Meditation.....

Couldn't be more straightforward, could it? ANY WONDER I AM IMBALANCED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1) Still the Body, 2) Still the Mind, 3) Focus the Attention =4) Meditation

I have begun an 8 week meditation course, in order to help me de-stress and be calm. Only problem is I really find it difficult. First you have to find your mind's eye. Then you have to make it twinkle like a star, and imagine that it is your soul. A calm and peaceful soul. Then you have to do something with your mantra all the while making sure that there is not tension anywhere in the body. You need to make sure there is no tension in your leg muscles, your stomach muscles are relaxed, your shoulders are relaxed, your neck and facial muscles are relaxed, and your jaw muscles are relaxed. Next, you close your eyes very gently and very sweetly as if resting for sleep, but you remain fully awake and fully alert behind the eyes. Your eyeballs are fixed straight ahead – horizontally.There should be no squinting or pressure placed on the eyelids. No pressure on the forehead. No pressure! No pressure to be totally and utterly relaxed while you are mantra-ing and chakra-ing and finding the star between your eyebrows????? AAAAAAAHHHHHHH this is so stressful!!!! So much for de-stressed, I feel distressed!

Mind Reading

Many people think that if their loved one truly loved them whey would know how they felt and what they needed.

This is because if they really, really, really loved us they would do anything for us.

I think the if we feel displeasure or distress, the person who professes to love me should realise my unhappiness and FIX IT!!!!!!!!!

Why is that so bloody hard????

Be careful what you wish for.

I have had some time off recently du to flu, which after having two cases of swine flu in my classroom, gave me some anxiety. I am not a piggy, it was just another sort of lurgy with lots of snot and snorting. I relished being sick because it gave me a divine rest from the frantic year two classroom and the needs of all those individuals. I relished every minute of being at home, coughing spluttering, snorting, popping pills and moaning. It is a very sad day when you wish that you could be sick, just a day or so day longer, so you could miss out on a mind-numbing staff meeting or curriculum (yawn) forum. Just when I am about to head back to work, I wake up with a massive pain in the lower back and arse......the doctor says I may have injured my back coughing so much. Or it could have been that fall down a flight of stairs a couple of weeks ago...

The pain is quite excruciating, and I would swap all those 7 year olds for this anyday.

back to blogging

Winter holidays in Australia. Who would have thought it could be so, well, arctic! We spent two weeks driving around New South Wales, The ACT and Southern Queensland. 5 days were spent in Old Adaminaby near the snow fields, and boy was it cold!

We did the galleries, restaurants, caves, wineries, national parks etc. Took lots of photos and just enjoyed being the special three together without work and school and study stress.

postscript

"According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy!" -Jerry Seinfeld

griefamundo and girl power

Yesterday I attended the funeral of a friend's husband (well, an ex, but much-loved one). 

I was consumed with her grief, and that of her son and daughter, children who can't possibly comprehend the road ahead without their father.

Russell's big adult wooden coffin sat, ironically, in the exact spot that my little Riley's white child-sized coffin sat four years ago, in the same chapel, the same putrid green walls, the same hideous curtains and pelmets and stupid fake smiling funeral director. It was a confronting day for me, but for Tracey and her kids it was excruciating. 

I taught her beautiful daughter in year one, 2004, a horrible year for me personally, that manifested itself with the hideous grief of losing my own child. Tracey was one of the many special people who showed themselves to be thoughtful, kind in the extreme, funny, black(humoured, not coloured), irreverent and just there for me whenever I needed her along with her large posse of girls. It began with a huge basket of goodies, dropped at my door, lovingly chosen and delivered with the love and compassion that I had never seen before from this group of girls, but have never stopped observing and experiencing since.

Dear Trace,

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry that your loss feels so great,  gross, and grabs you greedily with a vice-like grip.

I'm sorry that you feel grey, grey, the greyest grey, black charcoal clouds hang over your every breathing moment.

I'm sorry you have to be brave, gravely faced with the grotesque griffin of grief that wants to disable you and take away your spirit. 

I'm sorry that this feeling grips you sometimes for days, weeks and leaves periodically only to return so quickly with more ferocity.

I'm sorry you feel groggy, paralysed and grounded with grief in your guts, your heart and your head.

I am sorry that you have go to bed, not to sleep, but to face the loss over and over again, a horrible recurring wakeful nightmare.

I'm sorry that your children are feeling all of these emotions along with you. You want to protect them from that. I'm sorry that you can't.

