Day 11

One of my first and now very dearest friends in Sydney, Kristin and her gorgeous family are returning back to the USA after 3 years in Sydney.  I'm devastated.  I'll miss her so much.

So today sadly, her destination....Charlotte, North Carolina

Charlotte is the capital of North Carolina and is the 18th largest city in the states with a population est at 700,000.  Residents of Charlotte are known as "Charlotteans" and is nicknamed the Queen City or the Hornets Nest.  It has a lovely climate and sits halfway between the Appalachian Mountians and the Atlantic Ocean, and between Washington DC and Atlanta (their home before Sydney).

Charlotte has won many awards for it's liveability, and according to Forbes magazine has a massively undervalued real estate market.  It'c considered one of the best places to live in the US.  Charlotte has also become one of the major hubs in the States for financial services. 
Sounds like a fabulous place to be shifting to.  And visiting!

Day 11

The Husband in our early days of our relationship knowing my preferred choice of music was Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins and even a bit of Guns 'N' Roses, bravely soldiered on and introduced me to his world of classical music.  We get each other - I believe there is beauty in the way words and phrases are put together and that's why I love to read, likewise he loves the way a piece of music can be so beautiful, not just in it's melody but in it's structure.  I'm still battling to win him over to read anything other than business related text books, but he won me over in a heartbeat with his music.  This is one of my favourite pieces. 

Ave Verum Corpus is a short eucharistic poem that has been translated by many composers, however Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's  composition is the best known and is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.  I'd agree!  Mozart completed this piece in 1791 for a feast of Corpus Christi at Baden where he was visiting.
Take a quiet moment, be still, and listen.

Day 10

 Smith is a total bug/animal/dinosaur/killer whale/spider/ any-creature-that-moves-and-can-be-picked-up-between-your-thumb-and-forefinger nut.  He loves them all, and we talk about them constantly.  I have tried introducing a bit of learning into his zoology studies ie. mammals, reptiles and their differences etc, but today he asked me whether an ant was a mammal or a reptile.
Ok, deep breath, after all this is My Year of Self Improvement, so I'm going to own up to the fact, I didn't really know.  I knew it probably wasn't either but came unstuck there.

So my learning today...

There are 7 animal kingdom class definitions:

1. Mammals - warm blooded and classified into 3 groups "monotremes" - lay eggs, "marsupials" - have a pouch to keep their underdeveloped feotus in and  "placentals" - nourish their babies in utero

2. Reptiles - cold blooded and lay eggs

3. Amphibians - live on water and land, have either cold blood or are ectothermic which means they modify their temperature to their environment

4. Birds - surely no explanation needed?

5. Fish - ditto

6. Anthropod Insects - hmm, animals that have an exoskeleton , or external skeleton, 6 legs and wings (but blood- gad don't know, yet?)

7. Anthropod Arachnids - insects like spiders, ticks, scorpions and mites - have 4 pairs of legs and no wings, some are carnivores, some parasites and some herbivores.

But I still don't know if an ant has blood.  Surely I'm done on bugs for a while.  You must be!

Day 9

In my early days of my new relationship, I took the Husband on a trip to my home town Dunedin, where we had the best time. We ate giant doorstop toasted sandwiches, we swam in the freezing water at St Clair beach, we went to the rugby at Carisbrook and drank Speights on the Terraces, we visited the tree where my mum's ashes are buried, and The Husband fell in love with my home. Now, Dunedin has a fabulous art gallery and we saw there was an exhibition of european artists on , so wandered in and hooked up with a tour that instead of discussing the 200 artworks on display, focused on 20 and in detail. It was abso-freakin-lutely amazing. We hung on every word. And one of our favourite artists was Modigliani.

So today, I'm going to find out more about him....

