Goodbye 2018, welcome 2019

I awoke from a 2-hour nap at 4pm, full of vivid, science-fiction-themed dreams. Partly this was something that just happened, but I won't deny that I strategised a bit to allow it to occur - I'm staying home this New Year's Eve, and I wanted a ballast against feeling besieged if there it lots of party noise in my street that prevents night sleep.

I'm now so rested that I'll certainly be good to see in the New Year regardless of noise, and can be
philosophical if I get no sleep at all, so that makes me feel good.

That slightly pointless little story is, as well as being a thing that happened, a relatively useful analogy for how this year has been for me as an individual, and my family at large.

We haven't magically discovered the capacity to change the world or our circumstances to suit ourselves, and we've had challenges aplenty in all areas of life.

But what we *have* gotten better at, and this is the real growth point of the year, is in finding ways to work with, instead of flailing painfully against, our lives, each other, and ourselves. Part of this has involved understanding ourselves, and each other, more fully.

Regarding the world at large, there is both too much to say and at the same time, nothing I can usefully add to the larger commentaries flooding out everywhere. Suffice it to say that while we live in interesting times globally (in the pejorative sense), we, as a family and a community, remain incredibly lucky and privileged.

Our 2018

As usual, I think the best way to try to summarise the year is in categories, and even then, I won't be including everything, or a lot of detail. In 12 months, with 5 active people, a huge amount happens! Here's a bit of a summary.

Work, Study, Hobbies and Creativity

For my elder two daughters, this has been a fantastic year at school. Completing years 8 and 9 respectively, they both excelled academically, and have also been able to pursue lots of extracurricular activities that they enjoy. 

My 15 year old plays clarinet in a band at school and will next year be doing VCE Japanese early because of her great results, while my 13 year old was in the top 10 academic achievers of her year level, was elected Social Justice Leader for 2019, and continues to be an active part of the school's photography and chess clubs.

Both girls also continued with debating, and both improved a lot this year, which thrilled my crusty old debating heart.

My 9 year old had a much more mixed year at school, for a few reasons, and we have decided in the end to move her to another school for year 5 next year. Academically, she is doing well, but we think the new environment will be a welcome circuit breaker for her. Fingers crossed!

My husband continued in the job he's now marked 15 years with, which is in itself a milestone. My freelance business grew again this year - starting the year with three ongoing clients, I've finished with five that I'll be carrying into 2019, including my Adelaide client. 

I've successfully travelled to Adelaide 8 times for work in 2018, which, combined with the flights undertaken for personal reasons (see Holidays below!) has seen me board a plane without melting down no less than 22 times, which in itself represents a massive personal triumph for me, given how much I dislike and fear air travel.

With five projects to service, I am busy, often a bit too busy, but I've been free to really focus on paying down the mortgage and putting money away against leaner times (because those will come, they always do), and that makes me feel more secure. 

I've relied heavily on my terrific subcontractor this year, and will be again in 2019. And in a great bonus, three out of my five clients sent me expressions of satisfaction with my work that were made at their governing body's final meetings of the year, so that is always very satisfying.

Creatively, it has been a good year, with one major disappointment. I won a poetry prize in May (the Ada Cambridge Commended) and my poems, Saudade and After an Ocular Migraine, were published in an anthology, so that was nice. 

My 15 year old had three poems published in an anthology put together by her online poetry group, which was also great. 

My 13 year old's creativity was largely expressed physically / visually, with her burgeoning interest in cosplay and particularly cosplay dance. She is now in two separate cosplay dance groups, which she is loving.

My 9 year old discovered both writing creatively and music this year, and is keen to do more of both next year. She and I are currently writing a story together, which is great fun.

The only thing I'm disappointed about on this front is that I did not, in the end, manage to get my planned poetry collection published. I just did not have the time or headspace in the end, and wound up being scared off from self-publishing by the horror stories and complications that I heard about from others. I'd like to try again in 2019, but might limit myself to an ebook release.

