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!

Quick shop

At the chicken shop today, I managed to get 3 whole chickens for $4.80 each & slightly over 1.5 kg corn-fed breast for $12.6 ($8 / kg). All up $27 - not a bad haul!

We then called into Aldi where Billy amused a few people by declaring loudly "We like specials! We only buy things on special" :) I'm teaching him well lol. I spent $36-odd for enough to do us until I can do a proper shop sans child. A few things were pantry fillers - eg 2 packets of sugar - 1 to use, 1 spare; 3 boxes tissues, 5 tins tomatoes etc.

I'm going to see how long I can stretch it out before I do a real shop. Most importantly I took the excess money OUT of my wallet - it has a tendency to jump out and spend itself on incidentals if it stays there :)

Monthly grocery wrap-up

I haven't done a major shop for 6 weeks! In fact the Homescan people rang me yesterday to find out why I hadn't been scanning stuff! Unfortunately I've been picking things up over the last couple of weeks as I was doing the party shopping - a jar of peanut butter here, butter there etc. I totalled it yesterday and I've spent $60 already! (There was 3L of olive oil - ~ $25 - in that total though).

I was planning on doing a major shop today but all of the lollies & chips etc that Billy has eaten recently have kicked in & he's an absolute nightmare atm. I'm not taking him for a major shop in that mood!! We need to go near the chicken outlet shop today so I'll call in there & see what we can get, then I'll just call into Aldi for the necessities on the way home.

On the down hill run!

I feel like I'm on the down hill run with my commitments after this week.

Uni on Tuesday was Wk 6 of 12 - half way there! My Cert IV course today was the 3rd last one - we now have a 2 week break before the next lesson. I've got a couple of assignments to do during that time, but at least that's 2 weeks I only have to go down to Newcastle 1 day not 2 in a row.

I also have a website about *this* close to going live. Hopefully I'll knock the majority of the outstanding stuff over tomorrow. This one has been dragging on for quite a while, so I'll be glad to get it "done & dusted".

I'm inching ever closer to freedom! Bring on November!!

Credit for the cake!

I forgot to give credit where credit was due for Billy's b'day cake - I used Lightening's fudge cake recipe (except substituted carob instead of cocoa). It all but disappeared, and received so many compliments! It's a staple in our house, it freezes well (when it gets a chance to be frozen!) and now I know it works well as a 'fancy' cake too!

Thanks J :)

The party is over!!!

Well the party is over! I am never, ever doing finger food ever again :)

It wasn't without it's dramas though. The way Saturday went, I was wondering if the party was even going to go ahead - everything seemed to go wrong. On Saturday morning I pulled the chicken wings out of the fridge to marinate. I bought them on Thursday afternoon at the deli at Woolies - they went straight into a cool bag with a couple of freezer bricks, it took me about 30 minutes to get home and they went straight in the fridge - I pulled them out Saturday morning and they were off. The smell almost knocked me over - I was not impressed! So a quick trip down to Bilo to buy some more.

The cake I made last week & froze was too dry, so I made another one on Saturday. When I pulled it out of the tin, it split :( So it went from a slab cake to a magic hat cake :) A few other minor things went went wrong as well, like the battery in the lawn-mower being dead when Pete went to use it...

We had to go out to dinner on Saturday night - Pete had his squash presentation and since he'd won his grade, I figured we'd better go! Mum & Dad looked after Billy - and he freaked them out by coming down with a temperature which wasn't coming down with Panadol. We got home about 10:30 as they were starting to panic - I gave him some Nurofen as well to try and get it down. He was wide awake again by that point, and clingy, so I was trying to ice the cake & attend to him at the same time! At midnight I gave up on decorating the cake, and just left it iced. His temp was starting to come down, but was still high, so I got the sleeping bag & doona and curled up on his floor for the night to keep an eye on him. (Not as much of a sacrifice as it sounds - the alternative was sleeping next to a beer-y, snoring husband lol). So needless to say I didn't get a lot of sleep that night - his temp was down to a reasonable level by about 2:30am but I was wide awake at that point with everything I had to do racing through my mind.

Anyway he seemed ok the next morning, a bit whingy but his temp was ok, so we didn't have to cancel.

On to the party... Hot finger food is a LOT of work - not just beforehand, but on the day. We had 3 ovens going (we have a double oven and Mum brought a little portable one down), and spent probably an hour reheating it & cooking the pizza.

The pizza & quiches probably went over the best. I forgot to put sauce out for the meatballs so they were a bit dry, as were the pies, but they were all still nice. The sausage rolls & chicken weren't rejected either. We had heaps left over though - I really over-catered (and we didn't even heat some of it up!), so we'll be eating leftovers all week!! Luckily some of it was still frozen so we can save it for another day.

