Are you the type of person that congratulates people when they have done well? Do you tell them when they have done a good job? Do you tell them how wonderful they are? And not just on their birthday. If only we could be like little children, who so often don’t hide their instant reactions. Who voice, without filters, what they are thinking but generally in a positive way. (If they speak with meanness, often they have seen this way of speaking somewhere…) We need to cultivate this positive, affirming manner in our families. I remember distinctly my Mum teaching me, “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say…

Ever forgotten something or someone. I have. Just the other day I forgot to go to an appointment. I had to reschedule. I forget to buy grocery items when I shop, and sometimes they are the important item why I went there! Like toilet paper or laundry powder!  So back in the car I go to get them.  The saying, “ I’d lose my head if it was not screwed on” is sometimes true.  Am I just forgetful or do I have too much on my plate? Only I can answer that.  I usually write a list of things to get, and at which shop.  I know of someone who…

Lately I find myself questioning my behaviour, my thoughts, my actions. I have been put into situations that are pushing my patience, my kindness, my attitudes. Let me explain. Normally I am a very patient person. But as I am getting older and just in the last month, I feel like I get agitated more by waiting, by people who don’t seem to know their job and by people who are just outright unkind. My hackles go up and I feel like retaliating. I went to buy my mother a present in a very well-known branded shop. The first counter I went to, after waiting fifteen minutes and finding no…

Don’t you love when little children are learning the language that is spoken in the home they live in, and it comes out “different.” Different to the true, correct pronunciation due to the speaker saying it too fast or the child not yet being able to say certain sounds. If you look at a baby, they are always watching the face of the person speaking to them – watching the mouth, the eyes, hearing the inflection in the voice. They try to repeat what they see and hear. I remember my daughter could not say her brother Joel’s name correctly and would call him “doll.”  She loved sultanas and as…

The wind is blowing a gale outside. I can tell from the howling noise and the washing dancing on the clothesline. Hopefully it does not rain soon so I can bring it in in time. I really don’t like my hard work of hanging it up going to waste. Hard work you say? Surely its just pegging up clothes on a clothesline? No for me it is like doing a 30-minute aerobics session. I have only the use of one arm in putting up the clothes, so I often throw the clothes on the line first so that the line “catches” them and then I spread the items out and…