“If at first you don’t succeed, eat a cupcake!” ~ Unknown Author We can take life far too seriously sometimes. Or get so bogged down in our daily grind that we forget to have fun, and to stretch our wings a little. In fact, it can get so that even if we find some spare […]
Nana’s Passionfruit Slice Recipe
“Cooking is not about being the best or most perfect cook, but rather it is about sharing the table with family and friends.” ~ Skye Gyngell, My Favorite Ingredients This is an old recipe that my Nana copied out from her friend Dulcie, after a successful ‘War Wives Luncheon’ during World War Two. At least that […]
Making My Life Work for Me – Week 6
“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” ~ Harriet Tubman Welcome to the final week of our six week Making My Life Work for Me Program. (If you’ve only just joined us, you might like […]
The Secret Dreams Project
“Most of us are not raised to actively encounter our destiny. We may not know that we have one. As children, we are seldom told we have a place in life that is uniquely ours alone. Instead, we are encouraged to believe that our life should somehow fulfill the expectations of others, that we will […]
Soundtrack to Pain
“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”~ Bob Marley Music saved my life earlier this week. Music and drugs. Those of you who follow my blog will know that I am suffering from end-stage Lyme disease. I’ve recently embarked on a protocol of high dose antibiotics, antibacterials, herbs and […]
Stir Fried Sweet Potato, Mushroom and Broccoli Recipe
“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” ~ Virginia Woolf Food isn’t just food. Food is also a healing tool. A spiritual tool. A way to give love and care to self and others. If you want to think about this recipe as just food then this is what […]
The Anzac Spirit – Alive and Well
“The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.” ~ David Foster Wallace I live in the picturesque Byron Shire – a million miles away from […]
Finding moments for yourself
“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.” ~ Buddha Life can be hectic. Sometimes we just have […]
Do what you have to do
Sometimes what we need to do doesn’t feel good. Or it feels unfamiliar, all wrong, and way out of our comfort zone. It can often involve not just effort, but sacrifice. While everyone else is taking things easy, while everyone else is having fun, you have work to be done. To learn, to grow, to […]
Making My Life Work for Me – Week 5
“Holding on is believing that there’s only a past; letting go is knowing that there’s a future.” ~ Daphne Rose Kingma “There’s an important difference between giving up and letting go.” ~ Jessica Hatchigan Welcome to Week 5 of our six week Making My Life Work for Me Program. (If you’ve only just stumbled upon us, pop […]
Are you setting yourself up for failure this week?
“Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” ~ L.M. Montgomery I’m all for change. That’s part of our power – the ability to move in a new direction, to make ourselves over, to become something new or different to where and how we were. But how […]
Speedy Lamb Ragu Recipe
“The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.” ~ Calvin Trillin Roast dinners are popular on the farm, especially when I have a crowd to feed. And if I’m lucky, we’ll end up with leftovers. This is a speedy […]
How to do Tonglen Meditation – a Beginner’s Guide
“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.” ~ Charles Dickens At times it is easy to feel small and insignificant – unable to help when all we feel in our hearts is an urge to try. When those we know are suffering, or when there is a catastrophe in another […]
Easy Lemon Slice Recipe
“There are times when wisdom cannot be found in the chambers of parliament or the halls of academia but at the unpretentious setting of the kitchen table.” ~ E.A. Bucchianeri As promised, here is the first recipe in my ‘Slice Extravaganza’ series – the brainchild of my mother, who must be acknowledge for her great generosity […]
It’s okay to feel Sad sometimes!
“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.” ~ Carl Jung Yesterday someone well known in American ‘New Age’ circles told me something […]
Cream of Celery Soup Recipe
“The thought of two thousand people crunching celery at the same time horrified me.” ~ George Bernard Shaw Poor George! It’s quite the visual, isn’t it. Perhaps even worse than zombies… Still, I digress. Today it’s all about soup. Soup is my go-to when I’m feeling poorly. Easy to make, easy to eat, and you get […]
Making My Life Work for Me – Week 4
“There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.”~ Jiddu Krishnamurti “Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that […]
This post brought to you by Randall…
“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” ~ Roald Dahl Hi. I’m Randall. I live in Nicole’s garden, and I keep an eye on things for her. I’ve given […]
Brave young Harry!
“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.” ~ Will Rogers Harry, our not quite six-month-old Blue Heeler puppy had the next of his surgeries yesterday to help accommodate his severe overbite. His newly emerged adult lower canines were shaved down to stop them impacting […]
Sometimes you get there faster by going slow
“If you’re having difficulty coming up with new ideas, then slow down. For me, slowing down has been a tremendous source of creativity. It has allowed me to open up — to know that there’s life under the earth and that I have to let it come through me in a new way. Creativity exists […]
Celebrating the triumphs of friends
“I count myself in nothing else so happy As in a soul rememb’ring my good friends.” ~ William Shakespeare Last night I had the pleasure of attending the book launch of Charlotte Nash’s Ryders Ridge, hosted at that bastion of local writing support Avid Reader, in West End, Brisbane. Charlotte is a dear friend, and a […]
Life, blurred.
“I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.” ~ Jack Kerouac Sometimes, life gets smudged around the edges and my crisp lines fuzzle into fluffy lumps of something but I haven’t got the word for it. No words is hard for a writer. Or when you forget the shape of things or what her […]
Making My Life Work for Me – Week 3
“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.” ~ Oscar Wilde “A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.” ~ Thomas Carlyle “Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life.” ~ Leo Buscaglia Welcome to Week 3 of our six week Making My Life Work for Me […]
Trust – A message from the Universe
“Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.” ~ Dale Carnegie “You, down there? Get on with it!” ~ Rollo **Today’s post […]
The Girl who sees Angels
“For it is written: He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you carefully.” ~ Luke 4:10 *Note: Names have been changed to protect the identity of those involved I received an email from a young friend yesterday. It was a simple note, and this is what it said; Dear Nicole, I can still see […]
Simple Baked Apple Recipe
“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” ~ Martin Luther Nothing says comfort food like a baked apple – easy to make and good for you too. Traditionally my Nana stuffed apples with a butter, sugar, oats and sultana or currant mixture. My […]
The Joys of a Shared Table
“The shared meal elevates eating from a mechanical process of fueling the body to a ritual of family and community, from the mere animal biology to an act of culture.” ~ Michael Pollan If you had asked me to create a memorable meal when I was younger I would have had the cookbooks out in a […]
How to take a Blessings Bath
“The unthankful heart discovers no mercies; but the thankful heart will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings.” ~ Henry Ward Beecher Today’s post is all about nurture. I want to share with you a process that I call a Blessings Bath. I usually take a Blessings Bath when I am feeling anything but blessed; when […]
Morning, after rain
“The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach.” ~ Henry Beston It rained last night. Not just gentle rain but heavy, loud on the roof soaking rain. Nearly an inch of it. […]