Ok fellow home schooling mamas (and dads!)  ... I need to whinge.  Anyone reading my blog for a while knows that Frodo home schooled, then went to school last year & had a horrid time, and was excited to return to home education late last year.  He's had a rough year, lots of illness and such, but we've still been moving along with his studies.  He's quirky and easily distracted as always, but we work around that.

The BIG problem that I'm having trouble getting around is his WHINGING!  Almost everything I ask him to do, schoolwork wise (actually... this is pretty true for any area of his life) that is NOT computer based, results in a great deal of complaining and whining about how BooooooooooOOOOOOOOring it is!  He mumbled under his breath several times how he hoped our excursion yesterday wasn't boring, only to have great fun in the end.  He enjoyed using History Odyssey when we previously home schooled and wanted to start it again (we're using lvl 2 now), which was cool with me.. but now he balks at reading any of the books that are part of the curriculum.  He's currently reading The Golden Goblet, which sounds like a bit of an Ancient Egyptian adventure tale... and informs me he did not like reading the first book and he doesn't like reading this one either.  

He was doing skwirk lessons earlier, text types was the subject, and I gave him the option of choosing either an information report lesson or a recount (with the suggestion that he could write something about his excursion to remember it by) well.. those are both BORING he says.  He eventually did the lesson on recounts.. but doesn't want to actually recount anything!?!  *pulls own hair out*

I have no problem with him doing a LOT of his school work on the computer, because clearly that is his passion and it's the way of the future anyway... but I have to have written samples, and for balance he needs to read actual books, and write things with an actual pencil etc.   Today I lost the plot momentarily and said fine, if you are that bored do you think I should start looking for a private school where you can start fresh, that way you wouldn't be bored and could see if it worked better than the local public school did!?!?!  I flat out told him I refuse to keep doing this if he is going to whinge & argue with me about every little bit of schoolwork.

Somehow he seems to think that homeschooling is about playing mine-craft all day long?!   (yep, already have limits in place there, he can play mine craft or other games after all his schoolwork is done for the day!)  I'm seriously considering just not planning any schoolwork for next week... but also NOT turning on ANY of the computers all day... or the Wii.  I think maybe he'd get the idea that I'm not going to have this fight, and that if he isn't willing to keep his end of the bargain then life is gonna be pretty boring.

But then... I feel like a real bitch.  I want him to enjoy home schooling and be enthusiastic.. but at the very least I want him to be enthusiastic to just get it done!   I keep letting him know that I do this because I love him, and that this choice means I give up being able to work or go to Uni during school hours and that I'm feeling a bit unappreciated about it.  But I really don't know how else to tackle this... I don't like making him feel guilty or worried that I'll send him back to school..

I've thought about swinging back toward unschooling.. but I know Frodo and I know that he would spend 80% of his time bouncing between mine craft on the computer, Skylanders on the Wii and surfing the web looking at Zelda walk through's and such (all the things that make up most of his free time now)   And honestly... that's not my idea of providing a high quality, well rounded education (which I've committed to providing to the Home Ed Unit application).    Oh how I wish I had a kid that would read or decide to investigate different things!  But I don't... I have a kid that perseverates on the very few things he is currently obsessed with.  

Suggestions would not be considered unsolicited advice at all *deep sigh*

Bite me blogger for eating my post!

 Happy Mothers' day to all you blogging mamas out there!   I had a very lovely one.  I woke up to be presented with a beautiful card the boys made for me while they stayed overnight at their grandparents house Friday.  Nana turned them loose with scrap book supplies and the result is gorgeous... and I fail to have a picture!!! lol   Then hubby made me poached eggs & toast, which is my favourite breakfast ever and a nice mocha to go with it.  NOM!

Hubby just happened to catch the winner of the last Australian 'Master Chef' tv series at a bookstore in the city, signing copies of her cookbook.  So guess what both his mum AND I got for Mothers day?   Signed copies of a really lovely cookbook... with some delicious sounding recipes to try out.  I've already chosen the first ones to be added to this weeks menu hehe.  

