9000 visitor's.

Sometime yesterday I got my 9000 visitor to my site.

I thought we would have a competition again.

Can you guess when the 10000 visitor will come to my blog? I am going to give away two prizes. First the person that can guess the closest date and time. Second if the 10000 visitor comes from your blog, you will win something too.

My sitemeter is at the bottom of my blog. You are welcome to look and see all the stats before making your guess.

Mothers rule and flylady.

As all you regular visitors here know, I have been working on a Mother's rule and Flylady to help me make our house a bit less cluttered and the house work more manageable.

I started putting together a control journal. In my journal, I have written up my morning routine, our home school program, afternoon routine, my zone cleaning routines, a how to do oamc, a one page calender for the month that has all our bills written in their due date, what we will eat for tea that night and any unusual appointments that we don't do regularly. I have taken on Lynn's and Sarah's idea and I am planing on decluttering, beautifying and deep cleaning a room each month. The plan is written up in the control journal and I am also using Flylady's monthly inspection idea to help me write a list for each room.

The other thing I want to put in the control journal is a write up of each area that Holly speaks about in her Mother's rule book. For those of you that are not familiar with Holly's writings, she speaks about the five area's we need to look after as a mother.

The five area's are:

1. Person
2. Partner
3. Parent
4. Provider
5. Prayer.

So far, I have prayed and talked with Steve about the person and partner.

1. Person: I am trying to eat a better diet and drink less coke (one of my all time favourites). I am drinking more water because I am not drinking so much coke. Our meals are much better since I am doing the oamc so that has become a bit part of our routines. I am also making an effort to spend more time in personal prayer and getting to daily mass.

2. Partner. Having young children and teenage children in the house makes it hard for Steve and I to get time alone. We also haven't been praying together as much as we should. We have started to make an effort to go out for a coffee or a meal at least once a fortnight. During the holiday's we went out twice. Once out for tea and on the weekend we went out for coffee. We are also making a bit more of an effort to pray 5 decades of the rosary together each day.

Any other people out there put together any control journal or mothers rule? I would love to hear your ideas in the comment box.

Therese

Last day of the holidays.

Today is the last day of school holidays. Tomorrow it will be back to the grindstone for all of us. I have looked at my mothers rule today and changed a few things that will hopefully make our days run a bit smoother. I am increasing Tom and Amelia's religion lessons and I am going to try and take them more to daily mass.

Today at mass we were really happy to see some friends from Millicent. We lived there for a couple of years when Steve started teaching. After mass they came back and had a coffee with us and we caught up on all their news and news from other families down there. It was great to catch up with them.

Just for fun.

Thanks to Leah and her lovely fiance for this silly nonsense.


$4490.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth.

Friday Funnies.

I got this joke from Leah at Lowdenclear

The Perfect Husband.

Several men are in the locker room of a golf club.

A cell phone on a bench rings and a man engages the hands free speaker-function and begins to talk. Everyone else in the room stops to listen.

MAN: "Hello"

WOMAN: "Honey, it's me. Are you at the club?"

MAN: "Yes"

WOMAN: "I'm at the mall now and found this beautiful leather coat. It's only $1,000. Is it OK if I buy it?"

MAN: "Sure, ..go ahead if you like it that much."

WOMAN: "I also stopped by the Mercedes dealership and saw the new 2008 models. I saw one I really liked."

MAN: "How much?"

WOMAN: "$60,000"

MAN: "OK, but for that price I want it with all the options."

WOMAN: "Great! Oh, and one more thing .... The house we wanted last year is back on the market. They're asking $950,000."

MAN: "Well, then go ahead and give them an offer, but just offer $900,000."

WOMAN: "OK. I'll see you later! I love you!"

MAN: "Bye, I love you, too."

The man hangs up. The other men in the locker room look at him in astonishment.

Then he asks: "Anyone know who this phone belongs to?"

Anzac Day.

Today is a public holiday for Anzac Day. Anzac stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

The 25th marks the landing of the Anzac's at Gallipoli.

Read more about it here

Tagged.

It must be the season.


Leah from Lowdenclear tagged me for this meme.

1. The rules of the game get posted on the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about himself.
3. At the end of the post, the player tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they’ve been tagged and asking them to read their blog.

