Blue Jays Cupcakes!

As a Toronto Blue Jays fan, this has been quite the season to watch. They won the American League East title, and are now playing in the postseason for a chance at the American League Championship. It's been stressful, fun, heartbreaking, and exciting to watch. No matter how far they make it in the postseason, I love this team. Go Jays Go!

To celebrate the Jays making it to the playoffs for the first time in 22 years, I decided to make some cupcakes. I have wanted to try making chocolate cupcake toppers using candy melts, and making a Blue Jays logo seemed like a good way to try them out. As is often the case with my baking projects, I started with something really challenging (a design that used four colours and had a maple leaf in it!), instead of perhaps practicing with something a little simpler. It all worked out and the toppers look as good as I hoped, but I'm going to try and remember that baby steps can be a welcome part of the process.

I will do a follow up post showing how I made the cupcake toppers, but for today I am showcasing pretty photos of cupcakes. I also made baseball themed cupcakes, for which there is a great tutorial on the Worth Pinning blog.

Happy 5 Year Bloggerversary!!!

Holy crap I have been Blogging for five years! My official anniversary was yesterday, having made my first post on April 12, 2010. WOW!

For my Bloggerversary I thought I would re-post my first post, as I still like it very much and I think it sets a nice tone for what I think my blog is about. Enjoy!

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A Lesson in Perseverance.  Originally posted on April 12, 2010.

About a year ago my parents moved from the family home they had lived in for over 32 years.  It was a two month process of organizing, sorting, and getting rid of all the junk that had accumulated over all those years of living in one spot. The easiest day during the whole process was moving day, though it was not without its hiccups.  My mother's Christmas Cactus, which had hung in the living room my entire life and had previously belonged to my Great Grandmother Reid, got jostled during the move and fell out of its pot, damaging it and exposing the roots. 

Stressed to the max by the move, my mother said: "Before I change my mind, I'm just letting you know that I am going to throw this out."  That wasn't what she wanted but in the heat of the moment she didn't see another option.  The Christmas Cactus was over sixty years old, and throwing it out would be a tremendous loss.  "John's good with plants" I told her.  "John will fix it."

So I brought the Christmas Cactus home with me and John re-potted it, gave it fresh soil and water, and nursed it back to health.  Over the past year it has shed some dead leaves, had ample new growth, and has made it's will to live quite clear to all of us.  At Christmas time, when it is supposed to bloom, it didn't, but we weren't too surprised.  "It had a pretty traumatic year" Mom agreed.  "Maybe next year."

This morning when I woke up, the Christmas Cactus was blooming!  It is almost mid April, so not quite on schedule, but it has been roughly a year since we started taking care of it.  I patted the Cactus and told it "Good for you!" and I called Mom to let her know the good news.

A Flower of our Christmas Cactus

I can't help but think about the life of this amazing plant.  Over its sixty years it has had at least three different care givers, lived in three separate residences, and as recently as a year ago, almost died.  Not even a year after it's near death experience and it is blooming again.  This plant is teaching me that despite the set backs and traumas we experience in life, we can always bloom again.  Even if it takes a little longer than we thought. 

Freedom to Bake

I had a pretty amazing day of learning about baking yesterday. I ran into challenges with a new recipe and was able to brainstorm with John some solutions, and also realized that I don't allow myself any time to practice. Practice is important in any art form, and I have been wrong to ignore it in my baking.

I've previously blogged about trying a new recipe and having an unrealistic expectation that it should turn out perfectly. I'm doing much better about that, as yesterday things did not turn out perfectly, but I didn't get disappointed - instead I learned! YAY! The main point I finally learned/understood was that if I want to try a new recipe, I DON'T have to wait for an event to try it. If it is just a plain old Tuesday and I really want to bake that treat I've watched 3 tutorials about on YouTube, I can just bake it. I was holding myself back from doing that as I didn't want to have lots of baked goods and no one to eat them (but me!). John reminded me that his sister is back in town (and loves treats!), and we have friends in town that are always appreciative of a baked good delivery. So the new plan is to bake as desired; no event needed.

