I went to the Stroke Recovery meeting this morning, I decided that I would pay another year of dues. I don't go every month but I still like the folk who go there, the caregivers and the survivors, so it is good to keep up with them. I am not the caregiver any more but no-one seems concerned about that. I am just Sue. And that seems to be good enough. So next weekend I am going to the Womens Weekend. I wondered if I should as I am not a current caregiver but everyone seemed to think I should
Ray used to shout at me: "It is all very well for you." and he was right, and now I think that about other people as I look with my widow eyes enviously at their lives. I loved Ray with my whole heart and sometimes I really miss him. I miss him most when I see other couples in their senior years enjoying each other's company. I want to be like that. I want that special someone to be beside me, with me when I am enjoying myself, at home when I come home so I can tell them where I have been an
You may have seen the bush has been alight in several places in New South Wales? Horrendous fires for so early in the season. In the Blue Mountains 81 houses have been lost, over 100 affected in some way by the smoke etc. On the Central Coast where I live the fires are still burning north of where I live and no count of losses has been made but an old historical village has lost at least half the old miner's cottages. One person died fighting to save his home.
We have lost some great nat
Sarah, if the photo is not already in an album. Go to Gallery, select catergory, I selected Family. Then I uploaded a photo of Tori and her brothers taken on her 12th birthday. That is just sitting in the Gallery not in an album. I then selected the photo again from my list of photos. It seems as if it has to be uploaded into one of the catergories in order for it to load onto the blog.
I am no expert on this but that is what I just did to achieve this result.
To add a whole Album to
Sometimes I just sit and think about how blessed I am. It is okay to vent and moan and I do when things go wrong but I also need to count my blessings. A lot of people my age do not have grandchildren. Due to a lot of different circumstances. Some have grandchildren and never see them. I have been lucky so far, I do see my seven grandchildren on a regular basis but I do know that circumstances can change.
At one stage my Mum and Dad had two daughters and seven grandchildren they hardly
Sometimes it is hard not to moan. I know I no longer have Ray to look after but also I now no longer have someone to look after me. The kids have gone back to their lives and I welcome that but it leaves me without those advisors that helped me get through the caregiving part of my life so well.
Disaster struck here at home yesterday when I was away having a "day out" with Pamela and her children. I had had the little ones over night because Pamela had an early medical appointment yesterda
I went down to my daughter Shirley's house for a week. No way did I want to be alone on the anniversary of Ray's death or the anniversary one year out from the day of his funeral. I knew I would just sit around and obsess, crying and making myself sick. I knew that if I stayed with my daughter and her family I would not be able to do that, I would want to put on a brave face for the grandchildren and that is what happened. I was Braveheart in a dress.
When everyone says that the first year i
It seems like summer already. We had the hottest September day for however long, the radio commentators varied on that. The bush fire season has started and today men and women battled to save properties in the foothills of the Blue Mountains. It is a long time since we have had significant rain, ten weeks I think, and the long grass is tinder dry so with strong winds blowing from the west the fires, once lit, are hard to stop. They may have been deliberately lit or been back burning fires
Sunday is 1st September, it is Father's Day here in Australia, the first since Ray died. The following Sunday 8th September would have been his 71st birthday, this makes for a hard week for us as a family and one that will surely stir up emotions. I don't plan to do anything on Sunday 1st but Trev and Edie are taking me for a picnic on Sunday 8th. This is their way of making sure I am not alone. I am often alone. Sometimes it feels as if there isn't a place for me in other people's lives. The
Finally a nice warmer day, a cold night but less cold than for the past couple of weeks. There is just a hint of Spring in the air. I even unbuttoned my jacket at lunch today, the first time I had been out after church with the Sunday lunch club girls since I have been back. It was good to catch up on the gossip again and they are dear souls, they have been such a support to me since Ray died.
I think I am finally settled back into routine again. Going from winter to summer and back again wa
I spend a lot of time sitting here at the computer feeling lonely. Well nothing new about that, I've been doing that for the past two years since Ray went into the hospital then the nursing home and more so since he died last September. I am just more lonely now as the truth that he is NEVER coming back bites. He is NEVER coming back. He is not gone for a while, for a week, a month or a year. He is gone FOREVER.
In a way it is worse since I came back from England. For one thing there is no-
After a 27 hour journey and thanks to Pamela who picked me up at the Airport I got home late Thursday night. And as I walked in the door I felt it was MY house. At almost eleven months out is is "my home" now. Of course it is a big change stepping out of a fairly warm English summer back into an Aussie winter but it is only a matter of having extra clothes on for a few weeks and hopefully it will turn into a glorious Spring. And yes, plants died, leaves accumulated, rubbish built up and no-one
I am going on a holiday. It is the first time I have been away by myself. The other breaks I have had since Ray went into the hostel and nursing home and since he died have only been down the south coast to stay with my daughter. This is different and I am a little anxious. I'd love to tell you all about it but am paranoid about "security" these days when scammers hack into profiles on Face Book etc.
