House rules ..

Some of our house rules:

If you drop it, pick it up.

If you sleep in it, make it.

If you empty it, fill it up.

If it rings, answer it.

If it barks, feed it.

If you make a mess, clean it up.

If you open it, close it.

For the love of all things holy, close it!

This is what happens when 'Not Me' leaves the door to the linen cupboard open:

Trying to clean it up was interesting. Brutus thought we were playing and keep ripping pieces out of my hands. The feel of shredded, soggy-from-puppy-drool toilet paper was just what I needed this morning.

It's one of the double length rolls so I suppose I should be grateful I found it before he'd managed to shred the whole thing. Small mercies!

This is Alex right now ...

more animals

... except he hasn't had caffeine. Just sugar, sugar and more sugar. I know it is supposedly a grandparent's right to hype the kids up on sugar and then drop them home but I don't want to play this game tonight. Waaaahhhh!!!!

Pity party for one happening right here, right now.

Give me strength!

No, better make that patience.

Phenergan?

Polaramine?

A bloody great rubber mallet?

Actually I think Valium would be better.

How many do you reckon?

42?

Isn't that the meaning of life?

"Always look on the bright side of life. do-do, do-do do-do do-do"

Great, now I've got that stuck in my head.

"He's not the Messiah. He's a very naughty boy."

"I fart in your general direction."

OK .. now I need the Valium and can someone please call the SWAT team to get me off this ledge?

What?

You've already called those lovely men in the little white coats?

Oooh .. wonderful.

I love those coats with the really long arms ....

Ten things starting with 'D'

I found this over on Lee's blog and asked to play along. I've been allocated the letter:

"The rules of the game are simple. Once assigned a letter you are to post 10 things that you love which begin with that letter. (If you want to play, leave me a message saying you want to play in my comment area. I’ll assign a random letter and on and on it goes)."

Before I list my words and the reasons why I love them, I just want to say that this was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. I suppose that is the purpose of these sorts of things but now my brain hurts!! I'll start with most obvious thing ...

1. Desserts: I have a very sweet tooth (as is evidenced by my weight issues but that's a whole other issue!) and love indulging in decadent desserts (two D's there .. lol!) My all time favourite would have to be pavlova with fresh cream and mandarin orange segments. (I also happen to think it is no coincidence that 'desserts' is 'stressed' spelled backwards!)

2. Details: As a logical-sequence thinker, details are my holy grail. I love learning about the nitty-gritty details of all sorts of things which I usually manage to retain and then produce at opportune moments. Admittedly, I sometimes get so focused on the minutiae of things that I tend to temporarily lose sight of the bigger picture, but ultimately everything comes back into focus.

3. Dawn: I love the idea of a new day. A chance to start again, learn from the mistakes of yesterday and to go forward with the intention of bettering yourself. A beautiful sunrise tends to remind me that the world is a beautiful place even if we have to alter our routine or perspective to see that beauty.

4. Diversity: I think that not only is diversity present in most of our lives, it is essential. I personally love the idea of differences as I believe that our differences are what make us who we are as the human race. If we all looked the same, had the same opinions, ate the same foods, and so on, we wouldn't strive to include, create, design or change for the mutual benefit of all. Obviously, diversity isn't always a good thing, especially if there is no tolerance or attempts at understanding the other viewpoints involved, but here in my own safe little corner of the world, I am glad for the enrichment I have received from being exposed to small amounts of many different cultures.

5. Dreams: As in goals and aspirations (which are very different from New Year's Resolutions!) I'm trying to refine my dreams list to something that doesn't include being caught up with the washing, having children who do what you want when you want and having the magic dinner fairy do dinner for the next 5 years. Overall though, I love the idea that anyone can have a dream and with determination and guts, at least some people can achieve them. Without dreams, where would we be today?

6. Design: I love the process of designing and creating something. On a personal level, it is predominantly scrapbook pages for our family albums and the occasional bit of sewing. The whole process from inception to completion is fascinating to me (probably because of my obsession with details!) and it never ceases to amaze me what people can create.

7. Denver, Domingo, Dolly & Def Leppard: Just some of the music I like to listen to. John Denver, Placido Domingo and Dolly Parton were standard fare on road trips taken as a child and as a result always take me back to those happy and carefree times. I was introduced to Def Leppard by my first love, who has since passed away, so that also bring back a lot of memories of different times.

