Pretty big prize!

Somebody at our church grew this massive pumpkin in their garden and set up a fundraiser. We were all invited to pay $1.00 to guess its weight and the person with the closest guess would win the pumpkin. With her dad's help, Emma gauged her guess on Blake's weight. It felt a certain number of kilos heavier than him, so she guessed 20 kilos.

As you can guess from the photos, she won the prize. She's very stoked about that, as she's entered a few competitions in the past that she didn't win. The prizes she missed out on would have been vouchers, money and many of the good things from Barbie magazines. But she seems happy with the pumpkin!

We're pleased too, to think of all the lovely pumpkin soups, pies, scones, cakes, tarts and dampers that we can make, yet we're certain this baby is still too big for just one family of five. We've been warned that it's been off the vine for two weeks so we've been phoning friends and relatives and offering chunks.

If anybody has some delicious, simple pumpkin recipes, I'd be delighted to give them a try, as we'll be using it for quite a long time to come. So send them to us via comment or email, please! I'd appreciate it.

Haven't meant to spend so long not blogging....

but a few things have happened around our place in early June, not the least of which was Andrew's 40th birthday. He was still 22 when I met him and almost 24 when I married him 16 years ago. I can remember a time when 40 sounded sort of long in the tooth to me but now it just sounds like a person who's been round long enough to earn a lot of experience and some sound common sense. One of the funniest cards he had was a little knight dressed in full shining armour on the front. Inside it said, "Welcome to the Middle Ages!"

I can actually remembered his 30th birthday as if it was a lot less than ten years ago, although when I think about it, a lot has happened in that time. We only had Logan and I was about 4 or 5 months pregnant with Emma. Time is a funny thing. A day can sometimes drag like a year yet a decade can feel like a few months.

Anyway, he didn't want a big party so we organised a dinner out at Fasta Pasta with both his side of the family and mine. That was last Saturday.

Now here's what happened yesterday. I kept an appointment that had been longstanding with a skin specialist down in the city. Because I'm a very fair skinned person with a few freckles on my arms and back, a doctor thought it wise to refer me to be checked by a skin specialist. Fair skin and dark hair that attracts the sun, seems to be a possible recipe for problems. But after a long wait in her waiting room, I was given the all clear and she said I probably don't need to see her for another ten years. So that was the good news.

I searched through my pockets and handbag and couldn't find my keys. Only then did I discover that I'd locked them in my car! I took out my mobile phone but had no credit on it to make a call! So I searched through my purse for coins and only had enough for one at a public phone booth in a nearby shopping mall. I tried to call my parents, who were looking after my two youngest kids. They only live about twenty minutes away from the clinic. But nobody answered so I figured they must've all gone out.

I phoned home instead, where Logan, my oldest son, was having a day to himself. I told him what had happened. "Will you call Dad on his mobile and ask him to give me a call?" Although I had no credit on my phone, at least I could receive calls. Andrew was doing a bit of work not all that far away and I thought I could ask him to quickly drive to that clinic and unlock my door with his spare key. But time lapsed and I got no call from Andrew. I guessed Logan must've had trouble getting through to him.

I began to think I'd been a bit silly not to call the RAA Road Assistance crew to come and rescue me in the first place. That would've been much more sensible than wasting my one possible call on poor old Logan, who wasn't really in a position to help. Now I was stuck with no money left and unable to make more phone calls. So I figured the only option left was to begin the walk back to my Mum and Dad's place. Although it was only a twenty minute drive, it was quite a lot longer walking. After some time trekking across the city, I'd actually made it quite a long way when my phone began buzzing. Andrew had finally got Logan's message. I explained my dilemma and he said, "You should've just called the RAA. It's cheaper for them to come than me, anyway." So much for that! But he phoned my parents, who'd taken Emma and Blake for a walk to the shops, and told them what had happened. Dad drove and picked me up on the last leg of my walk. I had a cup of tea with them and finally phoned the RAA. Then Dad dropped me back to the dermatology clinic to wait for them. Then I decided to just spend the waiting time relaxing and enjoying the fresh air.

