Love, bubs and life on our little farm

It has been a busy year - no where as crazy as last year with the whole having a baby and extending our house but still very intense.

It has been Year of the Career - with both Jase and I dealing with promotions and really throwing ourselves into being the best. I went back from Maternity leave to find myself made head of a lab with three scientists and one technician to manage... part time. I bumped my work days up to 4 and with overtime etc I have been working well over 5 days of hours a week. Jase has had a lot of national, international and statewide travel - sometimes on one to two work trips a week. I have learnt to juggle the two girls, long hours at my work, the farm and working at night and despite a number of people telling me it wasn't sustainable, have been fine although it has involved learning to function on 6 hours sleep a night.

We have taken our house extension/renovation from new and empty to a lovely homely house - staining decks and french doors, adding furniture, wall hangings and electrical items, putting up curtains, landscaping driveways, planting new gardens and building over 20 metres of new retaining walls. Our home and land are lovely, it is know everything we dreamed it could be five years ago when we bought it (besides the pool, outdoor woodfired pizza oven/kitchen and extended horse arena that are our next dream projects) and I am so content when I walk around soaking up the peace and quiet of the snowy gum trees waving over our dams.

Before

After (and curtains have been added since!)

I sold my competition horse as his bad hoof was just not holding up to the unforgiving hard paddocks on our property. He is now a much loved Pony Club horse on the Sunshine Coast and looks wonderful. I had a difficult hunt for a new horse, requiring 100kms of driving, vet checks and aborted sales before I finally found the perfect horse 5 minutes down the road, unadvertised, sold through word of mouth of a horse friend.

We had our first flying holiday with the girls to Sydney and Jase and I enjoyed some weekends away to ourselves thanks to my parents babysitting. I visited Tasmania for a conference, Jase had a surprise work trip to Paris. We had interstate friends come and stay and have planned a number of trips for next year already. We threw a New Years party to kick off the year, hosted our combined 30th Birthday party and had a Teddy Bears Picnic themed Birthday for the girls 1st and 3rd Birthdays.

The girls have grown and grown. Bronte has  changed from a 6 month old baby barely crawling to a independent communicating 18 month old. We have taken her through hearing aid fittings, umpteen hearing tests, endless speech pathology and a general anaesthetic cat scan on her head. She is developing on target for a child of her age with normal hearing, and that is all we can ask for. We have been through all the preparation for Elka to start school in a short three weeks - hard to believe we are that stage.

The difference a year makes

The girls have discovered what it means to have a sister - being the best of friends and the worst of enemies. I love having two little kids rather than babies - they constantly delight me with their little quirks and funny mannerisms. I am excited to watch them both continue to develop into little people in the next year.

Sisters

We were blessed with good health - my broken finger is as serious as our injuries and sickness have been. We were spared the worst of the SE Qld floods thanks to a new dam being built on our river system the year before. We did suffer some trees down in some severe storms but no structural damage.

Life has been very good to us. We work damn hard for it but we wholeheartedly appreciate all that we do have. I believe in siezing every moment and making the most of it. And I can say we truly have done that this year.

2012 is a year concentrating on our health - we want to make sure we are eating fresh foods, concentrating on balanced nutrition and taking time for exercise. We have a lovely holiday to the Great Barrier Reef planned for our wedding anniversary (7 years!) and another couples-only weekend away booked for a friends wedding. We are planning on taking the kids on a family trip to Canberra and surrounds to see old friends. We are also thinking of another short trip to Sydney. Jase and I both have work trips already booked for the first few months of 2012 and of course more to come, our careers are only advancing not slowing down. I have a number of publications currently submitted and more to write. I have two Masters students to supervise as well as all my staff. I plan to get this finger healed and get some time to compete my new horse. We have plenty more landscaping plans for the property and gardens to fill with plants. Elka starts school and I have to adapt my working schedule to accomodate this somewhat. Bronte will turn two and we will face the parenting challenges that come with that.

But right now - well its time to get off the computer and get into a party dress as we will be heading to a New Years Party very soon!

Happy New Year to all my followers :) Thank you for all of your support and great comments xoxo

So prior to Christmas I had a fall whilst showjumping - I ended up with a mild concussion that included nausea, passing out and blurred vision and speech. I also had a terribly sore and swollen finger from getting it caught in the reins as I fell. I am no stranger to falling from horses - showjumping and Cross Country tends to result in higher chances of falls during high speed air-bourne maneuvers. But I tend to land on my feet - years of practice you could say! So I was yet to have a fall on the hard clay paddocks we have here. And now that I have, I discovered two things - One, its way harder than the soft volcanic soil of the Byron Hinterland where I grew up and Two, you just don't bounce like you did when you were a teenager!

  So I tucked myself into bed expecting to feel better in the morning, like I always did. And I did - the concussion anyway! But my finger only got worse, so swollen the skin was pulled tight and shiny and it turned black and red. I have a high pain threshold but I was struggling to do things with the girls and the farm and with looming public holidays, I decided it was time to visit a GP clinic. Long story short, he immediately sent me for X-rays, where they found a fracture in the middle joint and I was sent to hospital to check for tendon damage. I was in a sling and bound up. I "rested" as much as any mother of little kids on a farm who is hosting Christmas can (ie not much) and got increasingly frustrated at the constant pain and lack of improvement in the finger.

I was asked to visit the outpatient clinic today at the hospital and the orthopedic registrar was also not impressed with the state of the finger. So off I went for more X-rays, more waits and more orthopedic consultants. Lo and behold, they found that in the top joint, the tendon had torn from the bone and pulled away a piece of bone at the same time. A "mallet fracture"
Untreated - it results in a permanent droop and bend in the finger as the tendon is over stretched and won't reattach properly. Treatment - 6-8 weeks of being splinted and taped, that CANNOT be removed, not even for showers. One bend of the finger without the splint in that 6-8 weeks puts you back at day 0 with 6-8 weeks of treatment again. Wow. This is going to be tough. It is my right hand and I am a molecular biologist - all I do is write formulas and calculations, pipette tiny volumes, open small tubes, handle highly infectious bacteria wearing tight gloves (double layers!) and write reports and documents. Nevermind that I have two kids under four and a farm full of animals, including my new young horse in training. And my birthday, wedding anniversary and two beach holidays away in that time. Aaarrrghh.

