Flatline.

Today I hit the wall. I've managed about ten days on caffeine and nerves but today my tank is empty. I am so tired I could cry except I don't have the energy. Or the time. I keep promising myself that I'll take a couple of days and go see Tanya, but the opportunity never seems to present itself. The boys stuff is full on ATM, with a few extra hassles thrown in for good measure. I went to see Harry Potter with Finer 50% at Gold Class last week and I slept through 80% of the movie. My brain needs a holiday. Two days....no FF no boys, just me and a bed somewhere quiet. I really need it. I need to put some distance between me and the tribe....enough so that I won't get a call to come and sort out whatever goes wrong...I'm sure they could do it for one weekend. Sure they could....

HAPPY DANCE....

This one gets my happy of the week.....

The dog ate my broadband....

Once again it is not the end of the month, and yet once again I have broadband that would win medals at Slugfest. I swear, I don't know what happens to it....all I ever do on my computer is check emails and edit photos. The tribe of three on the other hand, have a long history of broadband abuse, ranging from hours of youtube to downloading True Blood. Um. Except that was actually me. But it was SO worth it. And I'm so sure that's not what ate my broadband. Not all of it anyway. And I made Finer 50% a perfectly reasonable offer. Get me a TV and cable hookup for Heaving Brothel Central and then I'll buy myself series one on DVD and everyone will be happy. Especially me. It's all about priorities, peeps.

S.A.D.

yes...it's a real deal, folks. There are for real no kidding bona fide S.A.D people wandering around even as I type, and I'm seriously thinking about joining them. S.A.D. apparantly stands for Seasonal Adjustment Disorder....or "frustrated sun junkie" as I prefer to be known. I'm not a hopeless case...I don't mind winter as long as I don't have to stand out in it, which of course I do, several mornings a week, at work. Which has probably made me more of a borderline SAD ass rather than a completely depressed SAD sack, of which there are plenty....they're the ones with their noses pressed up against the travel agents window, inhaling the ink from the latest Fiji brochures. I'll be happy when my driveway warms up enough for me to revive concrete zen without freezing my butt off. And I'd like my tattoo to see sunlight before my dolphins turn into fish fingers. I'm also craving the beach some.... yesterday I tried on my bikini in preparation for our camping trip in September. Wishful thinking?? Now that really is SAD.....

Who remembers.....

having this read to you as a child. Or reading it to your child.



or both?
Definately one for me and my wild things.

Sometimes

I look for wings instead of horns.

Before you call DOCS...

can I please take a moment to reassure you that my son does have a bed. It's a very nice bed, cost me a small fortune, actually. It has sheets and a doona, plus a trundle for when his mates come over. You can probably even see part of it in the background of this picture.....

the one showing my son sleeping in a cardboard box. Complete with a "Do Not Disturb" sign, might I add. The box came from the pet shop, containing a very expensive new abode for Striker and King (resident rodents) and number two son decided that sleeping on the floor in the rat box was way better than utilising his nice wooden captains bed with the 'three blanket' doona. He calls it camping. I call it disturbing. No matter what the sign says.

Back to School / My life on the fridge....

Tomorrow marks the start of Semester 2....which means that tonight I have to defrag the fridge. Some people use an electronic planner, some use a personal diary, I use the fridge...for a very simple reason. Even during the most disorganised day I have ever had, (and there have been many...)I have yet to lose the fridge. The same cannot unfortunately be said for electronic planners, notebooks, car keys, mobile phones and basically anything smaller than my fridge and unable to announce its presence (like my kids learned to do, early on....'I'm over here, mum...."). My fridge, thank God, remains where it has always been...in the corner of my kitchen, full of essential nutrients and cringing under the weight of my weekly schedule. For a family of four, we seem to have the extracurricular activities of the Brady Bunch, which is why the fridge is so important....living with the tribe of three, it's imperative to have the schedule somewhere that everyone can find it. I tried various other locations, but gave up after the laundry/tae kwon do training fiasco. I had the schedule pinned up over the washing machine, since all the sports equipment/jerseys/doboks/outdoor shoes etc were all stored in the laundry, thinking it would be a simple thing for the tribe to ready themselves for the appropriate event by reading the schedule and grabbing the neccessary equipment. Yeah. The blame falls squarely on my shoulders for being naive enough to think that any of the men in my life would voluntarily enter any room not containing either food or a TV. Which brings me back to the fridge. Since the tribe are constantly on the mooch, there are no excuses for not checking the schedule....which this Semester reads as follows.

