I don’t know where all of my time goes. I seriously have barely opened my computer since I last blogged. My reader is beyond clogged with everybody’s happy Christmas posting.

I read all of those vampire books. Just in case you haven’t read them. I urge you to steer clear. I should have known better, they were appalling, I really can’t see what people are going on about. I will do everything in my power to make sure that my daughters don’t read them. I can’t imagine a worse model for teen relationships than the one that’s presented in these books. So many things about them annoyed me, way too many elements to list here. Woefully written tripe, I say. Of course there was no need for me to read them all once I had discovered that the first one was awful – I know I have only myself to blame for that stupid little bit of obsessive behaviour. Take my advice though, spare yourself.

I have eaten (probably more than) my own weight in assorted choclates and biscuits and brownies after baking up a storm in the lead up to Christmas. We always over cater but this was beyond ridiculous.

I am always a bit shell-shocked at this time of year, it takes me at least until mid-January to register that it’s all over and there is no more planning to be done or presents to wrap or feasts to cook. I half expect another celebration to spring out from behind a bush and surprise me. It doesn’t help that Rhubarb’s birthday is on the 3rd of Jan. Do you have any idea how hard it is to think up presents to buy and muster up the energy to cook a special birthday meal and treats after the long haul of Christmas? Hard.

Anyway, I am planning on being a better, more consistent blogger next year and so I’m mounting a pre-emptive strike on blogging. See, I’m a planner, me.

Happy New Year everyone. Thank you to all those who have read and commented here this year. Blogging is such a joyous and rewarding part of my life, thanks to you.

I shall be having a leisurely meal with the kidlets and perhaps enjoying a glass of wine if I am lucky. I hope that someone out there is doing some hardcore partying in my stead.

See you in 2010.

Thanks to everyone who has been wishing us luck with the house and sending all that lovely good luckiness this way. We are both complete wrecks. We have banned ourselves from speaking about the house and still I find myself turning to Beefcake roughly every 3.5 seconds and asking him if he thinks we’ll get the house. He has tried to suggest that I “not worry my purdy little head about it” and let him be “the man” and deal with it. He was trying to be funny and make me feel better but of course I was forced to punch him in the ear.

To take out tiny little minds off of the worries we face, the Easter Bunny decided to run a special treasure hunt this morning instead of the usual “race about the garden frantically trying to gather the most eggs” type of hunt. Each child had their own set of clues to follow, which eventually led them to their basket of easter sugar (except for Grub who received a small toy and did not have to follow clues because she’s a baby and, despite being somewhat of a prodigy in the gross motor skills department, she cannot read). It was a raging success and I think we will employ this tactic again. All of the children were in delightful moods after the fun start to their day and we had a great day spending time together.

I decided to indulge in the chocolate today as well because there were mocha hot cross buns and dark chocolate bunnies for fuck’s sake. This, it turns out, constitutes a significant error of judgement on my part. The resulting sugar rush saw me engaged in several very energetic wii games, which involved dancing and other complicated moves of a physical and exercisey type nature. I was so hyped up I even challenged Rhubarb to a “cool moves” competition on the trampoline. I don’t really do cool moves on the trampoline as a rule (read – I don’t jump on the trampoline) so I should have known it was the sugar talking. I blame Beefcake, he stood by and judged the whole thing, he must have known how I would feel later (I won by the way but Rhubarb feels that the judging was not all above board).

To cap it off, we all went for a long walk and I borrowed Rhubarb’s bike and RODE for quite some distance. I did some chin-ups on some of the play equipment at the park and helped Rhubarb carry his bike home (he burst the inner tube doing something silly and was worried about damaging his rims on a completely flat tyre). Now, I don’t do chin-ups and this was only the second time I have ridden a bike in the last eight years or so.

I’ll bet you can imagine how I feel now.

I will be even worse tomorrow, which is not convenient as we are having a large family lunch. I will be cooking and cleaning all morning tomorrow feeling like an arthritic old lady.

It’s evil stuff that sugar. I don’t usually touch it that much. I don’t even like bloody milk chocolate and I have consumed enough of it today to put a whale into a diabetic coma.

I’m not too bright.  I am not a grown up. I shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions on my own.

Seriously.

Oh and Happy Easter!!

WARNING: This is where I demonstrate that I have no shame, or at least, very little, and if something is bothering me enough I just have to share. Please click away if you are easily embarassed or would rather not know this kind of thing about me. I won’t be offended, I just have to put this out there because, well, I have poor impulse control?

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I use a little thing known as an epilator. I have used it for some time. It is excellent.

My underarms and legs remain pretty much hair-free with a minimum of pain and fuss if I am nice and reg-a-lar about it.

However.

I am a bit squeamish when it comes to attending to my bikini line with my epilator. I do it, but if I have left it to grow back at all it is all together too painful for me to manage in one session. I have remembered this and have been keeping it well under control lately. Consequently, this morning it was time to have a quick tidy up after my shower.

Now, your skin needs to be completely dry in order to perform the whole epilation thing. It told me so in the manual when I first bought it and my brain has managed to fire that information at me every time I have used my epilator since. My brain did fire the information this morning. I did not take heed.

Just in case you are not familiar with the way an epilator works, it pulls the hair out by the roots with little rotating tweezer disc thingys- painful if you’re not used to it, some potential for maiming around sensitive areas.

I was in a hurry this morning.

I just have one phrase for you “labia mangling”.

The end.

