My daughter  

Posted by: reflective moments

Like all mothers I think my daughter is just the best.  She and I have been through a lot and she has always been my rock. 
Nicole, has had a serious knee injury which forced her out of the Olympics but being ever the optimist she got on with putting back into the sport she loves... She had knee surgery which failed and left her with an infection in the knee not that at the time we knew this.  She came home from the day surgery with a nasty infection on her face which a trip to the dr confirmed was a staff infection from the tape they put on her eye lids and when they removed it left little tears on her lids...   Fast forward 20 yrs and now she is suffering horrifically with pain.  Fortunately a friend of her's is an Osteopath and has been helping her all these years to be able to have some use of her leg.  Recently she decided she needed to do something about this pain which is getting worse. So off she goes to get referrals to Orthopedic surgeons to be told that the tools to operate on her knee have not been designed yet and to do a knee replacement is not possible as the flesh needed to attach the knee has been too badly infected.  She was very resolute as is her way.   Now, here comes the compliment.  Both surgeons on the letter back to her doctor said what a delightful 40yr old she is.... What a nice thing to say.  I only found this out from her when I was talking with her Osteopath Kevin while we were looking at the gallery of pictures and I told him about someone who earlier had been looking at her picture on the wall of the sports stadium and I pointed out that was his coach and the guy said no way that's not her, as he looks out to where Nicole is coaching..... she looks much younger!!  That was when Kevin (her Osteopath) said if he didn't know how old she was he would have said about 23.  He then went on to lavish praise on her... saying she has such a baby face and beautiful skin.  As her mother I was so touched.  Sometimes, we take our kids for granted and often do not see them how others do.  Of course I knew she was beautiful... on the inside.

My daughter has university degrees and runs her own business' but her way of putting back into her sport is to coach people with disabilities both physical and or intellectually for which I am very proud of her... not many have the capacity to take on athletes with disabilities and encourage them to be the best they can be.  She has also coached able bodied elite athletes to international level.

She still continues to play, albeit only in the local A grade pennant but, how she does this amazes a lot of people including me as anyone can clearly see she is in obvious pain, but she is also a fighter.  

  On a side note when I was telling Nicole about what Kevin said, she  laughingly said of course he knows about my skin he sees it every week..... She does not let these sort of compliments affect her and I am so very proud of her....
(Kate aka LS you would be proud of her .... she has long hair and doesn't wear makeup).

What a role model she is..... not only to others but to me, her mother.

5 comments

Well, today was a total waste of makeup  

Posted by: reflective moments

taking care with my appearance and putting on makeup is not to impress anyone, it is for me,   I dress for me.   Which is a good thing, as my husband hates makeup, prefers women with long hair..... mine is very short, hates scarfs of which I am addicted and high heels.   Oh, and another one of his pet peeves is any clothing that is not "classic"  he despises anything patterned in particularly anything floral......  He does however like leisure wear/sports wear.  I guess being a sports coach and basically living in track suits means..... I have no idea, what it means to him.  So today I get all dressed up as is my want, head into town only to have the weather turn nasty with torrential rain and not a car park to be found.   Finally, I get a park blocks away from where I want to go, giving a sigh of relief that I had decided to wear flat heeled shoes today and search the car for the umbrella that I keep in the car for just such emergencies and which I eventually discover had rolled under the front passenger seat getting drenched as I look for it.  I feed the parking meter and off I head to the pet store to buy some kitty litter for SnP's toilet tray..... Yes, all this effort was to get some replacement kitty litter for the doggy toilet..... and a packet of the only treats Scrappy will eat, next time, if there is a next time,  I vow I will just go as I am, clean skin and jeans...... who am I kidding, I cannot even go and check the mailbox without lipstick on.

Back home, and now SnP are watching me change clothes and remove what is left of my makeup and I am pretty sure by the puzzled look on their faces they were both wondering ....why I bother with putting makeup on! 

