Godspeed Jessica

 I have a nightlight I bought from Goodwill.  It's a turtle that casts stars around the room.  It has a hard shell and soft plush underbelly.  I turn it on every night.  It runs on a couple of double A's.  It is my comfort and strange small joy as my mind tends to race at bedtime, like a toddler fighting the inevitable.  I close my eyes and thoughts of the world and my job and sometimes my sorrows and regrets creep in.  I open my eyes to the lovely lights across the room and think of God's universe, of his love, of his provision, of his beauty.  The artist in me relaxes and my imagination goes to all things good.  

Every few months, the lights begin to dim and I realize the batteries are running low in my precious turtle nightlight.  In procrastination, I will let this go for quite a while...the same way I will print with a low ink warning until nothing appears on the paper.  I will use a makeup brush to swirl around the rim of empty powder foundation long past the appropriate amount of time, not willing to waste one small bit of product.  I will drive my car until it quits giving me miles to empty and instead says, "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GET GAS."

I have a friend, her name is Jessica.  I met her several years ago through a mutual friend, Michelle, who wanted to join the Peace Corp.  We worked together at Savannah Magazine.  I didn't want her to join the Peace Corp and move away, so I suggested something less drastic...and perhaps local... might serve her better.  Michelle found an organization in Savannah called Citizen's Advocacy.  It is a non-profit designed to pair people who have means and connections with people on the fringe of society.  CA introduced Michelle to Jessica and that was the beginning of a life-long friendship...for me.

Jessica has Cerebral Palsy.  She has been wheelchair bound her entire life.  She grew up in Wisconsin.  When she turned 18, she was sent to a work camp for people with disabilities.  She did not thrive there and eventually followed her mother to Savannah where she was able to find a home at Stillwell Towers on Water's Avenue, living remarkably independent with just the assistance of an aid once, sometimes twice a day.  

When I met Jessica, this life worked well for her.  She was happy, bright, optimistic and hopeful.  She was filled with infectious joy.  We became fast friends.  She joined my church, First Baptist Church of the Islands and attended frequently for a couple of years...really until Covid.  Maybe Covid broke the pattern of togetherness and activity the way it did for so many in various circumstances.  Teleride became more difficult to schedule, and Jessica began watching services online.  Her mother moved back to Wisconsin.  Our meetings together shrunk to quarterly, every four months or so.  

These last few years, each time I saw Jessica, her bright light began to dim, like her batteries were getting low.  It became a great source of distress for me.  Her chair had become infested with bed bugs and they crawled on her as we sat to eat lunch one afternoon. Her apartment was infested as well, and it became clear her "caregiver" was neglecting and abusing her.  I reached out to our church family who have all helped to care for Jessica over the years.  I asked my prayer partner, Barbara, for her help in prayer. And as if overnight, a plan beyond any of us moved into action.  Jessica received a new caseworker who was not willing to look the other way.  She had Jessica admitted to the hospital for care, addressed the apartment issues and moved her to a cleaner unit.  It turned out, in addition to the pest problem, Jessica was suffering from a horrible bedsore that had eaten completely through her backside.  It required surgery.  

Her mother and uncle came from Alabama.  They cared for her.  They advocated for her and
procured a new chair for her.  And this morning, March 31, 2026, they are taking her to Alabama to live in a full-care facility with a private room.  Her aunt lives there as well.  Jessica will finally be with family.  

God replaced the batteries when I was afraid it was too late.  I was afraid the car had finally run out of gas.  I was afraid I had waited too long, not done enough...I was afraid.  And then I opened my eyes and saw the beautiful stars around the room, felt his Presence and his love and I have nothing but joy in my heart.  Godspeed Jessica.  We love you and will miss seeing you.  But we will send care packages and stay in touch.  The Lord has done amazing things through you, and I am probably the one most blessed by your light.

Take the China Challenge with Me

From slave labor, we as a nation and as individuals have funded for decades, to a manufactured pandemic that succeeded in undermining the effectiveness of freedom based governments and crippled the global economy...to violent and widespread religious persecution of Christians and Muslims...trafficking of fentanyl into our nation...overt disbursement of spy balloons across our airspace...and finally their involvement in propping up Russia to defeat Ukraine... when is enough finally going to be ENOUGH? 

