Day 160 Deja Vu!

This morning while I was in the shower, Sean came in and said that we needed to get Caramel to the vet. He was lying very gingerly and crying lots! He would move reluctantly and did move himself to the bathroom (under the heat light) and curled up on the fluffy bath mat. 

We took him to the vet who diagnosed a blocked bladder and advised he needed an operation to clear the blockage. He further advised that if it was left, it was likely to kill Caramel within 48 hours! 

We left Caramel with the vet with instructions to phone later in the afternoon to see if he was ready to come home. When I called though, he still had not done a wee and had to stay overnight. We are all feeling a little lost without him, but extremely glad he will be coming home, unlike when poor Liccy got sick last year :(

Day 159 It's a tail!

For some reason, Illi seems to have taken to wearing an extra long ribbon on her ponytail. This evening I snapped this pic of it. It is so long that when she puts a jacket on, that the ribbon hangs, quite liberally, out the bottom, making it look like she has a tail! 

Oh dear...the things teenagers do! (I expect I did similar things and so long as it is harmless, I guess I shouldn't complain too much!)

Day 158 Italian Rennaisance Food

This evening was Expo at Stromlo. Illiana and her friend set up a display about Italian Renaissance Food. 

Thanks to my shopping trip last night, they had panini, olive oil, balsamic, savoiardi biscuits and non-alcoholic red wine. 

The idea was for the Panini to be dipped into both the olive oil and the balsamic..which was a hit. The savoiardi biscuits were eaten alone. They served the non-alcoholic red wine in disposable shot glasses and this seemed to be a HUGE hit with the other students. The other parents were equally enquiring and I couldn't estimate how many times the girls had to explain that it was non-alcoholic red wine, or how many parents picked up the bottles to check! Puhleaze!

Day 157 Why do Canberra shopping centres have double external doors?

I think I have figured out the answer! 

When I went to Lanyon to get some groceries tonight while the kids were at karate, the floor of the shopping centre was totally littered with leaves! 

Lanyon has a traditional set of single automatic doors, so I am assuming in shopping centres with double, external doors, that it is hard for the wind to 1) get into the shopping centre and 2) carry leaves in if the breeze does squeak in! I have also noticed that many of these double sets of doors are offset, maybe this aides in keeping the wind/leaves at bay!

Day 156 What a pea souper!

This morning when I was on my way to work driving myself for the first time in a couple of months, I found that it was hard to see across the road. The fog was so thick! 

I drove carefully to work and still the fog was thick. The bell rang, and still the fog was thick. Lunch time came, and still the fog was thick. Lunch ended, a finally the fog lifted! It turned out to be a beautiful sunny warm afternoon. 

One of those rare finds in winter, and very enjoyable while it lasted...now we are looking forward to some very chilli nights, and not so warm days too!

Day 155 Interesting preparation for a picnic

Next Wednesday we are having a picnic for the hearing impaired kids on our collective caseloads at work. I am organising the name badges, so today I priced these convention card holders at Officeworks. The idea is that as kids arrive, they create a name card that we then put in to the card holder so that they have name tags for the day. I am thinking though, that as there are only 50 in a box, that I will need to collect them at the end so that we can reuse them in the future!

Day 154 Shoes

Today I bought Declan a new pair of shoes. I was in Target and found the style of shoe he likes reduced. Add this to the fact that I looked at his shoes this morning and decided the sole had seen better days, and the situation seemed very positive indeed! 

His last pair of shoes were 9s so I got the same size. When I got home though, I found that I had picked up a mismatched 'pair.' One was a 9, the other an 8! I got him to try them on to make sure they were the right size and found that he needs a 10 anyway! 

I also bought Illi a pair of boots in an 8 but when she tried them on, she needs a 9! Talk about growing teenagers! 

Oh well, looks like it is back to the shops for an exchange run!

Day 153 Back on the road.

Today was the day...after 50 days (7 weeks, 1 day) of not driving, I was allowed to drive again! 

Where did I go?? To the shops of course! To be fair, I went to Woden to renew the rego on the other car and go to the chemist. But the big thing is, I DROVE.

 I also found that I didn't need to have as much movement as I thought ( I had been worried that I still had not built up enough strength yet, but found that I tend to pivot my foot from accelerator to brake rather than lift and move. 

I still deferred to Sean to take the kids to karate tonight too...no sense going out in the cold if I don't have to right?

Day 152 Choices (pt 2)

On the college exploration trail again this evening. Tonight's focus was Lake Tuggeranong College. There was not as much confusion and crush at this college and 'I' thought is was laid out better. 

