Wordless Wednesday

'Muuuuummmm! Do I have to?'

Dear Keisha
Happy fourth brithday. You light up our lives and put up with a lot.
Best Bear/Dog ever!!!!!

Happiness in a Weekend

Sometimes, I can have weeks on end of 'couch weekends' - you know, the weeks d where you don't venture out and only do the basic errands, but have no major events. Life has been like that for me for the past few months - and by no means isn't a bad thing to have that time to chill.
This weekend just gone however, was mahoosive (yep, new word alert!). It started off for me with Thursday night dinner at a Mexican sans child (woo hoo!) followed by the Tea Party gig. I was transported back to 1995 and loved every minute of it.




Jeff Martin from The Tea Party

Friday, I had a 'me' day. TBone looked after Master Z and I was able to have my hair done and spend the day shopping in Claremont - and I had a coffee and dessert that I got to finish to the end!

 

Saturday I had a birthday party for one of my beautiful mother's group friends followed by an engagement party for one of TBOne's friends from school. Sunday was then spent catching up with work friends in Freo.


But the HIGHLIGHT, was Friday night's Christmas in July for W.O.M.B.A.T. (that's 'Website, Online Media, Bloggers and Tweeps' for the uninitiated!) at Black Tom's. I was bricking it and very close to pulling out at the last minute. I was heading to an event with 25 other Perth bloggers, whom I had never met and only chatted to on a few occasions and I was petrified!


I had previously tweeted that I would most likely spend the night in the toilet - my go to place when I am uncomfortable - but I needn't have worried. The first person I met was Yvette from Delightfully Tacky Lil Squirts, who I speak to every Tuesday as a fellow #IBOT team member. She was lovely, bubbly and her conversation, mixed with some champers went a long way to helping me relax.

Yvette, Glow and Karen

There were several bloggers there that I have read from my first discovery of blogging and it was pretty intimidating and awesome at the same time to meet them. I was stoked to meet Glow from Where's My Glow?, who is as warm and funny as her blog and the beautifully serene Sarah from Dear Baby G, who has the most beautiful energy about her and is exactly how I imagined her from reading her words.

Georgia, Lani, Sarah, Catherine, Taryn

It was also lovely to meet Georgia, from Parental Parody, Taryn from This is Taryn, Feli from My Life in Mono, Kim - @RealJiveTurkey and Lani from Me & Boo - all blogs in my reader and I devour their words every morning.

Glow and Taryn

I met some other bloggers that I had not come across before, the gorgeous Karen from Yellow Dandy Dreams, Rhonda from Silly Mummy, and Cie from Pathetic to Pin Up - blogs I journeyed through on Saturday to catch up.
As with anything that involves a bit of wine, there were shinanegans, and I may have ended up in Leederville - where I was id checked for the second night in a row - woo hoo! Thank you to my two partners in crime - I had an awesome time getting to know you - and the random people we followed there because they showed an interest in our boxes.

Kim and Glow

Thank you so much to Colin from Superparents and the others who organized the event and the sponsor, Koo from Bubblerdeals for the beautiful Tiffany blue boxes full of goodies that were the envy of many other Black Tom's punters - particularly the guy below who we decided looked like David Brent in his music video.

David Brent?

I had a blast meeting everyone, some people I didn't get to, so will have to catch up next time and I can't wait to do it again!

My happiness cup was well and truly filled to the brim on the weekend!

Linking up today with Jess at Diary of a SAHM as its Tuesday!

Wordless Wednesday

Photos taken on our trek through Tibet to Everest Base Camp in 2005.
Linking up with Trish for Wordless Wednesday

Neurotic Me

I was going to do a post with some facts about me, but as I was writing them, I found that they are all slightly weird, left of centre neuroses. I don't know how these started, but here are some random things that have become habit

1. My alarm is always set for :06 or :31 past the hour. Never any other
number. I don't know why, it just is. (OK, it's because they were Drew Banfield, my favourite West Coast Eagle's numbers when I was a teenager.....)

2. I avoid parking to my right if at all possible - this has seen me circling car parks on many occasions.

3. I avoid the number 13 where possible - even though I quite happily live at number 13 and TBone, my Dad and my brother's lucky numbers have always been 13 and it's usually their jersey number. I definitely won't fly on the 13th.

4. If I am reading a book at night, I can't go to sleep finishing at the end of Chapter 12. I always have to read up to the beginning of Chapter 15.

5. I won't wear odd socks, or let TBone wear them.

6. If I see a number plate with CGH or CGP in order, (my initials before and after marriage) I feel butterflies in my stomach and know its going to be a good day.

7. I won't wear, or have any peacock feathers around me.

8. I don't like spikey things. There are no things in our house with a spikey or pointy end as I worry about them jumping somehow into my eye. I don't use umbrellas and don't like being near someone with an umbrella.

9. I tend to have a right sided neglect. I will bang my right shoulder on door frames fifty bazillion times a day and not recognize to correct it. Probably why my right shoulder can dislocate on command........

