Julia Gillard, Prime Minister

I really hope the timing of this doesn't prove to be a mistake. But aside from that...

Wow, how awesome is this? We have our first female Prime Minister. Congratulations Julia, now, don't stuff it up.

It's been a while

Today I stood here at my very own, doesn't have to be cleared up for anything or anyone else, new workbench in the garage.



I got out some of these:



Turned on this:



And made some glass beads for the first time in almost a year. It took me 90 minutes to make just 4 beads and my technique is rusty at best.



But now that I have a permanent work space I'm hoping to start turning out more pretties on a regular basis and also to get on with making some reproductions of period beads for our reenacting.

I do have a life. Really.

I don't normally spend Saturday evening writing schedules, doing meal plans and thinking about grocery shopping, but that's what I've been doing tonight. See, I had this sudden realisation that the week ahead of me is going to take some very careful scheduling if we are going to survive it, especially as I managed to completely fail to notice that Tom's drama school's local 3:30pm and 6:30pm shows will clash with Caitlin's school dance group's 45 minute drive away 5:00pm performance next Saturday. It's a good thing I'd also failed to buy tickets for the dance performance thus making decisions about which show to watch very easy. It would help if I hadn't volunteered to serve supper and kid-wrangle backstage at both the drama shows...

I've also blithely planned to take Caitlin to check out another choir a half hour drive away on Monday afternoon at the exact same time as Tom has his local drama class, Caitlin has a dance performance on Wednesday night and I'm expecting this to be a busy week on the paid work front for me. I need to clone myself.

Sunday
Breakfast: Porridge
Lunch: Pumpkin soup
Dinner: Beef casserole (I'll take a photo this time!)

Monday
Breakfast: Cereal, toast and fruit
Lunch: Pumpkin soup
Dinner: Pork and beans

Tuesday
Breakfast: Poached eggs on english muffins
Lunch: Packed lunch at office
Dinner: Spaghetti bolognese

Wednesday
Breakfast: Cereal, toast and fruit
Lunch: Packed lunch at office
Dinner: Mango chicken curry

Thursday
Breakfast: Baked beans on toast
Lunch: Bento box takeaway
Dinner: Bangers and mash

Friday
Breakfast: Cereal, toast and fruit
Lunch: Packed lunch at office
Dinner: Homemade pizza

Saturday
Breakfast: Egg and bacon muffins
Lunch: Toasted sandwiches
Dinner: Leftovers

In lieu of content I bring you Friday Fragments and a belated DUFC

Hosted by Mrs4444.

It's been a long week, the short version goes like this:

• I shared my liquorice with the internet.
• I found somewhere for our holiday with friends next month.
• The weather got really rather cold.
  
• We bought mobile phones for David and Caitlin.
• We celebrated my Mum's and her twin sister's 65th birthday at my Aunty's place with all the cousins and their offspring (except the cousin who is in the US).
  
• I booked myself in for singing lessons with Caitlin's teacher.
• I watched Up with the kids and season 2 of True Blood without them.
• We discussed the issue of ethics classes in SRE time at the P&C meeting (and I refrained from snark at a comment left on the blog).
• I collected signatures for the petition in support of the St James Ethics Centre ethics classes trial and posted 50 of them off to be tabled in parliament next week.
• I had Dad over for his birthday dinner on Wednesday night - also 65!
  
• Caitlin had two singing auditions, she got the one we didn't really want (a place in the Australian Youth Choir) and missed the one she desperately wanted by a whisker (a solo part in the ArtsNorth Primary Choral Concert at the Opera House).
• I got very stressed about some P&C stuff (not Ethics trial related) and decided I had to un-involve myself.
• One of Tom's fish died.
• And I kind of went to pieces.
• But a combination of The Angels, an awesomely indulgent lunch, and some blatant frittering away of the afternoon have restored my equilibrium.
• I am now drinking Baileys and about to watch Sherlock Holmes.
  

It's a good thing I have Twitter and Facebook to record my life for me, I'd have been hard pressed to dredge all that up just from memory.

The 25th Down Under Feminists Carnival was hosted this month by Rachel at Musings of an Inappropriate Woman.

Menu plan Monday

I can't get my printer to work so I'm putting this here instead of pinning it to my notice board in the kitchen. It's probably no more likely to get looked at here than as a file on my laptop, but it makes me feel better.

Day	Date	Breakfast	Lunch	Activities	Dinner
Mon	7/6/10	Cereal, toast and fruit	Vegetable & barley soup	5:30pm Drama Grandy for dinner	Bangers and mash Fruit & yogurt
Tues	8/6/10	Porridge	Packed lunch at office	8:15am Tutoring Sports uniforms for Tom & Cait 7pm P&C Band meeting	Spaghetti Bolognese + salad Rhubarb & apple crumble
Wed	9/6/10	Cereal, toast and fruit	Packed lunch at office	7:30am Band 4:30pm Flute 4:45pm Song & Dance	Mango chicken curry & rice Fruit & yogurt
Thurs	10/6/10	Boiled eggs & toast	At canteen	8:15am Tutoring 9:30am Canteen PHHS 3pm Choir 5pm Ballet/Hip Hop 7pm French	Beef bourguignon Fruit & yogurt
Fri	11/6/10	Cereal, toast and fruit	Vegetable & barley soup	8am Dance	Prosciutto baked pork fillet + salad & mashed potato Ice cream
Sat	12/6/10	Scrambled eggs, bacon and grilled veg			Homemade pizza Fruit & yogurt
Sun	13/6/10	Cereal, toast and fruit	Birthday lunch somewhere!	Grandma's birthday	French onion soup & bread Fruit & yogurt


Hey, look at that - nothing planned for Saturday yet! Hmmm, what to do, what to do?

