Random stuff

 Busy, busy, busy. The workmen finally came and started on the retaining wall out back. I have red mud everywhere. Of course this finally motivated me to tackle the gardens which I have been procrastinating over for months now. So the old vege garden has been dismantled. After it has been levelled I'm going to move the trampoling up there and turn the area in front of the new wall into a bbq area.

New Retaining wall in progress

The old vege garden.

Melbourne, 11th and 12th Sept 2011

Sunday -
The trip from Sydney was fairly uneventful. Only drama was Virgin cancelling my flight so I had to leave earlier than planned. My darling brother picked me up and we headed straight to Direct Factory Outlets. It's just as well I love my daughter cause i hate shopping lol. Needless to say I didn't find anything.
I caught up with my son last night and met his girlfriend. She's lovely and I am looking forward to spending more time with them both this week.
Monday-
This morning my brother, my daughter and I were outside chatting while he waited for his ride. Car pulls up and he says goodbye and jumps in the car. Oops, wrong car. We didn't stop giggling for quite awhile.
Shopping, lunch, chocolate waffles at Lindt. I'm exhausted and suffering from chocolate overdose. Great day. The girls will be in at 8. Early night I think :-)

Sydney September 2011

Coming back to Sydney after 27 years has been amazing! So much has changed. I briefly passed through last year but this was the first time back on the Northern beaches. Seeing old friends was definitely the highlight of the weekend. It really did feel like it had only been 27 days, not years.
I spent fri night at home catching up with friends and reminiscing. It felt so easy, and I really miss them now we've all gone home.
Sat morning was spent driving around all the old haunts with a close friend, my childhood home (which looks completely different now)and talking about the things that have shaped our lives. It was a very special time of the weekend and one I'll always remember.
I caught the Manly ferry to circular quay and got drenched by the wash. Needless to say the passengers behind me thought it was hilarious. I eventually dried out, thank god for Sydney sunshine but spent the rest of the day feeling like I'd gone surfing in my clothes.
I met up with my cousins at Circular Quay and had a lovely afternoon. I'm so glad I got to see them :-) I had my first Guinness and tried black pudding at the Merc. I can see why people love it, it does taste nice but my head revolted after a couple of mouthfuls. If you didn't know what it was you could probably enjoy black pudding a lot more lol.
As I sat on the Manly ferry watching the city disappear I was overwhelmed by the love I feel for my family. It's far too easy to let time and distance keep us apart and I truly regret so many lost years. With the grace of God hopefully we will see each other again.
Sat night was the reunion. What an amazing group of women. There were so many people I wanted to talk to but the time flew by and then it was over. Hopefully we will stay in touch. I would really like to reconnect with some of these girls.
It was a lovely night and I hope we can do it again soon.
Sunday morning we travelled out to visit a dear friend who is no longer with us. I don't think I can write what was in my heart at that time other than that we will always miss her. There are some things that happen in life that stay with you forever. Love you girl xxx
All up it has been an amazing weekend. I am in Melbourne now, visiting with my son and brother and some other friends. I'm sure the next few days will be just as amazing. Looking forward to it!!!
Love and Light
Annie

School Reunion-25 yrs

Wow! 27 years since I left school. It has been amazing catching up with everyone. For some of us it has been like we only saw each other yesterday. For others, a chance to see how we have grown and to marvel at the beautiful souls we are. I am proud to say I was a Stella girl. Some of the memories we hold are wonderful, some cut us to the core of our existence but I believe that everything we experience is for a reason. They are the events that have made us who we are today. I have no regrets. I hold no animosity. We are all beautiful souls on an amazing journey. I wish you all the love and light in the universe and hope that the next phase of your journey brings you everything you need.
In memory of all those who are no longer with us, but mostly for me, in memory of my dear friend Jane. I miss you girl xx
Love to you all
Annie aka Deb

Wow, didn't know you could do this :-D

 I just found this link. Hopefully one day my blog might be interesting enough to warrant publishing it lol. It allows you to select posts and turn them into a soft or hard cover book. Any pretty reasonable pricing too.
http://blogspot.sharedbook.com/blog2print/googleblogger/index.html

Hmmmm

Well after all that I'm not so impressed with IPhone's. It wouldn't let me preview the previous post and when I published it and found I had a spelling error it wouldn't let me edit it properly. The page only showed a portion of the text and because my phone doesn't have arrows and the scroll option is limited to the whole page and not portions within the page I couldn't edit it. So I ended up back on the computer after all. I'll just have to watch my spelling lol.

Love my IPhone

Hi all, back again. I can't believe I haven't posted since last year. I never seem to get time to sit at the computer. Well hopefully that will all change with my new phone. I seem to be on the Internet all the time now. I'd almost forgotten I had a blog and a web page till my new business cards turned up. So I'm hoping to be on here a bit more often now. Hmmm, now to updates for the last year. Well since the art exhibition I'm ashamed to say I haven't done any more painting. Time has flown and between work and kids I never seem to get a moment spare. I'm still trying to complete my Cert IV Community Services. Think I've lost interest in it but determined to get it done. The biggest problem seems to be that I can't decide where to from here. I think I would like to combine art and therapy but something keeps holding me back. Fear? Or maybe it's not the right move? Anyway, I'll work it out. The women's program ran for 12 weeks and was really great. I learnt a lot about facilitating and working with adults as opposed to the kids I've always worked with. At the moment I'm getting ready to deliver the census. Soooo much paperwork. It's monotonous work but good pay so I'm not really complaining.