I'd hired a magician through LETS - she did a good show, the kids loved her, especially the grand finale with a real rabbit which they then got to pat & cuddle! Unfortunately she couldn't make it til 2pm, so it made it a long afternoon for some of the littlies and some had to leave early.

I had some wonderful help from family & friends with putting out the food, and cleaning up - it was so nice to come in to the kitchen and find piles of clean dishes!! Thank you everyone!

A selection of photos..

Party in full swing..

The infamous finger food..

Billy's cake - decorated by himself..

Blowing out the candles..

A very rare shot of me :)

Billy with magician JoJo..

I don't like to put photos of other people's kids on my blog (for privacy reasons), so have only put a few photos up here. I'll be putting more online later - if anyone wants to see more, email me at kezp99 @ hotmail.com, let me know who you are, and I'll share the link.

Overall it was a good day though I think. Billy enjoyed it, so that was the main thing after all!

Now to do it all over again in 3 weeks for Pete's 40th! I'm not sure what we're doing for food - but I know it won't be finger food lol!!

Blog Comments

How do you handle it when you leave a comment on someone's blog that you want to later check back to see if they've replied? Do you just add the URL to your favorites? Try to remember what you wrote where? Or ???

What's your technique?

Dress-up box

The dress-up box certainly got a workout today..

Magician Billy - the foil is a magic wand (use your imagination!)




Builder Billy - complete with Bob the Builder toolbelt :)

I hope everyone had a nice day today - we spent the day up at Mum & Dads & Billy had a ball playing with his cousins. I had a great time chatting with my Mum & sister - and occasionally Dad as he wandered in and out. It's so good to have them home!!!

"In Praise of Slow"

I reviewed this book earlier in the year - http://kezs-blog.blogspot.com/2007/01/in-praise-of-slow-book-review.html - and part of this came back into my mind tonight as I was trying to hurry Billy's bedtime story because I had "stuff to do". It's well worth a read - discussing things like the Slow Food Movement, alternative medicines, not loading our kids up with activities etc. I'll have to borrow it from the library again and see what I get out of it on a 2nd read.

I finished all of the shopping today for the party - just some stuff I'd left until I went down to Newcastle with time to get it. I had to go down to the chiro - he was very pleased to hear I am cutting down work - he blames my working for my back & neck problems (not surprisingly!!)

Tomorrow we're going up to Mum & Dads to see them - they got home yesterday - it'll be fantastic to see them.

Finger food recipes..

Mini Quiche Recipe

This was the recipe I used for the mini quiches - it's great! http://www.exclusivelyfood.com.au/2006/07/mini-quiche-recipe.html

Party Pie Recipe

Um, I didn't really have one as such. I boiled the mince (2kg), threw in some onion flakes (because I was out of onion), I think a bit of minced garlic, beef stock, tomato paste, salt & pepper. I think that was it - I just kept adding stuff til it tasted ok :) Then I reduced it down and thickened it with some flour.

The cases - I cut the bottom out of the frozen shortcrust pastry sheets, and the top out of puff pastry sheets. I used a muffin pan that wasn't very deep. Cooked at about 190 for 15 mins.

Meatballs

Ditto to above - 2 kg of mince, mixed with a bit of minced garlic, breadcrumbs, an egg, dried basil, salt & pepper. Mixed it all up in a BIG bowl lol, and shaped little cocktail size meatballs out of it. I cooked them on a tray I think for about 10-15 mins. I got away with a baking tray because they weren't very fatty, but if your mince was a bit fattier a baking dish would be better.

Sausage Rolls

Yes a real recipe lol. I think this was a Women's Weekly one originally.

6 sheets puff pastry
4 slices soft bread, crusts removed
3/4 cup hot water
1kg sausage meat
1 med onion, grated
1 med carrot, grated
mixed herbs to taste - I use about 1-2 tsp because I'm not a big fan of the taste
salet & pepper to taste
milk for glazing

1. Preheat oven to 220C. Soak bread in hot water for 5 minutes, squeeze out excess water & combine with meat, onion, carrot, herbs, salt & pepper. (This is a really messy part - you really need to get your hands in to mix properly!)
2. Cut pastry in half and sppon sausage mix down centre. Fold pastry over filling and seal edges firmly. Cut to size & glaze with milk. Bake 25 mins or until golden.

I cut each roll into 4 to make party size ones - you get 48 out of the recipe that way.

Enjoy :)