67 days to Antarctica..."Blowin' In The Wind" Bob Dylan

 

Approximately fourteen minutes reading time

"Sometimes the bad things that happen in our lives put us directly on the path to the best things that will ever happen to us." Paul Millsap

 

Hello! “Joy To The World”. Welcome to another Sunday. Thank you for joining me. How quickly the weeks roll by, consistently. I hope that you are happy and well. It’s only thirteen days until Christmas and nineteen days until 2022. Oh my!

"Blowin' In The Wind" by Bob Dylan has been one of my favourite songs since the first time I heard it when I was a very little girl. This song touches me at my core. It's how I perceive life. Life is unpredictable and uncertain as are people but it doesn't detract from the wonder and joy we have to behold in life. For me this song is about the promise of what might be, joy and opportunity waiting in every moment of every day. This song is part of my internal, lifelong playlist and comes to me when I need comfort. Bob Dylan is a legend for a reason. In 2016 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."  His songs are his wonderful  and important legacy to the world. His music and poetry are his gifts to the world and to us all. I love this song. I hope that you enjoy this week's song of the week as much as I do. I hold Kris Kristoffersson with similar esteem, for similar reasons and some additional ones.

Schrodie and I have had a good week. Most days, during the break in the weather, we managed good, long and beautiful, fun walks. The gardens are in Summer Bloom and are beautiful with the most delicious and intoxicating scents. Only a few days we missed out on our walks because the weather was too miserable and ominous. We have still had fun. Schrodie has been wanting to play for most of every day, which makes me happy. My fitness and strength is improving. He pushes me, pushes us both to walk further and harder, to play more and have more fun, so we do. Every day we dance to Christmas Carols. Schrodie loves the Christmas Carols. The exception are the boring ones and the elevator music, no thank you. Blah. My favourite are the traditional Carols sung by energetic Choirs.

These last few days I have felt nostalgic and overwhelmed with emotions and sentiment over people I love and that I miss, particularly at this time of year. I know that as Mummy always told me, “this too shall pass”. The severe floods across my home state of New South Wales have been once again, terrible and devastating, with one lady dying. This has triggered me around remembering people and circumstances since the Black Summer Bushfires stole everything from me. I have been forced to remember relationships and the incredibly hard choices that I was forced to make and the resulting decisions which I took. I still wonder why certain people chose to behave and act the way that they did towards me? I don’t care what people do, I only care why? Their motives for their behaviour and actions matter to me. I wondered why they felt the need for duplicity? I have no interest in duplicitous people or actions. So, I removed them from my life. I cannot accept being used by anyone, for whatever reason. So I removed them from my life.  

Knowing the fact that I do not believe their actions were about me did not make me feel any better or my heartache less or easier to bear. At the end of the day we make our choices about the people we want in our lives. I have been forced to consider relationships and why some succeed and others do not. Sometimes this is temporary and not permanent, which brings me solace. I have been working on myself to understand my role in my relationships. I have learned and understood more about myself. This is both helpful, healing and confronting but always positive.

There's a saying "lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas", who you let into your life, surround yourself with and spend time with matters. They impact your life and they impact you. Their influence on your life can help 'make you or break you'. Too many people fail to realise and understand this fact. Like addicts, until you admit your reality you will never improve your lot in life or your happiness. You choose, always! This is your freedom in life, don’t squander your opportunities. For this, I am prepared to compromise my Ego, my Pride but never my Power, my Dignity and/or my Self-Respect. Come what may, my decisions are informed and the outcomes are okay, even when devastating. I truly believe that the real truth will set you free. You can lie to other people but you cannot lie to yourself without serious and terrible consequence. These are the laws of nature and the laws of physics.

