Love, bubs and life on our little farm

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!