Much Ado About Nothing

Photo courtesy of http://www.troll.me.com

I remember a day not very long ago that my goal was to get to 5000 views on my blog. After 5000 I wanted to get to 7000….it is good to have goals right?!

I used to blog everyday but I am spending time writing a book, a project I started long ago and never had the courage to finish. I don’t want to force out a post everyday writing about my problems and posting pictures of my breakfast so I have gone down to posting about once a week (or less…shrugs sheepishly!”)

So without any fanfare, confetti, sparkling lights or applause, this weekend I am proud to say that I surpassed 10, 000 views on my blog. It is a milestone for me and I want to thank each and every one of you who have taken the  time to visit my blog, to comment, to retweet me @ 1000acreheart, to follow me on instagram @ michd74.

I started my blog as an outlet to talk about having a child at the tender age of 16 and giving him up for adoption. The loss and heartache I suffered and the great joy it brought to my life to be reunited with him many years later. As much as it was an outlet for me to explore my feelings and to offer myself closure and forgiveness I was hoping that maybe I could help someone else who was maybe struggling with the same feelings or decisions. The feedback I got has been nothing short of amazing. I learned a lot about myself on this journey and I learned that everyone has a remarkable story to tell. Sometimes our weakness lies not in having fears but in admitting that we are scared or hurting and taking the necessary steps to fix ourselves. For me it was simply acceptance. Accepting that I was exactly where I was supposed to be and though I couldn’t change the past  I needed to be grateful and excited for the present and  very enthusiastic about the future. I have every reason to be. If you are interested and have not read the Thousand Acre Heart Series starts HERE

The way my blog has connected me to people all over the world, funny, smart, intriguing people has been such a pleasure. I really do get joy from talking to you, reading about you and I love it when you leave comments. Comments are validating for a writer, or at least they are for me. Perhaps that makes me a NEEDY writer. I have enjoyed writing about my experiences as a mother, a wife and a friend. Being honest, funny and daring. Being myself entirely. I also have enjoyed your feedback on my fictitious works!

I am getting closer and closer to the big 4-0 everyday (January 15 if you want to send presents) and in that time I have gained some wisdom that I would like to share with you today in celebration of over 10, 000 views in over 55 countries.

1. You can’t have a rational argument with a teenager, they know everything and you are stupid. The only thing you can hope for is that one day they will have their own ungrateful, entitled know-it-all’s and maybe they will feel so bad that they will get you really good Christmas presents.

2. There is a reason why an Esthetician exists. Have you ever had a Brazilian wax? Perhaps you just wanted to surprise your husband on his 40th Birthday which also happened to be Halloween so you were pressed for time!! Ladies’ in the house I am holding up the proverbial Stop sign!! Waxing your feminine fun parts is a delicate matter that should not be done in hurry. If I were to make a video about this experience it would star Sweet Brown saying “Oh Lord it’s a fire!”

3. In reference to the above, don’t spend hours in Hallmark looking for the perfect card for your guy. They don’t care. If you are going to spend time anywhere contemplating what to get your special someone make it the liquor store or adult superstore. They want booze and sex that they don’t have to work for…the dirtier the better.

4. Your mother really did know everything! Isn’t that a kick in the pants?You should have listened!!

5. Do you crave a good argument? Don’t be so concerned with getting the last word. Sometimes we get so focused on winning the argument that we say stupid shit we can’t take back. Sometimes silence really is golden.

6. If you think you are punishing your guy with the silent treatment, think again!!

7. If you spend all of your time looking forward or back you will lose sight of everything in front of you. You can’t store sleep, time, yesterday or tomorrows. Say it now, do it now, live today!

8. Tomatoes are good and good for you. I really just don’t get people who don’t like tomatoes.

9. If you want to be that annoying person don’t change the toilet paper roll when it’s empty. (FUCKER)

10. You’re Shit stinks, I don’t care who you are! Everybody shits and everybody stinks!

Words of wisdom for your Monday night. Thanks for coming by, I hope you come back soon.

xx

Michelle

INSPIRED

I have been feeling so uninspired lately. For those of you who follow my blog you can tell because I have been absent. I went on a couple of quick back to back trips so I originally blamed it on being busy but even when things went back to normal I found I was sitting in front of my computer trying to force myself to write. I guess you could call it writer’s block…I was feeling insipid and the more I tried to write the worse it became.

