Doonagration

Doonagration: What happens when you combine doona with migration.

At some point, someone clever in our family decided that for the sake of aesthetics and possibly in the interest of sharing that it would be better to place a king size quilt upon our queen sized bed.
Now in theory, this is fine. I mean what can really go wrong? There's extra quilt so it should go further.

Unfortunately it didn't quite pan out the way that it was supposed to. It's not because one party or the other is hogging the quilt or anything as simple to explain as that. It's because the quilt and the quilt cover aren't really on speaking terms. They just don't seem to like each other or be particularly in sync. What this results in is a quilt that shifts within its cover. Which is down right bloody annoying.

It's not a big issue during summer (so I'm looking forward to that) but during winter, its not fun. Its actually quite disturbing when you wake up in the middle of the night under what you think is the quilt only to find that you're actually only sleeping under the cover. A cover that isn't designed to provide you with that lovely warmth that is somewhat critically essential to comfortable sleep. Instead you wake up frozen and remembering that at least when it was -40c in Canada and you woke up they had that lovely central heating thing going on and you weren't stuck in place because you were too bloody cold to move!

The most annoying thing is that I don't know why it happens! It doesn't happen all the time and there's no particular pattern to when and why it does. I've just accepted the fact that it will happen, I won't sleep well, i'll re-introduce the quilt to the cover so that they get along for a couple of days, or possibly a week until it happens again.
Bloody annoying though.

Biggest Loser

Way back in June, someone at work decided that it might be ‘fun’ to run a biggest loser competition around the office. It was something of an incentive given that I was headed in the direction of trying to drop a few kilos anyway. After all, I seem to perpetually be chasing the weight loss in varying cycles.

I did something similar in Canada a few years ago and was successful to a moderate degree.

I threw my money in the ring and decided to see what happened – even if it was going to start just before my birthday. I made some good inroads for the first 3 weeks, recognising some early gains and then at the half way mark was surprised when I was told that I was near the front runners. I’d lost 6.3% of my starting weight and was only 0.2% behind the leader.

I went a bit sideways at that point though and bounced around over the next 3 weeks without losing any more weight whilst the leader shot ahead. It turns out that she had some added incentive given that she’s due to get married in the near future.

I decided that I wasn’t going to give in and plugged away as much for the personal satisfaction of starting to see weight numbers that I couldn’t recall seeing (which is the whole point after all) rather than any glory of financial reward at the end.

Slow updates from those that have run the competition meant that coming into the last week, it was something of an unknown as to where things stood. I decided to smash myself and see what happened.

Every day this week I’ve dragged my sorry arse out of bed at 6am and hopped straight onto the elliptical trainer and spent an hour there watching episodes of Big Bang Theory and pumping the legs. Then after work, back on it for another hour or alternately off to soccer.

Today was final weigh in. The leader was being pretty cagey about her final weight and giving answers like ‘my final percentage is between 10 and 15%’. Consequently I followed my pattern of the last couple of weeks. Fast all morning, run at lunch, weigh in when I am nice and dehydrated and at the lowest point of my weight cycle for the week.

At the end of the process, I stood on the scale and have to admit to smiling. I managed to drop 11.8% of my starting weight and have apparently in doing so managed to win the competition as well. 3.25 kgs came off in the last week. Apparently all that pain was worth it.


It feels damn good.

Getting Sentimental

I must be getting old. I remember the good old days when I’d be driven to pull a post together for this blog because a small child had put themselves in hospital or tried to blow the house up or something. If you’ve been following for a while you’ll have noticed something of a decline in output.

Partly it’s because life is just damn busy. Not only is it busy, but it’s rather repetitive as well. Monday to Friday is work and then the weekends tend to be a little absorbed by the 6 games of soccer, a game of netball and a game of hockey that make up our winter. Somewhere in there, Caroline is attempting to study and occasionally we think about doing outrageously wild things like cleaning the house or mowing the lawn.

Just occasionally though something gets thrown into the mix that drags us away from the ordinary.

We were lucky enough to get to go to a wedding in Bowral. The first instinct was wow, how cool would it be to go, it’s a pity that life’s too busy. The invitation sat there though and we looked at where Bowral is and wondered if perhaps there was a way to get there.. After all, we wanted to be at the wedding, it was only logistics and dollars. After all, taking four kids gets to be an interesting exercise.

