Tag Archives: Christmas

So I lied…

25 Saturday Dec 2010

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I was up just after 6am with the kids, and while they watched some holiday cartoons and we waited for the rest of the household to wake, I read some of my short stories….

There has been one lingering unfinished for quite some time now, and it’s got a Christmas theme to it, so I couldn’t HELP myself. I had to check it out.

Oh, it makes me smile. It really does. I MUST finish this story. It has so much of me in it, so much I can relate to.

‘On the first day of Christmas…’ The carol rattled around in her head as she leaned over her sleeping husband. It was the 13th of December and it had been seven months and five days since she’d had more than 3 hours sleep in a row.

Sleep deprivation makes you a little crazy, Sandra had heard. But this made perfect sense.

She knew that Rob would get drunk at the Christmas party. Knew that he would tumble into bed in the early hours of the morning, without a thought as to whether he would wake her with his sickly sweet rum breath.

Knew that it would be the perfect opportunity.

Oh yes, I can’t wait to finish it. My own little not so pleasant Christmas tale.

Happy Festive Season!

23 Thursday Dec 2010

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Whatever your beliefs, whatever your traditions, I hope that this time of the year is wonderful for you.

For me it’s all about family. I was so anti Christmas until I had kids of my own – and they changed Christmas the way they changed everything else. I love that. I them more for it. I love how they have given me back so much of my life, returned all the good memories of things like Christmas, and blotted out all the bad ones.

For the first time in about six years I’ll not be spending Christmas day with my biological family. I thought I’d be more sad about that, but I’m actually really excited to be spending it with the in-laws this time around. It’s a relief to feel this positively about  it – normally us going away means I’ve had to find someone to dog sit Kali and her giving me those big brown puppy dog eyes she does so well, resulting in me feeling guilty and worried about her the entire time we’re away.

I guess that was her Christmas gift to me.

Anyway, I hope that your holiday season is filled with love and laughter, with good company and good food, with rest and relaxation.

Have a good one folks!

Solids!

21 Tuesday Dec 2010

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Natalie is getting close to that magical 6 month mark, and despite my telling everyone that we weren’t going to start solids until after the Christmas trip, I’ve gone ahead and done it anyways.

The girl is ready! It’s quite different this time around though, because Lauren really wasn’t interested in food at all until she hit about 9 months. At that age she went straight to finger foods. Natalie looks like she’d rather do that too, but she’s just too little yet, so we’re starting off with rice cereal and pear puree.

Messy, but fun! She seems fine with the flavors and hopefully it will all go smoothly. I’m very much a ‘take it as it comes’ kind of Mum, so am applying no pressure to the situation, she’ll advance in her own time.

It’s amazing how quickly time is passing. I can hardly believe that it was almost 6 months ago she arrived – so much has changed since then, and while life is still in a state of semi-chaos, we’re working our way towards a regular pattern to the day.

In other news, I’m on track to finish Mocha Nihilism in a couple days time which makes me feel so fantastic. It’s been way too long since I finished anything longer than a short story!

I’m very much looking forward to some down time in the coming weeks, looking forward to the return of the sun as well (it’s meant to come back for Christmas!). Things are looking good folks, looking good indeed.

School hols again

17 Friday Dec 2010

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I can’t believe it’s summer holidays already. I’ve known it was coming for a long time but it’s actually here now and I feel so unprepared! Six weeks of three kids home. Funnily enough, I don’t think this will mean my writing takes a hit – if anything, I might get MORE done than I have been.

I’ve been planning with a few friends, jotting down ideas for things to do starting January (everyone is so busy these last days before Christmas, and then we’re away for a week), so as long as I can make it through til the end of the year, we should be okay :-)

Summer IS here, though it’s raining (we need it, I’m not complaining!), and with my new office in the works it means I’ll be able to watch the kids playing on the trampoline/swing/sandpit and still get some work done. The older two are finally getting to an age where a lot of the time they will actually play nicely together, or just play around each other. So until Natalie is on the move, we should have a period of relative peace. A bliss.

Anyway, I am still working away on Mocha Nihilism. I had really wanted it done by Christmas so that I could give it to some friends as a present, but that’s not on the cards now. I have the last part of it to rewrite still, and then some revision/editing/polishing before I’ll be ready to let others read it. I have finally hit my stride with it again, after two weeks of ups and downs emotionally over Kali.

