Happy Birthday A / We Saw A Snake / Carols at the Park in Days of My Destiny

Today is my big sister's 33rd birthday. It's weird thinking that she is THAT age. It's like, 32 is still close enough to early 30's (and therefore late 20's), but 33 is closer to 35 and mid-30's. Not that there's anything wrong with that in this day and age, because 40 is the new 30 and 30 is the new 20 anyway. (or so they say!)

This morning I am awake at 6am, because my darling husband had to get up at 5am, and the poor thing was so tired and had a bad sleep, so I got up and made his work sandwiches. After he left I hung about outside for a little while, feeding the chooks, playing with the dog, hanging some washing that was left in the washing machine yesterday and then watching the sun continue to rise. The clouds look just amazing out there, soft edges with amazing golden light sneaking up behind them. I'm a little cautious as to how long I'm outside for today though, because yesterday L and M saw a black snake a lot closer to our house then we've ever seen.

Poor M, though. The timing for her was horrible, because the night before, she'd had a nightmare. She creeped into my bed through the night and was cuddling right up to me and was awake for a long time. She didn't want to tell me what her nightmare was at that moment, she was wanted me to hold her. She asked me if dreams are real, I told her they are not. I prayed and caressed her hair and sang her songs. In the end we were awake for about two hours. The next day she told me she'd had a bad dream and revealed it was about a snake!!!!! And so when her and L saw the snake, I was sleeping, and L said she began to cry and said, "Mummy lied to me, she told me dreams aren't real!!!!!" I felt SOOOOO bad when L told me. My heart really felt for her and the way she would've understandably felt betrayed, however I had no idea what her bad dream was about when I said that! If I had been in a more awake state, I would've explained a bit more what I actually meant - that some dreams do come true and that we all hope the good ones do - but in that moment, all I wanted was to comfort her!!! I assumed she'd had a horrible dream about.... who knows, a monster, or someone being really horrible, or a yucky face - but I would have never guessed a snake!!!!!! So I spoke to her and apologised that she felt that I lied to her, and that indeed, some dreams do seem real and sometimes we dream about real THINGS.

(ahhh dear!!! Parenting backfires sometimes!!! LOL)

Our sheep Lilly has gone missing. She was out and about yesterday, and I didn't really take notice of where she was when we went out, in fact, I forgot she was roaming when we did. But this morning I do not hear her bleating and she is nowhere to be seen. I just hope she's off in the paddocks somewhere with the herd of sheep out there, having fun, and that she will return soon. She's an awesome pet, really, she's like a dog. She comes when I call her, she follows me around. She sticks her head through the dog flap. She loves cuddles. She's just awesome and I hope she's alive! I won't have time to search thoroughly for her today, but if she's not back tomorrow I will go to the paddocks on the ride-on and look for her. (Do I sound like a farmer much these days, hahahaha!)

The lady who really wanted our dining table has decided to take it. She offered more than we had anticipated we'd get, which is GREAT! She has asked us to deliver it to her house, which is fine. Yesterday afternoon while we had time, L and I went through the ordeal of putting it on the trailer, ready to take to her this afternoon after L comes home from work. It's a heavy table and honestly we NEVER use it. I'm happy to see it go!

