Not too much to say. Enjoy the video!
Friday, November 13, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Cold November Rain
Howdy Doo everyone.
Pardon the month-long hiatus, (insert whatever excuse will make you happy here). Given that blogging has been a good way to keep our friends that we don’t get to talk with very often up to date with our lives, and a number of you keep reminding us of that (thank you so much), and on the whole we’re writing about living in a place that’s pretty foreign to most of you, we’ll try better to keep up.
Tim is back from a week spent in Northern Queensland. Overall, I think he had fun, but he’ll have to tell more about it when he gets his butt in gear and actually writes a post. From my perspective, his being away is getting easier to manage. For one thing, he’s rarely gone for more than a week at a time anymore (no more 3-4 week stints) and secondly, Edie is a whole lot more entertaining to hang out with 24 hours a day. She’s also way more social so we can go out with other kids and she’s pretty happy to play with them rather than hang off of my hand or hip. There are three of us (‘us’ being new (relatively speaking) moms) living on our street, our kids are all under the age of 2 and we can now rotate shifts of watching 2 or 3 kids so that one or two of us moms can take a break while husbands are at work/away/whatever. That’s a big help when Tim is gone. So, while Tim is away the missing Tim factor is still quite high, but it’s more because I just really like him and his company rather than because I’m going to scratch my eyes out in frustration due to too much mom overtime.
Well, it’s coming on summer here in Australia, and despite the fact that we’ve been here for almost 2 years, it still feels weird to think that we’re in November right now. It’s just not right. Thankfully we’ve only had a few scorchers so far, but they’re getting more and more frequent. Soon we’ll have to start implementing the 30 degree factor again; when the day’s temperature is predicted to climb over 30 degrees, Tim goes to work between 5 and 6 am so that he can get home mid-afternoon and we can get out to the coast to cool off. A nice attribute of the summer coming on however, is the abundance of rain that comes with it. Our 5000L raintank which we use only for laundry and watering plants was empty as of a month ago (ummmm, we do a whole lot of laundry around here). It’s already half-way full once again. The best part about all of the rain is that the majority has been falling at night, with Mr. Sun out nice and smiley during the day. The best of all worlds!
And speaking of watering plants, I’m sure the question that is burning in all of your minds is this- how is that lasagna garden coming along? And I am so happy to report that it is thriving! We planted basil, cilantro, oregano, dill, and lemongrass seedlings and took in a refugee garlic plant from a plant-propagation lab at the university. Unfortunately the cilantro couldn’t handle the heat, it croaked, but the rest took very well and they are now quite happy at home in our garden. I did have an incident with something attacking my dill plant overnight while Tim was away. Every morning Edie and I would go out to take a look and all of the branches would be broken off. I’m not sure why it stopped happening, but it has, and the plant seems to be recovering well. So I’m finally getting my green thumb back, all it took was planting stuff in a pile of poo and rotten food (honestly, if this experiment hadn’t worked I would have really started to question what I’ve learned (learnt, in Aussie-spell) in my mazillion years of schooling). So, Miss Edie and I put on our gardening shoes (my flip-flops, her pink rubber boots) every morning and late afternoon to go and give the garden a drink. Edie likes to carry the empty buckets back and hook them over the faucet. She is SOOOOO cute. She also likes to pull of Basil leaves, which is not as cute.
Oh yes. I almost forgot. Given that we were in Canada last Christmas, we’re rather wondering what to expect this year, it being our first yuletide season spent in Oz. We’ll keep you updated as the season progresses but the weird thing that we’ve already noticed is that if you go into a shopping mall right now, you’d never know if you were in Australia or North America. It’s the exact same! Did someone say Christmas decorations? Yep, the same. Santa’s workshop? Check-check; the same. Crowds of nitwits? Heck ya. The same. Outside, of course, you’re sweating buckets, but as soon as you enter a mall it’s like you’ve walked into this alternate universe this is attached to no specific hunk of ground or climate. Oddly enough, it seems that Christmas in Australia draws the same imagery as it does in North America, and lots of it is associated with snow and evergreens. Is this weird to anyone else? I’m certain that given too much time in malls here at Christmas time (something I hope we don’t actually experience), we’d forget where we were. It’s a weird, creepy and altogether unsettling feeling. Bah humbug.