Health, Family and Activity

The biggest health news of the year for us was my 9 year old's diagnosis in November with Coeliac Disease. We had suspected for some time that this might be the case, but found out for sure then. 

It is not the end of the world, especially with myself and the 13 year old already diagnosed, but it has definitely been a transitional adjustment period.

My 15 year old has stuck with jujitsu all year and is really enjoying it, and will continue it into 2019. Both 9 and 13 year olds did weekly ice skating, but both have decided to not continue with it next year. The 13 year old will substitute dance (with her groups), while the 9 year old is probably going to return to weekly swimming.

We had, on the whole, a healthy year, with the odd cold or tummy bug here and there, but other than the lead-up to 9 year old's Coeliac diagnosis, no really sustained periods of ill health for anyone.

The saddest news of the year was my mother-in-law's death, aged 81, in March, which occurred the day before mine and my husband's 20th wedding anniversary. March was therefore a month of extremely mixed, and intense, emotions.

Holidays, Special Days and Keynote Events

What a year it was under this heading! If I started going into detail about everything, I'd never stop, so let's go dot points.

- We went on holidays as a family twice: to Japan in April, and to Sea Lake in September. Both were, in very different ways, terrific. Japan was honestly one of the best experiences of my life to date.

- We hosted an exchange student from Japan in July, which was marvellous.

- My 15 year old daughter went on a science trip to the USA, including a 5-day visit to NASA Space Camp, with a group of STEM kids in October. To say she loved it would be an epic understatement.

- We did the birthday thing - a party at home for youngest in February, we went with a group to Box Hill JapanFest for the middle kid in May, and the 15 year old got exactly what she wanted by being given the house to herself for an entire day in August to have friends over to hang out.

- My Dad's 70th in November was a blast.

- We did the convention thing in spades this year, mostly for the kids. As usual, we worked at OzComicCon in June, and also attended Japanese Summer Festival (February), JapanFest Box Hill (May), Animaga (August), and Madman Anime (November).

- Mother's Day and Father's Day were celebrated.

- We kind of skipped Easter this year, as we were in Japan, but Halloween and Christmas both got the full treatment.

- We went to some concerts and shows - stand outs were Roger Waters, which husband and I saw as our 20th anniversary thing, and for eldest kid, Evanescence.

Looking forward

The year ahead looks promising, if a little daunting, at this stage. Work and school will remain busy, and integrating my youngest into her new school  will no doubt have its challenges.

 My elder two are off to Japan again in April, this time for 2.5 weeks with a school group, while husband, youngest and myself are off to Far North Queensland for 12 days while they are overseas.

We're also going to Sydney in September for 10-12 days as a driving holiday, which will incorporate Sydney OzComicCon.

I have a 5-year plan now for my business (well, 4.5 from now - it is a plan from July 2018 - June 2023). I am hoping this will be a period of modest growth, or at least no decline.

I have decided that my goal I am setting myself is to be in a position to close down my business in December 2035, when I will be 62 years old.

My husband is 4 years older than me, so in the most ideal of worlds, we'd retire together at that time (he'll be 66). If we are very careful and very strategic, we should be able to do this. Then, I see myself putting more and more effort and energy into both poetry and volunteering. We shall see!

So, as the year draws to a close, I hope that 2019 holds good things for each and every one of my friends, acquaintances, colleagues and neighbours. No doubt it will be a mixed bag, because that is what life is - but let it be a time where light reaches into dark corners too. That is a small hope, but it is what I wish, for me, for you, and for all of us.

Spring holiday at the mirror lake: In pictures

We got home last Thursday from a 5-day family holiday to Lake Tyrrell, in Victoria's Wimmera Mallee region. Lake Tyrrell is a shallow lake resting entirely on a bed of rock salt. It is quite otherwordly and amazing; I highly recommend it as a destination if you want to have your mind blown (and get some awesome photos!)

Here are some of our really good shots.

A Week in Sydney

We got back in the wee small hours of the morning from a week's holiday in Sydney. 

