Singing in the Rain

It is Walk to School Day today. Here are some school-kids (Cherub and his best friend) Walking To School. Well, part of the way, it's a bit far for us to do the whole slog on foot. We were going to ride our bikes but then the rain came down. So we compromised: some car, some walking. It's all good.
 

It is exactly 39 weeks today since Fixit was made redundant. For quite a long while we lived off his redundancy payment and my earnings. Then the big payment ran out and he (finally, reluctantly) went to Centrelink. He was immediately eligible at that point for unemployment benefits and our family also qualified for a health care card, hooray for health care cards and the concessions they bring! So that was a load off my mind, but still there was the nagging problem of what he should do. We still haven't worked that out exactly, but ... today Fixit got a job! As a driver/mechanic for a medical aids delivery company. He starts next week.
 

He's feeling so happy right now. So am I.

Bike Ride

Today was a gorgeous Melbourne autumn day, and Fixit, Cherub and I decided to ride our bikes to school.  After we'd crossed the river there's a hill you need to stand up in your pedals for, with a little bit of flat in the middle for a respite. When we approached the hill, I overtook Cherub (little legs, small bike, no gears) and called out Come on Cherub!! as I powered past. He hates me overtaking him, it's very funny.  He called back Don't do that, you make me laugh and then I haven't got enough power to get up the hill!  Then as we came to the second part of the steep hill I heard a stifled chuckle, and there was Cherub being assisted past me by Fixit riding beside him and pushing him along.  After they'd passed, Fixit looked back and smiled at me, very pleased.

I love riding with my family.

(Cherub's school photos, can't decide which one I prefer)

Catching Up: Picnic at Hanging Rock II.

On Anzac Day we had our annual (as of last year) extended-family Picnic at Hanging Rock.  Hanging Rock is about an hour's drive north-west of Melbourne and was the scene of a well-loved Australian novel and movie, set in the early 1900s which told the story of some schoolgirls going missing while climbing the rock.  It is in fact a perfect setting for a story of disappearing people; both years now when we've climbed it I've ended up having a mini panic attack because I couldn't find one or other of my children.  It is SO EASY to get lost up there. And of course I felt like such a fool zigzagging around the many, many nooks and crannies, my chest tight with anxiety while desperately trying to glimpse a child, but it is a big rock, it is full of deep crevices and my kids were exploring and climbing like a pair of mountain goats. Having said that, they were absolutely fine and no-one but me thought anyone was lost. Actually I think maybe *I* was lost. I wandered round the peak for 20 minutes without once catching sight of my family and they were all there, having a great time.  It is a magnificent climb though, and thoroughly atmospheric even with all the other people clambering around.  The boys were the perfect age this year to get the full benefit and couldn't stop talking all the way home about what awesome fun it had been.  Cherub and my sister's boy were about the same level of competence in terms of climbing skills, and had a fine old time getting into caves and tunnels and imagining Lord of the Rings scenarios.  Climber, true to his name, was up every challenging peak he could find.  It was difficult for me to look at him half the time. Be careful sweetie!





The other fun part was hanging out with my family.  My cousins have now got babies of their own, and it was great seeing my boys engage with and entertain the smaller fry.





My sister, who has now relocated to Victoria after years in Canberra, was also very excited to be a part of a gathering like this, and took some gorgeous photos.



The food was also excellent.  There's a lot of good cooks in the family.  I made a freekeh salad, some Anzac biscuits, some hummus and a baby beetroot, walnut, caramelized onion and goat's cheese pie. I know. Getting fancy in my old age.

Cherub just ate a jam sandwich. Typical.

Twist of Fete

We were, once again, an absolute smash hit at the Merri Creek Fete last weekend.  So many great comments about how good the kids were, and a smiling and appreciative (and huge) crowd to cheer them on.  We had a great time, and I was super proud of them all.  My sister came along and took some gorgeous shots for me.

We tend to perform from youngest to oldest so you can see the development.  This is the Flappers class, for beginners and preppies.  They are a very capable crew this lot.

 

I thought they did a great job. They had to master some tricky stuff but they made it look easy.

 

The next two classes are younger More Than Beginners, and I now have so many of them we've had to split across 2 classes.  These are the Gliders1 Crew.
 


They always bring me sunshine.



And here are the Gliders2



They make me happy.



The Shufflers are intermediates.  I love the application and dedication in this group. They really want to learn tap, and quite often I see kids from this class watching other classes to learn extra routines.



They had a fun and fast routine and they just seized it with gusto.  A couple of these girls will be my junior teachers in a few years time, for sure!



The irrepressible Groovers.  Junior advanced. Always fun, with that touch of Broadway in their souls. I could teach these guys all day. They're delightful.



Their performance was rather ritzy, and had quite a few performance elements that they worked very hard to achieve, like formation changes and different parts for different groups.