This morning I had a great workout and then met a friend for brunch. I decided maybe I needed a change of atmosphere so I went to the local library. In front of the library someone had written in chalk “The Public Library is the University of the People” That immediately made me smile. People from all walks of life go to the library. I love the library, I love books, I love the big wooden tables overlooking the lake. I loved that there wasn’t any laundry to do, dishes to wash or floors to mop.

I looked around at the people and silently wondered what they were all working on, some were on laptops like me, others were reading, and some were studying. A man caught my eye. Actually a woman caught my eye and she was curling up her nose at the sight of this man. My first thought was that the man was homeless. He had unkempt hair and a very long beard and appeared to be travelling with a lot of bags. He thumbed intently through the shelves of books, wide-eyed as a kid in a candy store. Although the lady with the curled up nose appeared unimpressed I was fascinated. So many people, so many walks of life but this particular man captured my attention. He seemed enthralled by the selection of books at his fingertips. I wondered would he choose a mystery, a documentary perhaps or was he doing research? I thought of the sign written in chalk on the pavement walking in “The public library is the University of the People” I smiled. If he was indeed homeless I am not sure what paths in life led him to that place but I am glad that a path led him to the public library. He wasn’t a man on the street begging for money or my judgment, he was a man searching for a passion, an escape, and maybe characters to enthrall him and take him to different lands he may never find the opportunity to visit. The public library didn’t belong to me or the lady with the curled up nose, it belongs to all of us; the people.

I often get approached by homeless people and though every encounter is different they always make me think,

“How did you get here?”

I believe a lot of them are not so different then you and I. I have made bad choices in my life, none of us are exempt from that. Did a choice or a succession of choices lead to a situation that was so overwhelming and beyond their control that they couldn’t find their way back? Was it an illness, a death, an addiction, a tragedy?

I am not going to pretend to have heart and sympathy for everyone who has crossed my path, I am no saint, but I do believe that everyone has a story, like characters in a book. It is so easy to sit back and be a critic but you can’t judge a person by their appearance anymore then you can judge a book by its cover. All of us are just characters in the book of life, all of us faced everyday with good, with evil, with conflict and choices.

I started writing a book almost ten years ago. I had faced some very difficult marital problems and in writing I found a creative outlet that allowed me to escape from my own problems. I fashioned characters in my head and penned them to paper. I literally penned them (I didn’t have a computer ten years ago). For a while the characters were like family to me. I felt their joy and their pain. At some point, maybe as I began to heal I put the characters on a shelf but they were still very much alive in my head. They were like family to me, I didn’t see them every day but they were always in my heart.

Recently I was thinking of the characters a lot and I looked through my garage until I found a bin of crumpled, handwritten words, lives that I had created and woven together many years ago. It was like being reunited with old friends. These characters faced pain and decisions and they made mistakes. If you drew the wrong page out of the book, without knowing the whole story maybe you would hate the characters, maybe you would think they were hateful, shallow or foul. However, maybe if you read the whole story you would fall in love with them, you would forgive them their missteps and cheer for them. You would long to help set them on the right path because you had faith in them.

When I first found the basket of crumpled papers I became obsessed with finishing the story. At a certain point I became overwhelmed. Years had changed me and the way I think and feel and some of the plot that was in my head was arduous to put onto paper. I had a beginning, a middle and an end but drawing a straight line and connecting that all became so overwhelming that I took something I loved and turned it into a chore instead of a passion.

I would think to a person who has been knocked down in life and experienced rock bottom it must be a very overwhelming place to be and to navigate your way back up. I am sure at some point they saw their way out, could see a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe the path was too rocky, too overwhelming. We will never know just by looking at them and turning up our nose. Could a smile or a kindness make a difference? I believe it can.

