Where oh where have i been of late....???

winter sunset through the old gum tree

taken a couple of nights ago in front of my house

by sweetmango

Hmmm, yes i know I have been oh so very slack in my blogging....lets see, we can blame some of it on LoVe hee hee naughty Stellan, distracting me with his words, his eyes, his beautiful smile and his endless supply of LoVe....but I have also had a big year, a year of massive changes and new directions. I'm thankful to say that I am starting to feel a rhythm creeping into my life again and although I am not really one for planning and timetables and repetitiveness to my days I am in need of a routine to allow my days to flow more easily. You see routine is needed when you are a bringing up three kids on your own with only the odd weekend made free when the kids stay with their Dad, but even those times seem to have no rhyme or rhythm to them.

But I digress, I have had to spend the last six months really focusing on the here and now, the present. I have had to make concerted efforts to create an ebb and flow to my existence, to our existence in order for happiness to settle into every corner of my life, my house, my being. I am by no means there yet, there are days when young babies crawling into my bed before my body has even completed the last dreaming of the night brings me to points of exasperation. Tiredness is how i begin each and every day but I am thankful that i am still young and healthy and am able to shake off the cobwebs and within an hour i am fully awake and doing what needs to be done.

Most days I could have someone turn up at my front door unexpectedly and am more than happy to let them in knowing that my house is once again, flowing, the housework is up to date and the energy inside it feels ... well.... complete, restful, nurturing not just to the kids and I but to all who need to be nurtured, who require a little retreat from the world, from their world.

There are days however when, no matter how hard I try i cannot stay on top of everything and the laundry looks as though someone collected dirty washing from every house in the street and then stood at the door and threw it all into the room, backwards, over their shoulder without a care in the world where it lands...and of course that is the same day that Misty my 'scaredy cat' decides to hide in the laundry, hiding from Elsu my big playful 'Garfield look-a-like' cat. Of course she chooses to hide up high, on the tallest pile of folded, clean laundry, the one at the back that cannot possibly hold her weight and so it must be, as Einstein told us, that gravity must do its thing and knock her and the pile of clean clothes off onto the floor, on top of the dirty clothes already lying there stretched out on the floor looking like they are on vacation and draped upon deck chairs around a pool, they look so damn relaxed that I really want to scurry away and whip them up a margarita to complete the picture.

Of course, as luck would have it, I am completely unaware of the drama unfolding in the laundry and before I am able to reach the scene of the disaster to administer relief, to separate the injured (dirty clothes) from the survivors (the clean clothes) the twins manage to decide to use the laundry as their entrance and exit point of the 'fairy pirate ship' which is their imaginary play game today and of course, this story would not be complete without last nights rain, which equals today's two sets of muddy little footprints left all over the crime scene.

So I begin to sort the whole lot out, into various piles of colours as any good artist and mother does and by the time I am finished there are 8 piles of clothes for the wash, 8 full loads and i know that really there should only be 3 piles to wash today. I look outside, it is freezing cold, but the sun is out and thank goodness there is a little breeze so i know that I can get them at least half if not three quarters dry before finishing them off in the dryer and that is when i spot the horizon, all dark plum and purple.... sigh.

But the really funny part of all this and really the moral of the story is..... i should have just folded that washing and put it away, in the bedrooms ... right away. Why did I pile it up, saving it up for what exactly? I did it because i was tired, too tired I decided to be bothered putting it away, it can wait i said to myself, what do i know anyway?? So now, it seems that I shall be a little more tired today, as I re-wash everything and get it dried in between my normal jobs and today's lawn mowing extravaganza which is a whole other story in and of itself.

So the lesson is not lost on me, not one little bit. Although to be honest I have heard the lesson repeatedly from both my mother and grandmother..... put everything away once you have finished using it, it saves a lot of time in the long run. Seriously people, what was I thinking questioning the tried and true wisdom of my female elders? Especially considering their houses were always neat as a pin and so very very welcoming... and they always had time to cook and sew and do art .... even with kids.

I am off now, to wash, dry, fold and PUT AWAY my fresh clean clothes, I shall do this with a smile, I shall breath deeply of their cleanliness and natural breezy smell. Their vacation is over, it is time for them to get up off the floor and back to work in the drawers and on the bodies of us, my family.

beautiful days to you all

love me

P.S I am hoping to find time to blog more often now that I am learning how to ebb and flow.