~ MAKE YOUR OWN GREETING CARD back by popular demand (again) ~

When I started this blog, I shared how to make your family greeting card at this time of year. Every year since I have brought out the instructions, dusted them off, given them a re-jig, and re-posted them. The tradition of making my cards with photos of my youngest boys started with my middle son’s birth. Samuel was born with Down Syndrome and Autism, and it was a way of celebrating Sam by making him the feature.

When my youngest came along two years later, we added him to the greeting card, and I’ve made the same photo cards, updating the festive sibling portrait every year since. I love the ritual of taking photos for the card and then having a crafting afternoon to make homemade cards, bringing out all my card-making materials. Crafts are fun! Just seeing my glitter and stickers and the carefully saved paper brings a smile to my face. It’s like being a kid again. I am a fan of the homemade, custom look to festive things rather than the store-bought variety. In the beginning, I used to make a stack of forty cards or more for everyone on the family, friends, and acquaintances list. But, oh my gosh, it was a lot of work. The list of recipients whittled down slowly over the years. These days I only make about a dozen festive cards and they go solely to family members. I’ve learned to conserve my energy. With age, comes wisdom, one hopes!

This year, the sibling photo my son preferred for the Christmas card was the one where neither of them was smiling. I printed the photos and half-made the cards before I realized I wasn’t happy with the image. There was a nice alternative pic of both of the boys smiling. I printed that instead and began making the cards again. I loved the end result and put them in the postbox.

Here, in a nutshell, is how I craft our family Greeting card:

Start by taking a batch of cheap Christmas cards and cutting them down to nearly half the size, trying to preserve the greeting inside. Next, take the photo you want to feature on the front of the card. This is the top layer and, therefore, the smallest. Print the photos. You are going to build a couple of layers. I have cardboard guides for the size of each layer so I can keep the sizes regular, year after year.

You have the first two items needed for your card: a stack of cut-down cards (preserving the message inside if possible), and a stack of cut-out photos.

At this stage in the card production, I take any saved wrapping paper, or other coloured paper, set the iron on low heat, and iron out the wrinkles. Reduce, re-use, and save the planet!
*My tip, iron the paper with the picture side down, in case any ink comes away. Then it doesn’t mar your iron’s surface and protects the ink.
Now take a second cardboard “guide.” It needs to be smaller than the card and slightly larger than the photo. Cut your saved wrapping paper or other coloured paper to this size. You have your photos, cards, and cut-down paper that will act as frames for the photos.

My next step is to cut little flags of “Angelina Hot Fix,” a synthetic product made by Funky Fibres here in NZ. I’m sure you could find a similar product wherever you are. The fibers come in different funky colours. You spread a handful between baking paper, iron on low heat, and the fibres fuse, making a thin sheet of sparkly stuff. I make a few sheets of Hot Fix at a time and then cut out small rectangles for each card.
The first official step of constructing the cards entails gluing the coloured paper to the card, also trapping a wedge of Hot Fix in between so that one glittery flag extends. The second step is to glue the photo on top. *Tip: dry and flatten the cards after you apply each layer; I put them between chopping boards and pile weights on top.

The third step is the best part—embellishments! Time to decorate the fronts with glitter, ‘gems,’ stickers, and doodads to your heart’s delight. I believe the technical term is bedazzling.
I write a personal message inside each card. With each card, I post a surprise, usually a gift tag, or a miniature antique postcard. I like the thought of loved ones getting a nice surprise when they open the envelope. A card is a lovely thing to send and receive at this time of year. Why not try making your own? It’s easy and people love that you’ve put time and energy into them!
What do you think? Have you ever made your own cards?

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol
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Life is short. Kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly, and forgive quickly. ~ Paulo Coelho

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~ Tots to Teens ~

Being a parent is tough. The other day, we introduced my delightful three-year-old granddaughter to my friend’s granddaughter, Miss two. It was a wonderful day. The girls dashed about from one activity to another like fleas in a fit. At one point we were watching the kids leap on the trampoline in the backyard. I asked Miss Two’s father, “How are you finding parenthood so far?” He got a far-gone look in his eye and said one word, “Relentless.”
You can tell he’s a poet. That one word. So pithy. Perfect.

