Monday, December 31, 2012

New Year's Eve

Oh dear, 2012 flew by at warp speed didn't it?

This time a year ago I was walking around Alexandra Gardens with The Man and my brother, conducting an experiment (information about it can be found here and here on my other blog) to see how many boobs we saw out and about during the Melbourne NYE festivities.

Right about now (11pm) a year ago, we were walking to our ultra-exclusive vantage point to see the fireworks, and if I'm not wrong, I was eating a twisty potato on a stick and drinking fail lemonade. I have very particular preferences in lemonade, and so the fact that I was drinking the wrong kind on NYE stuck out in my memory.

We went to 9:30 fireworks in another town
because Bendigo didn't have kid-friendly
NYE activities and The Man stepped on

something and cut his foot.
Eeew. 

But wow, the year that came in between was pretty full on - we finished moving out of our unit and into our first house, Honey had surgery on her eyes (horrible, wouldn't wish anyone to have to send their kid for surgery), cooked Buddy, underwent an interminably long pregnancy waiting for him to be born (they added days ONTO the pregnancy - that is just plain rude), The Man turned 30, I helped organise a huge market night fundraiser that raised over $2000 (not tooting my own horn, just really happy that it raised so much funds), organised a wedding, gave birth to Buddy (and whoa ho! the story of his arrival waits for another day), The Man's brother and sister-in-law got married (which having a three week old and trying to organise two under two to be at the wedding, dressed without me looking like a swamp monster was an amazing feat), underwent a massive wedding dress drama, got married a month ago, and now... waiting for the next big thing to happen. I should have finished university too, but didn't. Looking back at my list of 2012 accomplishments, I am not sure how I could have fit completing my course into my busy schedule!

And that's just me, what other huge things happened in the big wide world: Gangnam Style. One Direction. an Austrian guy jumped out of a space shuttle and sky-dived back to earth. Queen Elizabeth's queendom turned 60 years old. The Twilight movies finished. Julian Assange is hiding out in a South American embassy. The Olympics where Usain Bolt won the 100m - again. Barack Obama is voted leader of the free world again (such a jauntier term than 'president') and almost ending with the loss of 27 innocent souls at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and the death of Tony Grieg (cricket celebrity of some importance) just days ago.

I'm not going to continue listing world events because that's boring, but good gravy that is a lot of stuff to pack into a year, and that is only stuff that I noticed in my pregnancy-induced haze of inattentiveness.

But really, all I want to say is that I hope everyone out there's 2013 is all they want it to be. Me, I am hoping that as we've packed so much into 2012, that my family's 2013 is quiet and relaxed and I spend more than my fair share of it chilled out with an interesting book and a glass of something bubbly (probably Coca-Cola given my current breastfeeding status).

And now because I have carefully scheduled Buddy's feeds, I am off to the backyard to hopefully watch midnight fireworks and drink moscato...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Wigory party

I got one of those voice to text messages after work yesterday from The Man:
.
Who's Carlo?
I googled and 'haji' is a title given to people of the Muslim faith who've made a pilgrimage to Mecca.
I've never been outside Australia, so not sure who that message was for (and not aware of The Man having any friends called Carlo) I rang to get a translation.

**Recently I changed the language of my iPhone to Irish English, so that it could speak to me in an Irish albeit female accent which is cooler than the Austrayan (sp) that it was set on, so not sure if my phone was listening to The Man in Irish. I don't know.
Also, did you know you can make your phone speak to you? The first thing I made it say was 'diddly dee potato.

When I spoke to The Man, I asked him what a wigory party was. Incidently, Wigory is the Twitter account of a bloke called Alfred Wickop and also the name of someone who does something with GPSs. Perhaps the same person?

Well there seemed to be a wild party happening in the background and The Man told me that they were having a Wiggly Party* (part of the very full on busy day that they had yesterday) and that Honey's new favourite song to dance to is Architecture in Helsinki's cover of Wiggly Party by the Wiggles:


She has very eclectic taste in music. Even now as the YouTube video is playing she is dancing like a demon to it.