The pain of the finger being bent straight is nothing to the pain of being told you are useless and can't do anything. Sigh.

Of course, could be way worse. But definitely not what I had planned for my two weeks of holidays!

Life always has a way of throwing you something unexpected!

Broken finger and all, it was a gorgeous Christmas. It all started with a peaceful Christmas Eve (although Jase and I were exhausted from a very stressful night before - but that is a whole blog post in itself!), with family arriving all day to settle in for the celebrations. Our farm work and landscaping was completed and we enjoyed grabbing a few last minute groceries, soaking up the chaos and christmas spirit before settling onto the deck for sparkling wine and cheese platters.

We tucked two super excited girls into bed at a respectable hour before we knuckled down to cooking the Christmas dessert (me) and constructing the piece de resistance Santa present, the trampoline (Jase and the other men). I found the horses in the dark paddock to get them to leave bite marks in the carrots left out for the reindeer and cajoled my Dad into eating the bright green xmas tree biscuit Elka had left out for Santa. Jase and I marvelled at just how much we had spoilt the kids when we packed up their Santa sacks and stockings before we all fell exhausted into bed.

It was delightful to be woken by the happy voice of Elka exclaiming that Santa had bought her bubbles, but it wasn't so delightful that it was 5.20am! However, we somewhat blearily watched the girls dig through their presents, laughing at Miss Elka peering into her Santa sack and announcing that "oh Santa hasn't given me a trampoline". We constructed an excuse to get her to the back door where she stood in shock looking at her shiny new trampoline before turning to us with tears in her eyes - it was beautiful.

We had Jase's family tradition of ham and eggs for breakfast (doesn't go quite so well with my family tradition of a two course hot lunch but I guess excess is somewhat suitable at Christmas!) before finally tucking into the massive pile of presents overflowing far from under the tree. I was spoilt with a great new laptop, Peter Alexander Pjs, a one-off handmade art-deco bracelet, perfume, dayspa voucher, Horseland voucher, expensive eye cream, books and so on, so on.

My big hot lunch was a success - the lemon and garlic butterflied lamb was the biggest hit although the turkey served with roasted plums was a pretty close second, the fetta, pancetta and green bean side was delicious and the Christmas trifle was lovely. The french champagne way too easy to drink and we settled in for an afternoon of chatting and laughing at the girls playing with their million and one presents.

We finished the celebrations with Boxing Day at the sales (I scored a great Cue dress and some lovely Forever New shoes for over 50% off). And we are now throughly enjoying the quiet of our holidays, we have hit the beach, met with friends and have plans to spend tomorrow at Dreamworld as a treat for the girls. I can't believe it is almost time to think about New Years! I haven't even picked an outfit for the party we are going to!

Christmas is just magical with little kids and I was ever mindful of just how lucky I am to have such a peaceful celebration with my healthy family. Sometimes I feel like I can't contain my appreciation, like my heart is just overflowing.

Such a blessed Christmas.

There is something about looming holidays that all of a sudden make you impatient and discontent with the status quo. I am on call over the Christmas break this year so I have taken a one weeks holiday before Christmas instead. I love the build up to Christmas with my little ones as I savour their excitement, so I am really looking forward to our little break.

Even better, we organised for my parents to take the girls for the weekend before Christmas, so we can enjoy wandering the shops buying their presents in peace.

EVEN better, Jase has booked us a 5 star hotel in the city so that we can shop until we drop... or feel like eating and drinking ourselves stupid in the executive club. Its a surprise for me - I have no idea which hotel he has booked, always nice to be spoilt! So much to look forward to - that is only the beginning.

But as a result, the long hours at work I am currently doing with a number of my staff away and the large amount of work travel Jase is squeezing into the last few work weeks, is really wearing on me. I am fighting to not show my short temper to innocent bystanders!

So much to fit into the last 2.5 weeks until our break but at the same time, how I wish the time would fly!

I always wanted a kitten but my Dad hated cats and always said no. So when I moved out of home at 17 for uni, my Mum took me to the RSPCA and bought me a cat for my early 18th birthday present. It made her happy to know that whilst she was leaving her little girl alone 1000kms from home, that I would have something to love and care for.

I walked the cages and looked at all the sweet tiny kittens but I got distracted by a 6 month old cat that climbed the wire to my eye height to get my attention and miaowed plaintively. I asked to hold him and he snuggled up to my chest and delicately picked up my crystal pendant in his mouth. He was soft grey and had strength in his eyes, I was hooked. So rather than choosing my own cat, I think I got chosen instead! I didnt leave with the intended tiny ball of fluff but rather a nearly full grown cat, such was his power. I called him Ferdinand after the gentle bull in the cartoons, since he was big but sweet, he became "Ferdie" immediately.

And while I spent long lonely afternoons and nights studying through my early years of uni, he purred from my lap or the side of my desk in my in-tray. He snuggled with me through the freezing cold Canberra nights and later he glared evilly at Jase, unimpressed with having to share me.

He made my life difficult at times - he wee'ed on my poor housemate in her bed on one of her first nights in the house and numerous times afterwards (sorry Dana!) Before they made their peace and became firm snuggle buds on the lounge watching day time tv whilst hardworking Science students were slogging away in the laboratory (aah to be a Law student with like 16 contact hours a week). He made enemies with my Dad including using a timber edge to one of their doorways as a scratching post to the point it was just splinters whilst they were babysitting him for me whilst I was overseas. He has also always been a vomiter - I have long lost count of the number of vomits I have cleaned or stepped in, in the middle of the night.