It was Oprah who famously said there is no harder job on the planet than parenting. Such sayings stick because they are the truth. My eldest son has had his first child, the aforementioned three-year-old, and recently, I asked him if he had ever thought of having more children. He said, “Hell, no! One’s enough!” The early years of your child’s life are brutal.
Just as you surface from the flat-out breakneck marathon of raising kids from 0-to 10 you hit the teenage years. Their earnest, transparent personalities disappear. They suddenly take on exaggerated swagger and posture. There is a new language delivering words you’ve never heard before. A wrinkly brain is smart. A smooth brain is dumb. If something is “pog” it’s cool. Pog champ is really cool. And, of course, Good RNG means good luck. Everybody knows that.

They sing. That surprised me. I thought the singing would be dropped out of shyness or being self-conscious. But no, the youngest son still sings all day long. He and his friends make random sound effects here, there, and everywhere, apparently sampled from favourite songs and clips on tik tok. Life revolves around phones, social media, and online games.
I miss the early years. The simple years. Suddenly, the enormous capacity of children to focus on playing games and having fun switches on a dime to focusing on their friends. The youngest son told me that his large circle of mates are the most important people in his life, after we, his immediate family, of course. Thanks, son. Lucky save.

Teens at the moment are navigating the minefield of the pandemic on top of the usual rush of hormone-driven behaviours. My boys have friends who get sick and vanish from social life for a while, then they recover, and another wave goes down. The constant communication via devices continues uninterrupted, but the occasional parties and get-togethers to cruise the mall or hang out at one another’s houses have to be temporarily shelved. This translates to teens who are grumpy. Cue the big sigh.
Being a parent means getting to bear witness to these kids growing up. A bittersweet process. Now, my boys tease me ruthlessly about “shrinking” (with old age) as they turn into human giraffes.

The youngest is a lot more emotionally needy as a teen. He requires more listening from me and wants me to explain everything at length in five different ways. He speaks so fast that the words run together in mini avalanches. My grandmother always used to say as long as your kids are talking to you, things are okay. I keep that in mind. Although at the teenage stage, sometimes he talks too much. Everything is exaggerated, and sometimes I get overly anxious. I do my best not to panic about all the potential pitfalls out in the world. At this age as with those that came before, kids want clear boundaries. With the rules in place and by setting a good example, I can be a solid foundation in his life. At the end of the day, that’s all you can do, as well as love them.
Love them relentlessly.
Have you survived raising teenagers? Please send notes!

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol
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90% of parenting is just thinking about when you can lie down again. ~ Phyllis Diller

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~ The End of an Era ~

The unthinkable has happened in my world. The family has sold my parents’ home, the land we’ve owned, worked on, developed and made our little slice of paradise in the Coromandel Peninsula- my father’s log cabin by the sea. They have sold this plot we have tended and populated during the happiest days of our lives, the “creative wellspring” where I have gone seeking inspiration for my stories. Mum’s and dad’s home by the sea has featured repeatedly on this blog over the years. After my mother’s death in 2015, I wrote posts about the “boys’ trips” my brother and I took with our sons to visit dad every school holidays, A Visit to Grandpa, A Boys’ Trip! A Winter Trip, and so on.

Growing up, I didn’t know how lucky we were.

Mum and dad bought the section in 1963. Dad told us the story many times, about how he had sold his bread business and the buyer could only afford to pay  £20 a week, “So I said to Shirley, we could put the money in our back pocket and carry on living high on the hog, or we could invest the money in a section for a bach.” The trip to the little Coromandel township on partly gravel roads over perilous mountains took my parents four and a half hours in a little old Ford with four kids. But as soon as they drove down out of the hills and saw the seaside town laid out before them, “it looked like paradise and mum said, this looks more like it.”

They bought the section for the equivalent of a year’s wages, £900.

Growing up, we would start every vacation there with “the hundred bracken” game, we spread out in a line as a family across the property and we moved up the slope pulling bracken out stem-by-stem. Once we reached a hundred stems, we were let off the hook and could play. We developed the section slowly over many years from a bare plot of earth on a slope into a lovely retirement home for the last twenty years for mum and dad.

There were views of the entire district from the peak behind their house, there was forest walks, fishing, rock-pooling, swimming at the surf beach and off the wharves, there was a grassy reserve below the house, there were playgrounds and basketball courts, a great little community with facilities and our favourite cafe where my family has gathered to dine for years.

The place had everything a child could want.

I spent my childhood in kiddie heaven. In our holidays we could go wild, running free, riding down hillsides on cardboard boxes, jumping in the long grass, making tunnels through the bracken, taking off into the bush, exploring, climbing, trekking, and bird watching. In the early days, there was no electricity or running water.

