Thank You

I got a break from blogging this week when I handed over the reins to my friends Emma, Fiona, Therese and Katya. Each woman shared their journey to motherhood story, and they were all wonderful.  A big thank you to each of them. None of these women are bloggers so it was very brave of  them to share such personal stories online.  I hope you enjoyed reading them.

Stories To Tell

Curating these stories was a reminder to me of how everybody has an extraordinary story to tell. This was a lesson I learnt during the six years I spent as a Creative Memories consultant. In my stay-at-home decade my job was teaching photo scrapbooking and selling product with this direct-sales company. It was an amazing experience to sit with people as they worked on their photos and hear such incredible tales, the brother killed in Cyclone Tracey, the mother who adopted out her first-born only to adopt another person’s child many years later, the thrill of children graduating, the courageous journey of  children with special needs, the weddings, the birthday parties, the holidays, the love affairs, the losses. It was all there laid out in photographs. It is very true that everybody does have a story to tell. I was very sad to hear that Creative Memories here in Australia went into voluntary administration last week.

Mother’s Day

It was Mother’s Day here today. We had both Grandmothers here for lunch.  Mr Shambles and the girls cooked.

Our menu started with roast tomato, goats cheese and caramelised onion quiches.

Followed by Prawn Stuffed Squid with Couscous Salad. Well actually I made them do some chicken for me. They also threw together a roasted vegetable salad.

And we finished off with the  fruit flan/cake Nana brought from the Cheescake Shop.

Then there was the obligatory photo shoot.

Surfing the Net

In other news. I read a lot. Books, magazines, and more and more lately, online. I have always consumed a lot of reading material. It’s costly. Here’s a few of things I’ve enjoyed reading this week, it may had made me laugh, cry or given me something to think about.

An interview with Liane Moriarity over at Life In A Pink Fibro, What Alice Forgot is one of my favourite books, and now it may be made into a movie.

In Cleveland there was the extraordinary story of the rescue of three women held captive for ten years. Terry Proybn is the mother of another kidnap victim, Jaycee Dugard, who was returned to her family after 18 years. Terry wrote about the trauma of such an experience.

Author Anna Funder writes a letter to her late mother in the Good Weekend.

Reservoir Dad was named the best parenting/personal blog in the Australian Writers Centre Blogging Competition I loved his piece on 2190 days as a house husband.

While Mrs Woog made me laugh with her loan shark duties at the mother’s day stall.

Read any great articles lately?

I hope you had (or are having) a great weekend.