Time....

Hello! Well, the day has flown by and I feel I've done a gazillion things and none of which I can remember! Well, there was the three loads of laundry done and hung by school drop off, the vegie/fruit/bread/milk shop, the changing of sheets on beds, the baking of a slice and a batch of cookies and the preparation of a lasagne. Thank goodness for dishwashers, as I've already filled and emptied mine twice. And no, not with stuff I could have just rinsed, but yeah, different things and lots of them!

I'm just sitting with a cookie from said batch, and a coffee, and mulling over my day's achievements and the addition of energy to my motherhood mojo that I've been feeling these past few days. The fella's home, but I don't think that's got to do with the change in mood, I think it's more the decision made to just get up and get on, to be honest.

Since making the decision to actually Do The Stuff That Needs Doing, I've had that feeling of achievement return. After that, a little bit of happiness returned because of the achievements. Then some pride at the achievements fuelled my joy, and I feel back on the mend.

I've hit the kitchen again, determined to play Beat the Pantry. Beat the Pantry is a great game to play if you are strapped for cash, want to pretend you are, or just want to clear the pantry before the next big stock-up. It works exactly how it sounds - your job is to Beat the Pantry by emptying her out as much as possible before you have to go and get more stores (either at pay day, or when ever you normally do it). I do it to delay the inevitable massive shop that usually comes as a result of my cycle of storing up and then purging the pantry and I love it. I often find something that I got (like Lemon Chicken recipe base) that completely surprises me and I look forward to cooking. It's also a great way to remember how many Actual Ingredients we have and how much I now can make really from scratch.

Anyway, enough blabbering for the moment. I've really got to go and do something else, because there is still another pile of something somewhere, like all the time!

Knitting, For Beginners like me.

I got a message a while back asking about knitting, for a beginner who knows how to cast on, cast off, and not do much in between. Well, to be honest, I'm not the world's best knitter, just about everything I make has raging flaws in it but I try! My best advice to anyone is to go and join Ravelry immediately and search the pattern and forum databases to join a great community. I got all the best of my patterns there, some free, some not, and I love it. I've also met some wonderful people since joining, as it seems that there is no group so tight-knit!

So I hope that helps. I'd love to go in to more detail, but the babies are corralling the wagons and ready to commit some breakfast time to their tummies!

Getting back up on the money train...

Ok, so years ago if you had have wanted to, I would have been all over a quantam physics conversation about manifesting your wildest dreams like a fly on crazy string. I really loved that stuff, loved reading peoples cards for them, loved actually doing a whole lot of writing for people about the things that 'came through' about them and how they could best go forward if that's what they wanted. And then I became an amazing bahhumbug on it when I attended a couple of psychic shows and met other volunteers who were a little too grabby-handed for my liking. It really stained my view, and I retreated and became a real bitchy-mc-whingerton on the whole money and spirit thing. I still have my cards, I still look at them and want to do a reading for myself, and for others if they'd ask, but I don't put it out there.

And then last december, I bought a copy of a book called Harmonic Wealth. I read the first 50 or so pages, desperately trying to find a way to keep our son in his school that I really like (and he loves) the philosophy of. Like a lightning bolt, the fella got a raise of exactly the amount of money needed to fund that school only about a week after I started reading it. And then guess what I did?

I put the book down.

I know right? What a complete dickhead. Why haven't I picked it up again? Why? I don't know. Fear of the possibilities is all I can think. I am amazingly, stupidly afraid of what could happen to me if I just pull my fingers out of my ears, stopped yelling "lalalalalala" out loud and just listened to my spirit.

If I can manifest greatness in to my own life - so far the outcomes from my previous efforts have been pretty damn good - then why do I stop myself? Seriously, I would want to headbutt someone if they were pissing and moaning about their own life the way I sometimes do, and then hear that They Know They Can Change It, and then they do nothing about it.

So here I stand, hat in hand and on my knees... I am going to concentrate on the following parts of my life, and when they come up and change, I am going to be grateful.

