The dilemma of STUFF

I've always been someone who cares about the environment. When I was in year 11 my friend Erika and I started the "Environmental Club" at school with the view of raising awareness of what we can do to help the planet. We didn't do a whole lot but the ideology was what mattered more at the time.

And ever since, I've tried to do my bit. We donate money to Greenpeace and the Wilderness Society, and up until recently (when we got solar panels*) paid the extra money for 100% green power. We recycle nearly everything, compost food scraps, buy recycled loo paper (Who Gives a Crap - seriously worth it, check 'em out!), don't believe in air conditioning (which is horrid on those 40+°C days), and generally try to be good environmentally-friendly citizens.

However, there's a downside to all of this. I have a tendency to not throw stuff out. We have boxes of clothes which we've been storing to give to a good home. Atti mostly wears Dante's hand-me-downs, Elora wears (some of) Atti's hand-me-downs, and we have friends with a little girl and now a wonderful one year old nephew who will be the recipient of many items. But storing and sorting the clothes is a bit of an issue. We have boxes of the stuff cluttering up our upstairs hallway area.

And then there's furniture. After witnessing the old family lounge being crushed to smithereens in the council garbage truck one year (I thought the council would take it away for charity or something) I'm reluctant to put out anything useful or in fairly good nick in the Council Cleanup. In any case, our council has changed from a twice yearly "everyone put things out at the same time = local community scavenge weekend" to a "book your pickup" which means there's no opportunity for people to pick up second hand items, and possibly save a treasure from landfill. Instead it all just gets CRUSHED in the compacting garbage trucks. It makes me cry.

Hence we have a garage full of old furniture... Some of it ours, some of it my parents', some of it my brothers' (I think, but probably not as much any more). Dan refers to the garage as "the shed". There's no room for a car.

Anyway, the original point of this post was going to be this: I'm torn between my desire for nice things and a nice house with matching furniture and hand made items and beautiful artworks, and my in-built core belief of "don't throw it away if it's still good"... where "good" means still useful and doing its main task. For example, we now have three sofas in our lounge room. None of them match. One is the pair to my parents' leather lounge set - the other is at their place. Dan hates the leather, and it's a hideous very '90s peach colour, but it's comfortable to lie on (for me anyway, being shorter). I can't bear to throw it away. Our other lounges are Ikea ones, one a sofa-bed and the other a hand-me-down from a friend. They're comfy but ratty. Still doing their main task of being a place to put one's bum.

And so on. The kitchen, which was put in by my father in the '90s using recycled materials from a house he was renovating (so probably early '80s vintage cabinetry). The bathroom (what was it with the love of peach-coloured things?) has cracked tiles and shower screen. Get the idea?

I don't know what to do. How do I reconcile these two opposing feelings?

* More in another blog post

The end of Easter

Our incredibly long Long Weekend has drawn to a close and it's back to work for me tomorrow - Dan and the kids still have another day off.

The holiday has been almost epic in its length, or apparent length! The kids have been on school holidays for nearly three weeks. And we've done so much. A trip to the Australian Museum, the Royal Easter Show, birthday parties, play dates... Jam packed, I tells ya!

I hope I'll get a chance to write more about it in the next short while. There are certainly a lot of photos to be processed and uploaded.

But today I think I'll just leave with a thought from a friend. A bit of a philosophy of life, and a good one I might add. Especially now that I'm a little bit out of my "job funk"... I actually finished my resume last week. At long last.

And thus I write:

Don't judge your success by what you haven't achieved.

I need to practise this quite a bit more!


Photo of the sunrise over our local park, earlier this month.

December

The month of December has gone in a flash, somewhat like the fireworks going off around my suburb and around my city as I write. Work and all that associated stress. Recovering from Dante's Schools Spectacular weekend of horror (which wasn't too bad in the end). Dan going overseas to Saudi Arabia and Jordan for two weeks. The end of the school year. Christmas and presents.

But really, for us, December this year has been all about this man. My father.


In November I went away for a weekend's respite. On the last day I found out my father had been admitted to hospital. Two days later we found out he had a large gastric ulcer that had been bleeding.

A week later we found out that it was actually a form of stomach cancer and my father was readmitted to hospital for an exploratory gastroscopy. Following that and a visit to an oncologist it was decided that he'd have surgery followed by chemo so a week later he was back in hospital for the big operation. Two thirds of his stomach was removed.

His recovery was good to begin with but slowed due to his age (he's 78) and a few complications. After two weeks we thought he'd be home but then another setback kept him in hospital for a few more days.

