The rain makes the garden even more beautiful =)

I love how the garden and all the plants look after the rain. All the raindrops on the leaves and flowers.

I love all the different flowers, foliage and textures within my garden too. It’s fascinating 🙂

I’ve been playing with the macro feature on my camera too. Makes a difference to just taking snaps on my phone camera.

Blessings are in abundance, if you notice them.

I love the Spring weather in this beautiful part of the world I am blessed to live in.

Spring is probably my favourite time of year. I used to love all the cherry blossom trees in the country I previously lived in. Here, the jacarandas are stunning! And purple – one of my two favourite colours. I’ll no doubt start taking pics of them soon. I love taking photos of everything, all the beauty around me. It helps me to be very mindful of the moment, of the beauty, of what God has blessed us with. Helps me focus on good and be thankful for all the good.

My children are happy souls. My garden is looking lovely. My veggies are growing. The sun is shining. I have some peace and quiet for an hour now, before I go meet a lovely friend for coffee.

Life is good.

The perfect day :D

Had such a lovely day today – and I am truly thankful for all the good days I have now.

Started off with beach yoga, which was amazing. My husband and children came with me and they played on the beach, while I attended the yoga group 😀

Then we went for breakfast and it was lovely – and yummy! 😀

My children had their first swim in the pool of the Spring/Summer 2015 season. That was lovely seeing them enjoy the pool and have so much fun 😀

Did some gardening with my husband and we planted another new area and it looks lovely. I also spotted some beautiful flowers growing in my tropical garden area. They are stunning 😀

Gardening, gardening, gardening. Thank God for gardening.

First attempts at growing lettuce.

More lettuce.

Marigolds make me smile 🙂

Propogating plants, my new gardening passion :)

Gardening has become therapy for me. In so many ways. I love it and it brings me joy. I am currently learning how to propagate plants, so that I can grow my own plants and this will cost less long term. I’ve successfully propagated succulents (so easy), agaves, and other plants.

Geraniums have a special significance for me, due to many holidays in Spain, Greece – where geraniums grow abundantly. I can’t afford to go back to these countries, so I’m bringing a little Spain and Greece into my own garden.

Had a lovely few days away. A much needed family break that reminded me how blessed I am.

Had a lovely few days away with my children and husband. It was needed and as we haven’t had a holiday this year, we made the most of these couple of days.

It was beautiful weather, the sky was so blue, the beaches were beautiful and it was a good mix of busy and relaxing.

I love taking photos, so I have a gazillion! Okay, maybe more like 400.

I am blessed, and life can be as wonderful as it can be horrendous. I am aware of that and I do try continually to keep focussed on the beauty and blessings around me.

My beautiful boys, my biggest blessings ❤ ❤

Self Care, Boundaries, Balance….. I constantly have to remind myself.

Self care is something I only embraced within the last few years. Prior to that, my life was a continual unawareness of self care, having never been shown it in the first 20 years of my life. Instead being abused continually, in severe ways.

Now I am aware of self care, boundaries, balance – those terms/concepts/behaviours that can be so alien to many severe, prolonged child abuse survivors, who grew in toxic homes.

I don’t beat myself up about this constant reminder process for self care anymore. I have increasing self compassion. I accept it is an ongoing process, and when I do okay at it… I am glad. When I don’t do okay, I just remind myself gently what I need to be doing instead. I’m getting better at being nice to myself.

How I feel when I am alone, in my yard/garden…. free, happy, joyful :)

I have created a life for myself, within my life…… where I can enjoy my alone time, I crave and I need it.

It is where I feel most at peace, feel freedom, feel content, feel happy, feel joy.

I feel light in my life …….. I have never known before.

I feel Jesus’ presence ~ right beside me and God’s love shining down on me.

❤

Fab quality family time, and my fun happy me, is definitely back :)

Yesterday, it was my youngest son’s Birthday treat at his favourite putt putt golf. My boys all love golf and this particular place we go to for special occasions, is really lovely. They have cool music playing and it adds to the fun side of it 🙂

I like to encourage activities to do for special occasions, rather than just material things/presents, and as we have no family, it’s just the 4 of us.

We had lots of fun, as always and I took lots of pics, and will make up a big collage of the best pics, and put it up on the wall.

I am focussing on making fun times, really enjoyable for my family, encouraging their fun, happy side….. because my husband is a grumpy old man, my 12 year old has teenage hormones – which are not fun, and my 5 year old is picking up on all that.

So despite the fact that my husband did something really irritating, selfish and dishonest (not unusual) just as we were leaving….. I chose not to allow that to piss me off for long and focussed on having fun – for my children ……. and it was fun! 🙂

After the golf, we went to our favourite restaurant for dinner and had yummy food, which we all enjoyed and my son exclaimed it was the “best day ever!!!”

I indulged in two Long Island Iced Tea’s… while we were enjoying our meal. Alcohol, is still one of my issues and I am aware of that, and it has increased a bit, since coming off all medications …. but…. it made me even happier and a little silly (appropriate), which my children enjoyed. And my children thought I was drinking coke.

Pics from my gardens :)

My gardens ~ are part of my healing journey ~ in many aspects 🙂