Over Parenting

My six hundred and fifty first post. Ah!  Well, actually its probably more like my 700th or so, but in a moment of paranoia some years ago I deleted a lot of posts from late 2006/early 2007. Posts which I think I have lost (or maybe on an old computer somewhere?? will get hubs to investigate).  There was a lot of indiscreet ranting (hell, I was tired, I had a baby and a toddler and book deadlines) AND that was in the days before it was easy to post photos online, so no great loss really.

Aw, sweet little girls playing at the beach... or so it would seem.

School holidays.
Its hell.
Total and utter hell.
Allow me to elaborate...
Miss 4 is extremely tired and over-wrought and is having one screaming tantrum after the other - the best one to date kicked off at 6am and continued until 8, slowed down for an hour and then started up again at 9.  She is also refusing to listen to a word I have to say and this has led to her running out into the middle of a road, taking off across a busy carpark - three times, and running away from me at the beach (she would not stop, and was quickly becoming a speck on the horizon, so I had to go after her dragging Miss nearly 6 along with me).

Its got to the point where I am going to buy a wrist-tether for her and we shall wear it in public - yes humiliating for all concerned, but if she thinks that running away is some big joke and that her Mum is just there to be ignored, then I don't think I have a choice.  Better that than a run-over child.

Earlier today I took them down to the beach, its cold here at the moment, but we did shoes off with dire warnings about not going near the water as there was a heavy surf.  Within five minutes Miss 4 was soaked to the waist and being dragged screaming into the car - I did have dry clothes, thank goodness.  We came right home and have spent the rest of the day watching movies, colouring in and 'resting' after we have started the one billionth fight with our sister.

I am tired, frustrated, torn between strangling her and cuddling her and on the verge of tears over my own apparent inability to parent my own child. I mean she's FOUR, how hard can it be??  I am nearly FORTY, why am I reduced to sprinting up the beach bellowing like a lunatic??

I've read all the books, I know all the theory, and nothing is working.

So over this today.

New Hat

I am in possession of a new hat, kindly knitted by my mother.

Yes, shall be wearing this out to Hornsby Westfield without a moment's hesitation.  As we're in for a cold week it will be extremely handy.  They're predicting lows of 1 degree celsius, which, horrors,  likely means we get a couple of frosty mornings - first time in about seven years that's happened.  Fingers crossed that my young Hass Avocado and newly planted citrus handle it.

Planting Citrus Trees

First day of school holidays.  Ye Gods.  Its been a long day.

We headed over to Dural to collect some straw for the chooks, then lunch at Maccers - what me? bribe my children into good behaviour? as if.  Then I accidentally stopped at Swanes - the big plant nursery - and may (am not admitting to anything here) have bought a Tahitian Lime and a Honey Murcott Mandarin, just to finish off my citrus collection.  Next up, stone fruit.

The spring roses are starting at Swanes - they have acres of beds - and we spent a happy half hour choosing our favourite roses.  I love Blue Moon - when I was a small screamie I lived in a beautiful Elizabethan farmhouse in Kent (in a little village called Underriver - my pony, Misty and I used to go and have sleepovers at my best friend Eloise's house, with her and her pony, Jerry - yes it was that wonderful).  The house had a traditional walled garden, filled with formal rose beds surrounded by low box hedges.  There was one Blue Moon rose there, and I remember waiting for it to blossom every year, and being utterly entranced.  I used to sing it songs I'd made up - yes, no television has much to answer for.

But I digress.

Here is a terrible photo of the front garden - a new camera is in the pipeline - not only am I using my mobile to photograph things, but when I email them to myself they keep getting lost and turning up three days later.  This is the only one that has arrived so far from the ones I took today.  I know its pretty indistinct, but in the foreground there are three citrus trees that will form a screen to protect the espaliered apple behind - no you cannot see an espaliered apple because despite my best pruning techniques, that particular apple has refused to grow any side branches Whatsoever.  It got dug up and chewed several times by Next Door's Dog, and I don't think its really recovered.

sigh.

Anyway, I noticed today that the strawberries are starting to develop flowers, the spuds that are helping to kill off the last of the lawn, are going nuts, and the lemons on the Eureka lemon tree are just about perfect to pick.

Not bad given it was just grass this time last year.

Winter Garden

Winter solstice just passed, but things in the garden are growing, albeit slowly, and not helped At All by the wretched possum that keeps nibbling off the new shoots.

