Tag Archive for family

What Katie did Next….

Tonight I called into my parents after work to hang out a little with my baby sister on her whirlwind visit home. She’s been home less than two weeks and she’s off again. Since she was home last she’s worked on Rottnest Island and travelled around NT to the Kimberlies and other locations such as Broome in WA. Now she’s off to some place in QLD that I must say I’ve never heard of. She’ll return in several months for a quick visit before she heads off overseas.

She is well travelled that’s for sure. She has lots of interesting anecdotes about her adventures. This time involving snakes and tour guides, as well as silly things tourists do. It’s great to listen to them. What I enjoy most though are the laughs I have with her. I don’t even know what we laugh about half the time. Just at each other.

Tonight she was banging on about a fairly typical theme of how old I am. Kate is 16 years younger than me. Then my daughter arrived and demonstrated an amusing exchange on ‘hey tell’ and she was suddenly feeling old and out of the loop. Quite amusing for me… although she’d never admit it.

She’ll be off tomorrow. Mum and dad will resume their quiet, retired, summer at home, and I won’t laugh as hard next time I visit.

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The Fridge

Just read this post at Semantically Driven: Declutter or not with a revealing photo of her fridge. I love it. It tells so much…. like all our fridges. I would love to see a collection of fridge photos. Jen is clever.

They are a snapshot of the members of a home and life shared. It’s rare to come across a totally bare one. It kind of reminds me of that film ‘The Castle’ with the dad who put all the precious things in the billiard room. I remember my nana used to put special things in her crystal cabinet and in other homes the mantle piece over the fire place was the spot. Perhaps the fridge is more changeable though and less formal. Most homes have these spaces. Display houses don’t and that’s why no matter how many decorators put them together, they aren’t homes.

I love the things on my fridge. I love the randomness of it. I love that when the kids return, they always check out the fridge, not just what’s inside it either, although that usually comes! Photo’s of all our children and  artwork by the children are at the centre. The poetry art that Cath gave me and the magnetic pictures R (4) got from Asha for Christmas are top and bottom.On the side are invitations, reminders of really important things and little scraps of paper with sayings that speak to me. A vintage postcard with the line ” I dream of storage space.”  There’s a Baci wrapper saying about love, a magnet with a picture from the M.I.L.K series and other sayings mostly about love.

I have stripped my fridge at times and started again and looking at it now, it’s probably due for that kind of treatment, along with the rest of my house to be honest. I usually put most of the stuff off the fridge in a shoebox. I have a few of those now, I’ve never been through them, but it feels like artifact central of my life. I could spend too many hours recollecting if I start sifting. Perhaps I will rearrange at Easter. There are postcards on it from my parents last winter holidays and 21st invitations alongside 7 year old birthday parties that were attended or not, months ago.

I always check out peoples fridges when I go to their houses, and if it’s my mum’s : what’s inside too. I have a beautiful collection of photo’s of Darin the first time I went to his mum’s house as he went straight to the fridge and began examining it’s contents. I’ve seen it time and time again, peering into the fridge as if it’s a TV set, we all do it in the homes we feel most comfortable.

I wanted to take up Jen’s challenge and photograph our fridge, and I may. I’m still not comfortable with posting photo’s of my children on the internet, let alone Darin’s children. It feels like a private space to me.  I did want to share my fridge in some way.

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Full Moon in Virgo – Sunday 20th March 2011

The moon will be full in Virgo early tomorrow morning. I think I have caught the Virgo love of cleanliness in a small way as I totally vacuumed and dusted my bedroom today and changed my sheets. I felt compelled!  My room is now this pristine space waiting for me to sleep tonight. I have thought about how good it will be throughout the day! I also had a long bath, ridding myself of rough skin, hair etc last night whilst Darin was collecting the kids. I think I have been Virgo Tripping.

So some of you may have read about this moon being a ‘super full moon’. Eric Frances: Full Moon in Virgo:Turning a Corner explains some of the finer points of the time, astrologically.Lynda Hill’s: Secret Knowledge from a Ancient Scroll: March’s Virgo Full Moon has some great quotes about knowledge and is a grounding and reassuring read. I joked with a past student who asked me if the world was coming to an end recently. I told him that no, I didn’t think the world was coming to an end so yes, he would still need to decide what he would do with the rest of his life. He smiled and said that I could read his mind. It is a strange time right now with so many opinions and predictions being thrown around, most of them based on fear. We all respond in our own ways. I try to keep my focus to what I CAN do in my own life. Live!

We have the kids this weekend and visited the local school fete. Most of the time spent there, was lining up which was a little dull. They were really good though and I hope they enjoyed the rides once they got there. I got to see some past students playing in a band, which is was great. Darin is now cooking up a feast and J(9) is creating a chocolate self saucing pudding. My contribution was going to the shop for ice-cream:-). I love these ‘family’ weekends.

 

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Fireworks

We live close to town, so tonight, even though we didn’t make it to Carols by Candlelight, we still got to see the fireworks, which I reckon would be one of the best bits!

Tonight when I got home, I had a nap! It was delicious. I feel so refreshed now.

