Moral Of The Story? Always Have Fresh Batteries In The Camcorder

This never fails to crack me up...

No Bag? No Problem!

Isn't this a cute idea?




I have a sudden urge to go buy a case of bandannas!

Homeschooling Is Beginning To Sound Better With Every Lunchbox I Pack

So the random picture? It's a cake. And I made it over a year ago, for Boof's 8th birthday, but never got around to posting a picture before. I was looking for a pic to head up this post and came across it and thought why not? It's about the most creative thing I've ever done in the kitchen and trust me, it wasn't even that much of a victory because I cheated. I used a couple of bought madeira cakes and a whole bunch of chocolate coins and plastic chains and called it a day. Surprisingly, it seemed to work. I especially liked the part that said I needed one little triangle of a Toblerone because I got to eat the rest of the bar. Arrggh, me hearties!

I had a big long post planned out but not more than five minutes ago I discovered all of the following in the space of approximiately 53 seconds:

• We're out of eggs (I was throwing together some cupcakes for school lunches).
• We're out of small change (I was going to my fallback plan of a lunch order).
• I thus still need to make sandwiches/pack lunchboxes x 3 - so back to making cupcakes.
• Now I have to research egg substitutes for the cake mix (What? You thought I would bake from scratch at 10:30 pm? No chance!)
• Paid a bill I thought was overdue. Discovered Talented Hubby's delightful trick of writing when it was due on the calendar an entire day early, little scamp that he is (Did he think I was going to forget to pay it or somethi--- oh, wait. Good call, you're forgiven)
  
• Realised I forgot my (older, wiser) sister's birthday. I'm sorry C!
  
• Remembered TH is out of clean work shirts.
• TH is on call tonight - so I can't even iron damp and let dry overnight (one must be dry and ready to go in case he's called in).
• Discovered an appointment for tomorrow at 10 am - here at the house - that I'd completely forgotten about. Had planned to go out. Considered rescheduling. Too much hassle. Will keep appointment tomorrow, sigh.
• Looked around the (open plan) family room/main living area. One corner is clean but I doubt I can make appointment lady sit there facing the wall (to shield her from the rest of the mess), so I'll have to clean up a bit between now and then.
• God bless the five new podcasts I just put on my iPod this afternoon.
• I'm not going to bed very early tonight, am I? Sigh.

Until tomorrow. If I live.

P.S. The dog ate FOUR pairs of underwear today. He stole them from the washing basket in the hall. They're not the first casualties either...

For The Record, I'm Not Cool About This

The vast majority of Bloggityville is beyond awesome. Good grief, the friends I have made! But I have a bit of a bone to pick so gird your loins people. Are they girded? Good.

I'm a fairly happy-go-lucky blog admin-y kind of person. I don't require word verification or enable comment moderation. But I have just one small request for anyone leaving comments on Lizzie's Home. It's teeny really. Minuscule.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE refrain from hijacking my comments to sell me (or my readers) anything.

There are two levels to this. One is a straight out text link at the end of your comment. If you're a personal blogger, there's no need to worry about not being reachable, since you can always slide your blog link into the Name/URL option when leaving the comment. I want you to link to your blog. And say nice stuff about what I write. Keep doing that! But if you're a business, I will delete your comment, even if it was complimentary.

The second level of solicitation is more sneaky, but in a lot of ways, worse. DO NOT put your business link in the 'URL' part of the Name/URL option when leaving a comment! Normally, when I see a comment, I will visit your site. It's polite, not to mention really cool, to meet new people. But if that link takes me to your business (or spam) site, I feel cheated. And it makes me mutter things about comment moderation and word verification and I don't want to go down that bleak, nasty road. It's bothersome for me (extra admin work) and let's be honest, sort of annoying for the folk leaving comments. Again, play nice or you WILL have your comment deleted.

Now, if your comment was genuine, but got deleted, I invite you to re-comment. I love comments! If you really don't have a personal blog to link to, it doesn't mean you can't join in. Just leave the URL part blank.

Guys, I don't want to be one of those bloggers who gets all riled up over stupid admin-y type things like this, I really don't. But I have always held a very strong opinion about advertising on this blog - in that I don't do it - and if my readers are anything like how I am on others' comment streams, they're going to click on commenter's links and names. With each of these click-throughs, I am, in effect, advertising for you. For free. And if you're a business, that bothers me. So don't do it. Please.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled programs.

Please note: Genuine, personal blogs/bloggers, even if they sell something 'on the side', will never be deleted from any comment here (unless, of course, they're mean and nasty trolls, in which case, be gone with you!). There's a big difference between a personal blog which also sells something and a business website where selling is the main objective. And clearly, this is all at my own discretion. So play nice, and we'll all get along swimmingly :)

It's Been A Slow Week. Here's A Funny.

I am totally stealing this from Mummified Times Five because hey, it's HEE-LARIOUS, and it totally makes me want to go visit North Carolina.




This coming week? Not so slow. Or lazy. Lots of cleaning. Have a big Link Love post planned for this weekend. More soon!

Ahhhh, Twilight. And Sonic. And Sweet Tea.

I'm coming down off a post-Twilight euphoric daze. Yesterday Talented Hubby, groaning all the while, took me to Blockbuster so I could rent the movie. There was one small problem though - I hadn't yet finished the book. So that's what I did most of yesterday afternoon. I finally finished reading at 9:07 pm. And by 9:09 pm I was happily scrolling through the opening credits.

First impressions? Book was definitely better than the movie, but then most of them are. This first movie, I'm told, had a small budget. I think you could tell. The moving lines behind the characters as they ran made me giggle. Not to mention the poorly-disguised 'I look like I'm running but really I'm on a cable' thing. But the absolute highest point of hilarity for me was All The Whiteness.

Now I get they're supposed to be vampires. And apparently there's a law somewhere that states all representations of vampires on film need to have an 'Elizabethan arsenic' feel to them. But come on! The girls managed to look fair-skinned but not abnormally so - why not the boys? They (Edward, Jasper, Carlisle, Emmett, James) all looked like a Kitchenaid mixer had exploded flour all over them. Methinks a better disguise - especially considering most of them had decades to perfect their blending in techniques - may have included a little rouge. To me, preppily-dressed folk with powder-white faces stand out like a sore thumb. Now, if you dressed the Cullens in goth regalia to go along with their white faces, they'd blend right into most high schools in the world!

That said - I loved it, LOL. And there's a whole other post in the works about the intricacies of Edward's appeal. I am tragically invested and I don't care who knows it.

New bloggy friend Stefne (with her darned insightful, imaginatively-titled blog) and I had an impressive Twilight debriefing session via Twitter and Messenger this morning. Chief among our concerns - and I can't be the ONLY person ever to have thought of this, so excuse the crass-ness - was the question of what happens when Bella, uh, experiences her 'delicate time' of the month. Any takers? LOL. It's on the same level as the 'how do you pee in space?' question. There has to be an answer to this one.

Moving right along...

Lots of crazy stuff happening about the place here. The inlaws are coming to stay tomorrow for two nights. We love them, so this is a good thing. And this time - woot! - we can actually offer them more than a leaky old air mattress as we recently purchased a sofa bed. Oh, the luxury!

