Cub's coming out!

Tomorrow my first cub is starting a new phase in her life. Normal and sane people would not attempt to get kid off to boarding school, move out of a house after 7 years into a small apartment, deal with a broken arm, go on week's adventure holiday, and settle other kid into a new school....all these changes in the space of 4 weeks.

Then again, we are not normal neither sane...but it has its upside.

Packing up house while getting Cub 1's stuff ready has meant that i re-discovered all the journals of her babyhood- and i kept copious notes before, during and after giving birth to her....and reading all my thoughts and reflecting on how much has already happened in her short little life since I first saw nothing but a madly beating little heart at foetal age 6 weeks on an ultrasound scan.

Looking at her now...she is still that wildly beating little heart, that bundle of energy, passion and an unquestionable will! She radiates electricity and attracts people to her easy-going vibrant personality.

I am so happy that despite potholes, HUGE ONES!....she has learnt to jump over them and grow into a "together" young adolescent.

Crikey....now if only we can get the tidiness factor together!

In search of excellence

Just back from a 6-day study in how to lose customers and infuriate people!

But the sad thing is, I am not sure there is an easy fix....its easy to criticise, but if you put yourself in those boots as say a CEO, hmmm.....tough challenges to solve totally...but that doesn't mean one should have a laissez faire attitude towards the current status quo.

I am talking about standards at the Barrier Reef island resorts....and the complexity of staffing them to the standard promised in the brochures, with the calibre of service that people expect of 4 and 5 star resorts and the prices charge by them...in comparison to say a stay at a 5 star resort in Bali or Thailand.

I think the inability to source local labour from a resident community lies at the heart of a lot of this. Transient staff, like backpackers and working holiday folks just dont put any heart or pride into the place, leave after 3 months and it starts all over again.

Hmmm.....I think one juicy practical business dilemma for the MBA class!

And then there's the logistics of catering to masses on an island and getting fresh food supplies. Last year, on Brampton, we witnessed the weekly food delivery debacle on a small landing strip where the pontoon was supposed to offload trucks straight on land. It became the afternoon entertainment...5 vehicles stuck on the soft beach sand in the end and it wasnt until the bulldozer was hauled in that things got moving. Needless to say, after all that time in the sun, the salad was pretty limp for the next week!

Solutions anyone?

Abundance and shortage

Funny how you don't enjoy the third piece of chocolate as much as the first..when its the same chocolate?In economics its called the law of diminshing returns...what a great descriptor.

And, if you're surrounded by the stuff, suddenly all desire wanes! I have the cure!!! Need to lose a few kilos? Throw out the celery sticks, no-fat cottage cheese and skinless chicken breasts and wheel in cupboards full of Easter eggs, hot cross buns and over-the-top verboten delicacies, stack them sky-high in your pantry, and in about 30 minutes, you will be craving the simple joys of a crunchy bland refreshing iceberg lettuce leaf! Yes, this is a live testimony from the Killian test-kitchen.

Yes, I am talking about another Easter Sunday. although i try to curb excess by ordering fewer and fewer chocolate eggs from the Bunny every year, there is an optimal number required to make for a decent hunt- and that's not two or three!

So...in an exercise to see in how many creative ways chocolate can be consumed, some eggs were nibbled from the ears down, others from the tail up, some melted over toasted hot cross buns and others dropped into hot milk. All this before the morning church service where the pagan ritual was merrily continued before and after the service with baskets of eggs for the flock.(slightly different bent to the bread and fishes parable!)

We needed all that good cheer to sustain us through another 4 hours at the hospital AGAIN with Daughter1's broken hand! The duty doctor did such a poor job last Thursday that by Saturday the whole thing was falling off. Luckily we saw a very competent lady doctor today who explained in fine detail why a fracture in scaphoied was so complicated and long-term risk if neglected. She took one look at the tomboy and went for the industrial strength plaster cast!

Even though we were all splattered in little white dots from the plaster exercise, it finished just in time for Easter Sunday dinner with my surrogate family in Australia...and a more colourful bunch you couldn't hope for! And yes, another egg hunt for the 20 odd grandkids and mine.

Dinner conversation over wonderful turkey with full trimmings was, as always in this household, very controversial and stimulating, in the wake of a newspaper feature article on the eldest son, and some rather outrageous journalistic vitreole- but that's the nature of politics. I can just marvel at the strength of that family to withstand so much and stick together...and my theory is that its the rituals that keep it together....these regular gatherings of the clan.

