For Annie

First rule of Facebook ... Pics are not safe, I stole this off stalkbook.

I am very very lucky to have my friend Annie. I love Annie and her Hubby for many reasons not least because they were a flicker of light in the very dark dark days (months, years!) after my Mum passed away. For me being with Annie and Stew is like being on holiday (strange description but oh so true).

In honour of Annie joining Facebook I wanted to share a post from here because I think it describes the social network brilliantly.

Groundhog Day with Celia Fae was the first blog I ever read and she is blogging GOLD as far as I am concerned. She is funny, erudite, irreverent, honest, funny and lots of other adjectives too. She has great ideas for getting kids to to chores and she can also stick to her goals like nobodies business. Did I mention she is also funny?

With her permission I have posted her take on Facebook. Annie - consider this an education.

The Facebook Freak out. By the very funny Celia Fae.

Sample Old Boyfriend. I wished.

By now everybody is on Facebook, right?

We've resisted long enough and we have an account and we're accumulating friends. It isn't our first choice because we can't neglect the blogs, but it is amusing. Not to mention easy. I think of it as Lazy Man's Blogging.

The downside to Facebook is the Freak Out.

Step One: Start friending people you know. Use the friend finder to look up long lost boyfriends.

Step Two: Think about friending the boyfriends but resist temptation. Instead, friend his friends and then wait.

Step Three: Get friended by the long lost boyfriend. Die of surprise when you see his name in your inbox. Make him wait a couple of days to confirm so that you don't look desperate. You're married, remember?

Step Four: Receive message from boyfriend. Call whoever was your best friend at the time and discuss your response. Make sure to include your husband and children in the return message so he won't think you're coming on to him. Ask about his family.

Step Five: Continue exchanging short messages with old boyfriend. Harmless messages that make you feel wracked with guilt. Consider telling your husband that you are communicating with old boyfriend but decide not to following long conversations with your friends about the nature of the messages.

Step Six: Have dreams about people from the past that were long forgotten, including old boyfriend.

Step Seven: Stop exchanging messages. Become very affectionate with your husband and tell him how glad you are that you married him.

Step Eight: Wonder why old boyfriend doesn't write you messages anymore. Call friends and discuss.

Step Nine: See old boyfriend's status updates occasionally but become inured to his name and photo. Hope he lives a happy life.

Step Ten: Repeat with next old boyfriend while serving as counselor to friends who are mid Freak Out.

Facebook. It's a little too easy to Freak Out.

Dirty Little Secrets

So you already know my child had nits and yes when I say nits I mean blood sucking head lice.



Moving on to more Dirty Little Secrets.


DLS No 2.

I cant stop listening to this album. It is cardio booyah. It makes the running easier.
No I don't approve.
Yes I think shes exploited.
No I wouldn't want that life for my kid.
Yes I think her parents need a slap and
No I cant spell hypocrite.


DLS No 3.

I really want to see The Town ... and not for the narrative arc.

So there you have it 3 DLS down, thousands more to go... and of course feel free to share your own DLS.

Lulu has nits

and because I find it best to gloss over all the boring and crappy parts of domesticity & child wrangling I'm going to instead :

Drool over this ring

and this one too. Perfect for summer.

found here http://www.palasjewellery.com.au/ and here http://www.najo.com.au/

Wonder if this guys next album will be any good.

Look forward to going here for a weekend without the small peeps who yell at me and possibly give me nits.

Laugh at this: (be very warned the language is very blue)

http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays

and very much relate to this:

One is the loneliest....

With Elaine out of town, Gary couldn't even enjoy his favourite dinner of brie and tree branch.

http://catalogliving.net/

It's a blog that sends up the ridiculousness of Interior Design Catalogs. Its comedy gold and much thanks goes to MRS B as I stole it off her blog. Thank you Mrs B.

Sand in my pocket

and in my shoes and in my doona and oh yes all over my floor. Bound to happen when you go up the coast for the weekend and then bring half the beach back home with you. Last weekend we rented a beach house with our friends and enjoyed some spectacular sunny spring weather.

Sus in her official surf carnival capacity.

Both sporting new hats. Of course.

Whenever we go away to the beach I find myself doing two things without fail early Saturday morning. The first is standing in the towns ubiquitous surf shop looking for hats/bathers/thongs for my husband and offspring. Its hard to get mad (but I still do) at the offspring when the person who packs the least is the other parental unit.

The second thing I do without fail is yell at the kids for not showing enough enthusiasm for the trip away. The words "starving kids in Africa would kill to be at this beach house, now go and find the Sun Block" may have come out of my mouth.

Once these two things are out the way the weekend fun can start.

Now this just annoys me... when I pack and carefully choose my swimming and leisure attire for swanning around the beach I think I am going to be sort of sporting this look:

and then someone takes a snap and I discover I am a nearly 40 year old mother of two sporting this look:

A good time (and a bit of sunburn ) was had by all.

The End.

My Uncle Alec

My Dad rang me last week and said that his brother was visiting and maybe we could catch up as my Uncle Alec made his way home. My Dad comes from a big family (7 boys & 1 girl) but after he and my Mum divorced we didn't see a lot of them. In fact the last time I saw my Uncle Alec I was 4 years old and he and his future wife Wendy were taking us to Luna Park in Sydney. Luna Park was like Disney Land to us kids and I remember sitting in the front of their car nearly exploding with excitement at going to the park.

