blue tongue lizard

a lovely visitor this week.

ramblings

we are still here ( :

enjoying our house tremendously!!

time flies, where does it go?!

I did these for the kids last week:

http://portablenorthpole.tv/watch/ce3b4be5141fa5447d14e2a5879343c0

So cute, they absolutely love them!

I'm going to try & do a few catch up blog posts in the next week or 2, they will be out of order of occurrence but I keep trying to find time to do a big long post & never find the time or have the inclination. So I figure little snippets are better than nothing!

We have had the electrician in to connect light switches & power points so we are no longer running everything off power boards on one circuit. We also got the over hooken up last week, so I am baking again ( :

We have the kitchen all organised, all temporary but fabulous, so spacious & light, I just LOVE it!!! Yesterday we had the plumber back to hook up the gas to the cooktop, we've been cooking on the BBQ & a single electric element, so we are thrilled to finally have gas to cook on. Kim put up a big stainless steel splashback (temporary) which looks great, all very clean & easy to maintain for the time being. I'm using the breadmaker again, using our new juicer for fresh juice, all the things that I found hard to do in a tiny kitchen.

Today is Brody's 16th birthday. I can't believe he's 16! He finished year 10 yesterday. He had friends over for the first time in months which was great! We hadn't met his new year 10 friends! He's doing well, just scraped through to get the scool certificate but at least he's done it. He is going back for HSC next year & will be doing photography! I'm excited, something I can help him with (I hope, or he could be teaching me things before long).

I bought myself this:

which I am loving! I took 3 purchases to get it right, the 1st arrived broken, the 2nd turned out to be a fraud in Thailand. There was also a wide angle I bought that arrived & the autofocus didn't work. That all happened in my first week in the house, when I was taking time off work & really wanted to do some photography. So I got a bit down in the dumps about all of that! The joys of buying on ebay! I got refunds for them all but it all took time.
Here are a couple of pics I took the day I got it:

I enjoyed taking photos for a few weeks when we first moved, even if I didn't have my new lens. You can see some of what I did here on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23822912@N05/sets/72157622840902326/

I had a great photo shoot with a 6 month old but I haven't had a chance to edit them yet, they are about the best I've done to date so i'm excited about getting those done! I am doing another freebie for a friend with 2 girls age 3 & 6 in a couple of weeks but I think I am getting close to start charging people, something I am excited about.

Kim has been busy with the house wiring, running all the cables for the electrician. He has also done 2 weeks of paid work, giving me a welcome break from being the money earner. At the moment he is building our deck, hoping to have it done for Christmas.

Below is Finn dancing on the plywood in excitment the first night it was there!

thank you Grandma

Thank you Grandma for our first credit card. We will have fun going shopping!!!

Finally....news!!!

I wrote this weeks ago. 2 installments, weeks apart.

Our news? We have moved in.

Finally.

Sleeping in the caravan, but the house is now home.

We still haven't had a chance to really enjoy it, we are still clearing the old house, 3.5 years of accumulation to sort out! I am hoping to take a month (at least!) off work in 2 weeks when we end our lease, so I am ebaying like mad both to clear things I don't want to move & to cover the mortgage payment for a bit. The old house has been nicknamed the dungeon, cold & dark, compared to our house, going back to it every day to work is no fun but I am driven like never before ( :

We are having a garage sale all weekend this weekend & then getting rid of anything in the house apart from my designer clothing. I am closing my ebay store on the 22nd & having a huge clothing sale on Friday evening the 23rd Oct & Sat. 24th. Then we have a few days to clean the house & then we will stop. Or I will. Kim has promised me a deck on the house for Christmas, & my workroom needs to be finished so I can start work sometime soon before or after. But at least he won't have to wash dishes or do laundry for a while, I'm sure he won't miss that!!

So there has been no celebrating or relaxing time to enjoy our hard work & acheivments, but internally we are jumping with joy. Still playing the waiting game but the light at the end of the tunnel is now shining brightly right into our eyes!

OLD POST, SAVED BUT NOT POSTED ABOUT A MONTH AGO:

It's been a while.

A long while.

I look back over time & wonder where it goes but just need to look at every day to know.

Our days are filled with so much yet so little. Some days we are lucky to just prepare 3 meals, tend to 2 preschoolers needs & maybe wash some dishes (or not).

Other days, like today, work gets done on the house & clothing gets sold, the kids go to school & daycare, dishes did get done & some clothes were taken off the clothes line. And meals were prepared. Stories were read, clothing changed, showers taken, phone calls made, bills paid, shopping done, arguing, negotiating, fighting, pleading, laughing, joking, talking, whining & crying all took place.

