Relax, don't do it!

Yes I did just title my blog post after an old Frankie goes to Hollywood song......
However, I have good reason to. As I write (on my iPhone) I am soaking in the bath in the kids bathroom.



Ikea tea candles everywhere (and NO my legs are NOT hairy - it's just the dodgy candlelit photo!!).
I got home from work to an overcooked dinner as I had the oven up too high, half my craft projects on the lounge room floor and a list in my head of a million unfinished 'things' that I think I simply have to do.
I flicked through my blog reader while the kids were doing the dishes and came across no less than 4 blogs about homeschooling and a gorgeous post by Em (ok, so I can't link on my phone - meh). All of these posts reminding me that it is actually OK to run a bath, soak in it and just relax.....! Aaaaah.

No the kids bathroom is not sparkly shiny clean, yes I can actually smell the dirty clothes in the basket next to me (and I washed yesterday - go figure) and yes, that is a bottle of dog shampoo behind my pretty candles.....



So what?
I'm relaxed.
The 'to-do' list will still be there tomorrow. And that's when I'll deal with it!

Xx

Beans, beans, the musical fruit.....

Breakfast time in our home is sometimes a bit of a pain... Hubby wants a full tummy to go off to work (and despite my complete aversion to white bread he still insists on it) preferring a cooked brekky to my favourite of homemade muesli and my own yoghurt with fresh fruit. Mr 13 will eat 2 bowls or more of Vita-Brits and top up on them throughout the day, while little Miss fussy 11 is a lot harder to please - her tastes vary from day to day.

I find that if I menu plan for breakfast along with the rest of the meals it's a lot smoother in the mornings.
I've wanted to try a Tana Ramsey recipe for Baked Beans for ages and a friend mentioned doing them in the slow cooker - sold!!
I googled a bit then made up my own variation.



In they went overnight and we woke up to delicious baked beans for brekky - a million times better than tinned ones, and I know exactly what's in it!



Served on toasted English muffins (yes I know, white bread.. Sigh) with a little grated cheese.
Best brekky for a chilly morning.

Now the bad news...
How do I put this?

Beans make you fart.
A lot.

And we took another drive up to check out the country town we will be moving to if the bank says yes. An hour and a half in the car with a farting family made for an interesting day trip I must say!

Good for a giggle I guess...

X

City to Surf

So for the third year in a row I've gotten up with the sun, dressed up as a tooth fairy, caught the train into the city (complete with wings, glitter and a tutu) and walked 12k from Perth out to City Beach..

This year hubby did the 4k walk with Miss 11 and Mr 13 did the 12k with me,



And my work mates,



Doesn't he look like the odd one out?
He ran ahead and met us at the finishing line. Wish he'd met us with a masseuse!

Just one more photo of the Tooth Fairies for you...




Perhaps I should have taken a pic of us skipping across the finish line, but we were too stuffed, so just enjoy the non sweaty, happy smiling pics!

X

Decisions, decisions

Last weekend hubby and I went for a bit of a drive.
We've both had a dream for years of buying a few acres and having a little hobby farm.  Our vegie patch has been both productive and enjoyable for many years, as have our little fruit trees and our chooks, but we are always talking about what else we could do to be more self-sufficient/sustainable if we had some more room to play, get a cow, have some sheep.......  How good it would be for the kids etc.

Well the opportunity may have just presented itself.



We drove an hour out of the city, which makes it and hour and a half from where we live, and had a look.  This time of the year it's gorgeous.  Green fields of wheat (ok and crappy fields of GM canola, but this is not the post to debate the evils of genetically modified foods!) rivers flowing nicely due to the pleasant amount of rain that we have finally had.
The internet had quite the array of blocks of land and homes for sale out here so we cruised around and had a look. Including this one - 9 acres backing onto the river.....!




And what would we do for work you ask.....?
Well - this actually.




Hubby's trade is a baker/pastry cook and I think his heart is wanting to do it again, but for himself this time (ie, not working in a supermarket for a grocery giant).  This bakery is for sale and if it's God's will for us it's looking as though we may well become the new owners. Scary stuff hey!?

