Today I should be cleaning. Unfortunately I would have to be one of the world’s worst housekeepers. I understand that doing a little bit every day should make the load lighter but other than washing the clothes and dishes, it’s a bit beyond me. Usually I just wait until it gets out of control or visitors are expected and then set to like a woman possessed for three days and get things into shape.

I’ve tried all the handy hints that have been offered to me to help establish a routine. One suggestion is to get up and put your shoes on straight away. This is meant to make you feel like you are busy and going out, so you will be less likely to laze about on the lounge eating bonbons instead of spit-polishing the shower. This doesn’t work for me because I hate wearing shoes. Plus if you can’t feel the grit under your feet it is all too easy to ignore it. (Found this one out the hard way, when the children got stuck to the kitchen floor.)

Another plan was to put on a timer and just spend ten minutes at each task. The idea is that because you have limited time, you work faster and get things done quicker, plus you don’t lose interest because you are moving from one job to another. I was just left with about 20 jobs half done at the end of the day.

I have friends who schedule cleaning and won’t go out at all on Cleaning Day. If they do have to let it go for some important event, it throws their whole week out.  I’m all “Well I was meant to be cleaning out the fridge today, but hey, you want to go look at paint charts? I’m there!” If life was animated, this would be the point where you’d see a me-shaped hole in the dust.

As for ironing – (yes, I’m looking at you, Mr Abbott) – ugh! My husband happily irons his own shirt every morning while watching the news. Everything else gets hung carefully to avoid wrinkles, and I am often to be seen madly scrunching at clothes in shops to check the material for creasing tendencies.When we were moving I seriously considered knocking back a perfectly good house because the local school’s uniform had pleated tunics. Luckily we found a better house near a wash-and-wear school!

What lengths will you go to to avoid cleaning?

I understand some women enjoy watching tearjerkers like Grey’s Anatomy .  Apparently watching McDreamy and Whatsherface dance around their romance while saving and losing patients can lead to a very cathartic sob-fest. I don’t really get it. It’s not my thing. I tend to prefer comedies. Each to her own.

My daughter loves animals. Any animals – mammals, birds, reptiles, fish or insects – she’s not fussy. As a result we watch a lot of animal-related TV. I am well acquainted with David Attenborough, Dr Harry, Steve and Bindi Irwin and (my personal favourite) the Bondi Vet. (What?!)  It is not uncommon for me to be summoned urgently to the lounge room to look at the social habits of seahorses or the breeding cycle of dragonflies.

Last night was the series return of RSPCA Animal Rescue. We recorded it during dinner and then we girls tucked ourselves up on the lounge to watch. Of course, second story in, it hit us. A ginger cat. A ginger cat, lost and riddled with ticks. Paralysed in his back legs and losing his voice. Who belonged to a little girl who loved him and was missing him. Who may not make it through because of the extent of the poisoning. For the record, I lost it when we first laid eyes on the cat. Unfortunately before we could find out whether the cat survived, the recording stopped! That’s when my daughter lost it. The picture at left may explain our reaction somewhat.

So a big shout out of thanks to the random strangers on Twitter who answered my query as to the fate of the cat. It helped both of us get some sleep. And the sob-fest thing? Quite cathartic. (Oh, like you didn’t see that one coming!)
Do you like a good sob-fest? What TV shows set you off?

Spotting family resemblances in your kids is great – “He has your nose.” “She has your eyes.” “He has your giant head!” (This last was delivered accusingly at my husband the day after my son was born, although to be fair my own head has trouble fitting into ladies’ hat sizes.) Beyond the physical, genetics can also play a role in the development of our personality and even strange quirks. Nature – vs – nurture. You’ve all read the Peer Reviewed Studies, I’m sure.

Anyway speaking of strange quirks,  I have the adorable habit (my husband says “maddening tendency”) of playing Actor Spotto during movies.  Not with Big Name Actors like George Clooney or Meryl Streep but you know, the actors whose faces you recognise but you may not know their name. The sadly defunct website Fametracker.com called them “That Guys” as in “Hey! It’s That Guy!”

To play Actor Spotto (my version thereof) you have to exclaim something like “Oooh that actor playing the waiter. What was he in?” when a “That Guy ” comes on the screen. My husband (the B-List actor savant) will then give me the name of a movie. “Nope.  Don’t remember that one. It was a movie with a dog and maybe a rocket. And I think it was set in Europe somewhere. And it was snowing.” I won’t rest until I have the title. Thank goodness for the IMDB. We used to pause the movie to head downstairs to the computer to clarify (“shut you up” – my husband) now as soon as I say “Ooooh” he hands me his iPhone.