We are "getting there". Slowly. The last couple of months has seen great progress but also long delays. The kids caught swine flu. Finn was very sick for close to 3 weeks. 2 weeks off daycare & 12 days straight with a fever. Ivy wasn't too bad. I caught it too but it was nothing worse than a normal flu for me. It took at least 2 weeks to recover from the 3 weeks of sleepless nights with kids coughing all night. So that was a month pretty much written off.

I wrote the above about 3 weeks ago & saved it as a draft. Good intentions.

Since then... we've had a father's day weekend spent sleeping in the caravan. Finn screamed in prostest for a long while at having to sleep anywhere but his usual place, but then came around to the idea & really enjoyed not having to leave our favourite place once the sun went down. We had such a nice time we stayed another night!

A few pics:

Finn with a father's day present:

Yes, we have cut his hair. His own choice, he decided everyone would stop calling him a girl if we cut it off. I was delaighted, I hated the daily moring battle of detangling

while he screamed at me in anger for hurting him, however gentle I tried to be . It's a bit of a girly bob cut, so everyone still thinks he's a girl, but he hasn't realised that

& I haven't had the energy to do it again, so a bob it is for now. I think it's pretty cute actually, but I'm his mum.

He's been incredibly difficult of late, more so than in the past. He has days when he's behaviour is very autistic, it's more obvious now than it's ever been. His hearing is still bad & he complained of an earache this week. Got to get rid of that fluid.

There is so much we could be doing for him if we had the time. Soon....

Father's day morning:

This one I enlarged & framed for a father's day gift:

Aren't they beautiful ( :

OK, now go to http://stores.shop.ebay.com.au/Clothes-On-line & buy something ( :

There are 500+ items to chose from, you CAN find something you like & you will be getting some bargains, helping me get rid of some GREAT gear as well as giving me some badly needed time off work. You will also be giving my children some down time with their mummy, something they haven't had much of for most of their lives.

I know a lot of readers of my blog like nice clothing, for themselves or their kids. So take a peek, everything is on sale & their are lots of bargains ( :

PS you could also save me the ebay fees by emailing me if you want anything ( ;

Another diagnosis

Yesterday Brody was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. No surpriseat all, it was actually a relief, in a way. Hopefully he will now get some help at school & some more understanding from people in his life.

He had a major meltdown this morning, his first big one for quite a while. It was as if he had been given permission.

For me, it is a diagnosis that fills me with mixed emotion. Hope for his future, now that he will be eligle for various programmes. Relief, as I said, that we have a confirmation of what we already knew but other's wouldn't acknowledge. Sadness that it hadn't been recognised a long time ago, even when he was 6 or 7, as it was so obvious if you know anything about Aspergers.

How different his childhood could have been if he had been understood.

And anger at a society that expects everyone to be "normal", to behave the same as each other & to blame & shame those that aren't. This diagnosis is now is "excuse" to not have to be like everyone else & to still demand some respect for who he is, not only in his small circles but in mainstream society. I hope.

I love him so much & I'm so, so proud of him.

Feeling Fine

Thanks everyone for the lovely emails ( :
I think I'm going to make a habit of having a really big whinge when I'm feeling low. I get this lovely imput of positive, supportive vibes that I am SO not used to, it's a a quick fix to my bad moods ( :
I am not used to asking for help or telling anyone who'll listen how tough things are, my experience has taught me that that's putting myself in a position for great disappointment. But the emails I've received in the last few days are teaching me that I'm wrong, I do have people in my life who care. Thank you all for that.
How awesome is Ivy in this photo!!?? She makes my heart soar. I'm going to try & be as happy as she is ( :
I have so much to be thankful for!

new look

Firstly, thanks everyone for all your lovely comments lately.
It's lovely to hear from people & to know that there are people out there who care. It's a lonely life we are living at the moment so it really makes a difference when people take the time to send us a message.

OK, so I've been totally sick of the way my blog looks for months now. So I decided to add a little oomph. Not too much, being a non-glitzy person, but something to just brighten things up a bit. Add some colour, change the banner to something big & impressive maybe.
So I find a free easy to install background & now my text doesn't fit in right. So do I go back to being boring, or spend more valuable time trying to figure out how to fix it or.... how about I just ask for help?!
Can anyone reading tell me what to do? i'd appreciate it ( :
I'm so sick of boring.

We are getting better. Finn was good today. Very tired though.
Ivy slept in until 8am!!!!! (She almost never sleeps beyond 6). She must be sick.
I'm feeling run down & bored. I so sick of working. I've been in this place before but not for a while. I want to take photos of something other than clothing. I want to clean up my impossibly messy house. I want to spend a whole day doing nothing but play with my kids without feeling stressed out about what I should be doing. Actually even half a day would be nice. I want a holiday. I want to move house. I want a new life that's different to this one. The tunnel seems so long this week, I seem to have lost sight of the light at the other end.

 The kids on the other hand, never seem to have trouble with that, even when they're sick!