Home of Slightly Cracked Dreams

Well, Akismet is out to get me anyway.

If you have Akismet on your Wordpress blog, be sure to check your folder regularly. Akismet has decided I’m a spammer, so go and check your folder and fish me ot. Go on, I’ll wait.

See, that wasn’t so hard. Thanks for your help. I now return you to your regularly shceduled blogging

Well, another busy week here. I’m doing a course Monday to Wednesday so lots of easy meals this week:

Monday - Veal Stir Fry

Tuesday - Crumbed Chicken & Vegetables

Wednesday - Dinner meeting

Thursday - Meatballs and pasta

Friday -  Fried Rice

Saturday - Salmon Patties

Sunday - Rissoles

Head on over to Organizing Junkie for more menu plans for this week!

As always, a trip involving me could go no other way than involving drama galore. Fortunately for you I’m too tired to recount it all today, especially as I’m over at Aussie Bloggers today. Just to give you an idea of what I got up to while I was away

I might manage to get caught up a bit tonight, but the kids haven’t seen me for a week, so there’s lots of cuddles and madness in the house today. What the heck, the housework will still be there tomorrow right?

Well, I had a fabulous post prepared for today. Unfortunately the internet ate it and it has disappeared from my computer forever. So I’m just going to have to make something up as I go.

Camping was absolutely awesome. I have come back a completely calm slightly calmer woman than when I went away.  I’m yelling less at the kids, things aren’t quite so overwhelming, and I just feel, better.

As always there were the fun parts of camping. I mean camping isn’t camping without some disaster stories, right? We planned to leave here around 11am. So it was 12:30 when we left. 90 minutes late isn’t that bad, right? We stopped off in the park for a brief feed of Miss Moo before getting lost several times due to bad directions from Hubby. I mean, I know he was saying (for example)  to “take the turn for Blah road” as in the road to Blah, and I took that to mean “take the turn for Blah Road”, which was not the turn I was supposed to make.

Anyway, we got there in the end, which is the important thing I spose.

Then the drama of setting the tents up started. Up, down, up for both of them. Hubby is insisting I tell you that the reason ours went up, down, up was because of a pole issue that needed to be fixed. Excuses, excuses.

So, once the tents were up we turned our attention to the campfire. Well, that was another disaster. Thankfully we had a gas stove to cook dinner on, otherwise our dinner would have consisted of baked beans and bread.

The second we arrived M&M and Kiki made friends with the girl in the campsite next to us, and they would disappear for hours into one tent or another, or down to the beach with the older sister or one of the adults. On Saturday morning we discovered the girls friends from daycare a few campsites down who were also there for the weekend, so between all 6 kids they had a ball running up and down the campsite and getting very, very dirty.

But despite all the dirt, everyone had such a good time we booked ourselves back in for 2 months time with hopefully a bigger party.

I have heaps more stories to tell, but I’ll save some for another day. Plus it’s late and I should be in bed.

So I’m a little late this week. In my defence I only got home yesterday afternoon. So, what’s on the menu this week? Well, a recycled plan because we didn’t get through last week. Sorry it’s a bit boring.

Monday - Chicken & pasta

Tuesday - Salmon Patties

Wednesday - Apricot Chicken

Thursday -  Spaghetti Bolognaise

Friday - Haystacks

Saturday - Corned Beef

Sunday - Toasted Sandwiches

There you go slightly recycled, and full of classic favourites. Head over to I’m an Organizing Junkie to see what everyone else is eating.

FINALLY! After Hubby yelled at the tech support people last night for telling him the same thing for the 3rd time, he said that if he wasn’t informed of anything within 24 hours he’d be cancelling the account and demanding a refund. Miraculously this morning we had broadband internet. Now couldn’t they have done that 3 weeks ago?

So, you may notice an avalanche of comments from me over the next few weeks, not only because I’m so happy to be able to do more than just read (I’ve been downloading posts and reading offline, because most of your sites won’t even open on our pathetic dial up) but because I have two assignments due next week.

And on that note, I believe it’s time to pack the kids up for swimming lessons.

The universe is trying to tell you something?

With all the phone and internet drama’s over the last few weeks, you’d expect me to have figured it out. But it took a lot more than that.

Last Thursday, in the midst of my mad “7 weeks in 7 days” uni cramming sessions, our TV set top box died. Faced with the necessity to purchase a set-top box (mind you the old one was a whole 2 months out of warranty) we decided to look at HD ones, and ended up with a HDTV - oops! On the plus side - we now have an AWESOME tv.

