Random road trips and a 20yr old goldfish

Monday morning i woke and got both Devin and Jahshia ready for pre-school and as i was doing so i was making lists of all the things that i was going to do that day.
Drop kids kids, Breakfast, start doing washing and hang it, clean up house especially kitchen and lounge, sleep if i can, go see my nana at 3pm and pick Jakob up at 4. Nothing out of the usual.
After i so happily dropped them off at day care i received a phone call from Jakob telling me his grandfather only had 3 weeks left to live and he would like to go see him. Family is very important so i proceeded to look on-line for the cheapest flights up to Auckland. His mum was heading up as well but she already had her tickets and his mum wanted Trinity (his little sister) to come up as well. The flights from Dunedin to Auckland where not as much as i had thought they would be but i thought id check flights from Christchurch. As i expected, it was much cheaper for our family and Trinity to drive up to Christchurch. While the kids and i stay at my parents, Jakob and Trinity fly up to Auckland. Jakob would prefer to see his Grandfather before he passes than go to his funeral, which i think if i were giving the same situation, i would choose the same.
So for the remainder of the day i was booking flights and getting us ready to suddenly drive 4-5 hours north. We finally set off about 5:50 and with many stops to feed hungry mouths (especially the littlest mischief), we arrived safe at about 11pm.

We all then got up early Tuesday morning to get Jakob and Trinity off to the Airport for their flight. I was hoping to take Devin in and see the planes but with a lack of parking and time we just dropped them off.

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Our next adventure was to find mgy mums work. She works in a Kindy in Avonhead which isn't to far from the Airport. We found it with no problems and in no time both Devin and Jahshia found fun things to do.

First Devin found the sandpit ...

And Jahshia found the babbies ...

Madison found cuddles.

Devin found frogs (one of his favourite animals)...

Jahshia found ribons and music...

They both found paints.

Then it was time for home, lunch and sleep. Jahshia was so tired she just crashed. but not before playing dress-ups with a pull-up

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Wednesday we got up and got ready to go for a picnic and feed the ducks. It was very nice day, one that was perfect for a picnic. Once we had gotten ready and found my wallet that was loving hidden by little hands, we set off to pick up my friend Pete and head of to the gardens.
It was such a nice relaxing time. I sat on the rug feeding Madison while Pete ran around with my mischiefs. They just loved it and adored him. We then went to feed the ducks. but there weren't that many around but that was ok because the kids just wanted to eat the bread anyway.

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Since we have arrive, Madison has been rather unsettled and feeding a lot. But i did manage to get a few pictures of her and her Auntie Brenna last night ...

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My parents have a gold fish. They got this goldfish when i was 4 years old. Im now 24 years old and the same gold fish is still alive. How you ask. I have no idea but its true. Its not just one that looks the same. Its the actual one. There where 2 but the other one died the other day.

Schools the life for me??

I have been thinking lately about returning to school and starting some meaningful tertiary study. I have always found an interest in Psychology but never thought i had the smarts to go through with my interests. But over the last few years that pull and desire to follow this interest has become stronger. I can not help tho, to recall my dreaded school days and lack of scholastic abilities. These thoughts have been and still are my barrier i must over come in order to pursue these desires to study. I thought i might share my school adventures to maybe help me get over my lack of self worth in this area.

My earliest memories of schooling was going to Kindergarten. This is where i meet one of my best friends Sina. We ended up staying friends up until 7th form - last year of high school. We still sometimes talk now but we have gone down very different paths in life and have drifted apart.
My memories of kindy are of painting, shadow puppets and hiding up the tree during clean up time.
My first teacher was very scary. I can not even recall her name only but to call her "Witch Lady" which was our endearing name we used for her. Good thing i was born in November and only had to endure her for a few short weeks till the school year was over. I do however also remember seeing all my kindy mates sitting under her wrath as well.
The next important thing that happened in my school life was that i was subject to J3. For those that are unfamiliar with the old way of school years, i will enlighten you on the order.
Primary school
- New entrants (which you did if you where born after march)
- Junior1
- J2
- J3 or Standard1 (some unlucky people did both)
- Std2
- Std3
- Std4
Intermediate school
- Form 1
- Form 2
High school
- 3rd form
- 4th form
- 5th form
- 6th form
- 7th form

