Is It Nearly Over?

I try not to whinge about the school holidays, 'cos I really do love my kids and like doing things with them and the general mess and hilarity that comes with having them in the house.

But by this stage (Thursday of the second week) I do find myself hanging out for next Monday!

Baby Bear returned from China cheerful, covered in spots (lots of greasy food and no fresh veges, she was not impressed with Szechuan food - turned out Chengdu was NOT in Shanghai province as I had thought), and laden with cheap and cheerful pressies for us and her myriad of friends. I have hung the Buddha head over my bed - I;m sure it must be good feng-shui - and she bought me some red envelopes to use in crafting.

Wombat has been a darling, but a very clingy and demanding one. The fantasy life we live together gets a bit wearing when it is twelve hours a day without a break. His anxiety levels are still very high despite nearly two weeks off school and his OCD is exhausting for both of us. On the upside he is happy and cheerful and having a good time. We went to see TMNT the other day (good enough, but SO violent and noisy!) and are off to see Mr Bean's Vacation, or whatever it is called, in half an hour.

George said last night that I seemed very tense and when did I last meditate? I laughed hollowly and pointed out that for two weeks I have been unable to go to the toilet without someone coming and talking to me through the door, let alone have any quiet time. The only way I can get away is to take the dog for a ten minute walk in the evening while dinner is cooking, or spend a couple of hours at the local shopping centre (this is alone time for me - I can tune out the other people and live with my own thoughts, and I don't have to interact with magic lemurs or all the baby Pokemon).

I have been trying to catch up with some homework - wrote a short piece on Anubis yesterday for the topic of symbolism that we are studying - and what a huge, fertile, exciting area that is, it's given me enough material for artworks for the rest of my life! I've also written half a business plan. Given that I haven't sold a single thing so far it seems a bit stupid writing one, but I guess that's what they are for.

There's a few more bits and pieces to go up on Etsy but I haven't photographed them yet or had the time to put them up. I am trialling lots of different things and when something actually sells I will make more than one of it/them! I have lots more ideas so will just keep trying until I hit the sweet spot. I am determined to make this work in the long run, not to make a fortune but to at least turn it into a part-time business - at least that's what the five year plan in my half written business plan says!!

We went to Beaufort for part of the Easter break - in the Pyrenees - the Australian ones of course. WE have friends who are building a house up there - VERY SLOWLY - and we took the two family rooms at thelocal motel and hung out together and had fun. A couple of short bushwalks (a bit too short, I wanted more exercise!) and some real 4WD stuff - no-one can say that we never take ours off road! We spent some time in Ballarat, visited the local gallery which has some excellent Australian art plus the real, original Eureka flag - important to our family because George's great-great grandfather was at Eureka - and found his great-great-great grandmother's grave and the address she used to live at - now a car park, of course!

Lots of close-up texture photos to come that I took in the bushm but I haven't sorted through them yet.