Three Days

I have just finished work for the day and I am really looking forward to three days of doing as I please. I work best in the mornings and as I am usually doing my paid work at 6am, it is a treat to still wake up early and get up and get all those boring things like vacuuming, ironing, washing, etc. done and then have the rest of the day to myself. I seem to have had a pretty busy week. It sometimes feels like I am not getting a lot done but I actually had a look around my kitchen the other day and here are some of the things I saw.


Dishcloths I have knitted, scones and zucchini bread.



Lasagna and my just picked home grown zucchini.



And then of course it all needs to be cleaned up.

 I suspect that you all do the same thing at home and/or at work. Sometimes you need to stop and take a good look at just what you have achieved. Many things will not be obvious, but if you at least give them some thought and give some acknowledgement to yourself for having done them, then you will feel greater satisfaction. I think we live in a world where more and more is expected of us and therefore we expect more and more of ourselves, but just as those who have the expectations of us often don't acknowledge that we have met their requirements so we are guilty of the same thing. Your boss/manager should be quite clearly saying 'thank you for spending extra time on blah last night. Take some time in lieu when things have settled. Just let me know when you take it.' If that sort of thing is not being said to you then you should be saying to yourself that you put in extra and that is praiseworthy. Positive self talk is very important I think and I also think that we should take every opportunity to praise others when we hear their stories of doing well.

I want to show you a funny little thing that is a later chapter with regard to my friendly magpies. I arrive home from work and within a very short space of time my family of three maggies arrive for some food. The other day I was only home for a short time and then left to go and do some pear bottling.

The pear bottling took a lot longer than we anticipated and I didn't get home until quite late in the afternoon as I took the dog for a walk on the way home. I arrived home to find the following!
What is that I hear you say!
THAT is my front door mat that has been pecked at and pulled apart. If you peer very closely in the top left hand corner of the mat there is a fluffy grey feather. Evidence was left behind. The baby of the family still has grey and white rather than black and white. The little brat! It seems I must stay at home until I have fed the family otherwise there will be payback!
People think that animals and birds are dumb! He that makes assumptions about things they cannot prove are very silly in my opinion.
I am off to to do some work so that I can enjoy my weekend.
Remember to pat yourself and your friends and family on the back. A little bit of praise goes a very long way.

Foolishness of Man

I have been a bit slow in getting to this page but here goes a spray about something that I am dumbfounded by. A friend sent me a page from a Qld paper with a full page ad in it that states Human Nature V Mother Nature. It then goes on to say that despite all the floods people are still working together and uniting in the common cause of getting themselves back on track. That is so true and very admirable so far. Lovely things to be acknowledged. However this ad then goes on to say ' We have quite simply shown that our human nature will always be far more powerful than mother nature.'

What the? Did the people who are now stone in Pompei say that before Mt. Vesuvius volcano really blew its top? Humans were not stronger than Mother Nature then! (My capitalisation of Mother Nature) What about the poor people in Christchurch? They will cope as best they can but to think that they are stronger in any way would be simply ludicrous. We will never know probably if the after shocks/earthquakes will continue or worsen or stop! We are unable to know many things about Mother Nature and if the people who put this ad in the paper were genuine then they would be saying that Human Nature should work WITH Mother Nature so that we can we can continue to have the resilience to deal with what she throws at us.


Sadly the thing that seems to be most prominent in human nature at the moment is greed.

Many houses are built on flood plains and natural water ways because some developer wants to make money and it hasn't rained for ten years so all is well! Mother Nature will just go on doing what she has always done and if humans are going to be so determined to change the face of her then they will have to suffer the consequences. It is sad that the general population still believes that someone trying to sell them the land wouldn't lie to them or sell them something that is not good for them.

I will leave that for another day though!