My dad looked after his family, worked everyday, and in the early days, the weekend was his. Like clock work, Friday night the good old, real old, country music came on… and the good times rolled until Sunday morning. Forty Eight hours of roll the dice, come what may! Sometimes we would head to Hamilton from our Toronto home. Our best buddies had moved there, two friends I counted as sisters, and their parents were besties to my parents. Guitars were played, pizza was bought, us kids were left to do whatever and the Rents stayed late and long! We usually headed back home after midnight. Of all the years we travelled there, with the promise of staying for the night, maybe twice we actually did. Most trips home were the same, mom driving, stopping for dad to pee, then driving again until dad was asleep, mom pulling over for a little shut eye before the OPP came along to send us on our way.

This particular night, not quite summer, we headed home. The trip home was a science, we typically stopped at the cemetary just before the HWY, for the final pit stop. Not gonna lie, pops was inebriated, but if we didn’t make the stop, he didn’t fall asleep. So into the ‘final resting place’ we went. We always drove in quite a ways, obviously. Off he went, we waited,, heat on, waiting. We waited, and waited some more. I mean what was mom to do? Let the kid go look for him or leave the kid and go look for him yourself, after midnight, in the dark , in a cemetary. It was probably a good twenty minutes, we were going with the option to go together and look for him. Bam a hand slammed the passenger door and tore it open. After the initial shock we stopped screaming. Dad stood at the open door, his one pant leg was in shreds, his coat was missing and scratches were all over both of his arms! Mud, which at first I thought was blood was smeared across his cheek, and he was panting! We were terrified! ” What happenned to you?” mom said, thinking perhaps he was mugged or beaten up. He stared off for a minute catching his breath and stated, “Sasquatch got me!” He clambored in and insisted mom should hurry up and drive!

My best guess is, he got a little too close to the embankment that was pretty steep. So fall down there, and try and make your was back up, in the dark, with your pants…compromised. Makes the most sense.. thankfully he was able to get the hulk of himself back up. We wouldn’t of been able to do it, ‘dead weight’. At least he had the wherewithal to come up with a doozey! Goodtimes.

Yes it is an elephant 🙂 This is my third year writing my blog, over 100 posts, over 1000 views. Thank you! I actually feel quite emotional when someone tells me they read my blog. It is very therapeutic for me, I used to wear a pin that said, “Why be normal?” That sums it up for sure! I have been writing on a wing and a prayer, hoping for all the best! I hope that my words resonate with someone else, that they know that they are not alone, that life is not fair sometimes and we keep going. That they are reminded that tomorrow comes everyday, that they make an impact on someone that they have not even met yet. I want to make a difference, a change, a betterment in someone’s life.

I write regardless, I always have, may as well share. Keeps me sane, my version of sane. My mentor would tell me to just write and I would create something on the fly, just putting pen to paper. Apparently that is a thing, spirit writing. I still have a few of those early pieces that I have kept all this time. I don’t really get writers block, I just have so many veins to follow. I start many and write them out all at once, if it gets interrupted I have to get that vibe going again to finish it. I have sentences and paragraphs everywhere! When I actually get time, to slam on the keys I wrap it up.

I do it because I love it. I love the written word, I spent my childhood in so many other places because of books. Those are the types of books I like the best. The ones you open up and don’t come out of until you close it, the best ones you do not close until you are done. They are hard to come by, you know it when you start reading it that there is no walking away! I read one this year that I couldn’t stop reading, I feel bad for the family because no supper gets cooked, there is no conversation, nothing until I am done! I have a short list of some that I want to find and read in the coming good months, feel free to leave your recommendations!

Soon as the temperature starts to change, it erases all thoughts of winter. Instantly you pour yourself into all the tasks that have been on hold for so long! Raking, clearing out spaces, finding buried treasures lost to the snow, sometimes Christmas things still have to be put away. My favourite is planning all the summer spaces. What to plant, how to arrange the outdoor spaces, what new things to purchase to make calm, cute spaces! Deciding what needs an updo or redo!

The geese have returned, the deer are in the fields and ultimately in the roads in front of us, wearing spring fashions that blend in with their surroundings! My co worker had to stop for a duck. My favourite story was when my other co worker was late last spring because a flock of wild turkeys decided to cross the road, and to this day her impersonation of the turkeys is by far the funniest thing I have ever seen! I may need a video to store for low days! I think it was spring, if not, I am gonna say it was. I have bought seeds already, and surveyed the pool deck, there is a huge iceberg still in the pool! My parka is still out, and the clothes are not rotated yet, but there is time.

