Another year has gone by – roughly 525600 minutes (song from the movie Rent) and I sit thinking about how blessed I am. So many magical moments deposited into my soul bank. I’ve been fortunate to have had so many amazing experiences this past year. Exactly one year ago I was in Maui with my parents. Their first time on island and their experience was so amazing they decided to go again in October. I was blessed enough to join them again and created many more memories. The highlight of the trip was meeting my artist friend and him sharing his work and world with them. This was one of those moments that is so precious to the soul.
The year seemed to involve a few last minute planned trips. I made more memories in Florida with my sister, her family and my parents. I got to see my sister proposed to at Disneyworld (she said yes) on my niece's 8th birthday. The day made for a magical moment at the Magic Kingdom - dreams do come true there :) Jumping ahead to December I was honoured to be by her side at their wedding and it was an amazing day celebrating their love and the uniting of two families. Back to the Florida trip, I also squeezed in a visit with my old beach partner. It was so great to see her and her family and their new home. Next Palm Springs called and I headed with a girlfriend and played 54 holes of golf in 3 days. That caught me up on my golf and we also experienced a 5.1 magnitude earthquake that shook us and the house pretty hard - definitely an unreal experience. There were also a couple one day trips to BC - Sparwood and Abbotsford. They made for fun times enjoying a long overdue catch up over beer and chicken wings in Sparwood and a whirlwind road trip cake pop delivery in Richmond, BC. The last trip of the year took me to Windsor to celebrate my sister's wedding and to spend Christmas with my family. It was so great to see my siblings and all their kiddos. My nieces and nephews are a great range of ages and it was amazing to see them all growing and happy. I adore each of them and we shared some great moments.
Another big part of my year was my many cake pop creations! I had so many fun orders and am so grateful for getting to be part of your lives and celebrations. As I look back on all the fun designs I'm so thankful for the ones that I got to create. I ended 2016 with an epic order for Nandos Head Office and created cake pops for all their Canadian Stores! Such a cool thing to be part of and I’m so grateful for the opportunity to share the cake pop love with almost 1100 more people because of this order!
The year was also filled with many moments with my “kiddos”. I may not have birthed any children in this lifetime but I have been beyond blessed with some amazing friends who share their children with me! Be it road trips to Edmonton to watch two sweet boys visiting from the north, or visit a brand new baby boy who charged into this world 5 weeks early; or times in Calgary where I’ve had fun Friday nights playing trains and saying goodnight stories (Goodnight Moon being my fav read) to sweet little souls. I was even blessed with the opportunity to spend four days and nights watching two sweethearts who added so many more moments of joy into my gratitude jar.
Even though I retired from volleyball I was blessed to coach and since I wasn’t playing on my weekends I took to the mountains. Oh how I missed them the past 20 years playing beach every weekend in the summers. I found myself out there many times on some great hikes with old and new friends. There was one adventure where we took the “path less traveled” on a well-known hike. We definitely had some laughter about it when we got back down from the top and realized where we went “wrong”. Yet our wrong turn led us on a great path where others weren't on a crowed day. One other hike resulted in finding the long lost “wild turkey” which will remain a mystery like Big Foot. Another brought a ptarmigan that wanted to chat with me, and so I did for about 5 minutes. There was a combo of a bike/hike which involved a mountain bike ride up the mountain then a hike across the meadows to the BC border. Needless to say each trip into the mountains brought me such joy and so many great moments with friends.
I also found more time for my love of astrology this past year and dove into it headfirst. I’m grateful to a few souls who have shared their astrological wisdom with me and look forward to learning so much more from them and the resources they provide.
My year wouldn’t be complete without mentioning my many “coffee dates”, breakfasts and walks with some amazing souls. *Please note: the “coffee dates” should really be called “chai tea dates” as there usually isn't any coffee consumed on these visits. Only in some cases there is an actual java ordered. However the topics we cover range so vastly and are so interesting it's been unreal. I don’t think there wasn’t anything we didn’t cover and I’m so grateful for those times.
Well, the list could go on and on…and for that I’m grateful but I’ll end here. This post is similar to one of those letters folks send out at Christmas time to share their past year and what they have been up to. It felt important for me to do this here on my "year end" and start of a new one sharing the things I'm most grateful for. To all of you who have been a part of my quilt of life so far in my existence MAHALO. I look forward to our next moments, our next connection. Even if it’s been years and our only contact has been through text or on Facebook I’m still honoured and grateful for our connection. Who knows when or how our paths will cross again. But for this moment please know you are loved and I look forward to the next 525600 minutes in this 47th year of my life. Sending so much love and aloha your way. Always love, Jodi xxoo