My Electronic Scrapbook: Everything Changes, Westwood Plateau, British Columbia, September 2002

I have been dreaded writing this post but I am going to get through it. Remember, this is a scrapbook not an autobiography so I am not going into great detail. Just going over the basics.

The photo above is of the view I had just outside my kitchen window. Over our back fence we could see mountains (until they built the last house in the hood) and on this day it was covered in clouds. My surgery was coming up and one day I was making Reg's lunch when I looked out this window and the fence was suddenly absolutely covered in crows. I swear, there were dozens of them. It was freaky! And you know, I usually like freaky.

I went to grab Reg's attention. We looked through the window. The group of them (known as a murder) was gone. All gone. I felt weird. Uncomfortable.

I should have realized they came to warn me. But I didn't. I thought positively.



I had my surgery and tried to move on. I had to call the surgeon for an update two weeks after the procedure was done to find out the results. Again, I thought positively. I had been assured this was no big deal. Everything would be fine.

While they had removed pre-cancerous cells they had also swiped cancer out of my body, completely by accident. The nurse said that when the surgeon saw the test results, he almost fell out of his chair. Turns out that it is an undetectable kind of cancer and extremely aggressive and dangerous.

I know now, retrospectively, that this was a miracle in a way. Back then, I was terrified. This was my greatest fear from losing my younger brother to cancer when I was very young.

All I knew is I had to go to specialist after specialist and find out if there was a way to detect it in the future or would I have to live in fear the rest of my life that it has come back? That there was really no way of testing it. Their response? I get blood work once a year to make sure I am not dying.



We were just getting settled in our beautiful new area and I was devastated. Then I started going back to the naturopath, this time instead of trying to treat fibro I was trying to prevent cancer. I learned about the importance of cooked tomato sauces (I knew Prego was good for me!) and did my best to find shiitake mushrooms no matter where I lived from this point on. I was already a vegetarian so I started to cut out dairy and moved to a soy-based diet. I worked on my stress. I kept walking every day. I tried to move on with my life.

So far, I have been lucky. I am alive. So maybe now you can see why it is so important for me to live in a place that helps my immunity stay strong. The longer I physically suffer here, the harder my immunity takes a hit. I am desperate to get out of here.

OK, I can't write about this anymore. Knowing this post was coming up I started having dreams about dying of cancer again. I knew I had to get past it, that it was a part of the story but there, it is done and I don't want to talk about it again. I don't want to feed my fear. I don't want to focus on what terrifies me more than anything else in the world.

I am alive and need to stay strong. So mote it be.

Wishcasting: What do you wish to a break from?

This week's wishcasting prompt by Jamie is super easy for me which is good because I am out of energy and in so much pain from the whole roof fiasco.

I want to take a break from hardship. All kinds of hardship: physical, emotional, spiritual and especially... financial.



I am so sick and tired of sudden huge expenses being dumped on our laps that we have no way of paying for and get deeper in debt. When we were so poor out west I promised myself I would make sure this sort of thing never happened again and I have been so financially responsible since but since we moved here, everything is sucking us dry.

Astronomical heating bills even in June, losing our car, painting our living room ceiling only to have it ruined by a leaking to find out that we need a whole new roof.

We worked so hard to be where we are only to feel broke. I need time to financially recover. Then of course when next winter comes we will barely be able to get through it again because oil heat costs a fortune and we have no other choice.

So stop it. Give me a break. Let me catch up.

Yes, I am bitter. In the summer it's the only time we can afford to do anything because we finally get a break from heating bills and now we have a roof to pay for.

All that money towards heating and I am always cold.

Bloody hell.

Come see our new roof!

Reg and Oscar inspect our new roof together!



This is the old roof and that stupid little dormer is where the leaking came from. Apparently it was made with plywood and had rotted through so I told them to get rid of them. Man, the noise level went from bad to nightmare when they worked on those!



Same window without the dormer and the new roof. Yes, it is a little darker but maybe that will help us with heat. They finished yesterday and are coming today to pick up the trailer and some supplies and go through a final inspection. Another day of sitting at home waiting but at least it is much, much quieter so my brain can rest.

I haven't left the house except to silently scream at my roof in almost a week. I am living out of my freezer and caved in and ordered pizza last night. Guess I will be having leftovers for dinner because I am exhausted. This process has knocked me right off my feet. I can't remember being this tired ever.

