Monday, September 26, 2005

Holidays and Bird Flu!

Tomorrow we are off to Hamner for 5 days, then to Kaikoura till the end of the week. I am so looking forward to it. We have just had such a hectic few weeks, with market day, showbiz and new carpet. It will be great to sit in the hot pools, go for walks and just spend uninterrupted time with my family.

Family is hugely important to me. Recently I have been rather alarmed by all the reports about bird flu in the paper. It is so scarey to think something like this may come to New Zealand. I am going to protect my family as much as possible, I have disposable gloves and I plan to buy masks. But honestly, it is not much that I can do, except pray to God to spare our world from this impending catastrophy. It really makes you realise that the people about you are so important to you, and how you really don't want to part with any one of them.

So I am going to really enjoy this time with my husband and kids, and remember that God has all our times in His hands, and to make sure that my priorities are in line with His!!

Friday, September 16, 2005

Market day

I'm in the eye of a business hurricane this weekend. We have just survivied the market day and are about to launch forth into the Showbiz week. But today and tomorrow are not too busy and I'm enjoying some piece and quiet.

Market day was a great success. All the little children (they think they are big kids) ran businesses, some of them already know they are bankrupt and some of them know they made a profit, and some of them (like mine) are not too sure! It was fun. I really enjoyed being in the superstore, helping the children make their purchases, and dishing out the odd bit of advice. Sadly my maths skills are quite quite poor and I charged one hapless group 5000 rupees, instead of 500. But great was their relief when they discovered the rebate!

I'm so proud of my kids, they worked together (and that's not easy for siblings) and they had a special needs child in their business and included her completely. I think they broke even, or nearly so, but it is more important to me that they managed the whole process. They had an idea, made the product and sold it very sucessfully. Whew!

I am also proud of some other kids who had a great idea, but it didn't really take off. Still they ran their business with sweetness and grace. God bless them. I think Kirsten, Caitlin and Ruth and their helpers are winners also.

Next week showbiz! Get a ticket, it will be great entertainment, if we survive the attempt!

Monday, September 05, 2005

on still growing up....

I have a fantastic mother-in-law. When I first was engaged to my husband to be, I took a long look at him and his family. I decided they were ok except for his mother who was a pain. But I thought anyway Mr Robertson is there to sort her out, no need for me to worry my head about her (I was young). Five months after we were married, he was called home. I can remember sitting in the bath crying my eyes out thinking, how am I going to get on with this woman?? I made lots of mistakes, I was rude to her a lot (I'm sorry) and ignored her a bit and hoped the problem would go away, maybe she would change now she was a widow. I can't believe writing this how horrible I was actually, but its all true... sadly.

Anyway over time I realised that the more I saw her, the easier it was, we had more to talk about, so I decided to get her over for tea every week. At first it was really hard, I was still rude and patronising. But bit by bit I have come to love this woman and be truely grateful for the way she is part of our family. I have come to understand that the negative view that she has of life, is really her just feeling the hurts of the world around her. She is so compassionate. She never puts us down, never makes us feel foolish for making silly choices. She is always respectful of our family unit and always grateful to be part of it. She loves us all unconditionally and we love her too. Recently she had a health scare and I realised that I am so not ready to loose her yet. I realise that I have changed, I think she is still the same, but now I love her for who she is... a truely awesome and inspiring, yet contradictory woman.

Today my mother-in-law is 83. We gave her an ipod (she will get $2 christmas pressy!). She said, "Great, how do I use it!" and we showed her how and she says that she will use it when she goes walking. This is from the lady who never bothered to learn metric, still thinks in inches and yards. She's come a long way. Back when metric came in (and that's a few years ago now) she felt like her life was over, she felt old and boxed in, and could not see the point in learning a new skill that she did not see her life as going to be long enough to bother learning.

Now here she is 83 and learning again. She is learning how to live and how to make changes, big life changes. Go for it Nana Robbie... have a happy birthday.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Strange Comments and Brain workings

Hello there, I turned on my blog and behold three comments. But at least two of them are strange! Are they advertorials for someone else?? are they spam?? how do I get rid of them, do I want to?? very bizzare.

It is quite odd really, to hijack someone's personal diary to advertise acne cream!! What kind of person thinks aha, a mum with three kids, SHE will need acne cream. Haha when actually what I need is happy pills (just kidding).

I'm feeling rather tired this afternoon. This morning was a Champion Centre morning and Reuben and I always come home feeling naffed from those. He is in bed, my lovely Champion; and I am using my precious time writing this instead of sleeping. Roo is supposed to be learning to count, 1. 2. but you would not believe how difficult it is for him to learn. He knows how to say 1. 2. even 3. 4. 7. 12 on a good day, but has no idea that it means 1. Red Frog 2. Red Frog. We spent ages with the lovely Jane this morning trying to count those darn frogs. (Mummy can do it quite well actually).

The brain is a strange thing. You only need one little link to be out of order and a whole lot of things don't work properly. We don't even know what is wrong with Roo's brain, (and he looks perfectly normal) but a whole lot of little things are squew wifffy.

Actually is it an amazing learning process for me. I'm finding out lots of cool stuff. Did you know that your brain is programmed so that if I show a baby a new object and say the name of it, (eg "look dear, here is a frog, frog") well they know that it is a frog. Alas that piece of program is slightly skewed in Roo so he doesn't quite connect the two, but it is amazing to think how cleverly we are made isn't it.

Recently I let my 9 year old take apart two old sewing machines, just for fun. It was amazing. It wasn't until we took them apart that we realised how clever they were. They are never going back together again, ever. Our Reuben is a bit like those machines in a way, we look at him and start to realise how amazingly we are all created. I'm so glad we've got him, he is just a real delight to us and so much fun.