I smiled at the man and sat down with my coffee. I decided that along with my change of scenery I needed to change my direction. My problem is I couldn’t write in a straight line from beginning to end and maybe that is OK.

On this beautiful fall day I wrote the last chapter of my book. The middle may remain unwritten but that is fine. I wrote an ending that was eloquent and heartwarming. I brought people to life and I will bring them full circle. I even cried reading what I wrote (I am a sap)

One day I hope to share the whole story with you, until then I will take each day one day at a time.

Share your smiles today, someone needs one more than you know

Outside my local library today

My life in song

I was sifting through photos on my phone and realized that three times since Labor Day I have worn white. Not just a little white, white from head to toe. In my defense until today the weather in Edmonton has been in the high twenties so it has been difficult to accept that summer is over. Anyways, I am not sure who I am to apologize for this fashion faux pas but here it is my sincerest apologies. I hope that my oversight can be overlooked.

Now that that is out of the way….I am supposed to be starting a Time Management course but alas I will do anything to waste time and I am at my daughter’s Voice lesson with no Wi-Fi. So there!

I had mentioned in my Hole in the World post last week (if you haven’t read you can read HERE) that most of my life could be described in an Eagles song, whose couldn’t really? Always up to the challenge I drew some random Eagles songs out of a hat and I am going to type the first thing that comes to mind.

1. The Long Run– I hate to run out of toilet paper. It’s one of those things that I don’t like to even get close to running out of. I can let the milk run out, but not the toilet paper. It stems from having roommates throughout the years that NEVER EVER bought toilet paper and if I went away for a couple of days I would inevitably come back to NO toilet paper. I always wish there was a “Long run” of toilet paper, the roll never emptied, it would never run out!
2. Victim of Love-We have all been a Victim of Love at one time (or several). I became a victim when I was about 12 weeks pregnant with Morgan. I started to turn my nose at things that I once loved. Friday night Nacho night was banished from our house altogether and smells that once soothed me made my stomach sour. I can’t remember how it happened but I fell hard and fast. The object of my affection was Heavenly Hash Ice Cream with sliced up bananas. Yummm. Calcium and potassium. Our food affair continued every night until after Morgan’s birth and then eventually fizzled.
3. After the Thrill Is Gone-As you can see from above the delectable affair fizzled, “After the thrill was gone” the affects were lasting. They lasted on my stomach, ass and thighs.
4. I Can’t Tell You Why-There are lots of things about me that I would like to examine but I just “Can’t tell You Why”. Why do I cry at sad movies, why do I cry at happy endings, why do I panic when approaching a traffic circle, why do I dream that I am a CIA agent and then wake up exhausted with bruises? Why do I still have a sooky blanket? I Can’t Tell You Why!
5. Wasted Time-Nobody knows how to waste time like me but “sometimes wasted time can be time well wasted” If I enjoyed it was it really “Wasted Time”?
6. Take it to the Limit-I got my first credit card at 19. I had it for quite a while before I used it. I thought it was a good idea to keep a hold of it for emergencies. One day Visa called and asked me if there was a problem with my card. I explained that I was just saving it for emergencies. The lady on the other end of the phone seemed mystified, maybe even a little offended. I waited for two days and then started spending. I decided to “Take it to the Limit”.
7. Busy Being Fabulous-This is the reason why I have trouble managing my time “I’m just too busy being fabulous!”
8. New Kid In Town-I have been the New Kid in Town. It can be exciting and scary. It is what it is. When I was in grade three I moved and started a new school. There were already two Michelle’s in my class so the teacher decided to call me by my middle name which is Anne. I hated it, I was Michelle, not Anne. I felt so out of place and I was miserable. I didn’t tell my mom so she wasn’t aware for several weeks until the teacher called because I had locked myself in the class washroom crying.
9. Get Over it– Marital advice “Get over it” I wish I had had this advice years ago during the early years of my marriage. I spent so much time holding onto hurt and anger that I never allowed myself a lot of room to be happy. If you want to be happy “Get Over it or Get out!”
10. Tequila Sunrise-Who hasn’t seen one of these? I was about 20. I lived in London, Ontario and I was crazy about this guy I was dating. My friend and I joined him at a hotel bar one night where his friend was bartending. Someone mentioned tequila and I was game. We started with shots and then his bartender friend just started free pouring cups full. That is really all I remember except for waking up in my shower in the wee morning hours. Tequila makes me feel dirty! Our romance eventually faded away but we would always have “Cuervo Gold”

That’s all I wrote.

