I think I'm on repeat

It's that time of year again - the hot part.

We always think we'll escape the heat down on the farm. We are completely delusional. It was anywhere between 39 and 41 degrees today, depending on where you were standing and tomorrow is supposed to get up to 42.

We're in code red for fire alert, or at least that is what the media says.

I'm months behind in blogging (I even have photos from our US trip in April that I haven't blogged for 2009) and my laptop just seems to get too hot to sit at. I am so far behind that it's easier for me to procrastinate about it and do something crafty and interesting than to get on with it.

Dan is on his way (well just about) to the US, for his conference. They've got him up on stage - in front of the whole company, the whole company that they've flown in from all around the world (well not strictly true, anyone in the technical or implementation side of things isn't there, but everyone else is). He has to answer specific questions and they're expecting answers like "I followed the company response and wow, look what happened". In true Aussie fashion he doesn't always follow the company way of doing things - I'd like to be a fly on the wall. Wonder if he'll toe the line. I'll find out later in the month. More importantly, I wonder if all my Internet ordering will arrive at his hotel in time. I have my fingers and toes crossed.

Anyway... I will get on with catching up, soon.

I hate cleaning the shower

... as most people do I would guess.
If I don't end up covered in water then I end up full of allergic reaction to even the most mild cleaners.

Well the other day I found a shower cleaning tip so I thought I'd give it a go and let you know how it went.

Clean your shower with shampoo.
Hmm... all right. The logic is that the soap and the shampoo (etc) in your shower is what made it scummy in the first place, so it will clean it too. Fair enough.

I found a bottle with a little left over shampoo (cheap shampoo works just as well as sacrificing the expensive stuff) and I got one of the non-scratch scourers from the kitchen (a clean one) and while I was leaving my conditioner in I soaped up the shower.

Actually it wasn't hard to do and the kids have got me right into making things as bubbly as possible. Bubbles = fun and shampoo bubbles really well.

The result? With about 2 minutes work my glass shower screen and all the white tiles are absolutely gleaming.

I'm going to try cleaning the bath ring (the bane of my existence, my kids must be so incredibly dirty) with the hypoallergenic bath wash I use for the kids. In fact they'll probably both do the hard work and I'll finish off the spots they miss. I'll let you know how that goes too.

In the mean time, shampoo + scourer = sparkling shower.

it's a big day in my house

... the gate from the living room to the kitchen has come down.

I'm not sure how I'll cope.
James comes into the kitchen anyway and helps himself in the pantry, or his current favourites - 'goks' = iceblocks.

He knows that the oven is 'hot hot hot' and not to touch it, but he does like pushing the buttons.

It's strange not to keep having to open the gate. I'm sure I'll get used to it quickly.
Who knows, it may go back up again, we'll see. (Although I'd guess that in a week or two he's going to have the dexterity to get the gate open himself.)

Things have been busy

Boy, have I been busy.
And if I haven't been busy, it certainly feels like it.

I joined a 'Tour de France Knit-a-long' which started, not surprisingly, at the beginning of July.
While I normally try to squash some knitting in here and there - mainly in front of the tv if that's my entertainment for the night, because it's so portable, with the TdFKAL I was compelled to squash knitting into every spare minute of the day I could find.

I don't normally have too many minutes spare, so squashing anything in just seemed to increase my daily workload. Still, it was only for July, if they could ride all those mountains I could finish some projects, surely. So that was distraction number one.

Distraction number 2 and 3 are very much related - school holidays and a trip down to the farm. Having SuperGirl at home to wind up The Boy Wonder can be extremely tiring. In fact it's not at home they are the most tiring, it's when you take them out. SuperGirl can't sit still and often the thing she uses to amuse herself is her brother. While this is not altogether bad it usually involves me chasing them, or yelling out 'you two, come back here' while they are running off somewhere laughing their heads off. The running does wear out The Boy Wonder, but definitely not SuperGirl. (I've taken her to see a Naturopath and we have some wonderful tea that is helping her relax at night, making it easier for her to get to sleep, she finds it very difficult to slow down, relax and switch off. However this good quality sleep just leaves her bouncing off the walls during the day. This is apparently part of her genetic make up - according to iridology (and family history) and her muscles need to keep moving to relax.. it's a bit more complicated than that but if you've ever met a kid who can't sit still to save themselves then you'll know what I mean. She's on a daily regime of trampoline jumping to try and help blow off some excess steam. If only I could bottle it! A side note on the side note, we had friends over to play today and I noticed she was calmer than usual and didn't really go round yanking out toys tossing them all over the floor, she managed to play for reasonable lengths of time at the one game. Maybe it's all working! yay)

So we've been at the farm and I've been squashing in knitting there too. We did manage a few other things while there - including a trip to the Base Hospital with a little girl who had a roaring fever even after taking panadol. In true Super Hero fashion she recovered very quickly and went right on back to bouncing off the walls the next day, as if nothing even happened! But it takes a 40 degree temperature to keep her still.

