shoutwrite

Hello blogland

2010-12-13T14:20:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about resurrecting my blog. I never intended to abandon it as I have, I just seemed to stop having enough time and headspace to write. Such is life, I suppose?

It's a magical day here today. I am all dressed up ready to go out and carry out a bit of weed control on our land. Not a very glamourous job but it's still nice to get out amongst the trees and get some excersize at the same time. It's also necessary work as we have had so much rain this spring, more than ever recorded before apparently, which means that, although it's great for the garden and the trees we have planted, the weeds are also going beserk.

This year has been quite insane for me. WD was doing her last year of university, and due to a few accommodation problems in the city, as well as lots of money issues, she spent most of the year at home, where she set up her workshop in the shed and set about creating her final year collection. If you know her name you can seach and read her blog too :) I ended up helping her a lot as she doesn't have her driver's licence so I got roped into the fabric sourcing and repeated delivery of her and her creations to the city and back. I also worked on one of her side projects, making silver jewellery. The jewellery is now (from yesterday)stocked in a trendy little shop in the city. I hope it sells well. I am nervous about it as I hadn't done any silversmithing for over ten years. It's just like riding a bike though, I hadn't forgotten how.

The other major thing going on for me is that we are broke :( I spent far too much money helping WD get through this year, as well as sending her to the UK for her internship. Maybe that would have been okay if we hadn't had such a shocking year with the business. It's a carry over from the GFC I suppose, but we had our worst year on record and S is really unhappy as well. He's not as young as he used to be and is in a lot of pain with the physical stuff. It sucks getting older. He's also been studying, doing really well ofcourse. Once again he discouraged me from studying and I quit, instead slotting back into my 'support for everyone else' role. I feel like a failure, what's new?

Tonight is WD's offical graduation ceremony, so we are back off to the city for that. It's pretty well only an hour from here so it's not too bad. It used to take 1.5 hours when we lived at the beach. The move has been great in so many ways, but stressful as well. I still don't feel settled here but I'm getting there. We go back to the old house quite often as we have friends renting it. The house looks nicer now than it ever did when we lived there, but the garden is dreadful. We need to go and spend a few weekends tidying it up, and trimming trees. The ocean view is almost gone, as they don't trim the hedge like we did. Silly tenants, I am pretty sure the view is the best part of that house.

It is Christmas next week. I don't feel Christmassy at all this year. It's been strange, due to the rain it's been far cooler than normal and I love that but it just doesn't feel like Christmas. I haven't put up the tree, or sent any cards, although I have pretty well got all my shopping done. The kids haven't been home much either. They are both taking advantage of the Christmas rush, working loads and making some dollars. SS wants to get back to Europe in the new year, and visit germany again, Norway, Scotland again and maybe Ireland again. He's deferred from Uni until July so I hope he takes advantage of the time. I wish I could go with him.

Instead I am going to walk up our amazing rainforest gully now, marvel at the waterfall, check my vegetable gardens and see how my coffee trees are doing. Then I am going to just be grateful for all of this. I am so lucky.

Mourning the Matriarch

2010-03-02T16:00:00.001-08:00

Before she died in 1999, I thought of my family as a unit, a large umbrella spreading out around dear Grandma who was the central peak. It isn’t like that anymore. In the 10 years since she left us, we have gradually fragmented and strolled our paths to destruction. If I ask myself why this is so, the first theory I arrive at is one based on respect. We respected that woman; we all adored her and clambered for her approval and attention. I always thought that I had gained hers, she always made me feel that I was special; it never occurred to me for a moment that she had the ability to make others feel that way too.

After she was gone my Aunt told me how angry Grandma had been at me at one point in my life; my second sister told me how she considered herself Grandma’s favourite, and my brother related stories she’d told that she had never shared with me. I simply couldn’t believe it. I had always, and still secretly believe, that Grandma loved me the best. I was the one who she told stories; I was the one who she understood the best. I was her favourite!

There is no doubt she had a profound effect on all of our lives. Her paranoia over what the neighbours would think was fed to us before solids, her pride and snobbery have been a ‘log’ on my shoulder for as long as I remember. She is with me every time I hear someone say ‘youse’ or ‘somethink’. She dots my ‘i’s’ and crosses my ‘t’s’, and I stifle a giggle when I realise that three of her closest Granddaughters ended up marrying Catholics, I comfort myself imagining her stifling a wee giggle too.