Here we have lots of different leafy lettucy thing.  Pak choy, tatsoi, some Cos in the middle and a bit of rogue celery that, after playing dead for months, has suddenly decided to leap into life.  I hate celery. Hate growing it, hate eating it. Yet I grow and eat it.

News just in: First female Aussie Prime Minister!! A lot of me is going YAY because at last there's a girl in the top spot, BUT a lot of me is also going Not YAY, because nobody voted for her.  This is the third time in my lifetime that a PM has been appointed due to a leadership spill, and not democratically elected.  Hmm.

Anyway, back to the garden.  M'citrus arrived from Diggers last week.  This being two oranges (Hamelin and Blood), a lime (kaffir), a lemon (er, I forget what type, but not Eureka or Meyer, Lisbon? maybe, oh whatevs) and a Satsuma (Afoura Murcott).  Have been figuring out where to put them...

That's the Hamlin Orange next to the (recently tidied up-ish) strawberry patch.  Am hoping, in time, that it'll grow up and shade the front door.  Its a very hot spot just there, and though I know citrus likes heat, am hoping its not too hot.

The apple trees are going dormant, which is deeply exciting (well if you are me), even the Cox Orange Pippin.  Am still pretty dubious about how well they're going to fare though, am creating cool micro-climates around them, but still think that afternoon westerly sun is eventually going to spell disaster.  My self-pollinating Almond tree has not shown the remotest hint of going dormant, think it will be re-homed at Mumndad.  The Cherry (Stella, self pollinating), which I was most dubious about, is doing brilliantly though.  Some you win, some you lose.

Today is the last day of term for the Screamies, and right now I'm staring down the barrel of three weeks of 24/7 kids.  Argh.  Me-time I shall miss you.  Still it will mean that I can accidentally smear mud all over my face (was weeding and hair kept getting in the way) and not get funny looks from the other Mums at pick up time.

Note to self: Look in mirror before leaving house ALWAYS.

Sigh.

The Grey Man- Mammoth Book of Special Ops Romance

As promised. Except, er, I slightly lied about the sex yesterday.  Yes there is sex in the nunnery, but you'll have to get hold of the rest of the story to read about it.

Mick was half-way across the river when the downpour hit.  Seconds later an odd rumble beneath his feet made him glance upstream. He had a moment to realize that there was a wall of black water hurtling towards him, before he - still attached to his forty five kilogram pack - was sucked into a churning, whirling hell. No oxygen, not even sure which way was up.  His rifle was ripped out of his hands by the torrent.

It was three am.

Somewhere in a river in the depths of the Liquica district of East Timor.

And he was about to drown.

Screw that.

The need for oxygen began to nag.

His webbing vest, loaded down with ammunition, and the backpack were making it almost impossible to get to the surface. He tried to drag the backpack off, but something cannoned into the side of him with bruising force, knocking the remaining air out of his lungs and sending his arm numb and clumsy.

He broke the surface and dragged in a desperate breath before being sucked back underwater.

Finally the backpack came off and he struggled upwards again. In the manner of flash-floods, the torrent was ebbing around him and it was easier to surface this time.  He tried to get his bearings, but it was pitch black.  The gush of water eased more, solid ground scraped beneath his boots. He kicked sideways, found his feet, and within seconds managed to crawl onto the muddy shore. Panting heavily.  He was torn between frustration that he’d just potentially screwed up their mission and relief that he was out of the water and not dead.

Below his elbow his left arm felt prickly and strange.

The cloud cleared as quickly as it’d appeared and a huge gibbous moon lit the area. He pushed himself up to sitting and examined the damage as best he could. Blood - he could smell its sharp metallic odour - and quite a lot of it. Black on his fingers. His forearm had been laid open from his elbow to his hand, and a gash spiraled across the veins of his wrist.

“Bugger.”

He downgraded ‘not dead’ to ‘not dead yet.’ Aware that in the Timorese tropical climate a wound like that would fester incredibly quickly, if he didn’t bleed to death first.

It started to throb and sting, and the pain inexorably gathered momentum.

He dragged off his soaked shirt, wadded it up and held it against the wound as best he could.  He needed help.  The rest of his team would find him, eventually. But the terrain between here and them was steep, covered in thick jungle and likely swarming with Indonesian patrols. It could take a while.

