If I didn’t have children, I would have time to create photo albums. I have children and lots of photos. One day I will make a photo album for each child. When I have time.
If I didn’t have to work, I would have time to bake cookies. I go to work and my husband has baked the Christmas cookies.
He has made everybody so happy with his gifts of self made cookies and alphabet letters spelling out the names of his sisters and the other recipients of his cookie gifts. I don’t need time to bake cookies.
If I won the lottery, I would buy a house. But I do not buy lottery tickets and I do not know right now where I want to live, so please, do not let me win the lottery just yet.
I am so grateful that most of my children came home for Christmas and I could bake the Christmas turkey dinner. We enjoyed our traditional meal and then played a few family games together in the evening. Then we even watched a movie together and had some microwave popcorn. Now I am in the process of teasing my kids by posting my blog expressing thoughts which nobody else reads, but which make me feel better.
I reflect on the past year and the three dear girlfriends, who surely had no idea that they would not live till Christmas. I also do not know how long I will live. I have been confident that I will live a long life like my mother and grandmothers before me. But who knows? Sometimes my knees are so sore, and sometimes I just get tired. Who knows how many more Christmases I will experience? So, I determined to write my blog, and now, perhaps publish everything afterall, rather than put a one year delay, to publish later, when, things are forgotten, when nobody will get upset, when it is safe, when I won’t be challenged. I’ve posted my “Apology” and now publish freely. If you disagree, let me know. Let’s see what we can do.
I look forward to go home to Australia to celebrate my mother’s 90th birthday together with her, my four brothers and one of my five sons. I look forward to the warmth and the light. I have been complaining about the cold and the dark, living here in Austria. I have said that I am glad that the 21st of December has passed and now already look forward to the days gradually getting longer and longer again every day. However, I am so grateful for the opportunity I have had, living in Austria and working at the United Nations (UN). Even the Governor General of Australia, did not know that Vienna was a UN Headquarters city until he came here this year. Maybe, I didn’t even know that either, before I came here to Austria twenty-nine years ago. Now I know and I am just so grateful that I have such incredible opportunities. Not only that I had my five sons here and they all became Vienna Boys Choir boys; not only that I have become fluent in German and comfortable living in Austria, not even that I did a role change and my Austrian husband took over full responsibility for the children while I went to a full –time job in the city. Before that I spent ten years at home, taking care of our five boys, as well as his home office while he was a travelling salesman.
I still remember when I bought him his first mobile phone. It was together with a subscription to a newspaper. It was in the days before domestic internet and I relied on radio, television and newspapers and magazines for world news. I often would have liked to listen to the television news, but as soon as I turned the TV on, the children would sit down to watch with me, and I did not want that. We got a video machine and I began recording children’s programmes to replay for them, so that we were not dependant on the television. But it meant I could not watch the news, when I wanted to.
The mobile phone. Yes. The mobile phone. I bought him a mobile phone so finally I could call to ask him whether he was coming home or not, and what time he was coming home. I even bought a freezer and eventually even a microwave oven. Now I could freeze the meal if he did not come home, or re-heat it, if he did. So many nights not knowing whether he would be home for dinner or not.
How long did I try to make him understand my dilemma? When I began working there were times I felt like “pay-back” and sometimes came home late, and sometimes came home early. I couldn’t believe it when he asked me what time I would be home, after so many years, never knowing when HE would be home. And then when I started trying to control my weight with the metabolic diet, again, and he suddenly didn’t want to cook for me any more I wondered why he needed to know anyhow.
And then when I suddenly realised that he still had the mobile phone, the car and the home computer, even though I was the one working fulltime and HE was the one at home. I finally got myself a mobile phone. And then when I set up my own business as a communications trainer, I even bought myself a Mac computer, just to have one for myself and to really check out the differences between a Mac and a pc. By then I was already a database expert, focussing on Microsoft Access which did not work very well on the Mac, in fact, not at all. And I was also managing the homepage for the Austrian Women’s Federation for World Peace which was using the FrontPage program, which also only worked on a Microsoft pc, not on a Mac computer.
But there was nothing lost, because when I started working at the International Atomic Energy Agency, I let my sons, one after the other, take the Mac to become proficient in both systems, and eventually was given a new laptop to be able to continue contributing to the NGO work.
Oh, so much to say. When I have time. Just posting now because I have taken time off work. When I have time, I will sort my photos and my biography and tell you my story. Or have I already said too much? And now you are not interested in readying anything from me? Well, I did say I am writing this for myself and my grandchildren.
Just to say, there are people actually reading your posts 😉
Keep on going! 🙂