Year of Adventure 2007

massive change, massive learning

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:36:00 +0000

it has been a very long time since i posted - in fact looks like this is my first post for 2008. my apologies if anyone has come looking for me and i have been absent for so long.

2008 has been a year of even more adventure than 2007 ... not all of it the kind that you go out looking for, but rather the kind that just arrives on your doorstep pretty much unannounced.

In the biggest news, my marriage has ended, well is now in the technical stage of separation, since April.

In the next news, i have been dating actively, developed some new friends, new relationships and discovering so much about myself, men and how it all works outside of one very long term committed relationship/marriage.

i have discovered the weird and wonderful world of online dating .... enuf said, won't go into that one here and now.

and

i am in the process of taking sole ownership of the family home - taking the plunge to buy my husband out - scarey but somehow empowering stuff.

so those are my big news items for this year to date. there are some smaller ones, but they can wait for a time when i am less sleep deprived to share.

sending love to everyone and anyone who comes across this blog ... i will make an attempt to post again before too long - i have been borrowing my son's computer for quite some time so have only just found my way back to this one tonight when he kicked me out of his bedroom so he could get some sleep! lol

xxx

On the 11th day of christmas ...

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 04:14:00 +0000

there was a frenzy throughout the land as all the weary shoppers tried to prevent things from getting out of hand! i have made a few forays into the malls, but have been trying to avoid the worst places at the busiest times. Our local shopping centre isn't nearly as busy, so i have picked up a few things there, a great bonus!

For Christmas we are having a big family gathering of both my brothers and their families and my dad, plus of course (at another meal) my mum, her husband and a few other inlaw types! It will be full on and I am thinking that collapsing in a heap is going to be looking mighty appealing when the most intense parts are over lol.

If i don't get a chance to post here again before Christmas, I hope anyone reading here has a lovely time, enjoys the company of friends and family and sees in the New Year with hope for all good things ahead.

Love to you all - I am looking forward to a much improved year in 2008!

xx

well now its November!

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 22:00:00 +0000

unbelievable!

i promised to post again ... and i am, although it is not exactly "soon" after my last one! wow, so much has been happening too.

my boss has been overseas for 5 weeks, and got back 3 weeks ago. while she was away i was sole charge, and also managing a brand new client who i did 50 hours for that first month and is now on a 30 hour per month retainer. we could really do with another team member, altho now the boss is back on deck, hopefully she will tackle part of the workload. we seem to be experiencing that last minute frenzy of clients wanting work sorted before everything slows right down in December and January.

in other news ... my dad has moved back to my city to live. currently he is renting a room in a fairly dodgy flat, with half his wordly possessions in there with him, and the rest in a storage unit. he moved from a three bedroom house into one largish room, so it has been a challenge!

the good news is that he has been offered a council unit, and i think he will take it ... so at least he will have his own space and a little more room to move than he currently does. and with luck, he will be able to get rid of some of the excess stuff and make a little cash from it.

what else, well my younger brother went to the states for 3 weeks with his girlfriend and they got married in Vegas - much to everyone' s surprise :)

that was cool, so i have a new sister in law ... and we get on well :)

my oldest son will be finishing school soon, and has already picked up his first part time programming job with a company called Telogis.

the women's circle has been going well, working through the goddess book, and we will probably take a bit of a break for December and January ... we had a great weekend away together focusing on Lilith, and a night time ritual up in a cave on the hills which was very cool. On wednesday night this week, which was Beltane here, we did another ritual on the beach and then made a shell encrusted mirror so we could look at our goddess selves. nice.

and since the return of my boss, i have started an hour later at work every day, and gone to the gym before work. have also started eating much healthier, lots of raw and salads and juices - all good!

and right now i am feeling hungry so a smoothie might be in the offing!

see you again soon .... and thanks for your comments darlings!

xxx

springiness

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 07:05:00 +0000

life has been incredibly full of late ... weekends have rushed by with hardly a spare moment, whether it be working on an event i am helping to pull together in my spare time, or going away for a long weekend to the snow with my husband, organising activities around my mother's 70th birthday and my older son's 17th, keeping track of work and preparing to work full weeks for a month and a half becos my boss is going on an overseas trip (which i found out today will be delayed by a couple of weeks becos her partner injured himself today!!) ... and sooo much more!

