2012 Year End Review

2012 ,all in all, not a bad year.

 January 1st 2012 saw us towing the house off of Ken Rowleys property and moving it slightly upstream. We had no power or running water  but we also didn't pay any moorage. Access to the house was pretty dicey and I conquered a lot of fear walking over those dodgy planks every day.

The winter was bitterly cold some days, but thankfully we had hardly any snow to deal with. We basically spent the winter huddled in our bedrooms watching vhs movies that I found in thrift stores and counting the days until spring.

The year before I had petitioned the City of Richmond to take on my floathome as a maritime heritage building, hoping to find a safe berth for it down in Steveston where I work. After 6 months of meetings, it boiled down to: they wanted the house but no one living in it and they had no money to buy it. We were back to square one.

 The Port Authority was breathing down our necks, threatening us constantly about moving the house out of their juristiction. Running out of options, in desperation we climbed in the car and started driving up and down the river asking total strangers if we could park in their back yard.

It took us the most part of the spring but by June we had found someone willing to let us moor at their dock. It was a lot further away then I had hoped for but in the end totally worth it! Our landlord was also a tug boat operator and offered to tow us up here but it would have to wait until the fall as the freshet was running very hard this year.

Now that we had secured a place and could give the Port Authority the assurance that we were going away at some point soon , we had some breathing room to try and enjoy life a little. Augusts heat wave was doing my lungs in so I took a week off work and we went camping up in the mountains where the air was so much cooler. We swam in small lakes, hiked through woods and cooked food over an open fire, pure bliss! On the way home we stopped and toured through the old mine at Brittanea Beach.

We managed to get tickets to Roger Waters :"The Wall" concert and thoroughly enjoyed that. We visited the pow-wow over on the North Shore, ate lots of good salmon and bannock. I made a point of going to Steveston on my days off and exploring the cannery and the Britannea shipyard. On Canada Day, we went there for the parade and local salmon festival.

In the fall it was time for the PNE. We went there a number of times and saw a few of the concerts,:Heart, Trooper and Burton Cummings, all great shows! The last ride I took on the old roller coaster seemed to have dislocted a rib. Over the next few days, the pain intensified to the point that I couldn't work anymore. It finally came time to move the house up river and I missed the ride because I had a chiropractic appointment that morning. By the time, I finished and drove up to the new location, they had already docked. I ended up having to take off almost 3 weeks while waiting for my rib to heal. It couldn't have come at a better time. We had a beautiful Indian summer and I got to just sit on my patio and relax and enjoy the scenery.

From September to December we finally got to work on the house and our surroundings. Dave did a ton of work building docks and floats, cutting and building a huge ramp, as well as building and filling a garden shed. The inside of the house got tackeled pretty good as well. We finally got running water, the gas stove hooked up, a pantry built, some more  sub-floor finished off, the tub plumbed in, and a 20 ton truck of stuff moved into the house ( I emptied my storage locker and finally took the rest of my belongings out of my old house, primarily my collection  of 3000 books ).

 While Dave was doing all that, I worked long hours at the clinic in Steveston. I left the house at 11am and got home at 11pm, had dinner and fell into bed. Days off we spent exploring our new neighborhood.

Our neighbors who rent the house on the property are a lovely couple who have adopted us into their large family. We have been honored to be invited to BBq's, family dinners, Christmas dinner and New Years Eve. It has really made the transition to living out here much easier.

Unfortunately I couldn't make it to the NYE celebration. Back in the spring I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. Basically every muscle feels like its been run over and every joint feels like it has broken glass in it. Unable to bear the pain any longer, I have been taking Demerol on a daily basis so I can function and get things done. Unfortunately after taking it for so long, it has built up to a toxic level in my system and I have been feeling very ill for the last few months. I decided as I had a week off over the holidays, that I would use this time to get off of my medication.

I don't crave it as a drug, in fact if I had a good day pain wise, I had no problem not taking any at all, but after such a long time there was enough in my system to make me sick if I didn't keep taking it. It's too bad, as it really gave me many pain free hours for which I was very grateful for after living with daily pain for over 20 years. However, if nothing else, I need to take a break from it, so I have been cutting down my dose as much as possible for the last few weeks and now on New Years day I am on my fourth day of complete withdrawal.

 All I can say is, thank god for Gravol, it has been very helpful in controlling the nausea and stomach upset. I have horrible crawly muscle sensations and my restless leg syndrome is in high gear. I am irritable, restless, and finding it hard to focus on anything. I can't wait to feel normal again.

I've got two more days off and am praying that this is over by then. I look forward to starting the New Year with a clean body. Now that the house situation is under control, I really want to focus on my health. When I was first diagnosed, I tried every kind of treatment I could think of. Nothing seemed to work except my indigestion cleared up while I was on a three month anti inflammatory diet. I know that a lot of what was going on was related to all the stress I have been under. I am hoping that now that things seem to be going ok, my stress levels have dropped and maybe my pain is decreasing.

I want to take the time this year to be mindful of what I put in my mouth, make the effort to move my body on a regular basis and to do loving things for it like go for massages and some pampering now and again. I am quite happy with my resolution for 2012, I feel I did get out and do quite a few local touristy things. I finally made it to many of the local festivities and toured a bunch of the local sights.

So once again we turn a new page and begin a new year. I hope that 2013 continues the good fortune trend that 2012 turned out to be for me. I look forward to seeing how this year unfolds. All the best to you and your families. I hope that this dawn of a new age brings about the changes in the world that we need to see in order to remain sustainable,healthy and happy.

Love, Rhianna

52 Lifestyle Changes for 2013

Reminders to myself of the person I want to be.


1.Lose at least one pound a week
2.Seek spiritual guidence every day
3.Be grateful every day
3.Exercise every day ( before going online)
4.Take a daily picture of something that catches my eye
5.Perform a random act of kindness
6.Limit sugar
7.Aim for raw food when possible
8.Fast food doesn't exist, make another choice
9.Mindful Eating
10.Clean and sort one closet or drawer every week
11.Start saving 10 percent of all income
12.Attend at least one yoga class a week
13.Read a book before bed ( turn off the computer)
14.Play a game once a week
15.Have a "do not spend money" day once a week
16. Un-clutter a room
17.Record receipts once a week and file
18.Clear your inbox
19.Dance
20.Learn a new skill
21.Teach
22.Learn a new language
23.Study a new plant in my neighborhood
24.Work on making a smaller garbadge pile each week
25.Play an instrument
26.Be creative
27. Write
28.For every new thing I bring home, two things must go out
29.Learn the words to a song
30.Visit a friend
31.Feed the wildlife
32.Take a bit of all food I intend to eat and make an offering to the spirits to say thanks
33.Try a new food
34.Try a new restaurant
35.Pick up litter
36.Sign a petition
37.Take a course
38.Volunteer
39.Take a bath, make it as healing as possible
40.Breathe mindfully
41.Stretch
42.Get out of town, do something different
43.Walk in a forest
44.Sit by a fire
45.Moon bathe
46.Skinny dip
47.Star gaze
48.Remember and honour someone who is gone
49.Decorate a place in nature
50.Repair something that is broken
51.Plant a perrenial
52.Perform rituals and ceremonies to ground yourself and mark your passages