Oh, and just quickly ...

Did you all notice the embedded link in the post below ?!?!?

Congratulations can be forwarded to the usual address :)

Hell yeah !!!

Political correctness be damned !!

Congratulations to the mayor in this article. He wants to legislate on mini skirt length based on female shape and size. Personally, I'm all for it.

It reminds me strongly of advice my mother gave me when I was younger, and which I have always followed :-

"Just remember, a skirt should never be wider than it is long"

Which leads to a message to the woman / girl I saw walking down the main street today in a skirt than bore more than a passing resemblence to a belt, a padded puffer jacket and knee high sheepskin "ug" boots ...

Just because you can wear something, does not necessarily mean that you should !!

We have links !!!!!

Look !!!

Over there !!!! (umm ... and down a bit)

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Yay me !!!

Meme ...

I loved this so much, I just had to steal it from the Peanut Queen.

Oh yeah, and I was bored and the MOTH is in bed already (it's 8.15 for crying out loud !!!)

* * * * * * *
YOUR PORN STAR NAME: (name of first pet / street you live on)
Abigail Paritai (with thanks to my mother for giving the cat a "people" name)

YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME: (name of your favourite snack food / grandfather's first name)
Marshmallow Russell (how fluffy ... you just know she's a blonde, right ?)

YOUR FASHION DESIGNER NAME: (first word you see on your left / favourite restaurant)
Rice White (gosh, sounds expensive and eclectic)

EXOTIC FOREIGNER ALIAS: (favorite spice / last foreign vacation spot)
Vanilla Vancouver (now, is it just me, or does this sound more like a porn star ????)

SOCIALITE ALIAS: (silliest childhood nickname / town where you first partied)
Muffin Paihia

FLY GIRL/BOY ALIAS (a la J. Lo): (first initial / first two or three letters of your last name)
R Kin (or I s'pose I could have R Rho too seeing as I still use my maiden name ... either way, they both suck :( ...)

ICON ALIAS: (something sweet within sight / any liquid in your kitchen)
Caramel V

DETECTIVE ALIAS: (favourite baby animal / where you went to high school)
Kitten Kelston (oooh yes, I can just see myself with a trenchcoat ...)

BARFLY ALIAS: (last snack food you ate / your favourite alcoholic drink)
Pinky Bourbon (sounds more like a lounge singer or a gangster's moll than a barfly)

SOAP OPERA ALIAS: (middle name / street where you first lived)
Croydon (ummm ... I don't have a middle name !)

ROCK STAR ALIAS: (favourite candy / last name of favourite musician)
Peppermint ?!?!?!?!?!?

YOUR STAR WARS NAME: ( First 2 letters of your first name and the first 3 Letters from your last name makes your first name. Take the first 2 letters of your mother's maiden name and the first 3 letters of the city you were born in)
Rakin Clauc (now, where's George's phone number ... I'll bet he can use that !!)

* * * * * * *

Well that was fun :)

K & S had a little lamb ...

Lambing season has started, hence our visit up to visit my folks.

K and S were granted the honour of naming the two most recent additions to the flock (both of whom were less than five hours old when we first saw them yesterday).

My folks now have two little black lambs named Emma and Joshua respectively.

Emma is safe, so long as she reproduces appropriately when the time is right.

Joshua will be dinner some time in February / March next year.

K is very prosaic about the whole thing ... "He's only little now, but he's going to get big and then we can eat him with gravy ... yum yum yum !!"

Another "crawling under a rock" moment ...

The scene - dinner with my parents.

The conversation - birthdays and their significance and the family "tradition" of the eldest child being born every 25 years, ie. my great-grandfather (the eldest in his family) was 25 when my grandfather (the eldest) was born, he was 25 when my father was born, my father was 25 when I was born ... I let the side down by being 26 when K was born.

Me : "Why couldn't K have been born two months earlier ?"
MOTH : "Cos then he'd be J's baby and not mine"
My mother (raising eyebrow as high as it will go and giving me a "mommy" look) "Oh really ?"
Me (trying to crawl under table) ... "Hrmmppph (indistinguishable mumble)"
S (very loudly) : "Did you know J is mummy's boyfriend and she spent all day talking to him on the phone last weekend while she was in bed ?"
Me : (again lamenting the availability of rocks when desperately required) "Does anyone want dessert ?!?!?!?!?"

