Lightening Online

Farmboy and I had a lovely 3 nights away this week - sans kids. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my kids. But I do enjoy some one on one time with my husband. It’s taken me a while to appreciate this time. When the kids were younger it almost seemed counter productive to go away without them. I’d feel sick the whole time we were away. Not real conducive to relaxing and enjoying some time with my husband. It has gotten easier to leave them as they get older. I guess because they’re much more independent. And I can see the benefits for them in having some time away from mum and dad. Plus, of course, they get spoilt by Granny, so they enjoy it!

On Tuesday we took the Ferry across the gulf. It’s a lovely way to travel but is usually too expensive for us. They had a half price offer so we took the opportunity to go over on the Ferry. It doesn’t save us any time but you do arrive a little less tired at the other end (especially the driver).

We drove into town, booked into our accommodation and took a swim before heading out for a nice evening meal together.

Wednesday we headed off to the Caravan and Camping Show and drooled over all the nice things we *could* buy. Once upon a time camping and carravanning were the cheap way to holiday. Of course, marketters can sniff a market out a mile away and these days it’s saturated with “must haves”. The good news is that there are some handy inventions that have been created as a result so it’s not all “bad”.

We worked hard to be wise in our purchase decisions (no easy feat I can tell you!). Farmboy was able to get some better towing mirrors for 1/4 of the price he’d seen them for last year. He’s really happy with them.

I watched a number of Dreampot demonstrations and got lots of new ideas and information for what I can try in there. The first I saw was a scone making demonstration. YUM! They were AWESOME! I’m going to give those a try (I’ve never been very good at making scones). Of course, the best part about watching the Dreampot demo’s was that I’ve already bought one so I wasn’t going to get talked into parting with more money.

We decided to purchase a camping clothesline. I was resisting temptation as most caravan parks have clotheslines you can use. We’re trying to be careful not to take too much gear with us. However, this one folds up into a handy carry bag, weighs less than 3kg and at $45, I can see us getting our money’s worth rather easily.

It’ll mean we can leave washing in the annexe while we’re out all day without concerns of garments being stolen or blowing off the line. Plus, I like the idea of having a little more privacy when it comes to my undergarments. We can also use it for hanging wet bathers on. And I thought it might come in handy during winter at home. I don’t have any undercover clothes line for drying washing on a wet day. I could set this up in the pergola or even inside.

We got to speak to some great Tourism people and got some “local knowledge” on a few places we’re planning to visit so that was heaps of fun as well.

Wednesday night (after another swim) we drove into the hills to visit Lleyton at his school camp. When we got back to our accommodation, we walked up the street to a Dairy Bell (ice cream parlour) and each ordered a Sundae. They were so HUGE we could have shared one!!! It felt very decadent to be out after dark eating ice cream. Such a lovely balmy evening too.

Thursday was shopping day. Koorong kindly had a sale on (which rarely happens when we’re actually near one!) so we had breakfast and a browse there before heading out of town to a larger plaza. We met up with Farmboys sister and our niece for lunch.

Thursday night we spent at my parents place (which happens to be near the Ferry terminal) before heading home on the Ferry early Friday morning (with a truck that Farmboy bought from a farmer over there).

We fitted quite a bit into our time away but the pace was never rushed and we really enjoyed our time together.

Despite all of that, none of it comes close to this smiley moment (actually, it was a bit of a teary moment, but good tears):

I picked the kids up from school on Friday as Lleyton was just getting back from camp. I gave Lleyton $10 spending money for camp (he also took a little of his own money) and he spent $8 of it on gifts for his younger brother and sister. He has such a generous heart - it’s enough to make a mother weep (oh yeah, it did).

So many things to smile about this week. My heart is full and overflowing. Unfortunately, so are my sinuses as I’m struggling with a cold! I think we’ll all be taking things easy today.

Happy Smiley Saturday everyone! I hope you can find something to smile about today. If you write your own Smiley Saturday post, feel free to link to it in the Mr Linky below.

Farmboy and I are off to the Caravan and Camping Show today. We have a few things on our agenda including:

* Talking to some tourism people about the best and worst places for crossing the Great Dividing Range with a caravan.

* Collecting some tourism information for the places we’d like to go (and hopefully talking to someone who can help us work out the best place to see the Great Barrier Reef).

* Catching up with the salesman who sold us our caravan and getting some more of his business cards (we’re getting good at handing them out).

* Watching a Dreampot demonstration (I bought mine at the caravan and camping show last year and would like to watch them again now that I’ve had a bit of a play with it - there’s so much that it can be used for).

* Looking for a few bits and pieces for the van in readiness for our trip.

