Eat, Pray, Love

I saw a little bit of Julia Roberts new movie Eat Pray Love a few days ago.  She was enouraging her friend to ignore the carbs and just eat the pizza in front of her.  Julia's character had come to the emancipating conclusion that life is too short to never be able to enjoy pizza without guilt. It made me want to shout Halleluhah! Julia more power to you and break into an adaptation of Martin Luther King Jrs famous speech "I have a dream, I have a dream that a woman is no longer judged by whether she has wrinkle free skin or the size of her dress, but by the character she exhibits.  It is time we stopped being dictated to by what other people think we should be. Our self esteem is bombarded by media images of models, some of who are fourteen or fifteen peering at us from glossy magazines and even their youthful little faces have been airbrushed to oblivion.  Why do we even try to live up to such manipulation. Cindy Crawford was being interviewed by Oprah once and I heard her say, that in real life even she doesn't look like Cindy Crawford. (They used to remove her famous mole from her pictures) 

Most women I know, including me would say they need to lose weight, and with the mountains of diet information available,  diet plans in every magazine, low fat, low carb and my generations grapefruit diet to name but a few, you would think we would all be slim.  I know for myself I could utilize my most powerful weight loss tool, I could use my arms to push myself away from the table a bit sooner.  My food bill would go down, my arms would tone up and I could send the savings off to a world relief organisation.

The last time I checked the world statistic site, it said that in America the year before they had spent $262 billion on diets, and I would think most of the Western World would be on par, and yet as Nations we are all just as fat.  (My husband is convinced that it is the cottage cheese as you mostly see fat people like myself eating it - sorry I probably should be politically correct so would that be size challenged)  Imagine what impact just half of that amount would have on some worthwhile cause like world hunger.

Its a constant dilemma. Should we vote with Julia and stuff ourselves with pizza, or should we go with Katherine Hepburns approach in one of my favorite movies 'Guess Whose Coming To Dinner'  She pulls into a drive thru diner with co-star Spencer Tracy her husband in the movie, it is six o'clock in the evening and they are to have dinner with their daughters in-laws at eight.  The lovely elegant Katherine orders black coffee, and gets annoyed with Spencer for ordering boysenberry icecream, ' you'll spoil your dinner', she chastises him.  On the inside I always imagine that I am a disciplined devotee of Kate and have no trouble just having black coffee and not spoiling my dinner, when it is only six o'clock and dinner isn't  till eight pm.  But the truth is that like pudgy Spencer, I would probably order the icecream and it wouldn't spoil my dinner at all

Pyjamas are the New Black

I love pyjama pants.  They are my favourite piece of attire.  My go to slop round the house choice of garment for winter, spring, summer and fall.  Of course they have to be Peter Alexanders, these give you the added excitement of a near death experience on at least a weekly basis, when you take a stride and your toe catches in their extra wide leg bottoms, you nearly go A over Tush just catching yourself before you go plummeting head first into the fridge or wall (although on occasion I have actually splattered onto the floor).  There is nothing like the adrenalin rush, it keeps you going on those days where there is nothing very eventful happening and gives you the lift you need in between breathing in the petrol fumes at the local garage when you fill up the car. (only joking).

Image from A place of my Own

My daughter posted an old  picture of her sister and herself, from a few Christmases back on Facebook the other day.  They were both in their new Peter Alexanders, which have become kind of a family tradition at Christmas.  It started years back.  There is nothing like pyjamas, we adopted them as our school uniform during our home schooling years, they saved us a lot of time.  We would have breakfast in our pyjamas and carry straight on into school work, non of that annoying showering and changing.  Uninvited visitors who turned up at 2pm would find us still in our pyjamas comfortably relaxed and busy with school work.

Our family think nothing of bringing pyjamas to family dinners, or to their friends so there is something comfortable to slip into when the party moves on to board games and cocoa later.  I mean why not, I am sure if we spread the word, more people will catch the idea, I know Oprah brought out a line of leisure wear that felt like pyjamas but looked a bit dressier for shopping etc., so I know our family is not alone.  The world is obviously over suits and ties.  I know years ago there was a trend among doctors to wear more casual attire, which resulted in specialists coming into hospital rooms to consult with patients clad in Hawaiian shirts.  I guess they may not evoke confidence in their professional ability if they were in their pyjamas, but I am sure pyjamas would be ok for most other situations.