After much thought and consideration, we realised that Bowral isn’t that far from Wollongong, home of our good friends the Handicotts. A plan started to come together. If we could farm out Michael and Sam, whose interest in the whole escapade really came down to whether they’d get Krispy Cremes out of a trip to Sydney, then perhaps we could get away with only bringing Thomas and Emily with us.

It worked. The Handicotts were happy to have us and kind enough to look after Tom and Em for the time that we were at the wedding and we managed to go enjoy the nuptials and all that it entailed.

I love a good wedding and I have to say that the McLloyd affair was a wedding worth being at. We had an awesome time and everything was brilliant from start to finish.

In those moments when I wasn’t listening to the priest telling everyone about sex, I had a few sentimental moments reflecting on our own wedding (so long ago) and the whole marriage experience. Add in the chance to randomly catch up with someone you knew from primary school and what more could you ask for?  Good times and good memories. The party of the reception stopped me from getting too memory laden on the night, but it’s hard to avoid it completely.

Thanks for the invite Matt and Jac, it was wonderful to be a part of it.

The fact that we also got to spend time with the Matt and Bron, who we hadn't caught up with since Caroline's 40th was an exceptionally good addition to the trip. It brought back it's own series of memories that added to the sentimental (and fun!) element of the couple of days away.

A couple of weeks after the wedding we were invited to a 50^th birthday. I hadn’t given a whole lot of thought to the format of the night, I’d been told when we I needed to go there and that was sufficient information. It wasn’t really until the night that I thought to ask Caroline how it was going to work and whether we were supposed to bring anything. That’s when I found out that we’d actually be going to a sit down dinner. Not quite what I expected.

It wasn’t until we were sitting around the table as part of quite an intimate group of only about 16 people that I realised just how privileged we were to be there. Whilst spoiling us with a degustation menu of some 6 courses, Mike (the birthday boy) took us on a journey throughout the dinner of how the various guests (some of whom we’d known and some we hadn’t) had come into his life and ended up at the party.

I certainly felt like Caroline and I were the newcomers to the group which emphasized the sense of privilege that grew throughout the night.

It was a fantastic night and once again, as with the wedding, it left me thinking about a whole range of things, about how fortunate I’ve been in my life, the friends that I’ve accumulated and the journey that I’ve taken.

Clearly it’s a sign that I’m getting older myself. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that after a wedding or big party all I was left with was a big hangover and an absence of memories!

Holiday Envy

When we left Canada a few years ago, one of the realities that we knew we would face was the fact that holidays weren’t going to be the exotic affairs that we’d been enjoying from the frozen North.

Let’s face it, choosing to put 4 kids through private school is no small feat and the reality is that travelling anywhere from Australia is bloody expensive. One of the prices one pays for being so far away from everywhere else.

For the first couple of years I can’t say that it bothered me much. We’ve been lucky enough to holiday with family and friends and settle back into the life that we were accustomed to before Canada.

But we also had our eyes opened to a whole other way of holidaying. The skiing, the cruising, seeing parts of the world that you thought you just might never get the chance to … it might seem easy to give up at face value but it gets under your skin.

I guess it really got under my skin a long time ago. I left home and went to Singapore. Caroline and I married and took off to Europe for 3 months. That really set the tone. We talked on and off for years about going overseas to work again, but the whole having a family process meant that we didn’t chase it with any vigour. Then Canada came up … the timing was perfect and it was like fate had stepped in.

Now we’re home again. We’ve been back for 3 years and I’m getting itchy feet. I don’t want to pack up and move overseas, I just want a holiday. A holiday that sadly we just can’t afford right now.

It hurts when you get offers like 20% off Qantas flights … and then find out that it’s just when Michael will be starting year 12. Bugger.

So it’s back to dreaming and living vicariously through other people’s holiday photos on facebook. Keep them coming, I can deal with holiday envy … it just fuels the dream and desire. And one day I’ll be the one that’s posting exotic pictures and a new set of adventures to write about.

Coming Soon ...

< rant >

TV is starting to give me the shits (or maybe that’s still giving me). Maybe I’m getting old and crusty, but I miss the good old days. It used to be that when they put a program on TV, they’d stick it in a time slot and go with it. Occasionally something would end and not see out the season, but at least they tended to fail on the night selected.

