Purpose

“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.” - Robert Byrne

One of the things that many people do is live a life of purpose. Feeling like what you do means something can be very empowering. 

For a few years now, I've taken a great deal of satisfaction from doing things that give me a sense of purpose. Sometimes I wonder if it's a stage that I've gotten to. I also wonder if it's a stage that everyone gets to. Does everyone get to the point where they get more joy and fulfilment out of doing things that mean something than doing things for money or instant gratification? Do some people do it from their childhood? Do some people never get to that stage? 

It's not that I've always been selfish and now I'm not. I've always enjoyed things like buying presents for people or feeding people. But now, it's a deeper drive. In fact, I'm at the point where I wish I could work in my paid employment less so that I can spend more time doing volunteer stuff. 

It all started when our family first started getting seriously into LEGO. We attended the first Brick Expo in 2010 and by 2012 we were entering our own models in the exhibition. And then I started helping out. Now I'm on the organising committee. Yes, we love LEGO, but the thing I love about it the most is that we're supporting a charity. I get such a buzz out of watching the kids (and adults) enjoy the exhibits, but also handing over our donation each year. 

Me and one of the 501st Legion at Brick Expo. They do great stuff with purpose too!

If I could do more I would. And I probably will one day, when financial pressures ease off a little. It's funny, I find myself looking forward to retirement not so that I can sit around, but so that I can do more. 

I don't know if it adds to my resilience, but surely the feeling of well-being that I get out of this must contribute to my overall mental health. 

What do you do that makes you feel good? What gives you a sense of purpose?

The Ultimate Lego Experience

Something really cool happened to us this week.
As you know, we really love Lego at our house. And this week, we were lucky enough to experience an ultimate Lego fan moment.

This year, Lego is celebrating 50 years in Australia. They have been celebrating with the 'Festival of Play' all year. Back in October, they asked the question 'what would you do with 50000 green Lego bricks?".

Well, I don't know whether I told you, but we've been making our own Christmas tree out of Lego. Oliver and I made one last year, and he and Anthony made this year's one. It's s nice change from the usual gacky ones, and it brings a little bit of fun into a time of year that we don't usually enjoy all that much.

Anyway, I sent them a photo of last year's tree:

And the next thing you know, we had won!
We had to keep it a secret for a couple of weeks, which was hard, but we (kinda) managed it.

So anyway, on Wednesday, Ryan McNaught, some lovely public relations folks and a whole bunch of media turned up at our house. Along with a 2m high Christmas tree made out of green Lego bricks.

It was a lot of fun watching Ryan, Anthony and Oliver put the tree together, and even more fun to see the media circus! At one point there were about 15 people in our tiny living/lounge room, plus a bunch of cameras and lights. They took lots of really nice photos (some of which are available here), and interviewed Oli, who was well and truly sick of holding the 'let's put a star on the tree' pose by the 37th time:

After everyone had left, he said 'I never want to see another camera again!'.

We got some good coverage; in the Australian, AAP, the Canberra Times, WIN news and the lovely photos on the Festival of Play website. My little fella was a celebrity for a minute - especially at school - but I'm hoping it's not his only 15 minutes of fame.

Everybody asks us what we're going to do with a massive Christmas tree. Well, we know that we can move it around the place pretty easily, as we packed it all up and took it out to the Cotter yesterday for the CLUG (Canberra Lego Users Group) Christmas party. It transported very well, and didn't take all that long to take down and put back up.

So, we thought it would be nice to offer it to a few different venues next year, where it can be displayed to raise money for charity. We will probably also take it to the Brick Expo next year too.
In between, we'll probably leave it up. I'm no good with indoor plants, so we can take the decorations off and put it in the corner! Anthony's building a shed out the back that will be a rumpus (Lego) room, so that will be a good spot for it.

All in all, a very cool experience! Thanks Lego and Ryan McNaught!

First, an update

As you know, my life's not generally as exciting as that of the glitterati, but for a normal person, I've had some cool stuff going on this year. So first things first, a quick update. The year in pictures:

In March, I bought a new car:

Her name is Ruby Scarlet, and she's just lovely.
We were also due to go ballooning in March (on what would have been Sam's 16th birthday), but it was too wet. But we did go one foggy morning in April:

If you've never been in a hot air balloon, can I suggest you try it? It's a truly wonderful experience!


