Another stressed-out Christmas carol

December 23, 20162 Comments

So last year about this time, I was doing the Writing 101 challenge and the prompt was fallacy. I wrote a stressed-out-Mom version of “Jingle Bells,” which pretty accurately reflected my state of mind for the duration of the holiday season last year.

Actually, it’s a pretty accurate reflection of my state of mind right now, too.

In a fit of inspiration this morning, I heard the words to another stressed-out-Mom carol, and the following was born:

It’s the Most Burdensome Time of the Year

It’s the most burdensome time of the year!
With the holiday shopping
And temperatures dropping, we’re living in fear,
It’s the most burdensome time of the year.

It’s the stress-stressfullest season of all.
With the social engagements and concert arrangements
I just want to bawl!
It’s the stress-stressfullest season of all…

Oh, the kitchen is smokin’
And my budget’s broken,
I think I’m becoming a loon.
Will the pipes keep on freezing,
The kids keep on sneezing,
Or will they be throwing up soon?

It’s the most burdensome time of the year!
The noise is astonishing,
With carols admonishing be of good cheer,
It’s the most burdensome time of the year!

Oh, the kitchen is smokin’
And my budget’s broken,
I think I’m becoming a loon.
Will the pipes keep on freezing,
The kids keep on sneezing,
Or will they be throwing up soon?

It’s the most burdensome time of the year!
The noise is astonishing,
With carols admonishing be of good cheer,
It’s the most burdensome time,
Yes, the most burdensome time,
Oh, the most burdensome time
Of the year!

I had quite a lot of fun with this, and I know several others who like to put their own take on Christmas carols around this time of year. I’m thinking about making it an annual tradition!

What about you – are you ready for Christmas? What have you got planned?

Frozen to the Core

December 9, 20168 Comments

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…

A storm rages outside my window. It’s dark, and the freezing mix makes it hard to see. Amy sounds tinny, and far away, and not at all the way I remember her in this song. In my memory, she is warm and welcoming, close enough to touch yet larger than life.

Now, though, she is tiny. A tiny woman singing a tiny song through a tin can phone.

I’m alone, and lonely, and the darkness doesn’t help.

It’s the hap-happiest season of all…

The darkness wraps itself around me, but it does nothing to ward off the chill, cannot stop it from settling in my bones, from freezing my marrow. I freeze all the way to my core, and not even my expensive down coat with its heat-reflecting interior can warm me.

I’m alone, and lonely, and the darkness doesn’t help.

It’s the most wonderful time…

I crank the heater up to eleven and then, because I can’t hear her over the road noise and the heater, I turn Amy up, too. Only it’s not Amy singing anymore, it’s Josh, and Bing, and their once-silken voices now sound raspy and grating, so I turn the radio back down. The blast of hot air from my car’s dashboard vents sears my eyes and chaps my skin, but it can’t warm my soul, and the bright Christmas tunes can’t dispel the gloom.

I’m alone, and lonely, and the darkness doesn’t help.

Oh, the most wonderful time…of the year!

I’m too fill in the blank for this!

December 6, 20165 Comments

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a year since I posted my stressed-out-Mom version of “Jingle Bells,” but it’s true. It’s that time of year again, and just like this time last year, I’m feeling the blues. The holiday stress began in earnest with Thanksgiving and trying to squeeze in trips to family, trips to friends, and trips to the store on Black Friday (not for the deals, but because we actually needed things) without going bonkers. This week I’ve got two Christmas concerts, church for the kids, a basketball game, a house to decorate, family pictures to take, and 20 dozen cookies to bake before Saturday.

It’s gonna be a crazy…

A question of confidence

November 21, 20162 Comments

I am happy to have with me once again that inimitable poet, Tallis Steelyard, to talk a little about his latest adventures in Port Naain with his esteemed cartographer friend, Benor Dorfinngil.

cover-a-bad-penny It is, I freely confess, a sore point. I feel somehow that my honour has been traduced, that my good name has been taken in vain. Indeed I, Tallis Steelyard, leading poet of my generation, has been shamelessly taken advantage of.
It started simply enough when I was asked to promote a short tale, ‘A Bad Penny.’ You’ve heard of it perhaps? I thought not. Perhaps I’ll have to explain further.

Some petty hack called Jim Webster, a writer of penny dreadfuls of the worst sort, inveigled his way into the confidence of an old friend of mine, one Benor. Now in his youth Benor lived for a while in Port Naain and we were (and still are) friends. So doubtless under the influence of a heady combination of generously plied strong drink and even more generously plied flattery, Benor started telling tales of his adventures in our proud city. So many of these stories were there that this Webster chap produced a collection of them under the title of the ‘Port Naain Intelligencer’.

Are you still with me? Anyway, I have to tell you, as between friends…

Champs

November 18, 2016Leave a comment

“Please, Lord – just let them win. Just one more game. Please, Lord.”

Somehow, I thought, if they could just win one more game, if they could have a perfect season like the basketball team before them, then everything would be okay. The hurt feelings, the bitter words, the barely-contained anger – all of it would fade away, and we would be a community once more. Whole. Perfect. Complete.

I didn’t know how it would all work out; I just knew it would.