We took a little side trip to the Bendigo Wool and Sheep Show. Unfortunately The Boy Wonder was not interested in the Wool side of the show (can't imagine why not, I'm sure knitting fascinates other nearly 2 year olds). So I spent a lot of time in baby animal farms and look at alpacas.

Finally back in Sydney The Boy Wonder turned two and so far has had three birthday cakes to celebrate, with a 4th due tomorrow at Playgroup. He's not a cake lover, but with a Thomas candle on the top he is well and truly interested.

Our house now completely resembles Sodor Island. His train table is packed to capacity - he has a new shed for all the trains (on the farm he would line all his trains up in the dolls house, looking out the windows) and plenty more trains to go in the shed and the wooden Thomas carrier. He has a big Thomas tent (which is a pop-up tent in the shape of Thomas, Annie and Clarabel) a new Thomas trike, a Thomas cushion (for his couch potato side) and some new Thomas clothes.
We got him a play shop, you know checkout counter, trolley, cash register etc, because he loves shopping and we thought he might like a break from Thomas (perish the thought) and he loves that too. So does his sister and she is most pleased with the trike. (I have some cute photos I'll put up as soon as I suck them out of the camera).

Anyway, school is back tomorrow... wooooohoooooo, life might get a bit more normal. (Desperate to get to the shops, SuperGirl has jumped from size 5 which no longer seem to fit into size 6&7... I know I'm not tall but she's going to be taller than me in about year 3 the way she's going.)

Ok enough blether.. on with the photos!

The uninvited visitor

It's been a rocky week and a half.
When we got off the plane we both developed colds. Dan's turned into infected tonsillitis, but mine was a sore throat (we both had razor blades in our throats) and pains in my kidneys.

I thought I was taking a turn for the better on the weekend, it was all under control with a bit of panadol, so I spent some time in the gardening clearing out weeds.

Saturday night arrived and I sat bolt upright with a very aggressive pain in my ear. I thought it was just another part of the cold and headed downstairs to let the tv (and pain killers) distract me.

Four hours and much stronger pain killers, later I was in tears. This was serious pain. Dan got up early (sore throat bothering him) and helped me make it through to when the medical centre would be open - we'd go and get me some antibiotics.

So we did. But by Sunday night I was at the hospital, the pain was unbearable, I'd maxed out on painkillers and my ear was bleeding. All they could tell me was it was an external ear infection and would clear up with the antibiotics soon enough. (The kids went to Nanna and Pop's)

Dan was due to fly to Perth for a week, come Monday morning. When he got up I was feeling all right (erm, yep, still the pain killers in the system) so he went. I left the kids where they were and got into my GP. Barely managing to get there she put me on stronger antibiotics and knocked me out with painkillers.

So this was a week ago. I'm still deaf in my ear, although I am managing every day functions.
In the mean time Mum had to make a flying trip back from Canberra (Tim as in hospital having his broken nose reset - don't ask) to look after me and the kids, who needed to come home.

I've been to see the Ear, Nose and Throat specialist (the very nice Doctor who took G's tonsils out a couple of years ago) and he's tried to take out some gunk, which lead to the conclusion that I also have a middle ear infection. This explains why I've been so dizzy as well. I'm on even more antibiotics and cortisone tablets to try and clear it all up. The bacteria is very resistant to antibiotics, it's all happening very slowly.

Right now I'm managing pain with panadol and listening to the little people in that ear who have the strangest conversations (I'm hoping it means the ear is getting better, but really it sounds like a modem running). I finally feel like I can get on with a few things so have actually managed to upload the photos from the trip. Editing the 600 photos sitting there, now that's another issue. Maybe when Georgie goes back to school, I'll put it on the list with the other million things to do.

What a busy weekend..

