Wrinkles where smiles have been
Posted: January 28, 2018 Filed under: LOVE, SONGS | Tags: ageing, beautiful memories, caring for dementia patients, dementia, devoted mothers, devotion, family, Kermit the Frog, Linda Ronstadt - When I Grow Too Old to Dream, love, memories, motherhood, mothers, mothers and daughters, my mum, old age, Oscar Hammerstein 5 CommentsDementia is:
Adding water to plastic flowers in a vase
Putting the TV remote in your handbag
Storing cutlery under the pillow
Folding undies and carefully placing them in the fridge
Dementia is my mum’s gift to me. She can’t remember what my children are doing this week, but I’m hearing loads of stories of her long ago boyfriends before my dad.
Dementia is my mum in tears when she can’t remember how to listen to phone messages
Dementia is 4am phone calls when she can’t remember if it’s my sister’s birthday or her wedding anniversary today
Dementia is finding pleasure in patting a kitten for hours at a time
Dementia is not knowing about Facebook or Snapchat or being contactable 24/7
Dementia is driving to the favourite places of my mum’s childhood
Dementia is sitting quietly doing puzzles that aren’t challenging
Dementia is telling all the staff in her nursing home that she is Polish, when her grandmothers were Irish and Welsh and her parents were born in Australia
Dementia is keeping her here long enough to value and appreciate and say thank you and goodbye
Linda Ronstadt – When I Grow Too Old to Dream
We have been gay
Going our way
Life has been beautiful
We have been young
After you’ve gone
Life will go on
Like an old song we have sung
When I grow too old to dream
I’ll have you to remember
When I grow too old to dream
Your love will live in my heart
So kiss me my sweet
And so let us part
And when I grow too old to dream
That kiss will live in my heart
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Zombies on YouTube
Posted: January 21, 2018 Filed under: LOVE, Parenting, Self improvement | Tags: IT movie, kids are amazing, kids these days, scary clowns, scary movies, single mother problems, single mother super powers, single mothering, Single Mum, youngest child Leave a commentLazy school holiday afternoon. Single mother folding washing, fruit rotting in the bowl, flies buzzing around the child’s cooking/slime experiment, cat eating the last of the bread, children glued to their screens.
“Zen, what are you watching?”
“Some highlights from the IT movie.”
“I don’t want you watching that movie, you’re too young, it will give you nightmares.”
“The boy in it is a Virgo.”
“No.”
“He’s a Virgo like you mum.”
“NO, you are not watching it.”
“Worth a try, mum.”
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Love in the time of blended families
Posted: January 14, 2018 Filed under: D.I.V.O.R.C.E, LOVE, MARRIAGE, Politics, Single Motherhood | Tags: horse and carriage, love, Marriage, parenting advice, parenting poems, single mother advice, Single motherhood, step mother, step parenting, wicked step mothers, William Shakespeare quotes, William Shakespeare sonnet 116 1 CommentA poem
We say I love you, and if we’re still together on Boxing Day, Easter Wednesday, the day after the kid goes back to school we may survive as a couple by detaching from your teen’s nightmare behaviour
Your son looks like Elvis but he sings like a drunk footballer
I adore you but your brother’s second wife’s extended family will poison me slowly with their frozen coleslaw
I’d really like to grow old with you but your son’s new girlfriend has a voice that curdles milk and I can’t bring myself to help you raise her kids
Your touch is tough to resist but the complaints from your mother and her coven of neighbours about my cooking have reduced my brain capacity
You soothe my jangled nerves but your child’s penchant for snakes is a reptile too far
I really like your daughter but another netball match will kill my will to live
I love you but I can’t add another mother in law to my collection
Shakespeare described step parenting best:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom
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2018 aspirations
Posted: January 7, 2018 Filed under: LOVE, WRITERS | Tags: 2018 a fabulous new year, 2018 hopes and dreams, 2018 resolutions, change the world, dump Trump, Happy New Year, helpful hints for single mothers, laugh dance sing kiss cuddle, save the planet, single mother life advice, single mother tips, travel 4 CommentsSuddenly all my annoying habits from 2017 have vanished. In 2018 I will:
Keep tolerating fools (they are my colleagues after all)
Drink only the best water (in my gin)
Become motherhood Zen master & remain composed always (cue teen eye roll)
Run, jump, hop, skip
Be a good friend
Sing
Kiss more often
Swim like a dolphin in an ocean I’ve never swum in before
Help someone kick cancer’s arse
Travel places I’ve never been
Hug old friends and make new ones
Eat lots of green vegies
Behave like a macro neurotic nun
Roller skate
Smoosh my cat
Boogie like a lunatic
Write my heart out
Attend fabulous rainbow weddings, dance on tables
In 2018 we must:
Dump Trump, Turnbull and the other greedy narcissists for the future of our planet
Stop using plastic bags
Stop voting for rednecks who only care about their own wealth (see RWNJ’s above)
End negative gearing
Find a cure for brain cancer
Eat more hot chips
Smash the patriarchy
Laugh like a drain
Donate blood
Speak up
Admire more abs, delts and pecs
Pat more pooches
Follow our passions
Cuddle more babies
Rise up and resist
What’s on your resolution list?
