10 things you don't know about me or where the bloody hell am I?

I'm frantic this week.  I have a two stories on with two tight deadlines, I have one of my besties here for the week from the US.  I think I've felt even a smidge of stress, and not kid related stress as in how-am-I-going-to-make-it-to-swimming-lessons-while-you're-still-on-that-playstation kind of stress, but lordy-me,-I-have-to-pull-finger-and-get-writing kind of stress.
But I am loving it.  Loving it.

So my poor old blog had been relegated to the same place as my two overflowing laundry baskets.  I'll get around to it soon.  Maybe in front of Bethanney Ever After one night. Or Toddlers and Tiaras.  I'm already excited

But I noticed on a few blogs recently there's been one of those "blog hop" things going around.  I like to think of it as a chain letter for our times, you write something then pass it on to someone else.  Because my blog fits happily nowhere in particular, I never get asked to play.

But I can play by myself right?  So because all my smart, insightful musings are being channelled hastily into my stories, why not share a little about myself.  I'm sure a few of you, including The Sister are gripping the edge of your seats now.  Chill Sister, I vowed to be nice to you after my very funny and wholly unnecessary  cruel and possibly tasteless, comment about your dead chicken.  You can breathe out. Although I may redirect any venom to my brother-in-law now after he openly mocked me IN FRONT OF MY FACEBOOK FRIENDS (and had them all looking at my teeth/things/knock knees).  I am very slow to forgive and I never forget.

So here's a few things you may not know about me;

I toss my pillow - I always need to find the cold spot.  Seriously try it tonight, you'll be converted.
I was married once to a lovely man before The Husband.  Happily, he is happily married again with a family.  Being with him was a very happy period of my life, and I'm happy now that everyone is happy...now.
I love beetroot.  I love tuna.  I especially love tuna and beetroot (and rocket)
I love fonts.  Especially courier, it's my favourite.
My poor mum died back in 1995.  Mum's should live longer than 56 years, I plan to.
I love big structures, like dams, bridges, and have particular soft spots for canals, like the Panama, and the Suez, oh and those big mega tankers that are too large to get through them.
Edges, ends, tops of countries - I love, one particular highlight was standing at the bottom of Africa, in the water, at the end of a whole gorgeous ginormous frickin' continent.
I failed my drivers licence when I was at high school by crashing into the school gate with the police officer beside me.  I swore lots, and made him drive instead of me.  It wasn't until I was 27 that I sat it again secretly, surprising my then husband, who promptly to my horror, made me start driving regularly.  That wasn't the plan.
I gave up a serious Diet Coke addiction 3 years, 2 months and 24 days ago after my then 8 year old son asked me to stop "drinking that horrible stuff Mum, it's really bad for you".  I have been tempted to relapse, especially for a tall glass of diet coke, ice and slice of lemon on a hot day, but so far I turn instead for the water.
I am so happy and so relieved that my Dad has found happiness with our gorgeous step mum (? What do we call her Sister?).  The fact that our Dad is spending these years of his life in blissed out love gives me unmeasurable pleasure.

So that's me.  Theres something to be said for this online world where we over share and over communicate.  Life's too short to keep secrets.

Are you gorgeous or what!!!

I saw an inspirational video on the inspirational website Mamamia the other day

..and it got me thinking.

So I'm sort of past those days of constantly worrying about weight, and pimples and looking like everyone else.  Don't get me wrong, I certainly had my share of years, nay, decades doing this, but having your body stretched 3 times by 3 glorious babies, does a lot to your own personal perspective of your body.  And I think my many years on the clock has been helpful in coming to terms with the fact my legs won't get longer, fact.  Nor will I get taller, fact.  Nor will my curly hair become straight, and actually I don't want it to now.  Nor will my drooping eye bits stop drooping without surgical intervention (and I'd rather go on a nice holiday instead).

In other words, I am ....comfortable ...with who I am, this is me.  I can control the stuff I need to, and I can accept the stuff I can't control.

