LOL

I’ve been daringly writing LOL a fair bit in my comments on Facebook posts and on blog post comments lately and I must admit I feel a bit intrepid, daring, plucky when I do it.

It’s like the same adventurously youthful feeling I’d have walking into an eighteenth birthday party wearing a leopard skin mini skirt, stilettos and bopping along to Lego House by Eddie Redmayne. 

But sometimes I feel self-conscious writing LOL, as if I’m pretending to be someone I’m not, you know... being a middle-aged try-hard.

But now that I have finally embraced the whole LOL thing, it must surely be out of fashion… or at the very least not trendy… or just plain ‘gay’… or ‘lame’ or… ‘sucks’ or whatever they say now.

I always catch on to things five years after the fact.

It’s the same thing with awesome. Does anyone say that anymore or has it been relegated to the over 50s.

Is it now phat? or sick? or sweet?... and not totally awesome anymore?

I just don’t know.

I’d hate my teenage daughter, Lulu, to be walking out the door all dressed up on her way to the disco (or whatever they’re called now) and me say, 

“Have a great night darling, you look really FAT!” and be saying the wrong thing. How do you differentiate Phat from Fat in oral language? Is it in fact, okay to say oral anymore?

Or to be greeting my colleague who’s just lost 10 kilograms over the school holidays after a punishing regime of boot camp and strict adherence to the Paleo diet and say, “OH.MY GOD! YOU. LOOK. SICK. MOFO!”

I only recently found out what MOFO stands for. Previously I thought it was the equivalent to ‘cool dude’.

YOLO? I thought it meant goodbye… like hooroo (North Queensland for goodbye).

I wondered why people would look at me with concerned faces as I pulled out of their driveway, tooting the horn and cheerily shouting, "YOLO MOFOS!" at the top of my voice.

Texting is something else I just can’t get the hang of, particularly when communicating with my kids. I’m starting to think we adults are missing the secret messages hidden in the brevity of such texts. 

It’s a bit like the Da Vinci Code. Teenagers have invented a more succinct, efficient method of communication.

Lulu went to Melbourne this weekend and I asked her to text me a few times a day so I’d know she was still alive. It grants me ten minutes peace of mind each time I hear from her.

These are the only messages I have received thus far:

Thursday 19:36 (as she’s boarding plane): K

Thursday 23:23: Here

Friday 13:09: Alive

Friday 21:35: K

Saturday 11:30: Indeedy!

Sunday 10:14: Pick me up at 6:10

Sunday 10:14: Pick me up at 6

Sunday 10:14: Maybe 6:15

Sunday 11:06: Shit wait it’s 7 it lands

Sunday 14:38: Mum???

Sunday 15:13: Flt delayed now 8:00

I’ve analysed these texts and these are my interpretations.

Clearly I needed to transcribe these enigmatic puzzle-like texts by applying the Fibonacci integer sequence and see what I could decode.

Notice how at first I only received short abrupt, some might even say, bad-mannered messages.

By Saturday (the third day) Lulu used a three syllable word incorporating a small measure of enthusiasm (!). This clearly points to the fact she was beginning to miss me.

By Sunday you can see just how much the fruit of my loins is missing me (perhaps subliminally) because she has sent me no less than SIX WHOLE TEXTS!

Maybe I should send a mysterious text back for her to decipher...

Something like, Catch a taxi darling. LOL.

My Blog is Not My Diary

I saw this meme the other day and frankly it gave me the shits. I’m fairly certain the person who posted it wasn't directing it at me… or were they? Who knows?

The thing is, my blog is far from a diary. If it were my diary, this is what would happen:

The men in white coats would come and lock me away in room where I’d sit, rocking in a corner and sucking my thumb maniacally for the rest of eternity.

My husband would divorce me on grounds of my utter stupidity and annoying tendencies.

My kids would hate my guts and they’d never let me take their photo again.

My dogs would sue for defamation of character and breaking privacy issues.

My cat would ring cat helpline and dob me in to the authorities.

I’d have NO friends whatsoever.

The blogs I read, aren’t diaries either.

There are informative discussions and amusing anecdotes by the doyenne of Australian blogging, Mrs Woog at Woogs World. She's my favourite.

Tantalising recipes and side stories on brilliant blogs such as, Veggie Mama and House Goes Home.

Persuasive essays on current topics at Handbag Mafia and hilarious satire on Mumabulous and Hugzilla Blog.

I could go on forever. I really could.