• I'm going to manifest time for myself, including a babysitter for my kids on a weekly basis, and time for reflection/meditation/journal writing each night
  
• I'm going to manifest good health and weightloss for myself, including time each day to take the kids for a walk so they can't outrun their mama no more
• I'm going to manifest wealth, real monetary wealth, in to our home by spending on the stuff that we need and investing in quality items
• I'm going to manifest time here, on my blog, to both celebrate and share my angst about my goals and achievements
• And finally, I'm going to manifest time to get back in to reading those cards and writing it all down for other people, because it was something I used to love.

So that's the start of it. This blog is going to be my journal, at least periodically, with the beauty of screaming in to the cyber world, I'll feel heard, and funnily enough, not violated about it.

Ok, boots on metaphorically speaking. It's time to dig that book back out and go get me some motivation!

I'm a bit naughtry....
So I ran away on holidays, and I ended up having all this by the time I got back...!

Since July? Where've I been?!

Well I'm sorry, invisible people who are probably never visiting this place. I've been absent. Not absent of body, but absent of time. I've been doing what a lot of other mama's out there are doing and actually 'being' with my children and not turning on the computer a hell of a lot. It's been hard, actually, to find the time. I've been really wanting to, needing to, scream in to the nothingness that is this bottomless pit called the internet, but just thought I'd leave it.

But I'm back. For the moment anyway.

The monkeys are fine, with one learning to wriggle around on her bum and the other one learning how hard it is when you can no longer get everyone's undivided attention one hundred percent of the time. We've been doing lots of new stuff - building vegie patches, planting fruit trees and a grape vine, cleaning and decluttering and having loads of picnics. Outdoors is the place to be!

So I thought I'd drop a pin in the ocean and see if anybody is still out there, reading and blogging and wishing and hoping and dreaming....

We're dreaming of holidays at the moment. Nice, long holidays with a daddy that is home and yummy summer food and great summer company....

Bring It On!

SAHM and FIFOD

I've been asked a lot lately about 'coping'. So I thought I'd focus a bit on it, maybe there are mums out there that would like to hear the mindless drivel of a woman who spends 8/12 months of the year being basically, a solo parent.

Firstly I would like to clarify that I am not in a winner-takes-all whinge about single motherhood vs. sahming with a fifo partner. Solo parenting, in my book, (and here, I guess!), is the act of being the sole provider of care for a long period of time. Like days, or weeks, or in the case of women whom I envy but never want to be, the wives/partners of soldiers and their amazing class of folks that go for months at a time being away and having so little contact that even I would hide away and cry within the first week.

Ok, I'm sure I've forgotten some group or ten, but I'm hoping you get the point.

So I personally am a solo parent for 2 weeks at a time, with the fella coming home for one week each time he returns. The pattern is good. It's simple, predictable and has a rythym of it's own that we can fit around. If there are women out there, reading this, with a 'sometimes rostered' partner, my hat is off to you. I couldn't deal with a phone call in the afternoon telling me that the fella was needed somewhere else in the morning and there was no routine to it. It would drive me insane.

But anyhoo...

I have a 3 1/2 yr old that still likes to sleep in my bed, and an 8month old that would not like that at all. Their sleeping habits couldn't be more different - one's a mummy kid, the other a lay-me-down-and-leave-me-alone kid. They eat different, play different, but thankfully they get along just fine. The hardest times are when I am tired, or distracted, or heaven forbid- want to do something that doesn't have a participant need (blogging, anyone?!).

But then there is day ten. By day ten I am soooo over being on my own that I am a downright bitch. It's day ten today, which is why I thought I'd write this instead of chewing the head off of nearby toddlers.

So here is my coping list of do's and don't's (if I can find any don't's)...

*Eat properly. Make meals, not microwavable bits of plastic crap, and leave spaghetti in a tin (and the nutrient-empty things like it) to collect dust at the grocery shop. If the only way you can get a balanced meal on the table is to get a slow cooker, then get that thing cranking. By the end of winter, my slow cooker is hurting. It's wanting to go to slow cooker holiday school. My son is shocking at trying to get dinner in to after about 5pm, so I shove vegies and some meat in that thing in the morning, turn it on about lunchtime and that's dinner. I find the days when I have dinner prepared by 11am (not cooked, but veg peeled, meat thawed and ready) are our best days. Kids get needier as the day wears on, the cartoons or telly doesn't hold their attention and they want to get to the park or a friends, which, in all honesty, is an angsty mum's worst nightmare if she's not prepared for the dinner/bath/bed rush. So I beg you, make your dinner early, and if you don't like eating at that time of day then keep yours til later (with a glass of red, no?!). By making vegies appear in your diet every day you will have more energy to keep being the solo parent.