Although i was not unlucky enough to do both J3 and Std1, i still knew that the smart people where never left behind in the junior part of school. When i did move into the senior sector of my primary school i went direct to Std2. Which would have been good, but it was over shadowed by my perception of the class set up. Often in our classes we would have mixed years. Std1 mixed Std2, Std2 mixed Std3, Std3 mixed Std4. I was forever the higher year in my classes. This made me feel like i was stupid. I longed to be the lesser year so i would feel smart.
Also as i journeyed up the ranks of primary school, i noticed that the songs we sung in assembly became rather babyish. It's not that i outgrew the songs, its that the music teacher ceased to sing those "grown up" songs and replaced them with ones i thought should be in pre-school. There is one that has stuck in my head because i loathed it. I have forgotten most of the words but still remember the tune. The words that i despised the greatest have never left me..
"yum yum gobble gobble crunch crunch crunch, i've got a lovely bone to munch"
These words should never be sung by 10 year olds in school assembly. I already felt stupid by always being in the higher rank of the class, and now they make us sing baby songs. Nice.

Then came Intermediate. Form1, I was put in an average class. Thats fine by me because i was never made to feel stupid. But alas, this was the year i become gravely ill with cancer and spent 5 months in hospital. On my return back to school, in the second year of Intermediate, i had the privilege of choosing my teacher. I had unfortunately chosen a teacher who did not understand my situation and i felt showed little or no mercy towards my recovery. This year holds some rather untoward emotions and situations that even to this day brings tears to my eyes. I often light-heartedly amuse myself about how i can easily talk about my dance with death with little or no sorrow, But bring up the year after and my integration into life and the tears start to flow.

High school. Need i say more. I am yet to find someone with only the fondest memories of this turbulent affair. I was shoved in the "dumb ass" class even tho according to the teachers "there is no streaming". But when you are 3rd form sitting in Math class, the teacher hands you a colour the squares picture where if you colour all boxes with half fractions it revels a picture, your mind starts to put its own puzzle together to revel that there is in fact a "dumb" class. Just to add to the torment, there was a stream of questions from the class to the teacher "Miss is 3/4 half? Miss is 5/8 half? Miss is 2/6 half?". How on earth do they not know about fractions? Isn't that primary school learning?. In my class i was dubbed "brainy", this bugged me because i knew that i was not brainy, it was in fact that the rest of the class was morons.
To sum up High School it was a stream of useless teachers mixed with ones that i swear hated me with a pinch of being tossed to the side. Its no wonder that when it came time for my youngest sister to go to High School mum said to her "Choose what ever school you want to go to, even private if you like, just not Avonside girls" My other sister also had troubles while she was there. I will never forget 6th form Math. I was having a lot of difficulty trying to understand everything. I had an average test mark of 30%. My parents payed for a tutor 2 hours a week. My test marks suddenly jumped to an average of 75%. Go figure.
I also do not have School Cert. English.
My Art History teacher in 7th form kept telling me i can't write essays. She would tell me how i should be writing them, so i would do it how she wanted, but still she would tell me i didn't know how to write them. I suppose it didn't help that she was actually the Japaneses teacher who the school decided to have her teach Art History because she took a paper on it at Uni.

I like doing personality tests. Ive done a few. Every time i do one about my type of learning i come out highly kinesthetic, which means i learn by doing. Maybe thats why i failed so miserably at school. Or it could have been a mixture of both learning style and useless teachers, who knows. All i know is that im terrified of going back to study because i do not want to fail miserably again. But i have this urge and desire to learn.

Another personality test i have indulged in is the test of "Introvert or extrovert". I seem to come up smack in the middle. 50% on either side. Go figure. But thats a whole new post all together.

My idiosyncrasies.

This afternoon as i pulled out the try of eggs from my fridge, carefully choosing the next egg in order to be eaten, it made me think about all those little things that i have to do or things that have to be done right. I have a few of them and i thought i might take the time to shear what they are seen as its the little things in life that can create who you are.

