I haven’t done this one for a while. So let’s do it: the hits (and shits) of the week.

SHIT: I’ve been seeing cockroaches and bright black moths flying around at the periphery of my vision since Coco’s surgery. And although it could be the start of the locusts (2020 ‘eh?) I thought I’d see the Optom. As luck would have it, it’s not anything crazy, just floaters. Lots of ’em. So if you see me snap my head to the right, or look like I’m warding off evil spirits, don’t worry, it’s just a floater. Did I mention I’m scared of all flying things? Good times.

HIT: Sam and I launched our new coaching programme for Chicks Who Click which begins in December. So this means we got to BUY STUFF (yes, there will be presents for our Chicks). Is CWC a business or a chance for Sam and I to have champagne lunches to ‘think of ideas’ and buy nice presents? Paradox: the ability to hold two seemingly opposite ideas to be true at the same time. Winky face.

SHIT: Alldaysupersucker hangover on the weekend from having too many of the aforementioned ideas.

HIT: I finally went to the Leunig site to find a print I’ve been wanting for ages, and came across this cool one. It’s not the one I’m getting, but it’s too good not to share. The hit is that Micheal Leunig is in the world and is unafraid to rouse the rabble and criticism be damned. I think we could all do with a splash of Leunig in our lives. If you want some you can go to http://www.leunig.myshopify.com

SHIT: I found a FAB house that I got really, really obsessed with and wanted to buy, immediately. I then drove to said house and found it was IN THE COUNTRY. The proper country, not Noosa Hinterland pretend country. So I can’t have the dream house (I am not country folk- there were definitely bugs there, and not pretend eye-bugs either), but a small HIT: I found the Noosa (not in Noosa) Botanical Gardens with a grouse ampitheatre looking over Lake Macdonald. I sat there, imagined Titania and Puck running amok, and ate a donut.

HIT: I’m going to Ricky’s for lunch. I’m predicting a hit, so keep an eye out. I won’t tell if it’s shit. (I also know it won’t be. That place rocks). Let me know if you want a blog on it, I fancy myself as a bit of a #foodblogger.

Happy Friday to you all, From The Ashers.

PS Not a sponsored post, but feel free to show me the money, Leunig and Ricky’s and I’ll wax lyrical for sure. #influencer

The Shitcat isn’t dead (again).

On Tuesday morning there was quite the commotion at Asher HQ, as the MASSIVE horsedog who is agisted next door and who is, how shall we say it, not a cat person, pulled his owner over and dragged her over our driveway like cheese on a grater, to chase Woofa the Shitcat. (Who was most likely lying supine and flashing her derrière at him.) The owner came running at me, screaming, “My dog just killed your cat.”

Except said cat was nowhere to be found. Strange behaviour for a dead cat indeed.

So I calmed down the sobbing jockey whilst I looked for a trail of blood, tiny cat bones and general destruction in the direction of #deadcat. None. And no deadcat to be seen.

As if in response to the mayhem and maiming, the heavens opened up, and we had what Queenslanders call “a drop of rain”. The type of rain that makes you glad you are wearing a bra. And waterproof mascara. And you have sandbags in your garage that your Mum made you get from council once, when they were going for free (I case of floods. No we don’t live near a river. But: free.)

I searched and searched through the deluge for #deadcat for at least two minutes, before deciding the lack of blood spatter meant she was without harm or without a trace (I’ve watched the shows, I know how this stuff rolls) and it was time to do what all good cat owners do: wait, call “pusspusspuss” in that high pitched voice that cats universally love loathe, wait, shake the dry food pellets, wait.

By and by, the thing that all cat owners know about happened: #deadcat reappeared. Bedraggled and a bit skittish, but decidedly #alivecat. No sign of blood or eviscerated entrails or shards of bones chewed by the jaws of megalodog. Nothing.

She stared at me for a beat, did one cross sounding miaow, demanded food and then started licking her puckered area. Definitely not dead today.

The overall casualty count was: two skinned knees (The Meg owner), one wet t-shirt that was winning NO competitions this day (cat owner), one heart on the verge of infarction (cat owner).

I know one day #alivecat will be #deadcat, but my goodness it’s hard to believe that supershitcat will ever meet her maker. And she sure knows how to burst my corpuscles. We do love you Woofa, but can you hold off on the near death action for awhile?

The vet said ‘cats like this’ often live into their twenties. Pass me the smelling salts.

Have you got a friend like mine? If you haven’t, you need to go out and get yourself one posthaste, and pandemic be damned. Let me tell you why..

When I first met Jools we had both showed up to the first day at a new uni in skimpy clothes and big hair (it was the early 90s and we were still attached to the hair, goddamn it). We would have been wearing scrunchies to match our tans. The grade of any uni student back then could be read in the depth of the tans, and by the looks, Jools and I were solid Cs. Lots of time in the sun with our books, trying to convince ourselves that we were furthering our edumacation, when really we were just exciting our melanocytes.

The difference between us, was that Jools had swagger. You know that thing? When you meet someone and they are really comfy in more than just their Le Tanned skin, but in their own good self. And not in a showy or flamboyant way (although, by the look of Jools in that crop-top, she probably was pretty buoyant #boobenvy) but in that way that you just know that they know who they are- their strengths and foibles and the whole caboodle- and they are okay with that.

