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

Winter Sport

This year, as mentioned before, we have had the pleasure of entertaining the new notion of winter sports for the boys.
Ben has loved soccer, there are no other words to say about it. He has grown so much in the last 12 weeks. His skills in all areas of the game have improved 10 fold and we now have an awesome little striker in our midsts.
He has learnt some awesome ball skills and foot control. I am so looking forward to when the back garden is finally finished and all flat, cause I can see he will be out there with a ball practising quite happily.

Alex, even though he didn't want to play soccer, sadly changed his mind after about week 4, unfortunately by then it was too late for him to join in! Next year for certain, as he too has gained some lovely little ball skills from joining in with Ben's team at practice each week.

Ben's team throughout the season has grown too and in fact they went on to win their division.

This last weekend the soccer season had finished, however most of the team signed themselves up for Jambo Soccer.
This is an all day of soccer games. Every team was represented by a country. To find out more about Jambo Soccer then check out their website.
Ben's team was Croatia, we even went so far as to get a Croatian flag to wave at the parade. It looked so cool, on the biggest wooden stick Steve could find in the garage.

However, it was a very long day, with lots of fast 6 a side soccer games lasting 10 mins each way with a 2 min break at half time.
Sadly the boys struggled with the pace of the games and lost every single one they played in. They never actually scored a single goal!
By the last game they had all had enough but were not quite ready to give up.
Unfortunately some bright spark decided to do the final results in an odd way.
The top 4 teams fought it out for 1st and 2nd. The winners got gold and the next team silver.
However this is where it got funny.....3rd and 4th walked away with nothing but the bottom 2 teams (5th & 6th place) got to play each other for the bowl prize?
So we had to play one more game.
We lost, no surprise there, although this time the team only beat us by 1-0 rather than the 3-0 from the previous game.
However what was ultimately surprising was the fact we walked away with a medal! Yea that is right, we got medals and certificates, bronze as they called it?! How? we are not exactly sure and do not understand why at all!

We, all the adults, logically thought that 3rd and 4th would fight it out for the bowl trophy and bronze medals and that the bottom teams would just get smiled at and told "well done for trying your best" and "better luck next time" but no.
Even now, 48 hours later, I am still trying to work out how we managed to come dead last, bottom of the bottom, with absolutely no goals to our name and still walk away with a medal etc.
If you understand all this and know why it happened this way then pray please let me know.

Celine Dion

Many years ago (like maybe 6yrs), Steve brought me the dvd of Celine Dion's "A New Day" Las Vegas Show.
This is a 2 disc set. On one disc you have the whole show & song selection and on the other you have the back stage pass (the whole show from behind the scenes) and Show secrets.

Now everynow and then I get the whim to watch this dvd, or more to the point, put it on whilst doing something else in the house and having the volume up loud so I can sing to it whilst working.
Last week I put the disc on to listen to the show one evening, Ben got into it really well. He loved watching her dance and sing, he loved all the Cirque de Soleil dancers and even all the flying stuff up on wires.

Then he had the pleasure of watching how everything happened from behind the scenes. He is now hooked.

It is his dvd of choice to put on in the evenings. On the way to school he will even ask me if we can maybe watch the disc when we get home, after doing homework of course!

He is slowly learning the songs and will happily sing along to it all.
Luckily for him she is one of my favorite singers, so he has no worries about getting to know her work as mummy has several cd's of her music.

When ever he hears people talking on the radio about concerts he now asks me who I would like to see in concert? Adele, Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars? He always manages to come back to Celine and ask if I want to see her, yes I always say, he then agrees and says 'ok mummy but could I come too?'

10 Years

Yes, it is sadly already 10 years since 9/11
Man has life gone past so fast, well to us in a different country, maybe not so fast for the people who have lived through it.

I know everyone will be remembering where and what they were doing on the fateful day in 2001. I was, as mentioned a few years ago, in Hong Kong at the very beginning of our 6 week holiday to England. It definitely put a cloud over the whole time away from home. It possessed the whole holiday and gave us a different look on things.
September holds so many special days for this family and some of our most vivid memories are also around this month.

To all in America, I wish you well on this day. A little prayer goes out to you and your family. I hope you have moved forward and that life is easier as each day goes by. I don't want it to get easier that you forget, but that you are able to live with your heart and breath a little easier.

Tomorrow is a new beginning. A day to make new friends, new choices and a new ways to achieve old dreams. Live, laugh and love.

Secrets

Well it is not a large secret, just a little something that I have started but not told too many people about.
You see I joined the gym.