1.
This would have to be one of the biggest things for me. Toilet paper. It must hang on the wall with it rolling over the top of the roll. Rolling upwards as i put it. That way when you pull to get some paper you can easily fold all the "wall germs" in the middle of the paper. Roll it downwards and its just harder to fold those "wall germs" away. I do not like using the side of the paper that has been smeared all over the wall. This little quirk is so strong in me that i even have to turn the paper around at other peoples house if i need to relieve myself. Ive found that people either want it rolling up, or they just don't care.

2.
Water. Im so fussy when it comes to what i drink and what i drink it from. I grew up in Christchurch with beautiful spring water freely flowing from the tap. When moving to Dunedin i had a rather hard time trying to force myself to drink tap water. I lived out in South Dunedin and ive been told that South Dunedin is the worst area for good water. I have now gotten used to the water at my house (we are on the hills now) and will only drink water from there. If i go out, i take my own water bottle with me. That brings me to my next point of drinking. I have my drink bottle which is mine. The only people who are aloud to drink from it is me. I will not shear bottles at all. Also i will not just grab any old drink bottle. If its an old bottle thats been sitting around i will not drink from it, i just can't. It sends shivers down my spine at just the thought of it. Even when im so thirsty, i still can't do it.

3.
I touched on this one at the beginning of this entry. The way i take the eggs out of the carton. They must be taken out from each end and done on a diagonal and work your way into the middle. That way when you reach into the fridge to get your carton of eggs, the carton will be even in weight distribution and there is no fear of dropping the carton due to the weight being off balanced. If i open a carton and the eggs aren't properly positioned then i will rearrange.

4.
I like my bed to be made a certain way. I would love to sleep in a bed with nice fluffy sheets and a couple of woolen blankets all tucked in, topped with a warm duvet. But alas we do not have nice big woolen blankets and Jakob likes to just have duvets so he can poke his feet out when he gets hot. So i will let up on what we sleep under, all i ask is that the domes of the duvet covers be done up and the covers aren't ridding up. I do not want to feel the domes or the inner duvet with my feet. I hate it.

5.
I have an order to how i wash the dishes. I do it in this order to maximize stacking ability. Change the order and you will not be able to stack as much on the rack. Jakob will call down from the kitchen and ask me to dry some dishes because he has run out of room. As soon as i arrive i look onto the rack and think "there is so much room left but he has everything in the wrong order"

6.
There is a certain way i like to hang my cloths. All the big items go in the middle of the line with smaller things on the outside of the line. all the things that only need one peg to hang them gets hung last, like socks. There are a few other things i need to do when i hang the washing but its hard to explain.

Those things im aware of all the time and are in my day to day life no matter how im feeling. These next things appear when i am stressed or starting to become depressed.

6.5
When im hanging the washing, not only do i do all those things that i mentioned previously, but i have to match things. Each peg i use on an item must be the same colour and type. The colour also has to correspond with the colours on the item im hanging. Or else it feels off balanced and it drives me insane.

7.
I count. I count the stairs as i walk up or down them, i count the steps i take when im walking, i count the cars i drive past, count the lamp posts, i count fence posts as i walk past touching them. I count EVERYTHING! There needs to be a rhythm to the counting as well. If i drive past 3 cars then there is a gap, it must stay in that pattern or else i feel frustrated, and it never does with something like parked cars. So i must force my attention on something that can have a proper pattern like lamp posts.

8.
My steps must be even. Also the ground i walk on leaves impressions on the souls of my feet. If i stand on a crack with one foot, i must stand on a crack with my other foot. Problem is as soon as i stand on a crack with my other foot, the impression from the first crack is no longer as strong as the second so i must stand on another crack. Im forever standing on cracks and its frustrating but i have to do it. There are other rules for even steps, but they are much harder to explain than the crack thing.

Im crazy i know but i think these last things i listed are me just finding a way to balance everything. Because my internal thoughts are so off balance, im trying to balance the world around me. I remember once driving behind a car which only had one break light working. That drove me insane. I couldn't look at his car without feeling lopsided.

