Gone with the wind/Hartwells by the sea.

I have just come inside from kissing the driveway after spending the windiest week in history in a tent at Tallebudgera. The boys (all three) had a great time. They would....to men (and boys) the possibility of being blown into the ocean in the middle of the night is the kind of disaster that fellas recount for decades to come. For the women who have to cook on a primus stove, look after neurotic rats and dry wetsuits while contemplating the same possibility, a week in a 4 star hotel looks better with each passing gust. So I am back....windswept, but not terribly interesting, after 6 nights of pokemon battles and mega violent DVD's. Next time, the boys can drop me at the nearest health spa and defy death without me....I have standards, y'know.

Be still, my heart....

Boy, it's just my lucky day....DH started his holidays today, so we started getting our camping stuff organised for Sunday. Suddenly, he announces that he has to go out, and he'll be back in an hour....leaving me to do the packing, check the camping stuff, organise the kids, yada yada yada. So after what can only be termed as a "dog hour" (i.e. three times as long as a regular hour), he returns bearing a large box and wearing a big grin. "This is for you, hon" he announces "I got it at BCF" Read BCF as "Boating Camping Fishing" or DH's fave shop apart from Bunnings.
So, it's obviously not anything on my personal wishlist, but hey, there are still possibilities....a nice collapsible sun lounger perhaps??? Suitable for reclining on at the beach while DH and the boys do gross things with maggots and fish heads??
Hmmmm....So I open the box and pull out......a collapsible folding CLOTHES HOIST !!!!
Suitable for hanging clothes on after you've spent half your holiday washing said clothes in the communal laundry. Romance isn't just dead, it's six feet under.

A New Day....

and Kit is SO ready for it....doesn't he look swish, lol. He's not totally convinced about the whole knee sock issue, but at least he's wearing them. He's grown again...since the start of the year he's gone up two sizes in pants and three in shirts !! Bruce reckons I feed him too often. Sebi, on the other hand still has a physique like aldente pasta, so maybe I should feed him instead?? Aren't they gorgeous !!

S.W.A.K (sent with a kiss)

to my favourite niecette Abi, who's having a hospital stay ATM.
Abs is nearly nine, and is the daughter I thought Sebi was going to be, lol.
Mick (Abi's dad) and I have been best mates since we were teenagers, and our kids were born within 3 months of each other. Abi has Cystic Fibrosis and needs daily physio, enzymes and a whole range of other treatments so that she's able to go out and wreak havoc like other kids her age. Mick and Jules do a sterling job and it's always a kick in the guts when a hospital stay is neccessary. Especially when said hospital is 1500 km's away in Townsville, which means that instead of visiting, all we can do at our end is send our biggest and best loves for a speedy recovery. xoxox

Counting Down....

the days till we leave on our camping trip...only a week to go!! We are all desperately in need of some "down" time as a family...things have been WAY too hectic this year. This week is all about getting Kit organised with his new school, he had a visit there on Friday and loved it....here's hoping he feels the same after the holidays when he does it on his own!! I have a few queries about books/classes etc, so while I'm getting that sorted Kit will have another visit to the SEU, complete with new uniform and YuGiOh cards. It's also only 3 weeks till mum leaves for England, so time to be thinking about my duty free list!!
Sebi had his soccer break up today, and despite all my previous whining, it was a pretty good day....or as Sebi put it "any day with a trophy is cool"
Can't argue with that.

But I Don't Wanna Go.....

Please, please, don't make me go....I don't wanna sit in the sun all day. I don't care about the trophy. I don't even like soccer. Do I really have to? How come he gets to stay home and do stuff. You're not my favourite ANY MORE.
At this point Bruce threatens to cut off my internet access if I don't stop whining.
Looks like I'm going to soccer.

Near and Far

Today I watched some of the September 11 footage on a news recap. It made me realise (again) how far away people seem until something happens that makes you realise that we're all sailing on the same ship. My thoughts and prayers are with the American people as they do their everyday stuff just like they were in 2001. xox

So over it !!

Hopefully the next 10 days will see the end of one ongoing battle with the Dept Ed. I haven't finished fighting (not even CLOSE) but I can't have Kit in the front line any longer. The school's medieval attitude towards special needs has made it impossible for Kit to access the tools he needs in order to work alongside the other kids in his class. So, we move on....to another (hopefully) better situation.
Kit has been enrolled at Cavendish Road High School and will start there after the September break. He will be allowed to use his laptop and will access the unit for a percentage of his schooling. He will be sad not to see his close mates every day, but they will still be regular visitors, and he'll make new friends when he starts at his new school. This has been a really hard decision to make, and Kit has had to make some hard adjustments, but we are hoping that this will be the beginning of a much smoother educational journey. It's hard for Kit, because he always seems to do the hard yards to make it easier for the other 'specials' who come after. He did it for seven years at Wishart and the kids who are coming through now are reaping the benefits (including Sebi). I hate that it's been neccessary to change schools, but at least he'll have the rest of this year to get used to things before the new school year in 2009.

YOOO HOOOO

I've finally worked out how to be in two places at once.....if you want to check out my scrapping or my pix I've set up a new blog over here
Or you could use the link at the top of the page, lol.

Body Attack/Scream OW!!

I'm typing slowly today because every inch of me is screaming OW!! In a moment of forty-inspired insanity I joined Fitness First, after Renee put my name on a contact list. What I didn't realise is that "Fitness First" is actually short for
"Fitness First after which you wake up the next day and wish you were dead".
Which is precisely what I did this morning after attending the inspirationally named "Body Attack" class with Nay, yesterday afternoon. You just have to LOVE the names they give to the classes....Body Pump, Body Step, Body Jam.....after yesterday's effort, "Body Bag" is more in my league. I was labouring under the delusion that I was in OK shape for a forty year old mother of two. After 25 minutes worth of "Body Attack" I realised that not only was I in really REALLY bad shape for a 250 year old Siberian Mud Mummy, let alone a living human being, but I am also the most uncoordinated individual in the history of forever. Although Nay comes a close second, lol. The two of us made a great pair, hiding in the back row "righting" when everyone else was "lefting" and "upping" while they were "downing". The only bit I managed to get right was the "forward-side-back" bit, which I owe to 20 years of devotion to Tina Turner and Nutbush City Limits.
Tomorrow, I'm donning my floaties for Aqua Aerobics. (and you thought I was scary on dry land.....)

Tanked/ Has anybody seen my downspout??

It's dark, it's cold and it's wet. Fine if you're a scotch and coke, not so fine if you have to photograph the downspout. And no, I haven't been drinking, although I have been tanked, which is why I have to go and photograph the downspout. Yes, Casa Hartwell has officially joined the ranks of the water wise with the installation of a 3000 litre ugly green tumour last week. My house now looks like someone stuck a large snot coloured missile silo under the bathroom window. Which I'm prepared to live with, being as I'm such a planet conscious anti plastic whole grain bread knitter. What I am having issues with is the fact that apart from the whole "ugly" thing (and it is WAY UGLY, believe me) I have to fill out a small forests worth of paper work in order to get the council/government/water commission/ugly tank society rebate. Even that I could cope with, although the part where the tank company takes away all your original invoices and then tells you to get a JP to sign the copies they send you having first sighted the originals that you don't have because the tank company took them (are we dizzy yet??) is kind of annoying. What REALLY ticks me off is the part where you have to photograph the downspout. Why??? Apparantly, to make sure it works. How do you know it's working??
You wait till it rains and then you either levitate or climb a ladder with your camera and wait for something to run out the end of the spout. I think I need to get tanked again. Where's that Scotch???

CAKE WRECKS.....

for those of you with a sweet tooth and a bent sense of humour!!!
http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/
PS, those of you planning formal events might want to skip this, lol.
Courtesy of Plant Freak, Texas....where do you find these things???