It's so strange how different it feels when one of your kids isn't here....

My eldest, Mr14 has been away on his year 9 school camp for the past two nights and is due to come back this afternoon. He would have to be the quietest one out of the 4 boys and yet there is a strange silence in the house with him not being here. It is so strange!!

He is the sort of kid that doesn't enter into arguments, is the peacekeeper in a lot of situations and the all round good guy who always tries to help others out. Yet while he hasn't been here the other three who usually have daily squabbles have been unusually calm. I feel like the house has entered some kind of time warp or something lol.

Does anyone else feel major differences when one child is missing from the day to day scenarios??

So exciting.....

We have finally decided we are definitely going to take the boys away for a holiday to the Gold Coast. I can't wait!!!! We unfortunately can only take my 4 boys due to problems with hubby's ex but we will have a blast and it will be alot easier not having my Hubby's autistic son to have to control all the time too. I would have loved to have taken them all, but the more I think about it the more I know that it would have been a real drain on us trying to control him and stop him from destroying things in the house we are renting.

We have paid all our deposits and bought most of the theme park tickets and booked the flights. This will be the first time any of my kids have been on a plane so that will be really exciting for them and they have never been to the Gold Coast so I think they will just be blown away by the stuff we have planned.

Today Mr14 left on his Year 9 school camp. I know its ridiculous but I always feel a sense of loss when the kids go away for a couple of days. I feel like a bit of a control freak because I worry when I'm not there to watch over them. School doesn't bother me but anything else I turn into a real worry wort lol. I know he will have a good time, although adding to my worry is the fact that he has no friends going on camp with him. He didn't seem too phased by it as he does at least know a few of the others but I worry for him anyway. It is only a 2 night camp so he will be back after school on Friday.

A while a go I tried the "no shampoo" method for my hair. Well it didn't last more than a few days as I found my hair felt very limp. I have read that you need to give it a couple of weeks to settle in but by the 5th day it was starting to really annoy me, so the shampoo came back into play. One thing I have kept up with though is the no conditioner part. I am now using half a cup of vinegar in a 2 litre jug and I just top it up with water. As I have long hair I have always needed to use quite a bit of conditioner just to get the knots out after I wash it, but now I simply dip the longer part into the jug and let the vinegar/water mix penetrate for a few seconds. I then run a wide toothed comb through my hair which loosens any knots, then I pour the jug of vinegar mix over my head slowly, followed by another comb through and its done. I have found that the knots in my hair come out really easily and my hair has felt so much softer and bouncier than it ever did when I was using conditioner. It seems to also help with the knots I would normally get throughout the day too. It is really amazing. I certainly won't be going back to using conditioner (unless of course I am away from home unexpectedly lol). I may even try the bi carb soda shampoo mixture again in the school holidays when I won't be having to go out so much lol.

The "I have no friends" dilemma

Right now I am feeling so sad for my little boy. Mr8 who's friend shifted house 4 weeks ago has absolutely no friends at school and is just sitting all alone at recess and lunch. He doesn't mix in easily and therefore he won't just walk up and ask his peers if he can join in. He is turning into a very angry little boy lately but I know that it is stemming from him feeling so lonely at school. His older brother has confirmed to me that he does just sit by himself or just wanders around aimlessly. I asked him last night if he would like to have a birthday party this year and he said he does but he doesn't know who he will invite because he has no friends. I just about cried for him.

As his mother I want to just hold him close and make all his worries go away, but as his mother I also know that there isn't alot I can do to help him in this area either. He doesn't play any sport as he doesn't want to, I even tried to get him interested in scouts since that isn't a team sport, I thought he may like that better, but after attending two sessions he refused to go back because he thought it was boring.

The other day he told me at lunch time he walked around the pit (a square area where the kids play handball) 28 times before the bell went.

I wonder what kind of day he will have today :(

Weekends go by so fast

Here we are at Monday again already, just where do Saturday and Sunday go????

We had Hubby's two younger children here for the weekend, and my boys were with us too. Mr8 went to his best buddy's house for a sleepover on Saturday night. These two miss each other so much. His mate recently moved house about 40 minutes from here in a country town, neither of them are settling into school life without one another. They seemed to enjoy their time together. Thankfully he was picked up by them and then we went for a trek out to their house, for a bit of a stickybeak lol, to pick him up on Sunday. It is quite a nice house, much bigger than the one they had and on a bigger block. It is nice a peaceful, with just the sound of birds singing, so unlike my street that is quite noisy with the sound of traffic. If I was to move out to the country though, I would have to have a big block of at least an acre and feel like I was living in the country I think, they are in a suburban part of the town so it is like a limbo land to me lol.