He paused. Listened. Sniffed the air. He could smell smoke. Wood smoke.  He scanned the area more carefully, and sure enough, he could see a distant dim glint of a light, barely perceptible against the bright moon.  He dragged himself up to his feet, and stumbling in the flat moonlight, made his way towards it.  Could be a village. Could be the Indonesian Army. Both had numerous pitfalls.

What he hadn’t been expecting was a nunnery.

The Mammoth Book of Special Ops Romance is available from Borders online, Angus and Robertson online, The Book Depository and Amazon (.uk and .com).

Happy Thirty-Ten

Today is hub's thirty-tenth birthday.  Last night the screamies and I toiled in the kitchen until late.

What? Cake batter is SO a suitable substitute for dinner.

We produced this culinary masterpiece (yet another one - I know, I don't know how I do it either, miraculous really)

The photo is courtesy of my rather stuffed mobile phone as we are still camera-less.  But I think the blurry-ish effect makes the cake look better.  It tasted good too. I knew it would because I scraped off all the burnt bits and slathered on icing made with Lindt chocolate.

Excellent.

Oh, and it occurred to me the other day that one of the reasons I have this blog is to Flog My Books (the other being cheap therapy).  Yes, look long and hard. Nary a mention of the small morsels of brilliance I have propelled out into the world.  I admit, am Not Very Good at this marketing stuff.  sigh.  So check back tomorrow for an excerpt and some enthusiastic paragraphs about The Grey Man, my short story in The Mammoth Book of Special Ops Romance.  It may even contain some SEX (Hi Kindi Mums :)) in a NUNNERY - I. Kid. You. Not.

Anyhoo.  Its cold. I think I have a chilblain, and Masterchef is about to start.

Laters.

:)

Worm Plague

Today is 'International Mufti Day' at the screamies school.  Meaning that you send your child dressed as someone from another country.  I feel I have, once again, out-done myself by sending them both dressed in various shades of pink, purple, red and yellow and deeming them to be CHINA.  Just to make sure that nobody confused them for... I dunno... Holland or somewhere, have printed off Chinese flags for them to wave around.  Yes. Yes. I should have whipped up a QiPao on the sewing machine or something (traditional Chinese dress - which I always want to call a Kung Pao - which, as it turns out - is a chicken dish).

Must. Try. Harder.

Now, I vaguely recall myself whinging about not getting any rain a few weeks ago.  Since then we've had almost a quarter of our usual annual rainfall INCLUDING 84.3mm between 1 June and 5 June.  The worms were all so panicked about drowning that they took refuge in our shower - by way of a small hole we have discovered in a corner. 

Mmm. Just charming. 

Now that they have discovered the delights of our bathroom (not a place for the faint-hearted) they don't want to leave, and do, in fact, seem to think its some kind of Worm Brothel. Many have commenced intimate relations in full view of everyone.

Miss 5: "What are those ones doing?"
Me: "Having a cuddle."

Anyhoo.  Tomorrow has been deemed bleach the bathroom and whip out the builder's bog to patch up the hole in the floor - which, I hasten to add, has been caused by rotten wood around a door frame which we are ignoring because that part of the house is going to get renovated just as soon as a rich relative dies we can afford it. 

And you thought my life was non stop Oprah and gossiping on the phone, interrupted by the occasional burst of novel writing...

Sigh.

Its only me, isn't it

I've lost some weight - nothing dramatic - but progress is being made, and, all of a sudden, my bras have got loose (well the ones that haven't been through the dryer).  Today I was wearing a particularly annoying one, and the strap kept falling down on one side, which kept leading to OMG THERE'S A SPIDER ON ME moments.

So there I am, driving along in heavy traffic just about to fetch the screamies, and I feel the strap start to slide.  Well I hoick it back into place, and...

No there wasn't really a spider
No I didn't drive into a tree/lamp post/ idiot driving that stupid SAAB
No I wasn't stopped by the police

My hand slipped off the strap as I pulled upwards and I punched myself in the jaw, snapping my own teeth shut and leaving a perfect imprint of all of the back ones in my tongue.

Drew blood.  Really really hurt.

I was just wondering to hubs earlier, is it only me that these kinds of things happen to?

I have a nasty feeling that it is.

sigh.

Despite this I had a good days editing today and got down some new words for Boys of Summer. Hurray.

