18th February 2010
We are slowing moving into my favourite time of year – Autumn that is. I am still yet to catch my breath after the start of the school term and, as we are doing home renovations, there is chaos all around us, but I can see the golden autumn light shining up ahead with the promise of less heat-waves and more polished floorboards.
So, now what to do?
What to do?
Where are my children? Far from home! (well. not really. Quite close by at educational institutions actually.)
But suddenly I am all at sea. After 7 years where motherhood has been my primary focus I am wondering how to scramble back.
“Let the nothingness wash over you” is what my dad would say, he in the midst of the first days of retirement. “Write a blog post!” My mum would chime in, always checking and often being disappointed these days. “Make some more of those bloody bunnies and make yourself some cash!” is what some of my friends would say, still rolling their eyes at the ludicrous yet profitable nature of that pass-time. “Get your illustration folio together and get some freelance work” some of the others would suggest. “Finish that flaming second draft, you lazy nong,” Is what another bunch entirely would shout at me, as their waggle their chopsticks over Beef in Mandarin sauce at our favourite cafe. “Make me a chocolate cake!” Is what Amelia would shout as she waves goodbye at the school gate. “Don’t forget to pick me up and then can we watch tv?” Is what Lily would say.
But I don’t know. I just don’t know. This term is so short. Before I know it I will have settled into a routine only to find that we are on the eve of the Easter Holidays. Can I put off real life until term two perhaps?
In the meantime I am going to drink a cup of tea, read Keri Smith’s How To Feel Miserable as An Artist and write and enormous list.
4th February 2010
Only four days into term and our mornings, like every other family’s, have become alarmingly busy. We have lists to streamline the mobilisation of our family unit to get out the door and off to our various activities and mostly we manage to all pile into the car and be backing out of the driveway on time but occasionally things go under the radar – like making sure shoes go on the right feet. Fortunately we spotted this little oversight before she stumbled into her very first kinder session. Perhaps if we had missed it, and I had also been sporting a wild hairdo with a pencil or a twig sticking out of it, and an inside out cardigan while forgetting my name and which child I was enrolling we would have looked on the outside exactly how I am feeling on the inside. I am guessing I will find the natural rhythm of all of this soon enough, but for now watch out for the wild woman with the fist full of hastily scribbled lists.
15th September 2009
8 years ago today we rocked the registry office… well, we said our vows and shed a few happy tears. It was only a few days after September 11 and the world still had that weird, tender feeling, but it was the day we had booked and planned for and we couldn’t see any reason why we shouldn’t go ahead and get married. It was a lovely day.
Five years earlier Phil and I had moved into a share house in Fitzroy together and he gave me a cumquat tree for our first Christmas. It was a delightful surprise when it turned up on our front verandah, delivered by the wonderful folk from the Fitzroy Nursery.
I have always had this kind of (overly imaginative) idea that our tree reflects the state of our relationship – it’s always been happy and fruitful except for a short time during our first year when I think I may have been feeling scared and paranoid having met the “One”, and worried that he might not stick around. It sat out on our balcony above the dusty Fitzroy street away from light and water, and shed its leaves. Shortly afterwards we moved into a little house without the flat mates and it came back to life with lots of leaves and fruit.
13 years later, with love and pruning, rain and sun, our little cumquat is as happy as larry and produces chubby little cumquats in its cheery little pocket of our late Winter garden. There is a pot of marmalade cooking on the stove at this very moment, filling the house with delicious citrusy smells.
And of course, the One did stick around, otherwise he wouldn’t have been the One, right? I don’t know why I ever doubted it – except I thought he was too good to be true. But good he is, and true too.
Happy anniversary Phil.
PS. do you like my pun in the title? My Mum will roll her eyes as there is nothing she despises more than bad puns.
PPS. Oh no, I just burnt the marmalade. Now it’s appropriately BRONZE.
28th August 2009
My week in pictures. There were wild winds and sick kids.
