New Arrival (mark II)

I am an auntie!

My new niece, Kate, arrived this morning at about 4 40am weighing in at 7lb12oz

Mum, baby and dad all doing well :)

Now, didn't I tell you that this new arrival would be much more exciting??

1 day down, 64 to go

The excitement of being on holiday makes kids wake up even earlier, well mine anyway. I was aware of them playing / fighting / argueing together as I drifted in and out of sleep from about 7.15 this morning.

And then, I woke with a start at 8.55am exactly to hear ... silence. Any parent will know that silence is eerily more scary than any amout of screeching.

Second morning of the holidays and the bedclothes are marked with felt-tip, the carpet is covered in glitter, stickers are stuck all over the painted walls and my sons fingers are painted in bright blue nail polish to nearly the knuckle.

Roll on September.

Recovering Workaholic

I noticed in my stats that someone had linked to my blog, so I went to investigate and found Aussie Jewel's recovering workaholic blog.

Already you can tell we have a lot in common, but this excerpt from a post about a visit to the doctors I just found hilarious:

'A woman sat down opposite me and I thought to myself, please do not let me catch whatever illness it is that makes you wear frosted pink lipstick and very thick bright green eyeliner.'

Yeah - give me a nervous breakdown over that anyday too!

End of term

School finishes today for the summer holidays. That means, having spent the last 10 months looking after everyone else's kids all day, I now have the pleasure of looking after my own for two months.

Sigh!

New Arrival (mark I)

Ask me anything, anything at all about a Volkswagen Passat Estate 2.0TDI 170 Sport and I will be able to tell you the answer.That is because for weeks, quite literally weeks, my other half has been doing extensive research into the car with a view to buying one, and I have been subjected to listening to his every finding.

For example, did you know that some models do not have a traditional handbrake, but a button? This caused great consternation, because we were unable to establish whether or not I would be able to push the required button, should the need arise. Mind you, there have been a few other buttons I very obviously have been able to push this week.

Anyway, at the heels of the hunt, after a day in a dealers and several heated, loud and very frusrated phonecalls, we are now the proud owners of said motor.

Two points:

1. next time the car is up for renewal, I will either be on an extended holiday or divorced

2. I can promise that the next new arrival to this family will be much more blog-worthy ;-)

Midsummer nightmare

Today is Midsummer, or Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, with sunrise at 04:47 (BST) and sunset at 22:05 (BST).

It is also the time when the sun is, apparently, at its maximum elevation, but with it also looking like one of the wettest days of the year on record, I don't think anyone is going to be able to prove that!

Pagans who celebrate Summer Solstice see it is as a time to acknowledge that the sun will now begin to decline once more towards winter. Looking out the window this morning I'm wondering did it ever start the incline out of it!

Darwin Awards 2008

The annual Darwin Awards is a chronicle of enterprising demises honoring those who improve the species ... by accidentally removing themselves from it! Some contenders for the 2008 awards:

While at the beach, Daniel Jones, 21, dug an 8 foot hole for protection from the wind and had been sitting in a beach chair at the bottom when it collapsed, burying him beneath 5 feet of sand. People on the beach used their hands and shovels trying to get him out but could not reach him. It took rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him. Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital.

After stepping around a marked police patrol car parked at the front door, a man walked into a Firearms shop intent on robbing the store. The shop was full of customers and a uniformed officer was standing at the counter. Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced a hold-up and fired a few wild shots from a target pistol.The officer and a clerk promptly returned fire, and several customers also drew their guns and fired. The robber was pronounced dead at the scene by Paramedics. Crime scene investigators located 47 expended cartridge cases in the shop. The subsequent autopsy revealed 23 gunshot wounds. Ballistics identified rounds from 7 different weapons. No one else was hurt.

Zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt ( Paderborn , Germany ) fed his constipated elephant 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally got relief. Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded. The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr.Riesfeldt to the ground where he struck his head on a rock as the elephant continued to evacuate 200 pounds of dung on top of him.It seems to be just one of those freak accidents that proves... 'Sh*t happens'

Oui, we Wii

As of yesterday we are the stiff and sore owners of a Wii.

A combined late birthday / early Fathers day present, it has gone down a whole lot better than the usual pairs of socks and latest autobiography of any of the stars of Top Gear.

That is until this morning, when the grumpy one had to be physically man-handled out of bed due to the stiffness he was experiencing in his laterally un-used muscles! Mind you, I have scored massive brownie points with the kids :-)

Nutrition

After an exhaustive review of the research literature, here's the final word on nutrition and health:

1. Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
2. Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
3. Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
4. Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
5. Germans drink beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
6. The French eat foie-gras, full fat cheese and drink red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than us

CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

Thank you Dana

When we go to Texas ...

