Halloween Party 2016

I don't blog much these days. But you didn't think I could ignore Halloween did you? A quick search on the word 'Halloween' on my blog turns up 22 posts (?!), including this one (2015), my first one (2012) and my Halloween poem - so it's no secret I love Halloween.

Tupperware

Today I went to a Tupperware party, the second one I have been to in my life. The first one was about 15 years ago when, if I remember correctly, I came to my cousin's house, drank some wine and admired some plastic stuff, and didn't buy a thing.

How not to be annoying on Facebook

There are four kinds of people on Facebook:

1. People who post happy braggy stuff about their kids, spouses or holidays, and kind of annoy everybody

2. People who post inspiring or melancholy quotes in script font on meadowy pictures, and kind of annoy everybody

3. People who post political rants and opinions, and kind of annoy everybody

4. People who post an engaging mix of news, articles, jokes, current events, personal life, family tidbits, occasional celebrations, completely on-point social observations, witty and relevant opinions and a bit of self deprecation, and who never annoy anyone at all, ever.

I am obviously in the fourth category!  I just know I'm never annoying to anybody, ever. *

So why can't everybody else manage this as effortlessly and gracefully as I do?

Ha ha. Do we all see ourselves, and Facebook, this way?  I suspect we do.

This is quite funny - it's a little dated now as most people have by now self-corrected for the most annoying stuff that used to plague Facebook (I haven't seen a "vaguebook" status for awhile, or a humblebrag), but I'm sure we can all recognise our Facebook friends - and ourselves - in at least one of these: 7 ways to be annoying on Facebook.


And yes, I do actually enjoy reading what my friends are up to on Facebook!

* I might sometimes be guilty of mommyjacking. And unintentional one-upping when trying to express empathy. And using stupid immature words like "OMG". And sharing news stories that validate my personal viewpoint on something with a comment that basically means "I always knew this!"  Other than that, I'm not annoying at all.

Minecraft Part 1: What the hell are you talking about, kids

I thought I was a very tech savvy parent and secretly felt pretty smug about my preparedness for my kids to gradually enter the fray of online life.  Then along came Minecraft.

I'll admit, gaming has been a bit of a black hole for me. What little I know about gaming I have gleaned from 9Gag and Gamergate (which, you know, both make gaming seem super awesome).

I am, however, a technophile and ambitious to know it all. I mean, I switched from an iPhone to a Samsung two years ago, so I'm like, pretty cutting edge.

Now that the kids have an Xbox, I fully intend to give up some Netflix time to learn how to steer the goddamn Need for Speed car down the middle of the highway instead of careening from barrier to barrier and getting stuck in reverse, and I am looking forward to trying a first-person shooter game to see how violent it makes me.

But commanding the Xbox controller is, like, hard. Why are kids immediately so dextrous at this stuff? I cannot get all my fingers plus my brain to work in unison. I cannot get my car or skateboarder to go more than a couple of metres without crashing. This is a good way to immediately feel like your own parents as your kids try and keep the laughter out of their voices while they show you how to use the technology. Karma.


Back to Minecraft...

The kids have long loved Minecraft and spend a borderline unhealthy amount of time glued to their screens building stuff and playing interactive games.  And here's where I (also) got caught napping. I had no idea you could play Minecraft online.

When my kids started having run-ins with online etiquette and trolling, they came to me with complaints and lengthy descriptions of online interactions I could barely understand. And I thought I knew about online interactions! I was a bit shocked and had to have some quick tutorials from my ten year olds on what the hell they were talking about.

Here's the deal: you can join servers run by other people and build stuff in their world, or play battles or racing games where you are playing against, and interacting with, other players. This whole world is subject to a whole lot of arcane rules and etiquette the kids pick up fairly quickly, but is also obviously subject to the whims of the people running it.

There are also the usual dispiriting online spats between friends where someone gives some people access to a game but not others, or kicks one person out for bad behaviour but lets their best friend behave worse, etc. There are days when this seems to be happening all the time and I have to tell the kids to take a break from it and do something else, and sometimes they even listen to me.

The thing with online play is that your kids can be sitting calmly in the lounge room tooling around on their iPod and you can be sitting a metre away, and a whole world of turmoil can be going on where they show no sign and you have no idea.

