Our family is really, really, really wanting to find a new place to rent in the country, within 50 minutes of Tullamarine. In putting together a newspaper ad I ended up writing a poem! With a little help from Tim (quite a bit actually) we turned it into more than just words on paper, check it out.
I was out shopping yesterday with my youngest son when I met this young man who reminded me of someone I know. He looked really familiar and he was looking at me in that same sort of way. The second time this happened I stopped and asked him if I knew him because he really did look like someone I knew (not that I could remember who).
He said, “Naaah,” shaking his head, and then he drawled, “I was just looking at you an’ your son and wonderin’ why he’s so blonde an’ your so dark.” I smiled and replied, “It’s in the family; there are blondes in my family, just not me.” He walked off saying, “So it’s in the genes then.” And it is - on my side of the family (mostly extended) there are blondes and red heads and the same on my husband’s side, who was in his youth ginger with grey green eyes.
My youngest, who is now 4, is blonde with blue eyes and pale, pale skin, while my hair is dark brown, I have brown eyes and my skin is brown in comparison (a very pale brown as I tend to stay out of the sun these days - I’ve gone off the suntanned look!) So I can understand his wonder - and he is the second person to ask me that question (not including my sister)!
I had a good laugh telling my husband last night. He was quite indignant that somebody would have the audacity to be that rude! Personally, I find it rather funny. But it did make me pause and wonder… How many people look at my youngest and I when we’re out and think I’ve been dabbling with the mailman?! I think that maybe there are a lot of people who wonder but are just too polite to say something! And no, I haven’t been dabbling - I am happily married and have no interest or desire in having an affair.
All my boys are different and yet they’re all the same. My first has hair as long as mine (halfway down his back) that is a beautiful auburn/chestnut and the envy of many women I know. He has big dark brown eyes, wears glasses (he’s shortsighted like me) and has pale, pale skin. My second likes his hair to be short and spiky brown hair (a number 2 shave is his dream hairstyle) with big dark brown eyes and pale skin (although he does tan if out in the sun). And my third, well, I’ve already described him.
They are all so different and yet, if you look at photos of them at the same ages, they look like the same kid, just with different colour hair! The genetics that God has coded into our system are amazing - I sometimes wonder what colour combination we would have got if we’d had four kids!
Let me tell you about “fluffs”.
In our family we don’t use the word “fart”, we have decided that “fluff” is a better alternative; I dunno, but I find the word ‘fart’ coming out of a young child’s mouth to be a bit too course and uncouth, call me old fashioned if you like, but it’s just the way I feel, besides, using the word “fluff” means that Tim’s family don’t suffer from conniptions every time my boys talk about the sounds coming out from their bottoms! Anyway, I was told a story just the other day about how our use of the word “fluff” instead of “fart” has affected another family we know.
I’m on the computer, desperately trying to type up thoughts on a story idea I’d had inspired by one of last night’s dreams, before I lose the thread and before X wakes up. As always, I only ever have a small window of opportunity. X is meant to sleep for two hours, but as soon as I count on that you can pretty much guarantee that he doesn’t! And then of course, I also use the time X is sleeping to run around the house and do all those jobs that are nigh on impossible to do while he’s awake, which doesn’t leave much time for doing extra things like typing up a story idea.
We’ve done it! We’ve been talking about it for ages; dreaming about it. But today we made a decision!! We have decided what the next major step is for us, for our family and our walk with God. So it is not just us who decided. As a family we prayed and asked God to say “no” if this is not the direction he wanted us to head in.
Well, God did not say “no”. And so we have set the date. We will travelling around Australia, slowly. We’re not quite sure in which direction we’ll head first - there’s so many ways we could go. So far we are thinking we’ll meander our way slowly up the coast visiting some friends and relatives along the way. We’re in no hurry. We’ve said six months, but it could be more, maybe even a year!
So anyway, we are leaving on Monday 11th Feb, 2008! Whoohoo!!!
There will be more posts on this, but we are setting up our very own travel website so there’ll be more details on there. When I post here it will be more about my personal journey, rather than the family travels.
We now have our travel website up and running - The Great Adventure - and it’s really cool!
The other day I was in the kitchen washing dishes (seems to be a fairly regular occurance - just lately I’ve been feeling like I’m spending the entire day in the kitchen!) when I looked up to see B (my oldest) balanced on a small wooden stool which was balanced on top of the glory box, standing on tip toes, stretching, trying to reach the ceiling to stick up the paper balloon he had made ~ he wanted it to be a helium balloon!
Needless to say, I freaked a little! I was having Looney Tunes visions. You know, when Daffy or Buggs are balancing precariously on top of a multitude of boxes, chairs, ladders, tables, spinning tops all somehow balancing on top of each other and invariably there is an amazing crash with things going everywhere. If it’s Daffy or anyone else it’s a disaster, but if it’s Buggs, well somehow he manages to get out of it.