The Snail Massacre

After 17 months of being in our unit, we have finally got plants in our garden beds! We rent our unit from a family member, and I was so excited when they suggested that we go to the nursery and get some seedlings. I am a kinda on and off gardener, which actually does not match well with seedlings…but I am trying to train myself. The seedlings, I plan to let them help in the training. If they don’t succeed plan to hear me b**ching not about a snail massacre, but a seedling massacre. I can assure everyone that I have been watering everyday, and performing maintenance weeding, and I have even put out snail pellets.

Speaking of the snail pellets. I have never really been into using snail pellets or too many chemicals, snail pellets in large doses can hurt kitties and puppies. Especially the poor malnourished kitty (we’ll get into that on another day) who regularly sits in my mounds of mulch. My Dad assured me that the seedlings would not survive the wrath of the snail army, so I skittled a few of them lovely blue pellets around.

That was Sunday. On Wednesday I went outside to water and weed, and there was a Massacre! In all of the little water moats that surrounded my seedlings there were at least 5-6 little curled up snail bodies. I feel like a murderer. I was more upset about the dead snails than the idea of losing the seedlings. I still have not been able to look at the moats, and empty out the bodies, luckily today it rained like a b*atch so I didn’t have to go out there and water. Mmm maybe I should have a memorial service.

One Word: Heavenly

http://www.katemillerheidke.com/downloads.php

Check it out.

Cheers
Bec

In Response to MSN Heading: “Sometimes a girl just needs a pickle”

Person A
Ha Ha funny statement that, I can really relate to it.

Person B
Hee Hee yeah?!

Person A
I have pickle cravings! Sometimes I just need something pickled in my mouth.

Person A
On the way back from being out Saturday night, I really wanted a cheeseburger, mostly for the pickles but my husband wouldn't let me have one.

Person B
Yeah. Coz it has pickles in it! Ha Ha Ha!

Person B
Yeah!

Person A
I do the exact same things. Ha ha ha. My husband doesn't understand my pickle cravings...but he's starting to.

Person B
Hee hee, yeah I am hoping that mine will one day understand too. I used to eat them out of the jar all the time when I was a kid.

Person A
Yeah, I loved doing that also.

Person B
They are just so deliciously satisfying, and olives too.

Person A
Ooh olives, and pickles cucumber (the sweet and spiced ones)

Person B
Ooh yeah!! They are great!

Person A
HAHAH, this is hilarious. Well I got to go back to work now. But I just had to comment on your pickle thing, good to know there are more of us out there.

Person B
See you then.

Person A
Cya chica

(ten minutes later)

Person B
Oh god…

Person A
What?

Person B
I just polished off a 235 gram jar of stuffed green olives…was so good, but so bad.

Person A
Mmm, I need olives

Person B
Sorry none left.

My Dad thinks I am 25

I got birthday cards from various family members and friends on my birthday, I always love getting cards, especially when people write interesting messages, better than the usual “Happy Birthday, have a great day!” Yawn! Boring!

My Dad is particularly good at this, he always writes great things in our cards, and this year it was no different. Except that instead of saying 24 it said 25. Now either Dad is thinking that I was alive 9 months before I was born so I am almost 25 (if you count the months in the womb) or worse…he thinks I am 25!

I am ready for 24. I am just not ready for 25, that’s five years from 30! I am just not ready for that! My husband is 26, so he is already on the down wards slide towards 30, but he has dealt with it very well, well he hasn’t mentioned any concerns. When I get to closer to 25 then I probably will become more prepared for it, but I have only just prepared myself for the two teamed with the four.

Dad was sitting right next to me when I read the card, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he got my age wrong, seeing that he had put so much effort into the message. So I just closed it quickly before my husband could read the “25” and comment, and said “Oh Dad! That’s really great! Thanks!”

Aaah, the things we do to protect the people we love, by lying to them and protecting them from themselves.

