Hello Birthday

Hiya,

I'm firmly in the celebrate birthday camp. I'm so blessed to have had 39 years here and I'm all for a day of laughing and enjoying myself.

On my birthday I tell pretty much everyone - the lady at the supermarket checkout if she asks how my day is, anyone I'm having a meeting with, I take chocolate to work. I believe in celebration and I'm not about to sit a day out thinking 'no-one remembered' and feeling sad.

I'm going to help them remember. ;-)

I'm not demanding anything from anyone, other than a willingness to enter the celebration of the fact we share life together.

I hope that my happiness to celebrate rubs off on other people and that their day is better for having enjoyed a hug or a happy exchange on my birthday.

As an aside, you know you are a mother when you are rummaging with your hand in your handbag searching for a lipstick and you find a nerfgun bullet (toy! no real guns in this house!) instead.

Happy birthday me - here I am looking not my best! May we all be unashamedly ourselves everyday of the year!

love you more than caramel salted brownie xxx

School Days

The boys school has an amazing PE teacher, one of those teachers that goes above and beyond all.the.time.

Week 2 for Flip kicked off with an ironman - 100m swim, 2km bike ride and 1km swim. All the year 5-10 (9-14 year olds) children participated. Some did it as individuals and some in teams.

Flip competed as an individual.

The following week Bounce had a triathlon for all the rest of the school children. The very smallest children (8 of them) did a duathlon in teams but all the rest did 3 events - teams and individuals.

Bounce competed as an individual.

Both of them did so well. The are persevere kids rather than fierce competitors but they are able too. We got 7th and 3rd so that's nothing to sneeze at.

Gorgeous kids.

love you more than a sore from cheering throat xxx

In the Kitchen

I'm back in NZ so it must be time to make lolly cake.... I haven't seen eskimo lollies for 2 years.

New Zealanders are pretty committed to their lollies it would seem, especially ones that involve marshmallow or similar. Don't believe me? Let me just say...

marshmallows, chew bars, buzz bars, pinky bars, perky nanas, pineapple lumps, eskimos, fruit puffs....

love you more than a green eskimo xxx

A Long Goodbye

Hello again!

A photo rich post for Grandad who has been missing the photos. These are zoo-ish photos only - there will be others coming.

It seems an age since we left Adelaide and there were so many great things I wanted to share. Moving however puts paid to thoughts of lazy evenings typing... maybe I'll get there still.

We had almost 3 weeks of January before we flew back to NZ. We stayed with friends, swam, zoo'd, library'd, picnic'd and enjoyed whilst trying to keep cool in the high 30s. No doubt my dear Adelaide friends are hitting greater highs as February rolls along.

These are some of our very last zoo memories - watching the boys up close with the quokkas and kangaroos was pretty special.

The chance to be so close to the animals is such a great part of the zoo.

Adelaide was an amazing adventure for us - as a family it gave us a time to bond and adventure together that we wouldn't have done in NZ, it also gave us a cultural experience NZers and Aussies have their own unique ways of doing things.

We loved our time there and we are re-living the adventure with all the fondness of hindsight and cooler temperatures.

Wherever you are today I hope that you find yourself in good company, because really that makes all the difference.

love you more than feeding time at the zoo xxxx

The Last Days In Australia

Some of our lovely friends are letting us stay our last Aussie days in their beautiful home.

They are flying a NZ flag from their flag pole in our honour - can there be a greater act of love from an Australian to fly a kiwi flag at their place?

The temperatures have been in the high 30s - 38 degrees ... more tomorrow.

We're making the most of the pool and the wonderful things we have around us before we return to NZ.

There will be sad feelings leaving this lovely place but we're packing in as many lovely moments to fill our memory buckets with.

Adelaide you have been so, so good to us - with occasionally punishing temperatures.

love you more than a cool swim right outside the door xxx

It's My Birthday

Y'all,

It would appear that I am 38 today! Wohoo.

I had a gorgeous get together on Sunday, with lovely people that I have been blessed to welcome into my life as friends these last two years.

