Florilegium

1. What was your biggest accomplishment this year?

Seeing K come closer to recovery. I nearly decked my BIL on Xmas Day when he said to my mother how remarkably well K is doing compared to last year and what a good job childcare had done. Feh.


2. What was your biggest disappointment?

M's had a very very rough year. I was so hoping for some stability and some time to work seriously on academics so that we could consider part-time school but he's a mess emotionally. I cannot believe the number of med changes we've done with little or no gain.

3. What do you hope the new year brings?

Peace mostly. Improved finances would be nice. I'd like some career stuff to work out positively for G, in particular some sales to the US market with a decent advance would make all the difference. M stable and functional. K to settle at school happily.


4. Will you be making any New Year's resolutions? If yes, what will they be?

To learn to drive. It's insane that I haven't learnt and it's becoming more and more problematic. G's bitching about how far away K's school is and if I don't want to listen to that for the next decade, I need to find a solution. Drink less alcohol and thus lose more weight. Sell my book.


5. What are your plans for New Year's Eve?

To go to Southbank with my mother to watch the fireworks. Originally I thought she was asking the whole family. Eeeep.

Oh lord, I think it's all done. Took M to the supermarket to buy G's present and lots of other stuff and it was hell. I don't know why the checkout person was tremendously patient and polite with the people ahead of me who seemed to be trying to pay for their stuff with 4 different ATM cards and trying to get exact change so that they could share it out but was very rude to me when I asked her not to put the cream and mascarpone in the same bag as the raw chicken. G took K shopping for presents this afternoon and I am informed I have to keep a straight face when unwrapping my present.

Made a Reine Saba with Lindt chocolate and think am spoiled for life and will never cook with lesser chocolate. My pannacotta with passionfruit finally set. I had a lot of trouble with the spiced almonds as the toffee wouldn't behave. it's hideously humid here but they seem sort of crisp tonight There's some real jaw-breaker toffee in there as well so I hope no-one breaks a tooth.

More joy and excitement with the lawyer. I had to ask the insurance company to re-issue the certificate of currency for the mortgage company because we took it out in my name and in the name that G uses. I am amazed that I could ring the insurance company and buy insurance without any proof of identity but asking them to change the name has turned into a big fat hairy deal. The lawyer got really nasty with me on the phone about how G is legally one name but uses another -- she really didn't want to concede the point that he has enough ID in his use name to get by. If he'd never used his passport for the mortgage application the whole drama would never have occurred. He got Australian citizenship in his use name, not his legal name for Maude's sake! Of course I am totally convinced he cannot get a passport using said citizenship papers. I sincerely hope he can't in any case just in the cause of national security. We need to address the whole stupid thing but because he's already changed his name by deed poll in one country it's $300 to tidy the mess up. Today I finally realised that the name on our marriage certificate is not his legal name in any way, shape or form. Cripes. I am also pissed off that the mortgage company would not accept a direct debit form from G's bank account which is in his use name. I've had to do the debit from my account which is going to mean I end up with higher bank fees. I was hoping to set it up that G's account paid the mortgage and held savings and mine was living expenses but nooooo, even though they have proof he uses both names, it was no go.

My MIL can take a flying leap at a rolling doughnut. Cow. When she left here in March, I gave her a birthday present festively wrapped in birthday paper and 2 Xmas presents jauntily wrapped in Xmas paper with Xmas tags. She rang tonight to say that she was worried because she'd been checking the letterbox every day and there was no card from us. Ahem. She knows we don't do cards and I know she was wondering WTF was her present as she'd sent us $100 as she usually does. I made G ring her back and ask her if she had lost the present and she admitted she'd opened the whole lot for her birthday. Well, I don't usually buy her three pieces of Royal Doulton for her birthday and wrap them in Xmas paper.

My cunning plan is to buy something in the sales and send it with a note saying hee hee, you got an early present and a late present in the forlorn hope that will stop her badmouthing me for not giving her a present.

Still too hot.

Wrapped most of the presents -- ran out of labels. Would dearly love to know where enormous packet of them went. Sent G and M to see Peter Pan so I could do it all by myself without M around and G annoying me by constantly telling me he wishes I would buy expensive paper because it's easier to use. Might well be but I'm too mean to buy it and find out.

G saw the dentist this morning and contrary to his prognostications of doom and expensive despair, he doesn't need hugely expensive dental work.

Must do baking for Xmas tomorrow. I wish I could find the recipe I had for passionfruit pannacotta as have daft oversupply of passionfruit.

Oh my it is hot. I went and bought a new swimsuit which really sucked. It's got this clasp in the back which is incredibly hard to close.

M's had a rough sort of a day. I'm thinking seriously that we need to look at what other meds are a possibility. Michael's suggested liquid prozac so I guess that's what we will do in the new year. I really wanted the risperidone to work and I'm so sad it didn't.