I have a nemesis in this game (“cruel and unusual punishment”) –  an actor called Michael O’Keefe, who, as his IMDB profile shows, has appeared in many many movies and TV shows over the years. My problem with Mr O’Keefe is that when I first met my husband, he and his flatmate were fans of one of O’Keefe’s early works, The Whoopee Boys. One IMDB user review calls it “Rude, crude, and absolutely hilarious”. They got two out of three right. This not long after he was in Caddyshack. Can you picture him now? This is the Michael O’Keefe in my head.

Now Mr O’Keefe has since appeared in many very Un-Whoopee Boys-like films and TV shows like The West Wing, Law and Order and Michael Clayton.  Being that this is acting, he changes his appearance for each character and he has of course grown older. He must be a very accomplished actor, because I never recognise him. Ever. And each time he appears my husband will say “Hey, that’s Michael O’Keefe” and I will disagree and we will bet fifty bucks of actual real (”pretend, because I’ve never seen it”) money on it and I will always lose.

So back to genetics. The other day we took the kids to see Avatar.  We’re a little way into the movie and looking fairly smashing  in our 3D glasses when my daughter jabs me in the ribs. “I told you to go to the toilet BEFORE we came in!”

“No, Mum. That lady – what’s she from?”

Sigourney Weaver. Ghostbusters.

My husband just smiled.

Tomorrow the government is launching its new school website “My School” and there has been lots of talk in the media about something called school league tables.  Imagine my disappointment when I found that these don’t involve throwing school kids onto a footy field and then we all run a tipping competition on who wins each week. Except it kind of does.

Now for the record, the My School website FAQ says there will be no such tables, and the site is merely to give parents greater information about choosing the right school for their kids and greater transparency when it comes to school results.

I want to know when it all got so complicated.

My kids go to our local school. It is at the end of my street, so convenience was probably a major factor in this choice. It is a large school so there are a lot of facilities. The area we live in covers a large spectrum of the socio-economic scale – which roughly translated means “we’ve got some very rich folks and some very poor folks and quite a lot of just folks”.  This school has a “good reputation” and achieves above the national average on the NAPLAN tests.  My kids are doing well academically and socially, and I have been delighted with their progress.  The school has a wonderful sense of community and the staff are brilliant.

My kids used to go to a different school. We used to live in a different area. It would be marked as an emphatic LOW on the socio-economic scale.  Gangs and drugs are well-documented in the area. The local school was much smaller. Small enough that a drop in as few as eight enrolments could result in one less teacher and one less class. I was told by people when I was enrolling my daughter, that this was a “rough” school, and not a “good” school.  I understand the school’s overall results on the NAPLAN tests were lower than or just on the national average. However my kids did well academically and socially and I was delighted with their progress. The school had a wonderful sense of community and the staff were brilliant.

This is the stuff that won’t be measured on a league table – a school’s sense of community and how engaged the staff are with the students.  It is the sort of stuff that you can only know by belonging to a school. How many people will look at the information on the My School site, and drive straight past their local school because they want something better for their children?  Unfortunately losing the support of their community will just send the “low” schools even lower.

If you want something better for your children, you are precisely the sort of person your local school needs.

One of our most requested recipes from Keep the Table Laughing is the Vodka Slush.

Since I am about to officially start Slush Week 2009, I thought I’d give all our readers an early Christmas gift, and share the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups water
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 cups orange juice
• 1 1/2 cups pineapple juice
• 1 1/2 cups apricot nectar
• 1 1/2 cups vodka (or just hold the bottle upside down and watch it go glug glug glug, say “whoops!” then keep pouring)

Method:

• Boil sugar and water for 2 minutes. Allow to cool.
• Combine sugar/water mix with remaining ingredients.
• Freeze.

Stirring the mix occasionally helps it maintain a slushy consistency.

To serve:

• Scoop 1-2 ice cream scoops of mix into a tumbler and top with dry ginger ale.
• Stick feet in a paddling pool, grab a good summer read and enjoy!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Another one from the vault – this blog was first published on Just Humour Us prior to the 2007 election, when it looked like John Howard would step down as candidate or retire mid-term. Plus ça change…

It would seem that the Federal Liberal Party are about to encounter the type of leadership musical chairs problem that until recently plagued the Labor Party. In an attempt to avoid wasting many more years through in-fighting in both government and opposition, we have come up with the following suggestions. They seem to work quite well with infants students who suffer with the same ‘but you went first yesterday’ mentality.

Leader for the Day

One person is selected at random to be the leader. They get to sit in the big chair.

M: Looking at our next likely candidates for Prime Minister, we may need to supply a booster seat.