:)

50Ks in 30 Days - YIKES

Today is Day 1 of the 50ks in 30 Days challenge.  I girded my loins (no I did really, my loins) and signed up to add 50,000 words to Boys of Summer.  Then the rewrites for The Bunker arrived AND I realised that on 24 June school holidays begin.

I'm all for setting myself a challenge.  I am not all for setting myself up for failure.  So, I reset my goals, to complete the re-writes on The Bunker - which is 100,000 words long.  And, just because I don't want to lose momentum on Boys of Summer, said I'd add another 23K - taking the total manuscript up to 40,000.

I would like to say I've kicked writing arse today.  Got the whole challenge off to a rip roaring start and all is going swimmingly.

That, however, would be a BIG FAT LIE.

Today I spent a lot of time traipsing up and down Hornsby Westfield in search of the perfect party invitation for when Miss 5 turns six.  A job so nullifyingly mind-numbingly frustrating that it sucked away my will to live.

Not only that, but for some reason best known to itself my handbag decided to set off the alarms in every single shop I went into. Every. Single. Shop. Myers, DJs, Borders, Kikki-K, Smiggle, Target AND Kids Central.  Or maybe it was just my magnetic personality.

Well, after all that sprinting away from security guards... oh kidding, do you think anyone gave a rats that I was setting off alarms. Hell no.  I look far too respectable.  Didn't even get my handbag peered into.  Could've been stealing a lifetime supply of greeting cards and they'd have been none the wiser.

Anyway, so somewhere in Hornsby my will to live buggered off and refused to come back for the rest of the day.  Even Masterchef has failed to ignite anything other than the desire to go to bed early.  Thus my glorious beginning to the 50ks in 30days challenge has been something of a damp squib.  Yes. A total of 122 words added to Boys of Summer, and they were awful.

sigh.

Holy Productive Weekend Batman

This weekend I tackled The Shed.  To say it was full of crap is a breathtaking understatement.  It was so full of crap that five hours of clearing it out yesterday and then again this morning has been deemed my 'first pass.'  Meaning that I got rid of a lot of stuff, but there are boxes in there that are still waiting.

Today it was a tough job.  I came across boxes of photos taken during my first marriage; wedding, honeymoon, holidays... despite that its been ten years or so it was surprisingly painful to go through them.  I think what made me saddest was to see us at the start of our marriage; grinning and happy, and then as it went along more photos of views, than of each other.  Maybe I saw more than was actually there, but it brought back a lot of sadness.  Maybe because I'd forgotten about that time, and now I remember it quite vividly.

I also found a notebook with notes in it we'd left each other when we were separating:

Me to him: "There's more of your bike stuff in the cupboard, please clear it."
Him to me: "I've rented a flat in Hornsby, here is the address."

I binned most of the stuff. Kept a few pictures of myself to show the kids - one day they're going to laugh a lot at the whole paisley phase.  I still have my wedding dress and wedding photo album from then - as that was, and always will be, one of the happiest days of my life.  Plus my first marriage was part of my history and I don't want to just erase it.

Speaking of uses for wedding dresses from defunct marriages, hubs put me onto this website recently http://myexwifesweddingdress.com/ . Uses for an ex-wifes wedding dress.  Very inventive.

Aside from all this highly emotional shed clearing I

• sawed up bits of old cot into a chook ladder
• tried to talk chooks into going outside - got ignored
• persuaded hubby to DO something about dark green seething pool (it is now almost clear, yay)
• washed 45 tonnes of washing
• cooked
• porridge
• yoghurt
• tomato soup
• bread x 2
• home made pizzas x 9
• eggs on toast + bacon + baked beans
• cheese on toast
• bread x 2 (again)
• chicken stir fry
• rhubarb crumble
• Planted
• garlic
• onions
• artichokes
• pansies
• echinacea
• fennel
  
• interacted loudly with my children (ahem)
• interacted loudly with the dog
• pulled something dancing on the WiiFit
• Ran the dishwasher six times
• fell over the dog six times (at least)
• walked to the shops and bought cheese (in the rain, with the kids, and the dog, and hubs)
• talked at length to my mother on the phone
• sent emails
• AND edited The Bunker AND added words to Boys of Summer

Am now feeling a wee-bit fatigued.

Eurovision Song Contest. Here. I. Come. Let the chortling begin.

