First Post

Sarah at Just Me started this and I was tagged by The Lady of the Longhouse

Here is the first Blog Post I ever made -

So this is me. Lulu. I live in a sweet 1950's weatherboard house in suburban Australia with my mini tribe of children.
Angsty Teen Queen
Cyclone the 5 year old boy child, and
Betty Boo the baby.

Also featuring in my life is Ex Husband #1 Aquaman and Ex Husband #2 Scorpio.
Apparently it's unusual but the 3 of us are friends and co-parents. It's easier to maintain a friendship when you don't have to share your space or wash their socks.

I love to renovate and redecorate my little house. Since becoming a stay at home mumma I have learnt to do this on a minimal/non existent budget. I'm a brilliant fixer-upper and have come a long way from my early years when my tools consisted of a stiletto and a butter knife. I have POWER tools now. There will be more on this later.....

I also love to cook and feed my family but sadly my kitchen is as 1950's original as the rest of the house - the kitchen reno budget was soon used as extended maternity leave, which is a no-brainer really but also the source of daily swearing and grinding of teeth. I have tiles dropping off, cupboards that won't stay closed and STUPID drawers that cannot be accessed unless you open 2 or more cupboard doors. Get your head around that one...

I also have no oven - I only have myself to blame because in typical Lulu Style I happily ripped the old crusty one out shortly after I moved in. Before I had a new one, when I was running a busy home business and didn't have time to organise the new kitchen which has in turn never materialised...sigh. So my skills are rusty now. Well now I have new ones - like how to feed a family of four with a silly benchtop turbo oven.

I'm also a semi dedicated gardener and vegie grower. I adore everything that grows and never stop marvelling over the wonders of nature. I believe food is medicine, blooms fill your soul and nature is freaking AWESOME. We have much to be thankful for.

I'm about to start rejuvenating the vegetable patch - I just hope I don't lose the next crop the same way I did the last. Weeks of 40+ deg heat murdered the lot.

Wow, big first post. But I do talk alot as you will find out....

Cheers xoxoxo


Hmmm, so in review. I swear alot more than I thought I would, the vegie patch is still neglected....and I'm STILL povvo.

Ok, so now I tag

Bern at So Now What
Kristin at Wanderlust
E Whining at the World

I'm supposed to tag 5 BUT others I would like to tag have already tagged....and some others...well they seem so BIG with 8million followers that I get paranoid they will think "ACH - I don't DO dat shit anymore".

Eeermm, well this is the truth bit.....

Yes, there were 3 of us in a motel room, completely free of partners and children.
Yes, we could have done the whole "Sex in the City" shopping-cocktails-in-trendy-bars thing.

But we didn't wanna.

We DID frock up and hit the town. It also took us about 95 pictures to get the final Awesomely Fabulous Photo before we left.



We DID have a fabulous cocktail at a fabulous bar - $60 a round and it was sooooo worth it.

We also went to the last place we had a great time many, many months ago....but that was NOT fabulous.

We ran into clouds of testosterone fuelled masses with more hair product I have ever used in all my born days.

It was a Long Weekend so everyone descended on the city.....and every venue thought it was a capital idea to squash as many people in as the place could hold.

This is NOT conducive to drinking fabulous cocktails...it was 5 deep at the bar.

This is NOT conducive to having a boogie on the dance floor. Unless you like standing in one spot bobbing up and down with your arms firmly by your sides. Lots of people DO think that is cool and apparently it gets a bit territorial because no sooner than the lovely Sushee and I dared step on the holy dance floor some 12 year old TWIG hip-and-shouldered Sushee nearly clear across the room. Very deliberately.

The little twerp nearly put my eye out with her pointy shoulder blade.

I wasn't too happy with this development....I wasn't sure whether give the twig a stern lecture, feed her a sandwich or throw her across the room.

I quickly realised I was feeding off the anger in the room - this comes with large groups of men clustered together making loud, unattractive remarks about females walking past and the resulting frustration at the prospect of going home alone AGAIN, nuff said - and wasn't having a good time.

