Still thankful! Community, art supplies and babies

I have been so busy lately, it didn't even register I haven't been posting my Thankful post! Whoops! Note to self - too busy to remember to be thankful is probably too busy.

Today I am thankful -
- for community, as always - lately it seems that simple trips to shops and other errands mean enjoyable moments bumping into people I know, quickly passing the time of day or just exchanging smiles. There are rumours that communities don't exist in our modern world or that social media like facebook have a negative impact on face to face interaction. Rubbish!

- for art supplies. Now the family birthday season has eased (my husband, first and last children all have theirs in the space between Christmas and mid-March, which is very poor planning from a financial perspective!) I have been able to to stock up on much-wanted art supplies. Mostly buying online, which is actually supporting small business, both here in Australia and the US, there is the added bonus of the excitement a package brings
- sadly this is usually watered-down by the displeasure of a card in the mail box saying you missed it and need to go to the post office to collect :( . I hear that online shopping is resurrecting a postal service at risk from a decrease in letters due to online communication: the internet taketh with one hand but giveth with the other!

- for babies! We are in the thick of the annual March baby-boom and have had lots of small visitors to the Breastfeeding Centre whose lives are still counted in weeks. No matter how bad the world can sometimes seem on the evening news, there is still magic in the eyes of a newborn baby. It is such a blessing to work with these little people and their bleary-eyed parents ;)

Today I am Thankful - garden, surprise and supplies.

- for garden: hubby has been busy tidying up before our son's 21st birthday party this weekend. I just wish it could be like that all the time. My health issues make heavy  gardening a painful task that I just can't risk right now, but when it is in order it does a lot for my spirit!

- for surprise visit: a friend and fellow volunteer (who used to be my "boss" before my last boss!), who lives on the other side of town, popped into today as she was in the area.

- for supplies: art mail - the up-side of needing buy supplies online is the feeling of Christmas when packages arrive :)

Today I am Thankful - memories, music and sanctuary

- for memories: I was sitting in traffic held up by the freeway works and looked over to see the fresh soil being moved around by diggers and trucks and, for just a moment, I wanted to be a child making roads in the dirt again, just like they do.

- for music: during water aerobics, as worked our butts off to the music of the 70s and 80s, it struck me we were all the generation who first embraced aerobics back in the 80s: and we are still exercising to the same tunes!!!

- for sanctuary: in my dash between appointments today, I realised I had a window of about 20 minutes and a desperate need for a cup of tea. I parked right across from Aum Shanti cafe, raced in and ordered a pot of English Breakfast. A quick chat with the owner. A flick through Well-being magazine. then off and running to the next.

Today's Book of Days work: have nearly caught up!

Today I am Thankful - downtime, traffic-stopper and planning

- for downtime: with a busy week behind me and a busy week ahead of me, a rest day today was fortunate and necessary!

- for stopping traffic: some may say my tie-dyed fisherman pants could stop traffic alone, however yesterday they helped me stay seen, stay safe as I stood in the middle of one of our busiest intersections to make the traffic into/out of the roundabout wait so our MS group could cross the road safely: with one electric wheelchair, a walking frame and a couple of walking sticks, we stopped traffic alright!!!

- for planning: weeks like this one coming I really appreciate all the systems I have in place - my calendar for tomorrow alone is boggling - ABA group, water aerobics, physio, naturopath and my new counsellor! Then three working days and yoga class, followed by the doctor on Friday and then full-on getting organised for my son's 21st birthday party on Saturday! Luckily, my phone is full of reminders and text messages to tell me where I need be at any given moment! (And hopefully time to keep on track with my art assignments too!)

Today I am Thankful - organised, arty and yoga

- getting organised: having a quiet couple of days at work (phone, email and people visiting all down - the world had other things to do in back-to-school week?) meant I could clear a lot of small, non-urgent tasks like filing. It feels good to get back to empty inboxes and to do folders!