Then Sunday. Oh my Sunday. I had booked a flight from home to Brisbane, with a 2 hour stop over, then a flight on to Sydney. Well, for the first time in my life I took out travel insurance on a domestic flight, and I’m certain that’s the reason, but our flight was delayed by 6 HOURS!! Well, obviously I was going to miss my flight from Brisbane, but I was also going to miss EVERY flight from Brisbane on Sunday. Neither airline I was travelling on was being particularly helpful, so I booked myself on yet another airline first thing Monday morning from Brisbane. This necessitated the original airline to arrange accomodation for me in Brisbane, and a car to and from the airport.

After a mere 3 hours sleep, I was ready and waiting my car to take me to the airport, determined that the day would be different.

Ha!

After waiting 20 minutes for my car, a hotel staff member rang the airline who chased it up. Apparently the car had broken down, and I would have to catch a cab and be refunded. $45 later.

I nearly missed that flight, due to the delay by the car. Because I nearly missed my flight, I’m still $45 out of pocket (not to mention $180 out of pocket for the flight, and $70 for the flight I missed.

When I finally arrived in Sydney, a cab ride through peak hour traffic was my reward. Costing me more than a late night trip with a 20% additional fee. Fantastic.

Despite all this I was only 30 minutes late for my class, and managed to participate, and even contribute (I think) positively to the discussion.

What did I learn from all this? Positive thinking doesn’t always work. But I had a chat with a close family friend on Monday night, and determined that the rest of the week would be different. Things HAD to get better. And you know what? They did.

My tutorials so far have gone well. It’s fun catching up with people, and making new friends. I recieved a phone call from Hubby to tell me the phone was working again, and that he’s working on the internet. I even recieved a phone call from Telstra today checking that our phone was working. I know. I nearly died too. A mere 2 hours after I met a guy who works for them. It’s not what you know is it?

So my flights home on Friday will go well, and I will be on the internet Friday night to regale you all with tales of my wild experiences during the on-campus sessions for my course.

I hope you’re all having a fantastic week, and I apologise if it’s taking me a while to moderate comments, my email is now broken also, so I need to organise that to be fixed when I get home. But fixed it will be.

Why is it that in this day and age, a breastfeeding woman has NO option for medication to help with the symptoms of cold and flu?

I get that there’s really a limited market for this, as women generally breastfeed for a short time out of their lives (and if I was a raving feminist I would argue that it was a form of discrimination against women, but I’ll leave that argument for someone else to pursue), but surely there shouldn’t have to be a choice between breastfeeding (if that’s how you choose to feed your baby) and being healthy enough to function and look after your other offspring?

Let me say at this point I’m not a breastfeeding nazi. I breastfed my first child for 3 months, my second for 6 weeks (although exclusively expressed for a further 4 months) and so far have breastfed Miss Moo for nearly 6 weeks (and things are looking good). What I’m saying is, I’ve been there with the whole formula thing, and my focus is to breastfeed as long as I can. And whatever works for you .

But struck down with the flu I head in to my local pharmacist to be told the same thing I was told the last two times “I’m sorry, take some panadol, and put some vics in hot water and breathe that in.” Without trying to be melodromatic, the flu can kill. And you can do nothing for me beyond panadol and vics? (for starters vics makes me want to vomit - more, and I’m already taking panadol)

I guess maybe I’d hoped in the 4 years since I heard it the first time, there would be some advance in medications? Apparently not.

I read an article online recently (unfortunately I can’t find it now - typical) that discussed the reasons for the low (ie none) levels of research into a) whether current medications were safe, and b) developing new medications that are safe for breastfeeding women and their babies. Of course cost was a factor. And the limited market. And the fact they’re reasearching cures for HIV and Cancer and stuff.

But surely research into drugs that could increase the number of breastfed babies, and prevent women from making the choice to breastfeed or be healthy, is just as valid?

If none of the above makes any sense, I apologise. I’m not on drugs, but fuzzy headed from the distinct lack of drugs

Spaghetti Bolognaise

Thank goodness - cause it meant I didn’t have to do any cooking.

Pictures of the posters will be forthcoming, as soon as a) I find batteries for the camera and b) Telstra actually does something about connecting us a phone line and I organise some form of internet connection.

Until next week….

1. Kitchen
2. Office
3. My clothes.

I’ll report back next Tuesday, hopefully with some pictures.