Sally's World

Oh my, a friend of mine sent me this, she thought I’d enjoy it, bearing in mind my recently acquired addiction to blogging.

I got the kids to bed, climbed in the bath, turned to page one and started reading, I read the whole thing in one go, I only stopped to top up the water as it had gone cold and to tell Dave to go away…he kept banging on the door to ask me why I was laughing!

The Author describes the blogging addiction quite well, and has a great voice, her sense of humour, whilst being a bit near the mark at times, is great. I’ll look out for the next one….

The book
I feel like a failure. It's now been 351 days since I had sex. That's a carnal drought. If Bob Geldof knew about it he'd hold a concert.

Sarah Sargeant has been single for three years and nine months. She has just spent five months plucking up the courage to ask out a balding man with a paunch who works in her local pub. The gentleman in question informed her that he would rather stay in and watch the "Narnia" movie on DVD. Her pride has not just been bruised, it's been disembowelled. And she vows it's the last time she will ever reach out to a member of the opposite sex. But her family and friends have other ideas. They enter her into a reality TV show against her will, persuade her to go speed dating and even more radically, they encourage her to start a blog. Suddenly Sarah Sargeant is on a mission. A mission to explore 50 ways to find a lover.


About the Author
Lucy-Anne Holmes is an actress living in London. 50 Ways to Find a Lover had its genesis in Lucy's blog, www.spinstersquest.com, cataloguing her real-life love woes. She is currently working on her second novel, in which Sarah Sargeant heads to LA.

To everyone who asked to read a copy of Aaron’s book…thank you. xxx.

I put them in the post on Monday. For those people in the US, Canada and India, you may not be aware of the amazing thing we have called Royal Mail…it would probably be quicker to strap the book onto the back of a tortoise and let him make his way to you, but, as I had no tortoise to hand, I left your books safely in the hands of the Royal Mail system.

Of course, to all the British people who are waiting for a copy, they are well aware of the system and will not be expecting their books until the year 2011 anyway….

I’m kidding!

Actually, UK deliveries will be fairly quick, but the international deliveries may take up to 2 weeks.

But thank you so much for reading, I hope you love the book and enjoy getting to know Aaron, and remember, any aggressive behaviour on my part was only due to extreme stress in the face of professionals getting in my way!!! So please don’t judge me.

Take care

Sally & Aaron xxx

After losing my son Aaron I guess I had a need for answers, some sort of affirmation that it didn’t all end with our last breath. But even before that, I have always had a great interest in this type of information and have read dozens of books on the subjects of life after death and after death contact. They’ve ranged from feel good to scientific to wacky, with some truly imaginative theories offered for various experiences.

‘Love beyond life’ is a thoughtful piece of research for anyone wishing to explain a specific experience or just out of curiosity. I like the organisation of the work and the handling of the material. This book presents descriptions of the many experiences that people can have after the passing of a loved one. If you've lost a loved one and are wondering if that "weird" thing that happened to you means you've also lost your mind, you will be comforted to find that you are not only sane, but have lots of company in experiencing the Love Beyond Life of loved ones who have died. If you have not lost a loved one but are searching for answers; this book is also for you. It will make you examine what you already believe and explore new areas of thought.

Definitely worth a read.

I definitely got some piece of mind, I read ‘The Day I Died’ before this, and felt that there was some undeniable and beautiful experiences in that, but this book really depicted that feeling of love living beyond the physical.

Take care

sal xxxx

Thank you everyone for your support, for the messages/cards/e-mails/comments sent in honour of Aaron. I gained so much strength from your words.

I sent a big red heart balloon up to Aaron yesterday (red was his favourite colour).

We had a balloon release on the day we celebrated his life, it was incredible. No-one wore black, and we didn’t have flowers, we had balloons, and seeing literally hundreds of balloons of all his favourite characters, colours and of course dolphins float up into the sky, was breath taking. I’m sure some people though it was a little mad, with his white horse drawn carriage, his casket hand painted with dolphins, everyone in their brightest clothes and craziest hats (another thing he loved…mad hats), and dozens of cars following with balloons hanging out the windows…but he would have loved that. We even finished the night with fireworks, a huge dolphin shaped Aaron which stopped traffic and caused chaos!!! Perfect.

And for those of you who didn’t know Aaron you are right, he is an incredible child, and an amazing spirit.

I don’t know if you all know but I did write a book about Aaron and our lives together, the fights, the struggles, the love, the laughter, the madness!!!