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani, (1884 - 1920) was an Italian artist working mainly in France. His style was painting and sculptures, with long mask like faces in a modern style. He suffered from tuberculosis throughout his life and resorted to alcohol and drugs because of this. He studied and painted landscapes but was best known for his portraitures and nudes. Although he churned out heaps of work and was hugely productive, he used whatever money he earned to buy drugs or in exchange for a meal. His only solo exhibition was shut down a few hours after opening by the police, scandalised by the nude images he displayed.

He died destitute and penniless from meningitus and is now buried in Pere Lachaise cemetary in Paris.

Are you loving his work too?

Old Friends

There are some things that are generally off limits in my blog, either by request or by some innate and surprising sense of tact and appropriateness. My mum, although offering potentially a minefield of material, my dad, once again plenty of fodder, it's just I never will, my former relationship and of course The Husband. I think my Sister would like to think she's off limits, but frankly she's dreaming. Someone who squashes their little sister under a blanket while tickling her until her claustrophic phobia is well and truly entrenched, and who tells a 13 year old that there is a prowler around the house one night when their parents are out, so that the 13 year old WETS HER PANTS, absolutely deserves some form of retribution. Right?

But I'm going to touch on one now, albeit, gently.

My last relationship (ok, marriage for all you pedantic-facts-need-to-be-100%-accurate lot) ended rockily, unhappily, and very dramatically. And along with the end of a marriage, it's not just the wedding gifts you need to divide, it's also locations (ie where you can be and they can't etc), memories (actually know they go into a great storage unit in your memory bank with noone to share them with) and friends. In my situation, one of my friends managed a beautiful arrangement where she could stay friends with both of us. (although I know if she had to rescue both of us from a burning building, it would be me first).

I'm not proud of the fact, but I was so strung out on survival and was mortified about my situation that I didn't work at friendships that I really really cherished. I put them in the "they're his friends' camp and moved on. But there was one friend in particular I always grieved for and missed and regretted not sucking up my pride and making an approach.

So love it or hate it, Facebook has much it can offer, especially in this situation where you know a name but not much else about how to get in touch. Last night, finally in a fit of courage and before I could lose my nerve, I sent out a friend request, with a humble kind of "I completely understand if you ignore this" type of message. And amazingly, this morning there was a response and an acceptance as a "Friend".

Tentative baby steps. I have much work to do now.

Day 8

...for the day is you,

and the light is you,

the sun is you,

and all the beautiful, beautiful

awaiting life is you.

Karin Boye, Morgon (morning) in Moln (clouds), 1922

Glum.

Feeling very glum. May account for my complete lack of self improvement over the last 3 days. How's this for a learning, the longer you leave it, the harder it becomes.....

Will try and pull my socks up to sort out my ...glumness.

Day 7

Who was Che Guevara?

Known as Che, he was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary and the major figure of the Cuban Revolution. As a young man, he travelled Latin America and saw the poverty and inequality which he put down to monopoly capitalism and imperialism and that the only solution was world revolution. Geez, not afraid of biting off more than he could chew! He met up with Fidel Castro and became part of the movement that overthrew the US backed Cuban dictator Batista in the 26th of July Movement. He whipped up heaps of support and became a key player in overthrowing the Batista regime. He then played a role in training up the military who repelled the Bay of Pigs Invasion in Cuba and introduced Soviet nuclear armed ballistic missiles which was a catalyst for the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Having done his bit there, he got on his motorbike and headed off to create more revolutions, albeit unsuccessfully in Bolivia where in 1967, he was captured and executed.

Time magazine named him one of the most influential 100 people of the 20th century and this very famous image became known as Guerilliero Heroico and was declared the most famous photograph in the world.

Day 6

The Doomsday Clock

The doomsday clock is a symbolic clockface intended to show that the closer the clock is to midnight, the closer the world is to global disaster. It originated in 1947 and is maintained by the Bulletin of Nuclear Scientists at the University of Chicago. It originally represented the threat of global nuclear war but since 2007 has been used as a measure of climate changing disaster. As at January 2010, the time currently stands at 6 minutes to midnight. It has changed 19 times since it was created with the closest time recorded to midnight being 11.58pm in 1953 when the USA and Soviet Union both tested nuclear devices within 9 months of each other

Day 5

Glory holes.

