Bridget's Flame

Plans and viruses

2011-09-26T11:12:00.003+09:30

Wow, time has passed.

I'm not quite sure how so much time passed... but that's always been a problem here at Bridget's Flame.

So...these many weeks...what have I been doing? I promised myself more art time and I have been doing that, I've also been pondering. And musing. And considering. There has been a little hatching of plans and dreams. There has also been nearly three weeks of illness. A 'virus' then a secondary infection causing pharyngitis. Boring. And exhausting.

Today I am tired. The ~~quack~~ doctor says there will be some recovery time needed and it will be a couple more weeks before my energy returns. This frustrates me.

So, I'm trying to listen to the messages my body is sending. Rest, relax, recover. I'm trying to be easy on myself and not give in to tantrums because I can't do the things I want to do just yet. I'm trying to learn the lesson that I've been avoiding learning for months...years. I realised the other day that this has happened before, a few times in fact, at the equinox. It's as though the earth in balance highlights my own lack of it and sidelines me. I'm learning that I can't do everything. Also, it's ok that I can't do everything. It's ok to stop sometimes.

Clearly I'm a slow learner.

As we begin Spring and move towards Summer here in the Southern Hemisphere I've decided to make some changes. The planning continues (in a very relaxed way) and things are going to be very different...and better.

Five things that get me through the days

2011-08-10T13:40:00.001+09:30

I’m not always very good at self-care. I’m well aware I’m not alone in this so I won’t lament too strongly. As I get older though, I’ve started to recognise some really basic things I need to do to get me through the days. That doesn’t mean I always do them, I just know what they are and I try to do them as much as I can. Here they are…

1. Meditation. I’ve spoken before about the fact that, even as a meditation teacher, my practice can be erratic. Even so, I KNOW with every fibre of my being that I need to do this every day, even just 5 minutes is better than not at all. It is the rock that supports my little body/mind temple and without it things are very wobbly indeed.

2. Green Smoothies. Yeah, yeah I know, they’re a bit of a trend right now, but I was introduced the world of the green smoothie about 12 months ago (by my kinesiologist) and I can absolutely swear that when I’m having my daily smoothie I am a happier and more energetic gal than when I’m not having them. I’m busy and I don’t always eat properly, the smoothie ensures a good dose of health in a glass and I can get away with a glass of wine for dinner instead of food (oh come on, I’m kidding…kind of). On work days I make it before I dash out the door, pour it into a ‘to go’ cup and have it in the car on the drive to the big smoke. Then my friends, I set the frickin’ world on fire. Seriously. Ask anyone.

3. Yoga. I spend a lot of time at the computer, my work depends on it and so does my business. I seize up. Yoga fixes that, I’m not a yogi in any big way, I don’t go to a class but I do yoga stretches during the day and a session with a DVD a couple of times a week. Good for the body and the mind and ace at keeping me flexible enough to…I dunno... do bendy stuff.

4. Creativity. I’m only just getting back to my arty creativity after a pretty long break but I’ve come to realise that it is really, really important to me. When I draw (or paint or create in some way) I become absorbed. I’m no longer caught up in the monkey mind that plagues me a lot of the time. It’s a like a kind of busy meditation, I get so lost in my art I lose track of time. I don’t think about work, or the business, or the phone calls I need to make, or the bills I have to pay, or the people that take up way too much space in my mind for no damn good reason. I relax. Apparently I’m more pleasant to be around as well. Who knew?

5. Spending time with Tom and our two girls and smooching the velvety nose of my puppy Jack. No brainer really, these three people/one dog are my crack cocaine and I need a hit every single day. When we’re apart my equilibrium is seriously compromised and I become fractious. You wouldn’t like me when I’m fractious.

So that’s it, five little things. Obviously there are more things I enjoy and need on a regular basis - nature, exercise, Dr Who… but really, the five mentioned above are the things that keep me alive and breathing and functioning in the world without getting locked up. They don’t cure all my dysfunctions but they’re a good start.

Allowing Creativity

2011-08-02T11:07:00.001+09:30

For a long time I haven't exercised my creative side...actually, that's not entirely true, I have been creative, just not artistically creative in the way I used to be. I'm not beating myself up over this, I've had a lot to do, raising children, working, running a business, being a wife, looking after a home, keeping a blog (albeit erratically). But...my easel lies empty...my paints have dried up...my art supplies box gathers dust. Over time I've had little whispers from the part of me that misses making art. Sometimes I've answered soothingly that one day I'll get back to it, sometimes (most times) I've just ignored it. Like many ignored things the whispers became more insistent...so that they were not so much whispers anymore as irritated hisses, then shouts, then heart aches and lustful thoughts of long afternoons abandoned to acrylic, oil and pastel.

A couple of months ago I decided that there was never going to be a convenient time to get arty again. There would always be something to do, someone needing my attention and/or a job to be done. I couldn't put it off any longer, I had to create, but I've forgotten how. I struggled to see where it would fit in my life nowadays...I still don't really have an answer to that. What I did decide however, is that I was going to drop some other things for a while and give that time to art. I looked for inspiration and found it here and joined up, being an EssCee* seems like a calling.

Then I decided that for the month of August I would take a little break from social media, let my friends out there in the Twitter, Facebook and Google+ lands miss me a little and devote some time to getting all painty and gluey.

So now what? Today I will pull out my art supplies and see what's there (and still usable). I may shop for replacements. I may doodle a little in an art journal I bought several years ago that still lies pristine and untouched. I may rummage through my collage images and I may actually begin a project. I'll see how the spirit moves me...but it will be baby steps, all the way.

I’m hoping this creative break also includes more blogging.

*S.C. Spiritual Creative

Celebrations

2011-08-01T18:36:00.001+09:30

Whether you’re in the Southern Hemisphere (Imbolc) or the Northern Hemisphere (Lammas), blessings to you.

It is also our wedding anniversary and St Sofia’s day…it’s a busy one.

Sláinte.

Halfway

2011-07-27T12:16:00.001+09:30

We’re now more than halfway through 2011. No idea how that happened.

I thought it might be a good time to revisit my plans/goals for 2011. In January I decided my word for the year was SIMPLIFY. I wrote about it here. I also mentioned a ‘20 things’ list I’d made for that. Now, for my benefit more than anything (sorry to bore you, feel free to click away), I’m going to revisit that list and see how it’s going (I’m not doing all 20 today).

1. Reduce working hours. I have reduced by one day a fortnight. This isn’t enough and I am discussing it further with my manager when he returns from overseas at the end of August. My goal is to work 3 days a week.

2. Declutter – own less. Working very gradually on this, have decluttered the wardrobe, some kitchen cupboards and a chest of drawers – this item needs more work. A lot more work.

3. Reduce online presence. I’m now only a member of one forum group however I have added Google+ to my social networking. I do use Hootsuite now which keeps it all together but G+ isn’t on there yet.

4. Meal plan, bulk shop and bulk cook. Ummm….no.

5. Create a household folder – contacts, buzz lists, account numbers and insurance details etc. Nope.

6. Unsubscribe from newsletters, websites etc. Yes! Yes I have done this for all but a couple of favourites. Go me.

7. Combine online stuff – Google reader, email, photos, music etc – one log in would be nice. I changed my personal email to Gmail and do a lot in Google now which is good. I haven’t moved photos from Flickr to Picasa or anything. This is a work in progress because I’m not actually enjoying Gmail very much so it could all change.

8. Bundle phones, internet, mobiles etc. Some of it is and some of it isn’t, I can’t decide if I really want all my eggs in one basket despite the apparent savings you make by doing so.

9. Stop buying stationery I don’t need. *Whistles and wanders away to look at fascinating mark on the wall….*

10. Set up automatic payments for ALL bills. Nearly there with this one, still a couple to organise.

Ok, that’ll do. I’ll give myself 6/10 for this effort and to be fair to myself I think that if I can achieve number 1 then a lot of the others will become more achievable.

Melbourne Belated

2011-07-26T09:14:00.000+09:30

I mentioned here and probably somewhere else on my wide interweb presence that the girls and I were going to Melbourne in the first week of the school holidays to hang out with my youngest sister (Fiona – known as Fi or Feebs) and her family.
I’m finally getting round to writing a brief, mostly pictorial, post about the trip.
There was some of this….

…and a little of this.

We took the female children to Build-a-Bear for some of this…

…yes, I know…it’s a dragon not a bear, his name is Norbert.
This one is a bear though…although you can’t tell yet because it’s still unstuffed.

Then we belatedly celebrated Hannah’s birthday…

We also went and saw this…

…well actually we saw the whole exhibition not just the banners but there was a ‘no photography’ rule in there so the best I could do was the banners.
And on the final day I took the four older children to see Harry Potter 3D at the IMAX theatre. It was the highlight for Aislin (here in Quidditch robes).

All in all a busy, but extremely satisfying and enjoyable, week.

The most honest post I’ve ever written

2011-07-24T15:45:00.001+09:30

…possibly the longest too.

For those of you that know me you’ll be aware that aside from my ‘day job’ I run a business. I teach meditation and run personal and spiritual development workshops for women and do a little bit of business coaching. For a while I’ve been thinking I need to get more serious about my own business so I’ve been working on a website and blog and creating a Facebook page and generally immersing myself in getting the whole thing online (cos I love me some online).

It has totally sucked. I’ve hated every minute of it (well maybe not the messing with code, I like the nerdy stuff). The rest though? Despised it. I started and stopped and wrote stuff then scrapped it and wrung my hands and gnashed my teeth and cried tears of blood over the whole damn thing.

I just couldn’t do it in a way that pleased me. At first I thought I was just being a perfectionist (something I’ve been accused of before) but I really didn’t believe that (on this occasion at least). It was just all hateful to me, I was unhappy with the content, the images, the general feel and most of all the vision I had. I looked at other online stuff and found myself wanting (comparison is never a good thing). I couldn’t work out what was wrong.

Then I remembered this...

This is Aislin shopping a few weeks ago, in full Hogwarts regalia including her wand. When she got out of the car dressed like this I tentatively asked her if she was sure she wanted to wear her robes to shop. She looked at me as if I was mad and said ‘yes, of course I do!’. And so off we went, ~~muggles~~ people stared, she didn’t give a hoot. Because right now, that’s just who she is. So wise at 8 years old.

This afternoon, while wallowing in internet misery, I had an epiphany. The reason this work on the business is making me so unhappy and uncomfortable is that it’s not ME. I have spent so long learning how to do this and looking at how others do it that somewhere along the way I lost sight of me. This is the same me that conducts a perfectly successful business offline…but I was unconsciously trying to be someone different online. Where along the way did I become so confused about my identity? At what juncture did I start to believe that the real me wasn’t good enough to grow my business further or that I had to be different to appeal online? I dunno.

I also realised that over the years, the most ‘me’ I’ve been online is right here on this blog. The one I don’t tell people about…HELLO!! I’m here!! Posts have been erratic for a while now…but it’s still here and it’s still mine and it’s still home.

Ironically one of my business messages is about authenticity and here I was not taking my own advice…but let’s just skim over that for now *blush*.

So here it is, the truth of me (at least some of it). Who I am and who I’m not…

I’m deeply spiritual, but I’m not about angels and unicorns. I think both are cool, but they’re not my thing. You go ahead though.
I’m a bit of a hippy, but I don’t do tie dye…I’m lovin’ it on you tie dye gals…but it ain’t me – my hippy-ness is more internal. Internal tie dye if you will.
I meditate but I’m not a zealot, at the same time as I’m teaching you how to do it and singing its praises my own practice falters. Meh..what you gonna do?
I sometimes swear – yes, even ‘fuck’. You don’t like it? Thanks for stopping by anyway. Ciao.
I read a lot of spiritual and self help books. I rarely put any of it into practice. I like them though.
Except Eckhart Tolle…sorry Oprah (yes, she reads my blog)…that dude sends me to sleep.
My humour can be both sarcastic and ironic. I’m not sorry about that.
I don’t give a crap about RSS and SEO and Google analytics or any of that. I care about people.
I’m not a perfect mother. I love my children with every breath in my body but I get impatient and frustrated by them. Sometimes I let them watch more TV than is appropriate because when I’m busy it makes my life easier. They have eaten baked beans for dinner more than once. I’m so tempted now to back this up with positive things I do for my children so you won’t hate me…but I’m not going to.
I worry people will hate me…or judge me…or criticise me. See above.
I’m not a perfect wife. But I’d take a bullet for him and fully intend on seeing out my days in his precious company.
I sometimes read and watch horror and sci fi (quite a lot in fact). I love Jane Austen and Shakespeare…but at times I have the literary taste of a 14 year old boy. Judge away if that’s what you like to do. I care not.
I have my own brand of spirituality…it’s a kind of Buddhist/Pagan/Celtic/Catholic thing and despite everything you’ve seen here I really am a compassionate person.
I want happiness. I want you to have it too.

You may be seeing some more businessy type stuff from me from time to time. It will be real. It will be the authentic me. It will make no apology for the fact I’m a flawed human and it will not try to portray me as some kind of blended personification of the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and Ghandi. There will be no rainbows, unicorns or angels (I may occasionally mention dragons). It will be me in all my glorious, disrespectful, irreverent, imperfection.

If you don’t like you don’t have to read it, I won’t be offended.

Congratulations if you made it to the end of this post.

My blog is broken

2011-07-13T19:18:00.001+09:30

Notice anything missing?

Dammit.

The July update…

2011-07-08T10:03:00.002+09:30

…because I’m not going to be any more optimistic than that.