Our dependence on China didn't happen overnight and our separation from her won't either.  We have become not just reliant on China's products for necessities like medications, vital technology, tools, clothing and PPE...at the same time we've become addicted to the cheap tchotchkes we use to decorate our homes and yards, the small toys and gadgets we purchase for a few moments of happiness before they ultimately end up at second hand stores or in the landfills.  

The first step in taking the China challenge, which I've been doing personally since the spy balloon incident, is the most practical, albeit not easy. It eliminates the non-essential "Made In China" purchase.  Whenever I am shopping, when I start to choose an item that is not a necessity, it is just something I like or want, I check the label to make sure it is not made in China.  Sadly, it usually is...and it is very difficult to put back.  But I put it back.  I put it back for the slaves who made it.  I put it back for the innocent Ukraine people slaughtered by imperial forces.  I put it back for the Muslims in internment camps.  I put it back for everyone who died or has lost loved ones to Covid.  I put it back for all the lives lost to fentanyl.  I picture that spy balloon drifting across our nation and imagine that next time it's filled with poisonous gas.  I put it back because to buy it is suicide.  To buy it is slavery.  To buy it is genocide.  To buy it is to become complicit with evil.  

It's important to draw the distinction here between China and Chinese people and Americans of Chinese descent.  In the context of this message, I am only talking about China as a government, not as a person.  I have no ill will nor should anyone toward the Chinese people.  And it should go without saying that our fellow Americans whose families come from China also have nothing to do with this international crisis.  

Weening ourselves away from the necessities is going to be a more complicated process that involves more manufacturing here at home and within our ally nations along with the intentional acceptance that things will cost more.  Individual Americans can and should become a part of this process.  Pressure your local and state representatives to enact tax incentives for domestic manufacturing.  Send letters to corporate leaders from your favorite stores like Target, Wal-Mart, Tractor Supply, etc. and tell them how you feel.  Let them know you are reading labels and avoiding products made in China.  I'd like to see shame labeling similar to those on cigarette labels, alcohol labels, and everything known to the State of California to cause cancer labels. They should be highly visible on every product made in China, necessity or not, and should read something like this...this product came from a country known to use slave labor and bio warfare.

When we have finally managed to become independent from China with all of our necessary commodities, then we should impose a China tax.  This would be a tax on every item made in China that would bring it up to the cost it would be were it made somewhere else in a free market where workers are paid and protected.  This would level the playing field and dissuade our major retail chains from buying China because there would no longer be an economic advantage to it.  Every dollar from the China tax should go toward pharma manufacturing at home, PPE manufacturing at home, technological materials like batteries and computer parts...you got it...all made in America.  

It will take a while.  It won't be easy.  We can do it.  Take the China Challenge.

STOP HATE

 I'm from Snellville, Georgia a stone's throw from Stone Mountain and just outside of Atlanta.  I grew up in Gwinnett County Schools.  Before primary school, I lived in Atlanta, GA and attended Pre-K and part of kindergarten there.  Since the beginning of my formal education, in every school I've ever attended, kindness, honesty, and fairness were cornerstones of that education.  Everything, from P.E. games with parachutes and square dancing to book reports on Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., conditioned me with those virtues in mind.  

My education regarding American history was tempered with the complicated truth about Christopher Columbus and his ruthless tactics as he and other Europeans sought to conquer this land.  I learned all about the disease that Europeans brought to North America wiping out many of the native Americans even before the wars began, all the while acknowledging the great country that grew from that conquest.  We honored the victory of our forefathers with a pledge each morning and a flag outside our buildings. 

I left high school fully aware that the Southern United States was built very much on the backs of slaves and indentured servants for which I was taught to feel both shame and gratitude.  This country would likely not have succeeded in the same capacity without them and we owe them and their contemporary relatives admiration and respect for that.  

I learned all about cultural bias on standardized tests and the many debates regarding affirmative action.  I left for the University of Georgia fully equipped to continue that conversation at a higher level.  In college, we discussed all the different ways you can look at systemic racism and ways to combat it, the challenge always being fairness to all people.  There was dignity and consideration for all.  

In my America 1978-2016, kindness, honesty and fairness were woven into the fabric.  I didn't need to wear a shirt saying, "Stop Hate."  It wasn't necessary because that principle was UNDERSTOOD.  IT WENT WITHOUT SAYING.  Disintegrationists will suggest that I'm a fool.  That I was living in a fantasy land ignoring a cancer that was slowly killing us.  And that in exchange for what?  For THIS?  For the current inability or unwillingness to debate?  For the unabashed name calling amongst adults in media and politics?  For the intolerance of differing opinions?  For overt censorship and total corporate control of the people and their voices?

