It goes like this



The fourth, the fifth


The minor fall, the major lift


The baffled king composing Hallelujah


Hallelujah


Hallelujah


Hallelujah


Hallelujah ~ Leonard Cohen

As my mother will testify, because we are usually haunting her house in the weeks prior to audition time, whichever song Star has chosen is going to be extremely well known by everyone within cooee before she is done because Star does actually rehearse.
This year, after weeks & weeks of angst, she chose Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. Unfortunately of all the available versions to choose from the two Star liked were unsingable by her.  One was too low, the other pitched too high.  So what did Star do?  She meshed the two, dragged out the guitar & spent forever learning chords & her innovative version of a very well known song. 

Now Star in full flight rather reminds me of Mamma Cass of the Mamas & the Pappas.  Some of us remember who they were.  She has the range, the power & that beautiful clarity of tone.  Not that she always displays that for choir but we sure get the full benefit around here ~ & Hallelujah is the sort of song to have everyone humming along so as I drove her into her audition yesterday I was under a strict injunction not to hum along.  My strange child did not forbid my going in with her, only my making strange noises under my breath!

Now auditions are brief, just 10 minutes duration usually.  After 4 years with Alison, Alison has a pretty good idea what's going on with Star's voice so asked if we'd mind waiting while she slipped a new girl in.  Not a problem we thought.  Unfortunately she had a guitar with her & what she chose to sing was ~ yep! Hallelujah!

Star nearly died on the spot.  She prides herself on choosing a one of a kind song that she can be pretty sure no~one else is going to sing.  It rocked her though being carless she had opted to sing a capella as she usually does rather than lug her guitar case around.  Now remember I have heard Star sing this song day in day out for weeks on end.  I know how it is supposed to go, even given what Star had done to it, & the version I was used to hearing wasn't too bad though I have been on her case about her enunciation!  Just the same I thought it sounded ok.

Her audition did not sound ok.    Star went off the air, as she does sometimes, & totally mangled that poor song, which by no stretch of the imagination can be soul droned!  There was at least one really sour note which even made me wince.  Alison stopped her, set up a backing track for a version Star didn't know & off she went again. Ummmm, yeah. She did ok when she was able to follow the music but is was quite different to any of the versions we are used to around here.  Creative, was the term used to describe Star's audition piece.  Make of that what you may.

So while Alison chatted to me about Wicked Star eyed her sight reading piece.  Sight reading is usually something  of a shocker.  Star takes pot luck on hitting a note somewhere in the vicinity ~ or not, as the case may be. Random, opportunistic, totally hit & miss.  Yesterday she nailed it.  There was one really wrong note but Alison was surprised.  I was surprised.  Star was surprised.

Yes, Star's in.  Alison actually likes risk takers & as an educator, as a homeschooler, I know that the only true learners are the risk takers so all's good.  What's more the backing track to Hallelujah has been e~mailed through to Star because with a little work [& minus the Star meddling] it will sound pretty good ~ especially, Alison says, if Star has a listen to K.D Lang ~ which I did because I like K.D Lang.  This version gave me goosebumps.  Wow!

Though the mills of God grind slowly,: Yet they grind exceeding small ~ Longfellow

We are starting slowly ~ as always seems to be the case but the pace is starting to pick up now & soon we will be really chugging along.  Today Star is off for her AVAE audition.  Googling for my link I discovered we are already booked for performance next month & we aren't even in rehearsal yet!  Besides which the girl is still minus her performance pants.  And yes, it is in town!  I am practising breathing.....

As the girl went to her cousin's 18th last week, & he's nothing like local, school sorta nosedived before we'd even properly begun but we will gradually pick up our scattered threads again this week & hopefully settle into a solid routine shortly.

Meantime something awful has happened to the island car & Theo is heading home for a 3 week break.  It never rains but it pours.  So I am busy, busy, busy.  As always.

For those of you who know Amanda over at My Secret Garden.....

I had an e~mail from Amanda today.  She is fine.  No phone, no internet.  Only just now got her power back on but survived Yasi & using Maccas internet connection to let us know she is ok.  It will be a while until she is back on~line but I'm sure she'd love to hear from those of you who read over at her place. That is all, folks. ♥

All marriages are happy. It's the living together afterward that causes all the trouble. ~Raymond Hull

Marriage means commitment.  Of course, so does insanity.  ~Anon

We have been a family for 26 years...26 years!!! Oh, my goodness!  Where did all that time go?  The nappies? The bedtime stories? The trikes & bikes, the soccer balls & cricket bats?  And this house is like a revolving door: they comes in; they goes out.  Constantly.

