The 300 word post was written by a man named Tom Argall from Brampton, Ontario. He explained that his mother had just been visiting Kelowna and had tripped on a bit of raised sidewalk, falling hard, breaking her arm and bruising her face. Luckily an off-duty firefighter was driving by, stopped and came to her rescue.

Tom ended his post with this:

“I want to thank Brent. I’m over two thousand miles away and I don’t know his last name, but I’m appealing to the six degrees of Facebook to send the message. If you are reading this and you know a Kelowna, B.C. firefighter named Brent, please thank him for me. Shake his hand, hug him, buy him a beer, whatever your preferred expression of gratitude may be. Last Wednesday, wherever he was going, whatever he had planned for the day, whatever was happening in his own life was suddenly irrelevant and secondary to him because a total stranger needed help. We need more people like that in the world.”

He posted his two paragraphs on Facebook a week after the accident on May 1^st. Before going to bed that night he was pleasantly surprised it had already been shared by 99 people. When he awoke in the morning he was amazed it had been shared over 250 times. By May 3rd, his request had been shared by a whopping  2400 people, and within an hour of me sharing it, Brent’s last name was revealed as Beselt.

But Tom already knew that, because, by then, he’d received a message from the man he was looking for.

“I’m not on Facebook,” Brent said. “So I sent him a note through my wife’s account after being asked by so many people if it was me. Even friends from Spain and Saskatchewan contacted us about his post. It was crazy. I was just doing what anybody would have done.”

Tom was happy to hear from him. “I read his message to my mom and she cried,” he said. “In a good way.”

The 77 year old, now in a cast and recuperating nicely, was incredibly appreciative and touched by the kindness of a stranger. Not just one stranger, but many.

A nurse had also stopped to help, and then later visited her in the hospital. There were others that offered assistance too.  And now over 2700 people on Facebook have shared a simple request of a son wanting to thank a stranger for helping his beloved mother.

“Brent was a real hero,” Tom said. “ But so was everyone that helped. I’m very grateful to them all.”

Human decency is alive and well in the world, and there are millions of examples of it being displayed every day. Unfortunately It’s the crazy, negative and tragic stories that get most of the press, which can give the impression we shouldn’t expect kindness and compassion from strangers. We should.

The vast majority of us human beings are more loving than we think. Let’s open our eyes, and hearts, to that.

And if anyone knows the nurse named Kim from Kelowna General Hospital who helped Tom’s mom, please let me know. He’d really like to say thanks.

I struggle with depression and anxiety. Funny that someone with these issues would be writing a column called “On a Brighter Note,” right? Well, it’s ironic at least.

“What do you have to be depressed about?” I was asked in my youth. “Your life could be so much worse.”

Firstly, no kidding. Secondly, that sentiment is probably a big reason why most of us struggling with bouts of depression, or other similar conditions, tend to suppress our feelings rather than discuss or deal with them head-on.

When I was a child and I felt the black cloud of emotional gloom hovering over my head, I would try to shame myself out of those moods by comparing my life to the lives of starving children in third world countries. I rarely talked about my feelings and I learned that a smile, even a fake smile, was what the world wanted to see.

When I grew older I started writing out my feelings, particularly my darkest ones, since that seemed to help me escape my funk. I can’t tell you how often I’ve typed away with tears streaming down my face. Sometimes I could even envision the black cloud above me start to dissipate.

The other thing I’d do is people-watch. Who among us hasn’t felt joy and sorrow, love and loss, success and failure? Observing others and reminding myself of that fact has helped me to feel less alone in my own troubles. Even the smiling, happy faces that look like they haven’t got a care in the world obviously do, or will in the future. None of us gets out of this world unscathed.

I started writing this column because I wanted to share my experiences and life from a positive perspective. I believed that no matter what my circumstance, happiness is just a mindset, and I could either choose to be happy, or to be miserable, and it was a choice I’d have to make daily. I still believe that, and I’d like to be able to report that I’ve always chosen radiant sunshine, but I haven’t. On some days, I just let it rain.

Feelings are feelings and sometimes we can control them, and sometimes we can’t, even when we have loving friends and family to support us.

Recently I decided I needed some professional help. Even as I write this I feel slightly ashamed that I couldn’t just figure it out by myself. But I couldn’t, so I’m doing what I felt I needed to do. If that makes me seem weak, I’m okay with that.

When I first started writing this column four years ago, my mother-in-law asked my husband why anyone would want to read about my life. She didn’t mean it in a negative way, she was genuinely perplexed as to why complete strangers would be interested.

But I guess it’s comparable to my affinity for people-watching. Most of us are naturally curious about other people and that’s why we read, watch or listen to stories about others. It can help us feel less alone in the world, it can help us figure out how to deal with the vast array of emotions we all have, and it can give us the courage to reach out for help when we need it.

On a brighter note, I’ll keep looking for the silver linings. All the clouds have them, as you know.

Looking through old photos from when my kids were young, I’m hard-pressed to find very many of myself in there. The reason for this is because I was too busy being the photographer and I would forget to hand the camera over to someone else. The other reason is that I typically didn’t feel presentable and preferred being behind the lens rather than in front of it.

On the rare occasion that I thought I looked good enough, and I actually remembered to ask, my husband would snap a few. Unfortunately, I didn’t keep many of the pictures he took because I’d invariably find fault with my appearance and throw them out.

Good grief. I kick myself for that now. It shouldn’t have mattered how I looked. Photographs of me, especially with my children, are important.

“There’s hardly any of you,” Sam and Daisy have complained when looking through our scrapbooks and photo boxes. I know exactly how they feel since I’ve felt the same way about the lack of pictures of my mother.

But it’s our own fault. Like my grandmothers, we were too self-conscious to pose, and we probably didn’t want to waste money getting photos developed that would just wind up in the garbage.

When I first met my husband he’d attempt to take my picture, but he was rarely successful. Trying to get snapshots of someone who is uncooperative and camera-shy gets tiresome. Thank goodness for my mother-in-law who obviously didn’t care and knew better.  

Perusing her photo albums is an entirely different experience because there aren’t just prints of my husband and our kids, there are actually some of me in there too.  Even pre-parenthood pictures, which Sam and Daisy love.

“Is that you?” my nine-year-old daughter asked, pointing to an image of me from 19 years earlier when I first started dating their daddy. “You look so young, Mama.”

