Hello everyone! So I haven’t posted in a while, but I have a very very good reason, which I will tell you later. In the mean time, I’ll try to post when I can, but my current blogging time slot is now being taken by something more important and urgent. Sorry 😦 But, I promise I will do another post in the near future. A really good one.
I know this post sucks, but I’d still love for you to vote for me every day 🙂
The other day, Hannah asked me if she could go to Lollipops. I told her I’d ask Daddy if he’d take her (because I waddle and can’t play with her there as much as he can at the moment. Plus, if she wants to go on the big slide, you have to go up a ramp and then through this padded roller thing that I can’t physically fit through right now due to my massive 34-week pregnant belly). He messaged me back on my phone saying he’d take her the next day. I told Hannah.
Hannah went nuts. She toned it down a lot when I got the phone out to record her excitable-ness, but still, it’s hilarious. What can I say? I guess Hannah likes Lollipops (an indoor playground centre).
Don’t forget to vote once per day. THANKS!!!
Ok, so it’s not exactly Friday, but I did start this post on Friday. It just took me a very long time to rotate and caption all the photos!
I recently got a new phone, which is good because my old phone sometimes worked, but sometimes decided to be so quiet that I couldn’t actually hear the person on the other end, making me sound like a fool with all my “what, I can’t hear you, sorry, my phone doesn’t work properly.”
This may not be a very old flashback, but here are 1.5 years of photos from my old phone. There were some from the other .5 years, but I already had those off the phone and on my computer and well, I couldn’t be bothered adding those too.
Most of these photos were taken to then message to Aaron while he was at work. I like to make him smile a little while he is slaving away at his computer desk.
Don’t forget to vote once per day 🙂
Last night, Hannah was eating dinner. She wanted some lunch meat ham. Whenever she wants lunch meat ham, I always give it to her. It’s not like she eats any other sort of meat (yeah, yeah, lunch meat ham is hardly meat, but it’s a start).
She picks up the ham, tears a little piece off and then puts it in her mouth. This happens a few times, and then she held up a piece of ham and got all excited:
She was really excited, like she actually was holding Jesus in her grubby little fingers. But then took a big bite.
She got really upset. Her little face went all red and tears filled her eyes.
“It’s ok sweetie, Jesus is still here, it’s only the Jesus shaped ham that’s gone.” I told her.
She smiled. And ate Jesus’ head.
Don’t forget to vote once per day (click the banner below!) Thanks everyone for keeping me in the top 10!
Last night, Aaron, Hannah and I went to dine and celebrate a birthday with some friends. Last time Telestrations was brought out, I was attempting to sleep, and everyone else was totally drunk and loud. Result: Me yelling at them to shut up. So this time, we pulled out Telestrations before I went to bed.
What is Telestrations you ask? It’s kind of like telephone/chinese whispers, combined with pictionary. The first person starts with a word, the next person draws it, the next person looks at the drawing (but not the word) and has to write what it is, the next person draws, and so forth. Write, draw, write draw. There is some system of points or something, but we never play with points, we play for hilarity’s sake.
Last time I played the game, someone started with Yoga, which somehow went to arsehole, via aboriginal. Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of that, but we were all laughing so much it’s surprising no one wet themselves.
Here’s a peak at last nights game (sorry about the poor quality of the photos, but all I had was a little pocket digital camera in my bag, and I had to take the photos really really quickly in between rounds so everyone didn’t have to wait on me to keep playing).
It started innocent enough:
Starting word: Microscope. Seems innocent enough....
I think this is where it started going a bit awry:
And this is where things really started getting interesting (this was my drawing by the way…):
I bet if we were playing with a different crowd, it wouldn’t have come to this:
That is one giant birdy!:
And finally, microscope turned into this:
And then we had this round:
Clearly the person who drew this one has never actually had an ultrasound, but good effort none the less:
I’m not sure who actually gets a tattoo in the middle of their stomach:
I’m sorry to say, this was my drawing. I tried to draw someone getting a tattoo in the arm first, but it didn’t turn out at all, so I erased it and started again. Each round of this game is timed by one of those sand turn-it-upside-down type timers that last about 30 seconds to 1 minute, so it didn’t pan out too well:
And then things started to go pear-shaped:
And that is how Ultrasound turned into Shot in the Nuts:
Don’t forget to vote once per day (THANKS!)