Last weekend was flat out round here. (Actually it was the last weekend in November, been too busy to finish this entry..... sorry.)

Parties always seem to mean absolute chaos and this weekend was no exception.

Part of it is you're always working to a deadline and never seem to leave enough time to do things, and the other part... well in this case it was having two children underfoot and one husband away travelling. It all came off very well, but that's for another post.

Back to the weekend.

We went to yum cha with Dan's parents for Saturday lunch, but just before that we popped up to the car dealer and Dan bought me a new car.

Just like that? Well, no, but it sounds good doesn't it?

The important thing... it's red, the rest, well you'll have to wait till I get it.

So anyway, yum cha for lunch. The kids like it so they sat and ate, for a while anyway. And I choose to forget what they were like at the car dealership - buying cars is not fun for little kids (or Mummies really).

Post lunch Dan took off to buy a new bbq table and I went home with only Jamie in tow, to tidy up.

At this point I'd like to say long story short, but it's a bit late for that. The table and chairs didn't fit in Dan's car for one trip so he spent the afternoon driving to Castle Hill and back. (Won't happen in the new car).


Where was I? no idea... :o) that's a bit what the day felt like too. There were a million other things that seemed to happen that day, including making a lot of the food as Georgie had a party go to the next morning (I got up at 6am to finish salads and then take her to the party) but as I said before Sunday was a good day.

Anyway, here are some shots of the new table. [Post party]

Exactly why are we dreaming of a white Christmas?

Welcome to December... this is the month we hear everybody saying "where has the year gone?". My sentiments exactly. Only a few weeks ago I actually felt like I was on top of everything - I had life sort of sorted out, Monday night I scrapbooked, Tuesday & Wednesday I knitted (I watched things on tv those nights) Thursday more scrapbooking and Fri - Sun I would spend time uploading, sorting and editing my weekly photos.

Now, only mere weeks later I'm weeks behind in my scrapbook class, editing and printing my photos, not to mention backing it all up, I've put down the bottom half of the jacket that I'm knitting for the boy wonder and the Christmas shopping that I was making great headway with has come to a grinding halt. Even the Christmas tree, which has been up for a while now, is still sitting here decorationless.

It sort of feels like I'm walking in place and the world is rushing by me -maybe I'm walking the wrong way on one of those travelator things.

I'm doing my best to keep it on track, but now the advent calendar has been opened it's a quick down hill run to the end of the year!

Anyway I'll get on with some photos for you.

The Fatman's coming

Isn't he cute? He's a lolly dish.

And look at that very cute little gingerbread house.

...our own living Van Gogh

G can't help herself when she's at the shops and she walks past the flowers.

She tends to loose herself and wants to smell, look and touch them all, not to mention buy them all. She and Dan often buy a bunch for me when they're at the shops on the weekend, but normally I manage to talk her out of getting any - we'd look like a florists shop otherwise.

Last week though, we came home with some beautiful, but mostly unopened, sunflowers.

Well they're open and looking lovely on the bench.

Meet Fred

Fred is the newest member of our family.

Fred is mine! All mine.

(Fred is neither a he or she, more an it.)

Isn't Fred a wonderful colour?

Perfect.

Here is Fred's predecessor, Noname.

She's having a wonderful time with Noname.

I think she was playing on the CBeebies website here, spray painting a butterfly.

We've got a stash of good websites now - Sesame Street, ABC Kids, Playhouse Disney, all pretty good for computer skills.

Next year at school they publish their own story, including pictures, using the computer.

They also learn how to use Powerpoint. (Feeling old now? These are 5 and 6 year olds mastering powerpoint.)

Computers is her favourite subject at the moment, she just loves it.



Anyway, so Fred and its older sibling are now getting friendly down the end of the kitchen bench.

Fred comes complete with Windows Vista, which I'm getting used to (it's slower than XP) and a nice wide screen. We're getting acquainted as we speak, but we seem to be getting along, quite well.

I've travelled the world and the seven seas, everybody's looking for something

Now for most of you, a meat pie is something you could eat every day,

if you felt the need to consume what possibly could be the most unhealthy food on the face of the earth.

(read the back of the packet if you're in any doubt)
But to me, a pie is well out of my reach.
On the outside there is the wheat pastry and on the inside flavours and spices, the thickening agent, the msg, the crappy meat, the gravy, you name it - to my gut it's evil in a tiny package.

