A to Z Blog Challenge -- A is for 'A For Adventure'

Welcome to A Piece of My Mind!

I'm a longtime blogger, having launched this blog in 2007.

I'm also a fan of taking part in challenges. This is my 5th year doing the A to Z Challenge, and I'm so glad to be along for the ride again this year.

I'll take a moment to introduce myself.

I'm an indie author with two self-published books which I'll present  for 'B' and 'D' days. I write in the dark fantasy and vampire genre.

I've recently served on the executive of my writers' group, and have co-presented panels alongside fellow paranormal author Shawna Romkey at our local sci-fi/fantasy convention Hal-Con.

It's fairly safe to say that I've been more inclined to be an indoors sort of person, even though my childhood was happily spent camping, roaming the rocky eastern coastline while my dad went scuba diving, and going for walks in the woods.

As an aspect of his rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, my husband also suffers from agoraphobia. For Brad, this means that he has always struggled to cross the threshhold in order to leave the house.

Being outside can shoot his anxiety levels up into full-blown panic mode. Over the years, we've developed coping mechanisms including timing his Atavan dosage to about half an hour before leaving the house, in order to make that threshhold easier to cross. The only time it ever becomes 'okay' is when he's in a mania stage.

Fast-forward to last spring.

I read an article in my local paper about a challenge to go on 100 days of adventure in a row. Any sort of adventure, big or small, as long as it took place outside in a quest to reconnect people with the natural world.

The pace of that challenge was too much for my husband, but when I suggested stretching the 100 days over a year, he felt that was doable. Because we couldn't do the 100-days-in-a-row, we added an extra challenge element of going for 100 walks in 100 different places. We signed up for the challenge on the A for Adventure website and began our adventures on June 1st, 2014.

As requested by the two men who began the challenge, Jan Sebastian LaPierre and Chris Surette, we posted our adventures on social media with the hashtag #AForAdventure. Soon we had a loyal following on Facebook and Twitter as we posted photos of our walks hither and yon.

To say that this past year has been transformative is putting it mildly.

Brad has managed to actually enjoy himself on all of these outside adventures, even though -- depending on his cycling bipolar disorder -- he continues to struggle to get outside, at times. Besides Brad's health issues, I have my own chronic pain problems. Our walks have helped me increase my stamina gradually as we've explored our home province in a way we hadn't done before.

I just want to thank Jan and Chris for launching this challenge. You've sparked an amazing year for Brad and me.

The great thing about A for Adventure? You can do it wherever you are and at any fitness level. Do you love to spend time outside, kayaking and cross-country skiing? This challenge was made for you. Do you spend most of your time at a desk? Is your idea of the great outdoors something you see within a game screen? A for Adventure is still for you -- if two hobbling couch potatoes like Brad and me could greet New Year's Day with a walk in the snow, then absolutely anything is possible.

Here's a taste of our year so far. We're just about to hit the 3/4 mark, having completed our 74th adventure on Monday.

Day 1 -- Lawrencetown Beach

Day 4 -- heading out on the bus

Day 10 -- heading out on the ferry

Day 16 -- heading out in our very first car!

Bought it two months into our challenge at a car auction.

Day 19 -- We've gone on urban walks

Day 73 -- Rural walks

Day 31 -- Walks in the woods

Day 24 -- Walks by the sea

Day 17 -- Walks beside lakes

Day 21 -- Walks in the summer

Day 47 -- Walks in the winter

I'm blogging at The Popculturedivas today

Join me at The Popculturedivas for Hitting the Halfway Mark on Our Year-Long Challenge. 

Thursday Thirteen - 282 - 13 Things We've Discovered in the Hoard

For most people, having someone come over to install a dishwasher wouldn't be that big of a deal. Perhaps sweep up, maybe move some stuff off of a counter.

However, when you're a hoarder, things are never, ever that simple.

The dishwasher installation is going to include some electrical work, which requires access to a room once intended to be my writing office, but which is now packed floor-to-ceiling with stuff.

