Sisters.

I had brothers growing up. I missed having a sister. I never wanted Liddy to be alone in the way I was. I always wanted her to have that special relationship in her life. I'm not sure she would agree. She rather enjoyed being the Queen Bee, the Rose amongst the Thorns ~ & a Queen she was. I had three boys before I had Liddy & for nearly 6 years she was the only girl & the youngest to boot. Naturally everyone spolit her rotten!

One of the small joys in my life is my girls. They are nothing alike but still manage to get along together pretty well but God so often grants us the desire of our hearts when we aren't looking & least expect them. Now my girls are growing up our relationship has shifted. Perhaps it is partially due to the homeschooling which does indeed help foster closer bonds but I seem to have acquired the sisters I desired rather late in life. There's no one I'd rather be with, no converstation more fascinating than that with my girls. That they return the pleasure is an added bonus.

While he's home...

Dino fishes for a living. So what does he do with his time off?

He takes his boat out & catches this...

Piano lessons.

The child is a drama queen extraordinaire! Saturday mornings she subjects 2 households to exquisite torture...piano lesson time! Now piano isn't for examinations or anything except pleasure & some basic math skills but like so much else Ditz is quite a capable little pianist who does love to make a fuss & it was on this morning. Finding music that challenges her but is not too demanding of her skills is the bane of Sian's & my life because whatever is put in front of her an immediate wail of, 'That's too hard!' goes up. Naturally it's not & with a little effort Ditz usually manages quite nicely. Sian understands her beautifully, though there is so much distraction it's no wonder piano is a trifle hit'n'miss.

However this morning was exercises for the left hand & the basics of transposing & you would have thought Ditz had been asked to perform the absolutely impossible. A lot of fuss & bother for something she was managing quite nicely by the end. And it can't have been too bad. When she's really put out she thumps out Wig~Wam at full throttle knowing perfectly well at least one person in the house can't stand it & everyone else will be howling about the tempo, the timing & the mistakes. She does know how to make her point, does Ditz!

Season's First.

This season's first cyclone is supposedly forming off the east coast in the Coral Sea & heading our way. Normally the worst of the weather never gets this far south but we can expect high tides, wild seas & plenty of rain. Guess Dino isn't heading back to sea just yet.

Christmas Day.

Our Christmas' tend to be quiet.
This year the year's biggest tide fell on Christmas Day ~ 8'8'', an absolute whopper. Dino had supplied a big doughnut & a new tow rope so the kids headed off scurfing. How else would you spend Christmas Day? Besides cricket, that is. The Christmas day cricket game was tradition for years, played on the farm lawn but the farm has been sold & no one else can host a halfway decent pitch. Scurfing is a pretty good second best. I could hear Ditz squealing from all the way inside the house. Better than snow...

The one who didn't enjoy himself...

Iss didn't like christmas. There were too many people here who aren't normaly here doing things they don't normaly do. First he tried tearing up all the wrapping paper. Then he tried hiding under it. Theo didn't see him, tripped over him & dropped his Christmas brekkie of pancakes, maple syrup, cream, icecream & walnuts all over him. In disgust Iss headed for the smallest box he could find & went to sleep!

Peace on earth, goodwill to men..

There has only been one Christmas; the rest are anniversaries.W.J. Cameron.





All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence & no doubt. I had seen birth & death
But had thought they were different....T.S Eliot Journey of the Magi

Mary kept all these things , pondering them in her heart ~ the gospel according to Luke.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

Only in souls the Christ is brought to birth,

And there He lives and dies.~Alfred Noyes

Carols.

Wow! We had a really good crowd turn out though it was just Ditz & I from here. Liddy was in bed with a migraine, Theo had disappeared to a work related thingy & Dino was still at sea; he arrived in this morning & now the boys are both at BFC (boating, fishing, camping) oogling their wares but I seem to be digressing worse than usual!

So I'm standing next to Ditz. My mistake. Every time the sopranos went high Ditz followed them! My poor eardrums! Gloria in Excelsia (which I can't seem to spell today, sorry Kimba :) but I fixed Juliette up, poor misguided girl )was nearly the end of me. I like the bass notes. Now the child wants to add the Singers to her list of things to be involved in. I don't think so.

