Reflections

I am happy about the time I've spent with friends and family this past year. Time includes phone calls, and IM chats and blog conversations and WoW guildchat (*cough*nerd*cough*) hanging around in backyards or around tables or in the pool or in a tent in the middle of a field.

I am, as ever, awed at how much my son (and indeed my nieces and proto nieces and nephews) have grown this past year.

I am happy that I've made some new friends, reconnected with some old friends and reevaluated some long dead friendships. It's been comforting and liberating and pleasant and surprising.

I am amazed at some of the big decisions and actions my friends have made/done this year. Getting engaged, having babies, buying a house, renovating, moving country, moving states, starting new relationships, changing jobs. All these things are big leaps and I'm proud that you've done them.

I am happy with myself and that I've fixed some ways I deal with the world. Still not perfect and I still have the deeply manky hours/days/weeks but my coping mechanisms seem to be working a lot better than they were last year.

So, what happens next year?

I turn 32, Nw turns 40 and munchkin turns 4.I lose a smidge of weight.

I might even sew something other than some baby quilts and mending.

I continue spending time with and being amazed by, my friends and family.

I keep swimming laps while Torby has his swimming lessons.

I be better at calling people. I gave up on talking on the phone for any long period of time when i gave up smoking. they were just to connected. Lets see if I can manage it again.

I start working 3 days instead of 2. Oh the horror.

I somehow become even more t'riffic than I currently am. It will be a herculean effort!

I'm also toying with the idea of making sure I post something on my blog every day for a year. Might try it for January and see how it goes.

A glimpse into my life

Sometime between 6 and 7am I hear the rustle and thump and slam of Torby getting out of bed and closing his door after himself.

Then the shambling steps down the hall dragging his pillowandblanketandnuknuk down the hall to our room.

Next is to be swatted in the face with the pillow bit of the holy trinity and a cheery 'good morning my friend mummy'.

I then get to shuffle over on the bed until I am almost lying on top of Nw (who is still valiantly trying to sleep at this stage) so Torby can lie down and go sleep (swish my blanket. I want stripes, where's my nuknuk?) between me and Stampy the Cat.

There is much petting (gently, don't touch her tail mummy) and admiration of how soft his friend Stampy is.

All too soon this refreshing 'sleep' will have stopped and the 'time for some yoghurt/toast/cereal/watermelon/busy?' will start.

Any insistence that it's still sleep time will be met with a counter-insistence that 'I awake now. I finished sleep' (to be said in a slightly injured tone) and who can argue with that.

So then breakfast food of choice is served and tv or his computer turned on (He has my old laptop and a few games loaded on. The choices are 'dinosaurs', 'letters' or 'preschool'.)

I generally lie on the couch pretending to be an awake and responsible parent until it's time for that most favourite of activities - Wake up daddy time!

Lucky Nw then gets to hear Torby thundering down the hallway, a small child bodyslamming him, a cheery 'wake up daddy!', blankets dragged off and a few suggestions of 'open your eyes daddy'.

And then our day begins..

Bookishness

I've been reading 'Outliers - The Story of Success' by Malcolm Gladwell.

Meg gave it to Nw for xmas but I've run off with it. (bwahahahahah all your books are belong to me)
Reallyquite fascinating.

He looks at the way we view success and points out that it's not a personal thing but a series of factors that all combine to make a person succesful.

"We pretend that success is exclusively a matter of individual merit. But
there's nothing in any of the histories we've looked at so far to suggest things
are that simple. These are stories, instead, about people who were given a
special opportunity to work really hard and siezed it, and who happened to come
of age at a time when that extraordinary effort was rewarded by the rest of
society. Their success was not just of their own making. It was a product of the
world in which they grew up."

(part of the chapter titled The 10,000-Hour Rule)

I'm thoroughly enjoying it and looking forward to reading 'Tipping Point' by him as well.

Now I've discovered his website which has excerpts from his books (Outliers, Blink and Tipping Point) and an archive of articles he's written for The New Yorker.

I'm in a little happy-reading-pig-universe now.

When people ask me what do i want for xmas/bithday etc, this is kind of it

Tee-hee

Click to see it all.

