Do you feel like you hear about anxiety in kids and teenagers more than ever before? I just don’t remember hearing about my friends or classmates dealing with anxiety when I was growing up.
Granted, I know there was considerable stigma surrounding mental health back in the day, so surely there was plenty of it happening, considering all the brown plaid that parents were dressing their kids in, and I guess we didn’t hear about these struggles because people just didn’t talk about it.
Books based in the WWII era are like catnip for me, because I can’t believe there isn’t more time separating us from the treacherous events that occurred. Complex stories of unexpected relationships and the painful decisions people were forced to make seems like they couldn’t possibly have happened only 75 years ago.
They should have happened centuries ago, before our world had become civilized.
A few weeks ago, my friend told me about a children’s book contest hosted by the Emory Global Health Institute. The submissions they were looking for were to be targeted toward kids ages six to nine years old, and the purpose was to explain the virus using science-based facts.
You know I’m all about the mental health side of things, and helping calm anxieties when I’m able to, so I chose to frame my submission from that standpoint.
When I was growing up, my parents would take me to the library and set me to work going through reels of microfiche films to help them work on our family genealogy project. They taught me how to look up census records, and birth and death records, but I became fascinated with all the stuff in the middle.
I wanted to find out about what my ancestors did between those two events. The dates on their vital statistics records announced that they were born and then died.
A few weeks ago, I read the February book selection for Jenny Lawson’s - you may know her as “The Bloggess” - book club, The Fantastic Strangelings.
The book, titled American Sherlock, written by Kate Winkler Dawson, was recently launched and it’s right up my alley: **I’m counting these off on my fingers for drama** it has your history, it has your true crime, and it has - and this truly is catnip to me - pictures!
Throughout my life, I’ve always wanted to be a published author. It’s just always been a goal of mine, for as early as I can remember, and I think that as a young girl, I didn’t even really know why, I just knew it to be something I was meant to do.
I was a bookworm from a very young age, too, collecting books and pouring over them, not just obsessing over the stories inside, but also finding peculiar pleasure even in the tactile element of holding a book itself in my hands.
Signing up for classes is a bad habit I need to probably cut off like a moldy chunk of cheddar cheese, but I’m obsessed with learning stuff and I justify the expense by filing it under “Self Improvement,” even though it would be cheaper to just "improve myself” by eating less and moving more. 🤷
If you get my emails, you saw that in yesterday’s I told you to get ready for the best blogging resource offer of the year, and now I’m unveiling that bold, beautiful claim right before your eyes.
I only recommend things when I’ve tried and loved them myself, and that is exactly the case on (affiliate link —>) The Genius Blogger’s Toolkit, and I should know, because I bought it, I went through a handful of the courses, and just like a proper personal development junkie, I fell in love.
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4 - Butt-puckering close calls of death by stepping off the curb while looking the wrong way. Everyone knows they drive on the opposite side of the road in England, but our muscle memory makes us look the wrong direction, apparently. Combine that with complicated intersections in a busy city like Manchester, along with two clumsy-footed Americans, and you’ve got yourself a dangerous touristy cocktail.
0 - Air conditioned spaces. England is experiencing record-breaking heat at the moment, and - despite the weather being gloriously cool compared to the 100+ temps we’d left behind in Texas - when the buildings and homes are all closed up tight without any air movement inside, we Americans who are used to cold, recycled air blasting in our faces start to get panicky. And very sweaty.
A few years ago, my dad and I talked about going to England so he could help me do research for the book I’m writing about him, his brother, and my grandmother.
It was one of those pipe dream things that you talk about doing, but you kinda know deep down that it won’t happen, just because life gets in the way.
We put a pin in it and said, “maybe next summer….”
We put quotes around "book club" around here because my family insists that calling it that is just a cover for what it really is: gossiping and drinking.
Like the clever owners of a bar near the University of Texas, who named their bar The Library, helping students tell the truth to their parents when they say they went to The Library six days a week all semester.
Yes, we drink when we have our book club meetings. But we never gossip, not ever.
“Metamucil screwdrivers: the middle-aged mommy’s favorite way to kill two birds with one stone.”
LEANDER, TEXAS, April 20, 2016 — Local marketing consultant and freelance copywriter, Kristan Braziel, of Leander, will debut her humorous memoir, You Should Write A Book! True Tales of An Unstable Life, at the Blockhouse Creek Owners Association BBQ Cook-Off.
My inner dialog this morning as I stretched myself awake: "Hooray! It's a school holiday, so no early rush to get lunches made!"
Followed immediately by: "Booo, it's a school holiday, so the kids will be home with me all day." (don't judge me)
Then, "Hooray! It's Friday, so we can sleep in the next two days!"
Followed by, "Booo, I have a dentist's appointment this morning."
I trudged downstairs to make my beloved coffee, then went back up to get ready for my day. I reached for my contact solution, tipped the bottle over, and poured my perfectly-brewed cup of coffee over my unsuspecting contact lens.
Kristan (Braziel) LeBaron is an author, writer, marketing professional, and the voice of the blog, Bring Mommy A Martini. Mom to two hilarious boys: one in college and the other in middle school, she writes “real mom” stories on life with anxiety & depression, and choosing happiness as a daily practice. She lives outside of Austin with her two sons and two lavishly kept dogs.
