this time it's not my fault!

Hellooo!  Anyone out there?

I'm back after a few weeks of major computer drama.  About six weeks ago my computer overheated and turned itself off.  I noticed that the hard drive was somehow up against a cupboard, so I moved it away and carried on as usual, putting the malfunction down to that.

Well, about two weeks ago, I came home to discover that, in my absence, the computer had turned itself off again.  More ominously, there was a bit of a funny smell...

In the spirit of adventure, or possibly lunacy, I turned the beast on again.  Within seconds (yes, literally) great clouds of dark grey smoke were billowing out of the back of the hard drive.

You won't be surprised to know that it was dead.  Very, very dead.

No, I don't have a lovely shiny new computer now.  In fact, we now have an old hard drive from Pacino's work.  It's mostly useless, and so very s-l-o-w.  The guy who connected it up for me (I'd paid him large amounts of money to tell me the old one was dead,. so while he was there I got him to save me a few days angst and connect it all up) told me that we really need to get a new one pronto, but this one will do for a time.  Luckily, because there's no new one coming for quite a while.  He also advised me not to overload it with too much "stuff", so I haven't bothered connecting the camera or anything.  So, boring blogs from me for a bit.

We didn't lose anything much, because I'd backed everything up a few months ago.  Any photos that we lost are still on the memory card in the camera, so all is well there.

I have so much blog reading to catch up on!  I've missed hearing about everyone's adventures.  So that's where I'm heading next, and I'll be back soon to fill you in on our news.

a love/hate relationship

I've been hanging out on facebook a bit lately, ever since some bright spark discovered that it's 20 years since we all left school.  So old school friends are popping up everywhere.  So are the old school enemies, suddenly wanting to "friend" me.  Also, the old school "I really don't remember you - are you sure we went to school together?" people.

I'm not sure how I feel about it.  Some of these girls (it was an all-girls school) were quite mean to me, or quite mean to my friends.  One girl in particular was very funny.  Side-splittingly funny.  But always at someone's expense.  And now, twenty years later, I don't find it so funny.  But she's my fb friend. 

I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.  I don't want to offend anyone by ignoring friendship requests.  But it does seem hypocritical to "friend" people that I barely remember, and didn't necessarily like anyway. 

I'm looking forward to our 20 year reunion, but really only so that the girls I'm still friends with (very close friends, in most cases) can all be in the same place at the same time.  It's been too long since that happened.

Don't get me wrong, fb has put me back in touch with two people that I'd completely lost touch with - one from school and one from piano lessons (actually, not to split hairs, but they're both from piano lessons).  I'm delighted that these friends have come back into my life, and very grateful for the chance to reconnect with them.  But I can't reconnect with everyone.  For one thing, I don't have time.  Friendship is more than "liking" someone's status update. 

I love the Internet.  I've made many Internet friends, and I treasure these friendships.  I have an online mother's group, and although we're all a bit slack these days about checking our fb page, I read their blogs, those who have them, including my buddy The Missus.  (You may remember her from Good News/Bad News - hey Missus, we need to get that going again!)  I'm also part of an online book club.  It's my sanity-saver, my reminder that I have a brain, and a group of real friends.  And I've made some lovely friends through blogging, too.  So I'm in no way suspicious of on-line friendships.  But fb just isn't the same.  I'm getting tired of the voyeurism, peeking into the lives of people I have, otherwise, nothing to do with.  I'm tired of wondering who will read my updates, and how they might respond.

I'm not going cold turkey on fb.  Not just yet, anyway.  It's a handy way to touch base with people I really care about, and a handy place to make plans and share news.  But I am going to stop commenting on updates of people that I barely know.  I'm not going to check out their photos, just to see if they've put on weight since school, or how cute their kids are (gorgeous, always!). 


I'm going to concentrate on my real (whether IRL real or Internet real) friends.  You know who you are :-).

raindrops on roses...

It's a cold and foggy Monday morning, and my children slept in.  The Bear woke at 7.05am, and the Gig at 7.30am.  A sleep-in is an extremely rare thing in my house, so I made the most of it...sort of.  Pacino had to go to work (why, oh why, can the Bear never sleep in like this on weekends?) so I got up and had a cup of tea with him, then went back to bed for half an hour before the Bear woke.  It felt so decadent to lie in bed at that hour on a Monday morning!

Which leads nicely into today's topic.  More of the little things in life that make a day special, or keep you going, or give you a laugh when you most need it. So here, in no particular order, are ten little things that have brightened my day lately.

