Beyond the Edge of Adventure

How was your day today? Mine was a blur of driving, party food, crying baby, spilled urine and shouted question-and-answers back and forth in the car over dirt roads and loud music. Today, I was kept hopping at playgroup because it was a Christmas party because, you know, fifty pre-schoolers with party food, play time and craft. Hello, craziness! Then when we finally got home, I decided to turn the routine on it's head and bring rest time forward to NOW and lunch LATER........which worked out well...... ......until Miss Nature Girl (almost 7) and Miss Little Leader (5) decided to take 20 minutes to put on their leotards for dance rehearsal this afternoon. This meant that they missed lunch and had to eat it in the car. No big deal, right? Wrong. They decided today would be the perfect day (only days out from their dance concert on Saturday) to wear their stockings (they usually wear socks)......which means that Little Leader now has lunch-stained stockings because she ha...

This is photograph was taken in Brisbane on November 22nd, 2013. My husband had just completed an intense 14-month course of full-time work and full-time study (simultaneously) and we were going out to celebrate! I'd arrived in Brisbane by bus earlier that day and had wondered around the shops in our local town before my therapist appointment. I hadn't been able to eat breakfast because I was just so tired and anxious. I hadn't had anything to drink that morning, either. I had walked around and around my favourite op-shop with energy but not knowing what I was looking for or what I was really doing. I was fidgety and nervous, yet I didn't know why because I was heading off for an amazing time away with my favourite person and our hard work was finally over! At my appointment with my therapist, she made me eat a biscuit and drink some water once I had unloaded my burdens - "I can't eat and I haven't had anything to drink......" - before my bu...

"Yeah, I live for little moments like that...." - Brad Paisley, 'Little Moments' I was talking to a friend today about home schooling and the 'little moments' that make the hum-drum and craziness all worthwhile. Then I realised that life is pretty much like that.....especially parenting. Parenting is hard work - it's not for the faint-hearted! It's a huge responsibility to raise a child to a functioning adult. Day in, day out, it takes all our energy to love, guide and teach our little ones. Amongst all the hard bits like labour, teething, tantrums, defiance, seemingly endless energy, scribbled-on walls, pre-teen attitude, pester power, teen hormones, grunts in the place of words and mess......there are these sweet little vignettes of pure joy. Just one of those moments can power a parent for a long while sometimes! My children always looks so precious when they're sleeping. Gazing upon their peaceful countenance never fails to fil...

Well, today was another exciting day in the world of this wanna-be political mama - I got to go and hear an amazing speaker talk about dildos, masturbation, homosexuality, radical gender theory and other sick topics. Why? Because these are things that are in a program that is insidiously infiltrating our schools. There are many names for this program, the most commonly used being 'Safe Schools'. The more switched-on parents like PoliticalPostingMumma (also known as Marijke Rancie, a self-described 'ordinary mum' from Melbourne) find out about these sick programs, the more government ministers and beauracrats lie, remove the evidence and keep pushing their agenda through under a different name. PPM was hosted by our local MP in our city this afternoon to share her testimony about 'Safe Schools' which has been in schools since 2010 in Victoria. Her story is remarkable and scary. Man, I'm so glad I home school and that there is zero risk of my c...

Dear Breastfeeding, Our twelve-year relationship is almost at an end. For good this time! I have never felt so passionate, torn, ecstatic, pained, fatigued or content about anything else in my entire life. Nothing has ever stretched my feelings over so many different areas of joy and suffering. Breastfeeding, we started out well. I thought you looked pretty amazing, natural and good. It was only after I had my baby in my arms that I discovered how tricky it can be to get things going. Baby #1 and I took a while to get ourselves together with what I thought at the time was excruciating pain (it was nowhere near, compared to #2 and #3). Over the years, I have loved you with a depth that's gone beyond what I thought could ever be comprehended for something so simple as feeding one's child. That gently pulsating rose-bud lip against my areola is something so peaceful and beautiful. The contented sigh as an older baby swoops on an awaiting nipple. The milky trail from t...

Today, I had a meeting and an appointment.  I don't have a pic of my diary, so here's something like a diary! It was pretty nice to have an important meeting to attend that wasn't about children! I took three of the children with me and they did their school work while I was at the meeting. Afterwards, we had to go to our local primary school so I could speak at assembly briefly about an event we have coming up. I sat on the bleachers with my own children and some parents, watching the assembly from start to finish. I love school. I'm a born teacher. Many times during my own schooling, I got into trouble for playing with younger students and not staying in my own age-designated playing area. I have loved children and teaching them since I was barely more than a little girl myself! School is somewhere that I feel at home. It's like a place of excitement but also comfort for me. I love the student work on the walls, books stacked on shelves and desks line...

