Buddha & Fuzzy Slippers                                                            August 2009

I turned 38 this month, and every year on my birthday I pause and look back over the year that has just passed, reflecting on all the latest adventures and lessons learned. This year brought some truly remarkable, heartwarming, and miraculous experiences my way: my first trip to NYC, a new love for hiking, watching my nieces & nephew grow into precocious 2-year-olds, meeting Mike Fisher (a new diabetes hero!), speaking in Northern Ontario after losing luggage, completing the Inca Trail in Peru in 2&1/2 days, working with the greatest people I know, and making a difference in the world of diabetes.

My life has been blessed in a million different ways, but perhaps one of the greatest things I've learned how to do this year is to SIT STILL. And to be OK with that.

For someone who is on-the-go constantly, it has been powerful and liberating to discover the freedom of saying "no" to requests and preserving some sacred "Sandy Time" to simply clear the calendar, be quiet, and do only whatever I feel like doing at that point in time. If that means staying in my pajamas all weekend, walking on the Stanley Park seawall, sleeping, or simply hangin' with Buddha on my balcony in my fuzzy slippers - it has been HUGE for me to be able to release the guilt of "I should be doing X, I'm so far behind with Y, etc..."

Don't get me wrong - I am still going "mach-3-with-my-hair-on-fire" at the office, and have more plans & ideas for new adventures than a human being could complete in a lifetime, but when I check out for "Sandy Time" - I CHECK OUT. No phone. No BlackBerry. No alarm clock. There is nothing so important or earth-shattering that I need to be "reachable" at all times. I'm on mental vacation. And it's beautiful. It brings me back.

Buddha was a real smarty-pants, eh? Cheers to another year of grand adventures, peace and personal discovery!