So we hopped a taxi back to our lovely temporary home, sipped a fabulous cocktail or two....and laughed our asses off. We actually saw TWO girls wearing black opaque tights and white court shoes. We really did.

But I certainly DID sashay around that beautiful lobby, we definitely annoyed the crap out of the kitchen by demanding bigger tea cups - and causing the shy room service man to blush deeply as we squealed with delight when he met our request.

We did have a collective blonde moment when we noticed the lift hadn't moved for about five minutes because we were laughing so much that no one pressed the button to get to the ground floor.

and yeah....we did a bit of this

The Scary Truth of the Girls Weekend

This is how we did it -



Book Hotel, preferably with swanky entrance. This is very important for a good sashay later on.

When you get to your room empty the stupid bar fridge.



And replace it with your own supplies



Set up your own Mini Bar....eermm Maxi Bar?



and ummmm, do alot of this




Yes, a very large proportion of our weekend was spent lying around on the beds. Just lying around. Talking, reading, listening to music and talking some more. Cos that's what we are best at, and that's what we really needed. UNINTERRUPTED by little voices and hands pulling at our clothes. I read the ENTIRE weekend papers, cover to cover and ALL the magazines. Yes, this thrills me.

We woke up to this one morning



The meeting point for the ANZAC Day march was right out the front.


Of course we did glam up and hit the town...but that's another story all together.

Chickpea Bikkies....

this is not my photo, but they look about the same.

So I have professed to having some sort of problem buying endless cans of chickpeas (NOT lentils, der).

So this is what I do with them - and the kids never know ba HA HA HA hahahahaha!

Drain and rinse can of chickpeas. Put the oven on moderate (180c).
Then get a BIG bowl and thrown in a cup of firmly packed brown sugar and 3/4 cup margarine spread (yep, use butter if you like but I use the olive oil spread stuff) and mix it all together till it's smooth. If you have a Kitchen Aid or some other such wonderful machine use that but I'm POVVO so I use a crap beater thing cursing all the way.
Beat in an egg and 2 tsp VANILLA extract.

Whilst you are doing this you can distract the children by putting the chickpeas into a big ziplock bag and give them ladles and big spoons to belt the bag of chickpeas. Blutack in ears optional.

Get a cup of white choc chips and a cup of brown (but if you boycott Nestle like you should, you will chop up a block of fairtrade chocolate) and add that to the mix.

Next add 2 cups of flour (wholemeal is fine), half a cup of rolled oats, one tsp BAKING SODA and 1/4 tsp of salt.

Mix until it's sorta doughy, line a baking tray with baking paper and drop spoonfuls of the mix onto the tray and flatten them down a little. Bake for 10-12 minutes - don't overcook these babies, they will harden nicely when they cool.

I sometimes add more rolled oats or use a muesli mix instead and sometimes I roughly chop up dried fruit and pull back on the chocolate a bit.



Always in the lunchboxes...

ANZAC memorial

Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, --
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.




Great War Primary Document Archive

Hanging with my peeps

Yeh, dats where I'll be...right about now!

We'll be in the city all weekend, I've been looking forward to this for MONTHS. This pic was taken the last time we were all together and we drank cocktails, boogied and laughed our asses off until some ridiculous hour of the morning.

We won't be going nuts this time, just being in the same motel room (for 3 days!) will be enough.

The interwebz can be a scary place but at the same time if it didn't exist I wouldn't have 4 years of friendship with these girls, not just friendship but an awesome connection across thousands of kilometers. Actually I lie - one of the girls pictured only one of us knew.....but by the end of the night I decided we should be wed. So add another great connection, I'm sorry she won't be there this time.

Oh and another lie, one of them lives about 3 ks from me - but it's still been a loooong time since we have had any decent time face to face.

I am hoping to get to the ANZAC Dawn Service, but if it doesn't work out I'm sure I can find a game of two up around somewhere.

