New blog address reminder

Apologies if you are reading this and have already found your way over to my new site. I have redirected the feedburner feed to the new site so I am just testing to see if it works.

My blog can now be found over at:

www.roamingaussiemum.com

so follow me over there to see the latest from life in Mexico…

Posada Round-up – link to to new site

I thought I should post a link to the new home for my blog here for a while, just in case people missed the post about the move.

So, head on over to www.roamingaussiemum.com to see the latest offering:

Posada Round-up

Upgrading to roamingaussiemum.com

Well, as if I didn’t already have enough to do this time of year, I have finally moved my blog to its own domain, which I have been wanting to do for a while.

So, the new blog can be found at:

www.roamingaussiemum.com

If you happen to have subscribed in a reader or some such thing, or you happen to have me on your blogroll, could you please update your links?? (When you have time! I know, it’s Christmas!)

This process has really brought out my geekiness. I have been staying up late trying to get my head around php, css and various plugins. The new blog is still a work in progress, so bear with me! I have been poring over other blogs for good ideas and I’m in the process of fixing all the links and photos, but it could take a while…

A Canadian Spanner in the Works

A bit of background to put this story into perspective -

My husband works for an Australian mining company here in Mexico. Actually, he doesn’t have a blog name. He needs a blog name. Let’s call him Rocky (get it? Mining? get it? sorry). So, it’s a 2 year contract and we’ve been here for 18 months. Lately we’ve been talking about whether we want to extend the contract. The plan was that after Mexico we’d go back to Perth, since we’ve been away from home for so long. We’ve got a house back there that we’ve never lived in, which is a real doer upper, so we’d go home and be with our family and get stuck into a major renovation and…probably stay put for a while.

We decided that maybe we’d be happy to extend for 6 months, but no more, because that way we’d be back in Perth in time for Guerita to start Year 1 in January 2009. So Rocky told that to the boss and they started to discuss a few variations to the contract (correcting that bl**dy USD exchange rate for a start).

Then yesterday, the boss rings up and says, “How would you feel about staying for longer, but doing the job based out of Vancouver?”!!! Now, we’ve moved around a lot and lived in some really interesting places, but the one place we have always said we would absolutely love to live is Vancouver. We’ve been there briefly a few times, on our way to Whistler and always dreamed about living in a city that has so much diversity, culture, great food, great festivals, is on the water and you can go skiing on weekends! Its a similar size to Perth, and I can’t quite put my finger on what it was about the city, but it had a similar vibe to Perth. It felt like a place we could live.

SO – now we have a dilemma. On the plus side, we would be living in a fantastic, vibrant, exciting city, and be able to ski all the time and see more of Canada and there’d be no worries about the quality of schools, hospitals, housing etc. On the down side, we’d probably have to commit for another 2 years, so we wouldn’t be going home as soon as we thought, and Rocky would probably have to travel more for work (he’d still be coming down to Mexico regularly to check on things).

So, in amongst all the frenzy of Christmas, I’ve been madly researching whatever I can online and we’ve been (metaphorically) writing our pros and cons list. The good thing is we’ve made this decision quite a few times in our married life – should Rocky take this job? Do we want to live in that city/country? – so we’ve got a good decision making rhythm these days. The one question we always come back to is “will we look back and regret not going?”. Some of the places we’ve lived in have been challenging, but I’ve never regretted the experience of living there. Maybe we haven’t quite got that wanderlust out of system just yet….

8 years on…

Today is our 8 year wedding anniversary! It seems like just the other day that we were standing on the beach saying our vows, but then I think about all the things we’ve done since then (lived overseas, had 2 kids, for starters…) and realise we’ve packed a lot into that time.

