Lightening Online

I was tagged a little while back by Sharon to do this “A-Z of Me” meme:

Attached or single? VERY attached to my husband!!!

Best Friend? Farmboy (my husband)

Cake or Pie? Is cheesecake classed as “pie”?

Day of Choice? Friday - has been my designation “day off” for many years now. I’m pretty good at sticking to it too!

Essential Item? Toothbrush - I can’t sleep if I haven’t brushed my teeth.

Flavour of icecream? Mint choc chip

Gummy Bears or Worms? Neither. I HATE gummy bears!!! Sorry Frogdancer.

Hometown? I’ve been everywhere man. Well, not quite EVERWHERE but too many places to be able to call any one place “home”.

Indulgences? Anything with cream. I try not to indulge too often but I am rather parital to cream. Especially if it’s combined with something chocolate. Or cheesecake.
January or July? July - it’s my birthday in July

Kids? Always wanted them. Was afraid I wouldn’t be able to. Now have 3 which I’m stoked about (most days!)

Last Movie I saw in a Theatre? Good question. Not sure I can even remember.

Middle Name? Louise

Number of Siblings? 3 younger brothers - feel sorry for me yet?

Oranges or Apples? Oranges with warm custard - YUM!!!

Phobia or Fear? Lighting a match or anything gas. I had a gas heater blow out in my face when I was VERY young.

Quote? Can’t think of one off the top of my head.

Reason to Smile? Comments on my blog (hint! hint! )

Season? Spring - I love the freshness and the feeling of hope. I only hope we’re going to get one this year. It feels like it’s jumped from winter directly to summer at the moment.

Tag five more…. Gemisht, Gnometree, Wendy, Kin, Kelley

Unknown fact about me? When I’m trying not to cry, my eyes go VERY blue. Every now and then I’ll get a comment about how blue my eyes are and it’s almost ALWAYS at a time when I’m trying not to cry.

Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animals? Let me guess, this was composed by a Vegetarian?

Xrays or Ultrasound? Ultrasound, given the only times I’ve had them has been when I’ve been pregnant.

Your favourite food? Do I have to pick only one? No? Good. Is chocolate a food? I think my favourites are pretty much all the unhealthy stuff. Pizza, Chicken, vegemite on toast not to mention cheesecake and anything chocolate flavoured (unless it’s been tainted by coffee or liqueur).

Zodiac? Not something I follow

Six words? You’ve got to be joking!!!!

Both my blogging and my commenting gives testament to the fact that I’m NOT a woman of FEW words.

Twitter and Plurk have both proven to be quite CHALLENGING for me. How do you say what you need to say in such a small amount of space? I can tell you now - it aint easy. Not for me anyway.

So being tagged by Journeyer for this six word memoir meme has had me scratching my head. Can I REALLY sum up my own life in just 6 words? Hmmm….

There was 1 word I knew HAD to be non-negotiable in my 6 word memoir.

PINK

Here’s what I ended up coming up with:

Sad start. Pink rocks. Flying now.

Could you do it? Summarise your life in 6 words? What about a part of your life? Have a go. If you don’t have a blog (or don’t wish to blog about it), feel free to include your 6-word memoir in the comments section. I look forward to reading what you come up with.

Yesterday I posted a meme that revealed a little of myself to you all.

You may or may not have realised this by now, but I’m away. These posts have been prewritten and prescheduled to publish. So you can stop sulking about the fact that I haven’t responded to your comments or commented on your blog. I do still love you!!!

I don’t like saying “hey everyone, we’re going to be away from X…. to Y…..” for obvious reasons. But since we’re due back any time now, I feel like it’s safer for me to say this now. I’ll be back on deck as soon as I climb out from under the mound of dirty washing and recover from jetlag (no, we didn’t actually leave our own time zone BUT I still suffer from “jet lag” after being away).

In the meantime, I thought it would be nice to encourage you all to share a tiny bit about yourself. Kind of like an “in-house” meme. Rather than going from blog to blog, it’s just for us here within this post and it’s comments.

So, here are my questions for you:

1. If you had to choose only 1 food item to eat for the rest of your life, what would it be?

2. Name one place you’ve never been that you’d really like to visit one day.

3. Where is the best place you’ve ever lived (your favourite) and why?

I hope you’ll join in and leave your responses to these questions in the comments section. I look forward to reading them when I get back on deck.

