here

im still here. in some form. maybe like a sundried apricot..im a sundried manda.

three days left of school. then holidays. just what i need.

and easter. a wheelbarrow full of chocolate is so very much what i dont need. i like. but dont need.

i made a dress today. i talked myself in being allowed to buy more fabric yesterday. my cupboard is full. but i needed some plain. and some black. now i have a new black dress. its not quite right....my fault...not the pattern.... im thinking id like to wear just black dresses for awhile. black linen dresses. ..reminds me of melinda and her black hemp dress.....

and then when im done..i have some violet linen to make a dress. is it strange if i just wear the same dress in all different colours? who gets to say if its strange anyway.

tomorrow is the 1st of april. one month of autumn gone and im wondering where it is? autumn where are you?

now if only the cow outside who is mooing her head off because she is probably looking for her baby :-( i know.. if she could be just be little more quiet...i could maybe go to sleep so that tomorrow i can get up and get the kids off to school... on time.. for once.

im thinking thinking there are so many words zooming across my brain

i tried to stop for awhile today.. made myself go outside with the camera...went to the

vegie garden and took two photos , one of the dying corn plants and the other of a miniature capsicum. then the camera battery went flat.

im not meant to be taking photos. im meant to be playing with the kids.

im often in awe of how quickly they are growing before our eyes. the kids that is.

i love miniature vegetables. its accidental they are miniature, ... there are these red tomato bugs that have had a feast this summer in our garden. and so now i have given up and dont water the plants for the bugs...so we have miniature (water deprived) vegies growing. they are cuteness.

the corn plants make a beautiful sound when the wind swooshes through their dried like-paper leaves.

back inside....

i had a thought today that soon i will need a ladder to sit at my desk because the piles are That big.

back outside we planted lots of bulbs. hid them in the dirt. like burying treasure. me and amelie.

and now...time to go drag the cats out from their hiding places and put them outside for the night.

time to sleep .

life is fleeting. and fragile. and precious.

late on a sunday

its a fine line between letting the kids find the edge of their own boundaries with the world, and keeping them safe. its hard. in the shallow water of a river they wanted to go deeper and deeper and i stood in the shallow water on edge the whole time calling come back come back... i wanted to be quiet and just let them be free but i really didnt want to have to find them in that muddy water where i couldnt see them if they did go under. they dont know danger. and i know too much and put my fears in the way of their discovering. a tricky balance.

and so a new week begins..nervousness about a school sleepover, anxiety about kindergarten has resurfaced and all the static in the background that is being on a dairy farm in a drought. the colour of the land around us shocks me when i take notice. it is so very dry. straw yellow. brown.
when it rains it turns a darker shade. the kids notice the odd green paddocks on nearby farms.... and we joke about sneaking our cows down to that paddock for the night and bringing them home again before the morning light.

bits

I really like to visit Keri's blog, if only she lived nearby and i could visit her. She would be a fun friend to have i imagine. I like the path she is on.
I made an orange dress today with some fabric Ive had stashed away from our trip to India over ten years ago. I found it the other day, held it up and thought to myself...yep...perfect size and colour for a dress. So I have it on tonight with my new red cardigan on top and the intensity of the colour is delighting me. I love it. I said watch out kids mummys on fire. They looked at me strangely.
I woke up today and said I need a new bed. I keep waking with a sore body...which may have something to do with the little body I find next to me most mornings that wiggles her way into our bed in the middle of the night. Our bed isnt big enough. . someone always ends up squashed...or on the couch.
Today the hot weather returned. I wasnt impressed. The trees in the backyard are not impressed either...they are looking dry and burnt. I planted sweet pea seeds....lots of them gathered from last year. I like that.
My hands are so wrinkled...when I loook at them I cant believe they are mine. I dont think I would recognise them in a hand line up. They are weathered but strong and they like to make.
The other night I was driving home near sunset, all the trees were shadows against the setting sun. It was so beautiful,,. a landscape of shadows. Sunrise and sunset are my favourite times of the day.
If only I could get my kids to eat better food. Why is it so hard? Do I need to empty the cupboards and only have good choices for them? That makes sense...it would be hard... but might work. I think I know the answer I just don't have the energy to do what I need to do. I wish that werent the way. I wish I had lots of energy. I also wish I knew how to lay concrete....I want to make a concrete slab for the kids to play on. That may sound strange...but its something they would really like. A smooth surface to skate and scooter and bounce balls and ride..... They scooter around the kitchen inside our house....which is fun...i often join them.... but an outside space would be cool too. Its on my wish list.
At the top of the wish list is rain. Obviously.
In there is also a trip to Italy to the place my Dad was born.
My beach house that is waiting for me....hopefully I will find it one day soon.
We watched a cool movie last night.... The secret Life of Bees. I really liked it. I cried. I laughed. I love Dakota Fanning.. shes amazing. And I cant imagine what life was like for black people. The movie gave me one tiny tiny glimpse.
I need to get the kids outside more. ... i desperately need to get their bike tyres fixed...this weeks mission i think. that and vanilla slices made with sao biscuits and custard. i'll let you know what happens.....hopefully i will make friends with the camera again. she has cobwebs on her the poor thing.

