Thanksgiving

It's not something we celebrated down here naturally but with my blogging friends, yes this is what I consider you, my friends whom I just havent met yet :-), celebrating thanks giving and blogging their thanks, and with having just spent a weekend doing not a heck of a lot but doing it with all the right people I thought I might add my thanks into the mix.
I am thankful for my family, Mum and Dad I didnt have for a long time but I had them for a great time. I am grateful that I had such a wonderful Mum and Dad.
My sisters, athough we dont keep contact and very rarely speak to each other, I am thankful they and their families are well and safe.
My friends, these are the stars in my life sky. My friends make me who I am, and each and every one of them is treasured beyond belief.
My son, my darling son, my world and the absolute centre of my universe even when he is driving me to drink. I am so grateful the powers that be gave me this child out of all I could have had.
And I am thankful for the man who has recently come into my life. He brings to it so many good things.

I have just had the most wonderful weekend and this has made me reflect on being thankful and maybe sometimes I need to stop and think about giving thanks.

It started Thursday night, I met a girlfriend after work we went to the mall, we dont do this often, maybe once a year, and we browsed the shops. She has recently met a man too so we discussed what we could get our guys for Christmas being as the relationships are new, we went into more menswear stores than womens clothing stores. That has to be a first ever lol. We just hung out together for a few hours, it was great, revitalising, refreshing. I love her to bits.

Then friday night my man came over with his overnight bag to stay the weekend. We watched movies and took his boy shopping and did some stuff for his mum and then cooked dinner and took the furkids (dogs) for a very long walk in the evening (holding hands :-D ) today while I valet my car he helped my boy put up some wall lining in the garage.
I really just had one of those weekends where nothing extraordinarily spectacular happened or was achieved but that everything felt right for me.
Contentment reigned supreme in my world this weekend.

Post Script

And my heart just broke all over again to read the 17 year old boy was an only child.

:( :( :(

A small place, a heart wrenching tragedy, a country cries.

Today I watched the 6 o'clock news when I got home from work, tears pouring down my face. Today a second explosion dashed any hopes that the 29 minors might have survived, some if not all, but now all hope is gone. On Friday here in New Zealand, our tiny little isand at the bottom of the planet there was a massive explosion in a coal mine on the west coast. The Pike River Mine.

Mining isnt a big thing here in New Zealand. It's not a huge export business, its a small thing, like we are, but in the last 5 days the entire country has held it's breath in the hope there might be survivors. It was a possibility, a slim one but we all held hope that we would have our miracle. We waited, we hoped, we prayed. Resuce teams were waiting for the all clear to go in, poised, ready, charged with bringing these guys back to their loved ones. Today before the gases had cleared sufficiently to send anyone in a second massive blast ripped through the mine, this one destroying all hope, no one will have survived this one.

We have heard all about one who was to be married in three weeks, one expecting a child in a month, fathers, brothers, son's. A son who passed his father in the mine shaft on his way in as his dad walked out after his shift. The one who had finished his shift but opted to do a couple of hours overtime and then the one who cut me to the quick.....

A 17 year old boy, his first day at work. My sons age. I cannot imagine how his parents feel, and can only begin to imagine how I would feel if it were my boy.

And so I sit here typing this with tears still pouring down my face and my heart breaking for the families of those twenty nine men.

We are a small country with a big sorrow today. Our heart weeps.

In memory of the 29 minors who have perished in the Pike River Mine 24/11/2010

May your souls find peace where ever that may be for you.

5 down, 1 to go.

Ok so the teenager has managed to get through 5 exams and he has 1 left this thursday, History. To top it all off he also sits his restricted driving test on Dec 1, just to add to the pressure. I for one will be so pleased when it's all over and I can yell at him to clean his god damned mess up and pick up after himself again. Well no I dont look forward to the yelling but I have been trying very hard not to rock the boat while he is in the thick of exams and I swear he knows it too.

But I am over, I mean really really over the mess being left everywhere. It's not the study mess I mean, it's everything else that is just being dropped and left where it lies and the not bothering to even attempt his chores, I have mowed the lawns and unpacked the dishwasher and fed the hounds, all these things his chores but so as not to get into an argument about having to ask him to do it a dozen times and then get 'angus' at him when he doesnt do it and create stress, I have just done these things myself over the last two weeks. Now a gentle reminder to clean up his mess in the kitchen I met with attitude and I hate attitude from the teenager, it bugs the shit out of me that I get attitude when I ask him to clean up a mess he made himself, I mean its not like I asked him to cut of his left leg...or his right for that matter. Anyway thats my bleat for today.

On another note last friday I had a couple of friends over for a drink after work, wind down the week so to speak. New Guy called in and got to met some of my friends in a more conversational way. The girls liked him, the blokes like that he is an avid fisherman and a tradesman with handy skills lol.

Should I still be calling him New Guy when we have been exclusively dating for over 2 months already and he now has a toothbrush, a razor and deodorant at my place?

The pic is my first waterlily from my pond photographed today on my poxy old cellphone.

Drained teenager, sucked dry of anything comprehensible.