I am almost positive that if you wore pyjamas to the shops, no one would notice.  You could try this during the Christmas rush when everyone is busy and see how you go.  I myself am taking baby steps at converting my friends.  I splashed tea down the leg of my white jeans the other night when we had visitors.  Not a problem I put them in a bucket to soak and came out wearing my pyjama bottoms instead.  It was quite late in the evening and my guests didn't bat an eye.  If they were in fact horrified and just good at hiding it, only time will tell.  If they don't ever come back then I will have to rethink my venture into reeducating the masses on comfortable hostess attire, but if they do I will assume I can take the next step and just be in my pj's when they arrive. Of course, what would really get the drums rolling and the streamers popping, going beyond my wildest dreams and signalling complete victory, would be if I opened the front door to my next dinner guests, and they had turned up in theirs.

Making Peace at Christmas

I passed a couple who were pulled over in their car yesterday, they were having a full on barney and at least were sensible enough not to fight and drive, shortly after the four wheel drive in the lane next to  me nearly ran up the car in the front's backside because he was yelling at his kids in the back.  The little boy closest to me turned and looked forlornly out of the window.  I thought here we are, silly season has arrived.  The rushing, spending and shoving that we get caught up in, taking it out on everyone within the blast radius until we finally arrive hot and frazzled at Christmas lunch,

and explode all over the relatives we don't see from one year till the next.  Kind of makes me wonder if this really captures what God had in mind when he out of His great love for mankind sent his only very loved Son into the World to save us, and saving us is exactly what we need.  The good news the angels declared was peace, and yet when we look around there is little peace on the outside, someone once told me that at any one time there is at least 25 wars in progress, somewhere on the planet, so world peace is probably not what Jesus was talking about.  It is hard to get two people to agree on anything, so getting 7 billion of us to is probably out of the question.  But, if I can encourage you to just stop for a moment, and take a deep breathe.  Allowing God's love into our life changes us on the inside, and while we may never see the 'World Peace' the beauty pageant winners are talking about, you will have the peace that the Angels were talking about at that first Christmas, so long ago to the Shepherds, that peace that comes on the inside and passes all understanding, that makes you be able to move about calmly in the middle of the chaos, and hopefully be able to share that peace and love with the next frazzled person who asks you why you are calm and not going crazy like the other mortals.  God bless you this Christmas, and remember, the next time you are tempted to do more than you are physically capable of right now, remind yourself that we are celebrating Christ's birthday and that He wont care if you buy fruit mince pies instead of baking them yourself.  Merry Christmas xx Evie

The Reason for the Season

I had fun on Saturday afternoon putting up my Christmas tree alone with Michael Buble' playing away in the background.  The Man of the House who will subsequently will be referred to as Moth wasn't keen to thread ribbon through a tree.  Anyway I came across some little red apples and tartan ribbon while sifting through the baubles and had a moment of nostalgia as I remembered that Christmas many years ago with two young children at the time and not a lot of decorating budget I clad the tree from top to toe with the little red apples (about 20 for $1) and tartan ribbon bows (the wooden duck on the coffee table also got a bow).

 It made me realise how our situation has changed over the years and how I have changed also.  My taste has developed with age and the elegant tree I have now is a far cry from its cheap and cheerful but loved at the time cousin from years ago.

 I don't like a lot of the same things I liked years ago, or think the same about life as I did years ago, with age and the help of God's love in my own life I can try to accept that other people can change too and not hold things against them from a time when they may have been different than they are now.  Christmas is all about forgiveness, it is a good time to invite forgiveness into your life, forgiveness for those that have hurt you, forgiveness for yourself if you have hurt others and asking them to forgive you.    I realise that much of the change that has happened to me is because God's love has changed me, and I would hope you would allow Him to heal hurts in your life, but even if you have never had an encounter with the Reason for this Season, Jesus, forgiveness still works.  Harbouring things eats us up, forgiving releases us.  Some wrongs are really bad and hard to forget, but we can only do our bit, by letting the hurt go and leave it up to God to sort the other person out.  Have a wonderful day!

Putting on Your Best Face

It is probably because I am vein but am I the only one who hates having their photo taken. Photos never live up to my expectation of myself, I find my self saying "That's not what I look like" and my friends say "Yeah that is, exactly what you look like".  I see myself as tall and slender when in fact I am only average and rather round.  It doesn't help that the camera is meant to add ten pounds.  This being the case, I can ignore the back fat and rolls that seem to be showing through my T shirt when someone kindly takes a photo of me from behind.  At least with digital cameras and phones we can just delete what we don't like and pretend we look exactly like the good shots, you know, posed perfectly, smiling with your teeth slightly apart and standing just at a slight angle so you look your slimmest.  I always tell my husband he has to stand in front of me (the person up front looks the biggest) after so many horrible pictures where he looks tiny in the background and I look like Big Bertha in the foreground.  The Egyptians had it right.  The kings and queens we found out when studying their Ancient customs during our homeschooling years, would only have themselves painted slim.  They wore wigs for all their official occasions and had shaved heads to be cool for the rest of the time, hence all the Egyptians looking slim and with the same cleopatra bob hairdo in all the historical records.  At least back then they got to have some honest artist put down if he dared paint what he really saw, now we have no chance, the minute anything the least bit embarrassing happens to anyone, there it is on facebook or You Tube.  I can only be glad that I am not famous, so not many people care what I am doing, but just imagine for a moment that you are Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie, no ducking down to get some milk without doing your hair for them.