The dilemma?
Well this Ruby Rose here has lived in the same beachside town for my entire 41 years of life on this planet!!  I've never considered moving away from my family, my friends, my church..... I just always assumed that I'd get a block of land kind of close to the beach (ah yeah - dream on Linda!)
Hubby is doing all that he can for us to do this, but this heart is torn - I'm such an oak tree with deep deep roots planted in this hometown of mine, and hubby is a groundcover! Pick him up and plant him elsewhere and he'll thrive..
We visited the little church there on Sunday and met some truly lovely people, including plenty of other homeschoolers.  We checked out the sporting opportunities and many other facilities available and it's all good.  But I'm still hesitant.  Excited and hopeful, but scared and hesitant.

I've spoken to this gorgeous girl and asked how on earth she packed up and moved from NZ over here - she said they just did it, without over analysing it.... Which is precisely what I'm doing!
This Kiwi babe is coming for a cuppa on Friday and will most likely say the same thing - just do it.....

So that's what I've been up to lately.
Will keep praying and will keep you posted.....!

xx

More Bragging - Part 2

Another in my tribute to my friends..

Tonight is my beloved journalist friend Deb.
We met at playgroup in 2000 when our little Miss 11's were only 5&6 months old and our boys were 3. She very soon became my prayer partner and my Jiminy Cricket in the conscience department! Deb is the sort of friend you NEED. She doesn't "pussy foot" around the truth, she says it, as it is.
For example
Me "My hubby is driving me NUTS! Honestly he's not beng very nice lately..."
Deb "Are you loving him?"
Me "But he's doing blah blah blah"
Deb "Fill his love tank up and show him unconditional love"
Me under my breath "shut up Deb" out loud "hmmm, what if it doesn't work?"
Deb "What have you got to lose?"
Who knows that it works every time?!?
She is that strong voice of sensibility every time I need it.

Best of all though, she's a crack up to hang out with and awesome to go shopping with. We planned a date to Habour Town (factory outlet) once, and that morning she sent me a text to the tune of "This is the day that the Lord has made" but with the words
This is the day, this is the day
That we go shopping, that we go shopping
We will rejoice, we will rejoice
And find bargains here, and find bargains here!
Totally irreverent we know, but we both got a giggle out of it.
Oh, and we totally found plenty of bargains!

Deb is the friend who stops you when your conversation is drifting into gossip, the friend who reminds me how many years I prayed for a hubby when I'm having a grizzle about him (I adore him, truly!) She's the friend who prays over the phone with me if I'm having a moment, calls and asks my advice, or just calls and says "hey, how's things?"
We are very different in our personalities - she is vegetarian and I love my meat, she is a cat lover and I'm NOT! (whoops, there goes half my followers.......!) I'm a gardener, she wouldn't know if she had salad herbs or noxious weeds in her backyard.
Our sons are polar opposites - hers is a genius (think Big Bang Theory) and had memorised the elements table before mine knew his ABC's. While mine is Mr Sporty/outdoors.
Our daughters on the other hand are peas in a pod - ditzy, pretty little ladies. Remember the comment about the actress getting her arm chopped off to play Bethany Hamilton? Let's just say it was one of our girls.............!

She went back to Uni and did her degree in journalism while still being a wife and Mum to 3 kids. She got awards for being the best in her class (ok, so I'm such a good friend that I can't remember which award she got.......) and got the internship at the paper she always dreamed of working for. She doesn't blog - yet, but I'm looking forward to the day she does.
I love her, I'm proud of her and I'm so blessed to be her friend.

Xx

More bragging

Well I see that many people are doing blog 'series' on different subjects, so I'll jump on the bandwagon with my own....
I'd like to brag on a friend or two, or more.
At the risk of being accused of favouritism I thought I'd just let you know about them in order of how long I've known them - the oldest to the newest.
So here we go!