These are all unfounded, often olde worlde superstitions that I have gathered along the way and for some reason, they have become a habit to me. Fortunately, I can alter if I need to without anxiety (I know some people aren't that fortunate) but they are such a part of me and how I do things.
Do you have any idiosincracies? Please let me know so I don't feel like the only odd one

Nature Play

image

When we were kids, we grew up in a small country town, where our back yard was limitless. Our play ground was wherever there was a patch of bush between the houses and we would get home from school, grab a snack and then head off, not getting home til the sun went down. We played wars, with the bush being our battlefield, we played house, made cubbies and shops in the trees, collected tadpoles and lizards and we did 'pottery' in the creek beds. Life was simple.


Unfortunately the world doesn't seem to be as safe a place as when we were kids. Whether or not this is the case, or if we as parents are just more aware of what is going on outside our front doors from being exposed to news and media stories of all the bad things that happen, I am not sure. It does mean however, that we are more cautious about what our children get up to and it is very rare that we would let them play outside of the yard unsupervised. 


Urbanisation and location is also a factor. If we stay where we are living at the moment, Master Z is 10 kms from the nearest natural bush area. There are no trees around to build tree houses in, and no creeks to go traipsing through in his wellies, or even better, in his bare feet to feel his toes slip through the cold mud.


Nature play is so important for children of all ages. There is research to prove that children benefit from appropriate risk taking outdoors by helping them refine their motor skills and gain confidence in being physically active. It has been proven that older children who spend more time outside tend to be physically active and less likely to be overweight, and children who play regularly in natural settings are sick less often, are more resistant to stress, have improved cognitive skills, have lower incidence of behavioural disorders, anxiety and depression and have a higher measure of self worth. There is also evidence that bullying behaviour is reduced when children have access to diverse nature-play environments.


Some ways that we can bring nature play into our children's lives are:

• Taking a walk through bushland - Pointing out the different plants and animals you may come across and encouraging them to register the different noises and smells that come from the bush.
• Growing your own fruit and veges - If space permits, a small patch is all that is needed for them to help prepare, plant and take care of a vege patch. If you don't have any yard space, planter boxes, or pots can be planted out with flowers or herbs.
• Beachcombing -  if you are close to the beach, take a walk, collect shells, or cuttlefish. Let them build sandcastles and forts.
• Backyard camping - the fun of camping under the stars, without the hassle of having to pack the car with everything but the kitchen sink. Your children can watch the sun go down, star watch and eat camping food - with a comfortable toilet close by.

There are also several nature playgrounds that have been built in our cities recently, to bring the bush to the city kids. In Perth, an excellent one has been launched by Rio Tinto at Kings Park - check it out here. 

What other activities do you do to encourage your children to play outside? Do they get the opportunities to explore the natural environment?

Resources:


Nature Play WA - an excellent website with information and resources, particularly for those of us in WA
Children and Nature Network - excellent site with the latest evidenced based research on play and development
Richard Louv - this guy is the nature play guru - if you ever get a chance to hear him talk, do! He is inspiring.

Murphy or Mercury?

Sunday was 'one of those days'. It was nothing dreadful, but nothing seemed to go right from the beginning.

Saturday night, the water had been turned off, so we went to bed without doing the dishes. Sunday, I woke up early to cook for a family get together we had, where I had to make a savory and a dessert, only to find the water was still off.

The main problem with this was that I couldn't clean the thermomix, so was unable to crush the biscuits for my jelly slice base and I had to do it with a mortar and pestle - I know, first world problems!

Then, the focaccia I made didn't rise - it was flat as a pancake, more
Iike a cement pancake and I realized the water I had used (the only water we had) was straight from the boiling kettle, so obviously burnt the yeast.

Once the water was on, I made up some jelly to put on the top layer of my slice, and then transferred it back to the fridge, only to spill the jelly mix all over the floor in the process. As I was cleaning the jelly, I slipped - just like a cartoon slip, with legs and arms going everywhere - and landed on my side. That was the straw that broke the camel's back and I just burst into tears. I blubbering mess, covered from head to toe in sticky raspberry jelly, now with my back going into spasm. Awesome!

It always seems to be that when I need to do things perfectly to take something somewhere, that things happen to thwart my best efforts - that's Murphy's law.

Or was a stronger force in action? Apparently in astrology circles, they would say my misfortunes were due to Mercury turning retrograde on Saturday for a 2 week period and things won't work out quite right. I thought 'Mercury in Retrograde' was just a cool Bloc Party song, but its an actual thing! It happens around 3 times a year, and often brings with it losing items, broken electrical appliances and stupid inconveniences. I am not that much into astrology - except I do show classic Leo traits - but I do read my horoscopes if I come across them and if they say I am having a four star day then I think "wow, I am going to have a great day". If they say I am having a tough time, I usually think "bah, that's hocus mumbo jumbo"!

Further info here.

I am a big believer in what you put out there, you get back, but after Sunday, I might just lay low for the next few weeks and hedge my bets!

Do you have days that just seem to go wrong from beginning to end?

(Sorry if my links don't work, using iPad as computer broken - more of Mercury's influence!!!!!) Linking up today with IBOT head over to Jess's place to catch the posts!

Marriage Equality

This video is beautiful, heartfelt and so tragic. It is the reason marriage equality is so important.





Shane has an opportunity to turn his story into a documentary and has a Kickstarter page here.

They had just reached the goal yesterday.

Linking up with My Mummy Daze for one of the most important causes of our generation.