Aaron, Hannah and I live with Aaron’s Grandma. It’s mutually beneficial; she can’t afford to pay the bills by herself, so we pay all the bills, and we don’t have to pay any rent. Hannah gets her own playroom and bedroom, big backyard and plenty of Grandma cuddles. Grandma gets her bills paid, doesn’t have to worry about falling in the shower and no one finding her for many days (an actual concern she had before we moved in), doesn’t have to do the vacuuming and cleaning, lawn mowing and if she’s not being ridiculously stubborn, has someone to do all of the other chores as well.
It took all of us a while to adjust to living together, but in the end, we got there (mostly). Sure, we fight and annoy each other immensely sometimes, but that’s to be expected.
But now YaYa (Grandma’s daughter, Aaron’s mum, Hannah’s YaYa) is here too. We’re all butting heads and driving one another crazy. I don’t think any three women with families of their own can actually live together. It doesn’t work. Everyone thinks they are the Mum, everyone has their own way of doing things which of course doesn’t correspond to anyone else’s way and drives each other nuts, and everyone thinks that their way is best. Or maybe that’s just me….
I started thinking (yes, I do do that sometimes). Maybe I’m the annoying one?
The other day, I went grocery shopping with Grandma (we always go together, but buy groceries separately, as she doesn’t eat any of the same things as us). I bought an avocado. Grandma got one for YaYa. My avocado was picked out specifically to go in a salad the very next night. I picked it out knowing that it would be plenty ripe (but not too ripe) and super delicious in that awesome salad. YaYa’s avocado wasn’t as ripe. I didn’t know if it would be ripe enough to eat by the next day. Looking at them, I knew that if someone were to come along and eat an avocado, they’d choose mine. The ripe and ready one. Of course. But YaYa’s avocado wasn’t bought lovingly with a specific fate in mind. It could have been eaten at any time during the week. I didn’t know when it would be eaten. So I wrote my name on my avocado. I, of course, thought this was a genius, logical and easy plan to make sure that my avocado didn’t get eaten and got to grace us with it’s presence in my delicious salad.
No one noticed my name on the avocado. Humph. I suppose it’s hard to see when a) you’re not looking for it, and b) avocados are rather dark. At least when they are ripe. Naturally, I whinged about my avocado being eaten. I had to open the other avocado and hope for the best. If it wasn’t ripe, it would be wasted and my salad would suck.
It was fine. Just ripe.
Then I found out later that not only did people not think my name writing on the avocado was a great stroke of genius, but they actually found it obnoxious, annoying, and childish.
One day, YaYa asked what she could do to help. I told her she could do all the big dishes because our dishwasher is a bit special and doesn’t actually fit normal sized plates (the arm is on the bottom of the top rack, and it won’t spin if they are on the bottom, but they don’t physically fit on the top) and other big things like pots and frying pans. “But don’t wash Hannah’s cups. They have to go in the dishwasher.”
I used to be ok with washing her sippy cups in the sink with the rest of the dishes, but then one day I was washing up when Grandma came in and grabbed the little bottle washer thing that I use to get in all the nooks and crannies of the sippy cup lid. That is the only thing I have ever used it for, and that is the only thing I ever wanted it to be used for.
The First Years Take & Toss Spill-Proof Cups – 7 oz Pack
Thing I use to clean Hannah’s sippy cup lids
“What are you doing with that?” I asked Grandma possessively. “That is only for Hannah’s cups.”
“Oh, I was just going to clean around the taps in the bathroom with it.”
Excuse me? Just clean around the taps in the BATHROOM??!?!?!?!?!?!!! You’re going to use it to scrub away all that disgusting black stuff that builds up around the taps????????
