Birthday boy!
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: Happy birthday to you.....

Here is the birthday boy himself - all 51 years of him! Happy birthday to you!
He's in the radio station studio 'mixing' for his programme in this photo.
We had a very quiet day of celebrations - meaning we did nothing much all day. After working 12 hours stints recently, he did say he felt too tired to enjoy going out today, so instead we decided to have dinner at home. We went shopping, and for the first time ever, I spotted bags of new potatoes. So they were gently boiled and served with butter and dill garnish - yummy! Along with the roast chicken, sweet potatoes and green veg medley! Don't say I don't spoil that man!!
I hope the bloggers group have a lovely time on their monthly meeting at Miss Mauds tonite! (LURVE Ms. Mauds food too!!) Sorry we couldn't make it this time - perhaps another time? It may be fun to meet fellow city dwellers and bloggers non?

You Just know - trust me!
Mood:  hug me


You Know You're From Australia When...

Your next door neighbours can be from Tunisia, Israel, Indonesia, Japan, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Brazil, Spain, Malaysia...

The community is so concerned over the fact that muslim women can't use public swimming pools because there are men present that they have female-only periods.

The Greeks and Mexicans next door ask you over to have a barbeque.

You don't actually use the words 'sheila' or 'shrimp'.

You sleep with Aeroguard on.

You're wearing a cap emblazoned with 'Get A Dog Up Ya.'

You feel obliged to spread salty black stuff that looks like congealed motor oil on bread and actually grow to like it.

You think Tall Poppy Syndrome is a national condition.

Democracy means the freedom to draw caricatures of John Howard.

Your idea of a lethal weapon is a slug gun.

The closest you ever got to going overseas was your packet of 5 Days In Rio undies.

A posh meal = an all-you-can-eat buffet.

The term "musical instrument" also extends to wobbly bits of ply-wood, hand saws, gum leafs and combs.

Your most offensive curse also doubles as an exclamation of awe or amazement, like, "fark orf!"

All of your internationally famous people don't live here.

You think footballers dressing up in drag on TV is funny (but your son being gay isn't).

You relish test cricket - the longest, slowest game in sport (and that's not even counting the replays). After all, what else gives you an excuse to sit on your arse for five days, watch TV and sink piss with your mates?

You don't drink Fosters, but you let the world think you do.

The only thing better than beating the Pohms at ANY sport is giving them shit for it.

You love, adore and admire a particular team/sportstar/actor on a winning streak - until they lose. Then they're just crap and 'past it.'

You can compress several words into one - ie 'g'day', 'd'reckn?' This allows for more space for profanities.

You favour either Holden or Ford - or a souped-up WRX with new kit and a bootful of subwoofer.

Driving down the main street/beach road playing bad techno is your idea of a perfect Saturday night / Sunday arvo.

You make kooky films, sometimes about wayward road trips (across the outback preferably). Quite a few are crap.

You know all the words to Khe Sahn but not the national anthem.

Your nickname ends in 'a' or 'o'.

You have a customised stubby holder.

Your soap stars become pop singers and move to the UK.

You've ever used the words - grouse, tops, ripper, choice, sick, rad, exo, ace, wicked, ballistic - to mean good. And then you place 'bloody' in front of it when you really mean it.

Your cooking apron has plastic breasts on it. ( oh so sad - but true!!!!!)

The "Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi oi oi!" chant has been a religious experience in the past.

The blokes at the local gym think your weight training is an opportunity to ask you out on a date.

The big national sporting events are men-only.

Your politicians believe than sticking the prefix 'un' in front of your nationality is an effective way of making you sit down and shut up.

Our mantras are 'fair go for all', 'mateship' and 'little Aussie battler' - but we still publicly condemn those with different viewpoints to us.

The barbeque is a male-dominated arena. And the women do the salads.

'Fair go for all' excludes indigenous people.


An eight-hour trip to go camping for the weekend isn't out of the question or excessive.

You take pride in living in a tolerant multicultural society but firmly believe that all Poms and Kiwis are fair game.

You insist on asking every celebrity who steps of an aircraft what they think of Australia. If the response is not overwhelmingly positive, they should be subjected to immediate public ridicule.

The private lives of footy and cricket players become more important than local and national news stories.

