Hello 2016

The first three days of each new year Earl and I pick a historical place to go to celebrate a new year. We like to venture around the buildings, Earl loves to look at the structure especially if there is wood involved and me for the design. We then find a place to eat and spend the next few hours reading and researching what we just experienced. Of course shopping is also on the list but for something artsy.  The last two years it was St.Augustine. You could spend many a New Years in awe of the town and university. This year we went to Deland/Stetson university.  What a interesting town, really in the middle of nowhere, you mysteriously drive into a surrounding with heavily canopied trees and big beautiful old Floridian buildings. I felt like I was emerging from Gone with the Wind….anyway, we did end up at a art gallery. This is what came home with us…..

NOW for my 2015 year with Parkinson’s update…..Really feeling good about my progress in smashing the progression of symptoms and effects. Both Shands and my neurologist Dr.Isa are pleased and somewhat impressed at what I have done to “shove off” the progression. I will admit it has at some times consumed me in researching, testing and finding different methods to see if I can beat the system and help future generations. I do know that I am healthier than I have been both physically and mentally. What 2015 taught me is to live in the moment, remember and learn from the past, pass what you have learned onto the future, never ever, ever, ever let an opportunity to do something that challenges you, learn something new, read and read some more, reconnect with someone you love, once in awhile let your shield down, get mad and fight for the right thing, hug the one you love as if it’s the last time..then dance because it good for the soul. Oh yea….and climb a mountain or two!!!!!

2016…..do all of the above but not let it consume me as much.  I now know how my mind and body connects with certain foods and exercise. Right now it seems as if the next big climb will be Nepal in January 2017. We have a wedding to go to so will include both which means training starts now. I would love to do Pantagonia in August but both in such a short time frame would be hard and financially tough. This April Bronwyn, Matthew and I will be participating in Rock the Ridge in upstate New York. It is a Team Fox  50miles in 24hr event raising awareness and money for Fox research. I will send out more information in the next few weeks. In May Earl and I travel to Washington state to spend time with my dad and Betty and for the heck of it Earl and I are climbing Mt. St. Helens . It’s a day climb at 8366ft.

I am going to try and beat the insomnia effects of this disease however, that being said I have rather enjoyed most nights when my body wakes me and I spend the next few hours boxing, listening to music and writing..I love connecting to the movement of boxing and the words to the music which both connect me to writing culminating in a still body.

I was talking with my dad the other day, he is my best blog fan, could be my only blog follower…..anyway, he asked me to start writing moments of my past, my days in Rhodesia, South Africa, Europe and America. “Ah, Dad, memories….so many of them, so many adventures…of course I will, starting tomorrow….heck no, starting today”.  I certainly have many stories of a childhood as a missionary kid, adventures on safari with my parents, boarding school in South Africa, travels in Europe, school in the USA, the loss of my mother, separation of the family and the greatest love story ever told.  This is for you Dad…you are the original Adventurer.