Blacktown Medieval Fayre

I have a new apron dress! This is very exciting! No, really!

It started with a beautiful length of handwoven woollen cloth made by the very talented Pat which I bought at the Armidale Easter camp. I made a piece of tablet weaving with the intention of using it for the straps on the dress. The cloth and the braid sat looking at me expectantly while I dithered for weeks on account of really having no idea what to do next. Then this morning, I was talking to Deb, and the subject of how much I hate sewing came up, one thing led to another, a little bit of barter came in to play, and the next thing I know she's hand sewing my dress for me, with an antler needle and hand-spun woollen thread and using hand-made brass pins no less! And the best bit? Not one scrap of either the cloth or the braid was wasted.

Me in my new apron dress with Deb, seamstress extraordinaire.

We were at the Blacktown Medieval Fayre with the Ancient Arts Fellowship as part of a living history display this weekend.

The Ancient Arts Fellowship encampment

Adam had his pole lathe set up and we had the tent with our replica Viking bed on display.

The kids hanging out in our tent

The group's camp kitchen attracted much interest as various meals were cooked, lunch on Saturday was coq au vin, Saturday dinner was beef stew with dumplings while Sunday lunch was pumpkin soup with bacon and sour cream followed by a lamb stew.

Adam in the kitchen

Beef stew with dumplings

The Craft Geteld

The Craft Geteld housed a display of textiles crafts, we had drop spindle spinning of both wool and flax, tablet weaving, sewing, naalbinding, embroidery, viking wire weaving and finger loop braiding happening at various times during the day.

That empty seat next to Deb is where I spent most of today.

There was jousting, fighting, executions, pike and musket drills, theatrical swordplay, plenty of market stalls and even free pony and camel rides. Tom had three camel rides and neither Adam or I were there to take a photo of any of them. Independent kids are such a trial!

I was going to throw a whole bunch of other photos in here too but my Flickr upload is taking for freakin' EVER and I am very, very tired. So I'm going to bed. But I may add more photos in the morning. Or I might not. Who knows!

Don't forget to head on over to Unknown Mami's to see what's being shared by all the other fabulous Sundays in My City bloggers!

Friday fragments - flotsam and jetsam edition

Hosted by Mrs4444.

I seem to have rediscovered my blog this week and gone on a bit of a posting spree, so that's been good. Wonder how long that will last.

Anyway, let's see if there's any bits and pieces still floating around inside this brain of mine...*rattle* ...*hang on, tip it the other way* ...*look, there's something stuck in there* ...*clatter* ...*plink* ...*watch it! it's getting away!* ....*clunk* ...*splash!* ...*damn it! you dropped it overboard!*....*quick, grab the net* ....*splosh*...*thunk* ...*right, here we go* ...*hmmm, not much here really*...

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I followed up last week's comedy of errors by completely forgetting that I had to take Tom to be fitted for Band uniform trousers at the school at some point this week and received a firmly expressed email reminder last night that today was the last day. Oops. We went this morning.

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I also ended up with Tom home sick on Monday and by Wednesday the lurgi had well and truly got me too. On Thursday I didn't get out of bed until after the kids came home from school. I'm currently feeling very grateful for my 2 half days of work a week that I can actually do from home if I need to and a husband who picks up the slack without hesitation (or indeed even being asked) when I'm out of commission.

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The fish in the tank we gave Adam's mum for Christmas have been breeding. She started with 4 platies and ended up with about 40. Her tank is not big enough for that many platies, but ours is, so Adam did a couple of fish relocations and we now have at least 20 cute little red and black platy babies in our big fish tank. I'm not sure what we do if they all keep breeding at this rate. Perhaps we annoy all my kids' friends' parents by giving baby fish as birthday presents. I'm sure that'd be a huge hit.

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Now for some things I've found floating around the intertubes this week.

Dr Who meets Castle Anthrax, beware spoilers for "Vampires of Venice"


The world's biggest beaver dam. Beaver are pretty amazing, they transform the landscape and these ones have built a structure that can be seen from space.

"Researcher Jean Thie said...he used satellite imagery and Google Earth software to locate the dam, which is about 850 metres (2,800 feet) long on the southern edge of Wood Buffalo National Park."

Photo credit: (AFP/HO/S. Anderson)

"Ignore Stephen Baldwin - Restore Joss Whedon" - seriously bizarre, but not nearly so bizarre as the original video on which this one is based, which sadly I can't show you as it's been made private. Can't imagine why they've done that...




"Brontë Sisters Power Dolls" - I want a Brontësaurus for my birthday please.

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That's the lot from me on this fabulous Friday (well, it's pretty fabulous now that's it's over, it wasn't looking quite so attractive at the beginning of the day). For more Friday Fragments head on over to Half-Past Kissin' Time!