It was minor as far as car accidents go: I was okay, the other guy was okay. Our cars needed some work, but that is long settled and I’m back behind the wheel. I wasn’t sore the next day, but I was exhausted emotionally after spending hours sobbing out of shame, fear and worry. I’m not sure if I’ve ever cried that much all at once.

What if I had hurt the other person?

What if I had been hurt?

What if my kid had been with me?

What if? What if? What if?

I spent a lot of time the day of the accident waiting for someone to yell at me: the other driver, the woman at the body shop, the report taker and cop at the collision centre, Sean, my mom, my colleagues who were waiting for me at the office.

No one yelled – people were almost blasé about it. “Cars get wrecked all the time. No one was hurt and that’s what matters.” This is true and I would say the same thing to someone else, but I had a hard time shaking the shame and the guilt that I. Fucked. Up.

It happened on my way to work so I drive past the spot where it happened twice a day, five days a week. These days, I’m extra vigilant around where it happened, but not overly so. I made sure to get back behind the wheel quickly so I wouldn’t be afraid to when my car was fixed. Two days after the accident, I drove with Sean and Flora to the grocery store. Sean bristled at being a passenger and I got us all there in one piece. This event and the expected reactions to it were a big step to returning back to normal.

And I am back to normal. Mostly.

No one was hurt © melissa price-mitchell, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada.

Via Flickr:
I took these pictures of Flora for the #aprilphotoaday challenge taking place right now on Instagram. The theme was “someone who makes you happy”. When I told Flora that I needed her help and explained the photo challenge, she shouted “Me! I make you happy!”

And she does.

For the pictures she decided she wanted to twirl like a ballerina. The actual twirling pics are a bit blurry so I’m glad I caught her up close.

I’m also very grateful to know that she is very, very loved.

(The one on the left made the challenge. You can follow my Instagram feed here, even if you don’t use the app.)

Someone who makes me happy © melissa price-mitchell, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada.

We’re getting used to having more space than we had before. Space is nice.

Sean and I are figuring out our new routines. We’ve truly joined suburbia and bought a second car. Looking around the neighbourhood, I’m shocked at how many cars are in the driveways. I shouldn’t be surprised about that, but it’s still quite a sight when everyone is home for the night.

We’re still getting used to getting up earlier in the morning. I should probably be in bed right now, but after working late tonight (a not-so-regular occurrence given my preference for spending what few evening hours I have with my family), I needed to get some things done. I also needed to have some by-myself time. I need to make sure I carve out some writing time – I have lots on my mind.

In short: we’ve moved, we’re happy, we’re busy. We’re like every other family in suburbia. And that’s okay.

Welcome to suburbia © melissa price-mitchell, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada.

It’s still a relief for those reasons this year, but it’s also felt even shorter due to our upcoming move.

The move we’re making tomorrow.

We spent the last half of January and all of February preparing for moving into our new home. We’ve had lots of help, but we’re still sitting here the night before with lots to do. Of course a lot of those things simply cannot be done until the movers come and take our (piles and piles of) boxes and empty our home.

Our first house. The house Sean and I became a married couple in. Where we raised our child from pregnancy to almost-ready-for-JK. (When did *that* happen?)

I’m excited to go to our new home, but I’m feeling a bit wistful and weepy about leaving this one. We’ve had a good run during the nine years we lived here: nice neighbours, a wonderful daycare provider who we’re heartbroken to leave, a nice sunny deck where we spent a lot of weekend afternoons hanging out.

I’m sure we’ll find those things in our new home, but the unknown is always scary.

There is still so much to do so I feel like I should be doing stuff besides writing and ruminating. If Sean and I get through tomorrow without wanting to kill each other, it will be a miracle. Moving really is one of the most stressful things you can do to yourself. I don’t know how all those HGTV-junkie types do it.

Moving forward, looking back © melissa price-mitchell, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada.

Melissa: “What happened?”

Sean: “I sat on something.”

Flora: “What did you sit on?”

Sean (still in pain): “Something important.”

Flora, without missing a beat: “The remote?”

After Sean and I laughed for a solid five minutes, Sean managed to say, “no, not the remote”.

Not sure if he’s walking quite right yet. Fortunately, we can still change the channel.

At times like this, I’m glad I’m a girl © melissa price-mitchell, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada.

She got pretty good at the easy levels of Cut the Rope so that was fun for us to play together. (We both think Om Nom is cute.)

She has also taken to taking pictures with my phone. I have to be careful or five minutes of picture-taking leaves me with far too many out-of-focus pictures of the floor and the random things on it, herself, and really awkward pics of Sean and/or I.

I’ve saved a few of those for posterity but I tend to prune them pretty quickly. I do come across the occasional hidden gem.

(Click picture for larger image)

This is Bunny, Flora’s number one lovey. She also goes by the names Princess Bunny and Bunbun. She’s been a part of the family since Flora was about eight months old. I bought her to give Flora something to snuggle at night. She is now a part of the family and very loved.

Flora snapped this picture of Bunny earlier tonight when she had commandeered my phone for games and picture-taking. She carefully propped Bunny up on the chair and took about ten different pictures that were all nearly identical. I picked the best one and fed it through the Pixlr-o-matic app to give it some depth. The composition is all Flora – no cropping.

Something tells me I need to get her a camera of her own pretty soon.

Shutterbug © melissa price-mitchell, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada.

