#1202 Heart on her hand

“Do you wanna sit on my lap?”

“Yeah!” baby girl yelled excitedly.

We were at swimming after school today for a catch up lesson. She jumped on my lap happily as we waited for her session to start, and as her hands came close to mine, I observed the heart shape I had drawn on there just this morning.

A fellow school Mum had given me the idea the day before. Talking to her about some of the anxiety baby girl was recently displaying at school drop-off, this warm, friendly and self-confessed parenting book expert told me that she had started the practice of drawing a heart on her son’s hand last year, and telling him that when he pressed the heart, even though she wasn’t there, it was like getting an instant hug from his Mum.

I immediately LOVED the idea. It spoke to me.

So this morning as we were getting ready to pack her bag and leave, I said to baby girl “I have something for you.”

She followed me into the kitchen in wonder, looking around: “what?”

“No, it’s not a ‘thing,” I explained, getting a pen. Bending down to her I asked –

“Can I draw a heart on your hand?”

She watched in awe and surprise as I carefully drew the small symbol. So small, yet so full of hope, promise, and good vibes.

“Now every time you look at it, you can press it and think of me and all the love we have for you, all the love in your heart.”

I drew back and looked at her – her face full of happiness and excitement. It filled my heart with joy… that little drawn on heart, and how it could affect my beating heart.

How it could affect her beating heart.

A small heart. But, full of such love. ♥

 

#1201 Mum’s original noodle soup

You know when you get something in your head, and you can’t get it out of there until you GET IT?

A song… a place…

A type of food?

With all this disgustingly EARLY Winter weather, I started craving my Mum’s noodle soup since about last week. I know how to make soup, but I wasn’t sure of the technique and ingredients needed to make the little dumpling-type noodles…

I called her. And then I called her AGAIN tonight.

“I’m not sure I added enough flour.”

“I feel like it’s not grating properly.”

“It’s not that firm.”

I voiced my concern but she was sure I was heading in the right direction. I hung up, added some more flour, punched the dough a bit more…

And after grating and grating for ages (including grating my thumb) I put it all in the soup broth and it came out looking like…

 

Shiny! (Total parent/Disney reference/joke, I know).

 

Ahh. It really was shiny. Clear and yummy and wholesome and pure, and I knew I had the official seal of approval when baby girl tried it and gave me a thumbs up.

Awww. But it’s not my soup. It is Baka’s soup. And though they were on the other side of town, I am so glad her soup was in our home tonight. ♥

#1200 5 years

1200 posts of gratitude, a crap load on my parent blog SmikG, and it all started when… ?

YAY! This blogging journey on WordPress started 5 years ago, and all after I read a book…

How wonderful these pages bound together in a unified spine can be 🙂

#1199 Encouraging words

It’s ALL about words lately. Whether baby girl’s funny ones or my…

3000 ones.

And it is in reference to the latter, that I am extremely grateful to those that encourage you.

I received feedback from my online tutor recently… and as I read over her comments and listened to her audio feedback with bated breath…

I soon found myself exhaling audibly.

I was content. Everything she critiqued constructively, I got. And everything she positively commented on…

I was beyond excited.

I had hope. My dream, was realised. The foundation of my story, that started in my head over 7 years ago, was recognised as worthy, visual, important, not just by me, but by a professional.

That is HUGE in my book. Of mammoth value.

Her words are echoing in my mind, and in so doing, my pen name is suddenly shining bright in flashing lights.

:):):)

 

#1198 What she said no. 13

Baby girl delivered me a beauty today, totally out of nowhere. I had just started driving off in the morning down our access lane, on our way to school drop-off, when she laughed out loud suddenly at something she just remembered and told me to look at her… then using her fingers to point to her eyes and then mine repeatedly, she said with such VIGOUR:

“Eyes on you girlfriend!”

I had to laugh out loud. I asked her where she got it from, and one of the teacher’s at her school uses it – I think to tell the students that she is watching them, for them to keep doing whatever task they are meant to be doing. She did it a few more times on the way in, and then I forgot about it for a while…

Until later that afternoon. Mondays she has swimming straight after school, so I gave her a snack in the car and off we went.

