iHappyMonday

Monday is the one day of the week that Immy and I have a day at home.

Today we had a visit from the shiny new baby.

We made  biscuits,  broke up easter eggs and added them in.

While I do some paid work from home she is sitting here doing some decorating and 'helping'.

And if you are a fan of Instagram, we are also going to play along with the new meme #iHappyMondays

On Instagram I am Claireyhewitt (bet you are surprised about that one). Join in, if you are also an Instragram addict.

I am doing a handwriting challenge, come and join me too.

If I could hand write this post straight to the interwebs I would, but I have no idea how to do that.

Instead you will all have to do the writing yourself.

If you want.

It's time for a mini handwriting challenge.

I have been thinking about doing this since Eden mentioned handwriting. I have been making more effort to ensure I send the odd letter, note or card to people.

I also received the most surprising and lovely card in the mail last week. It made me cry. It could not have had the same effect if it was typed, texted, facebooked or even emailed to me.

Mail, actually written by you has a secret power that you never even realise. Only the receiver gets the magic. That extra smile you have when you get a surprise letter, the joy of hearing from someone real, of learning some news, of knowing someone far away was thinking about them.

I know lots of you might be thinking the following things:

- I have no one to write to
- I don't have any nice cards or paper
- I have no news to tell
- my handwriting is too messy, my spelling too poor

And I am telling you these are just excuses.

Write to your family members, an old friend or a friend you see every week. Write to your kids and put the letter in your drawer until they are 21. Write to your husband and put the letter in his wallet to read at work. Write to your grandma, even if you never have, especially if you never have. Send birthday cards to old friends that you have not sent to in some time. Send a thank you letter to your favourite shop or cafe, tell them why you love their service, often it is the complaints that come in first.

Cards and fancy paper are limiting, they reduce the space you have to write on, use printer paper, folder paper or a note pad. Use the back of your kid's artwork, recycle some junk mail. Send one sentence on a sticky note or copy an old photo of you and a friend and add a note on the back.

You always have something to say.

Your handwriting is perfectly fine. The beauty of handwriting is that it is all you, it is not meant to be perfect, straight and planned, it is fluid, wobbly, personal and flows out on the page.

So here is my challenge for myself and if you want to join along just let me know.

I will add a special side bar in my blog that includes everyone who is taking part, Bloggers or not.


It is really very simple, the challenge is just

Six letters to six people in six weeks.

That is just a letter a week for six weeks.

It can be harder than it sounds though so let me give you the tips to help make sure this happens.

Get your envelopes and your stamps ready at the beginning. Choose your paper of choice or buy a collection of cards if you think you want to send cards. Having to get to a post office six times is annoying so get all you need on one trip and just pop things in the closest mail box.

Keep a pen handy in case you get a spare moment to write to someone.

Try and decide at the beginning who you will write to, write them on a list and tick them off as you go.

And lastly, let me know if you blog any thing about your handwriting. I have a button over there on the side bar that you can use on your blog sidebar, or your posts or wherever you use such things.

If twitter is your thing, I will be using the hashtag #6letters

And I will be using the handwriting challenge as an excuse to write about all sorts of things related to handwriting from time to time during the six weeks, which might also be a reminder for you to get writing.

I hope someone feels like joining me, but either way, I will enjoy writing and sending my letters and hope six people have an extra skip in their step as they walk away from the letterbox knowing they have a real letter and not just bills to read for the day.

Happy writing.




And a huge thank you to Liz at Mumstrosity for making the button. Lady is a genius of late night blogging magic.

Fixing things that go kabung.

Mr Smeg has long been a disaster here but recently the Rangehood extractor fan thingo also went kabung.

Mr H pulled it apart and confirmed he had no idea what was wrong with it.

We would need an electrician and the spare parts from Mr Smeg, but we didn't really want to spend money on that.

