Life in progress

Category Archives: Opinion


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JusJoJan 26 – Asking for Help

I’m my own worst enemy in a few different ways, but none more than the fact that I have a hard time asking for help. Actually, let me be a little more specific: I’m okay asking for small favours, but if I think I might put anyone else out of their way, I usually do whatever it is that needs to be done myself.

I think this is a common problem with many people. For some it’s because they wish to be independent, and there’s nothing wrong with that – unless it gets to the point where they are stretching themselves too thin. Then there are the jobs to be done that are so complicated that it takes longer to explain how to do them than to do it ourselves. That, too, is an understandable reason not to ask for help.

Then there are people who are already stretched too thin, like me. When I think about asking someone else to help me, I tend to put myself in their shoes, which makes me ask myself, what if they were asking me to do this task? Being over-worked and overwhelmed already, I might think it a burden to be asked to do more. Consequently, many times I don’t ask for help.

I’m learning though. Since the father of my kids moved away, I’ve had an average of only one weekend out of every three without the kids. I do, however, have a very good friend who constantly offers to help me out, and most of the time I say yes. Although he says he doesn’t feel taken for granted, I still feel bad for not doing more for him in return. Again, there’s the ‘stretched-too-thin’ thing pulling me mentally if not physically in every direction.

I’d like to say a very public ‘thank you’ here to him, for all that he does for me. Thank you, John. I truly don’t know what I’d do without you. I know you say I should feel free to ask when I need help … know that I’m doing my best. And next time I stomp down the stairs in a very bitchy mood, know it’s only my own shortcomings – it’s not you, it’s me.

Back to addressing the rest of the people reading this.

I’m sure there are other people out there with problems asking for help. Do you try to overcome it? Have you succeeded? If so, how? I’d love some feedback on this.

Thanks.

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Post on your site, and join Just Jot it January. The rules are easy!

1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back to the above link to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it.
3. Write anything!
4. Have fun!


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JusJoJan 24 – Adventures on my Paper Route – Weather

In winter, it’s rare that walking around the block on my paper route isn’t an adventure. Between the ice, the slush, the snow, the temperatures that freeze my nostrils shut on contact, and days like to today when we have a miniature snow storm, there’s always something to make me rather stay in my pyjamas.

storm

It’s all part of being Canadian. Our weather is a source of national pride. It’s what we endure to live in a country as free as this one is; with all its faults, at least we’re able to say we weathered a storm or two and came out the other side with a smile. Most of the time, anyway.

And so it is with that same pride that I walk around the block, braving the elements to deliver the news.

As difficult as it can be, I do love this country.

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Post on your site, and join Just Jot it January. The rules are easy!

1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back to the above link to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it.
3. Write anything!
4. Have fun!


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JusJoJan 18 – Dodged a Bullet

It’s both a blessing and a curse having a child who enjoys going to the hospital. Obviously it’s nice not to have to fight with Alex every time he gets sick – he gets sick a lot. He enjoys the attention he gets there; he loves to charm nurses and doctors alike, and to him, it’s an adventure. The downside is, he’ll pretend to be sicker than he is and then beg me to take him to see a doctor. And what better way, at this time of year, to actually catch something nasty, than sitting for hours in an emergency waiting room?

Last night he almost managed to convince me that he’d aspirated food into his lungs again. He complained of pain in his chest, that he was feverish, (he wasn’t) and he was just plain miserable, the same as he was on Christmas Eve. I suspected he might have been exhibiting symptoms from the flu shot he received the day before yesterday, so I decided to call Telehealth Ontario, a service we have here so that we can talk to a nurse, so see if our symptoms are worth taking to the emergency room.

The nurse asked me all the protocol questions before she would talk to me about Alex – is he responsive, is he in pain etc etc. I answered as honestly as I could. Yes, he was complaining of chest pain, yes he was turning blue around his lips (I explained he always does whenever he’s upset – it’s due to his heart condition) but no, he doesn’t have a fever. Finally she asked me a question that was relevant. When did he last eat? It was three hours ago. She told me that if he’d aspirated, the symptoms of that would have shown up earlier.

So while I was relieved, she was telling me to call 911 and have an ambulance take him to the hospital because of his blueness and his chest pain.

Why didn’t I? It was the sparkle in his eye that told me all he really wanted to do was visit his beloved nurses. Today there’s not a thing wrong with him.


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JusJoJan 14 – How Can I Kill Thee…?

The first thing that comes to mind is the Black Plague, though it was hardly the worst case of mass death in the world. Genghis Khan is reported here, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1350272/Genghis-Khan-killed-people-forests-grew-carbon-levels-dropped.html to have killed as many as 40 million people. Thousands die in any given year from natural disasters as well. But technology is working to change all that.

Science has come up with ways to keep people alive in the face of disease, improved warfare and methods of gaining information have been designed to ensure Hilter never happens again, and warning systems are being developed to alert people to get out of the way of impending doom due to tornadoes, tsunamis and the like. So how do we keep the population of the world down now?

