Taueret

FO!

Look what I made!

ha!  Gotcha.  I did make it (him, actually)... only it was 15 years ago, exactly.  I remember when they brought him to me (yes, hospital birth, you live and you learn, sorry kiddo) I was prepared for a red wrinkly ugly critter- and he seemed SO BEAUTIFUL.  I remember saying "is that MINE?" (if not, why was my (X)H carrying him?  I blame morphine).

Of course a 15 year old is by no means a FO.  However, it *is* a person who, having finished 14 trips around the sun, has completed certain milestones.  I remember another blogger talking about this once, and I agreed with her thoughts.  My 15 year old will never be a 14 year old school dropout.  He will not be a man who has *never* had a girlfriend.  Or a 14 year old father.  That kind of thing.  Certain boxes are tickable, and I intend to tick them.  Its the only reward we get as parents, many days!

So, after coming to me in the dark, wrapped in a flannel blanket and already bathed (sorry, kiddo) and wide eyed, he grew and he grew.

Isn't it funny that in the days BEFORE digital cameras, I took hundreds of photos of my first baby, and somehow had them ALL developed eventually, even though we were so poor in those days that finding a $2 coin on the footpath was like a lottery win. My third baby, in a thoroughly digital home, has probably 1/3 the photos of her babyhood. Sorry kiddo. I've always loved the pic above, in my dad's arms- R. has always been R.- and you can see that in his face in this picture. "get me out of this useless baby body! I have stuff to do! It's an outrage!".

He kept growing, and went through his dinosaur stage (and his black eye stage, apparently). The rubber gloves transformed him into a velociraptor. (see in the background how I had plastic outdoor chairs at my dining table?  See above statement about finding $2 coin- things hadn't changed much)

He kept growing.

 

I got tired of scanning photos, so I skipped forward to what must be 2002, because that is a baby sister he is holding, and I had a digital camera!.  Obviously things change. 

 

R was 10 in this picture.  This was about the age where he asked me to PLEASE let him sign up for some kind of team ball sport, because he couldn't catch and got picked last in games.  SORRY KIDDO.  Of course, I did.  Out of all the cool things about this kid, the thing I admire the most is that while he is
gifted with his own share of smarts and ability- he has not been a prodigy at... well anything- not in the sense that he picked it up and was instantly good at it.  Whether it was piano, karate (sorry, done with scanning), basketball (too dark in the stadium to have many good pics) or AFL, he started off fairly- ordinary?  And stuck. with, it.  And now he is very good at all those things.  Well,not karate, he kind of lost interest in that after 3 years or so.  But you see my point.  I really, really admire that in him.

So, he just kept growing.  Made the cut for selective primary school in year 4 and 5.  Subsequently made the cut for selective high school.  I was so proud!  Can you tell? :-).









Oh look, I found one basketball one- he would have been 12? here.. 2004, no, 11.  Under 12's I guess.
















Look at this one- what a sweet brother.  What is blowing my mind a little as I type this is how young he looks, and yet how grown up I know he was at the time this photo was taken.
















The 2005 AFL grand final (ok, under 12s AFL grand final ;-) ).





















At dinner after our wedding in 2006 (mine and his step-dad's that is!). 
















Holding baby sis #2 in Sept 2006.

















2007 om nom nom nom.
















2008! proudly showing the first money he ever earned (not from me), umpiring AFL:





















As I always tell people, I have had so little to do with this kid becoming what he is becoming- "he was like that when he got here" I say.  I am so honoured to have been invited on the journey though.  Happy Birthday, Buh*!


*when you have baby sisters, you get nicknames like "buh".

I'm back...

 

I'm back from my holiday, and I don't want to be!

8 random things?

