Love, bubs and life on our little farm

I am feeling really indecisive at the moment... I just can't commit to any decisions. Do I want to enter the showjumping competition that is coming up... do I want to call the tree-loppers for a quote on cutting down a dead gum tree on our driveway... even shopping is leaving me flummoxed - do I want coffee cups, jumpers or some new summer clothes - dressy or casual? Do I want to save my pennies for now? Oh but what about the Oroton sale - but do I really need a new handbag? Do I want to clean the house throughly or do I just want to do a cursory clean and have some relax time instead? Are we going to book a fancy hotel for our trip to Sydney or something more practical close to the party we are going for... What shall we do with the mini-holiday that Jase is taking from work soon... Arrrgh!

Normally, I am the sort of person that just makes a decision and gets on with it. But I seem to have lost my confidence. I think I know what it is - we have a few big happenings potentially coming up in the second half of this year, early next year but at this stage nothing is decided or committed to. So I am don't know what to think yet or what to plan for and its trickling down into all facets of my life...

I really need to learn to live in the moment. Just soak up the loveliness of being right now. I know the rest will work itself out :)

.. but then I worry that without some goals we won't push forward and achieve what we want. arrgh I am so indecisive I can't even decide on how to make myself feel better! I think I need some chocolate....

I was at competing at a Dressage/Showjumping competition on the weekend. It is something I have done for years and its like second nature to prepare the horse and myself. However, it did cross my mind at how things that are just normal life to a horse owner/competitor are not quite so normal to the non-equine enthusiaist.. and I had to list some



10 Signs that you compete horses..

1. You cant imagine not being able to braid. It is an essential skill, not only that but it must be performed whilst standing a foot in the air on a rocking milk crate desperately hanging onto the slippery forelock of a fidgety horse.
2. You knew a thousand uses for baby wipes long before having a baby.
3. Your saddle cost more than your first car.
4. You were wearing knee high leather boots over pants way before it became fashionable.
5. It's not strange that the person riding next to you spent 12 thousand dollars to buy their horse.
6. You use horse make up, hairspray, wonder soap, Mr Sheen etc on your horse and don't understand why non- horseriders think that is funny.
7. Your horse sees a variety of medical specialists monthly but you won't go to the doctor unless its possibly terminal.
8. You spend hours clearing the paddocks of manure and you think your visitors will notice.
9. You never have to worry about tuckshop arms; trying to control half a tonne of horse that thinks its still a racehorse, move hay bales and carry water and food buckets is better than any gym.
10. You have broken at least two fingers and three toes and you know two or more people that are missing a finger to the first knuckle.
    

So you might remember this post here, where I am going to a cocktail wedding next month. Well I found my perfect dress for it whilst wandering through Witchery and better yet it was on sale and then further discounted- could it get much better (well it did actually cause I discovered I needed it in a size 6 - always a nice surprise!). The photo doesn't do it justice, its very pretty on and the top is a lovely sheer cream and the skirt a lovely soft pink mushroom colour. I have the perfect earrings for it and some nice chocolate pump heels that should suit but I still need some light stockings, possibly a new strapless bra and I am not quite sure what wrap or cardigan to buy to match it... (any ideas? I was thinking a dusky pink?)

Its actually surprisingly similar colours etc to the Alex Perry gown that I posted in my orginal post - funny how that worked out!

So, I love watching fashion and I love seeing what is on trend. But sometimes I sit it out and just watch from the sidelines. Memorable fashions that I didn't jump onboard for me are the fluoro colours of the mid-1990's, the high waisted double breasted skirts that came up to just under your boobs from just recently and the current trend of wearing leggings with short or tight tops that dont cover the crotch (oh the camel toes I have had to see recently!)

There are other fashion trends that I might like but for some reason dont suit me one bit. I cant wear oversized tops... I look really swamped and silly. I think I need more height to pull it off.

