Reflecting on Communities

As I was driving home from work tonight, I was reflecting on my community at work. I love the people I work with. It makes all the difference. Even those I am not close to, I appreciate. At the worst of times and the best of times it is great to belong to a community.

Reading my feeds I found on Snoskred's "Life in the Country" a beautiful post along the same lines of what I had been thinking. Her guest blogger Tiffany from 3 Ring Circus had written this lovely post about living in a community: Out of Her Niche.

I think communities can be built in all different kinds of places. I have lived in small communities and enjoyed the 'neighbourly' kind of community and have experienced community in workplaces, friendship circles, families and through my children's lives. It is a valuable thing.

I agree with Tiffany that sometimes you don't have to be like them or even necessarily spend a lot of time together, but when you belong to one, they are there for you and it's a marvellous thing.

Sifting Through Memories

I have spent much of these 'at home' holidays, on improving my home. When my daughter moved out, my son claimed her room and lets just say the transition was quick and rough. Things have been shoved and tucked away and as a result out of the four rooms upstairs, only one has been fit to be in. I have a lot of storage space up there too, yet it has been very poorly utilised.

I have spent today sorting through the 'stuff' my daughter has kept during her 18 years so far. Her dad dropped in to see my son today and declared she had a similar stash at his place! She also has another 'home' in Melbourne with all the important stuff she needs.

I have discussed this sorting out with her and she agreed that she didn't really need to keep every assignment and workbook she had filled in the 13 years at school. I have also culled some of the things I know she wouldn't want. So we have boxes of karate memories, travel memories (she has been to US, Italy and NZ, as well as around Australia), cards and letters (who knew kids wrote to each other so much and in such a variety of ways!), photo's, important school stuff (certificates, school captain badges, photos, awards etc), soft toys, journals and diaries and performance stuff (music, drama, debating, choir).

There was so much, I didn't really have time to read her diaries and letters as I always feared my mum would when I moved out of home. I did reflect though on how much she has achieved in her life. She's awesome!

The room is empty now and the boxes are labelled and taped up and sitting in one of the storage areas. I wonder when/if she'll ever look at it all again. I just couldn't get rid of it all. I don't feel as sad as I thought I would, but it has been months since she left, so perhaps that's why it took so long.

Coughing and Spluttering

I have had the full range of winter ailments this year. On this first day of the holidays I have woken with a sore chest and cough. I did enjoy a full nights sleep last night.
I am drenched with relief that it is holidays. Last term was just too full on for me personally. I need to rest, clean my home, throw out stuff and catch up on all the details of my life. I have no travel plans. I am going to get re-acquainted with my home.
I put my son on a plane yesterday to join his dad in QLD for a holiday. It will be quiet around here without him and his friends. The last two nights there have been a tangle of bodies sleeping in his room each night and lots of comings and goings and laughter. I love the kids, but honestly will appreciate a break in the traffic.
Andy is off to Tassie today. I don't know how I feel about that. Mixed I guess, is all I can say.

Recapping My Weekend

Pa
Pa is back in hospital again. He turned 87 on the 8th. I haven't been able to see him for a week because I had the flu again and didn't want to expose him to it. I am worried about him.
Lovely Saturday Afternoon Visit
Visited Andy's mum on Saturday afternoon. She's had a delightful renovation done on her back veranda. I am very impressed. White rooms, floor, ceiling, walls, big windows, white mermot blinds and gorgeous red leather couches and mats. I should have taken a photo. That room was appealing. I had a divine and tasty lunch and was fed so well it brought back my nana's cooking.
Saturday Night Taxi Service
My good friend Rhonda and I put their theatre room to good use whilst spending the time between depositing the young people at their parties and returning to get them home. We watched 'Thank You for Smoking'. Possibly not a great choice for my quitting phase, yet it didn't do too much damage.
Housework - Bare Minimum
Enough said. Changed the sheets, a touch of vacuuming - blah.
Reading
I started 'Boys of Blood and Bone' by David Metzenthen this weekend. I have a pile of good books again and I feel really good about that. When I had the flu, it came when my pile of books had been down to the last unread one. It was kind of scary. When I went to work/school on Friday, I ensured I visited the library and restocked my pile. I have one from the CBCA Awards list - an Elizabeth Honey, one of my favourites as well as the James Moloney sequel to 'The Book of Lies', 'Master of the Books'. It's helping with the pain of finishing Harry Potter.

Now I will go to bed early and read!

