I’ve spent all of this week at home, blogging my little fingers off at the computer keyboard and simply enjoying two of my favorite pastimes ~ writing, and recording family history.
The weather has been very obliging during my week indoors as well. It has rained, constantly, all week. So imagine that, I haven’t begrudged spending time behind my keyboard one little bit in favour of being out in my garden, because there hasn’t been any sun! đ
During one of my frequent breaks from the computer this morning, to put on a load of washing and grab a cup of tea, I happened to look out the window, and there it was…the Magical Mountain had returned!
Mount Warning hasn’t made an appearance this week at all, in fact we’ve had so much mist that our back garden has rarely made an appearance! Even with a mass of white clouds in front of the mountain it looked as magical as ever.
Even the sun is trying to make an appearance!
You never know, I could even be able to do some gardening this weekend, if this change in the weather continues. đ
Wherever you are in the world, and however you chose to spend your time this weekend, me and the Magical Mountain wish you a simply “Magical Weekend”! đ
My mind is a-mush with so many ideas scuttling around in it! My husband has often told me that I have âmore ideas than a dog has fleasâ, said in a tone that suggests this isnât at all a good thing, although I beg to differ!
Isnât it indeed a good trait to have, one in which one is never bored, hopefully never dull and revving at the heels, ready to rush off and begin The Next Project? Isnât this the very trait said to keep one young and active?
I rest my case.
To help my mind in remembering all the projects I wish to begin or complete, I think I would be well advised to write a to-do list, one which will have me organised, accountable and will aid me in not forgetting one single important aspect on my list.
To begin my to-do list, (which I intend writing here, to remain accountable,) the first item on my list is to add pages to this website. You all want to know about my other blogs, donât you?
It wasnât long after I began this site that I came to the realisation that one blog is just not enough! With so many ideas of different subject matter, ranging from one end of the spectrum to the other, then back again, I decided to start first one new blog, followed about a year ago by another.
One of these blogs âMemoirs of my Lifeâ is where I record the ramblings and reminiscences of my life. Some are old memories, or stories related by family members who are no longer with us. Other stories I have written are here-and-now stories, written when something significant has happened and I donât want to forget the moment.
It wasnât an easy road for me to follow, when I began my âMemoirsâ blog. I felt concerned that someone who knows me may read something I have said and feel offended in some way. If you pay a visit to âMemoirsâ you will notice that I write here incognito, by the name of âAnnie Pottsâ.
Well, it is time for Annie Potts to confess to her writings and take responsibility for her words! In all honesty, I really donât know what I was worried about, as I would never in a million years write anything with the direct intention of hurting  someone! My feelings now have progresses to the point where, if someone is upset by something Iâve said, then so be it! That is for them to deal with, not me! Although, whilst I may be sounding defensive at this point, again, why? I have nothing to be defensive about!! (What was I thinking???)
Moving on, as âHome Life Onlineâ is now in danger of making a strong imitation of the sometime ramblings of âMemoirsâ, Iâll mention my other blog, âA Sense of Spiritâ, which began its life just over a year ago. Again, I felt reluctant to write the words that my heart asked me to, but again, I have made a strong recovery and have written more frequent posts at âA Sense of Spiritâ of late.
(Here I will digress with a question ~ does anyone else feel the need to make apologies for their beliefs, or is it just me? I seem to have made a habit of starting blogs, but not wanting anyone to read what Iâve written! Figure that one out!!!)
The building of another website is on the cards also, a website which I have been itching to build for years! It involves one of my life-long interests, that being genealogy. I spoke to a not-so-distant cousin in England about my idea for a family history website some years ago, his reply being that it was a rather ambitious idea and he couldnât see how it could be done!
Trouble is, I couldnât work out how to put my ideas into a readable format either!! It wasnât until I came across the âRodgers Family Historyâ site that I began to believe that it is possible! Barbara has obviously put hours and hours of time and effort into the site, the results being absolutely fantastic! I have content galore to add to my new site and have been checking and re-checking details which will be added to this new website, before I begin.