Remind me again why I was so keen for the rugrats to learn to talk ?!?!?

You really have to admire people who know what they want ...

Was listening to the radio this morning on the way to work (as you do) ...

Apparently the president of Turkmenistan has outlawed lip-syncing. Which led to a poll as to what you would outlaw if you were really important and in charge of a small country.

There were various suggestions, some I agreed with (Mexican waves and Sunday drivers) and some I'm a little unsure about (girlie magazines do serve a purpose after all) ...

My favourite by far was a woman who rang in and said that she would outlaw corners on roads, because she likes driving, but only in straight lines.

Just how exactly would that work ???

The heart will go on ...

S has had a remarkable recovery in affairs of the heart. Ahh ... the resilience of youth :)

As we walked out of the house this morning (running late as usual) to head for school, S was delighted by the sight of famous rugby player across the street leaving for training ...

S : "Ooooooohhh !!! That's Nick Evans !!! HEY !!! You're Nick Evans !!!" (very very loudly)
Me : "He knows he's Nick Evans honey ... get in the car" (muttered under my breath)
S : "Good morning Nick Evans !!!"
Me : "Get in the car"
S : "Ooooooohhh !!! That's Craig Newby !!! HEY !!! You're Craig Newby !!!"
Me : "Please can we just get in the car ?" (why are rocks to hide under always in such short supply when they are needed so desperately)
S : "Goooood mooooorning Craig !!!"
Me : "S, get in the freaking car !!!"

I suspect that this is only going to get worse as she gets older ...

The end of innocence ... the rejection begins ...

Conversation in the car on the way to the supermarket with S (who is all of six and a half) ...

S : Do you have to get married ?
Me : No, only if you want to
S : But you and Daddy got married
Me : But we lived together for a long time first
S : Oh
Me : If you find the right person, then you'll probably want to marry them
S : I've found the right person (big, heartfelt sigh) ... but I don't think he loves me
Me : Oh ? (trying not to laugh)
S : T in Room 4
Me : Isn't that K's classroom ? (still trying not to laugh)
S : Yes (even bigger heartfelt sigh) ... I don't think I'm ever getting married.

It was all I could do not to crash the car !!!

Confused and conflicted ...

Took the rugrats to another rugby game tonight (free tickets - thank you Otago Rugby Union) ... Otago versus Auckland.

K was in an agony of indecision ... cheer for Otago, the home team ... or cheer for Auckland, where he grew up, and home to his two favourite rugby players in the whole world (Doug Howlett and Joe Rocokoko) ...

He tried cheering for Auckland ... the MOTH (big green meanie) made him cry by telling him he would make him walk home if he didn't cut that out ...

So eventually he cheered for whoever had the ball at that particular point in time ...

Auckland won :)

With thanks to Alexander Graham Bell ...

I have just spent the better part of two and a half hours on the phone chatting to a very very good friend from Canada :)

Gosh they have the cutest accents :)

Oh yeah ... and thanks to the phone company too, for their really really cheap phone calls this weekend :)

Now who else do I know overseas ???

Important things to remember ...

ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS (and this cannot be stressed enough !!!) ensure that the name of the company one works for is spelt correctly on the labels one prints out ....

Always check that afore-mentioned labels are 100% correct ...

Preferably before one sticks 300+ of afore-mentioned labels onto envelopes for a mail-out ...

Note to self ...
Labels are a lot harder to pull OFF envelopes than they are to stick ON !!!

Eight things I like about today ...

It didn't rain this morning like it was supposed to ...
It's sunny ...
It's 15 degrees outside ...
Our friends from Whangarei are arriving this afternoon ...
We're having lasagne for dinner ...
And red wine ...
I'm having my nails done after work ...
Today is a good hair day ...

Have a nice day people :)

The air tastes strange ...

I'm not sure what snow sky looks like ...

But today's sky is different shades of blotchy grey, yet with a strange white light.

And the air when I walked from the carpark to work this morning tasted weird when I breathed it in .... icy and cold with a metallic tang to it.

