The rest of 2014

So since my last catch-up, I have the following things to report.

Fixit has been made permanent at the Rehab Equipment Hire place. He initially applied for a warehouse packer/delivery driver position but his skills and talents were recognised and he was eventually hired as the Warehouse Manager.  He works long, physically demanding hours in a hot dusty shed, but seems reasonably content.  This is a shot of him celebrating his birthday this year, we had a deluxe dinner of sushi, garlic prawns and Peking duck pancakes, and he was very impressed.



Cherub graduated to a full-size bike. It is my old mountain-bike with a more masculine set of handlebars.



Cherub's school had another fete.  I made more bunnies for the craft stall, and some cupcakes for the cake stall which suffered somewhat by being transported to the fete in the basket of my bicycle.  I worked pretty much the whole day on the Champagne/Strawberries and Cream stall so didn't really get to wander round much. It was a good day though.



My sister was diagnosed with tongue cancer.  She has had the lump removed and had 6 weeks of radiation to make sure.  It's been hard for her, but she's been brave and positive throughout. Her recovery starts now.



During the school holidays my Dad and I rented a house on Phillip Island for a week and took my kids and Bron's kids with us, and while we were there we celebrated Cherub's 11th birthday.  We did a bit of rock and tree climbing too, and some maze-running.




We also visited an a native animal park, where we patted kangaroos and tried to avoid the stroppy emus.




We helped Bron move into a better house, and I cooked lots of soup for her. Not that she was able to eat much of it before her mouth got too sore, but you do what you can.



We went to the Royal Melbourne Show with friends, and the kids had a great time as usual. Patting baby animals, trying out rides, inspecting yarn-bombed items and getting a showbag. Fun.




The boys finished off their soccer seasons, and Cherub was awarded Best and Fairest Player in his U11 team.

We took Cherub to see The Dream by Bell Shakespeare (Climber was off camping with a friend and a whole host of mosquitoes at French Island)  The production was an adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream using only 6 cast members. It was clever and fun, although not as fantastic as some previous Bell Shakespeare plays I've seen. But you know, gave my kid some culture.

And we took both boys to their first comedy gig.  We started them with a master, the brilliant Bill Bailey, and the kids loved it.  It was really fun taking them to see this, sharing with them something we love and seeing them love it too.



Both kids received excellent reports, and Climber received an A for his flute exam.  He also performed a short flute solo as part of Junior Stage Band. It was beautiful.

I missed out on September Craft Camp, but got to sneak off for a night to enjoy a girly-getaway to a deluxe spa resort with Jen and Astrid.



Climber went away on Year 8 camp. He had a very good time, possibly too good a time... (don't ask)



Fixit wasn't granted any holidays over the Christmas January period (grr) but was given a week in early December.  It was nice to spend time with him again, and he certainly needed the rest and recharge..


And summer is on its way, which means we see much less of Basil. So I grabbed a picture while I could, with the portable air conditioner which will soon be working hard as the hot months arrive.



So that is us pretty much up-to-date, although I need to report back on my end-of-year concerts too. Still waiting on a bit of footage and some time to piece it all together.

In the meantime, I'm quite glad to see the back of 2014, what with the various familial health scares and the job stuff with Fixit.  I hope that next year brings health and stability and fun, and wish anyone that still reads here love and happiness for the new year.

Reconnecting...

Some of the things that affect my ability to blog are: School holidays, houseguests, having to host a party, going away, a big work commitment, a big school commitment, stress or Fixit being around in the daytime.  All those things make me feel I can't sit at my computer composing and constructing tales of our life; all of those things also happened in the last 6 weeks, hence why nothing has been posted here since Cherub's birthday.  And now I have SO much catching up to do.

Because of course we've been busy as busy bees.  My Mum and my sister have both been to stay, Mum for a christening and my sister to photograph all the horseraces that happened in Melbourne last month (there were quite a few!).  Fixit had a birthday while Mum was here, and although I had to work on the actual evening of his birthday, he and I were able to go out on a date the night before, because Mum kindly minded the chillun for us.  I did make a cake for him before I rushed off to tap.



My significant work commitment was the replacement of the portable floor at my tap hall, involving trips to the hardware store in borrowed cars and a lot of painting.



As well as some jigsaw work by the invaluable Mister Fixit.



The new boards sound great and look much better, but owing to the fact some of them are slightly warped, the brave new easy set-up I envisaged hasn't happened and in fact there appears to be just as much taping and messing around so far. *sigh*



The major stress of the last 6 weeks was the ongoing saga of the stolen gas meter at my tap hall, which seems resolved, after 12 weeks (I'm not making that up) of no heating or hot water. Ridiculously, the meter was replaced after a mere 8 weeks, only to be stolen again that same evening.  It then took just 2 weeks (!!) to get a new one, but as soon as it arrived it was taken away for safekeeping for a further 2 weeks while a safety cage was built.  I had been boiling a kettle for so long to mop the floors that I'd actually forgotten how I used to get the hot tap water in to the mop bucket and it took 2 minutes of thinking for me to remember.

Anyway.  Hello again!  Everything else that happened really needs it's own post, so I will post again soon.  Meanwhile, here's a picture the kids took of Basil in the washing machine, he loves to jump in there when doing a crazy-cat pelt through the house.

