Here's what I found out - blogging is a discipline just like everything else. I'm not sure I have a great deal of discipline in my life at this moment.
For those following along, here's an update: I now have a casual job at Tupperware, a few days a week until Christmas. It will be good to have something required of me. I'm looking forward to that. Eight hours on my feet, not so much, but I've got to do something to bring home the bacon, at least in the short term.
What else? I have enjoyed having time to catch up with people over the past few weeks. Lunch dates and dinner at friends' homes - my favourite way to pass my time socially, over food, with easy conversation.
Today is a quiet day at home, doing laundry, had the roof guy here to see how stuffed the gutters are, may read some more Twilight later - I'm a new convert and am really enjoying the books so far. Having seen one of the movies and read one a half books, I am more sure than ever that the written word is (usually) more powerful than what gets translated to the screen - Meyer's descriptions of the characters are not matched by the actors, good as they are. You just can't top a really vivid description in a book, no matter how cute the actors are. Go authors!!
Be good to yourself, and to each other.
x
Thursday 3 November 2011
Thursday 13 October 2011
What my three year old niece taught me last night
So, another week, another job interview, another anxious wait for a result. The job I went for this week looks and feels tailor made for me - but I can't control the outcome. This could leave me tied up in knots, or I can choose to take a different view.
Today I choose to take the view of life that my three year old niece has - she loves to play, she's creative, and boy, she talks a mile a minute when she's excited.
At the core of her precious little heart I am sure she feels loved, safe and secure.
She loves running around, dancing and instructing me how to play her games 'correctly', and she also loves snuggling up quietly, while I read to her.
So today, I choose to embody her mindset - I know that I'm still everything she is and feels right now, just a grown up version.
Having a job isn't what makes me who I am - yes, it certainly helps. It means the rent is paid with ease, I can eat well, enjoy life without too many money worries. Having said that, whether I've been employed in a warehouse schlepping lipsticks down a conveyor belt or had a job I've felt engaged in and enjoyed, or spent days dreading going to a completely dead-end job in a more 'professional' environment - none of those things define me. They just define my bank balance!
I am a blessed, lucky, heck, pretty content girl - even without an easy answer to the question most people usually ask upon meeting new folks 'So what do you do?'....
Well at the moment, I do things like check on my friend's house while she's visiting far-away family, I stay up late. I cook, I read books to my adored niece, I have coffee with my mum, I do the laundry.
I still procrastinate about housework, so I go to the library, and then I look for a job. I enjoy the sunshine, I like myself.
And as my whiteboard exhorts me to, I deliberately spend time thinking about what I want from my life, which is so good.
Give it a go, even if you're busy from sun-up to sun-down, we could all use a refresher in checking that our lives have the mark of being directed by our choices, not by chaos/default/randomness.
That's what I do. What do you do?
Stay positive!
Annette x
Today I choose to take the view of life that my three year old niece has - she loves to play, she's creative, and boy, she talks a mile a minute when she's excited.
At the core of her precious little heart I am sure she feels loved, safe and secure.
She loves running around, dancing and instructing me how to play her games 'correctly', and she also loves snuggling up quietly, while I read to her.
So today, I choose to embody her mindset - I know that I'm still everything she is and feels right now, just a grown up version.
Having a job isn't what makes me who I am - yes, it certainly helps. It means the rent is paid with ease, I can eat well, enjoy life without too many money worries. Having said that, whether I've been employed in a warehouse schlepping lipsticks down a conveyor belt or had a job I've felt engaged in and enjoyed, or spent days dreading going to a completely dead-end job in a more 'professional' environment - none of those things define me. They just define my bank balance!
I am a blessed, lucky, heck, pretty content girl - even without an easy answer to the question most people usually ask upon meeting new folks 'So what do you do?'....
Well at the moment, I do things like check on my friend's house while she's visiting far-away family, I stay up late. I cook, I read books to my adored niece, I have coffee with my mum, I do the laundry.
I still procrastinate about housework, so I go to the library, and then I look for a job. I enjoy the sunshine, I like myself.
And as my whiteboard exhorts me to, I deliberately spend time thinking about what I want from my life, which is so good.
Give it a go, even if you're busy from sun-up to sun-down, we could all use a refresher in checking that our lives have the mark of being directed by our choices, not by chaos/default/randomness.
That's what I do. What do you do?
Stay positive!