We have been socialising a bit lately with my husband's work colleagues (well some of them) which has involved dancing, loud music, clubs, and much alcohol - quite a change of pace from evenings in front of the tv!

and my women's circle has also committed to working through a 7 month Inner Goddess Makeover based on a fabulous book by a woman called Tanishka, who is originally a kiwi, but now lives in Melbourne. I am anxiously awaiting a package from her in the mail with a copy for each of us, hopefully in time for this coming weekend when we will be gathering out of town for a couple of nights. Looking forward to it!

OK now, you can gather yourselves up off the ground now (having fallen over in shock at seeing a new post on my blog!)

Promise to write again soon!

so its been a while ...

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 05:22:00 +0000

sorry guys if you are checking here regularly, life has somewhat overtaken me in the last month or so. big time personal drama, but i won't go into that here, because i have something new to share with you.

today i had an epiphany of sorts :) for some time now i have been wondering about the message i have to share with the world ... i am a speaker without a topic - but one who can speak about anything, i am a writer without a book - but one who can write about anything.

and today, i had a realization that i want to write and speak about women's lives and women's wisdom. and that part of this has come to me because i am struggling to find my own wisdom and my own path forward just now. but i want to create something that women will give to their daughters, perhaps when they are as young as 8 or 9, or perhaps on their first menstruation - their initiation into womanhood.

a book that will also be shared with women having their first child, getting married or divorced, going through menopause, discovering their life purpose. a book of wisdom that draws from all women of all ages, from all around the world.

ahhhhhh.

it feels right to me. it feels like i have a purpose, to begin to research, collect, collate, edit and draw together the strands from women like those reading this blog .... and those who are not. from those who are legends in cyberspace and those who have never even seen, let alone turned on a computer. i want to collect their words, oral or written and put them in a place where every woman can read them.

so a book, or perhaps a series of books ... a platform on which to speak and share and encourage others to share ... a website/forum for women to voice their experiences and share and support each other, and potentially so much more!

i would love to read your comments and thoughts in response to this idea - what would you like to see or read or share in such a book?

he is home and safe

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Thu, 03 May 2007 22:34:00 +0000

and things are reverting pretty much to normal. almost in sync with his arrival, the weather turned cold and wet this week, and the autumn leaves that have been stubbornly clinging on are now mostly scattered across the lawns and filling the gutters.

his trip was an eventful one ... with snippets now trickling through as he remembers them. like yesterday morning when he came out and said " did i tell you how i got approached for a modelling job in singapore?" of course, he hadn't, so i pressed him for details :) apparently some guy had approached him in the street and told him they were looking for young guys for a modelling shoot the following week and would he be interested. gave him a business card and everything. my boy said - somewhat incredulously, that he was only in singapore for a day, and the scout looked most upset and asked him if he would be back in singapore any time soon. "not very likely" said my boy (who btw hated singapore). and the scout went on his way. joey went on to tell me the guy looked a bit dodgy, and apparently joey's girlfriend (who had been with him at the time the man approached) had run off as soon as he started talking to joey. lol.

anyway, he wasn't kidnapped for the white slave trade, and also hasn't started on the road to international modelling stardom!

he has struggled a bit this week with understandable tiredness and some asthma, but would go back to France in a heartbeat (and yes, me with him!!!)

had to stop for a minute and sort out a computer emergency ... all good now, thanks to the joey helpdesk (yes he is at school and i rang him on his mobile!)

the traveller returns!

