#1751 My balcony moment

I’m feeling a little sheepish, because I didn’t get to capture the most peaceful and beautiful part of my day.

But like many things in life, just because it wasn’t snapped, 📸 doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

The heart can tell it happened.

I find this happens in the most perfect moments. Those where we are free, going with the flow, living from within our purpose.

And we don’t have a camera on us.

AND running off to grab a camera, well it kinda defeats the purpose of being calm, free and all.

But it happened today. I had a coffee up on the balcony as the sun was approaching midday point, so half of the balcony was still in shadow…

But the other half was lit up.

I moved my chair to the part where it SHONE. MOVED IT RIGHT UP.

And I sipped my coffee.

I thanked my lucky stars that I was enjoying this beautiful moment, up high, right under birds as their wings flapped above me, dragonflies whizzing about in the garden below me with butterflies gently meandering, the waters shimmering in the horizon, with the still and warm air enveloping me in a gentle embrace…

While my coffee got me buzzing. 🤩

Still, I was calm. I was grateful.

The sun was shining on me.

That was all I needed.

#1750 Setting up the Tree – 7 year old baby girl Edition

I have no hesitations in getting Christmas started in our household, before December.

I’ve been doing it for a few years, and LOVE IT. Getting it going in the last week of November, well it’s just enough to feel like I’m on top of things… because if you think about it, when you have the tree up, house decorated, you start organising cards, presents, the big day…

It all just FLOWS. And yet, you’ve started it the week before, so in a way, you’re IN FRONT.

You’re, winning.

I would have started earlier this week, honestly I would have. But I’ve been arse-planted, Dawson’s Creek and other guilty pleasures bound, imprinted into the couch as I get better.

Today was finally the day when I felt well enough to do something without huffing for breath and sitting down for hours on end afterwards just because I did a lap around the house.

So I went a bit crazy. Well, we did.

I usually set up Christmas slowly, over the week. One night I’ll do the tree… the next day the decorations… the other night, the house decorarions…

I did ALL OF THE ABOVE today.

And, with some huffing and puffing!

It was wonderful just to get about and moving. The Christmas albums came on, and I even got a bit teary, thinking about all the stuff we’ve been through this year, the challenges I’ve faced, looking forward to a Christmas that was undoubtedly going to be poignant and special.

We watched baby girl set up her tree in her room. This is the best $20 I have ever spent at Kmart. I got the idea a few years back, and was THRILLED with it! She gets to set up her own tree, her way, and then that gives me greater creative license when it comes to the main tree!

I always get a bit shy and oddly personal when it comes to taking photos of our family Christmas tree. I liken it to showing someone my bedroom, my underwear, something like that…

I just find it so private. I have on occasion, had the tree in the background on a social media post, right during Christmas Eve time. But generally, I don’t do a big festive announcement with photos.

So much love and happiness, childhood memories and future hopes and dreams are held in the precious pastime of setting up the Christmas tree and decorating the house. I just feel really weird to expose myself, and my tree, like that.

But I will share with you my 29 year-old reindeer decoration. I’ve had it with me since I made it in primary school, and though you can’t really read it, on the back I KNOW it reads, in my 8 year-old handwriting…

“Grade 2. Room 16.”

Yep. Christmas is my happy place. 🎄🎅🤶🎄

#1749 My laughing problem

I have a problem.

I can’t laugh. But my family is making me laugh.

(I didn’t say it was a bad problem 😉)

Baby girl was going through this joke book today. It used to be her Dad’s, and it came home with us one night after he did a big clear-out of his old room back at his parents house.

She got this brainwave of inspiration, and decided to write up her own jokes.

AHEM.

It is hilarious listening to a kid’s jokes, because, well, simply… they don’t know how to make them. All they know is they’re a bit silly, they make people laugh, but they don’t get that they need to make some sort of sense (however daggy that is) for the joke to work.

This is what she came to me with today:

“Knock Knock.

Who’s there?

Polly.

Polly who?

Lunch because she wanted to.”

I smiled and did my obligatory little ‘ha ha’ to congratulate her efforts, thinking how the whole thing made NO SENSE.

It made such NO SENSE, that it was actually, NONSENSE.

It was actually, kinda, funny.

When she came to me with the second one, I already had the giggles internally, wondering what kind of nonsense the second one would constitute.

“Knock Knock.

Who’s there?

Peach.

Peach who?

She wanted to eat her lunch but no.”