I believe in celebrating. Every year is a gift and I am blessed by the wonderful 38 I have had so far. Here's to celebrating many more.

Plus gratuitous photos of the boys I love best.

love you more than chocolate mud cake xxx

so.... 2 years in Australia

Nearly two years ago we left New Zealand for a two year contract The Atlas had accepted in Adelaide, Australia. We left a beautiful set of people we loved, family members and friends. We left a great home for an unknown adventure. We didn't know a single person in Adelaide. The Atlas had been there once four years before for a conference the rest of us had never been there.

As our time in Adelaide draws to a close we have made the decision to move back to Christchurch. There are still questions for us about what the future holds (aren't there always?) but this is the move that we've decided to make.

Our time in Adelaide has been great. We have had to lean into each other because initially we didn't know anyone else.

For me the first part of our time here was really hard. My heart ached for the lack of relationships that were more than 'acquaintances that may turn into friendships'.

The first couple of weeks after we arrived Adelaide recorded the most days over 40 degrees and the highest temperature on record since 1986. It didn't go well with this heat hater, there were tears - on a number of occasions, and it wasn't just about the heat.

With two boys at a new school I was alone a lot which is tricky for someone as extroverted as me. I had to get my head around a new school system and a school community where we didn't have friends to play with or people we knew well. We also didn't have a church community to belong to in the first few months. For me, a church community is my happy place and not having one really affected me too.

As the first year unfolded we found a church and made friends. We were welcomed into social circles and the temperature slowly, slowly!! dropped. I got busier being involved in things, did some volunteering, started doing some writing, bought a sewing machine, started doing some consultancy work... you know stuff.

This year we moved to another part of Adelaide and our dear, sweet boys were new kids again at a new school. But 2015 has been a much easier year for us. We have carried over some friendships from last year and met a whole new set of beautiful people to share our lives with. Our new place has ducted air conditioning which has made me a happier person to be around.

Our boys have made new friends and they have really fitted in so well - it's been great to see them happy to go to school each day and involved in 'football/soccer' teams.

This year I have done a lot more work, a lot more writing, a lot more socialising. It's been good for me - busy, hard at times, but mentally stimulating and creatively exciting.

The Atlas has had some real wins in his work environment and I am really proud of the good stuff he's done here.

We're excited about going 'home' to New Zealand but I will be really sad to say goodbye to Adelaide. We are going to miss the school we are at, the friends we have made, living across the road from school, the socialising, the togetherness experiencing new things... it is going to be sad. I'm going to miss Adelaide. I am definitely not going to miss the heat. I am definitely going to miss the central markets.

Most of all I'm going to miss people. People are always it for us - the rich relationships. We are incredibly blessed to be sad because we have some good, good people here in Adelaide who have loved and included us and made and effort - even though we weren't necessarily a permanent feature.

It's going to be strange going back to people and places that have two years of things we haven't been involved in. We are going to have to find our place again. We're going to be new and old at the same time. Wee Bounce will effectively be starting his third new school in three years (he only had six weeks at school in NZ before we left).

We've been through lots of changes of a family over the past few years. A new chapter unfolds.... We're together and that's the most important thing for me.

love you more than a shopping spree in the central markets xxx

... the final straw

Even a super-duper Patty Simcox has her limits:

1. socks - hanging on the line and pairing

2. bibliography writing - seriously? Can I not just write down the ISBN and the page number? Let's be honest - you are never going to look up the quotes to check anyway.

3. referencing in a different way to the bibliography - are you interested in my thoughts and learning or just in turning me into a drooling foetus in the corner?

