FFishy fishy ffish

... I always smile at that movie catchphrase!... Recently we inherited a Goldfish from my sister, because he had eaten a hole in her other 'more favoured' fish; and he .. well he had died as a result. So all packaged up with feed, a bowl, and some plants - a goldfish meets his new mummy and daddy, and toddlder.

A little trip to the fish supply shop to help build the momentum of a new fantastic pet, saw us decked out with new pebbles for the bottom of the tank and a couple bottles of fandangle chemicals or salts or whatever, which is apparently what goldfish prefer... But while stockpiling the goodies into the basket, we spy the big Goldfish tank and stop to think that if we are buying all this other stuff anyway - we may as well buy our first inherited fishy a playmate to keep him company. The pet shop owner reaches in and picks the fish from the tank, not the fish I would have picked - but I kept thinking 'they are so small - are they worth such a fuss!?"

Two beautiful goldfish swimming in our tank,
one got grumpy and ate the other ones crank... shit joke.
At first I thought Sticks (one was Sticks and one was Fingers - as in Fish Fingers and Fish Sticks) was just waiting diligently uptairs for the feed to come in. Then I thought he might have been having a nap before dinner - but upon some rapid finger tapping and some "ffishy fishy fish" tunes, I sadly realised Sticks was probably not just faking it for some attention. Crap. Now I had a situation on my hands as my toddler had noticed my vigorous attention at the tank. "Whats happened mummy"!!???

"... umm Sticks has died", sounding folorn yet trying to keep it upbeat. Like when Abba try and sing a ballad. But still not a lot of response from my toddler and I wonder just how much I should push the message of death and finality before trying to convince her that fish and chips is still a tasty Friday night option. In the end I asked my beautiful husband to use the fish n chip scoop to rescue Sticks from the tank in time for a fitting burial. Fingers was looking a little too hungry for my liking. Little fishy Sticks was now encased in an empty matchbox in my fridge ready for the burial the next day.

I thought my toddler might have wanted to 'send him off' or something, but appparently with every new dawn comes a new adventure and there has been no mention or recollection of that once-upon-a-time fish "Sticks' swimming around our tank. Well Sticks certainly got his comeupunce - he ate my sisters fish, got moved across town to my house and inherited a new flat mate - who may or may not have led to his demise. Needless to say fish "fingers' is now a solitary figure and will remain so for some time. At least until I get around to disposing of the dead fish in the matchbox sitting in my fridge. Seems my toddler didn't remember at all... small miracles!

No means No

I am a big believer in the saying "No means No". However, recently I have been a little disheartened by the abuse of the word, often hearing it bandied about like hugs at a politicians pre-election campaign. The word itself is quite powerful. Just two letters and one syllable, no preamble - only a direct no nonsense message. Or so I thought...

Most toddlers go through the "Why?" stage, which I was fully prepared for being a think on my feet kinda gal. But nothing could have prepared me for the "No" stage! Blatant, defiant and antagonistic; I have heard this word in all its tones and this is usually before morning tea!

It is very frustrating until I started to think about the word in a different light. No longer does "No mean No". In my house, the word "No" is simply punctuation.

These boots were made for walking

I have a beautiful toddler, who in personality is very similar to me. I love her so much, but every so often - and mainly because we are so similar, we butt heads. I decided it would be a good idea to spend some mummy/daughter time, with my toddler... alone... just the two of us... to help combat our headbuttedness.

With the constant question asking and whiny voices, who couldn't think of a more enjoyable day out than going shopping together? Besides, if the sales people really started to shit me - I could always just set my toddler onto them. I'm pretty sure sales people and toddlers are one and the same, I say again - question asking and whiny voices.

Remember when you would get frocked up for a big night out - piecing together an outfit that made you feel omnipotent? This was me, getting ready to go into combat for the afternoon at the shops with my toddler. I pulled together the very fashionable skinny leg jeans, the black (dontcha be messin wit yo mumma) knit top, and a pair of big black high heeled boots! I was ready.

