Definition: Holiday Fail

noun

1. the act of one parent taking 3 children away for a 10 day

holiday to their grandparents

and have multiple cases of gastroenteritis for the first half of the holiday

and one severe case of an upper respiratory tract infection for the second half of the holiday.

2. any variation on this theme.

Related words:

regret, toilet paper, contagious, fever, chills,

exhaustion, thanks be to drugs, ear pain on planes,

where the heck is my husband?

Example of use:

Bloody hell. Sick kids. Sick parent. Really sick grandparents. That sucked.
That sure was a holiday fail if I ever saw one.

Footnote:

In the interests of trying to be a half glass full kind of gal,

I will say that I am glad that the kids seem to have been spared what I am currently fighting
(touch wood)

and  I am relieved that 2 plane flights with sore ears weren't a lot worse.

How sick am I, did I hear you ask?

I am so sick that I have been going to bed at 9 pm.
...don't think I have done that since I was 10 years old.

I am sooo sick that I can't drink coffee.
Yeah, I know. Like, caffeine withdrawal really helps with headaches. Not.

I am sooooo sick that I stopped knitting.
Speechless.

I am sooooooo sick that when a sympathetic husband

jokingly lamented the lack of homecoming nooky

due to my poor state of health,

I wanted to seize his testicles in my hands and crush them with whatever remaining strength I could muster.
He's just lucky that I was too weak to roll over to find them.

I am now armed with plenty of chicken noodle soup,

electronic babysitters, paracetamol and antibiotics

and my own bed

so am hoping for a quick recovery from here on in.

This week...7th April, 2012

...I didn't find a single live beastie

but I did find myself living in a very clean, very organised house.

Silver lining and all that.

...I said goodbye to my summer with David Tennant in Dr Who re-runs.

...I got my life back.

Just in time for school holidays.

...Mr Boozle and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary, oh, so quietly.

...my 8 year old asked me how someone could have a baby if they weren't married

and I wished that I could remember being so innocent.

...I explained to my 7 year old that no, the word sexy doesn't mean cool

and would he please stop using it

...and I consequently found myself trying not to explain what sexy actually does mean.

...I got to knit a little and I even started to

play with some yarn dyeing.

...I started to realise how much I will miss my daily dose of rainbows

when the little one graduates kindy in one more term.

(Knitting on Ravelry here)

This week...29th March 2012...7 days I will never get back

It has been 7 days since that discovery.

So for the past week,

I have been doing little more than washing, vacumning, cleaning, washing,
checking, washing, vacumning and vacumning some more.

I have been breathing, sleeping, dreaming carpet beetles.

They have consumed my time, my energy, my thoughts.

(Besides being passive-aggressive,

I have obsessive-compulsive tendencies

which tend to manifest at times like this)

The whole thing really serves me right.

As a stay at home mum, I have been slack in my domestic homework.

I have been slack in my yarn and fabric storage.

I have spend the past months sitting around feeling very humdrum
and haven't achieved much in the way of living.

So really I am grateful for these little shits.
They have put a bomb under me
and I am feeling fresh again.

OK so they have also driven me from the heights of euphoria when I felt like I had them under control

to the dark depths of depression and stress when I would find yet another one in yet another place.

In case you ever come up against these things,

you might like to be aware of the following.

You will find a single one in a face washer on a shelf

and so manically clean out the whole cupboard to find no other sign of them.

You will also clean out a whole cupboard

and be about to high five yourself

when there will be a little larvae grinning (Yes. I swear. Grinning.) at you from that last little garment

that you pull out.

The grin was wiped of its face- literally- once it was a smear on my fingernail, let me tell you.

I have found things that I have forgotten that I owned.

(In the case of the bag of G strings, that is not a bad  thing.

It has been quite some time since I have worn them,
it will be quite some time till I wear them again- think hell will freezing over-
and now at least I have the bravado to toss them.
Anyone else hoarding bags of underwear that they wore 20 years ago?)

I have discovered fabrics that I forgot that I had.

(and apparently nothing, not even a carpet beetle larva,

is willing to consume some of those artificial fabrics made back in the 60s or 70s.

To do so would be to risk death or at least severe constipation)

I have helped the companies
who make zip lock plastic bags, plastic storage tubs, cedar balls and Imperial Leather soap
(which helps stave off beetle infestations from your wool stash)
reach their monthly sales targets with ease.

Incalculable numbers of innocently by-standing black lint fluff have perished

in my goal to eradicate these beasties from my house.

Neighbours are no doubt choking on the cedar and lavendar scents emanating from the house at #5.

The worst is over but the fight will continue.
Vigilance will be required (and probably chemicals too)
but I am hopeful that the long term fall-out from this will be positive.

I feel more energetic and happier than I have in a long time.
I have been feeling oppressed and flat...
and now I don't.

So while you, my dear readers, might possibility be interested

in photos of me vacumning (in a G string or not)

or the clothes line full, full, full of washing

or little hairy beasties (or lint) on skirting boards,

I will assume that you would prefer to see my new squishy winter jumper

that I finished just before the proverbial hit the fan last week.

White Light- Veera Valimaki

I have caught the bug.

I am back.

I am enthusiastic,

motivated,

energetic,

positively champing at the bit to get my life organised,

to achieve,

to be adventurous.

After months of apathy and sluggishness,

***BAM***

I am inspired.

So what brought on this adrenalin surge?

A small thing really.

A really small thing.

A small, mobile, hairy thing.

A carpet beetle.

Or beetles.

Or more specifically, larvae.

(wanderinweeta.blogspot.com)

Might I say there is nothing like a vacumning knitter finding a teensy weensy hairy little beetle that eats yarn

to kick in that survival "fight or flight" reflex.

So I find myself dealing with the little critters,

checking the yarn stash.

cleaning, cleaning, cleaning,
washing, washing, washing,
vacumning, vacumning, vacumning,
more washing,

throwing out doses of cedar and lavendar (and I will admit a good spray of Mortein Fast Knockdown
when it is warranted) as I go,
extending to cleaning out-
the kids' toys, books, our clothes, the pantry...

Spring cleaning areas in the house untouched by civilisation since the Industrial Revolution...

jumping feet first into the "want to do" list

that I have ignored for a year or two...

planning what I am going to get done...

Who'd have thought that such a small, hairy critter
could delivery such a big kick up my butt?

I'm fired up.

And it feels good.

(weheartit.com)

(Nb It probably only feels this good because my yarn stash seems to be pretty much intact)

Forget the start of Autumn...

...it's the start of the birthday season for another year...

I got off lightly with the first.

The turning-seven year old wanted
1- a Mario theme (commercial junkie that he is)
so I decided either Boo or a goomba were going to be easy cakes
and
2- wanted two friends for a sleepover

(and only one ended up staying the night)

Sweeeeeeeeeeeet!

Happy birthday, my gorgeous Leo.

Next up, our first ever real girlie girl party with a legitimate list of little friends to invite,

not just family friends.

The turning-five year old is counting the days

and changing her mind every 5 minutes...

a pony party,...wait. A fairy party...

No, now I want a rainbow party...

Hold on...can I have a pony party?...

I'll keep you posted on that one..

I can pretty much guarantee you that it will be pink and twirly,

whatever the theme.

It will be interesting to see how the big brothers cope
with a bunch of pink, glittery girls (and associated girl germs)

running amok.

Changing Batteries 101

Ready?
Then let's begin.
First up...

1 THE BASIC BATTERY CHANGE

Snap or slide open the back of your remote control. Change the batteries. Replace the cover.

Skill level required: minimal.
Most challenging part is finding out where your kids have stashed the remote.

Now that you are feeling confident, let's move onto the next level.

2 THE AVERAGE BATTERY CHANGE

This will be very familiar to parents of young children who have toys.

Unscrew the back cover. Change the batteries. Replace the cover.

Skill level required:  Easy. Requires you to remember Lefty Loosie and Righty Tighty.
Then it is easy peasy.

It does, however,  require the willpower to know that the newly charged toy will be making repeated, constant, annoying noises for the immediate future.

Well done.

Feeling pretty good?

Let's move onto Advanced...
...and smite that confidence right out of you.

3 THE ADVANCED BATTERY CHANGE
(advanced being another word for impossible)

Yeah, well, apparently this would be an ipod.

The one that has a disclaimer that says changing the battery on your own will void warranty. The one where even the helpful bloke on the youtube tute pretty much says that unless you are a brain surgeon with experience in rocket science (and own a soldering iron) or a rocket scientist with experience in brain surgery (and own a soldering iron), steer clear.

Skill level required: Un-friggin-believable.

(I might say at this stage that my ipod seemed to have some weird fault and was well out of warranty and we were hoping that it was just the battery but it wasn't worth paying Apple...I mean, a service person good money to test that theory)

Hubby also had a disclaimer for me before he attempted it. Don't blame him if it all went to hell in a handbasket.

To cut a long story short, he got quite a long way before things started to go wrong.

He even managed to not lose the tiny, tiny spring that the video tute adamently recommended not losing.

(Well, he didn't lose it until he put it on his desk and then it bounced and hasn't been seen since)

Then bits that weren't meant to be bent were being bent and pieces that were meant to be separated were not being separated without brute force
and, well, that "hell in a handbasket" disclaimer suddenly came into its own.



Look closely at this above photograph.

The white square sitting just under the back casing is the battery.

Funnily enough, the battery is at the back of the ipod,
 and if you could just remove the back panel (as in level 1 or 2 shown above),
a University degree would not be needed to change it. 

It may well be that a PR person from Apple or a techno-head can come along and give me a good reason
(and by good I mean apart from revenue raising) that changing the battery in an ipod requires a complete dissection...by a professional...at a cost to the ipod owner.

But I doubt it.

Angry Birds don't fly much but time does.

(bestappsrated.com)

Apparently human beings at the moment spend 300 million minutes

 playing Angry Birds. every. single. day.

That equates to 208333 days per day.

Which (if my maths is right)  equals to 570 years of human life

spent on crabby red birds and funny looking green pigs every day.

Suddenly those occasional moments that I spend

watching paint dry and grass grow seem well spent.

(myunconventionalinsight.wordpress.com)

Treading water.

I feel out of my depth at the moment.



2012 is hurrying on past
while I feel like I am just standing to one side watching it go by
and am doing nothing beyond keeping my head above water.

Two months of this "new" year are well and truly gone
and yet I still feel like I am getting over the summer break
and getting the kids ready for the new school year.



Days are passing, filled with packing lunches, homework and washing...life.



I am madly knitting.
Obssessively knitting.
-and thinking a lot while I do it.



But I just feel apathetic about everything else.
My blog is neglected as I have nothing to say.
I started this blog post about my apathy...
but couldn't be bothered finishing it.
My "to do" lists are growing while I think about action
but then end up watching another day pass without any progress.

I just feel tired. So tired.
I am distracted by nothing.
I am procrastinating.
I am feeling old as each year passes so much more quickly than the last.



I am not depressed.
I am not overly commited.
I have no real stresses
beyond setting myself some lofty and perhaps unachievable personal goals.

But I am a mum who has insisted, quite loudly and readily until now,
 that when my youngest starts school mid-year,
I will celebrate and thrive in the sanity time
and be a better mum for the break that I get each day.



But now that the time is drawing ever closer,
I realise that, after nine years at home with babies, toddlers, my dependent offspring,
there will be an emptiness
and I am realising how much I am going to miss that time
that will never be revisited.



I am cherishing every rainbow love heart that comes my way
because I know that soon it will be less of the rainbows and more of the maths homework
and the readers.
That much of the freedom that my four year old enjoys now
will be curtailed by the regiment of school.

I am feeling a melancholia
that I want to shrug off.
I want to energise myself and slap myself across the cheek and buck up.
 I want to move forward
instead of standing knee-deep in water, getting pulled back a step
each time I take two steps forward.

I am going to make an effort.

Best Ever avocado and bacon muffins

I have just not been in the mood to blog properly of late.

By "properly", I mean not in the mood to offer insightful and witty and cutting-edge social commentary.

So it looks like it is going to be muffins instead.

OK it is not going to be the most attractive muffins.

In fact, they are a muffin that only a mother...muffin...could love.

OK well that didn't really work, did it?

Regardless, they taste extremely yummy

and that is what is important.

(I am not a fan of cooked avocado

but in these it is fine. Maybe because of the lemon juice)

AVOCADO AND BACON MUFFINS

2 cups plain flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt (I find that these are salty enough without extra salt) (Cos I add feta too) 

2 teaspoons sugar

pinch cayenne

1 cup (100g) grated cheese

4 spring onions, chopped

3 rashers bacon (chopped and cooked till crisp)

75g butter, melted

1 egg

1 cup milk

1 avocado, cut into small cubes

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

Sift the flour with the baking power, (salt), cayenne and sugar.

Add cheese, bacon and onion.

Sprinkle lemon juice over avocado to prevent discolouration and add to dry mix.

Make a wet mix from beating together the butter, egg and milk and bacon drippings (Don't get all virtuous on me now)

Fold through the dry mix minimally and fill muffin trays.

Cook at 200 degrees Celsius for about 10 minutes.

Best warm but also good later when the flavours have a chance to go through.

I make 2 batches at once- a version that my kids will eat and then my version.

Throw in whatever you like. Great with feta, roasted capsicum, semi-dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts etc.

Enjoy.

Tomorrow I will probably share some hats with you.
And a shawl.
And maybe some day soon I will have something to say.

Fishy business.

Those of you who have been hanging around this blog for a while know that this household is home

to 2 (crazy, perpetually starving) cats and 1 (not-very-intelligent-but-well-meaning) Staffy

(with a keen attraction for offensive smells*)

(*I'll get back to that later)

They shower us with love, affection, body fluids and disdain

in varying amounts

but that affection, that tactile love, is what makes them part of our family.

When our 8 year old decided that he wanted a lizard,

I decided that Mr Boozle was in charge.

I am not scared of lizards and I don't dislike them

but I just didn't want to have to take on the whole...well, lizard-business-thingy-stuff.

(en.wikipedia.org)

The oldest of the Boozle offspring was told that he needed to save up $50

and then we would look into it.

That would give us a few years, we figured,

giving his lack of willpower when it came to the lolly aisle at the supermarket.

But I will admit he surprised us.

He got $2 per week pocket money at the time,

and he dutifully (some may say anally) started saving.

So he didn't seem to take long to reach that magical $50 mark,

meanwhile reading library books about frilled-neck lizards.

To our credit, we ignored the urge to tell him that 

every pet shop in Adelaide had closed for the next 10 years

and off he and daddy went to suss things out.

Two hours later they returned,

muttering "lots needed to set up" and "500 bucks for the lizard alone"

and there it was.

 "fish"

Groooaaaannnnn.

I just don't get the attraction of fish in a tank.

Yes, they can be pretty pretty pretty

and it can be relaxing to lie back and watch them.

(You know, as your three offspring are running around the house screaming hysterically

and causing each other to bleed or projectile vomit)

But you can't pat them.

They wont curl up at the foot of your bed of a night.

(Well, they would curl up...literally...while agonal gasping)

You can't really name them- if you have any decent numbers.

And they die.

Often.

...Well, short of some fishy CPR, each one only dies once

but you know what I mean...

I did my best to talk my son into an axolotl (Mexican Walking Fish)

I love them and they are cool.

At least they have a bit of personality.

(Look at him. What's not to love?)

(animals.nationalgeographic.com)

Plus they are meant to be hardy and difficult to knock off.

(I didn't tell him that, as a veterinary Uni student,

I killed mine in about 2 weeks.

Sorry, Rupert, buddy.

I still think of you often)

But I think the idea of 12 fish beat the idea of 1 amphibian.

Quantity over quality.

So we (yes, the royal "we". Actually they) got everything set up and waiting for the tank to settle.

Bought home some fish then a week later, we bought home some more.

Then, 3 days later, it happened.

My son woke to multiple fatalities.

Dead and dying fish.

Specifially 2 dead fish sucked onto the filter, 1 dying fish upside down near the bottom
(never a healthy stance for fish, I have found)

and 1 devasted 8 year old who was still crying through his 3rd helping of French toast.

It turns out that we didn't have a net because

"daddy said that we weren't going to have any dead fish"

Lucky for daddy that he was at work or he would have been bruised.
Very, very bruised.
No dead fish?
Seriously?

Pragmatism and desperation (certainly not a veterinary degree)

played some role in creating a makeshift net using muslin, rubber bands and a pasta server.

(tgdaily.com)

There was never going to be any Nemo-hollywood-cartoon-flushing-burials happening here

(which surprisingly was not even suggested by any of the kids)

and, after launching into a poetic speech supporting my son's obvious choice of a lovely garden burial,

it turns out that he was going to go with binning the deceased.

So he got a life lesson in what mummy considers appropriate in such circumstances

and we decided that they should be buried in the garden.

Really, really deeply.

On a cool day.

Just in case the not-very-intelligent-but-well-meaning Staffy with a keen attraction for offensive smells
(as mentioned above)

got an attack of the munchies.

It turns out that we had gotten 2 lots of dodgy advice about our first fish purchases.

One type of fish were too sensitive and shouldn't be put into a newly set tank

or they might die.

(Yeah. Really? Couldn't miss that little weakness)

The others were too big for the tank

and would eventually grow big enough to start eating the other fish.

Obviously only they hadn't already died from being put into a newly set up tank.

So we have started again.

We have new fish (which seem hardier. So far. Touch wood)

Plus I now know far more than I want to know about fish excretions and ammonia levels.

(As a vet I didn't treat a single fish)
The novelty has waned a little and the 8 year old is already forgetting to do the nightly feeding routine.

I have concern that, with repeated deaths,
my son might become a little immune to pet mortality
and, while that would be less scarring for him,
I would find that loss of emotional response to be distressing.

But, for now, if you go poking around in our freezer looking for icecream,

you might just find a little, rahter ornate fishy iceblock.

It has been so hot here,

we haven't had an official burial yet.

It has cooled down now

so we can get on with things.

(...And while we are at it,

we really should scatter the ashes from our other pets

whom we have lost over the past 8 years.

We said that we would do it once we had the garden finished...

which happened about 3 and 1/2 years ago.
I must go find them...)

Oh, and because I just know that someone will ask...

The cats don't seem too excited by the fish yet

They have set their sights on that lovely smelly fish food and have been trying to run off with that.

My 8 year old and I can live with that.