Dear Riley

Today you turn 15.

This open letter is all about you and its my attempt at recording all the small details of your life at 15 (as I see it).

You love being you: you are comfortable in your own skin and you mostly like your everyday life. You have some close mates and are in the last couple of months girls have made an impact on you. You did have a “girlfriend” for about a week until I suspect school/rugby/homework time pressures made it all too hard and you told Dad “it’s off move on”. You like Siena and admire some of your teachers. You have a personality conflict with Mrs Chutcuti (whose strengths and personality you won’t value until you are much older)  but even then she thinks you are great to teach and you manage to keep your impatience with her in check (as Dad and I expect you to do with teachers and coaches).

You and your board at Mlooba Beach

You are FUNNY especially to me and Dad. Your sense of humour is dry, a combination of Uncle Joel and Uncle Stephen at times.  Your humour is the quiet type, one liners and witty comebacks are your specially (when you are talking and laughing … you're 15 … sometimes you just grunt).

You are starting to exert your independence. In the last couple of months you completed work experience at Brisbane Airport and stayed the week with Nick and Tracy and travelled to Northern NSW for a Rugby tour. You like being your own person without Dad and I nagging you with all our bothersome rules like bedtimes and homework.

Rugby Trip 2012 - why are you being cuddled?

Saying you eat a lot is putting it mildly.  Your favourite foods are still meat and potatoes, curries and roasts. Every Sunday you tell me off for only cooking one packet of bacon and last weekend when we went to Nanna and Poppies I took a kg of bacon that Nanna thought was over the top. There was none left J . You love cookies and cream ice cream but only the ultra-expensive brand of course and you like to eat it straight out of the carton with the ice cream scoop. This causes Dad and I to scream at you. You are a little bit finicky about food at the moment … if someone else touches your food you won’t eat it needless to say this gives Lucy great pleasure in annoying you.

You love the mirror. You love going to the Uni gym and you love skateboarding in Ptown. You ask me to take you to  Ptown on the weekends to skate and I walk. I love these afternoons with you.

You are learning to be a man by wrestling Dad! Well at least that is what the Parenting book tells me. Lots of your interaction with Dad is trying to get Dad to submit in a wrestle or seeing who can give the other a dead arm. There is lots of biffo going on. It’s important that Dad doesn’t back down and I guess you will get that one day when you have sons of your own. We know we ask a lot of you with chores and helping around the house. You are a gun lawn mower and whippersnipper as well as helping Dad rebuild the house.  Believe it or not this will stand you in good stead later in life and compared to lots of kids you have it great.

You have just started a class at school call Program Challenge where you work on a project with a community mentor. You were chosen to do this class by Mrs Bolton and it’s a privilege. Your mentor is Mr Pat O’Dwyer a retired Mining Engineer who will guide you in putting together a feasibility study for a new open cut mine.  I took you to the meeting with Pat and let me tell you I was a little bit worried. Especially as on the way in the car you said and I quote “This meeting better be good I washed my hair for it and its mint”. I have to say that in the meeting you blew me away with your maturity and intelligence and manners. Pat also commented to Mr Height how switched on and prepared you were. This sums up your 15… some days are golden some days we want to sell you on ebay.

You, Pat and your mint hair

Other small details that will fade as you get older are: you like Quarter Pounders, Gansta Rap, very plain t shirts, Nike dress shoes, Facebook, skype, nutrigrain, black skinny jeans, surfing magazines, going to the beach and the uni gym.

Your bedroom is always a mess, you never want to get up for school, you are always late getting to the bus, you argue EVERY time its your turn to do the dishes and to our knowledge you have never voluntarily picked up a towel off your floor.

Rugby Trip 2012

Happy Birthday Bear, we love you and you love us and that is all.

Mum & Dad xxxx

June (sucked) Summation

Oh June 2012 how I hated you, let me count the ways...

But first to the good things that happened.

My niece DJ came to stay with us as her Mum had horse camp with Georga. DJ has an apprenticeship as a chef in a tavern & restaurant and she works split shifts. She got her drivers license in July so until then she needed lifts to and from work four times a day. It nearly killed my poor sister Cath, and hence why we needed to babysit and take over driving duties whilst she was away.We LOVED having Dana Jo. The first night we had tea at the tavern  and the next day she came home with the entire  desert menu. We were all set for her to bring home the entire entree menu when Cath pulled the plug on horse camp (due to torrential rain) and picked her up... RUDE! And just like that our personal chef and Bear's bestie (I really must do a post on DJ and Bear one day ... they share a "connection" and are so close its something to behold) Anyway it was so fun whilst it lasted. Came back anytime Babe.

Chocolate Mousse, Lime Cheesecake and Sticky
Date pudding

The only other good thing I have photographic evidence of for June is Lucy's school project on Eygyt. This project sums up what is great about Lulu. She did it all herself, all her own ideas and well before it was due in. She knew her friends parents where building Taj Mahals  (mixed metaphor alert!) for their kids to hand in - and get better marks than her no doubt, but she didn't care - she just got on with it. The project ended with her class going to Brisbane to see the Mummy Exhibition at GOMA. All she had to report on the exursion was the bus ride was too long and they had lunch too late... no mention of the amazing artifacts or history on show!