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Duck off 2017
Posted: December 31, 2017 Filed under: FEMINISM, Self improvement | Tags: 2017 feminist champions, 2017 highlights, 2017 low llights, 2017 the year we had to endure, 2017 year in review, dump Trump, feminism, Feminist role models, hall of shame, idiots of 2017, impeach, resist, single mother struggles 2 CommentsAs I prepare to be disappointed by New Year’s Eve celebrations and charge my teen’s phone so I can nag her home at some ungodly hour, I say good riddance to 2017. What a bastard of a year.
There were many lowlights of the numpty kind:
Nivea white purity ad campaign
Orange moron in the White House
Spaghetti donuts
Potato Dutton spending billions on locking asylum seekers up on Manus & Nauru
Text messages auto-correcting to duck
Vegetable yoghurts
Abetz, Bernardi, Blot, Abbott, Kenny, Not Devine, Credlin
Ads featuring Kendall Jenner
Chicken flavoured prosecco
Fine artists Mary Tyler Moore, Sam Shepard, Malcolm Young, David Cassidy, Chuck Berry, John Hurt and Tom Petty left our world
More white male shooters became killers in the US
Too many beautiful souls died of brain cancer
But there were also many heroes of 2017:
Magda Szubanski
Jacinda Ardern
Father Bob
Father Rod
Larissa Waters breast fed her baby in parliament
Victorians elected the first-ever female indigenous MP, Lidia Thorpe
Kon from the ASRC
Mums 4 Refugees
A people-powered movement stopped Adani’s $1Billion loan
Same Sex marriage finally became law
War on Waste campaign
Women’s Marches across the world
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse ended; brave souls who’ve endured so much can hopefully begin to heal and churches will be forced to offer compensation
J.K. Rowling
Angela Merkel
Penny Wong
Lee Lin Chin
I graduated from primary school after 15 years
#MeToo ladies
Weinstein and other predators were named and shamed
Political leaders of the resistance
2018 is the year of the Earth Dog. According to Chinese astrologers, dogs sniff out the truth, corruption is exposed and the underdog is championed. Happy joyous New Year, may the dogs of 2018 pee on the legs of mansplainers, bring us a break from the political insanity, and bless us with more women in power, especially needed by those of us with a vagina.
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Single mother fruit cake
Posted: December 24, 2017 Filed under: LOVE, Self improvement | Tags: Christmas Eve, Christmas recipes, dysfunctional families, family drama, medicating before Christmas, Merry Christmas, relatives, single mother bargains, single mum advice, so this is Christmas 🎄 Leave a commentChristmas Dessert Ingredients:
Packaged, dried, past it’s best fruit from cheapo supermarket
Icing sugar
Gin
Lemons to taste
Eggs close to use by date
Flour sifted for weevils
Valium (quantity as required)
AC/DC on loud
5 kilos of family arguments regarding timing of food serving
7 phone calls from mother with dementia about how she will be forgotten at Xmas
Orphans popping in with their relatives who you can’t stand
Mix all ingredients, leave to rot and go to the nearest pub on Christmas Eve
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Inspo
Posted: December 17, 2017 Filed under: LOVE, Self improvement | Tags: 2017 year in review, 2018 predictions, 2018 trends, auspol, fashion 2018, fashion forecast, marketing, single mother achievements, single mother predictions, trendy 2 CommentsResearchers will find a cure for politicians
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Traditional values
Posted: December 10, 2017 Filed under: LOVE, MARRIAGE, Self improvement | Tags: change the law, equality, human rights, it is time, love, love is love, marriage equality, parenting, same sex marriage, SSM Leave a commentThia week Australia celebrated a victorious YES vote for marriage equality. After all the hate that was unleashed on the LGBTQIA community, it was beautiful to see my queer friends celebrating with their allies.
