The Choice

As you may already know Andrew and i have been in deep discussion about whether to move out of the city to a rural town.

We found the above property and as much as we love it, it has not actually clarified anything.

How do you make the decision to leave everything that you know and love about an area, especially the people, and move to somewhere whilst it may be more beautiful, you know no one and would need to go through a period of isolation before you make acquaintances that then hopefully become friends.

After a week of talking it is no clearer, i wonder what we will find that will help tip the scales .... it is beautiful though isn't it!

The Love of Brothers

Jack: Mum could i have a strawberry

{sees the packet}

Jack: I need to get one for Hamish

Cut to me walking in to see him pulling the green top off before giving it to his brother

Hmm ...... life with my boys really is divine, what amazing hearts they have xx

Glorious Graffiti

Another beautiful mural i saw while wandering the streets of Newtown. This one feels like there is a story behind it i wonder what it is?

I know i have mentioned the graffiti around hear a few times, it really is one of the things i love about where we live. Tagging or random rude words aside, some of the pieces that you walk past are amazing, i wonder what their life will be, its seems like such a transient art form, tomorrow the owner of the house could paint over it, so why do it at all.

There is also the graffiti as a political statement, i guess its meant to make people stop and think and was wondering yesterday if that ever happened ...... and then i realised that i had stopped and thought so i guess it does

And then there are the even more random little pieces that i have no idea who does them or why, but they colour our city and even if they are written on a 100 year old sandstone wall, i still love them, but next time guys maybe pick something without so much historical value

For the Love of a Bargain

Over the past few years my love of secondhand shopping has blossomed. It started with a book fair 7 years ago where i got 40 odd books for $8. I was so overjoyed with my bounty that we now have more books than we know what to do with. It took me another year or so to start trawling for other recycled things and then watching my bountiful bargain hunter friend who manages to get almost everything secondhand or on sale, inspired me to trawl even harder.

This weekend she and i went to a car boot sale, we marked it on our calendar and booked it with our husband and unhusband. We arrived at about 8.30am and left at 1pm with bags full of trash and treasure.

There is really nothing more satisfying that hauling a bag filled to the brim and knowing you spent less that $50.

I got, 3 Harry Potter books which Andrew failed to appreciate

Me: Babe i got three unmarked Harry Potter books look!

AB: umm don't we have the whole Harry Potter series already

Me: yes but that's not the point its still a bargain

I also managed to score 3 pairs of kids shoes, 2 pairs of training pants, 4 pairs of kids socks, 1 pair of kids tights, 4 singlets, a groovy orange knitted vest for Hamish, 2 wrap skirts for me, 2 tops for me, a small picture in a frame, a beaded stretchy belt, 2 beautiful paper masks, a flower press and instruction book, 2 joke eyeballs and a pair of crazy eye glasses (for Jack not me :) 2 kids t-shirts and 2 pairs of kids leggings

All i all a day full of recycled bargains.

I know i keep saying that i am trying not to be a consumerist type of person and i do feel that seeing they were all secondhand that really I'm just recycling but there is this strange enjoyable feeling of bounty that stirs inside of me, hmm gluttony i know its a sin but it feel quiet good ...... until we are on the next 60 Minutes special on hoarders :)

Bloody blogger wont let me put paragraphs in, its the program not my grammar

Treasure Boxes

For Jack this last week has been all about his box of treasures, it started slowly with a chandelier drop given to him by Arieal and then the boy next door gave him some cricket cards. He started to worry about his brother taking his bits so i gave him an old bejeweled jewelry box, and that's how it started. Over the period of a week he had collected some stones that i had given him, an old die that was mums the tweezers from his "magnaglass" and of course a few marbles and cars.

The box filled and every time he dropped it it would burst open spilling all of the contents all over the floor, not such a big deal at home but seeing that he was taking it everywhere and sleeping with it we had to come to a better arrangement. The kicker was when we went to my Aunts last week and her friend gave him a large number of NRL cards, the box no longer closed and it was time to rethink the treasure box.

