The Blog with the Syncing....

Recently there was a discussion in the office regarding how to better keep track of people when they are out and about.

This then lead to a discussion of what we, as inhabitants of this fast moving and technologically changing World, use in our everyday lives.

I have a black leather bound filofax-esque diary that contains my whole life. This diary and I have been together now for approximately 10 years and it will need to be removed from the clutches of my cold, dead hands for me to ever give it up.

I did not share this information.

Our part-time Administrative Assistant then announced that she uses Microsoft Outlook calendar which she then syncs with her Google calendar and then uploads to her blackberry. She can then - at any given time and place - determine where she is, where she should be and where she is going in the future. Her husband can also log on (because she "shares" her calendar duh) to track the whereabouts and goings-on of his wife. He also "shares" his calendar so they both know exactly where each other is at any moment of the day.

Now please do not get me wrong, I am not saying for one moment that I think this woman is not important enough or busy enough to utililse this kind of technology......but..... I don't believe this woman is important enough or busy enough to utililse this kind of technology.

I will admit to dabbling with technology as a means of communication. I have been guilty in the past of using messenger to stay connected with Boy Child. Even in the same house. I like to think though that that is his mother being hip and happening and sharing the world as he knows it.

BUT.....do I need a technological gadget to tell me where I should be? or where I went? or where I need to be? More importantly though - and really the point of this Blog if it has one at all - are we SO busy, SO stressed, SO important that technology has taken the place of face to face verbal discussions with our loved ones? I know for one - that if any member of my family had to track me down using a calendar I had uploaded to who-bloody-knows-where, I would be ashamed.

Am I just getting old and resisting change???????????

The Blog with the temptation.....

Very very soon, in Kansas City, Missouri (not Kansas City, Kansas but Kansas City, MISSOURI) a person will board a big red flying kangaroo and wing his way to Oz. To see me. ME.

I believe, given this is his first ever trip to Australia, he may also be interested in seeing um mmmm Aussie stuff...however he is also coming to see ME.

This makes me feel very special.

On two recent trips to the States I have been lucky enough to have a wonderful, special group of people who have opened their homes and their lives to me, while providing me with memories and tears and laughter that will never fade. For the first time I get to reciprocate.

There will be penguins to see, koalas to cuddle, Sydney Harbour Bridges to climb (wtf was I thinking?) and beaches and coastlines to admire.

However I am struggling with a temptation.

Now temptation and I have a very strange relationship. Basically I cannot resist it. Ever.

Do I provide Mr. Kansas City Missouri with a slice of traditional Aussie life??? Should I leave him bake on a beach in 40 degree heat while obtaining 3rd degree burns? Do I insist on him trying a kangaroo steak and an emu kabab?*** Do I find a red back spider under a toilet seat somewhere and when his arse is bitten see how long it takes him to dial OOO??? Do I obtain one of our ten deadly snakes and let it loose in the back yard?? Do I make him eat a Vegemite sandwich???? Do I leave him outside at dusk to get eaten and bitten alive by mozzies and various other stinging biting insects????

Temptation, temptation, temptation.


*** I believe we are the only country with the distinction of eating both animals that appear on it's Coat of Arms. Nice huh??

The Blog with the funeral.....

My Auntie passed away. My Mum's sister. 3 days before Mum had surgery. The funeral was 2 days after Mum came home from hospital. That was yesterday. It was sad.

And that is really all I can say about it......

The Blog with the broken nose......

I am an adult.

A grown up.

I have a mortgage, bills to pay, a steady job, a cat and one 17 year old Boy Child. Dammit those things are signs of a grown up.

Recently however I was shockingly forced to realise that I didn't really FEEL like a grown up.

My mother had a fall. Now I understand the visions that come to mind when you put "76 year old woman" + "fall" into a sentence. Did she slip in the kitchen? Did she trip over the front step? Of course those would be NORMAL questions to ask. To which I would have to reply "no".

My Mum fell and slipped while running for a bus. Running.For.A.Bus.

Now I do admit to some jealousy here. I cannot run. I have not run for years. I am not sure my body remembers how to run. In any event she did actually get ON the damn bus AFTER she slipped, fell and started bleeding profusely.

My sister called me at work and given that we are both so very calm and controlled in a crisis - she called an ambulance in a panic and I broke land speed records driving to meet them. Mum had many tests over the next 24 hours with the prognosis of severe bruising and swelling and a broken nose in two places. We took her home.

Over the next week or so there were follow up doctors visits and finally surgery yesterday to repair and hopefully put her nose back where it was.

I became an adult. After 42 years of being looked after, and out for, by my Mum, it was my turn.

It's scary and it's confronting but it's time to step up.

The Blog with the new age self help crap......

Changes, changes, changes.

For good or bad, changes have been the continual constant in 2010. Some have been wonderful, some not so great, but the evolution of my life seems to continue with or without my consent.

I have yearned to put down in words some of the wonderful, but knew to stay true to my heart I would have to share the not so great. I realised of course that without the not so great (I refuse to label things "bad") the wonderful is not nearly as wonderful.

I have used 2010 to look inwards at the person I am. The traits that have brought me to this place in my life. It's been tough to admit things. It's been frightening to accept things. But I'm learning for the first time about ME and the rewards that has bought to my life so far has been overwhelming.

Never having been one for "new age self help" enlightenment I have gone about this thing called life like a bull in a china shop. Not really stopping to understand why or how or WHY. Asking myself a trillion times this year WHY I had that reaction to something, WHY I said the things I said, WHY I felt the way I did to occurrences, has helped me understand the type of person I am. It has also helped me to change the actions and reactions that I never much liked.

A work in progress...stay tuned.