Today M and I have had a day at home while J has been at OSH. I think that's been good for all of us. M and J are now chowing down on bickies and banana milk as a school holiday treat.
I haven't really achieved anything today. Not sure if that's sad and pathetic or fabulous in the extreme. Both/neither? M has made an egg timer out of plastic water bottles, sticky tape and water. Pretty impressive for a 6yo and all by herself. Of course, it's made a mess all over the floor, but I have (only just) resisted the urge to scream and we have cleaned up the mess.
While all this is going on, I have the slow cooker going (slowly) on corned meat and ginger ale. I haven't made this for ages, but it's good. And easy. Two of my favourite things. Of course J will only eat it if I call it bacon, but I'm ok with that. J eats very, very, very little. So I do what I have to do!
RECIPE - Corned meat and ginger ale
Ingredients
1 piece of corned meat
1.25 l ginger ale or ginger beer
(some people whack an onion in too - not me)
Method
Stick it in the slow cooker on slow for 6-8 hours (or longer)
Eat hot or cold.
How frikin' easy is that??!! Hah -- 4 Ingredients ladies, I see your 4 and raise.....well lower anyway.....
Nothing of note to report - temp has ranged between 14 and 22, weather is cloudy. Nothing momentus has happened. The magic of ordinary days!!
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
The Man Of My Dreams
Hello Blogosphere.
Is there anybody out there? Maybe not - just me so far, which is probably a good thing.
The major players in my life need a little bloggy intro - of cours Mum, M and J got a brief mention on day one....but I haven't yet introduced The Man of My Dreams.
Guess how we met??? Go on, bet you can't.......Well it was big news in 2000, but maybe not these days, but P and I met on RSVP. Shock, horror -- we didn't tell people that for a while, but it's old hat these days.
So he was in Sydney, I was in Brisbane. I had had a disastrous long distance/uproot my life relationship in the past, so I was not going there again. P kept after me and I kept saying NO. In fact, I may have been meaner than I meant to, because I was actively recruiting for the role of Man of My Dreams - and I was filling P in on all the details. All my 1st dates, 2nd dates etc -- well then I'd come home, log on, and tell P. And he kept being there. In between all that there was another guy I was dating on and off..... but he "just wasn't that into me". I was relating all this to P on the net and on the phone. Poor bastard. Sorry Honey.
Anyway - it all came to a head one night when I had a 4th date with a man (to whom we still refer as "Mr 4th Date") and spent the evening thinking that P wouldn't like this guy, that P would be a better bet than this guy, that I wished P lived closer.......BINGO! The light went off. He was offering to move here....what was I waiting for.
I had some long service leave coming so I added it onto my 6 week Christmas break and went and stayed with him. It was all rosy, so he moved up here and in with me.
And we lived happily ever after. How corny is that??
If I had met him when I was 20, I wouldn't have given him a second glance. Glad I didn't!
"Happily Ever After" - what does that mean -- well I guess it's what we're living.
Is there anybody out there? Maybe not - just me so far, which is probably a good thing.
The major players in my life need a little bloggy intro - of cours Mum, M and J got a brief mention on day one....but I haven't yet introduced The Man of My Dreams.
Guess how we met??? Go on, bet you can't.......Well it was big news in 2000, but maybe not these days, but P and I met on RSVP. Shock, horror -- we didn't tell people that for a while, but it's old hat these days.
So he was in Sydney, I was in Brisbane. I had had a disastrous long distance/uproot my life relationship in the past, so I was not going there again. P kept after me and I kept saying NO. In fact, I may have been meaner than I meant to, because I was actively recruiting for the role of Man of My Dreams - and I was filling P in on all the details. All my 1st dates, 2nd dates etc -- well then I'd come home, log on, and tell P. And he kept being there. In between all that there was another guy I was dating on and off..... but he "just wasn't that into me". I was relating all this to P on the net and on the phone. Poor bastard. Sorry Honey.
Anyway - it all came to a head one night when I had a 4th date with a man (to whom we still refer as "Mr 4th Date") and spent the evening thinking that P wouldn't like this guy, that P would be a better bet than this guy, that I wished P lived closer.......BINGO! The light went off. He was offering to move here....what was I waiting for.
I had some long service leave coming so I added it onto my 6 week Christmas break and went and stayed with him. It was all rosy, so he moved up here and in with me.