The mid year term holidays are upon us, I’ve taken some time off and we are heading to Melbourne on Sunday to spend a week with my sister and her family. We have some rather exciting plans for Melbourne but I hope to blog about them so I won’t spoil the surprises by blabbing here today.

I’m recovering slowly from my shoulder injury, I have some more movement and a bit less pain. I call that progress.

Work continues to be just that…work. That’s all on that topic, after all, I’m on holiday.

My girls are still gorgeous. Hannah continues to amaze me with her creativeness and intense commitment to anything she does. Aislin just amazes me. Her Harry Potter obsession is not lessening, in fact here we are on a shopping trip.

As you can see she is in full Hogwarts regalia (and yes, she has a wand)…my little Gryffindor. She’s eccentric, but I like that…it just confirms that she is mine. Fortunately she has a best friend who is equally HP obsessed so she has someone with whom she can share her freakiness.

I have to say, as I sit with here my morning coffee, posting to my blog I am filled with a sense of nostalgia for the days that this was a more regular occurrence. I miss those days.

Nothing of interest has happened…

2011-05-15T17:52:00.001+09:30

…since I posted yesterday.

Last night Aislin went off to a ‘sleepover’ birthday party and Hannah enjoyed being an only child for 24 hours. She took full advantage of not having to negotiate and compromise the Saturday night activities. We watched Megamind.

She has a cold and I notice I now have a sore throat. Why is it, that after a busy time, when the body finally relaxes, it often gets sick? I suppose I should be grateful it didn’t happen in the midst of last week’s busyness, but I didn’t want it for this week either thank you very much.

Dinner tonight is poached chicken. I may have a glass of wine…for medicinal purposes only of course.

Tally ho.

Saturday morning

2011-05-14T09:59:00.001+09:30

I was very happy to see the weekend this week, work has been busy…and I mean chaotically, crazily, non-stop, exhaustingly busy.

I didn’t enjoy that much.

Not only did I not blog, Facebook friends may have noticed that I wasn’t around there much. I did pop by long enough to see Z’s hens waiting for morning tea and to hear from Dave that blogger was down (which clearly I hadn’t noticed for myself), I also saw that Donna has a new job and Nicola sold her house. I was too tired to even tell everyone I was too busy to update.

On the upside I managed to complete 4 major projects that have been hanging over my head, so at least I can sleep again. Of course that just means they will immediately be replaced by something else, but for now I’m in denial about that.

Last weekend came and went in a flash, we had a number of engagements and of course Mother’s Day (which wasn’t nearly as relaxing as I would have liked) but Tom and the girls still treated me to breakfast in bed which was nice, if a bit rushed.

This weekend is shaping up to be a little bit busy too but hopefully I will have time to blog again and perhaps even do a little advance blogging for next week. It’s not that there’s no news…just not much time to pass it on.

As you were.

The day my head exploded

2011-05-04T16:45:00.001+09:30

Today I had to make a call to the United States to participate in a teleclass that went for about an hour. I haven’t made any long distance calls recently, preferring to use Skype for international communication, but this option wasn’t available for this particular call so it was the old fashioned way…by telephone. Because I haven’t called internationally for a while I thought I’d better find out what current international call rates were from my fixed line phone. So I decided to ring Telstra (our national telco) …that was my first mistake.

I began to navigate my way through the labyrinthine recorded options but after some time it became apparent that my seemingly simple request was too much for the robot. It asked me if I wanted to be put through to a ‘consultant’ I pressed ‘1’ for yes. That was my second mistake.

My consultant ‘John’ was very nice, extremely courteous and used lots of Autralianisms like ‘no worries’ making me feel very safe and at home. Ahem.

I posed my question “Hello John! What are the current call rates to the United States from my fixed line phone…I’m on the ‘Telstra Home Reach’ plan”.

Silence.

Then John asked me to hold for ‘a couple of minutes’. Five minutes later he came back and asked me who was calling me from the States. I told him ‘no-one, I’m calling them’ and I repeated my request. He put me on hold again.

Next time he came back he asked me about my mobile phone. I told him it had nothing to do with my mobile, I was calling the United States from my FIXED LINE.

Silence.

He put me on hold again.

This went on for some time…eventually he worked out what I wanted and began to explain the various options. That conversation made my ears bleed. Here’s a sample:

John (heavily accented): If you call 0018 to a fixed line it is half hour free and $5.25

Me: Eh?

John: repeated the above

Me: What's free?

John: Half hour and $5.25

Me: Is it $5.25 per half hour?

John: Yes…………….and free.

Me: Which?

John: Half hour.

Me: No....is it $5.25 OR is it free?

John: Yes.

Me: It can't be both.

John: Yes

Me: No, it can't, it's either $5.25 or free....

John: Yes. It's $5.25…………….and free.

Me: Sigh. Is $5.25 for half an hour AND THEN free?

John: Yes…………….no, it's $5.25 and free.

Me: Aaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!

It was all like that. In total I spent 45 minutes on the phone with an enquiry which should have taken 5 minutes at the absolutely maximum.

I made the call anyway, I just hope I don’t get a bill for $80.

Samhain Blessings 2011

2011-04-30T18:18:00.002+09:30

…for those here in the South. As we head into the dark I hope it is a time for hatching new adventures and creating wild plans. Sláinte.

Image: Ninth Wave Designs

And Happy Beltane to my Northern Hemisphere friends. Enjoy the light!

A bit of escapism

2011-04-26T13:51:00.003+09:30

This is how I’d like my life to be right now…free and soaring and riding Hippogriffs over Scottish lochs.

Busy Eve

2011-04-26T13:28:00.001+09:30

…and I don’t mean someone called Eve who is extremely busy (no jokes about your mother thanks Dave).

Tomorrow I go back to work after my 12 day break. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. It will be busy…right from the minute I get there, my job is always relentlessly busy. It’s certainly better than being bored, but I’d settle for a nice steady daily workload…the stress becomes a problem after a while – panic attacks at 3am are really not pleasant.

Tom and the girls are still on holiday for the rest of this week which certainly eases the pressure a little, for the next few days at least. Next week will be business as usual. In anticipation of this I am planning ahead, I have to be super-organised as we spend 11.5 of our waking hours out of the house. It doesn’t leave much ‘at home’ time for household/family stuff…never mind resting. So making sure we have freezer meals ready, washing and ironing is done, schedule marked with which days are sports uniforms, guitar lessons, swimming etc. so we remember to take the correct clothes and equipment with us as we leave the house at 7am. It has to run like a well oiled machine. It usually does for the first few weeks then everyone becomes exhausted and forgetful and it falls apart a bit. By the end of term our schedule is decidedly frayed around the edges. But we survive.

I keep telling myself it won’t be like this forever.

Anzac Day 2011

2011-04-25T10:04:00.001+09:30

Remembrance

A little test

2011-04-24T15:55:00.001+09:30

I'm trying a blogging iPhone app, this is a trial run.

Happy Easter!!

2011-04-24T08:39:00.001+09:30

Buona Pasqua!!

Joyeuses Pâques!!

Feliz Semana Santa!!

Frohe Ostern!!

Peaceful…

2011-04-23T11:30:00.002+09:30

…that’s been the last few days. Although Thursday was spent clothes shopping for the children (why do they grow out of everything simultaneously and seemingly overnight?). It was actually an enjoyable day despite the whole shopping thing.

On Thursday night we attended the Holy Thursday Mass, and on Friday morning we did the Stations of the Cross at the girls’ school. Each class had made a Station (some made two) so it was lovely for them (and us) to participate in that using the Stations they had helped create. In the afternoon we went to the Passion Mass.

Dinner last night was Atlantic salmon, scalloped potatoes, asparagus and cauliflower – there was some wine also. In case you were wondering.

I’ve been on holiday for over a week and only just managing to feel ok about not doing anything. I’m finding it so hard to relax these days, even with meditation – being so constantly busy during term time it takes me a long time to slow down…I probably will be quite mellow by Wednesday…just in time to go back to work.

Today is looking to be another peaceful one, quiet day at home, reading, napping and perhaps watch a movie later. Tonight is the Easter Vigil Mass so once again we’ll toddle off to St Matthews – it’s all fire and candles tonight.

Tomorrow there will be chocolate.

Looking back…

2011-04-21T09:21:00.001+09:30

…on my optimistic January post I can’t help but feel a little disappointed at my lack of progress.

Here’s an update…

Simplify

Not a complete failure here, I have been quite ruthless about simplifying some areas of my life. The ridiculous amount of online activity for a start. I now have Facebook, Twitter (which is still under review) a couple of forums I contribute to irregularly and the very few blogs which I now read from Google Reader*. My own blog was never on the hit list for online simplifying but it seems to have been an unintentional casualty anyway.

There are many other areas that I have not yet simplified. I did write a ‘20 things’** list and I probably need to revisit it. 4/10 for simplifying.

Enjoy Peace

Hmmm, well I do still attempt this and have had some success. My meditation practice is erratic but at least more regular than it has been for a couple of years. I attended our Parish Retreat a couple of weeks ago which was a wonderful day of peace and intend to more of those this year. I am being more conscious of my busy-ness and stress levels, trying to breathe more. I’d give this 3/10.

Create

Fail. Absolutely no creative work has taken place, some of my job type work requires a certain amount of creativity but that’s not what I had in mind here. No art, no craft, no knitting or even interior decorating to express my creativity. 0/10

Write

Reports and project work yes – and that has its place. The kind of writing I want to do. No. 1/10 (because those reports require effort).

Hug trees

This is meant to encompass any communing with nature. I’ve planted some flat leafed parsley. ‘Nuff said. ½ /10

Rest

I wish. 0/10

Clearly I was either over-optimistic about what I can achieve or I’m just not trying.

* The downside of viewing in Google reader is I can’t comment which I find a bit frustrating. The alternative is to click over to the blogs and comment…which defeats the purpose of reading them in GR. I need to think more about this.

** I use a ‘20 things list’ for all kinds of projects. If there’s something I want to do, some project I want to complete or a goal I want to achieve, I quickly jot down 20 things I need to do – without thinking too deeply about it. Sometimes there are more than 20, but I always start with 20 or I get overwhelmed. It’s just something that works for me. Usually.

A post…of sorts

2011-04-19T09:36:00.001+09:30

Well, here I am posting to my blog, for no other reason than to get Dave to stop nagging me.

One of the reasons I’m not posting is that I’m too exhausted or busy when I’m actually at home. I hate posting at work because, while I'm happy (indeed keen), to whip up a quick post in my lunch break I absolutely loathe the blogger posting page. It annoys me and messes with the formatting and is generally displeasing and time consuming. I prefer Windows Live Writer but don't have it on my work computer. Excuse made.

So, what's new in Caitlin's world I hear you ask (you did ask didn't you?). Well, there have been a few developments since January. I was asked to move to a new job (with the same organisation) and I accepted. I've been in the new role for a couple of months now, it's ok. Not quite what I'd hoped but I have a very good boss who is keen to let me develop the job to my liking and at the same time hopefully improve the processes we currently use. So, fingers crossed it all works out that way. If not, I’ll be moving on. Life’s too short.

Other than that it's been business as usual. No amazing new adventures to declare, no exciting plans to travel the world and no new children, pets or husbands to report.

If this is all a bit dull for you…sorry, but imagine what it must be like for me.

Palm Sunday

2011-04-18T11:43:00.001+09:30

…complete with donkey.

2011 in pictures

2011-01-20T08:14:00.000+10:30

My dreams for 2011

The urge to create…

2011-01-18T09:30:00.000+10:30

…is upon me.

One of things that is always last on my to do list these days is time spent creating. In the old days, before children, I had time to draw and paint and best of all create with my favourite medium, pastel.

Now those moments with art are few and far between.

I have plenty of unfinished pictures…like this…

…and this.

And I have no shortage of ideas for new pieces.

Now I just have to find the time.

The week that was

2011-01-16T10:06:00.001+10:30

Things are pretty quiet at work while we wait for the school term to begin (31 January). We’re all taking advantage of the opportunity to get ready for the year ahead. Tidying our work spaces, sorting files, putting systems in place, archiving old files etc. So in the midst silent telephones and the quiet that comes with fewer staff, there is a buzz of activity.

I’m coming off a medication that I have been on for two years (nothing serious). I no longer need it and have been gradually reducing the dose. There are still some side effects from coming off it, not least of which is experiencing a bit of an emotional roller coaster. It’s altogether unpleasant but worth it to not be taking anything.

On Thursday I received the news that a friend had died. That’s another post. I’m not quite ready to address that yet.

Today there is more chaos and laying of flooring.

I’m ready for a holiday already.

Post apocalypse living

2011-01-09T15:47:00.001+10:30

I have spent the last three days living in upheaval. We are having new floors laid and while I am absolutely delighted that it is finally being done, I am not enjoying having to live around the work.

For two days I had to move the fridge if I wanted to access the dishwasher, then again to access the washing machine, then again to get out the back door.

It was annoying.

The kitchen is finished (hurrah!) and the fridge is back where it belongs. However we don’t have a dining table or any lounge room furniture while those two areas are being done. It’s a tad inconvenient. Add to that I have had the care of FOUR children for the past three days* and have been trying to feed and water them from a skeleton kitchen (with movable fridge) you can imagine I’m a tad frazzled. All I want to do is stick a DVD on and sit them in front of it. Except we have no TV or DVD player currently hooked up so that can’t happen.