I would like to say as well, i am not a clean freak. I like things to be in order and be clean. But most of the time the act of cleaning up over whelms me and i don't do. When i do i only do a "half hearted job" according to Jakobs standards. Sometimes i just don't feel i can do it as good as what i should, so i end up not doing it at all.
I watched a show once that said that the pinnacle of perfection is not doing anything at all. Reason being, you are so set on having things done perfectly that you can not even do anything for fear you will not do it perfectly. I thought that makes sense. May be thats why im not a clean freak, but i don't think so.

So yes, this post has been about the crazy insane parts of me. Im sure everyone has their odd things they have to do so i decided to shear with you mine.

PS. Family Dramas are over. Mum realized what she had done and apologized to everyone. Apologies all round. Now lets get back to being a happy family.

monsters, Monsters, MONSTERS!!!!!

Our three year old mischief Devin has now become aware of the scary things in life. Well the scary things in his life. Going down the hall with the light off is "to kerry", as is going to sleep with the light off and a part of his Sesame Street dvd where Bert and Ernie go into the mummy section of a museum.
The other night i went into his bedroom to check on him and found him sitting up in bed with a look of worry smeared all over his face. I ask him what the matter is and he replyed "monter over dere" so after i "chased" them away, he smilingly went to sleep.
It got me thinking about how wild childrens imaginations are. Or are they? Are they really seeing monsters?

I grew up with a monster in my house. My mum called him the "sock monster".
For those who have never herd of this mystical monster, he is a monster who preys on single socks, leaving only one of a pair. He lives mostly in the laundry in between the washer and dryer, which is where he hunts and strikes his pray - socks. Also the more people who live in a house, the more sock monsters.

Jakob had never herd of a sock monster before we got married, and just my luck, one must have snuck into my belongings when i shifted from my parents house to our first house. Ever since then we both have fallen victim to his nasty apetite.

When we bought our own home it was so exciting. What i did not realize was that we were also buying an extremely vicious evolved sock monster. Not only do we have our regular one living in our laundry (he has gotten used to eating either wet socks or dirty socks seen as we don't have a dryer) but we also have at least one that roams around our house and yard. Often i have taken washing off the line and in the journey from the washing line to my couch to be folded, he pinches his prey and leaves no evidence that a crime has unfolded besides a missing sock. Often he will be rather greedy and take both socks.

I think our mischief daughter Jahshia has befriended him. She often pulls all her socks out of her draw and leaves them on the floor. Well she pulls everything out of her draws and puts it on the floor. Slowly her sock draw has shrunk somewhat. I naively assumed that her missing socks must be hiding within her pile of plushy teddy bears and other stuffed creatures . But alas i was wrong. I did a big sweep through our house not so long ago and cleaned almost every inch of our dwelling. The missing socks where nowhere to be found.

Mischief Devin also feeds our rather fat sock monster. Devin likes to run around with bare feet. Even when it is blanketed with snow outside, he will rip of his socks and leave them strewn all over the place. I also was expecting to find Devins socks hidden in various places through our house but again i was wrong in my assumptions. Not a scrap of evidence or a single crumb of a sock was found.

The sock monsters have eaten all of my socks apart from a couple of pairs, and is now starting on Jakobs rather large collection of socks.

From these experiences there is only one conclusion that can been drawn.
Monsters do in fact exist and Devin could very well be seeing our nasty sock monster chomping away on a meal when he is going to bed. Maybe sleepy child eyes are the only ones that can catch this ominous best.

Birthday surprises.

My mum can be a rather odd person.
When i was younger, my bedroom had a phone jack and i saw this awesome winnie the pooh phone at the store. I wanted that phone. It was a big plushy winnie the pooh teddy with a phone attached to it. I loved teddy bears and adored winnie the pooh. My birthday was comming up and all i wanted was the winnie the pooh phone. It was rather expensive and my parents where not keen on me having my own phone in my bedroom. My birthday came along and as i was handed my gift i could tell by the size it was not my longed for phone. But as i unwrapped it there was a couple things wrapped up and one was a winnie the pooh clip on for a phone. "now you can make any phone a winne the pooh phone" so in a way they got me a pooh bear phone.
Another birthday all i wanted was a car. I didn't have my licence because the public bus system where i grew up was very reliable and rather cheep. 50c got me into town, stay there for 4 hours and then back home again. but i thought if i had a car that would motivate me to get my licence. My birthday came along and sure enough my parents had bought me a car. but what i failed to state was that i wanted a car that i can drive, or even just fit in. They thought it would be funny if they got me a matchbox car. That wasn't the only thing i got so i did find the joke rather funny.

