So, all that aside let’s focus on the here and now and let me tell you of my latest culinary adventure.  Before I confess, I must tell you a couple of things:

1. I hate cooking.

2. I am a very unskilled cook.

3. I avoid cooking whenever I can.

However, now and again, I somehow get blindsided by overwhelming love and adoration for my two little girls and this in turn causes me to foolishly forget all of the above points.

This happened on the weekend.  In a moment of such blindsidedness I decided to make some biscuits for my girls.  It seemed easy enough.  I followed the recipe.  Cream the butter and sugar.  Done.  Add the coconut, flour and vanilla essence.  Done.  Place teaspoonfuls of the dough onto a tray.  Done.  Easy.

Here they are going into the oven

All good so far.  But…….

Here they are coming out of the oven

I must admit, my teaspoonfuls were a little….generous.

But they did taste delicious!

I think this remarkably good behaviour is due in part to the new disciplinary schedule I’ve implemented.  I’ve typed up two lists – one for each of the kids.  At the top of each list is the toy or possession they love the most in this world.  As soon as a fight breaks out, the offender loses what is at the top of the list.

I must admit, I’ve hesitated in undertaking such an arrangement as this.  Trying to be the perfect mother, I’ve leaned more towards rewarding good behaviour than punishing bad behaviour.  But once they start inflicting red marks on each other, I think it’s time to bring in the big guns.

It’s working.  All morning long, they’ve been getting on remarkably well, kissing and cuddling each other, sharing toys and even preparing snacks and drinks for each other.

I might just be onto something.

I started off well. And of course there are little stops and starts along the way when life throws you a few curveballs that you need to dodge. But not to worry. Life’s all about learning. And stopping things. And then starting them again. So I’m starting again.

Lots of interesting things have happened since I last wrote in here. We eventually sold our house, after many offers and counter-offers. We survived a dreadful bushfire that came perilously close to our house in the weeks before the sale became unconditional. We were saddened and distraught, along with the rest of the country when we saw the devastating and horrific aftermath of the bushfires that simultaneously burned around Victoria on the same day. We moved to a new house which we are currently renting while we save up some more money to buy ourselves another house (this one definitely won’t be in the bush!), and our littlest girl Alice became a big Grade Prep schoolgirl.

The house we are renting is much smaller than the one from which we came. Consequently we’ve needed to ‘reallocate’ some of our goods. We’ve decided a big garage sale is in order and are currently sorting through old stuff that we hadn’t seen for the four years we lived up on the hill.

So…..until……tomorrow – yes I really do mean it – bye for now!

I’m good with that if you are.

Okay then.  Today I am thinking positively about the fact that although we’ve yet to sell our house, (which in turn limits my ability to practise my hobby of real-estate watching), today has been a beautiful Spring day.  There must be a hundred different shades of green around me right now, teamed up with a blue sky and fluffy white clouds.  The washing is dry, the roses have bloomed and everyone is well and happy.

There you go!  See you tomorrow!

So today, I came home from work to check my email, and guess what?  That’s right.  No connection.  What?  I paid my bill.  What’s going on?  A frantic call to the technical people didn’t help either.  So I just had to wait.  Now anyone who has internet access these days will tell you that waiting for the little cyber gremlins to get their act together and reconnect you back to the universe is not easy.

But what did I do?  I did …… housework!  Not at all exciting, I know.  But a job that had to be done.  So thank you cyber gremlins.  Thanks to you, I now have a lovely, tidy house!

My bedroom is a mess.  In fact, if it were just my bedroom, it would not be a mess.  It would be exceedingly tidy.  But I share it with a messy man.   Consequently it is…….messy.  Mess upsets me.  I know there are bigger things in the world to worry about than mess.  But it gets to me.  Especially when I try very hard to keep it tidy and the significant other comes along, happily tossing items of clothing wherever he sees fit.  This happens every day.  So every day I pick up said items of clothing and put them in their rightful place.  Today, I decided not to.  Today I turned around and walked away. 

How is this positive, you ask?  Well, I don’t really know, except that I feel just a little lighter, so I think it may be a good thing.  Tomorrow may be different.  Tomorrow I may see the mess and decide that there’s absolutely no way I can leave it there. 

But that’s tomorrow.

Anyway, today it rained.  Poured, in fact.  Wet, cold, noisy rain.  And while I may think all I like about it filling up the tanks, it still doesn’t do a lot for my state of happiness.

But – at least now I can have a shower that’s just a little longer than usual.  At least I can keep up my habit of drinking 3 litres of water a day.  At least I can do three loads of washing in one day and not worry about running out of water.

Well, when it stops raining, that is.

As you can imagine, we’re all spewing forth great bucketfuls of pride and happiness at her achievement.  I told her that I know how she feels because I won third prize in a short story competition once.  (I then went on to confess that I was 18 years old at the time, not seven!)

So I didn’t need to think positively about this one.  How could you think any other way?

Positive thoughts without even trying.