The first ten minutes shopping were terrific, but pretty soon I realised a toddlers will is stronger than my own. When a toddler doesn't want to shop - its not going to happen. By the time we made it back to the carpark, kicking and screaming - that was me, not her - everyones' patience was done for. In that brief second between unlocking the car door and packing my toddler into her seat, she had run off back through the carpark screaming at the top of her lungs!!

It was then that I realised. "It is bloody near impossible to run in high heeled boots"! I may have been dressed for combat, but my boots were made for walking... not chasing!!

Bringing home the bacon

When my husband and I were on our honeymoon in the States and Canada, we often found it really difficult to find fresh fruit and vegetables. Leaving LA was a Godsend - not only because it was such an unfriendly city, but because the whole time we were there we had been subjected to some pretty unhealthy food! Most impressive was blue, red and bright green corn chips served with a Mexican meal one afternoon! We did find a few salads on menus around the place though and one night feeling a little peckish at midnight, my husband and I decided to order room service. We ordered a salad to share. It arrived in the largest size mixing bowl in a standard kitchen set and consisted of an entire iceburg lettuce and what seemed like a kilo of bacon and a litre of blue cheese dressing! It was awesome - but not really what we had in mind when ordering a light salad to snack on!

When we arrived in London Ontario, about an hour and a half from Toronto we walked the city to try and find some fresh produce. We finally discovered a beautiful indoor space called Convent Garden Markets. We went nuts stocking up on vegetables and fruit to snack on, just to try and combat the scurvy that had set in while in the States! But it wasn't until we got to Toronto that we found the Holy Grail of produce. The angels had sang and a light came down from the heavens - It was the most inspirational and beautiful display of vegetables I had ever seen. This was such a phenomonal sight it was almost enough to turn vegetarian...

If it wasn't for the memory of that dripping hot, crackly bacon on that bloody salad in LA!

Order Chaos Domesticbliss

I have already mentioned that by keeping a clean and tidy house, you can create more time in your day. The other plus by keeping a clean house is that you can keep some order in your life! After all, it's not easy running around after a toddler, a newborn and a husband - although I don't so much run after my husband anymore, more of a trot... Where did my fitness go...

Absolutely EVERYTHING in my house has a home and because of that I never get caught out looking for the car keys while running late, or my toddler's half sucked lolly bracelet she thought was in the toybox but turns out to be in the sandpit, or the childrens panadol at 3am!

You know all of that crap that gravitates around your kitchen bench right near the phone, or on the little shelf near the front door, or the pile of crap jammed hard into the hallway cupboard - so tight no-one has opened the cupboard since 2003?... Well all of that stuff needs a home to call its own, so it doesn't develop security issues later in life. If you go through the stuff that accumulates in these places and put it where it should live or in the very least a big pretty box, you will create a sense of harmony in your house. It's feng shui of the house and mind! I like to call it

Order Chaos = Domesticbliss.

My husband thought that was a really catchy term too and loves to go on about my O.C.D!

Bless...

You don't make friends with salad

Most people I know, focus the creation of a meal around meat as the centrepiece. It's not often you hear about a 'swede a vin' or an 'onion bourginon', but whenever I am really inspired about creating a dish, it is always because I have some new fantastic vegetable or a great bulk buy vegie box from the markets. As a kid I would cook myself carrots, peas and potato with a chop on the side instead of eating Friday night fish'n'chips - I loved vegetables that much!

I found the most bountiful bunch of silverbeet at the markets recently and couldn't wait to get creative in the kitchen with this luscious leafy produce. I started by making a silverbeet lasagna using the lovely green leaves only. The stalks I had cut out of the individual leaves then went into a minestrone soup, which simmered away while I prepped the lasagna. The stalk ends I diced up and used in a stirfry and my husband who abhors silverbeet, thought they were water chestnuts - what a versatile vegetable it was! The best part of all was that this vegetable had taken all the hard work out of planning three nights meals - I can't wait to get to the markets this week to find the next inspirational vegetable!! I'm sure my husband can't wait either, if only every vegetable tasted like potato...

