My first introduction to the World Wide Web (as we then so quaintly called it) was in 1994. I remember The Daddy was very excited and I was … slightly less so. Apart from the Louvre web site which actually involved !! color photos !! it was essentially a load of documents which you couldn’t get at right away. He would click away for hours at hyperlinks and jump from greyish blue page to greyish blue page, all the while nattering on about how this was Our Future … while I sat waiting 25 minutes for Page 2 of The Louvre to load (well it was very bandwidth-intensive, those pictures were color, you know), picking at my cuticles and trying not to fall asleep.

Then in 1995 when we were out looking for our First Real Jobs, The Daddy badgered me to put “internet user since 1994″ on my CV. This would prove that I was technologically savvy and had been so for quite a while (and actually no, young people currently clutching their sides in mirth, I am not kidding). I scoffed and wriggled and tried to get out of it  and then thought What The Heck. So,  a week later I got a call for a job. They needed someone who knew what the Internet was (little people, get up off the floor, that was not a joke either), for a slightly technical role which also involved liaising with Blue Chip clients, which is why they would consider employing a girl.

Shortly after this that I stopped Assuming That The Daddy was Always Wrong, which is how we ended up in America. But that is another story, in fact one which has already been told, though I am too lazy to link to it right now.

Moving on. Our life from that point on was defined by computers, and mostly by the Internet. By this stage there were already a lot more color photos, this thing was becoming quite fun! Through the heady days of the 128K modem (we were ahead of the curve. That thing cost us £180), dialling up 50 or 100 times in the hope of getting a connection at the other end, the excitement of the first cable modem, DSL and almost immediate downloads, blogging, the iPhone… We first learned about, and followed the events of 9/11 on the CNN website, where it popped up before it hit any overseas news media. We transferred address books to Yahoo and categorized businesses by whether they had a web site (web site: yes!  No web site: no, you loser, you may be perfectly good at clipping hedges but no, no, no). If we were bored, we surfed aimlessly, hopping from site to site…

Surfing has taken a back seat lately. Unless you count inserting the DVD of Barbie In A Mermaid Tale for the one millionth time.

My life has changed a lot. The T-Bot is back at school, and I am devoting minimal time to internet businesses  and more time to doing stuff in the real world. Including rebuilding my IRL relationships, which suffered when I was putting one foot in front of the other. I actually consider myself lucky so many friends have stuck around. And tidying the mess hastily pushed into cupboards when I didn’t really have time to tidy. Calling in the relevant tradesmen to undertake much-needed facelifts around the place (No, not my face, thank you). Building furniture. And seeing to quite a lot of  DIY.

I mean, a back door isn’t a back door unless you can actually turn the handle to get out. In the absence of DIY it is just a piece of wall with a static handle. Luckily not also a fire hazard as for some reason there are three back doors in this house. But you know, it is nice to have the choice whether to go out of one door, or another 3 feet away.

And so, little by little, the computer has stopped being the default option. I no longer automatically sit down at my desk whenever I have 5 minutes to spare. My house is the tidiest it has ever been. My children have clean clothes to wear. I have all three of them home over summer vacation, and sometimes I just sit in the sun, watch them and relax.

That’s why you haven’t seen me around for a while. And really, that’s how life should be

So I have been called out by a surprising number of people for my long blogging absence. Actually, I have been posting, over at Century Finds. And running a non-stop personal blog commentary in my head, not that it does much good swirling around in there. Oh, and also DIY. I wish I could stop doing DIY but it is kind of an obsession. Right now I want to coat everything in brightly colored Rustoleum, and fix the leaky faucets (not difficult, unless you need to turn the water off at the mains and are just not strong enough).

Also, The Wictor turned three and started channeling Johnathan Adler. He demanded I paint his room orange. And yes, echoes of the dining room, after three weeks I am about halfway through.

But mostly, it takes a lot to try and expand a fledgling retail business in the current environment, while maneuvering to keep three young children from killing each other from boredom or frying their brains with a TV screen. I have to admit I just can’t keep up with the all the demands and something has to give.

