The Number Two

I look at that picture and i cant quite wrap my head around what i see.....Two very beautiful teenagers...two cousins, two different personalities, two girls very much like their mothers that way. Two years apart in age..Two girls who have two little boys who think they are great. Two girls who will one day have two Big boys win their hearts to cherish and hold. There are Two Dads waiting in the wings to make sure that those two boys dont hurt those two hearts ....or else they have two mothers who last night marvelled at how far they have come from being so tiny to these two very capable and gorgeous young women.

The number two..... what a great little number

Sad Day

This morning started like any other. Woke up. Checked my email, checked the news on the internet. Saw a car accident had happened at an intersection that i used to go through all the time in my old neighbourhood. Relaxed a little when i realised it didnt fit the mold of any of my friends who lived around there. Woman, 3 kids... went about my day. Important stuff like dying my hair, figuring out what to have for dinner.

Then tonight.... a phone call from a friend i have known for 30 odd years. His sister. The sister who has buried their mother, had her house burn down and buried her husband. All in the last 5 years. His sister... Woman, 3 kids. Tonight she lays in a hospital bed beside her 8 year old who is suffering internal bleeding. Today she kissed her 5 year olds beautiful face for the last time.

Tonight i sit here and contemplate all the things i THOUGHT were urgent or important and i cant come up with a single thing. Talking to her brother i lay on the floor sobbing. What has this poor woman done to deserve this? When will she be given a break? Hasn't God taken enough? Hasnt she shown her devotion and steadfast loyalty to God? Why does he need more??When will it be enough?

Why is it the innocent and faithful that have to pay and pay? Why do the ones who treat their kids as punching bags or worse allowed to continue on this earth? WHY???

I'm mad, i'm distraught. I'm in shock. this can't be happening to her again....


IT'S NOT FAIR!!!!!

I'm still here

Well I guess ive proven how brilliant I am as a blogger. The sad fact is I was like this when I actually had to write with a pen and paper in what used to be called a diary. I always started with good intentions and then slowley what started as daily entries became weekly updates then monthly recaps of the important bits. After kids i lost time all together and started taking photos that never make it to albums or blogs......im sensing a pattern here.

So with that in mind I have decided to change that.. I am going to write more. Not everyday cause trust me my life is not that exciting but I thought i'd steal ideas from other blogs I read on a daily basis. Things like Thankful Thursday, foto friday that sort of thing...


Lets kick start this new me with what I am thankful for this thursday

I am thankful that this morning the good Lord saw fit to allow me to wake up and enjoy another day. I am thankful that my kids are healthy and whole and able to articulate their grieviances so majestically. I am thankful that I have a husband who can light my fire everyday and keep me warm (mind out of gutters people I literally mean a fire)

I am thankful that with all the troubles in the world I am able to put food on our table without thinking about how I 'm going to do it tomorrow. I am thankful that in every sense of the word I am Blessed.

Well there you are. What are you Thankful for?
I may just shock you all and post a foto friday tomorrow... I do actually have one in mind.... we will see.

catch ya later

OH Winter

how i dont like you much.

Everyone who knows me knows that i LOVE Summer. its the only time of year that i feel really alive. Winter unfortunately chills me to the bones and i cant do anything to warm myself up. Even with heaters, and multiple jumpers. My ideal way to spend winter would be to snuggle up in my bed with my books, a tv and my music. I would only get up to shower and use the toilet. All my food and drinks of course would be brought by the wonderful genie that i would have pop up when i needed them. I would in essence be like the bear... i would hibernate. Curled up in my bed with the wind and rain doing its best to chill me but alas im not a bear - though sometimes i might growl like one - so i get up in freezing temps and get the kids ready and wrap my self in about three layers and get on with daily life. I do the dishes instead of sticking them in the dishwasher just so i can stick my hands in boiling hot water. I practically sit on the fire and i live in my ugg boots (dont judge they are the best things in the world plus i dont wear them out) Though on a side note i saw a girl of about 18 on sunday at our small shops in her pyjama bottoms and ugg boots at 10.30 in the morning NOW COME ON !!!! what is that about?? I may have been freezing and not showered at times and ive looked like death warmed up BUT at least ive changed into my trackies at least. seriously. dont they have mothers?

