The Magic Keyboard

It feels like magic sometimes to lay my fingers down onto the computer keyboard. This can take me places, transport me out across the worldwideweb. But right now, the only place I can really go is into assignment land, and to tell the truth, I am not enjoying it much at all right now. It's school holidays here and that usually means lots of time hangin' with the fam'. Not today and not tommorow either.  I instead, am meant to be finishing this uni work.
Not a coincidence then that this is my first blog post in aages.

Hmmm must be time for a cuppa.

UM

Um of Umbridge. the person you are when you cannot be yourself or you will lose your head.
so instead of revealing myself I will keep it factual.
1. I am still studying. Not sure whether to continue on the three year program ( that I have been on for all of 3 weeks) or drop back to the four year program.
2. I am still a solo mum. It's doing my head in a bit. A lot of responsibility. A lot of times I wish I had someone to share the load.
3. My poor kids copped a bit of crazy mum action today. I yelled at them really loudly. I told them I HATED their behaviour. This is because I really felt like I hated them. That's a pretty big bad statement for a loving mother to make. I really want to tell you about all the stuff I had to fit into my day today, and all the stuff I didn't fit into my day today that I desperately needed to get done and why this all resulted in me snapping like a taught rubber band , but anyone who is a mother knows it already. It probably doesn't justify my behaviour (but I am hoping it does) although, I think it's ok they saw me at a breaking point. I think it's ok that my five year old sees that when she yells at me over and over and over and over and over that I am not the perfect mother who can always put up with it.
4. I still feel really really really reallly really guilty that I was not the perfect mother.
5. I also feel pretty embarressed that the neighbours might have heard me.
6. I don't think I've spelt embarressed correctly.
7. I suck at keeping things factual. I think this post reveals me in all my unperfect mother glory.

This day.Part 2

Well.
I am still enjoying watching my children grow up.
My teenager woke and surprised me with a book she had made, with photos and scrapbooking that she had written a little story about thanking me for being her ( and her sisters ) mother.
Happy Mothers Day.
Yes, yes it is :)

This day.

Happy Mothers Day.
It's a special day here. My daughter wakes up at the crack of dawwn like it's christmas. She is eager to give me the present she has made at school. She has kept us all out of her room for the last two days. Screaming at anyone who would dare leave her door open, lest I sneak a peak.

I have spent many drives home from school saying...'no I didn't hear that'   in response to them accidentally letting  slip clues while talking ith each other.


And I am ok with this desperate secrecy, although I worry that they are building it up a bit much. Surely there's not much I haven't seen in the way of mothers day gifts so far. I've had the photo in the icypole frame. I've had the worlds greatest mother coffee cup. The handprints with a poem about messy rooms and growing up too quickly.
And I have cried over these gifts every single year for the actual jewels that my children present me. The lessons I see them learning about giving and consideration and love.
But before I get too carried away with remembering my babies crafty achievements from years past, it's the gifts that I am not getting this year that might make me shed a tear.
I haven't heard the teenager make any plans for mothers day. The highschool doesn't run a mothers day shop. She sleeps in past the early 'make a cup of tea for mum in bed hour'. I feel a tugging on the invisible cord between us just a little more. She's growing up.

Strangely this makes my mothers day this year. The best gift a mother can have. Watching your child grow up.

Enjoy it.

whinging

It starts slow, with a few hours missed sleep maybe, the day before shopping day when no one wants to eat the shrivelled up orange at the back of the fridge or go to the effort to make somethig with the remaining can of chickpeas in the pantry.
It might be because of the stress of being a single parent, it could be because all my assessment is due the week after easter, it could be because when you are 4 or 6 or 13 or 31 things are not always FAIR, but when it starts it still suprises me how quickly it goes from a small little sniff to a bit of a niggly voice, to a stutterrry mwaaaah to a waaaaaargh....but i ccccc cccc annn tttt.

and that is just me.
When the kids start whinging, it's even worse.

yeah. I'm over it!

ps. I completed and handed in my first assessment. Next one I am taking in today.

The cowboy in the black hat.

It's a cliche from an old western that the cowboy in the black hat rides in to town. The opposition to the white hat. It's been in my mind as a way of looking at my week and also because this week we learnt about 'the hats' at uni. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Thinking_Hats
I've had a black hat week. It was all a bit much for me. I don't think I have found that life/study balance just yet. It perversly coincided with the census date. The last day to withdraw from courses without penalty. I have not once thought of withdrawing....until after census...

So it's onwards and upwards from here. It's easter hat parade and if that is not a good day to wear a yellow bonnet I don't know what is.

Study Land

I am going to have to blurt it out. I LOVE studying. I really am finding myself enjoying learning. which makes it easier to forget that I am pretty much not doing anything else outside my course work right now.

I've been creatively writing and journalling at home here. Most of it using the old fashioned pen to paper method. Using my brain seems to have sparked some extra imagination and creativity. I have had lots of involved dreams. One of them involved crafting an essay. woohoo even in my sleep I am studying.

