Well, here I am back again for my self-inflicted little moments that happen on a Monday. As I have blogged before, Monday's are not my favourite day of the week, so this is my way of having something positive to blog about on a Monday.
* I think roses are the only flowers that look better cut and in a vase, than leaving to bloom on the plant.
* Does it count as a weight loss exercise to leave the air-conditioning off all day so that the house feels like a sauna?
* Little blonde curly-haired baby girls look sweet in candy-floss coloured pyjamas.
* There are two words in the english language that I love to say. Sea mist. There's something very mysterious and alluring about a sea mist, and I watched one slowly creep in from the Pacific Ocean this afternoon.
* Corn seed does not take long to germinate in hot weather.
* Hillary Lang's little dolls are wonderful and fun to make. I'm making one for Alice's Christmas present.
*Vanilla Coke with ice is perfection on a hot day.
* Children love to look through the junk mail that comes through the letterbox. It's great entertainment for them.
* I like to rescue spiders that get stuck in the bathtub. My two boys do not understand that!
We do love Saturdays, and this week we were able to purchase an outdoor umbrella.
It has been a lovely, relaxing start to the weekend this morning when we dined outside under the shade of our umbrella as the early morning sun warmed our backs and made our eyes squint. It's so nice to sit leisurely out there with coffee, banana on toast and a magazine to read.
It has not been a very good week for me - it has been exceptionally busy. And to add to it all, I had an order through my felt shop for 5 pillows - which is wonderful as it brings in a bit extra, but it's a lot of extra work at this time of the year, but I am grateful for the order. The car battery died again this week (thank you to the children who left the car doors open), the hens got out into the vegetable garden, and the night beetle (grass grub) has eaten all the leaves off my nectarine and cherry trees, and now is starting on the apple and blackcurrents. Grrrr! But I've also done something to my neck. Last weekend I actually slipped over on a wet floor at PacnSave (it was raining outside), right in front of a horde of people buying their lotto tickets for the weekend, and I've pulled the muscles in the right side of my neck rather badly (Darn it, if it was America I could have sued them)! But I'm way too busy and tied down to four children to go to physio for it.
But the bright side of a bad week is a sunny Saturday morning, eating breakfast outside under the umbrella, husband home, two empty days ahead, and my eldest son is playing tennis this morning which is rather thrilling for him, because he was asked to play by the team who is a grade above him. The under 12s. So he's quite excited to be up with the big boys. Go Hugh!
Meredith and I are going to have some Christmas planning time this weekend. Talk about decorations and turkeys and cookies and presents. Lovely!
This month is our celebration month. Both me and my husband have birthdays. It's also our wedding anniversary month. As you get older, birthdays make you reflect alot on the past, on yourself, and make you think about your blessings, your experiences through life, and the future. Next year I'll be 40 years old. I'm still in my 30's. I still think of myself as 'young'. One more year left in my 'youth'. But next year . . . well, I'll be 40.
I've heard that the older you get the more realistic about the world and life you become. Maybe that is true. But I don't want to lose romance. I don't want to lose idealism. I don't want to lose that feeling you have when you're truly young that you can do anything - that life is endless.
Wedding anniversaries make you think about relationships. And it has made me realize how incredibly blessed I am in my marriage. How so very grateful I am to God that He has blessed me with the experience of knowing what is true love between a man and a woman with my husband - a love that grows and deepens each year.
We've been celebrating our marriage this week - after 13 years together I am blessed to own that I am more in love with my husband now than I was at our wedding. How does that happen? Back then it was new, exciting, a lifetime ahead of us like an empty book. When I look at photos of me at my wedding, in my bridal dress, young and fresh faced, we didn't know then what was ahead of us. Would we have chosen to marry knowing the hardships that lay before us - the miscarriage, the difficult pregnancies and births, the sadness that comes with dealing with a chronic condition in one of our children, the financially difficult times, the tragedies around us that happen to our family and friends? The petty little annoyances, the uncertainties, the aging, the lines on our faces that weren't there 13 years ago, and the gray hairs, the imperfect bodies, the responsibilities, the self-sacrifice, the giving in to each other? Would we have chosen marriage? Then I ask myself this:
Would I only ask for tears of joy in my life? Would I only ask that no sorrow touch our lives? Would I only ask that no sadness fill our hearts? To deny that would be to deny the joy of love and companionship too.
