Who Needs Mr Potter?

The very best gift that I received for my birthday is a book written in light blue coloured pencil on eight sheets of A4 paper stapled down the side.

The author (pictured below, with a starving brain sucker) is my nephew, aged six. His mother purchased this book from him for $5.00 so that it could be my gift. He tried to convince me that it was worth more, so I should make a contribution too, but I’m too clever to fall for that! He is very entrepreneurial.

Here is the story – please note that some of the spelling has been changed.

The Incredible Captain Tights and the attack of the Killer Toothbrushes.

It was a pretty normal day in Townsville, but not in space. In space an evil planet called toothbrush was planning to destroy Earth. So they took off to Earth in their spaceship. When they landed on Earth they shot a beam and made all of the toothbrushes evil.

Who will help? Captain tights will.

But just then a big ROAR. A giant toothbrush came out. Tight wedgie!

Then the hero called a giant toothpaste. Poison paste.

They were defeated.

Tomorrow we will rush out to buy our copies of the final Harry Potter book. While I wait for my children to read it I will entertain myself with the adventures of the Incredible Captain Tights. I certainly hope there will be a sequel!

Day Twelve of Painty Pants

Two weeks ago when I went away on Band Camp my house looked like this.

 

My Pete has been working very hard for the past two weeks to paint it and make it look like this.

He has been surprisingly clever and worn the same pants each day, with some washes in between! (The title refers to the announcement that he made this morning as he prepared to paint.)

He has been painting for twelve days, in some very tricky places.

It is likely that he will be painting for another two weeks. He is a details person. I see big picture and jump in, stuff it up and then never finish it, but learn from that experience for next time. He is the opposite. He thinks things through carefully, develops a plan of attack and then methodically carries it out to completion. He is never speedy, but whatever he does is done to perfection.

See this? The paintbrush in his hand?

It is an artists’ brush. He is finishing the details of our external house walls with an artists’ brush. He will paint and repaint until it is perfect. If there is even a slight wobble he won’t be able to ignore it. He will find it and fix it.

I don’t even offer my help for jobs like this. I know that I cannot attain the standard required. He is happy to just potter and paint, no matter how long it takes. Before long it will be day twenty-six of painty pants.

If you come to my house please comment on the beautiful paint – you’ll make his day.

On this day

in 1790 Thomas Saint patented the world’s first sewing machine

WHICH

seems incredibly appropriate

BECAUSE

on this day in 1966 I was born

AND

I use my sewing machine every single day.

This post is brought to you by the piss-weak x-files. Thanks Sussanah!

I have returned!

Well. I survived eleven days with 130 teenagers travelling over 4000km on a convoy of three buses. We visited Bundaberg, Harvey Bay, Maryborough, Brisbane, Mt Tambourine, the Sunshine Coast and Rockhampton before arriving home in Townsville yesterday. We had far too little sleep, far too much chocolate and found ourselves laughing constantly.

The kids played in a symphony, concert band, string ensemble, brass ensemble or choir. They performed like professionals everytime they were required to play. It is remarkable to watch them go from  skylarking teenagers to  serious musicians all in the wave of a baton.

We ate roast beef and lasagne in every bain-marie in the state. (that is obviously the cheapest and easiest way to feed 140 ravenous bus travellers.) Our esky was always stocked with corn beef sandwiches and Sara Lee chocolate cake slice for lunch the next day.

We visited Dreamworld, saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and shopped at the Queen Street Mall in Brisbane. My daughter and I successfully purchased a dress for her year twelve formal at the end of the year. We shared and spread a cold right throughout our buses and experienced temperatures far below our comfort zones.

By far the BEST thing that happened…. on the last night while I was on patrol in the neutral zone between the boys and girls dormitories until almost 1am, my daughter completely packed my bag for me and set out some clothes for me to wear on the last day- jeans, shirt, underwear, socks and a jacket. See….she does love me!

PS Thanks for all your comments to my last post. You guys have been prolific while I have been away and I am catching up on hundreds of posts and emails that I have missed. If I haven’t been to visit you yet, I’ll be there soon!

I’ll Grow Up to be a Real Boy

Yesterday this baby

became a teenager. It was my son’s thirteenth birthday.

This boy has been a joy. He has taught me so much about life. It should have been the other way around, but I am certain that his place on this Earth has been to make me grow.

He has been a terrible sleeper from the day he was born – he simply doesn’t need sleep. He is rarely tired and I have only seen him yawn half a dozen times in his whole life. I had always been a worrier when I was supposed to be sleeping. I would turn over insignificant incidents in my mind, rather than fall asleep. Since this boy was born I have learnt how to fall asleep without doing that. 

