So there I was all bright-eyed and eager, waiting for Cowboy BeBop tonight, cos I missed it on the weekend, and then housemate comes in and asks me what I'm waiting for. I tell him, he frowns and says: 'today's tuesday..."
D'oh! In my eagerness to ogle Gren again I was a day early.

Almost finished my next AC chapter...

My weekend away was triffic fun, caught up with lots of friends. The Retreat is a beautiful old sprawling house, and the grounds are lovely. There's a large lake with a couple of islands in the middle of it and *counting* 6, I think bridges too and fro. There was about another 6 bridges crossing the little creek that ran through the property and I crossed every one at least 3 times. : ) I like bridges, almost as much as I like trains...
The grounds were also littered with ponds (mostly empty unfortunately, due to water restrictions) and a goodly number of peaceful places to sit in quiet contemplation. Wonderful.
My favourite place though was a 'cathedral' formed from 5 oak trees over one of the bridges. The branches inside the circle had been pruned leaving a light, open space covered by a leafy canopy about 40 feet above. Just beautiful... *sigh*
On saturday we went to have a Picnic at Hanging Rock. Well, a barbeque actually, then some of us stayed behind to play badmington while the rest climbed the rock.
I got half-way up; it's very steep.
The rock itself is the remains of a lava 'plug' in a long gone volcano. There's a cool, peacefulness about it, very comforting and blanketing without being smothering. I'll get to the top next time, I'm sure.
Over the weekend I also learnt to play mah jong, sort of, and participated in a 2 player game of monopoly, which was odd but fun. Except... the basic principle of the game offends my little socialist heart; the woman I was playing with wasn't doing as well as I was and I could've easily forced her into bankruptcy by buying houses for my properties (I owned the 3 most expensive blocks) but I just couldn't do it... My monopoly partner and I decided that next time there's one of these weekends, we'll bring along some games that don't rely on trampling over the other players to win, like Pass the Pigs, that's a good one...
We had to leave on sunday after lunch, unfortunately, everyone had just got into their holiday groove and another day would have been perfect.
My only criticism of the weekend would've been that with the place only being just over an hour away from home, it wasn't like a real road trip to get there... : )
Thank you, Alarice, for organising it all! *bigHUG*

Oh, and today is Soulsis's birthday... hippo birdie two ewes, sweetie!

This is a picture one of my cubs drew for Joules...



What's this all about?
Well, the cubs were hanging around, reading my ICQ messages over my shoulder one day. I explained that it was night-time over in the UK where Joules was and they wanted to know if she was nocturnal. A fair question, their father is nocturnal after all. Joules responded by saying she was a vampire. The cubs weren't happy with that so they asked if she could be a shark or a manta-ray (their current obsession) instead. Joules said she preferred lizards but tigersharks were her favourite type of sharks...
Somehow they agreed between them that Joules was a vampiric (note the blood on the teeth) shark/ray/lizard thing and one of the cubs drew the picture (look, I don't know, I was just relaying messages, ok! *g*)
Oh, and the stick figure in the picture isn't the critters victim, as you might reasonably assume, it's there to indicate the height of the creature relative to the height of a 7 (almost 8!) year old boy...

[contented sigh, brushes petals from tenshi's hair and wings] .... welcome back...

[*grinsnuggle* You can stop moping now, hab'lan, I'm home...]

I'm back, had fun, did lots of walking and didn't go over on my ankle. : ) I'll do a proper update soonish, probably tomorrow after the cubs have gone back to school! Woohoo!

[more mope]

[mope]

This was Lutra's AC quiz result...


You are most like Zha'haabron



Serene and self-possessed, you are held in awe by others, and you take your responsibilities - and your pleasures - very seriously. At ease with your own power, you are happy to let others take control in private. You are the soul of the family.

[*nuzzles* It's not for too long this time, hab'lan, and you can spend the time thinking up fun things we can do when I get back. *smirk*]

[growling disconsolately] You're going away again... Going to miss you...

Just a quick post before I head off for the weekend (Yay!!)
The cubs have been bringing their toys up to me this morning: 'sharky/ray/dolphy etc is going to miss you!' Awww... ^~^

Looking forward to the weekend, except for missing Cowboy BeBop and Bubblegum Crisis 2040 on saturday night. Especially Bebop - it's Jupiter Jazz pt 2 and I'm wholly fascinated with Gren...
Oh well, it'll be repeated on wednesday night, I can catch it then.

Right, everything's packed, just need to change a cub's bed sheet, hang some washing out, feed the piggles and put my shoes on and I'm ready to leap out the door as soon as Niki arrives. *g*
Catch you all later!

