The week that was

Things are pretty quiet at work while we wait for the school term to begin (31 January).  We’re all taking advantage of the opportunity to get ready for the year ahead.  Tidying our work spaces, sorting files, putting systems in place, archiving old files etc.  So in the midst silent telephones and the quiet that comes with fewer staff, there is a buzz of activity.

I’m coming off a medication that I have been on for two years (nothing serious).  I no longer need it and have been gradually reducing the dose.  There are still some side effects from coming off it, not least of which is experiencing a bit of an emotional roller coaster. It’s altogether unpleasant but worth it to not be taking anything. 

On Thursday I received the news that a friend had died.  That’s another post.  I’m not quite ready to address that yet.

Today there is more chaos and laying of flooring. 

I’m ready for a holiday already.

Change

I can’t decide whether it’s just the thought of spring coming or whether it’s real. I feel a change coming. Something is stirring, little whispers of ideas and plans. Nothing substantial and often the thoughts slip away, the way dreams do, before I can fully grasp them. But somewhere inside I have a ‘feeling’. It’s a vague ‘feeling’ but it’s definitely a feeling.

Once upon a time this would have driven me to distraction. I would have been frantically scanning the recesses of my mind, feeling frustrated and annoyed that I couldn’t get to work on whatever it is. These days I have been learning a new way to deal with this. I just sit with it. I don’t force it. I take the little bits that come to me and examine them and put them away until some other piece comes and I look at that, maybe add it to the other piece like a mental jigsaw puzzle, maybe discard it, maybe start a new puzzle. Sometimes I don’t know what to do with it. And that’s ok too.

I don’t really know what this is about. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t even know if it is anything at all. Strange thing is…I don’t mind not knowing all that because what I DO know that it will all unfold exactly as it should with or without any help from me.

Kindle

After initially feeling some resistance to the whole idea of ‘e-readers’ I was eventually convinced by my sisters to get a Kindle. Like most of you I love books, I have several large bookcases throughout the house bursting at their seams and groaning under the weight of the books therein. I love the smell of books and the feel of their pages, but most of all I love the words. And that is what finally convinced me.

I do buy books for the whole experience but mostly it’s what’s IN them that I want. The stories, the information, the ‘facts’ and the questions they answer and also the questions they prompt. When my sisters starting tell me about the books they were downloading to their Kindles my interest was aroused. Then they sent me an Amazon voucher towards my very own Kindle so I could share in the Kindle conversations.

So I ordered one.

It arrived yesterday and I downloaded a few classics to begin my Kindle reading experience. I’m impressed. The screen is cleverly designed to look like a book, it’s small and light (and having recently read a 1,000 page tome which was absolute hell to read in bed - SO heavy! - I’m a bit sold on ‘light’). I’m currently reading Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ (which was free to download, lots of out-of-copyright classic books are free).

I’m enjoying the experience. I like that I can carrying 3,500 books around in my handbag…I’ve no idea why I like that. Perhaps it’s because I’m often reading more than one book – a fiction, a non-fiction, maybe a textbook etc - I’ll pick up one depending on my mood but can’t possibly carry them all everywhere with me. Now I can. It could be that, or maybe I’m just crazy.

This certainly doesn’t mean I won’t ever buy another book, there are some books that are just too beautiful and special to be owned in any other way. But it does mean that I can have an even wider reading experience, particularly with books I don’t necessarily want to have on the shelves but just want the enjoyment of reading.

Summary. I like it.

All images www.amazon.com

Memory

Isn’t memory a strange thing? Well perhaps not memory itself but the way it manifests (or fails to). Let me explain. I had a completely exhausting week last week. We have long days anyway, with both of us working full time and the girls in before and after school care every day, but last week 4 nights out of 5 we had ‘other activities’ to attend which made for very long days away from home. Places to go, people to see you know. Add to that three very disturbed nights for me (for various reasons) and I was left utterly knackered.

