Author: inspiringmax

Weekly Photo Challenge: Details

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These more intense detailed photos were taken on our mother and daughter photography excursion to Bare Island, La Perouse, Sydney, Australia. It was on this island that the French explorer compte de Laperouse landed in 1788 only days after The First Fleet landed at Frenchman’s Beach, La Perouse just around the corner. These historic rock formations were fascinating and so varied for such a small island. If you are ever in the area, it is definitely worth a look. You can discover more about the discover of Australia in the La Perouse museum situation between these two historic sites.

From memory, the view over the entrance to Sydney Harbour was also spectacular.

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Share Your World – 2016 Week 29

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What is the perfect pizza?

I like a spicy pizza but not your ordinary Mexicana. When I make a pizza at home it has a pesto, chilli sauce and tomato paste base topped with the following ingredients:

  • roast pumpkin
  • roast sweet potato
  • roast capsicum
  • olives
  • cherry tomatoes
  • feta cheese
  • jalapenos
  • dried chilli flakes
  • fresh capsicum
  • bacon/chicken/hot salami/pepperoni  (which mix of these meats I use depends on my mood)

Once my pizza is cooked, I top it with rocket, sour cream and avocado (if I have any.)

What is your favorite time of day?

My favourite time of day varies depending on what I have on but it is always based on the one thing – ME TIME. I love the quiet time each day when I can do whatever I choose. It keeps me sane in this crazy world.

Show us two of your favorites photographs?  The photos can be from anytime in your life span.  Explain why they are your favorite.

I love this photo of me taken on one of the bridges crossing the Ottawa River, Canada. As we walked from the Quebec side of the river back into Ontario I am not sure which state I am standing in at the time but as we loved them both, it doesn’t matter. It also reminds me of the fun we had walking in the first serious snow we had during our 6 week trip to Canada. We kept believing it would come and eventually it did. I think it was also the last time I wore those jeans as they finally wore themselves out in Canada after over 10 years of faithful service. The colouful hat scarf I am wearing I made close to 30 years ago and is very unique. It remains in good condition however, as Australia doesn’t have enough days cold for me to wear it in.

2011-07-30 17.13.54

This photo the original of Inspiring Max’s profile picture was taken 5 years ago from Melbourne’s Aquatic Centre. My daughter and I were there for her last School Sports Australia Diving competition which marked the end of an era for us. At the time there was a lot of difficult things happening in our lives that got worse as the year progressed. However, never being one to focus on the negative, if I needed an extra boost of positivity that everything would be alright in the end, I would get out my double rainbow, feel inspired and keep going.

Another thing I love about this photo is that it was one of the first photos I have taken that I was really proud of as you can see the individual rainbow colours on both sides.

Complete this sentence:  I’m looking forward to…. 

moving back to Newcastle and commencing nursing in a new hospital. I have been working towards this for over 12 months and now it is getting very close.

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up? 

My husband starting his new job and getting together with my family without having to rush back to Sydney to work. In the next eek I am looking forward to my future employment being confirmed and maybe even a start date given.

Share Your World – 2016 Week 29

 

Left Behind

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Change is inevitable and with it something or someone is always left behind. It’s not a bad thing but part of the circle of life. Ironically, we often don’t know the impact someone or something has on our lives until we leave it behind.

Currently our world is full of change. (See Coffee Catch-Up #9 for details.) You see, I believe it’s the new experiences and reinvention because someone or something is left behind that are exciting. For example, at present while my husband and I are considering which pieces of furniture to leave behind, our daughter is planning what she would like left behind and how she and her friends will change the house to make it more practical for them—a WIN WIN for everyone. It’s a modern day example of the reading at our wedding or popular song from the 1960’s if you are musically inclined.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 King James Version (KJV)

3 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

 

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Unpredictable

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Life is unpredictable and that is what makes it great. If everything we did was the same everyday, yes it would be safe but also boring. One of the things I love about mental health nursing is that no day is ever the same. It’s the interactions with people that make the difference and change the course of the day.  I see being unpredictable as adding the following to my life:

Uniqueness

Never boring

Passion

Richness

Enjoyment

Daring

Individuality

Change

Trust

Adventure

Brilliance

Learning

Experience

Unpredictability makes life more exciting, like the difference between riding the rapids or a calm stream. A mixture of both allows us to use all of our skills.

 

Lower Tonangiro River

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Share Your World 2016 – Week 26

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What’s your most memorable (good or bad) airplane flight?

