~living this beautiful messy life~
o0o
I feel like I have a million irons in the fire right now – and I’m going to need to be super-diligent of how I schedule my Life and time over the next couple of weeks, otherwise I know that I am going to seriously deplete my already low energy reserves, and end up being a gibbering, anxiety-ridden mess – who cant get anything accomplished! Continue reading “irons in the fire”
o0o
So after talking about how difficult making friends is – and how bloody rubbish I am at it – a strange thing happened the week before last…
I had two ‘coffee dates’!!
One Friday – one the following Monday.
The one on Friday was the second time I have had coffee with this person, who for the purpose of lessening confusion, we’ll call Person A.
At that stage, I was still in the “i don’t know if she’s my kinda people” stage of things, and whilst there was a lot about her that gelled with my ethos etc, I just wasn’t fully convinced that this was going to be a worthwhile investment for either her or me….
The following Mondays coffee date was someone I have known for quite a number of years. (yep, Person B)
We originally met at work, and these days we work pretty much parallel to one another.
She’s someone that I don’t spend any real social time with usually, but that I do trust to keep my confidences anyways…
Sooooo – I was talking with her about my recent ponderings on ‘friendships’ and how difficult I find them to navigate them, and she is very much in the same boat, as we are both hermits-by-choice outside of work.
I went on to tell her about the two coffee dates that I had had with Person A, and was giving her a run-down of what had transpired on each ‘date’, when I noticed her face was looking more and more incredulous.
And as I was talking, and actually listening to myself talk – I was putting these two seperate events with the same person, into one almost-combined story, and it gave me such an incredible dose of clarity that it actually had me quite gob-smacked for the rest of the day!!
You see, when events happen separately, we tend to tell people about them separately.
For example, each time I had had coffee with Person A, I had come home and told my Love all about it.
What we did, what was said, all the sort of waffley stuff you talk to your Spouse about…
But these coffee dates were a couple of weeks apart, so me giving my Love a rundown of the mornings were obviously also a couple of weeks apart.
But when I was talking to Person B about them, I was telling her about the two events all at once.
And boy oh boy – did that make things sound a whole lot different to my ears, to what I had previously thought I was thinking!!
It was an amazing epiphany – and I think there was even the whole ‘parting of the clouds with rays of sunshine shining through‘ to go with it!!!
Anyways – the upshot of it all is this:
I am going to be brave!
I’m going to be ‘investing‘ in Person B – I’m going to be vulnerable and raw and honest – and all I can hope for is that I come out the end of it with the friend that I think is waiting there for me – and not with feelings of regret and wariness or a whole new level of being reserved and guarded instead…
Wish me luck please!
o0o
Its been a rough week, and in all honestly I am still not feeling thoroughly fabulous as I’m still getting over the whole dental debacle and the eventual outcome of same…
Its a bit of a dismal day here today which isn’t helping my mood any, and I think i took on a bit too much yesterday for my first outing after Continue reading “rough week”
o0o
Its gone…
After my post about dental distractions the other day – sadly the delight and belief didn’t pan out this time around – and whilst it initially seemed to be getting better, after a night of almost no sleep other than fitful dozing; and taking faaaaar too many doses of pain medication throughout the night last night, this morning I had an emergency appointment at the dentist in town.
Thankfully they managed to get me in as the first appointment of the day.
And so now, the final tooth on my lower jaw has been removed – and I cant help but be a bit sad…
I’ve fought so damn hard over so many years to keep that final tooth there – particularly when so many dentists before my current one said it would never last – but I managed another 15 years with it, so I’m grateful for that…
The dentist has given me a few days off work, but I’ll see how I feel tomorrow and decide about work then.
I also need to go and see the Dental Tech, and work out about getting fitted for; and having a full denture made.
I think that I can probably ‘make do‘ with my current one for the time being, but because it has spaces in it for teeth that used to be there (its a partial) the food is going to get under it – even if it is glued in.
For now, my Love has just bought me home a reusable straw, so that I can get something into my tummy!
