Damn you Coffee Cart and your ill fitting lids. Damn You To Hell.

A really shit Tuesday....

Okay, so this was my day last Tuesday. I'm sorry its taken me a week to put this post up, but its taken that long to edit out most of the swearwords!

It started late on Monday...

Monday 9.30pm Put clean sheets on bed – am delighted by thoughts of lovely sleep on clean sheets – put puppy on bed – puppy wees on undersheet where duvet is enticingly turned back.

Tuesday 6.41am Squabbling children arise
6.45 Puppy wees on floor
8.35 Am informed that dear work friend has died of cancer after long long battle.
9.30 Children refuse to let up in constant nagging/fighting cycle
10 Start to try to get children to put shoes and socks on
10.30 Get them all plus puppy in the car – only half an hour late for playgroup
10.35 Can’t find car keys
10.49 Lift up teatowel on benchtop searching for keys and find huge roach
10.51 Finish beating roach to pulp
11.10 Give up on car keys and decide to take entire family up to shops for a coffee and something nice for lunch – don’t care what, anything to distract the little buggers
11.11 Inform children – tantrums commence
11.35 Tantrums subside
12.15 Make it up to the shops after long, wearing walk (I mean its only 750m how can it take 40mins??) – small crowd forms around puppy – answer stupid questions… yes he is cute, yes he is a puppy, no he isn’t a girl (SEE HE HAS A PENIS – a penis so hairy that the vet gave it a trim for him, yes a penis hair trim – she even had a scientific word for it. Vets never cease to amaze me), no he has never bitten anyone (which is a lie, he was chewing my hair at around 6.15am when Hubby dumped him on the bed before sprinting out the door)
12.36 Leave children in charge of puppy and crowd control and go to order Hot Chocolates
12.37 Find I have an empty wallet
12.38 Back in café after sprint to ATM (non my-bank so I paid TWO DOLLARS for the privledge) and fly past Bakers Delight where they foolishly tried to press sourdough bread upon me (not literally).
12.39 Take hot choccies out to children who have given up on me and are introducing themselves to total strangers, luring them in with the puppy.
12.41 Miss Four pours hot choccie over freshly bought cheesymite scroll
12.41 Tide of milk reaches Miss Three's cheesymite scroll
12.51 Tantrums abate when café lady abandons customers to restore calm
1.15 Buy milk, post books flogged on ebay for $7.50 each thankyouverymuch
1.34 Sun comes out, breeze drops and temp soars to 34 degrees
1.37 Begin slow, horrible trip home
1.43 Walk up my street carrying puppy, Miss Three, handbag, fetching shoulder bag with cupcakes on it containing 2L of Very Heavy Milk (because they were out of 1L cartons) and holding Miss Fours hand as she sobbed - "Are we there yet?"
1.45 Arrive home, fling children into bedrooms for ‘naps’, hide down far end of house enduring dead possum stench and sobbing over the end of Oprah (because it was all about army fellows coming home to their wives – and I am a sook)
2.15 Naked Miss Three arrives to inform me she has done a poo – congratulate her heartily – until she tells me it was in her bed.
2.16 I can’t appall you with the things I had to deal with for the next half an hour
2.31 Puppy wees on floor
3.01 Handyman turns up after FOUR MONTHS to measure up for replacing eaves – makes sarcastic comment about puppy and Ella – inform him she died – he slinks away.
3.30 Make steamed chicken dim sum for afternoon tea. Miss Four's verdict “This is shit” after she’d spat it on the floor. Yay, her vocabulary is coming along so nicely.
5.30 Hubby arrives home with freshly purchased teaset from auctioneers – where incidentally the computer system had gone tits up, so he fixed it for them. They offered him a job. He told them his hourly rate, they withdrew the offer.
5.40 Realise tea set is in really crap condition – much more crap than told. Have been had.
5.45 Get invoice for teacup from NZ – pay it via international bank transfer which cost an extra $24 thus making my BARGAIN teacup really fucking expensive
5.47 Realise really fucking expensive teacup does not match crap teaset – almost identical but NOT QUITE. Debate whether to tell husband or not. Elect not. Cunning plan to match teacup to parts of teaset and flog on ebay thereby making back money spent totally and utterly down the gurgler.
5.50 Puppy wees on floor, children have hysterics for no clear reason, Hubby loses temper and goes to buy Thai takeaway
5.51 Realise Miss Four is covered in hives – fill her up with clarantyne and mourn the fact its the non-drowsy version.
6.30 Stand outside waiting for puppy to wee - get eaten by sandflies
6.40 Give up on puppy
6.41 Puppy wees on floor
7.30 Stand outside waiting for puppy to wee - debate squeezing it out of the wretched animal - get eaten by mosquitos.
7.40 Give up on puppy
7.41 Puppy wees and poos on floor
9.03 Realise I haven’t washed puppy-wee bedsheets yet.

sigh.

Teacuppery

So, anyone who's a regular visitor may have noticed that I slip in the odd photo of Very Cool Teacups. I usually call the post Teacup Pron (pron instead of porn so I don't get sleazy people googling... uh oh). I agree this is an immensely stupid title for a post and promise to stop it.

Titles aside, the collection and flogging of vintage & antique (email me if you can tell me the difference!) teacups made by a china company called Shelley is a passion that has kept me happily time-wasting (and not writing books for example) for quite some time. I now feel the need to illuminate the internet about it all, so now and then I'll put putting up a post about various cups in my collection.

I use my cups. In fact the screamies use them as well. Yes, nothing is quite like watching a three and a four year old sipping weak tea from porcelain teacups, with utterly perfect manners. I'll try and get a photo - have finally figured out how to get photos from phone to blog (now to tackle messagebank). The kids can use any cup in my collection (as can any guest in my home) however, I do steer the littlies towards a few white elephants I have in my collection - from getting stiffed on ebay, ones that arrived cracked, or one of a couple of sets of six I have.

So, my all time favourite pattern is Shelley's Spots (often mis-named Polka Dots) on a cup that is in the 'henley' shape. This is my divine blue spots trio.
And my green trio - blue at the back - the reason they look different is because the gold is painted on the rim differently.
Recently I got hold of a duo in turquoise and a duo in melon, only red, pink, yellow, black with white spots and hazelnut with white spots to go!

Trust me its better than poo...

One of my delightful children has taken to decorating her bedroom with excrement - I now cannot sleep unless everything around me reeks of bleach AND if I knew where to send her back I WOULD.

However, there are laws about selling children on ebay, so instead I've been chatting to a shrink about it. One of things we're trying is playing with clay. I'll let you figure out the thinking behind that yourselves...
As usual nobody has a clue how it got on the dog...
He's so CUTE... And his white smudge on his nose is going.

Followup...

Hair cut, spent yesterday being as be-lovelied as I can be and spending money on clothes. Not sure how I managed to have such a gigantic forehead though.Note remains of hot chocolate in car seat cup holder. Never let it be said that my children don't travel in style.

Laugh, when you have nothing else left...

Am I or am I not the prettiest girl on the internet?

I took this of myself. Yes, as usual noone else to blame. In my defence it was an accident. I was trying to figure out how to take photos on my new phone... I WAS.

I thought I was pointing the camera at my computer screen in front of me and someone beside me was making smart-arse remarks about losers who photograph their computers.
How wrong we both were.

I don't know what has happened to my face or my hair or (my god) my eyebrows.
I have no idea why I look like this.
In fact I didn't actually realise this is what I look like, or indeed that I even had the capacity to look this horiffic.
Hubby still will not admit that this is his wife.

I have booked myself into the beauty salon for four hours of snipping, waxing and de-blackheading on Wednesday. If they did lipo for double chins I'd be signed up for that as well. Where did those chins come from???

I am never leaving the house again.

Job Interview

In just a few weeks, and with some reluctance, I shall be departing my part-time job forever. Presently they are interviewing for my job and I was asked to provide a few questions. Here they are...

• Do you have a drama filled life and can you articulate this over coffee?
• Can you describe in graphic detail the latest vomiting episode of your husband/child/puppy/cat/neighbour?
• Do you have an in-appropriate interest in other people's lives and are happy to gossip at length with total strangers? Do you then pass this gossip on to everyone you meet?
• Do you have any intention whatsoever of getting knocked up?
• Have you worked in a sheltered workshop before?
• Do you like to make friends and influence people?
• Do you ride roughshod over other people's opinions and then blame them in the unlikely event you are wrong?
• Do you have a secret unseemly passion for Access queries? Other peoples problems? Teacups? Ebay?
• Are you obsessive? Compulsive? or neurotic?
• Do you have a deep seated resentment of authority figures?
• How do you feel about Americans?
• Do you have great difficulty reliquinishing control of anything and cope badly in a team environment?
• Do you beleive lunch starts at 11am and finishes at 3pm?
• Could you spend the rest of the day talking to people on gmail chat (or similar)?
• Do you deeply resent people who ask you questions? ask you to do work? or ask you to get off the phone to your mother?

I don't think they realise how much they're going to miss me.

Its a Gekko...

Had an unrool little visitor on the wall outside the kitchen yesterday...
Very cute little Gekko. Although the kids don't think so, as I told them it'd savage their chubby little fingers if they touched it. That was probably wrong of me, so very very wrong. But it preserved the Gekko and my sanity... White lies, just little white lies.

Note the appalling red brick. The ENTIRE house is this red brick and when we moved in anything outdoors that wasn't growing was painted red as well. Except for the roof which has the distinct remains of vibrant blue paint on it. Noice.

Collecting Eggs...

So Mum has four chickens.... Okay, well she had four chickens, it seems one was... er... pinched by the Wedge Tailed Eagles nesting near their house. Now she has three.

They each lay one egg every day, one always does it in the right place...
The others like to hide them.

Here Miss Finally Three demonstrates how to get the egg laid in the right place...

And Mum demonstrates how to look for the other eggs...

Oh she amuses me!

Good LORD, its March...

When the hell did that happen? Hmm.

Went up to visit Mumndad last Wednesday.

