and the Award goes to...

Okay, it's time to hand out the Rockin' Girl Blogger Award which was passed to me by Fairlie.

And the Awards go to:

• Jenborg at MSAnonymous for bravely talking to the world about how she lives with Multiple Sclerosis on a farm 45km from the nearest (small) town.
• Suse from Pea Soup for offering a calm respite from our busy inner city lives. And for having sons who know how to knit!
• Mary from BlueMountainsMary for being Mary and letting us all into her daily life. Although nearly disqualified for encouraging Fairlie in her bad habit of watching trashy tv!
• Kelly from MyUtopia for keeping me informed about life in the USofA and offering a plethora of book reviews.
• Nutmeg from anothernutter for being the first Sydney-sider to find me here in the blogosphere!

It goes without saying that I think Fairlie from aroundthetraps and S from TeamSAK are Rockin' Girl Bloggers so they can put this award in their Pool Rooms too.

Father's Day Breakfast

This morning the Year 3 Mums arrived at our school from 6am to cook 255 dads and kids a father's day breakfast. This is somewhat of a tradition at our school, along with the Mother's Day Breakfast (when the dads cook for us). This morning the Dads were treated to a freshly BBQ'd bacon and egg roll, a muffin, orange juice and yoghurt. They sat at tables in the school hall with tablecloths decorated by the children. Tickets to the event included a raffle ticket and fabulous prizes were drawn at 8.15.

The poor mum who had to organise this event did an amazing job to round up a bunch of overworked, sleepy mums to cook, clean and serve. I got off relatively lightly, being assigned to watch over the tea/coffee station to make sure no-one burnt themselves (ah, the safety requirements these days). Overall, a very successful morning.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO ALL DADS!

Off to the Melbourne Writers Festival

I'm about to pack my bag in anticipation of my trip to Melbourne tomorrow afternoon. I will be staying with Fairlie and indulging in two days of Melbourne Writers Festival activities, being a 'blow-in' at Cousin It's 30th birthday and catching up with whichever members of the No. 1 Melbourne Ladies Bookclub are available to be at Domestic Goddess' house on Sat night.

When I booked this trip I didn't realise that Sunday was Father's Day. Ooops. However, KelpieBlossom assures me that she has the day fully in hand. I don't want to reveal too much in case Firegazer reads this blog; however, I hear that there is a Menu being planned. I don't recall ever giving KelpieBlossom or Padawan Learner lessons on how to make tea and toast but I guess they'll figure it out.

Luckily, the Fire Station is just up the street.

I will file a full report on my return.

Zone Athletics: Kids were great, but one parent gets a GRRR

For the last two days I have been out at the Academy of Sport in Narabeen watching KelpieBlossom and the rest of the school team compete in the Zone Athletics Carnival.

KelpieBlossom competed in the Junior Long Jump on Tues and the 9yrs 100m on Wed. She was really pleased with her results having achieved a PB in Long Jump (which was 45cm longer than her previous recorded jump) and a fourth in her 100m heat.

It was amazing to see all the talent out there - miniature future Olympians complete with Skins and Spikes. The kids all had a great time; KelpieBlossom enjoyed meeting kids from other schools and was sad when it was all over.

However, I am sorry to report that one Mum and I were not sad to see the back of one of our school parents. Cupcake Queen and I were the Team Managers for the day yesterday. This means we had to make sure that all the children were present and accounted for and that they got to their allotted events. Anyone who has ever tried to herd cats will know what sort of day we had...

We were particularly careful to ensure that the youngest members of the team, three of whom were only 7 years old, were accounted for and we tried to keep them close by to ensure an adult could walk them to their events. At one point just before the 8yrs 100m we asked these kids to stand near us ready to be taken to their event.

So, we were completely unimpressed when one father (of a 7yo) loudly proclaimed to all and sundry that his daughter couldn't possibly stand in the sun for that 5 minutes (it would sap her energy) and we were clearly inexperienced team managers. He then marched his daughter back to the stands somewhere.

Well, yes we were inexperienced. We'd never done this before. We had 75 kids to keep an eye on. This dad, rather than offering his obviously vast organisational experience, chose to sit on his butt and hurl insults. THEN when his daughter's race was called he walked her down there without bothering to let us know causing further angst while we searched for her.

There endeth the GRRRRRRR.