So Shop Till You Drop has done a spread on The Original 90210. It came to me as an email from As Seen In as a top trend. I opened the email ready to wince and shake my head - I remember those fashions from the first time round and it wasn't too pretty! But surprisingly, I quite like the clothes! I like the silhouettes of the body dresses and the acid wash is kinda funky...





Now I am worrying - should I be hating it? Normally I think I would... SHould I be sitting this one out?

I won't bore you with too many details but I am battling yet another sickness. That would be about a sickness a week for the last few months. Its been a hard winter for Elka and I. Last week was the lowest so far - a horrible virus that looked awfully like meningitis that caused me to lose 2kg in 12 hours and knocked Elka for six for days and required emergency Drs appointments and bags packed for the hospital. Not fun. But we are through that - only to find my glands are now swollen and I can barely swallow :(

So I am turning to my home remedies - I have started taking zinc tablets which have helped boost my immune response in the past and I have been eating an orange a day. Anyone want to share their failsafe immune boosting tips?

According to my mum, I need to put on some weight. And I had been poohooing her but I am starting to think she is onto something. The last time I was repeatedly chronically ill, was when we moved into the farm and I had randomly gone off food for a month or so and dropped about 4 kilos rapidly. Recently, I have been stressed with work and very busy running after a toddler and am under my normal weight - add to that that the 2kg I lost last week and I am now thinking I should put some weight on (arrggh I dont think I have ever said that before!). On the plus side - my jeans might start fitting again... and I might be able to convince Jase to cook me his soft centred chocolate pudding - yum!

Hmm choc pud sounds like the perfect cold and flu remedy ;)

Blog This Challenge for This Week
Tell us fifteen facinating, far fetched, frightening, funny or frivilous facts about yourself. Those bits of trivia that are floating around in your life.

Can you eat 10 burgers in one sitting? Do you sleep with your eyes open? Can you tie a cherry stalk into a knot? Speak 5 different languages?

All those things that you've bored your friends and family with for years - We want to know.

1. I am lactose intolerant. I hated milk all my life and always wondered why ice cream made me sick, but it took until I was 22 to work it out. I now love soy milk.
   
2. I grew up in the Hinterland behind Byron Bay - I remember when it was a quiet little hippy town and the Main Beach was my baby beach where I played in the sand nude. I can't believe what the Bay is like now - its a mini-Sydney with so many yuppies.
   
3. I do not relax... ever! I cannot sit still or not do three things at once. I refuse to nap during the day, even when I had a newborn. I figure life is too short and I will rest when I am dead.
4. Similarily, I dont like weakness or people who give up easily. If I can't do something, then I just try harder until I can. As a result, I hated being told I couldn't do things when I was pregnant - this was made doubly annoying by also being told to rest all the time LOL.
5. I don't really like talking on the phone, even as a teenager I didn't like it - I get bored. I much prefer to talk to my friends face to face.
6. My favourite author is Jane Austen. I love her wit.
7. I can't handle having neighbours that are close to me. I get upset if people can see me in my backyard. I lived in the suburbs for seven years during my uni years and hated it.
8. I can sense snakes - I can often tell when a snake is nearby.
9. I also dream things before they happen. They are always bad news though unfortunately.
10. I don't use my title of Dr very often. I worry that people will think I am a MD Dr and want me to answer boring medical questions or resuscitate someone.
11. I am the worst ironer I know. I simply refused to use an iron for 10 years or so. When I was a full time stay at home mum for 7 months or so, I tried to iron Jase's shirts for him. He often had to redo them before putting them on.
12. I am also a crazy cook - I never really follow recipes. I show Jase the food I cook in the pan or dish before I serve it up as I tend to destry food when dishing it up. Most things end up looking like mush.
13. I like to treat the house to flowers. Most weeks I make sure that there are fresh flowers in our lounge room.
    
