A big year.

Hi!
Well, I made it. School holidays FOR THE WIN as they say.  Now I remember why I did teaching. I kid, I kid. I just re-read the last post I wrote and BY JOVE it was a bit NEGATIVE.

Despite all the rage I ended up really enjoying my time at the school.  It was hard, by God it was hard, but it was totally worth it.  Highlights included the Year 12 formal (I know! Hilarious!), the absolutely amazingly awesome other teachers in my staff room, new friends, some fabulous kids.  I will miss it.  Even the kids who hated me. I feel sorry for them because obviously I am the hippest and funnest teacher evah and they never even realised it.  POOR THEM I SAY!

Anyway, I cannot WAIT to start my new job. I will be in charge of the school library and will also have two classes to teach (Year 11 and Year 8 English).  It is LITERALLY (and I DON'T MEAN THIS FIGURATIVELY) my dream job. Not that I'm not freaking out about all the work and responsibility and shizz but I am so happy to have something so wonderful.

In interesting developments, we have also decided to pool our meagre financial resources in with my ole Dad's and buy a big house together with a granny flat or some such arrangement for him.  A glamorous granny flat.  This is also very exciting and I hope I can blog about our journey on the way.  Because goodness knows I am ALL ABOUT THE JOURNEY PEOPLE #grateful #journeythingo #somethingsomething

2016 is the year I remember I want to be a writer, the year I start cooking again, the year I start exercise and the year I kick arse Teacher Librarian style.  Not that I am one for setting up BIG NEW YEAR EXPECTATIONS OR ANYTHING (see previous posts for low-key New Year sensibleness).

Here's some pictures because BLOG.

Playing croquet because GENTEEL and CIVILISED

The beach, which I have taken to enjoying now that I have bought really expensive togs. That's all it takes peeps.

The tree.It's a new one. Suits the high ceilings. Don't look at the washing. I said DON'T LOOK AT IT GODD!

Have more sex. Be more fun.

Happy New Year readers! What sort of crazy hijinks did you lot get up to? I turned down numerous invitations to attend a variety of VIP loft apartment parties. I became exhausted from all the energy I expended declining politely.  I mean, I hate to DISAPPOINT people even if they are all incredibly rich and glamorous and swathed in diamonds.  I already had plans, you see. We had our friends the Ls round for pizzas and sparklers and were all in bed by 10pm.  You have to get in early to book us out for New Year (TAKE NOTE FOR NEXT YEAR, GLAMOROUS ACQUAINTANCES).

As far as New Year’s Resolutions go, I’ve come to the realization that they are all a crock.  Talk about pressure! Who needs it? Consequently I have only jotted down a couple of modest goals, not wanting to get carried away with ridiculous expectations!

Here they are! Just low key, you understand.

1.       Exercise regularly

2.       Lose weight

3.       Learn how to crochet

4.       Blog regularly

5.       Get straight HDs at uni

6.       Keep the house immaculate

7.       Write more

8.       Practice sewing regularly

9.       Write and publish some articles

10.   Start a novel

11.   Save money

12.   Find a different job

13.   Write more

14.   Have more sex

15.   Be more fun

16.   Grow my hair a bit

17.   Keep on top of my bikini line

18.   Stop picking my cuticles

19.   Eat more vegetables

20.   Read more books

21.   Entertain more

22.   Cook better meals

23.   Meal plan

24.   Deal with paperwork ASAP

25.   Stop using Facebook all the time

26.   Stop looking at realestate.com.au all the time like a crazy person

27.   Stop buying so many clothes

28.   Be more patient

29.   Be nicer to my husband

30.   Stop whinging

31.   Declutter regularly

32.   Start practicing the piano again

33.   Take more photographs

34.   Stop shouting

35.   Keep a food diary

36.   Read more blogs

37.   Comment on more blogs

38.   Toilet train Baby B

39.   Count my blessings

40.   Bake regular healthy snacks for family

41.   Print photos and put in albums/frames

42.   Eat smaller portions

43.   Stop procrastinating


44. Write more

See, just a couple of eminently achievable goals! NO PRESSURE AT ALL! Easy as! If I can't achieve EVERY SINGLE ONE of these meagre resolutions then I'll be a monkey's uncle!