Annette x
Friday 7 October 2011
One step at a time
This morning I was feeling pretty disgruntled with the whole jobless thing - for the past few days I've been fighting what felt like a losing battle with the loneliness of being out of the workplace, and a gnawing sense that I'm lacking a key element of direction, which could help me find what U2 -with all their rock star street-cred and massive bank balances - still haven't found.... so I hauled my butt off the couch and headed to a newly discovered bit of greenery for a walk.
A few laps around a little lake and walking path, enough to make me suck my breath in like a dying fish at one point (not that it takes much) and I was feeling pretty good.
After my walk, I borrowed a pile of books from the library (careers, cooking, art deco and the Julie/Julia book) and spent a few hours with my head buried in the lovely land of literature, a latte by my side.
So though I still haven't found what I'm looking for, I found enough to get me through today - and that's all I needed.
A : )
A few laps around a little lake and walking path, enough to make me suck my breath in like a dying fish at one point (not that it takes much) and I was feeling pretty good.
After my walk, I borrowed a pile of books from the library (careers, cooking, art deco and the Julie/Julia book) and spent a few hours with my head buried in the lovely land of literature, a latte by my side.
So though I still haven't found what I'm looking for, I found enough to get me through today - and that's all I needed.
A : )
Tuesday 4 October 2011
Sunshine, art, mystery
Good day to you readers! It is a beautiful spring day in Melbourne, sunny, breezy, free of work commitments and replete with unexpected surprises.
I've discovered a great new photographer whose work left me in awe. David Stephenson has an exhibition showing at Monash Gallery of Art and it is amazing. Do yourselves a favour....
Transcendence is the theme of the exhibit and there are photographs from several projects he's undertaken in recent years. The most moving, to me, were the series from his 2009 project 'Dusk to dawn', taken at Northwest Cape, Western Australia.
They are arresting images, in a very large format which emphasises the sky's colours and the horizon line perfectly. There are also images from his series on Vaults and Domes, which are exquisite in revealing the details of great ceilings, particularly in places of worship around the world.
Sitting before one of his 1.2 metre high photographs - 95% sky and 5% sea and horizon line, I felt deeply connected to all that's around me, grateful for the beauty of nature and particuarly of our Australian coastline. It was a lovely moment.
(If you're in Melbourne, make plans to visit MGA before the exhibit closes on 16 October. It's free and there's a great little park by the gallery, so it's a lovely spot.)
After leaving the gallery and reflecting on the impact the art I'd seen had on me, I felt both really good and a bit lost. I don't think we expect to feel these things concurrently, but it seems to me that life is full of moments like these.
That got me thinking how when someone we love experiences a great high, it is only right that those close to them feel deep joy, satisfaction and a bit of a reflected glow. In fact, one of the best feelings in the world is the feeling you (I) get when someone you love experiences something pure and good and close-to-perfect (I don't believe in perfect, but that's another topic).
There are other times, when our (my) reactions seem to mirror and be at odds with what's happening in others' lives, all at once. Perhaps in the midst of genuine happiness for others, we feel a stab of loneliness or loss, an echo of something without language, reminding us of someone we've loved and lost or something we've known but no longer have.
And in that vein, I think the truest, most precious relationships are those where you experience the intimate honour of seeing someone at their best and their worst. I didn't used to think that, but I'm getting a little wiser to these things as I get older.
In fact, the older I get the more I see that love/beauty and sorrow are intertwined, and that without one, you can't fully know the other. There's a strange otherworldly beauty that can be seen and felt in sorrow, because sorrow is part of loving more than yourself. In the same way, without deep love, we wouldn't grieve when we lose people. I heard this at a funeral I went to earlier this year and it deeply impacted me and changes the way I see grief (that's another post too, and a vastly unfinished thought).
I guess that's what I felt when I looked at the art at MGA today. Beauty and love, joy tempered by loss, deep connection and strange isolation.
I guess I want to express that I'm grateful for the beauty I saw in David's photography, and in the other works I saw, and for the surrounds that gallery sits in, greenery and quietness, for the sunshine and the freedoms I have.
And I also want to express that all this freedom means diddly squat unless I have something bigger than just myself enjoying it - purpose in life, people to share it with, people who need me and want me in their lives, as I do them.
I need something to give myself to - whether that takes its form in service, relationships, a career path that segues into the satisfaction of a vocation, true friends, bonded family, a creative expression of some description, something bigger than myself. I need that.
I wrote the above couple of paragraphs as 'we' statements, but then I realised I was doing that to distance myself from these feelings. Not honest, so I changed it.
