February 2017

It’s great, so great. I love it when Steve is away for long periods of time, because I really get to relax, enjoying so much peace, solitude and silence you know. It’s a self-pampering time… Well except when we have three fire incidents in the boy’s bedroom. Lex! He’s obsessed with fire and I get it. That’s why we bought a fire bin so they could burn stuff if they asked permission first and a parent accompanied them. That is the deal. Fire is cool when you’re a kid – well all know that. But no, he doesn’t use the fire bin, because why would you when you can set things on fire in your bed? How do I handle it, after screaming obviously… I resort to showing him what a person looks like who has been burnt all over their body. He has NO idea of the danger he is playing with! Any suggestions? Before that third fire incident in a week, Jax decided it was a good idea to throw rocks down two floors, infuriating some dude below that almost got cracked in the skull. The worst thing for Jax – that man being angry with him. Totally unreasonable strange man, bloody hell. I didn’t dare show him a photo of what a rock in the skull from two floors looks like, because then my bedtime serenity would be disturbed by kids crying from bad dreams. I mean, I’m not stupid. But Jax!! Or the night before that. Taking Jax out for a birthday dinner and because they’re so BORED waiting for their food, they’re either running atop empty beer barrels – I see a night in ER with broken bones at this point – or when that wasn’t good enough, they decide to climb up a ramp with a two story drop off the side. It was so peaceful and such an amazing dinner. Seriously, when people criticize parent’s for bringing iPads out for dinner, THIS IS WHY PARENTS BRING IPADS OUT FOR DINNER! We’re trying to keep our kids alive. What else, what else? Another terrific moment was taking the boys to Ikea on a Sunday – great idea Andrea! But you know, sometimes you just really need to go to Ikea. It was so much fun watching the boys jump all over the carpets I was pondering, or jumping between mats and breaking the storage boxes while I was furiously trying to work out the numbering system of Ikea carpet storage – as logical as its printed instructions for me. And the reason I was looking for a rug in Ikea? So our newest family member – Freddy, the Golden Retriever – doesn’t have bad hips. My doggy trainer told me that slipping and sliding on marble isn’t such a great thing for puppy development. It was great bringing the carpet home, where Freddy promptly took a shit on it and later a piss. He LOVES it! Last count, six pisses. Awesome Freddy. My word that’s starting to stink and outside. Here’s a post cupcake photo – noice! My fourth child – Steve – has needs to. He was away during Jax’s birthday and this weekend will be away when Jax heads off to KL for rugby with his coach/team alone. I’m a little anxious about our little guy heading off on an international trip, but Steve is devastated. He wants to be there and he wanted to be there for Jax’s birthday too. Of course he does. It’s shit missing stuff like that. So I try to integrate Steve into our lives as best I can when he’s away – but more so this time – and my favourite integrationwas during the birthday cupcake baking session. Picture this – a pretty trashed Steve (big night in Phoenix) on speaker phone in the kitchen, with flour, sugar, eggs, chocolate, you name it, flying everywhere, a dog trying to get in on the action, me trying to deliver instructions, electric beaters whirling, hot stuff, sloppy stuff, etc, etc, etc… It was so peaceful and such a great call. I hope you loved it Steve? I am not a single mum and you know who I admire? Single mums. Bloody hell women – how do you do it? I cannot even imagine facing this stuff alone. Not being able to share the anxiety load on your kid’s safety for a start, let alone just getting a break from your kids sometimes…. Yes, I admire single mums tremendously. Hats off ladies. Right kids are back from school. Let the chaos continue. Anyone else have some lovely experiences or memories to share? Oh go on, I need the laugh when I’m missing my love. Yours, without the bollocks Andrea Playing with fire photo courtesy of Shutterstock. Other courtesy of my phone. Thank you for reading my ramblings. My brain and heart are a work in progress, always. I’d love a comment if it stirred any thoughts or feelings and of course, please feel free to share it with anyone you know who might be interested or entertained. I sure do appreciate it when you do. If you want to connect, I’m on Twitter here, Google+ here, Instagram here, and Facebook too. I share loads of stuff, not just my own xxxxx    