8. Dad: Both mine and my childrens'. My Dad died way too young but he gave me so much to carry on with that I will be eternally grateful. He taught me things that have stood me in good stead in a lot of difficult times but also gave me an understanding of appreciating the good times. My childrens' father is a wonderful man who would do anything for me and our boys. Although we have had our own trying times, no doubt with more to come during the boys' teenage years, I can honestly say I love him more now than when I married him.

9. Depression: I know this seems like an odd one and to be totally truthful, I can't say I love it. I appreciate what it has done for me as a person. As much as I don't like the feeling of being depressed, I feel it has made me a bit more understanding and tolerant of others' personal issues. "Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting their own battles." (Just to clarify though: this doesn't extend to blatant, repetitive stupidity!)

10. Descendants: I love my boys .. 'to the ends of the Universe and then some' (a common refrain when they younger). I loved them as little children and continue to love them as they grow into young men. Even though they break my heart at times and one day will be gone from my nest, I will continue to love them forever. (On a side note: do you know how hard I had to think to come up with this word for my children? Let me tell you .. the aftermath wasn't pretty!)

Whew, I did it!

It's amazing how many 'D' words have a negative connotation: defiance, disruption, disorder, deception, devious, dissent, detrimental, denial, discouraging, don't and so on. Luckily I have all of those positives up there to focus on.

Come and play too! Leave me a comment and I'll allocate you a letter.

"Dadsense"

And the follow-up song "Dadsense"....

"Momsense"

You've probably seen this before but it still cracks me up so I thought I'd share. Enjoy!

Went a bit off-topic in my last post ..

I was trying to say that we've had a great weekend.

Started on Friday with the dinner, then had a very casual Saturday. Peter volunteered to come food shopping with me so I took him up on it, thinking it would be cheaper than taking the kids. Wrong, so very wrong, but it was good to have an adult as company for a change.

After unloading the shopping, sorry, 'supervising' the unloading and putting away of the shopping, we all had lunch. The kids weren't too impressed that Peter and I had treats for after lunch and they didn't, but they hadn't done their Saturday jobs and we had, so na-na-nana-na! (insert tongue sticking out smiley here!)

I pottered around doing housework for a while then decided to read. Amazingly, that got boring pretty quickly so I decided to ..


wait for it ..


ready yet? ..


scrap!


I know, I can hear the gasps of shock from here but I actually managed to get one whole page done in Peter's car album .. except for the title.

Oh, and the journalling.

And it's missing one photo that I'm sure I had last week but isn't there anymore .. but it's done .. really, it is! LOL!!

Seriously though, I managed to get him to give me some of the info he wants recorded with the photos of each car so that was a great leap forward. Now if I could just find pictures, any pictures, of some of his other cars, I would be a very happy camper indeed. I mean, how dare he say to a scrapbooker that taking photos wasn't high on his list of priorities at the time he owned those cars. Where was his crystal ball to look 8 years into the future and see that he was going to meet me, who was then going to get involved in scrapping a further 6 years down the track? I mean .. come on!

Hmmm .. I've managed to get waaay off topic again there so let's take a moment to re-group, take a deep breath and start again shall we?

OK, it started on Friday with dinner .. no, wait .. we've done that part already. Where was I up to again?

Thinking ..

Re-reading ..

OK.

At some stage during the course of Friday, Peter decided he'd like to go for a picnic to Harvey Dam (1.5 hours south of us; 2 hours south of Perth) on Sunday. He informed me of this while doing the food shopping on Saturday, so we gathered the necessary supplies and made plans.

On Sunday, we dropped some more of Clare and Richard's stuff, that we had been storing for them, off at their house, then headed south. It was a lovely drive and the picnic area at the dam is gorgeous. We had lunch and then sent the kids off to explore while we lay back on the grass and contemplated our navels for a while. Actually, I was reading the paper while Peter was contemplating my cleavage, but what else is new? (Sorry, probably TMI but I'm in a sharing mood!)

It was supposed to be a cloudy, possibly stormy day with a top temp of about 28 degrees predicted. It was a cloudy, not particularly stormy day that managed to get to 31 degrees and despite the fact that I put sunscreen on before leaving home, I'm sunburnt. I'm the only one out of the five of us who managed to get burnt and I was in the shade all day but oh well .. it was a good day out as a family.

