Exciting News!

(especially for Easter)

Disclaimer: This is NOT a pregnancy announcement, nor have I won the lottery (darn it!)

Today I discovered a cool new tool online - a free PDF converter. It means that I am able to make available Lizzie's Home original articles, spreadsheets and other documents as PDF downloads direct from this site. I'm really chuffed I have worked this out - I have big plans for using this feature, including writing my own ebook (its even in my 100 Things post - see? Number 82!) It offers up a whole new way of sharing with the world my infinite wisdom - grin - and not only that, I'm now able to control the way in which my documents are handled on the opposite end. Up until now, I haven't known how to make the templates and articles widely available without the question of plagiarism or misuse by others being forefront in my mind.

So, pleased as punch, I offer you the first installment in what I hope will be a regularly updated feature here at Lizzie's Home. Look in the sidebar to the left for available articles and downloads - you're free to save these files to your own computers and to link back to them. Enjoy.

Cheers,
Lizzie

A Wee Little Problem

(Miss Moo at age 2, munching on some Subway - she's now 5)

I woke up this morning to find Miss Moo standing on my head.

She was trying to climb over me to snuggle, but slipped. Mid-manoeuvre, she realised she needed to go to the toilet and jumped down, asking if she could use the ensuite bathroom (as a general rule we keep this for Mummy and Daddy's use only). I murmured a 'sure' from where I was rubbing my head. Our ensuite door is a little stiff and when she couldn't turn it immediately, she panicked. When she panics, her muscles relax.

End result: Wee on floor. What a way to wake up!

I strip her off and put her in our shower, then drag out the mop and clean up. I thank (once again) the previous owners of this house for their obviously superior flooring choice (our master bedroom has floating floorboards - the only bedroom that doesn't have carpet) and as I'm coming back from the laundry room after putting the mop away, I hear her sweet little voice singing away in the shower.

Awwww, I thought. Just as off-key as Mummy. That's my girl!

The song she was singing?

"Skip to the lou my darling."

Cheers,
Lizzie

Rejuvenation

It's the weekend! Yippee!

Down in my neck of the woods, the weather seems to have finally turned for the season. A couple of weeks ago we were still getting 30-34ºC (or 86-93ºF) a couple of days a week. We've just come through a particularly warm summer, with water restrictions coming into force (Australia is in the middle of the worst drought in recent history), the gardens are looking positively anaemic (if not totally dead), lawns are yellow and things just needed a good spruce up in general. In the last week or two, we've had two or three days of measurable rain, and today, the temperature was more like 20ºC (68ºF). I go a bit loopy in the heat. Today I was in my element, LOL.

The upshot of this cooler weather (apart from the rain which has already spawned new growth) is that I'm no longer paralysed with heat exhaustion (okay, flimsy excuse!) and I can actually see myself being able to potter about the place and work up a bit of a sweat with some scrubbing. A month or two ago - no way. On 'bad' days, we could get up to 42ºC (107ºF) and just about everyone's primary concern revolved around slothing out on the couch for the day. We live just 3 or 4 minutes walk from the kids' school but even that would build up a healthy (and very icky) 'glow'. For me, it was torture twice a day :P

So I have plans. Lots of them, LOL.

I reworked my Routines (again!), simplified my Home Management Binder (condensed some pages) and checked the weather forecast. Cool weather all week long! Hooray!

Saturday is my 'big' washing day. I wash our regular clothes during the week but Saturdays are set aside for school uniforms, work uniforms, towels, sheets and other bedding. Sometimes this gets done during the week (I aim to do two loads per day, but if there isn't enough clothing for that second load I'll usually roll it over to the next day and pick some towels or bedding to wash instead) but most of the time there's a moderate pile come Saturday, maybe 3 or 4 loads. We have an itty bitty washing machine, which has just a 5kg load (I'm not sure how this works in the US but it's around 11lbs), so there's a fair bit of rebooting going on, but I set the timer and keep going back to the laundry room as needed. While this is all going on I also do 1hr on a Home Project (sometimes broken up into 10 or 15 minute segments) - I have a list in my HMB.

Daddy's working tomorrow so I thought I'd take the kids to the school grounds for a kick of the football and a picnic morning tea - if it doesn't rain that is!

Boofah leaves on his school camp on Monday so also on the agenda this weekend is a bit of packing. The list they gave the parents is fourteen pages long, sigh.