It is very important that I am never required to face these three things in one day. The camel will break. (Just so you know).

love you more than a day without socks, bibliogropahies or footnotes xxx

when you want to feel like a rockstar

1. contract bad hayfever

2. have too many late nights

3. wear your sunglasses all the time because your eyes feel, and look, totally gritty and itchy

now you are totally channeling your inner rockstar, even inside the supermarket. Looking famous girl!

love you more than going incognito for all the right reasons xxx

whenever you feel unimportant

write a blog post and don't publish it

hit preview and read it a couple of times

tell yourself you've just read an article before it was published by this really amazing person

and you're the only one who's been invited to read it or give feedback.

you are truly special right now

love you more than creating joy in the small things xxx

motherhood confessions

I snuck lentils into the lasagne and you all ate it.

love you more than using up a half bag of lentils you discovered in the pantry while making lasange xxx

Yes... those are my kids

When you tuck your children into bed and as you leave you hear:

Bounce: Flip, Flip smell your armpits.

love you more than entertaining where that might have come from xxx

The Power of Bloggers

Hi there philanthropist hopefuls,

It would seem maybe the internet does have some good qualities. Karen from Did You Make That has recently put together a challenge and a fundraising drive for the National Literacy Trust in the UK. Being a book lover and educator and wannabe-published children's author, this is a cause I can get behind.

Entirely unrelated photo of a small jug I recently acquired at an op-shop - for your viewing pleasure!

Karen also invited supporters to pledge to do something as well so I have promised to make 3 garments from my stash before the 10th of September - it can be done!

So whilst I go head-down bum-up into my stash I would also encourage anyone else who feels motivated to join the cause, or buy a book for a child that needs one, or read to a small child or teach the world to sing.... just because!

Until then my friends I should be cutting out. You can find out more here - should you be feeling a pledge coming on!

love you more than a zip that fits the project you started before you checked you had an appropriate zip, this is an actual, real problem xxxx

On Being Brave

Brave souls welcome,

It doesn't take a genius to work out that I am an above average extrovert. (See how I just gave myself a compliment there - I have good self-esteem too!)

As well as the extroversion I love meeting new people and being inspired creatively so a couple of Saturdays ago I bravely took myself off and met some new and inspiring artists, at a new initiative started just nearby.

How does that all count as brave? For me perhaps not as brave as for someone else but inevitably the going to something on your own, without feeling you are a particularly/ or even a somewhat, talented artist, feels daunting. It does take courage to rock up to a group when you aren't sure exactly how it works, what the people will be like and even more so when you feel you may be slightly an impostor, given that you aren't really making a lot of art.

Photo by Lily J - host extraordinaire

Fear not my friends, the bravery was handsomely rewarded with a sweet and warm reception, unlimited sharing of crafty supplies and fabulous brownie.

Big picture story? Even for the boldest and noisiest of people risk-taking is still involved in meeting new people and trying new things.

We all feel the fear of being not-enough or too-much and rejection stings .... but more often that not the risk pays off. I think of the wonderful Christchurch bloggers who overcame their fears and responded to an invitation to meet up, those same wonderful bloggers who organised a bloggers weekend where other people took a risk and responded to a bigger invitation. Because sending an invitation is risky too - putting something out there and having no one respond can actually feel just as rejecting.

Today I'd like to issue you a little challenge - how about going to something or trying something you'd like to go to/do but fear has held you back, or how about inviting somebody over, or to go to something with you.... How about we all created a little space to be brave and take a risk.....

Because it might be fabulous! It really might be fun!

love you more than a bundle of new creations that weren't even vaguely sneered at xxx

When Changes Come... What Have I Learnt/ed

Well clearly I haven't gotten a handle yet on when to use learnt or learned!

I alluded to changes the other day and now I shall elaborate.

Two weeks ago I finished my regular teaching job. The Atlas' job has changed and he has stepped up into more responsibility which means that going in later after dropping the boys to school 3 mornings a week and being definitely able to collect them from after-school programme on at least Tuesday, isn't something he can't do anymore.

So, I stepped out of my working woman role and back into my sometimes-irregular-working-homing role. We've had visitors constantly through the holidays and afterwards so I haven't really had time to reflect on this new non-working thing.

However, I am never one to shy away from having something to say!!!

Working - the bits I didn't like

1. 6am alarms - I hate early mornings. I know those chipper - just get up early and have time to start your day right people. I am not, nor ever shall, be one of them. Also in a house where the rule is no one up before 6am I am never going to have silent time to start the day right anyway. Ask me again when my children hit the teenage years, but for now, not getting peace in the mornings!

