Just my luck

I was watching telly when an add for eharmony, online dating service came on. Chicky babe said her friend tried it out for a laugh and I thought why not. You do a personality test and then they match you up with people who are compatible personality wise. This sounded better than the shopping list approach of other dating sites.

So I did the test, it took a while. I selected the box that said consider matches from anywhere around the world...pressed the button and waited for my matches.

They are displayed 20 to a page as standard. I had 7. Not pages....7 matches! 7 in THE WHOLE WORLD!!!!!! 1in Perth 2more in WA and 2 more somewhere else in Australia and 2 overseas.

Just my luck!

Tim tried it out then too- We didn't match. :(

whispers

I'm still pretty much voiceless! I'm beginning to worry that it wont come back, listening to work friends who tell stories of teachers that talk too much despite their voices being little more than a squeak and then causing permanent damage to the voice box. Hmmmm... It is getting better.
I had a friend who used to ask me what it was that I was not saying that had caused me to lose my voice- a Donna? Hay no..... Louise Hay style she was a great follower of this philosophy. I have to admit that I went through a phase too following my separation where things seemed to unfold in such a way that it had me believing that the universe was in fact more mysterious than we really knew and things were connected etc, etc. I still like to believe there is more to life than just what we can see and understand and to an extent that we can create things in our life through thought and action but sometimes a voice can be lost just because someone next to you sneezed and they passed a virus on to you.

Having said all this I started to think what am I not saying and who am I not saying it too??

Well first of all I'd like to yell at the kids, they bicker at times Chicky Babe is slow to do her chores and then does them half heartedly, bantam boy is finicky which makes him a good choice to do the kitchen but he get cross at the injustice of the amount of work he does in comparison so he refuses to do a little more than he perceives her to be doing. I'm tired and I can't deal with that any more!!!!

I apologised to my cousin and aunt here on my blog- do I need to ring her and check if she saw it?

Do I need to have words with myself for not having my life together. I can't seem to get everything working in unison. If the house is tidy the garden is dead, then work demands attention and the house and garden seems to fall by the wayside, then I collapse into the couch at the end of the day sometimes overwhelmed by everything that needs my attention and I don't get into my studio and put onto canvas half the things that I think of. Sometimes my head is so full I can't find the space for thinking about art.

There are a couple of big questions rattling around in my head at the moment. One is how do you know you are in love? I've made some disastrous choices in the past thinking I was in love. You know in hindsight I don't think I was ever in love with my husband. I was 19 with a very low self esteem he was the first person who wanted to go out with me and I thought marriage was expected and the rest is history. Tim I loved he was so gentle and caring so different to my husband but very needy back then and unemployed and I didn't have space for another child (he has grown up a bit since I broke his heart and chucked him out for a while) The sculptor gave me butterflies in my stomach at the thought of seeing him, I idolised him and his work- he was like an addiction and I got my heart broken. Tim is persistent he's still here helping me out here and there and I do care for him and at times when I feel very alone and fed up with being "it" controller of the money, the house, the child raising, the decisions - down to what's for dinner and pleasing both very different tastes I think what am I doing? Why am I resisting? Should I just go for it and accept that we have a great friendship at which point my friends look a little alarmed because they think "I can do better". But I tell you the search is exhausting (If my "prince" is out there somewhere he'd better get his act together and get here soon!) Chicky Babe was alarmed because he 'doesn't take care of himself- he smokes continuously and is very scruffy!
Then I think he would be alarmed too I think he is happy to be on the edge of a relationship. He can promise to help me do something in the garden for example and then not do it and I can't get too cross because he technically doesn't have to, it's not his house, I'm not his girlfriend. Thinking back to the analogy of a relationship I came up with a little while ago, looking at a relationship as a dance where you and your partner move together using different steps to the same music, to create a dance, sometimes you might miss a beat or tread on each others toes but you pick up the rhythm and continue on. I've become quite attached to this kind of ideal. Where Tim is concerned he likes to watch me dance. He will drive me to the dance hall, he'll make sure the music is playing he might even sweep the dance floor down if it needs it but he doesn't want to dance with me. He doesn't want to take responsibility for the performance itself.
I don't really want to dance on my own forever.

So how do you know when you are in love and when is it the right one?????

Don't leave the Grange for a special day...