Then we headed off to the family 'do' at a park about half an hour away.  The whole family was there and we had lunch picnic style and laughed and had a great time.  The kids kicked the soccer ball around and we adults took turns herding the masses of them over to the playground area and back.  

 A few pics from the day... 2 of my 3 plus their cousins sorely testing the maxiumum bums per chair ratio for this seat lol! 

Merry pigging out on cake :)   And last, but not least,  Sam... where he could have happily stayed the ENTIRE day!  He positively adores Humphrey, and she (yep, she lol) is so sweet & tolerant.   They kept each other company very well. 

 It was a really nice day... right up until someone, I can't remember who, mentioned something about school.  @@  Then my SIL, opened her big mouth.  "OH *neices name* LOVES school, she has since the first day she went! and she gets MUCH better SOCIALIZATION there than we could ever give her at home!"   This is the second weekend in a row she has done this, and I'm just about pissed off.. as my children were RIGHT THERE!   I'm hoping they were busy eating their cake & didn't notice their Aunt basically bashing our choice of education.  

I bit my tongue all the way home, so the kids didn't hear me abusing their Aunt.  Then I hit facebook and grumbled on my status update, and yes SIL is on my friends list.  I was a good girl and didn't name her directly... just simply said it's frustrating when people assume we are judging THEIR parenting choices just because we happen to make different ones!  Somehow I doubt she'll even 'get' that it was her honestly.  But it made me feel better to say SOMETHING.   

Honestly, it was REALLY hard to not point out that the 'socialization' her daughter learned at school had her being snotty & ignoring her cousins as they tried to say good bye to her and give her a hug.   Yeah.. I'll pass on that socializtion thanks.

HOWEVER!  After having a mini rant, I refused to let this do more than dent this nice day.  Strider & I went outside as soon as the sun was not directly in our faces, and started planting the seedlings I bought yesterday!   We now have 4 black russian tomatoes (omg yum), 2 pots with a total of 8 silverbeet, and a pot of spring onions planted and waiting for the morning sun on the end of the veranda :D   We still have 4 cherry tomatoes, and 3 punnets of mixed lettuce seedlings to go in... but we ran out of soil lol.  My lovely hubby is going to pick up a couple more bags on his way home tomorrow so we can finish up.  It REALLY has been making me sad not to have any veggies growing in our yard, so I was very happy to get a few things in.  Next weekend, provided these plants are all in.. it's off to get even more soil and strawberry plants! 

Getting out & getting my hands dirty really helped get rid of the funk from the earlier incident and was a perfect way to end Mother's day.. doing one of my favourite things :)   I hope all my mom friends out there had awesome days!

Well now, aren’t we glad THAT’s over with. Hopefully my walking off in a huff for a week (was it only a week??? It felt looonger!!) was enough for Blogger to pull it’s head in and behave! Either way, I have outsmarted it and am typing this in a WP program.. Take that you fascist blog site you!

What has the Hobbit family been up to this past week? I’m sure you’re all dying to know (well, the maybe 20ppl that actually actively follow anyway lol) what you’ve missed. There was the usual schoolwork … we’re up to Saturn in the solar system now, and reading about Charlemagne in History Odyssey. Math is cruising right along for both boys and Frodo is REALLY picking up with his writing these days!  

Sam has ditched on Reading eggs for the last week.. But that’s ok, I’m making him ‘beginning sounds’ activities and a game to help him match up the lower case letter to it’s upper case version (he can tell that a m makes an mmm sound.. But the M throws him!) The boys got a bit of ‘technology’ in today, as they helped me laminate the activities I’m making for Sam. They were fascinated with how the machine worked, and more so that they got to put the pieces in the sleeves so I could feed them into it. 