It seems to me that most people surround themselves with what my mother used to call “yes people”. These are sycophants who will always tell you what you want to hear, to your face. Often they will talk about you behind your back. Such people are users and working towards meeting their own objectives, at your expense. Such people do not care about you. Such people are not real friends. Such people need to be avoided. The danger is that when you spend time with such people you become like them. You become a lesser person. Showing someone the facts of a situation because you love and care about them is not easy. This choice will not make you popular, especially as it can be perceived as threatening because it is upsetting to face the facts. The people in my life will tell me the real truth and the facts of a situation when needed, no matter how uncomfortable and unsettling this is for us all. Delivery matters, always. Kindness, empathy, compassion and understanding are critical. There is no judgement between us. I know how lucky I am. Knowing that showing a mirror to someone I love and care deeply about, to give them an opportunity to step up to be the person they are, the person I know them to be, the person they know they are and the person they told me that they want to be, would potentially and most likely cause them to leave me does not matter. Their decision is their own. Their decision to keep us in each other’s lives is theirs to make. I make mine and give them my terms and conditions, my values and boundaries, the rules as they matter to me. If they see themselves and their actions within my boundaries and values and don’t like what they see, they may blame me and hate me for bearing the message but because I love them, it is too important for me to overlook this necessity. Wallowing in someone else’s cesspool is a sad situation and a threat to a bright new future and happy life. For me, this action of highlighting a reality is not a criticism, not a judgement but an act of love to show that there is an opportunity to stop poor behaviour and choices to be your best self. If they choose to step back from me and away from me, I have no regrets and I believe that after the initial anger and hurt the message will be understood and the misinterpretation gone. For this I am glad. I will pay the ultimate price and it is worthwhile. To watch a noble, decent, honourable person with a rare and special heart and soul dishonour themselves, disrespect themselves and behave ignobly is not something that I can bear to watch, especially when I love them deeply and care equally about them. To say nothing is dishonourable and not something that I can live with at all. Having people in your life who want you to honour your best self and inspire you to stretch yourself in this capacity is indeed a gift. This is very rare. Anyway, thinking about motives took me down some dark paths which were a possibility but highly unlikely. This notion of the reason for duplicity caused me great discomfort and distress when it came to me whilst washing dishes yesterday. I believe that I have found a plot for a fiction novel. This too is a gift. 

I like, admire and respect people who challenge me. Also people who bring out the best in me and inspire me. If you lack such people in your life, then seek them out. If you are fortunate enough to have such people in your life, appreciate, acknowledge and respect them and hold onto them. Be sure that you too, add equal value to their life. This way you will always have happy and successful relationships and a wonderful and successful life. Your career and opportunities, as well as your personal growth and development are also impacted by all of your personal relationships. I have no interest in transactional relationships, which sadly are what most people have in their life. Reciprocity is not the same thing. I do not believe in perfection. Nobody is perfect. Perfection does not exist in nature. Perfection is not natural. We are all flawed and fallible human beings. I believe that we are all in our own way living the very best way that we can at any moment. I believe that our duty is to help bring out the best in each other. I look forward to their return to my life.

This week my shoulders have been excruciating every day. I have been waking up this way and wonder if it is due to the longer dancing sessions holding Schrodie? Half an hour holding his six and a half kilos is a hefty task, pun intended. I will talk to my Physiotherapist about shoulder strengthening exercises. My hands too have been especially sore and I hope that it is a sign of muscle strengthening. I am so happy and proud of the results of all my hard work in therapy and exercises. My function and strength is so much improved. My right trigger thumb has disappeared as the muscles in my hand and thumb strengthen. I can use washing pegs to hang out the clothes, in the proper way, although this is still challenging. What matters is that I can complete the task and all the others that I need. In only a matter of months I have achieved the unbelievable. I am so proud of myself. There is still so much to do. I work on what I cannot yet do well enough or at all but do not focus on this lack of ability. I focus on what I have and continue to achieve.

As far as my bushfire rebuild, I am thrilled and delighted with the progress and results. Notwithstanding the problems and breaches to the contract the build will hopefully be completed in January. I am really happy with my design choices and colour choices. I love my sexy internal doors and bathrooms, as well as my kitchen. My friends, including the designers have called them sexy on their own, which makes me happy. “WOW!”  has been the standard response from everyone when they have asked to see images and the progress on the house. This has been particularly by men, different types of men, which I find interesting. My choices are bold, dramatic and unique. They are very much me. I will have my new and modern castle which will hopefully be a space where Schrodie and I can live easily, comfortably and happily. I am relieved that it has worked and that I like it all. Given my poor health at the time of decision making and the rushed time-frames, the pressure and the limited options for choices of materials, I have pulled it off. Not having access to all the colours and materials together was incredibly challenging. I am proud of my accomplishment so far. A designer friend told me that he loves the way that I use colour as a feature, which was lovely. It appears that using design, colour and texture are indeed some of my Superpowers as my Fashion and Millinery Teachers at the Sydney Institute told me, so many times. I simply do what I like. I am delighted with my colour co-ordination and matching, as always. I love doing this work. I cannot wait to see it all finished.

