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 :)