Author: Veronica

  • Gardening in winter.

    This winter has been a long cold one garden wise and I am more than ready for spring to come. June kicked my arse a little bit and by the time I’d recovered, July was here, the month of frosts and dry icy days – not much good for growing things.

    So I paid for June’s laziness by not getting any greenery from my garden over winter – which was a total nightmare. The dogs (before they died) dug out the onion and lettuce seeds I did remember to plant and just ugh.

    I’ve been making up for it though, with a full day of planting. Winter isn’t over yet, but I’m crossing my fingers that these little guys will survive until Spring – without the chooks or ducks molesting them. Of course, my ducks can fly, so this might all be in vain.

    So I planted Kale,

    Iceberg Lettuce and Mignonette Lettuce,

    Celery,

    Rainbow Chard,

    As well as spring onions and leeks.

    Also growing I have severely eaten cauliflower. Look what the chooks have done to it!

    And rocket in my hanging basket:

    I still have a patch full of broad beans growing – Amy dumped an entire bag of broad bean seeds into a patch that had been planted with beetroot, lettuce, onion and carrots, unfortunately 100+ broad bean plants choked out my other seeds. Strangely enough, the broad beans have survived, despite -7C temps and cats/dogs/chooks/ducks running over them. Tough little plants.

    I did some modifications to the gate, to stop the chooks and ducks being able to squeeze underneath. Pretty? Definitely not, but so far, it’s been effective.

    I also left the soaker hose on a little too long.

    Although, some of the inhabitants were rather pleased about the rapidly growing mud puddle.

  • It’s really hard not to test when you’re desperate to be pregnant.

    This guest post comes from the lovely Marylin. Marylin and I ‘met’ through the internet when SN and her blog then were only a few weeks old. She’s one of my very best friends. She blogs at Softhistle.

    ****

    Yeah, there we go. I said it.

    I want another baby.

    Reeeally want another baby.

    My OH is happy to oblige, as he would love one of his own.

    We’ve only been trying since April of this year, and I know that’s not long in the grand scheme of things.

    I was just so sure this month.

    My boobs were tender, I can smell the rabbit pee even though he’s just been cleaned out, I keep getting tugging pains down there when I cough and such.

    My period is due tomorrow.

    I have one test left. One of those expensive “can tell before your period is due” types.

    I tried to not use it.

    I really *really* did.

    But… my impatience and need to know attitude got the better of me.

    So now I know that I’m *not* pregnant.

    Yet again.

    When I had my two kids I was pregnant straight away, so I know I’m fertile.

    The OH has never had any kids before, so he’s not sure if “maybe (he’s) shooting blanks”.

    I have no idea to be honest.

    I hope that’s not the case.

    I know that really there is a lot going on in my life with having a special needs almost-3-yr-old, but I can’t help yearning for just one more.

    Just one more chance at having another child who could be normal.

    I know you’ll all hate me for saying that.

    It’s just that life is so different with the 3yr old than it was with the 5yr old. Everything was different and not what I expected.

    I would love the chance at having a child who learns to talk and walk and jump at the ‘right’ ages.

    I want the chance to finally maybe just MAYBE have that elusive little girl that I’ve yearned for.

    Every month that goes by is another month lost.

    I guess maybe it’s just not meant to be…
    _______

    This was written about 3 weeks ago, currently at the start of the 2ww again… oh the joys. >_<

  • Not perfect, but getting there.

    Seven died the other day. She followed our neighbour’s car onto the road and was hit by a car coming the other way. A stupid accident, a stupid mistake. Unlike Susie, this one wasn’t preventable, as Seven was an escape artist extraordinaire.

    But this post isn’t about Seven. Not today.

    Since Susie died, I’ve been spending a lot of time trawling the dogs home website, constantly looking at the dogs needing a home and wishing that Nathan agreed with me. All those sad faces, needing homes, dammit, I’ve got a good home and I want a new dog. I miss Susie a lot actually, and now Seven too, as much as I try not to think about it.

    Eventually, I put my foot down and made Nathan take me and the kids to the dogs home – knowing that most of the time, the dogs are adopted before they get put on the website.

