at what point

do you give up on a car and start looking for a newer one?

Is it when the starter motor fails on the way home from high school interviews?
Or when the air conditioning (a necessity in Brisbane in my view) still does not work after hundreds of dollars spent on it?
Or when the brakes fail when you are driving off the off ramp from the Gateway Motorway and you nearly run up the back of a ute?
Or when bits of the car start dropping off onto the driveway?
Or when the gears start crunching between two and three?

Or is it when you balance your chocolate milk on the handbrake because there is no cup holder and it spills when you turn the corner and it dribbles right into the electric switches that open the back windows so the windows don't open anymore and your dog gets frustrated that it can't put it's head out of the window and drools into your ear when you drive to pick up the kids?

I realize people in the world, in my city, in my neighborhood have bigger problems than old cars.

But I have been trawling car websites today looking at used cars. So much choice. And you get so emotionally attached to cars. I feel like I want to break up with our car but I haven't got the guts yet.

I definitely think we need a newer younger model though. With a cup holder.

in the last week

I have had lasagna regrets.  I made a very awesome cheese sauce (with the help of a supportive cheese sauce friend), then had that moment of layering anxiety when you can't remember which order the meat, cheese and pasta goes.  Is it meat then cheese then pasta?  Or pasta then meat then cheese?  Anyway - I ended with pasta.  Which burnt.

Lasagna regret.

This really was the best cheese sauce I have ever made.  Maybe it was the rubber band around the whisk cunningly placed there by Lisa to ensure the whisk was not too floppy.  And I did not measure any quantities at all - some butter, some flour, lots of milk, handfuls of grated cheese.

Before it went into the oven to be burnt by my neglect while attending to much more important conversations with the visiting guests.  I was too ashamed to take a photo of the finished crispy black around the edges product.

This is not a cooking blog need I remind you.

We have also had a billet staying with us from New Caledonia for two weeks.  He was ten and on a school exchange.  The girls were desperate to have a billet so I said yes.  It was great having a boy around the house for two weeks - I played soccer a lot and attempted terrible French on him.  Fortunately his English was excellent.

I am pretty sure he left our family thinking he had just spent two weeks in the crazy house.

I also watched my beautiful eldest daughter graduate from the Shine program at school today.  This was a program run by the chaplain that worked on self-esteem and valuing the girls.  She was chosen to do the thank you speech to the volunteer leaders - she did a wonderful job and I got a little teary.

Each day and night is filled with life at our house at the moment - with friends and food and exercise and singing and laughing.  Fortunately I have not even had time to clean the bathroom.

Oh well.

I did have time to go and watch some cool kids play some softball on a Friday afternoon at interschool sport.  Yay.

And an exercise update.  I can now run for 8 minutes on a treadmill at a speed of 10. With some small huffing and puffing breaks.  That is quite a lot of running for me.  For about 20 seconds today I felt like I was actually running smoothly.  Then I thought about it and lost my rhythm.  At least I know if I am running away from a bear, and there is a treadmill nearby I can run away from the bear for 8 minutes.  After that I would be mauled.

How DO you layer a lasagna?

Things I will never learn

I don't want to be close minded and not open to change, but there are some areas of expertise I am perfectly happy to outsource.

I have decided today that I will:

- never learn to back a trailer
- never learn to fold a fitted sheet
- never learn how to make pastry
- never learn the rules of gridiron

I've let it go. I am settled in my heart about it.

But I am perfectly willing to learn other new things. How to work the sound desk. Words in any language. How to be more kind. Many many more things.

How about you? What will you never learn?

ekka

We caved in and went to the Ekka.  The last time I was at the Ekka was when I worked at the hot chips/dagwood dog stand as a uni job.  My lasting memory of that job is handing a dagwood dog to a lady in a white shirt (this is an important story detail), and overflicking the dagwood stick as I handed it to her, and watching the sauced dagwood dog leave the stick, go flying through the air and land in her white shirted cleavage.

I just mumbled sorry to that one.

So I had been reluctant to return to the scene of dagwood crime for the next twenty years.