He made the transition from an indoor-outdoor cat to a strictly indoor cat when we moved to Qld and did it with good grace. I am happy that all our lovely native animals are safe and he is happy to not have to stray far from his food bowl and warm spot on any bed/lounge/carpet that he chooses.

He is still narky and full of spirit and though after 11 years has accepted Jase into the fold, is still a one owner cat. I am the only one that can hold him down or trim his claws without fireworks. He still snuggles on my side of the bed and jumps up for cuddles on my lap every evening.

He is about to turn 13 and still has his gorgeous silky grey coat and still gallops through the house darting at shadows, but he is showing his age and has lost a lot  of weight and is drinking a lot of water. My heart aches at this indication of his mortality.

So I took him to the vet today for an array of blood tests to get to the bottom of potential thyroid issues or kidney problems. Of course the child in me is convinced I can "fix" him and that he will celebrate his 21st birthday like my bosses cat did.

Sometimes all you have is positive thought really. But I just don't know what life will be like without him.

Shoulder bags are in - they are so cute. They remind me of the late 80's/early 90's when Mum let me use her old handbags to take shopping and they would swing away on my shoulder. I am between bag designers currently and looking for something in a mid range price - not too cheap that every designer loving bogan wears it, but not too expensive that I can't update when I want to. Marc by Marc Jacobs bags are catching my eye at the moment but with Christmas and a few nice surprises coming up (I will update soon!) I am reluctant to spend on myself... so I just virtual shopped instead (and they all currently on sale, I am even virtually saving money Jase!)

Marc by Marc Jacob

Prada, darling

My current pick - Marc by Marc Jacob

A beautiful little girl has been on my mind a lot lately. Her story is here. I watch my girls play and I just shake my head whilst trying to fathom the raw cruelty that life can become sometimes.

Somehow being a molecular biologist and understanding this disorder at the cellular level makes it exquisitely more heartbreaking.

Sportsgirl's Pippa Sundress

Something about warm weather makes me want to wear fresh stripes - so classic and elegant. I love this little dress from Sportsgirl.

I hit Myer on the weekend with a few gift vouchers burning holes in my wallet and came away with a lovely red striped sundress with a rope belt - very sweet and casual. Can't beat dresses for ease in the holiday season! I also got a coral Tokito dress that will be perfect for a party and some Christmas drinks that I have coming up.


And I finally found my crisp white shirt - Tokito had a lovely little version with ruffled sleeve details and a sweet round neck with buttons and a filagree bottom. Perfect for dressing up for work or dressing down with some tailored shorts. 


And thanks to the gift vouchers, I didn't spend a cent. Best kind of shopping! 


My current shopping challenge is finding elegant tailored shorts in khaki - all the ones I have seen so far are too slouchy and casual. Any suggestions?

Strawberry blonde now

My littlest one is nearly 18 months old. She has hit that stage where they grow up really quickly and leave babyhood behind.

She hops up on her little lounge next to Elka's or I see her perched up on her little chair at their little table eating away with her fork, and I just marvel at how quickly it flies by.

But I love having two kids rather than a toddler and a baby. You can do so much more - both with them and independently. I can finally feed the horses and chickens at night while they play in the front yard without screaming and tantrums. Aahh the little things that make your day better.

She couldn't be more different to Elka - right down to the fact that they eat opposite things! She is more of a loner, but does have the same stubborn independent streak. She can be quite precious and easy to upset but at the same time can be very rough and tumble. She does adore her older sister and loves to mimic her, even standing behind a tantruming Elka copying the arm folding and gesticulating which had Jase and I struggling to keep a straight face.

Her favourite toys include the dolls and strollers, and she could push her little corn popper ride on thing around for hours on the driveway. She likes to paint and draw with her sister, but isn't too fussed by books - we struggle to get her to sit still long enough for even the shortest books. She would happily spend all day outside feeding the ducks and exploring the yards. She screams and tantrums when its time to come inside as I try to wrestle her beloved little work boots off her feet. She has also started that fun stage of racing away at the shops and insisting on walking alone without holding your hand.

She is the only child I know that doesn't like swings. She screams and whines if you dare to put her on one! But she adores slippery slides instead.

She has been slow in developmental milestones in comparison to Elka (I know I shouldn't compare but what else do I have as experience!) and I do have a little bit of a worry on this occasionally. But Elka was always at the top of the curve and I have to remind myself that its still well within normal to be slower. I do stress over her language as Elka was talking at this age and Bronte is only just expanding her vocabulary past Mum/Dad/Bub etc. However she sees a speech pathologist who specialises in hearing impaired children monthly and the speechie assures me that Bronte is very advanced in her comprehension and that her language is still right on track for non-hearing impaired child. So nothing to worry about really (and I do keep telling myself that). I am pleased that she now wears her hearing aids without pulling them off - she does whinge when she sees me get them out to put in her ears, but that is because she has to sit still while I fit them!

I am not the only one that is aware that Bronte is a little less mature. Daycare have not put her up to the toddler room yet, whereas some of the younger kids have already "graduated" out of the nursery. Bronte can be a little bit touchy with change and she loves her carers in the nursery. They are slowly getting her accustomed to the new carers with hour long visits to the toddler room but its been a slow process.

So that is my Miss B - a little tricky but a little character when she trusts you. I am excited for the next few months as I know she is going to become a real little girl!

I am currently procrastinating from organising our digital photos for printing. So here is the confession - I have not had photos printed since Bronte was 3 weeks old - she is almost 1.5 years old now!! How bad is that!

Tell me I am not the only one that puts off getting photos printed (I even do it online, it shouldn't be that much of a chore!) - confess and make me feel better!

And yes I am sure some of it is also poor second child syndrome - with Elka we had photos printed often and framed. Bronte's baby book is still devoid of a single picture! But all that will change... I am off to do it!

So since the house extension finished, our front driveway has looked a little sad - it was a major worksite for 5 months and had tonnes of crushed gravel etc dumped on it. The horse fences had all been pulled down to let the big machinery have access to the house and we had just put up temporary wire and star pickets, not a great look. Not to mention that we added new cut and fill to the edge of the house pad, which needed finishing off.