To counteract our grizzlies over malls at Christmas, sadness about not being home and general malaise in dealing with commercialization of this holiday (Linus said it so well), we’ve decided to decorate a potted plant for our tree this year with homemade decorations that Edie has promised to help us out with. We’re looking forward to building some new family traditions into our new family this year. We’ll keep you all posted on those...We've also been invited to spend the actual holiday with friends about 4 hours north of us, we've accepted and are excited to spend Christmas with people we really like.
I’m going to keep this post shortish and catch you up on some pictures. Enjoy! I hope that you’re all doing well. And congratulations to Jen and hubby on the arrival of your new boy Marko! Welcome to the other side. You’ll never look at a screaming infant the same way.
Love,
Laura
PS. We don't have any way of showing how many times each book on our reading list is read by us. I would just like to point out that these days Miss Edie is requesting Bud The Spud at least 4 times a day, in our best Stompin' Tom voice to be sure.
Pardon the month-long hiatus, (insert whatever excuse will make you happy here). Given that blogging has been a good way to keep our friends that we don’t get to talk with very often up to date with our lives, and a number of you keep reminding us of that (thank you so much), and on the whole we’re writing about living in a place that’s pretty foreign to most of you, we’ll try better to keep up.
Tim is back from a week spent in Northern Queensland. Overall, I think he had fun, but he’ll have to tell more about it when he gets his butt in gear and actually writes a post. From my perspective, his being away is getting easier to manage. For one thing, he’s rarely gone for more than a week at a time anymore (no more 3-4 week stints) and secondly, Edie is a whole lot more entertaining to hang out with 24 hours a day. She’s also way more social so we can go out with other kids and she’s pretty happy to play with them rather than hang off of my hand or hip. There are three of us (‘us’ being new (relatively speaking) moms) living on our street, our kids are all under the age of 2 and we can now rotate shifts of watching 2 or 3 kids so that one or two of us moms can take a break while husbands are at work/away/whatever. That’s a big help when Tim is gone. So, while Tim is away the missing Tim factor is still quite high, but it’s more because I just really like him and his company rather than because I’m going to scratch my eyes out in frustration due to too much mom overtime.
Well, it’s coming on summer here in Australia, and despite the fact that we’ve been here for almost 2 years, it still feels weird to think that we’re in November right now. It’s just not right. Thankfully we’ve only had a few scorchers so far, but they’re getting more and more frequent. Soon we’ll have to start implementing the 30 degree factor again; when the day’s temperature is predicted to climb over 30 degrees, Tim goes to work between 5 and 6 am so that he can get home mid-afternoon and we can get out to the coast to cool off. A nice attribute of the summer coming on however, is the abundance of rain that comes with it. Our 5000L raintank which we use only for laundry and watering plants was empty as of a month ago (ummmm, we do a whole lot of laundry around here). It’s already half-way full once again. The best part about all of the rain is that the majority has been falling at night, with Mr. Sun out nice and smiley during the day. The best of all worlds!
And speaking of watering plants, I’m sure the question that is burning in all of your minds is this- how is that lasagna garden coming along? And I am so happy to report that it is thriving! We planted basil, cilantro, oregano, dill, and lemongrass seedlings and took in a refugee garlic plant from a plant-propagation lab at the university. Unfortunately the cilantro couldn’t handle the heat, it croaked, but the rest took very well and they are now quite happy at home in our garden. I did have an incident with something attacking my dill plant overnight while Tim was away. Every morning Edie and I would go out to take a look and all of the branches would be broken off. I’m not sure why it stopped happening, but it has, and the plant seems to be recovering well. So I’m finally getting my green thumb back, all it took was planting stuff in a pile of poo and rotten food (honestly, if this experiment hadn’t worked I would have really started to question what I’ve learned (learnt, in Aussie-spell) in my mazillion years of schooling). So, Miss Edie and I put on our gardening shoes (my flip-flops, her pink rubber boots) every morning and late afternoon to go and give the garden a drink. Edie likes to carry the empty buckets back and hook them over the faucet. She is SOOOOO cute. She also likes to pull of Basil leaves, which is not as cute.
