My sister-in-law is very much into Christmas and especially into the art of present wrapping. Every year she puts me to shame and, I will admit, that since my nickname is “The Mad Taper”, it’s probably not too hard a task. This year, however, I decided to try a little harder and had extra things to put on the packages to dress them up, pretty paper and coordinating paper. I think I came up with presents that were really pretty.

I told Mr. Maura that his sister had thrown down the wrapping gauntlet last year and this year I was responding in kind. He gave me a very odd looked and asked if his sister and I had entered The Martha Stuart Christmas Throwdown without his knowledge. It cracked me up.

Then today we got to my sister-in-law’s gorgeous house and started putting our presents under her lovely tree and I was shown up — bad…. My presents didn’t look bad or anything but I think my sister-in-law outshone me.

I think I have to declare her the winner this year. I’ll be back to compete again next year, though!

There’s a challenge called the 365 Project where the goal is to take a picture a day to both learn more about photography and to document a year in your life. I’ve been considering doing this for a while because I’m really trying to learn more about the camera I have.

So, I’ve decided to take the challenge starting January 1st. To help facilitate that as well as to have a home for all the photos so this blog doesn’t get too unfocused, I started a new website to house my photographic journey.

The blog is up, though I’m still messing around with parts of it. You can see it here.

Otherwise known as CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure).

I’ve snored most of my life and now have been diagnosed with sleep apnea. This means that I stop breathing while I’m asleep. It doesn’t sound awful until you start reading more about it and realize the lack of oxygen and the lack of real sleep can kill you over time. Even before it kills you, it can wreck havoc on your life.

For myself, I’d been going to bed earlier and earlier and still woke up exhausted and usually with a headache it would take me most of the day to get rid of, only to have a headache the next day as well. I had no energy and kept forgetting things all the time. I would constantly be in danger of falling asleep at my desk and there were times I’d take a nap in the car before driving home, lest I fall asleep at the wheel. What I had been putting down to stress and a toxic Evil Day Job turned out to be something more – sleep apnea.

I went for a sleep study where they hook you up to all sorts of monitoring equipment and then you get to (try to) sleep while they monitor what’s going on. They woke me up partway through the night and put me on a CPAP machine for the rest of the night and adjusted the pressure until they got rid of most of the incidents of apnea and hypopnea.

I went back a week later and picked up my diagnosis and a rental machine plus mask and various accouterments. I’ve had claustrophobia for years and thought I would really suffer but there’s only been one night in the three months since I went on CPAP that I didn’t use the machine and it sucked so badly, I never missed another night. Now it’s almost pavlovian – I get into bed and put on the mask, turn on the machine and read for about ten minutes then go to sleep.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that it’s NOT sexy. It’s not noisy but having a big mask tied to your face with a hose leading off the bed is sorta… weird. Mr. Maura does say that the breeze from the mask is much easier to cope with than my snoring.

I highly recommend everyone look at the symptoms of sleep apnea and, if they feel they might have it, get tested. There are several treatment options but I chose CPAP because it was non-invasive and pretty well proven. I know a lot of CPAP users hate the fact they are using a machine but I guess my pragmatism shows in that I feel liberated by getting real sleep and rest rather than imprisoned by a machine. The reality is that I do have sleep apnea – I can choose how to treat it or even not to treat it, but a price is associated with every one of these choices. The CPAP is my choice and I’ll make the most of it.

I’m also going to work at losing weight but there’s no guarantee that it will help my apnea. It may make no change at all. The idea that sleep apnea only affects the overweight is a huge myth that I think encourages people who should be checked to not do so because they aren’t overweight. It’s all about individual anatomy and muscle/sleep behavior.

I’m already doing much better. I really sleep and I wake up on my own. I no longer wake up with headaches and I don’t try to fall asleep at my desk anymore. Now when I’m tired, it seems to be a more normal tired – not exhaustion.

I’m really tempted to be-dazzle my mask, though. I wonder if that would make it feel any sexier?

This is the time of year when I tend to sit back and consider how my year has been and what I’ve done during that year to help others. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t advocate giving more than you can afford in time or cost, but I’m a huge advocate of giving when I can.

I’m convinced that before I started to really look for opportunities to give to others, I had the same number of opportunities I do now but I was blind to them. I never saw them because I never LOOKED for them.

I’m not talking things like giving thousands to someone or even hundreds – I actually think that people do look for these opportunities but they are few and far between for us all. But what about all the small opportunities that present themselves every day. Things like:

• Opening a door for a harried delivery person.
• Writing a note of support, sympathy or congratulations.
• Getting a box of pasta down from the top shelf of a store for someone who can’t reach it.
• Telling your office receptionist how much you appreciate her hard work.
• Taking a grocery store cart back in the rain for someone else.
• Buying a cup of coffee for the policeman in line behind you.
• Shaking the hand of a service member and thanking them for their service.

I can’t tell you how much each of these small acts brighten my own day and I’d like to think that it brightens the day of the recipients as well. Some cost very little, some are free – but all are acts of kindness that require no reciprocation and I try to perform a few larger acts, always anonymously. I never want this to become something I do for recognition or with an expectation of return.

So, again, on this Thanksgiving Weekend, I want to renew my vow to give others small, random acts to be thankful for. I challenge everyone to do the same.

I wanted to wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving holiday. My family will be spending it with our extended family, one of whom will be returning from his grandmother’s funeral on Thanksgiving day.

Easy as it is to set aside a day to be thankful, I genuinely try to be thankful for everything I have every day. Life throws some challenges at me but these are challenges to be met and perhaps conquered and are often pathways to previously unknown or unseen opportunities.

Today is a great day to be alive and tomorrow is a great new day as well!