L’s Neighborhood

After looking through old photos of myself and my sibs when we were kids, I have come to the conclusion that we must have worn the most ridiculous, daggy swimmers you could ever hope (not) to see.

Now I myself only saw my mother sew once, when she sewed my bridesmaid doll a dress and cape. But these definitely have a home sewn look to them. And we seemed to wear them for years.

Take me here for instance. Determined to get to the beach. And nothin', not even those baggy daggy swimmers is going to stop me. I mean mother, you could've taken in the legs a little. I bet if I keep looking I'll see one of my sisters wearing these before I got them. Probably both of them.

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And one of my favourite photos. Emjay, the oldest, with our brother and sister. Sporting a very unfashionable blue suit with a matching home done fringe trim.

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And here she is again, what maybe a couple of years later, still wearing it.

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Move forward another couple of years and my other sister is now wearing it and Emjay has a much nicer, yet still loose fitting pair of swimmers on. As you can see I'm still wearing the same pair I had on in the beginning. Because I had penty of room to grow into.

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OMFG. And I was right. Even though I was only half joking. Here is Min, wearing my baggy pink swimmers. I wonder if I ever owned a new pair.

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I have this vision of my mother, searching through her wardrobe every year the day before we went on our summer holidays, pulling out a bag full of atrocious old faded swimmers and handing us each a pair. Mind you it wouldn't have been a very full bag. We seemed to last through our childhoods with three of four pairs between us.

Are you prepared in case of a natural disaster? What do your plan and preparations include?

lol, what a strange question! Are we expecting one then?

I'm obsessive compulsive enough thanks. If I start worrying about potential natural disasters I'll be a nervous wreck.

Although, we are going to Thailand at christmas time, and I must admit that the thought has crossed my mind as I run on the treadmill each morning, that'll I'll be right to run a long way up into the mountains if a tsunami hits. Maybe even carrying one small child on my back. Which rules out my kids because they're all much bigger than me. Which is good because I won't have to do the Sophies Choice thing.

Remember when everyone was freaking out about the Y2K thing? I said to Daz, maybe we should stock up on food. And when the year 2000 clicked over with no problems I looked in the laundry and we had stocked one bottle of water and a 4 pack of baked beans. It was a pretty piss poor effort really. We'd have lasted a morning.

I think to be prepared for a natural disaster the best thing you can do is forget about supplies and just stock up on weapons. Lots of guns and ammo. Thats your best bet, because you're going to have to kill a lot of crazy desperate people to get to the supermarket and the bottle shop. Maybe even zombies. I'm not sure what sort of disaster we're talking about. Oh yes,there they are,  I wasn't looking properly. No zombies, so that makes it a bit easier.

And nail polish. Stock up on nail polish. Because new nail polish always makes you feel better.

My new bottles arrived in the mail the other day.

I'm wearing blue at the moment. But I'm wishing I'd picked Calypso.

 

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I admit to being a Denise Austin fan. Even though she never shuts up. And she always lies. But you get used to that. I now know that when she says

just one more

She doesn't really mean just one more. She means just that one more then a few more after that.

I've been doing the Fat Blasting Yoga dvd. Its pretty strenuous. And just when you think its over she brings out the stability ball and does another 15 minutes.

When I first started doing it a few weeks ago my legs would be wobbling and shaking from the effort but now I'm pretty good. My thighs feel like they're packed with cement actually. Jem was feeling them the other night and said I'll be able to crack coconuts with them. Which I guess could come in handy someday.

And I've lost 5 kilos which is also pretty handy. 4 more to go. But my aim is really firmness. I want to firm up all those bits that start going soft after 40. You know where they are. Triceps, back fat over the bra, thighs, well lots of places really.

And I made this magnet a couple of years ago when I was trying to lose weight and I think its time to put it back on the fridge to help the cause. Because she's 52 and looks pretty damn fine. And firm. Thats my aim. To be fitter at 50 than ever before. So I have 5 years up my sleeve.

Denise-austin

I'm still doing my photos but I always forget to post them. So to the week that was whenever it was.

This is a little bottlebrush that grows in our front yard. Its a pretty little thing. The flowers just curl out of the buds over a day or two.

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Lol. This is something that I think Kimba made for me about 12 years ago. I sent them to pottery classes over one lot of school holidays and now I have all these strange pottery creations about the house. This one sits in the kitchen. Always gives me a smile.

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One day I woke up, turned my calender and found this. It really wasn't enough information to know what I was meant to be doing. I can't remember what it turned out to be.

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Bacon is always good.

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Betty having a nanna nap

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The cook at the old peoples home I volunteer at makes the most beautiful cakes. She has two lucky sons. I think Lloyd would have liked to have grown up in that kitchen.

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And this was yummo. It was a strawberry/kiwi fruit salsa that we had with salmon fillets.

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A quick update for today because I seem to be perpetually tired. I don't know why but ever since DST here - almost two weeks ago - my body has gone into complete energy-less and constantly sleepy mode. It's not helpful. That said, last weekend in France was very relaxing and fun and this feeling of fatigue is just clearly something largely unrelated to non-work hours/days.

If you could only drink one beverage for the rest of your life (not including water), which one would you choose?

Well thats easy.

Wine. White. Sem/Sav/Blanc preferably. Wolf Blass is good. With ice.  Although if Jem and I are out we go with the Pinot.

