Windows Vista

I hate you.

That's all.

What famous leader are you.......

I was kind of hoping for Ghandi........

What Famous Leader Are You?

personality tests by similarminds.com

Although Al and I do share hair issues.

It's not all rain and fog

Curiouser and curiouser

It's spring here. The season of mild days, light sunshine and planting. Last weekend we had two days of temperatures in the mid 30's - hello early summer -WTF? Out came the sundresses and the paddling pool (grudgingly, it's way too soon to be that hot).

Then on Monday we had this...

and this......

and it was 12 degrees and it has rained all week!!!!

Confused the hell out out me.

Some encouragement please....

Ok, I'm counting down (yes, it's about Uni again - shut up it's nearly over). I am really struggling here people, 6 assignments - 4 weeks, then it's done. Despite knowing this I have no motivation. I am currently writing one of the essays and every sentence is like drawing blood. I punctuate the 'work' (ha!) with standing at the back door watching the wildlife, eating, drinking coffee, staring into the fridge for something else to eat (why is there no chocolate in this effing house?) and emailing my sisters. Thank God they're emailing back or I'd be making prank calls to strangers just to have some kind of communication with the outside world. Tom and the girls have escaped gone out for the afternoon to get away from the bitch at the laptop attend a party then visit family.

I’m making very slow progress on this essay, it's not long, only 2500 words. But I hate this one. It’s so boring, it's about evaluation – who cares? But I now have 648 words so I'm nearly a third of the way there - give or take. I'm writing a lot of crap mind you (what's new I hear you cry) but whatever.... as long as I pass (please let me pass).

Sigh, I cannot wait for this to end. After this I have 5 more to do. There are three easy ones and I’m going to try and finish two of them this week, that will leave the 3 others, one easy two hard. I said to Tom today that I’ve realised sitting on the sofa saying ‘I just want this to end’ will not in fact make it end. I actually have to do some work. Pffft to that.

I need a cheer squad.

Yep, that helps.

My other baby

Here is Sophie, just minding her own business ..... sniffing the grass....catching some rays....

What's that? Damn paparazzi!!

Where have I been?

Even I don't know! I've lost a week again. It could have something to do with getting sick last week (all of us) that was a blurry few days. Then I was trying to write an essay that I have a complete block about. And I mean COMPLETE. I have attempted it 3 times and have written nothing. Not. One. Word. To say I'm panicking is putting it mildly. Somebody help me please. I even offered Tom $1,000 to write it for me. He didn't fall for that one because a) he knows I haven't got $1,000 and b) any money we do have at the moment was earned by him anyway. Foiled again. If anyone out there would like to write my essay for me (sorry, can't pay you) please let me know.

On Sunday we got some more work done in the garden....spring is a busy time isn't it? Tom dug the veggie beds and we planted some tomatoes in two of them. We haven't planted the rest of our summer veg crop yet. We ran out of time. The girls have been given 2 tomato plants each to care for. Let's see if they've inherited my green thumb ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

School went back yesterday. And not a moment too soon. Despite these holidays being a lot less stressful than the last ones, they were more than ready to get back to school and kindy.

Here's why.........on Monday afternoon I sent them outside to water the tomato plants and they rushed off excitedly. While they did that I fussed around in the kitchen with dinner preparations. After some time I thought I'd better check on them so out I went, only to discover that they had poured water into one of the (still empty) garden beds and stripped to their underwear and were playing in the mud they had created. They were completely covered from head to toe in it! I'd love to say that I behaved like one of those patient mothers that finds such antics humorous and says its just 'kids being kids'. I didn't respond that way at all. I went nuts. I ranted, I raved I shook my fist at a universe that has never provided me with a high pressure hose - I was pretty annoyed. I took them inside one at a time (in a feeble attempt at keeping the mess to a minimum). I put them in the shower first to get the worst of it off then I left them to rot soak in the bath for an hour. The bathroom was ok, is still covered in mud splashes. Then I went in and (a little too vigorously) scrubbed them clean.

At least they did actually water the tomatoes.

To add insult to injury, after all I put up with, yesterday Aislin called me a nerd. Hmph.

All in a day's work

By the end of the day we have...

Plants growing (I'm not fooled)

Washing done - but soon after this it was soaking wet again (rain dammit) and I had to bring it in spin it in the washing machine again and put in the dryer.

A (very tired and cranky despite the big smile in the photo) zebra

A very happy puppy

So all in all a good day was had by all (apart from the washing getting caught in the rain incident).

For want of a possum box.....

...you know the rhyme don't you? Here it is in case you don't. Of course you'll notice the original version is about a nail but it amounts to the same thing. You see we have our own version of this going on right now.

It all began a few months ago when Tom and I had a discussion about all the work we still have to do on the house. We moved into this house 2 years ago and there was a flurry activity before life got incredibly busy and it was all put on hold. With my impending freedom from Uni we are planning to get back into the decorating and renovating. Anyway, during this discussion I suggested we make a start on the easiest job, that is painting the office and laying new flooring in there. The conversation went something like this....