Through the very same technology that claims it is trying to help us. Pharmaceutical companies provide us with life-saving drugs which only kill us in other ways, and pesticides to make our “quality of life” better in that we can enjoy our food more. Cell phones – the best way yet to receive information – are apparently giving us brain tumors. So what’s left? War, of course. Government-run, huge conglomeration-funded wars. And who wins in all of this?

The rich bastards whose gain comes from our hides.

Now watch this. It’s beautiful.

Nature happens, with or without us – but are we making it better with technology? Or are we simply allowing a certain few to stand upon a pedestal and dictate to us who we should be and how we should live our lives?

But, you say, there’s only so much we can do, isn’t there? Even if we overthrow our governments, more of the same will replace them. If we refuse to buy the products sold by the huge corporations, how do we live?

To know ourselves, to care for ourselves and each other is a good way to start. From our immediate families and outward, to our communities and our countries. We have to realize that everyone and everything on the planet is equal. We are all connected – the Earth is its own organism, just as each of our bodies are. Imagine how it would be if we were all self-aware. Not self-centered, not self-involved, but so aware of ourselves and how we affect those around us that we could do so for the sake of good.

If you haven’t watched the video by this point, go back and do it. It’s eleven minutes and eighteen seconds’ worth of footage everyone should hear.
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 Post on your site, and join Just Jot it January. The rules are easy!

1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back to the above link to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it.
3. Write anything!
4. Have fun!


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JusJoJan 13 – What Blogging has Taught Me About Subtracting

From this:

With the door closed it was very quiet in the room apart from the sound of birds cooing. Herman went to the window in search of the source. A line of tall, thick trees at the perimeter of a vast lawn surrounded the house. Daffodils and tulips poked up through the soil as close to the house as she could see without putting her forehead against the glass. Beyond the garden a cobblestone walkway, wide enough for two people to stroll side by side wound it’s way past a patio sat off to the left. To the right was a small brick building with six or eight sides, she couldn’t really tell from her vantage point. It was made of the same colour brick as the house and had many small windows near the top. It looked to be about two stories high. A shed, or a coop perhaps. She turned her back to the window see if the room appeared as domestically normal as the garden. The walls were paneled with dark wood and the furniture was antique, upholstered with red velvet. Along one wall, to her right, either side of the door hung pictures of landscapes rather than family portraits. The wall opposite the door was covered in fragrantly old books. A computer with a the large flat screen perched upon a heavy ancient-looking desk was the only evidence that she hadn’t stepped back in time.

To this:

The sound of birds cooing beckoned Herman to the window in search of the source. A protective line of tall, thick pines stood like sentries around at the perimeter of a vast lawn, and daffodils and tulips poked their heads up through the soil as close to the house as she could see. Beyond the flower garden a cobblestone walkway, wide enough for two people to stroll side by side wound it’s way past a patio off to the left. To the right stood a small red brick building with six or eight sides and a dozen small windows near the top that reflected the gloomy April sky. A shed, or a coop perhaps. She turned her back on the peaceful scenery outside, to see if the room appeared as domestically serene as the garden. The dark paneled walls were adorned either with painted landscapes or covered in bookshelves containing fragrantly old books, lending the student in her warm comfort. A computer with a the large flat screen perched upon a heavy ancient-looking desk was the only evidence that she hadn’t stepped back in time.

Above is first the original NaNo 2011 version of the beginning of Chapter 5 of my manuscript, and second is what I edited it down to this morning. What do you think?

I see this as the result of two years writing experience and endless blog posts which have forced me to write to be publicly read. I see this as the result of two very wonderful people who have critiqued my work and told me in no uncertain terms that I have to put the character in my descriptions. (Thank you so much, Janice and Connie. Honest critique is the most valuable thing a writer can receive.)

In all, I see the second version as something that a publisher might actually look at. But that was one paragraph out of 524 pages.

Back to work!

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Post on your site, and join Just Jot it January. The rules are easy!


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JusJoJan 8 – What Facebook Keeps Teaching Me

If Facebook is good for nothing else, it’s an excellent way to have motivational sayings come across your desk every once in a while. I’ve seen this one a few times before, but with my birthday coming up it made me think. Contemplate life, even.

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It’s so easy to fall into the psychological trap of mourning one’s youth. As the years pass we find we’re not able to do the same things we used to, both physically and mentally. We wake up in the morning with new aches and pains, we find gray hairs in places we never imagined would go gray, and skin wrinkling in places reserved in our minds only for someone’s grandparent. Yet one thing is true – if you’re reading this, you’re alive, no matter how old you are.

Whether or not you consider this a privilege, it is what it is. You are alive now and have the potential, for at least another little while, to affect someone else’s life. I may just be affecting yours as I write this.