The front loader washing machine, my favourite piece of equipment, (washer/dryer combo, self timer, a wash that sterilises things at 90 degrees and also a steamer to save taking clothes to the dry cleaner) well, she is leaking from the front door, this is not good news.

As for the stuffed up dishwasher from Fisher and Paykel, which has already been paid for once in the last 12 months to be to fixed, well it is stuffed again. Works some days, others it wont, so it is pretty much on 24 hours a day, deciding when to start and stop itself, including the moment it started up while I had my head in it - Apparently this was pretty funny for those brave enough to laugh at the time.

But if we can save a penny than Mr H will try and fix things himself. Not always a good thing.

Last night when I got home from work I thought Mr Smeg had been around to fix the rangehood.

But no, Mr H worked it out.

We had to turn on this switch. Hey Presto, the Rangehood works.

Which surely means we can now use those funds to fork out for this? Right? 

The dishwasher and that sink would be great.

How to Faux Camp. Your step by step guide.

Every Easter Family de Hewitt pick a place to go camping. Not just the four of us, no, we don't do little at  celebration times. Just like at Christmas, when around 65 of us come together, at Easter we do the same.

There is just one little problem.

They go camping.

I am just not much of a camper. I have a long list of reasons why, but I think we can classify most people into two 'camps'. The campers and the non-campers...and then there is me, the Faux Camper.

Here is how you Faux Camp.

Start with shopping for Easter clothes

• Tell people you are going camping at Easter, especially the kids.
• Pack: This takes a couple of days, you need the fishing rods, the Esky to be cleaned from last year, gumboots need to be found (has anyone seen Popps' red gumboots? Brand new ones lost somewhere in the house) Include multiple outfits for the kids. Include excessive amounts of food. 
• Get up really early Easter morning
• Drive to Family de Hewitt Easter camp
• Unpack.

This is where the kids now run off, Mr H sets up fishing rods, you start chatting with everyone and request another fire closer to the river, please.

Excuse the random VB bottle, must have been from another family. Three Generations of campers, Grandpa is now also a Faux Camper!

You now start the walks back and forward to the toilets as apparently the girls never need to go at the same time.

You watch Mr H have to jump in the river to fish out the fishing rod, sans fish.

Your kids learn about the pest of the Australian Rivers as a pile of dead carp begin to grow.

Sausages and burgers are cooked over the fire.

An Easter egg hunt of massive proportions begins as cousins big and small work together to build a stash of eggs and ensure they have not left a single egg hidden in the bush.

Who needs shoes? There is a mud pit, so you just let them go in it. You know where it is going to end but it doesn't really matter.

The smalls will empty out the worm bait bucket and start playing worm families. Some Aunties will gladly accept live worms in their pockets, you know, to keep the babies warm.

There is a lot of talking around the fire.

Everyone is happy.

Now it is dark.

Your camping trip is nearly over.

To end the Faux Camping:

• Throw everything into the car.
• Bribe the kids to get into the car as they start asking why we can't sleep here like everyone else.
• Start the drive home. 
• The kids will be asleep within 10kms and transfer straight to bed.
• Shower in your own bathroom. 
• Jump into your own bed.

The following day your laundry will still smell like a campfire.







PS We were at Bridgewater in Victoria. For those that love camping, this spot is available FREE for the rest of this year, but there are no powered sites, it is going to be developed into something non campish very soon, so get in before it really is all gone.

Kidspot Ford Territory Top 50: Feel the difference

The one task I have to do as part of the Kidspot Top 50 bloggers is to write a blog post with the topic “Feel the difference - your journey into blogging and what sets you apart from other bloggers”.

I’ve really struggled with this topic and had to think about it for some time before I could actually give an answer. Initially I couldn’t think of how I was different to any other blog, my blog journey is already up on the ‘My blog, My story’ page, and I couldn’t put my finger on my point of difference, that sometimes invisible thing that makes me different.

But the answer came to me in the question.

It’s a feeling.

