Blog Every Day in May 2014!

Here we go!

Perhaps it's madness. Why else would I encourage myself to do more?

The simple answer is that it's good practice. It is not super easy to just type up the words and communicate a story. It's not easy to walk into a room at a party and tell stories to people you don't know. If you don't read or write anything you don't learn and grow much at all.

Writing and telling stories is good for the soul. (I might have made that up).

So in the absence of finding a blog every day in May for 2014 list, I have made up my own.

I am not even sure I will make it, but I am going to try my guts out.

If you would like to blog every day in May than feel free to use this list too. Let me know if you are giving it a try.

1. Describe your entire day in just 100 words.
2. A Favourite Movie
3. Changing Tracks – a song that you hear that reminds you of a certain time in your life.
4. Your earliest memory
5. Your zodiac sign and your thoughts on star signs
6. In ten years time I will be…
7. I once had a mentor who…
8. I am inspired by…
9. Out of all the ice cream in the world, the best is…
10. The story of your first car.
11. The one skill I have always wished to have.
12. The house is on fire, all the family is out, and you can grab 5 more items. What are they?
13. Describe your relationship with your phone – Honestly
14. One of your favourite images of all time
15. You can only choose five foods to eat for an entire year, what do you choose.
16. The best smell in the world is…
17. Yesterday we talked the best smell in the word, the worst smell is….
18. You have $1million to give to just one charity, which one do you choose.
19. Your favourite restaurant meal
20. Three people walk into a bar…
21. Write about a journey in your life.
22. First names
23. Something that you will never write about.
24. The last book you read
25. You can be a fly on the wall at any time/stage of history, where do you go?
26. Are ghosts real?
27. Share a blog that you enjoy reading
28. A habit I would like to break
29. A random act of kindness you have received or given.
30. Your favourite photo of the week from around the world
31. Farewell Autumn 2014, you have been…

Just incase I miss your posts on twitter or instagram or facebook, please use the hashtag #CHbloginmay

A HUGE thank you to Kelly Exeter at Swish Design for designing a blog button for us all to use too. If you don't know Kelly, you can follow her blog and business and check out all the wonderful design work she does over at Swish. 

Please feel free to use the button. 

Let's go!

Idle minds...

Last year I did a monthly challenge to write every day in May and I would like to do the same thing this year but I can't find anyone else who is doing one.

I know, I know.  I could make up my own list but I want someone else to provide me with a list of prompts to write about. It's not the same to make it myself, because I know I will make it too simple. Have you seen a list? Do you want to make me a list. I need some prompts to get my creative storytelling brain kicked into gear, it's been getting a bit lazy and preferring to sit about and eat chocolate rather than think...and well, idles minds are of no benefit to anyone, unless they find funny stuff.

Luckily I have been flicking around and found this post, it made my belly wobble with laughter.

Click on the image to see a whole stack more funny stuff that Mum's manage to send in text messages.

And if you see any writing prompt lists, be sure to send them my way.

Week 17: Family, family everywhere but not a photo to share.

How was your long weekend? Two of them in a row makes for pretty good times and we were spoilt with special family visits.

I sent MiL Huey and my own Mum to Mrs Brown's Boys through the week, they did dinner, the show and then a sleep over at our place.

Mr H, Popps and MiL Huey attended the local dawn service for ANZAC day.

Once my Mum left on Friday we took a drive out to Woodend, ordered a platter of snacks for lunch at a local pub and then burnt off some energy at the park. It's an excellent playground and if you haven't been before, you should certainly make Woodend a day trip. Lovely shops, good food, decent park. Win, win, win!

Saturday arrived and so did Mr H's brother who now lives overseas so we were all excited to see him and hear all the news of his family.

Mr H slow cooked a leg of lamb, I got to work on the three cheese sauce for the cauliflower and broccoli, we added green beans, sweet potato, mushrooms, and roast spuds and shared the basics of home cooking. After dinner the girls watched a movie and us grown ups shared all the good wine we could find in the house, which wasn't quite enough, so I poured us all a Midori too. There was much laughter and just a little slurring of words.

Amazingly, we all woke reasonably ok today. Until I took a slip on the stairs at our back door and ended up tits up and sprawled across the back cement tiles. I am now nursing bruises and an elbow cut that I expect will heal quickly.

As for a family photo - I got a couple, but they are not for sharing publicly, my extended family prefer to remain away from the bloggy, which is totally understandable.

We finished the weekend with me throwing together the left over veggies from the fridge to make Wombok and bacon fritters, which actually tasted fantastic, they could even become a regular Sunday night thing here.

How was your weekend? 
Are you well? 
Do you ever make up recipes just to use up ingredients in the fridge?

ANZAC Biscuits with Ginger

This week I posted a new recipe on my facebook page, ANZAC biscuits with ginger in them, when Meg suggested she was going to give them a try I asked if she could share with the rest of us what she thought of them.

Introducing Miss Meg and Little Sammy.

