May Catch-up

May catch up because um … will you look at that, I blinked and it’s been almost a month since my last blog post! 

I’m not organised so I thought I’d just do one of those coffee catch-up kind of posts where I fill you in on what I’ve been up to lately. 

Life has been very busy. I spend the majority of every second week staying over with Mum and then the time I am home trying to catch up on all the jobs I need to do here. I also try to fit in some art – lately it’s been the modules of the Urban Sketch Course (online) that I’ve done. Yes it’s done now but I’ll share more on that in the next Art Chat post.

I’ve also had Easter, my brother’s birthday, my Mum & daughter’s birthdays and Mother’s day since the last post.

EASTER & MY BROTHER’S BIRTHDAY

For Easter we had a lovely lunch over at my brother’s house on Easter Sunday.  It was his birthday the next day so it was a double celebration.  The only photo’s I took that day were of his wife’s cat ‘Roxy’, the cakes, and some Easter eggs! 

It was about a week after this event that we learnt that my brother had tested positive with Covid. He’d gone to Adelaide for a conference and only attended one day of the conference before starting to feel sick. He’d been sick for days before he let us know. He had to extend his stay to see out the seven days and was stuck in a hotel room for the duration, sick and alone. We were worried about him! We also don’t know whether he had it before he went or if he picked it up on the trip, so were nervous, particularly for Mum.

FROZEN THE MUSICAL

In between all the busy’ness I managed a lovely day out with my daughter. She’d told me how she’d love to go see ‘Frozen the Musical‘ and I said I’d go see it with her and so we went to a matinee session mid-week on April 27th (she works different shifts and had that day off). We met in at QPAC and had lunch first. There were lots of little girls dressed in blue sparkling ‘Elsa’ dresses with their mothers, grandmothers and fathers. Of course I joked that I was disappointed my ‘little girl’ hadn’t dressed in a blue sparkling Elsa dress too! It was a rainy day and my hair got soaked on the way there but it was nice to do something different and spend some time with my daughter, and the show was great! Enjoy the rare photo of my daughter! She has long hair but has it all pulled back tightly in a bun in this photo. Also note the big woolly jacket cos she says it gets cold in the theatre and note me in a summer dress and I was still hot and sweaty! 

MUM & MISS M’S BIRTHDAYS

Mum turned 81 and my daughter turned 27. They share a birthday. The day my daughter was born Mum and Dad came to our house to look after the twins (aged 2) while I went off to have the baby. Mum’s birthday gift that year – 1995 – was her first granddaughter.  

This year we had a BBQ lunch ‘party’ to celebrate both birthdays with most of the family coming along. My brother and family didn’t come as he was still testing positive for Covid and even though his seven days had passed, the others may have gotten it from him (hasn’t happened luckily) and it was all too risky especially around Mum so they stayed home. My daughter was working but managed to arrive in time for the cake.

I don’t generally post photo’s of my family and friends on the blog (unless I have permission) so just a few general snaps below. We tried and tried to get a good shot of the fur cousins ‘Rudi & Ava’ but no success. You’ll see below the best of a dud lot! 

Since I’m away so much, I felt like the house was revolting and needed a good clean, so I went crazy cleaning and preparing for the ‘party’ and wore myself out! It had been ages since Mum had been here since she’s been unwell for so long and mobility has been an issue, so I wanted everything to look really nice. I also wanted it to be an uplifting and enjoyable day for her so I had flowers decorating the table and tried to make things look pretty.

STAYING WITH MUM

Last week was my week with Mum (my sister and I alternate). These days we go over on a Tuesday morning and leave on the Friday morning. It used to be Saturday to Saturday with handover time on the Saturday but Mum has improved quite a lot so we have eased off a bit now. Mum has a couple of days on her own and my brother and other sister each visit on the weekend.

This week, the day I arrived was Mum’s actual birthday (3 May). The party for her was on the Sunday prior. There were lots of phone calls on this day and check out the gorgeous flowers that arrived in the photo below.

