After a long hiatus

. . . I'm left feeling like the queen, who announced one year (1992) that she'd had an annus horribilis, which we've had this year. Life has become so chaotic that I've been away from the blogosphere, but I am trying now to make a return and resume more normal duties instead of just running in what I term "survival mode".

Not everything has been bad, of course. Princess Sleepyhead has had highlights: doing better at her new school than expected -- for the first time ever she received an academic award -- and finally finally getting to perform on "Carols by Candlelight" on Channel 9. She has waited and waited and waited for that. And while I don't have a link to that performance I have one to the Victorian State Singers performing their nine-lesson carol service (the lessons have been edited out, though not by me) earlier this month. It's well worth a listen -- they're an excellent youth choir, and looking for new members. In case you're Melbourne-based and under 30, here's their website.

Sir Talkalot, the cause of much of this year's chaos (which is a change as he's usually the "easy" child), has started at a new school, which he loves and we're very impressed with.

So, let's hope the new year is more settled, happy and productive in all ways -- for you and me both!

Things that are griping me at the moment

(i) People who say they're going to show up for something and don't. Last week, we had our Rotunda night with John Clarke and had over 160 people say yes they were coming -- at which point we declared the session full and turned a lot of people away. And on the night, we had around 110. Lots of our students didn't come and said they had wanted to but didn't bother because they'd heard it was full. The night was fantastic -- John was informative, entertaining and so warm and generous with his time, Sherryl was a very relaxed and competent interviewer, and then we followed their session with some excellent student readings, so it was a shame that we had turned so many people away. I know sometimes there are genuine reasons people can't come at the last minute, but I doubt so many people had emergencies... Why bother booking if you don't intend to come? And if you can't -- please let us know!

(ii) Government bodies who think that the way to increase TAFE patronage is to increase fees. Please excuse the trumpet-blowing that's to follow, but I feel quite passionate about this. We have a fantastic course -- I truly believe that. We have a fantastic bunch of committed teachers who love our course and love teaching in it. We've worked hard to build it, to make it a dynamic, happening place, to recruit an enthusiastic staff -- and although we're tiny we're leading the university in terms of what we're doing online. We've embraced the university's community engagement directives, and are running events that are well attended both by students and those in the wider community. The feedback we're getting is excellent. We've risen in the pop pols since I started, from third to second place and have that final place, which we believe rests on its (excellent) marketing abilities, in our sights, even if it is way ahead of us. Our students love our course (most do, anyway -- I can't speak for them all, of course...). We have so much going for us -- and now we're under the gun. Thanks, people! Raising prices, yes, that's how I'd get people to come too. (Pardon the sarcasm!) What it means is that those who are thinking about studying at TAFE should jump in now and lock themselves into the current fee structure. 

(iii) Councils who do sneakies -- like putting up small no-parking signs without warning anyone that they're going to do this. That's what's happened at the end of my street -- and I got caught there the other day. $113 worth of caught to be exact. What made it worse was I had originally parked somewhere else and thought the car might be too near a corner so moved it to do the right thing. Argghh. Clearly, I wasn't looking for signs because I've often parked there. Mind you -- my brother got caught somewhere after a council erected the signs while his car was parked. How rude is that! Fortuitously (and fortunately), he happened to have photographic evidence, but still had to go to court to get out of it. After my exhausting efforts to get another fine (only $75 worth in a different council) overturned last year -- I won, but I'm still wondering whether it was worth it, given the amount of time and grief it caused me, I've decided that this time I'll have to just suck it up. In this house, we have a process in place that works well: if one gets a fine they think is truly undeserved and that they're pissed off about, the other quietly goes away and pays it. It's just as though the fine has disappeared...

Well, the holidays are over...

And it's back to school. Yay! The house to myself to get some work done. Today it's workshopping and class prep and editing and maybe working on my own stuff -- if there's any time left. And that's the problem with my priorities really. Everyone else's work comes first. I'm going to be looking at ways of addressing that the next few weeks.

