am I just a drunk bunny?

They don't believe in the Easter Bunny anymore, yet oddly enough still want chocolate. So we hid some. The next day,

Joe : hey, there are still many eggs that I hid and you two haven't found yet.

Me: yeah, me too.

Maeve pauses, then walks over to the liquor cabinet. Opens it. Finds an egg.

five things before coffee

No one likes black jujubes in our house. Can they be successfully composted?

Realized that I wasn't going to have to give up *my* music when my two-and-a-half year old daughter exclaimed from the back seat "Mommy!! It's Weeeee-zer!!!"

Why is it that my son got the curly hair, and not my daughter?? She wants it; he doesn't.

I often create band's names during the day. Like, multiple times during the day.

Coffee is a bean, cocoa is a bean but peanut is a legume.

all growned up

the march post, part II

Greetings to and from: using the Pano app on my awesome iPhone.

We went to Mont-Tremblant for Family Day weekend in February. The day we arrived it was 13C and when we woke up the next day it was apparently -30C with the windchill at the top of the mountain. (Yea, and there's no such thing as climate change... right, Mr Harper??)

One morning I took a look at the top of the mountain using their webcams; it was so beautiful... I love the colours of the morning and twilight skies. I even managed to get the moon in one shot!

So then I arranged with The Skiers to go and stand where I'd see them:

We had lots of fun. Neal and Maeve are old enough that they now want to ski all day long, and I'm no longer an anxious traveller so I'm much more relaxing to be around...

the march post

It's March 31st, and if I want to have any post in this month I gotta do it now.

Thing is, nothing springs to mind that is bloggable. Nothing has sprung to mind since the beginning of February really. Proof is in the post dates.

Oh, there've been Random Musings over the last seven weeks, but nothing 'worthy' of sitting down and creating with. I've been creative in other ways: noodling around with iMovie, slopping Modge Podge on some things, loving all my new photography apps on my iPhone, baking polymer clay into wee cupcakes... and trying to stay in touch with my One Little Word: [clean].

I'll be able to access April's prompt for the One Little Word workshop starting tomorrow, and I'm hoping that I can do better in April cuz March was a bust. March was Action: find something to Do that has meaning with your word. I decided to find or develop or create a yummy gluten-free bread so I can have toast with peanut butter on it. One of the definitions of [clean] for me is Eat Clean and I do a lot better off gluten, so I thought this Action would be great. (and easy)

Pftt. Shudda known better. How many loaves of bread did I make? One. And a blechy one at that.

I looked around online, and I have some recipes myself and I figured out what I wanted in my loaf compared to others and last week I finally got around to hauling out the bread machine to create a wonderful loaf of gluten-free bread and then I'd be able to fill out all my lovely scrapebookey printouts JUST in the nick of time. Nope. Not gonna happen.

But you know, part of this workshop for me is to embrace the imperfection. Somehow it's tied into my One Little Word. I finished January's task and immediately wanted to pitch the sheet of paper. It wasn't Perfect. But I didn't, and it is still in my binder and now it doesn't look so bad. But I was really uncomfortable walking away from a Job Not Perfect. And then I had unexpected palpitations just showing my creation to my husband; what if he just shrugged and walked away or laughed or something? Better off to keep it to myself... but I didn't. And he was kinda impressed!

So come on April... what's it gonna be??

LOL

paraphrase of The Current's The Voice from this morning:

"an elementary school in the polygamous community of Bountiful BC has made the Fraser Institute's top list; a topic sure to come up at the next Parent Parent Parent Parent Teacher interview"

feeling purple

Today in this part of the world we remembered a very sad occasion and my kids wore purple in honour. Daron Richardson would've been 15 yrs old today, but she didn't get to celebrate this milestone. Unfortunately her parents have started marking a whole new milestone now.

My son is only one-and-a-half years younger than Daron was. The news last November, and remembering it today kinda hits home. I just cannot imagine coming home to find your child in the basement like that. It's unthinkable, unspeakable.

So I'd like to write an open letter so all the teens out there who may be relating particularly well to this topic.

You... Are Not Alone. You aren't. I swear sometimes we should just dump antidepressants into the public water supply*. This depression monster likes to make you think you're alone, but you are not. (*not my original thought: a very smart, depressed friend came up with that one)

Talk. To someone, somewhere, about this. When things were really bad for me I remember thinking I can't talk about this: if I open my mouth I'll start crying and I'll never stop and I'll drown and go crazy. Now granted the first couple of times I started talking about it I did become dehydrated from loss of fluids and ended up hiccupping through most of my sentences, but that calms down. I didn't go crazy, and no one told me I was crazy. People sat and listened, handing me tissues as I needed them and helping me.

It Gets Better. It does. It really, really does. Once your body figures out which hormone goes where and does what and you, your body and your life settle into a rhythm... it gets better. Please don't give up yet.

Start collecting tools (figuratively speaking), things you find helpful to fight this Demon. I realized much much later in life that depression and creativity live hand-in-hand. Being creative soothes that Beast better than any antidepressant does for me. If I'm not able to be creative for a while, guarenteed I will go squirrly. Music is a great tool for me. I truly believe that our brains are hard-wired to respond positively to music. Find a kind that makes your brain happy and strong to combat this Demon and load up your iPod with it.

Exercise. It feels like just about the last thing in the world that you'd like to do but getting some nice fresh blood up to those hardworking neurotransmitters helps.

Sleep. Wow, it's exhausting being depressed or anxious! When you need to, sleep. Of course the human teen's circadian rhythm is changing so there's that to contend with... but don't be surprised if your absolutely wiped (aka knackered: a much better term I think) sometimes. (especially if you've just Talked to someone... I'm always surprised that I'm physically tired from sitting and blabbing. yeah, yeah; and crying)

Basically just hang on; you're not alone and it gets better.

And if you're a parent: listen. Listen first, act second. And get help if you need support too. Let your child know through your behaviour that you can be trusted to take on some of this burden... and then celebrate when things do indeed get better.

Thank you for your time.