Here are some photos of the evening.

New Year's Eve

Well it is NYE again. I always have very mixed feelings about New Years Eve. I would love to join in all the festivities but it all seems so fake. I can't really remember a New Year's Eve that I could call my best ever. I guess I must sound like a real misery guts.

Tonight, we are going to the Fireworks on Sydney Harbour. We plan to leave at about 4pm for the 9pm fireworks and make a picnic at Kurrabba Point, opposite Lady Macquarie's Chair. Donna was hoping her mum would be coming but she has changed her mind and deosn't want to. Karl won't be going because he is working and then going to a school friend's New Year's Eve Party.

This morning Adam and Iwent for a bike ride from Cecil Hills to Prospect along bike tracks. I nearly killed myself :-) trying to keep up with him. I am still feeling sore from it. I think I could use Adam as my personal trainer. Adam was going to go with me on Friday as well until we found out that Lauren is swimming at 5:30 again. Oh well. Back to my slower pace.

Christmas Holidays

I have been on holidays since Christmas Eve. On Christmas morning, while starting the bbq for our traditional Christmas barbecue breakfast, there was an explosion that singed the hairs on my arms, my eyebrows and my fringe, but did no other damage. Obviously, we didnt have a bbq breakfast.

We had lunch with my family at Therese's house. The last few years have been relatively peaceful as far as where we are having christmas since we managed to coordinate with all the in-laws, to have christmas together every second year. Jacinta was pushing real hard on Christmas day to have it in Uralla (mum and dad's place) in two years time. It is a romantic idea, but I can't see it working logistically. Besides the fact of being so far from the other side of the family, there is the extra stress of Christmas, and treading on each others toes as we squeeze into the house, plus, the wide variety of Santa and Christmas morning traditions would cause big problems. I dont think that Therese was too keen either, but I know that Jacinta is really pushing for it.

We spent Boxing Day at our house with Donna's family. Only 12 of us, so not too difficult. It was a full Christmas lunch and by the time we got through it for the second day in a row, we were pretty full.

Since then, we have been catching up with all the jobs that never get done when we are trying to keep up with all the kids activities. I went cycling again yesterday at Horsley Park.

I rode from the car park up to the Radio Antenna. That is the site of the mountain biking for the Olympics. I have had a short ride on the track but it is way beyond my abilities. Perhaps if I drove straight there and started fresh, I might be able to make it around, but I am not so sure. It is a great place to go, especially early in the morning. I often see rabbits, and of course, lots of birds. I will probably go again tomorrow morning.

Christmas Eve

I haven't posted for a while. Things have been busy at home. Karl got his HSC results and did very well. I was so relieved. I think he wouldnt have done anywhere near as well if he had been at a comprehensive school. He reminds me so much of myself in the way he gets distracted and avoids work (like I am doing right now). It is only the fact that the standard he had to work to was so high that he got a good result. I think if he had been the brightest student at a comprehensive, he would have rested on his laurels even more than he did.

Today is Christmas eve and just about everything is organised for Christmas. Thanks of course to Donna. I find her so hard to live with but she does an incredible job of organising the family.

I will be off work till the 6th January. Happy Christmas to anyone who happens by.

The Magic Mirror Technique

I read about this as an opportunity to use the struggles of marriage to learn more about yourself. It is hard to accept that this might be true. It is certainly true that I can learn more about myself by watching how I respond to Donna. I will try to pay more attention and blog about this when I learn something more.

Just before I left for Auckland, I found out that I had won a mountain bike in a raffle at a local photo shop. I was so excited. I have been out riding a few times since then, mostly at 5am after I take Lauren to the pool. I have really loved it. There are so many pluses. Seeing the sunrise, the exercise. I have disovered this really cool place to ride. It was the mountain bike and equestrian centre for the Olympics so there are heaps of tracks. I am just going on the cement ones at the moment but if I get fitter, I may progress to the grass and then even the real bike tracks.

I also found a track that takes me back via Prospect Reservour to my house with virtually no travelling on roads. This is going to be so much fun.

