deird_lj

- Kate Lockley is much more awesome than I remember her being.

- Josh is cute, but very frustrating when he won't stop crying.

- Caramel slice needs more crushed biscuit in it, next time.

- Cross-stitch takes FOREVER.

- Terry Pratchett is rather fabulous.

- I should never take BtVS season 4 out of my collection and leave the rest sitting there, because it means I currently have an eyeless Buffy staring at me from across the room... with her disembodied eyes sitting elsewhere, and also staring at me.

- Nephew-wrangling is an elite skill, and should come with a manual.

- There is such a thing as too much chocolate mud cake.

- Angel wearing hawaiian shirts is rather hilarious.

Here, have some cute photos of adorable nephews.

( much cuteness )

I now know how to play Snap! with a three year old.


What happens is, you all sit in a circle (on cushions - the cushions are very important), and Mummy turns a card over and says "four cats". And then Alex turns over a card and says "one bus". And then Auntie Maz turns over a card and says "nine hot-air balloons". And then Daddy turns over a card and says "four cats".

And everyone gasps! Four cats! And Mummy has a four cats card too! Quick! Get ready!

And you all put your hands up, and get ready, and at exactly the same time you all hit the carpet and yell "Snap!"

...and then Daddy collects up all of his cards, and all of Mummy's cards, and the game starts again, with Daddy playing first.


(And Baby Josh gurgles away on his mat, because he's too little to play.)


It was extremely fun.

On Saturday, we had a "Women's Wellness and Wellbeing" day at my church - the name being purely so that they could shorten it to "WWW" day (my church is very into acronyms).

There were all kinds of fun activities like crafts, and hip hop dance, and facials, and so forth. And I did none of them, because I was wandering around taking photos of everyone else.

We also had a marketplace, with many many fun things, and I bought a bag ...and almost bought huge amounts of earrings, too.



Then, I spent Saturday night babysitting Caleb.
We made a fire, and sat in front of it, cuddling. (Caleb said nothing for about half an hour, except for "It's a BIG fire, Auntie Deird", over and over again.)

And I stayed overnight at their house, so I got to have breakfast with my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew this morning.



This afternoon, I've been MULCHING.

I believe I have, on previous occasions, mentioned the fact that I don't really like gardening.
Let me qualify that statement: I don't really like gardening, unless it involves shoving things into very loud machines that pulverise them and spit pieces all over the backyard.

Mulching. It's what engineers do to make gardening AWESOME.



I am tired now. I plan to spend the evening eating spaghetti, and watching Gremlins 2.

This afternoon, I failed to recognise my very own nephew for over ten seconds.

( an explanation... which gets a bit technical )


In other news, we had a great day, filled with fun party games, cake, and backyard cricket.
And much cuddling of Josh, who gets cuter every day.

*loves my fantastic family*

We just had our very own earthquake!

Apparently measured 4.7 on the Richter scale - which might be mini to you overseas living-on-a-faultline-people (or might not, I have no idea), but out here, it's pretty exciting.

I was babysitting Caleb at the time, and the stovepipe for my sister's fireplace was rattling incredibly loudly. And the couch was shaking.
I started mentally calculating how long it would take me to run into Caleb's room, grab him out of bed, sprint to the back door, and dive for cover before the house collapsed... and then the earthquake settled down.

So, no death-defying leaps from collapsing buildings today.

1) It's really nice to look through old jewellery, discover something you'd completely forgotten about, and realise that it just happens to go perfectly with all your outfits...

2) I filled in an internet survey today that, among other things, asked about people's political views. ("Are you a: Conservative, b: Liberal, c: Socialist, d: Anarchist, etc...")
Annoyingly, the first letter of the answers were all capitalised (as demonstrated above), so I almost got very confused.
In Australia, you see, there is an enormous difference between a liberal and a Liberal. Politically, they're polar opposites.

3) There is no way Tara would beat Gwen Raiden in a showdown, no matter what blogging comic book geeks might think.

4) You really do feel quite ridiculous having a two-year-old run up to you in a crowded restaurant and announce "I did a WEE!" at the top of his lungs, and having to respond with delighted enthusiasm while ignoring all the odd looks from other customers.

5) Frasier really is an enormously fun show.

Tonight, I sat and watched as my nephews ran round and round the kitchen (or rather, through the kitchen, round the back bit, and then through the kitchen again), with Caleb muttering "fast-fast-fast" to himself, but pausing every time he reached me to go "hi, Arn Deird".

Alex, meanwhile, who has been getting into more sophisticated styles of conversation ("Hello, Mez. It's nice to see you. How are you today?" was how he greeted me this evening.) would run through, pause, say "Bye, Auntie Maz! See you soon!" and keep on running.

"See you soon" being the Alex-approved method of doing this, Caleb soon switched to that one too.

In between times, they'd both yell at the top of their lungs "Nude Dude! Nude Dude! Nude Dude!" while continuing to run round and round as fast as possible.



...I'm in love.

Let's see what I can remember...

( Thursday to Wednesday )

I've spent another weekend almost entirely without internet.
This was not a good thing.

On the other hand, I was very busy, so at least I had plenty of non-internet-related things to do...

( my weekend )