I watched the movie Queen of Katwe last night – a story of a girl from the slums of Uganda who goes on to become a Chess Master. An incredibly powerful story, it touched on so many deep subjects, but most importantly, I couldn’t believe anyone could make a movie about chess and it be brilliant! Please watch it if you can. Amazing. A powerful women’s story too.   But the moment that spoke to me most was at the end  – where the actor David Oyelowo (brilliant) shouts out – “you deserve to be here, you deserve to be here.” Of course, she went onto win and became a superstar in her local community, but that line, you deserve to be here resonated. I didn’t grow up in the slums of Uganda. I grew up in a working-class family in a town in Victoria, Australia, called Wodonga.  It was a great place to grow up. Free. Safe. In the beautiful country-side of Victoria. We did so much stuff growing up, had so many experiences. I loved my childhood – even if it was erratic in my family. But I never got exposed to professionals in my upbringing. My dad was a plumber, then an artist, then a cleaner when the artist gig wasn’t paying, and then a teacher for intellectually and physically disabled adults. My mum was a nurse and worked at the hospital across the road. They both worked hard, but money was always tight. Going to the girl’s Catholic School across the border in Albury was expensive for my family. Luckily my sister and I were good at music, so we got scholarships. Ahhh music, the thing that got me out of town, into the city and onto more opportunities. I loved music. So much so I studied music and ancient history at university, before joining the Army as a Musician, but it was after this that the world truly opened up. I travelled through Egypt, Jordan and Israel at this time, a time I was still able to read hieroglyphics. Life changer. I came home, never really settling, but started my PR career, still in the army. Then I jumped on a plane three years later (1995), traveling through Nepal, India, China, Hong Kong and a bit of Thailand, before landing in London and starting an amazing career in tech PR. I worked across Europe, and then to Boston, NYC, Sydney, Singapore, Phuket, back to Australia and back to Singapore. Travelling gave me the confidence to take care of myself in any situation. Landing on foreign soils and taking career chances with nothing lined up yet falling on my feet (with some pain and anxiety along the way) taught me to believe in fate and destiny. And meeting so many people from so many different walks of life, taught me that people are awesome and while you come across arseholes on the journey of life, the majority are superb. The other thing I learnt is just about everyone you meet has a little bit of brokenness inside that needs compassion to help them heal and become their best version of themselves. Being open to the brokenness we all carry inside is something I’ve learnt too. And yet that voice – you’re not worth it – was always taunting me You’re not good enough. Are you fucking kidding yourself thinking you can do that? You’re ugly. Why would anyone want you? You’re getting too old to dream like that. And on and on and on. Yes, that voice, it’s always been there, trying to sabotage me on the journey. Telling me I don’t deserve to be at the table I’m sitting at. Fucking with me. Always taunting me. So a few years ago I decided to tackle the inner dialogue. I realized if it wasn’t serving me, then it was time for it to fuck off. I’ve written about it before, but I still do it to this day. FUCK OFF. That girl, who grew up in Wodonga, had a mohawk and huge muscles because she loved body building and because she lugged a euphonium around everywhere (a French horn too)… well that girl deserves to sit at the table, because her collective experiences and intense curiosity got her there. She deserves it and she deserves to honour every dream she has. Her heart and soul spoke to her and helped her believe. That girl didn’t grow up in a wealthy family and she wasn’t exposed to the massive opportunities available to her. She didn’t know you could have jobs in those sorts of fields. She didn’t know those jobs existed. But she found out. She uncovered it. Just as Phiona Mutesi – the main character in the film – didn’t know that she could have a much bigger life, beyond any possible dream she had before the coachcame into her life and unlocked her incredible talent. How can you dream so big when your current world-view is so small? It’s the getting out and seeing the bigger, glorious world that makes the difference. And this is the gift for all of us. Get out and find what’s possible and then dream bigger than you think is even possible today. Dream it and believe it. Because if you have a unique gift to give to this world, if you know in the deepest part of your soul that you deserve to get there, then please, don’t ignore it. The world needs your gift, now more than ever. But we must shut out some voices first to hear another. I’ve discovered two voice demons and once voice angel so far, they are: The voice of other people’s fear. Please don’t take it on as your own. Just because someone else is fearful of what you dare to dream doesn’t make it a dream not worth pursuing. Drown their voice out with your belief that it’s right. If you’re wrong, you’ll get the greatest gift of all –

