May 4: Your earliest memory

I have a few memories from around the same time, I must be about two and a half in each of these memories but I am not sure of the correct order of things.

We were living in Melton, a Western suburb that was considered a satelite city, it wasn't even city fringe back then. My Dad was air traffic controlling at Tullamarine airport and Mum was home with us kids. My sister was now at school in Prep and we had a baby in the house, I don't recall my Mum being pregnant or the arrival of my brother. I do remember my sister getting a new bunk bed built on the wall and that I had to go into her room. There was Holly Hobbie wallpaper. 

The kitchen was all orange and brown. Bright orange benches and tiles, wonderful and bright. There is yellow 'bottle' glass in the front hallway. 

Next door the neighbours on one side have a big dog called Duncan and everyone sings "I'd like to have a beer with Duncan" to the dog. I can't swing high enough to see over the fence to see the dog but my sister and the other kids in the street can. There are always other kids on our backyard, they are free to roam in and out along the street.

Then one day Mum wasn't there. I didn't know where she was but Dad was around all the time and we had fish and chips and the man up the street worked at a petrol place and because Mum wasn't home he came over and gave us kids ALL THE SMURFS. 

This money smurf was the only one that survived for many years, I expect he is now lost too (the image is from ebay)

I don't recall being too concerned that Mum wasn't there but I do remember feeling so so so excited that we were the only kids to have every single Smurf figurine.

Mum clearly returned after a short stay in the hospital, but I don't recall anything about her return at all. 

What is your earliest memory? 

May 3: Changing Tracks

I got the idea of Changing Tracks straight from the 774 ABC radio program. Each week they have a segment where someone has written in with a story and as part of the story there is a song. The song was played/heard/sang at a significant time in a person's life and forever more, when they hear that song, that one event in their life is recalled.

It's not a favourite song, it doesn't have to be a good song, it's a song you recall.

"There's no hard or fast topic for the stories featured on Changing Tracks, just "a song that was playing when your life changed tracks".

My Changing Track is 14 years old.

It comes from a time when there was much change in my life. A relationship had broken up, I had moved home with my parents, out to a flat and back home again, I knocked back a huge promotion to move to Sydney and continue my finance marketing career with the Australian Stock Exchange and instead decided to move to Ireland for a year and see what happened. While I was making plans for my future, I was still a bit unsure of myself and where I really wanted to be.

I went out for drinks with some friends to celebrate my last day of work and by chance I met Mr H.

We chatted about how it was my last day and I was soon to leave Australia and go to Dublin.

But one thing lead to another and in the next few weeks we met up a few more times, and a few more times and when we weren't meeting up he was calling me, and when I didn't answer he left all sorts of messages, and when certain songs came on the radio he called my phone and just held his phone to the radio for a few lines and then hung up.

One of those songs was Gwyneth Paltrow singing 'Cruisin'.

It's not a song you hear anymore, but it was on the radio a lot in January 2001 and if I ever hear that song now, I remember those first few weeks when we first met. They were very happy, very carefree days. We had not a worry in the world, other than which bar to check out on the weekend and whose friends to catch up with next.

It was nearly five years later, that we got married and later this year will be our ten year anniversary.


Do you have a song that is your 'Changing Track'?

Day 2: A Favourite Movie

A Favourite Movie, not THE favourite movie, because I can never ever actually choose a very top favourite.

Any film that makes me laugh and laugh is a good movie and one of those is Bridesmaids.

It came out at the movies and everyone was talking about it, but I was in the thick of babies and creche and getting back to work and the time to see it just never arrived. It finished at the cinema and people were still laughing and making references to it.

Once it was on DVD I grabbed a copy, waited for a night when Mr H was out, stocked up on chips and drinks, got the kids to bed and I stayed up late and laughed and laughed and laughed.

If you like super funny chick flicks, this one is a goodie. If you have seen it, what did you think?

Most of you will have seen it, so here is the blooper reel to remind you again of some funny stuff.








Have you got a favourite movie to share today?

Day 1: Describe your day in 100 words.

It’s white shirt day at work. I thought about it overnight, which shirt am I going to wear? It's silly to think about as I only have one. It's new, but it's linen. I like it, but get the feeling when I wear it that I look like Prue and Trude.

Matched with my sensible shoes I look like a grandma. 

My poor fashion options make me stressed packing school lunchboxes.

I add an elk necklace and instantly feel better.

At work in my sensible shoes and linen shirt, it’s my job to share details about Ovarian Cancer.

A little house keeping:
It is day one of the Blog in May project and I am thrilled to have had such lovely comments and people saying they too will be involved. A huge thank you to Kelly Exeter from Swish Design who has designed a blog button and image for us all to use. Please feel free to use this in your posts or side bars if you want to. I will add it to my side bar to make it easy to find the list each day, feel free to do the same.

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?