Andrew suggested that i give him a small bag and so know he has a pencil case with all of his bits in it, it took him a few days to let go of the box but i think he likes that his treasures are more secure in the bag and so do i.

Its funny watching him enjoy his possessions and to take note of what he sees as being precious.

Things to do with a Tardis

Catriona my wonderful Brisbane friend has a blog. It seems that the 1000km distance between us has taken its toll and she had forgotten to tell me. She has the advantage of being a writer by trade and she also writes often so i have quiet a bit of reading ahead of me (and to be honest i cant wait).

So the first thing i am going to do to celebrate is steal an idea about something to post about, hence the title of this post.

In a previous life before birth breastfeeding and parenting became my major interest, i loved pop culture, video games, TV, Movies whatever, especially if it had a Sci-Fi/Fantasy lean. For this i blame my Dad, some of my best memories are watching Dr Who with him.

Anyway with all of this i had never given much thought to what i would want to do if i suddenly came to posses a Tardis, like Treena i certainly hope this will be a list of what i WILL do when i can have a Tardis, in no particular order

1. I would go and see a dinosaur. Anyone that has seen Jurassic Park will remember the scene when Sam Neil's Jeep stops and he looks up and sees the Brontosaurus for the first time, i want that!!! speechless awe of something so huge and powerful and alive.

2. Woodstock, kind of speaks for itself really, i have many ideas about what that time of life was like and i would love to see it in the flesh. Talking about that time in history i would also love to join the caravan that ended up becoming Ina May Gaskins - The Farm. Basically the story goes that there were 40 buses following each other round the USA doing talks and having babies in the buses in that groovy and far out way only people in the 60s could.

3. Go forward to when we meet Aliens, really just so that i know once and for all that we are not alone, or God just in case all the atheist are wrong.

4. I just asked Andrew what he would like to see if he had a Tardis, and he said that he would like to see the city 50yrs ago, it once again highlights how different we are.

I might have to do an updated list of things once my brain is working a bit better, its tired from reading 2 months of Treena's blog while in the bath and having a few glasses of wine on the street with our neighbours.

Hmm maybe the Tardis would be to go back and tell myself at 6pm that i really don't need that third glass of wine :)

Mr Incredibubbles

Thanks to the fantastic blog Hoyden about town, i was put onto this quirky amazing guy,his name is Justin or Mr Incredibubbles and he has a dream.

Note: he is in Sydney Park Newtown, so i am officially on Mr Incredibubbles look out.

Whats in a Name?

For those of you that don't know, Andrew and i took our time naming Hamish. It took us 9 days to come up with his first name and another week to decide on his middle names.

When he was about 9 months old, i mentioned to Andrew that his Birth Certificate had not arrived, that's when we discovered that we both thought the other one had sent the form in. I was so happy, his middle names had not felt right to me all along andit gave us the chance to change them.

It took us another year to decide on two new middles names and finally we put the from in

Hamish Eli Wren with our hyphenated surname on the end, its a doosy i know but so is Jacks.

Yesterday the birth certificate arrived and i knew the minute i put my hand on that tube that there was a spelling mistake, i opened it with Hamish and sure enough they had missed the 'i' off Eli.

Hamish El Wren,

Its a superhero name, a cat burglar name, a writers name, or a muso's name, its isn't a prime ministers name, or a doctors name or even a mechanics name.

I started to call to find out what to do with a Birth certificate that is wrong and then i thought..... and giggled and thought some more and i have decided to sit on it for a week and see how we feel about it in a few days, after all the issues about Hamish's name is this the cosmos telling us that a name doesn't have to be such a serious thing or is it divine intervention saying that Hamish needs a super hero's name. Any other missing letter would have just been a mistake but to miss the 'i' that could be more than just an accident

So in a week we will know for sure, do we have Hamish Eli Wren or Hamish El (the) Wren, time will tell

Autumn Leaves

Watching the kids play in the leaves yesterday, reminded me of the freeness of being a child, they were so enchanted by the falling fluttering leaves and so i was enchanted watching them.