Abby tagged me... weeks ago for that '8 random things about me' meme.   "Here’s the deal: Once tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you. Then post the rules before your list, and list 8 random things about yourself. At the end of the post, you must tag and link to 8 other people, visit their sites, and leave a comment letting them know they’ve been tagged." I'm going to give it  a go, but boy am I scraping the bottom of the barrel this time.  I don't think there ARE 8 things about me, let alone 8 interesting ones.  And do I even KNOW 8 people to tag in turn?  We'll see.  I'm going to cheat and enumerate some of the things I was going to tell you anyway.

1) I finally got my car back, on Saturday.

 

I think I was carless for about a month.  Well, I was able to borrow cars, but it was a PITA.  This is in fact a brand new car, just like my old one, only a new one (huh?).  That makes my 4 year old very happy, because she was very upset when the "old" one got smashed.

2) I really, really like shopping at Remo.com.au .  I wanted to share that particular link because if you buy something from it, you get a free Tshirt as a 'welcome' gift.  I think I  get some loyalty points (even if you create an account for yourself with me as the sponsor), but mostly you get the T shirt.  It's an Australian business, specialising in things that are just cool.  Kind of like Granny May's, only classy?  I have been glad to know about Remo on many occasions, when buying gifts for those impossible-to-buy for people.  Prices range from very cheap to very expensive, all depending on what you are buying.  They have the best T shirts in the world, bar none.  They stock Moleskine notebooks.  That's just the tip of the iceberg.  Go look, even if only to enjoy the T shirt graphics.  I think 50% of their business comes from overseas, so don't hesitate to check them out even if you are not in AU.

3) THREE?  I got NOTHIN!! Let me think.

I am still knitting away on Roam, making slow progress.  I have finished the back and a couple inches of the left front.  The lack of fibre content to my days has been the reason the blog has been quiet.  Can you believe I just typed "the blog has been tired"? ha.

4) Here is my plan for the next few days' menus:

Monday:  roast chicken (you know, with a lemon inside)
Tuesday: salade nicoise
Wednesday: chipotle meatballs (to use the super expensive chipotles in adobo sauce I broke down and purchased from americanfoods.com.au during an intense bout of culinary homesickness.)
Thursday: bowtie pasta alla medici (ham and peas in a creamy sauce- de Medici in name only, it won't be poisoned )

5) I tried kangaroo for the first time last night- my friend made hamburgers with some kangaroo fillet that she minced up.  It tasted okay... surprisingly not a bit like chicken.  I would have thought it was super lean beef if no one had told me what we were eating.  I was too squeamish to eat all of mine.  There you go, a Random Thing: I am a somewhat adventurous eater and an okay cook, and a COMPLETE carnivore, yet I am ridiculously squeamish about eating anything other than cow, chicken, pig (in a pinch) or our swimming friends.  I'm even a bit leery of duck, though I do like turkey.  Crazy huh.

6) wow, this is hard. I think I will stop there and IF I can think of two more FASCINATING tidbits, I will provide them next time I post.  And um, I'll tag my 8 victims at that time.

stewing

For the last several weeks, I've been feeling flatter and flatter.  There's something about this time of life, maybe? My last baby is 1, and the days of thinking ahead to a future where we'll plan and 'make'  another kid are gone.  I mean, I am done, happy to be done HAVING  kids, but I think I miss that sense of 'work in progress' ness about life, that you have, pre-final baby.  I have a job, but not a career- and I don't know what that would be even if I felt a definite longing in that direction.  I have no time to devote to my own interests, my hands hurt, I am going to be 40 very soon:  I generally feel weepy and as sorry for herself as someone who has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT can!

Anyway, my lack of time to do fibery stuff has been getting me down (I have made progress on Roam, and that's about it really), as part of a total picture where I am, generally, down. 

The last couple of years I have been more or less totally obsessed with fibre, but food and cooking are interests of mine too.  It's been a while since a cookbook made me sit up and take notice (much less plan a week of menus immediately around the recipes therein, and rush out to get the ingredients!)- but I am happily in love with "Feast" by the enchanting Nigella Lawson. 