And of course, there's our trip coming up. While my physical presence may be on the steps of the Opera House, my heart is busy planning a (mythical, at this stage anyway) trip to the States. I am starting a list of culinary delights I mean to try if I ever get there (seriously, brutal flight prices from Australia pretty much eliminates the kids' inheritance, so perhaps never would be a good estimate?) On the list so far? Sonic in Texas and sweet tea anywhere else in the 'south'.

Hey...wouldn't it be great if I had someone from each state in the US nominate some sort of legendary local food item for my list? Jump in in the comments! Spread the word!

Can't Blog. Have Discovered "Twilight"

Okay, so I'm a year or two behind the rest of the known world, but I've always been a slow starter!

I would also like to take this opportunity to "thank" Stefne Miller for pushing me over the cliff edge in regards to this book. Dishes are once again being ignored, as is Mt Washmore. Of course I'd heard of it before last week - hard to ignore all the soulful Edward posters in the stores and the recent release of "Twilight" the movie down here - but I pooh-poohed the entire phenomenon in much the same way as I scoffed at Harry Potter.

Well, Ms Meyer, you win. Your publisher's freaky viral marketing and the fact that Forks high school is the new Hogwarts sucked me RIGHT THE WAY IN.

I didn't even wait for a library copy - I bought a new book on a whim when I saw it on the store shelf last Friday. Co-incidentally mere HOURS after Stefne lauded Edward's praises to me from the Twittertops.

I am embarrassingly enthralled.

Baaaaaaa! (that's a sheep, folks)

Lizzie Gets Real. Brace Yourselves.

I love it when I discover new bloggy treasures. This week I 'met' Stefne Miller via a call out on Conversion Diary but it was this post a couple of days back that really sealed the deal for me.

So in the spirit of faithful sisterhood and, at the very least, in order to provide future Twitter-fodder, I give you my own 'Lizzie Gets Raw' list.

• Sometimes when Jay gets home from school and fusses and moans and whinges his way through the afternoon for no apparent reason other than he wants to make his presence felt, I take myself quietly off into the ensuite, lock the door, and bawl my eyes out in a Grade A Ugly Cry. I do my own fussing and selfish whining, the whole nine yards of 'Why me? What did I ever do to deserve this?', and then I dry my eyes, stick a tissue in my pocket to catch the nose drips, and walk out calmly to finish fixing snacks. Nobody in my family knows how much I cry, especially over Jay. My heart just gets so sore and heavy sometimes.
  
  
• Sometimes I look back over my life, and wonder what in the heck happened to the person I used to be. I used to have focus and direction. Now, not so much.
  
  
• I yell at my children. Not all the time....but I yell.
  
  
• I swear on occasion. Not all the time...but I swear.
  
  
• I no longer recognise nor like my own body and feel powerless to stop the avalanche of time and society's expectations about what it should look like. Sometimes I care, and sometimes I don't, but the times I don't? I'd rather not feel like a total loser for not knowing anything about makeup or haircare, thankyouverymuch.
  
  
• I do not give my best to my husband. A lot of the time he gets the 'leftovers' of me.
  
  
• I am sometimes resentful that I sometimes get the leftovers of him too. And then I feel guilty because he works full time and I 'don't work'. And then I start to hate Tiger Woods for hawking a Playstation game that steals away the precious leftover time we do have. And then I feel guilty because my poor husband needs to unwind from a (very) stressful and (occasionally) dangerous profession and who the heck am I to deny his quest for a virtual hole-in-one? And then I realise I'm talking in circles and my head explodes. Sigh.
  
  
• I am CONSTANTLY behind on housework, which bothers my husband, and makes me feel like a speck of dirt. Which incidentally, I don't even notice is there (I'm messy, he's not).
  
  
• I don't feel like anyone is truly proud of me.
  
  
• I don't feel like I do much to warrant the pride anyway.
  
  
• I want to read the bible daily but don't.
  
  
• I want to go to church but don't know how to start (it's harder than you think when you spend 27 years as an atheist and are married to the same). I have been to exactly one non-funeral church service in my life, and didn't much like it. Reeked of rote recitation to me. If I go again, I have a laundry list of what I'd like to get out of it. I realise that's wrong but I still want it according to my own terms.
  
  
• I am scared to think what an about-face on faith would look like to outsiders, namely family (none of whom are Christian), so I don't talk about it. I barely even blog about it.
  
  
• I have a keen sense of social justice but when push comes to shove, I sometimes hold back on exercising it.
  
  
• I have no fashion sense WHATSOEVER and actually think most fashion trends are a waste of time and money. If I had $50 to spend, I would buy books, not clothes. This extends to jewelery. I'd rather 'mad money' than sparkly things. This is one area that gets Talented Hubby a free pass.
  
  
• I don't wear my wedding or engagement rings but it's not because I don't want to. It's because I've gained some weight in the last few years and they no longer fit, and I don't want to tell Hubs the real reason because we've already had them resized twice - once bigger and once smaller - pre and post pregnancies. I no longer have the excuse of 'baby weight sausage fingers' to fall back on.
  
  
• I don't have super-close friends. I'd like to, but I find it hard to establish friendships.
  
  
• I would love more children, despite things being, uh, 'taken care of' so that doesn't happen. If the decision was made to 'un-take-care-of' things, I would be thrilled. THRILLED.
  
  
• I crave the respect and admiration of my husband but I'm not entirely sure I get it. I want him to wake up and say 'Daggum it, she chose me?' but I still think of it in terms of a works-based theology - if I just do this, clean that, be there for that thing...and then when I fail in those things, it doesn't bode well for one's emotional footing.
  
  
• I waste time on the internet every single day. That's right, I said WASTE. But I don't want to stop.
  
  
• I fight God with every step and breath I take. I ignore, bend, or gloss-over the rules all the time. I still wonder why He puts up with it. I have changed a lot, but I still find myself reverting back to my old way of thinking whenever the excrement hits the oscillating air-moving device. I sincerely have no idea how to bridge this gap.
  
  
• It bothers me that my husband isn't more open to matters of faith, and I don't mean regarding his own (or not) ideas on faith (that's his own journey to take, if he ever decides to set off on it, and that's highly unlikely), I mean openness to MY feelings on the matter. His opinion means the most to me in the whole world and I do not talk to him about faith because his comments sometimes make me feel like a gullible fool for believing in the unseen in the first place.
  
  
• I pray, but haphazardly. I pray for my husband sometimes, but he doesn't know it. I don't want to sound like I've flipped my lid.
  
  
• I listen to Christian music and podcasts, and read books with a Christian theme, but still feel 'guilty' doing it.
  
  
• Sometimes married life feels like a tethered life.

I adore my husband (he truly is one of the most decent, caring, responsible men I've ever met), I crave my children, and overall, life is pretty darn sweet. But it's not perfect, and neither am I. It's about time I stopped caring what others think and start living for real.

There Are Some Pretty Sweet Things About Turning Thirty

Today marks 30 days to go until I turn 30. Bye-bye twenties. You were tough, but you also rocked considerably. Here are some things you taught me.

• Three children by age 22 generally earns you a few stares. Stare back - it really freaks people out!
  
• It's entirely possible to survive three children - who are not triplets - in nappies (diapers) at the same time.
• Your twenties are for taking leaps, before practicality, reason and logic win out over youthful impulsiveness.
  
• Autism? I've got you licked. So there.
• It eventually becomes less strange to be constantly ten years younger than your kids' friends' parents.
• Twenty is all about you. Thirty is all about them. Or Him, as the case may be.
  