I had to go to a funeral today. It was my godfather, Rob, he passed away on Sunday, he was in his late 60's. He was pretty much your quintessential Aussie bloke. A bit of a chauvinist, loved his footy. I remember being quite alarmed as a little tacker at the way he would yell at the telly while watching the footy. Anyway he had been ill for some time and finally passed away. His daughter is 8 and a half months pregnant- I was 8 months pregnant with Bantam Boy when my dad passed away aged 48. So I found today difficult in many ways. I wanted to tell her to look after herself because it is a time fraught with conflicting emotions. You are full of hormones, grieving yet at the same time you are joyous at the arrival of your baby. Also there is the sense of injustice that they have been taken before they get to see their grandchild and the sadness that the child wont know their grandfather. I know Bantam Boy and Pop Bob would have got on like a house on fire, Dad really would have understood BB and it is a huge shame.
At one point during the wake a bottle of Grange Hermitage valued at about $300 apparently, was opened. It was something that Rob had been saving for a special day. His days ran out and he never enjoyed that wine.
So today's thought is enjoy those special things don't save them away day after day, today is special, everyday is special.

today I found love

In a paint pot!

(Well I saw a love heart so did the year 1&2 kids, Tim just said it was a frog! I guess some of the light reflections have confused the image, but I still see a heart not a frog!)

so sad...

I made this little french chick this afternoon from a strange little drawing I had seen. Just the thing I needed to make me smile.

This morning about 11 I took chicky Babe to work. I dropped her off and started on my way. I heard an ambulance coming up behind me so I pulled over to let it pass. It stopped about 200m up the street. As I passed I saw a poor old woman crouching over the very still figure of an old man. There were two cars parked by the roadside and a young woman and man were also there.

The young woman was attempting to comfort the old woman gently stroking her back. The young man was slowly walking in circles with his mobile phone to his ear. I saw all of this as I drove past the moment suspended in slow motion. The scene has stayed with me all day actually. I cried as I drove past so powerful was the grief and anxiety that was conveyed in that brief moment.

It was like viewing an artwork, in that the image told a story and you can connect with the emotions with the people in the scene. It evoked a strong reaction in me much like the sculpture at the WA art gallery of the aboriginal mother trying in vein to protect her daughter from the cloud of radiation following the atomic test blasts.
It didn't look as if there had been a car accident.

The old man was dressed in beige and brown. There was a dark brown hat on the ground. The old woman wore a light blue day frock. I imagine they were out walking and her husband collapsed. In my mind I decided they had been married and in love for 50 or 60 years and how awful it would be to lose someone you had shared your life with like that, but then how lovely it would be to have had that in your life. I felt compassion for them and thankful for the young people who stopped to give assistance. I hope he is Ok. Throughout the day I have felt teary about it.

Hence the funny french chicken. I needed to distract myself! (Craft, art and reading can be great 'distracters'- whether it is good or bad!)

On Thursday Chicky Babe and I went shopping, to spend the money and vouchers she had received for Christmas. We were browsing through the book shop and came across a book of soft toys. She expressed a desire to be able to make some toys like those. hooray! I'd love to teach her how! So when I dropped Bantam Boy at work this afternoon I headed to Spotlight to pick up some toy stuffing and then picked Chicky Babe up. Yep! I am at the mum's taxi time of my life. (Except for yesterday when I went out for lunch, after checking first to see that no-one required ferrying to work and back. She then realised that she needed to go to work. By that time I was well on my way through my half of a bottle of champagne! So I was no good to her plus the hotel/ restaurant was so noisy that I didn't hear the calls- all 8 of them! I felt like a heal when she told me she had been crying , she was so worried about how she was going to get to work and that I was not there to help her. What happened in the end! Grandmother to the rescue. So I guess it never stops hey? Lucky she was available to help!)

When I was part way through making the toy, Chicky Babe got out her sketch book and started to design some toy prototypes. I took the time to show her some techniques which she attended to distractedly.

"I'm just showing you what to do so that you'll know when you come to make your toy"

"I"M NOT MAKING IT! I'm designing, your making!" (That's my girl!)

So anyway the toy amused us all- goodness knows what I'll do with it my 'babies' are 16 and 14and a half! "We" have an Idea for a giraffe, a cow and a strange big footed creature. I am working on another handbag in my mind and am just searching for the right red spot! Plus I've made a vow to spend some time working on making some clothes for me. That won't get done if I spend too much time doing this!!!!