Hard to believe

I have struggled for 4 months almost to get back into my blog and finally I or someone has done something that is right.
I have seen many blogs since that time, and have considered whether I want this to be an emotional/personal journal or make it more hobby related, but for now I think this is my emotional data base.
Today has been a catch up sleep day. After watching the effects of sleeplessness I have really experienced it, in great frustration.
It is always a risk to say that you do not sleep on nights when there are full moons. Your medical friends are only too ready to tell you about the connections with luna, lunatics and the activity in Casualty centers on those night.

Well the moon may not affect my mood, but it surely effects my sleeping patterns. It would also seem that it is stronger at the change of the season. I must try and check to see if this is scientific.

It makes great sense to me that if the moon can cause enormous changes in tides, then it can affect something as small as my mind. I am a creation of the creator of the universe and my faith would say that there must be more connections than my mind may ever comprehend.

Suffice to say I am wearied of being awake until 5.30 am, and needed to be up and in the shower in under 2 hours, or to go to sleep at 7.30 am and then need to sleep all day. I had two sleepless nights, one night of good sleep, and then another of insomnia.

So needing to go out the next day I medicate with all that is available and reasonable. To little effect. How grateful I am that I arranged for a driver. One thing I would not do is go out in major traffic for long periods after sleepless nights, or taking major amounts of medication.

Then is the balance of chronic fatigue which somehow seems to be the other side of the coin.
So today I have slept, late and well. Had a late brunch and slept again till 5.30 pm. Hopefully tonight I will sleep again.

How much we underrate the simple everyday things such as sleep

And rain.

Heavenly Father You have told us to repent and to call upon you, that we have not because we ask not and I ask for safe steady rain to come to our land of Australia, especially the drought areas, but to fill our dams and water storage areas. This is in Your hands not ours, so grant us the blessing of safe steady constant rain.

Yes it would be nice that it be mainly at night. But teach us a sense of thankfulness when the rain comes rather than the grumbles if we have more than one grey day at a time . Help us to see the need of the grey and to be thankful.

Hot is hellish

Is there anything more unpleasant to the person who is adjusted to temperate weather than constant hot days and glorious hot sunshine. Yes it would be glorious without the temperature. The bamboo tells me first that it is distressed. The leaves shrivel to pin sized pathetic pale green pieces of distress. Yet to walk out there and hold a hose is almost to miserable to comprehend.
Maybe I shall wake around 5 am and be able to go out while it is warm but dark enough to not be so oppressive.
Almost the end of Summer and in it comes with a vengeance.
My body too is affected as are the plants. It aches, cramps and makes doing what is normal intolerable.
Oh for the blessing of safe steady rains again. May we yet have some filling of our catchment areas and may it be a normal winter with rains.
Of course one would always prefer Camelot rain........That which comes at night when we are snuggled safe into our cots and can listen to its soothing sound on the roof.
Oh the blessing of the desert blooming.
May this great south land yet have the abundance of water but in safe measure, yet in constant enough rhythms to enable us to gain on the drought, to recover and to even entrench on those desert areas. May we have the blessing of seeing the desert bloom.

And may our bodies and inner beings also know Divine refreshment of the Holy Spirit........May we reach to the desert around us with healing and refreshment as we overflow with the richness of living water.

Living in an altered time zone

It seems an impossibility to make my time zone equate to the one in which my physical being lives. I am somehow quite removed from the notions of living according to a normal clock routine now that I seldom actually must be at a certain place in a certain time.

It was with an amazing amount of shock that I saw the time 5 am pass my eyes as I turned off my bedside light last night.
But then, did it really matter.
Well I guess it does to those who want me to dress and join them for coffee.

blogged out

woe is I, for I have been locked out in the cold......lonely and speechless.
But blogger has triumphed and won through the barricades and I have a voice again.
What did I intend to say?
Well that remains a mystery for the margins of memory.
No doubt it was worthless, or it shall return in due time.

Another day another dollar, another year another birthday.

Well yesterday was meant to be a day of celebration, however it turned out to be a day governed by Asthma and a congested lung deciding that enough was enough.

Then a night that was comprised of 45 mins of sleep and the rest of the night devoted to attempting to sleep.

However I managed to be at Church on time to have final music rehearsal for the back up worship leading group. Just the best choice of songs.........so joyful to sing and one of the lovely old hymns with one of those top soprano notes that it is a joy to find one can still belt out with not just enthusiasm but correct pitch and sound.

