feeling the need for speed

a
picture
paints
a
thousand
wordsand this day has me
totally convinced
to get a motorbike
for my fortieth birthday -
oh, yes -
the *mid life crisis*
is about to go
to the next level!

Toutes Les Choses Rouges (All Things Red)

dusk drifts down as we three
arm-in-armed with pinot vino
waft up the whaka and begin our
gluten-free strawberry trance, with

paisleyed Arthur and his horse
in the ceiling sprinkling its thick
equine shadow of maggots on the floor, with

long-haired Arthur meeting a
yellow-jerseyed author on a woollen-stranded
bridge over troubled waters, with

published Arthur and his heady word plays
meandering lines of crossings-out
add-ons and jingle jumbles, with

resplendently red-Doc'd Arthur chanting
soothing mantras of polyester polyester polyester one
and his one-liner perfect girl
who isn't lost at all

and my navel-gazing
turns to star-gazing

clasping the tail-end of four-day-old
Bah Humbugness and squishing
it all back into its brown tattered box
now tightly tied, with

strings of polyester polyester polyester one
adorned with renewed visions
of the weekend's excavation and lighting of
the Christmas tree and eighty
soon-to-be red Rudolphed candy canes, with

starry candles and childhood wonder
and silent night
holy night.

"Beam me up, Gadget Boy!"

The nickname "Charlie" stuck one summer when the kids got Walkie Talkies in their Christmas stockings. I think that we had recently watched The Incredibles and heard Elastigirl's communications call "India Golf Nine-er Nine-er..." and so Joel decided that his Call Sign would be "CHARLIE NINE-ER NINE-ER" cos Charlie sounds like Joely.
and he's been Charlie ever since.

(photo courtesy of my gadget phone - cos i blondely left the camera in the car lol)

here's Charlie, with his friend Corey - they share their birthday - (yep, they're TWINS, born a year apart!) celebrating at the pools. It was so funny - without any consultation, the lads gave each other near-identical birthday pressies! the same brand of Spy Equipment.
ah, gadgetry of the happiest birthdayest kind.

and as promised, the rather excited teenaged Charlie now has another gadget - his own pxt phone.

"Beam me up, Scotty Charlie!"
here's to beaming - and birthdays - and gadgets - and three teenagers in the house!
cos we love teenagers. yes we do.

global announcement

HOUSTON, WE HAVE LIFT OFF!!!! i've just received my University Acceptance for 2009!!!!! katie is a *bona fide student*. i am so freaking excited!!!

and the skool interview for Sam and Mick went beautifully today - gorgeous school environment, fabulous new playground - awesome friendly kiddos - instant sunshine all around.

and - it's friday. yeah, i'm making the most of every single friday.

and - we are off to The Big Smoke for the weekend - hanging with my Auntie and her beautiful newly-white-sanded beach.

i love my life.

Ladies Who Lunch

land sakes, we just did this four days agobut here's the giggle -

ladies who lunch is a phrase
to describe slim,
well-off, old-money, well-dressed women
who meet for lunch socially,
normally during the working week.

If the hat fits, wear it -

any excuse for cupcakes and champers, eh girls?

happy birthday Madge!

post script here beginneth the next four days of parties - cos Charlie is on the brink of becoming a teenager!

post post script if ya fancy a fab fascinator or five - designed by our very own Birthday Girl - go here

crabby cakes

for moi, the word "flapjack" is in the same category as "poultice" and "slotted spoon" - for some reason it makes my back go all cringey and i get an oooky woooooky shuddering-shoulder-blades-feeling.

now that the five kiwi kids are all under our roof again (do i hear a *yippee zippee*?!!) peeps are suddenly eating like the proverbial teenager *and* leaving teenage-sized messes everywhere - i woke up this morning dreaming of a fulltime kitchen-fairy/chef/housekeeper - to prevent the re-enactment of The Laughing Policeman.

and as i was scratching my head and wondering how on earth to keep the hungry tummies happy for the whole summer, i remembered that i've been wanting to make fl*pj*cks for a while - but the only recipes i've managed to find need kitchen scales. i'm a cup-measurer. enter Allyson Gofton, a kiwi chef and her kate-friendly recipe.