G put in his application for an MA. Be interesting to see how that plays out. My mother had a good rant about how it is dumbing down tertiary education to have a direct entry MA and I have to agree with her. Still I'm keen for him to do it if he is accepted.

G's daughter rang last night. She's separating from her partner which is sad. She seemed so happy with him when she was here in March. Her mother is moving to Auckland to be head of department at a school ::pauses for hysterical laughter at the very idea:: and they are going to share a flat.

I watched the TT EE today in preparation for my expedition all by myself to see ROTK. I don't think I will get there on the weekend but hopefully next Monday. I need to finish watching it before K's on holiday as he doesn't do well with orcs. Still assiduously avoiding spoilers.

did I mention just how freaking hot it is? I think I'll retreat to my airconditioned bedroom.

It is so hot! Over 90 degrees and the forecast is for more hot weather. Tragically my swimsuit has died and I must go and buy another one before Xmas. It's wearable at home but I don't fancy displaying an amplitude of tit to my father or BIL. I've lost enough weight that the suit is too big. Go me.

I upped M's risperidone dosage to the maximum yesterday. I kept putting off playing with meds as I kept expecting him to succumb to the pox and so far he hasn't. He's got a weird rash on his back which may or may not be pox. But the lower dose of risperidone just wasn't cutting it and I'm sick of dealing with him being ghastly.

Did some poking around on line to sort out the stamp duty and I'm really pissed off now. Because the valuation is over $165 000 we get no rebate at all. I'm tempted to get another valuation done and see if we can get it lower but chances are we can't. ::chants it's only money, it's only money::

We saw the lawyer on Friday and he's saying we won't settle until mid January because the bank wants full title searches done. I was hoping they would be lenient on those as it's a family deal but no such luck. My budget for buying this house is constantly being revised upwards.

Damn K's throwing a tanty must go and swim with him

Bugger. The real estate agent did the valuation. While she was here she said $150 000 but when I picked it up to take to the lawyer, she'd revised it up to $165 000. Bugger. All very good news if we were like gonna sell the damned house but we're paying tax on what is imaginary money at this point in time.

Nobody give me a gun. I left one mailing list this week because I could no longer tolerate the gossip about writers I know as friends. It's really not cool to speculate about income and speculate about whether they should get grants or not. It's rude and unnecessary. Esp when it comes from someone who is a failed wannabe writer and who needs to be hit with the cluestick. I'm sure she went off and is now gossiping about me and G. Grrrrrrrr.

This afternoon's little effort is from a gifted list and I think I have steam coming out my ears. Somebody thinks she should be given a government allowance similar to the disability allowance to help her fund her kids being gifted. I'm especially charmed by the notion that it costs MORE to fund music lessons and the like for a gifted kid than it does to fund therapy for a kid with disabilities. She must live under a farging rock. She's got no idea if she thinks that what you spend on OT, ST, psychologists and the like is similar to the spending on gifted issues. I'm so tempted to ask her what should happen in situations where one is dealing with both and with extreme giftedness. Which she isn't. Feh.

Finished Xmas shopping today I think. G and I agreed no presents but he's trying to weasel out of it and buy stuff. We did buy ourselves the TT EE as an early present and it was expensive enough. Saw the lawyer today and might actually be a step closer to the finalising of everything. He wants us back tomorrow with my parents as he's got this vision of them as poor illiterate European peasants I think. He checked whether they needed an interpreter. He's a good guy who is an activist about community stuff and keeping real estate agents honest and housing affordable. Still need to sort out the stamp duty mess. I'm really not impressed that I paid $300 for a valuation for the bank and now I need to pay for another valuation so that stamp duty can be assessed. they're going over family deals with a fine tooth comb which is fair enough I suppose but what a hassle. I know we're not paying market price for the house but I wish we could simply use the bank valuation.

M's very weepy and says he's got a sore throat. ::sigh:: I do hope this is the pox as if it isn't then we've got medication issues to review. Again. Meagan took him to the Loony tunes movie and out to lunch for his Xmas present. She's so sweet to him.

K went back to childcare today and was completely ecstatic to be there. Spent the day giggling.

We're doing chickenpox here. Well, K has chickenpox and hopefully M is succumbing. A tad irked at how spread out it is going to be if he does succumb. K's been pretty good considering. a couple of sleepless nights, some ferociously cranky days but not as bad as I feared.

Still struggling with mortgage crap. I'm totally horrified at the costs of getting a mortgage -- by the time we settle we will have spent $4000 and that doesn't include a deposit on the house. On the plus side we do have the $ but what a boring way to spend it. I'm considering ways for serious belt-tightening in the new year. Boring, boring but it will be necessary as this mortgage is $100 a week more than we were paying.

