Weekend Coffee Share…26th May, 2024.

Welcome to Another Weekend Coffee Share.

How are you? I hope you are well and are having a great weekend.

Things for me have slowed down through the last week as I had my flu and pneumococcal vaccine last Tuesday and I’ve been a bit under the weather since. Despite feeling like I’d been punched in both arms on Wednesday, I headed back to see my exercise physiologist, and wasn’t too bad. The dreaded sit-to-stands are getting easier and my capacity is improving. Shortness of breath is still problematic, but that’s what I’m there for. My physio is very encouraging.

The next paragraph touches on thoughts of suicide but also the very kind intervention of strangers who saved her life.

I’ve been doing quite a lot of reading, particularly recovering from the vaccine. I can’t recall whether I’d finished Julie Goodwin’s memoir: Your Time Starts Now last week. She is Australia’s first MasterChef and despite her professional success, she had a few bouts of acute depression, anxiety and is a reformed alcoholic. She also came very close to taking her life but was spotted by some strangers who spent a couple of hours with her and then she called her husband and went to hospital. She has such a loving close-knit family and she’s such a lovely person and through the book, she walks you through her thought processes and it’s a very helpful insight into someone who is so successful and has it all on the outside, but being brought down by this grueling disease. I have also just finished reading Wendy Harmer’s Lies My Mirror Told Me. Wendy Harmer has achieved so much that I couldn’t possibly do her justice here, so I recommend you click on the link. By the way, these books tie in together well not just because they’ve been written by women of a certain age, but they’re both highly creative, highly successful but have overcome a few significant hurdles and haven’t always stayed on the horse.

I also finished off a little pouch I made on the spur of the moment, but which took more than a moment to finish off. Even if you’re not into craft and I am only a very new recruit myself, I thought I’d go into how I put it together and a few of the challenges I faces. The white “flower” (or is it a diamond?) was cut out of a doily I bought at the local thrift shop. I had a piece of hot pink felt which came from a swag of fabrics from my grandmother’s cousin who is a retired top-end dressmaker and fashion designer. I was trying to decide quite what to do with it as it wasn’t a bit piece of felt and I was trying to decide whether to cut it in half or make a pouch. There wasn’t enough to make a bag. I settled on the pouch and though I could put business cards in it, which are currently floating round in drawers beside my chair, along with brainwaves scribbled onto snippets of paper, which are generated all around the house. Having worked that out, I decided to join it together with blanket stitch, which wasn’t as easy as I’d thought and I really struggled to keep my stitches even. So, you could say the pouch has a “rustic appeal”. Or that in might’ve been done by a second-grader. However, my question is whether AI could’ve done a better, or even perfect job? No doubt it could and already does, but which has more appeal? More heart? What are your thoughts?

Anyway, here I am walking through the creation of what really should’ve been a a quick and easy project for the experienced crafter, but that’s not me and I had to really put some thought into the next step…how to attach the white flower onto the felt. I was tending towards glue, but that can get messy but not as messy as my stitching. So I consulted the person who seems to know everything about everything and the penultimate “Mr Fix-it”. He recommended using an iron-on glue patch. Very nifty but also a bit scary. What if you make a mistake? Glue it the wrong way? Stick it to the iron? Or, if the iron burns and destroys my precious creation? But before all that could be put to the test, we had to work out where to buy the patch and eventually Geoff arrived home with the goods. He also recommended I have a practice run. Good thinking 99! (BTW I can also be a bit goofy like Maxwell Smart). So, as you can see, it worked out well in the end and I’m pretty chuffed. Moreover, I beat a bit more of my annoying perfectionism and consequent procrastination into submission, and I guess that’s what I wanted to particularly share with you,

Do you struggle with perfectionism? Or perhaps, you’ve experienced avoidance which can easily go hand in hand? Do you have any strategies for overcoming it?

Well, I’ll have to leave it there for now, as time has run away from me again.

This has been another Weekend Coffee Share hosted by Natalie the Explorer– thank you very much!

Best wishes,

Rowena

New Vision – My Word for 2024.

