A little bit tropical

It's been a bit warm. The temperature hovers around 35 degrees centigrade. That's 95 in old money. The humidity has been from 65% up to 77% and Mr Sunshine and I have stayed inside with the air conditioner on as much as possible. Outside the clouds are gathering and it looks like we might get the promised storm. Our mountains have disappeared behind a bank of low clouds.

Not much to blog about so I went out with my camera to catch a bit of the tropics in my garden.

If you are in a cold place. I hope this glimpse of the tropics makes you feel a little warmer. Right now I think it would be great to feel a little cooler so I'll browse some of those northern hemisphere blogs and see if that helps.

And so that was Christmas. . . the day after

I know the title is a little clichéd, but the trouble is that the tune of "So this is Christmas" has been buzzing around in my head all day as ear worms do and maybe the only way to get rid of it is to write about it.  Some of the problem is that I think I'm suffering from several seasonal diseases/syndromes.
There's the Christmas-anticlimax-syndrome because it is the day after the big day and all of the mad rushing and shopping and stressing is suddenly over.  The Christmas-anticlimax-syndrome usually goes hand in hand with the I-shouldn't-have-eaten-so-much-syndrome.
Then there is the avoiding-all-the-work-that-I-should-be-doing-syndrome.  Having had so much to do and been so busy for weeks, now is the chance to catch up in the garden and house, but I really don't feel like it.  If I was an athlete I'd say I "hit the wall".  Maybe I hit the mental wall?  I might have the balk-at-having-so-much-to-catch-up-on variety of this disease.
Of course, this being a regular steamy hot North Queensland Summer day, I'm also suffering from the heat-has-sapped-my-energy syndrome.
Oh well, I think I'd better get started on something. . .    right after I go and have a nice cold drink with Mr Sunshine out on the patio in the shade.

Merry Christmas to everyone out in blogland!
I hope you enjoy the caricature that Andrew Fyfe did of our work crew. We thought it was great. Have a great holiday, remember whose birthday celebration it is and stay safe.

A little bent

This is our Christmas tree - completed. Decorated by Lion and Dragon McTavish with a little help from Grannysaurus. See that gold star. Just behind it is a gold wire angel with bead decoration. They are on the top of the tree. Star and angel together. I know they don't look like they are on the top of the tree, but they really are. It's not an optical illusion. It's just that the top of the tree is no longer at the top of the tree.

You see after the tree was complete, Lion got his little stool, stood up on it and reached up to the top of the tree. He very purposely and carefully bent the top over so that he could reach the star and the angel - maybe to make sure they were secure or maybe just to have them within reach. Who knows. It took him a few minutes to get it just right. So that is the way it stays.

I'm not sure why I'm happy to have a tree that looks a little bent and lop-sided. I just know that if it was so important for Lion to take such care getting it like that, it would feel wrong for me to go and change it. Maybe I'm a bit strange, but it kind of makes it special. So that is the way it will be till it gets packed away for another Christmas - a litttle bent.

Motherhood guilt at Christmas.

For some reason I had one of those nights when I thought about everything that has made me, as a mother, feel guilty in the last 30 years. It's a little more than that since I found out I was pregnant for the very first time. What got me started was thinking about how undeservedly blessed I am with my children, their spouses and my grandchildren. I wasn't depressed or beating myself up over anything - just being honest with myself about my stuff ups. Let me list some:

*I drank heaps of coffee (12-16 cups a day) throughout my first pregnancy. It's a wonder Chimera made it through the pregnancy.

*All 3 kids had colic and reflux to varying extents, but very severe for baby no. 1 (Chimera) - so much pain and discomfort and tears and we could do nothing. No medicine did more than take some of the edge off the pain. Most did not even do that.

*Letting daughter no. 2 (Mummy McTavish) go to sleepover party at the home of a paedophile. He was her friends stepfather and of course we didn't know he was a paedophile then. He had been trying to entice little girls into his car with lollies. Fortunately he wasn't there that night, but the guilt still sticks.

*Not realising that the reason daughter no. 2 was crying every day about going to school was because she was being bullied.

*The many times when adventurous toddler-son climbed the fence and ran away from home as soon as he could walk (about 9months old) and even managed to almost make it to the highway on one occasion.

*All of the times I disciplined to harshly when something more mild and loving would have sufficed.

*The times I didn't discipline enough and let bad habits take root.

*The times when I said, "That's not bad" when I should have said, "That's great and I'm really proud of you!"

*The times when I should have hugged and kissed more.

The list goes on, but you get my drift. The thing is that guilt seems to be part of the human condition. No one has tried to make me feel guilty. I just did it to myself. Motherhood has given me so many more opportunities to feel guilty, that I wouldn't have had otherwise. I'm sure most mothers would agree.

The Church, Christianity, has often been blamed for inflicting guilt on people. It is true of some individuals within the church that they have a knack for burdening people with guilt, but it is not true of true Christianity.

One of my favourite Christmas cards declares "Kid born in shed saves world". Saves the world from what. . . true guilt. I believe that when we trust and follow Jesus, we are no longer judged guilty. The Bible says that the baby Jesus grew up and dealt with our guilt forever at the cross. That is what Christianity is really about- not inflicting guilt. The guilt is already there. Because of Christmas and Easter we are saved from guilt, not just motherhood guilt, but all guilt.

May you have a guilt-free Christmas.

Oooooh Christmas Tree

Today Lion and Dragon McTavish came to help Grannysaurus decorate the Christmas tree. Mummy McTavish assured me that it would keep them busy for hours and I would still be able to write Christmas cards while they still had some chance fo arriving in time for Christmas 2008. It sounded like a good plan.

It kept them busy for about 5 minutes. That was how long it took to throw the "balls" on the floor and find out that none of them bounce. Then they discovered the tinsel in the picture. It was dozens of little pretend gifts about 2cm square hung on tinsel that could be draped around the tree.

Christmas gifts are exciting and enticing even if they are smaller than your big toe. You simply have to find out what is inside. The first lump of styrofoam masquerading as a gift doesn't mean that every single one has a lump of styrofoam inside. Little boys don't give up that easily. They had to keep opening the little gifts just in case it paid off. It didn't. Grannysaurus ended up doing most of the decorating alone, although Lion chipped in and helped after a bit of emotional manipulation. Two year old Dragon kept insisting he couldn't help because he was "too busy".

No gift in here either.