I did eventually show my husband the card (after Dad left) and his response was “Oh Baby. He just thinks your 25 cause your old now.” Gee, thanks for the encouragement.

24 Yesterday

Some nice things I got for my birthday:
Orchids
Scones with Jam and Cream
Fresh Muffins
Coffee
Boiled Eggs on Toast
Monaaayyyy
Little Black Dress
Chocolate
Cards
Cake
Spagghi's Dinner

(Recurring theme: food)

See birthday pics here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/berecca1982/

Go the Fro

On Saturday night I went to an excellent Hens night. The theme was “Crazy Hair” and since I like to excel at everything, I decided that the only way to go, was to go, ‘The Fro’.

Boy, was it a good idea! The response from the surrounding patrons and guests on ‘The Fro’ was so positive I am actually thinking about wearing it out regularly. Everyone I walked past, and met automatically reacted positively. I lost count of all the “I love your Hair!”, comments. It was great! “The Fro” was a real conversation starter.

I must say that myself, and my good friend, were the only two really truly committed to the Crazy Hair Theme. She wore a Tina Turner wig, which was absolutely fabulous. It was even more fabulous when she sang Tina Turner at the Karaoke bar.

Aaah, wine, fro, corona, more fro, more wine, champagne, mango midori slushy’s, even more fro, Tina Turner Wig and karaoke. What more could you want in a good night out?

P.S You can see a picture of 'The Fro' and I here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/berecca1982/221035547/

Unfortunatley Blogger has decided to be a b*tch and not let me upload photos! Blogger and I have a love/hate relationship. It loves me, I love it only when it doesn't crash my web browser, all the other times, I hate it! It only seems to let me upload giant mushrooms. Of which I have more pictures of, as I bought another giant mushroom on Saturday. This one fed 6 people! Two of them teenage boys! That was one mutha of a mushroom!

Next holiday, we are totally going to Argentina

I thought that you all might like to share in the hilarity of Mighty Girl. This restaurant sounds hilarious, I would love to go there with all of my girlfriends, get pi*sed and giggle for hours on end.

http://mightygirl.com/2006/08/09/muppets-xxx/

Hardest working dog on the Internet

Haa haa haa, check this out;

http://www.dooce.com/archives/daily/08_16_2006.html

Wife of an Un-employed Man

My husband is un-employed, what fun! No really, it’s not that bad, he finished his last job Friday last week, and he has 2 months of paid leave to find something new. With his experience and all round excellence I have no doubt that he will land something new asap!

In the mean time I must say that I am enjoying all of the pampering, the cleaning and the bacon and eggs for breakfast! After my daily dose of 1.5 hours of Yoga I come home to fresh juice, fresh coffee and eggs and bacon on toast, perhaps not as good for the waistline as the taste buds. I must admit that after a long day at work I love the fact that I can come home to my husband wearing an apron. It’s sexy! Though he hasn’t worn the apron naked yet (*frowning with disappointment).

It is strange though, to feel uncertainty about the future, it must be even scarier for my husband than it is for me. At least I know that I am earning money, he isn’t even sure that he will have that in the next few weeks, Thank God he never took a holiday in 3 years, otherwise right now, we would be absolutely stuffed, literally stuffed with unpaid bills (we would both have to sell ourselves on the street).

We had a very in depth discussion a few weeks ago and decided that when looking for a new job we weren’t going to limit him to Perth only, or even Australia only. Which is kind of scary, because it means that potentially within 2 months we could be anywhere in the world! I know that sounds very exciting, but the downer for me is that my husband would jet set off to set up our new home, and I would be stuck here for several months working and packing up all of our crap, of which we have much!

