Friday, February 01, 2008
Snippets
I'm here and there all over the place at the moment, and thus the chances of me coming up with an artfully composed blog post on a theme, are .. like.. zero.
So today you get bits and pieces, which is pretty much reflective of the way I approach each day anyway. A little bit of this, a little bit of that... oh look... a distraction!! Chaos Theory! I have it down to a fine art.
I have spent a bit of time playing around with the websites that I do voluntarily (for the netball, and the bike group)... but all the time with this impending pressure about getting the house just a bit more presentable for the building designer visit this morning. (And I had to paint one more coat of paint on the new shed door. The shed that may get knocked down yet.. but anyway...)
A significant amount of cleaning was achieved (in my terms) but I still had to swallow my pride and take the 'oh well - it's just how I am/we are' attitude to the messy benches, the cobwebs, the dirty windows. (You're going to have to design with that in mind, mate.) While to the outsider the house would have looked shabby, and messy (and cobwebby), it's massively better than what it usually is, and I am on a mission to try and keep it that way. Hmmm.
We still have The Decision to make. Renovate, or knock it down and start again. We are armed with a bit more info, but nonetheless, the decision is down to us, and we vacillate between leaning one way or the other. But I will leave all that for another time.
Ms 14 has been worth her weight in gold in the clean-up lead-up this week. Things have been happening lately with her that are wonderful and brilliant, and everything a mother of a teenage daughter could hope for. (Although points were deducted yesterday for "speaking to me LIKE THAT".)
On Wednesday afternoon (while the other two were already back at school) she waved a DVD at me - Torchwood. Series 2. Episode 1.
Noooo! Don't do it to me! I said. I have to go and sort through The Ironing Pile up in our room.
So, she put the disk down, and she came up and helped me! And basically took charge. (A bit of role reversal stuff happened, as she tut-tutted about this and that. It was a bit freaky, but by god, she was good. Even she thought she was good, because she told her father all about it that night when they were driving to Touch. Plus she also liked the way I was in such a good mood from all her helpfulness that I bought her a coke AND an icecream that afternoon. You'd think the kids would have learnt by now that life is sweeter when Mum is in a good mood, and it's really pretty simple to get Mum in a good mood.
She followed that with directing Zoe into cleaning up all her Stuff! in the playroom last night, with great success. I think I'll keep her. Lately she has started ironing some of her clothes when she needs them, and Alison is following her lead.
I like!
~~~~~~~~~~
I got this bloggy, moggy award this week too - from Potty Mummy "Potty" meaning Crazy, which must be why she feels some vague affinity with me, even though she doth protest that she is certainly not crazy enough to do some of the things I do! I'm not old or crazy enough to have forgotten what it was like to have a 4 year old and a 2 year old, and to have gone through the whole potty training thing (yes! a play on words!) Thusly, I do enjoy her blog which I only came across recently, and I appreciate the acknowledgement. And the link at her end!! Thanks PM!
I am supposed to pass this blog love on.. and I will, pinky promise. Only tomorrow now, because it's now tonight (and I started this post this morning), and I'm tired enough to go to bed early because we are doing our crazy crazy early morning get up to go riding.
-
So today you get bits and pieces, which is pretty much reflective of the way I approach each day anyway. A little bit of this, a little bit of that... oh look... a distraction!! Chaos Theory! I have it down to a fine art.
I have spent a bit of time playing around with the websites that I do voluntarily (for the netball, and the bike group)... but all the time with this impending pressure about getting the house just a bit more presentable for the building designer visit this morning. (And I had to paint one more coat of paint on the new shed door. The shed that may get knocked down yet.. but anyway...)
A significant amount of cleaning was achieved (in my terms) but I still had to swallow my pride and take the 'oh well - it's just how I am/we are' attitude to the messy benches, the cobwebs, the dirty windows. (You're going to have to design with that in mind, mate.) While to the outsider the house would have looked shabby, and messy (and cobwebby), it's massively better than what it usually is, and I am on a mission to try and keep it that way. Hmmm.
We still have The Decision to make. Renovate, or knock it down and start again. We are armed with a bit more info, but nonetheless, the decision is down to us, and we vacillate between leaning one way or the other. But I will leave all that for another time.
Ms 14 has been worth her weight in gold in the clean-up lead-up this week. Things have been happening lately with her that are wonderful and brilliant, and everything a mother of a teenage daughter could hope for. (Although points were deducted yesterday for "speaking to me LIKE THAT".)