While I don't ask for the sorrow or the hardships, I could not be without them. To be without them would mean to be without the man I love and the children God has given us.
With the tears of sorrow come also the tears of joy.
Having someone who loves you - even if no one else does. That makes a good marriage worth it. Going through life together, finding little things to laugh at, taking comfort in the familiarity of the mundane, remembering the little family jokes and sayings and mannerisms. The secret smiles across the table at each other when one of the children says something funny. Long, private analytic talks about ourselves, our neighbours, our friends, our acquantainces. Watching tv together, going for moonlit walks together down to the gate to collect the rubbish bin. Romance survives even among the prosaic things of this life.
Watching him do little things for me at the end of the day like the vaccuming. Asking me to mend his favourite shorts. Planning holidays. Having him fill up the car with petrol for me (I hate doing that)! Seeing young couples holding hands in public places and feeling content that 13 years down the track we still do that too.
Yes, we've had a good week. A good week of celebrating the ordinariness of marriage, and the extraordinariness of a deep romance that lasts a lifetime. I thank God for my husband and for the oneness of spirit that we share. Here's to the next 13 years and beyond, my darling.
Yesterday at 1pm I was changing the dirty, smelly nappy of my baby.
Thirteen years ago at 1pm I was walking down the aisle of an old and beautiful chapel to get married.
Every year on our wedding anniversary, I always like to pause for a moment at that time and think about what I am doing now and what I was doing then, and marvel at the contrast.
My husband asked me yesterday if there was one moment from our wedding day that I could relive, which moment would it be? I already knew that it would be that moment - at 1pm or shortly thereafter (I was a little fashionably late), when I stood in the arched doorway of the chapel, heard the organ strike up Handel's Royal Fireworks (yes, we had plenty of ribbing about that, but it's very grand and very beautiful walk-down-the-aisle music), and saw my soon-to-be-husband turn his head as I took that first step towards matrimony and the next 13 years.
Here is me with my Dad, just at that moment where Handel's Royal Fireworks began. (Ohhhh - look at that waist. Where has that gone?)
Some of my smaller attendants . . . one of whom is now married herself.
And my bridesmaids, all now married, and two of whom have had babies in the last week!
Seven Things About My Wedding Day That I'm Glad I Did
1. The soft butter colour and white of the attendants went perfectly with the antique wood and glass in the chapel
2. I had pure silk imported from Thailand for my wedding dress, lace from France, a 100 year old hand-embroidered vintage veil imported from England, and shoes borrowed from my cousin. I shied away from the blue garter and used tiny little blue flowers in my bouquet.
3. A chance encounter with Kevin Berkahn (NZ's premiere wedding dress designer at the time) turned into some of the best advice I was given - he told me to wear my hear down and natural and not to turn myself into someone my new husband wouldn't recognize (LOL). So I did, and it's one of the things my husband liked the most.
4. We used the old traditional vows - you know, the ones you hear in the BBC's Pride and Prejudice. The language alone is terribly romantic. Betrothing and pledging. Lovely.
5. On the invitations, we requested that the women wore hats.
6. In the chapel there is a bell tower. We asked for special permission to ring the bells when the bride arrived. It was a lovely surprise to the guests, and let the minister (my cousin) and the men know that we were arriving.
7. We had the old English hymn Jerusalem played as we left the church. This is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written (in my opinion). You might recognize it from the movie, Chariots of Fire.
Seven Things I Wish I Had Done On My Wedding Day
1. Paid for a professional photographer. We paid for an amateur photographer, and while we were happy with most of the photos, there were a lot we weren't happy with.
2. I wish I had saved enough money to buy that Kevin Berkahn dress that I loved.
3. Have had all my Lees nieces for flowergirls. I didn't at the time because there were so many of them (11, I think), and I was worried about how it might look and how we'd transport them to the chapel.
4. Actually I can't think of anything else.
It was a perfect day, and we love to reminisce about it every year. It's incredible how fast 13 years can go by.
We had a belated Guy Fawkes last night. Our favourite neighbours came over to join us, the kids stayed up late. It was a beauiful evening. One of those lovely evenings after a really hot day where everything is warm and still and fragrant. Well, it would have been fragrant in a nicer way if it hadn't been for the fresh aroma of you-know-what wafting over from the dairy farm over the hedge.
