School Ties

Friday night I attended my 20 year Australian high school reunion.  Or as Mr Trifectagirl used to say 'Girls College'.

Thanks to facebook, many of us caught up a number of years ago, but this was a mile-stone reunion that far-flung classmates made the effort to travel back home to attend.   

Watching the interactions at the reunion and the noise level from the chatter that hasn't decreased with time (seriously, how did our teachers cope??!?!?), it felt like there hadn't been 20 odd years since we were all in a room together. Including those of us there that left the school before the end of high-school, or came in later years. 

It was really wonderful to see how successful we've all been in whatever we've gone on in life to do - professional careers, personal interests, personal lives and parenthood. 

Parents often consider how the school they select for their children can contribute to their child's future success - class sizes, facilities, choice of subjects, extra-curricular opportunities, final exam results, university acceptances, and so on.

Although this was and is a good school on many of those criteria, getting together got me thinking.

Maybe not only the reasons our parents sent us to this school contributed to our indivudial successes later in life, but the thing that is simply luck of the draw - the fortuitous mix of personalities, skills interests and talents that our class was.  

To the ladies of SDPC Class of '92 - congratulations on all we've achieved so far, and here's to every success for the next 20 years. 

Grabbing Opportunities

Along with dealing with Mr Trifectagirl passing away, while he was sick the program I work for was given 12 months notice of closure.

With all of this, the time feels right to make a bit of a career change, or at the very least build on the study and work experience I have.

So, after discussing options with a number of people, this morning I submitted my application to go back to Uni to study accounting commencing January or March (depending on which program I get accepted into).

Now to wait for the acceptance letter...

3 & 6

Yesterday was three months since Mr Trifectagirl passed away.    The day itself was ok - if you count the aftermath of being up all night with a vomity toddler and changing cot sheets every 3 hours overnight as ok.

It was the day before that I struggled with.  We overslept.  The entire house.  Including the cat.   That should have been the first clue that it wasn't going to be a great day.  With the late start, I opted to take a 'me' day from work while J was at child care.  There were a few rough periods during the day, generally when I was alone with my thoughts while driving or making dinner, rather than trying to get other stuff done or chatting to people. 

Monday will be six months since his birthday.  Six months since he got sick. 

I miss him and this plain sucks.

I'll need to tell...

On Friday I took J to our Royal Show for the first time (screaming disaster and a whole 'nother post) and happened to bump into Mr Trifectagirl's friends R and his wife A.

The Show is an agricultural event with horse competitions, animal competitions (beef and dairy cattle, sheep, pigs, dogs, cats, birds - the whole kit and kaboodle), baking, arts and crafts competitions, farm machinery (for sale. Who in the city has need for a combine harvester??), various small-scale food producers, a barn-yard nursery for the youngsters and then side-show alley for the screaming teenagers. Since schools rotate on having a day off for 'show day',  I figured it was the show day for one of the schools their children go to, so they'd come along to the Show.   

Turns out the family was there as the two children were competing for the first time in the harness pony competitions. So we wander back to meet up with his wife and the rest of 'Team Tink'.

As we watch and down coffee to warm up, the kids come 4th in their first classification.  

Mr Trifectagirl would have been so thrilled for them, and more so with their follow-up success with coming first in the next classification they competed in, and their daughter taking out the title for best junior baker! 

It's taken nearly 3 months, but this was the first really strong sensation of 'I need to tell Mr Trifectagirl when I get home, he'll be upset he missed it'.  

The hard part was remembering he's not here to tell. 

Father's Day Gift Box

Yesterday evening, Father's Day, I started clearing out the boxes I finally retrieved from the storage lock-up.  The plan is to chip away at it by doing a couple of boxes a week.

Of course the first one I open contained Mr Trifectagirl's day-planners, which also operated as a very sporadic journal. 

Since they go back to the early 1980s (including some school diaries!!) they're something I can't ditch.  At least not yet.  There's too much of him in there that will be useful for J to know his dad.

I also have a project idea brewing, but it will be a time-intensive one.  And is simply added to the end of the queue of project ideas I wish to undertake.

So much for the plan of going through and getting rid off stuff. At least box #2 was more successful on that side - I didn' keep anywhere near as much of that.

I like that I made this discovery on what would have been Mr Trifectagirl's 2nd Father's Day.  It wasn't really a sad moment, but a heartwarming one.