Christmas Letter 2010

Dear Friends,

Another year come and gone and I hope the Christmas season finds you in excellent health and looking forward to the coming year

If you recall in 2009 I was involved in an injury-free but car-totalling accident so I was required to purchase a new vehicle. You may also recall that I was bemoaning the fact that someone, somewhere, was also quite determined that my new car would be white and while it is a trial to keep clean, I do confess that the first time I saw it parked in our garage upon my return from Christmas spent in Ontario my first words were: “Very purrty.”

I am still employed at the Shellbrook Public Library and it has been an interesting year because all the public libraries in the province have joined together to form a provincial consortium. That of course means new computer systems, new equipment, and new ways of doing things. The library also had some minor renovations done which has improved my workspace greatly and there are more changes coming such as a new paint job.

Academics are progressing as slow as they were last year but I have come to the realization that I might be better off studying pre-history. With recorded history we know people and names and far too often I wish for a time travel machine to go back and just throttle some people. And it can be a bit depressing seeing the glorious ideal I have of Canada being ripped to shreds by the reality of our history.

I have this year also become deeply involved in writing and editing fan fiction and even joined the madness that is November’s National Novel Writing Month. To put it succulently: “30 days. 50,000 words.” This year I reached the world limit goal but next year (yes, I have crazily decided to do it again) I am going to be writing an original fiction novel and that I suspect will be a whole other challenge.

November was even more of a crush for me because the Host Players drama group, of which I am a member, is performing Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol in the second week of December. I am playing the Spirit of Christmas Past, multiple chorus lines, a business woman, and wait for it… the Plump Sister (Rosie). This is not the only production I have taken part in this year. When the year was fresh I was one of five actors in Richard Dresser’s The Pursuit of Happiness in which I played a high-school-going-on-college student who decided not to attend college which threw her parents into their midlife crisis.

The biggest highlight of my year however was spending my summer vacation in Italy. It was a gorgeous, wonderful place that I am now craving to go back to because there was just so much to see and learn and so much that I just know I missed. The food and architecture was a fantastical and I loved the fact that while I was there, Italy was experiencing a heat wave. But, there is not enough space to describe the trip unless I want pages more so I will wrap this up by wishing you all a very merry, and safe, Christmas and New Year with your own families.