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2 April 2015

Bemused and Befuddled #atozchallenge Care for the carers

Two days after her 73rd birthday my Mum took her final breath. She had Alzheimers and Motor neurone disease. For her final 3 months I was her main carer. A privilege I am grateful for and will cherish forever. This years #atozchallenge theme will focus on being a carer / care-giver.

Remember to care for the carers.

BEMUSED and BEFUDDLED

You can expect a look of bemusement if you tell a carer that they should 'never be a slave to anybody.' (Accusing them of martyrdom has the exact same effect.)

#atozchallenge. Theme reveal for 2015 A-Z challenge.

Hi fellow challengers.

I really thought I had several valid excuses not to do this years challenge.

The last 6 months have been tough. They have also bought me an incredible sense of joy and clarity. Excuse number 1: Turmoil.

I have been home in Melbourne since October 2014 - but will be on my way back home to Europe mid April. Excuse number 2: Transit

My Mum died on Jan 19. My family and I reacted in ways that I am still coming to terms with leading up to and after her passing. Excuse number 3: Grief

I have put absolutely no thought into this years challenge until just now. Excuse number 4: Unprepared.

etc etc etc.

We can all come up with excuses but one thing I've learnt from my dear Mum is that my generation doesn't understand what tough really is. I'm not ready to write all about her yet, but the time will come.

Instead I am going to alphabetically choose all sorts of emotions that presented themselves during the tough times. We all have dark sides. I believe the most horrible people never acknowledge they have one. Worst, are the type of people that lose their shit at you for being upset and then blame you for being or doing something awful...

Positive and optimistic people get angry too, and that is OK. We get upset, hurt, grieve and if people put us in a position where we have to fight for what we believe in - we will. It doesn't make us bad people. In fact, it is quite the opposite, it makes us real.

So for this years challenge I am going to keep my posts very short, a quote here a short story there, a gif (is that a word?) or image, on the emotions that present themselves during the tough times... and perhaps even some coping mechanisms and healing techniques too.

It is time to 'Let it go Let it go'

"Here I stand

In the light of day...

I don't care

What they're going to say

Let the storm rage on,

The cold never bothered me anyway"

Seriously, copy and pasted quote from the movie Frozen's 'Let it go' song, why won't you centre? I listened to this song for the first time last week... still haven't seen the movie.

This other quote kind of sums it up nicely too.

Do I have to credit the source if the source is in the image?

Happy ##atozchallenge to everyone involved and to the people who complain about everyone else's involvement, I hope you have a great month too.

Here is the link to sign up for the A to Z challenge if you want to join this year too.

- I will try my best to get all the badges up before April 1.

Ida

21 March 2014

A to Z theme reveal - Not quite what I expected... #atozreveal #atozchallenge

1) Aussie slang - (to tempting to copy and paste)

2) 26 Boyfriends - (to revealing)

3) A to Z of Alzheimers - (to heavy for a light hearted challenge)

Check out everyone else's themes on the link list here

26 boyfriends was a standout winner... Perfect. Until I stating writing the posts and realised that
not everyone in my life needs to know about how many or how deep some of those boyfriends reached.

What I really want to share is why and how I fell in love. The fun, mistakes and lessons. This was supposed to be about different types of boys, but as I started writing the posts it became glaringly obvious that it was all about me. I couldn't write about love and leave out some of my greatest loves of all, not just old boyfriends. So a new theme idea was born.

Welcome to The 26 Greatest loves of my life.

There will still be a little smut, including my first kiss and that unforgettable first quiver, but I also want to keep it PG. Some will read like a synopsis rather than the whole story. Some of my greatest loves aren't even human.

I want to exercise my writing muscles, challenge myself. My longest post is under 400 words, some of them are just a few sentences long. Some are first person, some are third person. There's even a poem or two and I might even chuck in some Aussie slang. Fair dinkum I've loved some larrikins.

This challenge isn't just about writing, it's about connecting with other bloggers. This year I've managed to get a good head start by scheduling half of my posts. This will give me a lot more time to visit other blogs. The more blogs I visited last year the more visited me back. It's a win-win. Positive comments are like rewards for effort, they become addictive.

Like many girls I started searching for love at a very young age. I don't remember a time in my life where my relationships haven't been the single most important thing to me. In order to have great relationships I had to learn to love myself. If you are anything like I am, that was easy at first, became very difficult for a while, then greater than anything I imagined.

I hope you enjoy my 2014 #atozchallenge theme. The 26 Greatest loves of my life.

Subscribe by email if you don't want to miss a post. I promise never to spam you, I don't even know how to find out who has subscribed :)

Make it easy for other people to find you and leave a link to your post in the comments below.

It's not to late to join the the them reveal link list. I've added it below (if the linky link works - if not click here.)

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The challenge starts with the letter A on April 1st. You can join that on the official A to Z challenge page.

All the best to every participant. Let the countdown begin.

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