• Your body is changing. Best accept it as fact and move on.
  
• It's a pretty impressive set of circumstances to be pumping milk on your 21st birthday. I mean, that's a gem of an anecdote to pull out at Junior's own 21st right there, surely!
  
• Life doesn't end when the night-clubbing does.
• Extra-support underwear begins to overtake the 'frillies' in your delicates drawer. What you used to spend on a matching set now goes toward a multipack of whatever best holds the folds in and about three pounds of ibuprofen to recover from the experience.
  
• I now understand why my mother preferred knitting to leaving the house.
• Lines begin to show on your face.
• Numbers begin to increase on your clothes tags.
• Marriage is awesome. Keep doing it.
• Death sucks.
• Teenagers begin to bother you, because they simultaneously remind you of the crazy stuff you got up to when you were their age AND scare you witless when you think about your own kids not being that far off from the evils of peer pressure.
• Teenage boys begin to seem more devious the closer your baby girl gets to puberty.
  
• Elastic pants don't seem so crazy after all.
• "Mortgage" is grown-up-speak for "no more new boots for you!"
• Think of all the money you saved by not drinking your twenties away.
• Marrying young means thinking about all the meaningful, uh, 'intimacy' that wasn't wasted on people who didn't deserve it.
• Three months after turning thirty, I'll have dipped my toe into FIVE different decades (ten points to anyone who can tell me how :P)
• There's more to life than holding grudges.

Goodnight all :)

I Should Be Cleaning My Kitchen, But...

This is Charlie the Wonderdog. He says "rowf!" Actually this picture is kind of old (in it he was four or five months old and he's now 10 months) but it's a fairly accurate representation of what you can expect to see him doing at any given point in the day, including now. Good Lord that dog sleeps!

In other news...

Talented Hubby has been working so hard lately. He's had a lot of difficult (emotionally, professionally) situations at work lately and that can get a person down after a while. But he handles it well - far better than I, that's for sure. I'm very proud of him...and we're both looking foward to getting away in a few weeks.

I made a Shepherd's Pie last night. While not a disaster, it certainly didn't knock my socks off either. For some reason, Shepherd's Pie/Cottage Pie escapes my culinary repertoire. You would think it would be easy, right? It's just beef mince (ground beef), spices, thickening-something-or-other (usually flour) and vegies. But I've never found one I'm entirely happy with. One day...

No garden this year :( I'm quite disappointed about that but will save up my pennies and plant next year. I was really looking forward to fresh tomatoes too, darn it.

Did I tell you all I succumbed to my inner fifteen-year-old and purchased Seasons 1 & 2 of Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman? I didn't? It's kind of funny, and I'm copping a fair bit of good-natured ribbing from most of my relatives, but I am loving it. I remember sitting down to watching this show as a teen with my mother - I believe it was on a Saturday? - and now Moo is sitting down with me watching it (co-incidentally, I did the same thing with Jane Austen movies, just like my mother did with me, and I'm happy to report I have a cute little Darcy-swooning daughter on my hands, LOL) We talk about 'girl business', like how romantic it is that Sully followed Dr Mike all the way to Boston, or what prejudice is (Native Americans, African Americans, migrants are all covered). Okay, so that last part isn't specific to girls and in actual fact Boof (who is 9 and far more worldly in his own eyes) has frequently provided some good debating material along these lines, but I'm quite enjoying it all. There are certain parts I'm not so crazy about - the girls in the saloon (although less because of what they do - as that is never really elaborated on - but more so because of the 'W' term used to describe them. I don't allow her to watch episodes that have Myra - saloon girl - as the focus) and there was one episode that focused on the racist exploits of the 'clan' (don't want to use common term as I don't fancy weeding through the Twitter spammers later, sigh). But most of the time the show is tame and sweet, and at least tends to paint the questionable aspects in a moral light (for example, they had an episode about gambling, but the character in question had a deserved fall from grace because of it).

Moo and I have particularly liked watching the budding romance of Dr Mike and Sully. I remember being completely enamored with Joe Lando when I was a teen and there may even have been a teen mag-style poster of him resplendent as Sully adorning my ceiling at one point -- but we won't mention that again, 'kay? LOL. I'd forgotten how cute it is to watch a romance blossom naturally on screen as it did back, well, before the internet really took off and TV had to ramp up the sexual material to compete. As old-fashioned as this might be, I'm glad Moo's being exposed to a romance - yes, even this young (she's 7 ½) - that focuses on things like courting and protection and old world charm.

I'm nothing if not a tragic romantic, LOL.

The only downside? Of the 6 seasons (150 episodes, plus 2 TV movies - and yes, I 'Wiki-ed' it because hello? That's how tragically and geekily involved I am :P) only 2 are so far available on DVD down here, with the 3rd coming in October and gosh-knows when for the remaining three. I've already used up all birthday and Christmas presents for this year when I bought this, so I'm going to have to raid the change jar when the time comes!

You may all laugh at my television viewing choices...now.

Bikes, DIY, God Signs & Japanese Chimps

Happy weekend guys! Did you miss me? Let's kick things off right away:

DIY Meal Planner Frame (Perfect Sentiment) - I'm rather taken by this whole idea. Must. Implement. Soon.

Rain Gutter Book Shelves Tutorial (Raising Olives) - This is so cool! I'd do this if I thought Talented Hubby would let me...

Dry Erase Calendar (Nannygoat) - Sort of similar to the first link, but I love how the idea can be adapted to just about anything, turning what would normally be an ordinary thing into something quite special.

Asking God For A Sign (Conversion Diary) - I have so been there :)

Story Dice (Scribbit) - What a sweet gift to give to a young one! (I especially love the variation for the non-artistic, LOL)

The Bike Raffle (The Meanest Mom) - Laughed till I cried. Mostly because this is pretty much my family.

And finally this...it's in Japanese but it had Talented Hubby and I in hysterics!


See you on Monday!

Trying To Crawl Out Of The "Meh"

Okay, so even though it's winter right now, our winters do not include - obviously - Christmas trees or snow. Winter snow elsewhere in Australia? Sure. Not in my city though. Which means the above pic isn't a very accurate graphical representation of my current situation. I just think it's cute.

Moving on...LOL.

I have been battling a fairly severe case of the "blog blahs" these past couple of weeks. All of August actually. I'm working on it, I really am, but the interesting thing I've learned recently is that life really does go on when one doesn't blog. Don't worry, I'm not about to shut up shop, LOL. But I am finding it far less stress-inducing to keep to a 'whenever the urge strikes' kind of schedule. I'm not in it for the ad revenue and I'm getting to the point where subscriber numbers and page hits bother me less and less. I blog because I find it fun. So this 'everyday' thing? Lovely in theory, a bit impractical in reality - at least for me. The ease of twittering the day's trivialities instead of blogging about them does make it the laziest choice!

So what's been going on these past couple of weeks?

Boof sat a national mathematics competition test last week and even though we won't know the results for a few more weeks, we think he did well. This was a totally optional thing but was right up Boof's alley so he jumped at the chance. Atta boy!