I hear a fabulous weekend is in store for us and we are so ready for that. Gonna squeeze as much out of it as possible! I think I have mentioned that the good weather sends me outdoors and I am not too keen on being inside when it is arrives. I also realize it is way too early to believe that it is here to stay, but I will take Mother Nature’s peace offering. She owes us after the March tease. Spring also brings the return of the appointments I put on hold over winter. Most excited for new glasses. There is a meteor shower in the wee hours of the morning April 23rd, glad I don’t need glasses for far away! The summer carrot is at least dangling and I am up for the chase!

It’s gotta be said, I have seen so many journeys lately within my friends, family and myself. The journey’s are lonely. Some are by choice, some don’t want to talk about it. Some can’t talk about it. It is often circular. Sad thing happens, support system develops, survival mode, shut down, shut up, withdraw. During the survival mode, shut down, shut up that is where you need to step in! When in doubt, do it anyways! When you want to help someone but your brain gets in the way, listen to your gut. It never has to be huge, just randomly reach out. Even if they never respond, reach out.

When my father passed away and two months later my father in law also passed away, it was months before I looked at messages in my inbox or cards sent. The people that patched the sore spots on my heart are the ones that came to the funeral home, that brought me food when I didn’t know I should eat, that let me cry when I didn’t know I had to, and that sent a message then and again weeks later as a check in. Sometimes these are not things we are taught. Growing up I never knew about showers, funerals, or even being a guest or a host. We lived in a city of strangers. I learned more on my visits to my rural family in New Brunswick. I remember going to a baby shower with my Aunt and the amount of food was amazing! I thought you had to have an invitation to a funeral, and had no clue that thank you letters are sent out after events with gifts. I remember an aunt telling my mother that I had no manners because she had stopped into see me and had not offered them a tea. I had no idea that I was suppose to, I thought they had come to see me and my family.

My son has gone blind, I still haven’t dealt with me yet, because I am watching him deal with it himself. He is great, funnier than ever, he is optimistic, he is a powerhouse! He is also alone, in the dark, all the time. The Canadian Institute for the Blind has all social events on hold since Covid. His friends are also his family, he gets so excited when they visit. He uses google to call his sisters! He has a few people that he can talk to, lots have fallen away, it is too awkward. Not sure why, maybe they are afraid he will be offended because they can see. It’s normal town around here. I remember the first dinner we all got together after he went completely blind. My one daughter was quite upset that we were joking about her brother attempting to go across the street, he was making jokes as well. He kept telling her it was fine, she insisted it wasn’t funny, and then he dropped his fork on his plate. She attempted to guide him to get the fork without interfering. So she was like, “just reach down, it is right there” and he said, “where? I can’t see” she said, “ in the middle, go down, more, more…” his hand ended up in the potatoes and we all laughed and the light bulb of understanding went on! That is how it goes, there is no etiquette with this new thing, it is the elephant in the room. You just deal, you just do it, everyday. Like he says, “you can’t change it, there is no sense in wallowing in self pity.” So we do, every day.

Not sure when the shift took place, but if you are on the train, good luck getting off the train. Look I did it too, not to the same degree as some, and not for the same reasons, but I did it. When my girls were little I bought chocolate, usually a dress, and spring toys like bubbles, skipping rope or chalk. After my son was born and two of my kids became diabetic, we shifted to an egg hunt, usually shoes or a jacket for the new season, outside toys, maybe a Disney movie and a video game. After all it couldn’t be just junk food. To be fair I wasn’t a mom that bought stuff for my kids every time I went to the store.

On a recent trip to Costco, the cart loads I observed, were atrocious. I was hoping the amount of chocolate in the cart was not for just one child! I don’t know, it just seems commercialism is rampant and people are becoming materialistic. Everyone has their own thing, and I know that feeling of having nothing for so long, that getting and giving feels good! For me chocolate in the house is a lost cause. It is an uncontrolled addiction, I already purchased the smallest solid milk chocolate bunny the last time I grocery shopped and devoured it on the way home! I can’t have it in the house, I totally forgot about jellybeans until today… love them too! The old kind, where red and white ones are sweet, and the green ones are mint. Mmmm, serious addiction, sorry kids to let you find out this way but I stole Halloween treats and broke pieces off the backs of your bunnies when you were at school…

Good these things have been replaced with home cooked Easter dinner and everyone is grown. My son did ask for a small white bunny, I said no, they are hard to find and it may not make it to the house if I did. The Big E bunny will bring a small package of eggs for a hunt as per requested, that is all! Those eggs are secured although I did open a bag of coloured marshmallows.. they are almost gone.