Now I have the freedom to practice the art that is baking, and also try new things without having to wait weeks or months for an event. This way I won't get overly excited for the awesome result, which is part of what happened yesterday. For about four months I've really wanted to make a rainbow cake, but never had the right event for it (it is a pretty large cake, so many guests seemed necessary). This is Birthday Week for me, so for a big turkey dinner at Mom's this afternoon, I offered to bring a rainbow cake. I decided to make the cake parts yesterday and then I would ice it today. But if only it were as easy as just baking and icing!

If I could turn back time (more than just an hour!), I would make a no pressure practice cake and learn from the challenges that came up. One such challenge was my excitement of what it would look like once complete, which led to me stacking the pieces together when the cake had cooled. I put parchment paper between the pieces to protect them, but unfortunately it didn't prevent each layer from ripping a giant hole out of the layer under it (the green layer ended up in three pieces). If it was a practice cake, I would have noted not to do that next time. LOL. But how could I resist? These were begging to be stacked!

Baking this cake was not a problem, but assembling it was challenging, especially since I gave myself the extra task of having to transport it in a car for 35 minutes. And it is far too tall for a cake carrier (about 7.5 inches tall). I also had a concern that it would slide into pieces while being transported (based on this photo from the internet), the liklihood of which I would have known for sure if I had made it before. Making a six-tier cake might have been a tad ambitious, based on the fact that the most tiers I've ever made before was two.

Trying to fix some of the broken pieces last night, I did a crumb coating of icing between a few of the layers as a way of encouraging them to stay intact. They held up overnight, and seem pretty solid, so I'm toying with the idea of transporting a finished cake. I was going to put it together at Mom's, as to avoid transporting a 7.5" high cake (with no cake carrier), but it looks like it just may hold together. I think I can find a box to transport it in too. But if it slides all to pieces in the car...well, I will know for next time!

Halloween Joy with Spider-Man and Gum

My favourite trick-or-treater from last night was a little six-year-old Spider-Man. We were handing out candy at a friend's place and they had a giant pot (cauldron?) filled with assorted goodies. I put a handful of yummy things into Spider-Man's bag, and as he walked away he looked in his bag and gleefully exclaimed: "Oh wow! I got gum!" I don't know that kid, but he is awesome and he filled my heart with joy.

I love that kid for two reasons:

(1) He was really excited to be getting candy. I hope he looked in his bag after every house and marveled at what was just added. Getting candy is super fun and exciting; six year old's are pretty awesome at showing it.

(2) I find it adorable that he was excited about gum. I'm not sure what he was expecting to see when he opened his bag, but gum seemed to be beyond his expectations. His gum joy reminded me to appreciate the little things. Because sometimes the little things ARE. THE. BEST.

Did you get any adorable trick-or-treater's your way? Hope you had a very happy Halloween.

Happy Halloween from Gary Bear

The Thin Red Icing

I sometimes suffer from recipe perfectionism: the desire for the recipe to turn out perfectly the first time, regardless of my familiarity with it. We all want our cakes, cupcakes, fudge, and other treats to taste great, and if you're blogging about it, or taking them to a dinner party, there is an added pressure for them to look great too. I'm starting to re-frame how I see my baking, so instead of seeing a recipe as the 'perfect' finished product, I'm trying to appreciate that most times baking is an experiment, and sometimes shit doesn't work out. I know part of my perfectionism is that I spent money on ingredients and I don't want to waste them, but I'm trying to see that money as an investment in bettering my baking skills. Plus even when baking goes horribly wrong, it still tends to taste pretty good. Someone in this house will eat it!

Earlier this summer I made some Canada Day cupcakes. They tasted great and actually looked pretty great in photos (I took this one when they were cold; they looked so much better cold), but the red icing was a pain to make and work with.

I had never made a dark icing before, and my Google searching led me to believe it was going to be hard. Knowing it would be hard helped me be less disappointed when I ran into trouble. My previous experience working with gel colours had all been easy, simply adding a tiny amount usually did the trick. Red was a whole other thing.

In my red icing research, I came across two tips that were really helpful. First, I bought no taste Red, as many baking forums suggested I would use a lot of the gel colour (possibly the whole jar) and using regular red would make the icing taste gross. The other tip I followed was to leave the icing overnight in the fridge so the red colour could darken.

