Stop This Roller Coaster of News. I Wanna Get Off!

Hey Cubicle Buddies!

Wow, it’s been a while.  I apologize.  Wish it was because I was on vacation…but nope.  Just really busy.

But I’d love to catch up with you!  Let me know what is happening please!

I’ll do my best to listen but I have to tell you, my brain is on information overload!  There has been so much in the news lately and my brain can't take it!  It jumps from one thing to the other without finishing a thought and I need it to slow down so I can just process it all and think about it.

Here are the things I’ve been following and a bit about what it’s doing to my brain.  I’ll try to keep it short…

·         Tornados – The weather lately has been really crazy and the number of tornados down in the States or even here in Ontario have kept me on top of things.  I am TERRIFIED of tornados.  I don’t know why.  I used to have a reoccurring nightmare when I was younger that there was a tornado coming and my family ran down to the park and hid in the playground equipment.  Maybe that’s why I am scared of tornados.  We were idiots thinking we were safe there!  J   So with my fear of tornados I am pretty much terrified through any storm that comes along and I spend my time walking back and forth from the front window to the computer to see what the Environment Canada website is saying.  Then I stare at the basement door and wonder if I should just take the kids and go down there.  But I don’t want to pass on this fear to them so the entire time I’m doing all of this I have a smile on my face and keep saying ‘Wow.  Look at this storm.  Some people really love rain storms.  Nature is an amazing thing isn’t it?  Oh, look at the gusts of wind!’  So when I follow the news and see how many tornados there have been and lives lost and homes, I am sad for the people affected.  I can’t help but picture their terror during the tornado. 

·         The Royal Wedding – I didn’t do a lot of reading about this ahead of time but you can’t help but have heard so much about it.  I wasn’t even sure I was going to get up early the morning of because let’s face it.  I can tape it and watch it later…or catch all the clips on the news that day.  But then so many people kept saying how they remembered when they were young and woke up early to watch the Royal wedding with Diana.  I recall snippets of this and thought.  Yeah.  It’s true.  Everyone commented on how they woke up early more than anything else.   Cause it was fun and something different to do!  And it’s a story about a princess!   So I too joined the world in waking up early to watch this wedding.  And for this same reason I woke up my kids too.  Now…I did tape it and woke them up later to watch it…but I still woke them up ‘early’ so they too can tell people someday that they woke up early for the Royal Wedding with Kate.  We had tea and toast on a somewhat fancy tablecloth in front of our TV and had a great time!  I got caught up in the moment and spent the day being happy for this newly wed couple and hoped they were enjoying their day too.

·         Bin Laden – Late Sunday night my husband was on the computer and read the news.  So we waited up and watched the president tell the news on TV.  I could not process this for some reason.  I sat there and watched it and could not decide if I believed it or not.  But why would they lie?  But of course people lie all the time.  Then when I thought I’d maybe come to terms with it…they announce the next morning that they’ve buried him at sea.  What?  I’m not sure what I thought they would do…but it just seemed so….bizarre?  Then I struggled with how I felt about the killing in general.   Don’t get me wrong.  I have no sympathy.  But I still feel confused about how I feel about the whole thing.

·         Canadian Election – I’ve been trying to teach some of this to my girls as part of our homeschooling.  We got a ton of information from Student Vote (which was awesome!).  They sent us actual voting booths and ballot boxes and ballots and maps of Canada and Ontario with all of the ridings.   I kept it pretty basic but my girls loved going behind their booth and writing on paper and then putting it in the ballot box and kept telling me to ‘SSShhh…we are concentrating on voting mom!’  Then we took the 2008 information and coloured in the ridings on the Ontario map to show the party colours.  Then we would go back after the results and make any changes from this election.   So taking the girls with me to vote was fun for them because they had done this so many times at home.  They wanted to stay up to watch the results and were disappointed that it would be too late for them.  So, I was much more interested in the election because I’d put so much into it with my kids.  I was glued to the TV and internet for the most up to date info.  It was a great election to show my kids what can happen.  How I will explain it all or even what I will explain I still haven’t completely decided.  But I was very shocked by the results.  When I finally went to bed I couldn’t sleep trying to figure out how Harper got a majority.  Even today I find myself not being able to process this information. 

·         Easter – Finally, although there are lots of every day pieces of news that make me think and busy days with my 3 kids and our activities…Easter still looms in the back of my head…because it brought  so much CHOCOLATE into my house!  I can’t stop thinking about chocolate.  What is an acceptable amount to eat each day?  If I eat it all quickly then it will just be gone and I can move on with life.  Or I could eat it slowly and make it last…or maybe I’ll get sick of it!  Ha ha!  Right!  So usually by the time I am in bed I’m either thinking ‘Oh…I ate too much chocolate. (groan) I’ll never get to sleep! (groan) I need water!  Cold water!’   Or I’m thinking ‘OH!  I totally forgot to eat that Easter cream egg I was waiting to have after the girls went to bed….I could go eat it now.  It would be so yummy.  I might forget to eat it again tomorrow and then Dave might eat it instead and then I’ll be craving an Easter cream egg for weeks!’ 

So as you can see, I need the news world to slow down for a bit so I can process all of the above.  I need to get a good night sleep for goodness sake!