14. I love animals and can't imagine my life without having pets. My charity is the RSPCA and aminal mistreatment stories make me very angry. If I saw someone mistreating an animal, I think I would try to hurt them.
15. I love Japan - I have been there three times and we have been thinking about going again soon. It is a fascinating culture. I got to live there for five weeks and work in a Japanese laboratory - it was the best work trip I have even done. The Japanese government paid for me and also gave me massive amounts of spending money. I saved most of it as I found it easy to live there cheaply and spent it on duty free extravagances on the way home. That was very fun shopping as I was a poor uni student at the time!
    

With great pride and pleasure I would like to offer for sale my Mother's first collection of Baby Clothes. She hasn't had time to set up an internet shop so I will be selling this batch from here - payment will be by direct deposit.

So we have done all the hard yards on the paving of our back laundry courtyard and I can finally do some before and after shots.

The courtyard is a little fenced area that we inherited from the previous owners - it had coloured gravel down and little skanky dead garden beds around the edge. The clothes line was not set in the centre and there was a drain running across the centre that actually had 45 degree corner in it and did very little to move out all of the water that flows from our tank overflows on that side of the house. Consequently - it was hot and yukky underfoot in Summer and flooded and muddy in any wet times. Needless to say, I preferred to hang my washing out on the clothes horses on the back verandah.

During our work on the drains for all the yards - front, back and side, the laundry garden became the dumping zone and it became very messy. Not only that but a little brown tree snake moved in there and was constantly scaring us and trying to eat my lovely green tree frogs in front of me! So it was high time to spend some time on cleaning it up.




We ordered huge piles of soil, sand, roadbase and had a massive stack of our pavers of choice delivered. The driveway looked like a landscaping supply store!

We laid two different drains - a non-slotted pipe to move all the water from our drains further up that side of the house and then the black rigid drain that sits on top to catch the water from the courtyard itself. We moved out endless wheel barrows of clay soil to drop the level down to what was required for the paving. This was long and hard and complicated by endless rain. Sure, the rain made the clay soft enough to cut out but oh so heavy at the same time. Both Jase and I toned our arms nicely ;)





Jase built two large planter boxes for either side of the courtyard and we filled them with soil and mulch.

Next we moved in a bed of roadbase. We also paused at this point to have the house termite treated which included digging into our base - it slowed us down but was well worth it for the protection it will provide over the next 10 years. At this point it poured with rain but we had already booked all of the hire equipment we needed for the paving so we had to press on.

We dealt with ankle deep wet clay, puddles of water in our base and mud flying everywhere from the compacter. It was pretty bad!



We had to cut heaps of tiles which made the extremely heavy tile cutter worth hiring! We paved over the long weekend and had floodlights set up as we paved into the night. We had no one to help mind Elka so we tagged teamed and Elka also got to play in (and eat!) a lot of sand. I also had a big horse competition on at the same time which meant I was extra sore and tired. Finally at 9pm on the Monday night of the long weekend, we had finished the bulk of the paving.

I completed the job over the next week or so, evening up wonky pavers and sweeping in the gap sand. Finally we dug the hole for the clothesline and set it back in with concrete - its now dead in the centre and looks much better! The final step is to place polished black pebbles in the clothesline hole and to plant in the planter boxes. We are planning gardens of multi-levels - ie gradiating heights and the front plants will be "touch and smell" plants for Elka to play with.

It was not fun and a lot of hard work but we are very pleased with the result and it serves the purpose of being a great spot to hang out the clothes. Believe it or not, but far from putting us off paving we have two more paving jobs planned!

So its been a little quiet on the blogging front lately for me. I am adapting to working three days a week now and it does take a lot more balancing. So of course its my time on the internet that suffers (as it should!). However my boss did point this article out to me the other day and I liked finally seeing a positive article on working mothers and wanted to blog about it.

The study supports something I have felt recently - that Elka still gets just as much quality time with me when I am working as I put so much more effort into our hours together in the morning and evening. I found on my "Stay at home Mum" days I am much more likely to get distracted by housework, farm chores, trips out etc and in some ways she doesn't get as much one-on-one Mummy play time.

