A little grumble

Argh…I have been sick for nearly a week, and I’m starting to get grumpy about it! It started with a cold last Monday, and it has slowly turned into a nasty cough., reminiscent of the bronchitis I had when I was pregnant with B4. And because of all the jolly coughing, I seem to have damaged a muscle in my tummy because I get a very sharp searing pain down my left side when I cough. It’s really starting to tick me off!

I hardly ever get sick and when I do I normally recover quite fast. I guess the pregnancy is taking it’s toll and I have less resistance than normal. I have rested and rested and rested and still coughing! I read a whole novel yesterday, which was nice, but I really wanna start living again! It makes me pity pregnant women who are placed on bed rest for long periods of time. They must go nearly insane.

It’s such a busy week coming up too…it’s E’s birthday tomorrow…she will be 7, and B’s birthday on Friday. He will be 5. We are having a party for them both on Saturday, so I’d better be better soon.  I forced myself to go out yesterday to buy E’s present and found myself hot and sweaty and short of breath just walking around the shop for 10 minutes. Grabbed the present and came home as soon as I could.

I’m supposed to be working today too. It was scheduled for yesterday but D made me do a shift swap with a colleague on account of E’s birthday. Fair enough, but now I feel like I can’t call in sick because I requested to work this shift! Arrrggghhh! It would have been easier to take tomorrow off because I could go to the doctor tomorrow and get a sick certificate. To get one today is a mission because it’s Sunday and expensive.

How do you like the timing of my carry on after yesterdays’ quote from Shaw? Appropriate huh? Hahhahaha

Meme (what does that mean anyway?)

Saw this meme over at Sharon’s blog today and thought I’d join in. I’m so tired lately that it’s been hard to write but this is an easy way to get something down.

What is your current obsession?

Raising funds to ship 473 boxes of donated medical supplies out of my garage and to the Howard Hospital in Zimbabwe.  Also poverty in general and raising people’s awareness of it.

What is your weirdest obsession?

I have no idea. If you think I have a weird obsession be sure to let me know. Thanks.

What are you wearing today?

Jeans, t-shirt, cardi.

What’s for dinner?

D made fried rice. Yum

What’s the last thing you bought?

A pair of knitting needles and a ball of wool because my 4 year old son wants me to make him a scarf to wear in the snow on Saturday. We are going on a (long) day trip to Mt Ruapehu.

What are you listening to right now?

Rain on the roof, crackling fireplace. Hum of computer.

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?

To visit family in Australia

Which language do you want to learn?

Hindi

What do you love most about where you currently live?

We are safe and warm and we get to eat every single day.

What is your favourite colour?

Pink or green

What is your favourite piece of clothing in your own wardrobe?

A white cotton peasant blousey thingy.

What were you doing ten years ago?

Backpacking around India with my buddy Ali.

Describe your personal style?

Um…..style? Casual. Comfortable. Practical.

If you had £100 now, what would you spend it on?

Well, that’s about NZ$259 which would cover the shipping of about 16 of the 473 boxes mentioned above.

What are you going to do after this?

Sleep

What are your favourite films?

I always find it hard to answer this question because I forget movies. (Never forget a good book though!) Also I don’t tend to watch the same movie over and over so none become a firm favourite. But let’s try……I enjoyed Australia, and did enjoy Slumdog Millionaire,

What inspires you?

When people discover and make time to pursue their dreams or the thing they are best at. I really believe that every single person has a unique and valuable contribution to make to the world…a destiny or purpose if you like and there is nothing more wonderful and inspiring to me that seeing them doing it with all their heart.

Your favourite books?

How long have we got? Ha ha there are many. I just finished reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaleed Hossieni and loved it. Also loved Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. Oh and The City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre, and The Hiding Place by Corrie TenBoom.  I love learning about how other people live and books that inspire me to action about things that are unjust in the world – like poverty and war and political regimes.