G's got an interview for singing telegrams this afternoon. Be interesting to see how that goes.

It's rained for the last few days and been very hot and muggy which has been a problem for poor K with his pox.

I'm boring myself here.

Xmas preparations are nearly finished. I need to do some baking, buy some food and complete on present buying. I need to get some more stuff for K. I'm not buying him a Big Present this year as he's developmentally in between stages. Not ready for lego but past duplo. Still need another present for my niece.

Watching dramas go down in a couple of on-line communities. I have this perverse fascination with train wrecks. IMHO everything does point to a certain well-beloved community member having faked his death to get away from an affair which threatened to move into his real life. It must be so freaking painful for the woman involved though. There's a novel in there somewhere. <-------- not a parenting community ;)

Oh and another thing -- if someone wants me to edit his damned book, he'd be well-advised to give me the book and, oh I don't know, maybe offer to take over on some of my other work? I didn't take too kindly to being given the book on Tuesday, right before he went out for a meeting, then I had both kids to homeschool on Wednesday, the drama with K, all my normal housework and he is asking me if it is done and if not, why not?

Ummmmmm because I didn't have the freaking time or quiet space to sit down and closely read and edit a book? Because nobody offered to make that time for me?

It happens every time and every time we end up having words over my apparent slackness. I'm bloody tempted to move his computer up here into my space and say go for it, mate. See what it's like to work amidst children and housework.

Feh.

This week is all about paperwarfare. If something can go pearshaped, it's gone pearshaped.

The mortgage. Jesus wept. The mortgage grinds on. We had to re-do all the paperwork because of G's name issues and because it costs $300 to do a legal name change. He'd merrily signed everything in the name he uses, not his legal name. Splendid. The bank very kindly resent all the paperwork with the same deadline we had with the first lot and there was no freaking way I was gonna complete on that in less than a week.

New contract drawn up and it's been hell trying to get my parents to sign the damned thing with witnesses. They took the week off work to renovate one of their houses and haven't been near anyone.

Bought the insurance, had the details faxed and it turns out the fax number was an old number which doesn't work. Had to sit on phone for 20 minutes this morning giving mind-numbing details to insurance co just to get the fax re-sent.

Made appointment with guy doing conveyancing on advice from mortgage broker -- he just rang to say it's waaaaaay too early in the process and the mortgage broker just rang to tell me the same and harass me about paperwork.

And K's school enrolment. Oh my. Oh what a mess. Oh when do I get to strangle his caseworker? 4 months ago we embarked on his ascertainment and enrolment. 6 weeks ago we sent the paperwork. 3 weeks ago she rang me to ask me if I had been sent the ascertainment level. Nope. So she decided that we would do the placement meeting without the ascertainment.

Wednesday of this week it occurred to me that I didn't have a letter or a time for the meeting and that school finishes for the year at the end of next week. Rang case manager to learn that she HAD GONE ON MATERNITY LEAVE. Harassed receptionist who obviously knew nothing and who obviously wasn't going to search the post for the paperwork.

Rang school guidance officer. He was at a funeral. Splendid.

Rang unit head teacher and miraculously was put straight through to her as opposed to being told not allowed to speak to her which is what they did to me for several weeks earlier in the year. She was stunned and said she had no paperwork and was I *sure* he had been through the ascertainment? Went round and round in circles on that one. Then she said she thought it meant he probably wasn't ascertained highly enough for the unit which was why they had no paperwork.

Appeals closed last week. Madam went on maternity leave the week before that.

Mel decided she would look for paperwork but warned me that it was possible K had been ascertained very low as in this funding round most kids were. She also said that if he wasn't ascertained in the first 8 days of the school year of 2004, he wouldn't get funding for the unit. The big problem was that if he had been ascertained as I said, then the paperwork was missing and we didn't know who the officer was who signed off on it which made it hard to find at such short notice.

Got off phone and had hysterics. Rang mother and had hysterics. Rang childcare chasing any paperwork they held and had hysterics. Finally found that I had the ascertainment report copy. Thought I'd tossed it because I don't like the report at all.

Mel rang back at 5.30 -- because she is a miracle, she'd spent hours on the phone to district office and found the ascertainment. He got a level 6 so has place in unit.

I've got my first meeting with her and the guidance officer this afternoon. Am sure it will be very jolly -- god I am not thrilled at re-embarking on trying to use a school.

In other news, M is doing better. My present theory is that he is metabolising the risperidone faster than is technically possible and the dose at night was gone by dawn. Am now giving small doses over the course of the day and he is doing well. Still not fat and lethargic and sitting on sofa. Must not be doing it right ;).

Went and saw Master and Commander yesterday with G. Am glad left M at home. Great movie. Loved it.