Lightening Online

Yes, Smiley Saturday is now BACK from it’s brief 2-week holiday and ready to see lots of smiles and laughter throughout 2009!!!!

My Smiley Saturday post this week is all about yesterday. After a whole 3 and a half days home from the beach, we decided to take our kids out for the day yesterday. Actually, it was something we’d planned a while back. I needed to do a bit of back to school shopping and pick up some bits and pieces in preparation for our “big trip”. So, we planned to take a day away to a regional centre with a small amount of shopping and a fun school holiday activity.

The original plan was to take the kids to the movies. It’s not something we do very often (which isn’t surprising given how expensive it is) so we thought it would be a nice treat. At the last minute, we gave them a choice of a movie or the Leisure Centre and they ended up choosing the Leisure Centre.

I was really pleased with this choice as swimming is healthier for them and they don’t get a lot of opportunities to do it. Plus, they can do with the practice.

The Leisure Centre has a slide which is open each afternoon during the School Holidays - this is the major attraction for our children with wanting to go there.

When we’d finished at the Leisure Centre, we took a drive to visit Farmboy’s brother and his wife who’ve recently moved down there (they were farming up until December). We had a look at the luxurious home they’re renting (for an awesome price of course) with beautiful sea views. It’s so lovely.

Then off to Farmboy’s sister’s place to have tea with their family and exchange Christmas Gifts (their little boy was sick when we had our family get together so they didn’t make it). Christmas is now officially over for us.

All in all, it was a lovely family day (both immediate and extended) and we arrived home rather late last night (hence my slow start this morning).

I hope you all can find something to smile about on this Smiley Saturday.

The lovely Kate at Our Red House has kindly bestowed upon me this sweet Lemonade Award:

Here are the instructions which come with said award:

Put the logo on your blog or post.

Nominate at least 10 blogs which show GREAT ATTITUDE and/or GRATITUDE!

Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.

Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.

Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received your award.

Here are those I’ve chosen to pass this on to this time:

1. Lisa at The Tin House whose gardening efforts totally put mine to shame (but constantly inspire me to do better)

2. Cat at FitCat who’s generous heart for others shines through in so many of her posts.

3. Kez at Kez’s Blog who’s passion for gardening and travel inspire me and make me feel we have quite a bit in common.

4. Trey Morgan who has a lot of wonderful wisdom to share and I’m so thankful he’s willing to share it.

5. Busy Woman at A Vision Splendid whose daily attempts at Simple Living continually inspire me to do better (and I REALLY need to do better right now).

6. Ann at Still at Home . I love all the cooking and knitting that Ann does and enjoy taking a peek into their day to day lives (particularly the “A Day in My Life” posts which I’m going to do one of these days).

7. Dina at The Girl Who Wished She Was Australian for her constant enthusiasm about this wonderful country I live in. She knows more than me about Australia that’s for sure!

8. Marita at Stuff With Thing who has much on her plate and yet still manages to find time for so many projects and always has a kind word for her fellow bloggers.

9. Meredith at Like Merchant Ships whose efforts at frugality put mine to shame yet inspire me constantly.

10. Frogdancer at Dancing With Frogs who has a great outlook on life and a real “go get ‘em” attitude and whose posts are either inspiring, funny, or both (and is there meant to be a comma before that or?)

Well, not upside-down exactly but we’re looking at changing our minds and heading off the way we intended to come home and coming home the way we intended to head off (or maybe come home an entirely different way).

One of my favourite hobbies is to plan trips. I love to sit down with a blank sheet of paper, a map, a calculator and a pencil (for some reason I prefer to write in pencil when I’m doing this). Then I plan how far we’ll drive each day, how many kilometres that will be and what town we’ll stay in.

When we planned our trip to Darwin a number of years back, I think I got almost as much pleasure from the planning stages as I did from the trip itself.

With our “big trip”, we’re trying not to plan things too closely. We have, however, been looking at a number of route options and planning a very broad timeline to ensure that we fit in the things we really want to do during our time away.

