today

We are planning on working in the garden together, cutting back, pulling weeds, mulching, and perhaps having a sneaky peek at the neighbours' furniture as they move in next door.

It is a gorgeous winter morning, cold with rays of sunlight making the shadows long and the world a little bit golden. Later it is going to rain, by then we all will be curled up watching Hugo and seeing if it lives up to the hype.

goodbye autumn, you were kind of great

 

{bushwalks} : {last courageous swims in cold water} : {sewing} : {turning 5} : {jam making} : {bread baking} : {canoeing} : {reading in bed on a saturday morning} : {walking sadie} : {adventure sundays} : {breathtaking colours} : {backyard bonfires} : {crisp days with sharp sunlight} : {music}

my nemesis, the mop

I am coming clean about this. I hate to mop. It is the last thing on my chores list so the thing that most often gets neglected. It is last on the list because I loathe doing it.

We have 'moppable' floors (boards or tiles) in the kids' rooms, the sitting room, the study, hallway, bathrooms, laundry, kitchen and dining area. Over half the house. Half of these rooms are what I grew up calling "track areas". As in: my mother saying to me "Could you vacuum the track areas for me please Carol?" - track areas are the bits that get used a lot, that need a regular facelift, not the whole housework hog but a run over, the areas that get shabby quickest and need attention a little more often than not. You would think that a childhood that contains the concept of a 'track area', coupled with a borderline obsession about neatness would mean these floors are mopped regularly.

Not so.

They were mopped when the kids were crawling because there is nothing like being outed as a slattern by the exposed grubby knees of your infant. So when the kids were tiny, I mopped. I also drove myself into the ground with ridiculous expectations of perfection and motherhood. Suffice to say I don't really do either that much anymore.

As I type this I am supposed to be mopping. It is 9 days since my last mop. Alas, abstinence is not to be admired in this field. If only it were, I could happily 12 step program mopping and give it up forever.

So I am procrastinating, not mopping. I am sitting with a cup of peppermint tea and a melting moment. I am reading blogs.  And because I am a most gifted procrastinator I have finished my regular reads and looking at a few newbies. I found this one - cloth paper string - and it is beautiful. But I draw your attention to the 4th of March post which starts with the magic words "It's been well over a year since I mopped the kitchen floor..." Soulmate, I have found you. Now to stop procrastinating and read some more of this lovely blog by a lady in Maryland, a place I fell in love with in 2001 on a trip to the US.

The mopping can wait. Do you have a blog that I can read? I would love to have a look...

endings, beginnings...

I have filled in the forms and she is now officially enrolled to start school next year. Bittersweet.

early to bed...

Our kids are early risers. Always have been. Sam more than Milly. We have never had to wake him up to get somewhere in time. Milly might sleep until 7am every couple of months. Sam is up between 6 and 6:30 every day. Except when he gets up at 5, which happens every couple of months.

It could be worse (it was worse when they were younger) - they are self sufficient, making their own breakfast and doing their own thing until we get up. But they always wake us to let us know they are up. Always. There is an upside, they are in bed by 6:45 (at the latest - lights out) every night. It is our knock off time. I don't know how parents can still be going at 8pm.  By 6:30 I have just enough energy left to read a chapter of a book, supervise teeth cleaning and sing a lullaby. There are nights I don't have enough energy for that much and dental hygiene standards slip below acceptable levels.

There are two ways to get screwed when your kid in an early riser: There is the horror 5am start to the day. Then there is the crying at the drop of a hat, impaired neurological function, crazy mood swing inducing exhaustion at the end of the day.

And yesterday we got screwed. Both ways.

Sam woke at 5 in the morning. He woke me to say good morning and, unusually, I did not get back to sleep. Happy as anything, he pootled around fitting in a days' worth of play before walking to school at 8:30. By 5 in the afternoon I was exhausted and he was weeping quietly into his teddies. The bath was no tonic, dinner was a write off, homework - not a chance. At one point he declared through his hiccup-y tears "Everything is SO hard". On nights like these sugar may as well be crystal meth as it will send him off on a bender like a rockstar. Calm voices are a must. Boundaries need to be firm. In the blink of an eye he can go from weeping in misery to raging crazies.

Last night he was in bed at 6:20, asleep by half past. We managed to get him there without the raging, just the misery and crying. Success. But there is always a moment when I am agog that a 7 year old's energy levels and mood have dictated to the household. I am sure my parents would have yelled at me and thrown me into bed. I have tried that - it doesn't work.

