Ms Fifikins

MIML™ has always been one who appreciates his own space. I have not been used to the concept and it has taken me some time to figure out what it is all about.

I know it is not rejection, but more a time when he needs to be by himself to collect his thoughts and chill.

My space time tends to lead me to just being lazy. I faff online, or lie in bed, or watch the cooking channel. Yes, I zone out, but I don’t use the time to my advantage.

One of my tasks I set for myself on my 101 in 1001 days (too tired tonight to link it in, but it is up there somewhere for you to click!) is to find 5 indulgences that aren’t food related. I think this ties in with space. I need to find things that refresh me. That reinvigorate and re-energise me. That help me be a better person for me. Perhaps I do need to be selfish at times and say no.

So tomorrow (er today now!) when MIML™ has his space I will be cleaning and decluttering upstairs and down. And I will be involving the kids! I think maintaining an ordered house will help me maintain an ordered mind.

And if anyone can think up any indulgences for me, I would be grateful!

I am so glad that this week’s My Place and Yours is the outside of your fridge as the inside of mine is a little like a horror movie at the moment. Either that or a science lab. I think green mould that has turned orange is bad, right?

See this is the front:

See, next time you go to buy a fridge, make sure you take a magnet with you and check if it sticks. Sigh. I do have some sticky things at the top that magnets stick to, but I try and save them for notices. Being early in the term there aren’t many yet! The kids weekly chore charts are up there, some postcards and at the bottom are my Queensland Right of Entry permit and WHS Entry permit. Actually, although they have been sitting there for a while they are now in my purse this evening!

The side is magnetic…

And has lots of magnets on it! I do heart my magnets!

Last week’s theme was your kitchen, and I took pics but never posted them. So here is a quick peek at my kitchen seeing I wiped down benches and did dishes and stuff to take them:

See we were having corned beef that night in the slow cooker and I had just chopped veggies! Oh and I do have a clutter pile just by the back door of mail and bills and stuff.

Why not join in and show us what’s on your fridge this week!

This is another one crossed off my 101 in 1001 days list!

When I was drawing up my 101 things I perused the Day Zero site for ideas. One of them that came up over and over was to send a certain number of postcards via PostCrossing.com. I chose 25.

Why 25? Good question! I suspect I doubted myself as to whether or not I could keep this particular challenge up. See, I have a habit of avoiding the Post Office as I know that when I get mail it usually contains bills. But I stocked up on postcards and stamps and I discovered that most of the places that sell postcards around here also sell stamps! Win! And there is also a huge variety of postcards available in this neck of the woods!

I actually reached 25 cards a few weeks back, but early on I did not scan cards and some people don’t have access to scanners to scan them themselves. Now I scan every card before I send it and then once it is registered at the other end the image automatically appears! It is awesome!

There has also been an added plus for me with this project- I forgot that I would be receiving cards too! I have had some gorgeous cards in the mail. They can be seen here! It is so lovely going to the PO Box and finding pretties in there and not just bills!

This is a project I have loved and I will continue with! I now look at the post card racks at shops around town and have a stash of around 15 waiting for people to send them too! I suppose for me this task is easier than for some as I do live in a tourist town with plenty of cards available to me. It also gives me plenty to write about- although telling people I live in tropical Australia between World Heritage Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef is getting a little repetitive!I now have no doubt that I will send 100 cards before this project is over. Bring it on!

Figure I might as well join in this week’s noicities that recap last week. You get that, right?

See last week was a noice week, despite everything! See parts of last week were good…

1. I turned 38. See. I admit it. I had a lovely relaxing day. I was spoilt by MIML™ with a gorgeous bracelet and ring*. And dinner at our favourite restaurant!
2. Also received some awesome gifts from my mum including some tea (always goes down well!) a bag, some lavender hanging thingies to make my wardrobe smell noice and some drinkbottles.
3. My brother sent me a voucher which I will use to buy a book (should have gone to Myer whilst the stocktake sale was still on…)
4. My ‘MIL’ sent me a gorgeous charm/bead bracelet she had made herself and also a book of her favourite recipes! I suspect MIML™ is more excited about some of the recipes as they are those of his childhood!
5. It was noice that I ate really well all week. I really feel I am back on top of the eating thing at the momrnt!
6. I burned 1143 calories at boxing at the gym yesterday! And I didn’t blow it on chocolate or cakes or anything
7. Both kids are home after trips interstate to see their grandparents! So glad they got to go, but it is noice having them home.#

Yes, I suppose there are some not so noice, but bearables…

1. MIML™ was on nights. Say no more!
2. *My ring isn’t back from being resized yet and I want it like yesterday!
3. # Yes, the kids are home which has meant the constant peace and quiet of the last 2 weeks has been interrupted with bickering…

So onto this week! I’m sure it will be as noice as the last one, even more so that MIML™ is no longer on nights.

