At the bottom of the Garden

Dave asked me this morning if I'd achieved everything I'd set out to achieve this year, and quite honestly i could say, yes I had, and more!

Ok, so I'm about 22kg heavier than I was this time last year, but honestly my weight wasn't really a priority for me this year. The things I REALLY wanted to happen this year, that I thought were just fanciful dreams a year ago included:

* Dave and I resuming some sort of relaxed, not forced, sexual relations again, after having a platonic relationship since Bryn's conception.

* Me becoming a better, more respectful parent towards the boys.

* Starting my Masters degree in Writing, though a year ago, I thought that would probably not happen until 2008.

* Reduce my CC debt massively.

* Convince Dave to ttc baby #4.

I've achieved all those things, much to even my own amazement and amusement at times!

Something wonderful happened yesterday, but it kind of upended my world a little bit at the same time, and reminded me of how much mor…

Ok, this is getting beyond a joke now...

I'm typing this on Dave's computer because my computer suddenly decided to die overnight. That's right. I was working FINE last night. Then I put it away and this morning it won't even turn on. I thought it might be the cable (there are a couple chinks in the protective coating stuff, so went to Dick Smiths this morning to get a new one (hang the $100 cost, because quite frankly, I'm going a bit mad here without my net time)... Got them to test the cable instore, and nope that wasn't the issue.

Of course, today is Saturday, so when I tried to call the warranty people to find out where to take the computer for a once over (THANK GOD for extended warranty!!!), they politely told (via a nice lady message) to ring back on Monday after 9am... What is it with people NOT working 24/7 when you need them???

So, looks like I'm going to be sans computer for a while longer.

Ok, so Dave does have a computer and I can use that (…

OMG! I've been in enforced internet exile for about a week.

I manifested it for sure! I said that from Friday last week I would NOT be getting on the computer very much at all because the computer emitts positive ions, and that's contraindicated for conceiving a girl... So, I finished my studies and every and packed up my computer. Mum rings because she needs Michael's travel details for the next day and I check those, and say to her I'm doing her a special favour because I'm determined NOT to get on the computer much for the next few weeks, and WHAMMO, the next morning we no longer have any access! I know this because DAVE wanted to get on the net to check something at work, and couldn't. We contacted Telstra and the problem was definitely at our end, but they said they'd send someone out by the 28th (today).

So, true to their world a guy turns up today and give us a new modem (apparently we were still under warranty FOUR YEARS after they gave us our …

Jen just reminded me that the boys got their reports from school on Friday.

Erik's was great, no so much the level he was working at, as the mini essay written by his teacher. He is at the lowest expected level for reading in grade (grade 1 - as if he started school aged 6). Writing was the same level as reading. Stats, probability and chance were below the minimum expected level but everything else was at the top end of the expected level for his grade, which is fantastic considering he has only been at school for one school year where as the other kids in his grade have been at school for twice as long! (and he had no instruction whatsoever at home)...

His teacher said he was an excellent group leader in class and took a lot of pride in that role. She said he was an enthusiastic participant in class discussions. She said that with his reading, it is his lack of concentration that is holding him down, but if he could focus just bit better he would excel! The report from her …

Well, this week I've discovered that how I write now has change considerably from how I used to write back in the nineties when I was writing for my Bachelor degree.

Back then I used to plot out everything, I usually started with the end of a story and then worked my way toward the end. Before I started I "created" my characters. Their appearance, their names, their environment, their actions and the motivations behind the actions. That was all worked out before I even started.

Things have changed!

For the last couple of years of the nineties, and the last 7 years of the naughties, I've mostly writing academic stuff; essays and the like. I had started to doubt if I even had any stories to tell, and if I could remember how to tell them.

Well, it turns out there are stories in me. I don't know how many, and I can't tell you what they are about.

I discovered this because I had to write 4000 words of a young adult novel for my Writing for Children unit. At first…

After his shower yesterday, Bryn was just looking so gorgeous I had to snap off a few pics...


Only after I reviewed the pics on my camera did I realise that DESPITE only having JUST gotten out of the shower, he'd managed to smear snot across his face... That's my boy!!!


This is him doing his impression of Santa, hahaha!

And I was looking and saw all these OTHER faces in his pictures... With different expressions he looks like Erik, or my brother Michael, or Luey, it's amazing how the family resemblance is so broad!

Erik aged nearly two...


I have a better likeness of Michael to that picture of Bryn above (from when Michael was about 2.5, but it's not on this computer...)




This last photo is not connected to the one of Luey, it just so happens that in this one, Bryn has his hand over his eye, he was playing peek-a-boo...

I was just introduced to this idea :).

I like it!

Instead of viewing the world around me as a conspiracy against my happiness, I can imagine the world as a conspiracy of miracles creating happiness in my life!

Today I've had the joy of giving something to someone else, something I had in surplus and she was about to run out of, and would find difficulty getting more of! Being able to help someone else really makes me happy!