* Having fun looking through the various vans and dreaming of what we might buy next. We’d like to buy a 5th-Wheeler when our kids are grown - you can get REALLY flash ones!!! Not that we’d go flash but they’re fun to look at. For those not familiar with them, they attach to the tray of a ute. It’s a good way to tow a big van, especially if you prefer to have a separate vehicle when stopped.

It should be lots of fun to spend the day together this way. It’s our “early anniversary present” to each other.

Speaking of holidaying, if you haven’t entered the Way2Go competition yet, there’s still time. In case you missed it, here is a repeat of the details as originally outlined in this post:

Way2Go are running a special competition EXCLUSIVELY for Lightening Online readers. What that means is that you SHOULD enter because your chances of winning a prize are quite HIGH.

Prizes up for grabs are:

1. The five winning entrants will receive 1 x Rebel Sports voucher (valued at $100) and 1 x one year subscription to Way2Go magazine (valued at $35.70)
2. The ten second place entrants will receive 1 x one year subscription to Way2Go magazine

So, what do you have to do?

Simply sign up to the Way2Go website and use the code word “lighteningonline” in the section “Promotional Code”. Then submit your own travel story to the website. Winning stories will be selected by the Way2Go team (check out the Terms and Conditions for more details).

You can find my first article “A Dream Is Born” on the website which details a little of our background story to the Big Trip we’re taking this year. I hope you’ll pop over there and leave me a comment (make me feel loved) and then sign up and submit your own story. I know many of you have great travel stories just busting to be shared.

Competition closes at 9am on 3 March, 2009. Unfortunately, this time round, this competition is only open to Australian Residents (apologies to my international readers - you know I still love you *mwah*). You can view the full Terms and Conditions here.

I really hope you’ll take the time to support this competition as the more successful it is, the more likely we’ll be offered other exclusive giveaways in the future. The total prize pool is in excess of $1000 which is obviously something I couldn’t offer on my own.

Trailer Boy is amazingly inventive when it comes to play.

Here’s one of his more recent creations:

His old carseat (which is used with the playstation steering wheel for an “authentic feel” and so is currently kept inside - think we’ll oust it soon though as it takes up a lot of room) and one of those sit n spin toys tipped on it’s side and resting on the couch.

Makes for a great driving set-up really.

And, of course, a drink to keep him hydrated while he goes (that’s POM wonderful from a review I did recently - he really likes it).

Not sure if he has any cupholders though!

My firstborn is off to camp today. It’s not the first camp he’s been on. But I find it doesn’t get any easier to let them go. This time they’re travelling 500km away. It seems so FAR if something were to happen.

Still, it’s an important part of growing up and I’m thankful that Lleyton doesn’t seem to suffer from homesickness or anxiety over being away from us.

No doubt he’ll have a ball!

They’re staying at an Adventure Campsite with flying fox, rock climbing and an obstacle course. They’re doing visits to Monarto Zoo, the Aquatics Centre, an Aami stadium tour (which obviously he’ll LOVE), Museum and who knows what else. All the things that aren’t accessible from here in a simple day time excursion.

We have a fabulous Deputy Principal at our school who is particularly enthusiastic about this kind of stuff. He’s particularly lucky because this is really a “year 7″ camp and he’s a year 6 in the 6/7 camp. Chances are he’ll get to go again next year (or somewhere similar).

And they were able to get funding so the camp has cost us $122.50 which is amazing for what they’re getting and the distance they have to travel.

Farmboy and I are heading away this week as well so I guess we’ll hardly even notice his absence (and as it turns out, we’ll be a little closer if something does happen - so he’s not going to be as far away from us for the WHOLE time he’s away).

Still, my little boy is GROWING UP! *sob* He’s even getting to the stage where he’d rather not have hugs and kisses (although I still kind of insist because I think it’s important).

I don’t even want to THINK about the day when he might leave home!

It’s funny how kids can go from making you smile to tearing your hair out to making you smile again isn’t it? One wonders whether the ability to make you smile is a survival mechanism some days.

Here are a few smiley moments my children gave me this week:

Singstar Princess made me this beautiful flower (on Valentine’s Day as it turned out).

Inside the card says “To Mum I Love You You are the greatest mum in the world” Love ………

I tend to get down on myself and my abilities as a mother so this was very special and some much needed encouragement right now.

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On Wednesday night we had some friends over and Trailer Boy and his mate decided to do some “work” on the cubby roof:

Trailer Boy was busy measuring and marking with a builders pencil (he has a builders set complete with actual tools) while his mate was hammering in nails. They looked to be very industrious.

