Your Best Year Yet

To become fully alive a person must have goals and aims that transcend himself. Herbert Otto

I like to use the ten questions of "Your Best Year Yet" to put my past year into perspective and identify some directions for the new year. There is a free online workshop that you can do (click here) - although this year I bought the book secondhand via ebay. The end result is a one-page document of some carefully thought-out, relevant reminders and goals for yourself.

I'm not sure that any of my aims will help me 'transcend myself'. They are humble goals, as I know from experience that I do better if I build in a reasonable chance of success. Nevertheless, when I read my page of goals, they put a smile on my face and invite me to enter into them wholeheartedly.

I'm looking forward to what 2008 will bring our way. Perhaps another move (not such a cheerful prospect), but if not, there will no doubt be other challenges. What gives me hope is that we've weathered a great deal as a family and I know we will support each other no matter what. Here's a toast to the simple things in life - family, love, friendship, laughter, and the ability to recognise these for the treasures they really are.

Happy New Year!

A Tree Just Fell on Our House

Yes, I'm not kidding - but thankfully it's not a huge tree and it only just hit the guttering on one corner. We've been experiencing some strong wind this weekend and Garry has been worrying about trees falling - it seems he was right to be concerned. This time all is well (although it has caused some extra work and flattened a beautiful tree fern). No doubt you will hear more on Garry's blog before long...

Underwater World

Garry's Aquarium is looking truly amazing. All four of us find ourselves just sitting and watching the fish at various times throughout the day. My personal favourite is the bristle-nosed catfish, named Mel, who spends her entire day quietly cleaning the tank. Among others, we have two swordtail females called Mandy and Margie, and a male swordtail called Excalibur.

Due to our ignorance, the third female swordtail was named Detective Spooner (from the movie, I, Robot), as we mistakenly thought she was a male. Christopher is hopeful that Detective Spooner is pregnant, as she's looking decidedly well-rounded. We also have two little diamondhead neon tetras called Luke and Leia (guess who's been watching Star Wars?).

Giant Soccer Ball

We gave Christopher this large blow-up soccer ball for Christmas, and as you can see, it's quite a success!

Just call me Lucy

I've walked down to our dam/pond? every day for the last couple of weeks - sometimes only just making it in between downpours. I love the way it smells after rain, so strongly scented that you can almost taste the eucalypt. There's one section of the path where all you can see on the left is ferns sloping down the hillside, with the track winding through the trees just ahead.

That little spot always takes me back to the bushwalks of my childhood. I used to pretend I was Lucy (from "The Chronicles of Narnia") and that if I walked quietly enough I might come upon Aslan or a dryad around the next bend.I'm looking forward to seeing "Prince Caspian" when it comes out next year. The trailers at narnia.com look pretty good.

Desktop Waterfall

My Christmas present from Garry - a desktop waterfall that is so soothing to watch and listen to. I've put some of my gemstones in the little terraced pools, which makes them shine up beautifully. It's actually a lot nicer than the photo makes it look here.

For those of you who visit Christopher and Catherine's blogs now and then - good news - they have both posted in the last few days. No more "mulberry icecream"! Christopher's is of a political nature (in his own unique style), while Catherine's is about a very creative (edible) project. You can follow the links to their blogs in my sidebar. Enjoy!

Christmas 2007

We have had a lovely Christmas this year. Last week my parents were here for an early mini-Christmas (a good opportunity to try out some new recipes). Then last night the four of us had a quiet dinner, followed by a reading of "The Greatest Gift" and then the movie (based on the book) "It's a Wonderful Life" starring James Stewart.

Afterwards we sat on the back deck and saw the moon rise and listened to Christmas music. It was so peaceful, with thousands of crickets singing along in the bush.

This morning we had croissants for breakfast - with ham and cheese, and also with mango, ham and custard (sounds odd, but is a great combination). Then Garry's parents, sister and my niece Emma arrived for Christmas lunch and presents. All in all, a relaxing couple of days. The only drawback was that Christopher woke up at 4:15am and thought his blood glucose levels were low - I did a finger prick and he was 9mmol (not low at all!). Back to bed - but then couldn't fall asleep for the next couple of hours.

Here's wishing you all a wonderful, peaceful Christmas.

Worth Watching!

