No not house. I’ve moved my blog.

That’s right. I’ve got a new blog home on my own domain.

http://robecriluto.com/

My new feed is http://feeds.feedburner.com/robecriluto/iiOz

A new blog means a little change – a new look, some new things now that I can have plug ins and extra widgits. Let me know what you think won’t you?

As for our new additions, well, you’ll just have to visit my new site to find out

Truly.

I don’t do them.

Don’t see the point in setting myself up for failure by resolving to accomplish a certain thing or list of things this year so I only do anti resolutions.

I think it’s good to have goals, things to work towards, but resolutions just seem…… well, not for me.

I do do some thing at the beginnings of most new years though and make myself a wish list.

My wish list might be things that I want to buy over the year or do or things that I’d like to try or learn.

This year’s wish list is about making our home more comfortable and continuing to look at self sufficiency.

To buy -

• a lounge with chaise
• dining chairs
• chest of drawers for kid’s rooms
• shelving for all kid’s rooms
• desk for Miss Lou’s room
• good desk chairs for everyone’s desks
• new bed linens for my bed
• extra outdoor furniture for entertaining

Most of the furniture we’ll be able to get from hubby’s work – all locally produced…….. which fits in nicely with one of ‘To Try’s’

To Do -

• continue with our backyard vege garden to grow more of our own produce
• build a small hothouse for propagating seeds/seedlings
• investigate and buy suitable fruit trees
• to sell some of my jewellery
• to help Miss Lou settle back in
• to help TJ improve his language skills
• to help CJ settle in to high school and develop good study habits
• to continue looking at ways to lower our living costs and utilise our finances better
• to help my mother document, record and put together the things she has collected re our family history in a format that pleases her

To Try -

• to purchase more of our household goods and groceries locally
• to buy organically made goods/produce where practical/possible
• to recycle more and reduce our household waste
• to make more of our own snacks/biscuits/treats/gifts/etc
• to make more of our own clothes
• to make my first quilt

To Learn -

• how to use my over-locker to it’s potential
• how to build and maintain my own website (coming soon)

So there you have it. The things that I’ll be aiming towards this coming year. What are you going to be aiming for?

I’m thinking that I should do what I did last year and start with the ‘anti-resolutions’ ™ first!

So here’s my list of things I WON’T be doing again in 2009

• associating with truly mad internets who turn into scary ass obsessive stalker types
• dropping an axe on my foot WHILE hosting a slumber party for 9 year old boys
• contemplate driving myself to hospital after self inflicting a potentially serious injury
• going anywhere near an axe without my fireboots on
• having any form of contact with my freak ex except through a lawyer
• letting Miss Lou out of reach again

All in all though, it’s been a pretty good year.

I managed not to burn anything down this year.

I haven’t hit any kangaroos.

I also haven’t been arrested, moved house, been sick for most of the year, or had any more surgery. I have put on a little more weight though (grrr) and been involved with legal wranglings with the freak though, but still, that’s not a bad effort at keeping my resolutions for the year! lol

And highs! We’ve had some great high points this year!

Our fantastic camping trip, our trip to Sydney, meeting up with my coven sisters, bring Widdle Shamrock home for a few days, playing in snow for the first time,  trips to Wollongong and Dubbo, celebrating my tenth wedding anniversary, growing some of our own veges this year.

Oh and by the way, my goal of having a home grown salad for Christmas? We did it! We had our own lettuce, carrot, shallots, onions, and snow peas and we swapped some lettuces with another home gardener in exchange for apple cucumbers and beans. Enough for a salad of sorts! lol. We did buy a capsicum and some tomatoes, but still, I’m really proud of that effort!!

The year ahead will be challenging I’m sure. Readjusting to having 3 kids underfoot instead of 2, dealing with a teen dealing with adjusting to another new school and trying to fit in with her peer group, stretching our finances to feed the extra mouth, balancing everyones needs/wants/activities/challenges/etc out and continuing to try to simplify our lives in terms of how we live and the things that are important to us is going to take a lot of effort, a lot of compromising, a lot of negotiating and a lot of energy. But it will be oh so worth it!

I think the simplifying bit will be key…… so with this in mind we of the coven fame and our select group of friends have declared 2009 to be the year of NO FUCKTARDS!! (now imagine yourself saying that in the voice of that dude from the short lived national bingo show while wearing a hinky ref shirt )

By fucktards we mean those idiots who suck us dry and kill our joy. That means you. Yes you, she of the ‘my-shit-don’t-stink-and-you’d-better-believe-that-you-are-jealous-of-me-and-I’ll-tell-everyone-I-know-how-you-picked-on-me’ pathetic sub fucktard species. And you. Yes you of the ‘oh-poor-little-me-having-so-much-on-my-plate-but-don’t-feel-sorry-for-me-or-suggest-that-I’m-depressed-or-I’ll-deny-it-all-and-throw-a-tantrum’ idiot sub fucktard species. And you, of the ‘oh-look-at-me-and-my-imaginary-illness- oh-please-please-please-pay-attention-to-meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!’ sub fucktard cross cruel bitch species. That doesn’t mean you, the person over there who likes to hang about but isn’t sure what to say. We like you. *pats you on the head*

Now can you imagine how much less stressful life would be with no fucktards in it? Wouldnt your life benefit from having a few less energy sucking, emotionally draining fucktards sapping the life out of you?

Let us unite and free ourselves of fucktards for good! Join our fucktard revolution and declare 2009 your year of freedom!

I have attemtped to take some piccy’s for you of our lights.

I haven’t bothered attempting to take pictures of our pathetic efforts at decorating the inside of our home this year as it’s well…. pathetically non existant with all the busyness and rushing and dizzyness and being sickness this year.

Nothing spectacular – still had a lot of cars and a bus drive past gawking though lol

I love these little  lights! We had them along our front path – like mini fireworks to guide our footsies! lol

Our pressie lights are pretty cool too – I wanted to put them around Santa, but PSLS couldn’t quite figure out how to safely put Santa where I wanted him put…….. I must remember to start nagging him about putting up the lights a lot earlier next year!

This is the elf that is sitting next to our front door.

And this is how long till we do it all over again – EEEEKKK!! Maybe I’ll be organised next year with that long to………. oh who am I kidding!

Yup. Am still sick. Still coughing till I pee a little or feel like I’ve cracked a rib and getting intermittently dizzy when my temp soars.

And PSLS wants to go visit his dad.

Not a problem.

His dad lives in Canberra.

No hassle.

He wants to go on Wednesday……….

Like hell!

I’ll be stuffed if I’m going to spend my New Year’s Eve sitting for hours on end in a car travelling all over the countryside when I have precious booze at home needing to be drunk……. alcohol kills germs after all. Travelling on New Year’s Eve could seriously delay my recovery from this bug that I have

Monday saw me waking up with a headache signalling more sinus trouble and  the news that a lady who was the closest thing I had to a grandparent while growing up had died.

Tuesday saw me finally managing to get a doctor’s appointment and being put on antibiotics for a sinus infection.

Wednesday morning was the funeral followed by me trying to finalise Christmas arrangements while fighting a rising temperature during the afternoon. Oh and bumping into my sister who has decided to be a rude cow to us all was fun too!  I just love my family!

We didn’t make it to church, didn’t make it to the pool, didn’t make it anywhere that we were meant to be on Christmas eve.

Christmas morning saw us sleep in till nearly 9:30 when we got  a phone call saying that we needed to get the hospital urgently to see PSLS’s nan before she was transferred to RPA by air ambulance. She was fine by the way. There was no urgency in the reason for her transfer – she just needed to be seen by a specialist and Christmas day was apparently the most convenient day for the hospital to organise the transfer and air ambulance the best way to get her there.

It also saw us catching a frog in our bathroom that one of my cats had bought in weeks earlier and lost. It was still alive – a bit dusty, but hopped off quite merrily once caught, washed and relocated to outside.

Lunch was a laid back affair at our house followed by a brief stop at the ex in laws to drop Miss Lou off for a visit followed by an afternoon of DVDs and Wii playing with an assortment of siblings and other rellies stopping in at various times.

We finished up the day shooing various spiders and a mouse-bearing cat back outside.

Boxing day saw PSLS drive an hour to pick up his brother who had rung up wanting to visit for the day seing as how he’d fallen out with the rest of the family and his kids didn’t want to spend time with him. He ended up spending the day at their sisters house drinking heavily instead then conned hubby into driving him to yet another town at the end of the  day to drop him off. *shakes head* Oh and the mil dropped off craptacular gifts again this year, but had actually wrapped them this time! I just so love my husbands family! lol

It also saw me have a rather strange conversation with Miss Lou’s uncle about when I was planning to pick her up after I’d already explained that Lou had rung me earlier wanting to be picked up already and that I’d be there shortly. I’m not sure which part of “Lou already rang me to pick  her up” wasn’t getting through. I just love my ex’s family!

I’ve had more panadol than anything else the past few days trying to keep my temperature down and my head from imploding.

But still, while it wasn’t quite what we were expecting, the kids have had a lot of fun, we’ve had a lot of fun sleeping and hopefully I’ll be able to scoff all the booze I haven’t been drinking for new years instead lol

Piano

I learnt piano for a while as a child, my kids are learning piano now.

TJ’s reading has shown a dramatic improvement since he started. Music is all about patterns after all as is reading. CJ loves her music and will be starting grade work early next term. Miss Lou will be restarting lessons next term as well after a long break because the freak didn’t consider that kind of thing terribly important or beneficial.

We used to go practice at mum’s or on the electric keyboard with weighted keys that I bought for at home but no longer. We were one of the families that received the government’s ‘save the economy’ bonus – so we chose to invest it in our kids rather than spoiling them for Christmas and bought this -

Isn’t it lovely?

It’s a 1924 J Schiller of Berlin piano.

It has a lovely sound and the kids are really enjoying playing on it.

The rules are:

You leave a comment on this post and I’ll assign you a letter.  You write about ten things you love that begin with your assigned letter, and post it at your place.  When people comment on your list, you give them a letter, and the chain continues on and on.

You DO NOT have to do the meme if you only want to comment. Tell me if you want to do it. Otherwise you will not be tagged.

Ten things I love starting with ‘P’

hmmmmm

1. Peas picked fresh from the garden – one of my favourite childhood things to do was picking and eating the peas straight from the garden, something that I’m now sharing the pleasure in with my kids. Of course I also love potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, peanuts, parsley and pot plants (but I don’t eat the pot plants). I have some gorgeous pony tail palms at my back door, petunia’s at the front door, two peach trees up the back  and pansies in various places around the house. I really  must get some penny royal to deter insects too.

2. Pets – I love my pets. Currently we have 3 cats, a dog and a rabbit. We have at other times also had various combinations of budgies, parrots, fish, mice and guinea pigs.

3. Projects – I always have a few projects (sewing, stitching, crocheting, scrapping, etc) on the go at any one time. In fact I’m notorious for starting and not necessarily finishing them.  AI have many, many UFO’s in my cupboard in various stages of completion that I really should get to soo……………

4. Pandora – I love my Pandora bracelet that PSLS gave me for my birthday.

5. PSLS -well duh lol

6. my surname – Which I’m not going to put up, but does start with ‘P’. My dad’s family emmigrated at the end of WWII from Rotterdam in the Netherlands so my maiden name was a dutch name with many letters and confusing pronounciation. It always mortified me at school when my teachers would hold an impromptu spelling bee to see which one of them could get my surname right. Didn’t matter where we were either – in class, at library, during assembly Now having only 6 letters is much less confusing for everyone involved! lol

7. Parenting – yeah ok, sometimes this is a role that sucks when the kids are being little shits, but for the most part I love being a parent.

8. Psychic powers -I love my psychic abilities if for no other reason than being able to freak the shit out of Anja on a regular basis! lol. Seriously though, I don’t think I’m psychic, but I do experience insights that make others  wonder if I am.  lol

9. Perfume – yeah, I know that might sound funny coming from the sinus queen who is always bitching about pollen and flowers. And I do have to be very careful what scents I use otherwise I give myself a migraine, but I do loves me some good perfume. Joop is my favourite.  Has to be the real thing though not a cheap knock off.

10. Presents – I love presents. More specifically I love picking presents for other people and watching their reactions. Hence part of my great love of Christmas! lol (apologies to TDFO for mentioning the ‘C’ word)

So there you have it.
I don’t think there’d be many left who haven’t done this meme, but if you haven’t and would like to, let me know and I’ll get you a letter.

I’ve been caught in a tornado of end of year parties, Christmas lights tour organising, lawyer chasing, school touring, children shuffling and Christmas organising stuff.

About the only thing that I am on top of is the Christmas lights tour and that just barely!

Hopefully over the weekend I’ll have some time to come visit you all and say “hi” in the meantime, that lady chasing an invisible tail all over town with a harried look on her face is me. If you see me passed out on the floor somewhere, please put a pillow under my head. K?. Thanks.

First we were buzzed by an aeroplane, and presumed it was Santa heading to the fly in at the airport hosted by the local aero club. Then we were buzzed again and this time there were people walking around with their eyes glued to the sky watching this ——–>

yup, that’s Santa and his technicolour parachute!

I got to say that it was really freaking funny watching the big red dude hanging from a parachute and drifting in the wind

I was just disappointed that I only had my mobile phone camera and not my other camera to take pics with.

Santa eventually landed on the athletics track next to the pool and was promptly swamped by kids wanting their lolly bags before dashing away to his next appointment, but that was one Santa visit that won’t be forgotten in a hurry I can assure you!