Life Expectancy.

Halloween pumpkins are great.

We slopped off to the pumpkin patch on a frigid day and prowled through the vast array of pumpkins to pick our treasures, one for each of us. Plus a variety of little pumpkins because for starters they are very petite precious little things and we are embracing our first Halloween with vigor.

We acquired pumpkin carving tools, last week soccer training got called due to torrential downpours, having excess energy and stamina, we decided to CARVE. Artists look out. Newbies have arrived.

Pumpkin carving is not a clean sport. In other households it is probably not a sport at all. In ours it is. Seeds flew. Preferably towards the scrap bucket but not necessarily so, the odd seed accidentally flicked at siblings and children. I am not sure how that happened but no one put an eye out so it's alright. We scraped out innerds and scooped out, the hand works best, not so fabulous if you have a strong gag reflex though. People with a strong gag relfex sometimes turn green when scoooping out their pumpkin. People who look green usually feel green inside and it is best to keep your distance, and politely suggest greeny go and lie down until it passes.

We ended the evening with four beauties.

Two happy go lucky and two cheeky bordering on scary. We are not a scary lot so we didn't make it too far that way. One had hands, several had eyebrows, all had smiles of sorts.

Pumpkins are very pleasing to look at when carved.

Not so pleasing after 6 days of erractic weather though. Furry mold abounding with soft pliable sides our little pumpkins were relegated to the bin, no matter how lovely and fun they were nearly a week ago, the tiem has come. We'll carve a big monster this afternoon so that we have one for the big day, the cutie pies they had to go.

Fall Family Fun Night

Eye opening.

The kids are between 10 and 14 years old, they are in grades 5 and 6.

We arrive, my son runs off for a quick play of handball only they call it four square here before we go into the classroom activities. He joins up with two of his mates from school, they are nice boys even if they all troop through the rooms on a warpath. They joke with the teachers they like and avoid those that are not their favourites. I see the ativities they do gleefully, they are only 11, still only children really, just stuck in bodies that are big.

I stand back and watch, he makes eyes at the girl he likes, doesn't talk to her just smiles. Innocent and young. It is sweet and gives me no pause.

Just as we decide to depart for home and dinner he introduces me to another mate, one he has not run the halls with this evening, but one he is nice to during the day, he is nice to everybody it is not unusual, he always has been kind-hearted. During the first couple of weeks of school he mentioned this boy. Mum he would say, you know A he's BIG. And BIG he is. We talked then about how lots of people here are alot bigger, heavier than what we have seen regularly back in OZ, and BIG might be an ok non-judgemental way to describe it. So a few weeks ago my son tells me he thinks his friend A might have been held back once or maybe twice, he wasn't sure, but he's BIG mum. Tonight it is clear to me what he meant. The boy is a boy no more. I am not certain how many times he was held back, it is more than once, that does not matter, he is quite possibly close to 15 yrs old. I have no issues with that at all, I hope the learning comes easier as time goes on for him. I am all for children learning and getting a good education however it needs to happen.

It gives me pause when my son introduces me to you though and as you shake my hand you cut your eyes away. The pain that is there is obvious. I hope that my child can be an encouragement without being sucked into making unwise choices. I am reminded that we have been through quite a bit of crap in the last several years, but we must be doing something right, my son treats those around him with fun and friendship, it can't be too bad.
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Marley & Me is a great little nugget of a book.

I am currently without something to read.
Bills do not count. Something to read just for fun is necessary.

I must get onto that.

Picking up a little bit of ugly.

So yesterday I picked up my youngest and headed to the orthodontist.

I have never taken a class in dental anatomy, however, I am fairly certain that I could have found an itty bitty piece of plastic and stuffed it between her last two molars. I might have even been able to come up with some royal blue plastic to stuff in there. I didn't though.

And lucky because then I would have robbed said child of the chance to perform the human Pez dispenser trick, you know the flip top head?
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We went shoe shopping, well because that is what sunny Tuesday afternoons were made for and I am bringing my baby up right. I rang my mum on the way to check on a couple flight coupons she is picking up for me, we chatted, it was nice, she's working but happy with that. Finished the call, we went into the shop, we hunted, tried on funny shoes, pretty shoes, practical shoes and enormously high heels, a girl has to learn just how it is done.

