Well, wasn't it a season to be jolly? And didn't we just deck the halls and most definitely donned our gay apparel!

And now we are full. Tummies full of turkey and prawns. Hearts full of laughter and family. Heads full of champagne and cheesy carols. Recycling bins full of cardboard boxes and wrapping paper. Shelves full of new toys, books and projects.
Vaccuum cleaner full of glitter ;)
This Christmas we managed to sing, dance, swim, save a turtle from certain death (rescued it off the road on Christmas eve), rejoice in my father getting out of hospital in time for Christmas, miss family members, meet new ones, dye my hair 'elf green', enjoy the lavish decorations in ward 6, practice on the new unicycle from Sanata, eat LOADS, drink a wee bit, perform music and generally enjoy ourselves.
It wasn't perfect, and because of that, it was.
Here's to filling up any half empty glasses (metaphorically speaking) and filling our hearts and lives with love, patience, compassion, good humour and adventure.
And now it's time to start clearing up the Christmas stuff and begin packing for Peats Ridge Festival and a New Years celebration like no other.....

Yesterday morning I hit a wall. Not a real cement/brick/cheap wood panelling/rammed earth/straw bale/asbestos or corrugated iron wall, but an 'I'm exhausted/the kids are exhausted/pre Christmas pressure/it's raining AGAIN/the house is a mess/I've held it together for a long time and now the wheels are falling off' kind of wall.
After several birthdays, lots of community events, lots of driving, shopping, organising I woke up yesterday knowing that I was in charge of the gingerbread at Jam n Pickle day, I had a sick child and everyone was relying on me to bring all the ingredients for a community baking event that I had actually instigated. Ha ha, even writing that makes me laugh...
So, I woke up, it was POURING with rain and to be honest, all I wanted to do was to throw some breakfast at the children and crawl back into bed....for about 3 weeks...now I know a gingerbread making day is nothing major -  it's not micro brain surgery or navigating a ship in turgid seas or giving birth - it's just $%#*@ing gingerbread and I normally LOVE making it -  it was just that the jenga tower of circumstances (and probably hormones) had fallen.
So we sat inside and I pretended not to notice the minutes ticking by or the sky slowly clearing or my guilt exponentially growing until the phone rang, and my friend A, in all her calm and no-nonsenseness, snapped me out of it.
It's amazing how one minute you can feel physically incapable of moving and then with a simple decision made, all life flows back into dead limbs and you're up and at 'em.
And we had a good day!

Wow. My eldest son is nine. Nearly a decade of parenting this child-sized human ball of energy, curiosity, wildfire, hilarity and deep, deep passion. How can I reflect on the monumental shift that is becoming someone's mother? How can I reflect on the one person who has made me grow up more than anyone else ever could?

This picture really says it all. Flex is ready to take a bit fat bite out of life - and the gooee-er the better! He was born ready. At times this has created real challenges for us, as we try to keep up with him (physically at first - he was a 'runner' as a toddler), mentally (he can be sharp as a knife with a great capacity for learning) and also emotionally (he can swing from intense joy to fear, rage and flight in a nanosecond).
But having said all that - man, this kid rocks!!!!
He cooks with gusto, loves his friends and family with a love as big as the sky, understands himself better and better each day and is addicted to comedy. Yesterday was his birthday and this is how it was celebrated:
We started with dinner the night before at Flex's all time favourite restaurant 'Brazillian BBQ'. He loves it because, quite frankly, it represents gluttony and indulgence! 21 types of meat, all you can eat...you get the picture. Flex is a real carnivore!

Then we woke him up (as if! He was probably awake from the crack of dawn!!!) with cake, singing and presents as is our family tradition. Flex LOOOOOVES presents. He is starting to understand that it's the thought that counts, and just as Lucky slowly opens and savours each gift, Flex rips and devours his -  he exudes joy, excitement and pleasure with each rip of paper!
We then got ready and went to the markets where he couldn't sit still until his friends had arrived....and once they did arrive it was all on - they played, ate food, drank cordial, sprayed each others hair, climbed on the cubby house roof. Flex was also visited by some of our lovely neighbours who also showered him with sugar and books (the theme of the day it seemed!). And then, after establishing an interest in the harmonica, and getting one for his birthday, Flex played his first 'gig' with Gav and some mates (no, they are not called 'The Central Coast Wood Turners'!!!). He played really well, was remarkably restrained for a born soloist(!) and enjoyed himself.
Then it was home to the farm for swimming, free boarding, trampolining, XBox'ing and Kung Fu Panda 2 watching. And then dinner of pork ribs and chicken (more meat omg), wild salad and fresh sourdough with a table seating 9 boys of various ages and me!
Phew.
Exhausted to the point of dissolution, Flex came out of his room saying he 'couldn't get to sleep'
"Why" I asked.
Bottom lip quivering, and shiny tears squeezing out of the corners of his eyes he answered;
"I just keep thinking about today, and I wish I could rewind it and have it all over again because it was the greatest day, and now it's nearly over..."
Deep, deep passion.
Flex, we love you.