We had quite an unconventional wedding, seeing as how we didn’t actually get married at the wedding. When we got engaged we were very keen not to just follow the traditional, well-worn path down the aisle that, to us, didn’t seem to be very personal or have much thought put in to it. We didn’t want to do things just because “that’s the way its always been done at weddings”. When I’m making decisions or planning things, I like to break things down into manageable chunks, its just the way my brain works. I love lists and bullet points. So we thought about what goes into a wedding and a marriage and tried to select the things that were important to us. The way I see it, getting married has 3 essential elements to it – a legal commitment (signing the marriage certificate), a religious commitment (if you’re in a church, standing before God and making promises) and a personal commitment (making promises to each other). Neither of us is religious at all, so we knew we didn’t want to get married in a church, and we couldn’t see how having a piece of paper to say the government recognises you are married would make the marriage any stronger (look at the divorce rate). [Incidentally, we always said that if there was a practical reason to get that piece of paper we would, but that would be a completely separate transaction, if necessary. More on that later] So, in the end, the only thing that mattered to us was the personal commitment – that is the thing that is ultimately going to keep you together or not. Because of that we decided not to have a celebrant (who would be essentially a stranger) and instead have a commitment ceremony – still standing before all our family and friends who would witness our promises – and support us and hold us to them in years to come. My uncle directed the proceedings and we still had vows, readings and many of the elements of a “traditional” wedding, but they were all things we chose as being important to us. In his speech my Uncle made a comment that always stuck with me, he said that because we had deconstructed and examined what a wedding and getting married was all about, it meant that we had put a lot of thought into why we were getting married and what we loved about each other and were going into the marriage with eyes open and with no illusions.

So, that was the philosophy behind our “Clayton’s Wedding”. Needless to say there was some resistance from family who didn’t really understand why we were doing it that way. We expected that and tried to explain (as gently as possible) that it wasn’t really important that they understand why, just that they accepted our choice to do it our way. It wasn’t always smooth sailing with my family, but it worked out OK in the end.

When it came to planning the wedding we wanted a relaxed and beautiful spot. Not a church, obviously, and given that it was a December wedding (summer in Australia) outdoors was perfect. We met at a New Year’s Eve Party in Dunsborough (south of Perth) 5 years earlier so a down south wedding was entirely appropriate. We got married on a beautiful beach near Dunsborough and had the reception at a nearby winery restaurant. We were keen for it to be a PARTY, not a boring reception like so many we’d been too. We had a lots of colour (rainbows of gerberas and huge bowls of jellybeans for centrepieces) and our wedding cake was cupcakes (before everyone was doing that!). We danced all night and were the last to leave and most of all we (and everyone else I think) had FUN. I don’t regret a minute of the stress and effort of organising it, because we have such fantastic memories of the day. Here’s a few photos (sorry they’re so pixelly – it was very early digital camera days)

We were so much younger then…

The postscript to the story is that we did end up getting the legal certificate (a very unexciting registry affair) because it made life so much easier with getting visas to live overseas. We never celebrate that anniversary and I always have to think twice about the date when filling in forms…

Book Review – Exile by Richard North Patterson

I have been reading Richard North Patterson’s books for a few years now and have yet to be disappointed by any of them. Unlike many of the standard crime/legal thrillers out there the plots are not formulaic or predictable, but intelligent and engaging. The author has obviously researched his topic thoroughly and he seamlessly intertwines real events and situations with the fictional characters and plot development. Each book focuses on a particular theme, usually a hotly debated legal, moral or political topic. The story in Exile takes place in the context of the ongoing struggle between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. 

Exile departs from RNP’s usual trend by not following a character we have previously met in an earlier book. Rather than take a central hero or heroine and follow them through various escapades, each of the protagonists in his books have some connection (sometimes small) to previous ones. In Exile we are introduced to a new character, David Wolfe, a Jewish defense lawyer (former prosecutor) who is on the verge of launching his political campaign, with the support of his fiance and her father, a Holocaust survivor with political connections. When the Israeli Prime Minister is killed by suicide bombers in Wolfe’s hometown of San Francisco, he is contacted by a Palestinian woman who he had a secret affair with in college. She is soon charged with masterminding the assassination and Wolfe decides to defend her, potentially at the cost of his fiance and his political ambitions.

