A quiet last weekend to Spring, and with Summer, the silly season and the end of Term 4 rapidly approaching it was probably just as well. Seth returned from camp looking like an extra from The Walking Dead. He barely had the ability to string a complete sentence together for the first 24 hours that he was home, but eventually we got the run down on what appears to have been a stock standard school camping trip, with all of the trials and tribulations that come with taking 100 odd pre-teens out to the wilderness for a few days. 
Managed to 'chore' around the house for hours on end, it always feels like things are piling up around this time of the year. You notice the dust and dirt a lot more on sunny days, which leaves you feeling dreadfully obligated to crack on with some Spring cleaning. The problem is that once you start, you always find more things that require your attention. Honestly, I can get a headache just going to check the mailbox if I don't divert my eyes from the mounting pile of "things that need to be done." 
But that is what the Summer holidays are for, catching up on stuff and finishing off all of those 'started but not yet done' jobs around the house. We are kicking it down a notch these holidays, no whirlwind trips or vacations, just some solid down time to get some things done around here and spend some family time together since this is Zoe's last Summer holiday with us at home. I'm still not really ready to address the reality of what that actually means  just yet I'm afraid, I'm giving myself until 2016 to accept that as a real truth. 
So, only three working weeks to go, and then freedom! Mind you, I do have a shit load to get though before I can high five myself about the break just yet, but the end is well in sight now. So, from this point on the weekends will get far more hectic, the functions will commence and the chaos that is Christmas will begin. It's all good, taking it a day at a time, living in the moment and promising myself to not get stressed out. I'm just going to savor this exciting time of great anticipation for what it is. 

Seth headed off for a three day school camp to the beach today. Watching him build with excitement and anticipation as leaving day rolled closer, made me recall some of my primary school camping experiences and how much I also used to love them dearly and look forward to that annual getaway with my friends with a fever pitch of intense excitement as well.
Almost every year our western suburb primary school would head out to Ashborn Camp, somewhere in the pines with loads of fresh air and huts made of corrugated iron. We would eat lollies and sing like maniacs on the bus trip there, probably making the teachers crazy from the get go,  and none of us could wait to find out who we would be bunking down with for the duration of our stay. 
Activities always consisted of an obligatory talent show evening, a movie night, a night bush walk, orienteering, bush cooking, canoeing and bush dancing. Bush dancing was always everyone's least favourite thing to do, because you had to hold hands with the boys - god forbid! Secretly, I always liked it when we did the rotating partner dances because I would get to hold hands with my secret crush, a boy that I had had the hots for, for the entire length of my primary school years. Sadly, since I moved at the end of Grade 6, nothing ever happened, and then I heard years later that he had died in his teens from a drug overdose, so in hindsight it was probably a good thing that I never hung around to explore that possibility. 
One camp that always springs to mind when I think of school camps, was the one that I attended in Grade 4. Some of the boys had taken to flashing their penises at us girls. They would tap on the hut windows and when you pulled back the curtains, you would get an eyeful of dick. Of course, I was utterly horrified, it was the first time I had seen a real life willy and screamed like a banshee when it happened to me. Needless to say, those boys spent a lot of time hanging out with the teachers and missing out on all of the fun. 
On the last night of that same camp, after a huge fish, chips and salad dinner, one of the additional needs children that was in our Grade pooped his pants and decided to remove the contents of his said pants around the campfire later that evening. This lead to the most contagious and spontaneous vomiting session that I have ever seen to date. One kid started and it was literally like a chain reaction, there were kids yakking up all over the place, little piles of half digested salads for miles. I know I didn't chuck, but I do remember feeling queasy and dry retching a few times. I will never forget that poor deaf, mute and highly autistic kid, god only knows how long he'd been carting that load around for, but jeez, when it was released, it was stripping the paint off the roofs! 
Ah, camp, good times! I think that my early experiences may explain why I am still not keen about camping these days, but as a kid, I do recall thinking that they were the very best days of the whole school year. 