*Have a routine, and break it only sometimes. My kids, I am convinced, are going to learn to tell the time pretty soon. At 5pm it's bathtime, for about 15minutes, and then dinner, and then Ethan can watch the Simpsons (which I know is awful, but jees, we all have some crap we enjoy and it gets him to eat dinner at least!). After that godawful show is over, we retreat to the loungeroom and the tv is on and we begin to relax. By about 6.45pm I've got him to organise his book, and we brush his teeth, he wees in the toilet and the story begins. It's rare that he's out of bed after 7. He might be awake for a whole lot longer, but unless he needs to wee, he stays put. I won't go in to how I acheived this, but it took a lot of work. Alice fits in there, the whole time, because she's that annoyingly easy bub that at 6.30 I can lay in her own bed and then Ethan and I have some time doing the other stuff. The week is broken up usually, by things like school, my knitting group, gymnastics and Family Movie Night. The flow of the week is good because Ethan knows, for example, friday is gym day and we need to do certain things, and that after he finishes school on mondays he's going to be either hanging out with dad or he'll have the day off the next day to pick dad up from the airport (the in-between monday is a bummer, but we deal with it anyway). Family Movie Night was started about 4 months ago because I was sick of 'doing nothing' on weekends when the fella was away. So now Ethan and I visit the movie rental store on saturday afternoons, buy junk food (usually chips, godblesshissaltytastes!), and then we come home, clean the house and have 'easy tea' (code for a slack dinner of maybe savoury scones or scrambled eggs and fried mushrooms). After that we have our usual routine but instead of bedtime I pull out some big cushions, make him a bed on the loungeroom floor and we watch a movie together. Again, some nights are harder to keep him still, but usually he's wrapt and it all goes to plan.

*Have a fall-back plan. When Alice came along I had found myself being a lot more honest with my friends. I wasn't coping. So along came my friend that said 'if it's going to shit, call me and you can always visit'. So she's my "I'm about to kill this kid if I don't get him doing something with anyone else" fall-back plan. I can throw us all in the car, drive to her house and her kid will go feral with mine and tire themselves out while we have a cuppa and gush over our babies. It's friggin brilliant, because we have a pact that is two pronged...Our kids are both as 'bad' as eachother (Read: just cos you saw mine hitting yours doesn't mean it's the start or the end of the story), and Never Fall Out Over Kids - the kids will be friends and enemies 50 times an hour, but if you have an argument with a grown up over who's kid threw sand in the hair of the other kid you can find yourself in the shit with them for years. Or you'll dread them coming over. Either way, if your kid is painted as a villian by either you or your friend, you won't visit. And those friends are better saved for your days when every thing is rosy and you're going well. If your falling apart, on day ten, then the last thing you want is to visit someone who's gunna yell at your kid because they never see what their own is doing. So if you want a fall back plan, make it with someone who's as laid back as you are or it won't work because the relaxation you were looking for (the fake kind, but fake is still ok!) won't be there!

*Finally, be kind to yourself. I just told Ethan that he needed to leave me alone for 10 minutes, because I'm busy. OH NO!!! I told my child that I'm busy? What kind of a monster am I?!!! Well, an honest one. Because I Am Busy. I'm trying to get the word vomit out of my head and on to the screen so that the yelling in cyber space can be done. He's not going to grow in to Ted Bundy because of it, he's not going to be found in a corner sucking his thumb and not dealing with the world. So if you are not coping and have to have some time, TAKE IT and make it yours. I have a friend who knits while her baby is sleeping, and reads to her toddler while she's doing it. She gets the kid to turn the pages, and that gets her through the day.

Now, what do you do to get through? Please share. But right now, I'm off to the park...

School Holidays...

Now I know why teachers need a break!

