Here are the hits of the week:

1.  The crafty ladies of Al-Lani’s Angels (they don’t know they are called that- only one of them reads the blog, so I’m claiming the naming rights) who made this motherlode of softies for the Mirabel Foundation. What a bunch of sweethearts they are!! And thanks again to Alisa from Plump for the donation of material. A very kind gesture, which saved me a fortune.

Here’s a small sample of what they made. They have multiplied now, but I won’t post a pic until I have them all in my hot little hands.

…And here’s the one I’m making… Isn’t he, umm, special?
And no, he is NOT a cat. He’s a rabbit people.

2.  Meetings with my goal buddy every Wednesday. We are having such fun dreaming up new ideas and playing with our goals. If you haven’t read the book Life in Half a Second, may I suggest you do, and then join in on the video challenge. It’s so much fun. Who knew? Who even am I?

3.  Seeing how excited the kids were this week preparing for their Christmas Concert. It was called The Christ (x) Factor. Same songs, new format. Sounds like television really. There was even a special appearance by a dude who came third in the real X Factor back when Kyle was on the show. He crooned us a cool Christmas carol. The kids went nuts. (And maybe some of the Mums)  I was too busy rocking in the corner because the canteen had run out of wine.

4.  Getting all the Chrissy shopping done and sent. Thanks to Liquorland, Clare Hammond, Sprinkles and Green B. I couldn’t have done it without you. And talking of Liquorland, do you ever save those shop-a-dockets with the two for one grog deals? I don’t usually, but this week I got the Savvy. It was totally drinkable. I said TWO FOR ONE people. Hop to it.

Not bad for a sundowner on a hot night

5.  Playing hooky with the kids today. It was a late night last night on account of all singing and dancing, and it’s raining today, so I’ve called it: Jammie Day. I have to go downstairs to work for some of it, but mostly today will be about lazing around, writing letters to Santa and reading books I think. The calm before the storm. School holidays start next week, and I for one cannot wait, so today we are having a preview.

Happy weekend to you all. Have fun putting up the tree on Sunday.

Join in and share the love: what are your hits of the week?

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*Not a sponsored post. When o when is some grog or shoe shop going to contact me for sponsorship???

..From The Ashers

I overheard myself last week saying, “I’ve always wanted to play an instrument.”

Clearly I am a liar, because at 43years of age, I have barely ever picked up any instrument, other than to move it out of a thoroughfare in this hovel we call home, or to wipe dust off it. In this house there are: two ukeles, one drum kit, one violin, two guitars, one clarinet and various blues harmonicas. Along with a keyboard that comes to visit every now and then. So it would seem that it isn’t a scarcity of equipment that has prevented my burgeoning musical talent from blossoming.

The reason why I can‘t play is because I don’t.

This week I decided to remedy that, and in a pique of inspiration I did what I always do when I don’t know the answer in this brave new world: I ask Google, or someone under fifteen.

Google told me I could learn three chords and play ten songs, seemingly within minutes. The App Store told me that I could have a free virtual teacher at my disposal with a push of a button. The under fifteens said, “Hmmm, it’s harder than it looks, Mum. You have to practise. A lot. And you have to, you know, listen to the beat of the music and follow the rules.”

“Piffle”, I thought to myself, and did the next thing my goal book said to do to successfully achieve something: I told Nath (loudly) that I was off to learn the guitar, and I would be back with a song presently.

By and by, after many repeat viewings of the YouTube clips my new friend Stephen put together for me, my neck began to ache from hunching over the frets, and my fingertips slowly lost any semblance of feeling. Other than pain, that is. They could still feel pain.

By and by it became apparent that even though my fingers are small, strong and nimble, and seemingly perfect for playing guitar, they are also very stupid. It came to my attention that they don’t learn new things as easily as I had hoped, and so it came to pass that my much awaited debut of that classic piece: Hound Dog, would have to be postponed until my finger pads recovered. (And I was somehow struck with musical talent.)