Slick pick-up lines like 'Wanna shag?' and 'Carn, show us yer tits' can constitute male-to-female conversation.

You say 'no worries' quite often, whether you realise it or not.

You realise you have no Bill of Rights.

The first thing guaranteed to get eaten at parties is fairy bread.

So that's the special ingredients that make up an Aussie - whatever your taste.

You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Austrailia.


I hate to admit it - but most of these are embarrasingly true!! So, whatd'ya reckon?

claim to fame and UFO's

Claim to Fame

In an effort to simplify the mounting paperwork especially in the project area, one of my recent tasks has been to try to complete old journals, diaries, scrapbooks, baby diaries, and recently the newly added family history book. I call these my UFO's - Un-Finished Objects

My life is strewn with good intentions, ie; translates to having projects finished within my life time, and somehow never quite getting around to putting the finishing touches to the last page of each one. I was starting to feel quite guilty - especially about the baby books. One friend has hers catalogued, in alphabetical order, faithfully dating each milestone baby has achieved, and is more than happy to brag with her impressive collection of data.

My first DD's book is almost complete. In a fit of maternal joy I managed to complete it in under the duress of another pregnancy, not wanting time and hormones to dull the memories of every baby step she took. Subsequent siblings were not so lucky. Dulled by sleepless nights and harrassing toddlers I quickly gave up the ghost of recording every precious memory. So much so, that baby 3 has only her name written on the first page to mark that the book is hers and after that there are no more journal entries.

Maternal guilt is now prodding me to find all those tatty bit of paper, old notebooks I wrote in hastily back then and retrace the steps of their babyhood - Properly!
All this memory hunting resulted in a mad search through old suitcases, and boxes.

I ended up finding my old autograph book, as you do, (which I wasn't even looking for) - also found some old journals and theatre programmes from my student days in London which brought back some very happy memories.

In one of the journals I found a sort of claim to fame roll call - I thought I'd share it with you:

1. Shared a glass of wine and a larf with Jeremy Irons - after he appeared in the stage show Godspell - he played the part of Judas.
2. Met - David Essex (Jesus)and the other 'luvvies' after same production
3. Saw Jesus Christ Superstar show (London production) 28 times - Ok - I WAS dating one of the lighting crew at the time. (lol)
4. this led me to meet and greatly admire and share a few glasses of good cheer with Paul Barber - he played Caiphas the high priest in the show. He was recently in the movie - The Full Monty.
5. Met Leo Sayer - in Toolley street on a photo shoot. ( his, not mine)
6. Sat next to Rula Lenska in church - she was in rock follies - years ago! Married once to Dennis Waterman actor UK.

Well that's MY 15 minutes over!

It made my day
There are some fairly rowdy older boy students at the school where I teach.



One of the girls at the school came up to me at recess and quite serioulsy said - 'Mrs K., you're my favourite teacher, because you control all the noisy boys'. (meaning I don't let them get away with rowdy or bad behaviour).

Um...Don't let my Dh hear you say that!! lol!

Dream on

Dream on

Do you have dreams? No, not the ones that happen while you're asleep - the ones that inspire your life. How are these dreams doing? I mean the ones you had as a kid or as a young adult, the ones you have now - dreams that inspire you and give a sense of passion and purpose to your life.
Erma Bombeck once said, "There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say 'Yes, I've got dreams - of course I do!' Then they put the box away, bring it out once in a while to look inside and, yep, they're still in there. These are great dreams, but they never get out of the box."
I saw something yesterday on the BBC website that sparked my imagination in regards to having 'dream boxes'.
I must admit that I haven't really given much thought to all of this for a long time - somehow real life has a habit of taking over and dreams are put in the 'on hold' bay, with the intention of taking them out to look at 'someday' soon!
So deciding to take a peek inside my 'dream' box the other day, all I found there was a pile of tatty memories, outgrown goals and half baked ideas. Goals I wanted to achieve five years ago were now either not relevant or my ideas about what I really want out of life have changed too. Decision time means - time to take an inventory, revamp and refresh!
Have you seen those sites which list - 50 things to do before I die? I suppose the dream box is just another version. The BBC site mentioned some great holiday destination ideas, and sparked some fresh ideas on what I would still like to do! One of them thats going straight into my dream box is 'tree peeping in Fall' - sounding like a naughty voyeurs dream I totally assure you its nothing more than watching trees change into their fall colours in the lovely Massachussets(?) (the spelling gets me everytime!)Coming myself as I do from the Berkshires of England there would be nothing nicer than visitng the Berkshire counterpart of New England USA and seeing the wonderful seasonal changes.
Also into the dream box go...... a course in flamenco dancing in spain, a cooking course in Tuscany, another medditerraenen cruise, art gallery hopping in Cornwall, Amish visiting in Lancaster county USA, The Bridges of Madison County, and ....and ....oops the lid of my dream box won't close! Full to the brim. Better stop dreaming and start living some of those dreams!

