Out and About: City of Joondalup

Joondalup is the northern western most city in Perth. We went up there for Merenia's horse riding lessons and thanks to the tax man also had a great day out.

 

While Mira's was riding we were swimming.

 

There were some cool rusty tools at the horse riding place- unfortunately for me I didn't have the right lens on my camera because I was planning on photos like these....

Once we had picked her up we went and had lunch.... which is a whole other post! After lunch we went to Wanneroo Botanical Mini Golf. Tama and I explored while everyone else played- it's a very pretty place and a great time was had by all!

  

From there we went via Joondalup to do a quick job for Les to Hillary's Boat Harbour. We were planning on checking out the Marine Centre there but the little boys had gone to sleep so I sat in the car with them and Les took the big kids for Frozen Yoghurt.

Once T & W woke up we hit the beach at the boat harbour- it's totally enclosed so very calm and not as wind effected as the regular beaches.

 

The little boys had a fabulous time especially Will as it's not too deep.

 

 Merenia swam out to the pontoon.

 

And Kieran meditated on the rocks. :-) A water nymph he is not.

By the time we were done swimming it was time for dinner... once again another post. 

And afterwards we were just in time to watch a better than average sunset from start to finish.

It was a fantastic day and we thank the ATO for the refund that allowed us to enjoy it!

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365 2013 Week 7

 

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Will 62 Months

 

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Out and about: Wanneroo Part 1

 

We went up to Wanneroo as Merenia had a voucher to go horse Riding. 

Will, Tama, and I dropped her off and checked out the horses before heading into the suburb of Wanneroo.

Wanneroo is a little place that is North of the city. The city of Wanneroo Council is based there as well as the library. We went to Cafe Elixir for morning tea which was absolutely lovely. Will went with the Hot Chocolate and Christmas Macaron. While Tama and I shared the Iced Chocolate and a scone- delicious!

Then we popped across the way to the Wanneroo museum which is tiny and if your five you can do it all in the space of 5 minutes. But they do have a very cool little children's corner. By the time we'd done that it was nearly time to go wait for Merenia.

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Story Chapter 7 - Fault lines

(Source Unknown)

So I'm not big on God. I mean to each his own and all, but God is not one of my own. But this quote suits the week preceding this chapter perfectly. It will probably be written in our life story as one of the two hardest weeks in our lives. And what comes of the week just past and our choice of action/reaction/inaction will be completely life changing. If we make the wrong moves and the wrong choices or no move at all the consequences could be dire. If we make the right moves and only small mistakes along the way the consequences could be positively phenomenal. And of course as always it seems it comes down to hard work.

There are so many questions as well. Many of which will never be answered. Why? For me not knowing the answer is dangerous. When you don't know you tend to hypothesise. And when you hypothesise often times your ideas aren't positive. When something truly crappy happens you ask yourself what did I do? What didn't I do? What could I have done? Could I have prevented it?

Is it my fault?

To be honest I've come to the conclusion a large part of the burden of responsibility is mine. And I'm learning so much more about myself and others as I figure out the reasons why.

Have you ever inadvertently done something completely awful? Something you'd never in a million years imagine that'd you'd do and would never ever ever intend to do but you did it.

I'll give a you a small real life example. This one time I observed the lady who worked at my local four square over a number of months. And eventually I became certain that what I believed was true and so I happily asked: "When is your baby due?"
To which she of course replied: "I'm not pregnant."
In that moment a well meant inquiry with the intention of congratulations and celebrations flipped into a hugely offensive remark that had the potential to make the recipient feel awful. And me feel like the worlds biggest arsehole. I truly hoped a hole would open in the in the floor of the Four Square and send me down to the fires of hell because it was the least I deserved.

A bigger hypothetical example: you find this great thing that you love to do and you get your best friend or partner to do it  too because you think it's the coolest thing ever and so you know because you love them- then they'll obviously love it too. And they do it and you enjoy yourself and every thing is great. Until. Until you find out they NEVER wanted to do that stuff. And they were just doing it because it was you and they love you and so they want to make you happy. And while you might think on one hand it's lovely that they did the thing, even though didn't want to, just for you. On the other hand you feel like a complete prick for essentially 'pushing' someone you love into doing something they never wanted to do. Here you were thinking everything was all good and you were having fun not even aware that you were in fact making someone very important unhappy.

That's me right now. Only it's much bigger. And it affects way more than just the lady at the four square.

But here's the thing: Now I know I have the option to change and grow and improve. I have some powerful knowledge to work with where before all I had was ignorance. It's not going to be easy. But it will be worth it.

Single Photo Saturday

 

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Flora on Friday

 

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Tiny Tales Week 3 2013

The Tax man finally paid up this week and that meant we could afford a days holiday from real life- the pictures from that adventure will be in another post (or two). In less exciting stories. The weather continued on in true WA style.

We spotted a number plate we couldn't help but like.

 

The little boys and I enjoyed a trip to the toy shop followed up be morning tea at Dome.

There was the usual tomfoolery and wackyness.

A fair dose of adorable.

 

 And some great thinking- Tama blew me away when he showed me he could match up all the eggs.

 

These two imagined up some delicious tomato soup.

 

The one day of the holidays he couldn't- he tried to sleep in!

 

Kieran celebrated that we brought him a T-shirt he really wanted.

Until we realised that we got Les one too...