I did look young. Young and thin. Ironically I didn’t want to get my picture taken back then because I felt too plump. What was I thinking?

It’s obvious looking through her album that my size fluctuated dramatically over time, particularly during the first few years after my kids were born and I wasn’t quick to lose the extra baby weight. But seeing photos of me with my children at various stages of their lives, no matter how I looked, isn’t just a treat for them, it’s a treat for me as well.

Since turning 40 I haven’t objected to getting my picture taken like I used to. It’s not that I think I’ve become more photogenic, I just care more about capturing moments and less about looking perfect.  

I still feel like I should be doing way more of it though. My brother has always snapped a ton of his family, and I’ve noticed my dad doing the same as he’s become more sentimental. I need to follow their lead.

In this digital age we can take an unlimited number of pictures and not worry about getting rolls of photos developed and ending up with a bunch we don’t want. Now when we have images printed, we can hand-pick exactly what we want and save or trash the rest. There’s no such thing as taking too many pictures anymore.

There also should be no such thing as waiting to look perfect. That kind of attitude might work in the modeling world, but in the real world where memories matter, it doesn’t make sense. 

At a recent convention in Las Vegas I asked some American businessmen what they thought the difference was between Americans and Canadians. After teasing me about my accent – which I’m sure I don’t have – and the word “eh,” which I don’t recall using, one of them said something they all agreed with.

“If an American tells you to call them when you’re in town, they don’t really mean it,” he said. “ If a Canadian tells you the same thing, they won’t just meet with you, they’ll pick you up at the airport, invite you to stay at their home, and introduce you to their whole dang family. Including their smelly old dog.”

The other men laughed and discussed similar scenarios, confirming their belief that Canadians are more sincere and hospitable than they are.  

“Aint that the truth?” one of them said immediately. “We have good intentions, but we’re too busy, or maybe just too rude to follow through.”

I was surprised by their comments because I’d always found Americans to be exceptionally friendly. I was also planning on visiting L.A. in a few days to connect with some pals, so I wondered if the men’s theory would play out for me the way they described. I suspected it might when I checked for replies to my emails, and only found one.

“Where are you staying?” my friend responded. “I’ll pick you up and we’ll paint the town red!” Interestingly, of the seven L.A. people I had contacted, Jenn was the only one originally from Canada. She even offered her apartment to me the next time I was in town.

I was disappointed that I hadn’t heard back from anyone else, but since I’d been struggling with feelings of depression and anxiety the four days that I’d been in Vegas, I felt like being a loner anyway. And just to be clear, the trip itself wasn’t the cause of my heavy heart, the timing of it was just unfortunate. Being in the over-stimulating playground for adults actually provided some temporary distractions from my worries.

On the fifth day I caught a ride with my business partner to L.A. and couldn’t wait to get there. Not because of my newer friends that I could potentially connect with, but because of one older friend that I knew I would see for sure: the Pacific Ocean.

With a desperate desire to see it, I asked around and it was recommended that we go to the Santa Monica Pier. It was love at first sight. Its long boardwalk – full of vendors, eateries, artists and rides – was a joy to walk around. But it was the water itself that I sought solace in, and I reveled in the experience of dipping my toes into the cold cleansing sea.

I’ve always found the ocean to be incredibly healing, and I’ve missed the privilege of seeing, smelling and hearing its magnificence whenever I wanted to, like I could when I lived in Vancouver.

While still on the beach, I received a text from an L.A. friend. And then another. By the end of my three day visit I’d heard from all seven friends who were responding to my requests to get together. None of them invited me to their house to meet their whole dang family or pet their smelly, old dog, but they certainly proved they weren’t the stereotypical rude Americans described by my new friends from the conference.

In fact, some of them proved to be as sincere as any Canadian and as salty as any ocean. The only real difference I noticed was that they say ‘aint and we say eh, and we make fun of each other for doing it. 

In my early twenties I was offered a job as a movie critic and it felt like I’d hit the jackpot. I didn’t know anyone who loved the movies as much as I did, and I enjoyed writing, so it seemed the perfect career opportunity.

My first assignment was a Steven Seagal movie – I no longer remember the name – but I think it had the word law, kill or death in the title. It was an unbearably long action film and not something I would have chosen to watch if I was paying for the ticket myself.

I wrote about the dreadful acting, the substandard screenplay and its implausibility in the most entertaining way I could, and sent it in to the newspaper. To my delight the editor was happy with it and sent me to another free movie. I don’t recall what that second show was either, but I liked it enough to recommend it.

“Your other one was better,” the editor told me after reading it. “Can you rework this so it sounds more like the first one did?” 

When I asked him if he wanted me to write it as though I didn’t like it, he said yes.

“Readers like a good rant,” he explained.

That was the end of my career as a film critic – and I wasn’t sad about it at all. I realized this editor was just one guy with one opinion, but I could already tell from that brief experience that I wasn’t cut out for the job. Sure, I adored the movies, but not all genres. If I could just review comedies, dramas and chick flicks I’m sure I would have loved it. But how can someone who doesn’t appreciate action, horror and fantasy films critique them fairly? Most can’t.

But one person who sure could was the late great Roger Ebert. And what a writer he was. A lot of people didn’t know he won a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, but I knew this trivia, as a long-time fan of his work after seeing him for the first time on TV in the early ‘80s – when he was known as the “fat one” on At the Movies.

I didn’t always agree with his opinion, or that of his co-host Gene Siskel, but I sure loved hearing them share their spirited viewpoints. It was obvious their passion for the movies was authentic, and their chemistry together was undeniable.

I was also in awe of their influence. A thumbs-up from one of them was huge for filmmakers back then. And because the pair also reviewed independent movies, foreign films and documentaries, the audience was exposed to so much more than just the mainstream blockbuster fare. I personally would seek out shows I normally wouldn’t have even known about, based upon their reviews. I was grateful to the dynamic duo for expanding my movie-going experience, and for being such a powerful voice for the underdog.

And just as it was hard to imagine anyone filling Gene Siskel’s shoes when he died fourteen years ago, it’s even harder to imagine anyone taking the place of Roger Ebert now. People are not replaceable.

As I’m getting older, I’m seeing more and more of my fellow humans starting to die off. People I knew personally and loved dearly, as well as those I never knew, but whose work I admired immensely.  