I have this monkey magnet on my fridge that says "They suit you - really!"

I personally would like to do something quite nasty to the person who invented mirrors, (cameras started out with mirrors in them, so it is all linked) but, I don't think they really know who did invent them, we progressed from looking into still water, ( if you didn't like your reflection you could stir it up a bit and blame the wind for the wrinkles) to shiny metal.  When I checked google I found out that apparently when the Biami people of Papua New Guinea were first introduced to mirrors by an anthropologist they reacted to their reflections with terror.  The Biami's aren't the only ones.  My reflection is getting scarier and scarier the older I get, especially that first look when staggering out of bed in the morning with my hair standing on end.  The only options I can see is to get rid of all my mirrors, never look at pictures taken of myself, never look at Facebook or You Tube or stop wearing my glasses so everything looks fuzzy but lovely or maybe I could just be glad I have made it to sixty two and know that when I am eighty I will wish I still looked like I did now and be grateful that I have my eyesight, all my arms and legs and my faculties are still in tact (I heard that laugh).

How to Make it Rain - Wash Your Car

Me, Muggins AKA Rain Maker, took the car through the car wash Friday before last, then headed off to Hillaries in the Northern Suburbs on Saturday, just in time for a big storm. Ten cent piece sized hailstones pelted the car, covering the ground like snow, and leaving my car, thank goodness without any dents but adorned with nuts and branches from the tree it was parked under.  Most of them were washed off on the way home, but I've decided not to wash the car anymore, I'll just keep an eye on the weather report and as soon as it looks like rain, I'll squirt some detergent on it , and park it out on the lawn.

What do THEY know?

Good question.  People are always trying to pigeon hole us where they think we belong.  Why should who you were or are now define where you end up.  God has a plan for everyone of us.  If the teenager David had paid attention to his brothers when he turned up at the battle with Goliath and the Philistines, he would have gone back to minding his sheep where they said he belonged.  See they didn't know that inside their little shepherd boy brother beat the heart of a mighty King, who would be remembered and loved through centuries.  We all know Moses stuttered, Samson had a bad temper, Noah was a drunk, Mother Teresa was from a well to do family.  We all have potential locked up inside of us still waiting to get out.  Don't let what THEY say define who you are.

Who told you you were naked

At a women’s retreat the speaker was telling us about her son who was quite small, who had been teased at school about his size, they had always tried to make him feel good about himself, no matter what his size.  She said to us, I asked Him “who told you you were naked” “who made you doubt yourself”.  It made me think that most of us are succeptible to the enemies attempts to make us ineffective.  We come into the Kingdom of God often from horrendous backgrounds,  filled with self doubt, low self esteem from growing up with out ever being encouraged.   The enemy knows what buttons to press, to drag up some of that old low self esteem.  The only way to overcome the doubt is to renew our minds, with God’s word, till we come to the place where we believe we are new creatures, that all things are new, that we can do all things through Christ, and see God work in our lives to the point where the Voice of the Holy Spirit is louder that any other in our life.

For some of us that journey takes longer than for others and most of us could write a book about the trip, maybe I will as soon as I believe I can do it.

