G'Day,
This weeks Sunday Scribblings prompt is "I Believe"
Um!
I believe we all have a voice inside of us that tells us the right thing to do.
We don't always listen to it but if we do, it will guide us towards the right path.
If we are tuned in to it .
I know I have this voice.
I don't know if it comes from god,
a spiritual being,
or guide,
or Walt Disney's Jiminy Cricket,
or the ancestors,
or,
or,
But it is there, I have heard it many times.
I ask it questions and it helps me through.
I believe it is that special something that looks after me.
Maybe a greater being?
I believe in Mother Nature.
I believe in Mother Earth.
And their ability to heal, nurture and create.
Making our beautiful earth.
I believe in Family.
Even when they annoy the shit out of you.
I believe in Love.
I believe in Pete, my partner in life.
I believe in our future together.
I believe that 98% of people are good.
But that you have to let them be good.
That they will treat you as you treat them.
That that 2% who are not good are sometimes the ones with the biggest voices.
Refer back to the first bit for this.
I believe good people make bad choices led by the 2%.
I believe in
Sight,
Smell,
Taste,
Hearing
Feeling
Touch.
and
Dreaming
I believe I am lucky to be blessed with them.
I believe in education.
Where would we be without it.
I believe it is infinite,
I believe that if I learn for the rest of my life,
There will still be a world full of things that are left to learn.
I believe that I have the choice to choose that which I want to learn.
I believe there are more things unseen
and misunderstood in our world
than what can be explained logically by the sciences.
But most of all I believe in,
the beauty of the earth and its inhabitants.
her flora and fauna,
and the intricate connections that balance her,
that if we cause an imbalance we will definitely pay the price.
Love Linda.
Saturday, 27 December 2008
Wednesday, 24 December 2008
Merry Christmas.
G'Day,It is Christmas Eve here tonight. I just wanted to share a bit about my Christmas.
My three kids are here together with my Hubby Pete, my Mum and I. It is quite cool here today considering it is Christmas in the antipodes, not cold through as it is for Christmas in other parts of the world. I think it was in the mid twenties today but that is cooler than expected. It is cloudy and we have had some nice rain over the last few days. God knows, nobody in Australia would curse a rainy day after the drought we have had for the last seven or eight years. So I am not complaining. I love it, the more rain the better. The cloud is meant to clear today but is still hanging around keeping things cool.
Anyway the first picture is one I took today to show off and brag about one of the best benefits of having Christmas in summer. Wonderful, wonderful summer fruits and berries. The platter is made up of some of the best, strawberries, blueberries, lychees, nectarines, cherries, and one big fat juicy mango.
This is another one of my day lillies. If you can get a closer look by enlarging this you can see the tiny ants working away inside it pinching its sweet nectar.
Same flower, further back.
These are some of the sentimental bits and pieces I have kept and put out on display on my Christmas tree each year. The little knitted Christmas stocking is one I got from a school fete many years ago. An old lady had made it and was selling them. I have 3 of them, one for each of my kids and each year I put lollies in them. They have chocolate balls in them this year but they are just the right size to hold a packet of life savers which is what I usually have in them.
When my daughter was in about yr 5 in primary school she used to go to an embroidery class on the weekends and she made this there.
This is a star that my eldest son made in primary school. He is now 26 yrs old.
I think Annie made this little peg reindeer in preschool. She is now 20.
The boys made these fabric covered balls when they were in scouts many years ago.
I cant remember which of the kids made this star but I have had it for a long long time. it is a bit scruffy but is still holding together.
And....Here is the tree, all ready to go. My daughter ...as she does each year... is trying to talk me into letting her open a present. She knows I will always give in, as I do each year. But it is a fun little game we play anyway.I better go and play the game. :)
Merry Christmas.
Good night.
Love Linda.
Saturday, 20 December 2008
Sunday Scribblings "Late"
G'Day,This weeks Sunday Scribblings prompt is "Late". These pots are pretty late. Almost didn't get them done for Christmas. The Canberra potter's society got a grant to build a new kiln shed which they recently finished so all firing has had to wait a while. The new kiln shed is great, very spacious and room to fit all of the kilns in together. They have been very busy catching up on the backlog of firing accumulated while the work was being completed.
I made all of these pots about 3 months ago at the pottery course I enjoyed. The course was called repetitive throwing. We started off with the cylinders, the first picture is of one of six I made that were supposed to match in size, weight, decoration and design. Well they are not perfect but they are not too bad either, anyway pottery is supposed to look handmade and I don't like perfect. I decorated them the same to match and they are now a set of tumblers. Pottery tumblers are great for drinking cold drinks because they keep your drink cold for longer. Good for wine on a hot summer days.
This is the (sort of) matching set of 4 bowls, 4 mugs and the tumblers. I turned them upside down for this picture so you could see the lines I like to turn into the base of my pots. They serve a couple of purposes. Decoration, a bit of a trade mark for my pots, but they also serve a practical purpose of stopping the glaze from running too far down the pot and possibly sticking it to the shelf and also making a definitive mark to wipe the glaze back to before the pots are fired.
The platter above is one I made while still in Junee so it can really be classed as late. I bought it here with me already bisque fired so I only had to glaze it. It is glazed with the same glaze as the other pots shown here but it's extra colour comes from the clay it was made from which contains iron. I made it after a visit to the south coast on a sea and sand idea I had at the time. It is one of two, and is a second as you can see, because it has a few cracks in it so I will give this one away and keep the good one to use at home.Someone can use it as a plant saucer or something. Not that it couldn't be used for food or cooking in, as the crack is only on the edge and the crack that you can't see on the bottom of the pot is only a surface crack and does not go through to the other side, but, as a second...well you know.
The other platter and the second one are shown together here. I actually like the glaze pattern on the second one better than the good one. It looks a bit like it has foamy waves breaking on the sand.
The pots above and below are of the mugs I made at the repetitive throwing course. I really like this glaze, but I feel as if I have cheated a bit as it is a club glaze available for members to use and not one of my own. As well as the fact that I didn't fire it myself. But isn't it a lovely glaze, it is called speckled white and is oxidation fired in an electric kiln to a stoneware temperature of 1280 degrees Celsius. I have already tested my new mugs out. I sort of made them with soup in mind but I will use them for everyday tea and coffee. The rims are good, which is an important design consideration. I am sure everyone knows what drinking out of a comfortable mug feels like as opposed to one which does not balance nicely in your hand and has an unpleasant rim against your lips.
All of these pictures were taken today out on my back table. I only picked up the pots this morning. I wanted to get them before Christmas as I told my boss Brett that I would give him something from when I did the course as he filled in for me by cleaning the office we do of an evening so I could get there.He can have the 4 bowls and the seconds platter too if he wants it for something. So, not too late for Christmas.
There are still 2 dinner sized plates that hadn't been through the glaze firing yet, but they should be ready on Wednesday. One of them is in the speckled white glaze , but I carved a pattern in the bottom of the second plate as I was getting sick of trying to repeat things by then and cut into it. I glazed thatone in a clear green glaze to see if it would fill up the carved patterns. It should, I hope it does. I was supposed to make a set of four plates as well, but I wasn't having much luck with them and gave up. I learnt a lot from the course and it was worthwhile. The tutor, Cathy, did lots of things different from the way I had learned them so that was good. Un learning my old ways might be a different matter. It is being run again but as my work hours clash I thought I had best not push my luck too much and have a look at something else later next year instead. The potter's society has lots of great courses running regularly. Hopefully some of them won't clash with my work hours.
I am feeling quite happy with myself and the results of these pots,and looking forward to doing more stuff with them. The guy who is the administrator at the club said he had been admiring my pots and they were well done before I came to pick them up this morning so I was quite chuffed to get a compliment off him, he is a very good potter. It was his wife who taught my course.
Well that is my post about late pots. Sorry if I bored people uninterested in pottery. I could write heaps about pottery, just like others might who are interested in sport, or politics, or whatever.... I am not into sport but I love my pottery.
=========================
This morning before going to the Potter's Society to pick up my pots, Mum and I took a detour to the farmer's markets. The little pull along shopping basket I bought in Melbourne a few years ago was worth it's weight in gold today, he he. I really like shopping at markets and find it much more enjoyable than going to a supermarket to get my stuff. Anyway I had a lovely time sticky beaking at everything. There are some really interesting things there. Apart from the fruits and vegetables, you can get cheap plants and exotic breads, jam, condiments, meat, ready made recipe bases, coffees and teas, etc etc...Good fun. I had a cup of the best home made chai latte and we shared a punnet of freshly picked blackberries. It was funny, while we stopped to look at something on one of the stalls a chinese lady came past and saw the punnet of berries that we had put down beside us for a minute and she thought they were free samples and helped herself to a couple of them. Mum and I looked at each other and cracked up laughing. I think I spent about $60 on all sorts of bit and pieces. Yummy things you couldn't get in the country where I lived before here.
===============
Late!
It is never too late!
===============
Bye for now.
Love Linda.
===============
Late!
It is never too late!
===============
Bye for now.
Love Linda.
Sunday, 14 December 2008
G'Day,I have not put photos up on my blog for a while so today I thought I would share what was goin on around my back yard yesterday.
The above picture is of a little potato plant that has self seeded itself in the vege garden.
This is a Flanders poppy. The plant is a bit small and straggly as far as Flanders poppies go and a few weeks late to flower for Remembrance day, but it flowering happily now and I wll leave its seed to drop and hopefully pop up again next season.
Flanders poppy again.
This is a close up, detail picture of this weird looking succulent thingy I have had in a pot for years. I like it though and it is weirdly sculptural when it flowers so well, like it is now.
A further back pic of the succulent above. I made this pot too.
A lovely dark red day lily.I think this could be the last flower for the season on this plant but I have some others that have not flowered yet so there are more to come.
Dianthus.
Dianthus.
And Dianthus. These little guys are just about finished flowering now but they have been good this year, especially the double ones.
The carrots are doing o.k.
There are some big Grosse Lissie tomatoes that are half grown and will be ready in a few more weeks.
And some little tommy toes that are very prolific and grow like mad at this time of the year.
The snow peas are just about finished now. We have had quite a few feeds off them though.I love these cooked in the fry pan with a little big of oil, just enough to grease the pan, then a tablespoon of water and put the lid on to steam for a minute or two then put in a nice blob of oyster sauce to coat them and serve.They should have just lost their crunch but not have gone soft.
The silver beet. Something is eating it before we get to eat it, but it hanging in there and will probably come good a bit later.
This is the coriander in flower. It always goes to seed when the weather warms up and now I am waiting for the seed to dry out a bit more before harvesting it to crush to use in cooking and it keeps for ages.. But I love it fresh best. It is great just with bread and butter and mayonnaise on a herb sandwich, or as it is in a salad or stir fry.A must have plant in the garden.There is also some rocket, and some strawberries and spring onions which are ready to use right now and corn and beans planted. I also had cucumbers and squash and jap pumpkins planted but they did not survive, the cucurbit family does not like me for some reason. Then there is mint, oregano and chives, parsley, thyme, bay and rosemary. Essentials. Funny, when I lived in Junee I had a patch of thyme and every time the chooks escaped they would bolt straight for it and rip it to pieces. They loved it for some reason and I couldn't keep it in the garden for them.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
My friend in blogland but not too far away from me "Merle" has gifted me with an award. Thank You Merle. It is on my side bar now after some help from my son Michael.