As I carefully negotiated the evening with this child, who is intelligent and reasonable and curious and kind and funny EXCEPT when he is overtired I wondered what the balance is. Last night was most definitely not ok. But does it really matter when this only happens once every couple of months? Could he be re-programmed to sleep in longer? Would we want that if it meant he stayed up later? What if , would it, could we...

It is sometimes exhausting, this parenting caper.

workers

With so much sewing going on here this month it is ages since Milly and I spent an afternoon in the garden. We are pruning grapevines, cutting back enormous bushels of miscanthus gigantus (it lives up to its name and is 10 feet high this year), mucking out the chicken coop and raking leaves. The Japanese Maples are all about the leaves at the moment.

bedside reading

The author of choice in our house at the moment is Cesar Milan - Dog Whisperer and general guru with his approach to balanced dogs. Sadie is lovely and obedient when it comes to basic commands like stay and sit and out but I do suspect that should Cesar come whizzing past on his rollerblades he would know within a millisecond she is a little unbalanced. She persists with jumping and over excited spinning around the kids. Nothing really bad, but definitely annoying. Apparently it is about their energy. Which is unsurprising as they can make me unbalanced sometimes.

Meanwhile we will keep reading and hope to find an approach to counter the occasional whirling dervish we are living with. Feel free to leave me hints if you have becalmed an excitable dog and have a tried and true method.

please excuse my absence this week, I was...

...trying hard to get through the week without going crazy. I worked an extra day this week and while 3 days a week is not a lot, it was a shock to the system. I decided the thing that had to go was the computer, I haven't posted here or read others' blogs or even posted pics on instagram much. So instead of computer-ising I was:

~sewing the endless quilt
~having a tupperware party (if ever there is a sign that you may need to say 'no' to people a bit more it is finding yourself hosting a tupperware party)
~going out without the kids twice in a week, once in Melbourne - a shock to the system and a reminder of our life pre-2004
~keeping Sam home from school in a preemptive strike against the bronchial lurgy that is lurking here at #55, thus teaching him a new word - "wagging"
~planting lupin seedlings (just 3 of them) and wondering if this is the year I will get them to flower properly
~starting the autumn garden maintenance in earnest
~maintaining the pocket money system which has meant that in a crazy week the kids have pitched in and helped more than usual.
~catching up with lovely friends by having school mums over for lunch on one day and on another spending time sitting and chatting in my favourite room

In short - I have been doing everything but sitting at the computer.

far away in time

{ photo from NSW Parks and Wildlife }

Gods have aligned. With a public holiday Monday and a Friday off to write reports we had a sudden realisation that I have a ten day break from work next month. Add our desperate need to get away after a long couple of months and a desire to give the kids a taste of camping and we realised that a holiday could be the answer.

In the space of an hour I have found and booked us seven nights in paradise. Depot Beach, NSW. We've never been there, don't know anyone who has but I am going to spend the next fortnight believing it is paradise until we pull up with the van in tow and are faced with an alternate reality.

Sam wanted a state he had never been to before. I wanted a beach. Michael wanted no mobile phone reception. Milly wanted to be able to plug in her night light. We had no choice but cheap. Depot Beach it is.

I have been jumping around the house singing "Depot Beach" to the tune of Echo Beach by Martha and the Muffins. Seriously - look up the lyrics - it is perfect. "The only thing that helps me pass the time away, is knowing I'll be back at Depot Beach someday". Bring on another crazy week: I will be singing this in my head. In 2 short weeks I will be watching the sun rise over the ocean.

discovery

We found a reserve today, the entrance to which we have driven past hundreds of times and always thought was a driveway.

We stood next to trees so enormous we couldn't put our arms around them or see the top.

We smelled the smoke from chimneys of nearby farmhouses and wondered if people who lived there were snuggled up in front of a fire or out working in the cold air.

We wished we had packed a picnic and decided we would most definitely come back.

this week

{ Picture from chasingthecrayon's etsy shop }

Michael has been entertaining executives from the USA all week - think Global Chief Engineer.  Think lots of men in suits holding meetings and losing track of time and having little or no regard for the lives of the minions they are speaking at. Think Global Chief Engineer cramming two weeks worth of meetings into one week. So that's Michael's week, mine has been: 

 ~ Reading and watching TV with my head above my feet. Apparently that's what you need to do when you have low blood pressure.