And on Sunday, I am determined to get some baking done for the freezer. Hillbilly Housewife's Fudge Brownies will absolutely be on my list. I've made them for every one of the kids' cake stalls since discovering the recipe last year and I've never had so many compliments on my cooking before! I thought freezing them would stop me sneaking the odd one (or three!), but have you ever tasted these right from the freezer??? They are rich and even more fudgey, if that's possible - groan. The best thing about this recipe is that it doesn't require 'fancy' ingredients. We don't keep chocolate chips in the pantry as a general rule (and so many other brownies recipes contain them or bar chocolate) yet you'd never know the difference with this magical recipe. I'll probably make some cheese crackers that day as well - I'm experimenting with making more things from scratch. This sort of thing doesn't really come naturally to me!

Hope your weekend is relaxing and productive,

Cheers,
Lizzie

Kneading It

That's it...I'm going to do it!

I'm going to bake bread today. Why? Well its a bit cold and blustery where I am at the moment and I feel like getting all 'country mama'.

Speaking of breads, 'my' new Pizza Dough recipe comes very gratefully from Mrs Catherine. I've tried making pizza dough before, with little success...until I found this recipe. It has worked every time and the kids think I'm a genius. I, of course, do not disagree :P

I need to begin making an effort with meal planning again. Several weeks ago I made up an eight-week menu plan that was going really well, but I've sort of coasted for the last week and a bit. Grocery spending is way above what I would like it to be, too. I've been tracking our finances extensively over March (ala The Spreadsheet Queen *grin*) so that should shine a light on various things to address. But groceries are always the biggest money drain for us (after the fixed expenses) and I'd really like to pare this back to a reasonable level again. We're eating far too many commercial snackfoods and a few more dinners than I'd like contain frozen or convenience foods. There's always room for improvement :)

Cheers,
Lizzie

School Camp? He's Only Six!

Boofah Boy is going on an overnight school camp next Monday. I have to keep reminding myself that while he's just 6 chronologically, he's more like 7 or 8 intellectually and this is no big deal. Kids of that age spend nights away from home all the time, right? Except that Boof is this little imp of a child, easily the smallest kid in his class without the skipping grade thing...and did I mention he's only six years old?

When the camp idea was first floated earlier in the term I took him aside and explained what it would entail. A night away from Mum and Dad, but it wouldn't be like spending the night at Nana and Poppa's. The camp is just far enough away that driving down to pick up a suddenly-apprehensive child would be difficult at best. Of course we would do it in a flash if need be, but we wanted to make sure he understood what it was all about.

He does...and boy, is he excited. They're going to a pioneer farm to milk cows, make butter and ride horses. He's positively beside himself with glee, as little boys of that age are apt to be. And I'll wave goodbye to the bus with a smile on my face but a pang of concern inside because by nature of his abilities, he's already growing up faster than most kids his age and I figured I had another couple of years of the apron strings being tied very securely in a a double knot, LOL. I can feel them being loosened as I speak! And that's wonderful and everything, but...

...did I mention he's only six?

Cheers,
Lizzie

The Bane Of My Existence

Is it possible to loathe an inanimate object? If it is, then this one is mine.

My local post box is a few hundred metres outside my two youngest kids' school, and a carpark away from my local supermarket. As I'm at both places nearly every day, the humble post box has become my nemesis, mocking my too-few visits with its blaring, well redness. Well lately it has, at least.

The reason? I'm a procrastinator. I'm not only a procrastinator I'm THE procrastinator. During each school term (which lasts roughly 10 weeks), I am supposed to post 8 assignments - 4 for each of my two subjects. I study externally so there's no face-to-face classroom time and a whole lot less accountability than there needs to be. There are three weeks left of this term and I have posted exactly TWO assignments. Out of the eight I'll need. The last couple aren't overdue yet but will be by the time I get through the first three or four. I've worked out I need to post two assignments a week minimum to have everything in on time by mid-April. Why do I do this to myself?

Because I'm crazy.

There's nothing to be done except to roll up the sleeves and dive right in. Logically, I know this. Practically, I'm ignoring it anyway. As a result, I have before me a workload that is twice what it normally is. And I still have the house and the kids to contend with in the meantime...ouch.

For some reason I'm too distracted at home - whole big expanses of time and 'nothing' to fill them - in theory - now that Miss Moo is at school. So I'm packing up the laptop and heading into the library two days a week until it is done. It's an expensive enterprise - nearly $28 in bus fares over that time not to mention the extreme ease at which money flies out of my purse with access to the adjacent shopping centre and food court... sigh. And then there's the small factor of needing to be dressed to study. But its a sacrifice that needs to be made. Wish me luck...I may never return.