This was a special week because Mum’s sister and her husband were due to arrive for a 10 day visit on the Thursday.  Most weeks with Mum involve a grocery shop, keeping an eye on medications and a trip to the chemist to fill scripts when needed, and dispensing Mum’s medications into pill boxes to ensure she is taking her medications correctly. It also includes doing some laundry, watering plants, a bit of food preparation, maybe taking Mum on an outing or to a doc appt, and just providing some company. We’ve been working our way through sooooo many Netflix series!!

I took Mum for her 4th Covid jab on the Thursday morning and then we went home to await the guests arrival. They arrived around 12:45pm and it’s all added quite a spring to Mum’s step and it was so much easier for me to leave on Friday knowing Mum had such good company.

MOTHER’S DAY

On Mother’s Day the family all went over to Mum’s for afternoon tea. We all took something over to eat so ended up with quite a feast!  I hadn’t had a chance to get to shops for anything for Mum for Mother’s Day so dashed out and got her some flowers and decided to give her one of my little trio sets of mini paintings. That’s when it hit me to also gift a set to my Aunt (who is visiting with Mum at the moment). I knew she loved the little mini cottages I had done so I packaged that little trio up and gifted it to her for Mother’s/Aunt’s Day and packaged up the tea cup trio set for Mum. They’re pictured below – the cottage set I had photographed framed but hadn’t photographed the tea cup set framed (but they were framed). 

My brother came to the Mother’s Day afternoon tea! This was the first time we’d seen him since Easter Sunday. It had been ages since he’d first tested positive to Covid and he’d seen out the seven days isolation in Adelaide and another couple of weeks had passed yet he was still testing positive to Covid! This is apparently quite normal and you can keep testing positive for a long time, however supposedly you are no longer contagious. I hope so! Nevertheless there were no hugs or kisses exchanged with my little brother and we all tried to keep a reasonable distance. It was good to see him though and he is feeling fit and well again now!

Oh and check out this photo of my beautiful Mum that I shared on my socials on Mother’s Day. There is a story to this photo but I’m ashamed to say I have forgotten it. It was taken late 50’s or very early 60’s. I will have to ask Mum to tell me about it again and this time I will write it all down so I don’t forget!

THE BLOG & WRAP UP

As you can see, there’s been a lot on the go around here. I haven’t had time to devote to the blog but then I don’t think it really matters, for various reasons. I remember once being so devoted and committed to growing my blog and my audience, with consistency and a lot of planning and effort, but now the sense of urgency for all that has lifted and I think that is probably a good thing for me. The blogosphere isn’t what it used to be – there’s less people blogging, less community activity and collaboration within the blogosphere, and less opportunities with brands. Blogs are not as popular as they once were. As well as all that change, I’m changing and evolving too. Along with that, the purpose of my blog has changed. I still love it but it exists on my terms now and that is to share things I love according to wherever I am in life and what is taking my interest – whenever I have time and/or inclination.  I love that my blog has evolved with me – starting with a 365 Grateful Project mindfulness, self investment and self care and moving through various phases including photography, health and wellbeing, ageing positively, gems of zen, my 100 Day Project and now my Art Chat series. 

Oh and before I forget, in my last post, I was pondering the idea of starting a new link up for Art Chat Show ‘n’ Tell. I’ve decided not to go ahead with it. I really don’t think many would link up and that’s not because I think it’s a bad idea (I still think it’s a good idea), it’s because the current Aussie blogosphere climate tells me so, and I don’t want to set myself up for any stress or possibility to dampen my spirits. Life has been very hard these last few years so where there is choice I’m all about less stress and putting my energy only into things that uplift me. Self care and using my time efficiently is very important to me.

On another topic, May hasn’t finished with me yet. It’s the month that keeps on giving. We have yet to have a sister-in-law’s birthday, a niece’s birthday, the tennis player’s birthday and my birthday on the very last day of May. When my father-in-law was alive his birthday was on May 1st. This year he would’ve turned 99.

Ok that’s enough rambling from me. See you here next time I get around to writing a blog post. Take care of yourself and stay safe.

Ciao for now,

Linking up with Denyse Whelan for #LifeStories