I have mountains of presents to wrap. I feel pretty happy that I’ve managed to get some awesome gifts for people I love. I’m also glad that I’ve got it all handled now. There is one more gift I would love to get, but I have to restrain my spending and say… that is enough. I find it so much fun to buy presents for the great people in my life. I can easily get carried away. I’m very excited about giving them out on Christmas morning. It’s so exciting to have the kids for Christmas eve. All the excitement… how lucky I am.

Yesterday when I posted Tom, Dean and Joan’s presents, I had a little teary. I wished they could be here for the day.  I was a bit emotional yesterday, maybe the eclipse got me:). The great thing is that Tom called me as soon as I got home from work and we had a chat, which helped a lot. His phone has died so I haven’t been able to talk to him for days… it was nice to hear his voice.

I think we have lunch handled. Well, Darin has it under control. That is another blessing;).

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A weeks holiday in a day

Yesterday I slept for most of the day. I usually do this on the first day of the school holidays. I also read a great chunk of the book I’m reading right now. I’ve been so tired at the end of the day, my progress on ‘Atlas Shrugged’ is slowing. It was cool and I’d been to the shop in the morning and had another practice on the coffee machine, we’d done all the little things we had to do and I spent the afternoon napping, reading and eating. It is enough. I still slept soundly last night so I obviously need a bit of a catch up.

Today I feel totally refreshed and ready to get back into it all. It’s one week until Christmas. We are having lunch at our house this year. I’ve spent the morning writing lists of things to do. I have to post Tom and Dean’s Christmas present to Hamo, post Joan (Darin’s mum has the same name as my mum:-))her present, which I finished making this morning. I have to do a bit more shopping for some gifts I haven’t got yet, I’m guessing we will do most of the cooking for lunch at the shop and bring it home. When I say we, I mean Darin. Mum will help with the Christmas day preparations, she’s doing the pudding and dad’s getting the ham. We get the kids on Friday night until lunchtime Christmas day, so we need to have all that sorted out by then. I’m very excited about having a Christmas morning with little ones again.

I really like being so busy. I feel healthier than I have felt for a long time. Sometimes Darin and I look at each other and say ‘What were we thinking?’, but then we laugh and plow into it. It’s all coming together nicely, thanks to lots of help from other people as well as our own efforts.

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Massive Weekend

I’ve had a great weekend. There is nothing like that first weekend of the holidays… when the weeks of your choosing are lined up. It is a freedom that impacts in a good way.

We have guinea pigs. A male and female with changing names, and an immenent birth. A father and son construction occurred on Saturday afternoon to give the new additions to our expanding family a home. Whilst I was at the movies watching ‘Tomorrow When the War Began’, a new home was made.

All our children were in the same building at the same time this weekend. Tom was sleeping upstairs at lunchtime when Asha arrived on her way back to the city and R(3) E (5) and J(9) were all here for the weekend. There was no family photo to mark the rare occasion but there are memories to build on and this is smile worthy.

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Blogger’s Block

I just can’t put a post together right now. I have heaps of ‘excuses’ for that. I know better though, because no matter how busy I am or what’s going on in my life I can usually write something. I have things I want to write about. I will… soon.

We had the kids this weekend and enjoyed J (9 now!) ‘s soccer presentation yesterday and a birthday party today. I have had an enjoyable weekend.

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Love Hurts

I have spent the evening with one of my close friends who lost her brother this week. A student from one of our schools (Marist) died this week. There were many students this week feeling it. Another close friend lost a brother in law. I don’t personally know any of these people but I have met some of them. Their loss doesn’t hurt me except through seeing my friends suffer.

When we lose someone we love, it is an incredible opportunity for the survivors to share how they feel about that person and about each other. That is what I have witnessed. I have never forgotten when my grandfather died some August’s ago the love that I felt from my year 9 class and my friends. I really appreciated their support and kindness. Those students are now my year 12′s. I remember their goodness.

I had a year 10 student today asking my advise about what kind of message he should leave on his friend’s facebook page. Our students are not meant to access facebook in class, but sometimes there are more important things than the school rules. In a very respectful tone, I asked him who he thought would read that message on facebook and how they would feel about what he wrote. He was no longer communicating to her, it was her loved ones that he needed to consider, when he left his final note. That is the most important literacy to me. The literacy of the heart in the times of the greatest vulnerability.

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Full Moon in Aquarius – Monday 26th July 2010

It’s not an eclipse or anything major, yet this full moon packs something as you would know if you read astrogrrls take on it. The other site I recomment is as usual Lynda’s. One day soon I will share with you all my dawning truths. Aquarius, what can I say? I find them all different, it is the one star sign I find it difficult to say anything about to be honest. I guess they are unpredictable.

I had a beautiful weekend with the kids. I enjoyed going to the park and watching the karate kid trilogy, well up to halfway through number 3 anyway, with them. They are such fun to be with. I feel very blessed to share their lives.

Mum and dad are heading back to the northern part of the country for the sun and warmth and I caught up with them today so dad could tease me:-)

All is well in my world.
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