photostory friday: de javu (all over again)

June 2010

February 2012

same room

different child

same emotions too, although for the child leaving home, i guess the emotions are pretty much the same (for them):

excitement

anticipation

nervousness

scared (maybe a little)

...however i am completely incapable of articulating them

not because i don't want to, but because it's hard to put into words how you feel when your child leaves home

sooooo, if you're a mother and you've had child/ren leave home

you'll know how i feel

PS: i wrote this post on Feb 1st, and miss 20 left home on Feb 6th

it's amazing to read this now - not even 3 weeks hence

this photo was taken of her ACTUALLY leaving home

it was totally surreal

i of course saw her the very next day to take the 3 girls to the supermarket to do their first 'flat' shop

(they wanted to do it together, but had no means to get there!)

it's amazing how much attention they paid to the price of each item when they were paying for it themselves!!!

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

wordful wednesday: freaky people

i think the fact that i had the ISO set all wrong on my camera and i had to photoshop the crap out of it to make it look halfway decent just adds to the 'flavour' of the photo - don't you?

i love that they were happy to pose for me too

they are WELL used to me pointing a camera in their faces by now!

this photo was taken outside a cute little nic nac shop in moolooaba

for more wordful wednesday visit angie over @ seven clown circus

photostory friday: a bolt from the vault

i honestly couldn't find any inspiration for this post from my recent photos, and you're probably sick of seeing holiday pics from our latest trip to australia.

so i trawled the archives this afternoon, and this is what i found:

photos from when miss 20 (age 12 in this pic) was still happy to play with her little sisters

i mean REALLY play

i don't remember taking these photos (obviously i did), and lot of 'those years' were a total blur, but i DO remember that all 6 of us used to crowd into this family room most of the time; there was mess, noise, laughter, tiredness, more mess and more noise, but i'm so glad i carved out all that family time.

because when you carve it out here

and CONTINUE to make time for it

it's easy to keep going

toot toot for family time.

may it never end.

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

wordful wednesday: you're never to old to.....

share a laugh and a cuddle with your grandma

my parents have been visiting for the past 5 days and miss 20 (almost 21!) and her boyfriend came over for dinner on sunday night (a big fat ROAST!) we had 9 around the dinner table.

love that.

after dinner we played cards (another post)  we managed to NOT scare new boyfriend off after playing cards.  previous players to join our card table (then beat a hasty retreat) include tara and miss 18's boyfriend.

their parting comments went something like this:

"you're mean when you play cards!"

"this is too intense!"

well, if ya can't handle the heat.....

meanwhile back at the ipad, i'm almost wishing i hadn't shown my parents how to play scrabble on said ipad.  for the past 5 days all i've heard is utterances about 'it' or 'they' (the corporate baddies hiding in the battery pack maybe?) won't accept my word!

refusing to use the dictionary, i think they enjoy doing battle with the computer.

on the issue of the word 'trojan' however, i must take their side.

although it's a well-known brand name, i do believe the greeks came up with the idea first, but scrabble would have none of it.

for more wordful wednesday, visit angie over @ seven clown circus

normal transmission will be resumed as soon as i'm done sunning myself on a beach for the next 7 days

just wanted to say a BIG BLOGGY THANKS for the kind words and support following yesterday's post.

...and you know what the best part was?

i KNEW how wonderful you would all be

"ask and ye shall receive"

"sisters are doin' it for themselves"

'n'all that

if you still have some bloggy love left to spare, please visit kelli over at pooba - she's having a tough time right now and could do with your support too.

tomorrow, the 6 of us are heading here:

everyone is very excited, and because we're not at home and on holiday, i'm fairly certain that there won't be any of the household drama we've had lately.

it's amazing even what 24 hours of flatting will do to a girl.

i got a call the next day VERY politely requesting some items that were left behind.  when i replied that i had planned to give her space between then and coming home tonight [for tomorrow's early flight] - she said:

"no, no - it's fine.  i don't mind.  you can come over!"

what a difference a day makes.

see ya back here in a week!

some days being the grown up really sucks

whoever said a week is a long time in politics, obviously didn't have kids; because a rough week in parenting can seem like a LIFETIME.

miss 20 left home yesterday.

6 days ago, it was looking like it might be the longest 6 days of my life.

i'd left the house for a walk after a fight with miss 20, and found myself freezing my butt off beside a local stream, wailing down the phone to my best friend, trying to make sense of one of my worst days as a parent.

miss 20 had found a flat and was moving out, but it had been and was getting ugly, and i was struggling to make sense of it all, and wondering how on earth i'd get through the next week.

my best friend's daughter is 3 years older than mine, so through the years she's been my 'advance party', taking the hits and gaining invaluable experience which she's always been happy to share.

before writing this post, i thought about how much i wanted to 'share'...

.....but i NEED to know that i'm not alone

.....i NEED to know that you can feel bad and get better;

.....and i WANT to share so that someone reading this will maybe take something from it and find it useful.

a 30 minute conversation with my best friend was cheering, helpful, insightful and even managed to contain a few laughs.

"it's not like in the movies where you carry the cardboard box to the car and then embrace.  there's no fairytale".

"i never thought it would be like that" i replied.

"someone [either one of you] has to feel like crap.  that's just the way it is".

"but why?  why can't it be somewhere in the middle?"

"it just isn't", she said.

WELL THAT SUCKS.

a week earlier, over a roast dinner, our neighbour (whose daughters have left home, boomeranged  back (twice), then married) said the nicest thing anyone could have said to me.

