Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!!

Hello, it's only me!!

Yes, I know it's been a while, but I'm still around. Never has there been a more apt blog title than 'Princess of Procrastination'...(and that's a major understatement).

People who know me know just how notoriously BAD I am at keeping up with stuff. I'm pretty sure I have a defective gene when it comes to keeping to a schedule. There are lots of genuine reasons for the lack of blog posts (my full time job, health stuff, lack of inspiration etc), but mostly it's just a case of good old (or bad old) procrastination. I've taken some steps to try and help with this, though.

Book One of The Furry Tale Chronicles

The biggest step was deciding to lay to rest my other blog. I had the best of intentions when I created my Furry Tales Chronicles blog. I wanted to keep my book stuff separate, and continue with the sillies on THIS blog. Trouble is, I can't keep up with one blog, never mind two, and knowing I was neglecting two blogs just made me feel a bit overwhelmed. I'll be posting a short note over there to redirect anyone who stumbles across it over here. I had deleted it initially, but then I realised that the web address is advertised on my publisher's website AND in my 'about the author' notes in my Crimson book. (Duh). But after my little note, there won't be anything new posted over there.

You'll notice that I've added some page tabs at the top of the page. These are just to include the information that was listed on my other blog (see, I did the job properly!). I'm going to do my very best to blog every Monday or Tuesday over here. My usual silliness, most likely (of course!), peppered with personal stuff, and book related stuff as and when there is anything interesting to tell.

Of course, it is January, the month where most people decide to give themselves a kick up the butt, so it's probably no surprise that I decided NOW to be a bit more proactive in my fight against procrastination. But despite 2013 being a GREAT year for me (two books released - yay!), it was also a bit of a sucky year as well. My health hasn't been great, my writing projects received little to no attention, my finances have been skewered, and I've struggled to keep my episodic depression at bay.

I'm determined to do better this year. I want at least one more book under my belt by the end of 2014, and hopefully I can get another novella released, too. I've already been working on SOUL IDENTITY (my epic fantasy), which I plan to publish under my real name when it's eventually finished (most of you know that I publish under a pen name for my romances). And the second of my Furry Tale Chronicles book is well under way. Looking good, so far!

Wedding Wake up call: My son, my daughter, me, & my step-daughter.

My last bit of personal stuff for today is a public declaration of my intention to lose weight this year. You may remember that I lost a whopping 42lbs a few years ago. Unfortunately (as so often happens with us chronic dieters), I put every last pound back on again. *sighs* I did make an effort last year and managed to lose (and keep off) 14lbs, but I gave up far too quickly. Today is the day that I start my new plan. Doctors would tell me that I need to lose 45-50lbs to fall in the 'healthy range', but I'm hoping for a more realistic loss of 30lbs for the time being. That would be put me at around the same weight that I was three years ago, and you know, it felt... nice... not too thin, but definitely not fat. I was recently a bridesmaid for my sister in law, and it was looking at the pictures that gave me the kick up the butt that I needed. Of course, I knew I'd put on weight, but there is nothing like seeing a picture of yourself where you think you look OK, and seeing just how big you've become, to shock you into action. Oh, I know I'm not monstrously huge, but if I'm cringing at the picture, then it's a sure sign that it's time to do something.

I'm not brave enough to publicly announce my actual weight, but I will be giving a weekly update on pounds lost (and not gained, hopefully) over the next few months. Accountability helps.

My Christmas novella, released in December

My last bit of news today (sorry for the extremely long post, but you know, it has been a while *snort*), is that IF THE SHOE FITS is now available in paperback! Yay! I'll get to hold my first book baby in my hands! So far it's only popping up in the US (I've seen it both at Barnes & Noble and Amazon), but it should be showing up in the UK (and other countries, via Amazon) over the next few weeks. I'm tentatively thinking about putting my self-pubbed Christmas novella, MEET ME HALFWAY, out in paperback, too, but at the moment that one is still only available through Amazon's Kindle. I'll let you know if and when that changes!

That's it for now! I'll see you next week, when I'll have some news about promotional stuff for IF THE SHOE FITS. *grins*

On This Day

I've had another one of those blogging breaks, which happen far more often than I'd like them to. This time around, it has been almost three months since I last blogged. I knew what I wanted to blog about when I came back - it's something that I have wanted to blog about for almost as long as I have been blogging -  and my plan had been to blog on the 26th of this month, because it fell on the anniversary of something important to me. But it occurred to me this morning that today is actually the real anniversary for me, for it was on the 20th September 1999 that my life changed drastically.

That might sound overly dramatic, but it is true nonetheless. Now, I am the self-styled Princess of Procrastination. A humorous title, to go with a blog that, for the most part, is pure silliness. For anyone reading this, I should probably warn you that today's post is about as far from silliness as you can get.

But how do I start?

Perhaps I need to explain a little about the morning of September 20th, 1999.

My son, aged eight.

I was 23 at the time. I had the day off from work, but I was awake early anyway. My son was three at the time, and I had to have him ready for nursery that morning. Although it was long before I found out that my son had D.A.M.P. Syndrome (a blanket term for several spectrum disorders), I knew he wasn't quite the same as the other kids at his nursery. He was, even then, showing his obsessive tendencies. He  had already started to worry me with his refusal to eat almost everything we gave to him. His accent was purely American, despite the fact that we lived in Cardiff, the capital city of Wales. Although I didn't know at the time, these were classic symptoms of  D.A.M.P. Syndrome. But, he was also a loving child, and despite his problems, I never really had any trouble with him when he was a toddler.

I was bubbling with excitement on that particular day. After taking my son to nursery, I went home for an hour or so, and then, with my partner, left to meet my parents. I was scheduled for an ultrasound later that morning, and it was the all-important second scan where, as long as they could catch the right angle, I would find out the sex of my baby. I wanted a girl.  I'd always wanted a girl. I'd wanted a daughter the first time around, though I was perfectly happy when I had my son, of course. But I was still young enough - and really, 23 is still only a baby - to want to have a little girl who I could clothe in pretty little dresses with lace and frills and other fripperies. My partner wanted a girl this time around, too.

So there we were, a young couple, incredibly happy, and overflowing with excitement. There were two things that we wanted that morning. First, we wanted to see those fuzzy black and white pictures, showing our baby, and hear the incredible whooshing sound of the heartbeat of a healthy child. And then we wanted to ask the sex of our child.

This is when my life changed, and nothing in my 23 years of living could have prepared me. With hindsight, I can see that maybe I should have had an inkling of what was to come, but at the time, I was too busy being happy. I didn't actually see those fuzzy black and white pictures on the screen - perhaps there is a protocol for situations like these, but truthfully, I don't know. But I did hear that lovely reassuring heartbeat, and I still had a few more seconds of ignorant bliss.

When the radiologist turned to me with a grave look on her face, I started to feel a little nervous. My mother was sat in the room, my partner was holding my hand, and I could see that they both looked a little worried, too. The radiologist quickly popped her head through the door and asked for a doctor, who appeared almost immediately.  A minute or two passed while they studied the screen, and then the doctor calmly turned to me and gently told me that my baby had severe spina bifida and encephalitis.