On Saturday I baked 2 batches of my pizza scrolls and a batch of my jam scrolls.......yummo!! The first batch of the pizza scrolls were demolished for lunch while the latter batches got put straight into the freezer ready for school snacks. This morning they were all packed off with a jam and a pizza scrolls in their lunchboxes on top of their normal sandwich and variety of other snacks they usually have,,,,,,I shouldn't hear "I'm hungry what can I eat" when they walk in the door....well at least I hope lol.

I took photos of the scrolls, so I will be making up a recipe card for each of them and will post it on here once they are done. Well I had better scoot and get the lunchbox snacks sorted out and then go and pick up the boys from school.

How many more things can a girl want to do???

I made a decision last night that saw my hubby just kind of smirk and go "aha" in that way that only a man can do when his wife adds yet another thing to her "want to do list" lol. I decided that each time I cook something (something that has a recipe lol) I will photograph it and scrapbook a recipe card for it. Once I start I will also post them into this blog so in effect I will be sharing my cooking with whoever wants to take a peek. This makes me just want to start cooking all my favourites,,,,my kids would love it as the house would be full of home baking but oh boy I can also feel my waistline growing!!!! For someone that is desperately trying to lose the weight that idea may not be so good but I am going to do it anyway lol.

Tonight we are taking the kids down to the beach for a picnic tea and a swim. It is quite warm here today so it should be really nice down there tonight. Originally we had planned to do it tomorrow but Mr8 has been invited to a friend's house (his best friend that recently moved house) and I don't want him to miss out on either of these outings, so I will just work around him.

This morning I went to help out with the spelling tests for Mr8's class. I tested 19 kids and 14 of them got a score of 8 out of 10 or higher. I thought that was pretty good for a Year 2/3 class. There was in fact only one that scored below 6 and that was mainly because she gets her "b" and "d" and her "p" and "q" back to front lol.

Mr6 has actually managed to have a whole week in a row where he hasn't cried. I am so proud of him. He has now filled up his sticker chart for this week at school and has earnt himself a lucky dip from his teacher and he gets to play with his much longed for electric guitar for the weekend (it is Hubby's and Mr6 so desperately wants his own lol),,,,must remember to dig out some earplugs I think!

Ok off to get ready for the picnic, we are taking savoury biscuits, cheese, kabana, garlic mettwurst, ham, french onion dip, roasted capsicum dip, watermelon, rockmelon and some salad which I haven't decided upon yet lol.

Don't know why I didn't do this months ago......

On the weekend DH and I didn't have his kids and my kids were going to their Dad's for the weekend, so we decided it was high time to clean out the carport and our bedroom. With an autistic child in the house, our room gets used as a "keep safe" room when he is around and things don't always seem to leave it lol. DH's son is 8 and is autistic, he has the knack of destroying most things he gets his hands on and so our room becomes the dumping ground every Friday before we take charge of him for the weekend. On the following Monday things should get put back but unfortunately we try to think of somewhere safer to keep the said items but can't so we kind of just leave it sitting in our room, the result was a room bulging at the seams and very little walking space left.

We started in the carport and pulled everything moveable out and swept it thoroughly. We had 3 old kids bikes, some old weights, a trolley cart, plastic outdoor chairs, a trundle bed and a few other bits and pieces. I stuck a sign of $20 on the chairs and $20 on the bed and just put the rest out with a free sign.....well I have never seen things disappear so fast! I kid you not within ten minutes the 3 bikes were gone, as were the assorted toys we put out. We followed that up with the trolley and the weights and within 5 minutes they were gone alone with the chairs,,,,Sold for $20 and the bed which sold for $15,,,not bad for things I would have given away lol. I have no idea why I just didn't put these things out as we decided we didn't need them lol. Last year we got rid of another trundle bed and a cubbyhouse in the same way. It is amazing what the word FREE does isn't it? If I had put a dollar value on them they would have sat there for quite a while no doubt. But this was mainly about decluttering our house so that was achieved at least.

Then in the afternoon we made a start on our room, everything got pulled out and sooooo much stuff was tossed out, I mean it was just trash stuff, not even charitable. I ended up with 2 bags for charity but the rest was binned. I have no idea why it had been kept for so long. I am a very sentimental person but honestly as I was going through my stuff that I had saved since my childhood, I found christmas cards that were dated 1979,,,,,,who keeps christmas cards for 30 years?????? Lol the funniest thing was that I didn't even know the people the card was from!!! I even had 5 postcards that had been addressed to my sisterinlaw,...now she has never lived with me and I have absolutely no idea where on earth i would have got these from!!!!