:)

Oh I'm so voting for Bulgaria

Finally, after a week of messing about and refusing to realise that they can get out of their home, the chooks have discovered their run.  Am most relieved as was slightly over them shouting at me every single time I set foot outside the back door.  They're also blaming me and me alone for a week of miserable weather.  Chickens I am sorry - but my seedlings are looking awesome - well the ones the wretched SLUGS haven't eaten anyway. Die slugs die.

Am flat out writing at the moment.  Boys of Summer is coming along nicely and I don't want to lose momentum, but at the same time have rewrites of The Bunker to do asap.  With school holidays screaming towards us AND a kids birthday party looming on the horizon (god. help. me.) ...  I just keep telling myself its going to be FUN.

FUN.

Argh.

Speaking of fun - Eurovision Song Contest. This epitome of culture is upon us once more.  Bless SBS for showing it.  I'm voting for Bulgaria (above), but only because of the white vinyl trousers with the zip on the outside, and the backup dancing men in mc hammer pants and silver body glitter.  Phwoar.  I am NOT voting for Cyprus because the singer is WELSH (with no silver glitter), also I don't think his voice has actually broken yet.

Finals Sunday night. :)

Rain, Chook run and spuds.

So, over the week or so its been raining. Its been raining EVERYWHERE (okay well around Sydney) except for one place. My house.  I've been sitting here, watching the weather radar (http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDR713.loop.shtml) and getting more and more crabby as massive downpours occur east of us, on the coast - north of us, so close that I can actually see the rain coming out of the clouds from my kitchen window, and the thunderstorms happening to the west.

Because I positively ooze with the milk-of-human-kindness I am honestly and completely glad for everyone else and their gardens (no really) BUT HELL could you send some over here?  Seriously there is no more miserable job than watering the garden when its ten degrees and there is a brisk southerly.

Shiver.

Other than that, lately I have realised that its about time I set a date for Miss 5s next birthday party.  This has caused me to climb into my newly cleared out closet, curl into a small ball and spend a week or so in my happy place - the one where there are unicorns, and rainbows, and Maggie Beer Ice Cream that does not make you fat.  Ah Utopia.  Its going to be in about six weeks or so, be filled with glorious new friends from school and I guarantee it will give me a nervous breakdown. Watch this space for ranting.

Winter Fairy Party. Here. I. Come.

Have been busy in the garden.  Was rather completely over the chooks destroying the garden, so have put together a run for them.  Despite the fact that they are refusing to go out there, AND the one time I made them go out there they all escaped within 5 minutes and trashed the newly planted broad bean patch, I am rather chuffed.  It is not pretty, with a lot of plastic mesh and cable ties, thus lowering to tone of the garden (yes, it could get lower, who'd have though), but it does mark out where the permanent run will be and it'll be great out there when its finished.

The potatoes are in fine fettle...

I put in more potatoes yesterday - under all the mown leaves from the Liquid Amber - and surrounding my very sad dwarf pears.  Yes. Appears I may have seriously misjudged chill hours for the fruit trees, and I'm watching to see who is going to go dormant, and whoever does not will get hauled out and re-homed at Mumndads - they get scorching frosts regularly through winter.

And, after a summer of dead and dying curcubits (pumpkins, cucumbers etc) one of my pumpkin vines has leapt into life and is having babies all over the place. Hum.  Not sure how well they'll turn out, if at all, but the vine is protecting the future Sweet Corn bed, so I'm leaving it be for now.

:)

War on Clutter - the final push

I haven't given up. Oh no siree. :)  War on Clutter is nearly over and we are so close to Victory that I can almost taste it - actually it tastes a lot like dust. Odd.  Had better eat some more chocolate. Lindt, natch.

Despite spending a lot of this week teetering on the edge of death with a cold, I have finished the cupboards and so on and all that is left now is the Dreaded End Room.  Honestly, we are not going to get the end room cleared out tomorrow.  In fact I'd put money on it taking at least a week to sort out - I'll post photos when I can get some in daylight.  Its a tip in there.

In addition to all this clearing, nearly dying, and the usuals (cooking, washing, driving) - and somewhat perversely - my latest novel has just pulled itself together.  Though I've been writing, its been sketchy and hard work, and I've been struggling with the plot line. But finally things are coming together, and, its a damn good one, if I do say so myself.

:)

Garden Harvest

Was fossicking around in garden this morning and gathered the following in my pockets...

Two eggs (yay), carrots, sweet potato, desiree potato, erm some other little potatos, and tomatoes.

