by Heather Plett | Jan 8, 2009 | Uncategorized
We’ve had quite a bit of snow around here and WAY too much cold. The snow is pretty, but the cold? GRRRRrrrr!!! Life goes on, though – we still have to go to work, school, soccer practices, etc. We’re hardy folks and we’ve got a snow-clearing system that’s built up so many years of experience, it can get us up and running in no time.
It seems like, if we have to put up with all of this, the least we could ask for would be at least one decent snow day that shuts down the city so we all have to stay cosily cocooned in our homes. Just one day. Please!
by Heather Plett | Jan 1, 2009 | Uncategorized
It’s been an oddly quiet holiday season this year. Though we had larger family celebrations before and after, the three normally bustling days (Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Eve) were spent quietly at home with just our little nuclear family. It’s been nice. Delightfully boring. (Though some of us are getting a little restless by now – Maddie has draped her bathing suit over the couch, hoping it will subliminally convince me to take her to a pool.)
We’ve all found plenty of time to enjoy our gifts and some of our favourite pastimes (or is that pass-times?)
The book lover…
The art lover…
The music lover…
And the other music lover…
Watching them enjoy their new toys gave me plenty of opportunity to enjoy mine.
by Heather Plett | Dec 22, 2008 | Uncategorized
I like going to a church where the youth can do a series of silly Christmas pageants where Mary gets to speak in hip-hop and sing opera, all while holding a black baby Jesus. After all those years of lily-white Caucasian babies in the manger, we could stand a few more black ones. (Incidentally, Mary was black too, but Joseph was white. Smile.)
I went to see Burn After Reading with my brother this weekend. What a hoot! Just the last 5 minutes alone is worth the price of the movie (especially if you go to the cheap theatre, like we did). But then again, the last 5 minutes wouldn’t be worth anything if it weren’t for the hour and a half before that.
Why oh WHY, after exercising regularly for almost a year, do I still feel fat and lazy and tired most of the time?
How could any one person, no matter how smart he is, be worth $54 million a year? ESPECIALLY when the company he’s running is busy taking a nosedive into the crapper?
I’d be happy if Christmas were over, and we could just settle into a nice quiet week of family time. Whatever the “Christmas spirit” is, I don’t seem to have any of it this year.
by Heather Plett | Dec 19, 2008 | Uncategorized
When I read this piece about the abduction of Zimbabwean human rights defender Jestina Mukoko, my eyes filled with tears. I don’t know her, but I wish I did. I want to know bold people who are willing to risk their lives for the sake of peace. I want to be inspired by them. I want to learn from them, even if the learning calls me out of my comfort zone.
I emailed my friend Pugeni a few days ago (after writing this post) and his reply haunts me. I would like to share it with you, but the last thing I would do would be to risk his safety by publicly posting words that could potentially get him into trouble. Just know that it is both heartbreaking and passionately inspiring. One of the stories he told was of a woman who sold her last cow to buy food for her family. It took a week to get payment, and by the time she was paid, the value had deflated so much that all she could afford was a small bag of sugar. (If you’d like to read more about what he said, feel free to email me.)
It feels so impossible to know what to do in light of these incredibly big problems. Some of you expressed those sentiments on my last blog post about this. I wrestle with this every day and I don’t know the answer. But because we can’t just sit on our hands, let’s try to do SOMETHING. Here’s a little start:
1. Go to this human rights site and send the email they have posted to demand the release of Jestina Mukoko. Will it do any good? I have no idea, but at least it feels like something.
2. Visit sites like this to learn more about peace activism in Africa.
3. Find good organizations that are at least doing a pebble’s worth of good. We can’t solve all of the world’s problems, but at least we can make sure a few people in Zimbabwe get food. You’re welcome to make a contribution to the organization I work for. If you designate it to Zimbabwe, there’s a pretty good chance my friend Pugeni will be involved in the work of distributing it. I can promise you that few people have as much integrity as he does and he will do everything in his power to get the food to people who need it.
