A "Real" Friend

"What is real?" asked the rabbit one day. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you, and a stick out handle?"

"Real isn't how you were made." said the Skin Horse, "it's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real.

It doesn't happen all at once." said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time.....Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been rubbed off and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.

But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

This excerpt was from Margery Williams book "The Velveteen Rabbit".

It sums up perfectly how my friends have helped me "Become Real".....especially my cyberspace friends. Isn't it interesting what influences in our lives mould and shape us.

I love the person I have become.....I could never imagine writing that 5 years ago! I feel I have finally woken my soul.

So once again bless you my wonderful Internet friends for helping me "Become Real"!

"A friend is someone who helps you up when you're down, and if they can't, they lay down beside you and listen."

Stoutheartedness

Courage is doing what is right for you when no-one else thinks it is!!

So step outside your comfort zone, give it a try.....don't wonder "what if?"

Sometimes suffering brings us the freedom and confidence to make bold choices about how we want to live the rest of our lives.

Believe in the power of your spirit.

Difficult journeys can offer us the chance to learn that we are loved and cared about.

I count myself fortunate to have had this chance to know so clearly and so strongly.


"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."
~~ Confucious


This Sculpture by the Sea photo taken in November 2009 was called "A Man Above" by Philippe Moreau.

All About You

THERE'S you, good old you, not too bad, not too good, safe, sure, reliable, steady as you go YOU!

A bit of a deterioration really from the perfect baby your mother claims you were.

What can you possibly add to the sum of yourself that would make you love yourself more?

Not something for the kids, or your husband or wife, or your friends.

No more self-sacrifice or feeling sorry for yourself.

Add something that makes you more valuable and lovable to the person you talk to all the time. That person is YOU!

Keep thinking for as long as it takes to find the value you want to add. Unless you're perfect already, it's generally not too hard to find a least one "If only...."

You know, if only I had the time, money, education, intelligence, talent, I would.....

If you're going to add value to yourself you must make yourself the top priority. You are, after all, the most urgent project you can possibly undertake.

Working on yourself is the single most rewarding thing you can do.

Eventually everyone you know will benefit hugely from the result.


"They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel."
~~ Carl W. Buechner


My cats Ellie and Wilson always know it is all about them!! - May 2006




January 2009

A Smile

Is the most beautiful and multi-lingual silent statement.

A smile can mean so many things:

Hello

I am so happy

Guess what I've been doing?

I am a friend

Thanks

Pleased to meet you

No one can tell I'm in pain

Everything will be all right

It's great to see you back on your feet and looking so well

I'm here if you need a hug!

"You've got to get up every morning with a smile on your face, And show the world all the love in your heart, Then people gonna treat you better, You're gonna find, yes you will, That you're beautiful as you feel."
~~ Carole King


My favourite photo of Joseph taken in Dee Why February 2009.

Here is Joseph's version of the ABC song - he is my little ray of sunshine and always makes me smile! - May 2010

No Interruptions Please

OK, we get it. People in Iceland are perpetually cold. But does that mean they have to take it out on the rest of us? For the past couple of decades, they've been doing their best to bring the world to its knees.

First it was the export of Bjork, a woman whose singing pitch causes seizures among laboratory mice. Then it was the global financial crisis, with Iceland queueing to be the first country to go broke, after a collapse in the futures market for herring.

The Icelandic economy still had its AAA credit rating but the three A's were henceforth followed by the letters RRRGGGHHH. Suddenly, everyone realised Iceland mainly consisted of ice — a fact, you may think, the Icelanders had disclosed when they named it Iceland.

Still, no one was more surprised than the world's financial experts — a group of people who were already shocked to discover that unemployed people in the US's south sometimes found it hard to repay their home loans.

In the aftermath of these revelations, the world demanded that Iceland start paying its way. In response, Icelanders have developed a new export industry: ash.

They are distributing it by air, all over Europe, sourcing it from a volcano, the pronunciation of which is impossible unless the speaker is simultaneously regurgitating fish.

Traditionally, when a volcano went up, the response was to throw in a few virgins to propitiate the gods. Presumably, the world's airlines tried gathering cabin staff for sacrifice but were stymied when Qantas couldn't find any virgins.

I find myself spluttering with arrogant questions. Can't we just pour concrete into the volcano? Or blow it up? Or have Bjork sing to it?

Apparently not. We are like ants running around this thing. It's a power beyond us: a super-sized lava lamp with a missing "off" switch.

Annemarie and I are flying to Norway on 13th July and return 27th July. I hereby ask (plead) Eyjafjallajokull to take a vacation as well, in the depth of your own being and curtail any eruptions until after those dates.....or for another few hundred years!


"The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasent things as interruptions of one's "own" or "real" life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life---the life that God is sending one day by day: what one calls one's "real life" is a phantom of one's own imagination."
~~C.S. Lewis


Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, Sydney - November 2009