[Be good, aijin, don't scare the chibis... *g*]

Interesting couple of days. I cleaned the house yesterday, more or less, and the cubs actually helped. Sort of. I told them if anything of theirs was left lying around in the loungeroom or kitchen in X amount of time it was being thrown out. They cleared everything, eventually - the last 15 minutes was pretty frantic but it was all done within the stipulated time. *g* Going to have to try that again...
And then their father took them out for a few hours and I got out into the garage to do some clearing. Sorted through 4 cardboard boxes and half a basket of stuff. Got rid of some of it, and put the rest in plastic storage crates. Was going to try shifting the books into the plastic crates at some stage, but there's almost 40 boxes worth! Besides, the next house I'm in will have plenty of room for bookshelves so I won't have to store the books anymore. : )

The cubs and I (plus school friend and her mother) went to the Aquarium again today.
*dreamy sigh* When I'm needlessly wealthy I'm going to have a BIG marine tank - and someone to maintain it. Yeah...

Niki told me a little while ago that she exercises by walking around her backyard. It's a good backyard to do it in; it's pretty big and quite steep. Out of idle curiosity, I paced out my backyard today. The circuit is roughly 50 metres, with a slight slope. Hmmm...

Heh, next 2, possibly 3 AC chapters are drafted out, the next Silk & Leather is started, as is a couple of other things and I'm going away from my computer for a few days. Dang, I need a laptop! (Donations to the usual place, please *g*)

In my dream last night, I was attacked repeatedly by an aggresive pig. It was really scary and I spent a lot of the dream keeping out of the pig's way. And even after the pig had been slaughtered and was being cooked, I knew it wasn't dead, not really, so I wasn't surprised when I heard the pig had escaped...

...above and beyond the call of duty...
I got up at 5.30 am this morning to stumble around in the garden putting the easter eggs out for the cubs egg hunt. Ably helped by KittenKong, of course, who thought that batting those shiny little spheres away from where I'd carefully placed them was great fun! Bloody cat.
When I finished I crawled back to bed then slept in so it was the cubs father that guided them in the hunt. I lay in bed, grinning, listening to the whoops and hollers.
'OOOH! Here's some! Here's some more! And over there!' *g*

Fortunately the cubs didn't get all that much chocolate. I say fortunately cos they scoffed the lot and I'm just not in the mood for cleaning up regurgitated brown muck.
(We don't have the easter bunny in this house, by the way, we have the easter bilby, an endangered australian mammal. The cubs' father thinks it's ironic having an endangered species as a fertility symbol. I told him to think of it as sympathetic magic : )

Hey! Guess what? I've got next weekend off! Woohoo! I'm going away for a couple of days with some friends to the Marist Retreat in Mt Macedon. While we're there we'll be visiting a winery and going for a picnic at Hanging Rock (I am not wearing a white dress and if I hear panpipes I'm leaving!) The cubs aren't thrilled I'm going, but they should have fun with their father. Hn, better make sure there's plenty of food in before I go...

Right, I've got all the notes I need for my next AC chapter. No excuse for not starting it now...

The cubs and I, along with a school friend and her mum, went to see Thunderpants today.
What can I say? A British fart joke made into a movie, but still better than Kangaroo Jack. Heh, I think the adults in the audience today got more out of the movie than the kids. There was lots of little, quite subtle, aside things that were chuckle-worthy.
Not sure I'd want to see it again though.

I've noticed that I've been putting bits of my life on hold 'until we move' or 'until the new house'. Not big things, just lots and lots of little things, mainly to do with nesting, I guess you could call it. Silly thing is, there's no need to wait, the majority of plans I have (except for garden related stuff - and even then a lot of what I want to do can be done with pots) will all be easily transferable to the new place. I'm just reluctant to put the energy in here when I know I won't be staying, even though I don't know exactly how long it'll be before I move and the things I want to do will help me feel more positive about life in general anyway.
Eh. Too hard. I'll think about it later.

*evil smirk* My next Silk & Leather chapter is almost ready to be written. Good, just in the mood for somebody else's pain...

Oh bugger! I haven't gotten any easter eggs yet. Can't have an easter egg hunt without easter eggs. Tch. Wonder if the shops are open tomorrow?
Didn't realise it was good friday today until I was driving to the cinema and wondering a: where all the traffic was; and b: why are all the shops shut?
Except for the Asian shops, for some reason they were all still open...

Hee, there are 4 other people in the world (or on the net at least) with my name I am '...rarer than a wombats wing nut', apparently.
And no-one else has the same name as either of the cubs. *g*

Speaking of the cubs...
A couple of weeks ago I was lured into having their photos taken at Pixie Foto - a place that specialises in uber-saccharine children's pics. The session itself was a barrel of laughs, for the cubs. The photographer had a hard time pinning them down, I didn't envy her...
Anyway, picked up the photos today. They're not too bad, I'll scan and post some eventually, and the cubs are thrilled with them. Not shy, my babies. Expensive though, but the company has an installment plan thingy which I happily took advantage of.

