Thunder…. downunder

I have been awarded the “Encouraging Thunder” award by Joey at Joeyfullystated.
Now, I have a little bit of an issue with awards (the main one being that I can’t keep up with them) however this is a new award and well, Joey was just so darn sweet about awarding it to me that I just have to accept.
And it’s an easy award to pass on as well.

Daydream Believer

I could hide ‘neath the wings

of the bluebird as she sings

The six o’clock alarm would never ring

Ode to a daydreamer by the gorgeous Davy Jones himself.
Imagine not worrying about the alarm going off… and the day beginning.

It Goes On – Virtual Blog Tour

The delightful Karen at Days and Months has nominated me as part of a virtual blog tour.
The purpose of this tour is for those following me to learn a little more about my creative processes and why I do things the way that I do. I have some questions that I need to answer and then pass the baton along to someone else. It all seems quite simple really.

Wow!! Thank you all.

This morning I received this. I am humbled and eternally grateful.
When I began my blogging journey, it was to reach out to others who are going through rough times and to let them know that I understand. Tough times are not new to me as those of you who have been with me since the beginning will attest to.
What is even more wonderful to me is that this number has been reached after my conscious decision to step back from the computer a little and to reduce the number of posts that I make.
As we all journey through life, it helps to have a support network.
Thank you for being my on-line cyber support network.

Have a blessed day.

On awards

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about awards and I’ve come to the conclusion that whilst I love them, I just run out of time to actually do them justice by acknowledging each one as I receive it.

So with this post I am going to acknowledge each award that I have received in the past few weeks and write a bit about the blogger who nominated me in lieu of receiving and passing on each award. Doing awards (although fun) is time consuming and due to the number of awards I receive (and that I am truly grateful for) I’m not sure if I am going to be able to continue to receive them. So without further ado, here are my awards for the past few weeks.

Field of Flowers Award
Isn’t this just the most beautiful award? The lovely Shaun from Looking for Reasoning to a Complicated World nominated me for this. This award was created by Patty at petitmagique

I have created this new award because there are some people who I would give a field full of flowers if I could. Not just a couple of flowers… No, a field full of them. Because they can use it, to thank someone or because they simply deserve it. Flowers give color, flowers say ‘I Care’ and flowers are nature’s gift to us. You give them to show someone you care or to celebrate something. Just spreading a little love and care.

I am incredibly blessed and flattered to receive this award from Shaun who is a pretty good all round bloke himself. He described me as “Big heart. Good fun. And really cares”. I would say exactly the same thing about Shaun. Please check out his blog.

One Lovely Blog Award
Nominated for this award by the most lovely Linda G Hill . What can I say about this lady other than she is such a beautiful soul and writes from her heart. Linda is a devoted mother and is concerned about the world we live in and society itself. Please check out Linda’s blog here.

Dragon’s Loyalty Award
My friend Don Charisma has blessed me with this award. Ahhh DC my friend, what other things can I say about you that haven’t already been said a million times? Don loves his photography with his iPhone and takes some awesome photos. He is not afraid to share his opinion but does so with charisma and a certain sense of style. If you haven’t already checked out Don’s blog, you should do so. You can find my friend Don here.

The Inventive Blogger Award
This award was created by Don Charisma (there’s that name again) and this is the second time I have received it. This time I was awarded this by the wonderful Eric from Hunt FOR Truth on WordPress. Eric is a man of great faith who looks to share his discoveries in regard to science and faith on his blog. You can find Eric’s blog here.

Excellence Award
Awarded this once more, I am overwhelmed to receive it again. This time from Irene at irenedesign. Irene is a wonderful and caring lady who lives in Spain. Although English is not her first language she is always there with an encouraging word on every post. Irene is not only beautiful in spirit but she is also creative and you just have to browse her blog to see her handiwork.

Lighthouse Award
Shaun has nominated me once again for an award. I’ve already told you what a great guy Shaun is, but I haven’t told you that he lives and breathes football (or soccer for those of us uneducated and living outside of the U.K). Thanks once again my friend for thinking of me with this award. I appreciate your online friendship and your wacky sense of humour.