I don’t read rubbishy magazines anymore because I’m far too entertained by real women writing real stories, not unreliable sensationalism about who’s bonking who and which celebrity just had a baby and named it Space Shuttle, and I’m not paying money to read them either.

Many years ago, a former friend had a very bitchy, public jab at me for using too many ‘big’ words. It hurt me and embarrassed me at the time, mainly because that’s part of who I am. I’m not being pretentious, I just happen to love words.

Plus I'm a bit weird... but I can't help that. 

It's what makes me, me and I'm not ashamed of it anymore.

 I enjoy the process of writing and creating something which may or may not be entertaining to others.

Of course bloggers want other people to read their work. 

If someone brings a meticulously decorated cake into work they want everyone to admire and eat it, don’t they?

Because that’s what it is to us bloggers; our creative energies expressed in words. 

It shouldn't be something others, who are not inclined towards reading blogs belittle and I’m getting bloody sick of it. 

Would you pick on someone in regards to their penchant for using multi-syllabic words?

Fung Shway

Hagar, my middle son, turned twenty-two yesterday and fronted up for his requested roast beef/potato bake dinner tonight. 

I told him about the garage sale we had on the weekend and watched him scanning the house with the perspicacity of an eagle, eyes travelling in a 360 degree direction, hunting like a predator for something we may have neglected to hock off to absolute strangers.

“Got any spare TVs?” he asked nonchalantly, whilst wolfing down half a rare cow.

“No,” I said. “But you can have that if you want.” I pointed to a framed print, a famous print of ‘The Lighthouse Man’ which I’d filched from my sister Sam, about twelve years ago.

I’d always admired it in her lounge room and one day saw it leaning precariously against the stairs ready for the dump. “Can I have it?” I asked her that day.

“Absolutely,” she enthused. “I hate it. It’s Pedro’s (her husband). It’s bad Feng Shui. You know that guy in the photo died straight after the photo was taken. I think it's bad luck. Please, take it.”

Normally I’m a highly superstitious person, I don’t like crows, I hate the number thirteen, and I slap people on the head when I hear an ambulance approaching, but I really liked this photo. So I took it. 

Pedro arrived as I was surreptitiously loading it into my car.

“Where are you going with my photo?” he bellowed.

But my sister Sam eyed him from the veranda with a vicious scowl on her face, so he scurried away and let me take it away, watching me drive down the street with a pitiful look of mortification on his face.

So I’ve had this sinister harbinger of evil hanging on my wall for over a decade and I must say I’ve enjoyed a pretty bloody fantastic life ever since, so I have no qualms about passing it down to my third son. It could become a family heirloom in fact.

And I researched it and the lighthouse guy in the photo didn’t die straight after the photograph was taken. He’s still alive and kicking.

What do you refuse to have in your house?

The Garage Sale to End all Garage Sales.

A wrap up after my last post regarding our Garbage Garage Sale.

We still have the cat in case you were wondering. It ran away and hid on Saturday morning and didn’t reappear until about two o’clock in the afternoon. I told you cats are aliens. They know stuff they shouldn’t.

We are also still in possession of the hot rollers, the encyclopaedias, all the trophies, the pottery artefact, and the treadmill.

The foot spa was snapped up by a really old guy. I saw his car pull up to the kerb and take four metres and quite a lot of braking to actually stop. Then it took him approximately twenty minutes to extricate himself from the car and walk down the driveway.

“How much is that?” he growled, pointing at my foot spa.

“Five dollars,” I beamed.

“What is it?”

“It’s a thing you fill with water and it bubbles up and relaxes your feet,” I explained.

He seemed satisfied with that explanation and picked it up, tucking it under his arm possessively.

“What’s this?” he asked picking up a Fijian axe my son Thaddeus, brought home from a holiday years ago.

“It’s an axe,” I said.

“How much?”

I shrugged not really knowing the going price for Fijian axes,“Two dollars?” I suggested.

He handed me seven dollars.

“I hope you’re not buying that axe to keep your wife in line?” I said, half jokingly.

He turned and eyed me up and down. “It’s to protect myself from her,” he grumbled without cracking a smile.

There was another really interesting guy from Ireland, ‘Seamus’, who I noticed looking through the few poetry and drama books I’d put out.

“I have two bookcases full of Shakespeare, poetry and plays if you want to come in and look?” I asked him.

He followed me in and sat trawling through them, overflowing with praise at my collection. We had the best chat about the Romantic poets, Shakespeare and literature in general.

Scotto stuck his head in the front door and asked me to show an old lady a single bed she was interested in buying. As I took her up the stairs to the spare room, she kept looking down at poor Seamus and saying in a loud voice, “You shouldn’t be letting just anyone into your house you know! There are some terrible people around! People who’ll rob you in broad daylight. Thieves!”

