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We’re languishing in our haven of sun, sand and sea.
The weather is ideal and each day seems more idyllic than the one before.
Our dear friend Ewan is here, and took Toto on a long, relaxing and ultimately unsuccessful fishing expedition this afternoon. Apparently they saw a lot of trees.
Toto and Boo are clearing the plates from dinner as I type this on my beloved iPhone.
I don’t want to ever have to return to reality.
Every year at the end of January, my boys and I pack up and head to the South Coast of NSW for 10 days of R&R.
No internet… no telephone reception… no deadlines… no obligations.
Just sun, surf, sand, boardgames, bikes and kangaroos.
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See you on the other side…
xoxoxo
Has it really only been 2 years? It really feels as though I’ve been sharing this journey with all of you for much longer than that.
Three different sites, three different formats, same crazy confused authoress.
Thanks for coming along for the ride, my friends.
(and thanks, Teena, for reminding me of the significance of today’s date)
This is always a tough time of year for me. Cellular memories seems to bite me on the bum… DH left on Jan 11, and even though it’s 12 years ago, and I wouldn’t have him back if I was being paid $200,000,000 to do so, something inside me remembers the sadness and shock of that event.
My boys have been texting and calling me (in secret) begging me to let them come home. Crying and heartbroken. And there’s nothing that I can do about it other then remind them that we will have the next three weeks together before school returns.
On a FABULOUS note… she is out of hospital and feeling really REALLY great! She’s still having tests and being prodded and poked to try to ensure that her “turn” didn’t leave any nasty or dangerous legacies, but emotionally she is shining through all of it!
And my boys come back tomorrow!!
And those last two things will make my world just as it should be.
If there’s one thing that I’ve heard this year, over and over and over again, it’s “Don’t forget to put the oxygen mask on yourself first”.
Now I’m sure you all know where that phrase comes from… You know… the safety speech that aircraft cabin crew give you just as you’re taking off…
“All persons travelling with small children and the elderly … put the oxygen mask on yourself before attending to those around you” (or something similar).
And this has been the year where I have needed to heed that advice more than any other.
But what does it really mean?
I’ve been thinking a lot about this, as this tremendous and tremulous year comes to an end.
HOW do I do this?
I know how I’ve been trying to do this, but I’m not that sure that it’s been working.
I’ve been trying to spend “me” time without feeling guilty.
I’ve been trying to work towards a successful and HAPPY career that will eventually get me out of all this legal debt.
I’ve been trying to focus on those that I love and who add to my life, and removing myself from those who take take take emotionally from me without giving me anything in return.
I think the problem word here is “trying”.
I think I need to really “be” in all of those moments. And somehow find a way to fill my emotional tanks up with all of them so that I can still give to those around me who need my strength.
I have to find a way to be necessarily selfish. Without guilt.
And it’s hard.
*sigh*
Am I making sense?
Anyway.. that’s my new years’ resolution. To fill my emotional tanks up with enjoyable and productive tasks. To do this SO WELL that I will still have plenty left over to continue to support and love those around me who are not doing as well as me at the moment.
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So, from mine to yours….
May all of your emotional tanks be filled with love, strength and laughter in 2010.
I bow my head to you all. I can’t tell you how much I admire and respect and appreciate my wonderful bloggy friends. I’m not always very good at letting you all know that. So there it is.
love, Fe.
and Toto…..
and Boo….
… shepherd’s delight…
If you believe the old wives’ tale, tonight’s dramatic sky means that the last few days of rain should clear, and we will have fine weather tomorrow.
To take the adage one step further, “she” is much better and has a release date of next Saturday!!!! She telephoned me tonight to let me know, and I can’t wipe the grin off my face.
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This time of year seems to move at it’s own speed.
I miss the boys. But I’m catching up with dear friends, and organising myself for the new year.
(I’m also spending an inordinate amount of time training myself on the brand new Christmas Wii in preparation for the boys’ return!)
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What are you up to?
xoxox
Lot’s of love and thanks to all of you, my bloggy friends, for your unending friendship and support throughout this past year.
However and whatever you celebrate this holiday season, I hope that your cheeks ache from laughing. Constantly.
xoxoxox
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She’s been moved back to the psychiatric hospital. They do not know what caused her “turn”, but it has resulted in some damage to her heart.
After a much-delayed and much-enjoyed carnivorous lunch with Lara, we drove out of the carpark and noticed that Lara’s car had a flat tyre.
In typical Fe style, my first reaction was “Shall we call the NRMA?”
And in typical Lara style, she answered “Why? I’ll just change it.”
And change it she did. In 15 minutes flat (pardon the pun).
While standing next to her and offering moral support and encouragement and praise, I couldn’t help but notice that SEVEN, yes SEVEN, men walked past us without stopping to ask if they could help.
Now, had they asked, we would have thanked them and politely told them that we were fine, but I was still shocked that not one single person offered to help us.
I mean, if I was walking by, I would have offered my help. So, it’s not so much a gender issue, just an issue of general chivalry.
It saddened me that it was so blatantly missing.
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Another thing that saddened me this last week was the behaviour of a group of smartly dressed 20-somethings that walked past my parents, my children and me while we were walking home from a restaurant… eating ice-creams.
“You are too fat to be eating ice cream!” they yelled at me.
Toto screamed “SHUT UP” at them, while I tried to tell the boys to ignore them.