These days they manage to piss me off before a new show starts. It’s the teasers that kill me; coming soon … a brand new heap of reality trash (they seem to be the most prolific after all). Even the shows that interest me start to piss me off because before they start they have to tell you it’s coming. They have to whet the appetite and that’s fine, but they start doing it so long before it starts that I’m almost ready to ignore the show when it does finally start just because of those bloody ads.

Not only do they start a long way out, but when they do start they don’t even tell you when. They can’t say coming June or anything specific, just … soon. A couple of weeks before it finally airs they might give you a date when it will start, but by then I’m over it!

Then when the show is finally on, they keep messing with the times. TV Shows used to be scheduled to start on the hour, or half hour. Same bat time, same bat channel. Not now. Oh no, now they move it about by 10-15 minutes here and there, or skip a week to broadcast some lame-arsed special event. Even if life allowed me the consistency to watch a show at the same time every week, I simply can’t be bothered finding out that they’ve decided to move it or to put the finale on a different night to the rest of the bloody series.

Stop it already!

< / rant >

Sixteen and Ten

Yes, once again, I’ve thought long and hard about birthday posts for the kids and have managed to run much later than ever intended before putting thoughts to print. I decided that I should actually pull my finger out and get around to it though.

Emily

Back in late March, Emily made double figures. The baby of the family has actually made it to ten (Did we ever doubt it? Well maybe a little or perhaps it was her parent’s hair that was more at risk of being torn out).

What can one say about Emily at 10? Part of the reason it took so long to write this relates to how I answer that question on any given day based, which is very behaviourally influenced. Emily oscillates between being tired, grumpy and miserable and sweet as pie, between being responsible and caring and devious and deceptive. She is a living dichotomy.

She is definitely Daddy’s girl. There are things that I can ask her to do that she’ll happily jump up and do whilst if her Mother was to ask there would be hell to pay with appropriate yelling and screaming.

Emily has decided that she’s musically inclined. I deliberately say inclined rather than gifted because I think at this stage there’s more desire than natural talent. Hell with a father that couldn’t tune a guitar even after learning it for 6 years I’m blaming the genetics, not pointing fingers. Of course there’s always the chance that she managed to swindle a few genes from Nanny! For the last 2 years she has been learning the violin and this year had to add a wind instrument to the repertoire ( she could have dropped the violin but wanted to keep going). We tried to suggest that the trombone would be fun (after all, there was already one in the house and so we wouldn’t have to buy anything else) but she decided that the flute was more in line with what she’d like to play (Yes, she’s 10 - American Pie references are not required).

It would appear that Emily actually has something of a talent for the flute, being well progressed in comparison to her peers and more amazingly, actually inclined to practice of her own free will. She even managed to teach herself hot cross buns. I can’t say that I’m expecting her in the Symphony anytime soon, but it’s pleasant to see her enjoying it, even if her brothers (particularly Sam) try and tell her to stop or go somewhere where they can’t hear every time that she picks it up.

Emily loves he netball and is very excited to be playing twice a week this winter. She’s played softball through the summer and done well, but netball appears to be the sport of choice (much to her mother’s disgust). It will be interesting to see how long it is before Caroline tries to steer her more pointedly to the hockey pitch.

She is a budding fashionista , though I’m not sure based on some of the shopping ventures I’ve been involved with whether she actually has the taste for it and I know for a fact that I don’t have the wallet to support any sort of fashion habit of note. Despite (or in spite of) growing up with three older brothers that like to put her in her place and that have surrounded her with Minecraft, Call of Duty and the like, she loves nothing more than to have a girlfriend over and indulge in make overs (though like many girls her age, needs to truly learn that less is more when it comes to the make up).

On the obstinate and sneaky side, she can be a little shit brat. Getting Emily into bed requires active effort to get past all the little things that she thinks of at the last minute and then when you’ve finally managed that, there’s no guarantees. IPods, books and a myriad of other potential distractions often have to be removed from the room before she will finally give up and nod off to sleep. Checking that she is really asleep is both essential and not as easy as you’d think. She is most certainly accomplished when it comes to fake sleeping, though both Caroline and I have advanced considerably with regards to our intuition and understanding of asleep versus pretending.

