Thursday 30 December 2010

The End of Another Year...

Where is time rushing to?  I cannot believe we have had ten years of a new century already. I still remember all the excitement and worrying as the century was born. Hope's for better times, more peaceful, compassionate times. All the worrying about computers and the Internet imploding on it's self.

What did we get instead?  Smaller more powerful computery, an internet that has grown so big it is taking over the world. The peace and compassion didn't arrive, just more wars and selfishness and greed, compassion being a dirty word in some area's of the world.

Saying hello and smiling at neighbours or passing strangers.
Inviting a neighbour for a cuppa. Simple things that were second nature not so long ago.
Can we ever get back to the simple things that are important? 
Talking to each other, rather than texting  and messaging?
Writing a letter instead of emailing or messaging.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the benefits of the WWW, but it does isolate us to a degree.
I have many Internet friends, blogging is one of my pleasure's. But is it putting normal human relationships at risk?

Well I don't know where all that came from, I had not planning to write such a post. I just wanted to reflect on how the world and time are going so quickly and I would like things to slow down and let us enjoy our family and friends at a slower more simple pace.

Tomorrow evening we are letting in the New Year with my daughter's and their families. I am making a huge pan of Scouse and we will enjoy that with some crusty bread and a drink or two.

Then 2011 will be here, new plans and ideas will abound and some progress made.
So I will wish all my dear friends in the inter world a Very Happy New Year. May the turn of the year bring you a healthy, happy, joyful and peaceful future.

Tuesday 28 December 2010

End of Year Thoughts.

This year has been a mixed bag of highs and lows. 
A bit of a roller coaster ride at times.
My word for 2010 was Celebration and I did do a fair amount of celebrating.
I celebrated my darling Emily coming through a life threatening illness.
I celebrated my 60th Birthday.
I celebrated being reunited with my dear daughter after 15 months of estrangement.
I celebrated meeting fabulous friends when on holiday in the USA.
I celebrated being alive, healthy, free and loved.
I celebrated coming through an unexplained depression.
I celebrated a wonderful almost complete Christmas, with my family for the first time in several years.
I celebrated being married to the most wonderful of men.

Tonight I celebrate being safe and warm in the Shoebox, sitting with my husband enjoying pizza and about to watch a DVD. After  a lovely day, shopping, laughing and having fun.

I am Blessed

Monday 27 December 2010

Christmas Joy

We have had a wonderful Christmas, spent with most of my family.
It was a joyful time and felt so good after several years of feeling outside
of the family circle. Ralph has been accepted by everyone now and he was overwhelmed by the love and generosity shown to him over the past two day's.

At long last, all of my family can see how happy he makes me.
He is no longer considered an outsider,
For me is the best Christmas gift I could have received this year.

Friday 24 December 2010

Happy Christmas

Christmas is a time full of memories, some good some bad and some downright awful. I have had my share of the different Christmas's. I try my best to keep hold of the good one's, but every Christmas Eve, the bad one's come back to haunt me.

Today I have upset my darling husband one more than one occasion, all because of my past.  I have taken the bad memories out on him, he really, really doesn't deserve it. It breaks my heart to think I have hurt the one who loves me so very much.
When will these bad memories let me go once and for all?
When will I be able to enjoy Christmas without ghosts of the past rearing their ugly heads?

I will be taking a break from the WWW over the holiday, to be with family and friends face to face.
But I want to wish all my wonderful internet/blogging friends, the happiest, of Christmas's.
May Love and JOY surround you and yours on this Holy and Blessed Day.

Tuesday 21 December 2010

May Peace Be Yours This Christmas Time

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

Mother Teresa




Sunday 19 December 2010

I Like It...

In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it 'Christmas' and went to church; the Jews called it 'Hanukkah' and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say 'Merry Christmas!' or 'Happy Hanukkah!' or (to the atheists) 'Look out for the wall!'"" - Dave Barry

What Can One Say?

What a load of rubbish that was...
As tribute bands go they were the pits.
Why do they have to be so LOUD?
That band (I use the term loosely) ruined a great night.
Good company, good food, really good times. But the band
ruined it. A lot of people left early because of them. I was one
of them. I was back home cuddly and warm with my man.
Watching the final of Strictly by 11:45pm.
Now thats what I call delicous.

Saturday 18 December 2010

Miracles Do Happen

Even little one's..

Christmas Shopping Done!
Christmas Presents Wrapped!
Christmas Presents Labelled!
And Christmas Day is SEVEN day's away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's a bit scary, I am usually still wrapping at midnight Christmas Eve.

I am out to a retirement party tonight, not keen on going with the snow on the ground and minus temperature's forecast for later, but don't want to let Norma down. Hopefully it will be a great night.

Here's hoping I don't end up on my backside, or worse...