The thing that most struck me about this article was not gullibility, but rather how sad it is that people would be so poor that cutting off their hair for $4 would be worth considering. I wish I had a way of showing this to my children so that they would realise how lucky they are.Hair-raising hoax - www.smh.com.au

What a morning. I managed to wake before 7am, which surprised me since my body thinks it is 5am, then had a leisurely breakfast and wandered round the block to what i thought was the office of Wizard in Auckland. I had gotten the address from the White pages on line and since it was only one block from where they had put me up, it made sense. when I got there it was an empty shell. I looked in the paper white pages and they had another address, and I looked on our database on my Laptop and yet another address, that seemed incomplete to me. I called the office and got a recording, so I am sitting here waiting for 9am when they will hopefully answer the phone. I have also sent an email to my contact hoping that he will answer. I have a horrible feeling that I will have an hour drive to where I have to go. Talk about "The best laid plans of mice and men ...".

Well here I am in an internet cafe in Auckland. I am feeling tired but it is only 5:42 to my body. I will be going back to the Hotel to have dinner soon, then I guess I will probably watch a movie. It feels really strange being here and not knowing anyone. I dont really want to spend a whole lot of money so I can't really go to a bar to meet someone. It is not something that I really feel all that comfortable doing anyway. I am staying at the Quay West Apartments which are two minutes walk from the harbour.

I am sitting at the International airport waiting for boarding. I arrived at the designated 2 hours before and was amazed that it took 45 minutes to get through check-in and immigration. Standing in line for most of that time.

I am catching myself feeling a sense of self-importance sitting here with all these jet setters. It takes quite an effort to remind myself that there is nothing about traveling overseas that indicates that I am better than others. It is funny, I think I spend a huge amount of my mental effort convincing myself that I am special. This tends to be by constantly comparing myself with others. When I realize that I am special and loved by God, regardless of what I do, it is very confusing. It requires me to rewrite the tapes that I play to myself as I wander through life. One that I am trying out at the moment is to focus on another person, and imagine that they are part of me. However, I tend to mainly choose attractive women and so my reflection gets distracted by lust.

I am also annoyed with Donna. I can understand that she is jealous and annoyed that she will have to do more work with me away for a couple of days, but it is like I can’t show any enthusiasm for the trip without her getting angry. If she had the chance to do something like this, I would want her to have a good time and enjoy herself.

Off to New Zealand

I am off to NZ tomorrow morning for two days at our office in Auckland. It will be nice to visit the offices there. This is my first 'overseas' trip for work. I may get to go back again when we implement the software, but I cant imagine many more trips while working for Wizard.

Apparently I will be staying in apartments about two minutes walk from the harbour and five minutes from the office. I dont know how much free time I will have but I will have tomorrow afternoon anyway. I get there at 4:30pm, although who knows how long it will take to get through customs.

I got really angry (mostly internalised) this morning about the most ridiculous thing. Lauren had been playing games on my phone and had left it on a chair. I left home without it and realised before I got to the station that I didnt have it. I was really angry with her for not putting it back. Pretty silly really because it was me who forgot the phone.

Donna says I am a very grumpy person. I am not sure. I think that I repress my anger. Perhaps not as well as I would like. I have a lot of trouble with anger. I guess I am probably over sensitive to it.

I just found out about this incredible idea. BookCrossing - Home - FREE YOUR BOOKS! I signed up yesterday and had a book before the end of the day. I am pouring through my bookshelves for books I can release.

It is such a wonderful idea on a number of levels. It is exciting to release books, it is a great way to pass on your books and it could inspire others to share. I love it.

Attachment

How easy it is to fall into the traps of attachment. I watch myself and see myself becoming annoyed at so many silly things. I get angry that someone has deprived me of some unimportant thing that I felt entitled to. I catch myself feeling self important when I have achieved something and forget that I am not my achievements. It seems that with every person I see, I notice something about them that makes them (in my mind) less than me. It is only when I see myself doing this that I realize the foolishness of it all.

I watch all this and give myself a pat on the back when I see how well I am observing myself and how much better a person I am becoming as a result. Then the watcher has a little chuckle and wonders how will I ever get over my greatest attachment, to I.