Inner Peace Award
I am truly blessed to once more receive this award. This time I received it from My Ongoing Struggle. This beautiful young lady lives in the U.K. and has been through some rough times in her short time here on earth so far. Going to school and having a disability is something that many of us don’t have to live with but she lives with this each day – and each day she grows and blossoms. 🙂 Please check out her blog here.

Sisterhood of the World Bloggers
The most gorgeous Empathy Queen nominated me for this award. I’m so pleased to be part of the sisterhood of wonderful bloggers out there. (sidenote: Dear Nav – not all sisterhoods are evil 😉 ). As part of my Fellow Blogger series, I had the privilege of interviewing this lovely lady who is kind and beautiful and above all empathetic. You can find her blog here.

Last but definitely not least:

Shine On Award
Isn’t this just the sweetest award? I received this award from Annie at Experiment in Trying. Annie loves to laugh and to read. I think that is an awesome combination. Annie hasn’t been blogging for very long and would love everyone to check out her blog.

Whew! That was quite a job and a half.I am so grateful to every one of you who bestow awards upon me and as most of these awards request that I give 7 random facts about myself – here they are:

1. I have heard my phone ping me twice now with a message but I don’t feel like getting up to go and check it just yet
2. My cat scratched me earlier. She wasn’t happy because the Tween chased her to pick her up.
3. I got my first job when I was 12 working at McDonalds (can’t get a job these days unless you are 14 years and 9 months now).
4. I love watching MKR (My Kitchen Rules).
5. I like eating Weiss Fruito bars when it is hot. (Guess what I am going to eat when I finish this post)?
6. I have started work on the Tween’s quilt for her bed.
7. I used to love eating Choo Choo bars when I was a kid

Have a blessed day all 🙂

Sunshine on a Rainy Day

Outside, the weather is showery. We don’t mind at all. It has been so dry lately that the grass has been developing huge brown patches. So it is only fitting that today I thank the following lovely people for nominating me for the Sunshine Award:

Shaun from Praying for One Day
Irene from irenedesign2011
Carol from Pills and Pillow Talk
Irene A. Waters from Reflections and Nightmares, andDon Charisma

There are some beautiful variations on the badge for this award so I am going to display them here and my recipients can choose the one they like best.

Here are the rules:

– Include the award’s logo in a post or on your blog.
– Link to the person who nominated you.
– Answer 10 questions about yourself.
– Nominate 10 bloggers.
– Link your nominees to the post and comment on their blogs, letting them know they have been nominated.

Generally, this award has requested that you give ten random facts about yourself. Since I’ve random-facted myself out of random facts, I have decided to go with Shaun’s idea of answering ten questions. Much easier than wracking this addled brain right now.
So here goes:

Favourite food: Anything I don’t have to cook myself
Favourite actor: George Clooney
Favourite TV show: Chicago Fire (right now. It changes because I’m fickle)
Favourite tear-jerker: I bawled my eyes out in The Book Thief but also in Mamma Mia (go figure)
Favourite sport: Tennis
Lucky number: 7
Tea or coffee: Tea
Holidays: Road tripping
Twitter or Facebook: Facebook (although I’m getting used to Twitter)
Favourite Christmas movie: The Santa Clause

Now I have to choose ten recipients. I find it difficult to know just who does and doesn’t accept awards these days so if I nominate you and you don’t accept awards, I apologise.

I nominate:

Kerrianne from ??Journey or destination??
Susan from Putting in a Good Word
A Day in the Life
Laura Macky
Dave from Deliberating Dave
Val from Find Your Middle GroundApril from Finding Beauty in Spite of Myself
Me – Who am I?
B from Idiot Writing
Nav from The Mirror

Each one of these people add some sunshine to my life and there are so many others of you who do also. My apologies to those I’ve missed this time around. I have a heap more awards to get to and I will do so (I promise).

