I hope you’ve been enjoying the podcast, lovelies! If you have, I also hope you’ve shared the joy by recommending and/or giving it a positive rating or review on your podcatcher of choice. This helps fulfill the entire purpose of the show, plus it makes me happy! 🧡

This change in weather is really doing my head in, friends, and I’m still managing a pain flare-up, so apologies if this Musings rambles more than usual…

Starting with a heavy thought, sorry. As in: the world is not okay, and I’m not sure anything I’m doing is making a difference.

I know I’m not alone in this. We want to help, but we don’t always feel motivated or know where to point ourselves, or have the material resources.

The one thing I think we can all practise, regardless of our financial or mental or physical circumstances is to keep trying things, big and small.

So here are a few things I’ve found to help my mental health and being a good citizen. Maybe you can join me, or maybe they’ll inspire you to find something closer to your heart and/or home.

Canadians, find parliamentary petitions to sign. This link takes you to all the ones currently open for signatures. Two examples:

• I signed this calling on the federal govt to cancel all contracts, etc. with American DHS/ICE

• Ditto this brand-new petition re: a needed Canadian foreign policy response to the genocide in Gaza

I understand and share the desire to stay updated on current events, but we absolutely do NOT need to fill our brains with the entire volume of bad news out there. I get most of my news from Bluesky (curated skylines for the win!) with occasional checks into CBC for corroboration or depth. I’ve looked up the Good News Network, though I haven’t subscribed. But most importantly, I’ve found that a social media curfew has helped my mental health. (I stop at 10pm every night fwiw.)

I’m always eyeing my neighbourhood Little Free Library, wondering how many books I can reasonably cram into those cute little shelves. Not my stuff, but some of the extras I have piled on the floor or filling boxes in storage. It’s a tiny, tiny thing, but there’s something really satisfying about sharing books with others, even if it’s anonymous.

Have you read or heard how people use whistles to rally against illegal ICE activity in their neighbourhoods? Well, here’s a huge list of resources, whether you want to join the 3D printing brigade, or donate filament, or fulfill wish lists, or what have you. The organizers are the same band of rebel authors behind Romancing The Votes and have famously recently sent right-wing pundits into vapours with their “Leftist Supply Depots.”

Related is this site to specifically help Minnesotans. The news media may have moved on, but ICE remains, terrorizing people there—as they’re also doing in Portland, L.A., Chicago, and likely other cities I don’t know about. Mutual aid for people unable to leave their homes to work is so important, so they can buy groceries, pay rent, and survive to take care of their children and families.

Other ideas? Donate money to our local food banks; while they appreciate the non-perishable goods, they can stretch every dollar waaaay better than we can as individual purchasers. Volunteer for local initiatives like meals for the housebound or the unhoused; Edmonton has Food Not Bombs YEG, for example. Pester our elected reps to do better!

I don’t have many answers, and I often feel disempowered, but I refuse to believe that I can’t do at least one thing a day to lift someone up. This saying is everywhere these days, but no less true for its ubiquity:

We save each other.

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Joyful Things

• File under “bittersweet”: the final episode of Agents of SMOOCH dropped this past Valentine’s Day, six years to the day of its debut.
  I’m so happy I got to be a part of Annette’s very special show and this lovely community of romance-loving nerds who got together in many different configurations, to share our love of (and sometimes, frustrations with!) romance shows, movies, and books. I’ve made friends for life and I cherish every one of them.

• For Valentine’s Day, the husby and I rewatched The Fall Guy (2024). I love this film unreservedly.

• Listeners of the podcast have let me know the show makes them smile or laugh; that it’s brightened their day; that they always look forward to a new episode. I know I can easily ask for all the metrics on how many downloads or listens or whatever, but I haven’t done so. I’m not sure I want to turn this into something I have to start measuring and analyzing. So for now, I’m relying on feedback from listeners the old-fashioned way: ratings, reviews, and the occasional email. It’s always a lovely surprise, I’m happy to tell you.

Oh, there’s just one more thing...

Today is New Year’s Day on the Lunar Calendar!
Great tidings of health and happiness to you for the Year of the Fire Horse!

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