OMG, I DIED. I’m not allowed to be wheezing so much because it hurts, and I’m afraid I’ll break in the process, but I was clutching myself, tears pouring down my face, telling her “STOP!” as she repeated the joke out loud, cracking herself silly that she had told such a funny joke.

We laughed and cried and laughed. She told a third, and by this time I was a goner.

But that peach joke… somehow, someway, despite the nonsense, that joke ended in such a way… I don’t know. Like the end bit – “she wanted to eat her lunch but no.” Like BANG, cut you off there, ‘But NO.’

🤣🤣

Well, that’s one way to feel better. Cry-laughing. 💖💖

#1748 The risk of the belly-ache

I am still in recovery mode.

Which means, no sudden movements for me.

And that includes, no crying… AND no laughing.

It’s turned me into a bit of a robot. I have to maintain an even expression of calm, composure, not over-reacting in any which way to the negative spectrum of things…

Or even the positive side.

But my days are pretty bland right now. I can’t do much. They consist of watching:

Dawson’s Creek

Bold and the Beautiful

Cheers

Angel, and

Friends.

I can watch any of these multiple times, in any order, totally randomly, simply according to my mood.

And then in between, I’ll throw in a couple (dozen) rounds of wordscapes on my phone.

🙄

If I do get confident or get a burst of can-do attitude, that is quickly quashed when I move the right side of my body, or bend over to the mid-way mark, therefore resulting in a sharp shooting pain in my right shoulder.

So back down, I sit.

But tonight, I got brave. And I thought it was the funniest think ever to prank hubbie. I was going through supermarket recipe mags to see which I should keep (a great sitting down, non-moving activity) when I saw a recipe for something that had recently upset his stomach…

With the biggest resolve and seriousness, I swallowed my grin and said “Hubbie! Look at this! Do you want me to make this?”

I pointed to the recipe, then waited as his eyes wafted over the title, catching the look pass his face as his expression went ‘what the?’ then turned to me slowly with an “are you bloody kidding me?” face.

I could not breathe. I clutched my belly, terrified my insides would burst out at any second, trying SO HARD to hold in my stifled breaths of laughter, but yet they came, squeezing out, making me sound like a strangled animal or something.

God it was worth it.

Yes a few things might have broken in the process… But oh well.

It’ll heal.

As I’ll heal.

As I’m healing every day. 🙏💖✨🥰

Photo by Rodolfo Quiru00f3s on Pexels.com

#1747 Chicken pho for me

I can’t make it for myself at the moment.

And I’m not close enough in distance for anyone in my family to make it for me.

So just as well we have a Vietnamese extraordinaire down the road creating some fine cuisine from her kitchen. 🍜

We got some food off this lady a while ago – she makes her own authentic Vietnamese food, and during covid has been sending out boxes and packages full of delicious meals from the comfort of her home.

I feel so lucky that she is so close to us.

Knowing the nature and power of soup and broth and all things chicken-y, I ordered in advance, and today got Hubbie to head on down and pick me up her chicken broth for my lunch.

Soup, pho… it all soothes your soul. Just the act of drinking/eating/slurping it, made me feel like I was getting better.

It tasted good… my head went “mmm!”… my belly went “mmm!” and then my soul went “YES!”

So yummy. 😋

#1746 Pretty purple flowers

These made my day when I was feeling down, so you can imagine my happiness now that the worst is over…

Well kind of. But, doing better, incrementally.

Hubbie asked only last week. “Do you want me to chop them?” It’s our neighbours plant and it’s grown over to our side of the fence, hanging invitingly low, branches outreached like a handshake.

How can you deny such a greeting?

“No! Keep it! Look how bright those colours are. It makes me happy.”

And what makes me happy, stays. 😁

#1745 I got there!

Yes, I got there.

Or rather, I got through it.

Like the nursery rhyme says…

“You can’t go under it,

You can’t go over it,

You have to go THROUGH it.”

You know, I was born on a Tuesday.

And today, I was re-born on a Tuesday.

That’s how it genuinely felt. When you’ve put off something for so long, it starts to become a constant presence, a fear that sits at your dinner table, sleeps beside you at night, and follows you around the house, around town, wherever you go.

It never leaves your side.

I overcame a massive fear today, even a genuine phobia, and it made me realise something really huge. Something I didn’t know about myself.

I am stronger than I think.

I never thought it, I really, honestly, never did.

I wanted to be strong though.

