Corporate Orphans

Corporate Orphans rocked this year! 

It felt like a bit of a pain in the ass. We picked our date well in advance, had booked a resturaunt and were all ready to go... and then a few weeks ago the french door company said "hey, we're coming out on the 16th!" and I went.... ah. OK.

So Corporate Orphans this year was moved to my house, and involved celebrating the french doors being installed at the same time! I kept Master 3 home to play with the other little kids that were coming over, bought a lot of booze, and grabbed a Mynxii and settled in. And gosh did we settle in!

I also got this bloody fish from Mum. She had been given it but it was too big for just her and Dad, so she had tried to give it to me ages ago. Anyway, yesterday seemed like the day for it, so I got the fish... and it was massive. Just HUGE. So huge that it didn't defrost for most of the day...

And I tried to make every one either stay for dinner to help eat the bugger or else invited new people to help eat it! 

Looks like fish curry for dinner tonight... any takers...? 

No? 

*sigh*

It's lovely fish, too.
:-)

We had some awesome food yesterday. Foamiethegreeny and lucretiae brough ribs and salad, splanky brought potato salad and chocolate mousse, mynxii brought lemon infused olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and turkish bread, and I opened my caramelised balsamic vinegar and also the truffle infused organic extra virgin olive oil too.

And in a fit of enthusiasm, Mynxii and I made dukkah too.

It was a fantastic party, had a great time and got to catch up with people I don't see very often.

Chesh and Calli's Birthday Party

So I sat down and thought... what do I like to do? How can I make my (our) birthday party something that makes me happy, and Chesh too?

One of the things I always love is group cooking. Love it love it love it. So I came up with a plan. Group cooking from 1pm onwards and then feasting from 5pm onwards for those who don't want to cook.

We had such a great time! We had it on the 11th as the 12th (my actual birthday) was booked for a Christmas party for the boys with rides and presents and lollies and the circus and everything! Despite that, I kind of shelved the fact that was on, other than not booking anything else on for that day.

So, the cooking.... (an evil part of me wants to call it The Cookening!) I set up a big tupperware container for trash and another one for dirty utensils, and collected every knife, peeler, chopping board, mixing bowl and dish and set them up on a trestle table outside the kitchen, which worked really really well. I also printed out 2 copies of each recipe we were doing. Every one who wanted to do a little cooking could do, and every one who just wanted to sit around and chat could do that too, and we all took turns in doing stuff.

It was perfect. We made turkish style pizzas, which we ate ALL of. I can not believe we ate all of those! We made a HUGE amount of baba ganouj. This one had yoghurt in it too, making it deliciously creamy as well as garlicky. We also made my turkish style kebabs, which I LOVE LOVE LOVE. I think it's my favourite dish in that book. Plus the sweet potato salad Chesh loves, the chicken pie every one loves, and an eggplant dish we kind of made up ourselves which started as Eggplant with Walnut and Garlic and morphed into 'with tomato and yoghurt sauce and chickpeas'. Just delicious! 

If any one loves group cooking, may I highly recommend just doing it! It can take a little work and prep, and you need to do it a few times to know where the slow points with your friends and kitchen will be, but just do it! It's so great to cook all day with friends and then feast.

This is one of my favouritest birthday celebrations evah!

Yay 36! Welcome to a brand new year! 

Acceptance

I have been working on acceptance pretty intensively lately. I think most of you know I'm a pretty full on kind of person. I don't like to hang around and wait, I'd rather be out there doing. So acceptance is something I have some connection with, but not a full connection, and this year has basically made me think about acceptance a LOT.

This year has made me think about a lot of things alot. I'm cherishing my rest times not just because I allow my body to just *lie there* and not *do* anything, but also because it's allowed me more thinking time. I'm using it in my writing, I'm using it in my personal life, and I'm using it to explore my own head.

The acceptance issue is something I said I have some connection with. I can't be as full on and intense as I am without knowing that everything I do means there's other ramifications. When someone says "wouldn't it be great to do X?" I instantly plot it out in my head... and work out if it's feasible, if it's something I want to put my energy into, is it something that fits in with what I want to do, do I need to do anything for it... and a part of all of those decisions the acceptance that sometimes great ideas don't happen for other priorities. I accept I can't do everything. I accept that I am not wonderwoman, that I have responsibilities and things that need doing.

I have to accept that I need to balance my writing with my family(ies) and that I don't get to do everything I want to. I accept that I am learning, and that I accept a lot of stuff that is an *active* acceptance.

The other side of this... is a more passive acceptance. After my and Chesh's birthday party, I was pretty broken. My scars from my gallstone operations were all flaring and hurting, my legs were hurting, my back was in constant pain, and my stomach muscles were also aching. But I still went to the kid's party anyway at the Claremont Showgrounds. We were really lucky - we got an excellent parking spot right next to the pavillion the kids stuff was in. We took cash rather than lug everything around. The kids had an absolute ball. I did the best I could until finally I said to Chesh that we needed to go home.

And I was so hung over, bloated, sore, swollen, sick, aching, and pained that I've effectively needed to rest for the next three days to recover. As in, lie on a couch type of rest, for hours in the days. Not just my 20 minute rests. I cancelled so much stuff then, but I just needed to lie still and heal.

And I have to accept that. I can't just ignore the signs and signals any more. I have to accept that sometimes, my body is broken and I need to allow it more time, and specific activities, to heal. I've given up trying to say that maybe I don't need this operation. I've accepted that it will help with the muscles aches I get. I am also accepting that I am going to have an operation, and that I am going to be putting my self and my health into the care of strangers.

I accept I am going to be vulnerable and needy next month as I recover fromt he op. I accept that I am going to need help, and that simple things like cooking dinner are going to be hard for (hopefully) only a few days. But after last time? I'm allocating a whole month to 'recover and being gentle' time. Thankfully this year I don't have five hundred million OMG urgent important things that have to be done as well as Christmas, Birthdays and Partys. October is a bad time for an op for me LOL. January is much nicer! 

I have also needed to accept that I have learnt a LOT about writing. I was focusing on learning craft this year. I wanted to get beyond the putting words after each other, and into the poetry of sentences and paragraphs. I did my Nanowrimo precisely to explore and play and throw words about and see what happened. I accept that my writing has improved immeasurably - now I just need to do something with it!