The concert was promoted with the warning of no new music on the setlist. Not exactly a greatest hits tour, but more of a reminder that they’re still around. Judging by the fact that the show sold out with very little advertising, I’m not sure their fanbase needed reminding. Sean and I enjoyed the show, although he would have preferred some shakeups to the setlist. We’ve seen Tool several times over the last decade or so and this was very similar to previous shows.

Concerts are great places for people watching. It’s fun to see the different kind of fans out there:

• The superfan that pulls out his concert shirt from the first tour he ever saw to show everyone that he was with the band before they were cool. It’s rare that it fits properly if the band has been together for many years. (While I don’t wear my old shirts to shows, I do struggle with fitting into some of them, so I don’t consider myself immune to this phenomenon.)
• The teenagers that you think couldn’t possibly have been old enough to listen to the band with any great zeal when their last album was released. (Tool tends to go at least five years between albums so this is a legitimate issue for them.) Maynard James Keenan (Tool’s singer) commented that some songs hadn’t been played since a lot of the audience were sperm. That was an exaggerated statement, but maybe now that Sean and I are no longer the youngest fans in the room, everyone else seems younger to us. Get off my lawn you kids!
• The “fashion don’ts”. This comes up a lot at the shows Sean and I go to – the perils of liking hard rock and metal I suppose. Not the most fashionable demographic. Most people don’t look out of the ordinary, but I honestly wonder what rock some people crawl out from to come to the show. Wednesday’s highlight was a guy who was wearing a black goth-style full-length jacket. It looked more like a cheap bathrobe with S&M accessories. I don’t want to snark  on someone’s fashion choices, but sometimes going to these shows feel like I’ve stepped into a timewarp. Some people don’t look any different than they did in 1996 (or whatever year the band you’re seeing was huge), bad haircut and all. If someone was to observe the outfit I wore, they would have said “she must have just come from the office”. Which I totally did, and I’m okay with that.

Sean and I used to go to a lot of shows before Flora was born and we had more disposable income. Now that concerts are an occasional event for us, I definitely appreciate all the little nuances more. We make the same jokes every time and we still laugh. We still love going together and that’s the best part of all.

Concerts are about more than the music © melissa price-mitchell, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada.

I found out this morning that I made the shortlist for the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Canadian Weblog Awards! Lifetime Achievement means “for weblogs created before January 1, 2005″. (Clearly the weblog is still a relatively new medium for communication.) I submitted hellomelissa.net on a lark just before the nomination period closed. I wasn’t sure if submitting myself for nomination was proper etiquette. I figured the worst that could happen was a polite note from Schmutzie telling me that sites need to be nominated by other people and I should try again next year. No harm no foul.

I also wasn’t sure if hellomelissa.net was good enough for submission. I also submitted to Best-Written and Best Life Weblog. I knew that all of these categories would be full of lots of writers I read and admire. And they totally are.

See what happens when you take a little risk and put yourself out there? Remind me to do that more often.

Best of luck to everyone who has been shortlisted with me in the Lifetime Achievement category: Cheaty Monkey, Coin-Operated Boy, Urban Daddy and Weighty Matters. There are some great sites – and people – here. Good luck to all the other nominees too.

Make sure to check out the first-round nomination list too – there are so many great blogs to discover here.

Thanks again to Schmutzie and to everyone that has volunteered to jury these awards. That’s a huge pile of work.

I’ve been shortlisted at the Canadian Weblog Awards! © melissa price-mitchell, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada.

I’m a little behind. Forgive me, I’ve been busy.

Like so many other bloggers, I’ve chosen a word for 2012. I have a feeling 2012 is going to be a big year, and not just because there are theories that the world is going to end come December. (Personally I don’t buy it, but lots of people do so I have to acknowledge it.)

The word I’ve chosen for 2012 is:

create

• I want to create  great content for hellomelissa.net
• I want to create more in general
• I want to create a happy, settled, comfortable home for me and my family
• I want to create the life I want for myself, which will benefit my family

It’s a short list, but they’re pretty lofty ambitions. Wish me luck.

My word for 2012 © melissa price-mitchell, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada.

Via Flickr:

I snapped this picture this morning on my way to Warden subway station. In case you can’t read it, the graffiti says “All TTC Workers Suck Ass”.

(For folks who don’t live in Toronto, the TTC is the Toronto Transit Commission. They operate our public transit system.)

This makes me angry for lots of reasons but here are two:

1) All TTC workers *do not* suck ass. Most TTC workers I’ve dealt with are good folks. You get what you give so the Golden Rule is a good rule to live by.

2) It’s demoralizing for both TTC employees and riders. When people are demoralized, they don’t do their best work. This applies to TTC riders just as much as TTC employees.

I hope this gets cleaned up soon.

I snapped this picture this morning on my way to Warden subway station. In case you can’t read it, the graffiti says “All TTC Workers Suck Ass”.

(For folks who don’t live in Toronto, the TTC is the Toronto Transit Commission. They operate our public transit system.)

This makes me angry for lots of reasons but here are two:

1) All TTC workers *do not* suck ass. Most TTC workers I’ve dealt with are good folks. You get what you give so the Golden Rule is a good rule to live by.

2) It’s demoralizing for both TTC employees and riders. When people are demoralized, they don’t do their best work. This applies to TTC riders just as much as TTC employees.

I hope this gets cleaned up soon.

Update: On my way to work this morning (January 5th), I saw that this graffiti was gone. The window looked to be badly scratched up due to the cleaner, which is an unfortunate, but understandable side effect. I hope that doesn’t block people’s view of the buses too much, especially when the weather gets worse.

This is terrible: TTC Bus Shelter Graffiti, January 4, 2012 © melissa price-mitchell, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada.