A "pottering" day..

We had a bit of a pottering day today. After having a bad dream through the night (he's woken up with bad dreams 4 out of the last 5 nights), Billy came and got into bed with me at 6:30 and then to my shock, went back to sleep for another hour. So a slower than normal start for us. After breakfast & a shower, we went outside - me to tackle the garden, and Billy to start organising his "new" cubbyhouse. Mum & Dad brought it down yesterday and we put it up - it's an old garden shed that I got as a cubby 30-odd years ago! It's been in constant use since in some guise or other :)

In between playing shops with Billy in his new cubby, I managed to get a few things planted. In the back vege garden, I planted watermelon, cucumber and capsicum - all seeds. I haven't attempted to grow & transplant seedlings yet - they either grow by direct planting or they don't! While doing that, I also harvested 1kg of potatoes that I had no idea had grown in there! I didn't plant potatoes this year - they've grown from last years crop!!

In the containers near the back steps (styrofoam boxes from Freecycle), I planted some more lettuce & spring onions, and some passionfruit seeds. In the front garden, I planted some very out-of-date rosemary seeds. I doubt they'll grow but what the heck!

I still need to get some pumpkin seeds, and Billy wants to grow more flowers.

I'm a very slack gardener - I get interested, plant lots like I did today, but then I find it hard to sustain the interest while nothing is happening. Then I usually forget to water! I have this picture in my mind that I want to be a cross between Jackie French, Linda Woodrow, Linda Cockburn and Tom & Barbara from the Good Life :) But unfortunately, the reality is far from that!! I'd like to think that given heaps of spare time each day it might happen...

We had a picnic lunch outside - the weather was wonderful after the overcast & rainy days we've had. Not that I would dare complain about the rain! I even managed to get 2 loads of washing dry outside - yay!

After lunch I made a kind of "fruit salad" jam.. I went to make Crazy Mumma's Microwave Strawberry Jam with the rest of the strawberries languishing in the fridge, but had nowhere near enough to make up 500g. So I threw in a couple of apples - and then some pineapple from the fridge as well! Breakfast time tomorrow morning will tell if the experiment was a success :)

What else did we do? A bit of cleaning, lots more play acting with Billy (which bores me to tears to be frank!) - oh I even pulled out a jigsaw to start - it's the first time in 5+ years since I've done one.... I didn't get far - I'm just hoping all of the pieces are there since it was a hand-me-down from my sister!

Billy is reacting badly to all of the take-away & treats he's had lately - his defiance & cheekiness are not great atm.. I've stopped any treats so we just have to "de-tox" now.. Should be a fun few days.. Wish me luck!

I got my hotmail account back!

Microsoft just reset my password for me (after several days of going back & forth with questions to verify that I owned it) - I now have my old hotmail account back.

I guess it wasn't so hard to verify that it had been hacked - all of my emails were obviously in English but the little #$%^@ had changed the language to Chinese!!

I've changed the password etc etc on it - will still keep using the new one, but at least I'll be able to keep an eye on the old one in case something untoward turns up. Or in case someone who doesn't know the new account contacts me.

It doesn't look like anything was touched - no sent emails from it etc, but who knows how far the info has been spread in hacker land..

Random ramblings

Don't you just hate it when you get half way through telling off a child and realise what you are about to say is just totally ridiculous... Case in point: "Billy, stop saying silly words - just keep your mouth shut (it was about this point I realised how silly I was about to sound but continued regardless!) and finish eating your dessert" :) Thankfully he's not old enough to have picked up on it yet!!!

Pete rang about an hour ago, although he had been keeping me updated with text messages - they arrived safely last night and had slept for 13 hours so were ready to face the world today!

Last night I went to hear Sue Dengate of Failsafe / Fed-up fame talk. Even though we started the diet 4 or 5 years ago, I had never actually heard her talk - I was impressed with how approachable she was, and how she made it sound achievable. Unfortunately I would lay money that the majority of the people in the room will dismiss it as "too hard" - but even if most just cut down their "nasty" consumption it would help tremendously. It was a stark reminder to me of just how slack we have been lately - how many little "treats" have crept into the diet, so I'll be getting stricter again (after the promised bought pizza night tomorrow night lol). We're not totally failsafe - mainly just "nasty" free, although I watch my amine levels as they give me migraines..

My mil & fil looked after Billy last night while I went to the talk, so I had to spend some time yesterday afternoon making the house "mil clean" :) Actually she's pretty good and wouldn't say a word, but it's my pride on the line! The house looks much better and has reduced my stress levels a lot - now to maintain it. I really have to clean the fridge out tomorrow though - something is whiffy in there and I don't want to guess what :( (Someone keep me accountable on that please?!!!!)

Today after swimming we spent the day up at my sil's place - it's so great spending time with her & the kids (I'm trying hard to stop calling them "the triplets"!) They are really developing their own personalities, but to me, the best thing is to see their faces light up when they see me, and know that they "know" us and like us! Billy is getting better with them - as an only child, to suddenly be swamped with 3 toddlers is very overwhelming to him, but he's getting better.

I really must set up a routine - now that I've finished work outside the home and Billy only has preschool one day / week, I'm finding it hard to even know what day it is! The days seem to be passing by and I'm not achieving much - I need to get back to a routine and lists..

OK enough procrastination for now - time to get to work. I'm working on a new website for Joliv (www.joliv.com.au) - a facelift and some enhancements to help grow her business.

Adios Senor!

We've just waved Pete off on his trip to Spain. He has a long couple of days of travelling ahead of him - from here, he's driving down to Sydney (2 hrs), he'll leave the ute at Grant's place and they'll catch the train over to the airport. Their flight leaves about 6pm tonight - flying to London, then something insane like a 75 min transfer to another terminal, and a 2.5 hr flight to Madrid. They'll get in late Thursday night our time - and I bet they'll be exhausted!!

They spend 4 days in Madrid and then reverse the process to come home - arriving back in Sydney on Tuesday night. He'll stay overnight at Grant's place and drive home on Wednesday morning...

I think he'll need a holiday to get over that one by then!

The race that stops a nation..

I thought I'd stumbled into a parallel universe this afternoon when I went "down town" to get some stuff for Pete to go away.. I had to double-check that it *was* Tuesday afternoon, and I hadn't driven in on Sunday afternoon instead.. There were literally 3 people in the mall, it was really easy to get a car park, and some of the shops were shut. Then it hit me when I saw all of the shopkeepers huddled around TVs - Melbourne Cup day! As you can obviously guess I have zero interest in horse-racing, and even less interest in fashion or drinking, so it's not high on my priority list! In fact I think it's a wonderful piece of marketing - to convince people who don't care about horse-racing for the rest of the year to stop what they are doing and watch a race that they don't know much about and will forget the winner of 5 minutes later!!

Anyway I apologise to the bank teller who had to serve me while the race was on :)

Weekly wrap-up

Well I wouldn't say that this has been my most productive week ever!

I've had a migraine of varying intensity since Tuesday (hopefully gone now), and then woke up this morning to find my paypal account had been hacked. That got rapidly worse as they then tried to get into my ebay account, failed since it had a different password, but they hacked into my hotmail account that had the same password and hijacked that so they were then able to get my ebay password via a reset. They then listed 2 laptops on my account.

eBay Live Help were far better than I expected and I got that one sorted pretty quickly - still no useful response from paypal or Microsoft about the hacked accounts. I did manage to change my paypal email address and password before the hacker did, so I hope it's safe, but they still have my hotmail account. I've spent most of the day setting up a new account and changing passwords on everything I can think of, as a lot of passwords were stored in my hotmail account. I think they're just after ebay / paypal ones, but I can't afford to take chances. Luckily no bank account details were stored in there. Lots of valuable lessons learnt today, and I know it's my own fault but I'm still pretty annoyed with the scumbag that did it... I've had that email account for about 10 years and I feel like part of my identity has been ripped away..

On the plus side, it did give me a good chance to really think about what things I wanted to be subscribed to! (I wouldn't really recommend it as an ideal way though lol).

On the homeschooling front - at the end of our first week, to be honest, there hasn't been a lot of "home" or formal "school" go on lol. We started on Tuesday - did some worksheets in the morning and then went to the local homeschoolers picnic at lunch time. As I said in a previous post, Billy got on well with one of the boys there so we were invited over to their house on Wednesday afternoon. We did some school work before we went over. It went down hill from there though - Thursday was preschool, Friday we had swimming in the morning, and my head was so bad that school was out of the question in the afternoon. Saturday I worked and Billy & Pete went to a beer show - not sure if I can put that into a school outcome or not lol. Today I was busy changing passwords :(

Oh well, next week is a new week! It should be an interesting one actually - Pete is off to Madrid on Wednesday...

I've been hacked :(

I woke up this morning to find that somehow while I was asleep through the night I'd made a paypal transaction that I don't remember to a Chinese name that doesn't ring any bells.. Grrr! I guess that's what I get for not practising what I preach about changing your passwords regularly. It's *only* $350 - it could have been much worse - but I hope it gets sorted out soon. Thank goodness for the Baby Emergency Fund...

So now I'm frantically trying to think if any other places might have been compromised as well.

Please, go and change your passwords now!

It's all Lis's fault :)

Guess who found themselves in Big W this afternoon buying a donut maker... Yes Lis, it's *all* your fault!! (http://alteredcutlery.blogspot.com/2007/10/donuts.html). I must say they are very delish and very easy to make! I think these will be a staple in the freezer for treats. I don't let Billy have a lot of bought treats because they send him feral so these will be something special!

I would've taken a photo, but oops, they disappeared before I could :)

Recipe: Rice Bubble Nutties

We made this recipe from The Commonsense Cookery Book (Book Two) to take over to Billy's new friend's house on Wednesday - they were all pratically inhaled by all of the kids (and the mums didn't mind them either!) so he bugged me to make some more today. He did the measuring out of the dry ingredients - a bit of a maths lesson in fractions along the way :)

We made the Cornflake variation.

Rice Bubble Nutties

1 cup rice bubbles

1 cup rolled oats

1/4 cup flour

1/2 cup coconut

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup melted butter

1 tablespoon honey

1/2 teaspoon bicarb of soda

2 tablespoons boiling water

Mix rice bubbles, rolled oats, flour, coconut, salt & sugar together. Add melted butter, honey & bicarb dissolved in 2 tablespoons of boiling water. Drop with a spoon on a greased tray, leaving space between each to spread. Bake in a slow oven and leave on tray till cold.

Note: Cornflake Nutties can be made the same way, substituting conrnflakes for rice bubbles.

* My note - our oven has a mind of it's own, but I cooked them for about 10 mins on 180 deg C.

Actor's Studio Meme

While I'm busy catching up, Lightening tagged me ages ago for a meme, so here goes.

The Actors Studio 10 Questions Meme -

1. What is your favorite word?

I love words that roll off the tongue like "quintessential" or "penultimate". When I was a young teen I went through an obsession with the word "cute" - every thing was described as cute! It drove my parents mad - understandably!!

2. What is your least favorite word?

At this time of year - "politics" or "election" :)

3. What turns you on [creatively, spiritually or emotionally]?

Time by myself to recharge; watching a bubbling stream

4. What turns you off?

Rude or aggressive people

5. What sound or noise do you love?

Silence!

6. What sound or noise do you hate?

Finger nails down a blackboard, bottles sliding into styrofoam boxes

7. What is your favorite curse word? *

Unfortunately I use the F word too much. :( I wouldn't call it my favourite, but certainly my most used.. I'm trying to do better!

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

Writer

9. What profession would you not like to do?

Childcare, Nursing

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

Well, we've had to wait a while for you!

*If you do not wish to use the curse word on your site that’s ok and understandable - try and find one not so offensive instead, if you can, or alternatively star out some of the letters.

I think everyone's probably been tagged since I've left this so long, but if you want to do it, consider yourself tagged!

Picture Me Meme

I've been tagged by Lisa at The Tin House and Lis at Altered Cutlery to take part in the picture-me Meme. (I think that was all - sorry if I forgot anyone!) This was started by Kate at Our Red House:

"The rules are simple: post a picture of yourself on your blog. As some may feel uncomfortable posting a current photo, a baby or childhood picture is fine. Post the picture, tell us the story behind it, copy the logo, and tag three others (without forgetting to tell them that they have been tagged!)"

This photo was taken 3 or 4 days after Billy was born. The local paper used to send a photographer around to the hospitals to take photos of the new mums & bubs, and it then appeared in the weekly paper (I'm not sure if they do it anymore or not). Just before the photographer arrived, the "baby blues" hit me and I was a complete blubbering mess! The nurse ended up telling the photographer to come back later :) So my smile isn't quite as genuine as it could be - along with the fact that I hate getting my photo taken!

That done, I tag:

Emma at Em's Blog

Libby at Life is a Journey not a Destination

Mrs P at GoLightly Place

First official homeschool event

Today was our first official homeschooling event. The local homeschoolers group had a picnic at Maitland park - quite a few families there with a multitude of kids of various ages. Every one seemed quite nice - Billy hit it off with another boy the same age and has a play date organised with him tomorrow! They only live about 5 minutes away too which is handy if they get on.

And now back to the grindstone!

We had a great weekend, very relaxing! It was our belated anniversary weekend away (our anniversary is in Sept, but we put it off until we weren't in the middle of all of the b'day parties!) - we had 3 nights in Sydney by ourselves! Billy stayed with my parents, sister & nieces and had ball.



Our accommodation was great value for money - we stayed at the Holiday Inn in Darling Harbour - Pete used points from his work travel, and then we got a free upgrade because he's a "platinum" member, so we scored a suite for absolutely nothing :) The hotel is right on the edge of Chinatown so we ate "real" Chinese one night, Japanese Teppanyaki BBQ another night and steak & chips at the pub the other night lol. China Town was amazing at night - young Asian ladies were standing outside all of the restaurants to try and get people to come into their restuarant. It was a lot like Lygon St in Melbourne but Asian not Italian lol.

China Town entrance

The view from our room - Paddy's Markets (mostly cheap junk but great fruit & vege markets as well)

The monorail went straight past our hotel - this was taken from our room!

Mostly we relaxed, read, slept, did a bit of shopping (and lots of walking). Saturday was our day of "culture" :) - we saw 2 plays over at the Opera House. Firstly we went to a matinee performance of "The Government Inspector". It was a Bell Shakespeare production adapted from a Russian play about a down-on-his-luck traveller being mistaken for a government inspector by the corrupt town officials and showered with bribes. He plays the con for all it's worth and even sleeps with the mayor's wife - and daughter!! It was absolutely hilarious - normally it has a cast of about 20, but it was done by 2 actors - Darren Gilshennan and William Zappa - with lots of costume changes and voices! It was so cleverly done, lots of slapstick, and a bit Charlie Chaplin-esque in some scenes! I laughed so much my cheeks were aching by the end of it!



That night we saw the Sydney Theatre Company perform the David Williamson play "Don's Party". It was set on Election night 1969 when Labor's Gough Whitlam was expected to win (but didn't) - it wasn't all that political though. "Don" and his wife Kath were throwing a party for his Labor voting friends, throw a liberal voting couple in the mix, and fueled by lots of alcohol, lots of sexual by-play and that's the plot in a nutshell :) It was a lot funnier than I was expecting but quite confronting in a few places. All of the characters were well played but my favourite was Rhys Muldoon playing Cooley - an oversexed, opionated "oaf" - I'm a big fan of his :)



So all in all a good weekend - it was lovely to eat a meal in peace or just sit and relax without having to keep an eye on the munchkin. I couldn't sleep in though - I seem to have lost the ability :(



Back to the grindstone today!

A much better day!

Thank you for all the online hugs I received - they're powerful things :)

I got another website redesign sent live today - it's a new look for the one I recently finished (www.divapromotions.com.au). That leaves me with two more website re-designs, and 2 programming jobs to finish before I can stop work for the year. Yes Lisa - I will be taking time for myself very soon :)

We went out to dinner tonight for my b'day - a new Hog's Breath steakhouse has opened near us, so we went with my parents, sister & nieces. The food was quite nice - I ate too much though! Pete insisted on ordering dessert for me! I was very spoilt and felt very loved.

I'm taking a break until Tuesday so I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

To: GOD.com

I hope this doesn't offend anyone, it's not my intention in any way - I just found this particularly apt with this wonderful online blogging community.


TO: God.com

Dear Lord,
Every single evening
As I'm lying here in bed,
This tiny little Prayer
Keeps running through my head:

God bless all my family
Wherever they may be,
Keep them warm and safe from harm
For they're so close to me.

And God, there is one more thing
I wish that you could do;
Hope you don't mind me asking,
Please bless my computer too.

Now I know that it's unusual
To Bless a motherboard,
But listen just a second
While I explain it to you, Lord.

You see, that little metal box
Holds more than odds and ends;
Inside those small compartments
Rest so many of my friends.

I know so much about them
By the kindness that they give,
And this little scrap of metal
Takes me in to where they live.

By faith is how I know them
Much the same as you.
We share in what life brings us
And from that our friendships grew.

Please take an extra minute
From your duties up above,
To bless those in my address book
That's filled with so much love.

Wherever else this prayer may reach
To each and every friend,
Bless each e-mail inbox
And each person who hits "send".

When you update your Heavenly list
On your own Great CD-ROM,
Bless everyone who says this prayer
Sent up to GOD.com

Amen

A bad day at work

I have over 60 blog posts sitting unread in Google Reader and I just haven't had time to read them yet :( I had over 70 yesterday - I got through some last night, I think I was down to around 50, but it's up again!

Thank you so much to all of the people who leave comments on my blog - you have no idea how much it's appreciated. I'm not being very reciprocal atm, but that will change some day I hope!! To those who have given me awards or tagged me for a meme - thank you, and I will get to it, I promise!!

I've been doing well in regards to Muffin - until a letter arrived from the vet yesterday. I opened it, expecting it to just be a receipt for the final payment but it was a condolence card - complete with Muffin's paw print and a small amount of her fur tied with a ribbon. I dissolved again :(

I really must get my BAS done tomorrow before the tax man harrasses me. I always put it off until the last minute; I just hate dealing with tax!

Pete's off to Madrid next month for a quick trip. His mate won a fantasy tennis competition with the winning prize being a trip for 2 to Madrid - flights, 4 nights accommodation, 3 days entry to watch the women's tennis in Madrid, a tour of Madrid, a behind the scenes tour of the venue and to meet one of the top players. And lucky Pete gets to go with him! They'll be exhausted when they get back though - the flights go via London, so will be a minimum of 27hrs. Plus I don't imagine they'll sleep a lot while they're over there lol. We're not sure of dates yet but it's somewhere around the 8th of Nov that they'll leave. Looks like we'll be doing a unit on Spain with school!

We start school "officially" next Tue - we'll be meeting up with some other local homeschoolers for a picnic lunch on the same day, so that's not a bad way to start the school year! I'm still not entirely organised but I know Billy will be waiting eagerly to start at probably 6am that morning - he won't let me put it off :) I've written an integrated unit of work on "Me & my family" as a starting place and have some maths workbooks ready to go, so it won't be total chaos :)

I'm sure I had a point when I started writing, but it's dissolved into ramble - sorry! Too much on my mind, not enough sleep and too much caffeine!!

It's over!!!

Do I need say more???!!!! Uni is over!!!!

No more dropping Billy at preschool at 7:30am!

No more prep work the night before!!
YAY!!!

Muffin..

I finally found the CD - this is one of my favourite photos of Muffin, taken about 6 years ago. It's actually quite startling to realise how much she had deteriorated in health from when this was taken. You know how you don't see changes when you are with someone all the time?

She was a Ragdoll cat - pure bred but not "perfect" enough to show so we got to buy her as a pet.


I still miss her & expect to see her at odd times - it still hurts but I've stopped crying..

Relaxing day.

We started back at swimming this morning - he did quite well, and luckily hadn't forgotten it all since we had last term off! Mum & Dad called in to see us while we were there and showed us where she's up to with the logo she's designing for our brewery. It's looking great - I really wish she'd passed some of the artistic genes on to me!!!

After that we headed off to visit with friends for lunch - Gem has been my friend since 2nd class - I worked out this afternoon that that's about 30 years which is pretty scary :) Ewan & Billy are the same age, and play pretty well together - or as well as 5 years olds can! It was good to sit, relax and solve the problems of the world - I hope I didn't take up too much of her day though!

We're making pizza for tea - I'm just about to start making the dough now, and then we'll head off to pick up Pete from the train. I don't know that I'll get much done tonight - I'm exhausted from not doing anything all day!! I have a couple of website redesigns to do, but I'm letting them sit in my subconscious for a while..

I've started to do a brain dump - I've got a lot of little tasks floating around in my head that I need to get down in a list before they send me mad :)

While on the nautical theme...

here are a few photos from our trip to the replica Endeavour last week. For any international visitors, the Endeavour was the boat Captain James Cook sailed in when he discovered Australia.



A few facts I didn't know:

• the Endeavour was originally a coal ship, so to accommodate all of the crew they needed for Cook's journeys, they had to add an extra floor below decks. It's *very* cramped down there!




• Cook didn't get the best cabin for the trip! Joseph Banks was a major investor in the trip so he got to have the best cabin - he had a bunk and Cook had to make do with a hammock!




• the cook only had 1-arm - now that's a challenge!




• the nautical term for measuring speed "knots" came about because they used to have a rope knotted every 47-odd foot that they threw overboard for 28 secs (counted by a sand-timer). Once the time was up they hauled the rope back in and counted how many "knots" they had travelled to calculate their speed.

Enough facts, sit back and enjoy the photos :)

Cosy sleeping quarters!

The "mess"

Billy and his cousin Ana "steering" the ship

The highlight of Billy's trip - the "toilet" over the side of the ship (left) and the "toilet paper" (right). They used to trail the rope over the side to wash it ready for the next person!

Brain strain

Uggh - talk about small jobs turning into big ones if you don't keep on top of them.. I was in a nice routine of invoicing my clients regularly until the wheels fell off a few months ago - it just took me 2 hours to catch up on invoicing :( On the plus side, I should get a nice amount of money coming in in the next few weeks now!

I feel like I'm going backwards with tasks atm - I cross one thing off the list, check my email and add 3 more on! I'm seeing very brief glimpses of that proverbial light at the end of the tunnel - I'm just hoping it's not a train :)

I was reading something in the last couple of days that has stuck in my mind. It was about how you flip forward in your diary and look longingly at the blank pages coming up so you can take a break, but of course, by the time you get there, the pages are no longer blank. I can't remember if I read it on someone's blog or in an article, or quite where - if you want to take credit for it, let me know - I'd love to acknowledge it! I had November "blocked out" for some time off - I'm still not taking on new jobs until next year but the existing jobs I do have on atm will run into that time. So now December is my time off - let's see how I go with that lol!

I had my penultimate day at uni on Tuesday (I love that word!) - next week is IT! I have also finished my last assignment for my CertIV, I just need to print it and post it off.

On the house front, the new lounge / family room area is slowly taking shape. We have at least finally moved all of the furniture! The new office area is a complete mess though - that's next on my list! We still have stuff piled in unusual places around the house :) We've been taking the opportunity for a good cull while we've been going - I've sent a few things off via Freecycle and there is a huge pile in the shed waiting to go to the dump/recycling bin. Funnily enough, no-one seems to want 15 year old uni computer textbooks!!! The new lounge area is really working well though - it's a great space and has really opened up that part of the house. Once we get organised again I'll be pleased I had the idea :)

Ahoy there me hearties!

