TToT: Dead Ends Sometimes Lead To Beautiful Leaves – May Days Eh? #MayDay #AtoZChallenge #10Thankful

The rain comes down. It keeps coming. Rough weather and natural events going on all over: flooding and tornados in the United State’s southwest and an earthquake in Alaska and Canada’s Yukon. One year ago a giant wildfire spread in Alberta. Homes were destroyed by the flames.



I can’t see the colourful flowers and buds in my yard. I can’t see the photos of earth, seen through saturn’s rings.

Okay, just getting the bad stuff out of the way. Now the gratitude can begin.

Ten Things of Thankful

I am thankful for a pitch acceptance to start off the week.

I almost hate to talk about it at all, for fear that it will always wind up as a dead end, but it wasn’t a bad way to kick off a week.

I am thankful for a morning visit with my writer friends.

We met on Facebook and decided to meet in person when we, the three of us, all realized we lived so close.

One is a mother of teenagers and has had several years in the world of freelance writing. The other is a young, first-time mom, who is a science writer. Then there’s me.

We make for an interesting mixture, but we all love writing.

I am thankful for a suggestion made.

The three of us try to offer ideas for publishing opportunities we think might fit for one of us. We help each other out. That is how new opportunities are found.

I am thankful for time with my brother.

He’s been so busy, finishing school and playing with his band, but we just got a chance to hang out. We made some food and talked about where he goes from here, now that he’s graduating, and where I go with things in my own life.

We talk about that a lot. We hope to add a plan of action to all that talk now.

We plan to get back to the podcast we started last year, before things got crazy busy, but we needed one time to discuss how we want to return to it.

I am thankful for the birds that make a nest in the roof of my porch.

They fly away when I come out onto it, to sit on my porch swing, squawking at me from the tree in the front yard. They are afraid of me and angry that I dare disturb them.

Maybe by the end of the season they will get to know me and we can share the space.

I do like that they feel secure to want to build their home there and I can hear them singing, just outside.

I am thankful I got to meet and the chance to know this writer.

The Most Delicious Reason to Go Night-Foraging in Croatia

We got to do a teamwork writing exercise in a town square in Mexico together and she showed up at the airport, so I wouldn’t be alone to start off my long journey home.

I am thankful a brown immigrant got to exercise his right of freedom of speech. (His words.)

I am thankful I survived the entire month of A to Z.

I decided to put together a summary of all 26 days.

From Apple to Zip Lining

I am thankful my father is safe in doing the job he was meant to do.

London Police investigate death of taxi driver in convenience store parking lot

You wouldn’t think this could happen. This did happen, in a town, not far from mine.

My father drives a wheelchair van. He helps people get where they need to go. Things can happen when you’re picking up random people.

I am thankful for a season finale.

I was pleasantly surprised to like Anne The Series. It became my reason for loving Sunday night. I really started to look forward to that day of the week.

This wasn’t my favourite episode, but it did end the season on a cliff hanger and I really hope there will be more episodes to come.

I will miss it while it is gone, but I can re-watch, as they are online and will be on Netflix next week.

Wicked Game – Lydia Ainsworth

End of one month and beginning of another. End is a dead one, but there lies newly discovered beauty.

The Only Sure Things #FTSF #AtoZChallenge

“grief is the price you pay for love you see.”
—Miss Josephine Barry, “Anne The Series”

Truer words have never been spoken.

The A to Z Challenge – T is for Taxes

How we pay for everything else.

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes and nothing free either.

After love, all we are left with is grief, but that love is always there.

Then there are those dreaded taxes. I consider myself lucky that my sister works at a tax office. She is learning the ropes. It’s nice to have that in the family because I am absolute rubbish with numbers.

So this time is a tense one, for many people and reasons, full of stress. April is tax time and time for bloggers to decide on whether or not to tackle doing the dreaded A to Z thing. It’s a lot of work and I haven’t even arrived at the hardest letters of the alphabet yet. Oh boy.

I’m tempted to keep this post light, but talk of grief is on my mind, as it is impossible to escape forever. Love and loss are wrapped up in one another. It’s inevitable. I may keep my distance, afraid of loss and getting hurt, but love is still the best thing I know. I can’t close myself off from it, simply because one day it will end in heartbreak.

I’m facing down thoughts of death all the while, I’m leaving the tax part in my sister’s more capable hands.

***This is my late contribution to
Finish the Sentence Friday
(three days late) because the prompts just happened to fit.

Finding Ninee’s perspective is an interesting one: nothing to lose and everything to lose, all at the same time. Check it out.

***This is my first year of joining the A to Z Challenge and so I’ve decided to post randomly, as a way for new visitors to my blog to get to know me a little better. I look forward to discovering some interesting new blogs too.