Christmas was pleasant even if I didn't do a few of the things I wanted to. I didn't;

- catch up with a group of old school friends like I originally planned

- go to Woodford for a day because 'spensive

- do any exercise

I did, however;

- eat my body weight in chocolate almonds

- eat my body weight in trifle

- eat my body weight in cold collations

So all was not lost.

Here's some pictures. Our camera has finally bitten the dust so the pictures will dry up from here on in. I know, tragic.

A homegrown nativity scene.

Christmas morning tableau, with mozzie bites and bandaids

Small person with large rashie and bucket hat carries umbrella on patio.

I like to call this one "Still life with tea and bitten thumbnail".

Christmas morning. Compulsory tricky plastic packaging.

Ubiquitous fancy marmalade gift for M. He is a man who likes his condiments.

Loot

Small boy engaging in small boy-esque close up inspection of new "Pig Fuck" aka big truck.

Faux Sylvanian Family Member.

Prawn shells. And feelers and googly eye things and poo tubes. *shudder*

Anyway hope all is well and that you have been sensible with the resolutions like me. It doesn't do to put too much standing on one silly day of the year, right?

Mwah!

Movies. Hogswatch. Charlie's angels.

Hello to all my readers. I hope you are traveling well in this festive season of festivities. Chrimbo for some, other festivals for, well, others.

We are traveling in an ambling fashion, what with us all being on hols and all. I am enjoying the relaxed pace although the smalls are still too small to allow their parents any GENUINE relaxation. Still we take what we get.

In order to steal some ALONE TIME we shoved the kids into daycare on Monday EVEN THOUGH WE ARE ON HOLIDAYS and went to the movies. Well, look, I had a Gold Class pass that was given to me by my boss IN MARCH that I really felt should be used. Unfortunately, either ticket prices have gone up in that time or my boss just felt like he couldn't quite spring for the FULL price of two tickets because when the card was handed over there was still $10 to pay. THANKS A LOT BOSS R I DON'T THINK! Outrageous.

Anyway I always like a Gold Class experience and it wasn't even ruined by the following facts;

• I ordered churros to be delivered half way into the movie and they were dry and weird
• One of the only other groups in the cinema were an EXTREMELY ELDERLY and frail couple who talked very loudly and confusedly to each other before finally, and noisily, leaving the movie early. Poor ducks.
• I didn't really like the movie. It was American Hustle. I just couldn't really get into it. M liked it though. Margaret and David raved about it like crazy people. I was all like "meh".

My friend Mother Down Under also kindly invited me to see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty last night, she had scored some blogging related free tickets! Lucky me. I liked this one much more. Yes. Things I like about this movie include;

• Ben Stiller
• The scenery in Iceland and Greenland
• The ending
• The bit with the helicopter and the boat and that

 Anyway I recommend it.

In Chistmassy news, I have finished all my associated shopping and am enjoying my longstanding Christmas traditions of listening to this album;


and reading this book;

If you aren't familiar with either of these festive classics then I say, get thee to Amazon.com STAT! Or iTunes or a ye olde record shop/book shop.

Finally, I've said before that I am dead set lucky to have met some fabulous new friends through blogging. Some of those said friends are Cult Fashion Blogger and all round Excellent and Amusing person Faux Fuchsia, glamorous and talented Mummy Swap artiste Housewife in Heels, and crafty minx Mother Down Under. FF has quite taken us under her wing. She is the Charlie to our Angels. And when Charlie asks her angels to action something, we action the hell out of it.

FF is utilising her high end blog statistics and loyal readership to raise some cash for a little family she knows who have a sweet boy called Hugh. Hugh suffers from a condition called Alpers Syndrome. It is degenerative and life limiting. For more information, or to donate, you can read FF's blog or visit Hughie's website.

I am also going to attempt to put a link to his website on the blog sidebar but being the luddite that I am I might struggle. We'll see how that goes.