Am I a Mummy Blogger???

AAarrggchhhhh!

Massive crisis of confidence - all from joining a new site Aussie Mummy Bloggers, built by the lovely Brenda at MummyTime.

Actually it started when I noticed my blog was listed somewhere under "Mummy Bloggers" and I thought hhmmmm. Well yes I do have children and they do supply a fair bit of my material click here for anything you might have missed btw.....well I suppose I am.

So I join the Mummy Blogger site and cruise around checking out other blogs, the more I click the more I cringe. Should I even be here?


I hate craft, scrapbooking makes me want to stick a fork in my eye.
I use the word fuck. I talk about penises.
I don't have a 'button'. Every else does.
There are lots of whimsical tales of cute kids.....mine call the police on me.
I sometimes post recipes but the instructions often have the word 'whatever' and bugger all measurements.
I don't have stacks of fabulous pictures to illustrate the sometimes massive blocks of text and no one will tell me where I can find them.
I don't seem as dedicated as some. I mean I am - blogging is my outlet, I'm just not sure I'm outletting the way a 'mummy blogger' is supposed to *snort






We'll see....until then I remain perfectly Unperfect cos that's how I roll.

More easy unperfect cookin

Get shortcrust pastry out of the freezer.
Beat an egg, splash of milk/cream.
Chop capsicum, maybe onion, tomato - add that.
Add pepper and paprika. Maybe mixed herbs. Whatever.
Throw in a handful of grated cheese. Mix
Better put the oven on...medium I spose.

Cut the pastry sheet in half. Cut one half into stacks of thin strips.
Cut other sheet into half or thirds or something.
Build up edges with thin strips, press them down to make a pastry swimming pool (hahah, I'm so freakin funny).
Spoon out some of the mixture onto your pool.
Stuff about making pwetty patterns across the top of it all with more pastry strips.
Put in oven till they are cooked.

Throw them to hungry masses, then storm off to your room to read the paper and be left in peace for 10 minutes.

Very Bad Things Part 4

This is a good'un chicks, so hang onto your hats because it involves the first time I ever saw an erect penis.

Ok so I met this young fella who turned out to be a complete FUCKTARD, so for the purpose of this story he shall be referred to as fucktard. We were at a local 'hang out' during the school holidays and if I remember correctly I would have been in Year 7 at secondary school, so about 13 years old. Met dude, thought he was cute and did a bit of pashing as you do.

It was time to go home so we walked to the back of the complex to get his BMX bike. We did a bit more kissing at the bike sheds....when all of a sudden there was something sticking into my leg and I looked down and there was this ummmmm penis looking back up at me. Oh LORDY I shit my Catholic School pants, pushed him away and ran off in absolute shock. It was just THERE....bobbing away all scary like. I couldn't believe what I just saw.....and since when did a bit of pashing involve PENISES...in BROAD DAYLIGHT?????

I put it to the back of my poor confused mind and went back to school a few weeks later when holidays were over.

Then it happened. On the bus on the way home from school one of the boys from another school called out - "Hey Lulu, do you know fucktard?". Ummm yes, I replied. "oh yeah he says he fucked you behind the bike shed last summer".

The entire bus chock full of kids from 3 different schools fell silent immediately. And looked at me. Of course I was bright fricken red, I just said OMG of course NOT, that's bollocks. I looked up at the older girls from my school for some sort of support but they just shook their heads and looked out the window.

But it didn't matter what I said did it? A reputation I never had a chance to build was in tatters across entire suburbs. It was humiliating beyond words, and a awful burden to carry at that age.

So what's a girl to do??? I spent many, many days and nights pondering. How to exact a decent revenge? It was never going to be as public as my humiliation - but still I had to do something.

So....I wrote a series of horrific little Nursery Rhymes. Something along the lines of

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Look over your shoulder
because I'm gonna come after you with a chainsaw and cut your fucking balls off.

