At the bottom of the Garden

Today I'm not posting about what I was hoping to be posting about and I can't think about it too deeply because I'll just implode. So, I'm going to post about what I know about persistence.


Children have persistence in spades and we can learn a lot from them. When they want something, they won't let anything stand in their way. They'll ask, they'll ask sweetly, they'll say "Pretty please with a cherry on top and a side serve of ice-cream", they will cry, they will pout, they will scream blue bloody murder - more times than not, they eventually get what they want through sheer persistence... Being persistent isn't a cake walk, it isn't fun, it isn't easy, and it isn't particularly inspiring in and of itself. It is what it is. It's not being willing to give up.Being persistent can take a very, very, very long time. It can take all your energy, it can suck you dry. Persistence doesn't have a time limit.Persistence is free …

Oddly enough, I find myself being thankful for homework this week.

I have forever been critical of homework. I feel it puts undue pressure on children to keep doing school work even after spending six and a half hours a day, five days a week at school - doing school work. It also puts pressure on already harried parents to supervise, enforce and - for many parents - all but do the homework themselves. A lot of homework these days includes activities and procedures parents are not familiar with, as well.

When my boys started school, I had the attitude that homework was just rubbish and they didn't need to do. I was constantly hearing from their teachers about the boys lack of completing 'reading charts', and it annoyed me because my husband and I read to the boys all the time - we just didn't read readers. We talked to them about letters and sounds and reading all the time, we just didn't fill in the forms. I felt that I could fill in the form even without the boys …

Write on Wednesday Exercise 14 - The Mighty Mighty Rewrite...
Zanni: I did a workshop with literary author Mj Hyland, who teachers Masters in Creative Writing at Manchester University. She asked us to choose our favourite book, take the first paragraph and then write our own content into the paragraph, keeping the structure, tone, language etc. It's really helpful!
No time limit. Let's keep up the focus on making each word count. Ready? Set? Write!
The reason I'm posting this on Thursday is that I only read the exercise on Tuesday night, and it completely stumped me. I couldn't think of my favourite book. I have a tendency to read books but then not keep them - so while I remember many, many hours of being completely taken away with a book, I can't remember titles or authors and I don't keep many books.

I've bent the rule and gone with the first paragraph of a short story I read earlier this year which has haunted me. I couldn't tell you the name of the…

Joining in with My Little Drummer Boys and Faith Hope & a whole lotta Love.

Linking up with Tattoomummy for Tattoo Tuesday!


What: An Om symbol inside a stylised heart.

Where: On my left breast.

Who: All my tattoos are done by my brother in my home.

Why: I have a tattoo for each of the boys, and this one is for Bryn (#3 of 4). I chose an Om, not because I'm buddhist, but because from babyhood we've called Bryn "Buddha" due to his placid personality and how when he was a baby he was very, very chubby! The heart is because, of all my children, Bryn is my heart (the others are other parts of me, don't worry!). He is also be in the sign of Leo, and so Lion-hearted always springs to mind. Leo's are ruled by the sun, also representing love.

As you can see, this tattoo is badly faded and a bit wonky. This is not a reflection of my brother's workmanship in any way but more a reflection of the place the tattoo is situated. The skin on my breasts is (not surprisingly) quite different to other - tougher - parts of my body like my arms, shoul…

Bless me readers for I have sinned, it has been... a bloody long time since my last confession...
My boys are sitting in the lounge room playing Angry Birds on their iPod Touches and talking and helping each other out and not arguing and not chasing about the house and I love it. I also loved it when they disappeared into their rooms for two hours yesterday afternoon and there was no squabbling over toys, seats on the lounge, television channels, or who's turn it was to set the table. I get why other parents love their kids devices.When I found out yesterday afternoon that my twelve year old had not had his iPod for "just that morning" a few weeks ago, but had, in fact, had it for four consecutive days and had taken it to school. When I found this out because I downloaded a video of him and his friends at school. I laughed - out loud. And a tiny piece of me enjoyed that he'd tripped himself up with video evidence...I have a great capacity for ignoring a filthy kitchen…

I'm joining in with Seven Cherubs for the fourth week of Cherish Your Cherubs. This week's theme is praising your cherubs, for previous week check out these link; one, two, three.

This week we were asked to be mindful of letting our children know how much we appreciate them through praise. I have to admit, I didn't do very well, certainly not as well as I would like. I could spend time lamenting about being stressed and depressed, but really those are just excuses.

In this post I want to focus on an area in which each boy has really excellent himself - positively - this week.

Bryn:

Bryn started school this year and that brought a lot more personal responsibility into his life. At school he answers to different authorities than at home and he has to be mindful of a different set of rules. He has taken all of this in his stride.

However, he has really struggled with one area. No matter how much we remind him, and question him at the end of the day. No matter the consequences …

I lay in bed and fed Lukas, he was 11 weeks and 1 day old. The past few weeks had been like hell on earth for me. 
Just a month earlier the Grumpy Old Man had come home from work one afternoon to find Erik strapped into a highchair sobbing quietly, Lukas laying in his bassinet screaming loudly, and me hiding in the foetal position at the far end of the couch - out of a line of sight to either of my distraught children.
The Grumpy Old Man had let Erik out of the highchair and given him something to eat, and hugged him. He'd picked Lukas up out of the bassinet and put him in the Babybjorn where Lukas had promptly crashed into an exhausted sleep.  The the Grumpy Old Man made me go have a shower and a cup of tea. 
We'd talked and with a lot of crying on my part and a lot of quiet persistence on his part we'd decided to talk to a friend and work colleague of his who had been hospitalised for postpartum psychosis nearly three years earlier. She put us onto PANDA who sent us to our …

Well, after yesterday's watershed, I thought I'd better take some time today to reflect on those things that challenge me and find ways to be grateful for them.

Challenges are, essentially, opportunities for gratitude. It's easy to be grateful for all the good that crosses my path in life, and acknowledging those good things is very good. The more positives you acknowledge in your life, the more positively you are bound to view your life.
There are always challenges though and the trick is to try and view those challenges in a positive light, as well, so they don't continuously draw your eye from the other positive stuff in your life and cause you to only notice the things that make life a trial.

Having a melancholy temperament as I do, it doesn't come naturally to me to view challenges as positive - it is something I need to work at and remind myself of over time. So, here goes:

Being legally blind, living with ADHD, hypoglycaemia, anxiety, depression and agoraphobi…