I’m sure Seamus heard every word she said and felt her accusatory eyes on him as he lovingly piled up the books he wanted.

Seamus finally finished his fossicking and had a big box full of my precious classics. “You just tell me what you want to pay me for this and that will be fine,” I said.

“NO!” he replied in his lilting, west coast Irish accent. “You tell me what you want for them.”

“Twenty bucks?” I said hesitantly.

“Thirty!” he snapped back.

It’s not normally how people negotiate is it? Maybe it’s an Irish thing?

The fact is, I was thrilled someone truly appreciative is now in ownership of the books I took such great pleasure in collecting over the last twenty years.

There was another guy who kept seeing things in our garden and wanting to buy them. "Can I buy that?" he kept saying. "Will you sell me that?"

Then he went through the skip, full of junk on the front lawn and took a few things from that as well. I kind of felt sorry for his wife at home watching him turn up with a ute tray full of our crap.

Mind you, I gave away a lot of stuff to kids while their parents glared at me for offloading my garbage onto innocent children.

Bottom Line.

Money made from Garage Sale? $500

Money spent paying plumber this morning (a Sunday) to fix a burst water hammer regulator under kitchen sink? $242

The Lord giveth and then he taketh.

But looking on the bright side, we have a lot less stuff to pack when we move and my kitchen floors are now spotless after we finished mopping eighty litres of leaked water up this morning.

Fudgeerama!

Have you ever had a garage sale? Do you go to them? Ever picked up a bargain?

Pinky's Garbage Garage Sale

Pinky's Garbage Garage Sale

We’re having a garage sale tomorrow and my job today is to sort out what I’ll be selling: Scotto’s orders to me before he left for work this morning.

I’ve had all week to do it but I’ve been busy writing the Great Australian Novel and put the unpleasant job on the bottom of the list; the mythical list in my head.

Yesterday, I went for a long lunch with the girls and I should have known it would all go pear-shaped at 2:00pm (after the third bottle of wine) when Kyles informed us she’d run out of cash and needed to go to the ‘Nutella’ machine.

I woke up this morning with a headache, a disgruntled husband and the vague memory of agreeing to travel to Melbourne to watch Kyles row down the Yarra in a competition in November. Somehow, those long lunches invariably end up costing me at least a thousand dollars.

I told the girls not to come to the garage sale because I’ll be selling presents they’ve gifted me over the years and I don’t want their feelings hurt. Unless of course they’d like to buy the presents back, then they’re more than welcome.

You, however, are completely welcome to come along and sift through my treasures. I’ve listed some catalogued items below for your perusal.

An authentic, antique, pine, lacquered “Friends” plaque you could gift to a loyal, loving friend who would never stoop so low as to sell it in a garage sale (which also comes with a complimentary dust-buster). $10

A bottle of genuine, glass, magic marbles which, if planted may grow into a beanstalk or could be used to give to kids over the age of four to play with in the dirt when they complain about being bored. $2 or nearest offer.

A plethora of drama and sporting trophies so, on the rare occasion your kid misses out on a prize or award; you can whip one of these out of the cupboard and instantly dispel the tears. All offers considered.

Everything in this cupboard will go at a paltry $2 per item including the state of the art, foot spa which has only been used once in ten years by Pinky (toenails and DNA thrown in for nix which you could use to make a clone of me or perhaps spread around a crime scene in order to implicate me).

Wondering what to buy your kid's teacher for Christmas?

Teacher gifts no teacher will ever want to give away or sell. $2 (+ 50 cents for sentimental value)

Antique Roadshow would probably be very interested in this heirloom set of Encyclopedias, and what better way to engage your kids than by showing them how Mum and Dad used to settle historical and geographical arguments before Google came along? (Warning: may contain outdated medical advice concerning the application of leeches and health benefits of tobacco) $5 the lot.

Handmade, pottery artefact created by the artistically renowned Pinky Poinker during an Art workshop at university circa. 2000 (note: fine detail of bee on front). $300 or nearest offer, all offers considered.

Assorted books gifted to Scotto from rude, teenage step sons with low-brow sense of humour. $1

A treadmill (which previously displayed killer instincts but has since been exorcised by a priest who threw holy water over it, so it’s good to go.) $500

Hot rollers for those days you didn’t have time to wash your hair and need some poof in your coif (circa 1970). Guaranteed to provide user with Farrah Fawcett look. $5

Cat. Very old. Bites.  (Not suitable for children or haemophiliacs). Eats a lot. Has been seen eating dirt. 

