I ask not why, but why not?

Pilgrimage

It's not far away from us, but for reasons I think we all understand I only visit IKEA a few times a year. This morning, can you believe we were actually too early to go in (it opens at 10am) and had to wait for the announcement "our beautiful IKEA store is now open" before the barrier was removed and we flowed in. I was a little embarassed at queuing for a store to open, not sure I've ever done that before.

As I mentioned, I only do this trip a few time a year for my IKEA staples and whatever else we may have grown to need/want in the interim. My staples are:

Plain white paper napkins; tealight candles; Ribba black frames in all sizes for photographs of the girls which adorn most walls in our house. Today I also added half a dozen feather cushion inserts (great value at only $7.95 for 50x50 size) to use as the stuffings for some gifts; Christmas wrappings; a new bath mat; that's about it. Free parking for only $119.00!

What are your IKEA staples?

PS Christie's posting reminded me that there is one more staple I bought, the role of paper for the girls easel - only problem with it is I find it tears very easily, like it's too recycled, if you know what I mean. Does anyone have another source for similar paper that's a little denser? does that make sense?

Favourite Passage No 3

This passage is from the book I've just finished reading, "The Dark Man" by Paul Auster. I like this passage because it reminds me, somewhat, of myself.

The passage is told by an older man who has recently lost his wife. He is talking about her to his granddaughter, retelling tales of what it was like in the early days of their marriage.

"All right, let me change gears here and think for a moment. What was Sonia like? What did I discover about her after we were married that I hadn't known before? Contradictions. Complexities. A darkness that revealed itself slowly over time and made me reassess who she was. I loved her madly, Katya, you have to understand that, and I'm not criticising her for being who she was. It's just that as I got to know her better, I came to realise how much suffering she carried around inside her. In most ways, your grandmother was an extraordinary person. Tender, kind, loyal, forgiving, full of spirit, with a tremendous capacity for love. But she would drift off every now and then, sometimes right in the middle of a conversation, and start staring into space with this dreamy expression in her eyes, and it was as if she didn't know me anymore. At first, I imagined she was thinking some profound thought or remembering something that had happened to her, but when I finally asked her what was going through her head at those moments, she smiled at me and said, Nothing."

Stamina

I've never been athletic. I'm not BAD per se, just not good. I can catch a ball, run, jump, skip, but although my family were always a very active family, that didn't include team sports for me. My three brothers played cricket and soccer and we played a lot in the backyard. When I was younger we were always outside playing tippity cricket, we had a badminton court and there was a lot of rough and tumble.

I mention the lack of sporting motivation because I would never have thought I had any real stamina. I always marvelled at marathon runners, still do, for I wondered where they got the drive, the endurance, from. Since having children, however, I feel I certainly have more stamina.

Mentally I think I'm probably more fragile, or perhaps just more addled. Patience, not sure whether you'd characterise me as patient, but I can endure a lot, as I believe all mothers can.

I may be hungry at 10am because I only had coffee for breakfast, but I can fight the hunger until the girls are fed and Leila's napping and not eat until at least 2:00pm.

I can be bursting to go to the loo but I can hold on until I can just finish the vacuuming, make that night's dinner and finish helping Ella make a cardboard box town.

I can try and sneak reading a page of a gripping novel that was so hard to put down only to be interrupted and not go back to it until I'm in bed some 8+ hours later.

Being a mother, has helped me realise that I actually do have very good stamina, that there's a heck of a lot I can achieve in one day. I can't take all the credit though - Quists espresso blend has a lot to do with how I keep going and I would never downplay what an important part of my life, my every day, it is.

What vice keeps you going throughout the day?

Australiana 2

Pikelets for breakfast with (not necessarily though ours was) French raspberry jam.

1 cup SR flour

1 tbs of caster sugar

1 egg

3/4 cup of milk

Mix it all together, let it sit for a few minutes (maybe 5) then cook in small batches, pikelets about the size of ummm a segmented tennis ball, or smaller! Eat hot with jam.

What says home, be it Australia or elsewhere, to you?

Australiana 1

Everyone has different ideas of what is typically of their own country. As far as Australia is concerned there are the externally typical such as Kangaroos, Ayres Rock (excuse me, Uluru), Koalas, Sydney Opera House etc. Then there are the icons for those who actually live here or are from here. For me, this is one of them, a very Australian treat, a plain sponge filled with pure whipped cream and topped with passionfruit icing. I confess that my recipe for icing failed me - it soaked in and ran off rather than sitting sweetly on top, but my defence is that my heritage is not Australian hence I couldn't ring my mum (although I'm sure my mum in law would know).

A lovely family dinner (which always makes Leila say "YEAH MUMMA FAMILY DINNER") with french bubbles (as all birthdays demand) and a belated birthday cake, the aforementioned passionfruit sponge made by yours truly.

Is 39 too many

candles to have on a cake? I hope not because that's how many Ella intends to put on my birthday cake today.

My honey bought me some gorgeous Danish ceramics - he knows what I like. Can you believe though, I have to work on my birthday, how much does that suck?!

Thanks mum, thanks dad, and everyone who's touched me since the start, you know who you are xx