It was not the *plan* to get home in the vampire hours, but we got caught up in Virgin Australia's epic omnishambles yesterday, occasioned by a system failure on the part of their telco provider, Optus. 

There was blame and finger-pointing aplenty, but the bottom line for us was that instead of being home in

our house sipping tea at 7:30pm as we should've been, we staggered through the door, bagless (yep, they lost our luggage) at about 12:45am, and frankly we were lucky to even do that, as many people were left stranded until this morning.

So the less said about the journey back the better, but the Sydney trip itself was a very worthwhile one. I would not class it as either our best or most relaxing holiday ever (best is still Port Douglas in 2014, most relaxing would be a tie between our multiple Phillip Island and Warrnambool holidays over the years - PI and Warrnambool are such soothing, beloved places for us). 

It was, however, one of the most interesting and diverse, and certainly one of the most active, family holidays we've ever had - my Fitbit reported that I walked 100,000 steps in the 7 days we were there, which is certainly a personal best and I think objectively a good result!

We arrived in Sydney last Sunday evening (smooth journey up!) and headed to the AirBnB in Bexley that we had rented for the week to share with our family friends, who were also going up for part of the time. 

The accommodation was called "The TARDIS" (bigger on the inside etc), and although that might have been slightly over-egging the pudding, it's true that what appeared to be a modest single-fronted villa ended up sleeping 10 people without anyone having resort to the floor, so you can't fault that. Its true virtue, though, was its easy proximity to Kogorah station, which became our portal to the adventures that followed on every day we were in Sydney. It's a super convenient station for everything and we made extensive use of it all week.

So we ended up doing a lot of things.

On the Monday, we trained in to Circular Quay, walked along the harbour to the Opera House, then did the Opera House guided tour. 

In all my 44 years, which have included at least 15 trips to Sydney and maybe more, I have never set foot inside the Opera House, despite having seen it from the outside countless times. The one-hour guided tour was amazing - way better than we had expected. The kids were all fascinated, as was I. It was well worth the money and the time, and set us off on a good foot.

From the Opera House, we walked along the Harbour into the Rocks, and looked around the historic buildings and laneways. Ice cream may also have been involved! We returned to our accommodation in the early evening a little footsore but contented.

The Tuesday was back into the city - this time for the Observatory and a picnic lunch looking out over the city and the Bridge, and then to the Botanic Gardens to take a ride in the tourist mini-train and look at the landmarks. By the time we got back to Kogorah Station, my friend and her two kids had arrived from Melbourne and lo, there was much rejoicing (our five combined kids are very, very fond of each other!)

Three adults and five kids headed to Bondi Beach on the train and bus on Wednesday. After Bondi cafe milkshakes, we finagled the kids into doing part of the Eastern Beaches coastal walk, which was just magnificent. 

The day was warm but not unbearable for walking, although the shaded portions were welcome! We fetched up at Bronte Beach for cafe lunch and a two-hour swim / play at the beach, which all the kids thought was fantastic.

Thursday was the long-anticipated (for me, anyway) International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes at the Powerhouse Museum. Words cannot express how much I loved this exhibition. All five kids enjoyed doing the puzzles, but it was the collection of Sherlockania that pleased me the most. 

After the Powerhouse we had lunch in Chinatown and fielded the first semi-catastrophe of the holiday, where my youngest daughter's eye suddenly swelled up; it was off to the doctor then the optometrist to get her checked and sorted, a bit scary but all resolved in the end.

Thursday night the final two members of our temporary household arrived (in cars) from Melbourne, and there was merriment into the evening.

On Friday we caught the train to Darling Harbour and checked out that area, then walked to Circular Quay, where we parted company with our friends and headed back to Bexley to freshen up (our friends went on to catch a ferry to Watsons Bay and later have dinner in Darling Harbour). After showers, we headed to Newtown to meet up with some Sydney-based friends for dinner at a Thai restaurant. The food was magnificent and the company wonderful.