We booked and paid for our trip to Sydney in a few weeks. The trip is about three-quarters "Good Lord we need a BREAK!" and one-quarter "Happy 30th birthday Lizzie!" The weather will be warming up into spring but not too hot. Talented Hubby is busy planning all the photo opportunities and I'm busy freaking out about the plane ride (I don't do planes well, LOL). But it will be great and we're really looking forward to the break, something we don't do nearly often enough. What we are NOT enjoying? The fact that it will cost about as much for 6 days as it did for BOTH of us to fly, stay AND eat breakfast daily when we travelled to Bali in 2000. Okay, so the then-recent civil disturbances in neighbouring East Timor kind of bumped the price down, but still. It's very hard to see a 'per night' hotel tariff for Sydney and not automatically convert that to a comparable "cheap Bali t-shirts" figure, sigh. When we went to Bali we took what we thought was a modest amount of spending money and still came home with over half of it - and we bought a LOT of stuff. But Sydney is a place that neither TH or I have been since we were wee things and I know the lure of Taronga Zoo is too strong to resist for my photography-mad husband. I mean, we don't even have ELEPHANTS at our city zoo...and they have a baby one!

Also, I am sick. No specific reason. Though weirdly, my legs hurt. I think it's because my friend C and I got stuck in the torrential rain yesterday which was then capped off by severe wind, freezing our wet denim legs into icicles. My legs feel like they've been run over and haven't felt truly warm since, despite being in dry clothes the second I got home. So yeah, legs that don't work properly and no doubt, a cold coming. Auuugh. I took some classic photos with my mobile phone, including one particularly amusing one with C using her 1yo son's parka as a rain hat, but she made me promise not to blog it. Actually, she threatened me with an unflattering Facebook retaliation so I had to concede defeat, LOL.

The poor dog - the wind had been blowing the rain inside his kennel all day so by the time I got home he was saturated and shivering and I felt horrible. That dog has never had so many cuddles and treats in one stretch as he did yesterday afternoon.

I promise I won't be such a stranger this week. No, really. As for now, I'm off to take some paracetamol and download a podcast or seven to make cleaning my kitchen far more palatable.

Mwah.

Using Google Reader As An Alternative To iTunes

Did you know that when it comes to podcasts, not everyone likes iTunes? It's true.

I find it tedious and awkward to download podcasts the traditional way. I don't want to subscribe to them via iTunes (which automatically begins downloading any queued podcasts the next time you open the program) for two main reasons.

1. I sometimes only have the time to 'cherry pick' individual episodes that look interesting, rather than the whole kit-and-kaboodle (some of which I may delete due to time restraints anyway).
   
   
2. I'm not in the habit of loading up iTunes terribly regularly, except when downloading specific songs. I don't use it as a music player very often as my song collection fits in its entirely on my iPod itself, and I prefer to use a jack plugged into our sound system rather than put up with the tinny efforts of the laptop speakers. So if I subscribe to a podcast via iTunes, it's quite possible I'll have thirty queued episodes, each an hour long, ready to go the next time I open up the program. This KILLS our internet download limit. And takes a sweet FOREVER.
   

So what's a podcast-loving, time-restrained gal to do? Look no further than Google Reader!

Now, I might be the last person on the planet to clue onto this fact, but Google Reader is useful for all sorts of reasons, some of which aren't related to reading blogs at all. I know, shocking. Anything with an RSS feed can be subscribed to via GR - including podcasts - but unlike iTunes, everything is done manually, rather than automatically. In my case, this is a GOOD thing.

Here's how I do it.

The first thing to remember is that not every random page URL will work. If you just want the podcast, and not the blog entries associated with the same site, then you need a unique podcast-only feed. Finding it isn't always as easy as it seems.

Nearly every blog or site out there will, of course, publish an RSS icon (or a text link) in some prominent location in order to subscribe to blog content, or if you have a browser that supports it, up there at the end of your address bar, you might see a mini RSS icon - it pops up whenever you're on a site that has a feed attached to it (if you look up there now, you'll see one up there to quickly sub to Lizzie's Home :) But for podcasts, there can be several different ways of finding that unique podcast feed.

Here are just a few that I've come across - not every site will be the same, but it will give you a jumping off point.

Level 1 ~ Podcasting Is My Day Job

If you're looking to use Google Reader to subscribe to a well-known or professional podcast, such as a major church's sermon series or to a radio show , then you're in luck. Most of these folks give clear links to their unique 'feed page', usually front-and-centre on their home page. Let's take your average Australian radio duo, Hamish & Andy (disclaimer: possible toilet humour on that one. Examples given are just the ones that came to mind first :)

(Click on each image to enlarge)

You don't even have to plug your brain in for this one. You just choose your preferred subscription service (iTunes and RSS both feature in this list) from the drop down menu...


...click on your standard Google subscription button...


...and Bob's your uncle.

Level 2 ~ Podcasts Are Important, Sure, But Isn't iTunes Easier?

Yes and no, LOL. I personally prefer to do things this way for all the reasons listed above, but that certainly doesn't mean everyone has to! Even websites which have podcasts as a large part of their offered media (a church site, for example), sometimes don't make it terribly easy to see there's life beyond the standard iTunes subscription button. Or at least they make it generally harder to find the unique podcast feeds.

Here's an example from Mars Hill Church.


Way down the bottom of their home page, there's a teeny tiny text link to 'Feeds' (sometimes, like this example, you'll need to go a-searchin' for that elusive link, and site maps can help if you can't seem to find what you're after first go).


Once you're there though, you have a ton of options. Mars Hill, like many similar sites, offers vodcasts as well as regular and music podcasts and lists each option's unique pod/vodcast feed link button on the one page - handy.


From here on out, it's the same deal as the first example. Click on button, all done.

Level 3 ~ If You Can Find It, Good Luck!

Every now and then, you'll come across a lesser-known, or poorly designed site that still offers a podcast you'd like to keep track of through Google Reader, but whose design makes it incredibly difficult to work out how to get that unique podcast feed.

KFUO radio station out of the States is a good example:


This is the home page. Funds - sourced directly through listener donations - clearly go into paying the station costs (and rightly so!) and not toward web design! After several months of diligently returning to the site each Tuesday to get a right-click-to-download link to the most recent podcast, I figured there had to be a better way.

But before we get into that, here's a good example of what happens when you take a random site's home page URL - even one who specializes in podcasting, such as KFUO - and try to put that into the subscription window in Google Reader (obviously, doing this for a blog would work perfectly, if being subscribed to the blog content is what you're after, but unique podcast feed URLs are a very different kettle of fish :)


This fails because the URL you put in isn't the unique podcast URL. So what do you do instead? Go back to the picture of the KFUO home page. There's a very small 'XML Podcast' link in the left hand menu, and it takes you here:


If the site offers multiple podcasts, as this one does, then they're generally collated and listed on a single page for ease.


Right click on the appropriate link, select 'copy' (or 'colour in' the text link, right-click and then copy)...


...and paste the URL into the Google Reader subscription box.


So...What Now?

So those are a few examples of how you can find, and subscribe to, the unique podcast feeds of sites that you love through Google Reader. Now what do you do with your new found power?

Since one of the main reasons I keep track of my podcasts this way is to kind of 'store' them until I'm ready to download them, I can happily go a couple of weeks just letting them build up. I have a 'Podcasts' folder set aside specifically to do this (if you look closely at some of the Google Reader shots, you might see it on the left) and currently subscribe to five unique feeds, one of which is a vodcast.

The best part? When I'm ready, I don't even need to return to the site itself to download the podcast.