Went out for dinner on Friday night with all of the lovely ESO's for an early end of year dinner. December always gets pretty hectic and it can be increasingly difficult to set aside an appropriate time to pat everyone on the back and have a quiet drink and chat, so doing it early seemed to make the most sense. 
Over dinner, I got chatting to a friend of mine about the nature of addiction. This topic came up since I have put myself on nicotine patches (day five and counting), generally I don't like to tell people that I am trying to quit because it makes failing substantially more tragic and humiliating, so I tend to just play it cool and see how things pan out. But in not telling people, you do allow yourself the space to slip back without anyone ever knowing that you have even tried, and that's almost like a safety net in itself really. Anyway, I have told people this time, and I will just take it a day at a time like I always do. 
I have quit smoking more times than I would like to admit, and I have done it really well I might add. I could be a poster child for a quit campaign, I am like a professional quitter. I have quit a least ten times, and for really long stretches, up to two and a half years at a time actually, and then boom! Something happens that I can hang my hat on and I go and buy a packet of cigarettes and I am right back there again, puffing away my life savings and voluntarily giving myself a shorter life span. I have habitually quit smoking every couple of years, stayed off for long enough to not feel the need for nicotine and then gone back again, like a dog to the vomit! Why do I do this? Why am I continually on a cycle of addiction and recovery from cigarettes? 
This is where our conversation began, and I was surprised when I heard the words of justification for going back coming out of my mouth; how insane they sounded! Why would I quit for so long and then go back? And lets be honest, it really isn't easy to be smoker in today's day and age, you are like a leper at a nudist colony most of the time. It's hardly like an episode of Madmen, everyone knows that smoking will give you cancer, it's 2015 for fuck sake - we know it's killing us, and so you can't really appear cool anymore when you smoke; reckless perhaps, but certainly not cool. So what is the attraction? It's expensive, unhealthy, uncool and smelly, but for some reason that little stick of death has a hold on me that I haven't been able to fully stifle.
Obviously, the reason for this inability to fully release from my addiction, is that my link to cigarettes is more than just physical, it's clearly psychological. I have a relationship with cigarettes - sick, but true. Cigarettes have seen me through the tough times, calmed me through the anger, they've stayed up late with me contemplating things, given me a reason to withdraw from everyone (just going out for a quick smoke) and have never been difficult to access. Why wouldn't I have a strong relationship with them? 
Yes, it can feel a lot like losing a very quiet and yet utterly reliable friend, giving up the fags. But, you have to try. I suppose that every day that I have been successful in my long battle against nicotine has been of benefit to my health, every day that I have said no was an achievement, even though it can be hard to see it that way when you've spent the day wanting to rip the head off everyone. We all have our addictions, some of us to rather innocuous things and some to something far more insidious, but we all have them. Unfortunately, mine is quite a slippery contender, and has, since I took my first drags way back in Primary School had a seductive and alluring quality that I am yet to fully resist. But for now, I resist, and I will continue to keep trying to resist, because for all of the things that I love about cigarettes, there are a million others things that I hate about them too. 

Spent four hours pacing the hallways of the local hospital again today! Frankly, the public hospital system just isn't doing it for me, and I do understand that they are generally terribly underpaid and over-worked, but one is not usually thinking about that when they are perusing the same magazine in the same waiting room for the third hour. No, they are thinking about themselves, which is I know is an extremely twat-ish  way to deal with things, but let's be honest, we just can't help but feel selfish and put out when we are forced to wait for medical care. 
I'm never thinking, 'Gee, I am so fortunate to live in a country that has public health that is accessible and cheap' like a good Samaritan, instead I turn on Lucifer mode and think things like - 'What the fuck is taking so long', 'Why did I even bother making an appointment if I am going to be forced to wait around like this' or 'Seriously? Another test, we just had one!' All of which are totally inappropriate and should never be said out loud, but there I said it, for all of us. Waiting around in hospitals is a shit sandwich and no one likes to do it. 
Anyway, all of the waiting and checks and x-rays and scans did lead us to us a good conclusion, Seth's knee is not fractured at all! When the doctor said 'that's not a crack or a chip' I was so relieved. No, not because I didn't have to go back again, okay....maybe a little, but mostly for Seth because a fracture can take so long to heal. He has some tissue damage around the knee, but nothing more. The part that they thought was chipped was just a growth plate on his knee that is sticking out a bit, but nothing to worry about apparently. Hallelujah, some good news. 
Poor old Seth was feeling mighty poked and prodded by the end of the whole ordeal so I brought him home to rest his knee, which gave me some time to do some online shopping for Christmas. Yep, there it is, the 'C' word - another reason for normal people to go all el lunatico looming up, just around the corner.  This year has just flown by, much too swiftly for me, well most of it anyway, that four hours at the hospital certainly didn't! But I can't get my head around December, and it's only 12 days away. 