We had to take everything with us in our caravan. We cooked over an open fire, went digging for pipis to bait our fishing rods, we fished off the beach or the wharf and then cooked our fish on the fire, boiling the remaining pipis to eat on thick buttered crackers called cabin bread. We couldn’t all fit in the caravan. I loved sleeping under the awning. My brother and I would lie in sleeping bags on stretcher beds. We’d peek out the awning flaps at the moon shining on the black ocean and the immense vista of stars and talk for hours into the night.

My sons and I went there to say goodbye over the weekend, along with other family members.

We pored over mum’s and dad’s memorabilia, photos and records. Dad had kept all his scouting books, and his scouting achievements, just as my mother had kept her dancing certificates, charting her childhood progress in dance class. Dad’s rise from apprentice to 1st mate in the merchant navy, recorded in his “Seamen’s Record” book, noted that Terence stood 5 foot 9, had brown eyes, brown hair and that his complexion was “fresh.”

His marks were always “very good” and every year he achieved “very good” in “sobriety.” It was a little window into my father’s life. He had kept every letter of commendation received on his rise through the navy, even the epaulets from his uniform.

We walked up the mountain; we played basketball, and we ate at our cafe. Then we packed up and shed many tears saying goodbye for the last time.

Farewell creative wellspring, farewell to our little slice of paradise. We remind ourselves we will get through this together. How about you, how are you doing? Any major changes in your world?

Talk to you later.

Keep creating!

Yvette K. Carol

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The darkest night is often the bridge to the brightest tomorrow. – Jonathan Lockwood Huie

~ SCHOOL’S BACK ~

The school year is off with a bang! It’s like going from zero to sixty in a matter of seconds. I’m ready for a holiday already. I’ve been running around like a headless chicken as the school year typically begins with a list of the kids’ “required items,” uniforms, stationary, sports uniforms, footwear, school fees, sports fees, and there are endless emails to read from schools, sports clubs, teachers, and coaches and so on. In the last two weeks, between the two boys, with the school gear and stationary lists, and the various items needed for camp, I’ve been on the phone, online, making purchases, making lists, dashing out to the shops, going here and there, buying things and finding obscure items like heavy duty gumboots, insect repellent and aquatic shoes.

The youngest son began his second year of high school last week. In that time he has already impressed his math teacher by being the only student in the classroom to figure out the difficult math puzzle he put to them. That night when he was telling me about it, he said, “Me, big brain,” which made me laugh. He has that dazzling self confidence that young people do before life has bashed them around a bit. My nephew is always telling him, “You don’t know everything, you realize that?” I think it’s a great and admirable thing about youth when they believe anything is possible. I like to emulate that. He has been away with the other Year 10s on a school camp this week. The house has been resoundingly quiet without him. I never realized he made so much noise.

Sam-the-man, my seventeen-year-old with Down syndrome started his first week at the Transition Centre. He loves it, thank goodness. Parents of special needs kids always feel trepidation approaching any change in circumstances for their children like changing schools, moving houses, or taking on a new carer supporter. You never know whether your child will flip out this time or display a delayed reaction by “acting out” later at home. As one of the two students from his high school to be picked last year for the coveted positions at the Transition Centre, I wanted him to be ready, but I still wasn’t sure. He seemed too young and immature to be at what is essentially the special needs equivalent of a university or a job training facility. Was he ready? I didn’t know.

On Monday they picked Sam up in a big Mercedes bus taxi. On board were a small crew of able-bodied young people with special needs aged between seventeen and twenty-one. They were the other kids going to the Transition Centre from around our neighbourhood.

According to the timetable, they spend their days working at local farms and tree nurseries. Some days, they do fitness, swimming, arts and crafts, and literacy and numeracy classes. It’s a far more grown up week. Even after his first day, Sam came home looking more confident. His teacher tells me he worked hard and “he responds really well to praise.” I gladly put my fears away, because Sam comes home each day with a new sense of purpose in his stride. He was ready for the step up.

Sam’s dance class began their first term of the year on Tuesday. As the night of the class has changed and it no longer clashes with my schedule, I take him. It’s a great excuse to sit and read for an hour while taking peeks at his progress. Sam picks up the new moves quickly. The other girls in the class seem to take him and his sometimes quirky antics and lapses into freestyle in stride, and the teacher carries on teaching! It’s a tolerant environment for him to grow as a dancer. And he’s started going to the gym on Wednesday nights again. I’ve been providing the taxi service for the various activities.