Of course, when Emily decides to turn on the charm, it can be simply amazing as to how nice she can be. There are many moments when that charm is truly genuine (usually when she’s well rested and happy) and on those occasions you can find yourself smothered in hugs and cuddles and enjoying every moment and wondering if you really had wanted to throttle her just five minutes ago.

All in all, Emily is a challenging little bundle of delight and we love her to bits.

Michael.

At the other end of the spectrum that is our brood is Michael. He has just turned 16 and that’s even scarier than the fact that the youngest has just hit double figures.

Over the last year he has of course continued to grow and has managed to top my height. He’s matured and is much more the young man than the boy compared to where he was 12 months ago. He’s in the last month or so of his journey with braces and that will no doubt add to the change and maturity of is look.

Over the summer Michael didn’t really get into much organised sport, though he did compete in some cross-country events and even ran the city to bay with me. It’s always nice to be reminded of one’s aging body by having your son run on virtually no training and smash your time.

This year Michael decided that he’d play club soccer over the winter in addition to the school soccer that he played last year (and is playing again this year). We were very happy and the fact that he’s gone out to the same club that Thomas plays for at least adds some small measure of convenience (even if it meant kissing goodbye to another couple of hours every Sunday). It’s been great to see him developing his skills and approach to the game though and I really pleased that he’s decided to do it (especially because we didn’t have to force him).

It’s meant that if nothing else, there’s a couple more hours of the week where he’s outside and we don’t have to try and disengage him from his computer.

The most likely place you’re ever going to find Michael if you call past our house is in his room, sitting on the bed with the lap top out, the sounds of frenzied mouse-clicking permeating the air like a single-note staccato symphony. He and his friends have become absorbed into an online game (League of Legends) and so that’s there way of socialising – across the internet.

With the amount of time that he spends doing that, there was an element of despair about with regards to him ever meeting someone from that ‘other sex’ that the human race apparently has, but perhaps I needn't worry. That's all I am allowed to say.

School wise, Michael is tackling the IB programme, which I am well pleased about. He seems to be performing well so far for the year and so hopefully stays on that track.

He’s not often a trouble maker and so I guess we have to offset some of the frustration with the amount of time spent hibernating (he’s a tad difficult to get out of bed at times) and playing computer games with thanks for his generally good nature.

And of course at 16, we embark on another new chapter – driving. I think I might leave that for a more detailed discussion at some other point, but suffice to say that he has his L’s and so far hasn’t crashed a car!

We have many reasons to be proud of Michael and are thankful that he is who he is.

Contemplating the big R

Back before Christmas, during a game of touch football, I managed to give the old hamstring a bit more of a work out than I intended. It led to this:

I did the right thing, had lots of physio, did my stretches, used the ice appropriately and son on.

It appeared to be going well when I made it out for the first pre-season training for soccer. I’d been for a run with Bel’s lacrosse crowd survived the training and was happy that I was back on track for another year of football.

Then touch football started again for the year. I went out and I was cautious. I didn’t want to ruin the pre-season for soccer so when someone took off past me, I remembered how I did it … chasing someone that was just the wrong speed. I let them go.

It was in the second half it went wrong. I wasn’t enjoying the game that we were playing and was resenting the fact that we didn’t seem to be subbing well. That meant too much time on the sidelines, too much of an opportunity to cool down. I made my way back on eventually and had the ball right near our scoring zone. I didn’t do anything silly, I simply stepped and passed the ball. In the act of doing that, the hamstring went twang.

I was pissed. Really really pissed. Not only was there the pain to contend with, but I knew that I’d just thrown away my soccer pre-season.

For the first time I started to consider that the R word might come into play. That’s right, retirement.

I think I may have played my last ever game of touch. For the first time last season, I really didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d like and so to have two significant injuries as well … I have to consider that maybe its over.

Worse, it made me wonder whether I’d even play soccer. I started to think that If I am going to run into another continuous run of hamstring problems that maybe it all just wouldn’t be worth it. The only other time I’d considered giving up the game I love was the time I was punched in the spine behind play.

I’d kind of been targeting playing long enough to perhaps play a game with Michael at some point. Given he’s just started playing U16s that would mean hanging on for another couple of years though and hopefully he’s better than me by then and can play higher than I will be.

The good news is that I cheered up. I took things slowly, then I pushed myself. Tonight I trained and didn’t think about the hammy much at all. On Saturday I’ll embark on another season. Fingers crossed!