So home to catch up on sleep.

Glorious gentle summer temperatures which was wonderful when spotlights are making the stage a hot place to be standing.

And then just enough coolness to pull up a quilt and gently catch up the nights lost sleep.

The washing out of the hidden things

Interesting to watch the news tonight and see the refuse that has come to our beaches from the recent flooding rains. Things which would remain hidden in dark places are now needing to be cleared by heavy machinery from our beaches to make them safe again.

How refreshing is rain! We feel it on our faces, we smell it in the air and we luxuriate in bed to listen to it on the roof.

How seldom do we use an umbrella compared to when I was much younger.
It matters so little today if hair is windblown and wet, crowned with a tiara of raindrops.

How glorious is the green of lawns that a week ago was loosing the battle and showing patches of yellow and brown. How seedlings of basil, baby tomato plants in a pot and a massed planting of impatiens which just were planted in serendipitous mode at just the right time.

We refresh our bodies with water as we bath and shower, but I wonder how often we consider the refreshing of our minds as they accumulate the type of hidden garbage and clutter released by the flooding rains.

The cool of a summer night

five minutes of fame
How refreshing to know that while it has been hot outside you have been so comfortable in a cool house. And then the joy of actually feeling cold as you sit under the fan.

Simple joys.

Simple pleasures, yet in the sense of the humidity, hot relentless sun that so much of the world lives under, what luxury.

Let Trump have his marble and his gold fittings and what for five minutes may be the best of what he can achieve..........But give me the blessing of a cool house in the heat and this luxury means more than most others I could even begin to consider.

And then to have rain. The gift that always remains a gift from above, but which refreshes, greens the grass, lifts our spirits and grows the newly planted seedlings.

I am blessed. So much to be thankful for.

the morning after

Oh the joy of a super long deep deep sleep and the lesser joy of waking around midday with a hot cat cuddled up to the back and adding to the warmth of the encroaching summer heat.

But a long deep sleep. What a blessing.

Five minutes of fame

If help was really helpful!

I always wonder why the obvious in so convoluted and obtrusive. Why is the help button usually the most frustrating one to use on the internet.

I lost my pass word

I lost the dashboard.......Well the one in my car is ok ...If a bit dusty.

But where oh where art thou, oh blogger dashboard?

I can find my blog.......Ah but signing in.

We again have the password caper. This is such fun.

Unless you are somewhat obsessive you tend not to have all that many passwords. Some wonderful institutions such as bigpond delight in giving you new ones as, sometimes the least obvious answer to the question. But blogger.......Now why would I use anything but one of my normal passwords, my everyday it does not matter much if not desperately secure passwords.........Why would I not use that?

It might be five minutes of fame but it sure is much more than 15 minutes of blogger-send-me-password-help, trivial self indulgent waste of words that I am indulging while waiting.

Again an early morning.

Again up with the dew and aching all over, no doubt the promised of at least some rain to come. Starting what watering is allowed in this time of drought and again seek from the One who gives us all good things to enjoy, and who gives the rain on the good and the evil alike, that blessing of rain, appropriately dispersed in catchment areas and in our gardens to give that refreshment that is like no other.

So much to be thankful for in the beauty of a rose bud, and the glimse of the sun about to rise.

Reflecting again on the topic of dogs.........
I neglected to speak of lame dogs, which was really the central theme of my last post. It is the lame dogs who trip us up. Who call forth our sympathies which are often then so grossly abused as we have no way of assessing the truth of what is lame in actuality and either fake or grossly exaggerated.
Those are the ones that need the swift kick.
Oh that I were strong enough to give it..........But the kind heart gets in the way of the strong foot.

Kicking vs sympathy

DOGS, SLEEPING, LAZY, AND JUST LETTING THEM LIE!

Having picked up the odd dog that appeared to need a helping hand, and having that hand bit rather badly, it occurs to me that it is more than just a saying to "let sleeping dogs lie"

Of course we get sucked in as we hear their whimpers, and being basically kind in nature, we give them a pat, some food and drink and where withal to get on their way.

We seldom see things as they are, dogs being lazy as a long term life style, even though they are often self proclaimed.

But we feel we can assist, rescue and get them onto their feet as productive members of life again.