Spring holds half and half feelings, I am not a fan! The dog crap in the back yard gets soggy. The mud gets tracked everywhere. Bugs start to come out but there is no warmth. It just seems damp and dirty for weeks! The days that do seem warm, are just a tease. Too cold to swim, too muddy to hike, and not enough heat to sit outdoors.

When I was a kid, I loved it! Mud puddles really did look like chocolate milk, the kind you made with powder! There were two high rises on my way home from school. They were separated by a driveway. One really rainy week the manholes in front of each building were surrounded in the perfect combination of mud and water. I had white rubber boots and I remember sloshing in the first puddle, just enough to get my boots perfectly smeared in mud, but only enough to coat them, not overflow to the inside. Then I would continue up the road with a perfect chocolate coating to the second one. There was something satisfying about sloshing enough to make them beautiful again. My son was just telling me about this video game where you pressure wash stuff and how relaxing and satisfying it was, and I totally understand that! I wish I could explain it to my dad the day he parked between puddle one and two. Of course I got in trouble for having dirty boots and not caring for my things. Days of doing this, if he had of picked me up at school or after puddle two, he would of been none the wiser, and I would of been in the clear!

Spring does hold hope. It offers little glimpses of summer. To be honest it has days that offer rest and peace from winter. I guess I should really embrace the season, use it to get ready for the summer. Get all my inside stuff done, because I am never inside once summer arrives! I suppose I should get some spring cleaning done, well maybe after things dry up outside or when I can throw all the windows open! Oh look, it’s snowing…..

Even though I am tired, I love to cook! I have never enjoyed the same old, same old. Ask Momma, she will tell you that I fell asleep in my potatoes more than once! My kids will not tell you that I am an awesome cook. Back then it was more about producing food they would all eat, rather than making it taste good. Actually before kids, when it was just hubby and I and a microwave, I am sure I gave us food poisoning making Cornish hens. In Home Economics class, we learned how to set a table and a few meals. I still make my grade seven chilli with a lot of adjustments! I cooked once for my folks in high school and my dad called my salad, rabbit food! Red delicious apples and navel oranges were something you got in your stocking at Christmas.

My kids got all the food groups, not just meat and potatoes. Frankly they are all fantastic eaters! All the veggies, not an issue! When they were done, they left the table. There was no open kitchen until they were old enough to do for them selves. If dinner didn’t get eaten, you didn’t get snack, you waited until the next meal or snack time. Food was pretty regular with Diabetics in the house, maybe a little low on junk food. Oldest went through a vegetarian stage, middle didn’t like condiments, and the youngest liked the same lunch for a year! Rabbit food was in abundance!

Nowadays, meals are planned for the most part. They used to be posted, now I have 4 out of seven accounted for and implemented based on appointments, my energy, and rotating through my supplies. I find processed food is hard on a body now! I don’t know if it’s age, or becoming so accustomed to eating home during Covid, or just sensitivity. I have incorporated a few new recipes in the past couple of years, everyone seems to be on board trying new things. Even hubby has expanding his pallet and he is my fussiest! Tomorrow is his Birthday, I’ll have to rustle up some of his favs!

Rolling out of bed is not how I like to start my day, never has. I like to get up at least an hour before I need to leave the house. I need my coffee to kick in, and the planning to begin. That is a mindset, of course when presented with something different, you can do it. That’s when you find out how flexible you really are, flexibility in your mind is so valuable.

That is the challenge today! Do everything different! Different order, different outcome! I can make changes easier, when I think of them as challenges. It doesn’t become a habit or your norm until you have done it many, many times! It is good to mix it up some!

I have allowed some variety lately. Not all on purpose, but have let the day be different without being too rigid about it. It kinda feels irresponsible just going with a come what may attitude. I don’t want to be old and set in my ways! I want to be flighty and eccentric!

