Who will help me clean this house?

Feeling every bit the little red hen right now. The big 18th is next friday. About 45 people about 18 teenagers including Bantam Boy and the rest a mix of family- grandmother,aunty, uncle, cousins and family friends.
Anyway Chicky babe is still in bed and Bantam Boy has not come home from the party he went to last night!

I will survive...

I have that song stuck in my head at the moment. And it is probably not a bad "mantra" to have. I must admit to feeling a little overwhelmed at present.

I have hit an emotionally low point and this has coincided with the stress of having my baby becoming an adult and going through his final TEE exams. My boy has a mild learning problem - a mild form of dyspraxia which means he has trouble processing large chunks of information so the school has given him some extra reading time to help him get through his exams up until now- we had to apply to the curriculum council to allow him to continue this into his final exams. He tells me he reads the question then when he reads it again it is as if he has never seen it before, so he needs to read it a few times before he knows what it says and to try to understand what it is asking him to do.

He has been working quite hard and in a determined way and often goes to the library straight after school to study and gets home at about 7;30 or 8pm. As a result he was told the other day that his predicted TER score is 80 (which is quite good) so he was quite happy with how things were going. Then that night when we cleared the letter box we found a letter from the curriculum council to say that he has not been granted his application for extra time in his TER. He was so upset saying he was screwed and he may as well just forget it and get a job in a shop. That was just his first reaction, thankfully we have worked through it an d have started to realize that there are options and that he might still do ok without it. We are going to appeal the decision.

And my house is a pigsty and I can't seem to motivate myself to do it all and we have a party here in two weeks. I did manage to clean my room last weekend. So I can rejoice in that. I know I need to just break it down into smaller goals that are achievable and tackle things a bit at a time.

So I haven't had the time or energy to blog and I have a feeling the next two weeks could be a bit hectic too.

Wish me luck!!

P.S. It was my birthday last week. Celebrated very quietly for me- Yum Cha brunch with the kids, mum and Ronnie.

Colds, conflict and Crochet.

I've spent much of the last couple of weeks unwell with a bad cold, crocheting and arguing with my soon to be 18 years old son!
the argument revolved around what an uncool mother I am as I am not prepared to serve/provide or condone the consumption of alcohol by his underage friends (He repeated a year in grade one so most of his friends are 17 0r even 16.) Finally after much angst we have come to a kind of compromise, instead of a party of 100 of his closest friends we are now having a family and friends party of about 40, where I will serve light beer and light champagne for the adults.
I suggested a 'mocktail party' but one of his friends laughed at the mere suggestion of it and she asked him if he was a 12 year old girl. (Maybe I will make some mocktails anyway just to stir them up a bit.)
I feel really old because I am absolutely amazed at the expectation and reliance on alcohol and the fact that they don't even remotely try to hide the fact that they are drinking. 'In my day' we would sneak a drink or two and be afraid of getting found out!
Well at least we are talking again now.

I had three days off work and after a day in bed and almost two days of having no energy to do more than sit on the couch (and attempt to remain logical in the wake of the onslaught of a very determined teen) I went to spotlight and grabbed some wool...

Some 100% good old Australian Pure wool...


made in China!

I blame my cold and therefore my foggy brain for not suspecting this before I got home with a name like "Basics 8 ply" I should have guessed. Oh well it kept me busy for the weekend and for the monday that I had off from work also. I completed all but 10 of the 42 squares between saturday evening and monday evening. Then it took the rest of the week to complete the remaining ten. I finished the last one tonight and have now got them all blocked and ready to arrange before I sew them up. But I think I need to make more because it is not quite big enough. Maybe I'll sew it up and just add a row at a time until it is the right size.



I am finding it quite addictive- I'm thinking of the next crocheted rug project already.
(I wish I could become so obsessive about exercise or housework - maybe not quite as obsessive as that but a little perhaps would be useful!)