I’ve been told you can’t mourn someone you’ve never met, but I think you can. I never knew Roger Ebert personally, but his life affected mine in a very positive way and for that reason I’ll miss his presence here on Earth.

Ultimately, for me, his death serves as yet another reminder that life is short. The more thumbs-up moments we can enjoy wholeheartedly, the better our lives will be.

Handing me two tiny pieces of clear flexible plastic that looked like drinking glasses for Barbie and Ken, she demonstrated their actual purpose by slipping them onto the heels of her stilettos.

“Now Bob won’t insist we take our shoes off in the house,” she said, referring to her husband’s desire to protect their hardwood flooring. Smart. I can’t stand taking my shoes off and ruining my party outfit.

“They also solve the problem of walking on grass,” she said excitedly. “Like at a garden wedding.” Smart again. I’ve sunk into the soft ground a few times myself. It wasn’t graceful.

With a patent pending, Dana’s “Heelio Dealios” are quickly becoming a hit at wedding shows and shoe stores where their usefulness is recognized immediately.

“I’m pretty clutzy,” one fashionable young lady told me. “I wear them to keep from slipping.”

Armed with a little pair of my own, I went home and put them on the beautiful high heels I wore to my friend’s outdoor wedding last year. I first had to clean off some of the dried-up mucky grass still stuck to the bottom, but once I did, my new additions fit like a glove.

After trying the caps on a few other pairs, it became obvious that I owned a lot of shoes that I barely wore. Some of them still had price tags attached – yet a layer of dust over them. What a waste.

Grabbing a large bin, I started filling it with all the shoes I knew would be much better used and appreciated by someone other than me. It was hard to part with them initially, but anything that didn’t fit my feet comfortably or wasn’t something I had worn in the last year was thrown in the bin. My feelings of guilt over rarely wearing them were quickly replaced with feelings of relief than someone would.

I then asked my husband and kids to do the same with their shoes so we could donate them to the charity “Soles 4 Souls,” which has drop boxes all over BC, Canada and the United States.

I first heard about this organization through my friend Don Robichaud, who passed away suddenly five weeks ago. He was passionate about the project and became heavily involved when his friend Jim Belshaw, the owner of Roy’s Shoes, wanted to introduce “Soles 4 Souls” to Kelowna. Hoping to collect a couple of thousand pairs of shoes to donate after the earthquake in Haiti, they ended up collecting over 45,000 pairs their very first year. Since then their team has collected 300,000 pairs locally, and the organization’s goal is to now collect a million shoes per province all across Canada.

“People like this charity because anyone can participate,” Jim said. “And the local agencies get first crack at the donations before they’re shipped overseas, so we’re helping out at home as well.”

Catering to people who might not even own one pair of shoes, I felt hesitant about donating my frivolous high heels. But after learning that all types were needed, I knew they’d end up in good hands, and on good feet. That made me happy. Who knows – maybe someone will wear a pair of my pretty pumps to a job interview.

As a bonus I attached a pair of Heelio Deadlio’s inside the stilettos – just in case their new owner ends up walking on hardwood floors or soft green grass after they land a really great job.

Drop box locations and info: Soles4SoulsCanada.com. Info for stiletto caps: HeelioDealios.com

Call me crazy, but I miss renting movies. I’m not talking about ordering the on-demand shows from cable or Netflix, but physically renting them the old fashioned way – from a video store. That outing used to be a weekend ritual for our family.

Rarely did we know what we’d be taking home until we got there and looked. My husband and I would usually start off doing the rounds together, checking out the new releases before venturing over to the shelves where the older films were displayed in their faded covers; me in the drama and comedy sections, he in the action and thriller. Paul would pick out one or two, and I would pick out one or two and then we’d haggle. Our kids would be in the family section doing the same. More often than not, they’d choose movies they’d already seen. Sometimes we would as well.  

It was fun. Even if one person was getting on someone else’s nerves because he or she was taking too long to decide, the experience itself was great.

Of course, if you’d asked me at the time if I’d rather just order shows less expensively, in the comfort of our own home, and not have to pay the late return fees that we almost always incurred, I would have said yes. But I wouldn’t have anticipated just how much I’d miss perusing the aisles in person.

Even decades before that I frequented video stores. In high school my best friend had wealthy parents and therefore owned a brand new state-of-the-art Beta video machine. Being the only one from our group who did at the time, her house became our movie-watching hangout.

We didn’t stop going to theatres – we still bussed downtown for matinees whenever we were allowed. But to rent a show and watch it at night while lounging around eating

homemade popcorn became a wonderful treat for all of us. And picking out the movie at the little rental place beforehand felt magical.

Like my children, we often rented films we’d seen before and would watch them repeatedly. Other times we’d choose them based solely on their covers. Occasionally we’d take advice from the video store owner and rent something completely inappropriate for our age, such The Postman Always Rings Twice or Last Tango in Paris. We would then vow never to take a recommendation from him, or any other adult, in the future.

Over the years the prices dropped and all our families eventually bought video machines. By that time only VCRs equipped for the larger, inferior VHS tapes were being sold, but we didn’t care. We were just happy to watch movies we wanted to see, when we wished, and without commercials.

As with everything in technology, things evolved and those big clunky video tapes we all marveled at when they first came out were replaced with sleek skinny DVD’s that allowed us to pause, select scenes, and never rewind again. Now even those are starting to become a thing of the past for so many of us.

Being able to order movies and TV shows digitally is delightfully convenient in some ways, but the excitement and adventure in hunting for cinematic treasures, new and old, good and bad, is not what it used to be.

Thankfully there are still a few places left for people like me to rewind and revisit that wonderful, magical feeling of our former weekend ritual.

No matter how much time I have to accomplish something, I always end up putting it off until the very last minute. I was like that with school, and decades later, I’m still like that with work. Even with tasks that I love.

This column is a good example of that. I have all week to do it, and because of its slice-of-life anytime feel, I could write a different article every day for ten days and build up a collection to pull from on deadline. But do I do that? No, I don’t.

For years now it’s been suggested that I do. I have friends – organized people who are cool as a cucumber because they’re so darn organized – and they have told me to write at least one or two extra stories to alleviate some of my anxiety. They explain how much better I would feel if I knew I had an article or two waiting in the wings just in case I got sick, or one of my kids got sick, or I couldn’t think of something to write about at the 11^th hour. I nod my head and I agree with them completely. I then vow to start on my first backup column immediately, but something more pressing always comes up that I end up doing instead.

