Repurposing a schoolbag

My daughter loves schoolbags that come from a surf shop in Wodonga. It takes 1 1/2 hours to drive there. Last week my eldest daughter went with her Dad to take her beloved mandolin to be fixed. It had a manufacturing fault in the batch and needed a new thingo (haha) that keeps the strings up? Anyway it meant a drive. While there they got my middle daughter the one that likes schoolbags from the surf shop some other school supplies. However she knew funds had to stretch to agreed a sewing project we cooked up, she loves it really.

She has two of these school bags. The old one and the new one. We hadn't thrown the old one out since last spring, ie somewhere in 3rd or 4th term last year. The new one? had a broken zip. So the other ones zip went into the new bag. The remainder was made into a pencil case and my husband took some photos.











The money was put towards a drink bottle, and lunchbox for my eldest daughter to start uni and other things she needed like umbrella. We also had to keep some money for driving her to her new place where she is staying already, getting ready for the new uni life on the 13th. My two youngest daughters, the only kids still at home start school on Thursday, my husband starts tomorrow, though he is there now.

Costco & Halloween

I came back to my inbox and found this picture from my son. It is from Costco in Canberra. Interesting that it is playdoh not candy.

A Simple Living Movie

I had the joy of watching the Hannah Montana movie last night. My husband has been to Tennessee so that is part of the appeal I suppose. Recently I was talking to my daughter about ferrets. She wanted to get one. I am wondering now if it was because of the movie.

Anyway, I loved the theme of the movie, not so much Life Wasn't Meant To Be Easy of our former Prime Minister, but

There's always going to be another mountain
I'm always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes I'm gonna to have to lose,
Ain't about how fast I get there,
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

The struggles I'm facing,
The chances I'm taking
Sometimes might knock me down but
No I'm not breaking
I may not know it
But these are the moments that
I'm going to remember most yeah
Just got to keep going
And I,
I got to be strong
Just keep pushing on, cause


I was impressed by the canning jars in a carrier unceremoniously dropped by Miley's Granma. There were lots of things I liked even the reference to Hip Hop in the following video, since I love Justin Bieber's song, which I think is hip hop and play it in the car, all related to seeing dance concerts and competitions. I think the trailers don't do this movie justice.



Anyway, the ferret in the movie did exactly as expected from my experience with ferrets and what I told the girls they were like!

Simple Fun

My girls got this trampoline at the tip, so it was free fun as well.

Simple Songs

This song about simple living is by Josh Turner called I'll Be There. It gives a new meaning to simple living doesn't it?

Agricultural Show

Today my girls and Dad went to the Agricultural Show which is like a County Fair. We won a few prizes, which was pretty good I thought. I was a little disappointed that there wasn't a section for our apple sauce, they only offered tomato and plum, which is fair enough I suppose.

Our dog got two show ribbons, second place ones. My youngest daughter entered a doll and did a floral saucer and got two red second place cards. My middle daughter got a first prizes for her photography, and a caterpillar made from the tomatoes she grew herself.

Bocktober

What an apt title in some ways. Today was my son's last day of school before the exams. They decided to stay up all night instead, then go to the breakfast at school. My son got home at 4.30. No it didn't look like he had been drinking really. He was able to stay awake and go shopping with me after this breakfast thing. We took advantage of the fact his sister was home except for when she had to go to the hospital and have a bandage dressed.

So I drove to the regional centre, got there feeling like I needed a coffee, but no where near as bad as last time. I had woken each hour to see if he was home and must have given up at some point. We were able to get a formal outfit for him and his sister, plus shoes for him. The formal wear is for the high school graduation. His sister needs possibly shoes at a later date. The other sister has a dress that she made herself. That is good because the race wear, that is formal and in the shops at the moment has dresses at $250? My daughter tried on a yellow dress in kids size that she liked but was too long. I saw a yellow dress in a boutique window shorter and less than half the price of the other ones. Very pretty, but she thinks the thick fabric is a bit nana, and hopes to find a cover up for the front. It has a fabric flower on the front.

In our country there is an ad for Vinnies (op-shop) that says to shop there and outfit yourself for the races for $50. Sign of the times?

We also have needed a sandwich or toastie maker for a long time, and got a spongebob one. I find it hard with him smiling up at me, had to try one out though.

Flying Visit to the Zoo

We made it to the zoo, I wanted to be there before the carosel closed, but didn't think we would make it. We are getting slower. Our daughter's would have loved a longer visit. They got a zoo show bag, and enjoyed what they did see.

Frocktober

Today I thought I would talk about my sixteen year old daughter. She is currently overseas in SE Asia on a language study tour. Today will be her second day at school there and she returns before school starts next week at her school in Australia.