Lulu was intrigued by me catching up with Alec... mostly because she wanted to know how I would recognise someone I hadn't seen in such a long time. All us Jackos look the same I reckon so I wasn't too worried ;-)

So we had coffee at the noisiest cafe on earth and it was indeed lovely to see him. I made a random stranger take a few photos of us telling them to make me look young and thin (epic fail on the random strangers part) .

After saying goodbye with a lovely bear hug (all the Uncles that I know as well as my Dad give the best bear hugs) we both agreed we wouldn't leave it another 34 years before we saw each other again.

The pictures tell the story ... Or not.

A post in two parts.

Part 1 : We went to a pick your own Strawberry Farm a few weekends ago. My sister goes there all the time and takes all her visitors. We have never been (but we did live next door to a strawberry farm for a while and the farmer let us pick our own all the time).





The weather was (finally) good and the Farm was fantastic. It was so well planned out and neat and tidy.





Lulu thought the strawberry's were expensive ($10 bucks a kilo) this cracked me up ... as how would she know what fruit costs?



David of course was giving strict instructions on how to pick the fruit and what colour to look for. I ignored him of course but I see by this picture that Lulu took his advice and studied the fruit intensely ;-)

She was super stoked that her dress matched the fruit. That is very important when you are 10.

David and I are on a "get fitter / loss the Thailand Kg's before the Christmas Kg's turn up/ try not to look 40 even if we nearly are" campaign. This campaign involves getting up at stupid o'clock to go for a walk/run up a hill/walk. The campaign DOES NOT involve eating this.

She is the master eater of all things junk food... a better parent would reign that in.

Feeling pious with my fat free fruit smoothie

The Farm also had a viewing platform from where you could see the fruit being sorted and packed etc. It also had a sausage sizzle... why is it that sausages only appeal to me at Bunnings or outside sausage sizzles?

Part 2:

I wasn't going to do this post ... did you notice anyone missing from the family day out? He was at home sulking/sort of cleaning his room/sulking. We gave both kids ample time to do their chores before we left for the strawberry farm. Lulu hooks in to any chores you ask her to do and just gets it done. Mr opposite personality takes hours to do one chore all the whilst whinging how unfair it is that he has to do it ("it" being the cruel and unusual punishment of picking a few towels of his floor and making his bed). Unless you saw Bear in action you wouldn't believe it could take someone 4 hours to do a job that takes 20mins. I guess its stubbornness ... he doesn't want to do the chore ... or maybe its his teenage brain rebelling against the boredom of tidying the house. The funny thing is the kids have been doing chores around the house since they were little ... its not like its a huge surprise to them that we expect them to help out.

So we left Bear at home ... consequences and all that... David and I both felt slightly ill, I mean what really is the point of having a family day out without, you know the whole family? Obviously as you can see by the pics we had a nice day, we just felt like someone was missing.

But I am putting it out there. I'm keeping it real. I'm not spinning everything to look as rosy as possible... who's real life is like that anyway?

I read blogs that are clearly delusional (or the children/husband have batteries) and that is ok I like to read them but much more satisfyingly I read blogs that enlighten me, teach me, uplift me and make me happy. I read blogs that help me be a better Mum and partner. I read blogs that inspire me in our reno and I read blogs that keep me informed on all sort of views and topics. And I love them all.

So whilst this post isn't ideal ... it is us just being us!

Note to Self

Self: In your clearly delusional mind when you go exercising in the morning you think you look something like this.

In reality you are a uncoordinated gumby who has trouble keeping upright on the sloping dirt roads that surround your house.
Evidence of your awkwardest gumbyness below.

Also Self invest in some botox or don't frown in pics.

Note to Husband:

Husband, wow all those years of fielding practise and hours in slips really came in handy when you used your finely honed reflexes to save your wife from almost life threatening injuries this morning... NOT!

Finishing in the manner in which you started.

We have all survived the school holidays... Hallelujah Brother.

Of course there was repeated requests to go to the beach. So we went for a few trips at the start of the holidays even though the weather was either overcast or raining :-(
We ended the holidays at the beach as well... proving that pester power works a treat on me.

Other things we got up to during the vast chasm of time known as the Spring School Holidays.


We went halves in a cow with our neighbour... the carnivores in the family were very impressed at the size of the T-bones.


People dressed up and sang (inappropriate) songs at the top of their lungs.



Other people got annoyed at other people taking snaps.


Fantastic Mothers took their children to the rollerdrome, except it has been turned into the roller icerink.

Good thing she never leaves home without that beanie.

Good thing Lulu's friend got the memo about it being All Star Day.

At the beach....

This is the face you make when you cant believe all your pestering has paid off and even though your mother and sister are sitting on the sand shivering under the picnic rug.... you are off to ride the waves!

It's a tall ship.

Some of the other activities the kids did over the hols:

A million hours of TV Watching.

A million 2 minute noodle lunches.

A few days spent with Nanna & Poppie (which felt like a million hours for a very relaxed Mum and Dad).

A million hours of annoying a sibling.

A tiny bit of paperwork filing for Mum.

A tiny bit of workshop help for Dad.

A few more hours of whinging about how long the holidays were!