The chilly chill and the lovely warmth

So, today's been all over the place. Started at 6.30am with work calls from media, I write that and think 'how crazy is that?' Nature of the beast I'm afraid with the job I do. And it continued with media calls and usually I would make an effort to still get in the door of the office before 9 but today I thought "bugger it". I called in, said I'd be late in and got a coffee on the way to work. Before I went in, however, chucked a beef roast in my beloved slow cooker for tonight. Knew there would be the B-Boy, his lovely girl, the man and the small darling at home for dinner - planned on making pasta ragu using the slow cooked beef.
And decided to leave earlier after a full day when calls continued and I had to juggle multiple tasks for most of the day. What I struggle with, and there's no end in sight to the struggle - it's been going on for more than a year - is a lack of recognition of the time and effort that goes into a working day that starts at 6.30am by a particular person at my work who should recognise it. When I said I was going to head off at 4pm after starting at 6.30am  the comment back was pretty ordinary - ie "I didn't ask you about how many hours you've worked, I asked about outcomes". Oh, thank you. Therefore it was lovely to open my door to the delicious smell of slow cooked meat and the welcoming hug from a 15 year old who still loves her mumma and tells her about her day!
It makes up for the other stuff and is the reason why I do it.

                                                                   
                                        Mother And Daughter - Edward Verschaffelt

Yes Virginia, there is a tooth fairy

I have a mortal fear of the dentist, with good reason. When I was a teenager, my gums became ulcerated (ick) and my darling ma sent me to a dentist who had clearly been trained by this guy. I am still recovering. So this week, I had a toothache. Seems a piece of my tooth decided it was going to have its own little party without the rest of the gang and broke off. Steadily the discomfort grew and steadily I attempted to ignore it. But the pain...not childbirth like but still enough to make me want to punch something and rip my head off. Saturday night I threw back some sleep meds but on Sunday I rang the dentist pleading for an appointment. Here's the weird bit. Woke up this  morning after another night of medicated sleep and there was the rest of the tooth, in my mouth. No pain, no bleeding, the tooth was out baby! thank you thank you tooth fairy..

                                                                        

A parent's worst nightmare

In another life, I knew Roger and Joy Membrey. I never met their daughter Elisabeth but I came to feel like I did. I came to know her parents because I wrote about her disappearance and suspected murder and their  kindness and integrity in the face of  a parent's worst nightmare has remained with me and the many others who shone a light on Elisabeth's story in the hope of finding out what happened to her. Today, a Supreme court jury has retired to consider a verdict in the trial of a man accused of her death. And I'm thinking of Joy and Roger and hoping they will finally, after 18 years, know what happened to their lovely girl but more importantly know where she is and give her the goodbye they have so desperately wanted to.

Lay down your guns

So, it begins again and I confess to feeling a bit pissed off about it. What is it about women that we have to sit in judgement on each other about our choices? As someone who has given birth (three times), stayed home with babies, worked from home with babies, worked part-time in an office and worked full-time I reckon I'm qualified to comment. Caring for children and working outside the home is hard sometimes. Staying home with kids and scraping along on one wage is also hard sometimes. NEITHER ONE IS BETTER/WORSE THAN THE OTHER. I'm so sick of women judging each other, competing to be the winner. In these kinds of wars, we all lose and end up looking like a pack of sniping cows. Can't we just all play nice and share the sandpit?

the day my friend's dog got shit-faced (and not with Ben Cousins)

Think you've had a bad day?  Think on this one. And warning...toilet humour ahead. My friend's toilet blocked up today, it happens. Apparently her son does big poos. Only thing is, he's 20. V.big poos. But he's a plumbing apprentice, so handy when his big poo stuffs up the loo. However, this time his magic bag of plumbing tricks couldn't fix the loo. There was some overflow to the outside valve. Let's skip that part.

Anyhoo, he needed a bigger sort of rod-thingy (intense plumber talk) to shift the pile of doo stuck in the pipe. A job for later in the day.  So off he skipped to work. But....there was still some "residue" in the back garden courtesy of the valve spillage. And there was their dog, the deliciously named Muffin, whose gastronomic tastes are a little...lowbrow. A barricade was built but Muffin is a tenacious mutt and in a twinkle (did you like that?) fulfilled her mission to plunder the poo to her heart's delight. She got shitfaced. It wasn't pretty. Neither was the cleanup.

Glory days

Today has been one of those gorgeous days in Melbourne that start out all fresh and crispy and morph into the most glorious of days - warm, golden with that smell of grass and autumn that is just delicious. This weekend I'm getting out the camera and going to head up the hills where the trees are starting to turn. We'll stop at a favourite shop that does Lindt hot chocolate - oh yessss - and I'll buy some more wool to add to my dimishing stock. Was at Chaddy today and saw a gorgeous pom pom scarf selling for squillions and thought "I can do that for a few bucks". That's the plan anyway.

I love rock and roll

The One Direction screamfest has got me thinking about my first concert. I was 13, had a mad crush on a 17 year old that worked in our family business - a tenpin bowl - and he'd introduced me to the bone thumping sound of Bon Scott and Angus Young as I hung around the back of the lanes pretending to clean bowling pins. They were coming to town but there was no way mum would let me - it was the "Lock Up Your Daughters" tour, fat chance in hell I'd be there. But my crush and his mate, who also worked for us, wanted the night off and could have it if they chaperoned me. Deal. So there we were at the Morwell Town Hall, flannies on, me beyond excited. The boys met some girls and we quickly agreed that they would watch out for me from a distance and I'd keep quiet about their friends.  I didn't see them until the end of the night. Me? I was up front, right next to the speakers, watching Bon in his too tight jeans prance around the stage. It was magic..

Walls

Ha! Did both. Gave the bathroom the first coat then had me a bit of Ms Streep and bad boy Alex Baldwin in It's Complicated. That house, that garden, that shop...mmmm.
I find when I paint my mind tends to zero in on stuff I wish it wouldn't. Memories as clear as yesterday but also muddy and sometimes disturbing.  Maybe it's the putting on of something fresh and clean that dredges up the dirt. A long time ago I drew a line in the sand about some aspects of my life, for my own sanity no-one elses. It's built walls with some in my family but those walls protect me. I don't trust them coming down, i won't let them come down. I've painted my own colours on those walls and they're okay. Not perfect but okay.

The Dilemma

The walls are washed and I'm working my enthusiasm up to paint the bathroom. I love to paint...I love that just putting on a different colour can transform a room and I've already got my new London blind made from an old tablecloth ready to go up when it's done. But it's raining and cold for the first time in whenever and the idea of lighting the fire and watching a chick flick is nibbling away in my mind. What to do?

Ch..Ch..Ch..Ch..Changes.

For the first time there was no Easter hunt this year, though we did hide some of The Star's in the lounge room. No putting dirt on the fingers and leaving bunny tracks through the house. Instead we had a feast featuring Bill's French toast with Fresh Berry Sauce, pancakes made by B-Boy, bacon and hot cross buns. Oh and chocolate..just a smidge of that!
Been thinking about what BabyMac and others have said about blogging being a radical act or not. Years ago when I was a stay-at-home mum with my first born Bloss, mothers counted for nothing. Invisible. An older female friend told me to tell people I was writing a book and looking after the babe but I've never been good with the lying. So I wrote for myself but there was little feedback, little connection. A lonely business, as motherhood could be as well.  Now bloggers have the world coming to them, sponsors calling and laying siege to them because the power has shifted and those mum's behind the computers, writing with honour and truth, are credible and no longer invisible. That's radical.