Mrs A is my heroine and whenever I am there, I secretly fantasize what my life might have been like if I wasn't the corporate high-flyer out of necessity, but a mother of 6 presiding over my brood and making a happy home for children and friends and grandchildren ...just like her. This is a much greater art and much more complex than any project I have ever undertaken in the world of work...and with much less thanks.

But thank heavens...there was no chocolate for dessert!

Looking forward - in turbo drive

What do you need more than a hole in the head when its the day before Easter, you just got onto the freeway and you have back-to-back meetings booked all day? A phone call from the school to say that Daughter1 had a bad fall and may have broken her arm!

In moments like this, there is no point observing the niceties of traffic regulations. Your auto-pilot reaches for that Blackberry and the Executive Mother-in-distress kicks in....what do I juggle, who do I delegate and how the hell do you get off this frigging freeway anyway?

So...hanging onto my sense of humour, (because let's face it, with everything on my plate at the moment, a broken arm to boot is just God's way of telling me she knows what stuff I'm made of and she's just checking that I'm not getting slack!), I pick Daughter1 up and we set off for combat with the hospital system!(did I mention today was her last day at this school before she sets off on her New England adventure from Term 2?)

Won't bore you with the 4-hour wait....nothing happened anyway so nothing to tell! Except that the wait was ultimately worth it because she did break some carpal bones and had to have her hand set in plaster...not the fibreglass kind until we have been to the hand-clinic...AFTER our diving holiday on the Barrier Reef next week! Sigh...that holiday was booked ESPECIALLY for Daughter1 because she believes diving and snorkelling and fishing are the things she cant do because she doesnt have a father to do it with! Its going to be pretty interesting diving with an arm aloft in a plastic bag!

With the little medical drama over by2:30pm and Daughter1 delivered back to school in time for a surprise from her classmates, and not content with only one challenge in a day, I went to inspect another crummy joint to move into once my chicklets have flown the nest. This was a good thing, because it convinced me that the place I had fallen in love with ten days ago was definitely a must have (see pic!). So, I drove straight to the agent, got her to phone through my final offer and got acceptance on the spot. I am moving in on 6 May. (OOPS... forgot to tell them about the cat?)

So here's the runsheet for the next 21 days:

Easter weekend: Order bin for rubbish removal, sort the good stuff from the throw-outs, and assemble garage sale stuff in carport. Deal with visit from ex. Arrange Easter Egg Hunt and bake cake for Easter Sunday dinner with friends. Buy doonah, sheets, shoes, and other things for new school and wash and mark ALL clothing. Find someone to feed cat while on holidays.
Tuesday: All day director's meeting: Two project presentations to make, none of which I have started on (was supposed to do that today but see above...test-drove the health system instead!)
Wednesday 19 April: 6:30 am departure for Daydream Island. Do nothing for 6 days. Enjoy kids. Sip wine. Bake in sun. Read books. Go to bed at 10 pm, sleep till 10 am.
Wednesday 26 April: Attempt to get back into work mode (Work...that place you go to get money to pay bills)
Thursday 27 April: wipe out another day at hospital with Daughter1 at Hand Clinic
Friday 28 April: Speak at luncheon with 100 PR professionals
Saturday 29 April: Monster Garage Sale in collaboration with neighbours (as organised by self!). Book haircut for kids.
Sunday 30 April: Finalise packing of school stuff. Farewell lunch and friends all afternoon to say goodbye to Daughter1. Find place for Daughter2 to stay while away with Daughter1.
Monday 1 May: 6:45am flight to New England, buy uniforms, meet staff, have medical, settle Daughter 1, catch flight back, arrive 9 pm, collect Daughter2
Tuesday 2 May: Early wake-up to take Daughter2 to new school through worst traffic jam in Sydney via Spit bridge (Note to self: try the Cammeray rd instead). Pray to God for an answer in terms of after-school care!
Also: Meet student to be mentored as part of Lucy Mentoring Programme.
Wednesday 3 May- Friday 5 May: Drive between St Ives and Mosmania to school then dashing across the water by slow ferry to work. Attempt to have an impact by day while furiously packing up house by night
Saturday 6 May: MOVE! Leave the past behind and make a fresh start in my new home bathed in sunlight and 270 degree views all the way to Santiago!
Sunday 7 May: Start the day with a walk by the ocean at dawn....and start the rest of my life with less baggage and fresh hope!