On our way home from Guangzhou in 2013 we were upgraded to Premium Economy. The staff didn’t tell us of our upgrade, so image our surprise when suddenly we had more room and extra features we weren’t expecting. Nowadays, when we are traveling somewhere we always look at the price difference and if it is at all possible to pay the difference however we haven’t yet been able to justify it.

How many bones, if any, have you broken?

Fortunately, I have only had 3 broken bones and as doctors are now describing my bones as super bones, I hope to not have a problem with broken bones due to osteoporosis in my later years. My first broken bone, a greenstick fracture of my right arm, happened when I was 15.  I thought I was so cool skateboarding down a hill when I hit a stone on the pathway. Oh well. at least the plaster cast helped my cool image.

My second broken bone, my right little toe, somehow occurred during the Newcastle earthquake. I didn’t find out what was causing my pain initially as when we went to the hospital they were evacuating it and we suddenly realised my pain wasn’t the priority.

My third and hopefully last broken bone occurred in my 40’s when I was helping set up a gymnastics competition. Several men were carrying a balance beam when they dropped it onto the middle of my left foot. You could hear me yell for miles I think. It hurt and definitely wasn’t cool.

Photo Credit: Google Images

Photo Credit: Google Images

 

If you had your own talk show, who would your first three guests be? (guest can be dead, alive, famous or someone you just know)

Walt Disney: Founder of Disneyland and Disney World and creator of Mickey Mouse

Paul Ramsay: Founder of Ramsay Healthcare

Florence Nightingale: Founder of modern nursing

Make a Currently List: What are you reading, watching, listening to, eating, needing, wanting, and missing right now?

Reading — The Winner’s Bible — Dr Kerry Spackman

Watching — Ally McBeal

Needing — My tenants to find a suitable property for them to move to early so we can begin our move

Wanting — More boxes to pack our belongings into when we can finally move

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

Last week I was grateful to be able to  be able to focus on being a full-time writer and totally rearrange the order of my book. This task, while not yet completed does seem to have increased the flow between the chapters which was my goal.

In the coming week I am looking forward to going to Newcastle and seeing my family. It will be weird going back for the first time since I know I will be moving back in the next few months.

Share Your World – 2016 Week 26

Coffee Catch-Up #11

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If we were having coffee I would tell you how excited I am this week to finally have enough energy back that I plan on returning to aqua aerobics this week. Although it hasn’t been all bad as it was very easy to justify not going out in the cold and wet when I wasn’t feeling up to par.

If we were having coffee I would tell you what an inspiring week I have had being a full-time writer. Prior to this I have written and edited most of my book in whatever spare time I have had. This week by being able to just spend all my time on my book, I have noticed my focus change. Now I think I am much more creative. Every day I come up with new ideas as to how to improve its flow. So, this week when I had to stop to complete other important tasks I didn’t want to. After having the weekend off to work on my blog and family life I am excited to see how much closer to completion this week takes me.

If we were having coffee I would tell you about our cats first experience with a kookaburra this morning. He regularly walks up and down our side fence keeping guard making sure we are safe from predators. Today however in the gum tree just off our boundary a kookaburra came and sat. Yes, the kookaburra was sitting in the old gum tree as the Australian classic song suggests, minding his own business. Out cat however wasn’t happy. He stood under the tree on the fence and looked like he was going to attempt to get him, although the reality was the distance was too great. We decided however in the interest of encouraging our new friend to visit for longer, we would distract the cat.

If we were having coffee I would tell you how much I enjoy books. I always have and I always will. So much so that when we move I plan on making myself a library room where I can enjoy all of my books together in one place unlike scattered throughout the house like they are now. Yesterday, as part of this challenge I began sorting the first of many bookcases. As I put the books into boxes to move I have decided to divide them into 4 sections:

  • Children
  • Fiction
  • Non-fiction
  • Reference

Going through my books I enjoyed many memories as I remember the circumstances of each book either as a purchase or as a gift. Something tells me I am not going to be very good at throwing many of them out as I’m too much of a sentimentalist.

If we were having coffee I would tell you how much I am loving the readability score in WordPress. I challenge myself to make sure all of my posts stay in the green or good rating. Should they slip into an orange or red ranking I rewrite the sentence until the readability improves. This is definitely helping my writing style and minimizing my need to edit later.

If we were having coffee I would ask you what was happening in your world?