No guarantee provided. No returns. Free (with extra bonus Easter egg included)

See anything you fancy? Don't arrive before 7:00am or I'll be cranky!

Pinky's Theory of Relativity

I can’t believe that except for a quick dash to the chemist and grocery store on Saturday I did not leave the house for the entire Easter weekend. That’s four days of sitting on the couch or my bed, wasting time on my laptop and nurturing a deep vein thrombosis. 

Four days I’ll never get back. 

Ninety-six hours of sloth. 

Five thousand, seven hundred and sixty minutes of idleness.

I did learn some stuff though.

I learned that not one person REALLY understands the theory of relativity. I put the challenge out there on Twitter.

Please explain the theory of relativity to me in 140 characters or less, I begged and I received only one reply which merely quoted a load of technical guff.

Scotto tried to explain it to me as we sat with the movie, Interstellar, paused on the telly until he finally lost patience with me and yelled, “You’re doing my head in, Pinky!”

“You don’t even understand it you big faker!” I accused triumphantly when he failed to come up with an answer for how someone can spend one year on Saturn in the time it takes 98 years to pass on Earth.

He attempted to enlighten me on the whole speed of light stuff by explaining how if someone throws a ball on a bus it looks as if it’s going the same speed as normal but it’s actually going sixty kms an hour faster … even though that still doesn’t explain the speed of light.

“But why would the bus driver allow someone to throw a ball on his bus?” I interrupted. “Wouldn’t that be like… dangerous? It could accidentally hit him in the back of the head, or fall under the brake or something.”

“That’s not the point, Pinky. The point is, to an outside observer the ball is only travelling at about 50 kms per hour but it’s relative to the… look, watch this part of the movie, okay.”

A guy on the screen bent a piece of paper into a circle to show how a wormhole works.

“Has anyone ever found a wormhole?” I threw down the gauntlet.

“No, but we can prove mathematically that they exist, they’re theoretical” he replied knowledgeably.

“You mean, like the Easter Bunny, multiple orgasms and low calorie cheesecake?” I said.

“No. It’s been proven via mathematics, wormholes exist.”

“Well how come no one has ever photographed one then, buddy boy?”

There was silence.

“I want to go and live on Saturn,” I said. “That way I can live for a really long time.”

He waited, considering whether or not he should reply.

“Well no Pinky, you wouldn’t live longer because time is relative.”

“And that’s why it’s called the theory of relativity,” I trumped.

“Yes,” he replied, wondering why I sounded so smug.

“Now I understand it!”

But I don’t. 

And I never will. 

Unless you’d like to have a go explaining it to me.

My theory of relativity is this.

The woman who gave birth to you is your mum and her brothers and sisters are your uncles and aunts. Their kids are your cousins and the cousin’s kids are your kid’s cousins twice removed and your second cousins. Third cousins are the children of your mum’s second cousin unless they’re step children and then they’re nothing. The thieving cousins who steal your Easter eggs you’ve been saving for months should be removed from the house at once thus making them cousins once removed.

Frame it.

Lighthouse, Bubblewrap or Helicopter Parent… which are you?

I’m becoming a tad confused with all these fancy pants terms ‘the experts’ are bringing in to define parenting.

When I brought my kids up it was merely, 

Parenting: Dodgy or Moderately Acceptable.

I mean, what the hell is a Helicopter Parent? Do they fly their kids to school in a helicopter like­­­ Tom Cruise does?

Is a Bubble-Wrap Parent one who orders Christmas presents from Etsy?

And a Lighthouse Parent???

Are they the ones who live on menacing rocky islands and have some dark, secretive, familial mystery entwined into their lives; like they’re actually brother and sister and sacrifice baby seals every full moon or something?

I strongly suspect I was a Drop Sheet Parent. I was like the old, dirty sheet lying around the skirting boards waiting for the careless tradies to drop their shit all over me and I’d have to catch it. You know what I mean, placate teachers, pay fines, smooth over holes punched in the walls after brotherly skirmishes etc.

Or maybe I was a Hamburger Parent; the meat that gave meaning to the two buns, the slice of cheese, the annoying pickle and the whimsical squirt of mayo. Without the meat it just didn’t work and the condiments would end up killing each other in a battle of sibling supremacy.

Possibly, my mode of parenting was the Donkey Style. 

I allowed them to ride me and ride me until after being whipped and flogged for moving too slowly I eventually collapsed in the dust and they sold me to the glue factory.