Ah, it's not so bad. As a very self-assured three and a half year old, I'm only dragged away from doing my work about once an hour (or half an hour, depending on the tiredness levels), and he can be pretty well made happy with trips to the park on his new bike and doing odd jobs like making icypoles and jelly. So we're all relatively well-maintained at the moment.

Some random things going on though are things like :

*using the word 'no', and meaning it. For example, if mum asks you three times to clean up the floor because it looks like the toy gods have thrown up and no one can move their feet, then she says 'you have until the count of three to clean the floor, and if you haven't, what ever I pick up goes in to the cupboard for two days', you might just want to believe her. So now he's not using the entire of the wooden block collection, most of his toy cars, and dvd's are banned until tomorrow. I have a feeling that we might be better at picking things up today.

*I've been trying to appear more ladylike. Yeah, right? How do you know when enough is enough, and when do women who rise at 6am to blow dry and straighten their hair get their medals?! I have to confess I don't even own a hairdryer, and the thought of using a straightener just makes my ears hurt because I'm pretty sure I'll clamp them in my efforts. So far I'm getting to the makeup and decent clothes (trackydacks and stained tops are strictly for night time when I know we're alone now!) by about 9am. Hoping that eventually my obsession in to peeking in to the internet Rabbit Hole will pass by next week and I'll manage to make that '9' an '8' and be able to get Ethan to school and look like a human being. Now, this brings up a few issues for me. I feel nauseaus at the thought that to be attractive we must preen and obsess about looks far more than we do about our interior selves, and because of Consumption Rebellion's blog I was made aware of a youtube video (which I don't have the skills to figure how to put straight in the post) on this link - Katie Makkai's Pretty Poetry Slam so I am really aware of any subliminal message I'm passing on to my own children. I could go on about this, but I just encourage you all to check it out.

*Did you know that if a glass door has suffered, oh, I dunno, a small rock hitting it from a 3 1/2 yr old, that if the weather gets cold enough outside, it will shatter? Yep. That shatterring will result in a stay-at-home-mum who's also home-alone-mum shittering her pants, because she thought that there was someone trying to break in to the house via the back door. Call in the nice neighbours nice hubby, who assured me it would be ok, because it was far too cold for anyone to be out there breaking in to houses that night!

*I have itchy feet again. Well, not so much itchy feet, but a real hankering for the fella to be able to work locally. It feels like he's been gone a month already, and that feeling started only five days in to the swing. Urgh. But we've broken the 10% equity point on the mortgage, and we're quite a bit in front now. So I keep consoling myself with the thoughts that as long as we keep on keeping on, he'll be home soon enough. Like maybe after another two years. Again, urgh.

Ok, randomness and thought patterns aside, I really should wrap it all up and go do some constructive house work and the like before my absence is noted. Hope you check out that youtube link - it's great.

You know you're a parent when....

Last night I drove to the airport to drop off my brother for his holiday to Tasmania. On the way there and back, there was a radio station asking people to call in and complete the sentence " you know you're a parent when... ".

And boy, did I find out the 'when' this morning. And tuesday night. And wednesday. And currently, while I'm trying to write this post for inspiration (of myself, I think, more than anyone else!).

See, the fella flew out on tuesday morning. So what better a night than tuesday night, for the dog to suffer heart failure and need a vet by wednesday morning, and what better a night than tuesday for the ridiculously cold weather to shatter my back glass door. So that was tuesday.

You know you're a parent when you manage to juggle a sick 35 kg dog, a glazier, a 3 1/2 yr old, an 8 month old, glass everywhere (mental note to self - the glazier knows much easier ways to get the shattered glass out of the door than I do). And still manage to put three meals and two (or lets be honest, 'unlimited') snacks on the table, do washing, clean the house and still manage to knit some at night just to wind down.

Then thursday came, and with it a vet's diagnosis that the dog has heart failure and we now have to watch him for different signs and fluid in the abdomen, and all other crazy things (think: having an elderly parent here that you can't keep inside because they really don't like it!), a trip to the shops with my brother and two children, a trip to the dreaded family assistance office, cooking, cleaning and all that jazz, and then a trip to the airport to drop off said brother at about 8pm.

