What do I do after midnight?

I head to my shed, waving my arms about my head madly because we have an orb weaving spider colony sharing our property. Our first one was Charlotte. She was 2 years old when she died and for the time she resided here she hung on our arch by the front door before the wind blew it over a second time. She cleverly missed our heads but never truly moved out of the way because if we were to veer an inch to the right side as you left the house you got a face full of whatever was in Charlotte's pantry or a few thousand of her kids would hitchhike on your shoulder. So we were always grateful that she provided us with just enough room to pass and adhered to her designated path respectfully.

We hated that arch(pictured above) and when it blew over the first time and gave way to so much sunlight we wanted it gone permanently but there was Charlot to consider. She was family. So the arch went back up and we anchored it to every which thing we could. Charlotte continued to lay a zillion eggs before she became emaciated and died and for 2 years no orb weaving spider the size of a child's hand was seen on our property until this year. There is one outside every entrance and after some waving of arms and scream of horror in the dark, they eventually move out of the way but never truly moving out of the way, just like Charlotte. We never ever ever veer from the lighted pathways at night because by the looks of the broken webs in the early morning, there's enough to colonize the Battlestar Gallactica.

So I get to the shed with the approval of the Orb weaving colony and they have mine and I have to do a huntsman check. My step sister describes them as small animals and I agree. Some the size of my hand hide in between the a frame and the tin roof. On hot nights they decorate the walls because the tin is too hot and I totally accept that even if it makes my hair stand on edge.
But the ones I hate most are the messy spiders. The Daddy long legs and the little brown ones that make dirty webs that catch all the dust in between anything and everything and whenever my back is turned they giggle defiantly and touch my stuff, dirtying it up. I get really cross at them and ask them to leave but they are belligerent and move about their business, taunting me, always hiding just out of view and jumping out snarling when I go to grab a tool from the rack. *&^% Snarling arachnids.
Horrible, dirty, touching my stuff arachnids.
They better be grateful to the Orbs and the Huntsman's because it them who get the sympathy vote and delay us from calling the pest controller. I don't know if its the drought or what but those dirty spiders are becoming invasive.


So with all that arachnid sorting done this is what I do in my shed after 12am

I make sculpey pinheads.

Here's a batch ready for the oven

and I have a tray of sculpey icing ready

for my cupcakes and buttons

ooooh I love making buttons

At night I use my LED bike light as well as

a fluorescent mechanics light so that

I can see the detail properly.

I arrange things in jars and stare at them

Then I rummage. Last night I found fabric that must be old because its my friends mums and I don't know how to tell if its vintage or not. Even if it is, what do I do with it? The quality is too good for it to be recent.

If A reads this blog she will probably remember this fabric and know of its vintage. It has to go sorry A. I will put the proceeds of its sale towards my ticket to Darwin when I finally get to come see you.

So I rummage some more.

Then I stare at my jars full of things some more and wish I had more things to stare at and think of the things I will make with all of those things that I am staring at.

mmm Sparklies

And then I wish I had an entire room to devote to my kids art because I just cannot part with them. A room without spiders would be brilliant. This is one of my favourites.

And then so tired, I turn everything off in my shed and fight my way back through the spiders and I grumble at the ones I am leaving behind saying" argh I'm so sick of you things, stay off of my stuff "(last night referring to the cheeky monkeys that have spun webs between my lathe tools as if to mock me because they know its not like I ever use them lately anyhow. My Dear M and the spiders would both agree on that matter and I say to them "Well I will one day and one day when I will they will be there when I do so ner"

So I turn off my mp3 player, sneak inside to bed and think about all the things I am going to do tomorrow.

And while I sleep

those spiders touch my stuff
and giggle

as snarly belligerant dirty spiders do.