The kids are doing well. Number 3 moved out last month so I'm down to 2 kids at home. It's been very quiet :-)It feels like only yesterday I was bemoaning the huge piles of toys and nappies and now I have kids who do their own washing and are never home.

Still single. I dated someone earlier this year but wasn't meant to be. Still confident there is a lovely lady out there who will want to share my life.

Well that's it for now.

Love and Light

Annie

All things arty

Wow! What a week. So much has happened in the last week I barely know where to begin. From the beginning is usually a good place I suppose.
About 2 months ago I had to do a visual interpretation of my family for an assignment at school. I chose to do a silhouette of the kids taken from a photo of them on the beach. It was my first attempt at painting and I was pleasantly surprised with the result.
About a month later a friend convinced me to enter it in the Minds Do Matter art exhibition, a statewide competition that is being run for Mental Health week. 12 paintings would be chosen to feature on postcards and next years calender. So I entered.
Last Thursday the coordinator rang and asked if they could use my painting in a promo article about the exhibition. I said ok, thanks :)
The next day she rang back and asked if I would speak to a reporter from the Advocate. They wanted to run a feature article on one the artists. Shit! Ummm ok. She then goes on to ask me if I would do a speech at the opening of the art exhibition. WTF! I said ok to the reporter and told her I would get back to her about the talk.
So reporter turns up on Sunday, with photographer and spends an hour and a half grilling me while said photographer takes photos. For those of you who know me well you will understand how painful this was lol. For those who don't. I HATE HAVING MY PHOTO TAKEN.
So the first article with my painting featured came out on Sat. They didn't put my name in which irked the kids cause it made it look like the coordinator was the artist lol.
Monday 1am. I wake up and have an epiphany lol. Start writing this damm speech, thinking it won't be too bad. I mean hell, it's not like I'm the only one getting up there, right?
WRONG
Coordinator rings Mon morn to find out if I'll talk. I say yes. THEN she tells me that I'm the only artist talking. So the order of the night is... Coordinator welcomes everyone. CEO of org does speech, famous artist (and one of the judges) does speech, then I get to finish off.
Just f&$#@ great.
So now I feel sick. Really sick
I won't go into the rest of the day too much, it passed in a blur of nausea really. Time for the speeches. On the verge of panic. Other speakers have finished and she's calling me up. I would give anything to be somewhere else.
So I do my speech and fuck me dead it goes really well lol. Could have knocked me over with a feather. I only stumbled a few times and I got through it without throwing up.
What happened next left me reeling and I still feel like I'm walking in a dream. People were coming up and congratulating me on a really inspirational speech, saying how some people had tears in their eyes. The state manager asked me to speak at the internal review in December (only about 50 people, shit) and a local radio announcer asked me to do the speech again for her radio program this Sunday.
This is the speech I wrote. I have a funny feeling that all that stuff I've been putting out to the universe about wanting to have a say and make a difference is about to landslide me into somewhere I'm not sure I'm ready to be. Oh well, like my friend said. Time to put my money where my mouth is.

Art Opening-Burnie Arts and Function Centre-Monday Oct 11, 2010

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says, ‘I’ll try again tomorrow.’”

That has been my motto for more years than I can remember. Depression, fear, anger, anxiety and loneliness have been my cell mates for most of my life. There have been many times when I said I can’t do this any more. There have been many long nights spent crying. But there have also been many times when I found myself looking back and realizing that despite my misgivings I had moved forward.

I was talking to a friend on the weekend about how nervous I was about getting up here to talk to you tonight. Panic attack nervous! I knew it wasn’t the public speaking I was worried about so much as what I would talk about. After a moment she laughed and said, “You know what you’re problem is? You put yourself out there girl, now it’s time to put your money where your mouth is.”

I woke up at 1 o’clock this morning and realized quite suddenly that she was right. I had put it out to the universe that I believed art can transform lives and that I could offer something in the field of art therapy and the universe threw me straight into a room full of potential future colleagues and said, “Prove it!”

At this point I panicked. Doubt, fear and negative self-talk came to the fore in a massive rush. I was just about to put my pen down and quit. I went and made a coffee and as I was standing there I looked at some of the sculptures that I made 7 years ago as part of a Domestic Violence awareness project. I thought about where I was back then and I realized that I am all the proof I need.

Throughout the years, art, craft and music and the people who guided me, have played an integral part in getting me to this point in my life. The teacher in juve who praised me for my ceramic painting; the artist who showed me how to put my fear into my art and produce something tangible that I could deal with; the family who stood by me when everyone else had given up; the children who constantly challenge me to be more than I ever dreamed possible and the friend who encouraged me to enter this exhibition even though I believed I had nothing worth offering are just some of the remarkable people who have chosen to share this journey with me and who have helped me to become the person standing in front of you tonight.