The Site Supervisor told me that I should do Interior Design as a living. He kept telling me how beautiful my home is and my choices. He told me that he really loves my bathrooms. He told me that his family will be moving and will need to do remodelling in their home. He told me how he loves the colour, texture and feel of my home, especially my bathrooms and that he told his wife. I am flattered. I told him that I have studied Design. I told him that I would be happy to help his wife, if she wanted. I told him that I was open to bartering services. I told him to send anyone he thought might like to talk to me about making the hard choices for their home, my way. He agreed. I am happy to say that I was wrong about the external floor tiles. It turns out that there was a third and separate tile for the external floors which is a higher grade anti-slip tile. I am relieved and thrilled with this unexpected discovery. There are only two weeks until the Christmas Holiday close for ten days.

Fencing decisions have been made. The decision regarding the wooden paling boundary fence will not be made until the build is complete. I have done all the preliminary work possible for the remaining work required to complete the house after the builders leave and before they can issue my Occupation Certificate. The costs are frightening but I will manage. The lawyers are happy to wait to proceed, for which I am grateful.

For my curtains, I have not yet purchased the remaining fabric. I will take my chances until the New Year. As I will be without curtains initially upon moving in, I have decided to inhabit the second largest, back of the house and most private bedroom. There is still so much left to do to complete the house. I had selected my appliances but they are no longer available. In order to avoid further disappointment, I will wait until I have a moving in date to choose anything else. Hopefully there will be sales. In the last few weeks I have watched the prices of my chosen appliances skyrocket to more than double. This will simply not do so once again I must remain flexible and creative to get what I want, that will make me happy. The Site Manager told me that he believed I would create something beautiful and creative from the left over building materials, especially the wooden delivery palettes. I was flattered and thanked him. I told him that where there is no money, there needs to be creativity and I am lucky that I can pull it off. I am thrilled that I managed luxury bathrooms, kitchen and laundry on a shoestring using mainly included materials. I only upgraded two tile choices in the smallest spaces. It was interesting that the Site Supervisor told me that he loved my dark grout for all the tiles. I thanked him. So do I. Only white grout was included in the build cost. This was not an option for me. The coloured grout was a minimum of one thousand dollars ($1000) in each room, extortion in every way. A ridiculous price but certainly worthwhile. Although builders are not designers they see everything chosen in every home they build and they know how to differentiate between what they see. He told me that my home is elegant and classy. Again I thanked him and appreciated the compliment very much. I must select my carpet which will be equivalent to my previous luxury New Zealand woollen carpet which will afford me longevity, incredible comfort with its thick, lush and springy pile and safety as wool does not burn but smoulder. I want to sink into the deep pile of my carpet as before. This was always the first thing anybody and everybody mentioned when visiting my home. It will offer us warmth and temperature stability as well as aesthetic beauty. This will be wonderful for my sensitive, muscle lacking feet. The underlay will be the best available, as before and cannot be overlooked or forgotten. My carpet, particularly in a large home will come with a hefty price tag but will be worthwhile. I cannot wait.

As far as smoulder goes, it is always a welcome feature in my life.

Light fixtures, external security cameras also need to be selected. I cannot choose or buy anything until I can arrange deliveries. This also applies to curtain rods. My clothesline has been purchased but cannot be delivered yet. As it currently stands, this too must be installed before I can receive my Occupation Certificate. My Septic System will be installed in January before the builders leave to ensure that they have put in place all the necessary contracted and paid for wiring for my new system. I am still trying to determine how to proceed with my driveway, paths around the house and outdoor area. Concrete still looks like the best and most affordable option although it is my least favourite option. I found some beautiful outdoor pavers on auction but couldn’t work out the quantities correctly. I was appalled and embarrassed by my miscalculations. I guess it's PTSD. I spoke with a friend who is a building quantity surveyor and she helped me out, for which I am grateful. My error was only using the length of the pavers not the area of the pavers in my calculation. This was really annoying me and distressing. Problem solved and the ridiculous, nearly two hundred thousand dollar ($200,000) cost for pavers eradicated. Phew!