Or perhaps I used The Kitchen Fridge parenting technique where I replenished the earthly needs of the family every day, stocking their sustenance supplies up regularly but living in a thankless, cold and clinical world where I was largely ignored unless someone needed something, whereupon they’d just front up, stare at me for a long time and complain that I was boring.

The truth is, I was probably utilising the Sherman Tank Parenting Technique. I’d lay prone in the mud as they gleaned pleasure at driving over the top of me repetitively, with their flag raised and hooting in joyous revolt.


The carry on about different parenting styles bores me to blood-streaked tears. Do people realise that this parenting thing has been going on for quite a while; like at least ten to fifteen years?

Fair enough, some parents have a lot to answer for.

There must have been some atrocious parents according to history.

Jack the Ripper’s Mum for instance: “Sorry little Jackie, but Mummy’s off to Cheap Tuesday so here’s a bag of lollies for dinner and keep yourself occupied with Carmageddon on Xbox while I’m out… and by the way don’t answer the door to strangers.”

But all this weasel word labelling, guilt-mongering and yawn-worthy claptrap is driving me nuts.


How would you define your parenting style?

Pinky's Easter Message

I arrived in the staffroom on Tuesday and noticed this little guy in my pigeon hole. It was a thoughtful gift from my teaching buddy, Tenielle (and if you think I haven’t made a hundred and one unwelcome, lame and cheesy jokes about her and I being the "Captain and Tenielle", then you’d be wrong).

Now whilst I thought it was a kind-hearted gesture, it also reminded me I needed to pick up Easter eggs for my class so off to the shopping centre I hopped on Tuesday afternoon and purchased this lot for a cool fifty bucks or so.

Migraine territory!

Buying eggs for twenty-three kids is impossible to do on the cheap and it made me a teeny bit cranky. 

I also bought a Ferrero Rocher rabbit for Tenielle, one for my teacher aide and a spare in case I’d forgotten anyone. 

If there’s one thing I hate it’s being caught short when you receive something and you've nothing to give back and I really did feel there was someone else I should be buying an egg for. It was on the tip of my tongue.

So imagine my extreme annoyance when I arrived at work on Wednesday and there was this sitting in my pigeon hole.

Ferrero Rocher

The note said, “Thanks for your love, support and the laughs every day”, no name provided.

“Who the fudge left this here?” I grumped loudly, looking around the staff room cagily. “I did my Easter shopping yesterday and now I’ll have to fudging well go back again.”

Kyles sat at the table looking coy. “Was it you?” I demanded.

“Maybe… maybe I’m sorry I did now.”

“Here take this then,” I fished around in the bag and gave her my spare rabbit (which was exactly the same bloody type as the one she’d gifted me).

“Thanks,” she grinned.

“You realise that’s my spare rabbit. And I’ll have to leave the one you gave me in my pigeon hole or Tenielle will think I’ve regifted the same egg you gave me. Shite! What a mess!”

Lee-lee walked in the staffroom door and I spun around on her, “I hope you’re not giving me an Easter egg because I have no spares,” I barked.

“Not that I know of,” she answered timidly.

O’Reilly walked in soon after. “You weren’t planning on giving me an Easter egg were you?” I challenged him.

“Not if you don’t want me to Pinky,” he replied politely. “I’ll just eat the one I bought for you myself. It’s all good.”

“Fine,” I said. “Enjoy it.”

That afternoon the school cleaner Judy, popped her head in my room to wish me a happy Easter and give me a bag of chocolate eggs for my class. She also showed me the pretty Easter card (in the shape of a chicken and everything) Tenielle’s class had made and the charming bag of choccy eggs which accompanied said card.

I was going to explain to Judy that I’d given her (spare) egg away to fudging Kyles and I was devastated I had nothing to give her but I didn’t because… well she already thinks I’m a bit strange.

The moral of the story is: Don’t bother giving me unexpected Easter eggs because I don’t want them thank you unless you give me at least two shopping day's notice.


Happy Easter and may peace and generosity of spirit find you and your loved ones.

P.S. Kyles has known me for nearly ten years and is well aware I don't eat chocolate so I can only presume her ulterior motive was to get a chocolate rabbit in return so she could gobble it down. I cannot believe the lengths some people will go to for chocolate; especially her writing  that very corny note which was clearly subterfuge. 

Don't Listen to Other People's Shite!

The girls from work, you know... Shazza, Kaz, Leelee, Kyles and I, often go for coffee on Friday afternoon. 