Years ago, when I was reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love, I was introduced to the idea of having a word to sum up the new year. This was seen as an alternative to the grand tradition of setting resolutions we generally never implement, let alone keep. I quite fancied the idea and a few of my friends also got into it, and my word every year has been “ACTION”.

“Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”

-Thomas Jefferson

Action was a very appropriate word for me. I’m a classic procrastinator and for some bizarre reason I’ve never understood, I’ve even struggled to implement the good stuff, let alone the tough or undesirable. Of course, I’ve been busy and I have had some not insignificant personal achievements, but also some significant gaps, voids and dare I mention the dreaded F word…FAILURES. However, when it comes to my forever life goal of not only writing a book but also getting it published and being successful, I want to write a book that makes a difference and inspires ideally millions of people. So, perhaps it’s not so strange I haven’t pulled it off yet. I am trying to be the top of the top before I’ve even written a word on the page. Pretty daunting, isn’t it?!! No wonder I’ve been too daunted to get started and have reworked and reworked the first few lines of this epic tale in my poor exhausted brain for over a decade without putting pen to paper or tap tap tapping away. I am a good writer, but to be a writer you need to write and to be an author you need to write a book. That’s who I really want to be. I have quite a few book projects in various stages of development, but the one I really want to write and which is the toughest of all and the most meaningful and important concerns how I have survived my acute health challenges and this is how I can be there for so many who are doing it tough and hopefully in a personal and intimate way through my published words where I can reach so many more people than talking one-on-one. But can I make it just as meaningful and effective? I don’t know, but next year is my year. Our daughter has finished school and I’m finally a free agent moving beyond the obligations of being a school parent, which somehow included driving her to and from school from the first to the very last day with only occasional trips on the bus.

Anyway, I’d forgotten all about choosing my word for the new year until I was trying on some new glasses in Specsavers a few days ago and I sent the above photo of me in my new frames to some friends saying I was “getting new vision for the new year”. It was actually a bit of a joke, but I realized there was a deeper meaning. My glasses were long overdue for a replacement. They’re badly scratched, and as I found out, the prescription for reading had changed which explained why I was taking my glasses off to use my phone and read. Of course, I blamed the glasses and not my deteriorating eyesight for this nuisance. Moreover, just to add to the mess, I don’t clean my glasses very often and they often look like they’ve been smeared with Vaseline. Buying new glasses is such a grudge purchase, especially s I’ve always hated wearing glasses and they are so expensive. Yet, procrastination on this front doesn’t do wonders for visual acuity or my sense of vision.

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”

-Helen Keller

Yet, vision goes well beyond sight. Indeed, one of my friends who is legally blind sees physical objects some of us (particularly me) miss. She notices things about people others miss. None of us, her included, can work it out, but there is a greater force at work here and I’m not really referring to God. I’m talking about seeing beyond seeing. For some of you, that won’t make a lot of sense. However, perhaps you know what I mean. Vision is particularly important when it comes to understanding and perceiving who we are as an essence and beyond our job description, family situation and particularly how much money we have in the bank.

“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”

Woodrow Wilson

Moreover, it’s not just what you see with your eyes. As strange as this might sound, it also includes what we sense through our feet which can be used as a second set of eyes especially in the dark. That might be something which I experience more personally, because I live right near the beach and frequently walk barefoot on the sand, and get my feet wet in the waves. I also go barefoot on rocks, grass, and on the carpet and tiles at home. Somehow, what I sense with my feet also informs my vision and how I interpret the world around me. I am also a spiritual being and that is integral to every part of me. All these factors combine to give me sharper more in-tune vision and it’s an integrated thing.

“In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision.”

Dalai Lama

By the way, I also wanted to share that I’ve been doing quite a lot of work on myself in 2023 and mostly not by choice. My lung function plummeted, and I’ve been flat out trying to put off having a lung transplant by going to a rehab gym twice a week for the last three months and having an infusion called rituximab which wiped out my B cells to reduce inflammation. Goes to show that even a legendary procrastinator like myself can switch into gear and get moving when their life depends on it. I have lost over 20 kilos and done a massive clean-up of the house which is still just the tip of the iceberg and by the way, this cleanup is also helping my vision cause I can see what’s here much better now.