I was mortified. How many other times has Grandma used Hannah’s bottle brush to clean the bathroom? What else has she used it for? After that, Hannah’s things were strictly dishwasher only, and if I find them in the dish drainer when Grandma decides that she needs to do the dishes, I take them out and put them in the dishwasher anyway.
The cans in the pantry are in nice organised rows. There is a row for pasta sauce, one for canned fruit, one for canned vegetables, another for beans and spaghetti, one for soup, and one for recipe base packets. There is a shelf for snacks, one for pasta/rice, another for cooking things (flours, sugars, etc.). I think my system is wonderful, logical, and beneficial. I know where everything is (and anyone else would too if they listened when I talk). I always know what I have, nothing ever gets lost amidst the chaos of an unorganised pantry, and I don’t spend ages looking for things.
I get cranky when someone messes up my rows of cans, puts a snack item on the cooking shelf, or pasta on the snack shelf. Others don’t seem to take much notice of my system. They throw things where ever, mis-align my can rows, think I’m pedantically organised. Humph.
But I know what happens when you have an unorganised pantry. Things get lost, you can’t find anything, you never know what you actually have, and then before you know it, you eat a can of something, and spend all night vomiting because it had been in there festering for years and years. Or you go to use something else only to find it’s 20 years out of date.
When I first moved here, I cleaned out the pantry to super organise it to my standards. Everything was everywhere, you could spend an hour looking for a particular item. I actually did find food that was 20 years out of date. Yeah, I really did. See, my pantry organising doesn’t sound so crazy now, does it?
I suppose I can understand why I’d be hard to live with, but you know what? I do everything for a reason, and in my mind, they are all very good reasons.
Am I hard to live with?
Don’t forget to vote once per day (pleeeaaaaasssssssseeeeeee!)
I’ve been on the phone for over half an hour. On my mobile. Ugh. I’m only trying to upgrade my phone since my current contract expired and my phone sucks. I’m not even talking to a different phone company, I’m talking to my existing one. It’s an easy request: sign me up for another 24 month contract and give me a new phone, thank you very much. They already have our details, my phone number, my customer number, etc. Easy.
You’d think anyway. But not when the call centre is in India. Now I have nothing against India, or Indians, but when you’re trying to get service for an Australian product from somewhere else in the world, it just doesn’t work.
I’d been talking to someone for a while, going through all the details, repeating myself a million times: yes I want a new phone, this is the one I want. Yes, I understand I will be on another 24 month contract, etc. We’d gone through the whole thing. He even checked to see if they had any of the phones I wanted in stock. They did, but not the colour I wanted. Oh well, black will do just fine.
“Your account is showing as overdue. I can’t upgrade your phone if your account is overdue.” He told me.
“Well, our account is direct debited, so if it’s overdue, it’s because you guys didn’t take it out on time.”
“It says overdue.”
“Well it’s not.”
“I’ll just check it out for you.” He put me on hold. Again.
“I can see you’ve paid, the system just hasn’t updated it yet. I’ll just put you on hold while I fix it up for you.” Sigh, but at least we were almost done.
“Good evening, Vodafone, this is (I can’t remember, Raj or something) _____” Great, I was supposed to be on hold, not transferred. ARGH!
“Um…I was speaking to someone about an upgrade, but I think he transferred me accidentally instead of putting me on hold.” Giant sigh.
“Ok, I’ll transfer you to upgrades.”
“Good evening, Vodafone, this is _____.”
I said my whole bit again, blah blah blah.
“I’ll just transfer you to upgrades.” Kill. Me. Now.
“Hello, Vodafone, this is ___.”
I told the story again. SIGH.
He didn’t know who I’d been speaking to. I could hear other consultants on the phone to other customers in the background. Maybe a “hey, who was speaking to Sheri??!!” to his collegues would have been a good idea.
Nope, I had to go through the entire process. Again. Sigh. Give him the pin number, tell him which phone, give him our address (they had our old one), let him look it up to see if they were in stock. Yada yada yada.