... we will have to re-stock on all the yummy delicious things that arrived this afternoon in Dana's prizewinners Texan gastronomic hamper.

I am sitting here munching my way through a bad of Heart of Texas Specialities Praline Pecans!!! My son is making 'Lone Star State' shaped icecubes, Dolly is wolfing down the Texas BBQ sauce crisps and my hubby is getting ready to brew the coffee in about 10 minutes when the kids have gone to bed. Life is too good!

Thank you, thank you, thank you my friend from Texas :-)

Wils tagged me

I love the smell of ... honeysuckle, suntan lotion and fresh cut grass
People would say that I ... am (and I did a straw poll on this at dinner) scatty
I don't understand why ... I can't take photographs like Wallace's
When I wake up in the morning ... I kick my husband out of bed, roll over and go back to sleep
I lost my willpower to ... give up sunbathing for health reasons
Life is ... the people we love, the places we've seen, and the memories we've made along the way
My past made me ... the happy, sane person I am today
I get annoyed when ... I can't get online
Parties are not a good time to ... fart in public
Dogs are ... a nuisance since you have to scoop their poop
Cats are ... easier because they use a litter tray
Tomorrow is ... a clean slate
I have a low tolerance for ... morphine and codeine obviously
I'm totally terrified of ... heights, swimming with fish
I wonder why I thought my life would be ... inexpensive to run
Never in my life have I ... found a bra that fits and doesn't look like it was built at Harland&Wolff shipyard
High school was ... something I knew nothing about until the Musical
When I'm nervous ... I laugh uncontrollably or sometimes use the feck word
One time at a family gathering ... I got married
Take my advice ... think twice before marrying an only child :-p
I'm almost always ... within 10 yards of a computer
I'm addicted to ... crisps, I can eat six packets at a sitting
I want someone to ... pay off my mortgage please

So I tag Cosmo and Wallace

5. as a rule, I don't vomit (contd) ...

So with the help of my sister-in-law the doctor, we discovered what had made me so drastically ill on Monday.

I woke up on Monday morning with the worst sore throat I remember since having my tonsils out, and as I was booked for a days work with 7 year olds, I decided action was needed. In the absence of any other painkiller in the house, I popped two co-codamol tablets with breakfast.

Go back 11 months to July last year when I had my hysterectomy. I was desperately ill after the surgery until they changed my pain meds from morphine to voltarol, after which I had a 'miracle' recovery.

Turns out, codeine and morphine are in the same 'family', close cousins maybe, but anyhow, it is obvious that this 'family' of painkillers just do not agree with my system at all.

Last night I had a grand flushing of co-codamol down the loo ceremony. Never, ever, ever again.

Dana, Nancy, Kellie, Millie & Gertrude

Today my daughter started a sentence with:

When we go to Texas....!!

The end of the sentence was 'will everything taste of Texas BBQ sauce? I love it!' (This based on the flavour of the Texas BBQ sauce Pringles she was wolfing down at the time)

5. as a rule, I don't vomit

And as a rule I don't. But as I was kneeling over the porcelain bowl at work today, my scariest thought was 'I've poisoned all my friends!'

(I haven't it seems - we did a subtle phone-around to check! phew!!)

We had some friends for lunch today

About 25 people. They were very tasty and we're full now.

Seriously though, when I took ill a couple of years ago, a lot of people were very good to me. More important than that, they were very good to my husband, my kids and even my parents as they tried to deal with the fallout and chaos that was running my life and our home semi-normally.

Although their love, help and concern was freely given , we owed a lot of people a lot. Lunch today was our way of saying a very insignificant thankyou, and we invited all those fantastic people to our house for a BBQ.

All week we worried about it being wet and having to have everyone inside and where would they all go? Then the forecast said it would be dry and we had a different issue; unbelievably for Ireland, yesterday it was SO hot we worried it was TOO hot to be outside and we would have to have everyone inside and where would they all go?

However, today it was dry and sunny with a lovely breeze, just perfect thanks Lord!

We had a great afternoon and I was delighted they were all able to come, but I think we had a miracle. I fed all those people and still at the end of the day I appear to have 12 baskets full left over.

So if anyone fancies some Moroccan cous cous, potato salad, gingered rice salad, Mexican bean salad, spiced ratatouille, pasta salad in bacon and blue cheese dressing, or the odd peppered pork chop, sweet chilli sausage, pork and apricot burger, Chinese rib (not a function suited to the Jewish palate) or salmon with pesto, please, please call in tomorrow. Or the next day.