Finally, though, he is home. He came home on Christmas Eve afternoon after three weeks in hospital. Frail, weak but home and never happier to be here. A great Xmas present for us all!

I sent out calls for good thoughts (and prayers if that's your thing) via Facebook and twitter and all the good will was wonderful. Thank you, all, for your supportive words and hopeful wishes.

The new year will still present many challenges for us. My father still has to undertake a round or two of chemo. I've got to find myself a new job, unfortunately, probably. Elora will be starting preschool. Dante heading to the more serious end of primary school (Yr 5) with thoughts of high school looming. Atticus, well, he's doing pretty darn well. And hopefully everything is gonna turn out okay.

Here's hoping 2011 brings you much joy and prosperity. Thank you for sticking with me as I try to sort out this hectic thing called life and neglect my poor ol' blog here. Every year I say I'll try harder to write more but I think I know not to make such promises this year. I honestly don't know what lies ahead. Hopefully more good than bad! And hopefully I will take more time to share it with you and record the moments of my life for posterity like I originally intended.

We shall see.

Snail mail

Back in June I took a photo of what our mail looks like when I hadn't checked it for a few days, or a week. Or two.


Pretty funny, I thought. Proper "snail mail".

But in recent weeks the problem started getting worse. Possibly because of Spring? I don't know. I took this photo inside the mailbox today. Those junk mail leaflets had only been in there for a day, two at most. It is mostly unreadable. Some other mail was barely holding together it had that many holes!


Now, I'm not a fan of snails. I absolutely detest slugs, and snails are pretty much slugs with shells, right? Eeyuck! Eeyou! I HATE them.

Something had to be done.

So I went into the pantry and found a 1kg bag of cooking salt. And poured it into the mailbox. Not all of it but probably about half. There was a good 5-7mm thick layer on the bottom. So pretty, like snow.


No more snail mail for this family.

Busy times ahead

November: second last month of the year.

Month of the NSW Schools Spectacular which Dante is dancing in for the second time. Lots of early starts culminating in three long days with two extremely late nights...

Which coincides with Dan going away to Saudi Arabia for a couple of weeks for work (hopefully with a chance for some sightseeing included - so close to Petra!)...

Which means he'll miss the annual Thanksgiving lunch which his family have celebrated for the last twenty three or so years...

But will be back in time for December - the craziest month of the year.

Fun times ahead for this gal and her brood.

Two becomes one

A sad loss today at work. One of my fishies died. Now there is only one, from a start of five. (Read about my fishtank here).

Winter: Day 1

The chilly season is upon us once more. Brrr. NOT my favorite time of year. Cold. Dry skin. Wet (at the moment). Short days, dark when leaving work. Bad laundry weather. How did it sneak up on us so fast? Half the year nearly gone already?

Even more disconcerting is hearing people from the Northern Hemisphere talk about Summer. Flowers blooming. Long balmy days. End of the school year. I want that!

At least I have my iPad to keep me company while I'm snuggled up under my doubled-over goose-down doona. Hmm. Cosy.

YACS (Yet Another Cake Stall)

Yesterday the P&C at the boys' school held a cake stall at the local Farmers' Market. Success, of course! I was only partly involved, in that I was there from a quarter to eight in the morning until we closed up just before 1pm. And collected all the money (since I somehow got talked into taking on the Treasurer's position). And was up at 4:30am making scones.

Sounds like a lot but it wasn't really. All the other organising was done by a bunch of much more efficient and organised parents!

Something that always surprises me (although I'm starting to get used to it - but must not take it for granted) is the amount the parents at the school pitch in. Only a handful come to the actual meetings once a month but when we put out a call for help we are inundated with offers.

This time we were inundated with delicious home-made baked goods! Yum yum yum.

It was a cold and bleary day. Bucketed down with rain in the first hour or two. And yet the crowds came. And everything was sold.

A friend has called me "the queen of cake stalls". I seem to be involved in a lot of them! Well, who doesn't like cake, huh?

School holidays again... already!

It seems like the kids had only just started school when holidays suddenly came upon us again. For the last two weeks-ish the boys have been home except for a couple of days at vacation care activities.

Thankfully Dan has been looking after them most of the time. He's got more leave than this part-timer.

We've managed to fit quite a few excursions and events in during the time, though. Hopefully I'll write more about them soon... but in summary, a wedding, a birthday party, a picnic, a movie, a visit, a grand Adventure (really, just a trip into the city and on a ferry), a trip to the Powerhouse Museum and numerous trips to the shops.

Tiring, no?

New life starting

Here be the window sill of my "hand washing room". (As Captain Feathersword would say. And the kids.)


On the right is my African Violet plant.