I was sitting on the benches with all the other after-school parents, watching baby girl finish a lap. She reached the end and looked up at me, with those pink-goggle eyes.

She held her thumb up towards  me, our little sign language whenever she is in the pool.

I smiled at her and returned the thumbs up.

She then held her thumb and index finger together in a round O, and I read the words she said next, another one of her infamous sayings: “Spot on.”

I laughed and shook my head in wonder.

And then the clincher. She used her two fingers again to point to her eyes and to me repeatedly, and I was barely able to read the words, though I already knew them so well…

“Eyes on you girlfriend!”

I laughed out loud.

And guess how we signed off for bed tonight?

Baby girl: “Goodnight eyes on you girlfriend.”

Me: “Goodnight eyes on you girlfriend. I love you.”

Baby girl: “I love you.” 

Oh what a character. My girl 🙂 ♥♥♥

#1197 3000 words

3000 words. It can be a lot of words, or a little, depending on the context of which they’re in.

But for me, tonight, 3000 words is a HUGE DEAL.

3000 words is my first baby, my book, my idea, my brainchild (if I am allowed to call it that) being sent out into the world for 10 complete strangers who I have never met to read and critique and shock horror RIP IT TO SHREDS.

I just hit ‘submit’ after staring at the screen for about 10 minutes.

What to note down as I posted the first 3000 words of my novel in the round 1 critique for my online course. Sure it was easy when it was others’ turns, and I opened up their word documents and commented here, there and everywhere… but it is a WHOLE NEW sensation to have to release that which you have worked on for so long, and surrender yourself to whichever comments may come you way.

It’s because your story, is of you. There is a reason why I think, people can be fascinated to find out what genre you are writing in. What characters you are exploring. What world you are bringing to life.

That is because there is a slight expectancy, that in writing contemporary fiction, it may still be somewhat based on you, as the author.

YES, and NO. Sure, parts of my life, the people I have met and the places I have been have affected me, some even to the point that they may feature, ever so slightly in what I write.

Yet at the same time, there is no relation. It is all a pure fabrication, figment of my imagination, come to life through hours of thinking and noticing and observing events around me.

And that is still, the most terrifying part. No matter how much your story is or is not based on your life, all of the ideas undisputedly, have come, from YOU.

It is all YOU. All of it. Anything shit in there – YOU.

Anything boring – YOU.

Anything uninspiring – YOU.

I felt compelled to tell them in my notes on submission tonight –

“Please be kind.”

“I have gone over this a billion times.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“I’m terrified.”

And explain and explain and explain my story… and then I remembered something i had heard, which was that author’s aren’t there sitting on readers laps telling them about their story as it is read.

It is up to the reader to interpret. You write it… you let it go.

So I let it go.

“Hi all

Here are the first 3000 words of my YA novel.

SmikG.”

No explanations. No excuses. No expectations. Nothing at all.

Just those 3000 words.

And although I am shitting bricks at what I will receive in return…

I know that releasing these words is the first step, to making them better again.

 

#1196 A different Saturday

Today I got a taste of things to come.

A Saturday where I had the chance to sleep in. Ahhh.

An easy and slow morning.

A kids birthday party. Where I had as much of a good time meeting and getting to know the parents as baby girl did jumping on inflatable piles of everything with her classmates.

We came home. We chilled. We got takeaway.

We put on music. We drank.

We chilled some MORE.

It was easy and it was necessary. But I am thinking of how the start to my Saturdays will be a whole lot different soon.

It can happen any day now. With no warning. We are meant to be given 4 weeks notice, but as work is still progressing through their moving interstate developments, with both good and bad things popping up to hinder/help the change, they can easily give us only 1-2 weeks notice and then pay us out the rest.

So any day.

Which makes different days like this seem closer than ever. Sure they are exciting. I am looking forward to being with baby girl and enjoying my time with her.

