Happy Birthday to Me!

I hate my birthday. Actually, no that isn't right. I USED TO hate my birthday. Seriously. The fuss, the attention. Ugh. Not my cuppa tea.

A little different today. I'm having a wonderful day. A wake up SMS at my birthtime (thanks Ma!), more SMS's, as well as emails, phone calls and FB hellos. A stack of gorgeous pressies from hubby (yes, I know, they were from the kids... right!!!) and some handmade cards from the four sweethearts. Lunch with hubby and 3 of the short ones, come back to the office and my boss has bought me flowers. I was given a gift from my Mum via hubby at lunch, so have opened more gifty goodness.

I'm waiting for someone to come into the office and notice the flowers, so I can smile and tell them it's my special day :) I'm enjoying this and it's SOOOO unlike me. Love it!

Crafty!

Reading a crafty blog today (link to specific post) I've just thought of a good idea for a small handmade Xmas gift. Melissa is making these great handmade wash cloths. Very clever. I'm thinking to do same, but in a pocket style, so you can slip your soap inside the wash cloth to use it.

What do you reckon? Feels more like a female type gift. Maybe one of these with some really nice soap? Hmmm... Thinking cap back on.

I recently came up with another nifty idea, combining knitting and ipods. I'm yet to make more than one, so I'll try and get knitting a few more, then post about that and see what you think about it - I'd like to know if you'd use it and such. Just out of interest :)

How many??

I find when talking about the children we have, that I'm often apologising. Well, maybe apologising is the wrong word; maybe it's more 'explaining'. You see, we have four children. Yes, in this day and age, that is generally considered more than the norm. Let's face it, anyone on the telly with more than the average 2.4 children gets barked "buy a bloody telly!" by yours truly. Tongue in cheek and cheeky grin in place of course.

I always wanted three kids. You buy a station wagon/family car, there are five seats; one for Mum, one for Dad and three for the kids. Three seemed a good number.

I met my husband, he wanted two kids, stated, "we already have one with your eldest, now we just need one more". Yes, several girlfriends swooned at this (I can't tell you how many times I heard; Oh he's a keeper!) He knew I wanted three in total. Then I had one more, my second, his first, and he agreed with me and wanted another.

We thought we'd go for number three, but the month he knocked me up my womb was having a two for one deal and we got twins. That changed the dynamic of our lives.

We sold the station wagon and bought a people mover. Thoughts of one child in school and two in child care while we both worked went out the window; who the heck can afford three in child care? If we both continued to work full time, after paying for child care, hubby darling would walk out of work with just $15 cash! That ain't gonna pay the rent kids! Our rental situation went out the window and we started to consider seriously the possibility of buying or building our own home.

All of these things that were never considered all came into play.

So let me just say, when someone asks about my family situation, and I admit to the four children, once my conversation partner stops gasping for air, I then point out that the third child turned out to be twins and it wasn't on purpose and yadda yadda yadda. And at the same time, I feel that I'm apologising for the fact that I have one more child than I expected.

And through the apologies and explanations, right now, I have to admit I wouldn't change that number for the world.

Swan st bridge

According to a work colleague, the bloke driving her back to work last week after a meeting, came over the Swan st bridge in the right lane. When he merged into the left lane, he was subsequently pulled over when through the intersection and fined. There is a solid white line over the bridge.

Good I say. I hate being one of the sheep in the left lane the whole way, sometimes in 10 minutes of traffic (might not seem a long time, but when you are just sitting there, it's an absolute age) and have people constantly push in to the left lane ahead of you and through the green light, leaving you to stop at the red light behind them. Ugh.

Don't know how often police are sitting and watching, but to me, it's not worth the fine to try and push in. I'm going to stick in the left lane and avoid the fine.

*sigh*

Eldest has joined up on Facebook. It was not without a lot of hesitation and thinking on my part allowing her to go on there.

Her other biological parent has, as expected, gotten in touch. Course he has his profile set to "don't let me be found in searches", so I can't look at it. Sent her a friend request yesterday. She ignored it. Did it again today with the note "I would love to be your friend only if you want to if not when your ready ill be here (sic)". Nice that he wants to be 'here' for her now. Nice that he wants to be a part of her life now. Nice that he doesn't mention any faults, why should he, in his mind there are none.

She's leaving it go for now. I'm not happy about her being in contact with him, why should I be, but I'm not going to fight it. I have, over the past 12-24 months, encouraged her to get in touch with him and go meet up with him. I can't keep her wrapped in cotton wool forever, and she does have to learn some things for herself. But I'm never going to be happy about it. And I'm not apologising for that.

We'll see how things go. I have her gmail and her FB logins and much as you may disagree, I will continue to keep watch on both. It's not all about him. She is 13. She is not the worldly adult she may think. And she still trusts too easily.

Vega

I listen to Vega, especially the brekkie show. it was Dicko, Dave and Chrissy, but Chrissy has just been sacked, so as of this morning, it's just Dicko and Dave.

I think they've lost more by losing her than what they have gained by her sacking. I know the story went out that it was due to the fact that the station was losing money, but the show was missing that female touch this morn and I think that may be more of a loss than they expected.

Only this week to go before they finish up, so I'll keep listening. Then I'll listen to the pod more often. Maybe I'll take up my brother's suggestion of listening to podcasts. Or talking books.

We'll see.

Reading

I'm currently reading "Sins of the Brother". It's (according to the subtitle) the "Definitive story of Ivan Milat and the backpacker murders".

Now I don't know if you've seen Wolf Creek, but I have and it was scary. Not so much the horror of the film, that isn't it, it's more the thought that these things really did and have happened.

I'm only just getting into Part two of the book, which within the first 2 chapters has already gotten in to the 'guts' of what that man's life was like. Part one was more about his childhood, his family life, and the lives of his family.

I think what I'm more frightened of is the fact that someone thought it was ok to do this to people. Not what they did, but that they thought it was ok. I mean, what they did was horrific, but that someone thought this was a fair thing to do to another living human being.... and to think up doing these sorts of things in the first place... well.

Have to admit, it's a good bedtime read though. I like reading biographies and autobiographies most of all, and this one is quite thorough in it's telling.