For me (and I'm trying not to sound smug here, as I know I don't have this solved) the answer is to try and be involved enough to understand what's going on and be interested in the games and the online world so they will talk to me, and we can talk about the problems as they come up.

There are millions of kids playing Minecraft. Most Minecraft players these days are probably under 13, but there are a lot of adults too.  My kids and I have talked a lot about this, what it means and what they need to keep in mind. We've had a couple of ugly moments, but for the most part, it's been fun and educational and the girls have been handing it well.

There are Minecraft glossaries and guides online you can Google if you want to know how redstone is used, or what a creeper or an Enderman is - this one is a good place to start - but they don't have the words my kids and their friends are using when they talk about interactive play.


Here are the Minecraft words I hear all the time and what they mean:

Minecraft online play words and meanings 

Seed - the code that Minecraft uses to generate terrain and content in worlds you create. There are online directories where people have shared good seeds or people pass them on through word of mouth. The reason these are valued is that without a good seed you have no idea where you will "spawn" to start your game: it could be awesome terrain, or it could be "a bland, uninspiring world full of flat grassland and the odd chicken" (that sounds familiar as that's what I got the one and only time I tried to play Minecraft on my own)

Server - any Minecraft player can set up a game on a Minecraft public server and others can join if they have the IP address of the server (which is passed around by word of mouth or found in the Minecraft public server directory)

Admin - person who runs the server, gives access to players and polices behaviour

OP - "give someone OP" - full access to all the available commands. The Admin as someone who is already OP gives OP status to other users. If you are given OP, it is generally bad form to give others OP without permission from the Admin.

Donate - Admins will sometimes ask players to donate money to the server, which is fair enough when it's a couple of dollars to help with the cost of an established game, but can be a bit rich if players are asked to donate as soon as they join, or if it's more than a couple of dollars, or if it's in return for getting a ban removed, etc.

PvP (player vs player) - term refers to interactive play with other online players, but my kids and their friends (in which case others they play with online as well) are using it as a noun to mean the server/game hosting the play, e.g. "I was on an awesome pvp yesterday but I updated my iPod and now I've lost it"

Grief (verb), Griefer (noun - person who griefs) - destroying things others have built, generally causing trouble in the game

Lag (verb) - perform moves that cause the game to lag - a major infraction that can get you banned. Eg flying.

Kick - to be "kicked" is to be kicked out. Not as bad as being banned because you can usually get back in, but it is done as a warning, or in a fit of pique

Ban - you can get banned for griefing, lagging, trolling, speaking in all caps, using annoying phrases like "lol" or "yolo" or... all sorts of things really! I will cover that in Minecraft Part 2...

Wallpaper image by dkjjr at Minebook

Halloween keen

As I've mentioned before, I love Halloween.

My formative trick or treating experiences in Los Angeles as a child were fantastic, and the whole thing was just so much fun. So I have been gung ho ever since it looked as if Halloween might take off here.


It hasn't. It probably won't. Too many people don't like it. It's a bit of a shame, as it's such easy, harmless fun.


From a good strong start three years ago, Halloween has sputtered out a bit in our suburb; last night I got three trick or treaters and one of those groups was a kid from two streets away who knows I do Halloween and probably headed straight here when she left her house.


As always, I massively over-catered with a deep casserole ("cauldron") and a fruit bowl full of lollies from which our kids and their friends ended up doing massively well.

The kids and I had decorated the house and attached balloons and skulls to the fence and lamppost to attract the roaming hoardes... to little avail. 

At one point I saw some kids hesitate at the end of our street, and I almost opened the door and called out to them. Then I remembered that would be weird.

However, always hopeful, I manned our front door and dipped only occasionally (i.e., quite often) into my overflowing cauldron to munch on jelly eyeballs and Milky Ways.

My kids were originally meant to meet at a friend's place for trick or treating but the parents had to cancel, so everyone met at our place instead.  While I tried not to eat all the good lollies the other three mums walked the streets with our gang of zombies, witches, skeletons, gypsies, grim reaper/Scream ghost and Batgirl.

The kids had a great time roaming the streets and knocking on doors. Most of those doors didn't open, but those that did were (as always) friendly and most had candy or treats.

