Holiday Breakdown (A breakdown of our holiday)

Tomorrow spells the end of my school holidays and looking back I accomplished most of what I set out to do: I was really keen on spending some time sewing and I ended up making Bubby a couple of pairs of really cute duddies, cutting the patterns out from a couple of pairs of linen pants of mine that I'd previously dyed. This time I added a little flare with contrasting cuffs and waistband. They turned out cool, considering my fairly limited ability. It was odd too - my sewing machine needle snapped on the very last stitch of the second pair. (Otherwise I would have felt as frustrated and ripped off as I did on Sunday when we got the footy time mixed up and missed half the bloody finals! I was totally ropeable!)

I also redrew the plans of the top floor of my house design. That turned out very enjoyable and I think very successful too - I'm heaps happier with it now. Now comes the super enjoyable task of scrapbooking all my favourite ideas from Better Homes and Gardens, Sanctuary and My Home mags. (I took one of those occupation ideas tests that schoolies do - all my answers reflected a desire to be in the 'creative' industries specifically architecture and interior design. I'd love to be a draftsperson at the moment - specially with school in the morning ;)

I decluttered Izzy's room and packed away a lot of toys for Anakin - making it a lot less of a kids room. And I set up our spare/folding laundry room as a lounge room for Anakin - shifting all his toys out of the actual lounge room. He LOVES it in there.

I did two Cairns missions alone with the kids and managed to order our vanity, bathtub and tiles for our upcoming bathroom reno'.

As well as having multiple school friends over for Iz, running him around a bit, advising him on the sensible way to spend his birthday money etc. Attending all the weekend markets and the Aquatic Festival... it was all very fun.

Mum has been cleaning up all my old home movies for me and burning them onto disk. It has been such a spin-out seeing Izzy at Anakin's age. They are SO alike!! They would have made the best little buddies cruising around together too. At the moment all Izzy can do is annoying things to make Anakin shriek "Mum!! Izzy's STIRIN" ME!!"

Unwanted Visitor

Check out our dinner guest. We did have two roosters and since coming of age they have been fighting furiously with one proving to be the lessor opponent. As a fringe dweller he'd been sleeping in the carport instead of in the chook house with the others. This was his fate. (Okay just imagine a big snake swallowing a rooster..) Anyway it came back last night, we came home from Mum's just in time to see it making it's way to the chook shed! Greg and Izzy wrangled it into a big esky and relocated it in the national park. It was exciting!
I can't wait to be able to put some pix up but things aren't really working out for me today, technologically or otherwise.

Today has been one of those frustrating days where everything seems to be one step forward two steps back, you know the kind where you're trying to get all the louvers and screens cleaned with the help of a two year old who keeps hogging the hose and sprays straight into the kitchen window for a good few minutes while you're 'round the other side of the house, leaving a big mopping job to do as well. You've just caught the dog on the freshly washed throw rugs and then he shits himself on the freshly sprayed concrete while you're giving him a good flogging. The chickens are relentless and scratch up your garden and you rake all the mulch back in not once, not twice, but five freaking times. Your happy when the oldest child's new baby cockatiel discovers where it's seed bowl is finally, but then when it flaps around in there and sends it spreading all over the floor, you're only kinda happy. You fold a big pile of washing but there's another pile waiting for your in the drier and another one on the line... and some more in the dirty clothes basket... the washing up is endless. You got rid of one zit but you got three more. You finally get around to blogging but you can't upload the photos you want so your post really lacks the impact you desired and the autosave is playing up so there's probably another 30 minutes of your life you're never going to get back again.. sound familiar? (except for the dog part, I know..)

If

If I didn't eat so much Deb Instant Mash Potato Powder when I was a kid, maybe I wouldn't have a stutter.

If I called Mum's Paul to ask him about my faulty computer like I intended, maybe he would have felt a bit more connected in the world and not gone off and poisoned himself on carbon monoxide fumes that night.

If I had of taken Careers Day a bit more seriously instead of jumping the fence and drinking cask wine down the creek maybe I wouldn't be such a late starter in the work force, maybe I would be a property mogul by now.

If it wasn't for the bus driver Jesse being willing to drive all us bush kids to the movies on a Friday night maybe I wouldn't have turned out to be such a great kisser.

If I didn't yank pillows out from underneath Gregs head maybe he wouldn't think I'm such a bitch.

