My Mum and her Dancing Queen.

I love my Mum dearly, but at times, she is amusing her behaviour towards me. I am the youngest of four children and the only girl, so I am very obviously still the baby in her mind. I will forever be the baby to her no matter how old I get. I am 54 years old, but to my mum, I will always be the little six year old girl that she took to dance classes and loved ABBA so much I even wore socks with ABBA on them. My mum all throughout my childhood would take me to every type of dance class I did from ballet, to tap and ballroom and Rock N Roll. To say she was dedicated to her little dancing queen, being me is an understatement.

My mum must treasure her memories, and I think that Dancing Queen is my Mums favourite ABBA song because of her memories of me. Alas I grew up and loving ABBA is no longer an obsession for me, my interests and likes have matured and changed as I have changed, alrhough I remain obsessed with Neil Finn, much to the amusement of my family and friends.

My Mum bless her soul really does try to make a connection with me her middle aged daughter and many a time now Mum will text me or call me urgently to let me know ABBA are on the television. I find this amusing and sometimes a little frustrating depending on what I am doing at the time. I really do think it would be inappropriate of me to tell her I am busy watching clips on YouTube of Simon Baker as The Mentalist and wishing he was wearing less clothes at the moment so I’m kinda distracted by thst. My regular readers will be aware that watching clips of Simon Baker is my guilty pleasure 🙏🏽 and not something thst I want to share with my mum.

I choose to be flattered that Mum still loves me so much that my past love of ABBA is something she still wants to share with me. I just hope that whenever she reads this 📫 post , she doesn’t have a heart attack disgusted that her daughter watches clips of Simon Baker.

My life is a work in progress not a problem to be solved.

Lately, certain occurrences have made me reflect upon my life. Whilst I was out walking Lily, I had an epiphany that my life is a work in progress, and I am not a problem to be solved. Somethings have happened recently where some people have wanted rather inappropriatel to interfere in my life because I am a person whom in their day to day life lives with a mental illness.

I’ve been thinking about the nature of love in my life and thinking about my true friends and why they are my true friends. I’ve been reminiscing about my lovely angel lady sister Susanna and rejoicing in my memories of her. I think about Susanna and how wonderful and generous she was to me. She was always kind and loveable, and she treated me as her equal in every respect 🙏🏽. She was my sister, and she was empathic and compassionate. There is a difference between empathy and sympathy. My true friends show me love and empathy and a good sense of humour, and yes I am in their eyes their equal.

Occasionally, some people I meet instantly judge me on the fact I live with a mental illness and feel sorry for me. They make friends with me, and at first show kindness and a need to be close to me. Things go okay for a while, and I accept their friendship at face value. What ends up happening is that these people feel the need to act for me in my life because they feel sorry for me and think sympathy is the basis of friendship. It is like these people acquaint friendship with pity and end up acting in ways that aren’t a part of a healthy equal friendship. There always is a need to control me me that becomes unhealthy for me, and I realise how unhealthy this is for me and I end up walking away from those relationships because it is not healthy for me. Those friendships don’t survive because pity towards me is not friendship, and certainly loving someone because you pity them is not the basis for a healthy, lasting friendship. These people mess with my head and confuse me, and it is only when I am free of that that I become both happy and healthy. Sure, I live with a mental illness, but my true lasing friendships are those where I am treated as a friend and not a problem to be solved.

A big declutter

Something on your “to-do list” that never gets done.

Something that is always on my to-do list, but I never seem to get around to, is to spend a great amount of time decluttering my home. I plan to move in the future, and that won’t be in the really near future, so I get distracted by life and never have the time or motivation to undergo the big job of decluttering and downsizing my possessions.

Oh well, everything happens in Gods time. Life is what happens when we are busy making other plans.

Pasta with simple sauce

What’s your favorite thing to cook?

My favourite thing to cook at the moment is small pasta pieces, like shells in a very simple pasta sauce of cherry tomatoes cut in half, baby spinach leaves with garlic and chilli 🌶 and a good amount of olive oil. Cook the sauce in a large fry pan, and when the pasta is cooked, combine the pasta with the sauce in the pan and stir through. Use some of the pasta water to slightly thicken the sauce.