Anyway..... so here i sit FOUR days into winter (so im told) freezing my butt off and wishing for an early spring and summer. I wish there was a switch or that i was rich enough to follow the sun. Ahhhh to dream

my weekend

Ok Folks, as you can see i have been seriously slack. So i thought id give you a run down of my sooo exciting weekend (insert sarcasm) . it wasnt to bad. i took the kids for a walk while James was with a client. we saw some horses and of course the kids started straight in with the 'we want one' song. Had to explain the costs and responsibilities... brought back happy memories of my own horse though. I did take pictures of the day but of course my computer usb port has snuffed it so i cant download any. Typical.

The kids then found the old home movies and watched HOURS of themselves... well the older two at any rate. I dont think i have much of Joel. I have loads of pictures of him just no video. Its ok though he doesnt feel hard done by... he thinks Dylan was him so two birds and one stone an all that.

Then Monday James managed to escape cold Perth for the nice weather of Darwin. It chose last night to have thunder and lightning which of course leads to one thing up here -- you guessed it POWER FAILURE. I didnt mind really but the boys did. so i put them to bed in MY bed and hoped that the power didnt come on before they were asleep but before I fell asleep.... I had plans people... I wanted to watch tv. In peace and Quiet. I got the peace and quiet...... sort of. thunder is loud.

I got my wish the boys fell asleep and the power came on 20 mins later. All was right in my little corner. Im Yawning my weekend was so exciting (theres the damn sarcasm again).
Well ive updated and i put my hand on my heart and promise to update on a regular basis. We'll see how that works shall we?

im off to make lunch for me and joel.

The tooth fairy is a ditz....

....And im a BAD mother!

Its been at least 6 months since we've had a visit from the tooth fairy in this house. Last night I had the relativly easy job of yanking our one of dylans teeth. I only Ever do it if its a matter of just gently holding on and slowly pulling...no major operations for me thankyou.

Well we dutifully put the tooth by the bed. I dutifully told hubs to get money, I stayed up reading and .......went to bed.

Anyone see something WRONG with that last sequence of events??.....anyone??????

YEAAHHHH. The toothfairy failed to make an appearanc, she was a NO-SHOW people. This morning i heard Dylan wake up and start to cry.!! I couldnt understand why till i saw him. He came out clutching his tooth sobbing saying the toothfairy hadnt been. I felt like the worst person on earth. my poor baby was so upset and my heart was breaking for him.

Now I know hes 7 and he knows Santa only visits the less fortunate kids.(He has 5 grandparents,aunts and uncles and a big sister who provide pressies) BUT.. I'm trying to let him to hold onto this bit of childhood a bit longer...he's already too big (and plus he thinks its great to get money for body parts. So what did I do??? The only thing I could do.... I LIED.

You see I had written a lovely little note to her ( As if) and accidentally left it in our room (HA). The toothfairy being so small and therefor lacking in mental capacities ( sooo sorry toothfairy) was torn between the note with her name on it or the tooth...She picked the note and left the money on my dresser draw. (Which coincidentally is where hubs had left it the night before).
She also left a note saying she would come back for the tooth tonight. ( I MUST remember that)

Hubs casually said something along the lines of he might get more money. (hmmmm toothfairy's husband is getting a bit generous).

This did the trick and I now have a happy 7 year old playing with the gap in his teeth and wishing for another wobbly tooth.
I may not be such a bad mother after all..... but I gotta tell you that toothfairy.... Shes a complete Ditz

Seriously folks....

How did she:

become this:

fourteen years this morning i actually gave birth to this teenager..Who'd of thunk it? I cant quite get my head around that fact sometimes. They all tell you to enjoy the moment and relish that time cause it goes so fast... and i meant too. But boy it just went so fast.

