Update Update....

I know I'm still slack. Its just been so busy around here.

School Update: Its going well. We are still part of this social programme group. The kids part is great but the parents part is not. I spoke up last week about how I don't think it really applies to us and she agreed but as the hour went on one of the mums admitted she has no control over her kids and she just gives in to keep the peace so maybe the programme will help her. One of the other mums decided to remove her child. Her child was included cause she was initially very withdrawn and quiet but her parents are going thru some major issues with the courts involved, and strict visiting schedule/DOCS etc so I think she was just more scared than anything else. Her mum is finding the parenting programme offensive so...

Anyway other than that school is great. I've put my name down to be a regular reading helper and I'm also in the canteen every few weeks. I'm loving my time in the classroom, its great to see DD interact with her class mates and also to get to know them myself.

No shampoo: So tomorrow it will be 8 wks and frankly I'm disappointed. My hair does not feel any nicer than normally. The yukky oily stage is gone but my hair still feels rather dry but now its also super curly and I mean super curly. My future SIL is a hair dresser and she said obviously this is my natural hair - and I don't like it. I'm not sure where to go from here. Maybe I should try the bicarb wash and apple cider rinse. I'm truly tempted to go back to the chemical filled products I was using before. I miss my No Frizz Serum. If anyone has any ideas..

House Update: Wooden floor was laid this week. The laundry was installed (which will be the temporary kitchen while we building the rest of the house). The plasterboard is just waiting for the final sand down. The tiler just laid the flooring in the bathroom and will be back next week to do the walls. Only thing that can slow us down is our painter lives in a area that is currently cut off due to flood and he has a few jobs to do before ours so we are left waiting on mother nature. ((On a side note, how bizarre with a huge part of VIC burning and only a few hours away parts of NSW flooding and then again more flooding in QLD, Australia is a very weather diverse place at times)). Anyway we are on track for a late March move in.

Financial stuff: Is going terrible. I'm even more behind. I have bills overdue to be paid, money spread over various bank accounts at both banks. I need to find time to sit down and transfer money, close the accounts from the old bank and pay bills. Then once again get stuck into MYOB so I can finish our budget.

Coming Week: Once again a busy school week, Monday is my only free day. Tues is the social programme at the school, Wed DD#2 has her sports class, Thurs is reading in the class and canteen, Friday is DD#2 swimming and speech therapy. Saturday I'm meeting some old school friends for lunch, I haven't seen them for ages. And finally on Sunday we head off for a 4 day break, my parents bought a package for us at a lovely resort, so as long as the weather is nice we are going to swim and dolphin watch and generally relax. The accommodation we booked has a full kitchen so we can keep the cost down by taking our own food. We think we will have breakfast and dinner at the accommodation and eat out for lunch while doing our sight seeing etc.

Family: We are all a bit sick. Just coughs, sore throats, runny noses etc. So hubby is pottering around at the house today doing little things which won't tire him out too much and the girls and I will sloth on the lounge I think. I'm re-reading the Twilight series again (for the third time) I'm about a quarter of the way thru book 3 so that's my plan for the day.

As for my weight loss/get healthy plan well.... nothing. I've really fallen off the wagon with a lot of things... eating healthy... exercising... meal planning... saving money... living simply...

Its been so long

12 Days since I last posted. How slack.

Being a school mum is hard work and tiring, I find. Of course Kinder kids are still being picked up a bit earlier so its a very short day. Its been going very well on a whole. She had 2 bad morning this week and I spent one day with a cramped stomach worrying about her. She has been selected for this social programme with 3 other kids from Kindergarten, which is perfect for her but while they run the kids programme they run one for the mums. Which isn't so good. Its ultimately aimed at parents who struggle to control, discipline and deal with their kids. Which isn't me. DD#1 has had regular therapy for her autism for 2 years now. Any problems or ways of dealing with her has been worked thru long before now. And I don't think I'm the only mum struggling with the parents programme - 2 of the others mums are. But I'm sure we will keep doing it cause it only last for an hour and then the last hour is spent with the kids. And the parents bit is only 6 weeks.

