Or numerically, 701.
I’ve officially hit the 700 mark with that many ⬆️⬆️ followers of my car crash gratitude blog!
I’m happy that so many have decided to join me on this ride, but perhaps the greatest beauty is the knowledge that practicing gratitude while doing what I love, writing, is really no hard task at all. 🥰🙏
You know, with all these often difficult and trying early baby days, there has been one constant.
I’ve still continued to do a gratitude journal post, every freaking day.
I’m proud of myself, not so much for finding the time to do it (feeding baby boy at the end of the day is an opportune time) but that I’ve managed to find something to be grateful for on days that I’ve felt exhausted, spent and frustrated beyond belief.
That’s huge for me. 🙏💪
I have a bit of a conundrum, and I need all the help, from all of you, to help me decide what to do.
Anyone that reads this blog knows I call my daughter baby girl. Sure, she is 9, and definitely NOT a baby anymore, and yet she will always be my baby girl. 💖 Hence why I still give her that name here, as well as the logistical nightmare of having to change her name and then work out what I do to all the earlier posts where I called her baby girl. 🤦♀️
So, for the near-foreseeable long-term future, she will still be called that: baby girl.
But wait… I am pregnant and with baby right now.
If I have a boy, well that’s easy! He will be known as baby boy on my blogs! It makes sense, baby girl and baby boy.
👧👦
But wait! What if I have another girl?
👧👧
I can’t have baby girl, and… baby girl?
I have thought of this many times, in many ways. As already mentioned, I can’t go back and change baby girl’s name tags to something else, just to accommodate the actual new ‘baby girl’… no, that would be WAY too hard.
I’ve even thought of numbering. So baby girl for my present baby girl, and baby girl 2 or something if I have another girl.
But that feels way too impersonal and cold, almost like I’m numbering an object or something. So the numbering is out.
I’ve thought of changing everything completely… so baby girl is now known as BG1, and new baby is BG2 (ok, sure, still with the numbers, but it reminds me of those funny kids stories in the Women’s Day/New Idea mags, where the parent would write in and say DD1 for Darling Daughter 1).
I’ve thought of using princess girl, or darling girl, but that just feels unfair to baby girl, who is also my princess, my darling, but just has the gender descriptive name of baby girl, as opposed to a sweet nickname attached to it.
So then I started thinking… what is another name for baby?
Bebe. Bebe Girl.
Now bebe is French for baby. So I started thinking of my own background, and Hubbie’s, but I feel like with bebe being 4 letters and almost sounding like baby, it is the closest resemblance to the original word that makes sense, without having to introduce a foreign word baby name and have readers be like ‘what the…?’
And this is where I stand now. Considering bebe, bebe girl, though we are not French (but baby girl does study it at school!) But I am really confused and still DON’T KNOW, hence my reaching out to you, all of you, to help me find an alternative generic baby girl name, IF I do have another baby girl!
Confused? Yes, I am too! 😂
OMG, so I just stumbled upon a discovery.
You know when you stumble upon a realisation that you honestly had no idea of, but it’s like something is silently whispering into your ear and then, you search and you… REALISE?
So this was the timeline of my realisation only moments ago.
Hmm, I think I’ll write about editing my novel. Yeah I enjoyed that today.
I mean I could write about that today… but like, I’m not editing for a publisher. Maybe I save it for when I’m with publisher. 😉
But I have nothing else to write about really… hold on. I mean, I have done a lot of these gratitude posts. Let me look at how many…
Today is #2242.
2,242 days of gratitude. Wow. I started in 2016. I won’t forget that year.
February 2016, that’s right. That ill-fated day.
Hold on, isn’t it my carcrashgratitude anniversary at the end of this month? Let me have a look…
My first post occurred on the 24th of February 2016!
Guys, I have been doing this for 6 years and 1 day! 😮😮
And that’s how I came to my accidental discovery today. My blogging anniversary with this blog was yesterday and I didn’t even know it.
Happy gratitude blog day to me. 😁🥰
I’ve made it to 2000 posts!
I considered some time ago throwing in the towel for this gratitude blog, just because I felt I had done what I set out to do.
That is, I now know how to practice gratitude daily in novel ways.