I love watching clouds and seeing them reflected in the shallows on the sand.

I have largely achieved this by becoming more conscious and intentional of how I’m spending my time, what I’m eating and also exercising and moving about more. While it seems logical that big problems need big solutions, it can equally be true that a series of small steps can amalgamate into significant change and this is what James Clear argues in Atomic Habits, which has really helped me radically change my life.

By the way, it just belated struck me that having clear vision is all about being conscious and intentional.

Here I am on the exercise bike at rehab. Go girl!

It also involves your identity and how you perceive yourself. For this reason, I called myself an “exercise fanatic” when I started out at the rehab gym and I deliberately bought active wear and wore my joggers so I would look and feel the part. I even managed to pick up a Nike t-shirt with “Just Do It” printed on the front. That slogan was definitely meant for me. No more overthinking, procrastination or avoidance. Just do it, and I largely have.

Thankfully, my lungs have improved enough to put off the lung transplant for now.

So, now I’m left with reinventing myself needing to keep up the good work and maintain the gains I’ve made. Our daughter is moving out in January to study ballet full time and hopefully both the kids will have their driving licences very soon and I’ll be liberated from taxi duties. We are hoping to spend a few months in Europe if I’m up to it and in addition to the book project, I’m wanting to get a part-time job and look into doing some freelance journalism. Lastly, I’m also looking at expanding my social circle and finding my tribe, whatever that entails.

I must say working on all of this has been very illuminating, and it has given my vision greater clarity. But, and indeed there’s always a but and it’s usually in capital letters, bold huge print…

BUT

Implementation, persistence, commitment and dare I say it ACTION are the oxygen which sees vision become reality.

“It was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through.”

-Zig Ziglar

For me, this means setting a time and place for writing my book every day. It means setting a time and place for doing my exercise everyday. Reading my Bible and praying everyday as well (and not like a robot either). It means planning my week so the essentials are in the schedule and I’m prioritising. It means writing lists and making sure I don’t lose them and have that satisfaction of ticking things off and knowing I’m making progress. I also need to make sure life has fun, and I’m not squeezing the screws too tight. Vision doesn’t mean perfection. Hey, after all we’re still human and having a vision of ourselves as human beings, not as human doings or as all conquering super heroes. rather, being a bit scruffy can be a good and desirable thing. Otherwise, we’d be a machine.

Do you have a word for 2024 or perhaps so resolutions? Also, any thoughts about clarifying and working towards your vision? If so, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Meanwhile, I’d like to wish you and yours a Visionary New Year.

Love,

Rowena

P- Perfectionism…A-Z Challenge.

“Tomorrow, I will get it right.”

– Rowena Curtin (Myself)

Perfectionism is not a good topic to be tackling when I’ve dropped my bundle with the A-Z April Blogging Challenge and am goodness knows how many days behind.

“My advice is to never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.”

– Charles Dickens

For those of you unfamiliar with the April Blogging A-Z Challenge, you write through the alphabet to a theme and post every day except Sunday. In previous years, I’ve really got stuck into the challenge and even exceeded expectations writing in the vicinity of 55,000 words last year. However, this year, I’m so deeply embroiled in my book research and writing, that I’m struggling to put one foot in front of the other let alone juggle the challenge on top.

Of course, I could just stop. Not finish this year.

That isn’t a crime and the powers that be from the A-Z Challenge, are hardly going to throw me in jail or hit me with a hefty fine. No one else is pointing a gun at my head either, including myself. If being involved is just going to stress me out and distract me from the book, walking away even makes sense. I could even take the dogs with me and head down to the beach. I don’t have to do this.

However, I am actually learning a lot through writing this series and thinking through the quotes and how they apply to my current book project and who I am simply as a person.

After all, we don’t always feel like jumping out of bed and even seizing that lifesaving cup of coffee can be a struggle and it’s helpful to look at those moments as well as celebrating our triumphs.