Wonderful, inspiring menus for every kind of occasion (including family at home dinners, grown-up dinner parties, kids' parties, weddings, christmas, even funerals).  Tonight we are having the Tunisian Vegetable stew with meatballs and couscous.

I happily trashed the kitchen and fussed over the preparation of this dish, which right now is finishing in the crock pot and smells SO GOOD. 

Aren't you glad you asked?

a write off

Last Saturday afternoon, we went to a friend's place for a barbecue to celebrate his 40th birthday.  I did NOT feel like going, and right up til the last minute, wasn't going to go.  Finally we went- planning to just stay a little while.  Once we were there it was nice, we settled in and stayed for several hours.  Finally, one couple who was there said they were going home, and that set off a cascade of goodbyes, everyone pretty much decided to go.  We were all milling around saying goodbye and doing the LONG goodbye that you get whenever a group of friends breaks up, when out in the street we heard a noise that sounded like a gunshot!  Then a moment later, another!  Then, a feeble squeal of tyres.  We all ran out of the house, along with everyone else in the street.  My poor car had been crashed into by some idiot, travelling fast. 

if you think that's bad, here's HIS car:

The Idiot, who was lucky to survive (and thank the Flying Sphagetti Monster he had no passenger) then RAN AWAY.  Proving his superior intellect, he later returned FOR HIS WALLET.  Luckily bystanders refused to let him have it.  So while they know who he was, apparently he's still AT Large.  Whatever.  Remember we were on our way out to the car when he crashed- a minute later, I would have been buckling my babies in.  Too scary for words, yaknow?  Final worry was that the insurer wasn't going to write it off.  My poor car, only 13 months old with like 15,000 km on the clock.  It was so badly damaged, it would have never been the same again.  Not to mention being off the road for at least 6 weeks.  Today, the insurance assessor rang to say he was writing it off- HOORAY.  Now I just have to navigate the maze of 'market value' vs 'new for old' replacement in our policy- but I think it will be okay.  A HUGE relief.  Cross your fingers for me, mkay?

I have done a little spinning:

Mandie's 22 micron merino handdyed- in "paper roses" colourway.  Much prettier in real life.

Oh- and my big boy was awarded "Best and Fairest" by his AFL team- a BIG DEAL and a total surprise.

I was brung up proper!

It's already kind of getting to be old news, and I should have done this ages ago- but I wanted to say THANKS to Donyale for drawing my name out of the hat as one of the lucky winners in her Knitpicks competition.  I won $25 dollars worth of knitpicky goodness :-) from her shop.  How cool is that?  I keep meaning to post about it, but it seemed rude to not give it its own post, and then I'd forget until I was already posting about something else, and so on.  So thanks again Miss Donni :-).

Beginning to think I could cure a rainy day...

Well.  What a funny day it's been, and it's only 3 PM.  My middle child (she's 4) is a figure skater.  She's skating in a competition (she thinks it's a "show") this Saturday- it's an "artistic" which means they dance about like the skaters you see in the Olympics (only crap ;-))- as opposed to a normal figure skating comp which seems to be performing a lot of set moves (I think I upset one of the Figure Skating Mums (FSM- not to be confused with the Flying Spaghetti Monster, in this case) yesterday by referring to those as "the super boring competitions").  Anyway, being a naive fool, I did not realise my child needed a COSTUME to be artistic.  I thought the skating dress that she wears normally would be enough.  WRONG.  One of the FSMs encouraged me to sew some fringes onto a tshirt or something to make her look a bit cowgirly (she's skating to that line dancing song 5,6,7,8...which she calls "my boot scootin' ninny").  Ok, fine.  Feeling like the Worst. Mother. Ever. I went out this morning to get some fringe and a new tshirt.  Well... once I was in Spotlight, it just seemed rude not to see if there were any patterns for cowgirl costumes.  So, 5 metres of fuscia velveteen* and a couple yards of silver fringe later, I wandered over to the yarn.  Lots of nice looking stuff had been reduced to only $3 a ball.  Wow.  Cool.  i started digging and found enough $3 yarn to make my Simple Knit Bodice, which pleases me immensely.  So I went up to pay- and the lady mentions that my yarn, and indeed ALL THE YARN that has $3 on it is ACTUALLY 50c a ball!! HOLY CRAP.  I made a pile, and went back for more.  By now the baby was awake so I had limited time, but I still scored really well.  In addition to my 20 balls of whatever it is I'm using for the SKB, I got about 10 balls of purple DK wook, 10 of cotton something or other, several skeins of arty cotton blends from Italy that will make nice summer scarves, maybe... some sock yarn.  I don't know how many balls I had, but the nice lady counted them, and then said, oh $20 will do.  No, $15 for you.  FOR ME?  Who the hell did she think I was?  I walked out of there SMILING.  The bag of yarn was about as big as I am.