A glory hole is used when a dam is at full capacity and water needs to be drained from the reservoir. The Glory Hole at Monticello Dam is the largest in the world. Its size enables it to consume 500 cubic metres of water every second.

And folks, don't do what I did and google "glory holes, images". Especially with the kids around

Dogs

I make no apologies, I really am a very nice person but I don't do dogs, never have and probably never will. Fact is I like cats. I am a cat person. I don't do dogs.
So we are looking at shifting (see my earlier post?)and have been looking around at many potential rental properties to shift to. A month or so ago, we looked at a property, it was immaculate in every sense of the word, no shiz anywhere to speak of, no papers, no misplaced socks, no pile of newspapers on the floor, no nothing on the bench AT ALL. It was perfect as only I can dream of. I'm not sure how people can live like that, but apparently these people were. But here's the thing. It had a dog. Evidenced by a spotless dog food bowl, kennel and ....crap all over the back lawn. Piles of the stuff. It was a Off the Leash dog park without the black plastic bags for scooping up fresh poo. What's that about? Spotless inside/dog toilet out.

And another one. The boys and I had just pulled up in the car somewhere when a woman walking her dog stopped on the grass literally right beside us, and her dog had a massive crap right beside our car, which she then proceeded to scoop up (with her hand encased in a black plastic bag, not much protection for my liking, you know how bad dog poo smells). There was stunned silence in our car as the boys had all witnessed this scene. "
And that boys", I concluded, "Is why we will never have a dog"

No more dog poo stories for a bit. Sorry to all my dog loving friends.

Distracting

Our neighbours house is getting pulled down. As I type. We are good friends with our neighbours and we are really, really excited for them and the fact they are building their new dream home. But...can you hear my pain. Glass shattering, hinges being ripped, constant banging. And getting rid of the asbesto will come after this (!). Our house is only a metre or two from theirs, literally. With no fence between the two, which worked perfectly when our kids would run in between each others houses. But now, hmmm, not so good. It's making me cranky and unproductive.

And yes, there is a reason for putting a photo of me here 1) it shows a happy me to remind me of happier, more peaceful times and 2) look just beyond the pool and you can see the neighbours roof. Nice and close eh!

Day 4

Fact: Attempting to complete 2 x boy's homework in one day, preparing 5 x dinners, filling in health/rental documents while watching Project Runway will result in the evening finishing very, very late...ok, that is not my fact for the day. But it easily could be!

So today...a historic healthcare bill was passed in the US, what was it all about?

The US Healthcare Reform Bill is a massive $940 billion overhaul of the US health system with immediate impact over areas such as health insurance, coverage for health for the uninsured, subsidy provision and the target of having everyone covered by some form of health insurance by 2014. Why so historic? Hmm, my words here - it looks like it was a major step for Joe Average voter, and that the reforms will help the little guys with a bit of a Robin Hood effect (ie more taxes at the high end to pay for the thing). It will provide health coverage for all which based on watching those E.R type of hospital programmes where the blue collar workersguys with an arm missing from an industrial accident get turned away coz they haven't got insurance, won't be happening any more.

All in all, worth postponing a trip Down Under for I'm guessing!

Terrifying Things

I'm on a roll after my Mariana Trench research... Do you have anything that simply scares the pants off you? The Sister and I do, and it's a shared and very real fear that I'm not proud to admit, I introduced my 9 year old to today. Surely there are more constructive things to be doing with him rather than passing on my fears?

