sevendaymother.com

What do you do when you find yourself with no toilet? This was the problem I faced yesterday.  You see the plumber came around to change the toilet base and clear a blockage that has been causing us trouble ever since we moved in.  He arrived at 11am and started busting up our toilet immediately, thank God I used the loo just moments before he arrived.  Then at 1:30pm he pronounced the job done then told me not to use it until 5pm…. 5pm!!!  My bladder was full and  I was busting and as you well know -  “when you got to go, you got to go.”   If I had the car I would have driven to the shops but I didn’t so I couldn’t.  I  did the only thing I could think of… I relived the good old days when the chamber pot was King!  The piss pot made a come back in the form of my laundry bucket… ahhh… sweet relief!

I just skimmed the news website and saw …Estelle Getty dies at 84.  Well I can’t write my post on what I was going to now, not after reading that.  Estelle played the character of my favourite Golden Girl - Sophia.  I loved that character, feisty, witty and just plain funny.  Estelle was a great comedic character and I know my husband along with thousands of others didn’t like the movie “Stop or my mom will Shoot” but I thought that Estelle MADE that move… Stallone… well that’s another matter entirely.

My girls were playing snap the other night and I had the job of being the dealer.  With eyes on the cards and hands posed to snap the game began.  Claire (age 7)  had the faster reflexes therefore seemed to win almost every match.  Natalie (age 5) was getting frustrated with losing so with every snap attempt she said the word “snap” through gritted teeth. Her losing streak continued and the gritted teeth speech was backed up with fist waving.  If things didn’t start going her way I think Natalie was prepared to turn Snap into a contact sport.  Not prepared to let this happen (although it may have been entertaining) I announced Claire the winner and Natalie accepted defeat.  However with fists balled she vowed to win next time…  and I believe her!

I had my first chance in a long time to sleep in the other morning.  I stayed up late watching poker on TV but without the kids and Luke at home I was planning to sleep well into the morning. I slept without dreaming so as soon as I heard the BUZZZ BUZZZ BUZZZ of the alarm clock it only felt as if I had just closed my eyes.  How could I forget to turn the alarm off?  I was so looking forward to sleeping in.  I lay in bed for a little while longer but there was no denying that I was up for the day.  Perhaps I’ll get another chance to sleep in before Christmas… that would be nice.

The other night I was making a beautiful low fat carbonara sauce to go with the some gnocchi I was cooking.  The sauce was done and it was time to strain the gnocchi.  Into a colander it went then over into the sauce.  Oh no, I was pretty sure I spotted something black in that gnocchi.  On further investigation I found a fly, poor little guy must have flown between my pot and the colander just as I was straining the gnocchi.  Talk about bad timing! The family really love this dish so I plucked the fly out and tossed the gnocchi through the sauce.  With fresh bread from the bread maker the meal was complete and the family loved it.  I on the other hand had to force images of that steaming hot fly out of my mind in order to eat.  I do hope I got all the wings and legs out of that meal but if not…  well… it’s just extra protein isn’t it?

Whenever I get together with friends or family to play games…bowling, board games or just the wii… my competitive nature comes out to play.  I just love a good competition! Playing Pictionary the other day I may have been a bit hard on my seven year old for her lack of drawing abilities but she’ll get over it… we won!  I know people say that it’s not whether you win or lose blah blah blah….  I’m here to say that if you don’t play to win don’t play at all.  I have also found that almost anything can be turned into a competition. My husband has already banned me from the kids sporting function because he fears I’ll be the parent at the goal posts yelling to the kids and throwing abuse left right and center to all the other children.  Rest assured I’m not like that,  plus the kids don’t participate in any sporting activities yet.  No, I’m happy to let the kids have fun and simply enjoy themselves but when it comes to me… I’m in it to win!

The war between man and mouse is alive and well in our household and I do believe we are winning. It is now month three in this campaign and I now suspect the mice are taunting me.  I found mouse  droppings on top of the mouse trap today… the part that is supposed to close the trap.   It’s like they are saying “look where I have been, catch me if you can”.  Maybe they are getting nervous as their numbers diminish and are simply resorting to scare tactics.  They have a right to be scared, in May we caught 220 then in June another 68.  This month we have caught 4 bringing the total to 292!  Surely their army is down to just a few front liners…. the best of the best who have made it this far. Well this is my update on the war and I’m confident that by the end of Winter this house will be a mouse free zone.

I love coconut macaroons so I have tried many different recipes and this one is by far the best.  It’s so easy with so few ingredients they can be whipped up easily when unexpected guests pop round…oh I hate unexpected guests but that’s a blog post for another day.

Ingredients:

* 1 cup of cocount
* 1 egg
* 1/2 cup of sugar
* pinch of salt
* 1 tablespoon of  cornflour

procedure:

1. Combine coconut, sugar and cornflour in a bowl.
2. beat egg & salt with a fork, stir into dry ingredients and mix well.
3. place heaped spoonfuls of mixture on to baking paper lined trays and bake for 15 min at 180 degrees celcius/350 degrees fareinheight  or golden.

That’s it! So simple and so delicious - makes about 18.  Try adding choc-chips to the recipe or dipping  the peaks in melted chocolate…yum yum!  I also find shaping is done best when you place a spoon of mix in your palm and pinch it to form a mountain shape complete with peak.  The peak will be quite dark when they cook but that’s normal.  I once gave a batch to my father who looked at them and said “they look like tits!”  He has quite a way with words, wouldn’t you say?

It saddened me to hear that a friend of a friend so to speak had an abortion because test results indicated a 1 in 100 chance of down syndrome.  I’m sure if you were to talk to a couple desperately trying to have children  I think you would find that a 1 in 100 chance would not concern them at all.  Every life is precious but in some societies where a male child is preferred thousands of female babies are aborted every year.  What next.. eye colour? obesity gene? possibility of dementia in later life? What other excuses can we find to end a life?  And what a horrid way to do it!  Having limb after limb torn from your body, and don’t try to tell me they’re not babies… just look at the picture above! (that’s one of the “nicer” images) You can’t say that isn’t a child and you can’t say that poor baby didn’t suffer.  Just because it is performed under the guise of a medical procedure does not hide the fact that it is still murder.

Some months back the family and I were in a shopping complete nearing closing time.   We noticed an employee of the Bakers Delight store carrying large garbage bags towards the dumpster then toss them in.  What we witnessed horrified us… loaves and loaves of bread and sweets being thrown away!  While thousands of families struggle to buy food to feed their children here was a dumpster FULL of edible products.  Why can’t they sell their bread at half price to clear the stock?  A “happy hour” so to speak just before closing time. People will still buy bread during the day, specials don’t appeal to everyone but could really help a lot of people on the other end.  What about charities who feed the homeless, why can’t the bread be given to them in order to help the community? Oh I’m not stupid I’m sure there are health and safety regulations that stop that from happening but I just find it crazy… what a wasteful society we live in!