Going East

Well - that was quite a wait for the next post. I had quite forgotten that I had a blog until I tried to register for another. Now, in the post Easter period of another year even, life is just chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate. 

I have just come back from a visit to Sydney last week where I visited a family friend for a *significant* birthday.  I am not very good at maintaining contacts but after having wonderful late night discussions where 10 years of neglect melted away, I wondered why. 

The history of the visit was, having caught up on Facebook, my friend said she wouldn't have a party because she feared no one would come. I assured her I would come if she did but when she sent out the invitations, I then started to wonder if she would really want me to. In the event, loads of people came and she did seem to like me coming. Why were we both so unsure?

Maybe the fact that both our mothers pressed on us that we weren't social people and weren't really likeable still haunts us. Parental labelling is so hard to shift and yet so easy as a parent to do. As parents, we forget that we will never be just another person to our children. As adults, I guess we just need to keep putting ourselves out there so that we evolve into new, self created labels.

In spite of my neglect, I discovered the creator of chocolate oranges (now there is a label), who is coming up to her 18th birthday, had been maintaining a texting relationship with one my friend's children. Quite different to me, she keeps up friendships and is confident of reciprocation.

Not all my children are as confident though - the older ones are more reserved - and I can see that my unconfidence has had its influence.  Time to evolve I think.

The Chocolate Orangeness of Life

Everyone in the house seems to be creating a blog today so I am joining them. The title comes courtesy of my second daughter who, as a little girl lacking any knowledge of a cruder vocabulary, would angrily declare: "You are an orange!!" and if further insults were required: "You are a chocolate orange!!" Her tone and demeanor left no doubt as to what she really meant and we have no clues as to why a chocolate orange had these connotations.
Today, I thought it a good title. Not because of its origins, at least not today. Some days life is my daughter's kind of chocolate orange and some days it is a creamy, sweet chocolate orange but today it is neither. Today is New Year's Day, it is reflective and I am left wondering what a chocolate orange really is.
Where and how does my mind store the concept of a chocolate orange? Does it come under "Oranges I have known" or "Chocolates I have known"? It is quite different to orange chocolate - that definitely comes under chocolates I have known. Anyway, by inflection alone, my daughter created another category that was neither chocolates or oranges but "chocolate oranges" I have known.
And that is life at its best really. Creating new categories and opening new possibilities or closing them down.
Now Daughter Three has just read what I have written and told me Daughter Two's first post read "I have now got a blogspot account...yay me." so I am feeling rather wordy. Let me introduce myself quickly and I will write more tomorrow.
I am female and am mother to five chilidren - three girls, two boys. As well Daughter One has provided me with three grandchildren. Most of these offspring simultaneously fall into the categories of "beautiful people" and "chocolate oranges I have known."
We live in Perth, Western Australia with a menagerie of cats, dogs, birds and fish.
I also come under the category of "chocolate oranges one has known." So if you want to explore this category, come back again - you never know where it might lead your mind.