So it won’t come as a surprise to know that pretty soon Jools had a little crop of butterflies drawn to her shine. And rightly so. Because the thing about Jools, is that one of her gifts is that she embraces the truth of who she is so effortlessly, that it somehow rubs off, and settles on your own skin like so much disco glitter. And pretty soon you can’t help but feel like maybe, just maybe, you are okay to be who you are.

As you look at your arms in fascination, turning them this way and that in the sun, watching the glitter catch the light, you start to think that some of the things you’ve been carrying around, that you are toofattoolazytoodumbtoouglytooloudtoomuch are not too at all. They are just you.

And you is a pretty okay thing to be.

My glittery friend turned fifty yesterday, and still she shines like the sun. With a bit of moon-dust wisdom thrown in as well. She was the first person to show me that I could be all of me without the need for apologies. And that is glitter that is worth the riches of all the world.

Happy birthday, Old Luv. Thanks for cheering us all on, for all those times, when you were just being you. You sure do bring meaning to the word cheers.

It’s fun isn’t it: not choosing. When we are at some sort of a crossroads in thought, and we decide not to choose. Maybe we toss a coin, ask someone else to decide, or even just refuse to choose until the choice is made for us by some external event or person.

I love how we can dally and dilly all over the place, making nice little crop circles on the carpet whilst maintaining a definite and definitive decision not to decide. It’s like that we think that if we somehow wait long enough it will “all work out.” Because, and here’s the hallelujah and praise the baby cheeses: it will. It will work out some how. It just might not be the how that we really wanted. And then sometimes, weirdly, it is. Which I suppose is why we do it in the first place. At some time in our personal history we have not chosen, and life has worked out just fine and dandy thank you very much.

So we keep doing it. This not choosing.

The best and most funny thing about not choosing, is that it is an actual choice. Which is why it’s the best cosmic joke going around. When we abdicate responsibility and say, “I just can’t choose right now” we are making a choice. And the energy/universe/whatever comes on over and matches that up and says, “Here you go, have this then”.

I have a feeling that the thing you then get is actually a perfect match for what you really wanted all along. Or at least it’s the thing that you think you deserve. And so goes. So when we find ourselves flipflopping all over the place and being in analysis paralysis, then maybe it’s a chance to say, “I choose not to choose.” And then see what happens next.

As long as we are happy with anything much, or nothing much, or all of the much- who knows with this little roulette wheel- then all will be well. Just know that not choosing is choosing.

Someone* once said, “Things have no inherent meaning, just the meaning we bring to them.”

It’s a statement that comes to me time and time again, because it’s so simple and true. I use essential oils a lot, and I like them for the ‘properties’ they have. You know, how Rose Oil needs the massacre of fifty bazillion rose petals to make 5ml of the stuff, and it has a vibration of 325mHz and is the oil of Divine Love. Now it may or may not be those things. And it may or may not bring me divine love when I inhale it, but it’s the meaning I bring to it that gives it at least some of its power. You might smell it and say, “That shit stinks, it reminds me of the 80s” (potpourri was a thing) and bring a completely different meaning to it.

And so it goes.

For all of the things. Whether it be the transformative or mundane experience of birthing a child, bringing home a new cat, or that first sip of silent coffee. It’s the meaning we bring that gives our life meaning.

The cool part is: we get to choose. We get to choose if that fancy champers is a story of female empowerment, success and innovation, or an expensive way to get pissed. We can choose if putting on some lipstick is a sign of gender-based oppression, ridiculous vanity, gorgeous nurturing of our feminine (or masculine- get on it fellas) beauty or a reminder to speak our truth. Très exciting. (Or boring- yet again, you get to choose).

My life motto is “choose your own adventure”… a variation of “You do you, Boo” because I believe it’s the source of true freedom. From FOMO and JOMO and growing a Mo. (Shut up, I’ve got The Menopause okay).

This week Coco did a hard thing, and, as it is with many hard things, there were opporfuckingtunities galore. Some of the biggies were her expanding belief that she can do hard things, along with an ability to control her own state. Often in life it is alluring to believe we are the victim- of crappy circumstances, mutated genetics (sorry Coco) or financial flukes that are outside our control. And although it might be kinda easy to go along with that flow, we’re going to end up in the crappy creek if we keep the story running. And the converse is so cool. We already know it, don’t we? When we jump in (not to shit creek, into the pool of potential) and accept the reality of the sitch, and wonder, “What can I do with this clusterfuck?” the real fun can begin.

When Coco did her hard thing this week, we chose to make some meaning from it. And because I am nothing if not good at shopping, of course I chose meaning in a little blue box. We trotted off to Tiff, and once our eyes grew accustomed to the opulence, we found just the thing. A little bracelet with silver balls, that she can use like Mala Beads to calm her state when things get freaky. A little bracelet as shiny as the moon, that she can use to know that the power of nature is within her, and she is a force of her own. A little bracelet with a blue heart to remind her that she has “cor” or courage waiting within her, any time she wants it.

So is a Tiffany bracelet a silly present for a thirteen year old? Probably. Is it indulgent to buy a kid something like this for ‘no reason’? Maybe.

Or maybe it’s just the meaning we bring.

*If you know who that someone is, please tell me. I use the quote a lot and I would like to attribute it. Guy Riekeman perhaps?