My father was in insurance and covered a large area of the South Island of New Zealand. Often if a trip to visit clients fell during the school holidays my mum, the Sister and I would join Dad on his client trips. Sound like a nice family road trip? Not. You see his clients were often in remote, bleak places and this meant many hours driving in the car with the Sister and I sitting in a haze of Winfield 25's and Pall Mall with maybe the occasional Mintie (will never eat one of these again) or Barley Sugar to suck on. My kids have it sooooo good as the car snacks often resemble a small corner shop.

We generally were deeply unhappy, argumentative, always hungry and often feeling very carsick, understandably. Once we ended up in Ranfurly, where we still have arguments with Dad about this because we reckon we were in this tiny town with a main street, a pub, and a tea room for about 8 hours. Dad reckons it wasn't that long, but we're sure it must have been because we were so bloody bored. The highlight was a pie and lemonade for lunch at the tearoom and that lasted about 12 minutes.

Anyhow after his meetings were over, we blissfully got back in the car and carried on. Although the "bliss" part came to an abrupt end once they both lit up their ciggies again which was generally as Dad was changing from first to second gear. Mum managed to convince Dad to make a diversion. Dad wasn't great at making changes to his plans, especially on these trips so we were bloody lucky. OR SO WE THOUGHT. Because little did we realise this was to see the goddamn scariest sinkhole you'll ever set eyes on. We didn't even know what a sink hole was, all we could see was a massive "plughole" in a lake with water pouring down the sides and only metres from the edge of the road. As you can see in the actual photo above, there is a teeny fence, which I can only guess they put there as a last resort if you lost your footing on the path which is so very very close to the plughole. And who was that stunt woman used in this photo? Surely she must have been paid the big bucks for this gig requiring her to basically stand in Falls Dam.

Welcome to Falls Dam, folks. Surely THE most scariest place in New Zealand.

What are your terrifying things?

Day 3

I've always had a thing for extremes - once on TV there was a series about weather extremes, only my two most favourite things in the world, and it was all about the coldest/hottest/driest/wettest/windiest place on earth. Absolutely loved it.

I guess it was only a matter of time before I started on some extreme things for my self improvement files. Today Will and I learnt all about the deepest place on earth - the Mariana Trench. Ok so I already knew it was the deepest place on earth but that was the extent of my knowledge, but what I didn't know is that it's not far off the top of Australia (above Papua New Guinea) , is really long (about 25ookm), not that wide (69km) and really, really deep (about 11,000m or 11km which makes it sound even longer). The actual deepest part is called the Challenger Deep which is a small slot shaped valley in the floor of the Mariana Trench at the southern end of it. Shudder.

So we decided to take a look on Google Earth at it, and seriously, even though I think the images weren't real, it was very, very freaky.

Day 2

How to change a tyre on a bike

First, let all the residual air out of the inner tube, then insert 2 tyre lever thingees and kind of unhinge the tyre from the rim. Once you have it loose'ish, then get the rest of the tyre off and take out the inner tube. Feel around the tyre for remnants of what may have caused the puncture in the first place. In my instance, it was a tiny thin sliver of wire. If you don't do this, as soon as you get your fresh tube in, you're likely to get another puncture. Put the new inner tube in the tyre (off the bike), pump it up a little, then put the tyre and inner tube onto the rim again. Now folks THIS is the part that the bike shop guy made look REALLY easy, but what I'm guessing that when I'm stranded miles from home on a busy road with school pick up time looming, is going to be a smidge difficult. I'm just saying.
Then pump up the tyre till it's nice and hard, then put the valve cover thing back on. And you're on your way!

Day 1

The Korean War was between 1950-53 and was the result of the communist held North invading the American controlled South. South Korea then became a collection of allies fighting under a United Nations flag against the communist north. This was successful until the South pushed too far north and came too close to the chinese border which resulted in heaps of Chinese invading North Korea and pushing the UN allies further south again. The South put up a strong counter offensive pushing the North back again, this time to the 38th parallel where an armistice took place in 1953. This resulted in a 40 year period of great unease and continual tension until a non aggression pact was signed in 1991

I love my husband

So I'm telling The Husband with great seriousness about my new self improvement plan last night. Goddamn, I even turned off the TV and with great earnestness shared my passion and commitment.

