baby steps

Wow, who would have thought that time would fly that quickly. In the last year I have found myself entirely preocupied with running a household, raising my three kids an my husband and venturing into the "business world" by starting my own business, whilst still doing the admin etc for my hubby.
I found that every time I attempted to sit here and type something, there was never anything positive to say. My kids were driving me balmy, my husband was about to leave me...and still is... and my life was spirally so out of control that I didn't want to end up sounding like a moan a lisa every time a posted on my blog. Needless to say my life is still spiralling out of control, probably more so now than ever.
So where to from here, well as cliche as it sounds, I suppose we could just take one day at a time, baby steps and start over, bitch and moan about the bad times and remember the good times.

The Great Expectations of Fluff

I have never considered myself one who gave in to "party politics and demands" and certainly didn't when the boy's had their birthdays. They were relatively easy to cater for, they both knew who they wanted as guests and what they wanted as gifts, easy, sorted, quick sticks. Madam Fluff on the other hand, has had me rather stressed out over the last two weeks. Every attempt at making the guest list shorter only results in the guest list getting longer as she is absolutely adamant that she only plays with and is bestest friends with all but 3 kids in her class, add to that the "usual birthday party suspects" and a few other invitations, we are sitting on a handsome number of 35 children. Ain't gonna happen chicky bird! And we hit a standoff.

In desperation I approach the teacher, (who, by the way is now my very own personal Agony Aunt, when it comes to Fluff anyway) who always seems to have a solution for everything. A word here, some advice there and the real list of 4 children in the class Fluff is really close to and plays with regularly. I make my way home absolutely relieved at my now drastically shorter list.

Then there's the gift list that is practically longer than the guest list and I have even been advised on how to redecorate her room in order to make space for all her apparent soon to be acquired riches, which range from a new cupboard to a play play microwave and more kitchen equipment than even I own to hair and make up accessories and clothes. Is there anything left in the shop I ask you? Barbies and Bratz dolls were on the list too including some clothes for them "because they can't walk around naked you know and they need to wear something when their existing outfits are in the wash!" And so we have it, I think, until we attempt, at my own detriment, to go through the list again and hopefully make it shorter one last time or perhaps I should call it a day and not bother, for sanity purposes. Armed now with indisputable proof, I must agree with my hubby when he says that fluff is a quantity girl and not a quality girl. (I suppose if the quality came in quantities that would be a different story but with her, the more, the better)

Ageing requires special attention..

People often jest and say "My, but I'm getting old!". Is that something that you say to yourself just to make certain that your mind and body keeps up with the programme? I don't know but lately I've heard it quite a bit. Scary, if everybody around me claims to be getting old, does this apply to me too or am I just hanging around with a bunch of old farts and need to find myself a friskier crowd of acquaintances?

I have become quite enthused about scrapping again and decided to dig into the "box of the past" dah dah dah dum (drum roll please) and I found a collection of negatives (you know those things we used to have to take to the photo shop to have developed, oh, never mind) hidden in an envelope. Off I scurry to the photo shop (no not adobe photoshop, the actual shop shop) to discover pics from the past and reminisce a little of days gone by.

I hand in my negatives and select a few pictures that I would like have developed. Amongst the lot of negatives that I found was an old strip of negatives, which for the life of me I cannot recall the name of, but they were from those first little thin cameras with the even thinner strip of film. I hand them to the shop assistant, young and frisky little cow and she turns to me without hesitation and says "Oh my gosh but these are soooo old!" Excuse me? "We can't develop these here, they need to go to a special lab." Yes, thank you, I know I'm special but surely my pictures can be developed without any special attention or such drastic action? No, it turns out, they need a special lab. I leave a little disappointed and rather insulted, I mean, she could have at least tried to contain herself and her outburst, hmph.

It looks quite possibly, sniff, sniff, that it is my frisky acquaintances that should be looking for a younger crowd to "hang with" because clearly this old hag is fast approaching her sell by date. Now if you'll excuse me I am going to purchase myself a box of Loreal to wash that grey right out of my hair........ because I'm worth it!

A lost friend

A sad weekend was had by all when we lost a good friend in a car accident on Thursday night.

Dear Marius,

May God Bless and keep you safe in his loving arms. The "big guy" with an even bigger heart. You will be missed.

All our love

Go Grandma

It isn't very often that I receive jokes or stories via email that really have me practically rolling on the floor with laughter. This is one was just too good not to share. Enjoy.

Grandma's letter.
She is eighty-eight years old and still drives her own car. She writes:

Dear Granddaughter:
The other day I went up to our local Christian book store and saw a "Honk if you love Jesus bumper sticker". I was feeling particularly sassy that day because I had just come from a thrilling choir performance, followed by a thunderous prayer meeting. So, I bought the sticker and put it on my bumper. Boy, am I glad I did, what an uplifting experience that followed. I was stopped at a red light at a busy intersection, just lost in thought about the Lord and how good he is, and I didn't notice that the light had changed. It is a good thing someone else loves Jesus because if he hadn't honked, I'd never have noticed.
I found that lots of people love Jesus! While I was sitting there, the guy behind started honking like crazy and then he leaned out of his window and screamed, For the love of God! Go! Go! Go! Jesus Christ, GO! What an exuberant cheerleader he was for Jesus! Everyone started honking! I just leaned out my window and started waving and smiling at all those loving people. I even honked my horn a few times to share in the love!
There must have been a man from Florida back there because I heard him yelling something about a sunny beach. I saw another guy waving in a funny way with only his middle finger stuck up in the air. I asked my young teenage grandson in the back seat what that meant. He said it was probably a Hawaiian good luck sign or something. Well, I have never met anyone from Hawaii, so I leaned out the window and gave him the good luck sign right back. My grandson burst out laughing. Why even he was enjoying this religious experience!!
A couple of the people were so caught up in the joy of the moment that they got out of their cars and started walking towards me. I bet they wanted to pray or ask what church I attended, but this is when I noticed the light had changed so, I waved at all my brothers and sisters grinning, and drove on through the intersection.
I noticed that I was the only car that got through the intersection before the light changed again and felt kind of sad that I had to leave them after all the love we had shared. So I slowed the car down, leaned out the window and gave them all the Hawaiian good luck sign one last time as I drove away.

Praise the Lord for such wonderful folks!!
Will write again soon.
Love, Grandma

Exploring a scrap

I have been enjoying a few stolen moments of scrapbooking again and really enjoyed putting this "puzzle piece" together. It was quite a labour intensive exercise and I'm pleased it is finally finished.

Why?

Have you ever wondered why YOU have been chosen to be your husband's spouse and the Mother of that child or those children? Destiny? Why are some people bessed with their families and some cursed (with abusive relastionships, partner or parent)?

I have often wondered why oh why God has allowed me to be a mother and a wife, I don't deserve them and they certainly don't deserve me. It hurts knowing that I'll never be what they need me to be no matter how hard I try. The best intentions are just not good enough. They are just so beautiful and precious and they deserve better.