1. Taking the Gig clothes shopping so that she can spend her very hard-earned cash, and, what's more, liking what she chose!
2. Buying a new handbag (purse) that has everything I need in a bag, including lots of little inside pockets that I'm still exploring.  Rearranging a new bag has to be one of life's greatest pleasures!
3. Reading a book that I would never have picked up if not for my on-line book club, and loving it.  (It's The City and the City, by China Mieville, if you're interested)
4. Listening to the Bear sing a scale in almost perfect pitch.  Not bad for a nearly  three year old!
5. Walking into the kitchen to do the dishes and realising that the Gig has done them already, and very well too!
6. Savouring a glass of lovely port with Pacino at the end of a long day.
7. Sneaking away from my children to blog Waiting till my children are happily amusing themselves and popping into the study to blog.
8. Watching Dr Who and fantasising that if I shout "Raggedy Man, I remember you!" the Dr will appear.  (Not working thus far, sad to say.)
9. Having the Gig ask to have a friend over - she's been anti-social all holidays, so I was thrilled to oblige.
10.  This boy, in this hat.

i'm bad, i'm bad, you know it, i'm bad

It would appear that last time I was here, I made all sorts of rash promises about being a better blogger, not leaving all my lovely readers in the dark, committing to the blog, and so on.  Promises, promises.  I guess I am just über-slack.  (But proud that, twenty years later, I remembered to use an umlaut on the u in über.  Frau Finlayson, what was that C all about?)

So what's been happening on board my ship of fools lately?

Well, in no particular order, we bought a new car.  It's a white wagon.  Where has my cool gone?  I love it and its capacious boot (trunk) which has ample room for my stroller, the dogs, and some luggage.

Because we are now a two car family, Pacino (and for Pacino, read ME!!) had to organise a park in the city.  Holy Guacamole Batman, the City Council must be ski-ing in Aspen on what they charge to park a car!  However, we found one that won't require us to sell one of our children in order to pay for it, so it's all good.

The Gig is on school holidays.  Yay for not making school lunches.  Yay for not waking a sleeping pre-adolescent!  Yay for not having that sick, sinking feeling in my stomach as I wait in the car wondering how her day was, and if the mean girls were mean today.

Oh, and the Gig is nearly eleven.  I know what you're thinking.  How on earth, you're wondering, could Millie possibly have an eleven year old daughter?  She's far too young, freshfaced and hip to be old enough for that!  What?  You weren't thinking that at all? 

As for my little Bear, he's doing really well.  He is getting a new word roughly once a fortnight, and appears to be keeping them so far.  He has developed a massive case of Echolalia (repeating random words and noises with no sense of their meaning), which can be, depending on the circumstances and my mood, very funny, very depressing or very annoying.  I try to focus on the fact that it's really very encouraging, as the mere forming of the words shows that the capacity for speech, in whatever form, is there.

He has also developed a few new ASD traits.  This is probably the real reason I haven't been blogging lately.  I just haven't felt ready to talk about it yet, but haven't been able to think of anything else to blog about.  He has started hand-flapping, and also a funny little face-flicking thing that's very hard to describe, and his new obsession is unscrewing jars.  Nothing, nothing, I tell you, is safe from his exploration.  I seem to spend my days now running along behind him trying to clear the path of his destruction.  And he's not a destructive child.  He doesn't break things on purpose; it's more that he literally can't rest until he's explored what he needs to explore.  I am beyond exhausted.

We are waiting desperately for the call to say he has a place at the ASD specific centre.  I can't wait; he really needs it.  I do too, for what it's worth.

Anyway, that's what we've been doing lately.  I'll try to be a better bloggy-girl from now on (but a word of warning - I'll be away towards the end of this week visiting my sister who is about to abandon me move to England with her family. 

Right, I have a whole lot of blog reading to catch up on - I'm looking forward to finding out what's been going on in your lives.  See you later!

but i haven't prepared a speech

I'm very excited!  I've just been given my first blogging award, The Versatile Blogger, by my new friend Amy at The Adventures of JAMC.  If you haven't visited Amy's blog, make sure you pop over and say hello.  Amy has two boys who are on the Autism Spectrum, and as they are a bit older than the Bear, I'm learning a lot from her.  So thanks very much, Amy!


Right here, in this space, is meant to be a cute button that says "Versatile Blogger".  Or, in my case, "Incompetent Blogger who is unable to upload (download?  I'm never sure) said button to her blog".  Feel free to give me lesson, anyone.





Ok, now that I've acknowledged Amy, the next thing is to tell you all seven things about myself.  Hmmm, this should be good for my self esteem...

