Narangba Community

Look what we got in the mail today! Lots of nice goodies in there. I love getting mail, particularly parcels, which are presents and then from a different country.

To see a full write up on what we received you can check out hubby’s blog post about it all.

Apart from presents, we have shifted around a couple of rooms in the house and I now have my own office (well hubby has a desk in it for his gaming/work pc). In my office I have my computer desk, sewing table, and craft table (plus mum’s mannequin). We also have the large green couch, school cupboard, filing cupboard and his desk.

While hubby and I were moving/cleaning things, I sent the two older girls outside to clean up the yard and then to mow it. They did well on their first attempt and have both expressed a desire to do it again at a later date. I will let them mow the back yard but I will still trim the edges and mow the front yard.

I don’t usually do this because they are easy to make but so much easier to break. Instead of making a specific resolution, I though I would make a generalised one.

To improve my health, be more creative and try to de-clutter.

Health wise (being a little more specific here), I would like to include healthier meals more often, be more active, and reduce (but not take away completely) my sweets intake. Having received a new line trimmer for Christmas (yes I wanted it), just starting it will increase my activity level. I also want to try incorporating more vegetarian meals, and buying better sausages (the current ones aren’t the best, but are good for when you have no money). I want to be looking and feeling good by the time of my sister’s wedding at the end of the year.

Creativity – I hope to draw, sew, cook, and maybe even paint more. I want to produce nice clothes for myself, that fit well, clothes for the kids and even a pair of shorts for hubby. I want to try new recipes, create new recipes and put more recipes up on my site. I want to practise my drawings so that we have something decent to put on our calendars at the end of the year.

De-clutter – to get rid of the things we don’t need, won’t ever use or are broken. I will however let hubby clean out his own stuff if he so desires, but I will give the kids a helping hand.

Now that I have said these things, I can only try to keep them. I won’t do them all at once, but gradually so as not to overwhelm.

So, now you know mine, what are yours?

What a fun day we had.

It started off with an early wake up (expected) by the kids after a very late night, followed by present giving and then preparing for the day. (And also the hatching of another dragon)

Mum came over at 8am and we all had a nice brunch together, followed by more gift giving.

It wasn’t long before I had to rush Hubby off to the airport so he could catch his flight to NZ for his own family ‘reunion’. On the way there I was able to observe the highway and see how jammed up it was on the north bound road which meant I would need to take an alternative route to my sister’s place out in the country. A quick stop home for my sunnies and everything else I forgot (M4 was asleep most of the road trip there), then it was out to the back roads for the trip to my sister’s place. The drive was quite good and pleasant.

I spent the rest of the afternoon and into the early hours of the evening enjoying a quite relaxing time. There was lots of laughter, water guns being sent back outside, kids playing with puppies and getting soaked, car driving in the back paddock and a lot of good laughs and conversations. J9 even had her turn behind the wheel and if I new how to post videos from my mobile phone on here I would show it. She was remarkably good for someone who has never driven a car before, though she did love doing circles with increasing speed though!!!

All in all it was a fun day and we enjoyed it with good company out in the country (the weather was perfect too, beautiful breezes and mild temperatures).

My daughter is looking to sell two of her mice.

They are both female, brown and white in colour and hand tame. They are about 7 weeks of age.

They are gorgeous little mice and make great pets (or maybe a Christmas gift).

She is asking $4 for the pair of mice (that is $2 per mouse)

There may also be more mice for sale in the new year (towards the end of January)

Just a simple request.

If you have contacted me through the contact form on my site and provided an email address on it, can you please ensure that the email address works. Otherwise I can’t contact you!

Thanks!

My latest piece! I was sunburnt, had a pattern I altered and needed to try out, and some spare material that needed using up (which looked good on the 9yr old). So I whipped this shirt up in a couple of hours (triple stitch on the sewing machine for strength and stretch). The neckline is a little dodgy but I am glad I found that out before I went and made those sports shirts I was going to make. Now I can alter it appropriately.