I've had one there since we moved into this house. My mother-in-law bought the first. It died last year. Then we bought a bunch of plants as gifts for the carers at child care. A couple of big leaves broke off one of them and it didn't look gift-worthy any more, so we kept it.

So pretty.


Here's one of the broken-off leaves. My mother told me to stick it in a pot and water it to keep it alive.


And three months later, more than three months later, something has finally started to happen. The start of a shoot appeared just at the base of the leaf. Can you see it?


I don't know if I'm more amazed at this growth from virtually nothing, or the fact that I was able to keep the leaf alive long enough for it to sprout. I'm very proud, in any case.

Kicking on

It's been three days since the wedding and we are still suffering the after-effects from the late night and busy days (in the lead up).

But we kick on. My head is aching; the bug I've been fighting is trying to get a foot-hold. Hurry up, Easter. We need a break.

Now that's a better fish tank

There's a bit of "fish tank" culture here at my work. i.e. There are lots of offices and labs in the building that have tanks. It's wonderful to see! And I guess it's easier to look after them in a building of scientific research since there are taps and sinks and ph measuring tools and lots of very smart and dedicated people.

I got my first fish tank a long time ago. Let's see, I've been here ten years, so I probably got my tank 9½ years ago! It held guppies then. Caught from a tank upstairs. Probably very inbred.

When I went on maternity leave to have Elora I put the tank away. Sent the fish to another happy home upstairs and packed the tank in a box. I came back to work to find out that my office was being taken over by an instrument (a multi-million dollar very large magnet, to be exact) so I didn't set up my tank again, deciding to wait until I was properly set up in my new space.

So I moved office in Sept '08. And finally, at the start of this year, I got around to setting up my tank. We visited our friend's fish farm in late January and I came away with 5 goldfish. Only once I'd caught them (how cool to fish for your own gold fish!) did we work out where the tropical fish were kept but I was happy to keep my guys.

Over three weeks I lost three of the 5 fish. Can you believe it? They had lice! I've had enough of lice with my kids, and then to see them on my fish was extremely icky.

But now the population (of two) has stabilised and the goldfish are fat and happy.

Today I installed the final touch. Some bits of Lego, of course. Needed some trickery to keep them down (did you know Lego floats? I didn't!) but in the end I think it looks great!

Red in the morning, red in the evening

It was nearly 35°C today. Nearly a third of the way through Autumn! Too hot to do much of anything, unfortunately. Although I did have 9 children (6 of whom were 5 and under) in my care for a short while. It was, amazingly, stress- and chaos- free. The wonders of heat exhaustion and computers to keep kids quiet.

And just because it was so amazing, I have to share today's sunrise and sunset. The morning glow was a deep crimson-scarlet red that I have never seen in the sky before which rapidly turned orangey-red as the sun crept above the horizon.


At the other end of the day the clouds were sparkling, glowing as the sun went to bed. Simply spectacular. If only I'd been at a better angle to capture it. And had a better camera!

Why eat when you can sculpt?

Elora's dessert-cucumber* didn't get finished... I had to show you. I love it! And then I ate it.





* Doesn't everyone give their kids cucumbers after dinner??
Only kidding. This was her dessert but we don't do this every night. Sometimes there is jelly or ice cream (or both!)

Go away, daylight savings

Daylight savings. Putting your clocks forward or backwards an hour depending on the season. Dan loves it. He says "Daylight savings should be on all year 'round". And I don't mind it in summer, when the sun goes down at 8:30pm and comes up at 5am.

But now, now that the days are getting shorter and the mornings are getting cooler, now I cannot stand it and cannot wait for it to end. As I've written before, I like to get out in the morning for a run or a walk (when I'm feeling particularly tired or lazy). But the last couple of days, it's still dark when I'm ready to go and I have to sit around waiting for more light to filter through before I leave. I mean, I could go out while it's still dark but worry about the safety issues a little bit.

Some of you might say "Just go out later" but the problem is that if I leave it too late, the children are all awake and ransacking the kitchen when I get home.

Like this morning. When I walked up to the (glass) back door Elora was standing in the back room and immediately scooted off when she saw me. I came in to find Atti rifling through the fridge and Elora hiding out in the lounge room with a grape and a lolly (don't know where she found that!)

Well, in three weeks we'll get that hour back. It will be good. Except that the days will be even shorter than now! Oh well, can't win them all.

The tiniest snail

My mother found this in the garden this afternoon. Must have just hatched. So new that its shell was transparent and its body/foot was white! The shell length would have been about 3mm.

Elora was fascinated, of course. Her first instinct was to run and grab a leaf for it to eat. Atti just wanted it on his hand.


