How the priest ruined my mother's day celebrations

Did I not say that I will not write about my husband on this blogsite? Have I not kept my promise to date? I just want absolve myself before anyone will say I violated my very own instructions. In this place, people always buy fights from other people…what have no connection to them they carry the subject matter on their head. It was mother’s day last Sunday (not the American version which the rest of the world has copied)…I mean the one in the church calendar after all they started the mother’s day celebration and America = the advanced world=western world copied it and now it seems they have the prerogative to say when it is mothers day. I actually told my son, to chose his own day no not really I think it should be everyday…he should just celebrate me everyday and not wait for any church or society to tell him when to celebrate his mother and that goes for all of you out there.

Hey hey!!! I wanted to write about the mothers day but in the process I have meandered around people buying problems off others here because they are busybodies and then I went on to vent my frustration on American…una see me see trouble!!. So as I was saying, it was mother’s day last week. I woke up to find tons of text messages (thank God my phone was on silence…) it looked as if people were struggling to be the first to send me texts since some of them came in earlier than 6:am and on a Sunday morning…Incredible!!! So it was, I had remembered the day before and bought some credit into the spare cell phone aka as Pappee’s phone so that he can call his grandmother so you can see I was very poised to celebrate my own.

Hubby and son had gone to ‘mass’ when I crawled out of bed to make breakfast for the morning before getting ready to go to church. When they walked in I was hoping to hear “happy mothers day’ since I did not see any card or a present decorated with lovely ribbons and wrap paper…I said Oh well…it happens after all who said they remembered and why should I sulk because no one remembered. We went to church after breakfast (yes I am a Pentecostal and do not do mass) and my head of department was so excited to see me and had this very well wrapped cake and a piece about mothers all ready for me…it had my name on it…was I so proud to be so loved and appreciated? So I carried it home happily and then asked my husband if they did not celebrate mothers in his church today and he said he did not hear the announcement. I said “Oh well…the rest of the Nigerian world are celebrating mothers today”. So it went. We called grandma and wished her a happy mothers day…this my husband is funnyooo…how did he remember to send something to his mother-in-law and said it was from his grandson and did not remember his own wife who is the mother of his child…at least for now…until it turns from child to children. In short I really hold it against him but I let it roll.

Can you all beat this? The priest in their church goofed and seriously too or is it the people that prepare the mass recital for last week? I do not know who but someone did. Today I was getting ready to go to church when the phone rings (been waiting for hubby to come back so that we can have breakfast) and he goes “there is no need for you to cook today”…I said I have already cooked…I have even cooked the lunch half way… and he said the ‘father’ announced that it was mothers day last Sunday and that they should celebrate today….I said “no problem…tell the father he is one week late”…lol. what can I say?…there goes mother’s day until next year.

What makes lasting impressions?

I read something a couple days, weeks ago, a very ordinary story but something in the story struck me and really deeply, what makes lasting memories? We all have a chest of cherished memories in our hearts…some things we think about when we reminiscent and we smile and if you are like me, somethings I have erased completely from my memory because they are not worth occupying the space. People around wonder how I am able to do this but I do it successfully even when I want to remember them I don’t.

It is amazing that our cherished memories or special events in our lives that we hold dear are big events…birth of our children, marriage, the first time we met, this outing or that outing and sometimes they are also sad events. But truly, can we think of the moments that someone smiled at us when we so desperately needed a smile or hug or something? What about a kind statement? Recently a lady sent me a one liner and it was really a kind word, I smiled and I kind of got some energy to move on. Such memories are not expensive, they are not big events but they touch our lives.

Life is short they say but truly we live several hours a day and several days when put together, so the journey of life is pretty long and can be arduous…oh maybe not for all but we are blessed in so many many ways to help us along this journey…what we give and what we see, what we say, the lives we touch they will create lasting memories…memories for who, one may ask? Memories for the living…ever thought of it, memories are the ones left for the living. I have always believed that longevity is not a right…it is a promise of God and He alone has the prerogative and He will show mercy upon whom He will show mercy…but since this is not a sermon, I am only trying to point out that no matter how long we live, no matter how short it may appear…we have ample time to create lasting memories and guess what…those memories also help us even in our life time…we smile when we remember them, we are encouraged, when we create them and our lives improve because of these.

Ask yourself, what makes lasting memories for you …not your collection of goodies and we all like different goodies (some pretty expensive) but those are they lasting memories? What will they remember you for? I think of this and have thought about it for several years…when I am no longer here, what will I be remembered for? The good part is that I have every opportunity to create that…isn’t that an awesome privilege that has been given to us?

A Very Pleasant Surprise

I am beginning to think that the day has been shortened by several hours plus I think my energy has also been down by the same rate. Put simply, I wake up and I am on a roll until it is time to go home and the roll continues and the next I am so tired that getting out of the bath in readiness for bed is even a task and then I hit the bed so tired that I wonder how I made it through the day. I wake up the next day promising that it will be better, I will plan better, use my time better even have time to catch up on gists, visit my favorite blog sites…to date, that has remained a dream in my head each day.

