Saturday’s Grateful Post 

Posted on January 28, 2017 by admin

Today I am grateful for  our differences. 

 


Today I am grateful for our similarities.


Today I am grateful for those things that connect each and every one of us.

Today I  feel it is time to celebrate our differences but work together to find out what connects us.


Today I feel it is time to understand things can be done differently. 

As Audre Lorde said: 

“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences”

Today I am grateful that women and men are different. Men cannot fall pregnant and carry a child. But men and women can raise a family together.  It is time we recognized those differences and had conversations about what makes us different, what we are good at but how we can work together to raise our children in the best possible way.

Today I am grateful for science and spirituality and religion. Science provides an explaination. Religion and spirituality recognize that things happen that cannot be measured or explained. I like having an explaination but I also appreciate that life can be a mystery. I think it is wonderful to be able to observe and be inspired by both science and mystery. Let us continue to allow science to provide explaination but recognize the need for faith and mystery. 

Today I am grateful that we are a country of many people of different origins. Today I am grateful for our beautiful country. It is a land filled with contrasts – beautiful landscapes and harsh environments, cuddly animals and the most dangerous animals in the world. Today I am grateful for all the different cultures that contribute to what Australia is today – the different foods, the different people, the different religions, the different cultural experiences, the different languages. Today I am grateful that we have all survived in this harsh land despite our differences.  All the cultures have a story. Many have experienced difficulties. The aboriginal people have experienced much hardship including European settlement and the Stolen Generation. Our country has refugees from war torn countries. Let us all work together to recognize what has so far been accomplished in this country and continue to work towards a country filled with hope and optimism where we can all live together. 

Today I am grateful for people in our world who work to recognize our differences but acknowledging our shared humanity. Some of my favourite people who do this on a regular basis are Maria Shriver who writes the The Sunday Paper and Nicole Cody who writes a blog called Cauldrons and Cupcakes. 

Today I encourage you to celebrate your uniqueness but take time to listen to others and find out what it is that connects us. I believe when we do this we will be much closer to a peaceful world. 

Until next time 


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Wednesday’s Grateful List 

Posted on January 25, 2017 by admin

Today I am grateful for the beautiful Suchting family who we stayed with in Whistler. 

Today I am grateful for the day I met Kerryn. I was new to The Gap and had just started my children at swimming lessons at The Gap Primary school. I had my youngest in a pram. I walked into the pool area pushing the pram and thought who looks like a nice mummy to talk to. I chose Kerryn. I sat down and introduced myself. I also introduced Sophia to her and she introduced her daughter who was also in a pram as Sophie. I then said to Kerryn “and my daughter Lucy is in the pool”. Kerryn laughed and said “my daughter Lucy is also in the pool”. My son Nicholas was also in the pool and her son Jack was in the pool too. We have been great friends ever since and our children are great friends also and a lot more grown up! 

Sophia and Sophie

Lucy and Lucy

The girls all grown up.

Jack and Nicholas all grown up


I am so lucky to have worked with Kerryn on many fundraising activities together. Kerryn works hard, is great fun and makes very little fuss. 

David has travelled with Kerryn’s husband Peter and they also get on very well.

Our children have all gone to the same primary school and high school and although they all have different friends we are so lucky they all still get on extremely well and still love spending time together. 

After my accident Kerryn was absolutely wonderful and coordinated many people to look after our family. 

Our holiday in Whistler was great fun, we shared great food, wonderful company, great accommodation and continued to cement our special friendship.   


Until next time

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Friday’s Grateful List 

Posted on January 14, 2017 by admin

Today I am grateful for a delicious dinner last night and my lovely day. 

Last night we went to Araxi for dinner with our friends Kerryn and Peter. It is supposed to be one of the best restaurants in Whistler. It was excellent! 





Today I had a coffee at a place called Pure Bread. It is a fabulous bakery just off the market square in Whistler. 


After my coffee I bought a visitors ticket to go up the mountain. I went up in the gondola, had lunch with all the skiers and then went across the valley on the Peak to Peak Gondola. It is the longest and highest lift in the world. 

 
We said goodbye to Harry tonight too. He is a  lovely school mate of Nicks who travelled from Silverstar to stay for a couple of days. 