It was a very simple but delicious recipe that my friend Andrew gave to me.

Computers in my life.

Write about your first computer.

The first computer I remember was the IBM compatible personal computer that our family had back in the day. I used it mainly for word processing. When I lived in Hadfield, I again had a little computer 🖥 that I again used for word processing, and it wasn’t connected to the internet

When I was married I used my husband’s computer until I enrolled in a couple of law subjects and Susanna bought me a laptop at this time, because she knew we were struggling financially and she wanted me to have what the other students had. Susanna was a beautiful angel in that way. A couple of years ago, she updated the laptop 💻 and that is the computer I use now. I am blessed to have known Susanna, so much of what I have in my life is because of her. She was my sister in every way that counts.

Skydiving and getting mentally unwell again

What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?

Apart from skydiving, which is something I definitely wouldn’t do, my greatest fear as always is having a reoccurence of my mental health issues and having to go into hospital again. It has been on my mind a lot lately because it is coming up to the 12 month anniversary of my last hospitalisation. I saw my psychiatrist yesterday, and I am doing really well in his opinion.

I guess that will always be my biggest fear because I never know what curve balls life will throw at me. If my psychiatrist said I needed to go into the hospital again, I would voluntarily do so. Last year, I was dealing with some extremely stressful things all at once. At least now I am relatively stress free, so hopefully, I won’t need hospitalisation for a very long time, if ever again.

If I won the lottery.

What would you do if you won the lottery?

If I won the lottery, the first thing I would do would be buy a small cottage for me and Lily.

Another thing I would do would be to give my nephews and nieces some money to help pay off their mortgages. I would also give Russell some money towards his mortgage.

I would also give some money 💰 to the Olivia Newton John Cancer Centre at the Austin Hospital here in Melbourne because of the care they gave to Susanna. I would give money to Northpark Private Hospital and the Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council (VMIAC) for deeply personal reasons. I would also give money to So They Can to help them build school facilities in Africa.

I would try to use the money 💰 to do some good for my loved ones and those less fortunate than myself.

Cathy Kelly and Harry Potter

What books do you want to read?

Being an avid reader, I quite liked today’s blog topic. I want to read 📚 anything by Cathy Kelly. I have read just about all her novels and can reread them over and over again.

I am a big fan of children’s literature but haven’t read any of the Harry Potter series yet. I plan on changing that real soon so I don’t get left behind. I have always intended on reading them and have made a promise to myself that I will definitely read them as a priority.

I also read the books I have written myself, that being God Bless Our Dogs and The Dance Of The Emerald Dress 👗 ♥️. I plan on my next book 📖 being inspired by Susanna. She has inspired many a blog post 📫 and she lived a very meaningful life.

Traditions

Write about a few of your favorite family traditions.

This blog post has really got me thinking because I don’t really come from a family that observes a lot of traditions….. Probably the main tradition we observe is the celebration 🍾 of Christmas 🎄. I love my Christmas celebrations at my brother Peter’s home. I look forward to that every year and treasure that sacred family time. I enjoyed celebrating my nephew and nieces birthdays as they grew up and had the tradition of buying them a book for their birthday 🎁 present.

In my own life, I have a few traditions of my own. I send all my loved ones a good morning gif every morning, and I have Susanna to thank for that. When Susanna was still alive and battling cancer, I would send her a greeting every morning, just to show her love and support. She was always the first thing in my mind every morning, and I loved her dearly. It became a tradition for me for about the last two or three years of her life. I know this made Susanna feel very loved.

Leisure Time

What do you enjoy doing most in your leisure time?

There are several things I like doing in my leisure time. I love ❤️ writing this blog and writing books for children.

I love every second I spend with Lily walking 🚶‍♂️ her, playing with her, caring for her, etc. She is the thing I love most in this world.

I love going out for meals, a cuppa, etc. with friends and family, and I most definitely love opshopping with Kathryn and Lani, etc. I also love doing my weekly shop at ALDI.

I love reading 📚 books to both relax and use my mind. This helps to improve my writing and my vocabulary, etc. Reading for b pleasure to me is a must.

I love spending time with my nephews and nieces. I don’t get to see them enough.