So, I've shopped 'till I can shop no more, have had a lot of fun wrapping pressies and decorating them (plain red or gold paper and then ribbons or stars or reindeer), 'm starig down the barrel of 36hours of eating and drinking.

It must be almost christmas time!

Whatever you're doing, have a fabulous time, remember it's all about being with loved one/s and expressing how t'riffic you think your friends and family are. Oh, and the eating.
I'll see you online after the frenzy has finished and we can all fit back into our pants again.

Mwah!

Awesomeness

Daleks and Chhristmas. Together at last
(click on link to see video)

photo lives here

Torby hangs his decoration next to his dad's

Torby hangs his decoration next to his dad's, originally uploaded by Miss DV.

Two generations of handmade chrissie decorations. Loves it.

bugger

Torby went to sleep - 1:30
DV 'had a little doze on the couch' - 2:30
Everyone woke up - 5:15pm
Estimated bedtime for munchkin - 10pm

d'oh!

i love this

Apartment Therapy

thanks Miss Megzz for pointing it out

n which i ruminate on the New Years phenomonononon

it occured to me the other day that i have all my Christmas plans in order but have no idea what i'm doing for New Years.

i then realised that i'm really not bothered by this.

in fact i've never been that concerned with new years stuff. Generally i like it to involve my friends and watching the fireworks on tv or something. i think i must be be missing something.
i really don't understand the desire people seem to have to be at the bestest biggest party.

Always found it quite rude the way people will say, 'hmmm i'm not going to confirm or cancel until know what else i'm invited to'. The lengths people will go to. usually involving several different parties and 'oo we must end up at this place becuase they have a view of fireworks, oh crap we're running late, etc'

Much rather stay at one place (usually first one we're invited to) or at home (mmm home, on the couch, being like a grown-up and staying awake to watch the fireworks mmmmmm)

As i established earlier, never understood the phenomonononon.

For some reason pressing shift +i doesn't work on my keyboard. No capital i's for me!

Randomness

My oh my what a weekend.

The boys went to Yule Feast which involved more planning than a thing that requires a lot of planning.

Nw ended up taking Torby and the nieces down to meet up with Meaghan who had gone there straight from a party in Canberra (Yay for Dr Quatrefoil graduating at last).

I got to go to the lovely Mikey and Lou's big bumper birthday party. Was a lot of fun. Although I really have lost the art of standing for hours in high heels. Totally worth it though.

My niece, Bellabel's, first dance concert was on Sunday. Despite the atrocious 'slapper genie' outfit (I ask you, since when is a skimpy bikini top and harem pants is appropriate for a 4yr old???) she looked cute and did well and the whole concert was very very amusing. It was the pre-school concert for the dance school and there is nothing cuter than 3-5yr olds "dancing" and all the other costumes were actually quite cute and appropriate. They had some of the big kids doing performances as well which were interesting to watch. Nowhere near as funny though.

We then had a small ninner at the pub for Torby's birthday. Highly recommend the Newington Inn for kids. They give them paper and pens and they seem very tolerant of kids running around on sugar highs after eating icecream.

Needlees to say, Torby crashed when we got home after his big weekend of camping, spendinga large amount of time with ZoZo, dinner out etc.

I crashed soon after from hungoveredness and Nw celebrated his first chance at alone time all weekend (he really was surrounded by kids all weekend the poor thing) by staying up late playing warcrack.

Oh and we have a christmas tree now. Nw went past the chrissie tree farm on the way home from Yule and cut us down a small one. It got decorated this morning. (photos later) Torby was a bit entranced after he got to hang his decoration on it next to Nw's one. Mind you, I still get entranced by all the pretty decorations each year and I'm not 3yrs old. Do so love christmas and all the sparklyness.

Happy Birthday Torby

My little boy turns 3 today.

I'm so proud of who he is becoming and all that he's learnt.