And after that 'Wiggly Party' was stuck in my head and I kept singing the falsetto part to my Mum, much to her confused bemusement.

*Anyone else think that an adult man talking about a wiggly party brings up hilarious mental images? Just me? OK.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

What's a technical SAHM?


I am a technical SAHM*.

It's a term I have invented for myself. Pretty much it means that I am a SAHM except for the rare occasions that I do go to work. I'm one of hundreds of thousands of technical SAHMs.

For instance, I am working one day in December, on day in January and a couple of days in February. Yeah, some would say that my work is a holiday from The Man and the midgets (and sometimes it is). I identify as a SAHM because I spend all but eight hours every fortnight in the company of one or both of my children, but that pesky shift once in a while stops me from being a REAL SAHM. Oh well.

Lucky I love my job, isn't it?!

But tonight after my first shift back after having Buddy, I realised that Honey had issues today because she missed me. Back before when I went to work, she'd happily play with her dad all day and not even notice I was gone, but she noticed this time, and she SCREAMED and SHOUTED and RANTED and RAVED when The Man tried to put her in the shower to wash off all the dirt and muck she'd accrued during her (apparently) very full-on and fun day she had with her father. It ended up that I had to dangle Buddy as he had a feed and sat in front of the shower so Honey could see me.

Didn't seem to help though and all that seemed to happen was my left boob was stretched ridiculously by Buddy, while Honey continued screaming at her dad.

But afterwards I read to Honey and sung/read this song at least four times. Not because she liked the song, but because I found it funny.

My sense of humour, and what I find amusing even baffles me sometimes.

High Jump

The Shrew said to the Kangaroo,
"I can jump as high as you!"
Laughed Kanga, "How can that be true?
Of one so small, please tell me, do!"

A kangaroo
Said Shrew, "I'll show you, then you'll see
I'll jump so high, I'll reach that tree!
But first of all you must agree,
To show your jumping skills to me!"

A shrew
(always thought they were a bird - eh, go figure)
Then Kanga bounced into the air,
So busy he was unaware
That Shrew was clinging to his hair
To reach the treetop - most unfair!

A tree
Back Kanga landed on the ground,
"Your turn," he said, and spun around.
"Up here!" called Shrew, a distant sound,
"Well," said Kanga, "I'll be bound!"

I read this so many times that Honey wouldn't let me read it anymore and closed the book on my hand, BUT I had already memorised it so now she thinks all the poems and songs in her book are about the Shrew and the Kangaroo, HA HA!

*SAHM is a Stay At Home Mom/Mum

First up

Me.
In disguise and before my
children aged me terribly.
Was just thinking before, how twenty, or even ten years ago I wouldn't have had the internet presence that I have now.

I mean, I have blogs, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, accounts on a heap of forums and all these opportunities to talk about all sorts of topics - some of these topics I know a lot about, some I know a little and some I pretend to be an expert on for my own amusement (hey, I have to make my own fun you know).

Anyway, this is my newest blog, created especially for New Years Eve 2012 (or is it NYE 2013, because the new year is 2013, but it specifically says 'eve' which means before the new year?). I've already got a blog that I started way back when I was a student and hadn't met The Husband/FOMC and now reading over my old blog, it's kinda whiny, so here is a fresh new one that includes my little treasures as well as properly including FOMC. If you want to read my old blog, it can be found here.

About me
I'm 30-something years old, a mother to two little people (hence the name of this blog), married (but only just), occasional marketeer and passionate about literacy (and I try really hard to use correct grammar and spelling and I blame my occasional slips on 'baby brain' because it's a real thing) and learning in general. I like to use brackets in my writing because I learnt in primary school that extra information should be in the brackets and you should be able to read whatever the writing is without the brackets and it still makes sense.