WHO'S STUPID IDEA WAS THIS ANYWAY?

As a Christmas gift I am flying my Mom out to Australia to stay for a few weeks. When I told her over the phone on Christmas day, I said that she could come out next or next year or she can came out when the plums are ready for picking.

She is officially coming out in March, which is a few weeks after the plums will be picked. Did she time that perfectly or what?

Well, as excited as we are to have her out, it has forced us to 'pull our fingers out' (as they say down here) and finally finish off the projects that we started almost a year ago, but were waiting to finish when the rains stopped. When the rains stopped, we decided to wait until it wasn't so hot.

It is still hot, but now we are under deadline and have been racing around getting everything done.

Last weekend I planted the summer annuals in the few garden beds that were bare, again pruned over 70 maple trees that hang over the driveway, potted up hanging baskets, summer pruned the roses, pulled more weeds.

Stuart fixed all of the retic, bought the extra bits of furniture that we needed and power hosed all of the dirt and redback spider webs off of the veranda.

Then one night before I went to bed, I decided to watch Under the Tuscan Sun. Stuart dreads it when I watch this movie because the next day I always drag him to the home depot type store so that we can renovate something.

This time I wanted to renovate the Cottage. The kitchen in the Cottage, which was all 70s tans, creams and browns, needed updating.

We were planning on renting it out as a holiday stay, so we needed to do it anyhow, just not this week.

So we decided on the colour scheme: black and white.

Rushed off to the homewares store and came back with a bootfull of tiles, grout, paint and E.S.P.

As we started to finish the cottage kitchen, the cottage bathroom (which is off the cottage kitchen) started to look weary so we renovated the cottage bathroom as well.

Then as the cottage bathroom was nearing completion, we realised we had to do something with the main cottage bedroom... which is at the opposite end to the cottage kitchen and the cottage bathroom, but had no furniture except a single bed.

So we rushed out to the furniture store and bought a new bedroom suite for our bedroom and put our old one in the cottage main bedroom.

Now that the cottage main bedroom is done, cottage smaller bedroom is looking a bit like a junk room.

Actually cottage smaller bedroom is a junk room, filled with photos and suitcases and half inflated inflatable punching bag and whatever else we don't want anymore, but don't want to throw away.

I can't bring myself to clean up that junk right now, so we will just keep the door closed and tell people it is where we keep Grandma.

Photos will be posted later on this week, fingers crossed, however plum season is about to begin and we have a newly renovated cottage.... any takers????

Still on the to do list... finish the paddock fencing, paint the main house and pick plums.

STOP! THIEF!

So this interesting statistic came out this past week.

One out of every ten people in Sydney admitted to stealing their co-workers lunch.

I don't live in Sydney, so my lunch is safe. My city just so happens to have the highest rate of people who eat lunch at their desk. As I read this "lunchtime" article (at my desk eating my lunch) I looked aross to those in my line of vision and my assistant was eating lunch at her desk and my boss was eating lunch at his desk.

Maybe this is why we have a low rate of theft? We keep them in the filing cabinet and gaurd them with our lives.

I have never been into stealing other's food, however I did once have a friend who ate any yoghurt in the office fridge that was not eaten by the time it had reached its expiry date.

So what I would like to know is, are you a lunchbox thief?

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER DECADE

Today marks the first day of a new decade... although I am not entirely sure if that is true or not. I thought a decade was 10 years and unless I am counting wrong the years 2000 - 2009 only adds up to nine.

Whatever, if Entertainment Tonight has nostalgic specials on 'The Messiest Celebrity Divorces of the Decade' then obviously the decade is over. Who am I to argue with Mary Hart?

I was just reading over on Mom #1's blog and she reminded me of the how, on New Year's Eve when we were just about to enter the decade past, we all thought that he world was going to blow up at the stroke of midnight.

Yes, that was a fun night. The danger that we could be dead when the ball dropped just made us all drink more and dance harder. Then when we realised that we didn't die, we drank even more and danced even harder.

It was the year 2000, and we survived and what a beautiful world it would be. There was going to be spandex jackets, one for everyone.

Did you get yours?

YEAR END HIGH SCHOOL DANCE RECITAL - THE REVIEW

Tonight we all went to watch Courtney's high school dance class perform little dance ditties (with a 'D', Mr Show) on stage.

We watched as young Australian high school girls krumped, popped, puppeted, Bollywooded and jazz handed around the dancefloor. A new style was even created that was a combination of hip-hop, puppetry, jazz and.... calisthenics.

One girl did a modern dance solo. She pushed herself out on a wheelchair, fell to the floor and rolled around a bit until her "inner desires" willed her to use her legs and do a few jumps.

It started at 7pm and ended around the year 2054.