They can choose their own assistant leader. This is usually their BFF (BestFriendForever) of the moment. These two get to do all the important jobs that day. No-one can be leader two days in a row.

Alphabetical Order

An old favourite. Everyone’s name is written down. Start with the ‘A’s’ and work your way through to the ‘Z’s’. Everyone gets a turn, no-one misses out. No favouritism.

Pick a name from a hat

Totally random. You never know when your turn will come up, so you always have to be prepared. Cabinet portfolios could also be assigned this way – along the same lines as the family Christmas draw.

S: And no redraws because you got Environment and Water Resources last year.

M: Those darn greenies are impossible to buy for!

Star of the Week

Everyone gets to be the centre of attention for one week. They can design their own marketing campaign, they get to talk about themselves all the time, everyone else has to defer to them for the week. Next week, they are back to being one of the crowd.

We figured if these techniques work with the average 6-8 year old, they should be perfect for dealing with our federal parliamentarians.

Have you ever considered how much of an impression it can make on someone when you welcome them in to your world and focus on what you have in common rather than keeping your distance and highlighting the differences?

Okay, I’m about to get just a little bit philosophical, but first I will offer a little background information to make it easier for you to see how I got to the statement above.

To help my daughter with an assignment on Aboriginal culture recently, I organised for her to visit the Arwrabukarl Cultural Resource Association in Newcastle. While her project didn’t call for specific information, I was keen for her to think about the culture of the Aboriginal people of our area, the Awabakals, rather than simply searching for generic information.

Daryn McKenny at the Arwarbukarl CRA was incredibly helpful and generous with his time, trading emails and taking an hour when we visited to explain local Awabakal customs and ceremonies and Aboriginal culture in general.

As part of discussing the ceremonies held in the local area, Daryn commented that the history of the Awabakal people is part of our heritage to, as people who live in Newcastle. His comment has had me thinking over the past few days about the “us and them” view I guess I have unconsciously taken in the past towards Indiginous Australians.

On reflection, it makes so much more sense to me to identify with the culture and history of my hometown rather than simply counting back the 4 – 5 generations since my family first moved to this area and then transferring my focus to people I never met in a country that I have no emotional connection with at all (my family tree originates in England, Ireland, Scotland and Germany).

I was born and raised in Newcastle and aside from 6 years spent in Orange in rural New South Wales, I have spent my entire life in this area – attended school here, worked here and now I am raising my own children here. When people mention “hometown” it is Newcastle that comes to mind.

As such, I am surprised that it has only just occurred to me, thanks to the warmly inclusive comments of Daryn McKenny, that the heritage of this area is part of my own story at least as much as the story of my European ancestors.

I guess that embracing the Awabakal culture as part of my own heritage will involve walking a rather tenuous line with the risk of appearing patronising and/or dismissive to the Awabakal people themselves. It is impossible to deny that the first European settlers did little to appreciate the rich culture of the people they so readily dismissed and displaced and there is always the risk that I would appear just as dismissive by claiming any right to share their story.

For now, I am simply going to spend some time simply allowing this new thought to sink in – that I can consider myself as somehow connected to the story of the Awabakal people rather than existing as an interested but detached observer.

For anyone interested in learning more about the Awabakal people and their language, I can highly recommend contacting the Arwarbukarl Cultural Resource Association, which is located in the Newcastle inner city (contact details available at the ACRA website).

I’d love to know what you consider to be your cultural heritage, especially if you live in an area different to where you, your parents or grandparents were born. Do you relate more closely to the culture of past generations of your family or to the culture of the place where you now live?

Note
The title of this post comes from I Am Australian, a song written by Bruce Woodley and Dobe Newton in 1987. The lyrics for the chorus are:

We are one, but we are many
And from all the lands on earth we come
We share a dream and sing with one voice
I am, you are, we are Australian.

Full lyrics, including additional verses written by Woodley after the devastating 2009 Victorian bushfires can be found here.

Related links
Reviews at Suite101 and Reading Upside Down of Lenny and the Big Red Kinan by Faith Baisden (an Awabakal language children’s picture book).

As November rolls on the weather is heating up here in Newcastle. We are entering that small window of time where pool-owners feel very smug. Please don’t hate us for our arrogance. We have battled to create these few weeks of summer bliss for ourselves. Each season we endure fifty-nine trips to the pool shop, thirty-two backbreaking retrievals of water samples to test, sixty-eight hose-outs of the clogged filter basket and seven hundred and ninety-six scoopings of leaves. This is just the day-to-day maintenance.

This year our old filter sprung a leak and of course we didn’t get around to replacing it until spring had arrived and the kids were moaning for a swim. The replacement filter was a new design – slightly higher than the old one. We had to adjust the existing pipes to fit – a job requiring manual dexterity, several trips to Bunnings, long forgotten sixth grade mathematics and a choice selection of words from the “F” section of the dictionary.