Halfway up the athletic shoe aisle my phone rang.

It was mum. And went something like this...

mum hi honey!
(cheery voice I have come to recognize over the years as signalling a bomb alert)
me hi mum.

mum well I haven't told you yet, because I know you don't approve of what I do sometimes ...

me mum you are a grownup and make your own choices, my not necessarily making the same choice as you is not judgement on what you do or don't do it is just us being different

mum so I told your sister already, so I need to tell you too. look I want you to know I that I have met somebody, his name is Phil, Phillip, Phil, and he's really nice and he treats me like a princess, and he is really sweet and he's retired and 10yrs older than me. So he doesn't work anymore.

(this is the bit where I am thinking that suddenly my mum has morphed into a teenager again)

me that's nice mum, I am glad you are happy, thanks for telling me.

mum we think we might come up and visit this week...

We talked for a bit longer, she revisited the retired bit, and how lovely he is to her, told me where he lives, etc. I thanked her again for telling me.

Now I am a glass half full kind of girl. I prefer to look at the positives. I am positive that at present my mum is very happy. She is very happy to merrily give her heart away. I understand, it's cold outside, it is nice to have someone to cuddle up to and chat with about life and all. I just think that it might be a good idea to maybe step back and not approach dating at mach speed, where you end up with his and her towels, and your heart broken after just a little bit. I hope he is nice and sweet and kind and fun. I wish for the best. I will listen as my mum twitters like a 14 yr old about how great every thing is, and if it works for the long run - fabulous, and if not I pick up the pieces again as the drama unfolds if another man breaks her heart. At least this time I am in the right hemisphere. There's a glass half full for you.

The shoe shop sells ugly. They are clogs with holes in them made out of foam. They are tangerine orange. I bought them so I can photograph her and bring the picture out at her 21st. Crocs. yippie.

Rings just don't shine.

Nice weekend.

COLD weather. This morning it was nine degrees C. Brrr. And blowing a gale. I know because our handy little inside/outside thermometre told me so. Thank you maroonedinaustin. So I added a jumper as I walked out the door to soccer. I should have added thermal underwear, a beanie, gloves, and those handwarmer thingys you get when you're skiing. Safe to say while my speech acclimated to australian life so too did my internal thermometre. Popsicle girl observes soccer match. Shaking like a leaf has new meaning for me. And I now long for an espresso machine with verve.

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He said I was hot.

He meant it as a compliment. It was not one. Not that I have issues about how I look. I don't. I'm firm where I need to be and soft where I should be. I don't have extra weight hanging out, any that I had vacated during the divorce. I don't think I am hot, but I am damn sure not bad. When a married guy tells you that though, not good. I am offended on so many levels. Not the least of which is I just don't go there, you are married, hit the road jack, I will not even respond to your quasicompliment. The next time I see you though, should you make the same type of comments again, I hope you are ready, you'll be that little bug that unfortunately flew in front of the windshield when the car was going 80mph.

And I will still be hot very far away from you.

Silence in the car.

We saw this sign on the way to one of the three schools I drop my kids at. We sat silent. Not my favourite thing about America.

Just bites.

you wake up. well rested.

ever so pleasant.

for two seconds, then it is like that poor unfortunate cat who fell in vast sums of water. Leaping, diagruntled, disturbed and definately pissed away from the offending substance.

oversleeping. grr.

Perspective.

Really very few things tick me off. Unfortunately this week I have run into several right smack in a row.

