Thursday, July 30

Thankful Thursday

My cup, it runneth over, and I know not where to start. Well that and the fact that I have been up for some fifteen hours and my mind is not exactly working at it's optimal level. I am incredibly full of thanks though so hopefully the words will find their own way out.

Today sees my first Thankful Thursday here in my new space. I am thankful that I was finally able to change the name of my Facebook page. It means that A Parenting Life is no more, well at least not for new posts, the site will still stay live it just won't be growing.

So it turns out that the words are not flowing as I would have hoped. Children that refuse to sleep are not conducive to the writing of words. Who would have thought huh?

As such I am making this super short.

This week I am thankful for

* having my mum come to visit over the last month, she was an amazing help around the house and it was just so lovely to see her

* signing up to a new DVD store so I could hire out How I Met Your Mother on account of Mr A cancelling Netflixs only the attendant couldn't get the security device off the cover so he organised for me to get a free copy from another store

* selling enough stock at the markets to not only make it worth our while but worth doing again

So what about you? What are you thankful for?





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Tuesday, July 28

Diving on in


Well as of today it is official. 

A Parenting Life is no more. 

Well it it technically still is still open for viewing but I will no longer be posting there. From here on in all new posts will appear here. Which is a bit exciting, and a little scary.

It is exciting because a fresh start is always exciting. It is a little bit scary because I have not had a chance to set up everything here just like I would like to. Mind you after nearly three months of waiting to set things up just right I am starting to wonder if I would ever actually get around to it.

So here I am, with things not quite right. 

Instead they are a little rough around the edges and not anything like perfect. Much like myself. Which I guess is in many ways incredibly fitting.

So here we are. 

A brand new blog just waiting to be filled with all my words of wisdom.

Sadly though my words of wisdom have been failing me of late. As I mentioned a little while ago back on APL, I have been struggling to come to terms with some of the changes we have been faced with lately which has in turn meant my words have slowed.

Sigh.

I am hoping though that has all come to an end now though. 

Mind you if I keep trying to blog while watching TV that may possibly never happen. Mr Awesome thoughtfully decided to cancel our Netflix subscription on account of being able to access Presto free for six months via our new fang dangled Telstra T Box. Which may on some levels sound particularly cool on account of being able to watch Presto without it counting towards our monthly download limit but since Presto doesn't have How I Met Your Mother it is actually quite a let down.

Since I haven't been able to continue with my How I Met Your Mother marathon I decided to begin a My Name is Earl marathon. Well not at marathon as such but more a it is late at night and I need some background noise situation. I (wrongly) thought that My Name Is Earle would not be a distraction to my writing on account of already having seen so many episodes.

As much as I may have watched so many episodes in the past, I had forgotten how much the show warmed my heart.

It probably comes as no surprise that I love the idea of doing things to right wrongs and making life better whenever you can. There really are so many lessons to be learnt from such shows. Lessons that if it wasn't ridiculous o'clock at night I would possibly be able to go into more detail. 

However it is crazy o'clock on Tuesday morning and I have blogged so I can share with all the #IBOT gang
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The end of an era


After nearly three months of uncertainty and limbo I have finally made a decision. This is my last blog post here on A Parenting Life.

From here on in I will be publishing over at my wonderful new site Rhianna Writes.

My excitement and sadness are in complete balance. Which is a bit nice and probably makes the excitement topple the sadness just a little.

So what made me finally take the dive after all this time?

Well basically Facebook kindly decided to change my Facebook name, which was one of two things that was holding me back. The other was that I thought it was important get to my one thousandth post here.  This little baby will be post number 981. Normally I don't get anal about things but every now and then I do and this just happened to be one of those times.

Only since I suddenly had a target I my mind went blank and writing posts suddenly became impossible.

Sigh.

Thankfully though I am super good at making up my own rules and changing them as I need to, so after a bit of thought I manage to convince myself that the whole thousand post thing didn't matter so much and I should just take the plunge and get on with post over at my new space.

So without further ado that is exactly what I am going to do.

Thank you so much for reading me all these years and I hope that you will continue to do so over at my new home.

Joining in for the last time with IBOT as A Parenting Life
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Thursday, July 23

Thankful Thursday

The past few days have been particularly hard going here. As I mentioned on Tuesday we have just celebrated the one year mark since we left home. It has brought about a lot of mixed emotions that we have all had a lot of trouble dealing with. Combined with the return to school for term three stress levels have reached an all time high.