And so I prayed. I prayed harder than I’d prayed since the day my youngest son was born, the day we very nearly lost him because of a careless mistake. I prayed when the clock stopped, I prayed through halftime, I prayed and I prayed and I prayed. “Please, Lord – just let them win. Please, Lord. Please let them win. Please, Lord…”

I cheered harder than I’d ever cheered in my life. On the outside edge of a sea of blue, I was both a part of the crowd and an observer of it. Their highs were my highs; their lows, my own. I cheered and prayed and prayed and cheered and when I couldn’t watch anymore, I ate cotton candy and prayed even harder.

“Please, Lord, oh pretty, pretty please let them win. Please, Lord, please…”

And when that blue-clad warrior plucked the ball from the sky, I screamed and cried and danced where I stood.

The American Dream

November 16, 20164 Comments

2015-04-01 15.18.01-5 As part of my scheme to make my thirty-second year a year full of awesome, I’ve decided to go back to school. I have big educational plans, and until yesterday, they included starting work on a paralegal degree in January (that plan has now been pushed back to…well, I’m not sure to when yet, but sometime in the future). One of the scholarships I was going to apply for involved writing an essay about the American Dream and, since I won’t be applying for that scholarship now that I won’t be attending that particular school, I decided to share it here.

It’s probably not my best work, but it’s been a long time since I’ve written a scholarship essay. My essay skills are a bit rusty, and this was good practice. 🙂

American Dream, (n): 1. The ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity traditionally held to be available to every American; 2. A life of personal happiness and material comfort as traditionally sought by individuals in the U.S. –Dictionary.com

When I think of the American Dream…

Tinkering: Life Edition

November 14, 20161 Comment

life If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there’d be no need for tinkers. But then, if wishes were horses, well, beggars could ride. And you know what?

I have no idea what any of that is supposed to mean.

I get the wishes and horses and beggars bit. But what have pots and pans to do with tinkering? I’m more likely to tinker with other things when I know I have pots and pans waiting for me in the kitchen.

Also, I have no idea why these two proverbs popped into my head when I opened up WordPress today. Of all the things to write about, why these?

Hope

November 11, 20162 Comments

“Now is the winter of our discontent.” – William Shakespeare, Richard III

Hopefully, the winter of our discontent will be made glorious summer sooner rather than later. In the meantime, though, have hope.

no-matter-how-dark-the-night-the-sun-always-rises-and-hope-with-it Giving up would be easy, and some people will. But if we all give up, who will fix what is broken? No one. And if no one fixes anything, if we all give up, then things will remain broken (and will probably get worse). Now is the time for hard work. It won’t be fun. It will be arduous. Grueling. Painful.

But it could be worse.

As long as we have hope, we can overcome anything. The one thing that keeps people going in the face of insurmountable odds is hope. No matter how dark the night, the sun always rises, and hope with it. Others may try to crush your hope, to steal it from you, because hope is power, but don’t let them. Fight hair, tooth, and nail to keep your hope, to keep hope alive.

Hope is power.

We need something to hold onto in times like these, so hold onto hope. With hope and hard work, the odds will be ever in your favor.

Nerves

November 10, 2016November 10, 20161 Comment

Have you ever watched the days bleed?

They do, you know.

They bleed, one into another into another, week after week, month after month, year after year. Seconds bleed into minutes bleed into hours bleed into days. Each of them crushing in their weight.

This is my thirty-second year of watching days bleed into months, of watching seasons bleed into one another so that you can no longer tell where one ended and the other began. It’s my thirty-second year of watching leaves fall into snowflakes, of watching dead brown grass bleed back to life and then to death once more. It was supposed to be a magical year, full of all the good things I could possibly imagine.

It was supposed to be frightfully wondrous.

But instead…

Favorite moments

November 7, 20164 Comments

Yesterday was not a stellar day. I was grumpy. I don’t know why I was grumpy, but I was, and it seems to have carried over into today as well. Then again, today is Monday, and if that’s not reason enough to be a little grumpy, then I don’t know what is.

Anyway.

Yesterday afternoon, we stopped in at Staples while we were out running errands. I could spend a small fortune there, if I had one to spend, but I behaved myself yesterday and confined my purchases to two. One of them I’m already regretting – it’s a file folder, one with multiple pockets for storing lots of things. I bought it to keep Bubbles’ school things in, mementoes of each grade he’s completed. The problem is that I can’t fit everything in it. I can’t even fit all his preschool stuff in it, and it’s not that there’s a lot of it, it’s just big. Really big. His first grade folder alone is probably bigger than the file folder I bought to put it all in.

Maybe I should have invested in a box.

Anyway.

The other thing I bought was a journal. I really don’t need another – I have two or three that I haven’t filled yet at home, plus a whole shelf full of ones I have filled – but this one called to me. It’s called “Favorite Moment a Day” and that’s all there is to it. Each page is lined. There’s room at the top for the date, and then it says, “Today’s Favorite Moment:” with plenty of room to write.

Or at least, there might be plenty of room to write if I’d have printed instead of writing in cursive. People always remark about how small my writing is, but my printing is even smaller than my cursive.

Anyway.

I thought it would be a good purchase because it’s small enough to carry around in my purse, and I want to start looking for the good in each day. If I have a place to write down some of that good, maybe it will start to outweigh the bad I seem to focus on so easily. For instance, despite yesterday’s lack of stellar-ness, I did have a pretty awesome moment…