Tanya's Blog

“But, I’ve never come first before, Mom” was Tamsyn’s refrain when I chided her ever so gently for her rather loud excited chatter as we left the Braun (her club)  Inter-Club Gymnastics competition on Saturday.  “You can be as excited as you like in the car” I kept saying to her.  Do I sound a little harsh?  Maybe, but all around her were rather miserable gymnasts and I suspect her yelling at the top of her voice “I still can’t believe it!!” wasn’t exactly helping their mood.  Of course on here we can brag all we like :)

So here goes……

Tied first on floor with 9.20

First on vault with 9.00

First on beam with 9.30

(We’re not talking about bar…. issues still remain to be resolved, we hope by her coach finding out what the hell she’s teaching them that is wrong).

First overall with an average of 8.825

 

That’s my girl :)

So proud :)

Of course readers might be fooled into thinking I have only the one daughter because Jessica never seems to feature on here.  “I don’t want my photo taken”, “Get that camera out of my face”, “Geez Mom, leave me alone!” 

 

She’s 12 going on 24, I’m sure I need say no more.  (I will say though, she is beautiful and growing up to be a lovely young woman – now if I could just get her to come out of her room or clean it!)

Life has a habit of getting in the way of doing things, reason why I haven’t updated the blog in awhile is because of life.  You know, the general run of the mill stuff that happens and before you know it – a week or so has gone by and  you realise not only have you not updated your blog, but you haven’t even been to the house to monitor the progress.  I truly envy people who seem to be able to fit so much into a day – either they have way more energy than me or they’re just better at organising their lives.  When I got divorced I bought a book Idiots Guide to Time Management (comes from being told on numerous occassions that I can’t manage time) – haven’t read it yet.

Anyhow, I’m still seriously chuffed with the ceiling in the lounge – it has made a huge difference to the appearance of the house. I’m eagerly awaiting the tiling of T’s bathroom and looking forward to the kitchen taking shape.

On a totally different note, why is it that people find it odd that I went back to my maiden name when I re-married?  Case in point – took J’s enrolment forms for High School to the school – well attempted to at any rate.  Very friendly lady went through them with me and when she noticed that mother and father live at different addresses asked the logical question – ‘So, you’re divorced then?’ to which I reply ‘Yes, but I’ve since remarried’   ‘Ah’ she goes ‘and your new surname would be…’ whilst rifling through the papers to find the copy of my ID book. 

‘I went back to my maiden name.’  

‘Oh.’     silence

‘I’ve attached a copy of the marriage certificate as well as the rates bill so that you can see the connection’  (House is registered in W’s name).

‘Oh.’   silence…   ‘Let me just go and check with the bursar if that is ok.’

My turn to go ‘oh’.

After some time she comes back to say that is fine, almost as if they’re giving me permission to take my maiden name again (hello!) …. still wouldn’t accept the forms though because the father hasn’t signed them yet.  I did explain that he was at sea, that he had sent an email to explain, but nope that wouldn’t suffice.  She did however assure me that waiting for the signature wouldn’t jeapardise J’s chances of getting into the school.

 The mind boggles sometimes.

Reminds me of a line from a song…. “This is a man’s world“   *grumble*

Tamsyn participated in an inter-club gymnastics competition on Saturday, hosted by ACS at Edgemead Primary School.  Poor kid though had an awful competition, started out badly with her performing first on the bar and getting a score of 7.10 – to put the score into perspective, it is the lowest she’s ever got, kids who fell off the bar were getting higher marks than her .  We’re still not entirely sure what she did wrong, even her coach was dumbfounded and had an argument with the Judges, not that that swayed them in any way.  She then fell off the beam (despite that she still managed to get 8.00) and when it came time for the handing over of the medals, her name was left out completely.  Her team mate who got the same score as her (8.95) in floor was called up for third place, but poor Tamsyn was left hanging.  Fortunately her coach pointed out the announcer’s error and Tamsyn got to stand on the podium all on her lonesome.  Did mean we got a really nice picture out of it though, so all’s well that ends well :).

The other day I took photos (at the Scrapbook convention) and they really didn’t turn out well at all.  Was most disapointed, so I asked Wouter to check the camera settings just in case I’d managed to screw them up again. 

A picture Wouter took of some flowers I bought for the garden (he was checking the camera settings, I’m just bragging about my first flower).

So yesterday whilst I was waiting for T to finish gymnastics I decided to play with the camera, quite like the results.  The squirrel pic was taken through the front windscreen.

(been playing with the blog too, reckon the bigger size pictures, works well.)

Words to strike fear into the heart of even the bravest of Moms, alright perhaps only the domestically challenged brave Moms, or in this case, perhaps just me.  Class cake sale at school – something I have gone through with my eldest and always managed to get away with buying cookies, or biscuits or putting popcorn into little bags.  Not this time though, with big eyes my youngest looks at me and says those fateful words “you’ve never made me anything to take to school to sell for cake sale”. Naturally mom-guilt kicks in and I start to frantically think how I can make 33 somethings which takes the least amount of cooking/baking skills and still passes the ‘My Mommy made these’ proud tone.

They took us about an hour and a half to make, aren’t exactly the neatest or most creative cake sale goodies in the world, but T is very happy and you know, I’m kind of proud of them too.