    Of course, I fell in love with the 6 week old puppies because they’re just! so! cute! but they were all spoken for (fantastic).

    We walked around all the kennels, my heart breaking for the dogs who didn’t have owners.

    ‘Look at that one. Pity we didn’t have more land, he needs a job to do,’ I said to Nathan as a 4 month old Kelpie x Blue heeler ran around his kennel, chasing his tail and bouncing excitedly at the sight of new people.

    ‘Oh! Look at her ears!’

    ‘Poor girl, you’re 9 and in the dogs home? Where did your previous owner go?’

    And then, we found her.

    Amy looked at her, nodded her head and said ‘This is our dog. We will take her home.’

    She wiggled in the bottom of her kennel, every inch of her body pressed up against the wire, straining to be patted. She didn’t jump, or bark or whine, she just leaned into the wire and looked at us with giant pleading eyes.

    ‘She’s beautiful’ said Nathan. I agreed readily. A startling white patch over most of her face left me with the impression that one of her eyes should have been blue, not brown.

    ‘How old is she?’

    I read her card. Six months, or thereabouts.

    ‘Still young enough to learn lots.’

    ‘Yep.’

    ‘How long has she been here for?’

    ‘Ummmmm, since the 30th June it says.’

    ‘Ah right, she’s only new then.’

    ‘Yeah.’

    While we talked, we were busy pressing our fingers through the wire, stroking her head and ears. She pressed closer to us.

    ‘You like her?’

    ‘Yes.’

    We wandered back to the front of the dogs home, looking at the puppies again.

    ‘Your decision’ says Nat.

    ‘Okay. We’ll ask about the pups first, because it’s very likely they’ve all got homes.’

    5 minutes later, yes, the pups all had homes. So we asked about the lovely natured Border Collie, whom we both adored.

    Now, before I say anything more, a 6 week old puppy is always going to be my preference, simply because they’ve not had time to learn any bad habits – it’s just how I think. But the look in the collie’s eyes, I was pretty sure she was our dog.

    No. No prospective adopters for her yet, no holds, nothing.

    So we started the ball rolling.

    Almost 2 weeks later, a yard check (I emailed through photos), a conversation with the lovely girl on the phone and a deposit paid, she came down with a stomach virus and the desexing that was meant to happen didn’t.

    So we waited a little longer, for her to get better, for us to get more ready. Of course, Isaac then broke his arm and if things are going to hell, you DEFINITELY need a puppy around the place to take your mind off things.

    But, when we brought her home, she was just perfect.

    And this time, this dog, she’s going to be a mostly inside dog. I’ve lost enough dogs to this highway – I can do without losing anymore, thankyouverymuch.

    Ah Seven, we’ll miss you. We were meant to be bringing you home a friend, not losing you beforehand.

    This is the new pup. Amy has named her Maisy, after some backwards and forwardsing, but it seems to suit her. She is a dream with the children at this point, not jumping, or bowling them over. Isaac is still unimpressed every time she swipes him with her tongue, but he’ll cope.

    The best bit? She seems so freaking grateful to be here with us and not at the dogs home anymore. Rescue dogs are amazing.

  • Exhaustion and the Art of Lazy Parenting

    This post comes from the lovely Zoey, who blogs at Good Goog – Adventures in Parenting.

    **

    Sleep deprivation and parenting go hand in hand. There’s the newborn stage, bouts of illness, the very un-awesome rounds of teething and all manner of other little things along the way. It’s a cruel joke that a sleep deprived parent is constantly trying to get their reluctant little munchkins to sleep. And although Riley is now over 2 and (mostly) she sleeps pretty well, a very new pregnancy has thrown me back into the exhaustion pile. Which I’m happy about. The way I figure it, being tired just means that everything is as it should be.

    With my first pregnancy I moaned about a lot of things, being tired and having to drag myself to work, aches and pains, itchy and sore breasts, hips that went to crap, just to name a few. You won’t catch me complaining this time around, because I am so grateful to be pregnant. But nonetheless, looking after an energiser bunny toddler brings its own set of challenges. And sometimes you just have to work on a certain laziness in parenting.