Of course once the new filter was up and running, the weather turned cold and miserable for several weeks. Once October took hold, we attempted to clean the pool that had not been cleaned since the old filter packed it in back in March. My husband (remember Scooby Doo?) was concerned about a subterranean gurgling that only he could hear. Luckily my man can dig a hole with a Dale Kerrigan-like zeal, and a leaky pipe was soon discovered and (after another trip to Bunnings) patched.  We cleaned and readied the pool for the onslaught of the heat.

So last week the kids swam. And swam.  And swam. Then we thought we should probably get the water properly tested by the professionals. Apparently we’re lucky that the kids still have their eyebrows and haven’t grown scales. Two hundred dollars later, we had a speed lab of chemicals in our shed and a list of processes that would make a Masterchef contestant cry. We were not phased. We were ready to be smug. Step one – add chlorine. Within minutes the water took on a greenish tinge. The instructions say to wait an hour. We waited. The water that was swimmable two days ago was now the colour of Mountain Dew. A call to the Pool Guy only got us the words you never want to hear from a diagnostician: “Hmmm, that’s strange”. NOOOOOOOOO!

Fortunately, we decided to take two aspirins and call him in the morning, if our pain persisted. Sunday morning dawned bright and clear, and our pool was bluer than blue.  So now we can start updating our Facebook status with “enjoying a few cold ones in the pool”. At work my husband will be able to talk about how refreshing it is to have a quick dip before breakfast.  The kids’ popularity rating at school will soar. I am smug at last.

For those of you not fluent in Star Wars-ese, the title of this blog comes from the scene in Star Wars where R2D2 is beating Chewbacca at some kind of animated chess game. Chewie, not happy at being on the receiving end of a flogging by a small blue droid, flexes his muscles and growls, so C3PO suggests that R2 adopt a new strategy, and “let the wookiee win” .

In our ever-so geeky home, “letting the wookiee win” is code for letting kids win at games if they are getting disgruntled. Now some of you (let’s call you “the kind people”) will think that’s par for the course.  Kiddies feelings are easily bruised, and why can’t they always win? It makes them feel good. Life is hard enough, let the kiddies have some fun.

Others will be shaking their head emphatically. (You get to be “the realistic people”.) Life isn’t fair. Letting kids win isn’t teaching them about the world; it’s just raising a generation of ungrateful little sods who don’t know how to lose.

Let me tell you how it works in our home. Young children are like wookiees. They look cuddly and warm, but they are really ferocious beasts. They’re all right when they’re on your team, but you don’t want to get them off-side. If it looks like they are losing it with losing, I let them win.  I treasure my life and my sanity.

However once kids hit about five years of age, all bets are off.  If the game involves skill then I will help them along the way. One-sided matches aren’t fun, so I’ll make a game of it by offering tips and advice. But I’ll still beat them. Games of chance? They’re on their own.  Good natured ribbing is encouraged. (My 9 year old is always delighted when he gets to declare “mugs away” when playing cards.) Gloating winners and sore losers are not.

I’m treasuring these years when my age works in my favour. It won’t be long until it will work against me. One day the kids will be stronger , faster and possibly smarter.  Then I plan on throwing a tantrum until they let the old wookiee win.

Are you kind or realistic? Do you always, sometimes or never let your kids win at games?

Earlier this year my beloved popcorn maker died. On reflection, this could be the reason I have had such an unproductive winter. I’ve obviously been in mourning.

I know that you can make popcorn the old-fashioned way, but after years of the convenience of my air-popper, it seems so cumbersome to go back to shaking a saucepan over the stovetop burner (not to mention the hassle of having to clean a saucepan afterwards).

I did plan to simply replace my poor overworked popper, but I never seemed to remember when I was out shopping and when I did remember the stores didn’t seem to have any in stock.

But, those sad and empty days are gone. Today we welcomed (Sunbeam) Cornelius into our home and harmony has returned to our afternoon snack time. Feeling peckish kids? No problem, I’ll just whip up some popcorn for you. Tah-Dah! Done!

We tend to just enjoy our popcorn with a little salt and melted butter. I think I might have a caramel popcorn recipe hidden away somewhere though which I probably should find now that the wonderful Cornelius is here to stay.

Do you have a favourite popcorn topping, sweet or savoury? Please leave a comment with some popcorn “seasoning” suggestions, or if you’ve posted a recipe on your blog feel free to include the link.

Related Links:

The Best Thing Since Sliced – Well, You Know… (new Breville bread maker)