And the puppy met a few of Mum's creatures...Big black ones are Alpacas and short one are sheep. The Alpaca looking at us is Pepe and the one in profile is Jock, the sheep have names too, one is Brindle and the other Blackie, I have no idea which is which. (And I can only tell the difference between the Alpacas because Jock has seriously bad buck teeth).

Alpacas hate dogs of any form - its an instinct thing and includes foxes as well. Which is why Mumndad have the Alpacas, they used to guard the flock of sheep up at their place in Orange. They still have a herd to guard, its just not quite as big as it used to be! Soon they will have more company in the form of some young pregnant lady Alpacas, yes, my mind boggles slightly at the thought as well - but after helping my mother in the middle of a Force 8 snowstorm play mid-wife to a sheep having serious labour issues - I'm convinced the woman can do anything.

Daily Cute...

What? Besotted? Me?

Help for Bushfire Victims

There's a great article here in the Canberra Times written by a woman who lost her house in the Canberra fires, talking about what victims will need now and in the future.

More about Sebby

Sebby has had a huge day. It began early, at 2.30am in fact when he was forced out of his warm cosy bed (on the floor next to my warm cosy bed) and made to go to the toilet in the cold garden in the freezing rain and howling wind under an umbrella that had a SPIDER on it. Damn you puppy books. Damn you all to HELL.

It was fine. No really. I lived with a newborn that didn't sleep for six weeks, I can do this...

Oh sigh.

No he's very cute. Very cute. Peeing from one end of the house to the other, but cute.

Its Sebby

Today we picked up Sebby

He's been here about three hours and already acts like he's never lived anywhere else.

Its late, I'm tired so I'll wax lyrical tomorrow!

Nothing says Happy Valentines Day...

Like heart shaped toastApparently the crusty bit is supposed to be an arrow. Yes, my husband is that romantic. I am so blessed.

Books for Bushfire Victims

Courtesy of Romance Writers of Australia....

We've all seen the devastation the recent Victorian bushfires have wrought and have wondered how we can help. We know that for many affected families,books will not be high on their priorities list for some time to come. But... We also know how valuable books can be in providing time out when reality gets tough. So... With the aid of some wonderful volunteers, we've put together a Romance Writers of Australia Bushfire Book Appeal.

What we need? FICTION BOOKS!
Romance books, children's books, genre books, whatever – either new or in
sparkling condition.

Please send them to:
RWA Bushfire Book Appeal
c/- 89 Rennie St
Thornbury Vic 3071

When to send them?Now! And any time over the next few months. The books will be boxed and delivered to the appropriate neighbourhood centres/community centres/libraries in batches as soon as practicable. Feel free to pop a note inside, or if you're an author, sign it.
With thanks, Kelly Hunter President
On behalf of Romance Writers of Australia Inc.

Call for Spare Phone Chargers...

Have a spare phone charger?

Please send any spare mobile chargers to those that have lost theirs as a result of the Victorian bushfires.

Please send to:
Telstra Country Wide
Locked Bag 4670
Melbourne Vic 3001

Hope amongst the grim news from the Victorian Fires

The news from Victoria has been so grim that I think everyone is looking for a bit of hope. I for one now keep tissues on hand when I watch the news because I can't help but cry. But there are amazing stories of survival starting to emerge as well. Like that of a woman who dug herself and her children into a Wombat hole and survived the firestorm - and the 97 year old who survived Ash Wednesday, Black Friday and was picked up wandering along a road, none the worse for wear, after losing the battle to defend his home against these fires. My Grandfather is 93 and I am fully aware of how intrasigent gentlemen of that age can be - but defeating a bushfire??

The human cost is dreadful and the animal and wild-life cost equally upsetting. But here is a little moment of hope...


CFA firefighter, Dave Tree, finds a koala moving gingerly on her scorched paws after wildfires sweep Victoria. 'Sam' accepted a bottle of water and she is now recovering at a wildlife refuge - where apparently she has found love. http://www.smh.com.au/environment/love-in-a-time-of-bushfires-a-koalas-story-20090212-85dp.html

Victorian Fires

We're all watching helpless and appalled as the number of fatalities from the Victorian bushfires grows and grows. I woke up this morning and with dread turned on the computer to find the number at 173 and growing hourly. I think seeing Kevin Rudd, our prime minister, on television last night close to tears and lost for words summed up the feelings of all Australians.

I put the post below up on Sunday afternoon, saying where people could go to help. If the list on that web page of offers of help was not proof enough of the Aussie spirit, then I was stunned that my web-stats went through the roof. Literally hundreds of people googling how to help out, wanting to help. The Red Cross has been swamped by people giving blood, and in just six hours yesterday morning the Australian people gave $6million. Its cold comfort, I know, but comfort nonetheless.

I am an experienced fighter of bushfires. I've lived through four, two of which were very close calls and one in particular was a firestorm which trapped me and my entire extended family at our property west of Sydney one Christmas. I can relate only too well to what the people in Victoria are going through. My thoughts are with them.

Victorian Bushfires: Offers of Help

If you want to help the bushfire victims you can post offers of help here: http://blogs.abc.net.au/victoria/2009/02/offer-help---or.html

Vegies Growing like MAD...