Next, I started on the cowgirl suit, not that hopeful of success.  I haven't sewn at all since I got back into knitting, and before that I hadn't been sewing much at all.  Fully expecting my sewing machine to hate me, or some other unforseen and STUPID thing to stop me- I proceeded to sew the cutest little cowgirl suit seen on the ice, ever ;-).  Bite me, FSMs.  Sew a bit of fringe onto a T-shirt indeed.

Yes, it's cheezy.  Hello.  It's FIGURE SKATING.

All this by about 2 PM.  Managed to clean up the sewing mess, followed by the substantial housekeeping mess that I ignored for teh first half of the day.  That left me time for lunch, and this post, before I run off to work at 4.  Cool huh??

Interested to see how my PODOMETER was reading, I was unsurprised to find it relatively untangled.  Woot, looks like the stars really are in aspic.  Seriously, Universe?  If you're listening?  THANKS.  I really, really needed a day where I didn't feel like a bumbling senile fool.

* No, I only needed 1.5 m for the suit.  However when the fuscia velveteen is $1 a metre, and you have a daughter who loves pink as much as mine does, you buy lots, against the day it's needed.

ipod renders chicken guts obselete!

I've been meaning to blog about this for months.  I think I have discovered a new form of divination, of extipacy.  Or maybe it's a personal development thing.  I can start a cult.  Untangle your inner cord, man.  I'm going to call it the field of PODOMANCY.  Or PODOLOGY.  Maybe PODIATRY?  Okok, podomancy.

What am I talking about?  Go, now.  Get your MP3 player.  Get your digital camera.  Take a picture of the headphone cord.  No untangling it, just take it as it is, this moment.  Post it in your blog.  What does your MP3 player cord say about you today?    Be honest.  Am I the only one who, within minutes of opening my new ipod's crystal casket for the first time, had a Gordian knot seething in my hands?  Are there really a million tiny boy scouts in my pocket?  In my bag?  Devising new and better ways to make my cord shorter and shorter until I have to take 20 minutes out and untangle it?

This shot, taken a moment ago, is really not very tangled at all, for me.  It's an accurate reflection of my day so far.  Complicated, difficult, frustrating, but you know.  Manageable.  Wait til I post it on a Gordian day.  Go on, now you.

Podcasts

I've been at work both days this weekend, which is great for my ability to afford yarn, but not so great for the opportunity to play with it.  SInce I'm stuck here today, I thought I'd share some  podcasts I have been enjoying- not fiber related, but they make the time fly by while knitting (or cleaning the shower, less enjoyably).

First, I'm still mourning the loss of Radio Open Source which lost its sponsor and went into recess a few weeks ago.  Their back catalog is available however, at iTunes (and wherever), and I mean, I haven't even listened to all of the shows.  It was daily, so there are a LOT.  Many are kind of topical, many are not.  It was (and I hope will be again) a show that discusses everything from art and music to current events and science.  You never knew what you'd hear about, and even if (especially if) you thought it would be boring, it was always fascinating.

