Mary's Moments Life Blog

Can we talk about menopause for a minute? Not the medical definition. Not the diagrams. Not the list of symptoms that somehow manages to be both incomplete and terrifying at the same time. I'm talking about the real-life version. The version where you walk into a room and immediately forget why you're there. The version where you're freezing one minute and opening every window in the house the next. The version where you suddenly understand why your mother used to sigh so muc

Someone asked me recently if all this “growing,” “improving,” and “leveling up” ever wears me out. And, listen - I’m human. Of course I get tired. I have days when my brain feels like an overused sponge and days when I push myself a little too hard and need to hit pause. But that kind of tired isn’t the same as being drained by growth. That’s just part of being alive, learning, stretching, and occasionally needing to flop onto the couch. Normal stuff. But the deeper truth? Gr

There are days when life feels pretty good. The coffee is hot. The house is relatively quiet. Things seem to be falling into place and, for a little while anyway, you think, Ok. I’ve got this. And then there are the other days. The days when something happens that knocks the wind right out of you. Sometimes it is something big. News you weren’t expecting. A worry about someone you love. A disappointment you didn’t see coming. And sometimes it isn’t one big thing at all. It is

My daughter has a nickname for my husband and me. “The Shoulds”. Or at least she did. Years ago, she started pointing out how often we told her what she should be doing. “You should try this.” “You should do it this way.” “You should have done that first.” “You should really…” Apparently, we did it enough that eventually we became "The Shoulds". And, in fairness, she had a point. Once she brought it to my attention, I started noticing it too. I tried to stop doing it or at le

There are some places you visit and think, well, that was nice. And then there are places you leave wondering why on earth it took you so long to get there. Tobermory was the latter. My husband and I recently escaped for a couple of days to this little harbour town at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula. Not a week. Not a big vacation involving airports, planning and lots of luggage. Just two days. And somewhere along the way, I was reminded that sometimes two days is just right,

I caught myself doing something the other day that I suspect I do far more often than I’d like to admit. I was sitting outside with a coffee. It was a beautiful day. The sun was out. The yard looked good. Nobody needed me at that particular moment which literally, should have been celebrated all on its own. And what was I doing? Thinking about something that had happened earlier. Then something I needed to do later. Then something that might happen next week. I had managed to

Have you ever sat across from a doctor waiting for test results and found yourself hoping they find something? Not something terrible, obviously. Just something. Something that explains why you haven't felt like yourself for months (maybe years). You've had the bloodwork. Maybe an ultrasound. An MRI. A CT scan. You've waited three months for the specialist appointment, filled out the forms, repeated your medical history for what feels like the 47th time and finally made it in

I remember coming back to work after being away. It could have been a vacation, a long weekend or Christmas holidays, it really didn't matter. There was always that first morning back. The alarm felt particularly offensive. My clothes somehow seemed less comfortable than I remembered them being. There were emails waiting, things that had happened while I was gone, and inevitably someone would say, "Welcome back! Did you have a relaxing time?" And I'd think; Apparently not, be

There’s something nobody really tells us about motherhood. Love can be incredibly strong while relationships can still feel complicated at times. Both things can exist together. I found myself thinking about that recently while reflecting on my relationship with my oldest daughter. The truth is, we have butted heads periodically over the years. Not because we didn’t love each other. Quite the opposite actually. When I really step back and look honestly at our relationship, I

I remember the exact moment it hit me. Not a dramatic, movie-scene kind of moment. No music swelling. Just me, standing there in my own house, holding a cup of coffee that had already gone cold (because of course it had), staring at my bookshelf. And something about it felt… off. Not messy. Not disorganized. Just heavy. So, I started reading the titles. How to Lose 10 Pounds in 10 Days. How to Win Friends and Influence People. Fix-this. Improve-that. Be better already. It was

Have you ever walked into a room full of people and immediately wondered “what am I going to say?" I think most of us have. Whether it's a community event, a family gathering, a volunteer meeting, or simply meeting someone new, we often put so much pressure on ourselves to be interesting that we forget something far more important. Recently, I came across a simple idea that stopped me in my tracks. The most interesting person in the room isn't usually the one doing all the ta

There’s a woman I know who started lighting a candle every morning before the rest of the house woke up. Not because she was trying to become a “candle person.” Not because she suddenly had her life together. And definitely not because her mornings were peaceful. Far from it. Her mornings looked a lot like the rest of ours. Coffee reheated three times. A mental checklist already running before her feet hit the floor. Laundry waiting. Emails waiting. Someone asking where their