I am sure it will all straighten out sometime, like oh when that yellow bus restarts its regular runs through the neighborhood… In the meantime, for your amusement and entertainment, here is a list of all the things which have broken around here in the last few weeks.

The downstairs air conditioning unit (compressor)

My car (battery harness which sounds very impressive but is actually two skinny $300 cables which in turn fried the battery.)

Big toe on my left foot (via a full gallon of apple juice)

Washers on five faucets

The sprinkler system (Just add horses)

The DVD player

My relations with my web hosting company

The freezer is making a whining noise too, and when I googled “my freezer is making a whining noise” the general opinion seemed to be “get a new freezer”. So goodbye, holiday on the French Riviera.

Looking at that list, I should be depressed. But how can I be sad when I spend my days with such fascinating individuals?

For the last few days Baby Sister and I have been discussing Death. As you may know I am fairly superstitious so I am not at all comfortable with this. I am probably also breaking every parenting rule in the book.  I did try to cheat by playing the reincarnation card, which worked for a short while (she decided she would come back as a unicorn) but she is way too clever for me.

At least now we have established that Baby Sister would not enjoy being cremated. And:

“Mommy, when there is no more room in the cemetery, do they dig the dead people out?”

My answer: “Dig them out? Oh, where did you hear that sweetheart? Do you want nutella on your toast?” .

Yes, I lie to my children sometimes. By default. If it buys me an extra hours peace…

And now, The Wictor. He is really coming into his own. Apart from managing his bedroom interior design project, The Wictor appears to enjoy fashion.

And he has perfected this seasons Maison Wictor look:

Or would this be his new signature style?

And just to prove I didn’t decorate him while he was asleep, here is another:

Forget Johnathan Adler, he may be the next Grayson Perry.

(Why so many photos of The Wictor? Because he turns out to also be a real media wh*re. He wants his photo taken … like … all the time. )

Meanwhile, The T-Bot has been conducting psychological experiments on the cat. It turns out Fiji either has ADHD or is terribly indecisive, because he refused to point his nose in the right direction twice. Yes, no, yes, no, and he wouldn’t cooperate even for treats. Or maybe he is in control here and is just messing with the T-Bot’s mind.

The T-Bot gave up on the animal in the end. He has been keeping himself busy this summer with Legos, science experiments, and jewelry design.

Also, his already overactive imagination has gone into overdrive. I made a little montage of all the friends he has invited to stay, all at the same time. They are all sleeping in the T-Bot’s room and eating me out of house and home. They come down in the morning, pushing and squabbling and expect me to make space around the breakfast table. Chowder especially does not get on with Chomper (possibly not pictured, because I can’t tell those dinosaurs apart)  and the T-Bot is worried that having Bumblebee around might attract stray Decepticons, which quite frankly makes me worry too

I asked the T-Bot to make them go away, but he says they like it here.

So now do you see why I haven’t had time to post?

When we lived in the UK we were not really happy. I mean, there are a lot of things there which were great and which we enjoyed, but daily life ground us down. The weather and the traffic mostly. We spent most of our years there trying to figure out how to get out with dignity, and that probably led to us being down on some aspects of British life when we didn’t need to be. I’ll tell you, there are things I pine for now. Sorry, Britain.

We lived in an outlying suburb of London. We started off there because The Daddy was working in central London and I was working … not actually in London at all, in fact quite close to Oxford. So we had to find something in the middle. Then I had the T-Bot and stopped working and we could have moved, but by that time we had neglected to buy in our favorite area (obviously the ONLY POSSIBLE area) and house prices (and rents) had doubled.  So we stayed. Oh, and how we grumbled.

The whole point of this post really is that sweet Andrea of Sweet Life tagged me for a meme. It’s the sixth photo in your sixth folder one which I have already done but joy! The Daddy messed up my photos and now the sixth of the sixth is a different one! So here it is, the view from the roof of our apartment building:

Recently I revisited this High Street (FYI the British words for Main Street) courtesy of Google Maps, and after four years away I was still infinitely familiar with every store, every storefront for the whole length of it. Not much has changed there. I used to walk this route twice a day pushing my stroller, sometimes with the T-Bot on my back, all the way up to the library and back. We would stop in at stores we didn’t need to stop at, visit the playground, sometimes sit in the library for a while. The supermarket was across the road and we would go there most days. It was a regular, mind-numbing routine. But it passed the time and it kept the T-Bot occupied and sometimes would even tire him out enough so that he would sleep.

