THE JOY IN MOTHERHOOD AND OTHER SNIPPETS(February 2017)

The joy in motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard times and frustrating times, but amid the challenges there are shining moments of joy and satisfaction.

M. Russell Ballard

I love quotes. Since I was a young teenager I have saved them and written them down. Now when I come across them in my reading, and I find they say something to me, I save them for my blog. I have a system of writing them up where I never know which quote I will come across on the next post I do, and now on my blogs, even though I consider it terribly self-indulgent, I have been commenting on them from a personal perspective.

This quote on motherhood made me really think about what it was like being the mother of two creative children, who just didn't fit comfortably into mainstream schooling or life.

While I love my children more than anything in the world, motherhood has not always been easy. It has been a long, long road. Dealing with childhood depression in both my daughters in their early years was very difficult. Seeking and fighting for professional psychiatric help for my children, in the early 1990's, when there was far less awareness, became a way of life. My husband and I home-schooled our younger daughter right through high-school. In year 9 my elder daughter was the only child in NSW to be enrolled in High School part time and home-schooled part time. We knew this because at the time my husband worked in head office for the Department of Education.

I don't remember ever falling out with my daughters, even in their teenage years, although we did have occasional disagreements. They are both artists and we fostered their creativity as much as we could. With depression raising its ugly head in both my daughters at an early age, I made the commitment never to give up on them.

Thanks to their genes, every day is a battle. I know because I share some of these genes.

Motherhood has held many moments of joy for me. There have been hard and frustrating times, and there still are. But now my daughters fight their own battles and I will always be their to support them.

For me, 'the shining moments of joy and satisfaction' come when I see the caring and compassionate individuals my daughters have become. I am very proud of them and I admire them greatly for not just giving up. I would like to think that their father and I have played at least some small part in them becoming such wonderful women.

Last Sunday Peter and I went to a 50th wedding anniversary. The beautiful cake below had a photo of the bride and groom 50 years ago. It was edible - made of icing.

Peter's elder sister and her husband have been married for 50 years and it was lovely to join other close family members and friends to help them celebrate.

A trip to Helensburgh on Wednesday to attend a medical appointment, saw us driving through quite a bit of fog on the top of the mountain.

January, in New South Wales,  Australia, has been a heat wave month, and it looks as if February is going to be the same. It is great to have some cooler weather for a few days.

On Friday morning I had coffee with my lovely friend J at Wollongong Harbour, or Belmore Basin as it is officially known.

Again, it was a grey day, but lovely sitting outside to sip coffee and catch up. We met at church a few years ago, and although J has moved on to a new church, we have a lot in common and keep in touch.

She brought me some resources for tutoring and some other bits and pieces which I really appreciated.

Tutoring has started again and I love working with my students. A year 11 student is beginning Ancient History and when I worked with him yesterday I was surprised how much I could remember from my teaching many years ago. I will enjoy studying this again to keep up with my student. 

Craft

I have begun crocheting this cardigan with some wool I have had for years.

The cardigan is growing slowly.

You can find the pattern for the cardigan here. 

It is an American pattern so double crochet actually means treble in English and Australian crochet.

In the Garden

Decorating and gardening have taken a back seat to some other things so far this year, but little by little things are taking shape.

Blue glass containers were ideal for some potted succulents at the front of my place. I plan a colour scheme of blue and grey out here.

My container gardening has been spurred on by an article I read here.

On Saturday night I plan to cook a vegan dinner for my family. It is to celebrate my daughter's birthday and she is vegan. Her birthday was actually about a month ago but she wanted to spread the family occasions out a bit, after Christmas and New Year.

I make sure there is plenty of vegan food at all our family get-togethers, but once a year, for Jade's birthday, I make the meal completely vegan. Jade has been vegan for over 20 years so I am quite skilled at vegan cooking, but this time I will try some new dishes - vegan lasagne, potato and rosemary pizza and Golden Rice Pudding with Turmeric, Ginger and Pink Peppercorns. I haven't quite decided on the rest except for a chocolate tart with an Oreo crust that is requested at every meal.

The plan is to have an evening playing a new version of Trivial Pursuit, but at the moment another heat wave is on the way and the forecast for Saturday is a maximum of 39 degrees and a minimum of 28 degrees, so I am not quite sure as to whether we will postpone the evening for another night when it is cooler, as I don't have air-conditioning.  We shall just have to wait and see.

Interesting sites

1.

How to choose plants for your home

 

 Click here to see a video with some useful information about how to choose plants for your home.

2.