This was the result of my "getting told at the 11th hour, Mummy I need to dress up like a pirate for preschool tomorrow" costume design :)

The pants were a pair of old trackpants that were halfway up his legs and already had patches on them! The shirt was one that was getting too small for him. The sash & bandana were made from an old pyjama top in the "rag bag". The patch was from his dress up box, and the tattoo was courtesy of his cousin's b'day party on the weekend.

The pose is entirely his own work :)

Today is Blog Action Day

Bloggers all over the world will be discussing the environment on their blog today - what a great way to raise awareness!

I'm not the type of person to campaign or demonstrate on a large scale. Instead I'm trying to change my own habits to tread lightly on the earth in the hope that that will make some overall difference. A couple of quotes I've read recently sum it up for me:

“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.” Robert Francis Kennedy

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever does” Margaret Mead

I've listed before some of the habits I'm trying to establish to have a positive impact on the environment eg in water & electricity savings. I'm also trying to grow more of our food, cut down on packaging, reduce usage of disposal items like plastic bags, use non-toxic cleaners etc. It's the same sort of things many of you are doing.

For me, the biggest way I'm making a difference is by passing on a responsible attitude & habits to my son. If these sorts of things become second-nature to our children, then hopefully the picture won't be so bleak for their generation. I was explaining Freecycle to Billy this afternoon as a lady was coming to pick up some things I was offering. I explained that just because we didn't have a use for something any more, some one else may be able to make use of it rather than throwing it to the dump - he piped up with "I know - reduce, reuse, recycle"! I was a very proud mum :) (Thanks also go to Bob the Builder for reinforcing that message!)

Thanks so much everyone

I wanted to say thank you to everyone who left a comment about our cat, it was very comforting.

We put her to sleep yesterday morning. I'm just about cried out by now but still get caught off-guard at times. I keep expecting to see her walking down the hallway, or curled up on our bed - every time I see an open door I think "oh I'd better close that so Muffin doesn't get out".

She had a pretty good life - we got her as a kitten 11 years ago, and she was our baby. Admittedly she got her nose pushed out of joint a bit 5 years ago when the real baby came along but she didn't have to share us for 6 years!

I'll post some photos of her once I can get to wherever the CDs have been put while we're moving stuff around.

She'd lost a lot of weight steadily over the last couple of years - she must've had it for at least that long in hindsight. It was never picked up in normal blood tests and it was only when the vet did a specific blood test for Feline Leukemia on Friday that it was found. It's actually a virus, not a leukemia and statistically speaking, she shouldn't have had it. It's mostly found in young cats up to 6 years old, outdoor cats & cats in multi-cat household. She was much older, never stepped foot outside and we've never had another cat in the house. The only time she could have caught it is at the vets or possibly when she was boarded a couple of times. I'm starting to wonder though if she had it right from a kitten - she was quite sick when we first got her and we thought we'd lose her - possibly she's had it that long and it's only flared up in the last couple of years. Who knows, and it's pointless even wondering..

The vet couldn't tell us how long she'd have left obviously, but did say she'd be in and out of hospital with secondary infections for however long she lasted. It didn't take much to make the decision to spare her that.

It's hard though..

Update on the cat

I just got a call from the vet as I was just about to hit Publish on that last post, so apologies if it doesn't make sense. I didn't have time to proof-read.

He just ran a test for Feline Leukemia and it came back positive. He'll see how she goes through the night, but the kindest thing might be to make the decision to put her down tomorrow. She may have months but I can't imagine it would be a great quality of life for her.

I just spent 10 minutes sobbing after I hung up, composed myself, cried again when I told Pete and Billy, and am having real trouble typing this with more tears streaming down my face..

Disorganised chaos!

I'm not sure if I'm describing the state of the house or my mind, but either way it fits :)

We're hoping to start the swap of the rooms tomorrow. Pete has run and connected 1 tv outlet and is under the house atm running some more cable to transfer the Austar across. We had a mate of Pete's from squash (he's an electrician) come & connect a couple of 4-outlet power points one night through the week, so hopefully the cabling will be ready tonight or tomorrow. Which means we can move the loungeroom furniture in tomorrow, and then start dealing with the rest. It's going to be like one of those square puzzles where you have to move one square into the empty space to be able to move the next one. Stuff is piled everywhere, and the state of the house is really affecting the state of my mind!

We got our tax back - yay! Mine was quite a bit bigger than I was expecting - it must include some child-related payment like child care rebate - I'll have to wait until the official letter arrives before I know for certain. The cat obviously knew that we were "rich" because she decided to get sick and had to go into the "pet hospital" today. The cost was over $400 even before I walked out of there with blood tests, IV drip etc - our vet charges like a wounded bull. He estimated it would be about $700 if she's well enough to go home in a couple of days - that's assuming they don't find anything seriously wrong. It's never a good feeling when the vet starts a sentence by saying "if she pulls through".. :( I rang this afternoon and she was responding to the drip a bit, will ring again in the morning.

Work has been ... challenging (Hi Emma if you're reading lol!), but slowly getting on top of it I think.

Don't you love a good bargain? I've had 2 this week - firstly I went to one of the chain stores on Tuesday to order a TV unit and asked for their "best price for cash". He gave it to me for $50 off + the $50 it was already on special - I was trying to look cool, calm and collected as if I did that sort of thing all the time, but was doing a little Snoopy dance on the inside! Yesterday I was in KMart getting a present for my nephew's b'day and spotted something that we'd already decided to buy for Xmas for someone else - at almost half price! Needless to say, I snapped it up!

I still need to blog about our trip to see the replica Endeavour on Monday but haven't had a chance to get to it. We'll probably fall in a heap tomorrow night, and have my nephew's birthday party on Sunday.

Finito!

My course finished the face-to-face section today - now I just have to write a report about today's assessment task and it's all finished!!! We have about 4 weeks to hand everything in, so I should find out how I've gone overall in about 6 weeks. Hopefully then I'll be fully qualified in Cert IV in Training and Assessment!

It was bittersweet - the class has been together since about Feb, so we've formed some good friendships. As much as I'm relieved it's over, it's also a bit sad to know I'll probably lose touch with most of those people now.

No of days left to teach at uni - 2
No of face-to-face days left at my course - 0
No of assignment tasks to do to finish off my course - 1
No of days I have left to get Billy to preschool by 8am so I can drive an hour to Newcastle for uni or my course - 2

OK who does NOT find this addictive?!

Apologies for so many posts tonight, I promise this will be the last one, but I just found this http://play.blogger.com/. It's a page by Blogger to show all of the images being uploaded to blogger all over the world - you can click on it to go to the blog if it looks interesting..

I've been sitting here for a few minutes watching it - yes, I'm pathetic :)

Dealing with cheekiness - advice please!

Any advice on what to do to combat cheekiness and name-calling? I've never had to deal with it like this before - I think a certain problem child at preschool is setting an example that Billy is emulating because it's only started since this boy arrived...

He's name calling, being cheeky, and out and out rude to me & Pete at times. We've tried ignoring, punishing with loss of tv priveleges, no treats etc, smacking (yes, call DOCS, we smack our child at times...) - nothing seems to be getting through, he just smirks which makes us even madder. It's even worse atm because I let him have a couple of flavoured ice-creams the other day and he's flying high from the colours :(

Like tonight - he was being silly at bedtime and not asking for his water properly (just pointing and saying Drink, drink). I refused to pass it to him until he asked properly - he finally did, I passed the drink, and he muttered something of which I caught the words "You're a P", I suspect the bit I missed was "poo-poo head" which seems to be a favourite :( The rest of his bedtime routine was immediately terminated and I left with him in tears. Tomorrow it will be as if he was never punished for it though..

Is it a 5 year old phase??! Any ideas from the seasoned mums?