Life is what happens while you wait for something better to come along

LIFE HAPPENS WHILE YOU WAIT FOR SOMETHING BETTER

WILLIAM WALLACE IS QUOTED WITH THE SAYING “every man dies, not every man really lives”    I ALWAYS PRIDED MYSELF ON MY TENANCITY.  IT WAS ONE OF THE THINGS I LIKED BEST ABOUT MYSELF, NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENED IN MY LIFE I ALWAYS MADE THE BEST OF IT, DIDN’T LET IT SQUASH ME DOWN.  IF I GOT PUT IN A CORNER AS A CHILD I WOULD FIND SOMETHING TO DO, TRACE THE WALLPAPER WITH MY FINGER, DAY DREAM THAT MY MOTHER WAS RUN OVER BY A BUS, NEVER GOT BORED.  NOW AT NEARLY SIXTY I AM READY TO SAY WHEN, BUT, NO ONE IS LISTENING.  MY DAUGHTER AND SON IN LAW MOVED IN SO THAT THEY CAN BUILD THEIR NEW HOUSE.  I REMEMBER DISTINCTLY SAYING NO, YET BEFORE I KNEW IT, WE WERE TURNING OUR DOUBLE GARAGE COME GAMES ROOM AT THE BACK OF THE HOUSE INTO A GRANNY FLAT, WITH ONE BIG BEDROOM.  THEY HAD TWO SMALL CHILDREN AT THE TIME, A THREE YEAR OLD AND A ONE YEAR OLD, AND IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN FOR ABOUT EIGHT MONTHS.  HERE IT IS FIFTEEN MONTHS PLUS ANOTHER SON LATER, AND THE PAD FOR THE HOUSE IS MEANT TO BE LAYED ANY DAY NOW.

GOD PROMISES NOT TO GIVE US MORE THAT WE ARE ABLE TO BEAR, SO I MUST BE ABLE TO BEAR LOTS.  IT’S A BIT LIKE THE OPENING OF A TALE OF TWO CITIES, “IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES”, BECAUSE LIFE IS LIKE THAT.  THERE ARE ALWAYS SOME GOOD AND SOME BAD POINTS TO EVERYTHING WE DO.  WHILE IT HAS BEEN A REAL JOY TO HAVE GRANDCHILDREN LIVING WITH US, SEEING THEM EVERYDAY, THEIR CHEERY LITTLE HELLOS SHATTERING THE MORNING SILENCE AS THEY THUNDER INTO THE KITCHEN, THERE ARE REGULAR BOUTS OF DESPAIR THAT CAN OVERWHELM YOU AND THE ACCOMPANYING PANIC, THAT YOU AT NEARLY RETIREMENT AGE, NEVER HAVE A PEACEFUL MOMENT, OR VERY FEW IN ANY CASE, AND THAT THIS IS GOING TO BE YOUR LIFE FOR EVER. 

EVENTUALLY YOU HAVE A TALK TO YOURSELF, THE STUFF YOU PREACH TO OTHER PEOPLE SURFACES: THIS IS JUST A SEASON, THIS TWO WILL PASS, GOD WILL DEVELOP CHARACTER IN YOU THROUGH THIS, I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHO STRENGTHENS ME.  I FINALLY DO GET UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND SPEND A FEW MINUTES JUST SITTING WHILE I POUR OUT ALL MY TALES OF WOE TO GOD AND BEFORE I KNOW IT I FEEL PEACEFUL AND READY TO ATTACK THE NEXT DAY, WITH A NEW SENSE OF SURVIVAL AND A BETTER ATTITUDE.

I AM NOT TRYING TO BLAME MY ENGLISH ANCESTRY (YOU KNOW WHINGEING POM) BUT I DO SEE A PATTERN OF COMPLAINING AS I READ BACK OVER MY JOURNALS AND SCRIBBLES FROM EARLIER YEARS, SO I CANT REALLY BLAME OLD AGE OR SHOULD I SAY MIDDLE OLD AGE ON MY TIREDNESS, IT MAY JUST BE THAT I AM EXTREMELY LAZY OR JUST TRY TO DO TOO MUCH AND ALWAYS HAVE.  I REMEMBER FEELING TIRED IN MY TWENTIES, THIRTIES, FORTIES AND FIFTYS SO WHEN I AM REALLY OLD I WILL STILL JUST THINK I AM TIRED FROM DOING TOO MUCH AND KEEL OVER DEAD … ANYWAY, I HAVE HAD AN EPIPHONY…..LIFE SEEMS TO BE BUSY FOR EVERYONE AND IT ISNT LIKELY TO CHANGE ANYTIME SOON, SO WE JUST NEED TO ENJOY EACH DAY AND MAKE THE MOST OF THOSE LITTLE SNIPPETS OF FUN IN AMONGST THE RUSHING, BECAUSE THE TRUTH IS THIS MOMENT IS YOUR LIFE, AND IT ISNT A REHEARSAL, THIS IS IT, SO DON’T WASTE A MOMENT.

clutters last stand

 Apparently, there is a law like Mr Murphy's that says clutter will always increase to fill the available space.  I can vouch for the truth of this.  Since my daughter and son-in-law moved in a year ago with their three children while they build their new home, we have been fighting an ongoing battle against the clutter monster.  Even after 2 skip bins, 3 or 4 large trailer trips to the tip and a verge pick up we still don't seem to have any less clutter than when we started.

It is also true that as one untidy child leaves the nest, the next in line who may have been previously tidy, not wanting to be outdone by their departing sibling, feels it necessary to fill the vacant position as mess maker extraordinaire.  