So up until now I have been a firm believer that I will be a survivor of the zombie apocalypse – I even did the Facebook quiz on that topic (and scored very well). I’m now beginning to doubt my post apocalyptic abilities. I think I’ll just let the zombies get me.

*Yes I do recognise the appalling lack of planning that teamed up four children with floors being laid. But thanks for noticing.

This is not a resolution

2011-01-05T18:45:00.001+10:30

You may recall that I'm not one for resolutions... why set myself up for failure I say? However I do like to set goals. Goals seem friendlier than resolutions, something to aim for rather than something I resolve to do, then don't do, then beat myself up for not doing.

As always the year began with me leaping head first into 'what can I take on???' mode. I always do it. I get excited about a brand new year and start to plan all the things I'll do with it - courses, workshops, meditations, journaling groups, book groups... for me, those old 'hounds of more' are at their most enthusiastic at new year. Somewhere in the last couple of days, however, I stopped myself. I paused, examined my habit of over-committing and decided not to do it. Just like that.

It was also right about then I decided my 'word for 2011' is SIMPLIFY. Such a lovely word.

So I didn’t sign up for 365 project (ok I did sign up, but I then deleted my account) and the Artist's Way group and I didn’t join several other groups and forums that I was invited to. I just...didn't do it. Because I know that while my enthusiasm for these things doesn't diminish, my time and energy for them does. Of course being me I had moments of anxiety worrying that I might be ‘missing something’. But I’m not and experience tells me that all those ‘urgent’ things I need to do just because it’s the start of the year also seem to come up again later in the year.

I’m not alone in this apparently. I’m reading similar things from others…like here and here.

So in the interest of simplification here is my goal for Bridget's Flame this year.

A couple of posts of week... if I can...more if I feel the need or have something to say.

Now I know you've heard it all before...but before I also made a lot of promises to other commitments. My sincere hope is that by keeping my extracurricular activities to an absolute minimum I can go back to basics and just enjoy my blog. I have even organised myself an editorial calendar...much less grand than it sounds...I've just put in a couple of recurring calendar reminders. Because as difficult as this may be to believe, these days a lot of the time I don't post because I'm out of the habit and I forget. How feeble is that?

So there we have it, one simple goal for the blog in 2011 – I expect you all to hold me accountable. And don’t forget my word for the year – SIMPLIFY (if I seem to be forgetting please remind me).

Kthxbye.

Happy New Year Dave!

2011-01-01T09:30:00.001+10:30

Well my first (but hopefully not only) post of 2011 is dedicated to my friend Dave.

Dave, I hope 2011 brings you health, happiness and your heart’s desire – may it be your greatest year yet.

I also wish the happiest of new years to all of my other treasured blog friends!

Love to you all.

It’s probably a virus

2010-11-06T11:42:00.001+10:30

So. Those of you who know me from such social networking sites as Facebook and Twitter will know I have been struck down this week with the flux. I whined about it there, now I’ll whine about it here. (Ok it’s not actually dysentery, just a nasty gastro, but please allow me the small pleasure of my exaggerations).

Consequently I haven’t eaten much since Tuesday, but last night I ate a bowl of rice and lived to tell of it, so just went for that again this morning. It is phenomenally boring.

At one stage I had to take myself off to the quack for a sick certificate for work. He told me I had ~~the flux~~ gastro, not to eat anything and gave me a list of things to buy from the chemist to ease the symptoms and lighten my bank balance. Then he told me what he uses for his hay fever (eh?). And he checked my pulse (it was fast) and blood pressure (it was low) for good measure. I think he did this just so I wouldn’t be too outraged at the $94 bill the receptionist handed me when I came out of my 6 minute quackery consultation.

I was still outraged.

Anyway, I’m on the mend…not quite ready for a 3 course meal but optimistic that lunch will be something other than rice. A Jacob’s cream cracker perhaps?

Every cloud…

2010-11-05T10:21:00.001+10:30

One of the few benefits of being home from work sick is that there is little to do but rest and read blogs (and Kindles). And eventually, when feeling up to it, write a long overdue blog post.

So here it is. In my last post I mentioned ‘change’. You may be wondering if there has been any change, and if so, what was the nature of that change. You’ll be thinking it obviously wasn’t a change to the regularity of my posts that’s for sure.

Well, there has been some change but so far it’s been pretty subtle. I feel like I’m starting to settle into myself a bit. I’m not feeling so angsty and a lot of the questions I’ve been asking over the past couple of years I’m finally managing to answer. I’ve always known that I had the answers, but for a while now I’ve had a lot of trouble accessing that inner wisdom. More on all that another time.

Other changes have been obvious, we’ve actually managed to find some time to move forward with some of the home renovations and painting etc. That’s been good and I’ve been gratified at how much something as simple as a coat of paint can change the energy in a place. I have a few furniture projects I’m working on and we have new flooring going down, hopefully before Christmas. There will be photos.

I’m doing some things for myself which is nice including a couple of online courses, one is a Soulcollage® course through ‘Daily Om ‘. I’ve only just started so haven’t created anything yet, but I’ll post a picture when I do.

So I feel as if I’m gradually moving into a much saner headspace than I‘ve been in for a while. I hope it continues.

Change

2010-09-24T10:38:00.001+09:30

I can’t decide whether it’s just the thought of spring coming or whether it’s real. I feel a change coming. Something is stirring, little whispers of ideas and plans. Nothing substantial and often the thoughts slip away, the way dreams do, before I can fully grasp them. But somewhere inside I have a ‘feeling’. It’s a vague ‘feeling’ but it’s definitely a feeling.

Once upon a time this would have driven me to distraction. I would have been frantically scanning the recesses of my mind, feeling frustrated and annoyed that I couldn’t get to work on whatever it is. These days I have been learning a new way to deal with this. I just sit with it. I don’t force it. I take the little bits that come to me and examine them and put them away until some other piece comes and I look at that, maybe add it to the other piece like a mental jigsaw puzzle, maybe discard it, maybe start a new puzzle. Sometimes I don’t know what to do with it. And that’s ok too.

I don’t really know what this is about. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t even know if it is anything at all. Strange thing is…I don’t mind not knowing all that because what I DO know that it will all unfold exactly as it should with or without any help from me.

Kindle

2010-09-23T09:15:00.001+09:30

After initially feeling some resistance to the whole idea of ‘e-readers’ I was eventually convinced by my sisters to get a Kindle. Like most of you I love books, I have several large bookcases throughout the house bursting at their seams and groaning under the weight of the books therein. I love the smell of books and the feel of their pages, but most of all I love the words. And that is what finally convinced me.

I do buy books for the whole experience but mostly it’s what’s IN them that I want. The stories, the information, the ‘facts’ and the questions they answer and also the questions they prompt. When my sisters starting tell me about the books they were downloading to their Kindles my interest was aroused. Then they sent me an Amazon voucher towards my very own Kindle so I could share in the Kindle conversations.

So I ordered one.

It arrived yesterday and I downloaded a few classics to begin my Kindle reading experience. I’m impressed. The screen is cleverly designed to look like a book, it’s small and light (and having recently read a 1,000 page tome which was absolute hell to read in bed - SO heavy! - I’m a bit sold on ‘light’). I’m currently reading Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ (which was free to download, lots of out-of-copyright classic books are free).

I’m enjoying the experience. I like that I can carrying 3,500 books around in my handbag…I’ve no idea why I like that. Perhaps it’s because I’m often reading more than one book – a fiction, a non-fiction, maybe a textbook etc - I’ll pick up one depending on my mood but can’t possibly carry them all everywhere with me. Now I can. It could be that, or maybe I’m just crazy.

This certainly doesn’t mean I won’t ever buy another book, there are some books that are just too beautiful and special to be owned in any other way. But it does mean that I can have an even wider reading experience, particularly with books I don’t necessarily want to have on the shelves but just want the enjoyment of reading.

Summary. I like it.

All images www.amazon.com

Spring Equinox 2010

2010-09-21T10:17:00.001+09:30

Well Spring may not have quite sprung but it’s definitely on it’s way. After a very, very wet winter (YAY!!) everything is SO green and lush and beautiful. The dams are full and as I drove home this morning I had to stop the car and admire the view several times. It was one of those still mornings where the water is like a sheet of glass and the reflections crystal clear. I’d have taken a photo but I didn’t have the camera and the iPhone just wasn’t up to the task.

Trees are beginning to bud and some enthusiastic specimens are even putting on a blossom show already.

Our Spring Equinox celebrations should have been at a music festival this evening (how perfect!), however I am home again with a still sick child (second ear infection in as many weeks) so we may have to forego that.

In the interest of acknowledging the turning of wheel I shall however plan some low key events for the evening. A family dinner with vases of blossom on the table, candles, music and a toast to that frilly show-off that is Springtime.

Happy Equinox to you all (be it Spring or Autumn depending on your hemisphere).

Evidence of my intolerance

2010-09-20T10:00:00.000+09:30

Hello, my name is Caitlin and I’m gluten intolerant.

I’ve avoided writing about this, partly because I’m pretty sure no-one wants to hear the revolting details of my gastro-intestinal issue and partly because it’s really boring and partly because ‘gluten free’ is such a fad at the moment and I hate being on bandwagons.

Lots of people are gluten free for general health and wellbeing reasons and that’s fine. But it’s never been for me. I like all the stuff that has gluten in it and long ago decided that going gluten free was not a lifestyle that I’d ever adopt.

Admittedly my relationship with gluten has always been a bit fractious, it didn’t make me sick, but it did often leave me feeling bloated and uncomfortable. I was willing to ignore that to experience the joy of a hot ham and cheese croissant or a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel. Until recently that is.

A few months ago I started to experience some unpleasant symptoms in the form of a way too regular upset tummy. I can honestly say that in the beginning I did not relate it to gluten. It gradually got worse so that often, after eating, I’d have extremely nasty tummy upsets preceded by horrible, excruciating stomach pains and nausea. To cut a very long story short I eventually narrowed it down to gluten. I went off gluten and it went away. I ate gluten again and it came back with a vengeance. I visited my doctor, tests were carried out and the result is I can’t eat gluten.

The end.

Except for the fact that I am HATING it. I miss bread, I miss real pasta, I want a cinnamon bun and a turkey, rocket and cranberry baguette from my favourite coffee shop.

I can’t have any of those things. Oh yes, people cheerfully point out that there are lots of gluten free options these days…and there are,…but they’re not the same. I hate that I can’t just go and make a sandwich, I can’t have any biscuit I fancy with my coffee, I even have to have special soy sauce in my stir fry. No more porridge for breakfast, muesli bars with my cup of tea, no warm bread straight from the breadmaker, no hot donuts at the beach, no fish and chips, no pizza, no tempura…need I go on?

I have to think about every single thing I eat, I have to read labels in the supermarket, I have to refuse the treats that are handed out at the weekly morning tea at work. And frankly, in most cases the gluten free options leave me cold. If made with GF flour they have an unappetising powdery texture and a vaguely odd flavour.

However, I am gradually coming to realise that this is my life now and I have to adapt. I won’t starve, I’m not dying and I’m sure there is a world of new taste experiences out there waiting to be explored. and most chocolate is ok for me. Things could be worse.

Just don’t eat a croissant in front of me.

Saturday mornings

2010-09-18T11:02:00.001+09:30

Sometimes on a Saturday morning I listen to the busy sounds of ‘other people’. They’re all out there mowing their lawns and hanging their washing and playing with their kids and sanding their latest projects and…well you get the idea.

Saturday mornings for me are quite different. During the week I am up every day at 5.30am and fall exhausted into bed at 10.30 if I’m lucky. Only then do I relax and read for half an hour or so before turning out the light usually after smacking myself in the face with my book several times as I doze off reading.

So by Saturday morning I have no intention of getting up and launching into vigorous activity. In fact on a Saturday morning I spend a long time in my pyjamas. I drink a whole pot of coffee over the course of the morning, graze on the few things I can actually eat these days, read blogs, send emails, farm my farm, browse magazines, stare out the window and generally do absolutely nothing productive. It’s bliss, it really is.

For a while I felt guilty about all the things my poor neglected house needs to have done to it. I kept thinking I needed to get up and just get on with domestic chores and be a good housekeeper. Wash those filthy windows and dust the top of the picture frames. But the fact is I just can’t. I’m busy, I’m tired and I am learning to focus my energy (or lack of it) in ways that make sense. And if that means having one totally lazy, slovenly, unproductive morning a week then so be it.

Blogging stamina

2010-09-16T20:46:00.001+09:30

I have none. I had a good go for a few days there and then lost my energy for it and it all came to a standstill again.

Never mind, I’m not giving up.

Not much to report here, Hannah has finally recovered enough to go back to school. She ended up with an ear infection and slight perforation to the ear drum. She doesn’t do things by halves that girl.

So life has returned to relative normality.

It’s almost the weekend (huzzah!) and I am absolutely knackered and can’t wait to have a couple of days off.

Roll on Friday 5pm!

Plague House

2010-09-06T11:16:00.001+09:30

I make no secret of (or apology for) the fact that I love winter. It’s by far my favourite season, and yes, even when in the icy, grey, rainy, windy climes of Scotland it was still my favourite. I would sooner tolerate freezing cold than heat any day. In fact, I’ve also made no secret of the fact I loathe the heat. My legion of long time readers will attest to this. But that’s another post (or several, come summer when the whining will commence).

This winter however has been one of the worst for ‘winter ailments’ in our family. It seems like every two or three weeks another round of sore throats, coughs and sniffles descends upon us and Tom and I are either a) taking sick leave because we’re actually ill ourselves or b) taking ‘carer’s leave’ because one, or both, of the girls has it.