I’ve been tagged for this meme by a number of people and keep thinking I’ll get around to it one day. Decided it was time I actually DID get around to it.

Thanks Wendy, Mark and whoever else I missed (sorry, I thought there was someone else. That’s the problem with procrastination If I missed you, please let me know as I’d LOVE to give you the link you deserve).

What I was doing 10 years ago:

At the start of 1998 my first baby was born. At that point in our lives, Farmboy was more married to farming than he was to me so it was pretty much Leighton and myself home together (which was a LOT nicer than being home alone). He stayed small for quite some time (which caused it’s own stresses) which meant I could carry him everywhere in a sling so we bonded quite strongly.

Five things on my to do list for today (well, tomorrow - it’s almost 11pm):

These are for the day this is written, not the day it will be posted.

1. Write some advance posts ready for us going away.

2. Ironing

3. Sort out our personal finances (they’re a MESS)

4. Keep warm (it’s wet and FREEZING as I type this)

5. Session with Personal Trainer

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Honestly, I have NO desire to be a billionaire. I would totally STRESS out that someone was going to kidnap my children and hold them for ransom (do I watch too much TV?).

Three of my bad habits:

Grinding my teeth

Procrastinating

Thinking horrible things about myself when I look in the mirror

Five places I have lived:

Adelaide (2 different houses - can’t remember the suburbs), South Australia

Port Pirie, South Australia

Glen Iris, Melbourne, Victoria

Mulgrave, Melbourne, Victoria

North Essendon, Melbourne, Victoria

Five jobs I have had:

Babysitting

Check-Out Chick at Bi-Lo

Child Care Worker (in a couple of different Child Care Centres)

Occasional Care Early Childhood Worker (Preschool)

School Services Officer - Special School and then Special Ed in a regular school

Five People I Want to Know More About:

I’m going to tag my 30-Day Challenge Team Members

A Juggling Mum

Epheriell

Journeyer

RazorSoB

Planning Queen

(Jade, I didn’t forget you but couldn’t find a URL for your blog at the time of writing this post. Feel free to consider yourself tagged and leave a URL in the comments section).

So, I have been tagged for this meme by Miserly Mum and Lis and figured it was about time I found myself a little “roundtoit”.

First I have a question. What on earth is Food Porn???? Can someone please explain this concept to me?

This meme started at Smokey Mountain Breakdown.

Here are the really simple rules. Answer each of the five questions. Tag five bloggers you would like to pass the meme to. Have them link back to you and to this post as the source meme. You and they can take the graphic from here if they like.

1. What food do you consider the best “date” food? In other words, what meal or food item do you think is sexiest to eat in the company of someone you would like to look sexy around?

Chocolate coated strawberries. Or strawberries with champagne. Or just plain strawberries.

Mind you, I don’t think I have ever actually tried to look sexy around anyone.

2. What well-known person would you like to share a meal with—with or without clothing. (saying whether or not clothes are involved is optional).

Shannon from The Biggest Loser. I’d love to pick his brains on a number of topics. And eating with him would encourage me NOT to over-indulge!!!

3. What does your perfect breakfast-in-bed look like? (Food AND the details, please. Candles? Music? Flowers? Hot tub? Dancing girls?

I HATE breakfast in bed!!!!! A cup of tea, yes. Trying to eat breakfast balanced on my lap or a tray is definitely NOT my idea of fun. Toast crumbs in the bed….NOT my idea of fun!!!!

Breakfast in the hot tub? Ummm….. strawberries and champagne (any time of the day is fine). Better make that PINK champagne too!!!!

Candles - yes

Music - no

Flowers - maybe (can’t stand flowers that are scented - I either sneeze, get a headache or both)

Dancing girls - *snigger* NOT likely!!!!

4. What do you consider the best application of whipped cream to be?

A toss up between chocolate mud cake and a nice rich cheesecake.

5. Oh-God-No, Biff, the yacht is sinking! You are sent to the galley to retrieve the food. What luxury food items do you snatch first? The champagne? The caviar? Smoked Salmon? Truffles? Chocolate? Or something else?

