Do you think he's trying to tell me I spend too much time on the computer?

"Please pay me some attention .. I'm begging here!"

Or is he trying to help me type?

"No silly. That's not how you spell hamburger!"

Or is he just hungry?

"You're just not getting it are you? Feed me ... please?!"

Can't decide.

I still think he's trying to tell me something.

Please let me know if you work it out ....

Our new addition ...

Her name is Bob (short for bobtail) and she lives at the shed. At least I think it's a she and from her habit of crawling inside out of the sun, I'd say she's related to me! She was just there one time when Peter went to the shed on his way back up to work. He said he was a bit startled when he noticed a plastic bag moving along the floor so he went to investigate and found Bob. He released her from the bag and she has lived there ever since.


She loves banana, eggs and the occasional insect and so far has been very little trouble at all apart from hissing at Peter the first few times they met ... so definitely related to me then!! We fed her some banana last time we were up at the shed and then the boys tried to get her to go outside. She walked about 15 metres along the shed wall then turned around and came back inside to the cooler air. A woman after my own heart! Here's a picture of her and her beautifully coloured tongue trying to eat some banana:

And here's a picture that Bradley took of her skin (on my dining table ... eeww!!) that she very kindly left out in the middle of the floor for Peter to find:

Brad loved the fact that it is almost complete and that even the legs have turned inside out. If you look closely, you can even see the little holes where the claws were. Now he wants to keep the skin but won't keep it in his room .. oh no .. it has to stay out on my bookshelf where I keep seeing it out of the corner of my eye thinking it's some creepy crawly invader come to frighten the daylights out of me and doing a very good job of it. It may just have to disappear one day when no-one is looking ....

Hi. I'm Donna and I'm weird.

I'm sitting here listening to my iPod while browsing some house/building/decorating blogs and I have just realised that I must have one of the weirdest music collections I've ever come across.

The iPod is on shuffle through my 'upbeat' playlist and here's the last 20 songs ('cos that's all I've had time to play so far):

1. The Way I Are by Timbaland
2. 1,2,3,4 by The Plain White Tees
3. Sharing the Night Together by Dr. Hook
4. Fearless by Wes Carr
5. A Little Too Late by Delta Goodrem
6. Ain't No Other Man by Christina Aguilera
7. That Don't Impress Me Much by Shania Twain
8. The Rose by Bette Midler (not sure how that made it to the upbeat playlist)
9. Pon De Replay by Rhianna
10. Blackbirds by Linkin Park
11. Sunny by Boney M
12. If Today Was Your Last Day by Nickelback
13. Hey Baby by No Doubt
14. Annie's Song by John Denver
15. If Tomorrow Never Comes by Ronan Keating
16. Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd
17. Axel F from Beverley Hills Cop
18. Just Lose It by Eminem
19. Me and My Shadow by Robbie Williams
20. Sadeness by Enigma

And that's not including the 'classical' or 'mellow' playlists... both of which my kids absolutely hate for some reason. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the volume at which I insist on playing the classical music (as loud as possible) or the fact that I usually end up either singing along or crying (or both) to the songs on the mellow list.

Oh well, at least there's some variety in there. Nothing worse than listening to the same ten songs over and over and over and over and over and .. I'm sure you get the picture (Are you listening Alex?)

Help me feel not quite so weird here people .. please share what you have on your iPod/mix CD for the car.

Oh and "I Like to Move It" has just finished and "When They Come For Me" by Linkin Park is just starting ...

Don't you just hate it when your kids beat you at something?

To try and encourage me the boys and I to get jobs, Peter said to all three of us (Brad is still too young for a job) that he would give $100 to the first one of us to get a job and keep it for at least a week. Call it an incentive, a bribe or whatever you want; point is, it actually motivated the boys to put their resumes out in the big wide world. (Mine was already out there with not much luck.)

They put their resumes in at about ten places between the two of them and got a call for an interview each at the local little supermarket. Andrew's was last week on Thursday and even though he was really nervous, he went into the interview on his own and seemed to do quite well. He was in there for about 15 minutes and came out feeling rather pleased with how it all went.