Yesterday by the magic of Facebook her sister called out to me that her sister had bought her three bottles of nail polish. She couldn't get the blue they had seen in a shop last shopping day when we went to the regional centre. Then she mentioned to me she had a photo of her. She was sitting with her host family who look lovely in a restaurant looking just like herself lol. The last picture I saw of her was a picture my husband took on the weekend at the airport with the group of kids that went with her. Apparently apart from a girl she has been emailing who lives in the same area as us, but an hour down the road (an hour is nothing here) a boy came up and started talking non stop about Pokemon, which my daughter is fluent in lol. She also looked like she had bought herself a new t-shirt!

I thought I would show you the dress she made recently at school. It is the first needlework classes she has had I think. Very ambitious, my Mum top stitched the zip and did the hem that was already pinned up. She was to finish it at lunchtimes but was unsure about something. She was only allowed to sew for half a year and had to wait until Year 10 to do it.

I went with her to our shop to choose the material, pattern, etc. I am not sure they sell patterns here anymore. Here is the pattern.

Family Life

I was watching Austar during the last few days and came across the ads for the new shows starting up. One was about the family unit. Not sure I like it, but it looked interesting. It is called The Family.

Since I am posting on this blog every day this month for Blogtoberfest, and the theme if desired today is clocks, I will start there today.

I woke at 3.30 this morning. I was expecting the alarm to go off at some point. My daughter and my husband were to leave home at 5.30 to be at the airport about 11 to have lunch and be in time for 12 when the others turned up. The alarm worked fine, then woke me to say goodbye. I finally woke at 9.30, the fire had already been stoked for me which is just as well, and I had one hour before I had to take our youngest daughter who is 7 to a double birthday party.

At the airport, the other early bird was a girl who lives an hour down the road from us on the way to the airport. Her parent(s) couldn't sleep and decided they may as well drive. My husband made very good time, he may be home before tea, or around 7. We have been having tea later and later, and I don't suppose it will improve with daylight saving tonight. I think they may as well have permanent daylight saving rather than keep cribbing weeks off each end, a little this year a little the next, you know. It makes it really hard where I live, sort of a slow death by tiredness. Maybe I will just have to buy an evaporative airconditioner to make summer a time to recoop from the early rising springtime. Just glad I don't have babies anymore. It used to be quite hard, don't think I would have survived the change in daylight savings then. Anyway I have forgotten what I didn't like about it particularly these days as winter has the habit of making you forget summer. I just know originally at the date it was every year it was a nice family time when it changed back, this was going back before it was first moved for Moomba.

As I write this my daughter is going on her first international flight. I hope the warmer temperatures help her cold and that the jetlag (if you get it for a shorter flight) doesn't make her feel awful with the cold. My husband has a 5 1/2 hour drive home, but I think it only took 5 hours to get there. The last bit is the hardest with the real danger of roos on the road. Joolz said one day they are no match for cars, which is true. But, I was in a doctors surgery once and there was a very shook up guy who had had a recent prang with a roo, and he was talking about it with the others there. At the time the roos tended to eat grass right next to the road as there was a drought on.

I have a bullbar just in case, though I am quite careful. I remember years ago that the fan? in our car went through the battery, not sure what we hit. Apparently that doesn't happen with the newer cars. That was what I was concerned about. The plastic over my lights has been broken on one side, I should really see if I can get a replacement.

Anyway, my husband is stopping off at my Mum's for a break. Mum has all these clothes that other people in the family can't use anymore, like shirts which may come in handy when my son leaves to go to his brothers. He wants to find work there for the summer. I'm not even sure he has a button up shirt. I need to go to the regional centre 1 1/2 hours away to get him something nice to wear to his high school graduation this year. He has already graduated VCE, he is repeating English (unit 3 or 4 well both something to do with a sequence), but still doing a full load since there is no 10% penalty anymore. He will pick up a 6th subject. He is repeating chemistry, methods and specialist, this time doing specalist by correspondence. I think this is great as there is low contact hours at the uni he wishes to get into.

He is picking up biology. Mid year exams he got an A for Chemisty and a B- I think for Biology. So it is worth thinking about if someone is in a similar situation with a bright child who hasn't done as well as you would have liked first time.

So while we are waiting for time to tick down my 12 year old is doing cupcake experiments, rather proper patty cakes, for a school project. While her sister was at the party we walked to the shop to get some ingredients, then she bought eggs, as I haven't had a fruit order for ages. I had a very exact menu plan, I got some extra money I am supposed to be saving, but it has gone on last minute things for the trip, well not all of it. Also, airport parking. Hopefully it didn't cost the whole $49.

Show Day

My husband and our three daughters spent the day at the show today, they are nearly finished there. I suppose the Show is like a County Fair. We also have Field Days, like Henty Field Days in Australia.



We didn't do a lot, as mentioned in my previous post. But we did get two second prizes. One for my husband's jam, and one for our puppy. He was well behaved apparently which was good, he is a fairly large dog.