And let this be a lesson to you - DON'T PROCRASTINATE! It will always come back around to bite you on the a** later :P

Cheers,
Lizzie

When in Doubt, Eat Chocolate

This is what I should be doing:

And this is what I am doing:

I'm trying to figure out if I feel guilty or sublimly happy :P I have, um, lets just say 'many' assignments due at the moment and I need to get my backside into gear but I just can't seem to get motivated. Blogging is probably not all that helpful to me right now but I have to do something while I wait for the chocolate endorphins to kick in :) When I'm sufficiently high on sugar and fat I'm TOTALLY there, pen in hand and painkillers ready - I promise!

In the meantime, what's your poison of choice? Come on, we all have vices! Spill yours and wallow in the guilty pleasure of self-indulgence with me....we deserve it :P

Cheers,
Lizzie

The Gardening Bug

(print courtesy of www.allposters.com)

To the mirth of everyone in my extended family, I cannot keep a plant alive more than three weeks. I try, I really do, but that seems to be the magical number. I don't know my perenials from my annuals and I had to ask my mother-in-law how to prune my rose bush.

The ironic thing about this is that when we moved into this, our first 'real' home, 18 months ago, I swore blind I'd be the most houseproud woman anyone knew. Apparently the 'blind' part stuck because now I simply don't notice the clutter, LOL - and that extends to the garden.

What I know about gardening could fit onto one (very small) page. Yet today I did something I will probably end up regretting - I decided to get stuck into our backyard garden beds. We have a simple and relatively small garden - small expanse of lawn in an L-shape with a long edged garden bed running along the back fence and a very narrow garden bed running down the side of the house. We noticed a couple of weeks ago that one of the bushes/shrubs/things with leaves in the long garden bed had died. We didn't even notice it was ill. We don't even know what it WAS, for that matter. We just realised one day it was brown from root to tip. So today I cut it down.

It was strangely satisfying to hack at the pile of kindling with my bare hands (I am woman, hear me ROAR!) and DH's handsaw. What once was a bush is now a rootball with a few sticks point out of the ground. I'm going out there later tonight and digging up the stump.

At any rate, as I was imagining everyone who has ever wronged me and ripping this thing to pieces, it struck me what a perfect opportunity I had to teach myself gardening. First of all, the garden bed is already laid out, edged and has an irrigation system. Second, it's in a spot that gets sun for about 4-6hrs a day. Originally I was thinking vegies, but my limited knowledge tells me they are water-guzzlers and we're on water restrictions where we are at the moment - we're only allowed to water on Saturdays, after dark (and not all night either). It's coming into winter now so rainfall will help but come next spring/summer, the plants need to survive on very little water.

After I cut down the bush, I went to Bunnings (hardware/garden store) with the inlaws and looked at a few different drought-hardy plants. I have a few ideas :) DH, the usually resistant half of the partnership, is giving me a short leash to plan out and execute a garden, probably just in that small spot where the bush once lived to begin with. I am thinking of planting some lavender, federation daisies and a type of chrysanthemum (whose name escapes me right now, LOL) that gives masses of colour but survives well with low water. The garden bed itself needs a bit of improving...we have sandy soil (I had to look up the difference *grin*) but its looking good - apparently lavender grows well in this area. DH will be well pleased as the flowers will bring in the butterflies and bees and he can take photos until he bursts.

I'll take a couple of photos of the areas and you garden folk out there can help me plan :)

Cheers,
Lizzie

Cup of Tea, Anyone?

(print courtesy of www.janetkruskamp.com)

In an effort to pinpoint where my readers are, I'd love it if people posting comments could include the city or country where they are from, or if they've come here via one of the boards I post on regularly. I've managed to deduce who everyone is thus far, but quite often readers' Google address or username is different to those on my familiar boards and it would be lovely to know where all my friends are in the world :) While you're here, pull up one of these wicker chairs and have a cup of tea with me. And a piece of whatever is on the bottom tier of that cake thingamajig in the picture above :P

Cheers,
Lizzie

100 Things About Me

(me at around 4-6 months, early 1980)