Declan thought the facilities at Canberra College were better, however, I thought that the people were nicer at Lake Tuggeranong. 

One thing that bothered me was the principal made his address to prospective students and said in his talk that he is retiring at the end of the term. I think it would have been appropriate at that point to introduce, or even name, the incoming principal. I know that at Stromlo they knew in advance who the incoming principal was and therefore I assume Lake Tuggeranong would know who their incoming principal will be. 

I would still like to know how subject choices need to be structured for yr 11/12 as this may make a difference what school we choose. At this point, I have a feeling Declan will just choose whatever his friends choose. But whatever happens, he better get on with making the choice as applications have to be in by 15 June!

Day 151 Caramel and chocolate don't go together.

 When I got home this afternoon, Declan told me that Caramel was not allowed to be fed as he had already eaten. Then he explained further.

On the weekend, I bought a pack of assorted muffins from the supermarket. As the week had gone on, some of them had been taken to work/school and the others remained in the pack on the bench. 

When Declan got home, there was a muffin on the floor with a very sheepish Caramel cat standing over it! Declan picked the muffin up and as far as I can see, Caramel only tasted the choc chip muffin but was not overly impressed by it! 

It seems that as the colder weather has set in, the cats are hungrier and if not fed, they will seek out food on their own. Looks like they might need to be fed more often-but not chocolate, Caramel doesn't like it!

Day 150 The key to my....

I got a text from Illi today saying she had left her keys at home. I told her to see if Declan had his. The answer was negative.

This came about as Sean was the last out of the house today and locked the door, therefore the kids didn't need a key in the morning and neither thought to pick up their key for the afternoon! 

As I am traveling with someone else at the moment (allowed to drive again on Friday YAY!) I had no control over when I got home. I told Illi to let themselves onto the back verandah and play with the cats and do homework until I got home.

When I got home I didn't see the kids and thought they must still have been on the back verandah. I turned the key in the front door (but it was already unlocked) and found the kids inside! They had Macgyvered themselves in using a cat toy, a mop, a piece of cardboard and some long skinny limbs! 

Amazing the ingenuity they have when they need it! In an academic educational setting, this would be described as an open ended problem showing real-world application of problem solving abilities and lateral thinking!
Should I fear for their possible future careers?

Day 149 Score!

Flicking around looking for some entertaining tv to watch tonight and found the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. 

I found out that Denise Scott used to be a teacher. I cacked myself at Hughesy and quite a few others, then to top it off, got to experience Paul McDermott singing! 

What a great end to the evening! Sigh...I love Paul!

Day 148 I love you Daddy!

Sean apparently has a very comfy lap. 

Either of the cats can often be found curled up on his lap and they often disturb his work flow. 

Being the patient man he is, if he doesn't want to be nursing a cat, he will still surrender an arm, to ensure the cat does not fall/is comfortable. He will even type an assignment one handed rather than upset whichever lap-warmer happens to be in residence! 

I think the above pic looked really cute, as it looks as if Caramel is cuddling Sean's arm with a look of "MY Daddy" on his face. Who knows what he may have been dreaming of but it looks sweet.

Day 147 A girl's night in

This evening Sean went to the Brumbies game with Trevor and Declan went to Ray's, so Illi and I were having a girl's night in.

 So what do you do? Well, we had an oven dinner (salt and pepper chicken fingers, sweet potato gems and curly fries), then we dyed Illi's hair a plum kind of colour and then planned to watch dvds...unfortunately the latter never eventuated as Illi got too involved with whatever she was doing on the computer!

Day 146 Leaving them behind

 On our way home from Sydney this afternoon, we were lucky enough to miss most of the Friday afternoon traffic as we left North Rocks at a little after 4. 

We jumped on the M2 and encountered a bit of traffic but after about 10mins it was fairly plain sailing. 

As we neared Campbelltown, there seemed to be a bit of traffic in the left lane and as we went around it, it became apparent that the issue was for those turning off to Campbelltown. 

So as we blew raspberries at those in the long line of brake lights, we were on our way home with a good run all the way to Canberra!

Day 145 A pea souper!

What was a lovely clear day this morning turned into a yukky looking day, which I am sure would have contributed to a large number of rear-enders in traffic. It looks like a cold horrible day, although coming from a late autumn Canberra, it was not as bad as it looks.

This pic was taken on my walk from my accommodation across the road to Westfield (a small one) for a browse before a lovely dinner at Little Rock Cafe with some of the other course attendees. 

The day has been very info filled and I am worried my brain might burst, so the downtime this evening was much appreciated!

Day 144 On the road.

This afternoon at the end of the school day, Caroline and I headed off to Sydney to the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children for a course over the next 2 days. 