It started off as just me sitting at the computer for hours on end because I couldn't sleep and writing everything down, it was as if I was terrified to forget the tiniest thing about our lives together..and it just grew, and the more people that read it and were inspired, or laughed, the more I realised it was a way of leaving a legacy for Aaron. He taught us so many lessons, there was a chance for him to teach more and more people.

If you would like to know more about Aaron and what we all went through, then please let me know, I’d be more than happy to send you a copy of Aaron’s book. Although it may be hard to get through in places, I can promise it will still inspire, and still make you laugh in places. Aaron’s spirit shines through and really teaches us all something about love and determination!


You can e-mail me through my profile, I look forward to hearing from you.

Here are a few or Aaron's favourite hats...

The Jester (perfect for Aaron)..not everyone can pull off a hat like this!

AH, not quite a hat...but Aaron tried it on for size anyway!

His absolute favourite..Aaron the Viking, this always drew a few looks as cars pulled along side us!

He even fashioned a few of his own!

A more sophisticated look!

Dream analysis!

A friend of mine bought me a dream symbol book for my birthday. I’ve been sleeping a bit more lately, so, as I am now asleep long enough to experience this phenomenon of dreaming, I thought maybe I’d take a look and see what the book says.

Personally I am a firm believer that our dreams are our thoughts/fears/emotions of the day/recent events unwinding. But hey, what do I know, the guy that wrote this book's got a PhD, a BSc and about thirty thousand other qualifications; so he must know something…right?

First I flicked through the book and was a little surprised to find that about seventy percent of anything in our dreams is actually sexually significant…hmmm!

e.g.
Dome…sexual symbol,
Ice…frigidity,
Obelisk…phallic symbol,
Goat…male sexuality,
Spilling liquid...sexual addiction???
Riding…desire for sex,
River…flow of sexuality,
Pole…phallic symbol,
Policeman…sexual emotions,
Ram…sexual symbol…the list goes on, and on, and on.

However; orgy, funnily enough means breaking out of an old habit, and actually dreaming about sex means you are balanced.

So I ploughed on regardless and decided to analyse last nights dream!

It all makes complete sense to me now???!!!????

I’m a frigid sex addict with anger issues, an over passive nature and aggressive tendencies, I am, it seems, a timid person with an abundance of confidence. I will be getting a promotion at work (a miracle in itself seeing as I work for myself…by myself, I can always promote myself to be my own boss I suppose), and I'll be meeting a new man very soon…for the love of god! Where ever will I find the time between all the passive aggressive, submissive anger tantrums, and not forgetting all the sex!!!!

Confused…maybe!

And there I was just thinking that dreaming about clearing the path of snow and making hot chocolate and spilling it, while the children built a snowman, then dreaming about housework and bills, was just the events of the day unwinding.

I learnt a lot! I wonder if he paid good money for that PhD???

Good grief!

I recently saw this book and felt that I just had to buy it. As a lifelong ‘over thinker’ it seemed perfect for me. I spend hours laying awake at night, over analyzing everything, making metal lists, wondering how to improve things in my home and the world, worrying that something I may have said or done might have hurt someone else…so this book seemed like something I could relate to.

I wasn’t disappointed.

It is an impressive book, with a lot of research into how and why women overthink just about everything.

I need to get my husband to read it now, he might just understand me a little bit better and stop telling me to “just switch off/just relax/chill out/let it go, and my personal favourite…don’t worry about it until you have something to worry about.”

I think I learnt a lot about myself reading this book.

Will it cure my insomnia, my over analytical nature…maybe not straight away, but I’ll try what she suggests and see where it takes me!

Take care

Sal xxxxxxxxxx

“Groundbreaking research . . . Women Who Think Too Much tells why overthinking occurs, why it hurts people, and how to stop.” —USA Today

It’s no surprise that our fast-paced, overly self-analytical culture is pushing many people—especially women—to spend countless hours thinking about negative ideas, feelings, and experiences. Renowned psychologist Dr. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema calls this overthinking, and her groundbreaking research shows that an increasing number of women—more than half of those in her extensive study—are doing it too much and too often, leading to sadness, anxiety, and depression. She challenges the assumption—heralded by so many pop-psychology pundits of the last several decades—that constantly expressing and analyzing our emotions is a good thing.

In Women Who Think Too Much, Nolen-Hoeksema shows us what causes so many women to be overthinkers and provides concrete strategies that can be used to escape these negative thoughts, move to higher ground, and live more productively. Women Who Think Too Much will change lives, and is destined to become a self-help classic.