I'm sorry that there is no way out of the darkness, other than to go through it, experience all of its hideous tentacles, like a surreal dark deep sea monster that engulfs you and won't let go, suffocating you in its grip.

Feel blessed, girl, that along this dark, black, grey and sometimes lonely road, there will be people who will amaze you with their support and dignified graceful way of just being there, physically and spiritually. These people will carry you through.....they will not care if you are down, depressed, irritable, irrational, obnoxious, angry, in denial, or downright self-centred. They will love you through it all. They are the voice of reason and reality. They are the word of truth in a chaotic world. If you can find a connection to these people, a small thread at first, and then a web of support that will develop exponentially, one day you will realise that the unmanageable heavy load you feel is unfairly placed upon you will dissipate until......slowly, perhaps years later, you are able to experience the feeling that the grief and deep sorrow has turned into something a little more like normal (well, a little more than normal, but still manageable) sadness. One day, I assure you, you will look in the mirror, and not see that face that haunts you today, the weight of sadness reflected in your every cell.

I speak for all the girls, when I say that we are there for you, whenever you need us. Whenever Shelby and Connor need us, just whenever. We consider it a privilege to be able to share your load, which we know is more than any one person can bear on their own.

 

Wonders will never cease

OK. I have joined the workout world. Yes it is true, to all those of you who know me well and are right at this moment judging me harshly. This year seems to be one of growth and change for me in many ways. I decided that I need to do another something for myself, even if I really hate it, I know I have to do it. (I HATE BEING EVOLVED AND GROWN UP) So I joined Curves. Colleagues of mine poo pooed me saying it was for OLD women. HEELLOOOO!!!!!!! I am 42, and love being around mature and interesting people (espesh when they are wrinklier and fatter and droopier and cellulitier than me).

Anyway, I am popping in after school, pumping away and quite loving it. I feel better (if achy and sore is better) and have more energy and a bit more focus than usual. I am not quite pole bunny yet, but am quite proud of myself for trying.
To all my dear friends and blogaliscious buddies, happy easter and may the rest of your year reflect renewal and abundance.

'I slept and dreamed that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.'

Adventure contraption #2

Yep, this is the second instalment in the new big blue contraption/ adventure vehicle (thanks National Australia Bank....). Houses adventure boy, adventure girl and adventure water sport contraption (kayak). Teenage son (sloth boy) also sits in the back measuring the adventure by how many movies he can watch during the trip. We will be off-roading so watch out!!!

My Place

Paddo. Brisvegas. A grungy little bohemian suburb quite near to the city but still quiet and leafy and noice. We love living here. There's the cafs and the bars and the really overpriced designer fashion shops and delis. There's the junkies and the uni students and the tennis playing mercedes driving trophy wives. Always an interesting mix. There's the milliondollar price tag homes and the derelict workers cottages side by side. It's hilly and palm tree laden. We have scrub turkeys, pythons, possums, bats, blue tongue lizards and gekkos everywhere. It is our little piece of heaven in the city.

The Pity Party Part of Me

Well I had to admit it sometime. I like to feel sorry for myself. It is a really comforting feeling to feel sad for yourself (especially when nobody else does!). Occasionally (and I have to admit, more infrequently now) I take some time for myself to be really utterly miserable. I need it. In my case misery does not love company, but loves to be completely alone and completely desperately depressed. Misery loves to eat, cry and eat some more. The more tissues I can get through the better. Usually I go through my 'basket case'. This basket is filled with things that make me miserable, such as all Riley's treasured possessions, photo albums, toys and letters sent to me after his death. I find them excruciatingly sad and bask in the melancholy feelings. I put on my saddest films, like Beaches, Steel Magnolias and Fried Green Tomatoes. I listen to all the music from my son's Funeral and eat chips and lolly snakes and ice-cream. Sometimes I smoke half a packet of cigarettes. It is miserable bliss. It keeps me 'normal' for a little while longer, gets all the disgusting thoughts about myself out until the next time. MMMMmm, something to look forward to you think!!

A little bit stressed

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. OK.. I feel stressed. I have been working really long hours, and knocking myself out to do what I think is an ok mediocre job. GOD teaching is so hard...it is never finished and never good enough for anyone!!!!!. This is the first time in a long time that I have let myself get sucked in to the absolute rubbish of super teacher. Unfortunately my school is full of them, and I will never be like them, so right now, starting today I say LET IT GO....somewhere off into oblivion my stress and angst about being a perfect teacher has been let free and materialised into nothingness. I say goodbye to that sucky part of myself that hates mediocre. Mediocre is great. I love mediocre. Long live mediocre....