He listened then said "I give it a week".

I love that man

My Year Of Self Improvement

Gulp. Ok here goes. Goddamit, I'm making a commitment and it's a big one for me to actually sign up for something and then do it. I'm a great "talker" and a crap "doer".

Remember Flora, my fabulous Brazilian nanny who was as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside? Not only was she a gorgeous nanny and friend but with her 22 years she brought many pearls of wisdom to my life.

She had a boyfriend, a lovely English "lager lout" who was a diamond geezer if ever you met one, his Facebook page was littered with "F*** you , you c***s" to all his mates and lots of pictures of bottle blonde bimbos. (No offence intended Flora, I'm just calling it as I saw it). We all wondered "what is she doing with him?", she was sweet and gentle and wise beyond her years. However, I've been judged in my life and I had no intention of doing this to her. But once in a reflective moment, she talked of how he was rotting his life and his brain which he never used, watching back to back episodes of The Simpsons challenged him, he was happy but was sort of stagnating in his goal-less 23 year old body.

Flora said "you have to use your brain, you have to always be learning, it keeps your brain healthy and will make you live longer".

I bet there are studies on this, and hell, if I was writing a story, they'd be inserted .... here. But I got to keep rolling with this, because I thought to myself, I'm living in Stay-At-Home-Mum-Ville and while I may know loads about Pokemon and dinosaurs and Facebook, and Perez.com, I'm a smart educated double degree'd type of woman who used to earn pots of cash writing lots of fancy banking stuff, when do I do my learning now? What's going to keep my brain healthy? what's going to keep me interested and interesting?

So I thought...

Why not learn something new every day? And no, I don't mean things I've learnt from my 6 year old's home readers about life cycle of a frog kind of stuff, but my own inspired learning, random and glorious. My own whimsy. Stuff that interests me.

So I commit, that each day from now on, I'll quickly and quietly post whatever my learning for the day might have been, this way it will keep me honest. I may "package" some up if I haven't been around my blog, but I won't make a big song and dance about my learning, unless of course it is so compelling you all must be exposed to it. And of course I'll keep on rambling and blithering as normal, there will just be petals of wisdom dotted amongst them.

Day One starts tomorrow.

This is my journey.

Loving it.

I happened across a great blog this morning http://www.sharnanigans.com/ which had a fabulous saying...

...the grass isn't greener on the other side, it's greener when you water it...

Loving that!

Things you wish you'd known

I was in the bathroom this morning and I noticed the old stool that the boys have used over the years to stand on to clean their teeth. The big boys no longer need it but Smith does, just. I remember buying this stool quickly and without much thought one day when Will was about 16 months old from some scabby kind of Warehouse shop for next to nothing. And low and behold, it has featured in my house in all it's cheap, plastic, chipped and bright green glory for the last 8 years. Which makes me think...maybe if I thought through the repercussions of such buys I may have made a different choice and brought a, hmmm, more aesthetically pleasing footstool.

So I thought I'd start a bit of a list of things that you'd wish that you'd known, like if you buy a footstool for the kids, it will be used by all the children for a 8 year period and will be visible to all who enter your bathroom, grotty or not. I may need you're help with your own "things you'd wish you'd known" experiences:

Shoes that are uncomfortable when you buy them will not get more comfortable.

Nits never go away with one treatment. Never.

Your kids chatting to you, even if it is about their new pokeman game, is always more important than what you were about to do.

That if you are on the computer in the morning when there are school lunches to make and uniforms to iron, you will be late.

Jeans never really stretch by half a size that the shop assistant promised you.

That if you get to school early enough you will get a carpark.

That if The Husband says he wants a "quiet night" he doesn't mean sitting watching Brothers and Sisters with you on the couch.