But I also love the classics, like Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and Jane Austens works. I also like classic childrens literature like Treasure Island – RL Stevenson and The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Do you collect anything?

Books and clutter.

What makes you follow a blog?

I like to read blogs of people I know as it’s a great way to get to know someone better. I also like to read blogs that inspire my creativity, or about ordinary people doing extraordinary things to make a difference in the world. Sometime I follow a blog out of habit because it’s been on my feed reader for such a long time and it would seem disloyal to suddenly delete it!

Name an unfulfilled dream or one thing you must do before you die?

To visit/travel in/ live in Africa. Feed a hungry child. (I mean literally….be there, not just send money)

What’s your biggest regret in life?

I don’t really have any regrets, but that’s not because I haven’t done anything stupid, but you can’t change the past so I tend not to think about them. I dunno. A minor regret prehaps …not celebrating my 30th birthday with a big fat party.

When you were a child/teenages what did you really want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be a nurse and a mother. (So far so good!)

The rules:1. Respond and rework; answer the questions on your blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your invention, add one more question of your own.2. Tag eight other people.

I’m tagging anyone anywhere who wants to join in. Leave a comment here so I can come read yours too.

More questions than answers

“It is not permissible to add to one’s possessions if these things can only be done at the cost of other men. Such development has only one true name, and that is exploitation.”

~ Alan Paton. (Cry, The Beloved Country. 1948)

I’ve been thinking about poverty a lot lately, and it’s becoming clearer to me that the way I live has an impact on people in a greater way that I thought before. You see…what I do doesn’t just affect my and my family, or even just my city. The way I live along with all the rest of us affects people everywhere.

I’m becoming aware of greed. You see….our culture makes us want Stuff. By that I mean all sorts of items non-essential to life. And we want more and more of this Stuff, and because we are greedy we want it cheaply. We get it cheaply on the most part, but why? When I buy my son a little pair of shoes that cost less than $10 from The Warehouse…do I really think that in that $10 price that is enough to pay retailers costs, profit for the retailer, transport costs from China, profit for the manufacturer, the cost of materials AND a decent wage for the person making them?

This has raised a lot of questions for me. I have to ask myself:

• Why are they so cheap? Is it cheap labour?
• Why is the labour cheap?
• Because in China people are willing to work for less?
• Why are they willing to work for less?
• Do they have a choice about working for less?
• Are we greedy?
• What are the people in these factories paid?
• What are their conditions like?
• If I stop buying cheap goods churned out to satisfy the west’s insatiable appetite for Stuff will it help the cause of the people who are currently making them?
• Is there that much difference between this and the boycott of sugar by the abolitionists who refused to eat sugar produced under slave conditions?
• What about Fair Trade?
• What should I do about it?

(I wrote this post months ago and just cleaning out my drafts folder. Mostly the questions remain unanswered, but I am developing an inner rage about injustice so you might just hear more about this someday soon)

I can’t go to bed early

I just can’t do it. hehehe Even though I’m just seriously wasting time doing pointless things (like finding my house and my previous house and mum and dad’s house, and my inlaws house and anyone else I happen to think of’s house on Google earth) I just can’t get it together to get to bed early.

And you know what’s kinda funny. Yesterday someone found my blog by typing

Can sleep depravity cause sweaty palms?

into a search engine. Goodness knows why it sent them here. I’m sure the word they were looking for is deprivation… But maybe I’ve got sleep depravity because I would really love to get up earlier in the morning and be well ahead of the kids, but I also want to stay up late and enjoy the peace and quiet! I have a week until we’re starting school for the year and earlier mornings would really help me get stay on top of the day. Any ideas. (Yes, I know….just get your butt into bed. Set your alarm and get up early! I know, I know…just looking for an option that happens by magic and requires no self discipline. Anything? Eh?)

Anyway… What’s going on for me? Well my husband has changed jobs and is around home much more and is so relaxed! Yay! I’m so happeeeee! He’s been working too hard for too long and I”m so glad he’s getting his life back.

