Courtesy anitapeppers@morgueFile free photos

Browsing Thursday Blogs to connect and link with I came upon this gem. It ties in well with my last post on having gratitude on an ordinary day….the writer commences

” Let’s start this post by complaining, shall we? Life is hard. Life is a challenge. Life is not always sunny days, happy kids, and a clean kitchen. Aches and pains. Sadness and disappointment. A strained relationship. Illness and an unsure future. And hampers full of dirty laundry. Those things are never empty.

The writer continues…

” On any given day, at any given moment, I can be found stressing about something. Even if I seem peaceful or happy, there could be something nagging at my subconscious. This is my life, but I am not alone. I think everyone lives with their own particular burden, concern, hardship. That is life.

Finding that one thing to be thankful for, even when my insides want to rant and complain, brings me to a place of peace and even a deep abiding joy. It is a humble moment and that is a good place to be. Gratitude has saved me from being buried by anxiety and stress, from spiraling down into a place of darkness and despair. For if we can’t find something to be thankful for, how would we be able to keep going?

So sometimes, I have to dig deep into my heart and say “Thank you” but when I do, I don’t just find one thing, I find a hundred things. And then I am astounded by the blessing and gift of this life I live.

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. ~Thornton Wilder

Courtesy cherylholt@morgueFile free photos

God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say “thank you?”
~William A. Ward

Thank you God for this day and for those (seemingly hundreds of) people in my house who wear those clothes that end up in those hampers. ”

Now it is back to me as I take up the pen so to speak.

Do the above thoughts resonate. Do they sound familiar?

Are you a new mum , a mother to many, a mother again, a young mother, an older mother. Are you alone through circumstances, or by choice. Are you busy with work and family, struggling or coping. Or are you older like myself, retired, a grandmother to toddlers, baby and Tweens and Teens.

It doesn’t matter what stage in life we are at, the principle still applies. So let’s all try to remember the thanks and the blessings by searching for them in our simple everyday lives.

Thanks for the inspiration and Re-blogged in part with permission from
Thankful Thursday: Even When I Want to Rant

{Lightfoot at morgueFile free photos }

So a little chicken talk turned into a story, which goes to show how much is involved if one chooses to keep these feathered friends….

This is how I ended my last post, but on further reflection with a rested and refreshed mind there is so much more that can be gained from these memories and ideas.

As with everything in life we need to investigate, learn and prepare …and learn Spanish…shall we??

Life can be an adventure….

… I am thankful for the many different life happenings I have experienced from a young age, for they do teach us many, many things….how to care, to be thankful, to be patient, to try again, to understand others, to try new ways, to listen to the young also cause they can teach us a thing or two, not to judge-hard to do cause it’s in our nature, to make do, to re-use…and so the list goes on.

We don’t need an online education for the above. We have life skills….

Hand washing country style by jdurham at morgueFile.com

…As I stand here with my iPad on the kitchen bench looking out the back door and pretending to have a rural vista, I see blue sky, freshly washed laundry on the line, a green lawn of sorts edged with a newly established Lavender hedge atop a rock wall and I think …

What are life skills…let’s look it up on the internet with mr Google. The first item that comes up is this

noun
plural noun: life skills
1.
a skill that is necessary or desirable for full participation in everyday life.
“sharing with a sibling can help children learn important life skills”

So, returning to the scene at my back door, there are quite a few life skills even in the everyday taken for granted scene.

O.K…even my iPad, I had to learn how to use this tool and am still learning as there is so much new technology and older brains take longer to process and take it all in and grasp the concept. Yet a younger child who is using this new technology all the time is quick to grasp the workings and can show her grandma a thing or two without any fuss, but I have to remember for next time….practise, practise grandma.

{Monosodium at morgueFile.com}

Then there’s the laundry freshly washed. We do it all the time without thought except that we keep an eye on the weather, how full is the wash basket, what needs special stain treatment, hot wash or cold wash, washing sorted into light and darks, by country- just joking, fluffy away from darks, TISSUES OUT OF POCKETS, is all the dirty washing out of the children’s rooms, delicates washing, uniforms needed for the morning…quick quick. Yet give it to a child with no experience and see what happens.

Now a lawn needs some looking after. Depending on the time we have to spend and how fussy or particular we are there are many steps to learn. The real basic ones are that Lawns need water, especially in our hot Australian summers. They need to be cut and the edges done either by hand shears or an edger like a whipper snipper. Lawn trimmings need to be disposed of. Prickles in the lawn need to be poisoned off or pulled out so children can play on it with bare feet in summer. Then there’s the need to feed lawn if you have time. All these are learned skills through necessity so you can have a lawn of sorts. Ours gets cut and watered and has to survive. It still gives a space to enjoy, a buffer from neighbors and respite from the heat rather than having bare concrete.

{Kaparti Gabor at morgueFile.com}

My new lavender hedge needed lots of preparation to get to where it is now. Maybe over a year as I had the time,to research and to propagate and grow many cuttings from the main lavender bush. Over the years I’ve done gardening, learnt and observed from my mother since I was a child. It is something that is enjoyable and brings desirable results. The lavender hedge garden was at one time a mish mash of plants and creepers that were growing old and needed a replacement that was easy to take care of as we approach retirement.The old plants had to be dug out or poisoned and wait for the poison to work. Patience and energy and perseverance. It was hard but I got there!

So lots of life skills are part of the everyday, but at the beginning needed to be learnt, understood, practised, nurtured and just done cause they are part of what makes our life happen….and passed on!

{handl at morgueFile.com}

So what new skill have you had to learn or master, passed on or just worked at in a different way.

Make a hard job beautiful by looking forward.

Alexa

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