Once again I had to ring work this morning and make an apology for my absence due to a sick child. Of course this means a day spent fussing and fetching and carrying and mopping the fevered brow of the little darling. Fortunately she’s sick enough that she is actually lying quietly reading and has been doing that for the last three hours. I hate the days that they perk up by lunchtime and annoy the bejesus out of me for the rest of the day. I’m a great parent as you can see.

The upside is there was time for a blog post.

Deluge

2010-09-04T19:37:00.001+09:30

It’s raining here and has been for several days. It may never stop. I’m building my ark and have started gathering animals two by two, so far I have 3 rats (all female), 1 dog and 1 cat. Clearly I’m not very good at this.

Due to the rain people are not complaining about the drought anymore, which is a relief. However they are complaining about the rain. Sigh.

Our creek is overflowing and the Royal Adelaide Show has been rained on and flooded.

It hasn’t stopped people going.

We’re not going, we only go every two years. That’s as much as I can stand. This year is a good year NOT to go obviously.

That’s about it for now – it’s a slow news day at Bridget’s Flame.

As you were.

Enough

2010-09-02T10:00:00.001+09:30

Just lately I’ve been thinking about what is enough. Or at least when am I enough? When is what I have done or what I do enough?

This thinking has been the result of a bit of soul searching on my part. Something I’ve avoided for quite some time because the trouble with searching is sometimes you find stuff and it’s not always pretty. However, my constant discontentment has forced me to take the advice I usually give to my clients and ‘go within’ just a little bit.

I’ve told you about my new job, how much I like it and the people I work with it and they seem to like me too. I also whined about the decisions I had to make about more study or continue with the business etc. I won’t go on about it again, I still don’t know what I’m doing. Anyway….what I have realised is that this is a bit of a pattern with me (at least in career terms). I run away from what I really want, find something that I quite like and will settle for, then decide that I have to BE MORE for this role so I start cramming my life with more hard work and study and angst about my abilities. Until one day I collapse in a heap of disillusion and depression and exhaustion – and slightly lose my mind for a little while. And then I start all over again.

Sigh.

Why do I do it, why am I constantly putting myself in the position of thinking I have to be more, always more. Never ok just as I am, never ENOUGH.

Jennifer Louden writes about the ‘Hounds of More’ she says “Hounds of More are petrified you won’t be able to do what you most yearn to do in your life, so they keep you running in circles, chasing your—and their!—tails.”

Mine are there, always snapping at my ankles making me go faster, search harder, grasp at more, and more and more. So much to do and learn and achieve and BE!

When in actual fact I don’t think I really want any more – at least not that stuff. I want a peaceful life, I want to plant a herb garden and draw again and grow some vegetables and walk the dog and play with the children.

I just haven’t quite worked out how to pacify the hounds.

Memory

2010-08-30T09:00:00.001+09:30

Isn’t memory a strange thing? Well perhaps not memory itself but the way it manifests (or fails to). Let me explain. I had a completely exhausting week last week. We have long days anyway, with both of us working full time and the girls in before and after school care every day, but last week 4 nights out of 5 we had ‘other activities’ to attend which made for very long days away from home. Places to go, people to see you know. Add to that three very disturbed nights for me (for various reasons) and I was left utterly knackered.

So yesterday afternoon I decided to have a little nap and took myself off to bed for an hour. Lying there, slightly demented from tiredness, my mind began to wander into those mysterious places it goes been waking and sleep. I suddenly had a very comforting image of a house that I love very much. I don’t know who it belongs to but I’ve always admired it when we drove past. It sits near the top of a gently sloping hill, and is surrounded by beautiful trees. It has a small fenced field close to the house where live two chocolate brown, velvety faced donkeys. There’s just something about that house that makes me feel peaceful and content and only slightly (ahem) envious of the people lucky enough to live there.

This isn’t it, but it’s not unlike it. Photo credit here

In my semi-slumber I thought ‘we must take a drive past it so I can see it. Where is it again?’ After a few moments confusion and delving into memory I recalled where it was. I also recalled that I hadn’t been there in more than 20 years. It was in Scotland, on a road we sometimes took home which my mother referred to as the ‘wee road’. We’d leave town and Mum would say to Dad ‘can we drive home on the wee road’. We all knew what she meant, it was the ‘scenic route’ and we all loved it. Part of it took us down a narrow road past a farm, in spring and summer there were always wildflowers growing at the side of the road and we’d stop and pick them. The road had steep banks and hedgerows and as we picked the flowers the Highland Cows in the field would peer curiously over the hedges at us.

Photo by John Toms

I was a sucker for those gentle brown eyes and silky noses.

Now I can understand that is a happy memory and I guess that somewhere in my mind something triggered that place and I probably needed that sense of comfort that it gave me. But I can’t helping feeling that ‘memory’ is a miraculous thing and a little strange. It was vivid, I could see it and feel it and smell it, for a short time it fooled my sleepy mind into thinking it was a recent memory, but it wasn’t.

I really believe we have access to everything we need inside ourselves. In the past few days I’ve had lots of realisations and epiphanies about things. I think there’s something in that memory for me examine too, I just have to work out what it is.

The winter of my discontent

2010-08-28T13:53:00.001+09:30

I’m quite surprised to find myself here writing a blog post so I can only imagine how surprised anyone reading it might be.

I’ve actually been thinking a lot about this blog recently, shall I keep it?, should I stop completely?, should I try to do one post a week?…do I need anymore ‘to do’ or ‘shoulds’ in my life? ‘should I continue to use appalling grammar?’

I don’t know. I used to enjoy it (the blog not the bad grammar), I don’t anymore. It’s not that I don’t have thoughts and feelings and plans and ‘stuff’ happening that I could write about. I just don’t like it here anymore. I still like the idea of blogging, I just don’t like this blog. I’ve moved on, grown out of it, changed my direction (or should I say my directionless-ness, for I don’t think I’ve had any real direction for a long time and now I just have a new set of directionless issues).

I’d still like to talk about what I’m thinking, what’s happening Chez Bridget’s Flame, who annoys me, makes me happy, makes me laugh, frustrates me, inspires me and so on. And I’m sure everyone is dying to hear all that ~~crap~~ fascinating information.

With spring just around the corner here in the arse end of the world, perhaps I will suddenly have a new lease on my blogging life and feel inspired to re-invent my blog identity.

Perhaps.

Photo credit this blog right here

Couldn’t resist this photo…I love winter but the image still made me smile.

Chapter 3 – The girl who hasn’t a clue

2010-06-28T20:38:00.001+09:30

I hope you haven’t all died of anticipation waiting for me to continue this fascinating study of my life.

I won’t keep you waiting a moment longer…

One of the things that I’ve liked about working at my new workplace is the encouragement I’ve had from senior people, I’ve had discussions with a couple of them and they have talked to me about the organisation’s mentoring program (to assist staff move forward on a career path). They’ve also asked me questions about my qualifications and plans for further study. They recognise that I’m not working in my field and that I have skills and qualifications to do much more than I am doing in this role. There are lots of very interesting jobs within this organisation and if I’m going to be working, I wouldn’t mind doing something in this educational sector.

I was recently offered a place on a Masters Program; I would be doing a Master of Education with a speciality in Cognitive Psychology and Educational Practice – which is just a fancy way of saying ‘how people learn’. The managers here were very approving of that.

The thing is…do I really want to commit to years of study (I’d have to do it very part time)? Also, do I actually want a career anymore? I’ve been down that road and chose to leave. I wanted to run my business and be around for my children. Years of working full time and studying part time is not conducive to family life, especially as Tom is working on a Masters himself, so I’ve been picking up a lot of extra ‘home duties’ to support him in his studies. Is this really how I want my future to be? Working all week and studying all weekend? Maybe I would be better to stay with this job (which isn’t too onerous) and spend a little bit of time gradually building my business until it’s at the stage that I can leave work and do only that.

I have to admit I enjoy studying and there is a part of me that would love to get my Masters. I’m just not sure how much I want that. How much of it is a genuine desire for a future in education and how much is it my ego wanting to show the world I can do it?

I don’t have the answers to any of these questions and that is my dilemma. Somehow along the way I have totally lost sight of what I really want and I don’t know how to find that again. But the other problem could be that there are too many possibilities. Poor little princess.

I know it probably sounds pretty pathetic – there are people in the world with REAL problems and here I am fretting about what to do with my life. But this is the only life I’ve got and I want to make it count AND be happy if that’s possible. I want to be a good example to my children AND be around for them. I want to earn my own money AND be free.

Not much to ask really, is it? No. I didn’t think so either.

Delay

2010-06-27T09:44:00.001+09:30

Apologies for the delay…I have no computer access. The story will continue as soon as that is rectified.

Chapter 2 - The girl who is

2010-06-24T21:57:00.001+09:30

So I found myself on my first temping assignment. I was quite pleased because it was with an educational organisation, but one with a ‘spiritual’ focus. It is also the organisation that oversees the sector to which my daughters’ school belongs. I was to spend a month covering for someone who was on leave.

The minute I walked in I felt at home, the people were nice, the atmosphere was peaceful and while at first I found it unusual to be working in an environment where every meeting began with a prayer, I didn’t object. It didn’t take me long to find my way around and I’ve always been independent so I wasn’t constantly seeking help or reassurance. Basically I just got on with it and everyone seemed really pleased that I did. I got a lot of praise. I felt I was only doing what I was being paid to do at the level I was used to performing. Others felt I was excelling in some way. Go figure. Within a week my immediate manager was making comments about ‘keeping me on’ and telling anyone who’d listen what a ‘God-send’ I was and generally singing my praises high and low. It was nice, if not slightly disconcerting. I really wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. She spoke to people in other areas and soon I was being asked to do small projects for other people. I continued to do this for a month and then my time was up. The assistant director invited me to a meeting and asked me to stay on for another month working in her area with some other senior people. I agreed. At that time she also strongly encouraged me to apply for a vacancy that was coming up. So I started in the new area and they arranged for me to do four days with them and a fifth day with another team in need of the kind of project support I do. It’s a lovely mix. I’ve had lots of interesting projects to work on and done some fascinating research and data analysis. I also applied for the job as suggested and pretty much just got on with my work.

To cut a long story short, my application was welcomed, I interviewed for the position (there were other applicants too) and yesterday they offered me the job and I accepted. That should be the happy ending shouldn’t it? And it is, in many ways. I actually love it here. It’s an organisation that is a good match for a) my career interests b) my personal values and c) my academic goals.

So why am I not jumping for joy?

I’ll try and explain tomorrow.

Chapter 1 – The girl who was

2010-06-22T20:42:00.001+09:30

I’ve never really planned my career but I’ve had quite a good working life. I got a qualification, got a job, did well, got better jobs and kept doing that for a quite a long time, moving upwards, gaining skills and experience and occasionally taking little detours into new areas. Along the way I did some ‘personal development’ learned some stuff and started doing bits and pieces on the side, building what eventually became a little business.

About 3 years ago I found myself working in tertiary education as a lecturer a couple of days a week and running my business on another day (sometimes two) as well as studying for a Bachelor degree in Adult Education. My business was rewarding, I ran courses and workshops for women, mostly in personal and spiritual development, but with a bit of career planning from time to time (I’m enjoying the irony of THAT these days). I also taught meditation. People liked my courses and asked for more. It was all good, well; perhaps not ALL good…I was pretty bored lecturing. I like to teach but I’d been teaching the same courses for years and was a bit over them. It wasn’t easy to make changes in that regard due the ‘culture’ of the organisation. I felt a bit stuck. I was also totally burnt out and exhausted from doing so much. I eventually decided to leave my job.

I had plans to concentrate on my business and build it up, which would give me the freedom to be around for my children, able to do school runs and attend activities and generally have the best of both worlds. My degree was finished, I’d left my job and the world was my oyster. It was about then I had a minor melt down. I can’t explain what happened; I just didn’t do what I said I was going to do. I’d have little flurries of activity with the business then I’d do nothing. No business was forthcoming. I picked up the kids, ran the house and cleared out the linen cupboard but I didn’t work on the business. That went on for about 18 months.

It was decided that I should get a job. I’m not quite sure who decided that but I know it wasn’t me. So I started job hunting. The trouble with that was that I had no clue what I was looking for. In the end, after a number of false starts and disappointments I decided to just find some admin work to get me back ‘out there’ and then start thinking about what I would do. I got a job quite quickly and I won’t bore you with the details but I spent 9 months in absolute misery. It was the worst employment experience of my life. I hated every minute of it and that level of misery is not conducive to forward planning – not for me anyway. I had to get out so in desperation I signed up with an agency to do some admin temping. I thought doing that would allow me to keep working, pick and choose when I work and start to try and make some decisions about my future. I had a lot of skills and experience not to mention qualifications; I just needed to find a good fit for all that.

One week after signing up with the agency I was offered a temping assignment. It was for a month (that is unusual in itself for a temping job) with an educational organisation. Result.

I’ll tell you all about that tomorrow.

Yulish stuffs

2010-06-21T20:13:00.001+09:30

Yuletide greetings from the Southern Hemisphere. Here I am writing from my blog called ‘Bridget’s Flame’ a Solstice goddess whose flame will pierce the darkness. Here I am celebrating the Winter Solstice, with all its symbolism around rebirth (of the Sun), introspection and planning for the future. Here I am among all this and with absolutely no idea what the future holds for me.