As for me I’m enjoying working and I’m feeling terribly excited about the future! Nothing to tell at this stage, but I’m entertaining some dreams in my head that I thought were out of the question, but maybe they aren’t and maybe more within reach that I thought! It’s a continuance of last year’s great Coming Alive!  I wonder what will be the ‘thing’ for this year.

Never mind, feel free to help yourself

Imagine three kids in the $2 shop. I was trying to help E6 and B4 choose a colouring book. The toddler was behind me looking at the balls. He took two large bouncy balls, went outside the shop to play with them and kicked them into the car park. Then went on to the road to fetch them and was collected by a woman God bless her!

Needless to say the shopkeeper watched the whole thing without saying a word! WT????  If not for the danger, what about his stolen goods? This was the strangest thing about the whole experience.

I had to leave B4 and E6 inside while I went with R22months on my hip to fetch the balls…..I couldn’t hold them properly and they were bouncing everywhere while Ryan was whinging and wriggling in my arms. I should have known it was time to come home, but persisted in trying another shop. AAAAaaaaarrrrrrhhhhhhhhh. The boy continued to be impossible and extremely difficult. I must have looked like one of those mothers, whom I have often pitied.hee hee…must’ve looked pretty funny though. He is SUCH a scallywag.

Long time gone

Been taking a bit of a blog break the last little while. The 4th day of Christmas and all the rest of them came and went and not a blog post in sight. We had a great Christmas though.

So begins 2009 and so far it’s been a good one. D has changed jobs and is now working 25 hours a week shift work. I’m also working  again and Love it! So nice to be nursing again. It’s a skill I don’t want to lose and if I left it much longer I’d have to study again, which isn’t likely to happen.

One other thing to happen while I was away from blog land was that R22 months nearly lost the end of his finger. There was blood (eeek I could see bone) and screaming and 111 calls and morphine and ED waits and surgery and bandages and pamol and antibiotics and no baths for days and now it’s all well that ends well. Poor little fella. He was so brave. Not an experience I ever want to revisit.   (I’d rather voluntarily place my finger in the door and have someone slam it than see that again on my little child)

Anyway, with the lack of blog writing and blog reading that has been going on, I have enjoyed quite a bit of reading…I’m adding a Library Thing widget with books from 2008, and my list for 2009. If you want to read my reviews they’ll all be over there unless there’s something particularly good I read that I want to share with you here.

So…maybe I’m back. Maybe not.  I’ll believe it if I see it!

Cry, The Beloved Country

Cry, The Beloved Country – Alan Paton

This was one of those books that when I’d finished, I wondered where it had been all my adult reading life. (Or prehaps where I’d been, or perhaps why hadn’t my High School English teacher set this as a required text?) I’d borrowed this book from a friend, but it one I definitely want on our shelves.

Published in 1948 about aparteid South Africa. This is a moving story about a black pastor Kumalo who leaves his village for Johannesburg to find his son who had gone away to work, but had stopped writing home. As he follows his son’s trail to find his whereabouts, the news is increasingly grim.

The novel also tells the story of a white farmer whose farm is near the same village. His son, an engineer in Johannesburg was murdered by a young black man who’d broken into his house. The murdered man Arthur Jarvis was an advocate for black people. 

I found it an intelligent and unbiased look at the injustices of the time. So very beautifully written in the Zulu oral tradition, the story and the characters engaged me and the issues were addressed with sensitivity and understanding. The central themes are the land, justice and fear.

A paragraph I’ll take away with me and have been giving a lot of thought to, comes from a document the murdered man had been working on at the time of his murder. It was found among his papers by his father. He is writing here about the problem of the breakdown of the family and the tribe because of mine workers being away from the villages and their wives and children…

What we did when we came to South Africa was permissible. ….

