Goodfountain has tagged me for the Five things meme. Thanks for thinking of me

Two memes in such a short time! You’ll know far more about me than you ever wanted to know, but here goes…

The Five Things Meme

Five things found in your bag;

1) purse

2) Keys

3) baby wipes

4) small packet of crayons

5) small drawing pad

Five favourite things found in your room; (Since the room isn’t specified, I’ve decided it’s the kitchen)

1) Oven, dark blue range cooker, makes my heart sing.

2) kids’ artwork on the walls

3) Juicer, which the kids love and don’t get to use as often as they’d like

4) herb pots on the window sill

5) shelves and shelves of cookbooks

Five things you’ve always wanted to do;

1) Learn to play the saxaphone

2) Learn to speak French, Italian, Portugese, Spanish and Dutch

3) Go skydiving

4) Write a book and have it published

5) Act

Five things you’re currently into;

1) Growing salad

2) Reading

3) picnics

4) cooking

5) taking photos

Five people one person you’d like to tag;

Katyboo, just because.

Jupiter’s in retrograde, it said so in the astrology email sent to my inbox.

Apparently this means that this next little while is a time for reflection, contemplation, finishing tasks left undone (!), and generally regrouping. Well that sounds good to me.

I have a bit of a habit of starting projects enthusiastically, running with them and then forgetting I’d ever thought about them and moving on to the next thing that excites me. It means that I have quite a few projects left undone and maybe, now that I’ve been reminded, I’ll wrap some of them up.

Maybe.

I found a poem I wrote years ago, after having lunch with my best friend at a cafe;

‘We sit and talk

Our conversation twists a roller coaster

around our coffee, wine, foccaccia.

This woman, whose life is so different from my own,

is my friend.

We see each other through eyes grown accustomed by years,

to the shape of the others’ soul.’

1996

It reminds me of her. When I read it, I was there, at the outside table in the cafe in my hometown, with her. It made me smile.

It’s so beautiful here at the moment. Summer is in full bloom suddenly. The sun is shining like crazy and people are unfurling, becoming more smiley, more relaxed. I love watching it, being part of it. I feel it myself, a great thaw after the winter months.

 

After the best sleep I’ve had in ages, I’m feeling pretty great. Yay!

I’ve got a singing lesson this morning, followed by a visit to the gym and then some planting. Feeling very ‘earth mothery’ today. I’m raring to get the sweet peas planted out into the huge pot on the deck. I’ll have to empty it first and get the weedy soil out first though.. Oh well, it’s a small challenge.

Then the tomato plants that I couldn’t find the energy to care about yesterday.

The kids and I have set up a little group of grow bags next to the back door. I thought about giving them a little plot of land for a vegetable garden but at the rate they play football out there, it wouldn’t last long and this way the veg will be immediately accessible and easy to remember to water too.

The sun’s shining again. It feels like a proper summer. We’re all in shorts and t-shirts! Woo hoo!

Some little birds have set up a nest under the eaves of our house. I can hear them chirping to each other. No doubt some important nest building information is being passed back and forth.

Z. woke up very grumpy this morning. He’s had enough sleep, I wonder what the problem is? Maybe after a morning at Grandad’s house with A, watering the plants and playing in the garden, he’ll feel more the thing. Here’s hoping.

S. has gone off to school with a smile and a spring in his step, telling me to “Make a great day Mummy!” and “Collect smiles.” I’m certainly in the mood to do both.

How’s your day going?

Feeling crappy today. Not enough sleep again and nauseous all day. Shame really, it was such a beautiful day too.

Tomorrow will be fabulous, I’m sure..

I’m going very gently with myself today. I’ve had four hours sleep because of child/hayfever related reasons, so I’m tired and just a little bit achey.

I’ve been cheerful and enthusiastic all morning, since I decided that the choice was to mope around making everyone’s life miserable or just go for it anyway. Now S. has gone to school, A. is taking Z. out and I’m off to the doctor’s surgery, finally, to work out some hormone-related stuff.

After that, I’ll come home, make lunch, read and maybe, if I’ve still got the energy, plant some more tomato plants with Z, in the grow bags we bought so the kids could watch salad grow. We’ve got lettuce, peppers, (capsicum) tomatoes, cucumbers and some sweet peas for colour.

For the rest of the day, I’ll be doing as little as I can get away with, until I’m able to sink thankfully into bed again…

 

Or more specifically, what did you eat for dinner last night?