I really love picking her up from daycare and hearing about her day, chatting in the car and then coming home to have some playtime with her toys (which are extra interesting since she has had time away from them!). It really is quality time, made even more so by the fact that I am fresh and eager to soak up some time with her, since I have missed her all day.

So chins up working mums! We can do it all (or at least do our darndest trying!)

xoxo

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25710533-23289,00.html

WORKING mothers can shed some of their "mother guilt", after a new study found their babies received just as much time being nurtured as the babies of stay-at-home mums.

The groundbreaking research reveals little difference between how much time the babies of full-time working mothers are held, cuddled, read to and talked to compared with babies of mothers who do not work.

The report's co-author, Jennifer Baxter, a research fellow at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, said: "This may be through mothers working hours that allow them to maximise the quality time they spend with their child. The other factor is the extra time the child spends with their father, or other relatives, or carers.

"When mothers work full time they spend about 83 minutes less per day with their child compared to a stay-at-home mother, but the child spends an average 81 minutes more a day with their father."

The study, Breastfeeding and Infants' Time Use, draws on diary data kept by the parents of 3000 babies aged between three and 14 months.

AIFS director Alan Hayes said the research offered significant insights into the question mothers so often asked, about the effect on their child of returning to work. "Given the pressures on Australian families today, this study presents encouraging signs that they appear to try and manage the responsibilities of work and raising families in a way that does not negatively impact on children," Professor Hayes said.

Melbourne mother Belinda Quinn, on parental leave from her job as a commercial property manager to look after four-month-old Harvey, said her brief experience doing a little work from home had made her realise how resourceful working mothers became.

"Your day revolves around getting the work done so you can spend that quality time with your baby," 30-year-old Ms Quinn said. "I think working mothers probably outsource those things that stay-at-home mothers have to do, so both get that important time with their child. If I was working I'd have a cleaner and spend the time with Harvey. Through my own guilt I'd probably try and spend as much time with Harvey as I could rather."

The report also looked behind the positive correlation between breastfeeding and enhanced development, finding breastfed infants often did more activities than those who were not.

"Breastfed infants were more likely to have been reported to have spent some time crawling, climbing or swinging arms/legs, and some time colouring, drawing and looking at books or puzzles," the report found.

Breastfed children also spent significantly less time sleeping, eating other food and watching television.

Dr Baxter said: "We aren't condemning non-breastfeeding mothers, rather trying to explain that breastfeeding is not the only element to the development and nurturing of children. There are many other things that happen in a young child's day."

I finally have time to blog about Elka's Birthday Party that was on last Saturday. I am keen to record it all as I am sure it will all slip from my memory in a few years!

I was super busy with all the cooking and preparations on the days leading up to it. I was also battling a terrible cold and chest infection so it wasn't the easiest thing I have done. My parents weree supposed to come up on the Friday to mind Elka so that I could get lots of cleaning and setting up done.. well they didn't end up arriving until just before my In-Laws that evening, so rather than help, I just got a house full of guests to care for. Hmm thanks!

But that said, both sets of Grandparents were champions on the Saturday morning helping out with picking up the hire chairs, extra groceries, blowing up balloons etc and of course showering the Birthday Girl with lots of love.

There were two tables of food - one decked out in a purple tablecloth and one in green to match the green and purple polka-dot balloons. The menu included chocolate slice with white chocolate dots on top, vanilla cupcakes with choc-chip sprinkles, chocolate cupcakes with jaffa chocolate icing, a fruit platter, two cob loaf dips, smarties, fairy bread, cheerio frankfurts and sauce and puff pastry and mushroom palmiers fresh out of the oven. The kids also had a kiddie sized table with a cut fruit platter to munch on. There was beer, sparkling wine, sparkling apple juice and soft drink.

And of course the cake - it was a thick vanilla buttercake (great recipe!) cooked in the shape of the number one, iced in vienna cream icing and decorated with smarties. I was really pleased with how it turned out.