As I am in grave danger of writing a to-do book, and not a list, let the list begin!
All of the afore-mentioned, including updating my âBlogrollâ, which can be seen to the right of this column. Oh, and remembering to update my âQuotes to Live Byâ, also in the right side column, just above the Blogroll, at least once a month. (Perhaps I should consider changing the title to âQuote of the Monthâ or even â(March, April, etc.) Quote of the Monthâ, which would force me to remember to do it!
Continue with my regular monthly contributions to the wonderful online magazine the âCalm Spaceâ. Each month, when my article is added to the âFreedom Spaceâ, I will add a post here also, so you wonât miss a single story!
Weed the garden. Yes, I know…boring! But really, you should see the weeds that have grown in the recent rain! I love taking photos around the garden to post here, and no one wants to see a photograph of the seasonal weed-growth, do they?
Start taking my beautiful rottie for regular walks. Itâs early autumn here now, so the weather will cool down, making early morning or late afternoon walks a very pleasant pastime. Tess has turned nine and is in danger of becoming rather portly, if we donât begin a regular exercise routine. Rottweilers should not put on weight, itâs bad for their joints, and we all love Tess way too much not to take the best of care of our Black Velvet girl. Regular walks with Tess will also prevent me from becoming portly, not to mention the new photo opportunities it will present to me! By the way, thatâs Tess in the photo at the top of this page. Sheâs such a beauty!
Start my range of âMade in Australiaâ garments, yet another idea I have toyed with for some time now. When Iâm out working, I sew. Yes, sew. That is my business, which I began from home, just after my first child was born, nearly twenty-seven years ago. My business has grown and shrunk over the years, depending on my families demands of my time at their various ages, now being at a manageable level (both business and family!), which suits me. I make school uniforms for a few of our local schools and as the demand for school uniforms is seasonal (eg mostly required at the beginning of each new school year), I go through some very quiet times, but at other times can hardly find time to lift my head up from my sewing machine!
Start up a new, online business. This is a very new idea and is more accurately described as an extension to my current business. No â not uniforms, but yes â it involves sewing. (Iâll keep that one just a bit under wraps for the moment!) Here is a photo, a tiny clue, to my new idea…
I woke her up to take this photo. By her expression, you can see she was not impressed!
Sort out all of my parents old photographs and replace, in chronological order, Â in a brand new photo album, with detailed notes beside each photo. I will also have to scan and reprint some of the photos, as some have managed to adhere themselves to the album pages! With my interest in history, both family and otherwise, it is necessary for me to preserve the memories of my family, both online and within the pages of books. Every family needs a family historian, right? In my family, although the interest exists among others, there is no one fighting me to take over the task of history-keeper. (And I wouldnât have it any other way!)
Spend some unrushed, quality time at each of our local Tweed Valley towns, taking photos, then returning home armed with all I need to write a blog post, to educate anyone who cares to learn, about our very pretty area, here in northern New South Wales, Australia.
This to-do list is long enough, for starters, at least! As I complete the task on my list, I will link back to the points made here today. Thereâs no danger of lost notes with this list…itâs all online!
If you have read all the way through to this point, I thank you for your patience!
âYou must constantly ask yourself these questions: Who am I around? What are they doing to me? What have they got me reading? What have they got me saying? Where do they have me going? What do they have me thinking? And most important, what do they have me becoming? Then ask yourself the big question: Is that okay? Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.â ~ Jim Rohn.
The month of January is often a challenge for me, in many ways.
With children home from school for most of the month, it is difficult to find any time to be peaceful, when they have music playing constantly in the house. I look forward to the house becoming quiet for a change, and hearing the sounds of silence yet again.
And there is always the heat issue, including our rainy season in the sub-tropics, which contributes to the humidity. Funnily enough, though, this summer has been unseasonally cool, an unexpected luxury which I am revelling in! While I have expected the heat to arrive I realise, with huge amounts of delight, that with each day of little heat, we move one day closer to autumn, when the weather will become cooler again. Ah…bliss!