25 things you don't know about me

1. I would have liked to have had lots and lots of children.

2. I like clean, fresh, cotton sheets, just off the line and straight on the bed.

3. I love to sleep in, but rarely ever do.

4. I would have liked to have been something quite shallow, like an artist, cafe owner, interior designer if I wasn't a teacher.

5. I have a book floating around in my head, which one day I will get some uninterrupted time to write.

6. I am very lazy, hate exercise, bicycle shorts and detest gymnasiums.

7. I have hundreds of books that I have only read half (or less) of.

8. I love nothing better than people watching. I can do it for hours.

9. I have never had a manicure or a pedicure, I don't understand nail polish at all.

10. I have a very short attention span and get bored easily.

11. I hate wearing bras. Any chance I get, it's off and thrown down in disgust.

12. I secretly love kiddie foods like macaroni cheese, finger buns, fairy bread, jelly, cookies with smiley faces on them, kinder eggs.....

13. I hate cold weather. Frost, snow, ice, sleet and fog are all the weather of the devil . He also invented scarfs, beanies, winter coats, thermal underwear and gloves; how hideous and impractical are these things??!!...

14. I love comfortable shoes, when I die I will be cremated in my birkenstocks.

15. I like nothing more than spending the whole day in my pyjamas. I can't remember the last time this actually happened, and as I write this I vowe to make it soon.

16. If I can't spend the whole day in my pj's, then I love to spend it in my togs and a sarong.

17. I like doing housework, even cleaning toilets gives me satisfaction. I love the feeling I get when the whole house is clean.

18. The only thing I like about winter is flanellette.....aaahhh flannellette is God's own gorgouesness. Flanno pyjamas and flanno sheets. Heaven.

19. I hate putting clean washing away. I like to wash, hang, fold and sort, but would prefer to have mountains of clean washing than actually get it put away.

20. I secretly dream of walk-in wardrobes and pantries.

21. I love stationery, paper, pens, pencils anything gorgeous that makes writing and organising fun.

22. My left eye is smaller than my right eye.

23. My left foot is bigger than my right foot. (balances out my eyes!)

24. People with bad grammar and elecution annoy me.

25. I swear a lot. I swear too much.

,

floods, fires and feeling sorry for one's self

To all those who read my winges and whines in the last post, let's just remember that life can be pretty tragic for some and my mojo doesn't even factor into it. In Australia we have had some devastating bush fires, well firestorms really, that have wiped out whole communities and caused a lot of emotional turmoil. The stories are too horrific and many people down south have suffered unspeakable terror. I am still getting my head around all this pain and suffering. Up north we have some floods that have caused alot of damage and taken possessions and lives with them. I get to sleep in my soft bed, shop in my local supermarket, cuddle my husband and son, and not have to worry about starting my life all over again.....and when teaching my lovelies, I don't have to take my baby on my back!! What a cutie he is!!!

P.S click on the firestorm picture to see it in more focus, it is humbling.....we really are a speck on humanity aren't we?

school is no longer cool

What is it about 23 six and seven year olds that can be so hard? You can spend your holidays dreaming about how wonderful you are going to be as a teacher and how positive and gentle and caring you are, the lovely work that is going to be produced and the glowing faces looking back at you in awe of your awesomeness and lovely teacher-ness......when the reality is that they are wanting to do as little as possible, cause as much trouble as possible and make you lose your cool every 5 seconds (not difficult when its 33 degrees in the classroom!) Yes OK I admit I have already lost my mojo and it is only two weeks in to the term. Last week I had cleptomaniac Lachlan who liked the look of the chocolates on my desk, all foil and bright colours, how could he resist? This was closely followed by the lunch down the toilet incident that made me quite angry, because flushing a friend's lunch is not what I call socially acceptable.....then there's the room, which as you can see was nice and fresh and clean and all educational looking. Now it is full of crumbs and spilt drinks and paint pots not washed up from Friday and mounds of marking on my desk and pens and pencils everywhere. I know....I have to get over it, just like every other year, get on with the task of being all the things I mentioned above.
A little anecdote: As it was my birthday I had two boxes of chocolates on my desk (minus a few that got stolen by lochy) from my lovely new colleagues. As teaching is very tiring and hot and robs you of any blood sugar, I was munching on said chocolates, well, grazing all day as and when the opportunity arose. One of my dear female lovelies was overheard saying to another lovely, "When I grow up I want to be a teacher just like Mrs F and eat chocolate all day"
If only.....

