My Thanksgiving

Last night, I was reading again the comments on yesterday's photos and it made me reflect about Internet. It looks to me that it is a bit like Marmite (although I never tasted it). It seems people either love it or hate it and that's true, it really works both ways.

I was thinking about our small group on 365+1 and how we let each other enter our lives, meet our loved ones, share our good and bad moments.

I think that if just for that, Internet is fantastic. We live far away from each other, sometimes in a different country, we have a different background, we could be mothers, daughters, sisters and grandmothers of each other and through this challenge, we just come together and we learn to know and care for each other. That's such a wonderful journey and experience.

Thank you to each one of you for sharing your story with me and of course a "special one" to Suzie for organizing it. I just love it !

Back to business . . .

What most impresses my parents when they come to visit is the size of trees in England, as they are much bigger than in the South of France. This is a picture of one of the tallest in the park and to give you an idea of dimension, Bubbles is the little white thing below it.

I also found something pretty interesting. My university years are far away but I think this must be a massive Lichen growing on this other tree:

Project 365+1 - Day 43: From my past

When I got this word, I was sitting at my computer in my craft room and my eyes started wondering to look on the walls around at what is a memory from past. There are certainly many things but the first one I want to share is the first I looked at because it is so special to me.

I have 2 step kids who are now almost 19 and 15 1/2. When I met them they were 5 1/2 and 9 and to say that their mum had built the wicked stepmother picture of me in their mind is the understatement of the century.

Basically, they thought I was going to beat them up and they didn't want to have anything to do with me, even not look at me. For me and my sweet ideas of "I will give these kids the best I can so they can be so happy when they visit us" , it was a massive blow in the face.

It took me several months including buckets of tears when I was alone with hubby, but I managed to make them realize that I was a nice person.

The picture below is a poem Sophie wrote for me in 2004, when she was almost 8. It came out of the blue on a saturday afternoon. She popped into my craft room and she said very proudly, I wrote something for you. It still moves me the same way when I read it.

The ink started going, but it says:

Anne's poem 25/10/04
Anne is kind and she has a brilliant mind. She is a cheer and loves Rhea, she loves doing art, but from the start, she loves reading books and looks very serious, she loves and is not bossy, she tells us to tidy our bedroom really tidy for money and is like BUGS BUNNY.
From Sophie

I loved the brilliant mind idea so I didn't question that, lol but I asked why Bugs Bunny and she said it's because I am funny and I make her laugh like him. At least it had nothing to do with my ears !!!

There are so many other things from the past I could share and I am getting so much worse at making choices, so I selected another 2.

This painting I did looks childish (I've always been a fan of Keith Haring) but it means a lot to me too.

I started smoking when I was 18 and basically tried all my life to stop, without ever managing. In 2003, we went to Quitters. I managed to stop and it will be 9 years in September.
What nobody knows, even not hubby, is that they said we needed to write down our motivation and as everybody else, I said it was my health, but it was only partly true.
In fact, Rhea was 7 months and I had read that dogs can also get lung cancer. I couldn't bear that, so my real reason for stopping was mainly her (but don't tell anybody . . .)

The last photo, I couldn't resist. I am 4 :

You can't see as it is black and white, but I wear a red anorak with hoodie and kind of fur around (just as I do when I go to the park 51 years later) and I suspect this is where the "red whale" story originated from !

Take care everybody, xxx