I'll send another postcard from Study Land soon. I like education and I am off on the journey. 

The best day ever?

Could this be the best day ever? Well it is certainly moving quickly up the list now that I have stopped vomitting my stomach lining up.
Yes it was mothers behaving badly last night at our local drinking hole. At least for those of us who polished off a few bottles of wine followed by sparkly pretty drinks. Ok it could have been a select few of us who actually were silly enough to live in the moment and forget all about the repercussions of alcohol over indulgence - was it even just me? Sad to say,  I wouldn't have noticed after the first two drinks. It was very nice to catch up with the playgroup mothers, especially since I have graduated to only school age children in my household. The hangover has certainly clarified a few things for me.
1. I really really enjoy NOT drinking these days and I plan to do a whole lot more of it, even on Friday nights.
2. I really really like lying in bed on a Saturday, with books, lappy and time to nap especially when it's raining.
3. For number two to be enjoyed it's best to be not vommitting up everything you try to eat or drink.

On a completely unrelated note. I finally started telling the world about my blog. That is if my eldest daughter, one girlfriend and mentioning it in a forum post counts as the world. I also started following some other blogs and trying to find my way around blogland. and geez - widgets, gadgets and HTML...It's going to be a steep learning curve  and a bumpy ride for this little carriage until I get up to speed on it all. Luckily my eldest daughter was impressed I put a capital letter in my title. So far my audience and critics alike have been kind!

Procrastinators anonymous

I am into my first week of my University Degree. I might just say that again- University Degree! It is a pretty big deal for me, and seems like something someone much more grown up than I am would do.
It is also totally totally overwhelming at first. It feels a bit like having a handful of mixed up threads and not knowing quite which ones to pull first to untangle the bunch. I have found a common way of dealing with it. Procrastinating. So far today I have managed to take a long time to make a cup of coffee, look through photo albums for no particular reason, check my emails, play with the cat and sweep the floor. This despite a feeling of urgency that the next few weeks are giong to slip by and I am going to have to produce several assessment pieces.

We did have an unusual start to term though, with the wet weather in these parts causing class cancellations. It's perfect weather for curling up and reading, which actually suits my study time, as at the moment it seems like reading widely is the first step. Unfortunately reading widely is confined to articles of relevance to my course work, Not a Phryne Fisher or Miss Marple tale.

We are also cutting our Uni learning teeth on some reflective work, to get us comfortable with academic writing styles and ideas on a subject matter that we are all familiar with-ourselves.
I am comfortable with reflection, but I wasn't ready for the emotions that it has brought up for me. Perhaps that is why I found myself flicking through the photo albums today. I miss Lee. I miss him like there is a hole in my heart that can never be filled. I feel guilty that I didnt' appreciate him more, I feel angry that he was taken away from me, I feel lonely to be facing this life without him, I feel ripped off on behalf of my children. Most of all right now I think I feel like he would be saying ' Go and get back to your studies!!! NOW ' Because he knows how important they are to me, and understands I am doing this to provide for our children in the way he would have wanted.

So I will.

Blessings.

Ok
It's been so long since I created my blog I sorta forgot how to sign in and create another post.
Crises averted as here I am.

I have given a lot of thought to blogging, instead of actually doing it. Is it pretentious? Is it necessary? Do I have anything of any worth to share? Does it really require this much thought?

I suppose the answers in my mind are, possibly, no, unlikely, and definately not.

I am cynical and self depreciating enough to wonder whether it hasn't all just been said before and said better but have enough ego to warrant having a go anyway.

Most blogs seem to have a definate focus. The only ones I have read have been written by mothers and seem to encompass, craft, living sustainably, gardening, child raising and house decorating. So you know where my interest lies. There are lots of interesting blogs out there covering these topics, lots of funny, crafty great blogs. I hope to follow some soon when I get the hang of this medium. point being though, LOTS of blogs. with that in mind I segue ( sp?) into the topoic that will hopefully give me my individual niche in blogland.

This year for me is my big University year. So I think this blog for me may become my journal of that. I will be a studying single mother with three girl children. I am a widowed single mother, and that may also come across in my voice. The wealth of single mother posts online seem to cover much scope, from bitter to inspiration however there is an awful lot of banter regarding child visitation and the 'ex' that just doesn't apply to my situation.
I hope my voice comes out inspirational rather than bitter. I hope my voice comes out, considering I am facing a full time study load. [ insert small freak out here]

I am working on the photo thing too. ok that is a lie. I hate funning about with photos online and will procrastinate about doing it. But they do make things look prettier and more interesting. If anyone ever *reads* me. I might think about it.

luv.

In the beginning

It's taken me a few minutes on an impulse to set up this blog. The only reason I have is for the experience of doing it.
I guess I should have put more thought into what on earth I have to say,
Not much right now.

Oh lordy! What an auspicious start.