Risotto

Just a few things to be thankful for...  

The hope of firewood.

Being asked to be a Special Olympics coach.

House.

A car that has done 100,000+ and will keep on ticking.....

3 healthy, happy, well read children.

Soccer.

Piano.

Friends who flirt.

Text.

Family who want us to bring pies for Thanksgiving and tell us straight up which ones so there is no guessing and all are happy and full.

Living close to a library.

No tv during the week.

Sharpies.

Flannelette sheets.

Friends who drive past your house on rubbish day, notice your bin is NOT out and fix that up for you.

The warmth of autumn wrapped up in a creamy dish.

Wanting.

There are so many things I want. And it's not material things. Ok, maybe some of the things are material things. Frames to put photos in, thirty of them, so the hallway isn't so bloody white. Drives me insane. A vacuum that actually sucks instead of my Kirby circa 1950. A job, with health insurance and a bi-monthly paycheck. Chooks that actually stay IN the chook pen. Time to make some anzac biscuits. A bloke to put together the lovely garden table I was given. Or alternately to find that blooming spanner so I could put the damn table together myself. At least ten games of spades with my nutty kids. Non offensive words to say when someone asks if I like the delivery guy they sent me. I did not, he was so nice, probably I should like that guy, the nice one, but I don't, I prefer scruffy and just a wee bit of "you just don't know". The list goes on and on.

The wanting continues. So I wash clothes and write my assignments, and work and work. And try not to go nutso, because crazy is one thing, but nutso that involves stright jackets and padded rooms and heavy regulated meds.

Where is the fun in that?

THis week I'll work at a paid job for 43 hrs.

Study for 12-14 hrs.

Attend soccer training for my peeps 8hrs.

Attend the piano lesson 30 mins.

Cook 6 hrs or less if I'm lucky.

Pack 20 lunches.

Wash 10 loads of laundry, with at least 12 pairs of soccer socks.

Apply for 4 jobs.

Make 5 pennies magically cover $100 worth of expenses.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1315753316/bclid1437076151/bctid1432781806

And listening to fun new tunes all the way.

Only Half

Leave It to Beaver we are not.

Our family is more train wreck in nature. Divorce. Abuse. Drugs. Poverty. Childhood is a thing we survived, my sister and I.

My brothers 17 and 13 years my junior, had the Leave It to Beaver lifestyle. Two parents who treasure them, and tell them so on a regular basis. A hippie/yuppie of a father and a precious balanced woman for a mother, mature before the arrival of their children. Always a nice house to live in, pantrys full of food, the latest toys, money for the sports they wanted to play. An international childhood. It makes sense then why they do not understand where we girls come from.

They have no concept of what we lived, it was not even in the same section of the library, they relaxed over in the private reference, while we were backlogged, in a bin out the back. Books in dire need of repair.

I do not mind, I have thrived. My sister crazy as she is, has survived in her own way, occassionally at the expense of those around her. Witnessing selfish behavior all through her childhood, it should not be surprising.

We know the whole story of their childhood, it is no shocker they are attending university, one in undergrad and the other in graduate school. They have only looked at a sliver of our lives. Until they do. We love them.

You can't caste stones until you read the whole book, look further than your earliest memory, choose to find out why your oldest sister acts crazy, there are reasons.

THey are only half brothers, until then.

And NO I have not been drinkin'

Today, all day, I have been a fine upstanding citizen.

Cleaned my kitchen, dining and lounge room. Vacuumed.

Filed my income tax return, early.

Had lunch at the Chicken with my Dad. Agreed to enter he and his mates into the Association of Former Students Golf Tournament, even though both my brothers go to our rival school and they'll get snarky about the golf. Whatever. There is a reason they call me the mature one in the family.

So tonight I dropped 2 out of 3 kids off at soccer training. One of the kids had to be picked up at 9pm.

I left the house, I noticed driving home from Easter that my headlights were hitting a wee bit low. Rio Grande Boulevard is 1.2 miles long, I spent one mile of my drive behind a small forest green Ford truck, squinting at the contents of bed. There was a black wire dog crate, the kind that you can unclasp and fold flat if you need to. Initially I thought there was a two-bummed furry white dog in the crate. So I got closer, thinking I might need to get my eyes checked. I contemplated driving with my brights on but I thought it might be a tad rude. Right before my turn off and after a stopsign under a streetlamp, I figured it out.

I tried to take a photo, however, my camera only works after dinner and a movie, and only if I whisper sweet nothings about a house, with a 2 car garage, and a dog and long walks on the beach.

Two lambs, shorn, one wearing a blue jumper (one pampered dogs wear), stuffed into the back of a dog crate in the back of a small green Ford F-150. The lambs were not happy, when I rolled the window down to take the photo, they were baa-ing away-poor little ticked off lambies, naked and squished.

Only in Texas. And NO I have not been drinkin'

She Failed Taks Math.

So I spent Easter with some very lovely folks, was reminded I haven't blogged in a very long time, and made a Funky Monkey run - the handbag was my treasure, begging to go home with me.

So my oldest son has asked several times for a ride to the hairdressers for a trim. He is very fond of his hair, far worse than most women I know. When he was little he liked a number 2 buzz cut, and would run his hand over the spikey short hair often.

Today we had a hour and a half after school/work before soccer training, so I handed him some money and his phone. We talked about what he was going to have done. "Less than an inch off, Mum, that's exactly what I'll tell her"

Okeydokey, I dropped him and ran home to whip up dinner.

Yesterday in the green.

He walked into the hairdressers, told her he wanted a trim, less than one inch off, please.

I got a text, it said simply "come get me".

By the time I got to the stopsign at the end of our street I received a second text, saying, "don't come , i'm halfway home, i walked". I picked him up. And I think he looks lovely, however, I did tell him I would gladly go all mummabear on the hairdresser for him if he wanted me to.

And it is just so sad that the hairdresser, she doesn't know what one inch is.

He is handling it really well.

Dr. Pepper therapy helps.

Sad little Taks Maths Failure of a hairdresser though.