“I’m sorry, I can’t upgrade you today. Your account is overdue.” Anger and impatience rising…
“No it’s not. The other guy was trying to put me on hold to fix all that up when he accidentally transferred me.”
“It’s overdue. I can’t upgrade you if your account is overdue.”
“It’s not overdue, your system just hasn’t updated the payment yet.” Maybe because you are in India…
“Ok, hold on while I check it.” Yeah, you could have been doing that already, instead of arguing with me about it. I was on hold for ages. Sigh.
“That’s all fine, I can put this through for you now.” Really? That’s what I’d been trying to tell him for the last 20 minutes.
He had to go through all the terms and conditions with me. No worries. Except that I couldn’t really understand him. It’s ok when he’s having a conversation, but when he’s reading a long list of things from a paper? Sounds like garbledy-goop. He was talking really fast, accent flaring. He could have been speaking a different language for all I knew. Luckily I had already read everything online. I like to know what I’m getting myself into ahead of time. I’m all prepared like that.
When I got off the phone, there was a text message waiting for me. “Hi, this is Rahesh from Vodafone, I was speaking to you about an upgrade. Sorry, I accidentally transferred you, I will call you back right away.” Only I was still on the phone when he tried to call, trying with all my might to actually get a new phone. Humph.
Then the phone rang.
“Hello.” I said.
“Hi, this is Rahesh from Vodafone, I was talking to you about your upgrade.”
“Yeah.”
“I tried calling you seven times, but I can see now that you’ve already had it done.” Then why are you calling me???
“Uh…yeah. I got transferred 3 times, and no one knew who I was speaking to, so I couldn’t get back to you.”
He actually sounded cranky. I’m sorry, but whose fault is it that I got transferred??? Yeah, that’s what I though cranky call centre man!
At least I’ll have my new phone next week. About time!
I’ve wanted to grow my own vegetable garden for a while. I used to have one when we lived across the road (yeah, we used to live across the road from where we live now because we are just awesome like that. When we lived in the city, the apartment we were living in was being sold so we moved just one floor down. In the same building.), but we moved just as all the vegetables were ripening. I never actually got to eat any of them. Humph.
My friend has a giant vegetable garden and is forever telling me about the Diggers Club and heirloom vegetables. That same friend and her soon to be husband, helped Aaron make two raised vegetable beds. I ordered a load of garden soil, and then Aaron and Hannah put all the dirt in the garden. Why didn’t I help, you ask? Heavy lifting/shovelling, and such things are not exactly good for a woman in her third trimester of pregnancy to be doing.
Hannah and the dirt pile
Hannah LOVED digging in the giant dirt mound, helping Daddy move dirt from the mound to the wheelbarrow, and then putting dirt on top of all the seeds that I planted in styrofoam cups with holes in the bottom (we had some lying around, so why not use them?).
oh so helpful
Aaron and Hannah set up a worm farm to give us wonderful “worm tea” to help the plants grow. Every time we go outside now, Hannah wants to see the worms. I did take photos of the making of the worm farm, but I can’t find them. Humph.
In one of the beds, I planted all the things that needed to be sown directly into the ground (colourful heirloom carrots, purple garlic, 5 colour silverbeet, perpetual spinach, long red onions, stuff like that). The other, was awaiting transplant from the seedling cups (crispmint lettuce, red lettuce, endive, broccoli, purple broccoli).
the straight in the ground garden bed
the seedling garden bed
When the sprouts from the cups were big enough, I transplanted them. Sounds easy enough, but at 31 weeks pregnant, was actually quite a difficult job. Lots of bending and getting up and down frequently. Sigh.
Flame lettuce
I was pretty buggered by the end. But, it’s all done now and soon we will have a nice variety of healthy, back to the way they are supposed to be vegetables, rather than flavorless, not very nutritious supermarket varieties.