Anyway because I like to digital scrapbook, I have put all of my photo albums (about 13 in total) on the floor in the loungeroom along with all the kids keepsake boxes. These used to be stored on top of our wardrobes. I decided that if they sit in the loungeroom they will annoy me to bits (which they are!!) and I will force myself to scan all the things I wanted to scan onto the computer and then I can store everything away properly and it will all be categorised etc etc etc. I think I will scan the kids artwork and throw away the originals, keeping only a couple of things and maybe just scan the school newsletters etc instead of keeping all the ones that have their names featured in them. At the end of the day are my boys really going to thank me for giving them a box full of paper which they then have to read through to find their names in it??? I think it will be much easier to just give them a disc that has it all on there and they can just keep it and go through it if and when they want to. At least they have the option then. Sometimes I hate the fact that I am so darn sentimental. I keep way too much stuff. I so badly want to get into my scrapbooking and get all the photos looking nice. To me the photos being nicely presented will probably be more important than an old school newsletter or a piece of artwork they did in Year 1.

So this is me this week, I now have a carport that looks presentable and clean, a bedroom I can actually move in and vacuum with ease and a loungeroom that now looks like a storage room lol....oh well you can't win them all. I just have to bite the bullet and start scanning and naming....wish me luck!

It's the little things....

I am so excited lol......I just went out to see how my veggie/fruit plants that we planted recently were doing and what do I find but two baby watermelons beginning to grow. I am sooooo happy, I really did wonder if I would only be good at growing vines and not the actual fruits lol. I am not by any means a green thumb but am slowly getting the nack of being able to start things off from seed and actually getting a few to grow into productive plants....okay now that I have done my little happy dance I will get back to making some lunch lol......

Friday Musings.....

Well here we are at the end of yet another week. Earlier this week I mentioned the troubles I have been having with a couple of my boys and school. Well things have changed....a little bit lol. Mr8 is going off to school without a problem and seems reasonably unphased by not having his best buddy there, but it is worrying me that a couple of days he has mentioned that he has played with noone at recess and lunch. Yesterday he told me that he walked around the pit 28 times at lunchtime (the pit being a cement area that the kids play handball in). I asked him if he was doing that with his friends and he replied that no he was alone and just felt like it. My heart just about broke,,,,I so want him to make some friends, firm friends not just acquaintances as he seems to have now. He isn't worried about it but I think deep down he does worry and that is probably the reason why he has so many temper tantrums. This week I have had more than my fair share of tantrums from him and he has been sent to his room numerous times. I can see I will have to work on this with him and may have to have a chat with his teacher next week.

Meanwhile, Mr6 (the one that cries to the point of making himself ill) has been taken to his class by my Hubby for the last 4 mornings. I was at the point where I just couldn't face it anymore. He has cried each morning because I haven't been walking him to his class but has been much better with Hubby than what he has been with me,,,,yes he has been sick twice but his teacher has been able to put up 3 stickers on his happy chart and he has earnt his right to play with Hubby's electric guitar tonight. I am hoping that he keeps this up for me next week when I resume the classroom drop off lol.....I guess if it doesn't it at least proves that it is me that he likes putting on a show for although the fact that he has been sick twice this week without even crying leads me to believe that he must be very upset on the inside still....will have to keep an eye on the more little Vegemite.

This morning I decided to make a batch of homemade laundry detergent. I had previously tried the wet batch (the one that looks like egg noodle soup) and found this to be quite good. I recently discovered a "recipe" for a normal dry style detergent that to me seems so much less fuss than the wet batch. The only tedious part of it was grating up two cups of laundry soap but even though I procrastinated doing it, the whole batch was done in about half an hour. I now have a nice little container of detergent that should last quite a while as it only requires 2 tablespoons per load. This is the recipe I used, it is down the page a little (sorry I am new to linking lol)..... http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/search/label/Cleaning I can't wait to try it out!!!......can't believe I just said that lol, it is very unusual to actually want to do laundry for me!!

Right now I am boiling up some eggs to make some yummy curried egg and salad sandwiches for my Hubby and I for lunch. He pops home to have lunch with me a few days a week, it is nice to be able to eat a meal by ourselves occasionally lol.

Have a great weekend everyone!

KIDS!!! What do you do when you have tried everything????

Oh boy, I don't know whether to scream or cry right now. My youngest, Mr6 is an emotional wreck when it comes to school. He has just started Year 1 this year and it is not going at all well. My heart aches for him but at the same time I feel so much anger at the way he is carrying on. Ever since starting kindy he has cried about 90% of the days I have had to drop him off. It is very trying as you can imagine.