Alex's interview was supposed to be on Friday but was re-scheduled to Monday and was all over and done with, with him back in the car ready to go home, in about 6 minutes. I was thinking that wasn't necessarily a good thing but kept my thoughts to myself at the time. Despite Alex being the older child by nearly two years, in some ways Andrew seems a bit more mature and I thought that may affect Alex's chances of getting a job seeing as they were supposed to be interviewed by the same person. Alex's interview ended up being conducted by a different person, which may account for the time difference as he wasn't given the interviewer's entire work history before proceeding to the questions about him.

I have to admit, I was rather concerned that there would be all sorts of problems if one got a job and the other didn't and had a little chat to each of them about that possibility. Luckily we don't have to worry about that as I have just received a call asking me to let them both know they have been "successful in their applications" and could they please call in ASAP to collect an employment package. Congratulations boys and welcome to the beginning of your working lives!

So it looks like I miss out on the $100 bribe incentive and as they both got offered a job at the same time, there is bound to be some discussion with Peter about who gets what. I'll leave that completely up to them to work out while I go and have some psychometric and aptitude testing for a job I've applied for.

Wonder if they'll pick up on the voices in my head?

Are you sure?

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Public Service Announcement

When you are on the roof of a house, attempting to attach a new patio and effect repairs to said roof, do not be tempted to look in the windows of the house two doors over.

People think they are safe from prying eyes while inside their houses and will quite frequently wander said houses in various states of undress. Especially when they are looking for the remainder of their clothing before attempting to go outside and face the world.

So, unless you like looking at larger ladies wandering about in jeans and a pink bra (with no shirt), don't be tempted to peek! (Readers: you're welcome for that mental image!!)

And you can't blame me for blinding you ... it might have been the glare from the roof next door that blinded you.

It's not totally my fault my skin is so white that you can see it from outer space.

Or that the bra is day-glo pink and lights up the inside of the washing machine when the lid is closed. (Well actually, that kind of is my fault 'cos I bought it in the first place ... but it was cheap!)

So, in short, (too late I know!), it's your own fault if you nearly fell off the roof. That will teach you to be a Peeping Tom!

Theyr'e baaa-ack ...

... at school that is!

I thought I was doing relatively well with being organised for the boys to go back to school. I had purchased most of the book list requirements, checked that uniforms and shoes still fitted and even thought about what they could have in their lunch boxes. Then on Sunday afternoon I realised that I was still missing some of Alex's text books.

Being in Year 11 this year, he's doing six subjects plus his TAFE Cert IV course. Actually, technically he's only doing five subjects, as the school have allowed him to use one of the grid lines as a private study session to enable him to catch up on any lessons he misses by going to TAFE all day on Fridays.

Due to the exorbitant cost of some of the text books, I had tried to get most of them second hand which I managed to do for two out of the five subjects. One of the remaining subjects (English) only required a novel which I purchased from Big W as it was heaps cheaper there than at the school supplies place. So we were down to books for two subjects: Biology and Food Science and Technology, neither of which seemed to be available second hand.

Shouldn't be too bad I thought.

Got out of this easy this year I thought.

$100 should cover it I thought.

Guess what?

I thought wrong .. majorly wrong!

One, just one, of the biology books was $90! The other two were $40 and $36. The foods book was $59. For those prices, they should sit the exams for you and guarantee an A grade!

It could have been worse though .. I could have bought all of the books at full price. That would have cost me a grand total of $452 plus stationery and all those other must-have items (like a new wireless mouse that he just had to have for the new laptop he got for Christmas.) As it was it only cost $370 for text books .. a saving of $82 .. I get to keep both my kidneys .. yay!!

Anyway, 'nuff complaining for now. They're all healthy and happy to be going back to school and I'm happy to have a little bit of peace and quiet in which to whinge endlessly write a post about the little darlings.

Hope you and yours all have a great first day back too!