Every year for 17 years J has asked if anyone can name all Santa's reindeer & every year some of us can name one or two but no~one can name all of them. As J says, we haven't learnt much in 17 years! I'm thinking of doing a study in time for next year. I'm of an age now where it will take me a good 12 months to memorise a dozen names. Poor Ditz even needed prompting to remember Bethlehem was the town Jesus was born in. I think she'd been wool gathering & suddenly found she was expected to be knowledgeable & intelligent. Ha! I know the feeling. Ditz is starting to whirr & spin. Christmas is only 3 sleeps away & the pantry is stocked with goodies!

Island carol.

We have our very own Christmas carol that an islander & the church pianist concocted between them.

It's Christmas on the islands
The air is warm & still
The sounds of night are loud & clear
The tree frogs voice is shrill.
The stars are bright as diamonds
They herald Christmas morn
We wait & we remember
When Jesus Christ was born.

Hallelujah
Glory to God on high
Salvation from almighty God
Began with a baby's cry.

We celebrate this happy time
The time God sent His son
To be a living sacrifice
To die for everyone
Please don't forget the reason
The sacrifice was made
And take some time to thank our God
This Island Christmas Day.

Hallelujah
Glory to God on high
Remember God's salvation
Began with a baby's cry.

Theatre ruminations.

The theatre workshop finished yesterday with their version of Dicken's A Christmas Carol. Interesting is the term to use, I think. As only 1/2 a dozen children participated, the props were minimal & the audience was only a hands breath away, it was as much an exercise in nerves as anything else.

Ditz loves nothing better than an audience & once she got over her initial shock of finding me in the middle of the front row (not my choice but I was late & that was all that was left) & inclined to a fit of the giggles she settled down to enjoying herself.

These sessions are free so it was nice to find them at a time we could go as so many of Ditz's activities cost me an arm & a leg. They are doing an introductory Shakespheare next year I want Ditz to attend as she is not going to find that gentleman easy no matter how we approach him but at least this way she might see it as 'fun.' It is meant for the older teens but Ditz has been invited. Apparently she has 'potential'. *sigh* I just hope they don't do Romeo & Juliet, which has always struck me as soap opera incorporated & has me rolling in the aisles with laughter. The first time I saw it, in about grade 9, I had to stick my jumper in my mouth I was giggling so hard while absolutely everyone else was weeping into their tissues ~ & that, of course, just made the whole thing funnier. I know; I'm terrible.

There will also be an Aboriginal art & theatre workshop, which is probably meant for the indigenous kiddies, but the artist likes Ditz & has had her eye on her since the art comp when her 'dotty' picture used an Aboriginal technique. Whether we will have time for all this remains to be seen.

None of this is very Christmassy. A Cristmas Carol, when audience & actors alike are wringing wet from the humidity is just too, too funny. However tonight is carols night, which is always in the Anglican church, stinking hot, beset with hordes of mosquitos & sandflies & terrific fun. Whoever is home always comes with me, if only because they put on a jolly good feed afterwards.

Ditzy Ditz.

I have in my hot little hands 2 bits of paper. They both arrived today. One is the results of the standardized testing. According to that Ditz is remedial material & I can't teach a monkey to shell peanuts. The other is the report card our umbrella school sends out twice yearly. According to that the child's a genuis. Go figure! The school has her work on record & I know the sort of games she was playing during the testing out of sheer boredom. It never pays to bore a bright child. No wonder so many of them end up in remedial programs.

Now I am fending Ditz out of my room where her brother secretly deposited his Christmas gifts with instructions to wrap & tag them for him as he headed back to sea along with some extra cash & a list of what he'd like on the Christmas table! I don't care what the test results say; there are no flies on Ditz!

Another one.

While the cousins were around we had a ministry of pinatas, painting & chocolate crackles. Ditz is the queen of pinatas & the girls were happy to glue newspaper on balloons. Our house was like a magnet just because they could make a mess & do kid stuff. The living room's seen worse.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK.

'In English,' said the linguistics professor, 'A double negative forms a positive. In some languages such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positve forms a negative.'