To keep the podcasts out of my general 'unread' pool, I 'star' each one as it comes in, then click 'mark all as read'. This won't delete them, so don't freak out! It just removes them from your unread item count.


Clicking on the 'Starred Items' at the top of the left hand menu will bring up your whole list. When I do this, I usually have a few from each of my five podcasts, all jumbled up in order of when they were published.

Let's look at your average podcast subscription screenshot in Google Reader:


There's a convenient little player build in to each entry, and I'll use that sometimes for ease, but I generally prefer to download the podcasts to my computer so I can sync them up on my iPod later.

If you look closely at the picture, you'll see an 'Original Source' text link underneath the embedded player. Right-click, 'save target as' or 'save link as' and when the save window appears, choose your location on your computer, rename file if necessary and hit 'save'.

Wrapping Things Up

Perhaps you think this is a horribly convoluted way to achieve the same thing that can be done automatically via iTunes. You're right, sort of! If there's a podcast that you are 100% committed to (ie, would listen to every single episode) and you're the kind of person who plugs in their iPod each time they turn on the PC, then these methods may not make much sense to you. I personally find them brilliant for my needs :)

A wonderful side benefit of subscribing to podcasts in Google Reader is that, like regular blog subscriptions, the resulting list of past posts are a sort of handy, simple 'archive' list, sometimes going back months or even years. If the podcast site archives their programs, rather than remove them from the system (to be fair, some do, to save on the exorbitant hosting/bandwith costs - an hour long sermon can be HUGE) then you could conceivably download a podcast that is over a year old, long after it disappears from the main list on the site. Using KFUO's Wrestling With The Basics example above, I was just now able to download a program from Jan 6, 2007, right from within Google Reader - no trawling through archived pages on a website, if they exist at all. And it all comes complete with Google Reader's usual features, like Shared Items, Notes, and the handy search function (know you heard a sermon about the fruit of the spirit about a year ago but can't remember who did it or when exactly it was 'published'? Pop in the keywords in the search box).

Be aware, however, that not every site will do such a long archive - another podcast I regularly listen to removes their podcasts after a couple of months, and if I'm behind and have that many 'starred' and awaiting download, I might find the earlier one or two won't be available (ie, they've not been archived on the main site). This is all worked around really easily by keeping an eye on your undownloaded podcast count and just downloading to your computer every now and then, even if you won't have time to listen to them right away. Once they're on your computer, they're there until you need them :)

Putting the podcasts onto your iPod is RIDICULOUSLY easy:

1. Open iTunes (you don't even need to plug your iPod in yet).
2. Open the folder into which you've downloaded the files.
3. Drag from the latter to the former. They'll pop right up on your iTunes list. I have a playlist I call Audio and I just throw everything on that.
4. Plug in your iPod. If you've set it up this way, it should sync files automatically, otherwise manually sync using the option in the file menu.
5. Eject, unplug, and rock your podcasts as you wash dishes/hang the laundry/clean up the vomit the dog left behind after eating your favourite sock.

Enjoy!

Mostly For My Own Amusement, An Experiment In Machine Breadmaking

This past week, I rediscovered a long-lost friend. Lurking in the back of a kitchen cupboard behind the lonely Tupperware lids and ice-slushie mugs was my bread machine.

My parents bought the machine for me back in 2000 as a 21st birthday present and back then I thought it was the best thing since, well, awkwardly-sliced bread. Somewhere along the way though, I decided bread-making wasn't for me and put the machine in whatever cupboard was the least used to keep it out of the way. I've used it a handful of times in the last few years, always frustrated at the silly little hole the blade cooked into the base (this was back before the age of collapsible blades) and the fact that I can never, ever slice the loaves thinly enough to make it an economical source of bread for sandwiches.

I don't know what made me drag it out this week. It may have been the kitchen cupboard reorganization or the fact that a brand of bread mix I'd used in the past with success was on sale at the supermarket. Either way, I loaded her up and baked my first loaf. The bread mix made the whole experience shamefully easy (pour in water, dump in bag of mix, measure out yeast, beep through menu, press start) but the best part came later, when the smell began to waft through the house. I'd forgotten how good that stuff smelled!

That first loaf, a multi-grain one, turned out light and fluffy and with just the right amount of chewiness from the grains. I still had the problem with slicing it (silly smell was making it hard to wait until it cooled, LOL) but this time it seemed okay somehow, I guess because I didn't jump into it thinking it was going to be a replacement for thin sandwich loaves. Just something a little extra to put on the table with dinner that night. The next loaf wasn't a loaf at all, but rolls - same process but I took the dough out of the mixing bowl and hand shaped, let it rise, and baked in the oven. Similar springiness and texture to the grainy bread I'd made earlier (same bread mix) and just as good as store-bought rolls.

Today, I used the machine again to knead and do the initial rise and then I shaped the dough myself. The resulting loaf was a good size but a little more dense. It actually sliced a lot better than the machine loaf too. But this little foray into breadmaking has got me thinking - why do people bake bread? What are the benefits? Come with me on a little journey while I nut this out...

Cost

At my local supermarket, I can buy a 20-slice loaf of store-bought bread for $2. At the same supermarket I paid about $6.80 for a 4pk of bread mix, or $1.70 per loaf. On the surface, it looks more economical to go for the bread mix, especially when you consider that this particular brand has yeast included and the grainy variety is more hearty. However, it's downfall comes when you try to slice it. The slices are large, but even with an electric bread knife and an experienced machine-baker-and-slicer (my MIL), I've rarely managed to see more than 10-12 slices. Now maybe that's my (or my MIL's!) lack of skill showing, but speaking to others, they seem to have a similar problem - fewer slices from a bread machine loaf. For the sake of this argument, and perhaps testament to my lack of practice, I'm going to assume 10 slices per loaf. So, to get the same number of slices as the store-bought, I'd have to make two machine loaves. This now makes the total cost more like $3.40 for a similar slice count. For some reason the size of the slice means far less to my kids - we'd all prefer more sandwiches over monstrous slabs of bread anyway. Again though, this is for pre-made bread mix, not your average totally-from-scratch loaf with flour, oil, yeast etc. That would, of course, be far cheaper than a store-bought loaf.

Health Benefits

Everyone knows homemade bread is healthier than store-bought. You can control the additives and you can alter ingredients based on individual family intolerances. In short, you know exactly what is going into your family members' tummies. You can also get ridiculously creative with different types, seed-mixes and sweet and savoury flavours rather than be restricted to the varieties your store carries.

Taste

Now, I'm thinking I probably don't need to elaborate on why homemade bread is better in this regard - but I will anyway! You just can't compare to it in terms of flavour. It's what real food tastes like - not the bland, bleached, uniform little bricks of blah you get at the store. Homemade bread has character. There's a history in each loaf, from the recipe used (Granny's everyday bread) to the smell (which has the power to instantly transport you back to your childhood) and even the texture in your mouth (the spongey flesh and the chewy crust...mmmm).

Convenience

Until I become a better baker (and/or slicer!) I don't think I'll be using homemade bread for sandwiches. Making your own bread takes a bit of finesse, something I have in pretty short supply, and for a family whose lunch habits revolve around lunchboxes and sandwiches, I'm just not 'there' yet. But for other things - fresh bread at dinnertime, hot rolls with soup - I'm totally into it. It seems to round out the meal just nicely, and because I don't have to worry about 'sliceable' loaves, I can get a bit more creative.