Anyway I have alot to do today the last 2 days have been spent in a foggy mess. My brain is tired and run down. I've barely moved after getting home each day so the house is a mess. The laundry is overflowing and I have a huge folding pile and iron pile of clothes. So thats my saturday.

Like most Australians I've been glued to the TV. The Vic fires have been very sad and devastating. I know alot of people who live around the areas where the fires were, they are all safe. But there are many people who aren't. Schools, whole communities, lives and families have been lost.

Scary Saturday

I know its Monday but I wanted to tell you what happened to me on Saturday. I've mentioned before I'm terrified of spiders. Well....

Friday night we went out for dinner to celebrate a wonderful first day at school and seeing it was so hot I took them down to the waterfront for a quick swim first, so I totally forgot to get my last load of washing off the line. Saturday morning I headed out and two of my tea towels were twisted up together so I casually lent over and pulled them straight and then hung a wet towel on the line next to them, and thats when I saw it. The biggest huntsman I've ever seen - on the tea towel I just touched . Now I know all the Aussies out there are going to all go, 'just a huntsman, suck it up princess' but they terrify me. Of course it was sitting right next to the peg so I couldn't even just remove it from the line and I couldn't just walk away, what if it moved onto another item and I couldn't find it.

I had this perfect plan to use a broom to brush it off and remove it else where but I honestly couldn't even get close enough for the broom to reach. I felt like vomiting everything I saw it. Then the wind blew and it moved and spread it legs to stablise itself, oh my... it was even bigger than I thought. Argh.. In the end, knowing my husband was not going to be home for hours I ended up calling the guy across the road to remove it while I hid on the verandah.

Bit of a winge, more sad news and a no shampoo update

My cousin is getting married soon. Weddings, how lovely. I loved my wedding and enjoy weddings as much as most romantic souls but... the couple have decided they want a big fancy wedding, good on them, whatever. But they can't afford it, so they have asked all the guest to pay for their own meals - at $45 per person. I'm not going, neither are most of the cousins but my parents are. Mum's put away the $90 for the meal plus she needs to pay for accommodations cause they live so far away and although my cousin has told people a gift is unnecessary it was said in a way they would still appreciate them, so she is buying a gift too, I told her not too but she feels like she will be the only one who doesn't so she is.

My winge is, if you want a big fancy wedding then great but damn well pay for it yourself. Our weekly food budget is between $200-250 per week so that works out to be between $7-9 per person PER DAY. $45 is expensive I think, I know that for weddings this is average or even cheap. My best friend paid $65 per head for her wedding. But really... Also they have listed the dress code as strictly formal. I laughed and laughed when I read that cause at my own wedding the three most worst dressed was my aunt and uncle (parents of the groom) and my other uncle, which I expected cause what do you expect when you invite a fully tattoo'd biker who spent many years in jail ;-)

Fine they want the dress to be formal but... my grandmother, a women who is well into her 70's and living completely on an australian pension, which we all know is terrible, was told her best outfit, a blue pant suit was not good enough. Hello, she is paying $45 for her own dinner at your wedding, she can wear her pj's if she wants... is what I think.

Look weddings are lovely and we all want ours to be special but it doesn't have to be expensive to be nice. My wedding was so lovely, we were 22 & 21 so had next to no money, my husband had just finished his apprenticeship and my receptionist wage was higher then his wage so we were broke. We were also madly saving for a deposit on a house. So we found a beautfiul old fashion 'bed and breakfast' that had lovely manicured gardens with big fig trees shading everything and we had a garden wedding complete with afternoon tea. My mum booked the rooms at the bed and breakfast for older relatives and out of towners like my grandmother so they could stay there for the night and the owners daugher was getting into the catering business so she made a huge spread of hot and cold foods. There were chairs and lovesets put all through out the garden for guest to relax. I think the whole cost of the wedding ended up working out to be somethink like $15 per head, and with keeping the guest list down it was affordable.