And we lived happily ever after. How corny is that??
If I had met him when I was 20, I wouldn't have given him a second glance. Glad I didn't!
"Happily Ever After" - what does that mean -- well I guess it's what we're living.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Morning World
So I blog at work - but that's a whole different thing. How do I blog my life? The biggest question really is why would I want to -- my answer to that is that it's so I can try to make sense of it all. I've always wanted to attach electrodes to my brain and download it all so I can read it. Maybe this is how.
I've added a couple of blogs to the side today, that's a start I guess.
What's on in our family today? Well we are hoping to take the Terrible Two to the movies today. That's the plan - but so far our day is starting off pretty slow, so who knows. The girls are going to see Toy Story later in the week with Vacation Care, so we are going to Shrek 4 today.
The other day J wanted to buy a movie off Foxtel. She selected Free Willy 4. I explained that movies that have a 4 on the end are often pretty much rubbish, but Free Willy 4 stars Bindi Irwin and that was enough for J. Then she said "Does that include Shrek 4?" I dunno - I guess I'll find out. For the record, Free Willy 4 was bad, but not shocking, and if you are 7, it was probably ok. J liked it at any rate.
Yesterday I blogged about Scrabble. Yesterday J wanted to play - why not? I told her I wouldn't let her win (but I did give her some help - she's only 7). I also told her that when she finally beat me she would really know she'd beaten me. Final score was J - 237, me - 276! Pretty close! Maybe I will have a little Scrabble buddy sooner rather than later!!
Apparently that's the end of blogging for today - I am in bed with laptop and M has landed atop of me saying "It's time to start the m-orn-ing!" So I guess it's time to stop writing about it and start doing it!
I've added a couple of blogs to the side today, that's a start I guess.
What's on in our family today? Well we are hoping to take the Terrible Two to the movies today. That's the plan - but so far our day is starting off pretty slow, so who knows. The girls are going to see Toy Story later in the week with Vacation Care, so we are going to Shrek 4 today.
The other day J wanted to buy a movie off Foxtel. She selected Free Willy 4. I explained that movies that have a 4 on the end are often pretty much rubbish, but Free Willy 4 stars Bindi Irwin and that was enough for J. Then she said "Does that include Shrek 4?" I dunno - I guess I'll find out. For the record, Free Willy 4 was bad, but not shocking, and if you are 7, it was probably ok. J liked it at any rate.
Yesterday I blogged about Scrabble. Yesterday J wanted to play - why not? I told her I wouldn't let her win (but I did give her some help - she's only 7). I also told her that when she finally beat me she would really know she'd beaten me. Final score was J - 237, me - 276! Pretty close! Maybe I will have a little Scrabble buddy sooner rather than later!!
Apparently that's the end of blogging for today - I am in bed with laptop and M has landed atop of me saying "It's time to start the m-orn-ing!" So I guess it's time to stop writing about it and start doing it!
Saturday, July 3, 2010
School Holidays
I am a high school teacher - high school teachers LOVE school holidays.
As for me, I crave the chance to sleep til I wake up (as opposed to being an alarm clock slave);
I like to have lunch when I'm hungry (as opposed to when the bell rings);
I always plan to get a long list of stuff done - stuff I've "left til the holidays" (I rarely do, but I keep the aspirations);
I like to catch up with friends (some of whom I haven't seen since last holidays);
I like to shop, to go to the movies, to go to the coast....you get the idea!
Well that's how it used to be! Now I have two little henchwomen with me at all times.* This holiday, so far, I have played scrabble with a very old friend, while M** watched Tom and Jerry and J*** looked up every word we wanted in the dictionary, kept our score and asked forty seven thousand questions. B and I used to gossip, bitch, laugh, joke (and in our younger years, drink and smoke) while playing scrabble. Yesterday, we answered questions, bravely struggled on and decided to play scrabble late at night in the future.
So what else will the holidays bring - not sure, bring it on!
*Have I introduced you to my mother? She is FANTASTIC! She knows how stressful my life is and likes to help me de-stress by taking the girls one weekend a month and for some time in the school holidays. She is a Saint. I would be a disaster without her. And, in the interests of full and frank disclosure, I should say she took "The Terrible Two" for 3 days at the very start of these school holidays so I could finish my assignment.