Now I know thats quite a shock but I felt I had to do something because I wasn't doing anything. Steve is doing Judo twice a week and many times he kept telling me to do something active.

So many weeks ago I joined and I am loving it.
I am not sure if I have lost any weight, but then I never joined to loose weight, I joined to get more exercise.

I have got into a routine, which is one of the important things about trying to get there regularly, I attend the gym at the same time as the boys going to Judo, it helps that the gym is just round the corner, so they drop me off on the way and I walk over when I have finished. I usually get to see the last 15 mins of their Judo.
I also go on a Wednesday morning after taking the boys to school.

So I am now attending 3 times a week, sometimes, although I must be feeling really unwell at these times, I have even been known to go on a Saturday morning.

The other day I had the worst day ever at work, I was seething when I finished work, and the feeling wouldn't go away, so I went and pounded it out on the cross trainer. And man did it feel good afterwards, I had calmed down considerably by the time I was finished and it felt good.

I am loving the feeling when I have been to the gym, I can see why some people can get addicted to it. However the gym is on the first floor and for the first few sessions I had trouble leaving each time due to the fact my legs were like jelly walking down the stairs. I admit I had to hold the handrail and walk slowly, but luckily that feeling has now passed and it is nice to have that stretching of my legs as I leave the gym.

The biggest help of all at the end of the day is the fact my family are behind me on this and make it as easy as possible for me to get there whenever I want.

Oppotunity Knocking

I am one that always believes that if you don't go for something when you see it, then you may miss out.
Life's an adventure and let's have some fun along the way.
The worst that can happen is that you fall on your behind and have to pick yourself up and start again, but sometimes that can be fun too.

I think my parents instilled this fun adventure into me, with the nomadic life we have lived then adventure is always something I am happy to go on.
Ok, I am not so sure if all the adventures the family have taken were what everyone wanted but I am sure looking back we had fun taking risks along the way.

2 weeks ago at work there was an ad for expressions of interest in joining a group to look at change and waste management within the hospital. Now waste management is looking at process and usage waste not good old fashion trash!

Anyhow, I showed my interest because it looked interesting. 1 quick group meeting to find out more info, the lucky chance of being called to a one on one meeting and this week I have been seconded for a year to the project as of Oct 1.

I am excited and looking forward to it. My current department is fun but not my total cup of tea. I sure can't see me staying here for the remainder of my career, so the ability to go away for a year is most apleasing to me.

The other advantage of moving to a desk job is that my blogging may stay up to date cause I will be able to post when I want to.

Inspiration

As many of you know, I am currently working towards achieving my Batchelors Degree in Nursing. Yes I am a nurse but I only have a Diploma, so am upskilling myself.
Now I am doing this all very slowly, 1 paper every semester, and seeing as each semester is about 5 months long I am therefore only getting 2 papers done a year.
With 4 papers to complete it is taking me until the end of next year to complete.

I am doing these papers by distant learning and that is where it can be hard work, however I have managed occassionally to get to the 1 lecture available each week, however the lecture is held in Rotorua which just happens to be 1hr 20mins drive away, so a huge afternoon away for just a 2 hour lecture.

The last sememster however finished in June, although my last essay was due in end of May (which I passed successfully by the way). This new paper just started at the end of July, so I had down time of nearly 8 weeks and thus lies the problem, my mojo for the next paper has yet to be sparked!

So yesterday I winged wheeled my way to Rotorua for the first lecture I could manage to get to, even though this is currently week 4! I even managed to leave dinner cooking so the family had something to eat when they got home before me.
And I am so glad I managed to get to the lecture. It was the total inspiration that I needed to kick start me into getting this paper completed.

Like the last paper I have 2 essays to complete on Nursing Law and Ethics and Leadership. 1 due middle of September and the 2nd due end of October. Neither essay is going to take too much to complete but you need the inspiration to hit the ground and run with it.

I will always be the first to admit that distant learning is not for me, it is hard and I struggle with the lack of contact with other people. I enjoy going to lectures as I always come away from them with some new information that helps me further, but then isn't that the whole point of lectures, to help you further even if you have to do reading yourself?
This lecture just goes to prove it, things fell into place yesterday and I know realise that I was looking at things from a slightly different angle and am now back on the straight again.
I have managed to rearrange family life and work so I can attend the next 2 lectures as well and hopefully this will assist me further and all will be fine.

The course tutor obviously has faith as she was already asking me which paper I am thinking of starting next year with ??