For starters any government run offices are hard wired to be difficult. It is in there nature. It is how they make extra money for the politicians to eat lunch on. I have discovered in my great home state that I might well have to remove and disect my fourth rib in order to get my drivers license. You have to appear in person at the local DPS office stand in the laneway for an inordinate amount of time before you get to speak with the woman who could quite possibly be entombed as a relic of days gone by. Yes folks the 80's are far far behind us, however, here we have a finely preserved specimin from that era. She sports 'helmet hair' and blue eye shadow, tornados might very well come through this area occassionally, but that hair it is not going to budge. Her demeanor is a beauty. I am not sure if the DPS sent her to special training days or if that is her natural inclination, she is not helpful and certainly has no time for those not born and raised here. The poor little asian lady in front of me in, she made her cry. So I think I might have been predisposed to dislike her, that is just not kosher. Asians are lovely, and the food they've brought to this great state is less likely to cause you to become so engorged as to resemble a beached walrus. With helmet hair.

The second is more a personal issue. A lady who child is my age. I have known her a long time. We are not close. At one time I valued her input. That time is now gone. In her opinion it is unwise for me to ever remarry, you know because my situation was different, and I had children, she says with a snarl to her lip that looks as if she has just spotted a dog dropping on her persian rug. I don't desire to remarry today or tomorrow or next week. And the idea of being legally bound is enough to cause me to eye that rum bottle with a pirates lusty longing. But you know having someone tell me I should not makes me want to run out on a mad flurry of dates. Until she has walked around in my bare feet I am certain she can keep those little undesirables to herself.

Third. And last at least for today. Would it kill people to not waste so much damn stuff. Why people, and mostly I am only seeing Americans at present, so why Americans NEED ever so very much stuff. Plastic water bottles by the slab, half drunk and then tossed. Eight million gallons of fizzy drink in their bottles or worse cans. Food enough for small immigrant armies in foreign third world countries, tossed out because Americans can't eat that much but they have a bloody right to be served that much food for $7.95 and more and more and more. No wonder a huge chunk of the population are enourmous, they eat all that food and then sit round on their bums contimplating all their 'rights'. Ick. Self-absorbtion ticks me off.

I said it was the last one, but really it wasn't. People who wear bras that are tooo small!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For everybody elses sake, please get some proper fitting gear, those girls hanging out everywhere, nobody wants to see that.

A little too much non-drowsy ...

1:31 am awake.

1:32 check the kids, maybe that's why I woke up

1:33 look outside into the inky blackness

1:34 trip over a box on my way back to bed

1:35 - 2:02 flopping around waiting for sleep to return

2:03 wash a load of laundry, I'm WIDE awake may as well be productive

2:05 nine hundred channels and nothing to watch.

2:07 Meerkat Watch, it was the best of the options, two episodes and then one of This Old House

3:31 back to bed to sleep

This afternoon will be a challenge of my patience, maybe a nap would be good.

Dreams.

In the build up to a snarky head-throat cold, I have had some doozies.

Worry, stress and fatigue do interesting things to the mind. Not to mention a Sonic size serving of caffiene on a regular basis. For example, Wednesday evening was the one and only appearance of the lifesize sock monkey, he tended to my every whim as we strolled the aisles of H.E.B., tortilla chips, absolutely, 2% milk, right-o, bagel bites, yup. He did no talking, just walked with me and the trolley. Now I don't know where he came from, I have not, as I can recall, seen a sock monkey since I was 4 and never a life size one. Thursday produced icky dreams about moving trucks and bicycles, not with anyone on them, the bikes drove themselves out into the road with out looking and were flattened by the HUGE white truck. Friday seemed somewhat of impending doom. I woke with a start at 3:13 am believing I was escaping from a fire in a white timber two story house. I knew the house was on fire, and yet I went back in to get the dog, a yellow lab. Superheroes always survive, I got out with the dog, and then discovered the house fire was set by the cult people my ex hangs out with. Disturbing but not so much that I didn't go on and have a beautiful day. He ruined enough of my days, he does not get anymore.

After three nights of not so great sleep, my body has finally given in. I woke this morning to 3 soccer matches with four kids, again an extra this time of the girl variety. My waking thought after I realized that aside from the mobile phone ringing somewhere around 2 I slept through the night was that I made it through without any funky dreams. My throat - it screams, my eyes - they scratch, my sinus passages - are full of molten lava.

I have a new chemist bestfriend. My love. Sweet treasure. In six hours and two doses you have made me feel much less deceased. Lovely effervescent health formula in zesty orange. Airborne. Kicking germy butt out of my head cold.