“People as fat as you should stay inside where no-one has to look at them!” was the reply.
Jesus!! I mean, I’m not thin, but I’m not clinically obese or physically disabled by my size. Not that THAT would have made it any less appalling.
It was shocking.
And, although I know that it shouldn’t matter, it did hurt my feelings. Especially as my boys had to bear witness to such insanely rude and inappropriate behaviour.
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In happy news…. Jeanie in Paradise has welcomed a baby girl into the world!! Congratulations Jeanie!
Thank you to Kim at Frog Ponds Rock for this articulate and informative post which I have copied verbatim….
What a crock of shit! The nanny state is about to strike again. All internet in Australia will be filtered at the ISP level so that little Johnny doesn’t stumble across some porn or get pounced on by some internet predator.
AAArggghhh! This makes me so angry.
This parent is standing up and loudly telling the government to just bloody well hang on a minute, I am more than capable of protecting my children from the perils of the internet.
I worry more about my teenage son accidentally clicking onto a sparkly link that will infect my computer with a virus than I do about him accessing porn on the net.
Why? I hear you ask is that?
Because I talk to and with my children. Internet safety has been drummed into his head. The computer is in a high traffic area of the house and he has to ask my permission to use my computer.
And…
He sees more porn in the school yard than he could ever possibly access here on my computer. Some of the images our kids have on their mobile phones are very very explicit. They aren’t texting they are sexting.
But the clean feed isn’t about pornography and pedophiles that is just the catch cry to distract us from the deeper insidious implications of this horrid legislation.
This legislation is all about control of information. Politicians and their media magnate buddies are scared shitless of twitter and other social media because a: they dont know how to use it properly and b: it keeps them accountable.
I only found out about the trafigura toxic waste scandal via twitter
Cut off our access to information and you effectively cut off our voices. Australians are an apathetic bunch anyway and I think that is one of the reasons that we are being used as a test case. As well as the fact that we are a smallish island population, not too many telecommunications companies to contend with etc etc.
So lets gag Australia and see what happens. If the politicians get away with it here my friends YOU will be next.
So what can you do? You can use your voice. Loudly. We can nag the hell out of our local and federal members and loudly voice our displeasure.
Your local Member of Parliament is your representative and wants to hear about your concerns. Let your member know that you are unhappy with this policy.
Not sure who to contact? Find your local member’s contact information.
You can sign Veronica’s petition and tweet and re-tweet the link to it.
How about a phonecall to Stephen Conroy you can call the minister’s office on
(03) 9650 1188
Or write to him
Senator Stephen Conroy
Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy
Level 4, 4 Treasury Place
Melbourne Vic 3002
You can follow KevinRuddPM on twitter and bombard him with @replies letting him know personally just how cranky you are. Just make sure that you have the capital letters in the right place and that it is the verified twitter account of Kev or you will be tweeting away at a fake.
You can copy this post or parts of it and publish it on your blog as long as you give me credit.
You could also tweet this post and/or stumble it as well.
If you want other options just click on the NO CLEAN FEED button on my sidebar. Now lets get to it Australia.
Sometimes, not often, but definitely sometimes, my weekends are SO hectic that I need a weekend to get over them.
This one was one of those.
Yesterday was filled with running Toto and Boo around to parties and friends, and picking “her” up from hospital and taking her home, before spending TWO HOURS getting ready for a family wedding.
Yep. TWO HOURS!!
It’s because I’m out of practice. Shamefully out of practice! I rarely wear makeup, and my hair only ever says hullo to a hairdryer when I visit the hairdressers. And my legs… let’s not go there 
.
So yesterday I did the big transformation. This involved:
shaving my legs
finding and putting in contact lenses
putting on makeup
washing and straightening my hair
finding something in my wardrobe that still fits and could be considered “formal”.
*sigh*
My hat is off to all women who do this stuff every day.
It’s absolutely bloody exhausting!
Anyhoo… where was I?
Oh yeah. The wedding.
It was lovely. I cried. But I had to stay sober in order to drive my Dad home so I didn’t cry as much as I would have if someone else had been driving.
And then I was up at sparrow’s fart this morning for another lovely photoshoot with an incredibly fun and gorgeous family…
… before collecting my boys, racing home for the annual “Christmas Drinks on the Lawn” that the Body Corporate of my building organises, racing to friends’ for a b-b-q, and then coming home and collapsing for 5 minutes while the boys carried on as though their entire world depended on being “RIGHT” and making their brother “WRONG”.
Now they’re in bed. I’m processing photos. And I’m exhausted.
I need a weekend to recover.
How was YOUR weekend?
… I came SO close to forgetting to blog today. And then I would have blown my second attempt at NaBloPoMo.
And then the world would have ended.
Obviously.
Things I’m grateful for today…
1. I survived the 42˚c heat. Thanks to multiple fans and many wet towels. My equipment survived the heat too (thanks to said fans).
2. The Australian Idol Grand Finale Fireworks. I see so many fireworks from my sweatbox office. But these are definitely the most impressive.
3. Sons who call me from their Dad’s just to say goodnight.
4. Bloggy-friends who are articulate and honest and who write amazing blogs that make me lose myself for hours.
5. Bloggy-photographer-friends who provide wonderful email support for those moments when it’s all too much.
6. All my readers. Known and unknown.
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