We go to a random café, a different one each time and the girls all order creamy, caramel, chocolate, lemon cheesecake, sticky icky confectioneries whilst I sip on a pathetic muggachino with far less sugar than I’d prefer and salivate like a dog as I watch them licking their spoons with relish.

Sigh.

Anyway, last Friday, somehow the subject of the book I’m currently writing came up. (It may have been me who brought it up I can’t recall.)

“I’ve written twenty-one chapters already!” I squealed.

They swapped surreptitious glances as if to say, “Who got on to this fudging topic? Shut her up someone!”

Anyway, I proceeded to tell them the entire plot, leaving out the special, mysterious bits of course.

“It’s about a kindergarten teacher,” I pontificated grandly. “She doesn’t eat much, like… she just eats boiled eggs and a dry Ryvita every now and then and she drives a yellow Volkswagen. She also has a mini Fox Terrier called Mildred who she adores and who goes everywhere with her.”

Shazza yawned, “So… it’s a thinly veiled novel all about you, Pinky.”

“No!” I almost shouted. The guy behind the counter looked over, alerted to a possible café skirmish, his finger poised on the 000 speed dial.

“It’s not about me! It’s about a girl called Mabel! She’s only twenty-nine and she’s blonde! I’m a brunette!”

“But you still think you’re twenty-nine, Pinky,” quipped Kyles, sucking excess caramel from the end of her spoon. “It’s about you isn’t it?”

It was basically an ‘eyes glazed over moment” from then on. 

They haven’t even starting reading it. They don’t care. Even Scotto feels forced to read it if he expects his Sunday morning “breakfast in bed”.

It’s the same as when Scotto starts telling me about why the updates on my computer are important and I shouldn’t keep postponing them for four hours every time they show up; my eyes glaze over to the point where I totter forward dribbling in boredom and he has to prop me up with a pillow whilst still lecturing me on the perils of Microsoft bullshite.

And like, when I’m sitting in a staff meeting and someone starts arguing about who should man the senior boys' toilets after the second lunch bell; my eyes glaze over. It’s been discussed about forty million fudging times and frankly… I’m sick of it. No sane person wants to venture anywhere near the senior boys' toilets so let’s just leave it at that.

Leave them to it I say… let them go all Lord of the Flies. And there are a lot of flies I’m here to tell you.

Or when someone I know (no names) starts telling me about how they went to boot camp that morning and had to push a fudging tyre up a cliff then dive into the rocky surf and swim five miles chasing the tyre until a shark ate them and they died. Yawn. (The story went something like that I’m not sure because I fell asleep.)

Basically I don’t want to listen to other people’s shite and they don’t want to listen to mine.

Which is why I write a blog.

No one can interrupt me and I can’t see you rolling your eyes and picking at your fingernails in boredom.

Which conversations leave you with your eyes glazed over?

Dear Gog...

I teach nine and ten year old students in a Catholic school and part of our religious curriculum entails teaching them about different types of prayer; prayers of petition, prayers of thanksgiving and prayers asking for forgiveness.

Even if you're a non-believer, it's nevertheless an excellent reflective exercise to get the kids to think about what they're grateful for; what they think is the most important thing in life and how they could make themselves into better people.

Today they completed a test requiring them to create their own prayers and whilst I normally despise marking assessment, I was rewarded with a few laughs marking this one.

I hoped for lofty answers professing gratitude for their secure lives and loving families and a desire to see an end to war, violence and poverty... but it seems the kids have other priorities.

Below are some of the funny responses:



Dear Gog, Can you please make the Cowboys win every footy game they play?

Dear God, I would like to catch a good fish.

Dear God, Thank you for making X Box.

Dear God, Help me not to be a sore loser or winner at the handball match against my cousin.

Dear God, Please forgive me for ignoring my mum this morning.

Dear God, Please help me with the Weetbix triathlon.

Dear God, Thank you for making the trees because they are really cool and also very branchy. And wooden.

Dear God, Forgive me for shooting my brother in the face yesterday with my machine gun witch (sic) is acshalee (sic) a nerf gun by the way.

Dear God, Thanks for all my family and the cute bunnies in the world.

* Dear God, Please forgive me for what me and my friends did on the weekend.

Dear God, I am sorry for using Jesuses (sic) and your name in vain. I will never do it again and I mean it this time.

Dear God, Can i have a birthday party?

Dear God, Forgive my sister for slamming the car door on my leg this morning.

Dear God, Please help me get ungroundeded (sic) so i can play with Connor and have a sleepover that's all I ask for.

Dear God, Can I have a car?