Crazy insane bat-month

So October is crazy insane bat-month for us. All these birthdays. Hot on the heels of Cherub's 5th comes Fixit's 40th, then we whoosh along to Bertie and Nell, and let's not even mention all our little and big friends who were also born in this crazy insane bat-month.

Anyway, to celebrate Fixit turning the big Four-OH! a friend has bought us tickets for a little overnight jaunt to Launceston. (Isn't jaunt a great word? I'm going on a jaunt.) So that seemed a good enough way to celebrate; farm the kids out, hop on a plane, stay in a posh hotel, and have ourselves a romantic night away. (And by the way, you would think a wise couple would not get themselves any more of this action before a dirty weekend away, but this is crazy insane bat-month remember, so hell, crack out the antibiotics once more! Woohoo.)

And then, crazily, insanely, then I thought - because I am crazy insane bat-woman - that maybe Fixit's family and friends might like to get in on this celebrating Fixit being 40 lark so I decided to organise a surprise drinkies for him tonight. Let it be stated now that in the history of surprise parties this will have to go down as the most half-arsed low-rent surprise party ever, but hey! It's the half-arsed low-rent thought that counts, right? When Fixit was taking the boys swimming last Friday I broke into his phone and started ringing people. With instructions to turn up at our place any time after 7 (i.e. after dinnertime, and after the kids -touch wood - are virtually if not actually in bed) for a birthday drink. The good thing about hosting two parties in 4 days is that the house is still mostly presentable, so cleaning is not an issue. And there is some alcohol in the house, but not, obviously enough for however the fuck many people are coming tonight, so yesterday I went to Dan Murphy's Liquor Store and stared, bewildered at the slabs of beer until a kind employee took me under his wing. So I've been stashing alcohol round the house and trying to work out where the fuck the esky is so I can chill the slab (note to self, buy ice!), and hoping Fixit won't notice that hidden in the fridge behind the leftover beers from Cherub's party are another dozen light beers. Then, as I bought a takeaway coffee at our favourite cafe and was telling the guys about my crazy insane bat-plans, they offered to fix up a couple of platters of dips and breads at bargain-basement price, and I could hardly refuse that kind offer. So I dropped off my empty platters on the way to school and will pick them up filled with food when I collect Climber later today. And I've got 4 hours to think of a plausible excuse for said platters because our kids are blabbermouths and as such have not been informed of my crazy insane bat-plans.

So on my still to-do list today I have:

• Dishes
• Blog about it. Wait, how did that get on here?
• Birthday cake(s)
• Mop floor
• Cook nice family dinner (because that's all -I think- he's expecting for tonight)
• Buy ice
• Pick up platters
• Get kids fed, bathed, story-ed and bedded really early without Fixit cottoning on
• Convince Fixit to wear one of his new birthday shirts
  

And I think that's it. Phew. The rest I can do when people start knocking at the door. That's the surprise element, that coincidentally a whole heap of his friends and family will be rocking up to wish him many happy returns. No hiding behind the couch in the dark required. See? Definitely low-rent. Meanwhile here's hoping that no-one's blabbed to Fixit. (He shaved this morning, do you think that's suspicious?) I am also hoping that people actually remember to turn up and also that there is enough beer for the male contingent and that none of them stay too late (school night) or disturb the sleeping children. That's not too much to hope, right?

I'm definitely crazy and insane bat-woman. But he is worth it.

Oh, my love ...

...my darling
I've hungered for your touch
a long lonely time
and time goes by so slowly
and time can do so much
are you still mine?
I need your love
I need your love
Godspeed your love to me

Congratulations and well done, Jenny!! Yes, the Righteous Brothers, The Unchained Melody, the theme from Ghost. So easy!! Although there were many other wonderful guesses, and anyone who strayed in to Whitney or Celine territory was definitely an honourable mention. Sheep's Clothing also got it right, so email me your address and I will send a prize your way as well. The cryptic clue (Starting Over) that a few people got excited about was not meant to be a clue. It was all about the bride, who had a fairly disastrous first marriage and is now glowing with happiness at her new chance for happiness in life. She couldn't tell me enough that life begins at 40.

In other news, it was Fixit's birthday and it was totally drowned by the wedding and post wedding exhaustion. He received only one phone call the whole day to wish him happy birthday. (If my family are reading this and feeling bad right now, well don't, because nearly everyone forgot and actually now I think of it I never remember Bronnie's partner's birthday because it's the same day as Cherub's, so who am I to criticise?)

Anyway. He's been neglected, poor Fixit. I managed to bake a cake, rustle up a card and give him 3 very nice shirts, so I wasn't totally derelict, but dinner was ordinary and then I went to work.


For a change I decorated the birthday cake on my own, and to amuse myself I made an almost (didn't quite have enough matching smarties) symmetrical pattern. I didn't really think the kids would pick up on it, they're usually too busy trying to sneak a smartie off the edges without getting caught, but Climber was absolutely delighted and talked to Fixit for a good 5 minutes about it. Look it goes purple orange pink red here and also over here. And look it yellow green blue etc. He liked it so much, he drew it.