…

It was permissible when we discovered  gold to bring labour to the mines. It was permissible to build compounds and to keep women and children away from the towns. It was permissible as an experiment, in the light of what we knew. But in the light of what we know now, with certain exceptions, it is no longer permissible. It is not permissible for us to go on destroying family life when we know that we are destroying it. It is permissible to develop any resources if the labour is forthcoming. But it is not permissible to develop any resources if they can be developed only at the cost of the labour. It is not permissible to mine any land, if such mining and manufacture and cultivation depend for their success on a policy of keeping labour poor. It is not permissible to add to one’s possessions if these things can only be done at the cost of other men. Such development has only one true name, and that is exploitation. It might have been permissible…before we became aware of it’s cost…. But now that the cost is known, it is no longer permissible.

I can’t stop thinking about that sentence above which I’ve highlighted.

Loved, loved, loved this book.l loved how it told a great story that made me cry, examined real issues which despite being based around the events in SA in the 40’s are just as relevant today (in fact are universally relevant), and it made me think!

Chicken Pox is a nasty horrible little virus

I suppose you’re all really fond of me by now. You know….Absence makes the heart grow fonder..yada yada..

I’m still here…just fell off the blogging wagon for a bit so to speak. All of my kids have recently had chicken pox. I’m not sure if it was better or worse that they didn’t get it all at the same time. It has meant that our quarantine had been longer, and I’m a bit starved for adult company and sick of the walls of this house. But, at least it wasn’t too hard going looking after them. (Except for yesterday)

E5 got it in the first week of the school holidays. Actually the first day of the holidays so that put a swift end to her sleep over and play with lots of friends plans. She had a mild dose and didn’t suffer too badly. She was such a brave girl throughout and tried so hard not to scratch. She did well…and was always a cheerful patient.

B3 got his spots exactly 18 days after his sister. He was also very brave. He was slightly worse than his sister, but still well enough to be up and playing. SO like him, he didn’t want his photo taken, so I had to sneak this.

Oh, but poor poor baby R. 2 weeks after B3, he too got the pox. This is day 2:

This is how we spent most of Thursday…in my arms with teddy. Tears and snot if I dared go to the toilet.

Cheerful moments were few and far between, but we made the most of them.

And yesterday was utterly horrible.

He was not a happy camper. Neither was I. He’d been awake until 2:30 am the night before and again at 6am and after starting his day at 8am didn’t sleep a wink until 4:30pm for about an hour. He was up until 10pm last night. Poor poor baby. So miserable. Lots of crying. I camped out in his room last night. (On The FLOOR! Yes, on the actual floor because I was oh so clever and moved the spare bed to the other room and one of the kids was sleeping on it! It wasn’t too bad really…I did have a pillow and a duvet. When I tried to leave him sleeping to sneak into my bed in the middle of the night, he woke and screamed loudly for me to stay. Grrr….how do they do that!?)

Today is not much better. He’s hopefully (fingers and toes and eyes and arms and legs crossed and holding breath and touching wood) sleeping right now. It’s been quiet in his room for about 5 minutes so far. If he does, I’m off to read a story to the big kids and try to plough my way way through the mess that has accumulated the past 2 days.

Brought to you by the letter ‘B’

This is a one of those waffling nothing kind of posts so feel to wander off if you get bored.Okay? But there’s a poll at the end, so skip the boring bits and go vote and comment! Oh, and did anyone notice that the last 7 posts all started with ‘B’? Or is it just me who notices things like that.

It’s 2:17 on a Friday afternoon, and I still haven’t done the dishes. Or the washing. But! I have just blitzed! the house. Well almost the whole house…I have cleaned three rooms, moved a bed, a bookcase and all the toys and vacuumed behind all the furniture in the bedrooms. You see….I’ve been creating a Play Room! No photos….because the boy is sleeping in there.