But the other day, while in Coles, I stumbled across these -

gluten free party pies

Normally I would walk past as they still have stuff inside them that disagrees with me, but that day I was hungry and *really* felt like a pie.
Imagine my shear delight when I read the ingredients list to find that I *should* be able to eat these little morsels of party delight.

I really really enjoyed them
and at about $1.20 each (for a party pie) you'd want to enjoy them.
(and if you're wondering, no, they didn't upset me... yay!)

I think I lost my marbles, one by one

I've had a really stressful week.
Most of it due to Georgie, school and kindy, but we won't go there right now.

It was Thursday I really realised I'd lost my marbles when two things happened.
The first thing happened in the day but I only realised retrospectively that I'd dropped more than a handful of marbles, the second happened at 6.55pm Thursday night.

I was heading off to a knitting group I'd found that was only down the road. We'd been to ballet that afternoon and I had soup ready at home for dinner. I only remembered it was knitting that night when I arrived home so rang and asked Dan if he could possibly make it home for me to go. He could and he would leave straight away.

I fed the kids and seemed to leave more mess in the kitchen then I do when I cook a gourmet meal for the family. I also was running about 30mins late to the kids timetable. (Jamie likes dinner and a bath at a certain time.) So Dan turned up and I didn't want to rush, didn't want to be the first one there, but I knew I needed to leave soon. So I grabbed my big knitting project and a little one I was starting and headed out the door. I was taking his car so picked a few things up out of mine, after I'd dropped my knitting projects in his car.

While I was looking in my car I realised I couldn't find my handbag. I often leave my handbag buried in the back of my car, especially if I know I'll be going out in a few hours (don't nag me about this I'm going to do it regardless). It wasn't there. Well I was panicked. I ran inside and searched the usual places there.... nope, nothing. I searched the not usual places. I went to see Rainman to see if she knew where it was (if she tells you she knows where something is you can pretty much count on it being there, and she knows where many things are, strangely), nope she didn't know, but suggested the car. I recruited Dan to look in the car in case I was insane. Nope, not there. By now I believed it had been stolen. I was panicked. I searched again. Nothing.

Then I decided to check in Dan's car... just in case, and well it was the only place left. I can't remember putting it there, but there it was, with my knitting in the driver's seat.
I had truly dropped a big bag of marbles right then and there.

The day time thing, which kind of came back to me at that point was that I didn't think I'd taken any photos of the kids that week, not a single thing to show you, so I started to take some photos of the beautiful ballerina G. I got three on my camera before my 2.0gb card was full. wort??? I turned it on to delete just happily deleting things to shove some photos on (thought I might not have emptied it last time I uploaded) when I realised I was deleting photos I had taken earlier that week (ok on the weekend) but hadn't yet uploaded. I only had a small brain implosion at that point.

I have done other things in the week as I have gotten more and more tired (not to mention eaten a whole stack of food I shouldn't have which has set reactions off just making me more skatty, but hey).

So the upshot of this is I now have gazillions of photos uploaded to my computer but not the stamina or brain power to get them ready for you here. So you'll just have to wait. :o)

In the mean time you can visit my Mum's new blog (yep, Granma is blogging) at www.silvercreekspinner.blogspot.com and see what sort of crafty stuff they're up to down on the farm. :o)

Oh and we're off to the zoo tomorrow (borrowed a gold pass) so expect a lot of photos..... sometime.

Do you enjoy vacuuming?

Do you really really enjoy vacuuming? If you don't, you need my vacuum cleaner.

Once upon a time it was a boring household chore that I pretty much detested because getting the old vacuum cleaner out was annoying, as was packing it up and trying to find a space for it.

Now I vacuum every day, sometimes twice or even three times a day... why the sudden change? Well my old vacuum blew up, literally, there were sparks and smoke flying from the handle. Yep my kids make sooo much mess that it eventually blew up the vacuum cleaner. So Dan bought me a new one.

[insert Star Wars theme here]
I am now the proud owner of a Dyson DC23.
And my opinion? I love love love it. I love it more than you should love a vacuum cleaner.
I had a Dyson before, but technology has come so far since my last one.
This one has an air blown power head - we have wool burber carpet so there was no way I was putting the big powerful power head this model can come with, over it. I am very happy with the strength of the little air blown head. It's probably as powerful as our last power head anyway.