My very first flight to Australia when I was 17 years old, took a staggering 25 hours. Yeah, 25 hours to get to Australia. That’s what happens when you fly Canada 3000 from Vancouver to Sydney via Honolulu, Rarotonga, and Auckland. But hey, I was paying for it myself, and it only cost me $600 return, so I didn’t really care.
My host family picked me up from the airport and when I got to their house, I had just enough time to shower away 25 hours worth of sweat and unpleasantness from so much travel before the party started. They had another exchange student leaving the very next day and she was having a going away party. She was in the room I’d be in, so I had the den/study for the night, which happened to be downstairs right near the kitchen and living room- the party area.
I made the rounds, meeting everyone, declaring my sobriety and making a bet with someone for $50 that I wouldn’t drink the entire time I was in Australia. Ha! That didn’t happen!
I must have needed to get something from my temporary room because I went in there for some reason or another.
My host brother Dean must have wanted something out of there too. It was the study after all.
As I walked in, his face went bright red. Someone else was in there too. I can’t remember who 10.5 years later, but there was someone else there. He looked guilty, but I wasn’t sure why (Maybe because I’d been flying for 25 hours was in a new time zone, and was pretty much a zombie by that stage).
Yeah, I had permed burgandy hair, so what?
I gave them a funny look and they quickly scrambled out of there.
I didn’t get boobs until I was 18 years old. Yeah, 18. When I was 17, I was 98 pounds, still flat chested and could buy bras in the tween section. Doesn’t sound very exciting, but tween bras are awesome! They are sparkly. They are funky. I’m pretty sure they have the awesomeness to make you feel better about having absolutely no boobs. They make you feel a little bit better about it.
One of my awesome sparkly funky tween bras was sitting at the top of my luggage. Hmmm…Maybe my host brother and friend saw it and then got embarrassed when I came in? I didn’t say anything. My bras were awesome, I didn’t care who saw them!
It wasn’t until later that my host brother told me that he had actually picked up the awesome sparkly bra, held it up, and showed it to his friend. I apparently walked in on it, but was too oblivious to notice him quickly dropping my bra back into the suitcase. He thought I had seen him with the bra.
I wish adult I-actually-have-boobs-now bras were as awesome as tween bras. I miss the tween bras. Humph. But I do like having boobs….
Don’t forget to vote once per day (please please please)!
Yesterday, I put Hannah down for her nap in her new bed. I read her a story, tucked her in, turned on her sleepy music, turned off the light and shut the door. I didn’t actually expect her to sleep after her performance the day before.
I could hear her playing in her room for over an hour. She was happy as larry.
“Oh! Minnie Mouse!”
“Hannah run around!”
Then I heard her say ‘gina (which means vagina in Hannah speak), and a little later she possibly said poop.
Images of a naked Hannah, poo and pee all over the floor, herself, and all of her stuff, Hannah poking the poop, bewildered at what it was, filled my mind.
I voiced my concerns on facebook. I wrote it before the possible poop comment:
I debated going in there because usually when she says poop when she is supposed to be sleeping, she really did poop. Then she can’t sleep, or if she does, it’s only for 20 minutes or so because she has this irritating sticky log stuck to her bottom, making it all red, and preventing any real rest. But, I wasn’t sure if she really did say poop. So, I left it for a little bit.
And all went quiet. I waited some more. Still quiet. She’d gone to sleep.
I changed my facebook status:
She slept for quite a while (I wrote that update after she’d been asleep for a long time. I had to be sure before facebooking it…). 3:30 rolled around so I figured I’d get her up. I probably would have let her sleep longer, but I was really curious as to where she was actually sleeping. If I waited for her to wake up on her own, I’d never know!
I grabbed the video camera. There was no telling what I’d find in that room.
.
UPDATE:
Sound asleep IN her bed
Today Hannah played in her room for a while during nap time and then started banging on the door and calling “Mommy!” I put her back in her bed, read her a story, and she fell right asleep. When I went in to get her at 3:30, I found a peacefully sleeping little cutie right where I left her.
Don’t forget to vote! Once per day (please please please!!!!)
Mommy Adventures 