It’s interesting how your parenting style changes over time. We were discussing with our friends how if it had been our first borns attempting that we would have been in a great hurry to get them down from the roof of the cubby. Instead we just warned them to be careful and not to walk around up there. Of course, “babies” in the family are just a whole different kettle of fish to “firstborns” aren’t they. And these 2 have very different personalities to their older brothers (these particular friends had boy-girl-boy just like we did).

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On Friday, our local school held their yearly Swimming Carnival. Lleyton isn’t the most confident swimmer. He has been working hard at it but it’s not something that comes easily to him. We’ve never forced him to participate in the Swimming Carnival. In fact, when he reached the age of participation (year4), I had assumed he wouldn’t be interested in participating.

Every year he surprises us with his team spirit and determination to be as involved as he can. I have been so proud and encouraged by his courage when it comes to getting involved.

Here he is in the Chariot Race (the only photo I managed to get on the day). A younger student has to ride on a senior student while they swim.

He’s participated in this event before and really had the technique down pat this time. He floated on the top of the water so that his weight was negligable on the swimmer. His team won this event. His particular senior won the championship trophy for his age group (as did both his younger sisters - a very talented family when it comes to swimming).

This is one of those times when I really appreciate the fact that our children attend an Area School (R-12) as it’s great to see the leadership and interaction between the senior and junior students.

I also completed my first task as Vice President of our Parents & Friends Association. At the last minute, the President couldn’t make it to present the trophy’s and awards so I was asked to fill in. It was a rather rushed affair as we were running late. I’m hoping I matched up the right awards with the right students.

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I REALLY love my children but this week hasn’t been one of my easiest as a parent so it’s great to reflect back on the good times - and realise there have been plenty of good times as well as struggles. It’s easy to focus on the negative at times isn’t it?

I hope you can all find a reason to smile this weekend. If you’ve not participated in Smiley Saturday before, I encourage you to read the Smiley Saturday page for more information. Please only add your link to the Mr Linky below if you’re participating in Smiley Saturday.

Happy Smiley Saturday everyone!

When you plan to go away for 14 weeks, chances are that you’re going to miss a few things while you’re away.

Fair enough. That’s to be expected.

What if the thing you’re going to miss REALLY matters to you?

Like it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.

*sigh*

“Houston we have a problem”

Okay, no space shuttle is going to fall out of the sky and no-one’s life is being threatened or anything like that. So I’m blowing this just slightly out of proportion.

Although if you’re 11 years old and as big a Crows fan as my son is….

Maybe not.

Lleyton’s football team is going to play at a Crows match at half time.

August 1st.

While we’re away.

*sob*

My heart is breaking and we haven’t even told him yet!

As I can see it, our options are:

A. Lleyton Misses Out.

There’s nothing we can do to change it so he’ll have to miss out. So will many other boys who NEVER get this opportunity in the first place. Like those who played last year and are now too old for that level of football. Disappointing for his team too as he’s one of the older players (and they don’t have many of those).

B. Change our trip.

Can we leave a month later? If we do, he’ll miss out on the opportunity to try out for an interschool sports competition - where he wants to try out for tennis (his strongest sport). Leaving early enough to be back by then won’t work for the farm.

C. Fly back from wherever we are.

By the 1st we’ll be in the Northern part of Queensland. About the furthest away we could possibly be. In some ways, it couldn’t have fallen on any date that’s worse for us. Earlier or later in our trip and we’d have been close enough to Brisbane where more “cheap” flights are available. At this stage we’re looking at close to $1000 to fly Lleyton and Farmboy back and that cuts into our trip budget quite a LOT! (Like 1/5 of our activities budget).

I know, the trip we’re doing is an opportunity of a lifetime and one most kids don’t get to experience.

But as a parent, this is heart-wrenching.

Update:

We’ve just told Lleyton and he’s devastated. I hate watching my child in tears. My heart feels like it just fell into a bazillion pieces.

I know it’s just a football game…..

I can’t help but feel like this is going to put a real dampner on our trip.

Yesterday I had an appointment with a Natural Therapist that visits our area. A number of my friends have been to see this guy in the past and recommended him. It’s taken me some time to feel I’m ready to give it a go (that and I knew he’d suggest an expensive amount of supplements for me to take and I didn’t want to spend that money).

It was an interesting experience and didn’t go anything like I expected it to. As soon as I described my health symptoms (or the not so healthy issues) to him, he was able to nail my personality exactly.

Farmboy was supposed to sit in on the appointment with me but he had a meeting and the guy was running a little late so he only heard the first 5 minutes of the appointment. Which was enough for him to be convinced this guy was on to something.