Time to review the holidays, which were almost a non-event this year. We did see several movies: Race to Witch Mountain, Inkheart, Knowing and Duplicity -- and I saw The Reader, just before the holidays began. Plus we went to see Wicked, and didn't I get a shock when we drove into the city because we were late (what a surprise! not) and missed our train. I was expecting parking to be around the $20 mark. Foolish, foolish woman. I'd forgotten that usually when I drive in to go to a live show, it's the weekend, and weekend parking is cheaper. The first place we stopped was $47. Gulp. Then a bit further out we found one for $40. Further out still we eventually found parking for $32 -- one of those places where you leave your keys in the ignition, and they park it for you, which really freaked out the kids. Our plenty of free time was eaten up in the cross-city slog, and neither child had eaten anything, so by the time they bought food (which I was most surprised to find out they were allowed to take inside) it was right on starting time. We had great seats -- second row -- so close we could see where the actors' hairpieces ended! Anyway, I'll post reviews on my writing blog.

Other things we enjoyed -- Victorian State Singers presenting the Credo Mass on Good Friday. I was settling in for something that was going to go on for hours and was surprised to find out it was considerably shorter than I expected, but beautifully presented as always. Man, I love this choir, which is struggling a bit with numbers, though I can't imagine why. Actually, that's not quite true. I do know why -- I just think in a perfect world this group would be bursting at the seams. First, people have to get over their misconceptions. Princess Sleepyhead has been trying to recruit at school and not meeting any kind of success -- kids saying why would they want to join a daggy choir. 

And why would they? Here's a few reasons. For a start, there's the practice of singing for three hours a week, which for those doing VCE can only be a huge benefit. Then there's the performance experience. This is a choir that does fairly regular performances -- great at getting any performer used to what's expected -- with a varied repertoire of music. So that's the next point -- learning lots of different styles of music, broadening knowledge of what's out there. And then there's the other thing, perhaps the most important of all: this group has fun! They love singing, and their leader, Doug Heywood, and pianist, Alexander Cameron, are great motivators. It's a serious choir with a great sound that has lots of fun -- what more could you want?

In the bad books

That's me. Sir Talkalot is barely talking to me. I'll have to rename him Sir Talkalittle if he keeps this up. What have I done now?

Easy. 

He was supposed to be at a friend's house this morning, and I didn't take him. Er, hello? I did try to get him up. He refused. And I had a dental appointment. At 11.15. Now, seriously, if he's still in bed and refusing to get up, what does he expect me to do? Maybe he shouldn't have been up playing computer games half the night.

And then he's equally unhappy because I did pick him up at his friends' house this evening. 11 pm to be precise. (Well, "accurate" really because I only went once.)

He wanted to stay all night. I said no because we've got something on tomorrow -- and hasn't he just proven this morning that he can't get up after a late night?

We agreed on midnight -- well, no, I laid down the law; he acquiesced rather than agreed. But then he rang up today and said there'd been a change of plan, and they were going somewhere else, and he wasn't telling us where because he wanted to stay all night. That's just not on. His penalty was an hour earlier pick-up. So he barely spoke to me all the way home. Tough. We can play it his way or mine. I choose mine.

What I hate

is kids that come up to you at 1.30 am and say, "Mum, we have a cultural day tomorrow, and we all have to take some food to share from our background. Can you make me something Dutch to take..."

Children!

Friday madness

Are other families as disorganised as ours? On Thursday, I spent the day in the hospital at the fracture clinic with Sir Talkalot and his broken arm. I took a book I'm reading for school to read but got little reading done as Sir Talkalot wanted to talk. So I put the work off. That evening I was feeling ill with stabbing pains in my abdomen -- I thought maybe it was a UTI, but it turned out to be some odd sort of gastro bug that's doing the rounds; in any case, I didn't get any work done.

So:

Friday morning, I wake up feeling feverish and with aches and pains everywhere. And Sir Talkalot has missed his bus. Again. Resigned to having to take him, I'm ready to go when Sir T notices the dogs were out. There's much cussing and cursing (yeah, they're the same thing really, but it sounds good!) as the blasted dogs don't want to be caught, but we get them inside, eventually. By this time we're running late.

We drive into school and get there at 9.05. Sir T has an excursion and is dismayed because there are no buses waiting. No buses, and no students waiting for buses.

"They've gone already. Quick, quick, you have to take me into the Immigration Museum!"

"Don't you think you should go in first and check?"

"My classroom was empty. They're not here."

"How do you know?"

"We just drove past it," he says. (The road to his locker pod goes through the school itself.) "It's empty. I'm telling you: they're gone!"

"Oh."