TRUTH OR DARE

My friend Chris Thomas over at On the Light Side of Gamification posed some questions to me on my post Game called life. If you haven’t read the post check it out and you will see why he asked me these questions. I encourage everyone who reads this post to answer the same questions. Even if you are shy about posting the answers I think that they will really help you if you truly desire to be happy. I am a firm believer that everyone has obstacles in their lives but sometimes the biggest obstacle to our own happiness is the person we see when we look in the mirror. The happiest people in the world are those that build bridges and “get over it!” So take five minutes to truthfully answer the below questions, you may be surprised about what you learn about yourself.

I am listening to Mozart piano Concerto No. 23 while I type this. The grace and lightness of the piano is helping to even out my late night 711 coffee high.

If you don’t know what Gamification is don’t feel bad, neither did I before I became acquainted with Chris. In short Gamification is the use of game thinking and game mechanics to engage users in solving problems. Gamification is used in applications and processes to improve user engagement, return on investment, data quality, timeliness, and learning. You can learn more HERE

Chris is an enthusiastic, engaging and conscientious young man. I am pleased whenever he visits Dancing In The Rain and leaves me imaginative comments. He has endured and overcome a lot in his young life and he is someone I admire. Chris has been very supportive of my blog so I was pleased that he posed these tough questions to his audience and to me directly.

I think we all need to be idealists and realists. Idealists when we think about our aims and about the world we define our aims on. Realists when thinking about the steps we need to do to get there. You see, Idealism without Realism is dreaming and Realism without Idealism is dry, uninspired, never innovative, never leading to a better world, simply good work. Only by dreaming and breaking down your dreams to realistic steps you will really make a difference and enjoy a meaningful activity -Chris Thomas

HERE GOES

1.What are my personal aims?

My personal aim at the moment is to find a good balance in my life so that I give as much to myself as I do everyone else. Therefore I will be happier, less stressed and accomplish more of the things that are important to my me and my well-being! I would like to be more active, take care of our money better and finish something that I started years ago that is very dear to my heart.

2.What are things that I like to do?

I love to spend quality time with my family, read and write and invest time in the relationships that bring me joy.

3.What are things that I don’t like to do?

I do not like to put the laundry away, wash floors, pick up after my kids constantly and I don’t like to tire myself out getting stressed about these things. I also dislike driving in roundabouts (rotaries, traffic circles) which makes driving certain places a challenge because they intimidate me and I will avoid them whenever possible!

4.What am I good at?

I am good at writing (I believe) I find being honest very freeing. I am also good at supporting people and things I care about and putting people at ease in stressful situations.

5.What am I bad at and do I want to change something about it?

I am bad at keeping promises I make to myself due to my terrible time management and I am making efforts to change! I am also bad at hole punching which my former boss and friend likes to remind me. I have no desire to change this because I never desired to me a master hole puncher and every time she punches a hole in a piece of paper she will think of me fondly.

6.When do I feel happy?

I feel happy most of the time but mostly when I have fulfilled my commitments and everyone around me is pleased and happy.

7.What is it then that makes me feel happy?

Being present in my life, managing the details so that everything gets done and my family is satisfied and I am content. Spending time with family, friends and writing!

8.Is there any chance to trigger the reason for that happiness more often (e.g. by changing your workplace, join your working place community (or found it) or invest more time in a particular spare time activity)?

There is definitely a chance for me to be happier more. I need to be accountable to myself, keeping promises I make to me, managing my time better so that I get to do all the things I want to do and saying no to things that I do not have the time to take on. Being productive makes me very happy but I often let my noisy brain slow me down. I often plan too many things at once resulting in me getting emotionally tired!

9.When do I wish to change something and why do I think this change is impossible instead of trying to go for the change?