Sam is doing exceptionally well with his handwriting and is using the solar system matching cards almost daily… he likes the pictures ;)  

We had cousin L’s 7th birthday party on the weekend.. And the kids enjoyed spending the afternoon at the park eating lots of disgusting junk food (srsly, fairy bread = white bread +butter/marg + farking 100s & 1000s /sprinkles WTF?!?!?!) A mum of one of L’s classmates came up, introduced herself, then in a ‘we’re going to do it anyway, but it’s a courtesy to ask’ let SIL know she was doing a drop & run and would be back at 3 to pick her child up. Um OK. If you have to introduce yourself to me? It’s not on to assume I’m going to babysit your child just because it’s a birthday party. Big public park, with a hugely busy street on one side and open water on site. WOW is about all I could say.  

Of course, SIL didn’t miss a beat with ‘OH when you’re in public school you go to SO many birthday parties and meet so many parents that it’s just the norm’. Um, wtf-ever. I just rolled my eyes and reminded her that I do have 2 children that did that, so do indeed understand. And that I am so friggin happy we aren’t obligated to go to 25birthday parties of kids we wouldn’t normally be hanging out with. (ok, I was slightly more polite than that… not much though)  

It just shits me that we don’t seem to be able to have a family gathering without someone bringing up in some way that my kids are missing out on something! They’re not people, get over it already. 

*deep cleansing breath*

Thankfully it was a long weekend, so I had Monday with DH home so I could get over my ire hehehe. We’ve been busy busy, so I’ll have a nice weekly wrap … whenever I get around to posting it that is!

I fear the only picture I have to offer today is one of our new additions to the ratty cage. This utterly adorable dude’s name is Sniffy.. Because Sam says he keeps sniffing in his ear every time he picks him up.  (note to self.. chicken wire not the best foreground)

I think I am almost ready to forgive you for being a fascist and eating my nice posts.  So,  I'm back-ish.  

I may, or may not be back later to post.  As I had just written a relatively long post, saved several times.. and effing blogger ATE it!!!!!  It saved 3 stinkin lines, and it seems to be doing this regularly.  Yes, I realize the smart thing to do would be write in word and c&p.. but it shits me that I have to do that to get this bass ackwards site to work as intended.  

I'm going to have hot chocolate.. with whipped cream.. and possibly chocolate sprinkles.  And IF that's enough self medicating to make me feel better, I will return to REwrite my entire post.  But I wouldn't hold my breath....

And I'm just not coming out until everything that is harassing me goes AWAY!!!!!!!!    Sam managed a lot better with his cough last night, but Merry was up and in our bed rockin a nasty temp again at midnight.  He blathers on and on when he's like that.. and he couldn't lay still to save his life (or my nights' sleep for that matter)  In a game of musical beds, dh retreated to Merrys' bed again leaving me to battle it out with squirmy butt.  

This morning it's raining it's arse off again.. no signs of stopping.  I had to rig up a bodgy lint filter replacement for the clothes dryer (we never use it except in dire circumstances... like weeks of rain) so I'm pleased to say when I pull the car out of the garage today, it will not snow little fluff balls of lint as I drive away LOL.    And yes, it's a SAFE bodgy substitute lint filter.. never fear ;)

At 1245 the boys and I are off to the docs.  I think 3 days & nights of a fever that won't stay down is quite enough.  And Sam is supposed to have a follow up anyway, so they are sharing an appt.  Dr. Kenny is pretty good about that (odd, but down here doctors generally prefer to be called Dr. First name ... especially in GP offices.  I'd imagine your avg neurosurgeon might warrant a Dr. HoityToityLastName)  

School got cancelled today, not by me, I was up and ready to go... when I checked my email.  I'll interrupt here for a little backstory, as I thought I had posted about it on my blog... but apparently it was my FORMER blog.  Which no longer exists.   Long story relatively short ;)  In 2007-8 we had an electricity provider than proved to be utterly incompetant.  I spent months calling them fortnightly to try to get a bill, and finally had to bring in the Industry Ombudsman to get them to do their job & bill me (how eff'd is that??).  It took NINE months.  So not surprisingly, the bill was $1297!!!  I set up payment plan, told them to stuff it and changed providers. Last March I gleefully paid the last installment and considered the bill done with.

