Friday, February 05, 2010

Friday fragments and Linkfest No. 15

Mommy's Idea
Hosted by Mrs4444.

When you get to the bottom of this post don't forget to come back up here and click on this link to Half-Past Kissin' Time so you can go check out all the other fabulous Friday Fragments posts!

I missed fragmenting last week and I've barely blogged at all recently, I ought to have a whole bunch of stuff to offload. Let's see what's lurking in the corners of my brain...

****

I spent Saturday night in a small, inadequately air-conditioned room, with a fabulous group of women from the Hoyden About Town blog community, singing loudly and hilariously for 3 hours. Karaoke is so much fun even if it does result in a sore throat the next day. We did everything from Meatloaf and Cold Chisel to Abba and Simon & Garfunkle - there was even a rickrolling courtesy of FP. I'm already looking forward to next time!

****

David's first 2 days of high school at the end of last week were a great success, he came home happy and excited, telling us all about his classes. Then on Monday and Tuesday he went to the Year 7 Orientation camp at Vision Valley and came home exhausted and miserable having been separated from his friends both for the activities and for sleeping arrangements, fed pretty crappy food, and generally having a rotten time. What a massive waste of time, effort and money. I had to bully him out of bed and off to school on Wednesday morning, he was in tears and I was so close to giving in and letting him stay home. I had a good cry myself after he'd gone and spent the day in a state of anxiety over whether he was going to have an ok day. Fortunately he came home much happier again, it seems actual classes at high school are a Good Thing. Except for PE - he's not at all pleased that they're doing bush dancing.

****

We've been harvesting quite a good crop of tomatoes from Tom's vegetable garden, perfect for slicing nice and thick and having with cheese on Sao biscuits.

Tom's tomatoes

Tom's tomatoes

****

Things with my Dad have been slowly improving and we're on our way to having the money side of his life sorted out. I'm now managing his finances so if things start to go off the rail again I should know straight away. I feel somewhat weird and conflicted to be in this role especially as when Dad is well he really should be perfectly competent to look after all this stuff himself. I'm going along with him to his next psychiatrist appointment so I can have a chat to his doctor about it too. Dad's still pretty vulnerable but he's a lot better than he was 2 weeks ago and I'm fairly confident that he's not going to end up in a major depression. So that's good.

****

I finally got myself a Diva cup after more than a year of intending to do so. It is awesome. That is all. (Actually, I can say plenty more so if anyone has questions - ask away!)

****

I finished reading the first Sookie Stackhouse book, I enjoyed it enough that I instantly picked up the second one and started on that. Good thing I bought the box set of 7. The fact that it took me a week to get through the first book says something about my state of mind though, I'm finding I can't concentrate on a book for more than 30 minutes at a time. Stress sucks.

****
And now for some links:

At Hoyden About Town Lauredhel posts on the ILCA press release "For Haiti Orphans Wet Nursing Can Save Lives"

At Upside-Down Adoption Atlasien posts about "The Dangerous Desire to Adopt Haitian Babies"

Chally of Zero at the Bone hosts the Thirteenth Carnival of Feminists

I need one of these.

Jill at Feminitse posts about "Tim Tebow and the anti-choice Superbowl ad" and also links to a YouTube ad responding to the Tim Tebow ad featuring Sean James and Al Joyner (none of whom I know anything about but apparently some people are interested in the stuff these people do and say).

Deborah's new car and new hair made me laugh :-)

14 comments:

S M Tidball said...

Hi Mim. I was surfing blogs and came accross yours. I really like it as I think we have some things in common! Will become a 'follower' and continue to check in!
You may (or may not!) be interested in my blog (http://misstee2063.blogspot.com/)

Ariane said...

Glad to hear your week has been on a general improve.

Send Dave my condolences about the Barn Dancing.

Evansmom said...

I think it was harder on me than on my 15 year old when he started high school!

Formerly known as Frau said...

Thanks for stopping by my blog today....I hope your son adjusted quickly into High School, hard to transition. Those tomatoes look delish...I miss garden grown tomatoes. Have a wonderful weekend.

Smellyann said...

Those tomatoes look great!

I tried the Diva Cup before, but I couldn't get it right. Glad it's working for you! :)

Aw, bush dancing sounds like fun :)

Amy said...

I think yours is the first Australian blog I've read. Odd to read about school starting and tomatoes growing when we have a snowstorm raging outside!

I have a friend who raves about the Diva Cup. I'm intrigued, but not enough to make the purchase (yet).

Thanks for visiting my blog for FF, too!

Deborah said...

I want one of those Firefly keyrings too!

mimbles said...

@Miss Tee - Welcome to the Muddle :-)

@Ariane - I believe they'll be learning to waltz too. Oh, the humanity!

@Evansmom - I'd been feeling quite relaxed and positive about the transition despite David's anxiety issues, and it had been going really well until the whole camp thing. I was so angry and disappointed. Anyway, there doesn't seem to be any lasting harm.

@Frau - It's the first time we've had home-grown tomatoes, it took the 8 year old insisting on a veggie patch to make it happen!

@Smellyann - I was really surprised by how easy to use I found the Diva Cup as I'd heard lots of "it'll take time to get used to" stories. Just lucky I guess. I think bush dancing is fun too, but then I'm not a 12 year old boy ;-)

@Amy - Welcome to the other hemisphere, isn't axial tilt great? :-)

@Deborah - Who can resist the shiny?!

Penthe said...

Moment of uncanniness, because we are dealing with my Dad in similar ways at the moment. I had to get my husband to read your para and we just stared at each other for a while.

I utterly loved bush dancing and waltzing at school, and I adored boys who enjoyed it too.

Claudya Martinez said...

I wish I had bush dancing in PE when I was in high school.

Those tomatoes look amazing.

I had never heard of the DIVA cup until now. I'm a little intrigued.

Ruth Branson said...

I'm catching up on a few posts (I've been droopy the past few days and am just getting around to catching up). I loved your Friday fragments post and all of the little details in it. There's something about singing along with Abba that just makes me want to do it right now - that sounded like fun!

I've never even heard of that Sookie person with the series of 7 books. I'm going to check it out.

What the heck is a DIVA cup???

Glad to hear things are going a bit better with your dad - I've been thinking about you.

Ruth

ruth Branson said...

I'm back. I just looked up the Sookie Stackhouse books - looks like a vampire series. I enjoyed the Twilight series, so I'm thinking that I'll probably like this one, too - thanks for the suggestion. I'll look them up on our local library system and, if that doesn't work, I'll buy them the next time I order from amazon. Thanks again.

Ruth

mimbles said...

@Ruth - I'm about a third of the way through the second book now. Shall have to track down the TV series (Tue Blood) now and see what that's like - I've heard good things.

The Diva cup is a reusable menstrual cup made of silicone, you use it in place of tampons and napkins - no more landfill - I only wish I'd know about it many years earlier.

Ruth Branson said...

Hi again-
First, just today, I was at the library because they notified me yesterday that the first Sookie Stackhouse book had come in for me. So sometime in the next couple of weeks I'll be reading it. I'd ordered the first four of them (looked up the order on the internet) and the first came in, as well as Living Dead in Dallas...the other two are coming in shortly, I hope.

Just last week, I, too, heard about the True Blood series and heard that it's terrific. I gather from reading the back of the Stackhouse book that True Blood is based on this series. I wish we lived closer together..we could watch the series together from the beginning...wouldn't that be fun!

Re: the Diva cup - hmmmm - who knew!!??? I'm still in shock. And it really works? Wow. ok. That's something I'm going to have to give some thought to. Great re: landfill, agreed. Thanks for the info Mim...that's awesome.

Ruth