If The Shoe Fits...

In this long term observer of screw ups opinion I've finally realised what makes a successful one sided relationship work for one side.
There has to be an idiot...usually female...and a moron...generally male.
You know what an idiot is don't you?....No?...well it's always just one step above the moron in brain function and 10 steps below the moron in gullibility..and the moron?...well it's always one step below the idiot in smarts but 10 steps above the idiot in manipulation...and rules the school!.
Cynical huh? well ok...but you know whether or not you fit into that mold or not - don't you?

Would you confess to it - if you did??
Probably not...but it takes one to know one!.

Dreaming and Believing

How different our lives turn out to be from our young adult days of dreaming and believing. Even in the living of it as the years slowly drift by change is inevitable, people die, marriages end, new relationships and new lives come in to being and the cycle of change continues.

My generation never knew TV until we were in our teens and, now, as a great grandmother I look down 3 generations of my life and am grateful to have been part of a childhood that had nothing in terms of gadgetry but everything in terms of an education in the basics of personal development. A solid but raw grounding in discipline driven values that instilled a deep and profound respect for every moment given, unconditionally supported in true Whanau Ora style by grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and family oriented neighborhoods, Sibling rivalry was more about whose turn it was to wash and/or dry dishes and parental intervention whether a slap or a growl brought an immediate end to the problem and hurt feelings were just as quick to disappear. Now into my 7th decade approaches my mind often goes back slowly, softly through memory to a place I called home - where people now long gone set a pattern that allowed our dreaming and believing as long as we did as we were told.

Dreaming and believing?...I've never stopped!.

I Can Sit For Hours And Hours

Sometimes I can sit for hours and hours and think about everything or nothing or something - and if someone was to ask me "what are you doing?" I'd just say "nothing". 

I'd be lying of course because I was thinking, but then they might ask me for my thoughts and I'm not going to tell them!. 

Not their business - I might have told my Mum but she's not here any more so I'd tell no-one. 

My life is really a series of stops and starts and it all comes from a series of thoughts that come from I have no idea where. 

Sometimes I have thoughts I don’t understand, I have absolutely no idea why they're here or mean, they're not even about anything I feel or want but there they are running around inside my head having a good time - and sometimes they make me smile.

I wonder if people really can read some one else's thoughts?...I think I'd go crazy trying to read mine..... but I think they'd make someone else reading them crazier....and good job too I say ..for thoughts dropping!!.

“You think you know someone by looking at his face but what can one face say about the thousand thoughts behind those eyes.” ― Marianne Wiggins, The Shadow Catcher

~ Wanda ~

To All Those Born In The 1920'S, 30'S, 40', 50'S, 60'S, 70'S..

I found this article on line, loved it could relate to it totally and consider myself, very gratefully may I add to be part of that era.....  


First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks some of us took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a Ute on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC, Subway or Red Rooster.

Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn't open on the weekends, somehow we didn't starve to death!

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy Fruit Tingles and some fire crackers to blow up frogs and lizards with.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because......

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and cubby houses and played in creek beds with matchbox cars.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no videogames at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape or DVD movies, no surround sound,no mobilephones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no Lawsuits from these accidents.

Only girls had pierced ears!

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross buns at Easter time.......no really!

We were given BB guns and sling shots for our 10th birthdays,

We drank milk laced with Strontium 90 from cows that had eaten grass covered in nuclear fallout from the atomic testing at Maralinga in 1956.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Mum didn't have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!

Footy had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

Our teachers used to belt us with big sticks and leather straps and bully'salways ruled the playground at school.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

Our parents got married before they had children and didn't invent stupid names for their kids like 'Kiora' and 'Blade'.....

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 70 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?

Time Keeps On Slipping, Slipping, Slipping...

I can't believe it's over two months since I last posted on here and it's not because I don't have anything to say - I'm actually quite a very communicative and happy to be so person...I think it's because there's been such a lot of things happening in that time that has taken over my time and thoughts and I have had to roll with it.