I think if I could leave behind any legacy at all, it would be to remind people of this: our shared human experiences and our emotions know no cultural nor religious boundaries, and each and every one of us has the ability to affect another of our species. So be good to one another.

We’re all connected, if by nothing more than Facebook, and by nothing less than being human.

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 Post on your site, and join Just Jot it January. The rules are easy!


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This is not JusJoJan 2

This is: http://lindaghillfiction.wordpress.com/2014/01/02/jusjojan-2-all-in-a-nights-work/

I find it rather frustrating that I collect so many fewer views and followers on my fiction blog than I get on my main blog. I have been told by several people that fiction and poetry isn’t as interesting to most people as real life, so if that is indeed true, then it is to be expected. I sometimes wonder, however, if it’s a WordPress thing, in that unless you’re looking for it, you just don’t notice it.

After all, if I comment on your blog post for instance, and you get an email notification, it will include only the most viewed posts on this blog – it won’t mention my fiction blog at all.

I’m wondering if everyone finds this to be the case with their secondary blogs, or if it’s a fiction/poetry thing or if, it’s the unthinkable and my fiction simply sucks?

(Please feel free to follow my fiction blog.) <— (I put that in brackets to make it feel like a subliminal suggestion.) (Did it work?)


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EDDD 25 – Trust Your Instincts

‘Twas the night before Christmas
And all ’round the kitchen
There was choking and coughing
My son, he was bitchin’

…that his head ached, he was dizzy, tired, and everything hurt. It was about half an hour after dinner. Within the next fifteen minutes he was asleep on the couch and his breathing was fast and shallow.

I started looking to the internet for solutions as to what could be wrong. All day he’d been active, happy, and looking forward to opening his presents. On a hunch I looked up ‘aspiration.’ Bingo. I checked his temp. He was burning up.

Fifteen minutes later we were at the hospital. By midnight he’d had an x-ray – they found a piece of food lodged in his right lung. It took one hour for him to go from fine to having aspiration pneumonia. He’s at home now, happily playing with his new Wii U, on antibiotics.

I’ve said it so many times and I’ll say it again. A mother knows her child much better than any doctor can. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in a position where I’ve had to tell a doctor flat out that he or she was wrong. I’ve demanded a second opinion from a pediatrician more than once.

This wasn’t the case last night, however this post is to say that if you are a mother, always trust your instincts over a doctor’s opinion.

Had I not trusted my instincts, the scenario right now could have been much much worse. Apparently the chances of survival for this sort of thing depends on early detection.

A Christmas miracle indeed. Merry Christmas everyone!

Blog post of December 25th, in honour of Every Damn Day December. Check it out!


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EDDD 13 – Friday the Virus

I was going to title this post with the obvious – Friday the 13th – but the words above more clearly state what my day has been like so far.

I woke up bright and… well, late for me. I’m usually up for the day at 5:30 but His Majesty (my youngest son) allowed me to sleep in ’til 6:30. Anyway, at 6:35 he turned on his laptop to find a virus. Not just any virus it seems, but one which wouldn’t allow me to do anything with the computer but shut it down and re-install Windows.

I don’t understand what the people who write and distribute these horrible worms around the internet get out of doing it. It was one of those ones that, if we can read (His Majesty can’t) we usually know better than to click on unless we’re half asleep or drunk – a pop-up with a badly drawn Windows-like shield, telling the user that the computer is at risk. Yeah, from you, dickhead. I mean seriously, do some people have nothing better to do than sit at their computers and snigger at other people’s misfortune? Ugh!

Anyway, I bought Kaspersky Pure virus protection a few months days ago, so I’ve installed it now on all the computers in the house.

That’ll teach me, eh?

Blog post of December 13th, in honour of Every Damn Day December. Check it out!


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EDDD 8 – ‘Tis the Season

I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas. The decorations are great, the coming together of family, the big dinner (which I have to cook, but I don’t even mind that), the joy and the caring community – *needle screeches across record* – wait, what was that? Caring community? HA!

I live in what I expect is the politest little city in the world – eleven months a year. But on that twelfth month, you’d better watch out!

If I lived in Whoville and the people from here could be called Whovillians for most of the year, come December they can only be considered Whovillains. The claws come out in the shops and they’re in such a hurry, they’ll run you down with their cars as soon as look at you. Gone is the interminable wait at a four way stop for everyone to say, “No, you go first.” Now it’s every man, woman and child for themselves.

It seems Christmas brings out the worst in people when they’re out in public – it makes  you wonder if those same people are as thoughtless at home as well, or if they’re just taking out their frustrations on people they don’t care about. Either way, it’s the most horrible time of the year to have to go out shopping!

‘Tis the season to be surly, fa la la la la, la la la la. Sing with me!

Deck your friend and plow your neighbour, fa la la la la, la la la la

 
Blog post of December 8th, in honour of Every Damn Day December. Check it out!