Jase and I walked the site for months, planning (and arguing as we always do about landscaping!) until we had decided on where to position the new post and rail fencing, where to put the fill, where to put new retaining walls, positions of new gardens and what we wanted out of resurfacing and changing the angles on the existing drive around driveway. We finally took the leap a month or so ago, as we wanted it all sorted before the Spring-Summer storms played havoc with mud and drainage.

A nearby neighbour, who is a dab hand on his earthmovers did the resurfacing and addition of fill to the edge of our house pad so we could finally access both bays of our new carport (yay!!). We had to change the colour of our decon-granite driveway as the old quarry had shut down but we are happy with the new colour thankfully.

And Jase has been working hard every weekend after his crazy long weeks of work and work trips (such a good sport) to construct lovely post and rail fences and new retaining wall/planter boxes to terrace the new fill drop off. Next on the list are a set of steps, a new garden and yet more retaining walls. If I am lucky, I get a horse wash bay built too - lovely!

It's looking good but there is so much more to do (not to mention the new entry fences Jase has also built for the top of our property that still need painting) - its always a work in progress really isn't it!

Here are some great Before and Afters - can't wait till the planter boxes are all filled with soil and planted in and the new garden is started!

I am a sucker for dusty pink and anything ladylike. So I am loving this sweet but elegant look from Witchery. I have some amazing pearl earrings that my Mum bought from the Met in New York and they would finish this look off perfectly. (I am not a fan of the bag though, I just can't do too matchy matchy).

This look is reminding me that I want a new crisp clean white button up shirt for Summer - the sleeveless look makes it that little bit less dressy which is always fun.

Thanks to mamamia for sharing these images from South African Marie Claire on body image. Of course the magazine completely ruined its good by using a model photoshopped to hell on the cover and had bikini diets and liposuction as topics *rolling eyes*

But some of the ads included inside were pretty good.

Saatchi

The Jupiter Drawing Room

Be kind to yourself today.

So its been a few months since I sold my competition horse and started training up my other horse, only to find that he has bone issues in his feet that means he can't be used for dressage or jumping. That left me with, well, no horse! So its been horse shopping time - a tough emotional journey, let alone expensive. You need to get to know the seller as well as you can, so that you can understand the horses background, the reasons for sale and all the little tidbits of "truth" that can be spotted through the sale pitch. It takes time, a lot of correspondence and in a lot of cases, you have to sell yourself also, as the better horses are normally only sold to approved homes. In all, I spoke to umpteen sellers, drove 100's of kms west and north, rode six different horses and organised two vet checks. I was reminded how small the world is, particularly the horse world in SE Qld is, where just about everyone knows everyone by a few degrees of separation. I agonised over a few horses - lost sleep over one in particular that was perfect except for one paddock vice that I ultimately and reluctantly had to decide was the deal breaker. And in the end, my farrier found my horse for me and I was only sold him due to the reference the farrier gave the seller (he wasn't even on the market yet), and ironically - he was located just 5 minutes down the road! He is all settled in here now and I am loving his beautiful nature. In a final fitting move, I had an email today from the people I sold Spech to telling me how well he is doing and how much they love him. So may I introduce Rae (yes terrible name for such a beautiful boy but he is yet to be given a show name). He is a 5 yr old thoroughbred, 16.1hh, trained for 8 months in eventing but still very young and very inexperienced which is perfect. I am looking forward to training him over the next few years and making him a lovely competition horse. He is gentle and sweet and loves the kids, although he tends to sneak up behind them, lowers his big head silently down behind their backs and blows air on them, making them jump terribly! How I have missed my horse riding - the physical muscle toning, the joy of doing something I just love for reasons I don't even understand and the mental challenge of teaching a half tonne beast to be light and responsive to the lightest touches. I am fitter and more relaxed already - bring it on!

Our first ride together

Settling in at home

So I am going to a special viewing of the movie "I Don't Know How She Does It" next week. It was a favourite book of mine, so I am hopeful that the movie will be fun.

It is about a career woman juggling family and her career, in the words of some reviewers, a woman "trying to have it all". Something, I can relate to and the book resonated with me for sure, particularly as her and her husband get spread incredibly thin between their two careers.

What made me laugh a little ironically, is that the pre-movie event starts at 6pm and I have been racking my brain on how to leave work early for the second time that week (can be near impossible depending on emergency work etc), juggle getting the kids home, feed the animals, hand the kids over for babysitting since Jase is on an interstate work trip and get to the venue in time to get my tickets and somehow not still be dressed in my work clothes. Somehow I am sure I will manage it but I am quite sure watching the main character perform similar juggling acts in the movie to varying success, will probably cut a little close to the bone!

So, living on a property with little kids when your partner has a busy job that has long hours and a lot of travel associated with it - well it is kind of a catch-22, his well paid career is the reason why we can own a lovely acreage and afford for me to have competition horses but it also makes my life that much harder too.

I don't come home in the evenings from a long day at work and just have to worry about feeding hungry grumpy kids and ourselves. Instead I have to convince said kids that they can wait whilst I desperately try to stop them from either screaming at the front door if they stay inside or getting into trouble/danger/water/rat poison/snakes and-or spiders if they are outside with me, while running around mixing up horse feeds, dashing through dark paddocks feebly lit by spotlights, locking up chickens and generally accounting for the state of the place and fences after being away all day. Makes for that extra fun in the evening and typically makes getting dinner for the kids that much later, its a busy couple of hours...

Ditto for mornings where our alarm goes off at 5.30am or earlier so that we can feed all the animals their breakfast and still get to work at a reasonable hour.

Other things are just that much harder too - gardening - we have so much more garden space to manage and keep clean, mowing is a good three hour job just to do around the house, let alone the driveway and main entrance.. even the groceries - we have to shop at the produce store as well as the usual grocer and greengrocer and fit bags of pellets and grain into the back of the cars.