He has been able to hold a conversation since about fourteen months of age. I think that he had a lot of extra language input because he did not sleep, his vocabulary is vast. Even though he didn’t sleep he spent many hours laying in the bed with me, just us chatting (my part was usually ‘go to sleep now’). He talks to people openly and honestly. He doesn’t have facades, he is who he is. He makes people feel accepted and comfortable as soon as he meets them. He has a wicked sense of humour and laughs freely and easily – including laughing at himself. He shows his emotions freely.

He has taught me about patience and integrity. He will voluntarily spend many hours with his young cousins without once showing frustration. I have never seen him be aggressive to another person. When he was about five I watched another child be mean to him. I called him to me to tell him to stay away from that mean boy. He said to me, “He may have had a difficult life, Mum. He may not know how to be kind. I’ll be OK.” His science teacher recently told me that there is one boy who is bullied in the class. My son stands between this boy and the bullies and says, “That’s enough, leave him alone now.” I’d like to think that I could be that person who stands up, but I don’t know if I could follow through when the situation arose.

I don’t worry about this little guy too much. Whatever happens I am certain that he will find his place in the world as he becomes an adult. He is bright, articulate and funny. He has respect and integrity. He has an old soul. He’s sure to find happiness.

Happy birthday, dude.

A song I loved, released the year that my son was born. Top ten material.

PS This will be my last post for a while. Tomorrow I am going on a bus trip along the Queensland coast with 130 teenagers. I stupidly bravely volunteered to be the helper parent on my daughter’s music tour. (NOT band camp, never call it band camp!). I have already packed the panadol. Wish me luck – may the force be with me.

Family Wedding

Yesterday we attended the wedding of my cousin. We had been worried because it was an outdoor wedding and Townsville has been having miserable weather. We have had the coldest and wettest June days in recorded history this month. I wouldn’t be surprised to learnt that it was our coldest June ever. Yesterday at 3pm the weather was magnificent.

The view behind this photo is across the ocean to Magnetic Island. The photo does not do justice to the colour of the sky, it was just spectacular. 

The ceremony was beautiful. My cousin has a son from a previous relationship. so the vows were written to include him. It was made explicit through the ceremony that the bride was marrying to become a family, not a couple.

This theme continued into the reception. My aunt made a magnificent three tiered wedding cake for the bride and groom to cut.

She also made a chocolate family cake for the family to cut. (There are actually three little people on the cake.)

There were tears, laughter, drinking and dancing. What more could you want from a wedding celebration?

My Pete even took a photo of me. Generally I am the photographer, but I worry that one day when I go missing and they have to show a photo of me on the news…it will be a photo taken twelve years ago and no one will ever find me because they’ll be looking for someone much slimmer with fewer wrinkles!

History (I love the internet)

Thanks to everyone for your responses to my last post. People were so very frank about their life experiences. I appreciate that.

 I love history. I studied it at university and I think that if life (my Pete) hadn’t drawn me away, I probably would have taken my studies a lot further. Lately I have been reflecting on the fact that historical events – conflicts, conquests, discoveries and inventions, tell the stories of men, particularly white men. I have watched historical documentaries on TV and consider this fact a lot, and more and more this worries me. One voice should not be louder than all other voices. I believe that women hold a vital place in the development of societal attitues. Each of us holds influence over the next generation and their expectations of life. The study of generational attitudes may well be a reflection of the previous generation of women.

Recently a publication was included in our local paper. This was called ‘The Pioneers’ and told the stories of families who had lived here in Townsville’s infancy. The Petersen family was one that was included. My husband’s family has been here for a very long time. His father was born here into a large extended family. He has photos and stories and momentos of this time. He has given us a family tree which traces the family history to Denmark. This man is my husband’s great-great-grandfather. He was born in Hoptrup in Denamrk, married in New Zealand, lived in Brisbane, Charters Towers and in Townsville. He is buried at the Townsville cemetry along with his wife who was born in Haderslev, Denmark.  

Out of interest we went to google earth and looked at Hoptrup and Haderslev. We then followed a series of links to discover that this area of the world had been claimed by both Germany and Denmark throughout history. At the time of my Pete’s g-g-g grandfather’s / mother’sbirths the area was involved in the second Schleswig War. I don’t know why they chose to leave this area and make their way to Australia via New Zealand. But I can’t help but wonder whether the unsettled political landscape was a contributing factor.

It took us just two hours to discover all of this, and more, over the internet. I love that we were able to look at Hoptrup and Haderslev as they stand now using google earth. People are able to add their own photos to show the sights and vistas. Although there were none at Holtrup there were others nearby and it gave us a real sense for the area. My Pete would like to go there. I’d like to go there too.

I love the internet.

Three generations of Petersen men. L to R My son, his grandfather, his father. Taken at Mission Beach 2005

Generation X

Last weekend I watched an investigative report about Generation X.  I have been pondering it ever since.

According to this report, those born into generation X (that is me and, no doubt, lots of you too) have married later or married and divorced quickly or never married and lots of them have remained childless. The idea behind the report was that there were lots of people who are now desperate to find partners and have children because they have almost missed their chance. They interviewed men and women of this generation. Overwhelmingly they said things like – I’ve got a great life and I haven’t had time for a significant other or family OR if I found a partner or had children they would have to be willing to fit around my lifestyle.