I am very lucky to have two beautiful and healthy children. There was a painful moment earlier in the year when we thought P was not going to be so healthy. It was the most frightening and exhausting time in my life. I can't imagine how hard it would be for Hugh's family.

Anyway, until next time, my loyal readers, adieu. Adieu. To you and you and you.

Blancmange, B, Ballet and Breaking Bad.

Hello again. It's been a full week since my last confession blog post. Forgive me readers for I have sinned. You know, been slack again. About posting. Which I know doesn't matter in the slightest but still, I feel I need to act as though I am a minor celebrity by apologizing. So indulge me won't you.

It's been a busy week round these parts. More storms, hot weather, me continuing with the predominant literary trope of this blog by complaining about having no air conditioning and adding to it by weeping with frustration while I tried to put together the pedestal fans that I had taken apart to clean, kindy concerts, more freaking ballet rehearsals, a sick baby, spending money we don't have on shit we don't need. You know the drill.

I think this post might call for some dot points again. And you know how I love a good dot point.

• I've been going to bed at 8 or 8.30 nearly every night. Because I am so bloody TIRED all the time. WHY AM I SO TIRED? My kids, these days, sleep through the night. They wake pretty early but I don't think that explains my bone weariness. I never used to be able to sleep during the day but at the moment I could sleep hours away. Hours I tell you. I fall asleep lying on the floor next to B's cot. The early bedtimes have rendered me almost incapable of keeping up with blogging, housework, tv viewing. But I do feel a bit less tired. I am guessing the absence of anything much that you could call actual exercise is not helping my energy levels. If I don't action some exercise soon I will become a human blancmange.

Me, earlier today.

• Apart from being quite sick with a fever last week, B is very cute at the moment. Some examples of his cuteness include;
• he says "fuck" instead of "truck". He also says "pig" instead of "big". So when we are out and about he is often heard shouting at the top of his lungs "pig fuck! Mummy PIG FUCK!". Amusing, no?
• When he wakes up in the morning and I walk into his room, he shouts at me, whilst standing in his cot - "Get DA WATER mummy! Get DA WATER!". Which is his way of requesting a drink.
• When I take off his sleeping bag, he often says "Hello feet!" to his appendages. CUTE!
• When I say to him "Love you!" he replies "Wah Woo!".
• When he has a sore anything he says "Sore tummy! Sore tummy!". Even if it isn't his tummy. I mean what is he, like, 2? OH RIGHT!
• When he DOES bang his head on something, which happens fairly regularly, he cries and says "Bump da HEAD!"
• When I tell him it is time to get out of the bath, he tells me sternly "No! Free minutes!" which is his way of demanding three minutes more.
• He is obsessed with M mowing the lawn and comments regularly throughout the day "Lawn. Mower. Boots. Hat. Gasses" (glasses). HEEHEE.

Here is the boy in question in his kindy photo.

• We went to P's kindy concert on Friday night. She and all her pre-kindergarten cronies were up on stage singing Christmas carols. Very cute. I could hardly see her because she was hidden behind a tall kid but what I could see was her staring at all the other kids and only occasionally joining in. Some would say easily distracted, I would say DEAD SET OBSERVANT and INTERESTED IN PEOPLE!

And the girl.

• Saturday we went on a wild goose chase to some non-existent Indian supermarket to purchase some AUTHENTIC spices for M to make dhal. I mentioned to him that I thought you could get some pretty bloody authentic spices at Woolies but he was not deterred. When we weren't successful in locating the supermarket, we decided to go to a fancy pants market type place at harbourtown and had lunch at the deli there, which was very nice indeed. Fancy pants gourmet food type things are M's Achilles heel, spending wise, so we then proceeded to buy a high end panettone, some salted capers, and some baklava. We were sorely tempted by all sorts of other ridiculously priced goodies but stopped there. Frankly we should be living on tins of baked beans and cat food like pensioners do, the way we are going.



File footage of a panettone. I think this is the same brand.  Weirdly this looks a lot like our floor too. Curious.