So last night the kids were a little needy, to say the least. I have slept a total of 6 broken hours, and at 5.30am my son had woken but not managed to pee straight in the dark and instead of the toilet he peed on the floor. Ensue lots of crying for his mum and dad. Maybe because he really wanted to just hop in to bed with me but I am trying really hard not to let him. And then he woke his sister. So here we are, up for nearly 3hours already, and I'm pretty sure I'm running on coffee and the comfort of dairy products (thank you, farmers who still make real butter, it's just so comforting!).

You know you're a parent when you can't actually remember the last night that you did sleep more than 3 hours straight, without one of either of your kiddo's kicking, or crying, or just needing a bottle. And we're all still alive. There's honestly no way I'd let someone who I didn't give birth to do this to me and still love them - or even speak to them. Still deliberately make toast for them, even thought they say they don't want it (and you know that they do and will as soon as you sit and take your first bite), and go out of my way to make sure that they are happy, no matter how low my eyes are hanging out of my head!

Ok, hope you folks out there are having lovely weeks. It's just bucketing down with rain here, and I'm meant to be taking the kids to a farm about an hour out of the city, but we'll have to see about it first I think as it's getting a bit wild and wooly. But hope you all have a great weekend, and maybe sleep longer than 3 or 4 hours at a time!

two little monkeys, that don't like to be in bed!

Fer Cryin' Out Louwd!

I am never winning Mother of the Year. Let us just make that decree.

I have now just got to the end of the fortnight, the fella is home again (although sleeping off nightshift) and I cannot wait until tomorrow morning. I know I know, wishing my life away is not just making it go faster, but it's making me miss some pretty good bits too, but faaaaark it is a long 14 days when he is away sometimes.

The kids have been sick. A high temp and awfully cruel cough for nearly 10 days for Ethan, which luckily translated only to a cough and snotty nose for Alice. But these last few days, with a snotty babe that can't breathe properly and wakes herself in the night, and with a hyper 3yr old that likes waking with the sun, have really worn me down.

So tomorrow morning I shall have the sweet, sweet bliss of being able to get a spare pair of hands to help, and I cannot wait.

Some projects I have done/am working on...

I've taken up knitting, as we all know. But I thought I'd upload some pics for posterity and yeah, so you all know I'm doing my home work and not just sitting around watching daytime tv (as is often rumoured of us stay at home mummies....)

Firstly, one of my girlfriends was blessed with the birth of another bub, Ricky, who arrived last week. He's adorable, and I hope he's enjoying his little blanket! The pattern is from the LionBrand website, under 'Horizontal Baby Blanket'. The pattern is super easy to knit once you get your yarn-overs and knit2tog's right, you go pretty well in front of the telly! I knit it with 12 ply acrylic because acryl is machine washable and 12ply is suuuuper thick, so it is great for a new bub to keep warm under either in bed or in the pram.



I've also been making this lace pattern scarf for my sister, but it's being made with 4 ply baby wool because it's very soft and I have bucket loads of it! I like this pattern, it's a baby-kind of pattern too, and an aunt had a reminisce over how her gran used to make it for the little bubs. The basic construction is just a feather and fan pattern that was downloaded from Ravellry under Feather and Fan Baby blanket but I doubled the stitches because the ply is so thin.



And then there's this monster of a blanket! I feel bad, because the jumper and the beanie I have so far made Ethan have been far too small to last him, so I've begun making him a single bed width blanket with this 12ply. It's a monster of a yarn, but it's a simple pattern that I can put away at a nanosecond's notice and pick up very easily! It's just yarn overs and k2tog's again, and is another great project that is picked up and put down between articles that 'must' be completed or may be a bit more complicated in patterning.


And then there's Alice's circular blanket, still kicking, that I'm teaching myself crocheting on as well as the initial lesson of knitting with double pointed needles.


So that's my project list at the moment. I'm also making an Oriental Lily dress (another Ravellry download - all knitters and crocheters MUST go there!) for Alice in a 2yr old size, because I want to start using it next winter and for it to be used for quite some time. No pictures of it yet, but they'll come!

Anyway, must go as there are two cherubs and I watching history change and greeting in the first woman Prime Minister today.