I don’t think anything is impossible. The word itself says “I’m Possible”, Audrey Hepburn Quote. As I said above I am my biggest roadblock. I need to hold myself accountable for making the necessary changes to make all the pieces of my life fit together like a completed puzzle. I have made some steps, the biggest one was quitting my job 15 months ago but there are other changes that I need to make. I am fully aware that nobody is responsible for my happiness but me!

10.When do I blame others and could I not do something about solving the problem myself if it is that important to me?

I try not to blame others for my problems except if they are not contributing their share, therefore making my job more difficult. I have high expectations and I feel a responsibly towards things (for e.g. my volunteer work) I think this is a weakness for me because I sometimes bite off more than I should be comfortably chewing and inevitably my “time management” goes out the window.

Chris’s original post HERE

Hole in the Word-Saluting the unsung heroes of 9/11

Hole in the world tonight
A lot of my life can be related to an Eagles song, Victim of Love, Take it to the limit, Take it Easy, The Long run….but no song in the world quite evokes the emotion of this day in 2001 quite like The Eagles “Hole in the World”

Last night I was watching the “History of the Eagles” one of my all-time favorite bands and I was looking ahead to my friend’s birthday on September 12th. It didn’t occur to me till I woke sometime in the wee morning hours that it was 9/11 and how I felt on this day 12 years ago, like there was a hole in the world.

I was at work at the Truro Daily News in my hometown of Truro in Nova Scotia when I heard about the first plane hitting the tower in New York City. I felt sadness but continued to take phone calls. As news started to break our staff started to flood into the newsroom to crowd around the TV’s and catch the breaking story. I had joined them and when news of the second plane hitting the tower flashed across millions of screens my sadness turned to disbelief, shock and unmistakably fear. The certainty of a terrorist attack on our sister country, the strong and beautiful United States of America and its people; proud and enduring was a feeling that is hard to put into words.

As a young mom I never wanted my children to experience the type of horror that comes from terrorism and war. As parents it is our job to keep our children safe and of course we want them to be innocent and not know evil as long as possible.

A darkness fell over the world that day and I know that I for one did not sleep easy for a long time.

As media reports continued to filter in throughout the days following it was determined that in total four airplanes were hijacked and used as weapons in a coordinated attack upon the United States in New York and Washington. The hijacked airliners were flown into the North and South Towers of The World Trade Center in New York City (American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175). Within two hours both towers had collapsed. The devastating debris and fires resulted in the loss of all other buildings in the WTC complex as well as colossal damage to at least ten other buildings in the area.

American Airlines Flight 77 was crashed into The Pentagon (headquarters of US Department of defense) leading to a partial collapse on the West side of the building. A fourth plane United Airlines flight 77, landed in a field in Pennsylvania after its passengers tried to overtake its hijackers. Washington had been the intended target of the fourth plane. The passengers of the plane paid with their lives but saved the lives of many others.

The attacks launched by Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda were responsible for almost 3000 deaths. The devastation was huge. The loss of lives, severe damage to the economy and global markets, the six-day closure of Wall Street as well as countless evacuations and closures seemed like insurmountable odds to overcome.

The heaviness of sadness and fear hung in the air for what seemed like a lifetime. Radio, newspapers, television and internet covered every aspect of the attacks and related news.

I spoke to a complete stranger on the phone in Pennsylvania a few short weeks after the attack. The world that I was living in was much different then the one he was living in. He said “This will not break us. Together we will be stronger” He spoke of the American people and their unwavering faith and pride.

I decided then to see things from a different perspective. I focused less on the uncertainty and fear surrounding the tragedy and allowed myself to feel the goodness and hope felt by the people of America. Stories of bravery and courage restored my faith in humanity and made we want to live, not live in fear.

Seemingly ordinary people displayed great courage and bravery in the face of that tragedy and the days, weeks and months that followed. People sacrificed their lives to help others. People comforted strangers and helped grieving families.

First responders, civilians, passengers on the planes, people in stairwells and in offices, strangers on the streets. I salute you today, the unsung American heroes.

Psalm 112:4
Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man.