Dear God, Can I please have a frozen razcoke?
(I think that's a rasberry frozen coke...)

Dear God, You are fantiactial at making stuff.

Dear God, Please forgive the Titans for loosing the footy game.


*Now I don't know if God was listening or not but I'd really love to know what that kid did on the weekend that was so bad. 

The mind boggles.

How I Tricked My Husband!

Christian Bale as Moses

We watched the movie, Exodus (the new one starring Christian Bale) on Saturday after I arrived home from my despicable day at work (when I really should have been lolling in bed, semi-naked and eating peeled grapes instead).

When I say ‘we’ watched it, I mean Scotto, because I was busy on my laptop. 

The only bit of the movie I wanted to see was where Moses parts the Red Sea because that was the best part in the Charlton Heston one. 

I was very pleased to see there were no rock monsters a la Russell Crowe’s ‘Noah’ but I was really more enthralled in trying to think of amusing things to write on Twitter so I decided to watch it vicariously, through my husband.

Run Rusty! Run!

I kept looking up and asking in an irritating, whiny voice,

“Is he there yet?”

“No” (Scotto)

“Is he there yet?”

“No”

“Is he there yet?”

Scotto became quite frustrated with me, eventually turning around and snarling, “Pinky! If I have to start this movie again, I will!”

Moses eventually arrived at the Red Sea and I have to admit it wasn’t disappointing. It was more of a tsunami than a ‘parting’ as such, but scientifically believable, unlike the Heston version.

We went to bed fairly early and I woke up, eyes alert and bulging at 7:00 am, which annoyed me since it was a Sunday morning and all.

Scotto was turned away from me in bed but Pablo the Chihuahua sensed I was awake and started squirming and writhing in his Mexican bean fashion. I glared at him because I didn’t want to be the one to have to take him down for wee wees, so I did the unspeakable.

I licked my finger applying a generous quantity of moisture and poked Scotto on the back of his baldy noggin, pretending to be Pablo’s wet nose.

It worked.

Scotto rolled over and groaned and Pablo, like a Machiavellian puppet jumped all over his face whilst I played dead, even affecting an artificial snore to add authenticity to my pretended coma-like state.

Later, I received my coffee in bed with as much grace as I could manage under the circumstances.

The rule in our house is: 

He who gets up first brings the coffee.
Who gets the morning coffee in your household?



P.S. Sorry about the semi-naked image of me eating peeled grapes but I suffered when I had to get up early on Saturday and I feel you too, should have to suffer in some small way.

Linking up with Jess at Essentially Jess for #IBOT

Homework: One Teacher’s Perspective

(These are my own thoughts and do not reflect that of my employer.)

This week was a bit demanding for an older lady of a certain delicate constitution. I’m a gentle soul who baulks at tiresome interruptions to my meticulous routine and this week some thorny spokes were placed in the well-oiled schedule of the hamster wheel I like to call, work.

Firstly, horror of horrors, I had to stay back on Monday night for parent teacher interviews. I didn’t arrive home until 8:00pm and was in a pernickety, spiteful mood after a thirteen hour day. I swept past Scotto and swiftly flounced up the stairs to my bed chambers to straight away apply a cold, soothing compress on my temples.

I’d missed wine time you see and was in no mood for idle pleasantries.

This very Saturday morning, I was once more put upon to attend a five hour seminar at school, instructing we teachers on the art of teaching spelling.

How dare they steal away one’s treasured private weekend hours of freedom, only to fritter them away by forcing one to listen to an accomplished speaker wax lyrical on the value of raising the phonemic awareness of one’s students.

The hyde of them!

"You watch out!" I warned anyone who'd listen. "Next, they'll be harvesting our blood!" 

But my ominous predictions fell on deaf ears.


The worst part was that, as I rarely read tedious emails or listen attentively in dreary briefings, I missed the latter part of the instruction that we were to meet in the library at 8:30am (for 9:00am).

You can imagine how acrimoniously pissed off I was as my car, Golden Boy, glided into the car park precisely at 8:29am this morning and I trotted breathlessly into the staffroom at 8:29:52am with a rosy glow and a sense of glorious triumph and then sourly discovered I hadn’t needed to be at the fudging school for another fudging, thirty, fudging minutes.

  

Lee-lee, Kyles, Shazza and Kaz!

I was beyond consolation at losing my sleep-in opportunity. 

The girls didn't help by acting all chirpy and bubbly because they’d just finished boot camp and were shiny, showered and fully awake whilst I was still half-way through my dream about Jon Hamm when the alarm had rudely awaken me and I’d bundled myself into the bathroom staggering and swearing in a manner akin to Albert Steptoe. 