Nothing like a long weekend to find some zen in your life. It is so much easier to live in the moment and purposefully ignore the time when you're off the clock for a decent stretch of time. And that is exactly what I have been doing for the past few days. 
Late brunches and long sleep-ins, lounging around, reading and wasting time. But you know what they say, time that you enjoy wasting is never wasted time, and I have really enjoyed the art of doing nothing. And it really is an art, because when you are used to 'doing' all of the time, simply 'not doing' can be quite a challenge. 
I have gotten this nifty app called The Now, yeah I know pretty ordinary name, sounds a bit like a touchy-feely cult thing I reckon, but it's actually been really helping me to stay focused on my whole 'living in the moment' mantra that I am trying to adopt. This app just sends you some zen like quote a couple of times a day, something to contemplate and try to put into action. It's often just some words of wisdom from the Dalai Lama or Mahatma Gandhi, but I have found it really useful in my pursuit of more zen. 
I have come to realise how programmed I am (and we all are to a certain extent I suppose) to be 'getting things done', even when we could be and should be doing nothing at all. And we are also programmed to feel dreadfully selfish for doing things for ourselves too, which sucks a fat one, because never doing anything for yourself makes you pretty pent up. 
So with zen on my mind today I gave myself a home spa. I  treated my hair, had a body scrub, plucked my eyebrows, tidied up and buffed my nails,  had a long soak in the tub and just forgot about everything but me for a couple of hours. I ate lunch on the couch at 3pm in front of the TV and just pushed away all guilty thoughts about the things that I should be doing and I just went with it......ah yes....just go with it, and on a long weekend, why wouldn't you? 

In the last week I have been faced with two fractured bones, one happened to a child at school and then last night Seth came home from school complaining of a sore knee, which four hours later in the emergency ward was discovered to be a cracked and chipped patella. 
It is strange how things like this seem to happen in a series, a series of not so wonderful events. I think that I have had my fill of broken things for a while now, thanks karma, not much fun I'm afraid. 
There is nothing more sobering and hideously boring than a spell in the emergency ward. After almost three hours of mind-numbing waiting, we finally got an x-ray. Might not have been so bad if the woman beside me had showered in the last decade, Jesus - that was horrific! And there was also a woman in her dressing gown that arrived as we did, claiming that she had accidentally poisoned herself and was going to die, naturally I let her jump ahead of us, only to find her sitting two seats down from us ten minutes later inhaling a packet of chicken chips! Who knew that chicken chips had such magical healing properties? 
The worst part of it was that we hadn't eaten dinner before we left, so Seth was ready to eat the upholstery off my car by the time we got home, around 10.20pm, which seemed three times longer given the fact that we had nothing in our stomachs and no entertainment aside of their TV which was running with the sound turned down and airing the most dull programming in history. My own fault, I had seriously forgotten the hideousness and relentless insanity of the ER, so shame on me really. Anyway, it is fair to say that they must have been having a hot night, and that I don't want to do that again any time soon. 

Craig's nephew tied the knot yesterday with his long term partner of ten years. It was an extravagant display, with no stone un-turned and all of the bells and whistles loudly trumpeted, proving to me yet again that expense is clearly no object when it comes to public displays of affection for some people. Don't let me be misunderstood, I actually really like weddings and the concept of marriage in general, I'm just not a fan of the insane outlaying of cash to tell everyone that you've found your one and only. 
Some of the best weddings that I have attended have been humble events, where it wasn't about the opulence but more about the feeling of mutual adoration. You can tell by the way that a couple interacts on their wedding day if they are a good match or not, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the linen on the tables or the carat of gold in their rings.
People spend ludicrous amounts on their weddings these days, just to go through the same archaic love pledges and boring traditions that clearly have no real place in our modern culture and very little meaning to the participants. But, people feel the need to live out their prince and princess for a day routines, and who am I to say that that is not okay?
One thing that I do love about weddings is the bridal waltz, not because I want to see couples who clearly can't waltz having a stab at dancing poorly in front of everyone, which is so often the case, because I love to see which song the couple choose. Last night's choice was the very over used "Everything I Do" by Bryan Adams, which always makes me think of Kevin Costner and get the giggles.  I think that anything by Rod Stewart, Bryan Adams or Savage Garden should be avoided at all costs. Zoe and I decided that the worst possible wedding waltz song was "Pour Some Sugar on Me" by Def Leppard or "Cherry Pie" by Warrant, but I'll bet someone has gone there at some point. 
I like to tell people that Craig and I waltzed to "Talk Dirty to Me" by Poison, which is utter horse shit, but everyone readily accepts it as fact, which says a lot about how people see us as a couple in general I think! We actually used "Have I Told You Lately" by Van Morrison, which is a bit of an oldies song, but we both always thought that the words were really beautiful. But, I wouldn't say that it was "our" signature song, just one that we used on that day, which goes to show you that a wedding is really just one day, and that a marriage is forever. 

