Resolutions

Resolutions Revolutions.  Whichever it is it is time for a change.  I never make resolutions as I don't like to lose.  In fact I never commit to anything I won't be good at.  I quit instead.  A big flaw in my personality actually.  Oh well, the flaws are the lovable parts right?

Anyway...a list of things that I hope to achieve this DECADE.

• Holiday more,  Home and abroad.  Acquire a van to holiday in.
• Get our house looking spectacular so it makes money when we sell and we can be closer to our dream home.  (Come to a consensus with hubby about what our dream home is should be on the list).
• Make money.
• Have some me time.
• Have some me and hubby time.
• Have some time one on one with the baby girls.
• See my family more.
• Look after my body.  Show the old gal some love.  Maybe a bit of exercise and a facial or two :)
• Be part of something bigger.
• Help more. 
• Find that dream opportunity in the islands.
• Learn to make jewellery.
• Learn te reo.
• Teach again.

There are more things I could probably put on that list.  This is my blog for me so I can go back and add later I guess.  Now here are this years goals.

• Save money for the trip to Raro.
• Study business and get my products more 'polished'.  My website too.
• Spend some time with hubby without the kids.
• Get the baby girls sleeping through the night.
• Lose some weight.  I think 'lose' is a dumb way to say it.  Kick the fat the f*ck out sounds better.
• Help to set up a bi-lingual playgroup for my girls.
• Be more pro-active in my girls pre-school (Playcentre).
• Blog.
• Be nicer.  Judge less. 
• Walk more.
• Take better care of ME!

That should do it.  

Happy New Year everyone. 

And the sun came up  in the decade in which I said "goodbye" to my twenties and welcomed the years that are to be my thirties.

Ten

2000-2010

This was the decade that I feel I 'grew up',  so to speak.  In many minor and major incidents my life and myself changed.  I was going to list them in order of importance but I don't think they could or should be ranked, so chronologically it is.

Here goes:

2000-I manage being independent (just and very badly).  No men.  No handouts from ma and pa.  I realise that my boss is taking advantage and I make the very grown up action of finding a new job and quitting the one I had face to face with a demon bitch of a boss.

2001-I leave the ugliest mofo of a boyfriend (spew spew spew) and wisen up.


2002-I start to stop hating myself :)

2003-I begin to realise I am making some very silly decisions and I am the only person responsible for taking my life anywhere better.  I quit the city and hide at the beach and decide on my next move.

2004-I realise that returning to the town you grew up in does not necessarily have to be with tail between legs.  I come home and start my degree.

2005-I meet the love of my life.  I suddenly understand that I am a little shit when it comes to my parents.  I grow up and show some respect.

2006-I graduate and marry the dream man.

2007-I bag my dream job, move into a stunning house in the country and most importantly find out I am happily pregnant.  Life is amazing.  Then it all falls apart.  We have to move from the house.  I am stressed out.  Hubby is stressed out.  Our beautiful son is stillborn.  I am broken.  I leave my job and bow out from life in a sobbing puddle of misery.

2008-My saviour is born in the form of my angelic little girl.  She changes my world from dark to light.  She saves me.  My darling hubby is broken.  One baby in heaven and another born prematurely and needing surgery, a sick and anxious wife, has taken it's toll and he finally cracks.

2009-We buy our own home!  Hubby is getting better.  I am pregnant again

2010-The youngest darling is born very prematurely but makes it home after six weeks.  She is perfect.  Hubby is better.  He is the dream man again.  We have survived.  Every moment is to be experienced and to be cherished.

I haven't listed lots of other important things.  Cancer in the family.  New nieces, nephew, brother in law.  Falling outs.  Purchases.  There is a lot that happens in ten years!  I am a different person than the one that was there in the year 2000.  I am nicer I think.  I am stronger.  I am wiser. I am happier and sadder all at the same time.  I am content but I still dream.   I wonder what the next ten will bring?

Sunset.  Nelson, New Zealand.

I Heart Christmas

I really, really do you know.  I mean I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY do.  Even in the period when I didn't have kids but was no longer a kid myself I loved Christmas.  I've been known just to stop and stare at a Christmas tree.  Now that I have kids it is a million, billion, zillion times even more exciting.

This year is the first year that my big girl (two and 3/4's and slept all night in her big bed, nappy free for the first time last night!) has really understood Christmas.  By understand I mean she knows that Father Christmas is coming (also known as Santa, we call the big guy either).   It is also my smallest baby girl's first Christmas.  I am so excited for them.  For us.  They truly are the biggest blessings and the best thing that ever happened to me.  I am so thankful for my girls.  I heart every day with my baby girls in my life.

