Stories

I am on my placement at the moment, enjoying putting into practice my uni learning. I love listening to the stories that patients share. I especially like talking to people who are in the later half of their life, their reflections are something I find fascinating.

I have a few standard questions, I just wanted to share some of my favourite answers...

Do you have any regrets?

A man shared that after divorcing his wife of fifty years, regretted was that he did not cherish her and put his career pursuits before his relationship.
A man who has had his ability to travel taken from him by ill health, regretted that he did not have more adventures.
A woman who had lived with an abusive husband regretted not leaving him.

What is the secret to a long marriage?

Luck.
Putting up with each other.
Doing the right thing.
Falling in love again and again.

my favourite so far,

'This too will pass'


Cool job huh.

Ethan

Ethan had an epiphany this morning...
'When do you finish uni Mum?'
'February, why?'
'I was just wondering if you will ever make my lunch again, it probably isn't going to happen is it?'
Growing up is tough.

Wilson

Driving in the car...Wilson says "Mum, I've decided what I want to be when I grow up'... (his last career aim was to work at Dominos, like Ethan)...'I think I will be a pirate, because Jack Sparrow probably has everyday clothes'...

The sun was shining on me today... Life is good.

This is one of those feel good posts. I have been having up and down days the last two weeks, mainly the regular humdrum of my life, add a bit of spice.

The sun was shining today and after yesterdays pit of emotional choc mint ice cream and nutella dulldrum, I was suddenly aware of all the great things I have going on in my life... comprising mainly of people. I have always been a great believer that friends are forever. My mother would tell me that people come and go and I have always tried to prove her somewhat incorrect by 'collecting' people that warm my heart. I endeavour to stay in contact and care for those close and dear to me.

So this post is a post of thanks... a thank you to those I love who enrich my life with their spunk, openness, dedication, humour, angelicness, free spiritedness, adventure seeking nature, cheek, sass and love. I was especially appreciative today.

If you don't love Lego, you don't love life.

My baby turned seven today... SO EXCITING! He is looking forward to his birthday party tomorrow.

job list...

pick up cake
charge camera batteries
advise the party place of numbers

Think I should have remembered to purchase wrapping paper too... the newspaper at the bottom of the pic is another present... that is called sustainability!

We love you Wilson.

Eat your greens.

I can still hear those words echoing... my mother, telling my brother to eat his greens. Craig was such a stubborn kid, he would fall asleep at the table instead of eating his green vegetables.

Adam has been doing most of the cooking this year, he takes turns with Dominos. Last week while I was on prac, I felt a pang of guilt about the diet we are currently consuming. I popped into Woolworth and at that same moment my guilt started feeling a little exhausted itself. I decided on spaghetti bolognese. Easy spaghetti bolognese.... the bottled sauce, mince and pasta type. On the way to the check out with my dinner option, I realised I had no vegetables... spinach!! Easy.

I had a few errands to run on the way home and by this stage the bottled sauce spaghetti option was starting to sound like hard work. I decided to make it easier. I have always been the type of person to wonder, if a recipie needs twenty minutes to simmer, why not boil it in five? So the approach I took really was quite practical and appropriate given my recent kitchen history.

The blender is my favourite kitchen appliance. I have been known to blend a chicken roast, vegetable and gravy dinner for the sake of getting a child to eat it. So it seemed a sensible idea to throw the spinach in the blender with the bottled pasta sauce. When the spinach filled the whole canister and I needed to add water to get the sauce and spinach to mix, I realised I had overstepped the mark of what could be considered an appropriate amount of spinach to disguise in the sauce...

What I think I did successfully achieve, was a fifteen minute surprise meal. A surprise because we did not really know what it was anymore, surprising that it actually turned out looking so gruesome, and by far the greatest surprise was that it didn't taste too bad and the kids ate it. Really just needed enough cheese to hide the colour... viola!

I had a picture of the meal on facebook and made the comment to a friend that if I was being graded on my cooking my report card would read like the one my least favourite teacher, Mr Kenovan, wrote in primary school... 'Fiona has potential beyond the results she is currently achieving, yet... she continues to display a 'careless' attitude!'

I would not really say I have never been a cook, I remember at one stage in early married family life, I bottled sauce, made jam and home made bread... I catered my twenty first birthday party... I can even make a mean baked cheesecake. I would say however, that at the moment my attitude is careless, not really only towards cooking but I would also add to the list... housework, bookwork, ironing and really anything that can wait until next February.

I prefer to think of myself as easygoing, not necessarily careless... seems that's the way we are rolling and to some degree surviving... so I think we will stick with this method with the expectation that things will get better, until then, one word... BLENDER!

Paris

Angus arrived home yesterday, spending the last two weeks in France. He is a kind hearted boy and had purchased gifts for all family members. He presented me with my gifts, a tea towel and a crystal ornament of the Eiffel tower. As he walked away he chuckled to himself and said 'I was going to buy you a chef's hat Mum, I thought that would have been a good joke'... I agree, it would have been.