What a weekend!

Yesterday was a significant day - my cousin got married, it was my parent's 45th wedding anniversary and of course, we started a new chapter in our country's history. My cousin's wedding went really well - she looked lovely dressed in a medieval style wedding dress. Her husband is from Chile so the reception included some Chilean traditions as well, like a Spanish wedding dance. The ceremony itself was in a park - luckily the weather stayed clear!!

It was late when we got home, Billy was way over-tired so it took ages to settle him down to go to sleep. Then I sat up to watch the election, so it was 11:30 by the time I went to bed. This morning Billy crawled into bed with us at 6:30 and promptly went back to sleep until 9! Unheard of for him!

Today Billy & I went to the local LETS picnic / trading day. It was the first time I've made it to one, and really enjoyed it. I bought a few Xmas presents, lots of herbs and another tomato plant (I'm going to have them coming out of my ears if they all take off!), and Billy got to buy lots of stuff that he claimed were necessities!

So all in all, it's been a busy but fairly relaxing weekend.

Ugh! I hate hemming!

In fact I hate sewing full stop, but being 5 ft 1, I seem to have to take up a lot of hems lol. I've just been sitting here trying to take up a pair of black pants under not great light - I've got one leg done and my eyes are just about crossing, so will do the other one tomorrow morning. They're to wear to my cousin's wedding tomorrow afternoon!

I had a big "splurge" yesterday at the op-shop - a pair of jeans, a pair of trousers, a pair of shorts, and 2 blouses - for the grand total of $27. I hate clothes shopping with a passion, so this was a big spend up for me!

Today I went to see a lady about becoming a Total Learning consultant - they sell educational books like DK. I'm going to do it, there's no minimum sell, you don't have to have parties etc, so I'll just be handing catalogues around to friends & family. Of course, the more you sell, the better the % you receive, but I'm happy just using it to bring in a bit of extra money and buy some great books at discounted rates with no pressure. I just need to send the form away, so if anyone wants any books you can order through me in a couple of weeks lol. I'm a bit like a kid in a candy shop though - how will I stop myself buying all of the books!!

Hmm, I'm sure I had something else I wanted to add, but my brain has shut down so I can't remember what it was!

Balancing the books

A very quick update before I fall asleep! I forced myself to sit down and get my bank account balanced today (I use M/S Money) - I haven't done it in about 2 months :( I'm usually religious in keeping it up-to-date but having the tax money go in there gave me a very healthy buffer, and I got slack about doing it. It meant Billy ran riot while I was concentrating on that (or at least that's how the house looks!) but it's done! I also redid my budget to reflect the change in lifestyle - no more preschool (in 3 weeks) and me really not working. My challenge now is to start logging all expenses again. I did it for years and then got out of the habit - it's been very difficult to start again.

We're about to get a storm here - I just lost my wireless network connection when the power flickered, so I'm off to give it a reboot, hopefully post this and go to bed.

Book Review: Nurture by Nature

Over the last few weeks I've been reading a book called "Nurture by Nature" by Paul D. Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger. It's about finding out your child's Myer-Briggs personality type. Most of the tests you find are aimed at adults, but this book looks at how your child plays with others, thinks, talks etc to determine their type. The reason is not to "label" your child but to help understand them and parent them better (and in my case teach him better).

What an eye-opener! No wonder I tend to regard my child as from a different planet!! From reading the book and doing a couple of on-line tests, I come out as an ISTJ (Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judging) but also very close to an ISFJ (Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, Judging) - I was 55% T and 45% F on one test I did. (This is one site that shows an overview of the types that I've copied below - http://www.capt.org/mbti-assessment/type-descriptions.htm). I am recharged by being by myself, like to get things finished, likes to be organised & follow a schedule.

ISTJ
For ISTJs the dominant quality in their lives is an abiding sense of responsibility for doing what needs to be done in the here-and-now. Their realism, organizing abilities, and command of the facts lead to their completing tasks thoroughly and with great attention to detail. Logical pragmatists at heart, ISTJs make decisions based on their experience and with an eye to efficiency in all things. ISTJs are intensely committed to people and to the organizations of which they are a part; they take their work seriously and believe others should do so as well.

ISFJ
For ISFJs the dominant quality in their lives is an abiding respect and sense of personal responsibility for doing what needs to be done in the here-and-now. Actions that are of practical help to others are of particular importance to ISFJs. Their realism, organizing abilities, and command of the facts lead to their thorough attention in completing tasks. ISFJs bring an aura of quiet warmth, caring, and dependability to all that they do; they take their work seriously and believe others should do so as well.