Yes, I am excited. Thus I expect the internet to be excited as well.

See, carrots I dug up this evening...These are Purple Dragons (the carrots that is). They're orange or yellow inside and do taste a little different to your bog-standard carrot from Woolies. More carrotty. I grew them from seed.

In the middle of the greenery you can see a teensy tiny zucchini. I put the zucchini seeds in peat pots on about 2nd January - and we'll be picking them in a couple of weeks I reckon, three at the most.
Corn coming up in the corn patch.
Yes, it is corn, no its not grass.

And below are beans I am companion planting with the corn. I planted bean seed a week ago and already they're this big - actually I'm a little taken aback, we're due for Melbourne's heatwave to arrive here tomorrow and I was kind-of hoping they wouldn't germinate until after, oh well.
Beans put loads of nitrogen into the soil, Corn takes loads of nitrogen out of the soil which is why they're awesome to plant together.

He's eating my tomatoes

But I don't really care actually...He's a King Parrot, and you can tell he's a he because he's red. The girls are green.

Great Review for Secret Intentions...

Rachel C at Fallen Angel Reviews had this to say about Secret Intentions...

Secret Intentions

All Zani has to do is find evidence that Corbin de Villiers is leaking company secrets, seems simple. But there’s nothing simple about Corbin or her ‘job’ as his assistant; used to designing custom yachts, Zani has no idea how to be a PA. When she finds herself not only attracted to Corbin but hoping he’s not the one sabotaging the company, Zani struggles with loyalty to her family and an attraction she never expected.

Corbin de Villiers knows his new PA is hiding something, but with all that’s happening to his company, he doesn’t have time to find out what, even if Zani slips into his mind far too often for comfort. The longer they work together the more Corbin discovers Zani is many things but a PA isn’t one of them.

With lies, theft and the Russian Mafia things go from complicated to life threatening. Can Corbin and Zani find out who’s behind it all before they both pay the ultimate price?

Secret Intentions by Caitlyn Nicholas delivers an intriguing story of lies and love. Corbin and Zani are thrown together in a fight to first save his company and then their lives. Zani has spent her life fixing her brother and father’s problems, but this time they may have bitten off far more than she can chew. Ms. Nicholas has done a great job of making Zani a contradiction, on one hand she’s a successful business woman in high demand and on the other she’s an insecure woman who bows to her father and brother’s dictates. I loved watching as she grew to understand she was far more than her family ever allowed her to believe. Her relationship with Corbin grows along with her and as they get closer, Zani begins to flourish in her own skin. With secrets and lies at every turn, and everyone with their own agenda Ms. Nicholas weaves an intricate web of intrigue and danger that keeps you guessing. The chemistry between Zani and Corbin can’t be ignored but with everything going on seems destined to be pushed to the side. I loved the secondary characters; all of them have a hand at making Secret Intentions an engrossing read.

Reviewed by: Rachel C.

Dried Fruit in the Fruit Dryer - the conclusion

VILE. Worse than the cabbage disaster.

The plums were immensly bitter. So bitter I couldn't actually eat them. The apricots were like cardboard, the tomatoes were bitter AND like cardboard.Actually the mango was quite nice, in a chewy, stuck-between-the-teeth way.

SIGH.

And yes that is a carrot cake you see next to the plate. It was leftover from playgroup and they MADE me take it. Also, you are correct, my kitchen does look like a bomb's hit it, but that is how it normally looks. Moi au natural.

Sustainability - Hard Core - Ye Gods!

So I was reading Grass Roots the other day. I love Grass Roots and Earth Garden, they're my two favorite magazines - both 'alternative' living, sustainability type mags.

So, was feeling all environmental and so on about our bucket in the shower, and our vegies and remembering to take our green bags to the supermarket, and then I read about Jen Owens.

Jen Owens is doing the sustainability thing for a year. Here are her rules

• self-sufficient in meat, fruit and vegies
• everything else from Tasmanian only sources
• No supermarket shopping
• No purchases of new items
• Reduce energy consumption to grid neutral - which is a 95% reduction to 1kW which is supplied by a solar array.
  

Holy crap. I now see how entirely under-whelming my efforts really are. I mean okay, we don't have four acres of land, in fact we have 700 square metres and this includes the house, but still... A 95% reduction in electricity! No supermarkets! I am in awe. I'm also rather inspired...

Best of all Jen blogging about her experience: http://paramihomefarm.blogspot.com/. I'll put her in the sidebar so we can keep an eye on how she's going.

Winds from the east...

Winds from the east... Mist comin' in... Like something's a brewin', about to begin... Can't put me finger on what lies in store... But I feel what's to 'appen, all 'appened before...

So today kicks off a gigantic period of change at our house. For everyone.

I handed in my resignation at work. Yes, I am, in effect, retiring at the ripe old age of 37. Oh how I wish I'd invested more in superannuation! Sigh. I'll be working short hours two days a week until easter, and then that's it. I become a dependent spouse after eighteen years supporting myself. Freaky does not even begin to describe it.