Soulsis and her chicks came round today and we herded all the children up to Smorgy's.
You remember Smorgy's, it's the 'family restaurant' done out in an island theme. The food's still crap but the kids enjoyed themselves. We managed to stay there for over 2 hours, grazing. At one point we had 14 empty jelly bowls and 6 empty ice-cream bowls on the table - this was after some had been cleared away. I hate to think how much dessert was actually consumed by the children this afternoon. On the plus side, Soulsis and chicks stayed til about 8.30 pm (we got back about 3pm) and none of the children asked for food until shortly before they left. *g*

Joules says she can't draw arses. After seeing her latest pics of Alestrel, I beg to differ....
[MINE!! Grrrrr...]

This is a very funny site... It's the answer to the 'supermum' myth.
Go read the horoscopes - it'll do you a power of good! : )

I took the cubs to see Kangaroo Jack today...
I don't like using the phrase 'well that's X amount of of my life I'm not going to get back...' - it's unacceptably negative, but I'll make an exception in this case.
Puerile. Sterotyped. Badly acted.
... and no offence to you guys, but Americans just can't do good toilet humour.

One of my cubs has gotten very clingy in the past few weeks. If he can't find me in the house he gets panicky and upset, if he can't find KittenKong in the house he gets panicky and upset. I'm wondering if he's picking up on my tension towards his father.

Ack, that was a very down sort of posting. Let's fix that...
The cubs and I have been visiting petshops, checking out the sort of fish we can get for our aquarium when we get our new place. : ) I saw some ratties in one pet shop. So cute!
Um... I treated myself to sushi for lunch. Very nummy.
I'm in the process of finishing the Shinju/Okami pwp...
Tulip is tapping her pink-leather booted foot impatiently at me... *smirk*
And I haven't had to get up early for school for the past 3 days. Yeah. : )

Hee...
Joules has been feeding me snippets of Diplomat, the next 'lestrel/Lutra chapter. *idiot grin* Damn you gotta love those brats..

The cubs' father took them out to the park yesterday afternoon, and I went for a walk (blissfully alone) to the supermarket. It just started to rain as we all left. I like walking in the rain - even with the resulting sodden feet and treachorous footing - it's kind of peaceful.

The Festival of Chocolate is next weekend.
It is completely the wrong time of year down here to be bandying about Spring symbols. I'm going to try and put some of the chocolate eggs and crap aside for when Spring actually occurs.
Do you remember when Easter chocolate was the best chocolate ever?
Was it only because it happend for a limited time? Or has the formula for it changed?
I miss the Red Tulip peacock though... Cardboard peacock with a bigish egg in the body and several small caramel filled eggs in the fan of the tail...

(Questionaire nicked from Talon's blog.. my own answers supplied, of course)

A - Act your age? Why? And how, precisely, is someone of my age supposed to act? It's all subjective.

B - Born on what day of the week? Thursday's child has far to go...

C - Chore you hate? Getting up early every morning to take the cubs to school.

D - Dad's name? Brian.

E - Essential makeup item? Chocolate and cuddles. Oh, you mean the stuff you put on your face? Erm, sunglasses.

F - Favorite actor? For actual acting or just eye-candy? Hn. Ewen McGregor would fit both of those categories.

G - Gold or silver? Rose gold.

H - Hometown? Melbourne.

I - Instruments you play? Narry a one.

J - Job title? Chibi herder (this was Talon's but still appropriate) Writer! Yes! I can say that with pride now!

K - Kids? Twins. No more, not ever.

L - Living arrangements? Shared house for the moment.

M - Mum's name? Lillian Mary Josephine. (catholic - can you guess? :)

N - Number of people you've slept with? Both more and less than I'm happy about.

O - Overnight hospital stays? Tonsils, wisdom teeth, child-birth (though that was more like 16 weeks of consecutive overnight stays).

P - Phobia? Dealt with.

Q - Quote you like? "No matter where you go, there you are" Buckaroo Banzai, and "Yippe kai-ay, motherfucker." Diehard.

R - Religious affiliation? Pagan, sort of celtic-ish.

S - Siblings? Blood? One younger brother. Kin? All my sisters - you know who you are - plus Aaron, who's an honorary girl :)

U - Unique habit? Be hard pressed to find a 'unique' habit... Maybe my tendency to yell 'knickers!' when I'm annoyed?

V - Vegetable you refuse to eat? Choko. Bleuch.

W- Worst habit? Self-pity.

X - X-rays you've had? Ankles, feet, knee (ballet injuries) Left forearm when 6 years old for greenstick fracture.

Y - Yummy food you make? I do a good roast chicken.

Z - Zodiac Sign? Pisces. All encompassing, the end and the beginning. (cor, did that sound mystical, or what!)

Aaron came over and I helped him wax his (virgin) legs.
: )
That boy is going to make someone a wonderful sub - he whimpers and mewls so beautifully...