Want a gift from me?

Liz of Eternal Lizdom is being crafty and is going to share her talents and she's inviting her readers to do the same.

The deal is that I am supposed to follow these rules:

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!

2. What I create will be just for you.

3. It'll be done this next month.

4. You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. It may be poetry or something sewn.
I may draw or paint something. I may bake something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!

5.The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re-post this on your blog and offer the same to the first 3 people who do the same on your blog. The first 3 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! I do promise fabulosity here folks...

So, who's in?

ETA: Actually, I make no claims to fabulosity....

Laundry liberation

Further developments in the laundry saga:

Last week (on the day I did that all that folding) I went up to Bunnings and bought 3 laundry hampers. I placed one in each of the kids' bedrooms. When they came home I announced that there was a new regime in place.

They are now expected to do their own washing.

I stood by giving instructions and supervising the process for this first week. Caitlin has to practically climb into the washing machine to retrieve the last few socks and undies from the bottom after the wash has gone through and Tom will no doubt need to have the "how to work the washing machine" instructions repeated a fair few times before they stick but I reckon it's a go-er. I am no longer doing washing for 5 people!

Now, there are a couple of compromises being made. I've decided to let them use the dryer rather than trying to get them to hang stuff on the line which gives me a nasty case of dryer guilt but as we head into the cooler months my clothesline is pretty useless anyway. We'll tackle "how to use pegs" next summer :P Also, I'm still stuck with all the ironing, though I plan on getting David and Caitlin trained up in that department sooner rather than later. When I told Dave I expect him to learn to iron he wasn't terribly impressed, Caitlin took up the argument and told him that one day he might be living on his own and he'd have to do it himself and that anyway, even if he was married he should still do the ironing.

I promise I'll post about something more interesting than my washing soon! Apart from anything else I've got to tell you all about how Tom took over 50 photos of otters at Dubbo zoo.

Folding and fur

Last week's mountain was never fully scaled, we did a lot of rummaging through the pile looking for the other half of a pair of socks through the week, and by the time it came to today I was faced with something closely resembling a Mt Everest of clean laundry - especially after I changed, washed and dried 3 sets of sheets yesterday. Here's what it looked like after I spent half the afternoon sorting and folding it all. I'm feeling very self-righteous tonight.

And it's even all been put away properly too!

What about the fur? Well. It happened like this, I was standing at the stove giving the pot of spaghetti a stir and unbeknownst to me there was a cat sitting about 2 inches behind my heels. I stepped back, he yowled and took off and when I looked down I found this on the floor.

Oops.

I presume it was from his tail, that's what it felt like I'd stepped on. Not that you can tell, there's plenty more where that came from.

He's not talking to me.

Sisterhood Award

Liz over at Eternal Lizdom has bestowed upon me another award. This one is titled the Sisterhood Award.

First, share memories or thoughts of childhood or adulthood sister-friends. Funny, sad, whatever.

1. Attending Physics Society parties at Sydney Uni with Ariane. The dry ice in a sealed bottle trick never stops being funny.

2. In 5th grade, rolling around my best friend Rowena's bedroom laughing ourselves silly while quoting the Goon Show back and forth at each other.

3. A couple of years ago, feeling comfortable enough with my friend Sue to go swimming in her backyard pool wearing a borrowed rashie and my undies. The last time I was at Sue's place (for a candle party - like tupperware only with candles) we ended up sitting around talking about life the universe and everything for a couple of hours after everyone else had gone home.

4. Mothers group. Cathy, Malyn, Romaine and I spent many hours sitting around sharing all while our kids played. These were the people who kept me sane when Tom was a baby and toddler.

5. My mum. With whom I can talk about anything, who never judges and is unfailingly supportive.

Second, pass the award on to however many bloggers you'd like to share this with- but make sure you share this award specifically with bloggers that you feel a kinship with. Bloggers you learn from or feel that you teach, bloggers you've connected with in a really familiar and friendly way.

