REMEMBRANCE DAY
OF KIN - LEAP STORIES
Today, I am posting on the blog a day early. Why? I am super lucky to be featured on Of Kin - Leap Stories. A big thank you to Domini Marshall and Kylie Lewis whom I met last year at Life InStyle in Melbourne, when instantly connected and we got talking and after 12 months from our initial meeting I'm really humbled by the support from Kylie and Of Kin to feature as one of the Of Kin Leap Stories.
Thank you my lovely ladies!
O
xx
The following is a portion from the Of Kin website. To read the full story click in the link below:
http://ofkin.com/the-leap-stories-67-olga-grueva/
Full-time employee. To full-time freelance designer. Back to full-time employee with a side gig. Throw in several redundancies and a life-threatening accident, and you’ve got several leaps in all sorts of directions. So is the story of Olga Grueva, founder of family tree digital printing business, The Family Tree Co.
We’re big on family and kin around these parts. And many leap takers call on their family to help them make the jump. In Olga’s case, it was a 12-month bed-ridden recovery requiring the full care of her family that crystallised what was important, and inspired her to create customised, archival quality, bespoke, framed family tree prints to honor her loved ones.
Olga’s story reminds me of some wise words I once heard from Martha Beck while speaking at Oprah’s 2011 O You live event. You may have noticed that in reporting leap stories, I’m not an advocate of ‘following your passion’. But in this talk, Martha reminds us that passion originally meant suffering: it’s derived from the latin word ‘pati’ which means suffer. She points that we know all about the passion of things that give us joy. But she also calls us to look at the other side of passion – that of which we have suffered and survived, as a way to tap into a hot track to our passion:
“Think of the worst thing you ever suffered and healed from, the worst thing you survived and got better. If you knew that what you will do in your life will ease that same suffering for other people who are experiencing that same painful experience; if you knew your life would heal them, how many of you would feel good about that?
The place where you will find the clearest track of your passion is where those two things meet. Think about how you can apply the things you love to do (like photography or teaching) to something in the world that is hurting the way you once were hurt… I guarantee you this if you put those two things together… there are so many people who are looking for that kind of help and so many ways to exercise your passion, that if you combine joy and healing and put them together you will find the track to something that may not even exist yet.”
Through her joy of designing and her physical suffering Olga found her track, and in the process created something which didn’t exist before now. That’s a mighty leap.
To get your family tree in time to put it under your Christmas tree, place your order by Wednesday 23 November, and show your kin some love.
Olga’s resilience to keep getting back up over and over when life has knocked her down is a reminder that we are never done in creating our life, and that our suffering can be the start of something beautiful for the world.
Lovingly,
Kylie xx
p.s. Don’t forget, to have your family tree in time for Christmas, order by 23 November!
The post The Leap Stories #66: Olga Grueva appeared first on OF KIN.
A KIDDIE HALLOWEEN
Growing up and today I’m not one for dress ups. I think it stems from my mother being too busy to do anything kiddie. I had always wanted to dress up as a little kid a roam the streets with the other kids. I think I even did some years, all purely based on the idea that you knocked on a door said “trick or treat”, thinking you got candy straight up
without understanding I had just asked “trick” or “treat”. Trick what trick I had not tricks.
There may have been the off occasion where I may have dressed up as my mother for her to only find out later. The smudge of chocolate on her favorite dress was sure not going to unnoticed. Who was I kidding anyway?
I love seeing this time of year and all the little kiddy outfits popping up, and image of the kiddilie winks dressed up.
On the blog today we showcase Cotton On and the range of kids clothing inspiration for the Halloween celebrations.
Click on the link for some last minute purchases if you’re running behind schedule, and the bonus is all the dress me up ranges start from $5.00
goo.gl/xQImmK
Have a spooky night kids.
Love
O
x
Disclaimer: this is not a paid post, I just love the outfits.
TOP 10 BABY NAMES FOR 2016
MONOGRAMMED FOR ALL OCCASIONS
OH TO BE LAUDER ROYALTY
A SWEET START
Hi, my name’s Olga and I’m a chocoholic, there I said it.
Yes, I am one of those people that could eat chocolate for breakfast, lunch and dinner, gosh even cooking chocolate looks good at 2 am in the morning.
I don’t know where my addiction to chocolate started, what I do remember is being in primary school and we were given individual tasks of cooking a sweet treat. Guess what I got Chocolate Crackles. Colour me happy did I hear chocolate.
For the rest of the day all I heard was chocolate, chocolate, chocolate.
Now here’s what’s wrong with this task clearly, my 6-year-old self-had no idea about.
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Judging my by surname my parents are not Australian born
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I wasn’t a contestant on Junior Masterchef actually, it didn’t even exist back then, I’d never cooked a thing beside toast. Push a button and wholah !
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The look on my mothers face when I said we have to make Chocolate Crackles was a Mastercard commercial - priceless.
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My parents could barely speak English let alone cook some dish they couldn't pronounce. “What is them Chocolate
Krakles?” “What do you do with these?”. Eat them that’s what you do with them.
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Parents offer to make some European delicacy as a replacement - yeah cos that so going to win every 6-year-old over at school. Was my name not weird enough!
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Mum refuses to make them (insert visual of a small child with a bowl haircut kicking, screaming and a bucket load of tears, I was the perfect child really). Well makes sense when she has no idea what this child of her’s is asking in the first place. This is a common theme growing up, that blank look of, what on earth is this child talking about! It's still there today. I’m sure she thinks where did she go wrong with this one.
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I had no idea what Chocolate Crackles were either. All I heard was chocolate.
Brainwave, next door neighbour is a Girl Guides leader, after a persisting doorbell ring I had a handwritten recipe in my hot little sweaty hands on the proviso I would join GG’s (Girl Guides) as I called it, and yes I did join only because I got to make stuff. I was like Charlie from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory I had my golden ticket.
In 48hrs I had thrown a few tantrums, almost broken the next door neighbours doorbell, joined girl guides and manipulated my dad to buy all the ingredients to make my Chocolate Crackles.
So the kid with the weird name and European parents goes to school with wonky looking Chocolate Crackles and an addiction to chocolate continues.
In all things caring is sharing, please see the recipe for Chocolate Crackles below, who said you had to be a kid to enjoy Chocolate Crackles. And for those that are not chcolahilics, the Anya Hindmarch Rice Bubbles-esk clutch is warrant enough to purchase to hold onto those childhood memories.
CHOCOLATE CRACKLES
Ingredients:
4 cups Kellogg's® Rice Bubbles®
1 cup icing sugar
1 cup desiccated coconut
3 Tbsp cocoa
250g copha®* chopped In a large bowl, mix the Kellogg's® Rice Bubbles®, icing sugar, cocoa & coconut. Slowly melt the copha® in a saucepan over a low heat. Allow to cool slightly. Add to Rice Bubbles mixture, stirring until well combined. Spoon mixture into paper patty cases and refrigerate until firm.
Thanks for reading our second blog post, I’m really looking forward to sharing more things about myself, family, celebrations, nostalgia.
– Check out that bowl haircut
– Neat handwriting for the creative child who barely knew how to spell Chocolate Crackles.
– Look at me sharing, pretty proud as punch.
Disclaimer: This was not a paid post by Kellog’s, Mastercard, Junior Masterchef of Girl Guides. Girl Guides kinda rocked anyway, I still have my uniform.
Thanks and much love.
O x