This Wednesday's child's not full of woe...

This week I'm happy because...

of iTunes. It makes me feel like I'm living in The Jetsons. I just think of a song, any song, and it can be on my computer in a matter of seconds. No more trips to the CD shop. I know I'm late on catching on to this, but it amazes me every time I do it.

Listening to my girls play hide and seek - the hit of the week. It usually goes like this: "I'll hide here and you go close your eyes and count."

Repeats of Law & Order and Love My Way.

What's keeping your Wednesday woe-free?

Parklife

Being a stay-at-home mum to two can be a challenge. Filling up your days all while educating and entertaining your kids is not always easy as it sounds. Neither of my two are in any kind of child care, so I often feel that I have to make sure we tick all the boxes - socialisation, music, art & craft, reading, playing. Just so they aren't missing out on what the other kids are doing - yep more mum guilt there!

Most days we go to the park, often twice a day and not unusually three times a day. I have to say going to the park is not my favourite thing. Sometimes it's fun, we concoct some kind of adventure and roll around laughing. Other days it's deadly boring (for me) pushing the swing and catching kids off the slide, it can be so monotonous that I think my brain may melt out my ears. At other times we catch up with friends so that the three of us get to interact with other people. I truly never imagined I would spend so much time in the park.

The older the kids get, the harder it is to entertain them. As day sleeps disappear, there's a lot more time to fill and a demand for more complicated games. Jangling my keys or playing peek-a-boo just doesn't cut it, no matter how hard I try. As much as I do love it, it's sometimes more exhausting than having small babes. My eldest gets bored and gets into mischief while I try and complete my chores and errands. Here is a picture from yesterday's effort:

Yes, that's toothpaste. Yes, that's her little sister. She says she was trying to turn her into a monster. Gee, thanks. All my own fault though, they were being particularly quiet and I used those quiet two minutes to finish washing up. I knew something bad was brewing, but a few minutes to complete something in peace is a rare thing. At this moment, Goosey is sleeping and Lil-Lil is covering me in stickers and paddlepop sticks from her craft box - anything to write in relative peace.

To keep the three of us sane, we've organised our days with Kindermusik, swimming lessons, playdates, playgroup/kindy sessions. To add to the mix they'll also be visiting a local nursing home every now and then. I'm also trying to organise excusions - today we went to the Maritime Museum, fabulous and free! We've also been to the Botanical Gardens recently. But, my God, trying to find fun things to do for free in Sydney is bloody hard. The zoo, aquarium, Luna Park and the like are more costly than child care! How do families go out and spend a day at these places, eat, pay for parking/transport and still have anything left in their wallets? It's highway robbery!

Does anyone out there have some fun [and free] suggestions? Something that doesn't involve toothpaste or parks... we've got those covered.

Monday housekeeping

Mondays tend to be my day to recalibrate everything. Sort out the house, get the brain fired up and ease into the week. We do swimming lessons on Monday which is a nice activity for  early in the week. Lil-lil gets to splash and I don't have to do too much!

This morning I'm moving a little slower than normal. We had a friend's engagement party on the weekend and it was an absolute blast - except for the part where I drank too much and felt completely rotten on Sunday. It was a great night of catching up with friends, dancing and drinking cider.... and sambucca. I haven't drunk cider since 1997 when I was in the UK, I stopped as it used to make me quite drunk and then very ill the next day. I haven't drunk sambucca since 1996 when I was in Canada as it used to make me quite drunk and then very ill the next day. So you can see I was really thinking when I decided to team them up together!

These days I'm a couple of glasses of wine girl or the odd gin & tonic. I can't handle much more than that. It doesn't seem to go well with my age or my role as mum to two littlies. Oh well, that will learn me!

It's now one month since I wrote my 10 things to do in 2010, so I thought it might be nice to see how I'm trucking along. Plus a nice slooooow, easy thing to do on a Monday:

1) Eat healthy and drink less (or not at all). This was going well until the weekend, feeling yuck yesterday meant I just had to have a Dominos Hawaiian...

2) I want exercise to be a regular part of my day (yawn... I know, I know all very boring stuff but necessary). Still been very slack with this. I need to get on to it. Any tips??

3) I want to pamper myself more - take more time out for just me; buy myself clothes; do my nails; spoil myself with a pretty bauble now and again; get my hair done regularly. I think I've done OK with this. I have been taking more time for myself (which I still feel guilty for!) and I have bought some new clothes.

4) Take some singing/music classes. I have been wanting to do this for so long, but now I want to find a way to make it happen. Haven't got there yet, but the wheels are in motion. I also want to do a writing course too.

5) Have a beach holiday with my family. Booked and paid for! Can't wait, only a few weeks to go!

6) Start a long-term saving/investment plan. Have been doing some research so it's underway.

7) Finish my backyard (it's been a project in progress for two years!) and make it a lovely place to be. This is getting underway too.