Have a blessed day all

 

On Awards and this weekend

Hi all!!
It’s Saturday and my heart is so happy. I love the weekends. I’ve had a bit of a big week with this back/head thing. Yesterday when the head spins started, I made a frantic call to my GP who worked back late last night so that she could see me. We ruled out what wasn’t causing all my symptoms – head spins, ringing in my ears, fullness/pressure in my head etc. My blood pressure is perfect. My eyesight is good (not perfect. If  it were perfect I wouldn’t wear glasses) and I don’t have an ear infection.  After the spinal xrays the other day, my chiropractor has identified that the vertebrae in my neck are not aligned correctly. (He also found a fractured vertebrae in my lower back that is the cause of a lot of pain). I have had two chiro sessions so far and two more booked next week. My lower back is going great but my head issues still prevail. I have a referral to an ENT specialist if things don’t settle. My GP also mentioned the possibility of Meneire’s Disease. Let’s just take things one step at a time.

So this weekend, I have made a promise to myself to step away from the computer. I currently have 800 blog notifications in my in-box. I am trying to catch up but I don’t think I will make it. I am going to schedule some posts and I will be back to comment later this evening and possibly tomorrow morning HOWEVER this weekend is about me and my family. I am going to finish the quilt I started last week and start planning one for the Tween’s bed. I am going to take the Tween up on the offer for her to teach me how to play chess. Although I have no way of knowing if she is teaching me the correct way, I won’t really mind. I am going to read some of my books and magazines. We are going shopping for her school supplies (have I ever mentioned how much I love stationery stores? Okay, maybe once or twice 😳 ). I am also going to go to Spotlight to look into the Project Life stuff I blogged about yesterday. (I have a little Christmas cash I can put toward it). I might get some photos from last year printed out. I am going to spend time with my animals as well. Little Madiba is beginning to find his vocal chords and has begun little trills every so often. He loves when I stand beside him and whistle. 🙂 I am also going to pull out my short stories and work on them a little. So they are my weekend plans.

Now… awards!
I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I love receiving awards and I love passing them on however in my effort to step away from the computer a little, I need to re-think how I am going to do this. I currently have seven awards awaiting my acceptance. So what I am going to do is accept all of these awards right now, put them in my awards gallery and start afresh. I want to thank each and every one of you for these awards.

Blog of the Year Award

Awarded to me six times by Don Charisma and also by Eric (Hunt4Truth on WordPress), Mikee (pray.love.live.laugh) and Irene (irenedesgin2011). Thank you to you all. 🙂

Inventive Blogger

This award was invented by the wonderfully inventive Don Charisma and I am honoured to be one of the first ever recipients of this award. It has also been awarded to me by Mikee. Links to the blogs of both of these amazing people is above. 🙂

The LAZY Not Freshly Pressed Award

Invented by Laura Macky I was awarded this by her. Thank you Laura. 🙂 I trust I have not over-exerted myself in accepting this.

The Lighthouse Award

An award I am truly blessed to receive. The premise behind this award is just wonderful and many, many other fine and inspirational bloggers before me have received this award. My eternal gratitude and huge cyber hugs go to Julie (The Nocturnal Laundress) for this award. Please check out Julie’s blog. She is a wonderful writer and a beautiful soul.

The I’m Not Featured on Freshly Pressed Award

Every blog should have this award adorned with the mug of Don Charisma on it!! Because every blog is deserving in many different ways. In actual fact, I am awarding this award to every person who reads and likes this post. 🙂 All the details for this award can be found here: http://doncharisma.org/2014/01/01/the-im-not-featured-on-freshly-pressed-award/

The Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award

I think this is the cutest award and I have been awarded it once again 🙂 This time by the lovely Nia at Nia Simone, Author. I  like this graphic as much as I like the other one. Thanks Nia. Please check out Nia’s blog as she not only writes, but dabbles in photography as well! And she’s good at both!

Last, but definitely not least is:

The Excellence Award

Awarded to me by the beautiful soul that is Irene at Irenedesigns 2011.