Resistance is useless. More Eclipse Photos

Going Going Gone

Red, Red and Redder

Once in a Red Moon

Wow! Did you see the Lunar Eclipse tonight? I hope you did.

It was a lovely clear night here in Sydney following a very warm day. The kids and I grabbed our deck chairs and the camera and watched the show.

I know some parts of country WA were too cloudy to catch the lunar eclipse so these pics are for you.

Spooky effect through the trees approx 6.30pm

Partial Eclipse approx 7.40pm

You'd be forgiven for thinking this is a pic of Mars! Red Moon at 8pm

and to think I only have 91 more photos to show you!

100km in 23hrs 50mins!

I'm hoping my Pilates session on Tuesday will be a little less torturous than usual. My Pilates instructor Elouise, her business partner Sarah and two of their clients, Brett and my good friend Lesley, completed the Oxfam 100km Trailwalker event in Sydney this morning. They walked the 100km from Chowder Bay Mosman to the Hawksbury in driving rain over night in 23hrs and 50 mins. Their team finished 75th out of 502.

Anyone who has completed, or attempted, this event before (Firegazer completed in 2004 & 2006) knows this event is no walk in the park. This is an extreme event staged on bush tracks, over creeks and up steep inclines. Teams do it to raise money for Oxfam. This team raised $7490 this year. A great effort all 'round.

Elouise, I'm sure you need your rest. Perhaps I could get away with a few light stretches on Tuesday? Hmmm? Please?

I iz a Rockn Grl Blggr

Fairlie gave me this Award.

It was started by Roberta just a couple of months ago - you give it to girl bloggers you think are "Rockin'". It has since made the rounds, and eventually landed here. Which brings me to the question: I'm a girl, whether I'm rockin' is in the eye of the beholder BUT am I a blogger?

I like board games, but I don't call myself a "gamer". I have a degree in Linguistics but am not game to dare call myself a "Linguist" (yet). So am I a "blogger"? OMG maybe I am...I write to three blogs, I'm writing this on a lovely sunny Saturday afternoon, the unfolded washing is piling up and I don't think there is anything in the kitchen to cook for dinner.

So thanks Fairlie for outing me as a blogger. This award will go "straight to the pool room".

As for passing on this award, I hate to leave anyone out. I have about 15 girl blogs on my FeedReeder that I check out regularly and you all rock. I'll give it some more thought and get back to you.

For BlueMountainsMary because she feels...well, crap

I can't bring back Thistle but I can send virtual flowers.

Hope you feel better soon BlueMountainsMary.

Happy Anniversary To Us

M and Firegazer are celebrating their 14th Wedding Anniversary today.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Skiing with the Kids, EasternMax Style

2007 marked our sixth family ski holiday in Australia and we've taken the kids skiing overseas once (the lucky buggers). Skiing is what we do together as a family. It is somewhat like tearing up $100 notes under the shower and it is a privilege to be able to do it but it's cheaper than sailing, riding horses or owning a weekender and we LOVE it.

A couple of days ago BlueMountainsMary asked if I would post advice on how to organise a family ski holiday. So Mary, this is for you, and for anyone else who is interested.

A disclaimer: This is how skiing works for us. You'll need to decide if it will work for you.

• We ski with at least one other family with children of a similar age. We ski with the same families every year, give or take a family. It is often the only time of the year that our kids see these families but they love catching up and having someone to play with before and after ski-class. We stay at the same lodge-style accommodation and they have a lovely time running as a pack. The bonus is that we adults have other adults to ski with as well.
  
  
• We put the kids in full-day ski school every day. The day we arrive and the day before we leave are "family ski days", otherwise the kids are in full-time ski school and we adults ski together. Ski school is great fun for the kids; they ski with kids their own age, have snowball fights and learn a skill that will last a lifetime. This makes it a holiday for everyone.
  
  
• We stay on-mountain. It is hard enough getting the kids up and ready for ski school in time without adding an additional 40 -50 minutes to the trip by staying off-mountain. In fact the closer to the ski school the better. It's more expensive this way so you will have to weigh up budget vs convenience. For the record, we stay in a Lodge which we book out with our friends so the kids can run wild without fear of upsetting other guests.
  