Along with the usual themes of living, this week has been infused with elements of great creation ....and just as great destruction.....
We bought and built a bookshelf on monday - flat packed juicy Ikea goodness - Flex remarked that it was 'just like lego - but bigger and more fun'! We also had to 'dispose of' a dumpy old wardobe in order to make space for the bookshelf and I think that was the highlight - it really was 'disposed of' with hammers, stones, karate chopping feet, and ended up a pile of splinters ready for the tip. The joy of sweaty hammer swinging!!
Flex has also been really interested in the sound things make and has been exploring this a great deal - his exploration often involving hammers!!

We also killed and ate one of our beloved puoltry flock on wednesday. Whoa.
We have been talking about doing this for a long time.
One of the chicks born in the fist clutch hatched in spring (blog post "I love chicks!") has grown into a strapping black rooster and as we already have two roosters in our gang, it was time for him to meet his maker. He was born here on the freedom farm, we know he has lived a happy, carefree, well fed life full of joy and sunshine. Soooooo Flex caught him and Gav did the deed, quickly and ( I hope ) painlessly breaking his neck. Luckily for me I had to go to work, so the boys all plucked, dissected, studied, probed and blessed the bird all afternoon.
One of my alltime best friends B is here visiting from Spain, and he and his mate S cooked up a stunning chicken stew with preserved lemon, a wild weed salad and creamy mashed potatoes. It really was divine. So I could sleep well that night, knowing that the birth, life and death of this proud, shiny black/green young fellow had been honoured.
A really great experience...creation, destruction and the various ways they intertwine....

What do you do with a dam full of gambuzia? Study them from the inside out!

These small fish are an introduced species which people put into freshwater dams to control mosquitos by eating the larvae. Problem is, they eat everything else as well...frog spawn, native fish, good bugs, and so, have become a pest - rather like the cane toad of the freshwater system. So, armed with nets, bread and some Bear Grylls inspired fish stunning techniques, the boys and their mate K went on a mission to catch gambuzia out of our dam and feed them to the chooks. But only after having a good look at their insides first. This curiosity led to the boys also dissecting zucchini plants, radish seed pods, slugs, snails and jacaranda flowers. We all wondered at why the zucchini stem was hollow (so it was lightweight? to have a greater internal surface area for water storage?), how strong the 'veins' were in plant leaves, how you could see the eyes in the gambuzia eggs, how a slugs nervous system kept working after it was 'dead' and how easy the jacaranda flowers were to cut. A great science/nature exploration afternoon!

Then it was time to play! For ME that is!!!
Our great neighbours N and J were hosting a "Soiree Opera" at their place and I was taking my parents out for a fancy, glamorous evening of fine food and magical music. The rising star tenor Brad Cooper  www,bradcoopertenor.com - sung, accompanied by talented tinkling on the baby grand piano. We supped on stuffed squid, cold mushroom and white garlic soups, slow cooked goat and wild weed salad, followed by brown sugar merange with a chocolate and pomegranate filling. All food was locally grown or sourced and everything was impeccable, stylish and delicious. We were at the 'locals' table and I have to admit feeling a real sense of privilege to be there. Our little part of the world felt like the epicentre of the universe!! After dinner we retired to the back deck to chat, laugh, drink red wine and patiently watch the full lunar eclipse happen in a clear star-filled sky. Thanks J and N for another stunning evening where country living and culture collided!

Over the years, as our lives have become free-er and less encumbered, so have our Christmas trees become simpler and (I think) more stylish....all hail the Christmas stick!

Yes, I have to say that this year I am quite frankly nauseated by all the consumerism...the pressure to purchase, the plastic, mass produced decorations and forests of tree cut down to shed their needles all over your living room floor like sick people losing their hair. Maybe I'm getting old and jaded (my hair has faded to a lovely shade of jade I must say), but I am going with it...working on the experiences of Christmas as opposed to the 'stuff'.
So, on that note we decided to make stained glass window cookie stars to hang on our stick yesterday. We found a great recipe, armed ourselves with aprons, rolling pins, baking paper and a whole free evening, and we were off! Pulsing butter, brown sugar and spices in the food processor (the joy of pressing buttons on electrical appliances never seems to diminish!), smashing colourful boiled lollies (after carefully halving them all so it was 'fair'), having fun with colour coding lollies with bowls, chilling the rolled dough so it's cool enough for the star shapes to be moved but not so cold they break - the kitchen became one big art studio/laboratory all set to the dulcet tones of Elvis Presley's 'Blue Christmas' album!
Now this - the smell of cinnamon and sugar, the whole family singing cheesy songs together, the joy of creating - is what I really love about Christmas....