- getting arty: I got home from work and was able to put in two solid hours in my creative space (not sure if calling it my scrapbooking room is still accurate as my focus is art journalling this year - although i do need to do some scrapping before Kieran's 21st birthday next week!) I should be able to use my magic window of time between 5pm and 7pm each weeknight (except for yoga night!) to keep up with my class commitments.

- for yoga: last night I was back at my wednesday night yoga class, with lots of familar faces. I tried the Tuesday class last week, but it starts an hour later at 7pm and I just know I couldn't sustain that. So back to busy Wednesdays after drop-in day, but I am going to be like Nike and just do it!!!

Today I am Thankful - water aerobic, art and cool change

- for water aerobics! Yay! I went back to class after a whole year off. I can't tell you how good it felt - like a load off my shoulders to have done that and yoga last week. Now I can get on with returning to it as a regular part of my routine and I am also intending to get to my other class on Friday. My friends were delighted to see me too :)

- for art: I have two ongoing projects for the year now, which will see me art journalling through 2012. They are:

Life Book 2012

Book of Days 2012

AND I am doing a class by one of my favourite journalling artists Joanne Sharpe, because I want to do stuff that looks like the stuff she does!!!!!!       

Finally, I am exploring a new way of looking at scrapbooking - not in place of the traditional stuff which I will continue to do - but a way of keeping ephemera and journaling life, with these fantastic SMASH journals!

- for cool change: so over the hot, humid weather these past few days. Will be glad to open the doors and windows and get some cool air.

Today I am Thankful - techies, vegies and power

- for the hard-working souls who provide all of our social media AT NO COST TO US! I am loving the new Pinterest app on Facebook and I am sure the new Good Reads one will work properly soon, so there is no need for people to get so rude in the comments on their blog or FB wall - be nice, people!

- for fresh food: I popped out to the produce store and the vegies were so fresh, I don't think they yet realised they are harvested! We are blessed with our access to good food.

- for power: the electricity went off unexpectedly for about an hour. The Men of the House were bereft as the cycling vanished from the TV screen and the game from the computer. I just picked up my book ;)

Today I am Thankful - purple, lunch & art

- for purple: the myotherapist exclaims: your bra matches your toe-nails!

- for lentils & rice: such a yummy lunch at Aum Shanti. Note to self - make time to eat here more often.

- for art: I posted my artworks for the first and third weeks of Life Book to my Facebook Wall and peole said nice things. For all that I am so public with so much of my life, I am nervous about my ventures into drawing and painting. So positive feedback helps. (Week Two is a Dream Board, cutting and pasting planned for tonight/tomorrow)

Week One - Iris, Goddess of Rainbows. We needed to aknowledge our Goddess Super Powers, harder than it seems, to get round the self-talk that "bragging" is not the done thing.

Week Three - Goddesses illustrating two sides of me. I chose to show my public and private personas - one my work days, I am the person that mothers visit to find help with their breastfeeding problems. This is represented by the Roman Goddess Rumina, Goddess of breastfeeding and women. But on the days I am not at work, I am focused on seeking help for my own health issues, represented by Panacea, the Greek Goddess of Healing. But she is reaching out to and connecting with Rumina, because that work also helps me heal and grow, so they are not truly separate.

Today I am Thankful - weekend, village tales & resting

- for the most wonderful weekend at the Frankston Waterfront Festival. This annual event in our beach-side town just grows and grows! And for the first time in years, we were blessed by the weather gods. Although it was quite chilly on Saturday, Sunday was gloriously beautiful. In-between my shifts in our feed and change tent, run for mums by our local ABA group, I was able to hang out with my daughter Kaitlyn on Saturday then my daughter Melissa on Sunday. We must have walked more than our 10 000 steps as we explored the event, but I probably ate back the same kilojoules in yummy food!

- for village tales. After a long delay waiting for book ten in the series to come from overseas (possibly via the Moon!), I am back on track with the Turnham Malpas series by Rebecca Shaw and am just about to begin book 11!

- for resting. Just a little tired after the weekend, so a bed day was in order. Caught up on my Google Reader, checked out all the goodies in the Life Book course I have signed up for with Willowing and basically doing very little!!