I was leaving for work at 6.30am on the bus and arriving to work at 7.05 ish. This meant time for me to do the stuff I needed to do because in the afternoons I had staff meeting one day and another day I had to leave immediately to get into the city for something I volunteer for there.

2. Missing Out - this was a big one for me. Inevitably, the week I started work one of the boys got an award in assembly, I also missed another assembly award, a class performance and several school events. Every working parent knows what that is like, and it feels sad.

3. The Load - teaching, like many jobs, is never ending. There is always more to do, more coming up and the tail end of things that need sorting. As soon as you feel like you are getting somewhere with one thing another thing happens. The beginning of every holiday is shrouded (for me at least) with the thoughts of all I need to do in that holiday to be ready for the next block of teaching.

4. Being New - being new in a workplace is hard work - the stuff everyone else knows you don't. It's like the load thing but with more added in that no-one remembers to tell you. Also you are the new one, relationships and dynamics are established/ entrenched and you have to find your fit in the system.

5. Bringing work home - the point should be work at work, home at home but those lines blur rather easily. Because there is always more to do in teaching it means the 2 days off a week were more like one day off and one day working from home.

Working Regularly -  the bits I like

1. Clothes - let it be said, shallow as I may appear, working means dressing up, for me anyway! It's nice to have a reason to put on something you feel good/professional/smart in. When you are going to spend most of the day in the company of your home dressing up seems a little pointless.

2. Competence/Achievement - no matter how many batches of bread I make by hand or cookies I churn out there is something deeply satisfying about being in a place where you are valued for being competent and you can reflect on a job (mostly) well done at the end of the day. It's also nice to look back at the end of a 9 or so hour day and feel a sense of what you have achieved that day.

When you are at home you really don't have a full day at home - you have 9-3 by the time you have added in exercise (hardly), getting of children to and from school, sorting of general detritus, making of food, checking of computery things and lunch you can realise you actually only have 3 or so hours of your whole day. When you work you get a whole day 7-4.30 at least for me, sometimes more, you get stuff done - measurable stuff that feels proper.

3. People - I love the school environment because I am energised by interacting with people. That doesn't mean I'm not tired at the end of the day but I like other teachers, colleagues, children, families... all of it. Being around people and in front of people is good for me. I like it. Days all by myself are nice now and again but regularly it's too much quiet and quite draining.

4. Money - It's nice to be paid on a regular basis. It's good to be able to buy a really nice mixer (ahem, yes I did) from money you have earned. It's nice to feel like you have skills that are valuable and your work is worth something.

5. Efficiency - I'm not a massive routine person but having only 2 days during the week at home I achieved as much as I would in 5 because I didn't waste a minute. Those spare days were worth more because I had them less. I think that we all achieve more when we have less time because we don't have the luxury of putting it off.

So..... where to now?

Short answer, I have so many things I want to work on - there is enough fabric and craft projects and writing ideas to keep me busy for the rest of the year - but - the people thing is still a big one for me, I will miss the people contact immensely. So there might be some volunteering or some study on the horizon for me.... no straight answers yet.

How about you? Do you work in paid employment? What do you love and hate about it?

Also, what do you think I should/ could be doing with my extra hours? Do tell!

love you more than a great outfit and a paycheque xxx

oops

You know that time when you just pop in to grab binding and thread for a project you've already cut out?

Then when you arrive the fabric is all 40% off,

and you spot some really cute lace for 99c a metre,

you leave with more than thread and binding,

you my friend are not alone.

love you more than a little bit of impulse shopping xxx

When You Absolutely Must Part Ways

Bounce is a little like me in his tendency to form a special attachment with things - clothes, books, toys, second copies of the same book.... you know.

Recently I said to him I think those shark shorts are bit small for you love - maybe we should give them away.

He was not in agreement.

A week later as I folded the washing I looked at the label. This is it:

Bounce is 6. Sometimes a mama has to put her foot down - I'm sure he'll thank me when he wants to have kids some day.

love you more than a surprising discovery xxx