Here are the hits:

1. I know, I know, I always say it, but HOW GOOD ARE SCHOOL HOLIDAYS? Can they go on forever please? Or at least another few weeks.

2. These Veuve smoking slippers, or whatever the hell they are.

Yes, you can wear them with socks Jools.

I want need them, and I need them immediately. Gives new meaning to the term “I’m putting on my drinking shoes.”

3. Sleepover visitors. How GOOD ARE THEY? Especially when they are My Friend and his Little Mate. So good.

So good to hear the laughter of little kids playing together, dressing up and mucking about.

So good to share food and convos around the table with people who you love like family (and who you wish would stay for longer). Blessed, I tells ya.

4. Working from home. Do you do it? Perhaps you should try it..?

The Joint, joint (See what I did there?)

Years ago, after the birth of The Evil Genius Mark II, I had some very insightful friends suggest that perhaps I could work from home. I scoffed at first (because I didn’t think of it), but eventually I came around, and I have to say it has been one of the best decisions of my working life. No travel and being able to hear the sounds of family all around are some of the perks, but most of all it has brought an all new level of loving service to my work. You can’t invite people into your home who you don’t love, so the home office has ensured that my practice is full of people who I consider to be my extended family. I love ’em, and I hope they kinda like me right back.

My motto is “For everyone you love” and I think it goes right back the other way- my place is for everyone I love. Not a bad way to spend a work day. Not bad at all.

5. A long weekend coming my way. Goodonya Queensland for moving the hol from that first half of the year where there is a GLUT of long weekends, to now, when we can enjoy the sunshine and the spring-that-thinks-it’s-summer with gay abandon. Long weekend, I can’t wait to get in you.

What are your best bits of the week? Anything amazing to share?

Did you bake the Big Batch Big Biccies yet?

…From The Ashers xx

Bubbles…

My Twitter has been all a flutter with both outrage and confessions, regarding Neil Mitchell’s tweet about women in the workplace bursting into tears: “is it weakness or tactic?”  Now, there are others I’m sure who have written about this more eloquently than I ever will, but I would like to weigh in on this one: how about neither one Neil, you arsehat?  (Yes that’s right, I just said arsehat. No, I don’t know what it means either, but if the cap fits, etcetera.)

I can think of quite a few times that I have been moved to (almost) tears at work, and I don’t think any of the instances are me being weak OR manipulative…

I sometimes get teary when I hold a newborn baby in my arms and think of all potential within them, and how I get to be part of the full expression of their health.

I sometimes get teary when I have a child on my table, who I’ve known for years (probably since they were a baby) and I realise they are growing up. When I get a glimpse of the adult they will become, and I get all emo thinking about how lucky I am to be part of that trip, and how too-fast the time seems to go.

I sometimes get teary when things go really well.

When a new Mum tells me how her life has changed since her bubba has calmed down and relaxed, and now she gets to love them for their true little selves, and not try to love the bright red bundle of writhing, that just can’t be calmed.

Or when an old man tells me how he feels the spring has come back in his step, the spring that was lost when his wife died three years ago, and he descended into a world of darkness and physical pain.

Or when a teenager tells me she reckons she just aced her exams, and she was able to do so because we spent some time visualising and relaxing and breathing together, and she felt that she could think more clearly once her body was clearer.

Or like today.  When a man I regard in high esteem has finally come home.  When he was accused of things untrue, and he handled them with a calm grace.  When he moved away with his family to rewrite and rebuild his life, his work, his finances.  When he and his wife sketched out goals, and moved toward them, step by tiny step, until they could jump right into that painting.  And when today he said to me “I just can’t believe it, I just keep on waiting for the bubble to burst.”

Well, I just about thought my heart might burst.

So yeah, Neil Mitchell, sometimes I do cry at work.  But it’s bloody good.

How about you, do you cry? 

Do you cry because you are piss-weak, or are you just trying to manipulate everyone?

Today is my big day at work, so I haven’t seen much of the kids.  Just bit of time together this morning, and a quick goodnight.

After I was all done, I came up to see Coco’s homework on the table.  She had some spelling words to “look, cover, write, check” and sentences of same.  Her writing is slowly getting better, as she seems to be getting less fatigued these days.  She is proud of her achievements, probably because they are so hard won.

It isn’t the neatest writing in the world, but you can see she has tried hard, and the work is all her own.

My favourite, was her sentence for the word ‘breakfast’.  All spidery writing and smudgy from the rubbing out:  “The smorning I had breakfast.”

It made me laugh.

That kid.  She makes me cry more than any person I’ve ever met, but my God she makes me laugh more too.

She’s had a tricky week, but tomorrow is the book week parade, and I know she’ll be up early ready to dress up as Pearlie the Park Fairy.

Keep up the good work Coco, your tenacity makes our hearts sing.

….From The Ashers xx

What about you, what makes your heart sing?

What did you do the smorning?