Home from Finland late yesterday. John and I went out for supper then I went to bed at 7:30 and didn’t wake up until 5 AM. I think I needed the rest. Normally I am a very light sleeper, last night I don’t remember John coming to bed at all, although he says I sat up and spoke to him when he came in at 10 pm . . . I have no recollection of doing so.

So it could be that I was just so needing that sleep but today I was remembered how on the last day I was here between my trip to Italy and the one to Finland I had a new friend come and Feng Shui our home. Weird, could be a whole blog post or 6 on it’s own. She took 4 hours.  One of the things she mentioned was that the person on the right hand side of the bed doesn’t sleep as deeply or as peacefully as the one on the left. So, you guessed it, John on the left me on the right. She worked her Feng Shui magic, did some energy work and claimed that things would be better (personally, I hadn’t noticed that my sleep wasn’t perfect before). Anyway, I will see tonight how I sleep, was it that I was just way to tired or was it the Feng Shui?  I find this energy work fascinating stuff.

My teaching in Finland started late in the mornings but went until 7 PM each night. On my last night I had a 90 minute trip back to Helsinki where my friend Mia Laamanen had invited me to supper, her husband cooked and we all had a great time.  I stayed at a hotel at the airport but didn’t get there until 1:30 AM and I was up and gone to check in for my flight by  5:30 AM.

Every time I have a short night like that it always reminds me of a time when I took my nephew to spend a night on the dairy farm about 25 years ago. I think Mike was about 4 or 5 years old, it was his special adventure trip with his aunt. We were going to spend a night on the farm, complete with morning chores at 6 am. I got him to bed at a reasonable hour, but while I was helping him go get ready to go out to the barn the next morning, in a groggy state he came out with this profound statement, it has stayed with me ever since. Even today, anytime I get short changed on sleep, I wake up and think of tiny Mike saying “It sure doesn’t take long to spend a night on the farm does it?” It sure didn’t take long to spend a night in Helsinki.

Before supper on that last night in Finland I squeezed in a relaxing session in Mia & Tommy’s sauna room. Normally I am not much for sitting still, but I can’t tell you how fantastic it felt to lay there, do nothing and get warm. There is a reason I plan many workshops in warm climates during the Canadian winter. I have no tolerance for being cold. I have very low blood pressure so I get cold easily but when I am really cold for a continuous period of time, my back stops functioning as it should. That being so, taking a teaching assignment in an unheated, uninsulated building in mid March in Finland may not have been the best idea I have ever had in my life. Even after the 90 minute drive back to Helsinki my feet and hands where still freezing. That sauna was like a gift from God.

Now I have no regrets about going to Finland, I thoroughly enjoyed teaching some incredibly talented agility competitors. I will write more about that later, I am hoping my Finn friends remember to send me a video clip I want to include with that blog post. So I will to wait, but I will write about my time Finland (where it actually wasn’t as cold as it could have been:)).

Today I am happy to report that Mr. Buzz is much improved. One of you readers wrote me privately and suggested I get  Buzz’s thyroid checked as there was a connection between Vestibular issues and low Thyroid. Thanks for that, I have over 300 emails to go through since returning home,  so I can’t recall who suggested it. I was only getting my mail on a shared hotel computer so read the note and now it is buried. Regardless it was a great tip and I set up an appointment for John to take Buzz to be checked when I was in Finland. It seems though that Buzz’s thyroid was low last fall when I took him in for an annual physical (that was in his files). So they drew blood again to re-test but send John home with meds anyway. Normal value for a dog is above 15, last fall Buzz was 14, last week he was 8.

Today he has his full appetite back and for the first time I am going to let him go for a walk with the rest of the dogs. Not around the whole field, just a 10 or 15 minute romp around the cut grass part of our property. Buzzy would like me to pass only his thanks to all of you for all our prayers and positive vibes.

Today I am grateful to all of you that drop by to visit my blog and share your thoughts. So frequently you have helped me, for that I offer up my sincere gratitude.