Hello lovely people out there,

Today Sammy and I took up Clairey Hewitt's challenge to make ANZAC biscuits with a twist, using Buderim Ginger!  What a fun, yummy, messy & experimental day we've had.

Our family loves a good ANZAC bikkie, so after reading the recipe featuring Buderim Ginger Naked Ginger how could I pass it up!  Especially because we live in Buderim, and my 3 boys seem to do the naked thing quite often!

I have a love/hate relationship with baking so it was an instant thumbs up for this recipe as it was simple and most of the ingredients were in my pantry, yayyy.  My little Sammy enjoyed 'helping' and very much enjoyed the frothing of the bicarb, golden syrup & hot water, "awesome" was his description!

I ended up making three batches, for three reasons. We ate most of the batter with the first batch, the ginger was subtle enough after using a garlic crusher that even ole' mate fussy pants said "Sammy like it".  The second batch was to make up for the first and the third was my chance to experiment!

With the last batch I cut back the butter to 100g and added 20ml of the Buderim Ginger cordial (I promise I'm not an employee!), which we had in our fridge. I also made them a fair bit bigger than the suggested size of a teaspoon full.  

If you like ginger, well hallelujah you will love this slight twist to the recipe provided.

All in all, I loved the taste of the ginger in the ANZAC's and would definitely suggest you give it a go.

Meg x

The original recipe can be found at the Buderim Ginger website 


Thanks Meg for taking the time to try these out, not just once, but THREE times. 

How do you like your ANZAC biscuits?

Eleven

It has taken eleven years for Easter Tuesday to fall on April 22 again.










Eleven years ago this girl was born.

Eleven years ago today she was eleven days old.

She didn't notice the helicopter swoop in.

She had not devoured the chocolate eggs her big brothers were allowed to indulge in.

She did not hear the whispered promises I made to her biggest brother as he lay in ICU that day or the way I bargained with all my powers to a God that didn't listen.

Eleven years is a long time, but it's not really very long at all.

It's long enough for us to have two more weddings and to welcome five new babies into our immediate family. Long enough to travel, to learn, to make marvellous friends. It's long enough to smile again. And laugh. It's enough time to learn that it's more than ok for people to grieve and also be happy at the same time. It's enough time to learn that if God was real he wouldn't take babies from earth before their time, but to let you also indulge in the belief of a heaven, a paradise for children to play in eternally.

It's not long enough that sometimes when you least expect it a song will come on the radio that makes you think of a boy that was only on earth for three years and eight months but who changed the world for you. Because Lochie, the pain in our hearts will always feel like a piece of us is on fire, no matter what it looks like on the outside after eleven years.



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Week 16:

Last week the My Family and Me post didn't go live - well not on the blog it didn't, but I did post to Instagram and facebook and twitter but it was brought to my attention (hello Emma) that not all people use those platforms.




How was your Easter?

I did something new, something I usually prefer to steer clear of.

We camped.

Mainly I faux camped.

But on Saturday night, the Easter Bunny was coming and I didn't want to be snuggled up in my big bed at Mum's and miss the kids faces after Easter Bunny had been visiting the camp, so I found myself sleeping quite snug in a tent.

There was no mobile coverage and no power so Mr H and I both left our phones packed away and soon realised that without a phone we also have no camera.

When my sister arrived with her swanky new camera Mr H snatched it from her and drooled over how great it was, then he went snapping around the campsite. He even managed to snap a perfect My Family and Me shot for my collection, even though it seems I was the only one wanting to smile for the camera, everyone else was just having too much fun being together.

Welcome back Puffy Jacket weather! 

Link up if you have time. 

Wordless Wednesday

You know how they say a picture tells 1000 words? I often think that a picture misses out 1000 words. There is always so much more to a story than one brief second.

Wordless Wednesday is a chance to share images not stories - except for the story that the image tells.

Here are some from this year.

Linking up with my blogging friend Trish for this week's Wordless Wednesday.

Remembering names and faces

I have really bad facial memory. I don't know if that is a thing or not but I am shocking at remembering people that I haven't seen in a while. Or haven't spoken to.

People that I used to work with, people I currently work with or people I see around but don't know, I am hopeless at thinking quickly and putting the name to the face to the place.

There was an auction in our street last week, the house was just two doors up so we stood outside to see how it went. On the front lawn was another family and I kept thinking the woman looked familiar. I decided she must be from the same swim school as us, or maybe her kids do dancing and I have seen her there, or perhaps the little boy was from creche last year. There were over 100 people at the auction so I quickly roamed around to see who else was there and then listened to the auction.

Then yesterday a lady at work asked me if I knew Emma, a photographer who had taken my photo. No, I said, I don't know any Emma at all, and I haven't had any photos taken by an Emma. You must she said, because your face is on the promotional brochure that I got in the mail. Nope, I said, it can't be me, must be someone who looks like me.

She said she is really good with faces and even though we have only met a couple of times she KNOWS it is me. I had to think and think and think.

Then I googled my own blog.