We had the unveiling on June 26 this year to commemorate the first year of the passing of my beautiful sister Ada and all the days and weeks leading up to it were filled with emotion and recollections.

On June 27 of this year I lost another beautiful sister in law to that effing disease cancer, even though we were told in March that she would only have another two or three months nothing ever prepares you for when it happens. I was 19 when I first met her - she was just a young girl about 11 years old and we slowly grew old together gathering children and grandchildren on the way but she will always be younger than me and somehow I find that a little unfair although ours is not to reason why!.

On a happier note toku hoa rangatira Eru turned 75  on July 17 and we had a small but wonderful little celebration with whanau at his favourite watering hole Mokai Awhina Club in Tuakau.
E mihi mahana, mihi tino aroha ki te whanau whanui tonu mo ta ratou tautoko, awhi hoki ki a ia me maua whanau mo tona ra whanau..Ka rawe koutou!!

Winter is here with not so much a venegance, it has been quite mild actually but there's been a lot of rain so maybe that's why it's not as cold as in past years and even though it's that time of year when there's a national sluggishness as a result the world is forever turning and as certain as day follows night and night follows day, there will be another Spring, followed by another Summer and so on and so on...confirming always that time truly does keep on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future...but Port Waikato will always be forever beautiful.

Mirror Mirror On The Wall..

I've got this hand mirror and I think it's a little over 100 years old. Silver backed, the glass itself is a little worn around the edges now but it still throws back one's reflection very clearly. It belonged to my beautiful Nanny Ada - she passed away in 1966 and it came into my possession after my Mum passed away in 2010. I know it was part of a set, there was a hairbrush with it as well but I don't know what happened to that. They both use to be on my Nanny Ada's dressing table.
I could spend forever talking about my Nanny Ada - she was truly one of those rare and beautiful human beings who touch our lives with magic when ever we were with them...I miss her always.
This morning I was having a great granny - great mokopuna chat with my 3 month old great grand daughter Sapphire and I took the mirror out of the cloth I have it wrapped in to let her see her reflection. As her eyes fixed on her image she became very quiet for a moment and then started chatting away in her baby chat. As I moved the mirror to the left or to the right - or raised it over her - her eyes followed it everywhere - and all the time she would chatter away.
In that small moment as I watched her, I thought how many other faces had looked out from that mirror over the last century....and just for a moment felt rather than saw a shadow of a smile from long ago and knew my mokopuna was not chatting to herself. That was a moment to treasure.

http://wandarap2005.blogspot.co.nz/

Growing Old Is Personal - To Me!

It's not even remotely funny this growing old thing. Ageing gracefully?...Pah! There's no choices left as to the way one wants to grow old - and one can delude oneself that it's a manageable process but it's not!.
I mean, there's all this happy happy joy joy thing with being the sweet little ol' gran whose grandchildren adore and love to be around. Well what is that? - is that a reward for being the conduit that created that reality? Who cares? - not me!.
I have to confess to loving my gran' with a passion and I know it was returned but did I truly appreciate the person that was her? I don't think I did in the way that I should have done - been more mindful and aware of her ageing process - I was 20 when she passed away and over the years have had many regrets that there were some gaps left of my making where she was concerned.
As my beautiful Mum went through her ageing processes I took a step back, not because my love for her lessened, in fact it grew stronger but on reflection that's what she was - a mirror in which I could see myself, and I did not enjoy the view - see what I mean about not managing the process?.
I can accept that growing old is inevitable and sometimes I do think about those who passed away in their prime, still young, cut off from living a full life or in some instances even beginning one and question my angst around growing old but in all honesty - on a particularly bad dotage day - I often wonder who is luckier - me or them?
As for bad dotage days where pain becomes a constant companion, well we've added to our family....so...good morning arthritis, rheumatics, heart disease, sleep apnoea, hypertension (waves to dementia waiting in the wings) and all the rest of the whanau...Have a good day! - and I'll be struggling to do the same....and as I said in my title...my growing old is personal - to me!.