Today I’ve been playing around with the first 2 weeks of our trip away (with a change in direction) and things seem to be falling into place quite neatly. Hopefully that means we’re on the right track with changing our minds on which way we’ll head off. There are a few details we need to sort out before we can be sure that we’ll stick to this plan. And, with 5 and a half months to go, anything could change between now and then.

I am having fun plotting and planning though!

…… that one day I’ll wander around my house wishing there were toys to pick up?

Because right now I’m kind of wishing that might happen.

My lounge room is littered with toys. All set out in a lovely “game” mind you, not scattered willy-nilly. Still, the lounge is supposed to be my “haven”. My place where visitors can enter my home without falling over stuff. The kids have the family room and their bedrooms in which to play. And yet, funnily enough, they LOVE the lounge room. Probably because it’s a nice tidy open space - just longing for a game to be started.

Aarrgghh!!!! I do love my kids and I love having them home on holidays. But honestly, it’s more than a full-time job keeping the house reasonable when all 3 are home.

And yes, they should do better at picking up after themselves. But we all know that’s even more effort than tidying up yourself and today, I just have no energy left.

Oh well, tomorrow is another day! Hopefully I’ll feel better after a decent night’s sleep. And hopefully tonight will be cool enough to get one!

A short time ago, the lovely Frogdancer participated in an interview style meme. You put your hand up to be interviewed and that blogger sends you 5 questions to be answered on your blog. I love answering interview questions. It’s always interesting to see what people will come up with in the way of questions. I had no doubt Frogdancer would come up with some interesting questions and she did not disappoint.

1. You’re a city girl who has decided to live on a farm in what looks
like to be a fairly isolated part of the country. While I’m sure that
there are lots of compensations (what with the husband, fresh air and
freedom from nosy neighbours and all) what was the absolute hardest
thing to deal with in such a big change in lifestyle?

Firstly, I should probably point out that I never really “decided” to live on a farm. More like dragged kicking and screaming! After all, I did attempt to tell my now husband that there was no way I was ever going to marry a farmer!!!! The things we do for love, I tell you!

So, what was the absolute HARDEST thing to deal with? Definitely the lack of shops! I had shopping withdrawal for many years and just the thought of travelling to Adelaide was enough to get my heart beating fast in anticipation of all the shopping I could do. These days, large shopping centres kind of overwhelm me and I’m not as in love with shopping as I used to be. Although, I have discovered the awesomeness of online and catalogue shopping.

2. You insist that chickens aren’t scary, even though I think that
anyone can see that their beaks are sharp and pointy and vicious
looking. Is there anything from the Animal Kingdom on the farm that IS
scary and gives you the willies?

SNAKES!!!! My single biggest fear about moving from the town to the farm was the snakes. And in our first summer out here, we had almost as many snakes near the house as my mother-in-law saw in her entire time on the farm! It was a REALLY bad year. Most years we’ll have one in the house yard, two in a bad year. That year we had 10!!! It was a horrible introduction to farming life.

And no, chickens really aren’t all that scary - as long as you’re not a worm!!!!

3. If you could have your time over, would you use different names for
your family on the blog? In fact…. what would you call them if the
names you are already using were banned by the blogging police?

The names I do use for them fit them perfectly so the blogging police would have a fight on their hands if they wanted to take them from me!!!! It was hard enough to come up with those names in the first place given how terribly uncreative I am. I’d probably resort to calling them DS10, DD8 and DS5. At least then people would know their ages. Lleyton is the only one that knows what I call him on the blog and he LOVES his nickname. He’d be devastated too. Would the blogging police really take away a 10 year olds dream????

4. Does the thought of using caravan park toilets for months on end
freak you out even slightly? (Or is that just me?) You’ve blogged
about what you’re looking forward to, but what are some of the things
that you think may be a challenge when you experience your trip?

Ummm….yes. Most caravan parks maintain their facilities well but you do stumble on the occasional nightmare (like we did in the Snowy Mountains where we had to trudge up a steep hill with inadequate lighting to get to the spider infested girls bathroom). When we first bought our camper trailer 12 years ago, I wasn’t sure how I’d go having to use public bathroom facilities. But it doesn’t worry me as much as I ever thought it would. Once I even met up with an old family friend in a caravan park bathroom!

