Don't let the bed bugs bite...

The following is kind of a shameless attempt to score a new bed job application.

Remember when you last got a good night’s sleep? Nah, me neither – I think it probably has rather a lot to do with the fact that most mornings I wake up with an elbow in my ear, feet up my nose and bruises on my back from being poked prodded and kicked by the 3 or 4 children that have woken up in the middle of the night and crammed themselves sardine style between The Husband and I.

Now I have loved my bed dearly, it’s a Sealy – so a good quality brand and it was much more comfortable than the 2 Inch foam mattress I had before it, but mostly I have loved it because it’s where the little sleep I have had since the children were born actually happens.

Sadly though, it is aging. Actually it’s about 30 years old - which is older than me - and as much as I hate to think about it, I was probably even conceived in it as it was handed down from my mother about a decade ago so she could upgrade herself to the latest Sealy Posturepedic something or other.

Considering it’s vintage and its recent promotion to part-time trampoline, it had held up really, really well until recently when the springs decided enough was enough and started to try and make a break for it. We thwarted their efforts for a while by flipping over the mattress where we were instantly reminded of the unplanned homebirth of my third son and it was then that we decided that it just might be time for a new bed. Ah that bed has seen many things... Thank god it can’t talk.

But sadly we are just not in the position right now to go off replacing our bed, so we have been left with a few options:

Option 1.) Wait another 10 years for mum to upgrade her current model and hope we can manage the chiropractic bills in the meantime.

Option 2.) Beg and plead with the credit card company to reconsider that rather rude denial letter and go and purchase an inferior make to last until Mum upgrades.

Option 3.) - And this happens to be my personal favourite – Win one!

The wonderful people over at Sealy are running a competition called ‘Sleeping on the Job’ where you can score a TOP OF THE RANGE  “Sealy Posturepedic Queen Size Trampoline Ensemble” And then they will even PAY YOU to sleep in a new bed and write about it!

So Friends, Romans and Sealy representatives, lend me your eye masks as I try to make Option 3 become a reality! The Husband, the 4 Children, the 2 cats and I will thank you for it.

Bella Vista & Other Distractions...

When I first moved here, I would sit down to write and become easily distracted by the view outside my study window, the bush. The trees towering above the over flowing dam, little paths leading off into who knows where, daydreams of adventures with the friends I had as a child and the secret wish that  I could have grown up here.

The amount of times I switched on the computer only to run off 5 minutes later for a photo opportunity when spotting a resident goanna, or for a better look at the joey hanging around, finally outside its mumma’s pouch, the distractions were limitless.

The study is the coldest part of the house and the warmth from my raging wood fire can’t quite reach its fingers around the corners to that room. So blessed with a lap top, I did the only sensible thing I could think of and relocated my writing to a corner of the lounge room where my view of a neglected garden was far less interesting but also far less distracting.

Now I have my fish tank and the garden is taking shape, I find I’m becoming distracted once more. I find myself watching the tiny little red chested robins create a nest in the still bare branches of the lilac tree instead of replying to the comments on my blog. My neon tetra’s swim together in perfect formation around the sunken ship and I suddenly realise that I havn’t written a post in days, my thoughts far to absorbed into the nature around me to pen the goings on of day to day mundanity.

So as spring approaches and the first blossoms begin appearing on the fruit trees, I promise I will try harder to put my thoughts into words, to take a little bit more time to reply to comments and to make comments on everyone else’s blogs.

Until then, I’m off to smell the roses.

Harry, Hermoine and the Little Black Bugs

The school decided to have a Harry Potter themed day in honour of Book Week with games of quidditch, prizes of every flavour beans and the chance to dress up as your favourite character. So with excited children and plenty of notice about impending costumes, I stuck the note on the fridge and promptly forgot about it.

I woke up at 7am Wednesday morning to screams of “YAY its Harry Potter Day!!!” and remembered that little note handed to me a few weeks back, cursed my disorganisation, asked the children what characters they wanted to be and we promptly set about making do.

 Buzz decided he should be Harry- Harry in the holidays wearing jeans & a T shirt that is, with scar done in finger paint (yes I am the only person on the planet who has no lipstick in the house) we added the old lens-less glasses from his magic kit and presto!

Gucci wanted to be Drako Malfoy, well in all honesty, he just wanted to wear his hair spiked up – so he became Drako – also in the holidays with jeans and a T Shirt and spiked up hair.

Then came Felix, who had his little heart set on being Dumbledore. After many failed attempts we stuck paper rolled into a cone shape on top of his school hat which is conveniently blue, and got an old dressing gown as a robe and ripped the stars off some old tinsel and stuck them on with masking tape and added green pipe cleaner glasses. We grabbed sticks for wands on the way out the door.

Worst costumes EVER.

We missed the bus and arrived at school late, I surveyed the sea of Harry’s as we rushed through the gates, with their store bought ‘Quidditch’ robes and waving fancy wands about. The girls were dressed mostly as Hermoine or other witches with big hats and black gowns, they looked fantastic. My kids did not.

We were ushered to our seats to watch the fashion parade and book week awards ceremony and as I took my place next to my friend I glanced down at the little girl of about 3 sitting in front of me, she had gorgeous long blonde hair tied up with pretty pink bows. How cute, I thought and then suddenly I noticed something moving...



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Now I am fully aware that nits are a part of school life we will all probably encounter at some time or other but you could see every stage of the nit life cycle partying around her little head, they had obviously been there a Really. Long. Time. It was disgusting.

So I spent the awards ceremony leaning my head back a little bit, trying to watch the children and not to look at the bug parade in front of me. Eventually it ended and the parents were then coaxed into the library and the children begged us to part with our hard earned cash in exchange for some over-priced books and erasers in the shape of puppy dogs.

The children got their books and went back to class and I headed off home for a coffee, broke with a psychosomatically itchy head.