Back Up

How often have you read somewhere about someone having their computer crashing and loosing all their favorite pictues or documents?
Yes, I have many times.
Now never fear we have not had any accidents with the computer but it does always sit in the back of my mind.
I have mentioned to Steve a few times that we really do need to do something, just in case.
Now being married to a guy who knows so much about IT you would expect us to be all organised and sorted....wrong.

However, our computer has been playing a little silly recently. It has suddenly gone very slow, although there is still a lot of space available. We don't have many programmes running in the background and suddenly the music programmes on the computer all stopped working. It kept coming up with errors regarding 'unable to find that song' or 'that file no longer exsists'.

Steve said he would try some stuff but I suddenly had this horror thought that something may happen and we would crash the computer, thus having to spend a lot of money to get some nice company to retrieve all our favorite docs from the old harddrive, if at all possible.

So at 7.45pm on a Sunday evening I suggested he go to the Warehouse and see if they had an external harddrive.
$160 later and a harddrive of 1 terrabit (available space now of about 4 times our computer) we sat and went through everything on our computer, worked out what we would like saved and copied it all onto the harddrive. Pictures, files, documents & music.
So now we have a back up of everything we want to never lose. The harddrive is now hidden in the house well away from our computer so god forbid, if we were ever burgled, we would still have that first ever picture taken of Ben when he was an hour old etc.

I now have to try and remember to get Steve to back up the harddrive ever 3 months or so, cause then at least we will only loose 3 months worth of stuff and not everything!!

Hamilton Bloggers

Are there any Kiwi Mummy Bloggers out there in the Hamilton area.
If so leave me a comment, would love to come and visit you.

Quitting

Yes that does say quit not quilt, and no I am not quitting quilting.
Alex however decided the other day that he was quitting school!
I, wanting him to accept the consequences for his own actions, agreed with him however I did have specifications to go with it....
He had to inform his teachers.

He was a little taken back by this and asked me to explain. I simply told him that I was happy for him (my 6yr old) to quit school but that he had to go to school and tell his 2 teachers why he was quitting and then he also had to go to the Principle and tell him as well.
I then said that I was happy for him to leave school.

He thought this over for a few minutes and then happily annouced to me that he had changed his mind and would continue to attend school.

Flying By......!

Time really does fly by when you are having fun.
Just read on my dashboard that I last posted on July 23, geez that was almost 4 weeks ago, life must have been good.

Life is good actually.

The family have suddenly discovered the joy of actually helping around the house and therefore having time to themselves.
For the last 2 weekends the boys have happily helped with what ever chores need completing, this has then been reflected in the fact that we all get to spend Sunday doing what ever we want.
Sitting around watching movies, reading books, filling the lounge floor with train track or lego.

Guilt free I have managed to sit and read a book and not worry that washing needs folding and put away or vacuuming done, cause it has all been finished and completed by the whole family.

However I am not holding my breath over how long this may last!
But if there is any one up there listening to my prayers.....then please help me to make this last at least a few more weeks.

Huge Update

So it has been 2 weeks since my last post. Lots has happened, life has kept going and I have just been trying my best to keep up.
I feel like I am in confession here "forgive me father, it has been 2 weeks since my last confession/post....!"

Anyway, here are some pictures and info about what we have been doing, decided to do a large post rather than sit and write many posts.

 At the beginning of June, Alex turned 6. Sometimes I am amazed that he even makes it to his birthday each year!
We had a great time and as usual I made a cake, as requested. I am at present, eternally grateful that neither of my boys have ever asked for a specific type of cake with a theme. They always want a chocolate cake, which is easy to do but they have never asked for a particular shape.
So for his birthday this year, he had a round simple chocolate cake, with frosting and sprinkles. That was it, nice and simple. No staying up half the night building trains and shunting yards with liquorice straps here.
Last year he wanted Ben 10 and again I happily helped by making a round cake with blue/green icing on top with a Ben 10 figurine. It was greatly accepted and loved. What more do they want or need?

 His request for his party this year was to go rock climbing.
Every year, for the first 5, we have done a party and it usually consists of family and some dear family friends. Never have they invited actually friends because up until then they have not really had any that were not family friends.
So I always said that their 6th birthday could be big as it was going to be the first one that they would have school friends. Ben happily agreed and had a big party for his, Alex however wanted 2 friends from school and his 2 cousins, total.
No matter how much we told him he could invite who ever, he stuck with those 4 and that was that. But then that is Alex for you, decision made end of story, no moving an inch yet alone a mile!
He had a great time so that was all that mattered.