All his photos are here

I tried to pick one for this post but I then got lost looking at how he's changed and how big he's getting and how cute he is and it all went downhill from there.

happy birthday little dude

Aussie sheep

1. Heard a kookaburra in person
2. Slept under the stars
3. Seen a koala
4. Visited Melbourne
5. Watched a summer thunderstorm
6. Worn a pair of thongs
7. Been to Uluru (Ayer's Rock)
8. Visited Cape York
9. Held a snake
10. Sang along with Khe San
11. Drank VB (flat, for a dare, blech!)
12. Visited Sydney
13. Have seen a shark
14. Have used Aussie slang naturally in a conversation
15. Had an actual conversation with an indigenous Australian (Aboriginal)
16. Eaten hot chips from the bag at the beach
17. Walked/climbed over the Sydney Harbour Bridge
18. Used an outside dunny, and checked under the seat before sitting down
19. Seen Chloe in Young & Jackson's (who?)
20. Slept on an overnight train or bus
21. Been to Sydney's Mardi Gras (Usually same night as my birthday party)
22. Have gone bush-bashing
23. Taken a sickie
24. Been to see a game of Aussie Rules football
25. Have seen wild camels
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Had a Tim Tam Slam
28. Ridden in a tram in Melbourne
29. Been at an ANZAC day Dawn Service
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Held a wombat
32. Been on a roadtrip of 800km or more
33. Seen the Great Australian Bight in person (one of my first memories is fishing off it with dad, well I would have been about 3, but he was fishing and i'm sure I was 'helping')
34. Had a really bad sunburn
35. Visited an aboriginal community
36. Seen a redback spider
37. Have watched Paul Hogan
38. Seen Blue Poles in person
39. Wandered barefoot in the bush/outback
40. Eaten Vegemite
41. Thrown a boomerang (but it didn't come back)
42. Seen the Kimberleys
43. Given a hitch-hiker a lift
44. Been to Perth
45. Have tried Lemon, Lime and Bitters
46. Tried playing a didgeridoo
47. Seen dinosaur footprints
48. Eaten Tim Tams
49. Been to Darwin
50. Touched a kangaroo
51. Visted the Great Barrier Reef (very very regularly)
52. Listened to Kevin Bloody Wilson (not by choice)
53. Killed a Cane Toad (many of them)
54. Gone to a drive-in theatre
55. Have read and own books by Australian authors
56. Visited Adelaide
57. Know the true story behind 'Eternity'
58. Been camping
59. Visited Brisbane
60. Been in an outback pub
61. Know what the term "Waltzing Matilda" actually means
62. Gone whale watching
63. Listened to Slim Dusty
64. Own five or more Australian movies or TV series
65. Sang along to Down Under
66. Have stopped specifically to look at an historic marker by the side of the road
67. Eaten a 4'n'20 pie
68. Surfed at Bondi (have swum and bodysurfed at least)
69. Watched the cricket on Boxing Day (by watched you mean glanced at tv occasionally while it's been on, right?)
70. Visited Hobart
71. Eaten kangaroo (too gamey)
72. Seen a quokka
73. Visited Canberra
74. Visited rainforests
75. Used a Victa lawnmower
76. Travelled on a tram in Adelaide
78. Used a Hills hoist (both the accepted usages)
79. Visited Kata-Tjuta (the Olgas)
80. Used native Australian plants in cooking
81. Visited the snow (in America)
82. Chosen a side in Holden VS Ford (never understood it)
83. Visited the desert
84. Been water skiing
85. Read The Phantom
86. Visited Parliament House
87. Gone spotlighting or pig-shooting
88. Crossed the Nullarbor (as a kid I think we did. Parents took us all on a 2yr adventure around Oz)
89. Avoided swimming in areas because of crocodiles
90. Listened to AC/DC
91. Called someone a dag
92. Voted in a Federal Election
93. Have been swimming and stayed between the flags
94. Had a possum in your roof
95. Visited the outback
96. Travelled over corrugated roads
97. Hit a kangaroo whilst driving
98. Been well outside any mobile phone coverage
99. Seen an emu
100. Have woken to the smell of bushfires

we got a big scared

You know the classic line 'I only took my eyes off him for a second'?

Wel,, I really did.

He chose that second to run away while we were in Target.

I walked around yelling his name increasingly more panicky each time.

A lovely woman alerted the staff and announcements went out.

A few other lovely people joined in the search.

Finally, the bestest announcement came over the speakers.