You have to train your kids as soon as they start crawling about snakes. I must look like an idiot but with both kids I have stood in zoo snake houses, holding the kids up to the glass, repeating "yukky, dangerous, NO" ! Considering there was a small brown snake sliding through the kids shoes on the shoe rack on the front verandah the other day, this is a necessary lesson.

With Jase away alot, and my nearest family 2 hours away, I have a fear of something happening to me, like a freak accident with a horse kicking me during feed time and knocking me out in the paddock, leaving my two kids under four alone. No one would know - the kids can't ring out for help yet (we are working on Elka, she can give our address etc) and no one exactly can pass by our secluded property to notice, it worries me to think of what could happen to t he girls (Jase always points out that maybe I should be worried about myself also but I always forget that bit -aahh mothers!). So with Jase being overseas at the same time as I hve a new horse who is a bit of a unknown as far as behaviour, I organised for my parents to call me each evening at 6.30pm to check I was answering the phone and therefore safe and well inside. Worked well - except for the other day, when a storm created chaos on the roads making me very late home and my mobile battery died so my parents were getting no answer either the home phone or the mobile and were starting to get ready to panic! Whoops.

And storms - that is a whole different kettle of fish on a property - you lose the power much more often, it takes longer to get put back on (why would be we be a priority really!? never mind that we are all on tank water that needs power to deliver water into our homes) and you have bleeding big trees falling down around you. I for some reason,  always cop the worst storms when Jase is not around - including one last year where some paddocks had lost nearly every tree. So true to form - today we copped a whopper, well we had had two storms already by 3.30pm (love Spring!) and I happened to look out the laundry door to the South and saw this moving unbelievable fast right over us. It was scary.
Yeah life is that bit harder on a property but sometimes its a little bit sweeter too!

So I am over half way through my single-parenting-whilst-other-parent-is-on-the-other-side-of-the-world gig and the metal game is most of the battle. I have had this discussion with a friend whose husband spends a lot of time overseas and also doesn't have any family living close by for help and she feels the same. Your fuse with the kids is that much shorter and your nerves so much more raw, because deep down you know there is no rescue, no one to sweep in and say "you have been trying to get get the toddler to bed for 1 hour, sit down while I take over", no extra hands to pick up, wipe or tidy the messes. And that little bit of knowledge is always in the back of your mind and it makes you tired, so tired just one hour into the day. And trust me you won't understand fully, even if you think you do, if you have family living in the same town. Knowing help if just a phone call away can make all the difference.

So, I have been caring for my new horse, squeezing my job into the shortest hours possible, spending the nights preparing for assessing a students PhD project, working out how to get to a 7am work function with two kids in tow, worrying over a sick chicken, dealing with an emotional little girl missing her dad and pushing the boundaries, balancing a sick one year old, running the house and farm and minding all the small but essential things like broken hearing aids and yearly hay orders. Doing this all on about 5 hours sleep and I can't remember the last time I sat on our lounge. Tired.

And Jase is staying in a $1000 night Parisian hotel, being wined and dined after his Business class flights. Not to mention that I am getting formal style emails from him such as "we will  find a mutually convenient time to phone" - seems I am just another email being squeezed into his work emailing time slots and he is forgetting to drop the professional persona. Way to make a girl feel special. Oh and then in another email, he told me that he was too busy to be missing me and the girls! Hmmm the city of love clearly isn't working on my husband...

But he is a romantic deep down - he jogged through the the the cold evening light to revisit our hotel and little restaurants we ate in, when we stayed in Paris and sent me a picture.And he told me one day, he wanted us to be staying at the Ritz, with me alighting from a black town car laden down with shopping bags. Yeah that won him a few brownie points!

Though for now the only shopping I have planned, is Kmart for some new shoes for the girls!

I hate wishing my life away but I am definitely counting down until  Jase is back - though he has numerous other work trips lined up for the next few weeks, they are much less intense when he is only 1000kms away.

I love life. I really do. I believe in living every minute and I jam as much in as I can. I can count the number  times I have napped during the day, other than being sick, on one hand, even with pregnancies and newborns. I just have too much that I want to do to sleep!

Our life is always interesting - the status quo is organised chaos generally. I was only commenting the other day, how much I love that something new and challenging always pops up. For me that day, an email with a great offer for something career related had come in - something that showed to me that I am cementing a reputation in my scientific field.

But Jase trumped that! Today he got a phone call from work - they want him to fly to Paris... tomorrow!! Business class no less and a 5 start hotel to boot. Life certainly does keep it interesting!

I would love to go with him but alas I spent a vast amount of money on a new horse only the day before...(that post is coming!) and someone has to mind the animal, farm and kids!

So the work widow gig it is for me and a dream trip for Jase. Its going to be a long week or so but I can guarantee it won't be boring!

So I just spent a weekend away at the beach - swimming in both the pool and the gorgeous teal waves at the beach. Not only that but Bronte joins Elka in taking weekly swimming lessons, like most Aussie kids, this coming weekend. So I know its that time of year when I am going to be spending a lot of time in my swimsuit.

I have a million bikinis but my most recent purchase is a red polka dot string bikini from Seafolly. However, the string factor isn't that compatible with two little kids constantly holding and grabbing onto you in the water - although my husband would disagree as he seems to quite enjoy watching me struggle to hold onto floating away pieces of fabric!

More and more I am thinking a gorgeous retro one piece would be perfect for this season. Well it seems Witchery agrees with me. Check out their new release swimsuits - drool, I will take one of each! (well not really at that price, one will be sufficient!)

Despite being a scientist who follows experimental protocols (or develops them) and does pretty well at it, I am a terrible cook. I would think that following a recipe would be much the same thing but after concentrating all day, I just tend to not take cooking too seriously and wander off recipes and change ingredients or don't adhere to times. However, I just made these (and didn't follow the recipe exactly lol) and they have turned out beautifully and are absolutely delicious!! I couldn't recommend them more.

Vanilla Chai Tea Cupcakes

Not a lot of blogging going obviously but a whole lot of living going on instead!