Friday 17 December 2010

Oh I Wish....

I saw an angel in the block of marble and I just chiseled 'til I set him free.
 
Michelangelo

Thursday 16 December 2010

Golden Nugget

.
I Found This Golden Nugget While Looking for Something Completely Different.
The writer said he would like it shared.

“We may not all live holy lives, but we live in a world alive with holy moments.” ~ Kent Nerburn

Twenty years ago, I drove a cab for a living.
It was a cowboy’s life, a life for someone who wanted no boss.
What I didn’t realize was that it was also a ministry.
Because I drove the night shift, my cab became a moving confessional.
Passengers climbed in, sat behind me in total anonymity, and told me about their lives.
I encountered people whose lives amazed me, ennobled me, and made me laugh and weep.
But none touched me more than a woman I picked up late one August night.

I was responding to a call from a small brick fourplex in a quiet part of town.
I assumed I was being sent to pick up some partyers, or someone who had just had a fight with a lover, or a worker heading to an early shift at some factory for the industrial part of town.

When I arrived at 2:30 a.m., the building was dark except for a single light in a ground floor window.Under these circumstances, many drivers would just honk once or twice, wait a minute, then drive away. But I had seen too many impoverished people who depended on taxis as their only means of transportation.Unless a situation smelled of danger, I always went to the door. This passenger might be someone who needs my assistance, I reasoned to myself.

So I walked to the door and knocked. “Just a minute”, answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor. After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 80?s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940s movie. By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There were no clocks on the walls, no knick-knacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.

“Would you carry my bag out to the car?” she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb. She kept thanking me for my kindness. “It’s nothing”, I told her. “I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother treated.” “Oh, you’re such a good boy”, she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address, then asked, “Could you drive through downtown?”

“It’s not the shortest way,” I answered quickly.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” she said.
“I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice.”
I looked in the rear view mirror. Her eyes were glistening.
“I don’t have any family left,” she continued. “The doctor says I don’t have very long.”
I quietly reached over and shut off the meter. “What route would you like me to take?” I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl. Sometimes she’d ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, “I’m tired. Let’s go now.”
We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico. Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her. I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.

“How much do I owe you?” she asked, reaching into her purse.
“Nothing,” I said.
“You have to make a living,” she answered.
“There are other passengers”.
Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly.
"You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,” she said. “Thank you.”
I squeezed her hand, then walked into the dim morning light. Behind me, a door shut.
It was the sound of the closing of a life.

I didn’t pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly, lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?

On a quick review, I don’t think that I have done anything more important in my life.
We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware – beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.

Kent Nerburn


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I wonder what you think of this?

Wednesday 15 December 2010

Oh to Be The Artist of My Life

Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can.

Danny Kaye

Note to self.... colour your life in 2011.

Tuesday 14 December 2010

Christmas List

Christmas Gift Suggestions:
To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect.
Oren Arnold

I am Here ...

Just busy, busy, busy...

Thursday 9 December 2010

I have been Tagged

I have been tagged by the lovely PJ and I hope I am doing this right.




 
I have to answer four questions set by PJ then set four of my own questions and past it forward to four other blogger's, so here goes......


THE 4 QUESTIONS

1. If you could live in another time period, which would you choose? The future? biblical times? 19th century? the 50's Whatever or whenever one you choose and why?
If you need to answer with the thought you would still have your same family then do so.

Oh boy is that a question to conjure with. I have always been a fan of history and there are many periods of historic interest I have longed to find a Time Machine to take me back to. To pick just one is very difficult, Plantagenet England, Tudor England, Victorian England, the Industrial Revolution. They all stir up curiosity in me, to have met Richard the Lionheart, or Sir Francis Drake or Sir Walter Raleigh.  To have met the the great inventors and entrepreneur's of the Industrial Revolution, Richard Arkwight, James Watt, Thomas Telford, to name just a few. I can remember being totally enthralled in history lesson's. I would devour every word, written and spoken and be transported off in my imagination to which ever era we were being taught about. I think if I was given the opportunity to go back, I would pick the fifties. I would go back and give little Sheilagh Riley a pep talk and advise her she was just as good as everyone else and not to spend the most of her life in low self esteem with a huge inferiority complex. I can keep the dreams of bygone history, but would love to set that little girl on a different path.

2. What did you want to be 'when you you grew up'when you were a kid? Did you become that?

As a little girl I wanted to become a nurse, then a teacher, then a nun. I got to do none of these, thanks to my father who blocked every dream/ambition I had. I did become an adult literacy tutor for several years, but that is as far as I got with teaching ambitions. I have had several jobs, Lab Technician, market garden worker, barmaid, insurance clerk and doctor's receptionist. All far from those little girl dreams.

