The Spoons Book

Hello Readers.

Welcome and I DO hope you are all well.

I have a BIG treat for you all today, I have a very personal and brand new project to share with you which I started a few months back. I have shown a few sneak peeks along the way but today I am finally happy to show you the whole thing. There is a video at the end of this post with a full flip through of the book and what I have done and use to help me.

It is called The Spoons book because I have created it to preserve my Spoons Useage. The Spoon Theory was created by Christine Maserandino who has Lupus. I recommend you go and read the story in the link, it shall illuminate much about this book.





















I chose the Harry Potter story for the theme because of what it represents: Harry's battle against an unknown and insidious enemy and in the end being victorious. There is of course a bit more to it really but that is what it really boils down to.

There is also some beautiful fan art out there in the big internets.

The silhouettes are done by: GTRichardson
The beautiful book illustrations are from: Gabriel Picolo
I managed to find the marauders map too along with many of the newspaper articles from the movie from various sites and forums.

The file so far has been a wonder to create and also invaluable in the content and helping out in some dark places.

What does the future look like for you

Hello readers. 

Another video from my Youtube Channel.

I do waffle on in this one a bit but there are some gems I promise. 

Working through Depression a Little

This is my most recent video.

Dealing with Life

Hello followers.

I have been very quiet and I am sorry about this. Life has been tough the last 6 or so months and I ended up winding down on many thing in order to just manage daily tasks such as being conscious (barely) breathing and eating. 

Over the last 12 months while deal with a lot of day to day issues or pain, depression and anxiety I came to develop strategies to cope. There are days when chronic pain really wears me down and those are the days that the strategies really come in handy. I shared some of these strategies via social media which were well received by others in similar situations. 

With that in mind and my deep passion for giving assistance where I can I have started a YouTube channel called Dealing with Life.



Please share to those who you feel might benefit.

Words better said by some one else

A fellow blogger recently sent me a blog post she wrote regarding the recent spate of horrors that have occurred in the world. When they all happened and I saw news reports online (written reports as I haven't watched broadcast news in a long time out of choice) about them or caught brief glimpses of friends social media ventings. I had no words of support or wisdom or anything, I haven't for a long time now.

But sometimes someone much more eloquent with words it about to communicate this despair and hope inside.  When Kaia sent me what she had written on her blog EarthStarSpirit, it resonated with me, maybe it will with you as well. Here are her works in Look for the Helpers

Showing some Gratitude

Hi there readers.
Today I want to talk about showing and receiving gratitude. It is something some people don't do enough of and some do to much of and don't get noticed.

A few weeks ago I had a really bad pain and depression day and I posted stuff on facebook. I got a lot of supportive comments and many great and helpful suggestions. One came from a girl (should really say woman) I went to high school with and the other someone I have only met in person once MANY years ago. They both offered to help with some essential oils for me to use in my baths, which help with the pain and ache times.

I was really bold over because I cannot afford to get these oils but they are so truly helpful and SMELL sooooooooo great! I felt a little like I was taking advantage, so I felt a little present for each of them would be in order. Then I had to figure out WHAT kind of present!
I came across my jewelry making stuff and whipped these up for them. It didn't cost me anything except time and they both got a love unique custom gift.

Again Thank you both for your help.

The Bass of Doom

Hello All. This post has been in the making for a few years and is a story that is more than 20 years old.

 

The story of the Bass Guitar of Doom starts in a country far from Australia more than 20 years ago, by a young man starting a band, my brother. Not satisfied with having just a stock standard bass guitar, he pulled it apart, stipped it and repainted it and then created a very personal handpainted design on the body and neck of the guitar. He also have plans for the knobs however the world we lived in had other plans for us. The family was to leave South Africa in 1994 which put a big pause on any work to be done on the project.

The Bass guitar was put into a container and shipped with all of our other house hold items to Australia. It arrived here in Perth, Western Australia mid 1996 [I think], and it was put into a corner and left.

The bass was passed to an ex boyfriend of mine in 2001, as he wanted to start playing, which I had no idea about. While visiting another friend one evening in Perth around 2004, he made a point of wanting to show me this really cool bass guitar my ex had given him. Intrigued I sat quietly while the friend ran off to another room and brought out a guitar cover that look VERY familiar. It was a homemade denim bag, and I realised I knew who made the bag! Now I was very curious, and my friends excitement had built to fever pitch with him bouncing around and jigging while he opened the bag. When he revealed the bass guitar I just stood there looking at the guitar smiling, all I said was, “yeah, my brother painted that back in South Africa." The friend was a little deflated by this news as you would expect. I got hold of my brother and told him the funny story which is found rather amusing. he was also surprised that the bass was still around.

I lost track of that friend for a few years and in 2008 when we caught up again, I asked if he still had the guitar. He told me he had given it to a mate of his,  who I knew through others in Perth.  The surprise was finding out that the new owner was in a band with a good friend of my brothers. I was able to track down the current to hopefully get a few shots of the guitar for historical purposes.

The day we arrived to take some photos of the guitar, and the owner at the time ended up returning the guitar to Danial. Saying that he felt it should go back to its rightful owner, as he wasn’t going to do much with it for a while. 

For some reason my brother is REALLY meant to have that bass guitar. He still have it too...somewhere.

The corruption of wanting to heal people.

Hello readers, another fine day to share some thing I have found for you.

It has been said for a long time that our society doesn't have a justice system but a legal system, with loopholes and twisted laws that haven't been address for centuries as times. 