While making the icing, things started to go awry, and I realized there were some tips I missed. The red colour separated while I was mixing it, giving it a white speckled look. I later learned that dark colours have a tendency to do that, and can be avoided by keeping your icing thick. Not only was my icing thin and separating, but it was also soft (it looked like it wouldn't ice properly), and I learned that on particularly humid days (which it was) adding shortening instead of butter helps to avoid this. You also don't want to beat it too much (I definitely beat it too much!). But now I know for next time.

It didn't photograph clearly, but there are lines of white separating from red

It looked better after darkening in the fridge

I also learned about baking photography and how room temperture icing doesn't look as good as refrigerated icing. I did a whole photo shoot with room temp, and then did it all over again because it just looked so much better cold.

Do you ever expect yourself to do things perfectly the first time? How does it work out? I'm trying to remember to focus on the journey and not worry so much about the outcome.

There is a First Time For Everything

**Author's Note: I have been going through my drafts folder in Blogger and noticed that sometimes I write cool blog posts and then don't publish them. I wrote the following post a year ago, so this actually happened last August and everyone in the story is now a year older. And maybe I'm a little less anxious now, but don't quote me on that. I have made some edits and additions before publishing. Enjoy! :)**

Our friends Bryan and Betony recently had a baby, adorable little Clara. There are many things to see and experience with a friend's new baby - they learn to stand, they start eating real food, they start crawling all around the house - all in such a short amount of time.  It is amazing how fast she is learning and growing.  Every time we go over there, Clara has a whole new set of awesome skills.  Way to go kid!

I've been around a lot of babies, toddlers, and children in my life, having five nieces and nephews that I adore and multiple friends with little ones. I thought I had a good grip on babies and what they do and how to roll with them. I admit I'm a little nervous around a less-than-a-month-old, but once they seem less breakable I am way more easy going. This easy going attitude was recently tested as I did something I've never done before: I drove around with an eight month old in my car.

Not sure if I've written about it before, but I have some anxiety. It is not all the time, but certain situations (new things/change/the unknown) can trigger a flood of negative and obsessive thoughts that make me feel really overwhelmed. I have been working on minimizing my anxious reactions with the aid of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, specifically The Feeling Good Handbook by David D. Burns (highly recommended!). Even though I'm working on it, I still get thrown for a loop from time to time. Life's a journey, right?

So last week Betony and I had a girls' night that had us driving from Midland to Penetang (which is really not that far) and involved me being the driver. In the space of time between knowing that I would be driving and then actually getting on the road (about ten minutes) I did a really great job of freaking myself out. It sounds silly to get worked up about something as ordinary as driving 5 KM with a kid in the backseat, but the 'This is New' factor triggered my anxiety.

Initially I had some nice thoughts, like: "Wow - thank you for trusting my driving ability with your beautiful baby".  Then my anxious brain kicked in and reminded me that I had never done this before and convinced me that it was a Really Big Deal. The negative thoughts came: driving is dangerous! Babies are delicate! Next I began to wonder if I was even a good driver (spoiler: I am). So my anxiety got me nice and worked up before we headed out.

Once on the road, realization hit that I was just driving a car, which is something I know how to do.  So then my brain transformed all those scary/anxious feelings into feelings of supreme accomplishment for having done something so amazing. I totally drove with a baby in the backseat! Yay me! Life would be a lot easier if I could just skip the terrified part and move strait to the feeling awesome part, but this is who/where I am right now and I'm happy to say I'm working on it. I will get there.

We safely drove to Penetang and enjoyed some really tasty food at Union Burger and got to have a fun girls' night despite my initial anxiety. I have some amazing friends, and Betony is one who accepts and supports me despite my quirks. Thanks, buddy! :)

I didn't get a great shot, but here is proof 
there was a baby in my car!

An Accidental Hiatus

Fellow Bloggers, readers, friends, family, and random Google searchers:  Hello!  It's been a while!