Saturday was taken up in its entirety by the core purpose for our "housemate" friends to be in Sydney at this time of year - the Sydney OzComicCon event. Our friends own a pop culture toys business and sell at all the major cons throughout the year. 

We all had a good, if tiring, day, at the show - my 14 year old in particular, who went off to panels, got a photo with a Doctor Who actress, and generally went nuts on the merchandise. My 12-year-old loves to organise things, so she was deputised to reorder the stock when customers disarranged it, a task she took very seriously. 

My partner and I helped with the serving on the stall and the wrangling of the two 8-year-olds, which hopefully freed our friends up a little. 

As always, the cosplay was the best part for me, as was finally meeting a longtime Internet friend in real life for the first time. We made a roast beef dinner to share that night, which was well received after a long day of retail!

Sunday was meant to be OzComicCon in the morning, airport in the afternoon, home for dinner, but ended up being OzComicCon in the morning, airport in the afternoon, stuff-up of gargantuan size and home 5 hours late ... not the flashest end to a holiday to be honest, but it is what it is, and it's important to not allow that to taint our memories of the trip as a whole. (Just of Virgin, who are now on my perpetual shitlist).

So, in the lessons learned category ... These are specific to us, and YMMV.

Don't fly if we can realistically drive or take a train, but if we do have to fly, do NOT do it in the evening after a heavily packed week. Too stressful for us overall if things go wrong when we are already exhausted, which they seem to do more and more often these days with air travel. (Obviously you have no choice for overseas).

Filling up every day is great, but tiring. Next time we have a highly active holiday, I'll take more care to either build in a downtime day for every three busy days, or else allow a buffer on returning home before we all have to be on our best game again. (In fact the kids do have such a buffer, still being on school hols, but partner and I are back to work). 

Our next jam-packed holiday will be Japan in April next year, and I'm already looking at our scheduling there to make sure I am building in some rest days.

Holidaying with another family with similar aged kids is wonderful. I know my kids enjoyed themselves even more for having their friends with them, and the opportunity to talk / spend time with / even share the cooking and child-wrangling with my own friend was lovely.

A week is not really long enough in Sydney when you are enthusiastic tourists. We did a lot of things, yes, but there were many more that we would've liked to have got to but didn't - from more coastal walks, to the ferries, the Zoo, Madame Tussaud's, the Queen Vic building, etc. 

I wanted to get out to Manly too but we just did not have time. In hindsight, I probably would've been better extending our trip to Wednesday or Thursday this week (of course, had I but known, if I had done so I would've avoided Virgin's SystemGate nonsense as well!)

Bottom line - it was a good week, I'm really glad we went, and we made some memories as a family and with our friends. It might take me another week to get my energy back now though!

City day with the eldest

Today I took a day off work (a massive ONE DAY after returning from my week off - it's a hard life etc) to fulfill a promise to my eldest daughter and spend a day in the city with her.

My eldest is 13.5 years old - prime Early Teen, if you will - but has yet to cease wanting to spend time with me, which is kind of nice. (She's a bit lukewarm these days on family outings, although she can usually be persuaded if nice food is involved).

Following on from her sister's ice-skating expedition on day one in the holidays, I had asked her if there was anything specific she wanted to do this break. She asked for a day in the holidays to go to the city with me, just the two of us.

Her key agenda was:
1. Go to Starbucks (why are all my kids obsessed with Starbucks I don't know it's weird)
2. Go to the State Library to do some research on ancient Egyptian mythology
3. Have a nice lunch somewhere
4. Hit at least one nerd shop

My partner has this week off work, and I structured my work week to shoehorn my tasks onto three long days (Mon, Weds and Fri), which left Tuesday (today) for city trekking with my eldest, and leaves Thursday for personal training and a catch-up with friends.

It's not a perfect solution (by long days I mean 12-hour days ... I sent my last work email just after 9pm last night) but needs must when you are balancing multiple commitments.

So today, we set off a little after peak hour on a pleasantly uncrowded train to spend a day in the city.

We ended up having a great day. Starting off with a stop at Mind Games (Nerd Shop #1, TICK), we purchased some birthday presents for my secondborn's coming birthday.