Jase and I had a great time with our kid free weekend - we spoiled ourselves with a very grown up expensive three course lunch in a favourite mountain restaurant with views to the Gold Coast ocean (So not kid friendly and it took over 2 hours to eat and drink and chat, bliss), we slept, we shopped, we watched DVDs and ate bowls of home made chocolate mousse. And we finished with a day at Dreamworld where we got to take advantage of our annual passes to actually go on scary rides and completely avoid Wiggles World! It was fun to feel young again - to giggle together and run bare foot between water slides.

And of course picking up the girls and marvelling at how much they have changed in three days (they really do!) was the perfect ending. Jase spent a week of "holidays" demolishing our entry gates into our property and rebuilding it with a lovely post and rail fence. For an executive, he is becoming a dab hand at power tools and construction.

We had our drive around driveway and new carport area landscaped and resurfaced (pics to come) and Jase has spent whatever time he can grab, starting to put up the new post and rail fences around the new house extension which act as our fences between the house yards and the paddocks. Its all coming together - but slowly as we now have massive amount of edging to lay around our driveway areas, new garden beds to plant, a huge amount of retaining walls/planter boxes to buld into the hill and fences to finish, dog wire and some to paint. I am tired just writing it...

I am also in the market for new horse - Sam has had to be retired due to soreness in his foot bones. And shopping for a suitable competition horse is hard, stressful work and we are taking big money so you want to get it right! It takes up the whole weekend, travelling hours to view and trial horses and its an emtional rollercoaster dealing with all the different owners. You get a lot more emotionally invested than say buying a car. I feel a bit sick about the amount of money I am looking at spending too but I need a quality horse. Needless to say, I might be getting not much for Christmas this year! Though I have worked my butt off working that second job lecturing this semester which has at least contributed some extra money into the pot..

Work is severely understaffed at the moment (damn school holidays) and my Masters students are nearing the stressful finishing point. Add to this the fact that just about every bit of research I am doing at the moment is now required to be approved through a human ethics committee and I am feeling a bit frazzled... But busy is how I like to be! (thankfully!)

So my lovely parents have swept the girls away for four days of spoiling on their farm. Which leaves Jase and I four days together as just a couple. Always nice to remind yourself how you operated as that dynamic. And just how easy life really was back then!

We were originally going to spoil ourselves in a hotel or a resort somewhere. But at some point, we realised, that we love our gorgeous home and never get to just sit and relax in it. We are always caring for the girls, working long hours and working on the property. So... we are holidaying at home - we have stacks of DVDs rented, a huge TV with surround sound that we have only watched movies on a handful of times, a cosy new bedroom with views over the dam into the misty gum trees, champagne in the fridge, fruit ready for a platter and the ingredients for a decadent chocolate mousse. Aaahh sleep-ins, DVDs during the day and over eating and drinking, tick tick tick!

And I might have to lecture tomorrow (yay last lecture for the semester!) but we are turning that into a shopping/movies/dinner out in the city evening, so even that will be a pleasure.

Kids certainly make you appreciate the little things and oh how I am loving these little things :)

My big little one, Miss Elka is growing up. She has her school orientation day on Thursday and we can't quite believe we will be there discussing uniforms and school bags.Just to confuse you - it is the Qld system which is "pre-prep" or "kindergarten" according to the new national curriculm and we took the step of enrolling her as the youngest in her year as she is born on the cut off month.  Since she can already write and read the alphabet and basic words and is a confident bright little thing that daycare already puts in pre-prep a few times a week, we are comfortable with this decision. She will probably be less impressed when she is the last in her year to be able to drive,get into nightclubs and so on. But Jase and I were young in our years and survived (admittedly for me with a fake ID!)

She is so excited about "big school". I am less so - her private school is about 15 mins from our place but in the opposite direction to my work and Bronte's daycare. Its going to make my morning and afternoon commutes even sillier, sigh. But I am not really complaining as making sure she is there and safe is of course so important and I feel blessed that I can drive her to our choice of school.

Most of the time she adores being at daycare 4 days a week and asks to go more days sometimes.  I do as much as I can to give lots of love and attention in the mornings and evenings, and I love picking them up and being hugged and kissed and dragged around to look at the new art/baby chickens/new friends.

But tonight, I was whispering "secrets" in her ear to distract her into the bath, like "Bronte's nappy smells" and "I love you", well she pushed the hair back from my ear and leant in and whispered "I wish I could have a day off with you" with the most vulnerable little look on her face.

Ouch. I mean she does currently - we have our lovely Fridays together every week. But with school looming as 5 days a week next year, it did pang a little in my heart.

Growing up is hard. And its only just beginning for her.... and me

Our two male ducks we were sold to keep our old pet duck company turned out to be a breeding pair. Oops! So Snowy is now sitting on a nest of eleven eggs in our geranium planter box in our laundry courtyard. I am pleased that she has the instinct to pick something so close to the house and reasonably sheltered as she will be safer from the foxes and spring storms. But at the same time I am a little overwhelmed by the thought of that many new ducks and the amplification over the next few years directly caused by introducing new male and female ducks into the mix. So as reluctant as jase and I are to do it, we will selectively clear her eggs tomorrow morning, leaving her with four. If they all hatch and survive, then three to go to my parents farm and one for us.

You have a lot more tough decisions to make when you live on property and sometimes you wish there was someone to do the hard stuff for you. But then you suck it up and do it. And you only get stronger and more grounded for it. Dealing with venomous snakes, dispatching rat bodies, organizing for your horses body to be buried by an excavator (no cardboard box under the flower garden for a half tonne horse I am afraid), tracing feathers and drag marks to work out where your pet chicken has been taken to it's death by a fox. You are a little closer to death on a farm then the suburbs most days. But it's just that reminder to live life a little harder and little fuller and with more love very day. And my girls are growing up learning that from the get go.

And I wouldn't have it any other way. Spring time fluffy ducklings hatching in their back garden are just one of the many bonuses!

