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!!

Finders Keepers markets

Yay! Tomorrow I'm going to the Finders Keepers markets at Carriageworks (which, incidentally, is where they filmed So You Think You Can Dance).

I'll take some pictures and post more about it later.

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By the way, I cannot believe that it has been a month since I last wrote on this here online journal. Seriously! This crazy thing called TIME just keeps getting away from me. It's driving me crazy.

That was 2008

The year has finished already? I'm amazed, are you?

Elora started child care in January and I went back to work, full time at first but part-time eventually.

The kids grew and grew. Elora is a little chatterbox now, mimicking her closest brother constantly. Atti has come along really well except for a couple of convulsions in the middle of the year which means that he's back on his meds. He can now (mostly) write his name and numbers and starts preschool next year! Dante completed his Preliminary Piano Practical Exam (got a B+ - did I tell you about that?) and is going into Year Three next year - the "Primary" part of school, no longer "Infants" any more!

Not much else has really happened that I can think of. I took a sewing class in the latter part of the year. It was great fun and I learnt a lot. Still trying to decide if I'm going to go to the next level (which is during the day for four weeks in March). I've done a bit more sewing of clothing and started some more projects. Did some more knitting as well... Took a sock knitting class in April. Dan went to the USA in June (and finally got his American passport a little later). I moved into a new office at work after 9 years in the same place! Made some closer friendships there as a result. That was nice.

So now, time to consider the coming year. 2009. I don't generally make new year resolutions but I will make a few this time:

• Cook more.
• Continue my enthusiasm for keeping the kitchen clean and tidy.
• Sew more. Sew more clothes and use up all that fabric I've been buying this year!
• Knit more. Craft more in general, I think.
• Exercise more. I've been going for jogs and going to the gym. I want to keep that up in the new year. (I can't believe that I've put on 2Kg in the last six weeks! Blasted festive season and all the eating it entails).
• Shout less. That's going to be a hard one.

Well, that's far more than I expected to write. They are all pretty general - nothing too specific. But that's okay by me :)

Happy New Year everyone. Hope you are having an enjoyable break and that the New Year is a happy, productive and safe year for you all.

Sunshine, here I come

My bags are packed, I'm ready to go.

I'm off to Thursday Island, folks. Gone for five days - not sure about 'net access, although last time I was there I was able to blog. So, I may or may not see you!

A few more backdated posts.

Slowly getting back on top of things.

Dante turned 7.
Booked a hair cut.
Funny thing wot Dante said.

Hello, world

Seems like I've been taking quite a blog break this year. I think the trials of working and bringing up three kids have taken their toll. Just recently we got into a bit of trouble with Dante's school for being late all the time. 25 partial absences so far this year (that's what gets recorded when you're late, even if only 5 minutes). But it did give us a good kick up the bum and we haven't been late since. Heh!

Now the problem is that I've become tired and run down and have caught some nasty bug that has knocked me about for a good week and a half now. I think I'm on the home stretch (certainly hope so). The boys are okay, the girl's ill (nasty rash all over her body and extremely clingy) and Dan's coming down with it, too. Ack! Winter is definitely here. (Or, as Dan would say, "Stupid Ice Weather".)

In other news, Dan's heading off to the Apple World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco in June. For two weeks! (He's going travelling for a week afterwards). I'm so excited for him but wish I could go, too. Things will be interesting back here while he's gone.

Anyhow, I haven't been doing nothing during all this time. I've taken up knitting. I was knitting before but lately I haven't been able to put the needles down. Each night after the kids are in bed, instead of doing the dishes or folding laundry I sit down and knit. I went to a sock knitting class at the end of April and have successfully made a pair for Elora (sort of - they're uneven cause the first one was a bit small) and half way through a toe-up sock for me. I'll post some pictures when I'm up to date with my Flickr photo uploading!

Hopefully I'll get my blogging mojo back soon and you'll next hear from me within a month!

Backdated posts

I've been busy with the backdated posts. RSS readers are probably terribly confused by it all and, as Dan said, think that I've had the busiest weekend ever!

Here's a summary:
Mat leave craft round-up
A successful week
Lucky me!
Happy Chinese New Year!
A year old
An eternally young baby
Two big birthdays
Road trip
She walks

Happy reading.