So yesterday afternoon I decided to have a little nap and took myself off to bed for an hour. Lying there, slightly demented from tiredness, my mind began to wander into those mysterious places it goes been waking and sleep. I suddenly had a very comforting image of a house that I love very much. I don’t know who it belongs to but I’ve always admired it when we drove past. It sits near the top of a gently sloping hill, and is surrounded by beautiful trees. It has a small fenced field close to the house where live two chocolate brown, velvety faced donkeys. There’s just something about that house that makes me feel peaceful and content and only slightly (ahem) envious of the people lucky enough to live there.

This isn’t it, but it’s not unlike it. Photo credit here

In my semi-slumber I thought ‘we must take a drive past it so I can see it. Where is it again?’ After a few moments confusion and delving into memory I recalled where it was. I also recalled that I hadn’t been there in more than 20 years. It was in Scotland, on a road we sometimes took home which my mother referred to as the ‘wee road’. We’d leave town and Mum would say to Dad ‘can we drive home on the wee road’. We all knew what she meant, it was the ‘scenic route’ and we all loved it. Part of it took us down a narrow road past a farm, in spring and summer there were always wildflowers growing at the side of the road and we’d stop and pick them. The road had steep banks and hedgerows and as we picked the flowers the Highland Cows in the field would peer curiously over the hedges at us.

Photo by John Toms

I was a sucker for those gentle brown eyes and silky noses.

Now I can understand that is a happy memory and I guess that somewhere in my mind something triggered that place and I probably needed that sense of comfort that it gave me. But I can’t helping feeling that ‘memory’ is a miraculous thing and a little strange. It was vivid, I could see it and feel it and smell it, for a short time it fooled my sleepy mind into thinking it was a recent memory, but it wasn’t.

I really believe we have access to everything we need inside ourselves. In the past few days I’ve had lots of realisations and epiphanies about things. I think there’s something in that memory for me examine too, I just have to work out what it is.

Today’s news

I got the temporary position I was hoping for.  It starts next Thursday and is only for a month.  Which is perfect.   More about that in another post.

I had lunch today with some friends from my previous place of employment.  The girl who replaced me also came to lunch and I was gratified to hear that it’s just as crap as I thought it was.   Lunch was delicious, the company was excellent and the gin and tonic was perfect.

I did some grocery shopping this afternoon.  It was tedious.  I totally loathe shopping.

Then I went to the pet shop and bought the rats a wheel and a salt lick and I got Jack some pig’s ears and a rawhide bone.  He still chews everything he can get his teeth on so I’m constantly trying to distract him with things he’s actually ALLOWED to chew.

Steak and salad for dinner tonight.

End of another day.

 

Habit Forming

Yes, here am I again…at the risk of giving Dave a heart attack I’m blogging 3 DAYS IN A ROW. I’m trying to get back into the habit of blogging.  ‘They’ say you have to do a thing for 3 weeks for it to become part of your normal routine.  I’m not sure who ‘they’ are or whether or not that’s true, or indeed whether I can manage to blog consistently for 3 weeks, but at least for today it’s giving me something to write about.  Wow, that was a long sentence (which is probably what it feels like you are serving as you read this drivel). 

My grammar is crap too you may notice. 

It’s Saturday here, raining again which is lovely after the long, hot, dry summer.  Tom will be working on an essay*, so he’ll be closeted away drinking tea, muttering and tearing at his hair.  Since he’ll be hogging the laptop** I have to find some other way to entertain myself, so the girls and I will embark on some sewing projects and an art project that is due***.   I also may watch a couple of episodes of ‘Lost’.   All in all a lovely way to spend my day I think.

*Not sure if I’ve mentioned Tom is back at University doing a Masters in Science and Public Policy? Well. He is.

** I still have my iPhone so I won’t be totally removed from my beloved interwebs and email.

*** I’m doing a ‘Creative Goddess’ e-course which involves lots of fun with my paints and pastels and other arty materials and little forays into Art Land.  Something I’ve been neglecting for years.

So…what does the weekend have in store for you my lovelies?

 

Friday – Huzzah!!!

I love a Friday. It means the weekend is here (in case you didn’t realise). Also, Friday night is ‘murder night’ on the ABC – usually it’s one of the many British police/detective/murder mystery series. Tonight it’s ‘Trial and Retribution’. To be honest I’m a bit ‘meh’ about ‘Trial and Retribution’ but beggars can’t be choosers. I much prefer Midsomer, or Miss Marple or Poirot.

