On Australia, part two of I don't know how many. But this about is about celebrating holidays.

 Let's talk about Christmas. No, really. I'm not sick of it at all. Did anyone else feel a wee bit low seeing the shops flooded with Christmas stock in October? I didn't mind when it was Ikea, because hey, I don't know when I'll next be there... but everyone else?

So, I happened on this post, about making I Spy Christmas baubles, which is a totally cool idea, but it also deals with the winter solstice, and letting in the light. A lot of Waldorf/ Steiner/ Montessori blogs that I follow really babble on about letting in the light, at the time when I'm trying to keep it, and heat, out of our house. (On that note, for Christmas, someone really ought to get us this parasol and this base. I/we hope by shading the side of the house, it will stay cooler, and so will our house. I also wouldn't mind this wind powered light because we get a lot of wind, and I've never had a wind powered light before....)

Snowflake decorations at Christmas time are a little incongruous when you're sweltering through a heat wave. Or perhaps this is why have fake snow- we like to be reminded of cooler times. But the oven on? In a heat way? So we can all sit down and eat a heavy, hot meal? Definitely time to update the traditions.

Jesus was born in the middle east, a region not known for it's snows. So I think we can safely assume that snow is a European thing, that for some reason, we cling to. WHY? WHY GUYS?

If my parents were originally from Europe, within the past 30 years or so, then maybe it makes sense for us to decorate our tree with snow flakes and sleighs. But they're not, so really, it's six white boomers for us all the way. M, Willow and myself have never seen snow, so what's the point of decorating with it?

The other day I was riding on my bike, with Willow on the back and chatting.
"Mummy, it's autumn," Willow said.
"No its not sweetie. It's spring."
"But it can't be spring! We haven't had snow or Christmas yet!" Willow wailed.

I don't really know where I'm going with this. Well, I do. Kind of. I have a lot of thoughts swirling around in my head... ideas from my own thoughts, from talking to other people. It seems that we're foolishly caught up in this idea of what Christmas should be, rather than what it seems to be... (a time of high stress for a lot of people.) So, stay tuned while I turn them into a post.

To wrap up this ramble, here's an extract from here, (What, did you think I'd bother to type all this up?) from David Sedaris' novel "Dress your Children in Courdroy and Denim." Which is hilarious. Go read it.

The words were redefined when I learned that Saint Nicolas travels with what was consistently described as six to eight black men. I asked several Dutch people to narrow it down, but none of them could give me an exact number. It was always six to eight, which seems strange, seeing as theyve had hundreds of years to get an accurate head count. 

The six to eight black men were characterized as personal slaves until the mid 1950s, when the political climate changed and it was decided that instead of being slaves they were just good friends. I think that history has proved that something usually comes slavery and friendship, a period of time marked not by cookies and quiet hours beside the fire but by bloodshed and mutual hostility. They have such violence in the Netherlands, but rather than duking it out amongst themselves, Santa and his former slaves decided to take it out on the public. In the early years if a child was naughty, Saint Nicholas and the six to eight black men would beat him with what Oscar described as the small branch of a tree. 

"A switch?" 

"Yes," he said, "Thats it. Theyd kick him and beat him with a switch. Then if the youngster was really bad, theyd put him in a sack and take him back to Spain." 

"Saint Nicholas would ?" 

"Well, not anymore," Oscar said. "Now he just to kick you." 

He considered this to be progressive, but in a way I think it's almost more perverse that the original punishment. "I'm going to hurt you but not really." How many times have we fallen for that line? The fake slap invariably makes contact, adding the elements of shock and betrayal to what had previously been plain old-fashioned fear. What kind of a Santa spends his time pretending to kick people before stuffing them into a canvas sack? Then, of course, youve got the six to eight former slaves who could potentially go off at any moment. This, I think, is the greatest difference between us and the Dutch. While a certain segment of our population might be perfectly happy with the arrangement, if you told the average white American that six to eight nameless black men would be sneaking into his house in the middle of the night, he would barricade the doors and arm himself with whatever he could get his hands on. 

Good morning!

Mark came out one morning and found this chilling on his car.

I suggested he could just leave it there, but he pointed out that if it got sucked into the air intake, we'd be screwed.

moooving.

We managed to go over our generous internet limit. M and I had a happy 10 minutes pointing the finger at each other ("I told you not to download! You don't know how to! You ALWAYS download the biggest files in the world!" "Well, maybe if YOU hadn't gone camping with your mates AND MOVED MY SIMS 3 CD I wouldn't have had to download so much stuff! Besides, I TOLD you I had made a massive download of a game, so it's not MY fault you kept downloading movies!" etc.) until Willow suggested we just blame Cruz-with-the-glasses-on. Willow has started blaming Cruz-with-the-glasses-on for everything that goes wrong. Can't find her favorite book? Cruz-with-the-glasses-on must have broken into our house and took it! 

Anyways, the moral of the story is, don't be mean to other kids and don't go over your net limit. I haven't been able to use the net, so now I have a lovely backlog of posts to share with ya'all. Also, it's been raining lots and our hard drive with all our movies isn't working and we get even worse reception when it rains. It's weird, because M and I never thought we relied very heavily on the internet or technology- in fact, we pride ourselves on being cool and living in the real world- but there you go. Technology does play a crucial role in our lives. Urgh.