Years ago I asked a psychologist friend for his advice in the hopes of fixing myself. He asked me why I didn’t like leaving things to the last second, and I told him I didn’t like the pressure, particularly when I was overwhelmed with too many other duties at the same time. He then asked if I was still able to get my work done under that kind of stress, and I said yes.

“Sounds like it might be working for you,” he replied. “Maybe you should just relax and accept it as a method to your madness.”

I guess I did, or I would have changed by now. But going forward, do I want to keep working exactly like this when I’m as busy as I am? The answer is no.

Eager for help, I decided to consult Google for some guidance. What was I looking for? A couple helpful suggestions, that’s all. What did I find? Well, the first thing that came up was a list of “101 ways to get organized.” Yeah, okay. That’s about 100 more than I wanted.

What I was really needing to see in that moment was one word: Simplify. Once I saw it in that huge Internet pool of information, it’s what stuck out for me most. I have now printed this lovely word out and tacked it to the wall above my computer.

After years of my daunting to-do list getting longer instead of shorter, I am about to get ruthless with it and truly prioritize.  Some items will get pushed down the page and some will get pushed right off.

One thing I know for sure is that writing a backup column will finally be added to the list. And the only other thing I know right now is that it will be placed somewhere near the top.

On a recent day when my kids were out playing with their friends I went on a cleaning rampage. It felt good and I didn’t want to stop. But eventually the alarm went off and the time I had allotted for household chores was over. It was time to get back to work.

Sitting down with a cup of coffee in my neat and less cluttered home office, I felt calmer, as if my mind had been organized as well.

And then I heard the dogs barking, the front door opening and a gaggle of children laughing and running up the stairs. I couldn’t help it – I groaned.

“The house is clean,” I announced to my kids and their friends when they asked to play inside. “So, yes you can play here – but you’re not allowed to mess it up.”

“We won’t,” they promised. And then they did exactly what I expected them to do: messed it up.

It’s not that they didn’t try to keep the place tidy. They did. But, like Pig Pen in the Peanuts comic strip, dirt seems to follow these people wherever they go.

They’re young and I want them to have fun. I want them to run around outside and get grubby at the park. I want them to pull out costumes and play dress up in the basement. And I want them to prepare snacks for themselves in the kitchen and experience some independence. But at the same time, I don’t want them to leave any evidence behind that they were ever here. I know – that’s not reasonable.

Keeping my house somewhat orderly with the husband I have, two children, two dogs and many young visitors has been an ongoing challenge for years. I’ve even wondered at times if I was meant to live alone as a spinster where I could keep my little abode spick and span with nobody to clean up after but myself.

I know I wouldn’t really want that though. It’s just a fantasy I imagine when the house becomes a pigsty.

The reality of my life is that as much as I crave organization, it eludes me. Like so many parents, I don’t have enough time.

“If only we could buy hours,” I’ll often say. “I’d buy a few extra of them every day.”

Unfortunately I can’t do that. Or wait, maybe I sort of can.

A few months ago I hired housecleaners to come every other week in order to gain some additional time. I was reluctant about doing it, and part of the reason was that I grew up with the notion that housecleaners were only for rich folks, and we’re not rich.

My other reason is that I knew that if I hired professionals, we’d have to be organized enough and schedule in time to clean for the cleaners.

“Why do we have to put our stuff away?” my kids asked before the first visit from the cleaners. “Isn’t that what the maids are for?”

“They’re not maids and we’re not royalty,” I said. “The cleaners will think anything lying around must be garbage and they’ll just throw it out. If you don’t want that to happen you’d better put your things where they belong.”

Worked like a charm.

How wonderful to not only come home to a tidy house, but to a clean one as well. It literally felt like someone had given me three extra hours of time.

Whether we’re able to keep up with the cost of the outside help or not, I’ve decided I like the strategy of allotting specific times to tackle the cleaning of the house and warning my little Pig Pens, as well as their Papa Pig Pen, to prepare accordingly.

Having a clear, less cluttered mind for me requires some strategizing, and I’m the only one who can make that happen.

Last week, I was told that I looked really good for my age. A couple of days later a friend said that I was probably a real stunner when I was in my twenties. On both occasions I believe these people intended their remarks to be compliments. But to me, neither of them felt exactly like that.

I thought it odd they tainted a perfectly nice thing to say by bringing age into the equation, but remarks like these are nothing new.

As with many things that amuse and/or puzzle me, I put the comments on Facebook and asked people which of the two they’d rather be told. Most saw the remarks as backhanded compliments, and didn’t like either. Some offered up funny things they’d been told themselves:

“You look good for someone your size. ”

“I like your haircut, it’s ten times better!”

Also: “You look slim from the front.”

Backhanded compliments have continued to fascinate me, ever since I received one from my first boyfriend.

“You’re pretty,” he said. “You could never be on a magazine cover or anything like that, but you’re pretty.” I remember sitting there dumbfounded, trying to figure out if he intended to be insulting or if he was simply clueless. I found a smarter boyfriend after that.

Over the years I’ve encountered many incidents where I was left wondering what was meant. I finally got up the nerve to ask when I was 25 years old.

“You have a nice figure for such a big-boned girl,” a co-worker had told me.

“I can’t tell,” I said timidly. “Did you mean that as a compliment?”

“What are you talking about?” she responded, confused.

When I said it would have felt more flattering if she hadn’t added the big-boned part, she looked at me like I was a raving psycho, so I dropped it.

When this kind of thing happens now, I might wonder their intended message, but I rarely bother to ask, because it’s not important what they think of me.

I must confess though, I have also said some stupid things.

A few nights ago I met a gorgeous, young lady with super long, brown hair and I told her she looked like Alanis Morissette. I wanted to add that she was an even prettier version of the singer, but instead of saying that, I said this:

“You look like Alanis Morissette – but less horsey.”

Everyone around us laughed, including her, so I felt safe that it was regarded as funny and nothing more. But it occurred to me later that I may have insulted her, which was not my intention at all.

The fact is, I think Alanis Morissette is beautiful and I thought the girl I met was even more beautiful. But how would she know that? Maybe she was left feeling that I was some old hag giving her a backhanded compliment, exactly the way I felt when the woman commented on my “big bones” twenty years before.