Of course, it wasn't all fun and shiny red cars, I did have to work. But, oh, that's right. I have a very cool job. We do some interesting things:

In April I also did my Sh'Bam instructor training. And then I went to Sydney and did Sh'Bam with 300 super-fit hotties!

And then in May, I went to Melbourne for a dear old friend's 40th. And I saw Prince. He was very cool.

Then we went to Sydney and walked across the bridge.

And swam  in a rooftop pool in the rain:

We bought some goats:

(They're gone now. They were a bit stinky! And they needed more room - and edible trees - than we could give them!)
We walked up some mountains:

And we played with Lego. In Sydney and in Canberra:

And most recently, in Milton:

(We'd lost Wally. But lots of people found him. I'll tell you about it sometime).

 And we welcomed a new member of the family:

Meet Rollo!

So yeah, all in all it was good. Good, yeah.
And before you ask, yes. I did have a nice year. And spent a lot of money. And was lucky enough to do some really cool things with my family. And that's what life (and this blog) is all about now.
I'm sure I'll get to tell you more soon. I hope you'll join me!

Happy Birthday to me

Every time I drop off the blog radar, I come back saying I've been busy.
Well this time I really have been busy. Super-dooper busy!
The end of my uni semester was crazy, with 60 gigantic assignments to mark, which pretty much took up every moment that wasn't filled with work and sleep (my poor little neglected family!).
But, I'm not going to waste your time with that, I've got lots of other exciting adventures to write about!

I'm going to start with Friday. Today's post is about my 38th birthday.

I think I may have mentioned previously that I have spent the last year telling people I'm turning 39 this year. It was only when I was talking about my 40th (and the grand celebration it will be - stay tuned for my 'save the date' cards people!), when I realised that I was actually a year younger than I'd been saying I was. I mean really, Who does that??

Nevermind, it was nice to realise that I was actually a year younger than I'd thought I was. 'Cause I don't like this aging thing. I liked being young and crazy and full of energy (though, I still do have some crazy tendencies - more about that in the next post!)

However I say this, it will sound like whinging, so I'll just whinge. It's tough having a birthday in December. For one, there's the inevitable 'here's your birthday and Christmas present combined' deal, or the suspiciously light-on pressie because everyone's blown their money on Christmas presents. My parents were always pretty good about it (perhaps because my dad's birthday is three days before mine), but it did come from other quarters.
Then there's the 'I can't make your party, I have a Christmas party to go to' thing (hence the 'save the date cards mentioned earlier'. December babies are always competing with Christmas. Mind you, I guess I'm luck I'm not a Christmas Day baby.

So it was with fairly low expectations that I approached my birthday. I'd originally planend to have some drinks at our place, but other events (again, see future posts) meant that I decided to cancel. But I was OK with having a nice quiet day.

It started out well. As usual, I was up well before anyone else. No breakfast in bed for me, but that's OK, because only I can make my eggs the way I like them!

Oliver got up and was his usual gorgeous, charming self. Then Anthony. They gave me a big present and I actually said 'my god, you didn't give me Lego, did you?'. But yes folks, it was Lego. I quite like the Medieval Lego, so Anthony had gotten that for me. I must admit, I was a little disappointed, as Anthony hasn't always been the best present buyer; one year he bought me Guitar Hero for Wii, and he quite often dashes off the night before to buy something.

Then they brought out the Pandora bag. Now, at least a year ago I hinted that I'd like a Pandora bracelet. So when I saw the bag I got excited. Inside was a box, and when I opened it I found this:

Ha ha.


Of course then Anthony showed me the real thing. A lovely silver bracelet. But even better, he had bought a charm with my birthstone, as well as having the boy's names engraved on two silver spacers.

So thoughtful and lovely. But then, that's been Anthony of late...

I then went to work, did a little bit, then had a lovely Christmas lunch with my wonderful colleagues.