As the summer holidays draw to their end, I always think the kids going back to school will be a cinch. With all your beach days behind you, you can take anything life brings. Then the first week of school happens and you feel as if you have been “run over by a truck.” The first week or two back at school, the boys and I are exhausted and grumpy. It takes a little while to get the cogs greased and the wheels of the school bus turning again. However, the challenges of the New Year arise and we have to grow to meet them. It’s a process.

We’ll get there, aided in no uncertain terms by good music, family, friends, meditation, and good food.

Talk to you later.

Keep on Creating!

Yvette K. Carol

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My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it. ~ Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens)

~ HOW TO COPE WITH THE HEAT ~

It’s been an interesting and intense time of late with the higher than usual summer temperatures and the boys becoming fractious towards the end of the holidays. Adolescence has beset the youngest child, and he’s monstrously tired all the time, not only that he lies around complaining about being too hot and too tired. Apparently all he can do is online gaming or binge-watching anime on Netflix. He tries asking for things, like can I bring him a drink or a snack, from the couch. That’s when I growl, and he says, “Okay, I’ll do it” with a groaning voice as if he was dying. I get that the hormones racing through his body are raising his body temperature and that this is our hottest summer, yet there’s a limit to even the most patient parent’s Zen.

“Don’t you feel hot?” asked the youngest child, plaintively.

“Yes,” said I.

“Well, how do you handle it?” he asked.

“I try not to focus on it but put my attention onto other things.”

“Huh?”

The constant baking temperatures test the patience levels. The boys have been grumpy, and they snap back a lot. We have been having difficulty sleeping, though we each sleep with a fan.

An hour after we’d gone to bed last night, a knock sounded at my door. A weary voice on the other side, that wavers these days between high and low as if uncertain where to settle, said, “I’m boiling, I can’t sleep. Can you help?”

I got up and hugged him. It was like hugging an oven. The youngest is having hormonal surges – just as I am each night when menopausal hot flashes wake me up – his body at fourteen-and-a-half is aflame with hormones. I felt sorry for him. We did a few things that helped his core body temperature come down and he could sleep.

As there is some concern about the “heat wave” predicted for New Zealand this weekend, when temperatures may reach 30 degrees, I thought I might share a few tips on cooling down.

“Temperatures nationwide are above normal on Sunday, not just by a few degrees but in many regions by over 10C as air flows from Australia and the sub-tropics combine to move down over parts of New Zealand,” according to NewsHub.

Here are some ways to cope with the heat

Go downstairs to the basement if you have one as they will always be cooler than upstairs.

Have cold baths or showers

Try to avoid getting sunburned during the day.

Close the curtains on the sunny side of the house.

Don’t open windows facing the sun during the day, open them at night once the temperatures come down

Make trays of ice and hold a cube in your mouth.

Drink plenty of water

Drink iced water. Put your water bottle in the freezer until it’s nearly frozen and then take out and once it melts take small sips, it’s effective for bringing body temperature down.

Apply cold packs which are cheaply available from stores like Pak ‘n’ Save

My friend said that they were saving the money to have air conditioning installed. We have air con though I never use it as it’s too expensive to run, but it’s a backup plan if things get desperate. However, if you don’t have air con at home, borrow other peoples. We hang out in the malls, the libraries, the museum, the public places that are air-conditioned during the day to cool down.

As temperatures continue to climb, we must think further ahead. I plan to get a quote for sun awnings off both sides of the house to cover the verandas and also get quotes for wooden shutters for the windows. I hear getting the windows triple glazed is best. Triple glazing keeps the heat out and in winter keeps the heat in, however, that is top dollar.

My youngest tells me, “This results from global warming, the seasons will be more extreme, summers will be hotter and winters will be colder.” Summers are more scorching, I haven’t noticed winters changing overly, although weather has been unpredictable with freak storms, floods, and so on. I remember reading that Europe and America had heat waves last summer. It’s an undeniable fact that conditions are changing, therefore on a global level, we have to find ways of responding to climate change.

On a personal level, there are also many things we can do to embrace change and deal with what is happening positively. I want to think ahead, find solutions for my family, and get on with living life. How about you?

Talk to you later.

Keep on Creating!