There are two quotes that came up in my daily calendar in late August, and the way they appeared, it was as if they were meant for me.

One I’ve already shared with you. Here is the other:

The inspiring quotes that got me there

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.”

I left these quotes on the kitchen bench, where my cookbooks sit, during this whole time. I felt they needed to remind me of what I had to do, what I had to achieve… what I had to go through.

And what I had to overcome. Not other people, things, circumstances… but rather, ME. I had to overcome and master my thoughts. My fears. It was all in my head, and as much as I had very real fears and worries, and they are perfectly normal… I had to overcome, myself.

Not, the mountain.

💪

Everything in due time, and I will speak, when I am ready. But I will share the other thing that was great following my day of overcoming fear, that was almost as great as the relief that came after it…

Watching TV all day.

Yep. You see you can’t do much when you’re in recovery mode.

I watched repeated Cheers and Bold and the Beautiful. Threw in eps of Angel and Dawson’s Creek. Watched half of a Prince tribute show I had recorded 6 months ago, and watched another half of a Queen doco I would have recorded at the same time.

And played about 16 rounds of Wordscapes on my phone.

Yep. This is the best part. 💖

Also, I felt your love. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. 🙏

#1744 Day 246 of getting there: Almost There

I am almost there.

246 days. Who am I kidding, even more. But, 246 days of starting to really and truly understand this moment was coming, whether I wanted it or not.

I didn’t want it. But that doesn’t mean that I could avoid it.

What turned into a getting through covid countdown has turned into so much more.

I am so close. Sooo close to doing something that I’ve been avoiding and putting off for ages. When you do this, the procrastination and worry that comes with it becomes bigger than the job itself.

I am so close. So close.

I am ready. But I am also scared.

Yet I know, somewhere, somehow, that I will be alright.

I hope I will be alright.

Yes, I will be alright.

If you have any spare prayers, energy, whatever rocks your belief boat… send them my way through the power of thought.

I would be ever so grateful. 🙏💖

#1743 Day 245 of getting there: the ladybird

Ladybird.

Ladybug.

Lady beetle.

It’s same same, yet we all say it differently, depending on what part of the world we hail from.

I often forget what should be used, and flit from bug version to bird version, again and again…

But for us, in the former British colony of Australia, it should be ladybird.

Either way, I love these insects.

It is so rare to see one of them. I find it interesting that we see so many other creepy-crawlies, generally ones that I am NOT a fan of…

Spiders… moths… insects… flies…

Butterflies, I like.

But ladybirds… tell me, when was the last time you saw one?

Well, I’ll tell you. I saw one this morning.

It instantly brought me happiness, because it reminded me of my wedding day, when following the exchanging of vows, one flew on me in the car on the way to photo locations.

To me that was a sign. A very good one. 💖💖

This morning I found one on the top of our car. Not wanting to waste an opportunity, I lay my finger beside it, and it climbed up so easily.

This ladybird stayed on my hand for about 2 minutes. Long enough for Hubbie to snap a pic. Long enough for me to feel its tiny insect-feet moving about and tickling me.

Long enough to give me hope, and help me to see that all may be alright.

All may just turn out alright.

I was holding my hand in the air, saying “Fly ladybird, fly!” while Hubbie and baby girl told me to make a wish.

That part wasn’t hard. It is the only thing I can think of lately.

It’s like the ladybird wanted to stick around though… walk around on my hand… embed in me some much needed strength, hope, and good luck that was definitely needed.

And then, it FLEW.

We watched this tiny insect take off, flapping it’s little wings, buzzing off into the air to make someone else’s day.

It was so small in the air, and yet so visible. Like something out of a movie.

Only we know that real life is far better than any dramatic film reproduction.

Thank you ladybird. You made my day. 🐞

#1742 Day 244 of getting there: getting there with new hair

Today my hairdresser confirmed to me what I suspected was true:

Supermarket colours are not as superior, and do not hold as long as salon colour.

(Which explains why I couldn’t get rid of those ‘lighter’ strands coming through… 🤔)

Today, NEW hair.

February was probably the last time I went to my hairdressers. Or earlier… who knows anymore? This year has all blended into one great big smudge.

And although I haven’t had professional colour since then, choosing the home-packs out of no other choice…

I haven’t cut my hair since! I wasn’t going to try either.

Instead I just turned into a hippie.

Now, I’m a hippie without split ends. Which is why my hair is feeling a lot more even-toned and lighter after today’s visit. 💖