I’d definitely have to go with chocolate. Mind you, I’m not sure that “soggy chocolate” appeals all that much to me!!! And the LAST thing that would be on my mind if a boat was sinking is food!!! I can’t swim!!!! (well, okay, I can do a few strokes but not much).

I am going to tag:

Cellobella - because she seems to be rather interested in food porn.

Kelley - so she has another reason to use the word porn. And I can imagine her answers will be a LOT more interesting to read than mine.

Anonymum - because I don’t think I’ve ever tagged her before.

Guera at her “A Roaming Aussie Kitchen” blog.

Marita at her new Wordpress blog. Go Marita!!!!

It’s been a busy couple of days for me so I wasn’t going to post today.  However, this came to my attention tonight (thanks Sueblimely) and I thought it would make for a quick, fun post for as many of you as possible to participate in.

~~Begin Copy~~

This is the easy way and the fastest way to :

1. Make your Authority Technoraty explode.

2. Increase your Google Page Rank.

3. Get more traffic to your blog.

4. Makes more new friends.

Rules :

1. Start copy from “Begin Copy” until “End Copy” to your blog.

2. Put your own blog name and link.

3. Tag your friends as much as you can.

1. Picturing of Life 2. Juliana’s Site 3. Hazel-My Life, My Hope, My Future 4. Jeanne-The Callalily Space 5. Colin from Life 6. Sue - Blogging Sueblimely 7. Lightening Online 8.Put yourself here

~~End Copy~~

Well, because I’m EXTREMELY tired and need to go to bed, I’m tagging you ALL.  Yes, that includes YOU way over there that has read consistently but never commented.  And YOU with the lovely eyes who’s only just begun to read this blog!!!

It’s easy to do.  You add your own link to the end of the chain and PASS IT ON.  Simple as that.  I’m going to attempt to follow this around so those who do this I WILL come and visit you!

Weeeellllll…… it would seem that Frogdancer has tagged me for a meme.  I will blindly overlook the fact that I am number 7 (!!!!!!!) on her list instead of number 1 as I so rightly SHOULD be!!!!  LOL.  Just kidding!  After all, just because I was the first person EVER to comment on her blog doesn’t grant me any privileges or anything does it……..????????? 

It’s that 8 random thingymabob meme.  It’s a good one cos you can’t really claim you’ve done it before…….after all, who ONLY has 8 random things about themselves to post??????

 So, here goes:

1.  I LOVE internet tag as it doesn’t involve any RUNNING.

2.  When I write the number 8, I like to write it as 2 circles, one on top of the other.  It’s my tiny way of rebelling against what I was taught in school.

3.  My middle name is Louise.  Hands up who else has Louise as a middle name…..it seems to be a common choice (yep, our only DD has that as a middle name as well!)

4.  I had cheese and onion chips for breakfast this morning (yeah, me bad……)

5.  DH asked me the other day what my favourite meal is and I have NO IDEA!!!

6.  When I was in year 9 I punched a girl.  I really am a nice person…..honest!!!!   So, now you have to know the whole story.  She hit my younger brother.  Everyone knows that I’M allowed to hit my brother (or bag him out or whatever) BUT……NO ONE ELSE IS!!!!!  It was on the train after school but my co-ordinator found out about it and went absolutely mental at me.  I found out later that he’d held me up as a shining example to my boyfriend of the time (like said something along the lines of “why can’t you be more like J…..?” when he kept giving this girl a hard time) so my turning around and punching the same girl made said co-ordinator look a little foolish.  I learnt the hard way that it’s not a good idea to make a co-ordinator look like an idiot!!!!  2 years later I had him for year 11 English Literature and he still HATED me!   

7.  In year 8 the school I went to had WHITE dresses for the girls.  Who puts white fabric on teenage girls???????????  As you can imagine, water was the weapon of choice by the adolescent males…………. *sigh*

8.  I have never been a bridesmaid.    I’ve always wanted to be but it’s never happened.  The girl who was my maid of honour didn’t even invite me to her wedding!!!    DH on the other hand has been in 3 weddings (those of his best man and groomsmen).

Now, I tag…….