The Rules
1. Put up the award and link to the person who gave it to you.
Merle is on my sidebar. Her blog is called Merle's Third Time Lucky and is full of great jokes and stories as well as a bit about what she is up to as well.
2.Tag 5 other bloggers to pass on the award to.
3. Link to them.
4.Tell them.
Right I tag;
Anthony North, who is a clever blogger, writing from the U.K. and I look forwards to what he has written each week on Sunday Scribblings.I don't know how to put on a link but you can find him via Sunday Scribbling which is on my side bar.
Annie at her blog in Queensland, she blogs as Bimbimbee and you can find her on my side bar as well. A very creative and clever lady.
Shadow in Africa, also on my sidebar who has a beautiful mind.
Martha my blogging sister and crazy about her pets, like me, in West Virginia, you can also find her blog via my side bar.
Sorrow a fellow potter who lives in USA and guess what, as I still can not put links on here she can be found on my side bar as well.
I liked the idea of being a superior scribbler, I don't know if I am or not but Thanks Merlie girl for including me.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Yesterday when I took my son Christmas shopping in the city we went into a music shop where I found a DVD and I couldn't leave without it. I know... I know ...Christmas shopping is meant to be for other people but I got myself a present too.It was called "Barnes Hits".
I have spent most of this morning watching it and lovin' it. It is packed full of great stuff. And OH! what a voice! This guy is an absolute Aussie legend. The DVD starts with some of his music from the early 80's and continues on to the early 2000's. Love it, love it.
It includes some clips off his Soul Deeper album which is one of my very favourites. I love to have it on in the car when I am driving and after listening to it over and over again I never get sick of it. On the DVD you see Jimmy go from a very sexy young rocker to a mature man but still with that fantastic gutsy voice that never seems to loose its quality as he ages as you see some singers voices do. Also in the DVD there are duets of him singing with John Farnham, Michael Hutchence, Diesel, his brother in law, Tina Turner and the Badloves. I saw him recently with his daughter Mahalia, singing on a T.V.special, she too has that great gutsy voice. On this DVD there are some pictures of him with his children when they were little. He has another son in the music industry "David Campbell" who is very talented and obviously has a great portion of his father's genes. He is not such a rocker but is very well known here in Australia as a stage actor/singer. I saw them sing once together too and David can certainly hold his own up against his father's great voice. His brother "Swanee", and I have heard, his father, were musicians too.
If you want to see Jimmy Barnes in action, look him up, I know there are some clips of him on Utube. I found one of my favourite Aussie rock classics there a awhile ago called "Flame Trees" which shows him when he was very young and cute.
On another note... excuse the Pun....I like them...
I had all my hair cut off on Friday. I usually do it at the beginning of summer as my hair is very heavy and think when it gets a bit fuller and therefore hot for summer. Mum has been after me to book in and get something done to my hair for Christmas so tomorrow, Monday I have an appointment to get my hair coloured and have foils put in it. I am not sure which colours yet, I will wait for the advice from the hairdresser. I am getting adventurous in my old age as before now I have never been game to get a permanent colour put in my hair, bu..... this time I am doing it.So for summer I am re inventing myself, well not really just my hair style, but that is adventurous for me.
I have spent most of this morning watching it and lovin' it. It is packed full of great stuff. And OH! what a voice! This guy is an absolute Aussie legend. The DVD starts with some of his music from the early 80's and continues on to the early 2000's. Love it, love it.
It includes some clips off his Soul Deeper album which is one of my very favourites. I love to have it on in the car when I am driving and after listening to it over and over again I never get sick of it. On the DVD you see Jimmy go from a very sexy young rocker to a mature man but still with that fantastic gutsy voice that never seems to loose its quality as he ages as you see some singers voices do. Also in the DVD there are duets of him singing with John Farnham, Michael Hutchence, Diesel, his brother in law, Tina Turner and the Badloves. I saw him recently with his daughter Mahalia, singing on a T.V.special, she too has that great gutsy voice. On this DVD there are some pictures of him with his children when they were little. He has another son in the music industry "David Campbell" who is very talented and obviously has a great portion of his father's genes. He is not such a rocker but is very well known here in Australia as a stage actor/singer. I saw them sing once together too and David can certainly hold his own up against his father's great voice. His brother "Swanee", and I have heard, his father, were musicians too.
If you want to see Jimmy Barnes in action, look him up, I know there are some clips of him on Utube. I found one of my favourite Aussie rock classics there a awhile ago called "Flame Trees" which shows him when he was very young and cute.
On another note... excuse the Pun....I like them...
I had all my hair cut off on Friday. I usually do it at the beginning of summer as my hair is very heavy and think when it gets a bit fuller and therefore hot for summer. Mum has been after me to book in and get something done to my hair for Christmas so tomorrow, Monday I have an appointment to get my hair coloured and have foils put in it. I am not sure which colours yet, I will wait for the advice from the hairdresser. I am getting adventurous in my old age as before now I have never been game to get a permanent colour put in my hair, bu..... this time I am doing it.So for summer I am re inventing myself, well not really just my hair style, but that is adventurous for me.
Saturday, 13 December 2008
I knew in an instant.....
G'Day,
Sunday Scribblings prompt for this week is "I knew in an instant.."
What did I know in an instant.
The first thing I could think of for this was when my first child was born. I knew in an instant just how someone could kill. Kill to protect their offspring, which was really shocking to me as I consider myself to be mostly a pacifist and against all that stuff, despite growing up in a military family. I thought myself a lioness ready to pounce on anyone who might harm my baby. It was really strange for me. The nurse took my newborn son away and I saw a needle poised to go into his little thigh and I nearly jumped off the bed to aggressively question what they were about to do to him. It was a vitamin K injection but I was ready to fight. I know throughout the animal world that mothers of many different species will fight and die for their babies to survive and I felt that then. It was amazing to me just how vulnerable a tiny baby is, how dependent on me this little being was and how I would protect him. Strange.Sudden strength mixed with vulnerability.
What else did I think of for this post?
Well the mundane bits of our lives may seem that way to us but not to others. So I might add a bit about that. Many a good story relys on such details to set a scene, here goes.
My day so far.
This morning I snuck out quietly so I didn't wake my Mum and have her after me.
I shut the door to the office and sat down at the computer to see if I had any emails to read and send an email to Brett my boss about extra work he has lined up for us next week. He is a good bloke and looks after us, he said he had set us up some extra work so we could have the extra money for Christmas. I still have not done that because I keep getting side tracked but yeah that is typical of me , I will get to it later.
I went through a heap of funny emails sent to me and shared them around my friends. Not everyone likes getting these, but I do, and I do consider that before I pass them on.
Then I had a look at the Sunday scribblings prompt for this week. I went away to think on it, took my blood pressure and menopause supplement tablets and went to make my first cup of tea for the day.
I found the bag of fresh Lychees that I had in the fridge (yum!) , took the cuppa and the bag out to the back table and sat down in the sunshine. It is a bit cool here today and I needed to put on a light jumper. It rained all day yesterday and it was just what the doctor ordered. Yesterday was the first time in a long while we have had such beautiful steady rain all day without a break, in fact I can't remember the last time we had that. Anyway....as I was peeling and eating the Lychees, my little doggie Rufus was watching me throw the peel and seeds over my shoulder into the garden and running after each bit until he decided that it was nothing interesting for him to scavenge and gave up. He is such a funny little fellow, he was probably puzzled that we humans eat such strange things, but if we eat them they are certainly worth a try. Then Mum started talking, and talking and talking and I retreated back to the computer.
I should go and wash the kitchen and family room floor. I should. And fold up that washing and clean the bathroom and the bedroom, and, and, and ....... But I am not I am putting my own silly entertainment first. Those jobs will still be there waiting for me, and maybe I will be in a better mood to do them later on. I am so naughty I really should go and do them now.
This afternoon Michael wants to go into the city to a protest, something about the govt censorship of the Internet. While he is there he wants to do his Christmas shopping. So Mum's taxi will be running again. It would be good if we could go in there without my Mum as she is so slow and somehow she always manages to turn every trip around so that is all about her and nobody else gets to do anything they had planned to do. If I try to do anything without her though, she gets upset. I tried to bring this up with her the other day when we were in the shops at Tuggeranong when I told her I wanted to do the rest of my Christmas shopping by myself and she got a bit funny over it. Talk about reversed parenting! She has numerous presents for my nieces, which is just about all she thinks of and keeps looking for more stuff for them and I can't get anything done. I don't have a problem with who she spends her money on, but she forgets about some of the other kids in preference to these two all the time. Don't get me wrong, I love my nieces too... but....when you keep getting it shoved down your throat how wonderful they both are....
Ah well my day so far...
Better go and do that house work.
Bye.
Love Linda.
Sunday Scribblings prompt for this week is "I knew in an instant.."
What did I know in an instant.
The first thing I could think of for this was when my first child was born. I knew in an instant just how someone could kill. Kill to protect their offspring, which was really shocking to me as I consider myself to be mostly a pacifist and against all that stuff, despite growing up in a military family. I thought myself a lioness ready to pounce on anyone who might harm my baby. It was really strange for me. The nurse took my newborn son away and I saw a needle poised to go into his little thigh and I nearly jumped off the bed to aggressively question what they were about to do to him. It was a vitamin K injection but I was ready to fight. I know throughout the animal world that mothers of many different species will fight and die for their babies to survive and I felt that then. It was amazing to me just how vulnerable a tiny baby is, how dependent on me this little being was and how I would protect him. Strange.Sudden strength mixed with vulnerability.
What else did I think of for this post?
Well the mundane bits of our lives may seem that way to us but not to others. So I might add a bit about that. Many a good story relys on such details to set a scene, here goes.
My day so far.
This morning I snuck out quietly so I didn't wake my Mum and have her after me.
I shut the door to the office and sat down at the computer to see if I had any emails to read and send an email to Brett my boss about extra work he has lined up for us next week. He is a good bloke and looks after us, he said he had set us up some extra work so we could have the extra money for Christmas. I still have not done that because I keep getting side tracked but yeah that is typical of me , I will get to it later.
I went through a heap of funny emails sent to me and shared them around my friends. Not everyone likes getting these, but I do, and I do consider that before I pass them on.
Then I had a look at the Sunday scribblings prompt for this week. I went away to think on it, took my blood pressure and menopause supplement tablets and went to make my first cup of tea for the day.
I found the bag of fresh Lychees that I had in the fridge (yum!) , took the cuppa and the bag out to the back table and sat down in the sunshine. It is a bit cool here today and I needed to put on a light jumper. It rained all day yesterday and it was just what the doctor ordered. Yesterday was the first time in a long while we have had such beautiful steady rain all day without a break, in fact I can't remember the last time we had that. Anyway....as I was peeling and eating the Lychees, my little doggie Rufus was watching me throw the peel and seeds over my shoulder into the garden and running after each bit until he decided that it was nothing interesting for him to scavenge and gave up. He is such a funny little fellow, he was probably puzzled that we humans eat such strange things, but if we eat them they are certainly worth a try. Then Mum started talking, and talking and talking and I retreated back to the computer.