I have spent yet another 24 hours immersed in the ‘internal debate’ I mentioned in my previous post. Thoughts, plans and ideas playing tag in my head until I thought it might explode and fall right off and into my cornflakes. I’m tired, tired of thinking, tired of being confused and tired of holding on so tightly and having to know NOW. This minute. IMMEDIATELY!

So, when faced with a dilemma of such momentous proportions, I decided to do what any sensible girl would do… I consulted my astrologer. She said;

“The course of Venus brings you to an even deeper level of thought. Realisations of what motivates you, what really makes you happy in the core of your being, rise to the surface and bloom in the light of consciousness. A freedom and a responsibility in one. ‘For am I now seeking the favour of men, or of God? - St. Paul’”.

Right then. Lovely as it was (thanks St Paul) that didn’t really help, it just confirmed my confusion.

So I did the next logical thing and moved on to my Goddess Tarot iPhone app. For we all know that nothing answers life’s little questions like an iPhone app. It said ‘it is time for us to take our fantasies and transform them into reality’. At first I thought that meant I should make that call to Johnny Depp but it probably didn’t. Unfortunately.

Sigh.

I’ve already said that this week I’m going to blog it all out. A great spewing forth of all the revolting mixed up-ness that has been accumulating in my head for some time now. It’s not life and death. It’s not even that important in the grand scheme of things. In fact at times it will make me sound like a whiny, ungrateful little pain in arse. Sorry about that.

Because really, what have I got to complain about? With my health and my education and my family and a roof over my head and food to eat and shiny things to play with.

Yeah. Well unfortunately saying all that doesn’t make it go away, it doesn’t ease my confusion or pull me up by my bootstraps or help me make decisions about how I want my life to be.

So…tonight I’ll light a candle, meditate on the solstice, fly my freak flag from the tallest tower and then tomorrow… I will begin.

Solstice blessings to you all.

Honest blogging

2010-06-20T18:17:00.000+09:30

After my post today I received a lot of encouragement and support via comments and emails. I was invited over to Laoi’s blog (I think she actually said ‘ahem! please go and see my blog young lady’) so I went…and this was there waiting for me…..

along with these words….

* Speak our truth from the heart and tell it like it is.
* Share openly and honestly our true feelings without fear of judgement, Blame or shame.
* We write to share our achievements so others can also share our joy.
* We write about our bad times too, knowing that the love and support of others is around us and perhaps heal another’s pain in the process..
*We are human beings will real feelings and emotions and REFUSE to hide behind a mask.
* We dare to be different
* We are Free Spirits
* We realise that by spilling out, we lighten our load.
* We acknowledge our strengths and weaknesses and don't see them in terms of success or failure.
* We laugh together and cry together
* We are all following our own journey in our own unique way

Thank you so very much Laoi, I need to get all this stupid crap out of my head and my blog is really the best place to do it and I am so grateful that you have all made it clear to me that it’s ok to do that. So this week I’m going to write it…all of it…even the horrible, ugly, ego driven stuff that I’m not proud of AT ALL.

Brace yourselves people.

The world turns

2010-06-19T14:10:00.001+09:30

Well here I am again, popping up when you least expect it. Life is no less busy, the temporary job I was doing was extended another four weeks, that four weeks is up next Friday but they don’t seem to have any plans to let me go.

I’m a bit conflicted about it all, I like working there even though the work is not what I normally do. I know it won’t challenge me for long (it doesn’t really challenge me now but it’s interesting enough to hold my attention). It’s a nice working environment and probably has some potential for future work that is more in my field. However I sometimes can’t help feeling I’m just ‘settling’ for something less than I am capable of and avoiding stepping out into the world and actually doing something I want to do.

One of the reasons I haven’t been blogging is that my life is just full of this incessant internal dialogue of whining and moaning and indecision and it seems grossly unfair to inflict others with it. I bore myself, it certainly wouldn’t be entertaining for anyone else.

So I’ll continue my inner debate and occasionally pop by to let you know I’m still alive.

In the meantime if anyone has any idea how I can get my mojo back I’m all ears.

Working for the man

2010-05-02T08:42:00.001+09:30

Well actually I seem to be working for the Lord. Last Thursday I started the temporary job I was offered (hence my absence).

This particular role is with a large educational organisation, would it give you a hint if I said I had to get used to seeing pictures of the Pope everywhere and it’s the only place I’ve ever worked that has a chapel? I’m guessing it would.

I’m working with a team of numeracy consultants who basically train teachers in the methods for teaching numeracy in schools. Interesting work.

This workplace is the antithesis of my last workplace. The pace is gentler, not that it isn’t busy, just a different attitude to the busy-ness. It’s all women (you may recall in my last position I worked in a team of 14 and I was the ONLY woman). Obviously the motivation is quite different in this workplace. They have a commitment to learning and education where spirituality isn’t a dirty word. It’s early days but so far I like it. Not that I should get too used to it as it is only for a month.

Anyway, being back at work full time will curb my blogging habits but I’ll try and get here when I can.

Countdown

2010-04-27T13:27:00.001+09:30

I only have two days until I have to start work full time again (only for a month though). All of a sudden, after having nearly 4 weeks off, I’ve thought about a load of things I need to do.

So now I’m frantically trying to do them.

Blogging isn’t one of them.

I don’t know why I do this, maybe I overestimate the time I have available or underestimate what needs to be done. Or maybe I just hide and procrastinate. After all I wouldn’t want to succeed would I?

One day I need to think about this. In the meantime I need to get on with some work so please excuse the brief post while I try to do something productive.

Anzac Day 2010

2010-04-25T11:04:00.001+09:30

Lest we forget…

Not socks

2010-04-24T13:15:00.001+09:30

Just a quick post today. I don’t have much computer access at the moment as Tom is ~~hogging the laptop~~ working on his essay. We really must invest in a second computer. So instead I am ‘enjoying’ domestic duties such as washing, ironing, cleaning the bathroom and my favourite…picking up the dog pooh from the back garden. You had no idea my life was so glamorous did you?

This afternoon, however, will be dedicated to genuinely enjoyable pursuits. I’m finishing the hat I started for myself last winter…

…excuse the terrible photo, taken with my phone right in front of the window (because I was too lazy to get up and do a better job). What you can’t see is that is a lovely lavender coloured ‘tweed’ yarn. Check out the three needles…I’m still impressed with myself that I can actually knit that way now, because seriously, I’m usually pretty inept with that sort of thing. Anyway, I’ll post a photo of the finished article - soon I hope.

So that’s my Saturday, what does this day hold for you?

Today’s news

2010-04-22T17:54:00.001+09:30

I got the temporary position I was hoping for. It starts next Thursday and is only for a month. Which is perfect. More about that in another post.

I had lunch today with some friends from my previous place of employment. The girl who replaced me also came to lunch and I was gratified to hear that it’s just as crap as I thought it was. Lunch was delicious, the company was excellent and the gin and tonic was perfect.

I did some grocery shopping this afternoon. It was tedious. I totally loathe shopping.

Then I went to the pet shop and bought the rats a wheel and a salt lick and I got Jack some pig’s ears and a rawhide bone. He still chews everything he can get his teeth on so I’m constantly trying to distract him with things he’s actually ALLOWED to chew.

Steak and salad for dinner tonight.

End of another day.

Sunshiny

2010-04-21T12:33:00.001+09:30

In true Autumn fashion we are experiencing schizophrenic weather conditions, one day cool and raining, then sunny, then wild winds and thunder storms, then dry but crisp, then warm but raining (ugh – humidity) and so on. Yesterday was cool and raining, today is sunny and warmish.

Since it was nice outside I decided to put our Rattus Norvegicus girls out for a bit of air. They were very excited with the fresh breeze and new smells and Jack was beside himself with joy to find them in such close proximity.

Apart from that it’s just washing and ironing and preparing dinner and other mundane tasks today. I’m not complaining though, at least I’m at home.

Blissful sigh.

What’s next?

2010-04-20T12:09:00.001+09:30

The girls went back to school today. When I left work (3 weeks ago) I said I’d take the school holidays off and then perhaps do some temping, or get something happening with the business or, worst case scenario, get another job. Gah.

So, right about now I am contemplating these options. I have registered with an agency (recruitment and temping) and it’s just a case of wait and see. I’m unsure about the business because if I start something then get a job I won’t be able to continue with it. A dilemma. In the meantime I’m trying to enjoy a little bit more time at home (without panicking too much over the electricity bill).

One of things I’m thinking about doing is some more knitting. Last time my sister was here she showed me how to knit socks (using 4 needles). I knitted my first pair…

..not perfect I admit but my first attempt and I was pretty pleased with myself.

So much so that I decided I was going to make socks for everyone I knew. So I went to my favourite sock yarn site and bought two skeins…(I know more than two people, that was just to start with…in theory)…

…but didn’t knit another stitch. Well that’s not entirely true, I knitted Tom a hat and started a hat for myself (last winter) but then it all got busy and depressing and I knitted no more. I am now feeling ready to embark on a project. I’m not quite ready for socks yet (need to ease myself in) but I do like this little scarf. So I’m going to have a go at it.

Link for scarf

Watch this space for photos of either, a scarf looking rather like that one above, or a lump bearing a closer resemblance to something the dog brought up.

Quick post

2010-04-19T12:30:00.001+09:30

The girls go back to school tomorrow after their two week break, so today is a whirlwind of preparation and not much time for blogging.

I had a day off yesterday, we’d been so busy and had a couple of late nights and I was tired. We ended up having a quiet day at home, Tom worked on an essay and I just puttered about. I did find a pattern that got me all enthused for knitting again (more about that in another post) and that then led me to Ravelry which I hadn’t visited for some time. It was nice to reconnect there although it can be even more addictive than Facebook.

So now I must go and drag out winter school uniforms, make sure everything is in good repair (which I think it is because I checked before I put them away last spring).

The Handless Maiden, Wolves and the Voice of the Earth

2010-04-17T13:16:00.001+09:30

I’m still dwelling on the week that was. I’ve never been one to just accept ‘what is’ I always examine and analyse and consider. I look at the externals and assess the situation then I look at the internals (a much scarier place) and wonder at the stuff that goes on inside. I notice the symbols and synchronicities and marvel at how it all works. Often at the end of all this I’m none the wiser, but just sometimes I see a pattern or a message I should be aware of (yes, I’m also an over-thinker at times).

This week has been particularly interesting. First of all…wolves. Everywhere. I turn on the television and there are wolves (not just once….THREE TIMES), I open a book and more wolves, I do a Facebook quiz and get the wolf, someone tells me a story….about wolves (completely random and out of the blue). Anyway, you get the idea…wolves are all around me. My Druid Animal Oracle tells me the wolf is about ‘Intuition, Learning and the Shadow’.

I’ve been having some really strange and vivid dreams too. The ultimate was when I dreamt that someone had cut off my hands. It wasn’t gory or frightening, I didn’t dream the actual cutting, just the aftermath and an ‘oh crap, this is going to inconvenient' moment. It’s been 15 years since I read ‘Women Who Run with the Wolves’ (wolves again) but I’ve revisited that to re-read ‘The Handless Maiden’, a story about bargains and initiation and the shadow and so much more. My favourite quote from the author’s interpretation of the story is "Though we hate to admit it, over and over again the poorest bargain of our lives is the one we make when we forfeit our deep knowing life for one that is far more frail; when we give up our teeth, our claws, our sense, our scent; when we surrender our wilder natures for a promise of something that seems rich but turns out hollow instead..’ Hmmm, what poor bargain have I made?

I also dreamt that a group of youths looking ‘tribal’ broke into my house – I had to fight them…and I did, quite successfully. Then I went to their leader and told him it was ok, no harm done, just go away and don’t bother me again. And they did.

Make of that what you will. A Jungian psychologist could have a field day with that lot.

Finally, last night as I was sitting quietly meditating on all of this there was a loud bang then a slow rumbling that built up to a fairly significant vibrating and died down again slowly – it all happened over a period of 10 – 15 seconds but it felt a lot longer. I knew what it was immediately and after the initial adrenalin rush I relaxed into it. I knew that Mother Earth was feeling just as restless and unsettled as I was, she was having a stretch and bit of a grumble, finding a new level and letting us know she’d done it. Now there’s a lesson I need to learn.

P.S. Small earthquake on a local fault – 3.8 magnitude.

Snow balling busy-ness

2010-04-16T11:21:00.001+09:30

I’ve had a frustrating week for a variety of reasons. It seems like everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. I’ve even managed to get some people off-side and well…let’s face it…mad at me. Sigh. I’m SO over it all. I have found this week to be incredibly draining, both physically and emotionally.

I had hoped for at least one day at home, with nothing to do but potter and enjoy some peace and maybe do a little business work – it hasn’t happened. And it’s not going to happen today either. We have a birthday party to attend for one of Aislin’s friends and that in itself isn’t a problem. However, I have offered to arrive early to help set up etc (I know what it’s like organising a child’s party), I also have volunteered to pick up another child and take them to the party as their mother is working (I know what that’s like too). We also have to stop and buy a birthday present as I’ve been so busy all week I haven’t had a chance to do that yet. So I’ve managed to create some extra running around for myself, it’s not frantic – just time consuming and ultimately tiring. And I’m already very tired.

I would sell my soul for a week, ALL ALONE at the beach house. But I won’t be getting that any time soon either.

Here ends the self-pity post.

