Let's Talk

Wednesday, January 28, 2015 is Bell Let's Talk Day, a day to encourage people to share their stories, raise awareness, and help end the stigma surrounding mental health issues.  As a business owner who tries to give back to my community (both my local and global community), I support many efforts to make the world a better place.  As someone whom others seem to find it easy to open up to, I've seen the difference it makes to a struggling person when I'm able to provide an open mind, a listening ear, and a shoulder to lean on.  And as a person who has struggled with health issues and depression most of my adult life, I know how important it is to be able to talk, to put a face to this subject, and to bring the topic of mental health out of the closet and into the light.

So, let's talk.  Don't be scared, embarrassed, or ashamed; you're not alone.  Talk to each other, talk to a health professional, talk to someone who can help you find support.

~ Leesa

Where's my &%$! magic wand?!?

 "I  have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers." ~ Khalil Gibran

It's sometimes so easy to get drawn into negativity, isn't it?  Sadness, anger, frustration...these emotions can often seem contagious, especially for highly sensitive people like myself.  If you're like me, knowing how easily you can get overwhelmed and how terrible that feels, you might attempt to diffuse negative situations by trying to explain, rationalize, or calm people...which sometimes does not go well!  I've gotten caught in a few "negativity sinkholes" myself recently, and it's been rather demoralizing and depressing. 

So what are we to do?  I wish I knew the "magic-wand answer" for that question, but I don't.  The best I feel I can do is to try to encourage, promote, and inspire positivity around me and hope it spreads!  As with most things, we can't expect perfection, and I try not to be too hard on myself when my efforts don't work as well as I'd planned.  It's hard to not take it personally when someone insults or rejects your attempts to be a good person, but it doesn't mean your efforts were not worthwhile; it just means that negative person was too wrapped up in their own issues to appreciate your attempts to be kind.  Try not to get discouraged, and don't give up!  Keep showing kindness to others, until you find people who will honour your efforts by not only reciprocating, but also by "paying it forward" and spreading kindness themselves.  And if you "slip up" and find yourself responding to negativity with even more negativity, be kind to yourself as well; realize you're not perfect, forgive yourself, and then get back to the business of trying to make the world a better place...one act of kindness at a time!

"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted." ~ Aesop

You can say that again...

"Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans." ~ John Lennon

My husband was at a conference in California recently and was discussing social media and networking.  To make a point, he used his laptop to access some of my business pages (facebook, twitter, etc), one of which was this blog.  He thought something was wrong with his computer when he saw that it only loaded my old blog posts!  Umm, that's because there haven't been any new posts, Honey!  Ooops!

This blog used to be about my business and what was happening at my store: new products, new features, new causes, etc....but my posts "expired" rather quickly and I started deleting most of them...I mean, what's the point of keeping a blog post about the new colours and patterns of fall scarves when it's now July and all the scarves sold out months ago, right?  I don't want someone to see something on the blog, come in to get one, only to be disappointed when they discover that I no longer have any of them.  So now most of my online business time is spent promoting products on my other pages, where descriptions consist of just a few words or a couple of sentences, rather than complete paragraphs, and where it's easier to add and delete things as they come and go.

I've also been a bit busier than usual lately.  This will come as a complete surprise, I'm sure (sarcasm!), but we rescued two more homeless cats last December...they were hardly more than kittens, really...and it turns out that one of them has special needs.  If you haven't already heard about her via my fundraising efforts at the store, please let me introduce you to Ivy:

Miss Ivy was born outside to an abandoned and unspayed (obviously!) mother cat.  Because they were homeless, they didn't get enough to eat or enough nutrition from what little they did eat.  Because Ivy was severely malnourished, she developed some health issues as a kitten, the most serious being osteoporosis (brittle bones), which resulted in a broken pelvis and two leg fractures quite early during her time living outside, and before we were alerted to her situation and able to capture her.  Ivy's broken pelvis made it difficult and uncomfortable for her to walk, and being sedentary caused atrophy in the muscles of her back legs.  Rather than improving with better nutrition now that she has a home with us, Ivy's condition has gotten increasingly worse; Ivy can barely walk or even stand now, and we have to help her with things like using the litterbox, since she can't stand in the litterbox on her own.  Our Veterinarians referred Ivy to an Orthopedic specialist, and we're currently waiting for the report from Radiologists at the Veterinary College in P.E.I., although the Orthopedist's preliminary diagnosis is not good, as he is quite certain Ivy has a degenerative disease called Osteogenesis imperfecta, given the worsening condition of her bones.