 I’m not talking about what your favourite food is, although I’m happy to hear about that too. I’m more interested in what you actually had as your evening meal.

Why? Because I’m curious, that’s why.

Last night after the boys had gone to bed and A. and I were downstairs watching something forgettable but soothing on the TV, we heard movement upstairs. I thought it must be S. getting up to go to the toilet, so I didn’t move until I heard what sounded like loud sobbing.

I rushed up, to find S. running up and down the landing, pyjamas around his ankles, trailing out behind him. He looked just like E.T.

He wasn’t crying at all, he was laughing so hard he could hardly breathe and every now and then his little body would bend in two with mirth. You know when you start laughing and then can’t stop? Then everything becomes funny, even when it really isn’t? It was that kind of laugh.

I asked him what he was laughing about but he couldn’t tell me, although he attempted an explanation which featured a footballer and some curry, before he fell on the floor, rolling about.

I suddenly realised he was actually still asleep! I got his PJ’s back on, took him to the toilet, laughing all the while, (Me too, it was infectious) and then settled him back into bed. He closed his eyes and went back to sleep and this morning didn’t remember a thing about it.

I love it. I love him. He laughs a lot when he’s awake but how fabulous to have dreams that send him into paroxysms of laughter too.

That’s our boy

One of the mothers at S’s school invited me to go to a ‘meditation afternoon’ today. With a little bit of past-life regression workshopping included. They’d booked an expensive Medium/psychic/past life regression expert to run the workshop and were offering cakes and tea at half-time.

I accepted the invitation because I’m a curious sort of person and it sounded like relatively harmless fun.  So, at 1:30 this afternoon, I rushed in, late, because I’d got the starting time mixed up with the time S’s friend’s party was due to begin. The event was held at a small Arts Centre, set in large, beautiful gardens and the room I’d hurried into had its doors open to take advantage of the sunny day.

There were about 12 people, sitting on blue chairs in a semi-circle, facing the man who was running the workshop. I won’t mention his name, since this post is going to be something of a rant. He was medium height, shaved head, expensive jeans, flashy earring in one ear and missing a tooth. 

Within minutes I could see that he didn’t believe a word of what he was talking about.

It dawned on me, slowly, that for most of the people in the room, this wasn’t a bit of fun, it was a very serious undertaking. They were here to learn how to regress to past lives, how to ‘read’ each other and for some, it was a way to connect with loved ones who had died ‘passed over’.

I have to admit to being sceptical about this stuff, not because I don’t believe it might be possible but because it’s the sort of thing that can’t be quantified and therefore, is open to all the worst sorts of conmen/women and charlatans.

This bloke was one of them.

“Serves you right” some might be thinking “Complete fantasy rubbish”. Well, maybe, and maybe not. There are people out there for whom this stuff is as valid as any other belief system. Since I can’t prove otherwise, I have to respect that.

I felt some serious contempt and burgeoning anger for this man by the time the afternoon had passed though. No one else seemed to notice that he kept looking at his watch, or asking over and over again; “Are there any more questions? Are you sure? Someone must have a question surely? Come on, let’s have some more questions.” to pad out a programme seriously short of material.

Or that he didn’t bother even to pretend to care about what anyone thought.

Or that after asking someone a question, instead of listening, he’d look out into the garden, or read over people’s shoulders. Or the fact that the tea breaks lasted an hour each time. Or that he poked fun at everyone in the room. I waited for someone to say something, surely they’d notice soon? I didn’t choose to comment, since they all seemed to know each other and be entirely happy with him.

Fair enough, if they were willing to pay out money to him that was okay.

What I had real trouble with though was when he told the very overweight woman in her sixties, who had told us that she was very lonely, that she had to meditate the way he’d outlined, or it wouldn’t work. He led her through a meditation that took her down into a dark cave when she’d confessed to a fear of the dark and then proceeded to feed her things to say about a past life.

When he’d finished he said triumphantly; “See? There’s no way she could have imagined all that! It must be true!”

He told a woman who had a fear of water that her experience of falling into a pond as a child had nothing to do with her phobia, that it could only be a result of a past life and that she needed to be ‘regressed’ in some one-to-one sessions.

He told us that when we do wrong in this life, we’re punished in this life, and the little woman with cancer, her head in a scarf, nodded sadly.