Another door opens…

2010-04-15T11:04:00.001+09:30

Within a few hours of yesterday’s disappointment I received a call from the agency about a job that had just come in. They felt I was ideally suited to the role and asked me to come in (again) for a chat about it. I agreed and I’m going in this afternoon.

The only thing is this position is a full time, permanent one. It’s a good job, again writing curriculum and coordinating learning and development within an organisation. I should be happy and I am…sort of. I’m just not sure I want something quite so…committed. I’d really like something similar to that, interesting company, challenging work, utilising my skills, experience and my degree, but part time, maybe 2 or 3 days a week. I’m sure a job like that, with my name on it, exists. Just not sure where.

Working full time is a bit of a nightmare the way it impacts on family life, leave early, home late, always rushing. Also not being able to get to things at school and always being busy and tired. It’s no fun. It also leaves me no time to work on the business (which is my ultimate goal).

So, I don’t know what will happen today – it may not be suitable once we talk about it so I’ll be back to square one. I still feel like I’m in some strange, unsettled place with the future uncertain. I’m not enjoying this at all. Which seems a bit ungrateful, I know I’m lucky to be in a position where I can be offered good, well paid jobs, but is it really too much to ask to have something a bit more suited to family life (not to mention my sanity)?

Oops!

2010-04-14T16:22:00.001+09:30

I nearly forgot to blog! I’ve been busy since yesterday and hardly had to time have a cup of tea never mind blog. I finally had a quiet moment, checked my emails and had a peak at Facebook and was just thinking I should go and get that casserole in the oven when I was overcome with the nagging feeling that I’d forgotten to do something…and I had.

So, I had a slight disappointment today. I have decided that until I get my act together and decide what I’m really going to do with my life I will do some temporary and short contract work. I rang an agency on Monday who just happened to have an ideal position available and were having trouble filling it – they were very excited to hear from me. It was an instructional design role, writing training curriculum for a big company. It was temporary but that’s fine I want temporary. I set up an interview with the agency (the official registering with them bit) and went in today. Sadly, that position had been withdrawn. I was a little disappointed but still went through the testing and interview and the consultant felt confident that there would be something suitable in the future. I said I’d do admin work or whatever until something else came along. She wants to avoid me doing that for too long as it’s ‘not a match for my high level skill set’ ha. Anyway, I'm not ready to jump off a bridge or anything as I’m sure there will be something else along any minute. Ahem.

If it’s Tuesday….

2010-04-13T12:04:00.001+09:30

…it must be swimming lessons. Not for me you understand but for my daughters. But not until this afternoon. This morning I am continuing to work on business type stuff. It’s nice, Jack is asleep on my feet under the desk, he always lies there when I work. When I was working ‘outside the home’ I missed having him there with me. Apparently they had some stupid rule that said people couldn’t take their dogs to work. We all consoled ourselves and each other by looking at photos of each others’ dogs, praising their loveliness and talking about them a lot. We did a bit of work as well but that wasn’t as much fun.

Later on I shall meet ‘M’ and retrieve my children and take said children to their swimming lesson. Then I have to come home and cook for the freezer (that is cook food to put in the freezer not cook food for the freezer to eat, but I’m pretty sure you’d worked that out yourselves).

I did manage to do some work yesterday and I’ve made a bit of a start this morning. After reading about Dave’s gorgeous new live-in lady and shedding a tear over Laoi’s civil war letter and reading numerous other blog posts of course.

But now…back to it.

Shhh…you didn’t see me

2010-04-12T15:26:00.001+09:30

Today a friend (I shall call her 'M’ – nothing to do with James Bond) insisted on taking my children off my hands and caring for them overnight on the proviso that I spent the free time working on some business projects. These projects are overdue because it’s been almost impossible to work on them while the children have been here (school holidays). ‘M’ is a strong supporter of my getting the business off the ground and having MY two children also means HER two children are occupied which allows her to …well I don’t know what she’ll do but whatever, it’s a win-win.

So here I am sitting at the computer working on the projects. No, well spotted…I’m NOT am I? I’m blogging and eating my way through a large tub of mango yoghurt. I’m desperately trying to stay off Facebook and ignore Farmville…what is wrong with me?? I finally have some desperately needed free time and I’m faffing about on useless pursuits (well blogging isn’t a useless pursuit and the yoghurt is delicious but you get my drift).

I had intended to share my misery with you today but that will be a long post I suspect and I’d better do something more productive. I’m pretty sure ‘M’ will insist on seeing evidence of how I spent my time, and a lengthy, depressing blog post about hard done by I am will not impress her. At all.

Where are all the memes when you need one?

2010-04-11T13:56:00.001+09:30

I have no news since yesterday. Apart from the fact that we did complete those sewing projects* and I did watch two episodes of ‘Lost’** there’s not much else to report.

Today will be even less exciting. I have some grocery shopping to do (on a Sunday!) and then I have to cook (yuck). Maybe some more ‘Lost’? Or that art project I mentioned yesterday? Who knows. I have no expectations today.

Actually I’m feeling a little ‘bleh’ today. The morning started well and it’s been downhill all the way since then. I don’t know, life’s a bit of a roller coaster at the moment, more about that in another post (just make sure you take your anti-depressants before reading it – you know how tedious I am when I’m maudlin).

Anyway, onwards and upwards. Have a lovely Sunday preciouses (yes, I know it’s not a word).

* We made rat beds and rat hammocks. No end to glamour round here.

** I started watching ‘Lost’ on DVD last winter. I’m currently a series behind the TV episodes and I can’t rely on catching all the TV ones so I prefer to watch it at my own pace. It’s been strangely addictive. Anyway, Hannah saw a couple of early episodes with me then I decided it probably wasn’t suitable for a 9 year old (when I saw her running around with a water pistol tucked in the back of her jeans like a hand gun – yikes!). I’ll put up my hand to a poor parenting moment there. So she happened to walk in yesterday and saw me watching and said ‘so…what’s happened?’. I nearly fell of my chair a) because she saw two episodes of series one and I’m watching the END of series 5 – that’s a lot of water under the bridge for the survivors of Oceanic 815 and b) because I have never seen such a complicated, convoluted and hard to follow TV show in my life, I think I know why they call it ‘Lost’ because half the time I AM!! Honestly, I am hanging on by my fingernails trying to keep track of all the complexities myself – there’s no way I could even begin to explain it to another person let alone a 9 year old. Later on Tom walked in and stared at the TV for a minute then took a breath as if to say something….I said ‘please don’t ask’ so he said ‘ok’ and left.

I still love it though.

Habit Forming

2010-04-10T11:30:00.001+09:30

Yes, here am I again…at the risk of giving Dave a heart attack I’m blogging 3 DAYS IN A ROW. I’m trying to get back into the habit of blogging. ‘They’ say you have to do a thing for 3 weeks for it to become part of your normal routine. I’m not sure who ‘they’ are or whether or not that’s true, or indeed whether I can manage to blog consistently for 3 weeks, but at least for today it’s giving me something to write about. Wow, that was a long sentence (which is probably what it feels like you are serving as you read this drivel).

My grammar is crap too you may notice.

It’s Saturday here, raining again which is lovely after the long, hot, dry summer. Tom will be working on an essay*, so he’ll be closeted away drinking tea, muttering and tearing at his hair. Since he’ll be hogging the laptop** I have to find some other way to entertain myself, so the girls and I will embark on some sewing projects and an art project that is due***. I also may watch a couple of episodes of ‘Lost’. All in all a lovely way to spend my day I think.

*Not sure if I’ve mentioned Tom is back at University doing a Masters in Science and Public Policy? Well. He is.

** I still have my iPhone so I won’t be totally removed from my beloved interwebs and email.

*** I’m doing a ‘Creative Goddess’ e-course which involves lots of fun with my paints and pastels and other arty materials and little forays into Art Land. Something I’ve been neglecting for years.

So…what does the weekend have in store for you my lovelies?

Feeling Autumnal

2010-04-09T10:16:00.001+09:30

The weather is beginning to turn, it’s still in the mid to low twenties, so not cold yet, but wet and dull and overcast. We’ve had some lovely rain and are having some more today with thunder storms to come. My favourite kind of weather. I love Autumn and Winter, I can honestly say those seasons are when I’m at my most contented and most….I don’t know…centred? At peace? Dare I say approaching happy? Nah, let’s not get carried away there. :-)

I had a wander in the garden this morning to check out the seasonal changes. In a little neglected corner I found the first mushrooms of the season (we get lots) – already munched by small creatures.

The trees are beginning to turn…

...gold…

…and burgundy…

…and little raindrops are everywhere.

It was lovely. I came inside and sat in my office drinking coffee and listening to household sounds. The girls were playing a camping game and making Jack play with them. He’s so tolerant and was quite happy to pretend to be their pet bear. The washing machine was swishing gently, the clothes dryer humming and rain on the roof. Such mundane and domestic sounds and yet soothing.

And then…before I knew it…I’d written a blog post!

How can it be so?

2010-04-08T11:29:00.001+09:30

Apparently, according the dating system on blogger, I wrote that last post on 20th March. I don’t believe this. It can’t possibly have been that long. Can it?

Where do the days go? It’s starting to freak me out a little. A minute ago it was Christmas and now Easter has come and gone. Did time speed up? Can someone please explain this terrifying phenomenon to me? And please don’t say ‘it’s what happens when you get older’ because that will depress me even more.

I feel like my life is speeding past me like a runaway train.

And just so you know…I don’t like it. Not one bit.

I am not a (party) animal

2010-03-20T12:57:00.001+10:30

A couple of weeks ago we had a nice weekend planned. The girls were at their cousins for a couple of days and Tom and I had a bit of peace and quiet to look forward to and a party to go to on the Saturday night.

The party was a birthday celebration for a friend of Tom’s. We’d received the invitation a few weeks earlier and Tom asked if I’d like to go and I said ‘yes, that will be nice’.

The weeks passed and the big day arrived and I thought ‘a party…meh’. I’d even dutifully posted on Facebook that it was going to a be a good weekend, including the party in list of enjoyable things about to happen. By the time party hour rolled round I was thoroughly disinterested. It was cold and raining, the party was being held in a shed or barn or something and worst of all there were over 60 people invited - I only vaguely knew one of them. I had a sudden realisation that I had absolutely no interest in attending this party. In fact the very idea of having to go to this event, make small talk with strangers and generally socialise filled me dread. I didn’t want to go. I told Tom. He was a bit disappointed but understanding. After much thought and deliberation I decided not to go. Tom said he’d go for a couple of hours. I changed out of my party clothes and got into my PJs, poured myself a glass of wine and settled on the couch, with Jack at my side, and watched Midsomer Murders. Happy.

I’ve since reflected on this (for the want of something better to do). During this reflection I came to realise that I don’t like parties, I’ve never liked parties and I have, in fact, spent my whole life disliking parties and avoiding them where possible and enduring them when it’s not possible to avoid them. I even remember as a child not particularly liking parties. The same goes for clubs and organisations and conferences.

I’m not anti-social, I like spending time with people up to a point. I’ve always been very happy in my own company but a nice gathering of close friends and family is fine. A dinner party, or lunch with a small group is lovely. I think my limit is 6 people before it becomes too much and too overwhelming for me.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me (is there?). I know I’m not alone in not enjoying certain social gatherings. I’m past the point in my life where I feel I have to party like it’s 1999 (and that reference proves it). I’m also past the point in my life where I have to pretend about such things and can actually say ‘thanks for the invitation, but I’m not really into parties but would love to catch up for a drink/coffee/dinner sometime’ and not make excuses or lie about phantom previous engagements.

Does this mean I’m finally growing up? Or just getting old?

Where’s my parachute?

2010-02-28T10:44:00.001+10:30

I've had trouble blogging for quite some time now (some of you may have noticed). It’s not laziness or even busy-ness that stops me (although I am busy) , it’s much more about the turmoil in my head.

I sit down and open up Live Writer then go blank. I have no idea how to get my thoughts out of my head and onto the blog. Sometimes I think ‘just write about anything’ but there is so much other ‘stuff’ it’s difficult to do even that.

It’s nothing terribly dramatic or cause for concern, just a kind of general confusion and angst. You may recall that I have been working full time since last August. I have blogged about it and made it clear that I don’t like the job. I still don’t like it, in fact in December I tried 3 times to resign. They talked me into staying – the general manager asked me to stay at least until February and see how I felt then as a ‘personal favour’ to him. It’s hard to say no to that without seeming unreasonable. February came and I felt the same way so I resigned again. This time they believed I meant it and ‘reluctantly’ accepted my resignation. Apparently they were very ‘disappointed’. I don’t really care. I finish there on 26 March.

Now I feel a bit lighter but with something new to worry about. How will I earn money? What I really want to do is get my business going again and work from home as I used to. Of course there is a lot of fear and trepidation and ‘what ifs’ around that. Taking the leap, without any kind of real solid basis for taking the leap and without a working parachute (or any parachute at all if I’m honest). In other words A RISK!!! Scary, scary stuff.

Let’s hope I can fly.

Deprivation..or is it?

2010-02-07T10:51:00.001+10:30

A week ago I temporarily deactivated my FB account. I needed to stay focussed on some other important jobs and it’s too easy to lose hours on the various sites and general internetting that I do. So I have entered a period of what I thought would be web deprivation.

However, I’m here to report that it really hasn’t been as bad as I thought – the first two days were the worst. A FB friend sent me a text message on day 2 asking how I was coping…I told him ‘crap’. Then after another day or so I started to notice how much I was getting done (not blogging obviously). I caught up on some work I was behind with, I listened to some teleclasses and audiobooks while I was working and got a little bit inspired to do some other things. It’s been good. Really it has.