Courtney was excellent in the peice that closed the show. It was a group dance to Beyonce's 'Single Ladies'. Her long blonde hair was flowing freely as she gave attitude and demanded that we put a ring on it.

Overall rating: 83% less slutty than the Mid-year High School Dance Recital.

SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE

It is 12.30 in the morning and I am baking a pie.

Strawberry rhubarb pie. Not just any strawberry rhubarb pie, but Cindy Crawford's very own recipe.

I must admit that I was exceptionally inspired earlier in the evening to bake this fabulous pie, but then I had a few Hard Lemonades and well, I am am just lucky to still be coherent enough to type this post.

For about an hour I just stared at the kitchen counter as I lounged out on the couch.

What kept me from baking the pie was not so much the cutting of the strawberries or the slicing of the rhubarb, but rolling out that bloody dough!

I hate pie dough. I hate when it falls apart, and when there isn't enough flour on the counter and it adheres there for days or when it appears as an almost perfect circle except when you put it in the pie pan there is one spot that just doesn't quite make it to the edge...

Who needs the stress?

As I started to think about it, the angrier I became.

Was I really defeated by a pie recipe from Cindy Crawford? I mean... Cindy Crawford?

What has my life become if I can out do The Mole in pie baking?

So I did it. I am listening to jazz and baking a pie.

I was even feeling so competitive with Cindy bloomin Crawford that I decided to do my pie top as latticing!

That's right! Top that, Cindy.

Well, actually, it shouldn't be too hard since I could not see straight enough to cut the strips into even remotely reasonably even peices. My pie latticing looked like arts and crafts hour at the methodone clinic.

Latticing scrapped.

So I know what you are thinking, How can I top the bitch now?

Ha! I use the normal pie crust top, but with cut-out hearts scattered on it. Only I don't have a heart shape cutter, so I improvised with my knife by cutting the best little heart shapes I could muster.

So here I am happy in homoland decorating a pie thinking "A heart here, and one over here and another one here and wait a minute, these do not look like hearts.. they look like... OH MY GOD!"

Hearts scrapped.

So what I am left with is a pie that appears just as called for in Cindy's recipe.

But can Cindy say she used strawberries and rhubarb freshly picked from her garden?

No I am sure she cannot... and neither can I.

Outfoxed again by Cindy Crawford.

MURDER REDEMPTION

You may remember that I wrote a post a while back about my tedious ability to murder animals with my car.

Whilst I am busy running birds and animals down, Stuart is busy collecting them from the side of the road. Not the dead ones, but the injured ones.

The first bird he brought home was a galah (also called a 'pink and grey' cockatoo), whom we rushed to a avian vet. That bird started bleeding out of his nostrils and did not make it the night.

The second bird was a rainbow lorikeet. This bird was hit by a car. We put him in a cage and kept the conditions safe and warm. Within a few days he was lively and did not have any broken bones or injuries.

Stuart wanted to keep him, but at my insistance, he was released into the wild again.

The third bird was love bird, which was either released or escaped from being a household pet. Stuart was sitting at the outside table on his laptop when this love bird suddenly landed on the keyboard.

Of course love birds cannot survive the wild, so it was placed in a cage to live a happy life with our resident cockatiel (which prompted some concern as every bird that has a shared a cage with this particulat cockatiel has ended up dead within a week).

Now for the fourth bird rescue which just happened last night. Stuart came home from the local farmer's market and walked through the door with this thing clutched to his chest.

I, of course, remained calm. Not recognising it as a bird when I noticed this thing I screamed and jumped back a few feet.

It was a baby pink and grey which was hit by a car.

I got the spare bird cage out of the barn and grabbed a towel to wrap it up in and keep it warm.

The couple minutes it took to get back from the barn, the bird had gotten worse. His head was just hanging there, as if the spine had been severed. In fact, as I walking back up to the house with the cage and caught a glimpse of him, I thought he had passed on.

I made a nest with the towel and gently covered him to keep warm. I figured that when he dies, at least he would be comfortable.

Last night I wrapped the cage with a thick blanket to create a dark warm and quiet space for him.

This morning he was doing a lot better, sitting properly and head movement came back.

Then a few hours later he let out a soft "caw".

Just before, I was out there giving him fresh water in a very small dish and he then climbed on the side of the bowl and went to sleep.

He looks healthy, as in no broken wings, legs or spine. Just seems a little bit subdued and sleepy. Which is expected after such a trauma.

We will see how he is tomorrow and then next couple of days and if all is well then he will be released back into the wild.

ANNOUCEMENT, ANNOUCEMENT!

At this time, Hula Hank will not be taking on any new commitments.

Instead, Mr Hank will be focusing on improving and streamlining his existing commitments.

That is all.