Aside from that, I’ve also started planning for Delaney’s novel. I purchased a new notebook, just for her, and have written a focusing statement for the book to try and pin down the angles I need to think about. I’m really excited about it, and grateful to my writing buddies for giving me new ways of looking at things too, and for being interested in the story and character.

Also, I’m in the process of shifting everything in the house around. We’re moving our bedroom into the office, the little girls will have our bedroom as theirs, and my desk/computer will be taking up space in the porch as my office. I’m SO excited to have a space just for me :-) Hubby’s computer will be in our room, which is fine. Not ideal, but it’s really the only place there will be room!

I love having tasks on the go. I love even more knowing that I’ll have some time to complete them in the coming month. The new year will see new routines, a new way of living, and hopefully more time for everything that’s really important.

Fingers crossed!

Say what?

24 Wednesday Nov 2010

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No, it can’t be a month til Christmas Eve, it just can’t. There has to be more than a week left in November, surely! What’s happening to time?

I feel like hiding under the covers until it’s 2011, because otherwise there is just too much to do.

I still have to get the Christmas shopping done. There are a million things around the house that need organizing (gardens, mess/clutter, fence, arg!). I am meant to have this novella done before Christmas, and then there is the new novel I had penciled in to begin in December.

Gosh, December is so close now…

It’s going to take a miracle to get through that list. But I’ll be giving it my best shot. I need to clear some of the junk out of my life so that 2011 starts off well. I don’t typically do New Years resolutions, but I do like to start the year with things in order.

What about you? What needs doing before 2011 hits? Got any resolutions or goals for it?

Taking a break – yesterdays post, so kinda old news

29 Tuesday Dec 2009

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I’m worn out. I’ve burnt all my reserves and I have nothing left. I’m getting by day to day and am thankful that Hubby is off work until next week to help out with the girls.

Christmas is tiring, streams of visitors are exhausting and I just have nothing spare to give – at this point it’s even a struggle to remain patient and loving in the middle of the night with a sick child.

So I’ve not written in… a week I think? I have no intention of writing anything for the rest of the year (thankfully it’s only a few days). I’ve got nothing to draw on right now so it’s an impossibility for me. I need to build some energy back up, I need to rest enough so that I can feel things properly again and then maybe some words will come to me.

I’m hoping that a new idea will grab me soon, seeing as Tama has conned me into signing up for the New Year Novella. I need a quick hit, a rush of writing adrenaline, a shot of literary crack to get me started, which means tackling something fresh and something to do with coffee (it’s becoming a tradition that my New Year Novella’s all intersect at the same coffee shop, it’s a fun thing to do!).

At this point in yesterdays post I was about to say I was going to go and have a sleep or read my book but my Mum called and we had a massive chat and I began to feel a whole lot better about a number of things. Mum’s are awesome for many reasons, one of the really big ones is for being able to see solutions to problems that you can’t seem to find your way out of. Manageable solutions that you know you can achieve even if it’s not going to be easy to change the necessary habits. So thanks Mum! You rock and I love you to bits, I don’t know where I would be without you.

Tis the season

24 Thursday Dec 2009

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It’s the day before Christmas so I thought I’d take the opportunity to say that I hope you all have a fantastic festive season. Christmas means a whole range of things to different people and while it’s not always been my favourite time of the year, the weather is fantastic and I’m really looking forward to a stress free day this time around and lots of yummy food shared with the people I love. Should be good!

My writing has been really off track due to the seemingly endless stream of things that have cropped up and a baby who is still having erratic day sleeps. So many of the things I wanted to get done (paint the toilet room, finish that short story rewrite, finish stripping the bedroom walls etc) did not come to pass, but that’s okay. I’ve actually prepped the toilet room for painting and am going to sneak an undercoat on this afternoon (seeing as hubby is home and he can play with Lauren!). At least it won’t be an eyesore for Christmas.

I’m going to do a pre Christmas pic update, then no doubt will post some in the new year from our time together. I’ll definitely be posting between now and then though!

Take care of yourselves, enjoy your family and friends and I hope you have a happy, safe, Christmas.

Lots of love!

‘That’ time of year

17 Thursday Dec 2009

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I can’t remember who said it, it was quite likely a few of you – but this is a terrible time of the year to be trying to get anything done. I don’t know why I thought I could work against the trend and stay on top of things, but I was definitely wrong.

