Slow mornings

Something that I have learnt in the past year or so is that a slow morning can be a glorious thing.  At Beetle’s kindy drop-off time, Billie immediately gravitated towards the painting easel, rolling up her sleeves and taking tiny baby steps while peeking back over her shoulder to see if the kindy teachers or [...]

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Empty nest

Today, my Mum and Dad are moving into a new, smaller home, some 15 minutes up the track.  They’ve moved out of the family home that they have been in for 25 years; where they lived when my sister was born, and where us kids all grew up and left home from.  Since they were [...]

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Waking up

It’s been awhile, but Deb left me an encouraging comment so I thought I’d come back.  This year has been tremendously…. interesting…. and between all the family ups and downs I have mostly been doing my best to just.hold.it.together while simultaneously being sleepily, 27 weeks, pregnant (with a boychild this time! we will have the [...]

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Two Thousand and Nine

Happy New Year, everybody!
I sent out text messages last night; got one back this morning with a grizzle about being woken up at midnight. Whoops. I put mine on mute before I went to bed.
We finished 2008 with a second round of Christmas dinner.  We had a big family gathering at my parents on Christmas [...]

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I made you a peanutbuttercup… but I ated it

My brother requested that I make a batch of chocolate and peanut butter slice for his engagement party last weekend, and I thought I’d up the ante by trying to make something more peanutbuttercuppy.
That was very convenient because I have been reading Amazing Trips* and the author speaks frequently and reverently about these whopping great [...]

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Thanks but no thanks, Facebook

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Butter Essence Saves the Day!

You can hardly talk to anyone these days without the price of food coming up in conversation.
Here’s a solution from back in the day: butter essence! Simply replace the butter in your recipe with dripping or lard, or margarine, and add a few drops of Hansell’s Imitation Butter Food Flavouring.

The advertorial above, and [...]

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Calamity

We tried to order Hell Pizza the other night only to hear the voicemail message saying that “the fires of hell have been quenched” at Northcross, our local shop.  It seems the franchisee who owned Northcross, Great North Rd, and Forrest Hill, Birkenhead closed them down early this month
Which is a dreadful pity because I [...]

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Chickengate Cometh

The ruckus continues about the chicken cull in Kell Park.
They sent gunmen out to shoot chickens. Again. With appalling timing – during the school holidays, and again this week on the same morning as the preschooler’s Rhymetime at the library. Accompanying the gunmen were police – depending on which Herald article you read, these [...]

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Mothers’ Day Afternoon Tea

We had a lovely lunch today for Mothers Day. My sister and I had briefly considered taking Mum to the special High Tea at the Langham Hotel, but the discovery that it was $49 a head put a sharp stop to that, since it would have cost $200 to take just Mum, my brother, [...]

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