Home of Slightly Cracked Dreams

I’ve got a few projects on the go at the moment. Things I don’t have time to do when I’m studying. Spring cleaning, catching up on the ironing. Things like that.

One of my projects is a spot of gardening. To start with last weekend I (with a bit of help from M&M and Kiki) repotted some plants we’d bought the weekend before at the garden shop. A lemon tree, an avocado tree, and a pink frangipani tree. I documented the whole experience with the digital camera, and here it is for your viewing pleasure.

This is what we started with:

They look a bit sad really . Kin and kids to the rescue though.

The kids collected gravel to go in the bottom of the pots in their wheelbarrow. Then we had to open the bag of potting mix (Hubby for some reason thought we’d need twice as much potting mix as we actually did).

We started off with the lemon tree

Then we planted the frangipani/stick

And finally the (very sick looking) avocado tree

And then I placed them around the garden in places where I’ll (hopefully) remember to water them

I really enjoy sitting out there in the mornings with a cup of tea reading or working on my paperwork. Sunday mornings I’ve taken to sitting outside with Emma going through our recipe books and magazines and doing the menu plan. It’s just perfect.

Unfortunately, during the moving process, I had an argument with the pot the avocado tree is in, and the pot won. But being the generous blogger that I am, I took a photo of my injury so you could all share my pain.

So there you go, an afternoon of gardening at Kin’s. It doesn’t happen often, which is why I documented it with photos.

I’ve got quite a few other projects on the go at the moment. I don’t know if they’ll be documented with photo’s to quite the same level, but I will definitely keep you updated with how I’m keeping myself busy during my break from uni.

It’s that time of year parents dream of and dread at the same time.

It causes us to closely examine our parenting, work out where we failed six months ago, where we succeeded and exercise our abilities to see into the future.

Yes, it’s time for the major department stores Toy Sales.

For weeks I’ve been going through my kids toys, seeing what they play with, what’s broken and needs replacing, what’s broken and doesn’t need replacing (stupid Bratz doll), and what’s in perfect condition because they haven’t touched it (thankfully not much).

My kids don’t have a real lot of toys. Lots of stuffed toys but not a huge amount of others. It makes it easy to clean up after them, but at this time of year I start second guessing myself. I check in with the forums and realise I spend about half of the “average” for my kids for birthday’s and Christmas. Do they need more? I should get them more toys. They need more toys.

This morning I took them through our local department store, and asked the kids to point out what they wanted. Apart from a couple of completely rediculous things (camping stove and dog toys) it was a complete reality check. I asked Kiki what she wanted for her birthday. She looked at the dolls house then turned around and pointed at the $5 Disney Princess doll. I told her she only gets one present for her birthday (house rule - I prefer to give the majority of toys at Christmas) and is that really what she wanted? Yup. $5 and the kid is happy. $148 dolls house? Not interested.

The best part? I have 4 left in my present box after buying them last year . Well, that’s one birthday sorted.

I find taking the kids in a good way to gauge what they’d like. And since it’s 3 months to M&M’s birthday and 5 months til Kiki’s, they’ll have forgotten what they saw by then.

Tomorrow is D-day. Hubby needs to be at work by 7:30, so I’ve lined up my mother-in-law to come with me. Once again two trolley’s, lists, and probably lay-by will be utilised for maximum advantage. And now I have three to buy for for Christmas.

I wonder if I’ll be as successful as last year. Stay tuned for my Toy Sale Shopping Report.

What, I can’t just be sick for two weeks and not exercise AT ALL and go straight back to swimming as I was? Well that’s just. not. fair.

Ok, so I get that you know, I have been sick and all. But still. It was tough swimming yesterday. Tough I tells ya. My coach kept telling me to take it easy and not push too hard. And where times were involved I was working to much lower times than I was before the exam/sickness induced hiatus. But, I got there. I made it through the full session, swimming a total of 2.3km (or 46 laps). But I tell ya, I’m feeling it burn today.

It is hard getting back into exercise after being sick, and it is necessary to take it slow and ease back into it, which is even harder. I want to be able to do what I was doing three weeks ago. But it feels like I’m starting from scratch. And with that comes a real risk of stopping altogether.

But, I have a few techniques I can use to keep myself motivated and get to swimming.

1. I still have 3 passes left on my 10 pass card. This is important because I have to use them or they’re wasted. There’s a time limit on them too, so I can’t muck about. When I get down to 2 I’ll buy another one to keep me motivated.

2. I have made a standing appointment for coffee with a new friend who lives near the pool. This way once a week I have to go swimming so I can keep the coffee date.

3. Tomorrow I’m going to call the mother of some friends of the girls (her girls are 16 months apart, her eldest 4 months older than M&M and her youngest 2 months older than Kiki) and arrange for a school holiday play date after one lesson a week.

Hopefully by then I will have regained the momentum I’ve lost, and be back training to where I was.

Then maybe I can start working on this whole walking thing.

Wow, can you believe it’s the middle of the year alread? I’m sure I say this every week but I don’t know where the time goes!

We had a bit of a dodgy week last week with meal planning. Firstly the Hubby’s boss was in town and took everyone out for dinner. Not being ones to miss out on a free meal, we lined up the in-laws to watch the two big girls and had the most delicious steak. I could have eaten two they were that yummy. I was out Wednesday night at a meeting, and I’m still not sure what everyone else ate. Then Friday we  had forgotten about organised a surprise dinner for my father-in-law’s birthday on Wednesday and my mother-in-law’s birthday on Friday. We even forgot to get presents and had to buy them at 5:15pm just before the shops shut remembered to get them presents and everything!

But a quick check has revealed only two meals that weren’t prepared (although two are being prepared today - one for lunch and one for dinner/leftovers), so those two will be recycled this week as well. This is very much a “cooking from the freezer/pantry” week, and in actual fact I don’t need to buy anything for these meals. Hubby complained pointed out that the freezer was full of meat, so the next couple of weeks we’ll eat our way through that. I take no responsibility if I find some really great meat specials though…

But on to the plan:

Monday - Corned Beef, mashed potato’s and vegetables

Tuesday- Spaghetti Bolognaise

Wednesday - Pork Green Curry

Thursday - Sausages & Mash

Friday - Apricot chicken

Saturday  - Hungarian Goulash

Sunday - Leftovers

Laura from Heavenly Homemakers is hosting Menu Plan Monday this week in Laura from Organizing Junkie’s absence. Head on over to see what everyone else is eating, and have a poke around Heavenly Homemakers - I’m sure she won’t mind

It’s that time of year again. It starts in May with the Federal Government’s budget, and filters down through state and local governments, as they realise their income and plan around it. And now it’s time for me to review where we’re at. At let met tell you, I’m failing miserably at my goal for 2008 to spend according to our plan. I think my plan is too complicated, and too simple at the same time. Are you confused yet?

Because I’m really not into tracking where our money goes (I’m more of a big picture person) I use a more “gross” spending method. For example, if I allow myself say $200 a week to cover fuel and groceries, that’s how much I will give myself access to. The rest gets put in various places til it’s needed. I guess my problem is I haven’t even been staying on top of those weekly “needed’s” so things are falling apart all over the place.

I’m taking the opportunity to thank Mr Rudd for our extra $15 a week thanks to tax cuts, and quarterly 50% child care rebate, as well as saying goodbye to $180 a fortnight in family tax benefits and take another look at our budget to see what I can cut down on, and how I can put a bit more away each week.

And I’ve come across an unexpected “problem”. See we’ve always been terrible at long term saving. So any “bonus’s” we get from the government tend to go towards larger purchases. A fridge, washing machine, TV etc have all been funded thanks to these in the past, and due to my poor savings history, had planned to continue doing this in the future.

With the 50% child care rebate being paid quarterly I’m faced with a bit of a quandry. Do I take the money and sock it away to go towards larger purchases, or do I filter it back into the budget for larger annual bills (ie car rego, insurance etc) and take those smaller weekly savings amounts (that I have difficulty hanging on to) out of the budget altogether? Do I just take this change and utilise it to compensate for my weak points, or persist in something I’ve not yet managed to master?

I guess what I really need to work on is a cash flow plan, that will hopefully allow me to achieve my goal of following my spending plan.

NB I wrote this on Monday night, intending to publish it Tuesday. It got lost somewhere in the ether, and published itself on the 4th June instead of the 24th of June. Ok, so I probably put in the wrong date. But it still applies. Yes, it’s been 10 days now.

I’m sick. Again. Still. Whatever. It’s driving me insane.

Not sick as in, dying in bed, can’t get out of bed or even function sick (although if I was male….), but sick enough that it’s annoying. I won’t go off on a rant (again) about the lack of medication available for breastfeeding women (this time!).

See I understand that Miss Moo is taking my immune system from me, or at least drastically lowering it’s effectiveness. I know this because despite the fact I’ve been sick for over a week, she’s barely had a sniffle, and is as happy as ever. M&M & Kiki as well as Hubby have had brief flirtations with a cold, but nothing like the ongoing snot explosions that are still coming from my direction eight days on. And the headaches. And the general feeling of “blurgh”.

But I want it back!

This is a classic case of not appreciating something you have until its gone. I never truly appreciated my immune system until 3 pregnancies and subsequent breastfeeding in 5 years left mine in tatters. I’ve always had an excellent immune system. I recall missing one day of primary school due to illness, and if memory serves that was one afternoon with a headache in the office (Mum worked at the school) that was probably the result of the heat at lunch time. All the time I missed in high school was related to *ahem* “women’s issues” or glandular fever, which both form whole other rants. I’ll spare you those today.

So what I’m saying is I now truly appreciate my immune system. I recognise its value in allowing me to function without catching every bug my children bring home from daycare, and eventually school. I appreciate that it allows me to get through the winter without the need to buy shares in the tissue manufacturer. And now, more than ever, I appreciate the drugs that work with my immune system to fight off bugs while allowing me to get through the day and keep my children fed and alive.

So can I have it back now? Please?

Today I can be found blogging some pictures from our camping trip over at the Aussie Bloggers Blog.

If you’re an Aussie, or a blogger, the Aussie Bloggers Blog features some great Australian Bloggers, and some great Non-Australian Bloggers too. The blog and forum is coming up to six months old, and if you’re looking for helpful advice on all things blogging related, Australian or not, it’s definitely the place to be. Everything from helpful ideas about what to cook for dinner, how to monetize your blog and friendly people willing to help with whatever technical issue you’re having.

So pop on over and say hi, we really are a friendly bunch over there, even if we are a little bit loopy sometimes

Well, I had a fabulous post prepared for today. Unfortunately the internet ate it and it has disappeared from my computer forever. So I’m just going to have to make something up as I go.

Camping was absolutely awesome. I have come back a completely calm slightly calmer woman than when I went away.  I’m yelling less at the kids, things aren’t quite so overwhelming, and I just feel, better.

As always there were the fun parts of camping. I mean camping isn’t camping without some disaster stories, right? We planned to leave here around 11am. So it was 12:30 when we left. 90 minutes late isn’t that bad, right? We stopped off in the park for a brief feed of Miss Moo before getting lost several times due to bad directions from Hubby. I mean, I know he was saying (for example)  to “take the turn for Blah road” as in the road to Blah, and I took that to mean “take the turn for Blah Road”, which was not the turn I was supposed to make.

Anyway, we got there in the end, which is the important thing I spose.

Then the drama of setting the tents up started. Up, down, up for both of them. Hubby is insisting I tell you that the reason ours went up, down, up was because of a pole issue that needed to be fixed. Excuses, excuses.

So, once the tents were up we turned our attention to the campfire. Well, that was another disaster. Thankfully we had a gas stove to cook dinner on, otherwise our dinner would have consisted of baked beans and bread.

The second we arrived M&M and Kiki made friends with the girl in the campsite next to us, and they would disappear for hours into one tent or another, or down to the beach with the older sister or one of the adults. On Saturday morning we discovered the girls friends from daycare a few campsites down who were also there for the weekend, so between all 6 kids they had a ball running up and down the campsite and getting very, very dirty.

But despite all the dirt, everyone had such a good time we booked ourselves back in for 2 months time with hopefully a bigger party.

I have heaps more stories to tell, but I’ll save some for another day. Plus it’s late and I should be in bed.

Well, we’re back from camping and back into real menu planning with real food. M&M and I sat out on the back patio this morning and  went through recipe books and magazines to find things to eat this week. I did get one of my own choices in there - see if you can guess which one a 4 year old wouldn’t want to eat

Monday - Pasta and stir through sauce

Tuesday - Celery & Silverbeet Pie

Wednesday - Lamb chops, mashed potato & beans

Thursday - Pork Green Curry

Friday - Hungarian Goulash

Saturday - Chicken Stroganoff

Sunday - Mini Hotdogs

No recipe this week, sorry. Things are still recovering from the epic camping trip, which I’ll share with you over the next few days. Camping is great for relaxing, but not for rebuilding energy levels!

For more menu plans head over to Laura’s I’m an Organizing Junkie and see what everyone else is eating this week.

Well, not really. But we are going camping. Like, with tents and everything. Although there will be toilets. Thank goodness.

I haven’t been camping in two years, since we went two Easter’s ago with the in-laws (there was 10 of us!). This time a slightly more sedate trip is planned. For starters it’s a mere 90 minute drive from home, not the 7 hours of the last trip. 5 minutes from civilization,  30 minutes from a city, and across the path from the toilet. I’ve got my priorities right!

But the best part is that the only thing that will be between us and the beach is a few trees. The kids can run around on the beach and at low tide the water is nearly 1km out, so they can do LOTS of running. We’re going with friends, so there will be 4 adults and 3 children - pretty good odds I reckon.

So we’ve spent the last two days digging out all our camping equipment, and picking up what we didn’t have from the shops. But there’s only one minor problem. We’re missing some stuff. To be precise, a sleeping bag, a bed roll, a kettle and some campfire utensils. We have checked every. single. box. in the garage, and they just aren’t there.

To be fair, those things aren’t the most expensive to replace, or we could even borrow them I suppose. But how can you lose things like that in your own home? I mean they’re not exactly small and could be hiding somewhere could they?

So, I guess maybe one of us will be roughing it with a borrowed sleeping bag and straight on the stretcher rather than on a comfy bedroll (shotgun!).

And now for the fun part. Packing. But in reality all I’m thinking about is lounging on the beach, perhaps a spot of fishing, and some late night card games with friends. What better way to spend a weekend?