From the back of the room:' Yeah, right!'

Down in the trenches ~ again.

Life is busy but every so often I get the sort of reality check that reminds me forcibly that we are engaged in a war & if we are doing our jobs properly we are going to find ourselves in the trenches on the front line. I don't like war zones. I have serious issues with conflict. In point of fact I'm one of the world's great wooses. This is not somewhere I like to find myself.

Our church is unique & unusual. It grew out of a stubborn desire by a little core of elderly Anglican women to be able to worship every week, not just once a month when the minister came over. It has been down to a handful of people gathered in a member's house. It has grown large enough to move to larger premises. For 20 years it has clung like a limpet to the island. Other churches have come & gone. Ministers have come & gone. The church has stayed. At present it is also in serious difficulties. Basic problem, a conflict in how worship should be between our traditionalists & our charasmatics. Lots of unhappy people ~ & I means lots!

Our AGM is coming & a change of committee is on everyone's mind. Who should we elect to give God's people a vision & a hope? Three times I had people approach me & ask if I would stand for chair. Three times I said no way, hosea. I do not have gifts of organization or helps. I am reasonably good with people but I am more in the teacher/prophet mold & inclined to be fairly chaotic in any area other than writing/speaking. Unfortunately for me I am married to an intercessory. Like Jacob, Dearest knows about wrestling with God in prayer. Over a fortnight God gave Dearest His vision for our church. Dearest has been chair once. He is too sick to do it again but as a team we could do it. Dearest does all the detail that drives me wild & makes me very bad tempered & I become the face & deal with the church, which I have no problem with. I remain under Dearest's covering as well as God's. As Dearest says, his job becomes that of the avenging angel protecting the ministries. We have had so much confirmation I know I will have to stand but I have been dragging my feet hoping against hope God will raise up someone else to do a job I'm not in the least interested in doing & for which I feel most inadequet. (Please, no homilies about how God uses the weakest vessel etc. Knowing does not make it any easier.lol.)

So while I am alternately breaking down in floods thanks to serious bouts of attack at an extremely busy time of the year & ranting silently because I am as selfish as the next person & am perfectly happy to keep my pew warm & zoned out, Dearest doesn't remind me that the vision has been given to us. (Hopefully others too, but to us.) In point of fact we were discussing another issue entirely when Dearest reminded me we shouldn't even be here.

Nearly 20 years ago, before either of our girls were born or even thought of, God sent his angels to make sure we lived long enough to come here to live & be a part of this church. He truely has prepared every good work beforehand. Funny what a difference having that picture has made to my mind set. I mean, God does know what He's getting when He gets me & He might just have someone else in mind, mightn't He? And if He went to such extraordinary lengths to ensure we were here for His purposes I rather think I'd better get on with it, don't you? Yeah, me too. *sigh* I'm not good soldier material.

Home is the sailor, Home from the sea...

Dino beat the weather home, arriving unaccounced & unexpected. I was pontificating at bible study so missed his arrival but Dearest & Iss were both here to welcome him. He hates it if no~one's home when he gets in & promptly warmed the cockles of his father's heart by saying how nice it was to have a family to come home to for Christmas. Funny boy. He doesn't spend much time here but he likes to know we're here.

Meanwhile Theo is in clover & working next door. He rolls out of bed just before 7am & strolls over sipping his cuppa & finishing off his toast. Home for a hot lunch. (Can I afford this?) And he has the work truck over so has his own set of wheels.

Ditz & I are filling in our Mondays with the bible study we can't normally get to & drop off Liddy's lunch on our way through. This confuses her & the first week she wanted to know why we hadn't brought up her lunch. Howl of protest from Ditz (who had hand made & hand delivered it )that yes indeed she had got her lunch! Liddy, being busy at the time, had put it in the fridge & promptly forgotten it & consequentially starved all day. Silly kid. She didn't let it out of her sight today!

Peculiar Ministries.