I should go and wash the kitchen and family room floor. I should. And fold up that washing and clean the bathroom and the bedroom, and, and, and ....... But I am not I am putting my own silly entertainment first. Those jobs will still be there waiting for me, and maybe I will be in a better mood to do them later on. I am so naughty I really should go and do them now.
This afternoon Michael wants to go into the city to a protest, something about the govt censorship of the Internet. While he is there he wants to do his Christmas shopping. So Mum's taxi will be running again. It would be good if we could go in there without my Mum as she is so slow and somehow she always manages to turn every trip around so that is all about her and nobody else gets to do anything they had planned to do. If I try to do anything without her though, she gets upset. I tried to bring this up with her the other day when we were in the shops at Tuggeranong when I told her I wanted to do the rest of my Christmas shopping by myself and she got a bit funny over it. Talk about reversed parenting! She has numerous presents for my nieces, which is just about all she thinks of and keeps looking for more stuff for them and I can't get anything done. I don't have a problem with who she spends her money on, but she forgets about some of the other kids in preference to these two all the time. Don't get me wrong, I love my nieces too... but....when you keep getting it shoved down your throat how wonderful they both are....
Ah well my day so far...
Better go and do that house work.
Bye.
Love Linda.
Saturday, 6 December 2008
Sunday Scribblings, Traditions.
G'Day,
The Sunday Scribblings prompt for this week is "Traditions"
Appropriate since we are approaching the time of year that is most steeped in traditions all over the world. Christmas.
But.
One of the prompts I read was by Liza who put up a film clip of the song Traditions from the Fiddler on the Roof movie.
It got me thinking, in my own round about way, of the traditions that we enforce on our children within our families.
There is a lot about this subject floating about. In many different forms.
I think that today we have moved away from a lot of the traditional roles that men and women have had in the past and these changes have in turn altered our society greatly. One reason being that to keep up with our standard of living requires two wages coming in to the house. Mum works outside the home.But to do this she has to have childcare services. The government will give her a subsidy to pay for said childcare, if it is with a registered childcare organization, so the children are taken away from their home environment to outside care. And because the government has done this, childcare is arranged through businesses that can cause the care to be very expensive for families to afford. Most probably grandma is still in the workforce for the same reason so she is unavailable for childcare as well.
The results of this social change , whether right or wrong will no doubt be seen in its effects on this generation as they age and become adults themselves. We will see.
I must admit I am taken in by today's consumer society and have followed the path of being outside the home to supplement the family finances and therefore uphold a decent, though not highly paid, standard of living for my family. I can well remember the days when we scrimped to buy basics for the kids and went without ourselves and I don't want to have to go back to that again.
I started work when my eldest son was 8 years old and my youngest child was about 18 months old and have been working ever since. I was lucky though there were no govt. subsidies to be had in those days so my Mum and Dad looked after my daughter for me.The boys had a teenage neighbour stay after school until I came home.
My eldest son was a monster of a kid and always up to some sort of mischief. I felt that he would punish me when I walked in the door after work for not being there for him when he got home from school in the afternoons, by being really naughty. The other two kids seemed to go with the flow much easier than he has done. I do not know if my working affected him badly or helped because of the rise in our standard of living. Either way mother guilt is a drag isn't it. I still get it and question myself over it.A myriad of questions over what could have caused his depression.
On another note, but the same subject., is gender roles that we enforce on our children. For example little boys traditionally play with trucks, little girls play with dolls. I don't know if we can actually be blamed for enforcing these as the different sexes do have preferences for different toys. Without much prompting they seem to choose these things for themselves.Girls are nurturers, boys are warriors, type of thing. There are of course, lots of differences in personal tastes to be taken into consideration here too. But, I reckon we are made different, we are built different, we are meant to be different, and we are different to complement each other. So woman's liberation aside, we will always be different.
I know that the traditional gender specific roles that were taught to me as a child have pigeon holed what I am today but they have also helped me to prepare for those roles. I am the person who looks after every one else. Mum, wife, sister, aunt, daughter, friend, employee, cleaner, etc etc. I have always done so. Even as a child I was the kid at the party or B.B.Q. or what ever, that had the job of looking after the younger kids.
This is a subject that I could write a lot about, so I had better stop before I ramble on and on and get diverted to strange places.
Bye
Love Linda.
The Sunday Scribblings prompt for this week is "Traditions"
Appropriate since we are approaching the time of year that is most steeped in traditions all over the world. Christmas.
But.
One of the prompts I read was by Liza who put up a film clip of the song Traditions from the Fiddler on the Roof movie.
It got me thinking, in my own round about way, of the traditions that we enforce on our children within our families.
There is a lot about this subject floating about. In many different forms.
I think that today we have moved away from a lot of the traditional roles that men and women have had in the past and these changes have in turn altered our society greatly. One reason being that to keep up with our standard of living requires two wages coming in to the house. Mum works outside the home.But to do this she has to have childcare services. The government will give her a subsidy to pay for said childcare, if it is with a registered childcare organization, so the children are taken away from their home environment to outside care. And because the government has done this, childcare is arranged through businesses that can cause the care to be very expensive for families to afford. Most probably grandma is still in the workforce for the same reason so she is unavailable for childcare as well.
The results of this social change , whether right or wrong will no doubt be seen in its effects on this generation as they age and become adults themselves. We will see.
I must admit I am taken in by today's consumer society and have followed the path of being outside the home to supplement the family finances and therefore uphold a decent, though not highly paid, standard of living for my family. I can well remember the days when we scrimped to buy basics for the kids and went without ourselves and I don't want to have to go back to that again.
I started work when my eldest son was 8 years old and my youngest child was about 18 months old and have been working ever since. I was lucky though there were no govt. subsidies to be had in those days so my Mum and Dad looked after my daughter for me.The boys had a teenage neighbour stay after school until I came home.
My eldest son was a monster of a kid and always up to some sort of mischief. I felt that he would punish me when I walked in the door after work for not being there for him when he got home from school in the afternoons, by being really naughty. The other two kids seemed to go with the flow much easier than he has done. I do not know if my working affected him badly or helped because of the rise in our standard of living. Either way mother guilt is a drag isn't it. I still get it and question myself over it.A myriad of questions over what could have caused his depression.
On another note, but the same subject., is gender roles that we enforce on our children. For example little boys traditionally play with trucks, little girls play with dolls. I don't know if we can actually be blamed for enforcing these as the different sexes do have preferences for different toys. Without much prompting they seem to choose these things for themselves.Girls are nurturers, boys are warriors, type of thing. There are of course, lots of differences in personal tastes to be taken into consideration here too. But, I reckon we are made different, we are built different, we are meant to be different, and we are different to complement each other. So woman's liberation aside, we will always be different.
I know that the traditional gender specific roles that were taught to me as a child have pigeon holed what I am today but they have also helped me to prepare for those roles. I am the person who looks after every one else. Mum, wife, sister, aunt, daughter, friend, employee, cleaner, etc etc. I have always done so. Even as a child I was the kid at the party or B.B.Q. or what ever, that had the job of looking after the younger kids.
This is a subject that I could write a lot about, so I had better stop before I ramble on and on and get diverted to strange places.
Bye
Love Linda.
Monday, 1 December 2008
G'Day,
Today is Monday. I am over the weekend and went back to work again this afternoon.
I took Mum to the hospital this morning to have a CT scan done on her adrenal gland. It is larger than it should be and the Dr wanted to measure it and compare the scan to one she had taken about 5 months ago.
We had to be there for the test at 8.00 so allowing an hour and a half for her to get ready, (yes she does need that long) and a 20 minute drive, we needed to get up at 6.00. That is pretty early for us. By the time it came to 2.00, which is when I leave here to start work, all I wanted to do was go to bed for a granny nap. But, I got my work done and am home again.
On Sunday the Tuggeranong community festival was on so I took Mum to have a look at it. There wasn't a real lot to interest me there in the afternoon so we just had a wander about. Rufus went with us to the park to have a look at the festival too and he was most excited to see other doggies and smell the food vans there. Plus the scraps that people had thrown on the ground, I had to take things out of his mouth several times before he ate them. You never can be sure what he might have picked up. Anyway, food and other doggies sent him into an excitement overload and he had a ball checking everything out. Mum hasn't been too well so we didn't walk very far.
In the evening at the festival there was a freebie concert on so when Pete got home from work we went back in there to see that. The headline act was Joe Camelleri, from the Black Sorrows. His earlier band was known as Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons.They have been around the Aussie music scene since the early 1970's that I know of, and allowing for different line ups have never been out of work. They have been one of my favourite old Aussie rock bands for a long time. Joe is very clever and plays a variety of instruments. Last night he sung as well as played the Sax, harmonica and guitar , a good entertainer. He has a great version of the old "Brown Eyed Girl" song which was one of the ones they played last night. Some of the other songs they had that were hits here are "Harley and Rose", "Hit and Run", oh there were heaps of them. Anyway he has not lost anything musically as he has aged and they still put on a great show. I had some of their music long ago on cassette, but as I don't have a cassette player any more, today I bought a best of type C.D. of theirs to listen to in the car. I saw them live once before at the Tumbafest weekend in Tumbarumba.
What was really nice last night at the festival though, was watching the crowd and the kids playing. The parents there were spending quality time with their kids.They had a nice fireworks show on after the concert on the edge of the lake.
There was one family that decided the one and only place that they should stand to watch the show was directly in front of us.There was lots of space all around but they propped themselves right there. That is so annoying! I sat there for a while and coughed a few times but they were oblivious so I took my chair and plonked it right back down beside where they stood and made a point of almost putting it on the woman's foot. I think they got the message, but with people like that you never know. I am getting rude in my old age and becoming a cranky old woman.
I got a few more Chrissie presents this morning after Mum and I left the hospital. I also bought a pair of 3/4 length pants for myself and a small bottle of perfumed oil which I have now decided I am not keen on so I have to find it another home. It is funny how you can try a perfume in the shop but when you get it home you don't like it anymore. Ah well.
I might have some extra work on Thursday cleaning a house renovation. I will look forward to that and the bit of extra money it will give me for Christmas.
The weather has been mild over the last few days, cool enough at times to wear a light jacket. Tomorrow they have predicted a temperature of 24 C. Mum has an appointment at the podiatrist in the morning so I will have another full day.
It must be time for bed. Good night.
Love Linda.
Today is Monday. I am over the weekend and went back to work again this afternoon.
I took Mum to the hospital this morning to have a CT scan done on her adrenal gland. It is larger than it should be and the Dr wanted to measure it and compare the scan to one she had taken about 5 months ago.
We had to be there for the test at 8.00 so allowing an hour and a half for her to get ready, (yes she does need that long) and a 20 minute drive, we needed to get up at 6.00. That is pretty early for us. By the time it came to 2.00, which is when I leave here to start work, all I wanted to do was go to bed for a granny nap. But, I got my work done and am home again.
On Sunday the Tuggeranong community festival was on so I took Mum to have a look at it. There wasn't a real lot to interest me there in the afternoon so we just had a wander about. Rufus went with us to the park to have a look at the festival too and he was most excited to see other doggies and smell the food vans there. Plus the scraps that people had thrown on the ground, I had to take things out of his mouth several times before he ate them. You never can be sure what he might have picked up. Anyway, food and other doggies sent him into an excitement overload and he had a ball checking everything out. Mum hasn't been too well so we didn't walk very far.