I only really have impressions of that moment. I don't remember the exact words, just my partner's hand gripping my own, and the incredible feeling of shock that I had. When you hear the term 'reeling with shock', it is exactly right. It sounds strange, but I can clearly remember feeling as if a great force had hit me; my body went numb, and my face felt like someone was stretching it. That's the only way I can describe it. It was suffocating. And there was the strange horror of being told that your baby was essentially dying, which didn't make any sense to me when I could still hear the whooshing heartbeat, and could still feel her moving inside of me.

Yes, it was a girl. The girl we'd all wanted. Not that it would have been easier to hear if it had been a boy, of course, but somehow it was worse to know that it was a girl.

Everything was a blur after that. The gentle ushering from the room, the more detailed explanations in the doctor's office, and the discreet removal from the antenatal ward through the staff hallways, to avoid the waiting room full of happy, expectant mothers.

Despite my initial conviction that I would still have - and love - my daughter no matter what, there was never really any question over what would happen. My daughter had the very worst of worst case scenarios. She would not have survived the pregnancy, never mind the birth. Then followed six days and nights of incredible grief, mingled with continuing disbelief. I couldn't get my head around the fact that my daughter wouldn't survive. I couldn't understand how she could be dying when I could feel her moving around almost constantly.

I had what was termed a 'theraputic termination of pregnancy'. I didn't want to, but there was never really a choice. If she could have survived, I would never have dreamt of doing it. But there was no chance of that.  I already had a little boy who was showing mental illness indications- watching his mother grow huge with a child that he would never even see could have caused him untold damage. And despite my horror at the thought of what I was about to do (I've never believed in abortions), I knew that there was no other way.

I won't go into any details of the events of September 26th, except to say that it was a full labour. Apparently that is the safest thing for the mother in situations like these. I was half way through my pregnancy, and the labour was as brutal as if it had been a full-term birth. Except, of course, that in every minute of those long 10 hours, I was aware of the fact that there would be no joy at the end of it.

There were so many heartbreaking moments during the whole process. Of course, I was utterly devastated  throughout, but there were also the moments when, incredibly, the pain was worse than ever, and it would hit me like a punch to the gut, echoing my initial reaction to the first time I was told my daughter wouldn't survive. The birth itself was a painful haze, and I thought I couldn't possibly survive it. The morning after, when I started producing milk, was almost as bad as the labour itself. Then the nightmare days that followed, trying to stay bright and cheerful for my son, trying to pretend that everything was OK. The endless crying. Most of all, the sight of my partner carrying that tiny white coffin on the day we buried her.

Fourteen years later, I still don't think I'll ever fully recover from the loss of my daughter. I don't think anyone ever truly recovers from an experience like that. There are a multitude of horrors in this world, but the loss of a child is profound, and it changes you.

I went on to have another daughter, but she hasn't replaced my first. I remember her every day, and always

My son and daughter.

will. My son doesn't remember anything of these events, although he knows what happened. I'm thankful for that. And while I'll always grieve for my lost daughter, I'm always mindful of the fact that she made it possible for my second daughter to exist. It doesn't make it any less painful, but it at least makes me feel that I'm not a terrible mother for making the 'choice' that I did.

I love all my children equally, whether they're with me or not. My two living children, who make me proud every day. The daughter I lost. And Baby Smith, who I miscarried over twenty years ago. All loved. And all a part of my family.

So today I remember my first daughter, six days ahead of her birthday. I remember that, despite the trauma and heartbreak of her birth and death, I have a lot to be thankful for. I have two beautiful children, the second of which wouldn't be here if my first daughter had survived.

Can one child ever replace another? Of course not. As I said, I love all my children equally, and there will always be grief in my life for the daughter who wasn't meant to be. But I am recovered as much as I ever could be. It's always painful to think of her, but the tears eventually stopped. When I think of her now, I still hear the whooshing of her heartbeat, and remember the feeling of her moving inside of me. Strangely, that comforts me.  She was with me for so short a time, but I at least have memories of her being alive. And because of that, her memory will always live on.

Dedicated to Amber Marie Smith.

Princess Promo: Paws and Print

Most of you know that I am probably the most disorganised person in Blogland. I think the lack of organisation skills goes hand in hand with being a procrastinator (as well as being easily distracted, because I'm also away with the fairies most of the time). Anyway, well over a month ago, I decided that I needed to have a regular spot for guests. Something promotional. Something that could highlight a person (or a website) who deserved a little Promo Love. Now, I'm not going to lie, my version of a 'regular spot' will most likely differ from others, in that I will of course become sidetracked, forgetful, and fall foul of my procrastinating. But the good intention is there, and whether I post once a week, or once a month (which is far more likely, let's be honest here), 'Princess Promo' is now officially one of my post labels, *nods*

This first promotional post is special for a couple of reasons.

While searching for possible reviewers for my debut release, I came across Erin, who is just fabulous. She is fairly new to reviewing, and her website is also a recent debut. Erin is wonderful, and I'm not just saying that because she read my book and told me she 'adored' it. As soon as I saw her website, I knew that I needed to make her my first highlight in my promotional posting effort.

Her website is called Paws and Print, and you should definitely go and check it out. First, isn't that a wonderful name for a website? Two of my favourite things in one title, and the alliteration is also cool (I love me some alliteration!). I may be wrong, but I'm going to hazard a guess that the 'Prints' is referencing the fact that Erin is a reviewer. And her review policy is AWESOME. As well as offering the usual read, review, and post reviews at Amazon and Goodreads (par for the course for any reviewer worth their salt), she also states quite clearly that she is an 'upbeat' reviewer. Let me show you what she says...

On Paws and Print, I will review books that I have purchased, requests from authors and those I receive from tour companies as part of a promotional tour. No matter the source, all the reviews include my own opinions, and are not influenced by outside sources. 

I post honest reviews, which means I will let you know the good along with the bad. Keep in mind, I enjoy many kinds of books and I believe that nearly everything has an audience (even if it's not me). I always try to keep my reviews truthful, but upbeat. If I am reviewing something I truly don't enjoy as part of a promotional tour, I may withhold a paw print rating. 

All my reviews are cross promoted on Facebook & Twitter. They are also reprinted on Amazon and Goodreads. 

Ratings 

I utilize the same 1 through 5 rating system used by Amazon and Goodreads. Most often, you will find 3, 4 and 5 star reviews here, as I do not like to post negative reviews. 

3 Paw Prints--It's a good book, worth reading. I enjoyed this book, but there is probably nothing that makes it stand out. It is not the type of book I would be reading over and over (most likely). 

4 Paw Prints--I really liked this book. It is something I am recommending and probably worth a second read. 

5 Paw Prints--These are the special books, the ones I truly love. These are the books you will likely find me talking about, purchasing for friends and giving away to others.

Isn't that fab? One of the scariest aspects of seeking reviews is the fear that you will get flamed. Erin's policy takes away most of that fear (though not all, because for me, I will always be scared of reviews *snort*). Right away, I knew I wouldn't be dithering over requesting a review with this lady, and trust me, normally I dither for a long time before I fill out a request form.

But then I saw what her website was really about, and I immediately knew that whether this lady loved or hated my book, she deserved a little promo love. You see, the 'Paws' part of her title is referencing her wonderful intention behind the website. 

I was going to explain in my own words, but again, I think I'll just copy over what Erin has on the page, because I really think it needs to be read exactly as she phrased it herself...

