Celebrating What Truly Matters

“What truly matters….” I jotted down a few ideas and drew a circle around love and three lines to the words, my heart, my friends and my family, but how am I going to make that into a Power Whiskey competition story winning entry? Deciding to percolate story ideas, I took a shower. While washing my hair I noted we needed shampoo for my other half and that the bathroom cleaning would weather my pal’s visit tomorrow, and would probably last the dinner organised for my sister and her new fiancé.

Sitting down at my computer, I firstly made a plan and lay out the characters and stories I wanted to include in the story….but where do I start? Do I talk about recent times and expose my partner by telling the tale of mistakenly wearing one of my shoes to the pub and only noticing this by chance under the table, and organising a speedy taxi home. Or the regular threat to include his speedo style swimwear during holiday packing, which sets me screeching with laughter and only, provokes a catwalk modelling session.  

My eye is now drawn to the almost empty whiskey bottle on the counter top which is the source of his late night or evening tippling’s. Always two fingers neat with two pieces of ice. That reminds me of the drunken night my pal and I, having no mixer, thought it would be brilliant to make ice cream whiskey floats….not recommended.

I notice the breakfast and lunch dishes piling up and think that maybe the washing up will give me a chance to collect my thoughts. But I hate doing the washing up, I always soak the sink, floor and a pet hate of mine, my sleeves ends. While taking off a layer, I focused on the motivational fridge magnets my mum bought, you know the ones ‘don’t dream it, be it’, kind of sentiment, not a tribute to the ‘Rocky Horror’ chorus.

My mind now reaches back to the variety of instruments we as children were encouraged to learn and how they were rejected these one by one. But my mum is now playing guitar something she hoped we would master and that she is now truly enjoying herself. I always laugh loudly seeing her pluck the guitar strings, while committing the family to silence and asking us to identify the song, while we smothered sniggers.  

Of late, I have been cutting back trying to save money, so that’s buying less and reducing the household’s electricity use. That generally means baking at home, wearing extra layers, home invites to friends and family, and whiskey bought for himself and being saved for treats and in ‘celebrating what truly matters’.