If I didn't have unprotected sex those two times I wouldn't have two babies.

Still here

Me and the kids are still in Cairns. The excitement for Bubby has been pretty intense. We've been to "muddy-mud skippers" where he went totally ecstatic - squirting dry mothers standing on the water fountains, chasing around seagulls, marveling at the awesome sea sculptures, spotting helicopters and so on. He called his dad on the mobile to share his enthusiasm over the pelicans he was checking out but having my two year old strutting around the boardwalk talking into a mobile was a bit too shame-job for me so I had to cut them off. And then back to the lagoon this evening. He's been on jumping castles and his favourite amusement rides. He checked out everything in the petshop with "Brussy". I made him eat a passionfruit and half an apple before we hit macca's for brekky this morning so he could play on the plastic fortress of joy. (Issy's rubbing off on me - everything he says is like "to the depths of the dooms of the underworld...") Bubs awake again, am I never going to have time to say everything I want??

Happy 12th B Day Izzy!

He started out the school holidays by loosing another tooth! Before he went to bed tonight I reminded him that he'd better go brush the remaining 5 or so that he's got left. He's reckons he's over having birthday parties so he had a great day spent flying kites at the beach, hanging out at the markets, eating watermelon at the creek... all those things that make a childhood good and wholesome. I bought him a beautiful bronze coloured, art deco looking dome-shaped birdcage that stands taller than me with a couple of gorgeous budgies in it. (Man they have been making the happiest little chirpy sounds all day long, we've been spoiling them rotten with sprays of millet, chopped-up snowpeas, paw-paw and strawberries, the best budgie-treat-sticks money can buy, calcium and iodine perches, and we've woven all this foliage from the bottlebrush trees and fruit trees through the bars in their cage. They're livin' it up!) And "The Encyclopedia of Marvel Superheroes". Greg bought him another controller for the PS3 and his dad got him Guitar Hero. He also has accumulated a large wod of cash from the relies to spend in Cairns when we head up there tomorrow.

Actually we've had a nice start to the holidays. Yesterday I took the kids for a look at the animals and stuff at the stockfeed place, followed by a visit to the library and a trip to the cafe for iced chocolates and chips and gravy. Then I took the kids home via The Block (grass is getting long again), stopped at the creek for a play (where I nearly knocked myself out with the end of the rope swing) and then went to "fish-n-chip night" at the CoastGuard for tea. (Anakin uses this fully bunged-on Aussie voice to ask "Goin' d fish n chip nIGHT!?" He says it all the time. 'Cept fish-n-chip night's only on about once a month. So then he asks "Goin' to the BISTRO!?"

Will keep going with this when I can but Bub's woken up and Greg's bugging me that it's my bedtime.

NooooOOOO!

Well Greg's gone off to some Marlins Basketball reunion thingy and won't be back 'til tomorrow arve, I gave him grief before he left and in my defence told him I had underlying abandonment issues. His retort was that they weren't exactly UNDERLYING - that they were pretty much right there at the SURFACE! Fair enough - I think I'm turning into one of my bratty Grade Three-ers, instead of my obvious maturity and zen-likeness (I wish) rubbing off onto them.

I've got this one troublemaker who the other kids are always dobbing in for various reasons, whether it be hiding things that don't belong to him in his desk, being rough, calling names, saying inappropriate things in the toilet, rubbing his skin condition onto other people.. he always acts completely offended with this horrified look on his face and then he goes "NooooOOOOO!" I've started doing it too (not the other things just the "NoooooOOOOO!" - it's like a knee-jerk response.)

I've learnt to use Anakins enjoyment of role-playing to my advantage. "Baby Kira" is a breeze to take to the shops, not like Anakin himself. He asks to be put in the baby capsule trolley and then he just lies there all limp an agog. It's awesome. When he's being all squirmy and I'm trying to get his nappy on I just suggest he be a dead wallaby and he lies there all limp and staring into space again! He saw a wallaby getting hit by a car out the front of our place a while ago, Greg had to drag it off the road and ring the council to collect it (what a job), there's always dead wallabies on the side of the road around here so it's not that I'm sick or anything - it's one of the things he likes to pretend being a wallaby that's "deadybones" and needs to be dragged off into the bush. I'm just glad he takes it so well, when Izzy found out about death and dying he almost needed a child psychiatrist.