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 04:47:00 +0000

tomorrow morning at 9.30am we go to the airport to pick up joey from his trip to France. i am looking forward to seeing him and hearing all the stories and seeing all the photos from his trip. i am excited about how much he will have learned about the world, and watching changes unfold in him as he processes it all and gets used to being back home again.

the three weeks has gone so quickly - for him and for us I am sure. I would so love to travel back there with him and share some of his memories and experiences.

love and respect

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 04:20:00 +0000

so i was reading in another blog about the possibility that what men most want in a relationship is respect, and what women want is love.

and i am wondering if your experience of life and relationships suggests that to be true ... or otherwise.

i can see some truth in it for certain ... i know that other things, material things, are not the priority in relationships for me - just the windowdressing of the comfort zone, for me having the assurance of love is most important as the foundation for adventuring into the world.

respect is something i feel needs to be earned - it is not automatically conveyed. in my family, physical affection and words of love were not casual daily events. they were reserved for special occasions, birthdays, events, celebrations of achievement.

so i have grown up to distrust those who throw out words of love too easily. to me, that wasn't real or true unless the other person actually knew me enough to really choose to love me or not.

i did make sure, though, in bringing up my own children, that words of love flowed more easily and they were never in doubt of how we felt about them. And we have encouraged them to hug and be hugged, or to ask for a hug when they feel the need for comfort. All things that never happened for me and my brothers as children.

in more recent years, i have developed a different idea about love and sharing love with others .... as an infinite resource, that can be dipped into at will and never runs dry. i have real concern and love for my friends who i have only met online, as well as those i have also had the privilege of meeting in the flesh.

and of course for the friends i meet and talk with daily or weekly.

amongst my women friends i find it easy to share an unconditional form of affection, and find it puzzling when in some cases, their male partners find the same women threatening, undermining of their masculinity, and who knows what else.

is it simply their own insecurities they are projecting, or is there something more? are they seeking respect from their partner?

i don't really have the answers, but i feel like i am swimming in the soup of these questions at the moment, perhaps because i am heading towards my mid forties, and around me, mid-life crises are burgeoning like many headed hydrangeas!

with love

Moving on and wondering ...

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 06:30:00 +0000

what is in the air at the moment?!! seems that there are lots of people experiencing dramatic life changes around me ... most of them painful. I don't know what is behind it all, or if they are simply coincidental, but i sure hope it all stops soon!

over the weekend i took part in an ashes scattering ceremony ... the weather turned out much better than expected so we were able to do it on the water at one of my stepmother's favourite childhood locations. it was very emotional and quite hard for many of those present, but provided a degree of closure - and the ability to begin to move on with life.

I loved connecting with the men of my family again - my brother and my father, who i see too seldom. One day I will persuade them all back to live somewhere near me!

I also had an insight into appreciating something that we all too often (we meaning I) take for granted - having a reliable memory. Surrounded by older family members and hearing the same stories repeatedly, i truly understood just how valuable it is to have good recall of not only what is going on right now, or who we have just told a certain story to, but also of our more distant past.

I love that older people (in their 70s or more) have such a wonderful recall and so many stories of their own childhood experiences. Not for the first time i have a desire to record those memories before it is too late.

podcast, swicki and video!

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 23:22:00 +0000

so there they all are now!

if you want to hear my voice (sounding as my son said like a public service announcement - i used my " radio" voice) click on the top link where it says Karen's test podcast and have a listen!

might record a more fun one at some point and add it in for my friends to listen to :)

play with clicking on the phrases in the swicki "cloud" and see what comes up for your searches - they can be quite interesting.

that's all for now, I have some other missions to take care of today ... spot you later.