Tapsters.  The Big End of school, the advanced class, the seniors.  They got a huge cheer at the end of their routine, because the tapping was so full on in it.

And they had a surprise prop! Here they are throwing money around, although apparently Climber just couldn't get his out of his pockets in time. His face isn't giving it away though.

Take a bow, you gorgeous kids!

Fast and Furious

Our doctor has put Mister Fixit on the Fast 5:2 Diet, in an effort to break the weightloss deadlock with him.  He is not great with self-control, that Fixit. If you haven't heard of this program, basically you eat a tiny amount of food (500 [girls] or 600 [boys] calories) for 2 out of every 7 days, and eat normally for the remainder of the week. It claims to work because you don't live in constant denial, and you also train yourself to forgo instant gratification of the hunger reflex, so your stomach can shrink. It is supposed to have amazing benefits for your cholesterol, immunity and anti-aging. Anyway, I think it sounds perfect for him and I have started on it too, to encourage him, and to deal with 4 pesky kilos of my own.  Gotta say, my first fast day felt like the slowest, longest day of my life! Also, the day after my first fast was a disaster, owing to a bad reaction (too much acid on an empty tum?) to starting the break-of-my-fast with freshly-squeezed orange juice, the upshot of which was me vomiting my breakfast just before I was due to start teaching 4 hours of tap. You can't really say to the watching parents I'm sorry I won't be teaching your children very well today because I've put myself on a crazy fad diet, so I just plugged away, and nibbled at some muffins and recovered after a while. So we'll see if I stay on it for long. I kind of hate the way way fasting makes me think about food ALL THE TIME, whereas normally I really don't.  Meanwhile, I am encouraging and helping Fixit to enter his food intake into a calorie-monitoring app, and I really hope this will encourage a degree of mindfulness with his eating habits, something he sorely lacks.



Climber had his swimming carnival a couple of weeks ago, and came second in the breaststroke!  Just like his brother!  He competed well in several events, but not against just people his age, I'm not sure why.  In excellent timing on our part, Fixit and I were there to see him win his ribbon.



Cherub has gone of on school camp today. As always, I think the house will be much quieter without our singing, dancing chatterbox.  He was so excited, and pretty much sat ready, with his packed suitcase by his side, for an hour this morning, waiting for me to be ready to leave.



Climber has bought, with his own money, a Soda Stream machine. It is making me feel cranky, because I never buy softdrink for household drinking, it is purely a party or going-out treat. I have banned use of it to once-a-week. I feel mean about it, because I know half the attraction is the actual making of their own fizzy drink, but the other half is Climber's unhealthy need to feed his sweet tooth.  Anyway. It's a weird situation now. I feel guilty for denying him the fun of purchasing his exciting new fizzydrink maker and like the biggest spoilsport on the planet, he feels guilty for letting me down but also just really, really wants to make it. And drink it.  He is such a lovely boy.  I suspect many kids his age would just abuse their mean mothers for ruining all the fun all the time.



The house across the road has been slowly knocked down this week. It was the rental house of the street, the one with young people throwing parties, and it was in a terrible state: only good for party-throwing young people, basically.  Despite that, it sold last year for  three quarters of a million, as a knockdown.  We don't even live in a highly desirable suburb. I find that incredible. And rather depressing. I wish the real estate market would settle down. It never does though.

Octopuses are the new Pineapple.

Craft Camp Time, where the packing is hefty...



Threads are flying, and the laughs ring all day



Views are pretty, and the meals are delicious



So stitch, tribe of crafters, and let's all enjoy our stay.
(with apologies to George Gershwin)



Yes. Another gorgeous weekend at Sewjourn with fabulous friends. It was the Susan-and-J-Name Crarf Camp, starring (from front left going clockwise) Jenny, Susan M, Susan K, Jan, Kate, Jac, Janet and Suse. Kate and I toyed with temporarily changing our names to Suzie-Joan and Janey-Sue for the duration, to fit in with the theme.

I had been feeling stressed and cranky in the week leading up, but as soon as I walked in the studio door and saw all those lovely women smiling in welcome, the anxiety and crankiness melted away. Sometimes you just need to get away, don't you?  And getting away with a great group of women to a great location, is ... well, great.

All the girls seemed to whip up an astonishing array of lovely things.  They're so productive. I am much slower, mostly I think because I need a long time to process sewing instructions: read, think, read again, make sure I've understood it, ask Jenny if I'm not sure, lay it out, pin it, check again, then sew.  And if I get distracted in the middle of that process by all the interesting conversations flying round the table, I have to start the read/think process all over again.  But better safe than sorry is my sewing motto. Yes. I have a Sewing Motto. So I managed just two garments, one of which was made fiddly because it was a kids top pattern that I adapted to fit me.  The pattern was from a Japanese book: all diagrams, no written instructions.  (Then I made a skirt from Ottobre magazine which was all instructions and no diagrams. So confusing for my poor brain!)  This is the top.  The lovely fabric was given to me by a friend. (Justine. Another J-name.) If I make it again I will cut it wider round the neck, but everything else was pretty right.


