And that was October, over and out....almost

Happy Halloween!

For the last few years, the girls and I have donned our scary outfits on the last evening of October. Me driving around for two hours, or more, and them getting a massive sugar rush, and sometimes an adreniline rush at one particular house, that even freaks me out. 

This year however, we are staying home and having everyone come to us. I am not really sure if this was a good idea, but I hope the girls have as much fun, and the weather is kind. I also need to whip up a couple of spooky ghost costumes by 4:30 this afternoon! 

It's been raining and blowing a gale, which is not conducive to prize winning flowers for the show. I made the mistake of saying it outloud to Izzy, and nek minute, she walks inside with just about every flower cut off my Just Joey rose, to save them from the weather. God Bless her little soul. I hope none of them were the winning rose! 

The Millicent Show is on this weekend. The girls and I are putting in entries this year. Last year I won a sash for my Irises. That was pretty awesome, and unexpected, so I am hoping the weather doesn't batter the garden anymore this week.... please. But I guess everyone is in the same boat. Thursday is drop off day for all entries. Thinking about is making me nervous! 

The girls birthdays are the weekend after the show, which I have done NO organisation for. The only thing I know it is going to be a small affair, not like last years whole class party! so much going on! I am trying to not think about it all at once, because I start to panic. What I really need to do is make a day to day list, so my brain can digest it in smaller, organised chunks. 

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ICAD 2016 - The ninth and final week

The final week for ICAD 2016, was way back on the last week in July! 

I have finally done the last two prompts I hadn't gotten around to doing. We were rather busy at the end of July, with a gym concert and a trip to the snow, and the index card a day challenge was a casualty. 

I posted my cards every week, so to dot all the I's, here is that last week of prompts, almost three months late!

• Week 1 
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8

Week 9 

#57 Stickers

#58 Graffiti

#59 Hopscotch

#60 Sorbet

 

#61 Path

Rivoli wetlands

On the way home from fishing with the kids, much to their dislike (they sit in the car while I take photos by the side of the road), I stopped to shoot the Rivoli wetland and the drain beside it.

I have it said it before (broken record), there has been SO much rain this year and there's water everywhere!

I have taken shots of this area before, at the same of year for comparison. Most definitely more water about this year, and the algae hasn't had time to settle in the flowing waterways.

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Moana beach and a wedding

We spent a little time by the beach during the holidays, despite the fact Spring really hadn't sprung in South Australia and it was still rainy, COLD and windy. We did see some sunshine briefly, but like they say, wait five minutes and you will have four seasons in one day.

I was in awe of this fantastic wood carving in Meningie, created by Millicent's own Ant Martin.
The Ant Trail

We stayed by the beach at Moana, south of Adelaide, for a family wedding in the first week of holidays. The marriage of my neice Claire was held at a winery in the McLaren Vale wine region. She married a Danish lad, Sam, who's family are all outrageously good looking. It was a fantastic wedding, though aren't they all in their own respective ways. It special when it's family.

Our place settings double up as our bonbennieres.  

Izzy and I woke early in the morning and went for a walk on the beach. With the rough weather, the usually beautiful sand was gone and the beach was covered with rocks. I like collecting rocks from beaches all over the place.

In the second week of the holidays I took the girls fishing. Izzy is as keen as mustard, but Summer not so much. We went to the Southend drain with no luck and then to the jetty. It has been so wet, the drain is more fresh water than salt. The fish don't like it.

Summer sat in the car playing with my phone because she was too scared to go on the jetty. We caught a couple of slimy cod which weren't much to write home about. They tasted good!

             All the brown, fresh water running out to sea. It's so brown from the dirt that has been washed away from other swelling drains and paddocks. We've had a ridiculous amount of rain.

Izzy had pink hair for the holidays! 

Going nude for back to school

Yay burgers *insert happy dance*, it's back to school in South Australia for Term 4! 

It's all systems go, for the slippery slide towards Christmas. Izzys class is straight into it next week, with a week of swimming lessons. Rehearsal is well underway for the end of year concert for gymnastics too. I'm on the committee this year, so I am going to busy with this as well.

This first day back Nude Food Day, today, the 17th of October. Nude Food Day aims to raise awareness of healthy food choices and reducing waste for a healthier planet.

It's just a normal week for this household though. I've packed Nude Food lunch box since Izzy was in Kindy.

Last year, Isabel was called up to the front of assembly with her lunch box, because for the whole week, she had accumulated NO waste. That means no unnecessary packaging or wrapping.