For even though I was kinda sorta learning the chords okay, the ability to play music requires some other skills to come together. Not only is there all of the intricate movements of the left hand to make the shapes, the right hand has to strum, and the strumming has to follow an unvarying routine, for it all to sound anything resembling a song. Stephen keeps breaking my pretty shapes into lots of a dozen, and then tells me to make them for four or three ‘beats’. He has never said how far apart these beats are. One second? Two? And how about this little group of twelve that is to be repeated until the end- how long is that? I could put on a timer if I knew. I’m good at timing. Doing things without proper rules? Not so much.

I googled all sorts of things about tabs vs chords, about the length of a bar, about where to hold the strings down. The information was strangely elusive for a discipline that is purported to be based on simple rules.

I sought the advice of the children. They are how somehow imbedded with the knowledge, from years of music lessons imprinted on open minds. Which means that they don’t know the specifics of the questions I’m asking. They just look at me strangely and shrug, whilst blowing, banging or strumming familiar tunes. “You just listen to it and play it, Mum,” they say. Which is exactly what they do, and precisely what I can’t.

I asked Liam a question about the production of a particular notation on the music sheet, and he sighed, picked up the guitar and said, “This should explain it.” He proceeded to play some notes (I guess they are called notes), that kind of sounded similar (where they the same?) down the neck of the thing. “See?” he asked, expectantly.

I had no idea what he was on about, so I just nodded my head. This seemed to satisfy him. So at least I still know how to act like a ‘good student’ regardless of any actual learning taking place.

All I can say, is Playstation, you have a lot to answer for. And Real World, you are nothing like the virtual world makes you out to be.

I think it’s time to go back to Guitar Hero.

I hope we didn’t sell it in the garage sale.

Have you tried to learn anything new as an adult? Is it hard?

And by the way, how good is Playstation?

…From The Ashers

This week the Evil Geniuses have been playing in the pool a lot, so, as it is as the beginning of every Summer, we spend a good half an hour in head-spinning oxygen deprivation, inflating the pool toys from last year, and finding out which ones have slow leaks (which, of course, as is aligned with the laws of nature, is all of them).

So we traipsed off to the shops to make our annual plastic purchases.

This year they wanted donut-shaped rings ($5: tick) and “something else”. The something else was ill-defined. They didn’t quite know what they wanted, but they knew they would know it when they saw it. It turned out that the elusive something was tiny inflatable jet-skis manufactured for 3 years and up. (Replete with graphics befitting 3 year olds of faux Cars and Barbie: that’s what you get for 5 dollars it seems.)

No amount of explaining that these toys were too small for a 10 and 7 year old, that they would probably at best sink, and at worst pop on impact, were wasted on the Evil Geniuses. They had made up their tiny minds. And they had their own money.

So we came home with our cache of age-inappropriate floatation devices.

As soon as they helped us pump them up (by blissfully swimming in the pool, whilst we sat on the edge, sweltering in the midday sun, and almost fainting with carbon dioxide poisoning) they were away. They jumped onto those teensy jet-ski replicas and were off. Literally. They couldn’t stay on them for more than a second or two. And once the plastic grew slick with water, the chances of successful circumnavigation of the pool were significantly reduced.

Liam was quick to blame the faulty side floats and the lack of appropriately scaled handlebars for gripping. (He doesn’t like to be wrong, my boy. I’m thinking Apple, Tree)  Coco just said, “We’re too big for them Liam. They’re made for three year olds.”

No shit. It’s not as though anyone had said that IN THE SHOPS. BEFORE they were paid for.

Both of the Geniuses agreed that they “couldn’t do it.” And that they should give the toys to smaller children they know. I suggested that perhaps they could think of another way to use the toys, mainly because I was still light-headed from the lack of oxygen, but also because I hate to see five bucks wasted. They agreed that would be a good idea, and proceeded to try other methods of staying on.

After all of about five minutes of continued falling off, Liam said, “Well, that’s it. I can’t do it.”