Yes! That's right. I remember Emma. Yes. We did have some photos taken. Yes, Emma is really lovely, I loved the day she took the photos.

I started flicking through them again and saw this one.

Last year when I saw that photo I hated that mole near my mouth. It's the first thing that I always see in every photo of me. But now it's gone. Still healing, still a month of sticky tape on my face to wear, but it is out, it was totally cancer free, and it is gone.

When I told the girls it was coming off, Immy was worried that she wouldn't know which Mummy was hers when she came out for school pick up. I told her not to worry I would call out her name, just to be sure.

And while I was waiting around for the Preppy doors to open I noticed another woman. The same one from the auction. Yes, that's it. Our kids are in the same class at school.

How good are you at remembering faces?

I need help with hair straighteners

Years ago my sister gave me a hair straightener for my birthday. Possibly she thought it was about time I added one to my tools to assist with bad hair days. 

There was nothing fancy about it, just a basic model and it worked ok - if you used it. Took me a couple of years to really give it a go. 

I did use it for dance concerts and attempted to get a few curls with it but it just didn't work, the edges were too rough and it was too big. 

Last year with yet another dance concert that needed Popps with a head of curls I sought out the help of my Mother in law. She is a big user of tools to get your hair under control and I tried out a few of her sleek and hotted up weapons of a bad hair day. 

I couldn't get control of them at all, however she also had a new tool of mass frizz destruction. 

The INSTYLER. 

It had been a gift from Father in Law Huey. FiL Huey had seen this gadget and thought it looked pretty useful. 

I couldn't get it to provide curls in Popps' hair but I was intrigued with this thing. 

I wanted to see if I could get it to work for me. Surely this is the tool I have been looking for. 

Let me tell you to save your money. The Instyler looks good but do not let this fool you. 

The barrel is huge and it is hot, unlike on straightening irons, there is no plastic backing on any side so you regularly touch the edge of an ear or the back of your neck and you BURN THE SKIN FROM YOUR BODY. 

I decided it was because my hair was too short so it couldn't get around the barrel, but as my hair has grown I have still burnt myself with this thing. I have also burnt the bathroom bench because when you put it down, the freaking hot over 400 degrees barrel just touches whatever it lays on. I have burnt face washers and melted plastic bottles with this thing. 

Worst of all, the Instyler has made me develop OCD. It is so so hot and burns so quickly that I keep worrying about if I have turned it off. One day I actually made Mr H leave work and drive home to check it was off for me, I was so worried about burning the house down. There is no auto switch off on this thing, it is just a damn hot rod of stress. It also takes a really really long time if you want to style your hair with this thing. Apparently it takes you from damp to wet hair, but that is only if you are happy to take about an hour just to dry your hair. 

So it is time I admit defeat, accept that I can not master the Instyler and return it to MiL Huey. At the same time I need to invest in my own decent hair straightener, because although I might have the straightest hair on earth, short hair needs assistance in the morning to make it work ready, as I barely have any skin left on my ears as it is, I need something a bit safer to use, and I would really like an auto safety switch too. 

Do you have a hair straightener, is it safe for me to use? Would love your recommendations.

Week 14: From Above

#MyFamilyandMe

Hello School Holidays.

Mr H is missing in action due to being on night shift this week so it's just us girls.

And minecraft, freaking minecraft addiction is in the house.

Things I think of when I have to think of something else.

I had a little procedure today.

Isn't that an odd sentence? Is that just something I say now because I have been working in a hospital for three years? Procedure. It's what people have.

Anyway, you know how I had my naked photos taken, well they have already come in handy and today I had to go under the knife. Not really all that big a deal but as I hate needles and stuff I had to concentrate on not fainting and think of other things.

When you are told to think of something else it's really hard to think of something. So I tried to concoct a blog post in my head. What would I write, what could my next post be about? Nothing came to mind.

Should I write about stuff coming up for Easter? What about some reviews of stuff that I didn't like - is it nasty and bad karma to write about things I don't like? Would I make the makers of the stuff sad, hurt their feelings? It's not nice to say unkind things. Then again, should people be made aware of dodgy products so that don't waste money on stuff I don't like. But what if it is just me that doesn't like it and everyone else does - kind of like gin. I don't like gin, but I do like vodka, but lot's of other people like gin.

Perhaps I could write about how it felt when they were cutting, that it felt like she was drawing on me with a texta and even though it didn't hurt I was concentrating really hard on not moving and not fainting. I could write about my heart rate when she said we need to do "insert medical term I had not heard of" right now, have you had a pace maker? It's bleeding more than it should.

I could write about how nice the nurse was, I thought she was so friendly and made me really relaxed, I felt like we could be friends, if it was different circumstances we could go for lunch.

I laid there thinking of how this was such a simple procedure and it was still annoying to have to go through, my heart cracked a little for all the pain and suffering people with real illness have to cope with, for days and sometimes years on end.

Then before I knew it, 45 minutes was done and though I had one less mole on my freckled face, I still had no idea of what I could blog about next.