Shop Mission 

The Paws and Print Shop is going to be our avenue for supporting rescue pets. You will find a wide variety of custom crochet items and ready to ship items. Each month, 15% of our sales will go to support local rescue charities in the form of a monetary donation or by purchasing goods needed by the shelters. While I support charities in the Philadelphia area, I know that pets all over the country need our help. So, if you have a favorite charity in need of a little love, please send me an email at erinlindsey(dot)maurer(at)gmail(dot)com. 

In addition to monthly donations, we will also feature items just for your pets. Currently, those are our pet bandanas, but more items will be added. For each item sold, a duplicate will be made and sent to help rescue pets in need.

Now, tell me that's not fabulous. Really. I bet you can't. *nods wisely* Seriously, this just warms the cockles of my animal-loving heart. What an awesome idea for supporting the many animals in need of rescue, love, and support. Not only is Erin donating much needed dollars from her proceeds, but she is duplicating every order she receives and donating the spare to an animal in need.

It's just all around awesome. So please, spare a moment and pop along to Erin's wonderful website. And even if you don't buy anything, spread the word. This lady has started a wonderful project, and I think it deserves to be recognised.

Here endeth my first official promotional post. I hope it does what I wanted it to do. Spread the love, people, spread the love...

Serious Soapbox

This wasn't intended to be a blog post, merely a reply on one of my status updates on Facebook. Last night I posted a short statement on my Facebook page, which was as follows:

"Another senseless shooting spree at a primary school over the pond. Twenty-seven lives lost, eighteen of them little more than babies. Love & sympathy to all those affected by this atrocity. The lives lost is sickening enough, but one of the worst things is knowing that this will happen again, when another sicko decides it's time to go on a rampage. All the love, sympathy and prayers are not going to bring back those innocent victims. Cut the crap & stop the debate on whether it is your 'right' to own a firearm if you choose. Civilians shouldn't be allowed guns, end of debate. It won't stop this from happening again, but the risk will be greatly reduced, and if even one innocent child is saved by this, surely it is worth sacrificing the 'right' to own something that is lethal in the wrong hands."

I rarely post a serious status update. I rarely get on a soapbox and 'preach'. But when I got home yesterday, my FB feed was, understandably, full of status updates about what happened yesterday. While nearly every single status expressed shock, support and sympathy for the victims, the majority ALSO contained reasons why guns should or shouldn't be considered a constitutional 'right' to own or not.

I don't pretend to know the gun legislation of all (or any) countries, and I don't pretend to understand the ins and outs of the constitutional rights of American citizens. But what I DO understand is that FAR too many people start throwing political arguments around in the aftermaths of these horrible situations, and it makes my blood boil.

The thing that really got my back up was seeing x amount of people churning out the 'guns don't kill people, people do' argument (or various forms of it). I'm sorry, but no. You can play on words as much as you like, but while this sentiment is technically true, the simple fact is you can't shoot people unless you have a gun.

Sadly, we all know that this won't be the last time that something like this happens. And it's not restricted to America, it happens the world over. The inescapable truth is that while we all proclaim outrage and disgust whenever something like this occurs, we have become cynically desensitised to it. While we are fighting to keep our rights, we are forgetting the very real consequences of them.

The truth is that the majority of these tragedies occur when an unbalanced person loses control and proceeds to do something that would normally be as alien to them as it is to anyone else. It is also true that an inanimate object cannot be blamed, just the person who is wielding it.

But you cannot argue against logic. Twenty-seven people would not have been shot yesterday if guns were not so easily accessible. While everyone was debating their constitutional right to own a gun in America, somewhere in China a similar event unfolded. Another unbalanced person entered a school with an intent to hurt a large number of people, children included. This person, however, did not have a gun.  His intentions were clearly much the same as the shooter in Connecticut, but his choice of spreading chaos was to stab as many people as he could. This event was just as horrific as the shootings in Connecticut, but with one highly significant difference. There were no fatalities. More than twenty children (and one adult), will have nightmares for the rest of their lives probably, but they are alive. Not so those poor victims in Connecticut.

There will always be mentally ill people in the world. There will always be people who suddenly, sometimes without any kind of warning, lose control and temporarily become a killing machine. This will never be controlled. But we can at least attempt to control the weapon of choice that these people use during their flights of madness.

While everyone debates over whether they should have the right to own a gun or not, the consequences are buried beneath political rants. As I said in my original status update, cut the crap and end the debate. Civilians should not be able to own a gun. As a weapon, it is one of the most destructive. Take it out of their hands, and an unbalanced person has fewer options to spread their murderous intent. It will not STOP their murderous intent, but the consequences just might not be so severe, as the events in China yesterday clearly demonstrated.

There are those of you who will say that making guns illegal will not stop people from getting one, and you would be right. Making something illegal does not stop people from obtaining it. But it makes it much more difficult, and that is surely a very big step in the right direction.

Maybe once the debate for owning a gun has been removed, we can start to address the bigger problem which is, sadly, perhaps pushed to one side whenever these atrocities happen. While we keep debating over the gun issue, nothing is being done to address the very real underlying problem. Take away the gun part of the issue, and start focusing on the social problem instead. As a society, we have become far too blase about violence in general. We mouth platitudes and sympathy when things like this happen. We mouth them genuinely, but they are platitudes nonetheless.

We need more education and support in place for the mentally ill. There will always be people who slip through the net, but maybe, just maybe, we can help and support these people before they reach snapping point.

And when we can't? Maybe they will be unable to get hold of a gun, as the man in China couldn't. Maybe they will set out to kill as many people as they can, but will fail.

Cut the crap. End the debate. Guns DO kill people.

A Different Princess

Most people who click on my blog link expect to find a crazy post with a funny image, and that is what you will find for the most part. I make no effort to pretend that this page is anything other than what it is - an outlet for my loopiness.

My readership varies; I have family and friends from 'The Real World' who regularly stop by, then there's my online buddies who I've known for years, my blogging buddies who stumbled on my blog right at the start, and my newest followers, who found me through last month's April A-Z Challenge.

Why I am rambling? Well, I thought that a short ramble would help to ease the serious subject into the post - nobody wants to be thrust into seriousness right from the off, it can be a little disorientating, especially if you are expecting a rude limerick or a bit of Taffing.

The truth is, this blog came to be because I needed a bit of escapism, and it probably ended up being a kind of therapy too. My online persona has always been a slightly exaggerated version of me, a version that is a little bit naughty and a lot crazy. When I first started blogging in 2009, I had no idea that I suffered from episodic depression. Well, I knew that I had periods of 'The Blues', but I didn't realise that they were anything other than normal. I mean, everyone feels down now and again, don't they?

My 'Blues' started way back when I was a teen, and having these periods of blackness so often over the years kind of made me a little immune to them. They came so often that they were just something that I expected. They were a part of me, just like my hair's tendency to curl was a part of me. They were just something that I had to deal with, rather like the annoying cough that I get every winter.

It wasn't until I hit a really big wall of blackness last year that I understood that feeling like crap wasn't something I had to deal with alone. I had been suffering bouts of depression over the years without realising it. They had been coming in spurts, and they rarely lasted longer than a few days, so I had put them down to just feeling sorry for myself (I can be a bit of a Drama Queen). With hindsight, I can see that these small bursts of depression were very clear warning signs. I'd basically been sitting on a time bomb. It wasn't a question of if I would ever hit the point of a breakdown, it was when.

