so let me rephrase

okay so this morning i wasn't panicing, and tonight i'm not panicing either but i am, however, fluctuating between an intersting variety of emotions including exhaustion, confusion, surprise, disdain, superiority (this was an aberration) and resignation. none of these arebeing all that useful when it comes to doing thhings on THE LIST but they are quite handy companions in the middle of the night. and i suspect midnight and dawn will be renewing their aquanitanceship with me in the next few hours.

translation. what was i thinking?????????????????????

not exactly panicing but certainly not zen

having spent most of yesterday setting up work on a research project i now have a day and a half to write a 4000 word paper and a 3000 word assignment. i've pretty well given up on the idea of doing any preparation re the two presentations i have to do cause i figure that they'll just have to be all spontaneous. and usually i present pretty well when i am sleep deprived, jet lagged, and ever so high on chocolate. so i'm not exactly relaxed any more, but i am not exactly freaked yet. i think by the end of the day i'll have a much clearer picturer of whether i will be a nervous wreck by saturday or just a standard kind of mother-leaving-town wreck.

confirmation

and following up from my recent as recent decision not to do kindergarten becauuse i thought they were really getting enough stimulation at childcare and from their nanny, i was just commenting to isaac and soph about how lucky they were to have so many different colours of pyjama. "blue" i said "and pink and green". "Yes", said Isaac. "and indigo". Um. What?? "Oh yes" said Sophie "and blue and red make purple" "yes" said Isaac "and purple and green make indigo". Okaaayyyy. if you say so...."how did you know that" i asked "oh lisa taught us" said isaac "and so did jack and molly" said sophie "at the puffet show last week".

so now there are puppets out their teaching my kids more than i do...

i suspect it isn't only kindergartens that might be inadequate, i suspect their mama is too....

big decisions

rather surprisingly, i have just decided--with glass midway to my lips and words for a conference paper fforming in my head--that i am not going to send the kids to kindergarten next year. it would be stressful for me, busy busy for them, and would provide them with absolutely no skills that they don't already have.

so that's it. regardless of whether or not this makes me a good, bad, or hideously evil parent in the eyes of ed bureaucracies throughout the land, I DON'T CARE. and WE'RE NOT DOING IT.

decisiveness is good.

denial?

while every fibre of my being should be in a total state of panic about my looming saturday departure and the absolute resilience of my very impressive 'to do' list, i find i don't really have the energy to be stressed. this, it must be said, is probably a very good thing, but it does feel a little weird. usually by now i am hyperventilating all over the place and desperately trying to remember little things like passports and itineraries. but i suspect that this time i am so far behind schedule that any indvidiual task has ceased to matter very much. of course they WILL matter a very great deal in about 3 days time, but by then i'll be so snoozy it really won't matter. and i'll be out of the country. so no matter how badly wrong things go most people will never know....

getting my goat

so far today--an ordinary, average, stock standard day--i have encountered no fewer than three references to the wonders of goat cheese. now to be honest, when i think about cheese i like to be entirely oblivious to the fact that it has some connection to some kind of animal. i don't want to hear about its mother. i don't want to hear about its brothers and sisters. and i absoluttely don't want to hear anything at all about curds, whey or anything else even remotely grey. grey is just not a good colour for a food. ever. it is stuff like this that could turn me into a vegetarian.

as long as i could still eat steak. obviously.

decisions decisions

yesterday i mentioned that librans can be totally decisive provided they put thei rmind to it. this morning i have an example of thhis. i just got ann email from england asking me to pre-order my dinner for sometime next week; they sent a menu with three options for each course. at 5 am in the morning the decision making process was made much much easier with the sole criteira being selecting food which didn't make me feel totally sick. so poached guinea fowl, goats cheese tart (god i think i'm going to barf just typing this) game terrine and chocolate tarts are all out, and soup, roast pork and bread and butter pudding are in. as horrible as they sound at this time of day they are a hell of a lot better than the alternatives.

and yes i am procrastinating.

okay i confess

yes i watch australian idol. i think it reminds me of all those talent shows that were on tv when i was a lass. and ihave to say i get quite sad for the poor young things who don't make it through. last year they were almost all entirely irritating, buut this year thhey seem like a nice bunch. which may mean that i am mellowing (aka ageing) or it just meant that thhis lot can actually sing. this doesn't mean that i see this as any particularly authentic way to produce music or 'stars' just that if the show exists, and it uses real people, then it's kinda nice ot see them do well.

fyi i also watch sesame street whenever i have a chance and i have a great weak spot for Whose Line is it Anyway buut the last time i saw that on TV was about 4 in the mroning and although i'm often awake then getting out of bed and being proactive isn't usually on my list of things to do. oh bugger. i've still got that list to do...

counting blessings

not that i want to go all new agey or anything but i have been known from time to time to carp on about how under appreciated i am and how no one likes to be takne for granted and blah blah blah how-tragic-am-i. so i think it's probably a good idea to acknowledge at least occasionally how luckyy i am to know at least a few people who i cann walk up to (or email) on a bad day and with very little prompting get them say something nice about me. it is good to have friends. and one day i wil say something nice to all of you just to prove that this isn't a one way system. or at least, i'll put it on my list of things to do. and admittedly getting off the list (through completion) is harder than getting on the list but we all have to start somewhere. so there it is. being grateful and appreciative is now officially my 23rd most urgent thhing to do.

less like a libran, more like the wind

as horoscopes go, librans get petty bad press around the whole indecisiveness thing. 'will we won't we' is our alleged motto and admittedly that's unlikely to ever feature on many family crests. but i have to say that people seriously misunderstand this libran thing. what we really look for is the right decision and fairness. and that can take some time. but when we have to make a decision--or when we DECIDE to be decisive--then we are as speedy and authoritative as the average Aries. for instance, now that i have children and time alone and unaccompanied is so very rare, i can do things like purchase a pair of shoes in 99 seconds (in a previous life thhis activity could have taken up half a day) or buy an entire trolley full of groceries in 14 minutes. and on the weekend i impressed even myself byy taking sophie into town, to buy a CD, a book, some chhocolates and some aftershave (from 3 separate stores) in a total of 17 shopping minutes which left us 3 minutes for a ride on the andy pandy go-round and enough time to make it back for an open house at yet another place we can't afford to buy (actually this seemed to come with a bonus neighbourhood lamb--it was baaing all over the shop; i'd have to kill it if i lived anywhere near it...)

so when push comes to shove, or needs must, or any other time-based c liche you can think of kicks in, librans can be as decisive as any one else. we just have to want to....

mental health days

i think there shhould be a move to declare all sundays mental health days; days where people can only do things that make them feel uproariously grand. or sleep a lot. either way. today i am still so tired that i think there is a chance my eyes might start to bleed, but after a lovely fathers day complete with too much cake, and almost no vegetables (oh, well, we did have snow pea soup so that counts..) and the requisite socks, chocs, DVDs, books and-fanciest of all-super remote control..i feel like i might just be able to manage all those things on that great big list of mine. even the really important one like "write conference paper" may just be within grasp. just. maybe.

weekends are marvellous things

i felt a bit like i'd run a very long tortuous marathon by the end of friday but just one day into the weekend and things all seem pretty good. setting aside the fact that i have to go to england next saturday, i have to say that slightly warmer days, slightly more sun, and slightly fewer things to tick off the 'to do' list make life seem pretty good.