In 2016, Hilary Clinton and her support lost an election they thought was a slam dunk and they have been punishing the country for it ever since.  It started with the overt undermining of the new president through the associated press, social media and government offices and then grew a life all its own as anarchists sensed their moment to grab onto the momentum.  With any thought of actual PEACE in the rearview mirror, they embarked on a campaign to re-write history and create a new order.   

I don't know what schools all of these people attended that taught them disdain for America, that suggested to them we were all on different teams.  But I will say to them that they are the ones who have been lied to.  And the current state of this nation is proof that their perspective is solving nothing and clearly making things worse.  Wearing the words, "Stop Hate," empowers it.  Dignifies it. Validates and encourages it.  It demonstrates that the messenger is ironically hating something, whether it be hate itself, or more likely people who are different from him, a way to call others out, to pass judgement at the same time elevating himself to moral piety.  There is no honor in wearing the shirt when the person wearing it is busy hating white men.  Hating Karens.  Hating republicans.  Hating Christians.  Hating Pro-lifers. Hating America.

To really stop hate, don't wear the shirt.  Live the life.  Be the person who doesn't jump at every opportunity to shame someone who doesn't want to take a vaccine or wear a mask and vice-versa.  Pass up the chance to criticize a liberal or a conservative politician and if you must, use intelligent words and respectable counter points.  Don't force someone to call you a man if you're not a man and don't exasperate a person who has gender issues.  Show each other mutual respect. Forgive.  Accept.  Love.  Tolerate. 

To wear the shirt is lazy, contrite and assumptive. To live the life takes effort, commitment, consistency.  The person who lives the life feels no need to brand himself. That's what confidence looks like. That's what conviction looks like. That's how integrity operates. So if you really want to stop hate in this world, let it begin with you not starting conflict. 

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Live the life.

 

  

Farewell to Facebook

In case you don't remember in 2004, in a conversation with a friend at Harvard, Mark Zuckerberg had this conversation:

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

Zuck: Just ask.

Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

(redacted friend's name): What?  How'd you manage that one?

Zuck:  People just submitted it.

Zuck: I don't know why

Zuck: they "trust me."

Zuck: Dumbf***s.

-India Today Tech 

New Delhi

March 22, 2018

While he was young then, only nineteen, it does still reveal something about his character, a callous arrogance.  When that conversation hit the news, I immediately closed my Facebook account.  To my disbelief, when I submitted "yes" to close the account the words on the screen read, "You'll be back."  Wow.  I couldn't believe the irreverence, the gall.  But you know what?  I did go back a few years later deluding myself that I needed it to promote my business.  I pushed down my personal pride and gave the website another try.  

In the past few years that I've been using Facebook, I have tried to keep to a moral code.  First, no bragging.  I asked myself before submitting each post, will this offend someone?  Will this make someone feel jealous or otherwise bad about herself?  Secondly I asked, is this meaningful?  Will it make someone smile or contemplate in a positive way?  And the third rule was to stay away from politics.  I wanted Facebook to be a safe space to share pictures with friends and family and to promote my books and artwork.  

Over the years, the political bit of my moral code became increasingly more difficult to follow as my feed became inundated with anti-Trump, anti-conservative rhetoric.  Slowly I began unfollowing friends, colleagues, family members whose posts left me feeling personally attacked, judged and criticized.  Then the pandemic hit and it was like everyone completely lost their filters.  I mean everyone.  People of Facebook, members of the media, politicians and Social Media itself all finger pointing, name calling, fact checking, and then finally censoring.  

I'll give you an example of censoring.  A few months ago when the Democrats unrolled the plan to promote mail in ballots across the country, I shared a popular quote that read something like, "If you can stand in line at Wal-Mart you can stand in line to vote."  A relative of mine replied with an article explaining how mail-in ballots were the same thing as absentee ballots and that many states use the terms interchangeably.  While this is true to some degree, it is only true that all absentee ballots can be mail-in ballots, but all mail-in ballots are not absentee ballots.  This is because for it to be an absentee ballot, a voter must request it.  This is a huge distinction because along with it come many implications.  Facebook would not allow me to post those words.  Every time I tried to send the reply, I got a notice saying something really vague about not being able to send at that time.  It allowed me to say all kinds of other things at that time, but not that.  