Broken chip

I wanted to write something for this blog tonight. But as it came out..... it was not happy and joyous and inspirational. So i deleted it. There is enough hurt and pain in the world without me adding mine to it. I have already contributed enough in my lifetime- and the sad fact is, I can undo none of that. And I can honestly say with clear conscience that I did not intend to hurt anyone.

I can only try to make this, and the next moment a positive one. Only do my best. Ask forgivenness from those whom I've wronged. And most importantly, forgive myself for my humanness.

Another life lesson

Never wear good jewellery to the Royal Easter Show!

Come to think of it...why did I even bother to wear anything nice or make an effort with appearance when all that really counts on a day of parental torture and extortion is comfortable shoes and a fat wallet!

Its not like anyone else is dressed up....and if i didnt wear last year's bonus - beautiful big hooped 18 carat gold earrings, BOTh of them would still be snuggled safely in my jewellery box!

Nor is it a place to make an impression on a strong handsome farmer despite trying to smell like a farm sheila by stepping into a blob of warm cow poop at the Jersey Judging ring in a pair of high-heeled sandals! We toured all the animal husbandry halls, patted one-week old piglets and great big Limosin stud bulls, milked a cow or two and and even tried on a few Driz-a-bone oilskins - but not a single handsome farmer in sight! (Lots of short scrawny fellas with missing teeth and friendly smiles though....but while I still have teeth, I want a man with teeth!)

Come to think of it....the people at shows and places like that are often the most outrageous thing you see or remember! Every shape of the human form is represented. There is something quite universal about such attractions that seem to draw the same kind of crowd no matter where you are. Except for Disneyland, I have never in my life seen as many daggy people together (an just where DO all those ridiculously oversized bright stuffed animals end up?)

Mind you, EuroDisney in Paris was no better. That book "Why French women don't get fat" was all based on lies and clever marketing-the author clearly moves only between the 1st and thhe 15th arondissement of Paris, because on the outskirts and in suburbia, French housewives are no more slim and chic than the rest of the world's over-worked, under-pampered mothers! Vive la mama!

So, next year, if I fail to escape my annual fate as Showbags carrier and walking ATM, I will leave the glitz and glamour safely in the drawers at home and simply don a tracksuit and sneakers, along with a cushionfor those long waits while the kids get their adrenal glands pumping on the rollercoaster rides!

But its not all torture. The bus ride back home after the evening show in the arena is BLISS!

And...as I look back on our first show 7 years ago, pushing a pram with one hand and holding onto a wild and fearless toddler with the other, juggling nappy bags and bottles and marvelling at the excellent infrastructure at Sydney's Olympic Park for the needs of mothers with babies, and I look at how well-behaved and accepting of the words "no" and "Enough" those same two little people were today....it gives me a sense of having achieved SOMETHING!

Parenting can sometimes feel like a job that's never done...and it isn't....but its nice to be able to find some evidence occassionally that all your invested energy does not just evaporate into the ether.

Timing is everything

Well...some people call it synchronicity...other's have a variation to "being in the zone"...but few of us can deny that sometimes, no matter how hard we try and slog away at something, it just doesn't budge, while other times...something that was deemed almost INSURMOUNTABLE! UNTHINKABLE! INCREDIBLE!...just comes together in a symphony.

Its both exasperating and wonderful....exasperating only because you wish you could simply pull the right strings to fast forward or reverse or change sequence around when things don't go the way you'd like them to go...and its wonderful when with little effort, and just an open and receptive mind, things come together in the most elegant way.

What am I talking about? Well...I have twice ended up in a relationship where timing sucked and the end-result was just heartache, so I'm still learning on that front! But presently, life is taking some hairpin bends around major decisions- like kids' schooling and a place to call home. And timing is of the essence!

This upheaval was all triggered by a simple phone call one Monday afternoon in March to a school I thought I'd never be able to send my daughter to because I believed it out of my reach. Sensing the thud on the other end of the phone must have been me falling off my chair with disappointment, the friendly registrar pointed out that they were doing selection interviews and scholarship exams that very weekend - and I'd be welcome to bring Viva (said daughter!) along for the ride if I wanted to! (The ride being a round trip of 1200 kms and 14 hours of travelling, mind you!) Of indecision and patience I can never be accused, and i agreed on the spot to do so!