Enlightened or just slow?

Yesterday while running a little late I found myself stuck behind a 'relaxed' driver.

The sort that need a space the size of a semi trailer before they will pull out, cornering so cautiously you could push the car faster, and taking off soooo slowly at the traffic lights obviously not noticing that others need to get through as well, basically they are so relaxed in their driving they affect the flow of traffic around them. I looked at the car through crazed eyes and yelled 'bloody Prius driver'.

Maybe its because they are driven by chilled out hippies, or maybe they are not built for power, or maybe wanting an environmentally conscious car goes hand in hand with bad driving, but I think that Prius could well be the next generation of Volvo.

Perhaps our kids will be yelling at Prius drivers the way my generation yelled 'bloody Volvo drivers'

Don't worry I'm just jealous that people could drive in the inner west traffic and still have Inner Peace

Robot Birth

So there is this interesting new device out on the market, a pregnant robot called 'Noelle' and her offspring 'Hal'. Interestingly most of the responses i have seen in my circles have been "oh my god another way to further dehumanize birth" from my point of view it gives all those intervention happy caregivers something to play with, that they can cut and disrespect as much as they want, gets them away from everyday normal birth.

Hathor as always had something to say about it ........ Hathor really is this Cows Goddess

Interesting side note the paper that the Article is from is called the Knox news from Fort Knox USA and the other day the top two stories were;

1. A Bill put to state government to legislate that anti-freeze be made to taste bad as a 11-yr old girl's dog had drank some nice tasting anti-freeze and died and,

2. About a procession down the main street by 300 cars and a hearse to mourn the 300 abortions that had taken place in the Knox Valley in the last year.

All in all Fort Knox sounds like a very "interesting" place

As you sleep

And as you sleep, i will dream

of times to come

and that have been

wondering aloud who will we be?

with spirits high and with voices free

Patience is a Virtue

My mummy patience was at an end when i woke up this morning i think. It made it a hard day for me and possibly a harder day for the kids.

Forget rainy days its days like today that i need things to do with the kids. In my bag of tricks are face paints and bubbles, water play and riding bikes, and walking in the rain (when it coincides with actual rain)

Some days like today i forget to get my bag of tricks out quickly and the kids and i have a few hours of pushing each others buttons, but after the activity has chilled everyone out, we have cuddles and lots of apologising and all is again right with the world ...... or it will be when Andrew gets home with the wine :)

Jack the Monster RAHHH

Hamish the Cat MEOW

Bubbles Bubbles everwhere

Captain we have a problem!

Well its official we have sold the extra laptop that i had been using. Its was totally superfluous but very handy as it meant that i could log into my PC remotely and blog and surf to my hearts content in the warmth and comfort of our lounge room.


Its hard to get motivated to come into our cold study with my hard uncomfortable chair and blog after the kids have gone to bed, so i am aware that at the moment blogging is making way for vegging out on the couch :)


I do have things to say though, i hear you are all gasp in surprise :) so i am either going to get Andrew to set up another old laptop we have hanging around (pretty cool being unmarried to an IT guy) or i am going to bite the bullet and finally get myself the Macbook i have been coveting.

Picture me here !!!

The Long Walk

We all went for a walk yesterday, i knew it was going to be long but no where near as long as it turned out to be, we walked from our house to Balmain ferry, then caught a ferry to the Quay and walked home from the city, it was 17kms and it took us 7 hours.

Sure we stopped for lunch and some plays in the park but mostly we walked and talked.

So please forgive me i have little to say today, the walk has sapped me off all my energy and i think it will take another nights sleep for me to recover.

Oh yeah and apparently yesterday was International Sci-Fi day "May the Fourth be with you" :)

Ive taken some cute photos of other peoples kids recently and i thought that i would share them (if one is yours and you want me to take the photo down let me know)

Happiest baby on the block

A serious day for a normally joyful boy

Beautiful Birthday Girl

Eating cake on a sunny day