"Quick! You've got to get me there."

So we head back out onto the road and battle the peak-hour car park that's called a freeway. Sir T is getting agitated by the traffic jam and our slow process. "Don't worry," I say. "If we're caught, so are they."

We get to the Immigration Museum at 9.50. Happily -- unexpectedly -- there's a car park nearby. I have 85 cents in change in the car, so I'm wondering how long that will buy me. Not long, I presume, wishing I'd brought my bag and purse. Even more happily, the meter is out of order -- although this makes me cautious because the last time I parked in a spot with an out-of-order meter, I got a parking ticket, even though I rang and reported the meter as faulty. I had two rounds of fighting that before I won. This time I can't ring as I haven't got my phone. It's in my bad. After all, it was just a quick trip to school, right?

I stay with the car while Sir T goes to see if he's school's at the museum. It doesn't open till 10. And there are no buses waiting. Hmm. They were also going to the Eureka tower, so I'm wondering if they went there first and whether we should wait. And all the time I'm almost shaking with fever. 

When eventually the museum opens, he finds the school cancelled the excursion the day before, and everyone was told -- only we were at the hospital! So we head back to school. It's nearly 11.30 by the time I get home and collapse into bed. I still don't get any work done.

Legacy of Immigration decisions

Sometime about a year and a half ago, my daughter's very excellent (yes, "very" -- the word I tell my students to avoid) singing teacher was given her marching orders from this country. Doina was working here, had been so for a number of years and had built up a steady clientele, but was told that as she was between 55 and 60 and didn't have enough money behind her, she couldn't stay. 

Never mind that her business was flourishing and because she could teach from home, this was something she could long do to support herself. Never mind that she seemed to be the only classical teacher in the western suburbs. Never mind that she has a PhD is music and extensive experience in operas including running them. The good people at the Immigration Department said that such experience wasn't necessary to teach the general public.

Great.

Music is my daughter's life. And while she loves pop, truth is her voice is more suited to classical singing. She sings in the Victorian State Singers, who are as serious a group as you're ever likely to find, and the Australian Girls Choir. She's learning piano and music theory and studying music at school. But her strength is singing. She struggles with piano and is behind where she'd need to be to use piano as her VCE instrument. She's also behind in theory. And in the time since Doina left, we can chart a decline in her voice.

In the meantime, she's had another teacher, who was quite good -- and a great singer -- but who thought that the exercises PH was doing with Doina were far too hard -- so hard, in fact, that she couldn't do them.

The best solution seemed to be to go back to PH's original teacher, whom we left mainly because of the travelling needed to get there and back. Imagine our surprise and delight to find she'd not only moved closer but to our own suburb! Perfect. Only she's not teaching privately anymore. She doesn't know anyone she can recommend in the western suburbs. No, let me rephrase that: she doesn't know anyone who is teaching in the western suburbs.

So, I'm left contemplating travelling further afield, or trying to engage Doina through Skype. I know she's taught violin successfully this way, but I can't imagine how it would work with singing because of the delays. Even a fraction of a second -- Doina's playing scales and arpeggios, and PH is singing them back, only Doina's hearing different notes to the ones she's now playing. How would that be? Perhaps the only way is to give it a try. But I'm angry, immeasurably angry, that we're in this position in the first place.

Such skills are not needed to teach the general public? Such skills were making a difference to my daughter's life. But, of course, she's just the general public so we shouldn't give a shit about her. You know, if Doina had wanted to go, I would have been sad, and said fair enough. But she didn't want to go. She waged a campaign to stay, and many of us wrote supporting letters. I thought mine was strongly argued, but I didn't even get an acknowledgment. I know she'd love to come back -- whether that was viable financially if she were given a new visa is another matter, but it's a moot point anyway. I'm sure PH wasn't the only disappointed student -- we're just one family who's been affected, but a year and a half on those effects are still reverberating within us, just as they are, no doubt, with Doina.

Trains and buses rant

Sir Talkalot continues to miss his bus, which infuriates me because it's impacting substantially on my time. I'm also infuriated that although there is a growing estate just down the road, no public transport services this area. If there were public transport, my problems would be solved, particularly as I think the private buses are way, way, way too expensive.