Obviously there are triggers, and over the years there have been many. I think my stubbornness was part of what helped me to stave off the inevitable falling to pieces that was waiting for me. I was too busy looking after my kids to be bothered with an irksome breakdown, after all. Of course, the culmination of all of the little bouts of depression eventually caught up with me, and all I needed was one last trigger to set me on the path to losing the plot.

I am still flabbergasted at the extent of my deterioration when that final trigger came. I'd read lots over the years about people who suffered depression, about how they couldn't function normally, about how they felt so bad that they didn't want to get out of bed, about how they often had suicidal thoughts. I always had sympathy for these people, but I never really 'got' it. I never truly understood how anyone could feel so low that they thought dying would be a better alternative to living.

Now I 'get' it. I am only thankful that I had children to ground me during my lowest point, because I am pretty sure that if it wasn't for them I would have contemplated suicide myself. Only the thought of leaving them motherless was enough to keep me from doing something stupid. Just as they wouldn't be around without me, I surely wouldn't be around without them.

Now this post isn't supposed to be all dark and depressing, it really isn't. After a few months of trial and error, my doctor finally found medication that helped me. It's taken over a year, and that year has been hard, no question, but I am now back to my normal self. Oh, I still have moments of darkness, true, but that is part and parcel of being me. That will never change. The difference is now I know that these periods of blues will go away. I don't have to keep plodding along and hoping for the best, or bury my negative feelings so deep that they fester inside of me.

The medication blocks the worst of the feelings, but it's having an outlet that allows me to be silly that really completes the treatment. Making people laugh brings a smile to my face. I know that sounds like a cliche, but it's true. My natural inclination when it comes to writing fiction is to write dark and emotional stuff, believe it or not, but my blog has never been that way. I don't know how or why, but my blog became my playground. Maybe my subconscious knew that I needed a place to be silly, and thus the Princess of Procrastination was born. Maybe my Inner Nut came forward and forced her way on to the page, pushing my darker self into the background.

How ever it happened, I'm really glad that it did.

To finish, I just want to say that if you know anyone who suffers from depression, or suffer from it yourself, please, please, please be aware that it does get better. I'm by no means an expert, and I'm not arrogant enough to believe that that my own experience of it is the worst that it can get, but what I do know is that it's not permanent. It might feel like it is, but it isn't. Take whatever help is available, whether that's support from your family and friends, medication, or even making a silly blog page. You don't need to be superhuman to get through depression, you just need to know that you're not alone, and that you don't need to hide. It's not something to be ashamed of, and it's not something that can't be overcome.

Here endeth the serious post.

What's Wrong With These People??

The picture is poor quality, so you can't really see how bad the welt is, but this is the state of my son's leg at the moment. He also has a large welt around his ankle area on the same leg.

Why?

Because about an hour and a half ago,  some 16 year old kid thought it would be fun to attack my son with a large tree branch. The little ****** came from nowhere, attacked my son, tackled him to the ground (with another friend to help him), and all the while another sadistic little sh*t recorded the whole incident on his mobile phone.

You know, I'm so angry right now that I can't even compose my thoughts properly. What the hell is going on in this world??

Think Before You Speak

Before I start Natasha's final blog request ('Let's all be friends.'), I want to quickly say 'thank you' again for the replies to my recent spate of blogs. I'm (obviously) able to get onto Blogger and schedule my posts, but the comments section still isn't working for me. *mutters darkly* Hopefully the start of the new week tomorrow will make Blogger comment-friendly again for me...

So this final request from Natasha is pretty apt for me to blog about because I am the type of person who hates confrontation and generally will keep my mouth firmly closed in order to keep the peace. I absolutely hate arguing and will do almost anything to avoid it. Now and again I lose my temper, usually when it involves sticking up for my kids, but most of the time I will bite my tongue and smile. I just think it's better to not say anything at all rather than say so much that you will regret it forever.

Not that I'm a total doormat, don't get me wrong. I suppose I do tend to let people get away with a bit too much, but as long as nobody is being harmed  in any way, I'm pretty easy going by nature.

Of course, I'm no saint, so while I am outwardly smiling, sometimes I am inwardly seething and itching to say what is on my mind. Thankfully I am a very, very patient woman, so I am usually able to overcome the urge to rant at someone who is annoying me.

The problem with being patient though, is that at some point you do eventually snap. I can go months and months of putting up with a crappy situation before I finally lose my temper and actually say something. A prime example was when my son was being bullied a few years ago. The child responsible for terrorizing my boy for almost three years lived at the bottom of my street so I saw him (and his mother) most days. Time after time I knocked at their house and politely asked the mother to have a chat with her boy and try to put a stop to his threatening and abusive behaviour. Then one day I just snapped.

My son was walking a few feet in front of me one morning, and Master Bully came from nowhere and shoved him so hard that he fell flat on his face. The other child ran off laughing while I checked to see if my son was ok, and I immediately reported the incident to the headmistress of their school. Fortunately the incident happened on school grounds and there was CCTV footage, so the other child couldn't deny it.

Anyway, the following morning the mother confronted me in the street just after I'd taken my kids to school. She was nice at first, and apologised for her son's behaviour. But then she tried blaming my boy and I saw red. Usually when kids argue or fight, you don't know who is at fault as one will always blame the other, but because I had witnessed the incident first hand, I knew that my son wasn't at fault.

I'm partly proud and partly ashamed to admit that I screamed at this woman in the middle of the street for about five minutes straight, and was fairly bitchy about everything too. She moved her family away a couple of months later, and I have a feeling that it was because of the screaming match that we had. *shifty* Like I said, I'm a patient person and will put up with a lot, but don't mess with my kids.

But to get back to what this blog post is supposed to be about, I admit that while I am happy that I stood up for my child, I still wish that things could have been resolved more amicably. I would much rather have a civilized conversation with someone instead of shouting and letting forth a fairly steady stream of curse words (yeah, I was 'duck' this and 'bluddy' that all over the place that day, but you know... I AM a Taffy after all).

Thankfully I rarely lose my temper, and it really does take an awful lot to ignite it in the first place. As much as I would love to have a go at a number of people for many different reasons, I am glad that I can control the urge to do so. It has meant that I mostly have a confrontation-free life, and that is a good thing.

I will always advocate speaking your mind and standing up for yourself, but it should be done in a calm way if at all possible. Aggression feeds aggression, spite feeds spite, etc etc. The world would be a far better place if people could just exercise a little restraint and diplomacy. I'm friends with a lot of people, but there's always room for more. Sometimes it may be impossible to be friends with certain people, I admit, but if that is the case, smile sweetly and walk away. It's hard, it's sometimes galling, but if you can't be friends it doesn't mean you have to be enemies.

Not openly anyway. *shifty* And for the few people over the years who have rubbed me the wrong way, it gives a certain satisfaction to know that I've mostly stayed true to myself. I've always strived to be the nice person that everyone would want for a friend, the type of person who I would want for my own friend. Treat others as you would want to be treated yourself, that's my motto. And usually it works.

Birds, Bees, Storks and Cabbage Patches

Natasha's fourth topic request is 'Of Birds and Bees', and it's probably one of the most fitting topics to ask a mother to blog about. Having to explain the ins and outs of the facts of life to your kids is one of the most terrifying things a mother (or father) will ever do. The explaining of the subject itself is bad enough, because no matter how open you are, your child will always have a question or two that will make you squirm. But that's not what 's so terrifying; what's so awful about it is knowing that one of your babies is getting to the stage where they could possibly have babies of their own.