My husband has rapid cycling bipolar disorder with high levels of agoraphobia, and a heaping helping of obsessive compulsive disorder in the form of hoarding tossed in.

We've been working on maintaining clear living spaces over the years, with baby-step successes. However, when an electrical-work-access situation crops up, I need to step in and move that section of the hoard out of the way.

I'm happy to report that Brad has been feeling only minor amounts of anxiety, leading up to this weekend. Previously, moving so much stuff and having someone come into the inner sanctum has been very hard on him. Years of continued treatment with his psychiatrist, years of slow-but-steady behavior modification which my husband and I work on ourselves, and going to acupuncture for the past few years have all combined to create this current state of not-doing-too-badly.

I'm very proud to say that Brad himself moved some of the stuff on his own while I was at my day job. The urge to root through the various boxes and bags is so very strong for my husband, but for now we're concentrating on clearing space for work to be done.

It's hard not to notice the odd thing, here and there. For this week's Thursday Thirteen, here are thirteen things we've discovered in the hoard:

1 - My black Bright Lights Big Stories keepsake bag from the Romance Writers of America 2011 writers' conference in New York City. When I got it, the inks on the bag were rather overwhelming for allergic-to-inks-and-dyes me. After two years of airing out, it looks good to go. Yay!   

2 - Brad's SWORDS OF CEREBUS graphic novel.

3 - My old, worn-out comforter. It was an awesome comforter. Got me through many a frozen Canadian winter night. But it was splitting open in spots. I opened a garbage bag and stuffed it in. 

Note: for many hoarders, the idea that there still might be some use for the worn-out object is too strong, and it gets set aside for 'just in case'. For my husband, the act of throwing out something that is quite obviously beyond its usefulness is highly stressful. For me, because I don't want to increase Brad's stressors to unmanageable levels, I wait for him to be in the right frame of mind before we start throwing things away. So yes, I've tolerated a worn-out comforter in the storage room for a few months now. My tolerance level for the hoard is quite high. I would rather that Brad feel lower levels of anxiety.

It also brings us more overall progress if Brad is involved in throwing things out, than if I simply start tossing things. He will just re-acquire objects to replace what has been 'tidied up'.

4 - A crumpled box of cassette tapes. Brad did make an attempt to sort through the box, but I reminded him that he can do that later -- we're just making room for the electrical work. We stayed on target.

5 - My National Ballet of Canada Rite of Spring ballet poster. I quickly stashed it away on my own shelf so it wouldn't get buried again. Time to get it framed.

6 - The demon mask we used in a short film we were making about an agoraphobic's attempt to make it past the threshold and out the front door. The film is unfinished, but the footage can always be revisited. 

7 - A taped-up box labelled 'Julia's lace curtains / Santas / figurine / FRAGILE'. Successfully left taped up. The urge to open and sort is terrible for someone like Brad when in the clean-up phase. That only serves to distract the person from the original game plan.

8 - An exercise medicine ball. Not helping us much, under the hoard! 

9 - A silverware chest. Presumably with silverware inside -- again, peeking inside successfully avoided.

10 - Another taped-up box, this one a mystery box marked 'flea market'. Still taped up, moved from the storage area without being opened.

11 - A box with unwrapped glassware and china pieces clanking around inside. I did glance briefly inside -- nothing appeared to be broken. I sense some future donations to Value Village are inside.

12 - A navy-colored down-filled coat which once got me through a winter trip to frigid Toronto, but has definitely seen better days. Not enough life in it to donate to anyone. In the garbage bag with the worn-out comforter it went. One wouldn't think that it would bother Brad if I want to get rid of a woman's coat. That's where the irrational part of the compulsive disorder shows itself. What is Brad going to do with it? It's getting easier for Brad to take a step back and answer that question with 'Nothing.'

13 - A stuffed Coca Cola polar bear holding a little bottle of Coke. Brad's animal totem is the polar bear, and his favorite tasty beverage is most certainly Coke. This bear has been patiently waiting for us to find him under the pile. He's now sitting in our living room where we can actually see him, and where he can make us smile.

More reports about our Adventures in Unearthing the Hoard as we progress.