Princess Sleephead catches public transport. $400 per year gets her a train, bus and tram pass that she can use all over Melbourne, including on weekends. I think she can use it all over the state, in fact. In comparison, the bus ticket costs $2000 per year (although there is a government subsidy of about -- I can't remember. $400? $500?), and this allows him one bus ride to school and one home, on school days, and if he misses that bus then bad luck. There's not another one half an hour later. There's not any service on weekends or on holidays. That's an enormous disparity in both services and price. Oh, come on, government: extend those public bus routes, please!

From chaos to tragedy... (mine and not mine)

Here's my day (the chaos bit) -- or the first few hours of my morning, really.

Find out Princess Sleepyhead's train has been cancelled -- and then, no, not her train but an express that leaves almost at the same time. Her train will be packed, and she has to get a wriggle on if she's going to make it. She already has detention for being late yesterday.

Sir Talkalot is running late (what a surprise!). Then he can't find his blazer.

"Who's taken my blazer? Where is it?"

I tell him he's supposed to organise his stuff the night before. I say this every day. He never does.

"I did organise it," he said. I know he didn't. He never does. "I hung it right here on this banister. Dad must've hidden it."

"He didn't hide it. It must be around somewhere."

Then I remember that I think I saw it somewhere strange. ST's convinced his father is conspiring against him.

"It might be in the other car," I say. The car's at the station. We drag PH down and she just catches her train. The blazer's in the car. ST has it hidden behind his back, as if I can't see the sleeves poking out, as if I won't notice that he's suddenly found it. "You hung it on the banister last night, did you?" He's somewhat sheepish now.

I take him home to get the rest of his stuff, which he doesn't have ready. We fire up the car -- no petrol. I know I have no money in my purse, but there's some somewhere in the house. Only I can't find what's left, which isn't much but will let me put some in the car before I get to the bank. I find where it should be and it's gone.

It's now time ST should be at school. I have no petrol and no money. But the other car has petrol. I go down the station and swap the cars over, blocking the car park for about a minute, in which time a disabled person comes and misses her train. I feel bad, but realistically the train was in the station when she drove up. She was never going to make that train. Doesn't excuse me blocking her path though. Frantically, I move the car to get out of her way and ask ST to get all the stuff out of the other car. When he scrambles back in, I ask him whether he locked the other car. No. Of course not. I go back to lock it.

I take him to school. Halfway there I realise I haven't got my bag or my purse. It's still in the other car. He says he didn't hear me say to bring everything. Last year our number plates were stolen at this station. I'm just hoping my bag will still be there. It is. One thing goes right.

So I'm really stressed and angry at this stage, and that always makes me want to eat, but instead I decide to take the dogs for a walk before the day becomes too warm. We're there less than a minute and one is pooping. When I clean it up I notice the other dog has too. So I clean that up and realise it wasn't actually hers. (It's cold.) Oh, well, good to leave the world in a better condition than you found it, right?

Do I get some kind of heavenly reward for this? Yeah, of course. As I'm returning from the bin, the toller is chasing the 25 kg retriever, who's galloping full tilt and looking back over her shoulder. Crash. Straight into my legs, which collapse under me. My back jars. My ankle wrenches. It's the ankle that I have so much trouble with, but happily it's not the usual injury. I'm sore. Bruised. But able to walk shakily back to the car after the quickest walk ever.

If I thought my day was bad (and it got better after that), PH was on a train on the way home, when a boy stuck his head out of the window (allegedly while trying to graffiti the outside of the train) and hit his head on a pole. He's now in hospital with severe head injuries. PH, luckily, didn't see it -- the boy was in a different carriage, but she's still upset by it. Really, my day wasn't that bad after all.

Just another day at work really . . .

So, in the past, every time I've worked late, I've had the security guards hovering around, wanting to know when they can lock the building. This time, there's a new crew on: they don't know me, and I don't know them. I'm moving from one part of the building to another when I encounter a guard, trying to lock up. "Oh, I'll be awhile yet," I say.

"What time will you finish?"

I give him an estimate.

"No worries. We'll lock the door now, and you just let us know when you're actually leaving, and push the button to get out."

"Yep, no problems. I've done that before."

The appointed time comes, and I haven't quite finished, but I figure I'll leave the rest for the morning. I speak to the guards; they're happy. I go to the door and look for the red push button I'm used to, but it's gone. There are four things now -- a white knob with three blue lights and a twin outside the door, a flat plastic panel that looks like a light switch without a switch, a keypad, and a pad that says "Emergency Exit. Break glass and press here to get out".