In the evening at the festival there was a freebie concert on so when Pete got home from work we went back in there to see that. The headline act was Joe Camelleri, from the Black Sorrows. His earlier band was known as Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons.They have been around the Aussie music scene since the early 1970's that I know of, and allowing for different line ups have never been out of work. They have been one of my favourite old Aussie rock bands for a long time. Joe is very clever and plays a variety of instruments. Last night he sung as well as played the Sax, harmonica and guitar , a good entertainer. He has a great version of the old "Brown Eyed Girl" song which was one of the ones they played last night. Some of the other songs they had that were hits here are "Harley and Rose", "Hit and Run", oh there were heaps of them. Anyway he has not lost anything musically as he has aged and they still put on a great show. I had some of their music long ago on cassette, but as I don't have a cassette player any more, today I bought a best of type C.D. of theirs to listen to in the car. I saw them live once before at the Tumbafest weekend in Tumbarumba.
What was really nice last night at the festival though, was watching the crowd and the kids playing. The parents there were spending quality time with their kids.They had a nice fireworks show on after the concert on the edge of the lake.
There was one family that decided the one and only place that they should stand to watch the show was directly in front of us.There was lots of space all around but they propped themselves right there. That is so annoying! I sat there for a while and coughed a few times but they were oblivious so I took my chair and plonked it right back down beside where they stood and made a point of almost putting it on the woman's foot. I think they got the message, but with people like that you never know. I am getting rude in my old age and becoming a cranky old woman.
I got a few more Chrissie presents this morning after Mum and I left the hospital. I also bought a pair of 3/4 length pants for myself and a small bottle of perfumed oil which I have now decided I am not keen on so I have to find it another home. It is funny how you can try a perfume in the shop but when you get it home you don't like it anymore. Ah well.
I might have some extra work on Thursday cleaning a house renovation. I will look forward to that and the bit of extra money it will give me for Christmas.
The weather has been mild over the last few days, cool enough at times to wear a light jacket. Tomorrow they have predicted a temperature of 24 C. Mum has an appointment at the podiatrist in the morning so I will have another full day.
It must be time for bed. Good night.
Love Linda.
Saturday, 29 November 2008
Sunday Scribblings, A Winter Story.
G'Day,
How are things at your house? Getting cold , or are you expecting things to get warm like I am here in the southern hemisphere? We are of course just a day away from the first official day of summer. But.... since the prompt for this week is winter, here is my blaze' little addition.
Winter time,
And the livin' is freezy,
Fish are crunchin',
And the cotton is brown,
Mum's a bitch,
And your Daddy's gone looking,
So clutch little baby,
Won't you cry.
Now really, that's not very nice is it? Either is winter to me, I was born in a heat wave, and I don't like being cold, especially now that I have aches and pains from arthritis to put up with. Though I do enjoy the fresh cold winter time air filling my lungs outdoors, as compared to the humid or sometimes stifling heated air we get in the summer here.
Winter here, where I am is pretty cold, but not so cold as it is in parts of the northern hemisphere where they get feet of snow and ice. The mountains in Australia do get snow for probably 4 months of the year, if they're lucky, and the mountains are not that far away from us. Just a few hours drive. From here, we can see some snow on the mountains for a little while in winter. When that wind blows off the snow it cuts into you and bites through your clothes. The closest snow to here in is an area called the Corrin forest. I think that is how you spell it.
Um, a winter story.
When I was in my teens we often went to the snow from where we were living in Wagga. We would go to either Mt Selwyn which was the closest or sometimes down into Victoria to Mount Buffalo or Falls creek. That was good fun but being the wimp that I am, a few hours playing there and I would want to get warm again. We would hire snow chains, boots and plastic toboggans to play with and ride on the ski lifts, but I never tried skiing.
When we first started going up there we used to take a plastic baby bath to slide down hill in and make our own toboggan runs because the proper ones were not made and groomed like they are now. We took thick plastic garbage bags that we had to coax eagerly down the hills sitting on our bums to make them slide, when they got moving it was fun, albeit, a bit of a rough ride. Consequently one or the other of us always came home with skin off or bruised bits somewhere on our body.
One time my friend Sandra slid down the track we had made on a steep bank in the soft snow, but she went off course and was stopped suddenly with both legs and arms wrapped around a tree.
Another time an old boyfriend, Robert, took us girls up there and he hit a rock that was covered over with snow and smashed his leg, he was the only driver amongst us too. Also on the way home on the same trip the bonnet on his car flew up and got stuck, blocking all vision, that was pretty scary until we came to a stop. Robert was well known for his bomb cars, but was he good fun anyway. Another time I went as a chaperone on a school bus full of 13 and 14 yr olds to Falls creek and was walking along a bank and fell through the branches of a covered over bush and got stuck, that was pretty funny. I must have been 17 myself, old enough to chaperone, he he. There was heaps of snow that year and it was just about a white out by the time we left.
Nowadays tourism is a big industry in winter up there and for your own comfort you pay stupid prices to hire just about everything , and forget accommodation, from what I have heard it is overpriced and I wouldn't bother.
I have not been up to the ski resort areas for a number of years but I saw a bit of light snow on the drive we went on last weekend, just 1 week away from the start of summer. I heard on the news that they got 20cm at Thredbo that weekend. Weird.
So yeah I do know what winter is like. I have felt the way snow flays against your face and stings when it is falling heavily like it could cut your skin. I know what it is like to have feet in inappropriate footwear, like sneakers and they pain and go numb and you can't wait to get warm again, and your fingers in wet soggy woolen gloves, and that if you wear your new denim jeans in the snow it bleaches the colour out and dyes your legs denim blue. Then you end up with a pair of jeans with a white bum and knees in them, he he.
We took the boys to the snow for the first time when they were about 2 and 4, before we had Annie. They loved the idea of us towing them around in the toboggan but were much more interested in tasting and eating the snow than actually getting out in it. It was good fun though. Experiencing with them their first snow trip.
When the boys were a bit older and we had moved into our Junee house, one of the tricks I would use to get them out of bed on cold mornings to go to school was, we would go out the front yard to the bird bath and get the disk of solid ice and use it to bowl down the center of the road and down the hill. To much giggling and excited jumping up and down when the ice rolled all the way to the bottom of the hill.
But I love summer, you can have much more fun finding ways to keep cool, especially near water and the beautiful weather of the between seasons in spring and autumn.
How are things at your house? Getting cold , or are you expecting things to get warm like I am here in the southern hemisphere? We are of course just a day away from the first official day of summer. But.... since the prompt for this week is winter, here is my blaze' little addition.
Winter time,
And the livin' is freezy,
Fish are crunchin',
And the cotton is brown,
Mum's a bitch,
And your Daddy's gone looking,
So clutch little baby,
Won't you cry.
Now really, that's not very nice is it? Either is winter to me, I was born in a heat wave, and I don't like being cold, especially now that I have aches and pains from arthritis to put up with. Though I do enjoy the fresh cold winter time air filling my lungs outdoors, as compared to the humid or sometimes stifling heated air we get in the summer here.
Winter here, where I am is pretty cold, but not so cold as it is in parts of the northern hemisphere where they get feet of snow and ice. The mountains in Australia do get snow for probably 4 months of the year, if they're lucky, and the mountains are not that far away from us. Just a few hours drive. From here, we can see some snow on the mountains for a little while in winter. When that wind blows off the snow it cuts into you and bites through your clothes. The closest snow to here in is an area called the Corrin forest. I think that is how you spell it.
Um, a winter story.
When I was in my teens we often went to the snow from where we were living in Wagga. We would go to either Mt Selwyn which was the closest or sometimes down into Victoria to Mount Buffalo or Falls creek. That was good fun but being the wimp that I am, a few hours playing there and I would want to get warm again. We would hire snow chains, boots and plastic toboggans to play with and ride on the ski lifts, but I never tried skiing.
When we first started going up there we used to take a plastic baby bath to slide down hill in and make our own toboggan runs because the proper ones were not made and groomed like they are now. We took thick plastic garbage bags that we had to coax eagerly down the hills sitting on our bums to make them slide, when they got moving it was fun, albeit, a bit of a rough ride. Consequently one or the other of us always came home with skin off or bruised bits somewhere on our body.
One time my friend Sandra slid down the track we had made on a steep bank in the soft snow, but she went off course and was stopped suddenly with both legs and arms wrapped around a tree.
Another time an old boyfriend, Robert, took us girls up there and he hit a rock that was covered over with snow and smashed his leg, he was the only driver amongst us too. Also on the way home on the same trip the bonnet on his car flew up and got stuck, blocking all vision, that was pretty scary until we came to a stop. Robert was well known for his bomb cars, but was he good fun anyway. Another time I went as a chaperone on a school bus full of 13 and 14 yr olds to Falls creek and was walking along a bank and fell through the branches of a covered over bush and got stuck, that was pretty funny. I must have been 17 myself, old enough to chaperone, he he. There was heaps of snow that year and it was just about a white out by the time we left.
Nowadays tourism is a big industry in winter up there and for your own comfort you pay stupid prices to hire just about everything , and forget accommodation, from what I have heard it is overpriced and I wouldn't bother.
I have not been up to the ski resort areas for a number of years but I saw a bit of light snow on the drive we went on last weekend, just 1 week away from the start of summer. I heard on the news that they got 20cm at Thredbo that weekend. Weird.
So yeah I do know what winter is like. I have felt the way snow flays against your face and stings when it is falling heavily like it could cut your skin. I know what it is like to have feet in inappropriate footwear, like sneakers and they pain and go numb and you can't wait to get warm again, and your fingers in wet soggy woolen gloves, and that if you wear your new denim jeans in the snow it bleaches the colour out and dyes your legs denim blue. Then you end up with a pair of jeans with a white bum and knees in them, he he.
We took the boys to the snow for the first time when they were about 2 and 4, before we had Annie. They loved the idea of us towing them around in the toboggan but were much more interested in tasting and eating the snow than actually getting out in it. It was good fun though. Experiencing with them their first snow trip.
When the boys were a bit older and we had moved into our Junee house, one of the tricks I would use to get them out of bed on cold mornings to go to school was, we would go out the front yard to the bird bath and get the disk of solid ice and use it to bowl down the center of the road and down the hill. To much giggling and excited jumping up and down when the ice rolled all the way to the bottom of the hill.
But I love summer, you can have much more fun finding ways to keep cool, especially near water and the beautiful weather of the between seasons in spring and autumn.
Saturday, 22 November 2008
Sunday Scribblings, Grateful.
G'Day,
As you see above the prompt for this weekend is Grateful.
Love it!
The easiest one I have seen for some time. As soon as I saw it I knew just what I wanted to say.
Here Ti's!
Grateful.
I am grateful for living in such a
Wonderful
Beautiful
Amazing
World.
We do don't we? Live in a world like that, I mean.
Do you know the song "Let there be Love"?
The version I know is sung by Natalie Cole. Nat King Cole's baby girl. Look it up and listen to the words. Lovely.
I am sure you would feel like me too if you had just had the lovely day I have had.