Weekly Photo Challenge: Look Up

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During our trip to Canada my husband and I spent what felt like hours studying and taking photos of flags. Their history interested us greatly and it was so different to our Australian flags. Our biggest problem was getting the wind right to get one flag to fly perfectly. So image our surprise when we looked up and saw these four flags perfectly aligned in the Old Port, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Opposites

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In opposition to the modern trade of your usual busy Chinese shopping mall,  Beijing Road Pedestrian Mall, Guangzhou hides a well-kept secret, layers of China’s original trade route the Old Silk Road. Only discovered in 2002,  the remnants over 3 dynasties – Song, Ming and Yuan are encased in glass and I found them fascinating to study and ponder. I remember hearing about the Old Silk Road as a child but I don’t think I realised how much action these roads had seen since the seventh century or the Old Silk Road’s true impact in opening up the world as it was then. Now I understood why I loved reading Marco Polo when I was in primary school as it really was describing a history so different from anything Australia had ever known.

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Coffee Catch-Up #10

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If we were having coffee I would tell you how glad I am that it is now July because what a month June turned out to be. On top of everything I spoke about in my last coffee catch-up this month has continued to serve up curve balls to challenge us and make us stronger.

If we were having coffee I would tell you the reason I missed coffee last weekend was because I was in hospital after a major allergic reaction to antibiotics.  I am rarely sick so the fact that I got an infection from an unknown source that wouldn’t go away was frustrating. Then, after a week of not getting better to change antibiotics, get sicker and end up in hospital was an eye opener for me. Initially, I looked very beautiful with my swollen face however with time and treatment my face has returned to normal. Each day I feel better, however I am looking forward to getting all my energy back soon.

If we were having coffee I would tell you that I taught myself to use Publisher this week. It has always been on my bucket list of things to do and I have looked at it many times before, but always gone back to Word – for me the simpler option. This time I persevered and once I got a handle on it I liked it. In fact, I liked it so much that I have decided to transfer my book to Publisher when I have finished this last edit to see how different it looks and increase my knowledge base of this tool. I may even use You tube and see what other secrets it can reveal. With a coy smile, I would also ask you if you have any Publisher experience or handy hints to share with me.

If we were having coffee I would tell you that despite everything I am loving the simpler, slower pace of life at the moment. Not having to rush anywhere, use what food we have and shop minimally is turning out for me to be very rewarding. Instead of buying a large amount of food on the weekend to make feeding the family quickly after a busy day commuting and working possible, we have made a daily plan together about what we eat based on what we have and suddenly we have so much more time. Because we aren’t rushing for some bizarre reason it takes us even less time to cook, we spend hardly any money on food and we are more creative with our ideas. Who knew?

If we were having coffee I would tell you how on the last day of June my husband discovered that the cat had a swollen left neck. We are so pleased June has ended as we don’t want any more surprises. Turns out the cat just wanted to be like me so he got himself an infection that needed antibiotics. No problem, a quick visit to Uncle Tom (his vet), a big needle and he was sorted.

If we were having coffee I would tell you how interesting it was for me to write my curriculum vitae this week. I have lost all previous copies so had to start from scratch and remember 30 years of history, experience and knowledge. It took me a day and a half but in the end I was very pleased with how it turned out. I am also grateful because I am moving back to my home town city and working on semi retirement, hopefully I won’t need to fill out another one, but hey never say never. None of us ever knows what the future holds. If I didn’t believe this before the June I’ve had, I certainly know it know.

If we were having coffee I would tell you how excited I was to be presented with my Toastmasters Triple Crown Award by the District Director at last weeks changeover meeting. It is a difficult award to achieve as you need to complete 3 educational awards. Last year I decided I was up for the challenge and I set it as my goal during my year as President of one of my club’s. I needed to keep focused and plan well but in the end everybody won and I have a super fancy pin to wear whenever I need an extra boast to be the best I can.Triple Crown Award

If we were having coffee I would ask you what is happening in your world this last fortnight?

 

Coffee Catch-Up #9

Use Your Imagination

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Evil Cloud outside Lake Taupo

My husband and I love to mindfully look at clouds. We study them regularly and usually can agree on a title for the cloud formation. This photo taken outside Taupo, New Zealand was one we found very interesting however, we weren’t able to agree on a title. Personally, to me it was a Bunny Cloud and to my husband an Evil Cloud.

What do you see? Let me know in the comments as I am sure there are many other ideas hiding in this special group of clouds.

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