• After our spending spree, I then had to wait around outside P's ballet rehearsal, sweating for OVER AN HOUR AND A HALF. This time I was able to see P doing her thing through a window. Whilst all the small ballerinas faced the front doing the actions, P faced sideways, mostly staring at the other girls and occasionally getting the steps in. DEAD SET OBSERVANT, SEE? PRODIGY! I think she is clearly going to be an anthropologist or life painter.
• We threw caution to the wind for a second year running and put the Xmas tree up in November. We are going away next weekend so I figured what the hey. Didn't put the outdoor lights up because I got too tired. Energy levels low. MUST EXERCISE! MUST! Here's some file footage of Christmas Past if you are interested in it. Everything looks basically the same this year except messier because I retained limited creative control of the project and outsourced it to my junior colleagues. http://slapdashmama.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/poo-of-day-festivus-for-rest-of-us.html

• Even though I have been adhering to my stringent early bedtime curfews, I did manage to stay up late enough on Saturday night to watch 4 episodes of Season 2 of Breaking Bad. SO OBSESSED WITH IT. I know I am late to the party but better late than never, as they say.

• I really miss having a proper smart phone. I am at a loss. No easy access to a photographic record of my life. Therefore no easy access to photos for this blog. And don't get me started on Instagram. I mourn it. I must do something stat.

Anyway that's a wrap.

Merry Christmas to my crew.

Merry Chrimbo everyone.

We've had a fat old time here at the Slapdash Family Compound.  We had M's family over for drinkies here to Mums place last night, and I did a hardcore last minute giftwrap and then stayed up til the wee small hours to go to midnight Christmas Eve service with my Daddy.  Lucky because CHRISTMAS NEARLY HAD TO BE CANCELLED! I KNOW!

I know what you are thinking re: last minute gift wrapping but I can explain.  I am not usually THAT slapdash.  My feeling "off colour" all week turned into a full blown catastrophic migraine on Friday night. I had to get a jab in the arm on Saturday afternoon and everything.  I was wondering why I couldn't focus or get anything done and felt so tired and depressed.  As I said on FB, total RESPECT for peeps who get them all the time.  How do you do it?  I could have wept from relief when the GP said there was a needle he could give me that would fix it.  Thank FUCK.  I thought I was dying.  M had to take over and make the apricot jam I had conceptualised as an "easy" alternative to buying gifts for the adults.  Oh what a fool was I...anyway the jam is very nice so that's something.  Dad even had to do an emergency run to our house to look after the kids, even while we were supposed to be driving to his place!  Let me tell you if you don't have your health you have nothing.  Nothing, my friends.

Anyway, I went to the Christmas Eve midnight service a) because I am a good Anglican and b) because Dad has been coerced into some kind of candle wrangling role up at his ole church so he had to be there to offside the lady he's accepting the baton from.   I say accepting in the loosest sense of the word.  Which seemed to consist of him sort of lurking around while she officiously fussed about shaking out robes and whatnot.  If her actions could speak they would have been saying "I am NOT READY to relinquish my VERY IMPORTANT CHURCHY ROLE and frankly YOU'LL HAVE TO PRISE THESE CANDLES FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS you upstart you".  Dad was very noble and withstood the liturgical attitude being directed his way.  As we left I could hear her lecturing him "And when you do the READING tomorrow you must be sure to SPEAK CLEARLY INTO THE MICROPHONE so that they HEAR you at the BACK OF THE CHURCH! CLEARLY, mind!".  Poor Dad, I wanted to shout "Love, I think he'll be right, he used to be a Deputy Principal and spent 90% of his time yelling at halls a thousand kids strong with or without a microphone.  No problems with vocal chords here", but I restrained myself.  Dad has a better grasp of the whole humility thing than I do.

So Dad came over to Mum's this morning to watch the smalls open their pressies.  They got tonnes as usual, with some hits and misses.  P's favourite pressie was a pair of Hello Kitty PJs I bought her at the last minute.  Lucky!  She promptly stripped down and wore the jim jams all day long.  She's wearing them in bed again now.  Cutie patootie.

P lounging in her new, er, lounge wear I spose.