Perhaps I should have posted a warning… This week’s My Place and Yours theme is ‘What you look like when you get out of bed…’ I did choose a morning when I needed to wash my hair and I have 4 huge pimples on my face, but still, this is about normal!

Must admit I am loving wearing my dressing gown in the mornings!

So there you have it… I dare you to post a pic of yourself first thing in the morning.

The title of this post is a quotation by Emily Dickinson. We studied quite a bit of Dickinson’s poetry at school. One of the poems for Year 12 English Lit was Because I could not stop for death. It is only this evening I have thought of it again when searching for quotations about aging.

How wonderful it would be to be too busy to die! But I am not proposing to talk of death. But rather aging. You see, tomorrow is mah birfday.

Last weekend I had a total meltdown over it. It was not the meltdown that I am now closer to 40 than 35, but rather the pressure I have on myself to mark the occasion or celebrate it. The kids are with their father and his family in NSW and I am thrilled for them. It is their cousin’s 18th birthday and also their Grandad’s birthday whilst they are there. But it does mean they will miss my birthday. MIML™ is currently on nights- a week of working 10pm til 7am starting last night, so the original plan of heading away for the weekend was blown to shreds.

And then it struck me. Most of my good friends live interstate of overseas. We keep in touch online or by SMS or the occasional phone call, but it is not the same as having them over for tea and birthday cake or a celebratory Gin-dependence Day cocktail!To say I lost it last Sunday would be an understatement. But I worked through things. MIML™ and I plan to head away for a night in a couple of weeks. At the end of the month the kids and I will do something to mark my birthday.

I’m not actually looking for presents either. I still can’t think of things I want when MIML™ or the kids ask. Yes, there are things I would like, but I can also live without them.

So tomorrow will be quiet. MIML™ will sleep until at least the early afternoon. I will research raised garden beds and work out the best way of putting some in the back yard. I might even do some blogging, catching up on my 101 in 1001 days reports! We will head out to dinner, probably at our favourite restaurant!

But I am getting newer. My thinking has changed so much in the last few years. I like the person I am and the person I am becoming. I am renewing all the time. And it is only through aging that this is happening.

Oh and finally…

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

I will try and have cake tomorrow too!

It is 36 hours since the Australian Labor Party elected a woman to be its parliamentary leader and therefore prime minister of this country.

I am thrilled beyond belief because I have heard Julia speak and read her policies and she makes sense. Well on most things. I have been voting for over half my life now and it has only been recently I have realised that I am never going to find a politician or party whose ideals and policies I agree with 100%. I have to decide which are the things I can live with or live without. And then the things I can’t live with, what are the options. I am not at all keen on the Internet Filter or on the ALP stance on Asylum Seekers, however if it means this and I need to lobby my local ALP members then this is preferable than a return to the WorkChoices regime we had under the Liberal Party.

But I am not here to talk politics. I want to talk about gender. Yes, as a woman I was proud that at long last Australia has its first female Prime Minister. I loved that she was sworn in by our first female Governor General, representing our female monarch. But there is so much more than gender that I was proud about. I was of a generation where it was common for us galz to stand up at school and declare we were going to be Australia’s first female PM. It was like we were recognising that this was the last bastion of male domination over us. Yes, we had a female monarch, but perhaps we realised that we needed more.

Yesterday was a rite of passage for our country. Something that was bound to happen and once it has is celebrated and then just is. A turning point, yes, but more something we needed to get to before we could move on. Perhaps a bit like hitting puberty- your first menstruation or wet dream. You remember it, but they still keep happening and become normative. Yesterday was a great day for teh wimminz. I have no doubt Julia will be a great leader. Not because she is a woman, but because she is passionate about this country. Because she has vision and is a team player.