I have spent the last few weeks trying to remember some of them exactly and I can't do it for the life of me. But please note I'm a girl brought up on Grimms Fairy Tales and there was alot of anger behind it all....he he he he.

Anyhoo, I tracked down where fucktard lived, carefully wrote my prose on a variety of different cards, stamped and addressed them accordingly and sent them to my cousin who lived interstate and got her to send them from up there. One every fortnight for MONTHS.


These days it's called stalking......

Umberto

I wish Umberto was around the corner from me. It would probably make life alot easier, or at least funner.

I spent all yesterday running around to bathroom/plumbing suppliers because I have to renovate Dad's bathroom to make it easier and safer for him to shower. He might have to be on medication that makes him feel a bit wobbly sometimes and I panic like mad he might fall over in the bathroom.

I want it to be a bit sexy, not all geriatric-like. I've found an enormous shower unit but this means I'll have to get rid of the bath entirely. I'm not sure about this at all. Dad might want to sell up to downsize in the next year, or head to one of those "lifestyle' type villages (if we can find one with a decent bar rofl) and I'm not sure if it will be a problem having no bath when he goes to sell.

A few people have suggested it won't really be a problem - that baths will start disappearing with the water restrictions, not everyone wants a bath anyway. I think it's a bit hard to get your head around when you have kids.

What do you think?

I don't get it

So I've been really busy lately so I thought an early night in front of the telly would be a good thing. I went to a friends to watch a movie because if I was at home I would find myself catching up on the endless housework and not sitting down.

For some reason when I try to watch a DVD, I have some strange Pavlovian response to the opening credits of the film. I ALWAYS feel the need to do dishes instead. I get bored through the boring ass boy/girl angst that always rears its head and often fast forward through it all. Yep, short attention span. I fidget too much to go to the cinema, so forget that.

So anyway I chose I Am Legend with Will Smith. Just because I haven't seen it.

O.M.G what a horrible, depressing and distressing film. Who thought that was a good idea? Who actually PAYS to go to be depressed and upset watching this at the cinema? I spent half the movie hiding behind a pillow and turning down the volume. I HATE that jump out of your skin moment, can't they build suspense without scaring the shit out of people with loud noise alone? Bloody hell, I'm already as high strung as a racehorse - if I want to get upset and depressed I can watch the fricken world news......

So I watched Night At The Museum 2. HAHAHAHAHAHA! So fucking funny it made everything better.

Now THATS entertainment.

Family Fun

Ok, so my dad is unwell and been in hospital. He is now at a Rehab Centre to keep up his strength and wean him off the steroids they gave him.....that probably caused the problems by lowering his immunity to the point he ended up with a terrible case of pnuemonia.

He is 86 and I feel a bit bad for not keeping a closer eye on him, which isn't always easy when the silly bastard lies and tells me he is feeling fine when he is NOT.

Anyhoo, so I am totally buggered because I've taken the opportunity to give his house a really good clean whilst he is gone. He used to have a cleaning lady but in his words "she didn't bloody shut up so I sacked her". Onya dad. I understand though - she probably thought she was doing him a favour by being bright and chatty to the old dude but dad still works as a psychologist and she keep interrupting his writing by talking about the weather. He may be old but he still goes to the gym and can drink anyone under the table and enjoys doing both regularly.

Dad has done enough for the world in his time and I don't think he should lift a finger around the house, so I try to clean for him when I am there but he gets all shitty when you move his stuff. So Yeeha that I can get in there uninterrupted by him getting all antsy.

Dad is a bit of a photographer as well.He loves taking pictures so there are plenty of albums around to go through whilst having a break from throwing out old newspapers and medication dating back to 1995.

This one really made me smile. Can you guess what's happening here?




There is me sitting on the bench with my back to the camera, my little sister leaning over the red crate and dad front and centre. You can tell it's late 70's but the orange laminex and macrame by the window...never mind the blinds.

Seriously - can anyone guess what we are doing?

It's called the Family Homebrew Production Line.

