#250 Halloween meet ‘n’ greet

I hung the ghoulish ‘welcome’ sign with eerie purple glow from our front door knob.

I planted two big metallic pink/black spiders on our windy path.

I stretched out some white cobweb along the side row of bushes in our front yard, inserting miniature spiders amongst the webbing.

Baby girl clapped with glee.

Inside, I told her to close her eyes while I got something from upstairs. She stood obediently with one squinty eye closed, the other peering at me half open.

When she saw the yellow Wiggles Emma costume: “Yay!”

I poured 4 mini packets of chocolates into a giant tub.

Ready, set and go.

I had always been ready come Halloween time – with chocolate that is. But when I realised a month ago we’d be in our new house by then, I hatched a plan.

Decorate the front yard; reel the kids in; meet the neighbours.

We got 4 groups through tonight. In Australia, for us, it was a success. And my plan did work, because a neighbour did knock on our door.

Baby girl got dressed up, subsequently freaked at some of the horrific face paint on show, and I did one of the things I loved doing most: getting into the spirit of things, accessing my childhood, and promoting fun to baby girl.

And all while meeting and greeting in our new house.

Two birds with one stone. Too good.

 

 

#249 Inspiring Fandom

Last night when the fam was over, I got into an unexpectedly awesome discussion with my teenage nephew. He started on the topic of vampire folklore in media, and when he mentioned a couple of various TV series/movies, I mean, I just couldn’t, NOT say a thing.

“Have you watched Angel/Buffy?!” (On an aside, only one of the most awesome shows EVER).

And I deliberately write Angel before Buffy, even though technically the show Buffy in fact spawned Angel – but that is a chicken-egg debate you DO NOT want to get into discussion with me about.

So, back to my nephew. He hadn’t watched it, but knew of it. And just as I listened as he broke down the gist of the TV series Teen Wolf, so too did he listen attentively as I explained some of the underlying themes of both series and how they varied.

He said, he wanted to watch Angel. Immediately. Not Buffy. I was like “look, you probably wanna watch Buffy seasons 1-3, and then start at Angel season 1 so you can truly appreciate the character/story-arcs.”

He said he would look it up on Netflix. We had a good old discussion, I got to let go of some Whedon-verse steam (it’s been so long since I’ve had someone to converse Joss Whedon shows with), and I went to bed happy, simply that I had connected with my nephew on an old-fave interest of mine. I felt like a cool aunty.

Today! While chatting to my sister this late morning, she says “guess who’s watching Buffy season 1?!”

Oh! Aghast! Really? He was really going to do it….

Then hours later, after I got home from work, another phone call… sis put me on the phone to him, and he said he had watched the entire first season of Buffy, and couldn’t handle it no more, so went straight to Angel… and LOVED it.

He is sooooo his Aunty’s nephew! I was proud, rapt, and thrilled all in one.

I have inspired fandom! And now I have my own Angel apprentice to mould, mentor, and make… mwa ha ha.

I am so excited. I am also grateful. I get to talk about one of my favourite shows with someone, and it’s my nephew so we get to bond over a shared interest in the process.

I have not talked Angel-talk in a LONG time. So when nephew followed with the questions:

“Who do you think would win in a fight – Angel or Buffy?” AND

“I’ve read about some Spike character online – is it true he’d beat Angel?”

I passionately responded:

“Angel – he has the super-human advantage,” AND

“No bloody way, that is a load of bullshit!”

It has begun:):):)

 

#248 Our family over

I was tired. Run down. Overwhelmed with the tower of boxes occupying one side of our kitchen. Where are all our cappuccino glasses? And those rectangle platters? My work pass is still missing.

But. I was still happy to have our fam over tonight at our Sea change house for the first time, for hubbie’s birthday. Because until the house was filled with their voices, their laughter, their unmistakable energy, it just wasn’t home.

I realised that today. I’m grateful for them, and for tonight 🙂

#247 Our first walk

Before we moved I said the following to hubbie:

“On our first day there, after the movers have left, we are dropping everything and walking to the beach!”

Well, we moved. And as we sat on our front steps watching the sunset, the movers driving off at 7pm, we stood up and went inside to wait for the pizza to arrive, and pray for the electricity to be switched on soon.

Day by day passed. Stresses and unpacking and horrible weather.

Today marks 2 weeks from moving day. I’m under the weather, but when hubbie got home from work and asked “are we taking that walk?” I got my jacket. I couldn’t say no.

Baby girl was rapt. “Deach!” she kept exclaiming, as we swung her in the air between us. And when we got there, well, this:

Apologies for the constant coastlines. Well, not really. They are stunning. I will never tire of taking them. Each one has a unique beauty about them, even if taken from the same location, every single day.

Just as every path, even if on the same route, holds different treasures, every single time.

And now that we’ve had our first walk, I look forward to uncovering all the jewels of every future stroll…

 

 

#246 Declarations of love no.1

She was especially needy. She had knocked into too many things to count today, and then she had fallen over and scraped her fingers when the empty rubbish bin she was trying to push up the driveway slipped. Concrete against soft toddler hands. Blood and peeling skin. Crying and crying. Man my heart cried for her.