Yesterday was my birthday and my daughter and second son came to visit me but they had to go back to Wagga this morning. I was sad to see them go.
I thought Lindy you can turn this around. You don't have to go home today. Take yourself out for the rest of the day.
I did.
I filled up the car with petrol with just about the last of my money from this weeks pay and Mum, Peter and I went for a drive.We went along the Monaro Highway as far as Cooma and it was yucky weather so we decided that we may as well stay in the car so I kept driving. I turned left towards the coast and through the highlands and down to Bega. We visited the cheese factory there and spent the best part of an hour enjoying a fruit and cheese platter before taking the road north along the coast to Batemans bay and up the Clyde mountain and back to Canberra. It took us about 7 hrs and was just lovely. There were no kids to tell me they didn't like my music so I got to listen and sing along to my old favorites. My little car went like a dream and only used just over half a tank of petrol for the 540 something km that were registered on the trip meter. That was good considering it was going up and down mountains. I love getting up in those types of areas driving along in my car, the scenery is beautiful up there. Especially when you come down the escarpment into the bright green covered foothills of the south coast thta is an area well known as dairy country. Around Cooma and Nimitibel there was a bit of snow on the ground and it was snowing quite well for a while, but not enough to worry about driving and dangerous road conditions. Which is quite a novelty for this time of year when it is starting to get warm everywhere.There was a car full of people in front of us for a while up there who were sight seeing, and had a Northern Territory number plate so I bet it was a novelty for them too.
We also stopped at my pretty little beach just below Bateman's bay so I could put my feet on the sand. Tomakin. It was a bit cold and windy there but I stood and watched a big slate gray storm in action out over the sea. I love the way the colors of the ocean change with the weather. Today it was a blue/gray/ green/aqua in the shallows graduating into a slatey /blue /gray further out into the deeper waters.The sand was firm from the rain and I walked a little way along it without having to take my shoes off. Not too far though as Mum was getting cold and took off back to the shelter of the car.
When I have been away from the sea for a while I actually crave the smells and colours and sound that the ocean makes and get sentimental about it. Not because I want to immerse myself in it, I am not an adventurous swimmer and who wants to see a body like this in such places but just because....
So today I am grateful for the world we all live in and I am full of love for my husband Pete after listening to and singing along in the car with him to our favourite old love songs. I have love and I love the world. Be happy.
And... I forgot my camera!
As you see above the prompt for this weekend is Grateful.
Love it!
The easiest one I have seen for some time. As soon as I saw it I knew just what I wanted to say.
Here Ti's!
Grateful.
I am grateful for living in such a
Wonderful
Beautiful
Amazing
World.
We do don't we? Live in a world like that, I mean.
Do you know the song "Let there be Love"?
The version I know is sung by Natalie Cole. Nat King Cole's baby girl. Look it up and listen to the words. Lovely.
I am sure you would feel like me too if you had just had the lovely day I have had.
Yesterday was my birthday and my daughter and second son came to visit me but they had to go back to Wagga this morning. I was sad to see them go.
I thought Lindy you can turn this around. You don't have to go home today. Take yourself out for the rest of the day.
I did.
I filled up the car with petrol with just about the last of my money from this weeks pay and Mum, Peter and I went for a drive.We went along the Monaro Highway as far as Cooma and it was yucky weather so we decided that we may as well stay in the car so I kept driving. I turned left towards the coast and through the highlands and down to Bega. We visited the cheese factory there and spent the best part of an hour enjoying a fruit and cheese platter before taking the road north along the coast to Batemans bay and up the Clyde mountain and back to Canberra. It took us about 7 hrs and was just lovely. There were no kids to tell me they didn't like my music so I got to listen and sing along to my old favorites. My little car went like a dream and only used just over half a tank of petrol for the 540 something km that were registered on the trip meter. That was good considering it was going up and down mountains. I love getting up in those types of areas driving along in my car, the scenery is beautiful up there. Especially when you come down the escarpment into the bright green covered foothills of the south coast thta is an area well known as dairy country. Around Cooma and Nimitibel there was a bit of snow on the ground and it was snowing quite well for a while, but not enough to worry about driving and dangerous road conditions. Which is quite a novelty for this time of year when it is starting to get warm everywhere.There was a car full of people in front of us for a while up there who were sight seeing, and had a Northern Territory number plate so I bet it was a novelty for them too.
We also stopped at my pretty little beach just below Bateman's bay so I could put my feet on the sand. Tomakin. It was a bit cold and windy there but I stood and watched a big slate gray storm in action out over the sea. I love the way the colors of the ocean change with the weather. Today it was a blue/gray/ green/aqua in the shallows graduating into a slatey /blue /gray further out into the deeper waters.The sand was firm from the rain and I walked a little way along it without having to take my shoes off. Not too far though as Mum was getting cold and took off back to the shelter of the car.
When I have been away from the sea for a while I actually crave the smells and colours and sound that the ocean makes and get sentimental about it. Not because I want to immerse myself in it, I am not an adventurous swimmer and who wants to see a body like this in such places but just because....
So today I am grateful for the world we all live in and I am full of love for my husband Pete after listening to and singing along in the car with him to our favourite old love songs. I have love and I love the world. Be happy.
And... I forgot my camera!
Friday, 21 November 2008
November 21st, 2008
G'Day,
Today is my birthday. I am now 49 years old. Yep gettin' older. Nearly over the hill. Not until next year though. I bought myself a nice shirt yesterday at lunchtime for a present, so now I have something new to wear out if I go somewhere.
We cleaned Zeffirelli's restaurant yesterday ans one day last week. It had a fire and had been refurbished. Everything was covered in plaster dust. I hate plaster dust. It is so hard to get rid of. It makes my hair stand on end by the end of the day and I can't wait to get home and straight in the shower.
The floor there was a real pain. It was scrubbed with the big machine, not by me, it was still smeary. It was wet scrubbed again with the small machine, not by me, it was still smeary, it was mopped and rinsed numerous times, it was still smeary. I left there at 12.30, it was still smeary. The tiles they put down were slip proof ones and so the surface held on to the dust really well. I am sure the manufacturers of the tiles saw us poor sucker cleaners coming a mile off. , he he.
I lugged boxes of left over tiles and soft drinks from place to place over the last few days there and so last night my arm and shoulder played up all night,(pinched nerve in neck. I have panadol and dencorub to thank for what sleep I did get. But I feel o.k. today. No extra work today, just the normal hours, so that is o.k.
We had some lovely showers over the last few days that have watered my garden for free. Today it is bright and sunny and cool. I think it is in the low 20's. Nice. We had a few days last week in the low thirties so this is a nice reprieve before summer hits.
I bought my first Christmas present yesterday at lunchtime. So I have made a start. Albeit a late one for Christmas. I must get on to the Christmas card writing so I can send them out from my new address as people I haven't heard from for a while don't know the address and Paula, who now has our old house, does not have to redirect them.
That is about all for this post today. I will be back in here on the weekend for my Sunday Scribblings.
Bye
Love Linda.
Today is my birthday. I am now 49 years old. Yep gettin' older. Nearly over the hill. Not until next year though. I bought myself a nice shirt yesterday at lunchtime for a present, so now I have something new to wear out if I go somewhere.
We cleaned Zeffirelli's restaurant yesterday ans one day last week. It had a fire and had been refurbished. Everything was covered in plaster dust. I hate plaster dust. It is so hard to get rid of. It makes my hair stand on end by the end of the day and I can't wait to get home and straight in the shower.
The floor there was a real pain. It was scrubbed with the big machine, not by me, it was still smeary. It was wet scrubbed again with the small machine, not by me, it was still smeary, it was mopped and rinsed numerous times, it was still smeary. I left there at 12.30, it was still smeary. The tiles they put down were slip proof ones and so the surface held on to the dust really well. I am sure the manufacturers of the tiles saw us poor sucker cleaners coming a mile off. , he he.
I lugged boxes of left over tiles and soft drinks from place to place over the last few days there and so last night my arm and shoulder played up all night,(pinched nerve in neck. I have panadol and dencorub to thank for what sleep I did get. But I feel o.k. today. No extra work today, just the normal hours, so that is o.k.
We had some lovely showers over the last few days that have watered my garden for free. Today it is bright and sunny and cool. I think it is in the low 20's. Nice. We had a few days last week in the low thirties so this is a nice reprieve before summer hits.
I bought my first Christmas present yesterday at lunchtime. So I have made a start. Albeit a late one for Christmas. I must get on to the Christmas card writing so I can send them out from my new address as people I haven't heard from for a while don't know the address and Paula, who now has our old house, does not have to redirect them.
That is about all for this post today. I will be back in here on the weekend for my Sunday Scribblings.
Bye
Love Linda.
Saturday, 15 November 2008
Sunday Scribblings, Stranger.
Little patio rose in a pot that came with me from Junee.Above and below.
The next picture is for my blogging friend Merle.She loves Pelregoniums.
This one is on my back table at the moment.
below, Margurite.
Below, Boo, close up.
G'Day,
The "Sunday Scribblings prompt" for this weekend is "Stranger". Hmm I like where my mind went with this one. :)
My first thought was one of my very favourite songs. "The Stranger" by Billy Joel, he is one of my favourite artists of all time and I love his lyrics. But this song says something special. I think most people would know the song. About recognizing the different parts of us that we might not always show. That's my take anyway.
Which in turn leads me on to "I bet my sense of humor is "Stranger" than yours. He he." Indeed there have been times in my life that I thought my sense of humor had gone all together, and I had forgotten how to laugh.
I often laugh at things that other people don't when my mind runs off on some strange tangent.
Anyway.........
Here are a few anecdotes of things that have cracked me up over the last few weeks.
A while ago I was cleaning the office that we do each weekday evening, daydreaming and trying to hurry myself along as I usually need to do.
I put the hose into the mop bucket and turned it on then remembered I had put the mop outside in the tree to dry over the weekend and so I turned the tap down to slow and went out the back door to retrieve it. The back door of course slammed shut. I called out to my son as loud as I could manage but he had left the area and didn't hear me. There is a keypad on the door that you have to put in a number to open and of course in my panic, (bucket is in hose, tap is running Linda!) I couldn't find the numbers in the dark to punch into the lock. So I sprinted all the way around to the other side of the building where the door was open.
Wow that was good! I did not know I could still run like that.
Sprinted through the building back to the bucket and hose. The water was about an inch from the top so I breathed a sigh of relief.
I lifted the bucket to empty some of the water out of it
Of course it couldn't be that simple.
The bucket was much to heavy for me to lift up to the height of the sink and I tipped it down the front of myself. The water was HOT. I cracked up laughing at myself. Then I had to mop up about 3 litres of water from the kitchen floor. That floor had never been so clean!
When I told other people about it they did not find it something to laugh about. Maybe it is all in the delivery of the story. I am not very good at telling jokes.Verbally.
And yesterday.......
We were cleaning a restaurant in Dickson which had been refitted after fire damage. There were 5 of us working together on it as well as other tradesmen, painters, electricians etc. Anyway.....just before we left there there was a painter on a ladder going along one wall near us. He was one one of those funny ladders that have a sloping bit near the top and no side stays so that he could make it walk along the floor by opening and closing his legs and snapping it shut and open. I cracked up laughing because each time it snapped open and shut, it closed at the top like a pair of big pincers and it was just it was just 2 inches away from his ....um....privates. My imagination runs riot. He he he.The other person I pointed it out to was a male, he did not find it funny, but he did smirk........ it must have shocked him that a woman would bring that to his attention, especially since I was the only woman there.