And perhaps for the first time in over 11 years, I don’t know, getting a job that doesn’t require me to get up at a stupid hour like 5am to drive in for at least an hour to work… and that’s only one way…

How’s about a normal 9-5 type job? 9-3 at least?

Oh that’s right. I don’t do normal.

Even greater reason then, to enjoy and feel gratitude for this most easy and normal of Saturdays…

A different Saturday, that will soon be very regular to me 🙂

#1195 School pancake day

I was sooo sure of myself when the fellow Mum brought it up yesterday.

“Have you heard about the big brekkie they’re doing?”

I laughed. “Oh yeah. I don’t have an issue there. Even if baby girl wants to go I’ll just tell here she’s usually sleeping at that time!”

Ha. I was soooo sure. I mean, she wouldn’t even want to go… who would want to go, if you had to get up earlier than normal to get to school just for a shared community breakfast?

I wasn’t even that sure what day it was happening.

She wouldn’t wanna go… would she?

Of course she would. Because as I soon found out, minutes after being so secure in my morning plans with that other Mum, the kids were let out and baby girl exclaimed excitedly – “Mama! We’re having pancakes tomorrow!”

So it WAS Friday.

“No you’re not. We’re not going.”

Sad face. “Awwww!”

Promising her pancakes on the weekend didn’t seem to help either.

It appears, the teachers had revved them all up right before pick-up.

Those rascally teachers.

So guess where I found myself this morning?

Eating pancakes with baby girl.

You know, when I made the calculations, it wasn’t all that hard. I didn’t even have to get her or myself up at an earlier time – we got up at the same time, and did all our getting-ready-for-school things, bar having breakfast, and then headed to school to arrive right after the hotcakes were flipping.

There were pancakes upon pancakes, fruit platters upon fruit platters, and I helped myself to a canteen hot chocolate to keep me warm in the morning winds…

And you know, it wasn’t all that bad. It was actually pretty cool. I mean hot. 😉

#1194 Towards the end of lovely May

Today was the kind of day, where you had to ask yourself –

“What can I do outside today?”

And although there is still 8 days ’til the end of this month, I can say with almost certainty –

There will not be another May day like today.

For the second day in a row now, the sun was out, and SHINING. It was warm. I got a chair and sat outside to jot some things down… I let the cat out (watching him with a keen eye in case he moved too close to our bird)… and I allowed the breeze to blow past me briskly, confident in the knowledge that the sun was there through it all to warm me right up again.

Blue skies. No clouds.

Happy thoughts. No worries.

My state of mind was reflected in the day… BUT, the day told me, no matter what, YOU CHOOSE how you do YOU.

 

#1193 Podcasts again

I was well into the world of podcasts over 5 years ago when I was pre-baby girl, working full time, and occasionally taking public transport.

It was the latter that made me dive into that then new world for me. I was following podcasts like ‘stuff you don’t know,’ ‘things they didn’t teach you in history class,’ and this inspirational positive dude that always seemed to be on holiday every time he started his podcast from somewhere in the States… he started each episode with a long drawn out “hellllooooo….. and welcome to…”

That was then. I haven’t listened to podcasts for a while. But from last week I’ve been getting right back into them.

I am surprised it has taken me this long to make good use of my time. After all when I drive to work I am on the road for a minimum of 2 hours up and down, and that is on a GOOD day.

I am really enjoying the entertainment, fascination and information that comes to me through the pod.

On my podcast list?

I have downloaded an episode of the Australian True Crime Series by Meshel Laurie.

I have also downloaded (and listened) to one episode of Maddie – the documentary on Madeleine McCann, which gave me goosebumps on the way in to work this morning.

And then of course… a writing one.

I had to have a writing one.

So, You Want to be a Writer?

No really, that is the name of the podcast 🙂

It is informative and conversational, but mostly I find fascinating the profiles and interviews done on the featured authors each week.

Let’s just say that driving in my car for long periods of time is something… I actually look forward to now.