Lightening Online

At the moment we are staying in Adelaide while Lleyton attends a tennis clinic.  I have my little laptop and internet connection and was figuring I’d be able to blog every day or 2 but that just hasn’t been happening.  Partly because we’re staying with friends and partly because I am so tired from all the stuff we’ve been trying to fit in since Christmas (plus the lead up to Christmas) that to get 2 thoughts together to write is just really hard.

The family we are staying with are the ones we met in Port Douglas.  The kids are all having an absolute ball.  I would be too if I wasn’t so darn tired!

Lleyton’s tennis clinic is going well although it’s not quite as involved as I had hoped it would be (it’s more of a “fun” thing than a more serious “coaching” thing).  However, he’s enjoying it because he keeps winning the mini tournaments they have each day.  No doubt he’ll improve his skills just from the point of view of getting the opportunity to play tennis for 3 hours a day.

Everything is still up in the air as to when we’ll head home but I’m sensing it’ll be sooner rather than later.  Farmboy is chomping at the bit about how much work he hasn’t gotten done lately.

Anyway, hopefully I’ll be back to regular blogging soon.

New Year’s Day is a day often filled with hope (and hangovers).  A New Year, a fresh start.  A reason to celebrate the opportunity that is offered by the beginning of a New Year.

What colours will be painted on the canvas of 2010?  Joy.  Love.  Pain.  Sadness.  The emotions both positive and negative are what makes up the brilliant colours painted on the canvas of life.

Whether we like it or not, difficult times are character building and make up an important part of our life painting.  Yes, at the time we’d rather be anywhere but there.  But on reflection, those difficulties can be character and strength building if we will allow them to.

Am I setting myself up for a difficult year?  I hope not.  But I will admit that it’s concerned me how many people have been eager to see 2009 disappear and embrace the hope of 2010.  People who really feel 2009 was the worst year ever.  At times we really do have years that are more difficult than others.  Sometimes though, I think it is what we focus on that affects our perception of how bad things really have been.  I can’t help but wonder how many of those will say the same thing at the end of 2010?

Of course, that’s easy for me to say.  2009 was a particularly wonderful year for us.  How could it not be when we spent a quarter of it on our big trip? 

Still, I have hope that 2010 will be just as wonderful, in a different way.

I’m generally not one to make New Years Resolutions.  However, I do like to take a moment to consider what my goals and dreams are for the New Year.

2010 Goals and Dreams

House

1.  Continue to declutter (I think that’s a never ending job!)

2.  Paint all of the inside walls (with the exception of the 1 room I actually managed to get done in 2009)

3.  Finish our back decking (it’s not far off now)

Garden

1.  Build our permaculture style vegie garden

2.  Plant 2 or 3 more fruit trees

3.  Buy 2 large pots for dwarf lemon and dwarf mandarin trees

Health

1.  Continue to exercise.  Aim for 6 sessions per week of 30-60 minutes duration

2.  Focus on healthy eating

3.  Try to shed 10kg slowly

Kids

1.  Continue involvement with P&F at school

2.  Holiday swimming lessons during the year (given we’re missing the January ones)

3. Continue to develop Lleyton’s passion and ability with tennis (have finally got him into a week long clinic in Adelaide to help develop and refine his skills)

4.  Go away in the caravan at least twice during the year

Finances

1.  Work on gradually curbing our current spending spree

2.  Save $2000 toward our planned 15th Anniversary cruise

3.  Continue to save toward a new laptop for myself

4.  Increase our acreage to earn money for our house renovation projects (means I’ll be doing a lot more hours this year - effectively making me a working mother)

That’s about all I can think of for now.  No doubt 2010 will be filled with unexpected surprises and challenges.  All I can say is “bring it one”. 

Happy New Year everyone.  Hope 2010 is everything you  hope for and more!

P.S.  I actually wrote this on New Years Day but forgot to hit publish.  DOH!!!

Sorry, I forgot to announce the winners of my giveaway before Christmas.

Congratulations to the following people:

Janelle

Trish

Amy

Emil

Hopefully  you will receive an email soon with details of how to download your copy.  I’d love to hear your feedback on what you think of the product when you have.

I tried a new recipe this year, as a bit of a last minute thing. I had bought apricots to make apricot balls but really couldn’t be bothered with all that rolling.

I’m a bit of a fan of fudge from time to time so figured I’d give the following recipe a go.

It is YUM!!! Way TOO yum in fact!!! Very moreish.

So, even though it’ll be after Christmas when this posts, here is the recipe for you to try (and for me to find in future lol).

FUDGE

500g dark chocolate
75g butter
400ml condensed milk

melted together gently (I used the microwave on medium so the chocolate didn’t burn).

Add 1tsp vanilla and stir together.

Add nuts or fruit if you like and then pour into a dish and refrigerate to set.

I added chopped apricots to ours (as per the title) and it goes together SO well.