1. I was born three months shy of the 80’s.
2. My middle name is a family tradition that goes back four generations on my mother’s side.
3. I broke the tradition when I gave my daughter her middle name.
4. I hate tuna. Not your garden-variety dislike but an intense and pure hatred, LOL.
5. When I was a child I spent every waking moment reading.
6. As a result, I was convinced that if I dyed my hair red I could be Anne of Green Gables.
7. When I was about 7, my brothers ‘hung’ my Cabbage Patch Doll up by a noose then collapsed in a fit of laughter when I threw a tantrum.
8. I went into the kitchen and mixed together globs of this and globs of that to make ‘slime’, climbed onto the kitchen roof and dumped it on their heads the next time they walked past.
9. I just forgot to remove the ladder. You can’t run away on a roof.
10. I am a romantic comedy (aka Chick Flick) tragic.
11. I don’t like snakes. The big ones are bad enough but the itty bitty ones are terrifying.
12. I don’t drive.
13. By choice.
14. I really liked the name Johanna for our daughter, but we changed our minds.
15. My middle son is named after a character in a Jane Austen book and DH has no idea that’s where I got the idea.
16. I really wanted Willoughby (Will for short) but I chickened out.
17. I love Mark Twain quotes.
18. Erma Bombeck was a genius before her time.
19. I like junk mail.
20. I enjoy grocery shopping.
21. I design my own spreadsheets and templates to track everything from finances to menu planning.
22. I lived on a hobby farm as a child and spent my weekends climbing trees, building cubby-houses and weaving willow tree baskets.
23. We had potty calves we called Chocolate, Strawberry, Licorice and Caramel due to their distinctive colourings.
24. We also had cows called Joseph and Mary and had no choice but to name their calf Jesus when he was born on Christmas Day.
25. Other cows were called Bonnie and Clyde.
26. No, we didn’t own a dairy.
27. When I was one year old, my best friend was a pet lamb. I used to share my bottle with this lamb. Then one day she wasn’t there anymore. Apparently Roast Lamb featured prominently on the menu that month.
28. I used to own a green ‘Sprite’ with yellow star ears (from Rainbow Brite fame) in the mid 80’s. I lost him when we moved. I was about six years old.
29. When I was three I nearly severed a toe on a broken-off beer bottle. The entire top half of my toe lifted off the bone like a flip top lid, held down by a scrap of skin. The scar is impressive and I use it to scare the kids when they misbehave.
30. I once sewed a finger to a stuffed frog in Home Ec class in high school. I had to manually roll up the sewing machine foot and pull my finger out, needle clear through on both sides.
31. I can only cook three things well. Lasagna, Fried Rice and Tomato and Vegetable Soup.
32. I met my husband when I was 16 and he was 18.
33. I had our first baby at 19.
34. The second baby came at age 20.
35. On my 21st birthday I had to express milk before I could go out to dinner.
36. We got married at ages 21 and 23.
37. The third baby (finally born in wedlock!) came when I was 22.
38. After that we figured it was about time to stop!
39. I like to buy containers. Doesn’t generally matter which type – baskets, rolling tubs, wash tubs, Tupperware – they’re all fair game. Newest acquisitions: three small wash tubs I’m using as ‘folding baskets’, one for each kid.
40. I have ‘my’ favourite shows and tape a lot during the week to catch up on later. I really want a DVD recorder!
41. My candy of choice is peanut M&Ms.
42. I’m married to a part time (but very skilled) amateur photographer. He’s taken most of the photos of the kids you might see here.
43. I catch buses wherever I need to go and actually don’t mind it.
44. We bought our first home in June ’05 after renting for almost 8 years.
45. I like a large chunk of country rock music, most ballads, and the odd bit of Simple Plan/Good Charlotte/All American Rejects when I’m doing the housework.
46. Which is almost never!
47. I like to bake.
48. I’m not nearly as enthusiastic about cooking ‘real’ meals.
49. I would cook and bake all day long if someone else did my dishes.
50. I make a killer Fudge Brownie.
51. I just discovered the world’s best pizza dough recipe and rave about it to everyone who will listen.
52. If I ever write a book about my family, it will be entitled “Brothers, Billy-Karts and Bolt Bombs”
53. I love the smell of jasmine.
54. We always use the vanilla-scented air freshener in the toilet.
55. I taped my daughter’s birth and watched the video on her 5th birthday. The entire soundtrack to the tape consists of me yelling “CHECK THE CAMERA!!!”
56. When she was born I asked “Is she still a girl?” (I already had two boys…I was desperate)
57. My daughter and I share the same scar – a small tooth-width line just underneath our bottom lips on the right side. It’s eerie how they are virtually identical.