OK, I'll get off my soap box now but I'm so annoyed at my cousins, having been married for 10 yrs now I'm not up with wedding do's and don'ts but I think expecting people to pay $45 plus saying they need to dress to the nines, as well as hoping for a gift is a bit rude. ((although not a surprise from this family))

Well my sad news, as mentioned my great aunt died the other day, the funeral is on wednesday but on the same day one of my cousins who I'm very close to was rushed to hospital with breathing problems, and once there it was deteremined he also had a staff infection in his shoulder and a blood clot near his heart. He has been very ill for a long time, many years ago he was in a serious accident while working on a road crew for a council. His back was almost broken and walking and moving has been an issue ever since. There is nothing more doctors can do, his spine has been fused and thats it really. He will be in pain for the rest of his like. He may of picked up the staff infection during one of his back operations, hospitals are a common place to get it. But I have no idea what will happen with the blood clot, its a waiting game now.

Now for my hair..... I've finally figured out what it feels like. You know when you use heaps of hair spray and the next day you wake up and your hair is sticky and really knotty, thats what it feels like. Every time i brush my hair it clumps together again and gets knotty. Is this oily??? I don't know, having dry frizzy hair I've never had oily hair before, I expected oily to be shiny and slippery. I think I'm up to 4 wks today so hopefully something better will happen soon cause really right now no matter how many times I brush my hair it gets knotty as soon as my hair moves again. Last night I brushed for an hour and it was still getting knotty, I ended up braiding it which I'll redo today.

I'll update later today with my meter readings, I'm dreading the electricity reading though, yesterday was 41 degrees here, and the whole week has been so so hot. The air con has got a big workout.

No Shampoo & Sad News

It was 3 weeks and 4 days ago that I last washed my hair with shampoo... I have very dry curly frizzy hair and shampoo has always been pretty mean to it, the last few months I've been buying very expensive creamy shampoo & conditioner which was slightly better but still not great. Usually I'd wash my hair and tie it back with lots of products in it for 4 days maybe even 7. Once was hair was a bit 'dirty' it was manageable, but then I'd wash it again after a week (so only ever went 2 wks without washing my hair). Last month I got really sick of it and decided to give No Shampoo a go. I've heard about it from a lot of people, heard about how the hair naturally sorts it self out after about 6 wks or so. I wonder if mine will do so around 6 wks as well or not. Right now it feels OK, not dry like it usually is but definitely not oily like others would be at this stage, I think being so dry it will take longer for the oily look to happen. The only problem is its hard to brush, its just doesn't feel right...

Now the sad news, my grandmothers sister, so my mums aunt died today. She was in a nursing home but not overly sick or old, but she just decided that she didn't want to live anymore so she stopped eating. She lasted about 3 weeks, in the end catching colds and having breathing problems. She lives a far distance from us but I'm sure we will go to the funeral. To support nan. They were very close, she used her sisters name as my mums middle name and how appropriate it was cause my mum is alot like her aunt.

So thankful for Tupperware

I have pantry moths, they arrived in a box of Rice Bubbles, I only caught them when the first 10 or so became moths, thats when I went searching and found the eggs and wormy things. Luckily not much else has been affected cause just about all my food is in airtight tupperware containers, yay. They certainly are sneaky little things hay.

So I'm well and truly on track to get up to date with our bookwork, not this week like I would have loved to but hopefully by next week. The girls are going to my MIL's on wednesday for the whole day so that will help heaps.

Todays plans: Is to tidy the house up, my husband was sick yesterday so while the girls and I were at swimming lessons and having morning tea with a friend he was at home generally just being a messy man. Honestly I think he can make almost as much mess at the girls can. And then once again working on the accounts.