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

A BUSY WEEK. THE LAST WEEK OF SPRING

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

  Maya Angelou. 

Wow! What a busy week.The last week of Spring.

It is difficult to find time to sit down and write. I have decided to try to make every Friday my blogging day as things tend to settle down a bit on Fridays.

I have been living my passion - helping kids with reading problems and disorders. I won't bore you with too many details. It is quite time consuming, because the children I am working with have failed to read successfully via their school remedial program. Their reading difficulties manifest themselves in different ways, so each child requires an individualised lesson. Children must be engaged before they can learn effectively.

I did start a blog a few years ago about helping children with reading difficulties and intend to start up on it again, so watch this space.

On Monday I visited some old friends in Corrimal for morning tea.  I went to university with Pe and R in the 1970's. Pe was best man at my wedding in 1976. It was lovely to see them, but they also had some news that was very sad and took a while to recover from.

It is hard to believe we are all over 60. How quickly the years fly. 

There was a beautiful sunset outside P's place on Tuesday,

 

And I took this view from a friend's place on Tuesday morning. It is looking out over Fairy Meadow out to the Tasman Sea.

My brother has been looking after a sick native duck he found at Lake Illawarra a few days ago.
He put it in the birdbath for a bit of a splash.

Today he took it to the vet who was going to contact WIRES.

P and I have a caravan for sale. We bought it to fix up but then changed our minds and bought a newer one already done.

 We've had it on Gumtree for a couple of weeks and have had one offer we think is a bit low. We shall see how things go.

The Christmas tree was up in the church foyer the other day, encouraging the Christmas spirit.

 

 I love the run up to Christmas, although to date I haven't had much time to devote to it.

Tonight I started filling some stockings for P's grandchildren.

 I need to get 2 of them finished for Sunday week. I am determined to have everything organised early this year.

My son-in-law B is very clever and innovative. He makes some great things, especially for around the yard. This link will take you to his YouTube page.


Interesting sites

1

8 lush green rooftops from around the globe

Photo source

Green or living rooftops, long popular in Europe, are becoming common with both private and business owners alike. Green rooftops, which are relatively thin layers of greenery affixed to a roof, can act as effective insulators, thus reducing energy costs. They also last longer and can absorb storm water, acting as valuable drainage systems. Green rooftops can provide a pleasant escape for inhabitants of an urban jungle. Click here to read more.

2.

 Fly eye

Photo  source

An anti-fog coating modelled on the nano-structure of a fly eye could one day be used on windows for cars, planes and buildings, say researchers. Click here  to read more.




3.

 10 best National Geographic photos

Photo source

The ten best National Geographic photos of all time. Click here  to read more.