The Amount of 10 Things

On the 10th day of the month, every month, friends over here always blog about 10 things.

Usually they have to do with her scrapbooking, but as I am not yet a scrapbooker, then I will just write 10 things about what ever is happening at the moment.

So here are my 10 things for this month.....(I know I am a day late!)

1. the amount of days until Alex goes to stay with Grandma on his own.
2. the amount of weeks the kids are off school for the holidays.
3. the amount of times I should go to the gym each week, but sadly don't always make!
4. the amount of mums at the girls night we had last week that had us laughing and crying so much.
5. the amount of days we are going to the caravan for, for Labour weekend at the end of next week.
6. the amount of stitches we took out of the cat last night following her surgery 2 weeks ago.
7. the amount of hours sleep I would love to get each night if I wasn't woken by my husband snoring!
8. the amount of days since I started my new job, which is going well by the way.
9. the amount of minutes I have left to get this post completed, posted and get to my next meeting seeing as I am writing this at work!
10. the amount of kilos I would love to loose, if I ever really put my mind to it and decided to do something about.

Hope this enlightened you a little
Catch you next time

Yippee

Some people get excited over the silliest little things in life and I am no exception.
I am all happy and excited because ...........wait for it.........?

My followers has gone from 6 to 9 in the last 24 hours.
Yea for me.

Hello to you all, you are most welcome and I do hope I blog about something that interests you and that you don't get too bored.

Leave a comment everynow and then, love to hear from you.

Now I feel all cosy and warm that I have some new friends.

Holiday Programme

My children are the unlucky ones who have to endure Holiday Programmes every school holiday times.
Sadly no sitting at home for 2 weeks with undivided attention from mum, who has a chart made up with every activity under the sun organised!

Now Ben has been attending since he was 5 and he loves it. No other way to discribe it, he has no worries going there, he loves the leaders, he knows them all, he loves helping out and organising people which they happily let him do. He would go 5 days a week if we let him.
He feels the same about before and after school care. Again, if allowed, he would go every morning and afternoon. So we have had no worries sending him there at all.

Alex, well he is a different kettle of fish. he goes because he has too, not because he wants to be there. He will loudly tell you he doesn't enjoy it but secretly I know he does, just a little.

He finds the holiday programme long, but then the poor things are there from 07.45 till 5pm on the days that they go, so I don't blame him, think I would get a little bored with the place when there like that all that time per day.
They do have organised activites but most afternoons it consists of sitting and watching a movie or 2. Alex doesn't mind movies but if he gets bored with it or isn't enjoying it, then he wants to do something else and I get the feeling from the boys that sometimes, watching the movie is what they are doing and there is nothing else to do, you are not allowed to go and chase a ball in the main gym area. So I can see how this would frustrate the crap out of Alex.

This school holidays, however, will be the real little test as Ben has just turned 8. That means he is now in the 8-11 age group and they meet somewhere different to the 5-7. So the boys are in seperate areas, seperate buildings to be more precise, on seperate grounds.
Ben, well no worries, he is somewhere he loves and will just go with the flow, if not then he will organise it so things are how he wants them.
Alex, well watch this space, will be interesting to see what he has to say about the whole day, what he got up to and how things went. Without his brother there he may have a fabulous day and be all smiles or we may have the 'I don't like YMCA' bit when we drive home.

However it turns out we will deal with it, although we have already had the stomach aches at 07.30 this morning!

Blog Surfing

Due to Blogtoberfest I am blog surfing my way around the world.
It is addictive sometimes.
You go to one blog, they mention something about another blog, you are interested so open that blog in another tab, then you follow something they mentioned that was to do with the first blog you went to and suddenly you are 4 blogs down and can't quite remember what it was you were looking at that was so interesting!

I have just been checking out this blog Rocking Chair Reflections and came across this post she wrote about life after her husband had passed (he passed 4 yrs prior to her writing this post). It is not sad in fact it had me laughing so much I had to read it out to my husband.
If you want a giggle for 2 minutes then click on over to here and read for yourself.

I can well imagine that sadly anyone who has lost someone obviously goes through this at one time or another. Even 4-5 yrs later!

