Happy Halloween!

It’s very quiet around here, with nary a trick-or-treater. In fact the only guest we are expecting this evening is our financial advisor to discuss Life Insurance and Superannuation. Spoooooky!

Tomorrow is the first day of a new month and I am going to see if I can get my blogging mojo back by posting every day of the month. Do you think it’s possible?

I feel like I need to be sitting near a pool somewhere sipping a cocktail, reading a trashy book. This afternoon I made do with a long bath (not too deep of course! There’s not much water on this here continent) and a cup of tea and a trashy book. I have never been a big book-in-the-bath kind of person but these days I have discovered how amazingly nice it is. It’s like a peaceful bubble of warm, quiet “me time”. Trashy books are good because if you drop them in it doesn’t really matter. It’s a pity that my discovery has coincided nicely with our national water crisis and tighter water restrictions.

Anyway, the reason for my long bath was that this morning we hosted Amelia a Halloween (belated) birthday party. For some reason my reaction to the pre-party organisation was extreme. It wasn’t a very big party, only four families in total but for the last three days I have been having those pre-migrane zig-zaggy flashing lines across my vision and I have been screaming like a Halloween banshee at anyone who happens to refuse to eat their vegetables, or smears their yogurt on their ankles or calls out repeatedly for drinks of water after lights out. I am not sure why I have been lying awake at night thinking things like “oh yes, popcorn, brilliant idea, everyone will eat popcorn, must add that to the list.” etc. I have no idea why it all seemed so incredibly hard this year but I will put it down to the general lack of peaceful sleep over the last few months.

The party was fine, the small handful of guests were all the children of good family friends and were all very well behaved and quite charming. Parents chatted amicably and nibbled the adult-designated cakes. The games were mostly a great success thanks to Big-P and his ability to tame a wild crowd of cushion-throwing preschoolers. Vast quantities of food was consumed without too much complaining or a food fight and everyone went home happily with a prize. Afterwards I felt pretty good, like I had just run a marathon and I did a lot of happy dances because now that’s over! And now there are only 9 weeks until Christmas!

Yesterday morning we had our first family outing since Lily was born. When I heard Dan Zanes was coming to town for the Melbourne International Arts Festival Lily was only a month old and I couldn’t even imagine getting out to a kids’ show full of moshing preschoolers. But how could we not get tickets? So I bought them knowing so much changes in such a short time with babies and sure enough, while there was a mad scramble to get out the door and into the city by 11am, we made it to the (incredibly hot and stuffy) Club House tent and had such a good time.

I couldn’t help but feel lucky that we got to see the band here in Melbourne where the records are only available on import and only a small dedicated group of followers and review readers where keen enough to book tickets. It was a tiny little venue where we had great views and the kids could run around and dance and have a chance to interact with the band, even getting to meet and chat with them afterwards. Even so, I do hope they get to play far bigger venues next time they come out, so spread the word!

Amelia did lots of great dancing and singing, made some instant new friends (as only four year olds can do), got Dan Zanes’ autograph, plowed through enormous amounts of sushi for lunch followed by a chocolate ice-cream cone, put her hands into the water window at the Art Gallery as all Melbourne kids do at one time or another and then slept all the way home in the car.

Lily sat on Big-P’s lap, got hot, had a sleep, sat on Grandma’s lap, enjoyed the cooling blast of stand up fan and then slept all the way home in the car.

I managed to calm down after feeling that intense stress that I get when I think we are going to be late for something, had a dance with Amelia, cuddled Lily, bought a CD and enjoyed seeing a live band for the first time in a very long time. While it seems a sad state of affairs that I have to resort to seeing a band at 11am and one which keeps being labeled as kiddie-rock, I will tell you that Dan Zanes and Friends are thoroughly entertaining. The mums, dads and grandparents where getting into it equally or even more than their kids. I have always had such a soft spot for traditional folky, bluesy, rootsy kinds of music so in comparison to some other kids’ shows we have seen there was no twisting of my arm to have to get me to go along to this. And there was the added bonus that there were no oversized dinosaur characters, no primary-coloured turtle necked shirts, no stands selling huge amounts of plastic merchandise (apart from the CDs) causing kids to whinge and whine and melt down and no agro Mums trying to barge themselves, their toddlers and their prams to the front row. What relief.

My WIP this week is the studio. Anyone who has been to visit our house in the last 12 months will know that the studio has been totally out of control since we moved in. Enormous stacks of plastic boxes still crowd around us full of things which are being kept in case they will one day be useful, mountains of old magazines teeter precariously, and every inch of table and desk space is covered in piles of fabric, cut out patterns and other miscellaneous ephemera which has more lately consisted of craft supplies for Amelia’s projects and Kiddley exploits. What you see above is how it is now afer many hours of tidying. Believe it or not! There’s still plenty to do.

Poor Big-P is crowded into a small corner of the room where he quietly maintains a clutter free space, donning headphones to complete his silent bubble of tranquility amidst the chaos.

And after all these months I still have a doona cover hanging in one window to block out glare and prying eyes, and we still haven’t painted the woodwork and we still need to get the electrician in to install downlights to give us enough light to see what we are doing in the evenings.

Over the last week I have started to tidy it up and it has managed to consume hours of my time. Mind you, I do spend a lot of time standing around motionless staring at something I have found buried somewhere trying to work out where it should be put away. I try to remember to repeat to myself “And what would Coco Chanel say? Less is more!” and then I will usually piff something into the rubbish. I have also been thinking of Mati and her mantra “MOOP” which stands for “Matter out of place”. I am not the only one who needs this turned into a big colourful sign and stuck onto the fridge for a constant reminder. Amelia has inherited my ability to enthusiastically spread debris (creative or otherwise). Each evening it really does look like a tide has swept through our house leaving lego blocks and barbie accessories across the floor.

So that’s my WIP. Moving forward I want a big, clean, light space as we move in new directions. I have to accept that the crafting part of my life is a little limited now and there is no reason to have four pin cushions (etc) out on the table collecting dust.

Also:

Does anyone know when the Science of Sleep is going to be released in Australia? It looks wonderful.

Here’s a Pad Thai recipe which looks pretty easy (via slashfood). Amelia loves Thai noodles so I might give this one a go.