An innate talent I would love to have.....

would be one of the following three abilities

1. I would love to be able to sing, just open my mouth and stun the audience with my beautiful singing voice just as Susan Boyle has done on Britain's Got Talent. I just watched the episode via Youtube and it was beautiful. I have been listening to a lot of music of late as it soothes my soul - in particular Anne Murray and Eva Cassidy. These are ladies with magic talent, truly blessed with a beautiful voice.

2. I have always wished to draw, be able to reproduce something that I looked at via an artististic medium, in particular, charcoal. I think this has something to do with the serial - Young and the Restless - for many years, the opening sequences showed the characters of the serial rendered in charcoal and I always envied the artist responsible their talent. Pen and ink is also another preferred medium. I have long yearned for a tasteful nude rendered in pen & ink or charcoal - a nude laying sideways away from the viewer, so you see the long line of the back flowing through the buttocks and legs. One day I will have that artwork framed and mounted on my bedroom wall.

3. I have always wanted to sew, just be able to whip up an outfit or lingerie or something for the house without a second thought. I have long admired friends who have shown me stunning quilts, or gorgeous knits or outfits they have created and I have been pea green with envy.

Now I am well aware that all of the above are learned skills with only a modicum of talent needed to be able to produce something of note. With the exception of singing I have tried to learn how to sew but to no avail and though I can crochet a basic stitch and make rugs of which I have made many, knitting currently escapes me. My drawing skills make me a very lousy pictionary partner, you want to lose at pictionary, well I am your gal.

I will drag out the crochet projects that have been languishing since last winter shortly now that the weather is getting cooler, as I feel guilty watching TV/DVD's unless I am also doing a puzzle or crochet at the same time.

I also yearn for gardening talent, it was rather alarming, when I first moved into my beloved abode. that friends and family lavished gorgeous plants upon me as house warming gifts. I always felt the compulsion to apologise to the plant in question for the lousy home it had been bequeathed to. One and all eventually curled up their leaves and died on me. Not through lack of any kind just don't have the knack for nurturing plants. My beloved cousin Shanon has the green thumb in abundance, so to feel less like a brownie (someone who doesn't have a green thumb) I bequeathed all remaining languishing plants to her and they have thrived and bloomed under her tender auspices. My garden lives on the Darwin promise - only the strong shall survive and unfortunately it looks just like that. I need a Jamie Durie to come and Jamie Durie my back yard, or Graham Ross from Better Homes and Garden - not fussy - just someone with ideas and panache to tell me what I need.

So if you have a talent for the above you are cordially invited to do something in my backyard!

Cheers for now

Routine is good....

I am back from the coast for the moment! Settled happily back into work and beavering away happily at the usual stuff I do.

The big news for me to process is that Mum's cancer is classed now as TERMINAL - which brings to mind, buses, trains and planes, just the connection my brain makes. I wish her cancer would board said bus, train and plane and go far far far away. It is not a shock to me, in my mind I knew this to be probable but in my heart, the news broke it in to two pieces. However having said this Mum is in reasonable good health and spiritis. My brother and grandad are visiting at present and keeping her company. My brother went home yesterday and grandad will depart after Easter some time.

I am just biding my time for when I am needed, I have leave planned for June.

On brighter notes, I went for a great ride yesterday through the delights of Manly and successfully dragged my flatmate Peter along after threatening to charge his bike rent for taking up space in my garage unless he started to ride it. Peter and other friends all enjoyed themselves and being out in the fresh air does wonders for the bruised spirit and tired mind.

Karate has inadvertently taken a backseat but I will refocus on it at a later date, in the meantime, take classes where and when feasible. I've also withdrawn from study at present, I was kidding myself, thinking I could manage with everything else going on. So my life's plan has taken a slight detour and the timeframe for all my big goals has lengthened somewhat but never mind I will get there in the end.

Always a happier day today ....

Who knew doing so little could be so tiring.....

It has been a while folks, since I last popped a post on my blog but I have been a little busy of late and lacking the discipline to post.

I have been up the coast these last few weeks spending time with mum and giving George her partner and my sister a break from the endless and I do mean endless ferrying to and fro from appointments with assorted medical professionals. Having cancer is quite seriously a full time job, it takes over your whole life and the lives of those close to you who bear the brunt of the fetching and carrying and ferrying about so that you can concentrate on getting through the assorted appointment and getting well.

I have enjoyed being up the coast and being able to be useful, as I have mentioned before I am not much for brow soothing and patting of hands. Give me a mop and broom and I can clean for you, I can cook and I can drive you all around the place wherever you need to be. It has given me quality of time with Mum while driving and sitting in endless waiting rooms to chat about all the ephemeral things.

But doing nothing is hard work, I feel more tired now than after working full time, doing 3 sessions of karate training and a good long cycle. Not just mentally tired but physically tired too. Bizarre but true.

I have been blessed with a great deal of support both overt and subtle, and both gratefully accepted and deeply appreciated. Work has been great with offering leave for as long as needed but still making me feel wanted, friends have been fabulous in offering relief outlets for stress and overloaded emotions. Family have been wonderful in being there and keeping themselves available for assistance when and where needed.