Twenty~six years.  And then on Thursday Dearest & I found ourselves in a position we haven't been in in 26 years: we were the only ones home.  For 4 days.  Dino has gone camping.  The girls are down with their aunt & cousin & I looked at this man, the father of my children, this stranger I once travelled the world with, with a little sense of foreboding because this is what we are moving towards day by day, as inevitably as the rising tide; a house bereft of children.  Just he & I pottering around in a lot of empty space.

I have been a mother for a long time.  Twenty~six years in fact ~ & it is true that I will never stop being a mother even though, in many ways, I wasn't a very good mother.  Ask my kids.  I zone out well.  Ask Dearest.  He always said the kids could be swinging off the chandeliers & I wouldn't notice.  It's true.  I have well worn escape routes for when the chaos gets too much.  Just the same if something lasts long enough you get used to it.

I'm used to going to bed only to get up again to pick up a child off the last boat.  I'm used to children trying to carry on an unintelligible conversation with me from 5 rooms away, to talking at me through the loo door, to being asked the unanswerable: where did I leave...? I'm used to finding my spare change jar suddenly emptied because pay day is one day too far away.   I am used to  a child arriving just as I'm on the verge of sleep & going,"So, I was thinking this about God & wondering..."There are a lot of us & my days are inevitably a round of other people's schedules, other people's messes, other people.    For decades any conversations with Dearest have been punctuated with, " Hold that thought..."

Days are for living & each one is full.  Despite what the books say not all of us can do date nights with the hubby to keep the flame that ignited us in the first place alive.  Conversations are more likely to revolve around scraping together that extra $100 to pay the bills or whether somebody's shoes will last another fortnight before they simply must be replaced than deep philosophical questions

We've watched as our boys have wined & dined their girl of the moment declaring loudly how they want romance in their relationship. Um, well, romance is over~rated.  And I read my niece's declaration on FB that she wants a man who always thinks she's beautiful.  Why? When I can have something more, something better?  Nope, dearest rarely buys me a present, not even for my birthday or Christmas, & declarations of how beautiful I am have never been his thing either but when I go into meltdown over money matters & revert to howling at the moon Dearest crunches numbers & points out the light at the end of the tunnel.  When Star gets one of those e~mails with a 7am call time in some part of town I've never heard of before & I sob hysterically into the refedex Dearest calmly marks out my route, tells me how much time I need & assures me that I am perfectly capable of doing this ~ a viewpoint I don't always appreciate at the time but he's never been wrong yet.  When  hormones rage out of control through the house & I start thinking we've raised horrible little monsters who will do something very publicly unforgivable that will necessitate me moving into a well at the bottom of the world & never seeing the light of day again, Dearest reminds me that the hormones will reside & I need to breathe, practise a little detachment, have some chocolate.

Nor would I say Dearest is my best friend.  He's male for one thing.  There are some things he's just never going to get.  He's left brained & mathematical.  I need someone in my life who can cover that base for me.  We don't always see eye~to~eye.  We've ridden some rough seas over 26 years.  He's a dog man living in a cat woman's world ~ but we keep cats, not dogs.  Another man would have insisted on having his own preference. The man is a dyed in the wool carnivore; at different times in my life for a variety of different reasons I haven't eaten meat.  He adores seafood; I believe that what lives in the sea should stay in the sea!  I don't eat it; I don't cook it.  I've even been known to complain loudly when it arrives in the house.  At times I have left the house when the seafood's come in.  After 26 years plus I know this man can not meet all my needs.  After 26 years there've been days when Dearest has wondered which planet I think I'm living on or what on earth gave me the impression that if I ignored a problem for long enough it would go away. He nicked named me the Ostrich for my habit of burying my head in the sand.

We don't have the storybook marriage;  We're not the perfect couple, but you know what?  We have the marriage God designed for us ~ the one where we learn daily what it means to follow after Jesus, to prefer the other above ourself, to take up our cross.  I am more than I would have been without him.  He insisted I learn to drive.  He even bought me the only sort of car I would agree to drive as  incentive.  Where would Star be if he hadn't?  He has held the home base while I gadded around town with children babysitting my psychotic cats rather than a docile dog.  He has stood proudly behind me when I have had speaking engagements, strengthening me when I have qualms & that counts for something on the days I number all the ways I can dissect a body & dispose of the remains. Um, yeah. I have a vivid fantasy life!

Tonight the various wanderers return & bedlam once more reigns supreme but for 4 days Dearest & I have been able to give each other the space & attention that has been lacking for 26 years.  When the last one escapes the coop I think we will be ok.  We built our relationship on something more solid than romance or beauty & the core is still sound.  Despite everything.

Happy Birthday, Dukie!

 My mother took my girls with her for a longish weekend down N.S.W. way for *da Duke's* 18th birthday bash.

 *Da Duke* is my brother's only child.  Sorry you missed it, Markie.  You'da been proud. Star all dolled up & looking gorgeous!

 The red hat did the rounds.

Hamming it up seems to run in the family.