Well, I bet my imagination is stranger than yours too!
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
Funny.
G'Day again.
Whooo Lindy Lou two posts in one day.
I just thought of something funny that happened last week at one of the schools and I wanted to share because it made me laugh.
My son and I had just finished our jobs at one of the schools we go to when a group of kindergarten boys ran up from the oval. One little boy stopped dead in his tracks and stared at my son for a moment and then nudged his mate and said in awe "Hey look there is a Chewbacca!". My son has long brown hair and a bearded face. Chewbacca is the alien character out of the star wars films with brown hair all over his face and about is 7 ft tall.
Cracked me up! Michael also thought it was a great joke. One of the young teachers was nearby, heard the exchange, and was laughing too. I guess he would look pretty big if you were just 5 or 6 years old. He he.
Whooo Lindy Lou two posts in one day.
I just thought of something funny that happened last week at one of the schools and I wanted to share because it made me laugh.
My son and I had just finished our jobs at one of the schools we go to when a group of kindergarten boys ran up from the oval. One little boy stopped dead in his tracks and stared at my son for a moment and then nudged his mate and said in awe "Hey look there is a Chewbacca!". My son has long brown hair and a bearded face. Chewbacca is the alien character out of the star wars films with brown hair all over his face and about is 7 ft tall.
Cracked me up! Michael also thought it was a great joke. One of the young teachers was nearby, heard the exchange, and was laughing too. I guess he would look pretty big if you were just 5 or 6 years old. He he.
11th hour,11th day 11th month. Lest We Forget.
G'Day,
Today is remembrance day. This morning I happened to be in the supermarket just near our house getting a few things we had run out of. They had over the speaker system that it was 11 o'clock and that anybody who wished to participate should please stop what they were doing and have the one minute silence that is held each year to commemorate remembrance day each year.I was proud to see most if not all of the shoppers stand still for the one minute allotted. The young males working in the shop distributing goods did not bother.Ah well.
It seems to me though that just one minute a year on this special day is just a small thing and hardly enough to recognize that sacrifice of the world war one servicemen who lost their lives during that terrible time.
Because it is spring time here there are Flanders Poppies in flower. I have seen quite a few around and it is lovely that they are in flower here at the right time of year for remembrance day.I have some planted in the garden in my back yard but they have not been in for long enough to flower even though they are doing well. Maybe next year they will be and then they can drop their seed to come up again each year after...for remembrance day.
Last Sunday Pete, Mum and I went out to the Gundaroo Bush Festival. Gundaroo is a small town just out of Canberra that is within commuting distance, so the real estate reflects that but it is still a nice little bush town. There are a few good potters living and working out there too but I didn't get to visit them.
There were heaps of people out there and they had the main street blocked off for the event so we had to walk quite a way from the car park to the events which was a bit too far for Mum and she had a bit of trouble with her poor old legs swelling up, but she is O.k. again now. Anyway there were lots of stalls to sticky beak at and a pie fight, shearing, dog trials and obstacle courses, art exhibitions, but funniest of them all was a terrier race.The race was held in 2 heats crossing over he ,main street on a course set out of about 50 metres. Most of the doggies in it were either Jack Russells or mixtures of fox terrier breeds. One little doggie looked like he was a cross between a Jack Russel and a Chihuahua. Anyway he was the clear winner, it was so funny. One girl that had him took him up to the finish line. He wasn't impressed by being taken away from what was obviously his beloved mistress. She stood up at the end of the race and called him and he took off like a bullet straight back to her.All of the other dogs in the race were more interested in the crowd of the other participants in the race but eventually got to the finish line. One little scruffy, fat, old dog was a veteran race r and knew exactly what was expected of him though, it was so funny, he waddled down the course to much applause and laughter , he just took a bit of time to get there. He wasn't last because he knew just what was expected of him but he was the very happy and pleased with himself third place winner. I was so pleased that we did not take our Jack Russell doggie, Rufus, with us as he would not have been able to contain himself with all the other doggies around and would have caused havoc wanting to fight the other dogs. He is much too naughty and has not been socialized to be in close range of strange doggies.
Yesterday we had such a topsy turvy day. Michael and I went to Duntroon again to clean a house that was being refurbished. And O'Boy what a house.It is the fourth one we have done there. I saw a little pramed pic of the house with info that said the house was built in 1911. It had the most gorgeous garden. It was shaded by very old big trees and had a beautiful understory of garden beds full of flowers. I want a garden like that, please, for christmas.
We left there and went to our other regular jobs at about 1.30 which gave us time to sit at the nearby shops and have a cup of tea in the sun. Then went on to our third job of the day were we got a phone call from my hubby Pete who had gone for a ride to visit someone on his bike for the afternoon and broken down. It was about 4.30. Doug, the boss where we were said I had better go and get him. He was out past Murrumbateman, a small village on the Yass side of Canberra and about 3/4 of an hour drive from where I was. I got out there and the bike stared again to go about 1km down the road and stopped dead . So I went back into Murrumbateman and the mechanic in town had gone home for the day, I rang him and he said that he didn't have a trailer to bring the bike back into town or any bike knowledge anyway. So went back to tell Pete to maybe hide the bike in some bushes that were not to far away and pick it up later. A young bloke pulled over to see what was going on and then went in to his friends house back in Murrumbateman and borrowed his trailer and took the bike back to town for us. Good on ya mate.We were so grateful for his kindness. His reply was "My dad always told me to stop if someone needed help" . The bike is now in his friends back yard and Pete will take the trailer out there to pick it up on Thursday. Kind of restores your confidence in human nature, that someone would be so generous doesn't it. I myself have stopped many times to help people that have had car trouble but only on quiet back roads where I thought that they would need help and not on a busy road where there was lots of traffic ane i thought they would get help easily like the Barton highway where Pete was. We didn't get home until nearly 10.00 that night. I left Michael to finish off the job we were doing and then we had to grab something quick to eat and go to finish the office we clean as well.
Right Gotta Go and get some lunch then get to work again.
Bye
Love Linda.
Today is remembrance day. This morning I happened to be in the supermarket just near our house getting a few things we had run out of. They had over the speaker system that it was 11 o'clock and that anybody who wished to participate should please stop what they were doing and have the one minute silence that is held each year to commemorate remembrance day each year.I was proud to see most if not all of the shoppers stand still for the one minute allotted. The young males working in the shop distributing goods did not bother.Ah well.
It seems to me though that just one minute a year on this special day is just a small thing and hardly enough to recognize that sacrifice of the world war one servicemen who lost their lives during that terrible time.
Because it is spring time here there are Flanders Poppies in flower. I have seen quite a few around and it is lovely that they are in flower here at the right time of year for remembrance day.I have some planted in the garden in my back yard but they have not been in for long enough to flower even though they are doing well. Maybe next year they will be and then they can drop their seed to come up again each year after...for remembrance day.
Last Sunday Pete, Mum and I went out to the Gundaroo Bush Festival. Gundaroo is a small town just out of Canberra that is within commuting distance, so the real estate reflects that but it is still a nice little bush town. There are a few good potters living and working out there too but I didn't get to visit them.
There were heaps of people out there and they had the main street blocked off for the event so we had to walk quite a way from the car park to the events which was a bit too far for Mum and she had a bit of trouble with her poor old legs swelling up, but she is O.k. again now. Anyway there were lots of stalls to sticky beak at and a pie fight, shearing, dog trials and obstacle courses, art exhibitions, but funniest of them all was a terrier race.The race was held in 2 heats crossing over he ,main street on a course set out of about 50 metres. Most of the doggies in it were either Jack Russells or mixtures of fox terrier breeds. One little doggie looked like he was a cross between a Jack Russel and a Chihuahua. Anyway he was the clear winner, it was so funny. One girl that had him took him up to the finish line. He wasn't impressed by being taken away from what was obviously his beloved mistress. She stood up at the end of the race and called him and he took off like a bullet straight back to her.All of the other dogs in the race were more interested in the crowd of the other participants in the race but eventually got to the finish line. One little scruffy, fat, old dog was a veteran race r and knew exactly what was expected of him though, it was so funny, he waddled down the course to much applause and laughter , he just took a bit of time to get there. He wasn't last because he knew just what was expected of him but he was the very happy and pleased with himself third place winner. I was so pleased that we did not take our Jack Russell doggie, Rufus, with us as he would not have been able to contain himself with all the other doggies around and would have caused havoc wanting to fight the other dogs. He is much too naughty and has not been socialized to be in close range of strange doggies.
Yesterday we had such a topsy turvy day. Michael and I went to Duntroon again to clean a house that was being refurbished. And O'Boy what a house.It is the fourth one we have done there. I saw a little pramed pic of the house with info that said the house was built in 1911. It had the most gorgeous garden. It was shaded by very old big trees and had a beautiful understory of garden beds full of flowers. I want a garden like that, please, for christmas.
We left there and went to our other regular jobs at about 1.30 which gave us time to sit at the nearby shops and have a cup of tea in the sun. Then went on to our third job of the day were we got a phone call from my hubby Pete who had gone for a ride to visit someone on his bike for the afternoon and broken down. It was about 4.30. Doug, the boss where we were said I had better go and get him. He was out past Murrumbateman, a small village on the Yass side of Canberra and about 3/4 of an hour drive from where I was. I got out there and the bike stared again to go about 1km down the road and stopped dead . So I went back into Murrumbateman and the mechanic in town had gone home for the day, I rang him and he said that he didn't have a trailer to bring the bike back into town or any bike knowledge anyway. So went back to tell Pete to maybe hide the bike in some bushes that were not to far away and pick it up later. A young bloke pulled over to see what was going on and then went in to his friends house back in Murrumbateman and borrowed his trailer and took the bike back to town for us. Good on ya mate.We were so grateful for his kindness. His reply was "My dad always told me to stop if someone needed help" . The bike is now in his friends back yard and Pete will take the trailer out there to pick it up on Thursday. Kind of restores your confidence in human nature, that someone would be so generous doesn't it. I myself have stopped many times to help people that have had car trouble but only on quiet back roads where I thought that they would need help and not on a busy road where there was lots of traffic ane i thought they would get help easily like the Barton highway where Pete was. We didn't get home until nearly 10.00 that night. I left Michael to finish off the job we were doing and then we had to grab something quick to eat and go to finish the office we clean as well.
Right Gotta Go and get some lunch then get to work again.
Bye
Love Linda.
Saturday, 8 November 2008
Sunday Scribblings, Change.
G'Day,
This week has seen the U.S. elections taking place and being finalized. Pretty historic happenings in our world which is dominated in one way or another by that country. Whether it be by culture, finance, trade or its leadership in lots of other areas. Today I read the Sunday Scribblings prompt and thought no I won't go there because I reckoned that that is what is on most peoples minds at the moment. I will try to be different.
Change.
Changes I have seen in my life.
