I've been away

Hello,

I thought I would just explain my leave of absence for those who come to my blog. I am around, but life has been very hectic with the holiday period, some leave during which I led on a camp for highschoolers in my local area, (http://www.campconqueror.org/) and my mother starting her chemo therapy program. She has unfortunately discovered that the drug's ability to exacerbate the effects of exposure to the sun (some 20-30 fold) can in fact act retrospectively. She is now suffering from third degree burns to her shoulders, arms and legs as a result of a seaside stroll three days before her last batch of chemo. Please keep her in your prayers and thoughts, we are praying there will be no lasting damage on the use of her legs especially due to scarring, and tell people you know going through similar treatment to be careful.

I am looking forward to this saturday going to our local markets at Tomerong this weekend, doing some shopping and helping at the seed savers and the local organic food co-op through the day. It's a wonderful local market where there are lovely people to make friends with, food to eat and bargains to find, and a chance to talk to people about living sustainably, especially in regards to the food they eat. In seed savers we grow and save seed from heirloom varieties of vegetables and fruit in order to preserve their existence and also encourage people to grow varieties that thrive in the local climate. Our local group gives away seeds and seedlings grown from those seeds with donations welcomed, and helps people with questions that they have about their gardens. We are affiliated with the seedsavers network www.seedsavers.net which was started by michael and judy Fanton and run courses and a seedback in northern new south wales, in Australia. Their handbook is a great resource for anyone interested in growing and saving seed, and also has instuctions on how to use some of the more unusual varieties. I can highly reccomend it. Does anyone have any unusual or rare species that they grow, perhaps we could do a swap? (unfortunately this would be geographically limited due to customs and quarantine restrictions.) I think I could swap with anywhere else in Australia but WA?? Correct me if I am wrong.

Pink Balloons

Today I went to the funeral of my friend's mum Lyn. She has been struggling with breast cancer for 11 years and this monday gave up the fight after developing a serious brain tumour. My friend was her full time carer for over a year as her capacity to function gradually decreased, but never her love of life or her family.

Everyone was asked to wear pink, which is the colour that represents breast cancer research. It was lovely as Lyn had planned her own funeral about a year ago, and her biggest instruction was that she wanted it to be fun, no sad funeral for her. My pastor conducted the funeral and decided to talk about the colour pink. He even rang up the cancer council to see why they chose the colour pink - yes it was because pink is a girls colour!!! He gave out pink kit kats and tim tams (both Australian chocolates, which have been made with pink fillings as a fundraiser for breast cancer research) and talked about the artist "pink" She has a song that says If god was a DJ, Life is a dance floor, Love is the rhythm, You are the music. If God is a DJ, Life is a dance floor, You get what you're given, It's all how you use it.

It was a challenging week for me as my mum has just had a mastectomy and has been fighting breast cancer for almost 4 years now. Things look good at the moment, but who knows what tomorrow will bring. We know that over then next 6 months she will undergo some really vigorous chemotherapy and then need to be driven 3 hours each day to receive radio therapy as our city does not have a linear accelerator (we're lucky - people up to 2 hours south of us have to drive 6 hours return for the treatment.)

We each only get one life, and we don't know what life will serve us. We can't control that. The only thing we have control over is ourselves, how we respond. Do we get scared and shy away, give up and lose hope. I choose to live, to believe, to take steps like eating well and exercising that give me life, to try and live with no regrets, never pass up an opportunity to do something new.

My challenge to you is to do something new, it might be a bit scary, but it's likely going to be really fun as well.

Go horseriding,
Learn to dance
Play a new sport
Explore a bushwalk/trek and find a beautiful bushwalk
Make a new friend
Learn to sew
Try a new recipe
Do some volunteer work
Work in a soup kitchen
Offer to babysit a friends children to give them some time alone (or together)
Paint a picture
Go for a swing at the playground
Join a choir
Go see a musical/opera/play etc
Go to a day spa

If you do one of these, or something else, please let me know and tell us about it, and have fun.