Basically I have 2 gears. Flat out and stopped. And my body has been running on adrenaline and high levels of stress hormone for way too long. Interesting timing that just the day before (Tuesday), I had been feeling good and went flat out cleaning the house all day.

We spent more of the appointment discussing my mental state and how it got like that than we did discussing the physical state of my body (which is actually reasonably good all things considered). Not that I had to tell him much, he just knew. Not in a freaky “psycho” kind of “knowing”. A more general, “I’ve come across people like you before and while they’re rare, they’re out there and you’re not the freak you thought you were” kind of way. His opinion is that one of the reasons I think so poorly of myself is that as a child I would have naturally tried to seek out others like me and not finding any, assumed that there was something wrong with me.

It was a rather interesting and enlightening half an hour.

What does all this have to do with scheduling?

One of his recommendations for me was that I schedule my time each day. Basically “make appointments” throughout the day for various things I want to achieve. And MAKE SURE that I schedule time in for myself.

It’s not a new theory by any stretch of the imagination. Many people will tell you that creating a daily schedule, as well as including time for yourself, is an efficient way to manage your time.

I’ve resisted trying something like this because I tend to get inflexible when I try to work to a schedule and frustrated when things don’t go quite to plan. So that’s something I need to work on (flexibility).

Also, I have to be careful not to overdo things on days when I’m feeling good. Apparently that’s not a wise use of my energy.

This whole concept fits in well with my desire to take “long service leave” this term. I can see it’s going to be easy to focus too much on getting the house to a state I’m happy with (which, unfortunately, I probably will never be happy with anyway) and not spend any time on things I’d like to do.

It’s also about retraining my brain that it’s OKAY to spend time on things that I find enjoyable. That I’m WORTH it.

I can’t help but think that seeing this guy is the next step in “Project Lightening”. My path toward finding myself, accepting myself and living life to the FULL.

I’m going to give this scheduling idea a try - I’ll keep you posted on how it’s working out.

I’m having a decluttering blitz at the moment.

It feels good.

To be honest, it’s been a while.

The best way to keep a home clutter free is to constantly declutter.

Yeah, well, I rarely do things the “best” way.

So, in the past few weeks, a LOT of stuff has gone into our landfill.

The good news is that I think this might finally help me turn around the bad spending spree I’ve been on for a few months now. Frugality has gone RIGHT out the window. And I’ve been having trouble finding it in our overgrown shrubbery.

Anyway, my goal is to get at least a garbage bag load of “stuff” out the door each week.

I think we’re probably getting to the end of the “junk” and getting to the actual “decent stuff that others can make use of” type junk now. Toys and clothes that are outgrown. That kind of thing.

I’ve considered trying to sell some of it on ebay to raise money for our trip. But in all honesty, I think I’m better off giving it away. Getting it out of the house is giving me a LOT of satisfaction and curbing my desire to spend. So I think at the end of the day, this is the best way to deal with it.

My plan is to update you periodically to keep me accountable.

So far this week:

1 x garbage bag of rubbish

2 x grocery bags of clothes (to Vinnies)

1 x kitchen tidy bag of toys (to Vinnies)

I’m pretty happy with that effort. Mondays seems to be my day for getting enthusiastic so not sure if I’ll get motivated to do some more later in the week or not. We’ll see.

How do you deal with your clutter? Are you a hoarder or are you good at keeping clutter down? I know for me it’s a constant struggle.

I did something I swore I’d never do - I bought something from one of those television infomercials. I couldn’t help myself. I’ve been wanting a steam mop for some time now and couldn’t be bothered doing the research on the best one. So I took the easy path and just ordered one over the internet. The H2O steam mop that I’d seen advertising on The Morning Show.

I don’t image it’s my most frugal purchase ever (ie I may have gotten it cheaper if I waited for the copycat products or on a clearance sale) BUT I have it NOW and it’s been put to good use over and over already.

Sometimes convenience has to take precedence over frugality (sometimes - not always).

I’m pretty happy with my purchase and I think Farmboy is too.

For a few years now, he’s had the job of mopping the floors. He doesn’t usually do the bathroom or toilets (for some reason he doesn’t even THINK to wash those) but he does the lino in the kitchen/dining/family room. My back doesn’t hold up very well to mopping.

However, with the H2O steam mop, I seem to manage okay. It’s more upright and takes less “muscle”. It’s still reasonably heavy but doesn’t require the “grunt” to clean marks from the floor.

Plus I love the idea that everything is sanitised by the steam - no chemicals whatsoever.

AND you can clean the carpets with it as well. I just cleaned a mark out of our office carpet this morning. It seems to do better on some marks than others but some of mine have been in the carpet for a while now. I guess it’s not a miracle worker. But I’m still REALLY happy with it.

