Gareth got some interesting homework this week. I was very interested in reading what he thought about me. Particularly my hobbies. Not sure when I last went fishing and I love that he thinks I exercise every day. More like once a month at the moment! I'm so looking forward to this weekend when I plan on dusting down my bike and cycling to the local jetty for a spot of fishing and then maybe a little jog before coming home to relax in front of Masterchef!
This week many people will be hosting "Australia's Biggest Morning Tea" events to raise money for Cancer research and patient support. Byron's work are hosting theirs tomorrow and my work will host theirs on Thursday.
This weekend I was involved in something a bit embarrassing. I was asked to help out with a fundraiser in our kids school/church community. How could I say no? Even when what I was asked to do came with a high mortification factor?
In some ways being asked was a compliment. I was asked to be a model in a Fashion Show. The downside? The clothes were aimed at... a somewhat older age group. Like add on a decade, or two. And how I was asked? Well I wasn't even first choice, someone else dropped out. In fact it was worded something like this.... "Oh please, we are desperate...."
I think I would have got away with it if my lovely friend Monica hadn't been in earshot as I was asked. Because if Monica hadn't sent around a global email to all our friends encouraging them to come laugh at me support the fundraiser then no-one would even have had to know. No-one would have taken photos.
Which I have copies of.
Right here.
But I'm not sure I want to share them.
I mean who wants to see me dressed up in clothing better suited to my mother? Who would want to laugh at me wearing the purple stripy bat wing sweater that made Monica literally cry with laughter?
I know you wouldn't.
Would you....
Somewhere right now a nurse is helping a woman become a mother, holding the hand of a dying man, inserting an IV into a child or listening to an Alzheimer’s patient tell a story they've already heard a hundred times.
Somewhere right now, a nurse is getting yelled at for being late with meds, holding their bladder because they have been so busy they can't pee.
In my hospital right now one of my colleagues has worked over 14 hours straight because someone rang in sick. She won't get home to her family for another hour. We started together at 7.15 am this morning and she volunteered to let me get home to my kids because they are younger while she worked a double shift.
Today is international nurses day. Please think of the nurses caring for people in your town tonight. They don't do it for the money. If you get a chance to tell them they are appreciated please do it. Think of my work mate who is probably dropping on her feet with tiredness by now as she comes near the end of her day.
It's not an easy job but the reward is in the people we get to care for and work with.
Happy International Nurses Day to you all!
This time of the year in Australia the heat has gone from the sun. It is still warm(ish) but the air is fresher and we no longer have to slap on sunscreen before getting dressed every morning. The perfect weather for going out walking. Less chance of getting caught out in blazing heat and having to carry huge volumes of water for hydration.
And so on a recent sunny day we decided to do a walk in a rugged rainforest called Glenrock Lagoon. It is a two kilometre steep downward walk through the rainforest, some of it on steps and some over rough rocks and tree roots.
I had a great time this Mothers Day.
I had a lazy morning with endless offers of cups of tea, breakfast from the local bakery and very excited kids presenting me with some special gifts and cards. After lunch we went out for a walk along the beaches in Newcastle.
Normally I take all the photos and don't often get in the frame but today the kids and Byron took over the camera and I appeared in many more than usual.
Happy Mothers day to all the Mums out there. Whether you are the sleep deprived Mum of very little ones, the frazzled Mum of a teenager or a Mum like my own in Ireland who's child has flown away to distant lands, I wish you a lovely day.
Can I just say a big Thank You to everyone for your wonderful comments, emails, text messages, and phone-calls since I published Sunday's post about finding my rings. I am quite private in my beliefs and I don't normally write posts that are overly religious. In this day and age with so many people with different beliefs and viewpoints I love to share who I am but not to preach or push people away who have different beliefs to me.
I very nearly didn't publish Sundays story. I am so glad now that I did. I have renewed contact from friends that I had lost touch with. I have had people share their memories and stories with me about their childhood or about their own experiences in losing (and luckily finding) their own rings.
Blogging started for me as a simple journal of our families day to day life but it has grown into a wonderful way to reach out and connect to so many great friends.
Thank you all for your friendship.
You bring sunshine to my day.
As a child growing up the first of May was always very special because it is the feast day of Our Lady. I was raised a Catholic and had a beautiful Grandmother that taught me so many things, how to pray the Rosary on my little set of beads I got for my Communion, how to crochet, how to write a proper letter. When she came to stay she would share my bedroom. There were two single beds side by side. She encouraged me to bounce on mine while she sat in hers opposite me and laughed. She sang old songs to me and taught me old fashioned poems about toys turning rusty waiting for the return of their child owner to play with them. All nostalgic things and many of them that have died out over the years. My kids know the words to lots of current songs on their iPods but how many poems? They send Thank You emails instead of writing by hand.
Today as I hung washing on the line I thought back to how I spent the 1st of May as a child. We had a little statue of Mary and we would dust it down and get one of Granny's crocheted circles and set up a "May Altar" We would get a tiny vase and put some flowers in it and keep those flowers changed and freshened up over the month of May. Remembering these things made me feel nostalgic and so I went inside and started to tell my kids all these stories and memories.
They wanted to make a "May Altar" of their own so I got out the one piece of my Granny's crochet that I own and a tiny antique Waterford crystal vase that was given to me on my wedding day. All that was missing was something to represent Mary. I thought about a small tea-light holder I use at Christmas. It has three glass panels with an image of the Holy family on it. It was the only thing I could think of so I went into the garage and pulled down the Christmas decorations box from a high shelf. What I found inside reduced me to tears.
I need to side track to tell you something else so you will understand the end to my story. I have not been able to find my engagement ring for quite a while. Or my eternity ring. Or the diamond sapphire ring Byron bought me when we had Sian. I have torn my house apart and kept this awful secret from Byron till I felt sick. I take my rings off to go work as a nurse. I usually leave them in a particular place but they weren't there when I went to find them many weeks ago. I worried that I had put them somewhere foolish, that they were lost or thrown away or stolen. I have cried and torn cupboards out onto the floor desperately looking for them with no success.
I finally told Byron a few weeks ago. He was as upset as me but had no clue where to find them either. When I reached my hand into the box of Christmas decorations I pulled out the tea-light holder. There inside it hidden under the used tea-light were my three rings. I can only assume that one morning in January I saw my rings on my hand as I was late rushing out the door to work, stopped and looked for somewhere to put them that they wouldn't fall or get lost and decided to drop them into the little holder till I got home. How I didn't go back for them I don't know. Or why didn't I see them as I packed the Christmas decorations away? All I know is that if I hadn't stopped today to remember my past, if I hadn't honoured the feast day of Our Lady, if I hadn't tried to keep an old tradition alive then I would not have found my rings until mid December when we decorated the house again.
After I finished crying I went to find Byron and I cried again as I showed him the rings, I slipped them back on my fingers, placed the tea-light holder on Granny's crochet next to the vase of wild flowers and said a very genuine prayer of thanks. Thank you Mary for watching over me as a little child. Thank you for letting me have my rings back now instead of December. I make you the same promise now as I made as a child. I will try to keep your altar in place and with fresh flowers over this month of May.
Amen