Our daughter helped man a church stall which was nice I thought. They were doing games, I think to encourage others to come to Youth Group.



Apparently our dog will be eligible for the working dog events next year as he is a gun dog.



My little girl got what we call here "fairy floss". My older girl got some jewelery.



I am going to post a picture of some canning or preserving on my other blog. It was quite hot today, and windy. Good for the dunking or rather hit in the face with a wet sponge stall.

Agricultural Show

The Agricultural Show is coming up fast. Last night my daughter picked up a booklet which has all the things you can enter. These are photos from last year. So far very quickly we have thought to enter our nearly grown puppy into a puppy competition. The reason being is we don't think we should enter him in the other section as he is not as well behaved as an adult dog. We have done some preserving, so that is an idea, to enter the plum jam. There is a stipulation there has to be clear covers, but looking through the photos we entered one last year (I know I was worried about the covers, I must have forgotten that detail). I did think of entering roses from the other house as I think they are nice, however, I am not sure what a floribunda is, will have to do some research on that one.



My daughters are not as keen as I am about floral saucer decorating. I didn't think I had any small flowers, but I am sure there would be some at my new house. Lots of driving involved and we wanted to renovate this weekend. (Yes it is a petty thing to worry about.)



I would prefer to do not much, but it seems worth it later on. I haven't entered flowers at this particular show before, but do remember doing that with my Nana for flower shows when I was little.



We have entered dolls and sewing here before, but no fresh ideas for that. If we enter the puppy will have to go in the Grand Parade.




Last year my husband and the two girls, got a second prize for something, my husband got two.




I used to love reading books to my littlest daughter a few years ago, Farmyard Tales by Heather Amery. One particular book was about the show, I think it is The Naughty Sheep. Have a look at the illustrations, it is an English story I think. Here are some snippets of what I have written previously about the Show.

"Earlier on in the year we went to the Agricultural Show. In our hometown I hadn't attended very often. I am not sure if this was our first or second visit to this show here, but our daughter won a prize for her toy bear that miraclously appeared during our practise year Christmas. I remember the first Show included a Punch & Judy performance and I was thrilled. The Show included what was in my childhood a Red Cross flower show. The Junior part had been joined to the Agricultural Show and the senior part left as it is. Need I say more?



I was thrilled to get reacquainted with Floral Saucers, though my daughters don't share my enthusiasm. My Nana and I had a lovely time attending flower shows, until the day, well I still enjoyed them; but, Nana put rag curls in my hair and I ended up with an afro."

Today, I am getting ready and going to sign up dh's jam melon pickles and chutney for the fair/show. Also dd5 and dd11 made some pet rocks and we have a melon...



My doll's name is Suzy. She is a 60s doll and I was happy lately that our local Show or Fair had a section for exhibition only where you could display your doll."

In a Frizzle

I'm afraid I may have failed Building Community 101.

I am embarassed, therefore the frizzle.

One of the things I have noticed about being a stay at home Mum is that sometimes you are asked to look after other people's kids, or it inadvertently it happens. All the examples I could give you, I don't know actually what happened, or if anyone was actually in the wrong.

But I get somehow looking after kids, and this is not really my thing. My thing is to look after kids, mostly all the time, lots of them, but mine. I like looking after my own kids.

The other hubby mentioned in a serious moment that I may not have realised how much work they would be when they were older when I had them. Upon reflection, maybe it is situations like this that really have me frustrated lately.

A frizzle describes how I feel, but really it is a type of chicken/chook. Or a bad feather day. Yes, my feathers are ruffled. I am tired, have been sick really for months. Can't breathe properly, it is hot. But, really I want a holiday, and we have had two where hubby works on the house nearly all the time, though this time he helps me out in the mornings. Last January and this January, I have had had extra kids in and out of my house. Last year, they had other places to go by this time last year, but I was in a worse frizzle!!! As I was saying a holiday, with my kids, where my husband still works, which is work in itself. It is difficult enough not feeling 100% with no airconditioning.

This is where I fail BC101. Wouldn't you like it when the other parents take one child off your hands for awhile? Well no. It is a personal preference. I am not suited to small towns, though in our old town we had a large front yard and the kids invited themselves over. Eventually the kids stayed home. Prior to this we had a house that was more isolated and I enjoyed playing with my own kids in the shady backyard.

When you live on one income, like at the beginning of our marriage we were very interdependent on our friends. We feel now that we would rather work hard and be more dependent on ourselves. I feel that it part of being grown up. Of course there are times when you do need a hand.

Having older children I can manage looking after them pretty well.

Do you feel suspicious sometimes, when you hear from your child that a parent wants to go to the Races, a concert etc. etc.? If you don't go to the Races, concerts yourself, how do you feel or what do you use to decide if you should enable others to go? I know it seems a stupid question.