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Hello Fatimah,
Hello Hunteroos!
As I start to write this my mind’s blown that there’s only 38 days left of 2022! I’ve just returned back to Toronto after 18 awesome days in Sault Ste. Marie!
(Sidenote: If you find yourself overnighting there, a hack for a cheap ($70-$80) night at the Delta on the river is through Hotwire! It’s the only 3.5 star hotel but the water so if you put in that you want that, it’ll always be the Delta! They don’t have room service, which is annoying cause I like to eat in bed the next day knowing that I don’t have to clean the sheets myself, but you can get stuff to go from their restaurant downstairs, or just UberEats something. Also, it’s walking distance to my mural at the Village Media building at Queen and Bruce street, which is also walking distance to this great restaurant called PEACE! Where you’ll spend all the money you saved on the hotel, on lunch or dinner - but it’s worth it if you like great cocktails and little share plates of food (obvy just by looking at my body type, you know it takes ALOT of share plates to satisfy the beast within). End of side note)
I stayed mostly at my friends place next to Lake Superior, not far from where the property is in Havilland that I bought at the beginning of fall. He works during the day in the city, and it’s great because I get this giant place to myself (with Coal obviously too) and I can leave what ever I’m working on out instead of always packing it up when I need to work on something else. Having all that physical alone time was excellent! There’s a great kitchen there so I when I’m taking a break from creating, I can get creative in the kitchen. (Keto cooking/baking, is so fucking annoying btw, and I’d be cool with never eating cauliflower mash or “rice” again”, and I’m also thoroughly impressed by those of you who can stick to that type of menu).
One thing I love about being the age that I am now, and having older friendships is the ability just to hangout with them, and do nothing. My 20’s were exciting, don’t get me wrong, but they were filled with always needing to some place to go, some THING to do, and who was going to be there. Maybe I’ll get a second wind of that in my 40’s, but for right now I’m so pumped to not have chill nights with a friend or two, go to bed early, and have no where to rush off to. Part of this “slowing down” was definitely due in large part to that stress bald spot that developed in 2021 on the back of my head behind my ear that grew to the size of a friggin peach at it’s largest! Now it has grown in to where it’s barely noticeable! Yay for that and for less stress! :)
I’m going to shift gears now and talk about something that I hope won’t cause another stress bald spot, my property development! Haha! Part of the reasoning for going up to the Soo in the first place was to meet with Algoma Power to get approvals for my hydroline that’s being installed sometime in the spring. To back track, bought land, there’s no well, hydro or septic, so it needs all of that before I can really get started on the house structure. I didn’t think to dream this big for myself when I started my business, so it’s super exciting for me to think about this whole home building process! Having said that, a producer friend of mine mentioned, “wouldn’t it be funny to have a show about you building your house?! You don’t know what you’re doing! LOL, people would get a kick out of it I feel”. Cut to me thinking that would also be hilarious to document me struggling through this process! Soooo we’ve started to work on a pilot for it, and fingers crossed something will come from the filming we have done, and me just putting it out into the universe right now! Haha.
The other fun thing I got to do up there on this last trip was speaking at my first, hopefully not my last either, TEDx event! It was hosted by my old school, Sault College, and my topic was, “Moving Truth & Reconciliation Forward through Art”. It was the fastest 16 minutes of my life! I wasn’t particularly nervous, and I was so excited to do it, but also was happy it was over! If TEDx likes the recording of it, they’ll include it on their site you’ll be the first folks I send the link to :) I didn’t choose the topic, and I definitely didn’t set out 10 years ago to do this work with the intention of moving Truth and Reconciliation forward, but as a result of a lot of hard work, it’s a great feeling to see how the work I’m doing relates to that topic. And it puts a lot of pep in my step knowing that others see the work that I do that way.
Well, that’s what has been going on with me since my last update! With Christmas right around the corner, I better start writing my lists and checking them twice, haha!
Have the best day!
XOXO,
Patrick & Coal!
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