The Answers are in the ice crystals

Everyone who lives in the northern climes of this world should stop and take a moment at least once each season to appreciate the beauty of the winter season. This can be as fleeting as a pause at the mailbox or as all-encompassing as a sleigh ride, a hike or invigorating trips down a cross country ski trail. For as much as we must endure all that which is frozen and barren and treacherous, it�s worth it every once in a while to consider the engineering marvel that is a single snowflake.

Lately, life has been whizzing by at such a rate I find myself constantly amazed at what the calendar reads. Or the clock, for that matter. I don�t believe I am of the age where I�m losing track already and so I must give some thought as to how to stop the madness. Job One has to be, �Learn to Say No�. No to favours, no to craft shows, no to cookie exchanges and no to anything that doesn�t allow me to get through a day without running the entire time like OJ through the airport.

Secondly, I have to work on scheduling my after work time so as to be infinitely more efficient. My partial To Do lists and scraps of notes here and there do not translate to a comprehensive list in my brain, and for that I continue to pay dearly. Then, of course, in this weather, once I get home and feed the puppies and myself, the last thing I want to do is venture out again in the dark to do errands. It�s way too easy to snuggle up on the chesterfield under my fleece throw and tell myself tales of how I�ll have all sorts of time tomorrow and don�t worry about it and then I am able to sleep the sleep of the contented and warm. If I had a dime for every time that manner of thinking has turned around and bitten me in the ass, I would be a wealthy woman.

And last, but certainly not least, I must stop listening to the malignant little bastard voice in my head. The voice seeks to get me in trouble and to further damage my tenuous self esteem. It has some unbeknownst grudge against me and has had since the early eighties. I cannot block it out and I cannot evict it and it knows the location of each and every one of my hot buttons and just how to push them. It�s maddening and increases my anxiety and my blood pressure and reminds me all over again how I need to re-center my chi and take a chill pill and RELAX. Possibly I should see a shrink and have the cancerous beastie exorcised, but honestly, the last thing I want to do is see a head doctor. Maybe I�ll tap the minds of others who have reclined on other couches and see what sort of info I can gather. Failing that, I might skulk around the Self Help section of the local Chapters and see what I can glean from the books with the catchy titles and the smarmy looking �doctors� leaning against their book�s edge.

Hopefully my salvation lies in the complexity of one tiny snowflake; everything else sounds like too much work.

Posted at 12:11 p.m.