Well the company went into recievership (bankruptcy basically) and I got a call recently about an alleged 183 bucks owed.  I said no worries, I have documentation of every payment I made totalling up to 1297bucks, which I sent him by email.  TODAY, I get an email stating the last 3payments were never credited to our acct, so would I still be making those payments?  UM HELLO  WTF?!?! 

*DEEP cleansing breath*  So I hit internet banking, cut & pasted the lines from my statement showing the bpay reciept #s (bless you bpay, because *I* lost our paperwork in the move!) and informed him that here was proof that the money left my acct, and went to their acct.  That I did my job, it's just too bad for Jack Green that THEY did not do theirs!  (I closed with, 'In short, no the payments will not be made *again*, as they have already been made and I have proof of this'  ... just for a little snark).   Then rang dh who rang the dude and gave him the run down of the situ, then rang the Ombudsman who can't do much, and am sitting here considering ringing legal aid to find out what my rights are!   I know it doesn't sound like a big deal... but I stressed over this for 9months trying to GET the bill, then paid it off dutifully, and am getting harassed a year later over it.  The amount of stress at the time was immense, and now it's coming back all over again.

So yeah, school is out for the day due to mum having her guts completely tied in knots *sigh*  and doctors appts.    The boys DID, however, find a sweet lego airport set in a sales ad.   Upon my telling them that no, we would not be rushing out to buy it, they pondered for a minute... then ran off saying they could build one, but have to design it first!  So they sat at the table with paper & crayons and sketched out an airplane (complete with individual blocks in a grid) and then proceeded to build something that looked VERY much like their design.   Now they are wii bowling while mum pulls herself together.   This could take a while....@@

Ok.. I don't want it for Christmas.. I want it NOW.   So if one of you kind people could parcel up some of your freezing weather and send it on down I'd be more than appreciative.  Today it is topping out at around 100F, 38C here.. and we STILL DO NOT HAVE AN AIR CON!!!!!  It's going to be nearly this hot all week, so if you don't hear from me, I have wilted in the heat or gone stark raving mad and made a break for Tasmania.    

I'm feeling all full of Righteous Fury at the moment and just had to share with someone, so you lucky people win ;) This morning we took Merry to kindy, as we always do on Tuesday, and on the way home we decided to pop into Woolies to grab some milk & bread. As we walked up to the store THIS is what we were confronted with:  

 The photo was actually taken after the fact, so you’ll just have to imagine those guys over on the left standing inside the orange mesh operating JACKHAMMERS!! The pic also doesn’t give the best idea of the space so let me share…this is a smallish courtyard that is bordered on 3 sides by shops, a chemist, a newsagent and Woolworths. The only shop that actually has walls/doors is Woolworths, the other, smaller shops have got open fronts that they roll down metal shutters to close up at night. So they are wide open to the noise outside. The entrances of all 3 of these shops (plus the bakery, which is just up 3stairs to the left of the pic) are within about 3.5metres of this god awful noise & dust.  

Anyway, on with the story. The boys and I cover our ears and RUN into Woolworths, me swearing under my breath the entire way. We get the items we were after, plus a pack of kinder surprise eggs for the kids ;) (mum’s the hero!) and go to the checkout. We stand there for a good 5minutes waiting , because the customer ahead of me can’t get her card to swipe correctly, and I chat with the cashier. She left work with a booming headache yesterday, and is sure she’s heading for a migraine today L I let her know I wasn’t impressed and that I’d be calling someone about it because *I* was already having ringing in the ears & dizzyness and that was just after 15minutes exposure to it! We finish the transaction, cover our ears, and RUN out to the car as quickly as we can. By the time I get into the car I have to sit & calm down for a bit, as my heart is just pounding… but it didn’t stop, so apparently it wasn’t just the short sprint. After I got home I looked up this.  Friggin Acoustic Trauma… FAIL.  