Merry Christmas to you all.  And may many blessings and people that make your days happy surround you x

My biggest little girl preparing for Santa's arrival.  Milk, banana loaf, banana and crakers for Santa and a nice drink of water for his rain deer. 

Sums It All Up Really...

I found this here. 

Today's Imagining

My children have trained me into waking up at 5am.  Way too early.  Way, way, way too early!  Today they are magically sleeping in past six and here I am wide awake.  I had quite a sleepless night but am actually feeling ok and am really enjoying the solitude (almost solitude, I have a babe snugglig in at my hip).  I have been able to sit here and listen to the birds wake and the soft sounds of everyone sleeping. Perfect dreaming conditions....

Today's imagining is making contemporary pearl jewellery while living on my fantasy island.  How is that for a wonderfully whimsical idea?!

Hi-Jacking

Somebody (ahem, HUBBY) is hi-jacking my dreams.  I mentioned in an earlier post how his career will always come first.  I don't mean this in a bitter, nasty or jealous way.  It is just a fact.  He is our bread and butter, our roof over our head and all the sensible things that we need.  And yes we do need some material things.  So anyway, he is thinking that he will do some more training in his current job and then upskill for a few years after that.  I fully support him in this and think it is a great idea.  I am truly happy and proud for him to do this.  I just want to have a wee tanty at the same time.    

So in the meantime.....

• I will be grateful for all that we have.
• We will explore the world bit by bit (as we can afford it).  Starting with Rarotonga in May.
• I may consider the path of my own career.
• I will support my husband in being his awesomely awesome self.
• I will bring my children up happily in our perfectly perfect little part of the world :)

PS.  We have tickets to The Wiggles in Christchurch next May.  Maybe we will explore a little of our own country while we wait to escape.  

Tickets!

Hubby and I just booked tickets to Rarotonga!  I am sooooooo excited.  And more than a little nervous.  Last time we went I booked the domestic flights and stuffed up on the dateline thingy.  Yep, I was the idiot that booked flights for the day before we were back in the country.  I was red faced with embarrassment, scraping coin together to book more flights and in the middle of a rather large fight for a couple that were just coming home from being married on a tropical island.

Dreams are slowly falling into place.  Now just to hope that the accommodation I am looking at is available and as good and cheap as the website says.

Just in case anyone ever stumbles across this little ol' blog of mine and wants info on getting to Rarotonga, here are the facts:

• We booked through Air New Zealand.  We could have gone through Pacific Blue but it would only be cheaper if we lived in a major city and didn't have to travel domestically first.  And Air NZ worked out the domestic and international tickets for us (I am seriously terrified of doing this, pathetic I know). 
• Flights for the four of us (two adults, pre-schooler and infant) cost just over $2,700NZ.
• We are looking at staying at Tiare Village.  As it is cheap and cheerful and seems to get pretty good reviews.  

I am over the top excited. 
Hubby has fallen asleep five minutes after paying for the flights.  
The kids are asleep and oblivious.  
How I love being a tiny step closer to a big dream.
Blissful.

Tiare Village Pool.  One of the reviews I read said it is only 1 metre deep.  Suits me fine with the kidlets.  I think Tiare is a flower. 

Jeffs

Fabulous new (to me) website.  http://www.cookislandsholidays.com/ by 'Uncle Jeff'.  Loads of helpful advice for visiting the Cooks.
Jeff is also the name of my two year old daughter's favourite imaginary friend.  It stems from many hours spent in SCBU watching a video of The Wiggles over and over again, when her sister was born ten weeks early.  I'm not worried as many of her friends around the same age have imaginary pals and our wee pal, Jeff the purple Wiggle seems a harmless choice.

Jeff the Wiggle (the imaginary friend).

Uncle Jeff, owner of the most helpful website for DIY Cook Island holidays. 

Action (or at least planning for action)

We have made a couple of steps towards our big dream of living in a tropical paradise*. 
The first is we have found the money to go for a holiday to see if we really do love the place the way we think we do.  The second is we are having our house valued by a few real estate agents tomorrow.  Both are pretty big and sensible steps if you ask me.

I've also been trying to hunt out some practical, recent blogs by other kiwis who have made the move to Rarotonga or are in the process of doing so.  Have only hunted down this one so far.  Maybe this blog I am hiding my thoughts in might be useful to someone in the future?


Our next step is to book tickets to Rarotonga, confirm accommodation and get to work on making things happen!