Besides, I particularly wanted to address perfectionism along with what I am coming to acknowledge its close ally…procrastination. Indeed, these days I’m starting to wonder just how many of those good for nothing lazy layabouts are actually perfectionists too afraid of making a mistake and have a go? How many of us are sitting on work we know is good but haven’t taken further because it’s “not there yet”? Where is “there”? Is that absolutely perfection?

I’m not sure whether this quote helps with that but at least it made me smile:

“Have no fear of perfection. You’ll never reach it.”

Salvador Dali.

“I have to say that I’ve always believed

perfectionism is more of a disease than a

quality. I do try to go with the flow but I can’t

let go.”

Rowan Atkinson

“We must understand the need for

perfectionism is a corrosive waste of time,

because nothing is ever beyond criticism. No

matter how many hours you spend to render

something flawless, somebody will always be

able to find fault with it.”

-Elizabeth Gilbert

Now, I’ll leave you with the warnings of Drew Barrymore:

“When things are perfect, that’s when you need

to worry most.”

How do you overcome perfectionism? Or, does it still hold you in it’s grasp? On the other hand, there must be those of you who simply couldn’t be bothered and subscribe to a different creed: “Near enough is good enough”.

Best wishes,

Rowena

 

 

Leaping into 2018!

Happy New Year!

When it comes to setting New Year’s resolutions this year, I’m as vague as.

While the calendar might be saying we’ve already launched into another year, I’m on Summer holidays and the motor’s barely running. That is, unless it involves leaving the air-conditioned loungeroom, and ducking in and out of the kitchen (which has aptly been renamed: “The Furnace” and that’s with the oven off!) for supplies. My current NY resolution seems to involve indulging in Maggie Beer ice cream. It’s one of those more exclusive gourmet ice creams which come in the smaller tubs, yet costs more than a tub of good ice cream). I’ve also been enjoying a few Ferro Rocher’s. Yum! I blame the dazzling gold packaging for that, along with a chilhood of sneaking teaspoons of Nutella out of the fridge.

Clearly, being naughty seems to be at the very top of my list for 2018!

My New year truly begins when school goes back. That’s when the rubber hits the road and reality hits.

Mum’s taxi.

In the meantime, I have set myself a deceptively ambitious project for 2018, which started today.

Being magnetically attracted to the Swedish stationery shop Kiki K, I bought myself two notebooks for Christmas. One is a 365 photo journal where you paste in a photo a day. The other has a blank page for each day. Obviously, they serve a similiar function, but one is just photography while I’ll focus on writing and might even venture into drawing in the other.

Of course, I felt very inspired by these journals when they were battering their eyelids at me from the shelf, even though I could see right from the start, that committing to print out the photos was going to be an obvious hurdle. After all, I don’t think I’ve printed out any photos in the last six months and I’m terribly behind. Clearly, there’s a problem Houston. Everybody taks about setting realistic goals. Not goals that said you straight over the top of Everest barefoot in your bikini.

The next obstacle might seem silly to you, if you’re one of those very good little urchins who really does have “a place for everything and everything in its place. However, losing the journals is a serious concern for me. Indeed, it’s only January 1 (well it is in some parts of the world and I’ve decided to migrate there for a few hours because I haven’t got started yet and I’ve already misplaced the books. Indeed, I’ve even managed to misplace the books while I’m home alone. Well, home alone with three dogs. Before you go blaming the pups, despite continuously chewing anything in and out of reach, they leave plenty of evidence in their wake. So, if they’d eaten my journals, there would’ve been proof…loads of scrap paper alongside the disembowled cushion, which was clearly deceased.

By the time I reach the third obstacle, you’re probably thinking I should wrap these journals up and give them away. Spare myself 365 days of angst bordering on anguish, while I struggle to live up to yet another unattainable dream. Yes, for yours truly, the simplest things in life, usually turn out to be the most complex. After all, who else has a simple electrical cable blow up in a puff of flame and smoke while their husband and ultimate Mr Fix-it is way on holidays? I don’t need anyone else to tell me I’m jinxed. I already know.