When we were there tourists used to tell us how pretty it all was and how quaint and we used to ask ourselves How? Why? All we could think about was the traffic, the drawn faces, the buildings blackened by pollution. The arctic winds whipping down the high street numbing fingers and noses. The crime. The line for the slide at the playground (What? The line for the slide at at the playground can be a major deal. Especially if it is a line 20 children long).

But the fact is, with distance anything can look quaint. And we surprised ourselves when we looked back at this set of pictures, because suddenly it didn’t look so bad after all. Now that time has passed and we no longer have to be there, we can look at this photo and think: “Awwww. Quaint!”.

I am not going to tag anyone for this meme, but if you want to do it, just throw the link in below!

- The day is bright and sunny.

- The children have been watching PBS Kids for an hour and there have been no screams.

- Last night I finally broke the back of my current horror task : Inputting 5 months of business transactions into Quickbooks. (Yes! I am clever! I shift to new software in the middle of the financial year!) I only got 4 hours sleep but it was worth it.

- Yesterday the T-Bot said to me “I like spelling! I didn’t know spelling could be fun!”

(yeah, me neither, but I’ll take it! I’ll take it!)

- Miraculously, I am having a good hair day. In summer. Of course I haven’t been outside yet, but it’s a start.

- My cat is proving to be a good roacher. Is that TMI?

- The T-Bot could hardly swim three months ago and now he can do all the strokes. He can now also jump off the diving board. That one may be more relief than celebration.

- We are in the week between school groups and camp groups. At least I hope none of the schools are going on field trips in the last week of school. Because today I am taking my three children to the Childrens’ Museum, where I haven’t dared set foot since I lost the T-Bot there three times in an hour in 2007. I expect it to be quiet. I am celebrating in advance on this one. Positive thinking and all that.

- After weeks of failure I managed to post a comment to Jessica Bern’s blog. Her blog does not like my comments. Today it even said something mean about my data, but I tricked it. Ha! I was on the verge of emailing her last week to ask if she was blocking me except I was too scared because what if she emailed back “Yes! It’s because I don’t like you!” ? Now that I don’t have to read those words from her, I can celebrate.

What are you celebrating today?

Wow, it’s been a long time.

So long that I had to read back in time to find out exactly which photos I had promised you. There has been a lot going on here, which I will be sure to blog about later. I know, always later…

In the meantime, I did promise you my 80’s hair. And I always keep my promises, although in this case I really really don’t want to. Had I partaken of the silly juice when I wrote that post? OK. Deep breath. Here goes:

Oops. Looks like my hair got a little flat on top. Maybe I forgot to backcomb it that morning.

The scanner cable hasn’t turned up yet but that’s probably because I haven’t had time to sort through the boxes and boxes of cables and find it. Luckily (why didn’t I think of this before?) I haven’t managed to lose my camera yet. And I see that I also promised pictures of us. At different times. Together. Well, won’t this be a trip down memory lane? And an interesting exercise for my last remaining non-family reader!

Hmm. My parents sent me a bunch of early scanned photos from their archives and dared me to put them online. This, believe it or not, is the best one they could dredge up. The others are CENSORED. This one really should be too. But, you know, they dared me.

And now, what about a wedding photo?

Those caterpillars crawling down the side of his face were all the rage in our circles at the time, for those not willing to go for the full-on goatee look. The Daddy did grow a goatee once but it scared me and I made him shave it off.

And those children? All grown up now.

Yes, it was a lo-o-o-o-ong time ago.

Many many years passed. Eight to be exact. And then we had a baby and traveled halfway around the world with him and here we are snapped pretending to be full of beans and not at all wishing we could just give the baby away to a random stranger and sleep for a thousand years.