This year though is just ridiculous. He has made himself sick on several occasions because of the way he is crying so hard and this morning OMG!!! We were sitting outside before the bell went and he was sick.....out of nowhere! I cleaned him up as it was only a mouthful or so and then we moved over closer to the door and another mouthful came up TMI I know!!! We then went to go inside and he started crying and carrying on and yep you guessed it I had to race him out of the classroom because he was sick again. It wasn't because he was feeling ill, it is just how worked up he gets himself. He is terrified of doing assembly with his class and he has assembly coming up this Friday with his class leading it. Last week they were only watching assembly and he was just as upset for that!!!

His teacher is a "tough love" sort of woman and has said he is just going to have to get over it. I am at the point where I will be going to see the principal as I can't keep doing this! I know that he is fine shortly after I leave but it is getting to the point where he is getting teased about it and I am so scared he will end up with no friends if this keeps up.

At home he is the little extrovert and has no fear about dancing, singing and generally being the centre of attention. Put him in the school setting and he just freaks,,,although having said that his teacher last year said she couldn't understand his fear either because he would often get up infront of the class (when he isn't meant to mind you lol) and dance and sing and not even think about it. I have never been able to get him to have a birthday party, he refuses and he won't attend birthday parties either.

Oh brother, what to do, what to do.....on top of this my Mr8 has just suffered the loss of his best friend who has moved house. They have been friends since kindy and were together in reception. They spent Year 1 and 2 in different classes and have finally in Year 3 paired back up again after much pleading by me lol. Now just 3 weeks into the term he has moved house AAAGHHHHHH. The poor little guy comes out of school last Friday saying "I'm going to be so lonely now that Jacob has gone",,,,,,,I just about cried for him. He is a great kid but finds it very hard to make friends, I hope today goes okay for him and he actually plays with someone at lunch and recess!!!!

Why does parenting have to be so darn difficult!!!

What a weekend!!!

Hasn't the weekend just been awful with the fires in Victoria???? It is just such a tragedy, between the fires and the flooding Australia is being hit hard from all angles. My heart goes out to everyone affected by either the water or the fire.

The weekend here was pretty ordinary. Hubby and I were going down to Mt Gambier on Saturday after I dropped the boys at their dad's and returning to pick them up from school on Monday. Well it ended up being a weekend of one thing after another.

We were woken at 4.45am on Saturday by a call from the security company who looks after Hubby's work saying that the alarm had gone off and they were sending out a security guard. Well hubby decided to go and investigate since we only live about 15 minutes away. I had no choice but to stay home since I had the 4 kids sleeping here. I sat here worried that there would be men with baseball bats waiting for him (lol isn't it ridiculous how the worst possible scenarios run through your head!!). He got to work to find nothing amiss and ended up letting himself in, having a quick look around and resetting the alarm himself. The security guard still hadn't arrived and at this point it was almost an hour after we had received the call about it, so hubby called them and then came home. We went back to bed for an hour then got the boys up to take them to their Dad's at 9.00.

We then proceeded to leave for Gambier. We got about a kilometre up the freeway when the car made a loud backfire noise and died. We got it over to the side of the road and called the RAA. This was a day when the temperature was soaring and the wind was absolutely unbelievable. We put the bonnet up but had to put it down as it looked like it was going to tear off. We waited 45 minutes for the RAA guy to get there. It was sooooo hot, thankfully we had water bottles with us. The RAA guy got out the car and had a look and his sunglasses went flying off his head, he ended up getting his safety goggles out as the wind kept ripping his glasses off his head lol. He deemed it unfixable and called a towtruck. So we proceeded to sit for another hour. While waiting a police car pulled up behind us to ask if we were ok....15 minutes later he was back with some nice cold water...what a sweetie!!! We then continued to sit and saw a tow truck coming up the hill,,,,unfortunately he was in the middle lane and had a truck next to him and continued driving. We made comment and said he probably didn't see us. Twenty minutes later we discovered we were right whent he same tow truck proceeded back down the hill on the other side of the freeway without a car on the back, a few minutes later he came back to us, saying "I don't know how I missed you",,,hmmmm yes well if you had been in the left lane where you should have been you would have seen us lol. We got the car towed back to the mechanics who thankfully had a loan car that we could borrow, and took the loan car back home to swap it over for our other car. Finally at 1.30 we left for Mt Gambier!!!! We ended up arriving in Gambier at about 6.45!! But at least it was cooler down there.

