A Day Of Utter Crapness. Erased.

It was a day that began with a complete and utter Mummy-meltdown, quickly followed by some particularly appalling Mummy-yelling. Then came the shoving the kids out of the car at school drop off followed by the kind of heart-breaking remorse that leads me to believe that (a) I am well overdue for a good night's sleep and (b) I am hitting pmt-hell again. After a bit of a cry on the way to work I sent a message to the boy-child that read: "I'm sorry I yelled at you this morning. I love you. Mum xx" It made me feel marginally less guilty and I hoped it would make him feel better too. I was very happy (and somewhat relieved) to get a message on my way back home that read: "It's okay. I love you too and I'm sorry I didn't do what u asked. xx" Aaah, mummy-relief. And yes, I cried some more and realised all over again that pmt and lack of sleep are just not pretty.

In the middle of the day more crap stuff happened. And that made me cry too. But not till I was safely in the car on the way home. It wasn't work related, just happened while I was there. And it's nothing that can't be fixed but, what d'you know? The whole sleep/pmt thing made it a hundred times worse than it really was.

But a phone call from the lovely Felicity in Queensland was as welcome as a warm hug and cheered me up no end. And a facebook message checking up on me from the lovely Anne, who promptly organised a GNO (otherwise known as a Girls Night Out) that will involve dinner and a feel-good movie, reminded me that BFF's rock. ROCK!!

And I remembered that a day of utter crapness is nothing. Especially when it's compared to the hugeness of love from forgiving offspring and supportive BFF's.

A Lovely Day

I logged on to tell you all about my wonderful day to find that Blogger has updated just about every single thing and now I have to learn how to use it all over again. If you never hear from me again you'll know that I'm floating around the blogosphere going stark, raving mad.

But anyway, assuming this actually makes it to posting...

The kids and I trekked back down the hill to Kings Park today to catch up with some old friends of mine. The lovely Karen, aka Kaz from the comments here on the blog, is an old teaching colleague from many years ago when we all lived in Red Dirt Tiny Town. And Emma is also from Red Dirt Tiny Town but was one of our students. As so often happens when you're sent off to a country town for your first few postings, we weren't all that much older than the 'kids' we were teaching and Hubby and I have stayed in touch with a few, facebook has brought a few more back into our lives and others now live in our local area and we all have kids at school together. 

I had  a lovely, lovely, lovely day - all the kids played beautifully together with the bigger kids taking care of the little ones, there were lots of yummy things to eat and it was wonderful to catch up with the girls. We caught up on each other's doings, exchanged bits of news about mutual friends and I loved spending time with them. It felt like no more than five minutes (but was closer to three hours) than we were all packing up and heading off in different directions.

And I think that Offspring #2 summed it all up perfectly when we got home. We were having a cuddle on the couch when she said something about being sad when you see your good friends. I was a bit puzzled and asked her what she meant and she said, "well I just think that it would make you sad to see your friends that you love because it's very nice to spend time with them but then they go home and you realise you don't get to see them very much and that would make me sad."  But instead of being sad that I don't get to see them much I'm very very happy that I got to see them today.

Dining In

We've got the former across-the-roads coming to dinner tonight and, while it was a spur of the moment invitation, I've got some yummy stuff happening in the kitchen.

We'll be eating Herb and Mustard BBQ'd Chicken and some bbq patties that I picked up at the butcher yesterday. I've got a new bread recipe for Seeded Loaf that's rising on the bench and is about to go into the oven. The I'm going to throw together a salad and get some garlic roasted potatoes into the oven. And for dessert I'm trying a PeartTartlet recipe that's part-Jamie Oliver, part-Mandi's imagination. I'll be sure to take some photos.

 Well, as long as they all turn out okay that is!

Holiday Slide Night!

I took sooooo many photos. But I know Felicity took about three hundred more than me! Here are some of the hundreds from my camera...

Here's the gorgeous Pacific Ocean (not the Indian that I'm used to seeing!), a street name that I couldn't go past without snapping a pic, a cane toad and the sign at the boat ramp that would make me think twice about putting the boat in the water!



My new favourite houses. Ever. I want one.

And the block of land that Felicity wanted me to tell Hubby I'd bought so we could move closer to her...

The restaurant we visited for dinner one night (it was fantastic), and a few of the local sights

And a shot of Felicity and I, taken on our last day by her seven year old daughter. It's off-centre and blurry as all get out and I absolutely love it because it reminds me of a wonderful few days.

Lunch With Friends

This weekend we were supposed to be having a rather larger catch-up with a whole heap of friends from when we were teaching up in the middle of nowhere but it didn't quite all manage to come together. Several were away on holidays (it is after all the long summer hol's here), some couldn't make it and a few just didn't let me know one way or the other so when we ended up with only a very small number coming we made the decision to postpone the big catch-up to a later date.

So instead of twelve or so families to lunch we've got just one family coming and we're so excited to be seeing them. They live about an hour and a half away and, with five kids between us, a variety of full-time, part-time and shift work for the adults and the general stuff that keeps us all busy, finding time to catch up can be a little tricky.

The meal itself has been very much thrown together at the last minute:

Butterflied, marinated chicken cooked on the new bbq - courtesy of the butcher at Woolies.

A big garden salad.

Roasted garlic potatoes.

And for dessert - my favourite pavlova.

Add in the wine that's chilling, relaxing on the new deck and all the kids running around together and I think we're in for a lovely afternoon.