Two of the greatest things in life: true friends and live music.
My life is overflowing with these blessings :D
My life is overflowing with these blessings :D
Saturday, October 17, 2015
Friday, October 16, 2015
Unexpected time
At home sick today. I don't like feeling crappy. But it has given me some unexpected time to work on book launch ideas!
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Beauty in small details
Isn't it lovely how you can get such a thrill from noticing beauty in small things. For example, the tiny milk bottle and teacup holding the teapot. Delightful! Vue Bistro, Melbourne.
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Getting shit done
Today's gratitude blog is about changing one's perspective on difficult situations.
Quite often we can find ourselves in uncomfortable surroundings, and feel trapped to change them. It can often be a relationship, or workplace, or simply an afternoon social event that you feel you cannot get out of without sacrificing something you don't want to sacrifice.
The trick is to change your perspective. Rather than suffer through the pain, try to find how that pain is teaching you a new skill.
Today I chatted with an old colleague who I have started working with again at a new workplace. We both agreed that the fast pace (sometimes breakneck speed) of our previous workplace has trained us in super-ninja-work skills.
Our time management is second to none, and we don't waste any time procrastinating in "getting shit done"!
We both laughed - what was once uncomfortable in many ways has been a wonderful lesson.
Quite often we can find ourselves in uncomfortable surroundings, and feel trapped to change them. It can often be a relationship, or workplace, or simply an afternoon social event that you feel you cannot get out of without sacrificing something you don't want to sacrifice.
The trick is to change your perspective. Rather than suffer through the pain, try to find how that pain is teaching you a new skill.
Today I chatted with an old colleague who I have started working with again at a new workplace. We both agreed that the fast pace (sometimes breakneck speed) of our previous workplace has trained us in super-ninja-work skills.
Our time management is second to none, and we don't waste any time procrastinating in "getting shit done"!
We both laughed - what was once uncomfortable in many ways has been a wonderful lesson.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Book dedications
Today I wrote my book dedication.
Of course, I googled "how to write a book dedication" because, God forbid I should do it wrong!
I stumbled across this, and pissed myself laughing. Ahhhhh laughter; the best medicine!
Of course, I googled "how to write a book dedication" because, God forbid I should do it wrong!
I stumbled across this, and pissed myself laughing. Ahhhhh laughter; the best medicine!
26 Of The Greatest Book Dedications You Will Ever Read
365 offerings to The Meaning of Life
It was my birthday yesterday - the "big one". Number 42, the meaning of life! i have been obsessed with this number since I read "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy".... many many many MANY years ago!*
I never thought I would live to see this age (truly!) i have been through a fair amount of shit, and enough dark moments to wonder "is it really all worth it." and "I am not happy, and will never be" and "Why prolong the misery" and other such thoughts.
I am delighted to report these thoughts don't even come close to the surface anymore, and that the amount of joy i feel in everyday life ought to be packaged into a Disney movie somehow (am I making you feel ill, now? Well, tough, read on, cause I am going to tell you something that may make you sit up and take me seriously)
anyone can do it.
..........
Seriously........................
Anyone. I'm not that special.
Okay. I will give you a hint. Mule.
That's it. i'm as stubborn as... that is........
So no matter how tough it got, no matter how low I felt. When it really came down to it, and I decided I wasn't going to put my family through what I had been through. The choice came down to LIVE or DIE. and if I chose LIFE, then I was going to DAMN well try each and every day to make it the best life I could.
Otherwise, why bother?
So, to mark my 42nd year of this life, I will be blogging a thought or picture or moment that demonstrates the meaning of life. Or joy. Or "Strawberry" which was the original post I did when I went through the worst of the worst part of my grieving and depression.
It's not easy, but you can do it. YOU. JUST. NEED. TO. BE. RELENTLESSLY. FOCUSED. ON. FINDING. IT.
Today's strawberry: I give you CAAAAAAAKE!!!! I made this last week, it's coffee cake with coffee buttercream filling topped with coffee-caramel icing. MMMMMMMMMMM
*don't ask me how many years**
** okay it's because I don't recall, but it's almost certainly less than half my age.
I never thought I would live to see this age (truly!) i have been through a fair amount of shit, and enough dark moments to wonder "is it really all worth it." and "I am not happy, and will never be" and "Why prolong the misery" and other such thoughts.