The same can really be said for the medical industry. 

At it appears the foundation to both these industries would appears to be greed, agenda and reputation. I cannot work out though it is because we have allowed this to happen, or if we have just all been hoodwinked for decades and just never been the wiser to what has been happening behind the curtain. 

I recently came across an eye opening documentary called The Widowmaker which talked about the increasing epidemic of heart attacks in the USA and how two life altering breakthroughs were made in the early 1980s and how industry ended up using these two breakthroughs.

  The Widowmaker - watch the trailer from Oxford Film and Television on Vimeo.

In all honesty it is rather scary how Health Care has been come a commodity and what treatments get to the people that need it is what will make the most money for the companies developing it. Doctors are also paid by these companies to use their products and endorse them over other methods that could be just as effective and in many cases preventative for future ill health.

Then there is the argument of health cover and health insurance, which I really do not want to go into because it affects me directly at the moment. Public health resources should not be so difficult to get, it really shouldn't. Currently I have to wait 4 weeks to see an orthopedic surgeon about a serious knee injury which I was told 2 months a go would heal up fine in 4 weeks. I can't even get a second opinion because all the other orthopedic surgeons work in the private sector, which means they won't even see me if I do not have private health cover.

Health care as a commodity...

Entertainment in Animal Cruelty.

Hello readers, I trust you are all well.

Today's share it a tough one. Tough but something relevant to our current modern social climate. Animal shows as entertainment for us humans.

I recently watched Tyke Elephant Outlaw and informate documentary about an African Elephant who had a mental break, killed it's trainer and then ran around Honolulu who was then shot over 80 times and finally died.  The saddest part was that no one listened to Tykes trainer who 13 months prior said she should not be used in any shows. She was then loaded on a ship in cramped quarters for 4 days. Then she and the other elephants were chained up before and after the shows. Of course the corporate agency that owned the animals made public statements that this has never happened, which the documentary when on to show that these types of incidences did infact occur leading up to Honolulu show.

We have heard this before, we have heard this story in Black Fish which documented the history of Tilikum the Orca/Killer Whale who had killed to date 3 people, which included one of his trainers. This documentary also went as far to show the conditions that the Orcas were kept in during non show times. Of course again the corporate entity that owns the animals deny regularly any mistreatment and go as far as to say that the animals love doing the shows, this sentiment was also expressed in the documentary about Tyke the elephant. At which point you have to ask your self, if a self aware animal - human or otherwise - was locked up all day, made to do trick and wear a party hat would they be happy to live that life?

Human slavery was abolished many years ago but we are still deluding ourselves that we can own "lesser" species.  What gives us the right? What gives us the right to train horses, and dogs to race to human greed? 

The most deplorable of all the corporate arguments was the attitude that these animals were being saved from extinction by capturing them and putting on shows for audiences. The shows were educational and allowed the people there to see the shows what these animals are like in the wild. What a joke! 

For the last 6 years I have also come to a realisation that with all our modern invention we still have zoos, holding animals in captivity for humans to gawk at. Animals should not be held captive at all. They are not here for our entertainment or pleasure, but rather their very own existence to be carried out of their own choosing.  For decades now I have had the luxury of being able to watch some stunning documentaries on a variety or animals in their habitats, many of which have been Attenborough BBC shows. 

My personal beliefs do also extend to having pets for myself. While I understand that many people want pets and feel the need for companionship. Working dogs on farms are a different matter, just to be clear. I get upset when I see pets becoming depressed because their human/s have gone away. I personally believe I could not put an animal through that kind of distress for my own selfish desire to have subservient companionship. Please do not think that I judge other on my personal beliefs as I do not.

I will conclude this post with a positive note. For the last few months I have been following a particular instagrammer who at first I just thought put up wonderful videos and photos of big cats. After a while I started to actually research the foundation that the photos and videos were from. Black Jaguar White Tiger. It is incredible what Eduardo Serio has been doing. He has such a passion for rescuing these big cats from hotels, petting zoos, circus shows, etc. Then I found information about the efforts he is going to, to end captive animals Mexico. The foundation is building a sanctuary for these animals to live out their days. 

Recurring Miscarriage of Justice.

Hello readers and welcome to some thing I have found that I wish to share.

Over the last few weeks I have been making my way through some documentaries that some me very worried and disappointed with society at large.

I have been interested in criminology for a very long time and have watched and read a lot of information on serial killers to your one time killers.  Most of the documentaries I have watched have been the account of the crime and the killer's mental state, alone with the subsequent punishment of the crime committed. Lately, however, many documentaries that I have come across have been about the false incarceration of someone who did not do the crime.

An Unreal Dream: The Mike Morton Story
The Central Park Five
Making a Murderer
Stories from Death Row
West Memphis Three
Death By Fire

It is disturbing that with all our science and irrifutable evidence that is discovered and authenticated by specialists that appeals courts and other law agencies deny wrongfully convicted men their chance of freedom again and again. The system needs to change in a massive way.

 

Gremlins

When you hear the word Gremlin you think of the 1984 movie with furry creature that you don't get wet and do not feed after midnight. In fact the Gremlins were created in 1943 by the talented Roald Dahl for Walt Disney. The story was created to be a feature length animated movie but it got scrapped.

I was able to get hold of some of the figures.



I really wish the this Gremlins story had of been made, because it looks like it would have been wonderful. It is however wonderous that the figures were actually made.
There are more to the collection which I found on line but I liked these ones the best.