And the science and fun of it all continues - over night the cookies softened as they absorbed moisture in the atmosphere and I heard the soft 'thunk' of stars falling during the wee hours....it's OK however as we have given ourselves permission to eat them as they fall. Delicious, and a great study of impermanence!

So what to do now I'm 36...a whole year older, wiser, more mature...I know - lets dye my hair blue!!

Yesterday I picked up my most excellent hairdresser/yogi friend Samhita at 9 am sharp, and back to the freedom farm we sped armed with bleach, blue and green fudge (hair product not the confectionary) and a realtrue sense of glee....it was time to be blue!
Now I know lots of people will ask 'why??' and to be honest I have no better answer than 'why not!'. I could say it's artistic expression (which it no doubt is), or that I was teaching the boys a lesson in colour blending and challenging the status quo (also true), or even that I was being astrologically aligned by embracing the colour of my birthstone (turquoise). But the truth is, I think it's a pretty colour. There may be deep subconscious reasons for this act of azureness (let me know your theories!!) but really, fun and a lifelong love of this colour pretty much sums it up for me.
I am old enough to make informed decisions and young enough to make adventurous ones - why not!!!!

Here is the transformation process in pictures for your viewing pleasure.....

Does anything say 'Happy Birthday" like pavlova??

Especially when it's such an exuberant pav constructed by a budding young masterchef and literally dripping with love...So yes, I turned 36 on saturday and this is the story....

We have a family tradition of waking up the birthday person with cake, tea, pressies and singing on the morning of their birthday, and for me this year, it was genuine! I mean that I was really asleep (as opposed to lying there hanging to go to the loo and smilingly listening to whispering boys trying to find the good cake knife) and came into the day surprised and delighted - a good way to come into any day I must say!

After a rousing rendition of "For She's a Jolly Marshmallow", I was presented with some fabulous gifts ; a funky new wallet and an excellent ceramic mixing bowl to replace the one that had fallen off the roof on our roadtrip down to Melbourne. (Read the archives for that heart warming story!) Thoughtful and groovy.
And the card. We always hand make our cards, and I was given a truly gorgeous one which had a big blank section inside it. I was then handed a 'magic' pen and instructed to 'colour in and reveal the secret message'...fun! (This sense of fun my children displayed makes everything worthwile!!!)
Never has a more poetic piece of prose been invisibly embedded on...anything!

After eating pavlova for breakfast on the balcony and transferring cards from one wallet to another (and discarding about 4 squillion tonnes of old receipts, expired fuel saver dockets, business cards of people I have forgotten and various other crap), we got to work taking tables, chairs and yes a crocheted tablecloth down to the river...and proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon with friends; swimming, freeboarding, sipping champers, making arty crafty stuff and lots of good, girly conversation. Oh, and eating all sorts of cheese:)
Love my wonderful women - such juicy and joyful gifts in my world!

I also had the supreme pleasure of watching, for the first time, my still 8 year old son do some pretty stellar stand up freeboarding! His was the epitome of cool as he did a flawless beach start, and then made everyone smile as he took little Annie the dog for a ride on the board. She is definitely a surfer chick!

After all this is was time for a quick spruce up for the event of the year - the Spencer Volunteer Fire Brigade Christmas party!!! I was MCing and my friend Aramati had done an excellent job of jazzing up the tennis court at the community hall for some swanky al fresco dining and entertainment...we had a contortionist, kids doing carols, my Dad playing saxaphone, young local musicians, dancers, Gav, Flex and our Swiss wwoofer Arjan making sweet music and a group Zumba dance-up! Followed by a local duo performing some well chosen covers (well chosen because they were some of my favourites!) and allowing us all to have a goooooooood boogie.
Wow! Spencer rocks!!!

After the party, we went home to sit once again on the balcony and eat cheese....aaaaaaaah cheese.....
One of the best things about entertaining on the freedom farm is that it's far away, and therefore people often stay the night....I always love the 'day after' - we cook up a brekkie feast and loll around just enjoying....being. It's often the second day when people really feel the quiet and beauty that is this gorgeous land.
A great birthday. No expectations - the joy of a bit of community service and of course, lots of cheese.
And I finally got the return on the $60 investment for those 'magic' pens.