 

We had a VERY HOT day and so of course ate a huge pork roast with all the proverbial trimmings.  No, but seriously it was delicious and then we had cherry sherry trifle and some of good old Heston Blumenthal's pud.  Oh yeah.  Hubba hubba.  I overcame my uncharacteristic migraine induced lack of appetite and did the dinner justice, more or less. 

Me at the feast with a small.

 

Mum at the feast.

Hope you all had a nice day.  I'm off to indulge in some Christmas Day Night festive "nibblings at the leftovers", as is tradition.

My good friend Gordon has popped over and he's going to help me eat....

 

...some of this.

Peace be with you my interweb family.

Cat on a hot tin apricot ball. Heat. Hotness. Humidity. Cheerful stuff.

It's so hoooottttt. It's weather like this that makes me glad we don't have ceiling fans or air conditioning. Oh, whoops, sorry, what I meant to say is that it's weather like this that ENRAGES ME BEYOND BELIEF because it reminds me that we don't have ceiling fans or air con.

In today's world of modern conveniences, whenever I tell people we don't have these things they look at me with a mixture of pity and fear. Fear, because obviously anyone who hasn't prioritized aircon when building a new house is automatically a sandwich short of a picnic and such a loonie that they probably stockpile canned food and bottled water in preparation for the apocalypse and should be avoided lest the crazy proves to be contagious.  Oh well, I guess if I can suffer through last summer whilst eleventy months pregnant and working from home in our study, which is undoubtedly the hottest room in the house with only a pedestal fan, a wet washer and a bucket of iced water to keep me cool then I can survive this summer too.

Anyway, here's some cheerful things from the last week to distract from the sound of my thighs rubbing together as I wander around the house in a sort of langurous haze. I'm beginning to regret my no booze during the week rule as I could murder a G&T right now*.

- P and I made festive apricot balls and I didn't eat the whole batch myself. I even froze some of them to be defrosted only in the event of emergency/having company, whichever comes first. I mean I ate a LOT of them but not ALL of them, which is a giant leap for me**.

We've got balls.  P's such a ballsy little thing.  We really know how to grab life by the balls.  And so forth with the innuendo.

- When P woke up this morning she heard B calling out so she went into his room and they played together for a good 5 minutes. Warmed the cockles of me heart, although that could have just been sweat dripping down my cleavage, it's hard to say.

- I ate some delicious cherries

- We had a great weekend despite witnessing some bogan biffo

Having a picnic up the hills.

She's the king of the world!

- M and I had a date at Ikea where we bought a sofa bed and a sewing table for me. So now we will finally be able to transform the spare room into a baby's room. Only took almost 10 months. And I might finally actually learn to use the sewing machine I bought over five years ago. Also, at Ikea, although I was sorely tempted, I did not, I repeat, did not eat anything at the cafe, not even a hotdog. And I didn't buy my bodyweight in Scandinavian chocolate either. Winning. Now next step is to actually assemble the furniture. That might take us another 6 months.

M aka Goldilocks trying out the sofa bed. It was juuusst right.  

A man and his chair.

- I didn't lose weight, but I didn't put any on either.

- B started crawling. Clever little tacker.

B about to speed off into the sunset.

- I hit the jackpot when I discovered that my favourite two dollar crap shop does a mean line in Christmas decorations,  so was able to jolly the house up even more, on the cheap.

Faux garland. Don't worry I won't light the candles lest the synthetic berries spontaneously combust.

Ghastly, isn't it? And yet strangely mesmerising...

Faux Christmas plants.

Faux berry arrangement and gussied up Christmas candle, to greet roaming Jehovah's Witnesses as they knock on the door.

Any nice things happen to you this week? Any tips on chafing prevention? Anyone else suspect they need to go back on the calm the fuck down pills like I do?

Oh, and today's Darecember. Scarves. Too. Freaking. Hot. Took it off immediately

*Edited to add, it is pouring rain as I finish writing. Thank the Lord.
**edited to add - I have actually, now. Eaten them all, that is. Goddammit. Bugger bum poo tit, as my ladylike mother would say. Just swear already, mum! Your seemingly tame version actually manages to sound ruder than real swears do.