Thursday 26 February 2009

George Foreman Grill

A quick question - the indicator light on my grill does not stay permanently on. Does anyone know if it is supposed to or is it thermostat based?

I don't think it is cooking properly when the light is not on. I can't quickly find my instruction book. How annoying!

On the up

Like many others around me and here online, I too have not been feeling the happiest little bunny. I am happy to say though, that this week things have improved heaps.

Given that so many people have been affected, a friend and I are convinced that there is something out there in the Universe.

Today I enjoyed? a trip to the physio. I say enjoyed because last week I saw a new physio (not feeling I was progressing as much as I would like in the shoulder region) and at this stage, I love her.

She feels it is not a shoulder issue, well not anymore, and that it is a nerve issue in my neck, but get this, she thinks she can fix it, not just maintain it, or give me about 80% function, she is going to fix it. She also said today that as I have been suffering with it for so long, she sees it as a challenge to get me better.

Hooray! Someone who wants to help me and not just their own pocket. Bit harsh I know, and my last physio helped me a lot, but I was not happy with 80%. I am too young to settle for that.

After physio I had lunch with a girlfriend and then a little shopping, nothing very nice just bits and pieces and I also faced the dreaded M3dicare. Only 20 minutes to wait and now my pocket has a little more cash.

Can anyone help - my mortgage has reduced but I don't have anymore money, where has it gone?

Collected kids from school, dropped one off at dancing, back home for a cup of tea and some blogging and then back to pick up from dancing.

Jon is away so I think a nice early night is called for. With Jon away, I had to cancel my early morning client tomorrow so I can lie in a bit beyond 4.30am.

Tuesday 3 February 2009

Dance class

My baby had her first dance class today - Tiny Tots- and she was a little star. She looked so cute in her baby blue leotard and her little pink ballet shoes. She danced for an hour and whilst she did not always look the most elegant, she tried her little heart out and was one of the only cuties to concentrate for the full hour. Not bad for a 3 year old.

And.... she got promoted to the next level in swimming classes today.

I am very proud of her.

The Blender Incident

This has got to be one of the funniest moments of the holiday, I just don't know if I can do it justice here. It may be of of those "You had to be there moments", but I will try.

You may have gotten the idea now, that my dad is a, I was going to say joker, but 'clown' is a probably more appropriate word. The kind of person that if you didn't love would most likely drive you crazy, an ok in small doses, kind of person. But I love him dearly and so of course find him hilarious. I also have this sense of humour in relation to my dad, that if he gets hurt (mildly) or something goes wrong, I collapse in hysterics. This is a hysteric moment.

The day before June and I went shopping for Malibu, pineapple juice, ice and coconut cream so we could make pina coladas. They were beautiful and really complimented the bottle of wine we had already had. My blender is a throw back from years gone by when Jon and I were childless and had cocktail parties. It now gets used for soup - how times have changed!

Dad watched us for a while and asked why my blender lid had a hole in it. "I don't know, it just does." "Does the liquid not come out of the top?" - "No."

I don't know if you remember but June has a broken ankle and can only get around on crutches, or in a wheel chair for longer periods. So - today dad was making the pina colada.

In went the Malibu - a very generous amount I might add - the ice, coconut cream and the pineapple juice. On went the blender, and the expletives started. My kitchen and my dad were covered in pina colada. Lovely to drink, not so good to clean up. Dad thought he had put too much in the blender, so now that there was not so much, he tried again. Even more expletives. By this time, I was laughing so much I could barely walk, but I managed to make it to the kitchen - I was also thinking that maybe the liquid could come out of the hole in the lid.

Then I saw that the lid was not on - he had turned on the blender to level 4, with no lid on. Not once, but twice.

He was cursing and cleaning, complaining that the fish (who lives on the kitchen bench) was drunk. Complaining that all would be ok if my blender didn't have a reverse on it, because when he went to turn it off in a hurry, it didn't stop at 0, but went into reverse so he slid the button back up and off it went to level 4 again.

He later admitted that the little voice in his head was saying, "put the lid on, put the lid on" but his "rational?" mind was saying, it would be ok. And this was the first time. How he managed to do it twice, I have no idea.

There was not much pina colada that night.

Further, Jon who was working the next day and not partaking in any amounts of alcohol that night, was not impressed. The kitchen was so sticky for days. Dad cleaned and cleaned and cleaned.

It didn't put us off, once the supplies were replenished dad tried again, just to prove he could drive a blender.

Monday 2 February 2009

Coffs Harbour

Firstly, my toe is much better, within a few days it was almost back to normal. Though I still stand by the initial pain levels, I was not putting it on!

Needless to say we didn't set off to Coffs Harbour at 5am the next morning. By the time we had got up and packed the car (which was supposed to have been done the night before) it was about 10am when we left. I think my dad was quite relieved, I appreciate a long drive after a mammoth flight was not the best course of action.

We took 2 cars, Dad and June followed in Jon's car and the kids and Jon's mam came with us.

It wasn't long before the kids started defecting to Pop's and June's car. Even though my son had not seen his pops since he was 2 and the girls had never met him, they soon became very firm friends. It was very pleasing to see and I think my dad loved every minute of it. In fact I am sure he did.

Coffs was a pretty lazy holiday, lots of beach swimming and body boarding.
Miss T loves body boarding, she looks like a proper surf chick now.

We of course visited the Big Banana, we did the toboggan and we all did a trike ride, even Jon's mam did it and enjoyed it.

It goes without saying there was lots of drinking and catching up and getting to know June and my dad all over again. Dad hasn't changed one bit.

We took the kids fishing but I really didn't enjoy that, I was too nervous about them falling off the jetty. Pretty soon after we headed to a local eatery for lunch.

Lunch was a disaster, first Jon broke my RayBan's, his track record for looking after sunglasses is not good so I am not sure why I let him borrow them (must be love). He was not happy at all. Then lunch took ages to arrive, my dad has diabetes so was getting a bit agitated that his food was taking so long.

The meal was ok, not great but ok. Then, the bill., it should have been less than $100, but the bill total was $270. The staff had given another table our bill and then tried to charge us for theirs. The other table did not correct the error, that was left to us. Phone calls needed to be made to managers, blah blah blah. In the end they gave us 10% off for the inconvenience.

Other than that, some nice meals were consumed and much wine- did I already mention the wine.

It was also very nice to have other adults knees for the kids to sit on during dinner.