But the point of this post relates more to a recurring theme which cropped up in my parent teacher interviews.

Almost all of the parents I spoke to made it clear, in no uncertain terms, they hated homework. Their kids hated homework, the family dog hated homework as it always seemed to end up getting the blame for homework gone AWOL and the parents hated the intrusion on the tranquility of their after school activities, what with having to threaten their kids with a horse whip and all if they didn't sit down and write out their bloody times tables and spelling words every afternoon.

The artless reply I supplied to all of my student’s parents was this: most teachers hate homework too.

Teachers are the innocent chumps who have to set the homework, mark it and keep students in during one of their own precious lunch times to make them do it again if the family bull mastiff conveniently ingested it or they merely forgot to do it. 

I’d much rather be supping on a cup of sweetened tea from my favourite, stolen cup in the teacher’s lounge than pretending to be Mrs. Grumpy in a room full of dejected children staring out at the playground where their cohorts are hanging upside down on the play equipment and screaming louder than should be humanly possible.

Tea just tastes better from Kyle's cup for some reason.

Homework is an exercise to enable the practise of the previous week’s newly learned concepts. 

Whether it’s necessary in the primary school I’m not sure. However, reading with young children is highly beneficial and should never be skipped.

The decision on whether or not to set homework doesn't originate from the Mussolini-minded teacher; it’s usually a blanket policy covering an entire school district created by a nameless boffin who hasn't set foot in a classroom since colour television was introduced in Australia in 1975.



If we put it to a referendum I’d get rid of it too.

What are your views on homework?

Do you have Problems with Eructation?

I heard on the radio today most people think a large percentage of posts on social media are pointless and a waste of time.

What? What do they mean? Surely they can’t mean me?

I mean to say, I’ve provided you with lots of useful information over the years haven’t I? Let’s see, there was How to Eat a Banana, How to Make a Banana Costume, How to Make a Volcano, and… and… and… that one about bananas.

It is pretty hopeless I guess.

There are no fantastic fitness tips, cheesecake recipes or lists of useful advice at all. You won’t find any brilliant procedures for turning plastic milk bottles into artistic lamp shades or bread ties into Christmas decorations on this blog. 

The only travel post I’ve written lately was about staying with my dogs at the boarding kennels. I don’t write book reviews and I don’t use inspirational ideas to motivate people.

In fact I may very well ask myself, what the hell do I do?

Well my friend, I have three first-rate gems to share with you today.



Piece of Advice Number One

Have you ever been sitting at a restaurant with friends and been mortified to find you’ve suddenly come down with a loud and belching case of the hiccups even though you haven’t been sneaking extra wine while no one was looking?

You know what I mean… not just the normal lady-like hiccups, but the ones where it sounds like you’re burping every time you hiccup; those hiccups that sound as though you’re about to disgorge something up your oesophagus onto your dinner plate. 

The type of eructions where your companions begin to stare at you in horror and then all start shoving their chairs back, frightened an eel or something much worse is going to slither out of your mouth at any moment. 

All the time your husband just ignores you and continues to tell his funny anecdote about when he was fourteen and fell off his skateboard, even though no one is listening because they’re mesmerised by the woman with a giant cockroach clawing its way up her neck and waiting for the feelers to poke out her pursed mouth.

No?

Really?

Must be just me.

Well you're in luck because this works for normal hiccups too.

1. Hold your breath for a slow count of ten.

2. Take ten generous sips of water WHILE you’re still holding your breath.

3. Hold your breath for another slow count of ten. Do not let go of the breath for the entire time.
I GUARANTEE (if you’re not dead) your hiccups will be gone.

If in some bizarre twist you happen to be a freak of nature and it doesn’t work; then do it again. It will definitely work the second time. I promise.



Piece of Advice Number Two.

If you, like me, have trouble taking tablets this is weird but it works. Instead of putting your head right back and trying to swig it down, go against your instinct. Put your chin on your chest and swallow. It forces the back of your throat to open up really wide and the tablet just goes down. You don’t even need to have much water in your mouth.



Advice Number Three.

Read this blog!

House Goes Home

I’ve read Alana’s blog for years now and it’s one I absolutely adore. Alana has an honest but humorous style and she really knows her stuff. Unlike Pinky, she posts stunning cake decorating stuff, yummy, easy recipes, celebrity gossip and writes from the heart about all sorts of personal issues.

It’s also her birthday today.



Many happy returns Larney xxx

Any brilliant pieces of advice you'd like to share with me?