But how often do you think about the gorgeous bits of you.  In a heartbeat, I could draw up a quick list of my friends and family and all their bits I admire - their beautiful eyes, great legs, awesome boobs, great personalities, enviously lush hair.  Seriously, hit me with a name and I'll be able to name their best, most enviable feature.

But how often do we do this to ourselves?
I don't think I'm off the mark, but EVERYONE has something that they are quietly quite proud of.  That they are secretly thankful for, that they celebrate.

Do me a favour, and take a mo, and just think about what your "thing" is.  Lordy, maybe you have a few - think of them all.

And in the interests of doing what I say...here goes...

I have good skin.  Ok, not on my face like baby bottom, wrinkle, blemish free, oh no no no, I'm talking from my neck down.  I have olive skin that is always a nice colour.  I am thankful for the generations past (on my Mum's Dad's side) who have gifted me (and two of my sons) this lovely skin.

I celebrate my skin.
I celebrate me,
warts and all, good skin and all

What do you celebrate secretly about yourself?

Feeling the Luv

You all know that I've jumped off the edge of the abyss and am free falling, as I attempt to carve out a sort of life for myself as a writer.  It took me about 3 years and 500 blog posts to do it, but I actually did jump, and I actually am doing it.  My pitch to story ratio is healthy enough for me to go "boom"  *air punch* every time someone says "Yes please".

But what has helped me on this (sigh) journey (can someone please come up with a new word for "journey") is how blimmin generous and encouraging successful writers are.  There are no tall poppies just gorgeous, talented ones who bend over and say "hey come on up here and join me, this is what you need to do..".  Maybe I'm naive and a little star struck, but actually I don't think I am.  On more than one occasion, I have heard a writer say we like to "pay it forward" - and my take out on that is someone may have helped them, they'll help me if I can help others along the way.  I'll sign up for that right now.

I have a little posse of personal friends who are successful writers and editors.  It's uncanny actually, that as the idea of writing started to evolve in my mind, I kept brushing up against those who did what I dreamed of.  Call it coincidence, but I actually put it down to serendipity, and a little magic.  My dream team are my go-to's for my Writing For Dummies questions.  Unflinchingly (and usually quickly as my dumb arse question is usually in a panic,) they come back to me with a wise response to my dumb question.  I am forever indebted to their generosity and encouragement.  They are the Goose to my Maverick.

Likewise, there are many well known writers out there who give free little online seminars like Allison Tait, and Mia Freedman, where we can hit them with all our most embarrassing questions about how to write and they generously answer (possibly laughing into their keyboard as they do).  These sessions are gold to me.  I went on a course, a lovely writer Kerri Sackville was chewing the fat for 2 hours.  I felt like I was sitting looking at myself in the mirror.  "Get onto Twitter" she said, "Do it when you get home and follow me, follow my follows, and I'll follow you".  And so I did, and so she did.  And I was away online networking and have met many lovely people trying to do what I'm trying to do, that I have a sense of community.

I think today we're not used to being giving a helping hand, we feel that it's a dog eat dog world, a race, a competition.  And there is nothing malicious or sinister in this, just individually determined and focused people trying to get on.

All I know is that I will always be grateful for the encouragement and support of all the poppies in my life. And for all those standing on the edge of the cliff looking down at me as I fall, hoping that there is a big fat old squishy mat to catch me at the bottom.

Who has helped you in your life, who's in your support team?

I love my blog

I love that I have somewhere to go when the turkeys are getting me down and I can just get it all out.  Today started with the perfect blog post idea, but quickly once the reality hit, started to descend, or more accurately, free fall .  Lets just say there is nothing fun about a maggot falling from the ceiling and landing centimetres away from our child.  Nothing.  Actually stay tuned for a blog post called something like A Wildlife Incident of Biblical Proportions or something like that.

Anyhow, I was on a slippery slope to blahsville, when The Husband and I did a scheduled visit to our rental that in a couple of months will become our home, once we've turfed the tenants.  We brought it as a reno, a do-up with visions of gorgeousness and sophistication,  However lets just say 2x GFCs and a purchase of a business interest has put these plans on ice. Permanently.  However reality has knocked on our door, and we're shifting in, in all it's unrenovated, originalness.

