It's been a while....

Oh my goodness. It's been over a year since I wrote on my blog! Mainly because my life really is "workingmamamadness". It's just so hard to fit everything in! Let alone writing in a blog.

Life goes on. It is pretty much the same as it ever was. The kids keep growing older. I keep growing older. I still get out to the garden when I can, and have some lovely vegetables growing. I'm working full-time, which takes up a lot of time. I still enjoy teaching, and this year I have some very nice classes, I enjoy the company of my comrades (fellow teachers), and do so love the pay-packet.

I'm still knitting when I get a chance and when I am not too exhausted. It's hard to pick up the knitting after a long day, as I usually just nod off in front of the television!

I'm now trying to prioritise my health and fitness. It's always been important to me, but I now really do "walk the walk", making the most of my gym membership, going to Zumba, Core strength training and Bodybalance classes as much as I can manage. I enjoy being fit and try to keep at it.

It really is a big juggle: parenthood, wifehood, working, being a good friend and family member. But I'm not complaining. I love almost everything about my life, I just wish it didn't wear me out so much!

Christmas 2013

At last, the school year is over! Phew!  Then I was madly busy readying our home and hearts for the BIG family Christmas. I had 19 mouths to feed! Mike and I did the hosting and did most of the food preparation, with help from my sister-in-law and her daughter.

And it was lovely. The food was very nice and the family enjoyed catching up with one another.

So today, Boxing Day, I am able to sigh a big fat sigh of relief knowing it is done, and now I am allowed to really groove into holiday mode, not do very much, read my Christmas book (Thankyou Mike!), take long walks on the beach and swim in the ocean. Ahhh....

So here's a few little photos of Christmas (all taken the day after,as I didn't even think about getting the camera out yesterday!)

Charlie eating his regular breakfast of rice bubbles. Naturally, chocolate will follow on Christmas morning.

Charlie's newest friend: Donald Fox. More bear-like than fox, but made lovingly by his mummy.

Lily's for Christmas. Perfectly open just in time for Christmas. Not hand grown, sourced at the farmer's market.

A Christmas angel on the tree, for my angels: Alfie and Louis, gone but never forgotten. Always in my heart darling boys.

A lovely Christmas poinsettia from my lovely husband.

The Deck, tidied and ready for many visitors.

Home grown miniture roses, the pink is Cecile Brunner, not sure of the yellow. Both beautiful climbers in full bloom for Christmas.

So, that is Christmas, all wrapped up. It was a lovely day. Now it is boxing day and the sun is shining, and the beach beckons...I am going to take a long walk and a dip! I hope your Christmas was lovely too.

Spring In The Garden

I am loving this time of year. At last the rain and cold is gone and I can get out into the sun and the garden. This is what's happening in the garden:

 The Youngberries are looking quite healthy this year, so maybe we will actually get to eat some this year?

 The Cecile Brunner rose, as per usual, is not failing to please. I love this climbing rose with its perfect miniture pink roses. It is a huge climber,and when it is covered in blooms, it is beautiful!

 The compost pile is getting bigger and bigger, full of grass clippings and pulled weeds. A wet winter has meant rampant growth of all the wrong things: particularly kikuya grass, which is a nightmare to deal with.

 My beautiful healthy lemon tree is cover in blossom. It smells so lovely!

 The sugar snaps peas are finished. We had a fabulous crop this year - they were sweet and crisp and abundant.

I am still waiting on the cabbages to grow a full head. I have a feeling they may not fill out as the rabbits ate them down to stumps 3 months ago, and although they've grown back, they are kind of leafy and empty.I shall give them a bit longer. I'd like to be able to eat them, but we do need the room for summer vegies.

 Potatoes have been planted.

 Lettuces are still growing and producing lovely salad leaves.

 The beautiful Cistus is flowering again. It seems to flower repeatedly. It's such a pleasre, so I keep planting more. I think the terraced bank will end up being completely covered with cistus. It's perfect because it doesn't mind dry sandy soil. Everything that fails on the terraced bank is removed and replaced with cistus.

The Geranium is flowering and looking stunning. I love these "true" geraniums, with their fern like leaves and big bouquet of stunning blooms.

It has been ages since I last posted on the blog. Clearly being a working mama leaves me little time for it. I hope I will have more time for it. I am on school holidays now, so I have had time to get into the garden and take some pictures for the blog too. It is amazing how much work gets in the way of life!

Happiness

What makes a person happy? I don't know what makes others happy, but more and more I do know what makes me happy.

I remember a time, when I was young, I was ambitious and I thought the way to happiness would be through "success". If I worked hard, became really good at my job, got promoted, eventually I would be happy. I would have reached "the top", I'd be responsible, revered, earning a good salary, drive a nice car, be well traveled and have a lovely house in a nice area.

But other plans were afoot. I became hungry for roots. I wanted to feel secure. I needed to belong. After travelling overseas for some time, having my heart broken over and over, feeling lost and somewhat lonely, having had an adventure, I was ready for some stability I suppose.