Me, myself, I

I got the above from Just Julie's  blog and made the answers my own. How about you?  You could cut and paste the above and fill in your own answers, or you could just share a few. If you do it on your blog, be sure to put a link to your blog in Julie's comments section so others can share.

I Am……

a ban file: wrong continent; wrong era; wrong language.



I Want……to go home & I wish Jesus would come get me.


I Should……choose one of the following: become organised
                                                              : get a grip
                                                              : Let it all hang out.



I Wish……it wasn't more fun to be bad than to be good.

I Hate……all of the following:  the trafficking of human beings made in the image of God; The use of children in the sex trade; the misuse of the resources God gave us because of greed; that some of us should have so much while others have so little & that those of us who profess to know & love God do such a lousy job of conveying that love to others.


I Fear…….standing before God & knowing I got it wrong.



I Hear……frogs & fans & the slow sough of the sea.


I Search……for the matching pair to all the single socks in my life.


I Wonder……what God's got planned for Heaven.



I Regret…….not having more kids, more cats, more madness in my life.


I Love…….My Lord, my kids, my cats, the blogging buddies who pray with me, pray for me & make me smile across the miles.


I Always……start my day with coffee.



I Usually……always carry a book wherever I go & the only places I don't read are the loo & the car.



I Am Not……mathamatically competant.



I Dance……in the rain


I Sing…….in the car with my Star.



I Never…….play math games


I Rarely……exercise


I Cry……when I pray, when I'm happy, when I love ~ & I laugh when I'm sad & frightened.



I Am Not Always……kind or patient.



I Lose……important papers that I put in special places so I won’t ever lose them.



I’m Confused……by directions


I Need…….books, quiet, beauty, God’s presence.



I Have……the most awesome God.

With apologies to my American buddies ~ but it's too funny not to share!  CNN had a major blonde moment.

It's really the cat's house - we just pay the mortgage. ~ anon

 My Aunty Shirl gardened & painted ~ pretty much in that order.  She did have a husband ~ & a fistful of children but they were no impediment to her true obsessions: dirt & paint.

Over the years my aunt moved house any number of times & while the builders laboured over roof trusses & floor joists my aunt scrabbled frantically in the rich red volcanic soil to produce a wild & tangled garden that would hide the ravages of the builders.

Trafalgar Vale was the house I knew & loved.  It was old.  It was geriatric.  It was falling apart & my aunt was not the sort of woman to have the sort of money needed for repairs. If I had been older I would have happily plonked down money for this monstrosity.  Perhaps happily I was too young to do more than mourn its passing.

For a while Shirl had a place on Mt Tambourine overlooking the Canungra Valley & the Gold Coast.  The view was spectacular but the garden was steep & the house little more than a ticky~tacky bread & butter box.  I was not enamoured of the house.  I liked Tambourine ~ still do, but the worms grew to the size of fat snakes & scared the living daylights out of me when I went walking barefoot at night.  It smelt all wrong too: too new paintish; too clean; too modern.

Then Shirl moved out Rathdowney way.  Yep, the same Rathdowney where Lid was working with alpacas last year.  I was a new mum & at Toowoomba with a brand new baby I wasn't quite sure what to do with. Following my aunt's uncertain directions & my own lack of direction I ventured out along the backroads between here & there for the occasional visit in a house that was half~finished with half the extended family already moving in.

I arrived the first time with a 5 week old baby to a bare house & a yard bereft of even a blade of grass.  The drought pretty much made gardening an impossibility so my aunt's attention unaccustomedly wandered to things housebound ~ always a dangerous preoccupation.  For 2 meals my aunt & I stared unhappily at the pristine white of her brand new living room wall ~ a large blank canvas that desperately needed something to lift it out of the doldrums.  "What it needs, " my aunt said dreamily, "is a tree or two." 

And so she put them there. It was a charming mural, the only drawback being that she could not take the wall with her when she moved house again.  Gotta wonder what she's painting on Heaven's walls now?!

It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it. ~Oscar Wilde



Many years ago, when I first moved to the island, I was delighted to find we had a library.  An island library.  Just down the road.  I didn't have to travel miles on public transport juggling 20 + books, 4 bored children & the month's shopping to boot.  Those who know me very well would have been worried for the children & groceries, suspecting I would ditch children & groceries & just keep the books.

