The Card Shuffle

September 9, 2021August 10, 2021 valmanwillLeave a comment

I had a really weird experience the other day and decided to write about it. It might seem small or dumb, but bear with me here!

I was playing Uno with my kids, which requires a healthy amount of card shuffling between each game. … Now, I’ve never been able to shuffle. Since I was a kid, I would just kind of mix up the cards. Spread ‘em around on the ground. Or just give them to someone else! But something weird happened in my brain when I was playing with my kids. I thought

I’m going to try to shuffle these cards.

And I did it perfectly without hesitation. Shhhhhhffffft. I could even do the bridge. Fwwffffftttt.

That blew my mind. Because here I was, a woman on the cusp of thirty-one years old. And all my life I had been actively TELLING MYSELF that I did not know how to shuffle cards. I had NEVER TRIED TO SHUFFLE A DECK OF CARDS. I was just telling myself not to do it and that I didn’t know how. But I never once split a deck and actually tried to do it.

I cannot tell you how freaky this experience was for me. It was like The Truman Show. My whole reality is in question now. What else have I been telling myself I can’t do??? What else have I been telling myself I don’t enjoy? What else have I been telling myself “that’s bad”.

So that’s it. Deconstruct your Truman Show set! You can do whatever you want! You can like whatever you want! You can be you! That is all! I love you

Writing Before I Could Write

August 19, 2021June 25, 2021 valmanwillLeave a comment

It’s that time of the month again, where we dive into my childhood and drag back a piece of writing as early as it can be.

At estimated five-years-old I clearly remember making this story. I was sitting in church and I painstakingly drew each page with the exact words in mind. Then hired my mom as scribe and put my “first ever book” together!

(read right to left) “But… I have too many friends!”

There you go. I hope you enjoyed my Kindergarten humblebrag from back in the day. Haha!

Reading the Diary I Had at 3 Years Old

July 22, 2021June 25, 2021 valmanwillLeave a comment

So I found this:

It’s a journal that was given to me in May 1994 (says my mother’s handwriting on the inside of the cover). I was three years old and already loved to write. The first story I remember “writing” (drawing) was about getting the chicken pox, which Mom says happened the same year I got the journal. So, I knew I had been writing and story telling since then, but finding this thing was an absolute GEM.

It turns out I had kept it through the nineties and completely FILLED it full of my own original stories. So many in fact, that I decided to start a new blog series where I share a story I wrote in this book as a child.

Let’s start with 1994. Three years old. (For personal reference, my youngest is two and my oldest has just turned five, so… pretty little!)

The first thing I did was open to a fresh page and draw a “boney-bones” (a skeleton). Very on brand for me.

A ghost that’s labeled “Boob” hahahaha

Then I redrew the ghost and labelled it “Book”

A little character I drew in November 1994 (so, now I’m technically 4)

I figured out how to draw a tape dispenser. I have a vivid memory of being really excited about this haha

This one I don’t remember but my mom’s caption says it’s a story about a father and a son.

Tune in next month for some serious kindergartener author action hahaha.