That reads a little like the jacket cover of the book, so let me tell what I really thought of it. The story and the characters are for the most part very real and believable. The author does a good job of eliciting sympathy for the two sides of the conflict, both on a personal level with the two central characters and on a larger scale for the Jewish and Palestinian people in Israel. The real-life events and historical background that is woven into the story are fascinating, particularly during Wolfe’s visit to Israel, and made me want to learn more about what is really happening over there.

During the time we lived in Saudi Arabia, for the first time I had exposure to news reporting that didn’t originate from the Western World. As well as Internet news services and watching CNN and BBC news, we also read Arab News, an English language Saudi newspaper. I very quickly realized how biased the Western news coverage is. Before that I don’t think I had ever read a report that sympathised at all with the Palestinian plight. The focus in the Western news always seemed to be on what the Israelis were forced to do in retaliation for another suicide bombing. The Saudi newspaper on the other hand reported on atrocities carried out against the Palestinians, their living conditions in refugee camps, and on Israel’s nuclear capabilities. The “truth”, I’m sure, is somewhere in the middle of these two points of view, and RNP makes a good attempt at presenting both sides of the suffering. The book is compelling because you don’t feel that is is preaching or advocating support for either group.

I would definitely recommend this book, but brace yourself for a serious read. It is fairly long at 823 pages, but not difficult to get through. I like to mix up my reading with light and heavy subject matter, so it was a nice change from a few chick-lit books I have read lately.

Festival Navideno

Yesterday was the day of Guerita’s school Christmas Concert so it was a busy day. To start with the class were going off to the auditorium for a rehearsal (yes, they take these things seriously – they had a rehearsal; it was held in an auditorium). The day before I got a note saying that a few of the Mums had offered to drive the kids from school to the rehearsal in the morning. I was prepared for this after last year, so I quickly told the teacher I would be coming to take Guerita in my car. Last year I did the same and I briefly wondered whether they would think I was some paranoid over-protective mother. But, there was no way I was going to let her go in a car with another Mum, because a lot of kids don’t ride in car seats – a lot of them don’t even wear seat-belts! Even after being here for 18 months (and seieng the same thing in Saudi) I still haven’t got used to the sight of kids climbing and jumping all around a moving car. The kids are often crammed into the front and back seats, or sitting in the tray of a ute (pick-up). I even saw my neighbour driving along the other day with her toddler on her lap! Not knowing where I was going last year I followed one of the other cars (which had 10 kids in it) and she drove like a madwoman, ducking and weaving throughout traffic, never using an indicator and doing illegal U-turns (in other words, she drove like everyone else here). I was so thankful I had insisted on taking Guerita myself. At least this year I knew the way so I could drive at my own pace.

In any event, I have to say, the concert in the evening was pretty good. Of course the 10 minutes that Guerita was on stage were great and I took loads of photos and enjoyed seeing all the “dance moves” she had been practicing round the house for weeks, but also the rest of the concert was quite bearable.

You know, usually you suffer through these things, just for the few minutes your child is on stage. Personally, I’m not usually that interested in seeing other people’s kids perform, unless they are related to me or friend’s kids….sometimes (so I’ll understand if you tune out at this post!). I was pleasantly surprised at how professional and entertaining the production was. The dialogue was all pre-recorded and the costumes were incredible. They were all professionally made and co-ordinated (none of those dodgy cobbled together Mum-made jobbies!).

 It was a Santa’s workshop theme, which was a loose way to tie together each class dressing up as something Chrismassy and doing a little dance. The preschool is small and like a cross between kindergarten and daycare, so the kids range from 2 to 6. The little ones predictably wandered around the stage (dressed as snowmen) and looked bewildered, but the older ones really enjoyed themselves. 

Guerita’s class was dressed as Christmas trees and they danced around to O Christmas Tree, Jingle Bells and Rockin around the Christmas Tree. They had such a good time twisting, kicking and swaying. Guerita is in her element when she’s got an audience (not shy that one) so she had a ball.