M work schedule was crazy, couldnt get reasonably priced accommodation in the town, had to organise a babysitter for the cat and get enthusiastic about sitting in a car for 7 hours On Friday, and again on Sunday, with two small children who hate my taste in cds! But we went.

Well, that phone call changed our lives. Viva is off to that school less than 3 weeks later, with a parallel helix of change to my personal life and that of her sister.

Thinking outside of the usual square to reduce my outflows in order to finance this opportunity, I finally get the opportunity to move out of the 8-bedroom house I have been living in for nearly 6 years (at that time...it too was the right answer because as a new migrant to Australia, I didnt have work and ran a bed and breakfast service for the wave of South African migrants arriving in Sydney as a small business.)

The normal way of finding accommodation alternatives in this beautiful but pricey city of Sydney is to comb the rental classifieds and spend hours dashing between appointments on a weekend or attracting speeding fines after work. I did quite a bit of this. But then, I placed a "looking to share half a house" advert in the local newspaper, and low and behold...timing is everything again!

It just so happens that someone whose personal circumstances also changed dramatically fairly recently, was browsing that newspaper and bingo...we have two needs that co-incide. On the face of it, seems like a perfect solution for all....but will know after inspecting the property, a waterfront on the harbour in an exclusive address complete with private jetty! (I have plans B & C ready if A doesn't work out!)

Now...if only I knew what time my ship was coming in!

Time will be in pretty short supply in the next three weeks though....there's Easter, a holiday already paid for in Queensland, and a few big projects at work to commission whilst packing up house and kids all alone, moving, and sending one off to boarding school on 2 May!

But isn't change fun?

Early Easter gift

When life gives you lemons...make lemonade they say. But what if life gives you chocolates? Share it around I guess?

Well here's what i found next to my bed as I woke up this morning. This was written by Iola, who, like me, gets carried away by special celebrations and rituals like Christmas and Easter and Valentine's Day and Mother's Day, etc and is always making up presents and special thingies weeks ahead of time.

This is called "EASTER POEM" by Iola, 8 years

This is a poem about my Mum
who I dont think has a big bum.
She's happy, she's funny,
she hugs me like a bunny
but dont get me wrong
she has her sides
mostly when she cries
with her big beautiful eyes.
I love you mum, I love you so much
I don't care if we live in a hutch.

The first step of a million word journey

Well....on this 4th day of the 4th month in 2006, I'm finally crossing the rubicon from private thoughts to shared thoughts.

What tipped me over the edge? It was a snippet in todays Sydney Morning Herald about the Blooker Prize....the Booker Prize parallel for books which started life as blogs. It makes sense really...doing it this way. I have had several attempts at writing a book but somehow, thats just way too big a project and daunting ambition to tackle in the 7 and a bit minutes a day that I am not working for some shareholder, the taxman, the kids, the credit card company, the community or taking care of the essentials of living.

so, I figure if i can use those 7 and a bit minutes to write my thoughts down by blog entry, before I know it, I will be closer to my destination!

Now...all i have to figure out is....where is my destination?

Perhaps its best to observe a piece of cosmic wisdom....and just live in the moment...the here and now....go with the flow.....the theme will "emerge".....

Well....let's see what emerges.

I had a wonderful start to the day....dressed in sexy black top and pencil skirt and my new long black boots, with a cashmere tangerine wrap thingie and black fur trim, dropped the roof on the way to work, played sultry French music and sang at the top of my voice as I roared down the highway to work bathed in the champagne light of early autumn.

Now, how many people go to work in a mood like that, I ask you? So...the theme for today is giving thanks. Thanks to have an opportunity for self-expression through work and making a positive contribution to society in this way.

Thanks also for the great news I got from Iola's school teacher whom I met at 8 am and who told me that I have a delightful and very creative young daughter whose narrative style of writing and vocabulary is exceptional, who is socially well-adjusted and a popular choice in class when seats are swopped around fortnightly.

Thanks for colleagues and staff at work who are supportive, competent and capable and most of all- very likeable.

Thanks for the time I had tonight with the kids to call out their spelling and give them extra challenges as I chopped the green beans and peeled the butternut while the potatoes were boiling away and the chops grilling! I had fun too watching them struggle with the curved balls I made up, and then their eyes light up.

Thanks for the phone calls and msn chats I had from friends, far and wide, looking me up, checking to see I am OK.

Thanks for blogs like these that I can look up and re-read when I get the mutters and need to remind myself of how good things are.