Getting back to normality

A day of running around today - we had to go down to Newcastle so made the most of the trip.

After dropping Pete at work, we went to Officeworks for printer paper - and go me, we only walked out with printer paper :) Officeworks is a very tempting place for me, I just love all that stationery!

Then off to the chiropractor (the reason for the trip down) - he has restored my "natural healing powers" (in his words) and I'm set for another 6 weeks. He noticed I had a bad cold and gave my back a bit of a pounding massage - it was bizarre, I could feel it in my sinuses. Boy it loosened the gunk though, and it's been much better this afternoon. I love my chiro - I've had others when he's been away, but he just seems to know what to do to make me feel good. Not surprising I guess when I've been going to him for about 7 years. I'd run away with him if we both weren't happily married lol.

Then to Jaycar for cable to rewire the tv stuff in preparation for moving rooms around. Speaking of places where I could happily wander for days - yes folks, I admit it, I'm a nerd!! Hopefully Billy will be similarly corrupted so I have an excuse lol. We had a discussion on laser beams and how the doorbell was triggered by people walking through the beam, while we waited to get served.

Off to the shop outside the fish markets for fish, calamari & chips for lunch, then inside the fish markets to buy some fish. Finished the day off at Aldi to do a monthly shopping. Boy it was busy in there - I don't usually shop on Fridays so I don't know if it's normally like that, or if it was because of school holidays, or why. The lady behind me at the checkout remarked that it looked like I was feeding the scouts - rather than explain that I was shopping for a month (while busy throwing things onto the conveyor to keep up!), I just smiled and said "Yes, it feels like it too" :) So she probably thinks I have a horde of kids now lol.

I've been slack for the last couple of months and have just been grabbing stuff without doing a "proper" shop - I haven't been keeping track of finances either so I have no idea how much it has cost me. I made myself sit down last night and make up a menu plan for the month, grocery list and now hopefully that will do for October's shopping.

So here's my now full "stash" shelf in my pantry (or part of it anyway, you can't see the rice, pasta etc), and the freezer above Pete's beer fridge (filled with flour & bread!). I still need to buy a couple of roasts, but other than that, total has been:

* $41 on fish
* $112 at ALdi
* $14 at IGA yesterday

Tax is done!!

I started about 10 this morning, worked right through and finished around 3pm. I had to do our 2 partnership returns and then our 2 individual returns - boy I'm tired!!!

We will be getting some money back though which is good after all of that!!

Simple Savings lunch & Mattara

I forgot to mention our day out on Sunday.

We firstly met some ladies & their kids from the Simple Savings website at Jesmond Park for a picnic lunch. I'd never met any of them before so it was good to meet some like-minded people in real-life! We all took something along to share for lunch, we chatted and the kids played on the playground. (Except for mine who sat on my lap for most of it, but to be fair, he did run a temperature that night so obviously wasn't feeling the best).

We left about 1:15pm and went over to the Mattara Festival at Newcastle Foreshore. Mattara is a festival held annually in Newcastle since 1961 - I haven't been for years but the highlight for us used to be the market day where they blocked one of the major streets off and it was filled with craft stalls etc. Since we were in Newcastle anyway, I decided the take Billy to Mattara to see what it was like now. Can you say money-making event??! I was expecting a reasonable amount of free activities, but other than the Rural Fire Service display, everything else had a charge - even the face-painting! There were a few market stalls mainly selling beads & jewellery, a kid's activity table where they could do pirate or princess activities (for a cost!), food stalls and the rest were all showground rides. Obviously not what I was expecting, but hey, it was a day out!

I let Billy pick 2 rides to go on - he picked the giant slide (2 coupons / $2 for ONE go - I was a bit flabbergasted at that!) and a really cool jumping castle which had an inflatable "rock wall" in it (5 coupons / $5 for about 10 mins). He also wanted to take part in the treasure hunt for $2 - the money was going to Camp Quality for that so I didn't mind that one. He had to go and find a coloured paddle-pop stick around the park which he got to trade in for the "treasure" - a sticker & "gold coin" lol.

I just could not believe the prices of the rides - I must hang out at the wrong places! The slide was the cheapest at 2 coupons, a couple of rides at 4 coupons, the jumping castle at 5, and then the majority of them at 6! It was $1 / coupon, or the "bargain" of 30 coupons for $27. Or you could get the wristband for unlimited rides for $35!! The lady in front of me bought 3 x wristbands - $105 for rides!!! Not exactly a cheap day out - and this was the start of the school holidays!

Oh, we then stopped at McDonalds on the way home for a 50c ice-cream and a play on the free playground :)

Productive day

Despite a shocking night's sleep because Billy has a bad cold & had a restless night, I did get another site live today (www.divapromotions.com.au). Still 1 or 2 things to finish off tomorrow at the back end but it's up there! A lovely site for the lovely Emma :)

As I said Billy has a bad cold, and is running a bit of a temp, so he's alternated between sleeping, being clingy and running around as if he's fine! I'll probably keep him home from preschool tomorrow to be on the safe side.

We inherited some desks recently from my sister, so we rearranged Billy's room today and put one in there. He's so excited - wants to start doing his schoolwork there straight away! If he's at home tomorrow, I'll print out some worksheets just so he can get to do something :)

Tonight has been the first Monday night in 10 weeks that I haven't had to prep for my uni tute the next day - it's been very nice!!

I think that's it - tired, not making sense, off to bed :)

Blowing Bubbles

Blowing Bubbles - Poem by Ericka Northrop

Come with me; forget your troubles.
We'll take some soap and make some bubbles!
We can make them big or small;
It isn't very hard at all.
I can't be angry, sad or blue
When blowing bubbles-now, can you?
Just blow your blues into each one.
We'll watch them sparkle in the sun.
We'll send them out into the sky.
There go your troubles!
Poof!
Bye-bye.

I must be careful of those random thoughts!

I was in the shower this morning (where I do most of my thinking!) and was idly thinking about our loungeroom and "I'd make it bigger if we ever built again since that's where we spend most of our time".. That segued into a thought on how big our office / playroom area is and how we never use it.. Aha! Lightbulb moment - why don't we swap the loungeroom and office around? I mentioned it to Pete expecting him to scoff, but he actually thought it was a good idea!

When we built, we designed a great office area at the front of our house, with a separate entrance so we could have clients come to the house - I think that's happened about 4 times in the 7 years we've lived here and to be honest most of the time the office is such a dumping ground that I couldn't invite clients in anyway!! I don't actually work in there - I usually work in the kitchen or loungeroom - it pretty much just holds computers and printers! Half of the area is office, the other half used to be just a book room, then we turned it into Billy's playroom so he had an area to play. Unfortunately he only likes to play where other people are - which usually means the kitchen or the loungeroom - so the playroom just becomes another dumping ground. Added to that, the loungeroom is quite unbearable in summer as it doesn't get the breeze, and the office is right at the front with big windows & doors...

So our plan is to move the office into the loungeroom, and make a big combined loungeroom and playroom in the other room. It will mean doing some rewiring - tv, power, surround sound etc - I guess we'll have to see who can do the wiring for a case of beer (umm, of course I mean who we can find to do the work and we'd pay GST and everything :) ) It will hopefully mean a new lease of life for a big room that gets ignored now. It will also mean a lot of work shifting stuff around, but hey, a change is as good as a holiday, right?!

Speaking of the playroom - it was in such a state that we made Billy clean it up today. By 6pm it was still disgusting - he'd spent most of his time whining that he was too hot, too hungry, too tired etc or moving in slow motion. So when the timer went off at 6, I got to be the "mean mummy" - I grabbed a couple of the big green garbage bags and set to work throwing out everything that was on the floor! It was mainly paper & junk (the boy likes to keep every piece of paper he has ever touched!), but there were some toy parts, pens, craft stuff etc. I was so over it I didn't care - it all went. 2 and 1/2 garbage bags later and you can see the floor again! Didn't do my stress levels much good though!