What was I doing 10 years ago?
Brigette was just about to celebrate her 1st birthday. Daniel would have been at school most days, Sam at kindy 4 afternoons a week and I had Madeline and Brigette home full time. Steve was studying teaching full time. Life was pretty busy all around with the 4 children. It seems unbelievable to me to think that Tom, Amelia and Christopher weren't a part of our family yet. It is hard to remember sometimes what it was like.

Five things on my To-Do list today:
This will be tomorrow since it is nearly 9pm here.
1. Cook some muffins
2. Continue going through the children's clothes.
3. Go to Mass.
4. Cut out a pattern for Amelia's birthday dress.
5. Start preparing Tom and Amelia's school work for next term.

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. Pay off all debts.
2. throw a party.
3. Travel to meet all my online friends.
4. Give to a charity like Children with Diabetes.
5. renovate our end room and build an extension on our house.

Three bad habits and qualities.
1. I procrastinate all the time.
2. I judge on appearances.
3. spending way too much time on computer.


Five places I’ve lived
1. Rostrevor (suburb of Adelaide)
2. Holden Hill (another suburb of Adelaide)
3. Millicent (country SA).
4. Port Augusta (Country SA) and I don't have a fifth place but we did live in two different houses in Millicent and two different houses in Port Augusta.


Five jobs I’ve had:
1. Shop Assistant at a handbag shop.
2. Cafeteria assistant at a university.
3. Shop Assistant at a fish shop.
4. Office worker at Philips.
5. SAHM. I definitely like this one the best.

five books I recently read.
1. My visit to Hell.
2. Harry Potter at the Chamber of secrets. (we are still reading this one).
3. The Bible.
4. Devotion to the Sacred Heart.
5. designing your own classical curriculum.

5 People to tag.
1. Adrienne from Adreinne's Catholic Corner
2. Lisa from Episcopollyanna
3. Cathy from The Daily Grotto
4. Fr. John Speekman from Homilies and Reflections from Australia
5. Marco from Third Blog from the Right

All you want to know and more.

I have enjoyed reading many blogs that have had the 7 facts meme so I thought I would have a questions post.

If you have anything you want to know about me, my family and the Australian way of life, now is your chance to ask away.

Pass out the word.

HT to Totus Tuus Family





Go here to sign the petition and tell HBO that we will not tolerate this kind of hatred and slander against the Catholic Church.

Girls Day Out.

Today I took the girls to Port Pirie to buy our winter shoes and underwear. We had a great day out. We left home around 11. Port Pirie is just under a hour away from us so we got there just before 12.00. I don't know the town very well but I thought I would be able to get us to KMart but I drove around and couldn't find it so we drove into town and asked at the Tourist Information. They gave us a map and showed us the way. They also had a photo gallery open so we went in to take a look. I didn't realize that we weren't suppose to take photos and I started clicking photo's of the girls looking at the pictures. This girl came out and said to me, excuse me can you please not take some photo's in here, these pictures are under copyright. :::oops::: I did delete those photos.

After the Art Gallery we decided to go and get lunch. McDonalds was just around the corner from the Tourist Info so we went there. It was packed. I have never seen a place with so many people lined up to be served. We changed our minds and decided to head over to KMart and go to KFC which was next door for lunch. We had lunch did our shopping and came home. We got back around 3.30 or so. It was good to spend sometime with the girls.

Mothers rule on Mondays.

Today has been a very productive day in clearing out the children's clothes. I have started with Tom's and Christopher's. These two always seem to have difficulty finding clothes that are clean and matching so I didn't think they would have too much to give away. I think I am wrong. I was shocked to see that Tom has 4 good shirts. I didn't realize I had bought that many for him. He only has one good pair of shorts that would be suitable for wearing out but since summer clothes are just about at an end, I will wait till next summer to buy or make him another good pair.

I will need to either make them or buy them a couple of pairs of jeans for winter but everything else is in good supply. We have an excess of jumpers and just the right amount of skivvies. They will both need some new socks.

Yesterday I was reading at Sarah's blog this post about decreasing laundry. I like her idea about having all the same pairs of socks for each person and a different colour for each person. We are going to do this too. Tomorrow I am taking the girls to Port Pirie because KMart have 40% of underwear this week. We are going to get everyone their own colour sock and make sure all their pairs are exactly the same.

