Monthly Archives: December 2019

If Only I Was Barack Obama…

Posted on by • Posted in Blue Jai Creative, Books, Christmas, movies, music, Musings, Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , • 2 Comments
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Clearly the former POTUS follows my humble blog and can’t wait for MY Best of 2019 Lists….

Barack Obama tweeted his best books of 2019 today.

Because he is Barack Obama (and even though we live a considerable distance across the Pacific, don’t we wish we were still seeing a whole lot more of him), he simply put up a list of what he thought were his best reads of the year. No doubt book sales will hit stratospheric heights momentarily…

Now, as any of you follow this blog with any semblance of regularity may know, this is the time of year when I, also, typically put fingers to keys and let you know what my favourite books, songs and viewings were of the year. And while I cannot even begin to pretend to operate in the same league as Barack Obama (I suspect it sufficient, at this point, that we reside on the same planet), those of you who follow this blog already know that this year had not entirely gone to plan. That said, previous years did not exactly go to plan, but sometimes we need to learn lessons more than once to make them really sink in…

So far, December 2019 has brought us the end of the school year, more Christmas parties than we care to mention, a special outing to Cirque du Soleil (magnificent and something we would highly recommended were it not for the fact that we saw their final Sydney show of Kurios), and a godawful lingering case of the flu — which has now metamorphosized into equally lingering head colds that require us to take a family sized box of tissues wherever we go, even if it is only to the beach less than one kilometre from our front door.

Meh.

And so…yes, I know, I’m running late on all these posts and won’t get them done in the next day and a half before New Year’s…I will be letting you know what my Best Of 2019’s were in — yes, you guessed it…

2020!

Because good things come to those who wait.

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Happy New Year, y’all!

And I have lists. You know I do…lists of my final top 5’s and shortlists and even thematic lists (though they may not make the final cut — you’ll just have to wait and see).

With every best wish and several tenterhooks to hang off,

Blue Jai x

 

 

The Year of the Odd Sock

Posted on by • Posted in Christmas, Harry Potter, Musings, Parenting, Uncategorized, Writing • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , • 3 Comments
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Expectation…

As 2019 draws to a close, I’ve been looking back on the past twelve months and trying — as I tend to do in this little patch of cyberspace — to make sense of it all. Like all years, there have been moments of achievement and moments of challenge, but if I’m totally honest there’s one thing that symbolises 2019 for me: the Odd Sock.

I’m an organised person, which is both a gift and a curse to those who live with me. For the vast majority of my life, socks of all kinds have been carefully kept in pairs. Some of my friends have been known to tease me for hanging socks with their pairs on the clothes line.  Needless to say, those same friends find it endlessly amusing that I have designated rows on the clothes line for each family member so I can sort the laundry as I fold it into the washing basket, which quite obviously enables me to get the family’s laundry sorted much faster than they can mutter things like “anally retentive”.

Now, I would normally be completely comfortable with being an object of house-keeping ridicule were it not for the awful fact that I currently have an entire drawer full of odd socks in my house.

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…and Reality.

Never have I ever been beset with such a proliferation of single socks! Some are sports socks, some are ankle socks, most are white socks, and none of them are my socks. And yet, there they are…more than a dozen of them, a collection that would liberate a small army of house elves from servitude were they to discover them.

My sense of order is somewhat offended by the presence of an entire tribe of single socks residing in a drawer usually reserved for stationery and postage stamps, but after my initial dismay wore off, I have to admit a part of me is quietly relieved.

For some odd reason, at some point during this year the sight all the odd socks reminded me of a quote from Melinda Gates’ powerful book The Moment of Lift:

I suspect most of us, at one time or another, say “I quit”. And we often find that “quitting” is just a painful step on the way to a deeper commitment.

This year has thrown a bunch of changes and logistical challenges at me, and I’ve had to find ways to adapt and adjust. I’ve had to let some of my (probably too high) self-imposed standards slip a little, and find new ways of caring for myself so I can care for my family. I’ve had to encourage my kids to step up and do things for themselves, which has had the flow on effect of them becoming increasingly self-confident and self-sufficient.

I’ve also had to let the odd socks stay single.

At the end of the day — and the end of the year, for that matter — I am at peace with the odd socks in my life. I can laugh at the irony of so many socks being unpaired, despite my desire to “keep it together” on every personal and professional front. I am content to embrace the odd sock as a symbol of my deeper commitment to my family and myself, and to know that the way we measure success — in happiness and time spent together — is what works best for us.

And if an odd sock is the worst thing I have to put up with in life, then life must be pretty darn good.

Blessings for the holiday season,

Blue Jai x

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…and finally, Peace.