 Ice in Northern Canada is breaking up

Photo source

 One of Canada’s most northerly communities reinvents its relationship with a thawing landscape. The ice around Nain is breaking up. Click here to read more.

3.

Sailing through garbage

Photo source

I sailed from LA to Honolulu with Danish nonprofit Plastic Change to finish a global survey on ocean plastic. Short answer: The Pacific plastic problem is probably worse than you thought.

Read to the end of the article to read the scary information about microplastics.Click here to read more

LITTLE JASPER AND VIEWS AROUND TOWN

 

Who is strong? He that can conquer his bad habits.
Benjamin Franklin

I have so many bad habits. One of my worst ones is a tendency not to put things away - in fact I have a tendency not to even find homes for things in the first place and just let them sit around. Hence I am going through many boxes of school stuff, where rather than organising things carefully I have just stuck things around the place and finally stacked them in boxes to get them out of the way.

I read an article called Zero Clutter. You will find it at  http://zenhabits.net/zero/

It begins:

Today I’m going to introduce you to a method I call Zero Clutter. It’s about only having the essential things in your life, and clearing out the rest. It’s about developing the habits that keep your life clutter-free, and learning to put things where they belong every time, so that clutter doesn’t accumulate.

 Because I have been made redundant from my job I have decided that the best recourse is to sell my house and find somewhere smaller. I am hoping that with my downsizing and simplifying my life and possessions,  that I will change - that through necessity I will become tidy. I live with a constant feeling that I should be cleaning up so it will be great to have everything tidy and away in its home.

Vintage shell graphic

Little Jasper

My daughter R and her partner B have been down the coast for a couple of days so they left their little dog Jasper with me. My house isn't ideal for dogs as I have no fences but we get by. He is a lovely little fellow and great company.

 

Jasper is a Miniature Foxie. He is 4 years old. Most of the time, unless he is with another dog, he thinks he is a person, and I must admit there are times I forget he is a dog as well.
I would love to have a dog of my own but feel I am out far too much to be good company for a dog.



Scenes around town

There is a beautiful view out to sea from where I post my letters. It is especially pretty on a hot day when there is a haze out on the water.

After I had popped my letters in the letter-box I snapped these couple of pictures. They are views out to the Tasman Sea.

 

There was a number of oil tankers waiting to dock at Port Kembla Harbour.

Sunset at P:-)'s place is lovely over Lake Illawarra..

I snapped this pelican on a pole on our weekly walk around Wollongong Harbour .

What would you do?

What would you do if you knew you could not fail?

This made me stop and think. 

I have been made redundant from a teaching position I had for 15 years. I am 58 so there aren't a lot of prospective employers waiting to snap me up. I don't think casual teaching back in mainstream secondary school at my age is a realistic option.

What would I do if I knew I could not fail?

I don't really know. Something creative. I think I would like to own my own business. But what and how? That is the question.



Interesting sites

1.

Photo source

Click here to see some hobbit inspired houses.

2.

Photo source

 Click here to see some beautiful pictures of jellyfish. 

3.

Photo source

  Click here to see some lovely photos of Yosemite National Park.

COLLAGE

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself.

 Harvey S. Firestone

Yesterday morning my mother, my daughter, P:-) and I did our usual walk around Wollongong Harbour.

Wollongong Harbour

We stopped for coffee at a place that overlooks the harbour. My little darling Jasper -my daughter R's dog and my grand-dog - always enjoys these walks.

Jasper

Last night, as P:-) and I watched a Ruth Rendell  murder mystery I had a lovely time doing a simple collage for the front of a folder where I am keeping a record of the dinners we have.

Folder cover

I have a system I follow for our evening meals and it helps if I keep a record of what we have each night.

I have often given lessons at school where collages are involved - usually asking students to do collages that represented their lives - but I was surprised at how much I enjoyed creating this simple cover for a used folder instead of going out and buying a new one. 

Decoration in my front entry

Each morning I do a Bible reading and read some other relevant bits and pieces. Today's readings were to do with 'inviting newness into your life' and 'expanding horizons'. I felt quite excited. It was so relevant to me. I feel I am standing on the edge of something exciting with my life changes - finishing my teaching job and selling my house. I really feel very positive and that God will look after me.

 And be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind (having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude.) 

 Ephesians 4:23

Interesting sites

1.

Photo source

  Click here to check out these lightweight tree cocoon houses.

2.

Photo source

Click here to read an interesting article on termite architecture.

3.

Photo source

  Click here to see some great wildlife photography.