I feed the children early and we get them off to bed and Tom and I settle in front of the TV with a glass of wine and some dinner (plates on laps - peasant behaviour I know). I’m making Korma tonight with pappadums. Tom tolerates my ‘British Murder Night’ – I don’t think it’s really his ‘thing’ but he humours me and never complains.

This weekend Hannah is away overnight on Saturday and Tom has something to attend so it’s just Aislin and I at home. We’ll watch a movie and eat popcorn I think – well she will, I’m not keen on popcorn. I really hope she doesn’t make me watch Dora the Explorer.

I don’t have much else to report today. It’s hot…but you knew that didn’t you? ‘They’ are telling us a cool change will come through around midday tomorrow. I hope so because today I almost killed someone who stole my parking spot and then I nearly punched an old man who pushed in front of me in a shop. Lucky I wasn’t armed.

Little catch up....

I am incredibly busy just now, I have a couple of impossible deadlines hence my lack of presence here and in your blog comment columns (be grateful).

There have been some other activities, the girls had 'sleep overs' at friends' homes at the weekend, we had dinner with some friends on Sunday night and lunch with them on Monday too... not planned but just the way things worked out.

I'm experiencing one of my sleepless episodes, I've mentioned before that I occasionally suffer from insomnia and can be found creeping round the house at 3am. Last night I just couldn't get to sleep at all, I got up and stared at the television for a while...I could have live blogged the inauguration but I didn't. Momentous as it was. I eventually went back to bed and continued to toss and turn for a while. The last time I looked at the clock it was 4.27am. I slept soon after that I think...until 7am. I'm tired.

I'll leave you with this image...the tag cloud of President Obama's inauguration speech..

... it came from here if you're interested.

The new addition

Well I promised photos of the newest baby in the family* and here she is.....

...meet 'M'.....notice the letter 'M' on her head? If it's good enough for James Bond's boss....

Isn't she pretty? Check out those markings....

She's very spoiled already....can you tell?

In other news today is the day that quite a lot of Australians enjoy 'the race that stops a nation'. Well it doesn't stop me. I don't care for horse racing so I boycott it. I don't attend any glitzy fashion show lunches wearing a hat. Not me, today I stayed home and had boiled eggs on toast for lunch...that'll show 'em.

*It suddenly occurred to me that not everyone would have read the first post announcing M's existence..so I should clarify that she is, unfortunately, not ours - she belongs to my sister and her family so she is in fact my kitty-niece.

Taxi!

We're currently trying to manage with only one car. Tom's car has been locked and parked and we're pretending we don't have it to see how we go. He gets the bus to work so that's fine, the challenge is when we have clashing engagements at the weekends.

Today Aislin had a birthday party to attend. Tom and Hannah stayed home and my plan was to drop Aislin off then go and have a coffee and stock up on books at the library until it was time to pick her up. I had just left her and was heading for my favourite cafe when Tom rang to say he'd had a phone call and had to be somewhere for work (unexpectedly). So I abandoned my plans and came home and picked him (and Hannah) up and dropped him where he had to be and Hannah and I went for coffee. She had a hot chocolate and a Funny Face biscuit as compensation for a) not having a party to go to today and b) being dragged away from her beading to do all this running around. As you can see she was devastated.

I did wonder if hot chocolate AND a Funny Face biscuit was too much but I figured that Aislin would be on a bender at the birthday party so they might as well have twin sugar highs. And they'll be at school tomorrow so it won't be me dealing with the sugar hangovers.

Then she and I went to the library. I sent her into the children's section to get some books for her and Aislin. I was browsing the grown up books and she came up to me struggling with the library bag, it was so full of books she could barely lift it. Then we went and collected Aislin from her party and now we're home.....waiting for Tom to ring so we can all pile into the car again and go and get him.

I'm not sure how this will work, to be fair we've been doing it for a couple of months now and this is the first time we've had a problem but it really is a pain the backside for the person doing all the running around...ME!

It's Friday!

My favourite day of the week.

