Lightening Online

I guess you can call 2 kittens that are from the same litter twins??? They’re nothing alike but you get that with twins don’t you? I always thought it would be nice to have twins.

Our kitten, Max went missing in October. I was too upset to blog about it. Plus I thought if I said he was gone then I was losing all hope that he might come back. He didn’t come back. I still miss him. As you do. When you love a pet.

I wasn’t so sure I wanted to get any more kittens. *sigh* I don’t need more sadness by getting attached to more pets.

But we have mice. And snakes. And cats are really a good pet to have on a farm for those 2 reasons. Plus they’re cute.

So we saw an advert giving away Ginger kittens. And I nagged Farmboy to ring until he got hold of them. We thought we’d just take one. But they said we could have two. And it’s nice for them to have some companionship. So we got two.

Silly little things they are.

This morning one of them got himself stuck between the glass door and the screen.

Aren’t they funny the things they’ll do and the places they get themselves stuck in?

So, now we’re going to have ourselves a little caption fun. You can come up with a caption for photo 1 OR photo 2. Or you can come up with a funny caption for both. Please leave your caption ideas in the comments section and indicate which photo it is a caption for.

Will there be a prize??? Indeed. Winners will receive one of these fantabulous, hot off the press, just arrived today, “Lightening - It’s Pink!!!” magnetic calendars.

These are a limited edition so make sure you get your entries in so you have a chance to snaffle one. Or get your entries in anyway so we can all have a giggle.

Winning entries (I haven’t decided how many there’ll be yet) will be published as part of my Smiley Saturday post this weekend.

So get those thinking caps on and see if you can come up with something to make us all smile.

WARNING: This post contains material which may cause jealousy.  If you struggle with the green eyed monster when it comes to romantic husbands, please do NOT read any further.  LighteningOnline.com cannot accept any responsibility for fits of jealous rage, pouting, sulking, foot stomping, whining or any other behaviours or actions that may result from reading this post.  You do so at your own risk. 

You may have noticed that I haven’t been around much over the past couple of weeks.  My family have been staying at our in laws shack over the Christmas and New Year period.  I’ve popped back home a couple of times for quick “do the washing and other stuff” type reasons but for the most part we’ve been relaxing at the beach.

Farmboy’s sister and her family have also been staying there.  Between us we have 5 children although put together it can seem like 10 some days.  LOL.  It’s been lots of fun though.  My SIL called us back before Christmas and kindly offered to have our children for a night so that Farmboy and I could have a nice romantic night away.  Being the romantic practical person that he is, Farmboy suggested that instead of booking in to a nice romantic establishment by the seaside somewhere along the coast, that we instead come HOME.  Actually, this suited me quite well as at least I have internet access at home and could get a desperately needed “fix” while we were here!  Of course, this came with the added bonus of him being able to squeeze in some farmwork not having to book for any set night AND of course, not having to pay for any accomodation getting to sleep in our own bed! 

As it turned out, it was a good thing we decided to go this way as our youngest hadn’t been well so we brought him home with us too.  A nice romantic evening for two three.

We had to stop in for some food on our way home as I’d cleared out our fridge and taken all our fresh food down to the shack.  DH told me to leave everything to him, so I did!

Here’s what he rolled out……

Entre (we have this so seldom, I’m not even sure how to spell it!!!)

Freshly prepared prawn cocktails (my favourite)

Main Course

Flame grilled t-bone steak (from our 1/2 cow in the freezer) served with bbq roasted zucchini (freshly picked from the garden), carrots (some in fridge from the 5kg I bought before Christmas) and potato.  Accompanied by pink champagne (also my favourite).

To say it was delicious almost doesn’t do it justice.  It was suberb!!!!  Farmboy is sure turning into the BBQ king around here!

Pampering

We were so full after that we decided to postpone dessert until after our 4 year old was in bed.  Once he was safely tucked away DH ran a bath in our spa bath and we relaxed in the spa with more champagne, fresh strawberries and some Ferrero Rochers.    Twas delightful.  He even added some of my peppermint bath salts to the bath.  And gave me a foot massage in the bath.

Dessert (yes, there was still dessert to come after all of that!!!)

Strawberry cheesecake (generic - because we both really like the local generic brand cheesecake) served with ice cream and fresh cream and garnished with extra strawberries.  He was going to add a swirl of strawberry sauce to the plate but we didn’t have any left.  It’s the thought that counts though!

It was a really lovely evening!    The next morning when I woke up, he cooked me bacon and eggs for breakfast as well!!!  While he popped out to do a few jobs around the farm (like make sure the sheep had enough water), I treated myself to a microdermabrasian facial (I’ve been slack with skin care while we’ve been at the beach) and defuzzed with some Nair (I’m allergic to pain so waxing doesn’t really rate as an option for me!) and dry brushed my skin.  It was so lovely to take a little time out for myself.  DH took The Bomb with him so I had some nice quiet alone time (always something to be cherished!).

