Leaving

Goodbye blogging friends
I am leaving for now to keep busy at other life interests

Iced Tea

Iced tea punch
500 mls black tea
4tbs sugar
500 mls iced water
250 mls orange juice
juice of 2 lemons
250 mls ginger ale
1 orange sliced in rounds
1 lemon sliced in rounds
sprigs of mint
Disslove sugar and tea
Cool
Chill and mix in other ingredients
Serve with ice.

The weather is getting warmer in OZ so I thought this recipe was worth sharing
I love the smell of oranges and lemons and mint.We also have mocktails in our house which use many wonderful non- alchoholic ingredients.

Play on

Today I am giving a talk to a group of preschool mothers on Play.
This is such a wonderful topic.
I want them to realise that Play is for all of us and we need to be there for our children as playmates and value what play does in the life of a child and our lives.
They say "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"I agree.Do you play enough as an adult?
Be creative,playful,kick up your heels and have fun.
I spent all day in bed yesterday with a tummy upset so am looking forward to a better day.
Go forth my friends and play with life ,words ,dipping into the treasures out there.

List poem of fragrances

I love Lists for jobs,shopping and now poems.
Trouble is I often lose my lists and then what-have a list to rememebr the list!!!!!!!
I have just discovered the calender and tasks on the computer and it tells you if the task is not done.
Fragrance is powerful to recall memories both positive and negative.


Apricots
Baby skin,Bread
Fire
Gum leaves
Honey
Johnson's baby powder
Lavender, Lemons, Lilac, Lux
Mandarins, Mint
Onions, Oranges
Pepper trees
Rain,Roast,Roses
Solyptol soap,Sundried washing
Velvet,Violets.

Doors

I have been away from blogging since July.
I have been concentrating on my hard copy journals as well as not much time or energy to blog.Lately doors have been significant.
There are so many types of doors and for me lately doors that I wanted opened have been shut.
I was upset not getting the jobs I wanted but in retrospect it was probably a good thing.
Some were fulltime and that would have been bad news for my creativity.Below was inspired by a blue door I cut from a magazine.

Red door of Anger
Orange door of Hope
Yellow door of Happiness
Green door of Jealousy
Blue door of Sadness
Purple door of Passion
White door of Cleansing
All these doors carved with truth
Opening
Shutting
In and Out
Each door of my life a story to tell.
I seek each door one by one
My imagination blooms
Into new possibilities
An acceptance of the past
An acceptance of myself
Doors lead into the future.

What is your experience of doors?

Greenery of God

There are many wonderful shades of green in Nature.
I love them all.
I can see why fashion is so inspired by nature.
This is a small peppercorn tree.
They smell so spicey and hot and when rubbed between the fingers make them sticky.
These trees predominated school yards in my childhood and we climbed their strong limbs and chewed on the peppercorns that turned pink with a flakey shell.
The hills are looking green even though we need more rain.
I thank God for greenery.What greenery do you like?

21 today

My first born turns 21 on the 30th June and it is amazing the beautiful young women she has become.
We were only watching the film clips of her younger years. So much has happened in our lives both good,bad and ugly. God has been by our side.
I have been so slack with this blog and reading other blogs but I have paid work to attend to.
Staying at home and happily writing and reading books whenever I wish has come to a stand still.
I will still fiercely protect time for me though and in fact turned down a job that involved catching a train at 7.15 in the morning and travelling one hour into the city to teach English.
Instead I am tutoring children with literacy needs and have picked up 2 ESL students at my husband's school. I return to my job at the lavender farm in August of which I enjoy.
There are so many interesting people that come through and so many story ideas.
I have applied for one more year away from my teaching job and hope my direction will become clearer for 2009.
I have been reading Patti Miller's book called 'The memoir book'
Her other titles are fantastic as well.So far my writing just seems to be odd fragments(scraps of paper ,notebooks) all over the place so I am hoping I can get some direction happening.
It is fitting to be reading a book about writing memoir as I reflect on my life and especially the growing up of my daughter.
Patti talks about what is it like for you to be here in this world?
On p38 she states'In memoir what you feel about your life will be revealed,rather than what you think about it,will be revealed in the voice'
Everyone we observe has a life different from us that makes for good stories. When I was in the city last Friday I was really drawn to observing people and their actions,clothes ,voices and wondered about their lives.There was one man in his 60's on the bus carrying a bunch of yellow flowers wrapped in newspaper.He was dressed in a suit.Where was he going? What was his life?He has to be a character in a story!!
Observe ,record,imagine.I am lost in the wonder of it all.I wrote this small piece to somehow start to write about my life through patchwork pieces.

I sighed as I sewed the last stitch into the green homespun.The quilt was puffy and defined with many stitches.My fingers felt abused and jittered now with the stillness of it all.
Feather stitich danced across the colours joining the segments of my life,many shapes connecting merging,crying ,sighing and clearly laughing.Over many months I had spent many hours choosing,cutting and stitching but not only that,my mind wandered back as I touched the fragments of my life.........................