Actually that is not completely true.

The Little Two are super happy to be back at school. They both have a love of learning and are excited to be hitting the books once more. Which is incredibly wonderful and something I am eternally thankful for. I hope that it is something that stays with them for life. More than anything I long for the girls to what to be life long learners. Having a desire to learn is the most important aspect to learning.

Lovely however is a completely different story. There is no love or even the slightest desire to learn within that child. In fact as far as she is concerned school is merely a social occasion.

Sigh.

All of that is for another post though.

Back to the thanks.

In one of my hardest days in well over a year. One that I was left feeling mentally battered and bruised from the joys of parenting a teen, I received the most lovely little golden envelope in the mail.

The most ever lovely Tasha over at Of crochet & life sent me the most gorgeous little love hearts for no reason other than she wanted to make me smile. Which it most certainly did. In a huge way in fact. I am so thankful that someone could think to do such a lovely thing for little old me.

Other thanks this week include

* Finding some awesomely cheap yet tasty wine
* Finding some cheap but very beautiful and lovely to drink from wine glasses
(yes I do notice a slight trend but if you had lived my week you would be slightly wine obsessed as well)
* A secret stash of chocolate
* A most lovely long run, that included all three of my favourite spots


* Being able to get this post written well before first thing Thursday morning. Given that school is back and I have to work trying to tap something out in the morning just probably wouldn't be a wise or feasible idea.

What about you? What are some of the things you are thankful for this week?

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Tuesday, July 21

Coming to terms with the changing of the times

As much as possible I like to look forward rather dwell on what happened in the past. After all the past is gone and done. It has happened and can’t be changed, so why waste time thinking about it for too long?

The past few days however it has been easier said than done. Yesterday being the hardest of all.

My mind is currently in overdrive trying to come to terms with the difference between now and twelve months ago. So much so that finding the right words to explain it all just makes me head hurt even more.

This time last year we were finally hitting the road and beginning #ouradventureofalifetime. We were filled with excitement of the unknown of the open road and whatever lay ahead. A new life was waiting to be discovered and we couldn’t wait to get discovering. 

Well a new life for the next twelve months lay ahead of us. 

The plan was to take twelve months to do our lap and then return to normal life.

We all know about plans and the best of intentions though.

Twelve months later and we have returned to normal life, just not as we once knew it. We went from being on #ouradventureofalifetime where it felt like we were living each day to the fullest to what feels like just scraping by under the pretence of #oursouthwestadventure.

Sure there is still a hashtag and our life in the South West is in some ways completely difference to that of our life back in the Top End, namely the temperature, but there are also too many similarities. Far too many similarities.

The rigmarole of school each and every day. The having Mr Awesome go to work each and every day. The cleaning, the washing. The mundaneness of daily life. The feeling of surviving rather than actually living.

I just don’t like it.

At all.

And that makes me sad.

Life is too precious to be living an unhappy life. Each day deserves to have the most made of it whether you are actively adventuring or not. At the end of the day life itself should be the adventure.

Yesterday, the last day of the school holidays after our first term back at school in nearly twelve months we went adventuring. Sure there was also some shower scrubbing and washing to be done before we left but once I was out in amongst the trees and driving alongside a river nothing else seemed to matter. Not even the fact that it was a particularly wet and miserable winter’s day.


Life it is for living. 


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Thursday, July 16

Thankful Thursday - Fun and Friendship

If you follow my Facebook or Instagram feed then this week's thanks is probably not going to come as a surprise.

This week I am thankful that the girls and I were able to hang with the gorgeous Zippy Zappy Life gang for a few days. We had been fortunate enough to share Christmas last year with this amazing family and since then the girls have been constantly asking when we would be able to see them again. The school holidays seemed like the perfect opportunity.

We arrived mid Monday afternoon. The two and a half hour felt like it took a great deal longer than it did. Possibly due to the fact that I took the scenic route. And I am thankful that I did because it was incredibly scenic.

There were endless rolling hills, quaint trees and plenty of cows. I do love looking at cows in their pastures. The scenic route also lead me to ridiculously cheap fuel, a good ten cents cheaper than what I normally pay. There were also a few train tracks that we were forced to wait at while trains went by, which the girls found incredibly exciting.


When we did finally arrive it felt like we were catching up with family and I am so thankful that the girls are able to have such special friends in their lives. Watching all the kids play and interact over the two days just made my heart swell.

