The Winds of Change

OK everybody, hold on to your hats, something is slightly amiss in this household. After my misdirected rant the other day, a light bulb shattered over my head.
Maybe it was fate, maybe coincidence, maybe the housecleaning Gods took pity on me, but I just happened to stumble HERE after posting on Friday.
Two and two finally equalled four - I CAN DECLUTTER THIS HOVEL, Mum won't know what hit her (will have to be on stand by with paper bag if hyperventilation occurs!)
Rome wasn't built in a day of course, so am taking it S-L-O-W, today was the laundry cupboard (also known in our house as Black Hole #1).
The following is what was cleared off HALF a shelf.........

The brain dead male - people who designed my laundry cupboard made it quite impractical - it is all shelving - hence no room for brooms, mops, ironing board, basically anything that you would want to keep in a laundry cupboard, but after an hours work now looks quite orderly.

To people who are naturally quite neat it may still look like a rabble, but for me it is a great improvement and proof that I CAN achieve a neat house!!
So I send a big THANK YOU to Katrina at The Organised Housewife , you are changing my life - one shelf at a time.

Soundtrack Saturday

School's out! FREEDOM!!
1995 Was my first year at uni, so I suppose I just moved from one institution to another!!
I loved this album, particularly this song, I suppose it resonated with me at a time where I was finally in the 'grown up world' and finding out who I wanted to be. This is so much fun to crank up loud and sing along to, and hey, if I was ever 'that way inclined' Gwen Stefani would be on the top of my list!

The Housekeeper

My mother has never said this directly to my face, but I know she thinks I'm a slob. Even when my sister and I lived 'at home' and were going through our slovenly teenage phase, her house was immaculate. The windows always shone, and there was the feint scent of Mr. Sheen in the air.
I prefer to think of myself as 'domestically challenged.' I go through stages of really trying to keep the house pristine, the showers sparkling and the floor crumb free. Then I remember that - one - I have kids, and any attempt to keep the floor tidy is sabotaged by Lego and My Little Ponies. Two - my kids either want to help out and it takes three times as long to get the washing etc done, or they stage a mutiny and NOTHING gets cleaned. Three - I really HATE housework.

Image from http://weheartit.com/

I love my Mum, don't get me wrong, and I appreciate everything that she does for my family - but a situation has arisen that I feel slightly uncomfortable with. Let me explain.......
I am fortunate enough that my Mum takes care of the girls on the two days a week I work. I love that they all get that time to bond, and they learn so much from my Mum - the fact that she was a kinder teacher for 20 years and still has a lot of the toys and books she purchased makes for an exciting trip to grandma's house! This year however it has worked out that Shannyn's kinder is on my work afternoons, so Mum has been staying at my house.
When Shannyn is at Kinder and Ashlee has her nap, my Mum gets bored, so she CLEANS - yes, cleans! my house. I am grateful that she does it, I have told her it is not necessary - but she says it gives her something to do. A point is reached however, when I find she has started to tidy such places as my underwear drawer, luckily there is nothing incriminating in there (!) but come on! She said to me yesterday that she changed the sheets on the master bed because she couldn't stand the smell! Which brings me back to my opening statement - she thinks I'm a slob.
So what do I do? Tell her to change away - use her as an unpaid maid of all work (which I really hate to think I am doing) or tell her nicely to back off - my house may not smell like Mr. Sheen, but the housework DOES get done......... occasionally!!

Wordless Wednesday - One Day........

Our dream holiday will be a reality....

Disneyworld, Florida

Japanese pavillion at Epcot

Food, glorious food

A trip to Universal to ride with Harry....

Click the links, and see why I can't WAIT for us to do this!
I'm playing Wordless Wednesday My Little Drummer Boys, why don't you?

* All images provided by weheartit.com

Soundtrack Saturday

Remember the "Cassingle"? In these days of 'i this' and 'download that' the idea of going out and buying only one song (OK, 2 if you count the B side)  probably seems rediculous.
If you're too young to know what Brashes was, or can't remember what Madonna looked like before she needed Botox;  never fear - we're travelling back today - back to the first single I ever bought.......


Madonna in her heyday, and the dance craze that beat the shit out of the Macarena! Enjoy!

Can you please shut up - I have nothing to say.

Hey!! Over here!!

Why do I blog? Do I want to be noticed, acknowledged, heard? Possibly. Why don't I feel this way in the 'real world?' Every day I feel bombarded by demands - from society, from my family, from my job.
DO THIS!
                                       BUY THAT!
                                                                             YOU NEED!
I WANT!                                 
                                                     READ THIS!

I sometimes feel lost in a maze of white noise - maybe I need a place to clear my head. But do I actually have anything to say? Well - YES, as a matter of fact. It may not be deep, it may not be important, it may not even be interesting to anyone else, but this is my little space to both escape from and add to the cacophony that is my life.
So while I have this space I will continue to write about everything and nothing - I hope you have fun reading it!!