58. I got mine at age 2 or 3 when my brothers were playing the ‘one, two, THREE!’ game with me – they lost their grip. As did my two front teeth when I head-butted the windowsill.
59. Miss Moo got hers when she tripped over her toddler feet.
60. I told her no matter where she was in the world, whenever she saw her scar she would think of me, and when I saw mine I would think of her – we’re connected, quite possibly the only mother-daughter team in the whole world with the exact same scar in the exact same spot caused by two separate accidents two decades apart.
61. I’ve chosen to keep the other scars she left me with secret. She can watch the video herself when she’s pregnant :P Which I’ve told her will be in her mid twenties at the earliest.
62. Reptiles in general bother me.
63. I LOVE the movie While You Were Sleeping.
64. I was in love with Bill Pullman for most of my teens.
65. I wanted to work for a train station so someone could drop a diamond ring through MY token tray. It never happened, sigh.
66. I discovered I was pregnant the night my (now) husband went to a Metallica concert.
67. My husband proposed when I was 7mo pregnant with our first. Then he went to a Slayer concert.
68. He’s too scared to go to any more concerts.
69. During our wedding ceremony, our ‘hope candle’ blew out.
70. I kept every letter and card he ever wrote me while we were ‘dating’.
71. I torture him with sappy quotes from them to prove that he’s not as macho as he thinks he is.
72. I hate intolerance and ignorance – two of the biggest threats to a peaceful existence, in my view.
73. My eldest son learned his letters from Wheel of Fortune and his numbers from Sesame Street. For two years he thought the number ‘5’ was actually said ‘5…mwah ha ha ha’ (ala The Count).
74. There’s nothing like a head wound on your 3yo to make you wet your pants.
75. I’ve never broken a bone…though not from lack of trying.
76. Motorbikes scare me. Every few months DH suggests it as a more economic means to travel to work and every few months he gets the divorce speech.
77. I have a ‘funeral song’.
78. I made DH pick one the other day – the only one mellow enough in his collection is too depressing to use…but he is insisting.
79. In nearly every case, I should be studying rather than doing what I’m doing. Including now.
80. I walk down the street imagining scenarios for stories. That guy over there? Serial killer. The woman with a pram? Drug mule. Stuck in an elevator and a nice bomb squad hunk uses a crane on the roof to secure the people inside before they plummet to their deaths at the hands of a madman who has rigged the whole thing with bombs? Darn it, that one’s taken.
81. I used to make my Dad save his beer bottle tops so I could use them as ‘coins’ in my fake shop when I was 6 or 7.
82. I want to write an ebook.
83. My husband is turning 30 at the end of the year and doesn’t want a party. How do you celebrate a milestone birthday like that without a party?
84. I think he’s scared – the last time he had a milestone birthday (his 21st), I gave him a 4w old son as a present.
85. I’ve never had a surprise birthday party…and I want one.
86. The Ultimate Holiday: a week at an all-expenses paid writers/pampering retreat. Alone.
87. I don’t like meat with bones. I'm a lazy carnivore.
88. I am a Christmas nut – my husband is The Grinch incarnate. Makes for an interesting few weeks come November/December.
89. We had our honeymoon in 2000...a full year before we were married. Our second son came with us…in utero.
90. Then when we GOT married, we took the kids (then just two of them) on a driving holiday as a sort of ‘proxy honeymoon’.
91. I don’t care what you’ve done, or how badly you stuffed up, but an apology isn’t an apology unless there’s a backrub and headrub involved. This only works on my husband by the way…its just too weird if someone else tries it.
92. My kids are saving up their pocket money to buy China. How much do you think China is going for these days?
93. My kids’ biggest thrill in life is the prospect of takeaway for dinner.
94. The year I turn 40, my eldest son will turn 21, my middle son will turn 19 and my daughter will turn 18. I’m thinking that would be a good year for a party.
95. My middle son is the only one of our kids who inherited his parents characteristics – brown eyes and dark brown/black hair. The other two managed to get light brown hair and blue eyes.
96. My daughter was born 6 days before Christmas 2001. I got a GIRL in my stocking!
97. I spend all summer complaining about the heat then all winter complaining about the rain. I want spring all year round.
98. The stretchmarks on my a** merely indicate that my body was once a baby receptacle. Things spread. Other things droop. In the end, does it really matter?
99. I’ve only ever loved one single man in my life. And now I can’t get rid of him!
100. I’ve never been prouder of anything I’ve ever done than I am when I look at my kids.