Monday - 3.15pm Band Practice

Tuesday - 8am band practice
- 2.30pm work
- 3.30pm newspaper deliveries
- 4pm mater clinic
- 6pm Tae Kwon Do

Wednesday- 7am Tennis
- 7.45 work
- 2.pm rock climbing
- 3.30pm newspaper deliveries
- 4pm drum lessons

Thursday - 2.30pm work
- 3.30pm newspaper deliveries
- 6pm Tae Kwon Do

Friday -7.30am work
-2.30pm work

These are just the ones I know about, because I pay for them, lol. Added to this at any time are school excursions, extra hospital appointments, assignment dates, changes to lessons, late shifts, early shifts and Assorted Unknown Dates. These are the ones where you know you're supposed to be doing
something, you just can't remember what it is.
See....told you I had a system.

Not Me....the sequel

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.
Just when you thought it was safe, heehee.

Being a role model for my boys is something I take very seriously, so it definately wasn't me eating Baskin Robbins Caramel Chocolate Crunch for breakfast while dishing up Weetbix and Nutrigrain to Piglet and Charleyboy.

Also, the person talking to the strawberries at Woolworths only looked like me....there are loads of vertically challenged jammmypants wearing fruit talkers in my neighbourhood....not me, I promise. And I only wanted to know why they looked SO good but cost SO much.

So the chances are that it was the same person singing along to Nirvana in the cereal aisle. If you run out of weetbix you might have to eat something else...like Caramel Chocolate Crunch. Although I might have to remember to turn down my Ipod. If it was me. Which it wasn't. Probably.

And I know it wasn't me who deliberately wore Winnie-the-Pooh toe socks to church 'cos the kids in the pew behind me get a kick out of them. Way too juvenile for a woman of my advancing years. And besides, they matched my hat.
You're never too old to accessorise, peeps.

Just play it LOUD, OK???

Finer 50% surprised me with yet another wickedy little gizmo this morning....this one is a little MP3 player that plugs into the unused cigarette lighter in the Cookie Monster and lets me play all my downloads through the car speakers....everyone in the universe prob'ly already has one, but that doesn't stop the happy dancing at Casa Hartwell....the biggest bone of contention between me and the boys has been mastery of the music.....Charleyboy figures since he's sitting in the front seat, he should choose. Piglet figures that since he's stuck in the back, he should choose. I figure, I'm paying for the car, the petrol, the insurance and the kids who ride in it, regardless of where they sit, so I choose. Which makes everyone happy except those who aren't me. So, I'm busy putting together a 'dropping nanna at the airport' compilation for later this afternoon. Sing along or run behind, guys....the choice is yours.

One step forward...