Then onwards and upwards to Starbuck's, for average coffee (me) and a frappacino and cheesecake (her).

The State Library was next up - she thrashed me at outdoor chess as a taster, then we spent a happy 90 minutes doing research and reading in the Redmond Barry Reading Room. The 13 year old took copious notes on her phone and wants to go back better equipped (with laptop) for more research. I read magazines that I normally get no time to look at and enjoyed the soft hum of the space.

In an unexpected and lovely surprise, I was hailed while reading a copy of New Scientist by a longtime blogging / writing friend who I haven't seen in years, the wonderful Karen Andrews. We had a nice little natter and I have been reminded that I must procure myself a copy of her new book, On the Many Shapes Bodies Will Take.

After our revel in books, we headed down to Fed Square to late lunch at the paradise that is Chocolate Buddha. I have never, ever been glutened by this fantastic restaurant, and the meal is always superlative. Today was no exception - we rolled happily out at 2:15, but somehow found a spare corner for chocolates at Ganache (because really, who doesn't reserve a corner for deluxe chocolate??)

We then proceeded to Minotaur (Nerd Shop #2). I was interested to see what my 13 year old would make of it, given that she has never been there before. I well remember my own reaction the first time I went in there, many moons and suns ago now.

She did not disappoint - her eyes went wide and she raced around from sci fi books to manga to Doctor Who and Star Trek merch to Pokemon, overwhelmed by choice and nerd happiness. I told her she could select one item for herself, which was perhaps unduly challenging in the context of SO. MUCH. NERD. MERCH. but the process of selection was itself enjoyable (I think!)

I ended up buying two novels for myself - N.K Jemisin's The Fifth Season, of which I have heard many good things, and Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed, which is one of the few novels of hers I didn't already own (and I haven't read it since I borrowed it from the Monash University fiction library in 1994, so it's well due a re-read!)

The 13 year old eventually selected Pokemon cards for herself after much deliberation, and I bought another thing to put aside for the almost-12 year old's birthday (indeed, after today, I am basically sorted for that birthday - woo hoo!)

After that, it was a tram ride to Melbourne Central for frozen yoghurt and a stop at the bewildering yet mesmerising Kit Kat Chocolatery. (Yes, they have Hot Cross Bun flavoured Kit Kats. No joke, really!) The 13 year old selected two flavours after much consideration, and those that can eat them (ie not the Coeliacs) have pronounced them good.

A crowded peak hour train ride later, we arrived rather footsore but very pleased with ourselves at our home station, to be collected by the rest of the family.

It was a really good day - not just because of what we did, but for the chance it gave us to talk and spend some quality time together. We have compatible interests in the main, so the day was genuinely fun for
me as well as for her (game shop, library, delicious food, Minotaur nerdvana - what's not to like!)

I can't see myself ever not relishing these opportunities to spend time with each of my kids. My youngest's turn next!

Docklands Day

School holidays started with a bang today, with me enlisted to take my middle daughter (almost 12) and her two besties to the Docklands for ice skating, lunch, shopping and Starbucks.

My middle kid has had her heart set on ice skating for a while now, primarily triggered by her love for an anime series called Yuri!!! on Ice. She's also been so keen to consolidate her friendships with her two high school best friends, and was promised at least one holiday catch up.

As luck would have it, her two friends' availability and ours only had minimal overlap, one of which was the very first day of the break. I was dubious - we normally try to go super quiet on the first weekend of the hols - but she was so keen that I decided to go with it.

So, on what probably should've been a work and housework day for me, instead middlekid and I left the house at 9:30 to go collect her two friends and hit the Icehouse at Docklands.

Skating was a huge success - she absolutely loved it, and after 2.5 hours on the ice and the encouragement of her friend who is a good skater, she was already improved enough that she could skate the perimeter steadily without holding on.

Her greatest excitement, I think, was when I agreed to sign her up for weekly skating lessons next term on Sunday mornings. She's stopped playing netball and has given up singing lessons for next term, so she only had piano - which she learns at school - and chess in her extracurricular basket.