The Verdict

I'm loving the experimenting :) But so far, I've kept to the pre-made bread mixes which is kind of like cheating, LOL. And there's something else that is a bit frustrating - with the bread machine I can only make one loaf at a time, whether I use the machine to just knead for me or bake through to completion. It does take away some of the effort of course, but if I ever get to the point of baking to a more sustaining level - ie, sandwich bread - then practically-speaking I'd want to do several loaves at once, and that can be achieved far more quickly by mixing up the one (really large) batch of dough from scratch and dividing it to rise and bake. A bread machine isn't great for bulk baking.

So for me, baking my own bread isn't an economical decision - right now it's more about the taste and fun of it. But if anyone out there has an outstanding, foolproof, white, wholewheat or wholegrain 'from-scratch' bread recipe (we use all three in this house) then I'm all ears.

Fire away!

My Philosophy On Cooking

Inspired by A Classic Housewife (a blog which I'm shamefully late in discovering), I thought I'd share with you my own philosophy on cooking. The disclaimer? This is the standard I aim for, but I'm not perfect!

Good old-fashioned family meals.

I've been known to bust a move in the kitchen on occasion, trying out weird and wonderful concoctions that I've come across online or in magazines. Most times, they fail. Not always because I mucked up the recipe - although that happens too! - but in the taste test. If my family won't eat it, it's a waste of my time. Now I stick mostly to tried-and-true family favourites and modify for different flavours. I no longer care that we eat the same thing usually twice, sometimes three times a month.

If I can't find all the ingredients at the local supermarket, the recipe doesn't get made.

This doesn't mean I only ever shop at the supermarket - far from it. I oftentimes go to a stand-alone butcher and fruit and veg shop. But if my local supermarket doesn't think it's worth stocking (we're not talking specific brands here, as plenty of supermarkets are selective on those, but whole *types* of foods), then odds are the recipe will wind up too expensive or too time consuming to make anyway once I go out of my way to find an odd ingredient. Specialty asian sauces and other ethnic foods tend to fall into this category (my mother-in-law once had me looking in asian groceries down here for tamarind juice - perfect example). Thankfully most supermarkets in my area stock a fairly decent range of brands/types of foods, which allows for plenty of creativity.

My kids are never going to be gourmets, and neither am I.

At least not at the ages they are now (10 ½, 9 and 7 ½)! They're kids, and they eat like kids. They don't 'do' fancy well. They also like the same things over and over - and dislike the same things over and over. There is little practical sense in having a box stuffed full of complicated recipes if nobody likes them (that said, they are required to try all new foods a few times before pronouncing judgment)

I have a '30 Meals' list.

Menu planning, for me, comes and goes in seasons. A long stretch of an abnormal interest in freezer cooking one time, perhaps a menu based around Talented Hubby's shiftwork another, and my personal favourite, the "If It's Monday, It's Spaghetti" approach, also features prominently. My 'ebb and flow' food patterns used to bother me, but not anymore. It's part of my eclectic nature, LOL. At the very least though, I keep a running list of thirty meals that, ideally, we have the ingredients on hand to make most of the time. Things like spaghetti, lasagna, pasta bake, basic stirfry ingredients (plus rice and noodles). Sometimes, I go 'off grid' completely and each day is a new culinary disaster adventure, other times I'm very anal retentive, down to the particular side dish to serve, and that's okay. That's just Lizzie. But the '30 Meals' list gives me a fall-back plan during the bad weeks, and is a great memory jogger for weeks when I want to get a little more detailed (great explanations of a '30 Meals List' can be found at The Happy Housewife and Want What You Have). I'm also training myself to channel my culinary creativity into baking, rather than straight-out cooking of meals. It's far more appreciated there!

I try to keep a well-stocked pantry.

Just the other day, I stumbled across a spectacular deal for our favourite brand of pasta sauce. I bought sixteen jars, or enough (give or take) for four months. Another grocery trip might see me with thirty cans of tomatoes, or ten packets of pasta. If it stores well, the price is right and if it is a product we know we will need and use, then I will clean the shelves.

I am absolutely enamoured with the idea of a Price Book.

I've played around with various binder-style versions but at the moment I'm developing a spreadsheet version just like this one (plus follow up here). Price books are the dynamo of kitchen management, as far as I'm concerned. They save you loads of money and help keep your pantry filled with good food. Win!

Nutrition is important...

I'm not against 'hiding' vegetables in sauces and baked goods (a la "Deceptively Delicious"), but I do think kids need to see fruit and vegetables in their natural state and learn to enjoy them that way first. Same goes for meat, dairy and grains. The kids know processed meat should be limited, and they drink water first, milk second most of the time (with the amount of cheese they eat, I don't think lack of calcium is going to be a problem anytime soon!) Grainy bread is common in our house and they've never balked at eating it. I don't bother with adding pureed carrots to our muffins because they all know, like, and prefer raw carrot sticks.

But we're not Food Nazis.

Yes, our children eat McDonald's. Yes, they drink fizzy drinks on occasion. No, I'm not worried about the Cheetos at Little Johnny's birthday party. Sometimes - shhh! - we even let them leave food on their plates! If these occasions are limited - and they are - then we're all good.

Dessert is NOT held as a reward.

Truth be told, we rarely bother with a pre-planned dessert, and on nights that we do serve it up, 'dessert' could be anything from snacks during a movie down to a lonely cookie. Totally informal, totally random. They still try the whole 'Is there dessert tonight?' business to gauge how important eating their meal is (we do impose an 'eat most of your dinner' rule on dessert nights) but Mum and Dad are pretty smart individuals. We know when we're being scammed, LOL.

We don't force a genuinely-disliked food on the kids.

Remember this? That said, it has to be a proper aversion, not a 'pull the wool over Mama's eyes' kind of moment. Thankfully none of them have yet developed a distaste for 'real' food like milk, eggs, cheese, vegies or meat.

Snacks are generally 'smorgasbord' style.

And sometimes, when Daddy is working, so are dinners or lunches! I've never had as much success with getting the kids to try new foods as I have when I've served a few morsels up on a platter along with some other good stuff. Similar to the concept of Muffin Tin Monday (but without the tin to clean afterward!), "Kids Bits" changes every time we serve it and it's a great way to try new vegetables or use up the last couple of pieces of something - just cut them up in small pieces, add something to dip (we like cottage cheese and salsa), add some fruit, and you're good to go.

I try to bake consistently.

Commercial snack food is horrendously expensive on a per-serving basis. Not to mention filled with ingredients which are bad for us. I tried a weekly baking day but several hours standing upright in the kitchen does not a happy cook make, so I've recently switched to two co-existing systems. The first is a daily baking window. Right after lunch (and remember, my kids are in school during the day) I try to whip something up. This serves as both part of their afternoon snack (coupled with fruit or yoghurt) and the next day's lunchbox treat. Remainders get frozen.

