Happy Anniversary!

This is us in the photo booth at my friend's wedding in October.

On Saturday, Anthony and I 'celebrated' 17 years together.
When I say celebrated, Anthony spent the day working outside and I spent the day marking. Oliver sat neglected in his bedroom, alone and forlorn...(actually, he had a friend over and spent the day shooting things with Nerf guns). We did manage a movie on the couch in the evening though. And Anthony bought me a lovely bunch of flowers:

He picked these because they were purple. Sweetie.

Those of you that know Anthony will know that buying flowers isn't something he'd normally do. Not because he's stingy, he's just never been a romantic fellow. Until now. He can still surprise me.

And I guess that's one of the things that will keep us together. The fact that we can still surprise each other.

So many people take the easy way out in relationships. When things get tough, they get away as quick as they can. Things have been pretty tough for us. Not just the Sam thing - we've had other serious downs along with our ups.
But through it all we've stuck together. At first perhaps it was stubbornness. We jumped in so fast, so young (I've told you before about how we got together, bogan style), we would have been admitting weakness to let it fold, and honestly, who wants to hear the "I told you so"s?

In the early years, we had some rip-snorting fights. I remember once Anthony walked out on an argument and I was so angry I threw the closest thing at him. It just happened to be a wire cooling rack. It sailed straight through the (closed) window, leaving a drafty reminder of my temper for days.

We don't fight so much any more. We've learned to communicate better, and we've realised that you just can't change a person.

Mind you, they can change themselves, as the flowers demonstrate. We've both changed over 17 years, and I think it's made us better.

So, what's the secret to staying together? Don't give up. It's easy to think that there's something better out there, but from what I see in other people, there usually isn't. Talk, share, laugh, have your own space and let them have theirs, and do things together. Whether it's big fancy holidays or a night on the couch with a bowl of popcorn.

Sometimes I think it would be cool to be single - to go and explore the world, but then I remember I'm pretty happy where I am. With my best buddy.

Happy 17 years honey.

Spicky Specky Goodbye

I know, I should probably do a post on Kyle Sandilands, I'm so not hip!

Still, there are better things in life to waste my time (and typing fingers on).

 Like Spicks and Specks.

A while back, I blogged about my (almost) complete disinterest in television. In it, I mentioned that Spicks and Specks was one of the only shows that  actually bother watching.

Well sadly last night it came to an end. And despite the fact that I forgot to watch it more often than not, I'll miss it.

'Cause Spicks and Specks was a show I was comfortable with. It made me laugh, it gave me a chance to see a range of cool musical type people in funny situations...

 ...and it made me feel smart.

When I was younger, I could identify most songs within the first few bars. And as I grew older I got better at it. And I developed a fairly encyclopedic knowledge of music and musicians.
A totally useless skill I thought, until I realised that Alan Brough and Myf Warhurst got paid to do it every week. Bastards! I could have been so good on that show!

Because I'm not super intelligent, no matter how much I yearn to be so. Oh, I'm not dumb, but I've never been one of those intelligent, witty types that have a snappy answer for everything and seem to come up with the answer effortlessly.

When I'm watching Spicks and Specks I am smart. I can answer a lot of the questions. My family tell me how good I am at it. And it makes me feel good.

So it's not just the cool music, laughter and funky sets that I'll miss, it's also the world-beating feeling of awesomeness.

Thanks for the memories guys...(oh, and I'll see you next month at the Spicks and Speck-tacular!)

I'm booooooored!

That's what Oli's just informed me. 

Not at all reasonable of course, because of the following:

• His friend, Spencer, has only just left after a sleepover.
• He has 40 000 toys to keep him busy.
• He has about 10 drawing books, heaps of paper, pens, paints and canvases.
• The TV's on.
• He's got my iPad.
• He has a whole room full of Lego.

and

• He has a Nerf gun in his hand that his dad was kind enough to modify for him this morning.

Yes yes, you say, but why aren't you doing something with him?

I know that me complaining about Oliver's boredom may lead you to believe that I'm a terrible mother that never does anything with my child, instead plying him with toys and friends to keep him busy. Well, that's true (in part), but I do like to think that I balance that with quality time. Sometimes.

The truth is, at the moment I'm supposed to be marking a bunch of uni assignments (can't you tell by the way I'm bent over the books?). Which is why I had organised the sleepover. So that I wouldn't get the 'can we play a board game/hide and seek/Nerf wars' requests all day.

But of course now Spencer is gone, and Oli's got to entertain himself. Hence the 'I'm bored' statement.
I'd be interested to know whether this is a new phenomenon, or if it's as timeless as the act of having children.

Certainly, I remember boredom as a young 'un, but hey, I didn't have iPads or the internet (god I'm old!).

In their defence, my boys were always pretty good at entertaining themselves, and didn't seem o hate their own company as some kids do. But they have their moments.

What's your take on the 'I'm bored' scenario?

Death to Whipper Snippers!

Thanks Rickety for the photo.

Today, what should have been a half hour job turned into a epic battle between me and my new whipper snipper.

As you know, I do like to get out in the garden, but over the last couple of years, bits and pieces of my garden have gotten away from me. They are my 'weed gardens'.
I don't like that it's happened but I have a quarter acre block, too much to do, and not enough time to do it. Plus for the last couple of years I've been preoccupied.

But in our front yard (much of which is lovely with a big apple tree and berries galore), there are many of these weed gardens. One particularly bad patch is a bit near the road that has gone to grass.
And as it does, the grass grew. Quite tall actually.

It got to the point where I thought I'd better chop it down before it became a fire hazard/snake haven. So I got Anthony to go and buy a whipper snipper.
We went for electric this time, as our last petrol powered one met a grisly end. And it was noisy, and stinky and oily. I was happy with electric.

It's quite a nice little thing actually, but obviously not up to the massive task of thigh-high grass removal. I had barely managed 1 minute of snipping before it sucked the line into itself and stubbornly refused to work any more.

And there began our struggle. I patiently unscrewed the head, poked around for the line (which had somehow managed to tuck itself under other bits of line), rewound it and started again.

If you can imagine this process repeated 58 times, this was my afternoon.

Because I am stubborn (and extraordinarily patient, I think), I got the little weed garden chopped. It took a whole reel of line, but I did it. With a lovely accompaniment of words that I shall not repeat here.

It's sulking in the shed now. There are still more weed gardens that demand our attention, but they will have to wait. There's only so much a girl can take.

Checking in

Wow! It's been a busy couple of weeks!

The weekend just past was the first in quite a few that we haven't had some kind of social engagement.

Since we got back from Queensland, we've had Oliver's birthday, Anthony's birthday (and their respective celebrations, small as they were), then last weekend I went to the horribly tacky (but kinda interesting in a train wreck, social experiment way) Oktoberfest with my lovely brothers-in-law and their partners/friends (quite fun I guess).

I've also been doing my uni stuff. It was my last tute last Wednesday, just a big bunch of marking to do once the munchkins (can I call uni students munchkins?) hand their final HUGE assignment in. Let's just say between the 18th and end of November I'll be pretty much invisible!

And we've been gardening. It's spring, so the weeds are growing quickly (unfortunately we have a healthy share of them), but we have been balancing weeding with planting and preparing for a big crop of yummy vegies. Stay tuned for some delicious updates!

Oliver's started baseball on Saturdays, which of course knocks out most of the morning. But he's enjoying it, so that's what matters.

And I've been good too. Very diligently exercising, and watching carefully what I eat. I've lost 5 kilos so far, which is not as much as I'd expected, but a good start. More about that soon too.

But for now, it's time for me to go and snuggle up to my poor neglected Anthony.
Nighty night.