Useful Things I did Today – Page 4

Thank you A&R

A million years ago, when I first worked in an Apple reseller, I met a cool guy called “A”. Recently, Mark and I decided to buy a NAS, and I rang him to talk turkey. Not only was he still in the computer hardware business, he was also about to get married.

At the registry office.

Nothing wrong with that, but it does lack a certain personal touch. I told him I was a celebrant, and suggested that he might consider getting married at the party celebrating the marriage, instead of before the party or after the party. “But I’m going to be dressed as a taco”, he said.

“And?”, said I.

So today, in front of their nearest and dearest, instead of having speeches and cake to represent a commitment, we had a wedding. He dressed as a taco, she as an Egyptian goddess. Me, a Catholic nun.

It was an impossibly joyful ceremony, the bride and groom were emotional and proud, and so excited to be able to declare their commitment in front of their friends and families without the weight of expectation that usually accompanies weddings.

The ceremony went off perfectly, the crowd were surprised, thrilled, and very supportive. And Mark, Inigo and I had a wonderful day, surrounded with love and positivity.

Archie and Aubrey weren’t forgotten, they were with us every second. Yesterday I remembered their birth, and today, the anniversary of the day Archie died, I celebrated life.

10 minutes to spare

It’s been a little quiet around here – the big assignment for this semester was due at midnight tonight. I got it in at 11.50pm.

I don’t see an HD on the horizon for this bit of writing!

Perceptions of infidelity in committed relationships correlated with Cognitive Experiential Self Theory.

Phew!

Consequences

We’re all about natural consequences in this house. Don’t put your dirty clothes in a dirty clothes basket? Eventually you will run out of clean underwear. Don’t pack away your toys? Mama will pack them away and she might hide them or put them in the bin.

So I can’t blame anyone but myself for this weekend.

The natural consequence for having done bugger all uni work for half a semester, is that I have until midnight tomorrow night to do two online tests. One for each subject. Worth 10%, and 12% of my total mark.

Between my gorgeous girlfriends, my fabulous in-laws, my amazing parents, and my wonderful husband, I am getting there. One down, the bulk of the work done for the other (with some major revision tomorrow), and I’ll have it done and dusted by tomorrow afternoon.

Thanks also go to my wonderful kid, who had to get used to being away from mama a lot last year, and he bears it well. And I get the most wonderful cuddles when he comes back to me 🙂

Here is a little video I took of him and Mark “reading” a book last week. I thought I was filming earlier, but I missed all the good bits, him sounding out words, and the absolutely priceless expression on his little face when he works it out. He is loving reading to himself a lot now, so I hope I may get a better video soon.

Dentist recap

Inigo has a cavity in his right back lower molar. We took him to a specialist dentist last week, and found out that the enamel on that tooth never formed properly during my pregnancy, so that is why it has rotted. He isn’t in pain, but left untreated it will get worse and cause infections, eventually damaging the tooth underneath (his adult tooth). So we have to do something about it. The specialist quoted us $1800 for the dental work, plus $1200 for a day stay in hospital, plus $600 for the anaesthetist. THe better part of $4,000.

So today we went to my normal dentist for a second opinion. I had my teeth cleaned, while Inigo watched patiently. Then she had a quick look at his teeth while he watched tele in the roof. Then, she did a quick x-ray to determine how bad the decay was.

And then she told me she could treat it in the chair, without a general anaesthetic!!!

Which she then did, all while Inigo watched ABC for Kids. There are serious advantages to rationing TV watching!

All the treatment for both of us cost less than $200, including x-rays. So we went out for sushi and bought some gorgeous wooden blocks, and still felt thrifty.

Harvest

Picked all this for our minestrone lunch. I love having a productive garden!

Mark to the rescue

I wonder what sort of uniform the nerd superhero wears?

There is still a few glitches (can’t leave blog comments), but I have my calendar back, and I have all my blog feeds! Normality is resuming, and I adore my husband. Not just for his good looks!

And tonight is results night. Pizza and red wine are on the menu, my friend Dionne is coming from Newcastle with her kids, and we are going to cover the kitchen in flour and dough while we wait for those crucial text messages. Dionne was in my environmental peace unit, so we are supporting each other.

And tomorrow I am teaching small children to knit. Give me strength!

And here is a picture of a small boy playing an orange ukelele.

Red Nose Day

rednoseme.com-Inigo.jpg

After Archie and Aubrey were born, a grief counsellor from SIDS & Kids came to our house to talk to me. SInce then I’ve been seeing her on and off pretty regularly, and I credit Marybeth with a lot of the progress I have made. Without her, and SIDS & Kids, I hesitate to think where I would be now.

I used to think that all they did was fund medical research into SIDS, but of course they do much more than that. Since SIDS awareness campaigns have massively reduced SIDS deaths, now the bulk of their work is with bereaved families after the loss of a baby or child. They also offer counselling to women who have had miscarriages, and terminations.

While looking for ways I can help out (it’s Red Nose Day this Friday, buy a nose!), I found this website. Renault is donating a dollar (up to $15,000) for every person that uploads a pic to the red nose gallery. Visit rednoseme.com, and upload your own pic – SIDS & Kids will earn a dollar, and you’ll get a silly photo.

Assignment DONE

I just submitted my Environmental Peace assignment. It was worth 60% of my mark for the unit. No pressure.

My darling friend Dionne read it and gave some great feedback, and I submitted it 40 minutes shy of a whole week late. I did get an extension, so I hope that won’t matter, and whatever the outcome, I am so incredibly relieved to have it over and done with, that at this point I am a bit beyond caring about results.

Tomorrow my focus is going to be on my dear family friend who is having surgery to remove her brain tumour, and after that I need to jam in as much study as I can into the next week. I have an open book quiz to do in the next few days, and then my final psych exam on the 15th.

And after the 15th, I am free as a bird. Until next semester starts…

Bread. Yes, again.

I first posted about the bread here.

Then here after I refined the recipe a little.

But now I’ve done a final re-jig to make the recipe work for me. I buy flour in 2kg bags, so I asked my maths man to do the numbers so I didn’t have to measure 13 cups of flour each time.

So now I use 2kg of flour, 4 tablespoons of bakers yeast, 2 tablespoons of salt, and 1.6 litres of warm water. Mix, and dump into a tub that will go into the fridge.

What I have found is that I can just throw a lump of dough into a bread pan lined with baking paper and it makes a nice dense, almost sourdough like loaf. If you like, you can also brush it with milk and scatter sesame seeds, caraway seeds, poppy seeds, or my favourite, nigella seeds on top before baking.

Or, you can work the dough a little, and leave it in the pan to warm up to room temperature before baking for a lighter loaf.

You can also use wholemeal flour, with exactly the same recipe.

And it makes wonderful french toast, and after a day, fantastic dippers for your baked brie. Recipe to come one day….

Another first world problem solved

I used to have a nifty bit of software called Blue Phone Elite, which allowed me to type SMS’s on my laptop and send them from my phone via bluetooth.

But then the developer went and got a real job, and stopped supporting it, which meant I never got it to work with my iPhone. Small price to pay for having an iPhone, but I was starting to show my age with my monosyllabic text replies.

“yes”, in reply to a younger friends “busy today? I have some time and it would be great to catch up, how about meeting up at the zoo, the kids will love it” was just bloody pathetic.

Now I can SMS at 50 words per minute, with no damn auto correct!

Thank you SMS Sender(free) and SMS Client ($2.49).

(picture is of my beautiful boy at the zoo today, waiting for the seal show to start)