Whether you are a Republican, Democrat or Independent, this should give you pause.  I understand that many people have a strong visceral response to Donald Trump and I feel bad about that.  I know what it's like to have no respect for your president.  It's hard.  But I don't understand the obsession with hating him.  I see these news reporters who are supposed to be objective journalists acting like emotional basket cases.  Michelle Obama said, "Let's remember that tens of millions of people voted for the status quo, even when it meant supporting lies, hate, chaos and division." (USA today.com)  What?  Does she know what status quo means?  If anything is status quo, it's voting for a lifetime politician.  And lies?  Hate?  Whether you want to admit it or not, the same rhetoric is easily true about the other side.  

Whoopi Goldberg shouts on the view that Republicans should suck it up!  and says about the election results, "How DARE you question it?"  Well, this is still a democracy republic.  Any candidate is welcome to challenge election results or simply ask for investigations into them and any person interested in liberty and free and fair elections should embrace that about our system.  Stacy Abrams filed lawsuits in the Georgia Governor's race.  Democrats had no problem with that and have exalted her as a victim of the system and the rightful symbolic winner of that contest.  After the 2016 election, the Washington Post headline read, "'I would be your president': Clinton blames Russia, FBI Chief for 2016." And of course everyone knows the story of Al Gore and Florida.  

So let's all please stop pretending that the Republican response to this election is unprecedented because it's not.  The only thing that is unprecedented is the number of mail in ballots cast, and given this is the first time we've voted this way as a nation, it's not too much to ask that we get it right.  Another thing that is completely new to our time is media bias which brings me back to Facebook.  I tried to keep my Facebook experience free of politics until Facebook made it about politics.  Now, you can't get through any feed without propaganda links explaining how Joe Biden won the presidency.  Next it will be about your social duty to wear face masks, then to get vaccinated and then...what else?  I promise more will come because it is the nature of power.  

So the conservative response to things like this is not to burn buildings, topple statues or spit in peoples' faces.  It is to break the monopoly.  There have been other social platforms waiting to get a piece of the market share for years and we've all been too comfortable and complacent to go to the trouble of giving them a try.  Well I'm no longer comfortable or complacent and I will not be complicit in allowing the flow of information to the people to become stifled by big tech and their agenda.  

Above all else, since I am leaving Facebook and may not have a chance to express this to as many people as I can in this moment, to my friends and family who are Democrats,  I love you.  I think that you are smart and kind and have integrity and I am sorry that you have disliked our president so intensely.  I ask you to please consider what is happening in the media and become a voice against it.  Our media cannot become a series of propaganda machines as we have seen what's happened on Facebook.  You can think for yourselves and don't need the entire power of every celebrity and television network behind you.  The name calling has got to stop on both sides.  It is ugly and undignified.  We are better than this.  We are all so much better than this.  

So I will say farewell to Facebook and hello to any other non-biased platforms who want to join the ranks of social media.  And to Mr. Zuckerberg, I assure you, this time I will not be back.  

Protect Me From Tyranny Not the Coronavirus

Many Americans are willing to step into the post Covid 19 world. We believe the only path to its end is through it.  The vast disconnect between us and the ones who prefer to hide from it indefinitely demonstrates one core value, self-responsibility, a value that also marks a major difference between conservative and liberal ideals.  

Conservatives believe that the people tell government what to do.  Liberals believe that the government should tell the people what to do.  Conservatives believe that the people support the government.  Liberals believe that the government should support the people.  So in the case of protection, likewise, while conservatives are scrambling to protect the constitution during this government free-for-all of mandates, the liberals are looking to the government to protect them from getting sick.    

So who's right?  Who's wrong?  I suggest in this situation that once again, self-responsibility tips the scale.  In the case of the Coronavirus, we have the luxury to constantly take in education and updates regarding its spread worldwide, nationally and locally.  We know how to protect ourselves from it and how to treat it.  If I don't want to get Coronavirus I can choose to stay home.  I can order groceries online.  I can shop at odd hours when the stores aren't busy.  I can always wear a mask when I go out.  I can even wear a mask when someone comes to the door.  I can wash my hands incessantly especially when I've been outside my home.  I can be more mindful about surfaces I touch when I leave my house.  I can avoid friends and family members who I know are going out and living their lives carefree.  It is hard to imagine, but I can even avoid them in my own home and if they're grown and they choose to put me at risk, I can insist that they find somewhere else to live.  If they aren't grown, then they live under my house by my rules, so that's pretty simple.  If they are unpredictable teens, you can bet I'm keeping my physical distance from them.  If  I'm really serious about protecting myself, I might even start exercising and eating right.  Gosh, I'll even spring for vitamin supplements.  These are just some of the many ways that I can avoid dying from Coronavirus.  

