Caught in the rain

I’m down with the cold at the moment. And the way I see it? Is that it’s a bad thing and a good thing. A bad thing because I hate being sick and being unable to breathe through my nose which then keeps me up all night. But it’s a good thing because I’m bound to get sick in winter time and now that it’s in progress and soon to be over with, I know I won’t be sick when we get married! I can tell you that the way I’m feeling now? Is not how I want to feel the day of my wedding.

I suppose it is my fault I’m sick now. Last week I felt a hint of a cold coming on… Started with a scratchy throat, a little tickle, some sneezing going on… But nothing ever really eventuated. I was fine.

Then yesterday, it’d been raining in the early hours of the morning and when it came time to leave for work I checked the radar on my phone and there were no signs of rain over and around Melbourne. When I stepped out of my house, there were even blue skies. I should’ve known. I know Melbourne like the back of my hand – I should’ve known! I didn’t take an umbrella with me and half way through my walk to the train station, it poured. Like poured! Not even drizzled. Needless to say I was saturated and cold.

And it only got worse throughout the day… I started feeling awful and I ended up leaving work a little early just so I could get home to rest. Also, I hate being at the office sick – it’s crazy how quickly germs are passed around and before you know it half the team is down with a cold or unwell in some way, shape or form. And that’s what’s happened I think. There have been a few people at work away sick lately.

Okay I just posted an entire post about being sick. That’s my sick rant for the year! Have a great, healthy week!

Bittersweet Reminiscing

I spent most of tonight gathering photos I need for the wedding. I went through old baby photos, through a ton of albums I had tucked away in a drawer of the desk we have in our spare bedroom. As I opened one of the albums, I soon realised that it had photos of the last trip I took with my mum before she died.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t particularly want to even write about it now but I know that I have to. Because tonight just proved to me that since I started my wedding journey, I haven’t allowed myself to fully acknowledge the fact that I won’t have her here with me.

But I will write about it. I just have to. Besides my blog has become my outlet for so many of my thoughts over the years… At this point, it’s better out than in. You know, when my mum died in 2002, it took me just over two years to be able to speak her name or talk about her without the waterworks starting and without the sinking feeling in my heart and the urgent need to just crawl into a dark place. It took me awhile and I eventually got there. Not to say that the mere mention of her or thought of her now doesn’t make me cry or doesn’t bring a tear to my eye because after tonight, clearly it does. But l suppose you could say that it’s somewhat easier to deal with. Still hurts like hell though.

So anyway, the album had photos of a trip that mum, dad and I took to Tasmania in April of 2002. The next five months after that trip was just a complete blur of mum getting sick again, the cancer returning, my sister’s wedding, a whole lot of nerves and not knowing what the future held – eventually we all returned to Malaysia and mum died not long after.

It still pains me to the deepest parts of my heart to even write words which involve her and dying. I looked at those photos tonight and I didn’t even get past the second page of the album before the tears started to fall… Soon enough I was a sobbing mess. Those photos remain so precious to me. Despite the cancer taking over her body, she still looked happy. Happy because she was on a holiday and if anyone loved travel and adventure, it was her. I’ll never really know whether she he an inkling that her cancer had returned because shortly after we got home to Melbourne, we got the horrible news from her oncologist that it did in fact return and her health started truly deteriorating from then. Maybe she knew in her gut and in her heart and that’s why she cherished and treasured the time she had away from it all on that trip.

I, of course, had no inkling and though in the years of mum being sick it had crossed my mind that she could die. I never ever really let myself believe that it could happen. As far as my heart was concerned, if I didn’t believe it, it couldn’t happen. If I believed that she would be okay then she would. We all wish we could turn back time somehow. God knows I do. I’m not sure what I would’ve done or could’ve done. But I think I would have hugged her more. Listen to her more. Tell her that I loved her more. I was so young then. Young, naive, completely inexperienced in life lessons and had minimal perspective on life itself.

I let myself cry tonight and I think it was something I needed. I miss her with all of my being and I’m just so thankful that I have photos and memories of her. As hard and as painful as it is to look at them and to look back in time, it just reminds me of the fact that the reason it hurts so much? Is because I loved her so much.

Sad news

It’s really horrible to get sad news first thing in the morning which was what happened to me… But if the sad news does not affect me directly then I have no right to complain. Which is exactly what I’m not doing.