When I was very small I remember that Mum did the shopping at the corner shop in the next street. We also had bakers, milkmen, and fruit and vege people selling from vans who came to our front door. We also grew a lot of our own vegetables, everyone did. It was the done thing, now it is more of a hobby than a necessity.
My life has been full of change of one sort or another. I guess that we could all say the same couldn't we.
What I was thinking about was in the amount of money we have to pay out in staple foodstuffs each week nowadays as compared to when I first started doing the family shopping.
When I was 11 years old we lived in Sydney and my Dad was away in Vietnam.We didn't have a lot of spare cash but we got by o.k. and usually managed a take away dinner most Friday nights of fish and chips or something similar. There wasn't a lot else to choose from in our price range in those days. Not like with the big food chain places that sell such garbage nowadays.
Anyway when I was 11 it was my job to do the weekly shopping for the family.My Mum was probably trying to get me to learn all those domestic goddess things that girls were supposed to learn in those days. I could already clean the house and cook a meal and make great sponge cakes. Where as my elder sister was the brainy, pretty,social one and not domestic like me. Mum would give me $5 and send me down to the shops at Bondi Road which was about 3 blocks away from our place . I used to go into the little vegetable shop on the corner and the Italian man there would help me get the fruit and veges I wanted. Then about a block and a half further down the road was a small cluttered supermarket where I would get the rest of the stuff I wanted. I always came away with bags full of stuff that I would have to drag back home with great difficulty.I would have the circulation in my hands cut off and no feeling left in them by the time I got back. I remember I always had enough money left to take home a packet of Lolly Gobble Bliss Bombs which were our favorite treat at the time. They were a box of popcorn set in honey toffee and nuts. You can't buy them anymore. I usually had a few coins left over to take home also. There was a butcher on the corner of Belgrave and Murray streets which was just a few doors down from us and I used to go in there and buy whatever was cheap, usually chops, mince or sausages. I used to be so proud of my shopping job. Butcher shops were different then too, they had wooden benches and sawdust on the floor and butchers always seemed to have a certain personality type, they were loud and friendly and always had a joke with you.
Neighborhood shopping and corner shops have pretty well died out now because of easily accessible transport options and the competition from the big supermarket chains pricing them out of business.
When I was first married my household food budget was $30 a week. I used to get my shopping at Woolworth's, there was only one woolies in Wagga at the time. It was in the main street, Baylis street, in almost the same place it is now, except now it is inside a shopping mall, in those days it stood alone. You could go in there and get everything you wanted in the one shop, without having to go back and forwards to three different places. I was just short of my 21st birthday when I got married and I remember being disgusted at the price of grocery items and what they cost for a week to feed just two people, $30 a week, amazing.
Just a few years later we had two little boys to feed and we lived in a tiny town called Urana, about an hour and a half drive west south west of Wagga. There was a small supermarket run by a not very nice man who charged inflated prices for not very fresh goods because he could, he was the only shop in town, so the most I ever bought there was bread and milk. I came in to Wagga once a fortnight on pay week to do the shopping and visit my parents for the weekend. I think my fortnightly budget was $120. I could fill up the car boot for that. I still went to woolies but I also got things from a local couple ( the Knights) who would drive around Urana each Thursday with their old Holden station wagon loaded up and sell fresh fruit and veges, mostly grown in their own back yard. They were lovely people who became good friends and Marge became one of my children's adopted Nana's.
When we moved to Junee the town was reasonably well serviced but we still shopped mainly in Wagga for foodstuffs as there was a greater choice. I think my budget went up to $200 a fortnight. All of the shopping was done at the supermarket.
The prices kept going up......and up. I reckon now that we are here in Canberra the amount that we spend fortnightly is probably closer to four or five hundred dollars. Most of the shopping is still done in supermarkets but I think that nowadays there is a trend heading back to a few years ago where we enjoyed buying our food from the grower and smaller market vendors than from a large impersonal chain store type supermarket.
I have never done a break up of what I spend, but I guess that an extra amount could be added from buying lunches out and bottles of drink between jobs, at the Campbell shops. My mother who lives with us helps out with paying for groceries but she does not pay rent.
Here in Canberra they have regular farmers and different goumet food markets that are fun to visit and have a great atmosphere in comparison to supermarket shopping. I love the Kingston bus depot markets where they have all sorts of interesting foods. Organic fruits and veges, cheeses, condiments, local produce and wines, deli things, breads to name a few. My favorite thing there is the Turkish and Jordanian sweets, I love their home made baklava. You can go along and taste all the different things which is fun, except when I go there I always spend extra. Four decades ago there would have been very little of those gourmet types of foods available to us and, if they were available I guess we would have been unwilling to try them.
So over a period of almost four decades I have gone from spending $5 a week to feed 3 people to $250 a week to feed 4 (or sometimes more) people. That of course does not take into account the change in the things I now choose to buy and the amount in comparison that I have to spend or the ages and tastes of the people I need to feed.Along with that clothing, furniture, housing, utilities, cars and petrol have gone up too, but so have wages.I wonder if anyone has ever done a comparison of wages and living costs for the same period of time.
When I was 17 I started work full time and was really proud and excited when my weekly earnings reached $100 for the first time. I thought I was great. Now I work part time, 20 hrs per week and my pay does not go far at all, even though it is a nice supplement and we need it.
When I started driving at 17, the price of petrol was 15 cents a litre. Now it is $1.24 per litre and not so long ago it was as high as $1.87 per litre. It is good to see that world oil prices have dropped but I reckon it will be only temporary.
Well I had better finish on that subject because otherwise this could become a very long rambling post.
Good night.
Love Linda.
This week has seen the U.S. elections taking place and being finalized. Pretty historic happenings in our world which is dominated in one way or another by that country. Whether it be by culture, finance, trade or its leadership in lots of other areas. Today I read the Sunday Scribblings prompt and thought no I won't go there because I reckoned that that is what is on most peoples minds at the moment. I will try to be different.
Change.
Changes I have seen in my life.
When I was very small I remember that Mum did the shopping at the corner shop in the next street. We also had bakers, milkmen, and fruit and vege people selling from vans who came to our front door. We also grew a lot of our own vegetables, everyone did. It was the done thing, now it is more of a hobby than a necessity.
My life has been full of change of one sort or another. I guess that we could all say the same couldn't we.
What I was thinking about was in the amount of money we have to pay out in staple foodstuffs each week nowadays as compared to when I first started doing the family shopping.
When I was 11 years old we lived in Sydney and my Dad was away in Vietnam.We didn't have a lot of spare cash but we got by o.k. and usually managed a take away dinner most Friday nights of fish and chips or something similar. There wasn't a lot else to choose from in our price range in those days. Not like with the big food chain places that sell such garbage nowadays.
Anyway when I was 11 it was my job to do the weekly shopping for the family.My Mum was probably trying to get me to learn all those domestic goddess things that girls were supposed to learn in those days. I could already clean the house and cook a meal and make great sponge cakes. Where as my elder sister was the brainy, pretty,social one and not domestic like me. Mum would give me $5 and send me down to the shops at Bondi Road which was about 3 blocks away from our place . I used to go into the little vegetable shop on the corner and the Italian man there would help me get the fruit and veges I wanted. Then about a block and a half further down the road was a small cluttered supermarket where I would get the rest of the stuff I wanted. I always came away with bags full of stuff that I would have to drag back home with great difficulty.I would have the circulation in my hands cut off and no feeling left in them by the time I got back. I remember I always had enough money left to take home a packet of Lolly Gobble Bliss Bombs which were our favorite treat at the time. They were a box of popcorn set in honey toffee and nuts. You can't buy them anymore. I usually had a few coins left over to take home also. There was a butcher on the corner of Belgrave and Murray streets which was just a few doors down from us and I used to go in there and buy whatever was cheap, usually chops, mince or sausages. I used to be so proud of my shopping job. Butcher shops were different then too, they had wooden benches and sawdust on the floor and butchers always seemed to have a certain personality type, they were loud and friendly and always had a joke with you.
Neighborhood shopping and corner shops have pretty well died out now because of easily accessible transport options and the competition from the big supermarket chains pricing them out of business.
When I was first married my household food budget was $30 a week. I used to get my shopping at Woolworth's, there was only one woolies in Wagga at the time. It was in the main street, Baylis street, in almost the same place it is now, except now it is inside a shopping mall, in those days it stood alone. You could go in there and get everything you wanted in the one shop, without having to go back and forwards to three different places. I was just short of my 21st birthday when I got married and I remember being disgusted at the price of grocery items and what they cost for a week to feed just two people, $30 a week, amazing.
Just a few years later we had two little boys to feed and we lived in a tiny town called Urana, about an hour and a half drive west south west of Wagga. There was a small supermarket run by a not very nice man who charged inflated prices for not very fresh goods because he could, he was the only shop in town, so the most I ever bought there was bread and milk. I came in to Wagga once a fortnight on pay week to do the shopping and visit my parents for the weekend. I think my fortnightly budget was $120. I could fill up the car boot for that. I still went to woolies but I also got things from a local couple ( the Knights) who would drive around Urana each Thursday with their old Holden station wagon loaded up and sell fresh fruit and veges, mostly grown in their own back yard. They were lovely people who became good friends and Marge became one of my children's adopted Nana's.
When we moved to Junee the town was reasonably well serviced but we still shopped mainly in Wagga for foodstuffs as there was a greater choice. I think my budget went up to $200 a fortnight. All of the shopping was done at the supermarket.
The prices kept going up......and up. I reckon now that we are here in Canberra the amount that we spend fortnightly is probably closer to four or five hundred dollars. Most of the shopping is still done in supermarkets but I think that nowadays there is a trend heading back to a few years ago where we enjoyed buying our food from the grower and smaller market vendors than from a large impersonal chain store type supermarket.
I have never done a break up of what I spend, but I guess that an extra amount could be added from buying lunches out and bottles of drink between jobs, at the Campbell shops. My mother who lives with us helps out with paying for groceries but she does not pay rent.
Here in Canberra they have regular farmers and different goumet food markets that are fun to visit and have a great atmosphere in comparison to supermarket shopping. I love the Kingston bus depot markets where they have all sorts of interesting foods. Organic fruits and veges, cheeses, condiments, local produce and wines, deli things, breads to name a few. My favorite thing there is the Turkish and Jordanian sweets, I love their home made baklava. You can go along and taste all the different things which is fun, except when I go there I always spend extra. Four decades ago there would have been very little of those gourmet types of foods available to us and, if they were available I guess we would have been unwilling to try them.
So over a period of almost four decades I have gone from spending $5 a week to feed 3 people to $250 a week to feed 4 (or sometimes more) people. That of course does not take into account the change in the things I now choose to buy and the amount in comparison that I have to spend or the ages and tastes of the people I need to feed.Along with that clothing, furniture, housing, utilities, cars and petrol have gone up too, but so have wages.I wonder if anyone has ever done a comparison of wages and living costs for the same period of time.
When I was 17 I started work full time and was really proud and excited when my weekly earnings reached $100 for the first time. I thought I was great. Now I work part time, 20 hrs per week and my pay does not go far at all, even though it is a nice supplement and we need it.
When I started driving at 17, the price of petrol was 15 cents a litre. Now it is $1.24 per litre and not so long ago it was as high as $1.87 per litre. It is good to see that world oil prices have dropped but I reckon it will be only temporary.
