A long time between drinks...

Wow it has been awhile since I wrote down things about me and my life. Life has been very up and down. I have been a little bit of a.. Well.. Big bitch of late. I can admit it, I am owning my bad behaviour and thanking the gods that my family and my amazing husband love me more than I deserve! I'm not really sure of why my mood is so volatile at the moment but I really need it to stop, cause I'm sure that love will eventually wear off if I can't stop this. I do believe it has something to do with hormones, so I might start there with trying to fix me. 

Life has soldiered on and I can't believe that as of Friday it will be May! 4 months post shop sale and I do believe I'm getting the hang of life after a cafe! I'm working three days a week doing my own thing and still home for my girls. Balance people, I'm finding it! It's flipping humbling and a just plain Toyota moment. 

I'm also a hermit. I don't go out much. It had been over three weeks since I had ventured into town. I'm not doing this to upset anyone or to distance myself from people. I'm just happy in my bubble and after being in the public eye for 4 years, I just think I need a bit of time. 

The girls have been pretty good. We are having lots of hormones creeping into our home. Life with girls! Snapping and sour faces sometimes rule our days and then like boom, they snap out of it and are beautiful, helpful and loveable girls. So in a nutshell, Marty and I are seriously winging it every minute of the day in this thing called parenting. Forever learning, stumbling lots and always in love with them, no matter how much they push our buttons.

The shouse is getting there! About to start the mezzanine level which will make life so much more comfortable for all of us in our tiny home that we love more than anything. The girls and I have been working together and building dry rock walls, which look super cool. The gardens are growing and the veggie patch is in need of expansion. The retaining walls are complete, more use for pallets I did find! Everything takes time but when I look at where we were a year ago, I'm amazed at what we have achieved. 

So life is busy in a quiet way. It's happening almost under the radar and I'm loving life for the first time in what seems like forever. When we look back at our life I don't regret any choices we have made, it has just been stepping stones to the future. Things we have done to discover where we are headed and want most out of life. A life filled with love and laughs. A life that is focused with the important stuff. I will try to remember to write more often....

Autumn is here....

Can you believe that it is March already. I mean it's actually closer to April than March. Easter is freaking next weekend! The weather is cooling down. The leaves are turning and this side of the world, the earth is getting ready to have a bit of a sleep! My chickens are laying more, cause the days are cooler! My children and us are sleeping in each day and the want to stay under the covers is becoming a fight that the covers are winning. 

This is the time of year where getting outside is not limited to the time of day or the temperature. It is the start of my favourite time of year. We become more social, which sounds completely strange, but the lure of a camp oven around a bonfire is just like 10stars!

This weekend marks the start of a joint working bee with some friends where we work one weekend a month at someone's house, doing jobs that need a few sets of hands and having extras around gives you more motivation. I'm excited to see what we are creating tomorrow and how helping someone else achieve a goal will make me feel good. 

Sunday we have plans of finishing our retaining around the shouse, then start of our entertaining area, where my double hammock will be hung! We also have to sort our camper trailer out for our weekend away over Easter. We also plan to end the weekend with yummy homemade pizza. 

This time of year when everything is getting ready for a rest, I almost feel like I have more energy. Like I'm bursting at the seems to be doing anything. Especially outside, summer here is so hot, you are almost trapped by it. To hot to be outside for long periods.

Right now I'm heading back to the lounge where my beautiful girls are camped out and finish watching the chick flick while the man about the house is out hunting! Enjoy your weekend my friends out in the land of www... Bx

Hermit in the hill

Almost two months have past since we sold the shop. I think I'm finally adjusting to my days, although some I lack motivation to do just about anything. Some days have been lonely and others time seem to not have enough hours to get everything done. I'm baking for my kids again, which pleases me to know exactly what they are putting in their mouths. I'm spending time in my garden and painting walls. 

So I have become a bad friend. I'm not around. I'm not that accessible and I'm sure some have taken this personally but in truth I'm just keeping to myself. I am enjoying the quiet. The somewhat limited contact. I am almost doing a reboot and update like a computer. I have taken a big step away from the likes of Facebook. I have un-friended a lot of people, not because I dislike any of them. I have done this as I feel now that I'm not in the public eye daily, my personal space should be more closed of and somewhat private. 

Many won't understand this, but this is what has needed to happen with me, as I have not felt safe to post anything on fb from fear of judgement or to have people know business that in a normal situation would not know of me. The abuse that comes from Facebook posts is soul destroying. Simple but true. 

I'm still needing to make more changes in that arena but I also have changed as it doesn't attract me as much as it use to. I find my blog a place of sanctuary, with Instagram being an outlet to share arty photos of my life. 

So as I get used to life on the hill. Life is simple and full of love. My girls are reaping the rewards of me being home and Marty tells me he loves me being home but his waist line does not. 

Until I'm rebooted, I'm the hermit on the hill. Living simply and quietly. I'm alive just out of reach to most. 