Of course, kids tend to know all about sex and stuff at an earlier age than they would have a century or so ago. With modern times came so-called modern attitudes towards sex in general. A century ago, if you weren't married and you engaged in sexual activity, you were severely frowned upon. Of course, men could do it and get away with it - it wasn't openly admitted to of course, that wasn't the done thing, but everybody knew, and they would turn a blind eye. A woman would be branded a loose woman with no morals - no turning a blind eye for them.

Anyway (digressing aside), in today's world of teenage pregnancies and relative acceptance of sexual orientation, plus the obligatory sex education at school, kids are far more knowing about the subject than they strictly should be. I'm all for having our kids being fully informed, but I really believe that in our efforts to protect them from sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies, we are stealing a little bit of their youthful innocence.

I was clueless about sex up until the age of about fourteen, when I ended up looking up stuff in a dictionary just to find out what my friends were talking about. My search for enlightenment was triggered by a teasing session at school, when some more savvy kids started asking me whether my mother was a virgin or not. I'd heard the word before, of course, but I didn't actually know what it meant. Imagine my embarrassment when I looked it up and realised that everyone had been taking the mick out of me. With this slightly mortifying memory still painfully embedded in my head, I can definitely see how educating our kids on the basic facts of life can not only protect them from unwanted diseases, but also save them from being teased.

But part of me wishes that we could get away with the stork stories and cabbage patch theories for as long as possible. My son is fourteen and pretty clued up about everything to do with sex, and I never really had to do anything because he learned it all from his school lessons, friends, and the media. This is as it should be - I definitely wouldn't want any of my kids to be as clueless as I was at fourteen.  But my daughter knows mostly everything too, and she's not yet nine. Nine! I mean, when I was nine I was happily playing with my Barbie dolls and thought babies were made from kissing alone. When somebody mentioned the birds and the bees, I knew they were talking about how babies were made, but I had a vague idea that it had something o do with those trusty stalks, and perhaps honey was involved somewhere along the way.

My daughter was about seven when she suddenly blurted out that she knew how babies were made. I smiled indulgently and asked her what she knew, totally unprepared for what she would say. She said, and I quote; "Babies are made by a husband and a wife who love each other, and they get naked and do lots of kissing, and the man gets on top."

Okay, so she didn't know the precise details, but having my seven year old knowing even this much was shocking. Maybe I'm too prudish, but it was definitely too much information as far as I was concerned.

There isn't an acceptable age for a child to know the facts of life - all children mature at different rates, and what is right for one child is not right for another - but I firmly believe that children under the age of ten should be kept blissfully innocent of the whole shebang. Let our children be children before they find out how to have children.

A Healthy Dose of Realism

Usually I blog about writing topics (or posts loosely based on writing topics at any rate), and sometimes I descend into madness and Taff for a paragraph or ten. Other times I have taken bonkers requests, or I've  just rambled about nothing in particular. Today I'm still going to ramble (I wouldn't be me otherwise), but it's going to be a pretty serious topic. Today I'm going to talk about illnesses.

Some of my family members suffer from a number of illnesses, mental disorders and genetic and congenital diseases. so I'm pretty clued up about a lot of things. It's actually quite scary to sit down and contemplate all of the health problems that we collectively suffer from.

My older sister has a congenital heart problem. Well, describing it as a heart problem is pretty stupid to be fair, because her heart issues are not the half of it. Her heart is on the wrong side of her chest and the chambers don't work properly, her stomach is only a third of the size that it should be, other major organs are in the wrong place, and her main arteries and blood vessels are completely screwed. She'd had two heart bypasses by the time she was eleven years old, and at aged sixteen she had pioneering surgery to re-route some of her main arteries in the hope of giving her a better blood and oxygen supply. Added to this, she suffered multiple strokes before she was twenty-five years old.There is a name for her condition (it has the word 'transpostion' in there somewhere), but it's so long and convoluted that I can never remember it. The condition is rare, not hereditary, and has sufferers in the thousands - not millions - worldwide. I'm pretty sure there are only a handful of people in the UK who have the same condition actually, that's how rare it is.

Then there is my younger sister, who was diagnosed as bipolar several years ago. She struggled a hell of a lot in her youth with all aspects of life, but the eighties wasn't a decade known for its enlightenment of mental health issues, so her problems were overlooked. To this day she can't deal with the public in any shape or form, and is unable to work as she has difficulty interacting with people. She will be thirty next month, and though she is married and has a home of her home, she is still largely isolated.

My mother, who has had to deal with one seriously ill child and one child with severe behavioural problems over the years, is no stranger to illness herself. She had minor health issues in her youngers days, but the last two years has seen a surge of problems for her. What initially started as high blood pressure, which is bad enough in itself, has escalated into her starting to lose the feeling in her legs. You see, the medication for her blood pressure caused some of the nerves in her brain to enlarge, which in turn was causing her extreme headaches and numbness of the face. She had brain surgery earlier this year which has largely fixed the problem, but her recovery from the surgery was hampered by the need to have a drain fitted to remove excess fluid from her brain. The spinal drain appears to have caused nerve damage to her spine, thus leaving her with drastically weakened leg function. Last year she was an active woman who was always on the go, this year she hobbles around like a pensioner, yet she is still several years away from the big 6-0.

Then there are my children. My eldest suffers from DAMP Syndrome, which is a blanket term for A.D.H.D, autism, dyspraxia, and a number of other disorders. He has elements from half a dozen disorders, though the predominant problem is the A.D.H.D. I could type for hours about the problems we have had over the years, but I won't. Suffice to say that after the hours I have spent researching, I could probably answer most questions relating to these disorders.

Then there is my daughter, who I lost almost eleven years ago. After a routine scan in my fifth month of pregnancy, I was told that my daughter had hydrocephalus and spina bifida. The damage to her brain and spine was so severe that even in the unlikely event of her surviving pregnancy to full term, she would not have survived childbirth.

To add to this, my husband is also a carrier for the Cystic Fibrosis gene, so my step-daughter has the disease. CF is an awful disease that affects the lungs mostly, but also has impact on the digestive system. Life expectancy for CF sufferers has improved in the last decade or so, though we're still a long way away from finding the medication that can give the sufferers of this disease both a better quality of life, and a chance to see their forties.

If you're still reading this, you might be wondering why I am talking about all these health problems. I guess you could say that the recent decline in my mother's health  (as well as my own experience with episodic depression) has made me look at things a little more closely.

My elder sister doesn't have a good quality of life, yet she actively keeps involved with the family and doesn't for one minute bemoan her situation. She never complains about her significant problems, and rarely lets things get her down.

My younger sister, despite her mental health issues, has managed to move away from home and settle into married life with her husband. She is also making moves to further her education in the hopes of improving her confidence so that she might one day be able to cope with working with people on a daily basis.

My mother, in spite of her deteriorating health, still puts everyone else first and devotes all of her time to her family, despite my having told her off for it far too many times to remember.

My son has battled not only his mental disorders, but also verbal and physical abuse from his peers for most of his life, yet he is now embarking on his GCSE's and participating in a weekly mechanics course that will hopefully lead to employment when he leaves school.

My step-daughter, who is eighteen, is a typical teenager who recently passed her driving test and is enjoying life with her friends and family, not for one moment letting her illness stop her from achieving anything that she wants.