When I looked at my mobile I was shocked to find I had missed 7 calls, 1 being from my mum's house and 6 from my SIL. My phone had been on vibrate accidentally so I hadn't heard it. I called my mum to find that she was actually lucky to still be alive. My brother and SIL had gone up there to see her after returning from a holiday the day before. They arrived there and knocked on the door and got no response. They thought that was strange so used the emergency key (she had a key locked outside that the ambulance can use to get in if needed), they found her unconscious and called the ambos. She had taken a nap and had a hypo (she is diabetic) in her sleep. The ambulance guys said that if my brother hadn't called in she would have been dead by Sunday. She is one lucky lady!!!!! That news rattled me, I worry about her living alone as she is pretty much blind and is getting quite frail, but she refuses to move into a nursing home or retirement village type thing. Her attitude is that the only way she will leave that house is in a pine box.......I used to be able to laugh that off but her health hasn't been the best lately and she had a pacemaker inserted 4 weeks ago and I am scared that I will go up there one day to find that is the case....that sounds horrible but you know what I mean.

Today I should be doing the shopping but I am feeling a bit unwell so I am just pottering around the house. Hubby tells me to sit down and rest and do nothing but that isn't me, I need to be doing something lol. I guess I will go and hang out the washing and do a bit more pottering lol.

Call me a Blogaholic lol!!!

OMG I think I have gone blog crazy. I now have about 50 or so blogs on my following list, lol I think I am addicted!!! There are so many great blogs out there and they are so interesting and every time I find something I like I just add it to my list.....I am so glad that people don't add to their blogs every day, well most don't lol or I would never leave the computer!!! Hubby and I have started to try to become "green and frugal" or at least more so than we were. We are doing well so far and have a holiday with the boys lined up so we are desperately trying to save money to go towards that. It is a holiday that I have wanted to do with my kids for many years and feel that before they get too much older we really should go and "just do it"! I can't wait. Once we have this holiday we will be pumping any extra money we can save into our mortgage to try to get rid of that as fast as possible......stay tuned! I sold another 2 things on Oztion today so that is another $11.00 towards our holiday yay!!!

This weekend the heatwave just continued with yet more 40 degree days...today we are looking at a slight reprieve apparently,,,,,its only getting to 39 degrees....lol that is soooooo not a reprieve!!! I just don't seem to be coping with the heat this year at all. I don't know what it is. Normally I handle it better than Hubby but not this year. Roll on Saturday when it is meant to only be about 30 degrees, still warm but alot more bearable!!!!

This weekend was a baking weekend for me. On Saturday I decided to make Pizza Scrolls for lunch so out came the breadmaker which had sat unused for a few months. After making the dough I rolled it out, spread it with tomato sauce, bacon pieces and some cheese, then rolled it up and cut it up into slices. Baked them for about 25 mins and voila! there was Pizza Scrolls. The whole batch got devoured within about 10 minutes.......at least they liked them I guess but I would have loved to have had some left over to make it to the freezer lol. I then decided to make some bread rolls and Hubby put the ingredients into the breadmaker for me but something went wrong, we still don't know what lol, but suspect he may have used SR Flour instead of plain. The dough just about oozed out of the breadmaker and then when the it was done I touched it to get it out and the whole thing was just full of air lol. I continued on to make it into rolls but they didn't turn out very well.....the bottoms of them went like rocks, although the bread in the middle was quite nice. Not to be deterred I made another batch which didn't turn out too bad and my eldest boy has two of them for this lunch today.....next time though I must make them bigger, they only turned out like little dinner size rolls. Yesterday I decided to have a go at cinnamon scrolls and I must say other than it turning out a little too cinnamony they are very yummy and heaps cheaper than those at Bakers Delight!! Next weekend I might try making some Jam Scrolls and see how they go.

After reading some more blogs on the weekend and my favourite website..EB I have decided to try going shampoo free. My hair tends to go pretty revolting looking if it gets rained on (by revolting I mean like oily looking) so rather than just use water for the last two nights I have washed it with bicarb soda and done the vinegar rinse. I figure even if I use the bicarb and vinegar every day it still has to be better than shampoo and conditioner and I will save quite a bit as I have long hair and tend to use quite a bit of conditioner. I am surprised that my hair, which usually screams to be washed every second night as by that time it starts to get a bit oily looking and pretty itchy, is actually looking pretty good. It is a little bit oily in one spot which I gather I probably missed with the bicarb lol but other than that it is great. My head isn't itchy at all and if anything it actually feels softer than normal. I was sceptical about using vinegar rinse as a conditioner as I normally find that my hair gets very knotty and it takes a good size portion of conditioner put through it before I can get a comb through it. I found that by dipping the ends of my hair into the vinegar rinse and then running a wide tooth comb through it loosened the knots and then pouring the rest of the vinegar rinse over it slowly then combing again, my hair has been knot free and I wouldn't even know that I hadn't used the handful of conditioner through it. I will keep this updated on my "poo free" adventure lol......even though I'm probably not doing the full on "poo free" thing I think at least this is a start. If it works, I will probably try to just bicarb/vinegar every second day and see if I can stretch it out a bit.