I’ve moved the single bed from R19months’ room into the big kids room. That room now has their bunks and a single bed, and a tall boy. I’ve moved all their toy drawers and boxes into R19months’ room which is now a play room except for when he is sleeping in there. The idea being that when he is big enough for a bed he’ll move in with the other two. Three kids sleeping in one room may sound crowded, but it a largeish room and if you just have the kids and their clothes it’s fine. All their toys and books will be in the other room.

So even though the rest of the house is a tip, it feels good to be clean and tidy in our bedrooms. A move around is always refreshing and inspiring. The older two are now having fun with the extra bed, and with long lost toys rediscovered.

The tidy up, clean up, get organised, get control of this disaster zone called my house bug has bitten me and I’m not finished yet! I’m taking a quick break and then it’s off to the kitchen, lounge and vacuum the rest of the carpet areas. If I have time I’ll also clean the bathroom and toilet and then I’ll feel like a million dollars ready to start the weekend!

Another piece of happiness is that we have our exemption. The one I was stressing about … That is, an exemption from the requirement to enrol E5 in a public school. So the application that I was so worried about has been approved, post dated to her birthday and has arrived a couple of weeks early. So we are officially home schooling now….the government has given us permission to teach our child. Pfft.

Oh, and in other news. I have a job interview on Wednesday. Eeeek! It’s been a while since I was in work mode… I’m planning to go back to work for a shift a week (nursing) for now, perhaps two in the future. We really could do with the extra money, and also if I leave it too much longer I will have to study again to keep my skills up to date. The advantage of nursing is that I can work shifts when D is home to look after the kids. Actually, it’s essential really….I don’t think child care centres take nearly 6 year olds! Wow. So I’m going to be working again.

I want to add a poll. Just because I can. And I’ll be the first to answer. Yes! I have secret ambitions. I’m a dreamer and I want to change the world. Or part of it at least. How about you? And don’t be shy to comment!

Busy Busy Busy

Honestly while some days I feel like I don’t get much done, or that my diary is empty, actually I have heaps to do. I’m feeling slightly overwhelmed at the moment. (Maybe my diary is empty because I don’t write anything in it.)

I have too many things going on right now…the most pressing of which is our application for exemption for E5’s home schooling. Her 6th birthday is coming up, by which time we need to already hold the exemption. I think I’ve nearly finished it, but our printer isn’t working (gah!) and I still need to photocopy her birth certificate and get it sent.

Then the Zim project is weighing on my mind a bit. Just lots of outstanding tasks…mostly ones I’m not good at. (Like phoning shipping companies). I also need to finish the inventory of each item in the shipment. It’s a big task…so far I’m just under halfway and have marked 250 boxes and documented their contents.  Also, a lovely friend has donated some amazing art work for me to sell to raise funds. I’m not sure that selling it online is the way to go because it’s hard to do them justice…so I’m supposed to be organising an art display/coffee morning or something, but just the thought of it boggles me. The little store is going so well….having regular orders…thanks to everyone for their support of the project.

I also need to consider getting re-registered (nursing) in order to go back to work for a couple of shifts a week. Not sure when it will need to happen, but I feel like with everything else going on that I just can’t fit work in right now. So…..I want to get the Zim thing finished (sent) by Christmas so the I can perhaps start working in the new year.

Oh, and school term starts on Monday and the kids want to go to swimming lessons…that means I need to re-enrol them Pronto! As in TODAY!

Oh, yes I mentioned a birthday….E5 and R3 both have birthdays coming up. What am I gonna do !?

I think that’s it. Not sooo bad I guess…just I keep forgetting things, and feeling a little stressed. And, I’ve got this annoying twingy pain…in the appendix area. Its’ not terribly bad, just annoying and slightly worrying because I don’t know what it is. Been to the doctor…nothing major came out of that (waiting a few months probably for a scan)…except a blood test showed my Ferritin (measure of iron stores) is really low. Like 17 low. Should be around 20-150. Great…sigh