Why? I know its a cliche, but I'm planning on spending more time with my family. Over Christmas in particular, but before that as well, I stepped back and took a hard look at how things were developing at home. I didn't like what I was seeing. The stress levels in the house were unbelievable, and on a daily basis I was having to choose between paying the kids the attention they needed and getting a decent meal on the table (to pick one small example that doesn't even begin to cover it).

It just wasn't working and something had to give. So gradually and with much careful thought hubby and I decided that I would leave work. Part of me is relieved, a large part of me is disappointed as I love work and the social interaction, and a bit of me is apprehensive and worried I'm making an undoable mistake. Please don't let it be a mistake!! But most of me - including the depths of my heart - knows that I've made the right decision. Miss Four and a half is off to school next year, time is moving faster and faster as I get older and I don't want to wake up one morning with a couple of teenagers and wonder what the hell happened.

So. That is the first change.

Second change is for the kids. Miss Four and a half is off to proper pre-school next week, to begin her run up to primary school. Miss Finally Three has changed daycare to be closer and like her sister will be attending much shorter hours. I have also juggled the days so that I get one clear day with each child for extra special time together. I can't say how much I'm looking forward to that. When the kids are on their own and not competing, they're like different children and bliss to be around.

Today was the girls last day at the daycare they've attended since they were six months old. To say leaving was a wrench is the understatement of the year. I cannot give enough thanks to the wonderful patient women who I was able to trust completely with my babies, and who also supported me when I was struggling and in a place so dark and endless I never thought I'd escape.

By way of thanks I gave the staff a huge hamper of teas, coffees, biscuits and other treats - high fat, low fat, caffeine free, chocolate free, with extra chocolate, you name it, it was in there. I hope they enjoy, my goodness they deserve it. I made the kids cupcakes. I baked 58 (there were supposed to be 60 but about 2 worth of batter was eaten by the helpers) plus 12 mini cupcakes, so a total of 70.See, 70. Hubby did a wonderful job with the decorating.

The children kind-of understood they were leaving. They were both a bit hopeful it was their birthday suddenly (instead of all this boring waiting and waiting for months on end), as cake to them means birthdays. I think they're going to be so busy with the new places that it'll be a while before it all sinks in.

The final change around here will be for hubby. His work contract ends shortly and so he will be changing jobs. Given the grim economic outlook it has us sucking our teeth a little, but fingers-crossed it'll be fine.

Oh and let's not forget the puppy. I think maybe another puppy photo...Can there be too many puppy photos? Okay, answer that in a few weeks!

Soap

Okay, so I made soap. Its actually not that hard. I was showing-off with this batch and instead of water I used goat's milk - which sounds exotic but with my dairy intolerant family its the milk that we always use.

Here are the ingredients.
You just melt the coconut oil into the olive oil, then mix the goat's milk with the caustic soda, then pour in the oil. Keep stirring until it saponifys (thickens). Stick it in a mould (old take-away container) and then slice it up a couple of days later.

This batch is still soft enough that when you press it with a finger it leaves a finger print, so it needs to cure for another month or two and then its ready to use. At that point I could grate it up, re-melt it and combine it with lots of lovely ingredients (like avocado oil and essential oil), or just use it as is.

I have sensitive skin and if I use soap in any form on my face I end up looking like a viking berserker (and many thanks to the wedding photographer who coined that happy phrase about my dried out scarlet skin before I discovered soap-free facial wash). This is a viking berserker you troglodyte.

See. Nothing like me at ALL.

Puppy Update

Meet Sebastian (tho I think we'll call him Sebby most of the time).

Too cute for words (even if he did have wee on his head). We're bringing him home mid-February.

Trip to Fagan Park

Took the girls to Fagan Park on Wednesday. I think half the fun of getting there is the trip on the punt (car ferry) that crosses Berowra Creek at Berowra Waters.
Fagan Park is this awesome park that used to be a working farm over in Dural but was then given to the council to develop as they saw fit. They've turned it into a wonderful playground, have a selection of gardens from all around the world - some even with matching tiny houses, and an eco garden. This is the eco garden, an oasis of fruit trees, compost bins and chatty volunteer gardeners.
And my daughters opinion of the eco garden. Yes, I am surrounded by luddites.

Puppies

I cannot go on. My near death experience of last week (ie summer cold) has made me realise how precious life is. Thus I have decreed I must have a puppy and I must have it NOW. Oh okay, we were getting one at Easter but hubby left his shoes outside the back door and I keep thinking they're Ella and trying to let them in, and its miserable living in a dog free house and I can't bear it a day longer.

I had kind-of thought we'd get a ruby coloured Cavalier King Charles Spaniel girl (the reddish one in the photo). But hubby loves the black and tan coloured ones (and they are beautiful, and I'm not that fussy - no really) and boys are easier to get hold of than girls (and I'm not that fussy about that either), so it looks like a black and tan boy it will be.
They're just divinely delicious aren't they.

This photo is actually of the puppies we're going to visit tomorrow. The two available are on the left and the right. Its just whether we choose the fellow with the white smudge on his nose or the one without. I'll have to let the kids do it, there's no way I could ever decide.