The point is, we never truly know what people are thinking or if their words are sincere. But it shouldn’t matter. What matters is what we think of ourselves.

I’m trying to teach my nine-year-old daughter that concept, since she’s at that age where backhanded compliments and in-your-face insults are a frequent occurrence.

Life is too short to take negative, or perceived negative comments, personally. What others say and think about us is their business, not ours.

As the former First Lady of America, Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

She couldn’t have been more right about that. Those are words worth living.

My nine-year-old daughter came home last week and said we needed to buy a baby gift for a teacher at her school.

“His name is Ikea,” Daisy said excitedly.

“Whose name is Ikea?” I asked, not knowing if she was referring to the teacher or the infant.

“Mr. Verstraete’s baby,” she said. “He’s a boy!”   

“Ikea?” I asked. “Are you sure his name’s Ikea?”

“Yes, of course,” she responded, as though I was nuts for asking.

But I guess anything goes nowadays when it comes to names. I shouldn’t have been surprised about a child sharing the same moniker as a Swedish store, particularly after reading in the news that someone named their baby Hashtag, inspired by a commonly-used social media symbol.

And who am I to judge? Once upon a time I was considered weird for the name I had chosen for my firstborn.

“Buster is a dog’s name,” I was scolded countless times during my pregnancy when I made the mistake of sharing the name I’d picked out. So what, I thought. It was also the name of a famous actor and an even more famous shoe.

I absolutely loved the name Buster. It was fun and strong and it had character. I wasn’t about to let the opinions of others change my mind. Except there was one opinion that kind of mattered: that of Buster’s dear old dad.

“Let’s think of a few other options and pick one once he’s born,” Paul reasoned. Fine, I thought. He’ll fall in love with the name by then for sure.

But when our beautiful baby boy arrived with his spiky, blonde hair he didn’t look like a Buster to either of us. He looked like a Sam, so that’s what we called him.

“Buster would have been fine,” my friend, who’s a teacher, said about my original choice. “It’s all the purposely misspelled and hard-to-pronounce names that drive me crazy.”

Like Quvenzhane?

My daughter and I recently saw the movie Beasts of the Southern Wild with Quvenzhane Wallis, the youngest Oscar-nominated actor in history, and we immediately nicknamed her Q. It just seemed easier.

If anyone’s to blame for names getting stranger and more unique as the years go by, let’s blame the celebrities.  I mean, really – who was naming their kids anything all that bizarre before Frank Zappa introduced his children Dweezil, Moon Unit, Ahmet and Diva Thin Muffin to the world?

At the time, people were horrified. Since then, many celebrities have followed suit and it’s become the norm in Hollywood.

Names like Alcamy, Apple, Banjo, Bingham, Blue Angel, Blue Ivy, Destry, Exton, Fifi Trixibelle, Jermajesty, Kal-El, Kyd, Maddox, Memphis Eve, Moses, Ocean, Pilot Inspektor, Rocket, Rumer, Seargeoh and the list goes on. Heck, actor Rob Morrow named his child Tu. How would you like to have the name Tu Morrow?

With websites out there dedicated to listing all the strange names that babies are getting saddled with these days, it’s easy to see that this trend is growing. Am I complaining? Nah. Why not get creative and unique when naming our offspring? This certainly can’t be worse than giving them a name that they share with three other kids in the class.

Naming our children is a big responsibility, and everyone’s not going to like what we choose. But as long as we’re picking names we truly love and not just making up stuff so we can laugh at how hilarious we are, we should be okay. If the kid ends up hating their name, which some do, “normal” or not, they can always legally change it to something else later.

Ikea might do that. Except, his name’s not actually Ikea. Turns out it’s Atticus.

I guess I’ll be returning my gift of an Ikea train set and getting him a copy of “To Kill a Mockingbird” instead.

As a youngster I thought the world revolved around me and that the moon was following my every move. Whenever I went for an evening drive I’d sit in the back seat of the car gazing out the window, and there it was, right above me. When I went to sleep at night, the moon was always there too, waiting for me to say goodnight before I nodded off.

I remember the first time I laid on the ground looking up at the stars, finally grasping just how vast our world truly is. I don’t remember how old I was at that moment, but I recall, for the first time ever, feeling overwhelmed, as I realized that I was just one of a gazillion creatures in an astronomical solar system we know little about.

I became more interested in the world outside my own after that, and I started to understand how vulnerable we all are. Not just to the mysterious stuff that’s going on beyond our own planet, but to “Mother Nature,” and anything that can happen beyond our control.

Ironically, this newfound realization didn’t scare me, but instead, made me feel more fearless. It still does.

Somehow understanding that I’m just a miniscule piece of the puzzle and not nearly as important as I sometimes think, helps me relax and enjoy life for what it is.

The news of the enormous meteor explosion over Russia, coupled with the news of the gigantic asteroid skimming our planet near Australia hit home and left me pondering my place in the world again.

Who cares if the house is a mess or I’m way behind with work or someone is angry about something I wrote in a column?  I’m just one little ant doing my best on the big old anthill and hoping a giant foot doesn’t come crashing down on me any time soon.

Of course, this perspective never lasts long and I always go back to taking myself more seriously than I ought to. But I like to think that I’m getting better as I age. In many ways I know I am.

As the years go by I care much less what others think, and much more about being true to myself. We may only live once, so we might as well try to live as authentically as we can.

And when it comes to the stress of raising children, living life and working towards big goals, I do everything I can to enjoy the process.  When I fail, I’m lucky to have allies that will help.

“Imagine today is your last day,” one of my friends will say if she knows I’m stressed out about something. “Cherish what’s truly important, because you never know – you could get hit by a bus tomorrow.”

Or a meteor. Or an asteroid.

Remembering that life is a gift and that there’s no guarantee of its length can be like pumping gas into our fuel tank when it start running low. It’s important to keep on the winding road of life, and to thank our beautiful moon as we drive it.

Watching television was an extremely restricted activity in my house growing up, and for that reason, I couldn’t get enough of it.

My little brother and I weren’t allowed to watch it all the time like our lucky-duck friends were. And, as a double whammy on the meter of unfairness in our lives, our mom and dad were much younger than the parents of our pals, yet they were stricter than all of them.  