So I'm crossing my fingers ...

Flatmate, free to a good home ...

Anyone want a slightly used, un-housetrained flatmate ?

Insert appropriate title here ...

Took the rugrats to their first rugby game since we moved. Strangely enough, it hasn't taken them long at all to go from chanting "Blues Blues Blues" to "O-taaaaaaaaa-gooooooo !!!" And let's not forget the dressing up ... blue and gold face masks, gold shirts, blue jackets and blue and gold leis from the $2 Shop ...

At the end of the game they stood in line for half an hour to have their huge handmade "Go Otago !!!" sign autographed by the team. The signatures they were the most excited about are from the players who are our "across neighbours" (ie. live in the house across the road, not to be confused with our "side neighbours" or "back neighbours") whom they wave and yell good morning at each day on the way to school. (The fact they could have gone and visited any old time and asked for their autographs seems to have escaped them)

K's bedroom wall is now a confusing assortment of Blues, Highlanders, Otago and Northland Taniwha posters ... with a few Holden banners and flags thrown in for good measure.

And they were picked out of the crowd by the Sky cameraman and had their masked faces emblazoned all across the nation ... does it get any better than that ?!?!

The good as well as the bad ?

When I first started this blog, I had lofty ideals. It was going to contain witty anecdotes about how adorable the rugrats are, amusing commentaries on life around me, humourous comments about my experiences .... pfffft !!!

For the past week the rugrats have been at each other's throats before the MOTH and I climb out of bed in the mornings.
They can't even clean their teeth in the same room without it turning into a war.
The woman who runs their after-school programme informed us they were having a full-scale fist fight when she arrived to collect them on Wednesday.
They can't do a single thing they're told without arguing about it ... or just plain not doing it.
Yesterday there were tears before breakfast because K couldn't go to rugby practice as the MOTH was working out of town ... which turned into bad temper and a punch up with his little sister.
And they haven't said anything cute or funny in weeks.

Who broke my kids ? And don't tell me it's just a phase ...

Cruelty, plain and simple ...

WARNING ... this is not a cute and fluffy post

I work with a woman who has a cat. An old cat. A very sick old cat which is slowly dying of kidney failure.

I know this because we are daily subjected to the tale of her declining pet, and how sick he is and how bad she feels.

And this makes me mad. Not because (eventually) she is going to have her cat put down. Far from it. What makes me furious is that she is postponing the decision because she can't bear to be unselfish enough to have it put to sleep.

This animal has no quality of life. It has lost the ability to go outside to the bathroom, and has to be hand fed. Surely its reward for 15 years of love and affection is to be well cared for to the end, and allowed to go with dignity. She has a responsibility to this animal to stop its pain and let it go ... for its sake, not hers.

So how do I tell her that I think she's a selfish bitch, without actually telling her I think she's a selfish bitch ??

PMS sucks !!!

BK (before kids) I was one of the lucky ones ... nary a PMS symptom in sight.

Hah !!!

Today I feel fat, frumpy (in spite of still fitting into a size 10 ... hah !! you rotten scales have no clue what you're talking about !!!), in dire need of chocolate, could care less about my diet and the impending wedding, and am spoiling for a fight ...

And the totally unfair thing ? I'll feel like this for ten days out of every 35 ...

Anyone wanna take me on ???

It's raining ...

The reason I mention this is because it's so unusual.

Dunedin might be cold, but it certainly hasn't been that wet. In fact, I think I can quite literally count on one hand the number of times it has rained since we arrived here at the beginning of May.

If my laundry won't dry on the line, it's because we live on the side of a hill and our back yard never sees sun, or that it's too cold, or that there's no wind ... not because it's raining.

Completely unlike our move to Whangarei in August two years ago ... it rained every single sodden day for the first nine weeks we were there !!!

So all in all ... I'm not minding the rain so much today :)

In days of old ...

I realise pioneer women had it rough and I realise that they sometimes had little more than a couple of glowing sticks sitting in a hole in the ground to cook on ... but I'm not a pioneer woman !!!