We have to register between 8.30 and 9am and we would have had to leave home around 5-5.30 to get there on time after having had to contend with Sydney peak hour traffic as we got closer. 

I stayed on campus at RIDBC whereas Caroline went to her sister's house to stay. 

I must say, knowing I only have to walk about 50-100 m to get to 'work' in the morning is strange yet satisfying!

Day 143 Choices

In the ACT, high school finishes at year 10 and year 11 and 12 is undertaken at college. 

This evening, we went to one of the 2 colleges we are zoned for to check it out so we can help Declan make an informed decision about where to go for school next year. 

The evening was due to start at 6pm however when we arrived at about 10 to 6 there were already so many people there that the talk by the principal was closed and we were directed to attend the 7.15pm talk! 

There were a lot of stairs and a lot of people and as I am still not very steady on my feet (got jostled by 2 teachers on the stairs and thought I was a goner!) Sean and the kids explored and were fairly impressed with the facilities. 

At the end of the night, I had the opportunity to talk to the principal though and found out that one of the strands of study that I had discussed with Declan is no longer offered at the school due to lack of staff to teach it. On the up side though, Declan is now less sure about his chosen strand of study and it is not so important that that option is not available! 

Oh well, I guess we will go check out the other option next week to help with the decision....Ugh!! SOO confusing!

Day 142 Morning Tea

 Tomorrow at work we are having our Australia's Biggest Morning Tea in support of the Cancer Council. So this evening, I got my cook on! 

When I contribute to morning tea, I try to take a sweet and a savoury contribution. This evening I made a nut, dairy and gluten free chocolate mud cake and was inspired by Sue to just dust with icing sugar to finish it off. 

I WAS going to stop there, but as Sean was still working on an assignment so I decided to do my pizza offering. As I didn't have the sun dried veges that I normally use on pizza, I decided to just make scrolls as they use less toppings. So having done the cooking and cleaning up, it's finally time for bed!

Day 141 All the way from India.

A few weeks ago, a lady I work with went to India. I had been lamenting that I had to wear skirts over my leg brace and couldn't find may to suit. Caroline decided that she would buy me a skirt in India. 

When she returned last weekend, she gave me 2 skirts, one of which was wrap-around. Unfortunately, it didn't fit me but Caroline suggested it might fit Illi as a dress. Today (despite the temperature) Illi decided to wear it with her black shrug. 

The above is a pic of Illi wearing her Indian wrap-around...and looking quite stylish too, I believe.

Day 140 What social life?

 What to do on a Saturday night? Well as can be seen by the above pic, not much!

 Although Declan's social  life has picked up this weekend (2 sleepovers at 2 different friends houses Fri and Sat nights) mine is pretty much shriveled up! 

So Saturday night finds me watching the Moto GP qualifying on TV and discussing Casey Stoner's future with Sean. I also watched M*A*S*H, and COPS (tv show not movie). 

Oh dear, maybe I should just make it is REALLY interesting night and take myself off to bed...a good idea I think! G'night!

Day 139 Where is my pretty portal?

Recently, the DEC changed the portal where you login to their computer system. It used to be very text based in appearance, but it now looks quite schmick (see above). You can add icons to your home page and it just looks prettier.
When I go to work and use my laptop, my home page is still the old text based version. I would have thought that using the Dept's server that it would default to the new version but alas, it seems not. 

I will just have to figure out how to prompt it to use the new pretty version of the portal rather than the old text based one!

Day 138 Thanks Mum!

A couple of weeks ago, Mum showed me some pics of some beanies she made, I was pretty impressed and asked her to crochet me one in grey/blue. 

Today, I received a parcel from Mum in the mail. When I opened it, I found that she had sent me a heap of the beanies! 

The above pic is of me wearing the white one. She also sent a brown one with a visor, a green/red one, a purple/yellow one and my requested grey/blue one! Illi and I love our new beanies! THANKS MUM!

Day 137 Who's got the power?

 Interestingly, I took this pic in the hope that I would remember to buy a battery. It was sort of a visual prompt for a shopping list. 

It is the battery out of the Dolphin torch. I can't remember the last time I replaced this battery. 

When I went to buy a battery in Kmart, I found that it was more cost effective to buy a torch and 2 batteries, than a battery by itself. That was until I found a generic brand of battery. 

The eveready was about $10, 2 evereadies and a torch were about $19 but the generic Kmart brand was $5 for 2! 

I went for the cheaper option as the torch is not used THAT often!

Day 136 All is good!

I had a follow up appointment with my orthopedic surgeon today. When I arrived, they sent me for an x-ray to see if the bone was healing. 

