Coming to America!

Billy & I are going to tag along while Pete has a conference in Phoenix in Feb next year!!!!   Flights have been booked!!!!  San Francisco, Phoenix, LA!!!  Can you tell I'm excited??!!!

Archery

I never expected to enjoy archery as much as I do.  I thought I'd try it once to see what it was like, and that would be it.  But I really enjoy it!  It can be incredibly frustrating - some days I wonder why I bothered turning up, then other days it all seems to click.  

Billy's aiming at 5 metres seems to be slowly improving, although he struggles at 10m.  I go ok at 5m and 10m and really, really struggle at 15m!  As he gets stronger, he'll get better at 10m - many of his arrows lose momentum before they get to the target.  Its good to see him apply concentration & focus to it though.

And in true nerd style, we have been recording our scores in a spreadsheet and working out the average per round!

Summer in Australia

You know its almost summer in Australia when it's 27 degrees C, the cricket's on the TV - and you're putting the Xmas tree up :)

Social butterflies

We've been social butterflies today.

We had an early Xmas party for a few friends at our place.  It was nice and relaxing and good to catch up with lots of time to chat!

No, I have no idea why Santa has no pants on!

Then Billy had an after cast party with his Wind in the Willows cast.  Under 15s needed a parent along for the ride, so I stayed inside and chatted to the other parents while Billy socialised with his 'tribe' :)

Spanish Folk Art workshop

Yesterday Billy joined a couple of groups of kids and learnt some folk art techniques.  They applied them to making a Spanish plate design with a repeating pattern.  This was the 2nd in a series of workshops run by Bernie Meyer about art around the world.

Fishing..

You have to admire the bravery of the cub leaders in taking the cub pack fishing.  (Or is that question their sanity??!)  They spent the majority of the night untangling lines :)

Swimming lessons

I used to take Billy to swimming lessons when he was a toddler and then in preschool.  I think we both suffered through about 3 years before I called a halt.  Let's just say, he's never going to be Ian Thorpe...  He'd had enough by the time we finished and wasn't advancing much.  This was obviously prior to my discovery that kids learn things at their own pace, and nothing you can do will change that :)

I just let things go and decided to see if he'd improve on his own.  However, I don't swim and we don't go to the pool enough for him to get a lot of practice.  So I asked him again this term if he wanted to do lessons and he was very enthusiastic about it.  I ended up paying extra for a 15 min private lesson rather than a 30 min lesson shared with 3 other kids.

The difference has been amazing.  Now that he's older he can comprehend what's being asked, understand the reasons behind it and pays attention.  He also practices what he's learnt after his lesson.  He has come on in leaps and bounds in the 6 or so lessons he's had so far.  And I think its a combination of wanting to learn it and his body finally being ready.

Once again it proves to me that every kid has their own timetable!

Wherefore art thou... time?

I hate this time of year.  Its just so busy and I end up taking on too much and stressing out.

Clients all seem to decide that they need work done before Xmas - I'm booked out with work until the beginning of March at the moment.  I'm thinking of putting this sign in my work email signature...

Well, not really, but its fun to think about :)

Every group seems to have an end of year party or concert or get-together...

Then there are the Xmas parties with family, friends and neighbours...

Oh, and Xmas shopping, getting ready to go away for holidays, etc etc etc...

I think I'll run away and come back in January :)

Wind in the Willows Pt 3

Last lot, I promise!  The play is over - it all went spectacularly well :)  They have an after cast party next weekend.

 

 

 

No prizes for guessing..

where we went this weekend...

We went down to Sydney on a child-free weekend to see a couple of plays - Uncle Vanya at the Sydney Theatre Company (just look at that impressive cast!) and Twelfth Night at the Opera House.  Both were completely different, but equally brilliant.

It was a very timely break - I've been very stressed lately with the amount of stuff I've got on.  I was in tears on Thursday with everything getting me down.  I really needed the break.

We also visited the best Sci-Fi / Fantasy bookshop in the country!

Wind in the Willows Pt 2

Some more photos:

Lego quest website

This is the website where Billy got the idea for his blog - http://legoquestkids.blogspot.com/  It has a fortnightly lego challenge. 

Of course, Billy being Billy, he wasn't content to join in that one - he wanted to start his own.  :)

Billy's new lego blog

Billy would like to draw your attention to his new Lego challenge blog - http://legochallange.blogspot.com/.  He would love some comments and participants.

Wind in the Willows

Billy's cast had their first performance of Wind in the Willows yesterday morning to a small audience of some local schools.  Despite being a really hot day, it went very well. 

I was rostered on to help supervise in the dressing room, but I managed to pop out a take a few photos.  We're actually going to watch the performance properly tonight and I'm rostered on to help out next Friday as well, so I should get some more shots along the way :)

4 performances to go..

Playing...

The camera does panorama shots automatically - you select the setting, then just sweep the camera and it stitches it together into one photo!

(This is the view from our front verandah btw - I was just playing.)

My new toy has arrived!

I've been saving up since April to replace my camera.  I dropped it on the ground and the clips broke off the flap that hold the batteries in.  I've been using it held together with a leather strap ever since - which has been rather annoying!  Today my new toy arrived - a Sony Cybershot DSC HX1.  I've been having fun playing with it this afternoon :)

Bum glue

I got the bum glue out today and finally finished off the short story I started about 4 or 5 weeks ago.  I'm wanting to submit it to RWA's Little Gem's short story competition in Jan - it needs major editing though.  I've just started one of Margie Lawson's deep editing courses so will work my way through the exercises using this story.

I finished the short story course last week with Anna Hackett - Short Story, Big Impact.  Wow!  I learnt so much and I think will continue to learn so much more every time I go through the notes.  Anna was available for feedback constantly, it was amazing. Such incredible valuable - I can't rave enough about the course.

I'm going to concentrate on shorts for now while I find my voice - it'll be a great way to try out new techniques and styles and to hone my skills. 

Billy's latest hobby..

Billy's been noticing the "special" coins lately and claiming them for his own.  So when I found this collection book for sale the other day, I grabbed it.  As well as space for all of the commemorative coins, it also comes with a booklet briefly explaining the significance of each of the coins to collect.  He's found about 15 so far, 44 to go :)

Don't you just love..

Don't you just love that brief period of time straight after you create a new timetable, or a new schedule, or create a new budget, or start a new exercise routine?  That brief period of time when all feels right with the world?  That brief period of  time when you just know that this will be the one you stick to?  That brief period of time before reality raises its ugly spectre...