Sticky Beak Horses

I went outside to photograph the home made water slide for the blog and the sticky beak boofhead horse in the paddock had to come and see if he could eat my camera. Here is the photo progression of his investigation.

Him trotting up in the hope a carrot might be forthcoming,

Him sniffing the camera and deciding it is not that interesting,

and then looking away to indicate disinterest in anything not edible

Sorting a Packing

I am temporarily home between jobs. When I arrived home, My stuff was transported into Heather's room, Heather is not using it, and put onto the ground. Heather's room has residual junk from both Heather and Jessica and by the time my junk arrived, it was getting pretty cramped. I did a brief sort out of things and junk, including the lounge box in the family room where mum had put my junk so our boarder could move in. This included books from my bookshelf, all jammed in with the other junk. I have a LOT of books so I moved them back to my bookshelf and thus made a mess and room for more stuff.

Today I began to sort through what I would take to Perth and what I could begin to pack now and how to go about it... The theory was to turn this
And this

Into this

And this

As you can see there was some degree of success, The stuff I won't be needing till Perth is packed and the other stuff is sort of sorted into appropriate places including the bag to take to Summer School and Maitland Alive... And the lounge box is shut!

Cleaning Windows

One day, towards the end of my stay in QLD, the children had the choice of going to town and going to the movies with grandparent or staying at home with me to clean windows. Three of the four children opted that staying and cleaning would be the more enjoyable option. We divvied up the jobs, one child cleaned all the flyscreens (and had a really good time) one squidjeed the outside of the glass and one did the inside and both squidjiers cleaned out the window runners with me. Here is a before shot of a window track,

And here is an after shot. Who knew they were meant to be cream coloured.

It was quite enjoyable, we had music, and water, and job satisfaction, and after working so hard for at least 3 hours, we decided we deserved to go out for lunch.

Junk

I have now got a car with distinct advantages over the last one, the windows work, the radio works, it remains running until such time as you decide to turn it off, that sort of thing. This new car belonged to my mothers father and when I opened the boot for the first time to pack up and come home, I discovered it was not as empty as I assumed it would be. There was a bag full of vital things one might need at any moment, including a rope, a set of work overalls (seen below)

And several tins, containers and boxes full of first aid equipment, mainly bandages. The best things were First Field Bandages from WW2 (The disgusting grey package at the bottom right of pic)

Car Things

I have been nearly hit by a car once and nearly hit somebody else with a car once in similar circumstances.

When I nearly hit someone, I was sitting at a red light in semi dark and the red light turned green but my turning arrow was red. I thought this odd since I was pretty much all of the traffic for the intersection but, being in no hurry, obeyed the laws of the road and waited until the arrow went away and I was able to proceed on my way home. Unfortunately what I had not noticed was the reason I had a red arrow, namely a man crossing the road. Unfortunately he was about half way across and heading nearer when the arrow changed and I went. Happily there was at least a meter of room between us when I turned the corner and I only received an angry glare for not noticing him.

When I was working in Campbelltown last year though, I was walking home from the train station at MacArthur Square and waiting in the nearly dark for the little green walking man to appear. I was wearing Jeans and a black jumper which would have made me blend into the night a fair bit. Beside me was a car containing a driver who was clearly keen to arrive home in a speedy fashion. While we were waiting, me to cross and him to turn left across my path, he was revving gently and sliding back and forth. I should have known he was in a hurry and paid more attention. The light turned green for everybody except him and, unable to see the reason for his red arrow, namely me meandering across the road, he went. Two things prevented injury that night, one was I was dawdling and the other was he accidentally swung wide. Another half step forward and I would have been hit by the front of a 4 wheel drive. As it was he ended up crossing my path so close in front of me that I walked into the side of the car. Like I said, not paying attention.

I was a bit shaken up and though he pulled up down the road a bit, I did not go and talk to him, however that is why we have traffic lights and even if you can't see why things are so, you still know what you should have done.

There was a different problem in Warwick, the main set of lights in the shops had the green arrows to turn left at the same time as the green walking man to cross the same piece of road. I got a few evil glares crossing that road legally.

Dogs

I like dogs, I will never get a puppy (famous last words) after taking a pretty big part in raising the Labrador puppy on the farm, and donating the occasional personal item to her enjoyment. I still like dogs though and really enjoyed playing with her and training her to fetch, crawl, play hide and seek, and go and find the old dog for breakfast time.

Today I was visiting a friend in Ashtonfield and on my way back saw a boxer, complete with a collar, running about the road. I called it, figuring if it came, I could take it home and thus call it's owner or take it to the vet, if it ignored me, well I tried. It rushed over to me with a look of dribbly joy and I read that its tag told me its name and some of the phone number. I took it home and it followed me pretty well, much to the relief of the lady with a pram that we happened upon.

When we got to the vet I said "I found a dog, I can't read the number on the tag, it leaves out some fairly important numbers." He said to read out the numbers so I read "0, 4, 0, 5, something, 3, something, something, something, something." Mum walked in to hear this and said "that's not very useful is it" The vet came and put a lead on the dog and took off the collar thinking the wriggly dog was preventing accurate reading... not the case. I find it odd that he wouldn't think "Maybe she already thought to ring the owner and save herself a drive to the vet." No he assumed I had not thought of that and rushed immediately into his helpful presence.