She left behind her a large and mostly successful family. This family is not without its tragedies, and scandals, but it is without its matriarch. Like all teams, we flounder without our captain. We all play our own game and forget that we can’t win without the support of our co-players. When my eldest sister deleted me on facebook, Grandma was not here to tell us both to mind our P’s and Q’s and pull our heads in. She wasn’t here to stop and listen to why we were upset with each other, and unfortunately, she didn’t tell us how to fix it. So the standoff remains, and I know that it shouldn’t.

Is it possible that the real problem since her passing has not been her absence alone, but the lack of leadership itself? The internal jostling for dominance continues and ideally a new matriarch should take position. Alas, after ten long years of testing, we are too raw and bruised from poor on field behaviour to consider an election. It seems that working together has become less of a possibility. We continue to lose respect for each other as each player’s true colours are revealed. And that’s just it, rather than reforming the old team, it is perhaps more realistic that we should move to take on our own colours, and concentrate more on our own teams…our own families.

News update

2010-02-22T13:03:00.000-08:00

Last June we bought another house. It's a wee cottage in the hills, just 20 minutes drive from our old place and the beach. We have 6 acres here (that's somewhere around 2.4 hectares I think?), it's mostly wattle regrowth and lantana, which is pretty bad, but we have started cleaning it up. There is also 2 gorgeous rainforest gullies and high ridges dotted with eucalypt. The land closest to the house is cleared and the previous owners have planted hundreds of trees, some native and some exotic. We have jacarandas which were stunningly beautiful in flower in spring and early summer, we have palms and citrus and macadamia and mango. I have 2 vegie gardens, mostly producing zucchinis, pumpkins, watermelons and cucumbers, but also capsicum, eggplant, chillies and various herbs. I haven't done so well with tomatoes and lettuce, or potatoes and carrots but it might just be cooling down enough to try again. Yesterday got 2 new additions to our little family, 2 lovely Rhodesian red hens. They both layed while I was still setting up their coop. We were lucky, as a friend who is moving overseas gave them and the coop to us. I spent a mad frenzied few hours yesterday afternoon getting it all set up and secure before nightfall. I have seen foxes out here so I am very worried they will try and get my hens. Nasty things.
Next week the new semester starts at uni. This will be my third semester, as I studied over the summer as well. I've done really well so far but they have all just been plemininary courses really. This semester I am enrolled to do two Humanities subjects and officially start my Arts degree. I don't really know why I am studying or what I want to get out of it, I just know I am sick of doing everyone elses uni research for them and not getting any recognition for it. I am still helping them all of course, but it's very nice to do something for myself! S enrolled back into his degree course as soon as I started last year, so now the entire family is studying, quite funny really :)
WD got back from Germany last week, she was away in Europe for seven weeks which was a damn long time. She stayed mostly in Berlin but also travelled to Edinburgh, London, Paris, and Provence. Lucky her! She's come back all motivated to complete her degree this year and then move to Europe. It's all she talks about, she loved it over there so much. I knew she would love it but I guess I hoped she wouldn't plan to go so soon. This year will be huge for her though so there's no guarantee she will finish or that she'll still want to move to Europe at the end of it. Wait and see I guess? She split up with her artist boyfriend when in Berlin early in her trip and then met some Irish bloke just before she came home. He's in a band which actually sound really good. My kind of music, I hope she talks him into touring Australia and we get some free tickets :) The band in currently touring the UK and apparently it's going well.
SS starts back at Uni today, he's done really well at Uni so far too. I am so proud of him. He spent most of his holidays up here with us and I felt like crying yesterday, thinking of his absence. He's a good person but I do worry whether he is a happy person, he's so secretive.
Sometimes I miss our old house and being able to walk to the beach. I've been back there a lot though, as we have rented it to friends and they invite us over every few weeks. The house looks far better now than it ever did when we lived there as we did a lot of work on it just before we left. I think that's always the way isn't it? That you only renovate properly when you are selling or moving out? I am so glad we've been able to keep it anyway and perhaps one day we will live there again, who knows.
Anyway I am off to feed the chooks, though I better do some research first, as I actually have no idea how much to feed them? After that I am going to put the yabbie pots out again. I love yabbies, they taste so much nicer than prawns and we have heaps of them in the dam. I am loving living out here :)

