pink, pink, pink, PINK, PINK, PINK, pink, pink, pink

I did not see this display in a store—I’ve been avoiding stores like the pink plague this month. I saw it on Stephanie Gilman’s blog Pass Me Another Cupcake blog (http://passmeanothercupcake.com/2014/09/29/one-of-those-days/), and maybe found the original (http://www.luvimages.com/image/campbells_pink_label_soup_cans5975.html).

This photo totally explains why I’ve stayed out of the grocery stores this month. Pink packaging runs amok in October. Pink soup, pink juice, pink milk, pink M&Ms (pink outside package, pink M&Ms inside the bag), pink toilet paper, pink curling irons and blow dryers, pink Kitchen Aid mixers for heaven’s sake!!! Please send me one. And a big bag of those M&Ms.

I’ve been trying to write a posting on October, you know,

 

But I am so conflicted I can’t really get anything out on paper. Or here either.

I knew October would suck for me. I discovered my lumps last October. I feel as though I have let my pink sistahs down—I never painted a pink ribbon on my nails, or dyed my hair pink before it fell out, or wore pink to chemo days. I don’t have a magnetic pink ribbon on my car, or one hanging from my rearview mirror. I don’t call myself a cancer warrior, and I haven’t signed up for a cancer run or walk. I discussed with my psychiatrist (new experience for me, an actual real psychiatrist just for me) how I haven’t gone to any group sessions, have done no bonding with any other breast cancer women, or men for that matter.

What I have found is some excellent writing by other bloggers who have breast cancer, and over the rest of this month I will be reposting some of their posts.

As for me and the avoidance of stores this month? I have Thanksgiving dinner dishes to prepare, and there is not enough in the fridge to cobble anything together, save a pearl onion, olive, anchovy, pickle and fish sauce stew, and I don’t think there’ll be any takers for THAT one!

So it’s off to the shops later today. Maybe I’ll wear my wig. And I won’t be wearing pink.

Wow! That last little while just flew by!

Isn’t it sad how when you are not in a position to HAVE to do something, you often don’t do it? I speak for myself here, and it’s about this blog—I used to do it because I was THE Mom Blogger for Canadian Living magazine, a fabulous national magazine that I still get and read and look forward to, even if I am not the blogger of record on the website.

But being there, on the site, with a fresh post every day, made me feel so connected to the blogosphere, where I exchanged friendly tips and words of encouragement with real-life relatives and friends and people I would never meet no matter how many hours there are in the day and dollars in the world. But it was fun while it was demanding.

Question: Is posting once a month too stupid? Maybe. Every two weeks? Every whenever there’s enough time? That’s likely what it should be.

So there’s my new schedule: a posting whenever there’s enough time.

Excuses, excuses…

Interesting how our excuses change as we age.

• He hit me first.
• She knocked that over.
• He ate the cookies.
• I peed my pants.
• The dog peed on my pants.
• The dog ate my homework.
• I left my backpack in the back of the coach’s car.
• My stick broke but my dad worked late and I couldn’t get a new one.
• My mum forgot to wash my tights.
• Dad was too tired to help me on my project.
• I wrote it down in a list but then I lost it.
• My curling iron broke, so no way could I go.
• My boyfriend fell asleep and I couldn’t wake him up.
• My best friend was sick and I had to stay and help her.
• The car wouldn’t start.
• The car ran out of gas.
• The car has been stolen.
• Christmas is a weird time with to much stuff to do, too many emotions and too much to think about.

Yes! That’s it! That’s my excuse for the absence of Because I Said So! for the last two weeks. Did you miss me? Don’t you hate when people ask you that? “Well, yes, of course I missed you. Were you really away?”

So it’s time for me to play catch-up! Wish me luck!

Some things are too big to write about

I have been absent from my blog here for a few days. I’m back and picking up the pace now.

My excuses:

I took a course.

I went on a vacation (oh, sorry, I thought this was a wishlist) a laundry eradication spree.

I had child doctor/teacher/talk doctor appointments EVERY DAY.

I had blogger’s block. This is when everything in my head is too big to say. When stories in the news seem terrifyingly real because they deal with parenting, something we all know there are no exams to pass or qualifications to meet before we take on the job.

• 15-year-old Brandon Crisp‘s death—traceable to his parents putting their feet down and making a parental decision that might just have resulted in their son getting angry and slamming some doors, but instead kicked off a tragic series of events.

• An eight-year-old boy in Arizona admits to shooting and killing his father and a co-worker who boarded in their house. His parents had shared custody. His mother says the child had become withdrawn in the last few months. The father had spanked the boy the day of the shooting. In their town, it’s the norm for children and parents to shoot together for sport.

• 13-year-old Hannah Jones in England, diagnosed and treated for leukemia at age five, developed a hole in her heart as a result of her chemotherapy. The heart transplant she needs would only prolong her life if it didn’t kill her and if it didn’t bring on a relapse of her leukemia. She has won the right to refuse the transplant, with her parents’ consent. She wants to die at home, not in a hospital.

Such huge issues. Each one of them strikes close to my home, and most likely to some of yours. They give rise to valuable discussion at the water cooler, the dinner table and the car ride to the mall.

So, blogger’s block to me is stuff too large to handle on a one-way dialogue. There’s never enough information on the news. I’m leaving the commentary on these stories to the replies on the news sites.

My heart goes out to these parents and the depths of their despair. I close this post the way I close my posts on Graydon’s CaringBridge cancer battle blog: hug your kids tightly.

Next posting here: Meet-a-Blogger Monday!

The bunny chewed on my homework

Yesterday I was all full of energy and positive Mummying and runaway enthusiam when I said the subject of today’s posting would be Thank You notes for Luka’s birthday gifts. Brides get a month to get that junk together, and I give myself one evening?!?!

What was I thinking? I forgot that Tessa (my staff photographer) had a dance performance last night, and she is the keeper of her camera. I won’t touch it. So, no photos out to parents to ask for permisssion to post here.

Plus, after getting Luka after school we had to do groceries and fisheries (groceries for fish, btw), because even though