None of us has any control over summer school holidays or the weather, so we might as well accept the inevitable and find the pleasure in each moment of every day. We can’t change these things.
It is incredibly easy to find the pleasure behind the noise in the house all day. The noise tells me that my children are still young enough to live at home. I can enjoy their company and they are indeed very good company!
And the warmer days allow myself and the rest of my family the freedom to enjoy our swimming pool, finding relief from the humidity of the days.
What we are becoming, on a personal level, is a matter in which we do have some control over. We have the choice of how we allow the people who we interact with throughout our lives to affect us.
Everyone we meet can, and does, influence our behaviour at the time of our meeting. They may also shape our future thoughts and feelings, unknowingly painting a picture of the person we have become, who we are constantly in the process of becoming.
The month of January has given me the opportunity to ponder the question of who we are becoming, taking my mind off the few days when it has been warm and when I have missed my solitude, and it is with much pleasure that I have written these thoughts in my article at the Calm Space this month, “An Infinite Work of Art ~ You”.
Oh, how I have neglected you in recent times! I promise you, I have not forgotten you at all, constantly being aware of your existence, wishing to spend time with you, yet other commitments have seemed far more urgent than visiting you.
Well, at the time, I thought they took priority over contacting you to let you know I cared, assuring you that you were still a significant aspect of my life.
I knew that you were there, patiently awaiting my return. But were you really?
Just this Saturday, spending time in the garden, thinking of you, taking photographs which you may enjoy, missing you, intending to visit with you when I came back indoors….
Where were you, when I came looking for you? Stolen from my grasp. Gone.
Were you lost somewhere in cyberspace? Did they treat you well, the strangers who invaded you, taking you from my reach?
Did you know that the moment I found you were missing, I sent out a search party?
Did you know how I missed you and longed for your return?
We are so lucky to have the friend who returned you to me, seemingly unharmed and fully intact. Adjustments have now been made and I do hope that you are now well and truly out of harms reach.
Not that I could have ever imaged you were in danger to begin with! I thought you were safe, each time I bid you farewell and left you safely accepting visits from our online friends.
How could I have known otherwise?
Not to worry. Now youâre back and I will not neglect you again.
You are still my trusted friend, my special place where I wish to continue recording my thoughts, findings and photographs.
Hopefully, our friends will continue to enjoy visiting us, as you and I build on what we have and grow together, just as we will continue to visit our online friends.
Who knows, perhaps we will find new friends during our continuing journey together!
I have plans for our future. Spending time without you has given me the opportunity to consider what our future will bring, the changes we will make to improve upon what we already have.
âOh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceiveâ. ~ Â Sir Walter Scott (1808)
When my eldest daughter told me that she had realised she was copying me, when making choices for her own life and had stopped doing so as she wanted be authentically herself, I couldnât have been happier.
I asked her whatever had possessed her to want to copy me in the first place, and she told me simply, âBecause I love you, I guessâ.
There is an old saying that âimitation is the highest form of flatteryâ, but how much imitation is too much?
Think about it carefully. Do you really want the responsibility of knowing that there is someone out there, who is not truly being themselves, because they are imitating you?
Or would you be content to spend your own life living as another person would have you live it?
An innocent act of admiration for someone in your life can lead to a web of deception, a web that you may not even realise that you have got yourself caught up in, until one day you wake up to the fact that the person who is living your life, isnât really you.
I know this to be true, as Iâve lived the âlieâ, albeit an innocent lie, but none the less destructive.
Throughout the month of March, the theme at the Calm Space was âchangeâ and I submitted my article to Karen rather timidly, with the content being so personal.
There were two deciding factors on why I finally decided to allow Karen to publish what I had written. One â Karen told me she loved the article (and it always helps to know the Editor is happy!)
My second deciding factor was that I realised that someone who reads my story may actually learn something, and benefit from the mistakes I have made.
In My World 