There were lots of lovely Facebook messages, which made me feel a bit special, a visit from the family, then a quiet night: a few drinks, a yummy laksa and a snuggle with my boys, and I was happy.

Maybe there is hope for birthdays after all...

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?

Hello?

I know, it's very cheeky of me to think that anyone would still be around after completely neglecting my ever-faithful readers for the last month, but I thought I'd better pop my head in.

In my defence, I've been exceptionally busy since I last spoke with you, not to mention horribly ill for the last couple of days (it's so nice to be able to sit up for any length of time!)
Mind you, I'm not completely better yet. I got hit with a very rapid onset cold on Monday night, and have been in bed since. In fact, I'm writing this while all snuggled up. I think I've got a little bit of a chest infection to be honest, so if I'm not better tomorrow, it's back to the doc. I don't want to get pneumonia (again).

So, my last post was on the 29th of August. I've had many adventures since then: There's been a strike, which is always interesting, if nothing else. There's been lots of work-related hi-jinx with some new, and very interesting and fun, colleagues - did you know it's been a whole year since I started my new job? And I still love it!
I've also started my other casual job doing some tutoring at the Uni. That's been a lot of fun too, though at times frustrating (I'm a little pedantic about spelling and these are university students - I'll say no more...), and scary (do I really know enough to teach at a university level?). I'm even giving a lecture next week, which is even more scary! Still, I'm glad to be doing it. It's a nice kind of teaching.

We had Father's Day, which was a pretty quiet affair, with my Dad away and me not 100% (what is it with me lately?), but the boys did some nice kite flying:

We have also been busy creating a 'Lego Room'. We have an old trailer/caravan thing that's been sitting out in the backyard full of junk, so we cleaned it out (chucking most of the junk out thank goodness!), and moved all the Lego from Oliver's room.

Last week, James and I went to see The Living End at the local uni bar. We probably wouldn't have gone if not for the whole Sam thing. As you know, The Living End was Sam's favourite band, and I had said that I would go the next time they were here. If Sam was alive, he definitely would have been there with me (it was over 18s, but we would have worked something out!), but it was good having James there, as he gets it. So once again, it was a good night tinged with sadness. It was a pretty good night, they always play well and they played enough of their old music to get most of the crowd involved.

I also spent last Saturday night being extremely wicked at the Hen's Night of a good friend: drinks, dancing, strippers, you know - the usual. You know, despite the horror of finding myself at Mooseheads (check out the photo!), it was actually fun, and a bit of an ego boost, as many boys came up and tried it on with me, and not just the ugly desperate ones!
It was a great night in which I (of course) had a bit too much to drink, which was a bit silly as the next day Oliver and I were due to take part in the annual Canberra Times Family Walk. 


Luckily, I was spared any sign of a hangover and we had a pleasant (if very cold) 5km walk around the lake. It's the second year we've done it (my friend Deb went too with her daughter Lucy), and it's lots of fun for a good cause (The Heart Foundation).

Phew! It's no wonder I've had no time for blogging! I will try to get back in here regularly, but it doesn't look like slowing down. We're going on a holiday soon (robbers beware, our house will be inhabited), plus it's not only social season (have you noticed that the social engagements seem to pile up when the weather starts to warm up?), but it's birthday season around our place. This month we've got Anthony's mum's 60th (it was on Tuesday but we're having lunch on Sunday); then in October we've got Oliver and Anthony(40!), as well as Anthony's brother Tim; then in November we've got Anthony's brothers Phil and Christopher and foster sister Ange; and finally in December there's James, my Dad and me! Lots of cake. Not so good for me who is now on a no-cake diet!

Actually, that's the other thing. My doctor told me the other day that I'm 'this close' to diabetes. So I'm going to lose some weight. No, I really am! It may well take up the bulk of my future posts.

So until the next one, much love to you.

The C-word

Yes, I'm talking about Christmas (what did you think I was gonna say? This is a family blog!) ;p

Since I 'growed up', I've never been really big on Christmas. I think it all started when I was 15...

