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 Her child was included cause she was initially very withdrawn and quiet but her parents are going thru some major issues with the courts involved, and strict visiting schedule/DOCS etc so I think she was just more scared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...

Week In Review 26/1 - 1/2

This past week has been a real mixed bag. The funeral was on Wednesday and it was horrible to see my grandmother so upset and frail. I really fear she will be next and so does she, she mentioned its her turn next a few times. She is 77, she sister was 81 and their brother is 75.

Before going to the funeral we went to visit my cousin in hospital, that was a horrible experience as well, he looked terrible, his body was a shaking mess which he had little control over. We only got to see him for 10 minutes cause they decided to rush him in to get a series of test cause breathing is becoming more and more of an issue. The results weren't positive, he is looking at a minimum of 6 wks in hospital. He is only about 33. Because of the problems with his heart and the blood clots there is a real risk of death or serious complications. We are still keeping his problems a secret from my grandmother because we truly don't think she will cope at the moment and have no real answer or hope to give her at the moment anyway.

On the positives it was a great first day at school for #1 and also two great days for #2 in the 'big' room at preschool.

The real estate contacted us and although we know them very well they have to do a rental inspection, we've been lucky and had 14 months without one but the timing couldn't be worse. The office is a total mess, I mean a total mess, a cleared space for a walk way thru it and a small cleared space at the desk for hubby to sit. We have been using it for not only office stuff but for mine and his clothes, the kids misc. bits and pieces they don't use all the time and all my avon selling stuff. Overall the house needs a total clean and yard needs a huge clean up. I really didn't want to put too much time into it cause I'll be packing up stuff in a month or two in preparation for our move but now I'll have to tidy, clean and declutter this week.

No Shampoo: Is going ok. Actually the day of the funeral my hair was great, mum commented on how soft it was but as the day went on it got a lot worse and Thurs/Fri it was a matted mess of knotts again. Today it is oily but manageable and with my dry frizzy curls it doesn't look oily, I could easily wear it out if I want to, but I can feel the oily when I touch it. Its now been 5 whole weeks since I washed it. I'm hoping for umm... something in the next week or two. So far my hair has been no better than its been in the past. Obviously I've been avoiding those few days of frizzy breazy mess I get for the first 3-5 days after washing but I've not gotten a lot of great hair days. I do wonder what I'll do in the future about colouring over grey, I do colour it every6-12 months, I don't get a lot of grey but at 31 I'm sure that will increase.

Meter Reading: I didn't end up taking reading last week so this will be a fortnightly update
Meter #1 29183
Meter #2 31935
A total usage of 430 and a daily usage of 30.7. I really need to do some research to find out what I should be aiming for. I'm sure this daily usage is bad, we've been running the airconditioning alot over the last fortnight, like most people who live in NSW, I'm sure.

Water 59609, which worked out to be a daily usage of 117 per person.

Garden: Here are some photos, I have strawberries coming on which is really exciting. And the lemons are not getting bigger but are starting to turn yellow a bit. I ended up pruning the lemon tree a bit and trying it to a stake cause it was heavy on one side and leaning well over. I also cut off two of the smaller lemons. It just seems to be really struggling to support itself and 10 lemons in this heat so I cut some branches and the 2 lemons off, I'm not sure if its the right thing to do but the tree is still young, only a bit over a year old and the first time its produced fruit. I just wanted to lighten its load a bit.


Coming Week: Busy week for us. The first full week of full time school. #2 starts a sports programme tomorrow, I have a heap of avon deliveries to drop off and I also have my first day of volunteering in the school canteen on Thursday.

I'm hoping to get some baking done this afternoon for lunches and morning teas. I'm going to look for stuff I can bake and freeze and just take out as I need it.

Finally: I want to thank everyone who has been visiting my blog, I love seeing how many drop by and where they are all coming from, its exciting to see all the international visitors as well. Please leave a comment to say hello next time you drop by.

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.