Thankfully I got the OK and am allowed to start walking without my brace on. When I asked when/how, the reply was that if I really wanted to I could walk out of the appointment without it! I wasn't quite that brave (still a bit wobbly without it) but am aiming at being brace free by this time next week. 

In other news, he said I can drive again from 1 June! 

The above pic is of the x-ray they took today showing the 2 screws in my leg holding the bone in place! 

Oh and more news, I don't have the screws removed as they are new technology and don't have protruding heads and therefore are screwed in flush with the surrounding ligaments!

Day 135 Ooooeeerrrr!

Today was my first day back at work. For one reason and another, it was a big day. I was meant to ease back into it, but by the time I got home, cooked dinner and finally got to bed, I took a deep breath and realised I was aching all over! 

So glad I don't have to get up quite so early tomorrow! 

(Oh and today's pic is the front lawn at work on my way out the gate to come home today)

Day 134 I let her...

Today was Mother's Day. If anyone asks my kids what they gave me for Mother's Day, the response is
"We LET her take us shopping for new clothes for us" (That's right, they put themselves out and only complained a little bit).
I convinced the kids that as shopping is dear to me, that going shopping with me would be a lovely present. I  bought clothes for both of them (part of being a mum, is having children...and children grow, thus needing new clothes!)
After we finished shopping though, we went to Max Brenner's for a treat. The above pic is of MY dish. We started taking pics of the food as it came out, we took one of Sean's one of Illi's, One of mine, but then I got sidetracked and forgot to take a pic of Declan's! Ooops, but MMMMmmmmm...yummy!

Day 133 Shenanigans...

Apparently this evening, while I was on the phone to a friend, there were some shenanigans going on elsewhere in the house.

Sean came in with the sticky roller (one of those lint removal rollers) and showed it to me. It was covered in long white fur. I asked did you sticky roll the cat? Sean said yes, and look how much fur came off! OMG!

Then, a few minutes later, he was holding Caramel and I said:Why is the cat's paw green?
Sean said:It isn't, it's blue.
I said:Why is the cat's paw blue?
Sean said:Maybe because that's what colour his signature is!

Mother's Day is tomorrow and Sean's hands and the cat's paw are suspiciously similarly coloured! 

Shenanigans I tell you!

Day 132 Mint Patties

Just recently, a facebook friend posted a link to a recipe on facebook for Mint Patties (from here). This afternoon, I checked the cupboards and found that I had the necessary ingredients, so I gave them a go. Instead of using a mix master and the mixing by hand, I used the food processor like you do with pastry. Also, I used milk chocolate to coat them instead of dark choc at Sean's suggestion.

On reflection these are the changes I would make:

*Go back to dark chocolate, they are so sweet that the bitterness of the dark choc would be a better combination than the sweetness of the milk choc.

*Make them smaller. They weren't as big as real mint patties but they are much richer.

*Experiment with how to coat them in chocolate-maybe the consistency of the dark choc would cover them better. I put them in the fridge to harden before coating them which made the chocolate harden before it was properly spread.

Day 131 Found it!

Back when I did my 3rd year prac, the class had been looking at the book "The Floods" by Colin Thompson. As it was a 3-6 class, the teacher read the book to the class, and they loved it. 

I didn't get to read the whole book with the class so I bought it and read it. The story is hilarious and written by an Aussie. It rips off people/situations that are familiar. That was book 1...The series is now up to book 11.

Last year when book 10 came out, I missed buying it and therefore asked for it for my birthday as it was hard to find. In the meantime, I bought book 11 and put it aside (so I could read them in order). 

I finally read 10 a few days ago and went to start on 11 but couldn't find it. I searched for 2 days and finally found it today. It was sitting next to the printer (half underneath) with the phone on top of it! Everyone in the family was most relieved!

If you get the chance I recommend the series, as they are kids chapter books, they are fairly light reading but really hilarious! (Things to watch for...Dead Grandmother; Witch/Wizard college; How they have children; The donkey; familiar TV shows)

Day 130 Shhh...

When we went to Newcastle in March, Sean bought me a pair of earrings for my birthday. 

As I don't believe in giving presents early, and I was in hospital for my birthday, I didn't get the earrings until 16 April. 

Unfortunately a few days later, one of the earrings fell out of my ear broken. It took me about a week to get around to calling the store and they said I could post them back and they would decide what to do about the problem. 

Yesterday I got a call from the store advising they had received the earrings and they were sending me a new pair! Amazingly, I received them today! 

Now, I'm not silly enough to post a pic of them, but above is the box they came in..now you can check them out when I am wearing them...or you can use your imagination :P