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 06:35:00 +0000

check out the Adventurous women swicki at eurekster.com

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 10:20:00 +0000

http://gettingheard.mypodcast.com/index.html

video widget

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 04:54:00 +0000

so i put in the video widget thingamybob as you can see ... but i am not sure how to put in the video clips from YouTube that I want you to see - there is no obvious way to edit and change what is there at present. however i shall continue to investigate .... and i posted this largely because you are no doubt wondering why i have racing clips on my blog!

xxx

sunshine day

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 03:04:00 +0000

today is a gorgeous early autumn day, still and very warm. we are preparing to send my oldest son overseas to France for three weeks ... exciting stuff!

It is of course, Easter weekend, but we don't have any real plans, especially since he leaves on Sunday morning. But i do have a presentation to prepare for National Speakers meeting on Tuesday night that I am organising and mc-ing. It will take a bit of work - one of the things i am talking about is blogging, and how easy it is to set up a blog and get an online presence without the cost of setting up a website.

so you might see a few experiments here in the next few days ... i am going to have a go at recording a podcast and posting it here, plus will probably put up a YouTube link of some kind.

have a wonderful Easter ...

Welcome to April!

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 01:35:00 +0000

In this part of the world, that means Autumn is underway and we are starting the countdown to winter ... while the rest of the world welcomes the first daffodils and blossom on the trees. Today the sun is shining, but my husband scattered grass seed the other day, which seems to immediately bring on the rains (happened last time he made a lawn) ... so we got three days of fairly gentle rain, while the North of the country suffered a deluge spun off from a cyclone passing by (oops, sorry guys!)

newsflash on the blogging front ... apparently the celebs are deserting their blogs in droves - Lindsay Lohan apparently hasn't been online with anything worth saying since promoting Freaky Friday! I am determined NOT to go the same way ... rest assured you will be updated as soon as my next movie comes out :)

right now, my computer is telling me i need to take a WorkPace Break ... i have breaks and exercise software on my PC since the creators of the software are a client - so very shortly it will prevent me from doing any more work until i do some stretches. Which is a good thing - but doesn't always pop up at the most convenient moments!

promise to write again very soon!

peace begins inside

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 05:22:00 +0000

just came home from a meeting/gathering of like minds to discuss ideas for a short film about peace, inspired by a speech one of the women present had written.

firstly, thank you Barbara for writing those words and sharing them with us. our discussions brought many things to the surface ... here in NZ there is heated debate occurring about a soon to be passed amendment to legislation that will make it illegal for parents to smack or hit their children and defend it as being "reasonable force". i fully support that change and the suggestion behind it that we all have a think about why it is "ok" to smack our children for punishment or "prevention of greater harm" ... when it is NOT ok for us to hit anyone else to punish them or save them from harm.

and why is it ok for us to only hit the youngest, most vulnerable children and then resort to other strategies once they are big enough to hit us back.

that was a tiny part of our conversation .... but we also brought up issues about war - how it relies on dehumanising the other side - and on stereotypes of evil. it is not natural for us to try and kill or destroy total strangers without creating an image in our minds of evil and "wrongness" on behalf of those who are "other" to us. When human minds are trained that way, they are apparently able to forget the humanity of their opponent ... that the opponent was once a small child, loved by their parents ... a child learning about the world, making mistakes, discovering new and exciting things ... learning how to be independent and venture into the world - to be blown to bits by someone who sees them only as an enemy, not as a fellow human making his or her way in the same world.

we also talked about the peace that lies within us - or the potential for it ... and how essential it is that peace begins with each of us as individuals. i commented that many women in particular, who are highly sensitive to our world, suffer from over-empathising and that can bring us into a place of mental and emotional dis-ease ... which all too often is suppressed and controlled by medication. i suggest it is actually more normal to have dis-ease in the world we live in right now, than not to have dis-ease.

more on this later. peace out.

focus!