And now at the end of a trying day, she wrapped her arms around me, pressing our faces close together, side by side. Hubbie watched nearby, and asked smiling “do you love Mama?”

“Da,” she replied, squeezing me tighter.

Awwww. Love, love, love.

#245 First birthday by the bay

Hubbie. Lucky bugger.

His is the first birthday we’re experiencing at our Sea change home.

Forever more, when we talk of when we moved, and when we look back on that initial box-filled, dusty-cornered, shit everywhere year, we’ll always think of his birthday as the one we celebrated first.

We can’t celebrate it to the capacity we usually would celebrate a birthday in our family, but still, we’ll have the music pumping from the stereo that’s currently propped up on unopened boxes, there’ll be piles of pizza boxes as people stand around eating from napkins, and there may even be wine drunk from plastic cups, with a pile of alcoholic bottles helping up in a corner.

Who cares?

We started the main celebrations today, on his actual birthday, at a nearby local.

(Tee hee hee).

And it felt good.

Here’s to many more birthdays by the bay. I’m rapt. We all are.

#244 Windy views

Baby girl’s nose was sniffly, the air was moving right through me, and yet despite the extreme force of the wind whacking our hair about, we were all smiles at this:

“Deach!” As baby girl yells in reference to the bay before us. We were at the end of the main street, looking at the beach below us, and after some miserably wet days, it was a sight for sore eyes. It was beautiful.

Breezy, but beautiful.

Then off to the park we went…

 

#243 Unexpected refund

It’ll be an ongoing job of mine, for a little while anyway, to update our address and change plans/policies where required, with the various people who service us: banks, insurers, mobile companies, etc.

As I called our main car insurer today, I can’t say I was expecting a huge surplus. I knew we would get some money back in cancelling an old policy with them, but when the very lovely lady told me we would be receiving a refund for all our cars, I was so shocked I actually asked “why?”

Our new area is considered more low risk than our old one. So not only are we getting $$$ back, but safety is coming back too.

Lol. What about sexy? Is sexy coming back?

That’s right, as Prince was proclaimed to have said, it never left…;)

#242 D&M with Hubbie

It may strike some as unusual that I’m having a bad time at the moment.

But then, if you know that we’ve recently moved house, it may not come as such a surprise.

Everything is off-centre, backwards, outdated, trying, and so ridiculously wrong that it is almost laughable. I feel like Mr Bean and someone up there is laughing their arse off at my expense.

No gas, means no heater. This coincided with some of the coldest days over the weekend, and I was terrified for some moments thinking we had Sea changed to the coldest part of the state, until I discovered that fam and friends on the other side of the city were too, miserably unhappy with the weather.

I got rained on 3 times in 2 days. The last time I got rained on was 4 years ago. And when it happened this weekend, I couldn’t even dry off properly. Heater issue, above.

I’m feeling isolated. Family and friends are not around.

Boxes are everywhere. Not having my shit together is keeping me restless and scatterbrained.

I haven’t slept properly in 2 weeks. Lack of sleep due to packing before the move, and now here, lack of sleep due to baby girl waking in the middle of the night because of the new house.

Everything is getting to me. Everything was getting to me. I had a few sorry moments this afternoon… and as down as I was feeling, after I spoke to hubbie and purged all my worries and stresses onto him, I slowly, eventually came to turn around.

The power of someone who has your back, is enormous. I am so grateful to him for his listening ears, helpful heart, searching eyes and loving soul. He did not give up until he made sure, I wasn’t going to.

It’s a tough time of life at the moment. We are settling. Things are up in the air. Things aren’t working the way they should. We are out of our comfort zone.

But, I know that. I knew that, before all this happened. I just didn’t think it would be so hard.

But, as long as I’m out of my comfort zone with hubbie and baby girl, things are good.

Following our D&M, I’m looking up again.

#241 Impromptu sleepover

These kinds of days are just the best. You start off with a fairly definite vision of where you think you’ll end up by the end of it, and soon the days end comes and BANG! Not at all what you expected.

So was today. Is today, as I type this on my mobile, in my makeshift pjs of singlet-under-top and jocks, on a spare mattress on my sister’s living room floor with a deeply-breathing baby girl asleep beside me, the sounds of hubbie and bro-in-law whispering loudly coming from the kitchen.

Yes, not at all expected, but certainly welcomed. When you’ve had a shitty few days, you happily take in any impromptu moments that

a) lighten life’s load

b) take your mind off stressful things

c) make life easier, and

d) make the times more exciting.

I’m grateful to share in these moments with my dearest, and also that I have an amazing sis and bro-in-law to take in this scallywag family of mine.

And the icing on the cake was my sister lying beside baby girl on the mattress just a little earlier, reciting a tried and true children’s bedtime book, and witnessing the beautiful interaction between the two: love, respect, and awe. Baby girl looks at my sister the way I used to as I child.

The way I still look at her.

By the way, the book is Goodnight Moon.

And on that note, goodnight world. From my side of the world, to yours.