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Buckeye Recipe

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups peanut butter
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 cups confectioners' sugar ( Icing sugar)
4 cups semisweet chocolate chips (I use Coles brand milk chocolate cooking buds mmmm)

DIRECTIONS
In a large bowl, mix together the peanut butter, butter, vanilla and confectioners' sugar. The dough will look dry. Roll into 1 inch balls and place on a waxed paper-lined cookie sheet.
Press a toothpick into the top of each ball (to be used later as the handle for dipping) and chill in freezer until firm, about 30 minutes.
Melt chocolate chips in a double boiler or in a bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water. Stir frequently until smooth. ( I put in a little bit of oil)
Dip frozen peanut butter balls in chocolate holding onto the toothpick. Leave a small portion of peanut butter showing at the top to make them look like Buckeyes. Put back on the cookie sheet and refrigerate until serving.
Makes 30

Links to this recipe are on side bar and contain pictures.
A fun recipe for kids of all ages.

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Found this while cleaning!!

Some one gave me this flyer to give to my teens when they were being a little too "teen-ish"

CHILDREN

TIRED OF BEING

HARRASSED BY

DUMB ADULTS?

ACT NOW

Move Out, get a job,

pay your own bills,

do your own housework,

laundry and cooking.

Do it now!

WHILE YOU STILL KNOW EVERYTHING!

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Books Books Books

I would have borrowed more but my bag wasnt big enough. Like his mum and dad, Connor filled his bag too after he joined th Summer reading club. My creative bone is tingling in anticipation at what future project these books will inspire

Connors Blankey is underway. His Birthday is March 16th. Maybe If i get my sausage fingers busy I can surprise him with it.

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Incoming Lame slogan for the New year..but first

Christmas Eve and the rains have stopped.

What is this, a safari reserve?

Yes, that's my 3 tigers basking in the sun.

My husband spent about 4 hours on the phone to different members of his family in the US and HE says women YAK alot.

Christmas day.

Nope, no snow for us Aussies, its all sunshine and swimming WOOT!!!

That's my 4 babies.

Father Christmas brought us a Wii.

I took it to mums and between her and Jazzy we couldn't get a look in with the 10 pin bowling. Nothing funnier than a proper dainty English woman elbowing her kids out the way when they interfere with her Wii swing.(Not very British indeed)

She even insisted on making her own Mii

Guess who got this with her spotlight voucher from

the kids??? Me and oh my god, how could I not.

I also got a Bunnings voucher. Don't my kids know me so well. I also all the parts necessary for a new computer. Incoming boring stats (AMD Athlon(tm) 64x2 Dual Core Processor 4000+ 2.10 GHz 2.00GB of ddr2Ram Nvidia 7600ps grafix card) So this means I can raid in game without fearing the blue screen of death because my comp can handle every thing I ask of it now....(no one asks you to play with them if you crash, specially if you play a priest ) ok enuff geek speak

********

The kids bought Guitar Hero for their new Wii. The one thing that makes this game pretty cool is for some reason all the songs are from my era. Totally weird and of course, even though the songs are "like way cool mum" there's no way you are cool mum. (I will beat them at this game too one day :P)

And then my baby left for Tasmania......

only 13 more sleeps til she is home again.

And here it is

Yep every year I have one and this year is just as lame as the last

but oh my goodness I do mean every lame word of it.
ITS GONNA BE GREAT IN 2008

No need for me to write my goals etc in here.

Instead I came with a pic I prepared earlier of the notice board

for this year with every ones goals, wishes and wants.

If you look closely I have put a few humorous ones in there just to see if the kids actually do go back and review. One such one is "Give Connor away for Scientific Research in exchange for an Iguana"

My husband wrote one out for Jazz " Send Jazz to an all girls boarding school" which was OK but then he wrote ..which is so blokish "Send Zack to an all girl boarding school" /boggles mind

So, because our list of things for 2008 says so, we went to the park where Boy and Father blew up balloons that fart when you let them go and aimed them at me and who ever got one to explode closest to me was the winner.

Clearly Connor wanted to win

Then Dad showed the boy how to use a mitt ( um baseball mitt?) and after a few body shots from both Dad and Son which was veering more towards olden days cricket than Baseball, we walked home.

So what is that big board of lists telling me I am going to do?

I am free of all commitments now and will be full swing into making stuff and making money from making stuff. How cool is that???

Its time for this little black duck to earn an income to contribute to my family

and this year is all about trying to do just that.

And so it will be.

ITS GONNA BE GREAT IN 2008

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