Check

Empty house? Check
Tissues? Check
Humidifier? Check
Vicks - applied liberally to all available flesh? Check
Comfort food - ham, cheese, tomato toastie, pikelets with butter, jam and cream, macaroni cheese awaiting?* Check
Tea? Check
Bed? Check
Laptop with Bleak House ready to go? Check
Heavily congested head and sinus pain? Check

All ready for the day then.

Image from http://s259.photobucket.com/albums/hh297/kbroglio/?action=view&current=sick-girl_032909.jpg&newest=1

*I never lose my appetite when sick...

Another year marches by

Another ANZAC day in Sydney for me. This year was more sad than previously. Four members left in Pa's Association, Z Special Unit (mentioned here ). My Pa is the handsome man holding the wreath.

My husband was again proudly with him in the march.


After the march we headed to The National Maritime Museum for lunch and a trip around the harbour in The Krait - a small fishing boat (not the submarine in the picture). Pa spent two and a half years on a boat very much like this - the The Tiger Snake.


He and his 9 (8?) mates served in Borneo, in their little junk behind Japanese lines. To be in Z you couldn't have any tattoos. They carried no dog tags. They did have suicide pills. He was not able to talk about this experiences for 40 years after the end of the war. I cannot even begin to imagine what he went through. Pa was the stoker on the Tiger Snake and spent most of his time in the engine room. I got a glimpse of the depth of emotion when he got on the Krait and looked in at the engine room (about 10 seconds after this photo).
He was overcome and got off the boat as fast as he could. He couldn't speak. He just turned to me and said - choked - 'all our mates' and then ran his thumb across his throat. I just squeezed his hand - what could I say? He recovered (with the assistance of two very healthy 'fingers' of rum). And then thanked us for being with him. He didn't go out on the boat around the harbour - my Mum and cousins did and were touched by the experience. My sister, my husband and I stayed with Pa, mostly just to be with him (but also because my sister and I suffer horrifically from seasickness - a story for another day).

I'm so honoured to have shared the ANZAC Day experience with my Pa - and my Nana - for the last 10 years. I'm proud of him and his service. I love you Pa. Thank you.

What a difference a day (or two) makes...

So after an awful Monday, I had a wonderful Tuesday at a training course! It was enough to renew my spirits (surprising, no?) and on Wednesday and Thursday had a much better attitude. Lots of breathing and trying not to think to much really helped!!

And yesterday I was home with the kidlets.

Since Lil started school I've not had both of them for a full day - it was nice! Primarily because I looked at it in terms of what I could do to make it fun for them - rather than trying to get my stuff done. We went down to the school carpark and Lil showed me how she learned to ride her bike (on Tuesday with my Dad). She was pretty good! Then we went for coffee and a play in the big mushroom at the Belconnen Markets with my sister. Lil ran into a kid from her school who is known as the 'naughty boy'. I didn't know it was the NB. They played nicely and laughed and had a great time. Until it was time to go and he yelled 'bye bye f**king head' - which is his hallmark farewell. Then I knew it was the NB... Otherwise he seemed lovely. I'm loathe to label him a naughty boy, because, well, people in glass houses and all that.

And now its the weekend again. I was just cruising through my blogs and my head nearly exploded when I saw that one of my embroidery pieces was featured on Craft! So hello if you've come by from there. Ironically, I made the picture when I was cleaning out my embroidery floss, which Nana had gifted to me because she no longer used it. Then Nana asked for it all back and I couldn't say no because it was all hers... so I'm not doing much embroidery at the mo! I did do the embroidery button swap over at feeling stitchy and did these for Quinne


And she sent me this lovely package:




Anyhoo, I'm off to visit a friend that just had a bub (great reason to start a baby cardy) and then to Mum's for dinner. Enjoy yours!

P.S The roses are from my inlaws garden. They not only look stunning but they smell divine!

Grrr

I'm starting in a new area today - for 3-6 months - and I'm scared shitless. I know the people, i pretty much know the work, I know all the parameters, and yet all those stupid fears i have about my ability to do anything competently are banging around in my head and making me crazy.

Its been building up over the weekend and so I've done what I always do - play dead. Not really play dead, but become so paralysed by fear of failure at everything that I don't do anything. Except mope and make a nuisance of myself. Unfortunately my husband is so excellent that he stands in for me and is the only functioning adult in the house. I say unfortunately because if he wasn't so capable I'd have to get my shit together and keep going. But I don't. I sit on the couch while he does everything. And then when he's finished doing everything he brings me cheese and biscuits. And then I drink and don't feel any better (duh) and all of this is just more for me to get down on myself about.

What's worse is that I know how to fix it. I know I have to "fake it till I make it" but with all the energy I possess being diverted to unhelpful thoughts I don't think I can fake it.

You are my sunshine.

So I find it difficult to come up with post headings most of the time. I always think of the same ones and have to check if I've used them before. And I'm always jealous of those who have a theme like 'song titles' or cities or whatever. So I was thinking about a post (its been a while) and I thought I'd go with a song. But then it reminded me about my history with this song. The story begins now...

When my husband and I were going out we lived briefly with his parents. It was primarily because I had to move to Brisbane for work temporarily and had moved out of my granny flat and had nowhere to go in the interim. Anyway, the day came when I had to go, and I gave him a little gift to remember me by. It was a sponge duck, which when emersed in water would play an electronic beeping version of 'you are my sunshine'. Remove it from the water and it would stop. After this touching gift I'm sure we embraced and then I drove away.

That night as I sat in a hotel room somewhere near the Queensland border I called Nath. He had just got out of the bath and had put the duck in the water. It beeped as expected. Then he took it out. It kept beeping. We agreed that it must have a little residual water in it and took bets on how many hours it would take to stop beeping. The box had said it would go for around 3 hours!

The next morning Nathan rang. It had not stopped beeping. At some stage during the night he had angrily stomped into the bathroom and shoved it in the laundry basket under some towels. When checked in the morning it was still going strong with its incessant 'you are my sunshine'...

That night (24 hours after the fateful bath) it was still beeping. His father banished it from the house.

The next day I was in serious trouble. The sponge duck of doom was still beeping. And although it had been removed from the house it caused the dog to howl all night(the dog had evidently tired of the bloody song too).

I told Nath that maybe he should just rip the damn thing open and step on its infernal sound mechanism. But this was personal. It was him versus the duck. And in the end only one would still beep.

That night (48 hours post bath) it went into the garage in a suitably soundproofed receptacle where its beeping could not enrage or induce insanity in the residents.

For four days post bath - 96 hours give or take - Satan's duck poured forth its demon's song. Nathan vowed that if he ever had to hear it again then the singer would be eviscerated immediately.

Flash forward three years to the birth of our daughter. Night time. Colic-y baby that won't settle. I'm swaying and singing everything short of 'i like big butts' to try and sooth the child. In what can only have been a moment of insanity I launched into 'you are my sunshine'. The child stops. And it becomes the only song that will soothe her.

I estimate that given she is 5.5 years now and that I would have sung it at least 10 times a day for the first two years, and at least once a night every day since that I have sung it 4,927 times. That's all three verses. And that's not counting the times I've sung it to Paddy.

I think I've been punished enough.