Cow Dung Power

As mentioned earlier in the week, it seems the whole concept of cow poo power is becoming more and more mentioned. I seriously thought it was a joke!

Do you like the new look?

Let's get the shoulds out of the way.
Yes, I should be correcting so I can have my reports done on time. They are due Friday and it's a long weekend here. Queen's Birthday weekend is always really meant to be correct and write reports weekend. I usually don't though. I have a really tidy home.

Heating
It's warm too cause I have just upgrading from the wood fire heating to a reverse cycle air conditioner. It's lovely to breath without creating a fog inside. It's awesome to flick a switch and not have to bring heavy loads of wood in and then spend the time it takes getting the fire to start. I don't miss the fire at all, but if ever I do, it's still there in the corner.

Flitting around the Internet
So I have updated the template of my blog, thanks to joining Bumpzee and receiving a lovely visitor to my site from snokky who has Life in the Country and a wonderful template that I decided I could do with. I haven't finished the renovations yet, a bit like my house! I am searching my backups for this particular photo to put on the header.

Social Networking
Bumpzee is a social networking site and I have realised lately that I haven't been participating very much in any online communities. I thought I'd see what it was like before I outright reject it and go back to the solitude I like. So here's to a new online experiment for me.

Hand Sanitizer

I had no idea how widespread hand sanitizer is. Last time I visited my pa in the hospital, there were bottles of this hand sanitizer as you entered the wards and a sign asking you to clean your hands with this waterless hand cleaner before and after visiting in the hospital. I did.
My daughter tells me they have it at the primary school where she is working for the kids to use before they eat lunch. There is a small bottle on my desk. It says

"Instant Hand Sanitizer", subtitled "Kills 99.99% of germs"

I'm not sure why, but that seems really weird and sterile to me. I am not sure if I like it.
New Kills Germs Without Water
Are germs endangered species? That's a joke. I wonder are we taking clean to a new and bizarre level? Are there that many germs around that we need to maintain this kind of environment? These questions and more will never be asked by me again. In fact, I possibly will never mention this again.

Ruth Ostrow

I rediscovered Ruth today. I am so delighted. She has a blog and I have subscribed to her feed, so I will never miss out again. I can she it's probably been going on for a while, yet I had given up looking for it and only found it today.
Her current article is about decluttering. I am doing a bit of that at present. I have storage space in this house but it's not really well organised. So I am getting right on that at present. I am letting go of piles of stuff. Sometimes very reluctantly but still, I expect I will get better with practise. Each time I make more space I get more ruthless with stuff.
In a bid to reduce paper waste and hopefully save a few trees, many years ago, I stopped buying newspapers. I found most things I love to read were online, but I couldn't find Ruth Ostrow's column on 'The Australian' website. I also occasionally enjoyed Susan Maushart. All in all everything else I loved about buying the weekend Australian was attainable elsewhere so to speak. You can now read the Weekend Australian, but it doesn't seem to be current, perhaps they wait until after the weekend and then publish it. I can wait.
I have been a fan of Mystic Medusa's website for years.

Re-arranged

I don't know if this happens to others, but I have noticed that sometimes my life just seems to have a big shift and all the old routines and habits stop working as they have always done and I have to make changes. Well this has just happened. Andy is in between jobs having just finished the contract he's had for as long as I've known him and beyond. My parents have acquired a caravan and have taken off for a trial run trip. Pa is home from hospital.

At work things are on the boil also.I want to help out with the school musical this week, I wish I had done more to help to be honest. I have been doing some PD's after work, and loving them. I have to write reports at the end of the term. I am going on camp with my homeroom next month, as well as two separate day excursions. This adds up to a week out of the term. I am trying some new projects which always takes more energy, but makes life more exciting.

Towards the end of the term I am having visitors stay and the room they will be staying in is half way through a renovation project and honestly in a pretty grim state.

All of the above as well as some reorganising of files and cleaning up of lots of spaces has meant that my routines have changed and become unfamiliar. I like it. It feels positively different.

I am glad I have a holiday tomorrow though, because I need to fine tune the changes and I have no commitments for the day.

Full Moon Eclipse?

I sure it has been the full moon eclipse business that has totally ruffled me this week. I have been tired, cranky, sad and unmotivated with no apparent reason. I have continued to exercise, but have not eaten well or recorded any stats. I have burnt meals and done last minute rushed shopping frequently.