Snail Mail

Snail mail what ever is she on about, I can hear you thinking?
Do we really remember what this is? Because I was seriously thinking this art had disappeared, poff vanished!

Do any of you ever really send any snail mail anymore? Come on now be honest, when was the last time you visited a mail box in the street to send something to someone? Ok so I can now hear some of you asking if the boxes are still on the side of the street? And I will sadly grace your question with a full answer of 'Yes' they are still there somewhere if you know the right places to look!

Now by snail mail I am not just leaning towards bills and cheques for paying someone, I mean fully fledged snail mail to a friend or relative, telling them about your family, an exciting thing that just happened or even god forbid a birthday card, welcome baby card or even if anyone remebers them a get well soon card.

Go check you address book now, ok yes the one on your computer, do you actually have address's for all the important people in your life? Do you even have the postcode for that address? Most postal services are pushing for postcodes nowadays!

Did you, big step here now folks, even send any Christmas Cards this year?

I can admit to sending out Christmas Cards and no I don't do it just to see how many I receive back but I was quite shocked at only receiving 3 this last Christmas! Have people just stopped communicating?

I am currently taking part in Blogtoberfest, where you blog 31 times in 31 days throughout October, in other words 1 a day for the whole month.

Anyone who signs up for this at Tinniegirl's Place can go and check out the blogs of others taking part too.

So this morning I have sat in bed and whiled away my time visiting blogs from all over the world.

One I visited was Staring at the Sea and she had a post on there about having just taken part in a Mail Art Exchange. Along the lines of decorating a card and envelope and sending it to someone who you have been given the address of. Like a swap I guess.

However she enjoyed this project so much that when she discovered this next project she thought 'why not?'

It is a project where, starting today Oct 9, you plan to send 1 piece of snail mail each week for a year. To find out more about it check out their Facebook Page or read more about it here.

You do not sign up to a list, you do not get given anyone special you have to send too, you just do this because you want to, because you want to send something to people you know, you want to try and remember to send birthday cards throughout one whole year.

If you are a creator then why not buy a bunch of blank postcards and decorate the front and send 1 to a friend or relative. Maybe you have some fun paper and can get creative making the envelope instead.

If you find a photo of someone and you think they would appreciate a copy then copy it and send it to them, via snail mail, not as an attachment!

See a poem you know someone would like, then print it out and send it to them telling them it made you think of them. Or even just put pen to paper and write something to someone...!

The mail man, he does still exsist, he still comes round to your house 5 or 6 days a week. Ok like mentioned previously, he may only drop off bills and fliers advertising things, but how much more fun it would be if there was something bright and colourful and personal in amongst those bills?

Also remember, you may have not been to a post office shop for a while but they too still exsist, they even still sell those stamp thingys that you require to send snail mail. they even have pretty ones with special pictures on occasionally to commemorate a special time or promote something special that is happening. Maybe you can try and send things with pretty stamps on rather than the boring generic everyday ones.

 When I was younger, ok who am I kidding here I still love it now, I loved receiving things that had interesting stamps on. Special ones that were only for that week or month.

So have fun with this, run with it, create more work for the post people. If you want someone to send something to, then leave me a message. Always happy to receive things, even if it is just a note saying "hope your day was good?" surrounded by an exoticly created envelope.

Have fun.

Family Fun

Back at the beginning of 2006, after I had returned to work after having Alex, I came across a website called Family Fun. It is a site and organisation that is run in part by Disney.

It is a website dedicated to everything to do with fun in the family.

• crafts
• recipes
• activities
• parenting ideas
• party ideas
• family evening activites
• printables - colouring pages, quiz, puzzles

There is always something that you know will work with your family.
They even have a magazine that is produced 10 times per year. They only produce 1 edition over July and August (summer holiday time) and again in December and January (Christmas holiday time).
It is happily delivered to New Zealand and is usually only about a week or 2 out. (I just received October's the other day) Although there are not many competitions that you can enter because sadly you do need to be an citizen of US to enter, but that is no worry. Also if there was a specially celebration holiday at the beginning of the month, you may find they had a great idea for an activity that sadly gets to you too late, but by checking out the website often you can see it on there first before receiving the magazine!