Clairey Hewitt the blog is a bit like a Safety House. It’s a blog of discussions and ideas and dilemmas of modern day parenting, with some advice, but only if that’s what you’re looking for. Clairey Hewitt provides a place to drop in and chat, where you won’t be offended by what you read.

If Clairey Hewitt were given a TV rating it would likely be a PG at most. There is limited swearing, but at times there may be talk of poo, be it from a child, a dog or when Mr H gives me the shits. No violence or bullying is tolerated.

There may be advice or suggestions here, but not criticism if the ideas are not for you.

Questions are asked but nasty replies are not welcome. You may not have noticed, but troll and nasty types tend to not enter the house of Clairey Hewitt. At times they have sent me emails with a bit of a bullying slant, but I don’t bother sharing them here, this is not the place for people to have their negative thoughts displayed.

Clairey Hewitt the safety house may sound dull, boring, lacking of fun and entertainment but that is not it at all. It’s the opposite, it’s having all the good stuff, the conversations, the chats, the comments where people are talking about the good, the bad and the rather ugly without being attacked or ridiculed.

If Clairey Hewitt were a real moving thing she wouldn’t be in the latest Vogue magazine for style. She wouldn’t make it on to MasterChef. She would like to think she might one day be asked to perform  on Dancing with the Stars, but knows this is not about to happen, and that that is ok.

There is comfort in knowing the feeling you are going to get when you click onto a blog. Here you may end up really laughing at or with me (either is fine) you may cry with me, you may wonder how I come up with so many odd thoughts and why do I have to ask so many questions!

You may get surprises when I do some things and lots of talk about what I think about marketing campaigns, both good and bad.

But you wont get abuse.

You wont get sex, drugs and jail terms.

And I can only hope, when you feel the difference here, you like it.

Ivy's Virtual Hat Parade - Get Crafty!

I took this image straight from Ivy's Mums blog.

I have written before about the amazing Ivy.

The last weeks have been rather horrid for Ivy and she has been stuck in hospital fighting very hard.

For a little girl, stuck in hospital means you miss out on lots of things, but one of the things Ivy was sad to miss was her school Easter Hat parade.

So it is Internet to the Rescue.

Today until Sunday, it would be great if you, and your kids could get crafty and upload your Easter Hat pics on to Ivy's Mums facebook page.

There is no catch, no conditions, just upload your pics and we can have a virtual parade.

Ivy is the judge of the best Easter Hat and she will announce her winner on the facebook page on Easter Sunday.

The winner may receive many virtual cheers, the honour of being chosen and possibly a virtual certificate of winning from Ivy, if she is well enough to draw it up.

So get your crafternoon going people.

The more people who join in the better so if you are a blogger or social media person, feel free to write/share the idea around too.



You can read about Ivy's story on her Mums blog My Three Ring Circus

Where's Clairey?

We did a day trip on Monday to the best kids park in Victoria that I have found so far...and I have been to quite a few.

To read where, why and what I thought you need to pop over here.

From little things, big blogs grow

Once upon a time there was a Mum, lets call her Clairey, she was thinking about blogging and set off to find some decent ones to read.

Clairey arrived at the kidspot top 50 Aussie blogs list and enjoyed reading through them all and checking out all the different blogs and people behind them.

Clairey went about her business and started her own blog and a couple of years later was amazed to report that she actually got selected to be part of the 2012 Kidspot Top 50.

Clairey looked at every other blog in that list and started to poo her pants as it seems possible that she is one of (if not the) smallest blog on the list. This is scary for one little reason.

VOTES.

Half of the judging comes down to votes. Big blogs have lots of voters. Little ones don’t. And that is scary scary.

Clairey had one choice only.

Begging.

So here I am. Begging you to give me a vote and try to win yourself $5K in the process.

Tell your friends, your enemies and use your kids email accounts if you have to.

Just a little click here, an email address and you are done.