War on Clutter continues.  Kitchen now cleared out, today will tackle pantry - or maybe just go hunting for more Tim Tams, how much incentive is THAT??

War on Clutter - Day Seven + A Big Surprise

Well, War on Clutter kind-of moving forward.  Cleared out dresser filled with china, teacups, pizza stones and about a ton of random electrical wires, old mobile phones and batteries in all sizes.  Then moved on to the pantry... where I came across a packet of double choc Tim Tams... and it was Oprah on telly... and I had a cup of tea...and it was peaceful and sunny... and... well, you get the idea.

The War sat down and had a lovely rest before rushing off to pick up the children and figure out what to cook for dinner (tacos; very nice).

But, being the non-stop, high adrenaline, house in the burbs that this is, of course that's not the only news...

We have our first egg.  Hurray :)

Weighing in at 43g it has been admired by the entire family and has been the subject of phone calls, group emails and facebook status updates, all day.  We're waiting until we have one each before we eat them.

War on Clutter - Day Six + Mother's Day

Was the War on Clutter forgotten due to Mother's Day???

The answer is NO.  NO. All this Mother's Day malarkey does not just put War on hold - I mean does the Axis of Evil pause for Mother's Day?  Does North Korea Syria China the United States stop building its weapons of mass destruction?  Of. Course. Not.

There is no pause button for the War on Clutter - well apart from Day Three when I had a headache and felt a bit sicky - but that was different. Kim Jong-il Bashar al-Assad Hu Jintao Obama would understand.

Today, not only did I clear out the linen cupboard - oh okay, I basically threw everything in there into a garbage bag as no matter how many wet beds we get in a night we are not going to use any of the various sized mis-matched fitted sheets. I also took five garbage bags of clutter to the Salvos AND two green-bags worth of books to the library.

Actually I hadn't planned to do the dropping off bits today, but Miss 4 was getting extremely antsy waiting for a party that didn't start until noon, so I used it as a distraction - yes, I agree, my mothering skills are beyond reproach.

Now, I've given myself 14 days to get this war all sorted out - after all, the Cuban Missile Crisis was all done and dusted in 14 days, so why not my house? However, we are at Day 7 tomorrow and Not Halfway Through The House.  I wonder if they felt this slightly overwhelming sense of dread on Day 7 of the Cuban Missile Crisis?  Possibly.

I have mountains to scale people. Mountains.

I haven't even started on the toys, the kitchen, the pantry, the dresser full of china, and then there's the (OMG I feel faint) laundry cupboard, and the chest of draws I randomly shove wrapping paper and miscellaneous x-rays into and force the drawer shut again. Then there's another ceiling high bookshelf with things - THINGS - stored underneath it.  Not to mention...

The End Room.

Yes. There is a reason The End Room rhymes with DOOM.

Seriously.

I haven't taken photos yet, because I think its going to get worse in there before it gets better - and I want you all to savor the truly appalling situations that can hide behind closed doors.

War on Clutter. The offensive continues.

Oh and Mother's Day was great. Got three lovely cards, a blueberry bush to murder and brekkie in bed.  Am so loved. :)

War on Clutter - Days Three - Five

And so the War continues.  Progress is as follows...

• Day Three - postponed due to a stunning headache
• Day Four  
• cleared out Miss 5s built-in
• threw out a lot of old and dusty bags, some not used since... well over ten years
• found many single shoes in various sizes
• cleared out kids bathroom - ew, less said the better
• Day Five 
• sorted out cook book bookshelf - so much dust and barely opened cook books (now off to local library)
• tidied the cupboard where the vacuum cleaner lives
• found an illuminating number of lightbulbs (he, he)
• also four showerheads (??)
• opened and examined linen cupboard several times - left it for another day (am not superwoman after all)

Also cleaned out chook pen and made lovely compost pile that was immediately rearranged by chooks, mostly into pool.

The decorating plans are hurtling forth as well.  Have picked out "Spanish Cream" as present colour for walls in hallway (I say present as last week it was Mademoiselle or Strawberries&Cream - or pink and less pink but still a bit pink).  Today I bought an armload of cheap photo frames from K-Mart and have selected some photos that I'll be printing out and hanging on the walls.