Ingredients

1 cup sugar

2 1/2 cups desiccated coconut

2 1/2 cups rolled oats

250 grams butter, melted

Method

1. In a bowl mix together the sugar, coconut and rolled oats. 2. Pour in the melted butter and stir to mix well. 3. Press into a greased, and lined 24cm x 30cm slice tin. 4. Bake at 160°C for 25-30 minutes. 5. Cut into squares while still warm. 6. Store in an airtight container.

we've re-christened them CRABBY CAKES (from one of our fave movies) and the immediate verdicts are: "delicious... booo-da-full... can we have TWO?"
(*side note* these CRABBY CAKES are not really mummy-friendly - i didn't realise until i started measuring that they have half a pound of butter within. EGADS!)

i'll be surprised if they get to the storage container...

Voulez-vous (would yas like to...)

i know i've pretty much done mamma mia to a near-excruciating death this year - mamma mia, here i go again - i've seen it four times at the cinema - my, my, how can i resist ya? cos Woozie even bought the soundtrack and we've been singing - honey honey, how you thrill me, ah-hah, honey honey - and singing it - you can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life - but this month's dvd release certainly called for a Girls' Weekend on our very own Greek Island!!!

here we are at Pukehina Beach -

People everywhere,

a sense of expectation hanging in the air

Giving out a spark,

across the room your eyes
are glowing in the dark

And here we go again,
we know the start,
we know the end -
Masters of the scene

We've done it all before
and now we're back to get some more
You know what I mean

Voulez-vous (ah-ha)
Take it now or leave it (ah-ha)

Now it's all we get (ah-ha)
Nothing promised, no regrets
Voulez-vous (ah-ha)

and then Margot produced her wig stash -

Tonight the Super Trouper

lights are gonna find me

Shining like the sun,

Smiling,

having fun,

Feeling like a number one!!!

OH YES, "we danced on the beach, and we kissed on the beach, and DOT - DOT - DOT!!!!"
(guess the movie line - absolutely no clues needed for this one - oh and just jokes about the kissing lol)

Another Funny Bunny Moment

last night i popped into my fave taichi/pilates/yoga class at the gym, and noticed a girlfriend (who's in her early twenties) across the room - who i last saw about five years ago.

at the end of the class i caught up with her and she looked at me and shrieked, "wow!!! i THOUGHT it was you, but you look so much YOUNGER than you used to!!!!!!!!!!!"
aHA! she needs glasses.

so that's put my mid-life-crisis to bed for another week lol.

(today's random gorgeous moment)

"hey mum, ((smooch smooch)) what's for dinner?"

this question would probably be asked by every child (if he/she has a mum/mom/mama - woah am i thankful today) at least once a day - so - so far that adds up to some three thousand three hundred times i've heard it already during the time of my mothering.

when i was a child, dessert was something we had on speshal occasions - so were cakes and bikkies - cos my mum said that if she baked them all the time, she would "eat all the pies". there was Mum's Apple Pie - i still need to learn her pastry secrets, and homemade Christmas Cake and Little Christmas Fruit Mince Pies (Mum even made the filling from scratch - which is where i get my delight of making something out of nothing, i think).

this morning i had a quick chat with my friend Sharyn on facebook, and she confessed that she is sick of the predictable meat-and-three-vege at her place and would i please blog a "what's for dinner" section every day - ummm - there's nothing fancy at our place babe - actually i've been heading to BeanPlate for my inspiration this week - so i said that tonight we'd be having "something potatoey" for dinner and that our dinners are progressively getting simpler and cheaper and there's hardly any meat involved - yeah, i think i'm being influenced by Danny's "poor little piggies" and "poor little lambies" conversion. oh, and the fact that the cost of meat is skyrocketing and the poh-tay-toes even cost me eleven dollars a bag instead of last year's six dollars.

so tonight i am conjuring up poh-tay-toh wedges with chilli beans - which is actually "Yesterday's Muck Cooked Again" (Y.M.C.A. - a family joke) of the tomato topping i made for fresh pasta last night. with beans i am cooking myself (thanks, miss vickie) and a bit o'chilli. and grated cheese/sour cream for the non-waist-watchers lol.