The diametrically opposite type to an ISFJ is an ENTP (Extroverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Perceiving). Guess what type Billy seems to suit?!!! Yep :) Recharged by being around people, likes to start things but not finish them, likes to make a mess lol.

ENTP
For ENTPs the driving quality in their lives is their attention to the outer world of possibilities; they are excited by continuous involvement in anything new, whether it be new ideas, new people, or new activities. They look for patterns and meaning in the world, and they often have a deep need to analyze, to understand, and to know the nature of things. ENTPs are typically energetic, enthusiastic people who lead spontaneous and adaptable lives.

It helps in some ways to know that he's not deliberately trying to drive me mad by talking to me all the time and needing to be in the same room. It lets me compensate a bit more and work to his strengths. It also emphasises to me that I really do need time to myself regularly.

It's really given me something to think about as we spend more time together.

End of week 3 - homeschooling update..

We were out all day yesterday with 2 b'day parties to go to (7th & 40th!) so I don't think we'll get much school work done today - we need a pyjama day I think!!

For those that aren't aware, there really aren't any hard and fast rules about how to home educate - I'm speaking as someone based in NSW, Australia - it's probably different in other states & countries. Families choices range from "school at home" - eg sit down with school books and work through them, right through to "natural learning" - eg let the kids learn what they want, when they want by participating in "life". We're sitting somewhere in the middle - nicely called "eclectic" - in other words taking a bit of everything! There are set curriculums (curriculi?) you can purchase to work through if you want, or there are plenty of resources on the internet. I've decided to work in "integrated units" - think of a topic and then create activities around that to cover aspects of English, Maths, Science etc. I'm working towards covering the NSW Board of Studies outcomes for each subject over the year. We'll supplement with worksheets where necessary, and also just embrace any other opportunity that comes along even if it doesn't fit into the current unit. That's the plan at this stage, anyway - I'm sure it will change as we go!

We're just about finished the first unit we're working on - "About Me and My Family". Some of the activities we've done are:

* take a big sheet of butcher's paper, get Billy to lie down on it and trace around his outline. He then drew his face on and wrote words around the outside to represent himself & things he liked. He also did a hand & foot-print painting to go with it.

* Family tree - another big sheet of paper. Create a family tree by writing all of the family names on it (starting with my grandmother - the only living great-grandparent) in a typical family tree format - Billy did the writing. I printed out photos of everyone and he cut the faces out and glued them on next to the appropriate people. It was a really good exercise in helping him understand relationships. This was quite time-consuming - we did it in a few goes over several days - first the writing, then the cutting, then pasting.

* Cousin's timeline - I wrote the years from 1992 - 2007 on a sheet of paper. We then went through all of the cousins - circled when they were born, and he wrote their names. We talked about things like who was the oldest, youngest, no of years between him & various other cousins. A great way to teach some maths concepts in a relevant way.

* Poetry - we read a few poems on the subject of "me" and then he created an acrostic poem (a word about himself for each letter starting with a letter in his name) - the final poem was:

Billy buys

Ice-creams and

Likes

Lollipops and

Yellow.

* Family drawing and story - he still needs to complete this one.

* Stories - we read a few books together on families.

As well as that, he's also done a lot of art & craft - created a puppet theatre out a box, a bird craft at storytime, a Xmas tree picture using scrunched up crepe paper bits, lots of painting etc; some maths & english worksheets; we've played board & card games eg old maid, scrabble; lots of play-acting play, lego etc; done some cooking; played lots of educational computer games and had lots of discussions that we've followed up with a bit of research. Eg "do ants have eyes?" - we caught some and looked in the microscope he borrowed from the library, and then looked at pictures in the encylopedia; and - "where did people come from before there were any people?" - discussed evolution and looked up an evolution of man chart.

There's also been a fair bit of social interaction - storytime, swimming, visits with friends etc.

Our next unit is on Spain, since there was an interest because Pete was over there. We haven't done any formal activities for it yet, but we've done some informal stuff - he knows where Spain is on the map, what the flag looks like and we've read a bit about Spain.

Written down like that it actually looks like we've done a lot but we don't spend that long each day on "formal" stuff - maybe an hour or so.

One of the great things is the flexibility. I had a few activities planned for one day that would need a fair bit of concentration but he was in a really hyper mood. It wasn't worth the angst of making him do it that day, so we did some other more active stuff and got back to the concentration stuff another day!

Noisy Day..