I also used my own condensed milk recipe and that worked fine too. I thought the sugar might end up being a bit grainy but it has come out lovely and smooth.

And did I say moreish?

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and can find some time now to relax and unwind.

Wishing you all a VERY Merry Christmas.

Relax and enjoy the day. Perfection is a myth (and highly over-rated).

Make sure you tell your loved ones how much they mean to you.

Do the bits that are meaningful to you and don’t be afraid not to do the things that aren’t.

Hope this makes you smile:

Don’t you hate it when you write half a post then come back the next day and it’s no longer there????

Oh well, let’s try again….

Every year our Christmas Day tends to look a little different.  Some years we spend it with extended family and occasionally we spend it with just our immediate family.

This year we’re doing a bit of both.

We’re having lunch at home with just the immediate family and then heading down to the family shack (near the beach) in the afternoon where we’ll have tea with Farmboys parents and 1 of his sisters and her family.  We’ll then spend almost a week there (the other sister is due to arrive a couple of days after Christmas).  I’m sure it’ll be bedlam down there but lots of fun.

Christmas morning we love to attend church.  This means that the kids often have time to look in their stockings but not unwrap many presents.  Our church is about 40 minutes drive away and with a 9am service, it’s a reasonably early start.  It is wonderful to see our church family on Christmas morning though and focus on the true reason for the season.

We’ll then come home and open gifts (and eat lots of nibblies so we’re too full for lunch!  LOL).

I haven’t decided what we’re having for lunch yet.  I like a hot meal but the kids prefer salads to vegies.  I’m contemplating a mixture of both.  Why not?

We’re planning to eat out on our new back decking.  Farmboy has been busy putting up the roofing these past couple of days (updated photo’s soon) and we splurged on an outdoor setting (just a cheap one though).

At some point after lunch we’ll clean up, pack up and head down to the shack.

I’ve suggested we keep things really simple for the evening meal.  Generally people just feel like picking so we’re planning to have anti-pasto platters, cheese, dip biscuits and some fruit.  Simple stuff to prepare and we can just graze the night away. 

I’m not one to want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen on Christmas Day.  Even with having a mix of salad and vegies it won’t be a lot of work.  Just a few simple things.

I do like to make a few goodies in the lead up to Christmas but they are mostly used as gifts for those in the extended family we don’t actually “buy” for.

All in all, it should be a lovely relaxing day spent with family.  I’m really looking forward to it. (and now I had better go and do some wrapping - still plenty of that to do before the day arrives - luckily I LOVE it!!!!  ).

Remember a little while ago I hinted that I was getting something pink for Christmas?

Well, our Christmas has come a little early this year so now I can show you.

Do you know how long it is since I’ve owned a bike?

Hang on a minute while I work it out……

I was 12 and now I’m …..

……

……

I’ve run out of fingers but let’s just say it’s been a while.

I gave up riding due to 3 catastrophic events:

1.  We moved to Melbourne from Port Pirie and Melbourne has WAY more cars!!!!

2.  I tried to ride it down our street (at our new place) which had a HUGE hill and stacked it first time!!!

3.  They brought in a new law saying you HAD to wear a helmet.

Truth be told, number 3 was the major deciding factor.  I mean, what self respecting, almost 13 year old wants to be seen dead in a helmet????  Different these days - it’s more “normal” now.

It even saves me having to do my hair properly before I ride to the shop.

Only then you have to wear your helmet in the shop so no-one can see how bad your hair looks!!!!

ROFLOL.

Anyway, Farmboy has been trying to convince me for years now that we should buy one another bikes.

I keep putting him off.

Until we went to the Western Plains Zoo at Dubbo on our big trip and hired bikes to ride around on.

And I HAD A BALL!!!!

So, this year we bought each other bikes for Christmas.

And no, you haven’t missed Christmas.

Because we’re having a short break at his parents shack now, we decided to get them early.

We’ve gone for a ride every day that we’ve been here so far.

The kids are loving it!

And because all the holiday makers haven’t moved in yet, it’s been nice and quiet traffic wise.

There has been one little problem….

Given it’s been a while since I’ve ridden a bike….

Can anyone say saddle sore????  ROFLOL.

I’m no tech-head.  People sometimes mistake me for one when they see how professional this site looks.  The thing is, I didn’t do it!  :)  Now my secret is out.  LOL.  You only have to have a conversation with me and you’d quickly discover how much of a tech-head I’m NOT.  I tend to refer to all things technical as “thingys” and can be overheard muttering “I hate computers”.

I actually don’t “hate” computers.  I love them.  I just get so frustrated that I don’t know how to do more with them.

My regular laptop (not this small one that has become my “main” one temporarily) is getting old and tired.  I’ve tried downloading “clean up” type programs to help it along.  I think all I achieved was to clutter it up more.

So when I was offered a trial of this system mechanic from Iolo, I figured I had very little to lose in giving it a go.