Australia Day

Been a comparatively quiet one today. Still getting over the cold - nearly died, not that ANYONE noticed -and hubby is now claiming I infected him. Whatever. Yes, mood slow to get better as well. Still, did manage to summon some patriotic cheer and went to Bunnings to buy a new showerhead this morning. At Bunnings we were presented with a couple of aussie flags to wave around and therefore actually looked enthusiastic about it all for the rest of the day. Which of course we were - well when not suffering with our various viruses (real and imaginary), bacterial infections and other ailments (don't ask - trust me, I'd have to tell you and then I could never un-tell you).

After Bunnings we went into Hornsby for some lunch. We've been doing weightwatchers (oh alright, since yesterday, which I spent in a starving, low-blood-sugar, foul tempered heap after accidentally scoffing all my points in peanut butter early on). I disgraced myself at lunch after being virtuous all morning - in my poorly condition I did not have the fortitude to resist the kids chicken nuggets and chips and my own lunch. And I'm not going to tell you about the slight chocolate eclair accident I had. No, not even mention it.

Because its Australia day the Hornsby RSL Pipe (that's bagpipe) Band put on a concert for us. Yes, nothing says aussie to me like bagpipes. See the people below in kilts. 29 degrees and they're in wool kilts. They had my sympathy. Have also found a new thing to add to the list of things that make me get teary - yes, am appalled to admit that bagpipes playing Auld Lang Syne made me wipe away a tear. sigh.Miss Finally Three was not impressed.
Then it was home for some gardening. Those green heaps are my tomatoes now correctly situated in their tomato bed (what? these are BEFORE photos)And planted some sweetcorn.
And then got out my dryer to dry some fruit that we're not going to have a chance to eat before it goes bad. That's mango and cherry tomatos from the cherry tomato plant, and below it are plums and apricots.

We have finished the day watching that Australian classic, Mary Poppins.

Go Aussie!

On the verge of expiring... well possibly

I have a cold, yes its 37 degrees outside and I am lying - and possibly dying - inside under the airconditioning. Oh and I KNOW air conditioning is environmentally unfriendly. But I am sorry planet, but if I'm going to put effort into saving you then I want to be around to be smug and santimonious about it.

I am having a very crabby day. I have already been to work - where I got a PARKING TICKET and the mean squinty eyed security man wouldn't let me off it even though I made a genuine mistake. I nearly cried. $81 was worth tears I felt. But then I realised that crying was beneath me, that I have more dignity, that I am not the kind of woman who cries to manipulate men. Also it wouldn't have worked - yes he was that mean.

So given the heat, my failing health, and work being very busy, I have little to report. Am thinking I might just have to start writing something... Hmm.

Being Sustainable - Its quite expensive

So, in my 2009 quest for a more environmentally friendly life, I have been reading books on how to be sustainable etc... Not quite what I was expecting, I have to say. You see, somewhat naively I thought the books would be brimming with good advice on changes I could make and things I could do that would save money and make me greener.

HAH!

All they seem to be able to talk about is how I should spend, spend, spend, and they do it in the smuggest, most self-satisfied tone. If its not spending more money on carbon credits - which frankly seem to be a way a assuage guilt and continue to live exactly how you have before. Then its paying more for green power, organic food, grey-water recycling systems and solar hot water.

By the end of Leaving a Lighter Footprint I was starting to feel less like a woman on a mission and more like the cash cow that I really am. Then there was all this talk about 'did I have the affluenza virus' and was I 'keeping up with the Joneses/Neighbours' to the detriment of the planet. WTF. I mean seriously.

But, being scandalised by Sustainability books is not the only thing I've done to improve the environment in my little corner of suburbia. No no indeedy. I have...

1. Convinced hubby to wee on the lemon tree last thing before bed - thus saving one toilet flush and fertilizer (remember this when I post about the lovely lemony treats I'm cooking in winter)
2. Calculated that we emit about 16tonnes of greenhouse gases a year from electricity use alone (so this doesn't include the wood-burning stove or the two cars).
3. Discovered that during some periods we use up to 800 litres of water A DAY. Though the average is around 500 A DAY. I'm still gobsmacked.
4. Figured out that if we were to install the largest solar power array you can get (for $47,000 and that is with rebates) it would only take care of half our power needs.
5. Actually considered paying $18 for four tiny lamb chops because they were organic
6. Made my own soap - ambitiously used goats milk - note to self, KNOW ONES LIMITATIONS. Soap has kind-of worked. May not use it on anything that actually owns living flesh though.
7. Planted vegetables (tatsoi & leeks - eaten by slug, onions - fried on 40degree day and rest of seeds left in pocket of jeans and then washed, zucchini - survived, just. So its ALL good).
8. Toilet trained my youngest child - thus saving a squillion disposable nappies - and I am now living in a world of poos on the lawn and puddles on the floor. Somebody peed in hubby's shoes and the debate is still raging, was it the child or the cat? Excrement - it is my life.
9. Have thought seriously about walking to the shops. Seriously.
10. Swore no piece of paper that entered our property would leave it (ie, all paper to be mulched on the garden, fed to the worms etc), promptly disappeared under an avalanche of junk mail (despite our NO JUNK MAIL sticker on the post box) and cardboard boxes and am having a bit of a rethink about that one. Well, its either that or hubby is going to move out.