Yikes!!

I tried to police the No Dumping rule when my four children were younger.  At one stage I had a box in the doorway of the living room and threw all foreign objects into it.  The idea was that the little litterers would retrieve their belongings and put them away.  Our oldest daughter just found it very convenient to have all the things she needed in one spot and used the box as a closet.  

So I was sitting on the patio the other day trying to rustle up the energy to clean up the clutter in the spare bedroom (full of boxes and debris accumulated from the extra large number in our household) but, knowing first hand that the clutter law is alive and well and operating at my house, I was hesitant to start.

Sometimes cleaning up is forced on us in a moment of panic.  I responded to a distressed scream from daughter number two recently, when she saw what she thought was a mouse run under her bed.  Before I realised what was happening I had sorted through all the clothes and various boxes around and under her bed, restacking them and vacuuming as I went, while princess stood on top of the bed watching.  It dawned on me that I could have been sucked in.  She assured me she had seen something, so I carried on.  Finally at the end, with a lovely clean room and no mouse, the object of terror was found.  A tiny little gekko, no doubt trying to escape from the screaming, was hiding under her lamp stand.

So back to the patio. The spare room wasn't really that urgent, just annoying me, and besides I was still tired from the phantom mouse incident and, having gleaned some wisdom with age, I knew that on previous bouts of house pride, it could be a waste of time. You know exactly what I mean, you start to clean the hall stand near the front door, a small patch of long lost shelf starts to appear and your enthusiasm swells.  Now you are attacking it with gusto, and almost start to enjoy yourself.  But, alas! no sooner have you given those shelves one last flourish of your polishing cloth and lovingly placed a scented candle in the centre and gone to get the dinner started, than one of your little darlings comes in and dumps their school bag on it.

I'm Cheating - this is where we stayed in Paris

                                               

So, I have a choice, go and attack the spare room knowing that I am fighting a losing battle with the clutter, or sit on the patio enjoying the birds flitting in and out of the ivy, drink another coffee and read my book. The birds are looking more and more fascinating...  

Eat, Pray, Love and eat some more.

I saw a little bit of Julia Roberts new movie Eat Pray Love a few days ago.  She was enouraging her friend to ignore the carbs and just eat the pizza in front of her.  Julia's character had come to the emancipating conclusion that life is too short to never be able to enjoy pizza without guilt. It made me want to shout Halleluhah! Julia more power to you and break into an adaptation of Martin Luther King Jrs famous speech "I have a dream, I have a dream that a woman is no longer judged by whether she has wrinkle free skin or the size of her dress, but by the character she exhibits.  It is time we stopped being dictated to by what other people think we should be. Our self esteem is bombarded by media images of models, some of who are fourteen or fifteen peering at us from glossy magazines and even their youthful little faces have been airbrushed to oblivion.  Why do we even try to live up to such manipulation. Cindy Crawford was being interviewed by Oprah once and I heard her say, that in real life even she doesn't look like Cindy Crawford. (They used to remove her famous mole from her pictures) 


Most women I know, including me would say they need to lose weight, and with the mountains of diet information available,  diet plans in every magazine, low fat, low carb and my generations grapefruit diet to name but a few, you would think we would all be slim.  I know for myself I could utilize my most powerful weight loss tool, I could use my arms to push myself away from the table a bit sooner.  My food bill would go down, my arms would tone up and I could send the savings  off to a world relief organisation.

The last time I checked the world statistic site, it said that in America the year before they had spent $262 billion on diets, and I would think most of the Western World would be on par, and yet as Nations we are all just as fat.  (My husband is convinced that it is the cottage cheese as you mostly see fat people like myself eating it - sorry I probably should be politically correct so would that be size challenged)  Imagine what impact just half of that amount would have on some worthwhile cause like world hunger.

Its a constant dilemma. Should we vote with Julia and stuff ourselves with pizza, or should we go with Katherine Hepburns approach in one of my favorite movies 'Guess Whose Coming To Dinner'  She pulls into a drive thru diner with co-star Spencer Tracy her husband in the movie, it is six o'clock in the evening and they are to have dinner with their daughters in-laws at eight.  The lovely elegant Katherine orders black coffee, and gets annoyed with Spencer for ordering boysenberry icecream, ' you'll spoil your dinner', she chastises him.  On the inside I always imagine that I am a disciplined devotee of Kate and have no trouble just having black coffee and not spoiling my dinner, when it is six o'clock and I have to wait till eight.  But the truth is that like pudgy Spencer, I would probably order the icecream and it wouldn't spoil my dinner at all.