Hard day

Last year when Big Boy was in Prep he purchased a few hermit crabs which lived in the tank at school during term time.  Over the holidays one of the crabs passed away and we had to break the news to the class when school resumed. That afternoon Big Boy was carrying a 'creation' - a cuppa soup box with paddle pop sticks sticking out the sides. When I asked what it was Big Boy replied that his little friend had made him a hermit crab to replace the one that had died. So instead of breaking the creation up and sneaking it into the recycling bin with all the other school creations, I kept this lovely gift and it sits on my shelf as a reminder of just how kind that child was to my son.


Last night the parents of Big Boy's kind, compassionate friend had to turn off his life support. 

More op shop beauties

I went scavenging recently and came home with three lovely prints which will match perfectly with Tiny Girl's bird theme. She adores birds and I adore black and white. Win win don't you think?

I adore EBAY

I'm the proud owner of a gorgeous new bedspread. Isn't it divine? (Photos courtesy of the EBAY seller.)

Electric challenge

Our power bills have been a source of anger and confusion for a few years now. Our power bill each quarter averages .... wait for it ..... $1000. That's more than $4000 every year just in power. We've had many theories about why our bills are so high and we systematically removed any possible culprits (excluding the kids.) However nothing has worked. So I called in the big guns to try to figure it out.

The assessor thoroughly went over our bills and our home. His verdict 'I have no idea why your bills are so high.'  

However all was not lost as we are now the proud owners of a wireless power monitor which tells us at any given moment just how much power our house is actually using. It's such a handy little gadget and I've worked out that it costs one extra cent per hour each time we open the fridge. I've also worked out that boiling water is a huge power waster as are our bathroom heat lamps. But the piece de resistance has been working out that our air-conditioner sucks .65c/hour which means that if we ran it all day it would cost $15.60 per day. This is terrible given that:
a. we actually have two air conditioners, and
b. we have been known to run both for very long periods per day in Summer

So the nasty power sucking lights and air conditioners are on strike for the time being and I've been having fun switching things on and off to gauge their usage. For those interested an average house on standby uses around 4 or 5 cents per hour. Have a look what I managed to get our house down to for a short period yesterday. (Cost directly under the kw usage which is 43 in the photo.)

My birthday in pictures

Every year my birthday passes and a few days later I have no idea how I spent it. This year I decided to record the weekend in pictures so that next year I can remember what we did.

The weekend started at The Big Boy's school fete. Rides, junk food and fireworks ensued. Tiny Girl was particularly taken with the slide, meaning I had to climb the stairs with her in my arms over and over again. (I secretly loved every minute of it.)

Saturday (my birthday) was filled with the usual Soccer routine and then my birthday celebrations. Big Boy wanted to host a party for me so he purchased pirate decorations as he knew I would love (!) them. We took them to our favourite local cafe for dinner and they kindly let us use them. I'm sure it saved them on washing up, which has to be a bonus at the end of a long day.

Future Socceroo

Arrrhh me hearties...

The Gas Man outdid himself sneaking this cake into the cafe a few hours before we arrived and the owners helped us sing Happy Birthday (I say 'us' as I chimed in, forgetting for a moment that it was actually my birthday).

Sunday was Mother's Day and I was presented with this gorgeous card made with love by Big Boy. On the back it says 'my mum is special because she looks after me and gives me treats.'

Table makeover

I've recently been busy painting a table to use in my study. This is what I started with:

This is what I ended up with:

I painted the table white and the top in chalkboard paint. I plan to remove the chalk drawings (!) and use this as my new office desk. Will take some pics when it is in-situ to share.

It's that time of year again

Happy Birthday to me. I will be back later with an update on how the day panned out.

Can I offer you a cup of tea?

See those right there? Behind the cup? Behind the kettle? Yep, tiles. Finally, we have tiles. Subway tiles no less. In MY kitchen. No longer will people come over and remark on our lack of tiles. Or ask quietly 'so, you do plan to tile there don't you?'

What's even better is that we did this as a weekend project together. No tradies to pay, no mess to clean up (well other people's mess anyway.) We love the result and are scratching our heads trying to figure out why we didn't do this a year ago.