“The question of whether Nolen-Hoeksema is onto something was slam-dunked by the ‘I know exactly what she means’ reactions of women who caught sight of the title.” —The Washington Post

“A must read for any woman who has ever felt stuck in her life, and any man who has been confused by why the women they love get so ‘caught up thinking’ they can’t enjoy life. Nolen-Hoeksema offers practical methods to self-diagnose and pathways toward greater emotional freedom.” —William S. Pollack, Ph.D., author of Real Boys, Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard University

Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. She received her B.A. from Yale University and her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Her award-winning research has been funded by major grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Science Foundation, and several private foundations. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with her husband and son.

Seeing as tomorrow is the day of Barack Obama’s inauguration, it seemed fitting to talk about his book "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" which I originally bought for Dave for Xmas, but somehow managed to get my hands on it first.

I found the book to be an inspiring story about some of the different influences and events that helped to shape Barack Obama into the man he is today. It was written almost ten years ago now, so you are left wanting the next installment as it were. Barack openly discusses trying to come to grips with his racial identity; he speaks about a period of rebellion that included drug us and a party lifestyle.

He talks of his love of political science and becoming a community activist in Chicago. Obama is candid in his account of the racism, poverty and corruption in Chicago. The book ends in 1995 when he enters Harvard Law School, and provides a great insight into Obama's history up to that point.

As a mum myself, I would have loved him to spend a little more time writing about his mother and the influence her side of the family has had on him. This is something Obama acknowledges and expresses regret over in the preface. He talks about his mother’s help with the book even though she was ill, giving us a glimpse of the strong woman had to have been to have raised the man she did.

Obama also talks of traveling to Kenya to try and understand his father's past. He talks of his time in Kenya and how he discovered a nation with forty tribes, each of them with stereotypes of the others. I found this to be quite powerful and emotional.

This book is a very worthwhile look into the personal background of the new US President. I would recommend it, and now my son, Jordan is reading it. Dave will manage to get his hands on his present soon I should think!

Thank you for your e-mails through the book site. And thank you to all the people clicking on and buying Aaron’s book, I’m very happy that more and more people are getting to know him.

And to answer your questions…

“Yes I am writing fiction too.”

“I find the time at night usually; when everyone else is sound asleep in bed like normal people.”

“They are generally popular women’s fiction, humorous, with a bit of crime thrown in for good measure.”

“I have no clue where the ideas come from; I guess I have a quirky mind and a good imagination.”

“Ermmm…no I’m definitely not rich!”

I have always written stories for as far back as I can remember, I used to love English at school. As I got older there were far more important things to do, like, partying, fashionable clothes, trying out make-up and discovering boys. Then as I got older still, there were even more things to do, like working (and partying, fashionable clothes, make-up and boys).

Then of course, move on a couple of years, and there was parenting, housework, hospitals and sleepless nights. I wouldn’t have known what the fashion was if it had jumped up and bitten me on the arse, and I wouldn’t have been able to locate my make-up bag if you paid me. And believe me, if you’d have caught sight of me at times back then, you probably would have paid me to slap an a bit of blusher!!!

So writing, like all other hobbies became unimportant compared to being a mum. We were busy concentrating on the kids and making a home and family, and all my time and energy only went into that. Besides, if I ever got a moment to myself, I would have spent it sleeping I can assure you.

After Aaron passed away, I wrote his book, and I think it reminded me of how much I got out of writing. So I didn’t stop, I wrote second book for Aaron, and several novels. To me, writing is relaxing, it’s expressive, and the best bit of all, is that as a fictional character in a book; you can be whoever you want, say whatever you want, about anyone you want. It’s very cathartic.

I love to read, I read anything I can get my hands on from psychology books, to autobiographies, to historical fiction to popular women’s fiction. It’s a way of unwinding for me. And I love it if a book can make me laugh. So my aim was to write books that could do that, let someone escape real life for a while, and make them smile. It’s not life changing, change the world writing or anything, but they might change someone's mood or their day.

You can go to http://www.sallyannestephenson.com/ to read the book synopsis’s.

Happy reading,

Sal xxxx

P.S. Any likeness or resemblance when describing events and characters…is totally intentional!!!

After Aaron passed away, I found myself sitting for hours at a time going over and over everything in my head; I was trying to remember every moment of his life in the tiniest detail. People thought I was sitting grieving, staring into space, maybe just thinking about the loss, or maybe just crying, letting the tears fall, and sometimes that was the case. But really, I was trying to recall it all, I wanted it all committed to memory so solidly, because I was terrified I was going to forget something, I couldn’t bear to forget the tiniest thing about Aaron and our precious time together.