1.  YOU!!!!

2.  YOU

3. You

4. you (I know, you get the idea……)

 Yeah, it’s kind of cheating I know.  I usually try *not* to cheat on these things but I’m on holidays…….  BUT, it’s not all bad.  You will NOT miss out on your linky-love.  Anyone who does this meme and links back here, I will make sure you get your linky-love.  If you remember, make a comment in my comments section that you’ve done the meme.  If not, as long as you’ve claimed your blog with technorati, I will pick up on your link here and be able to add you to the list that way.  I look forward to reading your posts upon my return. 

Cellobella from SultanaBlog has tagged me for this meme. Which is great timing really as it’s a good way of avoiding talking about the outcome of all my SHOPPING I did this week (and the figures I’m avoiding facing)…..

1. Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given below (family, friend, yourself, your love, anything you like).
2. Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better.
3. Don’t forget to read the archived post and leave comments.

FAMILY

I love my kids!!!  But some days I really LOVE them.  And they make me cry with the awesome little people that they are turning into (some days…… ).

Moments Like These

FRIEND

What is it they say?  In order to have friends, you need to BE a friend.

Help

YOURSELF

I think this post reflects something of a realisation in me that it’s okay if I’m not the “same” as the person next to me. That it’s okay (ish) to be me and to allow my current season in life to simply flow until it’s time for a new season to begin.

Seasons

YOUR LOVE

This post started out being about the new teddy bear my DH bought for me and ended up being a post about Love Languages. One thing that never ceases to surprise me with blogging is where some posts will take me and the things I learn and discover AS I’m writing about them.

Introducing……

FREE CHOICE

I’m going to break the “rules” a little with this category. I’m mindful of the fact that there are some fairly new readers to this blog who may not have yet read this series. So instead of choosing just a single post for the series, I’m going to choose a single series (of 9 posts). I haven’t yet had a chance to update the links that are within these posts so please backtrack to here to get the next link. If you follow the links within these posts, they’re take you back to my old blog and that could get rather confusing. This was a series I wrote outlining my journey so far from a life of mindless consumerism to embracing a life of simplicity (well, moving toward a simpler life…..).

A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step

Joe Dominguez

Tracking Spending

Fast Tracking Our Dreams

You Cannot Steer A Stationary Ship

Living the Dream

How Did This Happen?

Words of Wisdom

Fast Tracking Our Dreams

And now for the tagging part. Apparently I need to tag at least some “new” blogging friends.

Kate at A Byootiful Life

Lotus at Sarcastic Mom

Rachel at A Juggling Mum

Miscellaneous Adventures of an Aussie Mum

Alyndabear

All of these blogs are reasonably new to my “regularly read” blog list and I haven’t gotten to know the authors all that well.  Not well enough that I’d usually “tag” them - in case they go “Lightening who????  Who does she think she IS tagging ME????????” LOL.  So I hope they understand the spirit of this. 

Yes, it’s time for a meme!  Thanks to Kin who tagged me for this. 4 quick questions (shouldn’t be too hard….. should it?????) followed by 4 quick tags (oh yeah, that’s the HARD part). 

1. What did you accomplish this past week?

* I FINISHED my Christmas shopping!!!!  Nernernenerner!!!!! 

You can hardly get into our bedroom at the moment. 

I have a HEAP of shopping stashed under blankets and sheets.  LOL.  I’m lucky my children aren’t TOO inquisitive (not that they’ve had a chance yet). 

The office has 2 plastic crates of food ready for Christmas.  And the bench is covered in food that won’t fit in my Humungous pantry.  DH is very excited about all the yummy food lying about the place. 

My credit card is currently in recovery mode after zinging itself red hot all day yesterday.  Don’t panic - we pay it off in full every month.  It just means that I have to be less accountable worried about having the right amount of cash on me when I have a big shop up day like that. How much did I spend???? Ask me again tomorrow when I have to enter it all into our spending/budget book (aaarrrhhhhh).

* Plus I figured out how to put a “contact me” page on my blog - of which I am VERY proud!!!

 2. Did anything not go as expected?

* Ummmmmm……… the housework?????  Not done……..