I spent most of the day working on a website that's just about ready to go live. My list is down to 2 things and I'm just waiting on their host to do some stuff before it goes live. Will be pleased to cross another one off the list..

I did something radical today!

... I turned off my computer for the day! lol - don't laugh, that is a huge step for me!!

I was so stressed this morning - I had a dreadful night's sleep, a few emails had come in from clients overnight that were stressing me and I was feeling pulled in a million directions. I just felt like curling up in a ball, pulling the covers over my head and crying. I was physically hurting - I even sat down in the shower because I felt so weak. So I made the decision to not think about work for the day and address some of the other things that were stressing me.

After my shower, I switched the computer off - I knew if I didn't I'd keep coming back to it. I'm addicted :( My name is Kerrie and I'm an Internet-holic... I must be one of the few people in the world not to have an MP3 player :) but I do have a Crowded House album stored on my mobile phone, so I stuck that in my pocket, cranked it up and started cleaning the house. It's quite amazing how many more hours there are in the day when the computer is not sucking them up!!! I got the house tidied, toilets cleaned, floors swept & vacuumed - stuff that had been niggling away saying "I must do that" every time I turned around. I even had time for breaks, and read my book! Billy decided he would clean the bathroom for me - it did involve emptying everything out of the vanity but it kept him amused :)

Anyway it made me feel a lot better to just ignore it for the day (I have to admit to checking the mail a couple of times via webmail on a different computer - it's the main way Pete & I stay in touch while he's at work - but I made sure to only read non-work stuff). We finished the day off at the park before picking Pete up from the train.

I'm in a much better frame of mind to tackle the work tonight...

Living Doll..

Isn't it funny how songs can bring back so many emotions.. I'm sitting here with a huge smile on my face after just hearing "Living Doll" by Cliff Richard "accompanied" by the Young Ones for the first time in absolute years! (I'm listening to an 80s online radio station)

It's a very silly song but it really brings back memories of my teenage years.

Does anyone else remember the song or was a Young Ones fan?

Another one bites the dust..

No of days left to teach at uni - 2
No of face-to-face days left at my course - 1
No of assignment tasks to do to finish off my course - 1
No of days I have left to get Billy to preschool by 8am so I can drive an hour to Newcastle for uni or my course - 3

I have a 2 week break from uni now which I'm really looking forward to..

Family Days..

I need a day at home! I think we've been out every day for over a week.. Roll on Wednesday!

Sunday we spent the day up at my sister-in-law's - Pete's aunty was down for a visit so we got together at Cher's place for a BBQ. It was on the most part a pleasant day (apart from the reaction to the homeschooling news - I need to grow a thicker skin to do this lol) - we didn't get home til about 8pm so while not an overly late night home, it certainly felt like it after a day of sitting around. I was very stressed before we left thinking about all of the stuff I have to do, and had a quiet little meltdown.. The house is so messy atm that it's really adding to my stress levels - every time I turn around I see something else that needs to be done.. You need to kick your way into Billy's room atm - I made up a chart on Sunday morning where he has to go and put away 5 pieces of clothing, 5 toys or books and throw away 5 pieces of rubbish. I can see a bit of floor there now after 2 days, so it must be helping :)

Today was my eldest niece's 15th b'day so we spent the day with them. Lunch, ice-cream cake, presents and good company :) I finally got their network working so feel very relieved to tick that one off my mental list!

Happy b'day Christie - hope you had a great day!

For the rest of the week I have - uni tomorrow, working at home Wed & Thu (must make a start on my tax this week). Friday I think we'll stay at home and do some cooking. (I made the mistake of telling Billy there may be gingerbread at the Oktoberfest because there used to be when I went many moons ago - there wasn't so he's been hassling to make it instead). Not sure about the weekend yet - Saturday is free at this point & Sunday is supposed to be a get-together with the locals from the Simple Savings group. I think I also saw an ad tonight to say that the Mattara festival is on in Newcastle on Sunday - it's an annual festival that looks like it might be worth checking out while we're down that way.

For now though, it's off to bed..

Medieval Oktoberfest??

I took this photo yesterday while we were having a picnic outside for lunch - I'm a bit worried as to what he's been watching to slip into a pose like that :)

We went off to visit the Newcastle Germania Club today for their Oktoberfest weekend. I used to go many, many years ago in high school - our German class used to have an excursion there so I had great memories of it. Apparently it hasn't run for many years and this was the first year back - I guess every festival has to start somewhere but to be honest it wasn't that exciting. We got to have Bratwurst & Kransky for lunch, listened (and Billy danced) to the German music and Pete got to enjoy some German beer, but that was about the extent of the "German-ness".. They had a couple of big jumping castles set up so the boy was extremely happy and spent several hours playing happily on those!

The main reason we went though was we knew they were having the local medieval group doing fight demonstrations (yeah I don't get the connection either :) ) It was pretty cool - they were all dressed up, did some one-on-one fighting, and then Andrew (who works with Pete) let Billy use the axe and bash him up! Needless to say the first thing he did when he came home was made a sword :)

It would have been a far more pleasant day if it hadn't been cold & raining though!

Ups and downs..

Not a great start to the day - I totally lost it with Billy for answering back. He was pushing my buttons, but it didn't deserve the tantrum I threw :( I'm tired and have too much crap in my system from the stuff I've been eating - pick which excuse you like.. :)

Once I got home from dropping him at preschool I had to make a couple of phone calls I'd been putting off, but once I got those out of the way things improved. I got a fair bit done on the website I'm working on, then went and bought the rest of my sister's b'day present & a couple of "new" t-shirts for me at the op-shop.

Picked the child up from preschool, then drove down to Newcastle to pick up Pete from work and head out to dinner for my sister's b'day. So the day ended much better than it had started! I'm very tired but have had too much caffeine today - hopefully I'll still sleep!!

Happy birthday Janelle!

Counting down..

No of days left to teach at uni - 3
No of face-to-face days left at my course - 1
No of assignment tasks to do to finish off my course - 4?
No of days I have left to get Billy to preschool by 8am so I can drive an hour to Newcastle for uni or my course - 4
No of weeks I have uni & my course on consecutive days - 0 - priceless!!!

Water Bill

Woohoo - just got our water bill! Our average daily usage was 0.33 kL - down from 0.40 kL last bill. But down from a whopping 0.64 kL this time last year - that's almost half!! I'm not sure what the difference is - all of the little things are obviously becoming habit.

For this time period, the average daily water usage for the Hunter Water area was 0.59 kL. According to a recent post by Rhonda - http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/2007/09/checking-water-meter.html - the daily recommendation per person in their surrounding area is 130 L / person - we're averaging 110 L / person, so pleased with that!!!

Photos from Pete's party

A couple of photos from the party. Use your imagination on the cake - it's supposed to be a glass of dark beer, and the candles are in the shape of 40 :) Go on - really stretch your imagination lol. (I had to persuade Billy that Daddy wouldn't be able to blow 40 candles out even if we had that many!). It did taste a lot better than it looked anyway!

A few people commented previously on the nice view we have from our back deck. Here are a couple of better photos.

You may be able to distantly see a house & barn in the centre of the photo towards the back. Apparently (I'm not a local, but I've been told) that's called "Dunmore House" and was built in the 1820s.