Life has taken over once again. I’ve had to spend a few days sorting out Christmas presents, yesterday was spent visiting with my Aunt and cousin (which was actually really nice), there is house work to do and stuff to organize and for some reason Lauren seems to have decided that she only needs 1 hour of sleep during the day – she is SO wrong, but I’m yet to convince her otherwise. Also this leads to her going to bed much earlier and then waking at 4am thinking its time to get up and it taking at least an hour to get her back to sleep. It gives me very little time to actually get any of my own work done, that’s for sure, needless to say that the chunk of night I’m awake for is doing nothing for my energy levels.

So progress on the rewrite is slow, very slow. And in the meantime I sent Birth Rights off to a good friend and got some absolutely fantastic feedback which has set me up for a rewrite of that too before I can submit it to that competition – thank goodness the deadline isn’t til the end of January otherwise I don’t think I’d make it. I really hope I DO make it, and will be trying my best to. I think I’ll just stick with the current rewrite for now though rather than switching paths yet again. That seems to happen too often and I don’t want to make a habit of it.

So much to do! Never enough time. Instead of spending any more time blogging though, I best get to work and try to get a little writing done – before that baby wakes up and I have to try and convince her that she should really just keep sleeping for a little longer.

Hope you’re all well and having a nice build up to the festive season!

Another year older

14 Monday Dec 2009

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I made it to 29! Very quietly I must add, it seems that barring a couple of friends (and of course my wonderful family), everyone else forgot! I don’t like to make a big deal about my birthday, but it seems I like it even less when most of my friends don’t remember it at all. Oh and this is not about all my net friends, I don’t expect you to know because it’s not like I’ve told you! lol

It was a decent day, my brother and his family visited in the morning then we watched Ivy dance in the end of year ballet concert (she was very good! A lot of the kids were out of time and swaying the wrong way but she was watching and mimicking the big girls who were leading them – so proud!) then went to Mum’s for dinner – yum. Best way to end a birthday, and I had the best ‘cake’ ever! A plate piled high with some of the most gigantic chocolate covered strawberries I’ve ever seen.

And now it’s done with for another year, and we can move on towards Christmas which is really coming up fast. We’ve put up no decorations, and got no presents yet. It’s pay day tomorrow so I’ll have to go and blitz that sometime this week I guess.

I slacked off on the writing front this weekend, but will get back into it this afternoon. I don’t have all that long to try and complete this story! It feels like I won’t be ready to put it up for Christmas, but it’s still my goal so we’ll see how well I do. I spent a little bit of time last night drawing up some designs for costumes and that was fun. I suck at drawing, specially from my imagination, but the general idea is there and I’m looking forward to getting some fabric and other fun stuff and testing out the design. I’m hopeful that it’s an intelligent one and with a few tweaks along the way I’ll be in business (not quite literally, but you know, in a couple of years time!)

Secret Santa

07 Monday Dec 2009

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I just got a present in the mail and I HAD to blog about it. It’s probably one of the nicest presents I’ll get this year and it’s from someone who I don’t know, and who doesn’t know me.

One of the forums I frequent is OhBaby! I have done ever since I found out I was pregnant with Lauren and it’s been an amazing place to be – you’ll find answers to just about every pregnancy/baby related question you might have and it’s been lovely sharing the journey with other women who are at the same stages of their pregnancy, baby stages, or lives in general.

Every year they do a secret santa, organized by a couple of the wonderful senior members. It’s always lovely to get something in the mail, and it’s always nice to check the forums out and see when the gift you sent arrived and how it was received.

This year, far and away, was just wonderful, and perfect timing as well! I’ve been feeling quite flat, and starting to reassess just how I’m going to take back some ‘me time’ and reclaim my life a little bit. And then I get this:

Isn’t that wrapping paper gorgeous? And a lovely notebook whose title makes me smile, some pencils made from newspaper with lovely fruity designs, and Toblerone! my fav – though I only eat it when someone else buys it for me. It’s one of those chocolates that tastes best when it’s a gift. The card is gorgeous as well, and I just feel so special! This anonymous gift (all the way from Singapore!) makes me feel warm and fuzzy about writing. And very warm and fuzzy about OhBaby! as well.

Aww, I do love Christmas.

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