A Village Life

Friday, January 27, 2012

Intentions

Every morning I wake up with intentions of writing a new blog post. I have thoughts, ideas and photos all ready planned to post. But something gets in the way every single day and nothing ends up happening with the blog; that something is life with 3 kids on summer break. No way, not going to happen. It is pretty much impossible to sit down on the computer and write something comprehensible with photos uploaded to boot. Life around here is changing quickly and I can barely keep up. Rita is off to school next week. Gone, dusted, 9 to 3, 5 days a week from now on. Gigi is talking; and when I say talking I mean talking. She narrates everything she does just because she can. She re-lives stories over and over, tells me who she likes and who isn't her friend (usually me), and which songs and dvd's she likes. It is hilarious and exhausting. Tui wants to walk. Today she actually took a step on her own. She isn't even 9 months old. She wants to walk around holding my hand all day long. This evening she climbed up on the rocking chair by herself and thought it was so funny to stand on the seat and rock away while I nearly had a heart attack trying to rescue her from across the room. My garden is in full bloom and if anyone has ideas for what to do with cherry tomatoes it would be much appreciated. How did I manage to plant 8 cherry tomato plants? I was sure there were some beefsteak and roma in there. We've been running and running. Pete is training for the coastal challenge and I am training for the beach to bush. 6km through the bush the other day totally worked me, how will I manage 22km? I've been working, the kids have swimming, and then of course the usual laundry and dinner, etc. So, how the hell do these mommy bloggers manage? I honestly don't have a second to spare to get on the computer. Tonight is the exception: it is past 8 o'clock and I am usually collapsed in bed as soon as the kids are down. They are down early tonight!
With all the best intentions of keeping this blog current, all I can hope is that once the kids are back in school I might just have a few hours to myself each week to post something worthwhile. Until then........

Monday, December 26, 2011

Merry Christmas

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Pee-U

I’ve been on a quest to find a “natural” non-aluminium deodorant for years now. I have tried every product on the market and so far nothing has come up successful. I’ve spent many a day thinking, “man, I stink”. It’s not so much the sweating that bothers me just the smell of stinky hippy body odour. Lately with all the kids in the house I’ve taken to just swiping my pits with a baby wipe when I feel a bit stinky and callin’ it all good. At some stage though something has to give and there just has to be a product out there that can help without giving me cancer or some other serious ailment associated with environmental chemical use. Some of the deodorant and brands I would put in the stinky unsuccessful basket are Jason’s, Tom’s, Australian Tea Tree, the salt crystal either in block form, roll on or spray on, Kiss My Face, Aubrey, the list goes on. Recently I splurged on Weleda’s Citrus Deodorant. This actually worked but I found the spray-on a bit wet, enduring a 5 minute dripping pits session before getting dressed every morning. When Soapwalla came to my attention thanks to Estelle I was more than happy to give it a go. While I waited patiently for my Soapwalla to get sent to my mom in California who then forwarded it to me in New Zealand, I kept up with my dripping Weleda pits, not unhappy with them but not entirely pleased either. Soapwalla arrived just in time for a few long days of work in a hot kitchen, no better test for a deodorant than conditions like that. The application is a bit strange rubbing cream into your armpits but I quickly overcame that. No big deal actually, it’s just like rubbing body lotion onto your skin. Soapwalla has exceeded my expectations. It’s brilliant! It smells delicious like creamy lavender cake or something yummy and sweet that you’d want to eat. As far as the stink factor goes, I haven’t had even a whiff of smelly hippy in the 2 weeks I’ve been using it. If there was one natural deodorant I would happily recommend to people, this would be the one.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Annie

The sun will come out, tomorrow.........
Remember this? Yesterday we received the Annie DVD in the post for the girls to watch. I was so excited to put it on and re-live every moment of this story. Mrs. Hannagan. Daddy Warbucks (was that his name?). Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. I think I watched the film 50 times at least, when I was a kid. We played "Annie" with the girls who lived next door to my grandma and spent hours singing every song from the movie. Of course everyone always wanted to be Annie. It was a huge part of my childhood, this film, so I couldn't understand when Pete said he had never heard of it and it seemed like his worst nightmare, all the singing and stuff. The girls gave me funny looks as I sang every song word for word. But slowly as the film played the girls became more and more entranced until they were both sitting in their chairs right in front of the TV screen staring at this all time favorite movie of mine. I hate to say it but I am going to put it on again today and hope that they are seduced by the charms of Annie just as I was when I was a little girl!!! They are real singers my little ones so I am just dying to hear them sing "the sun will come out..." in their sweet little voices!

Saturday, November 19, 2011

My how your garden grows!

A progress update on our new veg garden. It is flourishing! We've been snacking on strawberries, eating lettuce, broad beans and carrots, making pesto and cooking up spinach galore. Not long till we are popping tomatoes into our mouths and having snow peas and cucumbers in our salads. The courgettes have bloomed and the flowers are just waiting to be stuffed, dipped in batter and fried.