Ms Fifikins

This week Zoe over at A Boys Mummy chose the theme for My place and yours. And I find I have some energy to participate! The theme is pre-loved…

This is my music stand that Miss Immy now uses when she isn’t practising on her bed! I picked it up for a song at a second hand fair over 15 years ago. Now when it is not used for music, I usually place a recipe book on there. Note it is done up with cable ties. Thriftiness at its best!

Again, one of my antique fair pickups- a mirror from an old bedroom stand or something. It served well as a bathroom mirror in one place where I arrived and there was none. Now it serves partly as its original purpose in Miss Immy’s room. And that’s me poking through… no comments on that though!

Finally a trip to my jewellery box. My mother’s wedding ring, her first set of pearls and my grandmother’s ‘diamond’ broach. The pearls are far too short to go around my neck and I don’t get to wear the broach much. The ring is too tight even for my little finger. But they sit in the box and when I open it I know they were loved before and still make me smile.

May has been a little slack. As of tonight I have added up 2 completed tasks and 21 in progress. I have 938 days left so need to complete one task every 9.5 days. There are a few tasks I need to get finished this week and that might make me more content with progress.

Perhaps I need to start some other tasks too- especially the fitness related ones. I can keep moaning about how I am getting no where, but I really need to knuckle down and get on with it. I want to be losing a couple of kilos a month. I know how to do it, I just need to put my words into deeds!

So this week… I am going to sell my car. I need the money to pay off some big bills. I might even manage to set up the blogs for the kids and register as an organ donor…

Yeah. Another wordpress theme. Not sure I am 100% happy with this one, but meh, at least it is a slight improvement on the last with tabs for the different pages.

I do have a totally customisable one that I should make time to edit and make my own at some stage. But until then, you have this, complete with the silly yellow in the header. Might look into changing that…

I did plan to spend the weekend faffing. Slept most of this morning, went to gym and burnt 911 calories in 1.5 hours of boxing and came back here and napped. It’s what I needed I keep telling myself. Will try and update my 101 in 1001 tomorrow…

But until then…

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

So how was it? It was good. Actually, it was great!

Yes, I was apprehensive and did what I tend to do when I get anxious, arrived early! The school had changed dramatically! Of course the first thing I saw when I arrived was the long jump pit, bringing back some pretty ghastly memories! I wandered around for a bit and found where we were meeting, still rather early!

Finally people arrived! We only had a small group at the school part of the reunion. Some good friends from school whom I hadn’t seen in years. Others who I had hadn’t necessarily thought much about in the last 20 years, but still seeing them again provoked memories. Of the people at the school, one of the general feelings was that our school days hadn’t always been the best. Sarah summed it up well when she pointed out we were all dealing with adolescence at the time too and that possibly clouded judgements.

I hadn’t actually thought of this. In my last post I commented on how obnoxious I was at school. Through comments on the blog and comments from people yesterday, apparently I wasn’t that obnoxious. Perhaps it was my views of adolescence or my consequences of my upbringing that formed these thoughts. I still have trouble liking the me as a teenager, recognising the cognitive changes I have made over the last few years.

I’m glad I made the effort to come down. I’m really glad I made the effort to go out afterwards with other people to the Geebung Hotel. Here there were more friends. People I did not recognise and people I remembered little of. Not necessarily in my circle at school, but great people. At the end of it I heard stories from them about their recollections of things that had happened. Things I had no idea about! Stories of peer pressure and rebellion. Stories of caring and concern for others. People I wish I was closer to then and now.

Throughout the day there were questions of me, my life then, in-between and now. People who I have caught up with over Facebook who have followed my ups and downs. People who have recognised my struggles and strength. It was lovely to receive this affirmation.

I took a few photos and will upload them to flickr when I get home. Home. Where my heart is. Questions from people about moving away and returning to Melbourne. Will I return? That is a tough one. I miss aspects of Melbourne. I loved seeing Autumn leaves and driving in fog this morning. I loved driving down streets I remember from my childhood. I loved visiting shopping centres and shops we don’t have up north.

But I wouldn’t be returning to relive my past. I wouldn’t be returning to send my children to the school I went to (it is now co-ed parallel education in years 10-12 with a boys campus for Prep-9). The people I caught up with, on the whole, no longer live near where they grew up. They may have moved shorter distances than I have, but there has been movement. Even those that are still in the same area have moved. We all have.

So thank-you to those who braved coming. It was a small group, but it was a great group. We all said that next reunion we wanted off site. And we wanted more people there. We want to know what people are doing and see them. To be together as a community again, perhaps only for a couple of hours, but to show that we are all lovely people who were shaped by their schooling. The resilience we had to learn at school has done us well for the future. Not ideal at the time, but it was what it was.

I am in Melbourne. For 2 nights. Actually between landing and departing it will be 48 hours. And why? It is 20 years since my year group left school and there is a reunion.

My former school organises reunions every 5 years. I think I’ve been to them all, even though I have lived interstate for them all. When I saw the date for this one late last year I pencilled it in my diary (or fingered it into my iPhone more to the point!) and didn’t think much more about it. Then the note came. I replied on the last day, even though a schoolmate who had organised a facebook page for the event had a reply from me as soon as I was invited. I just assumed I would go.

A few weeks ago I booked flights- red eye flight this morning changing in Sydney. Cheaper than the direct flight. Bizarre, I know. I booked a hire car and started organising the kids.

Then my anxiety kicked in. On Tuesday I had a total meltdown. You see, my school days weren’t necessarily the best days of my life. I didn’t have many friends. I was obnoxious really. I thought I was so much better than I was. I took the high moral ground on so many issues and alienated so many of my peers. Looking back I can see why. Towards the end of my school days I had some more friends and we have kept in touch.