Salvation...and his name is Adam

The next time I leave the house, I'm going to staple the key to my forehead.

In a scene straight out of a movie, I was running late. Bags, kids and clothes were flying in all directions. In the midst of it all, I set aside my green shopping bag. Inside the bag were my worldly possesions. Keys, phone, purse, sunnies. All of life's little essentials.

In the mad scramble for the door, I managed to forget to grab my green bag. I had only walked three steps down the driveway before I did the international symbol for 'doh!' -- smacking myself in the forehead. The kids thought it was a game and began smacking their own foreheads. I was too stressed to tell them to stop...and besides, it gave them something to do while I panicked.

Right, first things first, kids off to school. Thankfully they had all the necessary stuff on them. While we were walking I was trying to figure out what the best course of action would be.

Option 1: Call DH, he'll know what to do.
Why It Couldn't Work: DH was uncontactable today. For the last three days and for the next three weeks, he'll be completely and utterly work-free, but today, the only day he can't pick up his mobile, I manage to lock myself out. Thanks again Murphy.

Option 2: Call a friend.
Why It Couldn't Work: I don't know anyone's number by heart. My phone is my address book. My phone is right next to the keys in the green bag on the kitchen table. If I could get to the phone I wouldn't need to ring them anyway!

Option 3: Break in myself.
Why It Couldn't Work: Didn't I go through the house last night, as I do every night, and secure each door and window? Wait a minute...did DH use the loo this morning? Is the ensuite window open? Can I push the screen in? Um, no. All doors and windows very, very securely shut.

Option 4: Ask old owners if they kept a key.
Why It Couldn't Work: I shudder to think of how weird it would be if they said yes...

Option 5: Go to the shops and kill some time.
Why It Couldn't Work: No money. Purse next to phone and keys in green bag! At a pinch I guess I could have walked 15mins in the rain to the library, walk home to pick up Miss Moo from kindy, walk back to the library again, walk back to pick up B from school, walk home to meet J's bus, the walk back again to kill time until 5:30 when DH is due home...but somehow I didn't think so.

Option 6: Call a locksmith.
Why I Hesitated: I'll look really, really foolish, not to mention never being allowed to live it down with DH. That, and locksmiths are expensive buggers. Nobody likes to spend money on something that wouldn't have been an issue had they paid attention in the first place!

I ended up borrowing a phone book from the lovely girls in the school front office. Initially thought of calling DH then realised that even if he could talk, he couldn't leave work. And if by some miracle he COULD leave work, he was an hour away. Two hour round trip to open the door for your doofus wife? I think not. Instead, I rang a locksmith who was able to get out here in 20mins.

Scrambled home in the rain. Waited, freezing (no jacket...was only supposed to be a 'quick' school run) until Mr Adam turned up. Young bloke. Ridiculously handsome. Tried hard not to look.He informs me that he'll have me inside in about 60 seconds. I inwardly groan, as the call out fee was $95. Not even high class 'escorts' get paid that much for a minute's worth of work. Then again, considering his looks, maybe it's well worth it?

Several minutes later, there's mutterings about it 'taking a bit longer than I thought'.

Twenty minutes later he finally stops using that clicky gun thingy in the lock. The front door has him stumped, so he jumps the fence to the back. Laundry has a sliding door to the outside. He tries there first until I remember it has an internal pin as well as a screen door lock and sliding door latch lock. Righty-o.

Moving round to the back, he manages to pick the screen door lock then realises the internal sliding glass door has no keyhole, meaning you can't open it from the outside anyway. We're left with the front door. Man that guy can jump fences...I only looked a little bit that time.

After drilling holes in the lock, demolishing it, and doing all sorts of secret locksmith business, the door magically swings open. However the lock itself is now in pieces (and filings) all over the doorstep so he spends a further 30mins rebuilding my door. By the time he was ready to leave, he'd been there 1.5hrs. And he still just charged me $95. $60 per hour seems a lot more reasonable!

On the way out he tells me I've set a new record...his longest ever 'lock out'.

And all this because I didn't check I had my keys! I now know exactly where I'll hide the spare...

*Originally posted (old blog) April 6, 2006

The Way it Was

Here's a cute picture of Miss Moo to tide you over until I can get around to a 'real' post. This was taken when she was just 2 years old (she's now 5) with my mobile phone camera in the playground at McDonald's :) She never did lose that "I have a secret" look - about five seconds later she dumped a chocolate shake on my lap. Thanks sweetie!

I'm in the process of combining a previous attempt at blogging with my brand spanking new incarnation here. So I thought I'd bring over the whole four or five posts and repost them here, then delete the old blog. Decluttering cyberspace, if you will. Some will recognise the repeated posts from the old blog - apologies! It won't last long. Keep a lookout.

Cheers,
Lizzie

Inspirational

Some of you out there will know that I have a personal connection to the world of disabilities. Our eldest son J is autistic, so we've had a little baptism of fire over in our house over the years.

I came across this story a few days ago. I made it about halfway through before I started crying and by the end of the accompanying clip, I was a wreck. This is how life is supposed to be. The yardstick by which we should measure ourselves as parents.

