So you want to diet.....

You know how they tell you to stick a picture on the fridge to help you diet. It's either a fat one to remind you or a target picture. Well this blogger may just have found the perfect picture to scare you into never opening your fridge door again. Now hold on tight and click here.

Smiley Saturday

Just this morning I picked the first tomatoes of the year from my garden. Little bursts of red sunshine on my tongue. There would be photos but me and #3 ate them all. (There were only four ripe cherry tomatoes.) In about two weeks time I 'll be going, "Oh no not more tomatoes!", and if it gets windy Homer will be going, "Oh No! not more green tomato chutney"



Last week it was " How many chickens have we got? are you sure? cos there's a lot of eggs in here!" I still haven't worked out a way of preserving eggs except pickling them so I attempted a Cool Hand Luke approach..... (That is one of my favorite films, or rather the line " What we've got here is a failure to communicate" is one of my favourite film lines.)

The ultimate school trip

"Mum, mum, I need to 18 dollars to go to China"

"Huh?"

"My teacher says if I bring 18 dollars we are going to China."

I think to myself that this is a school trip that sounds like good value. Maybe I should read the letter.

"Have you got a letter?"

"No, Give me 18 dollars.....pleeeeeeeeeeeeese."

I think I better ring the school to find out what is really going on. Does he mean they are being sold into slavery? Does he mean a trip to the local Chinese takeaway?

So this morning I ring the school,

" Hi, mum of #3 here."

"Oh hi," a few commiserations follow, everyone knows #3 is the brother of #4. They look very alike and on more than one occasion #3 was left holding the bag for #4 until the school realised that the small child on the school roof was more likely to #4 than the placid #3. #4 says the school roof is ace, he went up there because some one else had got stuck after he dared them to climb up. He was going to rescue his friend but then someone shouted at him from the office so he climbed down. The school have since lopped of the tree branch that caused that little incident. #4 got down fine and disappeared into the crowd, but the firemen had to rescue his small friend. Back to the point.

" Is #4 sick?"....I feel guilty when I hear the barely disguised hope in her voice.

"No, its about #3"

" Awwww, he's not sick is he, poor little lamb." (Every-one loves #3, he is sweet, and being next to #4 helps him comparison wise.)

"No, no, It's just he says if I send 18 dollars into school he's going to China."

"Oh"

"I thought that might be a mistake? and if its not can I come as a parent helper?"

" I would think its a mistake, hold on."

" Ah, here we are, year four trip to China town, the letter is coming out tomorrow."

Oh well.

The revenge of #4

I have a house full of teenagers at the moment. The girlchild has her boyfriend over, and there is a small gang of teenage girls visiting #1. One (or maybe more) of them may be his girlfriend. He doesn't seem clear on this, but then he is not clear on much. The house is full of shifty looking youths and inappropriately dressed girls. I believe this is the normal appearance of teenagers.

Number four is a little put out by their presence, they are disrupting his disruptive activities, and he thinks one of them has his hammer. (Number 3 hasn't noticed, none of them have walked between him and his Stargate DVD.)

I was keeping a loose eye on the gang as they lurked in my back room, and realised I was one down, a male child, #2's boyfriend is missing. I walked up the corridor towards the back of the house and could here a faint voice, " Help me, help me please."

"Who is this? Where are you?"
"It's me, I'm stuck in the toilet."

Number four had loosened the handle on the inside of the toilet door, obviously he still has a screwdriver hidden somewhere. Next teen in had shut the door and the handle had come off in his hand. He was torn, should he try and fix it, cry for help, would "It wasn't me" work?, would we speak to him again? would he be allowed to see #2?, would we believe he hadn't done it? But worst and most horrible of all, All his mates were there, would they laugh at him?

Note to self: find screwdriver.

More teenage woes....

One of my colleagues has a teenage daughter (TD) who is at "that age". Everything is a plot to destroy her social life, and the whole world has ganged up to make her life impossible. Oh, she knows everything as well. I know what she's going through, #2 is just the same.