Okay, so its going to take time. Our first goals are this; reduce energy use and water use. Both should be challenging. I found a really interesting brochure on home energy use on the Origin Energy website. Just having the microwave switched on but not running is costing us $1 per quarter, the laptop $8 per quarter, and the computer $16. So there is $25 we can save, or $100 a year just by switching three things off.

Amazing.

Day not going as planned.

It has been one of those days. And I mean REALLY one of those days. It began early, at 4am, when a flying saucer or something went noisily over our house and woke me up. Aliens are just rude - there I've said it.

So being knackered and feeling like my throat has been sandpapered (yes tonsillitis again - its getting embarrassing) I sent the screamies off to childcare with hubby and... er... well I'd like to say went back to bed, but we're flat out at work so in fact I hunkered down with my laptop and behaved pretty much like I'd actually gone to work only I was still in my pjs. Yes, my dedication knows no bounds.

By lunchtime it was 38 degrees and you know I just had this feeling. It may have had something to do with the smell of smoke and the sound of helicopters. So I wandered outside to discover...
1) a bushfire
2) a bushfire that was being waterbombed by four helicopters
3) a bushfire that was oh about two kilometers from our home.

Marvellous.

Then the phone rang. Miss Three had a high temperature and could I go and pick her up immediately. Of course I didn't hesitate, into the car and off to work I went. By then the car temp was telling me it was 41degrees. So I picked up the poor sickly one, who to be honest didn't look very well, but had a sudden turnaround which increased in volume and enthusiasm the closer to home we got.

Still, I could see she wasn't well. The helicopters had the fire in their sights, if not exactly under-control - so I felt confident enough to leave the house again and take her to the doctor.

Which was when the thunderstom hit and we got hailed on.

Of course it didn't change the temperature just pushed the humidity up a bit. Madam Three screamed the doctor's surgery down and was diagnosed with a virus and we came home to the smoke, the ash and thisIt was then that I discovered we had no chocolate in the house.

Hubby decided it was prudent to come home before the fire spread and cut off the motorway. He arrived (with Miss Four), decided the fire was going out (he was right) and took all the children to buy pizza. There was another rainstorm, a southerly change, the temperature dropped from 38 to 21 in ten minutes, the marvellous firies mopped up the fire and the thunderstoms went away and it was all over.

Really I'm quite tired.

Actually I am sending thoughts to those in Londonderry right now who are defending their homes against a bushfire - but for the weather it would've been us. And we're still on fire-watch tonight.

Well hubby is.

Farewell Clare

M'sister Clare returned to England yesterday. She came over on Sunday and just to prove that I am entirely civilised I baked cup-cakes for afternoon tea.

The icing covers the burnt bits on the cakes. The sprinkles covers the fact the icing went grey when it was supposed to be mauve. And the stand (birthday present to myself) distracts from the fact that they are a pile of burnt grey cup-cakes covered in sprinkles.

MMMMM.

This Year on the Blog

I've been thinking about blogging this year and things to crap on about. Of course there will be the usual mixture of writerly musings (HAH) and parenting stories (yes, Miss Three is being toilet trained - brace yerself for some horrible, horrible tales), but you know, I've been doing that for the last fours years. I think I need more. I think there is a whole universe of subject matter waiting for me to write about. I think its time I turned my attention to the environment.

Okay. Don't go to sleep on me because I mentioned the environment - I would forgive you of course, I know the environment frequently bores the pants off me (not literally naturally). However, I am going environmentally friendly, sustainable and self-sufficient the Caitlyn Nicholas way. And I am going to blog it. Oh yes. Alpaca poo will be involved, as will chickens. Can chickens swim? How will they fare in the pool? Does Alpaca poo smell? What will hubby do when he finds four bags of alpaca poo in the back of his nice less-than-a-year-old Mitsubishi? Will any members of the family be blinded in the home made soap making experiement? How will Pepper the cat (the last pet standing) cope with the new puppy at Easter, or with the chickens? What exactly is compost? Will I stop shaving my arm-pits?

All this and so much more will be answered...

I can hardly wait. Hardly.

Clearing out the Garden

Have had a clear out of the vege garden. I must admit with the trials and tribulations of last year the vege garden has not received the attention it deserved. It was one of the things that got let go when I had my "I cannot do it all" crisis of last April. Still, a few bits were planted and sporadically watered, mostly after R&R trips to the local plant nursery. Lucky for the plants we had an unusually damp winter and spring - okay well maybe usually damp but after seven years of drought I'm kind-of used to no rain.

Anyway, in my bit of Sydney with its warm temperate climate and one frost every four years we don't really have a fallow winter period in the garden. Through winter is actually a busy planting and growing time - unlike other parts of Australia like Tasmania that follow a much more 'traditional' (ie British) gardening cycle (only in reverse cos we're yanno down under).

