Blackouts and Ham Sandwiches.

We are in the middle of a blackout. What a brilliant excuse to sit in the dark on my ipad and write my next post. Dylan feels lost in the blackout, he’s been studying the olden days at school so when he asks “what can we do?”, we reminded him that in the olden days they used to sit around and talk. He wasn’t impressed with that answer. But then the other option is go to bed and all of a sudden he’s Mr Fricken Chatterbox.

We are all terribly jetlagged. The boys woke up at 1am in the morning ready to get up and play. I made them go back to bed and amazingly they went back to sleep. They’ve been a little tired and cranky today, all to be expected really. They had their first taste of Ben and Jerry’s icecream sundaes on the aeroplane and were quite impressed with the bacon and egg bagels. I am still trying to get used to coffee here. There is no jug in our apartment or tea bags, just a coffee perculator. Supplied with one coffee serve and filter. I was so desperate for coffee today that i reused the coffee and filter to make a very very weak brew. But hey, the dishwater brew was enough to get a desperate girl through.

We explored a very large mall yesterday and were pleasantly surprised at the variety and prices of clothes and toys. It was like playing the “price is right” with myself and seeing whether the Aussie price meets the US price. I refrained from jumping around in frenzied chicken style excitement each time I saw how cheap an item was. Larry would have been proud.

Tomorrow we are going car hunting. The whole driving on the other side of the road thing is still wierd, just sitting in the passenger seat, which in my head is still the drivers seat is tricking me. I have’nt built up the courage to drive yet, but theres no rush.

Today brings no words, just thoughts on new experiences encountered, oh and ham sandwiches for dinner as the power is still off.

Thankyou, my friend.

This week has been busy with saying goodbye. I find myself reflecting on this with the move almost upon us. Friends – old friends, new friends, kids friends, school friends, work friends, neighbourhood friends, all my beautiful interesting groups of friends. Friends who nurture us and our varying interests in life.

I have lived in Canberra for a very long time now. When I first moved here I was from a very small town where you could walk down the local street and know almost everybody. I never thought that I would feel that sense of community upon moving here and yet it has slowly crept up and embraced my family and I. It is sad to be leaving our friends and I also wonder what friendships will develop in the future. Will Americans be guarded to foreigners or will they be open to finding out what these crazy quirky Aussies are all about.

Sometimes, with such a busy day to day schedule I feel as though hanging out with friends is a guilty luxurious pleasure, that one should only indulge in small amounts. I relish the time spent with each and every one of you and appreciate you for all the happy times and memories. We have days of appreciation for this, that and the other. Today I dedicate this post to you and the sparkling, intelligent, humourous insights that you’ve contributed to my life.

Very soon they will be calling us to board our plane. The boys first trip overseas going business class, they have no idea how lucky they are. The six year old wants to see
Legoland and Disneyland and the two and a half year old wants to see monster trucks and batman. They woke up so excited, possibly more excited than christmas day.

Today brings no words, just lovely beautiful depictions of life as we know it.

The things you own…

Wow, packing up is such an arduous task. We are getting removalists in on Wednesday to pack up things going to America. Then more removalists to pack things going into storage here on Friday. They do a pre-inspection to look at how much is coming with us and the gentleman seemed a little distressed that we were traveling incredibly lightly. A few kids toys, no clothes except for what’s in our suitcases for the much anticipated coming summer. (Yes that’s a little brag). No cooking or kitchen items, furniture or bedding. I felt like I had to justify to this stranger that we weren’t going to deepest darkest jungles of Africa. Most of our items are a mashup of handme downs and leftovers from first living together. It’s old stuff and I am looking forward to having some new matching furniture and decore.

We’ve thrown into a huge skip bin alot of old junk and given to goodwill and friends loads of outgrown toys and clothes. It’s such a cleansing feeling and it makes me think of the saying that goes something along the lines of owning your things and not letting your things own you. I have stuff that I love, some things I am very attached to, but my house, furniture and cars are not really part of that. I find it makes the move so much easier and I wonder if it’s completely the opposite for children. My six year old has squirreled away nearly any and every piece of junk and when he saw some things that we threw in the skip he couldn’t believe that we were throwing his things out. I had to explain to him the concept of “goodwill” and giving away things to people less fortunate or things that we just plain outgrow. I think it is a life skill that is very important to teach children. Either that or I am just horrified that he’ll be on one of those “hoarder” tv shows.

Today brings no words, just lots of healthy culling and decluttering and it feels great!

PS. depending on internet access and time, this may be the last post until we touch down in America so an update will follow of the whole “getting there” experience. Fingers crossed all goes well. 30th is fly day.

An introduction is always polite.

Well, being a first of firsts, lets explain a little about the purpose of this blog and that in turn will explain a little about me. It took me a little time to find a title for my blog. The inspiration came from my beautiful two and a half year old son and his not so beautiful swearing phase. Yes, you all know what I am talking about, the age  when those “terrible two” tantrums stop and are replaced by them verbalising in one form or another their feelings and emotions. After getting very upset that his Duplo tower had fallen over he exploded in frustration “F*** F*** F***” (complete with little foot stomping). My husband and I talked to him about it and he stopped saying it. He was so proud of himself that he would come and tell me:

“Mummy, today I say no f***ing words!”

So with a little encouragement and praise I now have trained him to say “no words” without any little f’s slipping out at all.

In this blog I will be verbalising my thoughts, hopefully not needing to use too many profanities as my family and I embark on a trip to live in America for two years. Yes, goodbye Canberra, Australia and hello Washington DC. I want to share with you all the weird and wonderful little things that a different but similar culture have to offer. I am in some respects reinventing and discovering myself anew, as I won’t be working in a 9-5 paid career of choice. So you will be able to see how that all works out. The countdown is on, in two weeks we’ll be on our way. Today brings “no words, just tummy butterflies”.