How often do we look at the down dog and say......I am sure he deserved it. And so keep walking.

No there is some appeal about the hang dog look that call in our misplaced sympathies.

And what do we get?

Another oldie but a truism...
It bites the hand that feeds it.

So what do I do next time I see that dog on the ground.......

hold me back someone........Before I give the first kick!

The perfect way to spend a hot day was yesterday. House superbly cool, sleep a welcome refuge from the temptation to do anything that would disturb the peace and tranquility inside. Outside the sun blazed, the ants scurried, the birds burrowed in the lawn and it was hot, disturbing and unfriendly.

And with that heat the fires in an adjoining state. People making wrong choices in the heat and confusion and trying to outrun the fire and buring to a cinder. The utter tragedy of the grandmother minding two children.

To lose not only children but a Mother. To have to question your judgement for the remainder of your life. The horror of heat. No wonder heat is the analogy for hell. How can people be so equally dulled into not looking at choices of life beyond death. Of not even daring to read the Bible and never giving the still small voice of the Almighty a chance to speak. That is the ultimate tragedy!

Today, not as hot. The handyman did some more basic work on vines on trellises and planted a few seedlings. The lawn edges were done but time ran and so I must find enthusiasm from somewhere to attack lawns in the next couple of days. Again without cash. How easy it would be if he would only take a cheque. How easily people evade tax.....How conforming I must pay it.

Having settled those issues I retired with breakfast muesli extra chopped apricots and shaved almond pieces and a dash of cream. Total decadecne - served in a soup mug and accompanied by a new book to read. So it was not breakfast but brunch and a delightful falling from reading into sleep.

Awakened by the phone, Clarence the man from the US of A, selling magazines here in Australia. Less job opportunites seen here so he would hold to the one he had. Cut my subscriptions to a more basic level for the next 20 months but locking in a price of approx $3.50 rather than around $8 plus each piece of eye candy.

Wish it were as easy to solve the storage problems of yet more paper entering the house.

People must be returning to work. Two more telmarketers swiftly dealt with. If only Clarence had known how lucky his day had been!!

before the sunrise

Having been rudely awoken the third morning in a row by the furry one playing with meals on wheels, I decided to rise and have a drink.

Sleep alluding me and the furry one deciding to crawl around my head and in under the sheets I again tried to settle.

Finally the mind went into full action and the body reluctantly followed and I wandered outside, the dew wet on bare feet and changed the fitting on a hose that had been leaking.

Satisfied that no more water would be wasted I left the system on and noticed the Peace rose bush.

Being top grafted it was like a mop top of soft satin palest of pink creams. It seemed a shame for the sun to spoilt it so I cut them. Stems around 40cm long and massed with flowers.

Also collecting some red rosebuds to add to an existing vase I came in and arranged them.
It was just light enough for the sensor lights to still engage.

Now as I sit and type I see the full sun creeping under my lounge room window giving promise of a day that will probably be hotter than my natural preference, but a lovely reminder of the balance of rain, dew, sun and darkness.

That same balance that is seen so often in our lives as we move from dark places into shade and then sunlight again. From barren dessert to the refreshment of rain.

So much to be thankful for and not yet 7 am.

chaos in the bath!

This chaos is becoming maddeningly normal. The process of selling one home and deciding what to keep and what to relocate in the present home is an interesting one to say the least.

If a Mother is a collector and hoarder and a daughter follows in her tracks, how then do we decide what is trash and what is treasure.

Do I accept the dictum's that creativity and tidiness are not normal bedfellows, or shall I challenge accepted patterns of thought?

Do I throw things away because that is what others do, or do I take time, especially do I allow my Mother time, to chose and to adjust so that at the end of her life it is not a major time of loss all around.

I took time. Yes I lived in chaos. But I am grateful. The last thing I expected was for my Mother to have to be in a nursing home, but how grateful I was to have kept enough of the essence of her house, so that she could visit and still see that in essence she still had a sitting room. That the choices of furniture she had made were not trashed but treasured.





But back then I mused......



Can I create in a tidy world?





I certainly prefer to be tidy and I much prefer to start with a clean slate.



Can I intersperse elements of order into the mess and confusion?



Looking back small steps of progress has been made.





Some elements of projects have been securely located together.





Maybe I shall find order in my world.

At least I found order in the bathroom!