3. What was the highlight of your week?

* Seeing my beautiful children in their school Christmas concert this morning.  DD(6) was an angel and looked very angelic.  I think she might have a future in singing….. she seems to LOVE it sooooo much and does so well with it!  She got an award for spelling and maths.  And when DH went into her classroom to collect her costume so that she can wear it again Sunday, she was sitting at the teachers desk with half the class around her.  Wonder if she’ll end up being a teacher??????

DS(9) was a Christmas Tree.  Actually he just wore green clothes and held up a cardboard Christmas Tree. He got an award for challenging maths. He also got 90% in the maths competition. Don’t ask me….he certainly doesn’t get his mathematical ability from me!!!!!

4. Did anything exciting happen that you did not expect?

* I got an extra cuddle with my “Sunday” baby. We have discovered that holding babies actually boosts my serotonin levels which means I get first dibs on the only baby in our church. Apparently I’m also the only one who can put him to sleep. Usually he needs one of mum’s appendages (yeah, not technically an appendage but I’m sure you get the idea) in order to go to sleep. Guess what…..put him to sleep today too!!!! Go me!!!! LOL. It was a lovely cuddle. Oh yes, the extra cuddle was because he was at the concert as well. I sent DH over to babyknap him from his mother.

O.K.  Here are my “tags”.  If you’ve done this already….too bad!!!!  You have to do it again (even if you wait a week).  Or, you can at least link to me and say you’re not going to do it?  Is that fair enough????  LOL.  Only kidding. 

Bettina at her new wordpress blog.
Kelley - if anyone else has already tagged you Kelley, too bad!!! Just ignore them!!! LOL.
Meg who has probably been tagged a gazillion times already
Busy Woman if she’s not too busy to fit it in .

P.S.  Something just fell out of the freezer and DH calls out to me “don’t buy anything else please honey”.  LOL.

Jenn at Jenn’s Den has tagged me for this meme.

Here are the meme rules:

Rules:
1- Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2- Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.
3- Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4- Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So here goes with 7 things about ME:

1. My favourite soft toy as a child was named “Doggy Pussy”. I was obviously a rather confused child with a severe lack of creativity or ability when it came to naming my toys. LOL. He was a very faithful friend though and has absorbed truck loads of tears in his (and my) lifetime. I still have him. He lost his nose and both arms have been resewn a number of times. The fur is almost thread-bare. But he has pride of place stuffed in the bottom of my wardrobe somewhere! :-/

2. I eat chicken chips (the “Arnott’s” or “Smiths” kind that is - some of you may call them crisps) with ice cream. Yeah, I know it sounds disgusting but you have to TRY it before you ditch the idea. Don’t ask me why but the two go together quite well. It has become a favourite Friday night dessert in our house. It took my DH a LONG time to convince me to try it but once I did - I was hooked.

3. I have a tendency to end up in the middle of a circle of people. Someone in high school pointed this out to me. I’m still not sure if it’s because I like being the centre of attention or because I’m so short that everyone can just speak over the top of my head!

4. When my first child was born I made a conscious decision that I wanted to see him laugh at least once every day of their life. Not sure exactly where that came from or if it’s even a reasonable goal to have. That particular child is actually growing up to be quite a comedian and has the ability to make people laugh - what a gift!

5. I hate those hard 100s and 1000s on fairy bread (I like the soft “dollar sweets” or whatever they’re called) but still like freckles (they’re a chocolate covered with the hard round 100s and 1000s). In fact, I’m eating some right now (which is why I thought of this).

6. My favourite movie is “Pretty Woman” which I find rather strange given that I don’t agree with prostitution. My favourite part is where Vivien returns to Rodeo Drive with her hands full of packages to say “BIG mistake” to the stuck up boutique that refused to serve her because of the outfit she’d been wearing. I don’t like the attitude that having money makes you a better person.

7. My favourite number is the number 7!

So there you have it. Some a definitely weird. Some are just random. I’ll let you decide for yourself which are the weird ones. LOL.

Now for the hardest part, who do I tag? I know I’ve seen this meme on some other blogs so if I tag you and you’ve already done it, just let me know.

Tiffany
Trey
Christine
Kelley
FitCat
Kez
YOU (if you’d like to participate and haven’t yet been tagged - please consider yourself tagged and let me know and I’ll add your link here too! )