I am also hoping to finish of going through Tom's and Christopher's clothes and then I will move onto the girls on Wednesday. I think their clothes will take me quite a few days to go through. They have probably twice as many as the boys. They also have a lot of extra toys and things in their room and I really need to clear them all out.

7 facts about me.

Well everyone seems to want to know 7 things about me. I was tagged for this by Muddy Mama Thanks MM for the tag.

1. I am excessive in everything. I am seeing just how much as I declutter our house. It isn't only in material things that I am excessive, it is also in cooking. I never cook small amounts. I cook large quantities.

2. We live about three and a half hours away from the town both Steve and I grew up in.

3. I did ballet as a child and really loved it.

4. I hate anything that requires lots of stamina like running or working out.

5. I walk twice a week with some girlfriends. We walk nearly 5 km in 50 minutes.

6. One day I would love to go to a Latin mass.

7. my favourite genre for reading is Mystery.

I tag:


Melissa from Almost Catholic Momma

Karen from Gem of the Ocean

Mary Ellen from Grandma's Musings

Rachi from Just another day

Marty from Marty's

JoAnn from The Creamer Chronicles

And Lynn from Signs and Wonders

Just too tired.

I have had a long day. I have baked and washed and cleaned. It has all made me too tired to post tonight. I was going to do Muddy Mama's tag tonight but it will have to wait till tomorrow.

If you want to do this meme, leave a comment in the comment box and I will tag you.

Therese

Friday Funnies.

I have looked and searched. I cannot find a funny joke that makes me want to laugh a good belly laugh.

Many blogs I visit have lots of good jokes so post them in the comment box. Give everyone a good laugh if you can think of one.

Tonight.

Steve and I went on a date.

We went out to tea and then came home and watched a suspense thriller movie called visitation. If any of you know the book by Frank Paretti, that is the book that the movie is based on. It was a bit scary at parts and had lots of false beliefs about God and demons.

It was good though to have a night to ourselves and talk.

Therese

Melissa Hackney.

The latest from Kathy at The Daily Grotto

FROM KIM BURKE IN SENECA FALLS:

Melissa has been moved to ICU. They have put her on a ventilator. It is confirmed that she has a brain infection.

She is having seizures every 2- 3 minutes. Doctors have said that if she makes it through this, she will most likely have some type of brain damage.

Right now there is no decision on what they will do about the bone marrow transplant. They will first have to get her through this and go from there.

Ask everyone to pray for God's will and strength for the family. God Bless!"

PLEASE JOIN ME IN SAYING A CHAPLET OF DIVINE MERCY FOR MELISSA.


Thank you for your prayers, and posts on your blogs for Melissa and family.

Something to make you smile.

I received this picture in an email. It is soooooo funny I had to share.

Thank you everyone.

Thank you everyone for your prayers. Tom is now home and has no ketone's. We will be checking his pump and site every night now and making sure it is in. We will also need to look into getting some adhesive to put over the site and make it a bit more secure.

Tom.

During the night sometime Tom's pump came out. We don't know what time it came out, we just know that he went without insulin for a very long time and has become very dehydrated. He is now at the hospital getting rehydrated.

I would appreciate any prayers you can offer for him.

Thanks
Therese

Pray for Melissa Hackney.

Things are not looking good for Melissa. Please click on the title of this post and you can get the latest from Kathy.

Thanks Kathy for keeping us updated. I will be praying for Melissa today.

New ISP.

We have changed. So for all of you with a Sitemeter my internet address will be Adam instead of Bigpond.

We found a cheaper option for internet that was faster. We had the slowest broadband and when we looked at the prices of other internet providers and saw we were able to have a faster rate for a cheaper price we decided to change. I am now looking forward to watching You Tube videos without waiting while it buffers and carries on.

Here is a favourite song of mine by one of my favourite Christian bands.

having fun.

We had such a fun day today. We went to my mothers house and helped her a bit. We then went and did some shopping. After shopping we went to Hungry Jacks for lunch and meet my two sisters and brother. Since my mother lives in a unit we don't have family lunches there much anymore. There is just too many of us to have lunch there.