That's when it all fell into place. I met my husband; soon afterwards I was pregnant, then married, then a mother. All in the short span of 12 months. The rapid evolution from free-spirit to mother/wife/housewife left me reeling, but it is exactly what my body and spirit had been craving.

And now, here I am, 22 years later, realising that nothing makes me happier than that sense of belonging and the love that fills my life. I am a mother of five and because of that my cup runneth over with love. What's not to love about that?

I am continually surprised by the comments made by so many about how hard, exhausting, financially draining it must be to have a large brood. But I know that having a large family equals a whole lot of love in my life.

My little boy got up this morning, pattered into the kitchen to take me back to his bed,
"You need to cuddle me in bed mama". Yes, I did need to, and I didn't even know!

Success nowadays means being happy. Being happy no longer depends on being successful. I don't care that I didn't reach the top of my profession (and never will), and I don't care that I don't earn squillions.

I have a big fat account filled with love,family,friends and belonging. Who needs more?

New Knitting Post

Here it is: Finished Project

Back Again, For Now...

Well, here I am again, after months of not writing in my blog. You would have thought I’d have something to say, particularly during my summer holidays, where I didn’t have to work for six whole weeks. And yet, I didn’t manage it. I am a shameful blogger. In fact, I don’t think I can call myself that. I am an occasional wanabe blogger.

But I am here today, because I actually feel like it. Still don’t have much to say, but I’ll give it a go.

So, what's been going on?

I'm back at work, four days a week. Monday is my precious day off, with my darling boy, who is now going to kindergarden two and a half days a week. He has a half day on Mondays, but sometimes we just hang out at home. Soon enough he will be at school everyday.

I am enjoying work. I have a great job, and just recently got a payrise. You gotto love that. I just don't really know how to work four days a week, have a warm,welcoming,tidy and organised home, and find time for the laundry, exercise and time to myself. How is it possible????

I suppose you can get up an hour earlier than everyone else, couldn't you? Oh, that's right, I mostly do. I am usually up between 5 and 5.30, but I love to spend that time slowly drinking a cup of tea, catching up on the blogs I read, my emails and other internet stuff. I really should go for a walk on the beach, and I have been trying to incorporate that into my morning routine, but sometimes I just want to wake up slowly.

As for the house. I think I may have lost the ability to tidy and organise. I just feel less and less motivated to really tidy up properly. I usually just do the basic, bare minimum. Oh well, a bit of dust didn't ever kill anyone, did it?? I just don't like it when I can't find the stuff I need, particularly when I'm on the way out the door, trying to get to work on time.

We've built some stairs onto the deck which has really changed the way our house looks and feels. I have always wanted to access the garden from the deck, but I never realised how much of a difference it would make. Because we've made them quite wide, they take up rather a lot of space, but they make our deck feel open and bigger and the view seems bigger and better too. We love it. Michael worked as an apprentice to our lovely friend Ben who is great at all things building, and it was made in a matter of about four Sundays. Now we just need to finish the painting and then tidy up the scrap yard!

With so much emphasis on the building, my garden has suffered again at the hands of the sunny,dry summer we've had. I am looking forward to Autumn weather so I can spend more time in the garden.

I am starting to feel more like knitting and crafting too. I am not sure from where I will snatch the time, but I am sure I will somewhere.


Hopefully, I will be back again to write in the blog in the next six months...

It has been simply ages since I have written in this blog. I think I am not cut out to be a real "blogger". I don't seem to be able to make time for it,and honestly, I don't really think I have much to say.

Being a working mama doesn't leave much time for everything else, and the blog is relegated to the end of the list.

But, whilst I sip a cup of tea after working hard in the garden, I feel I could write something.

Getting out to the garden is still such a huge pleasure to me. The joy of working my body hard, digging, pulling weeds, turning the soil, moving compost,adding it to the garden, planting out seedlings, mixing up liquid fertilizer, watering the new plants and standing back to survey all my work brings me such a rush of happiness. And the way I feel right now is kind of like how I feel after swimming 50 laps, or when I used to go to the gym (long since past). I guess I am feeling endorphins. How nice.

The bonus is that I will get to eat what I've planted, eventually, if I keep the weeds at bay and the insects don't take more than they are welcome to.

I planted out red onions, red carrots, purple runner beans, parsnip seeds, coriander and three types of lettuce.

I also planted a few small native plants into the terraced garden. It is such depleted dry sandy soil that the best things to grow there are native plants,and the ones already there seem to be coping well.

I also bought a beautiful rose - L.D.Braithwaite- it is gorgeous. It is a deep red and has a beautiful fragrance.

I can't wait to plant it, but I shall wait until I have weeded the jungle that is my flower garden.

I've started a gardening club and the idea is that each month we go to one of the member's gardens and work for a couple of hours, then have tea and cake. We're starting at my place in a couple of weeks, and I'll get the girl's to help with all the weeding and then planting of new flowers. Can't wait.

Well, the next job awaits me, so I must go.

Hopefully it won't be too long between posts in future.