But a part of me feels like I’m not done in this area, not yet anyway.
So for now, I’ll keep going. 💪
How did I celebrate my blog milestone today? Well after not being sick all winter, my body went ‘stuff this’ and threw in its own towel today. 🙄
Enter panadol and tea.
But in true gratitude, glass half-full fashion, I made chicken soup, and Marion’s hoisen beef noodles, and I’m happy that I made some food for my body (and soul) that’ll hopefully get me back into tip-top shape.
There’s always worse out there to put your own woes in perspective, and remember, there’s always better waiting for you. ❤❤
Guys, it’s Winter!
I sound excited, I know!
You know, usually I am bracing for winter for days and days on end, waiting for that inevitable day when I change the page of the calendar and have the coldest season staring back at me.
I mean, it shouldn’t come as a surprise… our fair city of Melbourne gives us plenty of previews WAY before June rolls around… 😏
But, I’m trying to embrace all the seasons this year. I am trying to find all the reasons why I love them.
Yes, there I said it. LOVE.
Or maybe, a little bit of like. Baby steps.
Baby girl told me the other day that she’s looking forward to toasting marshmallows (we’ve never done that, guess we’re gonna have to start!) watching movies more and cuddling up on the couch.
And I keep forgetting that Winter still brings the sun too. Like today. Yeah I know, if we’re going off my ol’ Melbourne climate guide (I wrote that up when I started blogging, and it’s more accurate than the Melbourne weather forecast ever was and still is) this early June summer is totally normal, and designed to give us a false sense of security.
But although it is colder, the sun still comes out.
Listen to that metaphor.
Even though it’s colder, the sun still comes.
We are day 2 into Winter, and honestly we should be more afraid of corona and lockdowns, then we should the cold.
I am ALL for Winter this year. Give me my freedom, and I will paint the town red, 30 degrees, or 3.
🟥🟥💖💖
Today I tried out my new top.
I have to say… it suits me to a T.
(Tee hee hee).
To say that this top was meant for me, given my blog topics… well I couldn’t have picked a better one if I had gone out shopping with purpose.
But no. Like with all things, I just stumbled upon it.
And it is perfect. 💖💖
But I get up again.
So close, so so soooo close to throwing in the towel for this gratitude blog.
You know I’ve never said it out loud, but I’ve seriously considered finishing this blog at number #2000.
I figure if I’ve managed to be grateful for at least one thing for all of those days, then I have the tools necessary to help me through life when times get hard.
Also, it’s a nice even number, and I have plenty of other writing projects to keep me busy anyway.
#2000. That’s only 187 days away. Sometime this year in fact.
But after the day I’ve had, I honestly am questioning if I’ve learnt anything at all.
Because I’m finding it very hard to be grateful.
I get knocked down,
But I get up again
You’re never gonna keep me down
Am I being too hard on myself? I mean, when you go through bad times, or nightmares keep repeatedly coming back to haunt you, how are you meant to act? With a laugh? A yippee? A friendly ‘oh darn, not this again’ with a Joker-like smile?
Nope.
When you’ve had the same freaking thing, annoying you, bugging you, and no one can tell you why, or explain it, and you’re going around and around in circles, and you’re even considering psychics for answers because seriously NO ONE ELSE KNOWS, and then it strikes again…
AHHH!
I get knocked down,
But I get up again
You’re never gonna keep me down.
Seriously. How am I meant to act?
Anyway, This is my bitch-fest. My whinge to the world. Take it as you will, because it may not last for long…
So, what am I even grateful for?
I get knocked down,
But I get up again…
For now.
I am going to be brutally honest with you.
Not that I’m usually dishonest. But doing this gratitude blog, means I focus in on some positive moment, event, thing, person, expression, and amplify it.
So often in our lives, we focus on that which doesn’t work. That which doesn’t go to plan, or that which makes our hearts sad.
That’s why I do this blog. To prove, that no matter what, you can find something good in every day.
I have had so many bad days. More than you will care to realise. And each time, I chug on, write another gratitude post, think of that one thing amidst many shit things that is worth focusing in on.
But I am really truly struggling as of late.