This is the skirt, my crazy cat-lady fabric. I'm pretty happy with both garments.



When I walked in the studio, a very groovy foot-stool, wrapped up in plastic, caught my eye and I distinctly thought whoa isn't that gorgeous! But I was lugging stuff and greeting people so it didn't really register.  Once I was settled Sue M. said your stool is over there and it was only then that I remembered that I'd bought it from her via facebook months ago.  Sue finds the old stools and does them up with fantastic fabrics and Suse and I both ordered them.

It is even lovelier in real life, and PERFECT for resting my feet while watching telly.



In other random news, my plan to make the mosquitos attack my room-mate and footstool maker Sue M by spraying myself with repellent before bedtime was a complete failure.  She said she heard them whine past but didn't receive a single bite. Meanwhile I got bitten 9 times. So unfair. We also discussed the awesomeness of octopuses, celebrated Suse's birthday on Saturday with cupcakes and champagne, and took home some lovely tea courtesy of first-timer Jac.



I love Craft Camp so much.  Can't wait till June!

When Will There Be Good News?

Because people care about us and they know it's been more than 6 months since Fixit's retrenchment, I've recently been fielding questions about Fixit's job-hunting a LOT.  And whilst I absolutely appreciate that these questions come from love and concern for us, I can't give a good answer to the question, so I am starting to find dealing with it (a) depressing, and (b) slightly annoying, because it keeps bringing up how anxious and frustrated I'm feeling about it all: primarily because nothing has changed and nothing appears to be about to change and the longer this goes on the more likely it feels that nothing will ever change.

Current employment climate aside, some of the no-change-in-the-situation status is because Fixit is dragging his heels on applying for jobs, initially because he wasn't sure what he should pursue, then because he decided to do the re-training at TAFE (part 2 of which is in hiatus while the TAFE get their act together) and recently, I think, because he is intimidated by the nature of job applications; the fact that he has to sit on the computer and find sites, and register, and then tweak and submit cover letters and resumes, and worst of all promote himself, is deeply off-putting for him, and he keeps finding all these very important tasks he needs to do in the shed instead.  Well, the man is a mechanic, not a desk-jockey.  Computers are not his thing.  I have put it to him that he really needs to start casting his net wide in the current job market, and that maybe he could delay shed-gratification until after he's spent a portion of his day at the computer looking at job sites and sending emails. And in theory he agrees.  But then there'll be a snippet of paid handyman work to pursue, or an important thing needed on his or a friend's motorbike and, well....  The other reason I'm finding it too-depressing-to-think-about is my lack of faith in the hiring process, probably due to the experience we had when he applied for work at Qantas all those years ago.  There are just so many hoops to jump through these days - a veritable rigmarole of submissions and tests and phone interviews and day workshops and only then a face-to-face interview - and at the end of it I'm not sure I have any confidence in the HR people to know a good worker when they see one, specifically in something like mechanical engineering which doesn't necessarily need a sparkly go-getter person who can talk the talk in an interview. My feeling is that his best chance to find a new job will be through someone he knows, but he can't sit round indefinitely waiting for that to happen.

So yes. That's where we stand, and as I say, the longer it goes on, the more depressing and uncomfortable I find it. We're still okay money-wise, provided nothing goes pear-shaped in our lives, and the rest of our life is chugging along really well, so meantime I may have to redirect all queries to the man himself. Otherwise kind and concerned friends and family might find themselves on the receiving end of me-in-a-state saying he hasn't got a job, he doesn't seem to be looking particularly hard and I'm starting to worry he'll never get one now, which will inevitably end with people trying to offer me helpful solutions and actually, although we've all done it, that's never really as helpful as people think.

(Having said that, if you have asked me recently how it was going please don't feel like you've done wrong.  This is about how I'm feeling, and I do appreciate the concern.  But I am starting to feel like the best approach is for everyone to trust that if we get good news I will broadcast it far and wide immediately.)

To counterbalance all this stress, there have been lots of nice things happening around here.

Astrid, Jenny and I celebrated 13 years of motherhood and friendship together by taking our teenage firstborns out for a lovely meal.





Cherub's school has introduced a new music program and Cherub, having watched his big brother learn flute, was keen as mustard to join. He has now had 3 lessons on the clarinet, knows how to play 6 notes and is less squeaky every time he shows us.



He was very proud to show his notes to Grandma when she came to visit, and even set up a music stand with his music book on it, despite not yet being able to read music.



When Mum was here, we took her to see my sister's new house, which was fun.



Cherub came second in the breaststroke at his school swimming carnival, which meant he got to compete in the District Carnival where he came a very creditable 4th in his heat.

 

And we had a fun night out celebrating Jen's birthday,





Plenty of good times, then, just no news as yet.  I'll tell you when there is.