Oh yes. I almost forgot. Given that we were in Canada last Christmas, we’re rather wondering what to expect this year, it being our first yuletide season spent in Oz. We’ll keep you updated as the season progresses but the weird thing that we’ve already noticed is that if you go into a shopping mall right now, you’d never know if you were in Australia or North America. It’s the exact same! Did someone say Christmas decorations? Yep, the same. Santa’s workshop? Check-check; the same. Crowds of nitwits? Heck ya. The same. Outside, of course, you’re sweating buckets, but as soon as you enter a mall it’s like you’ve walked into this alternate universe this is attached to no specific hunk of ground or climate. Oddly enough, it seems that Christmas in Australia draws the same imagery as it does in North America, and lots of it is associated with snow and evergreens. Is this weird to anyone else? I’m certain that given too much time in malls here at Christmas time (something I hope we don’t actually experience), we’d forget where we were. It’s a weird, creepy and altogether unsettling feeling. Bah humbug.
To counteract our grizzlies over malls at Christmas, sadness about not being home and general malaise in dealing with commercialization of this holiday (Linus said it so well), we’ve decided to decorate a potted plant for our tree this year with homemade decorations that Edie has promised to help us out with. We’re looking forward to building some new family traditions into our new family this year. We’ll keep you all posted on those...We've also been invited to spend the actual holiday with friends about 4 hours north of us, we've accepted and are excited to spend Christmas with people we really like.
I’m going to keep this post shortish and catch you up on some pictures. Enjoy! I hope that you’re all doing well. And congratulations to Jen and hubby on the arrival of your new boy Marko! Welcome to the other side. You’ll never look at a screaming infant the same way.
Love,
Laura
PS. We don't have any way of showing how many times each book on our reading list is read by us. I would just like to point out that these days Miss Edie is requesting Bud The Spud at least 4 times a day, in our best Stompin' Tom voice to be sure.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Turkey lurkey
G’day friends.
Well, I hope that this post finds you well. It’s been over a week since Sarah (my younger sister) left for Canada and Tim got back from his trip to Alice Springs last Friday night. You might say that we’ve been busy trying to sort our lives back out this week since everything has been up in the air since Edie and I left for Canada at the beginning of August. As fun as all of the adventure has been, I guess I’m enjoying a little low-key routine again. I sure do miss Says though. And the rest of the family (cough cough).
Other than a good cleaning day last Saturday there really hasn’t been too much adventure to speak of. And when I suggest that Saturday’s cleaning was an adventure, I really mean that it wasn’t an adventure as much as a whole heck of a lot of work. We never did post about the dust storms that passed through southeast Queensland about two weeks ago but we should have...Never in my life did I ever envision living in a climate where dust would actually be in great enough quantities that it could become the precipitation part of a storm. There were reports that 16,000 tonnes of dust were being dumped over Sydney (hit the hardest) every hour of the storm, and of course, there hasn’t been a storm like it in over 30 years. The morning of the first storm the sky just seemed a little hazy but as the day went on it got hazier.
In the sunshine state (Queensland), haze is pretty much unheard of, so it seemed unusual. I checked it out online and it seemed that the dust storm that had slammed Sydney that morning was being blown up the coast. At this time of year, winds can be quite strong coming across the interior (outback), and if they’re strong enough and long-lasting winds, they can carry the dusty topsoil/sand over hundreds of kilometers from the outback to the coast. So, all we could do (all anyone can do) is close up all of the windows and doors while crossing fingers for minimal damage. After the first storm blew through everything in our house was covered with red dirt. After the second one blew through three days later, our house was disgusting. You couldn’t walk across the floor without leaving a trail. Given that we hadn’t really given the house a proper clean since before Edie and I left for Canada, I declared last Saturday to be a cleaning day. And it was. We still haven’t got around to all of the dirt, but at least we’ve made a dent. The rest we can chip away at a little at a time. All a part of life in Australia, I gather.