I got home and was fuming! I rang Strider to see exactly who I should call to have something done about it.. He suggests Workplace Health & Safety. First though, I ring Woolworths and speak to the very nice Store Trading Manager. I let him know that I was on the warpath because I came in to get milk and bread, and left with shrieking, ringing ears, dizzyness and my heart was pounding. ..and I was not happy. I also told him if he wanted to avoid compo claims, he’d get the cashiers some ear defenders right NOW, because at least one of his workers was already complaining of a severe headache! He kindly assured me he would get on that immediately upon hanging up, and gave me the number I requested for the centre management offices whom I called & left a msg for.

I then rang the State office of Workplace Health & Safety. These people put the fear of god, proverbially speaking, into companies. I gave the basics of the situation to the receptionist and she just said Oh dear, and put me straight on to speak with an inspector so I could file a formal complaint. The gentleman was incredibly sympathetic and helpful, and had a laugh with me when I said ‘I know you can’t really put this in the actually complaint, but someone’s ass needs to get nailed to the wall’ and he said OH, but I can if you want ;) LOL I informed him that I was going to go back up and take a photo of the area just in case the inspectors couldn’t be there straight away and after giving DH a quick ring to let him know what was up, headed back out to make the 3minute drive up there… but before I could do that…

Centre management, a very unhelpful company named QED Enterprises, rang back and I spoke with the gentleman that handles this centre. He pretty much blew me off stating there was no other time to do it, no way around the noise. When I suggested after hours he said that then local residents would complain, to which I replied yes, they may… but they won’t be deaf or suing you. I also pointed out that the nearest actual HOUSES were at least 200M away, and across a noisy busy road anyway! I told him I’d already spoke with WHS and that he could just take it up from them when they call about my formal complaint, and said goodbye. He did however, give me the name & number of the company doing the concrete work though.   SO thumbs down to you, HAW Construction!!!! 

That took about 5minutes and then we left.  I got there, parked fairly close but not too close, and walked up to find the workers standing to the side talking amongst themselves … or so I thought. I took a few pics and went back to the car and rang hubby again to say wow, shock horror they’ve stopped.  THEN a gentleman in a blue shirt emblazoned with ‘workplace health& safety’ walked up to the car right next to mine lol. NOW I knew why they’d stopped.. That was fast! I hopped out of the car and introduced myself and asked him exactly what was going to be done and he informed me that it already was! The company doing the work had been given a stop work notice and agreed to return the next evening at 530pm or so to complete the work, after most of the shops were closed. There were several ‘notices’ issues (which sounds an awful lot like a nicer way of saying FINES to me?). He had also gone into the business and spoken with the workers & owners to make sure nobody was suffering serious effects of the prolonged exposure and instructed them as to what to do if they did.   I cannot say enough good things about WHS at this point.. the Inspector was literally on site, and had shut the offence down within 30minutes of my call at the most!  So Kudo's to you gentlemen, you rock!!!!! 

 I thanked him very much, not only for myself.. But also for the employees who should not have to work in those conditions, and the other customers who should not have to cart infants and children through noise that is easily 130 decibels!  The only thing higher on that chart? A friggin airplane lifting off (I’d assume at close range) Normal city traffic, office machines etc are about 80db and each increase in 6db is not just an increase of 6.. It actually represents a DOUBLING of the amount of noise produced! So these workers had been subjected to noise that is basically at the level of torture, for hours and hours. And I stopped it. Why on EARTH the Woolies store manager didn’t DO SOMETHING about it, I do not know.. But I intend to find out!  

I can’t understand why the average citizen/shopper/patron of a store would not say HEY this is not ok! And take it further to protect not only their own safety, but that of others. They assume that the store management will handle it… or that someone else will do it. It’s always someone else’s job. People, nobody in this world cares as much about your safety as YOU DO. If you see something that is just not ok, DO SOMETHING!! It’s not that hard to find out who you should contact or to start talking to ANYONE that might help handle the problem. Talk walk off and do nothing but complain to yourself does nobody any good.  