What a run-around, but at least it was a reasonably crisp and clear early winter day for a walk. Somebody else helped me put it all in perspective. As I started for the RAA, a lady who'd been in the waiting room way back when I was still there came back out of her appointment at last. I told her what had happened to me and she said she'd mixed up her appointment time and had to wait in the clinic for almost four hours!

So whenever you're having one of those days, I guess somebody else is too.

I'm glad they did it!

It's new material for the kids and I'm going over excellent reading matter from my past while I share it with them. We've been reading together parts of two of my favourite old series. One is the "Little House" series by Laura Ingalls Wilder and the other is the "All Creatures Great and Small" series by James Herriot. And whenever I read either of these two authors I'm caught up in the magic they wove. Even though these two authors may seem poles apart, they actually have a lot in common.

Both of these series are autobiographical but written in very entertaining story styles. Both were written when their authors had grown quite old and were looking back over their own lives. They each decided to leave their own legacy in writing and I'm so grateful they did. What a lot of history, geography and even science are tied into these fun, human-interest books. Putting us readers into their own places with their descriptions has to got to be my favourite way to learn.

We've learned a lot about that pioneer time in America when Laura and her family were moving west that's helped us put our own lives in perspective. And we have a real feeling for the late 1930s in Yorkshire when James first became a vet, not to mention noticing the vast progress in technology that's happened in those 70 years. And we've cracked up laughing at some of his hilarious anecdotes. I can't help thinking that if neither of these authors had written, we'd be so much poorer without knowing it.

Of course that started me speculating about the number of people with fascinating stories who think they couldn't possibly record them and don't bother trying. Or the ones who do and then leave them in their cupboards. So I'm sure we are already poorer without knowing it in thousands of ways. Anyone with a knack or passion for writing and recording in an interesting way ought to regard it as a sort of duty to record them because we never know who we'll touch. Even if it's unlikely that we'll become as famous as Laura Ingalls Wilder or James Herriot, doing it just for the love of it and for those who may be touched is a worthwhile enough goal anyway.

I'm beginning to toy with the idea of writing my own grandfather's story this way. I never knew him. He died almost ten years before I was born but I've just recently got to know him through typing my own father's family history. My grandfather (his father) was born in 1892. He had lots of interesting things happen to him. He served in both wars and he was the boxing champion of South Australia for several years. There is lots of information about him, including several funny anecdotes that happened around the country-side and in the ring. Yes, I'm thinking I wouldn't mind writing his story in a sort of novel form when I finish the fictions I'm working on because he's a man I think many would find interesting.

Lists of things to be done

I never considered myself much of a list person. I never considered myself a person with a life that's too full, either. I try to take care not to cram it with too much because whenever I do I get easily overwhelmed. But sometimes I wake up with a feeling that there's a surprising lot to be done for a person who just wants to live a simple life homeschooling her family and doing a bit of writing. And it all seems to be urgent. So I started writing it all down on a list to keep track of it. And I discovered to my astonishment that these urgencies are most often quite little things.

Here are some examples.
Buy birthday cards for Andrew's sisters
Answer 3 emails
Remind Emma to write a thank-you note for a bracelet she was given
Tell Andrew we need to renew an account
Pick up Logan's new epipen from the chemist
Organise for carpets to be cleaned before rental inspection
Buy a few groceries
Clean through cupboards
Ironing
Get car oil changed
Plan a couple of Sunday School classes

I know we all get the idea. I was stressed but I was surprised to notice that I was stressed chiefly with little things. Although they are all little things they quickly multiply if I just leave them whirling through my head. I could make it into a sum. Little thing + little thing + little thing + little thing etc = stress. I'd been inclined to wake up in the morning thinking, 'I've got so much to do.' But they can't all fit into one day. So I started jotting down everything on a master list that I've called WTDTW (What to do this week). Then I itemise each one into WTDT (What to do Today). I try to make sure to include a few boring nasties to spread them out evenly. And I have to say, it has been helping. I've been ticking them off as I go through them and feeling as if I've been getting everything done with not so much running around.