FAMILY CHRISTMAS DINNER

Action makes more fortune than caution. 
 Charlotte Whitton

 Unfortunately not much action has taken place with Project 333 which was my quest to sort out my wardrobe which I wrote about in my last post. I have been so busy I haven't had time to move onto Day 2 - but watch this space.

This is my favourite time of year - the run-up to Christmas. But this year is very different for me. This year I will not be going back to work after the holidays. I have received my final paycheck. I have received a redundancy payment which I will have to live on for the next 8 months before there is any question of receiving unemployment benefits.

Life can change very quickly. This time last year I had no inkling that I would lose my job. I had imagined I would work for another 10 years until I was old enough to receive an old age pension. As it is I am in limbo - not old enough for a pension but too old for there to be much likelihood of employment.


On Thursday we - my mother, my daughter R, P:-), myself and the darling grand-dog Jasper- went for our weekly walk around Wollongong Harbour. It was a beautiful morning. For some reason there was a flock of gulls congregated in the shallows along the path.

Gulls

The sun sparkled over the water at North Beach

North Beach

We walked for around 15 minutes to a coffee shop at the harbor, stopped for coffee and then walked back again.

The rest of Thursday and all day Friday I spent madly cooking. P:-)'s five children and their partners and his 4 granddaughters were coming for a pre-Christmas lunch at his place. I was cooking. This was part of my Christmas present to P:-). My big worry was not having enough food so as usual I over catered. But we had a lovely time.

P:-) has a smallish house but we enjoyed decorating it and setting the table.

Table set for lunch

Table decoration

We were lucky to have all of the family together. With such a clan, and some of them working on weekends, it doesn't happen very often. It was a lovely afternoon.

The four little granddaughters range in age from 3 years  to 8 weeks. So it was quite noisy, but in a lovely way.

 P:-) and I are very close and spend a lot of time together but for a number of reasons we currently live separately so meanwhile I hung a wreath on my front door. The wreath itself is plain and I decorate it. This year I just hung four silver ornaments on it and was quite happy with the effect.

Wreath

Wreath

Sunday was quite hot, reaching around 30 degrees and after being so busy for Thursday, Friday and Saturday P:-) and I spent most of the day dozing on and off in front of the television, filling up on leftovers. It had cooled down quite a bit by church time at 6 o'clock.




Interesting sites

1.

Photo source

Click here to read about the Leaf House. An energy efficient Tiny House built for the tundra.

2.

Photo source

My favourite colour is blue. Chefchaouen, the Blue City of Morocco looks beautiful.. Click here to read about it and see some beautiful pictures.

3.

Photo source

 Click here to sea Earth as Art - the most beautiful Landsat Satellite images.

COFFEE AT WOLLONGONG HARBOUR

 For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

The school holidays are passing quickly. I have a large unfinished back room and P:-) has been helping me clear it. It leaks terribly and needs lining and P:-) is going to do this for me. It has become a type of storage room for school stuff and craft stuff mostly and much of it needs to be culled.

I have been made redundant from a teaching position and will need to sell my house and move somewhere smaller. This has made me re-frame my life perspective. It is very exciting in many ways.At this stage I plan to retire. I am 58 and can't see myself obtaining another teaching position at my age, in this area. But I do not intend to retire from life or from possibly setting up a small business in something I am interested in.

The moon viewed from P:-)'s front yard

Number 4 in the Keys to the Heart Series :

What are your values?

My values are based on Christian values. They can all be summed up with the Golden Rule - do unto others as you would have the, do unto you. I think many of the problems of the world could be solved if we all lived by this rule.

I believe in being kind to animals, and I must admit while I eat a mostly plant based diet I am not vegetarian but do buy free range products.

 I believe we should be considerate of the environment.


I needed to pop down to school to lock up for a colleague and was impressed by the callistemon tree which was in flower.

Australian native Callistemon

Callistemon

Callistemon

On Tuesday P:-) and I had coffee at  Wollongong Harbour (also known as Belmore Basin) with Mum, my daughter J, and my daughter R and her partner B. It was a beautiful spring day and the Harbour looked very pretty.

Wollongong Harbour

Wollongong Harbour

It was good to get together. I usually try to organise something in the holidays. Everybody seems to be so busy much of the time.


Interesting sites



1.

photo source

Click here to check out this cave house in Oia, Greece. When you run over the photo arrows appear at the side to see more pictures.

2.

Photo source

  Click here to see some beautiful photos of geometry in nature.

3.

Photo source

  What a beautiful lamp. It opens up. Click here to see more.