Here it is on my mother's thumb. Take note, ladies and gents. That thumb may look pink but it is in fact the brightest shade of green. Plants grow like crazy at my mother's touch. You name it, she can grow it. You almost kill it, she'll revive it. My brothers and I are constantly bringing sorry looking specimens to "plant hospital". She is a wonder, my mum.

Routines begin once more

While it's still technically school holidays here, Dan and I have both been back at work for a week and a half, Elora recommenced child care last Friday and today the boys went back to "school". Vacation care on the school premises, to be precise.

And that's it for our summer holiday. Short and quick. Things are still fairly relaxed - there's no HUGE need to get to school by 9am and the traffic is still not too busy, even in peak hour. But I think it's great that we're getting back into our daily routine so that once school does go back we'll be settled!

The only difference this year is that we'll be getting TWO lunch boxes ready in the morning instead of just one like the last four years! Atticus is so excited and happy with his brand new lunch box identical to his big brother's except that it's green. (And now Dante wants a green one too. Blargh!)

Two more weeks until "big" school begins!

October in point form

For some out there in the blog world, October was a month of every-day posting. They called it Blogtoberfest.

I would have gotten involved, except that October was quite a busy month for us.

Oct 1: Our dear friends Jaime and Shannon arrived from Holly and we met their dear daughter Holly for the first time (Elora's godparents, Elora's birthday-sharer, two years younger).

Oct 2: Our friends Dave and Kate came over for dinner (incidentally, Elora's other god parents). Miss cranky pants was not in the mood for photos with them, unfortunately.

Oct 3: Party at our place so everyone else could meet Holly!

Oct 5: Public holiday

Oct 6: School holidays began!

Oct 10: Day of parties: 5 yr old at lunch, friends' going away party early evening, then a brief stop over at another house cooling party on the way home. Phew! What a day! We DID buy Guitar Hero World Tour though. Lots of drumming fun.

Oct 11: Another party at a friend's place in SW Sydney, about 45min drive away. A nice relaxed day with too much food and the Bathurst car race on the big TV.

Oct 15: Trip to the zoo with J&S. Fun, fun, fun! But mega crowded due to school holidays and the World Masters Games.

Oct 19: Back to school!

Oct 20: Jaime and Shannon went home :(

Oct 25: Awesome storm! The rain fell out of the sky in bucket loads. Very large buckets.

Oct 28-30: Dante's first school camp! He was so excited :)

Oct 31: Our school fete. Big day. Long day. Lots of fun. Face painting. Spendy spendy. But we did very well. Lots of money made (I'm the new treasurer of the P&C so I had the pleasure of counting the money afterwards... $12k in 50c coins (not quite, but almost!)

As you can see, things have been busy. There's been plenty to write about, just no time to do it.

And now it's November. Things coming up: School Spectacular (some dancing thing that Dante's involved in). Thanksgiving. Getting ready for Christmas. Blargh!!

Red, red, red

For the third morning in a row I awoke at 5am, this time without my alarm clock! Still dark and quiet with the exception of the rattling of the fence by the wind. Not even the birds were up.

I pottered around, not sure what to do with myself for a while. Made a cup of tea. Played a game of Zuma's Revenge. Then I looked out the window towards next door. A deep red light was filtering through. What on earth? I thought it was my neighbour's light. But upon another look it was the sky!


I raced outside with the camera (of course). The colours in the photos have NOT been altered in any way. Check out the flourescent light in my kitchen above. And here's the view from my bedroom window.


And just for reference, here's the view from my bedroom window on a normal day.


Wow!

Edited to add (7:10am):
Now the sun is up and the sky is a little less red. More orangey-yellow. The boys both woke up astonished at the sight. Atti said to me, "I went outside [to go next door] and the sky was all orange!" The downside to all this amazing light is that now EVERYTHING is covered in a fine layer of red dust. Ah, a little bit of Central Australia come to our door.

Morning busy-ness

Today was the second day in a row I was up at 5am. Not just awake, but up and about. I'm starting to feel a little tired.

I am amazed at how much I did before work, though.

In point form:

• Showered.
• Drove my parents to the airport.
• Got some dough out to rest before baking it.
• Baked a small loaf of bread (I'll post about that soon).
• Fed and dressed three children.
• Cleaned out the bunny's cage.
• Got ready for work.
• Dropped the kids off at school/childcare.

Hmm. Looking at the list, it doesn't seem like a huge amount but really, it was a busy and productive morning! Dan helped get the kids dressed but he had to leave early for a presentation on the north shore.

And the worst part was that I was still late for work (although to their credit the boys were ready before 8am).