Estimated Costings and Savings:

Spa Room overnight $200

3 course dinner for 2 with champagne $150 (at least)

Cooked Breakfast for 2 $50

Massage $50

Hair Removal $30

Facial $30+

Total Potential Cost $500+

Total cost to us for food, champagne etc approx $60 (not including food already on hand)

That’s a pretty massive saving isn’t it?  Who said frugality had to be about deprivation?

Isn’t my DH a very clever bunny?  And a most adorable hunny?  Jealous yet? 

If you’re like me and desperately *NEED* another internet distraction, you might like to visit free rice . Somebody from the Simple Savings forums was sharing this the other day so some of you may have already seen it.

Basically, you have to guess the meanings of words and for each answer you get correct they donate 10 grains of rice through the United Nations to help end world hunger.

The website does come with it’s own warning though…..

“WARNING: This game may make you smarter. It may improve your speaking, writing, thinking, grades, job performance…” LOL.

And for those of you who are competitive (unlike me lol), I had a play for about half an hour the other night and reached level 41 (can’t remember how many grains of rice it ended up being). Naturally I have to have another go and see if I can better that!

So if you’d like some help with procrastinating…. that will help someone else at the same time….. AND help improve your own vocabulary, give it a go.

Oh, and don’t forget to let us know in the comments section how you did (and how many grains of rice you donate).

This was shared on the forums at the simple living network . It’s an interesting test to see whether you are left or right brained. I have no idea as to the authenticity of this. I am *lightening* after all. My gullability ratings haven’t improved all that much in the past 20 years.

But, accurate or not, it has still created a lot of fun. The idea is to see whether this dancer is turning in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction. That’s supposed to give you an indication of whether you are “left brained” or “right brained”.

So far it has caused much debate in our family. I can only get it to turn in a clockwise direction. No matter what I have tried, I can’t see anything else. I got DS to have a try, thinking that he would be “right brained” (being so good at maths and all) and would therefore see it turning anti-clockwise (which is supposed to be the most common direction seen). He started off seeing it turning clockwise and then found it would randomly change directions as he watched.

Well, DH got home and we all crowded around the computer monitor. He also found it would change the direction in which it was turning as he watched. Of course he, in all his wisdom, kept insisting DS was wrong if he claimed it was going in a different direction to what DH thought it was going in. *sigh*. Took me a good few times of telling him it wasn’t *wrong* it was just their brains viewing it differently. Perhaps I needed a piece of 2×4 to whop him up the side of the head. Of course how he sees the world is how everyone should!!!!

So, DH and DS can both see it changing directions. I can still only see it turning clockwise. How about you? Let us know what you see when you view her.

I coloured my hair this morning just cos I wanna….. I picked up a packet of hair colour for $1 on the Coles bargain shelf last week. It’s one of those that wash out in 6-8 washes. Loooooonnnnnnggggg time since I’ve used one of those. In fact, it took me back to my teenage years when it was about all I could afford in the way of hair colour on my $3 a week allowance. LOL. And they were more than $1 even back then!

As I was standing in the bathroom adding chemical goop (yeah must research more natural forms of colouring) to my hair, I was thinking about the contrast between me as a teenager and me as a mother. As a teenager it seems to be quite “normal” to do things simply because we “wanna”. As a mother it’s easy to go to the other extreme and not do ANYTHING simply cos we “wanna”.

So, is it okay to do things simply because you feel like it. Or is that considered selfish? I guess I was of the opinion that it was selfish. Not consciously. I just thought it was the right thing to put myself last. WRONG!!! In putting myself last, I ended up in a state that made me of no use to anyone.

It comes down to a matter of balance doesn’t it? We can’t really all go back to our teenage years of all fun and no responsibility (not that I was ever *really* one of those). But does that really mean we can’t have ANY fun? Nah!!!! I just forgot how for a little while.

So I’m feeling really proud of myself today for doing something that really had no purpose and took up time that I really *could* have spent doing something else. Instead I chose to do something “just cos I wanna”.

I’ve decided it’s time to relive my adolescence (is that called a mid life crisis? lol). Not all of it, just the fun bits. After all, my definition of maturity even back then was “knowing when it’s appropriate to be immature”. We don’t have enough FUN anymore. It’s time to have FUN!!!!! Are ya with me?????

This website was posted by someone on the Simple Living Network. It’s good for a laugh and a bit of fun:

http://www.therightfoot.net/mystuff/whatever/swf/bubblewrap.swf

I thought DH might get a bit of a laugh out of it so I showed it to him last night. Turns out the laugh was on me as I couldn’t get him off my computer. LOL. My computer is the one connected to the internet at the moment. We’d had a rather stressful day with the kids yesterday between one thing and another. I think he found it to be quite a good stress release.

Go on - have some fun. You know you want to.