Here's a prime example. I had to visit the local High School to enrol Logan on their books as a homeschooler. It's something our state requires us to do, just to keep track of all school aged students. Logan and his sister have been enrolled on the Primary School roll book as homeschoolers, but the Primary School have notified us that they'll be removing him this year as he's now a highschooler. If they hadn't reminded me I probably wouldn't have given it a thought. So we had to chase up all the people at the High School and fill out a lot of red tape and rub shoulders with all the big, loud senior students in the corridors on our way to the office. That's a perfect example of something that takes time from your day, isn't a pleasant task but really needs to be done. Just a one-off sort of thing, but one-offs keep coming up. (I'll have to go and enrol Blake at the Primary School as a home-schooler next year.) And if I hadn't started my list system and had it there in black-&-white staring at me, I'm sure I wouldn't have got around to it yet. So something as simple as jotting things down is working for me.

Book stall at homeschool seminar

A few weeks ago I was invited to set up a stall to sell my "Quenarden" books at a homeschool seminar to be run on May 17th. I accepted the opportunity although I was secretly doubtful if I'd sell many. My books hardly ever seem to move at formal venues for reasons which I'll mention soon. Anyway, I'd already donated free copies of my first Quenarden novel, "The Prophecies" which were in the showbags provided for the seminar. So I printed up several copies of my discussion questions in booklet form. (Anyone who's interested could find these questions on my website anyway). But I thought that if I gave away a set of discussion questions with every copy of Book 2 or 3 I sold, homeschoolers might like that.

It was pouring with rain on Friday when Emma and I drove down to the city to set up our space. We're not used to wet weather at the moment and the Freeway was covered with thick fog at 3.30 in the afternoon. Motorists were made to crawl down from the hills into the city at 80kph, which suited me fine. When we managed to find the Adelaide Deaf Centre, which was the venue for the seminar, we had to dash across with heavy boxes full of books getting soaked. We set up the table with our pretty tablecloths and ornate boxes to give what I hoped would be a "Quenarden-ish" sort of effect and then drove home again.

Next morning was still very blustery. I made 2 stops on the way down. I dropped Logan off at my sister's place to spend the day with his cousins, and then Blake off with my parents who live close to the city. Now, to cut a long story short, although I chatted with several browsers and made my voice hoarse, by the end of the day I only made one sale of one book for $15.00! And as I had to pay $13.00 for the hire of the trestle, my profit for the day was only $2! Of course if I remove the cost of petrol making two trips down and back, not to mention a couple of books I bought from other stalls, the venture actually cost me money. Still, as Andrew says, this P.R. sort of thing really needs to be done and we might make more sales out of it in the future.

Although trestle tables groaning with goods and curriculum filled the auditorium, I don't know if any other sellers earned much money either. I'd been looking at those 2 books I finally bought for hours before I actually purchased them. Here's my theory on why I think it's harder to sell at formal venues. There are just too many other sellers doing the same thing. When a huge choice is involved, potential customers decide it's too hard to make decisions and opt to hold on to their money instead.

We read the story of a family of jam and preserve manufacturers who set up 30 samples of every single flavour they produce. At the end of the day, although they'd received many compliments they hardly sold one jar of jam. Next time they only put out two flavours for sample; apricot and strawberry. As a result, sales of all 30 varieties soared and they made record profits! Surely this can't be coincidence. I've made more sales of books at places like my launch, where the only person selling books is me. I guess it's nice to take every opportunity, although I'm now always cynical about how much I'll sell.