 The first Judo fun day of the year came around in June and the boys were all excited about that. However Alex came out in a huge rash and did not feel great so he didn't compete but Ben did and he worked hard all day.
Which, if you do, then you get rewarded for your hard work and that for Ben was rewarded by winning the Gold medal in his class. He fought hard in all his fights, had some great fights (I wish I knew how to upload video because there is one I would love to show you all) he won everything and deserved that Gold medal.

However, as previously posted, a week later he broke his foot.
He got put in a backslab for several days which he managed with very well, however on day 4 it needed to be replaced and they placed him in a 3/4 cast (back and 2 sides, front left open) however this did not stop him in anyway. He took over the settee and played Wii all day.
2 days later the doctor decided that he actually was doing great and needed to not have a cast just a splint shoe for 3 weeks. So he is now walking on it (and running and jumping!! however much we try to calm him and get him to be gentle) and it is doing well. The swelling has reduced and so has the lovely blue/black/green colour from around his toes etc.
He doesn't complain of any pain so hopefully all is healing well. Soccer and Judo will be started again sometime in the new term but it will be a good 6 weeks after the accident to ensure all is healed and well ready.
However, with the fact we are in the middle of school holidays, then soccer and judo are not being missed as they are not happening, so all worked out well.

We are also doing some changes around the house, pulling a chimney down, flattening the back garden etc. I do have pictures but that is one thing I will definitely leave to do in a post by itself!

Crutches

Ben has had the joy of learning how to use crutches this week.

Luckily for him, he is at Grandma's house at present, so not many steps to climb. We on the other hand have a flight of 18 to get upstairs, so guess we will be carrying him to bed each night.

Apparently he has been doing well on his crutches and his learning to keep his balance better.
After 4 weeks of this he will probably be very fast on them.

Just Perfect! The Joys of Parenting

This time last week I was ranting and raging about having time off work due to a sick child. He by the way is now fine and we really don't think he was ever that contagious, but we will not argue that point now!
So yesterday life finally got back to normal.
Everyone went to school and I got to go back to work.

However that only lasted until 5pm last night.
Ben jumped down of the stage at after school care last night (like he has everyday practically for the last 2 years) and then complained his foot hurt. Apparently he walked across the hall and then mentioned it hurt.
He could walk on it and move his toes and said it didn't hurt too much when touched. We decided that a pulled muscle was probably the best and left it at that. He had shoes on at the time so we felt his foot was supported so expected nothing sinister at all.
This morning his foot was swollen and sore, so Steve took a couple of hours off and took him for an x-ray at 9am.
I on the other hand called in the cavalry (aka Grandma)
They diagnosed a sprain and sent us home telling us to keep him home for the rest of the week. So Grandma came and did a snatch and grab and whisked him home to her house till Saturday.

Don't you just love Grandma's?

Unfortunately I wish it was all just that simple.
Turns out someone else reviewed his x-ray later in the day and they called us at 5pm to say he needed to be seen again due to actually having a broken foot.
Slight problem, he is now 1hr drive away.
So Grandma took him to local clinic and they called our clinic who advised of the diagnosis.

Now we have a back slab, non weight bearing with crutches for 3 days, then a visit to fracture clinic and then 6 weeks in a cast.
So soccer season, which he is loving has just disappeared along with Judo.
Not sure if he realises this but then seeing as he is not at home at present, still at Grandma's, then we will discuss this with him when he returns!

So here we are, 10pm and I still am not exactly sure what is happening. I never saw the doctor, we haven't really spoken to anyone proper about the phone call because no one has spoken to us yet! Grandma knows more than we do due to being told directly at her clinic what the Hamilton clinic told them, but even then because she is not in town, then they don't know who, when or where.

My day off tomorrow is obviously going to be spent getting to grips with everything and when we have to be places and what for.

The joys of Parenting.

Challenge #3

I have finally finished another challenge. Really should get more of these done as I do only have 4 1/2 months left and I have well over, well almost, most of them to complete!

Anyway, a few weeks ago I managed to finish #3 - Buy some wool and knit a friend a scarf.

Started the scarf not really knowing who was going to be the lucky person to have it, but then decided that the perfect person was my mum for Mother's Day.

As I have already mentioned, I have lots of challenges left to achieve. Now I am not about to set myself a challenge to achieve my challenges, as otherwise I may be going in circles, but seeing as my study does not start again for another 2 weeks then I will try and use my Wednesdays to plan and achieve the challenges I have to complete.

My 3 Guys

The beautiful guys in my life....