J9 had her birthday party yesterday. It was 20 days early.

She had a great time, as did her friends, and a little bit of sunburn later we all went home and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon.

Anyhow, I will leave you with a couple of pictures my hubby took. (not adding any of the party guests though sorry)

I always liked that song, the one by Monty Python. I think it is a great song to sing when you are down in the dumps or feeling overwhelmed by life. (It is the 2nd song on the list)

If you don’t like the song then you can always play the glad game that Pollyanna plays.

I am going to play a version of the glad game right now.

Bad Vs Good

We had 2 escapees today!
These guys (eastern blue tongue skinks) were in a temporary home since they were busy being fumigated and their old home is getting carted off to the dump. The dog, curious that she is, decided to investigate and the next thing we knew, the holding tub was on it's side, lid ajar with no skinks in sight.
The first skink, Pebbles, was easy caught, bathed and then returned to her holding tub. She was rather grubby. Bam Bam was a little more difficult to get ahold of. He was under the kids cubby house and was not coming out even to promises of food in a nice warm box.
When hubby got home the hunt continued until he got sick of the slippery skink and lifted one end up of the heavy cubby house. I chased the skink out with a rake handle and M12 caught him. He wasn't as grubby as the female so he went straight back into the holding tub.
Through all of this, the kids learnt the valuable lessons of keeping the patio clean (or you have to do it after dinner and in the dark), making sure reptile enclosures are kept locked and how to wash out spray hair colour from their hair.

These gorgeous two mice are up for sale. They are brother and sister. The boy being the one with the white band around his waist.
They are currently 3 weeks old and should be ready for new homes by the end of this week (29/11/2008)
Just a couple more shots of these little cuties.

They are starting to hatch! A month before my estimated hatch date!
5 have hatched so far, they are feisty little things.
I discovered that they were hatching when I went to check on the eggs.
Exciting and surprising times. And extra busy times ahead!
Time to go fill in my log book!!!

The army just turned up at our doorstep. Well, one guy from the army did. He was asking if there was any damage from the storm that needed urgent attention, damage to the house.
I sent him next door.
Apart from that I have registered for the council green waste after storm pick-up. I just need to saw up some tree limbs now and drag it to the curbside.

A deightfully crunchy yet soft slice that could be served on it's own or with a meal. You could possibly sweeten it up a little and dare to serve it for dessert, as wafers in icecream (minus the cheese of course)

What a lot of fun we had, assessing the storm damage from last night. As you can see from the tree there was a lot of strong wind last night. That tree would have stood close to 4 meters high, now it stands about 60 cm high.
As you can see by the other tree, we had a branch land on our guttering. No damage to the house fortunately but that meant another branch had to be removed.
The house seems to be unscathed, though the fence is not quite so lucky. The way the fence leans in the photo does not do it justice, it makes itlook like there is a trick to the photography, when really there isn't and in real life it leans more so, but does not look to be going anywhere. Phew!
Just waiting for the real estate to get back to us in regards to what they will do. They have been inundated with calls due to the storm damage from last night.
We aren't a real emergency, fortunately.
Our neighbours above us lost tiles off their roof and now have water throughout their ceiling and house. The neighbours below us almost had their house flooded due to bad plumbing. Oh, and our fence looks like it could fall on them. They have only lived there for 2 months now! Another neighbour has had their pool filled with mud. I think I heard some pothole covers put back in place last night also.

Well, tonight has been interested.
I read a story by candle light (the light of a few candles), had a bbq dinner and slept all of the kids together.
We have just come out of a nice long blackout, after a horrendous storm - http://news.google.com.au/news/url?sa=t&ct=au/0-0&fp=4920c9f00786b2ae&ei...
We had the heavy lid of the compost bin torn off and thrown around the yard, our largest tree snapped in half, the branch of another one snapped and lying across the roof (yet to inspect that one better), and our fence is now leaning at an akward angle towards our neighbours roof (have to get the real estate onto that one).
So, this means our monday morning will be spent cleaning up after the storm, by pruning trees, and on the phone to the real estate.
Power was restored at 1.45am and there are still many houses without power yet.