So, back in August, I had the chance to speak with one of my favorite aunties who I hadn’t caught up with since well before Tim and I exchanged snow storms for dust storms in Feb of 2008. We got talking about Edie and the fact that she’s been suffering from chronic constipation, and Auntie Eve suggested I cut dairy out of my diet as her newest grandchild had suffered the same kind of symptoms that Edie does, and it turned out that dairy was the culprit. I had earlier tried to stop eating/drinking dairy for the same reasons, but made it only half a day before I gave into the cheese craving. I decided after talking to Auntie Eve that I should give it a real go since it really could have made things a lot easier for Edie if it really were the problem. Having grown up on a dairy farm I have all sorts of reasons why I think that cutting dairy out of a diet is not an idea that I’m comfortable with. Alas, I was trying to think of Edie and the potential benefits that she might have gained from my going dairy-free. So, gone was my nightly glass of milk with supper, any hint of cheese and pretty much all good baked goods. Dairy is such a huge part of food! I was sure that I would spend this whole period just miserable for lack of being able to consume any milk product. But you know, it really hasn’t been bad at all. Sure, there have been moments where I’ve wished that I could tackle a kid in the park to steal their ice cream, but for the most part, I’ve really, really been enjoying the non-dairy alternative…Well two of them at least. Big number 1: there is a lady at the west end market who sells homemade vegan cupcakes (also gluten free), they are absolutely the best cupcakes that I have ever tasted. I will continue to buy them and eat them whenever I can (unfortunately I can only get them on Saturdays when the market is running…I've already put in a request to the baker to change this). Also big number 2: We’ve discovered a dairy-free brownie recipe of which the resulting brownies smushed into chocolate soy-scream taste like a million buckazoids. The rest of our diet kind of looks like lots of fruit and veggies and no cheese. I took Miss E to a pediatrician appointment last week and was told that if I hadn’t seen any changes in Edie over the six weeks that I was dairy-free, that it probably wasn’t the problem. The doctor also mentioned that Edie and I should go back on dairy and earned a few points in my books for doing so. We’re back on the moo, though not likely to the extent that we were before. There are a lot of nice alternatives to dairy out there. Oh, and if you’re looking for that brownie recipe (it’s vegan too), just let me know and I’ll send it your way.
A few weeks ago I picked up a book at the Salvos (Sally Anne) for twenty cents. It’s called lasagna gardening and explains a form of sheet composting, using different layers of compost/mulch to create an above-ground garden bed. I spoke to my landlord about building this garden and he was all for it, especially because he’s got heaps of compost that he doesn’t know what to do with, and so do we for that matter. So, Tim and I without really stating the fact, decided that it would be a good challenge to build this garden with the materials that we had kicking around the house (i.e. no excessive purchases of commercial gardening mulches, kits, etc.). So over these past few weeks I’ve been collecting information and materials to get this garden going and one evening last week Tim and I put Edie to bed and the tackled putting this garden together under the cloak of darkness. It was really fun. We had all of our materials held in our garage and our compost was still in the bin in the yard next door. So, with shovels and buckets in hand, in complete darkness, we set on collecting compost from the bin…It’s a rotary composter so the really juicy stuff is on bottom…Our shovel was a bit too big, and did I mention it was dark? I got slimed on and Tim commented that he felt like a grave robber. Regardless, we got what we needed and went back to put the garden together. Problem number two; how to contain the garden. The book never really explained how the garden that you build actually stays together (i.e. in the event of a rainstorm…or duststorm…it’s just layers of dirt really). We didn’t have a solution to the problem until we started rooting through the garage and found a low and flat cardboard box. We cut the bottom out and voila, we had our garden-innards-stabilizer. We filled in the box with all of our layers and were finished. It looks like we have a big cardboard box full of dirt/compost/poo/grass clippings in our backyard, and we do.
I covered it in plastic to retain heat and moisture throughout the days this week until we pick up some plants on Sunday at the market to get things started. We’re excited! If all goes well, we’ll have a few more of these gardens as the year goes on. I think the real fun was taking on an outdoor project together again, all while the Edester was fast asleep. She does like to dig around the cardboard box full of dirt and I’m excited for when she can help us out (free labour anyone?)
This Friday will be our first attempt at daycare for Miss Edie. We’ve found a Somalian lady who lives nearby that runs a program from out of her home. We visited with her last week to get an idea of how comfortable we were with leaving Edie there (only every Friday for 6 hours to start)…We’re quite sure that she will love it. In the meantime, I’ll be getting back into the research assistant job I held prior to Edie and also will be preparing to start a PhD (part-time for now) in January. I’ll tell more once I get into it, at the moment I’m hammering out a proposal with my new supervisor. Exciting days ahead.
