Charlie Sparkle Picture Collage

Charlie Sparkles Picture Collage (links to Flickr)

Thanks for the memories xxx

Interacting with festive spirit, enjoy!!

What a year 2008 has been. A year of ups and downs, highs and lows, pain and growth.

I love that my dear daughters are with me through thick and thin, growing up so fast with so much humour, fun and intelligence. We have had a joyous year together. I can't wait for them to grow up for me - but at the same time I want them to stay young. It's a mother's dilemma I'm sure. But I know they will grow up good. They are beautiful souls. Both of them.

I love the new friends I have made and am getting to know offline and on. You are each and everyone of you an inspiration and a joy to me. You make me learn and laugh.

I dearly love and admire my long time faithful friends who remain close and are always there for me. The support, acceptance and love they share with me are what gets me through and keeps me going. Always.

Personally, I hope each of you and your respective families have a wonderful festive season, that you enjoy copious amounts of whatever takes your fancy, that many laughs are shared, and that above all you stay safe over this period.

I look forward to catching up with you early in 2009, in what I think will be a challenging but fun filled sparkly year ahead for all of us. Bring it on!!!!

We all deserve the best. And I wish you the best.

To my friends and family, love you lots.
With kisses from Helen (aka Charlie) xc

interacting with online personality things... my results!! interesting :)

Positive Responses Others May Have Toward You

Many people, perhaps the majority, will come to appreciate your balance as a compassionate person. The more they get to know you, the more they will admire your thoughtful compassion for others and its compliment in the sensible ways you take good care of yourself.

Those whom you help will appreciate the way you leave them with their dignity by expecting them to collaborate in their own rescue. Those who are more tender-hearted will find in you a balance they lack; when they've run out of energy because they fail to take good care of themselves, you will still have enough compassion left to lift others out of trouble.

Even the tough-hearted, those who believe people should solve their own problems, might come to admire your tenderness which they don't find in themselves. So the people you help will be grateful, and the people who see your balance between self and others will admire you. Certainly, balanced is not bad at all as a way to be known among your friends.

Interaction re traditional media

Mother: "I didn't catch the advertising for that, so we missed it"

Daughter: "Yeah, that's cause no one watches TV anymore"

Blogged with the Flock Browser

if you could change your life, would you?

Seth raised this question via his own blog and it got me thinking... i'm enjoying interacting via blogs, plurking, and FaceBook just so much. i'm meeting new people - not just online, but off as well. it's making me read, analyse and interact more. i'm exposed to so many more opinions and ways people tackle life in general. and that can only be good, hey!

good for work and play.

so, to change my life - and how i got to be the person i am today? the person i am, who interacts, blogs, chats, plurks, posts photos, pulls faces, laughs and all the rest. no. sorry. i'm happy with who i am. i'd have to say that if i changed it, i wouldnt be that same person. would i?

now, i know i've blogged that i need balance (hmmm too much online) - but even in that statement i'm simply trying to improve myself - not change.

but would you change me? would you change yourself with the same question posed? i hope not. xc


Photo is from a bloggers meet up - taken by Shai Coggins: http://www.shaicoggins.com/ (i hope she doesn't mind me using it!!)

2008, a year of surprises... 2009, a year of rises

A year of surprises
Out with the old and in with the young
From the start if something could go bung
It caught me and I was strung


But after a few hiccups and rises
Out of the blue
Came something true
And very very new


We take no prizes
Why did it take this long?
There is so many a song
They can’t be wrong


So no more crises
This is our new beginning
We are all singing
And the phones are ringing


Let’s begin 2009 with rises
Expectations all good
Like everything should
We really really could


No more surprises
Just friends and laughter to share
I know you want it and care
We just need to dare.


Don’t we.
xc

interaction through addiction, and then some...

leading up to christmas and christmas itself can be an exceptionally social time. and if you're like me, you like your wine. so by the end of it all, you feel like you've become an alcoholic... simply from the fact you are drinking nearly every day!! urgh

however, i do find february tends to be a quieter month. so, in february i've previously joined partners in self imposed no drinking (wine etc) bans. not so much because we have to. more because its good for our body and mind to have a rest. and we feel assured we aren't alcoholics!! well, not for that month anyway :) i've heard others have november off as their month of rest - to "prepare" for the onslaught. i guess it's whatever the person feels they need to do. before or after. but it is giving the body / mind a break.

so it amused me to hear the other day that my eldest daughter is doing a self imposed exile from the computer over the summer holiday break. 6 weeks.

she needs a rest. to assure herself she can "be without". to just "be". interesting.

is this the new form of addiction that we will need to take a rest from over time?

i have to confess to having various levels of trouble in my relationships these past 10 years due to the amount of time i spend online. the same issue has crept into my latest relationship, even though he is a far more tech savvy, social onliner i have ever dated.

so, it is an addiction.

and it amused me that I received a link to the following article. this week. what timing. but what a way to deal with it... using an online service. wouldn't that be like taking an alcoholic to a winery?? not sure.

http://mashable.com/2008/12/06/facebook-addict-2/

anyway... life is good and then you die. so, i'm here to enjoy it.

Blog conversations

i wrote myself a note today that i wanted to write my blog tonight. i missed it.

so i came home revved up to write some stuff. had jotted some topics and ideas down. but drew a blank when i went to write them. it could be mondayitis. do you get that? i do if it's been a big weekend. sometimes call myself fuddlehead even.

it was a big weekend.

it's normal for this time of year - the sun comes out - so the kids go out to play!! we recharge our batteries after the dreary winter.

so hi everyone, i'm going to write a real blog now :)
xc