Its not easy being green

I like to think of myself as environmentally concious. Recently I put my cardboard boxes into the laundry trough so that they could be wet down to use in the compost heap. The idea being that when I did a load of washing, the rinse water coming out of the machine would wet down the cardboard for me to rip up.

It wasn’t until I walked past the laundry and saw the pool of water snaking its way under the door that I realised the flaw in my plan. Having been away for Easter and unfortunately having to do catchup amounts of washing - I had also put a pile of dirty washing on the floor right over the drainage hole. Not only that but my floor slopes in the opposite direction of the hole!! I had now made myself another load of washing by using every single towel in the house to mop up!

Not really sure how the environment had benefited here; my carbon footprint may actually be one step forward, two steps back…

On the plus side, it’s the cleanest my floors have ever been!

There is no instruction manual for life...

There is no instruction manual for life! I think that's why when I cook or sew or generally do anything, I kinda make it up as I go along. There is a real sense of achievement if something turns out the way I planned and if it doesn't I just put it down to learning and because I haven't followed the instructions, guidelines or pattern - well I cant really beat myself up can I!?

I'm not saying I leap into things blindly, I do some research about whatever it is I am undertaking first, then have a crack. If I want to cook something I'm not familiar with, I look up five or six recipes online first then take the best bits from each one, and generally adapt which ever method sounds the quickest or easiest! If I want to crochet or sew something, I find a similar garment and 'eye it up' - basically using grade eight geometry, anyone can do this! Sometimes I will cut my own pattern based on the 'eye it up' principal, just to check its going to work first - I cut corners but I'm not a doofus.

Gardening has its share of guesswork too! I certainly don't measure how much blood'n'bone I am putting on my vegies, but I do know that one of my handfuls will cover a square meter - pity none of the gardens in my yard are actually square! So you see, even when you do have instructions on how to do stuff, it doesn't always suit your own situation anyway...

Super Freakette

There are days when I seem to get more done than others. I try to fit a lot into any given day, because I have so many things I want to get done and so many things I actually need to get done. Mostly the things I want and need to get done are the same things; I'm lucky because I really enjoy my day to day routine looking after my beautiful children, cooking, gardening and housestuff. But there are definitely days which are more productive than others and I think I'm piecing it together... I say this tentatively as my research is ongoing, but here is what I know so far...

Firstly, let me say, I finally understand why my mum was such a clean freak with her house! We used to occasionally tease mum with the 'clean freak' term, when our being messy kids would interfere with her grand plan of a sparkly home, often asking her "when the queen was coming?" Now I feel really bad about that because I finally get it. And this is why - if your house is clean, everything else will happen with relative ease AND it will make more time! I had to buy a new watch when all of sudden my day went to 25 hours instead of 24... god that's awful. Anyway, sorry mum for calling you a 'clean freak' all those years, I am now donning the term 'clean freakette' in your honour!

So, on the days when I achieve lots, its because my house is clean. When everything is where it should 'live', everything happens so much quicker and then keeping it tidy once its actually clean seems to take less time too! This way I am able to cram more into my day and less into my to-do list. I am loving myself sick with this new found appreciation for a clean house!

Long time listener, first time caller...

I have been a fan of blogs for some time now and never considered that it may be something that I might actually do myself! You know when you hear people say "I can't believe it happened to me!", well, its kinda like that - but with less money from the lotto winnings...

On my final visit to my obstetrician for the birth of my second (and final) daughter, it occured to me that I should have kept a blog during my second pregnancy. That way I have a permanent reminder of how crap it was if I ever relapse and begin to ponder a third addition - usually during a half lucid and champagne induced lovey dovey moment.

So I was sitting in the waiting room, wishing for the onset of pre-eclampsia just so I could get induced and get the whole pregnancy thing done for, when I realised just how much I have got to say! With one toddler already at home and a newborn on its way - it didn't look like anyone there was going to listen, so here we are!