    Lying Down Games
    I’m a big fan of lying down games, or games in general where I don’t have to move. This could be a game of peek-a-boo on the couch with a blanket, or where I’m lying down and my only job is to react while she tickles me, or even better the game where I pretend to be asleep and then ‘wake up’ suddenly. All good.

    Being Oblivious on Purpose
    There are certain destructive behaviour patterns that I allow, given I know it’s only going to take me half an hour to clean it all up when she’s having a nap. Like redistributing beads all over our floor. Or pulling out tupperware from the cupboard. Or anything else that is not actually putting her in harms way and is not permanently damaging the house.

    Getting Up Early, Very Early
    The 5am wake up isn’t exactly ideal. I’d quite happily stay in bed until 7 or 8. Quite. Happily. But if I go with the early starts then I get no protest at nap time and no problem with getting Riley to bed at a reasonable hour. And there’s nothing I love better than a lazy afternoon nap with a touch of Winter sun peaking through my bedroom curtains.

    Reinforcements
    I take every opportunity for someone else to do the hard work. Let them run around with Riley for a few hours. This is where grandparents and aunts and uncles come in handy. Very handy. The fact that Riley will often ask for her Aunt during the day is very clear evidence of the fact that there are plenty of people with far more energy than me.

    The App Store
    Riley loves puzzles. In fact it’s usually the first thing she says when she wakes up ‘puzzles?’. Which is where an iPhone or an iPod Touch comes in handy. In a clear travesty I don’t own an iPhone, but I do have an iPod Touch and there are all manner of puzzles and other kids games available for download. Which means that Riley may occasionally consider being still for a few minutes as we chillax on the couch. Sadly this post is not sponsored by Apple. Otherwise I would already have a freaking iPhone.

    It’s still a work in progress and it’s still very early days, but I’ll take a certain level of laziness over being snappy and grumpy any day of the week. Because tired or not I have a joyful little toddler who runs around the place yelling ‘happy’ and ‘fun!’ for a good part of the day. I’d like to keep that for as long as possible.

  • Go Ahead & Cry, Nobody’s Looking

    Today’s guest post is brought to you by the lovely Peggy-Sue Brister.

    ***

    I was in a mood one day and my kids weren’t listening to me and I told them if they didn’t STFU I was going to get TAWANDA. They continued to be noisy so I yelled TAWANDAAAAAAAAA!!! My kids thought I had lost my mind. They asked WTH was Tawanda. I explained to DD a little bit about what Tawanda is. How Kathy Bates gets a new personality in Fried Green Tomatoes and stops taking SHIT off ppl. And that momma was now Tawanda momma and I wasn’t taking any more SHIT, so STFU and sit down.

    After I told DD a little bit about Tawanda and Fried Green Tomatoes, she started bugging me to get the movie so she could watch it. I went to my Blockbuster by mail/online queue and added it to my list, bumped it up to number one, and got it sent to me in the mail.

    It just came today. When my DD saw the Blockbuster mailer in the mailbox, the first thing she asked was , “Is THAT it? Is it here?” I knew what she meant. She hasn’t stopped talking about the movie since I told her about it. Right as we walked in the door she asked if she could put it in. I told her to go ahead. She had waited a week for this thing to come, I wasn’t going to make her wait to watch it.

    Right at the first of the movie I explained that the old lady telling the story was one of the ppl IN THE STORY she was telling and they started trying to figure out which one she was. It didn’t take DD very long to figure out the old lady was Idgy. So I told her she was correct. I wasn’t going to make her wait until the end of the movie like I had to the first time I watched it.

    I warned them that there were 2 very sad parts to the movie just so they weren’t caught off guard when Buddy dies and when Ruth dies. They sat watching it, transfixed. They didn’t move an inch. They sat perfectly quiet and perfectly still taking it all in, not wanting to miss a single word. DD told DS to turn it up a little. She wanted to make sure she could hear it well.

    As I was watching it with them I was tweeting a little bit about it and it started a few conversations with my tweeps about other good chick flick/tear jerkers we all know and love.