As you know, retailers like to start their Christmas celebrations early. And department stores are the worst offenders. Think about how annoying it is to see Christmas decorations going up in September and hearing Christmas carols everywhere you go (OK, I realise this isn't annoying for everyone, so bear with me!). Now imagine what it's like for the poor staff of those department stores, who don't get to pass through for 45 minutes or so, instead they endure the carols (and the festive air) for whole shifts. Sometimes marathon 15 hour shifts...

This was my life for those couple of Christmases. By the time I moved on to other jobs, I was pretty much cured of the festive spirit. And as you well know, last Christmas was just about the worst time of my whole life, so we don't have a lot of good to go on.


Me Me Me!
It also doesn't help that my birthday's a little over a week before Christmas. However I say this, it will sound selfish and petulant, but sharing your birthday with the 'festive season' sucks! There are the 'here's your birthday/Christmas present in one' moments (which thankfully don't happen too often as I have a wonderful family); the fact that your birthday gets forgotten in the rush of end-of term/Christmas shopping/party season; and that you never get a full house at your birthday parties because of all the Christmas dinners and other events that go on at that time of the year.
I can't help it, I like birthdays, especially mine. I like to make a fuss of those kinds of events. It could be a Sagittarius thing (if you read the profile, you may well recognise some of my personality traits!). I do like the attention...

And when Anthony and I hooked up, we weren't all that keen either. Both of us are atheists and it always seemed a little hypocritical to celebrate the birth of Christ. After all, we do live in a society which incorporates many religious perspectives (don't we?).


But...
Having said all that, we did make the decision early on that we wouldn't deprive our kids of Christmas. We didn't want them being the only one in the class who didn't get a present (a little less common when Sam was little); and I loved (love) buying them lots of presents.

And as the years have gone on, I've got a little better at getting into the spirit. I put lights up every year, and decorate the lounge room with the kids. I buy too many pressies for them and usually bake yummy shortbread for gifts. We put cookies and carrots out for santa and hang stockings up on Christmas Eve.

I don't do Christmas cards. I tried it a couple of times, but can either never get them out on time, don't send enough, or forget all together. Eventually I decided I wouldn't waste the paper (they just get chucked out anyway, don't they?) I do try to say a quick hello/happy Christmas to most people I know though.


The Tree
We've never been very traditional with our Christmas trees either. At first we had a little potted pine (like my parents have had for years), but we eventually grew out of them (or did they grow out of us?) We then moved to a potted grass tree that we dragged inside every Christmas and draped a very small amount of tinsel on. Our last one had lasted for a few years but died not long after Sam did...

So this year we've done something different. And I love it!
You all know about the Lego obsession that has taken hold in this house. I'm happy to report that Christmas has not escaped Lego's clutches. This is our Christmas tree this year (and probably from now on). I'm very proud of it (yes, I built most of it!).

We had a great time building it, and it really does look great. We're already making plans for next year's bigger and better on (we will happily accept all green brick donations!) , and we're planning on showing it off in Lego circles.


So take a deep breath...
Given the shaky start that Christmas and my adult life have had, I don't have high hopes for a season of careless abandon, but I will try, and I know everyone else will too. This one will be hard, almost as hard as the last one, and they will probably never get any easier, but we'll give it our best shot. Oliver deserves it. And I guess we probably do too.

Happy Festive Season, lovely readers.

Must haves...

I've already talked about how Sam liked to keep up with personal transport fads, and I've briefly mentioned his love of fashionable clothing (particularly surf labels).
But there was one other area where Sam liked to keep up with trends and fads. Like most other children, he liked the latest toys.

Perhaps he got it from me (or his father, we both have that kind of nature), but once he latched onto something, he wanted more and more of it (actually, when I think of it, Oliver is the same too).

I guess the first real 'collection' was tigers. From an early age, Sam loved tigers, and he had lots of soft and fluffy tigers. He still had them sitting on top of his cupboard the day he died.
His favourite was 'Gritty Kitty', which sits on the top shelf of his 'shelf' in the lounge room:
Just like Oliver (and Anthony!), Sam went through a Lego phase. His main 'sets' were the Star Wars and Harry Potter ones; and for a while he was really into Bionicles. He didn't spend quite as much time on it as Oliver and Anthony, but he did build a lot cool stuff.