However, despite all of these short-comings, I am an optimist. I am an optimist to the core and despite all evidence to the contrary and although it might be piled up all around me and starting to teeter and totter, I still believe that I can do it. I will do it and I’ll love doing it and possibly even better still, will love reading back on it down the track and seeing what 2018 was all about.

Yet, when it comes to 2018, at the moment, all but the first page remains a blank.

I’m not sure whether I should be excited or terrified by that. While the last couple of years for us have had their ups and downs, it’s been awhile since we’ve had what the Queen so aptly termed an “annus horribulis” A year so bad, that you’re catapulting into the next with no turning back. That door is shut. Shut shut.

There’s much we can do to improve our chances of having a better year, as well as things we can do to make it worse. At times, it is too easy to forget that we have quite a lot of agency and aren’t just hapless victims of fate. However, it is much easier to take our chances and wing it and complain when the house of cards topples over.

Anyway, as I said, all  but the first page of 2018, remains a blank book. I don’t know if that’s how the rest of you see it, but that’s how it seems to me.

Our daughter starts high school in a month.

That’s a fresh start, at least for her and it will free me up, because I’ll no longer be running her to and from the station everyday. She’ll be local.

That is itself is reason to jump and leap in the air.

That’s liberated me to think about returning to paid work. Well, as long as my health doesn’t pack it in. I’m going to contact a recruitment agency which specialises in disability placement. I think I’m my own worst enemy on this front and need to start talking myself up, rather than regurgitating exhaustive mental lists of all my inadequacies. I’d be fuming at anyone else who talked themselves down like this, and yet I do it to myself. So many of us do.

Perhaps, “be nice to self and throttle that inner critic” could be a very good goal for 2018. Not just for myself. I know so many people who are being held back by themselves in this way. Shooting themselves in both feet before they’ve even walked out the door! Perhaps, we all need to get some bullet proof shoes AND to make sure we wear them!

I’m also trying to keep a clear head and house this year to keep focusing.

Strangely, I actually managed to get about 6 bags of household rubbish out beside the road tonight and booked a council clean up. This has been much easier with the rest of the family away. It simply needed to happen. BTW a few bags of kids clothes also headed North with the family, so I’ve actually made quite a bit of headway.

I also managed to give the dogs their worm and flea treatments. We’re going to be on top of that this year. 1st of the month every month.

Indeed, in 2018, we’re going to become a clockwork family, with all of our components working in synch…a well-oiled machine.

Oh no we’re not!

That’s why we write, dance, sing and sail off against the wind.

We don’t want time to be our master and we don’t want our hearts to beat like a clock, but with expression.

While that might take us against the flow and we might miss a few beats and wander right of track, that’s what it means to be human and perhaps that’s the best resolution each of us can make for 2018.

I am going to be a human being.

What are your thoughts about routine, schedules and goals? How do you try to reach a balance?

I look forward to hearing from you!

xx Rowena

Compassion…it’s Complicated.

Around 18 months ago, I joined a revolutionary blogging network called: “One Thousand Voices for Compassion”. We not only write about compassion, empathy and trying to make the world a better and more connected place, we try to take that out into the real world and translate these thoughts into action. Naturally, we feel a strong need for compassion, or we wouldn’t be part of the group.

This month, we’re addressing whether compassion is innate or learned. Are we born caring about the welfare of others or is it something we learn along the way?

While I could’ve written this from my gut, instead I fleetingly perused “the science”, which seemed to support that we’re at least born with some level of compassion and that our life experiences can either nurture or diminish our compassionate selves . If you’d like to read more about the nature versus nurture debate, there’s some recommended reading.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/feeling-it/201306/compassion-our-first-instinct

The Compassionate Instinct

This leaves me doing my usual thing of exploring yet another tangent, looking at why people don’t help or respond to someone’s pain, loss, discomfort…you get the gist. Why do people do nothing?

More pertinently, why do I do nothing?