My sister is about to embark on a break from her posting in Afghanistan and is heading off to Italy for two weeks with my niece. I am green with envy, because I have been to Italy and I know how many wonderful things await them over there. 
Craig and I went on a five week trip to Europe about eight years ago, and it was the holiday of a lifetime. We left the children with the grandparents (much to the horror of many our friends and relatives) and set off to see the sights of the old world together. It's amazing how quickly you become best friends with your spouse all over again when you are the only English speaking people in strange and foreign territory. Together we traversed through France, England, Holland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece and Turkey; totally alone for most of the time since we chose to make our own way around. 
This trip was a god send to our marriage of twelve years at that time, after having two children and working hard to pay off our first house, we really needed some alone time to rediscover ourselves and each other. And what adventures we had!
We did it all, lashing out and making the most of our time alone, indulging in everything imaginable from sleeping in a chateau in France and a castle in England, flying down the autobahn in Germany in a brand new BMW, scaling ancient ruin sites, walking amidst the skulls of the Parisian catacombs, sipping drinks at dusk by the light of the Parthenon in Athens and seeing unnameable antiquities, art and things of great beauty in every country that we visited; but most importantly, we were doing something that was just about us for the first time in a very long time, and that felt so good. 
The children can barely recall the time without us, in fact Seth was so young that he has no recollection of us leaving at all, but Craig and I, we have some of the finest travel memories that no-one will ever fully understand but the two of us. Sometimes you have to be a little bit selfish to forge something everlasting, and now that the children are older we have also indulged them in the magic of travel with trips to Thailand and Indonesia - far more affordable than Europe on a family budget. And even though these holidays have been fantastic, those escapades that I shared with Craig in Europe will always have a special place in my heart. 

Spent my Halloween getting super creative. Started the day with my friends and the kids, and took a  visit to the Archibald Prize at the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, which was so impressive. I really liked the winner, very dark and gothic with that serious and spectacled face and those terribly creepy hands, but my other favourite was the black and white portrait of the man standing in a grand space with the tiniest pop of green colour coming from his shoes and the floor space, very striking.
After so much inspiration, it seemed important to come home and do some of our own portraits. We painted, sketched and created at the table for a good part of the afternoon and then hit the kitchen to create a seriously delicious array of Halloween feasting goodies.
​I had my first attempt at making pasta from scratch, and it was a pretty good effort actually because the results were damn good! For starters we indulged in spinach and ricotta stuffed ravioli with napolitana sauce, followed by pumpkin gnocchi with sage and butter sauce and to top it all off, a spiced pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing for dessert. Needless to say that we were were all as fat as hogs by the end of it all, but it was a grand feast with everyone (even Craig who was a whiz at rolling the pasta) pitching in a hand to make the feast a success. 
Spent the evening rolling around on the couch like a satisfied cat watching back to back episodes of The Simpsons Tree-house of Horror until my eyes could bare it no longer and I retreated to my bed and slept like the dead. 
Thought I would try and milk a little more out of my Halloween weekend and went to the movies on Sunday to see this new gothic offering. 

CRIMSON PEAK
Release Date: 2015
Rating: MA 15+
Running Time: 119 mins 
In spite of the actor's best efforts and a pleasingly sumptuous visual display of gothic lushness, Crimson Peak failed to excite me with it's largely predictable story line and somewhat pointless horror efforts. 
Edith (Mia Wasikowska) leaves her American home behind after her father dies under terrible circumstances. She moves into her new husband's (Tom Hiddleston) rundown gothic homestead in England that he shares with his surly older sister (Jessica Chastain). Edith quickly becomes aware of a supernatural force in the home that appears to be trying to communicate with her, which leads her down a mysterious and gruesome path of discovery. 
Guillermo del Toro has pulled out all of the stops here, incorporating mystery, horror, romance and graphic violence into the story, including some of his older and already used effects from The Devil's Backbone. Unfortunately, it just doesn't translate very well, and although this was a visual delight, the story came across as cheesy. The exceptional cast are trying very hard, but there just wasn't much for them to work with, so the film just seems to stumble over it's own ridiculousness, desperately clinging to the creepy surroundings of Allerdale Hall, which was the best thing about the entire film. 
FINAL SAY: A crimson tide of disappointment. 
2.5 Chili Peppers