Because I got angry at what I was forced to endure, and started making phone calls.. No less than FIFTY employees in the shops surrounding that work area are now spared having to possibly risk permanent hearing loss at worst, or at the very least, having to endure horrible headaches. Why can’t more people put themselves out that way, and take up an hour of their time on the phone, instead of waiting for someone else to do it?

P.S. It’s now almost 2hours after the incident… the ringing/shrieking in my ears is not so loud now, but it throbs and is painful. My heart has finally stopped pounding and the shakiness/ dizzyness has subsided I think (I’ve been sitting down having an iced coffee, jotting down this post). Frodo complains of a headache, and I have given him some nurofen in hopes that it helps. Sam seems unaffected, but then he is a VERY hearty little soul so I am not too surprised. If I still have pain or dizzyness in a couple of hours, I suppose I’ll go to the doc and see if there is anything they can do. And it will document the issues if I actually have any continuing drama because of this… however unlikely that may be).  

If you made it through this novel of a rant, I lift my iced coffee and offer you a toast for listening and hopefully being inspired to protect your community in whatever tiny ways you can!  And now, I go to lay in a nice quiet room for a bit in hopes that my poor head & ears can recover...

Ok not quite *searches for the funky sick dude jpeg but gives up in disgust*  You'll remember him from just a few posts ago, so just envision him RIGHT.HERE.

I finally gave up with this damnable cough & went back to the doc.. yep, I have teh pneumonia AGAIN.  For the second time in like 5months?  Seriously.. this is ridiculous.  I am a normally healthy not quite 40yr old woman with an average immune system... it makes no sense at all.  The doc was rather surprised as well but said my lung (only lefty this time, the right side got the msg last time and is behaving) was crackling like a bowl of rice crispies.  Ok, that wasn't her exact phrasing... I took artistic liberty because it made me giggle.  I'm sick, I get to giggle at whatevah I want.   

This time around she said chest xrays and a culture test on .. how to put this delicately.. on a sample of the contents of my lungs (but only the solid contents, no liquidy stuff).  Ok, for delicateness that was a total fail lol, but you get the idea ;)   Since it's so absurd for me to have this twice, she wants to know exactly what's goin on in there.  (I'm fairly sure the culture test will show that whatever is in there, it's French... or it could be Osama, he likes to cause trouble)  

So more antibiotics, more rest.  My head is going to explode if I can't even  manage to take the kids to a pakr to play, or to their Extra curricular day next week!   We've made it to one social gathering of people not related to us since mid August because of someone or other being sick and I'm OVER IT.   

Whinge over *sheepish*

Ok,  Unless I'm mistaken and have pulled a Rip Van Winkle or something, todays date is September 27?  So imagine my extreme, although momentary, confusion when I entered my local BigW (Walmart for you American folks)  to be confronted with THIS!!!!!!

WTF!?!?!?

Seriously...  bloody christmas crap ALREADY!  Couldn't they wait till a civilized amount of time before D day to put that out???   November 1st is a perfectly good time to bring out the Christmas junk if you ask me.  Back when I was young, that's when it started appearing, the day after Halloween.  And by Thanksgiving (3rd Thursday in November) it was in full swing.  And it made sense that way.   Christmas stuff in the stores in September makes no sense.   It's so arbitrary and premature.  We will all be so bombarded with it all for the next 3full months, that we'll be friggin fed up with all things holiday themed by the time 'the big day' rolls around, and will just be ready for it to END ALREADY!  

As I wandered through the store to my destination, the towel department, I was then confronted by a jolly ole' santa cookie jar.  Rack off you freaky premature elf!  Come back in a month and we'll talk!  