The big red bin has the brew inside, that had been wrapped in blankets and made very strange noises whilst the yeast did it's magic. When it was ready to be bottled, it was my job to hold the plastic line in the beer, my sisters job to move the hose from bottle to bottle and dad capped them.

Good clean fun. Apparently it was lovely. Dad and his mates tried to make wine once but it was bloody terrible so they decided to stick to beer.

Yesterday

Wake recalcitrant child, feed and dress
School run.
Pick up dads prescription
Visit with Dad at hospital
Take 3 phone calls from various medical people re: dad
Rearrange 5 appointments for Cyclone for his Apsy diagnosis
3 hours dusting, washing windows
Talk to plumber about renovating dad's bathroom
Pick up recalcitrant child from school
2 loads of washing
Make lasagna
Children running so feral give them 2 minute noodles and send them to bed
Make 3 phone calls updating Dad's status at hospital
Clean kitchen
Cry with exhaustion into my beer that I'm too tired to drink.

It's my bed...MY BED.

Apparently.




Sigh. I love them, I loved co-sleeping, I love how warm their little bodies are but I love starfishing all over MY bed just as much.

Cyclone is just so sweet. I hear a tiny voice coming from the doorway "muuuum, muuuuuuuum, mummy....can I come in your bed?" I prise my eye open to see the little fellow clutching all 4 toy dogs he sleeps with, red cheeks and eyes blinking drowsily. I scoot over and pull the doona back for him and wait for him to put his cold feet on my back.

Betty Boo is more a stealth operator. She doesn't ask, just wiggles in and most of the time I don't notice she is there until morning.

This doesn't happen all the time but if I get one child in.....pretty soon the other follows. I think they have some sort of radar. I'm always in the middle to avoid 'sleep fighting' (I'm serious, they even throw punches with their eyes closed) and therefore end up with about 20 centimeters of mattress and can't roll over.

With my electric blanket collateral damage from the recent hailstorm and the recent cold snap in Melbourne...I think it's gonna be another 2 kid (and 4 dog) night.

Photo Meme of MYSTERYYYYYY

This is fun - Sarah at Just Me tagged me in this, and her pic came with a pretty funny story.

Mine, however does not. (Edited to add, it IS funny but not really a story. Speaks for itself!)




Cyclone. Rice Bubbles. Floor.

Rather pleased the mystery photo didn't end up being the one with Cyclone eating dog biscuits. I'll save that for later.


Here are the instructions if you want to play too:

1. Open the first (oldest) photo folder in your computer library
2. Scroll to the 10th photo
3. Post the photo and the story behind it
4. Tag 5 or more people to continue the thread.

I tag -

E of Whining at the World
Nelle at Growing Nelle
MrsB Where the grass isn't always Greener
Bern at So Now What?
The Fat Lady

Have fun!

Getting started on the garden

I've just posted some tips on a forum I hang out at and I thought I would extend them to here.

Here are some earlier entries - ME GARDEN
You will also see the reason why I haven't done anything with mine lately...

Anyhoo - so you have made yourself a space for some herbs and vegies, and not sure what to plant? Head over to Gardening Australia website - it's awesome. They have a magazine too.

I also HIGHLY recommend Diggers Garden Club they do excellent books and mail order, have the most PERFECT gardens you can visit. The catalogues are insane and you can go a bit nuts. I had about 8 different tomato varieties at one stage....

Op Shops are a great source of old magazines with advice on what to plant in the area you are in without spending a bucketload on the new ones...I arrange them into month order to avoid confusion (easily done these days).

Plant what you eat/buy most of.

When you buy your seedlings, always grab a couple flower punnets too. When planted out the patch can look a little bare and rather underwhelming and some colour always looks good.

If you have grown from seed, like I did here or if the seedlings look a little floppy you can stick the plastic drink bottles over the top for extra protection till they find their feet.

Crushed up eggshells can be a great way of keeping slugs and snails off the seedlings...but it never worked for me.