Yvette K. Carol

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The more you accept your life, the more your life improves. ~ Unknown

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~ IT’S OKAY TO UNWIND ~

Though we’ve returned to the city and had our summer break in the country, the feeling of being on holiday continues. A lot of people have not yet returned to work so the days are slow and balmy. In New Zealand, businesses close altogether for a few weeks at this time of year. The usual traffic noise from the distant motorway which dissects the urban sprawl has dwindled to a distant hum. Bees drone in the garden and birds flick from branch to branch pecking at the remaining fruit. There is a lazy feeling in the air.

The reclining Black Doris plum tree in our front garden is a wonder of nature. The trunk now lies on the ground, it’s half rotten, half hollowed out by ants yet new branches have grown up towards the light creating the illusion of a long line of small trees, and this marvellous crazy old tree produced an abundance of fruit again, this year. We picked buckets of plums. We’ve had overflowing bowls of red orbs on every surface everywhere in the kitchen and the air has been redolent with the tropical smell for weeks.

The pod of bananas on our tree outside the front door has yellowed rapidly and they are delectable. We like eating them straight off the palm. However, added to the juicy plums, they also make the basis of the greatest smoothies!

The garden is alive with the sounds of chicks in the nests around the garden. The birds, mice and rats have been having a bumper season because of the warmer temperatures, so they’ve been keeping the neighbourhood cats on their toes. Whenever I step outside, it feels as if the surrounding air is alive with things flying about. It’s frenetic. I guess it’s in keeping with these sped up times.

Last weekend, I finally went back to work on my latest book, The Last Tree. The copy editor returned her notes around Christmas, just prior to our going away, and this was the first chance I’d had to open the document. I got about halfway through the edits and hope to finish going through them this weekend. The story is taking on a high sheen.

Yesterday, I finished reading Donato and the Cartege Blade by Fiona Jordan, a fellow New Zealand writer. She did a good job with that book. I noticed in reading her acknowledgements, the small army of people she thanked for their help editing and shaping the story, and I couldn’t help think I’ve only had a small amount of input on mine. I hope it’s enough.

I’m at the stage where I’m close to making important decisions about where to spend my money next, and I also have a ton of organizing to do as to producing and distributing and promoting The Chronicles of Aden Weaver series. At some point, I will need to swing my radar onto starting a new book. I admit to being rather daunted. There is spade work ahead, this year, that I know, but I also know that right now in this moment we’re still on vacation. The boys don’t go back to school until February, so I have until then to take a breather while I can.

I think trying to find a balance is important. I have to take care of myself to be healthy and present for my kids and my family. The pace of life is faster, these days, and for me to be as productive and yet as calm as possible, I need to balance work and play. So, though I’m looking ahead at 2020 and seeing the effort I need to make, I’m also planning my downtime and making enquiries about a vacation out of the city.

My best friend says she loves the holidays because she’s “good at doing nothing all day.” I really admire that ability to decompress completely. With our busy lives, we need to prioritize relaxation. I tell myself, “It’s okay to unwind.” I practice daily meditation and endeavour to observe “mindful” moments throughout the day. I want to be the best parent and role model I can be for my children. It starts with self care first, and then the care for everyone and everything else flows from there.

I hope to achieve a better work life balance in 2020. How about you?

Keep Writing!

Yvette K. Carol

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Keep your face always toward the sunshine, and shadows will fall behind you. – Walt Whitman

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~ A BOY IN PROGRESS ~

Each year of a child’s life, there is a different focus a different theme a different version of the child you knew before. Although I resist and feel the tug of nostalgia for the younger version, I also delight in the unfolding. It’s an amazing privilege to watch your kids grow up.  After a tough first year at high school, my youngest son passed his exams, and they named him one of the top thirty smartest kids in year nine. I have concluded that not only is he smarter than me he also in a lot of ways is older than I am. He’s one of those people whom they say ‘has an old head on young shoulders.’

Already planning his years at university at fourteen? I have to admit I had no thoughts about my future when I started high school. I was the very definition of teenage and clueless. Yet, here’s son number three filling me in on some ideas already hatching. “My friends and I have lots of plans. Because we want to attend university together, we thought we might buy a house together. Because we’re all nice people. I don’t think we’ve had one argument. We just talk. We’ve known each other the whole way through school and we all get on.” Throw co-owning a house in there as well? Sheesh. Perhaps it was those years spent playing Minecraft and building his own houses again and again. At least he can think big.