"all children become FERAL just before they leave home.   it's nature's way of making it easier to let them go."

...and i think he might just be right.

so here's what i have learned:

at 17, when your daughter starts bringing home the BEST academic results of her 13 years at school; then carries on to bring home straight As in her first and second years at university (college) - do NOT give her a free pass on household chores.

this, combined with a SAHM (me), her GEN-Y attitude and a generally lazy disposition when it comes to helping out around the place, WILL create the proverbial monster.

there's no hope for me, BUT SAVE YOURSELVES!!!

Hosted by Cecily

wordful wednesday: happy shortest day

for yesterday

i snapped this pic (then photoshopped it a bit) on the way past our botanical gardens, yesterday at lunchtime.

i was on my way BACK from the orthodontist (miss 12)

and on my way TO miss 20's new FLAT!

yes, my eldest baby is moving out

there's so much to say about it, but that's a whole other blog post

...and seeing as she's moving out NEXT WEEK (before we head off to australia for our winter getaway), i'll save it for then

suffice it to say, i'm very happy for her (and depending on her behaviour) even happier for me!

while she's deciding whether she actually needs me to help her move out, i'm going to start enjoying lighter mornings and longer days.

i love it when the shortest day is also a sunny one.

for more wordful wednesday, visit angie over @ seven clown circus

wordful wednesday: a post for auntiegwen

i made this for dinner

tuscan lentil soup (click for the recipe!)

it's a fave of miss 20's

normally when the girls take care of the dishes [read, argue for 20 minutes over them], the leftovers are literally LEFT OVER - (for a parent to eventually take care of)

tonight miss 20 was first in line to secure lunch for the next day

to make sure no-one else in the family took it by mistake

she left this note...

the funny thing is, she has no idea that FECK is one of auntiegwen's favourite words!!!

...most often used (and used often it is!) to break up the word TECHNOLOGY
as in 'techfeckinology part umpteen'

auntiegwen - we feel your presence in our home halfway around the world!

(feel the love...)

for more wordful wednesday, visit angie over @ seven clown circus

photostory friday: not giving them everything when you can

Hosted by Cecily and She's a moron and can't remember...

mr scrappy and i come from working class families. both my parents worked semi-skilled jobs. my mum worked to provide the 'extras'. mr scrappy's mum didn't work outside the home on account of the fact that they had 7 kids!

we never had overseas family holidays. we didn't have 'label' clothing. my parents made me pay $4 a week rent when i received $16 a week from my place of study. man, i hated them for that! not now tho!

THAT'S how times have changed. we got PAID to study! now of course there are student loans.

we certainly can't compare how it was for us at the same age, but at the same time, we want our daughters to have the same experiences.

we want them to have to work for everything they have, not because WE had to (our parents couldn't afford to give us lots of 'stuff' even if they wanted to), but because it's the right thing to do (well, we think so!)

do you have any idea how hard it is NOT to give your kids everything when you have the means to?

don't get me wrong - we're totally at peace with our decision - while all around us friends are buying their children their first car, paying their rent, paying for their entire university (college) education etc etc.

having said that, mr scrappy is a BIG SOFTIE.

mr scrappy: "how'd you like to go through life with a big debt hanging over your head?" (referring to student loans)

me: 'it's called a mortgage hun"

mr scrappy: "no! as a teenager!"

me: "meh. they'll live. it's character-building. like digging holes."

so we decided to buy them a macbook each. miss 20 (as a 2nd year design student) has done well to manage without one so far; and miss 18 (who is waiting to hear whether she's been accepted into the same course - ANY DAY NOW!) will make good use of one too.

we had decided not to buy the laptops until AFTER miss 18's end of year exams, but like i said before, someone's a softie...

opening screen - "it's so cool!"

posing for their profile photos
someone had just done a hair toss...

CHEESE!!!

"how about the cute look?"

"ok, i've done mine. need help with yours?"

miss 18 had to go off to a gig about 15 minutes after she got hers, so mr scrappy set about loading it up full of fun programmes!

did i say that university (college) doesn't start up again until late feb?

i expect that until then, it's facebook and youtube all the way

oh, and iphoto and garage thingee or whatever it's called

anyone notice how apple CREEPS into your house?

we now have 4 ipods, 2 iphones and 2 macbooks

how'd that happen?

photostory friday - goodbye teenager, hello teenager

for exactly TWO weeks, we only had ONE teenager in the house.

one turned 20, but then 2 weeks later, another one turned 13, so we're back to TWO.

cum january 2011, there'll be THREE!

i think i'll move out that month

anyone wanna take me in?

when i spoke to my dad on sunday for fathers' day (yes, our fathers' day is in september, not june), he said he calculated that i'd have teengers for 16 years...

SIXTEEN!!!

YEARS!!!

*sigh*

i could write a book...

miss 13 and miss 20 - together

heeeeeeeeeeeey! how'd you grow up so fast???

ok, so these might not be my 'best shots', but i really wanted to post about these two, ok?!

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

wordful wednesday - yesterday i became the mother of a daughter entering her 3rd decade

and yeah - we pretty much ALL wrote smart-alecky things in her card about not being a teenager anymore!

they went kinda like this:

"ok, i don't know if you know this, but 20 is a REALLY scary number to be writing..."

and

"half way to 40...or 10 again..."

and

[from me]

"i look WAY too young to have a 20 year old..."


HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY

we love you!!!

for more wordful wednesday, visit angie over @ seven clown circus