** Miss 6 - M - is in year 1. She is hilarious and fabulous. Despite her mother she is the girliest of girls. Here is an M story which best introduces her - one morning while I was getting ready for work, she told me that Lucy's mother wears this; Emiliy's mother has that colour nail polish; Lily's mother has a particularly fantastic pair of earrings; Olivia's mother's hair is that colour; Georgia's mother ALWAYS wears make up. Eventually, I said "Well M, I'm sorry your mother is so ugly!" She was horrified! "Oh no, Mum, you're BEAUTIFUL!" (my heart melts just a little) pause...... "On the inside!" Smackdown!!
***Miss 7 - J - is in year 3. She is intellectually gifted (very high IQ, taught herself to read at age 2, completely asynchronous development). That's a journey in itself. J also has ADHD. This is karma for me -- all those years as a teacher when I thought that ADHD was just code for bad parenting! Karma. Have spent more than half of my parenting journey thinking I was a bad mother as well. Am learning to let go of that and just hang on to J for the ride. She is wonderful, miraculous, fantastic, exasperating, high maintence and exhausting. In equal measure.
As for me, I crave the chance to sleep til I wake up (as opposed to being an alarm clock slave);
I like to have lunch when I'm hungry (as opposed to when the bell rings);
I always plan to get a long list of stuff done - stuff I've "left til the holidays" (I rarely do, but I keep the aspirations);
I like to catch up with friends (some of whom I haven't seen since last holidays);
I like to shop, to go to the movies, to go to the coast....you get the idea!
Well that's how it used to be! Now I have two little henchwomen with me at all times.* This holiday, so far, I have played scrabble with a very old friend, while M** watched Tom and Jerry and J*** looked up every word we wanted in the dictionary, kept our score and asked forty seven thousand questions. B and I used to gossip, bitch, laugh, joke (and in our younger years, drink and smoke) while playing scrabble. Yesterday, we answered questions, bravely struggled on and decided to play scrabble late at night in the future.
So what else will the holidays bring - not sure, bring it on!
*Have I introduced you to my mother? She is FANTASTIC! She knows how stressful my life is and likes to help me de-stress by taking the girls one weekend a month and for some time in the school holidays. She is a Saint. I would be a disaster without her. And, in the interests of full and frank disclosure, I should say she took "The Terrible Two" for 3 days at the very start of these school holidays so I could finish my assignment.
** Miss 6 - M - is in year 1. She is hilarious and fabulous. Despite her mother she is the girliest of girls. Here is an M story which best introduces her - one morning while I was getting ready for work, she told me that Lucy's mother wears this; Emiliy's mother has that colour nail polish; Lily's mother has a particularly fantastic pair of earrings; Olivia's mother's hair is that colour; Georgia's mother ALWAYS wears make up. Eventually, I said "Well M, I'm sorry your mother is so ugly!" She was horrified! "Oh no, Mum, you're BEAUTIFUL!" (my heart melts just a little) pause...... "On the inside!" Smackdown!!
***Miss 7 - J - is in year 3. She is intellectually gifted (very high IQ, taught herself to read at age 2, completely asynchronous development). That's a journey in itself. J also has ADHD. This is karma for me -- all those years as a teacher when I thought that ADHD was just code for bad parenting! Karma. Have spent more than half of my parenting journey thinking I was a bad mother as well. Am learning to let go of that and just hang on to J for the ride. She is wonderful, miraculous, fantastic, exasperating, high maintence and exhausting. In equal measure.
Starting Point
So I got married when I was 35 - after finally finding the man of my dreams when I was 34. That was 34 years of looking/hoping for Mr Right and the 2.4 kids and the dog and the house in the suburbs.
Now I'm 43. I have been married nearly 9 years. I have two beautiful daughters (and 1 in Heaven). A dog named Cobber. And a house in the suburbs.
And I wouldn't trade my life for what I had before for ANYTHING!
But I warn you -- be careful what you wish for, because my life now is not the life I imagined.
Now I'm 43. I have been married nearly 9 years. I have two beautiful daughters (and 1 in Heaven). A dog named Cobber. And a house in the suburbs.
And I wouldn't trade my life for what I had before for ANYTHING!
But I warn you -- be careful what you wish for, because my life now is not the life I imagined.
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