Dithering and list-making

To Do List

Find out more about new job

Decide how to structure hours

Factor in children's extra-curricular activites

Work out school holiday leave

Write up diary and calendar

Work out where to hang calendar (and how)

Buy slow cooker

Select ground cover for under magnolia tree

Select shrubs for raised back garden

Select cover for footpath (nature strip, as they say here)

Buy scanner for old negatives

Write long overdue letters to overseas friends (if they are still there)

Ring Aunt in London

Write up Birthday Book (and remember birthdays)

Sell surplus furniture

Donate items to Anglicare

Track down an eight-seater square dining table (somehow, somewhere)

Frame Charly's art

Print photos for Charly's calendar (oops, it's now April)

Sew badges on Charly's Guide sash

Buy jaunty winter cap (maybe not)

Check Charly has clothes and gear for school camp in Term 2

Check boots, socks and shin pads for soccer season

Play board games (Who Stole the Cake? as Wanna calls Cluedo)

Iron and sort clothes (perpetual job)

Learn how handycam works

Buy carrycase for handycam

Decide on blog theme and keep it up-to-date

Write reviews for Kid's Book Review

Plan menus

Ponder jewellery boxes and cases

Get Ro-ro and Wanna practising bike riding

Get sewing machine serviced

Get carpets steam cleaned

Get quote for blind in 'guest quarters'

Read library books and return on time

Start thinking about Winter birthday parties (I know, but I dither)

Establish herb garden

Think about Bamix stick blender

Stain cedar windows

Supervise piano and flute practice

Arrange piano lessons for Wanna

Walk with hand weights

Re-order list

Image from here via The Diversion Project

Decisions, planning, lists

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

 Robert Frost
Mmm.  Stick with what I know or take a new challenge?  Muddle the routine or stay in a rut?  Guess I know what Mr Frost would say!  Must get more organised.  That would make a difference too.  Start with a list.  Tonight.  I will.

Image: Desktop Decision-maker Paperweight

Beddy Byes

Inscription for the Ceiling of a Bedroom

by Dorothy Parker

Daily dawns another day;

I must up, to make my way.

Though I dress and drink and eat,

Move my fingers and my feet,

Learn a little, here and there,

Weep and laugh and sweat and swear,

Hear a song, or watch a stage,

Leave some words upon a page,

Claim a foe, or hail a friend-

Bed awaits me at the end.

Though I go in pride and strength,

I'll come back to bed at length.

Though I walk in blinded woe,

Back to bed I'm bound to go.

High my heart, or bowed my head,

All my days but lead to bed.

Up, and out, and on; and then

Ever back to bed again,

Summer, Winter, Spring, and Fall-

I'm a fool to rise at all!

Illustration by Chris Houghton

Rush Hour

Wednesday.  Early start and late finish.  Nothing defrosted in the fridge.  The dishwasher needs emptying. Little Wanna is moaning for help with her Home Reader and getting cranky.  Charly is asking obscure questions about her maths homework from another room.  Ro-Ro is tinkling the ivories but lapsing into occasional silliness with the recorded digital sounds.  There is a stray fly buzzing around.

It's that moment in the early evening when time stands still and the room seems to whirl around.  I've a wooden spoon in one hand stirring in a pan, scissors in another opening a packet and am trying to wipe the bench while sounding out the word W-E-N-T for a kindergartner, and I'm still in high heels.  There is only so much one person can do with two hands and one voice.   That spells 'went,' darling, as in, "Mummy W-E-N-T quietly insane before bed bedtime."

Music to my Ears

Ro-Ro is learning the piano this term and seems to have taken to it - oh joy - to the extent he happily volunteers to practice.   Charly started with lesson books by the inimitable Edna Mae Burnam who frankly sounds like a woman not be messed with and the type who would rap knuckles with a cane.  But Ro-Ro has started with great gusto and remarkable enthusiasm thanks to Alfred who plunges children quickly into playing with both hands and instantly yields recognisable tunes like Brother John (Frere Jacques) and When the Saints Go Marching In. 

Old Alfred sounds like an adorable, jolly great uncle with a twirly moustache who would play tricks and sing Gilbert and Sullivan melodies.  Still, it's only one term.  I shan't be signing him up for the Sydney Conservatorium of Music just yet, but it is such a thrill to give children an opportunity to learn a musical instrument.  If we press on successfully for the rest of the year and little Wanna shows interest, we might be in the market for a lovely upright Yamaha rather than this unflattering rented, rock 'n roll keyboard installed in the corner.

Toot, Toot, Chugga, Chugga

Work and Play

        by Ted Hughes

The swallow of summer, she toils all the summer,

A blue-dark knot of glittering voltage,

A whiplash swimmer, a fish of the air.

But the serpent of cars that crawls through the dust

In shimmering exhaust

Searching to slake

Its fever in ocean

Will play and be idle or else it will bust.

The swallow of summer, the barbed harpoon,

She flings from the furnace, a rainbow of purples,

Dips her glow in the pond and is perfect.

But the serpent of cars that collapsed on the beach

Disgorges its organs

A scamper of colours

Which roll like tomatoes

Nude as tomatoes

With sand in their creases

To cringe in the sparkle of rollers and screech.

The swallow of summer, the seamstress of summer,

She scissors the blue into shapes and she sews it,

She draws a long thread and she knots it at the corners.

But the holiday people

Are laid out like wounded

Flat as in ovens

Roasting and basting

With faces of torment as space burns them blue

Their heads are transistors

Their teeth grit on sand grains

Their lost kids are squalling

While man-eating flies

Jab electric shock needles but what can they do?

They can climb in their cars with raw bodies, raw faces

And start up the serpent

And headache it homeward

A car full of squabbles

And sobbing and stickiness

With sand in their crannies

Inhaling petroleum

That pours from the foxgloves

While the evening swallow

The swallow of summer, cartwheeling through crimson,

Touches the honey-slow river and turning

Returns to the hand stretched from under the eaves -

A boomerang of rejoicing shadow.

Guess who has a new car?  Automatic, power steering, CD player, remote lock, press button windows, tinted windows, alloy wheels and air conditioning.  Too fancy to drive and too precious to park in the street.  No dirty feet in the back please!  Farewell old White Bullet, my 20-year old faithful jalopy. Thanks for the ride.

The Pilgrims's Progress

After meandering back along the Murchison Highway from Queenstown we finally reached the entrance to Cradle Mountain.

Tassie tourism has a well-oiled marketing machine to draw the crowds in to admire the full suite of wilderness attractions, lavish spa accommodation, parking and shuttle bus ground transport, interpretive guides and helicopter sight-seeing options, ranger huts and raised walking platforms, handy rails and rest spots.  Build it and they will come.  So they did. So did we.

The new visitor's centre was churning the people through and it seemed to have already outgrown its summer holiday capacity.  It was lovely though.  Perambulating through the bush, on well-marked paths with ample opportunities to enjoy tranquil views, is one of favourite past-times.  I'm not about to trek overland in my gaiters, but I do like a hike up a hill.

And down.

and pausing by a boat shed on a lake.

enjoying the perfectly framed scenery.

some native fauna.

and flora.