From reading that last section you have by now worked out that this is in fact an American publication. I haven't found anything I can't adapt yet and yes sadly the magazine for summer activities does arrive slap bang in the middle of our winter but I see that as giving me plenty of planning time for the summer months ahead.

Go check them out here and see if you can't find something that will work for your family.

A couple of months ago they celebrated 20 years of Family Fun by giving you a chart to collect the monthly Badges of Fun on.

Chart can be printed from website

These badges are available 1 per month and gives you 10 activites to complete throughout the year.
In June the badge was Backyard Fun where you had to do something outside with the family.

In July the badge was Preserve Family Memories where you had to find a way to remember

In August the badge was Hit The Road where you had to take a family trip together, whether to Grandmas or the supermarket!

In September the badge was Learn Something New where you had to do something as a family that was new to you all.

Now in October the badge is Family Night Fun where you have to do something fun with the family at night. Play outside, games night etc.

Without realising it we have managed to complete all of these and I haven't even told the family that we are doing it!
Maybe it is time to sit them down and let them know what we have achieved so far and make plans for how to achieve the others as they come up each month.

I love receiving my magazine and seeing what fun activities are suggested. There are awesome art creations as well but I have never ventured there but if you were a school teacher, kindy teacher or daycare person you may find some wonderful ideas on things to make with the kids etc.

In another post sometime I will write about what we have done to achieve each badge, if you start completing the badges, then let me know. Would love to see what you did.

Home Show

Every year at this time the Home Show comes to Hamilton.
They are always more elaborate than last year but I can't always say they are bigger, some years I have noticed they seem a little smaller with slightly less stall holders.

We never go with a particular item in mind, more often than not, we are just going to see. See what takes our fancy, see what people are suggesting is the new way of doing something, seeing what crazy new gadget is out that apparently we just can't live without.....not!

We do however like looking at the spa pools and dreaming of what it would be like to have one in the back garden.

We like to look at the new invented ways of having a sun shade in the garden, because maybe one day when we have our deck we might have a sun shade, although by the time we get round to it umbrellas will be back as the new in thing to have.

I love checking out the crazy selling speel the man goes through to get you to buy not just 1 but 2 steam mops, because we all have houses that are large enough to need 2 of the dam things.

We love looking at the next best thing in decorating, the thing that will help you do something and it will also 'save you time and money' yea right.
Any new cleaning product that works wonders on any surface and is still only made from 'baking soda' or 'vinegar'.
We dream of how crazy it would be to have new appliances in the kitchen that are all psychodelic pink or green because SMEG seems to think we all want weird colour appliances.

We are also happy to sample any and all new drinks, wines, cheeses and fudge anyone has to offer to try and tempt us to purchase they new product.

Generally we have found the Home Show to be a great evening out for the family, where we wander round viewing everything and then go home with absolutely nothing to show for it!

Homework!

Ben can get himself all in a tizz over his homework very easily.
Somedays it flows nicely whilst on others it is harder than turning the tap on.

However the other day he asked us what jobs didn't have paperwork?
Turns out he doesn't want to do any!
On further investigation, it turns out that his only understanding about paperwork is homework and that is what he doesn't want to do in a job....homework!

I had just finished my last essay for my degree and he felt this was paperwork for my job (it is not, as I am doing this totally seperate from anything to do with work) so we had to explain that in fact my essays are for my school not work, that they were my homework like he has.

We did go though some jobs and discuss what paperwork would be involved, he caught on pretty quickly that, hopefully, training in a job would give you all the information and skills you would need to complete any paperwork involved.

Funny the little things that bother them somedays.

Blog Name

What is in a blog name?
Not much I am sure but the owner of the blog may tell you otherwise!
How did you name your blog?

My mother is always stealing posts from my blog for hers, well when I actually remember to blog that is!, so I decided to steal an idea from hers. Fair is fair mum!

Anyway, her post was about how the name for your blog came about?
Why did you choose the name you did, why is the address what it is? Have you changed it since you started the blog all those years ago?

