‘I’m doing my best’ badge

This is what I know. Since becoming a mother, some days are just crappy. Yes, yes, cute stuff happens too, but oh my goodness, if I had a badge like this in those early days, it may have eased some of my sleep deprived crankiness.

But you know, some days are crappy when you don’t have kids, or when you’re a kid, or single, or working in a beige cubical, or living in a small dank flat with rising damp…Some days just being a person is hard.

Someone I know was made a special badge like this by her husband when she needed it most. This is my version for you.

With Mothers’ Day coming up soon, let a new mother know that she is doing a good job and that her best is enough.

Red ink

One Halloween when I was a kid, my friend and I thought it would be a good idea to write a scary letter to our neighbours who lived across the road. Somewhere we’d heard that if you ever wrote a letter to someone in red ink, it meant that you wanted them to die. This is horrible, I know. We broke open a bic pen and smeared its red ink all over a lined piece of A4 paper with the holes punched down the side. The letter went something like this:

Dear Neighbours,

At the stroke of midnight, zombies will come and eat your brains. Whoooo! Whooooo! Whoooooooooo!

From, the zombies

I was about seven years old and I still sometimes wonder what those poor people thought when they opened their letterbox that day. I hope they weren’t scared. I hope they realized it was a couple of goofy kids who were yet to grow a conscience and understand the greater consequence of their actions. But if you’re out there, I’d like to reassure you that zombies are never going to eat your brains. Sorry for freaking you out.

The little things

Oh yeah, it's March, the month of noticing the little things.

Slow down and listen

I could only get am radio. In my first car, that is. Music was a big deal to me back then and so, am radio troubled me. To me, it was out-dated, old and irrelevant. Out of sheer desperation I tried station after station. I listened to announcers who paused for way-too-long-between-sentences. I laughed as listeners rang up for talkback, giving their opinions on young people today in stern and cautionary voices.

As I slowly opened my ears, a strange thing happened. The more I listened, the more I fell in love with this slow paced world of am radio with its prepaid funeral package ads and community announcements for senior citizens. But it was the music that changed me. It had an innocence. The melodies and harmonies were more complex than I initially thought and the lyrics told a story that were sweet, sad, poignant and meaningful. The strange juxtaposition of a cheery melody against tales of losing a loved one to another just made my heart soar.

So the other day, years after my conversion to am radio I heard an announcer say this quote by someone unknown. ‘If you don’t stand for something, you could fall for anything.’ See what I mean, you can learn a lot from slowing down and taking your time to listen.

Hello Summer

Hello summer. You’re here. I forgot about your arrival. I was distracted with other things like the permafrost melting, sea levels rising and trying to find parking spots at the shops at Christmas time. Despite my worries, I’m ready for lazy days in hammocks and warm nights dreaming of palm trees and coconuts. I’ve made a start on the lemonade icy poles and soon I’ll be walking along beaches with impossibly white sand and turquoise waters. Thanks for the pineapples, and mangoes, ooh, and blueberries. Thank you especially for the blueberries…