Tonight's post is coming to you from Ballina. That's right, Ballina. Turns out that mum's weekend suddenly freed up yesterday, and since we've been planning to take a road trip to see (great)Uncle Doug for almost a year now, she proposed an impromptu weekend trip. With so much going on, I unfortunately couldn't take any time off work, but at 5:30pm this afternoon, I shut the computer, threw some things in an overnight bag and was out the door by 5:45pm to head over and pick up mum. (We left Dad trying not to look tooo excited about the prospect of watching his football DVDs on the couch all night :)
It's an 8 hour drive to Kempsey in NSW where Doug and Ella live, so we did 2 hours tonight (hence the stop in Ballina), then we'll do six hours tomorrow morning and spend the afternoon/evening and Sunday morning with Doug and Ella (we're hoping to transcribe a bunch of the fabulous life stories that Doug has bursting out of his head), and then we'll drive home Sunday afternoon/evening. It's a lot of driving! But Dad kindly burned all of the conference sessions onto CD for us (old school, I know, but I can't figure out how to get it onto my iphone), and we're really looking forward to listening to them.
So here's what's wonderful about my life for today's post: How amazing is it that we get to live in a time and place where we can MAKE a round trip journey like this in just a weekend? I know people moan about crime, and disease and global warming. But I love living 'now' (even if I do kind of yearn for the music and fashions of the 30s and 40s, which were awesome. Though with the depresssion and the world war, I guess it's not really a fair trade. But I digress....)
I'm grateful for cars, airconditioning, medicines and doctors who know more than medievel doctors did (I read a book recently about life in London in the 1,400s - and if I'd gotten sick back then, I think I'd rather have died in my freezing little mud hut than risk the 'skill' of a doctor with very strange notions!). I'm grateful for computures, and the internet, and google and wikipedia. I love Emails and blogs. I love airoplains and movies and phones, and music that can be enjoyed even when it's not being performed live. I love that my iphone always knows exactly where I am, and that the flashing blue dot can direct me to wherever I need to go (you rock, iphone!). I think it's wonderful that we books are everywhere, and that in today's world you can instantly know about things that are happening on the other side of the world. I love that within a day or two I could be on the otherside of the world!
You know, if I had no financial committments and a bundle of money sitting the bank...
But still!
xo Tammy
6 comments:
YAY!! Im the first!!
YAY you for the impromptu weekend away - and well done for being firm in leaving work at a reasonable time :)
Travel safely :)
Hope you have a nice trip. Sounds like a good thing you are doing. Enjoy the time away :)
Love Jessima
Oh my goodness, you only have to drive an extra 5 hours and you can visit me!!!!!
Call in sick on Monday and come see me instead :)
Have a fun weekend away!!! And remember, you're in a different time zone now :P
Love you both. Hope you have the most FABULOUS time!
:) :) :) xoxoxoxoxo
Mum here!
Ha ha Bethany - we had completely forgotten about the day light savings difference. We were at the reception desk last night at 9:30pm and were feeling really good about it until we realized their clock said 10:30!
Tammy, you've painted the wrong picture of dad there. Yes, he will watch the football on TV, but he'll hardly see it through his tears for missing his wife. Seriously.
Tammy, couldn't agree with you more about this one, I think about this every day. That the lives we have are so much easier and more blessed materially and in so many ways, than the lives that most people upon the earth have lived. When I think of all the blessings and benefits that I have in my life - freedom, peace, educational opportunities, technological life benefits etc. etc. I can't help but think that I'm probably in the top half a percent of people most blessed, of all those who've ever lived upon the earth.
It's a responsability to try and live up to those kinds of blessings, since you know that it's not you who deserves the blessings more than anyone else - but just that you happen to have them.
(Tammy is typing this for me and it's amusing how much she's complaining that I'm making a much longer comment than I normal do. She points out [rightly so, I might add mum! lol!)] that comments are much more fun to read than to write. I'd also like to point out that any spelling mistakes in the above are not my fault [can you believe the cheek of this woman!] lol :)
xoxo Mum
Lol I love how everyone's busy talking about you enjoying the trip, and nobody seems to have noticed how awesome plumbing, electricity and long distance travel not involving boats are!! :) But I am WITH you (well actually since you up and leave with Mama I'm actually not...but I definitely concur)!! I often read books written ages ago and think how wonderful it would have been to have lived then, doing those things!! But then I imagine them walking (yes, always - walking!) home at the close of the day, and what? Like, sponge bathing and not brushing their teeth before bed? Trying to brush their hair that has never before met nice shampoo or conditioner?? And then I'm grateful that I live now, even if there are downsides as well! :) Plus, we'd all live too far away from each other to see each other more than like, once a year!! lol xox
I am so, so grateful for cars, airplanes, email, Skype, and air conditioning. How did people survive before all of these great inventions? :) Glad you were able to get away for a weekend with your Mum to see your uncle!
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