After leaving my dad we went with our friends, Mark and Di for a walk. We went to feed the ducks and geese and walked around a nice park. it was a great way for the children to walk of all the excess energy they seemed to have from going out for lunch.

Above is a photo of my mother with 5 of our 7. (unfortunately Daniel and Sam had to work so they weren't with us).

Here are some other photos from our day.

more flowers.

Kathy from The daily Grotto has kindly passed on another beautiful bouquet of flowers to me. Thank you Kathy for passing them onto me and making my day.

Now it is my turn to pass them on and make someone else's day.

Kalona from Knocking Everywhere

Shirley at Seeking Jesus

Leah at lowdenclear

Anne at Ineffable Twaddle

please pass the bouquet on to other bloggers that you enjoy reading.

Therese

First Confession.

Last night Tom went to the church for his first confession.

There were about 20 children there from our local Catholic school as well.

Afterwards we went to Hungry Jacks for desert to celebrate. I asked Tom, what has happened to your soul now that you have made your first confession. He said, I have given it a bath. I thought that was very cute. I said, yes, it has been bathed in Sanctifying Grace.

Mothers rule Monday.

How much is enough? I keep on asking myself, how much do we really need?

In our western culture, we are encouraged to have more of everything. We are encouraged to be selfish and not go without things. Over lent while I was going through our stuff, I realized how much money I have waisted buying "bargains" and never using them.

While going through all our stuff I read with interest a post that I cannot remember but I think was at Lynn's blog Signs and Wonders

Lynn spoke about decluttering and cleaning out a room a month. She started with her laundry and decided to downsize all the clothes that her children had. Her children were allowed 3 daytime outfits and 2 good outfits. (I think). I cannot find the post so I cannot make sure.

After reading this I started thinking how much is enough? How much do we really need?

While thinking this I had all the things that I have grown up hearing going through my head. I was thinking, you can never have too many clothes. Better keep it in case you need it in the future. It is true, we do need to be prudent and sensible. We need to look after all our needs but I think we don't have as many needs as we think we do.

In a family like ours, I wash everyday. We would average 4 loads everyday. With washing everyday, I don't think my children need the amount of clothes they have. They all have draws crammed full of things. Because the clothes are so crammed in, they cannot find things when they need them. They also will say wow, I forgot I had this. Hearing these two things alone make me think they have way too many clothes. So it is time to downsize significantly. I think of all the decluttering, this will help the most.

At the end of this week, we have two weeks holidays. I am going to help all our children work out what is necessary and what isn't. I am going to bag up all the unnecessary extras and take them to St. Vinnies.

I am looking forward to see if it makes much difference or not.

7 things you don't know about me.

Shirley at Seeking Jesus has tagged me for this meme.

These are the rules:

1. When tagged place the name and URL on your blog.

2. Post rules on your blog.

3. Write 7 non-important things/habit/quirks about yourself.

4. Name 7 of your favourite blogs.

5. Send an email/comment on their blog letting them know they have been tagged.

1 I am about 8 KG heavier than I was when I had Christopher 3 years ago.

2. I am a procrastinator most of the time.

3. Without a list, I cannot get anything done.

4. I use to loose my keys all the time but now I am making it a habit to put them in my handbag whenever I get home.

5. I love seafood.

6. My dream holiday is a cruise on QE2.

7. I love watching It's a Wonderful Life every Christmas.

So. 7 people to tag:

Amber from This Catholic Journey

Kathy from The daily Grotto

Jean from Catholic Fire

Swede from Catholic Ponderer

Leah from Lowdenclear

Gopher Mommy from A Mother's Love

Marina from Stumblin' and Bumblin' Along

Busy busy busy.

Today Steve had a sick day. He has a bad headache, earache and swollen glands. He will probably feel rotten all weekend. If you could all say a little prayer for him that he feels better soon I would appreciate it.

We have a busy weekend planned. I am doing all our main meals for the month and freezing them.

We will wind back the clocks as day light savings finishes this weekend. I love the week after day light savings finishes. It is really easy to get up early in the morning.