Today I worked from home, which I often do (as a self employed designer) and my husband was at home as well (being un-employed!). I must admit, the breakfast was great but after that I wanted him to leave! He kept running in and out of the room hugging me, and I was trying to concentrate on an annual report, a brochure and a corporate identity! It was like he wanted me to be un-employed with him, but little did he know, that someone around here has to do some work! Ok, now I am just being mean. It was nice to have someone make me an afternoon Milo, and a shoulder massage when I reached my 3pm low, and msn me from the study and tell me I’m pretty, even after I have been whining Ben Harper and Tori Amos tunes all afternoon.

Foot/Butt Update

"This pose is going to be challenging for many of you, it really opens up the hip joint here (points to spot on hip), effectively what you are doing is digging your heel into your anus."

- Yoga Instructor

The day my Yoga instructor taught me to put my foot up my ar*e.

Last Monday I started an intensive 2 weeks Yoga course to get myself back into the swing of Yoga, after being a gym junkie for the past year. On the first day I almost fainted in class, and felt extremely ill, though that could have been to do with the period attack I was experiencing. After the near fainting Yoga has been fine, and my body is beginning to feel alive again.

Yoga has the amazing ability to awaken muscles that you didn’t even know existed and put you into positions that you never thought you could be in. A fine example of this arose yesterday, when our Yoga instructor taught us to sit on our own foot, effectively forcing our heel into our a-holes. It was an interesting experience, and one that I got to try again today. I thought that perhaps I would be more comfortable the second time round, but I wasn’t. It appears that I have no way near enough padding in that lower region, which means that my sitting bones dig into my ankle and my foot dogs into my ar*ehole.

I must say, I am not really looking forward to that pose tomorrow.

Another interesting point (poise yourself for a rant), the instructor actually told me that I was lazy (maybe he said it is jest, I don’t know) for not contorting my body enough in order to link arms around my elastic band of a spine! I almost blurted out, “If I was lazy I would be in bed eating pizza and watching Sunrise, instead of the last week and a half of being here every week day, for an hour and a half sticking my foot up my ar*e!”

My body is rejecting my skin!

A couple of months ago I came up in a rash and skin dryness and loss, in my armpits. I got a cream from a crazy eastern European GP and it all went away, or so I thought! The rash did go away, but as soon as I stopped using the cream it came back, and then the other day I looked down at my poor old belly button and inside my belly button was the same rash! So I have started using the cream there too.

Today, my head was decidedly itchy, I had just washed my hair this morning so it was definitely clean. As I was scratching I saw these little snow flake pieces falling from my head! Could it be…NO! Not dandruff!!! F**k no!!! I have never had dandruff, my whole life! I don’t want to use those stinky poo anti-dandruff shampoos! I am quite happy using my lovely brunette enhancing shampoo that smell like lollies! This sucks!

I blame:
a) My Dad, he has dandruff it must be some weird hereditary thing that only starts when you are about to turn 24.
b) My husband, he has had dandruff all his adult life and has infected me with his dandruff disease when he shared his pillow…comb…towel…life!
c) The fancy new John Jardine shampoo that smells like lollies, that I have been using for the past few months. Good one! You have just lost a perfectly happy customer to Stinky Dandruff Pinetarsol Shampoos!!

So my body has decided to boycott my skin, “I have had enough of you skin” it says.
Am I being punished for over moisturising?

Hang on a tic…all of this started after I got married, that’s it! I am allergic to marriage…”Sorry baby, we have to go back to our de facto lifestyle, my body is physically rejecting our marriage” I wonder if anyone has tried that line before?

Well, if anyone has some good suggestions for me to keep the skin on my body, they would be much appreciated, as I don’t think skin falling off is going to pass as a good reason for an annulment. So far I have washed my hair with a bright blue shampoo with the consistency of Jiff, and Tea tree oil shampoo, neither are really working.

Tear Jerker…

If you are at work, and you are not wearing waterproof mascara, boycott this till you get home…don’t say I didn’t warn you.

My Dad was right when he said “It is the end of an Era”. On Monday night I cried myself to sleep, on Tuesday morning my Dad did everything he could do to put off what we had to do at 9am. So much that he was 15 minutes late to the vet.