As for challenges, I expect there’ll be many but here are a few that come to mind right now:

• Needing to pee in the middle of the night! I hate that when you have to cross the caravan park in the dark, especially if it’s cold (lucky we’re spending most of our time in Queensland so it hopefully won’t be too cold). I remember once camping in the Flinders Ranges in July when I was pregnant and threw up whenever I got cold - having to go to the toilet in the middle of the night was no fun!!!
• Deciding how independent we’ll allow our children to be when it comes to going to the toilet and showers alone. It gets kind of tedious having to take them every time but well, you never really know who might be lurking and is it really worth the risk?
• 5 people cooped up in a caravan for such an extended period of time. What happens when we have a fight? No bedrooms to stomp off to and slam the door on! Curtains just don’t have the same satisfying sound when you shut them!
• No constant internet access!!!! Aaaarrrggghhh!!!!!
• What we’ll do if there’s a family emergency while we’re in Far North Queensland (eg. a funeral). Will we leave the caravan and fly back or what will we do?
• Getting sick or injured while we’re away.

5. And finally….
If for some reason (like a random someone interviewing you on your
blog) you had to pick one single experience you had which was the BEST
EVER, what would it be?

Oh, this is really HARD! The best day of my life so far would HAVE to be my wedding day. It was AWESOME. My heart was so full to overflowing that I never thought it would be possible to love Farmboy any more than I did that day. I was wrong though. I’m very thankful that our love continues to grow. I know it’s something I can never take for granted.

****

If you’d like to get involved, all you have to do is put your hand up (via the comments section or contact form) and I’ll send you 5 questions for you to answer on your own blog. Once you’ve done that, you also include the offer to interview any of your readers and that way the meme goes on and on and on (as memes have a tendency to do). If you don’t have your own blog and would like to participate, let me know and I’ll publish your interview here on my blog.

Oh, and one more thing. Given I LOVE answering questions, if you have a question you’d like me to answer, feel free to leave it in the comments section below (or via email/contact form) and I’ll answer those questions here as well. BUT, be kind okay.

We’re home.

And I need a holiday!

To get over our holiday!

A full-on week with extended family followed by a week of travelling back and forth for swimming lessons (yeah, we stayed at the beach but our kids did Vacswim at the pool in town). Next year we’ve decided to stay at home for the week of swimming lessons. Farmboy may as well get some work done while I’m travelling back and forth and we can have a weeks break (or even a few days) a little later in the holidays (so goes the plan anyhow).

Topped off with a sleep-over for Singstar Princesses 8th birthday.

We had lots of fun swimming and fishing and staying up half the night talking (and trying to get a room of 5 cousins asleep at a decent hour!).

But in a way I’m relieved to be home.

Or at least I will be when I get through the mound of unpacking, washing and sorting of Christmas gifts that needs doing.

Oh, and I guess I should take our Christmas tree down sometime.

And pack away the decorations for another year.

Is it just me or do the January school holidays tend to fly by?

Only 2 more weeks and the kids are back at school!!!! It’s unreal!

I can’t complain too much about the busy-ness of the past 2 weeks though. I managed to read my way through 6 novels in that time! Ahhh….bliss!!!!

My apologies to those who were looking for Smiley Saturday on Saturday. We should be back to regular programming now (whatever that means around here) and look out for the return of Smiley Saturday this weekend.

With our “Big Trip” approaching, I have been rather interested in reading websites, magazines and forums about travel adventures and ideas.

So I’m quite excited to be able to give you the scoop on a new website and magazine just launching. It includes a forum and reader stories of their own travel experiences as well as travel tips, photographs and more.

I’ll have more to tell you about this new project next week, but for now, please click through and have a sneak peak at the Way2Go website. Bear in mind it’s in the developing stages and more content will be added over time.

It’s a project I am keen to be involved with so stay tuned for more soon.