I have had a frantic couple of weeks catching up with all the usual things you do before goi
A few people have asked me what I intend to do with the rest of my life. To some of my older friends, 20 years older than me, from their perspective I should try getting out more, enjoying my life while I am able to, before the aches and pains of old age catch up with me. Some of my younger friends think I should maybe get a part-time job but I don't really want to go back to work now. I was a caregiver full-time for 13 years, then part-time supervisor to Ray and Mum in their nursing homes an
My birthday passed off okay. With a cake at Craft and a few congratulations at Lions and dinner and cupcakes the following night at my DIL's place with her family. I missed the big family gathering, missed Ray, missed Mum. I know I will never be able to recreate those past times, I just don't have the light hearted approach to life I used to have. I guess I am older and wiser from the experience I had during those last 14 years but with that came some pretty heavy memories and they are still
Trevor, Edie, Alice, Lucas and I had dinner out tonight. Trevor wanted it to be this weekend we celebrated my birthday as next weekend will be Alice's First Birthday Party and he didn't want me to feel neglected. They even bought me a glass of champagne, not a good idea as I am one of those people who glow like a neon light but I did appreciate the thought and the effort they put into it. A good time was had by all, we all have different tastes in food and I was pleased Lucas now loves sushi
Today is the sixth month since Mum died, yesterday was the eighth month since Ray died, anniversaries of sadness, painful times still to come. No, I am not stuck in the one place it is more like a rollercoaster than ever, Sometimes I am at the top and can see the view ahead, sometimes I am at the bottom and all I can see is the hill ahead I have to climb. But I am getting stronger so climbing is not the problem it was initially.
One new thing is that I am getting more and more comfortable i
I have been trying to give time to my family when they ask for it but while still maintaining some independence. It is always a balancing act, isn't it? There is so much busyness in all our lives. When I was a full-time caregiver I gave very little time and thought to the family, now my time is my own I can spare them the time but don't want to get too embroiled in their lifes. I don't want to become the interferring mother-in-law, the type who's phone calls have to be screened out or ignored
I need to shape up. I have slumped down for too long feeling sorry for myself. I need to get out more, not to the usual haunts but maybe to different places, places I would once have gone for rest and relaxation before being confined to the house with Ray's illness. A friend told me that in a stern voice yesterday, my fault as I had asked for her advice. When you ask for advice you do lay yourself open for others to take a bit out of you. This friend is honest in the extreme, which is why I
I went to visit my daughter and family for a few days. It was a good visit as the sun was shining for a change. I had a hard trip down as I had to stand on the train for the first 90 minutes and got a bad cramp in my left calf, ouchy! But the rest of the trip was good. I almost didn't go as looking after the other grandkids had me feeling very tired but talking to Debbie (Ethyl17) she reminded me how much I love to go visit my daughter and yes, it is always worth going down there.
I had ho
I've just had the grandchildren who I usually mind for three days, two nights. It was lovely during the day but when the little ones get tired it is tough getting them into bed. It didn't help that the bricklayers are still on the job next door and the site manager was on my driveway at 6.20am yesterday morning making phone calls. No consideration for the fact this is a residential area not a new subdivision.
I love my grandkids and I really try to make their time here enjoyable. On Monda
I've had a few blue days. I hate the wind howling around the house and the rain smashing against the windows when I am alone. Just a couple of days of that and I can feel blue. I can tell now that winter with it's short grey days is coming and do not look forward to that with joy. But I have warm clothes and a roof over my head, enough food in the freezer so I don't have to shop in the bad weather and no-one but me to worry about so I should feel happy with that.
My daughter and family we
I feel a bit of a fraud blogging at all as nothing much new is happening in my life right now. The weather is fine, warm, cooler at night. I have been able to get out in the garden and trimmed back some of the shrubs. It is good to do that while we still have warm days and a possibility of rain. I do enjoy being out in the garden on a sunny afternoon.
I have started on some maintenance jobs so the front insect screens got done this week and I am hoping for a locking screen door on the bac
What will I be when I grow up? I would ask that question of myself when I was 15. Now I ask myself: What will I be when the fog lifts and I am able to see clearly again? At 65 I hope to still have a few good years ahead of me. My Mum was 82 when my Dad died in January 2000 and never got close to being over his death. She was in complete denial for all the years she still retained her memory. She died last November at 94 from the Alzheimers that had been part of her journey for at least the pr