1. Shrinking Yoda

2. Shrinking Tardie

3. Indian Ink aka Lisa66

4. Ariane's Little World

5. MPJ

Two weeks in the life of Mim

Em over at Shrinking Yoda has posted a look at her schedule over 2 weeks. Out of a kind of morbid curiosity I thought I'd do the same.

The week just gone:
9th - 15th March

Mon - Take kids to school. Work at publishers. Pick up from school. Supervise homework. Cook dinner. Take Caitlin to Ballet. Adam brings his mum over for dinner. Adam goes to Sword training (usually with Dave but last week he stayed home.)

Tues - Take kids to school. Take dog to dog park for quick play. Work at bookshop. Pick up kids. Supervise homework. Take Tom to Karate. Tell Adam to pick Caitlin up from singing and bring dinner home with him. Take Caitlin to singing lesson. Go to School Council meeting. Have dinner at 9:30pm. Write notice for school newsletter.

Wed - Take kids to school. Work at publishers. Pick up kids, tears from 2 of them before we've left the school grounds. Tom falls asleep on lounge and so doesn't get taken to Drama (he slept for 2 hours). Think we ended up having Chinese takeaway because I hadn't been grocery shopping.

Thurs - Take kids to school. Take dog to dog park for nice long play. Do some housework and decide to sit down and read for my sanity's sake. Go to school at 1:30pm to watch Caitlin's class run the assembly. It's a long one - they were giving out place ribbons for the swimming carnival. End up not going home and waiting to pick kids up. David doesn't go to Chess Club which saves me one trip out. Take Caitlin to Song & Dance. Go get coffee from maccas. Pick up Caitin. Cook dinner (I think this was left-over night.)

Fri - Take kids to school. Go to uniform shop and pick up a few new shirts and order new jackets for kids. Come home and have conversation with Adam about life and stuff. Canteen duty from 11am to 2pm. Hang around for Canteen committee AGM, may as well there's not enough time to do anything useful before it's time to pick up kids. Do grocery shopping. Cook dinner.

Sat - Sleep in. Eat breakfast at lunchtime. Dave's friend comes to play. Haul out bead making stuff and melt glass for a couple of hours. Burn a couple of spots on cork flooring in kitchen with hot glass. Don't care as planning to replace it anyway. Take Caitlin to sleep-over birthday party. Have massive argument with Tom over him not wanting to wait till tomorrow for me to get out my jewellery making stuff to make him a necklace. Go out to dinner at the Indian place up the road. Get rained on while taking Dave's friend home. Go to bed at 10:30pm for once but then get woken at 2am by Clara who is used to being let out for a pee at 1am *facepalm*

Sun - Get up and manage to shower dress and have breakfast before going to pick up dangerously over-tired daughter from party at 10am. Try to get Tom on his bike. Bike needs repairs. Adam goes to hardware and gets the bits we need. Lunch is eaten (left-over Indian YUM!) Tom tries to ride bike in cul-de-sac, decides it's too slopey and small. Adam takes Tom to park to find flat bit to ride on. I try to get David to prepare his current affairs presentation for Monday. Adam arrives home with Tom in foul mood (both of them that is) riding lesson not a big success. Trip to Dubbo next weekend may involve less bike riding than we'd hoped. Send Adam and Caitlin to bed for a nap - he's snoring on the lounge and she's wandering around crying. I've now been sitting with Dave for about an hour and he has written 3 lines on the subject of the blue-striped fangblenny. I need a recorded message saying "pick up your pencil and get on with it". Once I finish writing this I guess I'll be making Tom a necklace. And then we'll be going out to dinner at Lowenbrau which will make Adam happy and we'll take my Dad which will make him happy.

The week ahead:
16th - 22nd March

Mon - Walk dog. Kids to school. Work at publishers. Pick kids up. Homework. Cook dinner. Caitlin to Ballet at 6pm. Adam's mum for dinner. Adam and Dave to Sword training at 7:45pm.

Tues - Walk dog. Kids to school. Not working at bookshop. Prepare for P&C AGM. Get alcohol permit signed by police for P&C social. Do grocery shopping. Pick up kids. Homework. Cook dinner. Take Tom to Karate. No singing lesson for Caitlin - phew! Go to P&C meeting. Write P&C report for newsletter. Update all P&C contact details for website.