Some cheery soul on an email group thought we'd all appreciate the reminder 'ONLY 13weeks until Christmas!'  I'm pretty sure everyone on the entire list wanted to scream abuse at her, I know I did... want to that is, cause I would never stoop to swearing at a computer.. *whistles innocently*

I think 'they' start it earlier and earlier every year, with the idea that if they build the holidays up to such grand proportions everyone will go ALL OUT (read spend absurd amounts of $$ in their stores) and have Norman Rockwell holidays.  What REALLY happens, is it puts pressure on mums (cause dad's usually just go with the flow) to create these amazing perfect holiday seasons... that reality can never live up to!  So we end up stressed out, disappointed and having a ginormous melt down requiring either valium or alcohol, by the end of the season.   

In my house, we're opting out of that crap. I'm committing now, to having a simple and happy holiday season.  Sure there will be gifts, and trees (hey, I'm pagan ..not dead!  Technically it's Midsummer, but I love my festive cultural Christmas) and baking.  But I will not give in to the compulsion to go overboard!  

Although...I must admit that purple tree in the pic was pretty awesome, and had me thinking...could I find a spot for a 2nd tree in my house??? LOL

Today Frodo and Sam were SUPPOSED to have swim lessons... Sam woke up saying he was sick, only to feel lots better despite a little temperature.  Later in the morning Frodo came into the room with the rosiest cheeks I've ever seen.  Yep, fever *sigh*.    Sam perks up quickly, but when Frodo gets sick, he goes down like a ton of bricks unfortunately.  That was how we ended up homeschooling to begin with actually.. now that he's home it happens less, or at least it did.  We've had a lot of 'teh crud' running rampant through our house since MY run in with pneumonia in May, and we just can't seem to get rid of it.

So the lovely folks at the swim centre were kind enough to push their lesson start date ahead till next week, so we don't have to reschedule the missed class because it's like there wasn't one :)   Since we weren't going to swim, we had another problem.  A while back dh got one of the boys a lego police motorcycle,  they all play with it and Sam & Merry covet it depending on who has it at the time.  It has been the very centre of their lives for a while now.  It BROKE... what good is a bike with one wheel?!?!  So dad promised them after swim, we'd go to the shop where we got it and get them ALL one (since they were on sale for 7.50 each woot!)   

So *I* end up getting shafted into going into town for said bikes.  Bogus!  DH did at least bake chocolate chip cookies with the boys, but still *grumble*.   My fee for doing this however, was a coffee at Gloria Jeans and a wander through Borders books.   Let me start by saying I was not impressed by their paganism section.. back in the states it's a reasonable section (and even in the Borders in the CBD), but this one?  POV.  *and* it was labeled on the shelf as 'black magic'.  SRSLY.  I need a pissed off smilie to put right here.  I'm thinking a strongly worded letter to the manager is in order, because that's just crap.  

Ok.. I'm over it, for now.  After that disappointment I had a wander through their rockin', but rather pricey, kids section.  All sorts of cool stuff there!  But I buy books for the kids all the time.. I wanted a book for ME ME ME!  After a wander through the aisles I came to the gardening section, perfect!   I grabbed an armload of books that looked interesting, and as there were no nearby chairs, plonked down right on the carpet in the aisle and proceeded to have a browse.  I ended up leaving with this...

 which is just fabulous!  It's similar to the US book 'Square foot gardening' ... although written for Aussies, and is based on the metre instead ;)   There are great garden plans for different types of squares (pizza square garden anyone?  Summer stir fry, winter stir fry, 'anti-cancer' squares packed with antioxidants, pea & bean squares, Aztec squares (basically a 3 sisters garden with corn, squash/pumpkin, and climbing beans).  Little mini maps of each one showing you how much you can fit and how to plant it so it looks nice to boot.    