But we did.  And it was fun introducing the girls to all the Ekka things.

 
Sheep.  And sheep poo on your shoes.  Ekka tradition tick.

 
Visiting the Woolworths pavilion and having a personal quest to see how many samples we could get.  I made it to 34 - about 10 being wine samples.  I think it was ten.  The brie was good.

 
Waiting in lines.  Ekka tradition tick.

Posing in front of the clowns with an open mouth.  Ekka tradition tick.

Going on rides.  That are not too scary.  Although I spent the whole time disaster managing what I would do if the chain snapped.  Tuck and roll.  Tuck and roll.

 
Dodgem cars.  Gab turned out to be a gun dodgem car driver.  Aggressive and accurate.

Spending all the pocket money budget on rides and not showbags.  Ekka tradition tick.

We stayed for the night entertainment in the main arena - horses, motorbikes, precision driving and fireworks - the longest fireworks display I have ever sat close to.  Cool.

And I didn't see the lady in the white shirt from the dagwood dog incident twenty years ago. Phew.

my clever husband

My strongest love language is jobs.  So when Chris makes stuff in the shed for the house I know I am loved.

I also really love moving furniture around in the house.  It's like having a little holiday with your stuff, and solving a new puzzle about how to fit things in.  And you get to clear out clutter.

Gab had been wanting a 'high' bed for a while (well ever since I mentioned it to her).  So Chris my clever husband made one for her by taking the legs off her bed and replacing them with very long legs made from beams left over from the house renovation.  And he made a ladder at the end.  And a safety rail.  Safety first.  Which reminds me, we may have to rethink the fan that is quite near her high bed....

Her desk and her drawers now fit under her bed.

And she can fit a sister on top.

Thanks clever husband.

puppypuppypuppypuppypuppy

Happy birthday Scooter!

Our puppy is now one year old.  It was a bit of a decision to get a new dog after our beautiful Amy died, but after a year without a dog in the house it was time.

We called her Scooter.  After the character on the Muppets.  And scooters in Vietnam.  And because none of us could agree on a name and Chris just announced 'the dog's name will be Scooter regardless of breed or gender'.

She's so FLUFFY!

 She has quite a calm personality for a border collie, she likes hanging around at home.  And eating flowerpots.

She takes her responsibilities as a chicken rounder very seriously.  So seriously we even found her chewing on a chicken in the backyard recently.  She is no longer allowed in the backyard when the chickens are having a walk until she can control herself.

She loves water - beach, hose, river, puddle.  She will even willingly come and have a bath and sit quietly while she gets a massage and warm water poured on her.  Actually I would sit quietly for that as well.  Her hair goes crimpy when it is wet.

She is a pretty good dog.  Sometimes I forget she is not our old dog and try to get her to do the things Amy used to do.  But then she does some Scooter type stuff.  Like gives us an old ball to throw.  It very typical to have a ball-obsessed border collie.

We love our dog.

 She is probably thinking 'somewhere on this beach there must be a ball.  And I must fetch it'.

Cause I know what she thinks.

the spaghetti approach

I am really enjoying some of my work at the moment.  Kids are communicating.  Teachers are GETTING it.  And I heard these words come out of my mouth

'I am a spaghetti kind of speech pathologist'.

Needless to say the teacher who I was talking with looked at me a little askance.

I continued:
'Well I just like to throw everything at the wall like spaghetti and see what sticks.  Symbols, signs, talking, gestures, technology - let's put it all out there.'

I think she got me.

I have been looking more and more for the moment.  The moment of communication where I am connecting with these kids.  I'll set up all sorts of craziness with millions of props, and be very dramatic, and quiet, and expectant, and long for the moment.  All the theory about stages of communication is bubbling away in the back of my head, and I have a loose plan for the session but I follow the child or group's lead, and I am modelling their PODD book or their communication device or intensively interacting with them - but mostly I am aiming for the smile and the 'a-ha you're here with me and let's have fun together'.

Then we can start a conversation.

Possibly about spaghetti.