Izzy's set up camp outside - he's got a mattress inside the tent and the big camping mat spread out in a prime spot with all his necessities, he's been bathing in the wheelbarrow, doing some gardening and getting all in tune with nature. He was suppose to sleep out there tonight but he's doing the complete opposite - he's in his Mum's bed with Anakin! He's squeezing in with us tonight.

I'm sending out the vibe to the universe to make a choice campervan come my way. So far today I had a Toyota Hiace Hightop park in front of me with a for sale sign on it - I chatted with the owners. Latter I rang up a guy who had a Nissan Family Campervan advertised for real cheap in an old Exchange just coz I was bored and waiting for Anakin to finish on the potty (he spends like 20 minutes there 3 times a day reading books, pretending he's canooing etc. He LOVES it!) Anyway this guy had sold it but had a Toyota Coaster for sale, I told him it wasn't suitable for us as it only had 2 seatbelts and there's 4 of us and I'm not really interested in anything with a shower and toilet because I reckon it takes up too much room, I just like the real simple uncluttered layout blah blah blah, anyway he asked if I was in any hurry and I said no, I'd been looking on and off for like a couple of years. So he's got this mate who's going to be selling his in a month or two - 4 seats etc, sounds like what I want and he's going to give me a call as soon as it becomes available. Something to look forward to. Sounds like he's going to have a reasonable price on it too, some people try to ask SO MUCH for Coasters, it's an '84 model so I just hope it's already got a reconditioned motor.

"We're like.."

I'm seriously lacking sleep. Bedtime Saturday was like 3am Sunday morning (think of me in the company of lots of very cool chicks, and one hen, at the nicest place cut into a mountainside with a beautiful view, indulging in an afternoon of pampering, sharing a delicious meal, switching on the fairy lights and lighting a mass of candles and a bonfire come night time, cranking up the amp, snapping the glow sticks and hopefully not making a big flattened mess of John's lawn by using it as a dance floor to carve up. Sharing precious stories about one another and exchanging words of wisdom. Wouldn't I like to do that on a more regular basis! How cool!)

Sunday morning I got to sleep in a tiny bit and then greeted the day with a big pint sized jug of water with some aspirins fizzing in it. Took myself and the boys down the markets for a supersized pancake with fruit salad and icecream, then we went for a drive out to Dad's. Mucked around there for a bit. Took the kids for a walk to feed my Uncle's horses then went for a look down the creek. As is usual these days Anakin was doing his impersonation of a platypus only this time he didn't have to imagine his natural surroundings he was actually in them. He went straight in for a swim. Crazy kid, it was bloody freezing. Greg and Izzy schemed ways we could move out there for a while. I'll be right - it's at the end of a long and corrugated dirt road.

On the way home we stopped in at some people's place who have a horse for sale. It's 18 years old though and I reckon about to die, no wonder they want to sell it. I had a bit of a ride around on it bareback and was still feeling like jelly from the adrenalin most of the way home, I realised I'm shit scared of riding horses and in no position to be in charge of one. It went okay, it's just that every other time I've ever been on a horse they've bucked, bolted or tried to scrape me off onto something. Then I had my delicate foot bones broken when I was stood on once and one of my old friends needed reconstructive surgery when she was kicked in the face. Not the best track record. I think I'll just stick to riding my bike.

Other remarkable points of the weekend include me weighing myself to find that I'm 6!! kilo's too heavy, need to cut back on the tuna chili pasta I make with a bucket load of cream, the yummy black forest cake I've just learnt how to make, the curry I make with a bucket load of coconut cream, (actually the main ingredient of most things I make is cream!), the best sticky rice in the world, sour cream and onion thinly cut chips... but it's all too good and I don't really think I can cut back on any of it... Man, there was this chick at the party though, she had the most gorgeous figure, made me feel inspired to get stuck in and do something about this body of mine, I remind myself of a little overweight pygmy.

Nicholas came over for a marathon of Soul Caliber with Izzy and disturbed us by choosing all the female characters to fight with so he could knock off their layers of armour and perv on their scantily clad (very ample) breasts (And I let Izzy spend all his pocket money on this game (!). I'm like "Nicholas they're ANIMATIONS, they're NOT REAL!" He's like "So. Neither are Pamela Anderson's." ?! (Do I sound like Kylie Mole? "And I'm like... and he's like".)

Oh yeah and Nick found out she was preggas so Anakin is going to get that double cousin I anticipated.