To keep stinking bloody cats away (they can sniff out freshly turned soil a mile away), buy some wooden kebab skewers and put them all over the place, pushed about halfway down. Keeps them from planting THEIR arses and digging to conceal the evidence. Mesh can be a PITA.

Happy planting. Will update on how to keep away the bastard that will EAT all your produce before you do.

Oh - and if you don't want to sacrifice your fingernails - scrape them over a bar of soap before you head to the backyard.

So further to the wedding $$$ discussion

I'm not finished with this yet.

Ok, so if it's what the couple wants *grumble *bitch - to have envelopes stuffed full of bills instead of presents to unwrap maybe thats their call *snipe

So if the original idea of wedding gifts is to help start the new couple in their lives together and if you are already set up and have everything - lived together and have kids etc and don't NEEEED anything, then why expect money? Or anything at all?

If they just ask for cash - can you (warning grumpy old bitch emerging) at least expect to know where your money is going?
Now that sounds horrific, but what I'm getting at is if you knew where it was going, would you be happier to put the money in the well?

I know of couples that have asked for $$$ to go on a honeymoon (don't get me started on the honeymoon registry though - VOMIT) and I think that's ok, cos everyone should have a little get away after the shit you go through organising these things.

Or if they were doing up their house or something and mentioned it in the crappy ass poem. Even vouchers seem a little better. Probably cos we put that on our list and were thrilled to pieces with the Bunnings Voucher and bought some important tools and a wheelbarrow. (Then took pics and sent them to the givers with a thank you card).

I'm just wondering - because if the tradition of wedding gifts (wrapped and delivered to the house BEFORE the wedding) is dying - I WANNA KNOW. So I can move with the times and all that.

Man I can go on for ages about this shit. And I'm gonna, so there.

Hmmm Wedding Wishing Wells or wtf they call them

So I'm going to a wedding. I don't know the people but they are friends of Aquaman, and he showed me the invitation the other day. It's lovely, in fact the best I've seen so far. Really classy, customised, black and white. It has a lovely RSVP card all stamped and ready to go.

Then something else caught my eye, a little poem in the front inside page.

To save you looking, shopping or buying
Here is an idea we hope you like trying
Come to our wedding to wish us both well
and bring a card to throw into the well.

Fill it with notes all colours will do,
green is our favourite but gold will do
Now that we have saved you all of the fuss
we hope you will come and celebrate with us.

Ummm. Ewwwww.

Sorry but I just don't like it. I think it's a bit crass. I'm really, really stuck on the bit where the colour of the money is specified....

This probably means I am getting old, or uncool or BOTH.

I like the idea of a Wedding Registry but I never promise to stick to it. I like to buy something that sometimes has a little more meaning than a Bamix. Or some artwork, or just something beautiful.

I had a fairly loose registry when I got married, we had just bought a house, had lived together previously - I understand that registries can really help these days.

But you know what? It was the things we received that weren't on the list that I love the most of all. The two STUNNING crystal vases I would have never thought to list or ever buy for myself for example.

Asking for money? It's too cold. I LIKE shopping for wedding gifts, I think the presumption that I find it a pain in the arse to buy a wedding gift annoys me even more. I know it's different in different cultures/parts of the word, I get that but I LIKE WRAPPING the gift TOO.

AND - I can name name the giver of every, single wedding present. Even 7 years later and I remember with a smile everytime I look at or use them. That's just as wonderful to me.

** Disclaimer - I don't know this couple, I'm not saying they suck or are awful.

What do YOU think?

Oh crappy daaaayyy

Grragh!

It all started with finding this in my bedroom this morning.



I am 95% positive that it's the same one evicted from my letterbox 2 weeks ago. He's come back for revenge, and doing a top job too.

Even though I only get sick once every couple of years, I happen to cop a rotten rotten cold right when my father is in hospital with respiratory problems so I can't go and see him. My nose is dripping like a tap and my eyes are watering and even my whine sounds like a foghorn

The children, like most wild animals can sense weakness and are behaving like a pack of ferals whilst I whimper in the corner and plead with them croakily to stop bouncing off the walls.