Finally

2009-05-25T19:05:00.000-07:00

I am 44 and I am going to Uni for the first time. Better late than never? I start in a few weeks just doing some prep courses first as I haven't studied anything of consequence since 1982!
I still don't know exactly what I hope to get out of getting a degree (or trying to) but I am planning on doing a BA in History, minoring in Literary & Cultural Studies.
I will be doing everything via distance learning. I hope I can do this and I hope I enjoy it....feel free to wish me luck :)

Once a blogger...

2009-02-23T12:25:00.000-08:00

Always a blogger?

It's been such a long time and yet I still blog in my head all the time. I have had no other choice really as time itself has not allowed me a chance to type anything anyway. It's been the longest, hottest summer I ever remember and it looks like we are in for another hot one today. S hates the heat and earlier in the summer when work was ridiculously busy I was worried the heat was almost killing him. He has started hating his work and it seems to me that we have come to a crossroads.

Yesterday I had my first day home alone as an empty nester. Super Son will have his first Uni lecture tonight and has now been officially living out of home for over a week. Wonder Daughter also starts back at Uni today, she came and spent the last week at home to recharge and argue with me. I can see that when she is unhappy with herself she takes it out on me but it's still hard to deal with and I wish things would not be like that between us.

S and I therefore have a new life ahead of us. We can now FINALLY have a nookie whenever we damn well want to :) I think it's hilarious that that is the first thing I think of and the most important part of life without the kids living at home. I am really glad we had our kids early, we can now enjoy our lives together, more I think, than young couples do as we have the experience and understanding of each other that really does take years to establish. Okay enough of that...

We can now also decide whether we want to stay living here or take this opportunity, while we are still young* enough, to move away and start a new or the second part of our lives.

To be honest, I don't want to be too far from my kids. I miss them so much as it is, so wherever we go or whatever we do, I don't want it to be too far from them. This is a bit of a shame as S had this grand idea that we would sell up and go overseas travelling and working in volunteer organisations. It's a noble thought but it looks to me like you need to be incredibly rich to be able to do that sort of thing. The organisations I have found online that manage volunteers, charge the said volunteers an arm and a leg for the priviledge of giving their time and efforts for free. I think there is something seriously wrong there, but anyway, perhaps if I keep searching I will find something we can do.

S surprised me the other day when he expressed his sense of loss at SS moving out of home. I think he surprised himself even. He has seemed so relaxed and blase about our family changing forever like this. I really didn't know how I felt. I have allowed myself to be excited and apprehensive about the whole new life for my baby boy. I think in a way I have been lucky in that when SS went overseas for 5 weeks in December the break was already made. I can find no words to explain how hard it was to tell him to hurry off down the stairs at the airport that night or he would miss his plane. He faltered, he looked sad and teary and terrified. I just wanted to grab him and hold him and never, never let him go but I had to tell him to go nowNOW and he looked at me with his black eyes brimming and waved forlornly and then, he was gone... We waited on the platform above for ages it seemed for him to get through security, when finally he emerged he had recovered and smiled and waved happily and he headed off for his 14 hour flight, the first leg on his way to Germany. We watched the plane as we drove across Brisbane later. The sky was mostly clear so we watched it as we drove until it disappeared into a fading speck in the northwest. I felt that distance as the plane drew away like a cord tearing out my heart. It was impossible not to cry.

Yesterday, sitting here, catching up on a whole summer's worth of bookwork, I let myself cry again. My babies have grown up and they have gone and I feel old and stupid and useless. I have no career to fall back on, I have no great achievments to feel proud of. But I have them....do they need me anymore? WD rang three times yesterday I think, SS rang once. I feel I would have died inside if they hadn't.

This post is going nowhere, a mish mash of thoughts about nothing and about everything. I better go shower as I have a breakfast date with my husband in about 40 minutes. He starts early on a tuesday so we try and meet for breakfast. Not a bad life this childless one :)

*43 and 44 isn't so young is it? :/