  
• If the kids are warm, the parents are happy. Don't skimp on the clothes that will touch your children's skin. We now own all our own gear but for first timers or seldom skiers you will need to buy (or borrow) for each child: 2 pairs long thermals, 1 pair of waterproof mittens attached to elastic and threaded through their jacket, 1 pair ski goggles, 2 pairs thin ski socks. Then hire waterproof ski pants/jacket, a helmet, skis, boots and poles. If it's particularly cold it may be worth buying a 'neck gator' as well. The key element here is WATERPROOF. Thin nylon jackets don't cut it in Australia.
  
  
• Helmets. We ALL wear helmets. Kids and Adults. It's just our rule. Apart from obvious safety aspects they are warm and hold goggles on securely. Easy to hire anywhere.
  
  
• Food. Skiing is an extreme sport with greater than normal food requirements. I stuff my kids pockets each day with cut up fruit, biscuits and a sweet treat (eg. sml pkt Jelly Dinosaurs). Believe me, you don't want your ski day shortened by a phone call from an instructor holding a tired child with a sugar-low. When our kids were very young we would turn up to ski school at the end of the day holding a warm Milo and a Jelly Snake and get it into them before attempting the trip to the Lodge.
  
  
• Which Resort? All Australian resorts have excellent children's ski programs. We ski Thredbo because of the mix of terrain types and Village atmosphere, but every skier has their favourite. Perhaps choose the resort closest to you with accommodation that best suits your budget.
  
  
• Equipment Rental. Our kids rent their skis, boots & poles. Until this year we rented from an on-mountain store because it's convenient and you can change the equipment if it is faulty. However, now the kids are older, and know how eg. their boots should fit, we rented in Cooma (Rhythm Sports). The kids rented Demo Twin-tip skis and buckle boots for half the price of the basic rentals in Thredbo. From 2008 I, too, will rent demo skis because it makes more sense than buying. I own my own boots because they are probably the most important piece of equipment after my helmet.
  
  
• Family Ski Day. This is the best day of the week where the kids show us how their skiing is going and show us where they skiied. We take them to lunch on the mountain and we build snowmen, make forts and generally muck around. At the end of Family Ski Day we adults pay our Lodge Manager an exhorbitant fee to mind all the kids while we go out to dinner.

This is what I can think of at the moment. Does anyone else have tips for happy family ski holidays?

Family Ski Day

Every year we schlep down to Thredbo for a family ski week with our ski-friendly friends. The kids go to full-time ski school while the adults challenge each other all day and tell stories about their skiing adventures all night. In an upcoming post I will publish the 2007 Thredbo Skiing Awards, but this post will show that it's not all hard-core skiing all the time.

On the last Saturday of our trip we have Family Ski Day where all the kids show us that they are better skiers than us, and most importantly, build the annual snowman.

This year was a slight departure from tradition as the theme was "Forts". The boys found an excellent rock/cave from which to stockpile snowballs and the girls made their own snow forts.















The boys then started a snowball fight but as KelpieBlossom pointed out that as the Geneva Convention and International Snowball Fighting Rules were not being adhered to we would have to abandon the battle and retire to the Merrits Mountain Hutte for lunch.















After lunch it snowed beautiful large snowflakes that we could catch in our hands.

To Snow, To Snow!

To snow, to snow, it's off to snow we go!




See you next week! Yee Ha.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

This book could've been seriously booooorinng. I mean it's about a family who decided to eat whatever they could grow/raise on their farm for a year. Luckily, the author was the fabulous Barbara Kingsolver (Poisonwood Bible) and the family was her family. This book is worth reading just to soak up her words and revel in her dry humour.

The basic premise is that we should eat food that didn't cost 1000s of litres of petrol to get to our table and that fresh, in season food is cheaper and better for us. So, Barbara, her husband and two daughters move to their 40 acre farm in southern Appalachia, Virginia and resolve to take the "eat local" mantra to a whole new level. This book is billed as "part memoir, part journalistic investigation" and contains everything from how to work out whether a vegetable is likely to be in season, how to get Turkeys with the reproduction instinct bred out of them to produce baby turkeys and that too much Zucchini is not a good thing.

Barbara's husband and eldest daughter also contributed snippets to the book - I didn't really bother with these as compared with Barbara's writing they just seemed to get in the way.

How do I think it translates to Australia? My first thought is that with a highly urbanised society with farming land vastly removed from the population we need to re-consider the concept of "local". Local for us isn't going to be 100km. Perhaps more like 500km.

I highly recommend it.

A Wash of Colours

KelpieBlossom wrote this poem at school. It was published in the school newsletter this week.