In the case of Tyranny, it's not so simple.  When the government tells me I can't leave my house, can't shop in select stores of its choosing, go to work, open my business, attend church services, have a surgery I've needed for some time, attend school, send my children to a playground, ride around in my own boat...what am I to do?  When the government tells me if I don't wear a mask covering my nose and mouth everywhere in public, I will be educated and punished, what is my reprisal?  

When the government prevents my child from attending school while promising a great enriching online experience that by the way they have failed to produce, what am I to do?  I sent letters to every single person who voted.  I answered every survey they sent.  I'm aware that over seventy percent of parents surveyed said they wanted their children to go back to school in spite of the epidemic.  My twelve year old also sent a pleading message to the Superintendent Ann Levett.  She did not reply.  The few responses we received from board members aired on the side of safety, safety in a vacuum because it completely disregards all of the detrimental truths about confining children to screens in homes alone while their parents try to earn a living to provide for their families.    

Trauma from a pandemic has opened the gate for tyranny to invade our country in the guise of protecting the people, veiled in platitudes like Safety First, Follow the Science and Kindness Matters.  Anyone who dissents is labeled heartless, cruel, selfish and unenlightened.  So where then lies the self-responsibility conservatives hold so dear?  How do we retaliate as our breath is being crushed from us, our posts deleted and constantly censored, people we don't even know weighing in on every single thing we say in various forms of social media using group think terms like, "It's obvious you..."  "what kind of idiot..."  "How stupid..."  "ridiculous..." and my new personal favorite, an emojee face laughing hysterically, these all coming from the harbingers of kindness.    

Do we wait until the next election and hope that someone better runs for county commissioner?  For mayor?  For public school superintendent?  For school board members?  That's a big hope and November is far away.  Or do we get in the mix, fight back, get outside our comfort zones and sound the alarms, because right now everything Matters but us.  

There is tyranny and there is self-responsibility.  In one paradigm, a select few win.  The few who make the most noise, point many fingers and accuse instead of seek to understand.  To the person who chooses safety over freedom, your victory will be short lived because Tyranny does not stop when the tragedy fades, when the natural disaster has long been cleaned up and life resumes.  It takes hold and grows.  It is a living thing and it will eventually attack something you hold dear and when it does, just as conservatives feel today, you will be powerless to stop it. 

In the realm of self-responsibility, we protect ourselves.  Oh we are happy to protect others as well and eager to do so, but not because we've been forced to, but because it is the right thing to do.  People are given the choice to wear a mask or not to wear a mask.  If it suits the greater good, people are highly encouraged to wear masks.  Private businesses can help by requiring masks in their buildings or at their venues as well as social distancing like making aisles bigger, seating people further apart...the possibilities are vast especially when equipping the private sector.  We are free to avoid people not wearing masks and you can even think bad thoughts about them if you want.  Just don't harass them!

We can make virtual learning available to all the students and teachers who aren't comfortable going back to school in person.  Goodness knows we're already in deep with this program "It's Learning" and I don't even want to know what it cost.  This will reduce the overall in person class sizes and allow children to have the proper education they deserve.  When people take responsibility for themselves, everyone wins.  All of these things help us to inch closer to a herd immunity that will never come if we continue to hide away.  Eventually we may even get a vaccine that helps quell numbers each season.  

This is America.  We are Americans, whether your family has been here since the first boat arrived or like most of us, your people trickled in through out her history, it wasn't easy to get here.  Every American is either a fighter or born from fighters where freedom was the prize.  Don't give it away for the comfort of wellness.  Something else will get you eventually, I promise.  That's how life works.  But freedom, this freedom did not come easy and if you preserve it, it will last long after your death for your children and grandchildren.  Just as it takes years to build a skyscraper and seconds to bring it down, freedom will disappear like a vapor in the streets. 

The Globe Tree

Five years ago, I sat at this computer in a similar melancholy state to find catharsis.  SIP was going to kindergarten.  A week from tomorrow, he will be finished with fifth grade, finished with elementary school.  My introverted low-key boy eventually got the hang of school and went on to GEP and then to MN4K, the school's morning media program, and Safety Patrol.  He's a brown belt at Master Jaime's Ultimate Martial Arts Studio.  He plays tennis once a week.  He's tall and funny and occasionally wears deodorant. 