Well I had better finish on that subject because otherwise this could become a very long rambling post.
Good night.
Love Linda.
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
Wet Dog
G'Day,Today I thought I would share the pictures I took of my second son David playing with his beloved doggie Ruby. They visited us 2 weekends ago. I nicknamed Ruby, Chaos, Dave said he liked that and would keep it as her nickname. He he. The first pic is titled "Cough Cough"
Ruby and Dave. After we played with her we went back inside and she chewed up the hose. She also chewed up and demolished several pot plants and the plastic dust pan and brush and dug holes around the yard, and stomped on all the new plants I had planted. Fun, Fun,Fun. She is really funny though if you go crook on her she comes over to you and answers you in doggie language "Oh Woo Woo Woo" translated as "don't be such a grump I was only having fun".When she does that you can't help but laugh at her.
Big Jump!Yesterday was Melbourne Cup day.In the A.C.T. it is a public holiday. See what perks the pollies (politicians) give for their workplace state! We didn't get a public holiday in N.S.W for the cup.
Melbourne Cup is always held on the first Tuesday in November and is Australia's most famous horse race.
Every year when I was in Junee we would run sweeps at work. We would all take the few mins that it took to run the race off work, and sit together in one of the lounge rooms or in one of the patients rooms to watch the race. Whoever had the best tele. This year I thought well I must mark the occasion in some way so I decided to run our own little sweep here at home. I cut up bits of paper and wrote numbers from 1 to 24 on them. Then we drew the numbers one at a time out of a jug and emptied our purses of coin, into the middle of the table. Mum won all the change as she had the winning horses number.There was about $13 in change. Yep we are surely big gamblers here.
The rest of the day I mostly spent tidying and rearranging the garage so I could get at my pottery things when I want to use them.I also cooked a date and walnut cake and a small batch of strawberry and apple jam.
So back to work today. I have a zucchini and carrot slice in the oven at the moment so that tea is cooked and waiting when I get home tonight. It is smelling really good.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zucchini and Carrot slice.6 eggs beaten.
2 tablespoons cream.
Breadcrumbs.
3 cups grated Zucchini
2 Grated carrots.
1 big onion finely diced
1 cup tasty cheese.
Cracked pepper if you like it.
Grease a tin with spray on oil or rub with butter.
Pour in breadcrumbs and coat it.
Mix all ingredients together and pour into tin.
Cook on a tray in case in drips over the edge.
In a moderate oven until it is set.
Can eat it hot or cold.
You can do it with pastry lined tin if you prefer but I don't bother.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
My cat boo has found her appetite. This morning she was fed a little tin of cat food which she polished off and came looking for more. Every time you go near the kitchen she comes running. I leave dry cat food out for her as well to eat but she is really hungry now and loves eating just about anything going.She is so cuddly too. Even more so than she was before she went missing. Probably because she i so pleased to be back with us again. She does the rounds of everyone and is really affectionate. She also remembers how to open sliding doors and she does it easily. So we have to make sure that the doors to the outside of the house are locked when we go in and out. There are several sliding doors here to the outside of the house.I have bolted the main door to the back yard and we now use the laundry door to go in and out because it is a swinging door and not a sliding door.
Constantly on the tele for the last few days is the U.S presidential election. I am not usually into politics but I see this one as having worldwide influence in its outcome. So far the tally looks to be in Obama's favour. That is the way I would have liked it to go. Hmmm. Lets see what happens next.
That's all for today.
Bye
Love Linda.
Saturday, 1 November 2008
Sunday Scribblings, Scandalous!
G'Day,
Scandalous is the prompt for this weekends Sunday Scribblings.
Scandalous. Hmm
I guess the work is another that is subject to personal opinion.
What is scandalous about me?
My body.
Have you ever been in a restaurant and there have been people there that like to look around at the other diners and check them out? I don't know if it is because they can't think of anything to say to their dining companions or they get bored with them or just impatient with waiting.
If you accidentally make eye contact with them they keep looking at you as if you have challenged them in some way. Watching what you are doing instead of what they are doing, which in turn makes you self conscious. You try not to glance their way but if you do they are looking back too. You wonder what they are thinking, is it your clothes, your hair, the way you eat?
Well I always get nervous and think they are looking at my body. You see my body is rather bigger than it should be. I get annoyed at them being so rude.
I often wish I had the nerve to go over to their table and say. " Excuse me, but, I am fat and LOOK I am still eating, I just thought I would tell you that in case you have not noticed"
Yes I am fat, I am scandalously so. There is always some one in a worse state than me.
So bloody what! Mind your own business.
Even when I was a teenager I felt fat but when I look back at old photos I really wasn't that bad. Compared to my sister who was gorgeous, I was.
I am what is known as messo morph shaped.
When I was a child I was very under weight and sickly until I got to double digit ages. A generation back I probably would not have survived. When I did start to eat my Mum was like, Oh quick! Lindy is eating shove something else in her mouth, and I made up for it. Boy did I make up for it!
No, I am not making excuses for myself, I know I eat too much but I try to keep it under control. Especially now because I have arthritis.
But I Really love food. I always joke that the part of my brain that says "stop you are full now" is broked. He he.
Just look at that fat lady sitting on her bum in front of the puter with a glass of red wine while a roast leg of lamb is cooking for tonight's tea.
Other things that are scandalous about me? Well, I don't know if I could talk about them on here because someone I don't want to read it might do so. But I was a bit naughty in my early to late teens and probably was the subject of a bit of gossip in those days. Somehow the things that are forbidden to you at that age are all the more sweet for being forbidden.When I was old enough to do them the attraction was gone. I was married at 20. We did some things younger in those days.Though you may dispute that looking around at today's teens.
It was funny though. My mother used to make me go out with my elder sister to look after her, she was wilder than me. I was never asked my age getting into places but she always was questioned on hers.
#############################################
Bye
Love Linda.
Scandalous is the prompt for this weekends Sunday Scribblings.
Scandalous. Hmm
I guess the work is another that is subject to personal opinion.
What is scandalous about me?
My body.
Have you ever been in a restaurant and there have been people there that like to look around at the other diners and check them out? I don't know if it is because they can't think of anything to say to their dining companions or they get bored with them or just impatient with waiting.
If you accidentally make eye contact with them they keep looking at you as if you have challenged them in some way. Watching what you are doing instead of what they are doing, which in turn makes you self conscious. You try not to glance their way but if you do they are looking back too. You wonder what they are thinking, is it your clothes, your hair, the way you eat?
Well I always get nervous and think they are looking at my body. You see my body is rather bigger than it should be. I get annoyed at them being so rude.
I often wish I had the nerve to go over to their table and say. " Excuse me, but, I am fat and LOOK I am still eating, I just thought I would tell you that in case you have not noticed"
Yes I am fat, I am scandalously so. There is always some one in a worse state than me.
So bloody what! Mind your own business.
Even when I was a teenager I felt fat but when I look back at old photos I really wasn't that bad. Compared to my sister who was gorgeous, I was.
I am what is known as messo morph shaped.
When I was a child I was very under weight and sickly until I got to double digit ages. A generation back I probably would not have survived. When I did start to eat my Mum was like, Oh quick! Lindy is eating shove something else in her mouth, and I made up for it. Boy did I make up for it!
No, I am not making excuses for myself, I know I eat too much but I try to keep it under control. Especially now because I have arthritis.
But I Really love food. I always joke that the part of my brain that says "stop you are full now" is broked. He he.
Just look at that fat lady sitting on her bum in front of the puter with a glass of red wine while a roast leg of lamb is cooking for tonight's tea.
Other things that are scandalous about me? Well, I don't know if I could talk about them on here because someone I don't want to read it might do so. But I was a bit naughty in my early to late teens and probably was the subject of a bit of gossip in those days. Somehow the things that are forbidden to you at that age are all the more sweet for being forbidden.When I was old enough to do them the attraction was gone. I was married at 20. We did some things younger in those days.Though you may dispute that looking around at today's teens.
It was funny though. My mother used to make me go out with my elder sister to look after her, she was wilder than me. I was never asked my age getting into places but she always was questioned on hers.
#############################################
Here is an update on my amazing cat.
Read the last 2 posts to see why.
Boo has been hiding all day and wandering around the house finding her bearings at night. That is probably how she learned to survive being alone for so long, if indeed she was alone. She has been around more today though and is sleeping on the lounge so she is adjusting. I wish she could tell me her story.
She played with our dog Rufus this morning for a little while, they way they used to do when they grew up together, jumping over one another, pouncing and chasing.
I have been trying to find something that she would like to eat and she is being difficult about it. I now have 2 different types of dry food, one she definitely will not touch. She was always a finicky eater. I made a special trip over to the supermarket last night because she was hanging around the kitchen acting hungry. I got some of the type of food I used to give her before she disappeared, and some fresh minced steak which she had a bit of a nibble at, but she didn't have very much of it. Maybe she wants bird? That is a precedent I don't want to make though, either at the shops or the back yard. I got some vitamin paste and opened a tin of food and mixed the vitamins into that but she would not even go near it. I could try putting some of the paste on her forepaws because she would have to lick it off but I know she would hate that and I don't want to upset her by forcing her. I am concluding that she just isn't hungry enough and I should keep trying to get her to accept what I have for her.
Bimbimbee commented on my blog that her name "Boo" fitted in with Halloween and she had to be back home before that. She made it by a day.
Maybe she is my witchy familiar.
Before she disappeared she use to wait in the mornings for the slightest noise and rush out to greet me, winding herself around my feet all the way down the hallway, she hasn't got back to doing that yet.
That is about all for this time around. Now I will go reading everyone Else's ideas on the prompt. Scandalous!
Read the last 2 posts to see why.
Boo has been hiding all day and wandering around the house finding her bearings at night. That is probably how she learned to survive being alone for so long, if indeed she was alone. She has been around more today though and is sleeping on the lounge so she is adjusting. I wish she could tell me her story.
She played with our dog Rufus this morning for a little while, they way they used to do when they grew up together, jumping over one another, pouncing and chasing.
I have been trying to find something that she would like to eat and she is being difficult about it. I now have 2 different types of dry food, one she definitely will not touch. She was always a finicky eater. I made a special trip over to the supermarket last night because she was hanging around the kitchen acting hungry. I got some of the type of food I used to give her before she disappeared, and some fresh minced steak which she had a bit of a nibble at, but she didn't have very much of it. Maybe she wants bird? That is a precedent I don't want to make though, either at the shops or the back yard. I got some vitamin paste and opened a tin of food and mixed the vitamins into that but she would not even go near it. I could try putting some of the paste on her forepaws because she would have to lick it off but I know she would hate that and I don't want to upset her by forcing her. I am concluding that she just isn't hungry enough and I should keep trying to get her to accept what I have for her.
Bimbimbee commented on my blog that her name "Boo" fitted in with Halloween and she had to be back home before that. She made it by a day.
Maybe she is my witchy familiar.
Before she disappeared she use to wait in the mornings for the slightest noise and rush out to greet me, winding herself around my feet all the way down the hallway, she hasn't got back to doing that yet.
That is about all for this time around. Now I will go reading everyone Else's ideas on the prompt. Scandalous!
Love Linda.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)