Tom is on a field trip today so I dropped him off this morning at the pick up point where he'd arranged to meet his colleagues, then I took the girls to school. After that I went and had coffee with another Mum from their school. At her place. For 3 hours. We had a lot to say.

With half my day gone I headed home and on the way stopped at the PO box to check the mail only to find - to my great excitement - a parcel from my sister!!! I came home and tore it apart and found lots of Halloween goodies for the children (we don't really 'do' Halloween in this country so it's a big treat for them to get stuff from America). I got some Reece's peanut butter cups (I will not be sharing) as well as some hand knitted socks (she makes AMAZING socks) and some summer tops. Thanks again M!

I can't take any photos because Tom has the camera with him today. I tried the old camera and can't get it to work - it appears that it has finally died completely.

So as I sit here writing this I realise that I have to go and get the girls in half an hour and I haven't done any of the work that I'd planned to do today. However I'm not going to feel guilty because it's not very often that I shirk my duties by gallavanting about having coffee and collecting parcels. It's also not as if I won't do any work today...I have two children after all.

I had plans...

...for today. A list of little tasks I intended to complete. It's now 4.30 and I haven't done any of them. I'm not even sure why....just can't get out of my own way for some reason. I had hoped to do some more work on the website, but T is waiting to use the computer now so that's out of the question. I thought I might do some more sewing but it's getting a bit late in the day to start that, the children will be expecting a meal sometime soon and they'd only interrupt me with their demands right in the middle of it I expect. I was going to make hommous, I suppose I could still do that and make the children eat that for dinner - kill two birds with one stone. I had also planned to measure the armchairs and work out how much fabric I'd need to make loose covers for them. I might still do that. Or not.

It's a little hot today, I don't particularly enjoy the heat and it's the first of the warm weather and I think it's thrown me a bit and made me unproductive. However I comfort myself with the fact that in the last couple of weeks I've been really quite busy and achieved lots of things, it can't hurt to not achieve much occasionally. Can it?

Anyway, I think Scarlett had it right..tomorrow is another day (and I look exactly like her as I sit on my grand staircase with my clothes elegantly draped - ahem).

Puttering

Daylight Savings started today. Don't have much to say about that really except I'm all confused and out of sync - but that will pass. Tonight will be a battle to get the girls to go to bed in broad daylight. Happens every year.

We've all been busy doing lots of little jobs around the place, some of those things on the 'list of things to do' that wait patiently (for weeks, sometimes months) to be done. There is rarely time to spend just getting on with them, however, this weekend it's all go at our place.

I even got this out...

No Haute Couture or anything, just some simple 'soft furnishing' type jobs. No complications, plenty of straight lines.

With all this cooking and sewing I'm quite the Domestic Goddess these days.

I have nothing to say...

...today. I am overwhelmed and undermotivated.

So I'm just going to let Matt entertain you. This is one of my favourite videos, it's been around for a few months now*, you've probably seen it, but some days I just go and watch it because it restores my faith in the human race and makes me smile. Especially on those days when I've forgotten how to enjoy life and feel like everyone who crosses my path has forgotten that as well.

I particularly like the New Guinea Highlanders and the Indian ladies. Watch it. Even if you've seen it before. Watch it again. And smile. You can dance too if you feel like it.

*I meant to say this version has been around for a few months. Matt has been dancing around the world (and making videos of it) for a couple of years now. Go Matt!

The newspaper bag project

Today I made a bag out of newspaper. No, not because I'm being thrifty or green, or green and thrifty but because Z wrote this post about this project and in the spirit of fun and support of fellow bloggers and their extended families I joined in.

I made this masterpiece...

Granted it's a bit difficult to tell from this photo that it is a bag, you'll just have to trust me on that. It's surprisingly sturdy and will actually hold things. Heavy things. Like wine bottles. Not that I'm fooling around with wine in the middle of the day. Oh no. Not me.

The very best thing about this project is that it gave me an excuse to avoid doing all the things on that long 'to do' list I mentioned yesterday. I can usually think up my own means of procrastination but it's always nice if someone else has a suggestion.

So pop over to the Newspaper Bag Project and join in the fun, make a bag and leave a photo...help Ro win a prize and show the world what happens when bloggers unite!

