It doesn’t take much to make a good day for Mr FD and I, now that we are more mature. Today, we had to drive to the city for my appointment with the cardiologist.

No one tried to kill us on the road, and when we didn’t miss the turnoff to the hospital and wander around the suburb lost. In the car park, we found a free car park on the first floor. Then, I remembered to note the area we were parked in and that we had to go to the four floor to access the hospital entrance.

Once in the hospital we walked by the pharmacy and ohmygodohmygod there was the exact soft toy I had been hoping to find for months for our about to be born grandchild, to match his older siblings soft toy we had given her at her birth (Petite Fille). The coffee shop had lovely fresh food and pretty good coffee that we didn’t have to rush through before my appointment. The coffee temperature was just right, unlike the airport which always has coffee way too hot to drink before we have to board.

In the doctor’s office, I had barely to wait five minutes and I was in. The doctor remembered I was a teacher, well, maybe it was in his notes, but he cared enough to  read his notes and ask me how the teacher was today.  I received a fantastic report after months and months of blood pressure problems, so I am grateful for that. I don’t have to return unless a new health issue arises. YAY!

No problems with paying our parking fee on the return to the carpark. And when Mr FD broke a piece off a creeper growing over a stone wall, only one old couple saw us and had the grace to laugh. It is one of the joys of being mature, having the courage to break a piece from a plant and sneak it home. Well, maybe not sneak, but it did ride home with us and is not ensconced in six plant pots. Saving the earth, one stolen cutting at a time.

No one tried to kill us on the way home, and when we stopped by the local butcher we snared some great meat bargains.

As I said, it doesn’t take much to make a great day, and that is a good thing.

 

P.S. I off to the city tomorrow on baby watch. I will be with Petite Fille while her parents are in hospital.

 

 

 

a short break in transmission

Off to the city to visit with Petite Fille and her parents. Only for a day of two, so don’t fret.

Oh my, you did, didn’t you?

Well, America, you certainly did it. How could you do this to all of us?

 

I have always laughed at those preppers with their millions cans of beans and bottled water, but I am starting to feel like I should start putting my shoulder to the shovel to dig a fall-out shelter into the side of our hill. One thing for sure, I have promised myself to stop following the political media and much of the news for my own health and sanity.

 

I just can’t believe it – Trump? Really, that was the best you could do?

 

Ever since Bush2 dragged Australia into his global fights I have argued for Australia to stop following so meek and mildly into every American bully fest. The time is overdue for us to cut some ties now. Australia needs to stop trying to punch above its weight on America’s soiled coat tails.

 

Perhaps young middle class women don’t realise how hard the fight was to get them the freedom they trashed yesterday by voting for Trump. We, mothers, have failed to instil in our daughters how easy privileges and rights can be taken away.

 

My argument has been for a while now, that there has been too much change in our generations and many people just can’t keep up with the momentum. They are frightened and exhausted. A demigod who promises a return to what they think were “the good old times” is a salve to their dispirited world view.

 

I just can’t believe all this is happening

 

 

The I don’t need it, I don’t want it, get out of my face revolution

Maybe it’s just me but I need to ask: is anyone else not only tired of, truly exhausted by the sheer numbers of people trying to make money from every facet of our lives?

So many so called health gurus, education experts, lifestyle experts… Even people writing books to show us how to show our kids how to use Lego once they are tired of their kit style. Can’t we downsize for ourselves? Can’t we create and innovate for ourselves?

What is happening to us?

Today, I feel like one of those characters in those predictable Hollywood movies where in one day, a man has to face a job loss, wife leaving, kids moving away, car repossessed, locked out of all bank accounts and savings and he just goes mental and rejects society.

Today, I want to go mountain woman and reject capitalistic consumerism and this society that just wants to make money out of every aspect of my daily existence.

I don’t need anyone to tell me how to do anything or everything. I can do it for myself, and I don’t need to make myself poor making another person rich.

I shouldn’t have got to my age without knowing these things

Immerse myself

Cherish imperfections

Take whatever time it needs

Play with the elements

Know what I can control and what I need to let go

Pay attention to my world

Embrace experiences, big and small, negative and positive

It doesn’t have to be complicated

Slow can be give unexpected gifts

Trying thing you aren’t good at, can help you find your talents

Time and motion proceed together, so just start

Expect rejection

Expect success

Use the tension

Capture moments

Use the ugly

What is today, may not be tomorrow, so try again, again and again

Nurture your need, your passion, your obstinacy

Show my flaws

Pick up the pieces and start something new

 

Where does creativity hide?