This is definitely worth a few minutes of your time. Merry Christmas! (with apologies to Scott for copying the idea of blogging this great video clip).

Super-Duper Veggie Pie

Here, the kids are making super-duper vegetable pie with Pamela (one of Christopher's new carers). It was delicious!

Buried under Backlogs

If there's one thing that really drags me down it's a backlog of paperwork. It's always associated with a niggling fear that somewhere in the pile lurks a disaster waiting to happen. So I was pleased to come across a way to put backlogs in their place. You begin, very simply, by gathering up the undone paperwork and putting everything together in a folder (or if you're like me, in a box or two).

You completely clear your desk, inbox, email program, floors and drawers of all the work that's been lingering for who knows how long. I have even been known to create an email folder called "backlog" for this process, so that my email inbox is completely clear.

Next comes the really cool part - you don't add anything else to the backlog. The rule is that backlogs only ever stay the same size or get smaller. The trick to this is to keep up with any new papers and emails as they come across your path. I do this in a couple of ways, but suffice it to say (for now) that you need some sort of system to clear the deck again by the end of each day.

Finally, set aside a minimum of 5 minutes every day to deal with your backlog. Again, there are numerous ways to do this - but the basic idea is that each and every day your backlog shrinks just a little bit. I usually only spend five minutes on my backlogs (when I have them) but others might want to spend longer. Keep in mind that you need to leave enough time to deal with your new, incoming stuff as well.

And that's it in a nutshell. This idea is described in more detail in a book called "Do It Tomorrow" by Mark Foster. It covers many more concepts - but this was the one that really helped me this year. Backlogs are becoming more rare - and when they do occur, they are much smaller than the first one was. It's a great feeling!

Family Photo Corner

Garry has been working on this wall of family photographs for some time now. It looks amazing! The variety of frames, old and new photos, and the desk, clock and barometer all seem to blend perfectly together. It is such an eye-catching feature of the room now.

Off to LOTR Land

Yes, I am heading to the land of "Lord of the Rings", otherwise known as New Zealand. I'm going to a conference as a Golden Key honour society delegate, which is a little scary! The conference is held in Christchurch and I'll be gone for three nights. I am really, really looking forward to flying again. This will be my first flight on an Australian passport (rather than Dutch passport). It will also be my first "annual conference" of any description. So the immediate question that springs to mind is: "What will I WEAR????" Updates will follow.... the conference is not until late January.

Reality Check

Not long ago I wrote about increasing costs, particularly of groceries (click here). Someone has since sent me an email full of photos of families around the world - with their weekly shopping and total costs. They were all very interesting, but this one was the most confronting:

Chad: The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp

Food expenditure for one week: 685 CFA Francs or $1.23

Little Zen Gardens

Catherine and I have been playing around with miniature Zen Gardens this weekend. We each have our own bowl of white sand, a set of chopsticks and our gemstone collections. Traditionally we should use miniature rakes, but I haven't been able to find those yet, so we're making do with chopsticks for now. Catherine, it turns out, has quite a flair for design - she has come up with some really beautiful combinations. I tend to be more inhibited in mine. It has been very relaxing to sit together at the table, creating new patterns and chatting about this and that.

Anyway, this will give you some idea of what my bowl is like - Catherine plans to write about hers on her own blogsite.

Some pics of the dam

Miniature English Village

To celebrate the end of a successful year of homeschooling, we spent today out and about the Sunshine Coast. We visited Caloundra, Mooloolaba and Montville. We also went to a miniature English Village at Flaxton. Here are some pics:






The kids had a wonderful day. The adults are weary but happy. Garry bought some ornaments for his aquarium and I found two candle holders to hang beside the fireplace. So it was a success all round. Tomorrow we hope to go swimming in Ewan Maddock dam for the first time. The weather has taken a real turn towards 'hot and humid', so a swim will be very welcome.

Recent Garden Work

This beautiful bouquet is a sampling of some of the flowers we have in bloom right now in the garden. All the frangipani trees are also blossoming. A special thanks to mum and Catherine for the lovely arrangement!

Garry has also been doing a lot of mulching, weeding and tidying of the garden beds around the house. One project has been this octagonal garden bed near the guest house, which was looking quite overgrown. It's now an ornamental bed with pavers, pebbles and bird bath. It's hard to tell from the photo, but there are also plants in the pebbled areas.