Life on the hill: October 2012

Thursday, October 25, 2012

#The Human Brochure

In the spring of 1996, my best friend Sam and I decided to take my 9 month old cafe connoisseur daughter to Canberra to see the Floriade. We loaded up Sam's tiny Daihatsu, with the child seat, and managed to get the ridiculously big pram that I just had to have, in as well. We then proceeded to drive the three hours it took to get from the Sutherland Shire to Canberra. For the day. As you do. (Laura was one of those babies that you could cart around anywhere, and...

I'm writing this for my daughter, who is nearly 17. And who has become re-obsessed with her body image again. At 7 her paternal grandmother called her fat. A couple of weekends ago, her paternal grandmother again implied that she was fat. To say I'm furious is an understatement. This is me at 18. This is me now at nearly 43. As you can see it has undergone a lot of change in those 25 years. My body has grown three children inside it, delivered them via Cesarean section, fed...

Where to now Charlie Brown?

What am I doing? What are my plans? Where am I'm heading? That's all that has been going through my head for the last month. Moving home from a place, that while I no longer wanted to live there anymore, it was a place I knew, to suburbia, and all that it entails, has caused me to feel somewhat displaced. When you have been in an area for 8 years, which is the longest I have ever lived anywhere in my...

Circuses and Africa

In the last week of the school holidays we were accosted approached by someone who was signing up people for Karate in the local area. As we had already discussed it with Nathan about him wanting to do it again, I decided to take up the opportunity and trial period offer. This is how my afternoon/evening went last night... Picked up Aston from his new school, were he was full of excitement about having a "buddy" in year 6. He then declared to me that he was big enough to walk to school by himself...

little things....

1. I named my daughter Laura after Laura Ingalls in Little house in the prairie. Her name also means Laural Tree. There is a myth surrounding the laurel tree. Daphne, a nymph was turned into the laurel tree to protect her from Apollo's sexual advances. 2. If Nathan had have been a girl, I would have named her Natasha. He was born 4 weeks early by emergency Cesarean, and I didn't hold him for ten hours after he was born. His name mean God's gift. 3. Aston is called Aston after...

So I've done two loads of washing, made lunches, made three lots of lunches, made sure three kids had breakfast, made their beds and gotten them to the three different schools they attend. Packed the dishwasher, cleaned the kitty litter, made myself a cup of coffee to sit and contemplate what to tell you... Dorothy, you're not in Kansas anymore! I haven't lived in real suburbia in 15 years, since I left the Sutherland Shire (yes, the one made infamous by THAT show) to live...

any fool can make a baby...

Why try and say it, when someone else has already done it so aptly On Saturday night my teenage children's father got married. Laura and Nathan found out via the facebook status update of their now stepmother. (I'm beginning to agree with M's renaming - fuckbook) My son was confused, and asked to call his father. Nat spoke to him for all of two minutes, to be informed that yes he had gotten married, and that no, his wife's children where not there. Once...

I won something!

I enter lots of competitions. All the time. So many, that most of them I don't even remember entering them. This competition was one of them. Late last night I received notification that I had been selected as one of the 500 people to participate in the Human Brochure for Canberra. I'm still in shock. A weekend away, doing something I love, immersing myself in art and culture. How lucky am I? Thank you universe, I really needed this. Oh, and thank you Canberra for having me. Can't wait to get...

Sharing the load

I have just spent the last half hour typing up and printing off, and will laminate job charts for my three children. After living in our new home for two weeks, I have been feeling very s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d! My anxiety has been rife, and living on a adrenline overload exhausts you beyond description. This afternoon, I may, or may not, had a small tantrum about feeling like I was the only one doing anything in this house. My daughter has just returned to living with me after being away for a year...