I asked him how he could give up so easily, considering how much he had wanted those toys only moments before. He said, “It’s like this Mum: I find if I’m going to be good at something, I can usually do it on the first try, or pretty soon after. If I can’t do it almost immediately, then I’m never going to be able to do it.”

I conceded that he was probably right. He looked at me in disbelief. This wasn’t the usual party-line here at The Asher’s where learning and failing and repetition and then success, were valued. I said to him that if he had that belief, then that was exactly how things would come to pass. If he didn’t think he could, then he never would. If however, he wanted something badly enough, and with enough joyful passion, then he would probably find a way. We stared at each other for a long and loaded moment, and he said, “Oh no, it’s like Coco mastering the monkey-bars isn’t it? She took the whole year and had blisters all over her hands and bruises on her shins, but she did it eventually.”  I told him that that was exactly what it was like. Keeping focussed on a goal, and never giving up.

We were silent for a moment, lost in the reverie of all of the times we didn’t perservere. Of all the times we gave up too early.

We looked around the pool, to see Coco, feet wedged securely into what Liam was calling the ‘lateral stabilisers’ of the mini jet-ski, floating silently around, collecting the red berries that had been blown in by the nor-wester’. Immune to all of the doubts and insecurities and negative self-talk. Immune to everything really, other than the task at hand.

We looked at each other, my little apple and I, smiling at that weird little yellow kid in the pool, completely oblivious to all of the things she teaches us, and we said at the same time: “Tenacity.”

She really is a different kind of fruit.

Have you purchased your yearly stock of pool-toys, with their excellent repair “stickers” yet?

Are you tenacious like our little banana? Or do you give up easily like us apples?

…From The Ashers

Do you ever have in impending sense of doom?

I have it often, and I have it right now. It’s 5am, and just like I promised, I have been getting up each morning to blog and to write. The problem with getting up earlier than usual with any intended task beyond a shuffle to the coffee machine is that my brain doesn’t seem to rest properly. It appears that because I haven’t gotten all of my thoughts out of my head before going to bed, they circle and swirl around all night, until I can stand it no more and have to get up.

Unfortunately they don’t just keep to themselves either. Just as I suspected, with my ideas of cells and interconnections yesterday, they weave and thread and tighten themselves into little knots, trying to connect with one another, and making up new patterns where ever they can. So my sleep is fitful and plagued by dreams of exams that I haven’t studied for, and contact lenses that won’t fit into my eyes properly.

I only have a small brain, and despite my claims to the contrary, I can really only concentrate on one thing at a time. That is the reason why people often assume I’m very organised, because to exist in this world I find I have to get one task completed before I can start on another. The passport applications must be handed in before I can start on my CPD hours. CPD must be ticked off before I can do the Christmas shopping. Shopping must be done and wrapped before I can start my BAS. And on and on and on it goes, seemingly forever.

The blog used to be another of those tasks, something to be done to relax and calm my mind of an evening. The 5am Club rescheduled that, and now I am adrift, not really knowing what to do before bedtime, with one part of me (which, as the hours tick over becomes all of me) fiddling away at the topic for the day.

It’s bloody exhausting.

A 5am friend told me to give it a go for a few weeks to get into the swing. She said it will get easier. I hope so, because today I have slightly numb fingers, because I thought it would be a good idea to learn the guitar instead of writing last night. I kind of leant the chords to ‘Hound Dog’ (The first song I could find an easy YouTube on that didn’t contain lots of music words I don’t understand, like tabs and bars.) but of course only I know it’s Hound Dog, the chord changes are too slow for other humans to recognise.

So now I must away, armed with my new understanding of Bryan Adams from “Summer of ’69”. I didn’t play it ’til my fingers bled, but they do feel like they’ve been worn down a bit.

Tell me 5am-ers, how do you turn off your brains?

Can you play guitar? How HARD is it???