My jubilation at having a female PM is more than an ‘at last.’ I am proud my daughter was in Canberra and at Parliament House yesterday. She no longer has the pressure to strive to be our first female PM. She can do whatever she wants. Except perhaps be a Catholic Priest. But that’s another story. This chapter in Australia’s history goes to show our kids that they can do anything. Hard work and dedication is rewarded.

Again to the women of generations past, thank-you for fighting. For showing us what was needed. There may still be glass ceilings and we need to never lose sight of this, but we live in a time now where we are less discriminated against because of gender. So we acknowledge the past and celebrate the future. Because the future looks good.

This week’s My Place and Yours theme from Hello Owl is ‘3 Things you do everyday.’

Doing things everyday would kinda mean you had some kind of routine. Yes, I pack the kids lunches most days, and some days I do some laundry. I feed the fish and the rat and teh kittehs! And I play with the said kittehs if they are in the mood! I like to veg on my hammock if I have time…

I think the closest I came to each day was showering and toileting… And I’m not going to snap pictures of either! Then there’s food, and you can see what I am consuming each day over here!

Most days I check in on my Zombie Farm… as you do!

it’s actually doing rather well, even if it looks a little cluttered! I could actually link to a lot of the apps I use on a day to day basis, but perhaps that is not really what I want to dwell on when I think of My Place and Yours!

So I got to thinking of the things I do on a semi-regular basis. Some people might laugh, but I do sometimes make my bed…

if only so the cats can use it as their bathroom…

I also try and take care of my pots and my plants. It is quite relaxing standing with the hose (on the right days of the week for our side of the street, or else attached to the bore!) and watching these plants bloom and grow.

MIML™ convinced me to start watering my staghorns and I am so glad he did! They are positively blooming!

This is my sort of kitchen garden!

And this…

is my blooming chillis!

Upstairs I have my hanging baskets…

Perhaps not everyday watering, but enough watering! And that is what is needed.

I remember doing a teaching prac with year 3 kids when Immy was in Prep. I thought they were so old and wondered if some of the ‘childish’ things I did with them were too young. Now Japs is in year 4 and he loves some of the songs I sang with them and games we played.

When Immy was in Prep I remember seeing the year 7 kids go off to Canberra for their annual trip. I thought they seemed so old. So mature. So ready for high school. Tomorrow Immy leaves for her week in the cold. I am trying to work out if she seems older than the kids from 7 years ago. I suspect she does. Heck, she is as tall as me and has bigger feet- she can act her age and her shoe size!

I wonder if part of this trip is to give parents a rest from the adolescent behaviour. If so, the teachers deserve medals!

Anxious to see her go, yes, but also proud. Proud at her excitement. Her zest for learning. She is dying to see Parliament House and the War Memorial and can hardly wait for their day at the snow. These are kids who have grown up in the tropics and unless they have gone south at Winter have never worn more than 2 thin layers of clothing! Immy has never been to the snowfields. She may have seen a bit of snow on an England trip on January.

I am jealous. I have some awesome friends in Canberra and I wish I was going down to catch up with them. I wish I could spend 2 and a half hours at the National Gallery. I wish I could go to Questacon after hours!

From year 3 they have been on camp. Usually 2 nights away. This is longer. Plus she will stay on and catch up with her paternal grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. I am thrilled for this as she hasn’t seen them for a while. But I am still a little anxious. For 5 nights teachers will be with her 24/7 and see her moods and her behaviour. So many times I have been told they are so different at school to home. Not sure how they will be away from both. With their friends. With those they don’t get along with. With kids from the other campus who have reputations they haven’t deserved. I have reminded Immy that even though she has been told that the year 7 girls from the other campus are bitches, they have probably been told that the year 7 girls from her campus are bitches too!

She will be fine. She will have a ball. I know that. Japs, MIML™ and I are trying to work out what foods Immy won’t eat to gorge on them whilst she is away. It will definitely be quiet. It will be good. For all of us.

Enjoy yourself, Im! Take lots of photos and be open minded! This is all part of the growth process. Part of growing up. In another 7 years you will have left school. You may be at uni, you may be travelling, but I hope you will still be learning, just as I am.

Thanks to this kind soul for sharing this which will be the awesomeness for today…

For added effect, I suggest you click here