So I play with the white thing with blue lights. I push it. I pull it. I wave my hand over it. Nothing.

I try the flat white panel. Nothing.

I look at the keypad. I have no idea what it's for, or what to key in.

I look at the Emergency Exit thing. I can't see any glass. Sounds a bit over-the-top, so I go back to the first one again, and then the flat panel. Nothing.

Hmm, Emergency Exit. It's not quite an emergency. I can just grab a security guard if I wait for a couple of minutes. But I can't see any glass either. Maybe it's already been broken, and this is just the normal exit mechanism.

Tentatively, oh so tentatively, I press where the instructions say to push. Nothing. So I push harder. Snap. The glass under the surface breaks and the doors open. Only they don't shut again. Clearly they are open so everyone (i.e. me) can evacuate the building to get away from whatever the emergency is. Oh, no. I figure that somewhere, either on the grounds or off, an alarm bell is wailing. A klaxon, perhaps, is blaring.

So I have to wait for the security guys and fess up. I predict they'll be peed, but they're not. Or at least they don't appear to be. They're good about it, but chances are they don't know how to "fix" it anyway. Yes, I'm the most popular gal around at the moment! Why do these things happen to me?

Heath Ledger's legacy

Princess Sleepyhead and friend

The man was a brilliant actor -- you didn't need to see Batman to know that. His performance in Brokeback Mountain was startling, so tortured, so convincing. But to the younger generation he will never be more or less than The Joker -- something he did pull off in a staggering fashion. As my friend Margaret said: "I looked and looked for the actor behind the mask and couldn't see him." It was a masterful piece of work -- and a great shame he won't be around to see the accolades he so richly deserves. (And a great shame for his family too.)

When parents know best

This week, I've been doing a lot of thinking about things past -- not so much my past but my husband's. But let's get to the story.

I have a student. A very good student. A student who emails me this week, after re-enrolling last year, to say he's very sorry, but he has to withdraw from the course. "I'm really cut-up about this," he says. He's been really looking forward to second year. Turns out that his father, in his infinite wisdom, has decided he can't continue with our course, and is forcing him to take up a place in a different course, a course he doesn't want to do.

The same thing happened to my husband. The Gadget Man was accepted into a course that was difficult to get into. His father decided a general science degree had much better employment prospects and coerced him into changing his preferences. TGM did so and ended up in a science degree he didn't like and dropping out. Eventually, after a dead-end career in the public service, he went back and completed his science degree and embarked on a career in research. His father was rapt, and talked of Nobel Prizes. (Nothing like unrealistic expectations, right? Especially because credit for great discoveries usually goes to supervisors, not necessarily the grunt doing the work.) In the meantime, research funding dried up and what was, for a few years, a reasonable career fell apart.

We often think we know what's best for our kids. My student's father thinks he's acting in his son's best interests. His son is a talented writer who is dedicated enough to work hard. Writing's a tough career to crack, true. But who knows? So's acting, and many who try fail. But what if those greats among us had never tried?

I always wanted to be a writer. When I finished high school, the only course for writers was journalism, and I was just too shy to be out interviewing people, and despised the way some journos got in the faces of those grieving just to get a story. I did science instead. Treated my writing as a hobby. If only courses like ours had been around then!

But would my parents have allowed me to do one? I'm not sure. They were always very focused on my having a career. In fact, until I started teaching, my mother considered all the time I'd spent on writing and doing writing courses a waste of time. I think of it as no such thing. I've pointed out to her that all tradespeople have to do an apprenticeship. Her reply is always in terms of how many years I've spent doing this, to which I'll make a quip about how apprentices do their apprenticing for many hours each week, whereas my apprenticeship hours get broken up between trying to run a household, trying to bring up a family, trying to work. I don't spend 40 hours a week on my writing. (I only dream of this!)

The other thing for us to remember is that people can change their careers. There's so much pressure on young people to choose a career when they know nothing of the world. It's a shame they don't all go have a gap year straight after school. Gap years should be compulsory -- a time to learn something more of themselves, to find out what they really might like doing, to find out what the world and the working world is like and to have a chance to freshen themselves up in terms of their studies. I've changed careers -- gone from scientist to arts teacher. My husband has changed careers (a few times). All this angst the kids feel -- do we really need to be adding to it with our own dreams for them? Our own dreams -- and that's the key point, isn't it? Vicarious living is all right for us, as long as we're not imposing those lives on our children as well. It's one thing to want to live through them, but another thing altogether to then try to shape those lives to provide the vicarious lives *we* really want to lead.

