Everyday #fmy52weeksofmemories

I am falling behind here.

Everyday I struggle to find that balance between having enough down time and staying up way too late. Do I catch up with stuff or sit on my rear watching telly. Masterchef and Gogglebox wins every time. Even those are interrupted by out of bed children who 'NEED' me.

Trying to fit all the things I need to do into a certain number of hours in a day. It doesn't feel like I ever stop.

Mostly I feel I am not achieving anything, yet the opposite is true.

I write lists almost everyday to keep on top of what I want to get done. I manage to methodically cross things of the list and am actually achieving. The list usually goes in the bin and more things get added to the next list, or stacked in my brains memory stores. Stores which don't work all that well.

If I kept every day's lists and looked back over them at the end of the week, I could be quite proud at what I have managed to get done. I am seriously considering doing this.

There are things that I do every single day, that I don't write on the list, because they are automatic. I have been known to write these on the list, just for the satisfaction of crossing them off.

Drink a hot lemon drink
First thing in the morning, before I do anything, I make a drink of hot water and lemon (or lime) juice. If I don't use fresh lemons, I have a bottle of juice in the fridge.

I can't remember when I started doing this, but it's become a habit. Even when we were camping I took my bottle of lemon juice.

Feed the dog and chooks
This is one of those things I will write on the list and cross it off, just for the recognition. I am the animal feeder, hear me roar......
The dog barely raises an eyelid from his kennel as I feed him in the morning. The three chooks come running with gusto as I toss the contents of the chook bucket into the run. I get 2 eggs as my reward. One of the chooks is getting a little long in the tooth and hasn't given me an egg for ages. Maybe chicken soup will be on the list soon.

Eat breakfast
Without fail I make myself breakfast, and eat it. OK, so I forgot one day last week, I did eat something after the school run when I got home like a good little chicken.

More often than not it's porridge. Today it's left over chunky soup I made yesterday.

I have managed to get our routine down pat in the mornings that I have time to sit down to breaky. In between packing school bags and having a shower.

Washing
This is something else I have no trouble putting on the list just because, and crossing off. I am a hard working washer woman. Whether it be dishes or the washing pile of hardly worn clothes and wet towels. I cross that shit off my list bane of my existence of my list.

The bathroom, dunny and floors however are usually neglected. I should hang my head in shame. The trick is not to breathe in or look too hard at the wrong time.

Cook!
I don't mind cooking.  I actually enjoy it. I cook something everyday, so that's probably a good thing.

What really shits me off is when the kids wont eat it. I try.

The Pillow Pet army

If Pillow Pets were going to take over the world, now would be the time. Don't say you weren't warned!

They were the present of choice for our girls this Christmas. They received four new pillow pets each, add the ones they had. They have five each now!

Summer's stack, with her original 'Pooh Bear' at the bottom.

Izzy's stack with her original 'Ladybird'.

Buzz goes nuts for bubbles

Joining in with Trish for 
Wordless Wednesday

Meet Buzz - Open Slather

We first saw Buzz at the petting zoo at the annual local show. He's a nine week old kelpie, crossed with a border collie. We hummed and harred about whether we wanted him. 

Brett went back later in the afternoon to help Mum pack up tables, and came back with our new dog. He wanted to call him Toby, I wasn't having a dog named Toby! Izzy kept saying "He's a boy dog". Butch was the name I blurted out, and it stuck for the day. However, the next day we decided on Buzz, and Buzz it is!

Izzy and Buzz have hit it off straight away

You don't need to be Dr Dolittle to know what the cat's thinking!

Cake, tea cups and feathers

Not the best of days, Isabel was naughty central ALL day, mainly giving her sister the shits, which in turn gave me the shits. I did get a fair bit done, despite her pushing me just about every second of my day, the naughty chair got a work out. I had tears at one point, and the little bugger brought me a tissue, redeemed herself with a  heart melt moment.

I baked.

Complete with finger holes, Isabel climbed onto the bench while I was hanging out washing

 Boiled Chocolate Cake

 120gr butter
   3/4 cup sugar 

1 cup water 

   1/2 tsp bicarb soda

3 Tbsp cocoa
 1 1/2 cups SR Flour
2 eggs, beaten

Boil butter, sugar, bicarb, water and cocoa for 2 minutes. Let cool.

Add flour, then egg.

Bake in a moderate oven for 45 mins.

I fixed up an old chook house.

My dad got it at a clearance sale, he frequents them a lot since he retired a couple of years ago. He bought it for mum, she didn't want it, along with half the crap stuff he comes home with. Most of it is actually good, I love this picture he got with a bulk lot, it's hanging in my kitchen, I like tea cups.

I'd been thinking about chooks for a while, so after I finished patching up holes in the wire, we went and picked up two chooks from this old fella round the corner. Isabel was very excited, and has exclaimed since to everyone we have seen, "We got CHOOKS!". Funny. She loves to feed her uncles chooks and collect the eggs, now we have our own, yet to be named girls. I'm thinking Henny Penny and Chicken Licken.

Look what I found in the morning!!!

Rosie dog

Rosie dog passed away on Saturday, comfortably laying in our lounge room. She had been not herself for a few days, and had got pneumonia. We bought her 10 years ago just after we moved into our home, Jake was 10 years old. He was the most upset of all of us, there was lots of crying and hugs when we buried her in our garden. There is still crying.

The driveway isn't the same, because she not running towards and alongside the car to greet us. When I stand at the back door, I know she's in the garden, but she won't come running up the steps and along the deck. I will hear the clicking of her paws in my subconscious, and be sad because it's not real. I hope she is happy in doggy heaven, and is loved, we miss her here.

We laugh at the times she's pooed in cars, not always our own! Brett will miss her running along beside as he cycled. I remember Jake calling her, "Rosie", as his pubescent voice cracked. Rosie sleeping in his bed. Me cracking it at Brett because he let her lay on my pillow. Rosie creeping down the hallway when I turned the lights out at night, she knew it was time to go out. Her barking at other dogs along the fence(we buried her near there). I wonder if the dog walkers will miss her being a menace. I smile as I recall Rosie being referred to as Brett 'first wife'. She was very close to Brett, he will have no door keeper when he's on the loo or in the shower.

Isabel wasn't there when we buried Rosie, she really wasn't aware Rosie had died when Brett carried her outside, wrapped up in the white woolly blanket she was laying on. I didn't think she would understand why we were putting her in a hole and filling it in with dirt, why we were sobbing. I know it will be hard when she asks "Where is Rosie?", and calling out her name. What do I say? Rosie is in doggy heaven?  She will miss her.

Brett, Jake and Isabel went down to the garden centre, and bought a pink iceburg rose on Sunday, to plant on her grave, we named her after the plant in the first place. We have a concrete paver to decorate for a headstone. We'll never forget our Rosie.