Willow's been a bit lost because Tabi moved from 10 minutes away to 50 odd minutes away. Tabi is the friend Willow spends the most time with, and the two girls just adore each other.  Yesterday, after a friend left, Willow had a tantrum, asking "Who is going to play with me nooooow?" I offered to play and she cried that she didn't want a big person to play with her, she just wanted a little kid to play with her. I ended up carrying her to her room, kicking and screaming. In the end we made a deal- Willow didn't want to sleep, but she was happy to lie on the floor with the door open, because that's not sleeping. She ended up sleeping for several hours.

Mister Frodo and Mister Leda

Our guinea pigs are the best. They're also well traveled, having traveled north to Grafton and south to Sydney. Mr Leda is the white one with no personality who just sits there, Mr Frodo is the long haired brown one whom everyone loves. Mr Leda is my favorite. Poor guy. He gets tormented by children, and lacks the pampering Mr Leda gets from adults.

Sneaky.

Spotted at Coles.... it's the spring onions that at $1 a bunch. But the kale right under the $5 sign? $5.

Is anyone else having oodles of fun with the ice that some Coles now have in their display cabinets? We are ;)

Canberra, part 3.

    1. & 2. Willow after we picked her up from Rosie's house. She was sad for a long time, and she still talks about Rosie.

   3. to 7. These two!

Canberra, part 2

    1. Sydney roads are a dream to drive down at 6am on a Sunday. Win!
    2. No really? A windmill? On the freeway between Sydney and Canberra? How iconic!
    3. Lake George.
    4. What up, Canberra?

    5. Chairs I really wanted. Freedom, DFO. The fuzz down the bottom is Willow's head.
    6. All dressed up and ready to go. Also ready to be late.
    7. "We sat you guys near the bar because we thought you'd like that," our little group was told. Once we got there we realised it was a nice way of saying we were at the least important table, furthest away from the main action. But it was lovely. I chatted to everyone at the table and we all had a wonderful time.

    9. Display in a shop window. I like shapes, I like yarn. Willow also likes shapes and yarn. Hmm.
    10. & 11. Two books I thought Willow would like (that we didn't buy).
    12. Ikea photo frame we both really liked, but didn't buy. I take a lot of photos of things we don't buy.
    13. Ikea have these cardboard Christmas tree that I rather liked.
    14. More chairs I wanted.
    15. Willow, with one of the many meals I ate while in Sydney. Seriously, I was so delighted to be around multicultural food AND decent food I basically just unhinged my jaw and inhaled food for two day straight. Left over wedding cake! No worries, I'll take that home and eat it for breakfast! Pho? I love pho! I'll have all that, and the soup, thanks! M went a little crazy for boost juices- I think we had several each- and I also went crazy for bubble teas, consuming two large ones right before we started the long drive home. In rush hour traffic.
I was the little pig that went wee wee wee all the way home. Weirdly, I did the exact same thing last time we were in Sydney...

Canberra, part 1.

I honestly couldn't pick my favorite one to share with you, so I'll share them all. Now that uni is over- well, I have exams- I have so much to share! Starting with the trip we went on in October that I briefly mentioned in my Ode to M. But there's also the garden, and bush fires (wasn't I just talking about floods recently???) and a couple of different markets and places we've been to. And Willow's friends! Willow is so very proud of her friends.

Linuwel School Fair.

Guess who went to the Linuwel School Fair? Yeah, this lucky duck. I so badly wish that we were richer/ lived closer so I could send Willow there. It's our local Steiner school, about 45 minutes away from where we live. (If you want more info in what a Steiner School is, you can read this.)

1. Driving up. It was packed. Loved the flags.
2. Linuwel is built over a lake, and dude, I totally want to cross a bridge to get to school every day.
3. Looking across the lake to the school.
4. For sale. My favorite thing for sale in this photo are the little trees. 
5. For sale. My favorite in this shot would be the dragons. Or the crowns. It's hard to go past a decent crown. 
6. The wands are totally my favorite in this one. I really ought to get around to making Willow one for Christmas.
7. The chairs. Oh em gee, the chairs. You can't see the fronts, but they were beautiful and sturdy, and the backs all had different carvings on them. Hearts, a person, trees, stars, flowers... Willow would love it. At childcare she always wants to put her bag in the locker with a flower sticker hidden on it's inside roof- every morning, she peers underneath all the lockers, to find to right one, which is "hers." (it's the one with the flower sticker.) ("I didn't know the lockers had stickers underneath them," says every parent who witnesses this ritual. I don't think a lot of kids know either, as Willow is the only one I notice doing this.)

    8. Art work in one of the class rooms. It's hard to tell in this photo, but it looks like they coloured in a piece of paper, cut it into a circle, then cut up the circle like a pizza with lots of slices, and the slices became petals. They were really quite pretty and striking.
    9. to 13. Student's art work.

    14. Curtains in the canteen/ cafeteria/ another class room that I full intend on replicating one day. The other window had reds, oranges and yellows.

    15. View of the high school part of the school.
    16. Looking the other way, across the lake.
    17. Stalls.
    18. Cafe.
    19. to 22. Willow with the beetle she named Willow. She was devastated to not bring it home. She asked if it has a pa pa and a poh poh.

Willow's opinion of the school:
"They had a LOT of sticks there! I like sticks."