That if you don't chat with your friends every now and again, you will lose touch eventually.

That there is such a thing as too much (insert) chocolate, wine, hot chips.

Any others to add to the list. I've just got started but well, need to get to school for that carpark!

Projects

End of term always means school project time, unless of course it's Term 1 which also means easter hat parade time as well, which requires 8 litres of icecream to be eaten for the obligatory easter hat vessel. So with two at school, as well as the normal volumes of homework, and after school activities, we have just entered School Project Phase. And Round 1 goes to Rafe who has a presentation to do. This week. The boys school is very keen on presentations and I truly believe there is method in their madness. I can remember standing shaking with fear AT HIGH SCHOOL when faced with the prospect of doing a presentation, admittedly it was one of those "here's a random topic, you have 30 seconds to prepare and then you must speak on this subject for 10 minutes" kind of gig. But the fact is that our kids speak regularly from age 6 onwards in a public environment which is fabulous. It's almost an unspoken rule with the parents that you never mention the "n" word ie. "don't be nervous, you'll be fine" or worse "are you nervous?".

Anyhow between my 2 boys, I have one that "does" and one that hmmm "doesn't" or maybe that should be "won't". Will could speak for hours about nothing and Rafe, well talking isn't his thing yet. Unless of course it's about numbers.

So we are preparing for his speech, and time to 'fess up, there is a smidge of help provided by me to get through this. Success is 8 little cue cards and some pictures. And eye contact.

Question is though, when do you step away and let them do it completely by themself. And suffer the consequences of this. For some of you it may be at age 6, for some it may be high school. It's such a balance between being helping your child succeed by helping them, and helping them succeed by not. The reality is of course, from the experience of parents with more than one child at school, that there simply isn't enough "mum' hours to spread across the children's projects, so the older ones have to fend for themselves. With some last minute editing and pretty'ing up advice offered by mum the night before hand in.

So I'm guessing age 6, with this particular child of mine, is not the moment to be left to the lions. I have helped and given some guidance, but I haven't bailed him out.

Still, I'm guessing that nerves will get the better of him and he'll look down at his cards, reading the whole thing in his very soft voice.

You must want to make life easy for your kids don't you, but often you have to make life hard to make it easy for them in the long run.

Getting Older

I love reading Mia Freedman's column in the Herald On Sunday and last week she just seemed to strike a note that hit home with me. And goddamn, I thought this piece was sooooo telling that I've borrowed it for y'all to read, with thanks to Mia Freedman (who is fabulous - check out http://www.mamamia.com.au/):

So much is written and debated about young women and body image but nobody tells you it’s a lifelong issue. And for many women, it is, varying in intensity and changing along with your body, even though it’s invariably more connected to where your head is at.
On Australia Day I went to an excellent BBQ at a friend’s house. There were dozens of families with kids ranging from newborns to teenagers. As the temperature soared, the big kids hit the pool. So did many of the littlies – chaperoned by their Dads who eagerly stripped down to their boardies.
Meanwhile, all the mums stayed fully clothed. Hot and clothed. So did all the women in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s without kids, even though it couldn’t have been a more perfect day for a dip and instructions to bring your swimmers were issued with the invitation.
I’ve seen this happen a million times in social situations around water. The dads will take the kids swimming, the mums stay on the sidelines. Is this reticence due to (a) Self-consciousness? (b) Fear of being judged for how your body holds up in a swimsuit? or (c) Not wanting to get your hair wet?The majority of the time, for the majority of women, I’m going to go with the combo of (a) and (b).
At this particular BBQ, I was solo and ensconced in my trusty Jets one-piece, didn’t hesitate to jump in the water with my kids. For a while, it was just me and kids and dads.
Eventually, another mother joined me, swimming over to confide: “I’m so glad you went in. I was dying to swim but women never do at these things.”
As we agreed it was a shame that so many gorgeous women were benching themselves around the pool instead of diving in, she said something very wise which has stayed with me ever since: “I keep telling my 40-year-old girlfriends that our bodies aren’t going to get any better than they are now. When we look back at 50, we’re going to think we looked hot at 40. So we may as well make them most of it. At 20 we thought our bodies weren’t good enough, same with 30. And every decade you wonder why they hell you wasted time worrying instead of just embracing it. So I’ve decided I don’t want to look back in another ten years and curse myself for not wearing a swimsuit more often.”
I thought this was so sage.
A couple of weeks ago, I took a deep breath and wore a short dress. I never do this. I’m not even sure when I stopped showing my legs. It just happened. But inspired by my conversation with my new swimming friend, I thought ‘stuff it. World? Here are my legs.’ Carpe Diem.