So I'm sure you can understand how my time has been occupied lately...but in a wonderful (although sad!) warm and fuzzy way.

"You can really only enjoy life when you're extremely busy." ~ Josephine de La Baume

UPDATE: Our dear Miss Ivy did indeed have Osteogenisis imperfecta.  Her rapidly softening bones meant more greenstick fractures, and sadly, the inevitable serious fracture that we knew would mean the end of her life, as we promised we would "do the right thing" for her as soon as she began to suffer.  Miss Ivy left our life, but not our hearts, on August 14, 2014.

Photo courtesy of Rainbow Bridge ~ Celebration of our beloved pets lives

Never say never!

"Life never goes according to plan.  That's okay, because often our plans are much smaller than life intends.  Probably EASIER, but smaller." ~ Stacey T. Hunt

Aside from the three foster cats we'd "showcased" at the store (one at a time...not all at once!) for a local rescue group, we've taken in another six homeless cats on our own over the last year and a bit, doing the fund-raising ourselves to pay for their vetting (testing, vaccinating, spaying or neutering...and anything else they needed treatment for), before finding adoptive homes for them.  We certainly hadn't planned to become involved in fostering cats on our own, but then we ended up with a poor little abandoned cat that none of the rescue groups I'd contacted could take in at that particular time (sadly, many rescues are short of space and funding), and that's how it began.

Although we obviously love cats (we have several of our own, plus a store cat), I find it very stressful to charge sometimes several hundreds of dollars to my credit card for Vet care for our fosters, while hoping to be able to raise enough money to pay for it...which doesn't always happen.  Despite collecting donations, putting on auctions, etc, I have come up short a time or two after fund-raising for a particular foster; but I just focus on the fact that the dear kitty is off the streets, and hope that Karma will remember me later.  After having three foster cats at one time this past Spring, and suffering from what I refer to as "fund-raising overload" (FRO), I swore I'd never do it again!  No, it's okay, you can laugh.

I also swore I'd never have more than one foster at a time again...*pause for more laughter*...and here we are with two more, and a possible third "waiting in the wings".  *Sigh!*  So, what's my point?  No, I'm not looking for "a pat on the back", but just to make the point that we should "Never say never", because you don't know what's around the corner, and sadly, when it comes to homeless cats, there are always so many of them around the corner.  While I can't personally take them all in, I do what I can.  I know there will be a time...probably lots of times...when I'll swear I'll never do it again, and there have already been situations (like during my recent surgery) when I can't do it at that particular time, but I promise to TRY to "Never say never"...and I also promise that you can all laugh at me when I do!  :)

~ Leesa

Cats, cats everywhere...has made us stop and think...

To date, Our Mother's Keepers has collected over $1,300.00 for 21 different "Featured Causes", plus other things like: food for the food bank, cat food and litter for two local cat rescue groups, and soap for our "Soap Drive for Haiti" at the height of the Cholera epidemic in 2011.  We've sometimes taken a break from our usual Featured Causes to collect donations for the six "street rescue" cats we've vetted and adopted out from the store, and although we're unable to foster any cats at the store at this time (due to my upcoming surgery), we're currently taking donations to help vet two more "street rescues", which we hope to assist before the weather gets very cold.  

In our hurry to collect enough funds to be able to help with vetting and finding these latest two a home before it gets cold, we started to think about fundraising BEFORE rather than AFTER we agree to help any others, so that we will already have the funds immediately available to have them vetted when they come along.  Therefore, we've decided to "test drive" having our "Street Rescue" fund as our permanent "Featured Cause".  This doesn't mean we won't occasionally put out a donation box or jar on the counter for another worthy cause at their request, it just means that we won't be choosing different causes ourselves every month or two to promote as our featured cause.  