Our first night saw a bon fire gathering and I am thankful that the winds stayed low so we were able to enjoy the warmth and glow of the fire. The kids all delighted in toasting marshmallows and it was a real this is what childhood memories are made of moment.

The next day saw us tackle The Maze. Something we had planned to do when we were here last year only Zany hurting her ankle threw a slight spanner in the works. All is well that ends well though because we had a fabulous time exploring all the mazes this week.


Sadly though our time there had to come to an end, though not before we hit the biggest shopping centre in the west for some funky new kicks.


I am thankful that Zany has such cool taste in shoes and feels comfortable enough in herself to wear them.

There are actually a great deal many more things that I am thankful for as well but I am already running a tad late for work and Mother Dearest who I am thankful to have visiting at the moment is getting just a little pushy for me to leave.

So over to you, what are you thankful for today?




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Thursday, July 9

Thankful Thursday


In a bid to be super organised for this week's Thankful Thursday post I actually sat down on Wednesday morning to try and get something out. Given that I actually missed last week one would have thought that having two weeks worth of thanks would have made for good fodder.

Apparently not.

Instead I was left with this. Which I was rather pleased to get out because I figured once that was out the way I would have been able to go on to bigger and better things.

I was wrong.

Though in all fairness to myself it wasn't entirely my fault for not getting more out. On account of it being school holidays (and my mum is visiting) it was declared screen free time and we went out and explored.

So here I am Thursday morning, not bright and early mind you because it is too darn cold bright and early to do anything except snuggle down further under the blankets.

After failing to find thanks yesterday morning, and then again last night I decided that my thankful post could wait.

I mean I did manage this list

* School holidays

* My mum coming to visit

*My health.

but it some how didn't seem worthy so I went back to thinking my post could wait.

Of course there is nothing wrong with being thankful for those three things, it was just that for well over a week now, possibly nearly two I have been thinking of sharing just how thankful I am to be healthy. Just tacking it on the bottom of a list didn't feel like it was doing it justice.

Recently I have come across two people who longed to have an adventure like #ouradventureofalifetime only various health issues meant they were unable to do so. Even while we were on our trip we came across a few families who had to alter their own adventures due to poor health. I am so thankful we had the opportunity to get out there and do what we did.

I am so thankful that I am healthy enough to be able to get out and do whatever I want. If I feel like going for a run, I can, I don't need to stop and wonder whether my body is up for it, I can just do it.

There are so many people that are held back in various ways from doing a whole range of things because of their health. There are also many that find a way to push past the boundaries of the body and health and for that I am thankful because it gives me the reminder that I need some days to get out there and just give things a go and make the most of the many blessings that I have.

Thursday happens to be my working day which means the last thing I should be doing come Thursday morning is sitting around trying to blog. Thankfully though thanks to school holidays I have a bit of extra time and could do so today.

Thanks also need to be sent to the lovely Lydia who possibly without even realising it, has an uncanny knack for encouraging me when I need it most. If you need help in facing a fear and challenging yourself then this is a must read

What about you? What are you thankful for today?




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Wednesday, July 8

Words fail me

At nearly two weeks between posts this feels somewhat like the longest hiatus my dear little blog has been on in quite some time. I wish that there was some super exciting reason for my absence but there is not. At all.

The fact of the matter is that I just haven't been able to find they words. Sure for some of it I haven't even been able to find the time to look for the words but I haven't looked all that hard because I have known they are just not there.

It is fair to say that it makes me pretty sad as well.

It is also fair to say I don't really know what to do about it all which is why I am here now slowly dribbling away in the hope that I may just be able to put an end to it all.

The problem I think, is comparison and self doubt. There are a lot great and amazing writers out there that are kicking all kinds of goals with their great posts. They are funny, hard hitting, inspiring, heart moving, well written posts that are everything I feel mine are not, and possibly never were.

Excuse me while I go and have a mini tantrum complete with foot stamping and screaming much like a two year old who was just told ice cream was not a breakfast option.

image found here thanks to J Miller
Right that feels better, now where was I?

Since beginning this post I have been privy to approximately 52 arguments between Teapot and Zany, made more coffee, helped Mother with a computer issue and seen to breakfast orders. Not to mention supervising the clean up operation of the half gallon of orange juice that was conveniently tipped all over the place by a child insisting they were capable of pouring their own drink.

No wonder I lost my train of thought.
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