Aah Friday… In exactly two minutes I am picking up the phone and ordering Mushroom Mutter, naan bread and some kind of crazy deep fried chicken (pakora?). I will also be encouraging the girls to turn off the tv and will be switching on the radio to listen to Classic Drive with Julia Lester because I like Julia and her music programmer. Tonight I am ducking around the corner for some classy drinks with the girls and then tomorrow I am leaping up to go to the market to buy my usuals (celeriac? feta? cos lettuce hearts? these things seem to make it into my bag every week).
this weekend I am also going to be
- making chicken pie for friends
- visiting the flea market
- painting some window frames
- trying not to think about gorgeous mid century furniture I spied with Kirsty in Fitzroy today
- pulling up weeds
- picking up a copy of Jane Eyre
- putting together a costume for a school performance
- starting a design for an embroidered cushion for Amelia’s birthday
- pulling out that old prickly pear pattern and making it into something that others might like to buy (hello 2005!)
- taking the girls to Ponyo
- and some more!
What are you up?
28th May 2009
Love this – building connections and community is big on my mind these days. It’s the stuff of life, don’t you think? This should be stuck on our fridge.
(via shauny on tumblr)
28th February 2009
Image via the wonderful Dinosaurs and Robots
Saturday afternoon and we’re wagging swimming lessons. Just another thing to not tick off the list this week.
So what have you been up to?
I’ve been in stalling mode. House needs cleaning, hair needs cutting, writing needs writing, softies need sewing (I need a little banana slug in my studio to get that done), books need reading, dinners need cooking, plans need planning, weeds need weeding.
Things I have managed to get done lately (brace yourself, it’s been a killer week);
I gave myself a recession-era fringe cut which may have been a mistake.
I made Mum’s You’ve got Friends Chocolate Cake and it worked! I did the 1.5 size recipe and used a big bundt tin and it was a great success.
I twittered about a library book full of cat hair and a fish bone stuck in my throat.
I watched loads of telly… Season 3 of the Mighty Boosh (loved it), Starter for 10 (great), Oscar & Lucinda (lovely), Survivor (oh yes), Lost (to keep Phil company these days), Flight of the Conchords (and bought Carol Brown so I can listen to it all the time), The Jane Austen Book Club (meh), and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (still watchable).
I heard myself tell someone that we don’t watch a lot of television. At that moment I actually believed it.
I had lots of coffees, at Bliss, at Snow Pony, at Laurent, at home from a packet of Jasper’s and then heard myself tell someone that we are not spending any money on unnecessary items in 2009.
I downloaded M Ward’s new album, Clementine by Melbourne’s (not Norway’s) Washington, The Lark Ascending (which reminds me so much of that wonderful movie ‘The Year my Voice Broke’) and listened to the Dodo’s a lot while I was pretending to write.
I looked at loads of Oscars frocks and then looked at the NME awards photos and felt a bit relieved that the Brits are still so grungy. Clearly not a stylist in the house.
And in case you missed it, I listed a softie on Ebay for the Bushfire Appeal and it ends Monday!
29th May 2008
I have been having such a good run of days where everything feels perfect and like it’s all clicking along just the way it should be. You know the feeling – you find yourself driving back from somewhere late in the afternoon, the traffic is light and moving steadily, there are big puffy black clouds over the Dandenongs looking dramatic, the sun is shining on the autumn trees just so and there’s a good piece of music on the radio. The kids are chatting happily rather than grizzling or fighting. No one is sick, no one is sad and you realise that everything feels pretty good. Everything feels exciting, the possibilities seem endless and there is a gentle sense of an overriding rhythm. On those days I can feel such inspired energy running through me. I am such a bloody pessimist though, that these moments are always bittersweet, tainted with that “oh, it’s too good to last! I wish I could just hold on to this forever!”.
And of course (because I just knew it!) today isn’t one of the good ones. But that’s part of the rhythm too I guess.
