Edenland – I Give You The Verbs

I’m confident my American friends won’t mind if I share a little of what’s making me smile and feel happy on this Thanksgiving Thursday, while they’re busily passing the steamed, candied, or roasted yams around.

It is a beautiful spring day here in Melbourne, so there’s that to be thankful for.

Here, in no particular order are 27 other things I’m thankful for, giddy over, tickled pink by or chuffed about:

1. Sunshine. Something about a sunny (but not hot) day, makes me so happy.

2. Blue skies with fluffy clouds. So uplifting and beautiful, don’t you think? Blue skies equal possibility and positivity.

3. Chocolate. I just scoffed a few squares and they’re working their magic on my tastebuds and mood!

4. Slow roasted roma tomatoes. The oven is doing a job on a tray of them right now. I bought a 1.7 kilogram bag of juicy tomatoes for $1.99 today. Come on, that’s something to be thankful for. Which leads me to…

5. Access to very affordable, super fresh fruit and vegetables. That made me so happy I nearly danced back to the car with my box of bargains this morning.

6. My job. I’m enjoying having something to do, and even the tiredness that comes after a day of trying to fill my brain with new facts, processes, procedures and names.

7. Paying my rent today, with money I earned. First time I’ve been able to do that in nine months. Felt so good. Thank you!

8. Bono.

9. Let me explain that one for you, I say Bono, not because he’s a rock-god, which he is, but because when I see him now, as I just did on a documentary about a photographer named Anton Corbijn, he reminds me of someone else I’m thankful to know.

10. That person is Eden Riley. Eden is a blogger, a poet, a mother, a wife, a legend and a barnacle. Eden’s blog is called Edenland and you can find it at www.edenriley.com. You should most definitely be following her if you aren’t already. Eden is in Uganda at the moment, for World Vision Australia, and her photos and posts about what she’s seeing and the people she’s meeting are something quite magical. That she’s there doing that makes me all kinds of thankful and happy. Go Eden!

11. My messy bedroom. A strange thing to be thankful for? Perhaps. But I know how good I’ll feel once I get in there and sort it out later, so it’s on the list.

12. This year of struggle and challenge. I wrote about a particular low point here yet I’m so damn thankful that this year panned out the way it did. All of it, the ups and the downs. I’m grateful.

13. This year of joy, reflection, quiet time and goodness. I have experienced so much kindness and goodness from people. I’ll always be thankful for that. You guys rock! Yes you, especially you, the ones I’ve never laid eyes on, who have been such vessels of kindness and encouragement to me. I’m not going to stop saying thank you.

14. Ms Pip Lincolne, bloggy cheery lass from Meet Me At Mike’s makes the list, because this year I’ve been her willing student, in Blog With Pip, Inspiration Information and Inspiration Information For Bloggers. Each course has taught me more than I anticipated and her tutelage has made this very blogging caper happen. Thanks Pip! Aside from being a great teacher, and a super talented lady, Pip is just happy being herself. Authentic, nothing more, nothing less. I like that about her.

15. My home. It’s my sanctuary, refuge and refueling station and I love it. I love it’s creaky floorboards and the way the breeze picks up the lace curtains in my hallway. I love having a place that is all mine, even if I don’t own it.

16. That I’m free to vote on Saturday in our state election. Even if I think there are only turds to choose between, the freedom and responsibility of making my voice heard is a privilege I am grateful for.

17. Painting. I am loving exploring the worlds of colour and effect that you can achieve with a brush, a palette, a sheet of paper and a cup of water.

18. Coffee. I love coffee. I’m thankful that in the not-too-distant future I should have enough money to get my beloved Nespresso machine fixed. Huzzah!

19. Gosh, this is getting a bit harder now – I’m thankful that I have so many things to be thankful for, and this list is making me ponder lots of them. Ha!

20. This quote. I totally agree. Do you? How’s your quest going?

21. My friends, those who had the patience to let me be evasive, insular, mistrustful and plain weird, as I worked my way to being loving and open with them. Thank you for biding your time and putting so much into wanting to be my friend. I love you for it.

22. The internet – specifically a few social media sites where I’ve found really great and inspiring people and perspectives. Thank you Instagram. Thank you Twitter, thank you often maligned Facebook. I still love you, whatever your wacky algorithms are doing to us and our demand to reach thousands of people for FREE.

23. My brain. It’s a crowded place, but I’m so thankful for the way I think, the ways I’ve come to think the way I do, for the mysteries and marvellous things it does for me everyday. Walking, seeing, my sense of smell, all that under the hood stuff. For instance – touch typing, I mean, wow, I can type so fast and don’t have to think about it at all now. Well done brain!

24. I love you Number 24. You’re my favourite one. I like your numberliness, your lines and curves, your evenness, your sequentiality. Mwah. I love it when I see you around the place. Street numbers, signs, menu items.

25. Music. I love, love, LOVE music. I love pop music, I love The Love Boat theme, I even love lipsyncing to Whitney Houston (watch it, you’ll LOVE it!). I adore Our Kylie, early Madonna, U2, The Doobie Brothers, Sting, The Beatles, I love so many different singers. Thank you musicians of the world for providing the soundtrack to my life.