The religious hypocrites in the Anglican church spent $1million on an advertising campaign for the NO vote. ONE MILLION DOLLARS as homeless elderly people live under bridges and in cars.
I’m happy that most Australians stood up and fought for our friends so that we are all equal under the law. My gay friends have been bashed, spat at, ridiculed and put down by family and so-called friends and strangers. I’m writing this for all the times they’ve heard, “I don’t mind gays, but,” for all the times they’ve heard someone use the statement, “That’s so gay,” in a derogatory way. It breaks my heart to think of the pain they’ve experienced during this hateful campaign that could have been avoided if PM Turnbull had any courage.
All the gay parents I know have had to choose their path carefully, to consider what parenting really meant. I know happy, healthy kids who have two mums and two dads, and they’re thriving. My kids have one parent available to them 24/7 and they’ve had trying times. Heterosexual parenting is more likely to expose kids to harm.
These are the politicians who didn’t have the courage to vote yes or no. Remember their names at the next Federal election:
As Ellen de Generes said, “Here are the values I stand for: honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way you want to be treated and helping those in need. To me, those are traditional values.”
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Cyclone warning
Posted: November 29, 2017 Filed under: LOVE, Raising Hell, Single Motherhood | Tags: love, my favourite daughter, parenting teens, Single motherhood, Smotherhood, Teenagers, youngest child Leave a commentCyclone Senza exploded into my life 13 years ago, after I’d been at the hospital in drug-free childbirth hell for 25 minutes. She couldn’t wait to get the party started.
Or trash our house. She has painted on the walls of every place we’ve ever rented. And they’re good paintings, so I can’t get mad. Senza leaves a creative mess in every room she enters. It would be easier to parent her if we lived in a castle with four maids, a butler and a housekeeper.
My girl, you are the funniest person I’ve ever met; entertaining, smart, animated and kooky, you have only two gears, full throttle or passed out on the floor You struggle to use your inside voice but your astute observations about supposedly mature adults are always worth hearing.
Looking at a box of unpaid bills you said,
“Mum, that is a box full of nightmares.”
You are physically courageous; you surf, swim, climb trees, duck and dive. You’ve had breathtaking bodily self-confidence from the moment you were conceived. And you have a kind heart. This year you cared for babies in a Thai orphanage like they were your own family.
You are fast, furious, full of attitude and love for your friends, and easily bored. I hope your adventurous spirit takes you all over the world. You run head first at life, without fear. Your courage is everything I wish I could find in me (but with less back chat).
You kid, are everything. In your adolescent angst phase, don’t let teen bitches, dopey dudes and unenlightened teachers snuff out your fire.
Happy 13th Birthday to my beautiful hurricane #teenager
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Instagrammar
Posted: November 20, 2017 Filed under: exercise, Self improvement, WRITING | Tags: crowdfunding, fitspo, inspo, lifestyle gurus, marketing, single mother advice, single mother get rich quick schemes, social media, social media addiction, social media disruptors, social media influencers, thought leaders Leave a commentDear selfie kings and queens,
Here’s a revolutionary idea for you when posting to your millions of followers on Instagram: Your posts can be edited.
Call me old fashioned but if you profess to be an expert in your field, perhaps you could proudly display that you can grasp the basic idea of stringing a sentence together?
Maybe proclaiming that youre / your / ur a thought leader then displaying a smorgasbord of unedited grammar and spelling mistakes is not ideal for your brand. If you’re claiming to help people get millions of followers perhaps it would help if you were mildly literate.
It’s bad enough when Insta ‘celebratiez’ post photos of their ugly children, but recently, on her Insta feed, well-known personal trainer MB posted the words,
All be it
I think the word she was looking for was albeit. Really. I’m going to start a heartfelt crowdfunding campaign for the poor lady, she obviously can’t afford to pay someone to proofread her life-changing posts.
Pert ladies and buff gents, you know that tweets can’t be edited (looking at you idiot President number 45) but all your other brilliant revolutionary thoughts on other social media channels can. How about you learn to use the delete button and maybe send a text to a friend who can spell so they can read your genius ideas before you pay to boost your inspo post?
I really love that your /ur / youre a lifestyle guru and new media-savvy social influencer. Honestly I do. But if you want to be a disruptor (gag) then maybe read your ‘next ‘level’ post before you hit the share button…
loupollard 