My mum has done the essay I'm really struggling with, and this morning she is sending me her essay to look at so I can get some idea of what the lecturers are looking for. She got a HD in the essay, so it will be a really good guide to my own research (I'm using different literature texts).

It's going to be stinky hot in South Australia in January, so mum has suggested we postpone out trip until Easter because they don't have any airconditioning. This means I don't have to worry about slipping off my girl diet just a couple of weeks before our…

I've encountered a bit of anger again this week. Not directed at me, thankfully. It was misdirected anger.

I think anger is a natural human emotion which serves a very important purpose. All anger is derived from fear, and fear often warns us that something is wrong. Something needs to change. Many people seem to get stuck with the anger phase of implementing change though. Some people are simply not equipped to effect change without anger in place to motivate them because other fears also play part. Fear of not being liked is a big one I've noticed.

When I was a child, I experienced a lot of anger that was based in the fear of not being accepted or liked. My mother could not effect change without anger. An example of this was when Erik was a newborn. Our relationship wasn't great. I didn't let her have him over at her house on her own. When Erik was nearly 6 months old she and s-dad decided, over one weekend, to move interstate because they'd been inters…

I just read a thread in the multiples section of EB where a mum was asking about HCG levels, because hers were a little elevated, she was wondering if perhaps she might be carrying twins or even triplets.

I read one point of view that seemed offended at this mum-to-bes excitement over possibly having more than one baby in this pregnancy. The poster felt the mum was being flippant, and that, in fact, many women who pop into that section of the forums asking about the possibility of their pregnancy being a multiple pregnancy with great anticipation were in some sort of bad taste (my words here)...

I'm quite curious about this view.

I'm one of those terribly short sighted women who would LOVE to have twins. I've always wanted twins since I ever even wanted children. Why would that make me offensive to other people. The only thing I can come up with is that this twin mum has found her journey particularly difficult. Perhaps her babies have suffered a lot during the pregnancy…

He's actually learned the chorus, LOL, but then again it's a pretty simple chorus...

And I know many of you will appreciate the film clip, too...



In other news, I just found out that computers emitt positive ions, and for girl making you need negative ions, and so all this sitting in front of the computer is REALLY BAD for my attempt, argh!!! I can give up chocolate, I can give up caffeine, hell I can even give up having an orgasm (not allowed one of those in the next couple of months either, damn it), but my computer, hell no!

So, to minimize the effect of the computer emissions, I need bees was candles and a indoor fountain thingy, because running water emitts negative ions... I still need to minimize my computer time though, too...

Geez, is it any bloody wonder I've had all boys, what with my domineering personality, chocolate, chips, coke, coffee, computer time and orgasm obsessions...

Listen as your day unfolds,
challenge what the future holds
Try to keep your head up to the sky
Lovers they may cause you tears
Go ahead release your fears
Stand up and be counted,
don't be shamed to cry
You gotta be..

Chourous:
You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold,
you gotta be wiser
You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough,
you gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm,
you gotta stay together.
All I know, all I know
Love will save the day

Herald what your mother said
Read the books your father read
Try to solve the puzzleS
in your own sweet time
Some may have more cash than you
Others take a different view
My oh my,hey hey hey

Chourous

Time asks no questions, it goes on without you
Leaving you behind if you can't stand the pace
The world keeps on spinning, can't stop it if you tried to
The best part is danger staring you in the face

Remember Listen as your day unfolds,
challenge what the future holds
Try to keep your head up to the sky
Lovers they may cause you tears
Go ahead release your fea…

Put it on your calendar people! In fifty days time, I enter my girl conception period for 10 days! During that time, the plan is to catch and egg and turn it
PINK!

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature,
nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits
in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
- Helen Keller

I'm a bit of a fan of Helen Keller's level headedness, I mean, the woman was deaf and blind, what's not to like, right?

Anyway, this arrived in my inbox this morning and was very timely, too... I had found out last Tuesday that my plan to hire a friends independant midwife to take to my local hospital for the next babies birth, because this same midwife already worked at that hospital as well as doing independant midwifery, has been thwarted by recent changes at the maternity service. Another midwife at this hospital quit her job, complaining of other midwives not following hospital policy by cheerfully allowing women to not u…

Twelves weeks after Erik was born, I was invited to attend the new mothers' group at my local Maternal and Child Health Centre. There I met about 11 other families with children up to 8 weeks younger... Over the next nearly three years I kept meeting up with this families at least every month, often every week... Then we moved to Bendigo, and we only caught up with the remaining families (those who had not moved away from the area or otherwise decided the group wasn't for them) a couple of times. The last time was when we went to one little boy's birthday (Jen, that's would be Nicolas, Bee's son), when he turned 4. A little while later we moved back to Melbourne and a year after that we moved back to our local area. When we moved back here I called the family we'd been the closest to and found out they only lived a few streets away from us now. I said that if any families were still meeting up, could this mum let me know, and she said they only very rare…