Anyway, the day wasn't a total write-off. I did win a raffle door-prize of 3 teenage novels tied up with pretty string along with the free showbag of goods (which included my own Quenarden novel! Just what I needed. Another one of those!) So although I was sort of exhausted and demoralised as far as my own efforts were concerned, life's still grand! Never quitting needs to be one of my mottoes.

Sixteen good years

Last Friday night we celebrated our wedding anniversary. Yes, on May 9th, 1992, Andrew and I tied the knot. Sixteen years sounds like such a long, long time to everybody, until everybody remembers that Logan is now thirteen, which puts things into perspective. Time is a funny thing. One single day or week can feel like an eternity while a decade can feel like a flash. Although 1992 doesn't seem all that long ago, things have certainly changed since then.

Last Friday night the kids spent some time with my in-laws while Andrew and I enjoyed ourselves locally. We had dinner and then saw a movie at the Wallis Cinema complex. They are both part of the same place so we bought a "Meal Deal." The movie we chose was "Smother" which I really enjoyed. Although it's not normally Andrew's style, he doesn't mind the occasional romance/drama.

One of my biggest mistakes perhaps was setting my wedding date so close to Mother's Day. I clearly remember thinking, "It just has to be fairly early in May, otherwise winter will set in and then we won't be able to get married until September or October and that'll be terrible!" If some wise person had reminded me that I was going to be married to Andrew for ever after so a few months wouldn't have made all that much difference anyway, I would've been aghast. So I tend not to give young people in their teens and early twenties that sort of advice.

The reason why it might've been a mistake is because I already have my birthday and Christmas sandwiched together on December 24th and 25th, and I didn't have any control over that one. Now May 9th is always only a day or two away from Mother's Day and I'm the one who set that one up. So now I feel as if there are only two little blocks of time in the year for me to celebrate special occasions while many other women have 4 separate ones, and then I do feel a little bit jipped sometimes. But forgive my grumbling. When I think about it, this is not such a bad problem to have.

Chickened out

I needed to take my kids to the doctor last week and while we were sitting in the waiting room, a good looking young guy walked in to pick up a referral. He made me sit up and take notice because he looked just like my idea of one of the heroes in the book I've just finished revising and re-writing. It's very rare that I come across people who are dead-ringers for my characters. For anybody who has seen my "Quenarden" covers, my hubby and I actually went to one of the local schools to snap photos of any young teens who might be interested in being on a cover. Although the people we ended up asking looked close to the characters I had in mind, they weren't carbon copies like this fellow.

The young man I saw looked like a character named Piers from my new one, "The Risky Way Home." He was tall and slim with dark, shaggy curls and in his early twenties. As he breezed out with his referral I considered getting up and chasing him down the road to ask, "Excuse me, would you like to be on the cover of a book?" But I chickened out. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. And I could imagine the embarrassment my kids, especially my oldest son, would display if I did such a thing. Yet I couldn't help wondering if I'd let a serendipitous opportunity slip by.

My daughter asked later, "What do you think he would've said?" and I told her, "I honestly don't know. It's not the sort of situation people find themselves in often, if ever." He'd possibly would have been flattered but I couldn't do it. I'm the girl who came second to bottom on the extroversion-intraversion test we all had to do in Psychology at Uni (meaning I was way down on the introversion side). If my husband had been with us I might've asked him to do it. I clearly remember an occasion when I'd just met Andrew and we were having a country walk together. There was an artist set up with his easel along the side of the road. I'd have normally just smiled hello and walked on, but Andrew insisted that we go over to see what he was painting. Even though this was about 17 years ago, I remember how Andrew told the guy, "I always thought I'd like to be an artist," to which the man replied, "Oh, you like to starve, do you?" But I wished I had the courage to approach interesting strangers with such ease and lack of restraint.

In this particular incident, the only thing that makes me not too disappointed is that this time, our intention is to veer away from people in the pictures and do something different anyway, which I won't say much about because when we have something to show, I'll show it instead. But if this young guy had been asked and agreed, I might've considered changing my mind.