Usually I get up at 6.30am, make five parcels of nutritional sustenance, wake the five and harass them into their uniforms, breakfast and positive outlooks on the day ahead, then change into my running gear and walk/run them to the bus stop. I then wave a cheerful goodbye, bidding them 'have a super day,' and head off on my morning jog.
Suitably sweaty and feeling the calories burned justifies my inevitable early-evening snack of chocolate, I come home to clean. I used to go straight to the garage and workout for a further half an hour doing squats and lunges and all manner of painful ab workouts on the gym stuff, but that has fallen to the wayside since the last school holidays totally threw off my groove. I still feel the guilt of not heading to the garage, but honestly, why bother? I have the kind of metabolism and body shape that is only tamed and honed by daily punishment and pain - not to mention starvation. Why? Why, I ask you? Why? To look like some fashion junkies version of perfect? But guilty I feel and I'm sure I will manhandle myself back into the garage at some stage. But no today. Today, if you'll remember, is pyjama day.
Now, where was I? Ah yes. Cleaning. Is the phrase, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness"? If that is so I should be a saint, and anyone who knows me well knows this is simply not true. But I am clean. I inherited a bit of OCD from my beloved mother. I have yet to meet another person who grew up with Lladro at child-height in their homes without a single breakage. I'm not that obsessed, but I do insist upon a tidy home at all times! : ) Sorry kids and G. Today's morning clean involved the kids bathroom. If you are a mother with sons, any amount of sons - I currently have three plus one 16 yr old German - you will be with me on the shudder issue of cleaning their bathroom. Why can they not aim? Is it a kin to growing up not able to ask for directions and inherently getting lost? Is it simply bad design on God's part, or parts if you like. I do not like cleaning up boy pee. Ever.
Oh, and today Daught lost her second hairbrush in a week - my hairbrush to be precise - and hunted the house - bathroom included - like a tornado hunting tree roots. Grr.
So, cleaning. Run, workout, cleaning, then what? Work of course. But what I do is not really work. How can it be called work when it is one of my greatest joys? Writing, editing, publishing, creating beautiful stories - this is not work, it is my bliss. Freshly-baked, hot chocolate chip cookies for my soul. I love what I do. It is - for me - the Perfect Job. However...
At the moment I am not in that zen-like zone of an established publishing company creating magic everyday. I am in the hard-slog, butt-kicking, sigh-inducing stage of start-up. Start up. A fledgling business whose wings are the insubstantial stuff of angels. All heart, all soul, all good intentions but not yet solid. Building a business from nothing, with nothing (and I mean financially!) is hard work. Is depleting work. Is consistently frustrating work. But it is worth it and worthwhile and we keep doing it. Because we must. To be who we are, the hard stuff will not phase us. With humour and determination, audacity and tenacity, love, spirit and total belief in what I am doing, Black Robin Publishing will become a guiding light in children's literature and learning.
Add to that the re-invention of old shearers quarters on the neighbouring high country station and you have a pretty busy day. Yes, I am at it again! For those of you who heard me last time - just don't even say it! I know, I know, I know what I said. What I SWORE. What I carved into my psyche in blood. "I will never, ever renovate again." Ok, so I've been proven a lier. I have been shown to be fickle, to bandy words about without conviction. I am renovating - again.
Long story short folks, we have to leave the comfy, grandiose setting we landed jammy side up in after the earthquakes. So we started looking for an alternative. We wanted to stay in the valley. Have grown to love the valley and all its quirks and extremes and people. But, alas, rental properties in Cardrona are very hard to find. I want to say Hen's Teeth, but loathe cliche's, oh well. Tough, Rare as blimmin' hens teeth!
Enter the Cardrona Valley Residents Party at ye olde Cardrona Hotel and the local family Patriarch came to the rescue. "I have some shearer's quarters you could have a look at." Look we did. Ran I did. Came back several times I did. Couldn't get the idea out of my head I couldn't. Said yes to the old, ramshackle (I can honestly use this word in description of SQ) shearers quarters with its numerous little iron sheds, its giant walnut, pear and apple trees, its pantheon of empty kennels, its 'floating' floor, its nests of spiders, its feral cat family numbering five that our Pheral will undoubtably despise with every ounce of fur on her body, its non-existant heating system, its non-existent dishwasher, its general wear, tear, rip, shit and tear-arsed condition. Said yes to the whole damn thing with a resounding clanging in my ears I can only attribute to my irrepressible ability to SEE POTENTIAL.
It's funny that ability I seem to possess. Seeing potential in things, ideas, stories, people, places. I 'see' futures laid out, right down to the tulips regenerating each spring at the bases of the trees. I can stand at the dilapidated kitchen, look out the window at Cardrona Ski Field, Willie's woolshed and the small orchard separating us and hear future me calling out that hot scones are ready. I can see my kids running around the field with a rugby ball with the neighbours kids, see them swimming in the pond in summer and ice skating on it in winter together. I can feel the long hot summer rays beating down upon us as we play tennis on the neighbours court then retire to the BBQ area at our place and a night of laughter and Speights - oo, actually, no, I can't see me ever drinking Speights - sorry James, but urk. You get the idea though, right? I see all of this. I see the renovated completion of the house, the corners of perfection and happiness we carved out with our sweat. I can pick my own vegetables from the garden I have space galore for, send the younger lads to collect the fresh, happy hen eggs every day, take long walks up into the gully with my hunting companion/best mate/dog Molly. And it is the 'seeing' of this that makes me delve, once again, into hard work. Sloggingly, back-aching hard work. Is it worth it? If my visions are even a tenth close to what reality will be then yes. Absolutely yes.
Read into this rave as you will. I entitled it The Perfect Day and I'm not sure now what I meant. Did I mean spending the morning in PJs doing bugger all? Did I mean chainsawing and ripping down walls and painting a house alongside the love of my absolute life (who can't do most of the tough stuff at the moment so is 'helping' me do it - 'no, not like that, you'll cut you're bloody leg off!') Did I mean running and cleaning and then creating beautiful, timeless stories until my little angels come home from school for home-cooked cookies and cake?
I meant all of it. Squeezing in everything I can. Getting as much out of life as I possibly can every damn day. Being creative and healthy and conscientious and happy and joyful and pissed off with the damnable chainsaw and craving a completed renovation and baking yummy things and writing and being with amazing people I love and adore. All of it, everything, everyday. The Perfect Day.
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