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 20:56:00 +0000

on doing some more posting that is!! hopefully today i will spend some more time processing photos and video from the trip to Melbourne. It is quickly coming up to four weeks since we were there - unbelievable!

life has been trickling along with moments of drama sprinkled throughout over the last few weeks. We are transitioning into Autumn here i guess, with the return of non-daylight saving making darkness fall earlier - about 7pm at the moment. We had a hot gorgeous day last weekend, 30 deg celsius, and i spent the afternoon at the beach with my hubby ... we paddled in the water, made sculptures in the sand, got sunburnt (!) and had a lovely cafe lunch ... went home and napped for a bit then went to see Wild Hogs at the movies and laughed from start to finish - i highly recommend, specially if you have a present or former Harley owning partner!

i am pleased to be out of Mercury retrograde again ... things seem to be proceeding smoothly on different fronts ... new business coming into work, weirdly, three approaches in recent times that our outside our normal focus on technology companies. A reminder that it is time to broaden our scope to more general PR as had been originally intended.

i have not been productive at all on the art front or playing with my paints and canvases rather, but i did have an idea yesterday for a series of goddess works on canvas .... maybe small ones, not sure yet.

oh and i visited my friend Nicky with her beautiful new baby Bronte ... perhaps a pic of this delicious newborn when i get my photos sorted.

some video ...

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 09:49:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJDZQ_jjzWo

(the gentleman appearing at the end was installing the portaloo/bathroom ... the two heroines of the piece are praxis and purple goddesses, hostesses of the event)

bad bad bad!

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 08:30:00 +0000

blogger me that is!!!

it has been nearly a month since my last confession! lol ..... weeeelll i have been a little preoccupied with something called Wenchfest, that was held over last weekend in a place called Dromana, south of Melbourne.

this incredible event was a gathering of wonderful women from around australia, nz, US and Canada ... preceded by a visit to my house of the Canadian one ... then a flight to sydney, 12 hour train trip with 6 wenches south to Melbourne ... and three days of hijinks and ritual and other stuff.

it was awesome, once again ... we did it for the first time about a year ago. i have photos, so i will put up a few here (there is also video taken with my nifty new camera, so i might give you a very funny You Tube link if you are very good).

a week can be forever

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 00:39:00 +0000

so today is valentine's day - yep in NZ it already is. and it's a week since my last confession ... lol.

a week of lots of work stuff in my head, some personal stuff, plus a visit to the destination for our women's summit in October this year and confirmation with the team that this is definitely where we want to be. Beautiful alpine resort with thermal pools ... Hanmer Springs.

i am looking forward to welcoming women from around the world to join with us there - it is going to be awesome.

tomorrow i will tell you about my valentine's day. wherever you are, wishing you much love (for every day of the year).

one heart

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 08:37:00 +0000

i am feeling my heart tonight. my man is going through a healing experience and i feel like i am travelling the path with him.

listening to the incandescent voice and lyrics of Brooke Fraser, from her new CD albertine ... her music is so fully from the heart, it makes me cry.

http://www.brookefraser.com/

definitely listen to "deciphering me" - i adore this song.

with love

so i got tagged!

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 00:47:00 +0000

by ms stacy ... to write down 6 of my idiosyncrasies!

hmmmm food for thought.

1. I am pretty much a grammar/spelling freak. I pick up stuff all the time and it drives me a little batty when people spell badly, or bad spelling and/or grammar makes it into print, particularly in reputable newspapers or magazines. (In my job, this is a good thing, since I write articles and media releases for a living, and have to proof my own work).

2. For health related reasons, we don't own a microwave - which my children's friends (and their parents) seem to think is quite strange, and for most of their lives, we didn't consume milk or dairy products. Currently we have milk in the fridge, but i can't guarantee it is fresh, since i don't buy it every week (pretty much it only gets used in hot chocolate or occasionally in baking). My children grew up having fruit juice on their cereal instead of milk and they still prefer it that way.