I am also wanting to make up some homemade cleanser and moisturiser......this is quite exciting in its own way lol!!!

My Op Shop Finds - someone's trash is another person's treasure.....

Well I haven't been to an op shop in so long. I have donated plenty lately lol but haven't actually set foot inside on of the actual shops. This morning I changed that. I braved the heat as I am,,,make that was,,,,in need of a couple of bowls.

Last night Mr14 went to feed the dog some of the dinner leftovers and as Billy the Dog jumped up at him excitedly trying to see what was on the dinner menu, Mr14 accidentally dropped the bowl. Unfortunately it was Mr6's Shrek bowl that he had got a couple of years ago at Easter, so he wasn't too happy about that :( Oh well not much you can do about it when it smashes into numerous pieces.

We desperately needed a couple more as we only had the bare minimum. I have plenty of plastic bowls but I don't really want to be eating out of those continuously,,,well not for dinner at least lol. We are trying really hard to be more frugal and stop wasting things. So I decided that since I don't have a matching dinnerset anyway (mine is a hodgepodge of mine and Hubby's that we just put together when we met and so we have about 3 or 4 dinnersets combined together.....out of all that you would think that we would have enough bowls wouldn't you???? But sadly no, bowls seem to be the things that get dropped alot in this house. So anyway back to my op shop lol,,,,,I found 2 bowls (non matching but perfectly useful anyway) for 25 cents each. I had intended to just get the bowls but on the way out I saw a Dorothy the Dinosaur in really great condition for just $2.50 (she even sings now that I have replaced her batteries!) and a large wooden cutout of Tigger (you know the tiger from Winnie the Pooh) complete with the hanging string on his back for just $3.00. Well I decided that I could list those on Oztion and make, possibly double my money or more. Up until now I have just been selling my decluttered items from around the house and while I haven't made a fortune I have made enough over the last 6 months to pay for quite a few of our Xmas gifts last year. This year I am thinking that any sales from January through to March/April will go towards a holiday (our hopeful holiday at this point) and from then on any sales I make will be divided equally between the mortgage (every little bit helps I say!) and our christmas fund.

Ok I had better get moving and actually get these two things listed. Stay cool everyone that is sweltering at the moment!!!!!

It's sooooooooooooooooooo hottttttttt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so sick of this heat! Thankfully we have ducted evaporative aircon and ceiling fans but when it is this hot the evap system isn't that great...much better than being outside lol but still not that great. I keep peeking at the 7 day forecast hoping to see a much needed change somewhere on that horizon but alas no it seems to want to be in the 40's or high 30's continuously. I can handle a hot day here and there but when it is continuous I hate it. Of course the kids went back to school this week so they are really struggling and come home from school extra irritable and then we all pay for it lol.

The boys all did really well going back this week,,,,well my boys anyway, we won't know how Hubby's guys went until tomorrow night when we get them back.

My Mr14 has started Year 9 and is finding the homework step up a little tough right now. It is a big jump from what they were getting last year and since he has a bit of trouble learning it is going to be a little tough for him I think, but he has a great attitude and I know that he will do his best at all times.

Mr12 has just started Year 7 and is his usual bah humbug kind of self lol. Nothing really phases him too much and he grumbles about homework but tends to just take it in his stride. He sliced his big toe open when he went to the pools with his Dad on Australia Day and it is quite a nasty cut and today one of the kids at school put his chair down on his foot and caused it to open up and bleed quite heavily again,,,,so I had to go back into the school and take him some clean socks as there was quite a bit of blood on his sock.

Mr8 has just started Year 3 and has Mr12's old teacher. I am just hoping she doesn't expect the same out of him as she got from Mr12. Mr12 has never really struggled with school work but unfortunately Mr8 is very behind in his reading and struggles quite a bit and needs alot of encouragement. His teacher last year was fantastic and really boosted his self esteem as she was a real motherly type of lady and just oozed love and respect. The teacher this year is also an older lady but not quite the motherly type lol. She is alot stricter but lovely at the same time. I think I will just have to keep an eye on how he is going.

Mr6 has just started Year 1 and after the first day putting on the waterworks to a major extent, the last two mornings have been very pleasant. He has a teacher who even I find a little intimidating lol and she is known for her strictness but she gets results. Mr6 struggles a little too with his reading so it will be interesting. Mr6 can be quite silly at times and a little on the immature side so he won't like being told off but I just hope that he behaves himself and doesn't get told off too much. I find with him if he gets told off alot he becomes really sooky and won't want to go back to school. I think she will get results from him if he manages to behave though......will just have to wait and see.

