Jun. 24, 2012
- I don’t know why this is on Failblog. It sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Especially since I’m just back from delivering Ryan17 to school to drop him off to his school camp to Tasmania. In the middle of winter. I know!!!! We went and did some urgent winter clothes shopping at DFO on Friday night so he wouldn’t freeze to death. He also took my camera so there’ll be no photos this week.
- The chooks are giving us 2 or 3 eggs a day now. However, the lavender araucana who lays the blue eggs has decided to go broody. I can’t believe it! She’s only meant to be 4 or 5 months old and she’s living in the nesting box looking cranky. ( Still, it might just be a clever way to get out of all the rain.) However, all of this pure breeds broodiness nonsense makes the good old, common as muck Isa Browns look good. They don’t go broody, they just lay an egg a day for a good two years and then eat you out of house and home because you’re too fond of them/too squeamish to kill them. (Tell me again why having chooks is a good idea…?)
- Home grown celery tastes AMAZING. I grew 4 or 5 of them from seed last spring, they slo-o-o-wly grew over summer but have now taken off. I was making some vegetable stock paste on Saturday and I threw in some celery, then tasted some. OMG! So flavoursome! This morning I found this recipe to use it up, along with this recipe to make the mayo. It’s clearly meant to be.
- The thermomix continues to preoccupy me at present. It’s going gangbusters, as well it should. Last month I had my best month in sales to date, but I’ve now equalled it this month. (yay!) I’m out doing demos and the boys are adjusting. Last night I came home after 6PM from a demo in Berwick and I started making dinner. I peeled an onion, then looked at the clock. “The Block’ was starting and it was the last day of renovating. I was pretty tired. I looked at the boys, lolling around after a weekend of lolling around at their Dad’s place. Ryan17 was packing, David18 was doing a spot of homework, but Evan15 was just sitting on the computer. Doing nothing. Just asking to be put to work, really. So he made the ‘Pasta with Tuna’ from the thermomix cookbook and I sat on the couch with a glass of red and watched my show. Dinner was served and I didn’t have to do a thing. Heaven!
- Only a week to go till the holidays. The private schools are already on holidays. Curse them!!!! It’s freezing today and I’m teaching in the portables. Thank goodness for my fingerless gloves.
- I channelled Scarlett O’Hara on FB that as God is my witness, I’ll start knitting something this weekend. Someone doubted me. Someone was correct. Still, see the point above. I’ll have plenty of time then.
Dancing With Frogs 
Not guilty!
That wasn’t actually me.
The Parenting Fail diagram really resonated with me. Rory will not wear a jumper until it is positively antarctic, and almost never wears long pants. I have always figured that my job as a parent is done if I supply the warm clothing, and make sure that he knows he should pack it in his bag in case he needs it. I am amazed at the number of parents that force their children to wear jumpers etc. in spite of the child’s wishes. Surely we should let our kids be in change of their own bodies.
Congratulations on all the Thermomix sales – I am very impressed.
My boys used to feel the cold. I can remember one asking me to buy him a beanie because it had turned cold when we were out. He was about three years old then. Their own sons are just the opposite. They live in western suburbs of Sydney, colder than the city and present themselves for school in mid winter with shorts and shortsleeved T-shits.
Gloves when teaching in portables? Yes definitely. I spent five years teaching in a brick high school with no heaters. It had been designed in 1930s with no regard to comfort. Design was mass produced over Sydney and just plonked on the site. We were on a southwest hill and building caught all the winds, blowing pictures on corridor walls crooked.
One principal forbade staff to teach in coats. I can’t imagine what she would have thought of gloves, even fingerless. I taught year 12 in portables at that school. Portables had heaters, treacherous gas things which often blew back when being lit, obliterating eyebrows.
shortsleeved T-shits.
Freudian slip or something there. I can proof read others’ work quite well, but often miss something in my own writing. Blush.
Home grown celery is like homegrown tomatoes, indeed. So much more tasty than the store bought monstrosities apparently stripped mined.
Oh for children old enough to cook dinner……
LOL
A friend at Dunolly said her two teens have never felt cold after spending 3 months (school camp/survival experience) on Kangaroo Island in winter, both get around in t-shirts on the coldest of days, one is 18 (girl) the other almost 16 (boy) and they’ve never asked for heating in their bedrooms at home!
Maybe send the boys to K.I…?!
Found some gorgeous multi-coloured yarn at The Reject shop which was screaming to be knitted, and I don’t knit!
So, I bought it and will consider digging out the knitting needles…..
Liz, it’s a real pain and can be messy, but start them early and reap the benefits. My three sons are now all good cooks but I started them quite early. I used to mind granddaughter when she was a toddler for two days a week. She could peel potatoes, turn chicken as it browned and tell me when it was ready and surprised her father at 18 months by asking for “garmbled” eggs which she’d made with my help. Scrambled eggs had featured for lunch one day.
Oh lord I forgot how cold those damn portables are. I would teach in a coat and scarf some days and as I’m about to start back after the holidays perhaps I should go and invest in some gloves.
Stick with the cold – you’ll be nicely prepared for an English summer when you get here 🙂