So why am I going? That is something I have been wrestling with and still don’t have definitive answers. Yes, I want to see the place that is my old school. See if they have actually done up the music rooms like they promised 20 years ago. See the ‘new’ classrooms that my cohort experienced- the Prep/Year 1 classrooms in 1979 and the year 7 centre in 1985. So new to us! See if the Emma B Cook Centre is still as modern as it was 25 years ago. See if the Junior School Gym still has those ghastly ropes we had to try and climb in PE.

Then there are the people. Thankfully I think most of the teachers have moved on or retired! As for my cohort… well I described it to someone as a social experiment- have we changed in 20 years? I remember at the 10 year reunion people still navigated to the friendship groups from school. I think trough Facebook though some of these distinctions have broken down. Whereas there are some girls I wouldn’t have normally kept in touch with, now I see photos of their kids and read about their struggles and triumphs.

Then there is me. I have changed so much from the girl who left school almost 20 years ago. We were asked to fill in a small biography for the booklet going with the reunion tomorrow. I didn’t really know what to say. How do you say, I’m not the person who went to school with you? I would never have dreamed at school of getting a tattoo or having an upper ear piercing, or riding a motorbike, or getting divorced.

So I am anxious for tomorrow. Unsure of what it will bring. I know a few people who are going and some of my good friends are apologies. I remember the teasing and bullying I experienced at school, but 20+ years on, I can’t remember who did it (with a couple of exceptions!).

I am going with an open mind. I suspect part of it is facing the demons of my past and realising that my parents sacrificed a lot to send me to a prestigious school. And I did receive a decent education.  I want to remember the good things, even if they are few and far between in my mind at present. Is there nosiness? Maybe. But I want to go and be in the present. Be me today, shaped by my past but not ruled by it.

I shall report back afterwards…

I wasn’t going to comment on the slackness of posts here over the last month. Work has been a bit hectic (perhaps an understatement!) and I have been stressing about stuff again! So I have missed Hello Owl’s Monday Meme My Place and Yours (even though I have thought about it every Monday and answered it in my head!) and also Noice-ities, from That’s Noice.

But not today! I am going to think of what has been noice in my week…

1. I have tracked all my spending this week. This part of my 101 things in 1001 days project but it has given me an idea of where my money is going, and that is only after a week… But they do make awesome coffee!
2. I bought MIML™ a really nice ring for an anniversary present. We saw it in a shop and both really liked it. I may even snap a shot of it with a camera other than my iPhone, so keep an eye on my flickr stream!
3. I got my monthly reports in at work on time, and they were coherent, well as coherent as I could be!
4. I unlocked new levels in Zombie Farm! I have always ridiculed the FarmVilers out there, but now see what the addiction in cultivating parts of a computer screen is!
5. I received more postcards from PostCrossing. Going to my mailbox each day and finding these postcards amongst bills is a noice boost! Try it!
6. I did 1.5 hours of circuit and boxing class today and although at times I thought I was going to throw up, I burnt 898 calories! And although we had home made nachos for dinner, I didn’t use the exercise as an excuse to buy a block of chocolate!

So what’s been noice in your week?

So finally it looks like the weather may have changed. It seems like it has rained every weekend for the last 6 months- yes, I know they don’t call it the wet season for nothing!

Anyway, today was the first Saturday in a while where the sun was out and it wasn’t even overcast or threatening rain. So many people like me decided to get their bikes out of the garage and go for a spin. I just span around town a bit- no time to go on a big journey, but it was fun. Except for the idiots on other bikes.

Picture this. The sun is shining, it’s not too hot and lots of people are out and about in their vehicles. I am stopped at a red light in the right hand lane of a two lane road. I am the first vehicle in my lane. I have a ute to my left and a four wheel drive behind me. The light changes colour. I am pretty aggressive taking off from lights, but as soon as I hit the speed limit I stay there. So I am on 60 in the centre of the lane. I hear a Harley coming up on my left. There is no mistaking that sound. Meh, I figure, if that douche wants to speed past me then go for it, at least the sound of his exhaust will go with him! Oh and of course he was in a singlet, shorts and thongs, but that appears to be Harley uniform up here. Even though the road is marked at 60km/h, it seems most people want to do it at 70. Cars are overtaking me in the left hand lane, but I don’t worry. I have every right to observe the speed limit.

Then it happens. I am in the zone. I thought I was aware of vehicles surrounding me, but somehow I missed the most amazingly idiotic excuse for a bike rider I have yet to experience on two wheels. A Kawasaki Ninja overtakes me in the right hand lane! That’s right, in my lane with a planted median strip. Once the shock had died down I noticed the cars around me were being a lot more aggressive. I was the biker doing the right thing- obeying the speed, sitting in the middle of the lane, observing vehicles and pedestrians on either side and yet two of the three bikes that the cars around me had seen had sped off acting like <insert preferred profanity here!> I was the one left to cope with their anger.

No doubt these drivers have gone home complaining that all bikers are just an accident waiting to happen, and road deaths would be halved if bikers weren’t allowed on the streets. But it is not all of us. Unfortunately this afternoon it was 2/3 of us though. And I was the third left to cope with drivers anger. Still, I hope the weather stays like this for a bit as it is still the most exhilarating experience riding on two wheels!

April edibles

Originally uploaded by fifikins

An interesting month. Some good food memories and also a lot of reminders that I’m not eating very well at times. This is affecting both my health and my hip pocket! Let’s see what May brings…