3. I have only just allowed my sons to own cellphones - they are 16.5 and 14 going on 15. They have been hassling me for cellphones for probably about two years and virtually every child in their classes had one except them. My resistance was again partly for health reasons, but also because I think it is completely unnecessary to be constantly texting friends who you could walk over and talk to, or call on the phone. My older son now drives me (slightly) nutty by having a multi media "conversation" with his friends with up to five MSN messenger windows open and text messaging at the same time. That is one of his primary methods of socialising ... and all with the same people he spends all day with at school!

4. Not sure if this counts, but one of my close friends channels a Native American Indian called Black Elk - and i think it is very cool! :)

5. I hang out online with friends from around the world, and have made two trips overseas to meet some of them and stay in their houses - some think this is risky behaviour, but i love the connections i have made through the internet and see the travel as a natural extension of that! (and plan to do much more of it!!)

6. I am outrageously behind on my business tax returns and have been sacked by three accountants, so i currently don't have one! My powers of avoidance work overtime when it comes to this area of my life, even though i fully know that i need to get it sorted!

There!!!

That will do from me!

angel wings and floating candles

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 01:06:00 +0000

well the angel wings ... becos my good friends cailin and leigh seem to agree i have them, which brought to mind a certain photograph from many years ago.

anyway, to the floating candles. Last night we had a gathering of our women's circle at cailin's house and we finished the evening by floating lit candles off a jetty on the estuary near where she lives. Since it is summer here, darkness doesn't come till well after 9pm at night, and it was a cloudy rainy night when we gathered at 7pm. So we decided to wait for the candle part till after it was dark. We shared a lovely meditation then a meal, then stories ... until at 11.30pm (!) someone asked if we were still going to do the candles! by this time the sky had cleared, the rain had stopped, and we piled into the van to go find the water.

A little adventure ensued ... involving darkness (no torch to light our path to the water, but dark adjusted eyes worked ok) .... finding the jetty, then seeing the tide was very low. So clambering down the steps, clinging to the pole at the bottom and gently lowering our candles into the water with the precious intention we were sending out into the world.

Walking back my adventure concluded with a short trip over a chain i didn't see until i fell over it! There is nothing like a little fall to bring us right back down to earth!!!

this was a memorable and beautiful night in many ways ... and i value the memories we are creating as a group of women, connected.

i want these now

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:58:00 +0000

mmmmmmmmmmmmm cupcakes. Found the site with these on it today. Unfortunately they only deliver them in London.

But i want them. You can get vanilla or chocolate, with different decorations on the top.

Gorgeous!

(today was definitely a chocolate cupcake kinda day, but i didn't have any so it was chocolate brownie for lunch instead).

absent

noreply@blogger.com (silvergirl) — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:40:00 +0000

for a few days i have had my attention focused elsewhere. mainly in the direction of my family, my dad in particular. spending some serious quality time with him over the weekend, i marvel at how much he and my brother (both of them actually) and I have in common ... not the least of which was how much our partners all complain about how much time we spend either online or in front of the computer! lol. and it definitely comes from his side of the family that we are all problem solvers, solution finders, creative types who like to ask universal questions and ponder the answers that come to us. my brother and i spent about 10 hours all together in the process of driving there and back again, more time talking face to face than we have in many years (since before our respective offspring were born). as a partial explanation, he lives in a different country from me, so the opportunities to get together are fewer than we would like.

but i was so stronly reminded of how powerful the ties of blood are within our family ... a family that is definitely not in each other's faces all the time, yet is still there when we need it.

i am blessed to have such intelligent, caring, loving men as my father and brothers in my life. i celebrate them all for the contribution they make to my life and to the world. i am in awe of the work my father has done over the years for the communities he lives in, and would love to see him receive some form of acknowledgement for his efforts, which have truly changed lives. he has never sought fame or attention, but has truly aimed to find better ways to get things done, and to ensure that people receive the assistance they are entitled to.

i wish for him that he discovers over the coming days and months, that his circle of friends and family is larger, stronger and more available than he has dreamed. that he discovers the value of connections made over the years, and the impact he has had.

i thank the universe for gifting me into my family - i love them all.