** Photos from http://weheartit.com/

Kicking it - more like kicking myself

Need help, big time!!

How I feel right now!

Pop over to Kicking it for my confession!

Wordless Wednesday - Dress Ups

Mum's high heels

Fairies are a favourite at the moment!

Where are my wings Mum?

Shannyn's special fairy dress

Come and play Wordless Wednesday with My Little Drummer Boys , I am!

The itsy bitsy spider

Meet the newest addition to our laundry. Usually anything remotely resembling this shape in our household meets the can of Mortein in under 60 seconds, but this time it's different. About a fortnight ago I was bringing in the clothes from the clothesline, and a rather larger specimen than this greeted me as I closed the laundry door. It's fate - read the previous statement about Mortein! Then, two days later this little critter appeared out of nowhere. Feeling a sense of guilt for executing what I can only assume to have been 'Mum' I haven't been able to send him the same way.
He's been hanging around for a little while now, and we have become quite used to him - I am not particularly partial to spiders, but neither do they send me packing for the hills. The girls have named him "Crawly" - the generic name for anything around here that is bug/spider/small animal like in form.
To be fair, this photo does not give you a sense of scale, this guy is only a couple of centimetres across, but I have two questions that continually plague me;
One - what will I do when he grows as big as his dearly departed mother, and
Two - where the HELL are the rest of his brothers and sisters???????

Soundtrack Saturday

A friend of mine has been 'facebooking' (is that a proper term?) songs that had a special place in his life, so must thank him for the inspiration for Soundtrack Saturday - an homage to the music that means something to me.

I am going to start with a jump back to my high school days......... I can't say I had the best taste in music back then but hey - at least I had fun.

AAhh, the early '90's - it gave rise to some of the best one hit wonders ever. I use the term best very lightly! Imagine if you will two 15 year olds doing the "Ice Ice Baby" dance on the front lawn, and listening to NKOTB. (I will not name my partner in crime on here but she knows who she is!!!!)

This song brings back some great memories from that time, this is such a fun song to 'groove' along with. I hope you enjoy!

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday - how does your garden grow?

October 2010

May 2011

What a difference seven months make! I would describe myself as a 'black thumb' , but these Australian natives have all flourished. We paid a hell of a lot of money to fully re-landscape our front garden last year, and I must admit - it has been well spent!
I'm playing Wordless Wednesday with My Little Drummer Boys . Come and join in the fun!

Good on ya Mum!

Photo courtesy of http://weheartit.com/

I would love to say that the picture on the right is what greeted me this morning - but given my recent sugar ban would have been very mad at myself for devouring the lot!
No breakfast in bed for me either, in fact I was out the door before the kids were up today - and for a very special reason.
My two girlfriends and I braved the chilly Melbourne morning air to join the 40,000 (yes that's fourty THOUSAND) others taking part in the Mother's Day Classic. We heard tales of both loss and hope, and then took to the TAN for our 4K walk to raise funds and awareness for Breast Cancer Research. It was a wonderful way to start the day, and I hope to be able to join in again next year.
I am lucky enough to have my Mum just a stone's throw away from us, and I cannot thank her enough for what she does for our family. She is almost like my anchor, I rely on her guidance and opinion a lot, (even if I don't always agree with it!) - and I hate to imagine how we would cope if we lost her.
So I send a huge hug to all the mums out there, and to all those who cannot hug theirs today.

Oh my God I can't believe I just DID that!

I am a creature of habit. The same sames sit just fine with me. A few weeks ago I wrote about this lack of change in my life (see time for a change ).
Today was different. My hubby unexpectedly ended up with a day off work, so completely on a whim called up my hairdresser to ask if she was free in the afternoon - she was.
Got to her place at 2pm. Got home at 7pm. As you can imagine, the change is extreme. It is going to take a while to get used to, the kids looked at me strangely when I returned, like some woman who kinda looks familiar but not quite sure who she is has just walked through the door.
I won't post a photo yet (cos I haven't taken one!!) but to give you an idea, I HAD long dark brown hair no fringe which was progressively getting greyer, the standard issue style for me was scraped back in a pony tail.
I now HAVE hair that is too short to put into a pony tail, a full fringe and it is strawberry blonde with lighter blonde highlights. Therefore the name of this post is entirely apt -

" OH MY GOD I CAN"T BELIEVE I JUST DID THAT!!"

Wordless Wednesday

GONE!!

GONE!!

GONE!!

                 Want to know why? Read my page 'Kicking it.'
I'm playing Wordless Wednesday with My Little Drummer Boys - are you?


*Photos courtesy of http://weheartit.com/

These are a few of my favourite things

 

My Beautiful Butterfly!

My Groovy Bunny!

*First 6 images courtesy of http://weheartit.com