June | 2015 | Jane Ainslie

I love these sorts of sayings. Images of hanging all your unwashed undies and dirty tea towels out in the front yard to flap around in the breeze for everyone to see. I mean really, who ever would have done that? Well, I was getting to that point, so I shouldn’t really be sniggering as I write this. Let me explain…

For a few days our washing machine had been really stinky. The pong exuding from it reminded me of all sorts of delightful nursing experiences. After a journey into Google Land, my muse decided that Oxygenated Bleach, also known as Sodium Percarbonate, was the answer.

‘Wow Jane, did it work, or did you blow up your washing machine?’ I hear you asking. Let me show you.

I filled the tub with hot water, then poured in 500 grams of the powder. It started fizzing and popping, and the air in the laundry stank. Pretty soon, weird blobs of stuff were floating in the washing water. It was an epic moment of grossness in an otherwise quite boring area of domestic duties.

This is what came out in the filter.

I don’t really feel I need to say much more about this. It was a great result from a relatively harmless substance, which breaks down into enviornmentally friendly byproducts, but kills all the grungy things in your wshing machine. I love it!

So, that’s my handy tip for this week, and if fung shui is to be believed, there will be no more airing of dirty laundry in our house.

It’s not often I actually post about writing on this blog, but today I’m super excited to say my latest novel is out and about in the world. You can find it on any of the Amazon sites, and it’s an e-book so you can get it straight away. It’s a romantic, contemporary comedy about Alice, a forty something year old nurse, whose looking for some meaning in her rather muddled life. It has loads of those gross nursing stories in it, you know, the stories you always want to hear from a nurse about objects that go places they should never be put…

I loved writing this book, and along the way it taught me a lot of things. Like patience, persistence and not listening to the negative thoughts in your head. I’ve really come to realise in the last few months, that what you tell yourself you can do, is generally what you can do.

‘I’m too scared to do that.’

‘I’m too old to do that.’

‘It’s not going to happen.’

These sort of thoughts and comments are really powerful, and as you say them to yourself, or out loud to others, they seem to come to pass. So this year, along with actually reading instructions for how to do things (and looking up destinations on maps before jumping in the car), I’ve decided to stop saying ‘I can’t’. The results have been pretty eye-opening. I can do a lot more than I thought I could. I’ve had to really drown out my own negative thoughts about life, and I’ve had a great time expanding myself. For example, my sister, niece and I went to a trampoline place the other day. They have the trampolines built into the floor, and they are separated by foam dividers also set into the floor. Everyone was bouncing from trampoline to trampoline, and I kept thinking I couldn’t do it. I managed to bounce over the divider once, but the next time I went to do it, sure enough I ended up face planting in front of a couple of ten year olds. It showed me that if I listen to those thoughts, then I am going to end up flat on my face, feeling disappointed in myself. I can’t wait to go back and give it another go, and this time I’m going to tell myself I can do it, because I actually can!

So, with that thought in mind, I’m going to continue saying ‘I can’, I’m going to pick myself up and give it a go, even if I do fall flat the first time, and I’m going to have some fun. It’s time to say ‘yes’ instead of ‘no’. Let’s see where it takes us!