We came home to a puppy who was so excited to see us that he kept wetting himself, but it's nice to know he missed us! The kids were in bed by 8:30 and were all fast asleep soon after (for a change!) so we might have to do this more often. Now I just have to wait for the final load of washing to finish so I have underwear for work tomorrow and then I can go to bed and have more nightmares about stocktake. Can't wait for that to be over!

Have a great week!

A lovely weekend ..

Started with dinner on Friday night with three wonderful women who, like me, sometimes struggle with motherhood but are nonetheless doing a fantastic job of raising their kids. I'm the odd one out in that all of them have girls but it really brought home to me just how similar kids are when they want to push your buttons!

I know I say this every time we manage to have one of these dinners but we really need to do them more often, even if it's just at someone's house. A very smart person I know (Hi Jackie .. waving madly .. ) suggested that to me a while back but it kinda got lost in all the self-pity and angst over 'the incident' and various other assorted daily dramas. So people, work with me here. Let's start some sort of roster or a tentative plan ... oh no, the dreaded four letter word: 'plan' .. something's bound to go awry now!

Anyway, now the word is out there, let's try to organise something. We can even give it a name .. "Friday Night Freak Show" .. maybe not; sounds a bit creepy. "Sanity Savers" or "SS" for short. The kids already think we're some sort of nasty secret police.

Or something simple .. I know .. "SIMPLEST":

Shitloads of
Insane
Mothers
Pleading
Lowered
Emotional and
Sanity
Thresholds

What do you think? Probably just a bit too long, isn't it? I know it needs work but we can always get to that after doing the dishes, washing, mopping, vacuuming, refereeing fights, making breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks, weeding, etc, etc, etc ...

And the stupidity continues ..

We have a guy at work who has been given the nickname of 'Special K' .. 'special' as in a nicer way of saying 'so amazingly stupid, how the hell is he still breathing?' Now lest you think we are all insensitive clods, we only use it to refer to him in his even-less-than-standard-stupidity moments and only when he is not present.

Now he is a nice enough person (most of the time) but is so totally not suited to being a manager that even our regular customers have giving up asking him questions. One of our regulars has gone so far as to tell him in no uncertain terms to get someone else to help her if he turns up to answer a customer service page.

He is second highest manager of the whole store and can't manage to send an email, even with someone sitting right next to him walking him through it. I even wrote the whole process down with step-by-step instructions and he still can't do it. I know some people are technically challenged but for heaven's sake .. it's not that difficult!!!

This guy is so tunnel-visioned and focused on the little, meaningless details that he often forgets where he is and answers the phone with the name of the last company he worked for. Understandable if he was new, but he has been with our company for seven years!

He is a world class delegator-of-his-work and shifter-of-blame but very quick to take any credit, whether it's related to him or not.

So, as you can imagine, it can be rather frustrating working with him. But even we hardened, cynical, 'oh-my-god-even-a-snail-is-more-intelligent-than-some-of-my-coworkers' people were amazed that when he overheard someone referring to him as 'Special K', he took it as a compliment! And has been telling everyone he comes into contact with, how respected he is because we've given him such a good nickname!

And they wonder why I'm seriously looking for another job ...

Synesthesia

I know, it's too big a word for this time of night but I just found this post and it has enlightened me a great deal; specifically about my mother but also, to a lesser degree, myself.

Basically, "synesthesia is where a person’s brain gets sort of cross-wired and they see numbers in colour, or hear musical notes as numbers, or letters of the alphabet as colours, or sometimes sound." Apparently a lot of people have it and aren't aware that others don't.

I have often thought my mother was going loopy when she would make comments about what colour a particular sensation was or what sounds a painting made. I understand a lot more now.

I still think she's 'different' but now I'm less likely to try to have her committed!

Mmmmmmm ..

I asked Alex what he would like to make for dinner tonight and his reply was a little bit ... um ... 'different': boiled eggs, hot potato chips and DIY salad. Sounds delicious doesn't it?

No?

Then maybe you'd prefer Bradley's choice: grapes, chips, cheese and bread.

So glad to see they're picking up the concept of a balanced meal .. not! After hearing their choices, I'll make my own dinner but then again, maybe that was part of their evil master plan. Come to think of it, I did hear a lot of maniacal laughter coming from that end of the house not long ago ... and now it's just a bit too quiet if you know what I mean!

Wish me luck ....

