No beans for you, but the church has a steeple,cars are better than mums

Busy week.....for me as the usual pace around here is.........snail.

We have a hall for the wedding, its a lovely old building,and has an excellent kitchen and a full working bar. It sits empty and unused a lot of the time and just thinking about the dusting was hard work, but we are lucky, there is a wedding there the week before........,so.....they will have done all the hard work for us.

We found a wall under the stairs that has little notes written by people, the occasion,like the cricket club movie night in 1921, men only ,along with the name of the movie . There were many movies shown in the 20's and Dances in the 1940's.Behind the stage we had fun poking around in a cupboard full of old props and makeup from when a theatre group used to put on plays.

We had a church........sigh........it's quite lovely,built in 1905 with a steeple and all the original features intact, but oddly has two narrow isles, one for walking down(literally its downhill) the isle and the other for walking back after the ceremony.It's a sweet little church, but alas, Gemma doesn't want the religious aspects in her wedding. There is a set format, with hymns, theres no getting away from God and Jesus in hymns lol She told the pastor that she is spiritual not religious,which makes sense to me, go back to the Celts before Jesus, before the Bible was brought to the western world, thats about where she is.

Besides husband to be could not possibly stand still for 45 minutes ........

Anyhoo ,she will use the celebrant, and have the wedding ceremony that they both want.

I took a drive into the countryside with Gemma and her MIL to look for the material for the bridesmaids dresses..ka..ching..done, beautiful ruby red, with a soft sheen,not a shine. Long day of walking, Wagga Wagga is the biggest inland town in Australia.It does have a lot of nice shops.

G6PD..anyone heard of this? I was a nurse in a busy kids ward for a long time and never came across this one.I swear no parent ever said to me, my kid can't have Fava beans or they will kill his/her red blood cells!

One of the things the army does ,is screen for everything.Danny has passed two complete physicals and fitness tests, about 8 vaccinations(one he already had at school but had to have again because I lost the slip...oops)and had blood taken. He told me he found out yesterday that he has this g6pd, only he said ...Golf,6,Papa ,Delta....cos thats the way he rolls now!

Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency is an enzyme defect,characterised by abnormally low levels of the afforenamed enzyme.It causes the breakdown of red blood cells leading to heamolytic anemia and can even cause a heamolytic crisis where red blood cells are destroyed very quickly............Especially after eating FAVA beans ( I think they are also called Broad beans). Horrid things, he's definatly not missing out much there, he's never eaten one, at our house at least.

He also has to avoid sulphur drugs, asprin, soy based products and if he really wants to get fussy any legumes. He's never had a problem though and if he hadn't gone into the army ,he would not have known unless he had large doses of asprin, was given quinine for malaria or ate the horrid fava beans. The anti malarial is the main reason the army test for it.

it's also hereditary,so either Les or I have given it to him. We will both get tested soon, me especially since both my medications affect the blood and are excreted by the liver. Plus I would like to know where it came from.

It seems it was missed when he was a baby, looking back now,the signs were there, but mild. He was jaundiced after birth and we were a whisker away from having to be readmitted to go under the UV lights. At 3 weeks old he had an ear infection and was aneamic, but the GP said it was because he was breastfed and to give him Iron for a few months.He was never really sick growing up but It would explain the constant headaches and fatigue he had in highschool, again gp's didn't look very closely,just treated him for migraine. So luckily he seems to have a light dose of this thing and so long as he avoids the things he needs to he should never have any problems.

He phoned again tonight, standing at attention outside his barracks, you don't get anything for nothing in the army,there is always some discipline that goes with even a small treat. The platoon is excited that they get a CD player tomorrow night ,it seems such a small thing, but music is ambrosia when you're young.

He asked for a picture for his wall, Oh thats so nice I thought, but no not us......his... car ......Isabella,the old 1974 holden 1 tonner.

I'm going to throw a picture of us in the envelope just to crack him up,I should take one like that classic country pic with the serious couple and the ptichfork .

while they lie sleeping we can say what we like

I haven't seen anyone all week other than hubby and the happy coulple,and they havn't obliged me with anything blogworthy. I really enjoy these old newspaper clippings,so I'll share a few with you.

When I leave this mortal coil, I can only hope nice things are said about me,or at least I'm thought of for something other than this:

Judgemental bastardry..the following are exerpts from an 1866 letter to the newspaper, justifying his reasons for refusing to bury "the corpse" delivered to his church.

HA, theres always someone wants to stir the pot, bring someone DOWN!

I don't know what "kicker" was but appears to be a type of "blog" written in the 1800's for publication in newspapers. I got a kick out of it .....

"The boys took him for a horsethief and laid him away".....I love that line.............

Thursday.....just a ramble on of sorts

I have nothing creative today,so I'll just ramble on really.