Today I am thankful - abundance, lunching and tea

- for the abundance of fresh food at the shop down the road. Popping in to gather supplies for lunch, all the produce just looks so good right now, the result of the rain that seems to have everything growing at high speed!

- for lunch with a friend - second Friday in a row, lunch with Julie - this time at my place so she could watch Kaitlyn's wedding DVD and see the photos. Reconnecting after too long between lunches is so good. Even though lunch is really the wrong description for 5 hour meet ups!

- for tea - Rose Grey, bought in Bathurst on my road trip and shared today with Julie. Might have to order more online, as this is becoming a firm favourite!

Back to Being Thankful

I have just had a moment of enlightenment, as I trawled through my blog looking for something ( I really must start tagging my posts properly) - I scrapbooked HEAPS last year, only it was mostly in words, when I was doing my thankful posts! Looking back, I see that I actually had a more positive year than my reflection back would show. So I am going to start doing them again - we are less than two weeks into the year and, anyway - I could probably find three things for each of the past twelve days from my FB wall! So, stay tuned for me to be Thankful: hopefully every day in 2012.

Today I am Thankful

- for a mini-break: quite unplanned, I ended up with four days of no commitments, which coincided with a burst of wonderful weather! it has been like a holiday for me. Just as the winter drags me down, the change to spring boosts me right back up again (maybe that is why it is called Spring - BOING!). Friday morning I had my first myotherapy session in way too long - making appointments slipped off my list along with most everything good for me over winter :(. But it was good to be back and I could feel the improvement almost straight away. I stopped to do some shopping on the way home and actually went into our health insurers and changed our extras cover to a much better one, which will include myotherapy AND other natural therapies! Once home, I grabbed the dog and we hit the beach for our first beach walk of the season :) saturday, she got another walk, up the hill to the vets to have her claws clipped and then I spend the rest of the day catching up on reading. Sunday started with the Seaford Farmers Market and that included another beach walk for the now-delighted dog and then home for more R & R. Today was a quick shopping trip - including buying a new rice cooker - then home for some serious blog surfing and then another walk - this time at the park! Such a contrast to the energy levels of even a few weeks ago! We're back on track :)

- for leash-free: I have been very reluctant to allow Molly off the lead in any but fenced leash-free zones, as her impulse to chase birds worried me about roads and running away. But now she is three, she has settled down a lot, so we have been working on walking without a lead in controlled spaces: a local park and the beach (not technically legal, but ...) and to our mutual delight, she has been brilliant! She trots along beside me, frequently making eye contact to make sure I haven't gotten away and has even coped with encounters with other dogs AND is not charging off after birds in an uncontrolled way. i think we have cracked it and she is as happy as I am.

- for fresh air: today I had all the doors and windows open and Spring washed through with a northerly window and cleaned winter out of the nooks and crannies. I wish I could have lifted off the roof to let it in :)

Today I am Thankful - video, food and completion

- for this wonderful video, produced by one of the wonderful women in my Goddess Circle. I find it really hard to describe to people what having Fibromyalgia is like, but this captures it perfectly. It might come as a surprise that I find Fibromyalgia equal with Multiple Sclerosis in my life and it actually dominates my days more than the MS, which tends to flare up and then subside. I hope this helps you understand better why I cannot always "put on a smiling face" - especially at the top and tail of the day, when it is worse.

- for food: Despite all my best efforts, I found out yesterday that both my Vitamin D and iron levels are down, whilst my cholesterol is up! So it looks like I am going to need to prepare all my meals, including the evening ones on the nights my son and husband take their turn to cook, because they don't always meet my dietary requirements. So I am going to embrace this and get back into full menu planning for all my meals and take another look at the Jellinek MS diet while I am it - although it includes NO meat (just fish and a vegan diet basically) so I might need to modify it til I get my iron on track.