Then the baby grew up a little. Here he is at 18 months. Oh, and us in the background, looking, again, faintly manic:

And now, three days before we set off on our great adventure. April 2005. Not sure what was wrong with the T-Bot.

And that, unbelievably, is where our photo story ends.

Want cute photos of my kids? Can oblige, 1000 times over.

Want photos of us together? Come visit! Take one!

I dare you.

This afternoon I decided to try making a  Galette des Rois, traditionally eaten in France at around this time.

Click through above if you would like to see what it is supposed to look like.

Unfortunately, my oven runs very hot and while I could have used The Daddy’s oven, his runs very cold ( yes, we have two ovens, neither of which actually work ).

I should also mention that I have only the most basic of housewifely skills and shouldn’t really be allowed near the oven in the first place. I have, for example, never ever in my long and very full life used puff pastry. Of which this recipe required massive amounts.

So I am not sure what happened today. The cook had the day off, I mistook myself for Martha Stewart, I was having delusions I could do anything, the recipe looked easy, take your pick. (Clue: Actually not the first three.)

Now that I have set the scene, ta-daaaaaa!

Wow, puff pastry sure does puff, don’t it?

Although … once we cut off the burnt bits, it did actually taste pretty good

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In other news, I got a bloggy award, from the gorgeous Kari at I Left my Heart at Preschool.

I have always wanted a Lemonade Stand! Thanks Kari! I am flattered!

I am supposed to pass it on but I am going to take the easy way out and invite anyone who doesn’t yet have it to come and get it. Come on, don’t be shy!

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And don’t forget to tune in to tomorrow’s post, where I will reveal how we saved between $99 and $366 this Christmas.

I know, I know, waiting is difficult. But I can’t feed you all the excitement at once…

Alright, you got me there. Actually I am stopping here because I am feeling very guilty that I am blogging, while letting my husband believe I am doing “real work“. And it’s getting late and I would quite like to get some sleep at some point. So thanks for listening, and Goodnight!

The first day of 2009 also marks the first anniversary of this blog.

I believe I might have really started blogging because I had such a depressing New Years Eve in 2007, watching Dick Clark’s Super Banging Rocking Old Time New Years Eve Jam or whatever they call it, while listening to fireworks. And then, at some point, I got online and came across a whole lot of bloggers who were planning awful  evenings also. A whole lot of other losers parents of young children who couldn’t easily get out of the house on the one day of the year you should be out partying. And that made me feel a whole lot better.

Now I have Twitter. So last night I knew I was far from being the only one. Also, I entered the Pioneer Woman’s competition for losers who were not out partying, and I was comment number over-10,000.

Last time we watched the Dick Clark thingy, and also a whole lot of other very very bad TV. But we did have champagne.

This time we downloaded the $1 movie on i-tunes.

Legally Blonde.

Also, instead of champagne we decided to go teetotal, then at the last minute changed our minds.

So we had to drink beer.

For New Years 2009, I don’t think we could sink any lower, unless we drink water and watch old silent Charlie Chaplin movies.

My first New Years Resolution: New Years Eve Party. My House. Be There.

PS:  Yes! This year I did get to see fireworks! At 12.30 when the neighbor started letting them off right in front of our house and woke up Baby Sister. Who was petrified and refused to let me leave her for the rest of the night. Her bed is very uncomfortable. But the fireworks were pretty. So maybe it was worth it.

Posting-wise, I am on an enforced slowdown right now. The whole household caught some awful respiratory virus and I have let things slide a little too much - now Christmas is only just around the corner. Panic!

I will mostly be blogging at Century Finds, and not about my children. I am not going to say goodbye though, because last time I said goodbye I couldn’t help popping back up again a few weeks later, which reeks a little too much of attention seeking behavior.  But don’t be surprised if this turns mostly into a photo blog

And here is my first photo. I don’t usually post photos of other people’s children, but in this case I hope it will be OK. Babies. They all look the same anyway don’t they? And they change so fast that he won’t be recognizable next week. Also if you dare try to kidnap him, you will have me to deal with. SO DON’T.

