An update is indeed long overdue.
So we did survive my dad’s visit. He did too (which is more surprising in many ways). However things are far from resolved and even though my mother tried to pull us in the middle by having me take her defense in an email to him, we’ve managed to stay out of the whole thing. Unfortunately it is not over and will continue to affect all of us. We’ll see how it all works out. It is interesting to see though how messy the lack of moral values (to put it politely) and integrity can become. What was even worse was to hear the responses some of my mom’s friends reportedly gave her. Not to mention the fact that every few weeks the whole story goes back deeper: first it all started around 92, then 86 and now there are rumors of earlier events of infidelity. Scary…
On a much happier note, we also made it through the Easter holidays in one piece 
The Messiah performance Ruth was a part of was absolutely splendid, if one closes an eye on the two opening male solists who were… struggling. But everybody had a good time. Liam slept through most of it and Gillian was rivited to the whole thing taking it all in… (Cora and I were in the hallway playing…)
Speaking of beautiful things, Ruth has undertaken making our garden look like one. And she’s been rather good at it! Especially for just getting her feet wet. However it would appear that the V-day tree may not be too well off and that my old rose bush is in need of severe cutting back (we may have cut some roots while planting other things causing it to have a hard time supporting itself). It’s amazing how some little things make a huge difference…
Speaking of difference, the children have been absolutely amazing. Gillian is turning into a very happy bookworm. She loves to read. She reads everything, well tries to. And this reflects in her scholar performance. I think she may have inherited a bit of Ruth’s competitive spirit as one of her friends is a hard-boiled bookworm and sometimes it seems Gillian wants to keep up with her.
Liam is making more and more sense. Which is good seeing how he hardly ever is quiet. But he is so cute and cheeky at times. He definately loves to explore, though he can drive all of us completely bonkers with his neverending sentences and need for attention. It is a bliss to make him laugh though; Through playing with him, talking to him and especially tickling him!
And then there’s little Miss I’m-going-to-conquer-the-world; crawling everywhere, eating everything (and I mean EVERYTHING!). It’s amazing to watch her though. She’ll crawl to something, pull up, stand all wobbly, look at you and smile her bright, 5-toothed smile and crawl on towards you to pull up on your leg or rub her head against your leg.
Then this past Wednesday, Gillian went on her first field trip. Roo got to go with her Both had a good time. Gillian probably even more so than Ruth…
Now work is a tad frustrating at the moment. More gruntwork, pressure to complete the non-gruntwork while the gruntwork has to be done as it’s the bread-and-butter stuff… Issues that nobody has time to fix or even look at and most of them people respond saying that your findings are impossible to find more test cases, the software can’t behave like that… Sheesh. People are silly. But the worst part is when they come and say “here, please build me a castle, with a moat and a bridge and a big tower in the middle.” And you do. Then, when you’re done they say “Nice. But now get rid of the moat, build a superhighway to the next city, move the tower a foot to the left [as if that was easy] and do all that by end of business today.”
Grrr….
On one hand though, it makes me feel better about the lack of direction in my life. At least it feels like there’s a lack of it. So many fires to put out, so much to do. Between bills, paperwork, honey-do projects, time with the loved ones, work, errands, cleaning, maintenance, sleep, and now exercise too… And then you’re thinking to move forward I either have to go back to school and do more work on the side to supplement our income. It’s just sad.
I remember when I was a kid, when a year felt like an eternity. I want to go back to that. Right now, it feels like 10 years go by in a heartbeat. Not good…