Weddings

I love a good wedding, especially a good non-church one. This is Ellena and Ged marrying on Nudgee Beach, with all their friends and family around them. Ellena is the daughter of dear friends, Bruce and Barb, we have known her since she was about 12 years old. She is a gentle and creative soul (like her parents) and her and Ged will have a very happy life together. Yesterday was a lovely relaxed day on the beach with everybody making a kite to fly in their honour, good food and wonderful company. Bliss...

Happy Australia Day Wherever you are!!!

Hi all. Don't know what you'll be doing, but my Australia Day will NOT include tinnies, test cricket or karaoke. Instead we will celebrate with some friends who live at Samford (a little bit out in the country), probably have some meat on the barbie and lots of champagne (not too much as I have my new lovelies arriving on Tues). Wherever you are, have a good one, and remember how lucky we are to be Australian, or conversely, how silly you are not to be!! Take it easy.

Frickin' clucky for creativity....

Well, it's back to work for me after five and a half weeks off. It was a brilliant holiday this time, not too much stress, and a real proper unwinding. Sometimes teachers can be very much like the old chooks above, the robot hens roost to kill any creativity.....that will not be me this year I can tell you matey!!! I will be frickin' Monet in that classroom if it kills me. I have been nesting around in my new classroom for a week now makin' it noice. Tuesday I receive my new little class of lovelies, so will take a pikkie of my fresh new creativity-filled zone before the lovelies move in.

Gardening is good for the soul.

Gardening is a source of joy for me. I love to potter around and water, pull out the occasional opportunistic weed and just sit and look at the garden. We have a very small garden, but we make optimal use of every square centimetre. My garden is an endless source of aesthetic beauty and relaxation. It is not formal, but whimsical and ephemeral , changing and evolving over time. It is a garden that feeds my creative and artistic needs.

A beautiful mess. By no means minimal and stark, but full to the brim with bits and pieces of natural beauty, including lichen infested boulders, driftwood, sculptures, statues and miriads of random pots and plants. We are very lucky that we live in a sub-tropical environment where devine things like palms, ferns, bromeliads, citrus, cacti, frangipani, bouganvillea, ginger, olive trees, heliconias, birds of paradise and hibiscus can thrive with little or no maintenance, and our garden is full to overflowing with all of these things. Occasionally we have a little anxiety about where we are going to get the water to keep them alive.....and then we have one of our Summer Storms and the water tanks fill with lovely cloud juice.

Tonight we had lovely long-waited for rain and the garden has really licked it all up. I am back at work this week, so am feeling a bit sad that I won't be able to just sit in my big comfy chairs and look at my garden for hours at a time.

clutterbug

I have become, over the years, a woman of many collections. I collect lots of clutter, which of course are little reminders of passionate interests, places visited and experiences lived, but not lost, because I have a little tangible trigger that sits on a shelf.

I have a very small and very cluttered house. I think, the more the merrier when it comes to collections and things of beauty, so find it exciting to find a new and interesting place to store my lovelies!.

I love to look at my collections, regroup them, sometimes by colour, texture, topic or derived place; move them around the house and look at them again. I have never photographed them before, but realise how much I actually have when I see these pictures.

I have hand-painted plates, poetry books, art books, hats, cherubs, vases, Venetian masks and glass, paintings and sculpture that make reference to the female form or fertility, all manner of jugs, Moroccan metalware, Mexican folk art pieces, rocks (just nice looking little pieces of earth picked up in various places around the world), gemstones, antique glass bottles, candelabra, costume jewellery, and gemstone jewellery. To me they are all things of great beauty and aesthetic appeal, simply, they are my treasures. Every one has a story (except the rocks, for which I can't possibly remember the origin of, but they look great all together) and I can usually recall the story of each one in detail. This is insanely boring for everyone else, but a source of joy and delight for me. I have often thought of writing the story of each collection in a published work.

Buddha's Belly (a poem)

The dust settles

but I see through

and into a familiar comfortable world

a spark of memory

makes it shine

old friends

rubbed like the belly of Buddha

for luck or old times

a longing for better clarity

relived momentarily