With the youngest I noticed that in year seven (11 years old) he was solely about sport and vigorous active play, in year eight it became more about friends and social networks, talking, and occasional soccer or basketball, and year nine, at fourteen the friends have taken centre stage, it’s about hanging out, catching up and occasional sport. Throughout the year he and his friends have organized many gatherings outside of school hours: bowling, movies, trick or treating and so on yet the difference is the parents did not arrange them, the kids themselves did everything. They’re motivated to socialize more outside of school, to be together more often, yet they’re still young enough that their voices squeak and their parties run from 4 to 7 p.m. They’re adorable.

The youngest son’s still into online gaming. The language and gentle jibing that goes on continuously has changed. The age appropriate slang or “teen-speak” is a fluid ever moving river, and it’s always evolving into something else. The accepted greeting is still hey or what’s up, the endearment is bro and sometimes gets extended to a fonder brother. If things are not great with you, you can be numb, salt/salty, or scuffed, if things are not going well with the game, it’s gay, aids, or cancer. If someone’s trying too hard, they’re sweaty. If they’re smart and sexy, they’re smexy. When two people like each other, you ‘ship’ their names together. The youngest is being harassed at school at the moment for being suspected of being gay with his best friend Harry so everyone’s shipped their names and have been calling both boys ‘Hat.’ When you get lucky it’s clutch, and when things are so good it’s so gang.

The other day, the youngest son and I were having a conversation when his teen-speak crept into the situation. He said, “Stupid, right?”

I said, “No, I don’t think it’s stupid at all.”

He said, “I mean crazy stupid… as in good.”

Ah! Ma writes a note in her mental dictionary. I love listening to it, teen-speak is a mobile, connected, ever shifting form. We must have been the same when we were young.

Yesterday, he asked me, “How old are you going to be on your birthday?”

I said, “Fifty-five.”

He said, “That’s not as old as I thought you were.” You’ve got to laugh, right. In some ways, our teenagers are so grown up and in others, not at all.

The fourteenth year is flying by. I’m only barely keeping up with the changes the youngest is doing before my eyes. It seems with every day his limbs are longer. It’s like getting to watch a slow-motion morph as your teen swerves from child to adult and his profile fills out. He wakes taller every morning. In September, he’d crept up to standing eye-to-eye with me and two months later he’s slightly taller. Instead of our old you’re short enough to stand under my armpit game, now I fit under his. It’s very odd. I liked him being shorter because my middle child has already outgrown me.

Ever wanted to feel you’re steadily shrinking? Here, borrow my teenagers!

Talk to you later.

Keep on Creating!

Yvette K. Carol

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The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

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~ The Magic of Positive Thinking ~

It has been a rollercoaster couple of weeks. It all began when the youngest in the family began having occasional tummy aches.

Of all my children, he is the one who has always been the dream sleeper. Nothing wakes him up once he’s in bed. If I hear him knocking on my door in the middle of the night, I know it’s serious. “My stomach hurts.” I gave him a painkiller and he went back to sleep. After the third night of interrupted sleep for both of us, I took him to see the doctor.

The doctor said it was either appendicitis or inflammation of the lymph nodes, which boys can often experience around his age of fourteen. They did some tests, took his blood, etc. Then we went home to wait for the results.

The youngest son couldn’t move too far without pain so everywhere we went, everything we did this week, we had to walk slowly, drive slowly over speed bumps, and he would hold onto my arm to walk long distances.

Three days passed with our groaning patient. He was bitterly sad to miss the last week of school for the third term. His squad missed him, too, by the number of text messages that flew back and forth.

When we returned to the doctor’s clinic, she could see no problem with the test results. I said he was still in pain and it was getting worse for him in the middle of the night. The doctor rang the children’s hospital to get a second opinion. A few minutes later she gave us a letter and said we should go over to the hospital.

We came home and I quickly packed a bag with books, phones, chargers, water, food, our jackets and lip balm. An hour later, my son and I arrived at the children’s hospital. He had to have another blood test, which he gets really nervous about and squeamish. Everything is so amplified when you’re fourteen. In between seeing nurses and doctors, there were long waits in the crowded waiting room. We were told around eight in the evening that the doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. We’d have to come back in the morning for an ultra-sound.

We were just happy to come home and sleep in our own beds. Unfortunately, the youngest had another bad night, with pain even worse than before. He and I returned to the children’s hospital the next morning.