In grade five I started babysitting my seven-year-old brother in the afternoons when our folks were still at work. Our mom instructed us to do homework after school, and once we finished we could read a book or play a board game. Under no circumstances were we to turn on the “boob tube” that would rot our brains.

But reruns of groovy shows like The Brady Bunch and Bewitched were on at that time, so there was no possible way we could adhere to such an unreasonable rule when left alone like that.

With 12 glorious channels to choose from, there was always something exciting to see on our old black and white, and every day we’d watch it for as long as we could.

An hour or so later, when we heard a car pull into the driveway, we’d quickly run up to the telly, turn the knob to the dreaded “off” position, run back to the couch and crack open our books before our mom or dad even opened the front door.

If our father was the first to arrive home he would sometimes touch the top of the TV as he walked by it. Jeremie and I would hold our breath and look at each other nervously, praying he wouldn’t notice its warmth. He never did.  Years later we found out that he knew exactly what we were up to, he just didn’t mind.

I now have that same attitude about the television with my own kids, and I allow them to watch it. Within reason.

Sam and Daisy are like my brother and I were. If they had their choice, they’d start their day with the TV on, and that thing wouldn’t be turned off until they fell asleep in front of it, well past midnight.

“We cancelled cable the day we became parents,” an acquaintance told me last week. “Children who grow up ‘watchers’ do not become ‘doers’.” 

I wonder if there’s statistics to prove that. Probably. There are studies and statistics that can prove just about anything.

All I know is that I don’t believe the TV will render us useless. I was obsessed with it as a kid, but I’ve seen very little of it as an adult since I’m always too busy doing something else.

Yet, despite my lack of tube time, my fascination with pop culture persists. I can thank the Internet for that.

Surfing the web makes it easy to keep up with what’s going on in TV land without having to actually watch it.

If I want to find out who Honey Boo Boo is, I don’t need to look for her show the old fashioned way and watch the darn thing. All I have to do is Google her name and up pop videos – with subtitles – that show me in a matter of minutes.

“I would never have cablevision,” a young friend told me last week. Oh boy, I thought, bracing myself for more judgment.  

“Why would I?” he then asked. “I can get anything I want from Netflix and YouTube.”

Good idea. I should look up The Brady Bunch and Bewitched to show my lucky-duck kids. Now that really would be groovy. 

When people ask me what my real hair colour is, I usually tell them it’s grey. The truth is, I was blonde when I was young, but as I got older, my hair darkened. By the time I was in high school, it was considered “dirty blonde” – no matter how often I washed it.

I hated my hair back then. It didn’t fit into any categories. It wasn’t curly or straight, and it wasn’t blonde, brunette or red. To me it was nondescript  and in-between.

Regrettably, I had no appreciation for my thick, natural waves, its fabulous long length, or the fact that it required no styling products to look great. All I could see was boring and bland, so I decided to do something about it.

Against my mother’s wise advice not to spoil my virgin wash-and-go locks, as soon as I graduated from high school I bought myself a box of Sun-In so I could get beautiful, sun-kissed highlights like the models in seventeen magazine. 

Unfortunately my hair didn’t end up looking anything like theirs. It turned a weird yellowish orange, and believe me, back in the ’80s this was not a cool hue to have. My mother was not pleased.

Despite her disapproval, I experimented a lot with my hair over the next decade. Dark brown, light brown, auburn and several shades of blonde were all tried out on my slow learning noggin at some point. My self imposed struggle also included a few bad perms and too many horrid haircuts for any insecure young woman to enjoy. 

By the time I reached my 30th birthday I realized how good I’d had it in my youth and wanted to revert back to my natural unprocessed state so I wouldn’t have to spend valuable time taming the fried-out, frizzy, cavegirl hair I now had. But by then I had too much grey and I was unwilling to embrace my natural state.

I found a dark blonde colour, slightly lighter than my natural “dirty blonde,” that suited me best and was easy to maintain. No more colour experiments for me.

Sixteen years later, I changed my mind.

“Do you think I should dye my hair red?” I asked my husband a couple of weeks ago.

“No,” he said. “You’re a blonde, not a redhead.” 

Three days after that, as he was on his way home from a work trip, I sent him a text with a picture of my bright red hair.

My text said: Don’t freak out. His reply simply said: I am.

Entering the house he looked at my face, then my head, and then he started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, imagining a picture of me as Ronald McDonald in his head.

“You asked my advice, but you didn’t take it,” he said. “Again.” 

“The cashier at Walmart thought it was a great idea,” I replied.

“Well, that’s nice,” he said, scratching his big, shiny bald spot. “But she doesn’t know you like I do. Look at all the times you’ve cut your bangs when I warned you not to, and then you regretted it like we both knew you would. You know you’ll go back to your regular hair, so why bother?”

“I just needed a change,” I explained, shrugging.  I knew he was right, I wouldn’t be able to stay a redhead for long.  Not just because red fades fast and is hard to maintain, but because, as much as I love red hair, I don’t really feel like me when it’s attached to my head.

Luckily, now that it’s washed out to more of a strawberry blonde, the red is so subtle it’s barely noticeable. 

“Nice orange hair!” my daughter’s nine-year-old friend just exclaimed as she climbed into the back seat of my VW Beetle. “You’re the exact same colour as your car now. ”  

Awesome. I look like my car and a clown at the same time. Precisely the sweet, subtle style I was hoping for.

Strangely enough, I’m the only one who seems to notice. When I open his door I’m immediately assaulted by the stink, but whenever I ask about it, no one else has a clue what I’m referring to.

“I don’t smell anything,” my 12-year-old son will say as he takes a whiff while playing video games with his friends.

“Yeah,” his pals will agree, looking at me with concerned expressions as though I’m a confused old lady. “We don’t either.”

Even my husband barely notices it and will say it’s so subtle that it’s nothing. Yet for me and my keen sense of smell, it’s not nothing, and although I can’t pinpoint what it is exactly, I find it offensive.  It’s like a weird mixture of stale air, sweaty socks and moldy something or other.

I’ve tried sniffing it out, tearing his room apart, sweeping everything from under his bed and cleaning out his closets. But even after I’ve changed his sheets, washed his floor, thrown out his garbage, opened the windows and put my eager nostrils to everything I can find, I’m still left wondering what it is.