This year for Jakobs birthday my mum bought him a slow cook. "A slow cook? your mum bought me a slow cook? your mum didn't buy me anything, she bought you something" was his reaction. But what my darling hubby fails to realize is that yes she did buy us (or me) a slow cook but in the act of doing so she gave Jakob a calm (well not all the time) happy wife who doesn't stress so much about dinner which in turn creates a happy home. So if you think about it, my mum gave Jakob a happy home for his birthday.

I love my slow cook. It is the best invention ever. I just put all the ingredients in the pot in the morning, turn it on, and by dinner time i have this lovely cooked dinner with very little effort.
It is rather hard when it comes to 4pm and its time to cook dinner with 3 screaming mischief children wanting your attention and 2 of them stealing biscuits (or cookies depending on what you want to call them). It doesn't always work. But with my slow cook i can play with the kids up until its time to put dinner out. Its so easy and so stress free. Every mother needs one of these.
Another good thing about them is that they use little power. So you can make yummy hot casserols with a fraction of the power you would be using if cooked in the oven, and with a fraction of the hassel.

Thank you to who ever invented this amazing kitchen tool. I love it to bits.

my awesome slow cook

A weighty issue

We all hear about people who where once over weight but put in the hard yards and lost it all. but upon looking in the mirror of their minds, they still see their large self staring them down. Their minds are still over weight and has not yet adjusted to their new look. They still reach for the size 18 or 20 pair of pants on the rack when in actual fact they need to be getting the size 10 or 12. They are still far to shy to talk to that gorgeous guy sitting at the bar because they feel they will get rejected for their size.

But what about those people who are the other way around? What about those people who have been a very healthy nice weight their whole life but suddenly gained a whole pile of the unwanted bulge.

For some reason i have had mild weight issues through my life. The worst being when i was about 7 years old. I was a little ballerina. Not a form of dance i want my girls to be involved in. When i was little i had many problems with my ears. Ear infection after ear infection which left me feeling rather sick because my sense of balance was rather off and due to the sick feeling, it became a struggle for my mum to get a good meal into me. Due to my lack of desire to eat i looked rather like a twig (my mum always plumped me up with big woolen jersey's to hide my figure just in case someone called child protection. Let me say she was trying everything she could to feed me) But alas. despite my twig like appearance, i still felt like a giant hefferlump thumping across the dance floor. Even to this day, the images in my mind i have of my ballet days are far from truth. I actually saw pictures a few months ago of me in my fancy ballet ensemble. I could not believe my eyes when i saw this "thin as a pin" little girl staring me in the face. Why i felt like i was big, i have no idea. But i did.

I eventually did gain normal weight and lost the view of my delicate frame but that issue of feeling fat when i so clearly was not never left me. Right up until the time i got married i would always reach for the size of pants that was clearly at least one size to big for me. Why? I have no idea. I always felt like a could loose a bit of weight but i was mostly happy with the way i looked. Well happy enough not to do anything about it, but unhappy enough to wear clothing in a way that would hide my insecurities

After giving birth to Devin i soon discovered i had gained a staggering 20kgs (about 45lbs) over the course of the pregnancy. Listening to other woman complain about their pitiful 5kg weight gain would almost bring me to tears. But the biggest issue is that when i walk into a store, i still get the same size clothing off the rack that i used to, but this time i can bearly fit into that size whereas before i was drowning in it. I refuse to buy a pair of pants that will actually fit me right now even tho i do not own a pair that actually fit. I want incentive to go back down to my so called insecurities. So called because i seem to think that gaining this much weight has cured me off my "i think im fat" issues. What silly issues to have. I don't like my size but i am not going to let something like this get me down. its something i can change and something i will change.

I don't like the fact that i have gained so much weight over my pregnancies but i am glad i did. It helped me realize that the size i was before was perfectly fine.