meditations of a blueberry

Ever feel like this after reading something online? What is it about the internet that seems to fuel fights? I have both seen and experienced the issues that come from the written word being taken the wrong way. People have been hurt, and are hurt daily, due to the way someone worded a comment, blog post, or email. It can be so hard to know how someone means something when you don't have their voice and body language to help. What drives me crazy about this issue, is that we KNOW this. Social media has been around for quite awhile in some form or another; it's not like we are still "getting to know it."  That being said, there are people in older generations that have just discovered how great Facebook is for keeping in touch, and may not be as "internet savvy" as my generation. I get that, and I tend to give my parent's generation a little more leeway (but not my parents, we have had a computer and been connected for as long as you COULD be connecte...

For some reason, when you become a parent people think they need to offer you advice, ask bizarre questions and tell you their horror stories. These offers of unsolicited advice actually start when you are pregnant , and don't end with birth. Even with E being almost 17 months, I am still receiving advice I never asked for! It can get quite frustrating, as there are as many ways to parent your children as there are parents. And just because something worked for one child doesn't mean it will work for another. E is currently going through something (developmental leap?) that is affecting his sleep like nothing else has before. He wakes up constantly, and does NOT want to sleep in his crib. He will sleep on you, but the second you try to put him down in his own bed, he screams. Thank goodness that mrblueberry is an engaged partner who participates in the nighttime parenting. If I had to do this alone, I think I would likely pull out my hair. In my complaining about his sleep issu...

For as long as I can remember, I have gone to a ceremony for Remembrance Day. Most often, it was one done through a school. I am not sure when they started to mean more than getting out of class and going to an assembly to me, but somewhere along the line, I realized what that assembly was actually for. I remember one ceremony in particular. I think I was in Grade 11, and as part of our social studies class, we were required to participate in the ceremony. We rehearsed and performed a sort of "re-enactment" of one of the battles in World War II.  All I remember is the sound of gunfire and having to pretend I was dead in front of our whole school. I remember thinking how awful it would have been to be surrounded by real gunfire. What would those brave soldiers have been thinking as they were hearing that gunfire?  What were those soldiers' brave families thinking as their husbands and wives and sons and daughters were hearing that gunfire? The ceremony that moved me the ...

This is what I've been doing with my week. How about you?