Hmmm, as the afternoon sunshine falls across my shoulders I feel both content and discontent, plugged in and disconnected. Maybe that's a good thing, something I should embrace not run from... maybe it means that I'm pondering my life and what it means to be happy, free and growing.
'What do I want my life to look like? Think about it..... ' it says on my kitchen whiteboard, so I am, and now I'm blogging about it too.
To those of you who are suffering deeply and to those feeling on top of the world, for all of you I hope the same thing - that you have someone's arms around you as you do the bravest thing in the world, which is live in the moment you're in. It's all we've got.
I kinda like this head space, I think it means I'm paying attention to my whiteboard - and that's pretty important. : )
Annette x x
I've discovered a great new photographer whose work left me in awe. David Stephenson has an exhibition showing at Monash Gallery of Art and it is amazing. Do yourselves a favour....
Transcendence is the theme of the exhibit and there are photographs from several projects he's undertaken in recent years. The most moving, to me, were the series from his 2009 project 'Dusk to dawn', taken at Northwest Cape, Western Australia.
They are arresting images, in a very large format which emphasises the sky's colours and the horizon line perfectly. There are also images from his series on Vaults and Domes, which are exquisite in revealing the details of great ceilings, particularly in places of worship around the world.
Sitting before one of his 1.2 metre high photographs - 95% sky and 5% sea and horizon line, I felt deeply connected to all that's around me, grateful for the beauty of nature and particuarly of our Australian coastline. It was a lovely moment.
(If you're in Melbourne, make plans to visit MGA before the exhibit closes on 16 October. It's free and there's a great little park by the gallery, so it's a lovely spot.)
After leaving the gallery and reflecting on the impact the art I'd seen had on me, I felt both really good and a bit lost. I don't think we expect to feel these things concurrently, but it seems to me that life is full of moments like these.
That got me thinking how when someone we love experiences a great high, it is only right that those close to them feel deep joy, satisfaction and a bit of a reflected glow. In fact, one of the best feelings in the world is the feeling you (I) get when someone you love experiences something pure and good and close-to-perfect (I don't believe in perfect, but that's another topic).
There are other times, when our (my) reactions seem to mirror and be at odds with what's happening in others' lives, all at once. Perhaps in the midst of genuine happiness for others, we feel a stab of loneliness or loss, an echo of something without language, reminding us of someone we've loved and lost or something we've known but no longer have.
And in that vein, I think the truest, most precious relationships are those where you experience the intimate honour of seeing someone at their best and their worst. I didn't used to think that, but I'm getting a little wiser to these things as I get older.
In fact, the older I get the more I see that love/beauty and sorrow are intertwined, and that without one, you can't fully know the other. There's a strange otherworldly beauty that can be seen and felt in sorrow, because sorrow is part of loving more than yourself. In the same way, without deep love, we wouldn't grieve when we lose people. I heard this at a funeral I went to earlier this year and it deeply impacted me and changes the way I see grief (that's another post too, and a vastly unfinished thought).
I guess that's what I felt when I looked at the art at MGA today. Beauty and love, joy tempered by loss, deep connection and strange isolation.
I guess I want to express that I'm grateful for the beauty I saw in David's photography, and in the other works I saw, and for the surrounds that gallery sits in, greenery and quietness, for the sunshine and the freedoms I have.
And I also want to express that all this freedom means diddly squat unless I have something bigger than just myself enjoying it - purpose in life, people to share it with, people who need me and want me in their lives, as I do them.
I need something to give myself to - whether that takes its form in service, relationships, a career path that segues into the satisfaction of a vocation, true friends, bonded family, a creative expression of some description, something bigger than myself. I need that.
I wrote the above couple of paragraphs as 'we' statements, but then I realised I was doing that to distance myself from these feelings. Not honest, so I changed it.
Hmmm, as the afternoon sunshine falls across my shoulders I feel both content and discontent, plugged in and disconnected. Maybe that's a good thing, something I should embrace not run from... maybe it means that I'm pondering my life and what it means to be happy, free and growing.
'What do I want my life to look like? Think about it..... ' it says on my kitchen whiteboard, so I am, and now I'm blogging about it too.
To those of you who are suffering deeply and to those feeling on top of the world, for all of you I hope the same thing - that you have someone's arms around you as you do the bravest thing in the world, which is live in the moment you're in. It's all we've got.
I kinda like this head space, I think it means I'm paying attention to my whiteboard - and that's pretty important. : )
Annette x x
Thursday 22 September 2011
What's grace got to do with it?
Lately (and in times long gone) I've been having conversations with people (face to face and online) that have left me impressed by the grace they show in their lives, and especially to those who are acting most ungraciously towards them.
