Darling Buds of May & Authentic Living This Week
An armature poem paired with a roundup of gratitude, memories, learnings, inspiring finds, creative hobbies and a reality check.
Hello Friends!
Here's what you'll find in today’s newsletter:
A Piece of Life in Focus This Week
Darling Buds of May: A poem about my growing baby boys
Authentic Living This Week
Gratitude Corner - Substack community, my parents & Mother's Day
Making Memories - Tag, trampoline fun and marshmallows
Inspiring Finds - Substacks to read
Learning Something New - Medium & Pro Writing Aid
Hobbies & Interests - Writing poetry
Reality Check - Toys, Bills and Husbands
Welcome to My Substack! My Name is Tania.
I invite you to join me on a journey of embracing authentic living. Through honest stories, personal insights, and reflections on authenticity, I seek to find the extraordinary in the ordinary. Subscribe for free & tap the ❤️ if you enjoy this post!
Life in Focus This Week
My Darling Buds of May Poem
My sweet darling buds of May,
Newness and softness to be protected and cherished,
Kept safe, sheltered and loved.
Wishing you’d forever stay this way.
I am whole, complete, and fully alive
When I am with my darling buds of May.
Yet chaos surrounds us and consumes us.
But one glance, one hug, one stroke of your cheek,
Brings peace back into the fold.
My darling buds of May,
Innocent, precious, and not fully formed.
Delicate petals learning to break free from their tight hold,
Waiting, nourishing, clinging to the branch.
And then they open.
Slowly yet suddenly. Gradually yet all at once.
My darling blooms of May, oh, how you have grown.
Buds you will be no more and never will be again.
But the beauty and love you unfold will forever remain.
Authentic Living This Week
This Substack series is devoted to everything that I feel adds authenticity and realness to my life and I hope it helps you focus on the authentic joy you can create and experience in your day-to-day lives too.
Gratitude Corner: Finding Appreciation in the Everyday
Taking time to find things to be grateful for in everyday moments is a great way to stay grounded and remind yourself of the things that really matter.
This week I’m grateful for:
The amazing readers and writers I've come to meet through the creation of this Substack. I've met many kind and compassionate people, and I'm humbled by every like, follow, comment, mention and subscriber I receive.
My parents, who voluntarily give up two days a week every week during their retirement to care for and spend time with my boys while I work.
The beautifully cooked breakfast my husband cooked for me and the cute scribbled-on card my 3yo picked out for me for Mother's Day. Along with the joyful 'Happy Mother’s Day,' greeting I received from him as he threw the card at my face 😅.
What are you grateful for this week?
Making Memories: Cherished Moments & Milestones
Making memories and recording them has always been incredibly important to me. Our memories tend to fail us, so keeping a record of precious moments enhances our memory-keeping abilities.
Here are some of my favourite memories from this week:
My boys running up and down the hallway in their button-up pyjamas as my parents gleefully chase and catch them in an impromptu game of toddler tag, where only the toddlers get caught.
My lanky self darting around the trampoline and bouncing off the outer walls like a mad woman trying to catch and scare my delicious squealing children inside.
My 3-year-old’s sudden obsession with marshmallows. Rather than eating them, he simply carries a bowl of them around the house, squishes them between his fingers and occasionally flushes one down the toilet.
My 1-year-old adding ‘yay’ ‘go’ and ‘boobee’ to his vocabulary. He blows air kisses now and enjoys climbing and standing on top of tables every chance he gets. A great addition to the biting trend we entered last week 😅.
Enjoying this glorious shaded park and playground that we had to ourselves. Shaded + empty = double win!
What has inspired you or taught you something new this week?
Inspiring Finds: Great Substack Reads
I’m deep in the substack pool of posts once again. Here are just a few that I enjoyed reading this week:
What I also want you to know is that your ideas are worth exploring. Your message is worth sharing.
The Creative Process in a Nutshell by
You are trying to get ahead of your ‘thinking’ self; the conscious bit. The aim is not to think of what to write, but to write what you’re thinking.
Let your tangled hair blossom, let the colors splash out around you again. We can laugh through this dark time, and it is transcendent and glorious. Can you feel it? Your magic is coming back. It never really left.
What has inspired you this week?
Learning Something New
Medium: I decided to start an account on Medium to share my writing. I’ve only shared one of my Substack articles on there so far, with fewer bells and whistles compared to the Substack version 😉. If you have a Medium account too, I’d love to follow you back!
Pro Writing Aid: When I get stuck in a creative writing rut I turn to research, and I started researching tools that could help improve my writing and editing process. I’m currently trying out the free version of Pro Writing Aid and I’m liking it so far.
What’s something new you learnt this week?
Hobbies & Interests
I’ve been exploring poetry writing recently, especially since I discovered that my great-grandmother wrote poetry. Here is a poem she wrote about being kind:
I’ve been following a few poets on Substack and recently reached out to
for advice on whether something I wrote was in fact a poem 😅. Make sure to check out her lovely poetry!Do you enjoy writing poetry?
Reality Check: Navigating Life’s Challenges
I find venting about struggles I face in life just as therapeutic as embracing joy. Writing about or vocalising the tougher moments in life helps us process them and knowing we're not alone in these struggles is helpful too.
Here are some struggles I’d like to vent about this week:
My dear husband buying toys above the age range of my boys. Two examples come to mind. A marble maze (5+). For one, the marbles are a clear choking hazard for my one-year-old, my 3-year-old needs me to build it and my 1-year-old is constantly trying to pull the built structure apart. Plus a Crayola paint and spin set (5+) that you squirt paint onto as it spins at breakneck speed. Lots of mess, stained skin and fleeting frustrations as my 3-year-old struggles to operate it properly.
My lovely husband leaving it until the last minute to pay the bills. I'm the kind of person who likes to pay a bill as soon as I receive it so I don't forget to do it later. The longer it sits there, the more anxious it makes me. In fact, I'm going to go ask him about our rates bill again now 😅.
What do you feel like venting about this week? This is your safe space! No judgment here.
In my sign-off for this week, I’d like to leave you with a few positive reminders:
Live in the moment, you’ll never get it back!
Have big feelings? Write about them!
Please let me know what you think of my posts by leaving a comment below or reaching out to me in the app. If you enjoy my content, consider hitting subscribe! Have a wonderful day!
I’m so glad you enjoyed my post about the creative process. Thank you for tagging me 😊
These lines got me:
"And then they open.
Slowly yet suddenly. Gradually yet all at once."
I'm at the end of my tiny years with my children (my youngest is six) and I'm definitely thinking a lot about how quickly my kids change these days.
Thank you so much for the mention. I was so flattered that your reached out to ask about your poem 💛.