Words

I love words so I was quite excited to find Wordle and make one of these magical creations produced from words from my blog. What I wasn't prepared for was how I felt when I saw it. At first I was a bit disappointed. I don't know what I expected, something more.....dream-like and spiritual? But as I don't really have a dream-like and spiritual blog that was probably hoping for too much. No, my blog is ordinary, my life, my angsts and confusions and stuff about school and shopping and holes in the back garden. So I got this......

http://wordle.net/

...and thought 'meh'. Until I looked more closely and found myself examining it in great detail and pondering some of the words......in what posts did I use the words 'lyrical' and 'broom'? It then occurred to me just how little I actually think about the words I'm using, how they just roll from my mind onto the page, a natural, easy, flowing thing (ok, I think about spelling and grammar but not the vocabulary so much). It seems crazy to say this but I think I'd actually forgotten - or was ignoring the fact - that the words on these pages originate in my head. Where did I get them all? Where do any of us get them all? How lucky we are to have our literacy.

Anyway, I liked it so much I decided I had to have one of my own creation....with perhaps a little more of the dream-like and spiritual me that you rarely see on this blog. So I did this one.

http://wordle.net/

Wordle is fun....go play....

Ok Dave, here's Tuesday's post*

Today I went to the big smoke. I don't get to the city much, something I'm actually quite happy about. However today I had an early appointment so Tom and I went together, dropping the children off at 'before school care'** on the way. We arrived with time to spare so we decided to have a coffee together before going our separate ways - him to work, me to my appointment. It's been a long time since I could sit and watch the busy corporate world go by and I have to say it was bloody boring. Why is everyone so serious? You'd think they were all heading off to the guillotine the way they solemnly march along in their brown suits and trilbies. Perhaps they just hate their jobs. 'Back up!' I hear you cry 'what is this about trilbies?'. Well, I thought you'd never ask. Today I saw a man in a brown suit and matching trilby. Honestly. I did. I had my camera with me but really it would have just been too rude to take a photo, he'd already caught me staring at him. I wasn't staring because I thought he was a freak or anything, I was genuinely impressed, who wears 1940s suits and trilbies any more? Well apart from 'men of a certain age' and he wasn't of that certain age he was maybe in his 40s. He was, in fact, exactly like this man...(well he didn't have 'Agatha Christie' emblazoned across his face, but you know what I mean).

....he was actually at a business meeting in the café . Three other 'suits' arrived, only these ones were your standard corporate types, carrying brief cases and variety of electronic devices and wearing dark suits, white shirts and silk ties. All very normal (and boring). I liked the man in the 40s gear. His friends (colleagues...whatever) were totally unperturbed by his get-up, just business as usual which made me think this must be normal for him. I am so impressed, more people should just dress according their favourite era I think. ALthough that could be a problem if crinolines are your thing, you'd have a helluva time on the bus in one of those.

*My friend Dave has been without an internet connection while he moved house and waited to be connected again. He went to the library to post to his blog but obviously it's not the same as posting from the comfort of your own home so I didn't hear as much from him in the comments. During his 'cyber-rest' I have managed to skip the odd day posting because he wasn't available to nag me. He got his new modem yesterday and, true to form, the nagging has begun. Welcome back Dave - I missed you.

** They enjoy this so much that they have asked me to get a job so that they can go every day. So much for the sacrifices we are making so that my children can be dropped off and picked up from school daily. Hmph. Ungrateful little.... ahem..... darlings.

Muffin?

I had a lovely start to the week. Not only am I starting to feel moderately human again (apart from an impressive consumptive cough) but this morning a friend came over for coffee. I met this particular friend 8 years ago as I sat in hospital, bored to death, awaiting the arrival of my first baby. I'd had complications in my pregnancy and was facing a premature delivery. I was all alone in a twin room and the door opened and she was brought in, she too was having problems and her baby was scheduled to be delivered 3 days later. It was a tense and emotional time but within minutes of meeting she and I were laughing hysterically over something and we bonded. During the few days that we shared a room we got on like a house on fire and met each others families and visitors but there was never a time when our respective husbands were there at the same time so they didn't meet. After our babies were born we didn't see each other for a few days although we both had babies in NICU. One morning Tom and I were waiting for the lift to take us up to NICU and the doors opened and out stepped my friend, she and I greeted each other enthusiastically only to stop dead and stare in amazement at our husbands who were also greeting each other enthusiastically. Turned out they already knew each other. Small world.