I’d love to give you the techie low down on how it works and what it does, but that’s a bit beyond me.

This is all I can tell you:

1.  It was so simple that even I could download and install it.  And use it.

2.  It has definitely sped up the speed of our computer.

I guess that’s all you need to know really, right?

Here’s a bit of info the company gave me for those who want to know more:

System Mechanic:

• Fixes errors, crashes and freezes
• Boosts Windows and internet speeds
• Restores system stability
• Cleans out clutter and junk files
• Prevents slowdowns and bottlenecks
• Plugs security holes
• Clears out private data
• Extends healthy life of PCs

System Mechanic Giveaway

Christmas is a great time of year for a giveaway isn’t it?  Well, any time of year is probably a great time of year really!

System Mechanic have offered a number of copies of System Mechanic for me to giveaway to my readers.

It’s very simple to enter.  All you need to do is fill in the form below mentioning one of the 5 top causes of a PC slowdown (as mentioned on Iolo’s website).  You can find the answers on the Iolo System Mechanic website.

(just ignore the website field on the form below - I thought I’d told it not to include that.  It’s been a while since I’ve created a cform *sigh*).

cforms contact form by delicious:days

I know it’s a busy time of year but I hope you’ll take the time to enter. Entries close end of the day Tuesday 22nd December 2009 (South Australian time) and I’ll announce the winners on Wednesday 23rd December 2009. All personal information collected will be used for the purpose of this giveaway only and then deleted.

Here are a few photo’s I took on Sunday while we were in Adelaide.  We ended up getting home at around 1am Monday morning and yesterday I was pretty much EXHAUSTED!!!!

It was SO worth it though.  We had a wonderful day.  Very jam packed full.

In the morning we went to see the purpose of our trip - our twin nephews:

Yes, this is 2 different babies!!!  I had to take photo’s of the little name cards so I could remember which was which.  They are still being tube fed (although I think they’re starting to give them the occasional breastfeed as well).

Farmboy’s aunt and uncle took the kids shopping so we had some time with his brother and wife to chat and catch up which was lovely.  My sister in law seems to be doing well and is quite relaxed.  At this stage it looks like being around New Year that they’ll be out of hospital.

After some time at the hospital, we went out for a family lunch for my mother in laws birthday:

You can kind of tell there’s several cameras going at once.  Everyone is looking in different directions.  But it took a LOT to get those big boys to even be in the photo so we weren’t taking chances that they’d bolt on us.  LOL.  That’s Farmboy in the middle with his sister (the other kids are her kids) and the twins daddy on his other side (none of his kids are in the photo and 1 sister and her 2 kids are also missing).

My mother in law is always commenting on how she seems to be able to get 3 of her 4 kids in the one place at the one time but very rarely does she get all 4. 

After lunch we took the kids to the Magic Cave:

We waited in line for over an HOUR to see Father Christmas!  What a nightmare!!!  The kids were so good though.

And the Father Christmas they saw was fabulous.  He even had an intelligent conversation with them about the farm and where we have come from.  Neither Trailer Boy nor Singstar Princess had originally wanted to sit on his knee (when we talked about it) but he broke the ice really quickly so they were happy to pose for the hideously expensive photo (but I doubt we’ll get back there again and they no longer allow your own photo’s so I decided to buy them anyway):

And while we were still in line, I looked up to see someone taking a photograph of me on their phone.  The family we met in Port Douglas on our big trip was there!!!!  LOL.  Talk about a small world!!!

We had ummed and ahhed about trying to squeeze in a visit to them while we were in Adelaide but it just didn’t seem possible.

We ended up having a pizza tea with them before we headed home.  It made us an hour or so later than we were planning but it was SO worth it!!! 

Oh, and I managed to squeeze in about 20 minutes of Christmas shopping in the city.

It was a great day full of fun and celebration!!! 

My sister in laws twins decided to make a slightly early arrival into the world.

We were originally thinking they might come mid December. That was until the doctor told her to go home and come back on the 18th. At that point we’d resigned ourselves to their arrival not happening before Christmas.

Well, as babies do, they decided to arrive on their own schedule.

Early.

So, now we’re doing a mad dash 1000km round trip (in the space of 24 hours) to see them.

As you do.

And taking these:

Turns out Farmboy’s sister (it’s Farmboys brother and his wife who’ve had the twins) had the same idea and bought identical presents. Ooops.  Great minds think alike?  She very kindly went and bought something else.

They’re doing well but so far but being fed directly by tube to their stomachs.

It’s possible they’ll still be in hospital for Christmas.

My sister in law will be discharged and have to commute to the hospital from elsewhere.  A tough challenge for anyone but even tougher when you don’t actually live in town.

Anyway, I can’t wait to see the little darlings.  Won’t get a cuddle this time but it’ll be great to have a peak and catch up with family at the same time. :)  Even if it is only for 1 day.