The other thing I've been trialing this week is homemade baking mixes. One day I'll have to cost these out, but so far Anzac Biscuits and Fudge Brownies have worked brilliantly. If you want to try this, do a trial batch first - recipes would normally ask you to combine ingredients in a specific order and depending on the recipe, doing 'dry then wet' could either spell disaster or be a rioting success. A cake is a good example - normally you are asked to cream the fat (margarine or butter) together with the sugar, add the eggs and liquid flavourings, and then add the dry ingredients. Obviously you can't do that when making your own homemade mixes, so try going 'off radar' and dumping all the dry ingredients (for just one batch) in the baggie and experimenting with how they combine with the wet stuff later. Worse case scenario? The cake doesn't turn out well. If that happens, do what my Dad always suggested (it came from his mother, my Nana - queen of WWII type cooking) - break it into pieces and make a trifle out of it. That way, it's never a flop, just 're-purposed', LOL.

And there you have it. Pretty basic stuff, but it serves us well!

Things You Might Be Surprised To Learn About Lizzie

It's a weird kind of disjointed day around here. I can't put my finger on it. I'm still looking for my camera and it's not so much the pain of losing another one of my electronic children that bothers me as it is the idea that there's a riddle in all of this that I just can't quite work out. Did I take it to the library last week or did I leave it at home? Did I properly check inside each of the million eco green shopping bags that litter our house or did I inadvertently toss one in the bin? Did I do a recent back-up of my memory card or ere there any embarrassing arms-length self portraits on there that will one day end up on Awkward Family Photos? It's the not knowing that is driving me batty!

To pass the time, here's some bullety magic. I present to you, "Weird Things You Didn't Know About Lizzie"

• Perpetuated by a nickname given to me by my father, I spent much of my early childhood convinced I was The Weather Witch and could predict rain by laying on my back and pointing my toes to the sky like a deranged human Ouija board. The idea being, whichever direction my legs/toes swung, thereafter would produce rainclouds (I did not say all of these things were completely sane...)
  
  
• Pick the wrong answer: I have NOT had a piercing in a) my nose, b) my ears, c) my lower lip or d) my belly button.
  
  
• I will never, ever voluntarily allow tuna to pass my lips (for full explanation, see all the trauma here). In this lifetime or the next (in MY Heaven, tuna is outlawed!)
  
  
• When I put my iPod earbuds in, I can't put the 'L' one in my right ear. They're exactly the same, but I can't do it. It feels wrong.
  
  
• I nearly severed my big toe when I was 3. My parents had a party and someone had dropped a bottle outside which had somehow bounced up and into a drainage ditch. I was riding my trike and fell off, and when I put my leg down to steady myself, my big toe neatly slid into the broken-off neck of the bottle and was promptly cut nearly the whole way around. I have vivid memories of that day, including one particularly lovely image of the top of my big toe popped off the bone like a flip-top lid. The scar is impressive and the story positively delights my boys, who (as boys of that age are apt to do) are totally into blood and gore.
  
  
• I like symmetry. Having just one sidebar on the blog was messing with my head!
  
  
• When I was eight or nine I would regularly read my older siblings (then 15-17) Year 11 or 12 assigned reading novels. For fun. This explains a lot. Siblings were unimpressed.
  
  
• The first two CDs I ever bought was Celine Dion's "The Colour Of My Love" and Madonna's "Something To Remember". I'm glad to report my musical tastes have broadened somewhat.
  
  
• I am right-handed but place my knife and fork in 'reverse' when setting the table (fork in right hand, knife in left).
  
  
• I have twice won the 'design the cover of the class camp workbook' competition - once in Grade 5, the next in Year 10. I won a roll of Lifesavers the first time and free entry to the ice-skating rink for the second :)
  
  
• I'm not a huge fan of icecream. I'll eat it, but not if there's chocolate around to take it's place!
  
  
• When we had Year 11 work experience (1995) I chose the local (country) newspaper and spent a week looking over yellow archived copies and producing the "on this day in (insert old date here)" segment that ran that week. Things I learned from that experience: work experience kids get in the way and are generally put in the least accessible area of the building to compensate, and archive research - at least that covering a rural paper - is boring. There are only so many machinery expos and shows (fairs) one can take.

Plans for the rest of the day? A hot cup of tea and a good book top the list, followed closely by picking the kids up from school and wading through the mire that is All The After School Crazy.

Yay me.

There Are Just A Few Inanimate Objects I Love, But This Is One Of Them

I've lost my camera. Or maybe it's just buried under a pile of clutter. Either way, I can't find it. I'm not even exactly sure when it went missing. I have a vague recollection of taking it with me when I took the kids to the library and shops on the 19th (it's just as likely I brought it home afterward too) but I can't remember if I saw it at home after that.

This is causing me no end of stress. I mean, of all the things I could be worrying about, here I am freaking out over a little pile of plastic and metal. Compounding my distress is that the camera is worth almost $600 and is only nine months old. And there's a reasonable chance that it is, in fact, not buried under clutter here at home but was either dropped or stolen the last time I was at the shopping centre.

Also, I'm married to a lovely man who is very careful with money. To him, if the camera was dropped at/taken from my bag at the store, I may just as well have left six crisp $100 notes on the footpath and walked away.

After this (and the follow up here) just a year ago, you'd be right in assuming Talented Hubby is a wee bit frustrated, LOL.

At least security footage helped last time and we were able to be compensated the cost of the phone by the individual involved (albeit in fortnightly installments over several months). This time though, if the camera is in the hands of an unsavoury person, it's gone. Insurance won't cover it outside of the house. Poof! $600 down the toilet. Which is ironic considering the postscript to the last story (*wry smile*). We wouldn't be replacing it. At least with the phone we had the benefit of CCTV footage and a witness who identified the lad in question, sigh.

Also gone? 100+ photos - including identifying shots of my highly security-conscious husband, our children, and inside our house. TH works in a field where being randomly identified is not a good thing.

*Seizure*

Pray it hasn't been stolen. Pray it's just time I cleaned house better. Sigh.

A Perfect Day

So it's winter here. Cold, wet and miserable about nine-tenths of the time. Although to be fair, winter in South Australia is laughable when held up against, say, a Canadian winter. I'm pretty sure our summers beat you though.

But today, in a rare glimpse of the spring weather not due for another couple of months, it was all blue skies and gorgeous sunny weather. Still under my preferred temperature, of course, but nice.

The plan was to head out to a local furniture warehouse (we're in desperate need of a sofa bed after our only guest bed - an air mattress - sprung a leak) but thenTalented Hubby announced there was a little place he'd like to go visit, somewhere we hadn't been before, and so we planned to do that afterward.

So that's how we found ourselves at Waterfall Gully.

You know how there are days sometimes when you don't do anything terribly interesting except just drive somewhere, but somehow those days turn out to be the best days of all? The waterfall wasn't very big, as far as waterfalls go, and Lord knows Jay was pushing all my buttons, but the day was just solidly GOOD.

Waterfall Gully reminded me of the place I grew up, in rural Victoria. Lots of hills, tall eucalyptus trees, a babbling creek. It made me think again that perhaps we're doing our kids a disservice by not experiencing the country lifestyle the way both Talented Hubby and I did as children. I even had me a bit of a 'connecting with nature' moment while we were out there, LOL.

