One of the most beautiful winter phenomena
is ice fog. It occurs in wind-still conditions when water droplets in the air become supercooled.
It can be dangerous for travelling but if you don’t have to go anywhere, it’s beautiful to see.
Winter’s greetings. 🙂
I took this photo of Great Slave Lake at 10:15 a.m just as the sun had finished its slow ponderous climb.
It was -36°C out, but I took my mitts off for this capture. I am learning the art of quick photography in these frigid temperatures.
I love the clear simplicity of this weather; its voice is smooth and crystalline in the still cold air.
A tone without noise.
Winter greetings from the north. 🙂
Can blogging, like anything else, become a chore, a requirement, a source of stress? Can the life be sucked right out of it because we’ve made it be something we have to do?
I first began thinking about this after reading a post from Melanie B. Cee of sparksfromacombustiblemind who reprinted and answered questions from Salted Caramel. You can read Salted Caramel’s original post here.
Here are the questions:
What, in your opinion, is blogger burnout?
Have you ever suffered from blog-related stress?
What steps could you suggest to prevent blogging from becoming a stressful activity?
In my opinion, burnout is extreme mental fatigue caused by stress. This fatigue can manifest in very serious physical concerns as well – insomnia, a lowered immune system, blood pressure issues, heart attacks, strokes, and lots of other health problems.
Can bloggers become burned out? I believe we can. If given the right context, anything can be mentally fatiguing, as most of us know very well.
We have such a period coming up soon; in much of the world, December can produce a lot of stress. There is pressure to produce “perfect” gifts, meals, and happy family events. A lot of this pressure comes from advertisers but there are other avenues of cause, including the pressures we place on ourselves.
If the stressors are continuous and/or intense, there’s going to be a point at which we become exhausted by them and can’t go on or are only firing on one mental cylinder. We have to take a holiday, or a stress leave, or a “mental health” day, or maybe several days. In the aftermath of extremely stressful situations, people can develop post-traumatic stress disorder.
I am in my second year of a very stressful job as a CEO. It’s action-packed and very fluid, no matter how much anyone tries to impose a schedule on it. We have detailed, major inspections that we have to pass. We often deal with unhappy people who might head toward wigging out. I’m not afraid to get tough and I have that card stowed in my pocket. My “office time” when I get caught up on paperwork and emails occurs when most people have long gone home.
In my first year, there were periods when I recognized that I was nearing burnout, and I had to take action on it. I reorganised, I decentralised, and I reassigned duties and tasks. Not only did I have to create space for my employees to relax, I had to create space for me to do the same.
The idea of “productivity” has produced a false economy, in my opinion. We’re supposed to make use of all kinds of tips and tricks for reducing stress while on the job (do you see a contradiction there?) when the real stress reducers are reasonably simple and mostly instinctive: spend some time away from work doing other things and being with the people who love you. Having some time to yourself to do yoga is better than squeezing in some yoga between meetings. If that’s what you have to do, then the yoga just becomes another stressor. Does that make us any more productive? Or do we just become used up and unable to have a life outside of work?
So, do you need to take more vitamin D or do whatever the latest stress-reducing fad is or do you need to draw a boundary around some space for non-work?
Some stress is good for us, of course. It can keep us on our toes, alert and ready to go. But like anything else, too much can really be too much.
Blogging is the same. There has to be a boundary around it so that you don’t burn out or find it stressful. I’ve noted lots of bloggers who step away for a while, or who close comments on their posts or who still read but don’t post any more. I’ve done the same at times. One year, I was away from my blog for four months.
For me, blogging is a stress reliever. It takes me away from work, gives me a change of scene and I get to see what my blogging friends are doing. I like watching basketball for the same reasons (well, I’m not friends with any b-ballers, but you know 🙂 ). I don’t let those things consume me, though. That would take all the life out of them.
What do you think?
I was away from WP for a couple days last week, but not because I wanted to be.
I wasn’t able to log on. 😳
It all started on Saturday when I tried to access my WP app on my phone. A new screen popped up and I was asked for my password. I thought, yeah, okay. Many other sites do this every so often.
So I typed in my password. But … no dice. It was suggested that I change my password, a link was sent to my email, and I thought, yeah, okay. That password is quite old. I should change it.
This photo has nothing to do with technology. It’s just a nice photo of a local waterfall here in the Northwest Territories so that talk of technology issues doesn’t ratchet your blood pressure up too high.
So I changed my password. But … no dice. It was suggested that I change my password, a link was sent to my email, and I thought, yeah, this is getting irritating.
I tried again, and … no dice.
But I was able to access WP on my desktop. So until I got an answer from the WP “happiness” gurus, I went there, because normally I use my phone.
Until I couldn’t access my desktop either.
Somehow, I was signed out. It was suggested that I change my password, but … you know the drill.
Yikes. No access. At all.
So there was lots of emailing with WP, and with turnaround being anywhere from 12 to 24 hours, this took a while to sort.
The upshot is that I sent a screen shot of the password request loop that I was inhabiting; they came back with suggestions for a retrofit, and then everything started to work after I changed passwords once more and then tried logging in again.
The WP people were friendly and helpful.
But the whole thing got me thinking about our dependence on technology and the bugs that can infect it. In my work I rely heavily on technology, but every time I think about going completely paperless, something like this happens to remind me that it’s not a foolproof system and and then I think, yeah, maybe I’ll go paperless … at some nebulous point in the future.
So, there’s paper in my office. Lots of it. (Although a lot less than there used to be.) And I guess that makes me the worst sort of Luddite schmo because really, I’m worried that there’s going to be some sort of tech blow-up and I’m going to need it.
