Thursday, October 19, 2006

One Year, plus a bit

I missed my 1-yr blog anniversary which was on 4 October. Should I wax lyrical about what sort of a year it's been? Nah. No waxing. Not even on legs.

It has coincided with me living in my little Red House for a year, and one of the best overall years I've had for a long time. Why? Well, and in no particular order...

1. I'm no longer in the 'marital home' fraught with 'baggage'.
2. I'm able to live with my financial independence as I like.
3. I've acquired various extras along the way (J, RA, NG).
4. I have a car I adore, that I chose, and I paid for.
5. I have a cat, albeit a mostly unaffectionate sod except when it comes to food.
6. My social life exists and I have new friends.
7. I've taken up exercise (tennis).
8. The boys are happy.
9. Music is back in my life.

Not bad for one year, eh? It's good to reflect sometimes. It makes you realise where you're at and why, and to count those numerous blessings.

Mind you, I wouldn't like to guess where I'll be in ten years. A friend of mine has a friend who has made a life plan. Doesn't that sound terrifyingly organised and focused? I wonder if she has intermittant 5,10,15-year plan stages and what would happen if she hasn't achieved her goals? Mind you, the sort of person who makes a life plan probably would achieve her goals...

Actually, chances are I'll still be in the RH in ten years, with a glorious garden, an aging, much friendlier cat, one boy in higher education (hopefully!) and the other in the local lycee, and maybe a long-suffering J, and an even nuttier NG... (hee hee). And at work down the road.

Could be worse...

9 comments:

  1. I agree. A 10 year plan sounds a bit too rigid, too organized. But at the same time, it's a mistake to take each day as it comes. Life should have purpose and direction. The lady in S.Pacific put it more succinctly:

    "You gotta have a dream
    If you don't have a dream
    How you gonna have a dream come true ?"

    Apologies for stating the obvious.

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  2. I had a dream 17yrs ago with my ex-h. It came to naught. Still in the fallout of the divorce aftermath, I'm taking it easy and making no particular plans for the time being.

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  3. I'm sure you feel what you say Colin, but you can't apply your way of thinking to other people's lives - I had a dream, many dreams, and I made other people's dreams come true nearly every day of my life........ but then something went awfully wrong and I had to give up dreaming for ever and ever and just be grateful for each day as it comes with what it brings.

    Mostly over the last years it brought me tidal waves of chagrin and hundreds of tigers in the cupboard, but I just pushed with my feet, and thanks to cuddly people in a little red house all the things I loved and lost for ever came back - so now I will never ever dream again, just be grateful for every little second of content as it comes! And I shall obviously, dearest ED, get nuttier each day and enjoy every moment of it.

    How many other grannies dash round it wizz four-wheelers with Christina Aigillera shouting her head off until I'm even deafer or daftier, dress as though "they just fell of their horse" and either enormous toiles or Mon Jules in the boot!!!

    Even had wet young man in the boot yesterday, with wet young girl in the front....should have left them in the rain....but got hoaxed!

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  4. ng

    I recently clicked on Sarah's link to Diane Rauscher Kennedy's website. There was a reference to Diane having an incurable illness, and that her art provided a source of great source of spiritual comfort. Without wishing to be intrusive, might I enquire whether you, ng, might in fact be Diane ? If you prefer not to respond to that question, for whatever reason , then please say nothing. I will deduce nothing from that silence, and will not raise the matter again. But if you are Diane, then what you say above would make a whole lot more sense to me.

    Sarah should feel free to delete this post if she wishes. I would understand.

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  5. HELLO COLIN:

    Gadzooks.....YES! And I don't mind your asking at all - just goes to proove that you are a "fine lame" to have discovered this! Don't worry, cope well with my nasty heredetery maladie and look quite snazzy, do 2 hours gym a day, and run all over the place like a scalded cat in a wizzy little four wheeler.....paint; have an Association to help young artists, and most of all have my ED and her brood which bring me the incredible happiness of a family life.

    I lost all I owned + my family.....so painting was the way I got round that...and then ED and her fantastique brood adopted me as an extended Mommy & Granny - Nutty Granny that's me!

    Super friends have always been there on hand and never failed to pull on my bracers and hold my hand - but no family is awful....