But the kids had fun, although Teddy, for all his bravado before the fireworks began, burst into tears when the loud, banging rockets shot away into the sky above our heads, so I spent most of the time with him inside behind the safety of the glass doors. (But secretly I'm scared of fireworks myself, so I didn't mind).
In the end, the Sparklers came out, and Meredith suggested we all do a Fairy dance, which the men kindly declined (awww, poor sports)!
Over the years we have made some awful mistakes when it comes to toys for our children. You know the type - they last 5 minutes and then they break, or you need a lifetime's supply of batteries to keep them running, and just the sheer noise that comes out of them is enought to make an entire household deaf. But we have made some good purchases too, and Sarah over at one of my favourite blogs, Clover Lane, is doing a blog linky thingy where you post about your family's favourite toys and the good purchases. Of course, we love the invaluable Legos, Duplos and the Thomas the Tank Engine train track set, but I won't mention them here.
This John Deere tractor was expensive but has lasted very well, and if anything lasts in my family for more than a week, it has to be good. The children have had a lot of fun out of this and it's still going strong - Alice loves to sit in the trailer and get her older siblings to take her on rides. She'd stay in there all day if she could.
Several Christmasses ago we gave this doll's house to Meredith. It's all wooden, beautifully designed (the roof lifts up for the attic), and the front opens, and it's just sooo pretty to look at. Meredith has had hours of pleasure playing quietly in her room with the little dolls and furniture. The accessories for the house are expensive, so we've just added to it slowly, and Meredith has used her Kelly dolls (another good buy) for the people. And in a few years Alice will benefit from it too.
Another toy that has surived is the good old Tonka truck. I tell you what - this think is indestructable! It has had 10 year olds sit in the back of it and it doesn't break. My 5 year old son loves it - I think he gets it out at least once every day to play with.
I hunted everywhere for this card game. Happy Families. It was a favourite with me and my brother and sister when we were children (although my Dad came to call it 'Grumpy Families' because of all the fights we got into over it). It's not a terribly PC game these days, so when I say I had to hunt for them, it took me a year or so of looking in every shop I went into - and then I found them (at a really cheap price) in the Warehouse! And my children love it, and even my 5 year old can grasp the rules of the game.
We inherited a stack of these Wally's World (of Where's Wally fame) magazines from my nephew (who is now an adult), and I have to say how brilliant they have been for rainy days, long car trips and sick days in bed. They are full of stories, puzzles, games and wacky stuff. I believe he got them as a regular subscription.
This game, Buckaroo is fantastic for the really young and the adult as well. The children have loved it and had lots of laughs out of it.
We were given this Fisher Price barnyard when my oldest son was just a baby and it is always a popular choice. It has been the centrepiece of a Lego farmyard, race trace and a focal point on the Thomas the Tank Engine railway among many other things. It opens right out and makes animal noises too.
My older children (10yrs and 8yrs) are just discovering the world of pre-teen books and a love of reading. So I am very glad for my Enid Blyton collection that I have had since I was a child, added to over the years when I visited second-hand book stores, and have bought new ones recently as well. The book depository (UK origin) also has Enid Blyton books that I never knew existed! What a gold mine!
Of course, there are so many other toys that we have loved that I don't have pictures of. The piano (not really a toy, but gives a lot of pleasure), cooking sets, musical instruments, dress ups, tupperware, paper dolls - they all have their part and have been valuable, but the toys I have listed have been some of the more significant purchases that have been worth their weight in gold.
This might actually make you cringe, but I can't help that.
It's that time of year, when you live in the country, that you get used to seeing these . . .
Great big, loud, terrible country flies. Buzzing, buzzing - dive bombing and swooping in manic desperation to find something to land on or somewhere to escape.
I call them country flies, because they don't seem as pesky somehow as city flies, but that is probably more about perception than fact.
And unless I keep all the doors and windows closed - which might be considered sinful on a beautiful blue-sky sunny day, there's no way I can keep them out of the house. So we tolerate them, invest in flyspray and relish the fact that country flies means that summer has arrived.
Lately I've been asking myself why I like to blog? My goal is to be able to blog everyday, but somehow 4 children and homeschooling and a house to run just doesn't figure into my blogging ideals. And sometimes I really don't have anything worthy to say. I pretty much live a boring life just now. Interesting and valuable to me, but filled up with the little insignificant dramas of motherhood, survival and homeschooling and a small community, where the only interesting thing that happens in a day is wondering why the hens have given only 4 eggs, instead of their usual 6.