He wasn’t smooth or slick or charismatic. He sputtered and contradicted himself at every turn. Every bit of his body language screamed “How much longer do I have to be here with these people and how soon before I can get the hell out of here?”

He collected about two hundred pounds for this four hour ‘workshop’, two of which were spent drinking tea, smoking cigarettes and chatting on his mobile phone.

Afterwards, smiling happily, they all asked me whether I’d enjoyed it and agreed with each other that it’d been a very interesting day.

Not only that but they’re already organising another one!!! I feel as though I’ve spent the afternoon in the Twightlight Zone. People like this man give this whole concept a bad reputation.

Time for a hug with my family and something nice for dinner I think.

Thank you to BeThisWay for this meme

Here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog. Some random, some weird.
3. Tag up to 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I had to think about this for a while. Weird things about me? What could I possibly write? Surely there aren’t any? Once I started thinking about it though…..

1) I can’t sleep if the sheets aren’t tucked in flat and the top cover isn’t symetrically on the bed. I’ve been known to get A. out of bed in the winter to remedy a messy bed. He doesn’t understand it at all.

“How come you don’t feel like this about the rest of the house?” he complains, shivering in the cold.

I don’t know why, it just really bothers me if the sheets are crunkly.

2) Eddie Izzard and Katyboo make me laugh ’til I cry and sometimes S. will come and sit next to me just to watch me laughing.

3) Georgette Heyer is one of my favourite authors ever. I’ve read each of her books a thousand times and they feel like old friends. Great for those ‘hiding under the duvet’ days. She wrote Mysteries and Regency romances. No high-brow literature here, just funny, witty, comfortable reading.

I would put in a link but I couldn’t find one that’d do her justice.

4) I have a thing about spelling and grammar that probably stems from being corrected by my Dad for years. Seeing signs that read ‘Fish and Chip’s’, used to really bug me but I seem to have it under control now…

5) I prefer Bed and Breakfasts to fancy hotels. Not because of the cost but because they feel more friendly and cosy. My Mum on the other hand, loves hotels.

6) I love travelling in cars, planes, trains, walking, cycling. As long as I’m moving. It isn’t about where I end up, although I love visiting places, new and old, I just love the travel.

7) I sing when I’m happy. I didn’t notice until A. pointed it out.

Now I’m supposed to tag up to seven people but once again, all the people I might have tagged have already been tagged!

Oh, and thanks to goodfountain for teaching me how to link.

I feel ridiculously achieved today and it’s only lunchtime!

I haven’t done anything earth shattering. Got up, made breakfast, put some washing on, folded some clothes, made S’s packed lunch, got the uniform out and drove to school. Then to the shop to buy a present for S’s friend, who’s having a birthday party tomorrow. Bought some playdough to replace the dried-up, gummy stuff in the cupboard and some new, red Wellington boots for Z.

Then we went to the park, singing made-up songs about the shiny new boots on the way, to make Z. laugh. We spent a happy hour on the swings, slide, roundabout and making up imagination games about hiding from dinosaurs and taking trips in the toy train, to the moon, enormous castles, the beach etc.. It was very fun and very interesting to watch him being so captivated by the stories we were making up and the adventures we were having.

He has a cold today, my littlest boy. Not a huddle-under-the-duvet-and-watch-TV kind of cold, just a streaming-at-the-nose-and-coughing sort of cold. Funny little thing. He asks me for a tissue and then carefully wipes his nose before handing it back to me, unaware that he’s just smeared snot across his face and up to his eyebrow.

When we got home, I gave him a bowl of cold red grapes and a drink and we played with the fresh playdough. No rollers or special equipment, just the playdough and a dollop of imagination. I did look for the roller etc.. but it’s obviously hiding at the back of a cupboard somewhere, too shy to come out.

We made spiders and cats and snails and snakes and a little boy sitting on a chair.

He loves to talk with them. He has whole, earnest conversations, with me playing the part of whichever creature takes his fancy. It delights him. He gets right down and talks into their ‘faces’, telling them stories and news of the day. He has such a soft little face and when he smiles, my heart seems to smile in reply.

Mornings like this one are priceless, full of joy and wonder. 

Now he’s gone happily to bed and has fallen asleep almost immediately, after a little wind-down chatting to himself.

My achievements today were small in practical terms but enormous in  the ways that matter to me. In terms of mothering, this day is pretty perfect.