God gives us some peculiar ministries ~ as those of you who have been reading here for some time will know. I got an odd one last night.Theo had gone to the movies on the mainland with a mate & as per usual rang when they got to the island before ours to say they were home so someone was ready & waiting with the car when they reached the jetty. Dearest took the call & came & woke me. Now before you wonder why on earth Dearest didn't just hop in the car & go himself instead of disturbing my much needed rest, Dearest is on the sort of pain medication that means you don't want him on the roads once he's taken it; really you don't. More to the point, no~one wants to get in the car with him.So I blearily toddled out to the car & headed off down the road in the happy confidence that at this time of night the island has pretty much shut down & the only other thing I'm likely to see on the road is a stray owl. I was pretty surprised to suddenly see a teenager running towards me waving their arms wildly. If I had been more awake I probably wouldn't have stopped. Wildly arm waving teenagers I don't know in the middle of the night being somehow more threatening than wildly arm waving teenagers I don't know in broad daylight.He got in the car & asked if I'd do a uey (u~turn) & drive him up the road as he was being pursued by persons unknown & sounded completely terrified. I had 2 boys waiting for me at the jetty so told him he could come for the ride or not but I was picking them up first. Besides 3 males looked much safer than the terrified one I already had in the car. Theo couldn't have been more surprised to find me arriving to pick him up with an unknown male in the back seat!I delivered everyone safely, saw nothing & no~one unusual as I drove home & haven't the least idea what that was all about nor why I was the appointed safe haven for some random boy I will probably never see again. Life is a great mystery.

I should have been a hermit.

By yesterday afternoon Ditz had had enough. She was begging to come home & I was getting a little wild about the eyes. The fact Liddy's car completely died between the last time I drove it & yesterday morning did not faze me. These things happen. The child just needs to get herself a heavy duty battery. However the fact we were now 2 boats & 2 buses behind schedule was the sort of recipe for exhaustion that a quick fix of Chineses take~a~way was not going to rectify in a hurry. Christmas was fast losing it's rosy tinge for Ditz but she was the spare pair of hands I can't do without & she is a cheeful little bunny who willingly plodded round the shops after me while I tried to decide what to buy the daughter it is impossible to buy for. (Car things this year apparently.:)) At some point she put the chosen present down & we never did find it (luckily not paid for yet!) The boys were easy & what I wanted 1/2 price ~ even better ~ but the packages were big & we staggered home on the bus & boat sagging under these enormouse boxes only to find both Dearest & the cat were in meltdown. The cat is sleeping on me again at night, a good sign he is feeling neglected & insecure. Liddy wanted a boat ~ bible study break~up dinner for a bible study she's never attended. ??? Theo was at a cricket training break~up party. No way could I manage to stay awake that long so was crawling in & out of bed; I am not the one who has trouble sleeping in this house.

Today Dearest's parents celebrate 50 years of marriage. The whole family & 1/2 the island is arrivng next door some time this afternoon. I will be good & socialize; 50 years of marriage is nothing to be sneezed at but I'm starting to envy Dino, sitting in his little blue puddle contemplating his navel & well out of it. If it wasn't for the smell of fish & that I get sea~sick over the slosh in a tea cup I would join him.

Olives at my table.

My American friend, Olive, has just moved to Britain with her 7 children. (That's right, I said 7 children). She has just started blogging to help keep me abreast of her news. If you would like to visit & make her feel welcome to our blog world I have linked her at the top of the page ... mostly because I don't know how to link from the post.

Anyone who can move intercontinent with a newborn & 6 little ones has my deepest, most profound respect...And she's still smiling.

A little rain.

After 20 years we are still building. The garden is doing better than the house but truth be told I care more about my garden than I do the house. (yes, the house is in there somewhere.)

A little rain & everything becomes instantly, lushly green. Hard to believe a month ago we were brown & dried up for want of good rain. With so many new houses going up all around us I'm pleased we put the garden in early on. It means we get to keep our privacy & really no~one can complain that we designed it back to front with our clothesline facing the road because we were here first & I refused to have it cluttering up my view of Quandamooka. Why would I want to look at our washing when I can look at the water? Or their houses when I can have trees?

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic. ~Gottfried Wilhelm

With a Little help From her Friend.