Received a letter from Danny in the army.His Platoon sergeant called him a "gun nut". I'm guessing this is a good thing, being in the army and all. He had to get a chit to wear his own old joggers as the ADF joggers "Fu****d" his ankles,apparently. He's had one charge for forgetting to lock his locker, a security issue and he's trying to avoid another. He cut some velcro off something that was annoying him, but he can be charged for 'tampering with ADF equipment", so he's been busy trying to covertly sew the velcro tabs back on and hope they don't fall off.

He wrote that he was issued with XL speedos ,also known as dick togs , so I had a picture in my head of Danny at one end of the pool and XL speedo's at the other.

I did my 2.5 km walk today, I've been walking this everyday for 2 weeks now.I can go 3km at the most. On the flat I miiiiiight be able to do 5km, but theres a hill in every other street here,and every time I walk one my calves or hamstrings or both , scream "take me home!!!"

I didn't want to go today, was dragging myself out there, but actually felt better once I hit the pavement. I hope all this walking is good for something dammit, can't see any difference in the mirror yet.I'm happy I can do it at all,despite my complaining, as it's only 18 months ago I was walking with a stick to the bathroom.

It's all go for the wedding. Gemma and Aaron have set the date for 22nd of Oct.......THIS YEAR! It's going to be a shoestring budget,and we are going to cater ourselves. My childhood friend was a caterer so is advising us on simple but good food,to feed 100....or so...cheap ....

I'm going to write everything down and write a shoestring budget wedding book...and.... ironically..... charge a fortune for it! Anything with the name "wedding" in it,is quadruple the price of a similar item without "wedding" in the title. They are going to have to do without a lot of the "fluff".I priced chair covers, $5each, thats over 500 bucks just there!! So no chair covers, and funnily enough from the weddings I've been too, I couldn't tell you if there were chair covers or not,so we'll concentrate on making the tables nice. The theme is 1940's glam and colours are Ivory ,black and red.

If any of you have any cost cutting ideas,esp for decorations and food,please let me know. We've decided on a buffet and doing the food ourselves with the wedding cake for dessert. Thats about it so far .

Hubby is renovating. Again. Bathroom this time. 6 years ago when we came here, the bathroom in this 100yr old house was, well, a bath with most of the enamel gone, a 1950's sink/cabinet that had warped from the water and an outside loo.the laundry tub was in the kitchen. We did the best we could to renovate it quickly back then, but we lived with going outside to the loo for 2 frosty winters , the overall original reno is tired and slate on the shower wall instead of tiles was good in theory.

At the moment he's putting french doors in the bathroom,to the outside patio area,so I'll have to find some curtains for that and etch the glass, which defeats the purpose of being able to see outside then,so maybe just curtains. He is a glutton for punishment, french doors hate him, they are a pain in the ass to hang right, he's done it twice now, it takes about 3 days of hanging,rehanging, and rehanging and a lot of swearing to get them right.

By the end of the reno, I will have a towel cupboard and a storage cupboard,instead of having the towels on a chair in the loungeroom and everything else stored in the laundry where the cupboard should be.The laundry and bathroom will be combined and the washing machine and dryer will be behind cupboard doors.

anyhoo if you are still awake i'm off now, must go help hold things, like the tape measure, or bring cups of tea. If not....WAKE UP ITS OVER.

What do you have to do to get a drink around here?

Getting a drink in a hotel in the earlier days of Australia was ,well difficult. It seems you had to be a bone fide traveller and/or a guest in the hotel to drink there. You could not get a drink on a Sunday, Public Holidays or before 11am and after 6pm. The emphasis of hotels was on providing food and guest rooms.

Today in Australia the emphasis is on the grog and some hotels never close.

An early liquor licensing law in South Australia (1839) stated that a publican was required to provide for "..a traveller and his horse, or a traveller without a horse, the horse of a traveller not becoming a guest of the house ..or any corpse which may be brought to his public house for the purpose of a Coroner's inquest." Any publican not providing such a service was committing an offence and liable to be fined up to 20 pounds.

So you could be down 20 pounds , if you didn't want a rotting corpse in you bar,20 pounds ,that made it hard to say no the corpse, thats a huge amount of money back then.

picsource

People snuck around getting their grog on the sly, and every town had a sly grog lady. Why were they were ladies I wonder/ the fairer innocent sex I wonder?

I feel for this guy, it was a Christmas gift!!

I don't care if you're a cop,Nope no food after 7....

Don't look under the beds!

It's for my liver!

Can I have whiskey with my water?

Not sneaky enough.

2 pot screamer?

WTF? Policemans fund???

cheers

Party like it’s $19,999

This is the promo for the 7pm Project tonight, apparently a story about people spending massive amounts on kids birthday parties, themed, catered, entertainment etc........ 20,000 dollars???