Next week will be the last week of term one. We will be on holidays for two weeks. I am going to sew curtains and make winter clothes for the children during the break. Sam and I will have our eyes checked and see if we need a new set of glasses and we will spend lots of time together as a family. I am really looking forward to it.

Stem Cells again.

I mentioned in my post about stem cells that I was finding it difficult to find information on who supports embryonic stem cell research. Today I received an email from the American Life League answering my question about who fund this research so wanted to pass the information on.

In 2005 ALL researched organisations that supported:

• fetal tissue, cell or organ use when that tissue is acquired from direct abortion done at any time during nine months of pregnancy
• Human embryo research and/or experimentation
• Human embryonic stem cell research and/or experimentation
• Human cloning

here is the link to their research

from that link:

American Diabetes Association:

National Office
1701 North Beauregard Street
Alexandria, VA 22311
703-549-1500

"The American Diabetes Association applauds this morning's statement by Majority Leader Frist announcing his support of the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. By easing restrictions and supporting research that uses embryonic stem cells - while also implementing strong ethical guidelines - this legislation provides hope to the more than 18 million Americans living with diabetes." (emphasis added)

Copy of News Release issued July 29, 2005 mailed along with cover letter on December 22, 2006.

The American Diabetes Association also issued a press release on April 13, 2007, "American Diabetes Association lauds Senate for passage of Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act." The release applauded the Senate's decision to pass S. 5 "which will accelerate stem cell research by easing existing funding restrictions and supporting research that uses embryonic stem cells, while maintaining strict ethical guidelines."

See comments under ACSH and CAMR.

For JDRF:

120 Wall Street, 19th Floor
New York, NY 10005
212-785-9500

The JDFR position paper on stem cell research can be viewed online and reads, in part:

"Embryonic stem cells hold tremendous promise for the treatment of life-threatening and debilitating diseases such as type 1 diabetes."

There are also a number of links to press releases, newsletter articles and legislative update memos which reiterate JDRF's support for human embryonic stem cell research.

JDRF is a member of both ACSH and CAMR.

A friend posted this article to me:

Dr. Robert Goldstein on stem cell research

I wonder if all the facts Dr. Goldstein puts forward about Embryonic stem cell research is true.

Happy Birthday Di.

My friend Di turns 40 something today.

Happy Birthday Di. I hope it is a great day for you.

My night.

Do you ever feel like a taxi service?

Here is what my afternoon is like on a Wednesday after school.

At 3.10 I leave to get Daniel, Sam and Brigette from school.

Tom and Amelia start musical theatre at 5.00.
Daniel starts football training at 5.15.
Brigette starts musical theatre at 6.00 and Tom and Amelia finish then.
Brigette finishes musical theatre at 7.00
Tom, Amelia and Brigette start Scouts at 7.00.
Tom and Amelia finish scouts at 8.00
Brigette finishes Scouts at 9.00.

As well as these things tonight, Brigette wanted to go to Big W. for some school stationery and I needed a few things so we were at the shops inbetween Tom and Amelia's musical theatre lesson and Brigette's lesson. By the time we had finished at the shops, it wasn't worth going home.

I am glad there is only one Wednesday a week. It is nights like this that I am glad I have all our main meals in the freezer. I am also glad that Steve is home just after 4pm and able to do the dinner preparation and look after Christopher.

Tasty Tuesday. Potato Pancakes.

I haven't done a recipe for a while so I thought I would share this one.

This recipe comes from Exclusively Foods. They are one of my favourite recipe sites.

The recipe is for Potato Pancakes. They are really yummy and very filling.

Here is the link to the recipe with photos.

Ingredients:

1 small onion.
625 potatoes (about 4 small ones).
1 large egg.
2 tbspns self raising flour.
salt and pepper to taste.

peel onions and potatoes. Grate both and squeeze excess moisture out of potatoes. Mix onions, potatoes, egg, flour, salt and pepper.

Heat oil in heavy based frying pan over medium to medium high heat. Drop scant 1/4 cup mixture into pan and flatten.

Cook potatoes for 4-5 minutes each side or until golden and cooked through. If they are cooking too fast, adjust heat.

This mixture makes about 9 pancakes. We triple the recipe for our family.

I wouldn't mind trying this one day with zucchini either. I am sure they would be pretty yummy too.