How fabulous and true is that. Now is the time girls.

Maybe we were so strung out on what we didn't have in earlier years that we didn't make the most of what we did have (for me that is definitely a decent old set of BOOBS, that I no longer own). Now is the time to go, ok, it may not be perfect but here it bloody well is.

And it's not just about bodies, it's everything. the clock seems to be racing. now is the time to get out amongst it, to grab life and to run with it, not jog.

I have just done my first triathlon in 20 years. Seriously. And for me it was a revelation. Because even though I had a shocking swim (visualise a whole lot of women swimming ahead of you, then an empty lake and a support crew on a surf ski beside you - well that was me), a bike that was 15 years old with rust and a run on legs of lead, I absolutely loved it and want to do more. Even though I aspire to it, I doubt I'll be a massive talent, in fact I'll take a finish in the top half of the field. Of my age group.

I figured though, it's a choice, I either do these events averagely or I don't do them, because I'm concerned and embarrassed that I'll only do them averagely.

Now is the time.

Slummy Mummy

I was watching morning TV the other day when there was a feature on school mums and how they (we) dress. Some mothers spend hundreds of dollars on stylists to get that perfect school-pick-up outfit, and how much more fabulous they feel looking enviously hot in the school yard. And how proud their children are of them. Ahem. I can hear you "yeah right"-ing.

That may be the case for some but I'm guessing for many (non-working) mums the standard "uniform" of shorts/thongs (summer) and trackies/trainers (winter) does everyone just fine, thank you very much. And on the rare occasion you've had a lunch, early work finish or been anywhere that's required you to make more of an effort that the abovementioned "uniform", you're no doubt greeted with a "wow, you look nice" kind of shock, awe from the other school mums.

I have crazy, wild woman hair that once a quarter gets cut and tamed into submission by a blow dry, hair straightners combo, and I turned up to school with this sleek, tidy hair after school one day, and everyone was admiring it. Even the teachers commented about it, which although flattering is a tad worrying that my hair must look so, SO bad the other 249 days of the school year. And at the mere whiff of moisture it will boing back to it's normal frizz, in other words, the do' will last about 15 minutes.

On the other end of the scale from the Yummy Mummy's, were the "Slummy Mummys". Here the story talked about shorts, thongs, trackies, unkempt hair, sloppy jumpers, lack of makeup. Geez it was sounding like an all too familiar description!

So this morning I had my own "slummy mummy" moment. In a quest to complete a thankyou card to our Aussie farmers (nice gesture albeit a smidge odd for a kiwi where NZ farmers are often the most weathiest due to NZ's un-Australian conditions), and find "news" for News day, I found that school was about to start and I was still in my pj's. So taking a hint of a moment to make my pj's more respectable by putting on some underwear, I zoomed the kids to school, telling them I would just be dropping off rather than coming in to school today, thinking I could make a quick getaway.

So I'm at the school gate, putting on sunblock, when a few friends start to congregate. Around me. And my pyjamas. And my bed hair. And my uncleaned teeth.

I think I hit rock bottom this morning.

I'm already planning my school pick up outfit.