Rip View Swim Classic

In August 2007 I blogged that I wanted to do the Rip View Classic Swim and I've finally decided that with The Boy now at school this year will be the year. I've started training although I missed last week because I wasn't feeling well. Currently I'm taking 30mins to do 1.4km in the pool, I hope to get a bit faster before the swim at the end of December although I noticed that the slowest time in my category is over 1hr so I should be able to beat that at least. Now I just have to keep fingers crossed that I stay healthy and the kids stay healthy so I can keep training.

The Boy has been creating again

Friday Five #9

It's that time of the week again, I missed last week due to some complete craziness round here that will not be discussed.

First up a photo of My Little girl at the girl's school house athletics carnival - I just love the determination on her face.

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I haven't done any layouts this week but I would like to share my first layout for the book of our trip. It was supposed to be just a single page but I lifted the journaling from my blog entry added a few extra details and it was too long to fit on a single page.



Credits HERE.

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Hubby is attempting to grow a porno Mo as part of Movember which is why I found myself giving a definition of porno at the dinner table on Wednesday. This is one day in ...


he has one month to complete the project. You can check out his page here - although I noticed this morning there's not much activity yet.

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Totally amazing street painting animation. You must check it out:

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How cute is this Christmas Stocking. For those of you who are crafty you may wish to keep an eye out for the promised instructions.

*Edited to add: The How-to is now up.

These are the buckets

that collect the water in our shower while it's heating up. With water restrictions meaning I can only use mains water on the vege garden twice a week, these buckets give them a welcome top up. We also divert the grey water from the shower and laundry out to the lawn and fruit trees.

Some things that made me smile yesterday

Big Girls surprise at having piano lessons at school yesterday ... you would think the fact that I asked her to put her books in her bag the night before would have been a giveaway even if she didn't hear me say her piano teacher just called ... but no ... she thought I wanted her to prepared, just in case. I think she lives in her own world populated by pokemon and dragons but I can't help but smile.

Big Girls swimming teacher calling me over to say how well she is doing and that she will be ready to move up a level in a couple of weeks ... maybe there's some dolphins living in her alternate universe too. Seriously she has been working hard on her swimming this term so it's great to see her effort getting results.

When we got home from swimming we all pottered around doing our own thing. The Boy getting into reading definately made me smile.

then he waited at the window for daddy.

Meanwhile Big Girl was doing some homework and she was rockin' those exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!!!!! EXCITING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At dinner I found myself explaining to Big Girl what porno was ... her reaction "Eewww, YUCK!!"

Then Hubby asked me if I was going to be flashing tonight - I think I'll give it a miss thanks ... and The Boy ran through the kitchen and shot me with his storm trooper gun while I was making bread.

Just a few of the good things that help me laugh off the numerous stuff-ups and irritations that are part of being a family.

Harry and Us

A couple of months back Hubby and I watched the movie Marley and Me. I laughed and laughed at the start then bawled my eyes out at the end. Why? Probably because of this:

Harry joined our family 11.5 years ago and we used to joke he was our trial baby. Harry ripped the paint off the wall in the laundry where he had to sleep at night as a puppy and when he graduated to outside we would hear him gnawing on the house outside. We've since moved and left the behind all the bitten corners.

He chewed some of the camelias and roses down to nothing, dug holes in the lawn, ripped up brand new plants, got into the playroom and ate every single lego tyre, needed major abdominal surgery to remove a skipping rope from his bowel and in spite of having the snip continued to hump people's legs when they came round to visit.

He went to obedience training and at the final show day by the time it was his turn around the ground he was so excited I just managed to drag him around the square until the final section where he jumped up and humped my leg ... we didn't hang around for a chat afterwards but slunk out in disgrace never to return.

But he has also been ridden on, endured little fingers up the nose and in the mouth with gentleness, raced like a mad thing round and round the garden with the kids, had cuddles, been painted and is just there with his big grinning, slobbering mouth in the morning and a wag of his tail ... in short you couldn't get a better dog for three kids to grow up with.

So why did I think of this today? ... because Harry is getting old and today I had to take him to the vet to discuss what our options are to deal with his nerve damage. It was only a couple of months ago that I took this photo ...

We have some time ... he still managed on the weekend to jump up on my sister and hump her leg ... *giggle*.

Posting about blogging

After I completed my big block of holiday blogging posting around here has been a bit lackadaisical ... like much of my life ... getting back into the routine has been harder then I anticipated. Although I've had plenty of intention it hasn't migrated out onto the blog. This month I'm joining on online class: Blogging for Scrapbookers. I'm hoping it will be the impetus I need to get back into recording some of the stories I know I'll forget.