Category: son

daughter · gratitude · happiness · Mum · son · traditions

Mother’s Day 2011

Joanne4 Comments
A recent photo of me with my two beautiful daughters, Hayley and Emma.

Mother’s Day comes and goes on one day of every year, year in and year out.

In a perfect world, we would show appreciation to our mothers every single day of the year. I for one didn’t realise the extent of my own mother’s feelings toward me and my sisters until I actually became a mother myself.

When I finally “got it”, (better late than never!) I constantly tried to show my mother the total appreciation, love and gratitude I felt towards her.

The “job” of being a mother isn’t an easy one. If you do not have children yet, and do hope to be a mother one day, if anyone ever tells you it’s easy being a mother ~ they’re lying!

When your new, precious little bundle is placed into your arms for the first time, with the flood of love and emotion you feel for your precious newborn baby, you may be fooled into believing that that’s as good as it gets.

Wrong!

Being a mother of four myself, I have learned that the first love you feel for your baby is only the beginning. The love just grows.

It can sometimes be an overwhelming love, distorting your usual calm and sensible demeanor, reducing you to tears. Other times, your love for your child can rage out of control, as you feel total panick for the well-being of your child, who doesn’t always make decisions for their life which you would regard as well advised decisions!

When your child finally reaches the ripe old age of eighteen years, a time when they are “mature” enough to head out into the world all alone, making their own decisions for themselves, you may be tricked into thinking you can stop worrying about them, finally.

Wrong, again!

Three of my four children have passed their eighteenth birthdays now. Take it from me, you still care, you still worry, you still wish for your child the most wonderful life, filled with amazing people.

To all of the mothers out there, who one day took the giant leap of the ultimate responsibility on earth by becoming a mum, I wish you the happiest of days on this Mother’s Day, 2011.

We all deserve a day to put our feet up and relax, don’t you think?

A Sense of Spirit · daughter · new · son · spiritual · vision

Introducing…”A Sense of Spirit”

Joanne5 Comments

This weekend I’ve been having a wonderful time with WordPress, adding here, changing there, reading up on this, that and the other.

I’ve even started up a brand new blog, something that I’ve been contemplating doing for most of this year. Well, yesterday, I finally had all of the details worked out and began to put my thoughts into action.

The end result, (even though this is just the beginning!) is “A Sense of Spirit”. I do hope you will take a look at what I’ve got there so far.

It may or may not be your cup of tea and it can’t hurt to take a look, now can it?

I really like the design and colours in my new website. It feels right for what it is, and for what it is to become, with time.

WordPress is a fantastic site for setting up blogs, both free and self-hosted. I’ve finally got my head around the different WordPress sites too ~

WordPress.com is where you set up a free blog, such as “asenseofspirit. wordpress.com”, which is hosted by WordPress and has the word WordPress in the web address, and…

WordPress.org is for the self-hosted blog sites, (where you choose your own domain name and it doesn’t include the word WordPress) an example of where you are now, here at www.HomeLifeOnline.com

There has been many a time when I have been completely stumped by WordPress’s  instructions, on how to set all of the aspects of a blog in place. They can, at times, be just downright vague with their information! Still and all, WordPress is my first choice for setting up a blog.

Don’t forget to have a look around at “A Sense of Spirit” and let me know what you think.

Today’s photo credit goes to “Yours Truly”. It was taken many years ago, in our back garden, when we lived in Sydney and is my first two babies. It is one of my favourite photos of them and I have used it today, for my first photo on my first post, at “A Sense of Spirit”.

 

 

son · summer

“I Don’t Like Spiders and Snakes….”

Joanne12 Comments
Female Huntsman, found in the pantry.

Along with his box of breakfast cereal this morning, my son discovered this eight legged monster, lurking around the shelves of our pantry.

She joins the list of “visitors” to our house this week; including the other two cute guys…the green frog and the little baby hare.

I’d hardly call this visitor cute, although we do manage to co-exist quite okay with our spider population.

We are sure that this spider is a female Huntsman, with the males having somewhat longer legs and smaller bodies.

My son put the spider in a glass jar, which is where she is in this photo. She posed patiently for me whilst I played around with the settings on my camera, finally finding what I was looking for. My clever little camera has a setting for taking photos behind glass…perfect!

It seems that we humans are not the only creatures being rattled by the heat we have experienced of late. The small creature population appear to be turning up in the most unexpected of places!

son · summer

Salad by Candlelight

Joanne2 Comments

Salad by Candlelight

7.30 pm, Monday night ~ As I hand write by candlelight at my kitchen table, I feel inclined to use a fountain pen, if only I had one!

Outside the window next to me is a glimmer of lightness, enough to assist the candle in providing me with the light I need to see the whiteness of my sheet of paper clearly.

Only a matter of a few weeks ago we lost power for a number of hours. This time around, the candles we had rummaged through the cupboards in search of back then were close at hand.

How different daily life would have been, pre-electricity days. For one thing, meals would have had to be prepared earlier than they are in my house!

When we lost power tonight I made a dash for the kitchen and began poking around in the dark vegetable crisper in the bottom of the fridge, hoping the salad vegetables would be easily located in the dim light.

Taking photos was a matter of “point the camera and hope for the best”! The salad appeared to be quite presentable, having been prepared with more “feel” than sight, with the assistance of my now well-used candles.

8 pm ~ With the power restored rather fast tonight, much to the relief of Adam, who found it necessary to resort to playing computer games, rather than talking with his friends on Skype, I felt a tinge of sadness.

Without electricity, the house was silent, all but for the sounds of the family’s voices, as we talked amongst ourselves.

No television, no chance of the phone ringing, just writing with my pen and paper.

And salad by candlelight.

Computer Games

chocolate · music · son

With Gentle Music in my Mind…

JoanneLeave a comment

Words escape me today.

No, allow me correct myself; the words are present, lyrically bouncing along in my mind to the tunes of the songs I listened to yesterday afternoon and last night.

It’s the written word which escapes me, so I will rhythmically share with you the music playing in my head!

How could I ignore listening to the final few songs of the “Top 100 Love Songs”, featured on television late yesterday afternoon when I arrived home?

My super cool, thirteen year old son joined me, singing along to the songs, as I listened, amazed yet again, at his knowledge of songs recorded decades before his birth.

Adam and I shared chocolates whilst singing along to romantic melodies….”I Honestly Love You” from Olivia Newton John, “How Deep Is Your Love”, the Bee Gees, “I Will Always Love You” sung by Whitney Houston (from the movie “The Bodyguard”, Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” and the number one song of the countdown, from the movie “Titanic”, Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”.

Romantic songs over chocolates with your son ~ it doesn’t get much better than that!

My musical interlude continued later in the night with the discovery of the 2011 “Grammy Awards”. Not a big fan of rap music, although rap is big right now and does appear to have many fans, I persevered through the rap, to be later rewarded by hearing “Lady Antebellum’s” smooth, lyrical voices.

Towards the end of the Grammy’s, which didn’t finish screening here in Australia until nearly midnight, came the artist with thee song…Barbra Streisand singing one of the most beautiful songs of all time, “Evergreen”.

In case you missed it, here is the song I’ve had playing over and over and over in my head, all day long!

Barbra Streisand, “Evergreen”…

I managed to find an old Barbra Streisand CD in my cabinet this morning, which went out in the car with me this morning. Evergreen (track 9) was on constant replay!

The realities and practicalities of life continued as they always do today, all day long, but oh, how much easier realities are to contend with, with a beautiful song spinning around your mind! 🙂

(Photo Credit)