I am delighted to report these thoughts don't even come close to the surface anymore, and that the amount of joy i feel in everyday life ought to be packaged into a Disney movie somehow (am I making you feel ill, now? Well, tough, read on, cause I am going to tell you something that may make you sit up and take me seriously)
anyone can do it.
..........
Seriously........................
Anyone. I'm not that special.
Okay. I will give you a hint. Mule.
That's it. i'm as stubborn as... that is........
So no matter how tough it got, no matter how low I felt. When it really came down to it, and I decided I wasn't going to put my family through what I had been through. The choice came down to LIVE or DIE. and if I chose LIFE, then I was going to DAMN well try each and every day to make it the best life I could.
Otherwise, why bother?
So, to mark my 42nd year of this life, I will be blogging a thought or picture or moment that demonstrates the meaning of life. Or joy. Or "Strawberry" which was the original post I did when I went through the worst of the worst part of my grieving and depression.
It's not easy, but you can do it. YOU. JUST. NEED. TO. BE. RELENTLESSLY. FOCUSED. ON. FINDING. IT.
Today's strawberry: I give you CAAAAAAAKE!!!! I made this last week, it's coffee cake with coffee buttercream filling topped with coffee-caramel icing. MMMMMMMMMMM
*don't ask me how many years**
** okay it's because I don't recall, but it's almost certainly less than half my age.
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
It's time to feel the Happy
It's been a month now. I can acknowledge it. The happy permeates my being, all the time now. I cannot remember a time in my life where I felt this continuously, deliriously, happy ALL. THE. TIME.
I used to feel moments of joy, bliss even. But my general, underlying vibe was "dogged determination". Feeling the happy took extreme concentration.
Now it's just, well, THERE! I don't need to try, or to chase. It's there. I have been looking over my shoulder wondering when the punchline was going to happen, when the cosmic joke finally caught up with me. I don't think it's coming this time. I think this is it.
This is what I have been working towards my whole life, and once I stepped off the treadmill to smell the roses I planted, I suddenly "got" it. That this is what it means to be alive - just "be" in the moment. Not having to worry where I have to be, who I have to impress, what I have to do and when things will fall over.... that all seems redundant now.
I can just be me.
Super happy me.
I have been told countless times that I am glowing, that my default expression is a big dopey grin, even when I'm not engaged in a conversation with someone.
I am immersing myself in creative pursuits, I have finished my book, started the second, finished a short film screenplay, started a second, and booked into a photography course (something I have been wanting to do for years now, and never set aside the time for myself to do it.)
I am grateful for all the offers of work that have come in, and I promise I will settle down soonish.... but even then the settling will be at my pace, with work that inspires me, that I know I will get as much pleasure from creating as my clients will get from receiving... it's just who I need to be now.
It's insane how happy feels. It is both the journey and the destination.
Monday, August 31, 2015
Decade
Today marks the 10th anniversary of my former husband's death.
It seems like a lifetime ago, something that happened to somebody else, not me. And yet sometimes it seems like yesterday. I catch myself in a memory, a moment of recognition that this whole "other" life was real. It mattered. He mattered.
He was a beautiful, flawed, individual. Like the rest of us. He battled demons that I still to this day don't fully understand. He didn't survive.
In the decade that has passed I have observed real progress in how we as a society treat and recognise mental illness as a real thing, not just something to be minimised, hidden from polite conversation, seldom mentioned, unless spoken about in hush-hush and guilty tones.
I often wonder, had he survived, whether he would have gone on to thrive and find his niche that he so clearly craved.
I don't suffer the crippling guilt anymore, but I do catch myself feeling sad every so often. He was a good soul. He didn't deserve the pain.
RIP Kevin. I know you are still very missed, to this day.
xxx
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Musings on work and life. Striking the balance.