I accidentally didn't blog for two months!  I let starting a new job distort my priorities for a little while, but I'm feeling like I've (finally) achieved some sort of control over my new lifestyle that I can actually participate in my hobbies/life again!  Not only was I not writing on this here blog, but I also haven't been reading other blogs.  I want you to know that I missed you and I look forward to catching up on all the fun stuff you've been doing over the past while!

Instead of being hard on myself for not keeping up with my hobbies (and suffering from Blog Guilt, Knitting Guilt, Scrapbooking Guilt and the like), I have just accepted that it took me time to adjust to a new schedule, new people, and a more compartmentalized amount of 'free time'.  The good news is that I no longer just come home from work and go strait to sleep.  I can actually stay up past 10pm!  Woot!

I have been keeping a little notebook of Blog post ideas and I have some half finished drafts that I need to complete, so not only is the hiatus over - I actually have some material!  Woot! Woot!

A Change Will Do You Good

Holy Crap March!!  You were a menace full of too much news.  I feel like I am finally finding my feet after a whirlwind of good news, bad news, and having to wear dress pants far more than I normally care to.

I'm leaving the bad news in the past, but the good news is that I am starting a new job on Wednesday.  For the job I will have to continue to wear dress pants far more than I generally care too, but I'm going to take it as a learning experience and possibly something that is a necessity now that I am over thirty.

I have never had a job with a dress code before, so I know this 'business casual' thing will take some getting used to.  Especially since my default outfit is jeans and a t-shirt/hoodie, and my preferred clothes are "comfy." I think I have more PJs than regular clothes, but I will soon have to start balancing out my wardrobe.

Yesterday I began my search for some business casual clothes, but I didn't really know what I was looking for and I am never in the mood to buy clothes.  Grocery shopping? I could do that all day.  Clothes shopping?  It's like pulling teeth.  So I didn't add any business casual clothes to my collection yesterday, but I did find a pair of track pants for only $10 that I have been wearing pretty steadily since I bought them.  I am sure I will buy a few more pairs (there are assorted colours, and they are only $10!), but they are doing nothing to solve my business casual problem.  I'm not worried yet, as I'm sure I can piece together three or four passable outfits, I just have to pick up a few more over the next little while.  And a steamer - I absolutely refuse to incorporate ironing into my day.  Wish me luck!

What is your dress code at work?  Have you ever had to train yourself to wear clothes out of your comfort zone?

How to Spot Your Vehicle

Exiting the grocery store this afternoon, I began to walk down the row of cars where I remembered parking.  I scanned the row of cars and it was easy to spot mine: the one with the headlights left on.  Shit.  I picked up the pace with my groceries in tow, believing that the extra three seconds I gained by running would ensure the battery was not dead.  I threw myself in the car, did a chant of "please don't make me learn the hard way", and attempted to start the car.  It worked, thankfully.  No boost required.

One of the only flaws I have found in my car is that there is no alarm bell if you try to exit the car with the headlights still on.  I'm not used to turning the headlights on and off, so I need an alarm to yell at me or I am not going to remember.  In lieu of a bell, my friend Duct Tape and I have placed a friendly reminder in the form of the word "Lights" on the inside car door just above the handle.  Here's hoping that this visual aid will help me avoid a car battery failure in the future.

Driving Around the Learning Curve

When I awoke this morning I noticed the car was looking a little slumped to one side and further investigating revealed that the drivers side front tire was completely flat.

First: Thank goodness it was flat at home and didn't happen while I was driving.

Second: I realize I would have no idea how to change a flat tire if it happened to me on the road.

Since I now own a car, I am going to be driving a lot more often, and I need to be prepared for emergency/problem situations that may arise.  I have common sense and I took a driving course (12 years ago...), but I still have some serious learning to do.  Right now I feel like a grandparent who is first learning how to use the computer; I'm worried that everything I do or touch is going to break it somehow.  I need to get over that.

On Friday we thought the tire was low but we didn't bother to check the gauge or fill it up (it was late, I was tired).  I drove it on Saturday and I felt it was pulling to the left (a sign the tire was low), but I still didn't check it.  Then this morning, the tire was flat.  We used a motorized air pump and filled the tire. We waited a few hours to see if we had a fast leak on our hands, but it stayed inflated so we drove to the local gas station and used their heavy duty pump/gauge.  Each of the tires was filled to roughly 32psi (our optimal pressure).

