Today, I'm grateful for:
- Healthy and happy daughters (who aren’t so little anymore! Swipe 👉🏻) that continue to shine kindness and authenticity (including a little sass and attitude),
- Early morning sunrises, the warmth of sunshine throughout the day, the mesmerising sunsets, and
- A fresh season brimming with incredible opportunities for connection, advocacy, creativity, and a sense of belonging.
In the whirlwind of juggling business, family, life, community, and the ever-present chaos and blur that accompanies these things, staying organised and grounded in gratitude can be quite the challenge! When my girls were little, I decided that I would be a thermostat, not the thermometer, setting the temperature rather than reacting to it.
If you're new to my story, you might not know that I've been a single mother for thirteen years, navigating this journey without the support of a partner or extended family. I've weathered some incredibly tough seasons filled with hardship, heartache, grief, loss, and trauma. Organisation and gratitude are the bookends of my day, ensuring that there's little space for chaos or overwhelm. Does chaos or overwhelm occasionally attempt to sneak into my life? Of course! Every single day they try to distract, derail, disrupt and/or dismantle me!
BUT organisation and gratitude.
Today marks the second-to-last day of the school term, it’s filled with the familiar chorus of requests from my daughters: "Mum, remember to pick up those twelve tubs of ice cream for Splendour tomorrow," "Mum, I could use your help with my assignment tonight," "Mum, can you review my Research Project folio tonight," "Mum, I have another performance tonight, can you drop me off," "Mum, we're out of bread," “Mum are we having lamb for dinner tonight” (yes thanks to Bullys Meats!) and "Mum, what's the plan for tomorrow after school."
So I’m signing off, to cook them a hearty breakfast, shower them with extra warm mummy hugs, plan dinner and then my day.
But first, I need to turn on the screaming goat song to set the tone for our last two mornings ahead.