Thanks so much to everyone who left a comment on yesterday’s post, you guys are awesome. I have been making the children give me lots of extra hugs, big tight squeezes, that some have embraced and others have met with eye rolling, but that is just too bad for them. It’s what we all need, I have decided.

Today I dropped the kids at school – Sir Monkeypants usually does this – and I was surprised at how normal everything seemed. Kids with backpacks, kids dashing across the road to join up with friends, one kid even riding his bike. It felt strange but also hopeful. The world ticks onward and spring might actually arrive soon and those are good things.

In the spirit of returning to business as usual I’d just like to hijack the blog for a moment to promote an event I run annually, called Blog Out Loud. It’s an open mic night for bloggers where you can read your favourite post of the year in front of a live audience, at the Ottawa International Writers’ Festival where some pretty big headliners have appeared as well. If you’d like to read a post, you have to submit (up to two posts) by emailing me a link at lynnturtlehead@gmail.com. There’s a panel that picks out a great combination of posts to be read that night, and the deadline for submissions is this coming Sunday, March 29. It’s a very cool thing to read your words out loud, but if you aren’t selected, I hope you’ll still come out to hear the selections – it’s on Tuesday, April 28.

And now we return you to your regularly scheduled programming.