I have to confess that I do pop back to Facebook every few days to tend my farm for 15 minutes, then I shut it down again. I also had to leave it open for a day so that a friend in Egypt could add me – but I didn’t spend any time there and as soon as he’d done that I closed it down again until I’m ready to be permanently open.

I think eventually I will be able to reactivate it and just not spend as much time there, but to begin with I had to make it a bit more definite.

Go me.

Jack

2010-01-31T09:10:00.001+10:30

You may recall some months ago I wrote a post about our ‘new addition’. As he approaches his first birthday I thought an update was in order.

Back then he looked like this…

…now he looks like this - handsome…

….he loves his family….

…and is a creature of habit….

…and with the current decorating and renovations going on he really believes in helping whenever he can.

He’s still a little naughty and loves to chew things he shouldn’t and steal the girls’ toys and run away with them. But, for the most part, he’s a gentle, funny and loving dog. We love our Jack.

**Sorry about the quality of the photos – taken in poor light with my phone.**

My new obsession

2010-01-28T10:39:00.001+10:30

I mentioned the other day that I had been playing Farmville a lot while I was sick. I also alluded to the fact that I had eased off on the Farmville. Here’s why….

…meet my new love, Civilisation IV (otherwise known as CiviliZation IV - pfft). I have long hankered after this game and when I was ill Tom was sick of seeing me pathetically milking my cows, planting my crops and rearranging my farm* for the umpteenth time. He took pity on me and came home from the shops with a shiny copy of Civ IV. I was very excited.

In case you don’t know Civ IV is a strategy game where you start with a small settlement and build a civilisation. It’s complex and detailed and a lot of fun. It’s like chess on steroids. Being a lover of chess it’s exactly the kind of game I like, you have to think and plan and strategise and practice diplomacy. You can play alone or online in a multi-player game (I play solo). It keeps your brain working. A bit like reading and work and conversation used to (hee hee, kidding there, I still to all those things).

So I started playing Civ and fell in love. Tom is beginning to regret his decision. Sadly I’m back at work and the girls are back at school after the summer break and I haven’t had time to play Civ for a few days. But it will be the weekend soon.

*I still love my farm and play Farmville, in fact I recently expanded and rearranged it all again. That could be a blog post couldn’t it?

Australia Day

2010-01-26T17:00:00.000+10:30

Today is Australia Day. Yay.

It is the national day of beer and barbeques and sport. I’m not going to have or attend any barbeques. I’m certainly not watching any sport and it’s unlikely I’ll even have a beer.

Yesterday was Robert Burns’ birthday.

I didn’t go to a Burns’ Supper, nor did I have any haggis but I did have a small whiskey last night (medicinal of course).

Today is also my late Mum’s birthday. Happy Birthday Mum.

Hopeless

2010-01-25T23:52:00.001+10:30

That’s me, completely hopeless. I had every intention of doing at least a couple of posts a week. In case you hadn’t noticed it hasn’t happened. I’d like to use the fact that I’ve been ill for a week as an the excuse. So I will. No really, I’m not well. Horrible flu thing with violent coughing, achy joints, snuffly nose, croaky voice. It’s not a pretty sight … or sound.

Anyway, here I am now. With very little to report other than the afore mentioned flu.

If things had been different I had hoped to report on the party I went to on Saturday night and the Art and Wine festival we attended on Sunday (we had invitations to two different wineries). Sadly I didn’t get to any of them due to, you guessed it, the flu.

I should have had that flu shot.

Instead I shall report that I complained a lot, slept a lot, and played Farmville. Until today that is….but I’ll save that for another post (see Dave, I’m getting the hang of it now!).

Once I had a farm…

2010-01-14T09:00:00.000+10:30

…in fact I still do. It’s not in Africa though, it’s in that global village that is Facebook. Today I’m going to show you my farm because a while ago when I complained about having nothing much to post my friend Dave told me to post about my farm.

So I will.

I’m quite attached to my farm. Occasionally I think I could be putting my time to better use, but the truth is I actually find my farm quite relaxing. I feed my animals, plow my fields, and plant then harvest my crops. I visit my friends and do a bit of work on their farms and generally enjoy myself. It’s not hurting anyone, I’m not killing aliens or destroying civilisations. I’m not spending hours on it, just a few minutes a day quietly farming. Considering I rarely get into my own garden these days it’s a poor but adequate compromise. Admittedly in the beginning I would fret that I might miss my crops ripening and they’d wilt. But now I time them to be available when I’m ready so there’s no pressure any more – and if I don’t get there and they wilt – meh, so what? It’s all good. And I think my farm is quite lovely too….

The obligatory weather post

2010-01-12T10:00:00.000+10:30

Things wouldn’t be ‘back to normal’ in my blogging world if I didn’t post about the weather and have a good old bitch about the heat.

As usual the Australian summer is getting to me. That will come as no surprise to you all, it always has been a thorn in my side and I’ve let you know it. However now there seem to be more extremely hot days (days over 35C) and they are lasting for longer periods – several days in a row before any relief – then starting up again too soon. This does not a happy Caitlin make.

My Northern hemisphere thermostat is designed to deal with this…..

Not this…………….

……….so that all you want to do is this……………

Stupid weather.

The post I promised Dave I’d do last week…

2010-01-10T13:40:00.001+10:30

….then didn’t do so then promised I’d do at the weekend and am now doing. Hark at that appalling grammar – go on folks have a field day.

The End.

Just kidding.

Sigh. I’m really struggling to get into blogging again. I want to, I really do but it’s been so long since I’ve done it regularly that I’m out of the habit (I’m talking about blogging people…blogging!). I plan to, I open up Live Writer then I stare at the empty page for a while and suddenly remember that I have something very important to do. I’m like this…

It’s just not in the forefront of my mind any more. However I want it to be. I want to get back to the days when I’d regularly think to myself ‘I must blog this’ and I’d take my camera everywhere to be sure to capture any blog fodder digitally. So, I’m going to try to remedy this by setting a goal for two posts a week (at least) to begin with. If that goes well then I’ll set a new goal.

Be warned the results may be even worse than they used to be. Bear with me please.

New Year’s Revolution

2009-12-31T22:35:00.001+10:30

I am revolting (no smart comments please). You all know what a boring, whiney, pain in the butt I become over Christmas and New Year so this year I’m going to try something different. I knew there was no way I could manage it over Christmas (baby steps people) but now that New Year is upon us I am going to give it a try. I shall start perhaps by being a little bit cheery and maybe a tad more positive about the whole ‘New Year’ business.

I see this as a fresh new start, although it’s not quite a new decade it’s close enough and we are moving from the noughties to double figures so that has to be significant…doesn’t it?

I’m not going to make resolutions, instead I’m going to say (cheerfully) that although things didn’t quite go according to plan in 2009 I have total confidence that 2010 will be the most exciting and liberating year of my life. It will be overflowing with fantastic opportunities, wonderful friends, abundance in all the good ways and even a bit of happiness here and there.

And I wish the same for all of you, my most cherished blog friends who stand by me through thick and thin and even through my appalling lack of posts in the last few months. Thank you.

Happy New Year!

Oh and Dave…it seems your Easter wishes were a bit premature - thanks all the same :-). I’ll save them for Easter.

For Dave

2009-11-17T21:44:00.001+10:30

Something.

There you go.

Hilarious aren’t I?

Testing a blog editor

2009-10-28T13:11:00.001+10:30

Just seeing if this works.

Pay Back Time

2009-10-03T11:12:00.000+09:30

I mentioned last week that Tom and I were child-free for a few days. It was quite pleasant. Although I was working I still felt as though I was having a little holiday. I had no-one to worry about but myself, I could get up in the morning, have my coffee and read my emails then wander off and have a leisurely shower, get ready for work, have another coffee and an uninterrupted chat with Tom before getting into the car and driving to work in silence. In the evenings I’d arrive home, Tom would hand me a glass of wine and we’d discuss our day, then we’d eat dinner and on two nights we even had time to watch a DVD and STILL get to bed at reasonable time.

However, (there’s always a ‘however’ isn’t there?) last night on my way home from work I stopped and picked up our nephews who will be staying with us for the weekend. You may recall that this is an arrangement we have with Tom’s brother and his wife. The difference is that this time I will be looking after the four children on my own. It might feel a bit like this….

Tom is away all day today and all day tomorrow. I don’t really mind, they’re good children and don’t give me any trouble. The noise levels sometimes need to be controlled but apart from that it’s easy.

So in the space of 24 hours I’ve made the transition from no kids to four kids. I have to say, although I did enjoy a peaceful week there’s nothing nicer than seeing their sweet little faces. Especially when they’re asleep.

Memery

2009-09-30T22:56:00.000+09:30

Owing to my current lack of blog material I have borrowed this meme from Dave.

1) My mother once: walked around for two days with every bone in her wrist broken. She didn’t go to the doctor because she thought she’d just sprained it.

2) Never in my life: will I believe a politician.

3) When I was five: I had my whole life ahead of me.

4) High school was: something I was glad to see the end of.

5) I will never forget: I have a terrible memory, best I don’t commit to anything here.

6) I once met: Keanu Reeves. Sigh.

7) There's this person I know who: makes me laugh. Always.

8) Once, at a bar: I got a bit drunk. Ok, more than once. And more than a bit.

9) By noon I'm usually: halfway through my working day.

10) Last night I: fell asleep in front of the TV.

11) If only I had: more confidence.

12) Next time I go to church/temple: the priest will be surprised.

13) Terri Schiavo: sounds like an Italian name.

14) I like: being happy.

15) When I turn my head left, I see: the movie the children are watching (‘Up’);

16) When I turn my head right, I see: 3 candles and a coffee cup.

17) You know I'm lying when: what I say is totally unbelievable.

18) In junior school: I had a genuine, burn your bra, feminist, lesbian teacher and she was the greatest teacher I ever had.

19) If I was a character written by Shakespeare: lots of people wouldn’t understand a word I said.

20) By this time next year I: want to be running my business from home again.

21) A better name for me would be: Mildred. No, not really.

22) I have a hard time understanding: the crap that goes on in the world.

23) If I ever go back to school, I'll: need a bigger uniform.

24) You know I like you if: I talk to you.

25) If I won an award, the first person I'd thank would be: the person handing it to me I guess.

26) I hope that: things get better soon.

27) Take my advice: follow your bliss. Well, it’s Joseph Campbell’s advice actually. I’m just passing it on.

28) My ideal breakfast is: crepes with lemon and sugar.

29) A song I love but do not have is: is probably one I haven’t heard yet.

30) If you visit my hometown, I suggest: you have a good look around. It’s a very historical place.

31) Tulips, character flaws, microchips and track stars: are very pretty, are not so pretty, are fantastic, I don’t care for.

32) Why won't anyone: take me to Paris this weekend?

33) If you spend the night at my house: don’t expect too much.

34) I'd stop my wedding: for lots of things, it’s only a wedding after all.

35) The world could do without: the global financial crisis.

36) I'd rather lick the belly of a roach than: the belly of a spider.

37) My favourite thing is: my iPhone (at the moment – that will change – I’m fickle).

38) Paper clips are more useful than: politicians.

39) And by the way: you’ve wasted a bit of time reading this, did you realise?

40) The last time I was (really) drunk: was 3 years ago. It was a mistake and I regret it because I was ill for days.

41) My grandmother always: loved me.

Move along people, nothing to see here…

2009-09-29T09:58:00.000+09:30

I’m a bit concerned that keeping a blog will be a big challenge just now because I don’t have anything to write about. I mean I could give you daily reports on my job but it bores me senseless so I can only imagine how mind numbing it would be to hear it second hand.

You see, I’m just not doing much else. I work, I come home, I do the evening chores, I go to bed.

At the weekend I do the shopping, the cleaning, the washing, the ironing. Then I cook for a few hours, filling the freezer with meals for the next week. Then I make sandwiches and freeze them, sort out various snacks into containers and zip locks ready to pack into lunch boxes each evening during the week. By then it’s Sunday night, I collapse into a chair with a glass of wine and watch Midsomer (often dozing off halfway through). That’s pretty much my week.

No exactly riveting is it?

DINKS

2009-09-26T08:22:00.001+09:30

Two posts in one day…not quite the same though is it? I forgot to say something.

Tom and I will be DINKS this week (Double Income No Kids). The girls are on school holidays and will be down at their Grandparents’ farm. Tom is also on holiday but he has exams this week so he’s staying home to study and then sit those exams. I’ll be working.

I’m not sure what it will be like to get up in the morning and only have to get myself ready and organised. Also coming home in the evening and not supervising homework, feeding children, bathing children, reading stories and putting them to bed. It will be strange. And a little less exhausting than usual I suspect. I will miss them though, when they go away I enjoy the peace for about 24 hours then I start to pine a little.

Jack will miss his litter mates (as I jokingly refer to them) but it also means he will get our full and undivided attention so I think he’ll enjoy that for a while.

So a strange week ahead.

Another week

2009-09-26T08:00:00.001+09:30

Well another week passed and I didn’t get a post in. I did do the one with Aislin’s missing teeth (more of a brief update than a post) but I accidentally saved it as a draft instead of a post (I’m using Windows Live Writer to write posts) so it didn’t arrive on the blog as it should have.

Anyway, I’m here now and I will get better at this.