I didn’t get to eat much dinner due to pain last night, and have missed breakfast and lunch today – and am now pretty darn hungry – so soup it will be.
And I’m certainly looking forward to it!!
Not the sort of photo one would usually willing post online, but dentures aren’t a topic that people ever really talk about…and I’m all for having the difficult or uncomfortable talks!
Breakfast and lunch all rolled into one cup of chicken soup, with my nice reusable straw; a gift from my Love.
o0o
Hows this for a groovy gadget?!??
Today a friend posted a picture of something his wife had made at a Simple Living class that she had attended, and I thought it was soooo awesome that I’m wanting to make one too!!
Now I just need to carve out a bit of time to do it in.
Isn’t it fabulous?
Have you made something like it or are planning to?
If you have, I’d love to see it!
all wrapped up!
open and ready to use 🙂
o0o
Todays view isn’t too shabby, I just gotta say!
I might need to be getting some work done today, and being that its Saturday – it’s ‘traditionally’ the day that I try and get a lot of my inside chores done – but also a day that I try and get some writing accomplished, as well as some podcast-listening squished in there as well.
All this is – of course – washed down with liberal amounts of coffee. lol
Anyways – just thought I’d share, because this is most definitely one of my happy places!
o0o
UGH!
Damn dental distractions!!
Its been a rather ‘uncomfortable’ week with me trying to ignore a possibly impending tooth infection, that didn’t go away when it was ignored, and thus resulted in me having to leave work when Continue reading “dental distractions”
Smoking you ask?
Are you still smoking?
Wellllll – I’m glad you asked!!
It’s a month in (well, 4 weeks lol) – in case you’ve been keeping track – and still she doesn’t smoke!
That’s right folks.
I’m a month clean!!
But what I’m even more incredibly proud and grateful for – is that my Love is also a month clean of not smoking!!!
Neither of us can say that there haven’t been times when we’d have liked to have had a cigarette – that would be outright lying – and when our son got hit by a car whilst riding his motorbike to work one morning, and was whisked off by Ambulance with expected internal bleeding – welllll…. it was pretty much a ‘perfect-storm excuse’ for either of us to have wimped out and given in.
But we DIDN’T!!!
Yep – we still need to remind ourselves every.single.day that we can’t have ‘just one or two’ – because there is no such thing.
But a month in, and we’re still making the choice every day, to stay nicotine free.
I’m super proud of us 🙂 🙂 🙂
o0o
Friends – thats todays subject!
Is it just me, or do others find it incredibly hard to make super-close friends?
I have a lot of people that I know that I can go have a cuppa, a meal, a wine etc with, or that I chat to with some regularity, but usually on a fairly superficial level – but I have no-one that I honestly feel I could share anything+everything with.
I know a part of it is my reticence to be truely vulnerable with people, particularly after two incidents when i thought i had made a close friend – only to find that the friendship wasn’t what i believed it to be – and i got very hurt in the process…
Throughout school (and we’re still friends to this day actually!) I had a wonderful friend Helen that knew every secret I held.
Knew me probably almost better than I knew myself at that age! lol
We can still pick up where we last left off with none of that awful awkwardness, and I would trust telling her anything – but the sad reality is – that we only catch up every few years – so there isn’t that daily / weekly opportunity…
In my 20’s I had another wonderful friend Caroline – who I spoke to every.single.day – and spent a lot of precious time with, and we aways had each others back.
That woman kept my sanity intact for a lotta years(!!) – but then I moved away, and we just seemed to slip away from each other…
Fast forward and here I am in my 50’s.
I had one brief friendship that meant a lot to me, that was ‘blossoming’, when I was in my mid-forties, but then she moved away – and it just sort of moved on without the necessary contact that close friendships take…
And these day I just don’t quite know how one gets to that place of going from a casual acquaintance / friend, to being someone who is really close!!
I know it takes an investment of time – and of course a certain amount of trust, vulnerability and faith – but how does one know just when the time is, that its safe to roll out those parts of you?