I got a text from my girlfriend on my way into work saying that her sister-in-law had given birth to a stillborn baby. WTF? Excuse the language but sometimes you just wonder… Why is life so unfair for so many?

The mother could not feel her baby move yesterday so she called her doctor and they told her to go to the hospital to get an ultrasound to see what was going on. When they did the ultrasound they just could not find a heartbeat :( She then had to give birth to her baby knowing that he was going to come out asleep.

I cannot imagine what this little baby’s parents must be feeling. This baby was due to be born next week. That’s right, next week. They say God works in mysterious ways but seriously? Sometimes He works in absolutely f***ed up ways.

How does a parent ever recover from something like this? I just don’t see how it’s possible and I’m not even a parent myself.

Boy, when it rains, it really rains…

And so that was Christmas…

Who would’ve thought! All that built up to the big, glittery day and now it’s gone… I am feeling a whole bag, or rather a whole giant sack of emotions. Admittedly I may just be having a minor tantrum but so be it…

Firstly, Thursday night? I felt a little tiny tickle in my throat… Gahhhhh! Noooo, not again! There’s no way I’m falling sick over Christmas! But indeed I was.. That tiny tickle turned into a bad, bad throat despite my copious amount of lemsip, soothers and strepsil intake. By Friday night the bad throat had gone only to leave me with a slight cold… Turns out, the cold didn’t last too long but it sapped me of all energy… Left me feeling like I had just run a 25k marathon throughout most of Christmas eve… I was horizontal on my bed, under the doona for most of Christmas eve evening and night when I should’ve been up and about looking at Christmas lights around the neighbourhood and watching Christmas movies till the cows came home! But it wasn’t to be…

It’s boxing day today and I’ve only started to feel better. Nevertheless I’ve still managed to have a lovely Christmas. I spent Christmas eve at my sister’s… Although I wasn’t feeling myself, I managed to pull it together and had fun with the kids. The downside of being sick? I have to limit the cuddles and kisses with my niece and nephew – something which is very hard for me to do! Highlights from Christmas eve were watching the kids open their presents, baking a sweet potato gratin in my sister’s kitchen, cooking with my sister and sipping on champagne, receiving my beautiful gift from Marc, my family singing Christmas carols as my brother played his guitar, eating a ton of food and more (Christmas eve lunch spanned four hours)… Endless! I had a blast even though I was very under the weather.

On Christmas day, I thought I felt better but I really didn’t… I wrapped up a gift I had bought our elderly neighbours. We then walked it over and wished them a Merry Christmas. I’m talking folks who are in their early 90′s and so completely self-sufficient still… They are truly the sweetest people on earth. They are also our official plant-sitter whenever we go away for an extended period of time. Last year before we left for our 10-day New Zealand road trip, my lavender plant had died – or so I thought – when we got back, it was well and alive, even flowering.

Anyway slightly off tangent, so we headed to Marc’s parents’ for lunch on Christmas day. It was fabulous as always… The thing I love, love, love about Christmas at Marc’s parents is not only is his mum the greatest cook but she cooks for an entire country. There was a giant dining table full of food with 6 adults and one baby. It felt like there should’ve been at least 10 other adults at the table. As always on Christmas day, we always eat a little more than we should have and end up lying on the couch watching Crazy Stupid Love. Oh that’s just me.

Still feeling under the weather, Marc and I drove home in a hailstorm.. Yes only Melbourne gets hailstorms and 30 degree weather on Christmas day! I climbed straight into bed (at 7pm) only to be woken by fireworks in the middle of the night. Fireworks which I swear were being set off right outside my bedroom window. But they weren’t.

So back to being a whole sack of mixed emotions, though I had a wonderful Christmas and it definitely felt good celebrating with family and having them around is this year… My heart did feel a little empty. And I’m not saying this because I’m being ungrateful or unappreciative because honestly if I had to spend Christmas for the rest of my life on Mars? As long as I had my family and loved ones around me I wouldn’t care at all. But what I’m trying to say is that last Christmas? It was my first cold, winter Christmas… Although it didn’t snow on Christmas day in New York last year, the cold just made Christmas magical. I know it doesn’t matter where you are or what the weather’s like. It’s what you make of it. But I suppose after experiencing our first cold Christmas last year, it made me just a little sad that a white Christmas will always just be a memory or a once-off experience to me. Unless I move to the northern hemisphere.