It doesn't seem to matter that my head is conscious of awareness. In a way it does, because when I see myself engaging in my longings for a different future, I am able to pull back slightly. But I still find myself constantly dreaming of that future when things will be better than they are today. When I won't have to spend most of my non-work time running after children. When Donna won't be trying to control my life, when I will have an intimate relationship where heart speaks to heart (and body to body of course). I can understand that by living in this imaginary future, I am denying my present, yet I continue to do it. How strange.

Baghdad Burning is a BLog from a girl in Bagdhad. It is incredible to read what is happening first hand. Some of the political impressions may be wrong but it is still incredible.

I think this Control issue may be useful to me. I am surprised at how much it comes up now that I am conscious of it.

It suddenly occurred to me that I have a real fear of being controlled. Perhaps that is why I have such an issue with authority. I resist Donna trying to control me so strongly. I love using the computer because I feel in control. I like to help people with computer problems because I am competent and in control. I resist parties etc because I cant control the conversation. I may be taking this too far, but it is worth considering.

Lauren has settled in well to her new coaching squad and is starting to improve her times again. She is off to Hobart next week for the All Schools National Swimming Championships. She is close to some of the qualifying times for Paralympics but not there yet. I think her attitude has improved a lot. Earlier I think she just assumed she would make it. More recently, she has realised that she needs to work hard to achieve anything.

Karl continues to spend more of his time doing music and other activities than his HSC. He is involved in Antioch and as you would expected, he has gone straight into a 'leadership' role even though he is one of the youngest there. He started doing guitar lessons last week. Apparently this is in preparation for a weekend that they are running in July. It wouldn't surprise me if he was competent in such a short time.

I am up to my eyeballs in testing for some new software that is due to be released in July. It looks like it is going to be really successful.

I notice as I reread this and other contributions that almost all of what I call 'My Life' is really the things that I do for the kids. Most of what I do for myself is in my head. Books, websites, computer programs, daydreaming, hypnosis and people watching. I guess this is typical for an Introvert, but it doesn't quite seem right! Sometimes, I look at this as not doing anything for myself and resent the people around me (Donna and the kids). It seems obvious when I think about it that I do do plenty for myself.

We went up to Newcastle Hospital to visit Nicola and Gianni last week. She is well and hopefully is home from hospital today. All of Nic's kids were down in Newcastle to visit when we went there. It was great to see them all. They were staying at Ronald McDonald House and having a great time. I had never really thought about it before but it provides such a wonderful service for families who need to be near their sick relatives. We felt so comfortable there and were really pleased for Nicola and her family.

Lauren has had some turmoil recently, with her coach Vanessa announcing that she was going to move to Toukley. We were given only one week to find new coaching. This was very annoying for us and upsetting for Lauren. Thankfully we have found something convenient and it may end up being better for us than Emerton in the longer run.

Nicola had a baby girl yesterday. Gianni. She was born with Downs Syndrome and had to have an operation for a problem in her duodenum. I am feeling very heavy on their behalf as I think about what they will have to deal with. Especially as they already have 5 kids under 8. I cant imagine how they will find enough time for the kids, let alone each other.

Lauren has been competing at the State Championships the past week. She has done incredibly well. She had a very full program and we were concerned that she wouldn't last the whole week. Today is her last day and so far she has done all PBs or just over and has had one third, 4 fourths and 2 sevenths. This in an open field that includes four people who competed at the World Championships. She is very happy with how she went.

It is my boss's first day back at work after being off since the 20th December. I have done a lot of work on the report and expanded it dramatically. I am confident that I have done a good job, but my confidence took a dent. It is also Donna's first day back at work today too. She has been on tenterhooks, for months because she is uncertain about her future since she was employed to fill a maternity position. The person she replaced has made no effort to return or even make contact and it is past 12 months now, so Donna will be sorting out a permanent position this week. I know she will feel a lot more relaxed once she has done that. Both Lauren and Adam are on Camps this week, for swimming and rugby league.