His backpack, thankfully, is far more obvious. Last week I opened it and the reek was overwhelming.

“What in the world?” I asked as I pulled out a mashed banana and a rotting, half-eaten apple. “What else is in here?”

Dumping the contents of the bag on the floor I also discovered a punctured orange, another bruised apple, an open tube of yogurt and a stack of wet homework that had disintegrated into pieces.

Revolted, I looked at him like I’d found a dead body.

“This is a brand new backpack,” I scolded. “This is exactly how the last one got ruined.”

Apologizing, and promising to put his leftover lunch in the fridge in the future, he meant well, but I knew this would happen again. It’s not that he’s a bad kid, he’s actually a terrific one – he just can’t seem to remember to take care of his stuff. Apparently it’s not all that uncommon amongst his peers.

After he failed to find his missing ski jacket and the three hoodies he’s been looking for over the last couple months, I decided to check out the lost and found at Sam’s school.  It was like a store in there.

Unclaimed shoes, jeans, shorts, t-shirts, sweaters, hats, gloves, hoodies, coats and bags filled several large bins.

As I went through the huge piles, I wondered if other parents knew about this crazy corner of the school where lovely presents go to die. If their kids are anything like mine, maybe they’ll luck out and recover some of their valuable items in there.

I, unfortunately, did not. I’m still on the hunt for his misplaced jacket and hoodies.

The true mystery that I’d like to solve, though, is the culprit behind the nasty smell in his bedroom. Now that would satisfy my senses.

Tugging on our father’s coat, my brother pleaded to join the young children inside of it. Instantly I felt jealous because I knew he was small enough to join in on the fun, and I was not.

As he flailed his seven-year-old body gleefully about in the large clear box of colorful balls, I had to slump my 10-year-old self around the big boring store with my folks. I was not a happy camper.

As the years went by, every time I saw a ball pit I’d think about that day. It was my first memory of feeling too old to do something that I really wanted to do. Little did I know that my time would come.

A couple of decades later indoor playgrounds had popped up all over the place, and as the mother of a toddler I finally found myself on the inside. Excited, I took my sweet little boy up the stairs and sat him on my lap at the top of a giant slide. Together we looked down at the beautiful ball pit below us and I whispered in his ear: “Are you ready?”

“Yeah!!!” he shrieked with joy and down the slide we went, flying into the balls like I’d always wanted to do.

It was just as fun as I’d imagined. Maybe even more so because I got to share it with the love of my life. But after a couple more times I’d had enough. My 18-month-old son, on the other hand, had not.

Like the Energizer bunny, Sam wouldn’t quit. It was exhausting following him up, down and around the large plastic structure, folding and unfolding myself into tiny nooks and crannies. Acute claustrophobia hit me hard more than once, and I went home with a massive headache, sore muscles and a bad kink in my neck. At the end of the day, it was not the experience I’d envisioned.

Yet as my kids got older and became more independent, play places like this one became my savior, and like an office to me.

“How can you work with all this racket?” one of my friends asked when she saw me writing a column in one such place last week.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t really hear myself think, but I find it oddly relaxing in here. No laundry or dishes to do, no entertaining the kids, it’s just me and my work.”

By that point I’d been sitting in the same spot typing away on my laptop for almost two hours. Every so often one of the sweaty kids I brought would interrupt and ask me to watch them do a cartwheel, or ask for some money for a much-needed drink. But even with all the noise and distractions, I was in a state of bliss.

The only thing that could have made it better is if they had an Ikea for me to shop in.

In fact, it had been so long since I planned a shindig for grownups that I forgot why I didn’t like it.  To my surprise, I actually started getting excited about the event in the weeks leading up to it. I had fun ordering the cake, the giant card, the food, the DJ, the decorations, the customized bobblehead and picking up the most beautiful dining room table made out of 100-year-old barn wood that I’d commissioned for him months before.

What was less fun was that feeling of responsibility for everyone’s enjoyment the night of the celebration.

The sight of any lone person or couple not mingling caused me stress and I felt frustrated that I was unable to talk to everyone as much as I wanted to. I tried to shake off those feelings because I knew they didn’t make sense. When I go to a party I don’t expect the host to introduce me to everyone or hang out with me all night. I hardly expect to see much of them at all.

But, as it turns out, my anxieties didn’t stop there. I also managed to get a wicked cold that same day, developed a pounding headache as the night progressed, and became even more forgetful than usual.

Despite the fact that people seemed to be having a good time and the party didn’t end for some of them until 4:30 in the morning, I kept thinking about what I could have done better.

As I lay in bed trying desperately to fall asleep, I started mentally listing off the things I should have remembered or done differently.

“It was perfect exactly the way it was,” Paul said when he realized I was beating myself up. “No one’s ever thrown a party like that for me before. I had a blast!”

And, really, that’s what mattered most. Of course I wanted everyone to have fun and I wanted everything to go as planned, but if he hadn’t enjoyed the night, none of it would have been worth it.

He was an excellent guest of honour and much less neurotic than I was as host, or would have been if I’d been in his shoes. He tried to talk to everyone, but he didn’t stress that he missed a few. He also didn’t take on the responsibility of other people’s level of enjoyment. He simply relaxed and had a great time himself.

If only I could be more like him.

In our 19th year together, he’s still teaching me a thing or two about what’s truly important, and hosting the perfect party isn’t one of them.

What’s paramount for him are his beloved children, his wonderful family, his loyal friends and living the happiest, most fulfilling life he can. He’s not the type to get hung up on petty details. When he does something, he does his best, kicks back and lets it go.

“I want to be more like you when I grow up,” I’ll often tell him. Only four years his junior, I’d better hurry the heck up.

My parents took me out of town to visit my dad’s aunts and uncles when I was a year old. They were eager to meet the newest member of the family and my folks were excited to introduce me. Wanting to make a good impression, my mom dressed me in a frilly outfit and put barrettes in my sparse wisps of hair. With my happy eyes and winning smile, I was an instant hit.

Sitting in the fancy living room, my relatives proudly watched me toddle around, cooing over everything I did. My young parents beamed with pride at their perfect baby girl.  And then, I did the unthinkable.

With all eyes on me, I found a dead fly, picked it up, inspected it closely, and promptly ate it.

“Ewww,” they collectively groaned as my mother flew across the room trying to retrieve it from my mouth. But her reflexes just weren’t fast enough. That fly was long gone.