Lately, retirement seems to be coming up everywhere. Friends are talking about it. Family members are talking about it. People are counting down the months, the years, or in some cases, the weeks until they can finally leave work behind and enjoy a little more freedom. And it has me thinking. My husband has started talking more seriously about retirement. After decades of working hard, it makes sense. Especially when many of those years he worked full time and ran a part time

There’s a strange thing that happens when people look “fine.” The world assumes fine means functioning. Functioning means coping. Coping means capable. And capable means unaffected. But sometimes the people who look the most normal on the outside are carrying the heaviest invisible load on the inside. That’s the tricky part about invisible struggles. There’s no cast. No wheelchair. No flashing sign above our head saying, “Today is harder than it looks.” So, we smile. We groc

There’s a thought that stopped me mid-laundry one day because let’s be honest, that’s where all deep life reflections happen somewhere between matching socks and wondering where the other one disappeared to. Five years from now, how many of the people in our daily circle will still be there? Not in a dramatic, something-went-wrong kind of way. Just life. The parents we chat with on the sidelines at activities. The familiar faces we see every week at the grocery store or gym.

There’s something we don’t say out loud very often. Sometimes, we already know. We just don’t trust that we do. So, what do we do instead? We ask. We Google. We call. We overthink. We sit on decisions for weeks, months, sometimes years. And if we’re being really honest? We already knew the answer before we asked the question. We just wanted someone else to say it first. I remember a time not that long ago when I was stuck in that exact place. I had decisions sitting in front

I’ll be honest, when I first saw one of those reflexology charts, my initial thought was: Is this helpful, or is this a human body puzzle gone rogue? You’ve probably seen them too. Hands and feet covered in tiny organs, lines everywhere, labels crisscrossing like a road map no one asked for. But once you strip away the chaos, something actually starts to make sense. So, what is reflexology (without the fluff)? It’s pretty simple, different areas of your hands and feet are bel

There’s something about this time of year that feels like a gentle reset. Not a big, dramatic change everything moment, just a quiet shift. The snow is finally gone, the air softens, the days stretch a little longer, and somehow it feels like we can breathe a bit deeper again. I find myself noticing the small things more - the birds coming back, the sound of life picking up again, little signs that everything is slowly waking up. And every year, it reminds me of something we

It started so casually, I almost ignored it. We were entertaining a family member on Friday, just visiting, nothing out of the ordinary. Then out of nowhere, I felt it, a strange, needle-like sensation just under my right eye. It wasn’t quite pain but it wasn't comfortable either. It travelled upward toward my eyebrow, almost like something was “waking up” under my skin. Naturally, I kept touching it. Pressing it. Trying to figure out what on earth it could be. We’ve all don

Easter, like a lot of things in life, has layers. Kind of like those fancy chocolate eggs you tell yourself you’ll “just have one bite of”and then somehow, it’s gone. It doesn’t come in loud. It doesn’t kick the door down like Christmas. It doesn’t demand attention. It’s softer. It’s in the way the light lasts a little longer. In the air that doesn’t sting your face anymore. In that tiny, almost unnoticeable shift where things feel… possible again. And if we’re being honest,

Most of us don’t need better planners. We don’t need another system, app, or colour-coded chart. What we actually need… is less. Less noise. Less mental clutter. Less explaining ourselves to people who don’t really listen anyway. Somewhere along the way, our personal lives became overfilled - like a drawer that won’t close because we kept shoving things in without ever deciding what belonged there in the first place. So, here’s a question worth sitting with: What actually ear

March is a funny month. It can’t decide if it’s winter or spring. One day we’re scraping ice off the windshield, the next day we’re daring to crack a window open because it smells like thawing earth. And right in the middle of that unpredictable, muddy, hopeful season… is St. Patrick’s Day. Green everywhere. Shamrocks taped to windows. Kids in dollar-store headbands with glittery clovers bouncing around like they’ve had three juice boxes too many. And then, two days later, Ma

If you’re a woman over 50, chances are your body has changed the rules without consulting you first. One day you’re fine, the next day you wake up sore from sleeping. Sleeping! The activity we were promised would fix everything. Welcome to the season of life where health becomes less about bouncing back and more about managing wisely. Many of us are juggling multiple health issues at once because apparently one would be too simple. Some common guests at this stage of life: Ac

I never knew how much love my heart could hold until I became a mom. It wasn’t the kind of love you read about in storybooks, soft and easy. No - it was messy, overwhelming, exhausting, and all-consuming. It was love that kept me going through sleepless nights, through the times I questioned myself, and through the tears - theirs and mine. Because let’s be real: motherhood isn’t just about the giggles and milestones. It’s also about crying alongside your baby at 2 a.m., prayi