Ah, the bliss of no freedom...(!)

It's been weeks since my last post and nothing has changed...still plodding along, still managing the two kids until the fella comes home tomorrow.

And with that cry I must be off.

Early Morning Wake Up...

Well, my babies are asleep. Well, he is, and I can hear her stirring on the other side of the wall in front of me. I just thought I'd pop in this morning, even though it's 5am, and say I've been busy, with raising and creating, worshipping a cartoon called DirtGirl, planting daffodil bulbs, knitting and learning to crochet. I'm a committed knitter now folks! Although it's a comical journey, as I have only made one jumper for Ethan that got immediately handed down to Alice!

Ok, so now she is really awake and I've just changed and dressed her while that photo was loading. Time to really hit the deck now, and do the normal household stuff that seems to await a mother every day - a load of washing is now already in, there's breakfast to be made (maybe french toast this morning...?), and we're off to the library at a much more decent hour!

Have a nice weekend folks.

Nooo, I haven't forgotten I'm taking up valuable blog space!

I have had next-to-no-time for myself in the last few months. Seriously. I mean, I do sit of a night time and stitch my latest knitting project, and I have been attending a local knitting group and learning new things, so it's not like I'm under some new communist regime that does not allow me any kind of personal time, but the chances to just sit, blog about the world around me, and amaze my self with all the beautiful blogs out there has been very, very limited. It started to eat away at me a little, because I am also someone who likes having a relatively normal-looking home, and not one that the State Emergency Service might mistake for being hit by a hurricane. But a few things have had to go, and some of the housework remaining undone for a lot of the time has been one of those things.

Before I completely lost my noodle and threw myself in the nearest lake, I reached out for help and well, by god's grace, it was there. The people that helped me don't really know what they have done for the most part, but I'm still here, my kids are still happy, healthy and thriving, and for the most part the only thing missing was the sense of community I used to have the belief in.

I find it a bit of a shame that there isn't a sense of 'community' any more in the society I live in. I'm in a suburb that looks, for all intents and purposes, like we'd all know each other and maybe even take each other's kids to school. But no. I'm surrounded by Modern Mums. The gym-attending, fake-tanning, shops-for-entertainment women who are quite literally never home. I should clarify that these mums are also lovely people, with the same genuinely gorgeous intentions that the generations before them had for their children too, but I've just begun to notice that it seems like my generation, that is the X's and a few of the early Y's, have lost their love of the art of homemaking. I think that most of us aim for the catalogue look in our homes as well as in our actual lives, and it's a true shame.

But anyway, I digress...! I have actually been blessed with a whole hour by myself, because the fairies, angels or what ever other dieties there are that are in charge of my world continuing to spin must have met and had a sit down, ensuring that the roast is already in the oven, the partner is home and taking the son out while the daughter is having a very well rested sleep. So I thought I would pop in on here, let who ever is out there in cyber world looking over my fence know that I am still alive and to say 'hi'. Hope you're all doing well too - don't be shy in telling me so.

So, if anyone out there IS still reading this blithering mad babble of a woman finally alone, please feel free to tell me what it's like in your community? Maybe I'll move there, if it's friendly enough!

My yard...

needs help!

Oh-Ah Friday....blow out!

Well I'm hoping on the one hand I have a secret following of thousands that showed up here on friday dyyyying to see our new lounge room....but in reality I know that the only people I disappointed was myself and the fella!

We finally got everything back in to the room last night, as it's all painted and we hired a carpet cleaner, and the room looks freakin' great (except a couple of the cracks are already resurfacing, the fella wishes he'd taken more time and sanded and reapplied plaster more delicately) in my opinion! I was going to buy some curtains, but after looking at the prices of ready-mades, I'm going to put those rather expensive sewing lessons to good use and make our own. I like that it's nearly change of season again, so shops will be cutting the prices of last year's fabric to create that fear amongst home makers that they must update with the brand new stuff, so hopefully I will be able to grab some fabric that is "soooo last year" for really cheap. But then again, I know me, and I know that until it is really cheap, I won't buy anything!

Ok, so there are no piccies yet, but I proooomise I am thinking about it!

Hope you've had a great weekend...