Pond Hopper

The following letter was inspired by reading a book called 'Dear Me - A letter to my sixteen year old self'... From: You at 39 East Sussex, England (yes, England) Dear Me, I don't know why I'm bothering - you don't take advice and will probably ignore every word, but I'll try anyway... - You should probably break up with Tommy. I know you won't believe this, but he's a terrible boyfriend. That being said, he'll be one of the best friends you'll ever have so tread lightly with him. Before you do though - make sure you've met Robin first. She leads you to people you won't want to miss. - Speaking of Robin - be casual friends with her, but don't waste your time trying to be close friends - she is not worthy and will only disappoint you. - On the subject of friends - Don't let a boy come between you & Nicole and what ever you do, do not punch Nelson Roman in the face. Nicole won't speak to you for a few years a...

I've been having a pretty bad flare-up since I got back from the US last month. Last week, my doctor put me on new meds that have me a bit loopy. I'm hoping once I get used to them (or I finish the 2 week course he gave) that I can get back to my 5 minute writing sessions. I only got to write one, but it's a little difficult to do without a clear head. Fingers crossed, it won't be too long...

I just bought a book called the five minute writer. It gives exercises and inspiration for daily writing of 5 minutes a day. As I don't blog nearly enough, I've decided to combine the two. The first exercise asks to describe a ritual or ritualistic behavior you take part in. Here's mine... I love Mallomars (an American cookie which is a vanilla cookie topped with a marshmallow and covered in dark chocolate). They are my very favorite cookie of all time. When ever I eat one, I have on odd ritual that I follow (although I have no idea how or when it started, but it's been as long as I can remember). The first thing I do is press my finger onto the top of the chocolate covered marshmallow to crack the chocolate. I strip the marshmallow of the chocolate bit by bit (eating them as I go, but leaving the chocolate on the cookie base). After the marshmallow is bare, I then eat the rest of the cookie by taking bites. The first bite is always the best. I love biting into...

Over the weekend, an old friend contacted me and asked if she could come and stay with us. She had a baby 7 weeks ago and eluded to having problems with her husband. We haven't seen each other in years. We had a falling out over the man she is now married to because I thought he was bad news. At the time, she was only twenty and didn't want to hear what I was telling her so she put an end to our friendship and didn't speak to me again until a few months ago. When she asked to stay, I had a feeling it was down to abuse (due to cryptic text messages and the fact she couldn't actually speak to me over the phone). With that in mind, I asked her not to tell him where she would be staying until after we spoke, but it was too late. She was on her way and he was driving her. When they arrived, I could feel the tension. He stayed briefly and when he left she crumbled and cried. I hugged her and told her we'd talk when my son was in bed, but what ever it was it would b...

During our trip to the States, my three year old son became obsessed with a TV show called Dino Dan (which they don't play in the UK so I had to buy it on iTunes before we left so he'd be able to keep watching it). On the show, a ten year old boy sees computer animated dinosaurs everywhere he goes. Now, my son also sees dinosaurs everywhere he goes. He's constantly sayings things like, 'A T-Rex! Cool!' This morning, he tried to climb up to a window in my bedroom which is on on the top floor of our three story house to look at a dinosaur he was sure was outside. In the UK, most windows open out (like a door) and have no screens or child safety latches to keep children from falling out. In his room (also on the top floor) and in the rooms on the 2nd floor, we have window guards to keep the window from opening too wide. We didn't put them in the master suite because he's never in there without supervision. He's older now and I know it will have to be d...

It's been months. The first part of my absence was down to my laptop being in for repairs and held by my insurance company until they decided if they were going to cover the damage or not. They had the laptop for a month and a half. I wanted to kill someone! In the end I got it back repaired, but it runs far too slow now and I've been putting off the inevitable - reformatting and starting with a clean machine again. The process is long and tedious, but I know sooner rather than later, I will have to do it. The second part of my absence was down to 3 weeks spent in NJ visiting my family and friends (and a week of recovery time). The trip was both wonderful and terrible (as all trips home turn out to be). The day we arrived, I came down with a high fever followed by the worst sore throat of my life. I ended up at the doctor finding out I had a bad case of strep throat. This was followed by my son coming down with it as well. Our first 7 days, we were stuck in my parents ho...

While seeing footage on TV this morning, I had to try to explain to my 3 year old son what happened on 9/11. I told him some buildings fell. He asked how. I told him that some very bad men knocked them down. He asked why and then asked, can I see? I started to cry and turned on Mickey Mouse instead. I cried for 10 minutes thinking to myself, how do you explain to a 3 year old that such evil exists in the world? I was completely overwhelmed with the knowledge that one day, my very sensitive son (who cries when he sees children play fighting), is one day going to realize that the world he lives in is one that people get into airplanes and crash them into buildings. I hate that this will happen and there's nothing I can do to shield him from it or make him feel safe when that day comes. It's occurred to me on that day, there were parents that had to change the channel so their children would not see the horrors that unfolded. Those parents would have had to be terrified by...