Look whats for supper!
Mood:  hungry
Cabbage Rolls

I've been busier than I have been for a long time - making these cabbage rolls for dinner. I haven't made them for a long time, and once made, they can be re heated for supper once again tomorrow night, when I probably feel least like cooking after a teaching session at school. In the top photo is the pile of 'hot' leaves as they peel off the head after being par boiled for 5 mins. They fall off quite easliy, only I always have to be extra careful at this point not to burn myself with the hot water.



Phew! finished at last!
They ONLY took about 3 hours all up to prepare, and using two cabbage heads I made about 26 rolls. We'll probably eat half of those over the next few days and I've frozen the rest for more easy peasy suppers. I lurve to be organised!
I am very disspointed that I can't seem to make the background of this blog a little more colourful. I experimented with my frontpage programmme - by making a coloured table to put the contents of todays entry in, and the whole thing side scewed all over the page, so I had to remove it. I'm going to work on doing this and making the page look a little brighter. I am also limited by this service provider as to the backgrounds and images I can have on the page! If I don't have much luck, I may even move this blog to another home. I will keep you all posted.

Ikea - you're a part of my life
Mood:  spacey


Life is full of disappointments this week.


Spring is not springing quickly enough for me this year. Its still cold and wet. This morning it was misty, and did I mention cold?
It's supposed to be warming up for the weekend, but I'll believe that it when it happens!


The domino effect of all this rain is that the laundry has piled ceiling high, my wire clothes drying racks are all full, with DD's clothes all drying too.


The 'bug' I've been plagued with over the three weeks has left me with not only low energy levels but also a feeling of "I don't care about anything "mood.


The antibiotics are frying my brains,the ear drops are making my ears itch, the eyes drops are making the computer screen fuzzzzzzzy.....


Ikea? We had a catalogue drop off in the middle of the night.
For some unfathomable reason, catalogues and junk mail is usually delivered here by cover of darkness, as if it were some covert operation. But my dog knows when they are coming, and he lets the WHOLE suburb know!!



This morning I found a tatty Ikea catalogue stuffed into my mail box, looking much worse for wear. I was going to have a look through it later on. Maybe I should wait till all the dominos have finished falling?

What could be better?
Mood:  celebratory
When Father's Day starts with this:

and ends with this?

Happy Fathers day to all the Aussie dads out there!

I love to be organised
Mood:  bright
In the last few years I have simplified and organised my life to the absolute nth degree, and tweaking the finer points is all I have to do these days to maintain the lifestyle that we created. I shall be writing a bit more about simplifying in a later post sometime.


Simplifying was one heck of a journey, and the twists and forks in the road made it one interesting ride.


I guess its all about problem solving really. I was never good at it at school. Give me a problem back then, and I would give up and toss in the the 'can't be bothered basket'. Now I relish hard to tackle places. Finding a solution is dessert for me - the equivalent of chocolate cake - with icing!



Latest thrill was organising my troubled corridor. With my ever decreasing space at home due to empty nests being filled again, we seem to have accumulated more than our fair share of "stuff". The computer has had more homes than me, and wheeeling it around the place was just not good for the machine itself, and for my poor back! Finally on a trip to the computer store to look at laptops, I discovered the workstation concept. WOW!! was it impressive.

And this is what it looks like in situ:

I bought one immidiately and have had it installed in the corridor. Its not in the ideal place, but it has wheels - so it can be moved - now just waiting for an empty spot in the nest!!

The cooking 'nerve' (or should that be nervous?) centre

This is where it ALL happens.