Party Plan Princess

It struck me the other day as I was cleaning the kitchen with my Enjo products. I had just wiped out the Tupperware cupboard, cleaned around the Thermomix and lit one of my vanilla ‘Partylite’ candles.

I’m a party plan princess – that or I’m a total sucker and my house is just a giant show case of my inability to say No.

I am aware of it in the shower with my ‘Body Shop @ Home’ shower gels, I see it in my study when I sit down for a bit of scrapbooking with my Kaszazz papers and Stamp it Up! Stamps.

I have a friend who has recently become a nutrametics consultant, another who does chocoholics anonymous (now that one is very dangerous!), whenever these friends convince one of my other friends to have a party I go because I feel obligated to, then I buy something – for the same reason, and probably end up having my own party in which I also spend money because I feel bad for the consultant if I don’t. How do the other people say No? I came scarily close to purchasing a $3000 vacuum cleaner once and don’t even get me started on the time a friend joined Amway!

That being said, I am hopeless in the kitchen and I probably wouldn’t cook at all if it wasn’t for the Thermomix.  Enjo makes cleaning a breeze plus it’s environmentally friendly. The vanilla Partylite candles send a lovely aroma through the room as I relax scrapbooking and stamping, and who doesn’t like smelling like Body shop strawberries while they apply their nutrimetics cucumber face mask? I think part of my problem is that I have worked in sales most of my life and as a result can make anything look good – but I am supposed to use this tactic on customers, not on myself!

Can you say No? Are you a party plan princess or even a party plan sales consultant? What tactics do you use to avoid Party Plan or limit your spending?

Thank goodness we recently moved from the city to the middle of nowhere as I now have far less party plan invitations – well there are the two I have recently received for a handbag party and a shoe party in a few weekends time, but I can be strong! I have distance as a great excuse; perhaps one of the kids can be ‘unwell’? Then again, the strap on my current handbag is fraying and I really could use a new pair of shoes....  

Lest We Forget

Today is Anzac Day here in Australia.

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Today is a day to remember


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What those before us did to give us what we have today.



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To the ANZACs we say Thankyou!

Happy Easter!

                                                           

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Was the bunny kind to you?

Hope your day is full of fun...



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Family...

And of course, Chocolate...



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Life's a Beach

The kiddos, The Mother In Law & I went for a drive the other day,

We ended up here:

It was freezing when we left home and so with no intentions of swimming I didn’t take towels or a spare change of clothes.

Silly I know.

Turns out it was a perfect beach going day after all so the children rolled up their pants and took off their shoes.

And got totally soaked anyway!

So we dried their clothes on the rocks while they swam in their undies and picked up shells.

The Mother In Laws Pug had a blast too, he makes odd noises when he is excited, sounds a bit like a squeaky toy.

Hot fish & chips at the park for dinner, the perfect end to a perfect day.

Meet Roberta

Roberta is an old, worn out, slowly breaking down bobcat. She is The Hubby’s pride & joy.

Roberta came into our life through the wonderful world of EBay when we first embarked on this farming adventure. ‘Every farm needs a bobcat, Hun” said The Hubby.  Sure it does... at the time I thought we could probably better spend the money to say, I don’t know, make the house a tad more liveable?

 Any way Roberta has actually turned out to be a very useful little piece of equipment. Hubby is becoming quite skilled at working her and we have hit a point where she is essential to all the outdoor renovations we have on the go. So what happens when you decide you absolutely can’t live without something?

This happens:

Oops...

Luckily it was The husband who got into this sticky situation and not me. It turns out that trying to get a 2.5 tonne machine out of a 6’x4’ sinking pit of doom is no easy feat, the more you try and get out of it, the worse it gets!

Plan A – Tractor and winch, Brilliant! – except the tractor could only get so close without becoming bogged as well and when we did manage to connect it?

The winch snapped. 

Plan B – Logs and lots of them!

So we managed to lift the bobcats bucket up and insert some logs / tree trunks under it, now we can push the bucket down which should in turn lift up the back so we can try to put some logs under the back wheels to get grip. This is going swimmingly, The Hubby (with the stronger arms) shoving logs under, me sitting at the controls, progress, until...

Bang! The log under the bucket snaps and Roberta lurches forwards, back wheels way up in the air and tipping head over heels fast, I try and move the bucket up to counter the weight but the control pedals are full of mud and won’t budge.

Note: I have no photos of this bit due to the fact that I was inside the death machine screaming like a girl to busy trying to stop her from rolling forwards into the 4 foot deep mud hole where I would be destined to drown slowly in the sludge.

Thankfully I must have had a guardian angel looking out for me that day because as Roberta throws herself face first into the mud hole gravity kicked in and I slipped downwards (I was now standing upright) and fell onto one of the bucket-operating-pedals the force of my weight was enough to make the pedal move and by sheer luck it was the right pedal. Bang!! Roberta throws herself backwards sinks slightly and settles in a lovely upright position. You have never seen anyone exit a vehicle so fast!

Plan C – Wait for wonderful neighbour with heavy duty winch to come to the rescue upon his return from holiday the next day.

It was a very depressed looking hubby who went to bed that night praying his baby wouldn’t be swallowed into the mud pit forever while he slept. I awoke the next morning to a rather relieved and excited “It didn’t roll over night! It’s still upright!”

After making The Husband promise several times he wouldn’t go near Roberta until either wonderful neighbour or myself had returned, I headed off to work knowing in my heart he wouldn’t listen anyway and hoping that he didn’t roll her forwards and drown in the sludge while I was gone. I return home to a rather shiny looking Roberta sitting on the driveway with a few new dents and scratches. He got her out. By himself. Did he nearly die in the process? I don’t know, he wouldn’t tell me, but I think that from now on he is going to be a little more careful when he is driving close to the dam...

Back on the Blog Wagon

I was a blogger, and then I stopped.

It wasn’t a bad case of “blog fog” or even my imperfect internet connection that ended my first blogging journey, simply that the reason behind my original need for blogging had gone, my life had changed, acceptance had been achieved and it was time to move on from that phase of my life.

The decision to stop blogging wasn’t a sudden one, I didn’t decide one day that I was done; I just slowly drifted away with my posts becoming fewer and further between.

 I still enjoy catching up with some of those people with whom I blogged, people I had never met and yet had shared some of my most intimate thoughts and sorrows with. I pop by their blogs sometimes, most now also lie dormant, life has changed for them too, their journeys have clearer paths and their support networks now branch into their ‘real’ lives.

I am beginning this blog more for a bit of fun than narrative therapy, as it was before. I have been missing it more and more lately and have been stalking many of you for months, so today I decided to jump back on the blog wagon.

So here I go, wish me luck!