And in fact wine already is just about the one beverage I drink besides water. I have one coffee in the morning. Water through the day, then wine at night. I'm thinking of giving up the coffee though. I don't really enjoy it, I think I just have it out of habit.

I haven't had any wine since last Friday though. Because on Saturday I read that drinking a glass of wine is equivalent to eating a slice of bread. So I figure I ate about a loaf of bread on Friday night. I wish I could go back and never have read that. Because I find it disturbing. I don't even like bread. But I think I've just about put it far enough to the back of my mind that I'll be able to ignore it tonight.

And I wish they'd all stop harping on about how alcohol gives you breast cancer and mouth cancer and dementia and cellulite and wrinkles, because it ruins the whole drinking experience for me. Not enough to stop mind you.

I'm always surprised when people say they don't drink. Its all my parents fault I think. I seem to recall they were drinkers when I was growing up. Now they have drinks at lunch and before dinner. And my father has a wine fridge in his bathroom. He says you never know when you might get caught out.

One of Lloyds friends dropped around the other night and they shared a bottle of wine. Thats another thing. How they say on the label there are 7.bla glasses of wine in a bottle! They are obviously not using my wine glass.

Anyway Lloyd and Lauren were going to a fancy dress party and the theme was red. Laurens was in black with red red lipstick.

I did feel a little stalkerish taking photos of Laurens glass after she was gone. I was still finding lipstick on it a week later.

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I have decided not to delve any further into the tinnitus situation for now. Even though it really can make some days bloody awful.

Main reason being that I'm fed up, and not in the mood, to get on that expensive, time wasting road of tests and specialists that seems to lead nowhere.

It all started a couple of years ago when I found a small lump in my breast one day. I went to the doctor, which lead to a mammogram, that lead to an ultrasound, that lead to them telling me it was just a cyst.

Then, my doctor decided that since I was over 40, I should have a full set of blood tests done. The one that they use to test for ovarian cancer came back at a high level. This led to a trip to the ultrasound place for an internal unltrasound, which is possible one of the most embarrassing yet humourous things I have ever had to go through. This led to a trip to the hospital for a laproscopy. This all led to nothing. Turns out there was no problem, some women just have elevated levels of whatever it is.

And then there was the Weird Undiagnosed Throat Thing. That remains undiagnosed. It started with a trip to the doctor, that led to an ultrasound, then on to the ENT guy who stuck a camera up my nose and down my throat, and finished with a barium swallow. All of this led to nowhere. Apparently I'm just making it up in my mind.

So. The tinnitus. I have been for a hearing test and I have some slight hearing loss so far. I was given a referral to another ENT doctor, but at the moment I just can't be bothered driving for an hour and a half, to sit in his waiting room for another hour and a half, then pay him a small fortune for him to tell me there's no cure anyway. I said to my doctor, well what will he tell me anyway that you haven't. And he said - he'll advise you.

Thats one problem with small town life. You have to drive to the big smoke to see any sort of specialist.

Maybe I'll look into it next year.

Will you be giving out candy to trick or treaters this year? If so, what goodies can the ghosts and goblins expect to bring home?

LOL - This is Australia man

if any little bastard comes to my door looking for tricks or treats I shall say to them

WTF - This isn't America baby, we don't do that shit here

all I'll be able to offer them is a Sao with vegemite on it

There's a chill in the air. Show us your favorite coat.
Submitted by jacolily.

Well I only have one coat. And its definitely my favourite.

I love it.

But where I live, I rarely get a chance to wear it. Only on the coldest darkest days of winter do I get to wear it. Here you rarely need more than a t shirt and a cardigan.  So I wear it every cahnce I get. And I just realised that I've been wearing it for years. I used to wear it on friday nights to football when Lloyd played in the under 14's, and I wore it this year when he played in the reserve grade, aged 19. I must say I was the best dressed mother at the football.

I wear it when we go to the pub, or when we go for an early morning walk, or to a school assembly and  I've run hom from the club in the pouring rain in it.

And I don't think I've ever washed it.

So here is my favourite (and only) coat, with me in it, with one of my favourite young ladies, a friend of Lizzies .

 

Favourite-coat

 

 

And what a day it was.

A friend of mine has a mulberry tree.

Daz went and picked mulberries because I said I'd make him a pie.

I googled a recipe and set to work. I even made my own pastry. It seemed pretty simple. Mix your berries, sugar and flour together and toss them in the pastry, whack a lid on top and cook it.

And when it came out of the oven, it looked magnificent.

Looks-good

So I thought, (luckily),  that I'd cut a piece out and take a photo of it looking warm and delicious. But it didn't look warm and delicious at all. It looked dry and more like a spotted dick.  I guess the berries didn't have enough juice in them, because it hadn't come out and mixed about with the sugar and flour. Everything was still sitting in its place. A bunch of berries amongst big lumps of flour and clumps of sugar.

So. I cut the top off the pie, scooped out the filling, put it in a saucepan and cooked it up with some alcohol I found in the pantry. Kirsh I think. Anyway it was looking good then and I spooned it back into the case. But when I tried to put the lid back on I could see it was never going to work.

So, I decided to turn it into a pastry crumble top.

Fixed-up

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Nice save me.

And in the end it turned out well. And it was warm and delicious.

Still-lookin'-good