The tree is up! Ditz did it yesterday. Iss thinks it was done just for him & this is why I was replacing decorations this year. Instead of wacking him one Ditz took pictures.

Bird Tricks.

It's been a big week compounded by Dino arriving home from sea. Now when Dino comes home he sleeps in the bedroom between Ditz & Liddy & for some reason (ie Theo & Dino arguing about who exactly is responsible for checking the crabpots at 4am when Dino's home) Ditz is constantly being woken before the crack of dawn. This is not good news. So knowing both boys were away for the weekend I happily anticipated Ditz sleeping until the sun was at least up. Unfortunately sun or no sun, boys or no boys, my days invariably begin before it is light outside so I was not happy to hear Ditz trudging up the stairs while it was still dark.

I stopped typing long enough to eye her disapprovingly & suggest she go back to bed whereupon she sagged against me unhappily & confessed she'd spent 20 minutes trying to turn off her alarm only to discover the drongo has learnt yet another trick! Argh! Now the bird has learnt to mimic her alarm & park himself under her window to boot the child hasn't a hope! I wonder how long before she learns to sleep through the sound of her alarm going off?

Drongo alarm.

As soon as the first grey streaks of dawn lighten the sky around here the whar~a~whar~a~whar~a sound of a car alarm going off starts up under our window. Somewhere, sometime our resident drongo heard one & has added the abominable noise to his repertoire of sounds guaranteed to attract the female of the species. He can do a rather good lawn mower starting up too. I might feel miffed but I believe there are lyre birds that do a good chainsaw imitation so I count my blessings.

Drongos, although inclined to be a little shy, are terrific clowns & while my inlaws were away & their pool was gradually turning green with algae a drongo family took to dive bombing into the murky water every afternoon. They had great fun chasing each other into the water, skimming it like skipping stones & generally creating havoc. It's rather a pity my inlaws prefer to swim & dumped heaps of chlorine in it as soon as they got home.

Christmas shopping.

Finally I have cleared the last of the bills & Ditz & I were able to start our Christmas shopping. We got to the jetty & there was a queue all the way down the jetty & onto the pontoon. The boat was jam packed & the humidity climbing steadily. The car was unbelievably hot, the traffic already jamming & people's tempers fraying...& people wonder why I dislike December. Usually, if I time it right, there is one day in a week when crowds & traffic are at a minimum & I can shop in peace. Not in December.

Dearest & I had agreed that this year I'd buy a proper DVD player instead of whatever it is my kids use to play DVDs on ~ which meant I could indulge in DVDs & shopping for everyone should be a breeze this year, right? How I wish! For starters there are 3 DVD outlets so it was price comparision to start with & of course I couldn't get all the movies I had in mind cheapest at the same place, could I? We went back & forth, back & forth trying to find something I deemed suitable for my boys that I knew they would watch & then our church Chairman's wife spotted me & for an hour & a half we held what amounted to a church meeting in the middle of the shopping centre. That will teach me to be sick for more than a month & unavailable to people! Poor Ditz waited patiently. I sent her for donoughts & milkshakes but by then we'd both had enough. The queues were just getting longer & longer & the residue of my wog means I still tire very quickly so we turned tail & fled.

Ditz adores all the glitter & sparkle & hub~bub that constitutes the Christmas season & we were barely through our own door before she had the wrapping paper out & was asking could she start wrapping presents. Why not? I went & wrestled with the ink cartridges on the printer so I could finish typing our family newsletter & actually start sending out Christmas cards. This year requires a bit of tweaking. I was much better organized last year & all our cards had gone before Mark died so this year there are still people who will be shocked to learn that Christmas is somewhat of a delicate juggling act for us. My nephew is having a particularly hard time coming to terms with his father's death; he shares occassionally with my girls, my girls share with me.

Ditz has one more concert & we are done for the year! Then I can start focusing on the bits of Christmas I actually like ~ our carol night, cooking cookies with Ditz, catching up with eveyone's news as the cards start arriving, meditating on what was going on in the heavenly realms the night Christ was born as man. Now if I can just clear that desk Ditz can put up the tree!

What Ditz found in her bed.

