Contributors

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Josie Montano is grateful

I am excited about my friend Josie Montano guesting here on my blog. Josie is an author, SES volunteer (who looks quite sexy in orange overalls) and one seriously fabulous friend. We first met at the Ipswich Children’s Festival in Queensland in 2007 and since then we have had numerous ‘reunions’ in the Sunshine State for work and play. So I can safely testify to the truth of her gratefuls below, especially her love of food – because we share a love of fries and aioli and she’s great at preparing pladdas (or platters for the uninitiated). And I have to say, Josie is HILARIOUS, and being the slightly competitive one I’m going to be honest and admit sometimes it’s hard to have someone so close and so witty challenging my own comic ways. Some of you may remember we had a ball during our few days on Fraser Islander last year with The Commissioner. Some notes on our adventures are here.

I love Josie talking about her heritage and of course her family (aren't they a gorgeous bunch!), but especially her reminders to us all of the importance of recognising life’s challenges as something we can and should try to learn from. So, please welcome the lovely Josie and enjoy her generosity of spirit here.


Josie says:
When Anita asked me to write my ‘five gratefuls’ for her blog a wave of excitement overwhelmed me, even though I am generally a positive person it was an opportunity to remind myself of what I am grateful for in my life – to bring five pieces of my life out for an airing, to shine a light on them and to remind myself of what and who I am, and who and what has helped to create the pieces of my full life. And I have discovered that all my gratefuls are related, intertwined, thread from one to the other – and I have also discovered that my published works match in with my gratefuls.

What Josie is grateful for:

1. MY ITALIAN HERITAGE: I am grateful that in 1961 my father, who was all of 19, travelled for a hard month on a ship and migrated to Australia. He arrived at the Melbourne port with the equivalent of $20 and a small suitcase. A year later my mother joined him. I grew up in a small town in the Latrobe Valley, Victoria where a large group of Italians from my parents’ villages all gathered to start new lives. As a child I remember weekends were for getting together with other families, so they could all share, socialise and support each other in a country that at that stage didn’t understand their culture, food or passions.

2. LOVE OF FOOD: I do love my food, although my Italian rubenesque thighs are grumbling I truly am grateful! And this stems from my Italian heritage where food is a very important part of the culture. Wherever and whenever there is a gathering, there is very tasty food and plenty of it. I love how I get excited about food (except offal).

3.SENSE OF HUMOUR: Once again this has to come from my Italian upbringing – they are such a joyous people and so passionate. The Italians in Australia have developed their own type of culture and language – the very amusing ‘Italo-Australian’. But I would say my wit and humour has also been handed down from my father, what a character - he should have been a stand-up comic!
As a teen I didn’t see the humour in being Italo-Australian, I was embarrassed. I felt the only way to compensate for my embarrassment was to make fun of my culture. The sense of humour I cultivated now passes on through my writing, whether it be via my fiction novels for children or journal articles – I always try to entertain by weaving a little giggle into anything I write.


4.CHALLENGING LIFE EXPERIENCES: When I am in the middle of a challenging life experience I try to dig deep and pull out some of that humour to get me through. My humour drove me through a cancer journey, an early diagnosis of MS, and was there when my son was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome and for all those years ahead. I see every challenge as a learning experience, if I change the attitude of ‘why me?’ to ‘what can I learn from this?’ I find this very empowering and can pass this skill onto others as they go through their own challenges.


5.FRIENDS & FAMILY: It is easy to oversee what it is you are most grateful for as they are just ‘there’. But without my family and friends I wouldn’t have my other ‘gratefuls’ – I wouldn’t have anybody to share my love of foods with, there wouldn’t be anyone there to laugh with me or laugh at my jokes, to share my culture and heritage or to hold my hand during life’s challenges. Thank you to my best friend/husband Rob, and my two children who have now grown up to be young adults who will begin to gather their own ‘gratefuls’ in their long journey’s ahead.

You can find Josie on Facebook!

8 comments:

Kim K said...

Thanks Anita and Josie for this insight into another writer's world. Love the picture of all those sausages in the kitchen.

Sheryl Gwyther said...

Lovely girl!
Thank you to two of my favourite people - Josie and Anita - you are so inspiring and I love being in your company!
Can't wait to share a big Italiano meal with the pair of you one day!
love
Sheryl XX

Angela Sunde. said...

I'm a little teary. The family photo at the end is so joyful and full of grateful tomorrows. Bless.

Leanne M said...