So I've been thinking about why I blog.
I'm one of those people that like to write. I always have. Since I learned how to read and form letters I have strung stories together. I remember getting really, really mad at my Dad once when I was 8 years old, because as we were leaving our summer holiday at Kaiteriteri to drive back to Blenheim, (three and a half hour drive in those days), he packed my blank notebook and pen in the boot of the car. It's funny the things you remember from childhood.
Writing is my outlet for my quiet personality (although I was gratified recently to have my neighbour shake his head in disbelief when I claimed this), and my inability to voice strong opinions face to face. I may or may not have the talent it takes to be a great writer, and even though I only have one little children's book under my belt, and a few articles here and there, it is a compulsion I cannot help. I was born with the desire to express myself in the written word, and it's not going to go away anytime soon. But I am the type of writer who needs quiet and solitude and the ability to put myself into what I am writing to get anything worthwhile out of it, and in a busy household of four children who are at home most of time, this is near impossible.
The other reason I blog is to keep a journal of this season of our lives as our children are growing up. I recently discovered the value of this when my cousin's wife told me about www.blurb.com. I am pretty hopeless at scrapbooking, and keeping photo albums up to date. When I reached my 100th post recently and remembered that I started this blog around the beginning of the year, I realized how my blog has pretty much taken over this role of albums and scrapbooking for me in a way that is not a chore or very timeconsuming, and how awesome it would be to somehow compile it all into a book as a record of 2010. Then my cousin told me about blurb and showed me a fantastic book that she had made for her son's 21st birthday - a photographic and text record of his childhood in a beautifully bound hardback book. So I talked it over with Robin and we decided it would be worth the money (and it's surprisingly inexpensive) to invest in something like this on an annual basis.
So I downloaded blurb and got started, and even though it slurps your blog automatically into a book, you still need to delete, arrange, edit and change the pages around, and it is strangely addictive. Yesterday I burned a whole batch of shortbread because I got engrossed in my blog book!
There is a third reason I blog, and that is because it keeps me connected with the outside world. On days where I am the only adult I see until my husband comes home it's nice to skip around my blogroll and meet up with my 'internet friends'. It's a strange kind of fellowship, but it's important to me, and I love the diversity of my blogroll and the people I have 'met' and become friends with. We encourage each other, support each other, have virtual laughs with each other and sympathise and bond with each other. It's not the world of Anne of Green Gables or the world my parents grew up in, but it's a new and exciting world with a flavour all of its own, and I love it, and I think the minutes I spend on my computer and my blog are worth every second.
It's a job I procrastinate with - because I'm a perfectionist when it comes to cleaning the shower.
I use lots of white vinegar because I hate that soap scum that collects on the glass, but it usually is a lot longer process to clean than just wiping it over with glass cleaner. So I procrastinate, but sooner or later - like on Fridays - it needs cleaning rather badly.
But since my birthday, when my husband gave me a sleek little MP4, bathroom cleaning has become so much more interesting. I practically skip to the bathroom now, MP4 tucked into my bra (until I can get a proper holder made), bucket of cleaners and rags in my hands, and I escape to another world while scrubbing the glass.
I love audio books and I love my new MP4. Right now I'm listening to an old favourite, The Rain Maker by John Grisham.
An entire 17 hours of unabridged awesomeness.
For those of you that love a handmade Christmas - here is some inspiration in the form of a free ezine put together by Amy from inspireco - her amazing blog.
It has some wonderful ideas and free patterns by people such as Jenny B. Harris and Mary Englebreit and so many other talented people, and the photography is good enough to eat!
Now onto more pleasant subjects. The garden is blooming in Canterbury. It's my birthday today and I am thrilled to find that the roses are coming out, the irises are flying like flags, and daisies, granny's bonnet and all those other little pretties are showing their faces around here.
My Birthday rose, given to me by my husband last year.
More roses...
In a windy, exposed site, I am so happy to have flowers.
I'm glad you stopped by! I spent many years in my twenties travelling the world looking for greener pastures, and in the end I found them here - at the end of the world, in the green pastures of my home country, New Zealand. I'm married to my kiwi husband of 22 years and I have 4 kiwi kids. I have a day job I love as a medical receptionist, and I'm a part-time student of Sociology at Waikato University. I write from my home on one of those many New Zealand green pastures.
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