We went browsing at a big shopping centre today. We had to get a present for a friend of Pudding’s who’s having her fourth birthday tomorrow and we needed a few other things. We had a nice time. I found a really beautiful dress, gorgeous navy with pink and silvery oriental kind of print. Sounds a bit off but it’s beautiful. Unfortunately, they only had a size 6, which in Australia is about as small as it gets. I am not as small as it gets. It would fit Poss but it’s not really her style. I loved the fabric so much (and the price -it was $7) that I bought it so that I could make something for Grub.

I digress.

We went to the toy shop to buy a present for Puddings friend. Gift was purchased, all was well. Just as we were about to leave though we spotted these by the window – in a glass case because they are THAT special:

Now, I understand that these are supposed to bring to mind a bit of Cabaret. I can see that, but what I also see is Super Skanky Stripper Barbie, now with bendy limbs.

Perhaps Mattel feel that they have neglected a market share by not catering to all of the little girls who aspire to one day mount chairs wearing fishnets? And, in an extra-specially well thought out move, this is the Barbie they have used to launch “The Pivotal Body”, which, from what I gather, just means she can be bent and posed in real pron star positions. You can bend her every which way. She will teach your daughter the art of keeping one’s limbs flexible. Also, if you fancy a bit of light S&M she comes equipped with chains.

What more could a little girl dream of, really?

Photos from here.

You may think that post is formed out of a lack of blog fodder on my part. Not at all, not at all. This is out of my genuine concern for my fellow blogger. TAKE HEED or you will be me.

1. Do not discuss with sister-in-law the fact that i-phone would make perfect replacement for husband (if only vibration capabilities were improved) in front of teenage son. He will ask you what you were talking about later.
2. Do not flaunt i-phone at husband too much. He will begin feverish coveting of said. Tantruming may result.
3. Do not shut labrador in back part of house when you go out for several hours. She will feel cheated. She will headbutt door and wall. In  rickety old house, this means you will come home to broken bathroom mirror – dislodged from wall and smashed all over bathroom floor*.
4. When vaccuming in bathroom, do not come too close to toilet roll. A roll of toilet paper has never unrolled so fast (Beefcake’s mistake, not mine.).
5. When sending daughter to sleepover birthday party, check her bag. She will forget pyjamas and hairbrush. Other mother now knows your failings as a mother.
6. Do not allow husband in to the supermarket alone. He will run in to sleepover mother. She will bring up the topic of daughter’s nightime coughing. He will make us appear negligent parents. Also, he will not buy milk or dog food.
7. Do not allow teenage son to sms his father. Prick will not bother to respond. Son will be let down. Will take it out on you.
8. Do not post bitchy things on twitter and then admit to sister-in-law that you are on twitter. That is living on the edge.
9. Do not attempt enthusiastic high kick whilst “dancing” with 3-year-old son. You don’t have the pelvis for it.
10. When sending husband out for milk, dog food and chocolate, tattoo the words ‘buy milk’ on his forehead. Not only will he return without milk but he will persist with charade that he did, in fact, purchase milk. He will go out to the car, you will hear the car start, you will hear it pull out of the driveway. When he returns ten minutes later, he will hold up milk and say “found it, it was under Grub’s seat”. You will want to throttle him.
11. Buy more than one can of dog food at a time. Remembering at dinner time EVERY NIGHT  for weeks that you have no dog food will grow tedious over time.

*Note: We have no proof that this is how the mirror became dislodged but, judging by previous headbutting attempts, this seems likely.

I am very excited. Tonight I am going out. I am heading OUT to see live music with a friend.

We are going to listen to the lovely sounds that come from this man.

She has a baby girl 6 weeks younger than Grub.

It is very telling that we were both quite shocked, when we checked our tickets, to see that the doors opened at 9.30pm.

I got this email from her this morning:

We don’t get out much.

I must have been feeling particularly stupid when I forgot the sort of times live gigs usually happen. The ex-husband is a sound engineer for flips sake. I am all too aware of how these things work. Or at least I used to be, before my brain melted.

So, she will collect me at 9pm, we will be dressed nicely, we will venture out, unchaperoned.

Wish us luck.

Once upon a time there was a little house in the suburbs. The owner of the house rented it to a ‘couple’, who  payed a year’s rent in advance, and he left them to it. Months later the police descended on the house, which they had been keeping under surveillance. It turns out, the lovely 3-bedroom suburban wonder had been used to house a massive hydroponics endeavour. It was a drug house.

The landlord reapired all the damage caused by the evil drug lords and chose his next tenants with care. A family with 3 4 children. He knew they would take better care of the house – no hydro for them.

Which is why it was particularly funny to wake up and find this in our driveway this morning:

I looked out the window and could see what looked like a book lying on the gravel. After we had peered at it through the window for several minutes Beefcake was overcome by curiosity and went out to have a look. He has since had a little wander up and down our street and found that they  are everywhere.This game (as featured on disapproving local current affairs program) is *gasp* a game about how to create a successful business dealing hydroponically grown drugs. Think monopoly with weed. Actually, think Weeds in a board game.The  concern has been that these games, which just get left in public parks (and in peoples driveways evidently) will plant evil thoughts in the minds of children and lead them to abuse drugs. Nobody is worried that Cluedo is going to give children ideas about becoming murderers. Although, now that I think of it, Rhubarb has exhibited some predisposition for bumping off people with candlesticks. Must keep an eye on that.

So dear readers, I have procured a second game, which I will send to one of you. Hours of fun for the while family in this one little game. To enter, just share a story about an encounter you have had with the ganga. You’ve all got one, I know you have – go on.

I’ll randomly draw the winner somehow or other.