Thanks Josie for sharing your list of gratefuls. As someone who has known you for a few years(really, it can't be that many?) I'm grateful for your generous spirit. Reading your gratefuls explains why that spirit is so strong in you and how it evolved.

Dr Anita Heiss said...

Hey Kim and Sheryl - I'm up for some big Italian sausage feast also, anytime!

Angela - it's a gorgeous photo isn't it. I loved it too!

Thanks so much for dropping by.

Anita xx

Josie said...

thanks so much everyone
the family photo is on the day Rob & I got married surrounded by our combined children
thanks again to the lovely Anita for giving me the opportunity to be truly grateful again and again 8-))

Josie xx

Anonymous said...

It was during my research on HIV/Herpes that I stumbled upon the Hiv/Herpes information; information which is quite easy to find when doing a search for STD on google. I was into conspiracy at the time thought of HIV/Herpes Cured' being a conspiracy was something Ignorance though,I found pretty interesting about herbal medicine. I asked questions about the Herbal cure's on official HIV/Herpes websites and I was banned for doing so by moderators who told me that I was parroting Hiv/Herpes propaganda. This reinforced my belief that there is a cure for Hiv/Herpes Then i found a lady from germany name Achima Abelard Dr Itua Cure her Hiv so I send him a mail about my situation then talk more about it and send me his herbal medicine I drank for two weeks.And today I'm Cured no Hiv/Herpes in my life,I searched for Hiv/Herpes groups to attempt to make contact with people in order to learn more about Hiv/Herpes Herbal Cure's I believed at this time that you with the same disease this information is helpful to you and I wanted to do the best I could to spread this information in the hopes of helping other people.That Dr Itua Herbal Medicine makes me believes there is a hope for people suffering from,Parkinson's disease,Schizophrenia,Cancer,Scoliosis,Fibromyalgia,Fluoroquinolone Toxicity Syndrome Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva.Fatal Familial Insomnia Factor V Leiden Mutation ,Epilepsy Dupuytren's disease,Desmoplastic small-round-cell tumor Diabetes ,Coeliac disease,Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease,Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy, Ataxia,Arthritis,Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis,Alzheimer's disease,Adrenocortical carcinoma.Asthma,Allergic diseases.Hiv_ Aids,Herpes,Inflammatory bowel disease ,Copd,Diabetes,Hepatitis,I read about him online how he cure Tasha and Tara,Conley,Mckinney and many more suffrin from all kind of disease so i contacted him . He's a herbal doctor with a unique heart of God, Contact Emal..drituaherbalcenter@gmail.com Phone or whatsapp..+2348149277967.

Anonymous said...


I am bold enough among many others to state that there is now a potent cure to this sickness but many are unaware of it. I discovered that I was infected with the virus 3 months ago, after a medical check-up. My doctor told me and I was shocked, confused and felt like my world has crumbled. I was dying slowly due to the announcement of my medical practitioner but he assured me that I could leave a normal life if I took my medications (as there was no medically known cure to Herpes). I went from churches to churches but soon found that my case needed urgent attention as I was growing lean due to fear of dying anytime soon. In a bid to look for a lasting solution to my predicament, I sought for solutions from the herbal world. I went online and searched for every powerful trado-medical practitioner that I could severe, cos I heard that the African Herbs had a cure to the Herpes syndrome. It was after a little time searching the web that I came across one Dr Itua(A powerful African Herbal Doctor), who offered to help me at a monetary fee. I had to comply as this was my final bus-stop to receiving a perfect healing. My last resolve was to take my life by myself, should this plan fail. At last it worked out well. He gave me some steps to follow and I meticulously carried out all his instructions. Last month, to be precise, I went back to the hospital to conduct another test and to my amazement, the results showed that negative,Dr Itua Can As Well Cure The Following Desease…Cancer,Hiv,Herpes, Hepatitis B,Liver Inflammatory,Diabetis,Fribroid,,Non Hodgkin Lymphoma,Skin Cancer,Uterine Cancer,Prostate Cancer Dercum,Hpv,Weak Erection,Infertility,fibromyalgia,Get Your Ex Back,Als,SYPHILLIS,Genetic disease,Epilepsy, Parkinson's disease..You can free yourself of this Herpes virus by consulting this great African Herbal Doctor via this e-mail: drituaherbalcenter@gmail.com or call and whatsapp him on +2348149277967 He will help you and his herb medication is sure. he has the cure on all disease .You can talk to me on INSTAGRAM..tashamoore219.