I've had weird dreams about people I'm not really fond of and found them unexpectedly turning up in reality the next day, when I never see them and I like it like that. I haven't felt like doing any writing or creative stuff, much less disassembling the mounds of dirty clothes and trails of where I've been through the house.

Maybe it was the scary thunderstorm last night when my son was down the street and beloved was riding home on his dirt bike. I imagined all sorts of disasters striking either one of them, even whilst I knew it was saner and more pleasant to 'think positive thoughts'. Perhaps it was the heat and the rain making the heat kind of sticky rather than refreshing as I was hoping it would be.

Could be it was letting go of my daughter on the weekend and talking to her on the phone and hearing that she was tired, busy and sounded just a little overwhelmed and I couldn't get to her in an instant to help. Yet because I was moving house with daughter on the weekend I didn't do a great job of my housework and I was disorganised.

Not to mention all the consequences that flow on from those things such as not being totally prepared to teach each lesson and so getting further behind at school, or that there have been quite a fewinterruptions at school this week, such as swimming carnivals and thinkfests, all wonderful and important things that I love, yet interrupt the flow.

The good thing is that I woke this morning and thought, it's feeling better, and today was. It was much better. I achieved a lot and feel good.

Read if you have a Home Loan

If you are paying more than 7.19% on your homeloan, you should check out My Rate. The whole process was completed via phone/internet and fax, which was perfect for me. I find that fitting in visits to banks and having 'meetings' with people to be a big time waster.
The reduction in interest rate on my loan comes with no bank fees and it has allowed me to save enough to better support my daughter as she heads off to Uni. The service was helpful and friendly and I would recommend it.

Home Sweet Home

I am home. I love returning after a long holiday, especially when I've done a bit of camping, everything seems so comfortable and easy! I will write about my trip as I have handwritten daily since I have been away and have many little stories to tell.
I have returned home to my son having two broken hands and a black eye. He fell over and broke his hands outside a shop in town. Whilst he was away a cricket ball hit him in the eye. I am concerned about him.
I spent the afternoon transporting the stuff from the car to the house and have yet to do all the washing and proper unpacking. My family and friends called around to catch up so the afternoon was mostly pleasantly spent and now the work lies before me.
I have heaps of email and feeds to scan and mostly delete, because I feel I would never catch up. I have a pile of snail mail to work through. I read 5 books and saw a few movies whilst I was away so I'll also be mentioning them down the track. I will start today uploading some of the video I took on this trip, on to Revver.
We travelled through the hills to Woolongong and spent a week there and home via the coast. It was a great trip.

Paths

Today I swept my paths. I have paths all around my home and because Andy had done such a magnificent job in the back yard, it inspired me to uncover the paths in the front yard, which had been buried, probably since last spring, by tanbark. The path was totally covered. It looks great now.
I do love overgrown and hidden paths though, just not at my home. Here is a picture I took this time last year on a walk at Cape Patterson. I like beach paths especially when they are dark and overgrown and then you emerge out on an open beach that seems so wide open and light in contrast to the path you have taken to get there.

Watch the Secret - Now - For Free

I'm not sure how this has come about, but if you have a spare hour and a half, perhaps longer because I imagine it will take some time to stream/download, or whatever it does online, watch this. "The Secret" for free.
The blog it is on, is also worth a look:It's Not About Your Stuff
I have added it to my bloglines feed. She recommends good stuff and it looks quite informative and interesting.

Mothering & Home

I am reading a book at the moment called Unless by Carol Shields. It is about a mother who is quite successful and has all that we hope for, loving family, beautiful home, satisfying career etc. Her eldest daughter suddnely withdraws from the world, abandoning university to sit on a street corner, wearing a sign that reads only 'goodness'. What a frightening reality for a mother. I haven't finished the book yet, but the concept of it haunts me.
I remember when I went on holidays once I met an older woman and we were discussing our daughters. Hers was older than mine, but had pursued similar things, and then unexpectedly dropped out. She had got caught up with a shady boyfriend and turned her future plans on their head. Her mother was shattered and I was scared. I remember having nightmares all summer that my daughter would have some catastrophic thing that would 'ruin' her future.
I began to reflect on my own pathway through to adulthood, (I think I arrived a couple of years ago, despite getting grey hairs and wrinkles so young). I realised my parents were probably pretty concerned about some of the routes I'd taken.
I'm proud and pleased with my daughter and I expect she will take some interesting paths and I, like my parents did for me and other mothers all over the planet will still love her and hope for the best for her. When people tell me how amazing and wonderful she is I feel proud and grateful to the powers that be. I was discussing this with a work colleague last week and we agreed, his daughters are much older too, that you never feel you can relax, that the mission is accomplished.
Getting back to the book, there is this great quote about homes in it and I like it.