Singing at the Christmas Carols at the Park yesterday was fun. I didn't realise that I would be LEADING the singers!!!! There were about 8 or 10 of them and then there was me, seemingly put on the spot, to stand in front of the microphone ON MY OWN and lead them in song!!!! Oh my goodness!!! After I felt that I was put on the spot and while singing, I had this vague recollection that Tracey (the one who organized all of this) had mentioned LEADING the other singers, and I remembered being concerned that the other ladies, who have sung at the Carols in the Park for years, would feel that a newbie (ie me) was taking over. And I remembered that Tracey said it wouldn't be like that, because we'd all be singing TOGETHER and that honestly they are all lovely, lovely ladies and not to worry. So I think in my head, I remembered that we'd be singing TOGETHER and forgot about the "leading in song" bit, lol. My knees were shaking, lol. I was nervous because of the 6 songs, I only really learned 1, lol. They are all common Christmas songs, but I didn't grow up singing them, because a) my parents aren't Australian so we did Christmas differently, and b) at some point we actually stopped celebrating Christmas altogether!!! (I remember that first year we didn't celebrate it, the house was so quiet and we weren't even allowed to TALK about Christmas. My poor parents, I don't think they themselves knew how to tackle this first non-Christmas and they did what they thought was best. Maybe they themselves didn't outright PROHIBIT us from talking about it, maybe we just thought it would be wrong... I don't know now.) ANYWAY. So I learned Away In A Manger off by heart, and then the others, pffft. I knew the melody which was lucky, but there was one song I'd never even heard. It was the last song, but by this stage I had asked Tracey to stand beside me at the microphone, and she'd been only too happy to join in. She was also nervous (for different reasons - she'd organized a lot this year for the Carols and she was also a bit of an emcee), but by that last song, we were a lot more relaxed. When it became quite clear that I had no clue how to sing that last song, we couldn't help but LAUGH lol. We were trying to contain ourselves as best we could, but then she put her arm around me and her hand landed on my shoulder and squeezed it firmly and that was it, I couldn't sing anymore for the laugher, lolololololololol!!!!! I don't think anyone REALLY noticed though, it's not like I was in stitches or laughing loudly the way I do when I'm cracking up, but still, it was HILARIOUS, lol. I think she'd done it as a way of encouraging me, not knowing it'd be my complete downfall, lol. Afterwards, a lot of people were thanking Tracey for everything. This was the third Carols at the Park that I'd attended (and first one I'd participated in), and honestly, it was the first lively and truly entertaining one. The first one, it felt like we'd crashed a family BBQ. I will never forget that, we felt SO awkward!!!! There were maybe about 40 people. Last year, I knew a few more faces and so that was familiar, but the only real entertaining side was a small group of women (about 6 of them), all in their 70's, entertaining the way I guess entertainment worked back in their day - it was all quite formal, each song was introduced and sung, one after the other. This year, at a rough count done by Bill, there were 130 people and that did not include the kids. Tracey organized for the Shire Band from the next town to come and join us and play, she organized for some skit/puppet group from Sydney to come (although I don't know if she organized that, or if they just happened to be up here as part of a church encouragement thing), then there were more people actually singing - younger people, ie me, and other women closer to my age. Right at the end, Craig Devine came out dressed as Elvis and he danced and danced to a Christmas song by Elvis. That WHOLE thing was just WEIRD, lolololololololol! It's like, right throughout the program there was all this stuff about Jesus and how HE is the star of Christmas, and there were about 3 or 4 bible readings throughout - but let's bring out Elvis!!!!!!!! What the what?!?!?!?! LMAO. It was so so so so SO incredibly RANDOM, and I think the audience itself was .... baffled maybe? LOL. I didn't hear one clap, and afterwards I asked L if indeed anyone clapped and he said not really, a few people just laughed and that was it, lol. And we were told to call out to him even so he'd appear! So there were a few, "El-VIS, El-VIS, El-VIS!"es.

SO weird. But at the same time, weird things are expected in small towns. I do mean that. For example there's Wendy, the town eccentric. At the town Christmas Party on Friday night, she was walking around with a lamp shade on her head, you couldn't see her face. She came up to me and said confidently and happily, "Hello Colour!!!!" I bump into her in town a fair bit and over time she's warmed up to me and confided in me and etc etc. Turns out a lot of people don't like her and judge her and she's a bit of a social outcast in most circles, but I like her BECAUSE she is so eccentric and she is not afraid to be herself. I'm supposed to be getting guinea pigs off her in the new year so she came up to talk to me about that. Anyway so she says, "Hi Colour!" and I reply, "Hi, Lampstand!" and she says, "I'm a pharaoh queen type lady," and parts the dangly bits off the lamp shade, LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And she had lipstick on (a rarity), but she'd also painted lipstick on her temples in this zig-zaggy, lightning-strike fashion - OBVIOUSLY an attempt at the Egyptian eye make-up!!!!!! LOLOLOLOL. Oh it was so so cute, and I should've felt bad for calling her a Lampstand, but I didn't, because it's Wendy! And nobody had a clue what on earth she was!!!! LOL. And the funniest part about that whole thing is that THERE WAS NO DRESS-UP THEME ANYWAY!!!!!! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!! Ahhh I love that woman!

So yeah, small towns, LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!