My feet hurt ...

but I had a lovely day out shopping with Mum and Clare. We arrived at Carousel at about 10am and left at 5pm (only because all the shops were closing!) and now we are all thoroughly exhausted. We all managed to achieve something in our shopping endeavours: Clare got stuff for her house and some clothes for her and Richard; Mum got lots of things for her present stash for workmates and friends as well as some clothes; I got the boys some new shorts and undies and a new set of pjs for me.

It was fantastic to be able to just wander and not worry about "Mum, I'm hungry/thirsty/bored" and if my mother and sister had bladders larger than peas, it would have been almost perfect. (I thought I was past the stage of having to stop at every single toilet in a shopping centre but I was obviously wrong. Do your pelvic floor exercises girls!)

Now I'm off to spend some quality time with my boys, hopefully without mention of 'the incident' as I'm trying to move past it and focus more on their redeeming qualities. I think I can probably get about another three months of personal chair service out of it though .. "Oh waiter, my cup of tea seems to be empty. Rectify that will you? And while you're at it, I'll have dinner cooked for me too!"

Dream, dream, dream ...

What's stronger than Valium?

Because I could sure do with some right about now!

Remember how I said that Alex would have needed a credit card to put through those online transactions? Well, he had one .. mine! Now I am the proud owner of approximately $150 worth of character upgrades on three different online games and because they (yes they, not just Alex) have used them, I have a snowball's chance in hell of getting the transactions refunded. So now my children will be living the life of the Amish until further notice.

The thing that gets to me the most is not the fact that they spent money that wasn't theirs and that they knew I would have said no if they had asked, it's that they thought it was OK to steal from their own mother and then lie about it repeatedly. I'm not so much angry as devastated and hurt beyond belief that my own children could do that to me.

I know this is one of those things that will pass and it will most certainly be a valuable life lesson for them, but it doesn't stop the pain of betrayal. You know how I asked for patience? I seem to have been granted that in spades because I haven't yelled once. Lots of relatively calm discussing, questioning and crying, but no yelling.

Now I just want some peace and solace for my broken heart.

Somebody pass the Valium .. quickly!

I have just had yet another 'conversation' with my 13yo, trying to get through his cotton wool filled head that trust is something that is earned. Once you lose it, it takes a long time to earn it back and bare-faced lying is not going to achieve anything apart from making me angrier than I was to start with.

Despite the Net Nanny and other various safeguards we have, like no internet in a closed room, he still managed to use his ATM card to attempt to purchase some upgrade or other for one of the games he and his brothers play online. Thank heavens for the fact that you can't use an ATM card, it must be a credit card or Paypal account, or he would be in even more trouble than he is now. He has been banned from the internet .. fullstop, end-of-discussion .. and unfortunately so have his brothers unless I am right there playing with them, as I just cannot trust him to not try it again.

I knew children became even more self-centered once they became teenagers but Lord above, I beg of you, grant me patience! Don't give me strength for I shall surely kill him!!!

Now where did I put that 44 gallon drum of Valium? Don't tell me it's all gone already??!!

Overheard recently ..

"I am a princess! Deal with it!" Andrew while playing Star Wars on the PS2

"Where's that Tool Leprechaun? Oh there he is .. hiding behind that molehill." Brad playing Runescape

"Oh Mum, look at the horrendosity of this place!" Alex while shopping with me at Carousel shopping centre during the Christmas rush. Yes, he made up that word because according to him it sounds better than 'the horrendousness'.

"Ha ha. I'm much more goodlier than you! Brad to Alex while playing on the computer

Good to see my children are listening during their English classes at school. Oh well, there's always electro-shock therapy if it starts to get really bad!

I took it too far, didn't I?

You know how I said I was going to run with the whole 'blogging without obligation' thing? I think I went too far. I even contemplated going further but decided that I should just walk back from wherever it was that I ended up and start all over again. I can you know, because it's a new year and everything so here goes ...

Happy New Year!

Here's my list of resolutions for this year:

1. Do more than just survive another year .. actually enjoy it!
2. Give more smiles and hugs.
3. Spend more time listening and less time talking.
4. Tell my husband and children more positive things about themselves.
5. Do things I want to do.
6. Give even more hugs.
7. Don't be afraid to say no .. and mean it.
8. Spend more time with the people who are important to me.
9. Get out my front door more.
10. Learn more about who I am.

(I figured these were the kind of resolutions I actually had a chance of achieving.)

Hope everyone has a healthy, happy and prosperous 2009.