We normally have a few getaways to our family beach house and get a few nice long weekends in but in the last few months life has been hectic and we haven't been able to find the time to justify a weekend away. Sad but true.

So we were in desperate need of a break. Fortunately we had snappled some cheap flights to Sydney earlier in the year and booked a nice central hotel with lovely buffet breakfast every morning. Nothing super fancy but definitely a refreshing getaway! It was so nice to be at the airport with my loved ones, rather than the usual flying away from them on a work trip, that we both tend to do.

It was the girls first time flying and they both had a ball. They were great little travellers albeit quiet and wide eyed looking a little country mouse about planes and trains!

Of course Elka loved the hotel pool most (remember how exciting a hotel with a pool was when you were little?) so we had to swim every day. But we also found time for yum cha in Chinatown, the aquarium, the zoo (complete with ferry ride or "fairy" ride if you ask Elka), the Powerhouse museum, the David Jones marketplace (yum!), shoe shopping for me, sparkling wine with a harbourside lunch, catch ups with friends and family and gorgeous dinners at Darling Harbour. We managed to keep the kids out late one night having dinner with some old friends and they got to see their first live fireworks - a little scary and both wanted their ears covered but overall a winner!

Jase and I even managed to watch a movie at night and score some "sleep-ins" (parent style ones not real ones).

And isn't it nice to come home and appreciate it - for me the space and lack of crowds and bustle is a blessed relief. I am home looking after a sick Elka today and I am soaking up the endless green grass and trees and unobstructed blue sky.

Refreshed indeed. But already keen to plan another holiday!

I had a tough old day at work - learning the ropes of management when people are 30 years older than you and very resistant to.... well everything, makes for a long tough meeting that I was chairing. Being a scientist means I am great at locking myself away in a lab and researching alone or typing away writing scientific papers in solitude and even guiding students or training others in techniques is fine, but managing others careers day in day out, office politics and dealing with all the government red tape takes some getting used to.

So when I am feeling drained, shopping and fashion is my best pick me up (that and my horses but that is not such a crash hot area at the moment!). Today I treated myself to a pair of cute ballet flats with pointed toe and buckles on them (I am partial to a buckle decal on a shoe I must confess) in black. Classic and perfect for wearing with my cropped skinny pants.

And how about some cute Forever New dresses to lift the soul - I love the little white lace dresses that are around at the moment. Portmans are doing a cute one too.


And the Age of Innocence collection by Forever New has a number of dresses I would happily wear to a summer beachside wedding I have coming up early next year.


And now back to planning my wardrobe to pack for our Sydney trip - seems jeans are going to be the go thanks to some temperatures that look too low for my Qld bones! SHame as I did have some cute skirts and dresses picked out!

Unfortunately I don't mean literally. Sam is still lame despite his therapeutic shoeing - it can take longer but I was hoping to see an improvement already. I am preparing for the worst and we are in discussions about the best budget and key attributes that I might need from a new horse. I am not very excited - buying a competition horse is a pretty painful laborious process.

But I am feeling better and back to my usual self thankfully. So we spent the day soaking up the hot (!) sun and pottering around the property doing spring cleaning and jobs. We have had buckets of rain in the last week and the grass is green, a bloom has been washed off our main dam and the place just looks divine.

We started the day with home laid eggs on toast, Elka and I cooked banana muffins made with home grown bananas, lunch was full of sage picked from our own herb garden and we plucked green and red striped lillies out of the garden to decorate the house. It was definitely one of those days where living on acreage is worth every minute of the extra chores, commute and cost.

And now I am alternating between packing and panicking about our family holiday to Sydney in four days time. I have always holidayed with the girls in the car so I can pile up as much stuff as I want. But this time we are flying and confining everything to one or two suitcases is doing my head in! But the aquarium tickets are booked, the zoo is organised and we have catch ups with old friends and family sorted so its going to be good, even if I have to buy a million forgotten things when we get there!

Yes probably an alarming statement when you work as an infectious diseases scientist! But what I really mean is that I am so run down that a virus that seems to have passed through the girls and Jase has absolutely floored me.

I had the worst week at work - my two bosses above me and a fellow scientist of another section where all away so I was unofficially holding down a lot of each of their responsibilities before I found out I had three full days of in laboratory training for our new Next Generation Sequencer (yes so cool - a whole bacterial genome sequenced in three hours!) which I had to balance alongside all of my other work plus working on my second job as a uni lecturer at night. So it was long stressful days. Cue my last day of work for the week and I was nauseous, could barely swallow my throat was so sore and started shaking controllably. I had to work late regardless and by the time it came to go home, I was starting to doubt if I had the presence of mind to get home safely (disadvantage of living semi-rural and having a long drive home!). I made it home and my muscles were so sore from hours of uncontrollable shaking, I collapsed in bed and have spent the last 24 hours there resting.

And resting is what my body really needs. Its been a long couple of months and I think I have come close to falling down.

But how I adore my amazing husband who without a word of complaint has minded the girls single handed whilst caring for the farm for the last day to let me rest. Who cancelled no less than four meetings to stay home today, took the girls out for hours to let me have some peace and quiet and then came home with roses to cheer me up. There are no words to describe how lucky I feel to have that sort of love and support.

I have to confess I have still spent a few hours doing uni lecture work from bed on my laptop but I am still feeling a lot more rested and ever so hopeful that after a goods night sleep I will be well enough to get to enjoy the weekend with my little ones.

With kids in the house we generally hate stains, but this time it was for good! We finally (yes the house extension was handed over to us by December 2010) stained our sliding french doors that splits the study and parents retreat lounge room. It was good to finally tick it off the the to-do list. Next up is getting our driveway and edge of the house fill landscaped with heavy machinery - quote is sorted so hopefully not long!

Sometimes your ducks all line up. This week has been like that for me. A reminder that hard work, little sleep and a lot of stress pays off. My ninth scientific paper was published - I cant wait to crack those double figures (my next big goal). And I did two long two hour uni lectures in an undergraduate infectious diseases course that went down really well. There is something really rewarding about having a huge lecture theatre of students looking interested in your research field, asking lots of questions, lining up afterwards to chat and ask if you will be their masters supervisor. It's nice to feel like you are getting things right and that you are across your career.

