Cam, Lizzie and me

It was a beautiful day today, one of those days that make you feel content and happy, even if you havent done all the housework you wanted to, or your hair is having a bad day. (both apply by the way)

Cam and I took some books and a drink each and sat on the back decking. I felt like my body needed to soak in the sun, get a fix of vitamin D (it is D isnt it? )

I had been to a couple of op shops and had some books to read, and Cam had his big army jeep, and was chasing Lizzie. Lizzie looked resplendent in the midday sun, her chocolate brown fur catching every beam of light, she looked like she was wearing a very rich velvet coat.

I ended up buying 4 books and a pink spotty bag today...these were all cheap at my local second hand shop. I love spots! so I just had to have this bag. I think it's a nice bag to celebrate Spring. One of the books I bought was an old "BBC Children's Hour Annual" I love the illustrations and stories, all very British, which I also love.

I also added to my Wind in the Willows collection, I now have the grand sum of 4 different editions and 10 in my Wuthering Heights collction. It makes me smile to think of how much I used to roll my eyes at my parents, who collected many things between them, and now Im doing the same thing, cluttering up the house with books and old bits of whatever. Ahh well, its good for the soul.

Lizzie quite liked sniffing all the old smells on the books too, I wonder what she makes of it all.

King Grisly Beard

Today I took the three kids, AB & C to look around some old junk shops and a nearby second hand book shop. This particular book shop has so many books stacked to the celing, you take your life in your hands just walking in the door!

Still, the kids eyes widened as they scooted down a very narrow aisle heading for the children's books! I told them that they could each pick one book under $10, and so they spent the next 20 mins deciding on and then discarding many many books before I told them "pick one now or you dont get any!"

I found a gorgeous vintage children's book called "King Grisly Beard" published by Renwick of Otley. It has no date but Im guessing it's from the 1940/50s. It includes gorgeous pictures by Arthur Mansbridge and another story called The Fairy Horseshoes. I must scan some of the pics and put them on here. I am obsessed with vintage children's books and toys at the moment!

Alex ended up with a 2000 Guiness Book of Records to add to his collection, and Belinda picked a Mr Men activity book full of puzzles. Cam chose a Madeleine book, it's lovely!

After we got home it started to rain which was perfect reading weather so Cam and I curled up on the back couch and read about Madeleine and the dog Genevieve who rescued her from the waters of the Seine. Cam was quite taken with the 12 girls Madeleine lives with.

We then read old King Grisly beard and looked at the pictures of another story in the book called Country life.

I really feel sorry for people who dont enjoy books!

Domestic Harmony

I feel very content with things at the moment, very content with my family, my house, being home. Sometimes these very things make me feel restless. But lately I find a deep rooted peace, a sense of being a boat anchored to something solid even though things in my life and my head sometimes push and pull me about, like the boat above the water.

"I am thankful for a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning and gutters that need fixing because it means I have a home.... I am thankful for the piles of laundry and ironing because it means my loved ones are nearby." ~Nancie J. Carmody

Goodness - To Sue

This quote made me think of you dear cuz.


People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway. If you are successful, you will win false friends, and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway. The biggest person with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest person with the smallest mind. Think big anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed over night. Build your dreams anyway. People really need help but may attack if you help them. Help anyway. Give the world the best you have and you might get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you got anyway.
-Bishop Abel Muzorewa, Zimbabwe Prime Minister (1925)

Ordinary World Duran Duran

This song has been going around and around in my head, it makes me sad, but also hopeful.

Ordinary World

Came in from a rainy Thursday on the avenue

thought I heard you talking softly

I turned on the lights the TV and the radio but still

I can't escape the ghostof you

What is happening to me crazy some would say

Where is the life that I recognize, gone away

And I won't cry for yesterday

there's an ordinary world somehow I have to find

And as I try to make my way to the ordinary world

I will learn to survive

Passion or coincidence once prompted you to say

pride will tear us both apart

Well now pride's gone out the window cross the rooftops runaway

Left me in the vaccuum of my heart

What is happening to me crazy some will say

where is my friend when I need you most gone away

But I won't cry for yesterday

there's an ordinary world somehow I have to find

And as I try to make my way to the ordinary world

I will learn to survive

Papers in the roadside tell of suffering and grief

Fear today forgot tomorrow beside the news of holy war and holy need

Our's is just a little sorrowed talk, just blown away

And I won't cry for yesterday

there's an ordinary world somehow I have to find

And as I try to make my way to the ordinary world

I will learn to survive

Every world is my world (I will learn to survive)

Any world is my world (I will learn to survive)

Any world is my world, every world is our world, every world

Moments of Pleasure

Its been one of those days when I keep thinking of Mum and Dad, especially Dad....and I still miss him as much as if he left yesterday. Where are you? I love you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5P0v0kGauc

My boy

“When I drink tea it’s very pleasant to be aware I am drinking cloud.” Thich Nhat Hanh

Adrian says it again

Im in a strange place betwixt Jesus and Buddha. Spending a whole day with the beautiful Geshe Doga yesterday was a blessing, but I also found myself thinking of Jesus at different times. I actually felt he would be agreeing with many many things the Buddha taught, love, compassion, patience with each other instead of anger.
There was also fun in the Gompa...Geshe Doga has a gorgeous sense of humour, It remninded me of why Christians and Church frustrate me sometimes...humour seems to be somehow disprespectful.
Reminded me of this post by someone else who makes me laugh Adrian Plass.

OmmmmmAaaaaaaaaamen



When I say I'm a writer people look fairly interested. Then they say, "Oh, what sort of thing do you write?" And I miserably mutter, "Well, it's sort of religious humour," and their eyes glaze and they say, "Oh, how interesting." But like the girls I talked to in kitchens at parties when I was seventeen and a half, they just want to escape. I don't blame them. Some Christians seem to specialise in presenting God as humourless and out of touch with reality.
Even among those few dear souls who do actually part with money in exchange for my wretched outpourings there are sundry brethren who find humour inappropriate. They accuse me of flippancy, would you believe? That's why it was lovely to get a letter from a lady called Margaret telling the following story.

Margaret's husband David, who has M.S., got very edgy and bad-tempered during a course of steroids. One despairing Sunday Margaret had a good weep in the garden shed, then wondered back into the house and happened to pick up a copy of New Daylight, a daily bible-note periodical I write bits for. In this edition I'd bemoaned Jesus' strange oversight in omitting "Blessed are the irritable for they shall be given claret" from the beatitudes. Remembering that claret is her husband's favouite tipple (hallelujah - we are one with you, brother David) Margaret hurried to the mini-supermarket and queued for the only remaining bottle of claret on the shelf. When she gave it to David and explained why she'd bought it they had a good laugh together, and, as Margaret herself put it, "All the tension was released" And that was before they drank the claret. Wonderful!

Don't kid yourself. The Jesus who made his comeback by cooking breakfast for his friends instead of organizing a sky-filling Spielburg spectacular is still in touch with the real world
Adrian Plass

Meditation

Meditation is bringing the mind back home, and this is first achieved through the practice of mindfulness.

Once an old woman came to Buddha and asked him how to meditate. He told her to remain aware of every movement of her hands as she drew water from the well, knowing that if she did, she would soon find herself in that state of alert and spacious calm that is meditation.

Sogyal Rinpoche