What if you think you like someone enough to be a friend, and then you have a few coffee ‘dates’, a few chats, maybe a lunch or two, and you get to thinking “naaaaaa – this just isn’t my kind of person” – how do you then dial it back without appearing rude, when up until then you’d been willing to invest the time, just in case this was going to be a friendship that worked out?
(and YES – I’m very aware that it might be me, who isn’t someone else idea of ‘the right person‘!)
How do you even know that you’re capable of being a decent friend?
Maybe I don’t have close friends ‘cos i’m not only not good at the making-friends part of it, but maybe i’m actually someone that people just aren’t draw to, to make friends with!!
Perhaps not a pleasant thought – but one that certainly needs looking at in the interests of honesty! 😐
I’m not one for groups, teams, hobbies, sports or crafts – so that way of meeting people is out.
I also don’t still have kids at school any more, so thats not an option.
Not only would the parents at the school-gate probably feel a little ‘young’ for me, but it would just be creepy to have some old lady without a kid to pick up, hanging’ out at the school-gates, trying to talk to random people!! 😀
Work is work and whilst I have met a few people through my work whom I feel like I have ‘clicked’ with – there is still the whole ‘work’ thing about it (and often a ‘hierarchy’ thing), that just makes it feel kinda awkward – both for me and them.
Sooooo – what does one do?
How do YOU go about this whole ‘making friends’ business?
Thoughts and opinions welcome and encouraged, so please feel free to share, as I’d love to get a wealth of knowledge and opinions on this topic! 🙂
Cheers,
This morning started in the way no Mothers ever want it to.
A missed call on my phone before 7am, and a voice message.
Checked the voice message, and it was someone I didn’t know, telling us that our second youngest son had been in a motorbike accident.
He had been on his motorbike on the way to work, and had been hit by a car.
We live a 1 hour drive then a 5hr flight, or a 24 hour solid drive, away from where he lives.
Our stomachs lurched.
It was his boss Wayne whom had called us, and on calling him back, we found out that Wayne had seen him put into the ambulance approximately a half-hour earlier, and had briefly spoken to him prior to the ambulance heading off to the local hospital, which he gave us the name of.
At least we knew our son had been alert when he was carried off – alert enough to give the guy his Mummas phone number at least.
Good sign – hopefully…
We then rang Hospital A, where they had taken him – only to find out that he hadn’t turned up there(!!) and they suggested that he might be at Hospital B if his injuries were substantial or required immediate surgery. 😐
While this was happening, my Love was on the other phone, calling our youngest daughter who is a Doctor in an adjacent City to where our son lives and works; to see if she knew anything or could find out anything.
We then rang Hospital B, and thankfully he was there.
All they could tell us was that he had literally just arrived, and was being seen to by the doctor at that very moment, and that they wouldn’t be able to update us for at least a half-hour, possibly more.
Wayne then rang us again, in a bit of a panic as he had gone to Hospital A, and had found out that they had taken our son to the more acute care hospital further away, due to some concern that he was exhibiting signs of internal bleeding – and he wanted to let us know that he was now on the way to Hospital B.
Bless his heart!
The next few hours were pretty scary.
One feels sooo helpless when you’re far away from your babies, and you know things aren’t right with them – and theres not a damn thing you can do!
Finally we got to speak to him very briefly, and although he was groggy, and tearful (in shock!) he was in quite good spirits, but a fair bit of pain.
He had just had scans done, was awaiting results, and was being given more pain medication.
The day wore on, and we only received sketchy updates, until finally around 5pm, when we heard that he was well enough that they were going to let him go home.
Such incredible relief!!!
We spoke to him again briefly after he got home last night, and he was very sore and still very shaken – as was to be expected – and was on his way to bed.
But he had got to hold his daughter, and we know that that alone is enough to give him the strength to bounce back to full health, quickly.
We feel so very blessed and fortunate to have had the day turn out so well.
It could have gone so very very differently…
Today, we could be mourning the loss of one of our children, but instead we are feeling so very thankful and grateful that things turned out as they did!
Don’t forget to tell your kids how much you love them, and how proud you are of them – you never know when you might not get the chance to do it ever again…
This function has been disabled for Simple Life Farmer.