Do you see a pattern here?

All of these people, along with the millions of people worldwide who suffer from not only these illnesses, but others too, haven't given up. They've taken the crappy hand that was dealt to them and pretty much stuck their fingers up at Fate and carried on regardless.

It's kind of humbling, yes? And also a little guilt-inducing for your typical procrastinator. Life is short (I know that's a cliche, but it's true), and we get thrown huge curve balls when we least expect them. Maybe it's time to rethink my philosophy on life, because sometimes tomorrow isn't another day after all.

Don't Blow Your Top!

Day four of requests (which I'm thinking about extending to a full week rather than five days, by the way), and today's topic was suggested by my good HPANA buddy, Auriga. I'm going to immediately warn you that I have no idea what I'm going to end up typing here, because the subject that was given to me was the recent events concerning the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland  (I had to copy and paste that one, I can't say it, never mind spell it).

I've visited the mostly trusty Wikipedia and read up on a few things, but seeing as Wiki tends to use lots of big words that, like the Eyja -thingy volcano, I can neither pronounce or spell (nor understand for that matter), I think I can safely say that what you won't be getting today is a clear and concise blog post. But honestly, that rarely happens anyway, so I'm not overly worried.

Apparently, the Volcano Now To Be Called 'Eyja' To Avoid Further Typos, while causing localized problems for the inhabitants of Iceland, has done little more than cause a few hiccups for several airlines. The cloud of ash that is still being emitted from Unpronounceable Eyja is spreading across international airspace and causing highly inconvenient interruptions and cancellations to flight traffic. I say 'little more' because although the media is rushing to report these delays and giving doomy predictions of dire consequences, nothing terribly bad has actually happened yet.

I mean, yes, the effects on importing and exporting, if affected in the long term, will cause all sorts of economic problems, but it's hard to get worked up about it when so far all it has done (for me) is cause a slight delay in receiving the goods I have ordered on eBay. That may sound like I'm being incredibly dim, or perhaps burying my head in the sand, but living in a world where we keep hearing all sorts of reports of a Serious Nature, but rarely have to deal with them coming to pass, maybe you can see what I'm getting at.

Remember the panic of 1999? The whole world was in chaos as we counted down to the new millennium. Employment from the End Of The World Is Nigh placard company surely sky-rocketed, and the media was in competition for the Who Can Report On The Millennium Bug Most Often trophy. Doomy people everywhere were convinced that at the stroke of midnight, the world would spontaneously combust, or something equally catastrophic. And what happened? Well, apart from a few computer glitches, pretty much nothing. Very anti-climatic. Not that I wanted the world to spontaneously combust, you understand, but a few bells and whistles here and there might have been nice.

Of course, the threat from the Eyja volcano is based on scientific studies and what-not, so the warnings carry a little more weight. The most concern seems to be about Eyja's bigger (and easier to spell ) sister, Katla. Apparently, Katla has some serious activity every 80 years or so, and is over a decade overdue for another seismic event ( does anyone else see innuendo in that sentence?). Another apparently, is that the last three times Katla has exploded, it has been following an eruption from Eyja. Oh dear.

You see, Katla is Eyja's evil big sister, and an eruption from her could be about ten times as catastrophic when compared to her younger sibling. Wiki informed me that while not technically classed as a 'Supervolcano' (so no blue lycra or a red cape on this baby), Katla has the potential to cause all sorts of bad things when she erupts. Of course, they don't have any idea of when she will erupt, only that she will at some point. They also don't know how serious an eruption it will be, but are dutifully reporting the worst case scenario so that the world will be prepared.

The scary thing is, a huge eruption from Katla has the potential to drop the climate worldwide (don't know how this works, the techy stuff went over my head). Apparently (my fave word of the day, apparently *snort*), it was an eruption from a supervolcano that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. *nods* So, the impression I am getting from all these doomy and gloomy possible scenarios, is that if and when Katla has a seismic episode, it could potentially cause the planet to slip into another Ice Age. On a scale of one to ten on the Worldwide Panic Scale, that's definitely at the higher end.

So what does this mean for us? That was the question Auriga posed when she suggested today's blog topic. Well, to be honest, I don't really know. I mean,  I'm slightly more clued up than I was yesterday, but I'm still largely befuddled by the whole thing. In the simplest of terms, if Eyja continues to spew up tons of ash, it will continue to disrupt airline traffic in the foreseeable future, which will have a knock on effect on world trade and the general economy. This is bad, no question, but quite likely the least of our problems if big sister Katla decides to follow in her sibling's footsteps. If Katla starts erupting, we are quite possibly doomed. Doomed, I say, doomed.

Unless you work for the media, that is, because if you do, you will have a field day.

Next request?

Me, Myself & It.

After yesterday's silliness, today's blog is on a more sombre note, so if you've clicked on a link expecting to find something silly/random/insane etc, then you might want to hit the back button.

Today's blog title is, unsurprisingly, referring to me, your humble blogger. I'm naturally inclined to be depressed, though I try my best to be upbeat as much as I possibly can. The 'Me', 'Myself', and 'It' I'm referring to are actually the three versions of me that make up the complete Tara. I'm mostly in the 'It' zone at the moment, and I thought that defining my three personalities on today's blog might help me on my way towards being 'Me' again, which is the version of Tara I like best. If you're still reading, this would be the time to hit that back button before you get sucked into the black hole that is my murky mind.

Me

This is the best version of Tara, definitely. This is the version that wrote wacky blogs for two solid months and somehow managed to make people laugh. This is the me that made a bunch of wonderful friends online through writing (mostly mediocre) Harry Potter fan fiction. This is the me that has such a filthy mind that she snorts and giggles at the silliest of things and usually gets raised eyebrows in return. This is the me that makes typos and boken keboaz the funniest things in the world. This is the me who glomps everyone and wiggles her eyebrows suggestively at the merest hint of smut. This is the me that believes that she's not the fattest, ugliest, or least talented or boring woman on the planet. This is the me that believes that one day she will be recognised as an author by more than her closest friends. This is definitely the me that I want to be.

Myself

Onto slightly darker stuff now. This version of me thinks that everything she does is crap. This version of me looks in a mirror and sees nothing but fat staring back at her. This version of me has bags under her eyes so big that she could pack luggage for a family of four for a round the world cruise. This version of me lies awake most nights even though she is so exhausted she should be snoring her head off. This version of me doubts everything, from her writing to her looks. This version of me wants to crawl into a corner and hibernate for at least the next century. This version of me doesn't want to eat, sleep, talk.... well, doesn't want to do anything really. Apathy is not Tara's friend, no sirree.

Then again, as much as I hate it when 'Myself' comes for a visit, I would far rather feel lethargic than play host to 'It', who unfortunately seems to be appearing far more regularly than she used to, and usually follows a period of 'Myselfness'.

It

Now for anyone still reading, I applaud you. I also warn you that this is the part that gets darker than Anakin Skywalker's trusty helmet. When I titled today's blog, it might have been more technically accurate to call it 'Me, Myself & I', but make no mistake, it wasn't a typo that I thought to leave as it was and run with it. I purposely chose 'It' because an 'It' is exactly how I'd describe this third version of me. It's an 'It' because I don't recognise any part of this version as being part of Tara. This version of me is paranoid, obsessive, destructive, angry, defeated, bitchy, tearful (well, 'sobful' would be a better term but that's not a real word), edgy and nervous. This version of me constantly has a foot tapping or a finger twitching, and is usually found to be staring into space (when she's not sobbing like a baby, that is). This version of me doesn't know what the hell she's doing half of the time. This version of me is damaging, no question.

