I'm a New Member of a Club!

What's up?!

It has been so long since I fired up this little blog that I forgot the user name and password to get in.

Then I had to look around to figure out how to post a new post.

How can something I did nearly daily for 5 years get so blurry so fast? My last post was only February.

In my defense, if you could view my life from my vantage point, you'd see that it is like one of those front loading washers with events swirling and swishing by, eventually circling around to the first event again, making you dizzy.

From March until yesterday, I have carried with me at all times 3 notebooks full of notes; one for my dad's medical notes because he was diagnosed with cancer, one for Kristin's graduation open house, and one for Katie's wedding.

Also, tucked away in Kristin's open house notes were notes for Jordan, who graduated from college.

So, yes, one very ill father, two graduates, one bride, pretty much within a month or two.

Swirl, baby, swirl!

I missed blogging about the details here, which I'm kind of sad about because I would have had "diary" entries of this time in my life to capture for later years, but I was just too busy or too exhausted to blog. Facebook status updates, those little 420 word blog posts, seemed to work fine.

But I have missed hashing out life on here, so I'm attempting a comeback, if you will.

What I want to say today, the day after my daughter's wedding, is that I now feel as if I've been inducted into a special club because this experience has been so rich, so frustrating, so emotional, so exhausting, that it's really difficult to describe unless you've survived it. Just like the former United States Presidents' Club, you can't know what it's like until you've held this office.

From now on, when a mom tells me, "My daughter's getting married," I will immediately empathize with her and join her "team." I know what lies ahead of her, and I will be there in person or on line with support--because the hazing for this exclusive club is rough! One moment you're happy, the next you're melancholy, the next you're frustrated, then overwhelmed, then just plain fried.

Nevertheless, yesterday proved joyful, meaningful and happy beyond words. Sometimes, you're so happy that something is over and yet so happy that something is beginning, all you can do is dance!

"Shined" vs "Shone," the Devil Bird Revisited and Goodbye Australia

Some of you commented the other day that my kangaroo-loving daughter is a "chippette" off the old block when it comes to writing. I must say that her verbal acumen and execution are fierce, waaaay more better than I's. (Don't you just hate when people say that?)





Laser-like verbal skills are wonderful when you're a 22 year-old who loves your parents again, not so wonderful when you're a 14 year-old who's not so crazy about them. It was rough sailing for a while, but now the seas are calm. See? There are good points to your kids growing up!

She has a BA in English and wants to be an editor. So for graduation, one of the gifts I gave her is a white t-shirt that says:


"No passion in the world equals the passion to amend someone else's draft" HG Wells

It's written in red "ink," of course.

She liked it. Because I think it's literally true for her.

Here is one last short excerpt from her final message before leaving Australia. If you liked the "devil bird" comment in yesterday's email message, you will enjoy this.

Today we had a free day, so we all went to Manly Beach. And no, it's not a bodybuilder beach, which is what I thought it would be at first. The name still cracks me up--It is actually a really beautiful beach and the sun eventually shone today, so it was perfect.

Too cold to swim, though, and the beach had signs out warning people not to swim anyway. But the salt air smelled soooo good. I seriously would live at the beach every day if I could. The only thing I didn't like about the beach was the stupid seagulls. Those things are vicious and are pretty much disgusting.



Oh!!! Also, I ate crocodile pizza and emu pizza tonight. Be impressed. No kangaroo for me, though--I couldn't do it after feeding them and petting them. The crocodile kind of tasted like fishy chicken--very weird. The emu was pretty good, though, and I would eat it again. Plus the fact that I was eating the same type of devil bird that bit me didn't hurt.

Well, I can't believe that the baby whose sippy cup I filled 300 times per day is eating crocodile and emu, but I still can't wrap my mind around Martha Stewart going to prison and making prison ponchos, either, so I guess I just don't adapt easily.

By the way, are you wondering why she wrote "shone" instead of "shined?" If it emits light it's "shone," and if it's made shiny it's "shined." That's my girl!

Update from Down Under

Observations of Australia from a 22 year-old. (She won't mind.)

Hi Parentals!

I have a little bit of free time right now (it's 9:06 pm Aussie time) so I thought I'd give you a quick update on what all I've been up to over here.

Sydney is an uh-MAZE-ing city--it's got all the momentum of a major port city, but the atmosphere is so laid back! It's a little weird; I expected it to be more like London or Chicago or New York, something like that with people hustling everywhere, but so far it hasn't felt like that much of a rush.

So far there hasn't been a lack of anything to do, and I've really liked hanging out with the group for the most part.

So let me think of what all we've done so far:
1. Toured the Sydney Opera House--so massive and so impressive

2. Toured the Susannah House--built in 1844; a row of houses that is now a museum, still in its original state (they said they aren't going to restore it--weird and not very practical, if you ask me).

3. New South Wales art museum--aboriginal art exhibit. I am way more into this than I thought I would be.

4. Featherdale Wildlife Park--I FED WALLABIES AND KANGAROOS AND PETTED A KOALA. LIFE GOALS ACCOMPLISHED. I also got bit on the finger by an emu, but am ok. Devil bird.

5. Bondi Beach--awesome beach with very blue water and beautiful cliffs on either side. They call lifeguards "lifesavers" over here.

6. Botanical Gardens--got caught in a rainstorm today, but the gardens were still beautiful. Managed to see 2 flocks of wild cockatoos (yes, seriously!) and got one to sit on my foot. Then it tried to eat my jeans.

Plus we've just been walking around the city and doing a little bit of shopping here and there. We rode a ferry to Circular Quay (pronounced "key"), which is part of the Harbor, and saw the amusement park where Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen filmed part of "Our Lips Are Sealed." (One of the girls is a fan of them--she flipped out when she saw it. Pretty funny.)

We've been exploring the restaurant scene here too--so far I've had fish & chips, Portuguese chicken (my new favorite), and quite a bit of Chinese food, seeing as how our hostel is just a few blocks from Chinatown. Tomorrow is our free day--I think a group of us are going to the Museum of Australia (it supposedly has a dinosaur exhibit), then shopping for souvenirs during the afternoon, and then going to Luna Park at night. Luna Park is a small theme park and it's really pretty when it's lit up at night--mainly I'm just going for the Ferris wheel.

I've taken a ton of pictures and I can't wait to show them to you. See you soon!

Katie

Serously? This message from around the world is from this baby girl? Oh, yes. I remember now. I blinked and she grew up!