Firstly thanks to all who enquired how I was doing and whether Pete got back ok. Yes he did, and we're all fine, just busy! He seemed to enjoy his trip, but is suffering pretty badly from jetlag.. I'll put some photos up when I get a chance.

Today was a very noisy day, and my ears are still hurting :( Firstly we went to swimming which is at an indoor pool. Several younger kids who have just started lessons protested loudly at the indignity (ie they screamed the whole way through the lesson!), and then after Billy's lesson, the aqua aerobics starts in the other pool . So there were kids screaming & yelling, plus loud music, all echoing in an enclosed space.. Not great!

After the lesson and a play, we went out to lunch at a local club with some ladies I know online from our Freecycle group. I struggle in a group - I find it hard to hear everyone especially with multiple conversations happening in a noisy restaurant. I don't think I have a hearing problem, I think it's just that I'm not used to being in groups much any more.

Then after we left there we went over to the local shopping centre to get some socks & thongs for Billy (I swear I don't know how he goes through socks like he does!). It was loud, crowded and was about the final straw for me!! It's good to be back home!!

Yesterday was a busy day with a trip to Newcastle - chiro visit (my back wasn't as bad as it usually is so staying off the computer is having a positive effect!), meeting with a client, meeting with my course teacher and a bit of shopping. The meeting with my course teacher went well - she marked me off as competent for the whole Cert IV which means I've really finished!!!! It's not official I guess until I get the piece of paper but it means I don't need to worry about it anymore.

I had a positive experience with a salesman which restored my faith in human nature! I forgot to charge my phone the night before and it was starting to beep with a low battery warning. I went into the Telstra shop to see if I could buy a car charger - he didn't have one for my model, but when he found out why I wanted it, he offered to charge the phone for me with a normal charger while I went to the chiro. Very nice of him. It was particularly timely since we've been having a bit of trouble with a new Freecycle member for a couple of days, with yet another abusive message that morning. It was good to remember that not everyone is like that!

The shopping was a bit of a worry - I seem to be in a spending mood atm. Letting me loose in Officeworks in that mood is a bit dangerous :) I was buying bits & pieces for "school" - scissors, sticky tape, cardboard etc... $100 later :(

Speaking of which - homeschool is going well - will update in a separate post.

Routines and other ramblings..

I've been slowly settling into a new routine over the last week (and now Pete's on his way home I'll have to start again!). The most important thing has been to limit my time on the computer through the day.

I haven't been setting the alarm of a morning, so it's been wonderful to wake up whenever Billy comes and gets into bed with me - usually too early for my liking, but I love our early-morning snuggles! I check the e-mail after we get up to see if there's anything urgent, moderate any freecycle messages that are outstanding and while I'm having breakfast try to reply to any emails that I can and read some blogs. After that I've been trying to limit the computer usage to checking email & freecycle every now & then through the day, and the times I need to use it for Billy's schoolwork. I might read some more blogs at lunch or afterwards if I get a chance.

After he goes to bed, I get to start on my paid work - which sadly means I'm limited to an hour or two each night if I want to get a decent night's sleep. Not ideal & I have to admit I'm not at my best by then, but it means I can focus on Billy through the day. (I do still have Thursdays when he's at preschool, so I'm saving anything too hard for then!) It's been quite freeing actually - by giving myself permission NOT to be working through the day if there is a spare minute, I've been able to not only play more with Billy (not that that's the highlight of my day, but he loves it!), or be with him while he works, but I've also done more around the house while he's busy with other stuff - and even taken a bit of time for myself to read or do a jigsaw. (I have to be careful not to let this get too much either!!)

Speaking of cleaning around the house - I cleaned the dishwasher filters out today - ewwwww! I have no idea how it got to be so bad since we rinse the dishes before we put them in, but let me say again - ewwwwwww! :)

I had a brainwave this morning of a way that I might remember to water the garden! Flylady suggests adding the routine on to something you already have as a habit which makes sense and has worked for me in the past. As I was hanging the clothes out this morning, I realised that it made sense to tack it on to that task. I usually wash every day or two, and after I'm finished, I can just make a quick detour via the garden and give it a water. Well, it worked today anyway!!!

Oh btw, the jam I made the other day worked perfectly! I don't know that I'd go and buy strawberry, apple & pineapple jam lol, but it tastes pretty good to me! Yet another thing on the list of items I no longer *have* to buy - yes I can if I want but I'm now capable of making it myself :)

Pete should be home soon, so time for this little duck to sign off! Night all.

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