Today we had Sebi's appointments at the Mater. Not such a big deal really, lord knows they come round frequently enough....between the two boys I seem to have a standing reservation in the queue at Specialist Clinics. The big difference today was that the "we" who attended the appointments was Finer 50% and myself, which is a very rare occurance. I don't actually think himself has been to any clinic appointments. Surgeries, yes. But the day to day stuff has always been my deal, with help from the Mother of all mothers, while himself worked and brought home the bacon. Dr Bor specifically asked for us both to be available if possible, so I had the interesting experience of watching Finer 50% undergo his first clinic appointment. It brought back memories of the first few clinics I attended with #1, where everything sounded either impossible or utterly depressing. Things have come a long way since then, but I still get that faint uneasy feeling when I go to any appointment....like there could be something nasty hiding behind the door. Today was pretty good, all things considered....#2 has been allotted 12 weeks of block time with a graduate psychology student to look at ways of dealing with frustration, which I'm hoping will come in useful when he makes the full time transition to a computer keyboard, hopefully next year. What was interesting (and slightly guilt inducing) was realising that Finer 50% and I are both enabling #2 to not achieve what he should be, by treating him as younger than he is. FF is the big villian in this scenario, lol....Piglet is his soft spot, and takes full advantage of it. We also looked at #1 and realised that we have a very different relationship with him, because his life is so ordered and structured...we have a much more formal relationship, because that's what is comfortable for him. Even though he's not "warm and fuzzy", he is a deeply feeling person and will often come up and ask for a hug and tell us he loves us. It's just not a spontaneous thing...he needs to think everything through, to make sure it's safe. Some Aspies find any spontaneous acts a little off putting (or a lot in #1's case)so we work things around his comfort levels. Piglet is a lot more natural in his responses, so I guess it's only human to want to keep him at the stage he is right now, even though it's really not the best thing for him. I just like the cuddles...heehee, selfish to the core.

ZZZzzzzz

Tomorrow is "spend-a-day-at-the-hospital" time. Finer 50%, myself and Piglet will be at the Mater most of the day....we have one appointment at 10 and another at 2.30, which basically leaves us enough time in between to be completely bored but not enough to actually go anywhere and do anything. SIGH. I'm hoping that #1 son will be so relieved that he doesn't have to come that he'll lend #2 his DSi. Piglet has a perfectly good DS but I'm hoping the lure of more advanced technology will get him into the car before he realises where we're going. Yeah. Fortunately I think this round is blood test free, so we'll be bored to death instead of scarred for life. I can do that.

Not Me Monday.....

Just for the hell of it.....I found this link on Mck Mamas Blog and decided to play along.
So, here we go....
I absolutely did not wear a pair of Finer 50%'s flannelette pajama pants to the shops, even though they were incredibly warm and comfortable and looked pretty sharp, too....not me.

I definately did not force Charleyboy and Piglet to listen to my appalling singing, by refusing to play their choice of CD as we drove to the movies...I wouldn't be that cruel.

I would never consider a chocolate milkshake a suitable meal replacement for a ham and salad sandwich......not me.

I most definately did not spend several minutes laughing my ass off after watching a truly ridiculous cat food commercial featuring a cat punching holes in a plaster wall to get to the bag of cat treats....while the guy minding the cat then plasters over the hole and tells his girlfriend "check this out" before repeating the process. It was not funny, especially to a dedicated animal lover like myself. And the funniest bit was not the camera panning out to show all the replastered holes in the wall. Definately not.

Nor did I spend a fruitless hour scanning Youtube looking for the damn thing so I could post it here. Not me.

AHHH...I feel better already....

Art Imitates Life....

Do you recognise these guys??

From left to right they are Kit and Sebi. You may know them better as Crash and Eddie but I am here to tell you....these are my kids. They walk, talk and stupid exactly like my kids. They think snot jokes are the height of wit. Farting in the car comes a close second. They spend their days eating me out of house and home and playing dead whenever I ask them to do anything. I'm raising the possum brothers. And you can bet I won't be getting any royalties, either. Life is hard, peeps.

@ home with the boys

is where I have spent most of this week....we'll get a few 'daytrips' done over the next week or so, providing I can pry #1 son out of bed before midday. I'm thinking a trip to Springbrook is on the cards....mama needs to reconnect before all the video game vibes melt my brain. In true school holiday tradition, both the boys have given up on picking up their stuff for the duration....which is why this
lovely still life sculpture is STILL gracing the middle of my loungeroom floor. Nice, guys.....really. This week also brought a visit from Sparky, 4 year old cousin and Sebi's constant companion in all things dangerous. So it was a nice surprise to find him sitting almost still, watching Kit play Xbox....he's the spitting image of Kit at that age, minus the curls (his fathers straight haired genes, lol)

Today, we're off to the movies to see Ice Age 3. Tomorrow we're going to Dreamworld. The weekend will be spent comatose, recharging for week 2. I can't wait.