Bennyboy had his first year 12 level 2 NCEA exam yesterday, OK New Zealand exam system isnt particularly good in my eyes but who am I to judge. My Aunty picked him up after the exam and took him back to her place and fed him 4 pieces of toast and a tin of baked beans. He hoovered these down and promptly lapsed into exhausted slumber on her couch.

I picked him up at 5.30 and he slept in the car for the 25 min drive home. He then walked in the front door and collapsed onto the couch in the lounge and went back to sleep, in fact I am not sure he was actually awake when he walked from the car inside to start with. I took the furchildren (dogs) for a run on the beach. When I got back the teenager was still sprawled the length of the couch sleeping. I cooked steak potatoes and veges for dinner, he woke long enough to eat most of this meal but a few vege. I asked him would he like me to put them into an omelette for him with some cheese, a chessy vege omelette. This I did and he preceeded to hoover this down as well. It seems this refueled him for a while because I was parked on the back deck outside watching the sun set with a chilled glass of vino in hand talking to New Guy on the phone when teenager came out and plonked down beside me to engage in conversation. We talked, we laughed, we joked around. He told me about his exam, and the Physics exam he has today. He told me what Universities he wants to apply to next year. Selfishly I hope he gets accepted for his conjoint Science, Enginneering programme at Auckland Uni simply because that means he will live at home a little longer.

We have had our ups and downs in the last 12 months the teenager and I, I have found it very hard to be his mother at times and at times I have wished him living elsewhere, but last night, last night I told him how proud I was of him and that I loved the man he was becoming and that I love that we can sit and talk in the evenings like we do. He is growing up so fast and he wont be living with me for too many more years but man I am loving where we are right now.

There's something inexplicably poignant in that moment you are having a conversation with your child and you realise that you are no longer having a parent/ child conversation but a conversation with another adult.

The Picture...oh thats Ben sleeping on dining room chairs as per previous post.

Warst Won or rather Last One

Well last week I started my last paper. Economic Environment. Sounds tedious I know but its needs must as such. It's my last paper for my NZIM Dip Mgmnt so I am just wanting to get the bloody thing over and done with and out of the way. Feb next year it will be finished. Sounds like ages away but its not, its only 12 weeks or 3 months away, not long at all really.
I am looking forward to Christmas Holidays....yayyy 3 weeks off work to do nothing but everything I feel like doing. Knowing me the first couple of days will be sleeping, I seem to start my holidays with a big sleepathon over a couple of days and then hit the ground running for the rest of the time.

At present my Bennyboy is cramming for end of year finals, to the point he slept at the dining room table spread across a couple of chairs on saturday night...........why I dont know, the reason wasnt clear but I am not going to argue with him while he is working his tail off and worrying about exams. I will tolerate the mess of books and notes and paper everywhere because he is working so incredibly hard, even while his friends are meeting at the beach he is staying back with his nose in the books. I havent told him to study or given him any instructions or restrictions at all, he is just cramming off his own bat so all credit to him I say and I wish him all the luck in the world with his exams starting tomorrow morning and going over the next two weeks.

I feel for these kids sitting their finals, I remember the nerves and stress and scariness of it all from my school days.

So Good Luck to you all
Go Hard and Go True.

Pumpkins need dentures too.

Ok I couldnt resist taking these two photos to show even pumpkins get wrinkles and need dentures when they get old.

Hey at least I took the spider out of his mouth before I took the photos. Big plastic one, not a real one. He was trying to gum it to death I think. lol

Back Down to Earth...THUMP! and in flys Dynamo Guy to the rescue.

But not in a bad way just the buzz of the party is now a memory but a great one non the less.

Dynamo Guy as I will call the New Guy in my life came to my party, well he turned up many many hours early to lend a hand to decorate and assist with preparations. Now can I say this guy is a human Dynamo, he is organised and efficient and well,... organised and I am not, so it was great having this person there. Everything got done and done well. He laid out the clues for the kids treasure hunt although I confused his ass at one point so he had to start again and may I say he was very patient with me about it.
Then when people started arriving he lit the BBQ and BBQ'd up a storm during the evening and I could see all these people standing there whispering "who is this guy? where has he come from and what hasnt She told us" Anyway Dynamo Guy was wonderfully brave facing all my friends enmass and kept me sane throughout the night and made good impressions on the Aunty who is matriarch of the family. Then to make matters worse he helped clean up and pack up the next day...ok too good to be true, I am waiting for some criminal past / really bad trait to manifest. How can anyone be so damn nice and helpful and complimentary and respectful and sweet and lovely, something has got to be wrong here or maybe I am just so jaded I look for the bad when things are going so well. He loves fishing , he rides motorbikes, he has a good job and loves his family and has friends he has known for 30 + years. He seems stable and good natured and lots of other good things, he told me he loves spending time with me and I inspire him with all my study and abilities to use powertools, he says he has never met a girl like me, one who is so capable (most guys find my ability to use a skill saw threatening) ........... and he treats me like a princess.
I need to stop the paranoia and looking for the bad stuff because its not healthy for me to be all ....HUH!! I told you so! I told you I would find something bad and then I will blow it out of proportion and it will turn into this insidious monster riding my mind.
Time to just go with the flow and stop looking for monsters I think.