Child Labour

Today Little Bear was sick so I had to stay home.

It was also the day that the Qld Teachers took strike action. Therefore I had Cheetah at home with me too.

I was tired as I have been under the weather myself & dealing with a sick Little Bear was about as much as I could handle, so early in the day I devised my devious plan to keep Cheetah out of the way thought up an interesting activity that would keep develop my child's co-ordination, physical ability & problem solving skills.

We have had a large palm of some sort in our pool area that attracted locusts & green ants like you wouldn't believe. Knowing how much my child loves to play with heavy artillery big boy toys, I told him that he could use my secateurs and his fathers saw to cut as much of this tree down as he wanted too. (the fronds shoot off from just above ground level so the secateurs can do most of the work at cutting it back).

I expected this might keep him busy for half an hour, maybe an hour if I was lucky.

He stayed outside ALL day. Breaking only for a quick bike ride, lunch & a couple of snacks.

Here he is almost finished.



And this gives you some idea of how busy he had been. The pile of palm fronds to the left is all his work.




Behind this tree was a fig tree growing that I only found out about a couple of weeks ago when the neighbours told me about it (as they didn't want a fig tree growing next to their new carport & were pretty sure I didn't want one in my garden either). I went to cut it down on Sunday & was very surprised to find out that it was an established fig tree that had 2 trunks 3-4 meters tall & I hadn't been able to see it at all behind the palm tree Cheetah removed without actually crawling into the back corner of this garden bed. I got most of it out, but there is still a fair bit of stalk remaining so I will have to find a way to remove the whole thing.

I was very proud of my Cheetah today.

You can read another post about his love of gardening tools here.

Powerless

Over the weekend, DH & I cleaned up the garden & under our house. Yesterday we spent all afternoon finishing cleaning under the house. The kids helped in the way that they do best (by 'rearranging' all the stuff you just tidied).

After a very VERY dusty, dirty day, we headed upstairs to clean off & get some dinner. Dinner a la Macca's. By the time we got the kids to bed it was late. I then had to hang several loads of washing that I hadn't been able to do all day because of being so dirty. I started ironing about 9:30ish & at 11:00pm was still going but only had a few things left.

Just then a very loud army helicopter flew over & all of a sudden at 11:00pm our power went out.

Not the streetlights.

Not the neighbours power.

Just ours.

Our circuit breaker has been tripping a lot lately (we have 2 main circuit breakers & we found the entire house except for little bear's room & one power point are connected to one of them. This includes the washing machine & pool pump downstairs. What genius thought that was a good idea?!?)

Anyway, we knew it wasn't the circuit breaker, as the whole house was down. DH checked the safety switch but it wasn't that either. We called Ergon & were advised that if it was our problem we would have to pay a $340 callout fee. Unfortunately you don't know if it's your problem until you call them out to check!

Anyway, it seemed likely it was an Ergon thing & so we got them out. They turned up sometime after midnight (after going up & down the street in the cherry picker several times), turned on all their floodlights & aimed them at our house (just so the neighbours know who to blame for keeping them awake on Sunday night Monday morning.



A few months ago Ergon replaced the cable from the power pole to the house, but they didn't replace the bits that join the wire to the house. That was the problem & at 1:00am this morning we got a new one of those too. They didn't need the cherry picker after all that, but they did check our connection to the power pole too, just to be sure - seeing as they had the CP there, I guess it seemed a shame not to use it.



This is kind of getting old hat for us now.



At our last place (a rental thank goodness), the power went out one day & I smelt burning electrics. After 'smelling' around the house for a bit (a couple of minutes), I went downstairs to check the meter box (located in the centre of the house right under the upstairs (wooden) floorboards.



It was on fire, but it extinguished as I watched it. Phew.



Anyways, contacted the owner who corrected that problem for us. That night or shortly thereafter, we turned off all our electrical appliances to go to bed (at about 11:00pm) and suddenly the power went out again. Another call to the owner (who worked for Ergon) & Ergon was out in the middle of the night fixing the fuse (sans Cherry Picker). When they do this without a cherry picker, they have a very long pole they use to manover the fuse into position in the box (which is at the top of a power pole). Issue seemed to be fixed.



A couple of days later, again at about 11:00pm we turn off our appliances & again the same thing happens. By now we know the drill. Ergon comes out with Cherry Picker this time. Turned out they needed the fuse to be between 2 posts, but it was jammed in beside one of the posts, instead of between them. When all the power was on, the current was pulling the two posts together enough that electricity was able to flow. As soon as we turned off all our stuff, ka-boom, blew another fuse.



Somewhere in all of this, we spent 3 days without power, running our fridge & a single portable fan from extension leads attached to our very generous neighbour's power supply in the middle of a North Qld summer. Not pleasant.



On another note, the washing machine guy was out today. He'll fix the latch on Wednesday (hopefully) & then look at the hole in the outer casing of the drum (not sure what it's called) which we found when we removed the lid to release the catch to get the washing out. Could be why my "Ultrasilencer" is not ultra silent!

