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10 Things About Me


I generally suppose that only family and friends read my blog posts. However, I noticed I have traffic from all over the world, so I thought I would share a few things about me, the Mama behind Musing Mama.

1. My Mother didn't know she was having identical twins until my sister and myself were born. My older brother had been ten-pound-born, and it was assumed she was having another big baby. My Mum fainted at the news. My father says that even 36 years later, he is still getting over the shock. Fiona and I were indistinguishable to many when we were young, but our subtle differences have grown over time. We are the very best of friends, and though we are separated by two states at the moment, we talk to each other nearly every day.

2. When my husband asked permission for my hand in marriage, my father warned him that he would be marrying both twins, as we are inseparable. If not for my twin taking a job at 'Handmade Things', I would never have met Dave, who worked at a camera store in the same complex and knew one of her staff members. Fiona told me about the cute photographer and told me to check him out when I got my lunch. He looked up as I was walking past, probably confused as to why Fiona suddenly had long hair, while I didn't know what to do when he saw me looking at him. I panicked, poked my tongue out and kept walking!

3. I have always been surrounded by books, art and craft. My mother was a dressmaker and decorated wedding cakes. My father and brother both welders with a gift for building things. I was not talented at any of the sports I tried my hand at, but I loved to read, write and draw. I dreamed of becoming a painter. I left school and completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts/ Visual Arts to become an artist and became a jeweller instead.

4. Dave and I were married on the beach in Byron Bay. Early on when we were dating we took a trip in his van to Byron and lived out of the back of it for a few days. We had very little in common. I thought that trip would make or break the relationship - four days, no shower and no hotel, just parking by the beach and rambling around the town and the waves. Byron was where we fell in love, where we were married, and eventually the middle name of our first born. We went back for our tenth wedding anniversary, and though it had lost some of the charm it had ten years before, it was a gift to return with our first two children.

5. Dave and I married when I was 21. We renovated and sold our first house so we could travel the world for 12 months. After six months in England, Wales, Scotland, France, Amsterdam, Italy, Budapest, Croatia and Greece I had to return home to Australia as I was so unwell. I ended up in hospital in Greece, but they could not find the cause of my symptoms. Upon my early return to Australia, specialists discovered an abscess on my ovary that had fused to my fallopian tube and the whole lot was quickly removed.

6. Children hadn't really been in our short-term plans, but after losing an ovary and being advised not to wait, we soon had a new house and a baby boy called Cohen Byron. When he was 3.5 years old we welcomed his sister Emerson Noni, and when she was two we welcomed our last son Oscar Arlo.

7. I fell in love with motherhood and never wanted to send any of my children to childcare. A few years later I began my own business so that I could work from home and express myself creatively. Now I successfully sell my jewellery online and in galleries and do custom work and trade work from my workshop at home.

8. We live on a 688m2 block of land with a black cat, six chickens, and a tank full of Golden Apple water snails. I love to garden, growing veggies, fruit, herbs and flowers. A possum visits our back deck each night to rummage through the kitchen scraps before I put them in the compost bin. Several birds nest in our front tree each year, and we watch the eggs hatch from our front deck. And I dream of more land and more animals.

9. We took our children out of school last year when Cohen was in grade three and Emerson was in Prep and began homeschooling. It had always been in my heart to homeschool, but my husband wasn't on the same page. After three terms of Emerson crying at school every morning, he finally came on board. I couldn't be happier than I am now unschooling our children, living and learning along with them and witnessing them flourish.

10. I still love books, art and craft. Thanks to my children I have rediscovered a love of nature and science. You will often find me pottering around the garden, making things from scratch, knitting, reading, drawing in my nature journal, making my own laundry liquid and recently our own candles. There are posters of insects on the walls and science experiments on the dining table. Our bookshelves are overflowing, as is our nature table. The beds will be made, but the floor will be dirty. If the dishes are clean, the laundry won't be up to date, or vice versa. But our house feels like home, and I don't think I have ever been happier.

Thanks for visiting my little space on the net. Join me for a cup of tea anytime and feel free to ask questions in the comments. xx

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