Updated: Friday, 17 September 2004 6:53 PM NZT
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I've noticed groundhog day creeping into my life ever so slightly over the winter months. My daily routine has been the same. The car drives in the same direction. We have the same repetative rota of winter meals, on and on it goes in ever decreasing circles. On Sunday we had one of the first warm sunny days in months and I felt the cobwebs mercifully melting away
Over here in
Australia, between now and Christmas, we have an empty
calendar celebration wise - sadly, we do not celebrate Halloween,
(individuals do but its not a national thing)
We do not pause
for Thanksgiving. From now on ?
its a downhill run, and from here I
can already see the tops of the Christmas trees. Oh,
and is that a sleigh bell I hear in the distance?
The Christmas
Grand Plan site informed me that
there are ONLY 102 days till Christmas, With that in mind, and
the adrenaline rush that followed, I
set off to a new shopping 'maul' to
look at new stuff with Christmas gift possiblities in mind.
Since we
simplified (click on link here) our lives,
gifts have been kept to a bare minimum. The DD's mostly get a ca$$h
boost to their coffers, as buying gifts for them has become almost
impossible. Much easier to part with some ca$h rather than buy gifts they won't
like or need.
Dh usually gets a small gift, friends receive smallish gifts too.
We used to give
the kids stocking fillers, which they enjoyed
when young, once they became teenagers though, they emphatically told me
to stop with this tradition!
Christmas
ends costing us a ridiculously small amount in $$ terms, but that does
not include food shopping. We do spend a bit more than we usually do on
food/nibbles/gourmet treats over the festive season, but we also have summer here so it
becomes a Christmas/ summer food combo. I will write about our Christmas trads
closer to date.
Since I love to
be so organised, all that is left to do is to wait for the gift wrap to arrive
in the shops and then I plan to beat all the crowds and post cards, packages
nice and early!
Just watch me !
Planning to be first in that Post office queue this year!
Still on the To
Do list:
sort and wrap
overseas gifts
post early to
beat the rush
xmas cards are
addressed and ready to go
Find/buy those
last minute gifts before they are snatched up in shops
finish my annual
online newsletter for family and close friends
buy summer
wardrobe for DD junior
Look for
suitable prom dresses for DD junior while they are available in shops over the
summer season! ( more on THIS topic grrrr!
another time)
Exit one
whirling dervish holiday planner!
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?
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!
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!
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.
and ends with this?
Happy Fathers day to all the Aussie dads out there!