Predictably this has led to conflict, last week at school with one of the teachers. I think there was a personality clash as well to be fair to the TD. She rocked up to school yesterday and was told she had detention. No, this didn't fit in with her plans, so she rang her mum at work and asked her to get the detention lifted.

Mum said " No, you got into the situation, you do the detention." TD is not happy. She has plans to go to McD's with her mates, not go to detention. TD asks teachers to lift her detention, answer is no. TD goes to principal and complains that the teacher is treating her unfairly ,she doesn't want a detention,she wants to go to McD's, they can't make her do it so there. The principal tells her she should do the detention or get suspended.

TD rings mum again. TD gets more detention for not going to class and using her phone. TD rings mum at work again. TD gets told by school she will be doing detention. TD becomes hysterical and locks herself in the school toilets and rings her mum.

Mum is with me at work and is getting a bit ticked off with all the phone calls, so she says she's not going to answer the phone next time it rings.

The phone rings and I pick it up.

" You have ruined my life, I will never forgive you, I hate you ,I hate you, I hate you, I'm never speaking to you again." etc. etc. etc.

" Sorry, I think you have the wrong mother, I am far to busy ruining my own TD's life to have time to ruin yours, would you like to speak to your own mother?"

Smiley Saturday...already?

It's Smiley Saturday again, the weeks go faster as you get older. I am sure we get Christmas twice a year now it comes around again so fast. Number 4 is sure we don't ever get it, being as he doesn't have his motorbike, snake and chainsaw yet.

I've had plenty to make me smile this week. I got a new digital camera. Working out how to use it is fun. It has a self portrait feature and so far I have a picture up my left nostril, one up my right nostril and one where I look like I'm about to be attacked by a lion. The shock picture made me go and have my hair done. Do I really look that bad, apparently the answer is yes.

I got my roof for my undercover area, the second half went up a lot quicker than the first. Homer only had the blind chicken helping him which made the job go faster. It made me laugh to watch them though, he'd reach round for a spanner and the chook was stood on it, every time.

We rescued the blind chicken from a factory farm and she was blind in one eye when we got her. I think she's lost most of her sight in the other eye now and she sticks close to the biggest moving object in the garden. This is always Homer when he is out there. She used to stick close to the psychotic chicken but psycho chook kept leading her to the middle of the garden and taking off (you wouldn't think a chook could be a bitch but she is).

It makes me smile to see a chicken trailing Homer round the garden clucking as if in deep conversation. She got a bit of a shock when she went to lay her egg in the dead herb garden and I'd converted it to a water feature though.

More good news, I have three writing jobs to do this week, its a good job I booked the week off from my real job.

Self improvement

In a reaction to the news that if I visit China I may be gender tested on the basis of my appearance I decided a bit of self improvement was in order.

The easiest quick fix....my hair. I read Milla's description of the dog scaring possibilities of home hair dye so decided to spend money on a professional job, at the hairdresser. It has taken me twenty years to find a hairdresser I trust (yes, twenty, if she ever emigrates I will have to follow her, be it to England or Ulan Bator ) and she has been nagging me gently to get rid of the grey for some time, so I took the plunge. " Go for it."

She's done a very good job and paid attention to my hair care methods....open car windows to dry hair on the way to work, maybe use fingers to brush hair at week-end, maybe not, be able to get hair ready to open door to the police with fingers due to neighbours complaining about #4 (or most recently the cat). She gently pointed out that a tomato soup colour may be a step too far initially.

I'm very pleased with the results. Homer less so, " If I'd wanted to marry some one with short hair I'd have married a man." Girl child, "You need some new clothes now." This last is a double edged sword, it means that 1. She is prepared to be seen with me in public and 2. She wants some new clothes....see previous post on taking girl child shopping for clothes.

The main problem is that now I may have to do something about my eyebrows. The hairdresser offered to wax them, and I said yes, but left quickly when she forgot. Threading seems to be out having read the memsahib. My tweezers are looking at me accusingly as I sit typing this. I am hoping that they "get lost" while I am busy. The chances of this are high as #4 is eyeing them up to hold the small bolts he took out of his highly expensive remote controlled car. To his dismay this stopped it working so he is attempting to fix it.