My name is Charlotte, sometimes known as Ms Lottie, occasionally as The Slightly Mad Quilt Lady. This is my blog, where you'll find me writing a lot about my quilting and textile arts and a little about my family's life in a small seaside town in New Zealand. Haere mai!

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Memories

The thing about a blog is that you can pretend.  You can make your life seem as perfect as you want.  Your house can be clean, your children cherubic.  But in reality, we all have our fugly bits.

But I'm happy to announce that in the week just been, one of Windyhill Farm's fuglier bits got towed away to become someone else's treasure.

 

The caravan served us well.  First as a shelter and cup-of-tea making place when we first owned the land.  Later it became a storage shed when we moved out here.  But now (finally) it has been emptied and all that's left is a mark on the ground.  Next spring there won't even be that.


In that caravan was a whole pile of junk, lots of stuff that has already been shipped off to the op shop and a few boxes of memories.  I've spent the weekend periodically immersing myself in my teenage years.  The above picture was my sixth form ball photo.  Taken in about 1995.  Can you guess which one is me?

I've burnt the scary love letters, thrown out all the really terrible photos and the birthday cards from people I can't even remember anymore, but there is still more to sift through.  So much of it makes me cringe - as a teenager I was boy crazy, incredibly self-centered and terribly superior.  I really wonder how my parents put up with me.

On TV recently there has been an advert for a program about parenting teenagers.  The psychologist says,"Teenagers - they're not right in the head!  And judging by my diaries and letters, I'd have to agree.



Consequently, I've also been spending a bit of time this weekend watching my kids and imagining them as teenagers.  If karma has anything to do with it, then in a few years I'm in for a rough ride.  I'm guessing that there will be plenty of fugly moments.  Wish me luck!

6 comments:

  1. I've only meet you the once at The Country Yard, so sorry if I'm wrong...are you the one at the back with your arm up?
    Yeah good luck with the teens! I'm still going through it with my boys, but so far they are great compared to my girls!
    It would have been cool to do up the caravan and have it as a afternoon tea room in the garden, one day I would like to do that.

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  2. Love the word 'fugly' !! (Ann,Mel's mum)

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  3. Spot on @ Leeanne, you picked her! Hey sis, that just made me crack up, yup, karma will come and bite you on the butt at teenage time. Are teenage girls worse than boys, my guess is yes. Poor mum and dad, 4 girls and just 2 boys how on EARTH did they survive?!

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  4. Good luck with that! My youngest has about three weeks of non teenage life to go! Where did that time go???

    viv

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  5. Hi there, oh, what a job, having to sift through your teenage things! That's a lovely photo of you too.
    I think, as teenagers, we're all a bit self-centred... after all, the world did revolve around just us ;-)

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  6. I stumbled upon your blogs and saw this post. We all do crazy things as teenagers, and sometimes even when we are older. It's all part of shaping who we become, and it's better to do that when we are younger than when we are older.

    Parents don't always agree with our choices, but they were teenagers once.

    Despite whatever you think about your teenage years, look at who you have become. A proud mum and wife, living an adventure :)

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