This benefits in so many ways-

• Reduces costs of waste removal for the school
• Creates less pollution by using reusable containers, instead of one time use zip lock bags or wrappings
• Reduces rubbish for landfill, creating a healthier planet
• Saves money. Instead of buying individual packets, buy in bulk and use reusable containers
• healhier lunchboxes = healthier kids.

To acheive this, I use a Nude Food lunch box. It has seperate compartments and containers for food storage, eliminating the need for wrappings.

I buy in bulk packets, like sultanas, biscuits and popcorn for example. I then fill the small containers from the bigger packets, instead of lots of small packets, reducing waste.

I do bake on occassion, and try to add fresh fruits and veggies, like carrot and celery sticks. 

If I add something like a muesli bar, I unwrap it first and then add it to the lunchbox. It's habit. I am weird I know.


What are you doing to reduce waste at your place?

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The mother pluckin baggage area

Shopping with kids can be a pain in the arse. Forget about looking for anything for me, they are going off in all directions, all the sparkly new stuff is too much of a distraction. That's usually about when the wee dance kicks in and we take a detour for the nearest dunny. 

Self service checkouts are stressful with kids. They all want to scan thier own stuff, and will chuck a hissy fit at the checkout because they want to scan it themselves. If you are extremely lucky they will loudly refuse help when clearly they are having trouble. They're fighting over shit to scan and as soon as they hear the beep, they want it on their person right there and then. 

If that's not bad enough, you hear an annoying lady voice, not unlike the one on automated phone calls, that you inevitably tell to fuck off at some stage. She is telling you, "Please put item in the baggage area".

Except it is not in the baggage area, it is on the person who is screaming like a banshee because they want to carry it now! Like NOW! That's when the dragon lady within you starts rearing her ugly head, which you have to keep down, because you're already attracting a bit of attention now from everyone within thirty metres. You calmly try to convince the child they have to put the item on the goddam baggage area. Not unlike a princess when her son has just refused to high five the prime minister, except I was not crouching down. The queen would be proud of me.

Kids want their stuff straight away. As soon as it goes in the bag, they are crying about where thier new shirt is, and if not then, it's as soon as you've put it in the boot and you are clicking their hysterical arse into thier car seat. Inevitably things are sweet, as soon as you walk through the door they race off to their respective bedrooms for a fashion parade of all the pretty items. I look for the nearest wine glass.

Going off your seething dragon lady nut in a public area is not very pretty, or dignified. You wait til you are safely departing the car park with all the windows up before the dragon lets loose with a barrage of loudness that only a mother is capable of. It shuts them up, sometimes they'll laugh, or argue back. It rarely makes me feel better. 

How I feel after shopping with the kids

In twenty or thirty years at Christmas time, they will reminise and joke about how Mum used to lose her shit in the car. My brothers and sisters used to think Mum was a psycho, we have a ball reminding her of how fucking crazy she was. There was five of us, and she has recently told us we were a mob of arseholes. We think it's funny as fuck, we also love her more than any other person in the world.

Fuck the self service area, unless of course you're on your own and don't feel like human interraction today. Then it is perfectly acceptable.

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Rain, rain, go away

Who could believe it's October. The rain is still pelting down like we were in the middle of winter. The earth is absolutely soaked and I have had enough! I want some toasty warm weather, a little sun, without the biting wind. I am over it!

I am glad daylight saving has started. In my mind, that means warmer, longer days. We can do things like go for after dinner walks.

With some nagging from Isabel, we set off on a stroll to the drain. It's rather full at the moment.

We were down here a few weeks ago catching taddies. They are now in our fish pond. It was blowing a gale, the kids didn't care. They threw rocks in the water and inevitably could not resist getting thier gumoots full of water, after me warning them to be careful not to. Who was I kidding?

Nothing a bath didn't fix when we arrived home at seven o'clock. 

Time stops for no one

The weeks are flying by. I can hardly keep up. 

It's been an eventful week. Rain, lots of rain. The house in Pelican Point now has a moat around it. Only around the boundary fence, not near the house, thank god. It must have bucketed down there. The lawn is a bit squelchy, we could just about host mud wrestling championships in the front yard. There was still loads of rain last night. God knows what it's like now.

We had no power on Wednedsday night for about 7 hours. Boring! It was snags on the barbeque for dinner and an early night. The supermarkets were a little bare in the cold sections for rest of the week. It gave us all something to talk about anyway.

We've just started school holidays and I was hoping the weather would be better by now. I was looking forward to getting the kids out and about and not be stuck inside for another holidays.

We have a family wedding at the end of this week, that's going to be exciting. Not only because it's at a winery, but we get to travel and we're staying by the beach. It's been a couple of years since our last family wedding. It feels like yesterday.

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