Talented Hubby, of course, took his camera. He just bought a fancy filter something-or-other (I've long since given up trying to decipher 'photo-geek-speak', LOL) and was just itching to give it a workout. He took the picture you see above, although this shot makes the falls look enormous when in reality, that little pool was just of 'paddling size'. These were actually the secondary falls with the main waterfall down the hill a little. I could just see one of the kids toppling head over heels into that water and I imagine during summer you'd be hard-pressed getting little kids OUT of the water as it's such a busy spot, but it was the type of place where you'd park yourself with a sandwich and a notebook and just write, or perhaps read a good devotional. Inspiring in the simplest sense, which is the best way to be, in my opinion :)

There won't be too many sunny days (well, predictably sunny, anyway) left in winter and even less that fall on one of TH's days off, but as soon as one pops up we're going to go back with a picnic lunch and our hiking boots. There are walking trails all around the area and it appears to be quite the local fitness haunt. Busy, but not in an oppressive we-should-have-gone-somewhere-else kind of way.

Just a simple, beautiful, calm sort of day. Happy sigh.

Blog Hop '09 - Because An Airfare to BlogHer From Australia Might Be Pushing Things

Hi! Welcome to Lizzie's Home! This is a last minute post to join in Blog Hop '09 so pardon the dust; I'm just now (literally this hour!) uploading a new template so hopefully that won't go pear shaped and totally mess everything up for my new visitors :)

So, here's me in a nutshell: SAHM to three, wife to one, Australian, sometimes crafter and baker, and special needs advocate :) Our eldest, Jay (10), is autistic, a situation which brings about it's own unique challenges and blessings :) Middle child, Boof (just turned 9) is our Little Professor and loves anything science and math-related. Miss Moo (7) is my 'mini me' in just about every regard, including having a penchant for sleeping later than she should.

To get a feel for what is important to me, take a look-see at this collection of posts:

The Mama Bear Files - Index

Those are a collection of posts I've done on special needs parenting. Or, you could scan my archives - I've been blogging since March 2007 so there might be a gem or two hidden in there somewhere :)

My other interests? Big proponent of the Household Notebook/Home Management Binder, price books, menu planning, and other assorted domestic arts. Talented Hubby (sometimes referred to as, funnily enough, TH) works in an incredibly stressful environment as his 'day job' (actually shiftwork) but takes photographs in his 'spare' time. You can see some of his work here.

Hope to see some of you back here in the next few weeks - comment liberally! I get notified of new comments even on older posts so don't hesitate to ask questions.

Looking forward to returning the visit!

Who Knew Unloading Groceries Could Be So Educational?

"Mum, what's this?" Moo asked.

I'd just returned home from the supermarket and was unloading the groceries onto the bench top. Distracted by the decision about whether to put the canned tomatoes on the second or third pantry shelf (it's an legitimate organizational dilemma folks!), I quickly did a mental stocktake (nope, no 'special toiletries' purchased today) and glanced over. She was holding the new razor I'd just bought.

"Well, that's a razor sweetie."

"But it's pink. I don't think Dad will like it much."

"Oh it's not for Dad, it's for me."

Moo looked at me incredulously, like I'd just told her cows were indeed neon green and spurt chocolate milk from their eyeballs.

"But you don't have a beard!"

I giggled inwardly. If only she knew what's in store for her in a few years, hair-removal-wise.

"No, but I have hair in other places." Her eyes widened. "Like my legs." (See, I kept it clean - no need to traumatize her just yet).

"You've got hair on your LEGS?!!"

"Well not all the time. I don't like it much so I shave it off, like Daddy trims his beard."

"Ewwwwww!"

Oh angel, if only you knew the real reason Mummy wears jeans so much in winter...

Lizzie Revisited...And A Mild Rant

Wow, winter must really affect me - this time last year I was in the middle of a similar hibernation period, blog-wise. Going 'off the radar', so to speak, has not been planned but has been very much needed and enjoyed.

I have a blog makeover in the works and I'm hoping to fire up the creative juices once that goes live, but here's a post I did about this time last year. Read it, then come back, because I have some thoughts.

Blogging, Subscriptions and Ethics...Oh My

It's interesting that this post should be about a year old now, because I did eventually return to reading the 'soon to be unsubscribed from' blog it references. The allure of one of her two main posting themes drew me back in, although this time, I could no longer find an RSS feed and when questioned, she denied knowing how all that stuff worked (despite a background in computers, hmmm). I left it at that and just visited the site directly every few days, gleaned what I needed, and then ignored all the bits I didn't agree with.

This woman definitely has Bloggityville divided. The other main topic she posts about - and perhaps the one she is most, uh, notorious for - was the main reason I unsubscribed the first time around. Such is her passion for this subject, her thoughts on which are often misguided, that there are actual whole rebuttal sites directed at her blog (yes, I've been to those sites and while I agree with their sentiment, I couldn't personally refute someone else in that same manner). It was on one of those sites that I heard quite a disturbing account of her behaviour online.

For the record, the exchange has been well documented. Slanted, perhaps, in that I heard it first on one of the rebuttal sites, but the whole exchange (several emails worth) was posted in its entirety and I believe it to be true enough.

Ms Blogger, in an effort to explain her online dealings (she is fond of getting into email 'discussions' but rarely lets an opposing view into her comments section, preferring to mass-block anyone who doesn't one-hundred percent agree with her), said that she had self-diagnosed Asperger's Syndrome. It was said in such a way as to back-pedal out of a situation, but slam dunk, I promptly deleted the link to her blog and will not be returning.

I'm sick of hearing about stories like this!!!

Asperger's (and autism) can only be diagnosed by recognised, trained individuals. If you're relying on the internet to diagnose yourself or your children (for anything!) - YOU ARE NOT GETTING THE FULL PICTURE and will most likely end up with an INCORRECT DIAGNOSIS.

Case in point? A commenter a week or so ago mentioned a well-known celebrity autism advocate and asked if I'd read her book. I hadn't, but I followed the link to the website and eventually found myself doing the partial (there's your first clue!) assessment questionnaire.

Something became apparent very quickly. Based on this very narrow set of questions and his current behaviour, my son isn't autistic. He doesn't even 'qualify' for Asperger's! Let me let you in on a little secret - the constant daily struggles we are going through right now tell me otherwise! We're currently fighting battles I wouldn't wish on anyone. Don't be in a hurry to self-diagnose. PLEASE!

When we had Jay's first autism assessment, way back in October 2001, it was a whole-day affair conducted by a highly-specialised child assessment team run out of a city hospital. We answered more questions than there are hairs on our heads, and all of those answers were melded together to provide the information that eventually led to his diagnosis. I just wouldn't trust a general practitioner, or a counsellor, or a pastor (sorry!) and definitely not your neighbour's sister's friend. Nor would I trust what I see on TV or read in the paper when it comes to Autism Spectrum Disorders in general. Not when it comes to finding a diagnosis for something that will, let's be honest, be there forever. BE SURE. We had two assessments 6mo apart. I would advocate the same, if it's at all possible (and I understand waiting lists might prevent this) - but at the very least, a specialist should do the signing on the dotted line, not a ridiculous internet questionnaire.

Can you tell I'm fired up about this? You betcha!

Back to Ms Blogger. She is often held up as the epitome of what it means to be a homemaker, and is 'followed' by many. You either love her or you hate her. I was prepared to at least like some of her, because her homemaking information was interesting and unique. I could even look past her narrow-minded religious beliefs - I do have my own 'speck', after all, and nobody's perfect. But this Asperger's thing? I just can't do it anymore. Asperger's isn't an excuse! Stop using it as one! It's not the diagnosis du jour!

If you believe you, or someone you love, might be on the spectrum, please visit your GP for a referral to a specialist. And then pray that your concerns are unwarranted.

Sigh.