This is the very factor which has separated me from many of my peers. I married at 20, had my first child at 24, my second at 28. At the time that we married many of our friends wondered why we were doing it. We were the first to be married and had children long before any of our friends. At a time when our children are at the end of their school life and we are beginning to see a life post children many of our contemporaries have pre-schoolers who are just beginning their school lives.

There were people I knew who were not going to have children until they had travelled or paid off their mortgages or made their fortunes. I have found myself wondering is this self-fulfilling or self-centred. I do not intend to cast judgement. I just wonder what it was about our generation that urged the notion of waiting to have family, that a life needed to be lived before it could become part of a partnership. Were we trying to find ourselves and enrich our lives before making that commitment or did we want to have it all and do it all before settling? Why did we think that we could not have a life if we had a family, that the two concepts were mutually exclusive.

I very often felt that I was out of synch with the zeitgeist of my own generation because of my choice to have a family at a younger age, but I never let it make me feel diminished as a person. I am well educated, I have a career and I could have followed this to high levels if I had the desire. I have had the oppotunity to follow my own course within the partnership of my marriage. My husband has had the same opportunities. We have raise two bright, articulate and interesting children. Their love and our love of them has sustained us as a family and allowed us the opportunity to enrich the lives of our children along with ours. My life has made me very happy and I really don’t want for more than that.

I know that every life experience is different and I can’t tell you what compelled us to marry and have a family. It just seemed like the right thing for us. I’m glad that we did.

I think that I would have had a lonely life without these two! (aged four and six months)

I am so interested to hear how generation X has impacted your life. I’ll leave you with a song for every member of our generation.

I am Miss June

The month is nearly over and I almost missed my chance to let you know that this is my month. I am Miss June in the Down Under Quilts 2007 calendar. This Australian quilting magazine has been running a calendar competition for the past few years. Each year they provide a theme and call for entries. Last year was the first year that I entered and it was the first time that I ever achieved competition success with my quilt-making.

I really enjoy interpreting a theme. The theme for the 2007 calendar was Crossraods – very open and lots of scope for interpretation. I love that I have 100 words to write an artist’s statement. I use the whole hundred, because I can never say anything in just a few words!

This is my winning entry and my interpretation of the theme.

It is called Finding the Balance.  I have used the grey, straight downward stripes to represent our work life, the controlled and responsible areas of our lives. The bright, organic stripes coming from the side represent our creative lives. They are not so organised and don’t follow rules of conformity. The bright flowers show that time when you manage to find the balance – those are the days when you actually have the washing all finished and you get to sew as well. I originally drew the flowers as outlines with a star shape inside. When I cut out the first one I realised that a second flower was left in the negative space, so I appliqued those too. This wasn’t planned, it was just a serendipidous discovery – I love that.

There is a lot of detail in the quilting.

I did it on my domestic machine. Now I would use my longarm, but my skills weren’t so well developed then. As soon as I had finished this quilt I told my Pete that I had made a winner. I felt really good about the way it turned out and the way that I had been able to interpret the theme. This little quilt has represented me at several exhibitions, including at International Quilt week in Yokohama and Osaka in Japan.

The day that Erica Spinks rang me to let me know that I had won was the same day that my sister found out that a baby was waiting for her in Taiwan to be adopted into our family. It was a very emotional day! I am certain that Erica thought I was a babbling fool when she rang me. Lots of joyful tears were shed and my Pete took me out to dinner.

The theme for the 2008 calendar is My Secret Garden. My entry for this competition was a winner too – see my name on this list of winners. I can’t show you that quilt – you will need to buy the calendar when it is released. I wonder which will be my month next year!

Entertainment

Entertainment is the theme for this post of random occurances.

 On the weekend I took my daughter and her best friend to see their school friends play in their band.

There is a really nice ampitheatre beside the river with rain trees overarching it. It is a lovely spot to listen to LOUD music.

My Pete flew to Canberra yesterday for work. He is only away for a couple of nights, but I do not like to be alone. It doesn’t feel right to go to bed by myself, so I end up roaming the house at one o’clock in the morning, feeling all lonely and never getting tired. I have been entertaining myself (nicely linked back to theme) by doing lots of quilting. I’m lonely, but highly productive. I am pretty happy with this quilting, done in lime green on a quilt that I have made as a wedding gift for my cousin. The fabric is called chocolate lollipop – I bought it for its name as much as its design!

Lastly, it is still freezing cold here. In this weather my children like to entertain themselves with a good book.

We do have other couches, but apparently this is the only blanket they could find.

Now I have to go quickly, because Sussanah is coming to get me so that we can go and see Ross Noble – a very funny man, performing at our Civic Theatre and that should be highly entertaining!