Happily the dog was micro-chipped and he should be back at home soon.

Travels and Excitement

On Friday, goodbyes were said for the last time and I drove from Killarney to Gunnedah to stop over night with friends before finishing the journey on Saturday. I have yet another first on for this year that was unexpected and occurred while I was having a pit stop on the QLD border town. I was just finishing up in my cubicle when a mother came in a struck up a conversation with her daughter that went something like this;

Mum "Hey baby, are you alright?"

Child "I can't open the door"

Mum "Can you stand on tippy toes?"

Child "I still can't reach"

I observed that while the doors went from floor to ceiling, the wall between our cubicles had a 2 foot gap at the top. I suddenly interrupted the mothers growing panic attack and offered to climb over the wall and let her out. I did pretty easily and opened the door (happily I remembered to open my toilet door first) the little girl was fun and the mother was almost collapsing in relief.

I can honestly say that it was a highlight for me and not exactly something I expected to ever do.

Christmas

Buying or making Christmas presents. Making them, especially children making them for parents, has a certain charm and specialness so that even if it is not spectacularly pretty or useful or artistic, it is still incredibly special to the receiver because the special child made it for them.

When we were little, Heather was always thinking of clever, sweet things to make for mum. One of these was a pincushion that she made out of material, paddle pop sticks (for legs) and stuffing. Mum still uses this now as her only pin cushion and Heather still notices it is in use.

Buying presents is harder to do in a way because more thought is needed to make it special and not just 'because I need to'. This means that presents given for no reason and only because I felt like it and because I knew you would like it hold more value then ones for birthday and Christmas. I enjoyed getting presents for the family members that I live with, I got to know each person and got them a gift that I thought suited them. Christmas however was much harder and I really struggled to think of good ones.

Kids and presents

I stole this idea from a friends blog, http://www.womenbiblelife.com/ She is much more biblical then I am but I too noticed that presents and lollies don't make kids happy. Last year I was looking after a 4 yr old boy and I noticed he was continually asking for lollies and toys and things but would lose interest in even the lollies pretty quickly.

I began to suspect he actually didn't like them and was only asking for them as part of a generally pleasant interaction with him dad. I did not give him a toy or a treat for the first four months and even after that he was not especially interested in them. Some people try to make up for this by increasing the quality of the gift but the result is still the same, initial excitement then disinterest.

For the child, he actually preferred the traditions and activities we had that meant we spent happy quality time enjoying each others company. He enjoyed the bedtime reading of the big picture bible, the walks, going to the pool, and playing with other kids toys at bible study, he even enjoyed going shopping and choosing books at the library.

Some kids have a primary love language of gifts but even then there needs to be a huge amount of the other four languages, if his primary love language in NOT gifts, he will see them as trying to buy love, or bribery for good behaviour rather then the act of love it was meant to be.

One more thing, appreciation of gifts goes down with expectation and with over familiarity. Too many too often means they lose their specialness, like going to a resteraunt

Seacow

The most recent discovery of the Seacow is that occasionally, the gear-stick is reluctant to move out of park. It sticks fast and nothing I do will shift it until suddenly, it comes rushing down past all the gears and be good to use.

Cars

I drive a revolting car that we have christened The Seacow. There is a good reason for this, it is ugly, it smells funny and it is slow and unresponsive and corners terribly. The other thing I discovered today is that it is a front wheel drive. This would not normally be a problem except that today, when I went to get my pay, the kids said not to park in my usual spot but to go round the corner and park in a "better spot". I did this and felt the ominous dip as the front wheel went into a puddle that reached its hub cap. I figured it would be OK since at the time I assumed it was a rear wheel drive and the back wheels would pull it out.

It took a little while for me to admit defeat and get some help and it took 2 blokes and a lot of pushing to get it out. I will NOT miss the Seacow when I go home

Sound makers

I have a laptop and it has the most atrocious sound quality from the original speakers, quiet and nasally. I am not an Audio Nerd but even I can tell it is bad. Since moving here I have discovered sound eggs, they are small, not easily broken and light up with pretty lights when on. They also enhance the sound from my computer quite a bit. I decided to try to lay my hands on one and when I found out that there was a trip to the city where the shop abides in the offing, I asked if they might procure one for me.

There were not "eggs" as such so they got me this one.
It does not light up but it is also not pink, it fulfills it's intended duties and it was $25. I am happy with it.

Hair

I have hair... Surprised? I guess not. I have never dyed my hair in my life because I like it the way it is. I have shaved it all off for a cure because I figure you need to do that at least once and it is better to do it younger then older.

This year, I have had a few firsts, first time away from home for extended periods of time, first time on a plane, first ever big mac and now... first ever time seeing somebody get streaks in their hair and then, first time getting this done.

I allowed 2 teenage girls paint my hair blue and wrap it up in foil... it took so long for it to finish washing the excess out and it dyed part of my fringe blue as well, but at least none of it went green. Since I let them dye my hair we are calling it quits for all the times they ended up having cold showers.