My blog is called 'Life Today' and it is exactly that, a blog about life today.
I think I chose my address with blogspot before having a title for the blog, thus the reason it is different, but it is amazing how many people's url address is not the same as the blog title.
Have I changed the title at anytime? No

I can't say I have ever really thought about changing it....maybe on the odd occassion when I come across someone else's who has a super cool name for their blog and I wonder why I didn't come up with something super cool too. But for the most part no.

What about you?
Any interesting story behind your blogs name?

Leave me a message if you have so I can come over and read your story.

Blow My Own Trumpet

Occassionally you can be really proud of yourself and feel like you want to tell the world.
Unfortunately some people then think you are showing off when all you really wanted to do was celebrate when you have achieved something great or be proud of your own success for just 2 minutes.

Well this is one of those times when I am going to pronouce to the world how wonderful I think I am and how proud of myself I am too.

I am currently, slowly, completing my Degree in Nursing. This entails 1 paper every 6 months and each paper requires 2 essays.
The first was Nursing Knowledge and I completed this between Feb and Jul of this year. The results for that paper are as follows:

• Essay 1 = 79%
• Essay 2 = 72%
• Overal Paper Mark = 76% = B+

Yea for me, well impressed with myself

The 2nd paper I am doing is Law and Ethics within Nursing, this is being completed from Jul through to Nov.
And yes the reason I am writing all this is because I just got my result for essay 1 of this paper.
Now before I give you the result, let me tell you I felt this was one of my worst papers, I did everything in a 48 hour window one weekend (in fact the weekend as it was due!) and when I went through the marking sheet as answering the questions I really only put myself in the low 60's, but then I didn't care as I only need 50% to pass the paper.

So it is no wonder, as I sat at my desk this morning at work that I let out a little celebratory yippee as I read the result of 85% for essay 1.

I am very proud of myself and I want the whole world to know it.
Now I just have to complete essay 2 in the next 3 weeks and I am done with study for this year and have a nice summer holiday till Feb next year.

Not a Cafe!

When I was little I always remember my mum saying at dinner time "this is it, I do not run a cafe"
Whatever was served for dinner was it, she was not making 26 different meals for 4 people just because 1 person didn't like/want/fancy whatever she had decided to cook for dinner.

Now I am a mum I am sticking to the same rule. After having to decide what is for dinner for the last 8 years, believe me when I say, I am not mucking around with dinner, this is it, like it or don't eat!

So we have stuck to the same rule, we cook one dinner and that is that.
However I am prepared to adapt what I am cooking, if it is simple, so everyone will eat this one dinner.

When the boys were younger they didn't like the chilli as hot as we did, so I cooked the chilli basic, took their's out and then added more heat to ours. No worries there as we all still had the same thing just adapted slightly.

I have found 2 pasta bake sauces in the supermarket which we like. However Ben does not like them, so instead of not having this dinner anymore because of that, then I have adapted.
I cook the pasta and fry the chicken.
Then I serve his pasta into a bowl and place chicken on top. Then I tip the sauce into the remaining pasta along with the chicken and everyone else has pasta with chicken with sauce.

Both bowls then get baked in the oven and hey presto we have a dinner that everyone will eat and everyone is happy when going to bed as they are full and satisfied.
To me this is not bowing to their every whim, just adapting slightly to have a pleasant family dinner that everyone will eat which leads to a happy home enviroment.

Now if they said they didn't want it all together and wanted a totally different dinner then ........tough, this is dinner, eat it or starve!

New Job

Over the last 4 years this seems to be something I have blogged about often.
My career within the last 4 years has been eratic to say the least.
However this time I am not leaving a company to move somewhere else I have just accepted a secondment to a project for a year.
It means no clinical hands on nursing for a year but that doesn't both me too much.
But it does mean that I get to use all the knowledge I have acquired over the last 16 years on how things work.
When we were in Auckland I had just started to get an inside look at how management worked within nursing, I am not totally clear on how it works in this hospital, nor do I know who does what senior role within the hospital, but believe me I am about to learn all this.

So I now have to find a decent wardrobe to wear to work each day, I was in surgical scrubs up until now, and get use to meetings and emails and sitting at a desk.

But hey, I like a good challenge.