But I do want to share. Because this is my first ever great-nephew!

Don’t you just want to cuddle him? You don’t? You must be a man then! What are you doing on my blog?

(Are men allowed? Did I allow that? Mumble mumble, not sure. Now, where’s my zimmer frame?).

The memes are coming thick and fast! I guess that makes me famous, or something! (Probably the something).

Andrea at Sweet Life tagged me for this one and really, I am one of those people who seems a little bit normal on the surface but really? A little bit weird. So finding seven top secrets or oddities that no-one really knows? Not much of a challenge. Settle in, this promises to be a long post.

1. I used to think deathly thoughts

When I was maybe eight years old I would go to with my little sister to her friend’s house, and while they were playing with, oh I don’t know, dolls or something, I was holed up in the garden shed working my way through the stack of old Australian Womens Weeklys the friend’s mom kept in there. I remember two stories, one about a little girl my age who was bitten by a spider in some remote location and died before reaching hospital, and one about another girl my age who died after a valiant battle with leukemia.

We lived in a remote location and frequently visited even remoter locations (which may or may not have had spiders), and I personally knew two kids who had bone cancer. So of course I developed a morbid and top secret preoccupation with death.

Once another friend’s mother found some mushrooms under their house and insisted on cooking them for dinner that night. I had previously read the book “Is it a Mushroom or a Toadstool” from cover to cover and almost expired right then and there from the thought that I was the only person at that table who had not eaten the toadstools and would therefore soon be the only person living. I would have to watch them froth at the mouth and keel over and then I would have to wait there with all the dead bodies, including my sister’s, while my parents drove for an hour to come get me.

That is the kind of child I was.

I did get over my death watch, but only when I got through childhood and realized I was still alive.

2. I was forced to suffer dark-ages telephony

Between the ages of six and twelve my telephone number was 4 digits long. That was because we were latecomers to town and hadn’t managed to nab a 2 digit number. Even though some people still had party lines. (We had a private line because we were posh).

If you wanted to make a phone call you cranked the handle on the old black bakelite telephone and waited until the operator said “Number please!”.

You think I am kidding. I am not kidding.

We had a field trip to the telephone exchange when I was seven and it looked like this:

Except there were only two ladies and they were not wearing 1930s smocks. Obviously. Where did you think I was living? A museum?

(P.S. Yes. This was the Eighties).

3. When I was 19 I slept in train stations around Europe.

It has all started when I was living in Paris and earning, well, not very much.  Actually, I think nothing because I quit my job. I decided to visit Europe by Eurail. If you are not familiar with the concept, Eurail will sell you a special pass which allows you to ride European trains for a certain period. You pay upfront and then your tickets are free. But I immediately started running out of money. For a start, that free train travel didn’t turn out to be free. Some countries’ rail companies would demand a surcharge, others didn’t seem to recognize the ticket, and then there were all the little regional routes which weren’t included in the deal but turned out to be vital in getting to anywhere the least bit interesting. I had planned to stay in Youth Hostels but by the time I had paid for the bed, the bath towel and bought my daily loaf of bread and pot of Nutella, there was nothing left in my budget to actually visit much.

To cut a very long story short, I met a group of young people, who, like me, were traveling around. Except they were not staying in Youth Hostels. I rode trains with them for a while and then branched out on my own, sleeping mostly on the train but sometimes in the little regional stations, usually sitting up to avoid being woken by the station guard. I think there was a law about lying down, to deter tramps. Although they mostly left me alone because I very obviously did not look like a tramp.

(ha ha very funny. moving on. )

How did I manage this? I was 19 and and believed anything was possible. And I slept with a kitchen knife under my makeshift pillow.

4. I Wasted my Mother’s Hard Earned Money on Unnecessary Hair Treatments

I had a 1980s Poodle Perm all the way through high school, which cost my mother a frightening amount of money at the trendiest hairdressers in town. It cost her at regular intervals too, because I had long hair and insisted on getting it corrected each time the roots started to droop.