We’re doing a lot of coming and going at the moment so I thought I’d trawl the archives for a few posts you might have missed.

Here are 10 of my most read posts:

Candy Cane Bathsalts

Reducing the Grocery Budget : Budgets

Reducing the Grocery Budget - Fruit and

Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part One

M&M Cookies

Reducing the Grocery Budget - Meat

How Did This Happen?

Cleaning Doesn’t Need to Cost the Earth

Knitting a Tea Cosy

What Does A Nervous Breakdown Feel Like?

And here are some of my least read posts. If you’re feeling sorry for them, feel free to click through and make them feel loved. Some of them are older posts that you might have missed.

Pottering in the Kitchen

Simplifying Christmas

Mother Hubbards Cupboard Has Now Been Restocked

Strawberry Fete

Glass Deco

Triple Chocolate Muffins

Edible Playdough

I hope you find something of interest amongst these past posts. I should be back on deck in a couple of days. Look forward to catching up with you all then!

Just before Christmas, I was asked if I would review a new product on the market called Top Corn. Being the curious person I am, I was keen to lay my hands on some and see what it was like.

Test 1 - The Kids

My kids are big popcorn fans but tend to balk at the idea of trying anything new. Lleyton was the most keen and also being a nut fan, quite liked the taste and texture of the Top Corn. They liked the plain TopCorn and the Cheese flavoured packet.

Test 2 - Farmboy

Farmboy is generally pretty easy to please and seemed to like the Top Corn. His favourite flavor was the Spicy.

Test 3 - My Parents

My father is a diabetic so I was particularly interested in the fact that Top Corn has less saturated fat than chips and nuts. I put some out on Christmas Day and it was as popular as any of the other available snacks.

Test 4 - ME

No doubt I am the pickiest of all the test subjects. I tend to enjoy a savoury snack and I’m a bit of a chip-a-holic. I found the Top Corn quite satisfying as a snack and the thing that interested me most was that while it was nice, I didn’t feel an urge to down the whole packet. This is quite significant because I tend to overeat when it comes to snack foods. I preferred the plain to the Spicy or the Cheese.

What IS TopCorn?

Unlike popcorn, Top Corn is made using large corn kernels that are unpopped. To me it has a similar taste to popcorn but with a much crunchier texture. The plain was salted with a beautifully light salt which created an interesting and pleasurable texture.

It’s made from giant corn (non genetically modified) grown in the Peruvian Andes.

If you’d like to know more about it, have a look at the TopCorn website.

Disclaimer: The only payment for this post was the provision of some samples to try this product.

2009 has been a momentous date in our minds for quite some time now.

The first thing I whispered in my children’s ears this year?

“We’re going on our big trip THIS year!”

For so long it has seemed like 2009 was so far in the future and now it’s HERE!

Of course, the scary thing for me is that now it’s here, I’m afraid it’ll all be over before we can barely blink.

But I’m determined to savour every moment.

Hopefully you don’t get sick of me talking about our “big trip” before we even leave as I suspect you’ll all be my sounding board as we make preparations (and it feels like there are a LOT Of those to be made).

Christmas this year had a distinct “trip” theme about it. The kids each got their own toiletry bag, complete with toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, soap and a face washer. We’ve already been giving them a good workout at the shack but their primary purpose if for the “big trip”.

They also got a digital camera each so that they can record the trip through their own eyes. Already I’m amazed at their photography. It’s a great way to see the world through their eyes.

Next on my list of things “to do” is to look through the Back To School sales for school supplies we might need during the trip. I want the kids to each keep a hand-written journal/diary of the trip, complete with photographs and other pictures. I’m not sure yet what to use for these journals. On the one hand, I think something with a plastic sleeve would be good to keep them protected (as I imagine they’ll be read over and over). On the other, I’m thinking a book with lined pages will be easier for them to write in. I’m kinda hoping something will magically jump out at me but if you have any suggestions, I’m all ears.

Now will somebody pinch me because I’m not sure I can actually believe we’re going to do this trip - THIS year!!!