Tom: Good idea, we'll have to move everything out of there.

Me: Yes, where will we put it?

Tom: We could put it in the shed while we paint.

Me: But what about the possum?

Ok, slight diversion here....we have a possum living in our shed. This is a slight problem because we are already storing most of our furniture and several dozen boxes of books out there and the possum has no respect for our belongings, if he wants to sleep, pooh or pee on them he does. But he's cute. Cute and protected (and I mean legally) despite the fact some people find it entertaining to shoot them off roofs and so on (you know who are). So we have to show some consideration. Tom grew up on a farm and has some experience of possums (and trust me it didn't involve building them mansions). However, he now works beside the people that enforce that protection. They are his workmates, it would be embarrassing to evict a possum and something terrible happens and we are discovered and charged with possum cruelty...or whatever. And of course we like the possum, he's cute and funny and finds strange places to sleep in the shed and doesn't care when we find him and stare at him and talk loudly and take photos. Here he is sleeping in a strange spot...see his ear sticking up? Cute eh?

So back to the conversation...

Tom: Well, there's nothing for it, we'll have to evict him.

Me: Oh no! Where will he live?

Tom: I'll make a possum box, leave it in the shed with some fruit so he can get used to it then I'll get the possum trap from the farm, catch him in it and move the box -then him - to a tree.

Me: Ok. Off you go then.

..........some months time later.....

.........and later still..

.......and last weekend.....

This possum box is a sight to behold, it is luxury possum accommodation, it even has a porch. I go out to the shed and look at the possum box and come inside and look at my house and fantasise about living in the possum box.

So getting back to the point, the continuation of our entire decorating and renovating activity is reliant upon the successful eviction and rehousing of the possum, which was reliant upon the building of adequate accommodation for him.

Crazy isn't it (oh and I'll post photos of the penthouse when it's finished)?

Therapy is the only answer

I have a problem....yes - that's it - in the photo. That, my friends, is my collection of notebooks, journals, diaries and organisers. I have four filofax organisers (four! WTF?). And they are real filofax organisers - the big one cost me $400 about 10 years ago (hey, I got a promotion at work, I was celebrating). I have journals in every size, silk bound, leather bound, even plain old spiral bound. There are many, many notebooks.....for all my....well.....notes. And lists of course, I make lots of lists.

They are all beautiful, I love them but I have enough to last quite a while now. But still I covet this, this and these.

Oh yes, I certainly do have a problem. I tried to explain it to Tom (who incidentally just spent 2 hours wandering around the hardware store - enough said), 'it's a disease' I said. He just shook his head and walked away.

You like them don't you? I know you're examining that photo closely, I know you want them too. You're secret is safe with me.

The countdown

Only 5 weeks until Uni is finished forever.

And you know what that means don't you?

Today.....

Tom brought me these flowers....

.....we found a nest...

....and a frog......


.....and planted sunflowers....

...and I finished another assignment....Yay!!!

Enthusiastically killing plants since 1987

We've spent the last couple of days working in the garden. Everyone is holiday and the weather is very spring-like so out we went. After the initial lawn mowing (Tom) overgrowth pruning (me) we spent some time greeting the neighbours, we all came out of hibernation and our place became the gathering point for catching up. Once that was seen to the girls and I settled down to plant some seeds. A friend had given me some seed sowing kits for them so we planted them to start with...here are the results...

I think they look like little graves and if my gardening history is anything to go by they will indeed house the dead. You see I don't do well in the garden. I like it, I want to be good at it, I am enthusiastic and I try, but somehow things don't go as planned for me. Things either don't grow at all or grow for a while and die or if I buy them ready grown they take one look at me and... well....die. Not that it stops me, for many years now I have been killing plants with gay abandon and this year isn't going to be any different. And I'm so proud to be sharing my plant killing knowledge with my children. I hope it doesn't traumatise them too much.

Stay tuned for pictures of the (dead) results.

Fairies

For some reason I just love this picture of Aislin at her Fairy Ballet demo class. It's the only time parents are allowed to stay and watch an actual class in progress and it's highly entertaining. It's a blurry action shot but the softness and the colours just really appeal to me, so I'm sharing.

In case you're wondering...

...why my photos are now watermarked it's because of this nonsense. We all know that putting anything you own, be it words or images, on the web is a risky practice. I'm not that precious about my words, my photography sucks so I don't care much if someone nicks my cloud pictures (though why they'd want to I can't imagine). You're also welcome to any witty comment I've written (of which there are so many - ha) but I will not, ever, tolerate anyone using my children's photos to set up fake profiles on community sites or worse.

Henceforth you will see my images watermarked and if anyone out there thinks they might just lift a couple a pics of my girls anyway, I will find out and then you'd better be looking over your shoulder a lot because I will hunt you down and when I find you I will kill you - painfully.

That, my friend, is a promise.

To my beloved friends and family that read this blog, if there is a photo you'd like a watermark-free copy of, let me know I'm happy to send it to you.