"Our house if full of rough corners that seem to me just about to come into their full beauty. I often think of how Vicnete Verdu, the Spanish writer, spoke of houses as existing between reality and desire, what we want and what we already have. Probably this old house is not as lovely as I believe. My eyes are curtained over. I used to be able to see the separate rooms with their colours and spaces, but now I can't. I've overvalued its woody, whorled coves and harbours, convincing myself of an architectural spaciousness and, at the same time, coziness.." (p57)

I love it and I identify with those sentiments. She goes on to say she should have employed a decorator a long time ago. I have been a decorator, so have even less excuse for the tangle of styles and half completed schemes in my home, yet it is my home and there are corners of it that I find harmony and promise of visions to be realised.

Magnificent Weather

Today is sunny again. I love this weekends weather. I have been getting my home into order and clearing some of the paper mounds and clothes mountains that have accumulated during the week. This crisp sunny weather just doesn't tolerate clutter and disorder and I feel a lot of energy to clean up.

God's in the Laundry

About 10 years ago there was a book around called 'God's in the Laundry'. It was published by a group called 'Spirit Today'. I did a weekend course with these people. It was an interesting experience. I never read the book, but the title has haunted me. Every time I need to spend prolonged time in the laundry, the title pops into my head.
I don't often spend a prolonged time in my laundry. I generally have a smooth system of processing laundry that flows along quite nicely. One of us puts a load on before work, hang it out after school, someone brings it in, we fold it and each take our piles to our respective spaces. It's all very fleeting really.
Occasionally though, the system stumbles and the laundry becomes choked. That's how it was this morning. I noticed several piles and baskets in various stages of the process and the clothes on the line were wet from overnight rain. I realised I needed to spend some time with God in the laundry.
Order is in process, not quite complete yet, but I feel better.
So I share with you the mundane workings of my home making and mind.

Power

We are off on our holiday tomorrow. So today is about packing up everything to go. We were meant to go yesterday but I spent the day trying to work out the power problem with my home.
We apparently have a shortage of electricians so I was unable to get one yesterday. It was probably a good thing though because I don't charge as much as they do and I was eventually able to work out the problem and fix it by removing a lightglobe and not using any power in that room. Today I might experiment more with using other appliances in that room so I can ensure it is the particular thing I thought it was. At least I saved myself another bill. It was a waste of a day though and quite stressful.
I had imagined all kinds of scenarios involving needing to get the house rewired and felt quite distressed about it all in the end.
Anyway, now I guess I will get back to my lists of what to take away. We are going to Loch Sport. I don't remember ever having gone there before. I am looking forward to getting away. I still have a slight cold, but am feeling better every day now. I need to change my habits back to healthier ones.
I haven't been exercising at all lately or any other healthy things!

The Abbey

Today I spent the afternoon with my good friend Jane. One of the things we discussed, was entering the ABC reality show things called 'The Abbey'. It seemed like a good idea. When I got home tonight and checked Mystic Medusa's blog for a bit of insight into why my electricity is failing me, she had mentioned it so I saw it as a sign and emailed the application to Jane.
Jane bought me another one of those delicious mouse things that I have previously photographed and put on this blog, so will resist doing so again. I wanted to enjoy it with a coffee, but the electric kettle and electric stove are holding me back from this right now.
NOT FAIR! is about all I can manage because I have the flu. STILL!!
I am not sure why my power is failing me, but I can say that I am tired and cranky and I want to make myself a coffee but it seems the only thing I can turn on in the house right now, without taking out the entire home's power is my laptop and fluorescent light. This is a sign I think for me to retire to bed and worry about it in the morning.

Firelighters and shortcuts

Tonight I have spent so much time trying to light a fire because I wanted to do it in a hurry. I didn't get the things that I needed because I didn't have time to go back out to the shed to get some smaller peices of wood. I didn't have firelighters because I keep forgetting them everytime I go to the supermarket. Hence, trying to save time has taken me forever and now from all the billowing and frantic blowing on the dying little embers I have managed to create I am no longer needing a fire because I am quite hot.

I know it is silly and you have my permission to laugh at me.

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