And I should say that Miss Edie is changing so much so quickly! She’s taking much more confident steps on her own and I discovered this week (to my delight) that she would prefer walking alongside me rather than being carried in the backpack. On our nature walks she likes to hold on to my finger with one hand and leave the other hand available to pick stuff up with.
The other day over the span of our walk she had a piece of bark, then a stick, then a dead butterfly, then another piece of bark and then a large rock which she liked to pretend was a telephone to talk on. She’s so funny. These days she’s keen on pointing to herself and saying ‘dee dee’, on calling herself a good girl and making many animal noises (most notably the snake, lion and best of all, the puppy complete with panting…and today she figured out the cow noise). She’s also figuring out ‘no’ and willful defiance…Funny right now, but we’ll see how long that lasts.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Well, I hope that this post finds you well. It’s been over a week since Sarah (my younger sister) left for Canada and Tim got back from his trip to Alice Springs last Friday night. You might say that we’ve been busy trying to sort our lives back out this week since everything has been up in the air since Edie and I left for Canada at the beginning of August. As fun as all of the adventure has been, I guess I’m enjoying a little low-key routine again. I sure do miss Says though. And the rest of the family (cough cough).
Other than a good cleaning day last Saturday there really hasn’t been too much adventure to speak of. And when I suggest that Saturday’s cleaning was an adventure, I really mean that it wasn’t an adventure as much as a whole heck of a lot of work. We never did post about the dust storms that passed through southeast Queensland about two weeks ago but we should have...Never in my life did I ever envision living in a climate where dust would actually be in great enough quantities that it could become the precipitation part of a storm. There were reports that 16,000 tonnes of dust were being dumped over Sydney (hit the hardest) every hour of the storm, and of course, there hasn’t been a storm like it in over 30 years. The morning of the first storm the sky just seemed a little hazy but as the day went on it got hazier.
In the sunshine state (Queensland), haze is pretty much unheard of, so it seemed unusual. I checked it out online and it seemed that the dust storm that had slammed Sydney that morning was being blown up the coast. At this time of year, winds can be quite strong coming across the interior (outback), and if they’re strong enough and long-lasting winds, they can carry the dusty topsoil/sand over hundreds of kilometers from the outback to the coast. So, all we could do (all anyone can do) is close up all of the windows and doors while crossing fingers for minimal damage. After the first storm blew through everything in our house was covered with red dirt. After the second one blew through three days later, our house was disgusting. You couldn’t walk across the floor without leaving a trail. Given that we hadn’t really given the house a proper clean since before Edie and I left for Canada, I declared last Saturday to be a cleaning day. And it was. We still haven’t got around to all of the dirt, but at least we’ve made a dent. The rest we can chip away at a little at a time. All a part of life in Australia, I gather.So, back in August, I had the chance to speak with one of my favorite aunties who I hadn’t caught up with since well before Tim and I exchanged snow storms for dust storms in Feb of 2008. We got talking about Edie and the fact that she’s been suffering from chronic constipation, and Auntie Eve suggested I cut dairy out of my diet as her newest grandchild had suffered the same kind of symptoms that Edie does, and it turned out that dairy was the culprit. I had earlier tried to stop eating/drinking dairy for the same reasons, but made it only half a day before I gave into the cheese craving. I decided after talking to Auntie Eve that I should give it a real go since it really could have made things a lot easier for Edie if it really were the problem. Having grown up on a dairy farm I have all sorts of reasons why I think that cutting dairy out of a diet is not an idea that I’m comfortable with. Alas, I was trying to think of Edie and the potential benefits that she might have gained from my going dairy-free. So, gone was my nightly glass of milk with supper, any hint of cheese and pretty much all good baked goods. Dairy is such a huge part of food! I was sure that I would spend this whole period just miserable for lack of being able to consume any milk product. But you know, it really hasn’t been bad at all. Sure, there have been moments where I’ve wished that I could tackle a kid in the park to steal their ice cream, but for the most part, I’ve really, really been enjoying the non-dairy alternative…Well two of them at least. Big number 1: there is a lady at the west end market who sells homemade vegan cupcakes (also gluten free), they are absolutely the best cupcakes that I have ever tasted. I will continue to buy them and eat them whenever I can (unfortunately I can only get them on Saturdays when the market is running…I've already put in a request to the baker to change this). Also big number 2: We’ve discovered a dairy-free brownie recipe of which the resulting brownies smushed into chocolate soy-scream taste like a million buckazoids. The rest of our diet kind of looks like lots of fruit and veggies and no cheese. I took Miss E to a pediatrician appointment last week and was told that if I hadn’t seen any changes in Edie over the six weeks that I was dairy-free, that it probably wasn’t the problem. The doctor also mentioned that Edie and I should go back on dairy and earned a few points in my books for doing so. We’re back on the moo, though not likely to the extent that we were before. There are a lot of nice alternatives to dairy out there. Oh, and if you’re looking for that brownie recipe (it’s vegan too), just let me know and I’ll send it your way.