Unfortunately, there were showers of rain all day, so we had to set the party up on the back verandah, rather than the yard which catches the lovely afternoon winter sun. There was a play area for the kids with lots of toys and of course the horses, ducks and chickens get the little ones (and some of the big ones too!) entertained.

All of my antenatal class friends came, some mummies from my local Mummies group, my brother, both our parents and some old school friends with their lovely little ones. It was only a relatively small group - about 20 but perfect for the back verandah and it was all Elka's little friends that she loves to play with.

Elka loved the attention although she was pretty tired from all the excitement already. She discovered that she loved smarties and managed to con lots of people into letting her have some. She also destroyed a cupcake pretty quickly! She got lovely gifts including a beautiful wooden xylophone, an Etch-a-Sketch, beautiful clothes, her name as a wooden puzzle and lots of great books and puzzles. Her favourite is a mini dust pan and broom as she loves helping me clean the house - very cute ;)

And now for the pictures :)

The gorgeous and clever Leila has tagged me with some questions...

What is your current obsession?
It was until this weekend decorating food in polka dot's for Elka's birthday party....

What are you wearing today?
Grey knitted men style pants, grey and white stripy tailored shirt, a black knitted vest jumper and a cute black military jacket that I borrowed (stole) off my mum.. its a work day not a mummy day hence the lack of jeans ;)

What’s for dinner?
Some sort of Teriyaki chicken - its Jase's meal to cook so I haven't paid much attention..

What’s the last thing you bought?
Butter menthols and petrol (at the same time) - am still sick blah and living semi-rurally and commuting to the city means needing lots of petrol...

What are you listening to right now?
The ducks fighting outside and I can hear some Lorikeets. The farm is having a lovely peaceful morning..

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
Possibly Derbyshire to catch up with an old friend - I love where she lives, true Jane Austen country

Which language do you want to learn?
Japanese

What do you love most about where you currently live?
My beautiful acreage with the ghost white gum trees and green grass and big blue sky - its just so peaceful and filled with animals. I love having room for my horses and privacy but with so many facilities (read good shopping!) close by. I also love here for the beautiful weather all year round, semi-tropical plants and the beach being near by.

What is your favorite colour?
It changes every few years but is currently mint green or plum purple.

What is your favorite piece of clothing in your own wardrobe?
At the moment it is a toss up between a vintage skirt I bought in Paris (hehe sounds wanky but true!) or a cute knitted Witchery dress I bought for this season..

Describe your personal style?
I love fashion - I am normally fairly understated and try to achieve elegance. But I also try to be a little on trend but with my own interpretation. I am a funny mix of preppy and a little gothic romantic...

If you had $300 now, what would you spend it on?
Shoes and some new cardigans

What are you going to do after this?
Go to the dentist :( then to work

What are your favorite films?
Zoolander
Love Actually
Top Gun
Days of Thunder
Romeo and Juliet (Baz's version)

Your favourite smell?
Horse

Do you collect anything?
Antique books

What makes you follow a blog?
A genuine person who is writing for themselves not for an audience

Do you like to comment on blogs or just lurk?
I try to comment but sometimes I am short of time..

What’s one thing you dream of doing?
I have acheived most things I used to dream of :) and that is just so wonderful and something I am thankful for every day. I would like to get back into photography with a decent camera and take my mum on African safari one day (so far we have done Western Plains Zoo together LOL)

What is your biggest regret?
I have a few but honestly I wouldnt change anything as all my decisions have made me the person I am where I am today (cheesy but truly how I feel!)

What is your favourite thing to do on a rainy day?
Put on a DVD and have something yummy cooking in the oven. 2nd fav thing to do is to go shopping and sit in a cosy cafe drinking a hot choc and watching the rain :)

Do you have a tattoo?
No - I have very pale skin and a tatoo would look very harsh so I have never gotten on. I would love a little seahorse below my hipbone if I did get one though..

You have 1 minute before you die, what do you say to your loved one/s?
That I love them and that life is wonderful - make the most of every minute. I feel that I have.