A Wash of Colours

Blue, green, purple, aqua

Brown tastes like the rich goodness of chocolate cake

Grey smells like a cloud of never-ending mist

White sounds like snow falling from a cloudy sky

Black feels sad like a dreadful funeral

Yellow looks like pretty, blooming, sunflowers

Red makes me hot and angry

But my favourite colour is blue

Secret Identity Revealed on Flashback Friday

I know, I know, it's a bit difficult to see the detail but, please understand, this is an OLD photo!

This is me at 12 months and 3 days. According to the writing on the back of the photo I started walking a few days before and I am pictured with the swing I got for my 1st birthday.

Does anyone else think it was a damned miracle that I walked with the size of that nappy (AmE diaper)? Perhaps it lowered my centre of gravity...

I am standing on our front lawn, behind me is a view of the farm I grew up on. Below is a picture of the same view taken last July:

Padawan Learner Bowled Over on His Birthday

On Sunday the AMF "Bowl-o" in Dee Why welcomed 12 spirited seven-year-old boys and 3 sensible girls to jointly celebrate the birthdays of Padawan Learner and his friend JJ. As I write this the AMF are re-writing their policy manual with regard to seven-year-old birthdays. I wish to formally apologise to all those in the adjoining lanes...














Actually they weren't too bad, there are only two boys who I've blacklisted from further parties. I'm just glad that bowling balls are tough, and so is the flooring.














Padawan Learner had a great time and finished with the highest score - he even managed a strike.














After the bowling came the food, a gourmet selection of hot dogs, chicken nuggets and chips - drowned in as much sauce as you want.














This was the first time I'd completely outsourced a party. I've discovered that with the ease of ringing up and asking for "one party please" comes the difficulty in accepting that cold hot dogs and soggy chips are the real price. However, Padawan Learner loved it, and best of all they all got to have a go in the amusement arcade afterwards while I cringed reminding myself how easy it all was.

And I didn't completely outsource: the AMF provided an icecream cake but I had to make cupcakes - just wouldn't be a real party without them.

Zen and the Art of Cleaning Out the Fridge

Some years ago now Domestic Goddess gave me a copy of Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson. At the time I think it was a little wink to the unassailable fact that she is the Domestic Goddess, not me. However, I love this book. In our house, and amongst other friends who own it, it is simply known as "Cheryl". Cheryl discusses how she hangs out the washing and avoids "broken windows" (mess areas) in her home in a way that reminds you how nice it is to have Shepherds Pie on a cold winters evening. She's Martha without the ribbons and lavender spritz on the sheets. Oh so comforting to read, but oh so not me.

However, after spending a long weekend with Domestic Goddess (who within minutes of hopping in my car started to wipe the interior with baby wipes she just happened to have in her purse) I felt that some areas of my home could do with a spruce up. Not the external areas, the internal-nobody-sees areas. Like the fridge.

Let it be recorded that yesterday I cleaned the fridge. Not a quick wipe out. A full clean. Over the period of two hours I stripped the interior and scrubbed every centimetre. It was cleaned as well as a toy library toy. Those of you who have ever been a member of the Stonnington Toy Library will know what I mean. I even used satay sticks covered in cotton wool...

I need to tell you this because the reward I get for all this work is a fridge that looks EXACTLY THE SAME as it did before I cleaned it. Seriously, no-one has even noticed. I've gone to the extreme lengths to tell everyone I come in contact with of my domesticity just so it's recorded. Most friends have shaken their heads at me saying "what on earth did you bother doing that for?" and "oh, well, at least YOU know it's clean".

So I hearby declare that I feel all zen-like inside on account of my clean fridge.

Now to attack that pile of filing that has been gathering in my office since September 2005...

Happy 7th Birthday Padawan Learner!

It's Padawan Learner's 7th Birthday Today!

Happy Birthday!

A great-looking present pile was waiting for him in the lounge room from family & friends. He was very excited to get a skateboard & helmet, a Dr Who book, Lego, a toy army truck, money from Nana and Pop, and some new clothes.

He shares his birthday with:

10 BC: Claudius, Roman Emperor
1819: Herman Melville, author (Moby Dick)
1936: Yves Saint-Laurent, fashion designer

and also with all horses...

Also on this day:

1831: London Bridge opened
1936: The Games of the XI Olympiad opened in Berlin.
1981: MTV began broadcasting in the United States and aired its first video, "Video Killed The Radio Star" by the Buggles.