1. I love to read.  I would happily spend my entire day reading, if only I had a staff of 10 (plus outdoor staff) to keep my house running in the oh-so-smooth manner to which it is accustomed.  Or something.  I especially love crime fiction, but not the gory stuff.  But I'll read pretty much anything, from Jane Austen to Stieg Larsson.
2. I suffer from a terrible combination of extreme fussiness about the state of my house, and utter laziness.  So, I'll moan and groan about how untidy/cluttered/messy/dirty/full-of-dog-hair my house is, but take ages to do anything about it.
3. I have a phobia of cane toads.  If you don't know what they are, I envy you.  They are wrong, disgusting, scary, hideous and completely gross.  Oh, and they're poisonous.  Particularly to dogs.  I have two dogs, and Harlan, my old and allegedly sensible guy, is addicted to them.  He's like Cheech and Chong, all rolled into one cute and fluffy little package.  They'll kill him one day (the cane toads, not Cheech and Chong), but I'm sure he'll think the trip was worth it. 
4. I am addicted to tea.  But I'm not a tea snob.  Sure, I love a freshly brewed pot of real, leaf tea, but I'm happy with a teabag of Irish Breakfast.  And I hate herbal teas.  What's the hippy-dippy point to them?  I drink coffee when I'm out, because cafes only ever have English Breakfast (only for the weak) or Earl Grey (only for those without tastebuds).  But at home, it's a good strong mug of China Black Irish Breakfast all the way.
5. I love the movie The Sure Thing, starring John Cusack.  Extra points if you can spot the quote above.  But my favourite movie of all time is Life is Beautiful, in the original Italian, which I understand perfectly because of my fluent and colloquial Italian has good subtitles which are easy to read.
6. I have two half degrees, one in Education and one in English Literature.  Sadly, two halves don't make a whole, so I've told Pacino, who has two full degrees, that he has to let me have one because I'm easily as smart as he is, it's just that my brain is cluttered with all that extra female-mummy-multitasking stuff, so I forget things.
7. I am utterly unable to write anything of length without including several run-on sentences.  Yet, hypocritically, I have a lovely time noticing and being outraged by the bad grammar of others.  Especially the wandering apostrophe.  Hate it, hate it, hate it!

And now, for my next trick, I would like to pass this award on to ten bloggers whom I have recently discovered and love to bits.

1. My good friend The Missus over at Rev and the Missus.  The Missus' blog is not exactly a new discovery, but I'm cheating a bit.  Sue me.  Her tales of life with Wiggle Man and the Rev will have you laughing, feeling inexplicably hungry, a bit grossed out if it's a spider post, but most of all feeling like you're having a chat with a good friend.  And isn't that what blogging's all about?
2. Anna, my new friend, at Loving Life as a Mama and Wife.  Anna has two gorgeous children. Her posts are full of love for her kids and joy in her life.  And she's great at leaving comments!  Go on over and check out how ridiculously young Anna looks to be the Mama of two!
3. Jess, at Keep it Together, takes some of the best photos I've seen.  She also has a son with an ASD, and her posts about this have taught me heaps.  I really enjoy reading Jess's blog.
4. Over at The Casa, Joanna talks about her incredibly cute twin girls.  I'm in complete awe of mums of multiples.  Joanna's blog is funny and brightens my day every time I read it.
5. I think we pretty much all know S.I.F., don't we?  She writes Single Infertile Female, and has a fantastic community to boot.  S.I.F. is an amazingly talented writer who makes me jealous of her talent every day.  Her blog will make you laugh and cry, and also talk about words you never thought you'd mention.  Smegma, anyone?
6. One of my favourite blogs is Musings on the Move, by The Writer.  She and her husband and their three boys live in Brazil.  The Writer's blog is half travelogue, half family blog, and all great. 
7. The hilarious Mama M writes My Little life.  Reading her blog makes me feel like I'm sitting down for a cuppa with a friend who happens to be the funniest person in the world.  I'm just sayin'.
8. Robin, over at Lolidots, is who I would like to be if I ever got really, really cool.  Her kids are adorable, and funny, and she is so talented and creative. 
9. Amanda is my good friend over at Among the Mess.  She, the Missus and I have been in the same online mother's group for over three years now!  She has gorgeous kids, some cows, and a passion for cloth nappies.  Diapers.  Again with learning the Australian English, people!  Check out her Friday Fluff posts for more about cloth diapering.
10. Last but certainly not least is Ashley, mother of three cutie-pie girls (great place for a tiny baby fix) over at Provehito in Altum.  I enjoy reading Ashley's blog and especially love drooling over that baby girl!

So that's it from me, folks, and I'm wacked!  This post took me forever to write, and now I need a cup of tea and a good lie down to recover. 


Please, please check out all these great blogs, and share the love!