I had a mini-win at PT today. I've been doing PT weekly-ish since July this year. I'm not a gym person and if it hadn't been for my friend recently finishing her training to become a PT, I probably wouldn't have tried it. I'm a bit tight with money and I don't like the idea of paying someone to do what you (should) be able to do at home! Well, I never did any exercise at home and the situation was getting bad. In an attempt to curb my anxiety/depression as well as actually use my private health insurance, I began to see my amazing friend and PT once a week. I justified the cost with the private health insurance rebates and also supporting a woman who has been through so much and sets an incredible example of fitness and health. To see her story, you'll need to check out Better Yourself Personal Training on Facebook. It's inspirational, trust me. So, there I have been: weak, tired, anxious with occasional bouts of depression. I know that I d...

A while ago, I saw a blog where a very swish inner-city mum with one son let him dress her for a week. Cute, right? Well, I don't live in the city and I'm definitely not swish. Nor do I have one son.....but I did think it was a cool idea. My children are always correcting my outfits to their tastes and my eldest daughter (let's call her Sparkles), has a particular interest in styling clothes and outfits. Here's her styling of her younger sister with one of our dress-up dresses: Pretty clever, huh? So, on Monday this week I decided to let Sparkles choose my outfit. This is her and I with the outfit she chose: Matching outfits, of course. The skirt is a heavy handkerchief skirt that I love.....and combined with the black/white top, I felt very fancy going birthday shopping with the family in my (low) heels and dressy outfit! Normally when I'm shopping (even when I don't have the family with me), I walk fast. Maybe I'm trying to get the ...

A representative from Open Doors visited our church in March and I received this book from the stall there. I am always reluctant to read stories like this - I find some of the harrowing stories too traumatic for my exhausted mummy brain. One day I will read more real stories, but for now I try to be careful which books I am absorbed into! So, it was with great reluctance that I opened the first page of this biography.... .....and couldn't put it down! The authors, Maryam and Marziyeh, write with an easy combination of facts and emotions. There are no grizzly recounts of torture, but the story certainly is shocking and sobering. I felt very grateful for my bed and clean home and freedom as I read. Maryam and Marziyeh tell of their story from sharing Bibles in a country where there's an unspoken law against converting Muslims to Christianity. It's clear that they love Iran and it's certainly described by the two women as a beautiful place in a geographical se...

I love being a home school mum and I'll happily admit that home schooling is turning out much different to how I imagined. I had pictures in my mind of sitting around the dining table, having a conversation about mountains over a large map of the world, or journaling about some plants we'd seen on our nature walk along one of the Darling Downs' many gorgeous walks and parks. Much to my disappointment, distance education (with it's advantages, which I'll get to in a moment) has turned out to be much different to my dreams and visions of home education! We spend a lot of time doing book work in a 'tick the box' sort of way. The advantage of this is that I have no planning and very little preparation to do in regards to school work - and for this I am truly grateful. I can get started in the mornings without having to worry about 'the big picture' of planning - we can just get into it! We have had some amazing adventures and lots of fun despite...

We had a church retreat the other day. When the pastor mentioned it, I think all of us put the word 'conference' in the place of 'retreat'. A lot of us turned up with the expectation that we'd take notes, be inspired and leave feeling exhausted but motivated. Well. It appears that the pastor actually meant what he said! Instead of being inspired and motivated, we were invited to relax. We took some deep breaths, prayed and the facilitators even spoke slowly and purposefully. As a mum of busy children and a sufferer of anxiety and depression, I found sitting there in silence waiting......and waiting very difficult. I found I had to do something - take a few notes, click my pen, bob my foot on crossed legs, make faces at the baby in the bouncer at my feet, look around the room, pop some magnesium tablets I use for anxiety....... It took me about an hour to calm down enough to wind down. And man, I was I tired when I did! I had a difficult time staying awake!...

I wasn't quite sure what to make of evolution vs creation there for a while. During my public (and perfectly satisfactory apart from the evolution and complete lack of moral education) school education, we were taught that the earth was millions of years old. It wasn't until the past few years that I started to consider the possibility of literal, six-day creation. The other day on Facebook, I saw an advertisement for a 'Homeschoolers Day' at Jurassic Ark , a place I had never heard of but very quickly grew interested in! We travelled up and stayed the night before our visit to Jurassic Ark in a caravan at Goomeri. After much silly playing around with the pronounciation of the town's name, we discovered that it's pronounced "guh'MERee". Very sweet little place, just 45 minutes drive west of Jurassic Ark. As we rocked up, John Mackay ('The Creation Guy', himself a Christian) was speaking with the students and explaining about the fir...