8) Plan an overseas holiday for 2011 - either New York or France (or both!). Nothing has happened with this just yey.

9) Cook a sensational three-course French meal for Skip (doesn't really go with number 1, I know). Nothing happened here either...

10) Find a wonderful dream to chase and start chasing it. I think I may be on the right path here too. Don't want to reveal too much too soon.

How are you going with your resolutions?

Image: www.freedigitalphotos.net

Storm clouds

Sunny days
Where have you gone?
I get the strangest feeling you belong.
Why does it always rain on me?
Is it because I lied when I was seventeen?
Why does it always rain on me?
Even when the sun is shining
I can't avoid the lightning.

Why does is always rain on me -Travis

Image: freedigitalphotos.net/

City limits

Some times on days like today, when I can't turn around without tripping over something and wished our family of four had more than two bedrooms, I like to try and remind myself why I like where we live. This isn't to trash where other people live, it's just to make me feel a bit better about the fact that I don't have a play room, a study or even a 'spare' room - something I dream about - or that I don't have a big yard or a place to park our car.

We live in a small semi-detached house about 5km from the centre of Sydney's CBD. So without banging on about what we don't have, here's a taste of what we do have.

* Fabulous coffee just steps away from my front door

* Fabulous food just steps away from my front door

* It feels like I can get anywhere in Sydney in just 15 minutes

* I can get to the airport in just 15 minutes, in fact it often feels like the planes may actually land in our garden

* If I have a craving for wild boar terrine with a French Pinot Noir, I can have it on my table in about 20 minutes - take that Dominos!

* I love that this morning while doing the grocery shopping my girls blew kisses to the Muslim checkout chick wearing a hijab, the group of Italian men gossiping in the shopping centre, our lesbian nextdoor neighbours, the Chinese boy wheeling past in a stroller. Our area is so diverse that no-one's different, we're all unique. There's someone of every nationality, ethnicity, age group, sexual orientation and we've even got a couple of Wiggles in our community.

* I love that it's an intelligent, creative and open-minded area - lots of artists, musicians, actors, academics.

* I love that even though I'm in the inner-part of a big city I can walk down my main street and know the shop keepers and lots of local residents. After living in areas of Sydney where you never waved hello to anyone, I constantly do it here.

* When the kids and I get completely stir crazy we can walk out of front door and be amongst the action in a minute. It definitely helped ease the isolation of new motherhood.

As I've said in earlier posts, I could live pretty much anyway and make a go of it, but sometimes it's nice to remember why you are where you are.

Have a great weekend folks.

Image: © Vanessa Fitzgerald

This Wednesday's child's not full of woe...

I'm feeling quite perky this Wednesday. Maybe it's cause I only had to get up once in the night to tend to a kid. Maybe it's cause the two munchkins had a couple of hours at kindy this morning and I got to do nothing except read a book. Bliss! Even though I felt incredibly guilty about not doing all the things I shoulda, coulda done.

So to spread the cheer, here are some of the things that are making me chipper today:

These delicious pork and chive dumplings from Shanghai Night, Ashfield, Sydney. 

Add chilli + soy = Heaven on a plate!

Photo courtesy of grabyourfork.blogspot.com

Her sweet voice and sledgehammer lyrics make me smile.

Reading this while the kids were having fun at kindy. Takes me back to working in an office and makes me think about 'what could have been' if I was ambitious, worked hard and, well, liked magazines.

Going to Canberra to see the Masterpieces from Paris exhibition very soon. 

The start of the autumn carnival!

Happy Wednesday to you all.

A real beauty of a tag

The absolutely beautiful Megs of Box of Tricks tagged me with this beautiful award

Now, today is a special day for Megs, it's the day her baby is born. I have been thinking of you today, Megs, and hope it has been full of absolute joy for you. I have been saving this award for today in honour of her.

As part of the award I have to write 7 interesting things about myself. Hmm that may be hard! I can't promise they will be interesting, but I'll try.

1) A number of Skip's relatives and my relatives share birthdays.

2) Lil-lil and I are both obsessed with Asian food. Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, you name it. I actually think Lil-lil may have been Asian in a past life!

3) I'm close to jumping off and actually studying some of things I said I would do. Yes, singing lessons and writing courses are coming my way. If I could just save the money to pay for them.

4) I used to be obsessed with James Dean. He's still a favourite of mine.

5) I used to dream of being the first woman to win a Best Director Oscar.

6) I would love to live in Hong Kong one day (and fulfill my Asian food urges, mainly BBQ pork!)

7) Hong Kong Phooey used to be my favourite cartoon character. He was a number one super guy, faster than the human eye.

Ok, I admit, I was running a bit thin there.

Now to tag 7 other beautiful bloggers:

Tiny Trappings

Mr London Street

BabyMac

In a Beautiful Pea Green Boat

Maisie and More

Daughters of the stars

Hello Owl

PS - the gorgeous Brenda from MummyTime also tagged me for two awards, I will pass them on soon. I promise.