Johnny and I are having fun together and we have bonded well, although he is still not getting his deserved attention. I have my last guitar lesson for the year this week. My writing is progressing. All is as well as can be in our lives. We have fun every day, we love and are loved. We have adventures. We delight in the company of each other, and others, every single day. We won both nights at trivia this week, which was fabulous. Free drinks next week.

Christmas Shopping is not yet complete. I have missed the cut-offs for Christmas delivery. I am not yet sure what to give the children for Christmas. The thought of giving them cash saddens me although it will probably gladden them. To date, I have managed to avoid this outcome. I hope you are tracking well with completing all that you need to do in time.

While talking to a friend about music, I mentioned that I would love to see Rod Stewart live in March at a local Vineyard. He loves live music and told me that he was going. He told me that he could get me a free ticket and that we could go together. I hope this happens. I miss live music and didn’t realise that there was such a thriving international scene where I live.

Before the bushfires I wasn’t interested in going out down here and didn’t really have anyone to go out with as most people, myself and my friends included, work in retail and hospitality and work shifts with many working multiple jobs. Now my attitude has changed. My friend asked me if I was a Rod Stewart fan and I replied “not particularly although I have always enjoyed his music and his raspy, husky voice. He is sexy and I reckon the concert will be good fun. I think he’d be great live and this might be my last chance, given his age”. I await optimistically to see how this eventuates.

For lunch I enjoyed a roast chicken and coleslaw multi-grain bun. I cheated as the chicken and coleslaw are prepared from the Supermarket. Now I am having roast pork with crackling that looks and smells delicious, also store bought. I am blanching round beans and asparagus to enjoy with store bought mash. I was hungry and not feeling great so I’m cheating. I think it is still the Prednisone weaning and this cough that I have. My monthly blood tests were taken on Friday and hopefully they are good. If I don’t hear from my Rheumatologist this week then all is well. Over the last two weeks the GP’s (General Practitioner and Family Doctor) Surgery have called me about test results but I haven’t had any tests. I will wait until the New Year to find out. I just don’t have the energy or the heart at the moment. My meal beckons. It is simple, easy, nutritious, relatively inexpensive fare and comfort food on a cold day.

These are some of this week’s highlights in my life. I hope that your week ahead is a good and happy one. As always, thank you for your company. As always, I hope that you leave Schrodie’s Mummy feeling a little better than when you arrived. I hope that by sharing my journey this helps you with yours in some way. Stay strong and hang in there no matter what trauma, challenges or adversity that you face. Celebrate every Joy! Celebrate every Win! No matter how small, they matter, much. I hope that my posts and pages help you in some way, interest you, make you smile or laugh. Most especially may these and your visits to Schrodie’s Mummy inspire and motivate you upon your journey. This is the only reason that I share this with you.

Thank you for your kind words and comments. I am glad that you are finding my posts and pages valuable. Given the requests for more Medical posts, I will continue to include these in combination with the others. I very much appreciate your feedback. I hope that this information that I relay might help save someone and or make their life better in some way.

Do one small thing every day that makes you laugh and something to put joy in your heart and sustain you on your path. Please refer anyone who you believe will benefit from visiting us here at Schrodie’s Mummy.

American Professional Brooklyn Nets NBA Basketball Player’s sage words are included as they reinforce my belief that there is purpose to all that happens in life and our continued growth, included through the trials and tribulations of life. Opportunity and optimism abound in life, no matter how terrible your current circumstances or situation might be now. The trick is to look for the light and the possibilities, Always! I hope his words inspire and help you upon your journey.

I believe in the Magic of Christmas and look forward with great anticipation to whatever it brings my way. Most especially, I look forward to the Joy ahead, for us all!

Take care, stay happy and well.

I will continue to post on Sunday or as close to, as life allows. Pages will be added on Wednesday and Friday.

Bye for now.

Watch this space...