I was 17 when I started growing it out, and after that I wore it long and straight as was the fashion. (That was also all I could afford, what with my lounging my way around Europe and then becoming a student).

One day only a few years ago my aunt finally recommended I go see her hairdresser. She was good, she had won national competitions. But still never expected her to take one look at my hair and exclaim “you have curly hair!”

Sure enough, once she had cut it properly, I did.

Sorry Mum.

5.  I Am Confused about my Nationality

I am half French, half British. I grew up in the UK and then New Zealand. After I left high school I shuttled back and forth between New Zealand, France and the UK, eventually dragging my husband with me. We live in the US now and we think we’ll stay.

People ask what my nationality is and I still don’t know. I pass for a New Zealander. I make my way in France. Culturally, I am probably most comfortable in Britain. But rather than fitting in in all these cultures I kind of feel like I fit in none. I am at peace with that now. Sometimes it is actually easier to be a foreigner. People forgive you more easily if you get it wrong.

6. I have an atrocious memory.

Please forgive me if I forget your name (or call you Aaaan-Dree-a).

If we are supposed to meet up, I will remember it, but only because I write everything in a little red notebook. By the way, I am a cheap date - but only if your idea of a date is renting a DVD. Unless it was the best movie of all time, by tomorrow I will have forgotten most of the plot and the ending, and you can show it to me again. And again.

The memories are there, my issues are with retrieval, but none of those tricks and tips for remembering things work for me. So I associate you with a giraffe? That won’t help me remember your name unless I also remember that you are a giraffe. Now I have two things to remember.

This is one reason I will never join a book club. If there are more than three characters I can’t even keep them straight in my head while I am reading the book, let alone discuss their motives afterwards.

Maybe someday they will invent a memory pill. In the meantime, I have learned to manage mostly fine without it.

7. I don’t have the same last name as my children

I never took my husband’s last name. I have nothing against it except it is just as boring as my own last name.

Most people assume, but that doesn’t bother me either. I will answer to anything, as long as it is polite.

.

.

That’s it! I stayed up until 2am to finish, so it will have to do. I am too tired now to find someone to tag who hasn’t done this one already. Have you played this one? It’s fun! Let me know if you want to do it!

Disclaimer: I wrote this quite a few days ago and meant to post it, but then I got an uneasy feeling and asked The Daddy to proof read it first. He promptly declared that it made no sense whatsoever and what was I thinking. Once I had finished yelling at him for being so rude, not reading properly and all manner of other failings, I rewrote it, but I have to admit that it is still downright confusing.

Never mind. The days are passing and the Time Fairy still has not made an appearance to grant me the Gift of More Time, which means that another blog post will not be forthcoming in the near future. So I figured I would just post this anyway. Someone, somewhere might make sense of it. The key is to remember that Baby Sister speaks Native Texan, while her poor mother sounds more like Peter Jackson on helium ***.

You probably had to be there. Sigh. But look up! I did include a pretty picture!

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Baby Sister: “Mommy, the library at school is where they get the books for all the centers in the classroom”

The Mommy: “(OMG, what are they teaching her at school?) The sinners? It’s where they get the books for the sinners?”

Baby Sister: “No Mommy, they get the books from the library and put them in the centers in each classroom!”

The Mommy: ” The? Oh! They get the library books and put them in the centers!”

Baby Sister: “No! The centers! The centers!”

The Mommy: “You mean the senners? Mommy says centers, and you says senners. Right?”

Baby Sister: “Mommy! You’re saying it all wrong! I don’t mean that! You have to listen!”

The Mommy: “Sinners”

Baby Sister: “No!”

The Mommy: “Senners”

Baby Sister: “No!”

The Mommy: “Sennnnerrrrs”

Baby Sister: “No! No! No!”

The Mommy: “Saynnnnerrrrrs? Seeernnerrrs? ”

Baby Sister: “Yes, Mommy! That’s right! They put them in the centers!”

The Mommy: “That’s what I said. They take the books and put them in the centers.

Baby Sister: ” No Mommy! Centers! Santa is the man what comes at Christmas!”

(***I said “sounds like” ! I did not say “looks like” !)