Lately my favorite films is Mama Mia and there is a part where Meryl streep sings this song :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv8z-RRucso. Whenever i hear it or see it in the movie i think of Jess. It just fits... time just slips through our fingers before we know it. Fourteen years ago it seemed like i had all the time in the world to enjoy her.

She'll always be my baby girl even though we dont have the closest of relationships right now. My hopes for her as she continues to blossom is to follow her heart. I hope she travels widely.(though shes already on her way, that girl has been to more places than i have) Meets a man of her dreams, and that she accomplishes everything her heart desires. Im sure she'll have bumps in the road but im also confident that they will merely be blips on the radar.

Yesterday i went to meet a new entry into our world. He was so tiny yet he was a bit bigger than Jess was. I couldnt get my head around how all my babies were that tiny and now ....they're not..It makes me want a do-over so i can forget about going to work or the house and just relive all the firsts.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESSICA

Hope you have a wonderful day

Love you heaps

Mum

100 Books List

The BBC claims most people have only read 6 of 100 of the books on this list. Copy and Paste into your notes and put an x by the ones that you have read.

Oh dear I've only read 26......ON THIS LIST... I read ALL the time, just ask James. At least its more than 6

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (x)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien ()
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (x)
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (x)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (x)
6 The Bible - (x)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (x)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (x)
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman ()
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens ()
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (x)
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy ()
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller ()
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare ( )
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier ()
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien ()
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk ( )
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (x)
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (x)
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot ()
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (x)
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens ()
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy ()
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams ()
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh ()
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky ()
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck ( )
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (x)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame()
()31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy ()
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens ()
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (x)
34 Emma - Jane Austen (x)
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen ()
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (x)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - ()
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres ( )
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (x)
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne ()
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (x)
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown ( )
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ()
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving ()
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins ( )
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (x )
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy ()
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood ()
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding ()
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan ()
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel ()
52 Dune - Frank Herbert ()
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons ( )
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (x)
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth ( )
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon ( )
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens ()
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (x)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon ()
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ()
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (x)
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov ()
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt ()
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold ()
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas ()
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac ()
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy ()
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding ()
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie ()
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville ()
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens ()
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker ()
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (x)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson ()
75 Ulysses - James Joyce ( )
76 The Inferno - Dante ()
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome ()
78 Germinal - Emile Zola ()
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray ()
80 Possession - AS Byatt ()
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (x)
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell ( )
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker ( )
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro ( )
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert ()
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry ()
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (x)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom ( )
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ()
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton (x)
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad ()
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery ()
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks ()
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams ()
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole ()
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute (x)
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (x)
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare ()
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (x)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo ()

Do You See What I See?

This is in the woodgrain of our bookshelf. I see it everytime I walk past, which is every 5 mins. I see Rabbit ears and eyes..YOU.

I tend to find faces or objects in nearly everything. In our old housewe had tiles on the toilet walls and I could see faces in the pattern. I thought it was just me but one time Jess mentioned it to me. I'm glad that she hasnt lost all her imagination yet.

When I was younger (late teens) there used to be this tree on our verge that I could see from my bed. (I put the bed there for that sole reason). The shape of the tree made a side on view of a face and when the wind blew it looked like it was talking. It was reassuring at times. And NO i wasnt on 'mind - altering' substances. That would be another member of the family.

I haven't seen any 'tree faces' since then but ido still see my faces and objects every where else...... some more obvious than others.

MOVED

Finally...

