When Cait was little she asked me if I was famous.Why?
'Because everyone has a holiday on your birthday.'
Well I'm not famous but one of the perks of being born on the 2nd of June is that I can pretty much guarantee that come my birthday there will be a long weekend.
Quite a nice birthday present for a queen!
Friday, May 30, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
ON ELEPHANTS AND MOTHERS
Post Mother's Day post.
Reading Jodi Piccoult's latest offering "Change of Heart". I come across this extract...
"I would tell Claire about the elephants when she woke up, I decided. About a country where mothers and daughters walked side by side for years with their aunts and sisters. About how elephants were either right-handed or left-handed. How they could find their way home years after they'd left.
Here's what I wouldn't tell Claire, ever: That elephants know when they're close to dying, and they make their way to a riverbed for nature to take its course. That elephants bury their dead, and grieve. That naturalists have seen a mother elephant carry a dead calf for miles, cradled in her trunk, unwilling and unable to let it go."
Interesting, that, about elephants.
Reading Jodi Piccoult's latest offering "Change of Heart". I come across this extract...
"I would tell Claire about the elephants when she woke up, I decided. About a country where mothers and daughters walked side by side for years with their aunts and sisters. About how elephants were either right-handed or left-handed. How they could find their way home years after they'd left.
Here's what I wouldn't tell Claire, ever: That elephants know when they're close to dying, and they make their way to a riverbed for nature to take its course. That elephants bury their dead, and grieve. That naturalists have seen a mother elephant carry a dead calf for miles, cradled in her trunk, unwilling and unable to let it go."
Interesting, that, about elephants.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
ESCAPE
DH (who doesn't blog and who doesn't care if I do or don't)suggests "why don't you blog about our new car?".
And I'm, like, huh? My blog is mostly read by women - we don't really care about new cars. We just need something to get the kids to and from school and sports and friends. We just need to be able to park the car in the supermarket carpark. We just want something safe and reliable that won't break down when we're out at night. We like to drive something that's OK but in the scheme of things cars are not a big deal to us.
Unless of course you drive a Landrover Discovery that broke down in Ohakune at Easter and had to be shipped back to Wellington (leaving us stranded and at the mercy of extended family to come collect us). Unless of course said Landrover has cost in excess of $7k in repairs the past 12 months. (And that doesn't count the $10k of damage - insurance paid!- inflicted on it in a carpark.) Unless of course 10 years of driving Land Rovers and spending too much money fixing then has lost it's appeal. Then it becomes a big deal.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks back. Landrover is picked up from the Landrover mechanics ($95+GST per hour for labour - tell your kids to be a mechanic when they grow up) and the next day traded in for...after much consideration... a Ford Escape.
OK still a 4-wheel drive but 3 litres not 4. A V6 not a V8 engine (that's gotta be saving the earth a bit, right?). Ordinary petrol not the expensive stuff. A 5 seater not a 7. Silver (won't show the scratches like the green LandRover). I now drive a car not a truck. It's 18 months old and we are keeping it for a very long time.
I suspect DH might have written a very different post.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
A REMINDER
About this time each year (just after DH and I have got through our kids birthdays) I stand back and remind myself how precious they all are.
"Normal day. Let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you. Love you. Bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so.
One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in a pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return."
Mary Jean Iron
Who are your treasures?