Don't mess with mummy's Cubs

This week life has been a roller coaster of emotions, I tell you. Started the week slow. Tired but determine to exercise. Wednesday I had a job interview and that in turn ended the highs. Wednesday afternoon the bad came crashing down with the bus driver for the second time scaring the living crap out of me and the kids.  This said bus driver believes he is entitled to punish my children by making them stay on the bus longer. The killer part is, the thing he blamed them for, they didn't do!  

So I rang the bus company, whom he hadn't told any of this too. They seemed to be on my side and understand my distress until they ask me to speak to the driver the next morning. Well he didn't want to understand that he scared me and the kids and just wanted to yell at me like I was two! It gets better, he then slammed the door in my face and drove off at bullet pace. I was horrified and scarred for my girls, but didn't want to drive to the next stop and ripped them off as I know it would have embarrassed them. 

I arrived home and rang Marty, who was too horrified by what I retold to him and this is where the story goes from worse to outright unbelievable. Marty rang the bus company where he left a message. He rang the school who were upset by what had happened and then the police. Obviously the police visit to there business got them to return the call and that's when Marty realised they didn't care about what he was upset about and then started to call my husband names and myself a liar. 

Things escalated from there and now we are at a point where the wife of the owner rang me and has somewhat smoothed it over, but it doesn't change how stomach churned I have been today at the thought of them coming home today on the bus. I want an apology and ultimately the bus driver gone. I'm sure I'm not the only one that has had problems, but by the sounds of it the only one that has said anything. 

Although I put them on the bus this afternoon I don't think I will be able to do it again. I haven't been myself all day at the thought of them on there and I can't spend my days worrying about this. I want to know they get to and from school with no worries. I mean this man has put young kids off 2kms from there bus stop without calling a parent. He needs to be stopped. 

I don't fight all my kids battles, but I pick the ones that they need help with. This mummy bear is cranky!

Courageous little lions

I had a moment of pure clarity yesterday evening watching my soon to be twelve year old get ready for her first high school social. It was a themed event and the character had to start with the first letter of their name. She picked a YouTube star called Miranda. Who has big dark eyebrows and hot red lipstick that is smudged all over her face. This character sings terribly but yet flipping hilarious at the same time. And maya God love her, went out in public dressed like this. I mean I had bravery envy!

Marty and I sat amazed at the courage and confidence in her. We started to talk about it and realised we would have never done that for fear of rejection and bullying. Yet this kid just didn't care. I envy her. I mean, I'm now almost 35 and I don't worry about things like that, but imagine how much more of a handle I could of had on my life if I had got this courage earlier. 

We talked about how all the girls have this same quality. Where did they get it? How did we teach these skills, when we struggled with them as youths? It was puzzling to us. Funny to is that the other three have even more courage than maya, so it made me laugh to realise that they would dress up even more when their time comes. 

I'm proud to say that they have this quality I so truly desired long ago. I envy the courage and the lack of want for approval from their peers. I love that their friends love and encourage this behaviour. I enjoy seeing my kids being completely them with no need to hide traits. I loved that somehow Marty and I helped mould this behaviour and allowed it to never be squashed. My moment yesterday made the bad week before melt away with the knowledge we are doing something right. 

Parenting, is... Hard (sometimes)

This last week I have been tested by one of my girls. I know this as a phase as her older sister had the same moments. Moments of pushing the boundaries just a little bit further. Speaking just a little harsher and making me feel like I'm doing a very crap job at this parenting business. I mean when you feel guilty over your child being in trouble, something has gone a miss ( am I right?).

This week I feel I have raised my voice equally to how much I have laughed. I laugh a lot so you can see my problem. The mornings and some evenings which are normally very mellow have held angst and tears. Lines yelled at me like 'you blame me for everything' and ' you don't believe me'. This has hurt, because I love all my children equally just differently. You can't love them identically as they are all different and our relationships are all very individual, but simply I have no favourites!

So this morning all these issues came to a head! Which meant what started out to be this beautiful mellow morning of the last day of the school week, turned into a yelling match with a two year old tantrum. Please note I don't have a two year olds in this house. I took a big deep breath and tried to stay calm to try and make my point about the behaviour sink into this beautiful and cranky little creature. 

With Marty away, I felt a little lost for support but I think I managed to get her to understand that what she is doing is not how we treat the people we love and hopefully it sank in just enough to help her to remember. Parenting is so hard and when you have more than one, making sure you are fair and consistent is flipping hard. 

So my hope is that when my kids pile off the bus in oh two minutes that they are happy and the afternoon and evening only holds joy without the angst. 

Bx

To be a kid again

I sitting here at the local pool, watching my kids play and swim with other kids. They are having a blast. Kids build bridges fast and make friends even faster. Kids don't hold grudges and don't hold onto baggage. Why as adults do we lose this? When do we change and decide we can't move on from things. When does this happen?

Is it also hard for us adults to say sorry. We just plain suck at it. We teach our kids to own their mistakes and tell anybody that they are sorry for hurting them. Not us big kids, we dig our heals in and just hold onto the gabage that is crap. But how do you de clutter the crap that really has no meaning. 

I think I'm going to start taking pointers from my kids. I will have no baggage. I will hold no crap in and I will try to build bridges when there seems no way to. Im going to try and find that innocence while  still holding all the knowledge I have learnt in this life so far.