Grace is an old-fashioned word - one that I wish we heard, practiced and experienced more often.
For the record, grace, according to the trusty Collins Dictionary on my bookcase means: (1) elegance and beauty of movement, form or expression; (2) a pleasing or charming quality; (3) courtesy or decency. What could be better than being known as gracious?
I always feel so good after being with someone who has the quality of being gracious, particularly in situations that are highly pressurised and emotionally challenging. It makes me want to applaud them, or at least hug them and let them know that I see this quality in their souls, and it makes me want to emulate them.
I'm told that my name has Hebrew origins and means 'full of grace' and I've always thought of this as some kind of cosmic joke, as I can be exceedingly ungracious. (For the record, I have moments of grace, where I remember that I don't have all the information and it wouldn't kill me to just breathe before reacting. May they increase!)
Grace can be experienced in a myriad of small ways that really can make your day brighter, if you take time to notice them (or practice it).
Just the other day I was at the local shops and two people treated me graciously in small but meaningful ways - a man stepped aside for me so I could get through the tables in the food court, then a woman let me go before her at the supermarket check-out.
These small acts of grace made my day, and as I reflect on them now, I'm smiling and thinking, for every moron out there (see - not so gracious), there are also lovely, gracious people in the world.
Two particular friends of mine are showing amazing grace (sorry about that) in their lives at the moment, coping with big issues, and without outing them specifically, I just want to say - more power to you ladies, keep your heads up, you're doing so well and I'm really proud of you. I believe your rewards are coming.
So why this post? Well really, I just need to remember that people can be beautiful, gracious, honest creatures and I am SO DAMN LUCKY to know some of you personally. Maybe my name thing isn't a cosmic joke but a challenge to rise to.... stay tuned and wish me luck.
And so, stealing from Ellen's sign off - be kind to each other. And a little bit gracious too.
Annette x
Grace is an old-fashioned word - one that I wish we heard, practiced and experienced more often.
For the record, grace, according to the trusty Collins Dictionary on my bookcase means: (1) elegance and beauty of movement, form or expression; (2) a pleasing or charming quality; (3) courtesy or decency. What could be better than being known as gracious?
I always feel so good after being with someone who has the quality of being gracious, particularly in situations that are highly pressurised and emotionally challenging. It makes me want to applaud them, or at least hug them and let them know that I see this quality in their souls, and it makes me want to emulate them.
I'm told that my name has Hebrew origins and means 'full of grace' and I've always thought of this as some kind of cosmic joke, as I can be exceedingly ungracious. (For the record, I have moments of grace, where I remember that I don't have all the information and it wouldn't kill me to just breathe before reacting. May they increase!)
Grace can be experienced in a myriad of small ways that really can make your day brighter, if you take time to notice them (or practice it).
Just the other day I was at the local shops and two people treated me graciously in small but meaningful ways - a man stepped aside for me so I could get through the tables in the food court, then a woman let me go before her at the supermarket check-out.
These small acts of grace made my day, and as I reflect on them now, I'm smiling and thinking, for every moron out there (see - not so gracious), there are also lovely, gracious people in the world.
Two particular friends of mine are showing amazing grace (sorry about that) in their lives at the moment, coping with big issues, and without outing them specifically, I just want to say - more power to you ladies, keep your heads up, you're doing so well and I'm really proud of you. I believe your rewards are coming.
So why this post? Well really, I just need to remember that people can be beautiful, gracious, honest creatures and I am SO DAMN LUCKY to know some of you personally. Maybe my name thing isn't a cosmic joke but a challenge to rise to.... stay tuned and wish me luck.
And so, stealing from Ellen's sign off - be kind to each other. And a little bit gracious too.
Annette x
Sunday 18 September 2011
Happiness is a full recycling bin
Why is it that lately I've been so enamoured of a good clear out?
The recent council-sponsored hard rubbish collection really sent me into a frenzy of activity, to rid myself of all the 'guff' (my word de jour) I've been storing/hanging on to, for no good reason.
Out into the street went two tables - one that came from an ex and gave me a deep sense of satisfaction to finally be rid of, the awful chairs that accompanied it, a mountain of cassette tapes, two stereos, two televisions, a zillion magazines, my old VCR, bits and bobs, awful wrapping paper remnants, an ancient computer, a suitcase full of old pillows and a doona, a treadmill (which I got given second hand and never used - no surprises there)... I basically filled up half the nature strip in a matter of two days. I confess I even threw out some old books.