Tonight we drove into town and bought ourselves a digital tire gauge.  I was really hyper about the tire the whole ride there and the whole ride home.  It has continued to stay inflated.  The digital gauge is awesome - this is a necessary technological advancement.

So hopefully our tire issue is just that we drove on a low tire and by neglecting to fill it up on the two days we noticed it, it rebelled by going flat.  Or there is a slow leak and it will have to be fixed.  We tested the gauge of all the tires tonight and we'll test them again tomorrow, so if the one tire does have a leak we should be able to tell.  I have learned my lesson about air in the tires though, and I will happily be checking the gauge regularly.  As for everything else there is to learn about car ownership/car maintenance/emergency car situations, I am reading my owners manual and taking it one day at a time.

UPDATE:  Ten days later and the tire hasn't gone flat again or lost more pressure than any of the other tires.  We've been driving around a lot since then, too.  I went through a phase where I was afraid to use my car because I thought the tire was going to blow up, but it hasn't given me any reason to continue to think that.  So far so good.

Everyone is Entitled to My Opinion...Sort of...

So I called the editor at the paper and asked why he added the word "don't" to the letter I submitted.  He said he assumed that it was a simple typo on my part; that I forgot to put in the word "don't" myself.  Not sure how one could assume that, as that statement is completely opposite of everything else I said in the letter.  Oh, well.  He did apologize for the mistake and changed the letter on the website, so at least history will remember what I was actually trying to say.

Today I learned that getting something published when you have no control over the publishing, is really unpleasant.  If I ever get the urge to write a letter to the editor again, I will submit it to this blog only...at least I know the editor. ;)

Getting to Know My Mother's Mother

A year ago, my parents moved out of the family home they lived in for more than 32 years. During the clean up and move we got rid of literally tonnes of junk and donatables, and discovered some treasures that had been accidentally hidden many years ago. One of the treasures we found turned out to be incredibly important to me: Grandma Barb’s knit sweater.

I didn’t know my Grandma Barb. She was my Mother’s Mother, and she died in a car accident in 1964. It is somewhat awkward to write about because the Grandma I do know, Grandma Sue, has been married to my Granddad for 43 years, so calling her “step” Grandma seems weird to me because she is not my step anything - she’s my Grandma. Finding the knit sweater reminded me that Grandma Barb is my Grandma too, and wearing it gave me a connection to her that I had never really known how to find before.

My parents move was overwhelming in a lot of ways, so when I brought the sweater home last March, I didn’t know how much I would fall in love with it and how much impact it would have on my life. That is why it spent some time on the floor with the countless other things I brought home that day. At least Gary knew it was special right away and showed it the love that only a cat can.

Gary knows a great sweater when she sees one

The story goes that Grandma Barb knit five sweaters in 1960, one for herself, her husband, and each of her three children. They were made from Mary Maxim patterns, each sweater having a particularly Canadiana type theme; my Mom’s sweater had figure skates on it. Adorable. The sweaters were put away for the summer in 1961, stored in garbage bags, which resulted in four of them mistakenly being taken to the dump and lost forever. The only survivor was Grandma Barb’s sweater, the one I have now, and it has amazingly made it all the way to 2010. It is hard for me to wrap my head around it, but this sweater is fifty years old! What a life it has had.

My Mother wore the sweater constantly throughout her twenties. She recently showed me some photos of herself, at twenty years old, wearing it out to a winter carnival in Barrie, circa 1968.  Somehow the sweater is still as colourful now as it was then.  My Mother is too, actually.

My Mother and the coat circa 1968

My Mother is a beautiful person - inside and out

Every place my Mother moved, the sweater moved with her. It eventually ended up in the house I grew up in, hidden in plain sight in the coat closet. My sister wore it for a few years in the ‘90s, but returned it when she was finished, and back into the closet it went. I claimed it in March 2009, and began wearing it non-stop when the temperatures got colder in Autumn. I fell head over heals for this sweater, decided it was a coat, and was determined to wear it all winter long, regardless of how cold the temperature got.  I wore a fleece jacket underneath the sweater, providing it with a make-shift lining that every northern Ontario coat needs, and wore it for the entire winter.  I even knit myself a matching winter hat to go with it - I could not leave home without this coat!