Once plastic buckets were full, they all came back to our house. After a big bowl of potato wedges and cold drinks the kids played outside and we mums all sat down with a glass of wine. It was a fantastic evening and if I end up hosting a Halloween party at my place every year, I will be very satisfied.


Or... maybe I will set up a light show, some dry ice and a Vincent Price soundtrack to attract more trick or treaters?

What - too much?

The strange world of competitive calisthenics

If you are a female who grew up in Australia, chances are at some stage you tried your hand at Calisthenics.

I have dim memories of doing calisthenics for a very short time, and very clear memories of my mother's annoyance at being told off by a team official for having sewn sequins in the wrong way on a pink headpiece.  In those days when "all" mothers were home (and the rest were assumed to be), mothers were given patterns and had to sew all the costumes themselves.

These days, thankfully, this is not expected at most clubs, though the costumes are still made by someone. In our case, it's the mother of the calisthenics coach, who has made all the approximately one million costumes used by the team.

Calisthenics, for non-Australian readers, is a competitive team sport that combines elements of floor exercises, ballet, rhythmic gymnastics and marching. It requires concentration, balance, control, flexibility, strength and rhythm. It's practiced in the competitive sense only in Australia, and is currently 100% female (so I learned from Wikipedia).

My daughter M has been doing calisthenics for about six months. She does it because her friends do it, and I'm happy with it because it is very cheap for a kids' sport, it fits in perfectly with A's weekly karate lessons (which are NOT cheap), and because M is a little accident prone and the balance and co-ordination can only help her.

M is in a 7-10 year-old Sub Juniors team (known as "Subbies").  This weekend marked the end of the 2014 competitions with the Victorian State Titles. 8 Sub Junior teams competed in 10 events, and I will not shy from admitting it was a LOOOONG day.

It was also my day for helping out in the dressing rooms as a rostered mum, along with two others. Though I initially thought I had drawn the short straw being rostered to the biggest competition that went from 9am to 3.30pm, in fact it was the best, because (a) better than sitting in the audience watching every team perform every event for all those hours and (b) with so many teams there was plenty of time between each event so it was easy to get the girls get ready in time. Plus, being the last comp, the girls all knew the drill and mostly dressed themselves anyway. My chief duty was hanging up costumes in the girls' dress bags after each change.

I will insert a short plea here, if you are the parent of a calisthenics competitor, please do use an easy-access dress bag, and you know what? Don't bind all the coat hangers together with a rubber band. That is seriously annoying, and no one is going to steal your coat hangers.

Anyway, it was kind of fun, or at least a different way to spend 6 hours. As with every comp, we got up at 6 in the morning to do M's leg tan and then her hair. The hair takes the longest, needing to be gelled and scraped into a high bun, attach a "wiglet" and secure it all with a thousand hair pins. Makeup is minimal in our club, just foundation, then at the comp the coaches add eye liner and pink lipstick.

As we don't have a car right now, my friend MN (mother of M's friend V in the same team) drove us all there and back. She had done two girls' hair because N the mother of the other friend G, can't do it, so N made us all large cafe-quality coffees to drink in the car. Quite a good way to start the day when it has to be started that early.

The comp venue was a lovely theatre attached to a college, and it was a beautiful sunny day, so the constant walking back and forth between dressing room and theatre (via the outside), was no strain.

I spent my free time either watching some of the events, sitting outside in the sun or chatting with others in the foyer.


The events were Marching, Clubs, Rods, Free Exercises, Aesthetics and Song and Dance.
My favourite event is Marching, followed by Free Exercises. My least favourite is Song and Dance, which is like cabaret for kids.

I like the Marching because M's team does an AWESOME routine with quite complicated choreography to a rousing Irish tune, and it's great to watch.

Free Exercises is where you see the backbends, leg lifts, splits, headstands and cartwheels. Some of the girls who have been doing calisthenics for years are amazing in this event. It's quite incredible what they can do. It's like a mixture of pilates and cheerleading.

Club swinging is difficult but frankly a little boring to watch. I shouldn't say that, because our team placed first in the Clubs event yesterday. But, it's not my favourite thing.

Rods: think, baton twirling. It's also difficult, and looks good when done well.