The more people that came round, the more we spoke about Aaron, and it was then that we realised that not everyone knew everything about Aaron, everyone knew Aaron at different stages of his life, so some people never knew he could walk up until he was seven, some never knew that he was born with a cleft palate, and had to have a tracheotomy to breathe after they repaired it.

So I decided, to write it all down. At first it was just for me, it was therapeutic, it gave me something tangible to hold on to and to do, it’s not like I was sleeping anyway, no matter what the doctor gave me, I couldn’t bear to close my eyes. Maybe because I knew that in that second I woke up, I was going to be oblivious, and then it would hit me like a ton of bricks all over again. So when everyone else was getting their fitful nights sleep, I sat at the computer and wrote, and wrote and wrote…and once it was down on paper, I could stop obsessing about that particular event because it was tangibly on paper.

But the more I wrote, the more I realised how inspirational Aaron is. We all know that, of course, we lived with him; I doubt I will ever meet a stronger or more determined person as long as I live. But I realised that he had so many lessons to teach others too. So it naturally progressed into a book.

I surprised even myself when I remembered everything in so much detail. And one thing I am so grateful for is that we had such a close and intense relationship. Aaron and I were inseparable, and how many mums can say they have that much quality time with their 12/13/14 year old, I know Jordan and Robyn are more independent, they hardly need me at all…but Aaron needed me, and even if at times that was hard, and exhausting, I am so glad now I can’t tell you. It means that we got to cram in far more love and quality time than most mothers and sons do.

The book is not all doom and gloom, honestly, nothing written about Aaron could be. There are some bits that are hard to get through, there are some bits that will undoubtedly make you cry, but you will laugh as much as you cry, I promise. Aaron was a character; he lived life to the max every day, and embodied the meaning of the word love. When you looked at Aaron, you saw the love shine out of him, in his eyes there was just total acceptance, and he was happy just to be with you. A true angel on earth and it’s not just me as his mum that has said that, it has been said by hundreds of people. And anyone who ever got a hug from him with never forget it, mainly because his hugs were like across between the Heimlich manoeuvre and a half nelson…but he meant them, you certainly knew he meant it as the oxygen flow was cut off and your eyeballs started to bulge.

God I miss those hugs the most. I would probably give everything I own for just one more of Aarons hugs. And I would cling on to him and cherish it, because this time I would know it would be the last one. I wonder sometimes if I didn’t cling on enough in that last hug I gave Aaron before he passed away, how was I to know it would be the last one? If I’d of known that I would have clung on and never let go.

I know Aaron book has helped lots of people, many families are gaining hope and strength form Aaron and his amazing character. The book is real and honest and it answers the questions that no-one dared ask me at the time, and since to some extent.

Trojan created a short book trailer yesterday, so if you think this is something for you, then you can find it on www.sallyannestephenson.com, Barnes & Noble or on Amazon.

I hope you enjoy it, I hope Aaron’s strength shines through to you.

Take care

Sal xxx

Today, I thought I’d tell you what we have achieved so far in such a short space of time. The video and written blogs have been raising awareness, and lots of people are e-mailing to say they are finding them very helpful. One of our main aims was to be able to reach out to people in need, and that seems to be working, so we are very proud.

The T-shirt and book sales are up by over 40% which means we have been able to put more money towards the charity.

As well as the UK, we have got readers and viewers from the USA, Spain, Greece, India, Saudi Arabia, Belize, St Lucia, Grenada, Ghana and Gambia.

What would be really good, is if you felt like you could tell your stories too, tell others what you’ve been through and how you dealt with it and coped. It’s really therapeutic, I promise you.

It would be helpful to get other peoples takes on things, for me also. So far you’ve just heard my point of view and how we’ve coped as a family, but we all have different ways of doing things, there are no rules, no rights and wrongs, but if one thing you say helps someone else, then it will be worth it.

Also it would be very interesting to see how having special needs and disabilities affects people who live in other countries with regards to education, equipment, hospital care, physio care…. the list goes on.

So if you feel you are able to share you stories or experiences, then please e-mail, or comment here. It would be great to get a sort of support network going where we can all help each other and give advice on what we know, and get advice on what we still need to learn. You can comment anonymously if you like, so you don’t have to feel any pressure.

So please feel free, and be as honest as you like (I think!!!).

Look forward to hearing from you.

Sal & Trojan x