I would be the first one to tell you that I don’t know a thing about fashion. I don’t follow trends and I definitely don't know anything about what’s “in”. That is why it completely floored me when every outing I made in the coat led to compliments from, and conversations with, strangers. I started wearing the coat when the world was gearing up for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.  The official Olympic clothes riffed on the Canadiana style, so Grandma Barb’s coat was fashionable. A stranger even told me I was “sooooooo in right now”. For the first time in my life I was fashion-forward, and I just so happened to be using a coat that was fifty years old to do it!

Every time I got a compliment, I would tell the person: “My Grandma made this coat in 1960!” This lead to conversations about legacy at the grocery store, discussions about how awesome knitting is, and being able to share the Grandma I never knew with strangers who fell in love with her coat as much as I had.  Over the winter I got to know Grandma Barb a little better by taking her with me and telling people about her. I also got to tell everyone that I stole the coat from my Mom, which brought her along with me as well.  All this heritage surrounded me, just by wearing and loving a pretty amazing old coat.

Me, Mom, and Grandma Barb, all in one!

The Olympics are over now and Spring is here.  I still don't know anything about fashion, so I don't know if this coat will still be "in" this coming winter.  I'll still be wearing it regardless and if anyone asks, I'll gladly tell them all about my Grandma Barb and the sweater she knit, all those years ago.

On Writing, Local Politics, and Finding My Voice

My favourite thing to do on a Thursday afternoon is to read the local paper and check out the weekly grocery flyers that come with it.  The previous sentence could have easily been written by my mother, but it was in fact me, and I don’t begrudge inheriting this rather enjoyable past time. My number one interest is looking for deals in the weekly flyers, and secondly I like to see what my local community is talking about in the editorial section of the paper.

Last Thursday (Apr. 15) I was taken aback by an editorial and it enraged me so much that I wrote a rebuttal letter.  I wish I could say that the process was as easy as “I was mad, I wrote a letter, I sent it in”.  Far from it.  I spent countless hours over far too many days this week trying to find the right words that would adequately express my thoughts, feelings, and level of outrage.  I was also struggling with the confidence of expressing my opinion, and of letting my community know who I was and what I believed.

So what made me so mad?  Someone expressed that this society no longer has the values of yesteryear, with the main argument being that not enough people celebrated Easter properly this year.  The letter didn’t say anything specific, but made a number of statements that seemed to imply a lack of tolerance for other people and their beliefs.  As someone whose belief system mainly surrounds not caring what anyone else does (so long as they aren’t causing other people to suffer), I was completely offended that someone thought it was okay to write into the paper and tell me what to do.  For the sake of flow, from here on out I am going to refer to this letter as the ‘April 15 Letter’.

My first reaction to the April 15 Letter caused me to write a very incendiary rebuttal that put words in the author’s mouth and was very much a full out attack.  I spouted everything from accusing him of hating women, gays, and other races, to accusing him of supporting fascism.  I admit it, I was extreme, but it was just the rage talking.  The roots of rational discourse had not yet begun to sprout in my head.  This very incendiary first response taught me a very important lesson in writing: never get too attached to the first draft.  Which reminds me of an amazing quote the writer/director of Toy Story said about his own movies:

''Every Pixar movie at one time was the worst motion picture ever made.'' - John Lasseter.

This reinforces the idea that having a good editor is crucial to the writing process.  I have several editors in my life, including myself, and for this exercise, John helped rein me in to actually write something more than just an incendiary attack.  I wrote my first draft on Friday, my final draft didn’t fully appear until Monday night, and I didn’t even send it to the paper until Tuesday. It all seems like a blur now, but I really struggled to find the right words, argue my points on solid ground, and express what I actually meant.