So What The Hell Is This All About?

If I pretend that these versions are somebody else I can be objective. Logically I know that when 'It' comes for a visit, that's all it will be - a visit. Granted, usually she outstays her welcome by a longshot, but she definitely goes away at some point. When 'Myself' is in residence it is much the same; she'll stay longer than That Person who leaves the party hours after its finished, but eventually you can get rid of her. Logically I know this. But when it comes to Me, Myself & It, logic doesn't mean diddly squat. Pretending that this three-way Tara is somebody else doesn't really help in the long term.

I'm pleased that I can break all this down - it means that my brain is not as screwed up as I think it is. It's good that I can identify what my problems are, even if I don't have a clue what to do about them. The problems are not the problem, believe it or not, it's finding a solution to them.

So in answer to my question (So what the hell is this all about?) - I don't really know. In fact, I don't really have a clue why I decided to ramble about Me, Myself & It today because I plainly don't have any answers to my questions. The idea was to have everything in black and white and try to make sense of it.

Ah well, I had good intentions at any rate....

*is pondering about openings*

That's right, I'm pondering about openings. Now, before you start smirking and tittering, this isn't going to be smutty. In fact, I'm surprising myself by blogging about something that isn't insane, smutty, or random for the second day in a row. (Actually, there might be a teensy bit of smut in here somewhere, but.... well you'll see why in a bit).

The openings that are consuming my thoughts at the moment are from books. That killer first line, those magical first words that essentially need to hook readers by the navel and keep them interested. Some opening lines are probably as famous as the books from which they are taken.

 "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." - I probably don't need to tell you which book this is taken from, though for the sake of sakeness, I will inform you that it is from, of course, Austen's Pride and Prejudice.  This is probably my favorite opening line ever. It's just perfect. It sets the tone for the novel beautifully, and lets you know right away that there's going to be a wealthy man as a main character who will end up married by the end of the novel, whether he likes it or not. Just perfect.

Then we have good old "Mr and Mrs Dursely, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much." Rowling's first line from her immensely popular Harry Potter series is again a very good example, in my humble opinion. Right away you get a sense of the Dursleys' characters, plus a hint that things that might not be deemed as 'normal'' were going to happen pretty soon.

Now, with the above two examples firmly etched in my memory, I started wondering about other (book) openings too. Is there a common theme at all? Should the line be short and snappy, or a little long? Do we aim for humor, drama, or gore? Of course, it really all depends on the genre of the book. With this partly formed conclusion in my brain, I decided to have a look at a few books.

The first book I'm going to use as an example is The Girlfriend Curse by Valerie Frankel. This is from the  chick-lit genre, which I'm currently overdosing on due to my NaNo novel. The opening line reads: "Peg Silver, thirty-two, could make a man come, but she couldn't make him stay."  Personally, I thought this was a very snort-worthy opening line, and I knew immediately what the tone of the novel would be. I finished the book this morning, and wasn't disappointed. Well,  when I say I wasn't disapponted, I really meant that I was right in my assumption that the tone of the novel would be a little bit naughty, laced with several layers of smut. The story itself was nothing to write home about, but I liked the style of the author all the same. Very funny.

The next book I'm planning to read (I had a very successful trip to the library yesterday) is Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally. I thought the movie adaptation was very good, and I've always had an interest in the Holocaust (call me morbid if you will, but it's always fascinated me), so when I saw this book, I grabbed it quickly before somebody else could 'steal' it from me (can't tell you how many times that's happened in my local library, grrr). Opening line as follows: (Oh My Lordy, it's not a line, it's a freaking paragraph!) "In Poland's deepest autumn, a tall young man in an expensive overcoat, double-breasted dinner jacket beneath it an - in the lapel of the dinner jacket - a large ornamental gold-on-black enamel swastika, emerged from a fashionable apartment block in Straszewskiego Street on the edge of the ancient centre of Cracow, and saw his chauffeur waiting with fuming breath by the open door of an enormous and, even in this blackened world, lustrous Adler limousine."  Having never read the book before, I don't know if the style will continue to be as (long-winded) descriptive as this, but even that small paragraph (which took me ages to type, by the way) does what it is supposed to. You get a sense of gloom right away, and even poverty. You also know immediately that the main character is rich and privileged.

Lastly, I'm going to offer the opening lines of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Another famous book, and frequently listed on numerous 'Top Blah Blah Blah" lists. We have : "Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people, more numerous formerly than they are today; for they love peace and quiet and good tilled earth: a well-ordered and well-farmed countryside was their favourite haunt."  Now, to me, that wasn't a hook at all, especially when you consider it to be the opening line to one of the most famous books in the world. I came to the Lord of the Rings fandom rather late - I missed out on The Hobbit as a child, and only decided to read The Lord of the Rings after I had watched the first two movie adaptations. If I wasn't so desperate to find out what happened in the end (a year between movies is a killer), I wouldn't have read the book. I love the story, and have since read the book three or four times, but I find it hard going. In today's world, I don't think it would have done nearly as well. Like Stephen King (another author I love for the most part), I think Tolkien's style is far too long-winded. Still, the opening 'line' did give me fair warning that the book wasn't going to be short and snappy (as if the 1,000 pages plus hadn't already told me), so it served a useful purpose.

What am I blogging about? To be honest, I'm not quite sure, I just found this subject interesting, and was merely using my blog to share my wandering thoughts. I guess what I really want to know is, what makes a good first line? Should we even be worrying about it? I mean, most people read the back of a book before they delve inside, so is the first line really as important as everybody seems to think so?

I'll continue to ponder this conundrum, but in the meantime, what do YOU think?

*thinks change is a good thing*

I try very hard to keep my blog hovering over the line of Insanity for the most part, but today both my feet are planted firmly on Solid Ground. I had an unexpected letter in my mail this morning; now usually, unexpected letters mean I've forgotten to pay a bill, or some other such message of doom, but today's surprising missive came from my son's school.

Oh no, what now?  I thought, as soon as I saw the header. I should probably explain (as briefly as I can) that my son switched schools five months ago, bang in the middle of the summer term. My 13 year old has D.A.M.P. syndrome, which is a blanket term for all sorts of things. He has classic symptoms of ADHD, as well as elements of autism and Asperger's. That sounds worse than it actually is, because my son is essentially like any other kid his age. What it means, though, is that his brain doesn't process things in the 'normal' way, and so he finds school work difficult, and doesn't deal well socially.

To add to these problems, he is very small for his age. Now, if you add his medical problems to his height deficiency, what you are going to get is bullying. I've battled with bullies on and off for the last six years, some worse than others, and all extremely stress-inducing. The most recent spate of bullying culminated in my son not feeling safe while he was at school.

A child with any problems from the autistic spectrum is going to struggle with school, but when you add bullies to the equation, you end up with a child who doesn't like school, is reluctant to go to school, and point blank refuses to work even when they attend school. This time last year I had a son who hated school, didn't feel he was capable of following the courses, and was scared he was going to get beat up almost every day.