26. Oh, I’m sad that I’m running out of numbers. I am thankful that I know how to be exceedingly SILLY. It is so good to just be a FOOL sometimes. See above lipsync for an example. Don’t take yourself so seriously okay? Pull a face, dance at the supermarket, nobody cares, and if anyone really gets upset by a bit of tomfoolery, you’re better off without them.

I’m really super grateful that I can think of way more than 27 things to be thankful for. How good is that?

27. Lastly, for today, I am thankful to you for reading my blog. It means so much to me. I am so happy to be a blogger. Truly. It’s so ace here. I don’t care about the talk about competitiveness and nastiness and the ‘popular’ kids – I just don’t buy into it. I don’t need to. I love my blog, I love the blogs I follow. Live and let blog, I say!

So, there are 27 things that make me say THANKS. I hope that you can think of 27 things that make you happy and grateful.

Feel free to share a few in the comments. I’d love to know what is making you joyful.

Cheers,

Annette xx

Hi friends,

I’ve been a bit busy lately and have neglected the Verbs a bit. Sorry about that!

I have some news – really very good news…. I found a job!

Those who have been reading for a while will know that I’ve been looking for work for a long time…. and I’m pleased to report that after slogging away at applications for months and months, getting my hopes up, having them dashed, being rejected repeatedly, feeling defeated, brushing myself off and getting so, so close… one of those rejections turned into a second chance, another interview and a trial that’s turned into a part time job.

I won’t give you all the details, I’m not sure how much work/blog crossover I’m comfortable with, but I’m working Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday every week, doing admin tasks and a little blogging and social media strategising for a small, family run business, and I’m really enjoying myself. I’m working with a nice group of ladies, the parking is free and the coffee is good.

Huzzah! There’s money in my bank account again, money that I earned. That feels so good.

I want to say a sincere, heartfelt thank you to everyone who has cheered me on, sent me cards and messages, offered words of encouragement, sent supermarket vouchers, arrived on my doorstep with bags of groceries, left me fresh eggs, handed me cash, cooked for me, invited me out, sent their best juju over Instagram or Facebook, asked me how I’m going… it has meant SO MUCH to not be trudging through this season alone. It has been the difference between despair and hope.

Who knows if this part-time gig will last, for now I’m thinking of it as a ‘summer job’ and working on paying back some debts quickly.

I’ve slipped easily back into the routine of setting the alarm, getting through the traffic and on Thursday when I was home, it felt strange. Strange to be home on a weekday! That felt good.

So, that’s a biggie isn’t it? Employment, something to do, it’s so important isn’t it. Phew. Yay. Grateful.

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs too, especially the words of my friend Eden. I’ve only met her once IRL, at ProBlogger, but I reckon it’s okay to say we are friends. Not besties, that’s cray-cray talk, but in meeting her, in looking into her face and having her look into mine, and talking about real things straight off the bat, I felt a genuine connection.

The month of October was the first anniversary of her beautiful brother Cam’s suicide, and if you’re connected to the internet circles I am, you may know about #fucktober, where people were invited to send Eden some love – a card, a word of kindness, a little something to say, yes FUCK you October, we are here with you Eden. Big shout out to Beth from BabyMac for organising all the love. On ya Beth!

It’s been beautiful to see Eden absolutely overwhelmed with love and kindness, and CAKE. People are so good aren’t they? I don’t buy this idea that the world is all shitty and dark, of course I know that awful things happen, but really people are still inclined to be good and kind and willing to reach out to others. Don’t you think? (And yes, I know Eden isn’t the only one going through shit times, but I also think it’s okay for this post, on my blog, to just be about her, alright?)

Eden decided she wanted to do something really out of the box to try and raise a little awareness about suicide, which is still a topic that’s shooshed and hushed and hidden. It needs to be talked about, to be acknowledged and we need to try and help each other when we feel the black dog breathing on our necks. Grief is a monster, a hurricane, a vortex, and when you lose someone to suicide…. well, I can’t speak to that personally, but I do believe we need to try, try, try to understand grief better. Stop with the old ideas of grief being linear, then done, the time heals all wounds stuff, the god needed another angel stuff, all the words we say instead of saying the person’s name, saying I don’t know what to say, wrapping our arms around those who grieve, and try a little doing too, doing is good. Write a card, send a cake, lip-synch a ridiculous song and post it online.

Here’s the blog post Eden wrote about her fab idea to do a lip-synching competition. It’s been awesome to watch people’s videos. So funny, so moving, so beautiful. If you don’t watch any others, watch Eden’s clip. It is so powerful, so crushing, so true, so beautiful.

I thought and thought about what kind of song to do. In the end I went with something I love, something lighthearted and upbeat. And here it is Love Is A Contact Sport by Whitney Houston. Enjoy! I had so much fun just being a fool in front of my iPad! It’s so freeing to be silly.

If you search the #edenland tag on YouTube you can watch other people’s videos, there are some beauties!

So, they are the things that have been keeping me busy, a new job, a new routine, being silly on the internet… in fact, I was feeling so silly that I posted a clip of myself singing the theme to The Love Boat on my blog’s Facebook page yesterday. I posted it to cheer Eden up, and it seems that other people have enjoyed it too. Pop over to the I Give You The Verbs Facebook page (you can use the social media icon up there on the right) and check it out if you want a giggle.

So that’s what is new with me.

What’s your news?

What’s the hap where you are? Sung anything silly lately?

Annette x

I Give You The Verbs

Tag: Edenland

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