 ~ Doing dinner Betty Draper style (i.e alone with children, no husband in sight) I think Betty did it with alcohol, I didn't, but I should have.

 ~ Making the hour long round trip to a previously loved bookshop to talk with the proprietor and getting advice on the next reading adventure with the kids. She was dismissive and useless and did not listen to what I was asking. At all. Henceforth I will feel no guilt using book depository and taking money away from that particular small and independent retailer. Bad retail service - on my list of top ten hates.

 ~ Finally having a day to myself with big plans to escape to the cinema but nothing was on worth watching. Seriously disappointing.

 ~ Opening bank accounts with the kids, and watched them lining up with their pocket money to deposit. Very cute. However I am scared that by October they will have more savings than me. Very scared.

 ~ Buying three cardigans at Target because they were cheap. Unsurprisingly they look cheap. They also feel cheap. I will be taking them back. A complete lapse of sartorial judgement.

 ~ At after school pick up asking the question in reference to the weirdest little kid at Sam's school - "Is (insert name here) riding a unicycle?" the answer was "Yes". His status as the weirdest little kid at the school is cemented. A unicycle? At seven years old. Definitely weird.

Now I have written this post I can hit publish and when Michael asks me how my week has been I can direct him to the nearest computer device-y thing and tell him to leave me alone. I am exhausted.  I can pretty well guarantee you that the one thing he will want more details on is the unicycle.

progress

I am on track with my "every day in may" project. I have ten blocks to go and feel like the quilt top will be finished by the end of the month. Yesterday I spent more time unpicking than sewing. The lesson being that while it doesn't take a lot, there is some level of concentration required.

autumn ailments

I am having my third day off this term. It is only week 5, I work two days a week which means I have had a third of this term off. Me sick, Sam sick. Now me again. Last night I had a migraine. I have one rarely, perhaps a couple of times a year. Today I feel like I am recovering from a car accident, battered and bruised. I am not sure how regular migraine sufferers do it.

On the upside - how beautiful is autumn?

mothers' day

So after my bitching and moaning I did have a lovely Mothers' Day, languishing bed, reading and being tended to. In the absence of a brass bell I was given a party blower and the knowledge that should I need anything my minions would come running to do my bidding. Breakfast in bed, afternoon tea, dinner, supermarket shopping - all done without me.

Of course I feel like an ungrateful cow but that feeling will pass and the memory of a relaxing Mothers' Day will linger. My gift, the lovely wallet (posted about a couple of weeks ago) is as glorious as I remember.

nerds

We spent a few hours geocaching today. A friend (an ex-scout and general outdoorsy nerd type) told me about this years ago and I could see the appeal but today was the first time we tried it. Geochaches are small treasures left around the world to be found by other geocachers using coordinates. Sometimes they contain treasures, sometimes only a log. If you take something from a cache you must leave something for the next cacher. The location is logged on a website and rated according to how difficult they are to locate. Some caches have a backstory or clues to help you find them. Anyone can register, copy the coordinates and go adventuring. We decided to do a lap of town today and chose 4 geocaches to unearth.

Our first find was an old horse trough which is part of a legacy left for the RSPCA by a wealthy family in the 1920's. The bequest allowed for troughs to be built throughout Australia in order that horses should be able to stop and rest. Beautiful. We found the trough but not the cache.

The second revealed our first proper cache - a film canister with a log of sucessful cachers - it was well hidden within an old pipe. We found it after about ten minutes of scrambling around in the ivy and dirt. It has been there a long time, the first entry on the log was early 2011.

We turned and headed into town to look for one called "Don't look up". It was placed high up on the post of a traffic light at a busy intersection in the centre of town. Look to the left of Milly's hand and you will spy the canister. This was our favourite as we replaced it and then laughed at the dozens of people walking below it, oblivious to the secret treasure so close.

Heading down to the bay we had our trickiest hunt. We found a large cache, this time camouflaged in a tree. Lots of treasures inside - bubbles, stickers, tickets and the log. This is a relatively new cache, placed there in January this year. It was put there by an American tourist with a "travel bug" (a small token) that the cacher would like to travel around the world then return to the US. The travel bug has long gone but we are imagining it having a world adventure as it heads back to be tucked inside a Californian cache where the owner might find it again.

We are thinking of setting up a cache of our own, down our laneway, tucked in against the fence. The thought of leaving treasure for strangers has us very excited. Until then, if you find a cache and see that Perennial Family have logged it, that's us. We will definitely be looking for some more.