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In public school, way back before I was even a teenager, we had to do projects that were put on display for adults and public.

I was very keen on animal welfare, long before animal welfare was a thing.

I did a scathing project on the cruelty of the Calgary Stampede. How they put things under the saddles to make horses buck. How they nearly break calfs necks roping them. How horses often died after wagon races (sometimes during). And a whole lot of other nasty things that went on at this event.

Well, despite being a little girl, you would not believe the backlash I got. I got yelled at during the show. People threatened to destroy my display right on the spot. They even went after my family too, (though fortunately, my father was a Sergeant Major and that put an end to a lot of harassment).

For months afterwards I was name called and pooh-bahed and basically – cancelled.

Then decades later I saw an article on the cruelty of the Stampede and how animal rights activists were protesting against the event.

I had to wait a long time to be uncancelled.

Last week I had some pictures of seeing things in things.

But this is my favourite. It is a modern day Picasso.

Maybe even a Salvador Dali.

If you are looking to have some fun while waiting for the bus, or doing a mundane task, look for patterns in the everyday. You will see faces or animals, or a host of other things if you are imaginative.

Pareidolia is seeing faces in objects, but you can see most anything. It is akin to seeing pictures in clouds, only a lot more fun.

So I had this kinda disgruntled pole watching me while I waited for the bus.

If you really use your imagination for this snow bank, you can see a cat lying on their side sleeping, splayed hind legs and bum facing you. If you have a cat you have seen this position often.

As you can tell, I have long waits for buses.

Don’t get me started.

Whenever I feel overwhelmed with life (practically a daily occurrence) I am extremely fortunate to have places within walking distance that I can go to, at least, in the summertime.

Ah, to be at that picnic table, under that big tree, unapologetically doing absolutely NOTHING.

It is dead quiet there. Sigh.

No office politics. No doctor visits. No missing in non action buses. No telephones ringing. Just me, the tree, and the occasional bug, chipmunk or curious sparrows.

In the winter time, I have these pictures of solitude, and a slight anxiety.

We all need a sanctuary. I hope you find yours.

In my hometown, you have two choices with winter weather.

Either it is warm with a lot of snow and no sun, or freeze your ass off cold, no snow and sunny.

This year has been the picture postcard white winter. Even at the bus stops. Especially at the bus stops because you are going to wait forever for a bus. Might as well take pictures to pass the time.

You don’t need to know what the bus sign says. You just go out and wait. Maybe pray.

I love snow storms, I just don’t like being out in them.

Waiting for a bus.

Recently I was pressed by a well meaning person to check out a ‘must read’, best selling self help book.

UGH.

I wasted decades of my life (and a considerable amount of my pay cheques) on self help books and gurus and I have said it many times before, they did not help me one iota.

Looking inward is constrictive. It is like curling up in the fetal position. It’s being a frightened porcupine, an armadillo, or even one of those woolly caterpillars curled up in itself. With your head tucked between your knees you aren’t going to see anything, save maybe, lint on your trousers.

The problem, and the answer, is not inside of you.

Look outward first, and then try some introspection on what you have seen and heard and experienced. Reflect on experiences. Learn from them.

Looking outward is expansive. It is eye opening. It is mind blowing.

Be worldly.

Spend your money and time on experiences. Do things. Ask questions about things and people. Listen to and think about the answers. Take your nose out of self help books and your navel, get out of your living room and comfort zone and go outside!

And when you are inside, go to the learning capital of the world. The LIBRARY.

No, not the internet. The LIBRARY. A brick and mortar building. Introduce yourself to hold in your hands books, real paper and cardboard, things that make your wrists ache and your head spin. Nothing beats a book in your hands – not a self help book, but a book that is going to make you see the world.

Read about things you know nothing about. Read biographies. History. Science.

Try these on for size: The Lost Pianos of Siberia. Bono’s biography Surrender. Michelle Obama’s Becoming. Bob Stanley’s Let’s Do It. There are great fiction stories too, check out Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, The Day of the Jackal, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

And please, don’t insist I read any more self help books – especially if you think I need it.

It seems that the older I get, the more regrets I have.

A friend of mine, many years ago told me something that I never forgot.

His mother had just died. He was in his late fifties at the time and it hit him very hard. But he told me that the shock made him realize life was finite in a way he never considered before and that he would be the next one to die. He was not being morbid, he had an extreme epiphany and he wanted me to know that I would too at some point. Someday I would realize it is all over. He hoped I would have that awakening soon enough to make changes in my life. But I didn’t. He did, but he had money. That does help things quite a bit.

At the time, I did not understand what he felt. My own Mother died many years later, but I did not have that emotional realization he talked about.

It came much later when I had to return to work after two years of being retired. Doing that made me lose hope, and that tweaked something in my soul.

It was a slow realization that this is it. There is not much future left, and there is nothing I can do to make a life now. As they say, too soon old, too late smart. I just wasn’t paying attention I guess.

Now I have a lot of regrets.

My family were friends with an excellent chef. She weighed a good three hundred pounds because she made the most fabulous desserts you could imagine.

One evening we were invited to her home for dinner. Oh, we were excited! We had been to her dinner parties before and the food was five star fare.

We were seated at a long linen covered table, replete with silverware and crystal. At the head of the table was perhaps the most incredible five story high, chocolate frosted cake I ever laid eyes on. It awaited us on a silver cake stand, heavy on a white paper doily.

My whole family sat through the entire meal with our eyes riveted on that cake. We were drooling.

When at last it came time to slice into that decadence, we all requested as big of a piece as she would give us.

Watching that knife cut through at least a hundred layers of cake and frosting was dizzying.

We dove in, our forks clacked the plates.

Madame chef stood expectantly at the head of the table, arms folded, knife in hand, face beaming, waiting for the ensuing praise.

And all of us, at the same time, gagged.

That cake tasted like dog shit!

I was only maybe ten years old and I swallowed hard. Being polite and grateful guests, we chewed that leather ball and drank lots of water to get it down, all the while praising her effort. We were all quite warm and dabbing our foreheads by the time we finished our slices.

“Oh!” She delighted. “Please have some more!”

We were suddenly all quite full and refusing like mad dogs.

She explained she had made it out of sauerkraut. Which for the uninitiated, is fermented cabbage.

I still think she was trying to poison us.

During the Christmas holidays I decided to cheer up my bedroom a bit and buy some Christmas flannel bed sheets.

I don’t know what I was expecting, exactly, perhaps Christmas trees, or snowmen or brightly coloured presents, or?

I was met with a selection of GREY flannel sheets, with all of the above printed on them.

Grey, reddish brown, slate blue or ominously – black! was all the choices I found.

I searched and searched and finally found one single package of a white set with brown pine cones.

What a disappointment!

Some cities are hell bent on making their architecture the ugliest possible. Perhaps it is a competition?

In addition to the hideous, tallest condominium building in our city, which I have pointed out on several blogs, we have an eye sore that I see every day on my way to work.

This.

This is just so unsightly it defies words.

Please do something with this – like tear it down.

Totally cringeworthy.