Let's just step back and take a breath. Is there anything wrong with letting our kids chase their dreams? What's the worst thing that can happen to them? What's the best? Isn't it better that they make their own mistakes and not ours? Something for every parent to think about . . .

Holidays

Coastal walk

Princess Sleepyhead swimming

How slowly they come up on us and how quickly they go! And after they've gone I always wonder whether it was all real. It's that old psychological maybe-I'm-the-only-real-person-and-all-the-rest-is-a-figment-of-my-imagination thing. Hard to imagine that those other worlds I've experienced are real, and that right now people are enjoying them just as I was a week ago. Much easier to imagine the relentless heat I'm now mired in!

Princess Sleepyhead enjoys a boat trip

How people spend their holidays is interesting. Some like to laze around and do nothing. Others are constantly on the go. I was surprised when Princess Sleepyhead came back from Vietnam and said that she'd wanted to go to the Vietcong caves but was outvoted because most of the others wanted to go shopping. In between treks and their community project, they shopped, shopped, shopped. I can't imagine anything worse. I have an aversion to shopping, but especially when I can be out and about with my camera!

Sir Talkalot rockclimbing

The Gadget Man is an on-the-go man and champs at the bit if everyone is not up super-early and ready to go. As none of the rest of us are morning people, this can present problems. I can be ready at 9, even 8 if I have to, but the kids are another matter. PS decided this year that she was going to stay in her favourite spot -- bed -- for as long as possible, and whenever this made TGM frustrated and, at times, furious I told him to chill out -- that it was her holiday too, and that if she wanted to spend it lazing around, reading, she was entitled to. That didn't mean we all had to waste time waiting for her, but that she had a choice: to come or to stay. Often she chose to stay. In the evenings, she would talk about how much she'd enjoyed treks in Vietnam, and how we should do more family hiking, but while we were out hiking she was home with her book. (Now, I would've been happy if this were one of her novels she has to read for school, but of course it wasn't.)

Boogie boarding

I love sightseeing, The Gadget Man loves hiking, and the kids love any sort of adventurous activities. So as well as having fun on their boogie boards, this time they got to have a surfing lesson. They wanted more, but the lessons were booked out, so after that we hired boards and wetsuits. (PS had ripped all the skin of her hands trying to get the wetsuit on during her lesson, and in the end had to forego a suit that was too small.)

Heading out to try surfing

Sir Talkalot about to stand up!

Of course, this blog wouldn't be called Chaotic Life if we didn't have the type of holidays where something at least goes wrong. (And the kids are still talking about the Christmas Day day out a few years ago where I had my leg injected with two sorts of acid (from a tree), and one kid fell off an embankment and the other got smashed by the sea into the same embankment, leading me to spend two hours picking shell grit out from under their skins.) This year it was Sir Talkalot's turn: seems he lost his joust with coral!

The results of Sir Talkalot's swimming adventures

Signs of drought 2

However hard we might think the drought is for those of us in suburbia, it is of course so much worse for our rural cousins, their livestock and wildlife.

Last week we were investigating the Bournda National Park (just north of Merimbula), and went looking for Lake Bondi, the smaller of the park's two main lakes and the one where my husband said they did kayaking. We had a little trouble locating this lake, but eventually found a minor track leading off a larger one that led to a grassy plain, which we realised was in fact the lake, or what remained of it. Now, it's quite possible that this dries up every summer and fills in winter and so it's dryness has nothing to do with drought, but it was still sad to see the dead tortoise splayed in the middle of the field. Still, it wasn't a loss for everyone: the kangaroos seem to be enjoying it!

Signs of drought

I used to have a lawn: a lush, verdant, thick lawn. These days, with our stage 3A water restrictions, we're not allowed to water lawns anymore. We can water the rest of the garden between 6 am and 8 am on two designated days per week. There are ways around this: water tanks and using grey water. I do use some grey water, but on plants in the garden. This is my "lawn" today -- and each day the wind blows we have less and less topsoil. Of course having two dogs doesn't help. They frolic up and down and disturb the dirt, so that we have great clouds of dust that drift around the backyard, and growing piles of dirt on the paths.