I have always been a simple girl and enjoyed the simple things in life and this whole experience of Mum dealing with cancer has truly stripped away any artifice about what is truly important. Your health, your family and your happiness, everything else is of distant secondary importance.

I am continuing with my studies and the first two assignment due dates are rapidly approaching so I will be doing some serious work this weekend back at my place to get a good grasp on it. I am aiming for a pass don't care for much else.

I will try not to let too much time pass before I post again

Cheers for now

and what a week it's been...

I have been remiss in posting on my blog of late. But not for lack of trying just lack of inspiration or perhaps lack of clarity.



The first week of study has just passed in a blur of reading, endless reading and not the sort I enjoy - this is the stuff I have to remember so much re-reading is happening to try and cement the theories and thoughts of learned people.



This week at work was also a very intense one, we had a very successful Author talk with some 300 people attending, which takes some serious organising and arranging to go so flawlessly. The entire team performed brilliantly and really rose to the occasion and as a consequence we are all comprehensively knackered!



I have just joined up with Twitter so that I can keep up my understanding of social networking and it's real life applications. My study groups are all online and we are required to post our thoughts on the week's reading online for all to discuss and mull over. So I am currently to be found on Facebook, Twitter, Groupwise, Ning, Tagged, and MSN. By golly, there is no hiding anywhere at all!

I love the potential of weekend as yet untraversed they seem so full of potential and roads to be travelled but in reality they are filled with domestic drudge that you haven't got to during the week. My weekend will begin with karate training and end with a good bicyle ride with assorted mates!

Do what has to be done, when it has to be done, to the best of your ability, all of the time - Life's simple really when you follow this adage!

Cheerio

So it begins....

My knuckle down time is nigh! The study routine that seemed so far off in the new year is now upon me. I logged onto the Uni site and checked out various aspects of student services and finally figured out what was what, just after I sent off an email asking a fairly dopey question that I found the answer shortly after.

It will be interesting studying online as I am a tactile person like to have papers and books to touch while reading and absorbing information sitting in front of a PC reading material for study purposes has a slight unreality to it for me and I am concerned that I won't absorb information effectively in this manner. But there is a text book and I will buy it at a cool $93 thank you very much.

The topics are interesting and directly related to my daily work but the trick for me will be expressing my knowledge in a clear and effective manner suited to University standard.

Until we meet again...

My mother always told me..............

never write anything down that you don't want held against you! So I never wrote a diary or put my thoughts down on paper ever, except in a moment of teenage angst i wrote some abysmal poetry about a boy i liked who didn't return the favour and hid it carefully! Not carefully enough for my brother found it! He didn't torment me about it but mentioned it years later that he had found and read it and i was still embarrassed by that!

Now I am writing reasonably regularly on this blog and I have found I like expressing myself on this blog about things that are topical in my life but sadly some topics i have blogged about have upset people i am close to and they have expressed this anger to me so i have done as they asked and removed the link to the blog from my social networking page. But as a friend of mine says if they don't like it, then don't read it!

I feel that expressing my feelings about various things bubbling away in my life help me manage how i feel about it and stop it becoming bigger than it needs to be. I have felt a bit circumspect since my last post upset people. But, at the end of the day, i was blogging about my feeling's, i was posting about no one else's. Some days it feels like you are clinging with your fingertips on the edge of 1000 ft mountain and not much is helping you to hang on. This blog helps me keep a level head and perspective on things.

Anyway on to a more fun note, I have just spent the last couple of hours dancing around my living with my 12 year old neighbour to the Saturday night party mix and she knows the words to more songs of my vintage i might add than i do. Oh the shame!!

In addition we did some poetry on my magnetic board with my magnetic words, and it was interesting what turned out to be the end result. All in all a fun night

After my rant............

Thank you for the compassion! I had just heard that Mum had nodules found on her kidneys and prognosis was grim! It was an instinctive reaction that I needed to unleash and this blog is handy for those times where I just gotta say stuff....

So mum has the cancer spots on her lungs (the original sites) and a spot on her leg that the specialists don't seem altogether to bothered with and now this on her kidneys. It seems she is stuffed six ways to sunday! I galloped up there on Saturday to spend time with her and get a clearer picture of the situation.

We had the "talk", the one you have about funerals, personal preferences and locations etc etc etc and it was difficult, I went into professional "librarian" mode and asked the questions and got the answers and it was reasonably sorted. I am the executor of mum's estate, such as it is, and I need to know stuff for when the time comes. I found it relatively easy but I know that I am on auto pilot at present when it comes to my feelings about this and suspect when it is over and dust is settled, I will comprehensively fall apart.

I am great leading into and during a crisis - but not so good afterwards, so time will tell how it will all pan out.

I am lucky that work is a great distraction and i have my upcoming study to keep me busy and training to keep me focused and fit and mentally conditioned to cope. I will just have to take things as they come and deal with them as they arise. I have family whose sole purpose is to trouble trouble before trouble troubles them. But I prefer not to "trouble trouble until trouble troubles me"

Until next time..................