The mystery of 2023 hangs around, outside our knowledge. We can imagine, guess, hope, perhaps even dread what’s to come next. One thing we know: life is uncertain. In the past, I’ve made hopeful predictions about what a new year will bring, and how I’ll face and shape it. I recognise that often I’ve been …
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This morning, WordPress announced that, in the last couple of days, my blog had reached one-hundred-thousand hits since it began. No wonder I’m doing a happy dance. This is a cause for celebration! I had no way of knowing, apart from what would have been a very tedious exercise of counting the hits manually, that …
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To receive a Carer Allowance in Australia, a person must provide additional daily care and attention to someone because they either have a disability or a severe illness or are frail aged. There is no asset test, but both the carer and the person cared for must have a taxable annual income of less than …
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My binge reading habit started a long time ago. More accurately, it began when I first fell in love with the Canadian author, L.M. Montgomery. The habit resurfaced recently when I discovered the amazing author, Elizabeth Strout. I’ve written about her and why I love her writing here. Definitions of binge reading include ‘the act …
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Our Christmas traditions are tumbling into place and today we celebrate the first Sunday of Advent, the season of preparation for Christmas. Although we seem to be sticklers for tradition, it often amazes me that my family gets everything done. An outsider might say we’re not very organised. Someone kinder, like a doting mother, grandmother, …
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A human parainfluenza virus (HPIV) illness recently caused havoc in our house. One of My husband’s relatives called it a ‘power virus’ and indeed so it seemed. Not Covid-19 or any of its variants. Not the dreaded influenza virus. But a nasty little bug that, for most people, causes the symptoms of a common cold …
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Science suggests we’re 42% percent more likely to achieve our goals if we write them down in long-hand, share them with someone, and review them regularly. Forty-two percent seems an amazing figure, so it may well be worth trying these tips if you’re not in the habit of writing down what you hope to be, …
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Birthday thoughts swirl on the eve of my eighty-fifth, the centre of my nineth decade. First, being eighty-five is much better than the alternative, as my dear Dad used to say in his later years. Second, it happened very quickly. My childhood sometimes seems like yesterday. And it’s only a few years ago that I …
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Kitchen gadgets, on the whole, don’t excite me. As someone trying to live peacefully as a minimalist, I find gadgets complicate my life. Sometimes, Luddite might best describe me and my life-style. My relationship with phone, laptop and earphones tests my patience. But every now and then a hankering after something that other people have …
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Ten-year guarantees no longer interest me. Or at least nowhere as much as they once might have. My interests are different now. But twice in the past few days, goods have been offered with a TYG. That got me thinking about life as an octogentarian. In ten years, I may no longer be interested in …
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