Ti99er's tales

Oprah is always on about keeping a gratitude journal. And on a different note there was a movie with Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer called the Story of Us in which they had a tradition with their kids to mention the high and low points from their day. I know I have come across many similar concepts of focusing on the good things in your life vs the bad, but at the moment these two are the anecdotes that jump to mind.

There have been times over the years that I have contemplated keeping just such a journal but I always seem to back out because I figure it would be pretty hard to come up with new things to be grateful for every day. This morning for some or other reason I started thinking about a gratitude journal again. I figure life, at the end of the day, is all about perception. So its all about where your focus lies. I truly believe in the idea of mind over matter or what you put out to the universe will return to you, creating your own reality etc etc So if we can wake up in the morning and focus on something positive surely the rest of your day will draw positive energy towards it.

So anyway this morning as I was watching Lucca playing in the lounge I, all of a sudden, felt an immense gratitude for the fact that I can get up in the morning and stand on my own two legs. Strange thought to have at 07:00 in the morning but I remembered watching a program in Holland about a lady in America who had a kid but she had no legs and I am sure there are plenty of woman raising kids while confined to wheelchairs. I know you learn to cope with what you have but this morning I couldn't help but think about how tough that must be and how great it is to be able to chase after Lucca, pick him up with ease and be able to carry him with relative ease when the need arises. Although at one point today I almost wished I had a wheelchair so he could sit on my lap cause he was getting pretty heavy to carry.

Now the chances are slim that I am going to start keeping a gratitude journal as I still think its to hard coming up with new stuff every day but if I was this would be my entry for today:

I am grateful I have two healthy sturdy legs that can support myself, and my boy when that is necessary.

As for my other anecdote about the highs and lows:

My high point today was watching Lucca play peek a boo over my shoulder with a total stranger while waiting at a custmer service desk.

And the low point of my day was when the central locking of the car started to act up.

So there may still not be a daily journal but I will definitely try and think of at least one thing a day which has a positive spin on it, perhaps the more I look for things the easier it will become to keep a journal with plenty of new entries every day. After all its all about perception.

I just have to post this incredibly easy, incredibly tasty recipe I found for a chocolate mousse. Its a Nigella Lawson recipe so you can just imagine it contains a lot of stuff one shouldn't really be indulging on but boy o boy is it deliscious... so thanks Nigella for this finger licking treat. I can recommend it.

150 gr mini marshmallows

50 gr soft butter

250 gr chocolate (i used milk cause my hubby doesn't like dark, but next time i'll try a mix as the milk on its own was pretty sweet)

60 ml hot water from a kettle recently boiled

250ml heavy cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

Melt the marshmallows, butter, chocolate and water in a heavybased pot. The marshmallows will melt last. Then leave the mixture to cool down. In the meanwhile whisk the cream and vanilla extract till stiff. Fold the chocolate and cream together. Scoop into individual bowls / glasses or place in one large bowl. I sprinkled a white flake over the top and served it with strawberries and vanilla wafer biscuits. It was divine.

One mistake I did make was to add the cream to the chocolate mixture to soon, I should have let it cool down some more, so I had to leave the mousse in the fridge for quite a while to set. From what I understand you should be able to serve it almost instantly.

A few nights ago I had this strange dream about being caught in a nuclear explosion... the details of the dream have faded away but I do remember waking up in the middle of the night, at 03:33 to be precise, with this sudden realization that I have an irrational fear of death.

I know this to be an irrational fear as there are very few things one can say with certainty but one of them is "I am going to die"

None of us can escape death, so perhaps my fear is not so much about dying but more about the way I am going to die.

When asked very few people, if any, will say O I wanna die of cancer, or get shot during a robbery, or be killed by a drunken driver, or step on a landmine, or contract aids, or die in a bushfire, or sink with my yacht... nope most people will say they wanna die of old age, in their sleep.

But lets be honest the odds of dying peacefully in your sleep are pretty slim.

Come to think of it, it would be interesting to see the statistics on causes of death. (watched this talk on TED.com about the statistics round poverty which has got me hooked on numbers now :-) )

So I think its safe to say most of us do not fear death, as death is as much part of life as living is, but rather we fear the pain and suffering which can go along with it.

We fear dying alone, having no one there with us. Whenever we embark on a new venture into the unknown its much nicer if you can do it with a partner. Having someone next to you to hold your hand, to share the experience with you is, lets be honest, quite a comforting thought. So when it comes to dying its obvious you would rather not do it alone. As death must be the biggest unknown there is. Millions of people have spent their lives trying to solve the mystery, answer the question what happens to us when we die ? Is there a heaven, a hell, do we reincarnate and return to earth once again, or maybe we make it to another planet, another dimension... who really knows.

Luckily we all believe in something, we believe in that which makes sense to us, that which helps us to remain calm about the thought of death, most of the time anyway. I reckon we all spend a minute or two considering what if what we believe is wrong, what then... but then it will be too late to change. So the safest is to follow your gut when it comes to choosing a theory rather than the guy next door.

Now I wonder if you could choose a unnatural cause of death, what would you choose ?

I think I would choose a plane crash... I definitely won't be alone and I think once you realise things have gone wrong and you are about to die, the instant of death will come pretty quickly and I reckon you won't feel any pain either. Of course I could be wrong but I like the idea of passing over with a bunch of other people by my side :-) The odds that there is one other person there who believes what I do is quite high so in that case I won't be wrong on my own.

Kinda of like when you were a kid and you were sent to the principals office, it somehow always felt better if there was another kid with you.

At the end of the day, even though the odds are against me I would still bet my last dollar on dying in bed after having spent a great day together with my kids and grandkids and hopefully my adoring husband is still around too. Wouldn't life be perfect if we (my hubby and I) could go together.

Do you believe in angels ? I do. I think they are amongst us. Not in the City of Angels kind of way but more in the you and me kind of way. Yip I believe ordinary people are angels. I believe we touch each others lives, sometimes without even knowing it. We just need to open our eyes to the possibilities of miracles, the small everyday life happenings which affect us, which some may call coincidents, but I think otherwise. So remember you never know what that one smile could mean to a stranger or how you could affect someones life by letting them "push in" during peak hour traffic, not to mention the R5 coin you dropped by accident.

Don't go thinking about this, just go out and touch somebody elses heart, my fellow incognito angels.