45 years later, I still hear about that moment. My dad thinks of it as a funny “first impression” kind of story. I consider it a good tale to tell when one of my friends freaks out because their kid sips out of another kid’s straw, or someone dares to double dip at the buffet.

“We’re all going to eat a pound of dirt before we die,” my father-in-law likes to say. I tend to agree with him.

Growing up as a girly girl, I can’t say I was mucking around in mud puddles as much as my little brother, but I was never too bothered by random germs. I’m still not.

“What are you so worried about?” I asked my girlfriend last week, when she pushed away her full plate of food after a mutual friend took one of her fries.

“Nothing,” she said. “I don’t like it when people touch my food.”

“But he didn’t,” I reasoned. “He said hi, helped himself to one fry and left. He didn’t even dip it in your ketchup.”

“It grosses me out,” she said. “Who knows where his hands have been.”

Notorious for her ‘germ-a-phobia’ and her ironic frequency for catching colds, I thought she might benefit from my epic story of survival after eating that fly. Goodness knows where its hands had been. 

I also thought she might lighten up if she knew about all the wads of pre-chewed gum I’d found and chomped on in my childhood, yet lived to talk about. Or if I shared the five second rule my family abided by that would allow us to eat anything that hit the floor briefly.

“I never get sick,” I said, as if I’d been presenting scientific proof to her. “I think a few germs here and there can help our immune system.”

She disagreed and exchanged her plate of food for a new one.

After the server returned with her replacement meal, a baby at the next table dropped his soother on the floor. Similar to my family watching me at that age, my friend looked on in horror at what happened next.

The boy’s mother picked the soother up from the floor, cleaned it off in her own mouth and gave it back to her son.

My friend may never eat again, but I’ll still be working on my allotted pound of dirt.

Over the Christmas holidays I allowed myself to stay up late and sleep in more. Because I was sleeping in more I was exercising less, and because I was exercising less I started eating crap again. A couple weeks of that and I’m now geared up for a self-imposed intervention.

Feeling crummy is not unfamiliar territory to me. I’ve written a few times about my long struggling battle of the bulge and how directly related the food I eat affects the way I feel. What may be unfamiliar is the potentially speedier recovery from my fall off the proverbial wagon.

“You’re skinny,” my friend said when she learned of my junk food relapse. “You should allow yourself the occasional treat.”

First of all, I’ve only ever been skinny once and that was 15 years ago and only lasted about four days, but thank you.

Secondly, an occasional cupcake will do to me what an occasional hit of heroine will do to a druggie. I’d really rather not spend the year ahead jonesing for junk food like so many years past.

So how do I jump back on the wagon and reverse my last two weeks of destruction? By waking up early for starters.

“The early bird gets the worm,” my dad used to say when I was a sleepy-head teen. Fine with me, I’d think to myself, it can have the worm.

Eventually I took him less literally and gave his early morning strategy a try.

Initially I disliked exercising before the sun was up, but after awhile I found that if I didn’t get it over with right away, I wouldn’t do it at all. I also discovered that once I went to the trouble of working up a sweat at the start of my day, I’d be more likely to eat healthy and get to bed at a decent hour later on.

My plan now is to return to that great habit for at least two weeks to put myself back where I was and feeling good again.

If it sounds like I’m embarking on a new years resolution, that’s okay. I am.

I’ve always liked the fresh start of a new year, a new month or a new week to make goals for myself.  And I’m experienced enough at failing miserably that I won’t abandon my resolutions for long periods of time anymore. I now cut myself some slack and keep trying until I finally find some success with whatever it is I’m attempting to achieve.

Of course, rising with the sun isn’t the only solution. It’s doing what works for us as individuals and our willingness to persist that makes the difference.

My dad was right about the early bird getting the worm, but there’s another equally correct saying about how it’s the second mouse that gets the cheese.

Personally, if I had to choose between a worm or cheese, I’d eat the latter. But I’d better compare their calorie counts before deciding for sure.

Here it is, my last column of the year. I’d like to tell you what a breeze it was to write, but stranded in a tiny hotel room with my loud, boisterous kids and nowhere to hide, it took me awhile to spit it out.

My plan was to write it in private once we arrived at the in-laws for the Christmas holidays. Driving down to the coast on December 23rd, I figured we’d get there in plenty of time to visit before holing up in some corner with an iced rum and eggnog as I knocked out an article about my well-thought-out new years resolutions.

But an hour into our trip after our first bathroom break, my plan took an unexpected turn when my husband started the truck, put it in reverse and the gear shift came completely unhinged from it’s socket.

“Oh no,” he said looking at it, and then looking at me. “This isn’t good. This isn’t good at all.”

After waiting 95 minutes for a tow truck and discovering there wasn’t a mechanic or auto supply business in town that had the part we required, we decided to get our truck towed back to where we’d come from and drop it off at our trusted mechanic in West Kelowna.

Since the driver couldn’t take all of us, Paul accompanied him for the trip with plans to fetch my little car. 

What’s the difference between his Ford Explorer and my Volkswagen Beetle? His can comfortably fit a family of four, several suitcases and presents galore. Mine can look cute and colourful in the snow.

With Paul home installing roof racks and a cargo box for the top of my bug, it started to get dark and he opted to join us the next morning while the kids and I checked into a hotel.

Finding a Ramada Hotel with a fun-looking pool and slide, we lugged our bags up to the room and took a cab to the nearby Walmart to buy some bathing suits and snacks.

With no swim gear available for sale, I got as close as I could with Beavis and Butt-Head boxers for my 12-year-old son and an undershirt/shorts combo for my nine-year-old daughter. 

Back at the hotel we ordered pizza for dinner and soon discovered that I had misplaced my wallet and probably left it in the taxi.

“What a gong show,” Sam said as I searched the room, emptied my purse on the bed, and called the cab company while the pizza guy watched and waited at the door.

Sam was right. It was a bit of a gong show.

Here’s your wallet, Mom!” Daisy said, after finding it under a chair after the pizza man had already given up and left. “You owe me a hug now.”

Daisy was right too. I did.

For my last column of 2012 my plan was to write about my lofty goals for the year ahead, but right now still stuck in Merritt, all I can think of are an important few: writing a back-up column, relaxing with a drink and hugging my kids as often as I possibly can.