Where does creativity hide? In deep, dark, unfathomable places I have never really been able to fully uncover. I think my self-censor has dug a hole and buried it so deep it may never see the full light of day.

I have had no deep childhood trauma and maybe that sealed my creativity’s fate. There are few tales to tell from a happy childhood. Too much balance, nothing to work out through words, on paper, or in art. Such a fate.

I am a multidimensional person, we all are. There in should lie creative spaces; I am sure they must. However, I also allow ambiguity to dwell beside creative intentions. Happily, though, this is counteracted by the universe sending me messages, or what I think are hints, or messages. This focuses me for a few moments, maybe ever a span of hours, before uncertainty, that ever present chorus of negative voices in my head, and the pressure of being observer of my own self, sends creativity back to whence it came.

So any creativity by this time is pretty dizzy from forces turning it in circles, up and down and all around. Somewhere in the middle, the vortex, is a small individual who still remains committed, but not wholly steady, feet not yet fixed on the right path. A clock is ticking her hand, the only sound inside her space. Tick Tock, the days go by, the weeks go by, your life goes by; so much uncommitted.

 

Tick Tock.

clearing skies

The black mist is gradually leaving me after months of illness and exhaustion. It may have just been a series of winter viruses and work exhaustion, but it has left me depleted. Spring is trying to break through and I sense my mind and body are trying to lift as well.

Sunday morning, I was on the deck, trying to exercise on the bike for a few minutes, the first time for a few weeks, when Augie Dog came to sit in the sun nearby. A number of green lorikeets were feeding in the grevillea trees in our garden. The sound of their chirping and the energy of the community was just such a delightful form of much needed nourishment for me.

Thankful that we were guided to our tree change and we had the wisdom to follow our call to country.

oh just a morsel then…

I feel a bit ripped off by the weekend. It was very social. I find being nice exhausting and so by the end of the weekend I was feeling depleted. Happy but depleted as only an introvert can be!

Saturday we collected the exercise bike from a former colleague, a lovely woman who was so kind to me during my very first teaching job. It seems so long ago, and it was such a difficult time that I almost walked away from teaching before I even really started. However, Colleague and I have kept in touch through social media, and the gifting of the exercise bike meant a trip to the city and a good twenty minutes of polite conversation in her driveway as Mr FD loaded the bike into the back of our car.

To recover, Mr FD and I treated ourselves to lunch, something we haven’t done for months! We both chose the barramundi fish with pea mash and sweet potato chips. We were quite decadent and followed up with dessert. I chose the orange crème brûlée that was just perfection in a ramekin. I would have ordered a second helping without much prompting! Mr FD declared he would order something more “manly”; an apple and rhubarb crumble with vanilla ice-cream. How a dessert can be manly, I don’t know, but he was more than satisfied with his choice.

Sunday, I lunched with my favourite girlfriend, the one I have known since kindergarten. She and her husband have just returned from a trip to South America and climbing  Machu Picchu, as you do! Friend had news of a mutual friend who has had her foot amputated due to complications arising from diabetes. A lack of self care – so sad.

After the exhilarating  gustation of the previous day, I settled for a chicken soup with mushrooms and basil. It arrived in a bowl large enough to bath a small babe, and with a bread stick roll that was almost too large for the soup bowl. I have to admit that I had chosen soup as I was expecting a smaller meal! I did my best, but have to admit the soup defeated me. The glass of white, didn’t however.

a new cycle

The view from our deck by day

This weekend we got an exercise bike. It’s not new; in fact it is second hand, unwanted when its owner went overseas. We have placed it outside on our deck, for the moment. I did circle it for an hour or two, as I am not an exerciser – as I joke, my idea of exercise is moving from one end of the couch to the other!

I was out trying out the cycle this evening. The weather is unseasonably warm, and the evening was just lovely, not too cold, no insects. Our house is on the side of a hill and overlooks the Village and the entire valley, to the ranges in the distance. It was evening and the street lights were twinkling like stars and it was just magical.

Augie Dog was outside with me, standing at the far end of the deck. Son came out and was of the opinion that Augie was watching a wallaby somewhere in our garden that we could see. He was certainly standing very quiet and still the entire time I cycled.

It was just perfection, and I felt so happy, cycling and enjoying the moment. It was a very, very nice end to my weekend.

I just hope I can walk in the morning!

Bored by that view? Then try this one!

Sunday going down

The rain has been pouring down for the last couple of hours, and the fire is lit. Our family are all home, Petite Fille tucked up in her bed.

It’s Sunday night, so no hope of a cosy sleep in, but it is a pupil free day, so that is about as much as can be hoped for. Five days of work and then two weeks of semester break. Almost there.