Every day this vacuum shows me something new that makes me want to call Dan and say "Wow guess what the vacuum just did", but he's on a secret recon mission in Darwin so I can't.

The first time was the little attachment to clean up the stairs. It makes the job *so* easy. I love it. My least favourite vacuuming job is now a breeze.

And now today I just put on the hard floor attachment. I haven't bothered I didn't think it would make any difference. Well it does and it to is in a league of it's own.

The thing packs away pretty small too and now has its own little house under the stairs where it can stay permanently plugged in so I can just whip it out and zoom around our living area.

If you didn't get it, I love my new Dyson and now I love vacuuming.
(James loves it too, he crawls up to it while it's going and sits with his hand on it.)

I know, you're all out there shaking your heads and thinking I should get out a little more.

Just a blether

Blogger doesn't seem to be uploading my daily dose of delictible snapshots so I'll fill up some web space with my senseless ramblings.

It's busy round here. Dan was and is travelling a lot at the moment. He was in Melbourne last week, some secret agent conference or something, he tells me it was quite successful and was glad he went... although he wasn't glad he was going before he left.

He and The Chief have headed off to Darwin, for some recon mission in Darwin. Darwin, as it happens, is a very hard place to get to and from when you are based in Sydney. One flight a day in and out it seems. He's leaving Wednesday night (or into the wee hours of Thursday morning) and we'll collect him from the airport at 6.30am and keep heading on down on our way to Antarctica *cough*, sorry, Beechworth.

So we'll have the weekend in the freezing - great for my skin rashes, trying to see the positive side of the cold, not managing when it's about 18 degrees and beautifully sunny up here. Anyhoo... we'll be heading back Sunday or Monday then Dan is off to Perth on some other top secret mission which is so secret it's not even made it up onto the calendar so I've no idea how long he'll be there.

Me, I'm excited as I've enrolled in this...
http://www.bigpicturescrapbooking.com/designyourlife.php
she's one of my favourite scrappers so I'm looking forward to it. I'm not sure how the do-it-at-home-in-front-of-the-computer-class will work. I'm planning on booking some time each week to be able to do this.

Georgie has been asking for quite a while now to go to Kindy for another day per week and we've given it some consideration and decided that it could be good for her to do this coming into the end of the year. She's been really enjoying her computer class at kindy and gets great reports. She loves the sport programme at Kindy and Little Aths enrollments are this month so I need to get a move on and do that too. She's also doing really well with her reading, and writing. She could do with a bit more stretching in some of these areas, a few more home academic projects but I'm struggling a bit getting the cleaning, cooking and Jamie under control so she's missing out at the moment. I did get some water paints out for her the other day and she spent hours at the bench here drawing and painting. I might have to visit some of the American home schooling websites and see what we can come up with. Again it's just a matter of me being prepared. The motivation is there for me to do this, there just seems to be a lack of time. School is just around the corner so it would be nice to get some good habits now.
(Saying she's missing out, it's not like she's doing nothing, when it's sunny she spends pretty much all day outside discovering nature and creating her own little world, when she's inside she's got quite an extensive craft area and a big library in her room. )

What else....? oh I finished knitting a vest for Jamie and I'm desperately trying to get a geodesic hat knit for him for the trip to the farm, to keep his little head warm, he's still fighting the virus he's had for so long. I'm also off to the Stiches and Craft Show in Sydney tomorrow. I have to take Jamie, and thankfully not Georgie because who knows how much I would have spent then. I've looked through the list of exhibitors and it looks *huge*, I'm trying to decide how I fit in time there, all my jobs at home and Jamie's sleep. (I hear you saying let him sleep in the pusher, I don't actually really have a pusher big enough for that (and I have three), he's a side sleeper who likes to spread out, he objects strongly to being in his pusher pretty much every time you put him in it.... walking round a craft expo looking at people's backsides is not going to please him much either so we'll see how we go.)

I'm still on my 'allergy diet' and as soon as I can get rid of all these reactions I'll be starting on a Challenge test that uses tablets of pure 'stuff' eg salicylates, amines, gluten etc, including placebos, to see if we can narrow things down quickly. I'm reacting to everything at the moment so I haven't been able to expand my diet, which is getting tedious and frustrating, but is also a bit scarey as I wonder what I will actually be able to eat to stay well.

Ok, well I hear noises through my listening device so I'd best do a quick floor recky, and get the young man.