I had to call 911 once as a teen! My folks left really early in the morning, my dad left last. I had to walk him to the door and put the deadbolt and the chain lock on once I closed the door, that was the rule. Before I left for school, I had to make sure all the lights were out and set the furnace for 68. This particular morning about twenty minutes after dad left, someone pounded on the door! We lived in a three floor townhouse, I was up in my room, I started down the stairs but the pounding changed to someone trying the knob and pushing on the door. I was frozen in fear, I think I was 14 or 15. I ran back to my room and called the police, when I think back I don’t remember if it was 911 or an actual number, I can’t remember if it was a cordless phone, I know I had a phone in my room. I remember scream whispering to the police and hiding in my closet. The person was trying to break the door open, and a dispatcher stayed on the phone with me explaining how someone was on the way and they would stay on the phone until they arrived. The noise stopped for 10 minutes or so, but I was too terrified to be calm. The pounding started again and it took the dispatcher another 10 minutes to reassure me it was their officer at the door. She did stay on the phone until I went to the door and gave the phone to the police.

I lock doors and deadbolts here in my little town too, everything is locked. Some of my friends think that is odd, City folk, yup we are odd! We used to live in a little three floor apartment building until I was eight. At night, we had a chain lock, but we weren’t allowed to have a deadbolt. Instead my parents put butter knives in front of the door and into the space between the wall and the trim. I also know that if you go to sleep with that in place and someone comes in, butter knives only bend so far and when the door finally open they fling towards the person coming in! Pretty good security system! Dad and mom came to the city right from the farm, dad worked the farm until he set off to get a job in the big city. Farm boys got muscles and callouses, those country boys fight, especially with eight siblings. We woke up to screams in the middle of the night, outside a woman was being drug up the road by a man. My mom called the cops, but my dad ran out to help. The man produced a knife as my father ran up. My father’s hands, were baseball mitts, no joke! Like a newborn at five pounds could fit in one! Dad just grabbed the knife, by the blade and then held the man until the police came.

Dad wasn’t 6’5 or a MMA fighter, besides working on a vehicle, I don’t have many angry dad stories, well maybe, but that’s another story. After that event when I was a teen, he sat at the end of the road for an hour every morning for a month. Probably good, the person didn’t try again. He started teaching me to box when I was three, I have a scar in the center of my forehead from a speaker I smoked my head off of after punching at him and he stepped out of the way. I can through a punch, turns out I’m a southpaw. Boxing and fighting are very different things. It doesn’t matter where you grow up, it is always good to have some skills to protect yourself or someone else if you have to. I do believe something else surfaces when you are protecting someone, something that you don’t need training for. Love for others, love for life, love of freedom. Survival, things kick in, everything you need is in you!

I was feeling under the weather and my heart was sad. The more I thought about it, I wondered if it was the other way around. Maybe my heart was sad and I felt under the weather. To top it off, we had bad weather and there was pressure in the air. Like Momma would say, “six of one, half dozen of the other. ” It really is the same difference. Unfortunately when I get like that, negative attracts negative and the fake smile is harder to plaster on my face. I really don’t want to talk about all the junk that bothers me sometimes, I just want to process it and feel sad and maybe even sorry for myself for a minute. Sometimes I think not speaking about things, gives them time to go away or work themselves out, before working everything into a tizzy. Obviously this is not the case, case in point. When things go dark in your head, they can spiral quickly.

We need a mental health emergency kit! What should be in this kit? Most things to get out of your head is sensory. Smell, this is a matter personal preference. I know from experience, some things I love to sniff, others after 15 minutes give me a headache! Knowing this about yourself, you probably have things in your house, essential oils, candles that you know won’t make you worse. You could always double down and use a lotion, that appeals to touch and smell. Or a bath in a favourite bath salt, candle in the corner! For sight, you could look at baby pictures or pictures from a vacation, watch a sunset or sunrise. A liquid motion jar, a changing light, this year I would like to get one of those sandscape pictures. Taste, well for me that is chocolate, dark chocolate is better as it increases the production of feel happy hormones. My mouth happy is milk chocolate! Auditory for me is music, there are so many calm sounds created nowadays, for some people silence is better…just block it all out. You may also need your therapist’s number!

Something to be said for the previous generations, when you think about it. They used all their senses. The women gathered, they had their hands thrust into dough on the daily, creating all the food that created all the heavenly, home smells. They talked together all the time, they were outside in the fresh air everyday. They did not sit, they moved their bodies. Their thoughts could not hover, their hands were busy! You know what they say about idle hands! Nowadays it seems, we live in houses, bigger then we need, altogether separate, staring at our devices. Winter is worse, watching the boob tube, doing nothing! I have started walking again, the weather is always a set back, but I will take what I can get. I used to walk in all the weather, I will work up to that for next winter!