We were both silent and sullen, as we measured and opened drawers and doors, looking for non-existent linen cupboards, all under the watchful eye of the tenant.  Sheesh.  We promised ourselves "licks of paint" and maybe some new curtains, and a square of carpet.  But still.

So here I am, lurking in Feeling Sorry For Myself City.  Over nothing in particular really.  Maggots will disappear (eventually, once the carcass has decomposed), we have a very nice roof over our head and many don't.

I think sometimes you just need a wallow, before you brush the dust off your pants and move on.

And often just writing about it and getting it off my chest is enough to stop the inertia and finish up my pity party.

You had a good day?

How was your Saturday afternoon, and other horror stories

For all you sitting on the edge of the seat waiting to hear how the birthday party went, make yourself a cuppa and get comfy...

Let me just set the scene, Smith's 6th birthday, Man vs Wild theme, 10 x 6 year olds and 2 big bro's with a couple of friends.  For those that know me, you know that I am a mad keen weather watcher, but today I intentionally didn't cast an eye over a forecast - we weren't going to woose out if it rained a little, the kids could get wet dammit, Bear Grylls would have.  Maybe that was my first mistake.  My second was giving the kids 10 x real whistles that required the Husband to scream at the kids in his scary voice, and that was even before we'd left the house (I thought I'd learnt that lesson the previous year).  My third mistake was to ignore those ominously long rolls of thunder, and that darkening sky.  "Just adds to the fun", we thought to ourselves.

So off we went to the bush track and stream at the end of our street, with kids backpacks full of survival tools, and ours full of challenges, and me scurrying ahead to hang the homemade piñata, which was not holding up well to the strains of a heavy load of lollies and the sellotape holding it together. Some elderly lady in one of the neighbouring houses asked what I was doing - I told her we had a kids birthday party coming through.  She looked dubious and unhappy.
The rain started.
We headed off down the stream, whistles blowing, kids slipping, general noise and happiness ensuing. First challenge successful, with happy kids, lolly snakes beheaded, spitting pythons spitting poison at the kids courtesy of the 11 year olds with squirters.
The rain got heavier. The thunder louder.  I started doing the lightening/thunder count to see how close this increasingly kick arse storm was.
Back down into the stream, and more climbing and clambering, back onto higher ground in the bush for more challenges, more food, more fun, although, the first murmurs of "can we go home now" (from the party boy) had started.  Don't gets me wrong, the 8 year old had started that chant as soon as the first drops of rain had started.
The rain was solid, we were all drenched, the bag with the challenges was drenched "Should we get them to drink the goats blood now", the Husband asked " no, lets get them onto the build a shelter challenge", which we did hurriedly, then got them all standing under the 2m x 3m tarp while we prepared the next challenge.

There was a crash in the distance, my homemade sellotaped piñata wasn't up to a Category 3 storm.

We bravely soldiered on, the kids were loving it (ok, I made up that part).
There comes a time in a storm, when it stops feeling fun, and safe and transitions into a situation you need to remove yourself (and 14 x children) from.  And as we headed for home, we saw that our docile, gentle stream was no longer, but had morphed into something that elicited swear words from the Party Planners.

Thankfully no more stream crossings were needed and we could squelch home along a safe bush track.  But still.
Home for the final (and most successful) get your food across the pool river challenge.  Where the kids swam (in the fricking sunshine) while transporting our party food across the pool (WTF?  The Husband thought up that one - very risky as I had nothing else for them to eat).

So even though the weather gods rained (heavily) on our parade, we need up with a happy birthday boy and his buddies.  But like everything there are learnings...
1. Never offer kids whistles unless they are refereeing a game of soccer
2. Never trust old ladies who look unhappy and dubious - our tarps and ropes had been stolen when we went back an hour later for them (I'm comin' looking for them Old Lady, even if you have got a yappy excuse for a dog)
3. If you end up with a pinata's worth of chocolates in your house, throw them away or do a massive street lolly scramble, just don't leave them somewhere they can whisper seductively "eat me...."