It Should Have Been.

Ok so I bought the new house.

It is fabulous. We moved in, we love it. I have purchased various items of different levels of importance. The trampoline, it's very good for stress relief - really you can not, as an adult, jump on one of those things without laughing, it should be on the bottom level of the food triangle it is so good for you. And beds. and plates and cutlery - the kids they like to eat, shampoo, and conditioner, cat food, a computer, tv, towels.

The FIRST purchase should have been CANDLES and MATCHES to light them with.

We have just come out of the first and hopefully last brown-out, or black-out or whatever they call it. And I can assure you when you arrive home from soccer training with four hungry kids, candles, well they would come in handy. Four kids, I know, I had an extra. It is blacker than anything inside my lovely new home with no lights. The kids had a ball, they bounced on the trampoline, I used the mobile phone to ring to a friend who had electricity, we fed the kids pizza and macaroni, not nutritional but it'll hold them until morning.

We had a beer.

Brown-outs call for one.

Ick.

Three shootings in one week. And people wonder about why guns make us so nervous? Seems fairly straight forward to me.

I ride my bike up the road to meet one of my sons on his way home from school each day. I watch him cross the road with the lollipop lady, and hear him say good afternoon to her, and then we chat all the way home. So today, he waves and smiles, always happy to see me there looking goobey on my bike. He crosses the street, and we turn around to head home. Both of us nearly fall off our bikes. There is a motorbike traffic cop sitting there, and he pointing something. Now our little sheltered Australian minds freaked out. He was only pointing a radar gun at the traffic to see if anybody was speeding in the school zone, but it looked like a gun. He noticed our jump and startled looks and said "It's allll-rIght. It's alll-rIght."

We are sheltered. I am glad. I hope we stay that way. We might have to avoid the tv, where every third ad is for the army or the military of some sort.

Ick.

The Olgas.

Thought I'd give the picture post a go. I like this one. Reminds me of a happy holiday with a dear friend. Everyone should visit the northern territory with a friend. Camp, it's the best way.

Sore Abs, but it's a good thing.

Sometimes you're going through life and you wonder about how things go. Or I wonder. I meet people, we get on, our kids get on, things just seem to work. 2 years ago I made the decision to stay in Texas for a time, for several reasons, in hopes that my nutter husband might snap out of his cult and choose his family, to give our children a chance to cope with American culture/life, to break from the icky pattern my ex and I had gottenourselves into. I could go on and on, I won't, I prefer to be optimistic and move on with life.

Anyway. I stayed. The trade off for the pitiful munber of tears that I shed on the plane ride from Colorado back to Texas, I am not a big crier, the body evidently chooses to release the stress of your husband leaving and going across the ocean in it's own special way. HIVES. So I drank margaritas and cranberry vodkas with my sister and her husband, over time not all in one night. I soaked up the love of my family that had been missing me for years, my dad, my stepmum, my brothers, aunti's and uncles, and cousins, and grandparents too. They were all civil to Nathan should he happen to ring to yell at me about my wickeness, but they heaped the love on me. My family is cool. We're crazy but at least they were polite to him. No more need be said really.

I moved back to the town we lived when we were first married. I had friends there. I met new friends. Specifically track coach family and UPS family. I knew them for the 4 months before the US Federal court and I came to agreement that myself and the children would return to Australia. They emailed, we sent postcards, the kids all talked about one another, Christmas letters were mailed, the friendships survived the distance. Now we're back. The kids go to school together or play soccer together or both.

We headed to dinner tonight. The Potato Shack. Potatoes and ice cream, sums it up. We had our spuds, the kids ate ice cream and we shared history. We laughed like little mindless children without a care in the world. Yes we all have mortgages and phone bills and insurance, yadayada-yada. But we talked and hoo-hawed. The name Beverley will never be the same for me. I hope I never meet her in real life, I am not sure I could contain myself. As it is my abs are painfully sore from so much laughter.

I am glad.

Good friends are fabulous and I left more than a few behind that I miss dearly in Australia, always happy to add to the pool though.