Oh, and I should mention that I do dry my floors with a towel after mopping - it does leave the floors wet. But then, I usually do that anyway.

Anyway, Tuesdays is my cleaning day so I guess I should get back to it.

** This is an unauthorised review written simply because I wanted to tell you about it (no request from the company). It reflects my personal opinion only.

It’s been quite a big week or so for Lleyton when it comes to tennis.

A little over a week ago he played Senior Tennis with Farmboy and they won their doubles 6-0 6-0. Both then went on to win their singles 6-0. At the moment they’re both just filling in when the team needs extra players. That seems to be most weeks.

Wednesday after school, Lleyton had Junior Tennis and they held a mini-tournament which he finished top. Apparently he won 3-0 the whole way through.

Friday night they were again asked to play for our local club. This time at positions 9 & 10 instead of 11 & 12 where they had been playing. A bit more of a challenge for Lleyton.

Before the games began, I took some photographs of Lleyton in action. He was concerned I would put him off his game trying to take photographs of him in action so we did the photographs during a warm up hit.

I have others but I’m having trouble with photo editing this morning and at this rate I’ll not get ANY housework done! LOL. This is my favourite though.

In a strange twist of events Lleyton ended up playing his singles at number 7!!!! He didn’t win but it was a great challenge for him.

In an even STRANGER twist of events (both of them related to one another), I ended up playing my first game of tennis - EVER!!!

Who in their right minds decides “okay, I’ve never played a game of tennis before - why not start with competitive tennis?????????????????”.

Obviously I wasn’t in my RIGHT MIND!!!!

In my defence, I did say NO 3 times before my sense of “wanting to be helpful” overcame my “you have GOT to be kidding me!” reaction.

There was a mix up which left us 1 player short. Just as they were about to forfeit one game (well, one doubles and one singles), I asked the dreaded question. “Will it help if I play even I’m really REALLY bad at this?” They told me yes so I said I’d do it.

Having NO IDEA about the game of tennis, I had this brilliant theory that I could just “pretend” to be playing. Particularly in the doubles game where my partner could just do all the playing for me, right?

If I KNEW enough about tennis to realise I would HAVE to serve and receive served balls, I think I might have said NO a 4th and 5th time.

WHAT a disaster!!!

We started out with a few hits and the balls I was hitting were going EVERWHERE except on the court. One even got stuck on the roof. How humiliating!!!!

And did I mention that they failed to tell me I’d have to play at number 8????

Who knows what my doubles partner thought but he was very nice and very helpful and encouraging. And I did improve as the game wore on (not enough but an improvement nonetheless). And our opponents were friends so they went easy on me (and allowed me to serve underarm since I have NO IDEA how to serve!)

Farmboy was still playing doubles while all this took place and got quite a shock that I agreed to play. I don’t blame him really. He’s been trying to get me playing tennis our whole married life. He even bought me a tennis racquet quite a few years back that has hardly been used (I’ve had the occasional hit with it - mostly with the younger 2 kids). I still didn’t get to use my racquet in the doubles game as Farmboy was using it (his is stuffed).

When their doubles game was finished, Lleyton gave me a few handy pointers from the sidelines. I thought he did really well. He didn’t keep yelling instructions at me. Just made a couple of comments that were quite helpful (like hit the ball with the centre of the racquet and use 2 hands to hit a backhand). He’s planning on teaching me to serve properly which will be nice.

Some juggling was done so that I could play singles at number 12. Which is why Lleyton ended up playing at number 7. Farmboy was supposed to but he went straight into his singles without realising things had been changed around. Which meant Lleyton had to do it.

Singles was a lot of fun once I got used to the idea that I didn’t have a partner to do all the hard work for me. I even managed to win 1 of the games (so the final score was 6-1). And I learnt a bit more on how to score. I had a very patient and kind opponent which made it more fun.

You thought this post was all about Lleyton and his tennis didn’t you? LOL.

I did have a LOT of laughs (at my own expense) and discovered that I actually like the game of tennis. Not that I expect to have anyone banging down my door begging me to play for them. LOL. But it’s something fun we can do as a family and up until Friday night, I was the only one in the family with absolutely zero interest in playing.

Alright, back to Lleyton now.

On Sunday afternoon he had the opportunity to go to a tennis coaching clinic. We’ve been trying to work out how to get him some actual coaching so were very pleased when a friend was able to organise this opportunity for him. It looks like it’s going to open some doors to some ongoing coaching for him which will be great.

So, I can see a LOT more tennis taking place in our not too distant future. Perhaps it’s about time I learnt the rules of the game.

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