There was chillin' of one kind.... and another.

And really there was only one little bit of the week that sucked, and it was sweet anyway.

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365 2013 Week 6

 

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365 2013 Week 5

 

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365 2013 Week 4

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Story Chapter 6- on my cover

(Source:  Chip Kidd at Ted)

All this introspective blabbering about story make me nervous. Makes me worried that I might come across as some pretentious w@nker who thinks they know it all. So I thought this week I might go with some thing a little more direct.

In the process of trying to find the source for the image above I ended up watching the entire Ted Talk I've linked to. It spoke to me on a number of levels. I love good design. I love holding real books in my hand. I have a keen interest in interpreting and translating my own story. And finally I have a terrible habit of judging books by their covers.

And that brings me back to quite nicely to what I wanted to write about today- something a little more concrete and a little less abstract.

I'm the writer, the designer if you will, of my own Story. So what does it look like?

If you look at the day to day- you'll see a stay-at-home Mother and wife. With a creative side line.

Figuratively you'd see: Calm, engaged, mindful, loving, creative, adventurous, playful, focused, balanced, simple.

Literally you'd see: school runs and lunches, laundry, stories, games, conversations, new places, good dinners, and love making.

On a every day basis I think the story I want to live would be yawn-worthy to your average reader. But what we never see coming are the cumulative effects of our day to day actions.  We don't see that our sarcastic comment can lead to a lack of self-worth. We don't see the minute tightening of a heart when a harsh word is spoken. We don't see it sometimes till years down the track when the cuts have become scars. We also don't see that talking about everything will develop a vocabulary of a thousand words+ before age two. That reading stories everyday will make a self taught reader at age four. That allowing the creation of mess in our kitchen will develop a confident dinner maker at age 12.

We all want a happy ending. But it's only by living the right story that we'll get one... even if it isn't the ending we intended.

If an artist was to portray the cover of my book representing the story for 2013- which will set the scene for future books this is what you see.

Me, arms out stretched as an old fashioned scale. With each arm straight representing the scales in balance. Each side of the scale would have representations of the most essential aspects of my life, Les, the kids, art making, food, books, writing, nature, home, Perth, and my friends and family. Scattered around my feet crumbled balls of rubbish representing the stuff I want to leave behind- more literal stuff like Iced Coffee, sugary foods, computer time wasters, too many belongings and more symbolic stuff like my mother, anger, sarcasm, consumerism, laziness, guilt, score keeping.

No prizes for guessing my star sign.... I wonder what part astrology plays in my story?

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Single Photo Saturday

 Tama dropped it and this is how it ended up.

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Flora on Friday

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Round-Up ~ January 2013

On our bookshelf this month....

Me- Silhouette of a sparrow by Molly Beth Griffin. The Politically Incorrect guide to Teenagers.
Tama- Anything DOG!
Will: Dr Who and Star Wars.

Loving on the box....

Merenia watched LOTR. L and K went to Jack Reacher. M, J and C went to the Hobbit. Survivor. Kieran and I watched I am Legend. A little of MasterChef Professional. Lots of Star Wars by Will. Kieran watched Inception (confusing).

For you...For me?

Will brought himself a Light Sabre. School Stationery.Some new books from Crow. A plaque for Nancy to remember Ginger and Chloe. A flower sprinkler from Nancy.

Germs and bugs and botherations....

Tama got sick on the very last day of the month.

Today was good today was fun, tomorrow is another one...

Swimming at Kalamunda pools. Golf for Les. Day at Smudge and Sparkle. Two lots of Horse Riding at Wanneroo for Merenia. Cafe and Museum for me and the little boys. Sleepover for Cailee and Jayme. Will had a sleep over in the lounge watching Dr Who. Morning Tea with Nancy at Heritage Rose. Kalamunda Markets with Tama- lots of Dogs! Morning Tea at Dome with W & T. A big day out in City of Joondalup. M to Horse Riding, everyone else to the pools. Then Lunch at Elixir. Onto Botanical Gardens Mini Golf. Frozen Yoghurts. Then a swim at Hillary's. And dinner at the Beach Shack. Followed by watching the sun set. Visiting Peel Zoo. Making an obstacle course in the lounge.  Les and Will watching the Australia Day Fireworks. Brunch at Heritage Rose with L, M, W & T (K was sleeping). A day trip to Lake Leschenaultia- we swam and the big kids canoed.

Yum, yum, yum....

Summer Fruit. Lunch at Cafe Elixir in Wanneroo. Heritage Rose Hazelnut and Kahlua Cheesecake. Big Roast Lamb for Australia Day dinner with Nancy. Merenia's Caramel Mudcake.

'It was on sale'....

Will got two Angry Birds games for the computer. MMEW and OLW from Big Picture Classes. New Paddling Pool. New Lego Games from Gumtree.

Bugger!

Will getting a prickle while watching the fire works. Our big day out dinner at The Beach Shack.

Hooray!

Will had his dream come true when he got to hold a snake. Merenia taught herself to knit. Tax money finally came back!

Etc...

Tama is totally loving watching the rubbish truck each week. It goes "Bup, bup, bup, (shake) and down there" It is a total bonus if someone is walking a dog at the same time- Tama ecstasy.

You know who's good idea this was? Katie The Scrapbook Lady. Go check out her list of tasks to do at the end of each month as well.

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