There are compost tips, and info on all sorts of veggies, pest control tips & companion planting ideas.   I'm just in geeky gardening heaven.. almost enough to forget the absurd prices of books like this here lol.   I fully intend to settle in with my new book and a cuppa.  Considering half my house is sick yet again, I don't think I'll have any outings to interrupt my reading for a few days :S 

Is apparently NOT so common after all.   Let's say that you have a sick child and take him to the ER on the weekend and they inform you they'll test him for swine flu but it will take a few days to know.  And let's suppose that you keep said sick child out of day care on Monday because he's... well,  SICK.   On what planet would a parent think it's a GOOD idea to rock up to child care Tuesday morning with said child, having yet to recieve their results?   My answer.. NO planet, certainly not THIS one.  

This is exactly what happened at my youngest sons' day care today... and this child was in the room with a dozen other children, mine included, for TWO HOURS before being removed & quarantined. I guess after dropping him off his parents got the call that his test results were positive.. the gods only know how long it took them to call the centre and inform them that they'd be picking their little biohazard up early and why.    

I'm pissed at the centre... they should enforce their 'If your child is ill' rule of not allowing them to attend (they do not),  but most of all I'm PISSED at these stupid fucking parents for not having the good sense to look at their child and say he does not need to be in day care.  They should not have to have their hands held for this pretty cut & dry decision.   The centre is NOT closing (although MY child won't be there this week!) so they will be extremely lucky if they do not end up with a domino effect of more cases every few days.  EVERY single staff member in the building had contact with this child.. plus a dozen or so kids that were in the room playing with him for 2hours.    Not.Happy.Jan!    

Not the news I need exactly one week before I fly out to the US that's for damn sure!

In other news.. we were to be going to the Art Gallery today for a childrens workshop.  That didn't happen... Frodo announced in a most whiny voice about 10minutes away from the Gallery that he was car sick and then proceeded to spew on his brothers car seat (thankfully his brother was not IN said seat).   We laid on the grass outside the Gallery/ convention centre for about 20minutes, and when he didn't perk up after that I made the command decision to go home via the highway to head off more spewing.  Not that it worked... but at least there was only one more chuck when we were almost home.   It seems like at least half of the things that I plan to do, we end up missing because one of the three is carsick on the way there.  It's getting rather discouraging :(

Here I sit, still stuck with shitty dialup internet.  How in the world does anyone in a civilized country live with this rubbish?!?!  AAPT, our esteemed internet service provider (not for bloody long though!) has shafted us for the SECOND move since we have been with them.  When we moved into the last place we weren't REALLY all that shocked that dsl wasn't immediately available.. it was an older neighborhood with ancient .. well ancient everything.  Fast forward 18months to now.  

We just moved into a new house, in a brand new development that touts its technological advancement.  There's even a super fancy box with all the telecom wiring and such and in the house there are several special outlets to plug into for high speed internet.   AAPT said yes, no problem having adsl at your new address Mr. Strider!  So we thought nothing of it, until we move in and then the story changes to 'oh, it will actually take 3-5days to process the internet transfer' then a day later it changed to 7-10 days.  Then the chick today said well actually your house has 'something pair' lines so you can't have this service at all sir.  Let me backtrack a moment...

We recieved our bill today for the last month from them, and it was ... odd.  It looked like we changed internet plans midmonth, which we did not.  So Strider calls them up and finds out eventually that there was a MASS upgrade to ADSL2 and that 'some customers' didn't get notified.  The adsl2 plan we were apparently upgraded to, without our consent, would have cost us 10bucks a month more. You can bet your ass the Telecommunications industry Ombudsman will be hearing from me... again.    I also happen to know that it costs the company a fuckload of money everytime a customer complaint comes to them and they have to get involved.   Enjoy it AAPT, it's what happens when you shaft your customers up the arse. 

Ok, back to the something pair lines.. it appears that they were trying to transfer adsl TWO here, which definitely won't work since adsl1 isn't here yet.  So I will get the immense satisfaction tomorrow of calling them up, again, and telling them to stick their application to transfer the dsl up their bums... and that our telephone and net will be going to Telstra wireless as soon as humanly possible.  

Choke on it assholes.