Well, yesterday I said, this will snap me out and I will get back to ‘normal’ but at the end of the day, I realized that nothing has changed and now I am worried. I am worried for me, I am worried for all the things I said I will do in 2007 and the year is a quarter gone. I have tons of books that I have been accumulating over the months and I have not finished reading any and I have not even been writing…I have not written anything new this year. They have only been publishing what I wrote from last year and they have run out and I have run out too…what a shame!!!

All gloomy stuff out now, yesterday was an exiting day, one of the best memories of my life so far and I know there are many more fond memories and that reminds me, I started out on a piece about what makes fond memories for people and I have not completed that yet, see what I mean? I need to get my acts together. That piece will hit my site by Friday bhg. So back to yesterday, it was assembly day for year two (Grade 2 for some people) students in Pappee’s school (my son) and his class was singing a song and I usually try not to miss anything he is taking part in and parents are welcome to these bimonthly assembly so I went. The assembly starts at 7:45am so that parents can go to work and it is over in 15 minutes or 20 minutes max. My son said they were singing a particular song which he had even made me learn so that he can conduct it at home. Then about 300m to school he said “mummy we are not singing that song again, I tricked you”. I was almost going to get upset because I have been made to sing that song God knows how many times while he raises his hands up and down as the conductor but I held my peace and went along and said “no problem, I am waiting to hear the new song”. We got to school just a few minutes before and they filed up according to their classes without much help…intriguing, my son even knows where to stand and what to do withhout anyone saying it ten times over (because at home his ears are totally detached).

Parents took their places behind and I saw camcorders out…luckily I remembered to take a camera…but everyone had camcorder or something…parents can over do things honestly (yours truly inclusive). I did not want to be out of place so I brought out my camera. The usual bits happened, prayer, national anthem, pledge of allegiance and then the much awaited song. I got him singing the song with all his voice and heart. Then they said it was award time…they started from the other streams of junior school and then it was year two and first name was called for most improved student and then out of nowhere we heard my son’s name for the best year two mental maths student award…you would have thought they just announced that he won the jackpot lottery…he was as pleasantly surprised as I was and I was so proud of him…did I say he said he loved girls…I think he likes more than girls. He loves numbers too. He is winning this award for the second year in a row. He won it in year one (although there was no certificate then but there is now). He plays a lot with numbers in his head. He hates to use counters or number lines to do his numeracy work, he likes to work things out in his head. It has landed us in a couple troubles because he will miss the answers by one under or over but once he gets the hang of it, he is on a roll whether it is division, subtraction or multiplication. I really thank God for the gift of this boy…days like yesterday I tend to forget that he is a handful. So now we have our bright and well designed certificate which I will be framing and putting up with a lot of pride and thankfulness.

Issues of Life

It has been indeed a long break and I am sorry to have been ‘off air’ for such a long time without notice…I am indeed very ashamed of myself…even the blogsite had problems logging me back in. As you may imagine, it was not deliberate but I found myself dealing with issues of life…sometimes they pour and not rain…, I thought of reporting back to by blog audience and never quite getting round to it.

It all started with a health scare and I had to deal with that. I had to jet out across the oceans to get some medical tests done. It was a harrowing experience considering I just got back from the God’s own country a month earlier where I took the annual routine exams and came boasting to you guys how healthy I was. I just know it was a scare from the ‘enemy’s camp’ but that is the story for another day. Actually it is a story waiting to be published…I am putting finishing touches to it at this time.

One of the not very interesting experiences was my clash with British Airways and I have asked myself that if I have the choice, will I fly that airline again?...I am still struggling with the answer. Imagine flying out of here at night getting to London and was told “Oh your flight to Washington DC has been cancelled” and I blurted out why? And I was practically told “we owe you no explanation”. They bumped me onto a Virgin Atlantic flight which I am very happy to have taken because it is my preferred airline (oh one of them I should say)…when you do not have a national airline, you should not really complain so much about other people milking you and insulting you on top it. Anyway, back to BA and the rubbish…they had the audacity to give me 10 pounds breakfast voucher and had nothing else to say to me. How about my luggage which was checked all the way to Dulles? “oh we will re-route your luggage”…stupid me, I believed them!!! The luggage was not to come for 3 days and I was there for a week. Lol…you go figure.

I had issues to deal with so I paid them very little attention. By the time luggage came, I was ready to come home. All in all it was a great trip…I have a story to tell and it is a good one. I got back to sort out my work mess…exiting and going into another company plus I jumped out in the middle of my last month serving out my notice period…total mess I tell you. I have struggled with that and just about easing myself out now and moving on…remember the gist that I had resigned from the vibrant lounge office?

So long a story…should really end by telling you guys how I got home and was reviewing my son’s literacy homework where they usually learn a set of 15 words each week and try to make sentences with them. Well, “girl” was a word in one of the sets and what was his sentence? “I love girls”…Imagine my shock…I told him to erase it and rewrite it…plus the word is girl not girls. Later when I thought about it…I was happy he loves girls…with no offence to anyone…I think I should have him write the sentence again and paste on his wall…

Back now and glad to off load here again. Moving into a new job but no more long breaks.