We have 2 clutches of central (inland) bearded dragons in the incubator now due to hatch around Christmas time and mid January 2009.
The parents are lemon (female) and gold (male) in colour.
The male in particular has a lovley varied orange and gold colour with a black beard. Click the thumbnails to see the large images.
We are situated just north of Brisbane, near Caboolture.

We are taking pre-orders now for up to 75% of each clutch at a 20% deposit*, 20% discount on the normal price.
Once they are hatched the prices will be $80 each.
Order now, pay $16* and get them for $64 in total.

*Deposit is non-refundable

BSOD stands for blue screen of death. My trusty pc decided it was time for a holiday yesterday. It is currently out of action since it needs a rebuild. We tried, with no success, to boot it up from an old backup but that didn't work, so it was a complete rebuild. Hopefully this will fix the problem.
The rebuild would be done by now if it hadn't been for the multiple mini blackouts we had this afternoon. The mini blackouts were eventually followed by a proper blackout which lasted till just after hubby went out (at least 30 minutes).
In the meantime I am sharing the staff computer, or the kids computer. Regardless of which one I use, I am pretty much out of action since the kids follow me pretty much everywhere and we can't have them playing in the office.
Enough rambling from me.
Time for bed, long day tomorrow.

My next bit of sewing was for my sister. It is a wrap around skirt. I am thinking I wouldn’t mind one as well. It was dead easy to make with the only time consuming bit being the fact I made bias binding for the skirt. Getting the waist band just right was also a little trying as I had to work out the radius of the circle. I was then fortunate enough to come across this site.

This here is where I got the pattern from.

I thought this picture was the best one to show off my new pants. Especially since I didn’t think a shot of my rear end was the best for this blog.

Well, I have done it, I have created a pair of pants that are either a) really awful and people are embarrassed to mention them; or b) great looking pants that look good enough to have been bought so no one asked if I made them. They are full length pants with the pockets and inside lining of the waist being made from an old bed sheet I picked up at a local Life Line shop.  The main material itself was something I picked up for $1 per meter from East Coast Fabrics in their bargain bin. I liked it, bought 5m of it and made a cushion cover out of it before deciding on the pants. And the pants were fun to make and too big so I had to take them in a little. Next time I will make them a couple of sizes smaller perhaps.

Before I finished the pants I actually finished the latest in my crocheting projects. A red and black beanie type hat. I really need to learn how to shape these things and follow patterns, but the patterns are confusing to say the least. All those numbers and letters mixed up together and the fact that I am winging it for now. My next project will be a rag rug, something for our floor. Time to go hunting through the Life Line shops for second hand bed sheets!

Now onto the mice bit.

I do a bread run every Monday, deliver it around the neighbourhood (the kids do actually), and other people. Today one of our neighbours came over to ask if we wanted a rat cage since their rats had since departed them. The rat cage was great so it was carried over for us and all we had to do to it was fix up a couple of holes in the wires, which I did with some wire we have in the garage. It is an outside cage (woohoo, I now have an excuse to keep the mice outside) and is now resting in one of the more coveted spots of the patio. The kids have been told that the mice go out during the day and the pregnant girls need to come in at night time, though the girls may just stay inside for now and this will become the new bachelor pad. Yay! Stinky male mice outside!

Well, that’s it for tonight, though we did go here for a nice lunch today, very filling.

Well, it was going well until we met with resistance from the rock hard garden we call a vegetable patch. I think I will need to call in the big guns and get the hubby to dig it up for me, or pray for enough rain to soften the dirt some.

The side of the house has had the majority of the big weeds eradicated though and I am thinking of putting up with the whipper snipper/line trimmer in order to do the top of the rock wall. I know that won’t happen though.

I think I will let the kids play Wii for now, they did a good job earlier.