Today's the first real day of summer on the east coast and after I give the huge cheque to the contractor I will be lucky if I get out of bed again until tomorrow. At least it's done. Finally! Knock on wood and all that crap.

My Electronic Scrapbook: Trip to Ladner, British Columbia, September 2002

There were signs that the season was beginning to change up on our suburb in the sky. The sunshine started to disappear and we actually began to get rain. Our neighbourhood was mostly constructed but there were a few houses that needed to be finished.



These are our favourite homes, how we dreamed of living in one. As great as our area was, we loved to go on little adventures so one weekend our friend Cathy invited us to go to Ladner. It was Ladner, wasn't it Cathy? She had always wanted to see float homes which were a complete mystery to us so off we went!



Actually, first we called her and said, are you sure the weather is supposed to be OK because it's raining like crazy where we are?! She assured us that in Vancouver it was a beautiful day. Um... OK...



We got halfway down the mountain and could see that the rain was letting up and down at the bottom it might be clearer.



And it was! Very sunny and beautiful. We also took Cathy's daughters with us and of course the travelling rabbit, Pepin!



First we stopped by a beautiful farm that had this lovely dog.



And very cool signage.



But this is what we were here for. Houses on water! Imagine, no landscaping or gardening. For us, today, this would be a dream. Back then we thought it was very odd but cool.



Cathy and Liz finally got to see what it would be like to live on the water in a house without it being a house boat.



They even had their own sidewalk and community which was protected by a gate. It was very bizarre.

It was time to drop them all off at the condo and make our way back home up the mountain.



Three quarters of the way we could see that that our apartment was still in the clouds.



I love it, this couple out for a walk could have been me at Reg, LOL. It was clear where they were walking but down the street...???



Yes, when we got to our place it was covered in fog. It was a good lesson for us, that we could escape the bad weather a lot of the time by going for a drive.

Living on a mountain in BC was so weird. Being from completely-flat Toronto, it was an adventure every day to see what the weather would be up to. How I would love to get lost in the foggy woods. I would get to know them so deeply, I could probably do that hike with my eyes closed which is just as well, they could get so very dark in the winter.

And winter was coming...

My Electronic Scrapbook: Trip to White Rock, British Columbia, Summer 2002

The summer was coming to an end, Reg and I had had a tough time with some family stuff and my surgery was coming up. We decided to do a quick day trip to a place we had never been: White Rock!



Immediately I was amazed with all the colours of White Rock. They love to make a splash! And the traffic was pretty heavy but by Ontario standards for such a popular area to go to in the summer, not bad at all.



I could have spent all day going to the restaurants and shops but that wasn't why we were there.



We wanted a beach! And, we found one. A stunning BC beach.



So gorgeous. BC beaches don't have fine sand so you will need your beach sandals when you go to one but who cares. I would love to live here, pebbly beach and all.



I was going through an experimental phase with my hair at this time, trying different colours. Took me a while to realize that orangey blonde was not my colour, LOL. But who cares? I was by the water!



It is true that everything in BC is larger than life. I should have gotten Reg to stand by this old trunk of a tree washed onto the beach for scale. Oh well!



One of my favourite Reg photos ever. At this time I was finally starting to deal with my anxiety of photographing people and felt like I made a major breakthrough at this point. I love this photo...



A painted heart on one of the park benches. I found heart-shapes all over BC while I lived there.



One of my favourite trees ever, the arbutus tree. You only find these along the water in BC and on Vancouver Island, definitely not in our neighbourhood. Their bright red bark burns in the sunset and they lose their bark in the winter. Scandalous trees! I *heart* them deeply. I think of them every day.



I have mentioned that I have a thing about old shacks, right? So I just had to photograph this one floating on the water.



And here is one that we drove by on the way home. We knew that was not going to be our last visit to White Rock. What a perfect day that way.

New Roof Story... to be continued...

They came yesterday and brought all the supplies with their big trucks and replaced the back half of our roof. The half that isn't leaking. Apparently the back half of houses are usually the worst but not in our case.

We are in for a weekend of rain so they patched what they could and will be back on Monday.