My oldest 'best' friend has been in my life since high school. We rode our bikes to school together, had sleep overs, crushes on boys, listened to music (INXS, Midnight Oil, Dire Straits - what can I say, it was the 80's). We graduated and went to graduation parties together - hmmm the less said about those the better! We chose our varied career paths, hers in office/business and mine into dental therapy. We fell in and out of love and helped each other pick up the pieces.
I'll never forget the early morning I phoned to tell her my boyfriend had died, she was at my place within minutes to be by my side. Sadly I had to do the same for her a few years later.
She was by my side at my first wedding, at the hospital as soon as I had my babies, and again right by my side when my first marriage dissolved.  Well, lets say we both helped each other pick up the pieces after dissolving marriages..............
She's part of my family and even calls my grandparents 'Grandma & Grandpa'. My kids only know her as "Aunty Bindi"
She wholeheartedly approves of my hubby and they get along very well.
We don't catch up as much as we should, but when we do it's like no time has passed at all.
She's my oldest friend and I still refer to her as "my best friend from school".   Love her!

The next one I've known since school, lost contact with, then resumed the friendship many years later at church.  She's probably the one I get the most 'intimate' with, she's my beautician! And boy is she good at it too....  An absolute perfectionist when it comes to exact eyebrows - mine are spot on.
I call her Molekins as a nickname, but her real name is Kat.  Miss 11 used to say "meow" when she was very very little if I said "Aunty Kat is coming over".
This chick is a great friend and I'm glad we found each other again.

The final one for tonight is my Tans.
Ever had one of those friendships that you totally treasure?
A rare gem that is priceless and incomparable?
That's what Tania is to me.
This woman knows me.  She is the one I can totally bare my soul to, the one who will listen while I whinge or dream and who will then speak timely words of wisdom into my life.  She is smart, gentle, fun, caring, wise and beautiful.
When I was on my own with my 2 kids for many years Tan and I went away on holidays together courtesy of her.  We toured wineries and chocolate factories, went to fireworks and concerts together and promised that when we found our TDHs (tall, dark and handsome) we'd do it with them..... I ended up with round, grey and spunky though!
She is AMAZING at technical stuff and rolls her eyes at my uselessness with anything to do with computers, but I've worked out the best system for this ~ I cook dinner for her and she shows me what to do!  Just this week she showed me how to put songs from my iTunes onto my iPhone - yay!  (I have previously mentioned that I am a complete techno retard.....)
Tans is an awesome woman of God and it is a privilege to have her as a friend.

That's all for tonight, I'll have 3 more next time.
The only thing is that none of these lovely friends blog or read blogs!!!!

xx

Soul Surfing

One of my closest friends and I took 6 young ladies to see "Soul Surfer" the movie based on the autobiography of Bethany Hamilton. Wow!
I did wonder if these 10-13 year old girls would be a bit too young to cope with this story, but it was spot on. What better time to sow into their lives the knowledge that you can do whatever you put your mind to, no matter what the circumstances (actually the movie even quite boldly states Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength")

My little Miss 11 has already read all about Bethany and looks up to her (mostly because they have the same name.....!) but to see her story in a movie made it so powerful. A talented young surfer, just came 1st place in a major tournament, sponsored by Rip Curl- whole surfing career ahead of her until a shark attack leaves her with only one arm.... She could have sat back and spent the rest of her life playing the victim - "poor me, I've only got one arm" but she didn't. Sure she questioned how this could possibly be the Jeremiah 29:11 for her life - "How could this be God's plan? That I only have one arm? That I can't do the thing I love the most?" But she CHOSE to make the most of every minute of her precious life and live it to the full. She got back on her board, re-learned how to surf (pushing up with only one arm and keeping her balance), refused to be labelled as handicapped and went on to not only compete but win!

Isn't that just like life?
We get all our ducks lined up in a row, then bam! Things go pear shaped.
We all have the opportunity to sit back and be victims of our circumstances or to do what Bethany did and make lemonade from the lemons life handed her.

This is the sort of person I want my kids looking up to.  Good on her for being a true role model.

xx

(I have to say that 2 highlights of the afternoon were one 13 year old saying that Bethany is her new hero and one un-named little miss asking how they made the actress Anna Sophia Robb look like she lost her arm - "did they chop her arm off to play the part?"....  I just LOVE this age!!!!!)