Anyway, we've been the best of friends ever since, we even had our second babies around the same time (not deliberately, it was one of those 'guess what? I'm pregnant' and she said 'guess what? I'm pregnant too!') and she is just one of those friends that you can totally rely on, she's hilariously funny and always there when you need her. Today we had coffee and talked and ate some home made apple spice muffins that I'd made and talked and looked through House Beautiful and Country Living and planned the decorating I'm about to do and talked some more and we may have gossiped just a tiny wee bit (but not vindictively)...oh and we laughed. Our heads off. A lot.

It was great and it was just what I needed. Thanks Mish.

All is quiet

I'm not avoiding the blog, or having another 'moment' I just don't have much to report just now. It's a winter thing I think. I don't have anything interesting to blog about, I seem to be spending my days at the computer working hard, writing articles and an e-book for my business. That's all going well thank you very much.

The girls are on holiday for 2 weeks from this Friday, it's the end of Aislin's first term at school. It's gone quickly and she's doing really well. We had our first parent-teacher interview for her and it was all very positive. However winter time holidays are always a challenge, a few days in front of the fire watching movies is ok but what to do the rest of the time? Winter nature rambles, cooking, painting and crafting maybe. Everyone is stir crazy by the end of it all.

Tom and I have been talking about the future, deciding whether to move. With petrol prices and interest rates etc it might be prudent to live closer to school and his work (petrol is costing us about $100 a week just now). I don't know what I want to do, I still have the restlessness that has plagued me for most of this year. I feel I want to do something, I just don't know what. However I think winter is a time for incubating thoughts, plans and ideas. Mulling them over ready for action in the spring. So I'm not rushing into anything (famous last words).

Am I the only one that feels like hibernating in winter? I love winter but it really turns me into a hermit.

Eclectic Sundays

Today Hannah I watched the Transformers movie. It was my choice. Because when it comes to sci-fi, vampires, zombies and robots I have the mentality of a 14 year old boy. I have no idea how this happened and no, it doesn't clash at all with my equal love of Shakespeare, Jane Austen and anything to do with The Crusades. It's just all part of the rich tapestry that is ME.

So we watched Transformers and I spent the rest of the morning striding around saying 'I AM OPTIMUS PRIME' in my best deep, robotic voice.

Once I was over that we completely changed pace and made potato scones. Kathyann sent me a parcel with, among other things, a couple of books of Scottish recipes (because I was complaining of homesickness). Today I introduced my children to more 'food of their heritage'.

Their Scottish blood flows so strongly that they loved them and wolfed down several in one sitting. Of course the other half of their heritage is equally strong and there was nothing I could do to stop this...

Now in case anyone is wondering if I am gradually turning this into a food blog, don't worry, it will never happen. I will from time to time display examples of things I make. This is due more to the fact that I hate to cook, so when I do cook I want it recorded for posterity. I have no desire to pretend I'm Delia Smith nor any delusions about the results of my efforts. I really loathe cooking, I do it because I have to feed my children and occasionally I want to eat.

Tom finds this completely bewildering because I watch TV cooking shows like there's no tomorrow. Hannah and I settle down a couple of times a week to watch the likes of Nigella, Rick Stein and Maggie and Simon . Everyone must be quiet and I must not be disturbed while I watch. Last night Tom was talking about this strange phenomenon. He insisted that I must like something about cooking because I love those shows so much. Then I realised what it was, it isn't about food or cooking or even eating. It's about watching someone create something. I also like to watch Star Portraits and I'm willing to tolerate Rolf Harris because I love to see the paintings being created, I like watching Grand Designs to see some amazing houses being designed and built. I have many different outlets for my own creativity but it doesn't mean I don't enjoy seeing what other people do, and really I'd much rather it was them than me slaving over a hot stove, painting some stroppy celebrity or stressing over the budget and time constraints of a new build.