I just found this on the net - fascinating! I must see if it's open to the public, or a residence or what! I have a mission :)

This land was a grant of 1000 acres that was selected by George Lang in 1822. George Lang had arrived in Van Dieman's Land in August of 1821 and proceeded to Sydney soon after. He applied for the position of Principal Clerk at Newcastle in 1822, however was appointed Storekeeper at the Commissariat Department at Liverpool instead. 13
A slab hut was erected on the grant. When George died in 1825 aged 23 the 1000 acre grant, named 'Dunmore' after George's mother, passed to George's brother Andrew. Andrew had followed George and their eldest brother John Dunmore Lang to Australia. Andrew and his father William worked hard to establish Dunmore however William drowned in 1830 when the vessel he was sailing to Sydney was wrecked in a squall. Andrew continued on at the Estate and a mill, Presbyterian Church and school were completed. Dunmore House, built before the death of William was a two story stone building facing towards the river.
Andrew Lang was involved in the community and on many committees such as the Maitland District Pastoral Association, Committee to collect subscription for the distressed in Ireland; Hunter River Vineyard Association; Committee for Maitland Hospital; Judge at Hunter River Agricultural Society show.14
In August 1844 Andrew's mother Mary Dunmore died at his residence 'Dunmore' aged 75. It was written of her -
' Mrs. Lang has been long and extensively known, both in this district and in Sydney, as a person of a remarkably vigorous mind, of great decision of character, of unbending religious principle, and of warm active and untiring benevolence. She will be long and deeply regretted.'26
On the 8th November 1849 Andrew Lang married Emily, the eldest daughter of Lieutenant William Caswell at Balickerra, Williams River (http://www.jenwilletts.com/early_settler2.htm)

Here's a closer look at it.

Clowing around..

Some photos I forgot to show of our trip to the art gallery last week. They had a "circus" exhibition on by Joe Furlonger and Robert Callander. There were paintings, sculptures and drawings - and that's about as technical as I can get!

Did you know that clowns used to "trademark" their clown face by painting it onto an egg which was then stored in a big vault? No-one was allowed to copy another clown's face - that would steal their spirit. And when that clown went to the "bigtop in the sky", the egg was crushed? Neither did I until I went to the exhibition!!! They had a table set up so kids could create their own clown face on a egg-shaped piece of paper using bits of scrap - they may not have any left after Billy was through though :)

When we got home we read a piece about clowns in other countries, and the next day did a clown craft - creating a clown from an empty toilet roll that I got from here - http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/circus/mtpclown.html.

All partied out..

I'm sitting here in an exhausted puddle because the party is over.. This one was Pete's 40th - I swear we're not usually so social! I went easy on myself for the catering - got takeaway chicken & salads from a chicken shop, and cooked up some frozen wedges. All nice & simple, but I'm exhausted from being on my feet, and talking to people.

There are still 3 people out there playing pool - I know 2 of them are staying the night, not sure about the 3rd. We'll just get some pizzas or something for tea - although there is heaps of chicken & stuff left over.

Which leads me to my vent - why do people seem to think an RSVP is unnecessary anymore??! It was like pulling hen's teeth to find out who was coming - even this morning we still weren't sure about some people. And then some of the ones who said they were coming failed to turn up anyway.. So that's why we have so much leftovers!!

Photos to come - maybe. I haven't even looked at the camera to see what I took. And my feet are too sore to get up and look now :)

Quote of the day..

Being a computer geek, I am a huge fan of Scott Adams - creator of the Dilbert cartoons - if you've never heard of Dilbert, check him out here (http://www.dilbert.com/). This quote of the day popped up on my iGoogle homepage yesterday and tickled my funny bone - hope it brings a smile to your face too :)

(It particularly appeals to the teacher in me who constantly tells students "there are no stupid questions"!)

"If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? - Scott Adams"

He's back..

Our blue tongue is back! Actually more than likely a descendant of last year's but good to see him/her back anyway.. We usually start to see him around the garden at this time of year.

I was coming back in from hanging the clothes out, and heard a scrabbling in the ag pipe - I guessed it was the bluey so kept an eye out for him and the camera handy. He came out of the pipe and just sat there posing for ages. I'd put the rest of Muffin's (our cat) tea out for the birds to pick at (minced chicken) - after he sat in the sun for half an hour or so he wandered across to the bowl and started eating it. It was really cool watching his blue tongue flicking out to eat! I didn't get a photo though as I'd shut the door by then and didn't want to disturb him by opening it.

You can click on the photo to get a bigger image. You can find out more about the blue tongue lizard here - http://www.outback-australia-travel-secrets.com/blue-tongue-lizard.html - I just found out heaps of stuff I didn't know!

What am I thinking?!

It's day like today that I wonder if I'll be able to cope with homeschooling.. We only got up at 7 - and by 8am he was annoying me so much I had to seek refuge in the shower! (And you wonder why I have loooong showers lol). He wasn't being naughty or anything, just annoying. I've found Fridays really hard to take this year - I'm not sure if we're both tired by the end of the week, or it's the fact he's been at preschool for 3 days or the fact that I've been able to complete a thought in peace for 3 days, or a combination - but Fridays are really tough.. That was one reason I cancelled his swimming lessons this term - getting to swimming by 9am Friday morning was such a struggle and often ended in yelling & tears (and that was just me lol).

Today I need to find the house - I'm sure it's here somewhere under this mess! - and cook a b'day cake. We have Pete's 40th party on tomorrow (it's his b'day today). I learnt my lesson after Billy's party - we've ordered BBQ chickens (already cut up), fried chicken pieces & salads from a local chicken shop - I just need to pick them up on Saturday morning, and throw some frozen wedges in the oven. It's certainly not the cheap option, but it's costing less than I budgeted for so all is good.

Right, well, I'd best stop procrastinating and actually get to work!

Preschool, work and food ramblings

I had a blogging slump last week, so bear with me while I ramble to catch up :)

I'm becoming increasingly dissatisfied with Billy's preschool atm. I know part of it is that now I've made up my mind to homeschool, I'm eager to get started, but it's more than that. The director is a lovely lady but, well ... disorganised would be a good word! That was fine last year because Billy's main room teacher picked up a lot of the slack. The director went off on maternity leave early this year, and Billy's teacher filled in as the dierctor. She did a wonderful job, introduced some good improvements and the place ran well. Now the original director is back from maternity leave and unfortunately Billy's teacher has been nabbed by another preschool to be the director there. Since then there's also been other personnel changes so he has different teachers as well. It's all very up & down atm.

Add to that a new little 'darling' at preschool - thank goodness he's only just started there. Every time I go to drop off or pick up I'll hear the teachers telling M not to do things - the very first day he was there he was throwing all of the balls over the fence. Billy has come home with a few new words courtesy of M as well.. :( Not swear words as such, but words I'd prefer my 5 year old wasn't using..

Luckily we only have 5 or 6 weeks left of 3 days/week, then we'll drop down to 1 day / week. Billy says he would be happy to finish up completely but he can finish up the year with their Xmas party, "graduation" etc.

The website that was stressing me out so much is finally live (www.circusstuff.com.au if anyone wants to buy any juggling equipment etc!) There's still a couple of minor things to finish off, but they're lower down on my list. I'm not 100% happy with the design, but what's that saying? "The customer is always right"?! :) So now I'm redesigning another 2 existing websites for a couple of clients.

Grocery shopping is all over the place atm - I didn't get a chance to do a full monthly shop earlier in the month, so I've been doing a pantry challenge. I had to buy a couple of things today - 10 kg potatoes, apples, bananas, cucumber, 2 loaves bread & eggs. I only spent $20 so was happy with that - I had to be, I only took $20 with me :) I made a loaf of bread last night but my breadmaker tin has decided to come apart, so I'll have to try the kitchen aid tomorrow. I was just about out of butter too, but found some cream in the freezer so whipped it up into butter. That'll do til next week. Pete's party (40th) is on Saturday so I expect we'll be back to eating leftovers the following week :) I'll be glad to get September out of the way!

Yesterday was a tough day tutoring at Uni - my normally difficult subject was even more difficult with most students not understanding the concepts at all (and we won't mention the errors that were in the tutorials - just to make life even harder!). The other subject - that is usually pretty easy - was full of students asking me about the assignment due on Friday! I didn't get a break & to eat my lunch until after 3pm - no wonder I ended up with a headache last night!

We went down to see our new niece Cassie on Sunday - she's beautiful and Mum & bub are both doing well.