I also work in a part of the world that’s largely off-grid – the Northwest Territories is a massive land area with a relatively small population. Cellphones can quickly become useless up here and aircraft and vehicles need sat-phones (as well as survival kits) for emergency purposes.
Sometimes, we need to be aware of where we are and how quickly technology can abandon us.
What do you think? Have you gone completely paperless? Would you be able to survive without your cell? Do you worry about a technology collapse?
I wish our American friends and neighbours a Happy Thanksgiving, and especially a Happy Thanksgiving to all the lovely bloggers whom I’ve come to know through WP.
No matter which side of the border we are on, we have a terrific lot to be thankful for.
I hope you have a good day, whether you are enjoying a feast or just eating a sandwich.
🦃
To a Canadian, 
you need to be north of 60° N latitude to be “in the north.” Canadians understand when you say, “I’m going north of 60.”
To a far north northerner, though, that’s south. You can wear shorts until it’s -20. Not an exaggeration. I’ve actually seen this.
But, to anyone in the southern US, for instance, that’s where Pere Noel lives. Going outside is for polar bears and reindeer.
I am “north of 60,” but I’m too far south for polar bears and reindeer. They aren’t a part of my landscape. And to a far north northerner, I’m a weak little southerner.
It’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it?
I found this bright yellow flower among the masses of snow-on-the-mountain. Isn’t it pretty? I saw it in the corner only after I had taken the photo.
The lovely, the different, creeps into our lives in unexpected, silent ways, and it’s up to us to pay attention and honour the visit.
It has been snowing for almost three weeks. There have been gaps, but mostly, snow. In Chipewyan, yath. Falling. Almost like rain. Straight down. Heavy and fat and weighty. Definitely not just a few flakes. Not to be ignored.
It looks like this.
It’s really grey and it’s getting dark very early (and earlier all the time!).
I’m missing this.
Ah, summer. It’s only November and I have a while to go, so is it okay if I start dreaming about you now? Never too early?
I’m looking forward to seeing you again, old friend. 🙂
Recently I was going through my photos and found that quite a lot of them are pictures of foods or drinks. I enjoy eating, either at home or in a restaurant and my M is quite a good cook. We are also wine collectors, and we have a decent cellar.
But I didn’t quite realise that I’ve been harbouring a large number of food and drink photos in my archive. Here is a small sample:
A beer flight from a brewery in the Okanagan city of Penticton (where my southern home is).
Some homemade Halloween eyes from last week. These were a lot of work to make!
Hors d’oeuvre from my M. Or, snack time in the d’Arty-Cross household. 😉
Okanagan wine. This was a lovely bottle for a lovely meal.
A picnic. Also lovely, particularly because it was January!
Butter tarts. A Canadian favourite. M made these.
For someone who likes to take landscape and nature photos, there are an awful lot of consumables pictures hanging around in my storage.
And this also explains why my pants can get tight and then I have to lay off for a while. I used to be able to eat what I wanted, but turning 40 changed all that. As I age though, I’m tempted to think, yeah, but I’m getting older, I can cheat some. I’ve earned it, right? I don’t care about a gorgeous (well, I was never gorgeous, but you know) corpse. When I shuffle off this mortal coil, my body should be done, spent, finished, toast, well past the sell-by date, expired, smoked … Really, who’s going to care when I’m taking the big dirt nap?
Having said all that though, I am circumspect up to a point. I do watch my weight and I make a point of exercising because I have to pass medicals every six months. My one virtue is that I’ve never been a junk food person.
What do you think?
Do you like a good meal? Do you worry about your age and the extra baggage? Do you care what you look like, especially if you’re “getting up there” ?
But one final photo. Okanagan peaches. Yum. 🙂
Well, maybe. It seems that everyone to the south of us is experiencing some interesting cold weather with large dumps of snow. 
We have had some snow, but by Halloween it had mostly disappeared and temperatures were above 0°C. We are getting some snow today, but it’s still fairly warm out. Very strange for this area, but the elders do say that generally, the northern weather is a lot warmer than it used to be. For this year, they also predict a severe winter based on their observations of the behaviour of the animals. I posted about that earlier this autumn. So far, though, that doesn’t seem to be case.
A frozen lake photo from last year.
Yath is the Chipewyan word for snow. Chipewyan is one of the eleven official languages of the Northwest Territories – French, English and nine indigenous languages. There are lots of yath-related words and compound words. The quality and quantity of the yath is very important to the animals and their survival, and hence to the health of the land. Because of that, lots of yath vocabulary came into being.
I never thought that I would think so much about yath. But I do now.
New yath. (Yup, that’s a small joke. Really small, I know … )
As I already stated, yath is extremely important up here. An entire ecosystem has evolved with it, and many species depend on it for their survival, both animals and plants. It is a seminal part of the culture of the indigenous peoples. But it’s not as healthy as it has been.
The amount of yath that falls is erratic and unpredictable; it starts late, it starts early; it’s too cold at the wrong time, it’s too warm at the wrong time. And that seems to be the case farther south, too.
This exhausts the animals and plants, can damage their health or even kill them outright. A bear that wakes up too early will have nothing to eat, may try to beg from humans, and … a fed bear is a dead bear. A fast thaw can cause flooding followed by drought.
We all need healthy yath. Cold when it’s supposed to be cold, melting when it’s supposed to be melting. Crispy and squeaky in -40°C, soft and sticky in -1°C.
It looks so hardy and tough, but it is actually a sort of delicate white carpet that stains easily, so the next time you’re treated to some yath, I encourage you to try to appreciate its intricacy and necessity, even if you hate what comes with it and the chores it brings.
Greetings from yath central. 🙂
In the Net! - Pictures and Stories of Life 