AND WE WILL BE NEEDING DESSERT WITH THAT. because the dinner's kinda "b-o-o-o-o-r-r-r-r-i-n-g" (movie quote). this dessert is eaten in huge amounts by all and sundry - the topping on the fruit is reminiscent of anzac bikkies - mmmmm.

enter Katie's Thirty Second Peachy Crumble
(it's the instant version of peel-and-precook-your-own-apples-crumble)
pop into casserole dish two huge tins peaches, drained.
(sometimes i add a few frozen berries or whatever)
in another bowl, mix together
1 1/2 c rolled oats
1/2 c raw sugar
1/2 c flour
tsp cinnamon, mixed spice
75g butter, melted
sprinkle on top of peaches. bake 20 - 30 mins in moderate oven (180 celsius in NZ lol) and it will turn out like this, 'cept 'twill be golden brown.
spoon large helpings into bowls and pour hot homemade custard (out of a box, lol) over the top.

yeah, i love that smoochy dinner question.

take me to that other place

one of the things i most adore about homeschooling is that when we awake to a bright blue-skied day, there really is no option but to down tools, jump in the Tardis and dodge cars over the bridge for fifteen minutes until we arrive at our heavenly expanse of surf and golden sands - and i stretch out a towel and begin my sun worship while the lads spread out with a big spade and see if they can dig to China - and i lean over and snap this shot
while twirling eddies of sand waft up the beach - and suddenly the lads drop the spade and head off into wider opener spaces, up a rocky tussock-topped hill and practise flying from the sky to the dusty mounds below, sharing thrills and squeals - and i contemplate a surfy stroll and wet saltness in my hair, my nostrils fill with warm scents of yesterday's footprints and washed-up weed, and my ears ring like the inside of a seashell - i look up to the passing view of a dreadlock-haloed homme, sashaying along in jandals, the sand his swishing staccato, and i stuff my Turning Forty book back into my bag - and i wonder - and i think of all the beautiful people who've shared this air with me - the ones who've walked before, and the ones who'll come after - and i check the clock on my pink phone and realise that it's "time to turn"...

les deux

he's a poet
and she knows it
time he stows it
now he flows it

mowing lawns time
ice cream freeze fine
floating clothesline
headful sunshine

cheesey teasing
soupy pleasing
movie chatting
long weekending

she's so breezy
one two threesy
lemon squeezy
easy pleasey

(i am feeling so fabulous - my head is full of sweetness cos the Bulldog has had the whole weekend at home with us - which is historically an unhappening thing and i loved it to bits'n'pieces - and DannyBoyTheSuperHero arrives home in five sleeps. there's a speshal way to count sleeps, ya know - it goes like this -
you don't count tonight, cos it's almost the morning, and you don't count tomorrow, cos, well, it's almost the morning. you don't count the day before the event cos you'll blink and you'll miss it. and ya don't count the day before THAT either cos it's almost the day OF. got that? so i think it's about one sleep until the weekend, give or take...)

b-l-o-w-n a-w-a-y

so - the brief was to take a snippet of video for friends - starting with the intro line
"do you remember when..."

slightly thwarted by
a) the flash-video-camera being borrowed by someone else, leaving the only option of the video button on our huckery wee camera

b) squinty afternoon sun and ridiculously high winds at our place

but nothing - nope - nothing can thwart Bulldog's sense of humour. there were four outtakes, of which this is one:


serious subtitles:
hi guys, do ya remember the time when...
we... ooooooooh! get blown away...?

sweet child o' mine

"You know what
nearly makes me cry?
No one ever dresses up
like Axl Rose any more.
I need some white skinnies
and a white poofy jacket
and some long ginger hair.
Yeah, I'd need to be a ginga..."

"... maybe i'll get a gold tooth... start calling everybody 'DOG'..." (guess the movie line)

it was about fifteen years ago that Bulldog acquired his nickname of... Bulldog. he was teaching at what he still affectionately calls The Best School In The Country and hanging out with a tall lanky NZ volleyball teamster who went by the nickname of "Whippet" and his other sidekick - who was in the Bachelors Forever Club - a rather unkempt fellow, christened "Pigdog".

Bulldog has always had cutesy chubby cheeks - he was often mistaken for a student during his early years of teaching - and in honour of his jowls, the name "Bulldog" stuck.

fast-forward to yesterday - an adorable friend popped in with a *surprise* for moi - a CHOCOLATE brown tshirt with this on the back:

how cool is *that*?
yeah. love it.
it's from this iconic establishment:

been there. done that. got the tshirt!
(i've always wanted to say that and really mean it lol)

oh, and on the topic of all things kiwi and iconic, i can't find Jemaine raving about the J-Dog, but Bulldog just showed me this other wee snippet on youtube -

uh *warning* it's voirrry koiwoi (and please pardon the odd dodgy word) but it's a great giggle at fush'n'chups and vudgemoite samwidges Down Under.
so go watch it asap, bro.
ohk there's no vudgemoite samwidges and the J-Dog leaves it for DEAD. on second thoughts, *don't* go watch it asap, bro.
Dog.