I think that's all - if anyone is still reading by now :)

I love nanna naps :)

Pete took Billy with him while he played squash this afternoon so I had some time to myself. I *was* going to either do my assignment or some work, but was so tired and had a bit of a headache so I had a nap instead :) 2 hrs later and I felt much more alive!!

While I was sleeping the faithful washing machine did a load of washing - unfortunately it had to go through the dryer as the weather is very unsettled atm, and some of the stuff was needed tomorrow. I did the ironing while they were gone as well, and cooked a lovely roast dinner.

We have a roast dinner once a week all going well - I usually rotate between chicken, beef & pork but depending what's on special. As well as a lovely roast dinner, and a nice tradition, it also gives us lunch meat for the week, and I usually do some baking while the oven is on. (Anzac biscuits tonight). We usually have it on Sunday nights but I wasn't sure what time we'd be home from Sydney tomorrow, so we had it tonight instead. I only had a few potatoes left so stretched it out with Yorkshire pudding - yummmm! My grandma is English so I was raised on the stuff!!

Speaking of what's on special - we were in Bilo on Friday getting some stuff for Brad & Riss's new bub - just a care package of things like wipes, nappy cream etc. I was looking at some little stuffed toys and Billy said "do you think Cassie would like that?" I replied "probably but it's a bit expensive". He just looked at me and said "Does anyone buy expensive things??". lol I had to laugh and tell him "yes, some people do buy expensive things" :)

Check out my moodget :)

.. over on the side.. Isn't it cute! I got it from http://www.labpixies.com/moodget/ - you can enter in your own words and choose your mood icon to display. It can go on your iGoogle page, blogs, myspace etc etc...

Can you tell I was procrastinating this morning??! The good news is (apart from finding the cute moodget lol) that I am *this* close to finishing off the website that has been taking up so much of my time. I finished the last major part of it today (being able to buy & sell gift certificates) and just have some tidying up to do - that is unless the client finds some more changes!

Welcome to the world Cassie!

My bil & sil had a little girl this afternoon - Cassanda Hope (Cassie for short). She is 8lb 12oz, 51 cm long, with black curly hair. Both mum & bub are doing well which is such a relief!

Welcome Cassie - Billy can't wait to see his new cousin!!

Our Debt Journey

Congratulations to Emma who has recently become debt-free! WTG girl! You've worked hard and should be proud of yourself :)

I decided to add our debt ticker to my blog - I don't normally blog about it because to be honest I'm quite ashamed of having so much debt. The ticker has been in my signature over at No More Debt but I'm not posting as much over there atm, so I'm adding it here to give myself a visual kick-up-the-pants!

I grew up in a family where debt was bad - if you wanted something, you saved for it. My parents still don't have a credit card (they do have a debit card though). I didn't have a credit card until after we were married - we used it 'responsibly' though (as much as you can!) - paying it off each month. We had two fairly high incomes and for about 7 years lived well - overseas holidays, far too much take-away food, buying any 'toy' we wanted - books, computers, books, cds/dvds, did I mention books? :) etc etc.

Our initial debt (apart from mortgage) came when we were in the process of building this house. We were with a so-called 'financial advisor' (never again!) who had told us we needed x% deposit and then just before we signed, we found out we needed substantially more. So we borrowed $30,000 from a family member. This debt became our 'family pet' - it was always there but we never really made much of an attempt to pay it off. It makes me sick when I think of it now - we could have paid it many times over when we were both working. In fact we started to save the money a few times to pay it off, and always 'needed' that money for something else before we finished..

When I finished work to have Billy we cut down our spending - but not enough. We were still spending more than we earnt. Completely obliviously too. We went through any savings we had, the CC gradually crept up until we couldn't pay it off each month. It was *finally* sinking in that we needed to do something but I still wasn't ready to do too much about it. In Feb/March 2005, we had a bit of car trouble, and "needed" to buy a new ride-on mower (the old one blew an engine), so we had nearly $7000 in credit card debt :(

That was my rock-bottom, and my turning point. I think it was then that I found Dave Ramsey's site - he's an American, christian financial "guru" with a step-by-step plan for getting out of debt. We (I say we, but really me because I'm in charge of the finances) saved a $1000 emergency fund, and started getting "gazelle intense" on the CC debt. I stopped using the CC, used only cash or the debit card and gave Pete an "allowance" - nicely called "sanity money" so it doesn't sound as demeaning lol.

The CC debt was finally killed in August 2005! Which leaves only the 'family pet'! We've paid off $12,259 of it to date, $17,741 to go. We now have $1000 in an emergency fund, money in a separate 'sinking fund' account so we can always pay bills as they come in, and are living within our means.

Currently we're not quite as "gazelle intense" about paying off the debt - there is a small amount going in every month, but most of our "excess" money is going towards setting up Pete's microbrewery. Once that's done, we'll be able to start paying into the debt again. However, going right down to 1 income with me giving up work to homeschool will make it very slow. I'll start selling on Oztion again for a bit extra (not sure what I'll sell this time, books weren't really that successful), but it will be mainly reducing expenses even more to find the money. Hopefully the brewery will start paying for itself after a while too!

So that's our journey - we've paid off nearly $20,000 in 2.5 years and still have almost that to pay off before we are debt-free apart from the mortgage. I won't think about the fact that our car is 8 years old, as are all our major appliances lol. Mostly though I have learnt a lot about myself over the last couple of years and I've found I really enjoy being frugal!

First homeschool project..

Today Billy did his first 'recorded' homeschool project - he watched an episode of Backyard Science a few days ago where they soaked a chicken bone in vinegar to make it rubbery (by leaching the calcium out). We had a discussion the next day or so about what foods had calcium in them and the fact our bones need calcium or they'll go 'rubbery'.

We had chicken for lunch today and he wanted to try the experiment - so I now have a jar of vinegar with a chicken bone in it on my bench :) He followed it up by creating a poster of foods with calcium in them - I printed out a traceable sheet from http://www.kidzone.ws/tracers/index.htm with the word calcium on so he had some hand-writing practice, and then he went to town with the scissors, glue & a bunch of grocery catalogues!

After he'd finished, I got out the 'Disney' kid's encyclopedias and we read what calcium was, and looked at pictures of skeletons.

So there's science for the day!

The chicken bone in vinegar :)

Making the chart

The finished product

Our weekend

We escaped for the weekend (not sure if anyone noticed lol). Pete had a beer dinner on in Newcastle on Saturday night, and I wasn't keen on him travelling home alone on the train after midnight. He has a whole heap of "frequent traveller points" from the travel he does for work, so he used some of them to book a room in Newcastle for the night. We went along for the ride :)

After we checked in, Pete & Billy took off to play squash (well, Pete played squash, Billy played with the other kids). Which left me a glorious couple of hours BY MYSELF! I went for a leisurely walk along the foreshore to find somewhere we could get tea later on, bought Pete's Father's Day present and then came back to the quiet hotel room, lay in the sun, and read a book! Nice :) I think I even dozed a bit..

Pete went off to his beer dinner and Billy & I got fish, chips & calamari for tea. He was quite taken with sleeping on the fold-out bed in the sofa!

It was an early morning on Sunday - Pete had to go down to Sydney to watch the last Swan's home game for the season. We did the Father's Day gifts - Angus & Robertson gift voucher from me, and a paddle-pop stick coaster from Billy, then Pete went off to Sydney and we drove up to my parents house to spend the day. My Dad enjoyed his combined birthday-Father's Day Bunnings vouchers (he calls it 'man-church' lol) - it should give him hours of entertainment wandering around :)

Some photos of the weekend:

Nobby's breakwall - a distinctive view of Newcastle (a bit glary though!)

Newcastle foreshore - they've done a great job with this area. Notice our interesting "phallic" tower in the centre of the photo - no idea what the architect was thinking with that one!!!!

Fishing trawler coming back in

Newcastle is a working port - tugs waiting for their next job

Father's Day cup of coffee on the special coaster

My Dad getting help from all of the grandkids to open his present!