Sammie, the store cat. and former "street rescue"

Having a store cat, Sammie, who is a former "street rescue" himself, makes this decision a great fit for the store, as he can be our ambassador to help others like him find homes.  [Note: we are still unable to foster any cats at the store until after my surgery, and we will still NOT take "drop offs" (ie. unwanted cats) at the store; there is a protocol for any cats we agree to assist.  We are still NOT a cat rescue, but we want to continue to help some of those cats who don't seem to have other options.]  We hope all of our wonderful customers support us in this decision, and we assure you that we will still carry various products that benefit and support a variety of causes and groups from around the world.

Good ol' Gratitude!

Gratitude..seems like a simple concept...easily understood...hardly worth mentioning, right??  Well, Gratitude is a truly powerful force, and a motivating factor in my own life, so I feel it needs mentioning...and mentioning often...'cuz if you're like me, and the trials of life sometime get you down, it really REALLY helps to think of all the things you have to be grateful for instead.

I tried to impart that bit of wisdom to a couple of people lately, with differing results: one just kind of snorted, kept adding things to the long list of "Life Grievances" he was compiling, and became even more miserable; the other paused to think about what I'd said, then her attitude changed, she started focusing on the good in her life rather than the bad, and we were soon swapping jokes rather than sharing a "gripe session".  See?  It DOES work to focus on the positive rather than the negative.  

Has this ever happened to you: something goes wrong, you start thinking, "So, it's going to be one of THOSE days, is it?", you start fretting about all the negatives in life (current problems...perhaps past concerns...maybe even future worries), then "wham!", "Wham!!", "WHAM!!!", now everything seems to be going wrong and it turns into a really bad day?  I've been there myself...but I find it happens less and less when I stop and take the time to focus on the good, rather than the bad.  

Not that life is perfect, or ever will be...for anyone...but I truly believe that you attract what you project, and if you're giving the majority of your attention to the negatives in your life by focusing on and fretting about them, then life often seems to respond by throwing more of the same negativity at you.  Does that mean that good, positive, happy people don't have bad things happen in their lives?  No, of course not.  We'll all have challenges to deal with, it's a part of life that we simply cannot change, but I think it's how we respond to the difficulties that makes the difference.  

If something happens that you can't control, (like having a chronic illness, for instance) will being depressed or angry make it go away?  Nope.  In fact, all that stress might make the condition even worse.  So do what you can to deal with it, and be grateful for all that you do have; it won't make the difficulties go away, but it will make dealing with them more pleasant for you and everyone around you.

Just my little thought for the day...thanks for listening...

~ Leesa

"Thank you!" is just not enough!

Our Mother's Keepers will be celebrating its third anniversary soon!  I can hardly believe it...it seems like just yesterday we were painting the store (the first time, that is!), commissioning our mural, and ordering our opening stock.  In the past three years we've achieved so many of the things we set out to do...like collecting and donating over $1,200.00 and other goods to worthy causes around the world through our "Featured Cause" program...and we've even accomplished some things we didn't originally plan to do...like foster (sometimes also have tested, vaccinated, and spayed/neutered) and adopt out 9 homeless cats!  For these achievements and the ongoing success of our business, we thank our customers, supporters, mentors, friends, and family...yet, merely saying "Thank you!" doesn't seem adequate to express my gratitude.

I truly feel blessed to be part of this community; to meet, serve, support, share with, and learn from all the people I interact with each day.  I enjoy hosting events at the store, so that I may continue expanding my own knowledge, while helping others learn along with me.  I'm happy to feature items from local crafts-people as well as diverse groups of crafters from around the world.  I'm honoured when people come to our shop for the thoughtfully selected products and services we offer, whether it's an eco-friendly reusable produce bag, a natural locally-made soap, or a sage stick and smudging instructions.  Again, "Thank you!" doesn't seem enough.

I've written before of my desire to "do good" (see my "Mother's Musings" post in this blog), but I don't think I've mentioned that I was inspired by daughter and the selfless deeds she's performed from a young age...from her generous acts of charity, to her concern for the environment, to her compassion for animals.  Like any mother, I hope I've been somewhat responsible for helping guide my daughter to be the loving, caring person she is, but I'm also grateful to her, for making me want to be more and do more myself.  She is the reason I want to help make the world a better, happier place, and why the focus of our store is to promote peace, nurture the soul, care for the planet, and show compassion to all who inhabit the earth.  "Thank you!" is definitely not enough there.

~ Leesa