That’s right. I’m just as guilty as everyone else. No matter how hard we try, people fall through our cracks, even when we know they’re falling through a dark abyss. Even though we love these people with all of our hearts.

For those of us who are part of this 1000 Voices for Compassion Movement, these personal failings are even more frustrating. After all, we are striving to be that compassionate caring person… the Good Samaritan who stops and takes care of that person in need…not the person who walks past. We think from our hearts, not from our heads and would be willing to leap tall buildings in a single bound for anyone in trouble.

So, why can’t we do it? Why can’t we always be the person we’re striving to be?

The trouble is we’re only human. That as much as we might strive to be that superhero…Don the cape, flex out muscles and take to the skies,  we have so many limitations, frailties and who hasn’t ended up somehow paralyzed and glued to the spot in a stressful situation . Who hasn’t forgotten to phone a friend when you know the proverbial’s hit the fan?

Guilty as charged.

Compassion guilt…send me straight to jail…directly to jail. Do no pass Go. Do not collect $200.

BUT…

We can’t be in two places at once. We can’t clone ourselves and even help everyone in our own backyards, let alone to try to save the world as we would like.

That learns us having to make choices.

Or, circumstances can also dictate our response.

This brings me back to what I’ve written before about being kind to ourselves. Understanding and being compassionate to ourselves when we don’t live up to our own principles, ideologies, which includes fighting whatever negative stuff someone else might send our way when we let them down. We’ve done our best and even when we haven’t, know we can take that life lesson back to the drawing board and hope to be a better friend or person next time.

I am rushing this through to get this up before the link closes. So I hope it make sense. I’ll be back to straighten up the rough edges.

Or, perhaps writing rough is good enough, after all.

Well, at least once and awhile.

This has been part of 1000 Voices for Compassion and if you’d like to read other contributions, please click on the Linky.

xx Rowena

PS: I just came across a great hymn “Brighten the Corner Where You Are” over at Ann’s Corner. It guess it’s a precursor to a great slogan from our times: “Think global. Act local.” https://annofgg.com/2015/03/07/anns-corner/

Waffling About Perfection.

How long has it taken me to actually use my waffle machine for its intended purpose and actually make waffles?

I’m not telling. This is a blog, NOT a confessional!

While I’ve crushed, fried and crunchified boiled potatoes in the waffle iron before, I’ve NEVER ever made a waffle. Yet, tonight I finally walked the plank, jumped over the edge and straight into the raging waves only to find absolute calm…still waters!

The waffles worked. Were delicious! I succeeded!

So why have I put it off for so long?

Of course, you know why. You know the crazy reason why. I’ve been too scared. Scared I’d make a mistake and botch them up.

That’s right. I’ve been yet another a paralyzed perfectionist.

How about you? Are you also guilty as charged?

There’s nothing more annoying than a perfectionist who isn’t perfect…especially when it’s yourself!

Perfectionism is a sneaky, cunning beast. It doesn’t knock on your front door and announce its arrival. It doesn’t have flashing neon lights with ringing sirens either. Instead, it silently sneaks in through the back door and creeps up on you from behind and grabs you by the throat.

It also gets you busy. In the case of the waffles, it threw a bamboozling array of recipes at me, followed by a plethora of different waffle irons and that was before we’d even considered toppings. By this stage, there so  many rats going round and round in spinning wheels inside my head, for me to do anything.

Although it might be cliched, paralysis by analysis is real. Too many cogs spinning all at once and your exhausted, over-worked brain is blowing a gasket. Boom! Bang! Crash!

So, as I said, I made waffles for the first time tonight and they were great. Covered in creamy vanilla ice cream and maple syrup dripping off the fork…So yum!

Why on earth did I put it off for so long?

The Lutheran Church in Wollongong put this recipe book together in the aftermath of WWII. Having members from a multitude of European countries, some being enemies at home, the idea of the cookbook was to bring people together and sharing recipes is a great way to start.