Once again my precious little rotters have managed to embarrass me beyond words by stripping to their underwear and running out the front to the neighbours hard rubbish pile and ratting for treasure.

I go and herd them back inside and get a bigger than usual grin from the postlady riding by and realise I am standing there wearing the top half of a pirate costume (because Boo promised she would stop yelling if I put it on)and a roll of toilet paper in my hand.

Awesome.

5 questions I'm asking myself today....

Why are there almonds in the bath?

I wonder if Scorpio noticed I used his toothbrush to clean the washing machine filter?

Why do I compulsively buy canned lentils? no CHICKPEAS! Why??

How did I not find Lamebook EARLIER????

Should I start my Agony Aunt section of this blog???

Hmmmmm

Daggy ass comp winners - the comp, not the winners!

So through a bit of bribery - ha der har, I got some feedback from the makers of my yummy things.

Check the comments in this post HERE for some yummy alternatives.

So there was going to be ONE winner but I can do whatever the fuck I want.

So Lady Astrid of Lady of the Longhouse wins because I like the fact she uses up whatever she has in the fridge.

and Cailin at A Gastronomic Affair and better start adding to it soon....
Cailin however WAS streets ahead of the pack (you can see why), but I had to deduct several points for her use of the word BRIE. She really shouldn't do that and should know better, it took me ages to get all the drool off my keyboard.

So chicks a little surprise is in the mail in the next few days.

Thanks to all who gave feedback, I have heaps of new things to fiddle with.

Good Deeds??

OK, jumping back into the BLOG THIS challenge.
Subject - So friends, tell us about a good deed you have done for someone or vice-versa. Or how someone elses' good deed that you have learned about has affected you.. did you learn from it? How did it make you feel? Was it a disaster? Did it uplift you?

So here are some good deeds I have participated in or been on the receiving end of



A bootful of groceries to someone who wouldn't ask for help and delivered in such a way there was no blushing of either party.



A package of delicate underclothes sent thousands of miles from one friend to another....just to make her feel better when things are hard in the life department.



A day spent helping a single mother beautify the house she works her butt off to purchase all on her own through determination and hard work.



A tiny pair of booties, knitted with love and attention to detail, to ease the pain of another, so she wouldn't leave the hospital empty-handed. For a woman you have never met and probably never will.

Are these Good Deeds? Random Acts of Kindness? Helping out a friend or fellow human? Or simply things we should all DO?

I dunno, but I can tell you every single person involved in all of the above felt good and more than likely spread that feeling around to everyone they saw over the next few days after...so thats GOOD.

ANZAC memorial

Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, --
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.




Great War Primary Document Archive

Very Bad Things - Part Three

I stole my dads car when I was 15....but I had to get to work so I totally justified it to myself ok?

Hey, I was running late and work called to hassle me. The car was sitting in the driveway and the keys were there.

I had been driving around the country roads in mums Honda a few times so therefore I knew was I was doing - how hard could it be?

Never mind the fact dads car wasn't a Honda




It was a dirty big ole Valiant Charger. With a steering wheel like a bus and the handling of the QE2.

Of course I was wearing my teenage princess-of-everything-and-holder-of-all-knowledge pants, grabbed the keys and hopped right in and drove to work very uneventfully.....actually I was crapping those princess pants and it got worse when it came to parking. I HAD to park in a multi-level thingos, and it's not fun negotiating them when you are driving the equivalent of said QE2.

In fact I somehow managed to drive it up the side of the car in space next to mine. I somehow grazed the side and the valiant got caught on the strip on the other car and I was inching into the space so slowly I didn't notice until I felt like I was tipping over. I reversed back and noted no damage to either vehicle....and a guy behind me killing himself laughing.

I managed to get the car back home later that night, (undetected!) - and swore never to do it again, cos maybe I wasn't as smart as I thought.