Now to the whining and whingeing part of the post. I struggled to get myself through June. If you have no idea what that wankerish statement means ... I guess it means that for most of June I was sad, frustrated, lonely, tired  and a little bit despondent. I cried a lot (cos I am a loser) and  I struggled to see all the great things and people in my life.  

So why? (we all love the details). Nobody who reads this will be surprised that all my issues were First World Problems and that a teaspoon of cement was needed on a daily basis to harden the freak up in most cases.

Firstly I was just sad that my family and friends  weren't around me. My birthday was so good because I got to see them and hug them and then just like that they were gone... I hated it. 

Then my iphone camera stop working because it needed updating or some such thing... why oh why am I so crap at technology and why oh why do I live 100km from a capital city and  cant get internet access faster than dial up? I hated not being able to take pics everyday. I hated that we have no access to wifi, I hated that the ereader I was given as a gift from my GB's doesn't work at home and I cant read Nie Nie's book (that I paid for) and I hated that our laptop decided to die at the same time.

Then the reality of my job kicked in. I went full time at the University at the end of May. I also moved on to doing some higher level "stuff". Yeah that is one big old can of freak out at times. Anyone who has ever had to learn a new organisation's rules and regs as well as actually get some outcomes from your job  knows how tiring everyday is. For the last ten years I did a job I knew back to front for a company I knew inside out... that is a very comfortable zone to be pushed out of. The other thing about being in a new position or being the new kid is that you have no street cred or good will. You are asking strangers for info or requesting work from peeps who don't know you and certainly don't want to add another thing into their busy day for you. I reckon I will have every one on side and the policy's worked out  about a month before this project winds up ;-)

And finally David started ripping out the last of the rooms upstairs that are being renovated. June saw us back to living amongst the chaos. It takes a bit of getting use to and I grieved a bit for my tidy and quite house.

  

This is the bathroom minus its floor.

Anyhoo that was the pathetic mess June became, thankfully July has been lovely. We celebrated Lucy's 12th Birthday, had a weekend in Witta and caught up with Cath and Vyc. All is right in the world.

Ex

May (and My 40th Birthday) Summation

I'm not dead :-)

My friend Annie rang me on the weekend and asked if I was ok as I hadn't updated my blog in years. To be honest this is the post I have been dreading, even if I didn't have major internet connectivity issues I would still be dragging my heels to document May.

The lead up to my Birthday Weekend (BW) made May one very emotional and exhausting month.

All the weeks before hand were a mad rush to get the house and yard ready to have people over for my Birthday and then after the BW I was so exhausted and melancholy (not to mention poxy with about 16 cold sores ... sorry for that mental picture) that I threw a pity party for myself that lasted most of June.

All my pictures of the BW are crap and the good ones I took of my siblings out to lunch in Maleny were eaten by my iphone :-( but to follow is the best of a bad lot. 

David outdid himself and worked like a dog to get the paving finished.

This is me on my actual 40th Birthday! Cath dropped into the Uni to have coffee with me. The girls at work birthday bombed my office with balloons and streamers and we had cake in the afternoon. I had a great day apart from strange phone calls where not one but two relatives decided to turn saying Happy Birthday into berating me for perceived slights. Many Happy Returns!

This is the actual day of my party. This is the day I will treasure forever! My family all together, with some extra glorious news thrown in.

My niece Dana is a star... she (along with her parents and my  family) manned the kitchen and fed everyone.  David and I didn't have to worry about the food at all.

After lunch, Annie and Stewie drove hours to see me!!! I love these guys so much and I hated that they couldn't stay longer and that I wont see them now until September.

Looking back I have no idea why I didn't make a bit more of an effort with my hair and outfit on the day... probably because I was trying not to lose my shite at every turn.

Pretty much every pic I have is this bad! At least in this shot you can see the disco ball and the brazier. We managed to have my birthday outside on the coldest night of the year!

Its hard to see but David made the long table and bench seats so we could all sit and eat together and my fam decorated downstairs beautifully. It looked like a twinkly outdoor restaurant. My beautiful Sis Krys did my make up and it was very glam.

Here is me doing what I did most of the night... dorky dancing under the disco ball.

Suzie was also busting some moves :-)

Another  attempt at some family pics.... Cath is making sure she gets in the frame :-)

The next day we all went out to lunch at the tavern Dana is apprentice cheffing at. It was a great lunch for those of us not hungover and asleep on the couch (I'm looking at you David).

Dana picking out knives 

Sunday  also saw Krys and Andrew fly home (thank you again Angie,Krys and Andrew for coming so far for such a short time xxx).

Monday Cath, Ang and I took Joel to the Plaza and had some excellent brunch  and I walked around with the sick feeling in my tummy that it was all finishing.

Me, the sibs and my chins

Angie  flew home Tuesday morning and I went back to work. David and I spent the rest of May NOT working on the house and sleeping a lot.

Stay tuned for June where I hated the world, broke my iphone camera, and helped David rip out the bathroom.

Ex