Penpalling

I had my first penpal when I was about 11 or 12. She was a girl from England called Nicole the same as as me. I loved writing to her. My next two penpals were Stephanie from France and Petra from Germany. It was so exciting when the postman came and I rushed out to the letter box to find a letter waiting for me... I remember Stephanie wrote on the most beautiful notepaper out of the three and her penmanship was very neat. And she used different ink to what I would use..... a plain old biro.

So that is where my love of penpalling started. And to this day I still penpal but sadly not to any of those 3. By the time we started getting our first serious boyfriends our pen-friendships had fizzled out.

When I was 14 I went on my last decent family holiday with my parents to kangaroo Island just off the coast of my state SA. My 2 brothers were 5 and 9 years older than me so they were working and too grown up to come on family holidays anymore so I was bored. One night my Dad and I went to see if we could see the platypus that only came out at night at the waterhole in the Flinders Chase National Park. While there I met another girl who was about 8 or 9 yrs old and who looked alot like my cousin Dulcie. Her name was Sally and because she was the only child with her Dad and stepmum she was bored too so we got to chatting. We became friends and over the next few days when not on day trips around the Island with our parnets we hung out together like big sister, little sister and met at the waterhole at night with our Dads to try and see the platypus pop its head up. Now some 27-28 years later we are still penpals. I have seen her go from a young girl into a young woman to a wife and to a mother of 3 beautiful girls. It has been a joy.

At one stage I had aboout 60 penpals but I found it quite frustrating writing a decent letter and alot of them writing one small A5 size sheet back. To me that was a waste of my time and stamps so eventually cut it right down. Now I dont write to anyone in Australia and only write to people overseas.

In 1996 when I was pregnant with my first son I put an ad in the Parenting Magazine Australia looking for other expectant or new Mums and to this day I still call 4 of those girls some of my closest friends. As I dont write to people in Australia anymore, we no longer snailmail apart from Christmas Cards but chat on Facebook, talk on the telephone and even catch up on holidays together when visiting one another states. In fact we are catching up with Tanyia and her family again in two weeks time in Queensland where she will meet our new bubba J and we will finally ge to meet her 5th child Master k.

So the reason for my post? Well I am taking on a new penpal from Finland. A Mummy with a 20 month old baby and I am looking forward to it. So I will be writing to her, my longtime penpal karin from Estonia and Sally who after a few years in Hong kong for hubbys work is returning to Sydney to live.

Photo Security On FaceBook

It has just gone past 2:30am and I should be in bed as in a few hours we will be heading off to Jaxon's EI morning. Tyson is coming with us to meet Jims daughter so the two of them can meet other teens their own age who have a new baby in the house with ds.

Everynow and then when it is late I lie in bed when I should really be sleeping or trying to catch up on lack of sleep my mind starts to wonder. (Dont you hate it when this happens... I know I do) my mind starts to wonder.  A few times now I have thought about people trolling FB pages and blogs to rip off photos of children and adults with dissabilities and other reasons to then poke fun at them. Grrr stuff like this on Youtube and FB pages made to tease ppl like the case of the 16 yr old girl in the UK with ds makes me want to go out and well, punch that person in the face for being a BULLY. How would they like it if someone went and made nasty fun of their sister or brother, or their mother and when they have finally grown up, their own child? 

So tonight about 30 mins ago I got to thinking (no I wasnt in bed but was just about to go there) about how many photos I actually have of my little and big darlings on my FB page. Then I got anxious and thought what if my settings wernt good enough and someone not on my friends list could still see all of my photos and could lifted them off etc. Then I felt abit sick in the tummy and deicded it was time to check on those photo privcy settings. So I did just that. I also removed ALOT of the photos of Jaxon that are visible to my friends and put them into the BABY JAX album which is set to private so only his brother and I can see them at this stage. I left a few photos of both the boys in the mobile uploads album but that is it. Time to not be as private like some family members had been saying to me for about a year now...

Anyhow I am off to bed now though what is the bet the moment I lie down, get comfortable and actually feel myself starting to drifting off the little man will wake up for a feed....Aghhhhh the joys of Motherhood..... I wouldnt have it any other way though. I am blessed with my two boys!

(And yes the above photo was taken by me at a seaside hotel down at Brighton Beach here in Adelaide called the Esplanade Hotel or the Espy for short)...

Escaping to another world with movies

                                            
I havent watched a movie for awhile but I love them. It is nice to be able to head off to the cinema or slip in a blue ray dvd and watch a movie. It is nice to slip off from your own world sometimes and escape to the land of make believe. One of the first movies I went to see as a child at the drive in was Bed knobs and broomsticks. The whole family piled into the old family station wagon and off we went to our small town drive in. Thus starting me going to the occasional drive in movie with my Dad. Sort of like Dad and daughter time (though you wouldnt catch me doing this now... but that is another story). That followed by some Lassie movies and when I was abit older the Star Wars movies started. Sadly the drive in shut down when I was in my early teens. The land was sold off and it became a brand new housing estate. Mind you I dont live back in my country hometown now. It is the big city for me where I can go to the cinema or drive in both which are very close to us whenever time permits. The last movie I saw at the drive was a few weeks ago. We loaded the teenagers (Tyson, Ben and a few of their mates) into two cars with Jaxon and off we went. The movies on show were a cartoon which I forget the name of but one of the lates Drs Seuss ones THE LORAX whatever and then  The American Pie Reunion. Wouldnt pay to go see that again. Jax was a dream though. He slept thru most of both movies in his car seat. It will be awhile off before I can get to the cinema with Jaxon being not quite 6 months so for now trips to the drive in and watching movies at home,when I have the time will have to do!

                                                 
Some of my favourite all time movies are Titanic (yes with Leonardo & Kate)...... TROY (Ohhhh I could not get enough of Brad Pitts bare butt and his other muscles in this movie) and a quirky Drew Barrymore movie called Never Been Kissed.. There are lots more but its late and I am tired and I have spent allday putting the finishing touches on my T21video for YouTube.