3 comments

Troubles  

Posted by: reflective moments

I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind.
Some come from ahead and some come from behind.
But I've bought a big bat. I'm all ready you see.
Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!
                                                        ...~Dr. Seuss

0 comments

Together forever....  

Posted by: reflective moments

Sometimes we sit quietly
Together side by side
Conversation is not a necessity
As our minds are intertwined

For it is not through words alone
That our life only flows
But many different things
That binds our very souls

We have had so many dreams
That life has fulfilled
But contentment is the greater thing
That lingers in our minds still

The rhythm of our lives
Has always been so good
Bringing us so many pleasures
As life together should


I say to you my love
Our souls are bound together
By so many strong ties

My Life with you is always
In wonderful anticipation
Words are not a necessity
                                      In every situation.                                        

1 comments

First date  

Posted by: reflective moments

Let me preface this blog entry with saying I went to an all girl's school...

I must have been all of 15 when a friend told me this boy, a friend of her brothers, but unknown to me wanted to take me to the movies.  I said okay, but I am not allowed out at night and he had to meet my mother first..... what a prim and proper child I was.  Mum didn't say such things; I just felt it was the right thing to do particularly as  I did not know this boy. 

Anyway back to this memorable date.  In case I didn't like this boy I made my mum get dressed to be ready to go with us.  I was going to play the.... my mother thinks I am too young to go out alone with you excuse.  Well, finally this boy turns up and as you can tell he made such an impression on me I have totally forgotten his name!!   I open the front door to this boy standing there with the reddest of red hair and a face to match.  He was so shy, I think he was relieved when I quickly said my mother thinks I am too young to go out with you alone so she is coming with us....

As I lived in the city we walked to the cinema with me making sure my mother was between us at all times.
Finally, at the cinema he pays for me and of course mum pays for a ticket and we enter the cinema to find our seats.... Yes, I am guessing you already know what is coming.  My date enters the row of seats first... big mistake on his part as I was able to push mum ahead of me so that she sat between us.  I think he had fun. My mother was being nice to him by sharing her candy with him...

When the movie finished the boy said he had to go straight home and took off at a run.... I wondered why the rush, after all, if mum hadn't been there he would have walked me home?  My mother lectured me all the way home on how mean I was to him....and I was made to promise to never do that to her again.  Looking back I think my mother was a good sport to play along with her baby girl....

I admit to being  a naive child. But that was the 60's and we were very sheltered.

I was later, much later to date 2 others, one of which became my first husband and the other went on to marry and remain a friend of mine.  

This link to  proper dating in the 60's   is very interesting, it explains what is was like for teenagers back then. 


60's fashion trend I followed







3 comments

The great Pavlova debate....  

Posted by: reflective moments

Bullying is not just confined to the young.  I too have been bullied.  I am sad to admit to  it  and have often asked myself how did I let it happen. So naive of me to let it happen.  It all came to a head when on a forum this person and I were both on, I made a fatal mistake and posted my recipe note, I said my recipe for a Pavlova.  Now, prior to this event I had let her corrections of anything about Australia that I posted wash over me. She was the know it all type and it just wasn't worth arguing with her over petty stuff ... that was until the Pavlova debate!! She was an expat living in America.  Whenever she put me down on the forum  I would make excuses for her saying she is homesick.. Anyway, I digress.  She posted that MY recipe was wrong and posted how she makes her's.   Normally I would have let it go and not say anything but, sadly, something inside me stirred and so I retorted about how I have made this dessert this way for more years than I cared to mention, so, with that she points out that I had left an ingredient out!!   It eventually turned into the "great Pavlova" debate and on a dog forum none the less.....   Climaxing with her claiming that people for miles around would turn up on her doorstep whenever she made a Pavlova.  I couldn't let that go now could I? Not when I had finally stood my ground with her so I just had to say well, some like hard pavlovas and some like fluffy marshmallowy ones like mine....  Nasty, I know, but I had put up and shut up for so long and let her get away with bullying me.... As I said, something snapped inside me that day.  Am I sorry, no, cannot say I am, though, I am sorry for my part in the ummmm discussion, and for  lowering my standards and being nasty but, not sorry for losing her as a friend.  When I settled down and saw just how ridiculous the argument was I felt relief, yes relief, that she was finally out of my life....  My husband kept telling me to be careful, that she was a kook.... this, because, I would sometimes tell him about some rude or crude comment she had made to me or tell him about some crude emailed jokes she would send.  This experience shook me up for a few years. Yes years, probably because we still had some mutual friends.  Now, we no longer have mutual friends (at least I hope not; but then, I do not gossip to find out) life is now good and I can finally feel comfortable being me again. 