3. If you won a million dollars (after taxes) what would you do?

Can I have a million pounds please? :)
I would:
Pay off my three daughters mortgages and clear any debt's they had.
Buy a home for Ralph and myself with at least four bedrooms.
Gift some money to my brothers and sister.
Gift some money to several different charities.
Take my grandchildren to Orlando.
Buy my best friend a craft shop.
Invest the rest for our future.

4. What are you most afraid of and why?
Losing my husband,It took a long time for him to find me, I have made him promise that I can die in his arms. In about thirty five years time.



Time to tag 4 blogge'rs to answer 4 questions and then for them to pay it forward with 4 new questions to 4 new blogger's These are totally random picks...

Marie

Anne

Dana

Cath

Here are my four questions:

1.What is your favourite Christmas memory?

2. If money was no object, where in the world would you like to enjoy your dream holiday?

3. Do you think the internet is a blessing or a curse?

4. Are you a secretly addicted to a substance, food, tv show, or wierd pastime?

I hope you take part in this littel bit of fun:)

Happy Thursday...it's nearly the weekend.




Wednesday 8 December 2010

Happy Birthday Darling

Today is my husband's birthday.
My toyboy;)



I feel like it is my birthday everyday being married to him.
I am such a  lucky lady.


Tuesday 7 December 2010

So Very Cold

There is a winter wonderland outside my window, the tree's are absolutely stunning, dressed with thick glistening frost. Against the ice blue sky it is a beautiful picture.  My camera battery is charging so I hope to take some photo's before it disappears.  I am so glad to be on late shift this week, so the roads have thawed a little before I leave home.  It is so cold Titch has to be pushed outside to do what a dog has to do:)  She doesn't stay out long at all..lol

It is so cold, comfort food beckons and I am trying hard to stay away from them most of the time. Tea and toast really grabs me at this time of year, it reminds me of childhood. My mother would get the kitchen warmed up of a morning by having the gas stove on with the door open, our school clothes would be on the clothes horse close to the heat. As we got dressed she would make toast, big thick slices spread with dripping (our poor arteries) and a pot of tea.  We would huddle round the the stove and relish the tea and toast.  One of the happier memories of checkered childhood.

So my relationship with bread has been a long one, I always head for bread when I am cold, low, sad, lonely of just cheesed of with the world.  We try not to have bread in the house now, but Ralph brought a loaf home last night and I can hear it calling to me... but I am not cold, low, sad or lonely, maybe a little cheesed of with work but not so bad to dive into the comfort of bread and butter.  So I will go and have a bowl of porridge instead, the birds can have the bread.

Keep warm and safe.

Sunday 5 December 2010

Weekend Joy

Ralph and I had a great weekend, the weather yesterday was dire and made me grumpy.  It spoilt my plan's for Ralph's birthday weekend. We left home at noon instead of ninish as the rain was so heavy.  When we got to Caernarvon it was still raining so it was the perfect excuse to browse my favourite shop in this lovely Welsh town.  "Celtica" is a fabulous shop and I could spend a fortune, but I didn't..lol

The rain eased off so we went for a walk around the town and had some chips out of the wrapper, delicious.  We bought a couple of bits and bobs before heading back to the hotel. We then went for a delicious meal before settling into our room to watch X Factor semi final.

Today we met my Bezzy and Phil for lunch, Ralph's birthday treat from them both. The meal was awesome and Phil was on form, which was good for Trish. I saw spark's of the old Phil, wish we could drag him back from the brain injury the changed both their lives so drastically.



Here or two images that gave me JOY today.  



Phil the Fluter with his Father Christmas beard, his grandchildren love it. So do I:)


The snow on the mountains of Snowdonia the mountains were magnificent today.

The drive home was scary it was foggy and that really frightens me, but we got home safe.
Thankfully.

Friday 3 December 2010

I Curled up on the Sofa

I curled up on the sofa with Titch yesterday, very lazy I know, but I enjoyed it.
My girlies are due to come and make cards this afternoon, but it is so cold
I am not sure it is a good idea. We will see if it warms up at all, but the
forcast doesn't look promising.

Ralph and I are due to spend the weekend in Caernarvon North Wales, meeting up with Trish and Phil on Sunday.  I just hope there is no more snow to stop us getting together. We will be having a birthday meal for Ralph, it is his birthday on Wednesday. I am really looking forward to getting together with them both.Oh well, I best go get ready for work and face defrosting my little car. Have a good Friday.

Thursday 2 December 2010

So Cold

It is bitterly cold here, I just cannot get my feet warmed up.We have not had much snow here in Runcorn, but boy is it cold! I think a big bowl of soup and crusty bread are the order of the day. Then I must venture out into my Scrappy Shack and get started on some Christmas cards.  I am running very  lLate this year.  I really just want to just snuggle on the sofa with Titch and watch mind numbing daytime tv, what shall I do?.....