Marshpoint has done a great job preparing the kids for this transition.  In hind sight, I think I might have benefited from finding a therapist myself.  The past couple of months, the ride to and from school in the afternoons has become more cherished and less chore.  Quite unfortunately, this sacred mom time has been rudely disrupted by the sudden and brutal destruction of the forest that lived alongside the car pick up lane.  Please don't misunderstand me.  I understand that deforestation is a hard truth of our world and in many ways necessary and beneficial.  But these woods were personal to me.  And the older I get, I see more beauty and life and potential in those woods than I do in ball fields.  So, with just a month of school left to go, they began taking the trees down literally in front of us as we sat captive in the car line each afternoon.  Heavy machines fell them and slung them into piles like dead bodies as I looked away. 

The carnage drew closer and closer to the sacred tree, the Oak that SIP and I called, The Globe.  I prayed that they would not take it down.  It was along the edge of the property line, not unreasonable to think it might be spared.  And sure enough, as all the others disappeared, The Globe remained and a part of me was comforted.  It gave me a sense of civility, the idea that in the clear cutting, there was some humanity, planning and forethought, even respect for the greatness of nature that was eliminated for ball fields or parking, whatever goes there in place of the thousands of wildlife members who were suddenly killed and misplaced.  Perhaps the Globe would stand as a monument to the forest that once lived there.

For days and days after it appeared all the trees had been taken, I drove there in the morning and again in the afternoon, comforted by the sight of that beautiful unusual tree that eventually stood alone in the landscape.  We are now down to one week of school.  The teachers have all but clocked out and SIP has summer camp on his mind.  No more homework.  No more testing.  Just showing up left to do.

This morning, against the soundtrack of For King and Country's new hit, "God Only Knows," I drove SIP to school as I have each morning for five years.  Today, the Globe Tree was gone.  Just gone.  I wept.  Tears poured from my face for so many more reasons than the death of that beautiful tree.  But I think in some way, SIP knew them all.  He reached over and patted me on the back never saying a word.  What a wonderful child.  How blessed I am.  God only knows.  I wish someone had fought for that tree.  It was so lovely, I just assumed no one would take it down.  I wish I had fought for it.

2018 Snowball Effect

2018 has brought more than actual snowballs to us in Savannah.  The New Year Resolution snowball, for example, is crashing through my life in an avalanche of under performance and disappointment. Like an idiot, I accepted the culture dominated challenge to become better this year.  Better at everything, planning, exercising, eating, communicating, painting, marriaging, parenting, friending, oh gosh just  better at myselfing. 

As the Millennial cheekily says, "Let me put that in my planner," and pulls out her sleek smart phone... I, the dull one from the nineteen hundreds pull out my five pound notebook stand-in for my short term memory that was shot during the dawn of motherhood.   Yes, I use a PLANNER, an actual book with blank spaces for information.  It requires a separate writing utensil for it to work.  Don't get me started on Microsoft Outlook and Calendar, etc. as my phone has let me down on scheduling more times than my German Short Haired Pointer puppy has destroyed something I love.

So among the many things in the queue that I carry on from day to day in my PLANNER is the need to make a CALENDAR.  This also is not a metaphor or the name of an app for my phone.  It is an actual book filled with real pages that represent months in the year.  I like to have a calendar on the wall in the kitchen, and because I'm an odd bird, I really like to make the calendar myself.  But all of this 2018 getting better at being ME campaign became very time consuming.  Hence, February launches and I still have not made my calendar and there sits a glaring blank space on the wall where it should be.

My nine year old son, SIP, has become accustomed to checking the calendar each day to apprise himself of coming events.  SIP was home all week with the flu and Thursday night in an attempt to orient himself for going back to school Friday, he checked for the calendar on the blank space in the wall where the 2018 calendar should be.  Dismayed, he said, "What's tomorrow's date?"  I grabbed the nearest thing with a date on it and no, it was not my phone, but my PLANNER.  I opened it up to February and handed him the schedule that had not been revealed in its proper sense on the wall.  He perused it for a few seconds and said in shock, "I"m having SURGERY next Friday?!"

"Oh yeah, about THAT..." and another snowball hit me right between the eyes...metaphorically this time. 

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