When Ditz went to hop into bed this is what she found amongst the doona! By the time she'd grabbed me & the camera it was hopping all over her room & there was no way Ditz was touching it. The child who removed a dead mouse from my toaster without batting an eyelash had serious issues with a little green tree frog.

I have no idea how it got there or why it thought Ditz's bed was a good place to be but stay it could not.

I wet my hands so as not to damage the frog's sensitive skin

& prayed Issi didn't come investigating the commotion. Up north they grow to a huge size & like to live in the toilet bowls. There is nothing more disconerting when you are in no position to run shrieking through the house than to have something damp & clammy attach itself to your bare butt!!! True. Ask Dearest.

Dreams & things.

Sometimes your kids surprise you. I knew yesterday's audition was really important to Ditz. I missed just how important. Today, being flute & the last lesson of the term, we trotted 2 islands over in all the heat & humidity to find, as so often happens, music is at the bottom of every one's priorities except for the band master. Ditz gets a one on one lesson & after band we could have gone home but Ditz opts to hang round to hear the theory class repeated & I get the sense she is touching base musically with what is known & comfortable. Sure enough as we head back to the jetty she starts talking about the audition again & I begin to understand that in Ditz's mind this is huge! This is not the island. This is not church where everyone knows & loves her quirkiness. This is professional. For the first time she's had to really put herself on the line & it's been ok. More than ok. Ok, now I get it. No wonder the child couldn't sleep last night.

In many ways this has been Ditz's year. Everything she's touched has turned to gold. Liddy had a year like that in year 7 too. The boys had years that were great years for them but I'm mum so I'm trying to keep everything at least somewhat balanced so in amongst all the hoo~ha of varying degrees surrounding Ditz (her brothers are more impressed she gets into the footy free than that she gets to sing the National anthem to open!) I turn to Liddy because this works for her too & the penny's just hit bottom for me. The ensemble rehearses Wednesday night. Liddy trains Wednesday nights. I can drive both girls in & out & though it means a bit of hanging about for both, less travelling & no having to rely on other people. I feel tired already.

The boys, busy cutting the apron strings, have plans & dreams too. Dino is about to quit his job, round up his savings & head south to acquire his Masters. He should have enough sea hours now & he wants to skip. Crewing is for the birds. Whatever. So long as he stays away from the Bering Sea or he will hear all about it from me. Theo is months away from finalising his trainee ship & though he is a bit behind his income should soon skyrocket & wont he like that! Which leaves Jossie. I wish that child would occasionally ring home just to say he's still breathing in & out. Never thinks of it & no good trying to ring him. Either no~one's ever home at his place or they have a rule that says no~one's ever allowed to answer the phone, ever.

Which reminds me...Tomorrow I'll post pics of what Ditz found in her bed last night. And it was me had to run the rescue mission! No, I'm not telling. It would spoil the surprise.

The Audition.

As I said, Ditz was auditioning this week for one of VM's choir ensembles. I have been subjected to strange renditions of Nellie Furtado everywhere we went all week. The child was so relaxed I seriously couldn't believe her but no problemo; I had all the nerves for her. One of the joys of being homeschooled & clever: not too many putdowns come your way.

So I dutifully took her to the mainland on the appointed day, at the appointed time & as we were driving into town this little voice quavered, 'I think I know what they mean by nerves now!' Terrific timing! Yep, serious butterflies had hit & not in the least helped by the soaring humidity which dropped a bucket of rain on our heads & held the proceedings up for nearly 20 minutes while we waited on the choir director's arrival & the other contestants began arriving & lavishing hair spray & dying swan acts around in equal proportions.

Now I don't think Ditz chose a particularly easy song & she was a capella to boot when she has never ever soloed anything before in her life so not so surprising she drew a complete blank when she went to sing. The very first word had fled completely, which is so unlike my Ditz she was more surprised than unnerved. However she was unnerved enough to start a little flat, also unlike her. I thought she'd blown it completely but as she gradually gained confidence the dizzy Ditz began shinning through in all her glory & she managed all her changes nicely so I was able to stop cringing in a corner. The next bits were a breeze by comparision. Ditz has played music games with Sian for nearly 4 years & can hit the high G on a good day so she was really back in her comfort zone. She has a reasonable musical memory & I could have told you Ditz would 'hear' the descant in the triads.