Diet Time

Today I finally saw a dietitian. Probably something I should have done years ago instead of bothering with doctors, but as the saying goes - you live & learn.

I found out that I am intolerant (& no I didn't smack her out for saying that).

My symptoms are textbook for some sort of food intolerance, the trick now is to find out what.

To do that I have to go on an 'elimination' diet. In a nutshell that means unprocessed fresh meat (cooked but not too brown or burnt) & rice. Thankfully I am allowed to eat cashews (I am guessing without salt but havent' checked that closely). No milk, no wheat, no fruit (except peeled pear), very few veges, no fabric softener or strong smelling soaps/perfumes/aromatherapy stuff etc, flavourless toothpaste.

As we are going away in a couple of weeks, the Dietitian (hereafter called V) told me to start cutting back on thinks like the coke, the milk, the bread/wheat products, etc slowly to ease the withdrawal & then start on the strict diet as soon as I am back home.

After two weeks of nothing, I then get to add things in but only one 'group' of food at a time & then I have to wait anywhere from 3-7 days (longer if I have a reaction to it) before adding the next group (& there is about 10 groups of food to add back slowly).

I love rice but I will probably be happy to never see another grain of rice again in a few months time.

However despite all this, I am actually looking forward to this. V was so enthusiastic & so positive that this is exactly what the problem is & how much better I am going to feel on the diet but told me many times that I can't stay on the diet (apparently people feel so good, they don't want to 'challenge' themselves & possibly make themselves sick again. I can fully understand that sentiment right now).

However before I start cutting back, there are a few things I need to clear up.

* I have about 2 1/2 bottles of wine (including our anniversary champagne which we didn't drink on our anniversary) to share with my husband.
* Easter Eggs - It would just be too cruel leaving them there & not being able to have even a little bit.
* Some flavoured cheeses & various little snacky things that would just be too tempting to leave lying around.

I'm sure there's more goodies lying around & no doubt I will find many more once I am actually committed to this thing.

Off on a tangent now, I took home 1/2 a shopping bag of mandarin's from my parent's place on mothers day. They were finally ripe enough to make juice with today & I made over 2 litres of juice, leaving a few small mandarins for eating & after throwing out a few big ones that had gone kind of woody. The juice tastes delicious but with a mouth ulcer it is just too painful to drink ATM, so I am hoping that Cheetah really likes mandarin juice (as DH & Little Bear don't). He seems to so far.

Killer instincts

We have dark polished wooden floorboards in our house.

I saw a cockroach on the floor. I quietly snuck past it, got the surface spray out, blasted it & quickly jammed the can down on top !

It didn't move !

I think I just killed a dead cockroach ????


..... now I have the heebie jeebies about how long it had been sitting there before I noticed.

YUCK !!!

Warranty

I bought my washing machine on 23 March 08.
It broke on 9 May 09. (A bit more than 1 day after the 12 months warranty would have run out, but close).

I am really REALLY REALLY glad that I bought the extended warranty !!!

How not to celebrate mother's day

Saturday afternoon my washing machine broke - on the first load of washing I had to do.

Sunday morning I didn't get a sleep in because I felt sorry for my hubby & agreed to sleep in on Saturday instead because he had a bucks party Saturday night.

Sunday afternoon I spent all afternoon & night doing washing (except for the couple of hours at Grannysaurus's place) & ironing & housework because I wasn't able to do it on Saturday.

With a mother's day like that, you wouldn't expect much from Monday would you !

This morning I went to work & upon arriving was notified that a retired colleague had passed away unexpectedly while on a holiday overseas. I used to work right beside this lady & she was a lovely person so that was a bit upsetting, however it is nice to think that she went quickly, didn't suffer & was doing something she loved when it happened. That's the way I want to go!

I am still hanging out for a blood test result that my doctor should have got by Friday, but still didn't have by this afternoon. The lab only just sent it late this afternoon so the doctor hadn't had a chance to look at it by close of business. - Hopefully tomorrow !

On the lighter side of life, my beautiful children made me feel like a princess. Little bear sung happy birthday to me all day (presents - birthdays - get it), I got some lovely home (or kindy) made things from both of them and a bracelet that Little Bear keeps stealing, saying "Princess" as she puts it on her own wrist.

As well as a couple of restful hours at Grannysaurus's place, eating Profitjer's & just chilling.

Bath Time

Tonight my two kids are having a bath together.

I have washed Little Bear's hair & am in the next room while she & Cheetah just play.

I keep wandering in to see if Little Bear wants to get out.

This time I called out as I was walking "Do you want to get out yet?"

Little Bear: "No want get out yet" ....

Little Bear (frantically): "SIDDOWN SHEETA SIDDOWN SHEETA !!!!"
(obviously worried that Cheetah would get her in trouble & taken out of the bath)

I walk in.

Mummy: "Aren't you ready to get out yet Little Bear?"

Little Bear: "No mummy"

Little Bear: "Bye Bye Mummy"