    So I now have the most lovely family, grandchildren, son in law and all and all thanks to ED!!! And, thanks to your blogging we have a new "friend" on line!

    ED's blog is perfect, and reminds me of the 17th century ladies who always kept a day to day record of their life. I told Ed today about have been read the personal comments of an 18th century lady, by candlelight, in a fantasque french home after a day hunting..........incredible. So in 3000 perhaps some people sitting round the fire (if they still have log fires by then) will read budding writer ED's blog and see how we felt and did every day in 2006!!!!!

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  6. Hello again, Diane, or ng as you prefer to be known on this blog.
    What can one say ? Although I'm ignorant of the precise details, you've clearly had to make a huge readjustment to a bitterly disappointing situation. Your artistic abilities have obviously helped to keep your spirits up, and we all know what a spirited lady you are from your contributions to Colin Randall's blogs.
    We had some fun, didn't we, especially with your virtual whirlwind courtship with that wandering minstrel. I even offered my services for joining the two of you in holy(?) matrimony remember, in my James guise.
    But art, blogging, workouts in the gym etc would never be enough in themselves, would they, day in, day out, to cope with a chronic or debilitating condition, given the demands that life places on all of us, whether handicapped or not. I'm so pleased, then, to hear that you, Sarah and the kids have formed your impromptu family unit, supporting each other in the way you do. I wish you all the peace and spiritual contentment that comes from knowing there's always someone there to help you deal with your daily round, and the unexpected things that are part and parcel of everyday life.
    It was great joy to me to see the change in your approach, once you realised that I am friend, not foe. We're all of us relatively new to blogging, even Sarah, who's been at it much longer than me. There are new freedoms, and new responsibilities too I guess, and all of us probably have much to learn about this heady new way of making contact with our fellow citizens. I see the blog as being a bit different from a chatroom, would you agree, maybe more about opinions and ideas, rather than developing relationships, but there are no hard and fast rules, and we're probably all tending to play it by ear. This is where my daemon friend (hippo!) from my own blog begins to whisper in my ear, telling me that I'm starting to bore with my platitudinous guff, and should now bid you goodnight and wish you all sweet dreams in that remarkable and heart-warming household of yours.

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  7. No doubt about it...you just got extended and adopted too....but as what, Headman Friend? That makes you HF.

    I'm so rushed off my feet I don't go on any blog but Sarah's now, which I enjoy so much. And let's be truthful, my enlish is getting better - if not really right yet, and all of a sudden a lot the "witty" part of it, and slightly undercurrent agressivity began to fatigue me. Even make me feel a bit uncomfortable, and even sometimes a bit "thick" - and instead of being witty fun - got to be language fights for some - and I'm quite witty from time to time, but more of the kind and warm type with just a touch or arsenic from time to time if no one near and dear is being got at, than those who like to dig, and more humour than wit;;;;"l'humour est la politesse du desespoir"....Schiller!

    So much to do, family (ED & C°), painting, 2 expos at the same time - the dog to run round with three times a day at least, plus a thing I'm trying to get in shape for youngsters so they just might try to stopping throwing stones on Policemen & not behaving or feeling as though they were French.

    ED & C° helping me enormously because I have sado-maso relationship with my damn computer - it hate's me and I hate it - but we need each other....so

    Thank heaven that ED is there to placate artistique hysteria from Nutty Granny, and get a good gin down me in the evening - and I may thus hear about the children's day and Sarah's too, instead of exploding my computer, or losing my mind over it's bloddymindedness.

    I don't sleep too well, but Sarah Blog from her little red house with her super cuddly family is always the last thing I look at before curfew.

    Tonite I will try to read dreams-and-deamons if its on line....but before that..... CREATION ...and quickly..... quite the best remedy for chewed up spirits on a rainy day. It's not the "chic" work I'm doing now, but a whole series of toiles for children...it may not be considered as Art I'm afraid, but it's fantastically satisfying for the heart. And what's art? Vaste question.

    Sarah is a budding writer, and I'm looking forward to her first novel which will off course be a best seller and me strutting round saying "oh yes, she's my family you know!!!!!"

    Amicalement,
    Diane.

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  8. ng

    You use your cyberpen like an enchanted brush, palette knife, whatever. Charming, intoxicating. I'm under your spell !

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  9. Me too! Enchanted.......another thing I definitely owe to ED...............
    NG

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