4. Go for the Chang rather than the Peroni next time you need a post trauma bevvy - it will go down faster, which is what was needed.
5.  No more DIY parties - there are reason places like Laser Tag, Rock Walls, Lollipops and other places with facilitators exist...
6. Don't buy Jersey Caramels to put in the lolly bags, kids don't like them and you'll end up eating the bag by yourself (which was obviously the plan in the first place).

Survival mission accomplished.

Survival Mission

A party planner, I am not.  Happily, unequivocally, hand on heart'edly.  I am more than happy to fork over fricking ridiculously large amounts of The Husbands hard earned cash for my children to celebrate parties at Lollipops, Laser Strike, Rock Climbing or any other activity that charges $30 per head for 1.5 hours of "fun", a plateful of dodgy chicken nuggets, some stale looking fairy bread, and a jug of watered down cordial.

But some treacherous, malevolent evil wormed its way into my brain a few weeks ago, when I had the delightful idea of doing it myself this year.  And really, the Husband will be cool with my use of the singular here, promise you.

I'm not sure if this happened because the memories have dimmed of my eldest's 4th birthday party at home, with too many kids who were bored, and too many adults who stayed, and a home made Thomas the Tank Engine cake with waaaaaay too much food colouring/icing, and too much rain.

Regardless, tomorrow is my Smith's 6th birthday party, and keeping it stressful simple we are having a Man vs Wild party.  He's a Bear Gryllls fan, and we have a conveniently placed stream at the bottom of our street, that we have undertaken our own Man Vs Wild expeditions in previously.  I have a handful of "sort of"  ideas, especially after googling "Man Vs Wild, Party Ideas, Children", but really people who write blogs about their kids parties, and post photos of party food such as nuts in glass jars on brown papered picnic table, surrounded by artfully placed green moss (with the pics all instagram'edly blurred around the edges), haven't left it to the last minute like I have.

I think we'll be able to fill in 40 minutes tops with my activities, I'm not sure how long I'll keep up my Bear Grylls impersonation, and nope The Husband didn't offer to step in to do that either, nor what we'll then do in the forecasted rain/storms, but all I know is it's 3 hours in my life that I want to make a bloody memorable 3 hours in his and his wee mates.

More to come soon...but you knew there would be.

A new love

Many of you know that I've been training for an ocean swim event and that I've been shitting bricks about it for a while.  It's been a mental battle rather than a physical.  But I need to qualify that because I am a dreadful swimmer.  Still, I have been training, I knew I was cool with the distance, and as long as I didn't swim through a school of blue bottles, then I'd get there.
And I did.
And will be doing it again next year.
But I had a revelation through the process of getting to the start line.
I love swimming (even though I'm bad at it - I will actually stop qualifying myself soon because it must be getting dull).
Actually let me clarify that a little more - I love swimming in ocean pools.

In Sydney we have a string of ocean pools that are glorious in their rusticness.  They're emptied and refilled daily with salt water from the neighbouring sea, and it really depends on the time of day as to the water quality, but I don't analyse that too much.  These pools have been around for years, they're free and you can almost feel the ghosts of swimmers past who have swam here.  What I love most about them is that they are right beside the sea, so often there are waves crashing over the sides, with a washing machine effect helping or hindering your stroke.  I love that if you want a breather (often), you can look out to the sea and watch surfers or waves, or best yet, inclement weather rolling in.  This is especially perfect if it is early in the morning.
You feel a teeny bit intrepid.  And staunch.

So with my swimming event done and dusted, (did I mention I saw a shark, but was too focused on hitting dry land again that I wasn't in the least bit fazed), I thought I'd hung up my goggles for a bit.  But with the old, plan-the-next-event-while-still-on-the-high-from-the-last, strategy, a triathlon is being lined up.  It has a swim in murky, fresh, eel infested waters.  I know this because the first time I did this event, I was staggered there were no blue lines to follow.  Only yellowy green weedy, eely water.
So my training buddy and I agreed to do a regular swim until then (so I don't have to start from scratch again). My friend Mia suggested the pool, we had a quick think then agreed, we'll head back to our ocean pools until the water gets too cold.

It's always nice to stumble upon a new passion.