The Aesthetics is very pretty. All the girls wear long floaty dresses and do graceful slow dances to beautiful music.  Unfortunately our team's song was 'When She Loved Me' from Toy Story 2, which has always, and I mean ALWAYS made me cry. It's so freaking sad!!!

Fortunately, watching this song performed over 4 rehearsals and 4 competitions, finally got me to the point (about a week ago I guess) where I could safely sit through it without my nose turning red and my eyes blinking furiously, so by the day of the last competition I was fine.

My daughter was SO beautiful up on stage, standing apart from the team in her very own spotlight, in her long blue dress, her hair piled up on her head over her beautiful long neck, and making the kind of graceful, controlled movements of which I could hardly believe she was capable.

Taking photos at competitions is strictly verboten, but here is a snippet of M at her first rehearsal:

I still find Calisthenics a somewhat weird activity. I'm not really sure how much M actually likes it, or whether she will continue. She doesn't hate it, and she has improved her flexibility and balance since she started, and she gets to spend more time with her friends. Plus it's a cheap activity and other than having to help out backstage for one competition every year, it's no hassle for the parents. So for all that I'm happy with it.

What is/was your favourite/least favourite kids' activity?

Words for Wednesday: A Halloween Poem

'Words for Wednesday' is a writing prompt held by Delores at Under the Porch Light.
Use some or all of the week's words, write a poem or a story or a fragment, and visit Delores' current week's prompt to let her know you've joined in.

This week I used Delores' second prompt:

She couldn't think.  Her mind was full of pumpkin mush.

Here is my story:


Halloween came darkly, and the moon was very big 
Anna donned her costume, and tucked her hair into her wig.

The cries of children - 'Trick or Treat!' - floated through the night
Excited voices, running steps, squeals of sweet delight.

Anna stood inside her door, wishing she was there
But Anna had no little friends; those children didn't care.

Her mother let her dress up, and stand beside the door
To hand out treats to other kids, while wanting so much more.

To walk the streets with just one friend - that's all she wanted: one!
To share some secrets, laugh at jokes, and have some childhood fun.

The kids at school were not her friends; they barely spoke her name
And when they did they frowned or laughed - and Anna burned with shame.

They all thought she was quiet and odd, and so she was, she guessed
She spent most of her time alone, apart from all the rest.

Anna peeped outside the window set beside the door
The moon gleamed large and silvery... then seemed to glow some more.

Anna frowned and closed her eyes, then opened them again
The moon was even brighter, and it pulsed a little then.

There came a whoosh, like a sigh, that rippled on the breeze - 
'A wishhh' it whispered gently, as it rustled through the trees.

Anna squeezed her eyes shut tight; a tear fell down her cheek
'A friend,' she whispered softly, her wish fervent, her voice meek.

The moon glowed even brighter. Then it shrank to normal size
Anna blinked away her tears, and slowly wiped her eyes.

The doorbell rang. 

She opened up; it was some kids from school.
'Trick or treat!' they yelled with glee, and took candy from her bowl.

She closed the door. But when she did, the doorbell rang again
And this time when she opened up, there was just one child there.

The boy seemed roughly Anna's age, but they had never met
He smiled and held out his hand. He hadn't spoken yet.

He seemed a different kind of boy; he had a solemn gaze
And somehow he was bathed all in a gentle, milky haze.

'You need a friend,' he said to her. 'And these days, I do too.
I'm far from my old home and friends. They can't see me like you do.'

He took her hand and squeezed it. 'You are kind,' he said
'I think that that is all I need, to call you my good friend.'

Although it should have made her blush, she found she couldn't think
Her mind was full of pumpkin mush; all she could do was blink.

Anna's mother called to her. 'Close the door!' she barked
'What are you doing standing there, staring at the dark!'

Anna didn't feel afraid. The boy was by her side.
She closed the door and smiled, as she led him safe inside.

Family Affirmations

Good friends of ours recently adopted a child, and are applying their endless love, energy and strength to the process of building their family. They are the most wonderful, deserving parents ever and they are doing a magnificent job enfolding their beloved and lovely son into their lives.

It's been hard, at times, of course, for all three of them. But what you feel coming off them all, in waves, is love and determination.