Many people have lovely professional shots of themselves adorning their walls, often in tasteful black &white with matching frames.  Not being "like the other girls" - a phrase which has followed me around my entire life - I chose frames that didn't match at all (apparently this makes me shabby chic - who'd have thought??) and have picked out photos, a few of which are below...

This one makes me laugh

So does this one - and also catches me how I usually look (shouting at hubby to do something)

This one makes me laugh as well ("ack, cow")

This was taken a couple of days before our wedding (its been sepia'd which is why we look so ill, I will un sepia it when I figure out how) - it makes me laugh as well, and also catches how I often look when hubby makes advances.

Actually, this one makes me all "aw, aren't they sweet, I really should try to be nicer to them."

And do you see The Green behind Hubs there?  The Green is the next project after we've got rid of The Brown.  Its not as bad as The Brown, but still, there is an unseemly amount of it and it really darkens a lovely light filled room.

Then we can deal with The Yellow.  Yes its worse than The Brown.

:)

War on Clutter - Day Two

Today I had an assistant with War On Clutter and thus a half hour job took two, and at some points I honestly thought I was going to have a stroke - like when she unpacked the fabric box I'd just spent ten minutes sneezing-over and folding neatly.  And then there was the moment when she popped a balloon right behind me (I have a balloon phobia at the best of times) - yes, nothing to do with tidying, but I Have Suffered. 

We got stuck into Miss 4's bedroom where I also happen to keep my sewing bits in the top of her built in. I had a massive sewing collection tidy up about a year ago, reducing it to a few boxes worth.  So today's job wasn't too appalling.

I also went through Miss 4s clothes and culled a lot of grown-out-of things and ones that were tatty or paint-stained. Of course she took exception to every single one of my decisions and negotiated like a Lawyer to get them back - so they've been put carefully in an empty drawer, for now - I still have a  headache from the whole encounter and feel a lot like my will to live has been sucked dry. Yes. Suddenly I remember why I have her in school five days a week, they're the only ones with the training and experience to out-argue her.

The basket that used to be the dumping ground for fallen-by-the-wayside sewing projects (including a quilt I started when pregnant with Miss 5 in 2004 - ahem) has been recycled as a shoe bucket. I'm hoping this may help with the daily morning shoe scrabble. When I see a shoe, into the basket it goes and in theory, it'll be easy to find them when I need them.

What?

I SAID In Theory.

War On Clutter - Day One

War on Clutter began today.

I'm working from one end of the house to the other, so I started in the main bedroom.

And here is the pile I dragged out of two chests of drawers and a large built-in...

Sewing projects, cushions, blankets, bags, dvds circa 1991 and many many old and unfashionable clothes.

The interesting part is that a lot of this stuff has places that it should be.  Miss 4's cupboard doubles as a place for all my sewing odds and ends, and we keep all our bags in Miss 5's cupboard.  I'm at a bit of a loss over what to do with the DVDs.  There's some great movies in there, but we just don't watch them, or listen to our CD collection for that matter, which is also rapidly aging.

Hubs has a laundry basket of dross that he has to sort through when he gets home, and I'm heading to Vinnies to drop off the first of many loads this afternoon.

There was a lot of dust and I sneezed a lot, but an excellent start.

:)

Autumn Day & War On Clutter

Early morning Autumn walk around the block with Miss 4 and bicycle...

Its been a hectic weekend. School function yesterday and fairy party for Miss 4 today, and now its Sunday afternoon and I'm wondering where on earth everyone's uniforms have got too (ie which layer of the dirty washing pile) and if I have anything to feed them for lunch tomorrow.

Ack.

I've been doing quite a bit of reading over at the Parenting Passageway (they had a post about yelling parents... ahem.) Another post I related to was this one, about making your home a sanctuary.  In a few weeks we are doing a spot of decorating at our house.  The appalling brown walls so adored by the last owners are going, to be replaced by... well, I'm working on that, but not brown. New curtains, rearranging furniture, even painting over the acres of mirrored doors we have on the front of the built ins.

Here's Miss 4 aged about 18months in front of our brown, brown walls.

However, before I even think about starting that project, I need to get things in order. And so, over the next fortnight I have declared war on clutter in my house.  Superficially, things don't look too bad around here.  But I know what lies beneath, stuffed into every built in and chest of draws.

Its going to be a big, dusty job, and I'll be blogging my progress when I'm not too exhausted - did I mentioned I'm really allergic to dust mites? Yeah. That's going to make it super fun.

:)