Hoochiemumma

Personal Blog

Month: September 2019

Social spring clean. An irrational rant.

admin

Look, I don’t want to offend anybody, but for the love of god please save me from the workout posts that I see. And food. Stop the food posts. Unless it’s sharing a delicious recipe, or an even better restaurant… just SHUT UP AND STOP IT.

There, I’ve said it.

And I ain’t the first.

Don’t get me wrong though. Running a marathon? You post that shit everywhere and I’ll cheer you over the line. Hit a PB in anything from lifting weights to swimming an extra lap or walking that extra km… post on my friend. But seriously… what’s with the daily bullshit conceited elitist crap of “look at me, I wear expensive workout shit and talk fancy workout talk while in my overpriced sneakers and I’m so cool and you’re so not cool and please like my selfie where I do boring things that a lot of people do all the time.”

Honestly, it’s as interesting as someone posting about cleaning their house.

Everyone does it, some ignore it for long periods of times, some are daily cleaners, some are weekly cleaners, some are obsessed about it, some do a better job than others, some make a living out of it and some even hire it out and don’t do it at all. Ugh.

I’ve questioned where this rage against the workout machine has come from.  Am I envious? Am I triggered because I’m unfit? Am I insecure? Am I just a bitch? Am I old and sick of everyone’s crap? Is it hormones? Maybe it’s Maybelline? I dunno, but it shits me off more than the British chick on the home shopping channel selling Thin Lizzy concealer….We get it Suzanne…It’s magic in a tube.

And then I realised that I just need to get more savvy with my social media feed and press “unfollow” and not be such a jerk. No one is making me watch this crap except me. So I had a little clean up and wouldn’t you know it, just like a good spring clean, it feels glorious!

With that being said, I might throw on my Kmart tights with my husbands old t-shirt, waddle down the road while escaping death from the dive bombing maggie’s and clear my cranky mind. Or I might not. You will NEVER KNOW.

Have I just done an exercise post?

Would that be irony or hypocrisy you reckon?

Rant over. As you were people.

M

It’s a pod life for me..

admin

Business, Cable, Close-Up, Design

I’m always a bit off trend and late to the party….This may explain why I started a blog when blogging is dying and only discovered the glory of the podcast in the last year or so.

I developed a slight obsession with all things crime in podcast land and for a while I had delusions that I would make a kick arse investigative journalist or an equally kick arse serial killer.

It all depended on my mood.

Despite this disturbing discovery, I also found out that I get bored pretty quickly so I have a podcast love list as varied and high as the stack of books next to my bed that I haven’t read yet.

Some fellow podcast loving friends and I share some pod-recommendations with each other, and I received one recently which I loved.

There is nothing better than reading or hearing something that unravels your own thoughts and transforms them into a word opera. I think that’s why some of us feel compelled to share quotes. We read something that puts our thoughts into poetic words that we can’t conger up ourselves.

The podcast I’m sharing has a bit of a cheesy name, but if you can get past that, this episode touches on a lot of important topics including living a life of purpose, mental health, social media  and chasing happiness. It mainly speaks about the concept of resilience and how we can achieve that through gratitude, empathy and mindfulness.

These are the buzz words of our time and they get bandied around so much I sometimes switch off to it and eye roll, but it’s good stuff and these concepts remind me to stay grounded, focus on what’s important and to keep life simple and uncomplicated. The dude being interviewed is Hugh van Cuylenburg and has been in the media as the founder of the Resilience Project.

Resilience is a word I use a lot. It’s something I try to be. It’s something I want our children to learn. I also think it’s the key to coping with life’s ups and downs and it’s definitely a skill that can be taught. There’s an energy about people who have and display resilience, in all of its definitions. They ooze a quiet self assuredness, and despite what gets chucked in their way, they seem to soldier through and know that they will be ok.

As deep and meaningful as all of that sounds… I also listen to total trash which is hilarious and wrong but oh so right at the same time.

Maybe I should post a “pod-recommendo of the week”, and if you’re not a podcast lover, maybe you’ll become one because they are THE BEST! They make laundry and long drives a whole heap more enjoyable.

Speaking of which… I’m off to plug in and tackle Mt Washington.

Ps. Any other pod cast listeners who may be reading my twaddle please please share your favourites.

M

Clickity Click to listen….

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/a-life-of-greatness/id1457268944?i=1000434389752

It’s a lotto life.

admin

This is one for those who set out on a family making expedition and found themselves travelling a path they weren’t expecting.

Who knows what you’re going to get when you embark upon making people.

It’s an exciting lotto.

Most of us know that there is a risk of things going wrong, but thousands of perfectly healthy children are born every year. Why wouldn’t we have one too? When the scans come back with the all clear and you’ve hit the “safe zone” it’s smooth sailing until d-day. And once that baby is in your arms you’re home and hosed right? Or are you?

Sometimes that’s not the case.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in hospital with our teen who was born with Cystic Fibrosis.

Throughout these years I’ve met a lot of parents going through some horrendous stuff. Usually I’d be making myself a shitty cup of tea when I would meet some fellow hospital parents. The parent room is like a prison yard where by the time you’ve run into the same people for more that a couple of days, one of you inevitably ends up asking “so… what are you in for?”

Some of the parents I have met didn’t know what was wrong with their child. Their exhaustion was palpable with worry strewn across their faces as they downloaded their stories in the moments between toasting bread and dipping tea bags.

These moments have definitely given me a deeper appreciation for the most simple things in life and I was often left in awe of their resilience.

Other parents I’ve met are frequent fliers, like me, supporting their child who is managing a chronic illness. We share the commonalities of having wandered these wards and passages. We share the gratefulness of the brilliant care our children receive, as well as frustrations of finding car parks and being woken by beeping machines. We long for the time to pass quickly and for the treatment to work. We count down the days until we can go home, knowing that we’ll be back again at some point in time doing it all again. Despite this, I often feel grateful that I know what we are “in for”.

In the early years, when we were in the trenches of managing a baby in hospital, I read a poem that was stuck to the wall next to the fridge. I was feeling a bit fragile that this was our life and hadn’t become used to the roller coaster ride of chronic illness.

The poem below was written for parents of children born with a disability, but I think it resonates for all of us who embarked upon this child making caper and didn’t quite get what we ordered.

So here’s to all of us, who not only kick the arse of parenting, but also have extra challenges along the road of parenthood.

M