*Whenever I think about Rarotonga as paradise or hear someone else call it paradise I am reminded of a fishing charter owner I met on the night of my mine and hubby's wedding (yep, that's where our love affair of Raro started).  We were at a bar and just after hubby and I finished our compulsory first dance, this rather drunk and brooding local asked me "Why did you want to come here to get married?  It is the worst place on Earth!"  This memory always makes me giggle.  Eye of the beholder comes to mind.

The wisest men follow their own direction

Euripides 484 BC - 406 BC

Enough said.

The Dream

Three times I have sat and tried to put into words what this big dream of mine is.  Three times I have wiped the post.  Maybe because I'm not exactly sure just what this particular dream is.  This time I am just going to purge myself of my latest desire and try to put into words the way it looks in my head (today at least).

To be read in secretive, hush-hush tones. 
I want........to run away to an island. 
I want to take my family and live a simple, peaceful, vibrant life in Rarotonga.  I have ideas of how this will work and I have ideas of what the obstacles are going to be.  I am completely aware of the fact that I actually know bugger all of what I need to know and in my opinion that is at least a start.
Ok, back to a normal reading tone.  Thanks for tolerating my nervous whispers :)

So now I have done it.  I have began the sharing of my wonderful Kanuka day dream.  May this diary blog lead to an actual happening of these apprehensive hopes.

An extra-large photo for an extra-large dream.

Blogger?

I had a conversation with a non-blogging pal yesterday.  We discussed the whole point of blogging.  Who is a blog for?  Why blog at all?  We were quite distracted by our wee parade of tots so we didn't come to much of a conclusion (I remember the days when I could finish a sentence without having to chase after a child heading towards the pond/road/poo...).  I didn't even get the chance to tell my friend that I have a secret blog.  Or to tell her why this blog is secret.  So I will instead blog about it.

My blog is a secret blog for two reasons.  The first is my husband's career.  If the secret little plan I am hatching was public it may inhibit his opportunities in his job.  He is great at his job and hence opportunities are always presenting themselves to him.  I love this but sometimes I also hate it.  I hate it because it makes picking up and moving or any other adventures a bit tricky.  It also means that his career will always come before mine because he is able to earn a lot more than I.  On the other hand I love it because he supports us so well without any complaint, he enjoys his job and most importantly I am able to be a stay-at-home-mum.  Contrary anyone?!

The second reason is more about myself.  This blog is for me.  The only person that knows about it is my darling husband and he is in on all my secret dreams.  We love to bounce fabulous ideas for the future off each other.  We are like kids with our incredicle, completely impractical and almost (almost) impossible ideas for the future.  I am putting these little dreams of mine(ours?) into some kind of concrete* form so I can look at them and start to believe.  Once I believe, I KNOW I can make them happen!

That brings me back to the question 'who is a blog for?'.  This blog in particular is for me.  It is a diary* if anything.  It is my secret little place of fabulous, incredible, impractical and almost impossible ideas.  It is my little page of dreams that I am hiding out there in the world wide web.

So, who blogs?  I guess I do!

*Hmmmm, not sure if specks of colour on a screen are concrete but not techy enough to know exactly what is going on with this whole bizarre internet thing-oviously.

*I have since learned  that there are different kinds of blogs, blow me down!  One such kind is a DIARY BLOG.  I guess I am a diary blogger :)

 

Kanuka Dreaming

I have a darling kanuka tree that loves me as much as I love it.  It is ever so appreciative of the fact that I cut down the neighbouring trees that were fighting for space and sunshine and let it become the Queen of my yard.  Under it my darling hubby built our baby girls a sandpit that the tree kindly  shelters.  I am thanked every spring by my lady kanuka with a blaze of  pink flowers.  I love to sit under the tree while my two year old picks strawberries and my tiniest girl snuggles into me, and dream up the most wonderful plans.  I am working up the courage to thump my nervous fingers on the keys of my laptop and make them official, if only to myself. 

Wishing I Were Her

Woman in the Waves (1889), Paul Gauguin

Shhhhhhhh......

This is a secret blog.  I have a secret dream.  Well actually my husband and I do.  I'm afraid that if I don't make it semi public then it will just fade into that place where many other dreams have disappeared to.  That place where things never happen and you forget that you ever even had a passion to make them happen.  The place where all of a sudden it is five, ten, twenty years later and it is too late and the excuses and obstacles have won.
So this hush hush blog is my place of making it happen.  'It' is yet to be revealed.  Teeny weeny baby blogger steps :)

P.S Two posts in one day.  Is that allowed?

Baby Blogger

A baby blogger is:
a) Somebody new to blogging,
b) Somebody who is laying on her bed, typing while her two babies sleep on her.

I am a baby blogger.

Post one complete.