This afternoon following some typical discussion with my wonderful boyfriend who patiently listened to my future plans and dreams, mixed with a liberal dose of angst that the future will all work out the way I'd like it to, and musings aloud for the umpteenth time that my passion has always been storytelling; whether that be my early obsession with the Bill Collins Movie show, late nights watching old movies endlessly with my auntie, or my forays into improv; he finally observed wryly (with a twinkle in his eye) that I have been unemployed for a day.
It stopped my musings dead in their tracks. Gosh, said I. And performed the necessary calcuations in my head. You're right! It feels like much, much longer in my head. Let me see, my last day in the office was on the 19th, my official final day of employment was the 20th, and yesterday was the 21st.... making it a grand total of.... one day.
Time is a funny thing. Perception can shape it, twist and extend it, or compress and make it move like the last drop of water falling from a closed tap.
He observed me struggling with that term "unemployed" for a few moments more, then asked "When was the last time you were unemployed?"
Again, I did the calculations. Well, said I. After my university degree, it took me some months to get my first full time job. But were you working during that time? Well, yes, I kept working at the family business, and also did waitressing at an Italian restaurant. In fact, on futher reflection, I haven't been unemployed since I was 16, when my holidays were spent helping out in various family businesses when I wasn't attending school or university courses, I was hell bent on ensuring I was fully employed in the pursuit of making a dollar towards my future hopes and dreams of being a fully fledged responsible adult who was 100% independent and making her own way in the world.
It has never stopped. Until yesterday.
How strange does it feel. I have never pursued that term, work life balance, I have always done things 150% right out of the box!
Even my unemployment has been started with the aim of attaining a new life skill in storytelling - screenwriting. I booked this course the day after I resigned. Is this some subconscious drive that cannot abide a moment in time where I am not occupying my brain or being in some way, shape or form? Or could it be just my innate curiosity about life, the universe, everything, that does not allow me to sit still for one moment in time?
I don't care, this doesn't feel like work at all. However, I am hoping my natural drive for employing myself in some kind of work will manifest in a meaningful way that can balance my responsible side with the pursuit of creativity. So it is written, universe. Let's creative this passionate life together!
xx
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Hello Uncertainty
Hi there, long time no blog! (geez, have I heard that one before?)
I am 1-day out from the precipice of uncertainty and it feels fucking fantastic!
I have thrown in my lot with chance, fate, kismet. I have finally given myself over to absolute, 100% uncertainty. Me, the most "under control, OCD, planned" person there is!
There is no safety net right now, and it feels glorious!
Even if, in a few weeks' or months' time I take another path within corporate life, for the time being I revel in the pure bliss of the unknown.
I am taking a chance on me, on creativity. I am placing trust into the universe that I will manifest something that is right for me. Tonight I started a screenwriting course that may just be a lark, a fling, a chance to let my free spirit and imagination soar.... but who knows where it may lead.
I am so inspired by the decision to do..... nothing.... for the time being. I really am. Although there is also a part of me that is wondering "how long will this last?" and there is a part of my brain that is catalogue-ing all the possible avenues I have to approach to place boundaries and certainty to this glorious life. I really hope I can stave that impulse off for a little while longer..... I am really enjoying the freedom and irresponsibility for the time being :)
xx
I am 1-day out from the precipice of uncertainty and it feels fucking fantastic!
I have thrown in my lot with chance, fate, kismet. I have finally given myself over to absolute, 100% uncertainty. Me, the most "under control, OCD, planned" person there is!
There is no safety net right now, and it feels glorious!
Even if, in a few weeks' or months' time I take another path within corporate life, for the time being I revel in the pure bliss of the unknown.
I am taking a chance on me, on creativity. I am placing trust into the universe that I will manifest something that is right for me. Tonight I started a screenwriting course that may just be a lark, a fling, a chance to let my free spirit and imagination soar.... but who knows where it may lead.
I am so inspired by the decision to do..... nothing.... for the time being. I really am. Although there is also a part of me that is wondering "how long will this last?" and there is a part of my brain that is catalogue-ing all the possible avenues I have to approach to place boundaries and certainty to this glorious life. I really hope I can stave that impulse off for a little while longer..... I am really enjoying the freedom and irresponsibility for the time being :)
xx
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)