A few weeks ago I picked up a book at the Salvos (Sally Anne) for twenty cents. It’s called lasagna gardening and explains a form of sheet composting, using different layers of compost/mulch to create an above-ground garden bed. I spoke to my landlord about building this garden and he was all for it, especially because he’s got heaps of compost that he doesn’t know what to do with, and so do we for that matter. So, Tim and I without really stating the fact, decided that it would be a good challenge to build this garden with the materials that we had kicking around the house (i.e. no excessive purchases of commercial gardening mulches, kits, etc.). So over these past few weeks I’ve been collecting information and materials to get this garden going and one evening last week Tim and I put Edie to bed and the tackled putting this garden together under the cloak of darkness. It was really fun. We had all of our materials held in our garage and our compost was still in the bin in the yard next door. So, with shovels and buckets in hand, in complete darkness, we set on collecting compost from the bin…It’s a rotary composter so the really juicy stuff is on bottom…Our shovel was a bit too big, and did I mention it was dark? I got slimed on and Tim commented that he felt like a grave robber. Regardless, we got what we needed and went back to put the garden together. Problem number two; how to contain the garden. The book never really explained how the garden that you build actually stays together (i.e. in the event of a rainstorm…or duststorm…it’s just layers of dirt really). We didn’t have a solution to the problem until we started rooting through the garage and found a low and flat cardboard box. We cut the bottom out and voila, we had our garden-innards-stabilizer. We filled in the box with all of our layers and were finished. It looks like we have a big cardboard box full of dirt/compost/poo/grass clippings in our backyard, and we do.
I covered it in plastic to retain heat and moisture throughout the days this week until we pick up some plants on Sunday at the market to get things started. We’re excited! If all goes well, we’ll have a few more of these gardens as the year goes on. I think the real fun was taking on an outdoor project together again, all while the Edester was fast asleep. She does like to dig around the cardboard box full of dirt and I’m excited for when she can help us out (free labour anyone?)This Friday will be our first attempt at daycare for Miss Edie. We’ve found a Somalian lady who lives nearby that runs a program from out of her home. We visited with her last week to get an idea of how comfortable we were with leaving Edie there (only every Friday for 6 hours to start)…We’re quite sure that she will love it. In the meantime, I’ll be getting back into the research assistant job I held prior to Edie and also will be preparing to start a PhD (part-time for now) in January. I’ll tell more once I get into it, at the moment I’m hammering out a proposal with my new supervisor. Exciting days ahead.
And I should say that Miss Edie is changing so much so quickly! She’s taking much more confident steps on her own and I discovered this week (to my delight) that she would prefer walking alongside me rather than being carried in the backpack. On our nature walks she likes to hold on to my finger with one hand and leave the other hand available to pick stuff up with.
The other day over the span of our walk she had a piece of bark, then a stick, then a dead butterfly, then another piece of bark and then a large rock which she liked to pretend was a telephone to talk on. She’s so funny. These days she’s keen on pointing to herself and saying ‘dee dee’, on calling herself a good girl and making many animal noises (most notably the snake, lion and best of all, the puppy complete with panting…and today she figured out the cow noise). She’s also figuring out ‘no’ and willful defiance…Funny right now, but we’ll see how long that lasts.Happy Thanksgiving!
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