I have so much to say. Some of it is flippant – the funny life stuff we all laugh at. But more of it is outrage, incredulousness and horror. I’ve written to the latter many times, because I don’t believe that being silent is good during this time of chaos for our world. We need to speak up and fight for what we think is right.   But you’ve got to be ready to fight when you take on big issues, and sometimes, your heart just isn’t capable of doing it. When you really put yourself out there, it can cause a lot of anxiety, because you open yourself up to attack. It’s not fun and you’ve got to brace yourself for a bumpy ride. There are people out there who can be so horrible and it seems all they want to do is rip you apart. They don’t know you. They don’t know your heart. They couldn’t give two shits about you. They just want to have a go at you for having a different opinion, or for being a liberal, and they never stop. Besides, when the fuck did it become a crime to be a liberal anyway? What’s wrong with wanting to educate yourself on alternative viewpoints and to seek the best for all the world’s people? Another fallout of 2016… To change hearts and minds, to encourage people to be gentler and more loving, to plea with the world for more tolerance and love are, what I consider, good things. However right now, it leaves you open to horrible ugliness. If you haven’t experienced it, I have to tell you, it’s very unpleasant when you’re on the receiving end. Very very unpleasant. We’re going through a time when it feels like everyone is aligned to a side or an idea, and we’re incapable of having a discussion or hearing another perspective, without being offensive or horrible to those on the opposing side. This saddens me more than anything, because we are better than that. As a blogger of many years, it’s disheartening. My goal with my blogs has always been to do no harm. I hope to make people laugh, sometimes cry, but I don’t want to make people hate. Because, the truth is, I don’t hate anyone. How can I? The world is full of magnificent people. Oh sure there are arseholes too, but on my many adventures all over this fine planet, the majority of people are magnificent. Of that I can assure you. My only goal is to be one of the many voices trying to move our world forward to the next level of consciousness. A world where the barriers come down, the walls come down, fear stops being a dominant energy, and we all take responsibility and ask: what can we ALL do to stop this madness? Ultimately, I hope the world gets to the point quickly where we can say collectively: shit, that was close! New haircuts But even writing flippant blogs is tough right now. I wanted to share a story about the boys exercising their right to their own hairstyles for the first time, with both choosing a mohawk/Mohican. As baldness is typically inherited from the maternal side, and with every man in my family bald (plus Steve being a nude nut), we agreed that they can have whatever hairstyle they want, because soon there will be no hair to style. The interesting thing is, a couple of weeks in, they no longer want to spike their hair at all. We gave them the freedom of choice, they exercised it, and now they’re done. That’s been one of my greatest parent lessons. If you don’t resist their ideas and choices, they get over them very quickly. But you see, that little story feels so un-important right now. It is important though, because nice, easy, heart-warming stories have never been more important with the deluge of sickening world events we seem to be constantly facing.  We need the warm and fuzzys. What’s the point of life otherwise? Anyhoo, just wanted to share how I’ve been feeling if you’re wondering why I haven’t blogged for a while. This time is having a very big impact on me. I’m a happy, optimistic person most of the time. I believe goodness will win the day. I believe that if you have a dream and commit to it 100 per cent, you will get there. I believe humans are good essentially and we all want the same thing. I believe we can come out the other side of this time better and more loving. Basically, I do believe that love will win the day – as poxy as that may sound. However, we’ve got some complicated times to get through. This is not an easy time for planet earth and the challenges we face are not easy to overcome – especially when so many are so fearful of others. We can overcome though, and we all have a role to play in getting there. We have entered the Golden Age of true people power, so please, don’t think you can’t do anything to change the course of our future. Right now, our combined voice is the only thing that will make a difference. Tough times, but I am a believer, are you? Let me know how this time is impacting you? I know I’m not alone and perhaps if we can share with each other how we’re feeling, we can better support each other through this time? Yours, without the bollocks Andrea Planet Earth Apocalypse Concept. Elements of this image furnished by NASA. Courtesy of Shutterstock. BTW I’m on Twitter here, Google+ here, Instagram here, and Facebook too, if you’re interested in the other stuff I share. Feel free to share my blog if you think anyone you know will be interested or entertained. I sure do appreciate it when you do xxxxx