Holiday countdown ....

Only 4 more sleeps and we head of down South for our mega-roadtrip!! DS4 & 5 are soooo excited, though I think that has something to do with the fact that they get to leave school early on Friday. The plan is to head up to Twmba and drop the dogs off at DS2's place then head south/west till we hit water - the ocean that is! Hoping to get to the Great Ocean Road early in the second week of the hols (I think, I must admit I didnt really listen to DH when he was reading the planned itinerary to me of his laptop).
Other things happening at the moment, we head parent/teacher interviews tonight for DS4 & 5 and while there were no mega surprises I feel a bit berated by one of the teacher's for allowing the boys speech problems to go unaided this year. DH and I decided to give them a break from the 'speechy' and let them do swimming lessons after school instead, now I am feeling very 'blamed' by the teacher that one of them in particular has speech issues that are affecting his spelling and reading. Bad mummy!! You would think that experience would count for something! Was I so condescending when I had no childrem - god I hope not!
OH well, roll on holidays, next term is a new start ... I suppose I need to commit more time with the guys and sit and read and stuff, it's just so difficult with working and stuff - but thats a choice I made,
Anyway ...cheers

Fungi Identified .... mystery solved.

I have had a response from the Qld museum and the FungiMap group in Victoria and this is the result. "This is a fungus called Ileodictyon gracile. When it expands out of the 'egg', there is an olive-brown slime on the inside of the arms. The slime carries the spores and it is smelly - a strategy to attract insects which then spread the spores." It just goes to prove that when you think you have seen it all nature is always surprising us!!!

What the ???

Any gardening guru's out there could you please answer this mystery for me ....
What is this a picture of???
I found these weird 'skeletons' on my garden (top right), then I located the 'eggs' from which they hatched buried just below the mulch(front) . After an hour or so the soft skeleton shrivels up (top left).
Any ideas???

Stick and Giggle Retreat update...

Wow!!! it all happened so quickly!! It seems only last week we were counting down the months, now it's been and gone. What a fantastic program Jody had planned for us. The location at Mt Tambourine was spectacular, the company of so many of my EMM, SL and misc friends was brilliant. And the talent was just undescribable. I had a great time and cant wait till the next retreat that Jody has promised us will be in Feb 2009.
Roll on February I say!!!

Busy days

I don't know where the time is going lately. I just seem to be going one step forward, two steps back! I feel like I am running around chasing my tail both at work and home. Rob and I are looking at moving things around in the house a bit, which means another clean-up! And this time we are serious, Rob bought aout 20 of those big plastic storage bins to put stuff in the shed. I am pleasently chucking out heaps of my school stuff - in the hope that I wont need to use it again (maybe wishful thinking, but a lot of it is out of date now anyway). So the garage is becoming a snooker room/bar/scraproom, the twins room is getting bunks, the family room is getting re-arrange so we can hang the massive Buddha wallhanging that Rob bought, and I think there is other stuff too - it's all like a 'domino effect'.
Scrapping is happening slowly, I think I am creating to much of the same stuff (mainly for the DT) and I really need to try and break into some new style ... I just dont know what yet.
Anyway sitting here typing is only avoiding the LO that is sitting on my table, so I better go and let the creative juices flow.
c ya
G

Sublime Point Lookout

It's COLD in them there mountains!!!

Well, DH and I just got back from The Blue Mountains and man it was freezing down there !!!

DH had a 20 year reunion for his Uni class at an absolutely gorgeous resort in the mountains - I'll post some pics of it soon. It was great fun catching up with the guys after so long. It was hilarious to hear all the nicknames being thrown around, and 45 yr old guys easily answering to them! Us wives enjoyed the time shopping in the gorgeous town of Leura, while the boys played golf and rekindled more memories.