…From The Ashers

I saw something in my Facebook feed today about the conscious and the subconscious: about how our conscious mind makes a decision and then our subconscious works on the details of how to arrive. I like hearing about all these discussions of the mind(s) and it got me to thinking: how many minds do we actually have? I read something else last week that was talking about the importance of the gut in our health, and it was suggesting that there are cells that exhibit memory in that region. I think they were calling the gut the ‘little brain’.

I find it interesting, this segmental way of thinking, suggesting that we have all of these tiny sub-compartments within us, competing to get their points across, in addition to working along in the harmony of homeostasis with all of the other fragments.

Quite a long while ago Renee Decartes said, “I think, therefore I am” and from then on we decided that the mind was primary and that there was at least one separation- that of the brain and the body.

But what unifies it all?

Of course my professional bias begs me to say that the brain and the nerve system controls it all, organising and orchestrating the intricate dance of our cells.

And although my intellectual mind (see- another mind) agrees, and as I write, is searching around my corpuscles for more truths to back up this statement, what if this is not the case?

What if, there are no separate minds/parts/segments? What if, somehow, every cell is interconnected to all of the other cells, communicating freely, sharing information, memories and desires with all of the other cells, as if as one? A complete whole. Which would make us beings without boundaries within.

When Coco gets her transfusions, she undergoes an almost immediate change. Well before even a quarter of the new blood is distilled into her veins, she becomes a little of something (someone?) else. I understand that some of the shift will be the haemoglobin, and the relief and the increase in energy, but there is something more. And the result is different with each bag of blood.

Now blood cells do not contain DNA, the part of the cells that science tells us is what makes us “us”. So how does she do this? How does a two year old child, with a child’s vocabulary and understanding of jokes, start reeling of a routine of ‘knock-knock’ jokes? How does her personality morph, just for a while? I know what science will say, and I agree with some of it.

But some of it is still a mystery.

And a thrilling mystery at that.

I think I might like it that way.

See what happens when I wake up at 5am to write? Hmmm…

…From The Ashers

1. Vanilla almonds. How good are they? I wanted to show you a pic of the packet, but I ate them all and threw it away. I’ll never be a food blogger, but I can tell you they are in Coles and they are delicious and salty-sweet. Do yourself a favour.

2. Tupperware lunchboxes. Do you have them? They are grouse because they have all of the little compartments so you don’t have to use any Glad Wrap or anything like that, but unfortunately, like all kids things that leave the house without your supervision, they get chucked around. Usually by Term 4 the lid will have cracked a bit. But because they are Tupperware, they replace them for you. For free! We just got two new ones from my local Tuppy lady. Such a good thing. Don’t waste any more money on the stinky other brands: go the Tuppy.

3. Al-Lani’s Angels. A group of unreal ladies, giving up their time during this silly season to make softies for the Mirabel Foundation, to make sure some little kids who are going through some tough times, will have something to cuddle this season. In all of your rushing around this December, in the buying and the organising and the splurging on stuff, it would be really nice if you could think of something that might help out a child who doesn’t have a lot. You know what to do. Perhaps put aside a little time today to set that up. It’s worth the effort.

4. Rain. FINALLY we got some to help us through this heatwave. On the downside, that meant frogs. Croaking. I mean REALLY croaking. In our down pipe. Near my bedroom window. ALL NIGHT.

5. Basking in my own virtuous glow, cos I’ve gotten all my Chirstmas shopping done and wrapped. I love all things Christmassy, but I get a bit antsy if I have too many outstanding tasks at this time of the year, because fun things to do always pop up. Getting it done and dusted is a massive relief. A special thank you (as always) to Sprinkles, the local cupcake and hamper specialists. I always get them to make me up some delicious things that I like to try and palm off as my own (it doesn’t work of course- my reputation precedes me).  All that remains now is to procure some Ugly Christmas Sweaters for our jaunt to America. Anyone in SE Queensland know where I might find such a thing???

I hope you had a fun week too, and have been able to have some time to sit quietly before it all really gets going.

What are your hits? Are you a Christmas shopping nerd like me?

…From The Ashers