Until next time 

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Thursday’s Grateful List 

Posted on January 13, 2017 by admin

Today I am grateful for the excellent care Sophia received at the Whistler Medical Centre yesterday after breaking her humerus.  She was reviewed on the mountain by a doctor, transported down the mountain safely, and taken directly by ambulance to the Whistler Medical Centre. David and I were there to meet her. Once she was in the Medical Centre she was reviewed by a doctor, xrayed and then placed in plaster. She was given adequate pain relief and treated kindly. I am grateful that she was also reviewed by an orthopedic specialist while we were there. I am grateful that we have a follow appointment with an orthopaedic specialist here next week. 


Today I am grateful that our friends Kerryn and Peter looked after Sophia while on the mountain. 

Today I am grateful that I was able to send the X-ray to a very good orthopaedic doctor from Brisbane who is here in Whistler at the moment. He agreed with the present management of Sophia’s injury. 

Today I am grateful that Sophia was able to find two things to be grateful about yesterday – she was grateful she didn’t have a broken leg and she was grateful that the staff where able to remove her ski jacket and fleece without damaging them at all. 

Today I am grateful that Sophia slept all night. 

Today I am grateful that I have a good amount of excellent pain relief available if Sophia needs it today. 

Today I am grateful that even though this really sucks and Sophia will have a quiet holiday from now on,  she is now safe and comfortable at present. 


Until next time 

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Tuesday’s Grateful List 

Posted on January 11, 2017 by admin

Today I am grateful to be in Whistler, Canada. 

Today I am grateful that I didn’t step foot outside yesterday. I had a day of sitting by the fire, reading, drinking tea and sleeping. 


It was a very a very restful day topped up by a home cooked meal of steaks and salads. Nick cooked the steaks on the outside barbecue. 


Today I am grateful that my morning  was spent wandering around the village. I started by having a chai latte at Mount Currie Coffee with my lovely friend Kylie. The company was lovely and I believe the coffee very good. I had done quite a lot of research and decided that this was the place for coffee in Whistler. 

I think the skiers and snowboarders had a great day too. 




Today I am grateful for the beautiful scenery here in Whistler and the sunshine! 



Until next time

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Friday’s Grateful List 

Posted on January 10, 2017 by admin

Today I am grateful for our last few days in New York. This post is a few days late because my blog was offline but today I think it is working again. 

On Thursday the girls decided the day was to be a wandering day in Soho with nothing particular planned. David was very happy to come along. We had a lovely day. 

SoHo is an area that has beautiful shops with beautiful fit outs. 

                                                                                                                                
We did start the day by visiting the New York City Library – a beautiful building with a beautiful Christmas tree in the foyer. It was well worth the visit. The bookshop in the library was filled with incredible books and it made me feel hopeful that reading proper books is still revered and that the possibility of being able to read and purchase books will continue on long into the future. 


The streets are cobbled and it is a little bit similar to the Marais area in France. We had lunch at a tapas bar called Boqueria. It was delicious and warm! it was very cold in New York yesterday. 



Our day finished off with a Broadway show – Wicked. It was absolutely wonderful. One of my favourite show tunes is For Good. 

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We got back to our room after the show and were tucked up in our pjs when it started to snow! We woke up to a dusting of snow all over New York. 


We are now sitting at the airport waiting to board our flight to Vancouver. 

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Test 

Posted on January 9, 2017 by admin
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Wednesday’s Grateful List. 

Posted on January 5, 2017 by admin

Today I am grateful that you are taking the time to read my blog. 

I do get embarrassed about all the traveling that I do and I really appreciate the time that you take to look at what I am writing. I feel very blessed to be alive and physically fit enough to travel and I hope that by sharing my travels you are able to share a small amount of my enjoyment. 

Yesterday in New York was pretty wet. We had planned a day of galleries. Breakfast for me is the most important meal of the day so I like to take some time to consider where to go. We went to a place called Sarabeth’s. It was lovely – white tablecloths, lovely service and delicious food. Our visit to the galleries started after this  at the Frick Museum. We had been there before and although the art is the same as last time  I visited the building is so beautiful it was worth another visit. From there we went to the Met. The Met  is the Metropolitan Museum of Art and it is huge. All the information on travel sites suggest that it is too big to do  all on one day. We chose to look at The Maxwell Beckman exhibition and the European Masters. Both were amazing. The European Masters included Renoir, Degas, Monet, Manet, Van Gough and Cezanne.  My favourite artist of that group is definitely Renoir. After absorbing all this art we were hungry again! The most sensible solution was afternoon tea at The Plaza. 