- for completition" My Scrabble table is done! Fully coated in self-levelling resin. I also now have a full set of Scrabble games in every version released since the fifties, plus more than enough wooden racks for my photo wall display, boards to tuen into photo wall art and bits and pieces to sell back to Ebay, where they all came from! Anyone for Scrabble???

Today I am thankful - garden, purple and Ikea

- For Spring and a surprise garden! One of my friends and colleagues surprised me this week by planting the empty garden beds outside our Breastfeeding Centre, which are now going to be filled with colour!

- For world domination! Not one, but TWO of my favourite storage options have been released in PURPLE  
to my delighted discovery this week!

Tupperware Heat and Eat and Ikea Skubb clothes organisers:

- For Ikea! What can I say? My daughters and I love the whole Ikea experience, so there we were last night, on the opening day of the new store in Springvale - about 5-10 mins drive from work and about 15 mins drive from home!!! And it was so good! 2.5km walk to get through the entire store, so exercise and retail therapy!!!! I came home with the above containers (which were on my list, the purple was a bonus!) and newmemory-foam pillow (which was on my list but I didn't know i would get it at Ikea) and some photo frames for my new gallery wall project in the living room. Kaitlyn was retrained and got a couple of small items, while Melissa shopped til she dropped with stuff she needs for her new home. There are still some larger items on the list, so we will be back again soon! Sigh! I can pop in after work!

Today I am thankful - patience, reading and anticipation.

- for patience: anyone who follows me online or has to deal with me face-to-face needs great patience right now, as I am grumpier than I can stand, let alone anyone else.I am counting the day until it is Spring, as I need sun and warmth and nature to help me get out of this fug.

- for reading: I am progressing in my effort to make up the backlog of books to meet my personal Goodreads challenge to read 52 books in 2011. It seemed quite manageable, as all things do, in January!But my secret weapon is to replace my usual radio listening as I commute with audio books - aha! - which I used to listen to constantly when I drove an hour + to work each day when I worked full-time. Now I only do 20 mins each way three days a week, but it all adds up! And by slecting slimmer volumes of paper books and keeping my Kobo charged, I am getting there!

- for anticipation: Doctor Who returns this Saturday, along with a new series featuring the wonderful James Nesbit :) sadly, this kind of Saturday night entertainment is more appealing than partying these days!

Today I am thankful - technology, decorating and completion

- for technology: I have a new  work laptop :) One of the only perks I have (apart from all the yummy baby cuddles I get) is that this is also my at home computer and commutes to and from home/work with me. My last one had reached that overheating/working-slowly point, so that always makes a new one extra-shiny and wonderful! I chose to go down from a 15" to a 12", to minimise the size issue and also have a lighter, thinner model. So I have gone back to a monitor/keyboard/mouse on my desk to make it more ergonomic for using six hours a day at work. It is a joy to have everything up and running ( a slight hiccup getting my Outlook synced but working through that) and using Windows 7 after Vista (although I never minded that, unlike many!)

- for decorating: I am enjoying the fruits of my labour as my living room makeover comes together. This week I added a rack of Scrabble letters to spell out BOOKS on the wall above my bookshelves. And I now have an idea to revamp the gallery wall near the television.

Almost done - my Scrabble table

New home for a figurine!

To Do - time to revamp this wall.

Scrabble letter canvases from Typo!

- for completion: my Friendship Blanket is just about done: I finished the edging last night and now just have to deal with some loose ends! And I made a crochet laptop sleeve on the weekend!

Today I am thankful - Fry, Facebook and pain-free

- for Stephen Fry :) he is everywhere with me at the moment - in the car I am listening to his Fry Chronicles on CD as I travel to and from work. In bed I am listening to him read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (by his friend Douglas Adams who was just describing in the car!), on the telly I am loving him in Kingdom and always in QI; in the post MOAB is my Washpot on CD is winging its way to me and I have long been a Twitter fan and blog follower.