However, the quiet time in the garden in Sydney tends to be December/January. Its so hot that any seedlings you plant get burnt off on the first 30+ day with dry westerly winds, anything remotely established goes nuts in the heat and bolts to seed or sucks up too much water when you water it and all the fruit splits (yes I'm glaring at YOU cherry tomatos).

So, with this in mind we're preparing the vege beds for planting starting in February/March. This basically entails digging up the grass clippings from where they've been rotting under the hibiscus all year and using them to cover over a layer of dynamic lifter (which is pelletised chook shit and my god does it stink). I've gone an invested in some blood&bone, dolomite lime and potash for fertilising the various beds further, but I'll get around to that later on. The important bit for now was to get beds cleared and settling down ready for planting.

We've decided to turn the 'leisure' (read neglected over-grown tick/spider/mozzie infested) area around the pool into a vege garden as well. First we (read hubby) had to remove the struggling and ill-thought-out (read not planted by me) palms that were already there.

Yes, my husband is shit-hot, I am a lucky lucky woman. I know this.

So anyway, what you can see in the photo up the top is the dug over beds with a couple of self-seeded tomatos and some carrots still going, but that is about it. And below the haul I pulled out...Celery, potatos and red cabbage. Due to lack of watering the celery is tough and stringy, so basically inedible raw, but just fine in casseroles done in the slow cooker - so its been blanched and frozen. The potatos are just lovely. Steamed with a bit of butter - potatoy perfection.

Then there is the cabbage. Last night, positively glowing with excitement I set out to make braised cabbage.
Cooked for 90 minutes with red-current jelly, port, orange juice and vinegar. How did it taste?

Vile. Yes. V.I.L.E. VILE. The house still reeks of it and the smell makes my stomach turn. Oh I cannot describe how AWFUL it was. Kind of almost like overcooked cauliflower and at the same time sickly sweet. Hubby said he liked it, but he's scared if he says anything else I'll never have sex with him again.

I recovered from the cabbage disaster by eating chocolate. So HURRAY for the diet. HURRAY.

Its ALL Marvellous.

Happy New Year, Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday to Miss Finally Three

In the last few days we've had an orgy of gift giving. Yes, we have an unseemly number of birthdays in the week after Christmas - Miss Finally Three on 31 December (born at 11.09pm) and Me on 1st January. I have moaned about the nearness of my birthday to Christmas pretty much since I got my first combined present at the age of five.

Of course for I have endlessly blamed my mother for this lack of planning. So, you can imagine her response when I phoned on 31 December 2005 at around 6am to tell her I was in labour. Actually, she didn't believe me, as Miss Finally Three's pregnancy was fraught with Braxton Hicks contractions towards the end. But I knew. The Universe was laughing at me again. When I arrived at the hospital at around 4pm that afternoon the obstetrician gave me a choice, we could hurry the labour along by breaking the waters and the baby would arrive on the 31st or leave things be and she'd arrive on the 1st. I chose the 31st so she wouldn't have to share a birthday with me, and she made it with only 40minutes to spare.

So, Happy New Year to all and sundry. In the Caitlyn Nicholas household 2009 has been dubbed The Year of Change (with apologies to Barack Obama). Yesterday afternoon I discovered that I'd spent the day with my underpants on inside out, so I'm thinking that things are only going to improve from that point.

I've made about a thousand resolutions. I kid you not. I got an Alphasmart for my birthday and I've been filling up the To Do list on it. I'm a Capricorn and I like lists and order so its not surprising really.

On the whole the resolutions point to one thing, that at my house we need to make some permanent changes. Both hubby and I are over-weight. Each year we resolve to lose weight, and each year we end up just a little bit porkier than the last. Given my family history of heart-disease at a young age and Hubby's family history of diabetes we need to get the whole weight thing under control. I've had success with weight-watchers in the past so we're planning to follow that regime.

I'm in two minds whether to blog about it. Part of me says to stop thinking about it because I blog about everything so its going to pop up here anyway, part of me says blog about it a lot so that I have motivation to stick with it. The last part of me says not to blog about it because I'll probably fail and then everyone will know and I'll end up resolving to lose weight on 1/1/2010. Just like the last four years. Which I know is a totally shit attitude, but I'm just so over trying and failing to lose weight. Its a journey I perpetually seem to be at the start of, never in the middle, never nearly at the end, just always starting out. Good lord, I can write 90,000 word books, why can I not stick to a diet??

Aside from the whole, endless weight thing we want to spend less, consume less, garden more and sleep more. So, expect many blog posts about the vegie patch - we've got grand plans for putting in fruit trees and even an avocado.

Writing wise I've got several goals, to get The Bunker ready to face the world by March, I'm writing a short story for a special ops romance anthology which is due in June, and I'd like to write either Boys of Summer or Fat Chance by 2010. And of course Secret Intentions is out in paperback mid 2009.

But really all this will take a back seat to the kids. Its our last proper year at home together. Next year Miss 4.5 is off to school and Miss Finally Three will be at pre-school four days a week. So I want to make 2009 a joyful, fulfilling year of home and family. I want to enjoy our last year of playgroup and mid-week trips to the beach. I'm looking forward to it.