After such a delicious sojourn the only thing to do was to have a little afternoon nap. This gave us enough energy to stay awake watching a Broadway show.

 The show we went to was called The Front Page. It has had very mixed reviews but we loved it and stayed awake! It was light hearted, funny and had lots of famous people in it! 


Today we woke up to a beautiful day. We were thrilled because we had planned to walk the Brooklyn Bridge. We caught a cab to Brooklyn and started the day  at  the Brooklyn Roasting Company. We  had  great coffee in a very groovy warehouse. After our coffee we wandered up to Dumbo Kitchen. Once again we started our day on a great note. Once we had food in our tummies we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. Our afternoon was spent at the Interpid Air and Space Museum.  Although this was not a place I was very enthusiastic about going to I actually really enjoyed it. We looked through a submarine, learnt about and looked at the Space Shuttle Enterprise and toured an aircraft carrier called Intrepid. 




We tried to go up the Empire State Building in the late afternoon. The wait was 3 and 1/2 hours. We decided to go out to dinner instead….now off to dinner.

Until next time 

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Monday’s Grateful List 

Posted on January 3, 2017 by admin

Today I am grateful for a fantastic day. 

We started at breakfast at a place called Maison Kayser. It is a French chain but we had  a very nutritious breakfast that was was served quickly and efficiently. I was also impressed they served a delicious Chai Latte made on proper Chai Tea. 

After breakfast we ventured down to Chelsea and walked the High Line. This is a 2.33km long New York park on an elevated section of a disused New York Central Railroad. The view of The Hudson is wonderful, the architecture and art work along the route is very interesting and the green space contrasted to the surrounding construction is a great use of previously unuseable space. 


Once we finished walking the High Line we were cold and a little bit wet. We found the Chelsea markets and warmed up with a delicious coffee from Ninth Street Expresso. I am so glad that we have found great coffee places in New York this visit. I had read that the Australian Coffee culture was finally reaching New York – I must agree.

 

I am grateful we then snuck in a few hours of shopping. The shops we visited were down on the edge of the Meat Packing district and Chelsea. They were beautiful and unusual fashion shops. Shops I am happy to look in and admire. 

We ventured back to the Chelsea Markets to  Giovanni Rana Pastificio and Cucina for lunch. We had a wonderful meal of traditional pasta. This stoked us up and we had enough energy to visit the Whitney Museum in the afternoon. Wow – what an amazing museum. The top two floors were incredible. 

The museum includes many portraits. I loved the following information which explains the theme of these portraits:


My two favourite pieces of art were a wax figurine : 


With the following explaination:


And a series of photolithography on pine poles:


With the following explaination:

I love that art has the ability to challenge my existing thinking and I know the experiences that we are offering our children also encourage them to look more critically at their own world. 

I am grateful that I finished the day by getting my last assignment mark back and I got a distinction! 

Today was just a great day.



Until next time

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My New Year’s Grateful Post 

Posted on January 2, 2017 by admin

Today I am grateful for our last few days in New York. 

I am always so grateful to the pilots and air hostesses when we travel. It is such a relief to arrive at our destination safely.

We didn’t get in until late Friday night, unpacked, had room service toasties and went to bed.


We are staying in a beautiful hotel. The foyer has a beautiful Christmas tree which is made of fresh roses. 


On Saturday we got up had breakkie and then went and explored. We looked at all the shop windows of Saks, Bergdoff Goodman and Lord and Taylor. The Tiffany building and the Cartier building also had beautiful light displays mirroring their inside wares. 

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We braved Times Square before the 1000s of people who spent hours there later that evening. 


We had a delicious meal in our hotel in the evening and the girls watched the  Ball Drop in Times Square on tv! 

Today we had a great day. We visited Harlem and did something I have always wanted to do – listened to a Gospel Choir. In the evening we went to Radio City and watched the Rockettes Christmas Show. 

I am so grateful to David for giving us these incredible experiences. 

I wish you all A Happy New Year wherever you are and I hope that 2017 brings you much happiness with friends and family you love. 

Until next time

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