The ultrasound process was painful for him. All I could do was hold his hand and make him laugh by talking about all the cakes I’m going to bake him when he’s well enough to eat them.

Two hours later we were discussing his test results with a hospital physician. She explained the scan showed an inflamed lower bowel. This could be a common bowel infection, which will clear up by itself in time, or its inflammatory bowel disease, in which case we get to begin another round of tests with the gastro specialists. They took another blood test, and we will find out definitively what is ailing him within the next few days.

I always worry about my kids when they get sick. In the past, when they were babies, the anxiety drained me of energy when I needed it most. I knew it was something I had to learn how to control. In the last thirty-five years the thing that’s helped me the most is learning how to keep thinking what my grandmother used to call ‘having the right thoughts.’

Nan was a big believer in The Power of Positive Thinking, and the book by the same name, written by the wonderful Norman Vincent Peale.

These days  it’s been proven that positive people live longer and are healthier than negative thinkers. Positive thoughts make us happier. Happiness floods our brains with dopamine, the one chemical that has the potential to drown out the negative thoughts and anxious feelings.

It was Pat Riley who said, “If you have a positive attitude and constantly strive to give your best effort, eventually you will overcome your immediate problems and find you are ready for greater challenges.”

Faced with my current situation, what am I going to do? Spend the next three days worrying my son might have bowel disease? No, of course not, it wouldn’t serve me in any way. Besides, I want to demonstrate a good example of how an adult reacts to the crises in life.

I’m going to think about the outcome I prefer, which preserves my energy, which keeps me calm, which makes me feel proactive, which keeps my spirits up, which reassures my children. That’s the power of positive thinking.

Talk to you later.

Keep on Creating!

Yvette K. Carol

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Staying positive doesn’t mean everything will turn out ok. Rather, it is knowing you will be ok no matter how things turn out. – Unknown

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~ A TERRIFYING NEAR MISS ~

On the way home last night, I nearly had a serious car accident. One minute I was safely driving along, the next minute I was in mortal danger. It happened so fast, within a matter of seconds, but it was terrifying and I knew for sure I had had a close shave.

I had been sitting in my car, waiting at a T-junction for the lights to turn right. Finally, the light went green. As I turned right, a bus opposite turned left from a side road into the lane beside mine. Suddenly, from behind the bus, a red sports car hurtled around the corner, driven at high speed by a young man. He was coming straight for me, side-on. I had nowhere to go as there was only a concrete motorway divider on the other side. I saw him, saw my situation, and I even looked straight into his eyes for a second as if time had stopped.

He was driving so fast that I thought it was all over. I thought my time was up.

Then the young man saw me, registered what he was about to do, and he spun the steering wheel hard left. Swerving hugely, the back end of his car skidded as he struggled to get the car under control. After that, he stuck one hand up in the air, to say he was sorry.

I was thunder-struck.

I drove off slowly, pondering life and saying prayers of thanks.

I felt as if my eyes had opened, or I had woken from a deep sleep, to this very real awareness of the fragility of life. One minute I was driving home, listening to my favourite music, everything had been fine, and the next minute, everything had been in dire jeopardy. The boy’s car had come so close to mine. It was within a hair’s breadth. Just like that we both could have been dead, or hideously injured. Anything could have happened. But in this case, he swerved at the last minute and we both walked away.

When I got home, I was still in a state of shock. I found I was shaky. I took some rescue remedy and had a cup of tea. The incident made me contemplate my mortality, because in a very real way I had seen how easily it can all be over. Just like that, in a twinkling, your time is up and you’re gone. I felt a new appreciation of life and felt so grateful to be able to walk in the door back into the arms of my family.

Today, the feeling of appreciation continues. I can’t help myself thinking about that young reckless driver. While his speed had been life endangering, the young man’s feat of driving to avoid a collision, I have to admit, was admirable. I put it down to the good reflexes of youth, and probably the years of gaming that all the kids do now, and also the expensive car would have helped too, because he could respond to the fact I was there and turn the car on the head of a pin. But he had to slow down within seconds, as well, or he would have ploughed straight into the back of the bus. The car was fishtailing all over the place. Lucky for him he had good brakes. His car kept him alive, and possibly me, too.