I'm expecting to wait months for a result but no, Ditz is told then & there she's in & which ensemble she's joining. She has scored herself 99% (& all I heard all the way to the boat is how losing one percent just wasn't good enough yada, yada, yada. Loopy. Completely. ) Alison was really happy with Ditz. 'You've never sung like that for me before,' she enthused & reckons she's come a long way in just 6 months. God's timing. Ditz is ready now for the next big music stretch ~ & she's about to get it. The ensemble she's joining has the singers who really impressed me during the Strawberry Festival.

All the way home on the boat I got, 'Guess what? I'm in.' Yep, I'm pretty proud of my Ditzy Ditz(& she's pretty proud of herself too) but as Dearest said with a smirk, Ditz is never going to look at Idol the same way ever again.

Plane Distraction

The real estate people used to bring potential rich buyers to look at land using a sea plane. Watching them land on the water was a common sight for my littlies but just how common didn't hit home until our first vist to my parent's new location on the Sunshine Coast.

As we drove past Brisbane airport for the very first time a hysterical commotion broke out in the back seats of our van & a little voice shrieked,''Mummy! Mummy! That plane's going to crash!'' I was a little bewildered. The plane engine sounded just fine & I could see the landing gear coming down as the plane lined up the runway but Dino was getting frantic. And then it hit! None of my kids had ever seen a plane with wheels! Planes came with skids so far as they knew! It took some convincing & they had to watch one or two planes land safely before they actually believed us but I realised then living on an island had given my kids a distinctly lopsided view of life.

Some years later my father began taking my kids gliding with him. Just as well we cleared up the skid problem. Gliders come with neither wheels nor skids & are shot into the air slingshot fashion using a truck & a tow wire but the kids were well over it by then. They were more interested in getting their grubby paws on the glider controls & flying the thing.

Homeschoolers quandary..

Ditz does some beautiful work but what I want to know is what do we do with it now? We don't need it for record keeping & I don't have lots of storage but if we just chuck it out does it say it wasn't worth doing well in the first place?

Being green.

OK, I admit it. I'm something of a greenie.

However things have got a tad out of control at our house. The ficus is rambling all over the kitchen ceiling & then I found this growing in my wall next to the sink. I was enchanted but sadly it's a weed & I pulled it out. Still something so determined deserved a better fate.

Island Speciality.

We used to joke the boats carried everything ~ even the kitchen sink. See, it's almost true.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK.

I hate December.

All year I dread December. It is a month of complete lunacy. December is not to be confused with Christmas. I am rather fond of Christmas but December is just horrible.

For starters it is hot. That's right hot ~ & humid~ & possibly stormy as well. Secondly there is never any parking anywhere! Not on the island, not on the mainland. And the crowds. I live where I do because I do not like crowds. Thirdly I can't stand the greed & the commercialism that begins in late November & peaks about Dec., 24. I hate how everyone wants the holiday but rejects the reason we even have the holiday. And then there's Ditz. I'm not even starting to count all the things that child gets herself involved in round about now ~ concert after concert plus the yearly play.

Christmas is always low key with us. We keep it simple because it's invariably stinking hot & my kids were never allowed to rip, tear & bust on Christmas morning. Nothing under the tree is touched till after church & then we do it in turns so everyone can enjoy each other's presents. I do a big breakfast of American pancakes with walnuts & maple syrup, cream & icecream. Absolutely disgusting I know but I did them one year & it immediately became a tradition. Every year I try getting out of making them & there's a universal howl of outrage.

Naturally Ditz adores December. So much happening, so much to see & do. She spins like a whirly~giddy in her element. I get like a slow leaking balloon until I'm this poor, limp, saggy thing that should've been binned a decade ago. I guess I object to the fact that this is our long school break & no~one really gets to relax. December is all about preparing for Christmas but come Janurary we're preparing to go away for our annual visit to my mum & when we get back it's all about getting ready for school again. I really should organise my life better. Maybe I should just get a new life. Pern looks better & better.