I contemplate building a swale -- the ground seems to have sculptured itself into that shape -- but again I need the ability to water any grass I plant in the first place. I suppose the time is coming where we're all going to move away from lawns as they have in some of the more arid cities in the US and elsewhere. Scoria was big in my old street; I hate scoria.

I think, though, that the biggest sign of drought is our change in attitudes. We used to talk about "when the drought breaks" -- these days we're less hopeful, more resigned to the lack of rain as a permanent symptom of global warming. These days we have to think about more inventive ways with our gardens.

Chilling Out

Well, the prodigal daughter is back from Vietnam and is she ever the slumberchick (reminds me of why I called her Princess Sleepyhead in the first place). She's been toddling off to bed around 11ish, and getting up at 3.30 pm. Now, of the remaining 7 1/2 hours of the day, approx two of these will be spend in ablutions. I love chilling out as much as the next person, but I need some kind of life as well, some kind of activity. I think as a teenager, I liked to sleep in too -- till around 1, but then I was up till after midnight, establishing bad sleeping patterns early.

I was the kid who started the big assignment at 11 pm the night before it was due, and pulled not quite an all-nighter, but close. I always got it done on time though. She's the kid who misses deadlines. I get stressed about this. She doesn't. (I used to get stressed about having left the assignment till the last minute as well, but obviously not enough to reform my ways.) I point out that her grades would be higher if she didn't lose marks for lateness; she's circumspect. At least she's trying in class. I have that.

Soon, the school hols will be over, and we'll be struggling to re-establish some sort of normalcy in her routine, but in the meantime I'm just going with the flow. Her sleeping time gives me writing time. It's less time she's fighting with her brother -- though this often means more time when he's claiming my attention. I suppose you can't win them all, but then when they're both fighting, and I end up feeling like I can't win any of them. My husband says I should be fighting to get her out of bed earlier, but then I'm stressed (because she's not very cooperative), and she's grouchy. Actually, "grouchy" is putting it politely. So, I'm content to just chill out, even if it's frustrating at times and means we don't get to do some of the things I've planned to do. Still, that means it's cheaper too! Sometimes you can win them all.

New Year

I'm not really one for making New Year's Resolutions -- I do it sometimes because I feel it's expected, but I don't really go into it with any great fervour. It's not the way I work. I suppose I know what I should be doing -- I carry those things with me in my head and mull over them, but committing them to paper doesn't make me take them any more seriously.

The things that preoccupy me at the moment are all to do with getting my life under more control. I had a busy year at work last year -- a too-busy year, and in many ways a difficult year (and in some a rewarding year, so it wasn't all negative -- most of it, in fact, wasn't negative). Consequently, I let the reins of control slip, and did that horse ever get the bit between its teeth and bolt. So this year I have to focus on getting more balance. On having more fun -- because isn't that what it's all about. (Mind you, I do have fun in most of the things I do. Fun, I think, is a matter of attitude, a matter of having a smile upon your face and making do with whatever you have.)

My sleep patterns continue to get more and more out of whack, and that's perhaps the most pressing problem. It's so easy to stay up and enjoy the few hours of peace when everyone else is asleep -- if I'm lucky enough to get a few. Perhaps that's the problem -- the kids, jealous of my time, stay up later and later, and I struggle to find time away from them. And I am categorically not a morning person. I do not, under any circumstances, function well then. Anytime before 7, I cannot drive. Not safely. Well, unless I stay up all night and don't go to bed, but even that I'm wary of. (If I fell into that pattern, I'd probably dispense with sleep altogether, and what a disaster that would be.) Before 7, the brain is clogged, and the eyes sting. My body aches and longs to be horizontal. Before 7, I am best in bed, snoozing if not actually sleeping. Dreaming/day-dreaming a writer's dreams. It's important to allow time for that too.

There are other aspects that have also slipped and that I'm feeling keenly -- the state of disarray around me, exercise habits, writing habits, but these are all things I hope to address -- no, mean to address. And there's no time like the present. Today, I've taken control of my blogging, which I've been lackadaisical about lately at best. Gradually, I'll pull this control-beast in, and get myself to a better place.