On Tuesday morning we had to put down our beautiful Shadow. I have not been able to write about it till now, as I would have been bawling before now, right now I am teary. We had Shadow for half of my life, since I was 12 years old, I am turning 24 on the 22nd of this month. So he has been a part of our lives for almost 12 years. He has made our lives so rich, so fulfilling, and best of all he taught all of us kids to care deeply for another being. He was our brother.

When we went to choose our new puppy 12 years ago, there was this chubby little fluff ball at the bottom of the pile, just trying to get to us, but all the other puppies were climbing on him. I lifted him out of the pile, and gave him a huge cuddle, and the first thing he did was licked me square in the mouth. It was gross…but funny.

Our Dad bought Shadow for us as a joint present for Christmas, about 9 months after our parents decided to separate, it was a tough period for the four of us kids, and Shadow, he was the light of our lives.

When he was little he used to sleep on my bed (he wasn’t supposed to, he was meant to be on the floor, but how can you say no to a fluff ball? Huh? Huh?). He would sleep dead in the middle and push me out to the edges of the bed, at the time it was annoying, now it’s a great memory.

He was such a character. I would lay on the timber veranda when I was a kid, and just look at his face, and talk to him about how I was feeling, and how I was so sick of my parents behaving younger than me (I was 14). I know it sounds silly, but it felt like when I was fourteen, angry, wearing army pants and big black boots, that he was the only one who understood me (Shadow and the Smashing Pumpkins of course).

He sat by my feet when I was 22, and writing my honours thesis for hours and hours on end. He kept my feet warmer than any pair of ugg boots. He made me giggle. Even when I moved out of home, it felt like he was always there for me, and whenever I went over to Dad’s, there he was sitting on the park bench on the veranda, waiting for me. (If you can’t guess, I am bawling my eyes out right now, if you aren’t you are an icicle!)

So, Tuesday, it was the end of an era. Now it feels like there is a void, and I know it will be the same for each of my brothers, and for my Dad, who has cared for him so lovingly over these past few months, when Shadow has been operated on to remove his cancer, and lived through the pain of it growing back, and gradually taking over his body.

Putting Shadow down, was one of the hardest decisions that we had to make, harder than writing an honours thesis, harder than travelling overseas alone, harder than having your heart broken by a boy. I know that we did the best thing for him, and I know that wherever he is he will be missing us just as much.

Shadow…we love you.

McConaughey

Matthew McConaughey is so cute, that's all I am saying ... oki one more thing, his characters are not so smart, but they are cute...so very cute...

P.S I love my Husband

Taco Town You Saved Me from Boring Taco Hell

http://www.blurbomat.com/archives/2006/07/27/solo

Go here and watch the Taco Town goodness...gosh those yanks are funny buggers. :)

Parked in a puddle, which is more like a lake…

This morning it was pi**ing down here in Freo, so when I saw a lovely parking spot closer than the regular other side of the universe spots, I got very, very excited! If you have ever parked at the E-shed in Fremantle after Notre Dame students have invaded you will understand why. I reversed about 20 metres back to the spot, and then saw the giant puddle that encompassed about 3/4’s of it. Going in forward would have meant getting out and standing ankle deep in reverse drain material and water. So I backed in, but still managed to stand in material/water that covered 3cm on my boots, high enough to start seeping in the cracks (don’t tell anyone they were the leather boots I bought in Florence).

Now, many may think this was a stupid idea, to park in a giant puddle. But what do you do when you are faced with having to walk 500-600 metres less or get slightly damp feet? It was a tough decision, and despite my now, freezing cold feet, the likelihood that I will now get a cold, and that my husband will have no sympathy as I brought it on myself, well… I think it was definitely worth it. I only wish I had my camera so I could show you just how f-ing big the puddle was, I looked quite attractive tip-toeing really quickly through it like I was Jesus trying to walk on water.