We didn’t have a waffle machine growing up at home. Even though I ended up using my grandmother’s recipe to make our waffles tonight, she’d never made them for me either. I found the recipe in a Church cookbook she’d edited back in the 1950s. Of course, all the measurements were in “ancient” and had to be translated. I also wondered whether I really did have to separate the eggs, or whether I should use a simpler recipe, which just throws the ingredients together? I chose the complicated path, hoping for fluffier waffles and I used my egg beater as well. It’s also ancient.

As I was saying, we didn’t have a waffle machine growing up and I have to admit that making the waffles, was like magic. The batter looked just like pancake mix and I admit that as I spread it over the waffle iron, I doubted it could actually make a waffle and I had that child-like sense of wonder, when I opened up the machine, and found the sculptured waffles cooking inside.

Abracadabra!…Waffles!

I’m proud of my waffles. Not just because they were good, but also because in tackling that challenge, I crossed a new frontier…just like an explorer crossing a mountain for the very first time. I did it. I actually extended my wings and allowed myself to leave my cage and truly soar.

While making waffles might only be a small step for woman and nowhere near actually landing on the moon, all these steps add up and could ultimately build a ladder. You never know.

So, in case you want to follow in my esteemed footsteps, here’s Grandma’s Waffle Recipe:

My Grandmother’s Waffle Recipe taken from the “Around the World With Cooking” Cookbook.

Grandma’s Waffle Recipe

250g Plain Flour

Pinch salt

1 teas Baking Powder

1 generous cup of milk and a splash (270 mls)

2 eggs, separated.

50g melted butter.

Directions

1. Start preparing the batter about an hour before required.
2. Take eggs out of the fridge 30 mins beforehand and at room temperature.
3. Sift flour & salt into a basin. Make a well in the centre.
4. Separate eggs and put the whites aside.
5. Beat egg yolks and add hald the milk. Pour into the flour and mix into a smooth batter, gradually stirring in the rest of the milk.
6. Beat mixture and allow to stand for an hour.
7. 15 minutes before the mix is ready to cook, beat egg whites until stiff. Put aside.
8. Once the hour is up, add the melted butter to the mixture and then stiffly beaten egg whites and baking powder.
9. Spray waffle iron with oil or butter and have it hot to make the waffles.

Enjoy!

By the way, just to encourage you and humble myself a little further, when I went to reheat my cup of tea in the microwave, I found the melted butter for the waffle mix in there. That’s right. I’d left it out. This could explain why the waffles weren’t quite as crunchy as expected, but I’d instinctively added butter to the machine for the second batch.

Have you ever made waffles? How does your recipe compare to mine and do you have any tips and topping suggestions to share?

I look forward to hearing from you!

xx Rowena

My Grandparents.

Battling for A Little Respect…

Whether you call it disability, chronic illness, race, poverty, being different, special or unique; there’s no excuse for bullying, bashing and being outright rude.

You would think that supposed “weakness” would bring out the best in people with outpourings of love, compassion and support. That we would take those people doing it tough, usually through no fault of their own, into our hearts and just love them. Water them with the essence of human kindness so they could be strengthened, encouraged and nurtured to maximise an inner strength and shine like the radiant sunflowers, they, I mean, WE are.

Indeed, so many people I know who are living with chronic illness or disability, have an inner strength and determination which would humble an ox.

Yet, too often they are written off.

Or, they become celebrated for their incredible achievements as individuals. However, when you look around people living with chronic illness or disability, these feats are not uncommon. Indeed, they/we push ourselves so much further than the average Joe.

However, it seems to me that too many people take delight in bashing and putting down anybody who doesn’t fit into the straight-jacket of the perceived social norm.

You don’t even really need to be disabled…just having a bad day.

For so many, there is no “margin of error”. No compassion for difference or even an understanding that we all have different strengths and weaknesses.

We must all squeeze into that social straight-jacket no matter who we are or what’s going on and not flinch.
But tell me, who really fits into these suffocating confines and doesn’t twitch or suddenly feel the impulse to wriggle, scratch an itch or just plain run away?!!

Yesterday, I took my daughter to the movies to see the latest Disney classic: Inside Out. While this should have been a simple outing, as is often the case with me, it unraveled completely and I was freaking out.

