March celebration postcard
“Falling back in love with life”. This is my 2nd celebratory moodle postcard (Mapambo Adornments - Edition 2024:4)
Hello! Hello! Welcome one and all!
Falling back in love with life and 2024 postcards
For 2024, I have joined with Safar Fiertze and others who have created an image inspired by a Substack post they’ve read (have a read here). If you’re new here , to find out more and who else is participating, scroll to the end.
Follow The Moodle Bug as she celebrates!
Last month I introduced the Moodle Bug (she has a brand new design)! Join her as she once again flits around the postcard, visiting three places on the map: Someone In Real Life, Someone on Substack and Me. Each place is a chance to stop and celebrate a little, or a lot.
Celebrating: Someone In Real Life
Celebrating a person I know in real life.
My son has taken the decision to have some talking therapy. As a single child, coming from a divorce, he is taking steps to deal with those bits of himself that don’t sit comfortably, so he can live a fulfilling and satisfying life. I’m celebrating that he is doing that. I wish I’d had the guts to do the same when I was his age. I waited until I was in my forties before addressing any of my own issues.
Celebrating: Someone on Substack
Celebrating someone on Substack and particularly a piece that I’ve loved reading in the past month.
I’ve read so many pieces this last month that resonated with me, but only one that inspired me to create something as a result. And in the spirit of these Postcards, that is the one I’ll talk about here. It was Brooke McAlary’s piece about not hoarding the things that bring us joy, that catapulted me out of my chair and into town, in search of stickers. Little Deb (my inner child) was thrilled with the idea of getting new stickers and using them all in the same day. I laughed out loud, because I saw myself in what she’d written - as I child I always saved the special things, never took joy in them at that moment. I guess I grew up with a ‘scarcity mindset’ and it’s taken a lifetime of trying to unlearn that.
So, this is the piece that I’m celebrating: Joy by degrees: Don't save your stickers by
. I’d love to know if Brooke’s words resonate with you. To see what I created, scroll down a bit.“Because you couldn’t just use them willy-nilly. Oh, no. Stickers were Special Occasion Only. They were awesome, pretty and, most importantly, finite… As a kid, I had assumed I could keep these precious little bits of paper forever, that I could keep their promise of a special day to come, so long as I didn’t use them. But stuff doesn’t work like that. Jumpers get attacked by moths. A teacup gets broken. That special olive oil goes rancid. And yes, stickers lose their stick.”
Celebrating: Myself
This final stopping point is to acknowledge something I’ve done in the past month that I want to celebrate: it might be a Substack piece I’m proud of, or something I’ve done in the offline world.
I’m celebrating formalising a part time contract with an educational non-profit organisation in South Africa. They are working with and extending the work I did for my doctorate and beyond in out-of-school time maths clubs. I’ve been taken on as Director of Education to put programmes and structures in place to take the organisation and its people forward.
At the beginning of the contract negotiation process, I was asked to provide a figure that I wanted to earn. I provided one. Then, I went through the shenanigans of “that’s quite a lot, especially when converted to South African Rands”, “Its only part time, should I be asking that much”, etc. But I stayed firm in my belief that this is what I am worth to this organisation. After a month or two of preparing a case for the value I could add, the people who fund this work agreed to the figure I’d asked for.
Its the first time in my life that I’ve not undervalued myself and I’m celebrating that, with a little dance around the room!
Who or what are you celebrating this month?
I was inspired to create …
After reading Brooke’s piece about not saving our stickers, I immediately went out to buy a small pack of stickers with the intention of using them all and not saving any for another day. I also bought some dark blue card and created this fun connection / mechanical map with acrylic pens (which reminds me a bit of a Meccano set). The bug stickers added a completely random element to the whole thing. Little Deb had a great time! And the rest of the stickers were used in my journal - just because!
So that’s my postcard for this month. If you’ve enjoyed this, or something resonated, I’d love the hear from you, either as a reply to this email or through the Substack app.
Why “falling back in love with life”?
A phrase I’m living by this year is “falling back in love with life”, and I’m doing that in real life all sorts of delightful and joyful ways. So why not bring a little of that fun to this postcard and take more of the “pebble in the pond” approach by using it as an opportunity to celebrate others? Celebrating others is one of my life values and it’s also very much a part of the Substack culture I “mix” in, where a lot of encouragement and celebration happens every day.
Participating in 2024 postcards are:
You can support me by subscribing, restacking and sharing my stories and maps, or you can buy me a cuppa through my Buy Me a Coffee page ⬇️
You are worth every penny Debs, or SA dollar as the case may be! Well done for standing by your belief in yourself! X
PS I’m slowly catching up on reading… you are not forgotten!
The thought of sticker abundance was fun! I think my equivalent is the tiny sample sizes of posh bath oils and stuff that I get gifted when I buy other things. I tend to keep these in my travel bathroom bag, for the small-size convenience and to use in a 'special hotel moment' (I e. You can take a 40 minute bath cos you're not cooking dinner yourself). But then when I travel, I invariably take my regular stuff with me and don't use those luxe samples. You're right - the time for a luxury bath oils bath is right now, today, in my own house! That scarcity mind and 'saving it for best' approach has been very dinned into us - and it's not always helpful.