I want to thank each and every one of you for thinking of me. I am truly blessed to have you all in my blogging life. You make me smile. 🙂

See you at the other end of the weekend (apart from the Fellow Blogger posts, they will go ahead as usual).

Awards, Awards, Awards….. again

I am still catching up with awards from December. Please forgive me.

I have once again been awarded the Sunshine Award. This time by Nia at Nia Simone, Author. I love Nia’s blog but I am a bit behind on my commenting. As I was scrolling through her blog looking for the details of this award, I was once again assailed by her wonderful photography and editing. Nia was recently out in Australia and took some wonderful photos. Many of the photos that she has taken, she has transformed with an artists software that has transformed her photos into wonderful artworks that would look amazing printed on canvases. Nia is a bright and upbeat lady who I am so pleased to be able to communicate with in this blog world.

The rules of this award are:

1. Display the Award on your blog.
2. Announce your win with a post and thank the blogger who awarded you.
3. Present around 10 deserving bloggers with the Award – “who positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere.”
4. Link your awardees in the post and let them know of their being awarded with a comment.
5. Write 10 interesting things about you

And my recipients are:

1. aspermama
2. Bulging Buttons
3. Carried Away by Nutrition
4. Die Trying
5. Davecenker
6. e-Tinkerbell
7. From the Desk of MarDrag
8. Hope* the Happy Hugger
9. myownheart.me
10. pray.love.live.laugh

Now for the ten interesting things about me…. hmmmm

• I don’t do summer really well and enjoy winter so much more
• I collect books of quotes
• I am terrible at remembering names and often mix up the names of my children
• I love antique china
• The pile of books beside my bed waiting to be read appears to be increasing rather than decreasing
• I have been around a good portion of Australia on the back of a bike
• We once had a dog called Sunshine
• I am a Tuesday child
• I own only a few pairs of shoes

“Awarding the people who live in the moment,
The noble who write and capture the best in life,
The bold who reminded us what really mattered…
Savoring the experience of quality time.”

This one is a new award for me. It is the Best Moment Award. I was awarded this by Anne at Tales Along the Way. Anne is a teacher who has travelled to India and writes about her experiences in that country (amongst other topics).  I have learned so much through reading Anne’s blog and looking at her photos. She has a wonderful affinity with the people of India and their customs and shares this through her writing.

RULES:

• Winners re-post this completely with their acceptance speech. This could be written or video recorded.
• Winners have the privilege of awarding the next awardees! The re-post should include a NEW set of people/blogs worthy of the award; and winners notify them of the great news.

RESOURCES:

• What makes a good acceptance speech?
  • Gratitude – Thank the people who helped you along the way
  • Humor – Keep us entertained and smiling
  • Inspiration – Make your story touch our lives
• Get an idea from the great acceptance speeches, compiled in MomentMatters.com/Speech
• Display the award’s badge on your blog/website, downloadable in MomentMatters.com/Award

 

ACCEPTANCE SPEECH:

You know I truly am humbled and grateful by the awards I receive from those of you who follow my blog and this award is no exception. I would not have the impetus to write each day if it were not for those of you who read and comment. I have had the honour of sharing laughs, tears and anxious moments with you all. I have cheered with you and I have enjoyed the beauty you capture in your photographs and post also. Wayne Dyer has taught me “I am that I am”. And as I journey through life and overcome obstacles, I write as a way of learning as I go. If I can make others laugh or encourage them in some way then I am happy. I believe my purpose in life is to be a helper but first I must learn to help myself. My blog is the outward signs of me doing this. Thank you all 🙂

And I would like to pass this award on to :

1. Vic Briggs
2. The Empathy Queen
3. Where I Stand
4. Must be this Tall to Ride
5. LindaGHill
6. Stuff My Brain Thinks
7. The Visual Chronicle
8. Putting in a Good Word
9. A View from Under the Prep-Room Table
10. Hunt for Truth on WordPress

Thank you all so much for the awards and congratulations to those I have awarded in this round 🙂