Temptation resisted & purchase made!

I’m at that wicked shopping mall again, (I gotta find somewhere else to get my fresh provisions!) and I manage to make it past that DVD store whose contents still beckon for their old friend to peruse the shelves in the hope that some of the shinny new packages full of promises of high quality distractions manage to grab my attention and find a new home with me!

Nearly at my destinations door, my eye is drawn to a little stall sporting sparkly sixty inspired shirts, with flowing fabric, tassels and funky colours that take me back to my Art School days…I am in love! “That would look awesome on you”, my companion remarks of the very summery pink number in my hands!

I am in love …and any other day, a non Compact Gratitude day,  I would take this baby home and promise to love it!

…but not today!

…I’m in the change room and I’ve got piles of bathers around me! I hate shopping for bathers, the image reflected in the mirror never matches the image projected from the clothes rack but here I am!

Yes, I have purposely arrived at this destination, Compact Gratitude pledge and all….Bathers I figure come under the ‘Hygiene rule’, so the next question is then, ‘do I need them?’ The answer to this may well be ‘No’, as I have a pair tucked away at home, their elastic is sound and their fabric still holds its weave and sports no holes but…..but the Christmas pork along with that few extra kilos of Danish still hanging with me from October have found this sound fabric falling short of covering all that it should!

I’m indecisive but find myself settling on the modest piece of fabric that promises a longer life, hoping this is the more Compact choice! This little number will find its way with me to my long planned first visit to Bali! Yes, you heard me, the Compact Gratitude chick is going to Bali next week and is not yet sure if she is prepared for all the shinny cheap new things and locals peddling their merchandise! AAAARRRRRRR!

I am grateful for bathers that fit.

I'm grateful for honest and down to earth sales chicks!

I'm grateful for will power and the lessons of my own addictions!

In the face of disaster!

As Queensland floods and submerges under the 'inland tsunami',

firefighters in Western Australia battle to save homes in 36 degree heat from a raging fire, suspected to have been lit by arsonists and Carnarvon licks its wounds and cleans up from its flood…I’m sat here, dry and safe feeling emotional and seeing clearly what I have to be grateful for and wondering.....what could those affected by all of this disaster possibly be grateful for right now?

Knowing how difficult it is to be grateful for anything when your world is falling down around you,  I offer this list of gratitude for you, along with my prayers and good wishes.

• I’m grateful for every helping hand that reached out to you or someone you care about.

• I’m grateful for the extraordinary generosity of the average Australian to dig deep and give in times of hardships.

• I’m grateful for aussie mateship and fighting spirit.

• I’m grateful for the safety and well being of your family and friends.

• I’m grateful for the kindness of strangers.

• I’m grateful for the emergency services staff and volunteers who risk their own safety to save others.

• I’m grateful for your safety and well being.

Stinkin toxic balls!

The lethal 'unplanned' stop at the shops!

So today was my first test….a shopping trip and not just any shopping expedition but the lethal ‘unplanned’ stop at the shops! Uno, the ones where you have no specific reason to be at the shops but nether the less find yourself there!  Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

A little background info to set the scene………..

I live in a small regional community in Western Australia with a population of around 800 people. Shopping here is restricted to:

·   a limited grocery store

·   a post office

·   a farm supply shop

·   a road houses (that sells the standard Bay Marie delights, white bread sangers and a few essential goods such as bread, milk and 2 minute noodles)

....and aside from the tourist info centre and pub this is the extend of my down town reality! Woohoo!

96km away, on the coast is Geraldton, a small regional city with all the fruit, several large shopping complex’s with most of the big stores and delightful little shops housing all sort of divine shinny new things!

…..and the ‘unplanned stop at the shops’, you might well be asking how is this possible when the shops are an hours drive away. Well, I’m a volunteer Ambulance officer, yes I know, a foreign theory for those of you not living in WA but the St John’s Ambulance - Country Ambulance Service is serviced by volunteers (http://www.ambulance.net.au/content.asp?id=114) , which means I’m often find myself in Geraldton delivering patients to the Regional hospital…and as these call outs generally take around 4 hours, a meal/coffee is generally on the cards….but more often than not one of us will need something at one of the many little buildings sheltering all those divine shinny new things. 

I was hoping only to grab a few fresh groceries but my colleague wants to go to Bunning’s (oh how I love thee sweet Bunning’s, lovely wide isles bursting at the brim with cool hardware equipment and materials to make things, truly an artists haven),….… I stay in the Van!

Right now I’m grateful for air-conditioned vehicles and the distraction of texting!

…and so, we get to the shopping centre and as I glide (well its not really a glide, more a stop/start robot type motion, looking like something from an 80’s blue light disco scene) past the Sanity store sporting masses of DVD’s on Sale, I head to the supermarket and hope that there are not too many sexy un-needed specials waiting to tempt me!

I'm grateful for good humored colleagues! 

(thanks for keeping me laughing Lorraine!)

I'm grateful for a smile found in a time of extreme suffering.

 (You are brave and beautiful!) 

Virgin Blogger

So here I am, on the 1^st of January 2011 ….and honestly a little bit scared shitless (can I say that here) at what I have committed to publicly on this blog, not to mention the fact that this little virgin blogger is not at all convinced that she has it in her to create a space that will hold anyone else’s interest let a lone her own for a full 12 months.

The panic has been setting in over the last week leading up to New Years Eve, with screaming thoughts of all the things I’ll be giving up….all those lovely shiny new things whose beckoning call I will have to resist, so that I can walk my talk.

I’m hoping to do this with grace (a word not normally associated with me, she who has as much grace as an elephant in ballet points) and gratitude. Gratitude for all I do have, rather than anything lacking, lacking not just of the material kind, more so the internal lacking that often finds me giving into the call and seduction of all that is shinny, unnecessary and commercial.

Time to roll up the sleeve’s of that shirt you’ll be wearing till its thread bare because you can’t find anything to fit at the op shop and sweep the locks up into a ponytail with the elastic from your old PJ’s and get serious girl!