Silver lining of childless life / Belissima Sicilia

Do you see the photos above? This is for me true silver lining of childless life. Having flexibility to travel.

I found out very last minute that I can go to Sicily on a business travel and so I went. I returned home yesterday. My time for sightseeing was very limited, but it was awesome, I enjoyed every minute of it.

I am attaching some photos. Some beautiful photos are missing, since I didn't have time to take them. Photos of fresh and delicious fruits that I bought on market. Photos of very sweet sweets (I love sweets, but Sicilian sweets are too sweet for me). And also poor and dirty streets 15 minutes away from Unesco city centre. 

I visited a church of Saint Agatha. As usual, I sat down and prayed. And then I made a wish. Not that long ago, my wish was always the same. I begged God to give us a child.

I am wiser now. When I pray, I wish health and happiness for me, my husband, my parents and all people that are close to me. I ended my prayer with a thought: "God, when I am very very old, I really wish to look back to my life and think: This is not the life I planned, but no other life would I love to have more." 

Meet Elaine, new blogger who writes about life after infertility

Do you remember what I wished for Christmas? I got many kind emails that made my December meaningful. One of them was from Elaine, here are the kind words that she wrote me:

"I am still in recovery. One of the things that help me is your blog (and other blogs). It makes me feel less alone in my struggles. That's why I want to thank you for writing about infertility. It does make a difference. For me and many other women, I am sure."

I got a new email from Elaine today, I learnt that she started to write her blog and I am happy to share the link with you:

http://www.elaineok.com/


It is in German. The ones who don't speak German, don't let the language barier to prevent you reading the blog. It is great fun to follow the blog in foreign language with the help of google translate.


Dear Elaine - wishing you all the best! And since you live a driving distance away from me, I do hope we will meet one day for a coffee somewhere.

100,000th pageview

My blog reached  100,000 pageviews today.

My dear readers - thank you for reading me (since it is no fun to write if nobody reads and nobody comments). Writing helped me a lot.   It is wonderful to connect with soulmates from around the globe. It is lovely not to feel alone.

Memories

I recently got an invitation from my cousin to attend her son's 4th birthday party. And some months ago I got an invitation to her daughter's 6th birthday party. I didn't go. I never did. Which means that there were already 8 kids parties that I skipped. I just couldn't attend. It is too hurtful to be in a room together with 10 other couples that all have kids. Except us.  

My cousin knows I will not attend. What I love about her is that she still invites. She doesn't delete me from her invitations guest lists as majority of other people.

I don't want to be an aunt who buys expensive gifts. I want to be an aunt who invites for adventure days. On Saturday, I invited the boy for a train ride to our capital. As soon as his sister heard about the invitation she wanted to join as well... so I invited her as well.

It was a lovely morning. We went for a walk. Visited a beautiful church. Attended kids' workshop outside. Went for an ice cream. Went to an awesome park for kids.

I took plenty of photos. Since my new plan is that for each niece & nephew I will make for his /her next  birthday a  special photo book, with photos that include moments with me.

Perhaps these future  4 photos books are my way of preventing fading memories.