so very

for my birthday i wished for an island with a mango tree. i dream big. my beautiful children made me a mango tree. so so cool.

i had so much fun laughing last night with my sweet friends and eating my favourite food and being out with my boy.

today the sun is shining, the breeze is cool. i finally got myself a bouganvillea today at the local farmers market... ive loved them for years. im going to plant it today and train it to grow up, over our house. it is flowering ....beautiful pinkypurpley paper looking flowers.

i also got 6 more princesses to add to the silver princess child care we have living under the plum tree in pots, until the harsh sun goes away.

now the kids will make cake, i will play my favourite music and talk to my favourite people.

i love birthdays.

happy day

well this morning was fun. theres no better mail than the kind that says theres a parcel waiting for you at the post office.

amelie and i sat in the car outside the post office and opened the big box. gold packages of our favourite rice crackers from japan. oh yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

and more sweet treasures too. my favourite bird biscuits. i love everything about them.

and now on my arm is my new knitted calamari bangle. how cute is it. i did squeeze my arm into it minda :-)

see this time last year i was in japan. and the feeling i have at the moment that i should be there right now is making me walk in circles. how i would love to be there.

and how they would love to be here.

if only one of us were a pilot with a jet.

or if only they were flat stanleys and they could have slipped themselves in the box with the rice crackers.

we love flat stanley. and we love you melinda and hana.

soon. soon. soon.

while i was shuffling through papers the other day i came across this drawing of vedas.
it made me giggle.

welcome autumn

its a wild windy morning. the sun is shining, the house is moving slowly. well not the house as in howls moving castle. but the people inside. we all recovered from the show with a long night of sleep in our own cosy beds.
i have another bag of papers to burn when its safe to do so. the pile is growing and growing.
the other day a really big branch fell off one of the gum trees that stand just near our house. it scared the hell out of me. i rang a tree lopper...which i have never wanted to do because i love the trees and they are so big and old...but they are dangerous because they are a cluster...and they could fall right on top of our house. anyway the tree lopper hasnt got machinery that goes high enough. so i need to find a nother tree lopper. the thought of cutting down trees actually brings a lump into my throat. i wonder why.

so my girl had a wonderful day at the show. her and her new best friend gwen the cow strutted their stuff and won their first first ribbon together. how excited she was. and we were for her.
the night before the show we had set up a new tent to sleep there with our farmer boy. the kids loved the idea. me. well i like soft beds. i ended up awake most of the night thanks to the hard ground and the loud music that some techno head farmers had blasting in the cow shed right next to where we had the tent. my mum surprised us at the last minute arriving in her motor home to stay the night which was fun. i dont think she slept much either. thankfully she could make us a coffee in the morning.
anyway...its a really strange thing...these people and their cows. i feel sorry for the cows. i think they would rather be free roaming the land. but then they are given so much attention....maybe they like it? or maybe they are so uncomfortable or in pain with their boobs so full of milk to show of their amazing udders! strange. very strange.
so we are trying to get the kids into the tent to sleep. veda escapes out the back door and puts her hand on a bindi. you know. those ninja looking prickles? and if you know our girl , you would know that the next few hours were hell. at about 1 am i finally got close enough to her hand to steal the prickle without her permission. it was like a siege that was finally over. such relief.
i saw both the best and the worst of people at the show. i saw people with big hearts giving their love. and i saw people who have such bitter horrible auras about them that i could stand it no longer. maybe it was accumulated stress and tiredness. but i finally blurted out to this guy that the way he treats my farmer boy is bullsh*t. its the best word i could find in the heat of the moment hehe. i was so mad with him i wanted to smack him. and that is so not who i am.
but like i said...i think i have this accumulated annoyance with everything that is just not right.

back at home later that night, i sewed the edge-binding? on a quilt i have been making in the background of our life for the last few weeks. i then lay it on our bed, hopped in, and fell asleep before i could close my eyes. if thats possible.