We've always said we'll pay happily for 1 sport, 1 music and 1 other extracurricular for each kid, so she was delighted to realise that skating could slot in as her sport.

To my pleasant surprise, it turns out that a term of skating lessons is considerably less expensive than a term of singing, so we seem to have made a good trade financially too. My eldest is currently doing clarinet (through school), jujitsu and interschool debating, while the youngest has gymnastics, after-school club and swimming. I really feel that's enough, to be honest.

After skating, we wandered over the Docklands shops for lunch at The Groove Train, and then browsed around the shops, especially EB Games (aka nerdvana). The girls all noted the entrance to the Melbourne Star Observation Wheel and expressed some collective interest in going - I made a semi commitment to take them all on another occasion if we can find a mutually suitable day. (I suspect it won't be this holidays!).

We then hoofed it to the Spencer Street Centre (1.5 km mostly up hill thankyouverymuch) because they had their hearts set on going to Starbucks. (I tried in vain to persuade them that Starbucks wasn't all that - it's too deeply embedded in pop culture for them to listen!) I guess I can't complain, as the walk got me over my steps goal for the day and got the blood pumping. (The coffee was pretty average, but then, I am not a Starbucks fangirl - the kids liked their iced fancy drinks :-)

We ended up home just after 6 after we dropped both the friends to their houses, footsore, tired, but (in the almost-12 year old's case) replete with the exact day she wanted, with the exact people she wanted to spend it with. I enjoyed myself too - her friends are nice kids, and it was fun seeing them all have fun (plus my lunch was delicious!)

Warrnambool: A holiday in (mostly) pictures

We got home from a 9-day vacation in the Victorian coastal town of Warrnambool on 13 January. We've holidayed in Warrnambool before (in February 2013)  and had a really fantastic time on our first trip. When I polled the family about possible locations for a summer 2017 holiday, both my partner and my eldest daughter quickly suggested Warrnambool, and it turned out to be an excellent plan.

I did daily FB posts about the holiday, so, handily, I can use them to remind myself of our activities quite easily; but I think a picture post is always nice, to capture some of the beauty that surrounded us so thoroughly.

Key things we did, and loved, included:
- Multiple beach swims
- Rockpool exploration
- Horse riding
- Visit to Tower Hill and nature walks
- A day in Port Fairy
- Fishing from the breakwater
- Mini golf and paddle boating
- Visiting Flagstaff Hill historic maritime museum
- Card games, colouring, reading, napping
- Nice food discovery and consumption

We stayed at a house just outside of town proper, set in a large garden which was occupied by many wild rabbits and next door to a field where two very friendly horses lived. Feeding apples to, and stroking the noses of, the horses became a lovely morning and evening task and really added to the whole experience. The sky was not polluted at night by city light, so we were able to use our telescope to full effect and got some great moon, planet and star-gazing in.

My parents came down for two nights while we were there and came to Port Fairy for the day with us, which was just delightful. We did the Griffith Island walking track at Port Fairy, which is the first time we've done that (last time the kids were too little for it) and it was very beautiful. We also discovered a fantastic little secondhand bookshop there.

My parents also very kindly sat with the kids one evening so my partner and I could get out for a dinner by ourselves - we went to Pippies by the Bay and had seafood and Eton Mess, and it was absolutely delicious.

We were super lucky with the weather - we arrived in the afternoon on Wednesday and left the following Friday morning, and in that time, we copped one stinking hot day where it was too hot to get to the beach (we went to the cinema instead to escape the heat!) The only rain we had commenced on the morning we were packing to leave, and we ended up driving home through quite heavy downpours (a little hair-raising at times, but we made it safely!)

It was one of the best family holidays we've ever had - I think I'd probably only rank Port Douglas in 2014 above it, to be honest. Just the right balance between Doing the Things and Doing No Things. We're already decided on a return visit in 2 years (Jan 2019) and I can't wait!