Beyond expressing myself properly, I also had to combat my own psychology when it comes to saying opinions out loud.  I have strong opinions but I can be guarded and hesitant when it comes to conflict; don’t rock the boat.  So not only did I feel l was fighting someone who I thought was trampling my beliefs, I was also fighting with myself on whether I should be fighting at all.  Would the community judge my letter?  Would I just be seen as attacking someone?  Would anyone agree with me?  I was unaware of my audience and that helped fuel the fires of my paranoia over how my letter would come across and what kind of conflict I would face for submitting it.  Who knew that simply writing a letter to the editor would turn into a week of learning how to express myself and face my fear of “putting it out there”? 

It took all weekend and most of Monday, but finally I felt confident in a letter that I would submit to the paper.  The final draft of my letter still had a lot of fire in it as I attempted to dismantle the author’s statements and expose the flaws in how he had stated them (the guy relied heavily on rhetoric).  Although I was proud of my letter and it said what I needed it to, I could never really get away from feeling like I was just fighting with the author, when really I just wanted to express, “hey man, don’t tread on me.”  My letter would have taken much less time to write if I had said only that!

I submitted my letter on Tuesday, the same day the Tuesday edition of the paper printed a rebuttal letter from another reader.  The rebuttal letter was great and I feel it expressed an opposing opinion of the April 15 Letter, but wasn’t a direct attack on the author.  Something I will definitely learn from.  The rebuttal was basically to the tune of to each their own and thank goodness for freedom and democracy. This reader said simply what I had struggled to say and I realized that the finished content of my letter didn’t actually matter as much as what I had learned during the process of formulating my argument and rounding up the balls to send it in.  Which is mostly why I wasn’t upset or surprised when my letter wasn’t published in the Thursday edition of the paper.  It turned out that this week for me wasn’t about trying to school an old man in basic human rights, but rather learning how to express myself, both articulately and confidently.  Plus, at least someone was able to tell the old dude that we live in a democracy that celebrates diversity.  Really, somebody had to.

The printing of the other rebuttal letter also reminded me of something that I already knew: there are like-minded people here. Any paranoia or lack of confidence about expressing my opinion has to do with me and my fears, not with my audience.  Which is why yesterday, when the paper came and I was driven to write a rebuttal to something that had been said, I was able to write, edit, and submit the letter in under twenty minutes.  For the first time in a long time, writing felt easy. This week of process, though incredibly hard and tedious at some points, actually taught me important lessons in writing, expression, and confidence, for which I am tremendously grateful.

A Lesson in Perseverance

About a year ago my parents moved from the family home they had lived in for over 32 years.  It was a two month process of organizing, sorting, and getting rid of all the junk that had accumulated over all those years of living in one spot. The easiest day during the whole process was moving day, though it was not without its hiccups.  My mother's Christmas Cactus, which had hung in the living room my entire life and had previously belonged to my Great Grandmother Reid, got jostled during the move and fell out of its pot, damaging it and exposing the roots. 

Stressed to the max by the move, my mother said: "Before I change my mind, I'm just letting you know that I am going to throw this out."  That wasn't what she wanted but in the heat of the moment she didn't see another option.  The Christmas Cactus was over sixty years old, and throwing it out would be a tremendous loss.  "John's good with plants" I told her.  "John will fix it."

So I brought the Christmas Cactus home with me and John re-potted it, gave it fresh soil and water, and nursed it back to health.  Over the past year it has shed some dead leaves, had ample new growth, and has made it's will to live quite clear to all of us.  At Christmas time, when it is supposed to bloom, it didn't, but we weren't too surprised.  "It had a pretty traumatic year" Mom agreed.  "Maybe next year."

This morning when I woke up, the Christmas Cactus was blooming!  It is almost mid April, so not quite on schedule, but it has been roughly a year since we started taking care of it.  I patted the Cactus and told it "Good for you!" and I called Mom to let her know the good news.

A Flower of our Christmas Cactus

I can't help but think about the life of this amazing plant.  Over its sixty years it has had at least three different care givers, lived in three separate residences, and as recently as a year ago, almost died.  Not even a year after it's near death experience and it is blooming again.  This plant is teaching me that despite the set backs and traumas we experience in life, we can always bloom again.  Even if it takes a little longer than we thought.