My health has been hit with some setbacks. When you fall ill, without any understanding of why it’s happening, and it comes back again, and again, and again…
You really start to doubt things in your life. You start to fear. Anxiety grows, slowly at first, but then like a garden you tend to, if you neglect it for only a few days, the weeds spread out and cover your every thought.
This has been my life. This has been me. Health issues, as well as other serious thoughts, and isolation, are all colliding together spectacularly.
I clutch onto good things in my day, like a cat with its claws dug into a piece of driftboard, as it sails further and further away into murky and stormy seas.
It is hard to avoid the deep, dark seas.
I am becoming devoid of passion. I have no motivation for things that used to bring me happiness. I am not looking forward, to anything… even my appetite has taken a hit.
I used to look forward to baking new things, finding new recipes… I can’t be bothered anymore.
I used to count all the opportunities during the week in which I could write in all my side projects… I can’t. I feel fake.
I would love sitting on the couch at the end of the night, doing whatever I liked, for me, while the rest of the house slept.
Now it just makes me feel more alone and scared than ever.
Fear and anxiety is the main presence in my life. I can’t trust anything… I am scared of what’s around the corner.
I just want my life to go back to how it used to be. But it feels so far away. Isolation, the absence of seeing my family, my friends, is making it so hard.
Being stuck in the square box we called home, the anxious thoughts circling around my head, following me from room to room, are not helping.
I’m honestly going mad.
And although on a good day, I would be overjoyed and proud to share something like this…
All three of the tulips blooming.
Today? Nothing. A mere distraction, that I’m trying so desperately to clutch onto.
I try to snap other things, other flowers, trying to remember how they will look like this season, based off previous years growth…
But not even curiosity can save me.
So I turn to you, anyone reading, to ask for help.
Having poured my heart out to you, I ask, I beg…
If you were ever in a moment, or a spate of days/weeks/months, of intense and extreme fear and anxiety, where the emotions took over all your senses and clouded all movements you made throughout your day, what did you do to help yourself?
Is there anything you did to help yourself? What helped? What could you have done better, looking back?
I really need some guidance here.
Thank you. 🙏
I go from one hat, to another hat, to another hat.
ALL DAY LONG.
Work hat. Mum hat. Teacher hat. Cleaner hat. Chef hat. Pet owner hat. Wife hat. Washing hat. (Did I say cleaner hat?)
Emotional hat. Maintenance hat. Finance hat.
Where is my ‘me’ hat?
Sure we are in lockdown, but all it means for me is I’m doing everything from home now, instead of leaving the house for things that I used to.
It’s now the work and the home schooling, as well as trying to do all of the normal everyday tasks that keep the house running,
I jump from one thing to another thing to another thing, all without taking a breath.
Overwhelmed is an emotion I am all too familiar with.
I asked myself the other night “where is my ‘me time'”?
Sure, I do this at night. Everyone goes to sleep. I blog, I journal.
Other times I am so spent I watch my guilty pleasure Bold and the Beautiful on repeat, or just scroll aimlessly through social media.
But then, that other big question… the question that I’m sure A LOT of us has thought at one point or another during this lockdown…
What is it for?
What is the point? Where am I placing my valuable time, and is it leading me in the direction I want to go?
Or have I fallen into routine, and need to be reminded of that which makes my heart sing?
What about my book?
Yeah, MY BOOK. That thing I was working on ’til early this year, which I then left because ‘feedback overload!’ All well and good, but with so long a break, it was time to ask the question again.
‘What about my book?’
A new plan. A new decision. A new routine.
A new hat. A writing hat. 🙂
Wednesdays was now going to be my BOOK day.
It doesn’t matter how much (or how little) I spend working on my novel… but from now on, I’m going to be announcing to the house my intentions, and ordering them all to leave me alone for as long as they can muster!
Today it was about 80 minutes… not bad. It was baby steps. I first had to remind myself of where I was at, re-reading feedback from writing pals, and taking notes to ‘up the ante’ of my story.
Even if I do one line, each Wednesday…
I am doing something. I need to be easy on myself. I know how I work.
Life can get away from us. But if I can try stick to this new routine, all my Wednesdays will surely amount to something.
They will amount to much more, than doing nothing.
carcrashgratitude 