My new favourite, as I seek to fill the ROS void, is Dan Carlin's Hardcore History.  I like history, so you know.  If you like history, you probably already know about this one.  He also has another 'cast which is basically a commentary on current events- Common Sense.  I imagine if you like one you'd like the other.  And you know, he's kinda hot in that smart-guy way that floats my particular boat. 

Speaking of hot, I also like Dan Savage's podcast , which comes with a NC 17+ advisory, okay?  It's a sex-advice call-in show with a host who, while he is one of my favourite people, may not be your cup of tea.  You've been warned.

Ok, that's probably enough to alienate my entire readership in a single post!  Hope you enjoy!

pecked to death by ducks.

If you know me, can you do me a favour and not refer to this post when we next talk/email/IM.  If you are my husband, that goes double?  I need to vent and once it's gone, I don't want to relive it, yaknow?  I actually considered starting a new, even more anonymous blog so I could whine without bothering any friends or nosy family members.  You may, if you wish, comment here- but probably I'd rather you just act like this post never happened!

That said, it's not even exciting, not scandalous, not anything really.  I just have that old sinking feeling- you know, the Pecked to Death by Ducks feeling.  Erosive and tiring and annoying, but non-specific, free-floating, purely an eye-of-the-beholder affliction.  The same life that delights me, mostly, seems at the moment like a sucking quicksand of futility and unrequited... sacrifice?  Sacrifice is the wrong word.  And it truly is in the eye of the beholder.  A subjective state with little relation to reality. I can say anything I like now... because two paragraphs of text, about me, with no pictures will have lost the interest of any readers to whom I may be married.  Yep, staying home with kids is rewarding and important, but at the moment I am finding it soul-suckingly, hmm, what?  Dry.  I'm looking down the barrel of needing to do more paid work outside the home, in order to make the hubmeister feel less stressed financially- and that's fair enough- but I'm feeling SO pissed in so many ways, all of which when I try to spell them out make me sound like a whiny ungrateful prat.  Just trust me, whiny and ungrateful I may be but it's also justified.  Or it seems that way at the moment.   I know if I go back to work I'll still be doing 100% of the domestic and parenting work that gets done round here, I know that the defecits in the domestic side will be as much a sore point as they always have been.  I know that I have kind of been holding on for the last 5 (!) years, waiting for the time to come when I would get to spend some of the "free" time that would eventually  become available doing "my" stuff- and it  PISSES me off now (if you can't parse that sentence, probably just as well, and I'm not re-writing it) to think that I'm going to get back on the job treadmill, for the sake of a few dollars a month.  It PISSES me off to think that the last 5 years during which I have been, for practical purposes,  sole parent and domestic slave are considered "not pulling my weight".  I'm bored and tired and I want to do stuff and make stuff and right now there is a baby leaning against my leg making cranky noises, and she needs me.  The executive summary?  I already get VERY little time to do anything I want to do.  What time I get, I steal from around the edges of everyone else's needs and wants.  Working more- fine, I like time spent doing stuff other than pointless domestic jobs that are undone five minutes later.  But there will be NO TIME.  None.  Gah.

Quickly, fibre content, lest you think I've gone totally nuts:

ha!  I know the photo is the crapfest, but that's all you're getting.  I'm a few rows into clue 3.  I think the recent babble on the MS3 list along the lines of possible Satanic symbols in the stole (no, I am not kidding) - not limited to but including Dante's Inferno being referred to as a "S@tanic' (sic) work (yeah I have a whole box trailer full of W.T.F. for THAT well-read genius) has kind of added to my mood being darker and more, well, PISSED OFF than usual.

This is proof that i have at least tried to work the Spindlers' CAL.  Why my bobbles look like molars, I do not know.  i hope to fix that tomorrow.   Hey, it's fibre content, the antidote to whining.

As is this: