Adventure..

330 kms in one day

14 'bips' on our e-tag

8 McDonalds to zoom past

Nearly 5 hours in the car = a trip to see Nana.



One bored kid

One Mum trying to concentrate, navigating through highways & freeways & tollways

One big girl keeping her eye on everything

A glimpse of the city
A dip under the river
A little bit of sculpture to brighten your trip


Late arrival home...pick up a pizza or 4 on the way when you are tired & grumpy.

I did get to stop at Paper2 at Mornington & it was fabulous! I finally found the red album I was after. Now that Nana is living on the Peninsula I will HAVE to go back for another visit.

Up...

Erin & I went to the movies tonight to see 'Up'.

I was thinking I would rather stay at home to see the big secret revealed on 'Packed to the Rafters' or to see who was eliminated on 'America's next top model' or to do some more of the jigsaw I started today.


I was not expecting to enjoy it or to be moved to tears by an animation or to laugh or to gasp out loud, but I did all of these. I thoroughly enjoyed it & fully recommend you to see it.

Red shoes...

Today I bought some red shoes...just on a whim. We had gone down to Target to buy Erin some undies & these caught my eye. At just $35 I couldn't pass them up.

Hope they bring me better luck than Lara.

And it is amazing what you find on your camera after you have lent it to your daughter.

Hayley was just mucking about in the city after they had seen a band. Obviously she is a country mouse & finds such old fashioned technology amusing ( we have a total of one phone box in the Marsh). I didn't find it amusing when she pranked me at 11:45!

I didn't find anything incriminating or serious on the rest of the card. We have always said to our kids that they can't do anything without us finding out about it. I thought that was true as long as they stayed in our small town but with Hayley's obsession with photographing everything it may stay true when they venture to the' big smoke'.

Freezing..

It has been absolutely freezing today, just a sprinkling of rain & gusty cold cold wind. Hope the rest of the week is better so we can enjoy our time off together.
Might be a good time to pull out a jigsaw to do.

Holidays again..

School has been out for one week

It has rained nearly every day...Monday night was a beauty, 24 mls fell here in the Marsh

I have worked so therefore have done not much else

Erin has been bored, just entertaining herself or tagging along with her big sister during the week.

I saw my sister today & she looks pretty good one week on from her surgery, still in a sling but managing left handed remarkably well. Our little sister also visited & she was sporting a few grey hairs from allowing her son to drive the 90 minutes. He hasn't had his 'L's long & it can be pretty nerve wracking supervising especially when the road is windey & today has been pretty bleak & rainy.

He was telling us about an adventure that is about to start for him in November where a team from his school will be pedaling from Darwin to Melbourne in a space shuttle looking vehicle... only 3775 kms!
Looks like a fantastic journey, have a look at the great website they have set up - rode rage.
I hope they get lots of publicity for their cause & 'enjoy' themselves along the way.

I'm on holidays now for a week...any suggestions for cheap ways to entertain a 12 year old???

Sunday...

We went for a ride today on the Red Dwarf, its been quite a few weeks since we have been free or the weather has been good enough to ride & it was good.

Chris had to submit some papers at work, so we headed towards the city. While he was at work I went shopping to fill in some time, I couldn't resist this scarf to add to my collection. I thought the colours were pretty.

After school on Friday Erin hammed it up for Hayley & her camera. She is getting used to pulling silly faces for her photographer.

"Do I have something on my teeth???"

Olivia wasn't so sure.

But they both had fun later

Erin has kept this last one as her screen saver.

Pink...

Best wishes to my sister Louise who had an operation on her dodgy shoulder yesterday. Thanks to the blessing of local anaesthetic she is quite comfortable today, & hoping her recovery will be quick. She should be 'in the pink' before we know it, she has struggled with pain for months so hopefully it will be just a (bad) memory for her.

Olivia & I had a nice day yesterday making get well cards & whipping up a cake I had never tried before - a Lumberjack cake - which turned out very nicely. I'll be making that one again.

Portraits of self...

Hayley has taken loads of self portraits. The hard drive is full of them, most of them are fabulous, only a few are dodgy. I on the other hand cannot take a good self portrait.

Here is the perfect example


Here is another...

And yet another.

I can't help myself, I have to keep trying. This latest one I took before we headed off to the party.

I need to keep practising eh?

The original...

At the 50th birthday party on Saturday night Chris was able to catch up with old friends that he hadn't seen for quite a few years.
Standing around chatting he caught up with the guys he had gone to school with & larked about with as a young man.
Rosebud 35 years ago was a small, quiet place that had boom times in the summer when holiday makers swelled the population.
Many of the friends have stayed on the 'Pen' & had quite a variety of experiences in work & life. We learned that most, if not all, have had multiple partners, marriages & blending of families. Some even hooking up with each others' exes! One 'old friend' was reintroduced to me & responded with "the original wife???".
We were a bit of a novelty in that setting, leading a stable, if not boring, life. We've been married for nearly 25 years & I can say with certainty that we were the only couple there who could say we were still on the first, 'original' marriage.

Maybe moving away has been a good thing.

The calm...

This morning I woke up to a beautiful spring day... calm & warm. I've already opened up doors & windows to let in some fresh air. I haven't been able to do that for ages.
Yesterday was terribly windy. I worried about the trees bowing about & we lost a section of fibre glass off the back pergola. I too was agitated, the ferocious winds were making me edgy.

Today I feel much more relaxed... no wind (yet...the forecast is for wind later) & Chris & I are off to spend some time on the Mornington Peninsula. A party, a night at the country club, a visit with his mother & sister will give me something to put in this journal as there has been nothing interesting to write about, except the weather!

Hopefully leaving the kids on their own this weekend won't give me lots of material for next week.

Happy Father's Day...

Happy Father's Day to all the Fathers out there.

Big Daddy is sitting in his new office chair whilst wearing his new moccies...all is right with the world.

Summer in Spring...

I went down to watch Erin doing her inter school Summers Sports competition today.

Being that we are only a few days into Spring the weather was always going to be dicey. Melbourne weather is renown for being 4 seasons in one day, & we copped them today.
















Erin had 'chosen' cricket by default. She doesn't really like cricket but she didn't like the other choices any better, so cricket it was. To her credit she fielded, bowled & batted like a trooper, the only girl in their team.






I was frozen! Blue skies & sunshine one minute then the wind would pick up & the grey clouds would open up with some sideways rain.
It took me ages when we got home to thaw out.

Note to self: leave a bigger umbrella in the car, throw away the broken one.

Things I hate...today

Making rolls for lunches

putting away groceries

modems that lose connection if you sneeze, cough or pass wind

alarm clocks

taking out the rubbish.

Now I must go & put away some groceries so that I can make the rolls for tomorrow, then I'll put out the rubbish before I set my alarm for tomorrow. I was going to post this earlier but the modem dropped out & I waited for someone to come & reset it.

This is not a complete list of pet hates...just the ones that are stopping me from going to bed.

A trip to the city...

I went into the city for my dermatologist appointment today & have booked in for the Moh's surgery on my nose in November.

Another scar to add to the collection as they remove the nodular BCC. I have booked in to have the same plastic surgeon to do the repair & am hopeful of another good result. I'd like to think it will be the last patch on my face but that's probably wishful thinking.

As we had lunch in Rathdowne Street we thought we would visit Rathdowne Fabrics (made famous from Project Runway Australia). We didn't bump into any budding designers & browsed around hoping to find something unusual & different. Hayley found some material & I priced the lycra for Louise but that was all, it was not worth driving around in circles I did looking for it. ( I didn't realize how many Victoria Streets there are in such a small proximity)

I did some scrapping over the weekend while it was raining



I have lots of fodder for my craft with Hayley snapping away with her new camera.