4. If you believe in a higher power, pray, pray, PRAY. “Pray the Devil Back to Hell.”
5. Consider sending letters to your government to urge them to seek peace for the people of Zimbabwe. We can’t just let this happen. Surely there must be some kind of global voice that would have enough influence that Mugabe would have no choice but to step down. The Canadian government has already issued a statement about their concern for Zimbabwe, but maybe we need to push them to do and/or say more.
I feel an ache in my heart to go to Zimbabwe, even if all I could do would be to throw my arms around Pugeni and say “Courage, my friend. Courage.”
by Heather Plett | Dec 18, 2008 | Uncategorized
Christmas concert last night. (Well, “winter concert”, actually.) A normal mom would have figured out a week ahead of time what each child was wearing, whether those clothes were clean, whether there were tights to match the dress, and whether the right shoe could be found that matched the appropriate left shoe. But not me – oh no, not me. It’s at those moments that I despair of EVER being a normal mom.
The concert starts at 7:00, we have to leave the house by 6:15, and I get home from work around 5:30. With no clue what my kids will wear to the concert. Given the fact that nobody in our house ever dresses up these days, anything that resembles a dressy outfit is either buried at the bottom of a Rubbermaid box somewhere, or hanging at the back of the closet of the child who outgrew that particular outfit two years ago.
The oldest two kids fend for themselves (and Nikki wasn’t going to the concert anyway, since she’s outgrown it), so I didn’t pay much attention to the fact that Julie was wearing jeans (at least they were black – a little more dressy, right?) and orange plaid runners to the concert. But Maddie – what would Maddie wear? In a rare moment of forethought earlier in the week, I’d at least bought a new pair of black tights, thinking that I’d find a dress somewhere in said Rubbermaid or closets. But um… wouldn’t you know it – this is the week Julie finally got around to thoroughly cleaning her room (because we had a home inspection for an upcoming exchange student visit) and emptied the closet of all the dresses she’d never wanted to wear in the first place – and there was no dress to be found. Except the sparkly silver one that Maddie refused to wear because it had long sleeves AND it itched. The best I could do was the too-short black dress that Maddie had worn as play clothes a few days before that was now at the bottom of her laundry bin (and that I believe she wore to last year’s concert). In my desperation, it seemed clean enough, so we slapped it on and accessorized with one of my beaded necklaces. And shoes – well, we managed to scramble through the right Rubbermaid and found fancy black shoes that fit. Unfortunately, the tights turned out to be about a foot too long, so she had to walk around on huge lumps of folded tights in her shoes.
It wasn’t until we got to the school and I was helping with her shoes that I realized just how dirty the little black dress was. Was that snot all over her sleeves? Play doh? Sigh.
“That’s okay Mom – I’m in the back row anyway. Nobody will see it.”
And so we survived another Christmas concert. And my children have one more story to share with their therapists.
by Heather Plett | Dec 17, 2008 | Uncategorized
Happy Holidays. Merry Christmas. The pressure is on to be happy, merry, and bright. Shiny happy people all lined up in front of a sparkling Christmas tree.
One of my sisters-in-law is coping with the reality of a mother suddenly hospitalized with lots of pain and talk of major surgery. Another sister-in-law is preparing for her recovering-from-a-stroke mother to move into her home and change the fabric of their family. One of my employees is preparing to bury his father this Christmas season, and hopes that his brother will make it to the New Year. An old friend, on top of having a way-too-young husband in a care home because of MS, has been off work for a year because of thyroid problems and major depression.
Happy and Merry probably won’t be in their vocabulary this Christmas.
None of these are really my sadnesses to bear, and yet I feel a little heavy this morning. I’m looking for an alternative greeting for “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”. Maybe just “peace”.
We’ve had quite a bit of snow around here and WAY too much cold. The snow is pretty, but the cold? GRRRRrrrr!!! Life goes on, though – we still have to go to work, school, soccer practices, etc. We’re hardy folks and we’ve got a snow-clearing system that’s built up so many years of experience, it can get us up and running in no time.
