed and ate nothing for dinner.

On Friday we went out shopping, moved the furniture into the kitchen, went to a potluck meet-and-greet for her and her LST. Alex baked a delicious blueberry pie. So I guess we were better. She's younger and stronger than I. Even this morning I'm procrastinating going shopping again by sitting here on the computer for the first time in a week.

Leduc is, apart from the Norwalk, a nice place. A huge never-ending field with houses and shops on it. Big sky though - that's something you don't see in BC.

The house has a 2-car garage and Alex can use half of it for her car which is awesome. There's a big park across the street for Micah to run and play. And she's getting to know the two little dogs upstairs, even though the poodle-ish one keeps attacking her by striking out at her nose (death wish much!)

That's all for now - we're off to buy a vaccuum at the Bay with some wedding gift cards. The Albos had a Dyson "Animal" vaccuum on their registry so that's the order of the day.

Have a great Labour Day weekend everyone!

So I guess I'm a writer now. I think it hit me when I was doing a new bio for my website and I wrote something like "was once a United Church Minister." It also hit me when someone paid me for a magazine article. Cha ching into my Paypal account. Okay, it was only $100 but the article took me about 20 minutes to write so that's pretty good. But it's not like I can do that for 40 hours a week. But hey - woo hoo - I can pay my car insurance this month.

Besides the magazine article I've done a couple of freelance copywriting jobs. That was an interesting exercise and not too difficult - although one of them took quite a lot of research.

Most of my time has been spent on the "fun" stuff. I'm writing a script for a sitcom. The working title is "The Alex Cafe" and it's loosely based on "The Gilmore Gang" skits.

It's original material, but the premise is that Alex and her sister Katie inherit a coffee shop from their aunt. Alex is a philosophy major and wants to start a "Philosopher's Cafe" but no one shows up. So she asks her friend Alvin to bring some of his friends from university. Instead, he gathers the most unlikely motley group of misfits to the cafe. Alex is horrified but of course they stay and talk "philosophy" and thus...hilarity ensues. For those of you who know TGG, oh yes, Moysha and his girlfriend Rainbow are characters. As is Jacob (renamed "Jason") and Roxanne.

The other thing that's just awesome to write is MikeyTheBrat's blog and Twitter account. Pure unadulterated comedy in the satire sort of way. So totally fun. I'm still not used to being actually free to write anything I want and not have to worry about somebody emailing me about it or hauling me into a meeting to scold me like a school-child. I'm sure I will still get the emails mind you, but I can just click "delete" and go mwahahahaha - I don't have to worry about burying that person's husband next weekend or negotiating my salary increase with them. Freedom is a strange feeling. I still haven't fully integrated it.

I'm also working on marketing and publicity which is a TON of work. I made a whole new website. You can check it out at www.evokingchange.com It's at the same address but it's all about me and the services I offer. Alex shot all the photos.

I have also spent quite a bit of time setting up my counseling practice, and I have a few clients. That is very cool because I really want to help people who have emetophobia. I've been doing that online for years (contributing articles and advice on a discussion forum) but now I can actually work with them in person. It's awesome. My emetophobia counseling website is at www.emetophobiahelp.blogspot.com I totally revamped that a few weeks ago - also a ton of work. I'm setting up a youtube channel with videos of people puking - in ascending order of nastiness. I can only do so much of that every day. The scanning youtube for them is quite the activity - but somebody's gotta take one for the team!

Today I welcomed home my sister from her ship and we celebrated her birthday in conjunction with Alex's farewell. We're driving Alex to LeDuc next weekend and I'll be staying with her for a week before I fly home. Charlie and Alvin will drive home right away.

Watching the nastiest movie ever right now...but I have some kind of weird fascination with it. Later dudes.

What the hell is this?

I bought this at Ikea in the "as is" section - thought it was a spice rack. Clearly not! But what the hell is it? The two trays, front and back, slide out. The top looks like a handle but it slides up. Looks like there may be a rod missing in the middle. Also, the handle-thingy has a slot in the bottom.

????

How not to be a Twitter TOOL

1. Don't just say something is hilarious and give us a link. Your idea of hilarious and mine are quite different. For instance, you might be someone who thinks South Park is distastefully offensive but this just cracks you up.
2. If you're going to put in a link say something about its content. Don't just say "check this out".
3. Don't quote other people. If we want to look up profound quotes we can google them.
4. If your tweet has a lot of @ symbols and people we don't know we will skip over it. In fact, we may not even check if we know any of the people.
5. Don't write nothing about yourself in your bio and expect anyone to follow you.
6. Don’t bitch at us in a DM or a reply. We will simply click "block."
7. Don’t link to pics or videos of upchucking without posting a warning. We may be on Twitter while eating coleslaw with pineapple chunks in it.
8. Don't wrt lk UR a teengr txtg. It takes too long to read.
9. Don’t steal other people’s tweets without the re-tweet sign (RT) and don’t RT a RT of a RT of a RT.
10. Don't actually tweet what you're doing right now. Nobody cares. Similarly, we don't care if your cat looks cool when he licks his hoo-ha.

Making Changes ~ The First Step

Leaders cannot evoke change in the people or organizations they lead without changing themselves first. And I hate to say it, but in order to change yourself, you need to acknowledge your pain. Your "issues" shall we say. Because those issues will come back to haunt you not only around the kitchen table, but around the boardroom table too.

You may seek to overcome your pain by seeking after something else: that job, that relationship, that new TV set, iPhone, laptop, car. Or you might try to cover up your pain with alcohol, drugs, sex, or one of those frozen chocolate cakes...every night...!

Simply acknowledging your pain, your "issues", your mother, your bully sister...and allowing yourself to sit in those feelings for even a few minutes a day before heading out to the party, to Future Shop or Dairy Queen, will help. Because the more you do that the calmer you will become. And calm leaders are good leaders.