I have so much I want to achieve and I feel once again like I am not getting anywhere. I was thinking last night that my youngest has been at school now for 1.5 years and I still haven't begun painting the house which was my major job I wanted to do once he started school. I am also decluttering the house. This is going well and over the school holidays I removed quite alot of stuff,,,,,,,,,,into the carport lol. Now I have to go through and photograph and list it all on Oztion. I figure since I stay at home I should try to become a little more productive and try to earn a little bit at least. I have boxes and boxes of stuff to list. I did at least make a start yesterday but I am finding it very time consuming and tend to get distracted too easily lol. I guess slow and steady wins the race in the long run though!!!

My poor plants are struggling in this heat. I just went out the front to check on passionfruit vine to find the poor thing totally wilted. It is in the shade now thankfully and gave it a nice big drink so hopefully it will perk back up a little bit. The watermelons that I planted near it are fine though so I am happy about that. My Hubby and I have begun to strive for a more sustainable lifestyle and we aren't doing too badly. My 5 tomato plants never made it into the ground but they are doing great in the pots. We have had quite a nice little haul of tomatoes off of them. We have 2 capsicum plants which have so far given us 5 capsicums. We have an old nectarine tree that has given us stacks of nectarines,,,,,they are only tiny ones but they are beautiful flavoured. Our new nectarine tree that grew from a seed is going great guns. I am hoping it will fruit eventually and we can remove the old nectarine tree that has seen better days and replace it with the new one. We have a peacharine tree that has provided Mr12 about 10 or so of his favourite fruit,,,not bad for a small tree that we only bought last October!! I have seedlings in pots waiting to be planted out but it is just too hot.....we have pumpkin (which is threatening to take over the table that it sits on lol), rockmelons, more watermelons, cherry tomatos, a mulberry tree that has just started to shoot from a cutting I bought, marigolds, more capsicums, cabbages and a couple more passionfruit. I can't wait to turn out yards (front and back) into gardens that will help feed our family and in turn save us money. We bought ourselves a compost bin and are hoping we are doing it right,,,,,it doesn't smell so that is a start lol....a little more research is needed there.

Well I best go and list a few more things on Oztion. I need to get into the habit of doing this more often. I spend too much time reading about everyone else's lives and then don't get time to write about my own lol.

The What to Attack First Dilemma........

Well I have survived school holidays and am now back into that dreaded school lunch packing routine again lol. I love the few hours of "by myself" time that school terms bring but I just hate packing lunchboxes lol I have a couple that are pretty fussy and school lunches aren't their favourite things in the world so I am always trying to come up with things they will at least have a nibble at. The school holidays went pretty quick actually. Unfortunately money is tight and we didn't really get to do anything but we went to visit 3 different parks and got in a trip down to Glenelg beach and a visit to the museum just to get them out the house at least. The boys don't mind staying home too much but too long in each other's company can be a little tedious and it turns into a yelling match between them a little too often lol.

Now that I have a little time to myself I just don't know where to start in the house. There are so many things I want to do but just can't seem to get stuck into anything because I look around and think "oh that really needs doing first" etc etc. We decided to redo the gardens and we have decided to help save money that we would start up a vegetable garden. We have a peacharine tree growing in a pot. I have planted a passionfruit vine that I am hoping (if the snails don't keep eating it that is!!! grrr) to grow up the trellis in front of the front door. I have also got growing 2 tomato plants and 2 capsicum plants. We have gone a little crazy on seeds too, I have so many packets of flowers its not funny lol. I have also bought pumpkin seeds, watermelon, cherry tomatos, cucumbers, rockmelons, guava (not sure if this will grow in Adelaide but will try anyway), yellow and black passionfruit and also I bought some mulberry tree cuttings from a guy on Oztion. I'd like to plant a mulberry tree out the front so will see if the cuttings take off. He sent me six so surely one of them will grow lol. I just want a nice looking garden but also one that can be productive. I have never really grown veggies/fruit before so have my fingers crossed. I don't want a traditional veggie garden though I thought I might try just planting things here and there and see how they go in amongst "normal" plants. The front yard is going to become a cottage garden once summer is over. I am just letting the grass die off over summer (this won't be hard it has dried off already!) and then once the weather begins to cool a little we will get some top soil an stacks of mulch to smother it and see how we go.

At the same time I am itching to get started painting my house. This has been something I have wanted to do since I moved in here almost 7 years ago, so as you can imagine it is long overdue. I am wanting to just go room by room and do up each one (as far as the budget will allow at least) as I go. I have always had this plan to start in the toilet and work my way through. So my "do up" plan goes like this......toilet, bathroom 1, bathroom 2, laundry, bedrooms x 5, lounge, kitchen, family room. This is going to take a while lol.