So that was my Christmas! Hope yours was beautiful and magical no matter which part of the world you’re in…

Almost a year ago…

Oh my. I found this kitchen on pinterest. Need I say more… I know, it’s a bold move to use bold colours in your home, and there’s always that risk of it totally backfiring… but I just LOVE this green… the white against it? Marvellous! I really need to start a hard copy collection of my favourite kitchen designs – everything from layouts to tiles to cabinets to colours… if I had a kitchen to renovate this time next year? I would be so over-the-moon happy.

I’ve been feeling a little flat over the last few weeks… with being sick and not really sticking to my exercise routine like I did awhile ago now (yeah, remember that?), I’ve just been feeling, like I said, flat. I thought about it a little harder the other day and it dawned on me that it was almost a year ago that we left on a 2-month adventure we had been planning for so long. This time last year, I had resigned and given my two weeks notice. It was such a funny feeling doing that. I was so extremely busy tidying up loose ends before I left my job that I barely had time to think about our overseas travel. But I do remember the excitement every time I thought about our travel plans and all that we were going to do and see. And to be honest? I’m positive that all of that has something to do with me feeling just a tad flat right this moment. We don’t have a 2-month holiday planned for this year. We had such a fantastic time in America that we just long to go back… we still talk about our American travels often – that time we watched the NBA game at Hooters (Miami vs Cleveland of course), that time we rode our bikes from Santa Monica to Venice Beach so I could see those beautiful canals, that time we were brave enough to venture out in -20 degree cold and knee-deep snow in Steamboat Springs in search of something to eat (we lasted 10 minutes and then ordered a pizza!), that time we stood in the middle of a snowing Chicago and we couldn’t believe just how beautiful snowflakes actually look and feel, that time we spent Christmas night at the top of the Empire State Building, that time we kissed each other as it hit midnight on New Year’s Eve and we could not believe we were lucky enough to be in the middle of it all in New York City. No wonder I’ve been feeling a little blah!

All is good though. I only have a lifetime of memories to keep and I became an engaged woman out of our travels. I have a wedding to plan and a new year to look forward to. And hopefully more travels? A new house? A baby? Who knows! I do know though, that thinking of the future is enough to take the flatness away… there is just too much to look forward to, to be excited about… life is here in front of me and I need to remember to take it by its horns and just LIVE and LOVE.

We’re half way through November, it’s almost December… the month which I feel is all about reflecting on the year that’s been, Christmas parties, carols in the park, a bit of last minute crazy Christmas shopping, slowing down at work and just down to earth appreciation on all that we have around us…

I’m so excited for Christmas, is all… Happy Friday tomorrow!

Weekly photo dump

I’ve been a little behind with my weekly photo dumps too, so here’s one finally… the last few weeks seem to have been whizzing by in crazy speed.  I did manage to slow down a little last weekend as Marc and I attended a charity ball for the charity that we volunteer with from time to time.

Not only did this ball let us ‘slow down’ as the craziness around us starts and we head into the final home stretch of the year leading up to Christmas, but this ball humbled us deeply and reminded us once again how important it is for us to reflect. Reflect on our lives. Reflect on our blessings. Reflect on all that we have around us – good jobs, an income, the luxuries in life including materialistic stuff that don’t matter, loving families, great friends, freedom, security, peace in our lives and most importantly, good health. The very reason we volunteer for the charity we do is because we want to help, we want to make a difference, we want to be there in the lives of the many, many children who suffer from childhood cancer.

We went to the ball not knowing what to expect as we’d never been to one before. But I should have known. I should have known that the ball would be so very much like the camps that we volunteer on. You go in not knowing what to expect, not entirely sure how to feel, but when you get there, you have a blast, you have the best fun, you meet people you would never have otherwise met, you hear the stories – the amazing ones that leave you feeling hopeful and that leave you believing in miracles. But also hear the sad ones, the ones that make you wonder why, that make you question everything, that make you want to drop to your knees and scream ‘this isn’t fair’, the stories that make you look at yourself and make you truly, truly appreciate  all that you have. We always, always come out of there feeling like any problems we thought we had? Are nothing. Absolutely nothing in comparison to what these kids go through. We feel empowered, we feel like we can make a difference.

If you’ve never done it before, I truly encourage you to spend one day, or even one hour, with a child with cancer. Your perspective on life will change. I encourage you to spend an hour in the cancer ward of a children’s hospital. Not just your perspective on life, but your life itself will change. Forever.