This year it is completely different. I was so enraged at the previous school's complete lack of constructive guidance (not to mention their attitude in general), that I removed my son from their ranks and refused to let him go back. I researched a bunch of schools, chose one which I thought sounded heaps better, and contacted the local authority. Six weeks later, my son was attending classes in a school which exemplifies each and every aspect that we all wish for our children's place of education.

This school changed my son's timetable three times before they felt that they had it just right. They placed him in a smaller class with children of the same ability as him. They stamped smiley faces in his homework planner for every completed piece of work, sent commendation slips home with him to proudly display on our fridge, and just basically made him feel that he could do well in any subject, as long as he tried his best.

The change in my son was unbelievable. Obviously the first few weeks were difficult - starting a new school in the middle of a year is never fun - but after the initial adjustment, my son was coming home smiling most days. Instead of mooching around huddled into his coat, he now looked where he was going. It was amazing.

Today's letter was the icing on the cake. I knew he was doing better in all sorts of ways, but I never imagined the extent of the improvement of his actual school work. The last few years' reports have always been the same - lack of effort, no motivation, easily distracted, must do better, yadda, yadda, yadda. Depressingly depressing, both for him and for me. This year?  Fourteen subjects - 4 A's, 6 B's, 3 C's and a D (and the D was for P.E., which was expected due to his complete lack of interest in any sport that doesn't include water).



What a difference a year makes! Just goes to show, change is good. For all of the stickers, smiley faces, and commendation slips that they have awarded my son, I'd like to offer one in return. Fitzalan High School, I award you The Gold Star of excellence!

In for a penny, in for a pound.

Uh-oh. I've really gone and done it now. It's not enough that I have ventured into the realms of responsibility by committing myself to blogging every day. It's not enough that I've promised to contribute to the latest project with my writing group (http://www.the-burrow.org/ [/shameless plug]). It's not even enough that I've finally got myself to agree to start work on my novel again (not to mention attempting to finish two of my long-term fanfics). Oh no, I had to add another ball to the mix.

I've semi-agreed (that's almost fully agreeing, but with the option to opt out if I chicken at the last minute) to run in next year's Cardiff half marathon. Those of you who know me are probably choking on your drink/food/amusement round about now, but yes, you read correctly. Me. Running. Thirteen miles, no less.

*faints*

Precisely. I'm a good fifty pounds overweight (probably more, but I'm too scared to weigh myself), plus I've never ran before in my life. Not seriously, at any rate. Sure, I had to run during P.E. lessons when I was at school, but the only running experience I've had in the last seventeen years is when I've chased after a bus. How the hell I'm going to work myself up to running thirteen miles is mind boggling to say the least.

To try to come to terms with this disturbing trend of biting more off than I can chew, I'm venturing into the previously unknown realm of planning. Generally speaking, I don't plan anything (well, I plan Christmas, but when you have two kids, a step-daughter and a huge family, not planning Christmas would be incredibly stupid). Mostly I'm a see-what-happens-and-deal-with-it-only-if-I-have-to kind of girl (which kind of explains why I'm such a good procrastinator). But something like this needs planning. I can't just float through the next twelve months with my head in the clouds and think that I'll be able to run this marathon. At the moment I'd be hard pushed to run half a mile, let alone thirteen of the suckers. Luckily I have a good friend who is going to send me a heap of stuff to help me work out a step-by-step plan. (This good friend is the person who talked me into the whole thing in the first place, so although her suggestion initially almost gave me a heart attack, I guess it's fitting that she's helping me work out how to avoid a real heart attack in the long term. *snort*)

Along with the planning-for-a-marathon thingy, I thought I should seriously consider a plan for the writing-a-publishable-novel thingy too. I've dithered and dallied for about four years altogether (Lordy, seeing that in black and white makes it seem so much worse), and I've gotten no further than a couple of written chapters and a Word file full of research. The ideas are there. The characters are there. Heck, I even know exactly how the book will end (which is half the battle apparently). Procrastinating is seriously messing with the writing process though.

I'm off to a good start. I've kept up with my blog (OK, so I'm only into the third week, but for me that's monumental), I've finally got a decent laptop, and I've even shocked myself by managing to install Word onto it all by myself (I'm still grinning to myself madly over that).

The next step is to work on my concentration. At this precise moment in time I have three windows open on my browser: my blog, a working document with half an update for one of my fanfics, and Facebook (the God of all procrastinators). If I could just train myself to only having one window open at a time, I'll be half way there.

Unfortunately, it is Sunday (you all know how much I love Sundays, right *snort*) and even if I did only have one window open, I'd still have about a million distractions to play havoc with my concentration.

Ah well. It's a long road, but at least I'm walking again, instead of burying my head in the sand.

Scratching the Surface

I was organized yesterday, for once in my life. I knew what I was going to blog about today, and I even uploaded the picture and chose the label and title. All I had to do was actually write something. So far I've just been leaving it till the last minute and blogging about whatever popped into my head when I sat at the computer. The funny thing is, although I was very organized, when I sat down at the computer to write my prearranged blog, something else popped into my head and I decided to blog about that instead.

So.... stuff's been happening over the last twenty-four hours that's been pretty darn crappy. I won't vent on here (I'm determined not to use my blog for venting purposes. Well, not real venting at any rate), but suffice to say that the things that have been happening have made me stop and think.

I think the best way to explain this is by inventing a scenario that demonstrates what I am trying to say. Lets say a little boy is as naughty as can be as often as he can. He keeps getting told off by his parents for all of these misdemeanors, but he takes little notice and generally falls back into his habits after only a few days. The cycle continues in this fashion for so long that the parents forget that he was actually a well-behaved child before the cycle started. They use short-term band-aids (I would normally say plasters here, but I know that most of my blogging buddies are American) to give short-term fixes to the nastiness.

This is all well and good, but it's not solving the problem. The band-aids aren't covering a tiny little scrape, they're hiding a deep gash that will continue to bleed long after the band-aid has been exchanged for a new one.

Applying this hypothetical scenario to everyday life, much the same can be said. Often we stress about the little things, not realizing that the little things are in fact symptoms of a bigger issue. We band-aid the small problems and think we're OK, but all we are doing is letting the larger problems become worse. We're not dealing with them at all. Often we don't even know that there is a larger problem.

But how do we know when the little things are actually signs of something else? How do we know whether we should be applying a band-aid, instead of investigating for further injury?

We don't.

But we can look for patterns in behaviour, we can check to see if the injury is recurring. We can keep our eyes open for all kinds of things; flashes of temper, moodiness, a tendency to avoid company. There are lots of little things that will help you to decide whether a person needs a small band-aid or a full medical. You just need to keep your eyes open and realize that not all wounds are skin-deep - sometimes they go a lot deeper. The wounds can scab over, heal and leave a faint scar, and maybe that will be the end of it, but one day, when you least expect it, you might discover the wound all over again, and to your dismay, it will still bleed as deeply as a fresh cut.

The problem with injuries is that you don't always know what caused them. You might have a scrape on your knee and blame it on that fall that happened on a slippery path. Now, a band-aid is good enough for a grazed knee, but what if the reason you fell was because your ankle gave way in the middle of taking a step? A band-aid is not going to fix a busted ankle.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that no matter how trivial something might be, it's always best to look a little deeper. Sure, it might be painful to dig into that little scratch, but it's better to have a small amount of pain in the short-term, then to opt for a band-aid. It might stop the bleeding, but it will only allow the wound to fester.