During these times and in many small, quiet moments, art has helped me to pick up the pieces of a shattered life and slowly glue them back together, but it was the people who walked with me who helped me to do this. Would I have come this far without their support? I suppose that given enough time I may have, but I believe the answer to that question is no. Every single word of encouragement gave me hope. It gave me hope that I was more than who I believed I was and that I had something worthwhile to offer to this world.

Art without hope is just marks on a canvas and life without hope is an empty, dark place that sucks you down and destroys your soul. It is completely devoid of light and without light there is no life, no art, and no beauty. As long as we breathe, the potential for light is still there. All it takes is a spark. But like trying to light a fire in the middle of the night with wet wood, one spark might not be enough. It might take 2 or 3, it might take a dozen.

Eventually, if you persist, the tiniest wisp of smoke curls past you. You could miss it if you’re not paying attention. When you notice it you start to fan the flame. You gently encourage it; quietly, slowly, but consistently. If you push it too hard at this point the spark will go out and you’ll have to start again. Don’t give up when this happens. Where there is one spark there can always be another. You just have to keep going.

Suddenly, you see a tiny flame. I get really excited at this point and it’s hard to contain myself and not push the fire too hard. If you suddenly go and dump a heap of branches on the flame it will collapse under the pressure. So slowly does it. Small twigs, little branches, let it burn for awhile. Let the fire grow, let the heat build. Get the base of the fire going hot and strong so that when you put the heavy branches on, it has enough heat to keep it going.

Once the fire has been going steadily for awhile you can start to sit back and enjoy watching it. You will still need to add the occasional branch but at this point the fire is pretty self-reliant. At times it may look like it’s going out but if you’ve built a good fire you know that it’s strong enough to die down for a moment and when it’s needed you can add more fuel and it will burn again, just as strong as ever.

The difference between humans and a wood fire is that once that fire is strong enough we wake up one day and realize that we are capable of collecting our own fuel. But it takes a spark to start it.

Each and every one of us has the opportunity to be that spark in someone’s life. You might be the first spark and you may never get the chance to see that flame come alive in the people you work with, but don’t ever think that your spark isn’t worth much. It could be the one that makes all the difference in the world. Often it’s not for us to know what the outcome is; it’s enough to know that we tried.

I now know that I have a responsibility to myself to keep the flame burning and whilst I still need praise and encouragement as much as the next person, I know that my light is well and truly alive and I am more than capable of doing whatever it takes to keep it burning brightly.

Thanks to the love and support of so many beautiful people I have finally reached a place where I feel confident and alive. It’s time to pay it forward. Thank you. For everything.

Signs of the times

Sign over a Gynecologist's Office:
"Dr. Jones, at your cervix."

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In a Podiatrist's office:
"Time wounds all heels."

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On a Septic Tank Truck:
Yesterday's Meals on Wheels

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On a Plumber's truck:
"We repair what your husband fixed."

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On another Plumber's truck:
"Don't sleep with a drip. Call your plumber."

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On a Church's Bill board:
"7 days without God makes one weak."

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At a Tyre Store(Tire)

"Invite us to your next blowout."

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On an Electrician's truck:
"Let us remove your shorts."

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In a Non-smoking Area:
"If we see smoke, we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action."

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On a Maternity Room door:
"Push. Push. Push."

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At an Optometrist's Office:
"If you don't see what you're looking for, you've come to the right place."

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On a Taxidermist's window:
"We really know our stuff."

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On a Fence:
"Salesmen welcome! Dog food is expensive!"

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At a Car Dealership:
"The best way to get back on your feet - miss a car payment."

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Outside a Car Exhaust Store:
"No appointment necessary. We hear you coming."

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In a Vets waiting room:
"Be back in 5 minutes. Sit! Stay!"

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In a Restaurant window:
"Don't stand there and be hungry; come on in and get fed up."

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In the front yard of a Funeral Home:
"Drive carefully. We'll wait."

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And don't forget the sign at a
RADIATOR SHOP:
"Best place in town to take a leak."

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Sign on the back of yet another
Septic Tank Truck:
"Caution - This Truck is full of Political Promises"

(Whispered) Let me be your hero

Would you dance if I asked you to dance?
Would you run and never look back?
Would you cry if you saw me crying?
Would you save my soul tonight?

Would you tremble if I touched your lips?
Would you laugh oh please tell me this?
Now would you die for the one you love?
Hold me in your arms tonight?

(Chorus)
I can be you hero baby
I can kiss away the pain
I will stand by you forever
You can take my breath away

Would you swear that you'll always be mine?
Would you lie?
Would you run and hide?
Am I in to deep?
Have I lost my mind?
I don't care you're here tonight.

Chorus

I just want to hold you (2x)
Am I in too deep?
Have I lost my mind?
Well I don't care you're here tonight.

Chorus (2x)

You can take my breath away
You can take my breath away
I can be your hero

Enrique Iglesias