"Could Torby's mum please come to the front desk, we have her son here."

I ran, we hugged, I thanked people.

I am glad to be home and finally have that cry that I've been keeping inside for almost an hour.

As Torby put it

"We got a big scared"

a lolcat after my very own heart

Drowned rat is the new black

So yesterday involved;
Looong meeting
Talking to useless people at work who insist that everything is too hard and it's all someone elses fault
Redoing the formulas on an Excel spreadsheet AGAIN! I swear they purposely stuff it up each time before sending it back to me just to hear my screams of rage from a few floors away.
Having several gazillion litres of rain dumped onme by the storm on my way home. Despite my umbrella, only about 5cm spure patch of mewas left dry.
and the crowning moment was..
Having our toatser explode soon after I got home and take the electricity with it!
Luckily Nw fixed the fuse (yay for M&T having spare fuse wire) and we ccould return to our modern ways. Now need to call an 'lectrician today to see about getting that power point fixed.

However, I also got hugs and kisses from Torby (and Nw if you must know) and got to read books with him and revel in his cuteness and cleverness and got to have yummy dinner (lambchops with charsiu sauce and an asiany coleslaw thing that I can at buckets of) and all was soon right with the world.

Apparently we are all children

In our bathroom at work we now have one of those 'Make sure you haven't widdled on the seat and please wash your hands' notices.

It disturbs me that either;

There are people I work with who haven't learnt basic hygiene.

or

There are people I work with who feel that we need to be reminded of it just in case we decide to do away with rules of cleanliness.

Given that I've never noticed 'presents' left behind in the toilet and no-one has dysentry, I'm guessing it's the latter.

yay

Cat Empire concert
27th Feb (my birthday)
Enmore Theatre

Happy DV

Party!

Food was eaten, fun was had, giggling heard in abundance and presents delightfully received. Was a good 3rd birthday party for munchkin.

I loved having lots of our friends there. These people who are important in our life and Torby's life. Is nice to have them there.

Still can't quite believe we have an (almost) 3yr old.

Oh and I failed to take many photos so there's only a few on flickr. Let me know if you were much cleverer than I.

who knew?

1cup of unpopped popcorn makes an awful lot of popped stuff.

I'd forgotten that.

Popcorn anyone?

Had bad dream last night
Not scary, just sad
Would have preferred scary.

Zmombies! (Impish, I thought of you)

Oh and..

I looked out the door last night before going to bed and the happy face moon had become and slightly distorted sad face if you tilted your head and 45 degrees.

Still made me smile.

please note time this post was written..

Torby definately takes after Nw in a lot of ways, a certain look he gets, the fascination with numbers etc.

My contribution to his genetic makeup seems to be manky fingernails (short and wide and square) and the inability to sleep past 6:30.

No wonder Nw is the favourite.

weekend recap and rambleyness

Turkey day was gooood. Way too much delicious food, very very pleasant company including the fabulous Fliss and Porl who hosted it this year, being out till late and being fed home-made bailies all equaled a delightful occasion. Oh and the Punkin Pies were nummy.

Went swimming on Saturday morning while Torby had his lessons. Had forgotten how much I love to be in the water. Had also forgotten how much doing laps can hurt. Muscles I haven't used in a very long while were being used. Perserverance will pay off right? Right?

The boys went for the last 'Sunday Afternoon at Grandma and Papa's' for a while as the parents will be on holidays in Perth visiting the other kids and grandkids for a month or so. Torby will especially miss them I think. He gets very excited about going to there. I will miss my Sunday afternoons of alone-ness.

This weekend will be the birthday party for Torby and ZoZo. Because I'm crap, let me know if you haven't recieved an invite and would like to be there. There will be fairy bread. Torby is loking forward to his party bvecause there will be cabndles on a cake to blow out and party hats. He's a bit focused on those two things.

Speaking of the munchkin, he was very very unhappy to be left at daycare today. Feel like a bad mother for deserting him when he was so very very upset. Nw assures me he used to occasionally get freaked out being left at A's as well. Still feel bad.

Oh and on Sunday we'll be going out to a Christmas Tree farm and getting a tree. Squeee.