    Another one that I want to get and watch with DD is Steel Magnolias. I know if she got choked up watching Fried Green Tomatoes, that she is probably going to get choked up at Steel Magnolias too. The part after Shelby dies and Sally Field is having a break down in the cemetery, it gets to me. Then all of a sudden there is a moment of levity, “Here, take a whack at Weaser! Half of Chickapen Parish would give their right arm to take a whack at Weaser. Go ahead Malynn. Hit her!!” Laughter through tears, one of my favorite emotions. (Dolly Parton said that in the movie, I just stole it.)

    Another one that gets a lump in my throat just thinking about it is Beaches, with Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey. If you haven’t seen it don’t keep reading this or I might spoil a bit of it for you. Skip to the next paragraph. The last 20 minutes of the movie make me bawl. After Bette Midler takes Barbara Hershey out of the hospital to take her and let her die at the Beach house…I start the lump in my throat there and it doesn’t go away until after she dies and I am bawling. I give this one an A+ on the tear jerker scale. 3 hanky movie, at least.

    Another one with Bette Midler, that alot of people haven’t seen is Stella. John Goodman is in it and plays a good drunk. It breaks my heart when she is standing outside in the rain looking through the window at her daughter. And how she gets mean to make her daughter go away. It kills me! If you haven’t seen that one, rent it. Especially if you are a big Bette Midler fan like I am.

    Someone else brought up The Notebook. That’s another one that makes me bawl my eyes out. Who doesn’t want to have a love like that in their life? It is heart wrenching to watch if you have a sensitive side. I don’t remember if there is anything inappropriate in it though for DD to see it or not. I will have to check into that one before I let her see it. She is not really old enough to appreciate the storyline of having the love of your life. But that movie made me keep crying even after it was over. I would think about it and start crying again.

    Another one that makes me CRY but that it not appropriate for DD to watch is Bridges of Madison County. Who can’t relate to the frumpy housewife who is over-worked, under-appreciated and restless in her life? How fast they fall in love is exactly how it happened with my husband & I. Whirlwind, sweep you off your feet kind of thing. And when he leaves and she decided NOT to go with him. She knows that what they had together for those few days wouldn’t last if she left her family and missed them so she could be with him, and that it would end badly. But man how she wanted to go SO BAD. And the scene where she comes out of the grocery store and sees him parked across the street at the red light, and he just sits there, and she is watching him, about to leave without her, and her heart is BREAKING. OMG I have a lump in my throat just writing about it. She never stopped loving him her entire life. I love the part where her DD & DS are reading her journals, learning about this story/secret of their mom’s and the DD has on her mother’s dress. That is so damn funny. LOVE that movie. I went and saw it at the movies when it first came out with my dad. He is a big sissy about movies too and we both cried right there in the movie theater. I always carry tissue in my purse when there’s a chance for tears. I used them that day.

    Another one that makes me cry MULTIPLE times but nobody mentioned is Legends of The Fall with Brad Pitt. That is a long, emotional movie that you simply MUST see if you haven’t seen. I cry several times during this movie but the one that gets to me the worst is when Julia Ormond goes to see “Tristan” in jail and she cries and tells him how she had wanted his wife to die. Then she goes home, cuts her hair off and kills herself. That’s the worst kind of pain a person can experience is the kind of pain that makes you want to MAKE IT STOP no matter what you have to do. In real life, emotions like that involve mental illness, but in the movie, who doesn’t feel her pain? It’s SO SAD. I hated that he made her wait so long for him and that he never came back for her. (earlier in the movie) I hated that she married a man she didn’t really love so she could try to get over the one she did love and move on with her life. She did tell him she would wait forever, however long it took, but DAMN, he stayed gone for like SEVERAL YEARS. He wrote her and told her not to wait for him. Then shows up and is shocked that she moved on! Shame on you Brad!

    An old one but good one that is another tear jerker for me is City of Angels with Meg Ryan and Nicholas Cage. He gave up eternity for a human woman and just as they start their life together she gets taken away from him. But he said what he gave up was worth it to be with her for the short time he was with her.

    What are some of your favorite chick flick/tear jerkers? Did I mention them here, or is there some I missed and forgot about?