For some reason, although I can write well and be an ideas person, I seriously struggle with the detailed nitty gritty. While trying to simply buy the movie tickets, I came unstuck. Indeed, as bad luck conspired against me, I sank deeper and deeper into what was rapidly becoming a never-ending abyss.

An incredible movie: A must See!!!

For starters, our son was also supposed to come to the movie but couldn’t get himself together in time and was left behind. Our daughter misses out on enough and I was determined to get her there no matter what. I’d promised to take her to this movie and after being sick all holidays, time was almost up. Nothing was going to stand in our way!!

So, while I’m standing in the queue, I check my wallet and realise the $50.00 note I’d expected to be there had gone up in flames and I had no notes. Not immediately concerned, I went to the coins. They can quickly add up. However, it was just my typical @#$% rotten luck that a very tiny paper receipt had wedged itself into the zipper and even applying brute force, I couldn’t rip it open. This is a very special handmade wallet I’d bought at Byron Bay so I wasn’t wanting to wreck it but with all this frustration, I was fuming.

Just to put you in the picture, we weren’t at some huge mega cinema in the heart of Sydney with extensive queues pouring out onto George Street. Rather, we were at our small, local independent cinema and there were only a handful of people in the queue with two people serving. It’s a very relaxed, chilled place with personalised service…everything but a pianist playing before the start of the movie.

By this stage, we were at the counter and I was funneling coins through the gap in the zip and was standing there like a kid who’d just tipped their moneybox all over the counter rather than a 40 something Mum, who isn’t on the poverty line.

In retrospect, I certainly wasn’t doing my deep breathing exercises…just the reverse. My stress levels had blown a gasket and I was all but paralysed and couldn’t think straight. My mind went absolutely blank and non function mentis. This is just the point in time where you are praying for someone, anyone, to come to your rescue. Ask: “Can I help you?”

Instead, this @#$% woman calls out from the queue: “Can’t you just hurry up?”

I explained, I think, politely that I have a disability and flashed my disability Companion Card and I can’t remember what she said next but I can assure you that there wasn’t one ounce of compassion in that @#$% and she told me I was making a fool of myself. To which I replied (thank you to three years of blogging which have sharpened my ability to express myself): “You don’t know how hard it is for me just to take my daughter to the cinema.” The girl serving directed the woman to the other counter where I’m sure she was quickly served.

At this point, I realised I was going to have to use EFTPOS. This should have been a no-brainer right from the start but there was a $20.00 minimum withdrawal and the ticket cost $13.00, which meant spending $7.00 on lollies. While I might spend that on chocolate at the supermarket, the thought of blowing so much money at the cinema just so I could get our tickets, flummoxed me. With the fumbling and foggy brain only getting worse, I resorted to EFTPOS and bought my daughter the Inside Out Combo. This includes a drink, popcorn and chocolate bar for some ungodly sum. She then chooses water as her drink, which might have been healthy but it’s the most expensive glass of water we’ve ever had.

Meanwhile, the woman who’d argued with me came and made a sincere apology, which helped but even an hour after the movie had ended, I was still feeling teary and shattered. Sometimes, it’s not just a matter of forgiveness. There is damage. She might not have swung a punch but her words were a form of assault and I was left feeling battered and bruised…not to mention DEFECTIVE.!!

Saying sorry can’t always undo the damage. It is done.

That said, perhaps she also has her struggles. Who am I to make presumptions… as tempting as it might be?!!
This isn’t the first time I’ve had trouble and it won’t be the last. While I could go underground, I will get back out there again. Have another go. That said, not everyone does. They’d much rather stay home and I really get that. It can all be too hard. There are just too many obstacles to fight.

When you reach out and touch someone’s hand, you are really warming their soul.

Well, if that’s you, I send you my love and an enormous hug. Together, I pray that each day with small, even tentative moves that we can find our way over the gap…even if it is just to remind people that you don’t need to be perfect to be a valued part of the human race!

You just are!

Love and blessings,
Rowena