The most inspirational link I've seen this month: Team Hoyt

Cheers,
Lizzie

Life Lessons # 1 - The Fat Question

Last week Boofah Boy and I were walking home from school and he said something that made me think 'uh oh'.

"I'm not being mean Mum and this is probably not a very nice thing to say..."

(at this point I'm wondering exactly what indiscretion he's performed)

"...but, well, Sam* is a bit..."

(his voice lowers for dramatic effect)

"...fat."

Hmmm. Of course the first thing I did was to explain why that word might hurt people's feelings. We talked about that a little more on the way home.

Later, when we revisited the subject in front of Daddy, we delved a little deeper.

"Sweetie, when I was a little girl, I used to read so much that the other kids used to call me Smarty Pants. It didn't make me feel very good."

"Like me Mum?" Our little man has been identified as gifted and skipped a grade this year. Most of the kids in his class are between 6 and 12 months older - and he was already the shortest in his classroom last year. This year he's a full head smaller than anyone else.

"Like you. I know you were just using that word like you would if you called someone tall, or small, but I think if someone said that word to Sam he'd probably get really sad."

"Is it a naughty word?" We banned the word 'stupid' for similar reasons.

"No, not a naughty word, but it can make someone feel self-concious to hear it. Do you know what self-concious means?"

"I'm not sure."

"When you are self-concious about something, it means that that thing would probably make you feel really upset if someone mentioned it to you."

My strong little man sat there and pondered that thought for a moment, connecting the dots in his head.

"So Sam would probably feel shelf-donctius the same way that I feel shelf-donctius being the smallest in my class?"

"Exactly."

And so Boofah walked away having reached a really important conclusion all by himself. It was one of those lovely parenting moments when you've laid out a nice set of logical mental pictures for them and they actually get it.

I wish it was this easy re Santa and the Easter Bunny. We're on borrowed time - he's already keeping the secret of the Tooth Fairy for his older brother and younger sister (*smile*).

Cheers,
Lizzie

* Name has been changed.

The Spreadsheet Queen Tutorial

Okay, I like my spreadsheets – that’s hardly a secret to those who know me, LOL. I figure out I have a need to track something, and when I can’t find an existing form or template on the net that gives me all the aesthetic or practical qualities I’m after, I design my own. Most of these are very basic on purpose. The less ‘fuss’, the less ink is used up when I go to print them out for my records later.

I have many, many spreadsheets on the go at any one time (*grin*) and when I mention these to others, especially my net buddies, I inevitably get questions about how (and more recently why, LOL) I go about using them. So I thought I’d write a tutorial to give you an idea of the types of templates I’ve designed, what I use them for, and how I do it all.

This tutorial will concentrate on Household Expenses.

Groceries

Let’s start with the basics. For most of us, this is one of the most variable expenses and most of us would like to save as much as possible in this area. One of the first steps is to first track what you are spending, and then work out where to cut back. A while ago I got curious as to how the individual categories stacked up over the course of the month and year. I felt the burning need to know how much I spent on meat, dairy, fruit and vegetables and so on. Some people have questioned my sanity on this one – why so many categories? I can’t explain this specifically but offer up this explanation: I’m just about one-fifteenth crazy, LOL.

I started with a Master Grocery List.

All of my most frequently-bought items are listed in categories. Each week I print one of these babies off, stick it on the fridge, and simply use a highlighter to mark off the things that we need. Doing it this way is helpful because as I’m wandering around the supermarket I’m also prompted about items we may not specifically need that week, but that we buy regularly – so I can stock up if I see them on sale, knowing we’ll use them eventually.

Next, I designed a Grocery Tracking Spreadsheet.


As you can see it is a very simple Excel document, spread out over two A4 landscape pages. I know what you’re thinking, and no, I’m not OCD…well not yet anyway, LOL. On the left are numbers 1-31 to represent the date. The lines after the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th are a visual tool to break the document up into weeks. The position of these change with each new month. The darker line in the middle shows the page break. I’ve already started inputting amounts for March.

The headings at the top of each column match the categories on the Master Grocery List. I have 26 categories all up (trust me, the men in white coats are on speed dial) hence spanning two full pages, but it is worth it.


This shows the ‘totals’ columns – one at the bottom of each column for each category and another at the end of each row for the date. In this way I can run my finger along any row or column, and (for example) tell you how much we spent on Meat, or Beverages for the entire month (totals at bottom) or how much we spent across all the categories on any particular date. At the very bottom right hand corner is a ‘grand total’ cell showing the entire amount spent on everything for the whole month. The columns were formulated to automatically calculate the totals for me, so whenever I enter a new figure in any cell, the totals in those columns change automatically. Takes a very big chunk out of the workload (*grin*).