The pictures above look like way too much work for me, though I guess if I had 20 grand to spare I could pay someone to do it all. It just looks so .....stressful. Having everything perfect is way too stressful for me, I couldn't be bothered really. Not just sayin cos I don't have the dollars, It kind of looks...boring, if I was a kid. No food fights at that party, my kids would have been scared of spilling a drink ....no wait....I 'd be scared the kids would spill their drinks.

I did give in and give the kids a party each........ or 3. They each had a first birthday party ,Chloe had her first birthday in hospital ,some 400km from home. She was born with bilateral uroteric reflux and had both the ureters repaired. It was supposed to be a 2 week stay but , a blocked ureter and and kidney surgery later we finally got home after 7 weeks. The birthday party was fun, my mum and sister came and we had chips, lollies and birthday cake with the long term kids, who sadly are no longer on the earth vibration.

Gemma's 1st , was at home when we lived down the South Coast and we had a BBQ with the family and the neighbour kids. When Danny turned 1 we, went to a gorgeous beach called Greenpatch, with a nice park for the kids to run around,we had a picnic lunch, cake and lollies and some grandpeople who didnt belong to us, came over and gave Danny money.

Later, in Brisbane, we had a themed party each, Chloe had a bike party ,where all the kids brought there bikes over (or rollerblades) and they road round and round the yard, we did have some games, but they were just happy to play. Gemma had a fairy themed party and a Disco party another time. Danny had a pirate party for his 5th but by this time I was pretty weary and sore with arthritis so Mcdonalds and Pizza hut party's were his lot.

If they didn't have party, they had a pseudo party, 2 friends to stay overnight, pizza and movies of their choice. I think they had fun,I haven't had any complaints.....so far.

None of their parties cost over $80 including the food, theme decorations, take home treats and prizes for the few games we had.

On another party note, Gemma and her boyfriend Aaron have just announced they are engaged, it's come pretty quickly, but even though they've only been together for a few months, they've known each other a while. Les and I got engaged after only a few months so we can't be all "it's too soon". I just hope they hold off the wedding for a while so we can save some dollars and help out. Is it still tradition for the brides parents to pay for the wedding???? Please tell me not all of it ...sigh. It will be a budget wedding if it is.......we could have a pirate theme, I know how to make the cake............

treasure chest cake I made for pirate theme

marriage = finding that one special person to annoy for the rest of your life.

It's a little weirder than usual in our house this week. The pile of clean towels is still a pile and there are no whiskers in the bathroom sink.

The youngest has flown the coop. He was inducted in the Australian Army on Tuesday. The ceremony was really quite quick. One young man stood with the Bible in hand and fluffed his lines even though it was repeat after me..he did get his own name right though,I think, he may not have as I didn't know his name. The other 5, were four young men and a young woman, they held their hands up and said the Oath ,all at the same time,so there was a jumble of confused names, a bit like singing Happy Birthday to Quintuplets.

And then we left him there.

It's the end of an era, Like selling the cot after what you hope is the last baby. I was upset coming home after the ceremony but since I've heard from him and it's all good,hard work but good,I'm fine. It was the month leading up to it that I found hard,I was getting depressed and teary knowing it was happening and wondering what it would be like with an empty house, no requests for food now, or transport now or can you wash this now?

But now the house is empty I've had to rethink my way of thinking....that sentence makes sense, right?

I'm still the kids mum and still needed in different ways,supporting them rather than organising them.

The sky didn't fall in and I'm actually enjoying having the house to ourselves.I have the room now to go through some boxes that are stored and sell or chuck what I find.

I didn't really do a lot before and the extra time was looming large in my brain, and I really need to fill it with something so I've started walking to try and shift some of this lard. 3 days in a row I've walked 3km and I've cut out junk. I'm trying to get from 90kg to 70kg by the middle of Sept.

Instead of annoying hubby part time,I get to annoy him full time !

He'd rather I learn to cook than write, he is watching cooking programmes as I write,

him... "why can't you cook like that?"

me ...

"I made a cake today, what else do you want?"

pic source

Stylish Moi!!!

Thanks ami.mental

Ami over at Ami.Mental thinks my blog is stylish. woohoo :) She would know, as hers is stylish :),so stylish she just got a Stylish award , takes one to know one!!! hehe

As an acceptance speech I have to tell you 7 things you don't know about me. I'm not sure I have 7 more, I'm a pretty open book here. Heres 7 from my.... LOL award.

Awards...My head will not fit through the door soon!

I'll give it a go though.........

1...I was given this one......

I have an amazing pseudo niece ,I've adopted and become Aunty B to. It's amazing,I was childhood friends with her mother, who I had a falling out with many years ago,so we don't speak, but I accidentally found her daughter on Facebook . I told her I should have been her Aunty, as her mum was an only child and we'd each other Sis. She had fallen out with her mum as well, and... we've just connected, I had a close bond with her mum as a kid,so she feels like family to me. She really is amazing, she has been plagued with health problems and has a disability, yet she gives to the community, works a full time job with kids, lives independantly and juggles it all with grace and humour.