Rugby World Cup

Oh I am sorry, did you not know this was on??
I guess when you live in a country where it is not happening and not in your face constantly for weeks and months leading up to it, then you are allowed to be a little blaize about it.

However, we live in New Zealand and yes... the Rugby World Cup (RWC) is in full swing and has 3 weeks left till final time. Everywhere you go there are flags flying for the country that person is supporting. Shops have designed their window displays around the RWC theme. Offices are decorated to support whoever. People are talking rugby every morning and people are not at work because they happen to be away a day or 2 due to having tickets to whatever game is on. So it has affected life just a little.

Have we got into it, well just a little, the boys have had times at school where they have been required to wear their favorite teams colours, one project they had was decided upon by choosing countires within the RWC.

The media, well what can one say about the media?? They have hyped this to out of this world proportions.

My 8 yr old is now wild about the All Blacks (New Zealand's team, if you didn't already know that) and I can honestly say it is due solely to the media. Sadly he only knows 2 of the players but again that is because they are the 2 highest profiled ones.

We are not a rugby family, yes we will watch it, yes we understand it but no we are not avid fans, no we do not have Sky Tv so we can follow every game religiously and no life does not revolve around a certain game on a certain day!

However, saying that, we did get tickets to a game during the pool games. We went and saw Wales v Samoa that was played right here in little Hamilton.

The boys loved this and were all excited about going. We got flags to wave, although we could only find Samoa flags at the time, so we waved green pompoms for Wales.

We painted designs on our face to show which team we were supporting. The family decided to split up and have 2 support one team and 2 the other.

Team Samoa

Team Samoa

Best Wales flag I could draw!

Team Wales

However, eventually Alex got a little bored in the 2nd half of the game and he just cheered for whatever was happening.

Samoa huddle prior to game

 

The whole atmosphere was great and I am really glad that Steve went to the trouble of getting tickets to a game. I thought the boys were a little too young to apreciate it but I was wrong, they didn't totally understand what was happening at times but hopefully they will remember the fact we, as a family, had a day out to the Rugby World Cup when it was held in New Zealand.

Blogtoberfest

Come on guys, have you got something to say, want to check out others in the blogging world?
Then join in with Blogtoberfest and see what is happening out there in the world of blogging.

I have been lax in my blogging this year, seems to have not been high on my list of things to achieve, although I do keep coming up with the posts to write and the ideas I just never seem in the mood at the end of the day to sit in front of the computer and write them!
That may change now as I am changing jobs this weekend and as of Monday I will be at a desk job for a year rather than in a clinical setting with hands on.
I may not know exactly what I am doing for the first week, but at least when I have 5 minutes I can always blog or at least write out the post for fine detailing in the evening, which if the post is already written then adding the pictures and possibly the odd link is not too difficult to do whilst watching tv in the evenings.

So Blogtoberfest, here I come, I will have 31 posts this month.

On a very happy note.......

Today is my Aunty and Uncles 50th Wedding Anniversary.
Yep, 50 years of wedded bliss together.
There is a big party at their house today which will be a great family get together.

Congratulations to all.

The Little Things

As you might remember, the head of a company survived

9/11 because his son started kindergarten.

Another fellow was alive because it was

His turn to bring donuts.

One woman was late because her

Alarm clock didn't go off in time.

One was late because of being stuck on the NJ Turnpike

Because of an auto accident.

One of them

Missed his bus.

One spilled food on her clothes and had to take

Time to change.

One's

Car wouldn't start.

One couldn't

Get a taxi.

The one that struck me was the man

Who put on a new pair of shoes that morning,

Took the various means to get to work

But before he got there, he developed

a blister on his foot.

He stopped at a drugstore to buy a Band-Aid.

That is why he is alive today..

Now when I am

--Stuck in traffic ,

--Miss an elevator,

--Turn back to answer a ringing telephone ...

--All the little things that annoy me.

I think to myself, this is exactly where

God wants me to be at this very moment..

Next time your morning seems to be

Going wrong ,

You can't seem to find the car keys,

You hit every traffic light,

Don't get mad or frustrated;

It May be just that

God is at work watching over you.

May God continue to bless you

With all those annoying little things

And may you remember their possible purpose.

A M E N