Best I go and achieve something for today then huh!!! I really need to do the floors, they are looking a little disgusting and then I should do some ironing oh well....here I go!!!!

School holidays are upon me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have precisely 1 hour and 9 minutes until the troops get out of school. I'm feeling more than a little apprehensive because they have been extra argumentative with one another lately. One only has to breathe and it can start an argument. Can I make it through 16 days lol??????

I love the relaxing part of school holidays.....the not having to be up and out the door by 8.15 and the fact that I don't have to organise school recess and lunch each day but man!!!! The arguing and the "I'm bored" is enough to drive me batty. I am still trying to think up things to do with them that doesn't cost the earth and preferably are totally free, but I'm not having much luck. Looks like bike rides and a few trips to the park may be on the agenda, and maybe a trip to the museum and/or the beach now the weather is warming up.

This weekend is going to be a busy one, which hopefully 4 pairs of smaller hands will help with. We want to dismantle the cubby house and put it out the front with a "Free to good home" sign attached. Hopefully someone can get some joy from it. The kids haven't looked at it in about a year now so it is just taking up space in the backyard here. I want to get into the garden and plant some plants that have been loitering around in pots for way too long. Hopefully we get stuck into the older two boy's bedroom as well. We want to swap beds around and thoroughly go through it and get rid of the junk that seems to have accumulated within their walls. I just hope we can actually get all of this achieved over the next two days and also find some time to relax and enjoy each other's company.

Hmmmmm will need to psych myself up I think!!!!

Ever have one of those really frustrating kind of days??????

Well today is just one of those days where I wish I could just hop back into bed and start it over. Not that that much has really gone wrong but I just feel really frustrated with it all anyway lol.

We have an inside dog who is a little over a year old now. Here is his picture.....see that look of innocence in his eyes (well the innocence behind the devil reflection he has happening in this pic at least lol)..........


Well this little pooch had been blocked from entering the loungeroom since we have had him because even though he knows he has to poop etc on the paper that is laid out he used to insist on going in the loungeroom and since we had only recently bought a new loungesuite we didn't want the chew monster to try to eat it. Well since we moved furniture around this last weekend we decided to unblock the archway because I was so sick of having to climb over an upturned coffee table all the time. Today I am tempted to just reblock it off. I forgave him on Sunday for destroying my happy plant which I had in a pot on the loungeroom floor. But this morning I had to go up to my Mum's as I do her shopping for her each week and I decided that I would put his food and water in the family room and close the sliding door so that he couldn't wreak havoc in the lounge while I was gone.

DH arrived home to have some lunch with me and beat me by about 10 minutes. He walked in to find the pooch had somehow managed to slide the sliding door open and had shredded a small cardboard box throughout the loungeroom and pooped under the coffee table....ggrrrrrrrrrrrrr I tell you there will seriously be a "4 Sale" sign hanging around this dog's neck before very long.

I was already frustrated because I had arrived back at my Mum's house after I finished her shopping, only for her to say "I forgot to give you my prescription to get filled" and of course when I checked she only had 3 days worth of tablets left, so I had to drive back to the shops to get her medicine and of course there was a 20 minute wait for prescriptions.

All I wanted was a smooth sailing day today lol. I am trying to prepare for the school holidays which are at the end of this week but I can see it just won't happen. I was hoping to have the house really clean and neat so that I can just enjoy time with the boys and know that the house is at least reasonably presentable without too much of my time being taken up with cleaning.

Oh well life is like that I guess lol.

Better late than never!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't believe that I created this blog all those months ago and have only just begun to use it......lets hope I can keep it up now lol.

The weather here today is sooooo gloomy, although we do need the rain so that is nice at least. I hung out a load of washing and no sooner had I walked back inside than it started raining, quite heavily even!

DH and I moved stuff around on the weekend and I am so pleased with the result. In our not overly large lounge room we had a Bowflex gym machine, a cross trainer as well as an Ab King Pro. It really did look more like a gymnasium than a lounge lol. We couldn't even open our front door as their was a lounge chair in front of it!!!

Well the gym equipment has been moved out into the family room and I have a loungeroom back and it is sooooooo nice!!!! Look at how lounge like it looks lol......




I would so love not to have the blankets over the chairs but we have one cat loves to sleep on the top of the lounge and also on the chair that is covered in the pink and green blanket and he sheds so much fur it is unbelievable. I took the blankets off the lounge for a bit over winter and every second day I had to "shave" the top of the lounge to remove his fur. I am looking forward to getting new carpet in here and also to painting the walls. But hey just having space in there is a major achievement so I am happy for the moment.