I knew the noise was going to be bad but the migraine I got yesterday was brutal! I hid in the basement and read Portia de Rossi's Unbearable Lightness which is an astounding book. Exhausted with no food in the house, we went out to Subway for dinner.

I can't wait for this to be over and start digging us out of debt to pay for the new roof. It is a good investment and if our lives ever change, it will help us sell the house.

How weird it was to look through this window and up and see a guy suspended in the air smiling at me. My life is pretty boring here but there are moments of surrealism.

Getting our new roof

We have a weekend of rain coming starting tonight and I just took these photographs of our roof. They just left for lunch and so much is still left to be done!!! This is the front of our house with the old roof.



They have managed to remove most of the shingles off the back of the house thank goodness.

The noise is unbelievable. I have a terrible headache that's threatening to morph into a migraine. Going to continue to lie down and just hope that they can get this down before the rain starts. If not, what happens?

My Electronic Scrapbook: Summer in Westwood Plateau and Buntzen Lake, British Columbia, 2002

Back at the end of August in 2002, we had an unexpected guest come visit us. We took him to Buntzen Lake, as you know, our favourite park near where we lived. As usual, British Columbians were out in nature, enjoying the beautiful summer.



The water is pristine but so cold, I only ever went into it once. This view always breaks out hearts now, we see it in a lot of movies and TV shows. You can see why.



As beautiful a day as this way, this was around when everything started to go wrong. We had a lot of bad luck find us after the house guest left very unhappily.



Despite the lack of rain, the gardens here did well but on one of my walks I was attacked by dogs and bees but thankfully escaped unharmed. It was very disturbing. I came home a complete mess.



I had an upcoming medical procedure I was assured would be no big deal so I stayed positive and tried not to worry about it. There is a reason why positive thinking is a big mistake for me.



Yes, we were lucky. We lived in the most beautiful place I had ever seen and we thought everything was OK. And at this moment, I guess everything was. At least I made the most of every beautiful day and paid attention to silly moments like these.

Soon I would be entering my first desert period. It was a slow and steady walk that pushed me to my edge. Ironically I am writing about while stuck in my second desert period. I guess whatever gets you through, right?

My Electronic Scrapbook: Summer in Westwood Plateau 2002

The exploration of our neighbourhood continued and continued. I spent so much time in Ridge Park and during the summer, it was a reprieve from the chronic sunshine. You always hear about the constant rain of British Columbia but the truth is, in the summer, it only rains overnight. Everything actually gets incredibly dry and sun-soaked.



One of the paths I went to discover trailed underneath the hydro lines. A man actually stopped me from going down there because of all the bears that lived down there.



I avoided this particular walk in the winter for the most part because I would be out with my umbrella and could hear the electricity sizzle along the metallic stem. Once I touched it by accident and got sizzled myself. Yes, I did not like that part at all!



Although these flowers looks pretty, live in BC for even the shortest amount of time and you shake your head at them after a while. They are from the dreaded scotch broom family that now threatens to take over all of BC, it is so invasive. They are torn out year after year and still come back in the name of dominating the province. I had no idea at the time I took this photo, I just thought they were pretty.



Our neighbourhood was so new at the time, there were no buses. As a person who grew up on the TTC in Toronto, this freaked me out. So I walked downhill for over half an hour to the closest bus stop to see how bad it was. Once, because the walk was so steep on the way to the bus, the skin under my toe nails separated from the nails and my feet started to bleed. And the walk down was the easy part!

This photograph shows where my walk stopped but you can't tell just how far back up I had to go and what if I couldn't make it? I had not thought that far. I had been hiking so much I had become over confident and it was brutally warm that day. Getting home was not going to be easy.



This is the halfway point up Parkway towards Westwood Plateau from where I took the photograph. Ugh! We often drove up this hill and saw dogs lie down, giving up, refusing to walk any longer up this path and how we would laugh! The owners would have to pick up the dogs and carry them home.

At this moment in time, I almost lay down on the concrete too. But I rested and eventually made it back home.



Oh it would get so dry on the mountain in the summer! The golf courses tried in vain to keep their pristine course green and how the fireweed would laugh.

I would be on my walks in Ridge Park and worry that the scraping of my feet against the bone-dry wood chip path would start a fire. That is when my fear of wildfires began and stayed with me every summer we were on the mountain.