Another big fad that Sam got sucked into was the Beyblade phenomenon (which I was very surprised to find out, is still going in some countries!)
Beyblades were these spinning tops that you 'launched' into an arena against another person's top. Whichever one fell over first was the loser.
Samuel (and many other children) got very excited about the whole Beyblade thing, and bought lots of them. When he asked for an arena (a flimsy plastic thing that went for about $40), Anthony built him a wooden version, complete with a place to store all the toys:
I took the photo today, so as you can see, he had kept all the toys safe and secure, despite not playing with them for at least 5 years!

Another toy fad that Samuel got REALLY involved in was Yu-Gi-Oh! Which was a trading card game that was always way too confusing for me to understand, but somehow easy for 9 year-olds to play! Samuel and his friends (mainly Patrick) would sit for hours playing and refining their decks. Sam must have spent hundreds of dollars on the cards, and from what I can tell, he had a pretty good collection (which is still around here somewhere!)

His other major collection, which are technically not toys, is his massive rock collection.
For a long time, Samuel was very interested in rocks and shells. We really thought he was going to go into geology, and in fact, science was probably his best school subject. This box is most of his collection of smaller rocks, including 2.4gms of gold that I bought him for his 10th (I think) birthday. It would have been nice to see where that interest took him...

Of course, by the time Samuel died, he'd moved on to more 'teenage' collections: music, pictures of cars, video games, DVDs...but I like that he kept all his toys too.

This could get a little out of hand

As I've mentioned before, Oliver LOVES Lego.
Actually, 'loves' is probably not a strong enough word. He is completely obsessed with it.

He's always been the kind of kid to latch on to something he likes and throw himself headlong into it: as a 3 year old he was all about the Spiderman, and when he was 5 he loved Indiana Jones. He had to have the clothes, the DVDs, the books, the stickers, the bed sheets (more so with Spiderman), and he would take great pleasure in dressing up as his favourite character. We actually own 5 different Spider man outfits, plus the branded clothes (don't worry dear readers, much of it was handed down to us!)

So now it's Lego. He's liked playing with Lego for a while now. We have always encouraged it because it's a pretty durable toy (my parents still have my Lego from 25+ years ago), you can use bits from 30 years ago with bits from today, and I think it encourages imagination and problem solving.

Oliver and Sam used to play with Lego a bit, though Sam would always make the 'really cool ships' (like this one that we still have displayed in Sam's room)
and Oliver would always be trying to take bits off them. Needless to say there was some conflict.

Since Sam died though, Oliver has gotten into it even more. He plays for hours and hours some days, pulling bits of other bits, changing the little people's arms and hair and faces, building fantastic stuff.

The other day he was building a 'house'. I used to do that when I was a kid (mainly because you could only get house bricks, windows and doors), but I wasn't very clever at it, building stand-alone walls that would fall down when you pushed them.
When I saw Oliver making the house, I thought of that, and told him that he needed to join the walls together. When I went to show him, he'd already done it, interlocking the wall bricks together, just like a bricklayer would. Needless to say I was very impressed, and started having visions of my son's wonderful career as an engineer. :)

But the thing that really worries me is that Anthony's now getting in on the act. The last couple of times we have been to Trash and Treasure, he has bought a bunch of Lego (including a couple of retro space sets). I don't really mind, as it's much cheaper to buy it there, but he's talking about buying lots more. I think he may be falling under the Lego spell. I know of adults that are hooked on Lego (one woman on EB posted recently about buying a 'Death Star' for her husband's 40th), who build the models and display them in their lounge rooms with special lights. I'm not sure I'm ready for that!!

Nah, I'm not that worried. It's nice that they're doing something together other than playing video games, and it's nice to see Oliver happy and playing. Anthony's even been doing some sorting and tidying:
(although there have been a couple of 'don't touch that one Oliver' moments). I must admit, even I'm getting in on the act a bit. I've bought a couple of little bits off Ebay.

But then Anthony started talking about painting our house 'Lego colours'. Hmmmmmm.....