It felt so good to have less stuff cluttering up my space, even though 99% of the guff was stored out of sight.
My home felt instantly bigger, somehow more comfortable, and ready for sunshine and throwing open doors and windows to welcome springtime breezes.
I still have a couple of boxes of video tapes and a box of bargain cosmetics I picked up when working in a cosmetics company's warehouse - ten years ago - to ditch, but the recycling bin is absolutely choc-a-bloc.
Overall, I have felt freer and freer the more stuff I've hurled into the street/bin. I'm no hoarder, but it is so easy just to think we 'need' to keep things that we have no interest in, just in case. In case of what? The return of the crank-handle computer? If it has been in a box for a year, it can probably go in the bin and in another year you won't even remember you had it.
So, if you're feeling the spirit of Mrs Beeton, that renowned Victorian housekeeper, whispering in your ear to have a spring clean, heed the call. You'll feel so much better once the dust settles.
Like the lovely Dilmah man says, do try it.
Annette x
The recent council-sponsored hard rubbish collection really sent me into a frenzy of activity, to rid myself of all the 'guff' (my word de jour) I've been storing/hanging on to, for no good reason.
Out into the street went two tables - one that came from an ex and gave me a deep sense of satisfaction to finally be rid of, the awful chairs that accompanied it, a mountain of cassette tapes, two stereos, two televisions, a zillion magazines, my old VCR, bits and bobs, awful wrapping paper remnants, an ancient computer, a suitcase full of old pillows and a doona, a treadmill (which I got given second hand and never used - no surprises there)... I basically filled up half the nature strip in a matter of two days. I confess I even threw out some old books.
It felt so good to have less stuff cluttering up my space, even though 99% of the guff was stored out of sight.
My home felt instantly bigger, somehow more comfortable, and ready for sunshine and throwing open doors and windows to welcome springtime breezes.
I still have a couple of boxes of video tapes and a box of bargain cosmetics I picked up when working in a cosmetics company's warehouse - ten years ago - to ditch, but the recycling bin is absolutely choc-a-bloc.
Overall, I have felt freer and freer the more stuff I've hurled into the street/bin. I'm no hoarder, but it is so easy just to think we 'need' to keep things that we have no interest in, just in case. In case of what? The return of the crank-handle computer? If it has been in a box for a year, it can probably go in the bin and in another year you won't even remember you had it.
So, if you're feeling the spirit of Mrs Beeton, that renowned Victorian housekeeper, whispering in your ear to have a spring clean, heed the call. You'll feel so much better once the dust settles.
Like the lovely Dilmah man says, do try it.
Annette x
Thursday 15 September 2011
Hello!
Thursday Sept 15, 2011 - the birth date of 'Founded 1967'.
Starting this blog comes at a time in my life when I'm thinking a lot about who and where I am, the things I want from life and about who I want to share the journey with.
I am six days into the 'great beyond' of leaving my latest job, where I had slipped into what I've just realised was a comfort coma. I wasn't challenged, heck, I wasn't even busy, but I was oh-so-comfy just going through the motions and hoping somehow that the life I want would reveal itself then fall painlessly into my lap. It didn't, it won't, if I want something different... well you know the drill.
So here I am, wondering what comes next. Waking up to the person who faded away a little while I've been slumbering.
I hope blogging helps me sort the fact from the fiction, gives me a place to share some of the lessons life has taught me, and to revive my hope that life can be full and satisfying, sans credit card debt, plastic surgery or on anything else that's 'so hot right now'.
If you want to come along on the journey, that would be lovely, but please be kind as I find my voice.
Onwards,
Annette x
Starting this blog comes at a time in my life when I'm thinking a lot about who and where I am, the things I want from life and about who I want to share the journey with.
I am six days into the 'great beyond' of leaving my latest job, where I had slipped into what I've just realised was a comfort coma. I wasn't challenged, heck, I wasn't even busy, but I was oh-so-comfy just going through the motions and hoping somehow that the life I want would reveal itself then fall painlessly into my lap. It didn't, it won't, if I want something different... well you know the drill.
So here I am, wondering what comes next. Waking up to the person who faded away a little while I've been slumbering.
I hope blogging helps me sort the fact from the fiction, gives me a place to share some of the lessons life has taught me, and to revive my hope that life can be full and satisfying, sans credit card debt, plastic surgery or on anything else that's 'so hot right now'.
If you want to come along on the journey, that would be lovely, but please be kind as I find my voice.
Onwards,
Annette x
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