The MOTH went out with some of the guys from work tonight. Before he left he very kindly prep'ed dinner for me ... of course this only works if the gas stove isn't actually connected to an empty gas bottle !!!

I think we need to work on an indicator light, like the fuel tank on the car, to provide some warning of when my cooking apparatus is running low on vital supplies. Of course I know that I can still drive my car from Whangarei to Waipu and back (a round trip of about 80km) with the low fuel light on ... so I'd probably ignore the one on the stove too ;P

Luckily we have a coal range. Dinner took longer than usual to cook, and there was a little juggling involved in trying to top the burner up with coal without getting little ashy flecks in the potatoes, but it sure beats two minute noodles ....

Sheep don't look sheepish ...

... pissed off, malevolent, baleful and occasionally placid ... but not particularly sheepish. It's the eyes.

Ten things I learnt today ...

i) Sheep do not particularly like being tipped over on their backs and having all their wool shorn off when it's only 8 degrees outside ...
ii) If you carry a bag of bread, well trained sheep will follow you pretty much anywhere you want them to go ...
iii) Don't congratulate yourself on a job well done (ie. all the sheep in the right paddock) until you've locked the gate !!!
iv) Sheep are really really quick (learnt as a direct result of item iii) ...
v) Seven year old boys make really good sheep dogs ...
vi) Sheep need manicures too ...
vii) While manicuring a sheep, it'd be a really good idea to wear a codpiece ...
viii) And kneepads ...
ix) And possibly a helmet
x) Sheep are not that partial to manicures.

Don't ever dare a Kassi ...

The flatmate is learning (the hard way) that when you say to a Kassi "I dare ya" then you'd better be prepared to live with the consequences.

The following ad appeared in the Flatmates section of the newspaper this morning ...

WANTED : single female to share small
cold sleepout with un-housetrained 25
year old male. Ph ....

So far he's had five replies ...

To link ... or not to link ...

OK ... I've noticed that I'm linked on a couple of people's blogs, which is very flattering ... thank you ... thank you very much ...

They're obviously very smart people who have worked out how this blog thing works in a far more in depth manner than I have ...

Soooo ... a chocolate fish to the person who can tell me how I can add a little list at the side of my blog with links ...

Six going on fifteen ...

When did my baby girl turn into a teenager ?!?!?

I can't even remember what it was we were talking about, when I ventured an opinion that apparently was just too dumb for words. And the response ??

An incredulous look ...
rolling of the eyes ...
and the phrase "like ... whatever"
(as she walked out of the room)

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Readin' ... writin' and 'rithmetic ...

Parent teacher interviews at school tonight ... yippee !!

Surprising enough we found out that K can't keep quiet in class. Heck, the rugrat can't keep quiet with a mouth full of icecream, let alone when it's empty and he has a captive audience !!!

However, it was rather a surprise to learn that S also has the same character trait ... apparently, in the absence of a big brother who always knows the answers, she's a motor-mouth as well !!

They're both doing well academically, and have settled in and made loads of new friends and it's all good. Which is a relief, because honestly, the thought of them moving schools and not liking it once we arrived here was the cause of many angst-ridden discussions prior to leaving Whangarei.

We're turning off the TV and reading more too ... because apparently "in order to write well, you have to read well ...."

K's currently reading Harry Potter for the second time because it challenges him (he's seven with a reading age of eleven, it's hard to find challenging books that are actually suitable) ... and I'm reading Pride and Prejudice and have War and Peace sitting beside the bed waiting for me to finish ...

With that and the writing ... life's filling up !!!

The diet that wasn't ...

The MOTH realised on the weekend that in just over two months we are flying up to Auckland so he can be groomsman at his best friend's wedding.

This realisation came at roughly the same time as he realised that the camera adds 5kg and that he's put on a teensy bit of weight since we moved to Dunedin (it's too cold for salad ... think more along the lines of mashed potato and gravy !!!)

So (being the good little wife I am) I went out and bought electronic scales, banished potato chips and chocolate chip cookies from the grocery shopping, and stocked up on broccoli !!!!

All of which ended after less than 48 hours ... at exactly the moment that he realised just how small a thin slice of homemade bread is, and that dessert equals coffee and no cookie.

He says he's going to take up jogging ...