We've been planning to meet in person for about a year, but things happen..... and it goes wrong and we get waylaid. The best one was when we tried to meet at the airport and I got there and we were in different airports in different states!

She has her own blog the hyper aspie ,go take a look ,she has a great sense of humor and fun.

2. I fleetingly though about becoming a nun once, because I knew a few nice ones. I used to teach Sunday school at a Catholic Church. Don't get too excited ,I was about 13 or 14, and taught pre-schoolers,it was pretty much babysitting. I had to try to get them to say the Lords Prayer, which drove me to despair, it was too long ,I made an executive decision and we did a Hail Mary. I got them drawing or I read them a story,then we went across to Mass, where I was supposed to keep 15 squirmy 4 year olds quiet and stop them shouting "Where is the toilet Miss?" and "Todd is picking his nose and wiping it on me" for an hour.

3. My favourite colour (pinched one of Ami's ideas here) is Purple.

I have had purple couches, purple curtains,table runners,cushions......not all at the same time,that.... would be too much purple. We painted our house a shade of purple too. Both my daughters have inherited my love for purple too, all my purple was sort of immersion therapy.

4. I'm the last one to get a joke. Everyone will be laughing, and I'm still trying to figure out why.

5. I like trivia. Thats probably not that much of a shock to you really.

It comes from growing up a with a mum who shouted answers at the tele in the mad minute of Sale of the Centrury(please hear the echo box as you read Sale of the Century)

I'd be the kid with the book of Lists...you know... superstitions, unusual deaths of famous people,famous ends of things etc. Did you know................. ??? Yes I was that kid.

6. I grew up in a tiny pocket cut out of the bush in the Royal National Park ,Sydney. When I was a baby it was a "take a picnic lunch its so far out" place,now it's no distance.

There was always threat of bushfires and the road to Western Sydney (when i was a kid,out to the country) was often closed and we would have our relatives for a few days instead of for the day or night.

7. I have moved too many times and so even though I have lived here for 6 years I have no firm physical friends. All my good friends are online or on telephone.

I just read that back...... firm physical friends ..hah...I have no squishy ones either .

Done! That was like pulling teeth, Thanks for that Ami ...,

I think you lot know more about me than I do.

Ok now pick 7...or not...aww I can't not....

Being Amy transwoman with style ,great person,great friend love ya Amy !

Julianna @Surviving boys shes so funny...I mean stylish

Narislife I think we were separated at birth...so she must be stylish ,my evil stylish twin

Dina that weird American who's obsessed with Australia shes super stylish ,she's obsessed with Australia,does that include Australians...me? hehe Dina has an unusual stream of conscious writing style...she writes like I speak hehe. No comments on the blog,but you can comment on the blogs facebook page

CakeBetch@hotmesschrinicles she's ..just....sooooo............stylish. go peek, much fun to be had here....water can go to hell !!!

whispering writer @airingmydirtlylaundryonesockatatime stylish..... heathen!! hehe

pearl-whyyoulittle stylish stories...and funny

All my new friends on my reading list please accept the award also,you're all stylish bloggers or you wouldn.t be on my reading list.

Fool me once...

clocApril Fools Day!

It's not something we "celebrate" but I love to see what other people think of. I love it when whole cities of people are fooled on this day.......

This April fools trick ,I fell for...it was 1975 and I was 12. We had just been introduced to calculators..........it sounded right to me.

A television program,This Day Tonight on the ABC was similar to A current Affair but ,without the product testing, announced that METRIC TIME, was being introduced into Australia. We'd not long changed over to metric measurements and it was only 9 yrs since decimal currency. The Metric Time system would have seconds become millidays, minutes become centidays, and hours become decidays.The progmramme showed the then South Australian deputy Premier recomending it and how it would work. Adelaide's Town Hall clock was converted to a 10-hour clock face.

It had viewers ringing the television station for information and complaints from retailers with angry customers.

picture and story source

On april 1st 1978 ,my last year of high school, An iceberg floated into Sydney Harbour.True ! Only it wasn't.

Dick Smith, a well known Australian businessman,had been on radio and TV saying he was going to tow an iceberg from Antarctica. He was going to turn it into icecubes and sell them.

Radio(no live satelites then) gave a running commentary on the iceberg into the harbour and people rushed down to Circular Quay and the harbour foreshore to watch it come in. It looked fantastic unitl it got into the harbour and it rained....washing away the firefoam and shaving cream..............

source

In 2009 in Melbourne about 400 carowners woke to find their cars wrapped in clingwrap on the morning of April 1st. A note was left "Happy April Fools Day love Evie''.

source

Happy April Fools Day...hope you weren't pranked too badly today.