My friend is making a family affirmations list, which she will make into a large poster or artwork in their house. She is still working on it, but she posted her first draft on Facebook the other day and I found it so moving I asked her if I could post it here.

In this family:
We do real
We do mistakes
We do I’m sorry
We do second chances
We do fun
We do crazy
We do laugh
We do rest
We do help
We do care
We do dreams
We do prayer
We do respect
We do polite manners
We do hugs
We do forgiveness
We do gratitude
We do honesty
We do bravery
We do really loud
We do our best
We do family
We do love

Now that's a family on the right track.

IngridTaylar/Flickr Creative Commons

Sunday Selections #137

It's time for Sunday Selections!
This is a weekly meme started by Kim of FrogPondsRock as a way to showcase some of the many photos we all take, but don't get around to showing on our blogs. Sunday Selections is now hosted by River at Drifting Through Life.

The rules are very simple:-

1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title

2. link back to River somewhere in your post

3. leave a comment on River's post and visit some of the others who have posted and commented

This week, I've chosen photos of Jells Park.

These were taken in April this year.   I love this view in any weather, looking down the expanse of grass towards the lake.

And the kids love running all the way to the lake. Until one of them trips and falls, which happens most of the time.  We're not a running family. Or a big outdoorsy family. But we do love Jells Park.

I've always loved this sign by the lake that says not to feed the ducks.

Because they get fat and can't escape stray cats:

The shots below were taken in December 2011, when we went with friends to Carols by Candlelight. It was a lot of trouble with all the picnic-preparing, paraphernalia-carrying and the walking to and from the car park miles away, but it was a great afternoon and night and the kids all loved it. I have some beautiful shots of four kids having a great time, but none with obscured faces that I can post here. But here are some shots of the park and the sky.

We arrived early. Very early. They were still setting up. We picked our spot and settled in.

A few hours later, the show started, with introduction by Pete Smith:

In short time, the grounds were full and the show was in full swing:

The best thing about Jells Park is the huge sky. This was an accidental shot and is one of my favourite photos I've ever taken:

And lastly, pure sky:

Pictures From Thessaly, Greece

A year ago we were in Greece, having the BEST family holiday.
I am still to make up photo books to send our relatives there, so I'm organising my photos now to get that done.

Meanwhile, in the midst of winter here in Australia, here is a little bit of remembered summer from Thessaly, central Greece.

Elassona, Olymbos

Drymos Elassona - Y's village, and family home

My mother in law's front porch where we sat and drank coffee and whiled away the mornings and late afternoons

View across neighbor Marianthi's house to Olympus

The back garden 

Approaching Drymos from Elassona

views from the road to the village

approaching Drymos

My mother in law's front yard and sister in law Vicki's beloved cats

The family's old sheep run, where we collected pears from a tree. Unfortunately, they were awful.

Drymos is from an old word for "oak forest" and has about 750 residents. It is known for agriculture and goat herding and the festival of the prophet Elijah on July 20 - which, thanks to my broken arm delaying our flights home, we got to stay for last year.

Afissos, Pelion

Afissos is near Volos in the Pelion region. Y's friend has a restaurant there - Selini - which is featured here in the photos of blue check tablecloths and the first photo below.

Selini restaurant

For some unknown reason I didn't get any photos of Mt Pelion itself, or the beautiful mountaintop village of Tsagarada which has a spring with the purest and most delicious water I have ever had anywhere, in the world.  But you can see and read a bit about them here.

Leptokarya, Pieria

 From Y's village we drove up and over Mt Olympus...

... with a stop at the mysterious "magnetic" area that appears to make water and cars in neutral run uphill (but which may just be an optical illusion)...

...and into Leptokarya, which is a beach resort which doesn't look like much at first glance but is a gateway to other beautiful beaches and a different side to Greece than I had seen before.

It also has a summer carnival, which was fun for the kids.

Pantelimona, Pieria

The spot I immediately wished we'd stayed in instead of Leptokarya. Tiny, very very quiet, and beautiful.

Scotinos and Platamonas, Pieria

Beautiful, vast quiet beaches and lovely scrubby nettly roads all around.

Until next time, glorious Greece... Filakia! (kisses)