Moral of this tale..... do not try to be liked by everyone it just isn't worth the compromise.  I know that if this person was a neighbor she would not have been my friend.  Our standards and values were so different .... we paired up because we were fellow Aussies and, that, was all we had in common.

Nowadays, whenever anyone even mentions the word Pavlova I burst into laughter instead of tears and ,when asked, I tell the tale of the "great Pavlova debate."




Photobucket
A  Pavlova for those who don't know this Aussie icon.  










5 comments

So over this  

Posted by: reflective moments

I have had a CT scan of my hand, an Ultra sound and now waiting for a nerve test on the same hand to eliminate Carpel tunnel and now I am feeling both depressed and scared since I went for another opinion on this vertigo thing and this dr doesn't think it is positional vertigo but something to do with blood flow :( Low blood pressure being the likely cause.  So now I waiting to get in to see a Neurologist and a Cardiologist.   This is all so depressing particularly with Keith overseas.... but, something has to be done, my wrist/hand is still killing me from a fall before Xmas and I really need to know what is causing this....
 
 


2 comments

There's a mouse in there......  

Posted by: reflective moments in

  We had visitors the night before and being tired I just put the chocolate biscuits our friends had brought with them into the pantry uncovered.... fast forward to mid morning the next day and my daughter goes to the pantry thinking she would have a biscuit and to her shock, horror, there was a mouse beside the biscuits...
Our hero, spider and creepy crawly catcher.... hubby, was away in Sydney so we had a problem, then our neighbor appeared... we call him Wilson after the neighbor in the tv show home improvements... they are identical right down to the hat.  He is offering me a shrub the size of my car and I am nicely trying to say no thanks while he is offering to dig a hole to put it in, so I tell him about my mouse problem... Wilson is a retired Engineering lecturer from the local Uni so he went into great detail on what I should do to catch this critter. Well, first off we needed a mouse trap so off Nicole went to the village store and fortunately they had one.  Now we are sitting at the dining table reading the instructions to this contraption and doing practise runs. Time now to put it in the pantry but before we do that we have to cook a piece of steak, Wilson said we needed to do that so as to put some of the melted fat on the trap.  While the steak was cooking we discussed which of us was going to put the trap in the pantry and if/when we caught this mouse who was going to dispose of it.   Soon the trap was ready with fat smeared in it and as I won the debate I got the broom and pushed the trap very carefully into the pantry... We didn't have to wait long before we heard the trap go off.  I rush outside to get the shovel for Nicole to carry it to the bin... we had decided to throw both the trap and mouse out as neither of us wanted to touch it.  To our surprise when I dragged out the trap with the broom it was empty.  So, this time we decided  I should put a tiny bit of steak on the trap, again it wasn't long before the trap went off and, you guessed it the steak was gone. but still no mouse.  In the meantime a friend rang and I told Pete of our drama so he offered to come over with his shotgun if I was so desperate to be rid of it!  I am now getting tired of this mouse and think I will outsmart it and soak a cotton wool ball in the fat from the steak and use thread and tie it to the trap...  Nicole and I sat in the lounge in silence so we could hear the trap go off.  To our dismay it never did..... The mouse just disappeared!!  Friends say it left in disgust.  We kept mouse watch for a few days but never saw it again.... To this day I am still trying to live down having cooked steak for a mouse!


2 comments
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