Sunday 18 March 2012

Flyspray IS the latest "Buzz Word!"

You KNOW you are a parent when at the end of a very loooong day, you offer to do the family grocery shopping just to get out of putting the kids to bed!! Works every time! :0) The perfect opportunity to sneak in that take-away coffee on the way, to turn the radio volume up high and sing along very loudly a) with the windows wound all the way down to be embarrassed in public (the car doesn't really count as usually I don't encounter familiar faces!), or b) if it is a chilly evening, a roasty, toasty car heater turned up full throttle is the ticket to enjoying warmth, while the rest of the world outside chills like Popsicles heading to Antarctica!

So I do my weekly shop, feeling like I did back in the day when I was a student watching every penny! A tad "old school" I key in the numbers into my trusty calculator, to meet the family budget. Lucky for me, I have a sharp memory, because once I got halfway through my shopping and I accidentally clicked on "CL" and the whole calculator cleared any trace of my adding up! I really should figure out how to use one of those scanner things!!

One of our family's "decluttering" tips is to use a weekly meal planner. As tedious as it may sound, this actually saves us money in the long run, as it prevents the temptation to impulse buy.... well, I did purchase some Impulse Deoderant..... :0)


Meanwhile back at the check-out counter, I pay up for my trolley of eats and treats. Not bad; only $2 over budget!! The cashier looks to be about sweet sixteen or thereabouts. He asks me if I have had "a busy day". I tell him I have four children under the age of seven (including twins!) and that I love to shop when they are all asleep. Mr Sweet Sixteen looks rather pained to hear my "life story" - that's quite enough to hear; he looks like he would rather head for the hills than face a deliriously happy-shopper mother who acts as if she is on parole!

About 15 minutes later I pull up into our driveway. The lights are off in the children's bedrooms, signalling they have been asleep a while! The coast is clear!

Prince Charming and I smuggle the shopping bags into the house and unpack. And then, it happened. The GASP! "Honey! Why oh why, did you buy another can of fly spray? We already have one!".

Me: "Put your reading glasses on!! It is HAIRSPRAY, not fly spray!".


Prince Charming: "There ain't no flies on my wife!"

Both the fly spray can and my hairspray can are the same colour blue. (The "Budget" colour.... I'm not ashamed to admit we are on a tight budget for a family of six!). Just imagine if, for a moment, we switched cans! The rogue late-Summer flies would suck in the hairspray, and they might actually succumb to the horrid fumes. And then I would really have my day to shine! My own home-made "recipe" for fly spray... a chance to make a million bucks.... dream on!!

I'll let you in on a little something I know firsthand about hairspray! On our wedding day, we released two boxes of Monarch Butterflies. For the rest of the ceremony, one Monarch butterfly clung to my hair! Some say it was the beautiful bride; others say it was the hairspray!

Next grocery shop, I will be upgrading from Budget to something better. I really could have gone one better with the extra $2 I had!







Sunday 4 March 2012

Mrs Cinders has lost her mojo!

I re-arrange the contents of my kitchen cupboards a lot! It makes me feel good to be able to see what foods I have (or don't have!) right on Grocery Day! (There's nothing worse than buying a box of baking powder, only to find out you already had one of those lurking at the back of the food cupboard!). Little fingers grease our fridge door daily, and I find that by the end of the week, the fridge gets cleaned inside and out! The same goes for wiping down exterior cupboard doors, kitchen walls, and most doors at home! Seriously, I hardly gave it a thought when I had one child, but now that we have x4 children, a weekly/daily mop-about is what I am all about! I know one couple who don't have children, who say they vacuum their house about once a fortnight, or once every three weeks. For Mrs Cinders (yes that's me most days!) I vacuum about twice per day at least! It is a wonder I haven't yet been sucked up that vacuum hose into the proverbial black hole. There could well be another as yet unfound galaxy in there!

I like being Mrs Cinders, because deep down (or not so deep down!) there is a part of me who loves to dress up and be a Queen for the day. It doesn't happen often, but recently I have been creating "me moments" and they are just about as important as looking after my quiver of children! Recently I have been feeling a little down, so I: got a haircut, joined Weight Watchers (I used to be 65kg pre children; now I am 82 kg... not too bad, but I'm determined to lose ALL the extra weight: ZUMBA!! Here we come!! A la vista, 82 kg, voila, poof! I shall call on my Fairy Godmother to magic away those pesky kilos, but "Cinders" shall do her part to step on the royal bandwagon to demolish those extra pounds! I'm up to Day 3 on Weight Watchers and have been munching on a mountain of apples (they are worth "zero" points these days!!).... the Magic Mirror on the wall does not lie: there are NO apple sprouts growing from my ears!

I have completed x2 sewing lessons, narrowly missing sewing my own finger and almost running over a pin... but I emerged victoriously holding my very own home-made pin cushion at the end of my lesson! My sewing instructor probably thinks she is on some sort of "Learner Driver" test with me! :0)

I am sure that in no time at all, I'll be sewing up my very own ballgown.... perhaps I'll wear to my next wedding anniversary (since I already have my Prince Charming!). Better yet, I'll be slim enough to fit back into my wedding dress - it has been sitting forlornly in its box for eight years!

It is so much fun to sit down and watch the words fly off my fingers! My husband and I both have a love and a natural talent for writing, but we were going through a tough time with our kids, and the words were just not flowing! I lost my mojo, so to speak! But after pursuing "me time" and re-discovering "the real me" again, the words are back. The blog is back, and I am in that happy place again where the words are there, leaping onto the pages. The click of the keyboard is music to my ears! A sweet harmony of ones reflection on the beauty and simplicity of life itself.

Thank you for your listening ears my friends! Until we meet again in Blogisphere! :0)