And even nicer to come home to little ones racing out the door to give you cuddles and tell you about their afternoon at the park with Nanny and Poppy. Work life balance? Yeah it exists.

Its a constant battle in our house to get the weekends right. We need to balance swimming lessons, farm work, gardening, kids parties, social outings, horse events, cooking, shopping and little gifts and splurges of family time. I can tell you what doesn;t fit in there - sleep or rest! We aren't the sort of family to have late mornings, watch tv or laze around with no plans - most probably because that is not the sort of person I am and I think everyone else follows my example.

But regardless, the weekends are recharging, rewarding and full of laughs.

This weekend was a good one - we watched Elka swim in a full set of clothes for Swim Safety week, we made our backs ache as we sanded and stained two french doors for our lounge room, we mowed and tidied the gardens preparing for the new growth of spring that is promised in the warmth of the sun. We cooked slices, muffins, creamy soup and pasta dotted with fresh herbs from the garden. We took the girls walking through the paddocks searching for wallabies and koalas as we measured up and planned new gates for our road entrance. We laughed at the horse galloping away from me with a loaded syringe of medicine. We ate out for lunch and smiled at the girls licking ice cream cones in happy silence. We took the girls strawberry picking in the golden sunshine and laughed at Bronte stealing huge strawberries from the basket to gnaw on like apples. And we delighted in finally getting some welcome rain to green the grass and fill our tanks, even if it came as the first storm of the season complete with hail, overflowing gutters and a shrieking overexcited three year old. We also had nights of work to do - Jase found me asleep sitting up with my hands in typing position on the laptop keyboard late one night. Oh how I can't wait to finish my uni lecturing for this semester -taking on a second job right at the moment was not my best plan.






Busy as we might always be, I wouldn't change it for the world (hmm OK I would throw a few sleep-ins in!)

Hope your weekend was brimming full of good stuff xo

As a mum with a career (hehe I go to great lengths to use any term other than working mother - I mean what mother doesn't work day-in day-out regardless of whether she is at a paying job or not!), life is a bit of a squeeze. I try to fit in all that I can. And for my little ones, this might mean that work days have less play and more go-go but Jase and I still try to make sure there is time to colour and learn letters and laugh and sing in there.

I think a lot of busy mums juggling jobs have those little "things" that they prioritise, things that make them feel like they are still cherishing and nourishing their children despite probably working themselves to the bone in the meanwhile. That act that when everything is exhausting and stressful, makes you feel like you are still doing alright...

For me, it is important that my kids go to daycare with home cooked food. Not only that but food I have cooked with them, so their lunch is all wrapped up with nice memories. So Sunday afternoons Elka teeters on a foot stool next to me as we measure and stir and pour. She is a brilliant cook after literally years of helping me - she can measure out a full cup of flour, she can roll out balls of biscuit dough, she loves to brush egg on pastry and she did a great job of crumbing chicken tenderloins the other night.

This past weekend, we cooked fat fluffy pikelets, Bronte leant down out of my arms and carefully flipped the pikelets over with her egg-flip whilst Elka carefully moved the cooked ones out onto a plate. We grated zucchini and carrot and cracked our home-laid eggs to cook a zucchini slice for their lunchboxes. And that makes me smile when I tiredly divy up little containers of food at night, mentally counting up to make sure they each have enough food packed for the next day.

Elka's favourite recipe at the moment are these jam drops - this mix is quite shortbready, keeps really well and are delicious hot and sticky out of the oven. Plus rolling the mix and spooning in the teaspoons of jam is just great for little hands.


Do you have a thing? Something that you like to make sure gets done, that makes you feel like all your ducks are still in a row and that you are coping with it all?

Its getting springlike and I feel the need to move out of all of my stockings and knee high boots. I am instead liking the thoughts of dresses, short full skirts and pencil cropped pants - all of which are already sitting in my cupboard just waiting to be worn in this golden warm air. But of course they need some cute shoes to keep the look fresh.

And what else but wedges? I have been on the look out for nice ones but it seems most stores are still desperately trying to discount and sell their winter shoe lines first... but I was at the checkout of Kmart the other day, buying Elka socks and undies - glamorous right?! The cutely dressed girl in front of me handed over some wedges to pay for. One - they were super hot wedges and Two - they were all of $25. Well I couldn't have reversed that pram out of that checkout line faster and I hot footed over to the shoe section where I found a heap of choices. There is nothing I love more than paying bottom dollar for a fashion trend that will be out as quickly as it's in.

Even better I scored a little black dress with pleated details on the way out discounted to $12. And both my cheapo purchases got jazzed up with a blazer, belt and statement necklace for a lovely girls day out at a High Tea today. The wedges were super comfy and I only fell off them once which I was quite happy with as they are pretty high!

These aren't the ones I bought - I am too lazy to get a picture of them and Kmart hasn't obliged by having them in their latest catalogue. But hey these are cute too!


On my wish list is also a pair of cute tan wedges for wearing with floral skirts and dresses and denim shorts. I like the casual feel of these from Wittner and even better they are currently on sale!

X-rays on my horse - that is how I spent the afternoon. Almost as expensive as Bronte's GA and CT scan. Sam has been showing a mild lameness for the last month or so and since it wasn't improving, we decided to get it checked so I can decide if I continue with him or put him back in the paddock to be a lawnmower slash pet.

In good news - his lameness is most likely treatable, in bad news it is his hooves. So I have moved from one horse that had problem hooves to another. Thoroughbreds are renowned for terrible feet and my last two horses have been prime examples of this.

Oh well - at least I am already seeing the therapeutic farrier as my normal farrier, he has the x-rays emailed to him and we can only do our best to fix Sam.

Fingers crossed he is back in work in a month or so, as according to the dressage instructor and the vet, he is worth the effort...