- for Facebook - as always but especially when I connect with new people and then wonder how I ever lived without them in my news feed! It is just such a great way to share stuff with everyone and leads to great conversations about books, life and more. I never seem to have the sort of negative issues others describe - obviously I only know nice people ;)

- for pain-free: after again waking with a blinding headache at 2am (exactly the same time as occurred about a month earlier!) I booked straight in to see Shady my chiropractor. I was pretty sure it was related to the chronic problem I have with my upper spine and sure enough, he zoned in and did his stuff and today I have no headache :)

Today I am thankful - focus, 3yo and talking

- for focus: I haven't been thankful-blogging every day lately and that is okay, because I am trying to have less screen time and more time reading, scrapbooking and crocheting. I am whittling down the number of books I am "behind" in my Good Reads challenge to read 52 this year, I have made a great start to getting Kaitlyn's wedding scrapped and my Friendship Blanket continues to grow.

For 3 year olds - yep, they drive you to distraction with their endless questions, but that can lead to amazing conversations: today at a meeting at the Breastfeeding Centre, I was interrogated by a boy who wanted to know what the balloon was for. I carefully showed him how I use it to teach mothers to use the electric breast pumps we hire (it demonstrates the change in suction strength as you adjust the dials). But then he needed me to show him how the other ones on the shelf worked, so I showed him the manual version of the same pump which he capably worked out the piston action. Next was another one with a squeeze action - quickly handed back as it hurt his hand (I get the same feedback from mums!) So I asked which one he liked best and he announced "the one where you just push the button!" LOL and we thought it was just adults who preferred auto over manual!

- talking: on the telephone! Yes, I do it all day at work but not so much at home unless I am doing a shift on the Breastfeeding Helpline. But today I phoned a few people about this and that and spent a nice hour or two chatting. Just like in the olden days before we had email, chat and Facebook!!!

Today I am thankful - Spring, vintage and power-points

- for Spring! Alrightt, not really spring but a taste of it :) I am so over winter, it was so lovely to walk to the post and feel warmth from the sun.

- for vintage: the postman stepped through a time-warp with my mail today - a vintage Scrabble game with bonus vintage travel Scrabble, plus a vintage Enid Blyton book - Ebay finds that together looked like a snapshot from times past.

- for power-points! Yeah, its the little things that make me happy - the electrician returned and moved the multiple points he installed six months ago back alongside my desk, which had moved to a different room! Seriously over power boards, double adapters and extension leads! Sadly, Kintara will need to wait a little longer as her new power points are still on my side of the wall which will be relocated with our refit! Patience dear, patience ;) But the good news is the plans are approved, we just need to wait for the government cheque!

Today I am thankful - Friends, wool and rest (plus Mr Do-Bee!)

- for old friends: on Saturday I lunched with my oldest* friends for the first time in ages and honestly, it is like slipping into comfy slippers being with them! Our shared history covers 35-40 years and we slot back together like no time has passed. There is a lot more of "You know, whatshisname?" and sharing of various signs of aging, but deep down, we are still just four teenage girls from school getting away with whatever we can! *oldest as in longest friendship, not oldest people!

Girls at Boyz @ Manyung Gallery, Mornington

- for wool: my basket is full to the top! Each of the friends I saw on Friday and Saturday contributed a ball or more to be worked into my Friendship Blanket, so my crochet project will continue to grow :)

- for rest: I have Mr Do-Bee from Romper Room stuck in my head, after a thought this morning that some days I DO and others I BE! Yesterday and today are BE days, focused on rest, reading and crochet - with maybe a scrapbook session later and a trip to the chiropractor (who will mutter about the rest he thinks I should take far more often!!!)

"Try to do what's right

and not do anything wrong

I'm a Romper Room Do Bee

a Do Bee all day long"

 Romper Room spanned the period from my pre-school years to those of my eldest child, starting in Australia in 1963 (the year I was born) and ending in 1988 when Melissa was four. My memory may often be challenged due to the cognitive impact of multiple sclerosis, but I still remember the words to nearly every song from the show! Extra trivia - one of my friends in the photo above is married to a man who was actually on Romper Room as a pre-schooler! Sadly, I was never so lucky!

This is an American version, but it will give you the general idea if you are too young to know what I am on about!