Wed - Walk dog. Kids to school. Work at publishers. Pick kids up. Homework. Take Tom to Drama class. Cook dinner.

Thurs - Walk dog. Kids to school.....Hey! I have NOTHING PLANNED!.....Pick up kids. Pack for weekend away. Pick up David from Chess Club at 3:45pm. Take Caitlin to Song & Dance at 4:15. Pick her up at 4:45pm. Wonder where my afternoon went. Homework. Cook diner. More packing.

Fri - Walk dog before vet comes to pick up animals (assuming I remember to organise this!). Kids to school. Work at publishers. Pick up kids. Drive to Dubbo.

Sat & Sun - Have fun. Hey, it's a good plan don't knock it. Drive home from Dubbo.

It doesn't really look that bad to me. Monday nights are a bit hectic though and there's a notable lack of housework in there. Which is why I want to get a cleaner. Just need to tidy up enough first :P

The lights are on but nobody's home

Hello. Hello? Is this thing on? I'm not managing much by way of bloggy goodness lately, either of the posting or commenting kind. You might spot the occasional Tweet though, 140 characters seems to be something I can manage.

Things are still not quite right in my head (though I'm reading more which is a good thing) I've been struggling with feeling overwhelmed and unaccountably sad for weeks now. It's kind of pissing me off. I was talking to Adam about it and saying how my life, by any objective measure, is pretty fucking awesome and to be feeling on the verge of tears rather more often than is reasonable and not being able to muster up any motivation to do things I actually really want to do sort of sucks. I'm tired because I keep staying up intending to do the things on my to do list but procrastinating until it's too late and I'm falling asleep on the lounge. So I go to bed, don't get enough sleep and do the same thing the next night.

I haven't cooked anything interesting for ages. I've made no jewellery since before Christmas. I need to make a whole bunch of dark ages clothes for us before we go camping at Easter and I've done nothing about that. I haven't done any glass bead making since mid-way through last year.

I'm working 4 days a week and still trying to do most of the volunteer stuff I took on when I was not doing any paid work. I'm not getting my alone time of being in the empty house during the day in silence and I'm missing that desperately.

I'm short on patience with the kids. I'm worried about David and how much work we have to do with his anxieties to get him up to speed for the transition to high school. I hate homework with a fiery passion because it means that for a large part of the week my interactions with the kids are in the form of nagging and arguing and because David in particular can take up to 2 hours to do work that ought to take about 20 minutes.

Bah.

I need a holiday. But not the sort where you run away for a while but it's all still there waiting for you when you come back. Has anyone got a magic wand I can borrow?

I hate laundry

This is what I have to deal with before I go to bed tonight. Washing - no problem. Drying - easy! Folding - ah...yeah...should've done that yesterday when I could have read while everyone else folded. Bugger.

Perhaps I'll just sleep on the lounge.

Bloody dog

We went out for dinner tonight. Just up the street to Istana and we went early - 6:00pm. Food was pretty good, very quick service, I think they were trying to get rid of us before the crowds turned up, we were back home in about an hour. When we opened the front door we were greeted by Clara bouncing around, grinning at us like a maniac and pretty much behaving as though she hadn't seen us for a week. It was all rather amusing and I commented to Adam that she must just be really happy that we hadn't vanished for the whole evening.

Then we walked into the lounge room.

Ah. Not so much happy to see us as guilt-ridden and begging for mercy.

My tablet weaving wool.

Clara had found 3 balls of wool that I bought for tablet weaving, pulled them out of my craft bag, ripped off them out of their wrappers and systematically pulled the balls apart. It took Adam and me 4 hours between us to get the wool untangled and re-rolled into balls.

Let me just say she's damn lucky she's so funny when she grovels.

10th Down Under Feminists Carnival

The 10th Down Under Feminists Carnival is up, this month it has been hosted by Queen of Thorns at Ideologically Impure.

QoT has also put together a list of every blogger featured in a Down Under Feminists Carnival. What a fabulous resource of Aussie and Kiwi feminist blogs!