New Skills

Jamie showing Mark the correct way to push a mowe

Going out on his own

The look of satisfied concentration.

Yes you saw it here first, Mark is mowing the lawn! My little bloke is growing up and starting to do "man chores".

We had a very productive Saturday, the room is nearly done (do I sound like a broken record?), the vacuuming for the whole house is done. My bathroom is clean.

Tomorrow I'm going to Lollypops with some girls from work. Very excited about that. Need to get some scrapping done as well.

Happy Birthday to Me

I shall commence this post with a portrait I took of me and Mark today. I wanted to do a family portrait, but Jamie wouldn't play. Yes I agree Mark has big feet!

Today - well now its officially yesterday was my birthday. I'm now the glorious age of 34!
Luckily I don't feel that age, but hey what does feeling 34 feel. I'm still younger than my mum was when she had me! Quite amazing that. So fertility wise I'm not yet on the shelf (no you didn't just hear that Mum). I'm only 4 years into my career and its all going well. Two weeks time I'm on holidays, can't wait for that.

My new year to me resolutions...
Take care of myself.
Not *worry* about my legs so much.
Have some fun (starting by going out with the girls on Sunday)
Prevent dementia by exercising for half an hour 3 times a week.
Think about learning a new language - which one???

The Good, the Bad and the Very Very Annoying.

Good.

Sunny day.
Shortland Festival Day
Gardening.
Hanging out as a family.
Laughing with Mark.
Jamie has made me a customised banner

Bad.

The boat engine won't start.
The house is still a mess.
I think I'm sunburned.

The Very Very Annoying.

The computer room isn't painted yet - but almost.
The banner is a little bit short.

Ooops

I can't believe what I did today.

I left the iron on

Luckily the house is still standing, luckily all the insurances are paid. Luckily I found it now and not in the morning.
I ironed my work shirt at 6.30am and found it still on at 6.15pm. There was a heat emanating from the ironing board.

Challenging

Read this today and think its great!

Genetic Counselling:

"I'm very sorry, I have the results of the genetic tests and they have confirmed our suspicions that your foetus is what we call...Normal.
Some people prefer the terms "Ordinarily Challenged" or "Normal Syndrome". The syndrome can be easily identified by a complete lack of any interesting genetic characteristics. I know this will come as a shock to you, buy you should be aware of what this is likely to mean.

If your foetus manages to survive the rest of the pregnancy and the birth, which is becoming more common these days, he or she will face some daunting challenges. Children who suffer from normalcy are prone to heatlh and psychological problems. It is almost certain that the growing child will suffer a seemingly endless stream of viruses. They will frequently damge themselves, and sometimes others, from their excessive energy.

Their relentless demands will put a strain on your existing family and, of course, your relationship with your partner will suffer, and possibly end in a painful and acrimonious separation. Any children you already have, even if they also suffer from normalcy, will be jealous of the newcomer and all their extra attention. Many siblings are liable to be psychologically scarred by the new arrival.

I need hardly mention the financial consequences, although disastrous, they will be nothing compared to the emotional turmoil your life will suffer.

After a while, you may be lucky and find they can be kind and loving young children. They may find some temporary happiness in things such as music, dancing, food or playing with toys.
But if they survive early childhood, a Normal child is almost certain to grow into a Normal adolescent. Your years of sacrifice will be thrown back in your face as they become disobedient, wild and reckless. Unable to find happiness and contentment, they will treat you with contempt until they manage to leave home. Even then the suffering will continue as they will often return to try and extract money. They will blame you for their own faults and leave you bitter and twisted.

They may well become criminals, over a quarter of Normals will have trouble with the law, many will spend time in jail. Many will have problems with alcohol or drug abuse. Normal marriages are often unhappy and short and over half end in divorce.

Even if they become successful this is likely to be because of the often observed tendency of Normals towards excessive greed. The chances of them sharing their success with you are remote and they will tend to see you as an embarrassment.

Finally, Normal people are likely to die before their time. 23% will die of cancer, 33% of heart disease. Hundreds every year in this country alone are so distressed by their condition that they take their own life. I'm sorry to say that many will have had a lonely, painful and pointless existence.

I am afraid that Normal Syndrome is a genetic condition that affects every cell of the body, and so is impossible to cure."

By Anon. (In the printed version there's a warning at the top to say that this is intended to make a serious point in an interesting way and is not meant to offend anyone, except possibly a few doctors).

I'm doing a lot of blog surfing these days. Thanks for letting me into your lives people.

Saturday evening.

Mark is having a sleep over at Billy's house. Billy rang this arvo and said "Hello, is that Mark's mum? Can I please talk to Mark?"
Next thing the phone was handed to me, and Mark said, "This needs to be a mum to mum conversation!!" OH DEAR.

I double checked the boys would go to bed, and made the boy have a shower and off to Billy's he went. Very excited he was too.




A leg update.

AWFUL. Dr Singh has changed my meds, so now I'm on Sinemet and tapering off the rohypnol. Not happy Jan. What does this mean? I'm not sleeping, terribly cranky and the worst is.... the pain, ache, itch and annoyance of restless leg syndrome is back with 24 hour vengeance. I have a reflex test on Monday afternoon, so that should be interesting.

Pictures

Starting the undercoat. This was the wall where the plaster (Gyprock) was replaced and had to be smoothed so it doesn't look like four pieces stuck together.


More undercoating.


The half finished kennel. Just needs the roof, inside walls, insulation and air conditioning installed. They like it in the rain that is for sure.


Charlie is not very impressed!!



Cleaning off the dirt.



Skye looking for a way out


Our hydrobath. Makes washing dogs a pleasure... Sort of in the background you can tell I've got a pigtail, my tiger stripes are only barely noticable too.

Monday Musing.

• I hate passwords - you can't use the same one for everything, but you need to have a few, so trying to remember what one for which program is quite tiresome.

• Its really raining here

• I'm on Facebook. If its a fad, I'm there!

• Only 14 days to my birthday.
  

Some News.

No not pregnant yet!

Its only 17 days until I turn 34.

Yes I still get excited about my birthday, is that a crime.

Father's Day this Sunday, we got Jamie a new computer room chair, similar to the old one but without his *ass groove*.

Obsessions of the Lantz/Storer Family.

Jamie:

• Talking on the phone to Rocket - like every day
• Talking on the phone to his father - like every day
• Obsessing about his computer business MyNetHost
• Playing Battlefield
  
• Drinking tea or coke.

Christy:

• Tetris on Mark's game boy - my best score is 71,205 - bloody brilliant
• TV
• Blue Bazaar
• Blogs - my new favourite is Parkers
• Talking on the phone to my mum - like every day

Mark:

• Watching the Simpsons
• Playing the front yard with his "posse"
• Riding his bike
• Trying to weedle his way out of doing what he is supposed to do
• Asking for STUFF
• Looking at cool car photos on the internet
• Thinking about Christmas presents.