A big thank you to the gorgeous Kirrily for the tag on this challenge.


It's really simple. I love how every photo tells a story. Some short stories, some long tales. I want to know what is your favourite photo of yourself. Everyone has one. The photo they look at and smile. It reminds them of something, some time, some place. A moment in time.So share the photo, share the story and then tag three other people. I want to see photos and stories all around the blogosphere.

Copy and paste the writing that is in bold as well as the polaroid above onto your blog, and then select three other people/blogs to tag.


Here is my choice - it was a hard one, I am very blessed with a wonderful life filled with loves and travels and I could have picked a million photos. But this photo stands out to me in particular. It was taken three years ago, when I was 25. Jase and I were celebrating our first wedding anniversary by backpacking around Europe. I was presenting my PhD work to an international conference in the UK and was very close to finishing my PhD so I had been frantically busy and stressed (I remember the night before we left for the trip I was at uni setting up experiments at 1am) and was now enjoying taking 7 weeks to spend with my husband eating and exploring Italy, France, the UK and Japan. *bliss*
We were soaking up the Spring sun in Positano on the Italian Almafi coast and I love how relaxed my face is (something you didn't see much during my PhD years). Our hotel was one of our "splurge" hotels and we were feeling very decadent and indulgent. All up - a very happy romantic time and that photo brings it all back to me.



I am tagging

Lydia at Twice Mice
Jo at You are Nearly There Joanna
and
Sarah at MamaP

..how we celebrated! I will mostly let the photos do the talking. And yes its a bubby heavy blogging week as I still have her Birthday Party on Saturday to come :) but hey my baby girl only turns one once and I want to record it all.

We woke up the Birthday Girl on a misty winter morning to discover the poor thing had a terrible wheezy chest. But she partied on regardless and a trip to the Drs didn't interrupt the festivities too much.

..my little baby girl joined us in the great big world. I can't believe Elka is one year old but at the same time I cant really remember life without her. She has filled our lives with so many laughs and hugs and has made me slow down and appreciate the view. I will blog separately about how we spent her birthday as we had a gorgeous special day.

I love being a mum - it was something I never knew if I was going to be good at. I had never been around babies. But it just works with Elka, I am very much her mum without even having to think about it. She has been a dream baby - very peaceful and content. She is a magic sleeper and I have loved using the Tizzy Hall routines with her, it all just makes sense with us. She has been sleeping through the night since she was 9 weeks old and from 6 months old has slept 12 hours a night without needing a feed every single night, I get to sleep in until 7am everyday which I love (besides work days!). Her day sleeps are lovely and long and have allowed me to ride the horse with the baby monitor tucked down my shirt - its been a luxury to be able to have that me time during the day. She is constantly cheery and loves to smile and laugh - she makes friends and admirers everytime we leave the house with her engaging manner. I loved being able to breastfeed and found that time was very special. I have loved watching her little mind and personality devlop and have joyously marked every one of her milestones as she grows into a little person. Its been a wonderful year - with so much more sleep than I ever expected!

She has learnt so much in the last month - she is talking lots - she can say mum, dad, duck, more, that, shoe, hello, bye, yeah... she tries to sing Baa Baa Black Sheep and does the moves to Twinkle Twinkle and Little Teapot. If you ask her to get something, she will go get it. She can point out her nose when asked. She can communicate that she wants a drink or some more food. She is extra smoochy and loves to give cuddles and kisses. I love having a shower with her as she relaxes into my chest making crooning noises and hugs me tight or caresses my face, very sweet. She is drinking cows milk now and has graduated to a sippy cup for her milk. She loves crackers with cream cheese at the moment. I can't eat an apple without sharing it with her. She loves to fetch her shoes and try to put them on so that we can go outside. She wanders around while I feed the animals and tries to break into the horse paddock when I am feeding them - she will be hard to keep out of there soon!


and now I am going to indulge myself with a walk down memory lane of the last year :)