This is how the final document looks. It prints out on two pages. I tend to print these off at the end of every month and put them in my Home Management Binder under my Financial section – they don’t line up exactly (to put them in the Binder I have to stick them in ‘portrait’ orientation which alters how one reads them somewhat) but it works pretty well. In theory, at the end of the year I have twelve months (24 pages) of information, showing exactly where my grocery money went. Over time, you can usually find trends, such as an increase in spending during holiday periods, and you can use that information to better prepare you for next time.

Other Categories

Most of my other spreadsheets for household expenses follow the same basic layout as the one above, modified slightly to remove unnecessary columns and to change the headings. All of my spreadsheets – with the exception of the Grocery Tracking Spreadsheet, are single page documents. Here’s an example of a few of those:

Education


Leisure & Entertainment


Clothing & Shoes


(The names for this one have been removed – but there is room for six family members to each have a column for Clothing and one for Shoes).

And finally, there’s the Household Expenses Tally.


This is virtually identical to the layout of the Grocery Tracking Spreadsheet with just the headings changed to reflect the category names – Mortgage (or Rent), Groceries, Leisure & Entertainment, Education, Household Repairs & Maintenance and so on across all 26 categories. This will probably end up being the only paper record I keep, along with the details of the grocery expenditure, with everything else backed up to disc if I need to go back and look at something more deeply later. This ‘snapshot’ look at our expenses will go into the Financial section of the Binder as well. So an entire year’s worth of financial information can be contained in 48 pages (two each per month for the Groceries Tracking Spreadsheet and for the Household Expenses Tally). If it grows too large for the Financial section of the Binder, it’s a simple thing to switch to a stand-alone binder.

Household Expenses List

Use this list to help brainstorm your own list. Keep in mind that our family’s expenses probably won’t be the same as yours and just because I track so many, doesn’t mean you have to (*grin*). Remember: I’m crazy, LOL.

Major Expenses

- mortgage
- groceries
- electricity
- gas
- telephone
- council rates
- water
- mobile phones (we have two on the same account)
- internet

Education

- school fees
- other study fees (I study)
- uniforms
- textbooks
- workbooks (at home learning with the kids)
- excursions and camps
- sporting fees
- school performances
- canteen
- casual days etc (they usually ask for a gold coin donation)
- school incidentals (anything else I’ve forgotten)

Leisure & Entertainment

- takeaway (family)
- takeaway (work lunches)
- takeaway (days out – for example, when I’m out on errand day)
- respite (eating out)
- respite (worker) **We have a disabled son and are registered with a respite service who cares for him and our other two children in our home about once a month – so this basically forms Date Night.
- cinema
- DVD rental
- photos (development)
- lottery
- alcohol
- misc leisure

Clothing & Shoes (separate columns for Clothing and for Shoes, for each family member)

Gifts

- birthdays (family)
- birthdays (extended family)
- birthdays (school friends)
- easter gifts
- misc gifts (noticeably absent is Christmas Gifts…they come later)

Medical

- doctor visits (gap fee)
- prescriptions
- OTC medications
- dentist visits (gap fee)
- other specialists’ visits (gap fee)

Insurances

- comprehensive car/contents (combined premium)
- home (building)
- ambulance

Car & Transport

- registration
- petrol
- RAA roadside assistance
- servicing and maintenance
- parking
- licensing
- public transport

Banking

- transaction fees (we have none because we choose people-free banking almost exclusively)
- credit card annual fee
- monthly mortgage fee

Allowances

- one column each for the five family members (we each get a personal allowance)

Personal Grooming

- haircuts
- beauty treatments

Household Repairs & Maintenance

- pest control
- general repairs
- computer repairs and software

Travel & Holidays

- accommodation
- misc petrol (above and beyond our usual fuel costs for that time period)
- misc food (above and beyond our usual grocery bill for that time period)

Christmas

- gifts (we haven’t yet separated this into a column for each family member but we probably will at some point)
- food
- decorations

Savings

- adults (collective)
- column for each of the kids

Even If I’ve Made It Seem Complicated, It’s Really Simple…Honest!

The possibilities are really endless with this kind of tracking – I have around 26 major categories I track but within that, countless subcategories as represented by the many columns within each document. It paints a very accurate, very useful picture, with heaps of benefits. And it really only takes a few minutes each day to input figures, or around half an hour a week if you simply toss your receipts into a box to deal with later. And you don’t need complicated or expensive software programs to do it.

And to all my net buddies…now do you understand what I’m on about? LOL.

Cheers,
Lizzie