Our beloved council bragged at how it provided us with our very own library. Let me take you on a tip down memory lane to the library council provided.  The *library* was a small room at the back of the community hall & when I say small trust me, it was small.  It was a hallway wide; the width of 2 doors, & about 12 feet long.  The metal shelving went from floor to ceiling around three sides of the room.  The 4th end held the librarian's desk & the actual door.  To reach the children's section my children had to slide round behind the librarian's chair & scrabble on the floor to dig through the books wedged into the shelving.  Anything I wanted was invariably out of reach, requiring gymnastic manoeuvres on uncertain furniture.  I'm sure council thought no~one ever borrowed anything from this horror house.  On wet days a line would form out the door & along the path because the room could literally hold no more than 1/2 a dozen people  ~& then only if we squeezed up tight.  On humid summer days the fan blew all the library paperwork to the ceiling but only sluggishly stirred the muggy air.  The air was like a blast from hell &, sweat streaming, did not encourage anyone to linger over choosing their reading material. Forget sitting.  There was no room for anyone to sit.

We didn't even have our own books.  Actually we still don't.  The books come on rotation from the mother lode in town & we invariably wait for anything that's popular.  And yet, our dear librarian, a very wonderful lady who loves us to bits despite the fact we always seem to have her filling in paperwork for inaccessible books [or she hands me the paperwork & I fill it in for her to ratify ~ ssshhhh] lobbied for years for better housing.  Council objected.  There weren't even 1,000 permanent residents living here ~ & not all of those read ~ so why would we need better library facilities?

Islanders tend to be a quirky lot &  jokes about the islands are many & unflattering but the simple fact is, per capita, we read more than any other part of the shire!  Statistics prove it.  Each month we go through a phenomenal amount of reading material for our population ~ & that includes our children's section.  Not everyone reads, that's true, but those who do read with a vengeance!

Well a few years back Council upgraded us & moved the library into an unused brick house.  We have computer access ~ one computer for the entire island but hey ~ that's an improvement on what we did have.  The picture books are properly displayed in open shelving & there is a child sized table & fun bean bags. The bulk is childrens & adult fiction ~ which leaves those of us who prefer meatier fare still lobbying through inter~library loans for something to read.  The non~fiction is 4 short lonely shelves on the back wall; YA gets 6 shorter shelves on the shortest wall of all.  Star haunts the place.  She has the rotation down by memory & when she knows the new books have hit the shelves she's on my case for a trip to the library.  I think she thought Council was generous ~ but then one day, while waiting for choir, I took her to the mainland library.  I don't think Star's recovered yet.  She was livid. 

Shelves & shelves & shelves of YA fiction.  More shelves & shelves of YA non~fiction.  The choices are endless.  Star filled her library card & we lugged all these books round with us but Star had steam coming out her ears.  She's listened to our librarian & I natter.  She's heard the stats.  She now suspects our council of throwing us the books no~one else wants to read & Star is on my case to leave a little earlier on Wednesdays so we can stop at the library on our way through.

At least we only have to lug the books one way.  We can return them on island & they go back with the regular rotation but you gotta wonder.  All the fuss & bother, song & dance about Queensland's numeracy & literacy levels & our council can't get it together to provide a really top~notch library for our kids.  Not all of us want to read the latest Mills & Boone or Zane Grey ~ or have our kids devouring vampire epics.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Kiss my Yasi. ~ Cairn's graffiti

Like most of Queensland, most of Australia, we have been glued to the cyclone tracker for the past few days ~ not only because these things have been known to bounce down the coast & ruffle our waters down here but because I have various bits of my family scattered in the hit zone.

My brother, a boatie, like the rest of the marine fleet in Cairns, had to move his boat up river & ride the night out as best he could.  I have a cousin in Cairns too, but at least she's land bound.  My older boy is at Townsville & my youngest on Hamilton Island ~ all places that suffered various degrees of angst during the night.

Now the sun's come up on a picture of devastation & Yasi is still zooming across the state & about to cross a state border into the Northern Territory but you know what?  Thank God.  Of all the placesYasi  could have crossed last night, including either of our biggest northern towns [Cairns or Townsville], it chose Mission Beach, a small, scarcely populated area, most of whom had been evacuated to safer ground.  Yes, phone towers are down & the power is out in thousands of homes & the clean up bill is going to be phenomenal but you know what?  This wasn't a Tracey.  We learnt something from Tracey.  I don't think any of us who are old enough to remember Tracey will forget the Christmas Morning pictures of Darwin, a thriving city, absolutely flattened to the ground ~ or the loss of life.  Happy Christmas, Darwin!

Tracey changed the building codes & most of the main structures in Yasi's path seem to be structurally undamaged ~ though only time will tell for sure.  The evacuations & preparedness of the north seems to have ensured there has been no loss of life ~ though again perhaps a little early to be sure.It seems to me God has had His protective hand over the people of Northern Queensland ~ & having ridden out a couple of category 3s ourselves I can only begin to imagine how terrifying it got last night as Yasi made landfall with all the impact of nuclear weaponry.

So the rain is still falling & there is flooding to come.  Outside my window it is so still, already warm & muggy, the bay lying like pewter glass.  Hard to believe that to the north of us Nature is still raging out of control but it is cyclone season  & chances are we aren't done yet.