The move is now complete. It took the whole weekend... i never realised we had so much CRAP!!! I mean it was ridiculous. I still have the garage and a shed full of stuff. I think im going to go through and get rid of a LOT of stuff. I had already done that just before we moved but i dont think i was harsh enough.
The house is absoultly wonderful and im loving being up here. It seems like a really nice community. I havent met many mums yet but im going to go to the local playgroup. I think that might be the way to break my way in. Its a bit weird being the "new " mum on the block after being part of a group. Dylan loves his new school and seems to have settled in great. Joel on the other hand wont have a bar of going to daycare which is going to make me going to work interesting. I hate the idea of leaving him while he's screaming. I know they stop after a few minutes/hour but i think he just needs a bit more time to feel secure in the new area before i start looking.If i could get a night job, that would be perfect cause then james would be home. it'd save money on childcare fees too....how on earth is it worth going to work when 3/4s of the money earned is going to fees. i just dont see it myself.
After a week and a half with no internet access i thought id write a quick update. I was going to post for James' birthday but that has passed so ill have to do a belated one sometime soon. Enough to say it was an enjoyable day spent by the pool.

catch ya later

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

To my baby:

In the midst of all the chaos this week Dylan turns 7. To make sure we didnt miss it we had a party on sunday. It was a great day. We held it at Whiteman park where there is a small paddling pool and playground . The day was nice and hot so it made for a fun time.

This will be his last party over this side of the river. The move will be over on Saturday and a whole new chapter in our lives will begin. We went and enrolled Dylan in his new school and got his uniforms. Ill be sure to post a pic of him on his first day. The school is sooo 'cute'. Its small and has a verandah round it. Very small town Australia. I love it.

Lyn and David have done the big move up to Tom Price and getting sorted there. It feels a bit surreal knowing theyre not across the road any more. Its only for 2 years and then we're going to make sure they come up and live near us. Mind you anywhere in Perth isnt as far as Tom Price.!!!

Well im off to finish the packing and tie up the loose ends. I probably wont write again till we've done the move.Its James' birthday next. ( what a time to move)

HAPPY 7TH BIRTHDAY DYLAN

Good News Week

So far at any rate.
It started on Saturday, I got a phone call from Jess saying she was HOME. Yay . We got to pick her up on Sunday morning. Dylan and Joel have been at her side constantly since then. Its been so great having her back. You would think though that after spending 5 weeks in Thailand , on the beach practically that she would come back with a nice golden tan.... Youd be wrong. Jess has managed to come back just as white as when she left. Apparently she did have one but then she got sunburnt and it peeled.... so she had to start from scratch ( her words not mine) The sad fact is that the poor girl didnt inherit my skin type. No olive skin for her the poor thing. Dylan on the other hand is brown as anything. Joel... well hes not far off being like his sister.

Now for the OTHER good news....On monday we finally heard WE GOT THE HOUSE!!!
Boy were they taking their time letting us know. Looks like we will be moved in before the end of the month. Just in time for the start of school. The panic has already taken hold of James as he realises we are now in debt... There will be photos as soon as possible. Im aiming to take Jess up sometime this week hopefully. She hasnt seen it yet. Ill take photos then.

Well im going to go for now and take the dog to the groomers. Its got to the point where he looks like a big fluff ball. And then ive got to start some serious packing. Let the fun begin

Jumping into 2009

Lets hope that all the landings are this fun.

My year started off with 3 of my electronic stuff playing up. My washing machine packed it in so im waiting to get hold of someone to come and fix it. When I rang warranties I was kindly informed I had to ring in a week cause there was no-one around to help. Im seeing it being about 2 weeks before i get my machine back. luckily I have a spare one out in the shed that ive lugged back into the house. The second thing to go was my ipod, which thankfully was only a minor glitch that James and Google managed to fix for me. After that it was my keyboard that decided it didnt want to type anymore...go figure. Again it was James that came to the rescue and got me a 2nd hand one from work. Notice the pattern.. ALL the stuff to go are important/necessary to my sanity staying intact over the summer holidays and of course my that my hubby was my fix - it guy for at least two of them (note: the two main important ones).

We are still waiting on finance to notify us that we got the house. Its now been a week but i suppose with christmas and New Year in there it was to be expected. Im hoping in the first few days of next week we will hear some positive news. Im determined to get that house. Its perfect for us and well to be honest I WANT it... preferrably yesterday! Im not impatient or anything.

I hope everyone had a great New Year and that the rest of the year is just as great.