On Wednesday afternoon (while the other two were already back at school) she waved a DVD at me - Torchwood. Series 2. Episode 1.
Noooo! Don't do it to me! I said. I have to go and sort through The Ironing Pile up in our room.
So, she put the disk down, and she came up and helped me! And basically took charge. (A bit of role reversal stuff happened, as she tut-tutted about this and that. It was a bit freaky, but by god, she was good. Even she thought she was good, because she told her father all about it that night when they were driving to Touch. Plus she also liked the way I was in such a good mood from all her helpfulness that I bought her a coke AND an icecream that afternoon. You'd think the kids would have learnt by now that life is sweeter when Mum is in a good mood, and it's really pretty simple to get Mum in a good mood.
She followed that with directing Zoe into cleaning up all her Stuff! in the playroom last night, with great success. I think I'll keep her. Lately she has started ironing some of her clothes when she needs them, and Alison is following her lead.
I like!
~~~~~~~~~~
I got this bloggy, moggy award this week too - from Potty Mummy "Potty" meaning Crazy, which must be why she feels some vague affinity with me, even though she doth protest that she is certainly not crazy enough to do some of the things I do! I'm not old or crazy enough to have forgotten what it was like to have a 4 year old and a 2 year old, and to have gone through the whole potty training thing (yes! a play on words!) Thusly, I do enjoy her blog which I only came across recently, and I appreciate the acknowledgement. And the link at her end!! Thanks PM!
I am supposed to pass this blog love on.. and I will, pinky promise. Only tomorrow now, because it's now tonight (and I started this post this morning), and I'm tired enough to go to bed early because we are doing our crazy crazy early morning get up to go riding.
-
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Wow. Ironed - her own stuff? Wow. Am not holding out that much hope for my boys when they finally get there though, as a) it's 10 years away and I will be so old by then that my memory will have failed me and I will have forgotten there ever was a teenager to do such a thing, and b) I don't iron my OWN stuff. Why should they? (Crumpled is the new smooth, don't you know...)
Lucky you Tracey. Don't you just llove when they decide to be helpful and ironing no less - I don't even do that!!!
"Crumpled is the new smooth"... LOL. Love it.
Yeah, pixie, a bit of the "Who are you and what have you done with Caitlin?"
When I say "ironing", guys, I don't mean "ironing" in the standing there and doing a basket of ironing sense of the word. I can't do that! I get bored. And I get a sore arm! A lot of clothing in this house gets worn unironed. If I was really smart I'd get things off the line more carefully, so that things didn't get crumpled. But they do (because they WERE thrown into this mountain of a pile) so I operate by ironing if and when as needed, and at most the night before. The ironing board is a permanent fixture up in our room, and I like it that way. But we are trying a new M.O. Put everything away in their cupboards, and bring it back up to iron if necessary.
It really was only a matter of time before the girls got impatient and started to run the iron over their stuff because it was easier than hassling me to do it. Caitlin did learn how to use an iron at sewing at school (she always resisted my attempts to teach her, and then complained about our iron sticking.)
I found out that Alison had a go of doing something she needed to wear because I'd yelled at her for some misdemeanour 10 minutes beforehand, and so she didn't want to run the gauntlet of Mum Stomping Upstairs to Ungraciously Iron something for her. (*embarrassed look*)
Whatever works, eh!
Yeah, pixie, a bit of the "Who are you and what have you done with Caitlin?"
When I say "ironing", guys, I don't mean "ironing" in the standing there and doing a basket of ironing sense of the word. I can't do that! I get bored. And I get a sore arm! A lot of clothing in this house gets worn unironed. If I was really smart I'd get things off the line more carefully, so that things didn't get crumpled. But they do (because they WERE thrown into this mountain of a pile) so I operate by ironing if and when as needed, and at most the night before. The ironing board is a permanent fixture up in our room, and I like it that way. But we are trying a new M.O. Put everything away in their cupboards, and bring it back up to iron if necessary.
It really was only a matter of time before the girls got impatient and started to run the iron over their stuff because it was easier than hassling me to do it. Caitlin did learn how to use an iron at sewing at school (she always resisted my attempts to teach her, and then complained about our iron sticking.)
I found out that Alison had a go of doing something she needed to wear because I'd yelled at her for some misdemeanour 10 minutes beforehand, and so she didn't want to run the gauntlet of Mum Stomping Upstairs to Ungraciously Iron something for her. (*embarrassed look*)
Whatever works, eh!
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