Early this week I was feeling very pleased with myself because I had more or less caught up on the unbelievable amounts of work I had to do. Then on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I had to attend some ‘induction’ training sessions with some managers from other areas and pretty much lost a day and a half’s work time. Consequently when I left work on Friday night I looked with dismay at what had been a fairly empty in tray, that was now overflowing. Not to mention the pile of lever arch folders on one desk and a pile of manila folders on another – all needing my attention. Sigh. Busy week next week then, good job I’m efficient :-)

In other work news I had a meeting with my boss (the general manager) this week and he told me that he was very pleased with me and I was doing a good job and he hoped I was in it for the ‘long haul’. I smiled and nodded politely. I feel a bit bad about the fact that I will be leaving as soon as I get the opportunity.

All she wants for Christmas…

2009-09-25T22:04:00.000+09:30

Is her two front teeth.

That’s the missing tooth she’s clutching in that bag – my photography skills haven’t improved you’ll notice.

Changes

2009-09-20T14:25:00.001+09:30

Well it has been a long time hasn’t it?

You’d think after all that time I’d have loads to tell you. Well I don’t. Life is very, very, very busy. I’m working full time and it’s hell. I don’t like the job or the hours and I’m looking for something else (part time) but until find something I’m stuck with this.

I’m finding it really difficult getting used to the restrictions of working for a big organisation again. My working environment used to be like this….

…and this…

Now it’s like this…

…yuck. Although that tree right outside my window is always full of birds which is one small compensation.

I’m really not happy with the job situation. I’m trying not to whine but I can’t promise that I won’t be posting a whinging, complaining entry every few days. In fact I probably will because it’s the only place I can get it all off my chest. Be warned.

The girls are ok, exhausted from being in before AND after school care 5 days a week. Tom has started a Masters degree (it’s been planned for a long time) so between that and work he’s busy (and tired) too. Jack has grown, we’ve been taking him to dog obedience classes and he’s doing well and has graduated from ‘Beginner’ and is about to start his ‘Novice’ training.

Apart from that, winter (my favourite season) has come and gone with nary a word (or weather report) from me.

I never have time to read blogs which annoys me, I miss my cyber friends and all your goings-on. We have strict internet policies at work so I can’t even have a quick read in my lunch hour. It sucks really.

Anyway, what I can do in my lunch hour is write the odd blog post (on Word) and then copy it to my blog when I get home. Which is exactly what I’m doing now. So hopefully you’ll be hearing a bit more from me.

Hibernation or hiding?

2009-07-14T09:42:00.001+09:30

Hazel Dormouse hibernating

Well as you can see I haven’t been exactly prolific in my posts since returning to my blog. I actually have quite a lot to say but I can’t seem to get round to saying it.

So, what I have been doing since the Solstice? I’m not sure, the time has passed but I’m not entirely sure how I filled my days. I occasionally visit my favourite blogs – even if I don’t leave a comment I try to keep up with what everyone is doing. Leanne’s garden is looking lovely, Laoi has been ill (hope you’re better now dear heart) but she bought a moleskine journal (which would cheer anyone up), Miss*R is healing the earth (with a little help from her friends – including yours truly) and healing herself by telling her story and looking for Kali. Dave is too good at cricket, identifies with Hamlet and a sloth and posted some very disturbing photos of himself ‘having fun’. Z enjoyed a beer festival and forgot to post one day…I don’t think those two points are related. Mary is taking a summer break from Hugh & Camellia. Cathy is busy being pregnant…

I could go on, so many blogs, so many lives, so many friends…but I think it’s cheating to make my blog a condensed version of everyone else’s posts. What I will say is that I’m so grateful to all my cyber friends for hanging in there and not giving up on me. Whether you’re leaving comments, sending emails or connecting with me on Facebook or Twitter I really do appreciate it. Thank you.

Solstice Blessings

2009-06-21T11:04:00.001+09:30

Happy Winter/Summer Solstice – depending on your hemisphere.

Meet Jack

2009-06-15T13:55:00.001+09:30

About 5 weeks ago we had an unexpected addition to our family. I say unexpected because although I have whined endlessly about wanting a dog (no pun intended there), Tom has been less than keen. Until we met Jack.

He came home and took up temporary accommodation in a a cardboard box (lined with a pink baby blanket as you can see).

He was quite timid and frightened at first and every noise in the garden had him on alert – note the tail tucked firmly between his legs.

However he soon settled down and we discovered that one of his favourite pastimes is chewing. He started on his bed…

He has a range of toys, this blue plush doggy is one of his best friends, Bill. He doesn’t chew Bill but uses his presence to reinforce his innocence, when caught chewing other things, by providing an alibi.

He now has a much more robust, fancy, unchewable and really bloody expensive bed.

He’s very spoilt and indulged and he repays us by being completely adorable, house training quickly with no trouble at all, learning to sit in a matter of minutes, and walking beautifully on the lead when he had his first walk yesterday (he’s just had his 12 week vaccinations which means he’s free to mingle to with other dogs - and ducks, as you can see from this picture).

Jack didn’t have a great start in life, he was removed from his mother by less than reputable breeders at the age of 5 weeks, he then had two other temporary homes (with his litter mates) so that we were his 4th home when he came to us at only 8 weeks old.

However he has settled in well and certainly seems to appreciate being with us and enjoying a somewhat pampered life. In return he is eager to please and gives us hours of fun and lots of love. We’re all very happy.

A Tentative Post

2009-05-29T12:50:00.001+09:30

Just peeking out to see if my blog still exists. Seems like it’s still here…looking a bit dusty and neglected but not totally abandoned by friends.

Thank you Dave, Robyn and Leanne for coming by to check on me recently.

Things are ticking along here, once I get some posting momentum I will talk a bit about my experiences over the last 3 months – not today though.

So right now I am sitting here drinking tea, trying to ignore the irritating sound of a ‘Strawberry Shortcake’ DVD in the background (the children are home sick today) and wondering what an earth I write about when I blog. Until a couple of weeks ago I didn’t even miss blogging. I missed visiting blogs but just didn’t have the energy to do so.

Then one day as I was going about my business suddenly those 5 little words popped into my head… ‘I have to blog this’. I knew then I’d be back.

So I’m back. I’m not sure how much blogging I’ll be doing to begin with (so don’t expect too much :-)). I shall be telling you about my sister visiting (from America), the weather (as always) and the latest addition to our little household.

…’til then…

Taking a break

2009-02-24T14:42:00.001+10:30

Ok, I give up. I am totally overwhelmed and really need to drop a few things for now and sadly blogging is one of them. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone but I really need to do this for my own sanity (or what’s left of it). There is too much going on that needs my full and undivided attention and I need to do a little ‘work’ on my mindset while I’m at it.

Hopefully, it won’t take too long.

Ok, I’m not actually going fishing, nothing could be of less interest to me, it’s a metaphor.

Wandering

2009-02-23T11:00:00.000+10:30

Mentally that is. Not very focussed right now, feeling a little lost and bewildered and unsure of what the future holds for me. I feel change coming, or maybe I just hope there is.

Tom and I had a quiet weekend at home (it was his birthday on Friday) the girls were away and we spent a lot of time doing not very much at all. Cooked some nice food, drank some nice wine, had conversations (uninterrupted) watched a couple of movies, read the papers and our respective books. Just a lazy weekend really. Nice.

I had a horribly sleepless night on Saturday, one of the worst ever. Usually insomnia catches me in the middle of night, I get to sleep ok but then wake up and can’t get back to sleep for hours. This time I couldn’t even get to sleep at all. I tossed and turned and paced the house and made warm drinks and did some meditation and tried mindful breathing etc etc etc. Nothing. I last looked at the clock at 5.00am, I must have fallen asleep soon after that but woke again at 6.10 then again at 7.40. Felt pretty crappy yesterday and although I slept ok last night I’m still tired and fuzzy headed (before you say it.. more than usual) today.

So until I catch up don’t expect anything coherent from me…and even then I can’t promise….

National Day of Mourning

2009-02-22T23:56:00.000+10:30

Today is a National Day of Mourning for those lost in the Victorian Bushfires. Memorial services have been held all over the country.

The publicity may have died down a bit, but it’s not over. There are fires still blazing (some have been burning continuously for more than 2 weeks), homes and property threatened and evacuation plans in place. With more heat and strong north winds forecast for this week (‘perfect’ bushfire conditions) there are still a lot of people facing a difficult times.

Things Adelaide Learned from the Heat Wave of 2009:

2009-02-21T15:25:00.001+10:30

I’ve borrowed this from this month’s GAPSA newsletter.

§ The best parking space is determined by shade instead of distance.

§ Hot water comes out of both taps.

§ You learn that a seat belt buckle makes a pretty good branding iron.

§ The temperature drops below 32c and you feel a little chilly.

§ You discover that in February it only takes two fingers to steer your car.

§ You discover that you can get sunburnt through your car window.

§ You develop a fear of metal car door handles.

§ You break a sweat the instant you step outside at 7:00am.

§ Your biggest bicycle wreck fear is, "What if I get knocked out and end up lying on the pavement and get cooked to death?"

§ You realise that asphalt has a liquid state.

§ Farmers are feeding their chickens crushed ice to prevent them from laying hard-boiled eggs.

§ The trees are whistling for the dogs.

§ While walking back barefoot to your car from Apex Park, you do a tightrope act on the white lines in the car park.

§ You catch a cold from having the air conditioner full blast while you sleep during the night.

§ You learn that Centro plaza isn't a shopping centre it's a temple to worship air-conditioning.

§ Sticking your head into the freezer and taking deep breaths is perfectly normal behaviour.

§ A cup full of ice is considered a great snack.

§ An electricity blackout is life threatening because your air conditioner and your fans no longer work and you are seriously going to be cooked!!

§ You no longer sit on a couch, why would you when you can lie down on the cold tiles instead.

§ You need a stubby holder to keep the beer cold, not your hands warm

§ No one cares if you walk around with no shoes on.

§ You keep everything in the fridge, including potatoes and bread etc....

§ People have enough left over beer cans to make boats out of and have a whole regatta with tin can boats like Darwin...

§ The effort of towelling off after a shower means you need another one right away

§ Standing naked under a ceiling fan is an acceptable way to pass time.

§ You wait till it starts raining to go for a run!

A lot can happen in a week

2009-02-19T20:12:00.000+10:30

However in this case it didn’t. Life is very busy but without blog fodder. Just work. Nothing else. Even the weekend was busy in one way or another. The weather was lovely mind you (don’t often hear me say that do you?) sunshine without the heat.

Perfect weather for eating every meal outdoors.

But other than that nothing. Working. Madly.

This weekend the girls are away and Tom and I will be home alone. Next week he is away to the Gold Coast for a conference. He’s staying in a nice hotel that apparently deliver fruit platters to the room – we think the girl comes with it. For some reason he wasn’t keen on this girl and said the colleague that is travelling with him can have his. He’ll keep the fruit platter though.

So everyone is getting away except me. Which I think is a bit unfair.

Grace in Small Things 4

2009-02-13T11:46:00.001+10:30

1. Unexpected visitors – there is a creek at the bottom of the garden so we have frogs visiting regularly. It’s always pleasing. Ok, there was that one time that it wasn’t quite so pleasing, but usually it is.

2. Friends. Since birth…all of them.

3. My mother-in-law’s home made apricot jam on still warm grain bread.

4. Rock stars doing Abba Karaoke in their underwear.

5. Stella (can we pretend this is an arty shot that’s supposed to be blurry like that?) she’s wriggly…it’s hard to get a non-blurry one.

It just goes on and on…

2009-02-11T12:29:00.001+10:30

Experts are reporting that more than 10,000 native animals have been lost in the bushfires, as well as domestic pets and livestock.

Some animals have been found and rescued and are receiving treatment in the hands of wildlife carers.

‘Sam’ is one of the lucky ones….

She’s now with a carer and while badly burnt she’ll recover and will probably eventually be released back into the wild.

There’s more about her rescue here including a video taken on a mobile. The compassion of these fire fighting volunteers knows no limits.

Grace in Small Things 3

2009-02-10T16:53:00.001+10:30

The highlight of my week is the cool change. It’s positively chilly and really quite wonderful. It’s warming up again in a few days time but until then I am enjoying the cool weather and finding the Grace in Small Things like…..

1. Needing a jacket this morning on the school run.

2. Putting on socks because my feet were cold while working at the computer this morning.

3. Sleeping snuggled under the quilt last night.

4. Warming my hands on my cup.

5. Grey, cloudy skies.

Nothing today

2009-02-09T10:03:00.001+10:30

There are really no words.

Anything going on in my life is trivial by comparison and I have no heart for blogging today.

If you can…please donate. Victorian Bushfire Appeal

If you can’t, please hold in your thoughts the families of the ~~108~~ 173 victims and those still missing.

Spare a thought…

2009-02-08T15:53:00.002+10:30

…and a prayer (if that’s your thing) for those lost and those who have lost loved ones in the terrible fires in Victoria and New South Wales.

The Premier has declared a state of emergency and defence force troops are being brought in to assist.

Many fires are still burning and being fought by the Volunteer Fire Services. Can you imagine how exhausting that must be wearing heavy fire fighting gear, temperatures of 45C+ and a blaze raging around you?

In Victoria arsonists are re-lighting the fires. There 66 confirmed dead so far (I say so far, because more are expected to be found), cars being found abandoned by the side of roads, occupants missing, whole townships wiped out, families, livestock, wildlife and pets gone.

It’s tragic, sobering, unimaginable and very, very sad.

Photos from ABC online http://www.abc.net.au/