I understand that since 2000 there has been a reduction in the number of fatal road crashes in New Zealand. However, I find that fact surprising. In the last few years, I’ve seen more dangerous driving on the roads than ever. I’ve witnessed some truly brainless stunts. I see more cars with dents in the bumpers and fenders. I used to like to drive fast as a younger person, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to drive more safely.

My father always used to say, “It’s not what you do on the roads you have to worry about it’s the other person.” That’s true, and what you do contributes, too.

I get it. Everyone’s hurrying everywhere because we’re all busy and under pressure. We’re all running late and there are more and more vehicles on the roads. However, life is more precious than getting there on time. I’ve been reminded of that and jolted out of my complacency into a deep gratitude for every moment I get to have with my family.

My new resolutions: I aim to be a better driver. I want to be more aware of what others are doing when I’m driving. I intend to slow down. 

Talk to you later.

Keep on Creating!

Yvette K. Carol

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What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly. – Richard Bach

~ It’s Strange after they’re Gone ~

It’s strange after your parents die, it’s the loneliest feeling. In life, there are so many hardships, there is loss, and there is suffering along the way, that’s just the way it is. But, when your parents are gone, and these things happen, you realize how much support they gave. How they sheltered you with the umbrella of their unconditional love. You suddenly appreciate how much they loved and cared about you. How they were always willing to raise a hand on your behalf, no matter what it was, they had your back and were there for you.

The power of parental love is sorely missed.

My parents had a good life together. They emigrated from England in 1961, and raised a happy family in New Zealand. After working for forty years, mum and dad retired to spend the last twenty years of their lives living by the sea, in a lovely little town on the Coromandel Peninsula. Then, in 2015, at the age of eighty-four, my mother died peacefully in her sleep, in her own bed. Dad had a further two years of gardening, bowling, music club, helping to run the church, Probus meetings and outings with the Friendship club. While still recovering from double pneumonia, he suffered a heart attack in hospital and died at the age of eighty-six.

My parents had had good, full lives. Sometimes however, I wish they were still here.

It’s strange after they’re gone. It takes time to adjust. Two years later, and I still find myself reaching for them in a way. When things are difficult, especially, I find myself wishing I could talk to mum. She had developed in the latter part of her life the most magnificent ability to listen. She would ask how I had been and then listen in rapt attention to every word I said. She had an insatiable interest in me, my kids and our lives. I felt I could tell her everything, and quite often, she would say something surprisingly wise in response.

I miss our long conversations.

It’s strange after they’re gone, because you miss the little things, like the banter over the family games of cards, monopoly, and scrabble. I can remember playing scrabble for hours, and the card games sitting in a big circle on the floor. It was fun to play cribbage, as dad would keep up a constant banter of funny old English sayings that went with each drop of the cards, as he counted, ‘four’s a score’ ‘five’s alive’ ‘seven’s in heaven’ ‘eight’s in state’ and of course, ‘one for his knob’ and so on. It was quirky and quaint and particular to dad.

In their eighties, mum became a notorious cheat at cards, and dad started to make mistakes in the scoring, though we never said a word.

When we were growing up, dad was not big on displays of affection. But as he got older, he softened. In his last decade, I received some genuinely tender cards from him on special occasions. The last birthday card he gave me said, ‘I am very pleased with you to have achieved so much in your life. Bless you, your loving Dad’ (with four kisses and one hug).

When I’d visit, dad would spontaneously hug me or rub my back – something he’d never done – he became more able to communicate his love. It was so sweet.

It’s strange after they’re gone, because there is this constant feeling that I should be going somewhere or doing something. When they were alive, although they weren’t demanding, their presence meant I was either contacting them or planning something to do with them, or worrying about them (as they got older). I travelled down country to spend time with them every five weeks, so I was often there, or sorting out the next trip. Now, the pressure is off, there is nothing to do on mother’s and father’s days, or their birthdays or for them at Christmas.

Many of the year’s celebrations in our family have changed and we need to learn how to redefine these occasions.

To have both parents gone is the strangest feeling. I wonder if I will ever get used to it. I suppose you always miss people after they’ve died, but as time goes on, you become slowly stronger and wiser and more able to deal with sorrow.

I think it was Dr. Seuss who said sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory. I value my parents more now than ever.

I realize how lucky I was to have had good parents who loved me and gave me a happy, stable childhood! It makes me more determined than ever to honour them, by being a good parent also and giving my children the same.

Talk to you later.

Keep on Creating!

Yvette K. Carol

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Blessed be the ties that bind generations. ~ Unknown

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